| Abstract [eng] |
The local world of Trakai is analyzed as a reality constructed by narrative means. Narrative data collected in the course of fieldwork comprises life stories and narratives related with Trakai, including places, people, events, episodes of everyday life, mutual relationships, ethnicities, the town’s development, as well as recorded place lore, legends, beliefs. Since most of the informants belonged to the elderly generation, events and phenomena reflected in their narratives enabled examining a relatively broad time span covering the interwar period, the World War II, the soviet times and the independence. The major focus was on the earlier phase of the mentioned period, since it coincided with a life phase reflected most frequently by the informants, i.e. their childhood and youth. This period could be characterized by reconstruction of the spatial worldview and the pattern defining the relationship with the locality. Its analysis and interpretation form the basis for the thesis, including: 1) the territory of the town, 2) the landscape shaped by the surrounding lakes and 3) the socio-cultural spatiality developed by the urban community. The local world of Trakai comprises certain parts of the Trakai Peninsula and places closely related to it, as well as the area of the lake. Five constitutive parts of the town are discerned: Ragatka, Miasto, Jursdyka, Karaimščyzna and Zamostė. The lakes surrounding Trakai are regarded not only as geographical objects defining the space and affecting local economics and people’s daily habits, but also as a spiritualized natural element, which could hardly be obscured by the urban culture. |
