| Abstract [eng] |
In the late 1930s, the construction of the modern city and the division of time into work and recreation became extremely significant and enshrined in law. In 1932 the Law on Resorts was adopted in Lithuania, which marks the moment of a mental and practical break and the symbolic beginning of intensive modernization of resorts. Beaches have become an integral part of the everyday infrastructure and a mass social phenomenon. Given the dual nature of space - physical and mental - this work seeks to find out which forms of control directed at the social body are revealed in public (media) discourse, what kind of norms are established, what social exclusion they form the basis for, and whether these processes can be considered part of biopolitics. The study covers the period of Antanas Smetona's rule (1926-1940), during which the modernization of the country, the functional zoning of cities, and the development of social and health care infrastructure took place. Michel Foucault’s theory of discipline and biopolitics is used to help identify different forms of control and how they work. Biopolitics is understood as integrating disciplinary approaches and establishing certain norms in the social body, on the basis of which social differences are introduced. The articles commenting on the context of the beaches and the culture of their visitors appearing in the periodical media (newspapers and magazines) of that period are analyzed. This research allows concluding that forms of spatial division, hierarchy, normalizing sanctions, environmental management (urbanization), statistics, and medicalization control took place in Lithuanian beaches. The establishment and production of the norm formed the basis for the social exclusion on moral and linguistic-ethnic grounds. It can be stated that during the reign of Antanas Smetona, the control of public spaces in Lithuania acted as a part of biopolitics. |
