| Abstract [eng] |
This dissertation aims to identify and analyze the cultural representations of India related to the interpretation of the subcontinent’s traditions, religion, society, and nature in interwar Lithuania, as well as to determine the main creators of these representations and their motivations. The research objective is driven by a scholarly problem based on the question of whether small European countries that neither possessed colonies nor pursued imperial policies could nevertheless exhibit traits of orientalist–imperialist thinking and develop specific perceptions of the Orient. In this study, the term representation is understood as a culturally constructed image that influenced successive individuals, shaping a distinctive perspective. The scope of this research is limited to the written culture of interwar Lithuania, while the choice of India as the focal space is grounded in the nineteenth-century phenomenon of Indomania, the desire for exoticism, the strengthening of national identity arising from Indo-European studies, and the aspiration to keep up with the Western world, which regarded India as a tool for defining the oppositions of self–other and savage–civilized. The dissertation examines both the positive perception of ancient India’s grandeur and traditions that contributed to the foundations of Western civilization, and the negative representations of a society constrained by Hindu traditions and a wild nature opposing Europe. These aspects are revealed through the analysis of three essential spheres: the scholarly (primarily the Lithuanian university), the missionary and other clergy activities, and cultural dissemination—writings of authors and travelers as well as various periodicals. |
