| Abstract [eng] |
Figures who remind one of the nation‘s past, present and future are important national symbols, whose significance is shaped through various everyday practices. Various initiatives aimed at giving meaning to the legacy of historical figures become a certain memorial, strengthening the national identity of the community. The fundamental figures of the national canon create a kind of aura or sacredness, as their historical legacy and creations are considered particularly significant, unquestionable and part of the national identity. The meaning of canonized historical figures in contemporary visual culture is often conveyed through commercialization practices, which mark their legacy in the mass market space. One example of the commemoration of historical figures in contemporary commercial visual culture is the “Težydi“ project, dedicated to the centenary of Lithuania. Another example is illustrated by a series of T-Shirts published by the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, featuring the country‘s most prominent writers depicted in stylized portraits with their quotes. This work presents and reveals more cases of such Lithuanian figures and their commercialization in contemporary visual culture. Research into the representation of historical Lithuanian figures as national symbols in academia remains a largely unexplored field. This work offers a new perspective at how various project developers and initiatives in contemporary visual represent historical figures from Lithuania, transferring them into a commercial and everyday consumer environment. The work analyzes the latest projects created between 2018 and 2025, allowing to assess how said representation reflects current trends in visual culture and society’s relationship with nationalism. The theoretical part of the work is based on theories of banal and everyday nationalism, which help to answer how such projects relate to the features of everyday nationalism, what values of canonized Lithuanian personalities they represent and whether the commercialization helps strengthen their legacy, or on the contrary – leads to a simplification of their authority (sacredness), when historical figures are reduced to objects of consumption (for the masses), losing their complex cultural context. The objective of this master’s thesis is to analyze the cases of commercialization of historical figures in popular culture projects and to determine how they are represented, what features of everyday nationalism they reveal and how such representations affect the relationship between their sacredness and mundanity. The research applies multimodal discourse analysis. Therefore, based on the research, it can be concluded that the reproduction of portraits and creative elements of historical Lithuanian figures used in commercial projects and transferred onto clothing reduces their sacredness and aura, but allow the public to get closer to historical figures. This process also has a positive effect on the nationalist sense in the structure of individual identity. Promoting pride and patriotism by drawing on the legacy of historical figures is becoming one of the most important goals of commercialization projects. In addition, national performance and consumption practices give the public the opportunity to experience a stronger sense of community through visually recognizable national symbols in their everyday environment. In this case, clothing becomes not only an object of consumption, but also a sign of status and national identity. |
