Place names: the tradition of memory and usage

The place names belong to the variety of forms of oral traditions. Since old times it has been an expression of the dialogue between the human being and the earth, the landscape, the expression of one’s connection with home and homeland. By giving names to the tiniest plots of land, by transmitting them from generation to generation people have secured the memory of our spiritual and material world, the geographical, geological values of the landscape, the flora and the fauna, the social status, occupations, temper, worldview of local people, the history of the pre-Baltic, Baltic tribes and Lithuanian nation. The place names are closely connected to folklore and mythological heritage – the legends, myths, beliefs and customs related to the name. The place names have absorbed multi-layered information, they manifest the creativity of our nation, give the sense of identity and continuity for both local communities and the entire nation.

The Lithuanian (Baltic) place names are used in entire Lithuania and small territories in North-East Poland, Belarus and Latvia inhabited by Lithuanians. Many of the names, which have reached our days, especially the hydronyms, also names of settlements, and geographical sites are very old. Their use has not stopped despite being threatened by various occupations – the Tsarist Russian, the Polish in Vilnius Region and especially the Soviet. Having nationalised the land and implemented the melioration plan thousands of villages and homesteads were demolished and their names deleted from registers, live usage and memory. Today there is a growing need to bring back the names of those places, to memorialise them not only with memorial signs and in maps, but also by giving the old names to new settlements, various associations of people, enterprises, personalities etc.
The most important custodians of the place names memory and usage tradition are many local communities, some having associated with the purpose of preserving the place names.

The communities are assisted by philologists, geographers, historians, ethnologists, folklore researchers, also state, culture, science institutions, media. The knowledge on the place names is transmitted via educational institutions, non-formal education, tourism activities, publications, digital databases etc. The public interest in
the place names, the
understanding of the
significance of their
preservation has especially increased after
the proclamation of the
Year of Place Names in
2019.

Submitters – The Council for the Safeguarding of Ethnic Culture, The Lithuanian Geographers’ Union, The Institute of the Lithuanian Language, The Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, 2019