CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Dikavicius, Povilas |
|---|---|
| Title | Pompa Funebris: Funeral Rituals and Civic Community in Seventeenth-Century Vilnius |
| Summary | Baroque urban funerals were festivities which made use of religious signs in a multiconfessional environment. This kind of manifestation of difference might have presented a pretext for violent outbreaks, however, most of the time these ceremonies ended without causing additional turmoil. The present thesis aims to explore the possible causes which allowed for these morbid festivities to remain peaceful and the effects that they might have had on the urban community. The research is based in the latter part of seventeenth-century, when the political unrest was widespread in the Commonwealth of the Two Nations. Vilnius felt the repercussions of the Northern Wars firsthand, for it was occupied twice during them. This provides for an interesting background to determine if the civic belonging would strengthen at the time of trouble. This is addressed by analyzing the last wills of Vilnius’ citizens in order to determine whether their political or religious allegiances were predominant. Besides that, the remembrance practices are explored aiming to understand in what forms the memory of the deceased was kept and how Vilnans welcomed death. Funeral processions attract are explored as the most public, and possibly problematic, part of the ceremony. It is reconstructed on the basis of the sources and interpreted by theory of semiotic anthropology. The main sources used for this research are wills and posthumous wealth registers. Both of these source groups had to be composed by the citizens of Vilnius. On the basis of these documents all research is conducted by employing quantitative methodology. |
| Supervisor | Riedl, Matthias |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/dikavicius_povilas.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University