Tarpukario studentų dainos: kita universiteto istorijos pusė
Interwar Student Songs: The Other Side of University History

Summary/Abstract: The student community could be described as dynamic, mobile and highly progressive. It has always been characterised by singing a specific repertoire of songs. With the establishment of the Lithuanian University (from 1930 – Vytautas Magnus University) in inter-war period Kaunas, a Lithuanian repertoire of student songs soon emerged. The article, using the methods of historical interpretation and typological analysis, reveals the features of its history, describes the themes and musical characteristics of the songs, focusing on a group of songs with non-serious content. Many of them were short-lived, but some of them ‘travelled’ to various universities around the world and Lithuania and survived even into the 21st century. They reflect both short-term topical issues (student-teacher relations, certain events, humorously conveyed adventures) and very long-lasting student themes (the frenzy of youth, freedom, love). The light-hearted songs of inter-war Lithuanian students have been passed down in the traditional way – oraly and auraly. They were creatively interpreted and rarely written down, most often by chance. They maintain a general ideological attitude, linked to the light-hearted rather than the serious academic “philosophy” of the student community. Although the songs exist in full accordance with the laws of folklore development, the impulse for their creation or re-creation is often authorial (when translations are made from other languages, an occasional text or paraphrase is created, the melody is adapted to the re-created text, etc.). The lines of variation between melodies and texts are often not the same. Texts are adapted in each city and university, and new ones are constantly being created to reflect current events. The melodies of the songs travel from university to university, students ‘borrow’ them from films, the repertoire of the stage, their birthplaces and urban folk songs, and they recreate, adapt and create new ones out of well-known motifs. International melodies take on regional and local stylistic characteristics. The set of songs in question reveals certain features of the students as a community. It is a masculine community, reflected in the songs by a sense of youthful ‘freedom’ and adoration, anacreontic themes and sometimes crude humour. The themes of the songs are at odds with the publicly declared ideas of the corporations in the pre-war period, such as citizenship, national education, the Catholic spirit, a healthy soul in a healthy body, education and enlightenment, a commitment to the community etc. Analysing student songs as folklore, it is clear that the student community is a vibrant folklore medium, maintaining and creatively updating folklore for tens and even hundreds of years, and constantly creating its own world of songs.

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