The Lithuanian Studies Research Department (former Lituanica Department) of the National Library of Lithuania hosted the third interdisciplinary seminar for young diaspora researchers on April 28, 2016. This year, the event took place at the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences.
Jolanta Budriūnienė, the head of the Department, reminded how the idea to organize such seminars by the Library came into existence. It was borrowed from the Baltic Heritage Network, whose member the National Library of Lithuania is. The BaltHerNet has been organizing similar international seminars for young researchers for quite some time now. The main goal of such seminars is to provide young researchers with an opportunity to share their thoughts and problems about their research and to help them locate the sources needed.
There were five presentations this year. Dr. Kęstutis Raškauskas, a researcher at the Lithuanian Studies Research Department of the National Library of Lithuania, talked about the problems while searching for sources about the history of Lithuanians in London, UK. Ina Vaisiūnaitė, a graduate student at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, who researches the audiovisual Lithuanian media in the United States, presented the findings of her recent trip to Lithuanian American archives in Chicago.
Dr. Neringa Lašaitė-Markevičienė of the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore read a presentation about the writer Balys Sruoga and his archives housed at Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture (Chicago) and Lithuanian Research and Studies Center in the US. A Ph.D. student Akvilė Šimėnienė, who writes her theses on one of the most important figures of the Spanish literary criticism, prof. Birutė Ciplijauskaitė, further developed some of the topics she introduced at the previous seminars and also expressed her concern regarding a very low interest in Lithuanian diaspora living outside the Anglophone world.
Dr. Laura Laurušaitė, a researcher at the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, discussed the depiction of the Balts, Latvians and Lithuanians, in the 21st century Lithuanian and Latvian prose about emigration. The last presentation was given by dr. Giedrė Milerytė-Japertienė, a senior researcher at the Lithuanian Studies Research Department of the National Library of Lithuania. She presented recent projects in diaspora field carried out by the Lithuanian Studies Research Department.