Cultural memory in the heraldry of small towns in the Šiauliai region

Cultural memory displays itself through the symbols relevant to the community: holidays, texts, pictures, etc. The source of cultural memory analysed in the paper is the heraldry of small towns. In the Šiauliai region, which was researched in the study, twenty-two small towns have their coats of arms: Kruopiai, Papilė (Akmenė district); Kriukai, Skaistgirys (Joniškis district); Kražiai, Lioliai, Šaukėnai (Kelmė district); Klovainiai, Lygumai, Pašvitinys, Rozalimas, Žeimelis (Pakruojis district); Baisogala, Grinkiškis, Šaukotas, Šiaulėnai, Sidabravas (Radviliškis district); Gruzdžiai, Kairiai, Kužiai, Meškuičiai, and Šakyna (Šiauliai district). The heraldry of a small town consists of a coat of arms, a heraldic flag and an armorial seal. The study has shown that there is no single strategy in the Šiauliai region specifying what cultural memory should be created through a small town's heraldry and how. The relationship of the townspeople with a small town's coat of arms is varied. In some cases, the townspeople remember and are able to explain the coat of arms of their town and they see it's importance of today. In other cases, small town residents know and are able to describe the town's coat of arms, but do not believe that it is relevant nowadays. In the worst case, the townspeople, although they recognise the coat of arms of the town, fail to explain or associate it with certain events and do not consider the coat of arms to be significant today. Such an approach depends on various factors: whether the figure of the emblem is easy to remember and understandable and whether various authorities carry out the activities aimed at the promotion of the small town's coat of arms, show interest in it, etc. In the latter case, it is sought to make coats of arms more noticeable and display them not only in the municipalities of small townships, but also in small town schools, museums, to depict them on souvenirs and publish them in books and articles. The analysis has also shown that during the process of restoration and development of the coats of arms of the Šiauliai region, it was not very important to take into account the region and its overall image. Today, the region is rich in coats of arms of small towns that are not matched to each other either by the range of colours or by the division of the shield into segments. These coats of arms do not reflect a unified image of the Šiauliai region.