The Role of Traditional Craft Centers in Safeguarding Cultural Heritage

Abstract

Maintaining cultural heritage is an essential element of any effort to realize the growth potential and promote sustainability and vitality of rural areas. Founding of traditional craft centers in Lithuania was initiated in 2009 as a way to implement heritage safeguarding measures. Scientific problem was formulated as follows: did these centers prove to be an effective instrument of heritage policy? The present paper aimed at investigating the extent, to which traditional craft centers had implemented its role in safeguarding cultural heritage, and present recommendations for the improvement. Interview questionnaire was sent to 20 municipalities and 51 LAGs, responsible for the establishment of centers. It was identified that craft centers implemented measures, related to safeguarding of cultural heritage, rather actively and qualitatively. On the other hand, not all measures were implemented sufficiently, what made the process of safeguarding traditional crafts not continuous but partly fragmented. Improvement of traditional crafts centers resource management along with promotion of cooperation between TCC, operating in the same municipality, is recommended.