Expresii ale interculturalității în opera lui Dimitrie Cantemir
Expressions of Interculturality in Dimitrie Cantemir’s Work

Summary/Abstract: Historians refer to Dobrudja on two main aspects: as a peripheral area and of strategic importance of the Ottoman Empire on the one hand, and as a commercial area, with intense movement of goods through seaports, on the other hand. We are not concerned here with these intensively researched aspects, but we focus on the information that Cantemir offers on the daily life of the Turks and Tartars of Dobrudja, at the end of the 17th century. This paper aims to synthesize and analyze the various opinions of Dimitrie Cantemir, regarding the Muslim population in Dobrudja, from a historical and cultural point of view. The prince records and mentions in several of his works, elements of religious syncretism between Christians and Muslims în this area. Mixed religious practices are local phenomena organized in peripheral spaces, usually in connection with a local saint, outside the cities and villages, i.e. outside the attention of political and religious authorities. Another characteristic of this type of behavior is that the division of the holy place is not a common practice, but conditioned by a local tradition, which erases religious boundaries and is established in a certain space and time, in a community that has lived together for a long period of time. References to Muslims living in Dobrudja transgress Cantemir’s entire historical works, providing valuable information on everyday life, religion, specific architecture, as well as on interethnic and confessional relations in Dobrudja, at the end of the 17th century.

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