Корени, клони и листа
Roots, Branches and Leaves

Summary/Abstract: The research has been focused on the narrative categories of the contemporary folklore, accounting of life experiences and certain events: a. Personal tales (family narratives turned into autobiographies, portraits); b. Oral histories (village story); c. Oral diary (about the festivity history); d. Memories; e. Histories and Legends. The premise of these narrative structures is generated by events during the war and post-war period. The referential frame of these texts belongs to the traditional collective memory. Storytelling aims at shaping the individual and group personalities. This function is accomplished in the researched intercultural context (Romanian and Bulgarian), using specific means for restoration the identity. Only in the colloquial context, the local idiom Wallach (Romanian) in oral form is transmitted (evaluated) through narratives built in popular style. The private context belongs to the old people. Their memories and histories comprise life experience, narrative identities being related to the teller's individuality (age, experience, life), which synthesize the local representations of the community. In the custom system we can notice an acceleration of the process leading to disappearance, transformation or renewing of the components. The Romanian rural milieu in Bulgaria has been strongly influenced by the political and historical conditions and today it is influenced by contemporary life, and it has transformed from an autarchic society into a consumption one, in a few decades. Implicitly, innovation has been stronger than tradition. These general tendencies of folklore are reflected in the decline of the local traditional repertoires of tales and legends, the maintaining of calendar and family (birth, wedding and funeral) traditional customs and the strength of instrumental music as compared to vocal music. Some of these features also characterize the local traditions of all the Romanian communities. The past and calendar customs are still present but with multiple changes and adjustments.

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