Dr. Árpád Gyéresi
Laudáció dr. Gyéresi Árpádról/Egyesületi közlemények
Keywords: Transylvanian Museum-Society; Árpád Gyéresi
Transylvanian Museum-Society; Árpád Gyéresi
More...Keywords: Transylvanian Museum-Society; Árpád Gyéresi
Transylvanian Museum-Society; Árpád Gyéresi
More...Keywords: Pietrele-Gorgana; Gumelniţa-Karanovo VI; Eneolithic; tell-sites; burnt houses; “paths”/”domestic waste areas”; functionalism; academic politics; reflexive archaeology
The present text is a review of the German-Romanian archaeological research of the tell of Pietrele-Gorgana in southern Romania. As we show in this paper, the functionalist interpretation and the Fordist organization of the archaeological practice at Pietrele are interdependent. Both draw their legitimacy from the same functionalist paradigm criticized in the social sciences as an ideology of maintaining and reproducing the system, stating that functionality is a natural, universal state. In our opinion, archaeology, as the discipline of “the other”, should fight the dominant discourses colonizing the past and implicitly or explicitly promoting the reproduction of hierarchical systems.
More...This study presents the way Teodor Susman thakes over the group’s leadership after his father’s death, and builds himself o false identity, designed to ensure his survival as a clandestine. Using his talent in painting icons, he uses the name of Petrea Icoanei (Peter of the Icon). Under this identity he travels around localities that neighbour his village, succeding in mantaining communication with people who agreed to help them. Based on oral testimonies, this study presents the image the outlaws had within the community and also shows how Teodor Susman’s undercover identity was perceived and understood, as a gesture of resistance against communism.
More...Keywords: Romanian Orthodox Church; Holy Synod; Communism; Iustinian Marina; Nicolae Bălan; Nicodim Munteanu; Irineu Mihălcescu.
After August, 23-rd, 1944, the Communist powers from Romania, supported by the Soviet army and the Soviet occupation authorities, started to take over the control upon the major institutions. Traditionally, the Romanian Orthodox Church had a very important political and social role. Romanian Communists avoided a direct confrontation with the church, preferring the strategy of subversion. They tried to find in the Holy Synod persons ready to cooperate with the newly installed political power; moreover, the Communist tried to infiltrate such persons into the circles of church authority. The present paper continues the previous works on this topic and it’s focused upon the inner conflicts from the Synod. At stake was taking over the leadership of the Church, with the help of the new political power. Chronologically, the study ends with the death of the Patriarch Nicodim, in February 1948, which marks the beginning of a new stage in the struggles for getting the power, within the Romanian Orthodox Church.
More...The German version of this study will be published in the volume dedicated to prof.dr. Gheorghe Lazarovici at hid 60th anniversary, published in Timisoara.
More...O analiză dedicată acestui subiect este necesară din două motive principale. Mai întâi, ca si multe alte aspecte din istoria Bisericii Unite ardelene, această problemă nu este pe deplin rezolvată în istoriografie. În al doilea rând, documentele referitoare la sistemul organizatoric al Bisericii Greco-Catolice contin o serie largă de termeni ce denumesc diverse structuri de la nivel central sau local, care nu sunt clarificati. De aceea, istoricul se confruntă cu dificultăti reale de interpretare si întelegere, existând pericolul de a face diverse confuzii. Cauza principală a acestei situatii se găseste în îmbinarea de-a lungul timpului a numeroase elemente specifice Bisericii Romano- Catolice cu traditia răsăriteană a unitilor. Acest mixaj s-a realizat si în ceea ce priveste structura administrativ-teritorială.
More...Keywords: history; propaganda; politics; radio; identity
In order to put the radio under the subordination of Antonescu government and to give it a controlled and efficient activity in what regards the propaganda broadcasted in the country and abroad, the program on Radio Romania was restructured and the conferences were reorganized by forming some series of organic casts on history, literature, philosophy, applied sciences, travel descriptions ecc. These series were scheduled at certain hours so that the listeners could easily identify them. In organizing these casts were involved the best professionals of the time. Among the historians of those times there were Gheorghe I. Brătianu, Constantin C. Giurescu, Silviu Dragomir, Theodor Capidan. Their interventions had obvious pedagogical and propagandist functions. They had the role to inform and educate the audience and the excesses and hints of these speeches, blamed by a rigorous historical critic, were accepted due to the multiple functions they served. The authority of the voices that could be heard was an efficient means to draw the attention. Combining academic style with the average one indicated the fact that the audience had a level of understanding over the average. The documents included in these series can be found at The Archive of the Romanian Society of Radio Broadcasting, and it is a selection, chronologically ordered, of the unpublished programs belonging to the greatest historians of that time.
More...Keywords: public forum; monuments; central institutions; local institutions; Romania
The problem of the public forum monuments had an evolution throughout time, joining both local committees and central institutions in its solving. The amplitude of such actions, or their local flavor, imposed material participation that resisted the passage of decades. The initiator(s) motivated the young and the old into contributing, by different means, to the accomplishment of the objective planned. This participation defined them as actual shareholders permanently preoccupied with the fate of the monuments, with their sending to the future generations as a sacred inheritance. A radical change took place between 1945 and 1989 when private initiative was removed, and the state's preoccupation of bringing or removing monuments from the public forum became the most important. The new monuments were meant to serve political purposes. The presentation of this stage allows the author to define the evolution, the changes in the party's ideology. After 1989, although radical actions were necessary, that segment of culture was neglected. In order to seva the existing patrimony and its completion in future, to get back to our ancestors experience that private initiative should brings symbols of honoring into the public forum. Also, in order to coordinate and assure the quality of these monuments, we should once again form the Superior Commission of Public Monuments, which, in the period between the two World Wars, held an important role in the fate of monuments. The public forum monument was and will always be a greeting card for each locality and, as such, we should grant its deserved attention.
More...Keywords: mission; Church; Christia virtue of gratitude; moral duty; Eucharist
More...Le matériel archéologique présenté dans les pages suivantes concerne dans sa plus grande partie des catégories importées de la céramique de l’époque romaine tardive et du début de celle byzantine de Dobroudja. Pour être plus précis, il s’agit, outre un nombre impressionnant d’amphores ou de lampes, tout comme la vaisselle pour le service de la table (vasa escaria) de production africaine (African Red Slip Ware) ou microasiatique (Late Roman C Ware – Phoceean Ware)1. Quelques pièces à caractère plus spécial (dévotionnel) s’ajoutent à celles mentionnées auparavant, notamment les ampoules égyptiennes de St. Ménas ou celles de l’Asie Mineure, qui méritent une discussion séparée, à coté de certains produits des ateliers céramiques locaux (on rappelle ici les lampes, les couvercles de vase ou pour les grands vases à vivres, les dolia).
More...Keywords: Bronze Age;Monteoru culture;cemetery;Cârlomănești
Some years ago, the villagers from Cârlomăneşti, county Buzău, in several times had discovered by accident shards of clay pots and human bones all belonging to some burials in the neighborhood of the well known Bronze Age settlement situated on the point called Cetăţuia. Although in Cetǎţuia were performed archaeological researches on a large scale during several campaigns in 1972–1981, only one tomb, belonging to a late stage of Monteoru culture, was discovered inside the settlement, the place of the necropolis remaining unknown. These burials belong to a cemetery which is placed on a large plateau called La arman, one the northern terrace of Nişcov spring at about 400 m south-west of the settlement Cetǎţuia. To day, the terrace is about 40 m height and is cultivated with maize. The first tombs appeared in a ravine, which „cut” the plateau and became the main street of the village. In a rescue intervention in fall, 2001 was excavated the first grave (Grave no.1). The people already destroyed another grave in 1999, its position could not be précised (Grave no. 00). After the inventory – especially a cup with two handles – of the Grave no. 1, the burial belongs to the „phase” Ic1 of the Monteoru culture. Due to the time of crop and restricted financial support, the rescue excavations, which began in 2003, were made on a restricted scale. In the same time was drawing up a topographical sketch of the entire plateau. The research conducted with this occasions over a large area indicate that the real surface of the funerary zone seems to be very large, a good part of it being superposed today by the village. During the five campaigns of archaeological excavations – 2003–2007 – on a surface of about 200 square meters have been discovered 24 funerary objects. From the stratigraphical point of view, numerous shards, animal bones, pieces of burnt adobe and some stones represent the first archaeological level. According to the pottery, this level belongs to the late period of the Bronze Age, i.e. a late phase of Monteoru culture, characterized by a ware category of common use with the broomed surface, of the so-called Besenstrich type, but always in association with typical Monteoru IIb pottery style. In two cases in these pits, belonging to this level, we discovered 10 human teeth – pit no. 26 – and some human bones – pit no. 27. In the proximity of these objects, there were not graves so these human bones could not be from disturbed burials. In the same time were not at all founded rests of dwellings and some special features of these late pits indicated a special function. Unfortunately, we have not yet sufficient data to solve the problem concerning the exact relations between these pits and the tombs. The skeletons lay crouched on the left side. There are some exceptions, such as Grave no. 5 (a male) with the skeleton lays on the right side and Grave no. 11 and 19 with the skeletons (both female) lying on the belly but with the skulls on the left side and the legs flexed and laying also on the left. All skeletons had the skulls toward SSW or SW. Very interesting is the manner in which some grave pits were dug, i.e. the graves no. 2, 8, 12 and 13 with a pit with 2 stairs, or the custom to fill up the pit-grave with a lot of stones and pebbles sometimes eve with pieces of burnt adobe. The rest of the tombs had the skeletons covered also by pebbles and in the middle of these a large slab of conglomerate such as in the Grave no. 5. Also were discovered another four objects without human bones – Graves’ no. 12–15. The structure of these – pit, in two cases with step, and the filling with a large amount of rocks – and the inventory – a cup for Graves no. 12–14 – are very close to those of the tombs reason for which all these four objects could be considered as symbolic graves, so-called „cenotaphs”. A special case is the Grave no. 10. The tomb had an oblong pit with some rocks around and inside a double handled cup. In the pit were discovered only small pieces of burnt bone. The form and dimensions of the pit are unusual for a cremation grave and the burnt bones were too small to see if they are human ones or not. We think that the grave no. 10 could be also a „cenotaph”. Burnt bones were founded also in Grave no. 23 beside the skeleton, so we could say that the practice of burning the corpses is proved. The custom to fill the pit graves with pebbles is known in south Basarabia for some tombs in barrows belonging to Mnogovalikovaja culture. The grave pits with steps are of an old tradition, well known in the kurgans of the Pit Grave Culture/Jamnaja, but again some tombs with such pits were discovered in Mnogovalikovaja barrows in the nord-pontic steppe. These two structural elements reveal the connections between Monteoru area and the eastern regions. The inventories of the tombs consist of jewelry – earrings, a fragment of a bracelet and two metal collar so-called Ösenhalsring, caolin pearls in one case –, and pottery. The two copper collars represent jewelry not at all frequent for Monteoru burials but with good parallels in the cemeteries from Central Europe, i.e. the area of Periam-Pecica culture, a region where these adornments seem to came from. The earrings also made of copper – Grave no. 1, 4, 8, 11, and 23 – are of common types for the Middle Bronze Age. The main type of ware is the two-handled cup of so-called kantharos type and its presence indicate the special meaning of the beverage during the funerary ceremony but in a symbolic way as is proved by the fact that in the each two-handled cup of the Grave no. 19 and Grave no. 24 were founded another small bowls, the so called pixida. The first two-handled cup has decoration in a typical manner of the Monteoru Ic3 style, so the Grave no. 19 could be the oldest. The vessel from Grave no. 2 has a decoration typical for to the Monteoru Ic1 style like the cup from Grave no. 24 for which we have a 14C dating between 2030–1870 BC. The two-handled cup of the Grave no. 10 typical to the style Ib is the earliest. For some graves – Graves no. 4, 7–8 and 11 – were discovered shards scattered in the pit filling together with fragments of animal bones, perhaps as an element of the mortuary ceremony. The cemetery ceased to function some time before the Late Bronze Age as is proved by the pits (no. 10a–b, 14, 24, 26 27 and 29) with a pottery characteristic for the final stage of Monteoru culture.
More...Keywords: scientific report
The Secretary-general’s Report of the Year 2016 on the Activity of the Transylvanian Musem Society.
More...Keywords: Memorialist; revolution; psychological problems; prefect; Auraria-Gemina Legion;
The Transylvanian Romanian press from the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century represents an important source conserving narrative and documentary fonts related to the 1848-1849 Revolution from Transylvania and its leaders-Avram Iancu, Ioan Axente Sever, Simion Balint, Nicolae Vlăduțiu, Ioan Buteanu and others. As a result, through this study we aim at analyzing six writings belonging to the "overlooked memoirs" about the sir of the Apuseni Mountains which we have identified in Transilvania, Gazeta Transilvaniei and Familia and which were written or gathered up from the elders of the villages from the Apuseni Mountains by: Alexandru Ciura, I. Georgescu, Dionisie Pascuțiu, Constanța Hodoș, Iosif Sterca Șuluțiu and an anonymous memorialist. These writings of "overlooked memoirs" are meant to bring into spotlight a series of details about Avram Iancu's family, in particular about his father, his childhood, the studies followed at Zlatna, the revolutionary years and the last years of his life, years which Avram Iancu lived in poverty, often playing the flute.
More...Keywords: nationality principle; ethnic minorities; national state; 1 December 1918; Bessarabia; Bukovina; Transylvania; the completion of the state unity of the Romanians; the 1919–1920 Peace Conference;
In this study, based on solid historical and legal documentation, the author argues that the completion of the Romanian unitary national state in 1918 was achieved during a long process of unification: first, the Romanians from the two main countries, Muntenia and Moldova, were united in 1859 in a national state, and then, those from other Romanian historical provinces, which were illegally encroached in the borders of neighbour empires, acted with perseverance for the accomplishment of their national and state unity. The study is divided into four distinct parts. In the first part, the author presents, based on documents, testimonies and memoirs, the idea of Romanian national and state unity as an essential coordinate of the history of the Romanian people. The acts of unification of the Romanian historical provinces with the Romanian Kingdom have legal base on the principle of nationalities and their right to free determination, rights recognized by the victorious powers of the First World War as a basis for solving the territorial aspects generated by the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Tsarist Empire. The acts of union, carried out by popular will expressed in large representative national assemblies, were ratified by acts of national sovereignty by the Romanian State and recognized as such by the 1919–1920 Peace Conference in Paris. The second part emphasizes on the constitutive character of the acts of union with Romania, voted by the constituent national assemblies of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania during 1918. The article contains documentary data and information about the national liberation movement of Romanians from the three provinces, Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania, and the actions taken for their unification with the Kingdom of Romania at the end of the First World War. In each of the three Romanian historical provinces, various assemblies in which the participants declare their determination for union were formed. The Moldavian Soldiers’ Congress, attended by 800 delegates, represented a large representative body of all social strata and ethnic groups in Bessarabia. The Congress delegates voted for the political and territorial autonomy of Bessarabia. The Congress also decided to establish the council of the country, a parliamentary body made up of representatives of all the nationalities existing on the territory of Bessarabia. On 14/27 March 1918, the council of the country adopted a resolution in which was proclaimed solemnly the eternal union of Bessarabia „with the mother Romania”. In Bukovina, the Romanian intellectuals decided to convene without delay a Constituent Assembly to determine the territorial integrity of the province, threatened by the plan of Ukraine to include it in its territory. The Constituent Assembly met on 14/27 October 1918 and decided „the unification of Bukovina with the other Romanian countries in an independent national state...”. On 15/28 November 1918, the General Assembly of Bukovina adopted a resolution in which it decides „the unconditional and eternal unification of Bukovina in its old frontiers until Ceremus, Colacin and Nistru with the Kingdom of Romania.” In Transylvania, the 1228 delegates at the Great National Assembly in Alba Iulia received from the ones who had chosen them „faithful”, true imperative mandates by which they vowed to vote for the union of this great historical province with Romania. In the third part, the author reviews the treaties regarding Romania concluded at the Paris Peace Conference. At the Conference, the European Powers and US representatives acknowledged, among other things, the principle of coincidence between political and ethnic boundaries. The last part of the study is devoted to the issues of legislative unification, necessary for the consolidation of the Great Union.
More...Keywords: speaker; parliamentarian; minister; Conservative Party; pact; Entente.
Take Ionescu was one of Romania’s most remarkable politicians at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the next one, especially before and during the First World War. He was active in politics over 30 years, especially within Conservative Party, whose leader wanted to become, but without success, the competition being intense along with great figures of the Romanian politics of those times: Petre Carp, Alexandru Marghiloman, Nicolae Filipescu, George Gr. Cantacuzino and others. He was one of the brightest orator in the Romanian Parliament, being known and feared by the close logic of his interventions and his great popularity, which attracted close to him many and valuable persons, among them: Constantin Dissescu, Nicolae Titulescu, the historian Xenopol, Dr. C. Istrati, etc.Among his qualities were seriousness and competence, approaches on multiple plans, which was why he was minister in seven governments and, towards the end of his career, was for the short time Prime Minister of the Government. He formed a dissident Conservative Party, which played an important role in the first decades of the 20th century, participating in the exercise of power with other political parties.Take Ionescu was one of the most conscious fighters for the cause of the Great Union of all the Romanians, tirelessly militating for participation in the World War I, along with the Entente countries, which they supported. He was intended to play an important role at the Peace Conference in Paris, but vanities and politicking games made to be absent from this event, where his contribution would have been particularly useful.In the end, as Foreign Minister in the Government of General Averescu, Take Ionescu was the architect of the Balkan Pact, which his disciple Nicolae Titulescu put into practice.
More...Keywords: scientific results; research;
Secretary-general’s Report about the Achievements of the Transylvanian Museum Society in 2017
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