![IN THE AGE OF “MISERY”. THE ROMANIAN SOCIOLOGY DURING THE COMMUNIST REGIME (1948-1977)](/api/image/getissuecoverimage?id=picture_2012_28193.jpg)
Keywords: Food Consumption under Socialism; Dietary Transition; Rural Development; Everyday Life in Socialist Romania
The topic of food consumption in Socialist Romania and Eastern Europe commonly conjures up images of widespread deprivation: rationing of supplies, frequent queuing, ‘progressive’ public health policies that were actually intended to restrict intake and adulteration of food products. Less adequately discussed in the popular press and in the academic literature remains the dietary transition that began in the 1960s and which transformed the rural and urban diets from a traditional, ‘core’-‘fringe’ type to the modern type characteristic of industrial societies. My article addresses this gap in the literature by analyzing the main developments in rural diets from the 1960s and 1970s along with the rural consumers’ perceptions of these developments from a standard of living perspective. Over and above its contribution to the study of food consumption in 20th century Romania, my analysis contributes to a better understanding of consumers’ experiences under State Socialism given that food consumption, together with housing and clothing, was a key aspect in the rural residents’ conception of ‘the good life’.
More...Keywords: King of Romania; Charles I; balls; etiquette; protocol; Royal Court;
In this article we tried to analyze the atmosphere in which the balls took place at the Royal Court during the reing of Charles I. The first ball organized by prince Charles I took place in 1867, with 800 guests attending the event. Then, during the reing of King Charles, two balls were to be held each year; the grand ball taking place of the evening of December 31, and the second ball in February. Thought both events well very well organized, the guests spending time in an elegant and refined setting, it is found that the first ball of the year was more democratic, with a large member of guests taking part in the event. Instead, the second ball was smaller, with guests always including members of the government, members of the diplomatic corps, the most important dignitaries and officers. Althought people from the different social conditions were invited, the king Charles wanted the etiquette and the protocol to be strictly observed, each guest knowing from the reception of the invitation in which salon he will spend the evening and implicitly with whom he will socialize. Thought the balls were organized in the smallest detail, sometimes there were incidents. The palace ball were a opportunity from king Charles to cultivate feelings such as honor and generosity. Through balls, the royal family came into contact with the Romanian and European elites of the time, these events having the character of the official and popular celebrations. In addition to being a way of socializing and entertaining, the bals organized at the palace also had a pragmatic purpose stimulating trade.
More...Keywords: Liturgy;Liturgical Tradition;Transylvania;Liturgical Manuscripts;Church in Transylvania;
In the century of Reformation and in defi ance of a decided opposition coming from the Byzantine-Slavic Orthodoxy observed in the Provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia, the Romanians of Transylvania managed to fi nd a way to introduce their national language in the Church, by gradually translating those texts that were vital for the liturgical and spiritual life of a parish. The analysis of the miscellaneous Manuscript19 from the Library of the Theological Faculty in Sibiu reveals a lot of information about the pioneering work that the priests and hierarchs in Transylvania had to do in order to have the Romanian language introduced in the services of the Church.
More...Keywords: discourse markers; reformulation; “o sea”; sociolinguistics; Spanish of Granada
The reformulation is a discursive phenomenon that consists of returning to a part of the speech to qualify it, explain it, correct it or summarize it because the speaker has interpreted that it had not been clear enough. The most common procedure is to manifest it through the use of discourse markers, being “o sea” the prototypical reformulator in the oral speech. Its analysis in the Spanish of Granada has shown the relationship of its use with social factors such as age and educational level, as well as the connection between sex and age of speakers. As a result, we have discovered that low-level education speakers are the people who use this particle the least (18.77 %). However, contrary to the works by San Martín (2014) and Hernández (2016), we found that the younger generation uses less “o sea” than other speakers. In addition, we demonstrated the existence of other four functions of “o sea,” different from the explicative value, and among them we highlight the expletive function, which appeared at levels much lower than we initially expected (6.16 %).
More...Keywords: Akkerman;Tarutino;cultural politics;cultural propaganda;national elite;minority elite;teacher;choir;ethnic celebration;ethnic music;
The analysis of the Romanian interwar nation-building process still contains too few regional case studies. That of Southern Bessarabia is interesting because of its special circumstances: a very complicated social scene, where the State wanted to enforce its authority in creating a homogenous national identity, but could not administer enough horizontal social pressure in order to do so. Our study follows the manner in which the State imagined its cultural propaganda program, then focuses on part of the strategies and instruments it used for its implementation, namely on the manner in which its cultural mission was internalized and carried out by local schooling staff. We will then turn to the case study of a community that widely featured the complex relations between socio-cultural politics and local identity: the Southern Bessarabian Germans. By following elements within their relationship with cultural politics and State propaganda, we intend to show the bi-directional character of the culturally-formative process, as well as the struggle of keeping one’s own identity while being pressured to assume the one of the majority. We have gathered our theoretical framework from the writings of the Romanian elite of the time, and our facts from archival documents.
More...Keywords: Buddhism; Mahāyāna; doctrine; void; pluralism; relativism; non-cognitive religion;
Mahāyāna Buddhism, hostile to any kind of conceptual construction (vikalpa), which is blamed for operating artificial delimitations within a homogenous and amorphous reality, presents its own doctrine not as a “truth” but rather as psychological “skill-in-means” (upāya), which aims at liberating humans from the illusory reality cast by their own mental discriminations. Thus, doctrine is denied all cognitive value, both in respect to a metaphysical level of reality and in respect to the mere empirical level. Its validity pertains to the psychological efficiency that it could display in the process of “counter-acting/opposing” the errors that ensnare humans. Therefore, the issue of religious truth is transferred from the cognitive sphere to the psychological and existential sphere, its value being of a rather therapeutic type.The doctrine is considered as an antidote (pratipaksa) which has the sole role of denying the reality of the various mental constructions which create the sphere where the self inflicted human drama takes place. Thus, the doctrine is deprived not only of cognitive value but also of objectivity, its efficiency depending on the existence of some particular errors, of a particular type of bondage. The actual content of a religious teaching does not reflect an „objective truth” but rather a particular kind of error, which is denounced and rejected by the doctrine. Buddhist texts even utterly state that it is not possible to identify an own-meaning of the term „void” (sūnya), the main soteriological concept of Buddhism, which gets a sense only in association with another term, whom it could determine. Thus, religious teachings have more to do with subjective errors than with an objective truth. Therefore, Buddhism does not hesitate to claim the voidness of its own path („the voidness of voidness” - sūnyatāsūnyatā), which is considered only as a temporary useful tool, which must be itself discarded during the process of liberation. The old school of Buddhism, Hīnayāna, is blamed for having developed an extremely elaborated psychological analysis which turned to be itself an obstacle on the path to liberation; this way, their religion itself opposed the accomplishment of the religious goal. Mahāyāna Buddhism considers its own doctrine in a relativist, instrumental manner, rather existential and therapeutic than cognitive and metaphysical.
More...Keywords: body;feminine erotics;communism;post-communism;transition;
The paper traces the evolution of a character in three of Gabriela Adamesteanu’s communist/post-communist transition novels. This ambitious narrative project began with Every Day’s Identical Journey (1975), continued with Provisionality (2010) and ended in 2018 with Fontana di Trevi (2018), forming, in the critics’ view, “the Letiţia Branea trilogy”. Our analysis focuses on the relation between personal and recent official history, marked by the politization of intimacy, especially in the representations of feminine bodies (puberty, erotics, pregnancy, abortion, ageing). These are central aspects of Gabriela Adamesteanu’s fiction, relevant for the ethos of the historical moments represented in her novels. The body is at the center of familial, social and economic institutions, being, simultaneously, an instrument and a source of knowledge; a radiograph of the body becomes also a relevant image of the world. This relation explains the frequent photographic or mirror images, representing important mises-en-abyme, marking the difference of perception from the natural to a politicized body. The relations between characters are mediated by the observation of the other’s body (the mother’s, the room-mates’, the lover’s, the husband’s body); the mainly negative bodily self-representations create an intricate game of closure-disclosure, marking the relation with one’s self as well as the heroine’s intimacy. Through this reading, the novels discussed become a testimony about the way in wich both major historical events and the grey of everyday life affect the body representations in Gabriela Adamesteanu’s novels; thus, an analysis of these images is a way of grasping a meaning of particular historical ages.
More...Keywords: Dacians;instrumentalisation;archaeology;Latinity;disparities;
The issue of identity has always played a considerable role in Romanian culture and it has constantly aroused interest among the numerous scholars who have been working on this subject. Thus, the search for the origins of the Romanian people – their ethnogenesis – has been lying at the very heart of the discussion for several centuries. Indeed, it is from the 16th century that Moldavian chroniclers mention and claim the Latin origin of both the Romanians and their language. This assertion will be continued by the Transylvanian School at the turn of the 19th century and overly magnified by the Latinist movement. Then, we are witnessing a turnaround in which the Dacians begin to be taken into consideration both from a literary and historic perspective. The peak of this interest for the Dacians is attained once Nicolae Densușianu publishes “Prehistoric Dacia”, the Bible of the Protochronists, that mixes mythology, folklore, linguistics and history. The enthusiasm for the Dacian origin did not diminish in the following decades and it is here that the question of defining the “national specific” – torn between Romans, Dacians and Slavs – arises. That is why we aim at studying, especially in the light of archaeology, in what way these contrasts are articulated and how the intellectuals have been attempting either to combine them or to oppose them against each other.
More...Keywords: Estonian surnames; family names; surname extinction; surname changes; Estonian anthroponomastics;
Four Estonian surnames with negative and four with positive connotation were researched using the genealogical method (2,416 name bearers) to study their development, changes and persistence until 1935 on an individual level and on a general level for analysis. General bestowal of surnames took place in Estonia in 1822–1835. Then it was a process aimed from up to down – name givers were mostly German landlords and clergymen. Many names with negative connotation were also bestowed, for instance in the present research Koer ‘dog’, Laisk ‘lazy’, Limukas ‘rainworm; snail’, Paks ‘fat’. Altogether 21 families had those names. Positive names (in this study Ilus ‘pretty’, Kuningas ‘king’, Tarkus ‘wisdom’, Truumees ‘faithful man’) appeared in 25 families. In some cases, the names also emerged after 1822–1835 as parallel names or in 1921 in Petseri county.Negative names were in 75% of the researched cases the bestowed to lower peasant classes (farmhands and cottagers) and to smaller families or single persons (average 4.3 initial name bearers). Positive names were usually bestowed to higher peasant classes (farmers, schoolteachers, 75% of the researched cases) and to larger groups of people (11.9 average initial name bearers). In only 10% of the researched cases the negative name still exists today, as opposed to 52% of the positive names.The most important factors in surname extinction were as follows (in order of substance).1. Small amount of initial name bearers – 100% of researched names with one initial bearer became extinct (88% within fifty years) regardless of the connotation.2. Later demographical reasons – higher class families had more children until the demographic transition which in Estonia took place around the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. This enabled positive names (as these were being given to higher class families) to spread more as the first half century was important for a surname to start spreading. A negative name was not a reason for poor fertility performance, but the latter was caused by lower social status, which was more often connected with negative names.3. Name changes – 33% of all negative names underwent extinction through name change, mostly before the end of the 19th century. A few positive names also experienced name change. Of the now-extinct names, 47% of negative and 75% of positive names became extinct for demographic reasons. Thus, name change was the reason for the extinction of 37% of negative names, while for positive names the only major cause of extinction was demographic.4. Individual reasons. Some families had higher than average child mortality rates even in higher classes. In small families, many factors that did not affect bigger families could be fatal to surname spread, like a larger number of daughters or generations of men facing World War I and II (fathers and sons), also place of living (smaller infant and child mortality in state estates) and again social status (higher classes had more options to avoid the 80%-fatal military service until 1874).In the 1920s and 1930s a campaign of Estonianizing surnames took place. This also opened the possibility of changing ill-sounding names. No names from the present research became completely extinct during that campaign, but in one case 27 bearers of the name Laisk ‘lazy’ changed their name together in 1922 to Laaneväli ‘forest plain’. Only one member of the family (the widowed mother of some name changers) did not change her name and died in 1941 as the last name bearer.
More...Keywords: multi-criteria analysis; transport infrastructure; criteria; literature review;
The evaluation, selection or prioritization of transport infrastructure projects requires a complex decision-making approach. This complexity arises due to the competing nature of criteria - socio-economic, technical, political, environmental, resulting often into conflict analysis (Thomopoulos et al., 2009). The purpose of this article is to review the available literature in order to identify the specific multi-criteria decision-making techniques/methods, as well as the criteria employed in the context of transport infrastructure. Moreover, as we were interested to assess if these criteria evolved along the time to meet the transport infrastructure policy goals, in the nowadays context of green transition a special attention is given to the environmental criteria and its indicators. The timing of this review, providing an overview of the criteria used for the assessment of transport infrastructure projects, seems to be suitable as the new European Union’s Multiannual Financial Framework (2021-2027) is pushing forward for the twin green and digital transitions, enforcing the climate dimension. An extensive list of environmental indicators is provided, as well.
More...Keywords: George Enescu; Inner Beauty; Enescu’s life and creation;
The study starts from the outline of possible answers to difficult questions such as: “is there inner beauty in music?”; “if so, its origin is of aesthetic or extra esthetic nature?”; “can we rank works of art by applying extra esthetic criteria?”; “does the old relationship Good-Truth-Beautiful remain an ideal without reverberations in reality?” Then, significant aspects of Enescu’s life and creation are discussed and assessed from the perspective of these answers. The resulted decantation (the relation “existence-destiny”, “authenticity as offerings of “truth” in creation”; “love and responsibility for the other as duty of consciousness”; “affirming the convergence of values beyond time”) emphasizes the profound significance of Enescu’ music, being also the key to a better perception and, implicitly, understanding of his music.
More...Keywords: Air Force;World War II; Gheorghe Nagaevschi; Communist regime;
One of the most decorated airmen in the period of World War II, air captain Gheorghe Nagaevschi had an interesting career as an officer in the `30s and during the Second World War. As second in command of the 5th Bombing Group and then in 1th Bombing Flotilla, he proved his worth. After the war, he committed himself to the new communist regime.
More...Keywords: Lower Danube archaeology;Eneolihtic;tell and tell‑like settlements;stratigraphic data;Gumelnita culture;
This article presents the stratigraphic and chronological data found during the archaeological surveys Northeast of the tell settlement at Luncavita, point « Cetățuia » (Tulcea County)
More...Keywords: computing systems; informatics; hardware and software; computer; information system;
This article was written out of the desire to express our gratitude to the pioneers of Romanian Informatics and our duty to future generations to pass on the knowledge of Romanian Informatics. The article describes with evidence the primary role of the Computing Center of the University of Bucharest (CCUB) in the pioneering field of Computing systems (hardware and software) in Romania. In order to keep up with the state-of-the-art technology represented by electronic computers that appeared after 1945 worldwide, in 1959 Acad. Grigore C. Moisil introduced a new specialisation in higher education, called Computing Machines, and in 1962 he founded the Computing Center of the University of Bucharest (CCUB), within the Faculty of Mathematics. Future generations have the right and duty to know that Cybernetics was created in Romania (1938–1939) – the creation of the military doctor Ștefan Odobleja, that Romania developed a Romanian computer science (Grigore C. Moisil, after 1953) and built its own electronic computer (Victor Toma, CIFA–1, in 1957). Neither the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, nor the University of Bucharest are allowed to ignore the fact that Grigore C. Moisil and CCUB had a great pioneering role in the emergence and development of Romanian informatics.
More...Keywords: dogma; theology; spirituality; Scripture; reason; culture; postmodernity;
The study is an apology of dogmatic theology, in the face of the multiple attacks that come today not only from a secular ideological area, but even from the position of other theological disciplines, which want to be free from the rigors of dogmatics. The significance of dogma, its central character both in the academic theological system and in the life of the Church, results from the multitude and importance of its functions: the hermeneutic function of dogma in relation to the Holy Scripture, absolutely necessary to remain within Orthodoxy; the function of founding, determining and guiding the spiritual life; the contemplative and cultural function of dogma. The study shows the baselessness of the accusations brought against dogmatic theology, the superficiality and ignorance that made them appear. A truly subtle trap is highlighted: the anti-intellectual pathos and the dictatorship of emotions that the present era destructively propagates are not real allies of Orthodoxy which, unfortunately, largely identifies danger in the rigidity of scholasticism (and sometimes even in reason itself), not in the postmodern dissolution that truly threatens the dogmatic articulation of faith. But first of all, the patristic position (significantly undisputed in the eastern space until the end of the twentieth century) reaffirms that dogmas are necessary for salvation.
More...Keywords: Greek Catholic Church; Theology; Literature; Interwar Period; Alexandru Nicolescu; United States of America;
Alexandru Nicolescu is better known as a Greek Catholic bishop and metropolitan, but he was also an interesting church writer. After studying in Blaj and Rome, he was a missionary in North America (in the USA but apparently also in Canada); returned to Transylvania, he worked as a teacher in Blaj.Alexandru Nicolescu was one of the few Romanian clerics in the Austro-Hungarian Empire or in the Kingdom of Romania at the beginning of the 20th century who had contact with North American civilization and had a thorough knowledge of English.In Nicolescu's writings we can detect this double influence: the rigor of theology of Western origin - as a result of his studies in Rome - and an apparent American "modernism", both raised on the Transylvanian Greek Catholic tradition. Certainly the model of bishop - or rather of the Christian that Nicolescu cultivated - was influenced by the Christian of the "New World".That is why his literary production was an original at the time of its appearance in the Romanian cultural space, with many elements of novelty in the theological approach to many problems of daily life. Probably this type of theological approach would have developed in the Greek Catholic Church in a certain specific direction if the rupture of 1948 had not intervened. All these details make us believe that Alexandru Nicolescu's writings are all the more interesting. for today's reader as they mark a moment of uniqueness in the history of Greek Catholic theological literature in Romania.
More...Keywords: Bucovina University Grigore Nandriș; General Assemblies of Astra; the interwar period; Gheorghe Preda; Silviu Țeposu; Iuliu Moldovan; Society for Romanian Culture and Literature in Bucovina;
Phd. Professor Grigore Nandriș was an important Bucovina intellectual, philologist, writer, researcher, university professor in Cernăuți, Bucovina. PhD. Grigore Nandriș, was invited several times by the Central Committee of Sibiu of Astra and participated in the capacity he held since 1929, that of president of the Society for Literature and Culture of the Romanian People in Bucovina. The same academic Gr. Nandriș was constantly invited and participated in the works of the general assemblies of the Transylvanian Association, especially since 1930. Among those who submitted invitation addresses to the Bucovina researcher Gr. Nandriș we mention Vasile Goldiș and Iuliu Moldovan, the successive presidents of Astra in the interwar decades, and the vice-president of Astra, the Sibiu doctor Gheorghe Preda, was, as a rule, the one who did the host offices and sent to the address of Cernăuți the invitation to participate to the gatering of Astra
More...Keywords: censorship; resilience; Greater Romania; Jewish press; German press;
Two ethnic minorities with German as their native language lived in Romania during the interwar period: in addition to the various ethnic German groups from the former Kingdom of Romania, from the Habsburg and the Russian Empire, a large number of Bukovina and Banat Jewish communities belonged to the Romanian state from 1918 onwards, many of them using the German language in everyday life and at work as well as in literature and the press. Members of both ethnic groups endeavoured through press publications to preserve and extend the civil rights of their communities and to integrate them into the society of their new homeland. The present study analyzes a state practice which stood in the way of these developments: press censorship restricted information, communication and the corrective functions of the two highly developed media landscapes of the Germans and the Jews in Greater Romania. When it comes to the resilience against censorship authorities, the strategies of conformity, loyalty, or resistance of newspaper editors are examined, thus shedding light on the role of these publications for their respective minorities
More...Keywords: employer; worker; European labour law; European case law;
The emergence of new forms of contractual arrangements and the growth of multilateral employment relationships challenge the traditional approach to the individual employment contract and the classic identifiers of the parties to the employment relationship. While the Court of Justice of the European Union has often ruled on the criteria for identifying the “worker”, it has not made the same request for identifying the “employer”. Starting from a recent CJEU case in which the autonomous and uniform character of the concept of “employer” was questioned, this study aims to capture the European definitions and meanings of the concept in European case law. The debate remains open, however, as the CJEU is expected to confirm or deny developments in this area against the background of the new contractual arrangements.
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