We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
The present study intends to emphasize the information regarding the documentary evidence on “the herb of animals”, the plant that, according to tradition, has miraculous powers, being picked in the night before the feast of Saint John the Baptist’s Birth and used for opening the locks of the places hiding treasures. Based on documents and ethnographic material, we find out that the eastern area of Moldova has legends on “the herb of animals” dating from ancient times that came in this area either by Slavic influence or by an older one. The phenomenon of searching treasures is omnipresent in history, in the Romanian space as well as worldwide; therefore, the two cases, of the monk Evghenie from Căpriana and of the so-called “group of adventurers” from Pârliţa, supplement the numerous legends and stories related to imaginary or real treasures in the territory between Prut and Dniester rivers.
More...
Following World War II, Romania was forced to remove from the public conscience any reference to the territories that were taken after 1945 (Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, Cadrilater/ Southern Dobruja), as well as to the personalities who became somehow undesirable to the new political regime. Consequently, the publications containing any reference, no matter how small, to a subject that could harm the good relations with the USSR were purged. The purge applied to: works written by the members of the royal family or related to them; the royal coat of arms and the symbols of the dynasty; the statutes of the interwar political parties; any work of specific authors (war criminals, the ones that fled the country, authors declared undesirable to the communist regime); several “tendentious” works of certain authors; text books from 1920-1948; folk calendars, almanacs, etc., from 1918-1944; any map including the territories that had belonged to the Romanian state until World War II; military literature, rules, treaties, etc., from 1916 onward, as well as laws and instructions associated to them from 1920 till 1945; history and geography works related to Bessarabia. Inevitably, the field of traditional culture was not overlooked by the prohibitive politics enforced in Romania by the Soviet occupation. In order to restore the historical truth and to recover information in the field of ethnology, one should go back to the sources of information of that time, and the specialized works which are important and valid even today should be republished. It is the only way to eliminate the hiatuses and to get the correct and complete image on the evolution of the research of Romanian traditional culture. Our scientific undertaking constitutes a cultural must and a moral obligation towards those specialists in ethnology who were wronged by history, whose activity should be known and appreciated for its real value.
More...
The study aims to argue the need to enlarge the epistemological framework in the research of Bessarabia’s and Bukovina’s traditional music repertory, in order to adequately reflect its genre system that characterizes the current stage of the evolution process. An important factor in the development of the traditional musical art is the European cultural dialogue in the modern era, during the 19th and 20th centuries. As core element of continuity in local cultural traditions, dance music has used the most creative contribution of modern civilization factors, trends and cultural influences coming from Western and Eastern Europe, including the contribution of contacting ethno-cultural communities. The genres of local dance music have constantly enriched with a series of resonant Western and Central-European models, such as Polka, Krakovyak, Quadrille, Gallop, Vengherca, Waltz, Mazurca, Padespani, binary choreographic cycle and suite.
More...
An ample part of the Romanian folk lyrics deals with the topic of the badly married girl. The author analyzes the entire network of motifs specific to this sphere, starting with their ancestral roots related to exogamy and to the rural organization based on kinship. The nuptial repertory referring to the moment when the bride leaves the parental home announces in nuce the possible future dramas caused by estrangement, by the hostility of the husband’s family, by the isolation from the world, etc. The songs of the badly married girl present them as already happened, using specific antonymous constructions, metaphors and comparisons. The central piece of this lyric category is the song including the motif of the pile on which the dowry is burnt and the motif of the heroine’s metamorphose into a bird. By taking over the drama of an entire social category, these texts transfigure inner tearing into elegiac notes.
More...
In the article below, which is written in accordance with the writings of the Moldavian scholar and diplomat Nicolae Milescu Spătaru (1636-1708), we intend to enlighten the ethnographic significance of them and, as a result, their contribution to the genesis of cultural anthropology as a modern science of cultural diversity and variability worldwide. It is generally acknowledged that Milescu’s travelogue (especially his Description of China, based on his mission to China as the representative of the Russian government, between 1675-1678) has substantially enriched the cartography of Far East or Northeast Asia, one still less known to the European society from the second half of the seventeenth century. Nicolae Milescu is to be rightly recognized as an important reference of proto-anthropology as well as of the history and geography of the late Middle-Ages.
More...
Based on the research of a prayer list found in an old church from a village in Moldavia, namely Zăpodeni, in Vaslui county, written in 1881 and subsequently supplemented, the present study identifies old, archaic family structures preserved in a Romanian rural world found at the heart of the modern civilization, a state similar to that of the Mediaeval Occident’s peasant communities, but also in other spaces located in the periphery of modernity. The cult for the dead was very powerful in the Romanian villages, where all the inhabitants believed that they were the descendants of a common ancestor and the organization of such communities was based on groups of kindred families. In this context, the inheritor of the house, regardless of being the son or the son-in-law, took over its funerary responsibilities, having the duty to commemorate the dead of the family, because in the archaic communities of different geographic areas, the house transcended the particular destinies of the individuals living in it.
More...
Starting with 1964, under the leadership of Tancred Banateanu and with the courtesy of the curator Teodor Pleșa, a number of 11 pieces made by Ion Stan Pătraș, the craftsman of Săpânța, were ordered and purchased. Thus, objects of unparalleled beauty entered into the collections of the Folk Art Museum of the Romanian Socialist Republic (now The National Museum of the Romanian Peasant). They are unique pieces that reveal a whole universe: the village world. Here are household objects, traditional costumes, daily occupations, crafts, vices, superstitions and social realities. With the help of the lyrics and representations from the crosses of the merry cemetery of Săpânța, Ion Stan Pătraș created unique objects that attract attention through colours and deviate thoughts from the sadness caused by the definitive separation from the dear ones.
More...
The author presents the activity in the field of historiography of Teodor T. Burada, who is best known for his works of ethnography, folklore and, mainly, musicology. Burada's contributions in the field of history consisted in the publishing of unedited documents and inscriptions, in the presentations of historical events or personalities to the general public. Specialized reviews, such as “Revista de Istorie, Arheologie și Filologie”, partially “Arhiva. Organul Societății Științifice și Literare din Iași”, and the local daily newspaper “Evenimentul”, were the publications that included Burada's contributions to the field of historiography.
More...
Envisioned and organized by professor Romulus Vuia under the coordination of “King Ferdinand I” University, during the refuge in Sibiu for the period of the Second Vienna Award, the “Ardeleana” Group was not only an university organization that occasioned pleasant moments for the students, but also a powerful instrument for education and discipline. The meetings that appeared to be for entertainment, had, in fact, higher purposes: to preserve the old Romanian customs, songs, dances and costumes, to strengthen the national identity by preserving the ethnic specificity. Professor Vuia, a visionary teacher and tireless organizer, while intensively promoting the action of preserving the traditions and the traditional costume, of improving the sense of ethnic appurtenance, considered that it was absolutely necessary to combine education and entertainment in teaching the discipline, in implementing the idea of team work, as well as of tolerance. It was a demonstration of how passion can prevail over difficult times and limited resources.
More...
The paper suggests an analysis of an important moment in the history of Romanian ethnology, namely the institutionalization of such researches in Cluj-Napoca by means of founding the Folklore Archive of the Romanian Academy, from the perspective of the relationships between the main pawns in this process: Sextil Puşcariu and young researcher Ion Muşlea. In achieving the purposes of this paper, I used both classical sources (scientific works of the two), as well as correspondence, an unedited part which Ion Muşlea and Sextil Puşcariu had written between 1925 and 1941
More...
This case study focuses on the interpretation of the activities of the Nógrád Sunflower Association, a non-governmental organization founded and maintained in Northern Hungary by a population of mainly retired people. The analysis employs, in particular, the results of the social science discourse of capital theories. The success of the Association was primarily due to its ability to accurately assess and formulate the goals of the organization and its members. They were able to contribute to the creation and enhancement of a sense of community identity and belonging. Substantial community leisure activities were organized. All this was accomplished by reinterpreting and reevaluating the social role of the elderly on the periphery of society. They successfully expanded the various types of capital (symbolic, social, economic and cultural) and converted well from one to the other. The background to this was the precise knowledge of the spirit of the times. In a broader sense, the paper also aims to provide an example of the new thematic and methodological challenges that contemporary field research may face in exploring rural societies.
More...
This study presents a diachronic analysis of the practices of pig slaughter in Sáromberke/Dumbrăvioara (Mureş/Maros County) and the related traditions. The author seeks to identify the traditions associated with pig slaughter along with the economic and social causes that led to their transformations, while also paying attention to the wider context of these practices.
More...