The Practice of „Book Opening” and the Challenge of Understanding Reflexes of Autochtonous Ethnology

The target of the present article is twofold. On the one side, it challenges Romanian ethnology to rethink one of its most used conceptual tools: the opposition popular/official religion. Its hierarchical/discriminative content, its theological origin, and its narrow perspective over both the object and the method of Ethnology are only some of the problems caused by its usage. As an alternative, I argue here for the adequacy of Leonard Primiano’s concept of vernacular religion, which dissolves the opposition and opens a much wider, non-polemic perspective over the religious phenomenon. On the other side, from the angle of vernacular religion, it offers an ethnological analysis (with special emphasis on the sociological and psychological implications) of one of the most neglected and most complicated Romanian religious practices which galvanizes the local religious field.
Keywords: popular vs. official religion, Leonard Norman Primiano, divination, religious field, sacred book, Romanian context

• Badone, Ellen (ed.), Religious Orthodoxy and Popular Faith in European Society, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990.
• Bergman, Sigurd, God in Context. A Survey of Contextual Theology, Burlington, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2003.
• Blaga, Lucian, Spaţiul mioritic/The Mioritic Space, Editura Humanitas, Bucureşti, 1994.
• Bourdieu, Pierre, „Genessis and Structure of the Religious Field”, Comparative and Social Research, Vol. 13, 1991: 1-44.
• Bowman, Marion, „Phenomenology, Fieldwork and Folk Religion”, in Steven J. Sutcliffe (ed.), Religion: Empirical Studies, Aldershot Hants; Burlington VT, Ashgate Publishing, 2004.
• Ciubotaru, Ion H., Marea trecere. Repere etnologice în ceremonialul funebru din Moldova/ The Great departure. Ethnological Landmarks of the Funerary Rite in Moldavia,
  Editura Grai şi suflet – Cultura Naţională, Bucureşti, 1999.
• Cleopa, Ilie, Ne vorbeşte părintele Cleopa/ Father Cleopa is speaking to us, vol 4, ed. a II-a, îngrijită de Arhimandrit Ioanichie Bălan, Vânători-Neamţ, Mănăstirea Sihăstria, 2004.
• Corlăţan, Mirela, „Preotul care deschide cartea”/ “The Priest who opens the Book”, Ziarul de Iaşi, 20 septembrie 2000. http://www.ziaruldeiasi.ro/local/iasi/preotul-care-deschide-cartea~ni1h9a.
• Daraban Adriana, „Preot sau şarlatan”/ “Priest or deceiver”, Bihoreanul, 29 noiembrie 2004. http://old.bihoreanul.ro/articol/ziar/oradea/preot-sau-carlatanc/3976/.
• Eliade, Mircea, Aspecte ale mitului/ Aspects of the Myth, traducere de Paul G. Dinopol, prefaţă de Vasile Nicolescu, Editura Univers, Bucureşti, 1978.
• Gosden, Chris and Marshall, Yvonne, „The Cultural Biography of Objects”, in World Archeology, Tylor & Francis Ltd., 1999: 169-178.
• Hanganu, Gabriel, „Eastern Christians and Religious Objects: Personal and Material Biographies Entangled”, in Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective, Ed. Chris Hann and Hermann Goltz, London, California University Press, 2010.
• Herseni, Traian, „Individ şi societate în satul Fundul Moldovei. Câteva aspecte”/ “Individual and Society within Fundul Moldovei Village. Some aspects”, Arhiva pentru Ştiinţă şi Reformă Socială, An X, nr. 1-4, 1932.
• Ionescu, Sânziana, „Prezicători în cărţile sfinte”/ “Foretellers with Holly Books”. , Adevărul, ediţia de Constanţa, 23 februarie 2013. http://adevarul.ro/locale/constanta/foto-prezicatori-cartile-sfinte-apeleaza-credinciosii-vor-stie-viitorul-1_5127e42100f5182b8590b7e4/index.html.
• Kapaló, James A., „Folk Religion in Discourse and Practice”, Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, Estonian Literary Museum, Estonian National Museum, University of Tartu, Vol. 7 (1), 2013.
• Krajnik, Monika, „Preot de ţară ca în Dosarele X…”/ “Countryside Priest as in X Files”, Adevărul, ediţia de Cluj-Napoca, 2 februarie, 2011. http://www.adevarul.ro/locale/cluj-napoca/Uite_popa-nu_e_popa_0_418758695.html.
• Mair, Lucy, „Divination”, in Anthropology of Religion. Critical Concepts in Religious Studie, ed. Phillips Stevens, Jr., London, Routhledge, 2011: 213-226.
• Marian-Bălaşa Marin, „Conceptul de religie populară – oportunitate, aplicabilitate, adecvări”/ „The Concept of Popular Religion – opportunity, applicability, adequacy”, in Avram Cristea şi Jan Nicolae (ed.). Eshatologia populară, Editura Reîntregirea, Alba Iulia, 2010.
• Mauss, Marcel, A General Theory of Magic, translated by Robert Brain, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972.
• Ofrim, Alexandru, Cheia şi psaltirea/ The Key and The Psalm Book, Editura Paralela 45, Pitesti, 2002.
• Olteanu, Magda, „Preotul care descoperă amantele”/ „The Priest who discouvers the misstresses”, Bună Ziua Iaşi, 24 septembrie, 2008. http://www.bzi.ro/preotul-caredescopera-amantele-103882.
• Ordean, Flora, „Popă răspopit pentru divorţ şi pentru că «deschide cartea»” „Dissmissed Priest for divorce and bibliomancy”, Monitorul de Neamţ, 1 martie, 2006. http://www.monitorulneamt.ro/stiri/?editia=20060301&pagina=1&articol=3073.
• Plămădeală, Antonie, Tradiţie şi libertate în spiritualitatea ortodoxă/ Tradition and Inovation in Orthodox Spirituality, Editura Reîntregirea, Alba-Iulia, 2004.
• Primiano, Leonard Norman, „Vernacular Religion and the Quest for Method in Religious Studies”, Western Folklore, 54, January, 1995.
• Sachelarie, Nicolae, Ieromonah, Pravila bisericească/ Church Code of Laws, Prahova, Parohia Valea Plopului, 1999.
• Sandu, Dan, „Vrăjitoria şi practicile magice, forme suspecte de religiozitate”/ “Witchcraft and magical practices as suspect forms of religiosity ” în Teologie şi viaţă, XIV(LXXX)/2004, nr. 1-6: 63-76.
• Ţitei, Alina, „Preoţii care deschid cartea”/ “Priests who open the Book”, Ziarul de Iaşi, 13 august 1998. http://www.ziaruldeiasi.ro/local/iasi/preotii-care-deschidcartea~nifou.
• Vrijhof, Pieter H. and Waardenbourg, Jacques (coord.), Official and Popular religion: Analysis of a Theme for Religious Studies, The Hague, Mounton Publishers, 1979.
• Weber, Max, Sociologia Religiei/ Sociology of Religion, traducere de Claudiu Baciu, Editura Teora, Bucuresti, 1998.
• Yoder, Don, „Toward a Definition of Folk Religion”, in Western Folklore 33 (1): 2-15, 1974.

Mihai Eminescu and the Protochronistical Battles

It was not unpredictable that the canonical poet Mihai Eminescu should fall in the middle of the 1970-1980s’ discussion of the Romanian cultural and political precedence, as his works had already been a victim of misreading. This paper aims to briefly analyze the protochronistic discourse around Eminescu’s writings, by discussing the labels attached to his poetry, as well as to his political articles. As a writer, he was spoken of as the first existentialist and the creator of the theatre of the absurd; as a journalist, his is seen through the reductionist glasses of the nationalistic group around Luceafărul as an anti-liberal and, consequently, as an intellectual taking sides with the „working class”. While literary critics speak about a „citizen of the World”, social commentators dwell on his patriotism or even nationalism.
Keywords: Mihai Eminescu, protochronism, Edgar Papu, existentialism, absurd, nationalism.

Volume:

• Boia, Lucian, Istorie şi mit în conştiinţă românească / History and Myth in the Romanian Conscience. Bucureşti, Humanitas, 1997.
• Eminescu, Mihai, Opere VIII / Works VIII, Ed. critică îngrijită de Perpessicius. Bucureşti, Editura Academiei Române, 1988.
• Munteanu, George, Istoria literaturii române. Epoca Marilor Clasici / The History of Romanian Literature. The Classics. Galaţi, Editura Porto-Franco, 1994.
• Papu, Edgar, Din clasicii noştri / From Our Classics. Bucureşti, Editura Eminescu, 1977.
• Papu, Edgar, Motive literare româneşti / Romanian Literary Motifs. Bucureşti, Editura Eminescu, 1983.
• Tomiţa, Alexandra, O istorie „glorioasă”. Dosarul protocronismului românesc / A „Glorious” History. The Case of the Romanian Protochronism. Bucureşti, Cartea Românească, 2007.
• Verdery, Katherine, Compromis şi rezistenţă / Compromise and Resistance. Bucureşti, Humanitas, 1994

Din periodice:

• Paul Anghel, Ov. S. Crohmălniceanu, Pompiliu Marcea, Edgar Papu, Mihai Ungheanu, Protocronismul (masă rotundă) / Protochronism (a round table), in Luceafărul, no. 4, 1977.
• Papu, Edgar, „Biografie comparată” / „Compared Biography”, in Luceafărul, no. 4, 1972.
• Papu, Edgar, „Eminescu dincolo de timp” / „Eminescu Beyond Time”, in România literară, no. 24, 1980.
• Papu, Edgar, Protocronism românesc / Romanian Protochronism, in Secolul 20, no. 5-6, 1974.
• Ungheanu, Mihai, „Mihai Eminescu: Opere XIII”, in Luceafărul, no. 4, 24, 38, 1986.
• Zamfirescu, Dan, „Mihai Eminescu şi destinul universal al culturii române” / „Mihai Eminescu and the Universal Destiny of Romanian Culture”, in Ramuri, no. 1, 1975.

G. Călinescu, the Union of Patriots and the Beginning of Stalinization in Romania

The following article discusses about the relation between the literary critic G. Călinescu, the crypto-communist organization “The Union of Patriots” and the first steps to Romania’s Stalinization in the autumn of 1944. We bring some new details regarding the history of this political structure, which served so called anti-Fascist purposes during the Second World War (1942-1944). Besides, our intention is to spot the way the Communist Party used it as a middle of propaganda among the intellectuals. Furthermore, the aim of the paper is to prove that G. Călinescu, as a member of “The Union of Patriots”, served the ideology of the Communist Party and its short term political goals in a series of articles he published in the newspaper “Tribuna poporului” (“People’s Tribune”) in 1944. He sustained very promptly the “democratic” (Stalinist) signals and proposals that left extremism, under a populist and message, spread into Romanian public space at that time.
Keywords: G. Călinescu, The Union of Patriots, Stalinization, propaganda, populism, soviet democracy, “Tribuna poporului” (“People’s Tribune”).

• G. Călinescu, Cultură şi naţiune (Culture and Nation), antologie, studiu introductiv şi note de Claudiu Sfichirneţ, Bucureşti, Albatros, 2002.
• G. Călinescu, Opere. Publicistică (Works. Journalism), vol. V, 1940-1946, ediţie coordonată de Nicolae Mecu, text îngrijit, note şi comentarii de Alexandra Ciocârlie, Nicolae Mecu, Oana Soare, Pavel Ţugui, Fundaţia Naţională pentru Ştiinţă şi Artă, Bucureşti, 2008.
• Eugen Negricici, Iluziile literaturii române (The Illusions of the Romanian Literature), Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească, 2008.
• Andrei Terian, G. Călinescu: a cincea esenţă (G. Călinescu: the Quintessence), Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească, 2009.
• Arhivele Naţionale Istorice Centrale, Fond „Uniunea Patrioţilor” (nr. 2861), rolele 210 şi 211 (Central National Historic Archives, Fund „The Union of Patriots”, no 2861, reels no 210 and 211).

Interculturality and spiritual integration.

Aspects of Romanian-German cultural exchanges in Joachim Wittstock’s essays. The main focus of the present article is the essay volume Einen Halt suchen [Seeking support] (2009) by Joachim Wittstock (*1939), Romanian German language writer, analyzed in terms of interculturality This approach is usually a challenge, on the one hand an intrinsic analysis of the literary text is carried out, on the other it is indispensable to transcend it, taking into account the specific context of multicultural spaces. Sibiu is such a multicultural space and has a lot to offer as far as interculturality is concerned, which will be exemplified through Joachim Wittstock’s essays.
Keywords: Joachim Wittstock, interculturality, essays, intercultural exchanges, cultural interaction

The Nineties. The Utopy of the New Literature.

On the one hand, the period after 1989 is characterized in Romanian literature by the apparition of the so-called ,,drawer texts”. As most intimate types of writing, memoirs and diaries are easiest to relocate within the public consciousness in this regard. Nevertheless, they are also the subject of censorship because of the strong ideological implications. On the other hand, in a Romanian society which seeks in this period for its truths and sets up its writers for public sentence givers, prose writers remain a credible social category in the public consciousness. Thus, the new literature is based on the desire to put into fiction a world ,,such as it is” – therefore, between the recovery of the memoirs from communism and the writing of the prose of a decaying Romania, the literature of the first five post-communist years did not have time for poetry. Starting from these premises, this paper aims at investigating more than fragmentary  contexts of post-communist literature, as previous researches have simply done, creating thus a fragmentary picture of the period. In the same time, the paper tries to develop a taxonomy of the literary phenomena of the period.
Keywords: Romanian literature, post-communist period, memoirs, diaries, „drawer literature”, social function of the writer

• Bănulescu, Daniel, Te pup în fund conducător iubit (Kiss You in the Ass, Beloved Nation Leader!) Bucureşti, Editura Nemira, 1994;
• Cărtărescu, Mircea, Postmodernismul românesc (The Romanian Postmodernism), Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas, 2000;
• Cordoş, Sanda, În lumea nouă (The New World), Cluj-Napoca, Editura Dacia, 2003;
• Ioanid, Ion, Închisoarea noastră cea de toate zilele (Our Everyday Prison) vol. I, 1949, 1952-1954, Bucureşti, Editura Albatros, 1991;
• Groşan, Ioan, Octav Mardale, Nutzi, Spaima constituţii. Jurnal de Bordel, (Nutzi, The Scarecrow of the Constitution. Diary of a Brothel) Bucureşti, Editura Seara, 1995;
• Lovinescu, Monica, Unde scurte (Shorts Waves) Bucureşti, Editura Humanistas, 1990;
• Mihăilescu, Dan C., Literatura română în postceauşism, (The Romanian Literature after the Fall of the Communism) vol. I-III, Iaşi, Polirom, 2004; 2006; 2007;
• Negoiţescu, I., Straja Dragonilor (The Guard of the Dragons), Cluj-Napoca, Editura Apostrof, 1994;
• Sârbu, Ion.D., Lupul şi Catedrala (The Wolf and the Cathedral), Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească, 1996;
• Simuţ, Ion, Simptomele actualităţii literare (The Symptoms of Today’s Literature), Oradea, Biblioteca Revistei Familia, 2007;
• Steinhardt, N., Jurnalul fericirii (The Diary of Bliss), Cluj-Napoca, Editura Dacia, 1991;
• Tănase, Stelian, Playback (Playback) Bucureşti, Editura Fundaţiei Culturale, 1995;
• Vona, Alexandru, Ferestrele Zidite (The Walled-in Windows), Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească, 1993;
• Zaciu, Mircea, Jurnal (A Diary) (1979-1982), I, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Dacia, 1993.

The Metamorphoses of Memory in the Prose Fiction of Borges and Eliade

In the present paper I propose a comparative approach Borges-Eliade, with a focus on what the two writers have in common, namely their philosophical or so-called fantastic short fiction. My treatment of the subject will not be guided however by free associations and momentary inspiration, but by a couple of distinct landamarks: (1) both Eliade’s and Borges’s prose fiction rejects historicism and psychologism; (2) at the same time, it has a spiritual meaning, different from all the other meanings disseminated by the commonplace readings. These landmarks will be Ariadne’s thread in the search for the hidden order of the text, the figure in the carpet that should be deciphered by a poetics of memory.
Keywords: memory, anamnesis, literary modernism, fantastic, chronos, aevum

• Berechet, Lăcrămioara – Ficţiunea iniţiatică la Mircea Eliade / Initiatory Fiction at Mircea Eliade, Ed. Pontica, Constanţa, 2003
• Benga, Graţiela – Traversarea cercului. Centralitate, iniţiere, mit în opera lui Mircea Eliade / Crossing the Circle. Centrality, Initiation, Myth in the Work of Mircea Eliade, Ed. Hestia, Timişoara, 2006
• Boldy, Steven – A Companion to Jorge Luis Borges, Tamesis, Woodbridge, 2009
• Borges, Jorge Luis – Eseuri / Essays, Polirom, Iaşi, 2006
• Borges, Jorge Luis – Miscelánea / Miscellanea, Random House Mondadori, Barcelona, 2011
• Borges, Jorge Luis – Moartea şi busola. Proză completă / The Death and the Compass. Complete Prose, vol. I, Ed. Polirom, Iaşi, 2006
• Borges, Jorge Luis – Poezii / Poems, Ed. Polirom, Iaşi, 2005
• Borges, Jorge Luis – Proză completă / Complete Prose, vol. II, Ed. Polirom, Iaşi, 2006
• Călinescu, Matei – Despre Ioan P. Culianu şi Mircea Eliade / On Ioan P. Culianu and Mircea Eliade, Ed. Polirom, Iaşi, 2002
• Corbin, Henry – En Islam iranien. Aspects spirituels et philosophiques / In Iranian Islam. Spiritual and Philosophical Aspects. 1. Le shî`isme duodécimain, Gallimard, Paris, 1971
• Culianu, Ioan Petru –Studii româneşti / Romanian Studies, vol. I, Ed. Nemira, Bucureşti, 2006
• Eliade, Mircea – Aspecte ale mitului / Aspects of the Myth, Ed.Univers, Bucureşti, 1978
• Eliade, Mircea – Încercarea labirintului (convorbiri cu Claude-Henri Rocquet) / The Trial of the Labyrinth (interlocutions with Claude-Henri Rocquet), Ed. Humanitas, Bucureşti, 2007
• Eliade, Mircea – În curte la Dionis (antologie de proză fantastică) / In Dionis’s Court (An Anthology of Fantastic Prose), Ed. Cartea Românească, Bucureşti, 1980
• Eliade, Mircea – La ţigănci – Pe strada Mântuleasa / At the Gypsy Women – On Mântuleasa Street, Ed. Humanitas, Bucureşti, 2008
• Eliade, Mircea – Mitul eternei reîntoarceri / The Myth of the Eternal Return, Ed. Univers Enciclopedic, Bucureşti, 1999
• Eliade, Mircea – Noaptea de Sânziene / The Midsummer Night, Ed. Minerva, Bucureşti, 1991 Fishburn, Evelyn – „«This Imminence of a Revelation»: A Study of Epiphanies in Borges’s Fiction”, în Variaciones Borges, nr. 31, 2011, pp. 109-123
• Glodeanu, Gheorghe – Mircea Eliade. Poetica fantasticului şi morfologia romanului existenţial / Mircea Eliade. The Poetics of the Fantastic and the Morphology of the Existential Novel, Ed. Didactică şi Pedagogică, Bucureşti, 1997
• Halbwachs, Maurice – Memoria colectivă / Collective Memory, Ed. Institutul European, Iaşi, 2007
• Pouilloux, Jean-Yves commente Fictions de Jorges Luis Borges, Gallimard, Paris, 1992
• Ricoeur, Paul – Le conflit des interpretations. Essais d`hermeneutique / The Conflict of Interpretations. Essays of Hermeneutics, Seuil, Paris, 1969
• Ruşti, Doina – „Hipermnezie şi evadare: Funes el memorioso de Jorge Luis Borges şi Tinereţe fără de tinereţe de Mircea Eliade” / „Hypermnesia and Escape: Funes el Memorioso by Jorge luis Borges and Youth Without Youth by Mircea Eliade, in Philologica Jassyensia, An III, Nr. 1, 2007, pp. 235-241
• Scipione, Ileana – Borges şi Eliade: alchimia livrescului / Borges and Eliade: the Alchemy of the Bookish, Ed. Retromond, Bucureşti, 2000
• Steiner, George – “Tigers in the Mirror”, în Alazraki, Jaime (ed.) – Critical Essays on Jorge Luis Borges, G.K. Hall & Co, Boston, 1987, pp. 116-124.

Compassion as Remedy against Violence and Fanaticism: Thoughts on Borges and Oz

This paper aims at examining a simple yet fundamental question: what could trigger fanaticism? Some authors say its seed is “the feeling of definite superiority”; therefore, its scope includes both the lighter forms (uniformity and conformism) and the most (literally) explosive ones, such as the suicide attacks the media recounts. Irrespective of its intensity, the specific trait of the phenomenon is the fanatic’s desire to change you at all costs – he is “extremely generous”, a “great altruist”; most frequently, the fanatic seems more interested in you than you are yourself: “wants to save your soul, he wants to redeem you, he wants to liberate you from sin, from error, from smoking, from your faith or from your faithlessness, he wants to improve your eating habits, or to cure you of your drinking or voting habits”. From where, then, does the dislike before the fanatic emerge? Despite the “good intentions”, the repulsion lies in the pattern of the “forced conversion”, i.e. the fact that our freedom and will are trampled on in the name of “good”. A coercion of the other’s conscience in the name of the supreme conviction that we and we alone are right – and that the other must be persuaded by any means possible to accept it. The main bibliographic sources of this essay on fanaticism are drawn from the works of Jorge Luis Borges and Amos Oz – while not ignoring some contributions of fundamental poets like Yehuda Amichai.
Keywords: contemporary history, fanaticism, Gaza Strip, terrorism, literature and freedom, fiction and conscience, Jorge Luis Borges, Amos Oz

• Borges, Jorge Luis. A Universal History of Infamy, translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni, Penguin Books, 1972, p. 103-105.
• Oz, Amos. How to Cure a Fanatic, translated in Romanian by Dana Ilin, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2007.
• Toroczkai, Ciprian Iulian. „Cred, Doamne, ajută necredinţei mele…”. Exerciţii teologice [“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief…”. Theological Exercises], Astra Museum, Sibiu, 2013, p. 271-273.