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The Traditional Village Represented in Romania’s Open-Air Ethnographic Museums
205-216Views:49This paper work is a very brief presentation that brings the reader into the front of the most important open-air museums from Romania and tries to emphasize the value of their identity. This work is, in fact, a presentation of an extensive doctoral program, after which we will publish a book, and we hope that we will be able to develop certain topics right in the pages of the journal Ethnographica et Folkloristica Carpathica. The quick development of museums has generated a veritable Romanian school of museography, recognized both nationally and internationally. The source of this development is represented by the speech of museum; that is how the museum manages to revaluate its available potential and to get imposed in areas of interest from most various: scientific, educational, cultural, touristic, ensuring the representation of as many ethnographical areas as possible. Although the concept of ethnographical museum allows multiple approaches and definitions, this essay highlights the role of the identity of museums and their way of representing the traditional village, given the dynamics and the abandonment of traditions.
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Remain of a Dialect in an Urban Cultural Medium by Means of Folk-tales: Role of Some Tale-tellers of a Hungarian Ethnic Group Székelys of Bukovina in Hungary
31-46Views:42The aim of the paper is to show the role that storytellers can play in the transmission of traditions, identity and dialect today. The paper focuses on a Hungarian ethnic group: Szeklers of Bukovina settled in Hungary in 1945. The main aim of this paper is to present the function of dialects in tales and tale-telling after the change of traditional peasant way of life and dialects. In Bukovina this ethnic group was isolated from the Hungarian mother-country and the majority of Hungarians, their cultural and language changes did not reach them, therefore the members of this ethnic group could retain their traditional culture and dialect. However, in Hungary they were settled into 38 settlements, thereby their original communities broke up. The dialectal and sociolinguistic data of this paper comes from the storyteller’s websites, written and oral personal stories, the text and sound-recording of folk-tales, and also data of formal dialectal researches of this ethnic group is used. This paper presents an analysis of some storytellers who use several dialect elements of this ethnic group, besides the role of dialects in tale-telling is studied too. It is an important aspect of this analyse how some storytellers utilize their dialect in tales and during tale-telling, and why they usually use it. The results of research present that these storytellers can use dialect elements in different ways in their tale-telling. The main conclusion is that use of a dialect can be a part of language education, a dialect is an identity marker, and by the help of it a storyteller can create a pictorial experience during the tale-telling, besides it can be a source of humour too.
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“We Came to a Village...”: Value Systems in a Changing World
71-98Views:67Although we experience an increasing level of cultural foreign experience in our time intensified by the pressure of migration and the development of information technologies, the conventional view of value systems still prevails in modern nations. Change in culture is a never-ending process, though. The persuasive power of stability and uniformity seems to decline in postmodernity transforming the role of nation states, as well. Peripheries and “partial truth” come into view. Value systems are also affected by these changes. Value systems are no longer cast from a single mold, but rather derive from a dynamically changing framework that is shaped by the dialogistic connection of the elements of the sociocultural realm, the central role of the subject’s interpretation and the positioned meaning of values. This paper attempts to describe the changes brought about by postmodernity through the everyday life of four families settled down in Hosszúhetény. After having embraced traditional values at a certain point in their life as a result of a conscious decision, families are compelled to reevaluate their former worldview. This process results in the revision of their identity, as well. In the end, they are trying to establish themselves through various representational practices in a village that has already been modernized. While trying to analyze the components of their value system, I define so-called correlations in the hope of realizing a more relevant understanding of the postmodern age.
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Competing Nationality Politics Targeting German Communities at the Hungarian-Romanian Border Zone after the Great War
71-86Views:138In my study, I focus on the events that took place in the short period after the Great War ended (1918) and before the consolidation of Romanian power in the Hungarian-Romanian Border Commission (1922) from the point of view of the artificially created ethnic category: the Satu Mare Swabians or Sathmar Swabians. The historiography related to the “ethnographic” aspects of these events have appeared multiple times and in several contexts and forms in the years since. However, the question of ethnicity has not arisen in relation to the population of German descent, but rather in relation to the Hungarian-speaking Greek Catholic communities of Romanian and Rusyn/Ruthenian origin who were treated by the Romanian side as Magyarized Romanians. Following this example, the Romanians later began to collect data on the Magyarized Germans, which they then presented to the Border Commission. Germans living in the territory witnessed a strong competition between identity politics and discourse supported by rival Hungarian and Romanian states. One of the key features of this rivalry was the intensive propaganda activity promoted by both the Romanian and the Hungarian authorities to gain territories to the detriment of the other.
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The New Challenges and Situation of an Ethnic Minority within a Local Community in the Light of Social Changes
151-177Views:34Our memory is largely shaped by the way we look at the peoples currently living within the Carpathian Basin. Once a well-known tobacco-growing village in Historic Hungary, Torda (also known as Torontáltorda in Hungarian) is now a dispersed settlement with a Hungarian ethnic majority located in the Banat region of Vojvodina, Serbia.
The shifting of national borders, the two World Wars, the events of the Yugoslav Wars and migratory movements have collectively changed and decimated the lives of Hungarians who had found themselves outside their motherland’s borders after the 1920s.
In spite of the decline in population, the emigration of young people, and the everyday struggles resulting from hard living conditions, this village in the Central Banat district could attract further socio-ethnographic interest. In the micro-communities of rural settlements, education and religion play a key role in creating social value, maintaining Hungarian culture in the area and forming a national, local sense of identity within the community. Commemorative rituals, local traditions and national holidays often cross each others’ paths and blend together through education and religion, highlighting the reality and cultural values of the community, as well as the array of connections between community life and ethnic culture. This study discusses Torda’s present in the light of social change and the process of cultural mapping, touching on the importance of the local cultural association in the community’s life. This study also explores the events of the past few decades that have left a deep imprint on the micro-community’s life in a cultural, social and ethnic sense.
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Folk Dress Revitalization as a Component of Language Revitalization: The Case of Wilamowice
179-204Views:39Although the main goal of language revitalization is keeping a language alive, the expression of ethnic identity and belonging is not exclusively limited to the linguistic phenomenon. In the case of Vilamovians – a small ethnic group living in the town of Wilamowice on the border of Upper Silesia and Lesser Poland, language revitalization has been supported by a group of people wearing the Vilamovian folk dress. This was accompanied by greater engagement of young people learning the Wymysorys language as well to other elements of Vilamovian culture, including the folk dress. In this case revitalization does not mean copying old patterns, but reviving its importance for local community. The Vilamovian folk dress is not limited to the costume of local dance ensemble, it is crucial for ethnic belonging of Vilamovians. The patterns, styles or words (in the case of the language) were less important for them. The reconstructed elements or even whole sets of dress, e.g. the mourning dress, different types of wedding dress and the whole male dress do differ from the historical ones. The ethnographers should not criticize this situation, as it used to be in the past, but focus on their choices and motivations connected to their ethnic belonging. In this text, I have tried to show that the reconstruction/revitalization of a folk dress could proceed in a specific way if combined with language revitalization.
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A Case Study on Obstacles to the Social Integration Process of Young People of Roma Origin
107-127Views:37There are numerous obstacles to the advancement of Roma young people coming from disadvantaged social environments. Among these, the phenomenon that can be described by the expression köztes kitettség [verbatim: intermediate exposure] stands out. Social integration is an integration/assimilation practice complying with majority norms, which also means moving away from the values of one’s own local environment.
According to the experience gained from research conducted on this topic, there are a lot of Roma young people who are trapped between two “societies” – their own sociocultural environment and the majority environment – and, consequently, find themselves in a special situation. The aim of this study is to shed light on the general context and the social significance of the phenomenon described above through recording field experiences and applying case analyses.
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Changing Economic Strategies in the Ecsed Marsh: An Example of Renewal in Nagyecsed
129-149Views:97The Ecsed Swamp was formed in the New Holocene Era in the lowest areas of Nyírség and Szatmár Plains. Besides the protective nature of the swamp, it was a significant source of livelihood for the local population – loach fish collecting (csikász), bird hunting and egg collecting (pákász) were the main occupations of the “swamp people”. The Ecsed Swamp, which once covered almost 432 km2 was drained at the end of the 19th century that caused significant changes in everyday life and farming. The inhabitants of the so-called “Loach land” (Csíkország) tried to dig up and cultivate marshy areas even before the drainage. Burning, cutting and cleaning were already known among the swamp people, since this was the only way to carry out farming activities in this area. In their frustration the swamp people effected by the drainage tried to obtain land for cultivation. They worked on the lands purchased by the Károlyi noble family. More prosperous ones also built farms on the border of the neighbouring villages, thus the process of homesteading began. In the 21st century, the cultivation of agricultural land in the area of former swamps is causing significant problems since water shortage is now characteristic towhole Europe. Reedfires in the former swamp areais a phenomenon that exists to this day. With the transformation of landscape and ways of farming and living, the need to apply different economic strategies arose, which I will discuss t in my research study with case studies from the 19th and 21st centuries.