The Urban Anthropology Journal Nr.20 (2022)
Journal of Urban Anthropology - Nr.20 (2023) - CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Researching ethnic markets in the modern urban space – Andreea PASCARU
THEMATIC DOSSIER
Markets, ethnic cultures, and minority languages: Constructing semiotic landscapes of diversity – Giustina SELVELLI
Can markets be ethnic? The Ottoman bedestens (fabric bazaars) throughout history – Thede KAHL
Valea Cascadelor: Constructing and negotiating identities in a Bucharest flea market – Alexandra RUSU
Across the counter relations: sociability in the farmersʼ markets of Bistrița and Năsăud – Florin DUMITRESCU
Bucharest’s markets as places for selling products and ʽexperiencesʼ during the religious and folk holidays of the year –Dorina DRAGNEA (ONICA)
Xanthi’s bazaar: historical approach and ethnographic experience of a local market and its culture – Aikaterini MARKOU
Hucksters’ polyglossia: “hostanys”, “pems” and “fribourgers”: an incursion into vendors’ discourse in multilingual markets – Cora SAURER-CHIOREANU
The work and commercial networks of Bulgarian and Albanian rag and bone traders in the open-air rag and bone market in Athens today – Georgios KOUZAS
Identity, otherness and commerce in times past Bucharest „The Flea Market” – Alexandra RUSU
URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY
Property trajectories in socialism: The Bulgarian case – Evgenia KRASTEVA-BLAGOEVA
ANTHROPOLOGY OF LANDSCAPE
Urban ecological semiotics: evidence from Novi Sad and Sofia – Martin
MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Coronavirus and challenges to refugees’ resilience in Weimar, Germany – Ruweida ALJABALI & Frank ECKARDT
BOOK REVIEWS
Rural snapshots. A review of “Culese din rural”, edited by Valer Simion Cosma and Emanuel Modoc – Maria CHIOREAN
A review of “The Making of Mămăligă: Transimperial Recipes for a Romanian National Dish” by Alex Drace-Francis (English) – Cosmin DRAGOMIR
INTRODUCTION - Researching ethnic markets in the modern urban space – Andreea PASCARU
An abundance of fish, the voices of bouzouki players, and the feeling of an underground world permeate the senses while strolling through such markets as we read about them in novels and booklets of old Athens, Salonica and other urban legendary centres covered in nostalgic biographies. This was indeed how Modiano, the largest indoor market of Thessaloniki – whose history is closely linked to the Jewish community of the city – appeared on a typical summer evening a few years ago. Not far from its historical building (once a synagogue), lies the open-air Kapani Market (in the Ottoman period known as Un Kapan meaning flour bazaar in Turkish). The latter presents a richness in local and oriental spices, from which as a tourist one should never walk away without a small package of boukovo, grounded chilli flakes said to be originating from the region with the same name in present-day North Macedonia. Strolling through the food markets of the Balkans, there seems to be nothing more inevitable than mixing one’s curiosity with the knowledge of this region’s historical past, an imperative indeed, when we find ourselves encouraged by tourist guides to go “shopping like a local”. Through the eyes of strangers, these exotic places reveal themselves gathering the natives’ full palette of authentic gastronomic and national or regional preferences immersing in delightful smells, textures, and flavours, while their local souvenirs may be autochtonous or imported from around the world. No wonder that back in the 19th century Émile Zola referred to markets, in his novel of the same name, as “The Belly of Paris” (orig. Le ventre de Paris, 1873), set in and around Les Halles, the enormous, busy central market of the French capital. While everything could be considered ethnic for the tourist, the question that arises for us today is: what is really “ethnic” from a local’s point of view when referring to ethnic markets and their products? What does “ethnic” mean in today’s increasingly multicultural and simultaneously globalized cities? How are ethnic elements commercialized and used in the management of such places and how are they being used as a brand? Are vendors targeting a specific “ethnic clientele”? If so, is the clientele or the sales strategy changing over time? Ethnic bazaars1 are, opposite to what the interest in the topic may indicate, mostly hidden and unrevealed places, kept humble from the tourists’ eyes on a first look. The association with “ethnic” is not related solely to individual products, but can refer to entire markets. Many urban weekly markets are perceived as “ethnic”, either (a) because the products on offer are predominantly made by a certain ethnic group, or (b) because the vendors belong to an ethnic group, or (c) because the clientele is predominantly made up of representatives of one ethnic group. Even in the era of globalization, they continue to be associated with ethnic groups, although with assimilation and acculturation, the importance of ethnicity may have become obsolete and no longer plays any role in some of them. While some parts of the world, including the Balkan peninsula, have been mostly known for their conflicts and tumultuous history, – which every country has narrated/portrayed/depicted according to its interests and its canons of writing –, ethnic groups living in the cities have merely been seen as separate entities with their specific dynamics. But it is worth mentioning, that throughout history, their role in enriching, spreading and disseminating goods and practical knowledge of handcrafting and even economic skills was a crucial one. It is the realisation of this anthropological and historical meaning that built the foundation for the selection of this symposium’s papers, while the background of each expert in gathering empirical data, the in situ observations – both participatory and non-participatory – sets the cornerstone for the outcomes presented in the following pages. In the symposium we aimed at exploring methodological and theoretical issues and present studies of different urban “ethnic markets” based on current research projects on their dynamics and diversity. The focus has shifted principally to the Balkan region, but other parts of the world known for their multicultural societies are represented as well. Zooming in on the characteristics of such markets, questions have explored the impact of ethnic labelling on the dominant language of the market through (a) interaction between buyers and sellers (b) the labelling of shops and goods and (c) the clientele that vendors target when it comes to sales strategies developing over time. From a sociolinguistic point of view, generous information has been brought to our attention through the focus on the multilingual discourse of vendors on markets from Switzerland, Mexico, the region of Transylvania, the capital of Romania and cities from Greece, Syria and the countries of the Caucasus, leading us to essential inquiries: what do markets of different functionalities, cultural backgrounds, formation and mixture, such as the ones in Oaxaca Valley – that various indigenous groups are still calling “home” after hundreds of years – and Istanbul’s Kapalı Çarşı (the “Covered Market”), have in common and what differentiates them? Taking a closer look, we realize how they are historically embedded into the societal consciousness of the people and we get answers to questions that we have never fathomed: the strategies involved in selling and buying, which are characterized by more or less the same dimensions of human needs around the world. Their contribution to fostering craft production and supporting and handing down old and partially endangered professions is not to be overlooked. Most of them are regional in scope, but universal in use. They come to feed human needs, whether we speak of social, cultural, or even intellectual ones. They are well-defined puzzles with their own rules and dynamics, led by strict hierarchical distinctions between their actors. They come in to serve the needs of a town and its temporary guests, the town’s hinterlands (see the Xanthi Bazaar in Eastern Trace) or a whole region. Some markets are labelled as “ethnic” because they sell ethnic/indigenous products, such as the “La Cancha”, a Quechuan market in Cochabamba, Bolivia, the specific Berber markets of Inezgane near Agadir (Morocco) or the “Uyghur bazaars” in Ürümqi and Kashgar (China) that are dominated by Uyghurs. China’s oppressive minority policies have tried to make this ethnic element unpopular. Specific Uyghur products have almost disappeared today, but the markets are still known as Uyghur markets. The market in the Mellah district of Marrakesh (Morocco) was known as the “Jewish Market” and continues to be known as such, despite today’s Arab dominance. For centuries, the vegetable markets of Bucharest were dominated by Bulgarian vendors, to whom Romanians usually referred to as Serbs. Due to their predominantly Romanian clientele, Bulgarian markets has almost completely disappeared in the Romanian capital. The Stara Čaršija in the old town of Skopje (Northern Macedonia), which is frequented almost exclusively by Albanians, is hardly used by Christian residents to this day. Migration is shaping the emergence of ethnic neighbourhoods in many cities and their markets around the world, e.g. the numerous China Towns in Nagasaki, San Francisco, New York, Vancouver, Calcutta or Amsterdam. Over the years, these market centres have been subject to processes of assimilation and gentrification, but in many places, they have been able to retain ethnic specifics. In cities like Paris, Berlin, London or Vienna, “Turkish” or “Arab” markets have emerged showing corresponding phenomena of cultural contact. As the dynamics change over time, markets, like other public spaces, are not static. They are born, raised, nurtured with change and often very flexible. They develop along with the rhythms, the pressures and dynamics of the world surrounding them, and they flow like rivers while rarely drying out. Nevertheless, their meanings are not always as valued as it may seem thus far. The Hala Mare (an outstanding meat hall on Bucharest’s Unirii Square) fell victim to the regime when demolished by the communists in 1986. In its place, numerous tall block buildings were raised towards the sky, while the later-constructed Flower Market (Rom. Piața de Flori), seems to have been the paying tribute for the architectural historical loss. Last but not least, in markets that survive over time and regimes it all comes down to the main social pillars, namely the sellers (often also vendors themselves). What often strikes us is their tenacity and the resilience shown along the years by practising the same profession for long periods of time or even their whole life. Their devotion, perspicacity and hard work often pay off with more trust and respect from the clientele’s side. Economic matters, the dominance of best price –, best quality practices, and the markets’ frenetic ambience may sometimes resemble the frantic stock exchange atmosphere on Wall Street. Though it rarely gets that anarchistic, “they are in fact” feasts of unimaginable dimensions. They attract while engaging all our senses with their colours, smells, and textures while their soundtracks (the sellers’ speech) play out in elaborate rituals. Investigating them does not only require openness and curiosity but may also be a matter for a strong stomach and not the task of a delicate state of being. Ethnic or not, their survival also depends on the constraints of climate change, devastating changes in global economies, or natural disasters having a direct impact on them as seen in the last few years during the recently subdued viral pandemics. This journal’s edition, named by the conference held in autumn 2022, shows an interdisciplinary approach, imbued with anthropological, cultural-historical, ethnograhic and linguistic views. Through the broader basis of empirical research presented here we wish to also address both advantages and disadvantages of what being and acting as a minority means in this context. We wish to stress what the implications are on social, economic, and linguistic levels and they are ought to be taken into account when analysing the background, structures, dynamics, and evolution of these historical places and their meaning on global and regional levels. The works included here are meant to encourage more comparative and cross- cultural dialogue around the topic while enhancing and generating new approaches to studying modern market organization. This volume intends to raise awareness of, and stress the role and significance of the ways that scientists can investigate market exchange and how they can develop in modern societies. Therefore, it includes papers that review ideas of how these systems develop and change as part of the urban settings from various branches of theory. Additionally, works related to urban ecological semiotics, and subjects related to medical and psychological anthropology from the Balkans come together to complement the approach in this journal edition in a renewed plea for more inter-disciplinary pursuits in a space so rich in human, goods and cultural patterns. 1 From the Persian رازاب bāzār‚ ‘market‘. Andreea PASCARU PhD Student, University of Jena Researcher, Vanishing Languages and Cultural Heritage Commission, Vienna andreea.pascaru@oeaw.ac.at
Markets, ethnic cultures, and minority languages: constructing semiotic landscapes of diversity - Giustina SELVELLI
ABSTRACT
This article deals with minority and indigenous cultures (and their respective languages) as meaningful markers of diversity sustaining complex dynamics of identity and relationalities in different contexts of open-air markets or bazaars in multicultural spaces of the vast Southeast European area and Mexico. The research is based on extensive autoethnographic practices, autobiographical experiences, and fieldwork in the bazaars and markets in several Balkan cities (Belgrade, Sofia, Novi Sad, Gjirokastër), Turkey (Nusaybin), Armenia (Yerevan) and Mexico (Mexico City, Valle de Bravo, and Oaxaca). Following a sociolinguistic and anthropological approach, I will analyse the ‘ethnic’ elements in these social environments as part of a complex process that constructs ‘semiotic landscapes’ of diversity. I will also highlight their capacity to express models of resistance to the logic of the nation-state and patterns of cultural homogenisation and emphasise their value for research on multicultural societies and minority cultures.
Keywords: semiotic landscapes, linguistic landscapes, minority languages, multilingualism, bazaars, open-air markets, Balkans, Mexico
Giustina SELVELLI Independent Researcher giustina.selvelli@gmail.com
Can markets be ethnic? The Ottoman bedestens (fabric bazaars) throughout history - Thede KAHL
ABSTRACT
The Ottoman Empire was very heterogeneous in terms of the religious denominations, languages and educational backgrounds of its inhabitants: the coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews was conflictual and characterised by oppression by the Muslim ruling class. In trade, however, it became apparent that common economic interests led to mutual dependencies and even well-functioning, multiethnic symbioses. Typical places of such coexistence were the bedestens – Ottoman fabric bazaars, which spread to southeastern Europe as the Ottoman Empire expanded from the 14th century onward. After the fall of the empire, the bedestens were treated very differently in the nation-states. Especially in the Christian-dominated states of southeastern Europe, Ottoman cultural heritage was held in low esteem; many buildings perceived as “Turkish” were left to decay or fell into disrepair. The article describes the multi-ethnic coexistence in bedestens and presents the “nationalisation” and change of use of some of the bedestens preserved today.
Keywords: Balkans, bazaar, ethnic markets, Ottoman architecture, Janissaries, textile production
Thede KAHL Professor of South Slavonic and Southeast European Studies Friedrich Schiller University, Jena thede.kahl@uni-jena.de
Valea Cascadelor: constructing and negotiating identities in a Bucharest flea market - Alexandra RUSU
ABSTRACT
The proposed study approaches the subject of marginal urban transactional spaces as places of construction and negotiation of identities. Also, the research can be inscribed in a broader direction of anthropological discourse, in which markets are nodes of complex social processes that facilitate economic transactions but extend beyond them. Specific markets, such as flea markets in urban areas, are embedded in the fabric of the community, “organised around the complex, multistranded relationships that intertwine gender, ethnicity, class and kinship, as well as economic role” (Bestor, 2001, 9228). The flea market, situated in the broader cultural milieu of social values and norms, becoming an arena where various people or groups interact and negotiate identities. “Valea Cascadelor” flea market is an open-air market. This organism adapts to the seasons and holidays. Those interested can buy anything from antiques to cheap substitutes for symbols of social status or everyday objects recovered and reintroduced into the exchange circuit of goods. Diversity defines the range of things and actors, people from all social and professional backgrounds or different ethnicities. This improvised museum of material culture is built by the people who frequent it and by the objects traded, which in turn help to construct the identity of those involved. As a case study, the research presents the history of a small fine art collection (graphics and paintings) composed of artworks bought exclusively from the “Valea Cascadelor” flea market. The interview captures the development of the collection over ten years, the contextual artwork analysis, the evolution of a unique profile-the flea market art collector- (Italian citizen, resident in Romania for 12 years) and the transactional behaviour observation involving identity negotiation on both sides.
Keywords: identity, negotiation, ethnicity, flea market, collection
Alexandra RUSU Curator at Filipescu-Cesianu House, Bucharest Municipality Museum rusu.alexandra.andreea@gmail.com
Across the counter relations: sociability in the farmersʼ markets of Bistrița and Năsăud - Florin DUMITRESCU
ABSTRACT
Based on ethnographic research into the markets in Bistrița and Năsăud and of the work conditions on rural farms, I managed to write an article on economic anthropology to be included in complex society studies. This is meant to demonstrate that the market (agro-market or the fair-market), far from being an essentially commercial area governed by strictly economic parameters (utilitarian ones), is a complex societal institution which extends the Maussian relations (based on reciprocity and mutual assistance) in the village framework, in conjunction with the spirit of sociability and civic-deliberative freedom typical of the urban area; it connects individuals and aggregates networks of easy-going practices; it continues, even if in desacralised forms, certain cultural traditions of a festive-carnivalesque type, focused on topoi as well as on primordial elements, such as nature, abundance, land toiling, etc. This study also tries to follow up on the diachronic evolution of markets in the two cities in a sustainable symbiotic relation with the rural hinterland.
Keywords: farmersʼ market, householding, reciprocity, mutual aid, sociability, third places
Florin DUMITRESCU University of Transylvania, Braşov florin.dumitrescu@unitbv.ro
Bucharest’s markets as places for selling products and ʽexperiencesʼ during the religious and folk holidays of the year - Dorina DRAGNEA (ONICA)
ABSTRACT
The article analyses the variety of items sold on the market during the religious and folk holidays of the year. The field research consists of formal and informal markets in Bucharest, where direct and participant observation, and extended discussions with vendors and buyers, Romanians and Roma, were carried out. The content perspective of the investigation is oriented on reflecting the material items purchased and the consumer experiences, cognitions, and cultural behaviours of the individuals acting in such contexts. The objects of ritual, ceremonial, social, and folk utility express the identity of the individuals and their attempts and ways of the tradition and heritage discovering, of the seller-buyers’ rapports and trading strategies used, and the mechanisms of experiencing collective feelings and attitudes.
Keywords: identity, market offers, cognitions, trading tactics, traditions, ethnicity.
Dorina DRAGNEA (ONICA) National Institute of Heritage, Bucharest, Romania dorinaonica@yahoo.com
Xanthi’s bazaar: historical approach and ethnographic experience of a local market and its culture - Aikaterini MARKOU
ABSTRACT
The paper aims to present a socio-economic and cultural event, the bazaar of Xanthi, the operation of which is linked to various local identities and the glocalized processes that permeate the world of the bazaar. Initially, an attempt is made to examine the bazaar’s evolution within Xanthi’s changing urban space from the end of the 19th century to the present day. We will also focus on the multitude of relationships that connect different types of people with their products, conserving a traditional multiethnic atmosphere in interaction with the consumerism of the current global context. A bazaar is a place of extreme mobility of people, identities and goods. It is where people, goods, different languages, and ethnic and religious identities intersect to create a dynamic mosaic which reconciles the heterogeneity of needs and interests. In economic terms, the bazaar is a market with low- priced products where the value of products changes depending on the cultural context of the communicative exchanges. Furthermore, the bazaar is a performance scene where multilingual speakers transform the place into a linguistic laboratory and a significant cultural capital of the region. This paper is based on historical photographic material and field research with long participant observation in the bazaar, where the centrality of the city shifts to every Saturday.
Keywords: Thrace, bazaar, materialities, value, haggling, multiethnicity, multilingualism
Aikaterini MARKOU AssociateProfessor, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini amarkou@he.duth.gr
Hucksters’ polyglossia: “hostanys”, “pems” and “fribourgers”: an incursion into vendors’ discourse in multilingual markets - Cora SAURER-CHIOREANU
ABSTRACT
The seller’s adjustment to the buyer or the buyer’s friendly attempt to haggle with the seller in different languages could help optimise a transaction. Communities with traditional market vendors, such as the Hoștăzeni, the Pems, the Swabians and the Fribourgers provide a touch of local colour to the markets in their respective cities. For the local world, they still symbolise a world of goods and production that is starting to disappear. The ethnic fairs and markets’ changes in form, volume and the target audience can hasten their disappearance. The above is the case with Christmas markets, which, unfortunately, are almost identical in many of the towns that host them. What makes multilingual markets different? The appeal to the consumer, and the inter-relationships built up over time. In the markets, the customer for the buyer, the client is the absolute target. Very often, the customer becomes interested in visiting the place as a socio-linguistic interaction corner. We all go to the market to talk to each other; we all go to the supermarkets to quickly buy goods. This richness lies in the discourse of the vendors, in the way they adjust their language and non-verbal skills.
This study is devoted to similar discourses in multilingual markets and some contradictory ones, where multilingualism joins polyglossia. It also looks for the differences and similarities in how these acts of language ensure the existence of the markets, thus influencing their evolution and the presence of customers by applying certain linguistic and sales performances.
Keywords: polyglossia, peasant markets, Pems, Swabians, Fribourgers, Hoştăzeni
Cora SAURER-CHIOREANU Berne, Switzerland Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca cornelia.saurer@gmail.com
The work and commercial networks of Bulgarian and Albanian rag and bone traders in the open-air rag and bone market in Athens today - Georgios KOUZAS
ABSTRACT
When most people hear of rag and bone traders, they think of socially and economically marginalised individuals. However, this is a highly distorted picture owed to the media. Rag and bone men began their activities in Athens towards the end of the 1960s. In the early 1990s, they founded a professional body, Hermes, which in 2015 included some 750 members. With the onset of the financial crisis of 2010, several migrants and refugees became resorted to taking up this occupation. As a means of dealing with the insecurity of employment, they turned to gather metal items they found in the streets. In this study, I will focus on the commercial networks of Bulgarian and Albanian rag and bone traders who are active in Athens’s open-air rag and bone market today. They are far from being a marginal group; migrant rag and bone traders make up what is a professional body, with extensive commercial networks in Greece and the Balkans that facilitate the transport of objects, particularly items of folk art, such as carpets, dishes or pieces of wooden furniture, to toony countries in the Balkans and eastern Europe. Most rag and bone traders are involved in collecting metal items, either iron or copper, or old furniture pieces.
Keywords: bazaar, rag and bone traders, Bulgarians, Albanians, commercial networks
Georgios KOUZAS National and Kapodistrian University of Athens gkouzas@phil.uoa.gr
Identity, otherness and commerce in times past Bucharest: „The Flea Market”- Alexandra RUSU
ABSTRACT
“The flea market” was a place intended for the old furniture trade, but also other items that today we generically call second-hand goods, which appeared on the Bucharest trade map in the second half of the 19th century. It was erected in a disadvantaged area, densely populated, marked by the Jewish singularity. For more than half a century (1876-1930), the activity in the flea market, coordinated exclusively by Jewish merchants, had an undeniable role in the capital’s economy. Regarding its image, it was painted in the context of new socio-political realities in the Old Kingdom of Romania, such as the awakening of nationalistic feelings and xenophobia, especially antisemitism. In the last decades of the 19th century, the “Jewish Question” became an intellectual problem with an essential political stake, the emancipation of the Jews being in an irreconcilable position with Romanian nationalism. The anti-Semitic discourse used by the political, intellectual, and cultural elite presented the Jews as unassimilable, anti-national elements that could undermine the Romanian character. Examples from the periphery of life, including the Jewish merchants in Lazăr Street and the “Flea market”, constitute the extreme otherness and a potential danger to the nation’s body, thus emphasizing the opposing nature discourse and favoring an ideology of excluding Jews from Romanian culture and society. The research aims to capture the flea market atmosphere and the image of the Jewish community nearby, as reflected in the writings of some personalities (politicians, historians, prose writers, journalists) of times past Bucharest. The perspectives exhibit a wide range of observations, from objective ones, in contrast to the circulated stereotypes, to subjective ones, filtered through emotions, all pieces of the collective mind’s mosaic. Examples in the press oscillate between fin-de-siècle anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism of the early 20th century, infused with scientific claims, all using the flea market as a symbol of inadequacy for an entire ethnic community.
Keywords: identity, otherness, commerce, nationalism, antisemitism
Alexandra RUSU Curator at Filipescu-Cesianu House. Bucharest Municipality Museum rusu.alexandra.andreea@gmail.com
Property trajectories in socialism: The Bulgarian case - Evgenia KRASTEVA-BLAGOEVA
ABSTRACT
The text presents and analyses the traumatic history of forcible ownership deprivation of the so-called “former people “conducted by the communist Bulgarian rulers. Urban properties, houses and industrial sites were nationalised or partially taken “in the name of the people“; village landowners were forced to give their land to cooperatives. The state policy of “squeezing the city population” ensured homes for thousands of people coming from the countryside. Through in-depth interviews and biographical methods, the victims’ emotions are reconstructed; their ways of coping with trauma and this specific type of personal crisis are shown. Effects on individual identity formation are also traced. The second part of the text examines changes in objects and possessions that occurred after forcible appropriation. Following Appadurai’s concept of the social life of things, the biographical trajectories of these objects and the physical transformations they underwent due to the forcible transfer from their original owners – city dwellers to the former villagers- new urban settlers, members of the Communist party are analysed.
Keywords: socialism, property, nationalisation, objects, trauma, emotions, identity
Evgenia KRASTEVA-BLAGOEVA New Bulgarian University, Sofia evgenia_blagoeva@hotmail.com
Urban ecological semiotics: evidence from Novi Sad and Sofia - Martin HENZELMANN
ABSTRACT
In this article, I highlight the relevance of contemporary urban ecological semiotics. In this context, I demonstrate the significance of the green colour in interaction with language elements in two cities of South-Eastern Europe: Novi Sad in Serbia and Sofia in Bulgaria. Starting with a general part, I present the symbolic power of the colouronym “green” in the context of natural phenomena. Then I introduce the research tradition of Semiotic Landscapes, on which the study is based in terms of methodology. The theory of Semiotic Landscapes questions the interaction of language, visual, and other impressions. I evaluate six concrete examples which combine shades of green with language use. Analysing these examples, I show the meaning of the colour “green” in the respective context, and I discuss this against the background of urban reality. Finally, I summarise the findings and argue that using green colour in combination with linguistic units is primarily associated with positive qualities in both urban centres.
Keywords: semiotic landscapes, green city, Novi Sad, Sofia, language in public space
Martin HENZELMANN Institute for Slavic Studies, University of Greifswald martin.henzelmann@uni-jena.de
Coronavirus and challenges to refugees’ resilience in Weimar, Germany - Ruweida ALJABALI, Frank ECKARDT
ABSTRACT
Corona came and hit the world while it’s already been undergoing several other challenges and problems to its resilience and sustainability. These global North and South crises have heavily affected people experiencing poverty and refugees. This research investigates the challenges to refugees’ resilience in Weimar, Germany. To conceptualise these challenges, we conducted 12 interviews with refugees and another 4 with relief workers in Weimar, Germany, between June-August 2020. The displaced reported many challenges: language and integration, bureaucracy, health and personnel, housing and refugee status, and social support obstacles. As these challenges are interrelated, their impacts on each individual and family have been different, and thus the level of refugees’ resilience has varied.
Keywords: refugees, coronavirus, resilience, social resilience, Germany, Weimar.
Ruweida ALJABALI Bauhaus University Weimar ruweida.akram.aljabali@uni-weimar.de
Frank ECKARDT Bauhaus University Weimar frank.eckardt@uni-weimar.de
The Urban Anthropology Journal Nr.19 (2022)
Journal of Urban Anthropology - Nr.19 (2022) - CONTENTS
EDITORIAL
Maps of the future: predictive cartography, Adrian Majuru
THEMATIC DOSSIER
Verum morphosis or the birth of Subjective Reality (Hyperreality), Ferencz Bakos
The future as an « agreeable fiction », Adrian Majuru
How can architecture cure loneliness?, Lapca Bogdan
URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY
Informal living – the concept of informal living –, Dumitrescu Ana Bogdana Water Shortage, Cristina Bianca Togoe
SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Residential mobility of young people, Simina Rădoi
Reintroducing disadvantaged districts into the urban fabric, Alexandra Lungu
MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
From the ubiquity of „misery” to selective waste collection A brief geography of Bucharest hygiene and sanitation, Alexandra-Andreea Rusu
BOOK REVIEWS
Noreena Hertz, Secolul singurătății. O pledoarie pentru relațiile interumane, Bucureşti, Humanitas, 2021, Alexandra-Andreea Rusu
EDITORIAL - Maps of the future: predictive cartography - Dr. Adrian MAJURU
Romania lacks a ‘map of the future’. And this mapping of the future is entirely up to the human factor. It represents a continued investment in the human factor. As Spiru Haret used to say, “The way school looks today, is the way the country will look tomorrow”. During the last thirty years of freedom of opinion and attitude, there have been and still are very few positive steps backed up by constructive arguments, with clear milestones and stages to be followed.1 Reconnecting with reality is made possible by investing in people because excellence and competence do not depend on the size of the country but on its education system. It needs to change. The second clear option for reconnecting with reality is to re-skill the workforce. The profession must become the critical mass of political decision- making: career performance precedes political office. To this must be added the confidence gained within active generations, by real leaders, who can then exercise the decision-making function by delegating the vote and the political decision. The latter becomes honorary rather than remunerated and the decision-making levers can acquire more social and professional value for the generations that follow. At the opposite end of the spectrum is a pragmatic reality: that the 21st century will be marked by those who know best how to make the most of science, how to anticipate and use a minimum of resources to achieve maximum results. The present is at least questionable from the perspective of Romania catching up with the differences in civilization, professionalism and technology over a generation, even comparing to close neighbours such as the Czech Republic, Poland or Slovenia. The starting point for today’s young people, teenagers or students, is not at all positive and the state’s recovery will have to be made via unconditional support for professional skills and civic and moral integrity. Schools will have to “prepare students for this purpose. Educated in this way, not all will become elites, but all will become a nation. Respect for values is cultivated, starting in school, when you learn to respect others for what they can do and learn to be respected by others for what you can do”.2 The children or grandchildren of some of us will be between 20 and 30 years old. Others will pass that threshold. First of all, they will wake up in a world with a shrinking demographic, especially in terms of the working population. At the age of senescence, in another 20 or 30 years’ time, they will discover that their country will probably have 16.9 million inhabitants (according to UNDP data) or 15.5 million inhabitants (based on INS data). Then, senescence will pose a real problem in terms of maintenance and costs, and our children of today, the elderly of the future, will represent 5.1 million compared to only 3.2 million today. Our children today, as they become adults, will differ from us primarily because they will not have the memory of the Cold War, the regression of everyday life within a tyranny or the memory of the victory of the “free world” and, as a result, they will have different ideological and political voting sensibilities as well as a different relationship with the state. The world they are preparing to enter will be (and already is) dominated by invisible enemies, unimaginable to us 40 or 50 years ago, as it is the specificity of a “terrorist, infiltrated, fanatical and global” everyday life that can “justify from their point of view the renunciation of certain birth rights, such as the right to privacy”. Why is investment in technology, knowledge, innovation, education and advanced tech needed now? Because, in the case of the young generations Y and Z, “with the massive use of mobile and digital technologies, their brain capacities seem to increase”, i.e. “they seem to have the ability to process information more easily at the same time, and not sequentially. This would make them better suited to complex multi-tasking activities”.3 Changes will occur rapidly and synchronicity will mean variety above all. The impact will be devastating for societies unprepared for this leap and will thus become secondary exploitation options for winners, either for resources or for cheap labour. As indeed our country currently stands. The theme of this 19th issue of RAU is Maps of the future: predictive cartography and aims to become a space for opinions about the future, regardless of the themes addressed or the perspectives described. It is a theme open to any professional dynamic, which can be represented by a predictable mapping of the future destined for a profession or a social or cultural phenomenon. 1 – Among the critical approaches to Romanian society and its elites, we mention the following works: Sorin Adam Matei, Boierii minții. Romanian intellectuals between prestige groups and the free market of ideas, Compania, 2004; Adrian Gavrilescu, Noii precupeți. Public intellectuals in Romania after 1989, Compania, 2006; Andrei Marga, Governing and Governance (A Turn of Democracy?), Compania, 2013 2- Mircea Platon, Deșcolarizarea României. Scopurile, cartitele și arhitecții reformei învățământului românesc, Ideea Europeană, Bucharest, 2020, p.5. 3 – “(…) the media frequently talks about the transformation of young people under 30: it seems that they will indeed be the first specimens of new stages in human evolution”, and, as a result, “those who govern must understand how the thinking, visions and representations of their descendants are constructed in order to accompany them in their progress and avoid intergenerational ruptures”
Verum morphosis or the birth of Subjective Reality (Hyperreality) - Ferencz BAKOS
ABSTRACT
With the pandemic, the world is going through a watershed event that calls into question the very system of human beliefs and values. In this context, the imbalances and shortcomings of society only heighten the tension and accelerate the processes of impending change. Man is changing, human behaviour is changing, the city is changing. We are witnessing a third revolution in the development of humanity, after the agrarian and industrial revolutions. This time we are talking about the technological revolution and the changes it brings are certain to be profound, even irreversible.
This article discusses some of the emerging and possible consequences of one of these new technologies, AR (Augmented Reality), for architecture and urbanism in the context of augmented space. It brings into question the paradigm change in spatial design with new developments in AR, and introduce AR as a theoretical and practical tool for architects in which to understand current and future changes in the occupation and construction of the city.
Key words: reality, objective reality, human, evolution, senses, augmentation, augmented reality, city, subjectiv reality, hyperreality.
Ferencz BAKOS
Faculty of Architecture of the University of Architecture and Urbanism “Ion Mincu” gratuated in Planning Master of urban and design planning
E-mail: ferencz.bakos@gmail.com
The future as an « agreeable fiction » - Dr. Adrian MAJURU
Romania lacks a “map of the future”. And this mapping of the future is a matter for the human factor alone. It is the continued investment in the human factor. As Spiru Haret used to say in his time, “How the school looks today, the country will look tomorrow”. In the last thirty years of freedom of opinion and attitude, there have been and still are very few positive steps backed up by constructive arguments, with clear milestones and stages to be followed.
The reconnection to reality is built by investing in people because excellence and competence do not depend on the size of the country, but on its education system. It needs to change. The second clear option for reconnecting to reality is to re-skill the workforce.
Dr. Adrian MAJURU
Museum of Bucharest
How can architecture cure loneliness? - Bogdan LAPCA
ABSTRACT
This article examines the impact of loneliness on our mental health and show show architecture can be the solution to this imminent danger. It shows how today’s life is different from the past and in what direction everyday life is heading as a result of globalization. It recognizes the role that urban planners and architects play in influencing mental health and what are the solutions by which the effects of loneliness can be eliminated. In an attempt to solve the problems of loneliness in the urban environment, four different approaches are presented that can play an important role in reducing the effects of loneliness.
Key words: loneliness, architecture, mental health, design
Bogdan LAPCA
Faculty of Architecture of the University of Architecture and Urbanism “Ion Mincu”
gratuated in Planning Master of urban and design planning
E-mail: bogdanlapca@yahoo.com
Informal living – the concept of informal living – Ana Bogdana DUMITRESCU
ABSTRACT
The scale of the informal housing phenomenon in Romania is fueled by the lack of a legislative framework (Romania is the only country in the European Union that conditions property identity). Lack of data and interest in this topic exacerbates the problems associated with this type of settlement (lack of housing, social exclusion, lack of access to public infrastructure, lack of social benefits, overcrowding, reduced quality of life, illiteracy, hygiene and health issues, etc.). Thus, the phenomenon is growing and endangers the safety and health of the resident population.
The phenomenon of informal living in Romania is a topic addressed recently, there are very few studies on this topic. The present paper has as justification the understanding of the subject, of the catalysts and of the importance of improving the propagation of the phenomenon by referring to a case study from Romania.
Key words: overcrowding, social exclusion, scale of the phenomenon, scale, catalysts, undefined topics, regulations, marginalization
Ana Bogdana DUMITRESCU
The University of Arhitecture and Urban Planning “Ion Mincu” – Bucharest
Discipline: Anthropology Urban Faculty of Urbanism – Cycle II
Master Urban Management for Competitive Cities
Residential mobility of young people - Simina RĂDOI
ABSTRACT
The transition to adulthood is a time marked with changes. Residential change is one of the most important among them. What are the implications of residential mobility in this crucial period of life? Access to affordable housing is a challenge in itself, regardless of age, and it is even more challenging among young people, as affordable housing that meets their needs is crucial for the proper development of a family physically, mentally and emotionally.
Key words: residential mobility, affordable housing, young people
Simina RĂDOI
University of Architecture and Urbanism “Ion Mincu” Master of Urban Design, Faculty of Urbanism
E-mail: simina.radoi@yahoo.com
Reintroducing disadvantaged districts into the urban fabric - Alexandra LUNGU
ABSTRACT
Along with the increasing urbanization of cities, urban development management has been hampered, or in a best-case scenario, limited. In metropolises, without efficient management of built spaces and town area, things can get out of hand easily. This is the case for disadvantaged districts, also called “ghettos” or notorious neighborhoods. What does this mean for cities and how can these districts be reintroduced in the city when, right now, they represent a barrier, a border inside the city? The Danish government has started in 2004 a series of initiatives to solve the “problem areas” situation. The complete strategy was published in 2010, called “The Danish Ghetto Strategy”, a document created in order to regulate disadvantaged areas, its purpose being diminishing the socio-economic differences between living areas. The Danish Initiatives can have a favorable result in further developing methods, policies, and strategies for increasing the quality of living areas, the shared perspective on notorious neighborhoods, improving the urban image, and the social repercussions of living in such a neighborhood. This article will focus on the successful case of Rosenhøj district in Denmark and how this strategy model can be applied in Romania.
Key words: urbanization, management, ghetto, Denmark, strategy
Alexandra LUNGU, Student
Faculty of Architecture of the University of Architecture and Urbanism “Ion Mincu”. Urban Planner, Urban Management
E-mail: alexandra.alex.1997@gmail.com
From the ubiquity of „misery” to selective waste collection A brief geography of Bucharest hygiene and sanitation - Alexandra-Andreea RUSU
ABSTRACT
Nowadays, waste, understood as ecological and utilitarian waste, resulting from the manufacturing process, and from using goods or utilities, is not perceived as a critical challenge, an urgent socio-ecological problem for Bucharest administrators and most of its inhabitants. Hidden or exposed, waste talks about the contrast between European aspiration and the reality of indifference. The present research meets the imperative of awareness, by studying Bucharest sanitation conditions in the past 300 years, a historical and anthropological approach. Only by identifying recurring difficulties in managing public hygiene, observing successful projects developed by several administrations or by understanding the mechanism that changed habits, we can formulate solutions for a more responsible Bucharest. We notice how, a solid legislative basis, the determination of some actors (doctors, politicians), dwellers aid to eradicate or to establish public hygiene practices, gradually isolated the sight of waste and misery outside the city, in dedicated spaces. The next step on Bucharest future map is to raise awareness on waste ubiquity, even if hidden from our senses, a reality that requires the „collective spirit” activation to reduce the effects of pollution.
Keywords: hygiene, sanitation, health law, industrial hygiene, centre- periphery, selective waste collection
Alexandra-Andreea RUSU
Curator. Filipescu-Cesianu House. Bucharest Municipality Museum
E-mail: rusu.alexandra.andreea@gmail.com
The Urban Anthropology Journal Nr.18 (2022)
Journal of Urban Anthropology - Nr.18 (2022) - CONTENTS
EDITORIAL – George Cristian Curca
An anthropological perspective on the latest respiratory pandemics: our future response
INTRODUCTION – Modernization, urbanization and medicalization in Romania by the end of the 19th century and the Interwar period, Octavian Buda
THEMATIC DOSSIER
Professor Cantacuzino: Pasteurian and Romanian Patron of the Arts, Steluţa Boroghină, Octavian Buda
Tuberculosis – a social disease of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. History and evolution, Ionuţ-Alexandru Banu
“Invalids of the Great War. Medical assistance, moral guidance and vocational education” Mădălina-Ioana Manolache
Secluded body – liberated body – Sequences of female body emancipation in Old Kingdom Romania, Alexandra Rusu
Fighting the Shame: Physicians, Priests, and Venereal Diseases in Romania, 1853-1874, Lidia Trăuşan-Matu, Octavian Buda
URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY
Văcăreşti area – The memory of a “place” of urban, historical, social and symbolic – community pressures, Atena-Ioana Gârjoabă, Cerasella Crăciun
Micro-events in the public space – The art of street performances, Monica-Gabriela Amuza
SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
The disappearance of an urban breed: Bucharest cinemas, Antonia Panaitescu
Balcony and intimacy. A research of urban anthropology on the balconies of Bucharest, Horia Bârloiu, Mocanu Sînziana
MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Is pole dance an empowering sport or a matter of female objectification? Critical perspectives on pole sport, sexuality and art expression, Adela-Cătălina Marian
REVIEWS
Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, Alexandra Rusu
Matei Eugen Stoean, Ctitorii ale oamenilor liberi. Arhitectura bisericilor de zid ale românilor din zonele de graniță dintre Oltenia, Muntenia și Transilvania (1700-1850) [Foundations of free people. Stone architecture of liminal churches between Oltenia, Wallachia and Transylvania, 1700-1850], with a preface by Hanna Derer, Bucharest: ACS Publishing House, 2021, 396 p., with illustrations [in Romanian], Simona Drăgan
EDITORIAL - Public Spaces: Places of the City, Places of Memory- Cătălin D. CONSTANTIN - University of Bucharest, PhD in Philology, PhD in Architecture
A city can be read just as one reads a book. The ‘letters’ in this book are the buildings, the street plans, the marks left on constructions over time, the ways in which people walk around and navigate the city, how vehicles move about in the urban space. Cities are a mixture of people and buildings, and the relationship between the community and the built environment is more complicated than it might initially appear. People make buildings, and, over time, these constructions and the spaces between them form cities. Over time, cities acquire their own identities. They decisively influence the ways of being, acting, and thinking of the people who inhabit them. The relationship between a community and its spaces features multiple and stratified nuances, which are not always immediately apparent. In The City Assembled, Spiro Kostoff affirms that even though public space is a somewhat unclear concept, as it is often difficult to draw a clear line between public and private, these two aspects of urban life underline the relevance of the idea of public space. We cross the city to meet friends and acquaintances, S. Kostof states, on a park bench, in a square, in front of a cathedral. But everyone, he adds, can choose when and how they arrive, thus exposing themselves to unexpected situations along the way, meeting anyone and encountering the gestures of strangers. Public space is, first and foremost, a stage for daily life, as much for the familiar as for the unusual. Our freedom to act or to remain inactive is intrinsically linked to the existence of public spaces as territories of everyday life. On the other hand, public spaces can also be stages for rituals. They host a wide variety of community activities – from concerts and festivals to religious ceremonies, historical and political celebrations, and even, in older times, public executions. Thus, public spaces carry the marks of a city’s memory. The ways in which these spaces are conceived, structured, embellished with monuments, capable of glorifying moments or characters belonging to the place’s history, all contribute to the ritualistic character of public spaces. A reality with a fluid geometry, a public space is witness to continuities and ruptures, to the history of architectural fashions, trends and archetypes, while also comprising the volatile images of the societies that created or experienced it during particular periods. As in Honoré de Balzac’s novels, foregoing the separation of territorial descriptions from descriptions of the communities that shaped them, the memory of places is, in fact, the memory of those who have engaged with those spaces. And the landmarks of this memory are monumental, perceived as links between generations, as instruments prompting an influx of memories and artefacts attempting to resist the perishability of things. The columns, statues and arches of antiquity are now often replaced with other types of structures intended to make absence present, to bring the fragments of yesterday into today. Public spaces give birth to a plethora of interpretations from a range of fields, from history, architecture and urbanism, from sociology and urban anthropology, to philosophy, politics, geocriticism and communication studies. Memory, S. Freud wrote in Civilisation and Its Discontents, is structured like a city. The example he proposed was Rome, because it has physically maintained the layers of its developments through time. One century after Freud, we can reverse the terms of his comparison. A city is like a memory that carries the multiple layers of its previous incarnations, and public spaces shine a discrete spotlight on these superimposed urban lives. The above excerpts were taken from the call for contributions to the 6th International Conference of Urban Anthropology. I wrote these lines1 at the end of 2019, when my friend, the historian Adrian Majuru, director of the Museum of Bucharest, suggested that I choose the theme for this edition, and entrusted me with its coordination. At that point, I could not have imagined that public spaces across the world would soon become empty, completely redefining their status; that squares and cities would be overtaken by a virus which, although present, still seemed very far away; that private spaces would become prisons for many, and that public spaces would become inaccessible, generating tension and fear. When the virus spread to Europe and countries shut down overnight, I was less frightened and more bewildered by the virus, terrified, even, by the rapid suppression of people’s banal and essential rights to move freely through public space, to travel between free countries. In March 2020, when a state of emergency was declared in Romania, and access to public spaces was restricted, I felt this moment of border closure more intensely, because I had a ticket to go to Rome to install an exhibition there about urban squares. Suddenly, the subject of the conference had become strangely topical, but the conference could no longer take place, at least not as I had planned it. In order to inclusively and spatially illustrate the interdisciplinarity of the theme, the conference was to have taken place in November 2020, in parallel locations at the Suțu Palace, the Faculty of Letters and the “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism. Of course, it was postponed, and I decided not to organize the presentations online. Even in April 2021, our second suggested date, it was not possible to organize the event in situ. The conference had been planned in partnership with the University of Valladolid, one of the oldest academic institutions in Spain and in the world. And from Valladolid—the city of the famous Controversy of 1550, which has major significance for the history of anthropology and human rights—we expected more participants, consisting of a small Spanish team coordinated by the anthropologist Mercedes Cano Herrera, who, kind as ever, had begun to study Romanian especially for this conference. However, in April 2021, trips to and from Spain would have required two weeks of isolation. This issue of the Journal of Urban Anthropology is a signal to the general public and to the conference registrants – over 100 of them – that the conference will take place in situ, safely, as soon as possible. The volume comprises, with one exception, articles that the contributors had planned to present during the conference. Some of the topics have been updated to reflect what has happened and what is currently happening in public spaces. In the journal, they compose the thematic corpus, but they can also be found in the Social Anthropology and Urban Anthropology sections, to preserve the usual structure of the Journal. The one exception is the extraordinary testimonial essay in the Health Anthropology column, written especially for the Journal of Urban Anthropology by Dr. Cristina Oprea, associate professor at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacology, and primary physician at the Victor Babeş Clinical Hospital for Infectious and Tropical Diseases in Bucharest. Hers is an extremely interesting, personal and direct account of how the pandemic was experienced by a front-line doctor fighting against the virus. It is a story written by a battlefield hero. 1 The text of this call benefited from the very helpful suggestions of my colleague at the Faculty of Letters in Bucharest, Cristina Bogdan, Ph.D., member of the Scientific Committee and the Organizing Committee of the International Conference of Urban Anthropology; therefore it should not be understood exclusively as a “single-authored text”, although the first version belongs to me.
INTRODUCTION Modernization, urbanization and medicalization in Romania by the end of the 19th century and the Interwar period - Octavian Buda Chair History of Medicine/Carol Davila University Bucharest
The medical history in Eastern Europe in general and in Romania, in particular, has received little attention from historians. The history of this region, due to massive political shifts, brought new opportunities for national schools of medicine but also disrupted scientific networks following the European wars of the 19th century and in particular two World Wars. Medical knowledge, like the spread of diseases, does not respect borders; therefore, its history must capture all elements generating this spread, which includes the exchange, reception and implementation of medical ideas. Detailed regional studies, not restricted to national boundaries, are still required today to uncover the pathways and processes behind the construction of medical knowledge in modern societies. Medicalization is usually studied from sociology and history perspectives, which emphasise the role and power of professionals, patients, and social needs. It also analyses the consequences of the prevailing concepts of health and illness on the citizens. Once a condition is classified as medical, a medical model of disease and disability tends to be used in correspondence to a social model.
We discuss here about the formation and practices of “medicalization” in the modern Romanian society, in a European context by looking into the discourses of medical practices. By looking in detail at the Romanian case, such as dealing with society and medical assistance, venereal diseases, tuberculosis etc. our project seeks to contribute to a largely uncharted medical and social history based on concepts of medicalization and modernity through the complex interchanges between medicine, scientific discourse, law enforcement and social needs in modern Europe.
We focus on biographies of physicians involved in the process of Romania’s path into Western standards throughout the 19th century, and related medical narratives: Victor Babeş, Ion Cantacuzino, Mina Minovici, Ştefan Irimescu, Gheorghe Banu, etc. At the same time, by inventorying health policies through which the state operated in the healthcare of the Romanian territories, we can have a better view on medical prevention, invalidity and social support, anti-epidemic measures, and so on.
There is always a complex nature of the generation of medical knowledge and political and intellectual discourses. Following the Foucauldian emphasis on the dynamic character of the networks, they are structured on how medical knowledge is produced and negotiated in the public sphere. Creating new insights into the study of how scholarly paradigms, legislation, and institutional interactions, in general, do occur in different Romanian historical periods, through systematic research of a particular national context (as the Romanian case) as well as through engaging with new methodologies, the special issue tries to offer a fresh approach of the stimulating recent inquiries on important issues like medicalization, legislation, medical narratives, scientific modernity and social values in history.
Octavian Buda
Chair History of Medicine/Carol Davila University Bucharest/
Professor Cantacuzino: Pasteurian and Romanian Patron of the Arts - Steluţa Boroghină & Octavian Buda, Chair History of Medicine, Carol Davila University Bucharest
ABSTRACT
A “Pasteurian” – initiator of the Romanian school of microbiology, author of the so- called “great Romanian experience” during an cholera epidemic in 1913, Ioan Cantacuzino (1863-1931) was also political personality with a historical role in making The Greater Romania after the post-war treaty of 1920. The next year, he initiated in Bucharest an Institute for vaccines and immunizing serum according, playing a major role in vaccination policies in Romania. An avid art collector, he interacted with art critics Henri Focillon, Louis- Eugène-Georges Hautecœur, Georges Opresco.
Steluţa Boroghină
Chair History of Medicine, Carol Davila University Bucharest
Octavian Buda
Chair History of Medicine, Carol Davila University Bucharest
Key words: Microbiology, Medical modernization, Eastern Europe post 1918, Art collecting
Tuberculosis – a social disease of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. History and evolution. - Ionuţ-Alexandru Banu Museographer – Dr. Nicolae Minovici Museum of Folk Art/Bucharest
ABSTRACT
Through this paper I tried to approach from a historical and chronological point of view, one of the diseases of the last century. The study is structured to highlight both the concerns of the “Society for Tuberculosis Prophylaxis and Assistance of Poor Tuberculosis” and to recall the pioneering work in the field of pneumology from its inception until the creation of the “Clinical Institute of Physiology” in 1962.
The fight against tuberculosis or “the disease of the romantic century,” as it was called, was a social disease, “considered a bohemian suffering, attendant of love in an age when finding out that you have tuberculosis was tantamount to an early death sentence.”
If by the middle of the 19th century, 25% of deaths were caused by this disease, by the middle of the next century the number of deaths from this cause had decreased by up to 90%. With the changes in the public health system and the emmergence of the BCG vaccine (Calmette – Guérin bacillus vaccine) in 1921, the incidence of tuberculosis was reduced even before antibiotics were used. However, the disease remained a threat to public health, creating intense concern in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, being considered a social chronic disease of the poor.
Ionuţ-Alexandru Banu
Museographer – Dr. Nicolae Minovici Museum of Folk Art/Bucharest Municipality Museum/Urban Anthropology Department,
Ionuţ-Alexandru Banu is a graduate of the Faculty of History, Ethnology Department at Babes-Bolyai University, he is passionate about ethnology and urban anthropology, focusing his study on the activity of Dr. Nicolae Minovici and on the collection in the museum.
Key words: tuberculosis, social illness, BCG vaccine, social assistance, Mina Minovici.
“Invalids of the Great War. Medical assistance, moral guidance and vocational education” - Mădălina-Ioana Manolache, PhD candidate – UNArte Bucharest
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the methods of medical and professional assistance of Romanian invalids who participated in the Great War. The program designed by orthopedic doctor Ion Ghiulamila within the “Society of War Invalids” was based on the concept of work assistance. Thus, many disabled people were trained for various trades, including the making of traditional artifacts, which were later exhibited at fairs and exhibitions. The promises of the authorities regarding the financial aid of the war victims created the most inconveniences.
Mădălina-Ioana Manolache,
PhD candidate – UNArte Bucharest, museographer – Dr. Nicolae Minovici Museum of Folk Art
Urban Anthropology Department manolachemadalinaa@gmail.com
Manolache Mădălina-Ioana is a museographer at the “Nicolae Minovici” Museum in Bucharest and a PhD candidate at the National University of Arts (UNArte Bucharest), where she researches the atmosphere of the first half of the twentieth century regarding national culture, especially in the fields of collecting and applied arts.
Key words: Invalids of the Great War, work assistance, dr. Nicolae Minovici, nationalist discourse.
Secluded body – liberated body Sequences of female body emancipation in Old Kingdom Romania - Alexandra-Andreea Rusu Urban Anthropology Department
ABSTRACT
The present paper highlights some of the contrasts and inconsistencies accompanying women’s emancipation process in the Old Kingdom of Romania. In the second half of the 19th-century, Romanian society witnessed a paradigm shift best translated into the increasingly active role of women in society. It wasn’t a sudden change in women’s status but a gradual adaptation of the collective mind to new cultural contexts (political, social, economic, technological). Withal, the women’s emancipation movement can be understood as part of the modernization puzzle, “the best of all worlds,” requiring the full involvement of both sexes. Urban elite representatives, organized in feminist societies, campaigned for women’s civil and political rights, overcoming the official discourse centered on the “natural” differences between men and women. Another battle was fought to dismiss the socially constructed gender differences that destined men to public spaces and power roles while women remained cloistered in their homes. In other words, the Romanian society was willing to cultivate the woman only in her capacity as a mother (metaphorically, mother of the nation), wife, and good Christian, and less as a full-fledged citizen.
As Romanian society matures and culture increases, the “feminist cause” gains more consistency, advocating for legal and economic equality, followed by political rights. Also, by navigating the list of permissions and prohibitions, women found new ways to overcome the sexual division of roles.
Alexandra-Andreea Rusu
Urban Anthropology Department
rusu.alexandra.andreea@gmail.com
Alexandra Rusu graduated from the Doctoral School of the National University of Arts in Bucharest, obtaining a doctorate in Fine Arts and Decorative Arts. She is currently working as a curator at Casa Filipescu-Cesianu (Bucharest Municipality Museum), the first museum of urban anthropology in Romania. Her research focuses on dress history and anthropological perspectives on traditional weaving techniques. In her writings, she also addresses social history and urban anthropology issues, with Bucharest as a case study. She is (co-) author of several articles, collective contributions, e-books and is a member of the Union of Fine Artists in Romania (UFAR) respectively The Association of Dress Historians (UK).
Key words: women’s rights movement, feminism, biologic determinism, cultural determinism, conflicting morals, paradigm shift.
Fighting the Shame: Physicians, Priests, and Venereal Diseases in Romania, 1853-1874 - Lidia Trăişan-Matu & Octavian Buda - Chair History of Medicine, Carol Davila University Bucharest
ABSTRACT
Romanian Principalities, as in many other places around the world, before the state took the initiative to medicalize the population, the church was the one concerned with the fate of the sick and infirm, of helpless elders and orphans, the poor, widows and pilgrims. This fact is not accidental, considering that religious teachings sought to instill the virtue of compassion and emphasized the obligation of rich people to help the poor or needy. In addition, from the middle Ages until the end of the 18th century, the dominant disease and therapy mindset was religious.
Lidia Trăişan-Matu,
Chair History of Medicine, Carol Davila University Bucharest
Octavian Buda
Chair History of Medicine, Carol Davila University Bucharest
Key words: venereal disease, medical modernization, eastern europe mid 19th century, religious debates
Văcărești area – The memory of a „place” of urban, historical, social and symbolic-community pressures - Atena-Ioana Gârjoabă &
ABSTRACT
The research will explore the evolution of the current Văcăreşti Protected Landscape and its surroundings in Bucharest, in terms of place memory, which has been an area of urban, historical, social, symbolic and community pressures since the communist era. The evolution of the Văcăreşti Monastery area, followed by the construction of the lake, led to the deepening of an already deep “wound”, visible in the urban morphotypology, producing a drama for the inhabitants of the area.
The analysis of the historical evolution of the urban fabric highlights all the pressures to which the area of the current park and its vicinity were subjected, but also all the constraints that those who built here later did not have, or did not take into account – from the demolition of the houses for the construction of the lake to the constructions that were recently made in the area. Although since 2015, the area has been declared a protected landscape through the sustained efforts of the association, volunteers and specialists, the pressure on the park continues today.
The paper aims to investigate how this area can become a real “development vector” today, from an urban-functional point of view, which could be its future evolution and how it can be (re) brought and preserved symbolically to its architectural-historical past, in the conscience of the community, at the level of the quasi-natural, anthropic and cultural landscape.
Atena-Ioana Gârjoabă
PhD Candidate – The Doctoral Programme in Urbanism, “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, Romania,
Cerasella Crăciun
Full Proffesor, PhD, Architect, Urban and Landscape Planner, The Faculty of Urban Planning, “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and
Urbanism, Bucharest, Romania, cerasellacraciun@gmail.com
Key words: natural protected area, heritage, communism, cultural landscape, urban fabric, urban pressures, conservation
MICRO-EVENTS IN THE PUBLIC SPACE The art of street performances - drd.urb.peis. Monica-Gabriela Amuza The Doctoral School of Urban Planning . IOSUD – UAUIM
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this work is to investigate the significance of the public space as a stage for art performances and spontaneous street events. How do these events shape public spaces and how do they contribute to the urban life? Street performers have drawn large crowds for as long as public spaces have existed. They are known as “buskers” and they can be found all over the world. The streets are fundamentally unpredictable, and the presence of buskers can provide an unexpected experience for passers-by, breaking the monotony of everyday life. Buskers are able to turn a public space into their own stage, and they frequently attract both tourists and locals. They are not, however, universally liked. They constantly deal with the authorities, who are confronted with problems caused by mass tourism, damages to the public space, noise pollution etc. Buskers must follow regulations in order to generate quality content that improves the quality of the public space. What happens to these artists when humanity faces a pandemic that restricts interaction with the public space and demands social distancing? As a result, the goal of this work is to understand how these art performances shape public spaces and what challenges both performers and authorities face in creating quality urban spaces. The paper investigates the regulations on street performances in various cities, and the findings indicate that stringent guidelines hinder performers. However, as long as they are allowed to express their artistic freedom, street buskers can follow codes of conduct and, in the long run, contribute to a place’s identity.
Key words: public space, micro-events, street Art Performance, regulations, street buskers.
The disappearance of an urban breed: Bucharest cinemas - Antonia Panaitescu UAUIM, Facultaty of Urbanism
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the evolution of cinemas in Bucharest in order to understand the shrinking process that has been happening since 1989 to present day. The cinema is addressed as a place, as a deeply social urban space, taking into consideration its other connotations nonetheless, like the cinema as a refuge, as art or as entertainment. Therefore, the first part includes a brief history of cinema in Bucharest since the occurrence of cinema in Romanian territories, to present: emergence, expansion (interwar vs. communism) and decline (the fading of the cinema from within the city and moving in the malls). The second part of the text, the theoretical approach, lists and explains the potential advantages of classic cinema as part of the urban fabric, either centrally, peripherally or pericentrally located. Eventually, the third part encompasses a personal perspective on the extinction phenomenon of classic cinema, along with a proposal for future development.
Balcony and intimacy. A research of urban anthropology on the balconies of Bucharest - Horia Bârloiu & Mocanu Sînziana - Universitatea din Bucureşti, Facultatea de Sociologie şi Asistență Socială
ABSTRACT
This paper talks about the balcony, intimacy and self. These three words that seem to have nothing in common are related from an urban anthropological perspective. The balcony is either an inner or an outer annex of the house. Between the four walls of the house people in general feel sheltered, feel the privacy of their own home. This is how the balcony becomes the border between the city and home privacy. Like any other room of the dwelling and balcony is arranged. The way it is used can say a lot about the owner’s self. In this article we explore the use, mysticism and charm of the balcony as a refuge from urban viewers.
Key words: balconies, intimacy, self, urban anthropology, interior design, city.
Is pole dance an empowering sport or a matter 155 of female objectification? Critical perspectives on pole sport, sexuality and art expression - Adela-Cătălina Marian Copywriter and Intercultural Management Master’s student, UNESCO Chair, University of Bucharest
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the increasing popularity of pole dance as a leisure activity for women. Over the past few years, pole dance has become both a highly acclaimed and controversial form of exercise, with people debating its definition, whether it is a sport, an art, or an element of “raunch culture” where women portray a hyper-sexualized version of femininity. To understand whether pole dance is an empowering act or a matter of female objectification, the author conducted qualitative research involving three pole dance studios in Bucharest. The interviews comprised open-ended questions which allowed us to explore the “pole phenomenon” from an “insider’s” point of view. The participants were asked about their endeavors into the pole world, as well as the way this sport has impacted their overall lifestyle and self-esteem. Although pole dance is increasingly viewed as fitness or art-focused activity requiring great strength and flexibility, performers are nonetheless stigmatized as strippers or sex workers. This article analyzes pole dance through a variety of conceptual lenses: dance anthropology, embodiment, and gendered power.
Adela-Cătălina Marian has graduated from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Romanian Language and Literature and Russian Language and Literature. She has continued her academic path with a Master’s Degree in Public Relations and Advertising at the University of New South Wales Australia. During her stay in Australia, she has developed a keen interest in acrobatics and contemporary dance. Therefore, her research focuses primarily on body and dance anthropology. She is currently enrolled in her second Master’s Degree in Intercultural Management at UNESCO Chair. Her writings regard pole dance and aerial arts as beneficial leisure activities for self-esteem. Pole dance, especially, had a negative reputation for a prolonged period of time, therefore, her goal is to demonstrate first of all, that this is a sport and a unique way of expressing one’s femininity, while providing an excellent body conditioning. Adela Marian is currently working for Bookzone Publishing as a copywriter, while attending semi- professional acrobatics classes.
Key words: pole dance, pole art, sexuality, embodiment, feminism, sport, dance anthropology, culture, gendered power.
The Urban Anthropology Journal Nr.17 (2021)
Journal of Urban Anthropology - Nr.17 (2021) - CONTENTS
EDITORIAL – Cătălin D. Constantin
- Public Spaces: Places of the City, Places of Memory
- Espacios públicos: lugares de la ciudad, lugares de la memoria
THEMATIC DOSSIER
- Transformaciones temporales de los espacios públicos: urbanismo efímero y dialéctica social, Carlos Hugo Soria Cáceres
- El espacio ritual de las cofradías de penitencia en Granada (España) durante el Antiguo Régimen. Un acercamiento desde la documentación de archivo, Francisco Javier Crespo Muñoz
- Social Behavior and Municipal Public Parks in the 19th and Early 20th Century in Romania, Alexandru Mexi
- Lenin in Antarctica. Public Space and Monumental Narrative at the Pole of Inaccessibility, Ciprian Tudor
- Death of a Lifestyle: The Street Life of Bucharest’s Jewish Neighborhoods, Felicia Waldman
- Lockdowns: the Hyperconnections of “Invisible Cities”, Alexandra Crăciun
URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY
- Bucharest’s Central Square, Cezar Petre Buiumaci
SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
- Understanding Moral Solidarity: Theoretical Directions For Future Debates On Romanian Civic Commitment, Adela Toplean
MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
- In the Fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic. Testimony of a Doctor From the Front Lines, Cristiana Oprea
- The Body, a Personal Project? The Commodification of Body Shape in the Context of Fitness Culture, Maria Theodora Majuru
BOOK REVIEWS
- Cătălin D. Constantin, Orașe în rezumat. Piețe din Europa și istoriile lor: Peter Pan ART, Ion Mincu Universitary Publishing House, 2017, 512 p., with illustrations, Cristina Bogdan
- Alex Mexi, Raluca Zaharia, Friedrich Rebhuhn și grădinile României, Bucharest: Arché Association, 2020, 144 p., with illustrations, Simona Drăgan
EDITORIAL - Public Spaces: Places of the City, Places of Memory- Cătălin D. CONSTANTIN - University of Bucharest, PhD in Philology, PhD in Architecture
A city can be read just as one reads a book. The ‘letters’ in this book are the buildings, the street plans, the marks left on constructions over time, the ways in which people walk around and navigate the city, how vehicles move about in the urban space. Cities are a mixture of people and buildings, and the relationship between the community and the built environment is more complicated than it might initially appear. People make buildings, and, over time, these constructions and the spaces between them form cities. Over time, cities acquire their own identities. They decisively influence the ways of being, acting, and thinking of the people who inhabit them. The relationship between a community and its spaces features multiple and stratified nuances, which are not always immediately apparent. In The City Assembled, Spiro Kostoff affirms that even though public space is a somewhat unclear concept, as it is often difficult to draw a clear line between public and private, these two aspects of urban life underline the relevance of the idea of public space. We cross the city to meet friends and acquaintances, S. Kostof states, on a park bench, in a square, in front of a cathedral. But everyone, he adds, can choose when and how they arrive, thus exposing themselves to unexpected situations along the way, meeting anyone and encountering the gestures of strangers. Public space is, first and foremost, a stage for daily life, as much for the familiar as for the unusual. Our freedom to act or to remain inactive is intrinsically linked to the existence of public spaces as territories of everyday life. On the other hand, public spaces can also be stages for rituals. They host a wide variety of community activities – from concerts and festivals to religious ceremonies, historical and political celebrations, and even, in older times, public executions. Thus, public spaces carry the marks of a city’s memory. The ways in which these spaces are conceived, structured, embellished with monuments, capable of glorifying moments or characters belonging to the place’s history, all contribute to the ritualistic character of public spaces. A reality with a fluid geometry, a public space is witness to continuities and ruptures, to the history of architectural fashions, trends and archetypes, while also comprising the volatile images of the societies that created or experienced it during particular periods. As in Honoré de Balzac’s novels, foregoing the separation of territorial descriptions from descriptions of the communities that shaped them, the memory of places is, in fact, the memory of those who have engaged with those spaces. And the landmarks of this memory are monumental, perceived as links between generations, as instruments prompting an influx of memories and artefacts attempting to resist the perishability of things. The columns, statues and arches of antiquity are now often replaced with other types of structures intended to make absence present, to bring the fragments of yesterday into today. Public spaces give birth to a plethora of interpretations from a range of fields, from history, architecture and urbanism, from sociology and urban anthropology, to philosophy, politics, geocriticism and communication studies. Memory, S. Freud wrote in Civilisation and Its Discontents, is structured like a city. The example he proposed was Rome, because it has physically maintained the layers of its developments through time. One century after Freud, we can reverse the terms of his comparison. A city is like a memory that carries the multiple layers of its previous incarnations, and public spaces shine a discrete spotlight on these superimposed urban lives. The above excerpts were taken from the call for contributions to the 6th International Conference of Urban Anthropology. I wrote these lines1 at the end of 2019, when my friend, the historian Adrian Majuru, director of the Museum of Bucharest, suggested that I choose the theme for this edition, and entrusted me with its coordination. At that point, I could not have imagined that public spaces across the world would soon become empty, completely redefining their status; that squares and cities would be overtaken by a virus which, although present, still seemed very far away; that private spaces would become prisons for many, and that public spaces would become inaccessible, generating tension and fear. When the virus spread to Europe and countries shut down overnight, I was less frightened and more bewildered by the virus, terrified, even, by the rapid suppression of people’s banal and essential rights to move freely through public space, to travel between free countries. In March 2020, when a state of emergency was declared in Romania, and access to public spaces was restricted, I felt this moment of border closure more intensely, because I had a ticket to go to Rome to install an exhibition there about urban squares. Suddenly, the subject of the conference had become strangely topical, but the conference could no longer take place, at least not as I had planned it. In order to inclusively and spatially illustrate the interdisciplinarity of the theme, the conference was to have taken place in November 2020, in parallel locations at the Suțu Palace, the Faculty of Letters and the “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism. Of course, it was postponed, and I decided not to organize the presentations online. Even in April 2021, our second suggested date, it was not possible to organize the event in situ. The conference had been planned in partnership with the University of Valladolid, one of the oldest academic institutions in Spain and in the world. And from Valladolid—the city of the famous Controversy of 1550, which has major significance for the history of anthropology and human rights—we expected more participants, consisting of a small Spanish team coordinated by the anthropologist Mercedes Cano Herrera, who, kind as ever, had begun to study Romanian especially for this conference. However, in April 2021, trips to and from Spain would have required two weeks of isolation. This issue of the Journal of Urban Anthropology is a signal to the general public and to the conference registrants – over 100 of them – that the conference will take place in situ, safely, as soon as possible. The volume comprises, with one exception, articles that the contributors had planned to present during the conference. Some of the topics have been updated to reflect what has happened and what is currently happening in public spaces. In the journal, they compose the thematic corpus, but they can also be found in the Social Anthropology and Urban Anthropology sections, to preserve the usual structure of the Journal. The one exception is the extraordinary testimonial essay in the Health Anthropology column, written especially for the Journal of Urban Anthropology by Dr. Cristina Oprea, associate professor at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacology, and primary physician at the Victor Babeş Clinical Hospital for Infectious and Tropical Diseases in Bucharest. Hers is an extremely interesting, personal and direct account of how the pandemic was experienced by a front-line doctor fighting against the virus. It is a story written by a battlefield hero. 1 The text of this call benefited from the very helpful suggestions of my colleague at the Faculty of Letters in Bucharest, Cristina Bogdan, Ph.D., member of the Scientific Committee and the Organizing Committee of the International Conference of Urban Anthropology; therefore it should not be understood exclusively as a “single-authored text”, although the first version belongs to me.
Transformaciones temporales de los espacios públicos: urbanismo efímero y dialéctica social - Carlos Hugo SORIA CÁCERES - Universidad de Burgos (España)
Abstract
El artículo expone y analiza, a partir de un enfoque histórico y geográfico, formas particularmente interesantes de urbanismo efímero, su vinculación con el espacio público y la organización social. Entendemos por urbanismo efímero aquellas estructuras destinadas al ocio situadas normalmente en las periferias de los núcleos de población – ferias, circos y grandes exposiciones-, así como la transformación temporal de este espacio en periodos festivos. La investigación parte de un análisis diacrónico en el que se incide en esta tipología de urbanismo como fuente de propaganda y entretenimiento. Se destacará, a su vez, cómo el objetivo funcional de este urbanismo efímero no es únicamente el entretenimiento inocente de la población, sino que bajo una premisa subyacente se buscan establecer herramientas y estructuras de poder y control social. Con ello se tratará de demostrar el papel del urbanismo y la configuración del espacio público en la formación ideológica de las sociedades occidentales
Palabras clave: urbanismo, espacio público, efímero, social, transformaciones, control
Carlos Hugo SORIA CÁCERES – Universidad de Burgos (España) Departamento de Historia, Geografía y Comunicación, Área de Geografía Humana
El espacio ritual de las cofradías de penitencia en Granada (España) durante el Antiguo Régimen. Un acercamiento desde la documentación de archivo - Francisco Javier CRESPO MUÑOZ, Universidad de Valladolid
Abstract
Study of the ritual space occupied by the penitential brotherhoods of Granada (Spain) during the Old Regime. This analysis is performed using documents from different archives. In this way, it is intended to reflect how the choice for the brotherhoods of their essential ritual space in the convents and, within them, in the chapels remained for centuries (despite certain evolutions); this decision determined the crisis of Granada’s Holy Week in the 19th century.
Palabras clave: Granada (España). Cofradías de penitencia. Espacio ritual. Antiguo Régimen.
Francisco Javier CRESPO MUÑOZ Universidad de Valladolid
Social Behavior and Municipal Public Parks in the 19th and Early 20th Century in Romania - Alexandru MEXI, University of Bucharest
ABSTRACT
During the 19th and early 20th century more than 50 urban public parks have been designed and built all over the Old Kingdom of Romania. They were all envisioned and designed by foreign specialists, most of whom came from France, Germany and Austria. For some of the parks they had created we find archival documentation that contains maps, sketches and drawings and even lists of plants. For some we find more. We discover written descriptions and correspondence which show big differences in the way that gardeners, architects and landscape gardeners envisioned public parks to look like and how they hoped people will use them and how they actually did – some used the lawns as places for their goats and pigs to graze on, lakes to fish from, flower beds to cut from, alleys, small plazas and gazebos to use as spaces for improvised markets etc.
To this end, this paper aims to focus on the causes of these conflicts and to discuss about the impact that social behaviour had had on the process of designing and even redesigning municipal public parks in the 19th and early 20th century in Romanian cities north of the Danube and east of the Carpathians, on imposing visiting regulations in public parks and applying penalties to those who disregarded the rules, closing the parks during the night and patrolling them during daylight etc. The research is based on archival documentation (plans, pictures, written descriptions, legislation, newspaper articles and correspondence) as well as on recent studies on similar topics from Romania and abroad.
Keywords: garden history, municipal public parks, 19th century, social behaviour, Park Movement, Bucharest, Iaşi.
Alexandru MEXI, landscape arch. University of Bucharest, National Institute of Heritage
Lenin in Antarctica - Public Space and Monumental Narrative at the Pole of Inaccessibility - Ciprian TUDOR, Politehnica University of Bucharest
ABSTRACT
In 1958, a team of Soviet Antarctic researchers set up a research station close to the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility. Less than a month later, the research team abandons the station but not before installing on its structure a golden bust of Lenin, made of plastic. Ever since, the place has been visited by other Soviet research teams, but also by American, British and Norwegian Antarctic explorers. In 2007, the research station had been completely buried under snow, while Lenin’s bust was fully visible and some “visitors” took some selfies with the “monument”.
At the intersection of the logic of politics and geopolitics (of marking the Soviet presence in Antarctica) with the logic of the monumental narrative, the 1958 act of the team of researchers puts into question – or even into predicament – the concept of “public monument” and points to the problematization of a potential public space that is both fictional and symbolically appropriated.
Keywords: Lenin, public space, public realm, Antarctica, anthropology
Ciprian TUDOR Politehnica University of Bucharest
Death of a Lifestyle: The Street Life of Bucharest’s Jewish Neighborhoods - Felicia WALDMAN, Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest
ABSTRACT
In the Jewish neighborhoods of Bucharest, public spaces were often used as places of both commercial and religious ritual. On the one hand, due to the legal restrictions allowing them access to a very limited number of professions, Jews were in general both craftsmen and merchants, selling their own products. They usually did that from small houses, where they would have a tiny store at the front and a cramped lodging at the back, but many were in fact even poorer than that (contrary to the usual stereotype) and were forced to sell their merchandise in the street, in famous places like Taica Lazăr, which led to the emergence of a genuine street lifestyle. On the other hand, many Jewish holidays and traditions were celebrated by default out in the street, together with the entire community, and not in the intimacy of one’s home, which was often too small. Therefore, several times a year ancient religious rituals were brought to life in these public spaces.
This study presents the two different types of ritual, “commercial” and “religious,” which filled the public spaces of the old Jewish neighborhoods of Bucharest until World War II, when this lifestyle was destroyed forever first by the Holocaust and then by communism. To this end it looks at literary descriptions, photographic images, newspaper articles, advertisements and archival material depicting the activities that took place on the “Jewish streets” for centuries, until they were brought up to an abrupt end in mid-20th century.
Keywords: Jewish rituals, Jewish trades, Jewish holidays, Taica Lazăr, Vacaresti- Dudesti, Purim celebration
Felicia WALDMAN – Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest
Lockdowns: the Hyperconnections of “Invisible Cities” - Alexandra CRĂCIUN Assoc. Prof. Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest
ABSTRACT
The paper deals with the paradoxes of „proximity” – based on Michel Serres and Jean Baudrillard’s readings of the concept – in relation to a new definition of the urban space that has become contagious through the effects of the pandemic. The social distance compensated by the suspension of space and time intervals in the realm of digital media are the grids of a new reading of the urban landscapes. Argia, the “invisible city” of Italo Calvino is declined, in this context, as an avatar of the quarantined citadel suffocated by the proximity of digital hyperconnections.
Keywords: invisible cities, proximity, hyper-connection, contagion, Calvino
Alexandra CRĂCIUN – Assoc. Prof. Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest
Bucharest’s Central Square - Phd. Cezar Petre BUIUMACI The Bucharest Municipality Museum
ABSTRACT
The approach of this subject comes from the desire to clarify a unique situation, that of Bucharest, an atypically structured city, but at the same time one completely coagulated and coherent in its evolution. Medieval Bucharest is a small administrative unit, concentrated around the royal palace of Curtea Veche (The Old Court), a palace that, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is the center of the Bucharestian world. This small nucleus around the Royal Palace will gradually expand, creating a large commercial square in the adjacent space, the Bibescu Vodă Square, where the Union Hall will be later built. Small communities appear around this nucleus, which are organized mainly by types of occupations, over time becoming guilds and with the church at their center. Coagulated on common interests and having the character of a parish, the urban community of Bucharest is called the slum and has the characteristic that the church, an extremely important institution in the life of the slum, can be found in its middle. Much more numerous than the rural community, the slum is constantly growing and, as the church becomes too small, the slum folk will build another, thus forming a new community around the new formed church. By multiplying this process, we begin to explain the multitude of churches that can be found in the city center today, dense but small churches that met the needs of the community and which were, at the same time, the center of that community’s life. This is the matrix of Bucharest, in which the church is the center of community life and which is at the same time specific to this atypical, multinuclear city, a city which grows organically and continuously, extending horizontally from the political center of the royal palace, both in a concentric and a linear manner, along the access arteries to the city.
The establishment of the Royal Academy from Saint Sava at the end of the 17th century will create a new pole which, from this point forward, will make the city center swing back and forth between the Union Square and the space of the future university. At the end of the ninth decade of the 19th century, the first boulevard of Bucharest was drawn on the east-west axis, starting from the current Izvorul Rece (“cold spring”) Square and having a route that ended at Mihail Kogălniceanu Square. The city center will move here for more than half a century, the University Square thus being designed to be the city center.
King Charles II, a great lover of festivities of a propagandistic nature, will try to remodel the Royal Palace Square as part of the restoration project of the Palace, which had been partially destroyed by a fire back in 1927. The Royal Palace Square had an architecture specific to the nineteenth century having, at its center, in front of the Royal Palace, the building of the Carol I University Foundation, framed on both sides by two buildings of a similar architecture. The area reconfiguration project, as part of the reconstruction of the Royal Palace, involved a development spanning more than two decades, between 1930- 1950, the last of its stages being the demolition of all buildings in front of the Royal Palace, thus making room for a square of large enough dimensions to reach, in the east, the newly drawn Take Ionescu-Magheru-Brătianu boulevard.
Dissatisfied with the achievements of his predecessor, but also with the fact that a square had not been built to take over the role of meeting place, most meetings still taking place in the Royal Palace square, Nicolae Ceaușescu will use the 1977 earthquake as the pretext to built a new political-administrative center, which inevitably led to the political relocation of the city center, as had happened in the past.
Keywords: central square, public square, city center, urban evolution, multinuclear center
Phd. Cezar Petre BUIUMACI
The Bucharest Municipality Museum
Understanding Moral Solidarity: Theoretical Directions For Future Debates On Romanian Civic Commitment - Adela TOPLEAN Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest
ABSTRACT
In what theoretical framework could collective commitment be explained and analysed? What encouraged committed participation in recent Romanian social movements? In this paper I claim that certain moral forms of understanding civic life are preconditions for manifesting responsible, willed social actions. Minimal consensus of value is indispensable. Spontaneous solidarity is, of course, possible and probable, but often as an indicator of anomie. I suggest that in urban Romania recent protesting contexts (2015-2019) are far more complex than thought and may need a broader and denser set of theoretical frames. I will show that anomic societies become more vulnerable precisely in the areas where consensual values appear more prominently, and I will make an attempt to explain why. I will conclude that, although most of us assume that anomie breaks communality, it is not necessarily the communality that anomie breaks; what anomie destroys is the relevant shared knowledge on the situations people engage in, particularly, genuine consensus. When social and health crisis arise, the impact on already frail communities is tremendous at all levels asking for urgent anxiety buffers and firing up a new kind of sentimentalised consensus rooted in a mystical and mystifying Rousseauian General Will rather than in authentic solidarity.
Keywords: anomie; individualism; collectivism; consensus; trust bonds; corruption; theodicy; social philosophy
Adela TOPLEAN Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest
In the Fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic Testimony of a Doctor From the Front Lines - Cristiana OPREA
ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, medical staff were among the first to be thrust into the situation of beholding such a gravely contagious and unpredictable disease.This testimonial essay presents events that unfolded during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, as experienced by one of its front-line physicians. The testimony combines narrative and subjective descriptions of the experiences and feelings of the author and of the hospitalized patients in her department, as well as aspects of the doctor-patient relationship and various other elements that emotionally impacted medical staff during this turbulent period that influenced (and still influences) our daily existence.
Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, front-line doctors, emotions, feelings, professional challenges
Cristiana OPREA Senior Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the Dr. Victor Babeş Clinical Hospital for Infectious and Tropical Diseases, Associate Professor at the “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest
The Body, a Personal Project? - The Commodification of Body Shape in the Context of Fitness Culture - Maria Theodora MAJURU Faculty of Sociology and Social Assistance University of Bucharest
ABSTRACT
The present research investigates processes of body commodification and how the capitalist system conditions cultural and social values to create new sources of profit. This phenomenon is analyzed in the context of fitness culture, approached from various perspectives. Finally, we will examine the long-term effects of body commodification, which can endanger future generations.
Keywords: capitalism, consumer society, individualism, fitness, body shape, social standards
Maria Theodora MAJURU, Faculty of Sociology and Social Assistance, University of Bucharest
Legends’ Keepers, Collections and Football Collectors - Rareș Mușătoiu
Abstract
The history of football representation is far from being one of the most prominent research interests in the anthropology of sports. This paper examines how collectors of football objects become informal historians and create representational imagery of the club, in deep connection with structural changes that come along with economic transition from socialism to post-socialism. The context of the research is the East-European block, an area that is, to a certain extent, expelled from the global market of football. Using in-depth interviews and participant observation, this study aims to understand the context in which collectors put the objects in a complex network of social interaction that is constructed upon exchange, symbolic value and specific approaches towards commodification. The research induces firm reasoning to analyze how is value created through networks of collectors and advocates for an interdisciplinary method in which anthropology of sports, symbolic economy, cultural studies, and the history of representation are vital in the understanding of the phenomenon. Taking into account the vast structure of football museums that is developing in Europe, bringing a global market in which the sphere of branding creates the essence of the club to the foreground, the way in which informal means of representation, in the shape of private collections, alters the club identity is extremely relevant to studies that have football in the vanguard.
Keywords: history of football, post-socialism, collectors of football objects, participant observation, social interaction.
Rareș Mușătoiu
Contemporary struggles between Wotan and the Princess from the Sleeping Forest - Lavinia Țânculescu-Popa
ABSTRACT
The work is constructed starting from how contemporary man from the great urban environment experiences rest nowadays, not only as an obligatory way of repose, but, especially, as an inner experience. The question which drives this paper is related to the extent to which the current man, busy and tired, sleeps (naturally) and / or rests (culturally) in the same determined and programmed way in which he works. The way in which the resting spaces, day or night, manage to offer him rest, the people around him tire or help him rest, the associations that the pillow, the mattress, the bed, in general, remain at the stage of concrete objects or acquire elements of inner space of the being in which man feels required to immerse himself in order to be reborn for next day’s work – all these are found in this work, carrying a single ambition: to capture how the Bucharest man relates nowadays to this part of his existence, theoretically spontaneous, practical, in some cases, bearing the painful repercussions of the will of “I”. The paper starts from the description of rest and its pretexts (spatial and temporal) as they were transmitted in a series of works of the 20th century, mainly, but also eternal (such as the biblical word) and concretizes the current situation through a collection of interviews conducted in the field, in Bucharest, with women and men, at the beginning, towards the end or in their full professional life.
Keywords: rest and work, bed, natural nocturne rhythm, anthropology of health
Lavinia Țânculescu-Popa
Cuvinte cheie: odihnă şi muncă, pat, ritm natural nocturn, antropologia sănătății.
The Urban Anthropology Journal Nr.16 (2020)
The Urban Anthropology Journal - Nr.16 (2020) - CONTENTS
EDITORIAL – Cătălin D. Constantin
- E un pod pe Neretva
- A bridge on the Neretva
- Le Pont sur la Neretva
- Die Brücke über die Neretva
FILE – THE BALKANS
- How do the Greeks smell? – Claudiu Sfirschi-Praised
- A city (Kastoria), its churches and an iconographic theme that made a career in the Balkan world: the astonishment of Saint Sisoe – Cristina Bogdan
- The Embroidered Portrait of a Horseman – Military Saint at the Monastery of Saint Stephenin Meteora: A Popular Post-Byzantinism – Vasso Rokou
- About the shoe and other lexemes related to the traditional costume from the end of the 19th century on the territory of Bulgaria – Yavor Ivanov
- Balkan patterns in the work of Andrić and Kadare. The historical mythopoetics of the two writers – Cristian Robu Corcan
- Cultural anthropology in fiction. Ivan Stankov – Carmen Dărăbuș
- Ignored and uncounted ethnicities in Greece. The case of Western Thrace – Yüksel Bekir Hoş
- Aromanians – Romanians from the South Danube. History, identity, dialect – Nicolae Saramandu, Manuela Nevaci
URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY
- Oberliht – Radu Mircea Comşa
- Life in interwar Bucharest in literary testimonies – Alina Partenie
SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
- Legends Keepers, Collections and Football Colectors – Rareş Muşătoiu
ANTHROPOLOGY OF HEALTH
- Contemporary struggles. Between Wotan and the Princess from the Sleeping Forest – Lavinia Ţânculescu-Popa
REVIEW
- Andrei Răzvan Voinea, The ideal of living in Bucharest: the family with a house and a garden. The plots of the Communal Society for Cheap Housing – Bucharest (1908-1948) – Simona Drăgan
EDITORIAL - A bridge on the Neretva - Cătălin D. Constantin anthropologist, the University of Bucharest PhD in Philology PhD in Architecture
The photographs on the cover were chosen to illustrate the dossier theme for this issue of the Urban Anthropology Review – The Balkans – and portrays a historical place from Bosnia-Herzegovina. The two images are one century apart. The Mostar Bridge is shown in the photos, today a well-known monument. The city draws its name from this bridge, specifically from the two towers, mostari, that guard each end of the construction. Stari most, the old bridge, as translated, is on the UNESCO world heritage list, while also being an exception through its inclusion, as the list usually features only original monuments. The bridge of today is not old, but a recently remade copy. It is true, the construction has stayed faithful to the original and initial construction techniques were utilized. Stari most was redone ten years after its original medieval version was destroyed. In 1993, during the conflicts within former Yugoslavia, Croatian paramilitary tanks fired on the bridge at least 60 times for 24 hours, until the bridge, proving very sturdy, finally collapsed. The old bridge was commissioned in 1557 by Suleiman the Magnificent and its construction was handed to Mimar Hayruddin, apprentice of the greatest Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan. Stari most is considered one of the most remarkable examples of Ottoman architecture in the Balkans, with a perfect 12-meter arch rising spectacularly, as an architectural continuation of natural rock above the blue-green waters of the Neretva. Legend has it that architect Hayruddin was obsessed during its design and construction that the bridge might collapse. He was so consumed by this that, when the moment of inauguration came, nine years after work on it first began, he was preparing himself to be sentenced to death. 427 years later, up to the day it was destroyed, the bridge was perfectly functional and not even the passing of time had left many indents on its surface. The Croatian general who ordered its destruction claimed he gave the order because of matters of military security, as the bridge was considered a strategic objective. The Court that found him guilty of several war crimes firmly rejected this argument, considering his actions grave and deliberate attempts to destroy cultural heritage, since the bridge had gained a profound symbolic value in the context of the war, uniting city neighborhoods where different ethnicities resided, where churches, catholic and orthodox, mosques and synagogues could be found. The photo of the Mostar Bridge on the upper portion of the cover is a historical photograph. It is one of the first color photos taken in the Balkans, part of an astounding collection of photographic images, the first great archive of color photos in the history of mankind. Around 1908, Albert Kahn – a banker, among the wealthiest people on Earth, whose life remains mostly unknown – finds out about a freshly-patented photographic technique. It was called autochrome photography and represented, in a chronological sense, the first means to truly take photos in color, a system devised by the Lumière brothers. Albert Kahn travels to Japan, takes a few photos using this technique, initially very costly, and is impressed with the results. In the following years, he uses his vast personal wealth to finance a team of photographers who he sends across the world in order to create a color photo archive of the planet. For two decades, traveling across more than 20 European countries and 50 countries outside Europe, Kahn’s photographers take 72.000 cliché verres. From India, to Palestine, from northern Europe to the Balkans. There are images of the early 20th century world, one still little changed by the passing of the centuries, but which would forever change because of everything that was to follow, especially the two World Wars. This archive is not well-known and not researched enough, taking into account its visual and anthropological worth. In the Balkan territories, Kahn’s teams arrive shortly after the archive project had begun, around and during the first Balkan war, whose consequences were captured in photographs, in Macedonia and Thessaloniki. The photo of Mostar Bridge is from 1912, the year of the first Balkan war. The Balkan wars changed the peninsula’s map, tracing borders in an area where, for centuries, there had been no borders and where, also for centuries, people of different ethnical background would constantly mix without significant issues. Moreover, the Balkan wars suddenly caught the attention of Europe, rapidly establishing a set of perceptions mostly negative, that the region still carries today. It is around that period that a superregional identity as well as the name of ‘Balkans’ begins to be constantly associated with the peninsula, initially without any negative connotations. Rapidly included in the European repertoire of insults at the time of the Balkan wars, the words ‘balkanism’ and ‘balkanisation’, despite a certain ‘stillness’, conceal behind them an ambiguous and rather complicated history, as Maria Todorova reveals in her very interesting book Imagining the Balkans (1997). The fact that the first color photo of the Mostar Bridge was taken in the year of the first Balkan war is just a symbolic coincidence, when this superregional identity of the Balkans gains form in the eyes of Europe and of the world. At the time, the bridge was not a well-known landmark, and in no way a symbol of the Balkans, but it was old and beautiful. The second photograph featured on the cover was taken by me, using a drone, in 2016 – one century later. In appearance, the bridge is unchanged. The reconstruction is most convincing. If one wasn’t aware of the original’s destruction, the bridge from the first photo looks identical to the one in the second photo. But it is more than that. The bridge of the second image carries a symbolic baggage that the first, original bridge did not. The Mostar Bridge became, after its reconstruction, a metonymic image of the Balkans, often used as a visual symbol for the region, referring indirectly to all the Balkans mean in modern European imagination, including the ethnical mixture and the bloody wars. Despite these negative nuances, implicitly contained by its image, the Mostar Bridge is a beautiful emblem of the Balkans. Because it is an architectural jewel and because a bridge always unites. Its reconstruction has symbolically reconnected the diversity of the Balkan world. The Balkans fascinate me, this is why I have proposed this theme for the dossier of the current issue of the Urban Anthropology Review. Intentionally, without any thematic narrowing-down, usually natural and welcome. I thus respected the definition of mosaic and mixture that the Balkans have in our imagination. In the pages of this issue, you will come across works from Romania, Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey. And the articles will take you from Kastoria, with its splendid post-byzantine churches, whose frescos are commented by Lecturer Cristina Bogdan, PhD, from the University of Bucharest, to Western Thrace, with an analysis dedicated to the minorities ‘hidden’ there, conducted by Professor Yüksel Bekir Hoş from the Institute of Balkan Studies and the Trakya University of Edirne. You will discover how the Greek smell from Claudiu Sfirschi-Lăudat’s article, an elite translator and President of the Greek Cultural Foundation of Romania. You will read about the medieval embroideries of Epirus in a work penned by Vasso Rokou, PhD, from the University of Ioannina, and about the footwear of the Bulgarian and Romanian traditional folk costumes in Bulgaria, in an article written (directly) in Romanian by Yavor Ivanov, from the St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia. Nicolae Saramandu, PhD, and Manuela Nevaci, PhD, researchers at the “Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy present the dialect utilized by Aromanians. Carmen Dărăbuş, PhD, signs an article of literary anthropology on Bulgarian writer Ivan Stankov, bringing us to the Danube shores from the writer’s memories. Following in the footsteps of Andrić and Kadare, another article of literary anthropology, signed by Cristian Robu Corcan, PhD, also mentions a legendary bridge of the Balkans – the Bridge of Višegrad, across Drina River. All these articles connect, bridge the diverse worlds of the Balkans, which we inhabit without wanting to be Balkan.
How do the Greeks smell? Claudiu Sfirschi-Lăudat - Greek Cultural Foundation of Romania, translator
ABSTRACT
The image of “wandering words” advanced by Al. Graur in his 1978 dictionary urged us to set on a journey following scents, analysing the olfactory terminology in modern Greek language, in her direct rapport with the Romanian language. The linguistic analysis is followed by a literary illustration of the themes put into play by the olfactory in the novel Martor mi-e Dumnezeu [God is my Witness] by Makis Tsitas (Art Publishers, 2019).
Keywords: scent, vocabulary, Greece, literature, novel, mentalities.
Claudiu Sfirschi-Lăudat – Greek Cultural Foundation of Romania, translator
A city (Kastoria), its churches and an iconographic theme that made a career in the Balkan world: the astonishment of Saint Sisoe - Cristina Bogdan, University of Bucharest
ABSTRACT
The present study proposes the discovery of the city of Kastoria, in northern Greece, through the post-Byzantine religious buildings it preserves, looking at an iconographic theme – The Astonishment of St. Sisoes – which can become a common element of pictorial discourse in various parts of the Balkan world.
Keywords: Kastoria, religious iconography, post-byzantine churches, the Astonishment of St. Sisoes, Balkan Peninsula.
Cristina Bogdan – University of Bucharest
The Embroidered Portrait of a Horseman – Military Saint at the Monastery of Saint Stephen in Meteora: A Folk Style Post-Byzantinism - Vasso Rokou University of Ioannina
ABSTRACT
Part of a research on “Epirotic embroidery”, associated with the Epirotic Diaspora on 17th and 18th centuries around the western trade with central -oriental Europe, and with the Russian fur trade of Constantinople, the embroidery of a military saint as emperor cavalier on Taurus, instead of the horse, has two iconographic references: the imperial image of the equestrian military saint of the Moldavian art and the iconography of Alexander the Great of the Seljuk tradition.
Keywords: Alexander the Great, military saint, Stephan Kantakouzen, Moldavian art, Armenian art, Seljuk tradition.
Vasso Rokou – University of Ioannina
About the shoe and other lexemes related to the traditional costume from the end of the 19th century on the territory of Bulgaria - Yavor Ivanov St. Kliment Ohridski from Sofia
ABSTRACT
The article aims to present terms accompanying the clothing, a part of an archive, including an unexplored inventory of the traditional clothing of the population on the territory of Bulgaria from the end of the ΧΙΧ century.
Keywords: archive, balcanic, Bulgaria, Bulgarian, clothing, Romanian, Vestiarium.
Yavor Ivanov – Universitatea St. Kliment Ohridski din Sofia
Balkan patterns in the work of Andrić and Kadare, Mitopoetical history of the two writers - Cristian Robu Corcan - PhD in philology, writer, book editor
ABSTRACT
Andrić and Kadare portray the intimate image of the Balkans in their works. Their mytho-poetry metamorphoses all historical meanings into popular symbols. By re-creating myths, it brings history directly in relation to the peoples from which it comes. For Andrić, history is nothing but popular memory, for Kadare, a pathology specific to evil. For Andrić, ideology mixes reality and popular storytelling, shaping the Balkans into a scholarly mix of East and West. For Kadare, the only acceptable ideology is Albanianism. The first accurately describes the flow of time through the popular consciousness, the second deals with the wounds of death caused by a disease called “history”.
Keywords: Balkans, mytho-poetry, folklore, Orient, Occident, Maoism.
Cristian Robu Corcan – PhD in philology, writer, book editor
Cultural anthropology in the fiction of Ivan Stankov - Carmen Dărăbuș - University „St. Kliment Ohridski ”from Sofia Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
ABSTRACT
The work Cultural Anthropology in Fiction. Ivan Stankov analyses, in a postmodern key, the Danubian waters at the border between Romania and Bulgaria. The work Amintiri despre apă: re minor [Memories about water: D minor] is the first part of a trilogy that also includes Străzi şi vapoare: sol minor [Streets and ships: G minor] and Nume de zăpadă: la major [Name of snow: A major]. Only the first volume is translated into Romanian. The author, Ivan Stankov, spent his childhood in a village on the Danube, on Bulgarian territory; the river becomes a true character that conditions life and death. Through the technique of detail, of which he is master, he gives a hypertrophied dimension to reality. Literature proves to be a bearer of affective memory and, in this case, a repository of postmodern cultural anthropology.
Keywords: Bulgarian literature, border, reality/fiction.
Carmen Dărăbuș – University „St. Kliment Ohridski ”from Sofia Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
Ignored and uncounted ethnicities in Greece. The case of Western Thrace - Yüksel Bekir Hoș Trakya - University, Balkan Research Institute
ABSTRACT
The word “ethnicity” is etimologically derived from the Greek word “ethnos”, which means nation. The word “democracy” is Greek as well. However, when it comes to the democratic rights of an ethnic society, an equivalent of such a concept in today’s Greece doesn’t seem to exist. Because in Greece there are only the Greek ethnicity is officially recognized as living in the country. Jews and Armenians are also recognized minorities in Greece, but neither of these two communities would be enough to fill a town. Although Greece is a democratic country, however, when the issue is an ethnicity in Greece, it becomes difficult to deal with the dilemma “nationalism vs rights”. This is the reflex of many countries that were established as nation states after a long period of disappearance in history. This reflex can be explained as “never to disappear once again in history” which necessitates a disregard for ethnicities in the political and legal discourse in Greece. Among these ethnicities, the leading semi-recognized minority is the Turks of Western Thrace which is often accepted as a “Muslim Minority” by Greece. In addition, many societies such as Macedonian Slavs, Aromanians (Vlachs), Arvanites and Albanians, Gagauz and Urums and many other ethnic groups, continue to live in Greece and lose their culture and language day by day. It is still possible to distinguish these societies from one another in the field with the environment they live, along with their cultural differences. The scope of this study is to underline ethnic diversity in the Western Thrace and its ethnicities. In addition to Turks and Greeks, many different ethnicities continue to exist in this place. The first thing to be put forward in the field studies is not that Greece is a demon state, rather the reason that has led to such reflexes. In the light of principles of human and political geography, the main ethnicities in this small region will be examined along with the sub-regions they live in due to their characteristics. In addition to field studies on the area, literature studies were examined. Manipulative approaches as well as pro-national identifications and exaggerations are either shown as they are or ignored. Beside this, in this study will be mentioned the names of some minorities living in Greece that have not been mentioned earlier.
Keywords: Ethnic, Greece, Geography, Turks, Greeks, Urums, Gagauz
Yüksel Bekir Hoș Trakya – University, Balkan Research Institute
Aromanians - Romanians from the South Danube History, identity, dialect - Nicolae Saramandu, Manuela Nevaci
ABSTRACT
The Aromanians form several groups, differing from each other by linguistic peculiarities, to which are added specific elements concerning clothing, music, certain customs, as well as lifestyle and occupations. The most important groups are: the Pindeni, the Grămosteni, the Fărşeroţi, the Graboveni, to which are added a few smaller groups: the Aromanians of Beala de Suset deBeala de Jos (villages near Struga, Macedonia), the Aromanians of the localities of Mulovişte and Gopeş (next to Bitola, R. North Macedonia).
Among the Romanians of the South of the Danube, the Aromanians are the only ones to have kept until today the ethnic name, by being called Aromâni (Armâni, Rămăni, sg. Armân, Rămăn), designation which, like the dacoroum. Rumân (<lat. Romanus), highlights their Latin origin. The peoples among which live in the Balkan Peninsula call them, in general, Vlahi (Wallachians), a term which designates the entire Romanized population of the north and south of the Danube.
The separation of the Aromanian dialect from common Romanian is an important moment in the history of the Romanian language. Sextil Puşcariu underlines the unity formed by the dialects of the south of the Danube and by Daco-Romanian, defining common Romanian as “the language spoken by the ancestors of the Daco-Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians and Istroromanians of” today, before all contact between them is interrupted ”(Sextil Puşcariu, Etudes de linguistiqueroumaine, Cluj-Bucureşti, 1937.). All these groups of Romanians formed a relative unit and spoke the same language, relatively unitary. In the same sense Al. Rosetti defines the Romanian language by fixing the training space to the north and south of the Danube: “Romanian is Latin spoken without interruption in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, which included the provinces Danubian (Dacia, South Pannonia, Dardania, Upper and Lower Moesia), from the time of Latin penetration in these provinces to the present day ”(Rosetti 1986, 75). By its conservative elements, recognizable especially in the field of phonetics, Aromanian is very similar to common Romanian. The innovations that we see can be explained as well by the internal evolution of the dialect as by the influence exerted by the Balkan languages on Aromanian.
Keywords: Aromanians, common Romanian, Romanians south of the Danube, dialects of southern Danube
Nicolae Saramandu, Manuela Nevaci
Oberliht - Radu Mircea Comșa
ABSTRACT
The “Oberlicht” [skylight] presents a unique argument – in four sequences – which justifies the ubiquity of an architectural detail in the modernist heritage of Romania, seemingly inexplicable compared to the international architecture of the time. Starting from an interest catalysed by a personal experience, the facade porthole becomes a sign of belonging not only for the Romanian interwar style, but also for the local aspirations of the period.
Keywords: interwar, Modernism, Marcel Iancu, Oberlicht.
Radu Mircea Comșa
Life in interbelic Bucharest in literary testimonies - Alina Partenie
ABSTRACT
This article starts by exploring the peculiarities of the daily life of various social classes in interwar Bucharest. By examining the literary works of that period, we identified elements that describe the capital of Romania from an architectural point of view, of human typologies, as well as of economic development. A significant detail is the antithesis between the bourgeoisie in the small centre of the city and the slums, an imitation of it in a much larger space.
Keywords: interwar, modernisation, architecture, slum, literature.
Alina Partenie
Legends’ Keepers, Collections and Football Collectors - Rareș Mușătoiu
Abstract
The history of football representation is far from being one of the most prominent research interests in the anthropology of sports. This paper examines how collectors of football objects become informal historians and create representational imagery of the club, in deep connection with structural changes that come along with economic transition from socialism to post-socialism. The context of the research is the East-European block, an area that is, to a certain extent, expelled from the global market of football. Using in-depth interviews and participant observation, this study aims to understand the context in which collectors put the objects in a complex network of social interaction that is constructed upon exchange, symbolic value and specific approaches towards commodification. The research induces firm reasoning to analyze how is value created through networks of collectors and advocates for an interdisciplinary method in which anthropology of sports, symbolic economy, cultural studies, and the history of representation are vital in the understanding of the phenomenon. Taking into account the vast structure of football museums that is developing in Europe, bringing a global market in which the sphere of branding creates the essence of the club to the foreground, the way in which informal means of representation, in the shape of private collections, alters the club identity is extremely relevant to studies that have football in the vanguard.
Keywords: history of football, post-socialism, collectors of football objects, participant observation, social interaction.
Rareș Mușătoiu
Contemporary struggles between Wotan and the Princess from the Sleeping Forest - Lavinia Țânculescu-Popa
ABSTRACT
The work is constructed starting from how contemporary man from the great urban environment experiences rest nowadays, not only as an obligatory way of repose, but, especially, as an inner experience. The question which drives this paper is related to the extent to which the current man, busy and tired, sleeps (naturally) and / or rests (culturally) in the same determined and programmed way in which he works. The way in which the resting spaces, day or night, manage to offer him rest, the people around him tire or help him rest, the associations that the pillow, the mattress, the bed, in general, remain at the stage of concrete objects or acquire elements of inner space of the being in which man feels required to immerse himself in order to be reborn for next day’s work – all these are found in this work, carrying a single ambition: to capture how the Bucharest man relates nowadays to this part of his existence, theoretically spontaneous, practical, in some cases, bearing the painful repercussions of the will of “I”. The paper starts from the description of rest and its pretexts (spatial and temporal) as they were transmitted in a series of works of the 20th century, mainly, but also eternal (such as the biblical word) and concretizes the current situation through a collection of interviews conducted in the field, in Bucharest, with women and men, at the beginning, towards the end or in their full professional life.
Keywords: rest and work, bed, natural nocturne rhythm, anthropology of health
Lavinia Țânculescu-Popa
Cuvinte cheie: odihnă şi muncă, pat, ritm natural nocturn, antropologia sănătății.
