{"id":828,"date":"2019-03-14T14:58:37","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T12:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rev-antropologieurbana.ro\/?p=828"},"modified":"2019-03-14T15:48:55","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T13:48:55","slug":"the-tattoo-in-modern-romanian-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rev-antropologieurbana.ro\/ro\/2019\/03\/14\/the-tattoo-in-modern-romanian-society\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tatoo In Modern Romanian Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Dr.Adrian Majuru[1]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Assistant Professor Phd, Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism – Bucharest <\/strong><\/p>\n

Faculty of Urbanism<\/strong><\/p>\n

adimajuru@gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n

The oldest documents testifying tattoo date from the Middle Ages. This fashion was taken after Oriental practices. The theme was studied by Dr.Nicolae Minovici, in this 1898 licence paper. According to him, tattoo fashion penetrated both lower and social strata, but it seems few of the studied subjects were Romanian \u2013 most of then being foreigners (Greeks, Macedonians, German, Bulgarians, Russians, Hungarians a.s.o.<\/p>\n

By the other hand, this article is dedicated to Francisc J.Rainer and his methodes to anthropological researchers. Francisc Rainer was born in 1874, MD Faculty of Medecine in 1903; Prof. of Anatomy and Embryology, Faculty of Medecine Jassy(1913-1920) and same in Bucharest (1920-1940). He was interested in anatomy, embryology and anthropology of the Roumanians research under way on the population of certain villages of the Carpathian mountains, on craniology of the Roumanians, on the anthropology of Roumanian students and on blood groups; field trips in the Carpathians, 1927(Dr\u0103gu\u0219), 1928(Nereju) and 1932 (Fundul Moldovei) near by Dimitrie Gusti.<\/p>\n

Cele mai vechi documente atest\u0103 moda tatuajului \u00eenc\u0103 din Evul Mediu. Aceast\u0103 mod\u0103 a fost preluat\u0103 dup\u0103 practicile orientale. Tema a fost studiat\u0103 de dr. Nicolae Minovici \u00een teza sa de licen\u021b\u0103 publicat\u0103 \u00een anul 1898. Potrivit lui, moda tatuajelor a p\u0103truns \u0219i \u00een straturi sociale mai largi, dar potrivit cazurilor studiate \u0219i publicate, majoritatea lor au apar\u021binut str\u0103inilor(greci, macedoneni, germani, bulgari,ru\u0219i, unguri etc), \u0219i mai pu\u021bin popula\u021biei rom\u00e2ne\u0219ti. Pe de alt\u0103 parte, acest articol este dedicat lui Francis Josif Rainer \u0219i metodei lui de cercetare antropologic\u0103. Francisc Rainer s-a n\u0103scut \u00een anul 1874, doctorat \u00een medicin\u0103 \u00een anul 1903; Profesor de anatomie \u0219i embriologie la facultatea de medicicn\u0103 din Ia\u0219i(1913-1920) \u0219i apoi la Bucure\u0219ti(1920-1940). A fost interesat \u00een anatomie, embriologie \u0219i antropologie, cercet\u00e2nd popula\u021bia rom\u00e2neasc\u0103 din aceste perspective. A participat \u00een echipele de cercetare sociologic\u0103 conduse de Dimitrie Gusti, \u00een campaniile de la Dr\u0103gu\u0219(1927), Nereju(1928) \u0219i Fundul Moldovei(1932).<\/p>\n

Key words:<\/strong> Francisc J. Rainer, Nicolae Minovici, anthropology, tattoo fashion.<\/p>\n

General overview<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tattoos in Romanian society can be considered to have been a fashionable practice ever since the period of Neolithic cultures,[2] but in the Middle Ages they were a defining characteristic of the highest social class[3] (a cultural element borrowed from the East) or probably of a series of more extravagant characters like Petru Cercel[4] or Gratiani Gaspar.[5] The advent of modernity enabled tattoos to be in fashion within all social structures, particularly the urban ones.<\/p>\n

Towards a history of symbols<\/strong>[6]<\/p>\n

The wide array of symbols displayed by tattoos spreads from delinquents to high society. From the perspective of sociology and psychology \u2013 two landmarks with solid imaginary and mental contents \u2013 tattooed symbols also highlight some characteristics of the individual\u2019s personality. Judging from the perspective of the history of modern urban life, the impact of fast growing modernisation \u2013 in which the individuals are inundated with all sorts of problems, many tattooed symbols represent either a form of protest against an unbearable world or a form of public exposure or group affiliation, of community or sexual minority.<\/p>\n

As regards modern Romanian society, the first synthesis of the problematic of tattoos has been made not by a historian, but by the forensic doctor Nicolae Minovici.[7] In 1898, he published a study entitled Tatuajurile \u00een Rom\u00e2nia<\/em> (Tattoos in Romania),[8] actually his graduation paper that Romanian medicine still deems as a work of reference and so should historiography.<\/p>\n

After 1850, Bucharest society has witnessed the entire variety of social structures built by modern everyday life: a middle class comprised of freelancers, peasants with a substantial income, leaseholders and loan sharks, etc, a \u201chigh\u201d society characterised by flexible boundaries, in spite of its resentments at the new rich, a marginal society made up of different ethnic, confessional and professional groups that was on the point of becoming urbanised. One of the common elements \u2013 only seldom brought out into the open and likely to be defined as a particularity of private personality \u2013 has been the tattoo and its wide range of symbols.<\/p>\n

The tattoo as a social phenomenon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Analysed in the above-mentioned study with respect to the phenomenon of tattoos in late nineteenth-century Bucharest, the samples of the delinquents\u2019 tattoos were taken from the body of the individuals who \u201cwere examined by our Anthropometric Department\u201d.[9] The author divides the tattoos not according to their symbolism, but according to the type of social group represented by these symbols. Criminals (among them thieves and adventurers of all kinds) thus represented the most numerous group.<\/p>\n

The delinquents\u2019 tattoos provided important notions of \u201cthe moral ideas of the tattooed, their ordinary thinking, images that are dear to them, their private souvenirs and even their revengeful plans devised in a cynical manner\u201d.[10]<\/p>\n

Inscriptions such as \u201cA martyr of freedom\u201d, \u201cGendarmes must die\u201d, \u201cFrench officers must die\u201d, \u201cI swear to take revenge\u201d and other signs like a gendarme\u2019s head threatened by a clenched fist have been found on the body of criminals. Such is the case of France used by Doctor Nicolae Minovici for comparative purposes.[11]<\/p>\n

Obscenity was another feature of the delinquents\u2019 tattoos. \u201c11 tattoos\u201d had been found in France \u201con men\u2019s penis, consisting of spur boots, the ace of hearts, the apron\u2019s number, etc, 280 erotic or, better say, lubricious emblems represented by 176 female busts, 35 nudes, 4 of which representing the act of having sex\u201d. Among our delinquents \u201cwe could only find three tattoos of this kind, of which one was discovered on the body of an individual whose obscenity portrayed by the nude of his mistress was in stark contrast with the dead body of his son; two more tattoos, whose obscenity prevents me from explaining their meaning, were found on the body of an individual\u201d. The latter was the case of a man \u201cby Transylvanian origin\u201d who tattooed his body when he was in the army.[12]<\/p>\n

Doctor Nicolae Minovici includes the tattoos of the pederasts, \u201cthis sort of people who, more than anybody else, seek to be liked by others\u201d, in the category of obscenity. Once again, Minovici refers to a few French cases that might have been found in Romania as well: the tattoo of a naked woman \u2013 \u201cwho seemed to masturbate when the forearm was flexed\u201d \u2013 was thus discovered on a man\u2019s forearm joint. Various other portraits were also found: Joan of Arc, a hanged man, Bismarck\u2019s portrait, a soldier, \u201cone eye on each buttock, a snake making its own way to the anus. Another man\u2019s tattoo revealed a Zouave soldier on each buttock, with a ribbon hanging in-between two crossed bayonets, which read: \u2018On n\u2019entre pas\u2019\u201d.[13]<\/p>\n

Mad people were another category of individuals. We offer here a selection of the cases on which several remarks have been made: Radu Ionescu, nicknamed Dumitru Ignat C\u0103l\u0103re\u0163u, a chronic alcoholic, had a tattoo of his mistress, which dates from 1879. The tattoo was painted with the help of sanitary alcohol and gunpowder. Another man, Dumitru Mihai, a chronic alcoholic too, had a tattoo designed with the help of six needles and incense smoke; a certain Costache Ionescu, affected by general paralysis, had a tattoo \u201cwhich consisted of many crosses made by a monk at Golgota Monastery, where he was imprisoned for horse theft\u201d. His tattoo was made from \u201cgunpowder, yeast brandy, and three needles\u201d.[14]<\/p>\n

A sexual attraction accessory<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prostitutes came up with completely new elements that were integrated in the symbolism of tattoos, even if \u201cin terms of sex, the tattoo prevails among men\u201d. Generally, prostitutes were tattooed \u201cby their first lover when they were young\u201d and, more often than not, their tattoos were \u201cunpleasant and non-erasable souvenirs of their first mistake which, it is understood, must be an embarrassment to them while they are doing their job\u201d. The story of a young woman, whose tattoo read \u201cI love you, Leon\u201d, unravels the fact that \u201cmany men who are initially very polite dampened their enthusiasm upon seeing this tattoo and ended up by doing nothing and paying nothing to her\u201d. Doctor Minovici records another interesting fact: \u201cgenerally, the elderly prostitutes\u2019 tattoos are represented by a woman\u2019s name while young prostitutes have a man\u2019s name tattooed on their skin, as their sense is not yet perverted\u201d. As for the large number of clandestine prostitutes, the custom of having many tattoos on the body was not very frequent. Most of them were tattooed either by an \u201cartist\u201d or by their friends, either in jail or by their lovers.<\/p>\n

Only few prostitutes were tattooed in late nineteenth-century Bucharest. Thus, \u201cI found no tattoo in 80 prostitutes examined at the Bucharest dispensary; a medical doctor who examined them reported that only 4 prostitutes of 698 registered in 1897 were tattooed. Our prostitutes\u2019 tattoos consist to a great extent in moles marked on their cheeks, particularly Gypsy women who want to look more beautiful. The number of these moles scattered all over the face may vary. Thus, the famous recidivist prostitute A.M\u2026 had two moles on her cheek; another prostitute, currently a servant at Marcu\u0163a hospice, has two moles on her cheek and one mole between her eyebrows\u201d.[15]<\/p>\n

Tattoos were also in fashion in the \u201cGreat World\u201d. Thus, one of the first tattooists in London, who was \u201ca well-educated man in his prime, with a conduct indicative of his irreproachable honesty\u201d and \u201cused elegant words\u201d, claimed that \u201ca large part of my customers are officers. It is now fashionable for these gentlemen who are in the army to have their arms tattooed with the number and colours of the regiment to which they belong\u201d. Insofar as high-society ladies are concerned, \u201cthey used to have tattoos of garters and bracelets designed in a mosaic of colours\u201d. The above-mentioned character tells us that he had drawn \u201ca bracelet on the hand of a lady H from high-society. The bracelet was so shiny and so much thrown into relief that everybody took it for a sculpted bracelet\u201d.<\/p>\n

We should also mention General Bernadotte (a close friend of Napoleon Bonaparte), the founder of the present Swedish Royal House, who, being seriously ill, had to show his nudity to his personal doctor who saw that his arm was tattooed with a Phrygian cap on which one could read the inscription \u201cKings must die!\u201d[16]<\/p>\n

Voluptuousness is one of the many causes related to tattoos. The role played by some more or less obscene symbols alluding to a certain type of excitation, which is not necessarily connected with sexual intercourse (this was still atypical of modern Romanian society) was decisive. Doctor Nicolae Minovici quotes the remarks made by an Italian man tattooed, just like his six brothers, all over his body: \u201cWhen the tattoo is very entertaining and spread all over the body, the others perceive it as a black decorated coat; the more tattoos we have got, the greater the degree of our self-esteem. The more tattooed an individual is, the more authority he exerts over his companions. On the contrary, he who is not well tattooed, has no influence, is not respected by the company he keeps\u201d. This occurred around 1860-1870![17]<\/p>\n

In Dizionario dell\u2019 Erotismo<\/em>, Ernest Borneman argues that \u201cthe practice of tattooing often has an erotic motivation, which makes it have recourse to sexual themes both in ethnological and evolved cultures. For instance, only the tattooed girls who belong to certain populations of Oceania can enter into a marriage contract. Tattoos which have an erotic or obscene theme were and still are very popular in the West\u201d.[18]<\/p>\n

Tattoos in the statistics of the year 1898<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Doctor N. Minovici\u2019s research, the late nineteenth-century examination of 116 tattooed persons was highly relevant to the historical, demographic, sociological, psychological, anthropological and ethnological study. According to their nationality, 52 Romanians (including two women), 15 Greeks, 14 Hungarians, 9 Germans, 6 Macedonians (including a child), 6 Bulgarians (including a woman), 6 Gypsies (including a woman), 2 Bohemians and one French man, all tattooed with different symbols, were registered in Bucharest. Most of them were delinquents (85), whereas 17 were free. According to their profession, they were workers (30 men), servants (17, of whom two were women), coachmen and ploughmen (10 persons for each trade), seven soldiers, six merchants, five mechanics, five shoemakers, four butchers, three tailors, two masons, one drawer and 11 unemployed (including two women and one child). The great majority was aged between 30 and 60 (85 persons), whereas 22 of them were below 30 years old. Four of them, however, were over 60 years old.<\/p>\n

According to their educational background, 35 of them attended the primary school while two of them were high-school graduates. The rest of them were illiterate. The offences committed were the following: theft (35 persons), murder (6), battery (8 men and one woman), begging (11), assault (4), robbery (2), fraud (7 persons and one child), indecent behaviour (5), smuggling (5). The largest number of tattoos was designed \u201cat liberty\u201d but also in prison (24 cases), in the army (11 cases) or \u201cin the navy\u201d (6 cases).<\/p>\n

The Greeks were the most skilful tattooists in the Bucharest of the 1900s (40 in number), whereas only ten Romanians practiced the art of tattooing. They were followed by six Hungarians, two Turks, two Macedonians, Germans, Bulgarians, Russians, Arnauts, Polish, Israelites (one for each nationality). 56 of the 66 persons above mentioned were foreigners! [19]<\/p>\n

It seems that tattoos were a fashion that was not part of the Romanian people\u2019s customs. Therefore, foreigners brought it into the country and started to represent one of the many types of acculturation that Romanian urban and suburban society took over from similar European models.[20] Though the 1990 phenomenon is essentially similar, the number of Romanians familiar with the art of tattooing is by far larger compared to the year 1898.<\/p>\n

An interwar case-study<\/strong><\/p>\n

A professor of anatomy and an internationally recognised anthropologist, Dr. Francisc Josif Rainer was a close friend of Professor Nicolae Minovici.[21] The two doctors had a fruitful collaboration, which was generally visible in the case of rescue diggings or exhumations undertaken for forensic expertise. Nicolae Minovici collaborated with Dr. Rainer on the anthropological expertise of the skeletons and skulls that constituted their object of study.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the novelty of the present article resides in a case \u2013 which Francisc Iosif Rainer studied in 1927 \u2013 of a Bucharest citizen who had tattoos marked on both shoulders and on his torso. His name was Alexandru Popescu, 27, who was a tailor by trade the moment Rainer carried out his research.<\/p>\n

In what follows we provide you data gathered by Professor Rainer from the informant. We also attach four photos taken on this occasion:<\/p>\n

\u201cAlexandru Popescu, aged 27, was born in Bucure\u015fti commune on January 29th<\/sup>, 1900. He is a tailor by trade. In 1921 he was enlisted in the Foreign Legion in France in order to fight against the Riffans. A Czech man, who had been imprisoned in Czechoslovakia for money counterfeiting, tattooed the front side of Popescu\u2019s torso, his left and right arms as well as his left and right shoulders in the detention camp from Sidibelabes (Morocco).<\/p>\n

He made use of the following procedure:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Obtain soot by burning one litre of oil in a recipient. Mix the soot with 200-300 c.m.c. of fresh urine.<\/li>\n
  2. Put oil on a stencil designed with a chemical (copying) pencil. Use water to moist the skin surface where you want to design the tattoo. Apply the drawing by tapping the skin with a brush. Then remove the stencil.<\/li>\n
  3. Take a few very fine needles, thrust them into a stick and bind them together, with their pointed ends upwards.<\/li>\n
  4. Moist the needles in the soot and sting the stencil lines. Perform the operation three times.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If the spot where the tattoo has been marked is surrounded by \u201cpips\u201d three days later, it means that the individual\u2019s skin is \u201cbad\u201d and, therefore, the tattoo cannot be marked; if not, a thin layer of skin which covers the drawing comes off after three or four days, leaving the drawing untouched. One can make colour drawings. This is what a German guy used to do in the detention camp. February 1927)\u201d.[22]<\/p>\n

    It is interesting that two of the tattoos that appear in the photos taken in 1927 are today part of the tattoo collection sheltered by \u201cDr. Mina Minovici\u201d National Institute of Forensic Medicine: the portrait of a woman and the star-shaped tattoo; in the documentary photography, the star-shaped tattoo is marked on a man\u2019s arm. Due to favourable circumstances, we can thus prove the tattoo\u2019s date, owner, design procedures and the exact place where two of the tattoos belonging to the collection preserved by INML (National Institute of Forensic medicine) were designed. Not long ago, the star-shaped tattoo was restored for the first time, along with other three tattoos from \u201cDr. Mina Minovici\u201d INML collection.<\/p>\n\n\t\t