Preliminary Notes (1923)
excerpts On July 27th, we had an excursion by automobile to the petrol fields down in the valley leading from Bucharest to Sinaia. Mr. Lecca was with us. Just before lunch, he introduced me to another man who was visiting the petrol fields, and who was the Romanian Minister
My Peaceful, Multiethnic Village
I saw the light of day in an atypical village of Bucovina. It was a multiethnic village, a kind of summary of Europe. A European Union avant la lettre. It is there, I believe, that a direction in my life was traced, an ecumenical dominant feature, one of understanding of
Hutsuls And Their Embroideries
Hutsuls or Huculs, a group of Ukrainian highlanders, live in the Carpathian mountains, to the South-East of the Boykos, a region bordering on the territory of the Romanians. They differentiate themselves from the surrounding Slavic peoples by physiognomy, and by their traditional
Take, Ianke And Cadir
excerpts CADIR: What you do?IANKE: Linger around!CADIR: What about the children? This is big trouble! Here you stay in the house so calmly and the children stay there crying. IANKE: I knew it! Didn't I tell you? They are crying and waiting for the train! Luckily there's
My Grandfather Mehmed Ali
My grandfather Mehmed Ali was an old-fashioned Turk. He wore a long beard and the traditional Turkish costume. Each morning he would sit down next to the charcoal, the earthenware pot filled with live coals, sip his coffee and puff his long-stemmed chibouk. He would often
The Ethnogenesis Of The Dobrujan Turks
The definition of the genesis, as well as the delimitation of the area where the Turkish people was formed, and from where they spread from Central Asia to the Mediterranean Sea, is still a controversial issue among specialists. Discussions between Turkology scholars usually
Doja's Horse, Spek's Tractor And The Missing Hook
Spek Jr. , from Satu Nou, had a tractor called Doja. Since nothing in the world is fortuitous, the name of that machine was not fortuitous either. Spek Sr. , a filthy Jew, as he was called by some people from Iosefin, was a fervent advocate of communism and had been hurdled
The Ruthenians
I was, am, and will remain, a Rusyn. Aleksander Dukhnovici A short historyThe Ruthenians are a population that is descended from a Slavic branch of the Indo-European nations. Their name is mentioned by Julius Caesar, with reference to a Celtic tribe settled in Gallia Narbonensis.
The Dynamic Equivalence Of Gypsy Fashion
Gianina lu' Manşonică of Sinteşti interviewed by Tita Chiper Our host's courtyard could be best described as transition in progress, accurately preserving each of its successive stages: it begins with two run-down foreign cars, and ends with an ashen tent proudly
Four Life Stories
At the Outskirts of Giurgiu*At the outskirts of Giurgiu there was a Turkish village, and that village was called Selima. When the Turks left the city, a hundred and a half years ago, we, the gypsies who tinned the pails, continued to live in that village. We remained in
The Violin Player Ion Voicu
It is hard to say when the Gypsies came to Romania for the first time, and then settled for good, but the oldest documents date from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when the royal charters mentioned the fiddler slaves, sold alongside the dependencies and objects from
The Roma In The Romanian Medieval Imaginary
The Roma Study Center, the History Faculty of the University of Bucharest I. The Roma's first contacts with the natives of the Romanian spaceThe Roma are a people hailing from India and their migration to Europe, in successive waves, spanned several centuries from the