Master Builder Manole
Downstream on the wideArgesh River's sideNegru Voda's riding;Ten men go beside him:Masons, craftsmen fine, Masterbuilders – nine;Manoli makes ten,The greatest craftsman. Down this dale, they're boundTo erect and foundA monastery hall,A memorial. There, as
Quote
Like an Egyptian pharaoh, who built a pyramid to be the abode of his body, with a view to future life, the powerful Romanian princes built monasteries to rest and keep their bones till Doomsday. Their unflinching faith in the immortality of the soul drove them to these pious
Joy - Beauty - Communication
Joy usually produces beauty and beauty produces communication. . . , as Horia Bernea once said. That is also the dominant impression that I had after having visited the Romanian Peasant Museum. Beauty and joy are being offered to the Romanian or foreign visitor, whether
A Museum-Synthesis Of The Romanian Ethnological Patrimony
Architect The architecture of a country is, perhaps, the most accurate expression of its history, and nothing can give us a more certain insight into the past and more authentic knowledge of a civilisation. By what it has achieved throughout time, Romanian architecture
The Museum Of The Romanian Village
In his opening speech at the inauguration of the Village Museum, Professor D. Gusti said: …We did not have the example of open air museums from the northern countries, such as Skansen, Bigdo or Lillehammer. They convey us too much romantic and ethnographical merit, focusing
A Landmark On The European Map: The Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum
Historian The National Village Museum in Bucharest is the kind of museum in which the traditional exhibition halls are replaced by authentic households, consisting of dwellings and their extensions, technical devices, churches and triptychs transplanted from their places
Quote
He who will embark on ethnologic studies in Romania will be generously rewarded by his work, for he will find with the Romanian people – which, with the shallowness typical of these times, we have grown accustomed to consider totally deprived of any culture – a genuine
The Herbs Under The Cross
Healing plants grow under Christ's cross and out of the blood of our Saviour. People in Germany and Norway believe that the grass of Sânziene (Hypericum) grew roots from the Saviour's blood drops. Other legends tell that the same plant was born from the blood
Enemies And Friends Of Man I
FATE, RELIEF, GOOD FORTUNETHE PARCAEUrsitoarele (the Fates, the Parcae), also called ursitori, ursători, ursite, ursoi, ursoaice or ursoni, or Mire by the Macedo-Romanians, or albe, harasite, caşmete or hrioase by the Neo-Greeks and Bulgarians are known as three virgins
The Earth Beliefs Of The Romanian People I
excerpt THE MAKING OF EARTH AND ITS LIFE STORYI have already put together in my earlier works a whole series of histories and beliefs dealing with the world before its making as well as with the world above the endless realm of eternal water: And I strongly doubt that anyone
Romanian Mythology I
excerptsTHE MAKING OF THE WORLDAbysmIn the beginning, before Old Adam and even before God, there was nothing in this world but pitch darkness. Nothing whatsoever, no Earth, no Sun, no Moon, nothing but a great stretch of water taking up the endless chasm. Wherever you turned
Romanians - 1943
excerpt THE ROMANIANS' SPIRITUAL LIFE The Two Myths of Romanian SpiritualityIn any culture, there is always a central myth that discovers it and that is to be found in all its major works of art. Romanians' spiritual life is dominated by two myths that express,