A fi în „Gura Satului”
“The mouth of the village” or what the people from villages think and talk about something

Summary/Abstract: The rural community is a complex social and cultural system, integrator of various roles, statutes, relationships that the members of the community distribute to each other. The plurivalence of these social, spiritual realities finds its connection center, today and in the past, within well-structured, organized, governed institutions, based on legal, moral and social norms. Among these, an important role the “Gura satului” [literally, “the mouth of the village”] institution has (what the people from villages think and talk about something), which represents the public opinion, quite democratic and free of expression. It judges, criticizes, punishes through defamation and appreciates through praise all actions of the community members, regardless of age, social status, who are contrary to the good behavior, the communitary rules, to the norms preordained by tradition and society. Maneuvering with tools such as gossip, intrigue, interpreted words, news „passed from mouth to mouth”, which knew deep distortions, “Gura satului” continues, even today, but under other forms and impacts, to be an opinion former, to exercise a social and moral control, to reordonate the life of the community, and to express one of the socio-ethnographic manifestations of democracy.

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