“Romanian Folkloristics” versus “The History of the Romanian Folkloristics”. Vrabie, Bîrlea and the Ideological Fundamentals of the Communist Ethnology Cover Image

„Folcloristica românească” versus „Istoria folcloristicii”. Vrabie, Bîrlea și dominantele ideologice ale etnologiei comuniste
“Romanian Folkloristics” versus “The History of the Romanian Folkloristics”. Vrabie, Bîrlea and the Ideological Fundamentals of the Communist Ethnology

Author(s): Mircea Păduraru
Subject(s): Romanian Literature
Published by: Editura Tracus Arte
Keywords: communist ethnology; discourse; history; epistemology; politics;

Summary/Abstract: The study provides a political reading of the two histories of the Romanian ethnology, emphasizing both elements of obedience towards the political authority of the moment, actualized under the shape of the institutional hierarchy and state authority, as well as small gestures of dissidence. Although both ethnologists cultivate attitudes of distancing in relation to the episteme and politics of the establishment, mare obvious Bîrlea and more discreet Vrabie, the conclusion of the study is that these dissident gestures are not radical, capable of challenging the dominant perspective of the Romanian ethnology. Although at a subjective, personal level these initiatives might have had something heroic and worthy of praise, in the larger perspective of the power dispositive of the period their value had been one of validation and confirmation of the epistemic and political order of the system.

  • Issue Year: XVI/2020
  • Issue No: 2 (32)
  • Page Range: 171-182
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Romanian