DEATH AND DYING IN ROMANIAN PREMODERNITY – BETWEEN INDIVIDUALITY AND COLLECTIVITY
DEATH AND DYING IN ROMANIAN PREMODERNITY – BETWEEN INDIVIDUALITY AND COLLECTIVITY

Author(s): Carmen Alexandrache
Subject(s): History, Anthropology, Philosophy, Social Sciences, Cultural history, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
Published by: CEEOLPRESS
Keywords: human death; collective mentality; community identity; Romanian society; modernity; anthropological research; religious attitudes;
Summary/Abstract: Human death is a research subject that remains associated with an accumulation of feelings manifested both individually and collectively (group, community, society). In general, the way death is perceived by humans and society, as well as the feelings and attitudes toward it, comes to represent an element of collective mentality and community identity. From this perspective, it becomes clear why there are a multitude of approaches to human death, dying, and the experience of death in anthropological, ethnological, sociological, and religious research. Starting from the conviction that human death and the “living of death” are elements of collective mentality rather than merely individual problems, we aim to identify how they were expressed in Romanian extra-Carpathian society at the beginning of modernity. To conduct this study, we used diverse bibliographic materials, with a particular focus on internal documents such as narrative texts and legal and judicial acts, as well as external sources represented by the notes of foreign travelers.

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