“All Gypsies were living there as sound as a roach”

Heydays of a Roma Colony in Oradea (Romania) and Its Wrecking in Socialist and Post-Socialist Times

Author(s): Zsuzsa Plainer / Language(s): English / Issue: 18/2015

According to a widely shared belief among researchers on Roma, this ethno-racial group is to be considered the real loser of the end of state socialisms in Eastern Europe, as its living standards were higher before 1989 than in the following decades. This paper nuances this view, by presenting the forced relocation of a Roma colony from the Romanian town of Oradea during the 1970s. In keeping with the findings based on long-time anthropological fieldwork, removal of these people (done most probably in the name of the “Law of Systematization” during the 1970s and 1980s) entailed a “pinch” in access to resources and work opportunities, which has contributed to the long-time pauperization of the local Roma.

“Are You Giving Water?” New Forms of Expertise in the Field of Infant Diet in Contemporary Bulgaria

Author(s): Velislava Petrova / Language(s): English / Issue: 20/2017

Introducing solid foods into an infant’s diet is an important period regulated by rites of passage both for the care-giving parent and the child as it marks the child emancipation from the principal caregiver. The transformations within Bulgarian society led to a transformation of kinship relations and proliferation of parenting styles, which rely on their own networks of expertise and levels of trust. We are currently witnessing splits within expert systems and the appearance of new actors, under the effect of new media and technologies, mobility and even transformation within the knowledge itself.

“Carols” for the Dead. Instances of a Dissolving Ritual Sequence in Contemporary Romanian Villages

Author(s): Ioana-Ruxandra Fruntelată / Language(s): English / Issue: 20/2017

The “colindat” custom, which is still active in many Romanian villages, is performed by groups of young men who go from house to house during Christmas Eve (from the 24th to the 25th of December) each year, singing ritual songs and greeting their fellow villagers. Depending on local tradition, young men can wear spectacular folk costumes and can also perform dances as part of the Christmas “colindat”. The texts of the ritual songs (colinde) consist of a mixture of widely varied folk and Christian motifs set against a pattern of oral poetics. “Carols” for the dead can be placed in the group of “colinde” addressed to different members of traditional families (householders, young unmarried men or women, newlywed couples, etc.). During two field research trips in the south-eastern part of Romania (in villages in Călărași and Vrancea Counties) conducted in 2010 and 2012, I collected data on current “carols” for the dead and the ritual gestures that are associated with performing this type of folk song. Although the practice of performing such “colinde” is dissolving (against a background of deeply changing rural civilization), it can still be documented (in and out of context) in rituals, “colinde” notebooks, and oral accounts that give evidence of the inherited community structure that revolves around the extended family in traditional Eastern-European villages.

“Cultural Conflict”: Problem and Resolution Readdressed in Terms of Property Rights

Author(s): Octavian-Dragomir Jora / Language(s): English / Issue: 5/2015

Within the classical dichotomy between “culture” and “civilization”, in some narrow sense, the first term is held responsible for conflict propensity (for it is what coagulates communities, sometimes along with exalted differentiation), while the second is endowed with the great wisdom of disciplining clashes (since the division of labour in society is the very basis for productive cooperation, to speak of economic civilization). Even if this picture does not necessarily do justice to culture, which has a far greater bright side, and neglects the selective nature of economic competition among cultures, what should not be missed when speaking of ethnic, religious or territorial cultural identity is the conflict-spurring scarcity of resources, that is ultimately reducible and solvable in the logic of clearly defined and properly enforced property rights.

“Don’t Underestimate the Girls... Some of them are More Genuine Ultras than You”

Author(s): Kremena Iordanova / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 1/2017

Sports and football in particular are always considered a typical male occupation,which stresses male values and where the presence of the opposite sex is regarded as unnatural. In the last decade, the European stadiums witness the unprecedented presence of women attending the football games. This leads to the conclusion that the idea of male hegemony on the stadium could be questioned. The study is conducted among women–football fans in Bulgaria. The main questions, which it aims to answer,are: What are the ways of becoming a football fan? How do the female football fans spend their time in the circles that were until recently considered male? To what extent is their behaviour on the stadium independent?

“Ega ma arsti juurde ju ometi ei lähe!” Eemiline uskmatus oletataval uue vaimsuse uurimisväljal

Author(s): Age Kristel Kartau / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 75/2019

The paper “I wouldn't go to the doctor anyway!” presents a study of alternative medicine practices among Estonians, who are allegedly the least religious people in the world. Only 6 percent of Estonians consider religion important in their lives and only 2 percent attend church weekly; 1/3 profess to never having had the experience of the sacred, and another 1/3 have difficulties expressing when and in connection with what they have felt anything being holy. One of the world’s leading researchers of New Age, Paul Heelas, has called Estonia “a golden land” for studying trajectories of changing spirituality: “over and above serving to exemplify the ‘shattering’ retreat of Christendom … Estonia calls for the transformation of the study of religion … to the comparative study of sources of significance: their various promises … or their failures”. The present study is based on 34 life-story interviews, recorded digitally in the years 2008–2019 and stored in the Estonian Folklore Archives. Although the sociological theories of religion consider alternative medicine as the New Age spirituality by default, the interviewees perceive their activity as non-religious. The label ‘New Age’ is even regarded with hostility. There are some who identify themselves as Christians, and some who see the profitability of using the Buddhist language or Taoist images, but faith per se in any religious doctrine is hard to find. Soviet ideological brainwashing during the occupation trained Estonians to hang on to thinking for themselves and antagonism-buttressed self-preservation. In a basic values survey, Estonians put autonomy and self-sufficiency (equals autarchia in church terminology) in a very high position, the third among 21 values. This defiance is visible against the church as well as the New Age ideologies, and the state medical system. This might, thus, explain the great support for heterodoxy and the cultic milieu both in the census statistics of the 21st century and the large numbers of Estonians pursuing yoga. Whoever can afford it prefers finding help in Google search and not showing up in a doctor's office. Among the interviewees there are some who use in their job such oriental body techniques as yoga, acupuncture, Thai massage, and reiki. One person is a close family member of a long-time legendary folk-healer who used forest herbs and had a reputation as a clairvoyant, but in fact had higher education in biology and chemistry and advised clients skilfully by reading chemical elements in blood tests and applying knowledge about chemical content of the plants in the home forest. One woman whose rheumatoid-arthritic daughter was treated with modern medicine without satisfactory results for many years turned to Byzantine blood-letting cupping therapy that has been practiced for centuries by Scandinavian folk medicine. After sauna suction cups are placed on the skin to force the superficial capillaries to dilate, and then skin is cut intentionally in order to cleanse the organism of toxic residues. She defines herself as believing “in nothing except in herself” – “no witchcraft whatsoever in these therapies”, according to her own words. As Bronislaw Szerszynski has noticed, feral sacrality of the split transcendental axis – “abroad natural and cultural landscape freely roaming around religious symbols and actions” – is floating in society as a free cultural resource for private use in the creation of identities. At least, something similar can be detected from some life stories in this paper: one interviewee confesses that the job of an oriental body therapist allows to “get ever closer to God, the Creator, Buddha, the Intelligent Energy – whatever it is that has created, and keeps creating the Universe and us”. By the 21st century, after breaking free from the Soviet occupation, Estonia has successfully joined not only the European and North Atlantic alliances, but likewise embraced globalisation and started eagerly to “collect exotic experiences” as a landmark of post-modernist lifestyle, according to Zygmunt Bauman. We became Westernised in an Easternised West; for vacations and career enhancement we go to Westernised East. Szerszynski's idea of the hiding place for “roaming religion” in sports, education, and medicine allows posing questions to people from the realm of belief, while totally leaving aside Christianity. I am assuming that in those explanations about why people choose one or another solution for their health or psychological problems, the “roaming religion” phenomenon expresses itself without having to ask whether a person believes in God, Intelligent Energy, self-realisation, or whatever. Thorough quantitative research is definitely needed, but first, by qualitative methods, the diverse self-describing statements should be found, by which it would be easier for us to identify ourselves.

“Ehk nõiduseks tarvitatud” – maagilised esemed Eesti muuseumikogudes

Author(s): Kristiina Johanson,Tõnno Jonuks / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 72/2018

It is quite remarkable that the number of artefacts connected with magical practices in Estonian museums is rather small. It can be said that this scarcity is related to several factors. One of the reasons is the fact that collections that grew around the nineteenth-century antiquarian societies were formed randomly, and cherished the age and artistic or material value of the artefacts. The systematic collecting of contemporary artefacts or those from the recent past gained impetus only when the Estonian National Museum (ENM) initiated campaigns for collecting everyday items in 1909. The collecting activity started by the ENM was clearly influenced by the official national ideology – the museum collected artefacts that were valued, and items of despicable “superstition” were not part of these. The second reason for the scarcity of magic items is the fact that magic was mostly a verbal and behavioural activity and for some rituals no special artefact was needed. In magical practices everyday items were often used, and while these had more roles than being only magical attributes, they were not donated to the collectors or have been gathered and catalogued as tools or commodities. Recognizing magic is a matter of the worldview. Until it is not discussed in books or taught at schools, the users cannot regard the artefacts used in special healing rituals as magical – these were used in folk medical practices which in the beginning of the twentieth century consisted of some apothecary remedies, verbal spells, and herbal treatment, but to some extent also special artefacts were used. This leads us to the third reason for the scarcity of magic items in collections. Many apotropaic or folk medical artefacts could have been actively used at the beginning of the twentieth century, and people were not eager to donate these to the museums. Obviously displays and artefacts in expositions also influenced collecting – seeing and knowing what the museum valued made common people recognize the same kinds of things. A notable feature in the small collection of magical items in Estonian museums is the clear focus on curative magic, leaving other aspects of magical practices represented only by single objects. The folk medical collection of the ENM contains several smooth pebbles and fossils used in healing practices. Similar material (more than 500 items altogether) has been gathered from Estonian archaeological sites. However, this kind of archaeological finds have very rarely been interpreted, although it is clear that folkloric background played a role in collecting these in the first place. The reasons for the scarce interest in material magic in academic research vary. Firstly, both archaeology and ethnography have tried to appear as scientific and credible disciplines which hardly deal with matters of magic or superstition. The general rational worldview has played a significant role also in the theoretical and methodological background. Nevertheless, religion and magic have been discussed to some extent, and artefacts with a magical background have reached museum collections. However, due to the valid rationalistic worldview, their interpretation has been clearly function-centred (e.g. the dolostone disk from Rattama), with mostly utilitarian functions in the foreground. This explains the higher representation of curing magic in collections, whereas the use of ear-stones (Bryozoan fossils), for example, clearly involves rational elements like heating the stone and pouring water on it to create curative steam for the ears. The function could also be non-utilitarian, for example, apotropaic amulets have been created for this purpose. If magical interpretations were used, these tended to be general and common-sense, for instance, related to the fear of natural forces. These interpretations often degenerate to academic naivety, and are grounded neither by arguments nor by reasoning. Also, the nature of artefacts used in magical practices in Estonia has played a considerable role in the lack of interest towards material magic. In most cases natural or everyday artefacts have been used, which, without an accompanying narrative, cannot be regarded as magical. High magic and more complicated teachings did not spread outside the University of Tartu in Estonia until the nineteenth century, and the scarcity of artefacts specifically made for magical practices has inhibited magic from becoming an attractive research topic. Due to the lack of academic studies, the cataloguing of magical artefacts has been complicated: sometimes the artefacts have been ascribed magical meaning that they actually did not have, sometimes their actual magical use has been ignored or hidden behind utilitarian functions. The only solution seems to be the increasing level of systematising studies on different forms of magic, with the purpose of creating a widely used and well-reasoned theoretical discussion.

“I Exist Therefore You Exist, We Exist Therefore They Exist”: Narratives of Mutuality between Deities (Yul-Lha Gzhi Bdag) and Lhopo (Bhutia) Villagers in Sikkim

Author(s): Kikee D. Bhutia / Language(s): English / Issue: 75/2019

This article engages with the presence, personalities, and lives of yul lha gzhi bdag (protective and guardian deities) who reside with the Lhopo (Bhutia) community in Sikkim, India. Informed by fieldwork, and through narratives, observations, and experiences, I illustrate and discuss how interactions and connections between villagers and deities are shaped by principles of relationality and mutuality. After discussing the various meanings and manifestations yul lha gzhi bdag take on in diverse Himalayan contexts, I illustrate through discussions of rituals, practices, beliefs, and narratives how the ‘mundane’ routines and lifeworld of the Lhopo villagers variously connect with, and derive meaning from, the supernatural world that surrounds them. I argue, however, that this is not a one-way process but that deities similarly rely on villagers to derive and validate their existence in the world. This mutuality, however, increasingly finds itself under strain as a result of social processes of modernity, globalization, changing relations with land, religious conversion, and competing forms of educational and medical knowledge, on which I reflect in the conclusion.

“I Was Modern to His Victorian:” House as a Reflection of the Father-Daughter Relationship in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home

Author(s): Aleksandra Kamińska / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/2017

The article discusses how central themes of Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic are reflected in her portrayal of the home she grew up in. The main focus is put on the analysis of Bechdel's father's obsession with renovating the house in the context of his queerness. The article examines the relationship between Alison Bechdel and her father, and expressions of their gender identities, in relation to their aesthetic preferences.

“Invisible Places, Hidden History”: The Role of the Former “Russian Airport” in Telling Stories about the Front in the South Vértes Region

Author(s): István Sántha / Language(s): English / Issue: 70/2017

The South Vértes is one of the regions in Hungary where the battles between the opposing Hungarian-German and Russian sides went on for the longest period of time and were the severest. The fates of the people living in the region varied, as every village had its unique history and played a different role in the war. Moreover, individual families expressed unique attitudes in their narratives about the front, depending on whether they survived the war without major losses or suffered great traumas. The article explores stories told by local people about the “Russian airport”, the only Soviet barracks established in the region after World War II, and how it was linked to the violent events of the war. While the Russian barracks in general appeared to serve as a platform for the fear accompanying the comments on World War II, different generations of local people have different positions in relation to the front and rely on different techniques for telling stories about the war. The focus is on people who were born during or just before the war and consequently have limited personal experience of the front. Members of this generation unconsciously use the “Russian airport” and its residents as a parallel platform to talk about World War II and experiences involving their families, exemplifying the complexities of communicating about the war and emotions.

“It ghosts”: Language as a Haunted Dwelling in Selected Poems by Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore

Author(s): Paulina Ambroży / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2018

“IT IS THE WEED OF LOVERS” THE USE OF CANNABIS AMONG TURKIC PEOPLES UP TO THE 15TH CENTURY

Author(s): Benedek Péri / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

Cannabis sativa L. is one of the most popular psychoactive plants in our days. It is widely used as a medicine, a recreational drug and also as an entheogen. Archaeological findings suggest that the hemp plant was known in China as early as the 5th millennium B.C. The first written source documenting the use of cannabis as a drug is from a much later period and dates back to the 5th century B.C. The present paper offers an outline of the history of the use of cannabis as a mind altering drug among Turkic peoples from ancient times up to the late 15th century, a period of flourishing cannabis subculture both in Anatolia and in Central Asia.

“It was the least painful to go into Greenhouse Production”: The Moral Appreciation of Social Security in Post-Socialist Serbia

Author(s): Andre Thiemann / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2014

This paper deals with the agricultural production of social security. By representing a rural case study from Central Serbia, it contributes to the economic history of post-socialist former Yugoslavia and explores the conditions of the possibility for social alternatives to neo-capitalism. In the case study, a male actor - embedded within family and wider social networks - successfully accommodates the adverse macroeconomic conditions through hard work, micromanagement of limited resources, and the production of social relations. He also combines new micro-spatial fixings - productive facilities - with revaluing morally depreciated older ones. In sum, this case study shows how networks of actors can invest their energy into reversing the moral depreciation of labor and capital under conditions of capitalist competition and growing inequality. These practices point to an emancipation from the in egalitarian moral economy of capitalism, a process I conceptualize as “moral appreciation”. As its goal emerges the production of a relatively egalitarian society within the lived space of the urban-village continuum.

“Kas sugu loeb?” – folkloristide 13. talvekonverents Nelijärvel

Author(s): Airika Harrik / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 70/2018

An overview of the conference is provided by Airika Harrik.

“Mislim da sam vidio Micu Macu”: animalna naličja Balkana i popularna kultura

Author(s): Tomislav Oroz / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 2/2016

This paper is an attempt to re-think various representations of the Balkans through the analysis of the cat-woman figure in various aspects of popular culture: from Val Lewton's and Jacques Tournier's film Cat people, to diverse artistic expressions by artist from the Balkans. The film Cat People from 1942 presents an often stigmatized, obscure image of the Balkans, unlike artistic expressions several decades later that experiment with ethnocentric notions of the Balkans.

“Namaste”: Representations of India in Sega’s spiritual travelogue

Author(s): Adriana Răducanu / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2019

India has occupied a prominent place in the Romanian literary and cultural landscape since the 19th century and it continues to do so in ours. The claim of an almost-tradition of representations of India in Romanian literature can be easily sustained via a perusal of the works of Mihai Eminescu (the national poet) and Mircea Eliade (the famous comparatist of religions).India enabled the former to surpass a certain anxiety of influence, at both ontological and aesthetic levels and came to constitute a cultural axis mundi for the latter, a powerful catalyst for a lifetime work. This article will focus on Octavian Segarceanu’s (Sega) spiritual travelogue, Namaste: A Novel of Spiritual Adventures in India (the first in a trilogy) and argue that in the Romanian contemporary literary landscape he is one of the most prominent continuators of writings either alluding to or focusing on India. His spiritual travelogue depicts a country perceived by the post-modern consciousness of the contemporary man, acknowledged as a network of multiple (and often antagonistic) cultural influences, but also a country echoing his predecessors’ works. An act of ontological rebellion inspired Sega, the copy writer turned writer to question basic, internal modes of existing and to focus not only on being but being-able-to-be. In so doing, the present article argues that the author/foreigner/wanderer both turns the readership into witnesses to the candid autobiography of his feelings, as well as surveys the makings of a cosmopolitan identity, situated at the crossroads between West and East, film and literature, philosophy and faith.

“Nobody’s Stronger than the State”

Crisis and Hope among Serbian NGO Workers and War Veterans

Author(s): Marek Mikuš,Goran Dokić / Language(s): English / Issue: 18/2015

This paper compares the ways in which Serbian NGO workers and members of the associations of veterans of the post-Yugoslav wars conceived and responded to the recent economic crisis. The authors highlight the importance of discourse and experience in how people construct and deal with crisis. The ways in which the NGO workers and veterans engage with the crisis reflect their divergent experiences of recent Serbian history, hopes rooted in different pasts, and ideological frameworks through which they interpret these experiences and hopes. However, both groups assign a central and paradoxical role to the state: while the actual state is seen as failing and thus generating crisis, the ideal state is expected to resolve it. In their practical responses to the crisis, both the NGO workers and the veterans continued to rely on the state. This has made possible the continued reproduction of the cultural hegemony of the state.

“Noorte hääled” 2016

Author(s): Ave Goršič ,Piret Koosa / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 64/2016

Ave Goršič and Piret Koosa bring to the reader an overview of the 11th conference of young ethnologists, folklorists, and other culture researchers, “Young Voices”, which was held on April 20.

“Onze vinger zit nog in het gat” 400. Yıl Vesilesiyle Hollanda Canon’u ve Kolektif Bellek Üzerine Düşünceler

Author(s): Pınar Melis Yelsalı Parmaksız / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 73/2013

The Canon book containing fifty titles (windows) and corresponding texts indicating the significant events, people and themes in the history of the Netherlands, has the claim of representing the minimum product of Dutch collective memory as well as being designed to be used as the history book in the secondary school curriculum. The Canon book which was presented to the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science by the Committee for the Development of the Dutch Canon on July 3rd 2007 was published not only in Dutch and English but also translated to the languages of the main demographic groups making up the Netherlands. Because of these qualities the Canon book is closely connected with the debates of identity, nationalism and democracy laying on the agenda of national as well as international politics. In addition that, the idea which became relevant after the WWII that the Europe is not only the name of an geographic place but is about Europeanness based on the idea of common past encompassing its political, social, economic, cultural characteristics calls for a closer look at the Canon book. From this point of view, the aim of this article is both to evaluate the Canon book with respect to its effects concerning the immigrants originates from Turkey and to make a consideration on the subjects of collective memory, memory regime, coming to terms with the past. To make a consideration on Canon also means thinking on a multicultural memory regime allowing the past to arise from variable sources and to become a part of the collective memory as well as on equal, democratic and pluralistic sociabilities.

“Poor Naked Wretches”: The Wound of the Ordinary in Agee and Warren

Author(s): Joseph Kuhn / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2018

The pastoral figure of the small farmer in the writings of the Nashville Agrarians and other southern modernists gave expression to a conservative metaphysics of the soil, one that underpinned the unitary, organic notion of “the South” in the interwar decades. This agrarian figure of the “harvester” was subsequently criticised by two southern radicals, James Agee in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941) and Robert Penn Warren in “Blackberry Winter” (1946). Both Agee’s cotton tenants and Warren’s tramp show how any southern poetics of the earth had to take account of the intrusion of economic depression and world war into the region. Agee’s work is particularly incisive and close to the European avant-garde in that he envisages the ruined agricultural families of Alabama through a perspective close to Georges Bataille’s sociology of the sacred and Maurice Blanchot’s theory of the inoperative community.