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The present article is based on information from the fields of cultural anthropology and folk literature. In the beginning, details about the main characteristics of the people with special powers are given. Then the features of Rohmans from the Romanian beliefs have been synthesized. Their image combines concrete data from the novel Alexandria with elements from the autochtonous cult of the ancestors. The way Romanians perceive Solomonians gathers components from several layers: mythical, religious and historical. The fairy tale characters who traveled to the other world are either helped by other beings with miraculous powers, or return to their world because they cannot overcome their mortal condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the origin of written literature is folk literature, it was a matter of course that one of the oldest and most frequent presences in the literary text was the floral one. From early antiquity to postmodernism, often supporting the mythical warp, this aesthetic code remains constant as a presence, naturally changing its meanings. The early period of Eminescu's work was visibly influenced by folklore later these influences are refined, sublimated, without disappearing, acquiring meanings given by the romantic frame of the literary movement in which it manifests itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper assesses the intellectual profile of Romanian ethnologist Mihai Pop, from the doublefold perspective of theoretical thinking and institutional work in his field. Lettered in Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism during the inter-war period, Mihai Pop managed to accomplish his formation in a remarkable structuralist-semiotic setting in postwar Romania, in a theoretical stance which remained singular in Romanian research during communism and acquired a well-deserved international recognition. Among others, this stance enabled Mihai Pop to rebuild the domain of Romanian Folklore studies, after the 1948 education reform, and safeguard the field against ideologization, which was about to return in full force after 1971 and after his 1975 retirement . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of the present study realizes a synthetical survey regarding the history of the ASTRA Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation, from its historical beginnings to the present day. Thus, the first anticipations of the ASTRA Museum may be easily traced to the first ethnographical exhibition from 1862 of the Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature and the Culture of the Romanian People (abbreviated as ASTRA), founded in 1861. After this first exhibition from 1862, organized in Brasov, the following ones, from 1881 and 1902, will be held in Sibiu. Created in 1905 as "The Association's Museum", dissolved in 1950 by the communist regime and reinstated in 1963 as "The Museum of Folk Technique" by Cornel Irimie, the present ASTRA Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation represents a synopsis for the very existence of Romanian people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to analyze several motives from Serbian and Romanian folk literature. It identifies the main themes and motives from the local folklore, similar situations from the folklore of the two peoples, the Romanian and the Serbian. The common Balkan history and, especially, the struggle against the Ottoman Turks, are the starting point of both the Serbian and the Romanian legend (The Monastery of Arges and the Building of the Fortress on the River Bojana). This paper attempts to present several motives and their presence in the legends of the two neighboring peoples, stressing not only the similarities, but also the differences between them. What should be pointed out are previous, detailed studies about local and Balkan folklore, starting from names of references and the work they have done in this field. One of the main differences, and one that will mark the overall meaning of the two legends, is related to the ethnic, religious and traditional characteristics of each of the two nations. If with the Romanian the image of creation, the arch spreading over generations and generations - is a church, a religious temple, then with the Serbian it is a tower built as a defense against Turks. Their continuity in space and time is considered from the point of view of the building of the Arges Temple and the Fortress on the Bojana, respectively; in his play about Manole the Craftsman, Lucian Blaga also speaks of mythical time. In the Romanian version, Manole sacrifices himself, which is an idea of creation that defies time, and in the popular mind it implies the necessity of complete sacrifice, and death is transformed into immortality through the acts of building an edifice and a fountain. Common motives in Serbian and Romanian folk literature are the result of good neighborly relations in this part of the Balkans and the legends of Manole the Craftsman and the Building of the Fortress on the Bojana are the best example of this. These two legends symbolize, in folk as well as in contemporary literature, the creative spirit of the two nations. The main characters are true symbols, because they represent something both the Romanian and the Serbian people managed to create and save until today, trough many sacrifices, while throughout history, they were very often forced to lose what they had fought to gain over many centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Further examples are provided by the old folk names given to the months of the year, which parallel the literary names: florar „the month of flowers‟ - aprilie, mai (April, May), cireşar „the month of sweet cherries‟ - iunie (June), cuptor „the month of sulty heat‟ - iulie (July), brumarel, brumar „the month of white frost, wine month‟ - septembrie, octombrie (September, October). The preference for the motivated terms when referring to the months of the year (older or more recent folk names) is still manifest. This proves the interest shown for natural phenomena and the vegetative cycle of plants by a population maninly occupied in agriculture. Also, aside from the modern, in languages of other nations there are traditional, folk names of the month of the year which are related to the seasons, the blossoming of the vegetation, explained by fact that the agriculture was, through the centuries, the main activity. Names that are similar to the Romanian cireşar for June there is in Albanian and Italian language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]