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Our paper presents a series of theoretical reflections generated by the task of conducting anthropological research on food traditions and practices in a network of villages in Romania, in the context of restrictions on movement and social interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was carried out as part of the Digital collection of Romanian food heritage and transfer to society - FOODie project. The pressure to respect both contractual deadlines in relation to the funder and health safety rules led us to the solution of online interviews. Due to the specific nature of our research, the people targeted by the interviews were aged and had minimal digital skills, which led us to call on a second member of the interviewed community, a PC user, who was ready to moderate the relationship with the informant and provide technical assistance. Based on these research experiences, we will discuss (a) the advantages and disadvantages of remote fieldwork; (b) the dynamics of the relation between the researcher and the respondent in this new methodological context; (c) the collaborative nature of the ethnological document, which is the result of the intersection of the researcher's thematic interests, her/his availability and skills and, in this case, the flair, intuition and persuasiveness of the actor mediating the meeting between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first months of 2020, the whole world was affected by the restrictions caused by the authorities' attempts to stop the spread of SarsCov2 as far as possible. Initially, the most effective measure was quarantine, which could slow the spread of the virus. In Romania, the first case of Covid19 was confirmed on 23 February 2020, and after a period of hesitation, the national authorities imposed the quarantine on 15 March, i.e., a series of restrictions on the movement of persons and on participation in events involving more than eight persons. Obviously, the introduction of this special regime for the movement of persons affected all areas of social and economic life, including its vital branches, such as the industrial and educational activity. Of course, under these conditions, the first temptation of any ethnologist was to observe the transformations of the rhythms of life, practicing a kind of armchair ethnography and transforming into the observed "field" even their own home, their own life or the lives of those close to them, but also what came to them from the outside world via online. In contrast to these approaches, this paper studies several cases where, through contractual obligations, the ethnologist had to do the field in the classical sense of the term, i.e. to observe real (not virtual) communities, located far away (even geographically), and to participate in their social and cultural life. The constraints imposed by quarantine practically forced ethnological fieldwork to reinvent itself, making researchers reflect on the criteria for selecting their informants under the new conditions, on the manner of interacting with them, on the logistics involved in producing interviews and, last but not least, on the ethical implications of approaches of this kind. The remote field experiences of two projects were presented and analyzed: Educational and Networking Tools on Development of Authentic Performance for Professional Integration - PAN and Colecție digitală a patrimoniului alimentar românesc si transfer spre societate -- FOODie. Analyzing in particular the interviews conducted in the FOODie project, the paper highlights a number of advantages of remote fieldwork, such as: the possibility to overcome quarantine restrictions, the possibility to make a quality video recording, the openings of a collaborative ethnology. A number of difficulties of this type of remote research are also highlighted, such as: communication difficulties due to lack of direct interaction, internet signal fluctuation problems, difficulties in understanding some aspects due to ignorance of the informant's living space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influential survey of the study of folklore in Romania, “Istoria folcloristicii românești” (1974), written by Ovidiu Bîrlea, creates a canon of folklore and folklorists during the first century of the study of ethnography in Romania. There is no chapter dedicated to the teacher Mihai Lupescu (1861-1922). He features on three occasions in chapters dedicated to other folklorists: (1) as secondary author of two monographs, the first with Tudor Pamfile (“Cromatica poporului român” – 1914) and the second with Artur Gorovei (“Botanica poporului român” – 1915); (2) as co-founder of the folklore journals Șezătoarea. Revistă pentru literatură și tradițiuni populare (1892) and Ion Creangă. Revistă de limbă, literatură și artă (1908); (3) as “collector of folklore” and “correspondent” for the well-known folklorists S.Fl. Marian and Iuliu Zanne. Lupescu’s bibliography has been reconstructed relatively recently, and reflects the common areas of interest within the study of ethnography and folklore at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, when everything was still in need of being studied: folk tales and proverbs, popular medicine and botany, customs related to specific times in the year and rites of passing, beliefs and magical practices. At the same time, his bibliography also reveals a specific interest which was atypical within the study of ethnography at that time: food. Mihai Lupescu wrote 17 articles about “The Peasant’s Kitchen” (“Bucătăria țăranului”) in the journal Șezătoarea between 1899 and 1904, and in 1916 he submitted a manuscript for a monograph with a similar title to the Romanian Academy, to be published in the series “Din viața poporului roman” (“From the Life of the Romanian People”). For various reasons, as I will explain in my paper, Lupescu’s manuscript did not get published until 2000, thus denying the theme of food an early entrance, one could say canonisation, within the study of ethnography in Romania. My paper will offer an examination of Lupescu’s engagement with Romanian alimentation, and it will raise the issue of how the monograph “Din bucătăria țăranului român” (“From the Kitchen of the Romanian Peasant”) stimulates a reconsideration of the place assigned to its author, and to the topic of food, within the canon of the discipline of ethnography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following study contains reflections on a certain book, Luai Uzdinu de-amăruntul. Amintirile unei povestitoare prodigioase: Mărioara Sârbu [Uzdin piece by piece. Memoirs of a Prodigious Storyteller: Mărioara Sârbu], published by Otilia Hedeşan in 2015. It was the result of a research project entitled"Living Heritage - an unlimited resource for tourism development" (MIS ETC Code 1324) within the Cross-Border Cooperation Programme Romania-Serbia, which was funded by the European Union by means of the Pre-Admission Instrument (IPA). The publication is an endeavour of collaborative ethnography and it is built on two levels. On the one hand, there is Mărioara Sârbu's speech about various aspects of traditional life in Uzdin village (Serbia), that is narratives transcribed from oral interviews and descriptions taken from manuscripts. They were all produced in the meetings with the researcher for longer than a decade. On the other hand, there is Otilia Hedeşan's speech, which contextualizes, explains and makes remarks on the previous one, and also indicates issues to be developed in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike some of his contemporary peers, men of letters or theologians, Valeriu Anania did not research folklore systematically, even if, as we can see in his Memoirs, the recording of folklore seems to have piqued his interest at some point. In the following pages our objective is to analyse the novella Pasărea Măiastră [The Magic Bird] from the perspective of its possible folkloric sources. The major intention of the novella is, in our opinion, the approximation of the place occupied by pre-Christian motifs/themes/characters in a Christian world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Romanian folkloristic research method using correspondents appears to be synchronous with the quasi-European projects since its roots can be located in the latter half of the 19th century, namely within the chrestomathies accomplished by Transylvanian scholars helped by pupils. Thus, there should be mentioned Timotei Cipariu, Ioan Micu Moldovanu, Vasile Bologa and others. Moreover, there were At. Marian Marienescu and Ion Pop Reteganul's appeals. Nevertheless, all those researches had reduced dimensions compared to B. P. Hasdeu's monumental approach. Hasdeu sent two questionnaires to priests and teachers from some Romanian villages: Obiceiele juridice ale poporului român. Întrebări asupra legăturilor sătesci, casnice şi de lucruri între ţărani (1878) ['Legal Habits of the Romanian People. Questions on Affinities between Villages, Domestic Connections and Matters between Peasants'] and Programa pentru adunarea datelor privitoare la limba română (1884) ['Schedule for Gathering Data Regarding Romanian Language']. The replies concerning the first questionnaire came from 37 villages, whereas the second one gathered a number of 701 answers. On one hand, it was due to their dissemination under the aegis of the Romanian Academy and due to Hasdeu's growing popularity among the respondents, and, on the other hand, it was due to the reduction in the number of questions to 206, two of which were related to the imaginary of the after-world: the mythological beings that govern the funeral sphere (Strigoiul), whereas the funeral was analyzed [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with Stefania Cristescu Golopentia's unique profile in the history of social research in Romania. We are taking into consideration Şt. C.-G. training for field research, her participation in the monographic campaigns led by D. Gusti, the texts that resulted from her field research, and her theoretical and methodological concept of the fieldwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book entitled A Monographist Epistolary. Zoltán Rostás Edition from H. H. Stahl's Archive of Letters [Epistolar monografist. Ediţie de Zoltán Rostás din arhiva de scrisori a lui H. H. Stahl] published some of the letters that sociologist Henri H. Stahl had received between 1929 and 1946. The addressers were Romanian and foreign intellectuals with various backgrounds and further careers, monographists and momentary contributors to Dimitrie Gusti's Sociological School. The mentioned documents reveal Stahl as: a coordinator of monographic works and student teams, a methodologist of the sociological monographic campaigns, an unsurpassed field researcher, a study author or a professional editor, a professor, a colleague and a friend. In addition, a reading centered mostly on happenings would reveal: moments and stages related to the Sociological School in Bucharest, occasional methodological reconfigurations, precise situations of editorial projects, radiographies of daily efforts undertaken by Gustian sociologists in order to promote research nationally and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]