PiE

Gianina lu' Manşonică of Sinteşti interviewed by Tita Chiper Our host's courtyard could be best described as transition in progress, accurately preserving each of its successive stages: it begins with two run-down foreign cars, and ends with an ashen tent proudly

At the Outskirts of Giurgiu*At the outskirts of Giurgiu there was a Turkish village, and that village was called Selima. When the Turks left the city, a hundred and a half years ago, we, the gypsies who tinned the pails, continued to live in that village. We remained in

It is hard to say when the Gypsies came to Romania for the first time, and then settled for good, but the oldest documents date from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when the royal charters mentioned the fiddler slaves, sold alongside the dependencies and objects from

excerpts All chronicles show that this nomadic people appeared first in Moldavia; indeed, in order to come to Europe from India, they had to cross the Black Sea, which Moldavia used to border on at that time. In 1417, in the 19th year of the rule of Alexander the Good,

Declared population at the last census: 695 according to the 2002 statisticsEstimated true population: over 15,000 Inhabited territory: the South of Romania, especially Oltenia and big industrial and urban areas Population in the rural/urban areas: 60% in the urban areas,

excerpt Bunthe had thought it appropriate to put up their two unexpected guests from Bucharest with Father Calist. The villagers were saying they had got lucky. The weather was beautiful, spring was coming. The sun shone as if it was already April. The wildflowers that

excerpt 'I can hardly understand what you're saying, your words make my hair stand on end. . . What do you want, actually?' Masha could hardly contain herself. This talk raised her suspicions. The visitor's look could very well be deceitful. Whoever

Hans (some people called him Hanz, or Franz, others Krantz like the cake, and others didn't even take the trouble to call him that much) had a wife who towered over him by a full head, and had a truly horse-like face. Her legs were long and slender, and seemed to lack

excerpt Motto: Prophetic utterance comes into being via negation: it is the knowledge induced by ashes. In the aftermath of speaking the word entrusted to them, prophets taste the ashes of the world upon their tongues; their wisdom is the aftertaste of ashes.   A portraitMany

A Jew doing commerce once travelled as farAs Constantinople, to search the bazaar. Since he meant to replenish his earthenware stock,He bought many a cup, and many a crock. He kept buying and buying, and just wouldn't stopTill he filled a large creel right up to the

* The boom of geographic discoveries and trading expeditions that began on the eve of the Renaissance and continued throughout that era developed a new taste for describing remote, if not downright imaginary, countries and peoples. Before being discovered, the savage was

excerpts Motto: It is known that, when a people is about to disappear, first its high society disappears, and with it the literature. (Milorad Pavici, The Khazar Dictionary) Lazar Saineanu and his studies in folklore. An ethnographic controversyLazar Saineanu was a very