SCHOOLS AND THEMES OF ANTHROPOLOGY, ETHNOLOGY, AND HISTORY OF RELIGION IN ROMANIA

Abstract

The article represents a brief presentation of the evolution of religious studies in Romania during the 19–20 centuries. The studies on the religious phenomenon written in Romania in the 19th century were closely related to the national problem. One of the fundamental questions that arose at the time was whether Christianity is an integral part of national identity. At the end of the 19th century Christianity was seen as a popular tradition, part of what was beginning to be known as folklore. As folklore represented the Romanian identity, it had to be preserved at all costs, therefore also the Christian elements found in popular traditions. Tudor Pamfile is the scholar who shows that folklore is not just a sum of superstitions that must be preserved because it represents tradition. He says that folklore represents a complex universe of meanings, a coherent world, which modern people no longer understand. After the First World War, Christianity is reconsidered. The rationalism of the 19th century is rejected, and "spiritualism" is adopted. Ernest Bernea, Ovidiu Papadima and other scholars wanted to show that the Romanian popular tradition, the basis of national identity, is permeated with the most authentic Christian vision. The Romanian popular tradition was no longer a matter of "superstition", but of the most authentic truth of life. Such an idea is spreading that the authentic man is a religious man. It is the basis of the conception of Mircea Eliade, who will become one of the most important researchers in the field of the history of religions in the world. He overcomes the issue of Romanian identity and its relationship with Christianity. He will be concerned in his works to show the universality of religious feeling, studying religious manifestations at a global level, from prehistory to the present. After 1945, the communist period was established in Romania. Religious history studies have been replaced by atheistic propaganda. However, scholars from the interwar period sought to study the religious phenomenon in Romania and the rest of the world. Also, many young people learned about Mircea Eliade and his work, carried out in France and the United States. One of them was Ioan Petru Culianu who managed to escape from Romania and become one of the great scholars in the field of history of religions. After the fall of the communist regime, religious history studies in Romania experienced a remarkable development.