The Ignored Peasants of Romanian Ethnology: Ovid Densusianu, Henri H. Stahl, and the Recalibration of Research on Rural Romania

Abstract

The present study attempts to capture and explain a somewhat paradoxical theme: the way in which the national ethnology of the nineteenth century “ignored” the peasant world. Why did a science dedicated to the peasant world ignore the “voices” of peasants for a long period of time? Throughout the nineteenth century the ethnologist’s agenda did not overlap at all with that of the peasant in front of him: the urban researcher was interested in folk literature, music, dance, and dress, while the peasant wanted to talk about rural poverty and its causes. The ethnologist was engaged in building the national, while the peasant spoke about the social. Their discourses simply did not intersect. Changes did begin to happen at the beginning of the twentieth century: peasants began not only to be asked but were also listened to. Ovid Densusianu was responsible for this paradigm shift, redefining folklore during the first decade of the century. He was followed by the sociological monographic school, represented here by the work of Henri H. Stahl.