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Title: Introduction: Historicizing the Body

Authors: Alexandra Ion, Corina Doboş

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Introduction Historicizing...... the Body

Corina Dobo[ Researcher at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila" in Bucharest and University of Bucharest Alexandra Ion Institute of Anthropology “Francisc I. Rainer” of the Romanian Academy

his collection of original studies is History, University of Bucharest. he goal intended to bring a contribution of the event was to bring together Romanian Tto the ield of “body studies” and specialists from the ield of humanities the cultural history of the body. Mediated and social sciences and to promote the through language, disciplined by sciences, “body studies” as a strong ield of research placed under political control and the within this local context. he cultural medium of social relations, the body history of the body has been an intensely continues to escape the rigors of discourses researched domain in the academia in and representations. herefore, under the last couple of decades. Modernity the title Bodies / Matter: Narratives of opened the body as a ield of study, paving Corporeality, several articles, ield notes, the way to deconstruct its meanings and exhibitions and book reviews examine the layers. he irst generation of the Annales ways in which the human body has been school (Mark Block), the postwar social visually and narratively represented in history, historical demography and cultural diferent historical and scientiic contexts. anthropology (Mary Douglas and Victor hrough its multi-disciplinary perspective Turner), or the history of medicine (Charles at the intersection of anthropological, Rosenberg, Georges Canguilhem) placed sociological and historical relection, the high interest in the political symbolism of volume aims to explore how the concept the human body (Kantoroviz), the health of corporeality has been imagined in of the population in history, the status of relation to identity, how it was shaped by the human body in the development of scientiic perspectives and how it was staged medical sciences or the diferent meanings within exhibitions or artistic experiments. the human body is invested with in local Beyond academic curiosity, the volume is cultures (Jenner and Taithe 2003, 187-191). linked to a growing interest in the body in However, the “history of the body” emerged contemporary society, which becomes – in as an autonomous ield of academic inquiry, the words of the sociologist Brian Turner becoming the “historiographical dish of – the “main ield of cultural and political the day” (Roy Porter in Cooter 2010, 393) activity” in a “somatic society”. in the last decades of the 20th century (Jenner and Taithe 2003, 190-191). his he volume is the result of a journey advent is explained (Cooter 2010; Jenner which started in May 2014 with a and Taithe 2003) or preigured (Duden conference organized at the Faculty of 1990, 1-49) in the context of the general

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Corina Doboș, Alexandra Ion

development of the post-Marxist, post- “history of the body” as an autonomous ield structuralist and feminist historiography. of academic inquiry seems to be threatened he emergence of the “history of the body” not only by the changing historiographical as a new and difuse domain of cultural context, but also by the methodological history drawing from literary approaches dilemmas and contradictions of the ield to social constructivist traditions was made itself, torn among representationalists (e.g. possible by the historicization of the human Laquer 1991), experientalists (e.g. Duden body, along the postmodernist lines set by 1987) or idealists (Jenner and Taithe 2003, the linguistic turn and New Historicism, 194-197; Cooter 2010, 398). he emergence greatly indebted to historical anthropology, of the “material turn” in historiography Foucault’s historical epistemology, feminist could be seen as a compromise meant to studies and cultural history. As Cooter rescue the “human body” from the return to puts it: a pure a-historical biological essentialism. “Situating bodies historically in their appropriate 'representational regimes' was However, in Romania, this area of part and parcel of the re-thinking of the research is yet to be fully developed as meaning, purpose and shape of history. standing on its own. hus far, the interest 1) This is by no means an exhaustive list. On Increasingly, therefore, history (as in the has mostly been occasional, with very the other hand, there are numerous other history of the body) was approached as a few researchers identifying themselves researchers who have text: authored, discursive, and malleable as specialists in the related ields. Among approached the body in 1 their studies, but either in every respect. It was as a made up text notable contributions , in the sociology it is not the main focus that it became a resource for (historical) of the body, we would like to mention of their study, or their interest has been only constructivist and (literary) deconstructivist the works of Gabriel Jderu focusing on occasional. analysis, neither of which was any longer motorcyclists’ bodies, Ramona Marinache’s very separable.” (Cooter 2010, 397) study of the body asleep, Laura Grunberg and the body of ighters investigated by hus, ater authors such as Marcel Mauss Alexandru Dincovici; in cultural and and Norbert Elias introduced the body in medical anthropology – Andrei Mihail, the history of mentalities, Michel Foucault Valentin-Veron Toma and Elena Bărbulescu. highlighted the way in which bodies have More studies focused on the construction been used as a predilect place for the of bodies have been in the area of medical manifestation of modern state control history (Daniela Sechel, Constantin over the individual, while Pierre Bourdieu Bărbulescu, Lidia Trăușan-Matu, Octavian explored the way in which social norms are Buda, Adrian Majuru), the history of appropriated in and through performing sexuality (Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu), bodies. Feminist critic Judith Butler made the history of eugenics (Marius Turda, us doubt that sex is a natural category and Maria Bucur, Tudor Georgescu), the history showed how gender is a learnt quality, of childhood (Nicoleta Roman, Simona while sociologists Brian Turner and Chris Preda), gender studies (Mihaela Miroiu, Shilling have highlighted the multitude Luciana Jinga, Oana Băluță, Maria Bucur), of signiicances the human body acquires the history of criminology (Corina Doboș, in the deinition of a modern individual. Gabriel Constantinescu) and the history Researchers have explored the history of of reproductive policies in communist collecting and dissecting human bodies, Romania (Gail Kligman). of gazing and learning from bodies, of constructing bodies in a capitalistic society, he studies in this volume cover a or breaking them down as commodities. wide range of these ields, from history, anthropology, art history and literary Nevertheless, the endurance of the studies. hey all share an anti-essentialist

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Introduction: Historicizing the Body perspective on the human body, conceived Mihail. All three articles tackle with the as a historical artifact, a discursive human body as objectiied by the medical construction at the intersection of inner gaze, produced by the medical discourse experiences and societal projections, and subjected to medical and political permanently negotiated and (re)invested intervention, in diferent times and settings with meaning. his perspective does of modern and contemporary Romanian privilege the historicity of both matter and history, showing how these medical representations: neither substance, nor its constructions translate speciic professional form are given entities with a “natural” objectives, social hierarchies and political existence, as the volume shows that form interests. In addition, Andrei Mihail’s and matter are intertwined and historically anthropological study gives the perspective determined. on the subjective, corporeal experience of the lived, “real” body. Together with he opening section, Bodies as Scientiic Anca-Maria Pănoiu’s notes on the ield, Objects at the Turn of the Century, will dealing with the experience of pain, this focus on processes that have objectiied the study represents an attempt to depart body, as part of scientiic of legal practices. from a purely representationalist or social- In Baudrillard’s words (1981), “mummies constructivist approach of the medical don’t rot from worms: they die from being body, bringing into the picture the patients’ transplanted from a slow order of the subjective bodily experiences. symbolic, master over putrefaction and death, to an order of history, science, and Corporeality: From Performance to museums.” he articles signed by Oana Representation, the third section of the Mateescu, Alexandra Ion and Corina Doboș volume reunites four studies inquiring examine such processes, more speciically, diferent representations and postures of the the way the human body is subjected to human body, in diferent historical times the exercise of power and control, and and settings: mastering the Old Hebrew what was / is an individual becomes a language, Raluca Boboc investigates specimen open to scientiic questioning, the representations of the human body subjected to manipulation and used to in the Jewish book of Proverbs, while produce knowledge. Case studies address Cristina Bogdan focuses on the feminine unpublished or unique archival material, representations of the sin in the 18th which highlight the way the materiality century iconography from Transylvania. of body has been closely constructed in Closer to our times, Melinda Blos-Jáni relation to scientiic paradigms in the explores the visual culture of early 20th irst four decades on the 20th century: century Transylvania, as expressed in from the phenomena of materialization home movies. Laura Grűnberg makes an studied by Austrian baron Albert von excellent synthesis of various dimensions in Schrenck-Notzing to the history of the irst understanding identity in a contemporary anthropological collection in Romania, that setting: a view of the body placed at the of Francis I. Rainer and the construction of cross-road of the state’s control, of new the criminal body in interwar Romania. technologies and scientiic perspectives. As Barthes would say: “Which body are we he second section of the volume, In talking about today?” Sickness and in Health: he Medical Body, gathers three contributions that he museology section, he body on explore diferent aspects of the medicalized Display, contains two recent exhibition body, the contributions of Constantin reviews: one (“he House of the Soul”) Bărbulescu, Zsuzsa Bokor and Andrei addressing a project by Cosmin Manolache

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Corina Doboș, Alexandra Ion and Lila Passima focused around an “alms experience of pain in disabled patients. house”, a house for the dead; the second one is signed by Gabriela Nicolescu Cristea, a Lastly, the readers can ind two visual anthropologist, in conversation with captivating book reviews by Călin Cotoi a curator (Lila Passima) and a documenta- and Lidia Trăușan-Matu. rist (Corina Doboș) of an exhibition on abortions during Ceauşescu’s regime (“Cei Furthermore, the volume contains din Lume fără Nume” / “Nameless in the an important visual insert, comprising World”), displayed at the National Museum images from the archive of the Institute of the Romanian Peasant at the end of 2012. of Anthropology “Francisc I. Rainer”, hey are accompanied by pictures from the some of which have never been published two exhibitions (courtnesy of Lila Passima, before (more about the context and Cosmin Manolache and Mihai Bodea), content of this archive and collection in collated by Lila Passima and Cosmin Ion 2015, this volume). hese are some of Manolache. the irst anthropological photographs in Romania, showing living or dead subjects, In the ith section, Field Notes on and depicting: peasants from Drăguş Corporeality, we grouped together three (Transilvania) and Fundul-Moldovii researchers who are presenting original (Bucovina) villages taken during Francisc I. ieldwork: Jana Al Obeidyine’s auto- Rainer’s ield campaigns in 1927-1928 and ethnography on dance transmission and 1932 along the Social Romanian Institute, revival of history through the body, Mirel subjects from Maria Dumitrescu’s studies, Bănică’s notes on the performed body of criminals skulls (possibly a git from Dr the pilgrim, and Anca-Maria Pănoiu’s Nicolae Minovici) and undated images of anthropological investigation in the archaeological specimens.

BIBLIOgRAPHY

Baudrillard, Jean. 1981. Simulacra and Simulation. Michi- gan: University of Michigan Press. Duden, Barbara. 1991. he Woman beneath the skin. A Doc- tor’s Patients in 18th century Germany. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Cooter, Roger. 2010. “he Turn of the body: History and the politics of the corporeal.” Ciencia, Pensamiento y cultura, 186 (743): 393-405. Laqueur, homas. 1990. Making Sex: Gender and Sex from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Jenner, Mark and B. Taithe. 2003. “he Historiographical Body.” In Companion to Medicine in the Twentieth Century, eds. Roger Cooter and John Pickstone. London: Routledge, 187-200.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro

Title: The Medium of the Body: Photography and the Senses in the Psychic Laboratory

Author: Oana Mateescu

How to cite this article: Mateescu, Oana. 2015. The Medium of the ”ody: Photography and the Senses in the

Psychic Laboratory. Martor 20: 13-24. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro The Medium of the Body: Photography and the Senses in the Psychic Laboratory

The Medium of the Body: Photography and the Senses in the Psychic Laboratory

Oana Mateescu Lecturer at the Faculty of Sociology, University of Bucharest

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS his essay discusses the experiments carried out between 1909-1913 by German ectoplasm photography, indexicality, psychologist and psychical researcher Albert von Schrenck-Notzing on the phe- body, medium, psychical science nomena of materialization, involving the biological shapes and images excreted by the body of a female subject (in this case, Eva Carrière) who acted, at the same time, as a spiritual and technological medium. It underlines the indexicality of visual and tactile evidence as it is graphically and photographically recorded by the scientist. In the psychic laboratory, science is deeply anchored in the physiology of the female body, embracing animism and vitalism as a philosophy of life, while also veering close to eroticism as a somatic mode of knowledge.

magine a room bathed in red light, Phenomena of Materialization: A Con- multiple cameras lashing simul- tribution to the Investigation of Mediumistic Itaneously, a naked, writhing female Teleplastics (Schrenck-Notzing 1923, body, a scientist whose ingers are sticky henceforth PM), the work that records with vaginal luids and, at the center of it four years (1909-1913) of such experiments all, the “living” matter – strands, veils and with physical materialization, is the kind masses of it extruding from the oriices of of document that actively encourages the the medium and then lowing, creeping, suspension of disbelief. How this is achieved jumping and even morphing into objects, – by means of which sensory, graphic and organs and images. We are in the very photographic modalities – is a question that thick of materialization, a space where brings to the forefront a genre of visual and science, spiritualism and eroticism are tactile evidence grounded in indexicality. It uncomfortably exposed to one other by also forces attention to the self-relexivity of the gaze of the photographic camera. photography as a technology of embodiment More precisely, we are in the early 20th that strives to grat materiality (of bodies century “psychic laboratory” of Baron and biological life) onto immateriality (of Albert von Schrenck-Notzing (1862- spirits and the unconscious). 1929), a German psychologist and famous Photography itself has always wavered psychical researcher, who is in the midst between iconicity and indexicality as of a scientiic experiment devoted to the discursive claims to the truth. Used here study of “teleplastic structures” produced in their Peircean sense (see also below) by the medium Eva Carrière (pseudonym as relations of resemblance, respectively of Marthe Béraud) under the guidance of causality and contiguity between signs Madame Juliette Bisson, her companion and the objects they represent, iconicity and mentor. and indexicality cover an interpretive

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Oana Mateescu continuum that takes photographs from a plethora of forces, energies, vibrations, images to proofs. It is the latter sense that waves and rays. Late 19th-century discoveries was central to Schrenck-Notzing’s psychical – electromagnetic waves (1888), X-rays research – not only because phenomena of (1895), uranium radioactive emissions materialization had been so oten exposed (1897), wireless waves (1899), N-rays as hoaxes (and were, thus, in dire need of (1903) – turned matter itself into “a kind scientiic redemption), but also because of of phantasm” (Tifany 2000, 169), severing the eminently intimate (and, thus, causal the links between materiality, visibility and and indexical) link between the medium’s transmission. New iconographies of matter female body and the mysterious substance allowed the visualization of previously it externalized and shaped into animate inscrutable and imponderable phenomena: forms. just as the microscope had generated debates about degrees of sub-visibility and invisibility (Wilson 1995), radiography and, ...... of course, photography reinforced each other in the creation of a pictorial physics From Spirits to Animate Matter of degrees of materiality (Wilder 2011; Smajic 2010). he physics of this intangible “he medium is not only the unconscious matter – persuasively illustrated by Oliver producer of phantasms, but is the physiological Lodge’s “etherial bodies” (Raia 2007), source of material for making them visible.” William Crookes’ “radiant matter” or (PM, 282) Cromwell Varley’s “electrical spiritualism” (Noakes 2008) – allowed the mind to By late 19th century, and particularly escape the physical conines of the brain ater 1882, when the international Society and to propagate as vibrations of diferent for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded frequencies into the ether. Telepathy, in in London, a sizable group of scientists particular, carried over the vocabulary of and philosophers were busily displacing brain-waves and cerebral radiation into spiritualism from the realm of religion and a “photographic model of consciousness” superstition into that of science and natural (Enns 2013, 182). Radiating brain waves law. SPR members – philosophers and could be recorded by thought-photography, psychologists (F.H. Myers, Henri Bergson, a practice that even did away with the William James), physicists (William camera and the lens: thoughts as visual Crookes, William F. Barrett, Oliver Lodge), impressions could be directly imprinted physiologists and biologists (Charles onto sensitive photographic plates and Richet, Hans Driesch) – were all engaged in emulsions. (Technological) Media replaced trespassing boundaries. his was a ground- (spiritual) mediums. breaking work that entailed the creation Undoubtedly, new communication of new vocabularies and instruments, technologies – telegraphy in particular (Otis the imposition of laboratory standards 2001, 180-219) – did much to promote this onto the séance and the elaboration of fantasy of a dematerialized, instantaneous lexible theoretical frameworks that and apparently unmediated community could accommodate phenomena such as of thought. Indeed, the new psychical hypnotism, ectoplasmic materialization, science relied extensively on the parasitical telepathy or telekinesis (hurschwell 2001; relationship that modern spiritualism had Wolfram 2009). already established with technology. As he new relationship between the Kittler (1987, 111; see also Gunning 2007) psychical and the physical was made argues, it was the emergence of media plausible by the redeinition of matter as such as photography that promptly called

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro The Medium of the Body: Photography and the Senses in the Psychic Laboratory

But animism was a decidedly slippery concept. Made famous by anthropologist Edward Tylor (1871) as a form of primitive thought that mixed up spirit and matter 1) This particular argu- (spirit is not the monopoly of humans, but ment in no way detracts from the potential of resides also in animals, plants or objects), spiritualism as a reser- animism was pejoratively understood as a voir of religious experience. On the contrary, cultural survival and evolutionary remnant despite the Protestant of bygone times2. German animists emphasis on meaning and inner belief at the sidestepped this recent semantic baggage expense of form and performance, religion – and traced the concept back to its original then and now – thrives usage by 18th-century chemist and vitalist upon mediation. Communication with philosopher G. E. Stahl. In this sense, divinity or the spiritual animism came to denote opposition to both realm is enhanced by the participation of spiritualist and scientiic materialist camps, technology: if photography, audio-cassettes and, particularly so, by its association to or video-films generate various neo-vitalist and holistic theories belief, it is not as a state of mind, but as of life popular in German physiology and a material practice, biology before World War II (Normandin relationship and even Fig. 1. Flashlight photograph by the autor, 7 June, 1911 social interaction with and Wolfe 2013). Schrenck-Notzing was a invisible others (Blanes th and Santo 2014; Meyer forth the spirits of the dead in the mid-19 deinite supporter of animism and his work 2009) century1: in PM provided copious material for the “…the tapping specters of the spiritualistic articulation of vitalist biologies. Teleplasm 2) Interestingly enough, Tylor would have pre- séances with their messages from the realm was proof of an “impossible corporeality” ferred to use the term spiritualism instead of the dead, appeared quite promptly at (Gomel 2007) that hovered on the edges of of animism, but was the moment of the invention of the Morse visibility and materiality and yet teemed rather dismayed by his few experiences with alphabet in 1837. Promptly, photographic with biological life. spirit séances in Lon- plates – even and especially with the camera don (Stocking 1971). Modern spiritualism shutter closed – provided images of ghosts Before it was attached by Schrenck- proved too controversial from a social or specters which, in their black and white Notzing to all the other tele-phenomena evolutionary point of fuzziness, only emphasized the moments (telepathy, telekinesis etc.), teleplasm was view to frame a study of of resemblance. Finally one of the ten uses more popularly known under the moniker primitive religion. Edison predicted… for the recently invented “ectoplasm”. “Ectoplasm” was coined in the phonograph was to preserve the ‘last words of early 1890s by Charles Richet, physiologist the dying’.” and future Nobel-prize winner for medicine. While observing the materializations In early 20th-century Germany – when produced by an Italian female medium, Schrenck-Notzing performed his expe- Richet noticed they resembled “sarcoidic riments with Eva Carrière – the ambiguous extensions emanating from the body of a relationship between religion and science medium, precisely as a pseudopod from took the form of a conlict between an amoeboid cell” (cited in Brain 2013, “spiritism” and “animism” (Wolfram 115). He wasted no time in identifying this 2012). Spiritists insisted upon the validity substance as the primordial protoplasm of supernatural interpretations – spirit excreted from within the medium’s body. photographs and materializations are Thus, “ectoplasm” became living cell matter messages from the other world – while (protoplasm) that mediums emanated and animists attributed the existence of psychic molded into various shapes via psychic phenomena to newly-discovered properties energy. This was a fortuitous scientiic of the mind, speciically, the unconscious. explanation for the otherwise mysterious

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Oana Mateescu

(and often suspicious) biological processes. The animated matter substance that provided of teleplasm is capable of independent so much of the glamour movement, it responds to touch, light and of materialization sound, it organizes itself into forms, images séances. Moreover, and living organs and leaves behind cellular by establishing a link detritus that can be conveniently analyzed – however formally under the microscope. It reproduces itself, tenuous – between “placenta-like”, as it emerges from Eva’s ectoplasm and body in the process of “mediumistic labor” protoplasm, Richet (PM, 250). Its instability, incredible range made it possible for of movement and metamorphic nature are the newly-hatched an almost insurmountable challenge to psychic science to scientiic recording.

Fig. 2. First weld itself to (and, thereby, legitimize itself flashlight as) contemporary biological discourse. photograph Protoplasm – made famous by Thomas by the autor, ...... 21 August, 1911 Huxley as “the physical basis of all life” (cited in Brain 2009, 94) – was at the center Seeing and Recording: of vigorous debates about the nature of Photographic Proofs evolution and heredity, and, more relevantly for psychic research, it provided the vehicle “Better even than dynamometers, balances for the teleological vital force that directed and metronomes is the photographic camera, the organization of organic matter. The since it gives positive proofs in the real sense of profuse and creative conigurations taken the word.” (PM, 12) by ectoplasm during séances appeared almost as custom made proofs for the claims More than any other scientiic made by early 20th century vitalist biology instrument, the photographic camera about the existence of an ineffable vital produces “objective registration” (PM, energy that differentiated between living 22). In PM, psychical science is utterly and and non-living entities. Dubbed “entelechy” sometimes even shamefully dependent by German embryologist Hans Driesch, on photographic evidence. he human this vital impulse residing in protoplasm senses (vision especially) are unreliable, approached sentient intelligence and memory can be retroactively falsiied and evidenced extraordinary plasticity. Driesch, the assumption of hallucination (not to in particular, was instrumental in bringing mention outright fraud) is a constant and psychic materializations into the sphere particular danger of the psychical ield. of vitalist biology; indeed, for him these Inevitably, scientiic registration must be phenomena were but an externalization rendered independent of the human actor of the body’s vital forces, a “supernormal and “transferred to the physical apparatus” 3) For the continuing relevance of Driesch’s embryology” (cited in Wolffram 2003, (PM, 21). By this account, Schrenck- vitalism to the current 156)3. In this sense, psychic materializations Notzing subscribed wholeheartedly ontological turn in social science, see were converted into scientiic arguments for to a robust notion of “mechanical Bennett 2010, 62-81. a vitalist theory of life. objectivity”: the role of the camera is not to supply verisimilitude, but to guarantee Both Richet and Driesch were frequent nonintervention by eliminating human guests to the séances organized by Schrenck- agency (Daston and Galison 1992, 120). Notzing and their inluence resonates By the end of his four years of experiments throughout the constant analogies drawn with the phenomena of materialization, in PM between ectoplasm / teleplasm and he had seven to nine cameras (including

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro The Medium of the Body: Photography and the Senses in the Psychic Laboratory stereoscopic ones) mounted in diferent are both acts and objects of observation, positions of the laboratory and even in the both experiments and the evidence of “dark cabinet” where Eva retreated to do experiments. Indeed, the copious talk her “psycho-dynamic” work. Experimental of scientiic experimentation in PM is conditions required photography to provide ultimately reduced to the creation of ubiquitous and simultaneous mechanical conditions for the photographic exposure visions: “from various points of view, from of teleplasm, the ixation and analysis of various distances, from diferent sides and this leeting evidence. his is, however, 4) Hence the need for red light in the in diferent sizes” (PM, 120). Moreover, this a diicult process constantly beset by laboratory as well as was a mobile technology that ensured the failure. Since teleplastic phenomena are for the dark cabinet 4 where they, much like séance room could be redesigned as an ad highly sensitive to white light , the lash photographs, are devel- hoc laboratory wherever Eva and her mentor of the camera erases them in the very oped by the body of the female medium. travelled (be it Paris, Biarritz or Munich). process of recording. The photographic Each new location is graphically mapped in preservation of evidence is synonymous diagrams that show not just the arrangement here with its destruction, emphasizing yet of the photographic assemblage (cameras again the fragile, impermanent materiality and magnesium lash-light apparatus), of the phenomenon (see also Schoonover but also the position of each piece of 2003, 38). The lash acts as a “painful furniture, human observer, source of light disturbance”, a “sudden blow” on the (chandeliers, red light torches), window and medium (PM, 329), causing the teleplasm door. his was a set-up that emphasized the to be suddenly reabsorbed into her body. recent improvements in exposure times and The undeniable violence exercised by shutter and lash technologies: the camera the photographic lash – reminiscent of became a dynamic instrument that could the cataleptic immobilities produced by capture the lightning-fast movements lash-light in Charcot’s photography of of teleplasm, too rapid to be otherwise hysterical subjects at Salpêtrière (Baer accessible to human sight. 1994; Didi-Huberman 2003) – brings again As others (Schoonover 2003; Harvey to the forefront the corporeal and implicitly, 2007) pointed out, ectoplasm photography indexical nature of photographs. In a case of had very little in common with traditional indexical involution, photography acts back, spirit photography: instead of static recursively, on the very phenomena which tableaux where human subjects are just as caused it to come into being. Teleplasm rigidly posed as their spirit companions, (and / or the medium discharging it) seems we have the contorted and spasming to react to, cooperate with (PM, 130), bodies of mediums in the very process of obstruct (PM, 225) and even anticipate the biological excretion. Moreover, the camera camera: “Even if the cameras are focused was no longer a supernatural medium that on a particular point, the objects, during mysteriously produced spirit images, but a their short exposure and rapid motion, are mechanical and oten clinical eyewitness often photographed at another place” (PM, that recorded the traces of unusual matter 262). Unsurprisingly, this agentive behavior in motion. Photography provided positive creates expectations of sentience: Schrenck- proof in an indexical rather than iconic Notzing describes teleplasm in terms of sense: “solid materializations stood in the “intention”, “independent movement” and same relation to spirit photography as did “creative force”. In more ways than one, the prostitute to pornography – reality the scientiic object of the teleplasm is an replaced representation” (Harvey 2007, 82). artifact of the photographic encounter. Indexicality underlines the psychical And yet, the photographic nature of the scientist’s fascination with the process of teleplasm doesn’t ensure visual legibility. photographic recording itself: photographs Schrenck-Notzing is constantly frustrated

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Oana Mateescu by “imperfect” and “feeble” photographic unprejudiced, sober and scientiic) is allied results which are too fuzzy to yield to measurements, recordings, classiications judgment by themselves (PM, 71; 85; 90). and forms of visualization other than he nature of the teleplastic phenomenon – photography (micrographs, radiographs whether it is a living form, a white material and even drawings). he visual legibility or an actual organ – “cannot be determined of photography is produced only as the from the photograph” (PM, 71). Indexicality efect of this exegetical labor: “seeing is guarantees reality (the photograph is caused work” (Amann and Knorr Cetina 1990, 90). by the light relected from the object it he empty indexicality of the photograph represents), but ofers no knowledge by and is substantiated by constant graphic in itself. “he index asserts nothing” (Peirce consummation, emerging as the climax of 1992, 226); it is a singular and contingent the clinical graphic method, the inal link instance of deixis (the word “this” or the in a chain of inscriptions. inger pointing to “this”) that has meaning only in a context of speech or action. As a “hollowed-out sign” (Doane 2006, 133), ...... void of recognizable content, the index requires further inferential operations. Touch: The Ontology of the Flesh Alternatively, it might be argued, as Didi- Huberman (1984, 68) does for the stain on “During the touch which she herself made the shroud of Turin, that it is opaqueness – with my inger, she gave a strong and painful the very lack of iconicity and iguration – shudder and trembled violently.” (PM, 55) that makes the index such a powerful proof of existence. Figuration would only serve to he double nature of the index – put into doubt the authenticity of the sign. scientiic trace of the materiality of the Of course, this also means indexicality teleplasm and erotic point of contact can be deliberately exploited to produce with the feminine body that produces credibility. Harvey (2007, 90) hypothesizes it – threatens to collapse the objectivity that the obviously fraudulent appearance assembled in the process of recording. “I of spirit photographs was intentional: “in requested to be touched” (PM, 64), “she order to make a fake look real, it was made asked me to examine her” (PM, 84) – this is to look really fake.” the tactile dance performed by scientist and medium. For Schrenck-Notzing, touch is In PM, indexicality is given cogni- irrefutable conirmation of the materiality tive value by means of the mutual of the visible: its shape, texture or plasticity. conirmation and corroboration between He emphasizes the detective and not the “optical impressions”, “observations” sensuous dimension of tactility in a series of and photographs. Human perception is rich organic analogies: the teleplasm is like constantly checked against observation touching “the dark skin of a mushroom,” which is itself brought to the photographic “the skin of a living reptile,” a “spider’s court of appeal: “the photograph is the web” or even “the amputated stump of a inal link in the chain of observations” child’s arm.” “he living substance” is cool, (PM, 71). What goes on in the psychical smooth, sticky, moist and, alternatively, laboratory is not mere seeing or looking: irm and sot. he optical and haptical are it is “optical induction” (Amann and irremediably entangled in this visceral Knorr Cetina 1990, 100), visual operations knowledge. his is not simply a matter of carried out through the constant graphic equivalence and mutual reinforcement recording of observation. Observation between the optical and haptical systems (uninterrupted, exact, detailed, methodical, of perception (Gibson 1966, 134), but of

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro The Medium of the Body: Photography and the Senses in the Psychic Laboratory actual reversibility between the actions of (Merleau-Ponty 1968, 139). The relation seeing and touching. More than anyone, of tactility is Eva’s most powerful way of Merleau-Ponty (1968, 134) articulated this guiding and sometimes even controlling the relationship as a condition of the lived body: experimental set-up – she asserts herself “We must habituate ourselves to think that as a subject by “corporeal intentionality”, every visible is cut out in the tangible, every touching the experimenter’s hands as tactile being in some manner promised to they touch her own teleplastic extensions, visibility, and that there is encroachment, her body achieving relexivity by proxy. infringement, not only between the touched Tactile reversibility slips into experimental and the touching, but also between the reversibility: the objects of study – “digging tangible and the visible...” their nails into the skin of our hands” (PM, If vision is an eminently passive sense 278) – grab hold of the scientist, playfully, (Schrenck-Notzing does not see or look, he but also violently, exploring his skin and his only receives optical impressions), touch body. more than makes up by the scientist’s active Schrenck-Notzing ends up converting exploration and hands-on participation in his body into a recording instrument, the experiment. Touch is a local sense that registering photographic evidence on his requires proximate bodily contact, ingers own skin: in the process of mediation, the roaming and sometimes digging deep into teleplasm, just as photographic emulsion the lesh of the medium. Schrenck-Notzing (Jolly 2002), adheres to his ingers. It is does not hold back from any kind of probing, not just his skin that becomes a tactile ield regardless of how invasive or sexually open to the exploration of the teleplasm. contaminated it may be. In the interest In a singular and spectacular instance, he of establishing accurate experimental himself, as an experimenting subject, turns controls, he administers emetics, clothes the into a relective surface for the sentience medium in a special suit and performs oral, residing within teleplastic membranes. vaginal and anal examinations before and This happens, very appropriately, on the sometimes even during or ater the séance. only occasion that Eva materializes a word His ingers are as familiar with graphic rather than a shape or image. The word is notation as they are with skin indentation: “mirror”. 5) From the skeptic’s they travel over tongue, breasts, thighs and point of view, the mys- the vaginal epithelium, touching, gripping terious substance could and squeezing; just like teleplasm, they are be nothing other than ...... muslin, gauze, paper, constantly moist and sticky with bodily rolled photographs or even animal organs luids. Le Miroir (liver, lungs, intestines) concealed in the me- If during the irst two years of expe- dium’s bodily orifices riments, Eva seems to shrink away from “You are her mirror. She sees herself here.” prior to the séance. tactile probing, later she invites it and (PM, 214) 6) Schrenck-Notzing’s sometimes even demands it, while posing background in the treatment of “sexual th completely naked despite the wishes of her On the sitting of 27 November 1912, deviations” (Sommer 2009) ensured his lady mentor (PM, 160; 198). Whether these Eva materializes a lat object, coiled around lack of squeamish- are forms of “erotic misdirection” (Delgado her head. Upon examination of one of the ness about the erotic undercurrents 2011) initiated by the medium to distract photographs taken that day, Schrenck- of teleplastic phenom- from the fraudulent production of tele- Notzing distinguishes the letters “le” and ena. Materialization is 5 explicitly portrayed as plasm or performances of sexual surrender “miro” within the creases of the teleplastic sexual intercourse: the 6 first stages are associ- intrinsic to materialization is immaterial surface. He recognizes the word “le miroir”, ated with excitement, to the role they play in establishing inter- but is unable to interpret the “curious result”. groaning and trembling th which culminate in subjectivity between scientist and subject he next sitting of 29 November, Eva “release”. by means of an “ontology of the lesh” produces just speech, instead of materializing

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Oana Mateescu

matter. Under the usual hypnosis at the photograph itself. hus, the main thrust of beginning of the sitting, she assumes the the additions to the English edition of PM is a alter-ego of “Berthe” and talks directly to forensic demonstration of the photographic the baron, pre-empting his own interpretive impossibility of fraud. Schrenck-Notzing work by the simple utterance of the word basically called upon photography to “mirror”. Eva / Berthe elaborates: “She exonerate itself: he reconstructed the (Berthe) wanted to write to you the other day. photographic conditions of the 1912 She wanted to send you her written thought. sittings using title-pages from that year’s You are her mirror. She sees herself here. You issues of Le Miroir, marshalling the expert have a photograph of the thought of Berthe. testimonies of four witnesses – professional She has the joy of creating another image for photographers and photo-chemists – who herself” (PM, 214). independently conirmed the minute, but multiple, diferences between the his particular photograph spurred an original teleplastic photograph and the entire controversy upon the publication of simulations based on actual journal pages. PM in 1914. French journalists seized it as He went even further, theorizing (in a work convincing proof of Eva’s deception and remarkably and apparently deliberately Schrenck-Notzing’s naïve belief: though free of hypothesis and explanation) that barely visible in the photograph, the printed any resemblances between the teleplastic word looked very much like the title-page of phenomenon and the Miroir graphics and the French journal Le Miroir (presumably photographs were due to “the cryptomnesic hidden inside Eva’s body before the sitting). function of memory” under hypnosis (PM, his, in turn, put into doubt many of the other 306). Eva’s visual reminiscences could images materialized by Eva. he teleplastic unconsciously contaminate the ideoplastic faces interpreted by Schrenck-Notzing as creations because her abnormal memory evidence of “ideoplastics” – a familiar picture was analogous to “the sharp deinition of a language used by the unknown psychic photographic plate” (PM, 305). force behind teleplasm in order to make Fig. 3. Mme. Bisson's itself intelligible (PM, 269) – were revealed If Eva’s memory was akin to a flashlight photograph of as photographs of famous igures from the photographic plate, her body was “an 19 January, 1913 very same journal (among others, president exceedingly delicate reagent” (PM, 22) Woodrow Wilson). producing teleplastic representations via (see ig. 3) bio-mechanical replication. Developed in the darkroom of the cabinet, the teleplastic Schrenck-Notzing images involuntarily shaped from was thoroughly in- within the body’s protoplasm were oten censed by these indistinguishable from photographs and accusations and just as sensitive to light. As Gunning (1995, retaliated with a 58) perceptively notes, the medium “became massive evidentiary a sort of camera, her spiritual negativity campaign. His bodying forth a positive image, as the human primary object was body behaves like an uncanny photomat, not to defend his own dispensing images from its oriices.” his experimental con- transformation of female physiology trols, Eva’s honesty or into a photographic mechanism is, in her mentor’s moral many ways, the culmination of the afair standing; these were between spiritualism and communication all secondary to technologies (Brain 2013; Schoonover 2003; the integrity of the Warner 2003). But if Eva’s body is a kind

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro The Medium of the Body: Photography and the Senses in the Psychic Laboratory of camera, Schrenck-Notzing’s own visual legibility is provided by Eva / Berthe’s own records are really mechanical photographs voice directly interpellating her observer of organic photographs – a form of recursive and claiming him as a mirror, a surface to “remediation” (Bolter and Grusin 2000) see and inscribe herself upon. For a moment, that begs the question of agency. Who is she reframes the materialization process as recording whom? an intersubjective relationship of mutual recognition. he medium (photography It’s precisely this question that comes to and Eva) is erased from the process of light in the Le Miroir photograph. Schrenck- mediation; we are let with the alterity of Notzing’s impassioned defense of this the mysterious Berthe. And, of course, the image cannot be limited to its unique status erotic knowledge of two interlocked gazes as evidence of graphic materialization (PM, and two bodies touching each other. 262); the word becomes lesh, so to speak. Its

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Title: Breaking Down the Body and Putting It Back: Structuring Knowledge in the Francisc I.

Rainer Anthropological Collection

Author: Alexandra Ion

How to cite this article: Ion, Alexandra. 2015. ‛reaking Down the ‛ody and Putting It ‛ack: Structuring

Knowledge in the Francisc I. Rainer ‚nthropological Collection. Martor 20: 25-50. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor Revue d‚nthropologie du Musée du Paysan Roumain est un journal académique en système peer-review fondé en 1996, qui se concentre sur lanthropologie visuelle et culturelle, lethnologie, la muséologie et sur le dialogue entre ces disciplines. La revue Martor est publiée par le Musée du Paysan Roumain. Son aspiration est de généraliser laccès vers un riche contenu au plus haut niveau du point de vue académique et éditorial pour des objectifs scientifiques, éducatifs et informationnels. Toute utilisation au-delà de ces buts et sans mentionner la source des articles est interdite et sera considérée une violation des droits de lauteur.

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Breaking Down the Body and Putting it Back: Displaying Knowledge in the “Francisc I. Rainer” Anthropological Collection

Alexandra Ion Institute of Anthropology “Francisc I. Rainer” of the Romanian Academy

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS

Normal bodies, deviant bodies, fragmentary, drawn or photographed bodies: anthropological collection, Francisc all of these were collected and turned into scientiic specimens by the anat- I. Rainer, interwar period, Bucharest, omist and physical anthropologist Francisc I. Rainer in Interwar Bucharest body (Romania). It is the purpose of this study to explore how this collection came into being, to understand Rainer’s treatment of bodies in a wider disciplinary context and ultimately to prompt relection on the ethical dimension of such endeavours.

”In every physiological dissection we create skeleton, that which supported his former a mixture of «part elements» and real «whole being, was made visible and destined to be members»… One overlooks that the organism classiied as an object, upon which scientists is, of course, articulated (diferentiated into were to exercise their control through * The Organism [from members) but does not consist of members. categorizations, measurements and display. the Francisc I. Rainer - Kurt Goldstein* his article intends to tell the story Archive] of how Francisc I. Rainer imagined and gathered this collection of human remains in interwar Bucharest, a collection which is currently housed in the Institute of shoemaker, Ferdinand Vlădică, Anthropology “Francisc I. Rainer” of aged 38, died in 1935 at the Central the Romanian Academy. he goal of this A Hospital in Bucharest (Romania). article is to make available for the irst he cause of death was diagnosed as time the composition and history of this general paralysis. His body was dissected collection, placed in a local and European and his skeletal remains ended up in the context. From “real bodies” to drawings, osteological collection gathered by the from tissue samples to casts, this paper is anatomist and anthropologist Francisc an exploration into the fascinating world I. Rainer (1874-1944). hus, he became a created by Rainer starting with the early specimen in a collection which had been 1900s – a world of “dividual bodies”, to started 30 years previously, and which was use the words of Samuel Alberti (2011, 8), to become one of the largest in Europe. a super-body composed of a collage of From Ferdinand’s identity only his sex, age, similar or distinct body parts from diferent profession and cause of death were recorded individuals and of diferent materials, and remembered. His inner part, the “(body) installations” which addressed

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Alexandra Ion

multiple sensory channels. Bodies such as At present, part of what is let of it Ferdinand Vlădică’s came from the City occupies a prominent place in the space Morgue or various hospitals in Bucharest, of the Institute of Anthropology of the were broken down in the dissection Romanian Academy, part is tucked away laboratories of the Faculty of Medicine and in the attic, and as a whole it is in a liminal then turned into collectibles, preserved as state – a daily encounter for the employees a visual encyclopaedia of morphological and occasional visitors, not quite forgotten, variation. hey were integrated in a wider but not really engaged with either. he universe of scientiic representations – paper will start by placing it in a wider anthropological photographs taken during culture of displaying bodies, understand 1) In Rainer’s works and documents the term he ield campaigns, casts of extinct human its connections with anatomical research used was “anthropol- and teaching in Bucharest – which marked ogy”, the “science of types and samples of human tissue, X-rays man” (similar to the and anatomical drawings. It is the purpose signiicantly the way in which anthropology German model, where anthropology was of this study to explore these multiple forms has been viewed at the Institute ever since opposed to ethnology). taken by the human body when turned –, and highlight the way in which this Given his medical background, he deemed as into archived specimens as part of this anthropological museum was born as a the fundamental aspect of humans their biologi- collection and to understand the aterlife result of a wider network of disciplinary cal make-up, hence he of an impressive number of deceased connections with European research developed studies that would be now classified individuals. Studying this unique archive centres. Rainer’s collection was created at under the headings of provides an opportunity to understand the a time when physical anthropology1 was physical anthropology and osteo-archaeol- ways in which the anthropological body undergoing signiicant changes in Europe ogy. In order to avoid confusions due to the was constructed and taught as part of the and oten served political agendas. hus, an changed meaning of scientiic paradigm in interwar Bucharest. analysis of his case is interesting because it the term, I have chosen to use the term “physi- his is the story of a man’s ambition, brought together a combination of old and cal anthropology” in of the things that represented the material new theories: an old view of anthropology reference to Rainer’s activity and research. universe of the anthropological discipline as “natural history”, along evolutionary in the interwar years, through which he and heredity theories, the refusal of being “carved” his perspective and collection, implicated in politics and eugenics, along and the destiny of his legacy. Initially a study of the Romanian type, the creation designed to function as a teaching aid for of an institution meant for posterity, but doctors or medical students, it gradually whose collection was soon broken down became a base for anthropological studies ater his death. herefore, in this article I – a collection meant for “the study of the am especially interested in understanding Romanian people” (Rainer 1939). he the inter-relationship between the materials history and composition of the collection are he collected, in relation to what he deemed intertwined with the anatomical teaching as being the ultimate goal of anthropology. at the Faculty of Medicine in Bucharest, Most importantly, a look at its history the establishment of the anthropological ofers us a good opportunity to relect on discipline in Romania, and the foundation of the importance of memory and forgetting the Institute and Museum of Anthropology for the legacies of scientiic endeavours. in 1940. hrough this, Rainer introduced a housand of anonymous bodies lost new type of institution in Bucharest – the their individuality when turned into anthropological museum. At the same time, scientiic specimens, in order to illustrate his work marked a diferent treatment of a bigger scientiic concept – phenotypic bodies in a scientiic context: the idea of a diferences in the Romanian people –, collection seen as an oriented and structured while simultaneously the philosophical goal subsumed to anthropological methods perspective that directed the collection’s and questions and linked to speciic display development died with Rainer and with it a strategies. scientiic ambition.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Breaking Down the Body and Putting it Back Together: Displaying Knowledge in the “Francisc I. Rainer” Anthropological Collection

...... later – photographs. he works of John Dissected bodies on display Hunter (collection part of the Hunterian Museum in London), Samuel Morton here is an (University of Pennsylvania Museum of extensive Archaeology and Anthropology), Johann literature on F. Blumenbach (University of Göttingen), the history of Anders Retzius (Museum of the Karolinska collecting and Institute), Giustiniano Nicolucci (he displaying bodies Museum of Anthropology at Naples in anatomical, University) and many more throughout medical or Europe and the USA are illustrative models 2) At the turn of 20th century, physical anthropological for these scientiic universes centred on the anthropology had collections, (dead) human body. established itself in th Europe and the USA which reveals In the second half of the 19 century as a discipline from an institutional point of the material a number of anatomists and pathologists view: e.g. in 1869, the universe of the directed their process of collecting towards “German Society for Fig. 1. Francisc I. Rainer Anthropology, Ethnol- early anatomists the new discipline of anthropology (Kuklick ogy and Prehistory” and physical anthropologists (Alberti 2007; Stocking 1982; 1996; Zimmerman was founded, in 1925, 2 the “German Society for 2011; Fabian 2010; Fforde 2004; Hallam 2001) . he cellular pathologist Rudolf Physical Anthropol- ogy”, the “American forthcoming; Hallam and Alberti 2013; Virchow (1821-1902), the founding father Journal of Physical Hendriksen 2015; Knoef and Zwijnenberg of German physical anthropology, built Anthropology” in 1918 and the “American 2015). hrough studies focused on the a collection of ten thousand skulls and Association of Physical fate of dissected body parts and the inter- skeletons at the Institute for Pathology of Anthropologists” in 1930, the “Société relationships between medical teaching the University of Berlin, and his work on d’Anthropologie de Paris” in 1859, “Labo- and the creation of such displays (Chaplin human variability combined prehistoric ratoire d’Anthropologie 2008, 2009; Hendriksen 2013; Huistra 2013; materials, comparative anatomy, craniology à l’Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes” Richardson 2001), researchers have explored and large-scale anthropometric surveys in 1867 and “Ecole the history of collecting and dissecting (Massin 1996; see also Seemann 2013). his d’Anthropologie” in 1876 (Little and Suss- human bodies, of gazing, commodifying was later enlarged by Eugen Fischer at the man 2010, 15). and learning from “naked” bodies and newly founded Kaiser Wilhelm Institute anatomical preparations (Berkowitz 2012; for Anthropology, Human Genetics and Kuppers 2004). Eugenics (Schmuhl 2008, 43). In Austria, Starting in the 18th century, and the physician Felix von Luschan (1854- especially during the 19th century, such 1924), who had studied with the French display installations centred on the anthropologist Paul Broca (1824–1880), had human body enforced, constructed and also gathered thousands of skulls (Massin made available anatomical knowledge 1996, 84) and a similar case happened at the (see also Berkowitz’s 2012 analysis), with Institute of Anatomy of Basel University, the anatomical museum becoming part through the work of the anatomists Carl of the paradigm. At the basis of such Gustav Jung (1794-1864), Wilhelm His- collections laid an interest in comparative Vischer (1831-1904), Ludwig Rütimeyer anatomy, and were thus designed to (1825-1895) and Julius Kollmann (1834- reveal and document the deviant and the 1918) (Bay 1986). In Hungary, Aurel Török typical human forms. In such contexts, (1842-1912), chair of the Anthropology the substance of the body was intervened Department and Museum at the Humanities upon: bodies were dissected, deleshed or Faculty of the University since 1881, built preserved in jars, having their contours a skull collection “to study the skeletal exposed through representations that took remains of historic and prehistoric people multiple forms: wax casts, drawings, and of Hungary” (Laferton 2007, 722). All these

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collections were meant to provide evidence and interpret human variability. and resources for racial studies, the skulls Even so, on a local level, Rainer’s efort being deemed as the most relevant element brought something signiicant. At the turn regarding race – according to Virchow, of the century, there were a limited number the skull was critical because it enclosed of displays of human bodies in Bucharest, “the most important organ of the body, most of which had limited public access: the brain, and developed in a recognizable doctor Nicolae Minovici (1868-1941) had relationship to this organ” (Virchow 1892, acquired a small criminological collection 3 apud Massin 1996, 107). Such physical comprising criminal skulls, photographs or anthropological institutions and collections occasional body parts and a tattoo collection would have acquired their materials (Minovici 2007), all being on display at the from dissection rooms and archaeology Institute of Legal Medicine (which had excavations, and placed them alongside restricted access), while the Museum of casts, drawings and embryos. Knowledge Natural History had several hominid casts, 3) http://www.antipa. was constructed through an ensemble of ethnographic moulds, a mummy and a few ro/ro/categories/51/ 3 pages/50 (Accessed dry and wet human specimens, drawings, heads from Amazonia . At the same time, 19th July 2015). books, plaster casts, and tissue samples, the Faculty of Medicine, similar to Colțea following a model of fragmenting, opening Hospital, owned an anatomical reference up of the body and turning it into an object collection for teaching purposes, but this on display. Each of these documented lacked organization (according to Rainer’s ethnic or pathological bodies, with the own accounts), while professor Dimitrie invisible links between them being made Gerota (1867-1939) had gathered a collection visible through the way they were grouped of anatomical molds for anatomical and and exhibited. artistic teaching. Francisc Rainer’s collecting and dis- Rainer’s eforts were innovative due to playing practices of the human body his systematic approach to the display of followed the scholarly pattern set by his bodies, linked to two scientiic disciplines predecessors. Mostly gathered between – anatomy and anthropology. Basically, he the early 1920s and his death in 1944, his took previous medical reference collections collection was very similar in structure to another level, ordering specimens in a to endeavours from the second half of the systematic manner and structuring displays 19th century. Yet, even before he started in order to address various anthropological gathering his materials, such collections aspects. As a result, an anthropological were already falling out of fashion due to museum and collection were created, based a change in the physical anthropological on a synthesis of anatomical, anthropological paradigm. Ater a irst generation of and museological practices. As the scientists such as Paul Broca, Rudof story unfolds, one will observe that this Virchow and Rudolph Martin, who were perspective was in line with the collections usually trained as physicians or anatomists, that had been created a couple of decades and gathered their data by anthropometric before, such as those of Rudolf Virchow measurements and empirical morphological and Aurel Török, collections in which the observations (Little and Sussman 2010), study of race and ethnicity had centred morphological anthropology used for racial around craniometry – the measurements of classiications – and with it the role of such skulls. In this respect, the collection might collections – lost importance. In the face of have seemed anachronistic from a historical new concepts, anthropology turned more point of view. However, the paradox is towards Darwinism, hereditary studies, that Rainer’s understanding of race was eugenics, demography and statistics (see more in line with the genetic perspective Karl Pearson’s work) in order to diagnose (Schmuhl 2008, 59) of his contemporary,

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Eugen Fischer (1874-1967). Fischer, the transformations into types (Ion 2014b, proponent of the “anthropobiology” con- 237). By comparing various forms, one can cept, deemed such collections irrelevant construct an idea of how life developed and proposed the abandonment of the on Earth and explain better why certain study of morphological features in favour of features exist as they do. Anatomy and a concept of race grounded in evolutionary biology were the basis of this endeavour, biology and genetics (Schmuhl 2008, 59). as they investigated human morphology, Rainer intended this collection along but anthropology – the “science of MAN”7 speciic lines, a combination of old and was to become the over-arching theme, as 4) The words of Roland new theories: evolutionary theory, along it was to study variability in a hereditary Barthes describing the historian Jules craniometric studies, theories such as Kurt perspective and create a proile of the Michelet. I would thank Goldstein’s holistic theory of the organism Romanian population. Dr AG for this brilliant reference, but since (1934), Lamarckian inheritance, and At the same time, in contrast to Fischer and he stopped talking to Mendel’s genetics, and along Goethe’s idea other contemporary physical anthropologists me, I am limited to this footnote. of the unity of the organisation plan (for in Europe, Rainer had no predecessors in 5) All quotes present a detailed analysis of Rainer’s theoretical Romania, no reference materials or base in this article from foundations see Ion 2014b, and of his for any physical anthropological studies Rainer’s published journal (Rainer 2012), anatomical ideas, Toma 2010). herefore, (see Ion 2014 and Milcu 1954 for a brief class notes or other in order to understand the rationale behind history of the Institute and the discipline in Romanian authors have been translated the creation of this collection, and how old Romania). by the author from the methods merged with new concepts, one In order to retrieve this history of the original. needs to explore Rainer’s biography and collection, I found myself digging ater 6) A good book that evaluates the activity. It is out of his “organized network of relevant materials. he early Romanian German biological 4 tradition, which heavily obsessions” that an almost teleological plan physical anthropological paradigm has influenced Rainer is emerged – as he wrote while visiting the been partially studied in earlier work Nyhart 1995; for a more in depth analysis Aquarium in Berlin, on 12th of June 1930 (Milcu 1954) and more recently (the works of Rainer’s theoretical (Rainer 2012, 151)5: of Adrian Majuru devoted to the personality sources of inspiration “Again, faced with forms, I had the of Francis I. Rainer, 2012, 2013; Geana see Ion 2014a. sensation that they cannot be explained 1996; Toma 2010) and in studies which 7) Rainer’s original notation in capital through the functional action of the reassessed the theoretical premises of some letters. environment, but through a reaction of of the anthropological concepts (Bucur 8) King Mihai another origin of living substance, something 2005; Turda 2006, 2007, 2013). However, visited the Institute with Queen Mother on related to the crystalline form according the fate of this collection has received 20th November 1940, with which a speciic substance responds, in limited attention, and very few materials are part of their wider interest in scientific oversaturated solution, at the stimulation published (Ion 2011, 2014a, 2014b; Majuru activities in Romania and Queen Mother’s it receives. Living substance has a number 2015). Going back in time, two mid-century interest in and admira- of morphological possibilities of reaction… titles covering some of Rainer's work are tion for Francisc Rainer And one needs to observe the link between in the library of the present Institute of (Sevastos 1946, 11). the fundamental living structure and these Anthropology Francisc I. Rainer (L’œuvre patterns (Muster) which is produced.” 1947; Sevastos 1946). Unlike these studies, this paper builds hus, Rainer’s is a world at the crossroad on documents hitherto unexplored, such as of philosophy of biology6, anatomical the photographic and documentary archive practice and anthropological themes, of the Institute of Anthropology. About a a unique experiment in Romanian collection which was once the highlight anthropology. He took the concept of form of the 17th International Congress of Pre- as developed by Goethe – “he minted history and Anthropology (1937), and had an form that lives and living grows” – and international reception, a place of attraction focused on its historical development and for the king of Romania8 and of other major

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personalities of the interwar period and was a form of cirrhosis (Rainer 2012), and in the even mentioned in the touristic Michelin same year he married Marta Trancu11. Ten 9) Personal information 9 Valentin-Veron Toma. Guide , very few memories have survived. years later he obtained a teaching position Most of the resources I found crammed at the Faculty of Medicine in Iaşi. In 1920 in a dozen boxes stored in the attic of the he moved to Bucharest, where he took the Institute, containing unsorted forgotten position of anatomy professor at the Faculty notes and materials of Rainer. hus, ater 70 of Medicine. Here, he started organising years since Rainer died and his collection, the Institute of Anatomy and Embryology as he had imagined it, was broken apart, I by gathering the necessary materials and have followed the trail of the documents. specimens (Sevastos 1946). By this time, he had already developed an interest in analysing variability of human morphology, ...... an aspect relected by the specimens he collected. “La mort paraît alors une condition For Francisc Rainer, as for other essentielle de la vie” [Death seems 10) Quote from P.Valery anatomists of the time, the human cadaver 10 (Rainer 1943, 9). then an essential condition of life] was the primary means of acquiring knowledge. However, his perspective on “His body was macerated until only the nerve the use of cadavers was diferent from his ibres were let.” (V. Woolf) other Romanian colleagues, and it is this view that he tried to pass on to his medical Francisc Josef Rainer was born in the students. Refuting the perspective of static Austrian-Hungarian Empire in Rohonzna matter, Rainer advocated a functional (Bucovina) in 1874, but moved to Romania understanding of anatomy; thus, the cadaver to pursue high school studies at the Saint was seen as the window through which Sava College, ater which he went to study the organisation and structuring of life in 1892 at the Faculty of Medicine in could be understood, and the cadaver was Bucharest. Starting in his second year (1894) an intermediary “in the circuit of cosmic he worked as an assistant in the Faculty’s matter in which one can ind the message histology laboratory, under the supervision of life” (Vitner, 2). Furthermore, under the of Prof. Alexandru Obregia. Ater 3 years he inluence of evolutionary theory, variability moved to the medical clinic’s laboratory of of human form was read in a historical key – the Colțea Hospital to perform necropsies the result of ever becoming of living matter and macroscopic examinations. During his under the inluence of external factors and stay here he began gathering osteological hereditary laws. In his notes he picked and material: “the executed necropsies were highlighted a quote from Paul Valery that sources of learning, and the interesting illustrated this thought: pieces were kept and ixed with a special “La mort paraît alors une condition technique, in the Institute’s museum” (Riga essentielle de la vie, et non plus un accident 11) First female and Riga 2008, 28). qui chaque fois nous est une afreuse surgeon in Romania. 12 Together they had a Medical doctors soon turned to Rainer merveille; elle est pour la vie , et non plus daughter, Sofia, with to obtain the necessary specimens for contre elle. La vie doit pour vivre appeler à whom they cut contact after she married an pathological anatomy exams. His work took soi, aspirer tant d’êtres par jour, en expirer English medical student against their will. place in a room overlooked by Goethe’s tant d’autres; et une proportion assez portrait, from two or three in the night until constante doit exister entre ces nombres. La 12) Highlighted text as present in the seven or eight in the morning, followed by vie n’aime donc pas la survivance. Regards- original Francisc an examination of the patients and then by sur-la-mer-P.Valery ” (Rainer 1943, 9) Rainer’s manuscript. necropsies (Riga and Riga 2008). In 1903 Rainer took his doctorate degree researching Death was seen as a condition essential

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Breaking Down the Body and Putting it Back Together: Displaying Knowledge in the “Francisc I. Rainer” Anthropological Collection to life, and the cadaver provided a window decay seemed to sigh... In the middle was the into what otherwise could not be seen professor, leaned over drawings depicting in a living being. Even though this was statue, temples, gems, seals, frescos, relecting a traditional perspective in anatomy, in on the Aegean man.” (Vulcănescu 1944 apud contrast to his Romanian colleagues he Dumitrescu and Crăciun 2001, 22) introduced functional anatomy in Romania (Toma 2010): every investigated structure needed to be deciphered in relation to its past functions and the development of the whole organism. Dissection rooms were the places where Rainer started his study and explorations into human morphology: Fig. 2. First page of “His activity took place either in the Rainer’s article on the ‘raphe median de le evening, or ater classes, when the dissection levre superior’ [median raphe of the superior rooms were available, either during the lip], discovered based summer break, when the numerous skeletons’ on observations on ancient Greek statues, remains used during school year were compared with contem- macerated and cleaned.” (Dumitrescu and porary physiognomies. Stârcea-Crăciun 2001, 34)

His position of anatomy professor and, from 1926, head of the Institute of Anatomy and Embryology of the Faculty of Medicine, alongside the legislation that supported the use of unclaimed bodies for medical studies, put him in the position of having access to a wide range of bodies for his study. he Ater medical students inished their cadavers, mostly unclaimed bodies of poor dissections, the bodies were let for people, were sourced from various hospitals Rainer’s research and the morphologically and morgues in Bucharest (see Ion 2011). or pathologically interesting body parts hey were subjected to investigations to were collected as archival materials. Some provide clues into human variation. As a of these were preserved using his own contemporary visitor recounted: methods, such as organs or leshed body “...to the let and right of his room, which parts. Others were broken down, macerated led to a corridor, were the dissection salons and had their skeletons exposed. Heads of the Faculty. In the clean rooms reigned a were separated from bodies and kept for heavy disgusting smell of formaldehyde. he the craniological collection. he rest of the cadavers were of course of poor people, most body was broken down into constituent of them of people who died in accidents or parts and the elements deemed useful for hospitals and whose bodies were unclaimed further studies were kept. by relatives. All with twisted limbs, and For the irst two decades of the existence opened chests from which life seemed to have of the collection (early 1920s-late 1930s) lown. Nearby, in endless cabinets along the we have little information regarding its walls are a few thousand crania, part of the curation – the specimens were housed in richest anthropological collection in Europe, an area of the basement of the Faculty of aligned as an ossuary of a western monastery. Medicine, which “communicated through a (...) We felt immersed in a medieval world, hatch with the professor’s working cabinet, where the nakedness of the systematically situated at the ground-loor, and ater that opened up bodies, artiicially prevented from it moved into a former student’s working

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room from the basement” (Dumitrescu and illuminating for his perspective on collecting Stârcea-Crăciun 2001, 34). he access to it and for possible sources of inspiration for his was limited to the doctors of the Faculty own display strategies. During these trips and its students for their practice, as it was he visited archaeology museums, anatomy designed as a medical teaching aid and institutes, anthropology laboratories and research collection: illustrative is a doctoral collections, where he compared and reined thesis in medicine and surgery from 1928 by his knowledge and gained inspiration for Petre N. Georgescu on a couple of specimens his own collection. Such research visits from the collection, “Câteva preparate de represented opportunities to learn or craniu natiform” [A couple of specimens of improve his methods and display techniques natiform skulls]. (such as anthropometry, photographing Skulls lined up in parallel rows in a embryos or mounting bones). As a result, the simple wooden cupboard stare into the collection changed through these contacts camera in a black and white photograph with other European anthropologists and from the 1920s, while others, crammed anatomists, enlarged with new specimens on several wooden tables look away from and borrowed certain display models, and it. he room looks dark, lit only by some cannot be understood unless as part of high windows, under which are lined face a wider European museological culture. 13) Founder of the Ro- casts. It is the only spare wall in the room, his continued a tradition of close contacts manian Social Institute with Virgil Madgearu as a second photograph reveals: the skulls between the Romanian intellectual elite and the Village Museum in Bucharest seem to take up all the space, either in with German speaking countries – e.g. in 1936. cupboards, on tables, on chairs, or in boxes. important interwar igures such as 13 14) Founder of the It was a modern ossuary, housed in a space sociologist Dimitrie Gusti (1880-1955), International Congress where under the dim light bone wood and historian Nicolae Iorga14 (1871-1940) and of Byzantine Studies and the Institute for cement merged together. he insuicient the economist Virgil Madgearu (1887- the Study of Universal History in Bucharest lighting and the limited space made this an 1940) had obtained their Ph.D. titles from (1937). unwelcoming place for research or visiting. German institutions in the decades around (See ig. 3-4) the turn of the 20th century (for a more in here is little direct information depth overview of the western inluences regarding the collection up until it was on the Romanian social-scientists in the moved in 1937 in the new building from irst decades of 20th century see Cotoi 2011; the Faculty’s backyard, and no explicit Muller 2013; Momoc 2012). mentioning regarding his model for the Reading his diary entries one can also get collection, but diary entries from 1920s a glimpse of the materials and methods he and 1930s when Rainer took several trips to deemed necessary as part of his collection England, Germany, Austria and Sweden, are or archiving system. For example, on

Fig. 3-4. Images showing the collection stored in the basement of the Faculty of Medi- cine, 1928.

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Wednesday 5th October 1921, while visiting sited the anatomist Rudolf Martin in Munich, he wrote about Ferdinand Hochstetter the importance of craniometric forms that and his Institute, where should accompany the collected material: he observed: “…a lot of “..the skulls that they gave me [R. Martin plastic reconstructions, and his assistant Scheidt] (one with a label: a lot of wax specimens. standard skull) are not represented in their Skulls with none of the archive by craniometric forms. he servant bones pierced. Parain- could not ind their forms. Scheidt still needs preserved hearts, intes- to measure them, but I do not trust him. tines, placentae. Collection Ultimately, I haven’t found anything new… of the interior ear. Embryos Craniometric forms are sold at Gustav’s.” series and splendid embryo (Rainer 2012, 128) photographs” (Rainer Fig. 5. Stereoscopic 2012, 131). Here, according to his diary, he plaque on glass, For Rainer, recording the materials in learnt how to photograph embryos, and later showing a positive embryo photograph17. his collection was of utmost importance on we can ind several boxes of embryos Wien, 1910. Bears and the skulls he chose to collect were thus photographs on glass in his collection. (See the description ‘Univ- Institutes in Wien’. carefully inventoried. ig. 5) Institute of Anthropol- ogy Francisc I. Rainer On other occasion, he was interested archive. in learning the correct positioning of Furthermore, Rainer noted his im- calipers, of anthropometric landmarks, pression of the osteological collection, 17) I am grateful to and the position for goniometry15. hus, he containing a one of a kind specimen: Theodor-Ulieriu Rostas for the information he compared his knowledge with that shown ...the skull collection is pretty nice, provided. by Martin, the author of the standard beautiful and with numerous skulls from textbook on the topic at the time (Martin other continents. Beautiful children’s skulls 1914), or mastered by his assistant. of all ages, children’s and adult skeletons. A Visits to other collections were also couple of giant skeletons... a lot of comparative valuable opportunities for gaining insights anatomy, especially osteology. Laocoon group into diferent methods for preparing and reproduced only with skeletons, with great displaying anatomical and anthropological care. he serpent skeleton must have been samples, as well as for acquiring new hard to handle. (Rainer 2012, 131) materials. From the Bruckmann shop in Munich he bought photos of sculptures Later on, this composition might have from the city’s Glyptothek (Rainer 2012, translated into his own collection: we ind in 129), while at Johannes Ruckert’s Institute his collection 200 children’s skulls showing 15) The measurement of Anatomy in Munich he noticed “the all stages of development, from stillborn to of body’s angles. importance of living models” and “His’s16 18 years old (according to his age stages). 16) Wilhelm His (1831- anatomical and splachnological pre- 1904), embryologist parations, a didactic museum with coloured While visiting the Anthropological and anatomist. photos on glass slides of the preparations”, Institute in Vienna, and meeting the but the museum was not “deemed to rise director Joseph Weniger (on 25th of April to the expectations – it did not contain 1930) he saw: lymphatic specimens” (Rainer 2012, 127). “ ...heads are mounted with 2 splints over Here it is the eye of the anatomist speaking, their nose and before the ears. Ater that he as Rainer was particularly interested in the paints them. Moulds are impregnated with lymphatic system, and he was also famous wax (dissolved in gas). Collections of casts, of for his anatomical dissections and wet hands and feet, of all shapes. A beautiful skull specimens. collection of Africans and Australians. For In Vienna, on 18th of April 1930, he vi- skull’s curvatures an interesting mounting?

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In composition, the collection he gathered was similar to other anatomical medical collections, but from its early beginnings it Fig. 6. Plaster casts from the Francisc I. was also directed towards anthropological Rainer collection, studies. Even though there is limited depicting various human types. information, Rainer seems to already have developed an interest in anthropology and mastery of anthropometric techniques by the early 1920s. Illustrative is the course in anthropology for the third year students of the National Institute of Physical Education (on constitutional types) which he started in 1922, and three research studies coordinated by him, a physical anthropology analysis in 1923, a somatological investigation in 1926 (Rainer and Roșca) on 448 pupils from a On boards thin slices of diferent crania are state boarding school, and a study on blood mounted in series, cut along the curvatures groups in 1927 (see Țone 2012). deemed interesting. Applied also to the frontal 18) “Leon face”, sinuses. Large collection of slides. Gypsum of medical condition 18 characterised by bone leontiasis ossea .” ...... growth in the face and cranium. In his collection there is one similar Anthropology and the politics example of a skull sliced along its curvatures of collecting in interwar Romania and mounted on a black wood base, held by a vertical metal rod. At the same time, he improper storage and display conditions casts were one thing he collected. We can for this collection, as well as an interest in ind 15 brown coloured gypsum casts, placing it at the heart of anthropological showing a range of physiognomies. Such research were some of the reasons that casts were a common feature in anatomical determined Rainer to make eforts for and ethnographic museums and they were moving it in a specially designed building the material embodiment of standard racial and reorganising it under the newly Institute typologies (see Sysling 2015 for a historical and Museum of Anthropology in 1940. account). (See ig. 6) his was a time that coincided with several important events on the national In Sweden, during his trip in June arena: the establishment of King Carol 1930, he had the opportunity of meeting II’s dictatorship, the ascension to power 19) Author of The racial anthropologist and eugenicists Wilhelm of the Iron Guard right-wing party, the characters of the Swed- 19 ish nation (1926). Wolfgang Krauss (1894-?) and Herman organization of the National Legionary Bernhard Ludborg (1868- 1943) and visited state immediately ater the king’s abdication the latter’s Institute for the study of the and the entrance of the country in WWII biology of race in Uppsala – “he will send his as Germany’s ally. From a wider point of future publications on the mixture of races, view, anthropology in interwar Germany as Sweden is good at that” wrote Rainer and Austria, the spaces most inluential (Rainer 2012, 143). Here he also visited on Rainer’s work, witnessed an explicitly the Exhibition of Nordic countries and in orientation towards national political Sweden’s pavilion, he saw images from the agendas, which led to a “Nordic racial Institute for the study of the biology of race biology” (Massin 1996, 138) (e.g. see Berner (Rainer 2012, 143). 2010 for anthropology in interwar Austria;

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Massin 1996 for interwar Germany). Even being the primary targeted groups (see though the most important period in the Turda 2014)20. In Bucharest, in 1935, the 20) Most of these though remained history of this collection (1937-1944) was Demography, Anthropology and Eugenic only at the status of projects and were never contemporary with such events, Rainer’s department at the Institute of Statistics implemented. activity and collecting have remained was organised the Department of Social detached from any explicit political agendas. Medicine at the University of Bucharest, It is true that the late 1930s meant for and in 1943 was founded by the Ministries Romania as well a time when nationalistic Council the Commission for the promotion ideals became framed in biological terms and care of the biologic capital of nation and occasionally became intertwined with to evaluate the health of nation and to oicial state politics. Under the inluence provide concrete eugenic solutions (Turda of German racial hygiene theories, but 2014, 123; see the works of Maria Bucur, also following a local tradition of public 2005 and Marius Turda on the eugenic hygiene, social medicine and economy movement in Romania, e.g. 2006, 2007, theories introduced by anarchists and 2008). Gheorghe Banu became Minister of socialists starting with the last two decades Health in the Octavian Goga government of the 19th century (Cotoi 2014), eugenicists between 1937 and 1938, and then Director such as Iuliu Moldovan and Sabin Manuilã of the Institute of Hygiene in 1943; Sabin (1894-1964), Iordache Făcăoaru (1897-?) Manuilă directed Romania’s irst Statistical and Gheorghe Banu (1889-1957) (Turda Institute, and during World War II, he was 2008, 2014, 122), obtained political and an expert adviser on population policies institutional support. Along the themes of of marshal Ion Antonescu (Achim 2005); national regeneration and racial policies, while Iordache Făcăoaru promoted the these eugenicists proposed theories, organisation of an Institute of Ethnoracial projects and were members of committees biology ater the model of the Hungarian that supported radical bio-politics Institute for the biology of the nation (Turda measures, such as the cleansing of the 2014, 128). national blood, sterilisations campaigns, However, placed in the wider context relocations of populations, premarital of social and medical sciences in Romania checking etc., with the Jews and Gypsies such examples remain a minority. Rainer’s

Fig. 7. Anthropologi- cal photograph from the study of Maria Dumitrescu (1927).

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activity also remained detached from the reorganised, and the Institute of Geography above mentioned political tendencies or was established in 1944. Anthropology was agendas of his time. Placed in a Central seen as one of such disciplines which needed European context, his case is interesting to be introduced in Romania, to contribute since he delimited his activities from to the synchronisation of Romanian science political goals: Rainer explicitly rejected the with the rest of Europe and to provide ideas promoted by the eugenic movement tools for knowing the nation. he 1930s or racial hierarchies. Instead, he focused brought with them a growing interest in its on a completely diferent challenge that a institutionalization throughout the country: relatively young state was facing and which at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Iași was more common for the Romanian was founded in 1930 the Anthropology and scientists in inter-war Bucharest. In 1918, Palaeontology Department22, while in Cluj Romania’s territory had almost doubled its in 1933 the Anthropological Society was size through the addition of new Romanian born. What needs to be mentioned is that language speaking provinces, which were even though all these institutes seemed to previously part of the Habsburg and Russian follow a similar agenda, placed in line with Empires. herefore, to resist the internal a nationalistic ideology, they were mostly and external pressures of disintegration that the result of independent eforts of certain followed the uniication, the state needed academics. he Romanian state had little to better integrate the high percentage of involvement in such endeavours, except the ethnic minorities, which represented for inancing them, and one can more 30% of the population (Anuarul Statistic al accurately interpret them as “civilising” României 1929‐1930 apud Cotoi 2011). missions supported by certain individuals hus arouse the importance to study who, ater being trained abroad, saw it 21) Most of these and understand its ethnic composition, as a moral obligation to contribute to though remained only at the status of and the special needs of a mostly rural and the betterment of life in Romania and to projects and were never uneducated population, and then to devise continue the independent eforts of some implemented. policies to consolidate and modernize the of the Romanian intellectual elite in the 22) See Ciobanu et al. th 2009. state. In this line, proiling the population second half of the 19 century. Even so, needs became a vital element for the well- their eforts were not always consistent, 23) E.g., Paul Petrini was writing in 1919 being of the state and various campaigns and at times they remained implicit and that he finds it a “moral to address this issue were devised – see not fully formed research agendas. his obligation” to introduce and support anthropol- Dimitrie Gusti’s sociological ieldwork in particularity of the Romanian case, of the ogy, especially given the historical context: a Romanian villages, Rainer’s anthropometric way in which the relationship between united Romania where campaigns etc. scientists, academic institutions and the one can thus study the influences of other As a consequence, Rainer’s efort of state were shaped, makes it diferent from people on Romanians, founding an anthropological museum its European counterparts. As a result, the the distances between populations (Petrini and institute took place in a favourable traditional questions which have marked 1919). In his opinion such studies would internal context – ater the First World the anthropological historiography for this have major importance War, several institutes had been organised time period, focused on the relationship for every country, for population comparative in Bucharest, which were designed to between politics, right-wing driven research purposes, leading to study signiicant aspects of the Romanian and anthropology, are not fully applicable. a racial classification; from this one could nation, according to the newly introduced hus, as Paul Petrini (1847-1924), observe the influences of one population on disciplines: geopolitics, statistics, sociology, the former head of the Department of the other, the links and anthropology: the Romanian Social Anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine had differences between 23 various crania (and con- Institute was founded in 1921, Nicolae written before him , Rainer thought that sequently populations) Iorga’s Institute for the Study of Universal the role of anthropology was to ill a void (Ion 2014a). History was founded in 193721, in 1936 in Romanian research, that of creating the Central Institute of Statistics was a physical anthropological proile of the

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Romanian population. Even though the groups. herefore, by the late 1920s he had composition of his collection, directed already convinced himself through these towards collecting “Romanian” ethnics and ield studies in the mountain villages that local minorities had an inherent political there was no such thing as pure race, and structuring, along the lines of a “national every individual in a contemporary setting body”, he was not a “conscious political displayed several traits. ideologue” (in Stephen J. Gould’s words) in What remains unclear though is how practice: wider interests guided his research he would have actually used the skull topics and methods, namely a broader collection to further his typological studies. understanding of variability of human On the one hand, Rainer published very few form in the history of life on Earth. hus, anthropological studies (Rainer 1945; Rainer the craniological collection is only a part and Simionescu 1942; Rainer and Cotaescu of his anthropological collection, meant to 1943; Rainer and Tudor 1945, 1946). Even occupy only one loor of the three storied so, he was not necessarily dissatisied with Institute’s building. anthropometry as a method (as A. Torok Furthermore, revealing for his speciic had been, for example) for charting human understanding of race are the writings variability: one could still use indices that followed his ield campaigns to three based on body measurements to observe Romanian villages. Similar to Török, he individual variability or constitutonal thought that a combined study of prehistoric types. his was combined with an interest populations and contemporary individuals in genetic explanations in line with what can shed light on the dynamics of human was happening in interwar Vienna or at the types. In these villages he had hoped he Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, could capture: “the monographic study Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin of the inhabitants of as many mountain – e.g., similar to his Austrian colleagues villages as possible, as remote as possible, (Berner 2010), he gathered dactilograms where we are able to discover the older and conducted surveys on body traits ethnical aspects of the population” (Rainer interpreted in a genetic key, such as the 1927 apud Majuru 2015, 139). study on metopism (Rainer and Tudor However, his method of calculating 1946). indices based on various measurements herefore, as such research shows, taken from peasants led him simply what distinguishes Rainer from his to conclude that his initial goal was contemporaries, is the retention of a view unattainable due to a mixture of of anthropology as a “natural history” racial characteristics: the variations discipline, interested in diagnosing of heads and faces shapes suggested the physical makeup of humankind: that “we cannot speak of an ethnically constitutional and demographic types. homogenous population” (ibidem). Both Even though his studies were mostly the terms “ethnically homogenous” or descriptive in nature, in terms of general “race variations” were used by Rainer in outlook, his aim was deeper and linked to the sense of “anthropological types”; his wider philosophy of biology questions. As results showed a co-habitation of various I have detailed elsewhere (Ion 2014b), he types in local populations, a dolicocephalic saught to achieve through the research into of Nordic aspect, brachicephalic and body’s morphology an understanding of the intermediate type (Rainer 1937). Apart organic forms of life, equating form with from anthropometric measurements, eye the ultimate cause, its drive – Bildungstrieb, and hair colour, his serological campaigns in Goethe’s terms. In this line, human had also proven the futility of blood groups variability was a key of understanding analyses for discriminating between human the laws that govern the generation of life

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on Earth, a concern which went beyond displayed and mounted. When entering national or ethnic themes. the building which housed the institute and museum of anthropology, one would ...... have felt like stepping inside a Beauchene exploded skull, only that in this case it was The museum as a place for making an installation-collage of all anatomical visible life: bone, flesh, gypsum, glass elements that made up the human body. he and paper new building becomes a collage of several body parts, preserved in various way – “Losing the sight of one eye. It seemed so itting skulls and histological specimens, as well as – one of nature’s masterpieces – that old Miss representations like drawings, photographs Parry should turn to glass.” (V. Woolf) and casts. It was primarily a research collection, a visual archive intended for he Anthropological Museum and anthropologists and doctors alike, who Institute were oicially opened on June would ind here the necessary materials 24) With finance from 1940, with the support of the council for racial or pathological studies. When it the House of Schools, the Ministry of National of the Faculty of Medicine (obtained in moved in the new Institute, the collection Education, represented December 7th 1939) and with the approval kept its links with medical teaching- by Cancicov, and the National Bank of the Ministry of Education (December through the sourcing of materials, which through the governor st 24 Mitita Constantinescu 21 1939) ; an autonomous institution part came from the cadaver department hosted and Finance Minister of the University of Bucharest. As Rainer in the basement of the Institute’s building (L’oeuvre 1947). said during the opening ceremony of the and by providing research materials for Institute, the collection consisted of “skulls doctors and students. – priceless material for the human types in A look at the inventory of the colour country”, and the role of the institute lection can reveal this basic concept was “to study from an anthropological which structured it and was the core point of view the Romanian people and around which it grew: variability of form. to educate anthropologists” (Rainer in his was integrated to an evolutionary Sevastos 1946, 22). he pathological understanding: series were created that collection was designed for researchers would highlight the way human form – doctors, orthopaedists, radiologists, developed throughout years and millenias, which could “compare the images obtained but also to make visible the links between on X-ray plaques with real pieces” (20th various forms of life, what he called “the June 1940, Rainer in Sevastos 1946, 22). identity of the organisational plan.” As he On this occasion, the inventory of the wrote in his anthropology class notes: Institute of Anatomy and Embryology was “I tried to integrate man in the history divided and the pieces deemed relevant for of life on our planet... In this irst lesson I anthropological studies were moved to the looked at it, evolving from anthropus phase new Museum on June 28th 1940: the skulls to Homo Sapiens. I gave them the notion of collection (around 5000 specimens), with the length of this evolution and of the great cupboards, 70 gypsum casts, the collection changes of ambience in which he lived (in the of specimens of the development of the northern hemisphere, in the northern part). cranium, the pathological bone collection he Mauer man around 530 000 years ago (around 600 specimens), 30 anthropological – so approximately 17-18000 generations. instruments, 6 microscopes and 50 books From Christ until now 64, from Aeschylus (Ion 2014a, 32). 80. So our human antecedents weigh 18.000 When the collection was moved, it was generations or maybe even more... I wanted reorganised. We also have information to give the sensation of evolution realised in regarding the way specimens were human form and born in their mind the need

“Variability presents degrees of range: we can study it as part of a race or a species, of a genus and to wider degrees, acording to systematic taxonomy levels, without reaching the largest, that is the animal kingdom, seen as the realisation in ininite forms of the same fundamental tendencies of life, or even in the whole world of organisms.” (Rainer 1943, MSS) (See ig. 8)

In time, the number of specimens grew and, according to a published inventory Fig. 8 (L’oeuvre 1947, 65), in 1946 the collection comprised: around 6000 skulls, 1359 bones, 141 gypsum casts, specimens on lamellae, photographs, adnotated anatomical drawings, 128 archaeological skulls and 55 tables for work and iling cabinet. he well archaeological skeletons. (Fig. 9-10) lit rooms and furniture were designed so Rainer’s ideas were relected in the way that they allow for the optimum conditions the unfolding of form was staged in the for studying the skulls: these were arranged rooms and hallways of the newly built locale on no more than on two parallel lines in of the Institute. he preeminent place was armoires, with glass doors so that one could for dry specimens, bones, which mixed easily see / retrieve the skulls for study. In with other materialities – wood, metal rods, the room opposite were brought the old and glass cabinets. cabinets from the basement of the Faculty According to the description published of Medicine, illed with skulls in the process in 1947 (L’Oeuvre 1947, 58), the cranio- of classiication, casts and various post- logical collection dominated the ground cranial elements. loor, being displayed to the let and right he only individuals in the collection who of the entrance. In the let room, the space retained some of their identity were those 25) The morphology was illed with four wooden armoires whose skulls were preserved and displayed. specimens were numbered on the piece and containing approximately 1000 skulls, hese skulls were numbered in blue ink for the diagnosis written two more cupboards against the walls and identiication, on the let parietal bone25 and on the base.

Fig. 9-10 Images from the Institute and Museum of Anthropol- ogy. Source: L’Oevre 1947, p. 62.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Alexandra Ion then grouped based on age, morphology, “Ater the development of face, the and ethnicity. Among the data inscribed development of limbs” (Rainer MSS, class were the person’s name and surname, notes 1943). sex (marked through the corresponding symbols), age, nationality, profession, Right above the two rooms, on the irst date of death, diagnosis and hospital of loor, one could see the collection of bone provenance. Most were Romanians (93%), morphology displayed in transparent but one could also ind 235 individuals showcases: two rows of specimens were from 23 ethnic minorities (Ion 2011), like lined on the glass shelves of four parallel the Turkish soldier Narbitoglu Ismael who armoires, placed so that one could easily died in 1917, the Italian Giovanni Zuanelli, circulate among them. he pieces were a miner who died in 1927 and whose body exhibited so that their pathology was came from Pantelimon hospital, or the exposed, either with the description written Jewish sculptor Melic Adolf, who died on their stands, or by grouping similar aged 70 of bronchitis at Caritas hospital exhibits. From a photograph capturing in in 1932. Most of the causes of death were the collection we can see dozens of sacral medical conditions and deaths caused by bones illing one such armoire, looking poverty: under number 1388 / 190v we ind almost like they are dancing on their metal Gheorghe Ciobanu from Cucuieţi-Olt who rods, while in an armoire to the back, died in 1927 of “physiological misery” and skulls and cranial fragments are twisted ended up in the morgue. Others have died and placed in various positions in order to violent deaths, like Popa C. Dumitru aged show the pathological deformations. he 16, who died through drowning. Among X-rays of the important pieces covered the the most disturbing causes of death are walls of the room, with a switch to light suicides with ire arms and executions. 3585 them up from behind whenever the visitor individuals’ had their heads thus preserved felt like getting a deeper understanding of and displayed, 2123 adult males, 1194 adult the pieces exhibited. In a separate room females and 214 children (Ion 2011). Most were displayed the limb bones, according of these individuals had died between the to size and shape, placed in boxes with a ages of 18 and 60 (Ion 2011). hey tell the transparent cover, and grouped according story of the living conditions for their social to similar deformations or lesions: femora, background in interwar Bucharest, stories tibiae and arm bones were mounted in of poverty, death and solitude. parallel rows and showcased in tilted boxes From the photographs of the time, and placed at the viewer’s level; other pieces the surviving specimens in the collection, were mounted on metal supports, on cases one can see other marks which these bodies on the walls or placed along the room. In bear. Some of the skulls show marks of this room as well the X-rays of the exhibited autopsies, the skullcaps being ixed in metal materials took one wall. hinges. “Special” skulls were individualised Illustrative of the fate of these bodies through the way they were displayed, deemed pathologically interesting is the e.g. mounted on black wooden boards, story of Two crooked legs, found among like a Turk’s head shot at Plevna in the Rainer’s papers. On 16th of January 1897, at independence war of 1877, given as a git the surgery of the Saint Spiridon hospital to Rainer by a colleague, a unique example in Bucharest, Ciobanu Iordachi, aged 65, in the collection of a gunshot wound. hus, a worker from Lețcani, presented himself the substance of bodies, bone, merged with with an ulceration where he rested his ink, metal rods, wooden boards and the foot which prevented him from walking wood of the armoires, to create a visual atlas (Bothezat 1898). he diagnosis exposed of human ethnicities. a double congenital club foot. A month

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Table 1. Range of pathologies in the Francisc I. Rainer collection. later the patient died of pneumonia, but in 1947 shows a wide range of pathologies, his remains were dissected, his case being with all body parts being represented deemed interesting by dr. P. Bothezat, who (Table 1, based on L’oeuvre 1947), from wrote and published a short anatomical fractures to congenital anomalies, old age, description the following year. he traumas, trepanations, tumors, developmental article starts by describing the external problems and epigenetic traits. morphology of Ciobanu’s legs, the aspect of the muscles, articulations and ligaments he large corridor on the irst loor in the order they were revealed during the was also used as an exhibition space: four clinical examination. he second part of wooden armoires were lining the walls, each the article, which the author found the with a diferent content; one gathered several most interesting, records the post-mortem skulls with neural lesions, another those faith of the body, trying an “in-depth” with visceral morphology, a third one was description. However, this was limited: dedicated to the archaeological specimens “From the performed autopsy we could owned by the Institute through the donations only obtain both thighs with their legs, so of Professor Alexandru Bărăcila, Tzigara we can only present the results of dissecting Samurcaș, Radu Vulpe and Vasile Pârvan 26) From Turnu-Severin, these pieces. It would of course have been – 54 complete or fragmentary skulls from from Drobeta, Cetatea 26 Severinului, Simian Os- interesting if we could make a study of the several medieval cemeteries in Romania ; trov, Poiana, Cavaclar spine’s bone marrow lesions, especially today a fourth one held reproductions and casts of and Piscul Crasanului; Plus 39 boxes of skel- when almost everybody agrees in considering fossil skeletons and anthropological types. etons. congenital equs varus caused by a nervous On the top loor, in the attic, were displayed system lesion. However, the deformity which the cercopithecidae collection, preparations afected our sick man, being marked and of the central nervous system and histological the anatomical lesions quite advanced, the specimens, such as a microscopic collections anatomical description of only the legs is of embryologic sections of several species), interesting enough, because it can be made plus a tattoo collection (L’oeuvre 1947, 61-64). extensively.” (Bothezat 1898) he importance that the illustrative material played in Rainer’s method can be his text, found in the Institute’s archive seen in his own words in a lecture from is a typical case study of what would have 1943: been deemed as a pathologically interesting “he lectures on the historical realisation case study which would be reported and of the primate type need to be supported by preserved in an anatomical collection. In plates as impressive as they can be. I count on most cases, such deviant (fragmentary) drawings which show the development of face bodies would be kept for reference purposes, in vertebrates, starting from ish and moving preserved and stored in anatomical archives. up towards humans; ater the development A further look at the inventory published of face, the development of hands, here a

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good board showing the evolution of hand recorded 12 parameters, 2.372 reac- is needed... all depends on the possibility of tions for determining blood groups, 492 illustrating things.” photographic clichés and 633 dactilograms” (Ţone 2012; see Majuru 2015; Rainer 1937). In another account it was mentioned that Anthropological photographs were taken the Institute had 200 large plates realised at Fundul Moldovei and Drăguş, which by the Institute’s drawing artist, following marked the irst use of anthropological Rainer’s indications. Among them, one photos in Romania for the study of human could ind: “glaciers, the succession of types. he living subjects was recorded levels of civilisations, the Cioclovina in three perspectives: face, proile and ¾. graphics, the median from le Moustier, Responsible for these was Rainer’s student, La chapelle and Homo Sapiens, doli- dr. Ştefan Milcu. Ţone (2012) also mentions cocephalie and brahicephalie” (Rainer, that during these campaigns they also drew Lesson 17: “Saturday 22 May 1943”). Most the proiles and face contours, responsible of these were meant to be used as part being Aurora Pavelescu, a former student of of anthropological classes given at the Rainer’s from the Belle Arte Faculty. University of Bucharest. Some of them, lined he anthropological photograph was the walls of the irst loor of the Institute, not meant just to capture the subject’s reproductions of prehistoric men bought individuality, but to reduce it according to a Fig. 11-12. Plates from the from the museums that held the remains standardized set of rules (see the anatomical Francisc I. Rainer collection. (L’oeuvre 1947, 63). (See ig. 11-12) landmarks and the distances employed) and place it in comparison with other Another subject’s images. his type of endeavour was kind of evidence designed to capture, analyse and archive gathered by human typologies and races. (See ig. 14-15) Rainer were the anthropological From a short excerpt published in 1961 charts and photo- by one of those who took part in these graphs taken campaigns we can see how what seemed like during the ield a straightforward operation, photographing campaigns in somebody in order to capture their image, three mountain was a complex process designed according villages – Nerejul- to certain rules in order to produce a speciic mare (Moldova, form of photography: the anthropological Vrancea), Fun- photograph. Gr. Avakian (p. 179) would dul-Moldovii (Bu- write in the journal “Probleme de covina, Câm- Antropologie” [Anthropological Problems]: pulung) and At page 84, P. N. Bașkirov mentions Drăguş (Transil- that one can succeed in photographing vania, Făgăraş) – the human torso or the whole stature only in 1927-1928 and if one respects a correct positioning of the 1932 along the subject, a camera with a certain design Social Romanian and placed in a certain position. [...] the Institute (Rainer author recommends, for the photographing 1937). In all 3 in frontal norm, that the camera lens is campaigns were placed at the level of the exterior edges of realised “1.002 the eyes, thus being achieved the position of anthropological the body in Frankfurt horizontal, and the charts which intersection of the lines which pass through

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Fig. 13. Anthropological photographs from Draguş. Institute of Anthropology Francisc I. Rainer archive.

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Fig. 14-15. Archaeological specimens in the collection.

Cranial capacity in higher primates.

the external margins of the eyes and – one can chart changes in paradigms and through the glabella must coincide with the audiences and ultimately they are places centre of the lens. where the power of their keepers is made manifest. heir text is part of a wide debate To this, one adds histological lamellae regarding the place of such collections in – where human tissue was sliced, coloured contemporaneity, and the ethics and politics and placed on standard sized glass lamellae, of studying and displaying the dead in such grouped in card-board boxes with leather settings (e.g. Cassman et alii 2008; Fforde et binding. alii 2004; Hallam and Alberti 2013; Sayers 2010). In this line, the discussion applied to Rainer’s collection has two aspects: the fate ...... of the collection and the fate of the bodies that compose it. Bodies, series, memories. Rainer’s death in 1944 marked a change Legacies of a collection in the collection’s existence. Partly, this was due to external events – the Communist “Organismen sind nicht bloss OBJEKTE, regime came to power, the Institute went SONDERN AUCH Subjekte?” (L. V. Wiese) through several reorganisations and lost [Organisms are not merely objects, but also its autonomy, researchers moved, and subjects?] [MSS Rainer Archive] even when it moved back in the building it had to downsize, abandon the lower loor 27) In a memoir from What is ater all the relevance of thinking of the institute; hence the display setup March 28th 1947 of Gr. T. Popa, the director of about this collection now, in present times? as imagined by Rainer was abandoned. the Institute of Anthro- pology at the time, he Was there any valid scientiic use of such a In essence, the collection was a man’s mentions 4 researchers collection even at the time of its creation? obsession and ambition, tied together by a in the Institute who were developing Could this be an enough reason for perspective mostly grounded in philosophy anthropological stud- justifying its existence? And what should we of biology and kept in close link with ies: Dejica studied “cranial sutures”, do when confronted with such legacies? In anatomical teaching and research – thus, Repciuc – “hair and eye colour transmission by their introduction to he Fate of Anatomical for any anthropologist who would not have genes”, Ple[a – “blood Collections, Rina Knoef and Robert shared his teleological goals, this grouping groups distributions by families”, B \l\ceanu Zwijnenberg (2015) raise a number of issues together of materials would not have been and Simionescu – “the for it is relevant to talk about old collections read as Rainer did. In the couple of years form and function of cerebellum based on its comprising body parts: they embody “rich immediately ater his death, while his marks on skulls.” histories” of inter-disciplinary research, students were still working there27, his model through their fate – use and abandonment of collecting was still preserved, though

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Breaking Down the Body and Putting it Back Together: Displaying Knowledge in the “Francisc I. Rainer” Anthropological Collection his (philosophical) agenda was not taken doctor arrived at the front in the Caucasus on: the collection was enlarged with 1000 and brought me the news that F. Rainer’s crania, a genetic department was founded, lectures make a big noise in the capital, full skeletons were mounted (“and not just and are much enjoyed by the Bucharest skulls”, Popa 1947) and the embryology intelligentsia” (Sevastos 1946). collection was reorganised. By mid 20th century, this vision of anthropology, tied But Rainer was and remained a solitary with anatomy and seen as a natural science man, living by and demanding high was already starting to dissapear elsewhere standards, constantly trying to perfect his in Europe, and in time also in Romania. body and mind discipline. His notes on In the following decades, more and more evolution, embryology and race are inter- anthropological studies at the Center for spersed with quotes from Paul Valery, Archaeological Research focused primarily Goethe, Henry Delacroix, Blaise Pascal – all on ar-chaeological skeletons or living his practical endeavours were made having populations. he craniological collection in mind old existential and philosophical was kept on display, mostly as a piece of questions: heritage, whereas the histological specimens “Toute l’histoire de l’univers est écrite sur were put in storage, and the rest of the les ailes d’une mouche” (Alfred Giard, in documents, drawings, plates, casts, ended Rainer MSS). up in the attic, and others have been lost. Seventy years later, only the skulls and some “he play of colours in dew drops is pathological post-cranial specimens are still splendid only when I watch it without present, a handful of anatomical drawings my glasses. Glasses make it barren. he and X-rays, none of sensation... of pure love” the large plates, only Fig. 16 (Rainer 2012, 101). a dozen casts and the mortuary mask, a He was a man who couple of boxes with devoted close attention histological lamellae to the annual blooming and part of the of trees and lowers in photographs from the his garden, struggled ield campaigns. with insomnia and At the same time, was forever sunken in during Rainer’s life observing the spectacle the collection and of form and its museum remained relationship with time. mostly a closed Even though he had space, his own imagined this Institute research world. here for posterity and seemed to have been named it a “Museum”, a wider interest in during his lifetime it the collection, as was mostly his own the memories of the research laboratory – intellectuals of the with very few visitors time who visited it or researches, most of show, as well as an interest in his weekly which were anatomists. his situation was anthropological lectures given during the also kept in the following decades, with the years of 1941-42, 42-43 in the University’s collection being “on display”, but actually amphiteatre: “In the winter of 1943 a young just an archive from which necessary

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Alexandra Ion

research material could be retrieved. methods of interrogation he applied, he Since then, the collection has been passed reduced the analysed individuals to static on and viewed as a “methodological tool”, contours, mathematical formulas, indexes, used for a limited number of osteological and igures, placed in wider comparative and medical studies (Ion 2011), as a piece narratives about morphological variation of heritage (see the exhibition in 2001, (see Ion 2014b for a detailed analysis). Dumitrescu and Crăciun 2001), but an open From a diferent point of view, the story question remains: what should we do with of the collection is relevant to highlight this legacy? the way in which inter-disciplinary connections are a constitutive aspect of On the other hand, and most importantly, Romanian anthropology. For Rainer, is looking at the issue of ethics in relation anthropology remained a natural science, to the type of body which Rainer brought linked to prehistory, but also to geography, into view through his collecting and and biology, and removed from cultural research practices. In spite of his intention explorations such as the ones opened by to capture the dynamics of life, Rainer Franz Boas and other early 20th century ultimately gathered thousand of bodies who anthropologists. Beyond a local relevance of were silenced in the space of the Institute. such a historical account, it is my contention In the process, individuals became body that bringing together fragments of Rainer’s parts, signiied diseases or trauma marks. biography, of collection’s inventory and hey were reduced to lesh and bone, stories about the dead one can challenge which could be moulded and mounted as contemporary understanding of what such desired, and from each individual was kept collections stood for. Rainer proposed 28) For a great method- only the part which was deemed necessary a speciic take on human taxonomy; he ological perspective on 28 seriality in science, see to signify a certain aspect. hus, body constructed series , meant to document, to Hopwood et alii 2010. parts were mixed and matched, creating a bring forth the underlying structures that visual spectacle. In practice, through the made up a human’s identity, namely biology

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Breaking Down the Body and Putting it Back Together: Displaying Knowledge in the “Francisc I. Rainer” Anthropological Collection in his case. In his view, he collected life and read in an evolutionary key? Rainer aimed evidences of generation forces. In a way, at charting human types by using biology the collection could have been viewed as and anatomy as investigative tools, and an evolutionary tree made visible, but one this resulted in certain bodies’ displays and encapsulating ontogeny – the development research questions. herefore, an analysis of human organisms from generation of such a collection can ofer possible new to adulthood – and making visible links ways for interpreting anthropological between past and present human forms, practices in order to bridge the gap between links decoded in an anatomical and anthropology-osteoarchaeology-heritage biological key. he goal of this gathering of and museum displays. materials, as Rainer had imagined it, was to see the forever generating patterns of life in material form, and a basis of racial studies29...... His aim was to observe the “plasticity 29) Anthropology being read in line with E. of human form”, various phenotypes, Acknowledgments Fischer’s point of view, that it deals with the extinct humans and contemporary types hereditary distinctions in comparative perspective, the Romanian I am indebted to John C. Barrett, Josh Nall, between men. type and its local variations: “Look for Arda Antonescu, Miruna Vasiliță, heodor- 30) Oltenia, Muntenia, example, the type of ‘oltean’ is pretty Emil Ulieriu-Rostàs and to two anonymous Moldova: regions in Romania. characteristic and distinguishable from the reviewers for their valuable comments and ‘muntean’ and ‘moldavian’30, which can be suggestions on previous drats of this text. distinguished at a irst look” (Rainer 1934). hey have greatly contributed to shaping the inal form of this paper. I am also grateful to he relevance of such concerns for the 21st Director Dr. Cristiana Glavce for granting century lies in a still unsettled matter – how is me permission for studying and publishing one to deine types and construct boundaries archival materials from the Institute of inside taxonomic groupings, if variability is Anthropology Francisc I. Rainer.

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Title: Hormones, glandes et criminalité: lunité somato‐psychique du délinquant dans la

Grande Roumanie

Author: Corina Doboş

How to cite this article: Doboş, Corina. 2015. Hormones, glandes et criminalité: lunité somato‐psychique du délinquant dans la Grande Roumanie. Martor 20: 51-66. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor (Revue d‚nthropologie du Musée du Paysan Roumain) est un journal académique en système peer-review fondé en 1996, qui se concentre sur lanthropologie visuelle et culturelle, lethnologie, la muséologie et sur le dialogue entre ces disciplines. La revue Martor est publiée par le Musée du Paysan Roumain. Son aspiration est de généraliser laccès vers un riche contenu au plus haut niveau du point de vue académique et éditorial pour des objectifs scientifiques, éducatifs et informationnels. Toute utilisation au-delà de ces buts et sans mentionner la source des articles est interdite et sera considérée une violation des droits de lauteur.

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Hormones, glandes et criminalité: “l’unité somato-psychique” du délinquant dans la Grande Roumanie

Corina Dobo[ Researcher at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila" in Bucharest and University of Bucharest

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS

My research deals with the possibilities of interpretation of the criminal behavior endocrinology, criminal behaviour, opened up by the constitutional medicine and endocrinology during the inter- prevention, Parhon, Pende, interwar war era. Starting from two criminological studies of constitutional orientation Romania issued in interwar Romania, I explore the semantic operations involved by the construction of the individual as a ‘psychosomatic unity’, as well as the larger social and political consequences of this process.

“Si l’on parvenait à établir péremptoirement certaines explications biologisantes du un rapport constant entre certains caractères comportement criminel: corporels et certaines formes de la criminalité, “[...] il reste encore quelque chose de très le problème de l’innéité, de la prédisposition intéressant de la vieille doctrine de Lombroso, organique à ces manifestations criminelles, même en ce qui concerne le type criminel serait résolu. somatique. Il y a là matière à rélexion et - Schreider 1937, 91-92 surtout un terrain qui mérite d’être exploré avec des méthodes plus expérimentales et avec une meilleure élaboration statistique des résultats. Bien entendu, il ne s’agit pas de rechercher la « bosse du crime », mais de es criminels présentent des signes voir s’il n’y a pas de corrélation réelle entre d’hyperfonction de la glande hypo- la criminalité et certaines structures du Lphyse, les voleurs et les escrocs corps ou certains caractères physiques isolés. présentent souvent des signes d’hypertiroïdie Dès que l’on admet les corrélations somato- et d’hypofonction hypophysaire et ceux qui psychiques, cette hypothèse cesse de paraître attentent aux bonnes moeurs présentent absurde. Elle l’est d’autant moins que nous fréquemment les signes d’une hyperfonction connaissons à l’heure actuelle l’inluence que des glandes génitales. L’équation hormonale plusieurs glandes endocrines exercent à la fois du comportement délinquantiel était bien sur le corps et sur le psychisme.” (Schreider prenante non seulement pour les biologistes 1937, 84) et pour les médecins mais aussi pour les législateurs et les hommes politiques de Notre recherche met en évidence les l’Europe d’entre-deux-guerres. En 1937, possibilités d’interprétation du compor- Eugène Schreider, le secrétaire de la Société tement délinquantiel crayonnées en Française de Biotypologie, résumait très criminologie par le fait d’assumer les bien les motifs et les implications de arguments et les concepts de la médecine

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Corina Doboş

constitutionnaliste. Dans la période recherches roumaines de criminologie d’entre les deux guerres mondiales, les d’orientation constitutionnaliste. Ensuite, études constitutionnalistes concernant le nous procéderons à intégrer ces recherches comportement du délinquant reprennent criminologiques dans le contexte pénal plus et développent le paradigme lombrosien large de l’époque pour pouvoir déchifrer de l’homme criminel à l’aide des derniers les conséquences que ces recherches moyens médicaux oferts par la médecine comportent par rapport aux relations constitutionnaliste. instituées entre gouvernants et gouvernés En situant dans le paysage politique et dans la Roumanie d’entre-deux-guerres. De scientiique deux études de criminologie cette manière, nous mettrons en évidence d’orientation constitutionnaliste publiées la modalité dont l’imaginaire tissu autour dans la Roumanie d’entre-deux-guerres, des représentations du corps humain joue cette recherche se propose d’explorer l’uni- un rôle constitutif dans les constructions vers sémantique de la construction de politico-juridiques du siècle passé. l’individu en tant qu’ “unité somato- psychique.“ Nous passerons en revue les mutations épistémologiques survenues ...... au début du XXe siècle dans les sciences médicales, ainsi que dans le contexte socio- La médecine constitutionnaliste politique, qui favorisent le développement dans l’Europe d’entre-deux-guerres des doctrines constitutionnalistes dans la période d’entre-deux-guerres et qui Dans les années ’20, l’endocrinologue permettent la conceptualisation de l’indi- italien Nicola Pende (1880-1070) déinissait vidu comme “unité somato-psychique“, la constitution comme comme un tout déini à la fois par “la résultante morphologique, physiolo- les aspects physiques et psychiques, gique et psychologique (variable d’un individu considérés en interaction. Lorsque nous à l’autre) générée par les propriétés cellulaires indiquerons les principaux repères et humorales du corps et de la combinaison de historiographiques concernant les concepts celles-ci dans une coniguration cellulaire avec et le développement de la médecine des caractéristiques spéciiques concernant constitutionnaliste dans les premières l’équilibre, la fonctionnalité, la capacité de décennies du XXe siècle, nous explorerons s’adapter et les manières de réaction aux stimuli l’application de ces principes dans les externes. Une telle résultante est déterminée tout d’abord par les lois de l’hérédité et ensuite par l’inluence perturbatrice du milieu sur la structure héréditaire individuelle.” (Pende 1928, 25)

Fig. 1: Les biotypes de Il proposait une déinition complexe Pende. (Turinese 2006, 42) et dynamique de la constitution humaine en employant des explications humorales et chimiques qui dépassaient les simples descriptions et les corrélations entre les particularités morphologiques des individus et a élaboré un concept nouveau, intégratif, concernant la constitution: “le biotype“, qui sera utilisé environ trente ans dans quelques unes des études constitutionnalistes en Europe. Pende déinit le biotype comme

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Hormones, glandes et criminalité: “l’unité somato-psychique” du délinquant dans la Grande Roumanie une “synthèse fonctionnelle et vitale de médecine constitutionnaliste est destinée à l’individu“, concept qui réunit “les aspects donner plus de légitimité et de prestige à la morpho-physiologiques, biochimiques et (nouvelle) science de la biotypologie. Mais physiques en l’indivisible concept d’indi- l’histoire de la médecine constitutionnaliste, vidualité“ (Pende 1928, 243). Pende a ancienne et sinueuse, montre que cette établit quatre biotypes principaux dont généalogie n’est pas seulement un simple l’équation est déinie par les variables artiice stylistique (Lawrence et Weisz neuro-chimiques: le type bréviligne (avec 1998). Son parcours s’est développé en les variantes sthénique et asthénique) et le étroite relation avec les doctrines dualistes type longiligne (avec les variantes sthénique concernant les rapports entre le corps et asthénique) (voir ig. 1). et l’âme, la matière et l’esprit, rapports Quelques décennies plus tard, toujours déinitoires pour la culture occidentale (Hart Pende, dans la préface du volume Traité 1994, Breton 1992, Garber 2001). de médecine biotypologique (Pende 1955), La relation entre le corps et l’âme a un tome qui représente une importante été problématisée en médecine depuis synthèse des études de médecine consti- l’Antiquité sous l’aspect du rapport entre tutionnaliste européenne de la première la constitution humaine et le tempérament. moitié du XXe siècle, déinissait la médecine Hippocrate a systématisé les premières constitutionnaliste, son objet et la méthode théories concernant la constitution et a de recherche: formulé une vision humorale qui s’est “C’est la personne totale, unitaire et constituée en paradigme de référence diférentielle de l’homme qui est l’objet de dans la médecine occidentale pour la médecine que nous appelons consti- plusieurs décennies. Reprise, développée tutionnnelle ou biotypologique, et qui pourrait et transmise par Galenus, cette approche aussi se nommer individuelle. Elle s’oposse est devenue paradigmatique pour la à la médecine abstraite, de l’homme-espèce, médecine occidentale pour plus de 1500 de l’homme masse et considère le malade ans (Ciocco 1936, Ackerknecht 1982). Au comme une individualité, comme une totalité début du XIXe siècle, la théorie humorale somatopsychique, comme une unité vitale de constituait encore une approche importante tissus, d’humeurs, de conscience [...]. Cette en médecine et surtout en pathologie, le unité constitue l’ensemble de la personne tempérament représentant “un ensemble humaine qui vit, réagit, soufre, pense à de résistances vitales“ face à la maladie. sa manière, obéissant à des lois d’hérédité Un tempérament sain était considéré “la morpho-physiologique particulières à chaque meilleure défense contre le mal extérieur“, sujet, à des agents modiicateurs et plasma- tandis qu’un tempérament malade était teurs cosmiques et sociaux. [La médecine considéré “une porte ouverte au parasitisme constitutionnelle] s’airme de plus en et à la destruction“ (Luton 1972, 138). Dans plus comme une reviviscence de l’éternelle la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, peu à peu, pensée hippocratique sur des fondements le terme de constitution a remplacé celui techniques. Les données modernes de la de tempérament, terme que la médecine neuro-endocrinologie et de la physiologie du moderne en ascension mettait en doute cerveau viscéral végétatif émotif conirment assez souvent. l’unité de l’ensemble des parties du corps et Dans la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle, l’individualité du comportement humain, malgré le développement de la microbiologie telle que l’avait déjà proclamée l’École des et de la bactériologie qui ont fait de la théorie Asclépiades.” (Pende 1955, 9) de l’agent pathogène extérieur, du germe, la conception dominante en pathologie, La présentation en directe iliation avec les la question du “milieu intérieur“(selon doctrines hippocratiques que Pende fait de la l’expression de Claude Bernard), des facteurs

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Corina Doboş constitutionnels propres à l’individu a une approche de type holistique quant au continué à être discutée dans les débats patient et à sa maladie: le patient est perçu médicaux de la in du XIXe siècle, car “les comme un tout unitaire – du point de vue choses se passent comme si l’organisme somatique mais surtout du point de vue avait en lui-même la puissance de concevoir psychosomatique – dont l’individualité les maladies“ (Raynaud 1872, 10). Bien que s’airme par la particularité des réactions le paradigme de l’agent pathogène extérieur aux diférents stimuli externes, y compris fût devenu dominant à la in du XIXe les diférents agents pathogènes. Le holisme siècle, les preuves empiriques concernant médical essaie de remettre en discussion la la réaction individuelle diférente au même médecine comme art – côté sans importance agent pathogène extérieur ont remis en pour les courants anatomistes, localistes discussion l’importance des facteurs et virologiques qui ont pris naissance tout constitutionnels et héréditaires dans le au long du XIXe siècle – et de rendre au déclenchement et l’évolution de la maladie praticien un rôle plus créatif dans tout le (Ciocco 1936, 25). processus du diagnostic et de la guérison De plus, le succès et le développement de la (Grmek 2000; Peitzman et Maulitz 2000). médecine expérimentale de laboratoire qui, L’intuition et l’expérience professionnelle suivant le modèle des sciences naturelles, deviennent des qualités décisives dans tâchait d’éclaircir des causalités universelles la nouvelle médecine, des qualités qui en pathologie, ont déterminé une nouvelle permettent au médecin, mais surtout au réponse des cliniciens préoccupés de clinicien, à l’interniste et au psychiatre, de mettre en évidence l’unicité de la réaction comprendre intuitivement le patient, en son individuelle en pathologie. Cette nouvelle unité et en son individualité (Bauer 23, 2). tentative de fondement de la constitution La médecine constitutionnaliste du XXe individuelle et de la prédisposition, à défaut siècle s’inscrit dans cette ancienne tradition de génétique, s’appuyait sur une analyse de intellectuelle, représentant une tentative de genre quantitatif, adressée en tout premier dépasser l’ancien dualisme entre le corps et lieu à la morphologie humaine, à l’aide de l’âme, réalisée avec de nouveaux moyens l’anthropométrie (Albrizio 2007, 114). et des épistémologies médicales modernes, C’est ainsi qu’à partir de la in du XIXe dans un contexte socio-politique favorable. siècle et en continuant avec la période L’ascension de la médecine de type d’entre les deux guerres mondiales, on voit holistique a été facilitée, au début du apparaître dans la médecine occidentale XXe siècle, par le développement de de nouvelles orientations qui privilégiaient l’endocrinologie (Holmes 2000). Cette un genre d’approche individualiste, branche médicale a permis la formulation personnaliste et qui avantageaient “le d’une vision intégrée du corps humain: les malade et non pas la maladie“. La médecine hormones, substances chimiques libérées allopathe holistique, mise en relief par par les diférentes glandes, sont ‘versées’ diférents courants et orientations (le dans le sang et elles arrivent à agir sur des néo-hippocratisme, la médecine consti- organes situés à une certaine distance par tutionnaliste, la biotypologie euro- rapport à la glande génératrice. Le sang péenne ou la somato-typologie nord- et les hormones ofraient un nouveau américaine, la médecine psychosomatique) principe causal intégrateur, tant au niveau représentait une approche alternative, somatique qu’au niveau psychosomatique, apparue comme une réaction à une un principe qui pouvait expliquer beaucoup excessive multiplication des spécialisations de pathologies restées encore inconnues en (professionnelles ainsi que conceptuelles) physiologie ainsi qu’en psychiatrie (Parhon en médecine (Tracy 1992; Tracy 1998). 1938; Parhon 1940). Jointe aux possibilités Les nouvelles orientations proposent ofertes par la médecine expérimentale,

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Hormones, glandes et criminalité: “l’unité somato-psychique” du délinquant dans la Grande Roumanie l’endocrinologie était en plein essor dans Biotypologique de Gênes (*** 1934), ce les premières décennies du XXe siècle en qui a contribué pleinement à l’inluence ofrant à la médecine holistique de nouvelles de l’école constitutionnaliste italienne sur clés de diagnostiquer et de guérir. le plan européen et mondial (Eraso 2007; L’approche constitutionnaliste de la Appelbaum, MacPherson et Rosemblatt 2003; médecine allopathe se développe dans une Stepan 1991; Vimieiro Gomes 2015). époque où l’imaginaire social était hanté par À défaut d’une recherche monogra- les fantasmes de l’émergence de la société phique sur le développement de la médecine de masse qui à côté de la technologisation constitutionnaliste italienne, qui aurait été excessive semblaient menacer par aliénation extrêmement utile à notre recherche, vu que la valeur personnelle de l’individu. L’époque la médecine constitutionnaliste italienne a de la civilisation de masse que nous vivons inspiré en grande partie le développement de “dépersonnalise l’individu à l’intérieur la médecine constitutionnaliste en Europe d’une technocratie envahissante et, quand et en Amérique du Sud, on ne peut faire que même, irréversible“, avertissait Pende en des spéculations quant au contexte socio- 1955 (Pende 1955, 10). politique de cette remarquable évolution Si “l’ennemi commun“ contre lequel la dans les conditions de l’avènement du médecine holistique réagit est assez bien fascisme. Nicola Pende expliquait que indiqué par l’historiographie, l’essai d’éta- “dans le climat de l’avènement du fascisme, blir les autres traits de l’univers sémantique le but principal de la biotypologie est d’assurer commun de la médecine holistique s’est la connaissance et le développement eicient montré assez diicile, étant donné que des biotypes de la nation, étant donné que les contextes nationaux scientiiques, chaque biotype fait preuve d’aptitudes académiques, professionnels, politiques diférentes, de pathologies mentales et où cette médecine constitutionnaliste se des prédispositions à la maladie et au développe sont diférents. crime.”(Stepan 1991, 116) Le succès et le développement remarquable de la médecine holistique en Allemagne “Cette science de la constitution indi- sont expliqués en historiographie (Hau 2000; viduelle marquée par les progrès de la bio- Hau et Ash 2000; Prüll 1998; Timmerman typologie unitaire apparaît d’une grande 2001; Ash 1995; Harrington 1996; Vacha actualité, non seulement dans ses appli- 1995) dans le contexte de la prévalence cations médicales mais aussi dans celles d’une attitude générale conservatrice, d’une nécessaires à l’homme normal et social”, modernité “antimoderne“, d’un “modernisme montrait Pende en 1955 (Stepan 1991, 116). réactionnaire“ spéciique à l’Allemagne (Peukert 1991; Herf 1984). Les recherches Dans cette perspective de large utilité d’Ernst Kretschmer (1888-1964) ont été sociale ouverte à la médecine consti- fondamentales pour toute la médecine tutionnaliste, ses applications dans le constitutionnaliste allemande qui a eu aussi domaine de la criminologie se sont avérées une grande inluence au niveau européen; tout à fait remarquables (Saldana 1929). par ses recherches, le psychiatre allemand a Si Lombroso et son école avaient trouvé, établi des corrélations entre la forme du corps dans les dernières décennies du XIXe siècle, et les groupes principaux de pathologies une Europe assez prospère et sûre pour mentales (Kretschmer 1921; Kretschmer préférer les explications sociologiques de 1922; Kretschmer 1928; Priwitzer 2004). la criminalité et les solutions adéquates, la La médecine constitutionnaliste connaît situation a changé sensiblement après 1914. un développement important dans l’Italie Dans l’Europe d’entre-deux-guerres, dont fasciste aussi. En 1925, l’endocrinologue l’ordre social avait été ébranlé, la criminalité italien Nicola Pende a fondé l’Institut généralisée constituait un problème de plus

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Corina Doboş en plus aigu. Le taux augmenté de criminalité, en plan social, économique et ethnique – enregistré objectivement par les statistiques, reviennent sous une forme beaucoup plus est doublé dans le discours publique par concentrée et simpliiée dans la période la construction discursive des nouvelles d’entre-deux-guerres: le droit pénal et la catégories délinquantielles qui semblent médecine collaborent extensivement pour mettre en danger les constructions étatiques prévenir la déviance sociale (Gibbson 2002). fragiles et demandent une action urgente de la part des responsables politiques. Les explications biologisantes de la criminalité, ...... qui expliquaient la genèse de l’acte criminel par l’existence de certaines prédispositions La criminologie constitutionnaliste criminelles innées de l’individu, contribuaient dans la Roumanie d’entre-deux-guerres à minimiser les responsabilités du corps social vis-à-vis la genèse de l’acte délinquantiel, et, en Nous avons insisté sur les principaux repères même temps, ofraient la possibilité de trouver de la médecine constitutionnaliste italienne une solution plus rapide et “scientiique“ de parce que les plus importants auteurs ce problème (Bachhiesl 2005; Becker 2002; lus et cités par les chercheurs roumains Wetzell 2000; Becker et Wetzell 2006; Hahn sont ceux qui proviennent de l’école Rater 1997; Hahn Rater 2008; Marques italienne de médecine constitutionnaliste 2013). (la biotypologie). Nicola Pende saluait en D’un autre côté, les évolutions épisté- 1938 l’intérêt que la Roumanie portait à mologiques et technologiques de la la médecine constitutionnaliste italienne, médecine d’entre-deux-guerres et surtout dans le contexte politique du rapprochement l’ascension de la criminologie et de la idéologique entre la Roumanie et l’Italie: médecine constitutionnaliste permettent de “Aujourd’hui, quand notre grande soeur reprendre et de reformuler les arguments latine, la Roumanie, s’est rapprochée d’Italie scientiiques employés par Lombroso, comme idéologie politique, je suis heureux tellement contestés et combattus à l’époque que cette traduction de mon ouvrage par les écoles criminologiques rivales. […] donne aux Roumains préoccupés des Les idées et les démarches disciplinaires problèmes d’éducation pour suivre les mêmes – qui avaient été véhiculées dans les chemins que l’Italie Fasciste, les chemins de la dernières décennies du XIXe siècle en vue formation harmonieuse, selon des principes de la conciliation et l’homogénéisation de biotypologiques-orthogénétiques, des futurs la société italienne profondément divisée citoyens de la grande patrie roumaine, ille, Fig. 2: La pyramide du biotype humain (Nicola Pende) repris par Gh. Marinescu. tout comme l’Italie, de l’immortelle Louve de (Marinescu 1931, 32) Rome.” (Pende 1938, 4)

En 1931, Gh. Marinescu (1863-1938), médecin et homme de science roumain, a présenté à l’Académie Roumaine un exposé concernant la Constitution humaine selon les travaux de l’école italienne (Marinescu 1931). Cet exposé représente un très opportun passage en revue des plus importantes directions suivies par l’école constitutionnaliste italienne, qui, pendant la période d’entre les deux guerres, se trouvait en pleine expansion. Dans son exposé, Marinescu présente et explique

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Hormones, glandes et criminalité: “l’unité somato-psychique” du délinquant dans la Grande Roumanie le schéma de la formation du biotype de constitutionnalistes dans la Roumanie Pende, celui des corrélations existantes entre d’entre-deux-guerres, vu que le discours les caractéristiques physiques (habitus), le publique concernant la délinquance et la tempérament, le caractère, l’intelligence et criminalité était de plus en plus alarmant: le patrimoine héréditaire de l’individu (voir les données statistiques (Şerban 1929; ig. 2). Decusară 1929; Ministerul Justiţiei 1931; Dans la Roumanie d’entre-deux- Inspectoratul General al Jandarmeriei 1936; guerres, la médecine constitutionnaliste a Dragu 1929; Georgescu 1923) inquiétantes été invoquée et professée par des praticiens montraient que “la criminalité a une de tout premier ordre – psychiatres, croissance extraordinaire“ (Herovanu 1935, psychologues et endocrinologues – qui se 7) après la Grande Guerre (Marele Războiu) trouvaient dans des positions importantes parce que dans les institutions de recherche “la Guerre mondiale a fortement roumaines. Ce positionnement central ébranlé l’humanité du point de vue moral, de ses promoteurs fait qu’en Roumanie économique etsocial et a sensiblement la médecine constitutionnaliste ne soit agravé la crise de la répression qui, sous une pas une alternative à une ligne oicielle forme moins perçue,existe chez nous depuis de la médecine allopathe mais une partie longtemps.”(Şerban 1929, 7) intégrante de celle-ci. Les arguments constitutionnalistes ont été très bien accueillis à l’époque et ils sont devenus ...... éléments constitutifs du discours médical oiciel; ils ont été adoptés par la majorité C. I. Parhon et son école: médecine et des chercheurs, quelles que fussent leurs criminologie constitutionnalistes options politiques et idéologiques: C.I. Parhon et ses étudiants de Iassy, qui Les principales études de médecine et, avaient de fortes orientations de gauche, ensuite, de criminologie constitutionnaliste les modérés Gh. Marinescu et Florian sont inséparables du nom de Constantin Ştefănescu-Goangă (membre marquant du I. Parhon (1874-1969), personnalité scien- Parti National Libéral), Salvador Cupcea tiique de tout premier ordre de la recherche ou Iordache Facăoaru (de Cluj), proches de médicale européenne de la première moitié l’extrême droite de Roumanie. du XXe siècle. Spécialisé en psychiatrie et Cette situation peut être partiellement endocrinologie, professeur universitaire expliquée comme une stratégie de à Iassy et à Bucarest, Parhon a contribué professionnalisation utilisée par le corps fondamentalement au développement des médical de Roumanie dont l’accès aux études de médecine constitutionnaliste en ressources de l’État était conditionné par Roumanie. Ses recherches ont un puissant la conirmation de l’utilité publique de caractère appliqué, étant employés dans la profession de médecin. En assumant l’étude des criminels et des malades les motifs constitutionnalistes et les mentaux. explications de type intégratif – qui L’orientation constitutionnaliste de avaient des applications immédiates dans Parhon est, avant tout, liée à sa passion pour l’éducation, dans l’armée, dans le régime l’endocrinologie qu’il considérait la clé de la pénitentiaire, dans le droit pénal et aussi reformulation des vieilles taxonomies des dans les assurances médicales – les médecins tempéraments et des humeurs: roumains pouvaient prouver leur utilité “ L’ ancienne classiication des tempéra- dans de nombreux domaines du service ments en sanguin, lymphatique, biliaire et public. La criminologie a constitué un nerveux ne peut plus satisfaire aujourd’hui domaine préféré d’application des doctrines ceux qui possèdent une certaine culture

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Corina Doboş biologique. De même, la séparation du criminels aliénés de l’Hôpital Central de caractère et du tempérament du côté morpho- maladies nerveuses, C.I. Parhon a témoigné logique de l’individu est tout à fait arbitraire. un vif intérêt à l’étude et à l’explication du En échange, l’étude de la constitution somato- comportement délinquantiel à travers le psychique a beaucoup bénéicié des recherches prisme épistémologique de l’endocrinologie sur les rapports que cette constitution a avec constitutionnaliste. les fonctions endocrines, rapports sur lesquels En 1930, dans l’article Constituţia so- nous avons attiré l’attention depuis 1900 déjà.” mato-psihică şi raporturile ei cu criminologia (Parhon FD, 3) [La constitution somato-psychique et ses rapports avec la criminologie] (Parhon En 1900, Parhon avait déjà formulé, 1930), C.I. Parhon, très préoccupé d’établir avant la lettre, le problème du substrat le fond endocrinologique des constitutions endocrinologique de la constitution psycho- somato-psychiques, faisait une présentation somatique dans l’article Sur quelques détaillée concernant les possibilités fonctions peu connues des ovaires (Parhon d’appliquer la perspective des constitutions et Goldstein 1900). À ce temps-là, il eut glandulaires dans l’étude des délinquants: l’intuition que “Tous les phénomènes de l’Univers re- “la relation qui existe entre les diférentes connaissent un déterminisme stricte et les glandes à sécrétion interne et particulièrement crimes et les délits ne font pas exception à la fonction de ces glandes nous semblent cette règle générale; les crimes et les délits avoir beaucoup d’importance […]. Bref, représentent des réactions sociales des c’est de ces glandes que dépend l’état général individus à certaines circonstances; l’étude d’un organisme donné. Elles jouent un rôle de l’individu délinquant revient au médecin important – quelque curieuse que cette idée ou au biologiste; il existe une criminologie puisse être pour quelques uns – dans la biologique, bien que son étude ne soit qu’au formation de la personnalité physiologique début; l’étude de la constitution somato- et, par conséquent, psychologique aussi de psychique des criminels fait l’objet essentiel l’individu. On n’ a pas encore envisagé la de cette branche de la criminologie.” (Parhon question de ce point de vue. Mais il nous semble 1930, 400 – soulignement dans l’original). qu’elle est quand même assez importante, bien que les diférentes interprétations ne puissent Parhon considère que Lombroso avait encore être qu’hypothétiques.” (Parhon et anticipé l’approche constitutionnaliste Goldstein 1900) en criminologie et que c’est toujours à Lombroso qu’on doit aussi Le psychiatre Parhon concevait d’une “la conception du criminel inné et cette manière strictement causale la relation entre conception, en dépit de toutes les critiques le côté physiologique et celui psychologique, qu’on lui a apportées, contient une partie de en ce sens que la dynamique psychique vérité. Lombroso a remarqué que de nombreux est étroitement déterminée par celle criminels, surtout ceux qui commettent physiologique (qu’elle soit endocrinologique des actes de violence, des efractions, des ou neuronale). Il était convaincu que “les assassinats se présentent comme un type moyens par lesquels la nature réalise les spécial: ce sont des individus de haute taille diférents type constitutionnels, donc les plutôt, qui ont le thorax volumineux, la facteurs déterminants de la constitution, circonférence thoracique grande, le visage sont les fonctions des glandes à sécrétion allongé et grand, le front fuyant en arrière, interne.” (Parhon 1930, 411). la pigmentation du visage prononcée; les cheveux sont noirs et épais, surtout chez les Membre de la Direction Générale des voleurs; les violateurs ont souvent les cheveux Pénitenciers, fondateur du Service pour les blonds.” (Parhon 1930, 409)

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Hormones, glandes et criminalité: “l’unité somato-psychique” du délinquant dans la Grande Roumanie

À la lumière des dernières orientations des glandes génitales. L’auteur dit que ses de la médecine constitutionnaliste, observations personnelles conirment Parhon recommandait des examens pour la présence fréquente des caractères déterminer la constitution psychosomatique d’hyperfonction hypophysaire chez les du délinquant. Les pas qu’on devait suivre assassins et d’hyperfonction thyroïdienne pour déterminer la constitution somato- chez les escrocs, mais il dit aussi que ces psychique étaient: l’étude morphologique de observations ne sont pas assez nombreuses l’individu, l’étude des fonctions nerveuses, pour lui permettre des conclusions fermes l’examen psychologique de l’individu, y (Parhon 1930, 414). compris les rêves, le sommeil, la mimique, - En ce qui concerne les actions le timbre de la voix (Parhon 1930, 402-405). criminelles sans violence et les crimes Parhon a examiné la constitution somato- d’occasion et impulsifs, Parhon airme psychique chez les criminels en considérant qu’ils sont en rapport avec une constitution que “les diférents types constitutionnels hyperthyroïdienne à laquelle peuvent présentent une disposition diférente au s’ajouter des signes d’hyperfonction du crime“ (Parhon 1930, 408). C’est ainsi qu’en thymus, d’hyposurrénalisme, d’hypo- parlant du rapport entre la constitution des génitalisme, d’hypophysie; chez les criminels et des délinquants et les fonctions criminels sanguinaires et ciniques, qui pré- endocrines, Parhon remarque: sentent “l’amoralité congénitale“ on observe - Chez les criminels sanguinaires, chez des signes d’hypothyroïdie associés souvent les assassins, chez les criminels violents on aux phénomènes d’hyperhypophysie et peut constater la présence des caractères d’hypercortico-surrénalisme ou d’hyper- d’hyperfonction du lobe antérieur de génitalisme; chez ceux qui ont commis des l’hypophyse; ils ont une ossature massive, attentats aux bonnes moeurs on observe des mâchoires proéminentes, des arcades des phénomènes d’hyperfonction ou de avec des sourcils fournis, la mâchoire dysfonction des glandes sexuelles et les inférieure proéminente aussi, les viscères mêmes phénomènes on les observe aussi grandes, les extrémités larges et grosses. chez les prostituées (Parhon 1930, 415-416). Ces individus présentent aussi une pilosité Parhon conclut qu’en ce qui concerne le excessive, une musculature forte, le tissu rapport entre les variations des fonctions adipeux bien développé, ce qui suppose aussi glandulaires et la criminalité ou la un coeicient d’hyperfonction cortico- délinquance surrénale qui pourrait expliquer leur “il est évident qu’il ne faut pas les considérer tendance à la violence et leur impulsivité; d’une manière simpliste, le crime étant la le lobe postérieur de l’hypophyse peut avoir résultante d’une complexité de facteurs sociaux une activité exagérée chez quelques uns de et organiques, car le facteur glandulaire n’est ces criminels (Parhon 1930, 413-414). pas suisant pour mener au crime, mais - Les voleurs ordinaires, les escrocs souvent il peut être décisif quant au crime, présentent plutôt des signes d’hyperthy- des fois, même des troubles passagers de ce roïdie et souvent des signes d’hypo- facteur peuvent contribuer à produire des actes fonctionnement hypophysaire, combinés inhabituels.” (Parhon 1930, 416) éventuellement avec des phénomènes d’insuisance, d’hyperfonction ou de Parhon admet la possibilité que, dysfonction des glandes génitales et, parfois, dans certains cas, il s’agisse d’une simple ils ont des caractères hétérosexuels (Parhon coexistence du crime ou du délit avec les 1930, 414). troubles glandulaires et init par dire que - Les individus qui attentent aux bonnes tout ce qu’il a montré auparavant suit pour moeurs, les prostituées surtout, présentent comprendre que les troubles endocriniens souvent les signes d’une hyperfonction “ne déterminent pas toujours et fatalement

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Corina Doboş des actes criminels ou des délinquances et des criminels], Sandu Lieblich et Gustav pour que ceux-ci apparaissent il faut y avoir Fastlich, deux collaborateurs du pro- d’autres facteurs; parmi eux, des altérations fesseur Parhon, reprennent le problème du cerveau peuvent y avoir un rôle important“ du paradigme de la constitution psycho- (Parhon 1930, 417). L’étude de l’encéphalite somatique en criminologie (Lieblich et épidémique montre, par exemple, que si Fastlich 1934). Cette étude, incluse dans le processus encéphalitique atteint la base le volume qui rendait hommage au pro- du cerveau, il y aura des modiications du fesseur Parhon à l’occasion de son 60e caractère chez les enfants, en déterminant la anniversaire, représente la reconnaissance tendance au vagabondage, aux actes impulsifs, de l’importance que la biotypologie à la méchanceté, au manque d’inhibition. délinquantielle détenait dans la structure Vu que l’action des glandes endocrines des intérêts académiques cristallisés autour n’est pas “fatale“, l’intervention médicale de la personnalité de Parhon. L’étude fait par la gestion glandulaire de la personnalité connaître les conclusions des investigations est possible et même nécessaire et Parhon constitutionnalistes efectuées sur 40 airme qu’il y a des moyens pour inluencer internés dans le Service de Criminels fous de dans une direction ou dans une autre le l’Hôpital de maladies nerveuses et mentales fonctionnement des glandes à sécrétion (Lieblich et Fastlich 1934, 450). interne et par conséquent inluencer la L’étude débute par un détaillé passage personnalité du criminel. en revue des plus importantes directions de Les traitements avec diférents ex- recherche du domaine et les deux auteurs traits glandulaires peuvent inluencer le évoquent les recherches de Lombroso fonctionnement de l’organisme en fournis- comme point de départ de la biotypologie sant les substances qui y manquent et des criminels (Lieblich et Fastlich 1934, en neutralisant l’excès des autres. Ces 438), mais ils soulignent que ses idées traitements ont un rôle actif quand ils ont été reformulées avec des arguments agissent sur les organismes jeunes et il faut endocrinologiques dans la période d’entre- les prendre en considération quand on a deux-guerres (Lieblich et Fastlich 1934, 439). afaire à des adolescents ou à des enfants À la suite des dernières données ofertes qui ont des tendances antisociales ou qui par la médecine constitutionnaliste, commettent des faits antisociaux, car si l’on montrent les auteurs, le criminel doit être intervient à un âge plus tendre, l’eicience le sujet d’un examen direct, “physiologique, est beaucoup plus grande. psychologique et psychique“, pour qu’on Parhon conclut que l’étude de la puisse déterminer si constitution des criminels et des délin- “l’individu appartient à une zone inter- quants et les rapports de celle-ci avec les médiaire, entre l’homme sain, normal et fonctions des glandes à sécrétion interne l’homme fou ou bien s’il présente des caractères “présentent un intérêt particulier pour spéciaux, pathologiques qui font de lui, par tous ceux qui s’occupent des problèmes de l’atavisme et la dégénérescence, un sauvage criminologie et surtout pour les dirigeants égaré dans la civilisation actuelle.” (Lieblich des Instituts pénitentiaires et les médecins et Fastlich 1934, 440 – notre soulignement) de là-bas; dorénavant, il faut que ceux-ci s’habituent à l’étude de la constitution et Les auteurs utilisent dans leurs études aux moyens que la science leur ofre ain de les types de Kretschmer et ils airment modeler la constitution somato-psychique.” qu’ils ne sont pas “idéals, abstraits, choisis (Parhon 1930, 418) arbitrairement selon une idée préconçue“ (Lieblich et Fastlich 1934, 442). Ces Quatre ans plus tard, dans leur étude types, nous assurent les auteurs, se sont Biotiopologia criminalilor [La biotypologie constitués après l’observation, à un groupe

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Hormones, glandes et criminalité: “l’unité somato-psychique” du délinquant dans la Grande Roumanie important d’individus, d’un grand nombre certaine irresponsabilité morale; ils sont de signalements identiques, en montrant très impulsifs, enclins au crime et, à cause de la sorte la transformation des éléments de leur incapacité de s’adapter, de faire face disparates du corps réel en une construction aux diicultés de la vie sociale, ils sont aussi imaginaire idéale (Lieblich et Fastlich 1934, enclins au suicide. 442). L’hypophyse a le rôle le plus important De même, les auteurs soulignent dans la constitution; le gigantisme et l’importance des glandes endocrines l’acromégalie expriment en fait le même pour déinir le type constitutionnel, non processus pathologique; le gigantisme se seulement au niveau somatique mais aussi manifeste pendant la croissance en hauteur psychique, car et l’acromégalie est un processus général qui “il y a en même mesure un intérêt de ne cesse pas. Les acromégales sont anxieux, type anatomique en psychiatrie, étant ont tendance à la dépression, parfois ils font donné que les maladies mentales ne sont pas des psychoses et délires alors que ceux qui exclusivement des maladies cérébrales; un ont le gigantisme ont une prédisposition complexe de glandes internes et la chimie de aux afections psychiques et quelques l’organisme entier exercitent leur inluence, uns présentent un stade de puérilisme, par l’intermédiaire du cerveau, sur tous les d’infantilisme; de même, ceux qui ont le processus psychiques.” (Lieblich et Fastlich gigantisme sont émotifs et efrayés (Lieblich 1934, 449) et Fastlich 1934, 450). Si l’épiphyse a une altération, il y a une Les auteurs conirment qu’aux diférents puberté précoce, une croissance rapide de types constitutionnels il y a une disposition l’organisme et, du point de vue psychique, diférente envers le crime, ainsi que Pende et il y a une préoccupation pour les problèmes Parhon, lui aussi, l’ont montré. philosophiques et métaphysiques. Une C’est ainsi que la glande tyroïde a un rôle hypofonctionnement de la glande surrénale essentiel et l’altération de sa fonction mène est caractéristique pour le type asthénique, au crétinisme (il y a aussi d’autres glandes longiligne. Les hypocortico-surrénaliens dont la fonction altérée y mène). D’autres sont peu actifs, leur intelligence est bonne, anomalies peuvent être la conséquence d’un ils se fatiguent vite et ils sont plutôt dérangement fonctionnel de la tyroïde; les dépressifs; ils manquent d’impétuosité et hyperthyroïdiens sont vifs, intelligents, d’agressivité. Selon Pende, les hypercortico- susceptibles, irascibles, ayant une labilité surrénaliens sont brévilignes, avec des afective et passant facilement de la muscles très développés, énergiques, dépression à l’enthousiasme. impétueux; ils aiment le travail, ils sont Les glandes parathyroïdes, si elles volontaires, agressifs; ils ont une énergie fonctionnent anormalement, mènent à morale et intellectuelle très développées l’irritabilité, à l’insomnie, à une impression- (Lieblich et Fastlich 1934, 450-451). nabilité exagérée et, parfois, à la confusion Par leurs sécrétions, le testicule et l’ovaire mentale et les hypoparathyroïdiens sont contribuent d’une manière signiicative extrêmement sensibles, anxieux ou diiciles à la réalisation de la constitution. Sous (Lieblich et Fastlich 1934, 449). l’inluence de la castration testiculaire et de Le thymus maintient l’organisme dans la stérilisation la personnalité se modiie: un état infantile et donne aux individus une l’individu devient apathique, paresseux, grande beauté physique; en même temps, moins violent; les femmes deviennent “ils sont faiblement doués dans la lutte anxieuses, susceptibles, très irritables. Ceux pour la vie“ (Lieblich et Fastlich 1934, 450). qui ont une hyperfonction testiculaire On peut observer chez eux des penchants se caractérisent par énergie, courage, à l’homosexualité, au masochisme et une esprit d’initiative; ils sont impulsifs,

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Corina Doboş même agressifs, mais en même temps ils Lombroso, à savoir celle d’introduire le corps sont généreux, enclins au lyrisme et au dans l’ordre juridique par des arguments pathétisme; l’hyperovarisme accentue les anatomiques, considérée d’ailleurs dépassée caractères de la féminité dans la psychologie en tant que méthode mais non pas comme de la femme (Lieblich et Fastlich 1934, 451). intention, est reprise pendant la période L’étude des auteurs mentionnés ci-dessus d’entre les deux guerres mondiales. Par est quand même trop peu soutenue par la clé endocrinologique on peut établir les résultats de leurs propres recherches la relation entre le somatique et certains et représente un passage en revue, comportements déviants et le substrat cette fois-ci assez mal structuré, des somatique peut être invoqué une fois de plus, principales directions de recherche visant avec de nouveaux arguments médicaux, la biotypologie des criminels. Bien que le dans la sphère pénale. La provocation des matériel présenté manque d’originalité criminologues pour la constitution de et qu’il ait une structure indigeste, nous l’ordre juridique sur les fondements de la pouvons formuler des conclusions partielles pensée abstraite réside notamment dans à propos des applications de la biotypologie le fondement de celle-ci dans le monde en criminologie. naturel, ordonné par les principes des Comme d’autres études de biotypologie sciences positivistes. La transgression de criminelle contemporaines, les études de la loi cesse d’être “abstraction juridique“, Parhon et de ses disciples montrent une créée par les législations pénales, et devient certaine inhabileté à mettre en évidence “fait naturel“ et, en vertu de ce fait, les une corrélation sûre entre le type somato- violations de la loi ainsi que ceux qui les psychique et les diférents genres de commettent peuvent être étudiés, compris délinquance. Les données, même ramassées et, éventuellement, prévenus par le recours et classées objectivement, ne sont pas aux méthodes des sciences naturelles en suisamment consistantes pour mener général et de la médecine en particulier. à des conclusions signiicatives du point Les catégories juridiques sont pleines de de vue statistique, surtout quand il n’y a “contenu“ biologique, social et moral de pas d’échantillon de contrôle (Schreider sorte que le délit et le crime n’appartiennent 1937, 92). Les résultats sont partiels et uniquement à l’ordre juridique mais, par contradictoires, les études trop peu “la personne du criminel“, ils arrivent à approfondies pour en avoir des conclusions appartenir aussi à l’ordre de la nature. valides et l’impression générale qui s’en dégage est que ces analyses constituent plutôt une sorte d’artiice sémantique pour ...... pouvoir donner plus de légitimité sociale à la science médicale constitutionnaliste. Conclusions Même si leurs résultats sont plutôt modestes et leur langage répétitif, les deux études sont Dans la Roumanie d’entre-deux-guerres, signiicatives pour le genre de démarche les préoccupations constitutionnalistes en qu’elles mettent en évidence, c’est-à-dire criminologie réalisent une aire d’études pour trouver des explications et des preuves importante à laquelle contribuent des biologiques pour les faits constitués et médecins aussi bien que des psychologues. sanctionnés juridiquement. L’essai relativement modeste de Parhon et L’ordre “naturel“ des criminels avec de ses disciples d’étendre la démarche de la lequel Lombroso essayait de doubler le médecine constitutionnaliste dans la sphère discours juridique est réinterprété à l’aide sociale a été repris dans une perspective des arguments constitutionnalistes de type théorique diférente par les chercheurs du endocrinologique. La démarche initiée par Laboratoire de psychologie expérimentale

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Hormones, glandes et criminalité: “l’unité somato-psychique” du délinquant dans la Grande Roumanie de l’Université Ferdinand I de Cluj, dirigés de médecine constitutionnaliste, “le par Florian Ştefănescu-Goangă, mais leurs délinquant“ jouera le rôle similaire en études ne font pas l’objet de notre présente criminologie. recherche. Cette situation peut être expliquée dans Les spécialistes roumains se renseignent le contexte existant: la plupart des études sur les problèmes constitutionnalistes et, constitutionnalistes se déroulent sur des en fonction de leurs spécialisations, les sujets qui se trouvent dans diférentes lectures constitutionnalistes concernant le institutions disciplinaires (hôpitaux de comportement délinquantiel sont diférentes: maladies mentales, pénitenciers, maisons des ouvrages se rapportant à l’endocrinologie de correction), parce que les examens (Parhon et ses disciples) ou des ouvrages imposés par l’exploration morphologique, concernant la psychologie (les spécialistes physiologique et psychologique de l’individu de l’Université de Cluj). Quelle que soit leur violent souvent l’intimité du patient. Le plus orientation, leurs études se proposent de souvent ils sont l’expression des relations contribuer à assembler ce puzzle qu’est le de pouvoir existantes dans ces institutions comportement du délinquant. disciplinaires où l’accord du patient pour L’approche constitutionnaliste qu’ils diférentes explorations somatiques et pratiquent ofre la possibilité d’arranger des physiques n’était pas nécessaire. De plus, pièces de puzzle apparemment diférentes: les la possibilité d’appliquer les démarches évaluations morphologiques peuvent trouver constitutionnalistes dans des domaines leur place à côté de celles physiologiques mais si sensibles quant au maintien de l’ordre aussi à côté de celles psychologiques, dans un interne et quant à la sécurité de la société continuum sémantique qui “produit“ l’image ofre aux médecins et aux psychologues une idéale du délinquant. Cette projection idéale chance supplémentaire de prouver l’utilité entretient l’illusion qu’elle peut être connue sociale de leurs propres spécialisations et anticipée. en vue de l’augmentation de leur capital L’efervescence de ces approches crimi- symbolique et de la possibilité d’améliorer nologiques de type constitutionnaliste peut leur statut professionnel et matériel. être comprise dans le contexte de l’éthos Les corrélations causales, statistiques et préventif mis en relief dans les discours explicatives entre les états physique, mental pénal et des pénitentiaires roumains et comportemental dans les principales qui, dans la démarche symbolique de recherches efectuées sur les délinquants création et de soutien de la hiérarchie et les recommandations faites ensuite sociale, se légitimaient d’être de plus en sont partiellement incluses dans les lois plus “scientiiques“. Les médecins et les pénales et pénitentiaires de l’époque psychologues roumains proitent des (Pălășan 2009). Ce fait ne représente pas possibilités de professionnalisation ouvertes un procès neutre du point de vue politique par les domaines pénal et pénitentiaire et, et cela a des conséquences importantes par leurs arguments, ils ofrent, à leur tour, pour les rapports entre gouvernants et les fondements scientiiques nécessaires à la gouvernés. Les implications politiques nouvelle philosophie préventive-répressive de la criminologie constitutionnaliste de l’État roumain (Cercel 2015, Doboș sont d’autant plus signiicatives qu’elles 2013). “Le malade mental“ et “le délinquant“ transcendent des orientations idéologiques deviennent les lieux communs d’application opposées: les arguments de la criminologie des doctrines constitutionnalistes et leurs constitutionnaliste sont formulés et images idéales, essentialisées et cohérentes, développés, au nom de la “science“ (bio- sont structurées par les interdictions de logique), par des hommes de science ayant l’ordre culturel et social. Si “le malade des ainités et des options politiques mental“ a été thématisé dans les études diférentes. Si, dans l’Italie d’entre-deux-

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Corina Doboş guerres, les doctrines constitutionnalistes “l’altérité radicale“ en “altérité commune“ se développent en étroit rapport avec (Boia 2004, 8) qui peut être inscrite dans l’ascension du fascisme, en Roumanie elles l’ordre juridique. Le corps “anatomique“ sont accueillies avec le même intérêt aussi monstrueux (lombrosien) qui s’échappe et bien par les chercheurs ayant des options provoque l’angoisse s’est dilué, étant projeté politiques et idéologiques de gauche que par avec succès dans l’ordre symbolique de la ceux du centre droit. loi. Cette translation et cette réinvention L’émergence du délinquant en tant symbolique du “corps du délinquant“, qui qu’ “unité psychosomatique“, un alter ego devient une altérité sociale sanctionnée négatif, dans le relet duquel la société peut se par la loi, ont pu avoir lieu dans le contexte reconnaître et duquel elle peut se distancier, historique et politique ouvert par le projet répond à des fantasmes qui peuplaient “La Grande Roumanie“ dans la période de l’imaginaire élitaire. La formation de cette l’ascension de l’idéologie fasciste en Europe. “image dans le miroir“ du projet social “Le corps“ qui participe à la construction général “la Grande Roumanie“ correspond du délinquant comme “unité somato- à des aspirations plus profondes d’unité, psychique“ dans la Roumanie d’entre-deux- d’ordre, de contrôle et de sûreté. Dans guerres n’est plus son corps anatomique, l’horizon d’attente créé par ces fantasmes, la mais une matrice sémantique pleine d’un convergence des deux plans, celui législatif contenu scientiique. Dans la période et celui scientiique, peut avoir lieu (Bucur d’entre-deux-guerres, “les criminels“ ne 2002, Turda 2010). sont plus “nés“, ils ne forment plus une “Le délinquant“ peut être opération- race spéciale car les caractères ataviques, nalisé grâce à la laxité de la construction physiologiques et anatomiques extérieurs imaginaire qui peut articuler des contes de ont été peu à peu modérés et intériorisés vie avec des caractéristiques anatomiques, – c’est-à-dire insérés dans “l’intérieur“ physiologiques et psychologiques qui du corps, dans les organes, les hormones, difèrent “comme degré mais non pas les capacités intellectuelles et afectives. comme nature“ de leurs correspondances Et ces “anormalités“ physiologiques, normales (Rădulescu-Motru 1940, 96). anatomiques et psychologiques s’expriment “La monstruosité“ a été apprivoisée et en comportements antisociaux qu’on peut les explications scientiiques l’ont rendue arrêter de s’aggraver et de léser la société, si plus familière. Paradoxalement, cet on les connaît d’avance. Détecté d’avance, apprivoisement de la monstruosité ne fait le potentiel criminel qui, plus il est dissipé que multiplier l’espace et les prérogatives de plus il est diicile à détecter, peut être l’intervention de l’État. Maintenant, qu’elle empêché de devenir acte criminel. n’est plus évidente, “la monstruosité“ diluée, il faut l’observer, détecter, noter à l’avance car, n’importe quand, elle peut se transfor- ...... mer en danger. La surveillance est d’autant plus nécessaire que les caractéristiques Remerciements: monstrueuses sont devenues plus dissipées et les caractéristiques anatomiques Cette recherche a été inancée par une ont été intériorisées en mouvements subvention du Ministère de l’Éducation physiologiques, processus psychologiques et Nationale, CNCS-UEFISCDI, projet narrations biographiques. numéro PN-II-RU-TE-2012-3. Le succès de la double articulation du “délinquant“ en tant qu’altérité peut être *La traduction de cet article a été réalisée par Rodica expliqué justement par sa transformation Pălășan. du “monstre“ en “anormal“ (Ernst 2006), de

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Hormones, glandes et criminalité: “l’unité somato-psychique” du délinquant dans la Grande Roumanie

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Title: ’Some Weak and Ill ”eings.’ The Topic of Race Degeneration and the Representations of

the Corporality of the Rural Population in the Medical Discourse in Romania (1860‐1910)

Author: Constantin Bărbulescu

How to cite this article: ”ărbulescu, Constantin. 2015. ’Some Weak and Ill Beings.’ The Topic of Race

Degeneration and the Representations of the Corporality of the Rural Population in the Medical Discourse in

Romania (1860‐1910). Martor 20: 69-80. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

Constantin Bãrbulescu Lecturer at the Department of Modern History, Archivist and Ethnology Studies, Faculty of History and Philosophy, “Babeş-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS he article aims at studying a particular aspect of the image upon the corporality body, peasantry, 19th century, physi- of Romanian peasants in the last decades of the 19th century and at the beginning cians, race degeneration of the 20th. he physicians are the creators of this discourse and image. hey place an important topic on the public agenda: native race degeneration. In this particular context the image they portray upon the peasant, including his corporality, is an extremely dark one. he physicians’ peasant is an undernourished, alcoholised, sick being and, thus, on the verge of physical decadence.

or Romanian historiography, the its contemporaries, with lights and shadows second half of the 19th century and where the fears and phantasms of a society Fthe beginning of the 20th century in forced march on modernization path represent a fortunate, almost triumphal, were hiding. But the catastrophic visions period in the evolution of modern and the national apocalypses sometimes Romania. In seven decades, Romanians put their imprint upon contemporaries who achieved in turn all the national ideals acted on the strength of them ofering them of 19th century: in 1859 the irst Union – a reality. he phantasms are as real as any Moldavia with the Romanian Principality; social fact and must be treated as such. he in 1866 the constitutional monarchy; in evolution of modern Romania could not be 1877 Romania obtained its Independence understood by disregarding them. on the battleield; in 1881 it was proclaimed a Kingdom and, inally, in 1918 – he Great he foundation of the Romanian Union. One would have expected these national state at the middle of the 19th progresses to be perceived accordingly in century is in keeping with the broader the era, and so they were; nobody could process of ediication of nation states in have ignored them. Nevertheless, to the South Eastern Europe. One by one, Greece, extent the contemporary researcher has Bulgaria, Romania turned from provinces become familiarized with this era, he / she or states vassal to the Ottoman Empire into could not help noticing that in the second independent entities. hey all continued the half of the 19th century, Romania had not process of Europeanization and, implicitly, been exempt from the negative phantasms of modernization ater having gained its of the progress. At the time, the evolution independence, but at a diferent level and of Romania was seen a little bit diferent by with diferent means. hat process was more

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Constantin Bãrbulescu or less successful due to the fact that they in medicine practicing their “art”. What is all started with an enormous handicap: the important is that more than two thirds were lack of a consolidated bourgeoisie and in the Romanians. (Felix 1899, 340). In 1898, as I territories south of the Danube even the lack was saying, the medical body had already of an agrarian elite, complementary with a been Romanianized, a fact that would have huge peasantry mass that made the national a huge inluence upon the medical discourse social body. So, the stake of modernization we are about to analyze. in this area of Europe was not only the I have mentioned that 1859 does implementation of the European liberal not represent only the beginning of the political model, but also the transformation national fulillment of Romanians but, in of this huge rural mass into modern citizens a few decades, it started to have a diferent of the nation state. Hence the interest of the signiicance. For doctor Codreanu, elites in this space for what was called in physician in Tutova County this happened Romania “the rural issue”. only in 1880: “he year 1859! his is the year In Romania, “the rural issue” was in the since most of people here started to count the middle of ideological debates of the second era of a regenerated Romania, of happiness half of the 19th century and did not take and consolidation of the Romanian state, only the shape of the “agrarian matter”, as in one word the era of «reorganization» we would expect; the latter was only one and this year, too, this year, 1859, is the year of the facets of “the rural issue”, the most when the great mortality, the death from debated and, thus, the most important one. the face of earth, the decrease and physical he interest of the intellectual elite in degradation of Romanians started!” the matter of the peasantry was multi- (Manicea 1880, 35-36) It is the beginning shaped: let us remember that the middle of of the end. But even earlier, in the previous the 19th century meant the discovery of folk decade, physicians started to draw a physical literature and the decades that followed, the portrait of Romanian peasant in darker feminine elite mostly adopted the holiday and darker touches. Doctor G. Obedenaru, peasant costume that they signiicantly the Romanian specialist in what will later called “national”. he peasant thus became become malaria, was the irst to tackle the “national element” by excellence; the the subject. His peasants, ill of “miasmal peasant is identiied with the Romanian debility” were not in a very good shape: citizen. Under such circumstances, it “Women, children and a great deal of men’s was easy to understand the interest of faces are of a particular and characteristic the medical body in the native peasants’ yellow color. hey have little muscular force living conditions (“hygienic” ones as (little strength); they are very lazy, but this they named them). he peasant was a is a laziness that nobody will have the right leading igure of the medical discourse in to impute, because this laziness is the result Romania, especially towards the end of the of the illness, the result of true poisoning, century when the medical body became because the miasmas that got into the body “Romanianized”. Until 1875, when the from the air are a true poison. Feeble people irst cohort of physicians formed at the have such little strength that even when Faculty of Medicine of Bucharest University they sit in one place they try to sit so as not graduated, higher medical studies could to get tired. hey do not sit but lay, as if they be attended only at foreign universities. were lazy. Look in the countryside where Most of the physicians practicing in the many women are gathered together and you United Principalities until 1870 had been will see that they do not sit right, but leaned foreigners. In the past decades of the century forward and on their knees, or with their the ratio changed dramatically; on October back against something; they do not keep 1, 1898, there were no less than 966 Ph.Ds their head up right, but leaned to one side;

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro “Some Weak and Ill Beings.” The Topic of Race Degeneration and the Representations of the Corporality of the Rural Population in the Medical Discourse in Romania (1860-1910) they do not move their eyes rapidly from one lads, I saw dwaring, discoloration and spot to another, but they stare much time at wrinkling, malnutrition giving teguments the same spot, they watch it for a long time the expression of premature ageing and and only slowly move their heads and eyes their movements that of a languid juvenile to see other things; inally, they keep their stimulus. hese were more apparent as at arms down; fallen as if they were made of the dance a shepherd of the son of an inn cloth. We do not talk here of the peasant keeper or mayor was bouncing, making the women from the mountains, that are red, ground tremble. In this wedding picture, tough, healthy but we talk of the women the female sex generally lacks juvenile and from the plains, the yellow-faced ones” development expression to a greater extent, (Obedenaru 1873, 8-9). he severe look of our and all children are feeble. I have hardly physician, born in Bucharest, having done seen any old people” (Manolescu 1879, 553). medical studies in Paris, a person who had he wedding picture revealed to doctor seen it all, did not comprehend anything: a Manolescu the same anemic, underfed, ill simple women’s get-together by the side of peasants... with few exceptions. the road as you can ind today all over rural Even Jewish physicians, like doctor M. Romania, was turned into a clinical case. It Roth, described Romanian peasants in the was clear that doctor Obedenaru’s peasants same way: “If we look at our peasants, they had not assimilated the new corporal codes give the impression of people who carry of the contemporary bourgeoisie. he text the germs of hidden cachexia; the color of was written at the beginning of 1871 and their face is not brown as that of a sunburnt would enjoy exceptional success: it was part person, but it is earthy (dark earth), an of the small treaty upon fevers that had a icteric shade; the mucus skin’s anemic; irst edition in French in 1871 (Obédénare the eyes lack any brightness or sharpness; 1871), followed by a Romanian edition in a the overall look is indiferent and tired; renown scientiic journal – P.S. Aurelian’s all the movements of his body are faint. Revista Ştiinţiică – immediately taken up (...) His peasant woman is an old young by the newspaper Românul (July-August woman from early age; work, malnutrition, 1872) and inally republished in 1873 as chronic maladies have already imprinted a volume in 5000 copies distributed for the stigma of premature ageing; at 30, she free “to all authorities in the country” is humpbacked, livid-faced, withered and (Obedenaru 1873, 2). In 1883 a new edition neither she, nor her husband reach old of 5000 complimentary copies for the same age” (Roth, 1880, 133-134). If for doctor G. authorities came out (Obedenaru 1883, Obedenaru the peasant’s physical decline 2). We deem it to be the most popularized was due to a precise pathology, doctors Romanian medical writing at the end of the Nicolae Manolescu and M. Roth made 19th century. a step forward and the same description Towards the end of the eight decade, became the typical image of the Romanian young physician Nicolae Manolescu peasant. During the War of Independence, got the position of district physician in nobody in the medical body described them Buzău County for a brief period. When anymore as robust and healthy beings. From he settled in Pătărlagile, he came into then on, the peasant world was a world of contact with the rural world that he was poverty, of physical and moral sufering, of called to manage from medical point of illness and, thus, of death. All the positive view. He was invited to a…“wedding, physical characteristic of the peasant were important enough to gather many people. pushed somewhere in the past, anyway, I could see an important number of people before 1859. from all walks of life and I have seen the his image of rural corporality in unexpected at a wedding: on half of 58 the medical discourse could not be

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Constantin Bãrbulescu understood outside the ideological context statistical data, competed during the eighth that simultaneously conditions and decade of the 19th century to “prove” that generates it. More precisely, the image of the population of Romania had decreased the peasants’ physical decrepitude was in or, in the most fortunate case, was stable. direct connection to one of the fears and All of this, obviously, corroborated with phantasms that would haunt Romanian the reproduction of “foreigners”, especially society, but also ater that: the degeneration of Jews. he catastrophic demographic of the Romanian race. Initially, when I was scenario of the era could be briefed as not fully familiarized with the medical follows: the Romanian population decreased discourse of the era, I had the impression while the Jewish population increased. For that the topic of race degeneration was this research, we were less interested in the one of the themes of this discourse; that physicians’ demographic analyses. physicians talked about race degeneration Much more relevant for our case as they talked about peasants’ bodily and was a diferent form of manifestation clothing hygiene, about their dwelling and of race degeneration which was not of a food hygiene, as they treated the matter of demographic nature. As everywhere in alcoholism, but I was wrong. he theme of Europe, the statistics of conscription were race degeneration was a generator of medical used to prove the state of degeneration discourse; if, in the past three decades of of native races. Romania was not an the 19th century, there was an explosion of exception. he data ofered by recruitments, hygienist literature in Romania, this was or the statistics of conscription, ofered due irst of all to the physicians’ belief that information pertaining to physical the race degenerated and something had anthropology (waist, thoracic perimeter, to be done for its regeneration. In order to weight etc.) or to pathology (less on causes counter it, the evil needed to be deined of illnesses) focused on an age group – in our case, “the hygienic evils” of the of the male population. his data was peasantry – and to be studied. interpreted as a very good index of what But let us go back. We have seen that military physician Z. Petrescu called “the ater 1870 physicians drew attention to military aptitude of the population of the the process of race degeneration that was country” (Petrescu 1880, 3) and doctor irstly perceived in the physical decay of Iacob Felix named “the physical qualities of the Romanian peasant. But degeneration the population” (Felix 1897, 15). Of course was never individual; it was a disease of the that the military aptitude of the physical social body with symptoms and speciic characteristics of the population was causes that physicians tried to identify inversely proportional to the state of race and circumscribe. On a diferent occasion, degeneration. In Romania, conscription together and with the help of physicians started in 1864, though it wasn’t carried out from the second half of the 19th century, by military, but civilian physicians; only in we have followed the birth and evolution of 1869 were military physicians used for the this phantasm. We have started naturally irst time in the process of conscription. with the symptoms or the manifestations. One of these doctors, Z. Petrescu, was In other words, we were interested in the the father of the statistics of conscription elements physicians took into account when in Romania. In 1869 he was appointed they asserted bluntly that the Romanian race recruiting physician in Vâlcea County; he had degenerated. First of all, a population noticed with surprise the complete lack of degenerated or was in state of degeneracy any work on statistics, any memo related when it sufered from a demographic to the recruitment process “not only in the standpoint. Romanian physicians acted district where I was, but in all districts of as occasional demographists and, using the country; because, ater having inished

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro “Some Weak and Ill Beings.” The Topic of Race Degeneration and the Representations of the Corporality of the Rural Population in the Medical Discourse in Romania (1860-1910) the operation of recruitment, while trying exemption (190) compared to the enormous to present the results of the mission I was number of examined youth (3,048) and assigned to, I could not ind in the archive of even those had only minor inirmities” the civilian sanitary service any work that (Petrescu 1880, 21). Regarding the analysis would serve as comparison” (Petrescu 1880, of recruiting statistics, in 1874, at the level of 4). Ater 1869, the medical commissions the entire country, the general picture was of recruitment were composed of civilian less loaded with negative nuances because physicians and only in 1874 were they it seemed that, during their ieldwork, not entrusted to military physicians. his all recruiting physicians had seen a hygienic time doctor Z. Petrescu would succeed in situation as happy as the one presented by obtaining statistical data from all recruiting doctor Petrescu: “these tables easily show physicians in order to provide the statistics that diathesis, constitutional or hereditary of recruitment for 1874 for the entire morbus were very rare in the mountain country. he work published in 1880 put locales: on slopes and very frequent in plain together the statistical successes of Doctor locales: in plăşi” (Petrescu 1880, 39) that Z. Petrescu, who didn’t seem too alarmed. In conirmed the stereotype of the mountain Vâlcea County, in 1869, he found “very aged peasant’s superior physique compared to people, though still very healthy, robust and that of the plain peasant. Let us remember full of life (…) the mountain man is brave the descriptions of the rural population of and cheerful, and the mountain woman the plains made by Doctor G. Obedenaru. In vigorous and cheerful. he reader may 1880 Doctor Zaharia Petrescu’s writings did object that I am in contradiction with the not contain the word “degeneration”. In the statistical result of my tables and may say he same year though, Doctor C.I. Istrati fully sees too many youngsters exempted on the used the recruiting statistics to demonstrate grounds of feeble constitution. It is true, but the state of degeneration of the Romanian this contradiction is nothing but apparent; population. He was not as optimistic and because, if we consider the 382 young men serene as doctor Petrescu, whose statistical with so-called «legal» exemptions, we will data he would interpret in a reversed notice that these lads were the most elitist, sense. Furthermore, Doctor C. I. Istrati the most robust, as they were in reality, beneits from recruitment data statistics we will see that for the medical selection, for 1879 “due to General Inspector Davila’s only the greenest, weakest lads remain, benevolence” (Istrati 1880, 115). his way he in comparison to those exempted. Of the could compare the statistical data for Vâlcea remaining lads, I could still ind 359 young, County for three years – 1869, 1874 and very healthy and robust recruits. Of the 1879 – and for the whole country for two – 686 young men who presented themselves, 1874 and 1879. And the diferent personal 205 had a feeble constitution exemption remarks of the recruiting physicians in 1879 are not lost people, as some may imagine” proved to be an extensively used resource. (Petrescu 1880, 8-9). We can, thus, see the Doctor I. Nicolescu, recruiting physician pitfalls of such evaluations and get an idea in Muscel County, describes the physical regarding the manipulations it could bring aspect of the few tens of cases of height about. When he was appointed recruiting exemption: “For the lower height of 1.54 physician in Prahova County in 1874, meters, 37 young men were exempted, 5 when the demographic waters had been looked like they were 7-10 years old!”; doctor “fully troubled”, doctor Z. Petrescu saw a Spiroiu would tell doctor Istrati that in the population that seemed “to be in satisfactory same county “in the townships of Nucşoara hygienic conditions as may be seen from and Corbii several recruits in their twenties tables of exemptees for illness and inirmities; were brought in their mother’s arms, so because there are but very few cases of this small, ill and degenerate were they!” (Istrati

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Constantin Bãrbulescu

1880, 138-139). Faced with such testimonies of recruits in front of them was degrading. and images, there was no need for further In the ninth decade of the 19th century, evidence: the population of Romania was other military physicians would take the in “a state of malady, suferance, decay, path drawn by doctor Istrati. One of them degeneration, death” (Istrati 1880, 139). was battalion physician Ioan Dănescu who Nevertheless, Doctor C. I. Istrati was iercely in 1886 defended a Ph.D. thesis in medicine trying to prove scientiically that the image dedicated to medical demography and he suspected and he was convinced to be geography. His sources were the recruiting true was also real. he recruiting statistics statistics which ater 1879 were complete fully helped him. In 1879, Vâlcea County and covered the whole country. His analysis was no longer what it had been in 1869: focused on ive years’ time: 1879-1883. all the indices for the recruits’ health state What did the recruiting statistics reveal to were low – exemptions for inirmities went doctor Ioan Dănescu? Apparently, a normal from 105.6‰ to 168‰; the exemptions physical situation of the recruits if their for disability and incomplete development height was taken into account – 1.65 meters were on the same rising trend: 245.5‰ and a thoracic perimeter of 85 centimeters: (1879) compared to177.4‰ (1869) (Istrati “the vigor of our population is still strong 1880, 118). he situation was alarming. But enough (…) the race endures” (Dănescu maybe Vâlcea was an unhappy particular 1886, I). “Looking at the height of the case, maybe at the level of the whole country statistical average, the general image proved the recruiting statistics ofered positive to be a positive one; but when delving signs. he hope was in vain – the whole into details, the image lost its shine, it was country followed Vâlcea County to doctor troubled by the slough of the pathological Istrati’s great despair: “what is enormous, image of the rejected. Rickety constitution what is nowhere but here to be seen, is the and incomplete development alone were huge number of feeble constitutions; 185.2 the causes for 10,000 young to be rejected; in 1874 and 177.9 in 1879. he diference and all of a sudden‚ the excellent qualities is small and all the more insigniicant as of our race started to weaken” (Dănescu the numbers for incomplete development 1886, II). When compared to the statistics went in two years from only 74.1 to 214. for 1874, the image of the physical qualities hat is three times more!... (…) hus, the of the population got even darker: if in 1874 total number of weak and badly developed the number of rejected youth was 6,317, by recruits was of 259.3 in 1874; six years later, keeping the proportions in the ive year’ this igure went to 392.3 more with one analysis, the number of rejects should half. What does this prove if not the sickly have been 31,585 recruits; nevertheless, state, if not the physical degradation, our it was 1,383 units higher. In conclusion: race degeneration!” (Istrati 1880, 123-124). “medically speaking, the country’s military here was no point in continuing on this aptitude is on a downwards slope” (Dănescu path as the demonstration had been made 1886, V). here was only one step to the and the conclusion drawn. Doctor C.I. complete disaster that our physicians would Istrati had no doubts; for him the statistics do when he would see that, for example, the of recruiting was perfectly uniform at the township of Iugurul in Muscel could ofer level of the whole country; for him, between only two recruits in ive years (Dănescu 1869 and 1879, all recruiting physicians 1886, unpaged). In conclusion, ater six had evaluated uniformly the cases of years, doctor Ioan Dănescu answered disability or incomplete development; this doctor C.I. Istrati’s rhetorical question (if was his main argument; the exigency of the the Romanian race degenerated or not) recruiting physicians did not increase in the with “Yes! With great sorrow, we must interval mentioned, just the physical reality be convinced that the Romanian race in

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro “Some Weak and Ill Beings.” The Topic of Race Degeneration and the Representations of the Corporality of the Rural Population in the Medical Discourse in Romania (1860-1910) our country is undergoing a process of were more numerous: “the population degeneration and at quite an alarming of our mountain natives has started to speed” (Dănescu 1886, VII). degenerate a long time ago, because the In two years another military physician inferior heights of 1m54 cm have already urged by “the success of my comrade’s thesis reached the maximum proportion of 70 (…) dr. Dănescu” (Gugea 1888, 11) chose to 1000 and, together with some plain to focus his Ph.D. thesis on the impact of counties, a minimum of 30 to 1000” (Gugea height upon the statistics of recruitment. 1888, 39). I personally did not understand if he time interval of the analysis was the the minimum proportion of 30‰ exempted same as that of his mentor: 1879-1883. As from military service on stature grounds you may suspect, the results were similar. represented a reason of concern for doctor he thesis doctor h. Gugea started from h. Gugea and, thus, a positive parameter was that there was a connection between the of race degeneration. One year ater dr. proportion of those exempted from military Gugea’s dissertation, in 1889, his younger service on the grounds of minimum height, colleague, Nicolae Soiu dedicated his Ph.D. the sanitary status of the population they to a question of medical demography. Even came from and race degeneration: “In the if the coordinator of both theses was dr. counties where short height is frequent, dirt Zaharia Petrescu, the works were in fact, is greater. In our country, all these faults in as conclusions, quite diferent. Doctor the physical constitution of the population Nicolae Soiu was, like his coordinator, an cannot be justiied through racial optimist; nothing could convince him that diferences, because even if there are parts of the race had degenerated: neither the great the country inhabited with heterogeneous number of rejects on the grounds of stature elements, our personal observations lead insuiciency, because reduced stature us to assert that all these elements are in was wrongly associated with precarious good state of development and that physical hygienic conditions of the population that degeneration by causes of local insalubrity ofered such recruits: “if tall height would does not touch but the native population” be rightfully considered as representing (Gugea 1888, 18). And doctor h. Gugea vigor and health it would naturally follow came across the same problem as doctor that short stature be a criterion for feeble Ioan Dănescu: the average height in the ive constitution and physiological misery; in year’ period invalidated the thesis that the this case, it is obvious that the proportion of authors iercely proved: “the igures of my small heights and that of inirmities should statistical table give the average of 1m65cm. go hand in hand” (Soiu 1889, 42), nor To a number of 224,972 young, as have statistical data that he presented inirmed been medically examined, from 1879 until this theory. Doctor N. Soiu was in fact the 1883 and even further on, higher statures adept of Broca’s theory that showed that are igured with tenths of thousands until height was more a characteristic of the 1m 70cm. We could say that our material “race” than an index of the recruit’s physical of selection is in excellent condition and development. he great number of recruits that we just have to cultivate it, favoring its rejected by the recruiting commissions conditions of development” (Gugea 1888, could not prove anything either since at 21st 28). Nevertheless, our physician could only years old “the development of the body is be worried because he knew, no matter not inished” (Soiu 1889, 61); nothing could what the statistical tables showed, that the soten doctor Soiu. Romanian population was degenerating; And in this ield the surprises came and then he placed this degeneration from where you least expected it: in 1893 wherever he could, that is, in the mountain nobody other than Doctor Iacob Felix was counties where the exemptions for stature forced to admit “the weak constitution”

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Constantin Bãrbulescu of the average Romanian recruit. Doctor by distrusting the organization of recruiting Felix used a composite index: the ratio lists and medical check-ups. And even between height and thoracic perimeter; “a though the ratio between the height and fact admitted in science” showed that if the thoracic perimeter of the native recruit thoracic perimeter represented half of the remained the same as two years before, the height plus two-three centimeters, this ratio doctor’s conclusion was: “here, the statistics was exactly the border between weak and of recruitment have yet to conirm the normal constitutions; or, the average recruit fear that the physical force of population in Romania was situated exactly at this limit: is diminishing, that the population is “more than 70% of the recruits examined degenerating” (Felix 1897, 16), a conclusion had a thoracic circumference of 80 to 90 he kept identical in his last report (on centimeters and the body height of 158 to 1896-1897) published in 1899 (Felix 1899, 173 centimeters” (Felix 1894, 42). Moreover, 26). At the end of his career, a few years Doctor Iacob Felix found in the recruitment before death, Doctor Iacob Felix was fully statistics from 1891-1894 the conditions that conident in the physical qualities of the allowed doctor Donath in 1894 to declare the native population and he was convinced that degeneration of the population in modern Romania was on the right track. his was states: “while the number of those recorded not the case of Doctor Victor Babeş who, in decreases, the number of those exempted for a conference dedicated to the regeneration inirmities increases” (Felix 1894, 42). Did of the Romanian people (November 1900), Doctor Felix reach in 1894 the conclusion was convinced that the sanitary situation drawn by Doctor Istrati in 1880? Hard to of Romania generally and of the peasant believe. Ater this avalanche of bad news, population in particular was critical. He the general director of the Sanitary Service was clearly a supporter of the thesis of race wanted to remind us the fact that “the degeneration and could not forget, without statistics of recruits do not give an absolute giving too much importance, “a clue that image, but only a relative one of the bodily Romanians’ vitality is low” which was development and the physical force of the exactly the result of recruitments: between population, because at 21st years old the body 1890-92 and 1897 the proportion of is not yet fully formed, the growth of some “rejects” by the commissions of recruitment organs does not stop at that age, and not went from 5.6% to 8.3 % (Babeş 1901, 14- only in Romania, but also in other countries 15). In the past decades of the 19th century for a great number of people the skeleton we saw how the medical body gradually develops until 25 years old and sometimes accepted the theory of race degeneration, a even later” (Felix 1894, 44). Doctor Felix degeneration that could be seen better in the had more conidence in his own intuition statistics of recruitment. We have also seen than in the facts “admitted in science”. that not all physicians, some right from the Over just two years in his report on sanitary top of medical hierarchy of the Kingdom, status of the Kingdom in 1895 (published in believed in this theory. Doctor Iacob Felix 1897), even if the statistics of recruitment was one of them, but he was a special case. didn’t seem to indicate an improvement of Doctor Zaharia Petrescu adhered to it only the recruits’ “physical qualities”, Doctor partially and unconvincingly. Nevertheless, Iacob Felix’s vision was more serene: even many others, most of them I might say, were if in Romania the number of those capable fervent supporters of the degeneration of of military service decreased annually, what the Romanian race that passed as axiom in “civilian and military hygienists in almost the medical discourse of the era. all European countries” interpreted as a Apart from the statistics of recruitment sure sign of race degeneration, Doctor Felix we have seen and which didn’t ofer positive did not hurry to draw the same conclusions numbers regarding the “physical features

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro “Some Weak and Ill Beings.” The Topic of Race Degeneration and the Representations of the Corporality of the Rural Population in the Medical Discourse in Romania (1860-1910) of the population”, data on peasants’ discourse upon the peasant food from corporality in the medical discourse doctor Constantin Caracas until the appeared when the topics of food and moment he wrote: “It is a wrong idea that alcoholism came into discussion. he food the food of our peasant, understanding which was poor in products of animal that of the diligent peasant – not quite the origin, a real undernourishment, together front-ranks – would be indigestible, bad with a frightening rate of alcoholism, could and tasteless (…). Villagers have diferent not but bring disastrous consequences kinds of very nutritional meals and, if they upon the peasant’s lesh and blood. And the weren’t so, how could we account for their medical discourse spread to the entire social exuberant physical health, the power of body. Physicians, landowners, politicians, endurance to work united along with that professors, all asserted the peasant’s solid power of the mind?” (Chernbach 1905, physical downfall. A.V. Millo, the great 433). A common sense assertion of just a landowner in Moldavia, a good connoisseur particular situation of our physician? Hard of the peasant and his needs, as one “that to say; I would choose the irst variant, but has lived for 30 years, winter and summer, this was maybe my particular situation. together with him” (Millo 1881, 8), could not Our physician continued his crusade and but assert the full decrepitude of the rural agreed, horribile dictu, even with the Lent! population due to – so speciic to Moldavia “A wrong trend in the public opinion has led – alcoholism: “in order for somebody to many to condemn fasting; many who have have an idea of what awful marks brandy written and talked about food, «gently» drunkenness leaves upon the peasant, one deploring the peasant who fasts, by saying should attend a recruit’s examination. In that he degenerated because of fasting. mountain villages, where 20-30 years ago A regrettable confusion has occurred the most handsome, the tallest and the most because most of those who deplore the vigorous men existed, today you can only peasant’s health have not studied the matter ind midgets. Of 100 lads, 50 are not good thoroughly” (Chernbach 1905, 434). for the military service, some are ill, some But whatever Doctor Chernbach would are skinny, and even those that are recruited say in the irst years ater 1900, in the entire no longer represent that beautiful race of second half of the 19th century, the peasant’s the mountain people” (Millo 1881, 156). he corporality was seen in extremely negative old good times for the Moldavian peasant tones by the medical discourse. he generic disappeared long, long ago. peasant of the medical discourse was not But at some point we would wonder if the a vigorous being forged in the sun and whole medical discourse upon the peasant wind while working the land, but, on the and the rural world presented this image of contrary, an undernourished being, touched the fallen peasant corporality globally. In by the plague of alcoholism, tormented other words: for the entire medical body, by multiple illnesses coming up from the was the peasant a physically weak being, most degrading living conditions possible. as a sick person about to die? As we have he physicians’ peasant was a continuously already seen the statistics of recruitment, ill person that medical commissions for the entire medical body wasn’t won over by recruitment more and more oten rejected. the topic of native race degeneration, but As mentioned above, this image of rural only most of them. corporality could not be understood other We must wait for 1905 and Doctor Radu than as a facet of a more general social fear Chernbach’s incisive pen, a physician from propagated by the medical discourse: race Huşi, to have a real opinion against this degeneration. And we must admit: the rural trend. world of physicians did not look like the He simply dismissed the entire medical one of the other categories of intellectuals

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro of the era. For the latter, the peasant world changed and together with it the image of created a separate discourse that composed the peasant (Mihăilescu 2007, 263-330). an image so diferent from the one sketched At the end of the 19th and beginning of by our physicians. In this discourse, the the 20th century, according to the public calendar customs and the one called “the life spirit in Romania, both images had co- cycle” were testimonies of our Latin origin, existed and competed. For today’s reader it the dirty coat of the peasant transformed might seem strange to see such contrasting into gorgeous holiday clothes that the images of the same topic in the same era. he elite ladies were not shy to wear, and the dominant culture passionately manipulated peasant’s home, the dirty one, became itself the image of the peasant, and this state of a true museum where the aesthetics of the facts was just another facet of the “rural carved pillars of the verandah added up to issue” that haunted (in the proper sense of the even more aesthetic tissues on the ruda. the word) Romanian society in the second he primitive peasant had turned into a half of the 19th century. native peasant. he paradigm of appearance

BIBLIOgRAPHY

Babeş, V. 1901. Regenerarea poporului român [Regeneration paratus for Heating the Peasant Rooms in Buzău County]. of Romanian People]. Bucureşti. Românul, iunie 12. Chernbah, Radu. 1905. “Alimentaţia bolnavilor în spitale” Mihăilescu, Vintilă. 2007. Antropologie. Cinci introduceri [Food for Patients in Hospitals]. Spitalul, XXV: 431-35. [Anthropology. Five Introductions]. Iaşi: Polirom. Dănescu, Ioan. 1886. Încercări de demograie şi geograie Millo, A.V. 1881. Ţăranul [he Peasant]. Fălticeni. medicală [Essays on Demography and Medical Geography]. Bucureşti. Obédénare, Georgiade. 1871. Fièvres des marais (ièvres in- termittentes). Petit guide a l’usage des gens du monde pour les Felix, I. 1894. Raport general asupra igienei publice şi asupra localités où il n’y a pas de medecin. Bucarest: Imprimerie de la serviciului sanitar ale Regatului României pe anul 1893 [Gen- Cour (Ouvriers Associés). eral Report upon Public Hygiene and the Sanitary Service of Romanian Kingdom in 1893]. Bucureşti. Obedenaru, Georgiade. 1873. Despre friguri. Mic tractat potrivit pe înţelegerea poporului român pentru a servi în loca- Felix, I.. 1897. Raport general asupra igienei publice şi asupra lităţile unde nu sunt medici [Upon Fever. A Small Treaty Fit serviciului sanitar al Regatului României pe anul 1895 [Gen- for Understanding of Romanian People to Serve in Locales eral Report upon Public Hygiene and the Sanitary Service of Without Physicians]. Bucureşti. Romanian Kingdom in1895]. Bucureşti. Obedenaru, Georgiade. 1883. Despre friguri. Mic tractat Felix, I. 1899. Raport general asupra igienei publice şi asupra potrivit pe înţelegerea poporului român pentru a servi în serviciului sanitar al Regatului României pe anii 1896 şi 1897 localităţile unde nu sunt medici [Upon Fever. A Small Treaty [General Report upon Public Hygiene and the Sanitary Ser- Fit for Understanding of Romanian People to Serve in Lo- vice of Romanian Kingdom in 1896 and 1897]. Bucureşti. cales Without Physicians]. Bucureşti. Gugea, h. 1888. Contribuţiune la studiul taliei soldatului Petrescu, Z. 1880. O încercare de statistica medico-militară a român [Contributions to the Study of the Waist of Romanian României [An Essay on Medical-Military Statistics of Roma- Soldier]. Bucureşti. nia]. Bucureşti. Istrati, C. I..1880. O pagină din istoria contimpurană a Roth, M. 1880. Memoriu asupra cauzelor mortalităţii popu- României din punctul de videre medical, economic şi naţional laţiei româno-creştine în raport cu cea de rit mosaic cu un pro- [One Page of Contemporary History of Romania from Medi- iect pentru ameliorarea relelor existente. Un studiu de hygienă cal, Economical, and National Points of View]. Bucureşti. comparată [Report upon the Causes of Mortality of Roma- nian-Christian Population in Relation to the One of Mosaic Manicea, G.V. 1880. Consideraţiuni asupra mortalităţii gene- Rite with a Project for the Amelioration of the Existent Evils. rale în România [Considerations upon General Mortality in A Study of Comparative Hygiene]. Bucureşti. Romania]. Bucureşti. Soiu, Nicolae. 1889. Valoarea perimetriei toracice în exam- Manolescu, N. 1879. “Aparatul de încălzit camerele ţărăneş- enul recrutărei [he Value of horacic Perimetry in the Exam ti în plaiul Buzău (distr. Buzău); cauze de boală” [he Ap- for Recruiting]. Bucureşti.

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Title: Enemy of the World in City and Village. Anti‐Venereal Disease Campaigns of Cluj

Physicians in Inter‐War Provincial Transylvania

Author: Zsuzsa Bokor

How to cite this article: Bokor, Zsuzsa. 2015. Enemy of the World in City and Village. Anti‐Venereal

Disease Campaigns of Cluj Physicians in Inter‐War Provincial Transylvania. Martor 20: 81-91. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Enemy of the World in City and Village. Anti-Venereal Disease Campaigns of Cluj Physicians in Inter-War Provincial Transylvania

Zsuzsa Bokor Researcher at the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS he paper investigates how sexuality becomes outstanding and a medical object venereal diseases, medical campaign in inter-war Transylvania. his issue can be discussed via one of the most typical ailments of the age: venereal diseases. his process is presented on the basis of a series of major medical actions of village surveys and rescues, and also by review- ing the ilm A világrém / Grozăviile lumii (Enemy of the World), screened all over Transylvania in the 1920s.

...... of health and the promoter of eugenics in Transylvania ater WWI was Iuliu Anti-Venereal Institutions Moldovan (1882–1966), a medical professor in the Interwar Period in Cluj (on eugenics in interwar Romania, see Turda 2007, Bucur 2005). According ter World War I, a newly formed to Moldovan, Romanian eugenics was bio-power provided security over more focused on the genetic factors that Athe nation’s health in Greater descended from parents rather than on Romania. During this period, the qualities inluenced by the physical or social population and its collective body became environment. In the galtonian eugenics the subject of a whole range of reforms. he vision, the objective was the protection body and human sexuality were directly of the nation from venereal diseases “and attached to fertility in an attempt to control other intoxications” (Moldovan 1927, 3-4). women’s sexuality, to mobilize it for the In February 1919, the Department of sake of the eugenic ideal, and “to increase Social Work of the Governing Council the rate of healthy births” (Bucur 2007, 338). of Transylvania established a clinical he change of institutional ownership ater outpatient network (Ambulator policlinic) 1919 was, on the one hand, an opposition in Transylvania to deal with diseases that 1) Instruc]iuni to the old Austro-Hungarian regime; on threatened the health of the population pentru ambulatoarele the other hand, it was a self-legitimizing (sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis policlinice. Ordinul nr. 10992/1922 Inspec- action of the growing Romanian medical etc.) and social problems (such as infant toratul General Sanitar 1 (Instructions for clinical community. Physicians had to legitimate mortality and alcoholism) . Hospitalization outpatient units. their existence toward the central authority became compulsory in order to control Order no. 10992/1922, General Sanitary in Bucharest through ambitious health- patients with venereal diseases (VD); the Inspectorate). assessment programmes, e.g. anti-venereal term used was tratament forţat – forced campaigns. treatment. hat’s why the other important he leader of the institutionalisation institution of the era was the Women’s

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Hospital of Cluj, established in April 1919, 000) or in towns where Moldovan’s complex and specializing in the treatment of VD. outpatient unit system worked (see Voina While the Hospital’s Outpatient Unit ofered 1930). he proportions of patients varied; temporary and transitional treatments, a large number of venereal diseases was the more serious cases were treated in the found in the mountain villages, in places Hospital itself (on the history of medical oten visited by strangers (in ports or resort institutionalization, see Bokor 2015). towns) and on war fronts, but the ratio was From 1923, household servants began usually around 1-10%. to be regularly examined. he aim was to obtain a real indication of the level of infections among this social group – said ...... to be practicing “prostitution in secret” – and to prevent “infectious outbreaks” by Venereal Diseases in Villages. compulsory treatment (Stanca 1925, 62). Rural Research and Education he introduction of this procedure resulted in an increasing number of treatments and here were various measures to question examinations of female patients: 4200 in the legitimacy of peasant healing and 1920, 9862 in 1921, 12760 in 1922 and 9720 replace it with a powerful – evidently more in 1923. eicient and forceful – medical practice, According to the data of the Women’s and a discourse that produced legitimate Hospital from the irst post-war years, the knowledge in this context. Physicians tried to spread of venereal disease did not have the approach individuals with their health care same ratio in the Apuseni mountain villages programmes and individual treatments and and in the rural area of Cluj (see Stanca interrogations. At the turn of the century, 1925); the percentage of people infected with improving the economic, social and, in syphilis was higher in mountain villages, addition to this, the health conditions of the like Poiana Ampoiului and Trâmpoiele, peasantry was a priority: “Let us announce than in Aiton, Stolna etc. to the people all the time, in church and at school, that they can only keep and recover Other Romanian data shows that the their endangered health condition by way number of investigations and the number of hygiene and this is the only way we can of investigated patients was greater in the have healthy generations and be satisied largest cities of the country (for instance, in that, to no matter to how little extent, we Iaşi, in 1926, the number of investigations have contributed to the improvement of was 22 228; in 1928 it increased almost to 40 the situation...” (Dr. I. Bădianu: Traiul lung. (he long life) Familia nr. 20. 1894, quoted in: Ábrahám 2004, 200–201). Locality Percentage of venereal diseases In the second half of the 19th century, Poiana Ampoiului 15% as Constantin Bărbulescu argues, the Trâmpoiele 14% Romanian elite built a double image of Baica 11,8% the rural world. On the one hand, the Apahida 6,8% peasant was “the foundation of nationality”, Feleacu 8% incorporating all national and moral virtues, Lona de Sus 6,7% which gave him a primordial national Borsa 6% identity role. But, on the other hand, the pressure for modernization was increasing Tãu]i 3,5% with the birth of the modern national state, Stolna 3,2% thus transforming the peasant into the Aiton 3,8% “other”: he was the savage who, obviously,

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Enemy of the World in City and Village. Anti-Venereal Disease Campaigns of Cluj Physicians in Inter-War Provincial Transylvania needed to be civilized (Bărbulescu 2005, according to the latest results, was even 211). thought to be seriously harmful to one’s Among the main topics in this era health – a piece of information that failed to we ind questions on hygiene (hygiene of make its way to the population. he use of clothing and personal hygiene); household mercury ointment was less dangerous than hygiene; food and alcoholism; epidemic the inhaled variant, and it even generated diseases speciic to the rural population some results, but it was “dangerous to leave (Bărbulescu 2015, 77). he negative image, it to empirical popular healers” (Voina argues Bărbulescu, can be read as the voice 1930, 33). In other words, any kind of of the political elite who want to draw peasant’s healing technique “was an attack attention to the urgency of social reforms. to both individual and community health”; he bonnes moeurs Ionela Băluţă speaks therefore, these attempts were proclaimed about relect a huge cultural diference as “one of the main means of disseminating between the peasants’ culture and that sexually transmitted diseases” (Voina 1930, of the physicians. Since the 19th century, 28). Whoever still tried to heal their illness the desire to control entire aspects of the with these practices was, thus, considered to peasants’ life was the most important be in violation of the ambitions of legitimate factor in the medical hygiene discourse medicine and pharmaceutics. he midwife, and this discourse became more and more the main igure of peasant medicine, was legitimized (Băluţă 2002, 2005). also a subject of mockery. Not accidentally, of course, since the midwife, standing at the crossline of legitimate and illegitimate ...... medicine, stood above the world of women and men; nothing of sexual nature could The Physician as the Nation’s warrior be kept secret from her, as her ield of activity coincided with that of physicians Ater WWI, unlike at the turn of the century, and priests: she cured women, and was well the insistence on hygiene and health aware of the family’s sexual problems. targeted much less the embourgeoisement of the peasantry: the image of the healthy Not long ater WWI, in 1921, equipped peasant, the villager who had to be lited with microscopes, medical equipment and from his problematic situation caused by medicines, Dominic Stanca, the head of the the previous system, yet also kept in his Women’s Hospital and Clinical Outpatient’s peasant (ancestral) nature, was operated as a Unit of Cluj and two employees of the sort of acceptable pattern contrasted to that hospital, psychologist Zoltán Bálint and of the middle-class and the townspeople; laboratory technician Antal George, started the representatives of medicine themselves out towards the Apuseni Mountains, undertook a pioneering role in this process. around the settlement of Zlatna in Alba 2) Organizarea With the help of their own healers County, to survey the health condition of primei anchete sanitare rurale în Ardeal. (The (called “charlatans” in medical discourse) the Romanian peasant population of the organization of the first 2 rural sanitary survey and using healing techniques (called area . As far back as 1808, the Gubernium in Transylvania), Cluj “superstitions” and “beliefs”), peasants of Transylvania placed temporary hospitals State Archives, Dominic Stanca Funds (667), dealt in their own way with venereal (barracks) around Zlatna to isolate the inv. no. 248, folder 9. diseases. he most widespread method infected. Ater WWI, similar measures in provincial Transylvania of curing seemed justiied again, and the territory was venereal diseases was mercury steam bath increasingly taken into consideration. treatments; it had been part of an earlier, In subsequent year, physicians from Cluj “oicial” medical praxis in the cure of repeatedly visited the Romanian villages syphilis that later proved ineicient, and, (Petru Vlad, Virgil Cioban and Dominic

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Zsuzsa Bokor

Stanca). he following is known about their methods: they created family iles which included the health data and medical reports of the examinees. hey illed out 123 family iles and examined 493 persons, trying to accurately list all their illnesses or predispositions to illnesses. he appendix completing the family iles (a questionnaire) was meant to depict a detailed image of the village from its geographical location to the Fig. 1 description of the inhabitants’ dances and customs. he questionnaire, consisting of vaccination, haircutting, or deparasitation. over 50 questions, placed the physician On a contemporary photograph (see ig. 1), almost in the position of an ethnographer; the team of physicians can be seen cutting mere data recording could not have been the hair of a peasant. he photograph 3) Ministerul S\n\t\- ]ii [i Asisten]ei Sociale: enough to complete it, so short interviews shows the physician in a white gown and Probleme [i realiz\ri. must have also been taken. Unfortunately, some townspeople dressed in urban wear, Vol. II. Monitorul Oficial [i Imprimeriile Statului. the answers have not been preserved, but standing near the police too, surrounding Imprimeria Na]ional\, the questionnaire in itself stands as clear the kneeling victim as if he were a trophy3. Bucure[ti, 1939 (Minis- try of Health and Social indication of the intent of the research: to Security: Issues and 4 Achievements. map the rural society in its entirety. he In 1928 , 51 similar reports were drated Vol. II. Official Gazette creators of the questionnaire were equally on villages in Cluj County but these were and State Printing Plant. National Printing interested in the geographical position much more detailed (for instance, these also Plant, Bucharest, of the village, the condition of wells, contained details such as the quantity of 1939). springs and rivers, the condition of the alcohol consumed at the pub and the type of 4) Rapoarte sanitare anuale. (Annual Sani- houses, migration tendencies, the villagers’ alcoholic beverage), the questions were even tary Reports), Cluj State intellectual level and sexual habits and the more systematic and the questionnaire was Archives, Sanitary Service Funds (3), inv. number of people sufering from venereal clearer. he questionnaires were probably 192, folder 1/1928. diseases. illed out by local or district physicians, As required by the instructions of and were processed in Cluj. A few years the Sanitary Directorate of Cluj County, later, another physician from Cluj, Aurel between 1921 and 1926, Dominic Stanca Voina, assessed this movement – of course, and the Women’s Hospital had to organize as a gynaecologist and venereologist, regular informative campaigns regarding referring to the syphilis, the social disease “social diseases.” hese campaigns were he considered most important – as follows: usually connected with various kinds of “the surveys had very many interesting surveys. Due to the nature of the hospital, results, the detection of syphilis-infected these surveys focused mainly on the regions resulted in measures to eliminate problem of sexually transmitted diseases, the sources of syphilis” (Voina 1931, 68). especially syphilis, but they also tried his process of informing, controlling, to isolate and cure other kinds of social and, at the same time, treating medical diseases deemed untreated or uncured. movement became regular in the 1930s. he informative campaigns contained he propaganda seemed very successful, lectures, ilm screenings (for example, as “patients walked even tens of kilometres the ilm Világrém / Grozăviile lumii / to receive the vaccine, even if they sufered Enemy of the World was also screened from other illnesses, because they believed at this time throughout the country), in Neosalvarsan as in some supernatural counselling for hygiene and sexual life, force” (Bălaşiu 1933, 5). regular examinations and other actions like Information on the actions of the medical

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Enemy of the World in City and Village. Anti-Venereal Disease Campaigns of Cluj Physicians in Inter-War Provincial Transylvania propaganda between 1931 and 1935 can be ASTRA physicians. obtained from the protocols of the Anti- Although medical problems had Syphilis and Venereal Diseases Council probably been real issues among the 5) Comisia de Studii 5 pentru Sifilis (April 1935) . In addition to thoroughly Hungarian population as well, Hungarian (Commission for recording all the patients and making physicians never paid as much attention to Syphilis Studies), Central Historical State these records centrally accessible, the them as the Romanian ones. Despite the Archives of Bucharest, Ministry of Labor physicians also made regular informative fact that this research was considered from Funds, Folder no. presentations, and, on occasion, they also its very beginning a national enterprise, 500/1935. used the possibilities ofered by church interestingly enough, the Hungarian services. press repeatedly praised the initiative of Iuliu Moldovan and his colleague, Petre Moldovan and his colleague: Râmneanţu, wrote about the national “We have repeatedly mentioned the major health campaign started by the Ministry of action of the People’s Welfare State Secretariat Health, which took place between August to stop harmful popular diseases. It is the and September 1938: merit of university professor Moldovan, First “One of the main objectives of the Secretary of State of the People’s Welfare health ofensive was the creation of an Department, that he ofered cheap and accurate and comprehensive registration fast medical assistance by founding clinical of the population’s health condition. he outpatients units and hospitals in the almost main tendency was, therefore, the medical extinct area in several neglected parts of examination of the entire population, from Transylvania where syphilis and tuberculosis the youngest to the oldest” (Moldovan– have decimated the poor and unschooled Râmneanţu 1939, 93). population.” (Ellenzék 1922, 14th of July, During these two months, 556 206 No. 131) individuals were examined, 17 842 sent to laboratory tests, and 688 to X-rays in the he newspaper article entitled Vérbaj territory under the authority of the Public ̈li meg a mócok falvainak népét [Syphilis Health Oice of Cluj County (in Cluj, Sibiu Kills the Population of Romanian Villages] and Timiş Counties). hus, 30.6% of the published on 30th of July 1929 in the local entire population of the abovementioned newspaper, Kolozsvári friss újság, also 6) In Cluj County 36 area was examined6. he aim of these translates the oicial, Romanian point of such rescue teams were at work in this period surveys was not only to examine and view to the Hungarian readers: “According (Moldovan–Râmnean]u improve the health of the individual, to statistical data, these mountain villages 1939, 93). but also to map out the complete social are infected all over with the poison of network of the community: it was not only syphilis.” the medical image of the individual or the As we can see, many social strata were family that needed to be drawn, but, ideally, taken under medical supervision in the the entire network of connections. interwar period. In the 1920s, all prostitutes he Medical and Bio-Political were forced to attend medical examinations, Department of ASTRA (a Romanian and, in case of illness, they spent weeks in right-wing cultural organization from hospital. Physicians examined servants once Transylvania) also played an important a week, they introduced the regular medical role in informing the masses and in examination of factory workers, school popularizing the principles of eugenics and children and students, peasants living in the national biology. Its physicians lectured countryside; the new cases of illness were in Transylvanian settlements, and kept communicated to the authorities by village contact with local intellectuals such as physicians and midwifes; in one word, priests and school teachers, to whom they everything and everybody was mobilized. made available the medical brochures of the he medicalization of village peasants

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was just as intense as that of townspeople – ilm production. Levaditi, who had gained of course, with the use of other methods and fame in Paris as well, was one of the most means. he controlled body, the attempt important Romanian physicians of his age to keep away venereal diseases and the as one of the founders of virology, but, even discourse around it deined the nature of more importantly, he introduced bismuth sexuality and placed the control of marital in the treatment of syphilis, which made relations on a diferent level, that of medical Wassermann tests easier. It may not have knowledge, which also explained extra- been accidental that the commissioner of the marital relations. he knowledge produced ilm entrusted such people to write the script. by this discourse created new shapes of Projections of the ilm took place in every social inequities: the superior individual county and settlement of Transylvania, was clean, healthy, Romanian by nationality, in a temporal sequence established by the and last, but not least: a man. authorities. It was the local physicians’ task to rent the cinemas and locations. Marketing was considered very important ...... for the projections: the middle-class of the settlements was invited to the irst Enemy of the world – a Film on Family, projection; they had to pay an entrance Sexuality, Syphilis fee, but they could sit in the irst rows. he masses – soldiers, peasants, school children Circumstances of Creation – could watch the ilm for free. he reaction of the press also had to be arranged in order At the initiative of the Outpatients Unit and to ensure widespread publicity. he audience the Women’s Hospital, the ilm Enemy of the could listen to a short medical presentation World was screened all over Transylvania on the transmission of sexual diseases between November 1921 and May 1922. before the projections (in the language of

7) Instructions for the his silent ilm was commissioned by the community, but usually in Romanian doctors regarding the the Sanitary Chief Inspectorate with the and Hungarian). Depending on the ethnic film projection, the organization and the purpose of educating the population on composition of the audience, the ilms were presentations are found certain health issues. he ilm was shot subtitled in Romanian, Hungarian and in circular letters of the 7 Propaganda Service, in November-December 1920 and was German . No. 22044/22 Sept. 1921 and 22653/23 directed by Jenő Janovics, a pioneer of Not much is known about the response of Sept. 1921. Copies of Transylvanian cinema, in his own ilm the audience to the ilm; there was probably these are published in S\n\tatea public\ studio, called “Transylvania.” he cast no survey made on it, but, according to the (Public Health) 1921. included professional actors (Baróti Erzsi, contemporary press and medical literature, 9. The circular letters were signed by Lucian Poór Lili, Fekete Mihály, Szakács Andor), there were full house projections and the Bolca[, Head of the Service, and Iuliu but general practitioners, peasants, and physicians claimed that this method of Moldovan, then even patients of the hospital played in it. he popular education seemed to be the most General Inspector. scientiic advisor was the world-renowned eficient of all8. The reaction of the press to 8) Dr. Cucu’s brief medical professor Constantin Levaditi, the ilm came soon. According to the weekly report on Arad projection in Arad: who returned to Cluj ater WWI. he script newspaper Tükör (Mirror), the opening S\n\tatea public\ 1922. 3. p. 13. was written by Levaditi together with Jenő lecture at the Cluj projection was held by Gyulai, a contemporary script writer from Levaditi himself. In his speech – among Cluj. Dominic Stanca also helped during the other things – he cautioned the audience for shooting; some of the “medical” locations temperance. The article and the narrations were the Women’s Hospital, the dissection indicate that the discourse emphasized the room of the city clinic, and the cells of the dire consequences of prostitution, while psychiatric hospital. he ilm was truly medical information on venereal diseases unique in the history of Transylvanian was pushed to the background. The objective

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Enemy of the World in City and Village. Anti-Venereal Disease Campaigns of Cluj Physicians in Inter-War Provincial Transylvania was thus “to stop, as fast and as radically as what Pradel’s sentence referred to, when he possible, prostitution and the syphilis which, threatened Shiva to reveal her secret unless as a frightening ‘Enemy of the world’, wants she accepted medical treatment and broke to penetrate the lesh and blood of mankind up with the man). with its murderous tentacles”, said Levaditi The doctor’s ofice is a key location in at the premiere. The newspaper (probably the ilm. This is where the doctor shows rendering the thoughts of the scriptwriter Shiva the result of the Wassermann test and himself) expands on the metaphor in the the difference between her blood and pure, title, illustrating how the dimensions of non-infected blood: hers is lighter in colour venereal diseases and prostitution are joined than that of a healthy person (see ig 2). together in the discourse of the age.

The Story he structure of the almost 45 minute-long ilm is made up of a frame narrative and a dream story inserted therein. he frame narrative presents the family of Pierre Fig. 2 Sylvain, the protagonist. His wife, Doria, the world famous singer of the theatre, is a modern woman, who is an exemplary mother of two, and also has a brilliant career. She is practically the supporter of the family, because her husband is unemployed. This image – as the doctor points to the She is the perfect image of a respectable, infected blood and the difference between modern, money-earning woman. Because the infected and healthy blood – could be the of her artistic talent, she is greatly admired metaphor of the ilm, but also an emblematic in the city. However, the second scene of the message of the entire anti-venereal action. ilm already reveals that the husband has This image is accompanied by another, also emblematic, message: “Syphilis never cures an afair with Shiva, the actress, who also 9) The Romanian cast- works in the theatre9. In this same scene we itself, even if you feel very well... There ing referred to her as dancer, but the Hungar- are also introduced to Georges Pradel, the is only one effective medication: regular ian cast listed Erzsi physician, a friend of the family, and also and accurate medical treatment... Come Baróti as an actress. Shiva’s doctor, because she has been infected tomorrow to continue the injections”, the with syphilis. he physician’s reproving doctor tells Shiva. speech informs the audience that Shiva Also here, in the doctor’s ofice, on the has been leading a promiscuous sexual life. table covered with medical instruments, hat Shiva is a prostitute is only apparent rests the microscope which, in the next from the context, and the elements that are scene, displays the physician’s new role: the traditionally attached to a prostitute: her investigation, the exploration of unlinching, strong makeup and deep cleavage suggest revealed facts. Sylvain shows the doctor the that she is not a “respectable woman.” he lesions in his mouth. The symptom itself 10) The messages of doctor asks the woman to stop her afair (the lesion) raises the doctor’s suspicion, the key importance for with Sylvain and get treatment: “I have sign of shock shows on his face as he turns medical propaganda were entrusted told you, syphilis is no shame... and it can towards the camera: he predicted this was neither to the actor’s be cured.”10 Shiva represents the secret going to happen – this is the core message he interpretation, nor to the audience’s ability prostitute, the “Enemy” of the authorities, wants to give the audience. Then he draws to make associations. They were conveyed as who was treated also in secret in case she was blood from the man and places it under the captions. willing to cooperate with the doctor (this is microscope (see ig. 3).

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he test help. The story is important on various confirms levels because the man was infected by a Pradel’s prostitute in a brothel. The ilm shows an suspicion. he episode of this story: we see a scantily documentary- dressed woman drinking alcohol, smoking like, real cigarettes and laughing uproariously, who image of the throws herself on the new victim (at the s piro ch a e ta time, popular and often used stereotypes to pallida is represent the prostitute). This is a new igure shown not of the syphilis-infected woman. The ill man

Fig. 3 only to turns for help to a “female healer”, which Sylvain, but to the viewer as well, in a also proves fatal as the medicine received “thousandfold magniication” and even from the woman blinds the man. “I should twice: once through the doctor’s eyes and have gone to the hospital”, he says. The once through the patient’s11. The image message for the viewer is that nothing can always shows the same thing: the presence compete with medical knowledge and, what of small animals moving in the blood is more, that is the only legitimate kind of 11) Similar images of the spirochaeta pallida, (see ig. 4). The diagnosis is, therefore, knowledge about the body. the bacterium of the not a supposition, but a fact through The tension increases with the – this syphilis, were projected in France as well in representation: the reality of the body, time not so detailed – presentation of the 1909 with the title Spi- rochaeta pallida (a film invisible for the open eye or everyday dissection room and the cells of the insane. of Dr. Jean Comandon, methods, but visible solely by medical As Sylvain sees all this, he becomes see Lefebvre 1995) and this is also the subject means. However, the cause of reality, of the desperate and feels remorse. Having arrived of the Brazilian director illness can not only be displayed, but also home and being tormented by fatigue and Paulino Botleho’s film as well, entitled 606 cured. Sylvain mustn’t maintain contact what he had seen, he falls asleep. Then we contra o Espirocheta Palido (1910). with his family unless he has a wish for see his dream, but it is only revealed at fatality, and he must consult with his doctor the very end that it is a dream. The story on a regular basis. continues without any apparent disruption: “You must do it!... Look what awaits you Sylvain disobeys the doctor and, thus, a if you do not. Come ... Let me introduce whole series of tragedies starts. Doria, you to the syphilis.” This sentence is not the wife, goes blind, then crazy, and dies; only meant for Sylvain, but for all viewers, the family grows very poor, Sylvain starts as the tension is further increased by the drinking, and, when the viewers have documentary-like images. Sequences experienced even the tragedy of his own of real images were cut into the ilm to death, the doctor appears and wakes Sylvain make the damage caused by syphilis even up to inform him: Shiva is dead, she has more illustrative. Patients appear in front committed suicide. The viewer is relieved

of the camera (interestingly, members of Fig. 4 a different social class: peasants, as if it would suggest a secondary, hidden meaning that syphilis stems from the city, but it can also infect unfortunate, uneducated village people as well). We are shown an old man with lesions on his face, a little boy without a nose, a child with a certain disability. We return to the story, but another digression appears, a story within the story: a blind soldier remembers how he got infected and how he wanted to be cured without medical

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Enemy of the World in City and Village. Anti-Venereal Disease Campaigns of Cluj Physicians in Inter-War Provincial Transylvania as this awakening suggests that there is America, over 1300 ilms were produced still hope for a different ending to the story. about physicians, health and medicine Nobody is scandalized by Shiva’s death since in general (Reagan et alii 2007, 5). There the daily press often wrote about prostitutes’ were such initiatives in Europe as well. In suicide attempts. But there is more to it: the France – where Levaditi had returned from death of the woman represents the symbolic not long before and had probably brought victory over prostitution – or over a deviant along medical popularizing practices – the woman –, the victory of the family, work anti-venereal-diseases propaganda ilm and health. The frame story follows the entitled On doit le dire [It must be said] medical script: the ill protagonist confesses was created in 1918, in the Pathé studios to his wife and goes to work in America. (Lefebvre 1995). It was a short animation “To become a better person”, he says. His ilm, which grasped the subject in motifs wife says goodbye with forgiveness and similar to those applied by Janovics and his affection. The story ends, however, in an colleagues. interesting manner: it presents Sylvain as The repetition of images, the insertion a worker and the viewers can understand of documentary into melodrama or the that he found himself, he found what he was melodramatic element into the documentary looking for: a good job. was characteristic of medical instruction ilms (cf. Aubert et alii 2004, 32). he aim A Medical Film was to raise awareness by repeated and astounding formulas. hey referred to he scientiic ilm was already an important propagandistic intentions and economic and means of medical knowledge in the 19th political implications, while maintaining a century and this passion for research, logical, explicit and clear discourse (Aubert especially on the movement and the et alii 2004, 35). functions of the human body, was one of the Except for the few European and primary roles of the ilm and the beginning American ilms produced during the of ilm production. In Romania, Gheorghe war, the Enemy of the World had few Marinescu, who studied under Charcot in preliminaries in similar feature ilms in the Salpêtrière, produced medical research ilm history. his can probably be accounted ilms since 1898, in which he ilmed patients for by the fact that Janovics’s ambition with coordination and limb problems (his and professionalism as a director and his irst and most famous ilm is Tulburările realistic conception of ilm met at this very mersului în hemiplegiile organice / Walking point with the physicians’ well-organized Disorders in Organic Hemiplegia, made in propaganda. 1898). his ilm represents an icon in this The ilmic representation of illnesses context, as it shows the process by which and the problem of venereal diseases the physician became the principal and, within it was not a new idea in the medical apparently, the most legitimate public sphere, although the ilm was not a means speaker of the age. his was a complex of medical knowledge in the irst place, legitimating process – ater the war – when but an instrument of inluence, a more physicians, now in the position of decision- or less realistic representation. Medical makers, appeared as guards, saviours, organizations were aware of the inluential healers of the nation and began a major effect of the ilm ever since the beginning process of institutionalization, complex of the 20th century; therefore, this means research, and information and treatment of was often applied for various reasons huge masses. (educational, fundraising etc.). In the irst two decades of the 20th century, in

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro BIBLIOgRAPHY

Ábrahám Barna. 2004. Az erdélyi románság polgárosodása a City, Guest Editor: Marius Turda) 3, 5. 21–26. 19. század második felében. Csíkszereda: Pro-Print. Bucur, Maria. 2005. Eugenie şi modernizare în România Aubert, Michelle; Partice Delavie; Pierrette Lemoigne; Ro- interbelică. Iaşi: Polirom. bert Poupard. 2004. “Les collections des ilms pédagogiques et scientiiques des premiers temps (1910–1955).” In Cinéma Lefebvre, hierry. 1995. “Représentations cinématogra- pédagogique et scientiique: à la redécouverte des archives, phiques de la syphilis entre les deux guerres: séropositivité, eds. Béatrice de Pastre-Robert; Monique Dubost; Françoise traitement et charlatanisme.” InRevue d’histoire de la phar- Massit-Folléa; Michelle Aubert, 23–38. Lyon: ENS Editions. macie (XLII) 306. 267–278. Bălaşiu, Teodor. 1933. Studiu statistic asupra infecţiunii si- Ministerul Sănătăţii şi Asistenţei Sociale. 1939. Probleme şi ilitice în judeţul Maramureş pe anul 1931–1932. Teză pentru realizări. Vol. II. Bucureşti: Monitorul Oicial şi Imprimeriile doctorat în medicină şi chirurgie prezentată şi susţinută în Statului. Imprimeria Naţională. ziua de 30 iunie 1933. Cluj: Tipograia Cartea Românească. Moldovan, Iuliu. 1927. “Eugenia – Igiena naţiunei.” In Bule- Băluţă, Ionela. 2002. “he Construction of the Feminine Sex- tin eugenic şi biopolitic. (I) 1. 3–4. ual Identity through. he Hygiene Treatises: he Second Half Moldovan, Iuliu and Petre Râmneanţu. 1939. “Dare de seamă of the 19th Century Romania.” In Romanian Phylosophical asupra activităţii Institutului de Igienă şi Sănătate Publică Studies IV. 267–282. din Cluj în Campania Sanitară din August–Septembrie 1938 Băluţă, Ionela. 2005. “Surveiller et punir: les médicins et la şi asupra rezultatelor obţinute în raza sa de acţiune.” In Prob- réglemntation de la prostitution dans la seconde moitié du leme şi realizări, 91–109. Bucureşti: Ministerul Sănătăţii şi XIXe siècle roumain.” In Bonnes et mauvaises mœurs dans Asistenţei Sociale: Monitorul Oicial şi Imprimeriile Statu- la société roumaine d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, coord. Ionela lui. Imprimeria Naţională. Băluţă; Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, 173–211. Bucarest: Reagan, Leslie J.; Nancy Tomes; Paula A. Treichler. 2007. “In- New European College. troduction: Medicine, Health, and Bodies in American Film Bărbulescu, Constantin. 2005. Imaginarul corpului uman. and Television.” In Medicine’s moving pictures: medicine, Între cultura ţărănească şi cultura savantă (secolele XIX-XX). health, and bodies in American ilm and television, ed. Les- Bucureşti: Editura Paideia. lie J. Reagan et alii, 1–16. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. Bărbulescu, Constantin. 2015. România medicilor. Medici, ţărani şi igiena rurală în România de la 1860 la 1910. Stanca, Dominic. 1925. “Spitalul de femei şi ambulatorul Bucureşti: Humanitas. policlinic din Cluj în cei cinci ani de funcţiune (1919–1923).” Clujul Medical (V) 3–4. 60–65. Bokor Zsuzsa. 2013. Testẗrténetek. A nemzet és a nemi beteg- ségek medikalizálása a két világháború k̈z̈tti Kolozsváron. Turda, Marius. 2007. “he Nation as Object. Race, Blood and Cluj: Editura Institutului pentru Studierea Problemelor Biopolitics in interwar Romania.” Slavic Review 66. n. 3. 413- Minorităţilor Naţionale. 441. Bokor Zsuzsa. 2015. “Girls, Doctors and Institutions. Eugen- Voina, Aurel. 1930. Prostituţia şi boalele venerice în România. ics and Medical Institutionalisation in Interwar Cluj.” Revis- București. ta de Antropologie Urbană (Eugenic Sub-Cultures and the Voina, Aurel. 1931. Combaterea boalelor venerice. Bucureşti.

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Title: Chronic Isolation: Experiencing a Cured Disease at the Leprosarium of Tichilești

Author: Andrei Mihail

How to cite this article: Mihail, Andrei. 2015. Chronic Isolation: Experiencing a Cured Disease at the

Leprosarium of Tichilești. Martor 20: 93-106. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Chronic Isolation: Experiencing a Cured Disease at the Leprosarium of Tichile[ti

Andrei Mihail Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS he inhabitants of the Tichilești leprosarium experienced medical isolation leprosy, experience, institutionaliza- caused by a medically cured body; once an individual was diagnosed with tion leprosy, he would be conined for his whole life inside this institution. hus, former leprosy suferers had to cope with the medicalization of their daily life while making sense of a socially incurable illness that disrupted their regular life-trajectories.

he leprosarium of Tichileşti is very active man in his mid-50s, interested in located one kilometer away from popularizing the story of Romania’s lepers, Tthe road connecting Tulcea to Brăila in order to make others aware of the realities and Galați. he institution belongs to the of this disease. Journalists, photographers administrative area of the city of Isaccea, or documentarists who exposed frames of although it is closer to Revărsarea village. the daily life of this institution preceded 1) As I will show, individuals living in To access Tichileşti, you must follow my visit. his is how I managed to visit the leprosarium were cured of leprosy. This a narrow road full of potholes which, the leprosarium twice, during the spring is why I call them according to those who live1 there, has not of 2013, in order to observe the daily “inhabitants” of the institution. been repaired for nearly 30 years. his road activities of staf, inhabitants or visitors and leads to the gate of the leprosarium, a place discuss with all of them without any formal that does not look like a hospital, but rather restrictions. In front of the manager’s house more like a sanatorium. he institution is the path splits into two, one ramp allowing located at the bottom of a horseshoe-shaped access to a small building hosting the main- valley. he most impressive buildings are Fig. 1. The access road for the Tichilesti hospital located near the gate of the institution. On the let, beyond the fence, opposite a cultivated ground area, you can see a three-loor building comprising a church. On the right, there is a small house which accommodates the manager of the hospital, Răsvan Vasiliu MD, who spends most of the week here. With his help I gained access to the leprosarium, as he is trying to open the institution a little bit, to let the world see that leprosy is not that frightful and ight the isolation a little bit, as he puts it. he manager is one of the last European dermatologists specialized in leprosy. He is a

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Andrei Mihail

tenance personnel, and another one to the administrative oices. From this angle, the entire hospital resembles a panopticon, as

2) Due to anonymity the administrative staf have a good view reasons, all the names of all the sectors. his is also the only area presented in this paper are fictitious. As leprosy where you can get a cell-phone signal. is a highly stigmatizing disease, I preferred to change all of my he second path leads down to the informants’ names in order to keep them safe area with the highest density of buildings. from being recognized On the right side, there is a popular place by anybody outside the leprosarium. For with some benches and a gazebo where, the same reason, pho- during summer, the inhabitants can have tographs shown here will not show individual conversations, play chess and backgammon. Fig. 2. The garden of a family house traits of the inhabitants of Tichile[ti. Towards the right side of the valley, the visitor can ind some living quarters, medical staf, bathrooms and toilets, the merely wagon-shaped pavilions, where kitchen and a club where people gather to every resident inhabits two small rooms. watch TV, play games, or read books from a here are two buildings located one ater small library. he whole area is surrounded the other, extending to the point where the by wooden hills where, at diferent heights, slope starts. Not all the rooms are currently some small two-room houses surrounded occupied. by gardens are located; they accommodate On the opposite side of these pavilions, families created between institutionalized over an area looking like a plaza, one individuals.2 On one of these hills, there is notices medical oices and other social also a cemetery for the inhabitants of the spaces. hey include the oices of the leprosarium.

Fig. 3. Pavilions accommodating individuals

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Chronic Isolation: Experiencing a Cured Disease at the Leprosarium of Tichile[ti

Today, the hospital of Tichileşti hosts current inhabitants. From the individual’s 18 residents and an almost equal number perception, this made leprosy easy to of employees, medical, administrative and conceal. From society’s point of view, the support staf, including doctors, nurses, state also had its share in making leprosy accountants, the manager, a ireman and invisible, as it created a single alternative a painter. Most of the former patients live for those who got a strong socially disabling there permanently; some of them moved disease that could have otherwise meant away with their families, but are constantly homelessness. I consider Arthur Frank’s returning to the hospital. he inhabitants’ concept of “remission society” (1997) average age is quite advanced, the suitable for understanding the processes youngest one being 45 years old. In terms and phenomena occurring in the case of of contracting the disease, there are two former leper victims. Frank talks about all categories: on the one hand, there are those those who are doing well ater having been who were born of families formed inside, on diagnosed with a disease, even though they the other, those who were brought in ater are not considered cured (ibidem). For the having been diagnosed. he last Romanian inhabitants of the hospital of Tichilești, citizen diagnosed with this disease moved physical recovery should not be considered to Tichilești in 1977. from strictly from a medical point of view. None of the current inhabitants of the Skin lesions are responsible for entrenching leprosarium carry the disease anymore. leprosy during the individual’s entire life- Hansen’s Disease, as it has been called span and creating a permanent presence since Armauer Hansen discovered of the disease in the body. Meanwhile, the Mycobacterium leprae, the bacteria causing body is not afected by pathologies anymore, the disease, is curable today. A cocktail of but by social responses to the disease. antibiotics and other drugs (Multi-Drug hese imprints of a medically cured herapy – MDT) can cure its two types, disease are responsible for isolating the pauciballary and multibacillary, in 6 to 24 inhabitants of the leprosarium even ater months, depending on its severity. hree the 70s, when the MDT treatment became days ater beginning the treatment one stops available in Romania. Hence, it is an being contagious. he severity of leprosy isolation based on a socially constructed varies depending on the number of bacteria image of the disease that is legitimized by that developed inside the organism, but also medical knowledge, iltered through the on the time the diseased waited until being individuals’ personal subjectivity and that administered MDT according to certain Fig. 4. The cemetery strict medical rules. If not properly treated, leprosy can cause severe granulomas on the nerves, skin and eyes. his can lead to a loss of sensory senses, triggering limb amputations due to unnoticed lesions, burns or frostbites causing ierce infections. hus, leprosy is a disease that, even if cured, can leave marks on the body of the former patient. he treatment administered from an early stage, even if not strictly followed, made the loss of feeling in certain parts of the limbs the main side efect of the illness for those living in Tichilești. Severe skin lesions are not a common efect among the

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Andrei Mihail of those composing the patient’s social I was asked to describe the good living network. Leprosy becomes what Claire conditions and the exemplary way that Marin calls a “non-disease”, a pathology that people are treated by the institution for the must be hidden by suferers, due to medical world to know that Tichileşti is not a bad categories which worsen the patient’s place. Lepers are people like everybody else personal experiences (2013). Conining and the Wailing Valley, a place “avoided former lepers in a medical institution even by the birds” as it was once said, is only provides the background for pathologizing a senseless myth. Furthermore, Miruna a current non-medical state that carries tells me that “my father had a saying: lepers representations of the former medical were cared for by the state.” For Margareta condition. his fact can be responsible for the place “is great, God has placed us in a perpetuating isolation, due to a medical forest where it’s nice. he trees bloom, we procedure responsible for maintaining have visitors, we have bread and God cares a healthy social body (Wokaunn et alii for us through those who work here.” 2006). his policy created an enclosed space that needed to be domesticated by those inhabiting it. According to one of the ...... former managers of the hospital, Nicolae Romanescu (2002), the institution acquired The daily medicalization of the body a village-type social shape as it developed its own economic activities, feasts, Being cared for means a permanent relationships, politics, classes or informal institutional control of bodies, which property rights. Agriculture and crats shapes daily experiences. It starts as the were the main activities of the leprosarium disease occurs and continues throughout inhabitants, as they provided both food and hospitalization (formal status of the income through the commodities produced Tichileşti residents, as in any other hospital locally that were smuggled outside by the in Romania). he treatment starts just non-medical staf. Of course, these activities ater the admission to the hospital. It is a were violating the institution’s regulations, process of medical colonization (Frank which powered a continuous conlict 1997), as the institution claims control of between inhabitants and management. the patient’s body; it is a life-long process, However, the years passed and the number of as those sufering from leprosy are hardly inhabitants constantly decreased, leading to able to leave the institution and regain full the small, aged population accommodated autonomy. As long as (s)he is in, the patient’s today at the institution. As the number of health is monitored regularly. It is a strongly residents dropped, the relationship between medicalized life with daily interactions them and the management improved. between the individual body and that None of the conlicts described above were of the institution. his medicalization is mentioned by my interlocutors during my responsible for an increased longevity. visit there. I would also emphasize that in Eva, a nurse who has been working there the mid 90s, doctor Vasiliu removed one of since the early 90s, says that the vast the most oppressive regulations, authorizing majority of former lepers lived to be over inhabitants to leave the institution on a 80. She attributed that to the enhanced care temporary or permanent basis. hus, the received by residents. A family doctor cares leprosarium became a less enclosed space for them, monitors them, nurses administer that improved its inhabitants’ experiences. treatments for diferent diseases, change “his is heaven, this is not just a living”, bandages and give injections, and the Leonard asked me to send his message to ambulance of the hospital carries individuals those who will be interested in my work. to a bigger hospital in case of complications.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Chronic Isolation: Experiencing a Cured Disease at the Leprosarium of Tichile[ti

Residents also receive three daily meals in ups, gives you your treatment and you are the cafeteria, clothes and other items such bound to obey the doctor; if the doctor as towels, soap or detergent. Moreover, they says that you cannot do an exercise, you earn a small allowance of 30 lei (around 7€) can’t do it.” Medicalization, in its various of which they ought to be able to cover other forms, is a common topic of discussions at necessities. he medical staf controls all the former leper colony. Individuals living other processes in order to keep people as in Tichilești become what David Le Breton healthy as possible. Rodica, another nurse, names “permanent inhabitants of the provides a rich description of the interplay medical planet” (2008: 317), living in the between the medical and the daily life in grey area of lasting indetermination which Tichileşti: places the individual in a liminal place, “hey have many iles here at the oice. between a capable and incapable human hey have forms and each patient has his own being (Ancet 2013). However, residents of chart and with those they do not even need Tichileşti adjust this medicalization to their a referral from Tulcea because he has all the own needs, creating forms of resistance to records here, since the admission date. On the yielding of individual autonomy by the these iles you can ind everything the patient institution’s biomedical power (Le Breton has had. And when they go to Tulcea… like 2008). he most common form of resistance Camil now, his head hurts. his evening he is constructed through knowledge, leaves at 4 for Tulcea. At 6 he is scheduled which is shaped around inluences from to go. hey take the iles with them. hey eclectic sources. Biomedicine ofers an take him to the exam room, the institution important model of understanding disease, pays and he’s healed. For everything. his which is shaped by inluences from non- is how it works. He goes during the night medical descriptions of the disease, daily because doctors work for private clinics in interactions with others sufering from the aternoon. Every year they have tests. Yes, the same condition or personal symbolic they come from Tulcea every year... both for meanings of daily activities limited by them and for us. hospital regulations. – Special tests for leprosy? For many inhabitants of the leprosarium, –Yes, exactly, but they also check the one form of resistance is adapting the glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure levels. medical treatment plan according to a I actually don’t know if they do tests for personalized scheme. It is also a form of leprosy anymore. hey did a long time ago, individualization of the disease, which but now, I don’t know. And if the results are is treated according to one’s own needs, not ok, than we can enforce a diet of, let’s say, symptoms and limitations imposed on polenta. No more bread. Just polenta, to get the body. Personalizing one’s disease is a the charts back. He goes on a diet. he nurse recurrent topic, as I will show throughout goes to the cafeteria oice when the menu is this text. Personal treatment plans are decided and says: someone is on a diet, stop shaped around biomedical knowledge that giving him bread; so they receive polenta. If is updated through personal representations the following tests come out OK, the diet ends. of the illness. If, in medical terms, ater the All of this for a limited time, a week, two or prescribed period (which can be followed three… as long as the doctor believes the diet in some cases by other external physical should last.” reactions of the body caused by the removal of the dead virus), the treatment should Former lepers conirm Rodica’s stories. cease, many discussions have revealed Romulus mentioned that he has “other that the inhabitants of the leprosarium health problems; the nurse, the head are still taking the medication frequently. physician takes you to medical check- hey receive the pills from the hospital,

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Andrei Mihail which orders them from the Ministry of show that Mrs. Miruna was a virus carrier Health. Eva, as a nurse, has also noticed this (or perhaps Doctor Vulcan did not want behavior. She explained it as a need of the to communicate the news), she has been former diseased to manage the efects of an taking the treatment her whole life, with illness, whose lifestyle changes required by some discontinuities. Cornel also continues the treatment are not strictly followed: his treatment, even if he does it at a much “Yeah, they still take it occasionally, just lower rate than during the period when he outside the scheme, but this Dapsone has was sick: “I take a maintenance treatment. contraindications, and they have a scheme For example, I take 2-3 tablets per week. for a month or for six months; normally it is Because, like I said, it is unpredictable and for six months, but some of the them abuse we should not enable it; especially at an old it; you know how it is, having a good time age, you should not help it. And I’ll soon be or maybe somebody brings them something, 70 years old.” brings them a drink, and they abuse it and then they feel that they are not well, so they have their symptoms that they have kept in ...... mind and then they ask for the pills; they also ask the doctor for it and they are given a box Experiencing Leprosy as Biographical and they have their stashes. heoretically, Construction of the Patient they are not allowed this… you know… that is the placebo efect.” he struggle over the body is essential in order to understand the behavior of patients Leonard showed me his Dapsone who don’t comply with medical regulations. supply; whenever he feels that the disease It is a struggle over individual autonomy, could reappear, he takes a pill. he pills are in which the patient seeks to regain control collected in the same metal can in which over decisions regarding his or her own he received the treatment for the irst time. body. he body is not an object which can When requested, he shares the treatment be delivered to the institution, but a piece of with others. Leonard believes that the the self which needs to be re-appropriated. disease, although no longer present in the It is through the body that we live, that we body, can always reoccur; therefore, he keeps experience illness, so it is the body we must taking the pills. “If, ater all these years, you control in order to live it. he topic of the ingest this Promina (the name of the former lived body appeared in all the discussions treatment, before the introduction of MDT), I had with the inhabitants of the hospital the disease is out and you no longer need to of Tichileşti. he body is the place where take it, but because the body gets used to it, disease occurs, but also where its meanings, it is no longer efective and then you have to values and symbols are created. Disease is take a break and then you can take it again.” diferent from illness. Its perceptions are Anghel did the same thing; he admits taking constructed by means of comparisons with the pill preventively, although he did not feel the experiences of the body prior to the illness ill. Mrs. Miruna, who was born here from (Simmel 1967). his bodily subjectivity diseased parents, also took various forms turns disease into illness, as mentioned by of treatment during her lifetime, although David Le Breton (2010). he disease starts as she was never oicially diagnosed with the the irst symptoms of body changes appear disease. She was treated for the irst time “and continues with labelling the suferer when she was young, at Professor Vulcan’s by the family or by himself” (Kleinman recommendation, the leprosy specialist et alii 2006). For him, illness is shaped from Bucharest who checked all the by cultural factors, assessing discomfort suspected cases. Although the tests did not or processes embedded in family, social

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Chronic Isolation: Experiencing a Cured Disease at the Leprosarium of Tichile[ti and cultural inluences through which context in which it was produced (Pound the disease is perceived, experienced and et alii 1998). Age, social status, gender or managed (ibidem 141). For Radley, disease any other factor can decrease the impact imposes important limitations on the body of the disease on the individual’s life considered to be the place where we live our (ibidem). Diferences in perceptions of the lives and where we build social relations disease for the residents of Tichilești are (1989). Le Breton opposes, in turn, medical given by the amount of time they were symptoms to a subjective perception of able to spend outside the leprosarium. For the disease. In order to understand the people like Cornel, who managed to leave condition of the patient, he proposes giving- the institution and start a family, to make up pain and replacing it with sufering new relationships or ind a suitable job no (2010). he French anthropologist argues matter his physical conditions, disease had that the biomedical term lacks relevance. a smaller impact than for those who, ater Sufering is the experience of pain; it’s not several years of work, had to return to the medical, it’s social. Concerning leprosy, hospital permanently. Moreover, in the this distinction is particularly interesting case of those born in Tichileşti, who were as sufering, as I mentioned above, is related diagnosed early on in their lives, a break in to a body that, to some extent, does not feel the biography caused by disease cannot be pain. accounted for. Disease also generates a biographical Regardless of the moment when the rupture that occurs as the diagnosis is made disease was felt for the irst time, those (Bury 1982). It restructures daily life and afected by it must develop strategies to forms of knowledge on which the patient adapt to the new situation. hese strategies bases his or her values and actions, while are necessary for using the body in the new also afecting the family and social network context, but also in order to manage social (ibidem). For those sufering from chronic interactions through the new ill identity. diseases, biographical rupture is not an hey arise due to the need to maintain a instant’s product, but a continuous process sense of life stronger than the symptoms or (Bury 1991). he author says that the efects of the disease (Williams 2000). hese experience of disease should be understood meanings are built on previous experiences within the context of a time interval that through which the patient reconstructs provides an overview of each step that his or her identity. Understanding these builds it. herefore, disease acquires two identities and behaviors “must take into kinds of meanings from the patient’s account the way in which one uses the perspective: the impact and consequences disease situation as an arena where there are of transformations embodied in daily life, always transactions with others” (Radley and the social meanings incorporating all 1989). he efects of leprosy are not the medical conditions (ibidem 453). Kleinman result of the disease, but of the social context also suggests that, considering the diseased in which the patient lives and interacts with individuals, biographies are spaces of others. he disease is the way in which sick the embodiment of the illness, shaping family members or the extended social experiences of the concrete life-world (1992). network perceive, live with or respond to hese life-world experiences can shed light symptoms and disability (Kleinman 1988), on “immediate social existence and practical or, as Jean-Luc Nancy has experienced activity, (…) biographical particularities, it, is “inscribed in a complex process tied decisive events and indecisive strategies” with strangers and strange things” (2000, (Jackson 1996). However, Pandora Pound 21). Doctors, nurses and medical devices believes that this biographical rupture or treatments are one of the important should be nuanced depending on the strangers that become a permanent presence

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Andrei Mihail for the former diseased living in Tichilești. so they followed the treatment and did not Of course, the biomedical matrix is not the have any problems. Margareta, who went only one shaping the subjective experience of through the same diiculties of managing institutionalization. Information exchange the disease, reinforces Marița’s perception. with others who share the same experience, Actually, this is common amongst most of inhabitants of neighboring villages, visitors my interlocutors. When asked to describe or acquaintances are sources of adaptation the disease, very few mentioned direct, of the medical discourse to a more subjective medical symptoms. hey rather focused personal background. on telling stories about limitations the treatment imposed on them. It is a diferent description than the biomedical one, where ...... leprosy is considered just an infectious disease that causes severe skin lesions and The Sick Body – Subject to the Traces breakdown of the nervous system of the of Leprosy arms and legs. he body should be seen as an agent he individual, subjective disease of subjectivities in order to understand is constructed in a ield of complex variations of experiences of individuals interactions between types of knowledge with a deformed exterior (Staples cited. (Martin 1994), but also of perceptions, Csordas 2003:297). he body is experienced images and relationships it develops within from within, not from the outside, as the the body (Janzen 2002). “Knowledge is biomedical paradigm considers (Slatman & built on experience and its contextual Widdershoven 2010, 5). It is a body whose contingencies” (Adams et alii 2014:191), self is connected to its incorporation (Leder shaping subjective medical constructions of 2002) and which embodies a symbolic value those who have to adopt a new sick identity. before iguring biology (Le Breton 2006, 45). Leprosy is a disease with complex efects For the former leprosy suferers living in that requires constant care of the body. Tichileşti, this model of the body provides “Leprosy is a pretentious dame. his is what a framework for understanding the I call it. hose who cared, who listened, for experience of illness. Drew Leder says that, example me. An old man said: “o you see usually, the body disappears on a daily basis, that guy? his is how you’ll end up, unless you reappearing only when pain or illness is felt listen to what I say, how to act, how to dress (1990). For healthy individuals, the body when it’s cold or something else, as leprosy is rarely the thematic object of experience loses the senses. his is the beginning of (ibidem 3). For my interlocutors, the Margareta’s disease story, a woman of over efects of the illness produced a permanent 80 years old, who moved to Tichileşti in presence in the body. It is a strange disease 1946. Other people, when asked to describe that leaves its marks on the body even ater the disease, quote her. he pretentious dame it has been cured. Side efects of leprosy must be taken care of and continuously are not necessarily experienced from a monitored. Life orbits around the disease medical perspective, but from the ways they which, in the absence of proper treatment inluence the patient’s life. and lifestyle, can take control of the body. Hope ceases to be part of former leprosy It is very diicult. It is very demanding. suferer’s future and I have noticed that it So, irstly, you cannot drink, you must eat is one of the key issues in understanding heartily... so my parents, my aunt, you can the social efects of this disease. Loss of see her, when admitted for the irst time in hope kills any strategies or any plans for the hospital, they followed the treatment and the future. Hope vanishes, leaving behind said it was very strong. And they complied, individuals without any potential future

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(Novas 2006). Leprosy-related coninement was OK. he loss of his senses triggered the adds a sense of failure to the general impossibility of performing tasks and forced experience of this disease. It is a failure seen Leonard to return on a full-time basis to through the eyes of others, creating a loss of the leprosarium where he operated a small conidence resulting in marginalization (Le workshop for repairing objects belonging to Breton 2013). Furthermore, being ejected the employees or to other tenants; I’m not from one’s group leads to what Collaud calls an employee or anything, I do it for myself in “a shame of being” (Collaud apud Le Breton order not to forget what I have learned. 2013), a “loss of dignity disconnected from Leonard’s story is not unique. Nea circumstantial reference, a social relation Nelu is 69 years old and he irst came to that doesn’t tolerate any hesitation between Tichileşti in 1964; he let ater a few years conidence and the conidence conferred of treatment, only to return in 1986 as his by others” (Le Breton 2013). his loss of disease reappeared. He let the leprosarium hope is inluenced by restrictions such again in 1988, but he returned for good in as being unable to work or to experience 1995. Outside, Nea Nelu worked as a tractor a disappeared body which provides operator for several farms in Dobrogea. Same individuals with the full autonomy needed as with Leonard, the discussion quickly for performing regular social roles. turns to the social efects of the disease that Leonard, the last person admitted to leprosy suferers have to overcome. There Tichileşti, arrived here in 1977 at the age were great heats waves in Constanța and it of 13. At 18 years old, as the treatment was even hotter inside the tractor cabin. (...) was efective, and as the disease was I was harvesting in July. hat literally boiled not contagious, he managed to leave me. It did not hurt, but I saw something here. the leprosarium due to a policy of the I had a blister. he stubbornness to work in communist regime that aimed to reintegrate a harmful environment eventually forced former leprosy suferers; their independence Nea Nelu to give up his full-time job. Today, would cost the state less money. hus, ater altered senses force him to keep a constant four years of coninement, Leonard was watch over his body. I have a strong cold in employed at the Sulina shipyard where he winter, I have a syndrome with the stove: if I trained as a carpenter. his qualiication, he touch it, I get a blister full of water that can says, was the result of chance rather than break, and it takes a month or so to heal, of will, as he spent time with a worker who and I need to change my bandage, again and taught him how to work the wood. Ater ive again. hat’s my illness, he says, stressing years, he got a job in Tulcea, at a lumber mill, that daily care is imperative. He must be which he also let ater several years when aware of the sun, of cold or touching hot he returned to Sulina as a carpenter in the stoves or pots that might cause injuries construction ield. As he mentions, “where that, without the senses, could easily infect and if there was hard work to do, I was and cause even greater problems. Cold in there.” However, the hard work accelerated itself is a reason for caution. Disease leaves the spreading of the disease; as I felt it the body less sensitive to cold, which can reappear, winter was the most dangerous cause frostbitten limbs, followed by inger for us. I had to carry lime or cement and I amputation. could not do it anymore. His ingers curled he story of Mrs. Miruna’s mother at 67 years old. Gradually, he also lost his clearly shows the importance of an senses. I have told you, you get used to it. increased attention when it comes to a body Working with logs was something I could afected by leprosy. One day, while working handle; you didn’t need a ine touch. But in her small garden, the woman stepped when it’s about a small nail or something, I on a nail that had been forgotten on the could not do it. Something raw, rough work, ground. She did not feel it. he nail, found

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Andrei Mihail in the evening, had deepened the wound disability as a great defeat. I helped my family and caused a strong infection that could not as much as I could, I worked in places where I be treated and led to the amputation of her could do something. God gave me cars instead foot. Regarding her parents, Mrs. Miruna of legs, at the time when I needed them, and I says that they burned, they froze while was able to use them instead of walking.” clearing snow, they worked and stepped on He also personiies the disease as nails or thorns, that’s why they got it. a pretentious lady that requires one’s he lack of senses has also afected attention in order to take permanent care of Marița, who was born from two diseased her. Cold and heat give... these temperature parents that got married at the leprosarium. diferences create, due to the lack of a She also developed a social symptomatology; normal immunity… a leprosy patient has no the disease is not only a sum of pains and immunity to the outside world… you know injuries, but also their efects on the patient’s that Romanian saying: neither hot, nor cold. daily life. Right from the irst discussion, Proper temperature. But leprosy patients when I asked her how the disease manifests know this fact and they pay attention to it. itself and what its symptoms were, Marița It’s uncomfortable. replied that it’s the hand that leaves me irst. Last, but not least, the restrictions he let hand... I cannot catch, it doesn’t leprosy imposes on the diseased body feel safe, I drop plates, glasses, so I don’t feel can be observed in the hospital furniture. safe with it. So, the nervous system is… the Daily spaces like toilets or showers require nervous system is attacked and abandons adaptations to make them usable by you. he destruction of the nervous system patients with mobility problems. Eva, a is especially problematic for those who nurse, recounts the case of a patient with managed to leave Tichileşti. Cornel lived an amputated foot who was sent to bathe, there until he got married. His parents’ even though he experienced problems disease tied his whole childhood to the with balance and stability. One of them hospital. At 33, Cornel went to Brăila to took a bath on the Saturday before Easter; live with his wife. Like others, he was able I sent him to the bathroom and he couldn’t to work in Constanța while young. hus, he ind another way to get into the tub than to says, he discontinued the treatment earlier kneel. And by standing on his knees he got a than needed. In addition, because of the wound. hey have special seats that attach to people he befriended, for several years he the tub, but he didn’t think about them, so he lead an unhealthy lifestyle that resulted used his knees. in a paralyzed let leg and problems with his right eye that he can hardly close. He Fig. 5. The bathing chair believes that because of this partial paralysis he could not work properly, even if his body was not carrying the disease anymore: “his disease socially afected me from an inactivity point of view. I couldn’t get a job, ind a place to work, make sustained physical efort; for example, the paralysis was very easy to detect from the beginning, even at irst glance. As you can see, this is quite striking. And people have questions and confusions, what you were doing, what happened. I answered to some, I haven’t to others, but in terms of integration into society, I have never sufered and I haven’t considered this

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...... (2004). Subjective Categories of Disease: Leprosy acquires the individual features Individualization of Leprosy of an enemy whom one must fear for life in order to prevent his return which could Interactions between the personal expla- cause damage. he disease is personiied natory model of former lepers and and integrated into a symbolic universe information received from the medical managed by the individual which he is staf in Tichileşti are responsible for illing able to handle. I see this as a strategy by a void of meaning produced by the failure which the patient gives meaning to the of success outside the leprosarium. Coming gap appearing ater the diagnosis. Verbs back to an institution that claims control associated with leprosy are eloquent. For of the body through medical practices Romulus disease “responds” and “attacks”, and objects also translates into decreased but can also “stand” when the treatment is individual autonomy. he body, unable to efective. For Cornel, leprosy is the disease maintain personal autonomy due to the that is not a friend, neither cold, nor hot, so marks of the disease it exposes, forces former it’s like some sort of a lady who must be cared leprosy suferers into institutionalization. for and protected. For Marița, the disease is he healthy body, the founding base of very diicult, very demanding and does not individualization according to Le Breton work at once, you know, it works in time, and (2004) is opposed to the one carrying the for Margareta the pretentious dame should signs of a socially disabling disease, which be permanently cared for. imposes a conined life on its owner. hus, he disease is personalized from one the individual seeks to understand the individual to another. Discussions revealed meanings of his body and disease through an oten highly individualized disease, the medical model of the institution, but without highly internalized medical also with the help of the social networks categories of disease. Margareta describes developing among the other inhabitants. her illness: I had my leprosy. I was not hurt. he way patients conceptualize illness may Do you know how I was aware of it? he senses. change deeply within the clinic through None of the people I talked to provided a interactions with the medical staf and other thorough medical description of the disease patients (White 2005). he clinic is the place when we discussed its manifestations. where the biomedical model meets the strict, Unlike medical categories based on strict, subjective patient with no previous access scientiic, precise indicators such as the to scientiic knowledge (Le Breton 2002). number of bacteria found inside the body, Michel de Certeau talks of the locus within the number of granulomas appearing on each individual hosting “an incoherent (and the skin of the patient or their size and oten contradictory) plurality of interaction color, personal experiences are relevant as between relational determinations”, deined they include a strong personal side. his by the terms constructing them (1988). is the way the disease was experienced Such knowledge of the patient is formed in by the patient and the consequences its an area of intersection of complex systems, efects produced on him; as we have seen, a place where knowledge is created and experiences are not universal as the disease simultaneously internalized (Martin 1994). is strongly anchored in the patient’s social hese forms of knowledge are reinforced world. by interactions creating social groupings To illustrate, I will give the loor to my developed around private and intimate interviewees, their descriptions being the experiences, around what Judith Allsop best tool to evoke this process. For Romulus, and her colleagues, referring to Habermas, the disease is diferent for each person as named “the life-world of ordinary people” there are several categories. It reacts in many

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Andrei Mihail ways, not only in one speciic way. It’s a disease know if you’ve heard about it. He starts which attacks. It’s a disease you don’t feel. It’s seizing, and if there’s nobody next to him, a disease that attacks you and deforms your he could swallow his tongue and die. His body. Head, skin, hands, feet, nose, mouth, mother had leprosy. His mother brought him eyes… all that stuf. Leonard talks about the there. He was not ill, he was just a bus driver. ways in which the disease afects others. His opinions are even more interesting as Cornel is, if you look at him better… there Camil is, according to his medical ile, the are many kinds of leprosy. We close our eyes individual with the most visible signs of the with our eyelids, but he must roll his eyes. disease on his body; he is also being treated Yes, the nervous system damaged his eyes. for a wound that will not cure as he has also He sleeps with his eyes open. Margareta has experienced problems due to the lack of wrinkles on her face. Tuberculoid leprosy senses. and lepromatous leprosy… leprosy dries you, For Miruna, here in Tichilești we had just as people say. It doesn’t attack the hands and two types of the disease, unlike Asia, India or feet, it attacks the hair, that’s another one... China where it could be a lot worst. I know there are many... with other wounds that this from Professor Vulcan. So, with this won’t heal. Also, Uncle Igor who just died… type of disease, the feet, hands, eyes and so he had wounds for more than 30 years. He on could develop granulomas and you could had no tissue let, and he had such strong sufocate. Many have sufocated around here. hands. His eyebrows were gone, his hair fell Cornel also perceives several types of the of, all of that in 30 years. I don’t know why he disease: One has a milder form, another one didn’t heal. You could see his bones with all has a more delicate one, and another has one those plagues. Knowledge is not medically that leaves most severe sequelae due to lack accurate even when describing their own of treatment. So the problem is the following: disease: neither I... I cannot igure out what I it has at least six, seven forms. Some with have or have not. pain, some without pain, others with However, the side efects are clear: this malformations caused by the fact that the disease, this leprosy, appears as a sort of patient was not treated. However, his disease gloss. Healthy parts of the body sweat, but is also personiied, as it can be “mastered” where it afects you, you have no sense, you through treatment. he types of disease are have like a luster and you don’t sweat... Here constructed through the ways in which they and there it’s the same. I sweat, when I work, manifest themselves. In a small space, such when I do all kinds of things. I sweated like a as the one of Tichileşti, those who sufer pig, but in those areas there was nothing. You from leprosy have the opportunity to build must be very careful with the cold; otherwise their vision of this disease through personal you don’t have a thing. On others’ disease? experiences and that of other patients with Stan… his mother was sick, he has nothing, whom they interact. Moreover, since this is he doesn’t have leprosy. He has... maybe a hospital setting, medicine also has some he’s a little gone of his rocker, but as his inluence from one case to another. mother was sick... they hospitalized him too. Romulus, over there, the same. His mother was ill, leprosy, but he’s healthy, that’s not ...... leprosy. hat’s nothing. His inger… that was an accident. It’s not the disease, it’s just an Conclusions accident. For Nea Nelu, there are nine kinds of Leprosy is an atypical disease. Although, leprosy, some more important than others. nowadays, it is treatable, and the patient can For him, Camil doesn’t sufer from the heal from a medical point of view, leprosy disease. He has children’s disease… I don’t can mark the body for his or her whole life.

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Currently, institutions such as Tichileşti are resistance to medical models through the no longer used to treat a disease that is not domestication of both disease and space contagious ater the irst days of treatment. have evolved. Leprosy is personalized he current treatment plan is administered as it causes subjective experiences. Each at home, so the patient can continue to live individual disease is deined according as she or he did before being diagnosed. to unique experiences. It is not a single However, since this is a long-term treatment disease experienced through its objective (depending on the type of disease, the symptoms, but several illnesses constructed duration can vary between one to four years) by individual biographies. he personal which imposes strict rules on patients’ disease, thus, needs to be dealt with in a daily activities and practices, many ind it personal way, via personal treatment plans diicult to follow it properly; this was true adapted to individual side-efects of leprosy both for those who were treated inside the or knowledge questioning the universal institution and for those who were treated character of medical explanations. at home. For these reasons, many of those who have been diagnosed with leprosy bear the efects of the disease on their body, even if they are completely healed. hus, leprosy ceases to be a medical illness, turning into one that exists at the social level. Signs of the disease continue to oversee the patient’s life, which is why many of those who have reached Tichileşti had to settle there permanently. Tichileşti is a very interesting case of a medical institution caring for medically healthy individuals. It is a medical institution which, in order to hide the bodies of those carrying a burdening disease, tries to control them. In this setting, the leprosarium has also become the only housing option for the diseased as society BIBLIOgRAPHY doesn’t provide any other alternative, the hospital accommodating all those for whom Adams, Vincanne, Nancy Burke and Ian Whitmarsh. 2014. regular life is forbidden. “Medical Anthropology: Cross- Cultural Studies in Health and Illness.” Medical Anthropology 179-197. hus, the hospital becomes a place Allsop, Judith, Kathryn Jones and Rob Baggott. 2004. institutionalizing the loss of hope, as the “Health consumer groups in the UK: a new social move- patients know that once they are conined ment?” Sociology of Health & Illness 737-756. here, they will not be able to perform Ancet, Pierre. 2013. “Après l’accident: renaître à un autre current or future social roles. he institution corps.” In Corps abîmés, by David Le Breton and Denisa But- regulates the individual’s life and world naru, 109-118. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. through medicalization, access to food, Bury, Michael. 1982. “Chronic illness as biographical dis- clothing or money; it is an institutionally ruption.” Sociology of Health and Illness 167-182. created life-world, which is not entirely —. 1991. “he sociology of chronic illness: a review of research and prospects.” Soctology of Health Si Illness 451-468. adopted by the inhabitants of the hospital. de Certeau, Michel and Pierre Mayol. 1988. he Practice of Yet, this institutional, general, life-world is Everyday Life. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of Cali- shaped by individuals according to personal fornia Press. backgrounds, constructing a series of Frank, Arthur. 1997. he Wounded Storyteller. Body, Illness, local, personalized contexts adapted to big and Ethics. Chicago: he University of Chicago Press. ones. he personalized life-world forms of Jackson, Michael. 1996. hings As hey Are: New Directions

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro in Phenomenological Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana Royal Anthropological Institute 9 (2): 295-315. University Press. White, Cassandra. 2005. “Explaining a Complex Disease Janzen, John. 2002. he Social Fabric of Health: An Intro- Process: Talking to Patients about Hansen’s Disease (Lep- duction to Medical Anthropology. New-York: McGraw-Hill. rosy) in Brazil.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 19 (3): 310-330. Kleinman, Arthur. 1992. “Local Worlds of Sufering: An In- terpersonal Focus for Ethnographies of Illness Experience.” Williams, Simon. 2000. “Chronic illness as biographical dis- Qual Health Res 127-134. ruption or biographical disruption as chronic illness? Re- lections on a core concept.” Sociology of Health & Illness —. 1988. he Illness Narratives. Sufering, Healing and the 40-67. Human Condition. New York: Basic Books. Wokaunn, Mario, Ivan Jurić and Žarko Vrbica. 2006. “Be- Kleinman, Arthur, Leon Eisenberg and Byron Good. 2006. tween Stigma and Dawn of Medicine: the Last Leprosarium “Culture, Illness and Care: Clinical Lessons from Anthropo- in Croatia.” Croat Med Journal 759-766. logic and Cross-Cultural Research.” FOCUS, he Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry 140-149. Le Breton, David. 2006. Anthropologie de la Douleur. Paris: Editions Métailié. —. 2002. Antropologia Corpului și Modernitatea. Timișoara: Amarcord. —. 2010. Expériences de la douleur: Entre destruction et renaissance. Paris:Éditions Métailié. —. 2008. La chair à vif : De la leçon d’anatomie aux grefes d’organes. Paris: Editions Métailié. —. 2004. Les passions ordinaires: Anthropologie des émotions. Paris: Payot. —. 2013. “Mûrir sa mort: ambivalence et soins palliatifs.” Jalmalv 43-58. Leder, Drew. 1990. he Absent Body. Chicago: Chicago Uni- versity Press. —. 2002. “Whose Body? What Body? he Metaphysics of Or- gan Transplantation.” Philosophy and Medicine: Persons and heir Bodies: Rights, Responsabilities, Relationships 233-264. Marin, Claire. 2013. L’homme sans ièvre. Paris: Armand Co- lin. Martin, Emily. 1994. Flexible Bodies: Tracking Immunity in American Culture from the Days of POLIO to the Age of AIDS. Boston: Beacon Press. Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2000. L’ intrus. Paris: Editions Galilée. Novas, Carlos. 2006. “he Political Economy of Hope: Pa- tients’ Organizations, Science and Biovalue.” Biosocieties 289-305. Pound, Pandora, Patrick Gompertz and Shah Ebrahim. 1998. “Illness in the context of older age: the case of stroke.” Sociol- ogy of Health & Illness 489-506. Radley, Alan. 1989. “Style, discourse and constraint in ad- justment to chronic illness.” Sociology of Health & Illness 231-252. Romanescu, Nicolae. 2002. Ultima leprozerie: din amintirile unui medic. București: Universal Dalsi. Simmel, Marianne. 1967. “he Body Percept in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 60-64. Slatman, Jenny and Guy Widdershoven. 2010. “Hand Trans- plant and Bodily Integrity.” Body and Society 16 (3): 69-92. Staples, James. 2003. “Disguise, Revelation and Copyright: Disassembling the South Indian Leper.” he Journal of the

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Title: Children Addressing the Camera. Performing Childhood in Transylvanian Home

Movies from the 1930s

Author: Melinda Blos-Jáni

How to cite this article: Blos-Jáni, Melinda. 2015. Children “ddressing the Camera. Performing Childhood in

Transylvanian Home Movies from the 93s. Martor 20: 109-121. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Children Addressing the Camera. Performing Childhood in Transylvanian Home Movies from the 1930s

Melinda Blos-Jáni Lecturer at the Department of Film, Photography and Media, Sapientia University, Cluj-Napoca

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS

Ever since the emergence of the irst technologies destined for amateur ilmmakers, home movie, childhood, direct address, the most frequently recorded portraits in home movies have been children’s. his corporeality, immediacy, performance, article analyses the characteristics of children’s portraiture in home movies, with mediality, intermediality, iguration special attention to their on-camera performance. Home movies can be seen as records of children’s bodily interaction with the ilmic apparatus and, at the same time, with the media literacy of their ilmmaker-parents. he everyday scenes of children performing awareness or non-awareness in front of the camera are dissected in this paper from a media-historical point of view: the analysis of a Transyl- vanian home movie collection is embedded in a discourse on media practices, on mediality and on processes that transform everyday reality into a corporeal image. he idiosyncrasies of the irst Transylvanian home movies are incorporated in a discussion about early 20th century visual culture, in the context of which childhood gets to be constructed as an amateur moving image.

he majority of home movies contain common knowledge that most home movies pictures of people, they are ilmic are focused on children and their life within Thuman portraits and – to use Hans the family. Using this myth of childhood Belting’s terms – a medium of the body attached to home visual media as a point of (Belting 2005). he family ilms portray departure, this essay will focus on the ilmic human igures and faces whose realism portraits of children and childhood as seen 1) In similar terms, the accounts of film is further enhanced by the fact that in local (Transylvanian) home movies from history’s first movie- the pictures themselves are in motion1. the 1930s. going experiences draw attention to the According to Belting, “images live from the he analysis of scenes from home movies fact that the moving will be preceded by a discussion of theories image, the new paradox of the presence of an absence. When medium of film was absent bodies become visible, they use a regarding the interrelation between children experienced as “a moment when cinematic vicarious visibility. […] Images are present and moving images in general, and of the experience collapses in their media, but they perform an absence speciicities of children’s performances perceptual distance and brings images which they make visible. Animation means in home movies, with emphasis on the almost unbearably close to the viewers” that we open the opacity of a medium for moments of direct camera address. Putting (Margitházi 2012). the transmission of images” (emphasis in the earliest Transylvanian home movies into the original, 2005, 312–313). If the medium this theoretical framework is an attempt of the moving picture functions as a kind to build a discourse beyond the localities of artiicial body, in which the images of and idiosyncrasies of the collection and to the family members are animated, then it reveal the way home movies function as would be interesting to examine how this an artiicial body of childhood. he aim animation is related to the portraiture of of this paper is to explore the mechanisms the person represented in the picture. It is working behind children’s performances

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for the movie camera, and to reveal how the ig. 1), concluding seemingly transparent images of reality are that this is a body constructed in the process of mediation. which is not yet in control of its image, of its ...... representation (2003, 106). hus, Animating the Image of the Child the image of the child represents Children have had a special relationship or, to use Hans with the camera ever since the inception Belting’s terms, of cinema. As Vicky Lebeau puts it: “the produces the

2) Heather Norris Nich- new phenomenon of the moving pictures visual excess that is embodied in the olson (2001) examines moved in on the child and the infant: with medium of the moving image. children’s spatial experiences, on the its pictures of Child Life, one of the most In the context of “the modern tendency socially constructed popular genres of Victorian ilm, cinema to visualize existence” (Mirzoef 1999, 5), at nature of childhood th from the past through profered its irst contributions to the the end of the 19 century, the spectacle of the means of home movies. The motto of ongoing project of visualizing childhood, the child in motion became an emblem of the article reproduces of giving image to the child” (emphasis the cinema as the new technology of vision3. Leslie Thornton’s words: “children are in the original, 2008, 7–8). he history he unruly performance of a child recorded not quite us and not of the visual representation of childhood on celluloid was used to demonstrate the quite other. They are our others. They are is inseparable from the changing role of speciicity of the new medium: the most becoming us. Or they are becoming other. children in our society. Ever since the famous example is the Lumière brothers’ They are at a danger- 18th century, the social construction of 1895 ilm Le Repas de bébé (Baby’s ous point” (Thornton 1989–1990, 15. childhood has been under constant change Breakfast), which was included in the ilm quoted by Norris Nich- (Aries 1973); correspondingly, in visual arts selection4 to be projected on the irst public olson 2001, 128). and, later, in photography children were no screening of ilms on Dec. 28th 1895 (ig. 2). 3) In the words of Vicky Lebeau: “the longer pictured as adults, but as innocent perception of the and distinct individuals (Higonnet 1998, ‘familiar scene of children’ – children Bown 2001). “Children are our others” – as as they are, children Heather Norris Nicholson investigates this living in time – is 2 one of the first, idea in the context of home movies : “from and fundamental, mystifications of the an adult’s perspective, children seem to new technologies of inhabit a diferent realm where, for a brief the moving image” (Lebeau 2008, 39). time, they do things diferently” (2001, 128). he concept of the otherness of childhood 4) The program consisted of ten short coincided with the drive to know and to films, and the date of the legendary screen- perceive the child visually (and, in this sense, ing later became the the emergence of moving images ofered an Fig. 2 birth date of cinema. enhanced perceptual access to childhood). 5) It is a term used by Still in a half-conscious state and without Beja Margitházi for Recorded and presented in order to promote the first descriptions any linguistic ability, the young child tends the cinematograph, this 50-second long of the collective or individual responses to to be discovered through visual culture, recording, showing Auguste Lumière with moving images, of an through the corporeal image of her body, his wife Marguerite feeding their baby girl audience encounter- ing the new medium of her movements and facial expressions (Andrée Lumière) in their garden, is oten of the cinema at the 5 turn of the 19th–20th (cf. Lebeau 2008, 16–17). In a similar vein, described in “irst contact” narratives and century (Margitházi Hans Belting analyses Gerhard Richter’s in more recent theoretical interpretations. 2012). photo of a toddler that appeared on the One of the irst subjective accounts of the cover of Lettre International (1997, March, ilm emphasizes the naturalism of the shot:

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“suddenly a strange licker passes through the screen, and the picture stirs to life” – wrote Maxim Gorky on the irst viewing of the ilm (Gorky 1896, quoted by Lebeau 2008, 23). he cinematographic naturalism discovered in this ilm by the practitioner 6) He considers part of literary naturalism is even more relevant of the Frankensteinian tradition all those 19th in the context of Gorky’s widely known century representational and technologi- objections to the Cinématographe Lumière, cal endeavours that which he considered a rather un-naturalistic aimed at recreating the three dimensional form of representation: “It is no life, but its perceptual world in its shadow, it is not motion, but its soundless Fig.3 totality. He mentions Daguerre’s Diorama, spectre” (1960, 407). he reception of the photography, the Stereoscope and other Le Repas de bébé suggests that this ilm relative closer framing (medium shot) of optical toys as carriers became an epitome of the 19th century the scene: “probably the irst ilm to catch of the naturalistic ideology of repre- eforts to duplicate life, to accomplish faces ‘from life’ in and for themselves, on sentation (see Burch the perfect illusion of the real world, or a scale allowing a close reading of those 1990, 6−22). the Frankensteinian ideology, as Noël constantly evolving ields of signs” (Burch 7) Noël Burch tracks 6 down this type of Burch calls it. he suppression of death 1990, 24). hus, the individuality of a face, interest regarding through the medium of the moving image the liveliness (of a person) is embodied in cinema in a journal th article announcing the was a preoccupation of the 19 century the medium shot (ig. 3). As Paul Arthur first public screening bourgeoisie7; later on, André Bazin named consistently concludes: “It is the only scene at the Salon Indien: “when everyone can it the “embalming of time” in his concept from the early roster of Lumière ilms whose photograph their dear ones, no longer in mo- of realism. In these endeavors to reproduce aura of familiarity delects the clinical chill tionless form, but in life, to constitute an analogue of reality, the of historical distance. Where other scenes their movements, their activity, their familiar recurring image of the child can be viewed are populated by indistinct, albeit highly gestures, with words as a igure, as Vicky Lebau convincingly animated igures, the family in Le Repas de on their lips, death will have ceased to be argues: “the image of the child on screen bébé creates an impression of particularized absolute” (quoted by is an object to think with, an idea through identity grounded in corporeal fullness Burch 1990, 21). which to encounter the institution of and immediacy” (Arthur 2005, 24). As this 8) The cinematic record of children can be cinema – its historical and social placement, quote suggests, the enhanced immediacy considered figurative certainly, but also what has been described achieved through the reduction of the in later non-theatrical examples as well, as its ‘mental machinery’, its forms of distance between the movie camera and the such as the practice of the developmental address to the spectators ranged before its proilmic reality might be representative psychologist, Arnold screens” (emphasis in the original, 2008, for the distinction between the perspective Gesell, who from 1924 to 1948 used film to 13). Early concerns regarding the animation of factual history and that of the history of collect data on infant of images and the concept of immediacy are everyday life. he sensory, almost tactile behaviour. He considered film a scientific thus embodied in the igure of the child: spectacle of the child’s body (used here as tool, which could turn the ephemeral event images of children were animated through iguration of raw reality) viewed from up into evidence: “the the technological vision of the cinema; in close emblematizes the overall perception cinema registers the behaviour events the meantime, the speciicity of the new of human bodies as individuals (faces). in such coherent, medium was instituted through the igure Moreover, it shows the “big” processes as authentic and measur- able detail that for pur- of the child8. “coming alive” and, as such, can be used as poses of psychological study and clinical In the case of Le Repas de bébé, the a source for an individual-oriented micro- research, the reaction concept of immediacy is achieved not solely history. patterns of infant and child become almost through the image of the child, but through Framing is a crucial decision in the as tangible as tissue” the ilmmaker’s choice of framing as well. construction of the spectacle in this (my emphasis, Gesell 1952, 132, quoted by Noël Burch explains Gorky’s enthusiasm actuality ilm as it creates the illusion of raw Curtis 2011, 432). for this particular Lumière picture with the reality, but there is more to it. As noted by

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many ilm historians9, framing is borrowed in its descriptions and interpretations with 9) George Sadoul 11 observes the framing from the conventions of Victorian family respect to early cinema , but rather with of the early Lumière photography or from the practice of still reference to ilmic portraits and home films as showing similarities with the 19th life painting. Moving images animate more movies. Introducing the discussion of the century photographs of his uncle (1966, 60), than just images of children; they surpass ilmic portrait, Paul Arthur makes a brief, and compares the mise- their media predecessors as well (recasting but relevant observation about this scene: en-scène of Le Repas de bébé to still nature them as a form of artiice, see Lebeau 2008, “in the performative exchange between paintings (1966. 58). In 31). In this respect, the ilm is an example observer and observed, this leeting a similar manner, Noël 10 Burch addresses the of remediation , a demonstration of how glimpse of domestic life can be regarded transformations of the mode of photographic the new medium of ilm (re)animates the as ilm history’s primal ‘home movie’. Not representation caused stillness of the photographic image. coincidently, it stamps the origins of the by the emergence of cinema (1990, 16–17). In this animation of images there is a portrait ilm, a fairly recent practice that twist that has been seldom mentioned in the is latent from the beginning through a 10) The term remediation is defined descriptions of the movie: the baby makes conluence of recording impulse, social by Paul Levenson as the “anthropotropic an unexpected, undirected / unguided move desideratum, and pictorial inheritance from process by which new when she ofers a biscuit from her breakfast nineteenth-century painting” (Arthur 2005, media technologies rem- edy prior technologies. to the man with the movie camera (Louis 24). his description of the “performative Bolter–Grusin defines it Lumière) or to someone standing beside the exchange” in Le Repas de bébé becomes differently, as “a formal logic by which new me- camera (ig. 4). crucial in Liz Czach’s discussion about dia refashion prior media forms” (Bolter–Grusin the aura of authenticity attached to home 1999, 273). The theory movies. he truth value or evidentiary of remediation examines the interdependence status of home movies is more than just a of media: a medium matter of aesthetic qualities; the familiarity is never isolated; it exists in relationships of of ilmmaker and subject captured in home respect and rivalry with other media: “a medium movies makes it distinct from other forms is that which remedi- of documentary cinema (Czach 2006, 4). Le ates” (Bolter–Grusin 1999, 65) Repas de bébé is cinema’s originary home movie (and not Workers Leaving the Factory 11) One of the few 12 descriptions of the baby or Arrival of a Train ) precisely because of addressing the camera can be found in the entry this relationship: “the home movie cannot about the film in Who’s Fig. 4 simply be subsumed by the actuality [ilm]. Who in Victorian Cinema (1996). This oversight What diferentiates Le Repas de bébé from is represented by the While the adults in this picture, the the other Lumière ilms is a matter of illustrations of the film: most of the snapshots parents of the baby, are trying to avoid intimacy, familiarity and proximity evident show the baby looking away from the camera. direct eye contact with the camera all along, between ilmmaker and subject” (2006, 4). The difference in the their gaze is directed towards the center of While Liz Czach is more interested in the infant’s behaviour might have a different effect: the scene, i.e. the baby, although this central questions of ethics raised by the public when the actors’ gaze is character doesn’t seem to acknowledge screening of private ilms, her argument directed inside the pro- filmic space, it creates a this rule. he baby’s look, albeit for a few about the performances in home movies is diegetic reality, but the look out of the frame moments, is slightly directed towards the relevant because it connects the discourses discloses the world camera, as she addresses her uncle. he of realism of early cinema with the dis- behind the camera and acknowledges the pres- direction of this look suggests an intimacy courses of immediacy of home movies. If ence of an observer. between the ilmmaker and its subject the home movie “engenders a particular 12) A large number of and the continuity of representation with type of performance unlike other forms” the early Lumière-films feature the private life reality. In this sense the camera becomes/ (Czach 2006, 6), the look into the camera is of the Lumière-family; behaves as a third party, or as an accomplice decisive of how we recognize a home movie among them are the abovementioned ones, participating at this event. Although this as truthful, natural and evidentiary. and better known titles gesture enhances the immediacy efect of To conclude, Le Repas de bébé emble- as well. the ilm, strangely, it is rarely mentioned matizes the way in which images of children

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Children Addressing the Camera. Performing Childhood in Transylvanian Home Movies from the 1930s came to represent ideas of medium speciicity phones and other devices have become at the beginnings of cinema history and also accomplices of the adult ilmmaker, and, the performative exchange characteristic to at the same time, they have inluenced the home movies. he following chapters will experience of childhood as well. he camera focus on the articulation of this medium has become a third party indeed: parents are concept: what has become of the ‘real’ / perceiving, paying attention to their child immediacy concept represented by Andrée medially, and children meet them, interact Lumière’s image when the institution of the with them (and even imagine themselves) home movies emerged? What has become in an increasingly mediated environment. of the performative exchange between the hat is why the emphasis here will not be on ilmed bodies and the camera in the irst the way children’s bodies are represented in home movies? home movies through the medium of ilm (the iconography of childhood), but rather on children’s performances before and for the ...... camera. How do children participate in the creation and mediation of their own image? The History of the Complicity between In family ilms the human igures very Children and the Recording Process oten turn to the camera and look at the camera, as if this makes them even more With its promise of verisimilitude, the alive and more visible. According to my own institution of the home movie can be a means research, the look into the camera occurs to come closer to the child, to discover the more oten when children are pictured. he child in her everyday world, to reconstruct look into the camera does not only enhance a cultural history of childhood. At the the immediacy efect, but, in the meantime, 13) Up until the recent same time, home movies are embedded in it relects on the process of how the ilm has past, the dominant form of amateur a visual culture, in a drive to perceive and been made. While there is a large body of filmmaking was to archive childhood photographically literature discussing the images of children represented by family filmmaking. The term and cinematically; thus, childhood and as igurations of life caught unaware, in “home movie” is used family ilms13 are interrelated institutions. home movies one encounters a large number less and less often as a synonym of amateur By perceiving childhood visually, we of images of self-awareness in front of the filmmaking in new media culture, as it is transform children into corporeal images, camera. he recurrence of this behavior was increasingly replaced and archive these images in a medium. noticed by the irst how-to-do-it manuals, by the term “user- generated content”. Images of children are mediated, and, and, later, in the 1980s by research as well. It is as if the concept thus, mediation becomes part of childhood Roger Odin (1995) considers the frequent of home movie is no longer sufficient to be as well. Many generations have grown look into the camera a igure, a trope of used as a metaphor of amateur productions: up with camera lenses pointed at them, home movies, and uses it as an argument to the institution of the and various amounts of photographs and explain that home movies are fragmentary family has changed, films have left the ilms have been accumulated throughout and “bad ilms” on a textual level. Richard social space of the their lives. hese private photographs and Chalfen describes it as “a repetitive pattern home, technologies have changed, and the ilms have both relected and inluenced in the on-camera performance” (1987, 67). ways of usage have multiplied as well (cf. lifestyles, relationships, modalities of His description includes much more than Blos-Jáni 2012). paying-attention-to-each-other, the culture the look into the camera: the frontality of remembrance, identity, and the culture of the pose, the walk toward the camera of visual and material objects. As Heather or directly into the lens (mostly done by Norris Nicholson puts it: “only with children), striking a pose, the “camera face”, changes in parental attitudes and camera waving or hiding faces. technologies have children begun to picture he almost continuous acknowledge- themselves” (Norris Nicholson 2001, 130). ment of the camera was recently reevaluated Photographic cameras, video cameras, by Liz Czach as a distinctive feature of the

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home movie performance aesthetic (2006, ...... 14) It is by this date the 2012). hrough a survey of the ameliorative earliest and the sole home movie collection literature of home movies, which (in former Children Performing Photographically for made in the interwar times) negatively interpreted direct address the Movie Camera in the 1930s period in Cluj-Napoca by a member of the bour- as “poor acting” or “acting unnaturally”, geoisie. Research has Czach reevaluates it as a unique attribute hroughout the 1930s and 1940s, home revealed that a member of the Transylvanian of home movies, a sign of crated behavior, movies became “a private version of modern aristocracy, Baron János Kemény (1903–1971), of “acting naturally” (cf. Czach 2012, 154). visual memory making” – as Susan Aasman also made home movies As home movie-makers do not try to hide puts it (Aasman 2009, 48), one at whose in the same period, but the whereabouts the traces of this awareness, but rather tend center was the image of the child. he of these films are yet to accentuate and celebrate them, home production of a family history, including unknown. movie performances need to be considered the recording of happy moments from one’s 15) Susan Aasman goes further by stating that presentational performances (Waugh 1993, childhood, became part of the child-raising home movies actually 71–74; Czach 2012, 162–164), and, in this practice. he earliest Transylvanian home stimulated a new kind 14 of fatherhood that was sense, they are genealogically linked to the movie collection dates back to this period; more involved with presentational mode of early cinema (cf. the ilms of the Orbán family were made family life (Aasman 2009, 47). This can’t be Gunning 1986). Furthermore, Liz Czach in the interwar period in Cluj-Napoca, in applied to this example, because ama- (referring to Paul Arthur) emphasizes the the late 1920s and at the beginning of the teur filmmaking wasn’t “complicity between the social actors and 1930s. In conformity with the new ideo- a widespread practice in this region at that time, the recording process” (2012, 164). Familial logy of domesticity, the medium of ilm thus, it couldn’t have intimacy and proximity between subject and got attached to the idea of fatherhood15, triggered such changes in social roles. ilmmaker characterizes this diferent kind as it was the father of the family who

16) The researchers of of address: “thus, it isn’t uncommon to feel domesticated the 16mm Cine Kodak media domestication like an interloper when watching the home equipment (distributed worldwide since study the process in which information and movies of strangers” – concludes Liz Czach 1923 and destined for amateurs, a kind of communication tech- (2012, 164). As I see it, direct address reveals propagator of home movie-making). Lajos nologies become part of the intimate space of more than just a type of performativity / Orbán (1897–1972) was the person who the home and household. Domestication, acting, a way of breaking the fourth wall adopted the locally scarcely known amateur therefore, is a process in into the lives of people. Looking into the cine-technology, brought it home to the which man and technology meet, thus making camera includes the viewer in the familial courtyard of his bourgeois family home in many “things” part intimacy between people and their media. order to record the three generations of his of the home life: appliances, ideas, he viewer gets invited into the way others family and a few outstanding events of his values and information. I have discussed the po- experience media and feels included as a city. tential of this approach part of this media. he story of the Lajos Orbán’s home in respect to home movies in a previous article: Pursuing these ideas, the following movie collection represents a singular case Blos-Jáni 2013. analysis looks into children’s portraiture, rather than a typical one, which ofers an 17) The media practices stressing details that come to the fore opportunity to examine the emergence of the home movie makers differ from the when the actors are facing the camera, or of (new) amateur media practices. he habitus of the former address it with their gestures. he essay appearance of the Cine Kodak camera generation: the already internalized habits and will examine what has become of the doesn’t indicate in itself the emergence of routines will change performative exchange of the primal home a new practice: it also takes the decision of together with the media, as will the family histo- movie 30 years later, when the Cine Kodak, people to use it in a certain way16; it repre- ries. Media genealogy is an approach conceived specialized home movie technology, was sents the appropriation of the new device to by André Gaudreault introduced to the market in 1923. he the existing media practices17, and there are and Philippe Marion to study the genealogy of appearance of the new technology marks the relations between the ilmmaker and his media in their dynamics. the emergence of a home media culture as In my previous papers I social world, which inluence this practice. have tried to apply the well; in this paper this moment of transition In this case, the brand new technology interpretive model 4 will be exempliied by a Transylvanian arrived in Cluj-Napoca sometime around home movie collection from the 1930s. 1927, in the Kováts P. Fiai photography

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ilmmaker’s media practices, especially 417) of media genea- the routines developed for taking photo- logy to home movies graphs. He was an acclaimed amateur and videos (cf. Blos-Jáni 18 2013) and I have photographer as well as an amateur writer, analyzed one of Lajos poet and painter. His moving images oten Orbán’s films based on its theoretical conclu- show photographic situations, subjects; sions (cf. Blos-Jáni they also depict men with photo cameras, 2014). walking around while taking pictures. Even 18) Besides working at the photography in his movie made with the purpose of shop, Lajos Orbán was demonstrating the possibilities of the new often invited to give lectures on photography; medium (not capturing his family, but rather he organized local photo-contests and was his entourage), Lajos Orbán immortalizes member of a society of Fig. 5 the enthusiasm of the photo-amateur.19 he amateur photographers named the Tessar Teke photographic inluence also manifests itself Society. He had also won shop, located in the centre of the city. he in the presentational performances20 of the several international amateur photography camera and the projector, together with a people, mostly children, who appear in this contests. small screen, were sent by the manufacturer home movie collection. 19) The short clip as a sample product to be exhibited in the his recurrent performative style of entitled The Walk of Photography Appren- storefront. But the managers of the shop children consists of the following: irst they tices exemplifies what didn’t limit its use to this promotional aim, are recorded performing non-awareness, the medium of the film meant for these people: as Lajos Orbán, a partner in the business, as being engaged in and absorbed by an the movie shows a group of people taking a walk decided to use it as an aid of memory, as everyday activity (ig. 6). in the city, and then tak- an extension of photography in order to ing a break on a meadow to make photographs. record city life and his family life. hus, Fig. 6 Thus the film actually Lajos Orbán adopted the cine-technology reveals a paradoxical situation: moving to his child-raising duties (amongst other images about people showing enthusiasm for uses as well), and used it in the production / photography. From this archiving of the family history. point of view the film reveals a media practice he Orbán collection consists of 9 reels subordinated to the of 16mm ilm containing 19 sequences, out photographic practice of the period. For an of which 14 scenes are about family life, in-depth analysis of the film cf. Blos-Jáni 2014, mostly about children; the remaining 5 141–143. capture events related to friends, work and 20) When home movie- city life. All of these sequences contain the makers do not try to hide the traces of the camera gesture of looking into the lens. By analyzing awareness, but rather closely the scenes about family life, I have tend to highlight and celebrate them, home found 52 shots with children looking into Children are shown playing in the movie performances the lens, while the case of adults glancing snow, with a rattle, with dolls and kitchen need to be considered presentational per- at the camera occurs 26 times (12 times accessories, with a dog or within a group formances (cf. Waugh including women’s gaze, 14 times including of kids, corresponding to the genre types 1993, 71–74). men’s gaze). As most of the shots are close- of the “romantic child” described by Anne 21) Anne Higonnet dif- th 21 ferentiates the following ups, medium shots or full shots, the efect Higonnet, dating back to mid-19 century . genre types in the visual of direct address is enhanced by the proper heir elegant outdoor clothing suggests that illustrations of Romantic childhood: costumed visibility of the faces. he acknowledgement the situation they are participating in is an children, children with pets, fairy children de- of the camera is also detectable in the artiicial one, directed by the ilmmaker (ig. rived from earlier cupid frontal placement of the actors, and in their 7). here is a recurrent scene in the home figures, babies with mothers and children movement, which is perpendicular to the movie collection: children, accompanied by playing at adult roles camera axis (ig. 5). an adult, walk along a path near the house, (Higonnet 1998). he ilms bear the traces of the and the shooting starts when they are at a

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Fig. 7 Fig. 8 distant angle. As they approach the camera, behind the camera (ig. 11). All the scenes their absorptive performance changes when featuring children contain the moment of they start to interact with the ilmmaker addressing the camera: either performed / technical apparatus, thus performing out of sheer curiosity, or responding to the camera-awareness (ig. 8). As they stop interpellation of the father / cameraman. performing their everyday roles, their In the moments of camera consciousness, movement halts as well, as long as they are the movement of the body is restricted, making eye contact with the camera. Rarely and this stillness seems to afect the do even adults behave like this in front of medium as well. he eye contact with the the camera: the mother walking, feeding camera withholds the low of everyday life, her baby, playing with her child stops and foregrounding the spectacle of the face, looks into the camera as if waiting for some becoming an example of haptic visuality. kind of acknowledgment. he look of the subject in a photograph is his on-of state of performing camera consciousness or performing non- Fig. 9 awareness is simultaneously present in a scene depicting the ilmmaker-father with his wife and daughter. Probably made with the assistance of the ilmmaker’s brother, the couple with their child is framed in front of a neutral wall, facing the camera, but not looking at it (ig. 9). As the ilm rolls up, the father starts looking and waving at the camera, in order to catch his daughter’s attention, and convince her to imitate his gesture and address the camera as well (ig. 10). In the meantime, the mother starts to throw a little ball, hoping to catch the child’s attention to playing with her (and not looking out of the frame). his gesture of waving oten returns on the screen, even when infants are shown alone, presumably because they are imitating the ilmmaker’s hand movements, Fig. 10 who tries to attract their direct look from

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he convention of presenting oneself Fig. 11 explicitly for the camera is a presentational performance rooted in photography, as homas Waugh suggests (1993, 68). he experience of being looked at through the photographic lens is described by Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida as follows: “once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of ‘posing,’ I instantaneously make another body for myself, I transform myself in advance into an image” […] In other words, a strange action: I do not stop imitating myself” (Barthes 1981, 10–13). But an image where the portrayed person takes are children capable of constructing a pose, over and refuses to become an object to be of projecting an image of themselves? Hans looked at. According to Charles Wolfe, “this Belting’s answer is negative: the child whose efect depends upon the afective power of a sense of self is not yet formed cannot play medium, on its negative dimension, with the himself; thus, his body cannot represent a capacity to generate impressions, through self-image, it is merely blunt, defenseless a process of optical reversals, long ater a (Belting 2003, 106). And yet, these home subject has vanished” (Wolfe 1987, 69). One movies show children performing a pose. might say that children’s look in home movies here is a sequence in the Orbán family reveals, discloses their character the most; ilm collection, which can be viewed as a these are instances when the embodiment theatrical version of the enactment of the reaches its maximum (in the sense that self. Starting with a title card bearing the Hans Belting uses this term cf. Belting 2005), words “Öcskö és Csibu” (the children’s and moving images become an analogue of names) and the date of the recording children’s being and personality (not fully (1932. 1. 17.), we become the spectators of comprehensible otherwise). the theatre of the family: the mother’s face But children’s faces directed towards the and those of her children appear behind a camera are more than convincing examples miniature curtain and they start to perform of the presentational mode of home movies; their everyday roles (ig. 12-13). furthermore, they are those instants when he little boy and girl are shown sitting everyday people stop in order to become at their table handcrating, but they suspend and to perform an image of themselves. their activity in order to look at the camera.

Fig. 12 Fig. 13

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Aterwards, they Fig. 14 play in their room – strongly lit by two lamps – performing direct address multiple times as they present their toys for the camera (ig. 14-15). he mother and the father step into the frame and the father occupies a large armchair, while his wife stands by his shoulders and looks into Fig. 15 the camera, as if posing for a studio photograph of a married couple. heir children enter the frame Fig. 18 too (ig. 16-17). he scene looks like that show children acknowledging the an anticipation ilmmaking process, it is not a real of being photo- collaboration; it is part of a choreographed Fig. 16 graphed, as a performance (ig. 19). he performative rehearsal of a exchange between children as subjects and family pose. he the movie camera shows the signs of parental family portrait is and directorial guidance. heir behavior completed (ig. 18). suggests respect and subordination to the To diferent camera, as if to a father igure; the movie degrees, the camera has paternal attributes. artiiciality of the Especially one photograph taken by scene is detectable Orbán Lajos is indicative of this relationship. in all the ilms of he photograph shows a little girl handling the Orbán family. a photo camera although she is too short Fig. 17 Moreover, this for the tripod (ig. 20). She wears a bonnet constructed-ness and a coat, resembling a miniature adult. is multilayered: there is the production he artiiciality of this mise-en-scène was of the ilm, and there is the production of conirmed by the interviews with family images to be ilmed. While the members of members: children were not allowed to the family collaborate in order to produce handle or touch their father’s photo cameras; a ilm about themselves, there is another image-making machines were not to be used image production at the level of the actors, as child play. hus, a child participating in performing themselves photographically. the production of his or her image is a kind Although these ilms contain scenes of iction that resulted from the blending of

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Children Addressing the Camera. Performing Childhood in Transylvanian Home Movies from the 1930s parental care and the photographer’s visual the traces of this mediality. imagination. heir corporeality, the abrupt Although very similar to the Orbán changes of mood, their facial expressions are children at a irst glance, the performance tamed, domesticated in order to achieve the of Andrée Lumière in front of her uncle’s representation that their parents imagined camera discloses a diferent type of mediality for them. No tears were shed while the and a diferent kind of “real”. While the ilm was rolling. heir facial expressions photographic background is a common and grimaces are restricted to a smile or a denominator of Louis Lumière and Lajos nod, there is no corporeality similar to the Orbán, their photographic skills inluenced Lumière baby’s image depicting her unruly, the outcome of their irst moving images to not yet civilized facial transformations and diferent degrees. In the Lumière ilm, the carnality (eating, getting smeary). choice of framing might have photographic origins, but the actors’ performances are not reminiscent of photographic poses...... he parents are looking inside the frame, hiding their faces, thus performing non- Conclusions awareness all along: this performance does not coincide with the 19th century Images of children are central to many photographic habits. he corporeality of the aspects of understanding the symbiotic Lumière baby is cinematized in a distinct relationship between everyday life manner as well: she is not instructed to and the medium of the moving image behave in a more civilized manner; her as encountered in home movies. he facial expressions seem to be devoid of any Transylvanian movie collection from the formality and are contingent. he baby and 1930s examined in this article ofers a her parents’ performance supports, in fact, glimpse into the childhood of the interwar a performance on the level of the medium: period at the point when the institution of they work together with the ilmmaker in the home movie emerged. Photographic and order to produce the efect of immediacy, movie cameras structured children’s lives, they participate in the iguration of the as taking their picture became the turning “real”, demonstrating the possibilities of point where the experience of everyday life the new medium. In this case the “real” becomes a visual experience. he children is remediated by the medium of ilm, of the Orbán family, as the analysis of the foregrounded here as an authentic medium, ilms has shown, were not in control of their and the corporeal image of the baby eating representation rather their father was. In becomes a statement about this mediality. that position of authority, he directed them In this respect, the Orbán children do not towards postures reminiscing photographs, and recorded these images on ilm. In the Fig. 19 meantime, with his frontal compositions and imperatives that his children look into the camera, the ilmmaker thrives at opening up the opacity of the medium: he makes his best to produce images as tangible as reality. hus, paradoxically, immediacy is achieved through the intermedial relations of photography and ilm. Besides the cultural imagination and visual expectations of their parents, the direct address performed by children bears

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22) This kind of inter- look into the camera like the Lumière baby. images of children from the irst home mediality, character- heir bodily performances, their corporeal movies? he Orbán home movies exemplify istic of the early days of the home movie image can be read as a site of intermedial what the medium of the ilm meant when is described by the relations between photography and ilm, its uses started broadening, and the ways in literature of the home visual media (Chalfen characteristic to the early period of home which the dissemination of the medium did 1987, Odin 2010). 22 In her recent article movies . inluence the idea of domesticity and the (The Photographic hus, this home movie collection is image of childhood. Hangover: Reconsider- ing the Aesthetics intriguing not because it is a representative of the Postwar 8mm case of home visual media usage in the his work was supported by a grant of the Home Movie), Maija Howe analyses the region. It is rather a relevant case from the Romanian Ministry of National Education, attitude towards this intermediality in the theoretical question of this article: what kind CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-II- ameliorative literature of mediality is revealed by the corporeal ID-PCE-2012-4-0573. written after the Second World War for amateur filmmakers (Howe 2014, 39–50).

BIBLIOgRAPHY

Ariès, Philippe. 1962. Centuries of Childhood. A Social His- Burch, Noël. 1990. Life to those Shadows. London: British tory of Family Life. New York: Vintage. Film Institute. Arthur, Paul. 2005. A Line of Sight. American Avant-garde Curtis, Scott. 2011. “Tangible as Tissue: Arnold Gesell, Infant Film Since 1965. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Behavior and Film Analysis.” In Science in Context. 24 (3): 417–442. Aasman, Susan. 2009. “Home Movies: a New Technology, a New Duty, a New Cultural Practice.” In Private Eyes and the Chalfen, Richard. 1987. Snapshot Versions of Life. Bowling Public Gaze: he Manipulation and Valorisation of Amateur Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. Images, Sonja Kmec and Viviane hill eds., 45–54. Trier: Kliomedia. Czach, Liz. 2006. “From Repas de bébé to Tarnation.” Interin. Vol. 1. Nr. 1. Open access journal: http://interin.utp.br/index. Barthes, Roland. 1981. Camera Lucida. Relections on Pho- php/vol11/article/view/147/132. Last accessed at: 2015.06.10. tography. New York: Hill and Wang. Czach, Liz. 2012. “Acting and Performance in Home Movies Belting, Hans. 2005. “Image, Medium, Body. A New Ap- and Amateur Film.” In heorizing Film Acting, Aaron Taylor proach to Iconology.” Critical Inquiry. 31 (2): 302–319. (ed.), 152–166. New York: Routledge. Belting, Hans. 2003. [2001] Kép-antropológia. Képtudományi Gunning, Tom. 1986. “he Cinema of Attractions: Early vázlatok. Budapest: Kijárat Kiadó. Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde.” Wide Angle. 8 Blos-Jáni Melinda. 2012. “he nomads of media- and family (3–4): 63–70. histories. Rethinking the moving images of families in the Higonnet, Anne. 1998. Pictures of Innocence. he History and age of user-generated content.” In Acta Universitatis Sapien- Crisis of Ideal Childhood. New York: hames & Hudson. tiae. Film and Media Studies. 5: 21−34. Howe, Maija. 2014. “he Photographic Hangover: Reconsid- Blos-Jáni Melinda.2013. “Home Movies as Everyday Media ering the Aesthetics of the Postwar 8mm Home Movie.” In Histories. Approaching Home Made Imagery (as Old Media) in the Age of New Media.” In Panoptikum. Dokumental- Amateur Filmmaking. he Home Movie, the Archive, the Web, izacje. 12 (19): 121–131. Laura Rascaroli – Gwenda Young – Barry Monahan (eds.), 39−50. London: New York: Bloomsbury. Blos-Jáni Melinda. 2014. “Home Movies as Everyday Media and Family Histories. From Amateur Photography to Film- Lebeau, Vicky. 2008. Childhood and Cinema. London: Reak- making – from Celluloid Film to Video.” In A qui appartient tion Books. la tradition? / Who owns the tradition? ed. Keszeg Vilmos, Margitházi Beja. 2012. “‘Last night I was in the Kingdom of 136–145. Cluj-Napoca: EME. Shadows…’ he Role of Body and Senses in Various ‘First Bolter, Jay David–Grusin, Richard.1998. Remediation: Un- Contact’ Narratives.” Apertúra. 8 (1). Open access journal: derstanding New Media. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachu- http://uj.apertura.hu/2012/osz/margithazi-the-role-of-body- setts. and-senses/. Last accessed at: 2015.06.10. Bown, Sue. 2001. An Investigation into the Contemporary Mirzoef, Nicholas. 1999. An Introduction to Visual Culture. Anxiety Surrounding the Photographic Representation of London and New York: Routledge. Childhood. MA thesis, manuscript. Norris Nicholson, Heather. 2001. “Seeing it how it was? Brown, Tom. 2012. Breaking the Fourth Wall. Direct Address Childhood, memory and identity in home-movies.” Area in the Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. (special issue on Geographies of Childhood). 33 (2): 128–140.

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Odin, Roger. 2010. [1995] “El cine doméstico en la institucion ble: An Anthology of Original Essays on Film Acting, ed. Carol familiar.” In Efrén Cuevas Álvarez (ed.). La casa abierta. El Zucker, 64–91. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. cine doméstico y sus reciclajes contemporáneos. 39–60. Ma- drid: Ocho y Medio. he Spanish translation is based on the Herbert, Stephen. 1996. “Joséphine Léocadie Andrée Lu- French original: Le ilm de famille dans l’institution famil- mière. Famous Film Baby.” In Stephen Herbert; Luke McK- iale. In Le ilm de famille. Usage privé, usage public, ed. Roger ernan (eds.): Who’s Who in Victorian Cinema. http://www. Odin, 27−41. Paris: Meridiens Klincksieck. victorian-cinema.net/andreelumiere.php. Last accessed at: Sadoul, George. 1966. Louis Lumière. Bucureşti: Editura 2015.06.10. Şiinţiică. Wolfe, Charles. 1987. “Direct Address and the social docu- Waugh, homas. 1993. “‘Acting to Play Oneself’: Notes on mentary photograph, Annie Mae Gudger as a negative sub- Performance in Documentary.” In Making Visible the Invisi- ject.” Wide Angle. 9 (1): 59–70.

Fig. 20

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Title: Making Sense of the Sapiential Body. A Reading of the Sense Organs in Proverbs

Author: Raluca Boboc

How to cite this article: Boboc, Raluca. 2015. Making Sense of the Sapiential ”ody. “ Reading of the Sense

Organs in Proverbs. Martor 20: 123-139. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Making Sense of the Sapiential Body A reading of the sense organs in Proverbs

Raluca Boboc Teaching fellow at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS

In the book of Proverbs, body metaphors are plentiful. Conceived as an invitation body, wisdom, metaphor, sense, world- to an assumed literal reading of a text presenting a doctrine of wisdom in a lan- view guage abounding in images of the body, this paper is a challenge to discern Hebrew mechanisms of representing corporeality by means of philologic investigation. he target is to set strategies of reading the body in the text by focusing on the sense organs. his exercise rewards by the approach to the human body it reveals and contributes to the reconstruction of the worldview encapsulated in the Old Hebrew language.

he body in academic literature extent, by its translations2. I have practically is more of a cover name for our embarked on a quest to capitalize the body Tdilemmas than being one in itself. in the corporeal metaphors abounding in But, however misleading as an academic the text. subject, the body pays a price big enough My target, by focusing my investigation to be the “new historiographical menu of on the speciic case of the sense organs, has the day” (Roy 2001, 236), by “relecting been to decode the symbolic way in which the intellectual world which has studied the human body is represented within the 1) In this article the its meanings and contexts” long before its frame of the particular cultural space of following list of abbre- viations will be used: becoming an intellectual trend (Diemling Hebrew sapiential literature. Admittedly, - Prov Proverbs 2009, 1). featuring such an exercise involves probing - LXX Septuaginta - Sin The Bible (Synod he body in the book of Proverbs is a space more generally associated with a Version) - KJ King James Bible itself a container of a worldview – which mental horizon, which is ultimately a space - NAS New American is undoubtedly best encapsulated in the gaining expression in a certain language Standard Bible original Hebrew language text. As a matter and bearing the mark of a certain mental 2) Some of which of fact, the approach to the Proverbs1 put gear. So by its sense organs, the human body are made, as is well known, after LXX, as is forward in the following pages has been is looked at as a cultural artefact shaped by the case of Sin. inspired by contact with the language of language, which in our case is the Hebrew the Hebrew orginal text in contrast with language. some of its diferent translations. But once Of course, my analysis does not rely on the presence of the body has been noticed interrogating an anthropologic doctrine in the original language of the sapiential which is thematically put forth by the writing, representations of the body have text, as in the book of Genesis, but in turned into the subject of a stimulating discovering the body in the language of analysis feeding upon a striking aboundace the text. herefore, my paper does not raise of corporeal images in the Hebrew original questions about any doctrine about the text and relected, to a higher or a lower body exposed by the old Hebrew sapiential

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literature, but rather discusses the teaching ater the real body by probing its metaphoric mediated by the Proverbs through its very expression in the text. And this is a matter of expression. his study is about initiating the igurative language. In a way, the approach reader in self-knowledge, but this initiation to metaphor may be seen as the very stake of – used in its strict epistemological meaning the entire quest, the expectation being that and without any religious colour – refers to the Hebrew mechanism of metaphorization, accessing the knowledge about the human which is making aboundant use of the being (and, implicitly, about the human human body parts, should initiate us into body) by reading the Proverbs, a book a new way of thinking about the body, written in a very corporeal language and introducing a diferent corporeal mindset. having an emblematic sapiential value. his he materiality of the Bible language value indicates, besides a strong didactic and, generally, of the biblical horizon dimension at a thematic level, also an of representations has received enough implicit didactic dimension, able to mediate attention in literature, a lot of stress having the acquisition of the doctrine of wisdom been laid on the fact that “the pronounced expressed by the Proverbs as a handbook physicality of the image indicates that the of such. So it is the corporeal language of biblical writers perceive no split between the book which claims responsibility for its body and soul. Greek philosophy aims initiating value. Since the reader’s access to rise above the body and its needs. By to the teachings about the human being contrast, Israelite wisdom imbues the and, implicitly, about the human body is whole person: body, mind and spirit (see made through the language of the book, 14:30, 17:22)” (Davis 2000, 40). What has the plentiful metaphors, especially in the deinitely not been stressed upon so far is original Hebrew, deserve to be considered that the language of the Bible itself is the very as playing a role in the initiation of the vehicle transporting this particular mentality reader in an anthropological doctrine. about the body. he target of my approach is Analysing the body in a text and, thereby, to explore this vehicle. For this reason, the looking into the way the body acquires linguistic coordinates of the source will be expression in a certain language – which, heavily exploited, the core of my approach in its turn, functions as an ambassador being centered on discussing the use of of a particular mindset – is an exercise of metaphor and stereometry – a literary 3) The body being body discourse analysis and, automatically, device related to metaphor and considered studied as a reality structured by language belonging to a tradition of research initiated a speciicity of the biblical style. starting from Michel Fou- by Foucault. herefore, methodologically A source of everlasting debate among cault’s book translated by Alan Sheridan, Dis- speaking, the exercise I am putting forth interpreters of the Bible, the question of cipline and Punish: The 3 Birth of the Prison 1977. is post-Foucauldian . However, being the choice between a literal reading and London: Penguin. conceptually contained in a stage before the one in a igurative key is practically a 4) Roger Cooter outlines body-soul separation, a stage which would fundamental issue for all readers of the the research directions allow us to discover that the Bible man does Bible (Macky 1990, 1). But looking into a in body studies following Foucault’s somatic turn not have a body, but rather he is a body while few examples related to the parts of the in historical scholarship in his article “The Turn equally and simultaneously being a soul, my mouth: “In the mouth of the foolish is a of the Body: History quest addresses a reality which is impossible rod of pride: but the lips of the wise shall and the Politics of the Corporeal” published in to circumscribe to the post-Foucauldian preserve them” (Proverb 14:3 KJV), or “A 2010 in Arbor Ciencia, mental stage4. divine sentence is in the lips of the king: Pensamiento y cultura. Ultimately, deriving a conception about his mouth transgresseth not in judgment” the human body from a discourse which (Proverb 16:10 KJV), one can easily see is about acquiring wisdom while being that, when tackling the issue of the body articulated in a language abounding in in the text, it is invariably metaphors we body metaphors means nothing but racing are talking about. And speaking about

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Making Sense of the Sapiential Body A reading of the sense organs in Proverbs a sapiential text, hinged on the general meaning of a metaphor, which cannot be theme of acquiring wisdom, a text in traced otherwise than by circumscribing which access to the body is made almost it to a certain context6. But there is an exclusively through the metaphoric images intersection point of the two theories and containing it, one can automatically range that is Paul Ricoeur’s living metaphors7 – the metaphoricalizing mechanism among expressions which re-create or re-describe the instruments employed for working out reality through iction. According to the sapiential theme. he parts of the body his integrating deinition, metaphor is are most of the time vehicles of metaphors a discourse strategy serving the poetic speaking about the acquisition of wisdom, function of language; through metaphor, so the challenge we are taking upon our- language gets rid of its plain descriptive 5) According to Oxford selves involves discussing a body whose function and reaches the mythical level. dictionary online, http://www.oxforddic- presence is in the vehicle of the metaphors Metaphor eliberates the revealing function tionaries, metaphore is a figure of speech contained in the text and not in its tenors; of language. hereby, we can take the risk of in which a word or in the text discussed, the body is rather the using the term metaphoric truth to designate phrase is applied to an object or action to image by which a reality is hinted at and not the realistic intention involved in the power which it is not literally the reality hinted at itself. of poetic language (Ricoeur 1984, 380). applicable. It is used about a thing regarded Far from aiming at giving a deinition his creative, reality-moulding power as representative or 5 symbolic of something of metaphor , we just need to highlight of metaphor has also been referred to by else. a standpoint defended, from diferent linguists George Lakof and Mark Johnson 6) See more on this perspectives, both by the French philosopher in their book about dead metaphors (L a kof Ana-Maria Dud]u’s Paul Ricoeur in his Métaphore vive (Ricoeur, and Johnson, 1980). By analysing the words article “Metafora – între iner]ia tradi]iei [i 1975) and by the American linguists of these literalized metaphors which have modernitate” in: Agata Literar\ Nr. 1/2014. Georges Lakof and Mark Johnson in their become conventional (which most people Boto[ani: Editura Metaphors we live by (Lakof and Johnson, do not even accept to call metaphors), Agata. Online: www. agata.ro/arhiva-agata- 1980), i.e. that the metaphoric is a category Lakof and Johnson hold that albeit used literara. involved in shaping systems that structure unconsciously, such dead metaphors con- 7) See the translation our perception of reality and inluence our stitute principles of structuring thinking. by Irina Mavrodin of Paul Ricoeur’s worldview. he way in which a metaphor And they are strongly backed by arguments Métaphore vive. Paul rewrites reality can disclose something coming from today’s cognitive research to Ricoeur. 1984. Meta- fora vie, Bucure[ti: Ed. essential about how this is structured in the conirm that literalization of a metaphor Univers. mental horizon which has produced it. does not mean it no longer inluences Metaphor has long been debated thinking, but rather, on the contrary, it between linguists whose dealing with the actually shapes it (Lakof and Turner 1999). problem has been conined to semnatics. Just as Paul Ricoeur, though referencing a Important contributions in this area have completely diferent kind of metaphors, been made either in favour of the theory Lakof and Johnson consider the metaphoric of substitution in metaphor (in the sense category as a moulder of systems which that the meaning of a word is transfered to structure our perception of reality and another one based on their similarity), with inluence our worldview. researchers insisting on the distinction Without using Ricoeur’s or Lakof and between tenor or target (what is hinted at, Johnsson’s living or dead metaphors, we the subject to which attributes are ascribed) will just retain this idea of metaphor being and vehicle or source (the image through a linguistic technique addressing the very which one makes the hint or rather the core of a worldview. his is also the meaning object whose attributes are borrowed) or in we will henceforth give to the notion of favour of the theory of tension in metaphor, metaphor, analysing it as an expression able with researchers focusing mainly on the to re-describe or re-create reality through importance of the context in revealing the iction, having the power to structure our

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Raluca Boboc thinking. he body metaphors analyzed in synthesis of metonimy and synecdoche this article will serve to probe the way these deined as the use, based on a common re-create, through the text, the skeleton of denominator, of another term from the a worldview, i.e. the old Israelites’s view on same lexical family, is oten invoked by the body. interpreters of the Bible to explain the fact he Proverbs, a text whose theme is that, in most of the cases where parts of the sapiential, but whose lesh is thick with body are present in the text of the Bible, body metaphors, grants the body the role what is actually hinted at is the human of a vehicle and not of a tenor, the body being as a whole. being contained in the text as an image In his Anthropolgy of the Old Testament, serving for discussing a sapiential reality. a reference work in the ield of Bible Considering that this vehicle, by the way Studies, Hans Walter Wolf counts stereo- it gets expression in the language, reveals metry among the hallmarks of Hebrew something essential about the conception of poetry; it is typical of the Hebrew imagi- the author upon the human body, I advocate nation in its efort to catch in very few words a literal reading of the body in the text, the ininite nuances of human experience to drawing special attention to the fact that the use, within Biblie parallelisms, some parts lexical preferences of the original Hebrew of the body in the place of others or of the text always support a certain materiality of body as a whole: “Stereometric thinking, the image, whereas several of its translations thus, simultaneously presupposes a synopsis either psychologize or spiritualize the text. of the members and organs of the human he assumed literal reading I am body with their capacities and functions. It hereby putting forward of the corporeal is synthetic thinking, which by naming the representations behind the body metaphors part of the body means its function” (Wolf is by no means a reductionist interpretation. 1974, 8). his gets manifested, according to he exercise is not to disregard and Wolf, “not by the use of terms which are place constraints and limitations to clearly diferentiated one from the other, the interpretative richness of the text; but by the opposite means, namely by the on the contrary, capitalizing the literal juxtaposition of words related in meaning. reading of the body involves enriching the his stereometric thinking pegs out the interpretation of the text with a measure sphere of man’s existence by enumerating his of corporeal awareness; it basically characteristic organs, thus circumscribing means taking the body into account man as a whole” (Wolf 1974, 8). when discussing the human experiences Under the inluence of this stereometric which make the thematic substance of and synthetic thinking which is a the text. Actually, the use of the proposed hallmark of Bible expression, all textual hermeneutic approach serves no other reconstructions of a human being have, by purpose than to help acknowledging that naming the characteristic organs, the efect human beings ultimately participate in not of an abstract image, but of a whole, of a the body or rather in their unity of living complete radiography, even in the concrete material entities in all the actions and events cases when reference is made to just one of their being in the world, according to the part of his or her body: way these actions and events are described by Proverbs. More oten than not, the body in the he merciful man doeth good to his own language has been overlooked on behalf of soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own stereometry, which is a mere literary device lesh. (KJV) representing an aesthetic preference of Bible Arguably, this explanation completely authors. Stereometry, which represents a disregards the preference of the text for

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Making Sense of the Sapiential Body A reading of the sense organs in Proverbs one or another of the body components of their fundamental inter-relatedness in the text, thereby completely ignoring is raised in the reader, who is thereby a whole series of implications which the challenged to see the body as a common respective representation has upon the denominator and a manifestation ground general message of the text. Of course, in for both functions. By insisting in such a over 90% of these cases, the body parts in manner upon the mouthparts as a topos the Proverbs are used metaphorically and of both functions, the body is revealed as metonimically. But saying that the meaning a primary and irreducible reality and as a behind all these uses is purely aesthetic topos for the manifestation of human acts. would involve diregarding a great deal of the richness of the sense. It would ultimately mean ignoring the fact that behind all these For the lips of a strange woman drop as literary means there is something being an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother said about the wisdom relative to human than oil. (KJV) beings represented through the components For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, of their physical body. It is by no means and smoother than oil is her speech. (NAS) accidental that what is being said is being Nu te uita la femeia linguşitoare, said through diferent, concrete, corporeal căci buzele celei străine picură miere şi images, images full of bones, hands, legs, cerul gurii sale e mai alunecător decât livers, lips, kidneys and hearts – something untdelemnul. (Sin) which is absolutely fundamental for the way in which the reader perceives the message he text in Hebrew maintains a semantic of the Bible. he materiality of this message coherence keeping the term khek (palate) is saying something essential about the for references related to the sense of taste signiicance of the real body, which in the and introduces another component of old Israelites’ mindset is irreducible, being the mouthparts for imagining its verbal the human person himself or herself. function; the transformation of sweetness into biterness is hereby transferred from the sensorial level to that of the mouth as a ...... whole, which turns from an abode of sweet words into a sharp two-edged sword. he The Mouthparts sense of taste and this strategy of invoking transformations at a perceptive level are not he mouthparts with their double, only vehicles of an allegory describing the digestive and verbal function ofer a mechanism of seduction, but also models unique opportunity of confronting Bible able to show how the process of seduction stereometry. hrough their digestive functions, a seduction involving mind function, more exactly by evoking the sense and body alike. Following the beguiling of 8) “And when the of taste which is the primary association Adam and Eve described in Genesis 3:68, woman saw that the tree was good of the mouthparts, references are more the seduction process engages the human for food, and that it oten than not made to the verbal function. being as a whole; starting with the level of was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be he fact that the references to the verbal the body, all levels are touched. he senses, desired to make one wise, she took of the function are very frequently hidden behind nevertheless, play an essential role. fruit thereof, and did references to the digestive one allows us to To reinforce the role played by the body eat, and gave also unto her husband with signal a certain centrality of the corporeal element in the act of seduction, the verse her; and he did eat” element in the discharge of both functions. 22:14 compares the alluring mouth with a (Gen 3:6 KJV). Attention upon the verbal function being deep hole of the kind used in hunting – a drawn by the common topos of both comparison meant to portray the deceived as functions, i.e. the mouthparts, awareness a prey. Judging from the strongly moralizing

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perspective of the verse, the victimization of man, But aterward his mouth will be illed the deceived is double, the inal causality being with gravel. (NAS) reported, as always in the Bible, to God. he Bună e la gust pâinea agonisită cu 9) The Hebrew word is man who lets himself seduced by the foreign înşelăciune, dar după aceea gura se umple foreign, but in the old 9 times the mere fact of (harlot) woman is punished directly by God, de pietricele. (Sin) women travelling alone the assigning of inal causalities (good or would point to a libertine behaviour. bad) to Divinity being a very important step Verse 4:24 above contains two meta- in formulating a monotheistic conception by phoric descriptions, in which the genitive the Old Israelites. constructions of the status constructus type discuss the falsity of the mouth and perversity of the lips. Verse 20:17 is the result of a larger metaphorizing he mouth of strange women is a deep scheme capitalizing the anatomic element pit: he that is abhorred of the LORD shall through more potent stylistic preferences. fall therein. (KJ) Semantically, the image is created by two he mouth of an adulteress is a deep pit; highly suggestive visual coordinates: bread He who is cursed of the LORD will fall into and stone. heir joining together, in the it. (NAS) context of the symbolism of the mouth, O groapă fără fund este gura femeilor opens the perspective of a sudden break at străine; cel ce este lovit de mânia Domnului a perceptive level, announcing an ontologic cade în ea. (Sin) experience later capitalized by Christian symbolism. his will ofer a reversed But the words of the foreign female image of the symbolic representation of the seducer are not the only sources of mouth which by the sweet taste of bread deception. Many other verses refer to the is tempted into swallowing the stone; the lies, falsehood and slyness produced by the representation of the mouth of hell likewise mouth, lips and tongue of the wicked and defeated through Christ’s resurrection the foolish; the lack of truth and perversity receives a positive value. – as distortion of meaning or its erroneous he rod contained in the mouth of the use – is oten mentioned, many of the terms foolish, itself a metaphor for the words used in describing the mouth of the wicked pronounced by the lips of the foolish, and laying even more emphasis on the idea of which are turning against himself accusing perverting the truth. him on the ground of his own words, that is another example confessing the materiality – of an extremely high variety in the Proverbs – of the mouth metaphors: Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. (KJ) Put away from you a deceitful mouth, And put devious lips far from you. (NAS) In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of Leapădă din gura ta orice cuvinte pride: but the lips of the wise shall preserve cu înţeles sucit, alungă de pe buzele tale them. (KJ) viclenia. (Sin) In the mouth of the foolish is a rod for his back. But the lips of the wise will preserve them. (NAS) Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but În gura celui nebun este varga mândriei aterwards his mouth shall be illed with lui; buzele pe cei înţelepţi îi păzesc. (Sin) gravel. (KJ) Bread obtained by falsehood is sweet to a he geography of the body is gradually

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Making Sense of the Sapiential Body A reading of the sense organs in Proverbs pieced together, in agreement with the born by the words produced by the work of speciic style of sapiential antinomies, by the lips and mouth. heir distructive and drawing two opposed portraits – that of curative capacity is the subject matter of the the foolish and that of the wise. Following next verses as well, where the mouth and the same procedure at a lower scale, the lips are a tree of life or a breach in the spirit, mouthparts are likewise represented: they can feed many, pierce like a sword or deliver; words have the power to bestow life and death.

he mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom: but the froward tongue shall be cut out. (KJ) A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but he mouth of the righteous lows with perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit. wisdom, but the perverted tongue will be (KJ) cut out. (NAS) A soothing tongue is a tree of life, But Gura celui drept rodeşte înţelepciune, perversion in it crushes the spirit. (NAS) iar limba urzitoare de rele aduce pierzare. Limba dulce este pom al vieţii, iar limba (Sin) vicleană zdrobeşte inima. (Sin)

Interhuman relations stand proof for the parallel functioning of the two portraits, the mouth being a topos of the he lips of the righteous feed many: but verbal meeting with the other. Basically, fools die for want of wisdom. (KJ) the verbal activity – one of the two major he lips of the righteous feed many, functions of the mouthparts – is the onset But fools die for lack of understanding. of communication. Mouth, tongue and lips (NAS) alike – all are directly involved in bringing Buzele celui drept călăuzesc pe mulţi forth a reality, that of verbally meeting oameni, iar cei nebuni mor din pricină că the other. Just like in the case of the ear, nu sunt pricepuţi. (Sin) this attaches a huge responsibility to the mouthparts:

here is that speaketh like the piercings A divine sentence is in the lips of the of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is king: his mouth transgresseth not in health. (KJ) judgment (KJ) here is one who speaks rashly like the A divine decision is in the lips of the thrusts of a sword, king; His mouth should not err in judgment. But the tongue of the wise brings healing. (NAS) (NAS) Hotărîri dumnezeieşti sunt pe buzele Cei nechibzuiţi la vorbă sunt ca împăratului; la darea hotărârii să nu se împunsăturile de sabie, pe când limba celor înşele gura lui. (Sin) înţelepţi aduce tămăduire. (Sin)

A verse introducing a sort of minitreatise on the king – interpreted by Evagrius as a Death and life are in the power of the symbolic igure representing Christ, whose tongue: and they that love it shall eat the judgement knows the hearts of humans fruit thereof. (KJ) – the example above contains a most Death and life are in the power of the powerful expression of the responsibility tongue, and those who love it will eat its

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Raluca Boboc fruit. (NAS) and the answer of the tongue, is from the În puterea limbii este viaţa şi moartea şi LORD. (KJ) cei ce o iubesc mănâncă din rodul ei. (Sin) he plans of the heart belong to man, But the answer of the tongue is from the In Evagrius’ allegorical interpretation, LORD. (NAS) the mouth and tongue represent the În putere stă omului să plăsmuiască passionate part of the soul and the intellect planuri în inimă, dar răspunsul limbii vine (LXX 2006, 469). But the corporeal reading de la Domnul. (Sin) behind the speech metaphor is eaqually prone to highlight the responsibility of the But the reference behind the hint is human being, who is, thereby, revealed as actually a completely diferent function of being present as a whole in all his or her the heart: the preparation or devising of deeds manifested through all the functions plans. his is what is opposed here to God’s of his or her body. plan manifested through the work of the tongue. he gap between man’s plan and God’s plan is relected by the gap between A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his the purely subjective relation between lips are the snare of his soul. (Pro 18:7 KJV) the human person’s rational and volitive A fool’s mouth is his ruin, and his lips functions and the objective reality, which are the snare of his soul. ( NAS) starts when meeting the other. Gura celui nebun este prăbuşirea lui şi Hence the urge to keep silent unless the buzele lui sunt un laţ pentru suletul lui. relation with wisdom works in the heart: (Sin)

Speaking about the relation of the If thou hast done foolishly in liting mouthparts with other anatomic elements up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay on a map of human physiology, the Proverbs thine hand upon thy mouth. (KJ) have them directly connected to the heart: If you have been foolish in exalting yourself Or if you have plotted evil, put your hand he heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, on your mouth. (NAS) and addeth learning to his lips. (KJ) De eşti aşa de nebun ca să te laşi mânat he heart of the wise teaches his mouth, de nebunie, bate-te cu mâna peste gură. And adds persuasiveness to his lips. (Sin) (NAS) Inima celui înţelept dă înţelepciune gurii To conclude, the mouthparts are, before lui şi pe buzele sale sporeşte ştiinţa. (Sin) anything else, essential as the topos of speech, where “the capacity for language provides the his relation of the wise with his own essential condition for the humanity of man” lips, a mirror of the human being’s relation (Wolf 1974, 78). Making speech happen and, to God, was oten quoted by Origenes as therefore, being fundamentally involved a reference to an Old Testament prophecy in the manifestation of the quintessential (LXX 2006, 454). Apparently, prophecy feature of the human condition, the would be in the irst place hinted at by verse mouthparts are automatically a topos of 16:1, a verse missing in Codex Vaticanus, and meeting otherness, thereby having an which seems to contradict the one above: ontic, reality-creating dimension. hus, by opposedly describing the mouth of the wise and of the foolish, one actually probes he preparations of the heart in man, human relations considering that the reality

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Making Sense of the Sapiential Body A reading of the sense organs in Proverbs created by the lips can be redemptive or Moses (Exodus 3:413), there is a preeminence destructive, for both the others and the self. of hearing over sight (Wolf 1974, 76). But the mouthparts are equally a topos of Listening involves hearing so the ear plays, digestion and the strategy of mixing the two in the Hebrew worldview, a higher role than functions by making use of stereometry is a the eye and the sight, which are central in speciicity of the Hebrew text. References to Greek philosophy in its focus on knowing the verbal function are more oten than not yourself through self-relection. hidden behind references to the digestive But sight is crucial in keeping a sound one. his is a process by which the sense relation to the self all along the process of of taste attached to the digestive function answering the divine call. he eye and the 10) Now a thing was is evoked as a substitute for the verbal one. sight mirror both self-referentiality and secretly brought to me, and mine By mentioning this twofold dimension of man’s relation to wisdom. But hearing ear received a little the mouthparts – a topos of both speech hints at the irst moment of the call – a thereof. n thoughts from the and digestion – what is reminded is the particular, unique, speciic call addresed by visions of the night, when deep sleep involvement of the whole body in all God to everyone and reiterated during his falleth on men, processes theoretically associated with or her becoming a human person. Many Fear came upon me, and trembling, which mind or soul. Hence the necessity of an of the proverbs containing the term ear made all my bones to assumed literal reading of the text. insist upon this perspective by exploring shake. hen a spirit passed Following – on a further detailed map of the relation between (the words of) wisdom before my face; the hair of my flesh stood human anatomy and physiology – the relation (instruction, teaching) and the ear of the up (KJV) between the sense organs and other organs, apprentice. 11) And they gave while the mouthparts are connected to the unto Jacob all the heart, I will address the relation of the wise’s Practically, the ear ofers the opportunity strange gods which were in their hand, heart with his or her ears which mirrors the of contemplating the most direct con- and all their earrings which were in their relation between humans and God. junction between body and wisdom: ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.(KJV) ...... My son, attend to my words; incline 12) Then thou shalt thine ear unto my sayings. (KJ) take an aul, and thrust it through his ear unto The ear (ozen) My son, give attention to my words; the door, and he shall incline your ear to my sayings. (NAS) be thy servant for ever. And also unto Starting from Eliphaz’s speech in he Book Fiul meu, ia aminte la graiurile mele; la thy maidservant thou of Job (Job 4:12-1510), Anthropology of the poveţele mele pleacă-ţi urechea ta! (Sin) shalt do likewise. (KJV) Old Testament shows that the ear, the 13) And when the LORD saw that he irst function of which is purely aesthetic, Following the original Hebrew, all turned aside to see, connected to jewellery adornment (Genesis translations seem to retain the image of God called unto him 11 out of the midst of 35:4 ), and the second social, related the ear centered on its inclined position. the bush, and said, to ratifying the act of ixing lifelong he gesture of inclining or bowing the ear Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. (KJV) possessions (Deuteronomy 15:1712) may to receive the words of wisdom is clearly be associated with the change of the predominant in the book of Proverbs, being whole state of the body (Wolf 1974, 75). repeated in many verses. It strikes back in Considered “the root of true humanity” extremely similar formulas in the following (Wolf 1974, 74), the ear plays an essential verses, where words of wisdom are only role in man’s self-knowledge, which in the changed in the irst part of the verse: Hebrew worldview – developed by both Christianity and Judaism – is initiated by listening and continued by following the My son, attend unto my wisdom, and divine call. In this tradition, founded by bow thine ear to my understanding. (KJ) the prophetic calls and especially by that of My son, give attention to my wisdom,

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Incline your ear to my understanding. the wise, (NAS) And apply your mind to my knowledge. Fiul meu, ia aminte la înţelepciunea mea (NAS) şi la sfatul meu cel bun pleacă urechea ta. Pleacă urechea ta şi ascultă cuvintele (Sin) celor iscusiţi şi inima ta îndreapt-o spre ştiinţa mea. (Sin) Sometimes, the terms of wisdom are stylistically enforced by comparisons he two proverbs above make reference containing ornaments and precious stones, to a three-step process of human self- which have always ofered a good ground to knowledge based on listening to the call allegoric interpretations. Gold is, however, containing the voice of God: the irst step the most preferred: is the leaning of the ear, the second one, the hearing of the words, and the third is storing them into the heart. In Evagrius’ interpretation, one cannot speak of any true As an earring of gold, and an ornament listening to the divine words unless one of ine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an puts them into practice (LXX 2006,472). obedient ear. (KJ) Like an earring of gold and an ornament Even looked at in reversed order, the of ine gold is a wise reprover to a listening process stays the same. he heart of the wise ear. (NAS) acquires wisdom to the extent that his or her Inel de aur şi podoabe de aur de mult ear is searching for it. In other words, man preţ este povăţuitorul înţelept la urechea himself can be the initiator of the process ascultătoare. (Sin) of self-knowledge to the extent that he or she deines himself as a wisdom searcher. Along with its vertical relations with he next verse completes the teaching about the words of wisdom, the ear is involved self-knowledge in the Hebrew perspective: in horizontal relations with other organs, one never passively waits for the call. he among which the most prominent and most active meaning of a human waiting for God’s recurrent is the heart, but the sense organs call can easily be read out in the thirst for (mouth, lips or eyes) are also present. he wisdom, in man’s continuous search for it: relation with the heart is always one of synonymy:

he heart of the prudent getteth So that thou incline thine ear unto knowledge; and the ear of the wise seeketh wisdom, and apply thine heart to knowledge. (KJ) understanding. (KJ) he mind of the prudent acquires know- Make your ear attentive to wisdom, ledge, incline your heart to understanding. (NAS) And the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. Plecându-ţi urechea la înţelepciune şi (NAS) înclinând inima ta la bună chibzuială. (Sin) O inimă pricepută dobîndeşte ştiinţa, şi urechea celor înţelepţi umblă după iscusinţă. (Sin)

Bow down thine ear, and hear the words he sense of the search mentioned above of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my is turned upside down by the relation of knowledge. (KJ) the ear with the false lips and the naughty Incline your ear and hear the words of tongue:

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A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips; Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue. poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not (KJ) be heard. (KJ) An evildoer listens to wicked lips, He who shuts his ear to the cry of the A liar pays attention to a destructive poor tongue. (NAS) Will also cry himself and not be Făcătorul de rele ia aminte la buzele answered. (NAS) nedrepte, mincinosul pleacă urechea la Cine îşi astupă urechea la strigătul celui limba cea rea. (Sin) sărman, şi el, când va striga, nu i se va răspunde. (Sin) here are verses whose reading opens up a social dimension as well. Used metonymically, instead of the human person Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will as a whole, the ear may even function as a despise the wisdom of thy words (KJ) trigger of promotion in the social hierarchy Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, (the world of the sapiential writings knowing For he will despise the wisdom of your no gaps between the political, economic and words. (NAS) spiritual dimensions, so the social class of Nu grăi la urechea celui nebun, căci el nu the wise is the same as that of the rich and va băga în seamă iscusinţa graiurilor tale. of social leaders). Verse 15:31 for example (Sin) contains a typical case of stereometry which, looked upon more closely, conveys Interestingly, the relation with the others several ideas: those who hear the reproof does not automatically involve feeding of life get to abide among the wise, this the others’ ears with words of wisdom. learning is life-giving (a feature extending In other words, transmission of wisdom automatically to those coming into contact does not ultimately suppose an automatic with it), and last, but not least, it involves transitivity. In his explanation of the verse the sense of hearing, so it is all based on the above, Evagrius makes reference to Mathew activity of the ear (LXX 2006, 452). 7:614, the verse on throwing pearls to pigs (LXX 2006,474). As if to avoid the risk of letting the message deviate along the way, wisdom brightens everyone directly. Since he ear that heareth the reproof of life wisdom and the law are one and can only be abideth among the wise. (KJ) had together, deviations are always possible, He whose ear listens to the life-giving even with those attached to God by prayer if reproof they interrupt their relation to the law and 14) Give not that Will dwell among the wise. (NAS) break it. which is holy unto the dogs, neither Urechea care ascultă o dojană folositoare cast ye your pearls vieţii îşi are locaşul printre cei înţelepţi. before swine, lest they trample them (Sin) He that turneth away his ear from under their feet, and hearing the law, even his prayer shall be turn again and rend you. (KJV) Other verses contain ortopraxy ele- abomination. (KJ) ments, telling us how the ear and the sense He who turns away his ear from listening of hearing should be used in relation to our to the law, fellow human beings. Even his prayer is an abomination. (NAS)

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Cel ce îşi opreşte urechea de la ascultarea example above is rendered by a synecdoche legii, chiar rugăciunea lui e urâciune. (Sin) or – considering that both the eye and the ear actually stand for the human person as a whole, just as the eyelids stand for ...... the eyes – rather by a stereometry, since synecdoche and metonymy have been re- The eye (ayn) classiied by specialists in Bible poetry as stereometry. But such an explanation can Being located on the face, the eyes are the hardly also cover the meanings of a verse organ of sight, one of the human’s main like 29:13. By choosing to say that God channels of communication with the bestows sight to the poor and his opressor exterior. What a man turns to another alike, this verse invests the context of the when they turn their face to each other is poor meeting the deceitful with additional ultimately the sense organs involved in meanings, which are overlooked when only communication, which all have their seat considering the meeting of the two persons in the head. True, for the Bible man, only as a whole and disregarding the meeting the mouth, ear and eyes are important of their eyes. he eye is one of the three (Wolf 1974, 75), the nose being mentioned major organs of communication having the just once in the Proverbs (in verse 30:33, seat in the head and one of the two to be where scratching the nose is compared with found on the face. he face, in its turn, is arousing scandal). he eyes, as we are told the seat of communication by excellence. in the book of Proverbs, are made by God It has a plural form in Hebrew, which for people to be able to see the light and this contributes to identifying it as a topos capacity is equally given by God to the poor deined by the many ways in which people and to the deceitful. can pay attention to and communicate with one another. herefore, the meeting of two people referred to in the verse above is above he hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the all a meeting of the eyes. And the fact that LORD hath made even both of them. (KJ) those taking part in the meeting described he hearing ear and the seeing eye, in proverb 29:13 are none but the poor he LORD has made both of them. and the deceitful contributes to doubling (NAS) the moral dimension hinted at by the very Urechea care aude şi ochiul care vede, pe fact that God Himself is governing their amândouă le-a zidit Domnul. (Sin) meeting. his could make a mystical or eschatological reading (made in a spiritual key, where all the events of this world are invested with salvation-related meanings) he poor and the deceitful man meet acquire ontic signiicances: what God is together: the LORD lighteneth both their bestowing by bestowing the eyelight to both eyes. (KJ) the poor and the deceitful is the capacity to he poor man and the oppressor have exchange looks with the other, so creating this in common: the eye and bestowing the capacity of sight he LORD gives light to the eyes of both. ultimately means creating a reality. We are (NAS) hereby faced with a typical case where a Săracul şi cel ce asupreşte pe cei săraci corporeal reading, i.e. one paying attention se întâlnesc; cel ce luminează ochii to the corporeal dimension of the text, can amândurora este Domnul. (Sin) enrich the meaning of the verse not only with moral, spiritual and eschatological he creation of the eye in the irst meanings, but also with ontic dimensions;

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Making Sense of the Sapiential Body A reading of the sense organs in Proverbs the verse may invite a reading from the of them into direct contact: perspective of the ontology of the person. Proverb 27:20 provides the ultimate deinition of the eye as a sense organ: they are never satisied. here is an avidity My son, give me thine heart, and let pertaining to the eyes, which is as big as the thine eyes observe my ways. (KJ) depth of hell: Give me your heart, my son, And let your eyes delight in my ways. (NAS) Dă-mi, iule, mie inima ta, şi ochii tăi să Hell and destruction are never full; so simtă plăcere pentru căile mele. (Sin) the eyes of man are never satisied. (KJ) Sheol and Abaddon are never satisied, On the other hand, each of the two is Nor are the eyes of man ever satisied. directly related to God, even though the (NAS) structure of the verse does not allow for Iadul şi adâncul nu se pot sătura, tot aşa a triangular reading (made possible by şi inima omului e de nesăturat. (Sin) the laws of transitivity) but rather, by the imperfect tense of the verb raţa (literally he comparison between the eyes and meaning “will iind pleasure”, “will accept sheol, the abode of the dead, reiterated by favourably”), indicating succesion: if the its partial synonym Abaddon (rooted in heart is given to God, the eyes will also ind the verb avad, meaning to destroy and, pleasure for the ways of God. therefore, hinting at a topos of annihilation he necessity to fence the eyes (as and destruction) opens the way for a rich sense organs) and put them into relation theology of sin. his perspective is no doubt with learning and the ways of wisdom partially lost through the translation made, is the message of many other verses (as, under the justiication of stereometry being for example, Prov 3:21, 7:2, 4:25, 4:20-21). used there, by replacing the eye with the Interestingly, the chain is re-built, but in heart. By comparing the greediness of sight reverse order (to which special signiicance (which can be extrapolated to all the senses) can be attached) in Prov 4:20-21: with hell, one implies that for a good, wise and blessed functioning of the senses, they need to be subordinated to thought My son, attend to my words; incline (which in Hebrew anthropology belongs thine ear unto my sayings! (KJ) to the heart) – which, in its turn, needs Fiule, ia aminte la cuvintele mele, pleacă- to be subordinated to God’s words and ţi urechea la vorbele mele! (Corn) fenced by His law. Man’s inborn greediness Fiul meu, ia aminte la graiurile mele; la relecting his being created in the image of poveţele mele pleacă-ţi urechea ta! (Sin) God and wrongly investing the depth of his structure in the senses is a consequence of him not adequately subordinating the Let them not depart from thine eyes; senses to the heart and the heart to God. keep them in the midst of thine heart. (KJ) his would ultimately be the complete Do not let them depart from your sight; theological chain. Once omitting its irst keep them in the midst of your heart. (NAS) link by replacing the eye with the heart, Nu le scăpa din ochi, păstrează-le the very component deining the sensuous înlăuntrul inimii tale. (Sin) dimension of man is lost. Verse 23:26 shows the relation of the eye herefore, the contact with wisdom is with the heart without even putting the two guarded by the senses, the eyes being one of

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Raluca Boboc the major ways in and out of man’s contact Sinful judgement and evil doings are with the exterior. As such, they occupy a associated with eyes partially closed, vulnerable position between the outer and as described in the Hebrew text, which the inner world, being at the same time increases the plasticity of the image: very powerful and inluential upon other organs. he relation of the eyes with the mouth and especially the relation of both of them with the heart are hinted at in several He shutteth his eyes to devise froward places. For example, a context referring to things: moving his lips he bringeth evil to excess of wine consumption is followed by pass. (KJ) one in which the deviation or perversion He who winks his eyes does so to devise of the eyes also attracts the deviation or perverse things; perversion of the heart, which, in its turn, He who compresses his lips brings evil to becomes a source of perverted words: pass. (NAS) Cel care închide din ochi urzeşte viclenii; cine îşi muşcă buzele a şi săvârşit răul. (Sin) hine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. (KJ) he maximum perversion of the way Your eyes will see strange things, the eye functions is measureable in their And your mind will utter perverse self-referentiality, which can be interpreted things. (NAS) as loss of discernment. Once a deviation Dacă ochii tăi vor privi la femei străine obtains autonomy by interrupting all şi gura ta va grăi lucruri meşteşugite. (Sin) relations with an outer (transcendental) world, by the loss of which there is no Since the perverted words brought to reference point let, there is no stop to the the heart by the works of sight are uttered fall. he eyes, created for man to see his way through the mouth and the mouth is in God’s light, come to show the foolish his not mentioned in the Hebrew text, the way in the light of his own maddness. translations enjoy here again the freedom of choosing, under the justiication of following stereometry, which of the three components (eyes, mouth and heart) to All the ways of a man are clean in his mention in the perversion chain. own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the he eye is mostly related to man’s spirits. (KJV) rational side / judgement (which, in the All the ways of a man are clean in his Hebrew worldview, belongs to the heart). own sight, hus, the look of the emperor who is fair in But the LORD weighs the motives. his judgement will also be right. (NAS) Toate căile omului sunt curate în ochii lui, dar numai Domnul este cel ce cercetează duhul. (Sin) A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his Unfortunately, the reference to the body eyes. (KJ) is not capitalized by all the translations of A king who sits on the throne of justice the verses containing it in Hebrew, the eyes Disperses all evil with his eyes. (NAS) oten being translated as “discernment” etc. Un rege care stă pe scaunul de judecată But the Hebrew way of expressing the loss of deosebeşte cu ochii lui orice faptă rea. discernment through insistence on the eyes (Sin) is far from being insigniicant and should

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Making Sense of the Sapiential Body A reading of the sense organs in Proverbs not be overlooked. Being the irst gate of communication with the outer world, the here is a generation that are pure in eyes may be perceived as representative their own eyes, and yet is not washed from for the whole sensorial dimension of the their ilthiness. (KJ) human person. herefore, perverting the here is a kind who is pure in his own eyes involves losing the mental compass. eyes, his being the full meaning of the text, any Yet is not washed from his ilthiness. translation losing any mention of the body (NAS) and failing to render all the anatomic and Un neam căruia i se pare că e fără physiological terms in the Hebrew original prihană în ochii lui şi care nu e curăţit de implicitly loses meaningful dimensions of necurăţia lui. (Sin) the text. To conclude, the eyes and the sight are essential in the self-knowledge process although their importance is secondary Wisdom is before him that hath to the ear and hearing. he Hebrew understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in perspective upon man’s destiny being the ends of the earth. (KJ) substantiated by the idea of the divine Wisdom is in the presence of the one call, as a irst step, or as ontic initiative by who has understanding, excellence, self-knowledge in the Hebrew But the eyes of a fool are on the ends of worldview is founded in listening to a call, the earth. (NAS) not in self-relection – the cornerstone of Omul priceput are înaintea ochilor lui Greek philosophy. Nevertheless, the eye and înţelepciunea, iar ochii celui nebun se uită sight play a crucial role in keeping a correct la capătul pământului. (Sin) relation with the self throughout the process of answering the call. Man is permanently In the verses making the deinition of the faced with two choices: self-reference on foolish a theme in itself, some stereometry one side, and bondage with wisdom on the cases making heavy use of the eyes are other, his choice being mirrored by the look employed to introduce the arrogant: in his eyes. his is a matter of signiicance, easily overlooked unless assuming a literal reading of the body in the text. here is a generation…, O how loty are In a way, the body and metaphor are two their eyes! And their eyelids are lited up. issues mirroring each other, the relation (KJ) between the tenor and vehicle of a metaphor here is a kind – oh how loty are his being the same as that between the soul and eyes! the body. A metaphor is built on a logical And his eyelids are raised in arrogance. relation or rather of a common denominator (NAS) between its two terms. Considering the Un neam… O, cum ridică ochii lui sus şi stereometries analysed above, this logical cât se înalţă de sus genele lui! (Sin) relation has its starting point in the objective reality of the body – by a component which Even among those with loty eyes, the is referenced to by another function of that most foolish of all is he who sees himself component. he element referred to is still clean and pure. He who, in his haughtiness, an element belonging to the same reality of is self-suicient, cuts himself of God. In the body, the body becoming the common God’s eyes, the dirtiest is he whose only denominator of the analyzed metaphors. point of reference is himself, or who calls Hence the impossibility to leave the body his own dirt purity: out from any discourse about man and a

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Raluca Boboc human being’s actions. images making the substance of a sapiential Before concluding, two brief references text resonates with this theoretic line. to cognitive psychology are to be mentioned Similarly to the impossibility of conceiving in support of the elements of corporeal knowledge without the mediation of matter, hermeneutics contained in my plea for an no wisdom can be acquired without the assumed literal reading of the corporeal mediation of the body. Wisdom acquisition language of the book of Proverbs. Echoing is complete only when involving the human the interest in the body in today’s cultural person as a whole. Wisdom is attained in and philosophical research, a research line the body as well. called embodiment thesis is being born in cognitive psychology and linguistics, following homas Aquinas’ “there is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses” and holding not only that the “process of human cognition is mediated by our physical experiences”, but also that it “views the more abstract target domains of cognition, e.g. those of thought, emotion and language, as based on concrete source domains such as the human body and the conceptualizations of the internal body parts” (Shariian 2008, 7). Moreover, according to American cognitive linguist Raymond W. Gibbs, embodied activities shape human cognition: “People’s subjective, felt experiences of their bodies in action provide part of the fundamental grounding for language and thought” (Gibbs 2006, 9). Practically, Raymond Gibbs too explores a line about which Shariian writes: “in Lakof and Johnson’s framework metaphor and metonimy are not purely immaginative leaps for the purpose of mere aesthetic sense-creation, they are rather more fundamentally rooted in and motivated by the bodily experiences of humans” BIBLIOgRAPHY (Shariian 2008, 8). Speculations can be Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. 1997. Germany: Deutsche Bi- made here on the presence of corporeal belgesellschat. elements in any discourse about the Biblia sau Sfânta Scriptură. 2008. Bucureşti: Editura Institu- surrounding reality, which is due to the fact tului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române. that mental processes are conceptualized by appealing to corporeal realities, so the Septuaginta 4/Tomul I. Psalmii; Odele; Proverbele; Eclezias- tul; Cîntarea Cîntărilor. 2006. Coord. de Cristian Bădiliţă et presence of the body in the language is a al. Iaşi, NEC: Polirom. consequence of the fact that the parts of King James Bible. 2005. 1769 Blayney Edition of the 1611 King the body are automatically recorded, at a James Version of the English Bible, Cambridge University mental level, as sources of access to reality. Press. he invitation I have launched to give an New American Standard Bible. 1977. he Lockman Founda- assumed literal reading to the corporeal tion, 1977.

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*** Lakof, George and Mark Johnson.1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: he Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Cooter, Roger. 2010. “he Turn of the Body: History and the Politics of the Corporeal.” Arbor Ciencia, Pensamiento y Cul- hought. New York: Basic Books. ture, 186: 393–405. Macky, Peter W. 1990. he Centrality of Metaphors to Biblical Davis, Ellen F. 2000. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of hought: a Method for Interpreting the Bible. Lewiston, N.Y., Songs. Louisville: Westminster / John Knox Press. USA: E. Mellen Press. Diemling, Maria and Giuseppe Veltri (eds.). 2009. he Jewish Ricoeur, Paul. 1984. Metafora vie. Bucureşti: Univers. Body: Corporeality, Society, and Identity in the Renaissance and Early Modern Period. Leiden: Brill. Porter, Roy. 2001. “History of the Body Reconsidered.” In New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. P. Burke, 233-360. Dudău, Ana-Maria. 2014. “Metafora – între inerţia tradiţiei Cambridge: Polity Press. şi modernitate.” In Agata Literară Nr. 1/2014. Botoșani: Edi- tura Agata. Shariian, Farzad et al. (eds.). 2008. Culture, Body, and Lan- Gibbs, Raymond W. 2006. Embodiment and Cognitive Sci- guage Conceptualizations of Internal Body Organs Across Cul- ence. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. tures and Languages. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Lakof, George and Mark Johnson.1980. Metaphors We Live Wolf, Hans Walter. 1974. Anthropology of the Old Testament. By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

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Title: Knowledge Through Gendered Body-Centered Surveillance

Author: Laura Grünberg

How to cite this article: Grünberg, Laura. 2015. Knowledge Through Gendered Body-Centered Surveillance.

Martor 20: 141-153. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Knowledge Through Gendered Body-Centered Surveillance

Laura Grünberg Associate Professor, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS

he article asserts an obvious fact: ubiquitous, embodied gendered surveillance has surveillance, gender, embodiment, increasingly become woven into the fabric of our everyday life. As part of our daily body projects, biotechnologies, femi- existence, it afects – explicitly or implicitly – all the areas of our gendered and nism embodied experiences, but also of our theoretical and critical thinking pertaining to our societies. Ingredients about complex surveillance realities should be added to many areas of theoretical relections on the body as more and more of ”the dominant concerns and anxieties of society tend to be translated into disturbed images of the body” (Turner, 2008, 32).

...... from supervisors to the supervised, from Context: Surveillance Society surveyors to the surveyed (Bauman 2012). he post 9/11 society is one that oday we live in a surveillance society requires permanent protection, attentive where we are public by default. monitoring, systematic proiling, and TAlmost nothing is private any more. continuous care. Advances in technology One’s identity and credit cards gives a lot and a general atmosphere of insecurity of information about one. Spectacular have stimulated a world of ubiquitous biological and behavioral technologies can surveillance (Andrejevic 2012). We are recognize one based on one’s movements, witnessing an invasion of watching, being consumer tastes or on the touch dynamics watched, monitored, sorted, and classiied as one types on the computer or prints a for various purposes. To think in terms document. Satellites can track one’s position of a surveillance society means to relect anywhere on this planet. Sophisticated especially on the sophisticated technologies cameras and medical devices are able to look that allowed the birth of a world of inside one’s body, predict future diseases or “all seeing”, “a world of no strangers” improve present capabilities. It is obvious (Giddens 1990) in which the processes of that an unprecedented multitude of personal disassembling and re-assembling never- data is gathered today from all of us. For ending information about events and various reasons, people and populations are individuals are complex and screening and under constant scrutiny (Lyon 2003). With targeting those at risk and those posing our own support, the smallest details of our risks for others are commonplace practices. lives are tracked and traced more closely Beyond various theories developed in than ever before. Today’s world, as Bauman the area of Surveillance Studies, we all have concludes, is one in which everything some ideas about what surveillance society moves from enforcement to temptation and looks like due to our basic general culture. seduction, from normative regulation to We have seen movies such as Inception (2010, PR, from policing to the arousal of desire, Christopher Nolan), Erasing David (2009,

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David Bond), he Butterly Efect (2004, forms of surveillance. Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber), Brides of Some forms of technological and non- Allah (2008, Natalie Assouline), Minority technological surveillance have existed for a Report (2002, Steven Spielberg), he Matrix long time. he ancient acts of eavesdropping, (1999, Andy Wachowski), Pillow Book looking in the mirror, simple observation, (1996, Peter Greenaway) or Gattacca (1997, listening, use of human detectives and Andrew Niccol). We have all read he undercover activities and “voyeurism” have Castle (F. Kaka), Animal Farm (G. Orwell) been for a long time part of human behavior. or he Handmaid’s Tale (M. Atwood). It Jesus, Allah or Mahomet are in fact all is improbable also not to be aware of the major “surveillants” of human behavior. WikiLeaks phenomenon and the global Chastity bells, identity cards, ingerprints, secrets that have been made public by the science of craniology or phrenology, controversial persons such as Solange or but also the more recent manifestations Snowden or the recent diplomatic disputes of surveillance such as aesthetic surgeries, over mobile interceptions among Germany, pills industry, cryogenics, demographic the E.U. and the USA. We are, in our daily politics, monitoring movements through lives, curious, excited, scared (or both) when satellites or the new modern means of thinking about the many technological surveillance such as biometrics, voice possibilities that exist in order to be traced recognition, DNA analysis, genetic testing – wherever we are, to be seen and identiied all these (and many others not mentioned) wherever we hide, to be public by default. constitute a taxonomy of surveillance that is Many deinitions of the term “sur- continuously enriching. veillance” coexist. From neutral, benign New surveillance technologies have ones (surveillance considered as a transcended natural barriers (such as fundamental aspect of society) to negative distance, time and darkness) or built ones (pointing mainly to the repressive obstacles (such as walls). We now have character of surveillance processes) or scanning of data replacing patrolling the to more positive ones, talking about frontiers – so, from material forms of surveillance as progress, democratization surveillance we have moved to immaterial of information, accessibility in terms of forms of monitoring. Nowadays, neuro- healing, protecting, preventing, taking marketing, social media networks (e.g. care and in-depth research. Basically, Facebook, Foursquare), Tattoo ID system, “surveillance” means any collection and True Media Technologies (system for systematic processing of personal data, facial recognition used in advertising), whether identiiable or not, for the purposes Next Generation Identiication (among the of inluencing or managing those whose biggest data banks for corporal features), data has been gathered (Lyon 2001). More Server in the Sky (global exchange of recently, “surveillance” is approached biometric information on terrorists), in terms of knowledge, information and EURODAC (a program for comparing protection against threats (Ball 2002). refugees’ ingerprints) are realities of the 1) The following brief As operationalized nowadays, sur- world we live in. historical summary takes as reference veillance is more concerned with activities Although surveillance is an old point Wood’s article that are possible due to computer power and practice, the interest in analyzing sur- (Wood 2009) and also 1 Grünberg’s (Grünberg biotechnologies. But there is a long history veillance processes is quite recent . Over 2013). of surveillance before the technological time, attention has moved from public revolution of the 20th century. A brief tour surveillance to private surveillance, back in history may easily disclose various to everyday surveillance and to self- mechanisms such as discourses, institutions surveillance. Today’s times are also times and technologies that have lead to various of contestation over the cultural meanings

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Knowledge Through Gendered Body-Centered Surveillance of surveillance: is it control, repression, panopticon and the synopticon efects, but empowerment and / or pleasure? It is also also the control of everybody by everybody. a period of an increased interest in the It is what we observe in the global networks biometric forms of surveillance and their of communication where government consequences on the redeinitions of the agents constantly capture huge amounts human – non-human relations in terms of of messages and millions of people seek body, identity and action. information about their idols, seeing them here is a series of theoretical metaphors live through Google Earth, Google Maps, that guide the relections and the critical Facebook or MySpace. thinking on the theme. Much of the he inspirational dimension of the post- theoretical energy has been consumed panopticon era does not stop here. David around engagement with, modiication or Lyon talks of post-panopticon, a label he rejection of its most famous concept – the attributes to Boyne (Boyne 2000). he basic panopticon. he metaphor refers to the idea considers post-panopticon signals image of the prison where a few could see all as a shit from the Foucauldian society others, the conscious and permanent state of discipline to a society of control where of being watched, the fact that discipline fabrication of social life is governed by global and punishment becomes internalized relations in which surveillance practices when surveillance is a constant possibility spread through geographic mobility, (Foucault 2005). economic production and consumption. Complementing the panopticon model Modern and evolving technology has or even paralleling it in importance is the given rise to new forms of surveillance that synopticon model (Mathiensen 1997), a are also in need of suitable labelling. For reversed model whereby many watch the example, Mark Poster sees our wired world few. It indicates a Big Brother society, with as a world that uses its databases to organize media playing a vital role in fostering the panoptic information as a superpanopticon “viewer society” and making surveillance – a system of surveillance without walls, a highly visible and shared public cultural windows, towers, or guards, where people phenomenon. It is a society where various with camera phones respond to events by kinds of reality shows are fashionable, a photographing and texting live information society where one is asked to report suspect across communication networks (Poster bags on airports or to send pictures taken 1990). It is a world where the public is under with individual cameras in view of helping scrutiny by the public, where CCTV cameras police solve terrorist cases or airplanes are no longer the only form of surveillance accidents. and control, where one may speak in 2) Term attributed to Casco James. See Haw, terms of democratization of the gaze. Also Alex. “CCTV London: Another concept proposed, as a called the participatory panopticon2, this Internment, Entertain- ment and Other Opti- challenge to the panopticon view, is that type of surveillance, due to technological cal Fortifications.” AA of omniopticon. Authors such as Joyce Files 52 52 (2005): developments, is considered a whole new 55-61. take over the Foucauldian notion of form of surveillance. governmentality and challenges his notion Another interesting theoretical proposal of Panopticism, considering that neo- is the concept of the oligopticon – with liberal governmentality is more adequately reference to the situation in which the conceptualized by an omniopticon which observer has only a limited view. he means – the many surveilling the many absolute gaze from the panopticon is (Joyce 2005). By reversing the panopticon replaced with a more democratic, but also gaze, omniopticon refers to situations vulnerable gaze within the oligopticon. when monitoring becomes operating inside Instead of omniscience, we have the a framework that incorporates both the ability to see a little bit of a lot of things.

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he oligopticon is a subtle construction ...... that allows comprehensive observation within a narrow framework (Latour The Embodied Dimension of Surveillance 2005). Surveillance within the oligopticon vision provides a post-modern perspective “he body should be viewed as in the process linked closely with the ideas of localizing of becoming, as a project which should be the global, of situated surveillance – one worked at and accomplished as part of an that combines the concept of “situated individual’s self-identity.” (Chris Shilling knowledge” of feminist theoretician Donna 2002) Haraway (1991) and Latour’s oligopticon. Beyond the theoretical models briely Another important approach is described above, it is indispensable to rizomatic surveillance. Pointing to the understand that all these practices of work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari knowledge through surveillance represent (Deleuze&Guattari 1980), it is a metaphor body-centered surveillance practices. that takes as visual reference the notion In fact, surveillance means embodied of “rhizome” – plants which grow on a surveillance, given that human experience horizontal interconnected root system with is fundamentally embodied and our bulbs as nodal points. It is a perspective embodied selves are the ones under that highlights the active transmitted continuous monitoring. We are living arrangements of people, technologies and in a body-centered-somatic surveillance organizations that become deeply connected society. Genetic engineering, technological in contrast to the static, unidirectional transplants, modern medical devices have panopticon metaphor. Within this frame of gradually abolished the distinction between thinking, Haggerty and Errisson talk about “inside” and “outside” of our bodies, made surveillant assemblage, referring to ways in us able to control our blood pressure, levels which many information systems people of insulin or serotonin, to change our are exposed to translate, in fact, bodies into moods with anti-depressive medication, to abstract data which are then re-assembled (ex)change organs, to reproduce ourselves as decontextualized “data doubles” outside our bodies (external uterus), to upon which respective organizations act read our DNA and to acquire even more (Haggerty and Errison 2000). data about our genetic predispositions

3) “Sousveillance” he surveillance typology briely (Grűnberg 2010). All these recent available is a term coined by mentioned above could easily be extended. medical and technological extravagances Steve Mann in “Sousveillance. We may very well consider other forms profoundly change the relationship we have Wearable Computing of surveillance such as: self-surveillance, with our own body. In today’s risk society and Citizen 3 “Undersight”, sousveillance / reverse surveillance (e.g. (Beck 1982), individuals invest more and H+ Magazine, published on July 10, taking photo of a policeman watching more energy in seeing their bodies as a place 2009. you) or McVeillance – with reference to the where they can exercise individual control 4) Term introduced monopoly on surveillance. We may relect as means of building their individual and in Roger Clarke in also on our public exposure in terms of collective identity. hus, the body becomes 1998 in “International Technologies and dataveillance4, lateral surveillance (with an entity on which one may intervene, being Dataveillance, Communications reference to the seduction of the market, perceived not only as a biological entity under of the ACM, vol.31, to advertisement manipulation), counter construction, but one at the border between 498-512. surveillance or deductive surveillance etc. nature and technology, open to endless Whatever approach we take in looking at construction and reconstruction. he surveillance, the realities of everyday life body is the one that is watched, controlled, are illed with the consequences of watching monitored, examined, classiied, protected, and being watched at all times. saved etc. Our lesh and blood bodies have

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Knowledge Through Gendered Body-Centered Surveillance nowhere to hide anymore and reveal (with follow-up, we experiment on it. or without our consent) intimate, in-depth Turner, among other theoreticians of the details on who we are, on our intentions to body, is right when he analyses the somatic purchase or smell preferences, on the state societies of today and airms that every of our health or our income, on our exact society had, in time, responsibilities in location at any moment in time. Pervasive order to ensure the government of the “4 Rs” monitoring of our bodies makes our past, of the body: the reproduction of bodies in present and future an open book available time, the regulation of bodies in space, the to many people. restraint of internal desire and the external Ater 9/11, the whole world was able representation of the body (Turner 2008). to see pictures and live broadcastings of Social norms act as invisible boundaries human bodies falling down from the New on the expressive capacities of our bodies. York Towers minutes ater the terrorist he principles of (post)panopticism have attacks. Our virtual lives surpass and even iniltrated virtually all aspects of modern supersede our of-line lives in ways we have life, facilitating the disciplining of bodies never imagined and confront us with new to be individualized, compliant and possibilities of existing (living?) for ever productive. on the internet world and no longer having Increasingly invasive technological “the right to be forgotten”. Due to social monitoring the interventions upon body media, we are able and willing to share functions has created bodies that are pictures, memories and experiences. Such informatised and controlled. Our physical pieces of information about our gender- bodies have somehow become marginalized, embodied selves will survive our physical shadowed by what some specialists call “a disappearance. We also want to have power comprehensive data body” that not only to decide even on our death. We not only follows us, but oten precedes us. Before we freeze parts of our bodies, but we also / our bodies arrive to a certain destination, freeze our entire bodies and store them due to our passports, travel tickets, money for the future (cryogenics) and euthanasia cards etc., our identity is already known by is a practice accepted in more and more “the Big Brother”, because of our passports, countries. travel tickets, bank cards etc. Before we he unparalleled technological assault arrive somewhere, we have already been on the body through the sophisticated recognized, measured, classiied, sorted usage of biometrics and nanotechnologies and evaluated as good or bad citizens. undoubtedly represents a new ontology of What our data body says about us seems to the body in the framework of which the be more real than what we may say about body is a trustful provider of more and ourselves. As noticed in many studies, more information (the body as lesh-made we are witnessing a sort of triumph of information – Van der Ploeg 2000). he representation over being! embodied information thus obtained some In the context of the relexive project how deceives the body as it produces more of self-identity (Giddens 1991), the body knowledge about it and less knowledge for goes beyond the dualism of materiality it. We utilize more and more science and – representation. he body is not just a technology in order to identify the speciic mere object, as it becomes an event. Within body, the dangerous body, the sick body, the conditions of late modernity, the body, once ugly body, the abnormal body, the strange a given aspect of nature, turns into a project body, the non-European body, features increasingly open to human intervention, of populations of bodies etc. By doing colonized and subjected to constant so, we suspect, eliminate, control, repair, revisions. he boundary between what is interrogate, manipulate the body and, as a given and what is open to choice are more

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Laura Grünberg and more blurred. hat means that the self ...... can be freed from bodily determination. hrough the development of technologies women’s Bodies under Surveillance. and techniques such as genetic engineering, The gender Dimension of Surveillance reproductive technologies, plastic surgery, health and diet regimes, bodies not only “he bodies come in genders.” (J. Butler) become objects for human management and reconiguration, but are increasingly he unprecedented assault on the central to one’s identity. Like other aspects body in terms of supervision, recognition, of identity, the body is now more and more authentication, modiication, improvement, the responsibility of the individual who may control, manipulation, is not a gender consciously and actively restructure his / neutral one. he next step we utterly need her bodily external and internal content. to make in order to better comprehend the he body is no more entirely natural as it complex phenomenon of surveillance is becomes profoundly social and cultural. to analyze it not only from an embodied hrough the pursuit of speciic body regimes perspective, but also to genderize these chosen from a diverse range of lifestyle relections. he permanent monitoring options, the “body” changes fundamentally of the body is an activity marked by over time. he air we breathe, the pills we gendered symbolism, signiicances and take, the sports we choose to practice – all consequences. Bodies are gendered spaces these aspects do transform our natural and should be perceived as such. hey bodies. Even more so today, in the consumer are carriers of fundamental information culture in which we live, this link between about sex, gender, but also about ethnicity, the self, the body and image is a central class, nationality, age etc. hey transmit feature as our experiences of the self. messages about social, cultural, religious, As for the future, there are many moral, aesthetic (gender) norms. hey are pertinent questions for all of us to relect (technologically) manipulated to reproduce upon. What will the future look like from gender and gender roles. hey illustrate this perspective of making our embodied the power relations in certain societies at selves more and more public and having the certain times in history. Gender norms technological devices needed to master our exert all kinds of pressures on the female / bodies and the bodies of others? It may be male bodies in order to conform to speciied the case that the way our bodies will look in shapes, social or political environments and the near future will depend more and more aesthetics. In this sense, it becomes obvious on our own choice. As technology allows that surveillance is gendered. We treat, these days the so-called evolution by design- feed, starve, surgically alter, display, move, so much disputed nowadays, but already in conceal, care for, damage, control, monitor, testing – we will be able to adjust, improve, evaluate and ignore our bodies in patterned intervene into our “bodies to be” and make ways that are gendered and sexualized. them be as close as possible to our desires. he micro and macro practices of We will design in laboratories the shape of gendered surveillance are essential in the our ears or noses and make such organs social construction of social institutions grow inside various animals (such as mice). such as youth, motherhood, beauty, We will choose the height or the IQ of our power, sexuality, reputation etc. We have ofspring, we will design / create humans adorned, constrained, improved, punished close to our normative aspirations and and controlled our bodies for a very long standards of beauty, health and intelligence. time. Women’s bodies in particular have We will arrogantly experience the super- conformed over time to various cultural, power feelings of taking “God’s” place! social norms, being, as Foucault and, later

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Susan Bordo, says, docile bodies, subjected, replace or improve what is damaged in our used, transformed by the society of discipline bodies. Procreation without sexuality is also (Foucault 2005). Even before the 15th and something already possible. We as women 16th centuries, when bodies in general are able to become pregnant as virgins – were considered sacred and intangible (for without having sex in order to procreate. example, dissections were not yet practiced Due to ovule-freezing technologies, we being forbidden and punished), humans are able to postpone motherhood and exercised control over their bodies in general concentrate on our careers. Apple and and over women’s body in particular. A Facebook are among the irst multinational cultural ixation on female virginity, on companies that pay for their female women wearing high heels or on female employees who decide to freeze their ovules thinness is not only proof of an ongoing for later pregnancy as part of what they obsession with beauty, but of an obsession consider to be good practice in supporting with female obedience (Wolf 2002). work-life balance. Gradually, over time, the agentic When speaking about surveillance character of our gendered and embodied of women’s bodies one important area bodies became more and more visible of relection is what could be generically and accepted. Today, as mentioned above, called ideological surveillance. he Islamic arrogantly, we have taken control over our veil in the Islamic world, the Holocaust, gendered bodies as we have never done the pro-natalist policies in totalitarian before. Due to biological and behavioral Romania (with over 100.000 dead women biometric technologies, we dare to look between 1966-1989 due to illegal / unsafe for life without aging and perennial youth abortions), demographic policies in China (and beauty), spending lots of money (bringing an important deicit of girls due on miraculous creams or sophisticated to selective abortion policies that have aesthetic surgeries. Centuries ago, women been implemented for a long period of would bathe in virgin blood. Today, women time), pornography on internet, the “clean and men alike pay hundreds of Euros / unclean body” – as approached in many on rejuvenation (blood rejuvenation and religions, female genital mutilation, honor even DNA rejuvenation), hydration, and killings (still in place in countries such as making wrinkles disappear. he igures Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey) or force- are impressive. More than 15 million feeding practices (still in place in some people worldwide underwent cosmetic countries such as Mauritania) are just some surgery in 2013 – the majority was Asian examples of the direct and subtle ways 5 women . Breast augmentation, liposuction, in which women’s bodies have been and 5) Data from the rhinoplasty, laser skin rejuvenation, eyelid continue to be ideologically controlled, of International Society of Aesthetic Plastic surgery, injection with growth hormones the pervasive ways in which their bodies are Surgery (ISAPS), 2013, available at www. to reverse the aging process (vs. sleeping, under permanent control and manipulation isaps.org/news/isaps- drinking or taking baths in virgin blood as in conformity with various religious, global-statistics. was the case with privileged women some economic, political or cultural norms. centuries ago!). We are also in search of life without pain or disease, inventing and Medical surveillance (of course oten consuming drugs for almost everything closely linked with ideological control) (antibiotics, energy drinks, pain killers, is another major ield of relection with antidepressants and antioxidants) in reference to what Foucault calls the clinical order to slow down the aging processes, to gaze, the permanent surveillance and eliminate pain, to ix health problems and specialized knowledge afecting women’s to be happy. We pay (legally or illegally) bodies (Foucault 2005). Due to disciplinary for organs for various transplants to cure, technologies, we have witnessed, for

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Laura Grünberg example, over time a total transformation wait until ater retirement to give birth; a of major gendered bodily experiences such surrogate mother may give birth to her own as childbearing, childbirth, maternity nephew; a single infant could have more or sexuality-experiences that are lived than two parents; an infant could have exclusively by women. Re-location of parents who might die whilst the child is childbirth from home to hospitals that has still not born; a child might not resemble taken place in the last few decades means, in her mother / father at all (due to cosmetic fact, extending the obstetric gaze. Modern surgeries). Artiicial insemination raises the pregnancy and maternity are nowadays issue of the rights of the sperm donor or the more of public experiences, as pregnant child’s right to know his or her parentage. women are much more visible on streets Postponing maternity by freezing ovules is showing their pregnant bodies in public, more of a global business as it provides real breastfeeding in public spaces, wearing support for balancing life-work policies. In- clingy, molded clothes instead of large ones vitro fertilization comes with the problems to disguise pregnancy, and sharing with of the rights of the surrogate mother who everybody (partners, families, real and carries the fetus. We can easily imagine virtual friends) sophisticated photos of their also the ethical implications of a donor egg unborn children. Sexuality, on the other and a donor sperm being implanted into hand, has also beneitted from surveillance a surrogate mother (who is the biological technologies, becoming increasingly subject mother?). Cloning also means that the to enhancement technologies via vaginal child has no parents, so the irst simple tightening, labia reduction etc. question for relection is whether he / she a Due to available medical technologies, product or a human being. Designer babies a total new medical vocabulary has been / test-tube babies (the irst one was Louise created in the ield of medicine. Sometimes Brown back in 1978) make us wonder who it is close to science-iction for the public really sets the standards for the “perfect at large: artiicial insemination, artiicial human being”? he gender reassignment wombs, human cloning, freezing of egg and surgery to “ix the problem” of an intersex sperm, embryo transfer, genetic engineering child that is born means deciding whether (manipulating genes in an organism), to call a child a boy or a girl, using social hormone for fertility treatment, in-vitro deinitions of the essential components of fertilization (the egg is fertilized outside the gender, consequently using measurement woman’s body), pre-implantation genetic techniques to determine medically diagnosis (PGD) – a test on embryos for acceptable penis or clitoris (methods that genetic disorders prior to implantation in the Fausto Sterlin deines as “phallo-metrics” uterus and the potential possibility for sex techniques) (Fausto-Sterlin 2000). Genetical selection and in general for designed babies. discrimination (therapeutic abortion ater As consequence of the existence of such prenatal scanning) puts serious health new artiicial tools for bodily surveillance, problems and indicates the existence there are complex medical practices of discrimination issues (who-in terms confronting our daily lives: prenatal testing, of class, education, wealth, ethnicity, privatization of genes, storage of genetic geographical location etc. – has, in fact, data in bio banks, preventive abortion, access to such tests?). And last, but not least, elective abortion, suspended maternity, such advanced medical technologies make surrogate mothers, virgin mothers, casual it possible nowadays to take the genes of uterus, sperm traic etc. someone no longer alive and create a child, Of course all these new biotechnological thus enabling planned orphanhood – a opportunities and results have brought life model that comes with serious ethical serious ethical implications. A woman could dilemmas.

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he ’70s feminism provided a vocal and connected with the social and cultural source of criticism of the diferent types construction of femininity. Today, ater of surveillance, including ideological and decades of relection and discoveries, the medical surveillance, available on the motto “we are born and became women market. As consumers of medical services, / and men” seems more viable. If, at the many women were dissatisied with beginning, for many feminists the body was what they considered to be a patriarchal, more of a passive medium through which paternalistic and sexist profession. Women normative/oppressive cultural norms of asserted their right to exercise control over femininity (such as diet, make up, dress their own bodies and voiced their frustration etc.) were expressed, today, for the majority over the encroaching medicalization, of feminists, women are not simply passive along with surveillance, of normal events victims of such normative constructions in women’s lives, including childbirth of femininity, but active producers of their and menopause, and the attitudes of male cultural bodies through their pursuit of doctors towards such issues as abortion continually shiting ideals. he agentic and birth control. hey also criticized the nature of women in constructing and disparity between the needs and concerns of deconstructing their bodies is today, in the 6) See, for example, women and the attitudes and approaches of feminist thinking, more of a postulate. Ann Oakley. 1990. 6 Essays on Women, the medical profession . hey also protested Today we analyze gender discrimination Medicine and Health against various ideological intrusions in from an embodied, but also intersectional 1990. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University their lives – their right to abortion, their perspective-looking at the intersections of Press. right to uncover themselves if they want to, embodied gender with other major social their right to bike or drive a car, their right categories such as class, ethnicity, age, sexual over their bodies. orientation. he material, biological body Feminists were initially more interested has been (re)introduced in the discussions in researching the social and cultural in view of ofering a more political constructions of gender, not paying much dimension to the debates dealing with attention to the biological body. his was issues of pornography, sexuality, violence the efect of the fact that in much of history, and, of course, (medical) surveillance. To the body has been conceptualized as simply name just a few of the important feminist one biological object among others. Women thinkers focusing on the gendered bodies, were considered to be more biological, Judith Butler, well-known for her concepts more corporeal, and more natural than of performativity of the body – in the sense men. With the publication of he Second of a stylized repetition of acts, an imitation Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, the feminist or miming of the dominant conventions of theory on the relation between the body embodied gender – and corporeal politics and the self took center stage, together with (Butler 1992); Elisabeth Grosz talks about a recognition of the fact that “to be present volatile bodies as part of corporeal feminism in the world implies strictly that there exists where sensuality is socially constructed a body which is at once a material thing (Grosz 1994); Rosalyn Diprose looks at in the world and a point of view towards gendered surveilled bodies in terms of the world” (Beauvoir 2006, 32). Feminist corporeal generosity of the women’s bodies theorists, along with critical race theorists (Diprose 2002) and Susan Bordo analyzes and theorists of disability, are the ones that women’s body as texts of femininity (Bordo have ensured that attention to the body 1993). In line with the general embodiment plays a central role in social and political of sociological thinking, such feminists thought. (and many others) invested explicitly or In the beginning, women’s bodies had implicitly intellectual eforts with a view to to be extracted / detached from biology better understand the gender dimension of

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surveillance as it manifests itself in all areas manipulating data about embodied and of life and its signiicance for women. gendered knowledge. Actually, research experiences are instruments of control, power, naming, classifying, rating etc. As ...... research has been for a long time made from a masculine perspective, ignoring women gendering the Reflection on Embodied from research samples or taking masculinity Surveillance. Themes for Thought as the norm, research results have been for a long time gender-biased. he way research Why is there more progress in the area of deals with gender stereotypes, the way treating erectile dysfunctions of the body research constructs sex, gender, sexuality, (by inventing and a wide scale usage of bodies etc. obviously inluences the results, Viagra) and not in the area of safe masculine knowledge, practices and policies. From contraception? Why are the “looks” of the Freud, who deined the female body as female bodies (shape, size, dimensions) more “lacking of / envy of”, to the fundamental important, being under permanent social cultural switch from the one-sex story (with and cultural supervision, in comparison the woman as an imperfect story / version with the appearance of male bodies? Does of the man, the vagina seen as an inferior having access, as women, to speciic body penis and ovaries as testicles) to the two- experiences (such as pregnancy, giving sex story that became popular, for various birth, breastfeeding), to a sort of type of reasons, around the 18th century (with 7) For details, see 7 Laquer, Thomas. knowledge closer to nature, give women woman as the opposite of man ), all theories 1990. Making Sex: an epistemic privilege of knowledge in and researches have framed and organized Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. science, art, literature? Is women’s way of knowledge about gender in speciic ways. LA: Harvard University Press. viewing the world as women a better way Looking at research as a surveillance or just a diferent way from men’s? Why, in institution, we may not also only ask today’s abundant Western society, do we as ourselves why there is more progress in the women do our best to be skinny and are so area of the treatment of masculine sexual encouraged by media industries to do so? dysfunctions (Viagra) than in masculine What will reproduction (and, consequently, safe contraception, but we may better frame human relations and families) will look like possible answers to such social realities. We in the next 50 years? may also relect on the demographic data he list of gender-sensitive questions recorded and stored for analysis and used linked to the pervasive surveillance society not only to survey existing populations, we live in may continue. What this article but to support predictions of trends and asserts is, in fact, obvious: ubiquitous future developments, to monitor the future embodied gendered surveillance has before it even happens. his type of research increasingly become woven into the fabric has, undoubtedly, its beneits – helping, for of everyday life. Being part of our daily example, to control the spread of disease or existence, it touches explicitly or implicitly to better understand demographic trends all areas of our gendered and embodied connected with mobility, migration or birth experiences, but also of our theoretical control policies –, but it also brings serious critical thinking about our societies. social, economic and moral concerns. Ingredients about surveillance need to Another issue for further gender- be added to many areas of theoretical sensitive relection is linked to neoliberal relections. policies as embodied gendered surveillance Research itself is a form of surveillance as policies: what are the corporeal efects for it means collecting, organizing, analyzing, (women’s) bodies in terms of over-work, lack controlling, checking, interpreting and of work-life balance, insecurity, stress, fear

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Knowledge Through Gendered Body-Centered Surveillance of unemployment, cultural pressure for the bodies, our lives and the lives of others. perfect body etc.? How do class, ethnicity When new drugs are invented, they are and gender structure these corporeal irst tested on animals and then on the poor experiences and what are the gendered population (as was the case with testing embodied consequences of the consumer the contraceptive pills!). New surveillance neoliberal society of today? technologies enforce or oten create new Surveillance and violence against gaps between the poor and the rich or women could (and should) be an important between people of diferent genders, classes, subject for additional gender-sensitive ethnicities, level of education, geographical analysis. Women as a class are surveilled location etc. From this perspective, arguing and monitored, but individual women are for a feminist reevaluation of the body frequently beyond the gaze of justice and means understanding better surveillance rights. We are more and more loaded in as creating powerful social norms, crucial data and knowledge (about violence), but, to the maintenance of existing power despite this mass of knowledge, freedom structures, including patriarchy, race, from punishment for violence against consumerism and the media. It means women / women’s bodies continues. he being aware of various social inequalities unresponsive eye of the CCTV can only created by surveillance technologies and observe and record, but it cannot stop also of their gendered dimensions. violence. So what is the human result of he list of “themes for thought” is the permanent observing and recording of an open list. here are crucial questions violence against women? Is it working to addressing our present lives, but also our end violence? How could surveillance really future. How will our gendered embodied help, be “surveillance for” and not only lives be and look like in the all-pervasive “surveillance of”? somatic surveillance society? What kind he role of the media in the embodied of (women’s) bodies will there be in the gendered surveillance is also of importance future? Will we be more and more cyborgs and deserves closer attention. Media (Haraway 1991) instead of humans? Will voyeurism, the way media controls gender our sex or gender still really matter in the stereotypes, how, for example, dietary and future? Will we continue investing in doing exercise advice is self-empowerment or how gender or will we start to undo gender? containment practices produce perverse How far will surveillance instruments and efects such as anorexia or bulimia – all policies continue to penetrate our gendered these issues (and many others) are of great bodies and with what ethical and moral importance for our gendered embodied consequences? Will our minds and bodies existences. be totally public by default? What will be Last, but not least, problems dealing private in our bodies, in our lives anymore? with gender, surveillance and social in- We don’t know yet. But we do know that equalities are of particular signiicance. what we know and how we know it is due In today’s post-panopticon world, we have to our gendered bodies. What we do know diferentiated / unequal access to many of the is that, as Margaret Atwood put it, “in the body projects proposed by the consumerist end, we all become stories”. Stories told by and technologized world. Not all of us have our surveilled and self-surveilled gendered access to high quality medical interventions bodies! hen, what we surely need is greater, to ix our bodies. Not all of us have access more vigilant, interdisciplinary, systematic, to the latest generation of pills and medical critical, responsible and active listening to treatments able to cure our bodies. Only the multitude of stories told by our gendered some of us may beneit from itness, healthy lesh and boned bodies in this world of food or prenatal testing to improve our omnipresent surveillance.

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Title: Y a-t-il un corps du péché et de la maladie? La Paresse et la Peste dans l’iconographie

religieuse roumaine (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles)

Author: Cristina Bogdan

How to cite this article: Bogdan, Cristina. 2015. Y a-t-il un corps du péché et de la maladie? La Paresse et la

Peste dans l’iconographie religieuse roumaine XVIIIe-XIXe siècles. Martor 20: 155-170. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Y a-t-il un corps du péché et de la maladie? La Paresse et la Peste dans l’iconographie religieuse roumaine (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles)

Cristina Bogdan Chargée de cours à la Faculté des Lettres (Université de Bucarest) et directrice du Département des Sciences de la Communication de la Faculté des Lettres

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS

L’étude se propose d’analyser l’image de la Paresse et de la Peste dans le discours iconographie religieuse, corps des iconographique de l’espace roumain des XVIIIe-XIXe siècles. Le péché capital calamités, églises de bois, icônes sur et la maladie par excellence de l’imaginaire collectif roumain acquièrent des verre, la Paresse, la Peste corps dans la décoration de certaines églises en bois du nord de la Transylva- nie. Les peintres itinérants transportent parfois d’un édiice à l’autre, proposant des variations sur le même thème. La personniication de la Peste apparaît aussi sur d’autres supports (icônes sur verre de Transylvanie, dessins sur les pages des manuscrits contenant la Vie et l’Hymne acathiste de Saint Charalampe, le protecteur contre l’implacable maladie).À l’aide des enquêtes sur le terrain, qui ont conduit à la construction d’un corpus d’images, nous proposons une analyse d’anthropologie historique, ain de surprendre les points de contact et de divergence dans la iguration des deux entités négatives. Placés sous le signe du féminin (imposé par l’appartenance des deux mots qui désignent la Paresse et la Peste en roumain à ce genre), les personnages exhibent sous les regards des contemporains leurs contours détériorés par le temps et souvent obnubilés par la perte du code de lecture visuelle.

...... de l’être humain de fabriquer des images Images et corps (apparue en même temps que les premières formes de culture (Ariès 1983, 7), comme ous vivons dans un temps où une tentative de transférer la nature sur des les images ont été accusées supports qui la rendent permanente et qui la Nd’avoir provoqué une crise de re-sémantisent), le pousse aujourd’hui aussi la représentation, d’être devenues, selon à penser le monde comme un labyrinthe de l’expression de Jean Baudrillard, les miroirs où tout ce qui existe, et surtout le meurtrières du réel (Baudrillard 1976; sujet pensant, se relète. Baudrillard 1981). La prolifération presque La relation de l’être humain avec la sans limites des images et l’importance mort (une réalité perceptible au niveau de plus en plus accrue qu’on leur a prêtée visuel seulement par l’intermédiaire de pendant les dernières décennies ont conduit ses conséquences, les corps des défunts) a à une sorte de réaction de sursaturation: contribué à l’émergence et à l’évolution de ce l’œil est fatigué, le spectateur se sent désarmé que Philippe Ariès nomme « le ilm continu devant ce spectacle des images qui pollue des cultures historiques » (Ariès 1983, 7). constamment son univers et qu’il ne peut Il y a là un jeu pertinent, surpris par Régis plus administrer, car il n’est plus à même Debray, entre « la décomposition de la mort » de le dominer mentalement. L’habitude et « la recomposition par l’image » (Debray

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1992, 38), un geste substitutif nécessaire religieux de l’espace roumain aux XVIIIe- pour la création et la perpétuation du lux XIXe siècles? Quelle serait l’explication du de la mémoire. désir d’introduire dans l’aire visuelle des La présence de l’image implique l’ap- gens de la période en question les visages, parition d’un corps-récepteur, mais aussi plus ou moins terriiants, des désastres? d’un médium-support qui la véhicule. La Comment les spectateurs des siècles passés liaison entre l’image et le corps suppose un ont-ils « lu » ce genre de représentations double conditionnement: le corps constitue et comment le faisons-nous aujourd’hui l’instrument par lequel l’image est iltrée (quand les codes de lecture ont été oubliés, et relétée (dans une expérience sensorielle altérés ou souvent remplacés)? Et comment qui approche l’œil du toucher, le visible les images (celles qui ont été conservées) du tangible – Didi-Huberman 1992, 11; nous regardent-elles, à travers toutes les 1) Nous ferons Merleau-Ponty 1964, 177), devenant, à couches temporelles qui nous séparent du référence à une suite son tour, un objet qui peu être inséré dans moment de leur apparition et à travers le d’églises en bois des départements actuels l’image. Quels que soient les supports rideau de brouillard des yeux qui s’y sont de S\laj, Maramure[, Satu-Mare, Hune- qui accueillent l’image et qui l’aident à attardés, le long des années, en cherchant, doara et Arad, dans atteindre le stade de la visibilité (miroir, en trouvant, en perdant ou en ajoutant un le discours pictural desquelles ont été tableau, photographie, écran), celui qui en sens aux peintures. incluses les images atteste l’existence reste le spectateur. Entre Le discours pictural proposé par des deux personnages que nous analyserons celui-ci et ce que l’on ofre à sa connaissance les peintres d’églises qui ont décoré les ci-après (La Paresse et La Peste). Pour la apparaît un dialogue des miroitements monuments en bois de la partie nord- période que nous mutuels, car ce n’est pas seulement le ouest de la Transylvanie aux XVIIIe-XIXe avons en vue (le XVIIIe 1 siecle et la première récepteur qui regarde l’image, mais celle- siècles met en évidence souvent des scènes moitié du siècle ci regarde son interlocuteur aussi. C’est le suivant), la division à caractère eschatologique (Le Jugement territoriale était autre sens de la métaphore du livre de Georges Dernier, les Péages aériens, l’Apocalypse, (et les zones respectives étaient sous Didi-Huberman – Ce que nous voyons, ce La Roue de la Vie, la Parabole des vierges l’autorité habsbour- qui nous regarde – qui pose le problème folles et des vierges sages). Les visages geoise), mais afin de rendre plus facile la de cet espace interstitiel qui naît entre le squelettiques du spectre de la Mort – muni compréhension du corps du spectateur et l’image, et celui de texte pour son lecteur d’une faux et d’autres instruments destinés contemporain, nous l’échange de statut ontologique (sujet-objet) à séparer l’âme du corps – à cheval, en avons préféré de nous rapporter aux délimita- qui s’opère constamment entre les deux position pédestre ou assis sur le couvercle tions contemporaines instances. Dans les territoires de cet entre se d’une tombe, sont parfois accompagnés des territoires (en 2 départements). porte le dialogue qui constituera l’objet de des igures d’autres calamités (la Famine ,

2) Le seul cas où nous l’analyse qui suit. la Peste) ou du personnage féminin qui l’ayons identifiée est symbolise un péché capital (la Paresse) dans celui de l’église de Dese[ti (département la mentalité paysanne de jadis. de Maramure[)...... D’une manière ou d’une autre, les calamités sont liées entre elles, composant Le visage des calamités un cercle vicieux dont on ne peut sortir que diicilement. Un hiver très long, une période Comment le récepteur actuel regarde-t-il d’inondations ou une sécheresse puissante le corps de certaines entités apparemment détruisent les récoltes, en entraînant le irreprésentables (soient-elles des calamités spectre de la famine. Si une épidémie naturelles – la Mort, la Peste, la Famine – commence aussi (souvent provoquée par ou des péchés, tout aussi meurtriers dans le les déplacements des troupes, qui n’ont mental collectif des temps pré-modernes que point évité les territoires roumains, surtout les calamités mentionnées précédemment – au XVIIIe siècle), elle sera « maintenue » la Paresse) qui ont tout de même trouvé leur et répandue à l’aide de l’état précaire place dans la décoration des monuments d’alimentation des masses. Un dicton grec

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établit une relation de continuité entre dentales de la caval- les désastres – « la peste après la famine » cade des vices, tirées –, et les peintres qui ont décoré quelques des commentaires unes des églises en bois des départements du Pape Grégoire de Sălaj, Satu-Mare ou Maramureş ont le Ier au Livre de Job. voulu les représenter juxtaposées, dans Les sept péchés une énumération des réprimandes divines, capitaux (l’orgueil, pour reprendre un syntagme que nos l’envie, la colère, chroniqueurs d’antan utilisaient, dans un l’acédie, l’avarice, esprit moralisateur. la gourmandise, La plus ample représentation des la luxure), que le catastrophes peut être vue dans le narthex premier pape moine de l’église de Desești, peinte en 1780 par met en question, Radu Munteanu de Ungurenii Lăpușului composent un (avec Gheorghe Vișoveanu). Au-dessus vrai système dont d’un leuve de feu qui porte les damnés de les éléments s’entre- manière implacable vers la bouche aux dents lacent et se con- pointues du Léviathan (symbole de l’Enfer), ditionnent. Les sur trois chaises, improvisées des couvercles commentaires de Grégoire à la in du VIe La Peste, Dese[ti (dép. de quelques cercueils, trônent, de la gauche siècle séparaient cette série en deux parties: de Maramure[) à la droite, la Famine, la Paresse et la Peste les cinq premiers étaient des vices spirituels, (conformément aux inscriptions adjacentes, les deux derniers étaient des péchés en caractères cyrilliques). Représentées charnels (Casagrande, Vecchio 2003, 8). comme des semi-nus, une serviette autour Les représentations plastiques du septénaire des hanches seulement, les personniications des vices ont été précédées par l’image à allure féminine sont aujourd’hui de la lutte entre les vices et les vertus des acéphales. La peinture a été couverte d’une enluminures des manuscrits qui illustraient couche de chaux pour quelques décennies la Psychomachie de Prudence. Ici (tout et, à la suite de la restauration, on n’a pu comme, plus tard, dans la sculpture des conserver que les contours des visages, mais portails romans de l’Occident) les allégories non pas les détails de leurs physionomies. étaient des incarnations féminines, Le seul personnage qui n’a pas de réserves organisées dans des couples dichotomiques: à nous montrer son visage, même deux colère est vaincue par patience, superbe par siècles après le jour où il a été peint, est la humilité, luxure par sobriété, avarice par Mort, située tout près de la Peste et habillée largesse (Baschet 2003, 341). de couleurs diférentes par rapport aux trois À partir des XVe-XVIe siècles, La Peste désastres décrits antérieurement. est représentée dans la peinture occidentale Nous ne nous arrêterons pas en ce qui en tant que personnage féminin, souvent les suit sur le personnage de La Mort, dont nous cheveux défaits, chevauchant rapidement avons traité plusieurs fois (Bogdan 2002; les corps moissonnés des mortels. Bogdan 2009, 58-78; Bogdan 2014a, 75-98; Antérieurement elle avait eu les traits d’un Bogdan 2014b, 147-162). Nous analyserons squelette, une image inluencée par la en revanche les igures d’un péché (la synonymie avec le personnage de La Mort Paresse) et d’une maladie (la Peste), qui dans les Danses macabres, Les Triomphes accompagnent parfois le spectre macabre, de la Mort, Les Cavaliers de l’Apocalypse dans une sorte de déilement des désastres. (Aicardi-Cheve 2003, 365). D’autre fois, Celui-ci pourrait constituer une réplique elle est igurée comme un monstre poilu, populaire, locale, à la séquence des Cavaliers ailé, de couleur foncée; sa faux impitoyable de l’Apocalypse ou aux illustrations occi- accrochée à la taille et l’arc et les lèches dans

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la main, prêt à viser et à percer ses victimes toujours coulant sur ses épaules – un élément 3) Les textes lyriques 3 roumains d’amour pour l’éternité. érogène (Ispas, Truţă, 1986) , signe d’une mentionnent, dans La peinture religieuse roumaine ne sexualité non-censurée et du manque de de nombreux cas, le caractère irrésistible retient le rapport entre les vices et les vertus l’encadrement dans un ordre social préétabli. des cheveux laissés que de manière allusive, par un marquage Dans la pensée paysanne d’autrefois, « les libres. symétrique, dans la scène du Jugement cheveux tressés en nattes (chez les illes) ou Dernier, de la mort du juste (dans la proximité coifés chez les femmes sont un signe de la du jardin édénique) et de la mort du mauvais culture, de la cosmicité et de l’ordre, tandis riche (entre les scènes des damnés, à côté de que les cheveux laissés libres approchent la rivière de feu). Les images présentes dans l’être humain de la sphère du chaos et du l’espace roumain n’ont pas un degré très démoniaque » (Evseev 1998, 355). haut de généralisation (et d’abstractivité); on Toute une suite de monuments religieux, préfère la représentation du pécheur dans peints à la in du XVIIIe siècle et dans la l’acte (le moment) de la punition, plutôt première moitié du suivant, dans des zones qu’une iguration du péché proprement relativement proches (dans les actuels dit. La Paresse en est la seule exception que départements de Sălaj, Maramureș et Satu- nous ayons identiiée jusqu’à présent. Ce Mare), proposent la juxtaposition Mort n’est peut-être pas par hasard que, de tous – Paresse (Chieșd, Dragu, Săcălășeni) ou les péchés, ce fut justement la Paresse que la triade Mort – Peste – Paresse (Corund, l’on a choisie, si nous tenons compte de ce Ulciug, Orțâța). que les voyageurs étrangers ont transmis le A Chieșd, d’une part et de l’autre de la long du temps. C’est le défaut mentionné le porte d’entrée, sur la paroi sud du narthex plus souvent dans leurs récits concernant peint en 1796 par Țiple Popa et Ioan d’Elciu, le comportement des autochtones, jusqu’au initialement veillaient la Mort et la Paresse. point où l’oicier allemand Erasmus Aujourd’hui, seulement la dernière survit. Heinrich Schneider von Weismantel Dans l’église en bois de Dragu, airme, dans les pages de son journal de département de Sălaj (fondée au début du 1713, que « le travail est leur ennemi » XIXe siècle et peinte en 1806 par le peintre quel que soit le genre, car « les hommes d’églises Iosif Perso), nous sommes accueillis travaillent peu, et les femmes encore moins dans le narthex par la Mort (squelette et l’on ne trouve pas un journalier dans le gris foncé, une main – dans laquelle elle pays, mais en revanche on y trouve bien tient une sorte de fouet rouge – appuyant des paresseux » (Barbu 2000, 26-27). Ce sa tête et l’autre soutenue par une faux), n’est peut-être pas par hasard que le sens près de la Paresse. Ce personnage féminin, archaïque du mot qui signiie en roumain surdimensionné, est si confortablement assis travail [muncă < sl. Monka] renvoie à l’idée sur une chaise au dossier haut et coussin de tourment, torture. pour la colonne, qu’elle paraît endormie, étant donné qu’elle a les yeux fermés, et le fuseau lui tombe de la main...... Dans l’église en bois de Săcălășeni, département de Maramureș (reconstruite Une femme nue, grasse, au XVIIIe siècle et repeinte en 1865, par le les cheveux coulant sur ses épaules peintre Paul Weis de Baia Mare), la Mort en tant que squelette blanc, en position Dans la plupart des cas (dans la peinture des pédestre, armée de la faux, a des dimensions églises en bois de la partie nord-ouest de la lilliputiennes par rapport à l’image Transylvanie), la Paresse apparaît comme gigantesque du personnage féminin nu qui une femme nue, de proportions exagérées représente la Paresse (assise, les cheveux (monstrueusement grasse), les cheveux libres sur le dos et le fuseau à la main,

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La Mort et la Paresse, Gura V\ii (dép. de Vâlcea)

esquissant un geste ample qui ressemble à à une distance de deux ans seulement (1811 celui du ilage). et, respectivement, 1813), l’artiste populaire

On rencontre parfois la Paresse dans représente les deux personnages de manière 4) Dans quelques l’absence de la Mort et d’autres incarnations similaire: la Mort apparaît comme un unes des séquences, l’image de la peigne est des calamités, comme un signe du mépris squelette noir, portant la faux contre indubitable envers ce vice. Elle est représentée toujours l’épaule, tandis que la Paresse, une femme (à Or]â]a, département de Maramure[; à Ulciug assise (sur une chaise basse, de facture rubiconde, nue, assise sur une chaise basse et Bulgari, départe- ment de S\laj), dans paysanne, ou sur un tonneau, rarement sur à dossier, ayant l’air d’être découpée d’un d’autres, à cause de une siège avec dossier haut et un coussin intérieur paysan, ile une quenouille. l’état avancé de dé- gradation de la scène, pour la colonne, comme dans la peinture de Avec des traits beaucoup plus délicats, nous ne pouvons plus Dragu), avec des gestes lascives et ennuyés, habillée d’une robe luide, transparente, la voir avec précision la présence de cet objet 4 en essayant de s’arranger, avec un peigne , Paresse apparaît dans la scène de la façade de toilette intime, mais dans tous les cas où les cheveux, appuyant entre ses jambes la sud du narthex de l’église « Saint Georges » nous avons identifié le fourche et le fuseau qui semblent être sur le de Gura Văii (département de Vâlcea), personnage il apparaît une main dirigée vers point de tomber. Nous avons pu identiier la fondation du pârcălab (gouverneur la tête, comme pour de telles situations, de la Paresse en tant que militaire) Gheorghe de Bogdănești, s’arranger les cheveux. personnage indépendant, dans les églises en construite en 1759. Dans un paysage 5) Il s’agit de la 5 représentation sur la bois de Zalnoc et Bulgari (département de collinaire, marqué ci et là par des silhouettes paroi sud du narthex, Sălaj). de conifères, feuillus et leurs, se déroulent près de la porte, dans la proximité de Saint L’association entre la Mort et la Paresse plusieurs séquences, provenant de registres Nikita (qui tient dans sa est aussi présente dans quelques édiices thématiques diférents: des personnages qui main gauche un diable qu’il frappe avec sa en bois embellis par Nicolae Bădău de jouent de la lûte et du tambour à friction, droite), de l’église de Bulgari, département Lupșa Mare, dans les premières décennies l’ours et le montreur d’ours, diférents de S\laj. du XIXe siècle. À Sălciva (département de oiseaux (la cigogne, l’aigle), des épisodes Hunedoara) et Julița (département d’Arad), de chasse (un tireur visant un lapin), une

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féminins. Une explication possible pour cette option relève non seulement de la tradition d’une iguration des éléments négatifs comme appartenant au sexe faible La Paresse, Gura V\ii (dép. et pécheur, mais aussi du genre féminin du de Vâlcea) substantif qui nomme le vice en roumain. La manière dont nous nommons la réalité détermine une certaine représentation mentale, surtout dans l’absence d’un contact direct avec une idée ou un concept auquel on devrait attribuer un corps. Le cas de la Peste, que nous discuterons dans ce qui suit, vient avec une solution diférente, ambivalente, bien que le mot soit du genre féminin et que les textes folkloriques la décrivent comme une femme vieille, très laide, maigre, plutôt mince, et dans certaines variantes des légendes très hirsute7, ce qui conduit souvent à des superpositions avec la Fille de la Forêt (Eretescu 2007, 48-49).

femme tourmentée par un démon, la ...... punition (par des coups) d’un apprenti, la Mort avec la faux et l’homme agenouillé La Peste – sous le signe du féminin 6) Les recherches dans le terrain ont en dessous et, dans un coin, la Paresse, ou du masculin été déroulées dans assise confortablement et pointant vers un l’espace de l’ancienne province de Valachie, pichet. La juxtaposition Mort-Paresse et En fonction du type de support sur lequel dans la période 2000- 2014, pour un nombre l’association de scènes de damnation et de la Peste est igurée, elle semble changer de plus de 800 églises chasse dessinent l’image d’un espace du de genre. De manière générale, dans la (des zones rurales et urbaines), représent- Jugement, en dehors du thème proprement peinture murale (quand elle apparaît ant des fondations dit de la Parousie (représenté surtout sur la comme personnage indépendant, sans la des princes, des boyards, des couches paroi est du narthex). présence dominatrice de Saint Charalampe) sociales moyennes (petits boyards, petits Cette fois-ci (à la diférence des exemples elle est représentée avec des traits féminins, bourgeois, baillis, des régions du nord du pays, invoqués et quand elle est ixée dans une chaîne, aux clercs) et surtout des communautés locales. antérieurement), les proportions du per- pieds du Saint qui l’a vaincue, devenant ainsi sonnage féminin sont naturelles, et les traits un intercesseur contre la maladie (surtout 7) Voir, en ce sens, les légendes racontées sont ceux d’une femme normale; ce ne dans les icônes sur verre, mais aussi dans dans le recueil édité par Pamfil et Maria sont que les sourcils courbés et les cheveux les manuscrits enluminés), elle est igurée Bil]iu. 1999. Izvorul longs, en désordre, qui pourraient trahir comme un personnage masculin. Mais il y fermecat. Legende, basme mitologice son inclusion dans le groupe des entités a aussi des exceptions, où l’on ne peut pas [i mito-credin]e din jude]ul Maramure[ négatives, relevant de la dimension larvaire préciser l’identité de genre du personnage, [La source enchantée. du chaos. C’est d’ailleurs la seule image de la tracé comme un monstre asexué (comme, Légendes, contes 6 mythologiques et Paresse que les recherches de terrain dans par exemple, dans le cas de la peinture mytho-croyances du la région de l’ancienne province de Valachie murale des églises en pierre de Cristian, département de Mara- mure[]. Baia Mare: Ed. nous aient montrée. Tohanu Nou, Veneția de Jos et Comăna Gutinul, 324-335. Nous n’avons identiié dans l’espace de Jos – du département de Brașov, où elle roumain pas une seule représentation de apparaît tirée par ses cheveux en désordre ce péché avec des traits autres que ceux par le Saint vainqueur). Nous ne l’avons

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Y a-t-il un corps du péché et de la maladie? La Paresse et la Peste dans l’iconographie religieuse roumaine (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles) découvert que rarement sur les icônes sur Squelette d’une couleur foncée8 (grise, bois, soumis à Saint Charalampe, comme terreuse, brune) ou personnage humanoïde sur les icônes sur verre. Dans une icône a en nuances claires, la Peste se dévoile dans tempera sur bois, datant du XIXe siècle, les icônes sur verre peintes par les artistes faite par Preda le peintre et conservée à populaires transylvains, comme Savu présent au musée du monastère de Cozia, Moga de Arpașu de Sus, Matei Țâmforea les cheveux longs, tombant sur les épaules, de Cârțișoara ou les membres de la famille et les détails corporels l’incluent facilement Tămaș de Făgăraș; elle tient dans sa main la dans le genre féminin. faux, un instrument qui la rapproche de la

Les icônes sur verre nous montrent personniication de la Mort, ayant au-dessus 8) Dans l’art byzantin, la personniication de la maladie dans de sa tête (dans certains des cas) le sablier, la peste est représen- tée parfois par des le contexte suivant: Saint Charalampe, un symbole commun avec les igurations gens noirs (nous sou- vieux, avec une moustache et une barbe du Temps. Souvent doté de cornes, ain de lignons) qui sèment la mort ci et là. Cf. Prut, longues et blanches, iguré dans la plupart marquer l’appartenance à la catégorie du Constantin. 1972. Fantasticul în arta des cas debout (rarement assis dans une maléique, le personnage peut avoir un popular\ româneasc\ stalle), frontalement, dans des vêtements corps humanoïde ou zoomorphe (lion). Le [Le fantastique dans l’art populaire rou- d’hiérarque, bénissant de la main droite fait qu’il est muni, dans quelques unes des main]. Bucarest: Ed. et tenant l’Évangile dans la gauche (ou, icônes sur verre, de moustaches (Băjenaru Meridiane, 35. 9 plus rarement, le bâton pastoral). C’est de 2007, 239) (Matei Țâmforea) et de barbe 9) Icône de la collection du Musée du Pays la main gauche aussi qu’est ixée la chaîne (Băjenaru 2007, 31) (Petru Tămaș-le ils) le de F\g\ra[ (1877) qui ferre la Peste. Le saint la piétine, comme situe dans les territoires de la masculinité, 10) Prut, Constantin, signe de son pouvoir thaumaturge et de sa tout comme un contour évident des op. cit., la partie des- victoire sur l’afreuse maladie. seins10ou des cuisses proéminentes l’inclue tinée aux illustrations, la Peste au corps de dans la sphère de la féminité. femme, détail d’une St. Charalampe, Cristian (dép. de Bra[ov) icône sur verre de Quelques manuscrits contenant la Vie Valea Sebe[ului. et l’Hymne Acathiste de Saint Charalampe, 11) La Bibliothèque de conservés dans les collections de la l’Académie Roumaine 11 (Bucarest) conserve 28 Bibliothèque de l’Académie Roumaine manuscrits roumains (ms. 453, ms. 2348 etc.), nous proposent un contenant la vie et le martyre du Saint, le dessin (à la plume à l’encre noire et rouge ou, paraclisis et des vers plus rarement, en couleurs) qui surprend la qui lui sont dédiés. Le plus ancien date relation entre les deux personnages. Saint de 1745 et se base sur un originel slave. Charalampe (honoré le 10 février, dans le Cf. Marin-Barutcieff, calendrier orthodoxe) est iguré en tant Silvia. 2014. Hristofor: chipurile unui sfânt que Vainqueur de la Peste; il tient celle-ci f\r\ chip. Reprezent\ étroitement liée dans une chaîne. À son rile din cultura româneasc\ veche tour, la Peste est représentée comme un [i sursele lor [Chris- tophe: les visages monstre composite, à la tête humanoïde, d’un saint sans visage. la langue biide, des cornes de bœuf, des Les représentations de la culture roumaine grifes aux mains et aux pieds, une queue pré-moderne et leurs et l’immanquable faux à la main. La lecture sources]. Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Mega, 137. de l’image est parfois dirigée par l’artiste même, comme dans le dessin du manuscrit 2348 B.A.R., où le spectre de la Peste a de la barbe et des organes génitaux masculins. Revenant à la peinture des édiices du culte en bois au nord de la Transylvanie, il faut dire que, dans certains cas, entre la Mort et la Paresse s’insère le spectre de la

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Peste chevauchant un cheval12 ou un bœuf13, 12) Dans la décora- dont elle serre la crinière, le râteau et le tion du narthex des balai appuyés contre l’épaule. Sa présence églises de Corund (département atteste les échos du sentiment d’anxiété de Satu-Mare) et Or]â]a (département et d’insécurité, créé par les épidémies du de Maramure[). XVIIIe siècle et le début du suivant. Ce n’est 13) Dans la peinture peut-être pas de manière accidentelle que de l’exonarthex les peintres ont choisi de représenter la Peste d’Ulciug (département de S\laj). à cheval, comme pour suggérer la rapidité

14) Bogdan, Cristina. de la dispersion du léau, en l’absence de 2013. “Avatarurile mesures prophylactiques ou à cause de unui simbol escatologic (calul) în icono- la perpétuation de pratiques funèbres grafia monumentelor fortement enracinées dans la tradition de cult din }ara Româneasc\ (secolele populaire roumaine, comme le partage des XVIII-XIX)” [Les Avatars d’un symbole vêtements du défunt lors des funérailles. eschatologique D’ailleurs, l’association entre La Mort (le cheval) dans l’iconographie des ou La Peste et le cheval (comme monture monuments de culte macabre) est fréquente non seulement dans en Valachie (XVIIIe- 14 XIXe siècles)]. Dans l’iconographie roumaine (Bogdan 2013, Lumea animalelor. Realit\]i, reprezent\ri, 141-144), mais aussi dans celle occidentale, simboluri [Le monde conformément à toute une suite de traditions des animaux. Réalités, représentations, populaires anglo-saxonnes et germaniques, La Peste, Corund (dép. de Satu Mare) symboles], sous la qui connotent de manière néfaste l’étalon direction de Maria Magdalena Székely, (Aicardi-Cheve 2003, 367). entre les scènes, la distance géographique Ia[i: Ed. Editura Uni- versit\]ii “Al. I. Cuza.” Sur la paroi ouest du narthex de l’édiice relativement réduite entre les édiices religieux de Corund (département de Satu- religieux et l’intervalle temporel très court Mare), à la gauche de la porte d’entrée, nous entre leurs dates de peinture respectives, sommes accueillis par trois symboles de la pourraient accréditer l’idée que l’artisan destruction: la Mort (en tant que squelette, Țiple Popa est l’auteur non seulement de la la faux dans une main et la coupe dans décoration de l’église de Chieșd (où son nom l’autre), la Peste (chevauchant un coureur apparaît explicitement dans une inscription blanc, le balai de brindilles et le râteau au-dessus de l’entrée dans la nef), mais aussi contre l’épaule) et la Paresse, « assise sur un de la peinture des monuments du culte de tronc, la fourche à la main gauche dont elle Corund, Ulciug, Orțâța et Bicaz. Marius échappe le fuseau […]. Avec la main droite, Porumb, dans son travail intitulé Un veac de la femme gratte sa tête, avec un geste de pictură românească din Transilvania (secolul torpeur et d’ennui » (Godea, Christache- XVIII) [Un siècle de peinture roumaine en Panait 1978, 462). Ce trio sinistre peut Transylvanie (le XVIIIe siècle)], saisit les être vu aussi dans la peinture de l’église mêmes ressemblances entre les ensembles 15) Godea, Ioan, Cristache- d’Ulciug (département de Sălaj). La forte picturaux d’Ulciug, Orțâța et Bicaz, mais Panait, Ioana. 1978. ressemblance des scènes, placées dans le les attribue (toujours sous le signe d’une Monumente istorice biserice[ti din Eparhia même endroit à l’intérieur du narthex, présupposition) à Petre Diacul de Preluca, Oradei. Bisericile de lemn [Monuments pourrait indiquer la main du même un artiste qui a travaillé comme peintre historiques sacrés de peintre dans le cas des églises de Corund d’icônes et d’églises dans Țara Lăpușului et l’Eparchie d’Oradea. e Les églises de bois]. et d’Ulciug. D’autre part, Ioana Cristache- Chioar, dans la deuxième moitié du XVIII Oradea: Ed. Episcopiei Panait suggère l’hypothèse que le peintre siècle (Porumb 2003, 89). Ortodoxe Române a Oradei, 424. d’Ulciug soit aussi l’auteur des ensembles À cheval, la Peste que nous trouvons muraux d’Orțâța et Bicaz15 (département dans la décoration de l’église d’Orțâța de Maramureș). Des similitudes réelles (peinte probablement au cours de la

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Y a-t-il un corps du péché et de la maladie? La Paresse et la Peste dans l’iconographie religieuse roumaine (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles) dernière décennie du XVIIIe siècle) est semble être restée le plus profondément la seule calamité couronnée des scènes imprégnée dans le mental collectif, d’autres que nous avons en vue. L’attribution d’un maladies se cachant en réalité sous le même tel signe distinctif, que nous aurions pu nom. Ses efets ont été d’ailleurs comparés rencontrer dans l’art médiéval occidental à de possibles conséquences d’un désastre sur la tête de la Mort, renforce l’idée de la nucléaire moderne (E. Le Roy Ladurie apud toute-puissance dont ce léau jouissait dans Boia 1985, 150). Dans certaines parties de l’imaginaire collectif. l’Europe, la population s’est diminuée à demi pendant les pandémies de 1348 ou du XVIIe siècle. Les exemples européens ...... oferts par Lucian Boia sont illustratifs pour la dimension des dégâts provoqués par Le temps des effrois l’afreux léau: « L’une des épidémies les plus et les Saints protecteurs connues (et pour laquelle nous disposons d’une documentation ample) est la peste Les épidémies de peste ont laissé une de Londres de 1665. La ville comptait alors empreinte indélébile sur les périodes 460 000 habitants; dans quelques mois en temporelles où elles se sont manifestées. Un sont morts presque 70 000 (conformément tel climat des efrois ne peut donner naissance aux statistiques; à prendre en considération qu’à des réactions situées à l’extrême. Le d’autres évaluations, même 100 000). tableau des modiications induites par Dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle, la terreur de la mort omniprésente et l’Italie a perdu à cause de la peste 14% de omnipotente dans la sensibilité collective est sa population, et l’épidémie qui a frappé esquissé par François Lebrun pour l’espace Naples en 1656 a tué entre 240-270 000 de la français des aubes de la modernité, mais il se population de 400-450 000 de la ville, plus retrouve partout où les gens ont été soumis donc d’une moitié. En Espagne, toujours au sentiment du vivre, chaque instant, au XVIIe siècle, sont enregistrées plusieurs dans la proximité de la in: « En temps épidémies; au milieu du siècle, des villes d’épidémie, la mort cesse d’être un spectacle telles que la Séville et Barcelone, perdent ou une éventualité, elle devient une menace une moitié de leur population. […] Mais en personnelle, directe, immédiate. Dès lors, France aussi, la même maladie a provoqué toutes les perspectives sont modiiées, les dans l’intervalle 1660-1670, entre 2,2 et 3,3 barrières morales sont renversées, les liens millions de morts » (Boia 1985, 150-151). de la chair et de l’afection ne comptent Pour le monde roumain, les statistiques plus, le vernis de la civilité, là où il existe, proposées par Paul Cernovodeanu et s’écaille. Chez la plupart, ne subsistent plus Paul Binder concernant le XVIIIe siècle qu’un instinct de conservation et la volonté s’inscrivent dans la même dimension de fuir. Dans la cité ou le village atteint des calamités enchaînées (sécheresse, par l’épidémie [...] s’installe pour quelques famine, déclanchement d’une épidémie). semaines un climat de terreur et d’égoïsme Les témoignages des voyageurs étrangers viscéral » (Lebrun 1975, 312). attestent le sentiment généralisé de la peur, Les notes faites sur les manuscrits qui causé par le spectacle désolant des localités ont circulé dans les territoires autochtones désertes, dans l’essai des communautés parlent des mêmes comportements altérés de se soustraire à l’implacable léau: « … par l’efroi paralysant de la contamination ruines, villages brûlés et abandonnés, une et du procédé de la fuite comme moyen misère indescriptible dans les masses et de s’échapper de la zone « assiégée » par la enin une peste étoufée, puis puissante et maladie (Corfus 1975). dévastatrice, qui propage la peur » (Samuel De tous les types de catastrophes, la peste Kelemen Didák, apud Cernovodeanu,

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Binder 1993, 133). Les épidémies de peste victorieux de la Peste rappelle les Triomphes restent fréquentes en Transylvanie et de la Mort dans la peinture italienne. Maramureș jusqu’au milieu du XVIIIe À l’Occident, la compétence sacrée siècle (la dernière épidémie de grandes attribuée dans l’espace roumain au Saint proportions datant de 1755) et le spectre Charalampe a été réservée à Saint Roch de la mort est également entraîné par les (qui étale souvent dans des fresques ou des carences alimentaires (provoquant des statues le « stigmate » de la maladie – le 16) Cernovodeanu, Paul, Binder, Paul. maladies de nutrition, telles que la pellagre bubon de peste ruisselant de sang) ou à Saint 1993. Cavalerii et le scorbut16) déterminées par des récoltes Sébastien, frappé de lèches. Dans le dernier Apocalipsului: calamit\]ile naturale très faibles dans certaines périodes. cas, le Saint devient un intercesseur contre din trecutul României (pân\ la 1800) On ne peut pas estimer (dans l’absence la peste non pas pour avoir été atteint de la [Les Cavaliers de de statistiques précises) quel a été l’impact maladie en question et pour l’avoir vaincue, l’Apocalypse: calami- tés naturelles du de la peste sur la population des espaces mais pour avoir survécu au grand nombre passé de la Roumanie roumains aux XVIIIe-XIXe siècles et de lèches dont il avait été transpercé. (jusqu’en 1800)]. Bucarest: Silex, 180. comment se sont modiiées les courbes L’analogie symbolique y fonctionne: celui démographiques. Mais il est certain que le qui a réussi à survivre aux lèches des développement d’une iconographie de la persécuteurs sauvera ceux qui lui adressent mort et de l’au-delà dans des moments où des prières contre les lèches de la colère les communautés se confrontaient avec de divine, manœuvrées par l’intermédiaire de telles horreurs n’est pas dû au hasard. Le l’efrayante maladie. discours pictural, avec l’exposé homilétique Un autre Saint qui incluait parmi ses et eschatologique proposé par toute une compétences celle de la protection contre la suite de livres populaires (qui ont circulé peste était Christophe, l’intercesseur contre dans les territoires roumains aux XVIIIe- la male mort. Silvia Marin-Barutcief traite XIXe siècles, fréquemment traduits et largement de ce cas dans son livre dédié au copiés dans l’environnement monastique) géant porteur du Christ, rappelant, parmi essayaient de préparer l’homme pour une d’autres choses, la convaincante inscription in le plus souvent imprévisible. Dans le qui accompagne le personnage sacré dans monde ancien, la mort était en général la cathédrale de Worms (1210): « Per te une présence familière, mais pendant les serena datur, / Morbi, genus omne fugatur, / épidémies son spectacle devenait fatiguant Altra fames, pestis, / Christi, Christophore, 17) « Tu nous donnes 17 du beau temps, / Tu par sa redondance. L’efroi pénétrant testis! » (Marin-Barutcief 2014, 133) . chasses les maladies, ressenti devant la mort devait être annihilé Chez les Roumains, comme dans le / L’affreuse famine, la peste / Christophe, d’une façon ou d’une autre: en esquissant cas des peuples Balkaniques orthodoxes témoin du Christ! ». avec humour et ironie son portrait, en (surtout dans les cultures grecque et faisant appel aux enseignements de l’Église, bulgare), il existe une suite de Saints dont en respectant une série de traditions censées la compétence se manifeste dans le domaine assurer une bonne séparation de l’âme de médical, étant considérés comme des ce monde et son intégration dans l’autre patrons des maladies. Saint Charalampe ou en invoquant l’aide des personnages à est secondé par deux autres Saints regardés rôle protecteur. Les visions apocalyptiques parfois comme ses « disciples » (Athanase et des périodes d’intensiication de la maladie Cyril, archevêques de l’Alexandrie, honorés ont mis à la disposition du spectre de la le 18 janvier). À ceux-ci s’ajoutent la Sainte maladie un char « aux roues faites de têtes Grande Martyre Marina (le 17 juillet), Saint des grands boyards, les plateaux faites des Grand Martyr et haumaturge Pantéleimon côtes des vierges, les ridelles faites des os (le 27 juillet), les Saints Anargyres Côme et des jeunes hommes et les essieux faits des Damien (le 1 novembre), la Sainte Grande os des braves » (Gomoiu 1923, 158 apud Martyre Barbara (le 4 décembre), Saint Nicoară 2006, 97). Cette image du parcours Sabas le Sanctiié (le 5 décembre) etc.

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Mais Saint Charalampe est le seul qui soit la culture (dont celles des vêtements). accompagné par la personniication de la L’habit représente une « peau culturelle » maladie qu’il a vaincue. Une explication qui ne peut pas être propre à ces deux réside aussi dans le fait que, pour plusieurs personnages, qui restent cantonnés dans la siècles, la peste reste dans le mental collectif sphère d’une nature imprévisible et d’autant roumain la maladie par excellence (Bogdan plus efrayante. Leur nudité (« renforcée » 2010, 184-188; Marin-Barutcief 2012, 3-21). par l’absence d’auréoles) attirait l’attention, à ceux qui ne savaient pas lire, incapables donc de déchifrer le sens des inscriptions ...... adjacentes, sur le fait que les personnages en question ne s’inscrivaient pas dans la sphère Similitudes et différences des igures sacrées. Un troisième élément de congruence Qu’est-ce qui approche et qu’est-ce qui symbolique est représenté par la iguration sépare les deux igures (la Paresse et la des personnages aux cheveux longs, hirsutes. Peste) présentées antérieurement? Les Cette exhibition des cheveux épars relève deux sont des matérialisations de réalités aussi du désordre mentionné antérieurement, conceptuelles, elles sont, autrement dit, des du chaos que la présence de la maladie ou du idées qui ont reçu un corps. Conformément péché génère dans la famille / la communauté au genre des mots qui les nomment en touchée par le léau. roumain, le corps qu’elles ont reçu a été, Quant aux diférences entre les deux 18) Dans l’iconographie religieuse de dans la plupart du temps, féminin. personnages, celles-ci concernent plutôt facture byzantine et post-byzantine, les Une seconde similarité entre le corps de la la posture (bien qu’ils soient tous les deux personnages positifs, maladie et celui du péché est leur iguration igurés de proil ou de demi-proil18) et saints, sont figurés frontalement, tandis comme des nus. Dans la peinture de type les instruments qu’ils manoeuvrent ou que les figures malé- post-byzantin, peu de corps se permettent exhibent au spectateur. La Paresse est fiques (les démons, par exemple) sont « le luxe» de ne pas se couvrir de vêtements. toujours assise aussi confortablement que représentées de profil D’habitude, la nudité partielle ou totale possible, dans une attitude de relâchement ou demi-profil. est destinée aux Saints du désert (couverts très proche au sommeil, tandis que la par leurs propres cheveux et portant une Peste apparaît souvent dans une position barbe longue jusqu’aux chevilles), car les pédestre, en soulignant ainsi la rapidité de hagiographies parlent des longues années la contamination, du passage de la maladie qu’ils ont passées loin de la civilisation. Ils d’un territoire à l’autre. Les outils igurés, semblent se transformer dans une sorte bien que sélectés à partir du même groupe d’hommes sauvages (Wilder Mann), une d’instruments populaires quotidiens, pilosité excessive étant l’élément commun. mettent en évidence des types d’activité Parmi les femmes saintes, Marie Madeleine diférents. Si la Paresse accomplit des est représentée dans l’art occidental activités spéciiquement féminines (tenant enveloppée dans ses propres cheveux, dans ses mains la quenouille et le fuseau tandis que Marie l’Egyptienne est igurée ou le peigne, dont elle s’arrange les cheveux dans l’art oriental surtout comme une d’un geste à la fois las et coquet), la Peste femme au visage émacié par la soufrance, est équipée de l’objet traditionnel de la très sommairement habillée. Mort (la faux – surtout dans les icônes sur Dans le cas des personniications de verre) ou d’un râteau et d’un balai, dans la la Peste et de la Paresse, la nudité est décoration des édiices en bois du nord de la négativement connotée, renvoyant à l’idée Transylvanie. de nature qui ne peut absolument point Une dernière diférence réside dans être apprivoisée en faveur de l’homme, la manière d’imaginer le corps des deux pour être soumise aux constrictions de entités négatives. La Paresse apparaît

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Cristina Bogdan souvent surdimensionnée, [les proportions autour de ce péché (considéré capital) et de anormales étant chargées de signiications celui qui le commet. Les autres péchés graves (Garnier 1982, 67) – positives ou (l’adultère, l’abortion, le vol, la sorcellerie, négatives – en fonction du registre dont le l’homicide etc.) sont sanctionnés dans les personnage fait partie], comme une femme scènes de damnation du Jugement Dernier, qui est déjà devenue obèse à cause de ce sans acquérir leur propre corps, une identité comportement pécheur. Son corps tout circonscrite par représentations visuelles. de même se maintient dans les territoires Ils ne sont que suggérés par les tourments anthropomorphiques, tandis que la Peste infernaux réservés aux pécheurs qui les (dans les icônes sur verre ou dans les avaient commis. dessins des manuscrits roumains conservés Les peintres d’églises qui ont choisi dans les collections de la Bibliothèque de d’inclure aux XVIIIe-XIXe siècles, dans le l’Académie Roumaine) peut aussi adopter programme iconographique des édiices des corps aux conins entre le règne animal qu’ils ont décorés, les corps nus de la Peste et celui humain. Dans la cavalcade des vices et de la Paresse (le plus souvent dans la occidentale, la Paresse ne igurait que dans proximité du spectre de la Mort) ont voulu sa variante spirituelle (l’acédie), le plus transmettre un message et obtenir un efet grave danger couru par le moine d’après de lucidité, qui conduise à un ajustement Cassien, qui contenait aussi une dose du code comportemental. Leur geste forçait signiicative de tristesse. L’acédie était le une réaction, un arrachement de l’inertie, plongement dans un certain état d’inertie, car il proposait au chrétien qui entrait induit par les contraintes et le rythme de dans l’église la rencontre avec une réalité la vie monacale, étant accompagnée par qui quittait la sphère de l’hypothétique, une série de manifestations extérieures: de l’idée, pour rejoindre le domaine du « fainéantise, fatigue, somnolence, in- visuel. Regarder la maladie, la mort ou le tranquillité, vagabondage » (Casagrande, péché en face signiie se rendre conscient Vecchio 2003, 133). Son statut se disputait de la vulnérabilité et de la périssabilité de sur la frontière entre «une faiblesse du corps» l’être humain et se demander comment et « une maladie de l’âme » (Casagrande, on pourrait se sauver. Tant que les images Vecchio 2003, 134). survivent (bien que s’efaçant petit à petit) L’iconographie roumaine, tributaire à sur les supports détériorés par le temps un imaginaire plus fruste, retient l’image du et par la précarité de la conservation des péché par excellence dans le monde paysan: églises, la question persiste. Les corps des la paresse, l’inappétence pour le travail calamités racontent la même histoire, pour (compris surtout en tant qu’efort physique). un autre public, moins prêt ou moins dispos, La parémiologie des Roumains abonde peut-être, à l’entendre. dans des proverbes et des dictons construits

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Y a-t-il un corps du péché et de la maladie? La Paresse et la Peste dans l’iconographie religieuse roumaine (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles)

BIBLIOgRAPHIE

Aicardi-Cheve, Dominique. 2003. Les Corps de la contagion. Boia, Lucian. 1985. Probleme de geograie istorică [Problèmes Etudes anthropologiques des représentations iconographiques de géographie historique]. Bucarest: Ed. Universităţii din Bu- de la Peste (XVIème-XXème siècle en Europe). hèse de doctorat cureşti. d’Université, Université de la Méditerranée – Aix-Marseille Casagrande, Carla et Vecchio, Silvana. 2003. Histoire des pé- II. chés capitaux au Moyen Age, trad. de l’italien par Pierre-Em- Ariès, Philippe. 1983. Images de l’homme devant la mort. manuel Dauzat. Paris: Ed. Aubier. Paris: Ed. Seuil. Cernovodeanu, Binder. 1993. Cavalerii Apocalipsului: cala- Baschet, Jérome. 2003. “Les sept péchés capitaux et leurs châ- mitățile naturale din trecutul României (până la 1800) [Les timents dans l’iconographie médiévale.” Dans Casagrande, Cavaliers de l’Apocalypse: calamités naturelles du passé de la Carla et Vecchio, Silvana, op. cit. Roumanie (jusqu’en 1800)]. Bucarest: Silex. Baudrillard, Jean. 1976. L’échange symbolique et la mort. Pa- Corfus, Ilie. 1975. Însemnări de demult [Notes de jadis]. Iaşi: ris: Ed. Gallimard. Ed. Junimea. Baudrillard, Jean. 1981. Simulacres et simulations. Paris: Ed. Debray, Régis. 1992. Vie et mort de l’image. Une histoire du re- Galilée. gard en Occident. Paris: Ed. Gallimard. Băjenaru, Elena. 2007. Icoane și iconari din Țara Făgărașu- Didi-Huberman, Georges. 1992. Ce que nous voyons, ce qui lui. Centre și curente de pictură pe sticlă [Icônes et peintres d’icônes dans le Pays de Făgăraș. Centres et courants de peinture sur verre]. Bucarest: Ed. Oscar Print. Bilțiu, Pamil et Maria. 1999. Izvorul fermecat. Legende, basme mitologice și mito-credințe din județul Maramureș [La source enchantée. Légendes, contes mythologiques et mytho-croyances du département de Maramureș]. Baia Mare: Ed. Gutinul. Bogdan, Cristina. 2002. Imago mortis în cultura română veche (secolele XVII-XIX) [Imago mortis dans la culture roumaine pré-moderne (XVIIe-XIXe siècles)]. Bucarest: Ed. Uni- versităţii din Bucureşti. Bogdan, Cristina. 2009. “Visages de la Mort en Roumanie. Considérations iconographiques.” Dans Death and Society. Transdisciplinary studies, ed. Mihaela Grancea. Cluj-Napo- ca: Ed. Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă. Bogdan, Cristina. 2010. “A peste, fame et bello, libera nos, Domine! Lumea românească premodernă sub lupa cala- mităţilor.” Dans De la ictiv la real. Imaginea, imaginarul, imagologia [Du ictif au réel. Image, imaginaire, imagologie], eds. Andi Mihalache, Silvia Marin-Barutcief. Iaşi: Editura Universităţii “Al. I. Cuza”. Bogdan, Cristina. 2013. “Avatarurile unui simbol escatologic (calul) în iconograia monumentelor de cult din Ţara Ro- mânească (secolele XVIII-XIX)” [Les Avatars d’un symbole eschatologique (le cheval) dans l’iconographie des monuments de culte en Valachie (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles)]. Dans Lu- mea animalelor. Realități, reprezentări, simboluri [Le monde des animaux. Réalités, représentations, symboles], sous la direction de Maria Magdalena Székely, Iași: Ed. Editura Uni- versităţii “Al. I. Cuza.” Bogdan, Cristina. 2014a. “Le discours de la peur: Mort, ca- lamités et eschatologie dans la peinture des églises transyl- vaines (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles).” Dans Memento mori. Il genere macabro in Europa dal Medioevo a oggi. Atti del Convegno internazionale, Torino, 16-18 ottobre 2014, ed. Marco Piccat, Laura Ramello. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Bogdan, Cristina. 2014b. “Les visages changeants du patrimoine iconographique. La double temporalité des images de la Mort.” Dans Linda Idjéraoui-Ravez, Nicolas Pélissier (coord.), Quant les traces communiquent. Culture, patrimoine, médiatisation de la mémoire. Paris: L’Harmattan (Communication et Civilisation).

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro nous regarde. Paris: Les Editions du Minuit. Marin-Barutcief, Silvia. 2012. “L’anxiété de la mort et ses échos culturels. Saint Charalampe en Olténie au XIXe siècle.” Eretescu, Constantin. 2007. Fata Pădurii și Omul Nopții. Actes du XVème Congrès International d’Études sur les Danses În compania iințelor supranaturale [La Fille de la Forêt et macabres et l’Art macabre en général, I, édité par l’Association l’Homme de la Nuit. Dans la compagnie des êtres surnaturels]. “Danses Macabres d’Europe.” Chartres. Bucarest: Ed. Compania. Marin-Barutcief, Silvia. 2014. Hristofor: chipurile unui sfânt Evseev, Ivan. 1998. Dicționar de magie, demonologie și mitolo- fără chip. Reprezentările din cultura românească veche și gie românească [Dictionnaire de magie, démonologie et my- sursele lor [Christophe: les visages d’un saint sans visage. Les thologie roumaine]. Timișoara: Amarcord. représentations de la culture roumaine pré-moderne et leurs sources]. Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Mega. Garnier, François. 1982. Le langage de l’image au Moyen Âge. Signiication et symbolique, I. Paris: Le Léopard d’Or. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1964. Le Visible et l’Invisible. Paris: Ed. Gallimard. Godea, Ioan et Cristache-Panait, Ioana. 1978. Monumente istorice bisericești din Eparhia Oradei. Bisericile de lemn [Mo- Nicoară, Toader. 2006. Sentimentul de insecuritate în societatea românească la începuturile timpurilor moderne (1600- numents historiques sacrés de l’Eparchie d’Oradea. Les églises 1830) [Le sentiment d’insécurité dans la société roumaine aux de bois]. Oradea: Ed. Episcopiei Ortodoxe Române a Oradei. débuts des temps modernes (1600-1830)]. Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Ispas, Sabina et Truță, Doina. 1986. Lirica populară de dra- Accent. goste. Index motivic și tipologic [La lyrique populaire d’amour. Porumb, Marius. 2003. Un veac de pictură românească din Index des motifs et typologique], I, II. Bucarest: Ed. Acade- Transilvania. Secolul XVIII [Un siècle de peinture roumaine miei. en Transylvanie. Le XVIIIème siècle]. Bucarest: Meridiane. Lebrun, François. 1975. Les hommes et la mort en Anjou aux Prut, Constantin. 1972. Fantasticul în arta populară XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Essai de démographie et de psychologie românească [Le fantastique dans l’art populaire roumain]. Bu- historiques. Paris: Ed. Flammarion. carest: Ed. Meridiane.

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro La Paresse et la Mort, Juli]a (dép. d'Arad)

La Mort, la Peste, la Paresse, Corund (dép. de Satu Mare)

St. Charalampe, icône sur verre, peinte par Savu Moga, 1872 (Coll. du Musée du Paysan Roumain)

La Mort, la Peste, la Paresse, Ulciug (dép. de S\laj)

Saint Charalampe, Vene]ia de Jos (dép. de Bra[ov)

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro La Paresse, Zalnoc (dép. de S\laj) La Paresse, Dragu (dép. de S\laj)

La Mort et la Paresse, S\lciva (dép. de Hunedoara)

La Famine, la Paresse, la Peste, Dese[ti (dép. de Maramure[)

St. Charalampe, icône sur verre, peinte par Savu Moga, 1872 (Coll. du Musée du Paysan Roumain)

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro

Title: The House of the Soul

Authors: Cosmin Manolache, Lila Passima

How to cite this article: Manolache, Cosmin and Lila Passima. 2015. The House of the Soul. Martor 20: 172-

180. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Proposal for the theme Fundamentals – Venice Biennale 2014 The House of the Soul

Cosmin Manolache and Lila Passima Curators at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant

We may argue the following, without overly betraying symbolic thinking: the passage from one world to another ” was ‘spiritual’, without the experience being an ordeal lacking in physical manifestations. […] What in today’s society has become a metaphor was in traditional society a real experience, albeit one diicult to communicate, an experience necessary in order to make explicit the paradoxical nature of extension. (Radu Drăgan – Inverted Worlds)

A number of preliminary clariications.The House of the Soul is the idea for an exhibition. We owe the idea in large part to the “Regions of Romania — The Buzău Region. Cultural and Natural Heritage as a Basis for Sustainable Development” project, initiated by the University of Bucharest — Geomedia Centre and inanced by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund in 2007. During ieldwork carried out in the summer of that year, we were able to do preliminary research on the subject of the alms cottage custom, one of a series of burial and commemoration practices from the north of Buzău county. In 2013 the curatorial idea took shape as a response to the proposal that the Venice Biennale of Architecture made to the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant (MȚR) to put forward an exhibition that would enter into dialogue with the theme for 2014, Fundamentals, in a space made available to the MȚR. For various reasons, the exhibition did not come to fruition, remaining at the proposal stage. In the meantime, the project was resumed in a somewhat more complex form and with more substantial funding—“Applied Research for Sustainable Development and Economic Growth following the Principles of Geo-Conservation; Supporting the Buzău Region UNESCO Geo-park initiative”, set underway by the Romanian Academy’s Sabba S. Ștefănescu Institute of Geodynamics and inanced by the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism (EEA Grants) and the Romanian Ministry of Education — which made it possible to revisit the locations where we had discovered the alms cottage tradition, mentioned cursorily in the Festivals and Customs volumes published by the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore. The title we have chosen for the exhibition we present below — The House of the Soul — was inspired by Radu Drăgan’s book Inverted Worlds.

Contexts and structures. In the traditional world the system of dwelling struck a balance between the criterion of utility and that of rules relating to protection from all kinds of danger. The starting point was a mono-cellular space that had to be big enough to contain the bare essentials for dwelling. (Wooden) structures were shelters that guaranteed continuity: houses — families, churches — communities. Both the one and the other could be moved under extreme circumstances: portability was taken into account during the design phase. In any event, churches also adopted the symbolic model of the ship, which through the rituals enacted in them transported the community safely to the next world. There was potential for mobility both within the material world and between this world and the next. Sacred architecture found its fulilment in the practice of ritual, abidance by the canons, and airmation of dogmas. The opposite model can also be found in the potential imaginary modes present in the world of the village: ritual can generate a built space, whose purpose is likewise to enable crossing between worlds. But here we are no longer dealing with an institutional type of organisation and administration. We have entered the realm of folk beliefs, a blend of theology and magic. This system of rules is more readily subject to modiication than in the institutional case of the church. The main tools of actualisation are

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro piety and charity on the part of the believers. One such example is the “alms house” we found in Bisoca, in northern Buzău County, near the old monastery of Poiana Mărului.

Description. In brief, the custom of the “alms house” is as follows: at a set period of time after the funeral — forty days, termed the Panagia in the ecclesiastical space and in the traditional village, but also other intervals of up to one year, in special circumstances — the family of the deceased donates as alms to a poorer family a wooden structure that has all the trappings of a temporary dwelling / shelter, furnished and equipped with the bare essentials for survival or a simple life (bed, chair, table, bucket, crockery, cutlery; to these may also be added various other items: an icon, stove, cooker, cupboard, shelves, clothes rack, calendar, paintings etc.). The rationale behind this arrangement comes from the mode in which peasants from this region (and also other regions) picture the next world. According to this conception, the next world mirrors the world in which we live our earthly lives. In the next world, you will still be able to meet your friends and neighbours. Consequently, a projection of the real village is a world that enables a form of dwelling which preserves all the characteristics of the material world. But in order for the deceased to possess all the household items he needs in the next world, his family must perform the ritual of pomană (commemorative almsgiving). Practised in all the Romanian traditional spaces, pomană enables communication between this world and the next. In the particular form encountered in Bisoca, pomană transcends a merely alimentary order. The physiological and sensorial possibilities of the human body as it is imagined post mortem are thereby enlarged: from the interior (alimentation) to the exterior (habitation). In addition, whereas alimentary alms are believed to reach the deceased by means of the consumption and use of the ofering by the living (once only, in the case of food, and on various occasions in the case of crockery and utensils), use of the alms house is continuous: quasi-permanent habitation of the new space by a new body, which in their writings some theologians and monks call the spiritualised body. This ritual can also be found in Moldavia — Galați, Bacău and Neamț counties — where the house is simulated through the use of rush matting rather than blankets or prefabricated wooden elements. Also relevant is the name of the practice: Grijă (Care) or Grijanie (Caringness), because it includes a psychological function, even if this is sooner a secondary element for the family of the deceased in relation to what makes the funerary practices as a whole viable, namely a particular mode of viewing life, death and the world.

How the ritual unfolds. The “alms house” is built in the yard of the deceased’s home. The person who will receive the house lies down on the bed inside and the priest blesses the pomană: “This house, with its bed and table, is given to X for the soul of Y!” The structure is then disassembled, and the parts are taken to the yard of the family that will receive the pomană, where they are re-assembled. More often than not, “alms houses” are used as summer kitchens or storage spaces. Improvements are made to some of them and they are then lived in. The materials used to build them are wood, but we have also come across examples in which prefabricated wood materials are employed. They are situated near the main house and the garden. The “alms house” is an element of continuity (a bridge, threshold, passage) and articulation between this world and the next. But what enables the existence of this element connecting the two worlds is corporeality. The transfer of the house and its items from one family to another binds them through the custom of commemorating the dead both in the real community and, above all, in a future, imagined community, to which the villagers from Bisoca relate with remarkable urgency. We witnessed such a commemoration, carried out a few days before the Panagia (fortieth day). We were told that the deceased had to ind his house as soon as he was subjected to the provisory judgement (according to Orthodox Christian doxology, the individual judgement of the soul takes place forty days after burial), whence the family’s concern that the ritual be fulilled in time and in accordance with all the prescriptions of the community. The deceased’s body and the living body of him who receives the alms enter into a relationship of likeness and communication whereby the two worlds ind points of convergence, with the alms house thereby becoming a sounding box. The minimal house (in this world)

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro and the garden (in the next world) create a utopic space. The house is conceived as a dwelling / shelter suicient to allow survival in a world imagined as the Garden of Heaven.

Documentation. The bibliography we consulted widened the area encompassed by these spatial simulations of dwelling in the next world, which besides their symbolic nature also display a mode of relating to life and death. Similar but non-durable structures (found in Moldavia and Muntenia) were made from rush mats or blankets (carpets, rugs): four poles the height of a room were planted in the ground and then the walls and ceiling were hung using these fabrics, also making assembly and disassembly easier. These limsier versions are more similar to a shelter / tent, which obviously facilitates mobility. The same as in the case of the alms house at Bisoca, the interior was equipped with all the things required for living / dwelling. Then the structure was disassembled. In fact, almost all the items that furnished an interior are also to be found as oferings for the soul of the deceased in other areas of the country. But given that every custom always has the potential to be brought up to date and adapted, innovations will also occur, reinvigorating an old belief with new forms and materials. We have found an in interesting detail, which might open up research into possible connections, in a story that J. L. Borges adapts from the spiritualist writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. The story, “A Dying Theologian”, was inspired by Vera Christiana Religio, Continens Universam Theologiam Novae Ecclesiae (1771), rather than by Arcana Cœlestia (1749–1756), as Borges claims, and recounts the sensorial experiences of a theologian (Melancthon) after his death. Everything around him is identical to the world he has just left. Gradually the new world alters in signiicant ways, and inally it is perceived according to the standard representation of hell. The cause of this transformation is the absence of charity in the writings and above all the soul of the theologian. I have not spoken with Melancthon so often or so near as with Luther... Because he could not approach me in the same way, inasmuch as he devoted his study so fully to justiication by faith alone, and not to charity... I have heard that as soon as he entered the Spiritual World, a house was prepared for him like the house in which he had stayed in the world... In his chamber also all things were like: a like table, a like desk with compartments, and also a bookcase; and therefore, as soon as he came thither... he placed himself at the table, and continued to write; and this concerning justiication by faith alone; and in like manner for some days; and nothing whatever about charity. When this was perceived by the Angels, he was asked through messengers why he did not write about charity also. He replied that in charity there is nothing of the Church; for if that were to be received as a kind of essential attribute of the Church, man would also ascribe to himself the merit of justiication, and thence of salvation; and thus he would bereave faith of its spiritual essence. The story is provocative precisely for the link between the two perfectly mirrored worlds and the act of Christian charity, whereby the real world seems to ind its perfect continuation after death, exactly the same as in the model found in the village of Bisoca, where we ind the ritual of gaining access. Apart from the ethnographical infor-mation that localises the custom (also named care, alms at the gate, the dead man’s house, and the rush-mat house), there is also a consistent description of the intermediate form, which is also practised with the alms you give during the recipient’s life:

“I have made a house of rush mats, of four rush mats, I have put the bed inside the house, I have put rugs on the walls, we have placed a lamp to the east, by the lamp and the bed I have placed a table. On the table I have placed all kinds of dishes: a plate of kolivo, a plate of pilaf, whole roast chickens and loaves of bread. Take a bag, in the bag place a roast chicken, a loaf of bread and a knife, food as for a journey, that he may have it in the world beyond. I have planted a tree over there, to the east, as at a betrothal, a tree taken from the earth, roots and all. We have planted two trees, for the man and for myself, for we have each thought of it. I put my clothes in the tree. I put there stockings, footwear, blouse, slip, then a white skirt... At root of the tree place a live chicken. Make a ladder from candles and ring loaves, also place in the tree a towel for wiping the eyes. Put everything there. Then start to give them away: give away the clothes, give them to whom you like. First to strangers. Give not to a young boy, because you will say you have fathered him once more.”

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Similarities. We have observed that the logic behind the building and donation of such structures is the same as that behind the wayside crosses / shelters to be found at crossroads, which are points where a tension exists between this world and the next. Likewise, wayside crosses / shelters are also erected to commemorate the souls of the departed and often feature a well, which is also viewed as a means of communicating with the next world. We asked ourselves whether the “humbleness” of such structures might have a connexion with the tabernacles that St Peter the Apostle thought to erect on Mount Tabor, during the Transiguration, for Jesus, Elias and Moses, who crossed between worlds and whom he wished to bring closer. It is a supposition whose validity remains to be examined.

The artistic concept of the project. We propose to construct an “alms house”, which will be accompanied by a book and a documentary ilm. The exterior space (the gallery) will become habitable, having been structured in accordance with the ritual. The structure will come into being in situ and will be invested with the alterity of a place possessing the symbolic power of ritual dwelling. Being a composite of building materials and speciic items, the structure of the dwelling space, although fundamentally symbolic / religious in its functions, will, as a visual space, acquire the features of a post- modern cultural product.

Version 1. As a counterpoint (work-in-progress) to the alms house (dimensions: 2.5 / 2.5 / 2.2 metres), a craftsman will build a wayside cross (dimensions: 1.5 / 1.5 / 2 metres). The relationship between the two structures will create a more powerful and complex territory situated at the point where two worlds intersect and overlap: this world and the next, the HERE and the BEYOND. Version 2. The current form of the alms house (dimensions: 2.5 / 2.5 / 2.2 metres) will be encapsulated in the previous form (consisting of traditional carpets that incorporate the vegetal elements of the garden through textile ibres, natural colours and decoration, reconstructing the symbolic context of the Garden of Heaven), expanded to dimensions of 6 / 6 / 4 m. The “house inside a house” formula (the perishable husk and the seed that actualises and gives re-birth) is one in which past and present, this world and the next coexist. Items for the exhibition space. Old and contemporary realia, autobiographical items (photographs, furniture) and typical bought items (from wholesalers, markets) used in commemorative almsgiving, in order to achieve a true-to-life recreation of the ritual. Materials. Wood, in the framework of the structure. Wool and blends of synthetic ibres for the fabrics and carpets. OSB panels and pine planks. Undulated or sheet metal panels for the roof. Household items. Plates, cups, cutlery, kettle, mirror, clothes, hooks, bed, pillow, blanket, table, chairs, bucket, stove. Sound installation. Audio montage in which we have included archive recordings of bocete (bocet s., bocete pl. – improvised lament, usually versiied and sung to a particular melody, part of the funeral ritual), as well as ield recordings with those whom we interviewed on the subject.

Translated by Alistair Ian Blyth.

BIBlIogrAPHy:

Radu Drăgan. 2000. Lumile răsturnate [Inverted Worlds]. Bucharest: Paideia. Ion Ghinoiu, Ofelia Văduva, Cornelia Pleșca. 2001. Sărbători și obiceiuri (IV. Moldova) [Festivals and Customs (IV. Moldavia)]. Bucha- rest: Editura enciclopedică. Ion Ghinoiu. 1999. Lumea de aici, lumea de dincolo [Our World, The World of Beyond]. Bucharest: Editura Fundației Culturale Române, (seria Antropologie culturală). Mihaela Pușcaș. 2000. Pomana din timpul vieții [Commemorative Almsgiving During Life]. In Practici funerare și reprezentări ale lumii de dincolo [Funeral Practices and Representations of the Next World]. Bucharest: Editura Paideia (Anthropology Cahiers Series).

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro ALMS HOUSE 1 / a b details

c d

e f

At a set period of time after the funeral, the family of the deceased donates as alms to a poorer family a wooden structure that has all the trappings of a temporary dwelling/shelter, furnished and equipped with the bare essentials for survival or a simple life (bed, chair, table, bucket, crockery, cutlery; to these may also be added various other items: an icon, stove, cooker, cupboard, shelves, clothes rack, calendar, paintings, etc.). The rationale behind this arrangement comes from the mode in which peasants from this region (and also other regions) conceive of the next world. 176

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro ALMS HOUSE 2 / a b contexts

c d e

f g

More often that not, “alms houses” are used as summer kitchens or storage spaces. Improvements are made to some of them and they are then lived in. The materials used to build them are wood, but we have also come across examples in which prefabricated wood materials are employed. They are situated near the main house and the garden. The “alms house” is an element of continuity (a bridge, threshold, passage) and articulation between this world and the next. The minimal house (in this world) and the garden (in the next world) create a utopic space. The house is conceived as a dwelling/shelter suicient to allow survival in a world imagined as the Garden of177 Heaven.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro 04 05

06 07

How the ritual unfolds

178

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro vErSiOn 1a / 01 02 wayside crosses contexts

03 04 05

found at crossroads 06 07

wayside crosses/ shelters

08 wayside crosses are also erected to commemorate the souls of the departed and often feature a well, which is also viewed as a means of communicating with the next world points where a tension exists between this world and the next 179

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro vErSiOn 1a / details

The current form of the alms house (dimensions: 2.5/2.5/2.2 metres) will be encapsulated in the previous form (consisting of traditional carpets that incorporate the vegetal elements of the garden through textile ibres, natural colours and decoration, reconstructing the symbolic context of the Garden of Heaven), expanded to dimensons of 6/6/4 m.

[ [ http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro

Title: Displaying the Undisplayable: Nameless in the World. An Exhibition on the Pro-Natalist

Policies of the Ceauşescu Regime

Authors: Gabriela Nicolescu, Lila Passima, Corina Doboş

How to cite this article: Nicolescu, Gabriela, Lila Passima and Corina Doboş. 2015. Displaying the

Undisplayable: Nameless in the World. An Exhibition on the Pro-Natalist Policies of the Ceauşescu Regime. Martor 20:

181-192. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Displaying the Undisplayable: Nameless in the World. An Exhibition on the Pro-Natalist Policies of the Ceauşescu Regime

Gabriela Nicolescu Associate lecturer in anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research on the politics of display and representation includes ieldwork in the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Lila Passima Curator and visual artist. She is in charge of the museum' education department from the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Corina Doboş Historian working at the University of Bucharest and “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest on bio-politics in Communist Romania.

Cei din lume fără nume. Expoziție despre politica pronatalistă a regimului Ceausescu // Nameless in the World. An Exhibition on the Pro-Natalist Policies of the Ceaușescu Regime is an exibition organized by the Institute of the Comunist Crimes and Memory of the Romanian Exile (ICCMRE) in partnership with the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant (NMRP), displayed at the NMRP Headquarters (Foyer Room) in October - November 2012. Concept & curatorship: Lila Passima and Cosmin Manolache (NMRP) Documentation: Florin S. Soare and Corina Doboș (ICCMRE) Virtual tour ( http://politicapronatalista.iiccr.ro): Mihai Bodea & Youngminds

GN: I remember that the idea of making an exhibition on the theme of abortion in socialist Romania, in the last decades of the socialist regime, came to me and Corina in London in 2011. Back then, I had suggested to Corina that it would be an interesting project to make. My concern was how to create exhibitions not starting from objects, but the other way around, starting from a theme / concept and having available plenty of research material to work with. Corina, in your case, I know you have coordinated an important research on the theme of abortion in communist Romania at the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania and Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMRE), whose results were synthesized in two volumes: The Pro-Natalist Policy of the Ceaușescu Regime. Vol I. A Comparative Perspective (2010)1 and The Pro-Natalist Policy of the Ceaușescu Regime. Institutions and Practices (2011)2. The irst volume compares the Romanian pro-natalist policies with the pro-natalism practices in other six Eastern European countries and France, while the second volume focuses on the institutions and practices of Romanian pro-natalism. I know this research and these two volumes were made in collaboration with other people from the IICCMER (note: Florin Soare, Luciana Jinga, Cristina Roman). A wonderful piece of work resulted and I was interested in inding out how this kind of material could be displayed in an exhibition. So, are there any diferences between the book and the exhibition?

CD: You know, before the two of us discussed in London about the exhibition, Florin Soare had come to me and told me that he was thinking of somehow doing an exhibition based on our research. So, when you proposed the same thing to me I said: “All right. Let’s do it”. So, after our talk, I contacted Lila Passima and Cosmin Manolache and the four of us, together with Florin, worked together to set up this exhibition. I would say there are important diferences between the book and the exhibition, and, at the beginning, this was quite diicult for us (me and Florin Soare) as historians... We gave Lila and Cosmin the two volumes and lots, lots, lots of documents and photos. It was huge. So Lila and Cosmin told us: “OK, this is a huge deal, and it’s better to talk a little bit about what happened there,

1) Corina Dobo[ (coord.), Florin S. Soare, Luciana M. Jinga. 2010. Politica pronatalist\ a regimului Ceau[escu. Vol. I: O perspectiv\ comparativ\. Ia[i: Polirom. 2) Florin S. Soare, Luciana M. Jinga (coord.), Cristina Romana, Corina Dobo[. 2011. Politica pronatalist\ a regimului Ceau[escu. Vol II: Institu]ii [i practici. Ia[i: Polirom.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro you know?” So, we tried to explain to them what had happened in a much simpler way. We tried to give them some kind of shortcuts into the thought process behind the books, and the pictures of hospitals from the ’60s-’70s which Florin found in the archives; these pictures proved to be very important for the exhibition. Cosmin, for example, had memories of the medical oice his mother was working in as a nurse, and said: “Oh, I know what a medical oice should look like, you know? Because I remember from my childhood how everything was laid out in a medical oice.” We had visited many exhibitions on historical themes in Romania (I participated in the organization of some of these, so I am quite familiar with this “concept”)... and they were boring because there were lots of documents on the walls for one to read. We didn’t want to do this. In fact, Lila didn’t want to do this. So we said: “OK. Let’s try to keep it more visual. So, we focused on visuals – we had the hospital pictures Florin found in the archives of the Ministry of Health, and these were quite important. We had some wonderful letters, handwritten by citizens and addressed to the Ministry of Health... and this is important too; this is, I think, the main diference between the book and the exhibition. The book is historical research, written by historians and addressing mainly historians. Historians write mainly on laws and institutions, not on individual stories. And when you write about this, you write a book. When you want to put this on display, irst and foremost, you have to make it more visual. Secondly, you make it more personal –that is why you use the personal (hi)stories more.

GN: Why did you choose for this exhibition this museum (the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant)?

CD: Well... in the irst place, it was because of you: you put me in contact with Lila and Cosmin. And secondly, because I really like that museum – it was the obvious choice for me.

GN: Why do you like this particular museum? What exactly do you like so much about it?

CD: I think it was the irst one I visited when I came to Bucharest, after I graduated in Cluj-Napoca. And... I remember visiting the permanent exhibitions and I was surprised there was not much explanation written under the objects. You had to be more engaged with the object you see, as the information on that object was not just simply delivered to you. You had to ind out for yourself. And I liked this.

GN: Now, to come back to the curators working in the museum. Lila, how was your experience of curating this exhibition?

LP: This exhibition was a challenge for me. I did not know much about pro-natalist policies except for the well-known Romanian expression: “children of the decree generation” – a generation I was part of, being born in 1967, despite my parents telling me I was a wanted child. By chance or not, I was subliminally and anonymously one of the thousands of hundreds of victims pertaining to this phenomena. My personal experience became part of the concept of the exhibition.

GN: How did you decide on the narrative centers of the exhibition?

LP: The exhibition centered on two powerful narrative centers: the medical examination room with the gynecological bed and the torture instruments and the domestic space, where I wanted to introduce visitors to the material life of the 1970s lifestyle. The irst space was often reluctant to understand and hear the personal drama and the real causes which led women to such experiences. The second space had all the aesthetic and material elements of a lat in 1970s’ Bucharest. I operated an autobiographic scenery, I moved my own library and books, as well as all the objects I could ind from that epoch: magazines, dollies, porcelain knickknacks, displayed in glass cabinets, on the bed frame or on the TV set. I have included the ever-present glass ish and the Gloria radio, the telephone, also displayed on a dolly, the carpet, the nylon curtains with sewed colorful lowers, the sofa and the dolly put on display, all integrated in the museum scenography to make the exhibition

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro space look real, inhabited and warm. We invited the audience to read the books on display and to watch a documentary entitled The Children of the Decree, directed by Florin Iepan. The audience was invited to become active participants, challenged to relate with the subject on display in a diferent quality: not as a spectator, but as a participant. The personal space of the domestic space was supposed to oppose the traumatic, empty and painful medical space. One of the connection elements between the two spaces were the empiric instruments used in amateurish methods of abortion: the kitchen table and its plastic cover, on which such practices took place; the vinegar and alcohol bottles used for (irritant) internal irrigations, hand- made “perfusion-tubes”, helped, one way or another, evacuate the embryo / fetus from the uterus. Directly on the loor, I exhibited instruments which contributed to the breaking of the uterus: the knitting needles and the spindle. All of these, together with some other empirical methods that made use of “natural” poisonous substances, such as those contained by the pelargonium lowers or by oleanders, very often caused irremediable traumas and even the mothers’ death.

GN: How was it to work and to make an exhibition together with two historians? Did you ask them information that they were not ready to give out? I am thinking about interviews with people or about certain objects. I remember you told me you worked with various types of visual materials.

LP: Curating this exhibition was one of the rare experiences I had – in fact, the second one – where I worked inter-disciplinarily with historians, directors, students and experts in communication. The irst time I did that it proved to be an awkward experience, somewhere in the heart of Siberia, in 2001. It took place at the Tomsk Regional Museum, one of the “three-in-one” museums – where history, archeology and art were displayed in the same place. I had been invited there to curate an exhibition on the theme of Exile in Archives as part of a Museum Biennial. The subject of Siberian deportations was very local, not yet discussed publicly and never put on display. As I’ve said, I worked together with many other people in an interdisciplinary way, by combining curatorial work with presentation workshops where we explained the concept to the audience. I mention this example because it was one of the irst exhibitions I curated and also because it was a project in which I collaborated with historians. I usually choose the concepts for the exhibitions I curate, or, if not, I discuss these concepts with Cosmin Manolache [curator at RPNM]. I collaborate with art historians, philologists, ethnologists or anthropologists and musicians. Corina Doboș and Florin Soare’s invitation was a real challenge. The subject was very sensitive, complex and based on an impressive corpus of already researched material. After having a irst meeting with them, I realized I was free to build the exhibition concept, which was good for me. The fact that they had not imposed on me the approach or the manner of display of their historical material (with printed cardboards, too much descriptive information to display the phenomenon) excited me even more. The title of the exhibition, Cei din lume fără nume, was decided following a conversation we had with Ruxandra Grigorescu, a colleague of ours. She remembers that in 1980s’ Bucharest, the [Orthodox] Church was also praying for the aborted kids. Because they had not been baptized, the Church called them the children with no name which in Romanian is a very poetically rhymed expression3. During some of the meetings we had, I realized what kind of materials I needed: from personal letters written by women themselves addressed to the Ministry of Health, to personal objects, testimonies from archived iles, to oicial documents and laws of the pro-natalist politics, articles from newspapers, propaganda literature where the role of the family and of procreation were emphasized. I realized I needed to work with various types of images to create a complex visual discourse for this theme. I also realized I needed some powerful objects to render the drama of the phenomena visible to all. The gynecologic table, the surgical instruments and, in contrast, the medals given to heroic mothers. An important place in the exhibition was given to the so called “lethal” objects, those which triggered the mothers’ death through informal, amateurish practices of abortion. Next to these, death certiicates printed in black and white were exhibited, in addition to the anti-abortion law.

3) “Cei din lume f\r\ nume” can be literally translated as “nameless in the world”.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro GN: So many images...What do you mean by “various types of images”?

LP: I wanted to give the impression of a state of conlict. The visual frame helped me to do this by putting together diferent types of realities; the fact that women and the oicialdom were two separate entities, with no communication in-between, in a state of... disjunction. The black and white image of Romanian hospitals [during last years of the communist regime] acted as an image of poverty and brutality, devoid of the human element and the predominant state is one of absence, emptiness. This image was supposed to work as omnipresent and troubling subliminal pain. In contrast, the colorful postcards from socialist cities or touristic destinations were meant to represent the image of a happy society. Other types of images of beautiied reality with advertising images from magazines and newspapers, such as The Woman (with the face of a happy woman capable of being a mother and an employee simultaneously) were counterpoints to the black and white images mentioned before. Images of women were meant to be prompts for happy families, communist childhood and successful, multi-developed society – because the family was the basic / vital unit of the communist society. There were some other recurrent images in that era: the image of the falsely protective, utterly demagogic and misleading totalitarian couple [Nicolae Ceauşescu and Elena, his wife] – always surrounded by youngsters, Communist “pioneers” and the Homeland’s “falcons”, showing unreserved care for the future of the country – the kids of the Golden Era. To stress the disjunction between how individuals sufered because of this law (which was, in fact, controlling and punishing their private life) and the oicial standpoint, I added the emotional element of personal histories, painfully re-embodied through re-collection: women’s voices. We used three such audio installations to put on display the voice of women telling their painful traumas of their induced abortions, as well as that of the medical personnel involved in such situations and forced to abide by the law.

GN: Now to come back to Corina and at the relation between the exhibition and the books. If you wrote the book again, if you were to coordinate the two volumes, now, after you’ve participated in the curation of the exhibition, would you write them diferently?

CD: No. No, because I think you can do the personal – or the microhistory – approach only if you have done the irst one, only if you have done / researched the big chunk of history, where you sort things out, chronologically and institutionally. For me, I wouldn’t know how to write a history book starting from these personal stories. But you know, because I had written this book historically, objectively and institutionally, and blah blah blah, I did not feel pleased with myself as a woman, you know? Because the book(s) weren’t so much about these tragic stories that happened that I became aware of when researching for the project. These tragic histories do not come from the book. And I did not feel at ease with myself, that was the main thing. So I said to myself: “Let’s do this [exhibition]!”

GN: That’s very interesting. So the tragic story did not come from the book.

CD: Not really. Because, irst of all, the research is huge and mainly institutional, with laws and things like this and there is not enough room for these little, personal stories that show you the tragedy of what happened on a personal level. So I felt I was somehow guilty, especially as a woman, of not bringing these stories in.

GN: Is the book more informative than the exhibition? Does the book explain better what the context was and what the similar laws in other countries were? What does the book say about abortions?

CD: About abortion in Romania, it says... it was a stupid policy. Not that it was a tragic policy, but a stupid one. Especially if you compare it to what the other countries around Romania were doing at the same time and in the same situation. In terms of the type of the pro-natalist measures taken and in terms of their results. It was a stupid policy and a stupid decision.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro GN: In terms of numbers? Was there an increase in natality?

CD: Yeah, there was; there was a very high birth rate in the irst three years after abortion was almost prohibited in Romania, and, afterwards, the numbers decreased... The birth rate was a bit higher than that of the other Communist European countries, but it was not that high, you know? If you compare what they wanted to do to what they had actually achieved, they had not achieved that much. The Western demographers were very interested in what happened in Romania, as they wanted to know if the increase of birth rates was sustainable over the years... And they arrived at the conclusion that no, in the long run, it was not. Changing the law does not make it easy to change people’s behavior. This was the thing.

GN: Is there any relationship between Romanian peasants and your project?

CD: Hmm…it might have a connection with the research project, but not with the exhibition. There was this idea of somehow diferentiating – in the exhibition – between the urban space and the countryside, to focus a little bit more on the rural space, but we did not have enough visual material to do this. We have some interviews made especially for this exhibition; Florin managed to get some interviews with women from the countryside, which are included in the exhibition, but the story we told, or most of it, was an urban story... because I believe that the main scene for all these tragic stories was the city, the urban areas, not the rural ones.

GN: This might have to do also with the fact that so many peasants moved to the urban areas during the Communist decades... so it does have to do with peasants, but with peasants that became urbanites...

CD: Yeah, and I guess, it has somehow to do with a tradition that is lost. And with those social connections which are lost by moving from the village to the city. Abortive practices had existed in Romania before (Communism), but in the village it was a totally diferent story – you knew someone [an old woman] who could help you... but when they moved to the cities, to the factories, it was more diicult for women to get to know someone who could help them get rid of an unwanted pregnancy. Hearing all these confessions, I came to realize how lonely these women were. I mean, they did not talk to anyone. They wouldn’t tell not even to their husbands or partners, they just kept it to themselves... and they were quite young – 20-22 years old, something like this... [Pause] and they kept this burden on their shoulders. To conclude, I think that one of the causes which led to this tragedy was the lack of social connections in the urban areas.

GN: What object or piece of the exhibition, or installation, or a corner, or a label, or something struck you? Anything that made you feel something powerful?

CD: Let me think.... I guess it was that installation with the obstetrical bed / table and with the lights on it (see http://politicapronatalista.iiccr.ro/krpano/index/3). It looks like a space made for interrogation... A space supposed to be a space for healing which, instead, becomes a place for scrutiny and interrogation of the body. Looking at this bed, I realized what happened in those years: the medical space became a policed space. The women coming there were not irst saved and afterwards interrogated, but the other way around.

GN: A question to both of you: do you know how many visitors entered the exhibition? What kind of feedback did you receive? Did you receive any criticism? This is a diicult topic to put on display, especially in contemporary Europe where birth rates have been going down and where diferent governments supported especially by the Catholic Church have increased....

LP: Almost four hundred visitors. It is a high number of visitors, if compared to other temporary exhibitions in the museum. It was good to see that, other than people aged 40-70, who were

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro directly interested in the subject on display, many young people came, kids born after the fall of the communist regime. Some of the people who lived through those years had real moments of happiness in discovering some of the vintage objects which seemed to attract more attention that the subject of the display itself and anything that had to do with the trauma. Overall, I think the exhibition left the visitors with some thoughts and made them relect more on the meaning of the objects on display. The display was free of constraints: we did not tell visitors what to think...

CP: I don’t have a feedback: even if we made and left some questionnaires there, to be illed in by the visitors, they did not write anything. We even bought pens for them, but still, they did not write.

GN: Stubborn visitors... Maybe it was a very sensitive theme or maybe the public that comes to the temporary exhibition is an elitist audience...

CD: I don’t know about that, but the students that participated in a workshop we organized were highly interested, smart and informed, and they knew a lot of things about abortion in communist Romania. During the exhibition, IICCMRE organized a workshop on abortion in Communist and post-communist Romania in partnership with two NGOs working on sexual education and women’s rights: Societatea de Educaţie Contraceptivă şi Sexuală (SECS) and Centrul Euroregional pentru Iniţiative Publice (ECPI). During the workshop, the show “FĂRĂ URME”, by Bogdan Georgescu and Irina Gâdiuţă, supported by AFCN, was presented. It brought into focus the project of the so-called “psychological counseling” that was supposed to be mandatory before each abortion on request, a controversial project that was discussed at the beginning of 2012 in the Romanian Parliament. The dialogue between Bogdan and Irina, played in the Communist living room set up in the exhibition (http://politicapronatalista.iiccr.ro/krpano/index/1), was a dialogue inspired by a real situation, showing how this kind of counseling ran on. Their show, reproducing a real-life counseling session, gave the participants an idea of how tough this “psychological counseling” could actually be, as it was not meant to help, but to frighten. You know, whenever you have a signiicant drop in the birthrates, the easiest thing to do is to blame abortion practices. It was the case in the 1960s and it’s been the case since the 1990s. But abortion in itself cannot cause this drop. It’s always a symptom of something that is actually much bigger. As in the ’60s, the main causes for the low birthrates were the accelerated industrialization and urbanization, while between 2009 and 2010, the economic crisis, poverty and migration of the young population caused this signiicant drop in natality. And it was so easy to blame abortion, not poverty, for this. But the number of abortions in the current decade has signiicantly dropped in comparison to that of the ’60s and of the ’90s. And that’s a good sign, as it means that the present generations are in control of their reproductive lives. Anyway, anyone can ind more about this subject by visiting the virtual tour of the exhibition (special thanks to Mihai Bodea for the wonderful photos, and to Youngminds for the virtual tour), which can be accessed and explored online at http://politicapronatalista.iiccr.ro. It is easier to get all this information with one single click, by simply sitting in front in the computer. The miracles of technology – you have more documents, more explanations, if you want to. Just a click and you’ll ind more – the information does not just pop up, it’s for you to access it. And it’s more comfortable to hear the interviews thematically displayed in the virtual tour than in the real exhibition.

LP: In hindsight, I personally believe that the wisest and most responsible attitude of an open society is to try as much as possible to protect its citizens from irremediable traumas by civic, cultural and educational means, directed against the artiicial juridical constraints against someone’s own body, against the relationship with the other, against freely consented unions. At the same time, society has to promote the respect towards those members who reject abortion for religious reasons, as well as to fully inform everyone about the dangers, risks and the possible physical and mental consequences caused by aggressions against one’s own body.

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Title: Being Carolyn Carlson: An auto-ethnography exploring the body as a site for knowledge

transmission

Author: Jana Al Obeidyine

How to cite this article: Al Obeidyine, Jana. 2015. ”eing Carolyn Carlson: “n auto-ethnography exploring the

body as a site for knowledge transmission. Martor 20: 195-199. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Being Carolyn Carlson: An auto-ethnography exploring the body as a site for knowledge transmission

Jana Al Obeidyine Member of Choreomundus Alumni Association

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS

his article is an auto-ethnographic essay that analyses a one-day workshop on body imagery, embodiment, transmis- dance transmission delivered by Jean-Christophe Paré. It aims to demonstrate how sion, movement analysis, kinesthesia, the body can act as a site capable of sensing and feeling certain dimensions of the AFCMD, Jean-Christophe Paré, Caro- past through imagination. lyn Carlson, Density 21.5

”he medium of embodied knowledge Once on stage, the sensory elements were is not words but sensations in which are enhanced by the music and the width of the stored intertwined corporeal, emotional and dancing space. he music was stimulating conceptual memories. my movements and the extremely wide - Sklar 1994, 14 and rooless stage gave me a bodily illusion of unlimited extension. Slowly, I began to lose sight of the other dancers without losing the feel of their presence. I felt that I was blending with the whole environment, oing back to my early performing including the outreaching sky and the soil days, I can still recall one of my under my feet. Two years later, we were Girst staged performances. he performing the same repertoire at the performance took place at a historical site same venue, when one of the male dancers of an international festival. Ater six years forgot a step, which led to a total block of of learning and rehearsing the company’s his body memory. He tried to recall what dance repertoire, movements were inscribed was to come next through his mind, but in my body. here was no need for my was completely incapable. Astonishingly, mind to recall any movement or step. Even what happened to him was contagious in under the efect of stage fright, the simple the men’s row, steering a complete mess act of turning on the music was enough to on stage. Consequently, I assumed that release the set of movements in their proper the only meaning “embodiment” could sequences, without me having to think about signify was this “etching” of movements in it. hat night, the enormous auditorium was the body, independently from the faculties fully packed; I could see the excited crowd of the mind. I was convinced that the through the temple columns. I was wearing ultimate aim of dancers was to attain the a long white dress made of sot white silk “trance” state, which could only be reached that created a pleasant bodily sensation. by shutting down some functions of the As with the dress, I can still recall the mind. An ephemeral state generated by an desert night breeze awakening my senses. intense sensory experience that can only be

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Jana Al Obeidyine

momentary lived, but never transmitted. employed by Paré in his work as a dancer I have used this anecdote as an and trainer. The AFCMD was initiated by introduction to highlight the diference Odile Rouquet and Hubert Godard and, at in perception that occurred ater having the time, it was integrated into the national participated in Jean-Christophe Paré’s diploma programme for dance teachers, workshop on dance transmission. As an to be later included into dancers’ training auto-ethnographic account, this paper will programme in several dance schools. The explore one way through which bodily AFCMD is based on notions from the ields knowledge can assist in understanding, of anatomy, physiology, neurophysiology, reviving and transmitting bodily basic biomechanics, psychology, sociology, experiences from past to present without phenomenology, and movement observation losing the kinaesthetic pleasure of dance. (Topin, 2001). he aternoon session intended hus, it will recall, describe and attempt to to “transmit” a part of Density 21.5, a solo analyse the mode of transmission deployed choreographed and performed by Carolyn by Paré during the workshop. Carlson in 1973. Carlson is an American dancer and choreographer who has been working and living in France since 1974...... She is considered an inluential igure in the French contemporary dance scene. Carlson Introduction to the workshop adapted and passed her choreography, Density 21.5, to Paré in 1978 to be added 1) Choreomundus is 1 an Erasmus Mundus Within the framework of Choreomundus to his repertoire. During this session, International Master MA programme, on Friday 25th of January Paré used three levels of transmission: a Programme in Dance, Knowledge, Practice 2013, I attended a one-day workshop on dance verbal theoretical introduction to Carolyn and Heritage. transmission, conducted by Jean-Christophe Carlson, positioning her in the lineage Paré and organized by Georgiana Wierre- of contemporary dance history, a bodily Gore, dance anthropologist, professor of exercise accompanied by verbal description anthropology at Blaise Pascal University of of Carlson’s physical attitude as a person Clermont-Ferrand and principal convenor of and as a choreographer, while the last level Choreomundus. Paré is a former Principal aimed to teach the beginning of Carlson’s Dancer at the Paris Opera, a contemporary choreography. dancer, choreographer, and teacher. In addition, Paré has also held the position of Dance Inspector at the French Ministry ...... of Culture and he was later assigned the Direction of The National Dance School of The workshop Marseille. The workshop took place at one of the university dance studios, with the Before proceeding with movements’ teach- participation of twenty students. The day ing of Density 21.5, Paré asked us to try was divided into two sessions: a morning Carlson’s way of moving in space. “She looks session that included body awakening forward while she walks, as if she wants exercises, followed by exercises aiming to perceive something above her height to increase bodily awareness in relation level”, he said. In my attempt to imitate to space and time, and ending with dance his description, I felt my neck stretching technique exercises. At the end of the slightly and extending horizontally. One morning session, Paré introduced the can argue that he could have simply said: 2) Analyse fonctionnelle du corps dans le “functional analysis of the body in the “Extend your necks horizontally.” hus, mouvement dansé. dancing movement”2, a movement analysis I decided to try both options in front of a system developed in France in the 1990s and mirror. Two main diferences were visually

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Being Carolyn Carlson:An auto-ethnography exploring the body as a site for knowledge transmission perceptible: with the irst instruction, I imagery”, in addition to her everyday slightly raised my chin, something that “corporal imagery.” While we were I was not able to physically sense or feel, improvising, Paré asked us to choose a but I was able to visually see, which gave random moment when we decide to make a the movement a certain attitude; with the sudden change of direction, creating a sharp second instruction, however, the intent geometrical igure in the space. Again, of “looking higher” was missing, which we were forced to abandon the patterns made the movement seem mechanical our “body and mind” were accustomed and empty of signiicance. herefore, if he to, by stepping into Carlson’s way of had adopted the second instruction the conceiving movements. Paré said: “create result would have lacked “attitude” and a rounded igure with your arms as if you “intention”, hence, remained technical. are holding a huge balloon.” I felt distance Paré followed his irst instruction by adding being created between my dorsal scapulae. the “movement initiator” of Carlson’s walk: Paré conirmed my sensations when he “Her walk is initiated by her forehead.” he prompted: “A circle created by Carlson does assignment intrigued me as I noticed that I not involve a torso contraction, but rather don’t actually know what body part initiates a back expansion.” In this process Paré my own walk. So, I started by walking had attempted to separate us temporarily normally to make sure that my walk was from our bodily habits, in order to create – not initiated by my forehead. Trying to through imagination – a bodily space that execute his instruction, I was tempted can accommodate Carlson’s embodiment. to rush at irst. Apparently, I was not the My lived bodily experience in this process only one in the studio to be rushing since included both technical and emotional Paré asked us to maintain the same pace. dimensions, meeting anthropologist Deidre Combining both the look and the forehead Sklar’s assertion that “diferent ways of instructions created in my body a sense of moving generate diferent kinds of feeling sovereignty that, implicitly, included a sense experiences that are not only somatic, but of autonomy and a feeling of conidence. afective” (1994, 11). Once more, I reversed the formula assuming Prior to this stage, Paré had provided that he had simply said: “walk conidently.” us with a brief historical background of In this case, I could have thought: “I think I Carlson’s position in the contemporary am conident; my walk should be a conident dance lineage. She danced with Alwin walk” and, thus, could have maintained my Nikolais, an American contemporary own bodily habits of walking. Although choreographer and musician, a disciple of those movement descriptions and bodily Hanye Holm. At the beginning of the 1970s, sensations could be viewed as personal or she moved to France where she still currently subjective, nevertheless, the relevance of works and resides. Density 21.5 was her this exercise is that I was forced to step out irst solo creation. In a way, and in Paré’s of my bodily habits and attempt to move in terms, the piece can be viewed as the irst someone else’s manner. break with Nikolais’s style, though it still Paré called Carlson’s embodied way of carries the graphical aspect (geometrical being in the world “the corporal imagery.” shapes) of Nikolais’s work. Even if we he experience of travelling towards weren’t familiar with Nikolais’s style, we another person’s “corporal imagery” can could have still drawn a vague picture of be seen as an experience of meeting the Carlson’s persona by referring to the given absent “other” through the body and the geographical and historical characteristics imagination. Paré went further by ofering of the era. In the United States and in an improvisation exercise that aimed to Western Europe, the sixties and seventies introduce us to Carlson’s “choreographic included a major counterculture, where the

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Jana Al Obeidyine youth was rebelling against war, societies and carried out by a reconstruction, through of consumption, racism and was calling imagination, of “what the eye cannot for women’s rights, individual liberty and capture: invisible internal movements, sexual freedom. Growing up in the sixties, intentions, projects of moving” (Schulmann, “a period of great social upheaval and 2008), while giving an overview of her unrest among American youth, the social sociocultural and professional history. and cultural climate to which Carlson was Interestingly, this method shares a lot of exposed made her very much part of what similarities with a method composed by was later to be called the sixties generation” dance ethnographer and anthropologist (Turnbull 1999, 71). Consequently, both Deidre Sklar, in the process of “feeling” Density 21.5 as a “solo” choreography and the her way into the movement’s invisible artist could have carried some of the ideals layer of the Danzante performance during of that period. From this perspective, what the Torugas Fiesta in New Mexico. Sklar I felt in terms of conidence and autonomy refers to the “corporal imagery” or the resonates with the spirit of the epoch Carlson’s invisible layer of movement as the “abstract choreography belongs to. Moreover, in the symbols embodied in movement, [which] process of choreographic creation, Carlson are not necessarily evident in the movement uses “improvisation as a way towards self- itself” (1994, 13), while using the term understanding and expression in movement” “embodied schema” to designate “the full (Turnbull 1999, 70), thus, that could be why range of sensory modalities through which improvisation has also been used by Paré we apprehend and represent the world” in the process of transmission. Paré took (2006, 119). Drawing on a basic concept us through some aspects of Carlson’s “body that knowledge can be gained equally imaginary” as a person and choreographer through body and mind, Sklar proposes “a before approaching the choreography itself. methodology for working with corporeal In other words, he transmitted an invisible expressions that relies on qualitative layer of the dance as the fundamental ground movement analysis in conjunction with that carries most of the meaning. Aterwards, a technique [she] would call kinaesthetic the transmission of the dance movements empathy” (1994, 14). Sklar’s qualitative could have taken any form, from imitating movement analysis indicates a system an instructor, copying from a recorded video conceptualized by Rudolf Laban and performance, to reading a dance notation. developed by Irmgard Bartinef as “efort- he infrastructure was ready to carry out shape” analysis system that “focuses on eight the choreography. Nevertheless, it might be core qualities: light or strong use of weight, important to note that by conveying Carlson’s quick or sustained time, direct or indirect “corporal imagery”, Paré did not intend to use of space, and bound or free movement reproduce a conformed copy of Carlson’s low” (2006, 103). She suggests that interpretation of Density 21.5, but he aimed distinguishing those qualities which “give rather to give depth to our performance by clues to another’s felt experience” (1999, creating a meeting space with its creator. 18) is a matter of training in observation. What she means by kinaesthetic empathy is “the capacity to participate with another’s ...... movement or another’s sensory experience of movement, […] a corporeal/conceptual The Method skill that calls for the development of speciic bodily techniques that will further he method deployed in the transmission our ability to both perceive and think of Density 21.5 is based on a functional sensorially” (1994, 16). Paré introduced analysis of Carlson’s dancing movements concepts of time, space, weight, low and

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Being Carolyn Carlson:An auto-ethnography exploring the body as a site for knowledge transmission shape during his transmission process. seen as a guide to the activation of human He also “fabricated, through words and body as a space that can sense and feel other other media, [Carlson’s] sensory worlds people’s bodily experiences and corporal and disembodied” (Sklar 1994, 14) us from expressions, even when they are distant some of our bodily habits, allowing our in time and / or place. hus, it would be bodies to access Carlson’s sensorial sphere very signiicant to dance, as an intangible through imagination. Without analysing, heritage, not to restrict its exhibition to comprehending and translating into words the visual display alone, but to also open the abstract dimension of Density 21.5, Paré the way for an interested public to live and would not have been able to transmit what sense the “psychosomatic, non-verbalized lies underneath the choreography itself; state” (Giurchescu 1973, 176) of its bearers. therefore, we would not have been able to get a sense of Carlson’s choreographic * All translations from French in this article world. Correspondingly, without “moving have been made by the author. from distanced visual observation to close corporeal imitation” and “turning awareness inward to feel [her] body as a continuum of kinetic sensations” (2006, 100), Deidre Sklar would not have been able to identify and “appreciate the meaning of the Danzante performance and the quality of the dancers’ experience” (1991: 8). BIBLIOgRAPHY Apparently, both methods were based on the same concepts, but motivated by Schulmann, N. 2008. Excerpt of “Dictionnaire De La Danse diferent aims. he conceptual framework under the direction of Philippe Le Moal”, LAROUSSE, AF- CMD Déinition, available at: http://www.afcmd.com/deini- of these methods proves to be very useful tion.html (Accessed: 20 April 2013). for ethnographic dance research and study, Turnbull, A.V. 1999. “Carolyn Carlson.” In Fity contempo- as well as for dance training, teaching, rary choreographers, ed. M. Bremser. London: Routledge. and expanding bodily creativity in the Giurchescu, A. 1973. “La Danse comme objet sémiotique.” process of dance creation. Additionally, it In Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council, 5, pp.175–178, JSTOR, Available at: http://www.jstor.org/sta- could be very useful for the preservation ble/10.2307/767502. of bodily practices as a dynamic historical Sklar, D. 1991. “On Dance Ethnography.” In Dance Research representation. Journal, 23 (1), 6–10, JSTOR, Available at: http://www.jstor. org/stable/10.2307/1478692. Sklar, D. 1994. “Can Bodylore Be Brought to Its Senses?”. In ...... he Journal of American Folklore, 107 (423), 9–22, JSTOR, Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/541070. Conclusion Sklar, D. 1999. “All the Dances Have a Meaning to hat Appa- rition: Felt Knowledge and the Danzantes of Tortugas, New Mexico.” In Dance Research Journal, 31 (2), 14–33, JSTOR, hereater, in the dance ield, “embodiment” Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1478330. is a quality that can be thought about, Sklar, D. 2006. “Qualities of Memory: Two Dances of the analysed, preserved and transmitted. Tortugas Fiesta, New Mexico.” In Dancing from past to present: nation, culture, identities. Studies in dance history Moreover, one of the purposes of a museum (1997), ed. T.J. Buckland.United States: University of Wis- is to give its visitors a glance at lives consin Press. distant in either time or place, through a Topin, N. 2001. “L’Analyse du Mouvement Dansé, une danse classic exhibit, or an interactive display of du regard: l’enseignement d’Hubert Godard.” In Revue Nouvelles de Danse « Incorporer », 46/47, 100-113, Available historical, cultural and artistic artefacts. at: https://danse.uqam.ca/departement/personnel/profes- he explored method in this paper could be seurs/68-nicole-harbonnier-topin.html.

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Title: The Mother of Us All. A Few Considerations on the Female Archetype and the Body

during Pilgrimages

Author: Mirel ”ănică

How to cite this article: ”ănică, Mirel. 2015. The Mother of Us All. A Few Considerations on the Female

“rchetype and the ”ody during Pilgrimages. Martor 20: 201-210. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor (Revue d’“nthropologie du Musée du Paysan Roumain) est un journal académique en système peer-review fondé en 1996, qui se concentre sur l’anthropologie visuelle et culturelle, l’ethnologie, la muséologie et sur le dialogue entre ces disciplines. La revue Martor est publiée par le Musée du Paysan Roumain. Son aspiration est de généraliser l’accès vers un riche contenu au plus haut niveau du point de vue académique et éditorial pour des objectifs scientifiques, éducatifs et informationnels. Toute utilisation au-delà de ces buts et sans mentionner la source des articles est interdite et sera considérée une violation des droits de l’auteur.

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro The Mother of Us All. A Few Considerations on the Female Archetype and the Body during Pilgrimages

Mirel Bãnicã Researcher, Institute for the History of Religions, he Romanian Academy, Bucharest

ABSTRACT KEYwORDS

More than 20 years ater the fall of the communist regime, we are witnessing the pilgrimage, ritual, body, Orthodox unprecedented development of religious pilgrimage in Romania, a country where, Church, archetypes, saints according to the latest census, 84% of the population self-identiies as Orthodox Christian. Apart from the pilgrimages to well-known destinations (Jerusalem, Rome etc.) organized by the Romanian Patriarchy’s Pilgrimage Bureau, a separate category is represented by the improvised, hybrid pilgrimages (both religious and touristic) organized by individuals using hired minibuses. he pilgrimage represents the ideal occasion to study the body and female corporality within the performance of a religious ritual, as well as the persistence of certain archetypes regarding the female archetype. Among the history of religion, anthropology and ethnography, we have tried to capture those experiences, to transcribe them as accurately as possible so as to reach one of the most delicate aspects linked with the “living religion”: the female body during rituals.

...... total identiication with the image of Preliminaries the Saint, perceived as a mother, sister, mediator and advisor. I intuitively felt that, etween October 2009 and October as a man, a certain essential “something” of 2013 I studied the Orthodox the female practice and spirituality would Bpilgrimage practice which took always remain inaccessible to me. place as a queue; four years and twenty- two individual or group pilgrimages, in Later on, I tried to approach this state of the search to understand one of the most facts by studying the female archetype in visible, yet controversial aspects of the the history of religion and by considering contemporary religious act in Romania. the body and the female corporality within the speciic context of a pilgrimage. Having Since the very irst hours spent on myself become a pilgrim, I used my body as ield in Iaşi (during Saint Parascheva’s an instrument and means of understanding celebration), I noticed the majority of the experience of queuing. Only the women female participants in this pilgrimage, their around me somehow did it diferently. special way of dressing or the symbolic hus, the main challenge proved to be the gestures they performed when approaching transcription of these experiences and the Saint Parascheva’s coin. But what took visible diferences. me most by surprise was the extraordinary How to explain one of the most subtle female solidarity taking form in the hardest aspects of the religious experience which moments of queuing, as well as the almost has always been a challenge for classical

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Mirel Bãnicã anthropology – the exact interpretation female archetype are to be found as well of certain experiences and rituals strictly in Curtea de Argeş (Saint Filoteia) or at dedicated to the opposite sex? Nicula Monastery (the miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary). All great religious systems in the world In his study dedicated to the psychological have the tendency to separate the roles aspects of the female archetype, Jung creates of men and women in religious rituals. an outstanding analysis of its attributes Some characteristics of gender diferences (solicitude, understanding, magical authority, are common to all cultures, while wisdom, spiritual exaltation, spontaneity) others are temporal and geographically that can also be of interest in the case of some located (Davidson 2002, 195). Speciic aspects of pilgrimages. hus, I was able to anthropological studies dedicated to female notice that Saint Parascheva is perceived by religiosity are increasingly numerous, but pilgrims as a “swit helper”, being addressed the intense promotion of the “equality” myth with formulas such as “the mother of us all” and the similarity between men and women ,“Mother, your child has come to see you!” have also had unexpected consequences, and other similar ones. In the previously meaning that, quite oten, the fact that mentioned study, Jung draws attention to women’s religious experiences and practices the existence of major diferences between are diferent, has been let unnoticed (Bowie men and women regarding the perception 2000, 91). hrough the emergence of feminist of the meaning of the female archetype’s, approaches and theories, women’s “religious linked mainly to the image of the mother. life” is chartered into an older religious For women there is an unconditional type tradition, ignored so far, despite numerous of communication, linked directly to their phenomena and religious manifestations, own gender, whilst for men it’s about a mainly feminine, conceived and analyzed, foreign contact, acquired, with a rich vision, from an androcentric perspective, as a but completely outside their conscience. he context, as well as documentary sources. result is, according to Jung’s conception, A possible methodological solution would “a symbolic identiication with the image be to ind some speciic data on the female of the Mother for men and a direct one of religious history, as well as on other women, of which men will never be capable” marginalized groups. (Jung 1968, 106). he advantages of “feminist approaches Whilst waiting in line I was truly of the feminine” would, thus, be the surprised by the way women, regardless of occurrence of new approaches and method age, were identifying themselves with the challenges, allowing the understanding life, the sufering and the sacriice of Pious of certain contradictions in religious Parascheva, in a direct manner, without practices, contradictions which have been intermediaries, as if everything would have incomprehensible until now (Hawthorne been part of a whole we could perceive, but 2005, 3024). never understand from “within”.

For Erich Neumann, a Jungian psycho- ...... logist, the female archetype represents a true “human culture therapy” because this Between Ethnography and the History of is not just dynamics, but a real directing Religions force inluencing whole parts of the human psyche, like religion, for instance (Neumann I will reference mainly the pilgrimage in Iaşi 1991, 15). during the celebration of Saint Parascheva, here are two aspects of the female although the elements linked with the archetype as a symbol and as a deity: the

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro The Mother of Us All. A Few Considerations on the Female Archetype and the Body during Pilgrimages female as a source and undried life spring, the principle of fruitfulness and kindness and the female as an agent of evolution and embodied by the Mother” (Eliade 2011, 192). perpetual transformation, as shown in the An entire study belonging to B.P. Haşdeu famous deinition formula: Terrible Mother, talks about hracian deities Kupala and Great Mother, Good Mother. he study Omoroka (the latter having let signiicant “Démone et Chretienne: Sainte Vendredi” traces in Slavic languages under the form of by Marianne Mesnil and Assia Popova words about darkness, death, fog) as being shows precisely these two facets of the also “the goddess mother of all things, the female archetype, perceptible as well in the embodiment mixed without discerning of image of Saint Parascheva – Saint Friday, the feminine and masculine faces of nature, having as a starting point hagiographic and world and darkness, of sky and earth (in mythological aspects from both sides of the italics in original).” He also declares that Danube: the good and generous “mother” in Slavic legends, both have survived the versus the evil and avenging “mother”. pagan era, for instance, through “Baba South of the river, there are a couple of small Iaga, the ugly, bad and revengeful one” or sanctuaries, caves or springs honoring Saint other words linked to death, cold, darkness, Parascheva, “scantily furnished, visited underground, earth (Haşdeu 2003, 121). mainly by women, especially to pray and Other Romanian ethnographers and address the Saint directly, without any male folklorists, whom we will not list here, intermediaries (priests)” (Mesnil; Popova have glimpsed into Saint Parascheva - 1993, 743). Pictures of such miraculous Saint Friday’s recollections of features and springs from Serbia or Bulgaria are to be links of the cult of older deities such as found, for instance, in a richly illustrated Minerva, Juno and Venus. Concerning the album edited by Petru Sidoreac (Saint North Danube region, ethnologist Bogdan Parascheva. A Pilgrim’s’ Guide), retracing Neagota puts forward the idea that the the diicult route of Saint Parascheva’s relics entire Christianity around the area had before being brought to Iaşi by Vasile Lupu been established following the speciic (Sidoreac 2000). Any quick internet search functioning mechanism of oral cultures containing the key words “Saint Parascheva “through non-traumatic and a little + Balkans” yields various touristic sites acculturated agglutination, in the symbiosis ofering excursions on Tempi River and syncretism (apud Eliade 1988, 232) of Valley in Greece where there is a famous diferent symbolic-religious levels which, monastery dedicated to Saint Parascheva in time, overlapped, merging at last into (Aghia Paraskevi) and a miraculous spring. archetypal convergent and cognitive points” Another study which references the double (Neagota 2003, 7). dimension of the female embodied by Saint Parascheva belongs to researcher Claudine George Coşbuc, the erudite poet, trying Fabre-Vassas, who conducts an ethnological to conceive a mythological approach of ield-research of what is let of the memory our popular literature under the inluence of “Saint Friday” among contemporary of the “sămănătorist” circle, brings into pilgrims and of the way they perceive this discussion the double nature of the female legendary double dimension of the Saint as in the study “he saint Crones in our a “ierce virgin or an aggressive old woman” Mythology”. “In our mythology, the saints (Fabre-Vassas 1995, 74). represent clear notions (my underlining) and distinct impersonations. Saint Friday Mircea Eliade ascertains the existence in represents the principle of the good, the Eastern Europe, long before Christianity, of gentle and the eager to help, while the other “a sincere and popular devoutness towards three, hursday, Tuesday and Saturday, are the woman and mother, exactly towards mischievous, and solar heroes avoid them

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Mirel Bãnicã because they embody the concept of evil” he body of saints could be one of the (Coşbuc 1986, 148). interpreting keys. It is Saint Parascheva’s Personal note: not one single female femininity that has “distinguished” her in subject that I interviewed on ield or outside the symbolic competition from the other used the name of “Saint Friday” when saints for which we organize pilgrimages; referring to Saint Parascheva. Is it a sign of underneath her clothing one can read the profound secularization of the rural area, shape of a human body placed in an oblong a loss of its memory? Linguist Ivan Eseev coin, as a nave, sacred concentrated in a writes that “the patron of Fridays in the feminine shape. popular calendar is Saint Friday, whose persona represents a blend of features of an As Joachim Wach noticed, the gesture old nature deity, elements of the Mother of of incorporating the object of devotion in God and Saint Parascheva’s cult, Moldova’s a perceivable environment for the human patron, revered by the Eastern Slavs under senses represents “the union between the the name of Praskovia-Piatnitza, and intellectual and the emotional life of man” the Southern Slavs as Saint Petka and (Wach 1958, 100). Or Saint Parascheva Paraskeve for the Greeks which became is a perceivable body and presents to the the name for Friday; the cult of the Saint external world a bright image, solar, full of whose relics are found in Iaşi comprises warmth, accentuated by the manner she is agrarian elements and rituals linked to seated in the coin on an imposing canopy, water consecration, proving its true Alma her clothing, her gold, gemmed crown Mater characteristics.” he cult of Friday is on her head. From an archetypal point of related to the “cultural and religious unity view, the “bright bodies” are symbols of of the old Indo-European lineage which had knowledge, of the spiritual aspects of man a female deity of nature, love and fertility, (Neumann 1991, 57). whose prototype is Venus” and the fear of As an empirical observation, the the “linked Fridays” noticed by M. Mesnil devotional culture of the pilgrim body in and A. Popova, “a form of respect towards front of Saint Parascheva’s coin (praying the ancient pagan deity Friday whose positions, the direct touch or the touch of features we discover in the Saint Friday of various clothing items, icons etc.) seemed Romanian fairy tales and legends” (Evseev more intense in Iaşi than in Suceava or 2007, 640). Bucharest, sites where there are coins of male saints, sites known to be harsher and more fastidious concerning the pilgrims’ ...... requests. In Bucarest (his well-known travel The Female Archetype and Rituals. diary in interbellum Romania), writer A case of Sacred Mutilation and diplomat Paul Morand senses the fascination exerted by Saint Parascheva, Once more I ask: why is a saint like assigning her archetypal roots (precisely by Saint Parascheva so fascinating and so her icon at Sf. Vineri Church in Bucharest, captivating? What could be the explanation demolished in June 1987), stating that “a of the success and attachment shown by silver Virgin with charcoal face receives, Romanian female pilgrims? Eric Neumann among sweet-smelling fumigations, wishes is suggesting a functional equation of the addressed to Venus and Ceres (my italics)” female archetype: the woman is the body, (Morand 2000, 181). corporality represents a vessel and the recipient in itself is the receptacle of the he motif of the female archetype is female corporality. relaunching the interrogations about the

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro The Mother of Us All. A Few Considerations on the Female Archetype and the Body during Pilgrimages massive presence of the Rroma at the from the countryside” or “a witch”. In E. pilgrimage in Iaşi, but at other Marian Neumann’s vision, the female archetypal pilgrimages in Romania as well (Costeşti, body is crossed by a straight line which Curtea de Argeş, Nicula). Researcher Delia connects the Sky – (the Paradise) - the Grigore launches the idea that the Rroma Moon – (the Logos) – the Breath – (the can see a link between the igure of the Mouth) – the Heart – the Abdominal Belt Virgin Mary, other female saints and “the – the Navel – the Underground World – the mother-goddess revered by the pre-Aryans Night – the Fear – the Darkness. If we are from India. Actually, in the same spirit of to agree that the gesture really happened (at worshipping the sacred mother, the Rroma a closer look one can notice that the nasal have a special veneration for female saints, protuberance is not visible), the hypothesis a lot bigger than for male saints, which is that the act can be interpreted as a desperate, proven by other two great pilgrimages: last attempt to connect with the circuit of the Rroma one in West Europe at St. Sara the divine breath of the female archetype, (Camargue, May 24-25) and the Orthodox seemed truly appealing to me. Rroma one from Romania at St. Parascheva’s relics (Iaşi, October 14) (Grigore 2001, 134). Other post-Jung interpretations perceive the female archetype as a vessel, chalice or When asked the question “why is receptacle, thus surpassing the common Saint Parascheva’s coin covered with a image of the womb, and dealing, in fact, transparent plexi-glass board?”, the pilgrims with “an all-encompassing, protective came up with a similar explanation, with quality, an embrace, nourishment that only small variations: in time people have allows something else to grow. he female tried to obtain a shred from the relics on archetype nourishes the human Self” display using their teeth (or splinters as (Sease; Schimdt 2011, 61). he suggestion some were saying – interesting formula of a vessel or a chalice at the Iaşi ensemble showing the founding ambiguity of relics, is also accentuated by the coin which placed between alive and mineral). he displays the relics, as one of the most church had to react and protect the relic by dazzling and imposing saints’ coins in covering it completely. Romania. he actual coin dates from 1891, but was fully restored in Greece in 2009. he he episode of the “thet of the relics” is coin itself is perceived as a “conductor” of mentioned as an oral story legitimated by the relics’ sacredness, hence “the multitude the authority of the ministrant priests from of names being found written on it during the Iaşi Metropolitan Cathedral, “a story restoration, thankful notes, akathists for from around 1900 when the face of Saint the departed, cotton balls and parts of the Parascheva was uncovered to be cherished objects pilgrims and members of the clergy by the faithful and a woman ripped of, let at the time of contact” (Adumitroaie; with her mouth, while crossing herself, the Vicovan 2011, 264). Saint’s nose. Ater that, it was decided that Saint Parascheva’s face, as well as the other Another interesting ritual about Saint parts of the Saint’s relics, should be covered Parascheva which can be linked to the with a piece of clothing.” he plexi-glass persistence of the female archetype is the board mentioned earlier was placed in 1992 changing of her clothes ive times a year. (Adumitroaie; Vicovan 2011, 263). he clothes “difer from a liturgical period his episode told by pilgrims during the to another, according to the celebrations on interviews is placing the sacred mutilation the Church’s calendar, from light or dark gesture around 1960s or 1990s and its colors” (Adumitroaie; Vicovan 2011, 240). author was described as a “simple woman, Ater being renewed during a somewhat

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Mirel Bãnicã secret ceremony where only women are especially in the rural area, which inds allowed, “the old clothes are ofered as itself nowadays completely lacking any comfort to Christians from diferent social and medical support. Maybe it’s regions of the country and to some churches not by accident that the “collections of abroad in order to keep the Orthodox miracles” that have lately lourished are full faith alive and for God-loving people to of recovery stories of children from modest feel near (my italics) Moldova’s Patron social backgrounds. Saint.” Usually, Saint Parascheva’s clothing I believe the direct and extremely honest fulills a protective role against the wear manner, without intermediaries, the intense and the daily pressure from the pilgrims’ emotional scenes that take place during incessant succession in front of her coin; pilgrimages centered on female holiness in the interpretation key suggested by E. can be better understood by taking into Neumann, the clothes bare a cohabitation account the abovementioned. And for the function, consecrating and dispersing the psychology of depth, the entire Orthodoxy feminine concept of that “primordial igure possesses a true “matriarchal” dimension, bearer of the benefactress manna, well- a loving mother, an accomplice and an hidden in the human subconscious. he understanding for all people going through wisdom of feminine representations is not a profound crisis (Kristeva 1987, 16). abstract or disinterested, but it is wisdom that demands communion through love as A particular case is represented by a Whole” (Neumann 1991, 330). he travels the pilgrimage at the Prislop Monastery of the Saint’s attire, the git and counter-git in Hunedoara, centered around the game, complements and universalizes its charismatic igure of Father Arsenie Boca, cult. who had focused during his lifetime on married life and the sufering of women – an aspect that deserves special development ...... and which partially explains the present success of the popular cult that addresses The Social Function of the him. Prislop became a true sanctuary for Female Archetype and Female Body women who had aborted babies during the communist period; as if a process that he analysis of the social function of the would repair the “rupture in equilibrium” pilgrimage, in connection to the illness, between a world of extra-human entities, the sufering, the therapeutics of physical but still linked to the mothers’ bodies, and and spiritual sicknesses, cannot be properly the current bodily health could still occur understood if one ignores the intimate via the use of various rituals. dynamics of society, of the manner in Do women believe otherwise? Or is which some historic eras have let their there a feminine speciicity in the creation mark on the body and the illness per se. of the religious fact perceived under the As a working hypothesis, I can see a link pilgrimage form? he persistent dichotomy between the social function of the female existent in the sociology of religions between archetype and the “gender crisis” of a part ritual and faith or between practice and of the female population that I met during representation is to be found as well in the the pilgrimages. More precisely, ater 1990, consecrated studies on the account between the majority of communist institutions gender and religion; at present, there is supporting the family, maternity, the a series of analysis centered on social and hygiene and health of children collapsed. cultural issues. In the specialized literature Even if they were faulty in content and dedicated to pilgrimages, the diference function, they played an essential role, contained in the experiences and the

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro The Mother of Us All. A Few Considerations on the Female Archetype and the Body during Pilgrimages manner of female religious manifestation is Ages – accept the fact that “women are well represented. hus, Alice-Mary Talbot always more faithful than men because they notices the fact that in Byzantium, religious convey life, being linked to traditions as well cults had a particular role in women’s as superstitions and being simultaneously destinies because “for feminine secularism, denied access to the ritual” (Labande 2004, taking part in liturgy and processions, 110). he author stresses “the misogyny” visiting saint shrines etc., was the only expressed towards pilgrim-women for possibility approved by society to get out of centuries, perceived as a “weak gender”, the house. All these opportunities were, in incapable of withstanding the supposed fact, a way of satisfying some psychological dangers and temptations of long distance and spiritual needs” (Talbot 2000, 154). Her pilgrimages. he preferred solution for observation seems to me quite pertinent high-rank women in the Middle Ages was and perfectly valid as a motivation even to travel as a family or accompanied only by nowadays. women, followed by armed guards. Talking with women from the rural area, I have understood that moving from their residence to the pilgrimage site, the ...... actual time spent in ritual or the journey in itself by train or bus, represented for them The Body of the Pilgrim and the a breakthrough, a change in their daily Construction of the Religious Identity routine, probably the only one in an entire year. he pilgrimage ofered the possibility During the trip, the pilgrim’s body sufers to get out of the sometimes sufocating because of the deprivations and because of family ambiance, of the daily routine and the weather conditions; accounts focused on the careful “surveillance” of their husbands this aspect are abundant in all pilgrimage in a world that isn’t familiar with the notion stories from the Middle Age onwards. “he of “tourism” (in the contemporary meaning pilgrim travels in order to sufer and to be of term). healed through sufering. he pain and its progressive teachings merge into some he female participation rate at sort of ‘dialectics’” (Fabre; Julia 2000, 137), pilgrimages is veriied by a quantitative giving birth to the pilgrim’s inal identity. research conducted by the Faculty of he role of pain in the spiritual “treatment” Sociology (Iaşi University) and dedicated to of the female body is stressed in the famous the religious implications and motivations study of Marian pilgrimage on the Greek in the Iaşi pilgrimage; 51,9%of the subjects island of Tinos; the study, conducted by were female (Netedu 2008, 173). Given the American Jill Dubisch, states that the full Orthodox conditions of the pilgrimage, assumption of physical pain (as it is for women’s particular behavior, the number the Nicula Monastery where one crawls on of female participants was higher than that knees and elbows, on rocks) is a means of of the men, which is similar to pilgrimages constructing one’s identity. Pain becomes in Greece; these statistics can be placed in “a female-privileged language taking part a direct relationship with the role and the in daily life, as well as in religious practice” secondary position women hold in society (Dubisch 1995, 34). Women’s sufering, (Gothoni 2010, 73). he Catholic sources visible to anyone, also represents the that have been consulted – for instance, the sufering provoked by their lesser social synthesis of French historian Edmond-René status; thus, the pilgrimage becomes a Labande, a tertiary Franciscan, dedicated healing path, in addition to a means of to “the problems, behavior and mentalities revalidation of one’s identity (Derks 2009, of the Christian pilgrim” since the Middle 130).

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Mirel Bãnicã

Women do not reproduce the religious Regarding Eastern Christianity, “the act in a passive way; they “reformulate” it suspicion towards the body, especially through their acts, probably because they the female body, a recurrent theme of the are charged with supplementary “guilts”, Eastern monasticism in the 4th century” is including giving life – see the six-week noticeable (Delumeau 1986, 110). However, puriication prayers for women if they give it was not only the anthropology of religions birth to a girl or three weeks if it is a boy, the that sensed this essential aspect of the interdiction of entering the church while on female practice. their period (Manolache 1994, 46). hrough the devotion shown to the Virgin Mary, one Slavist Georges Nivat, a ine connaisseur can identify with the image of the “sufering within Orthodoxy, mentions in a travel mother” who sacriices herself for the whole diary through contemporary Russia the family. In this very context, we have to bring fact that, within this confession, the body into discussion Mihaela Miroiu’s position plays an essential role in understanding on the manifestation of “somatophobia” the faith. “he female body is the one that from Western Christianity, “that can no understands, prostrates, embraces the longer ind its place in the East, because icons, lights candles, makes lists of names of this type of Christianity bears a cosmic the departed and the living family members meaning. hrough Christ, the sacred to be read by the priest (‘akathists’ and penetrates into the embodied existence ‘diptychs’)” (Nivat 2004, 281). as a spirit, soul and body, as it does in the entire nature as well, that person giving an Another observation linked to female account of both worlds. Evil has nothing corporality on pilgrimages: the peculiar more to do with physiology, the matter itself attire, following speciic and strict dress being transigured through the holy grace” codes, is a lot more visible for women (Miroiu 2002, 14). than for men. American anthropologist of Tunisian origin A. Hammoudi, who studies Women insist on physical pain, they the great pilgrimage at Mecca, emphasizes talk publicly about it, trying to invent the universal importance of clothing techniques and procedures to cope with it from the moment of entry into the space in the best possible way. K. Seraidari states dedicated to the pilgrimage. A part of his that, by doing this, women build themselves statements are valid also outside Islam. a common base of identiication and hus, under speciic pilgrimage experience, prolonging in time and space conditions (stress, jams, various the symbolic sacriice made by honoring the deprivations), diferences are accentuated pilgrimages dedicated to “female igures” between men’s and women’s dress, the (Seraidari 2005, 150). he French researcher clothes themselves ritualizing, in turn, suggests it would be wrong to associate gender transgressions. he whole body women to sufering, bereavement and pain image should not be ostentatious, hence too easily. the need for speciic clothing. Any excess Although the theme is a recurrent one in is immediately denounced by the pilgrims gender and anthropology studies, I would themselves (Hammoudi 2005, 46). like to mention a research study regarding his statement has been veriied in the “female sanctity” sociology in the Christian ield of pilgrimages in Romania; I have seen West: the woman and her religious practice many situations in which female pilgrims are placed in a dramatic context stating tried to hastily improvise some sort of tenue that “women are best at experimenting to cover their head or their legs either by their the condition of ‘brides of Christ’ through own means (scarf, head kerchief, sweater) or sufering” (Albert 1997, 163). by those put at their disposal by the religious

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro The Mother of Us All. A Few Considerations on the Female Archetype and the Body during Pilgrimages authority (at Prislop Monastery). shows that in Orthodox pilgrimages in In a documentary made by Trinitas Greece dress codes are a mixture of oicial Television of the Romanian Patriarchy church directives and the pilgrims’ self- entitled “Israel, land of Salvation”, many imposed attitude (Dubisch 1995, 127). frames show what I would call the model- Regarding queues, I have noticed the pilgrim in Jerusalem: a woman between pilgrims’ tenue becoming stricter and 55 and 65 years old. he body position stricter as they approached the coin in while praying is a correct and decent one, order to touch the relics which is the inal which has been previously practiced. She is purpose of the journey. A head cover pulled making the sign of cross with wide didactic out at the last minute from the luggage or gestures, with an emphasis on the three the pocket completes one’s pious image. symbolically closed ingers. She is wearing a small backpack for practical reasons. he sacred space built (as well) through Finally, she wears sober-colored clothes, dress codes appears to be even more with a compulsory long skirt hiding the obvious for pilgrimages taking place inside ankle and on her head she is wearing a a Monastery (as for instance Suceava gauzy veil which she doesn’t wear all the or Prislop) and less for those where the time, only when imposed by the proximity queue is in an aggregation relationship of a sacred site (Truşcă 2009). with the road and the public city space (Iaşi, Bucharest) or impregnated by a long Abidance by the dress codes and commercial and touristic tradition (Curtea interdictions contributes to the sacral de Argeş). he contact with the sacred is the construction of the pilgrimage site. Starting pilgrim’s main goal. Looking for it is what from Victor Turner’s statement that “the deines the pilgrim’s behavior, oten without sacredness grows gradually while the external obvious constraints, but through pilgrim progresses on the path”, Jill Dubisch self-imposition.

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Title: Son propre corps sur les mains des autres. La manipulation quotidienne du corps

souffrant

Author: Anca-Maria Pănoiu

How to cite this article: Pănoiu, “nca-Maria. 2015. Son propre corps sur les mains des autres. La

manipulation quotidienne du corps souffrant. Martor 20: 211-214. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Son propre corps sur les mains des autres. La manipulation quotidienne du corps souffrant

Anca-Maria Pãnoiu MA student at the Center of Excellence in Image Study (CESI),University of Bucharest

”Le patient est un matériel humain soumis révolte stérile, en étant perçu comme un à une « activité sur l’homme », expression qui envahissement de l’intimité. témoigne la réiication de l’individu. Les situations dans lesquelles le corps - Detrez 2002:50 handicapé est saisi ain d’être traité ou soigné peuvent se circonscrire à deux cadres majeurs de référence. Le premier d’eux tient de la routine quotidienne. Ayant un ou plusieurs membres impuissants, parfois es prescriptions contemporaines même inertes, la personne éprouvant un qui dictent que le corps s’estompe handicap perd souvent – en dépit des Ld’une manière ritualisée pendant stratégies personnelles d’auto-maîtrise les interactions quotidiennes (Le Breton – certaines capacités nécessaires au bon 2009:232-242) transforment celui-ci déroulement des quelques gestes quotidiens 1) Par « corps handicapé », je me en une barrière infranchissable pour très habituels: se nourrir, s’habiller, se laver, réfère à l’équivalent autrui. Par conséquent le toucher – soit aller à la toilette, sortir de chez soi, peuvent français du ‘disabled body’ ou ‘body with volontairement, soit accidentellement devenir, dans certaines situations, de vrais an impairement’ de la littérature anglaise, il – devient le plus souvent une sorte de problèmes dont la résolution exige l’aide des ne s’agit donc d’aucun violation des limites, une chose inhabituelle autres. Le plus souvent, la personne chargée étiquetage discrimina- toire, par rapport aux et même inconfortable. Néanmoins, le corps des soins du corps handicapé est quelqu’un discussions soulevées handicapé1, le corps soufrant, accidenté, du proche, qui arrive progressivement à par l’utilisation du mot « handicapé » dans marqué par l’impuissance, est un corps éprouver une connaissance très ine des certains milieux. auquel il arrive très souvent d’être manipulé disponibilités et des particularitès du par les autres, faisant ainsi l’expérience patient, en apprenant ainsi le handicap à son d’une altérité souvent envahissante, sans côté et en s’eforçant que la manipulation qu’il puisse s’y opposer. Le fait peut être de son corps soit la moins envahissante supporté plus ou moins diicilement, selon possible – sinon même délicate et luide. l’individu, mais il touche, sans exception, Mais, quand il y a des événements graves l’intégrité de la personne. L’accès des et imprévisibles qui interviennent – comme autres à son propre corps peut provoquer les traumatismes –, qui alors exigent des des sensations allant du malaise jusqu’à soins spéciaux, le corps impuissant, marqué la douleur, il peut être perçu comme une profondément par la douleur, est pris en routine nécessaire ou comme une corvée, main, sans préparations préliminaires, par le il peut éveiller des sentiments de gêne, de personnel médical, le plus souvent étranger honte, de répulsion, il peut provoquer la et qui ne connaît pas ni ses dispositions, ni

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Anca-Maria Pãnoiu ses seuils de tolérance ou ses caprices. Pour la répondait Ouuuiii! Ensuite on était mis personne accidentée ou arrivée dans un état sur un autre brancard, pour être emporté critique à la suite de son afection, la prise à la radiologiiie (prolongement ironique en charge par le personnel médical – même des voyelles), puis on était mis sur un autre si assez fréquente – constitue, néanmoins, brancard et emporté de nouveau dans la un événement. De l’autre côté, pour le salle d’attente, pour attendre les résultats… personnel médical – des ambulanciers Sur ce brancard on était amené à la salle de paramédicaux et des brancardiers jusqu’aux gypse et toute cette agitation d’un endroit à inirmières, assistants, anesthésistes et l’autre, tout ce passage d’un main à l’autre, chirurgiens, s’occuper d’un corps malade, tout ce mouvement était… il me provoquait d’un corps accidenté constitue un fait des douleurs. […] Je me sentais comme... habituel, se répétant plusieurs fois par jour un objet, pas comme une personne, ça c’est (Pennef 1992). Qu’est-ce que se passe, clair! Pour eux, c’était la routine... tout se par conséquent, lorsque l’urgence des uns passait comme si l’on apportait un paquet, devient la routine des autres? comme si l’on transportait un sac par ici Les fragments d’entretien dans la suite et par là. Et pas du tout... très rarement il de cette note de terrain sont extraits d’une m’est arrivé que... Très rarement il m’est recherche que j’ai menée en février-mai 2015 arrivé qu’un cadre médical soit attentif à ma autour des manières d’incorporer et de gérer douleur. Personne ne me prenait en compte. la diférence représentée par l’handicap dans Et non seulement personne n’était attentif à les cas des personnes éprouvant l’expérience ma douleur – on ne considère pas l’idée de profonde et prolongée de la douleur et du vraiment compter (elle accentue) pour eux, handicap orthopédique. cela était exclus dès le début! Mais au moins prendre un peu de soin, car... il y avait • Andreea P., 27 ans, diagnostiquée dès des situations où la douleur pouvait être son enfance avec la Maladie Lobstein – “la diminuée: on pouvait manipuler le patient maladie des os de verre”. Tout au long de sa plus doucement, ... il y a des modalités pour vie, elle a soufert plus de quarante fractures le prendre sans l’éléver. Ils me prenaient, des jambes. Elle se deplace uniquement à ils me brandissaient, ils me mettaient sur l’aide des béquilles: toutes les surfaces, ils me déshabillaient et là encore... ma pudeur ne les intéressait “Et… j’étais déjà habituée aux douleurs et guère... non, ces choses ne comptaient pas je les connaissais, je savais déjà ce qui allait se du tout.” passer, je savais (un ton mécanique, répétitif) que l’Ambulance allait arriver, qu’il faudrait *** qu’ils me prennent de l’endroit où j’étais, “Je me souviens un matin où le médecin qu’ils allaient me bouger, évidemment, et est venu pour la visite accompagné par cinq que cela allait me heurter très durement, jeunes hommes, étudiants ou… stagiaires qu’ils allaient me prendre pour me mettre en fait, tous beaux (elle rit) et le médecin dans l’Ambulance, que celle-ci allait m’enlève la couverture, je ne portais que prendre tous les trous de la chaussée et que ma lingerie intime et évidemment j’en cela allait me secouer et me provoquerait avais trop honte et je me souviens que le des douleurs – chaque mouvement, quand médecin commence à parler: C’est quoi cette on a un os cassé, chaque mouvement est maladie, qu’est-ce que vous en pensez? Et les douloureux, si petit soit-il! – oui… ensuite étudiants s’étaient mis là, tout simplement il y avait la sortie de l’Ambulance, la mise en me regardant: Bah… ça et ça… Ils se sur le brancard, la visite au médecin, prononçaient: c’est celle-ci, c’est celle-là – pour l’examen, le médecin mettait encore donc c’était un cours ouvert! Donc j’étais sa main et demandait: Ici? Ici? Et on devenue… un matériel ouvert, un matériel

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Son propre corps sur les mains des autres. La manipulation quotidienne du corps souffrant d’étude. Mais en même temps j’étais en *** dixième, quelques garçons me regardaient – “Ils n’y pensent guère, pour eux ce et je ne crois pas qu’ils avaient plus que 23- concept de protéger le patient, de le 24 ans d’âge, donc la diférence entre nous préparer… ça n’existe pas. J’ai même écrit n’était pas trop grande…” à un certain moment sur internet: moi, à l’hôpital, je ne me sens pas un être humain • Dana A., 29 ans, diagnostiquée dès – je me sens un cas! A la in, c’est ça que son enfance avec la Maladie Lobstein. Tout nous sommes! Ouuui, j’été le Lobstein au long de sa vie, elle a soufert plus de plusieurs fois! Comment va-t-il, le Lobstein? vingt fractures des jambes. Elle se déplace Nous venons de recevoir un autre Lobstein, à l’aide d’un deambulateur ou d’un fauteuil viens pour qu’on te fasse faire connaissance! roulant: Bon… maintenant cela ne me dérange plus, tu sais… même si je ne le trouve pas très “Je lui ai dit [au chirurgien]: Que normal non plus… Pour eux c’est normal, jamais, jamais vous ne me raccourcirez la mais il faudrait que nous ne les entendions jambe droite! Et, évidemment, ils me l’ont pas!” raccourcie sans me le dire. Et au moment où je me suis réveillée de l’opération… • Mihaela C., 31 ans, diagnostiquée dès J’avais posé quelques questions en avance: sa naissance avec la Maladie Lobstein. Elle sur la tringle, sur la plaque… Il m’avait ne se souvient plus le nombre de fractures expliqué en général, mais après l’opération qu’elle a subies. A la suite de sa maladie, sa je me suis rendu compte qu’il ne m’avait croissance s’est arrêtée très tôt, ainsi qu’elle tout dit. Il n’avait pas mentionné ces six n’a que 95 centimètres d’hauteur. Elle se centimètres-là. Quand je me suis réveillée déplace à l’aide de béquilles. Après les de l’opération, en réanimation, et que j’ai innombrables interventions chirurgicales levé tête, pour la voir – parce que je sentais qu’elle a subies, un de ses genoux est resté une douleur très aiguë – pour voir la jambe, raide: comment allait-elle, je voulais toujours la voir…! J’avais la sensation qu’en la voyant, “Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais cela est ma je pouvais mieux contrôler la douleur. Et plus grande déception. […] Et crois-moi, ça je l’ai vue, j’ai vu un truc très grand, des m’empêche plein de choses! Surtout en étant bandages et… une éclisse, comme ça, et si petite, j’ai besoin que mes genoux soient j’ai observé qu’elle était plus courte. (Elle lexibles ain que je puisse monter dans rit.) Je ne sais pas comment. Mais j’ai vu mon lit. Ou sur une chaise. Néanmoins, qu’elle était plus courte. Et justement à monsieur le professeur a l’habitude de me ce moment-là le professeur entrait dans dire: Laisse-le, tu peux marcher comme ça la salle, l’anesthésiste à sa côté, dans aussi! Mais qu’il se mette dans ma situation, cette salle-là où nous étions plusieurs… ayant un mètre d’hauteur, qu’il monte sur Et alors j’ai commencé à pleurer. J’ai lui une chaise! Voyons, comment pourrait-il le dit: Monsieur le professeur, vous m’avez faire? Mais personne ne pense à ces choses- raccourci la jambe? Et il m’a répondu: Alors, là… Ils ne voient la situation que de leur qu’est-ce qui t’intéresse à toi, hein? Marcher perspective…” ou l’esthétique? Et alors l’anesthésiste a dit: Aaah, monsieur le professeur, vous ne *** savez pas les illes! Laisse-la, tout va bien se “Mais le pire était, je viens de te le dire, passer, ça importe peu! Puis il est parti. Et quand les fémurs se cassaient, parce qu’on j’ai commencé à rouspéter, et j’ai rouspété, était mis sur un truc, comme ça, je ne sais et j’ai rouspété… jusqu’au moment où je me pas comment l’expliquer… assis, les jambes suis calmée. (Elle rit.)” pendues. Et on était tenu comme ça, ain

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro d’être bandé, tu comprends? On était pendu, qui m’aide, si cela se répète une fois, deux exactement! Et ce vide-là, où la jambe était fois, trois fois… la quatrième fois je veux cassée, était en l’air. C’était afreux! Donc… qu’elle le sache. Seulement la quatrième fois on pleurait jusque… on restait sans larmes elle le fait d’une manière diférente, donc il jusqu’au retour chez soi.” faut que je le répète dix fois et ça m’énerve! A long terme, ça devient une routine… • Cătălin F., 24 ans, il y a trois ans il mais le truc entre dans ma routine plus vite a soufert un traumatisme de la moelle qu’il entre dans sa routine! […] Et tu sais... épinière, ce qui l’a rendu paralysé des épaules La chose très amusante c’est qu’on a des vers le bas. Il se déplace à l’aide d’un fauteuil querelles tout le temps!” roulant électrique. Il n’a pas interrompu sa vie sociale d’avant et actuellement il *** continue ses études en médecine: “J’ai été à un concert il y a deux semaines et les gars m’ont assis parfaitement, “Mais, je ne sais pas… je suis arrivé sauf qu’il a fallu que je leur explique en à un moment où j’ai acquis mes propres avance pendant cinq minutes ce que je mouvements, mes endroits, mes propres voulais qu’on me fît. A un certain moment manières d’être assis, de bouger et c’est je leur expliquais, car c’était pas bien et seulement ma mère qui les connaît pendant ce temps, ils me tenaient en l’air, entièrement. […] Et nous nous entendons, j’avais commencé à leur expliquer et d’un d’un mot seulement, elle sait très bien quoi coup j’ai dit: Heureusement que tu gardes ta me faire! A quelqu’un d’autre il faut que je main sur moi et que tu ne l’utilises pas pour dise cent mots! Si je vois un nouveau truc te gratter la tête, ain de mieux comprendre!”

BIBLIOgRAPHIE

Detrez, Christine. 2002. La construction sociale du corps. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Le Breton, David. 2009. Antropologia corpului și modernitatea (trad. Liliana Rusu). Chişinău: Cartier. Pennef, Jean. 1992. L’Hôpital en urgence. Paris: Éditions Métailié. *L’auteur souhaite de formuler ses remerciements à Annick Caritan, professeur d’histoire de Bordeaux, pour avoir lu ce travail en nuançant délicatement la version française du texte.

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Title: Latin Eugenics in Comparative Perspective, by Marius Turda and Aaron Gillette.

London&New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014

Author: Călin Cotoi

How to cite this article: Cotoi, Călin. 2015. Latin Eugenics in Comparative Perspective, by Marius Turda and

“aron Gillette. London&New York: ”loomsbury “cademic, 4. Martor 20: 217-219. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Marius Turda and Aaron Gillette, Latin Eugenics in Comparative Perspective, Bloomsbury Academic, London & New York, 2014, 306 p.

Reviewed by Cãlin Cotoi Călin Cotoi is a lecturer at the Faculty of Sociology, University of Bucharest

he scholarly interest in the social and of the twentieth century, was articulated historical aspects of the biosciences with eugenics as political, scientiic and Thas been increasing constantly cultural elites tried to carve a secure place during the last years. Various strands of in a rapidly changing world. he beneits of thematic and theoretical visions are coming modern medicine, science and technology together in what seems to be an ever- were becoming central in the projects of expanding domain. individual and collective improvement From neo- or post-Foucauldian inter- espoused by the “Latin” countries. pretations of the politics of life – in the vein Latin eugenics, which had a strong of Nikolas Rose, Paul Rabinow, homas French and Italian scientiic, cultural and Osborne or Ian Hacking – to the history political core, was a mixture of projects of eugenics, demography or racism, a aimed at improving the biological and loosely connected ield has captured the social quality of the human population, but, imagination of scholars and publishing usually, it shied away from radical measures houses worldwide. of “negative” eugenics. he importance of Marius Turda and Aaron Gillette are the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, the no newcomers to this scholarly area. Both demographic crisis and the existence of a of them have published extensively on rather large rural population modulated the eugenics, race, biology, nationalism and eugenic ideal of a powerful state, guided by the historiography of social sciences and scientiic expertise, intent on controlling biosciences. his book is part of a large family reproductive patterns. Across comparative historical endeavor that the world, public hygienists, physicians, brings together competences honed during biologists, anthropologists, demographers historical research in various parts of the and social scientists from the self-alleged world, and proposes a new theoretical and Latin countries created variously shaped geographical perspective on eugenics. alliances, during and ater WWI, with Usually, the lay, but also scholarly, political, religious and military elites oten understanding of eugenics has a strong attracted to this radical project. bias in favor of German and Anglo-Saxon France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Romance- (British and U.S.) variants. he focus speaking Switzerland, Portugal, Romania, on “Latin eugenics” attempts to break Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Paraguay, this hegemony and tells a fascinating Peru, Venezuela and Chile were all part story of science, politics, degeneration, of a heterogeneous, but still unitary Latin modernity and frantic attempts at national eugenicist community that deined itself regeneration and puriication. he idea of more and more against the German and an international Latin cultural community, Anglo-Saxon racial hygiene and negative which gained strong support during the birth-control variants. Latin eugenics late nineteenth century and the irst half sought the biological betterment of the

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Reviews individual and the community by means models from the old constitutional of preventive medicine, social hygiene, medicine, but also from pathology and demographic studies, and public health, endocrinology. Each individual has, says rather than genetic engineering, racial Pende, its own biological constitution: selection, and compulsory sterilization (p. “he constitution is the morphological, 237). Nevertheless, during the interwar and physiological and psychological resultant WWII, especially the German eugenics, (variable in each individual) of the strongly supported by the state and political properties of all cellular and humoral elites, became very inluential inside the elements of the body and of the combination Latin countries. of these in a special cellular state having a Neo-Lamarckism was a synthesis balance and functional output of its own, of Darwinism and Lamarckism that a given capacity for adaptation and a mode focused on the inheritance of acquired of reaction to its environmental stimuli” characteristics and the progressive adap- (N. Pende, Constitutional Inadequacies: tation of individuals. It had a particularly An Introduction to the Study of Abnormal long life, despite the challenges posed by Constitutions, Philadelphia, PA: Lea & scientiic studies of inheritance and genetic Febiger, 1928, p. 25 apud Turda& Gillette heredity, especially in French medicine. 2014: 92). Neo-Lamarckism allowed for a rather Inluenced by French puericulture and optimistic view on the efects of state Italian bio-typology, American eugenicists intervention on population and permitted from Cuba, Eusebio Hernandez and some kind of accommodation with the Domingo Ramos, championed a speciic views of the Catholic and Orthodox theory of eugenic improvement called Churches on family life. he eugenicists “homiculture” that combined family that embraced Neo-Lamarckism believed protection, child health, public hygiene that society would become healthier with a strong belief in the superiority of the and more productive “if a number of European race and culture, and concerns prescriptions were followed, including the about immigration (p. 150). improvement of living conditions in urban By the mid-1930s, Latin eugenics areas, nationwide programs of vaccination, was constituted around a general model the criminalization of prostitution and of human improvement that was based pornography, and so on” (p. 30). on Neo-Lamarckism, puericulture, bio- A steep demographic decline in in-de- typology, homiculture, Catholicism, and siècle France triggered a renewed interest in the opposition to interventionist repro- puericulture in the context of pro-natalist ductive practices such as sterilization. policies. Adolphe Pinard, professor of Its success as a scientiic template for Clinical Obstetrics at the Paris Medical modernization projects sponsored by the School, promoted a distinct eugenics state was inconclusive until WWII. By then, program “based not on the elimination of “the relationship between the future of the the ‘unit’, but on the promotion of sanitary nation and the health of the population was and public health measures destined to already an established eugenic trope, but the improve the health of the population” (p. 35), war transformed it into a national obsession” centered on pre- and post-natal care and the (p. 239). he successful articulation of Latin protection of mothers and infants. In Italy, eugenics with state policies during WWII Corrado Gini and Nicola Pende cautioned opened it to inluences from the dominant against a hasty implementation of eugenics German coercive racial hygiene and among the population and proposed a foreshadowed its gradual disappearance in self-assumed holistic theory built on the the 1950s. existence of human biotypes that combined he authors summon eugenicists

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Reviews from many national and (post)imperial degeneracy and regeneration. For a moment, geographies, in a comprehensive compara- all these were brought together, under the tive picture that carefully takes apart, banner of an international Latin cultural re-contextualizes, and brings to light community, in a collaborative efort to conceptual similarities and discrepancies overcome marginality and to energetically between biological theories, state policies, modernize the states and populations of a and modernist theories of national series of European and American countries.

Constantin Bãrbulescu, România medicilor. Medici, ţãrani [i igienã ruralã în România de la 1860 la 1910, Bucure[ti, Humanitas, 2015, 356 p.

Reviewed by Lidia Trãu[an-Matu Lidia Trăuşan-Matu is an associated lecturer at the Faculty of History, University of Bucharest

onstantin Bărbulescu’s volume, Old People”) are – as stated in the Physicians’ Romania. Doctors, introduction to Bărbulescu’s book – CPeasants and Rural Hygiene in previous, older “independent studies”. Romania from 1860 until 1910, (Humanitas, Rewritten as a whole or partially adapted, 2015), is built around the idea of the they complement the new texts, and by “degeneration of the Romanian race”. their renewed theme, they are written his idea appears in the Romanian public speciically for this book. Together, they space – largely because of the ineiciency breathe life into a complex picture drawn by of the medical system – in the second half the medical elite, between 1860 and 1910, in of the nineteenth century and, slowly, whose forefront shines the rural world and until the end of the century, ampliies and its lifestyle rules. Moreover, the transition acquires sharp contours. Using this theme, of the peasant from the background to the along with an enviable critical lucidity foreground points to the historian’s subtle and sources lesser-known or lesser-used concern for the deconstruction of some by researchers, Constantin Bărbulescu stereotypes and deeply-rooted prejudices analyzes individually the most haunting in Romanian historiography. Finally, the topics, concerns and fears of the medical construction, shown as a whole, is new in elite in Romania regarding the peasant and the literature of Romanian space. the rural world, in a time of accelerated he book opens with a broad and modernization, under the reign of King necessary discussion on the sources Carol I. underlying the research (pp. 27-74). hese Some of the themes (for example, “he are regular doctors’ reports, be they of the Power of Medical Culture: New Laws for county, regiment or employees in rural

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro

Title: România medicilor. Medici, ţãrani şi igienã ruralã în România de la 6 la , by

Constantin ”ărbulescu. ”ucureşti: Humanitas, 2015

Author: Lidia Trăuşan-Matu

How to cite this article: Trăuşan-Matu, Lidia. 2015. România medicilor. Medici, ţãrani şi igienã ruralã în România

de la 1860 la 1910, by Constantin ”ărbulescu. ”ucureşti: Humanitas, 5. Martor 20: 219-222. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The

Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

Constantin Bãrbulescu, România medicilor. Medici, ţãrani [i igienã ruralã în România de la 1860 la 1910, Bucure[ti, Humanitas, 2015, 356 p.

Reviewed by Lidia Trãu[an-Matu Lidia Trăuşan-Matu is an associated lecturer at the Faculty of History, University of Bucharest

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Reviews hospitals, reports of the Superior Health which doctors claim to describe an actual Council, of the capital’s Health Service or situation” and which overlaps another of the sanitary inspections, the memoirs discourse (of a regulatory nature), “giving us of physicians and health legislation. he the hygienic standards of the time, a hard- author draws attention to the real danger to-reach ideal for the Romanian peasant” (p. of using these sources: the distortion of 82). In other words, black strokes and tough truth by suspending one’s critical thinking. positions relect a way to civilize and impose And rightly so; in the absence of critical medical and hygienic modernity. On the thinking, any source, regardless of type, other hand, doctors (urban people) come style and importance, tends to mortify. In into contact and are faced with a totally the case of medical reports which claim diferent kind of man than the one from themselves to be, in principle, “scientiic the world they live in, a man with whom and objective”, the result would be a blunt they do not have any sort of familiarity, investigation relecting the views (although communication or understanding. It is profoundly ideological) of the person who hard enough for them to perceive that some registers the information and writes about elements of the Romanian peasant’s food, it (medical elite). clothing and housing do not only relate he second part of the book is dedicated to the social group’s material possibilities, entirely to the medical discourse “on peasant education and the primitive state, but and the rural world”. hematic subchapters also to a certain cultural identity. Polenta, are devoted to diferent aspects of hygiene: “opinca” (peasant’s sandals) and “chirpicul” body and clothing (“Dirt lies thick on their (clay and straws) are both products within skin or on personal and clothing hygiene”), the peasants’ reach, but also symbols of a food (“he peasant’s food is only polenta or traditional lifestyle. on food hygiene”), house and household A special chapter, entitled “Are Romanians (“Most live in worse conditions than the alcoholics? or on the hygiene of alcoholic Zulus or on house and household hygiene”). beverages”, is dedicated to a vice frequently Constantin Bărbulescu, investigating invoked at the time: the “drunkenness” of articles and school textbooks of the time, the Romanian peasant (p. 160). he theme has noted that the discourse on peasant is an older concern of the medical elite in hygiene (body, clothing, dwelling place) is Moldavia and Wallachia. A good example entirely negative. For example, physicians is Dr. Ludovic Steege (not mentioned in from the time write that most peasants Bărbulescu’s book), who published a study “never” fully wash their bodies, few “wash entitled “On the Use of Spirits in Diseases at major holidays” and, inally, even fewer and the Dangers Caused by the Abuse “wash once a week” (p. 82). Moreover, of these Drinks” (in the “Scientiic and farmers don’t use soap, don’t comb daily, Literary Paper” from Iaşi, 1844). Like the don’t “freshen their clothes”, and don’t writings of doctors from the second half of “take care of the home and household”. In the nineteenth century, this study relects other words, nineteenth-century peasants the concern of the Moldavian doctor about are, from the doctors’ perspective, dirty and the “reckless alcohol consumption” in smelly; they live in unsanitary conditions villages and tries to convince the reader, and are, thus, “prone to disease”. his would citing a series of medical, physiological be the image that sources provide at a irst and economic reasons that this life style reading. However, historian Bărbulescu accelerates “the ruin of the body and health states that things are much more nuanced, of the addict”, which tends to become a raising the ideological dimension of these real social problem. Constantin Bărbulescu sources. As C. Bărbulescu notes, reports identiies new aspects in medical writings are part of a “descriptive discourse in ater 1860, such as the shit in emphasis

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Reviews from the insights and concerns to apparent medical discourse, and, through it, in the certainties: alcoholism is a “social problem”, public arena” (p. 186). Its name: pellagra. it is “intimately connected as a social Incidentally, the disease was irst reported problem to the Jewish problem” (p. 164), in western Spain, around 1730, from where or alcohol is a sure cause of the “immense it spread to France and northern Italy. In morbidity and mortality in modern its initial stages, the disease manifests itself Romania” and an enhancer of “race as a “simple rash” and then, gradually, the degeneration” (p. 179). he way the situation body is infested with devastating purulent is described causes the author to conclude wounds followed by physical and mental that, through their writings, physicians decay and, ultimately, death. Furthermore, promoted an apocalyptic idea: “Alcohol – the historian notes that the debate became the universal evil – causes poverty, disease complicated as “in the absence of certainty and decay” (p. 176). hat is why the state, via regarding the etiology of the disease”, its means of power and authority, attempts controversies on the account of prescribing – especially ater 1894 – sometimes radical medication appeared (p. 210). It all stemmed measures (e.g. the removal of unreined from “polenta”, the food presumed to have alcohol from trade or the encouragement caused the disease. Two sides with diferent of abstinence) to combat alcoholism “as arguments and viewpoints were formed. a social scourge”. We are not just stating One group pointed to damaged corn and that the authorities simply prohibited lour as the leading cause of the disease and, alcohol. hey couldn’t. In essence, it was therefore, blamed the patients (peasants) an attempt to control the quality of alcohol for eating food worth throwing away. he in conjunction with the call to moderation. other side brought into discussion the plain, Moreover, we know that, at the time, monotonous diet or nutrition, referring to doctors credited alcohol (especially wine) the state of chronic and excessive misery of with major therapeutic virtues. Wine was the peasantry. he conviction of the latter considered a “medicine” for a wide range was that the situation could be ixed with a of diseases and distilled alcohol was used small amount of meat and fresh vegetables to as the basis for the preparation of syrups be included in the peasants’ daily diet. his and medicines. In addition, the peasant was menu would ensure the daily requirement drinking wine mixed with water, the latter of niacin, a vitamin essential to the human in greater quantity. he reason is only one: body. Medical indings from the irst at the time, it was quite diicult to ind a decades of the twentieth century conirmed reliable source of potable water and the use the latter hypothesis. In the years that of wine for the “correction” of water served followed, regardless of their belief, doctors as an “antiseptic”. did not close the subject; on the contrary, he following text naturally completes they turned it into a serious social problem, the previous study: “Pellagra, the Scourge with catastrophic consequences, such as of our Peasant or on the birth of a disease”. “race degeneration”. Before addressing the heart of the matter, he idea of “race degeneration” and its Constantin Bărbulescu sets the time, consequence, “the death of the nation”, are place and especially the causes that led not just a chapter in the work of Constantin to the outbreak and spread of pellagra, Bărbulescu, but rather its leitmotif. Being but also its manifestations and its tragic well-acquainted with the medical discourse, denouement (death). Studying doctors’ the author reviews the constituting elements writings, especially doctoral theses, the of the degeneration theme. Step by step, author notes that in the 1860s “bits of we ind a lot of causes that threatened the information on a strange disease almost good path Romania was on: from diseases entirely particular to peasants appear in the to morbid and moral heredity, from anti-

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http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Semitism to hygiene and infant mortality. of medicalization in the mid-nineteenth All these causes boil down to the same point: century: “it is only the beginning: really just “population stagnation or decline”. he the medical elite… is the one medicalized” grim picture gave rise to fears, fantasies and (p. 328). We fully agree. Furthermore, we prejudices. he whole process is highlighted would like to point out that the reformative by careful monitoring of medical reports process triggered in the Romanian and population censuses. principalities between 1830 and 1869 was he book closes with a discussion on indeed important, but limited. It should be “Medical Culture versus Peasant Culture” perceived as an action which will trigger in which Constantin Bărbulescu raises change and not one that enshrines a change the issue of the process of medicalization that has already happened. In fact, even to in Romanian society. A variety of aspects this day the upgrade process of the medical such as the emergence and implementation system is still an uninished project. of sanitary legislation, the functioning At the end of such considerations, of the health service, the doctor-patient given the rigor of documentation and the relationship, the rivalry between doctors and conclusions, one must admit that it is hard traditional healers etc. are widely portrayed. to imagine a future history of the Romanian Relevant is also the conclusion reached by peasant’s life without the book of historian the author ater having analyzed the process Constantin Bărbulescu.

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