historia religionum Direttore Natale Spineto (Università di Torino) Comitato scientifico Gustavo Benavides (Villanova University) Philippe Borgeaud (Université de Genève) Bernard Faure (Columbia University) Giovanni Filoramo (Università di Torino) Jean-Marie Husser (Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg) Massimo Raveri (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia) Jörg Rüpke (Erfurt Universität) Giulia Sfameni Gasparro (Università di Messina) Guy G. Stroumsa (Hebrew University of Jerusalem · University of Oxford) Emilio Suárez de la Torre (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) Redazione scientifica Augusto Cosentino (Università di Messina) Alberto Pelissero (Università di Torino) Alessandro Saggioro (Sapienza Università di Roma) Roberto Tottoli (Università degli Studi di Napoli ‘l’Orientale’) * « Historia Religionum » is an International Yearly Peer Reviewed Journal. The eContent is Archived with Clockss and Portico. anvur : a. * Per i riferimenti bibliografici si invitano gli autori ad attenersi scrupolosamente alle norme specificate nel volume di Fabrizio Serra,Regole editoriali, tipografiche & redazionali, Pisa-Roma, Serra, 20092, in particolare al capitolo Norme redazionali, consultabile e scaricabile Online alla pagina « Pubblicare con noi » del sito web www.libraweb.net * Gli articoli proposti per la rivista devono essere inviati, per posta elettronica e in formato pdf, all'indirizzo del Direttore : [email protected] HISTORIA RELIGIONUM AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 12 · 2020 PISA · ROMA FABRIZIO SERRA EDITORE MMXX histrelig.libraweb.net · www.libraweb.net * Amministrazione ed abbonamenti Fabrizio Serra editore Uffici di Pisa : Via Santa Bibbiana, 28, 56127 Pisa Uffici di Roma : Via Carlo Emanuele I, 48, 00185 Roma Tel. +39 050 542332, fax +39 050 574888, [email protected] I prezzi ufficiali di abbonamento cartaceo e/o Online sono consultabili presso il sito Internet della casa editrice www.libraweb.net Print and/or Online official subscription rates are available at Publisher’s web-site www.libraweb.net * A norma del codice civile italiano, è vietata la riproduzione, totale o parziale (compresi estratti, ecc.), di questa pubblicazione in qualsiasi forma e versione (comprese bozze, ecc.), originale o derivata, e con qualsiasi mezzo a stampa o internet (compresi siti web personali e istituzionali, academia.edu, ecc.), elettronico, digitale, meccanico, per mezzo di fotocopie, pdf, microfilm, film, scanner o altro, senza il permesso scritto della casa editrice. Under Italian civil law this publication cannot be reproduced, wholly or in part (including offprints, etc.), in any form (including proofs, etc.), original or derived, or by any means: print, internet (includ- ing personal and institutional web sites, academia.edu, etc.), electronic, digital, mechanical, includ- ing photocopy, pdf, microfilm, film, scanner or any other medium, without permission in writing from the publisher. Proprietà riservata · All rights reserved © Copyright 2020 by Fabrizio Serra editore, Pisa · Roma. Fabrizio Serra editore incorporates the Imprints Accademia editoriale, Edizioni dell’Ateneo, Fabri- zio Serra editore, Giardini editori e stampatori in Pisa, Gruppo editoriale internazionale and Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali. * Direttore responsabile : Fabrizio Serra. Autorizzazione del Tribunale di Pisa n. 36 del 30/10/2007. * issn print 2035-5572 e-issn 2035-6455 SOMMARIO sezione monografica religions in the roman empire: a discussion of pantheon by jörg rüpke Edited by Cristiana Facchini Cristiana Facchini, Pantheon: In Conversation with Jörg Rüpke 11 Roberto Alciati, Religione o religioni? 17 Alessandro Saggioro, Per una nuova storia della religione romana, fra comunica- zione e individualismo 23 Luca Arcari, I seguaci di Gesù come attori religiosi individuali dell’Impero Romano. Note in margine alla ‘nuova’ storia della religione romana di Jörg Rüpke 27 sezione monografica angelo brelich, incroci tra italia e ungheria · i A cura di Valerio Salvatore Severino Valerio Salvatore Severino, Angelo Brelich, incroci tra Italia e Ungheria 41 Giorgio Ferri, A braccetto con Giove: Angelo Brelich e la religione romana 43 Cornelia Isler-Kerényi, Gli eroi greci di Kerényi e di Brelich a confronto 79 saggi Giuseppina Paola Viscardi, The Wilderness Experience. Liminality and Cosmogo- ny in Ancient Greece Kingship Narratives 87 Marco D’Alano, Rileggere la santità in chiave esoterica a inizio Novecento. Il caso della Società Teosofica di Roma 113 Ludovico Battista, L’ultima secolarizzazione del cristianesimo: Memoria passio- nis. La teologia-politica di J. B. Metz al vaglio della critica alla secolarizzazione di H. Blumenberg 127 Giuseppe Tateo, Bless to spoil: revanchism, nationalism and defilement in an an- ti-mosque ritual in Bucharest, Romania 149 Luigi Berzano, La religione nell’era digitale 165 Norme redazionali della casa editrice 177 BLESS TO SPOIL : REVANCHISM, NATIONALISM AND DEFILEMENT IN AN ANTI-MOSQUE RITUAL IN BUCHAREST, ROMANIA Giuseppe Tateo Abstract · Drawing on ethnographic data gathered in Bucharest in 2015 and 2016, the present paper aims at unpacking a specific ritual of defilement and consecration. Fearing that the erec- tion of a mosque would be the cornerstone of a possible Islamisation of Romania, two activists elaborated a strategy to stop the project. First, they defiled the respective land by digging some pieces of pork bought in a supermarket, and then « re-Christianized » the place by driving hun- dreds of crosses and celebrating a ritual for blessing it. Following Maurice Bloch’s reflections on ritual practice, I dwell on the complementarity of functional and symbolic action in a ritual per- formance composed of two different moments : defilement (of the “other” or aimed at it) and re-consecration (for or aimed at the “self ”). The paper ends arguing that expressions of contem- porary inter-religious and inter-ethnic unrest – such as the anti-mosque affair in Bucharest – are better understood in the light of how protesters conceive their historical identity. Keywords · Bucharest, Mosque, Ritual, Islam, Nationalism, Orthodoxy. Introduction 1 n July 2015, mass media reports revealed the project of building a new, imposing I mosque in Bucharest. Through the government resolution 372/2015, a piece of land in the north of the city was loaned for free to the Muslims’ community in Romania, under the condition that construction works started within three years. Fearing that the erection of a mosque would be the cornerstone of a possible Islamisation of Ro- mania, two activists elaborated a strategy to stop the project. First, they defiled the respective land by digging some pieces of pork bought in a supermarket, and then « re-Christianized » the place by driving hundreds of crosses and celebrating a ritual for blessing it. The activists were two cousins, Cătălin Berenghi and Cătălin Ioan Gornic, and had already organized other « undertakings » (demersuri, as Berenghi calls them) in the past, gaining some visibility in the capital. The case study discussed here combines the growing importance of online media consumption and conspiracy theories with geopolitics and the predicaments of the migration crisis in the EU. Such phenomena contribute to re-activate revanchist sen- timents in an area that was a buffer zone between empires for centuries. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered during a twelve-month fieldwork in Bucharest, the present paper aims at unpacking a specific ritual of defilement and consecration. Beyond the [email protected], Charles University, Prague. 1 On this topic, for a chronology of the news coverage, see Corneliu Simuţ, Negative Economy in Romanian Politics and Religion : Anti-Muslim Attitudes in the Bucharest Mosque Scandal during the Summer of 2015, « Religions », 6, 4, 2015, pp. 1368-1390, available online : https ://doi.org/10.3390/rel6041368, accessed on 06.09.2019. https://doi.org/10.19272/202004901011 · «historia religionum» · 12 · 2020 150 giuseppe tateo pig burial – which is a common tactic among anti-mosque movements – it dwells on a few other elements : the creation of an open-air shrine on the respective land, the ref- erence to Wallachian rulers and martyrs as symbols of Romanian lands’ anti-Ottoman history, and cross-placing activities. One of the main arguments of the paper is that contemporary inter-religious and inter-ethnic conflict such as the anti-mosque affair in Bucharest are better understood in the light of how people conceive their historical identity and are influenced by their recent past. The crosses they drive in the land, in fact, demarcate time, not just space. Crosses are markers of Christian identity used to keep away the other, which in the giv- en case is an undesirable near future (the feared « Islamisation » of Romania) that evokes a far past of subalternity (the centuries spent under Ottoman rule). The paper ends highlighting the role that another, closer past – the decades of socialist regime – plays nowadays in the emergence of inter-ethnic disputes. If islamophobia arises because of revanchist interpretations of history, opposition along ethnic lines is also a legacy of the more recent socialist past. A controversial project Before discussing the project of the new mosque, I will give a brief historical overview of the Muslim presence in modern-day Romanian territories. Although the Cumans and Pechenegs ruling Wallachia in medieval times included also a Muslim minorities, the first Muslim settlements date back to the 13th century, when Crimean Tatars and