Genesis and Dynamics of a Geo-Demographic Singularity. a Case Study - the Gipsy Community of Toflea (Br Ăhă� E�Ti Commune, Gala Łi County) 1

Genesis and Dynamics of a Geo-Demographic Singularity. a Case Study - the Gipsy Community of Toflea (Br Ăhă� E�Ti Commune, Gala Łi County) 1

Analele UniversităŃii din Oradea – Seria Geografie Year XXI, no. 2/2011 ( December ), pp. 256-266 ISSN 1454-2749, E-ISSN 2065-1619 Article no. 212111-533 GENESIS AND DYNAMICS OF A GEO-DEMOGRAPHIC SINGULARITY. A CASE STUDY - THE GIPSY COMMUNITY OF TOFLEA (BR ĂHĂŞ EŞTI COMMUNE, GALA łI COUNTY) 1 ∗∗∗ Ionel MUNTELE „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Ia şi, Faculty of Geography and Geology, Department of Geography, Carol I Avenue, no 11, 700506, Ia şi, România, e-mail: [email protected] Raluca HOREA-ŞERBAN „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Ia şi, România, Faculty of Geography and Geology, Department of Geography, Carol I Avenue, no 11, 700506, Ia şi, Romania, e-mail: [email protected] Abstract: During the last two decades Romania has experienced one of the most serious demographic crises in its history. But regardless of this context, certain communities manage to preserve their demographic vitality at the local level in close connection to their cultural and social features. It is the case of Brăhăş eşti commune in Gala Ńi County, known for the large gipsy community living in Toflea, one of its component villages. Its recent demographic evolution extending over the last decades points out its strong differentiation within the county. Being characterized by tendencies which are opposed to the general ones, this community manages not only to keep its exceptional demographic potential but also to produce, by means of migration, a real dissemination in a relatively vast space comprising the whole south-eastern part of Moldavia. The main conclusion of the research is that this community has become not only the main population reservoir of the whole north-western part of Gala Ńi county but also the principal source of serious social problems as a consequence of the dimension of certain specific phenomena . Key words: demographic singularity, gypsies, dynamics, cultural features, territorial distribution * * * * * * INTRODUCTION The present study, part of a larger project meant to identify the genesis and effects of the multiple differentiations existing in the Moldavian rural space, is intended to advance a diachronic analysis of the way in which a community (the gypsies of Toflea-Brăhăş eşti in our case) manifests its personality at the demographic level. The way in which cultural peculiarities bring about demographic cleavages is apparently simple, being triggered by various socio-cultural or economic phenomena such as: marginalization, identitary withdrawal, discrimination etc. In this direction, the case of gypsy communities is exemplary, any place that records a considerable concentration 1 This study refers to western part of historical Moldavia, part of Romania (8 counties of the North-East of this country). For disambiguation, in the text was used also the term Western Moldavia. ∗ Corresponding Author http://istgeorelint.uoradea.ro/Reviste/Anale/anale.htm Genesis and Dynamics of a Geo-Demographic Singularity. A Case Study - The Gipsy… 257 of people belonging to this minority experienceng a significant demographic differential. This finds expression in the preservation of a more traditionalist demographic behaviour and the manifestation of certain life quality deficiencies (smaller values of life expectancy at birth, higher rates of infant mortality, specific evolutions of the morbidity rate etc). Generally regarded as a delicate matter, the gypsy-like special nature cannot be compared, at least within the Romanian space, to that of other (ethnical or religious) communities. Neither can it be generalized as long as gypsy collectivities find themselves in diverse stages of social and economic modernization, integration, assimilation etc. At this point of the analysis the term „geo-demographic singularity” needs to be accurately defined. It designates the situation in which a component of a territorial (geographical) demographic system records an evolution that is singular, exceptional to the general trends that take place within that subsystem. Such a singularity can represent the starting point of a new tendency which, by diffusion, can conquer larger and larger areas. As a matter of fact, all demographic phenomena score a more or less singular manifestation at the beginning. However, in the present case, this singularity is doubled by a series of social, cultural and economic features which completely differentiate the analysed community both from the territorial-administrative and physical geographical systems it is integrated into. The case study we carried out focuses on the largest community of this type in Moldavia, lying in a peripherical, relatively isolated area in the southern part of Tutova Hills, a geographical region that shelters some other similar communities, too, communities which are inserted in a system of settlements traditionally dominated by the small peasant property2. This geographical area is known by its profoundly rural nature and scarcity of subsistential resources, elements that triggered a massive participation in the internal migratory flows of the communist period. Nowadays, Br ăhăş eşti commune, situated in the extreme north of Gala Ńi county, comprises four villages: two bigger ones (Br ăhăş eşti and Toflea) and two smaller ones (Corcioveni and Cosi Ńeni). The gypsy community of Toflea (counting two thirds of the total commune population of about 8,900 inhabitants) represents the main object of our research but, for statistical reasons, we shall make use of the information on the commune as a whole, its geo-demographic specificity being deeply marked by it. The first remark to make is that the self identification with the gypsies is of absolutely recent date, the census of 2002 being the first to massively record this affiliation. While the other villages of the commune derive from old free holder’s communities gradually integrated in feudal structures, Toflea village is relatively recent, the first documentary mention being that recorded in the first catagraphy of Moldavia 3, drawn up in the year 1803, which speaks of „the tax-payers in Toflea hermitage” (Codrescu, 1886). The forest area covering the higher part of Nicore şti Piedmont, still well afforested nowadays, used to accommodate more hermitages and monasteries, some of them still existing today (such as Buciumeni, Sihastru etc). Without forming a proper locality, the monastic settlement experienced an expanding evolution, being marked on the Russian map of 1828 as a hamlet with 5 up to 20 houses near which, on the present precincts of the village, to the south-east, there was another hamlet, bigger than the former (comprising 36 houses), called Rufe şti. The first modern census in Moldavia, carried on in 1859 - 1860, revealed a number of 1,242 inhabitants for Toflea village (2,995 inhabitants for the whole commune), a spectacular leap for only several decades, whose explanation resides in the fact that, during the period of time between the two censuses, a numerous collectivity of gypsies settled down in the area. By 1948 (for nearly a century), the demographic evolution (as much as we can infer from exploring the population dynamics) was not very much different from that of the 2 The most well-known communities are those in B ăcioi (Corbasca commune, Bac ău county) and Homocea commune (Vrancea county), during the interwar period both of them being included (just like Toflea-Br ăhăş eşti) into Nicore şti “plasa”, Tecuci county. As a matter of fact, that “plasa” was recorded by certain scientific papers of the time (Obreja, 1943) to have the greatest percentage of gipsies in Moldavia (the word “plasa” refers to a former Romanian territorial administrative unit ranking below “county” and above “commune”). 3 In Romanian it is called „Condica Liuzilor”, representing a sort of tax-payers’ registry book. 258 Ionel MUNTELE, Raluca HOREA-ŞERBAN neighbouring settlements, being relatively slow: 1,513 inhabitants in 1912 (out of the 3,484 people of the commune); 1,914 inhabitants in 1941 (out of the 4,444 people living in the whole commune). Instead, the post war evolution was subject to a continuous tendency of singularization in comparison to the general specificities of the rural environment of the county (figure 1). 1912=100 Toflea village 300 Br ăhăş eşti commune Gala Ńi county (rural area) 200 100 1912 1930 1941 1948 1956 1966 1977 1992 2002 Figure 1. Comparative analysis of the number of inhabitants according to the censuses carried out from 1912 to 2002 (Source: The censuses taken between 1912 - 2002 in Romania) This tendency became more and more conspicuous with every intercensus period until 1977, when the direction changed the other way round: while the rural environment passed through a demographic decline (an evolution which was quite normal from the perspective of the consequences of the rural exodus), Toflea village experienced a contrary development, materialized in a stronger and stronger tendency of explosive demographic increase. The population grew from only 2,504 inhabitants in 1956 to 3,667 in 1992 and 5,479 in 2002 census. This means that from 1941 to 2002 (that is six decades) this village faced a threefold increase of its total population despite the combined influences of the last world war, the drought in 1946 - 1947 (which worked havoc in the area) and the rural exodus which massively involved the population of this commune (only from 1966 to 1989 the migratory balance recorded a deficit of 2,366 inhabitants, the annual average rate being of -1.9%, clearly superior to the national one). The more and more prominent growth after 1990 can also be ascribed to the massive rural return, the migratory balance rising to 1,540 people between 1990 - 2002, subsequently reaching a relative equilibrium between arrivals and departures. In this way a significant part of the previous exodus managed to be counteracted in a relatively short period of time. This significant return can hardly be explained taking into consideration the more than precarious natural offer and the extremely high subsistential density of the area (3,053 ha out of the 4,361 ha of the commune have an agricultural use - arable lands, pastures etc, causing a level of about 300 inhabitants / 100 hectares of agricultural land).

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