MARTOR no. 28 / year 2023
Did White Swallowwort (Vincetoxicum hirundinaria) Exist or Did It not During the Organic Regulations Regime? Notes on some Previously Unknown Documents from Wallachia
DOI: www.doi.org/10.57225/martor.2023.28.13
Nicolae Mihai
“C.S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor” Institute for Social Science and Humanities Research of the Romanian Academy, Romania
ORCID: 0000-0002-2219-5916
Nicolae Mihai is researcher in the Department of History-Archeology, “C.S Nicolăescu-Plopșor” Institute for Research in Social Sciences and Humanities of the Romanian Academy (Craiova, Romania). His is interested in cultural history of the 19th Century with special focus on religious and popular culture of the Romanians, 1848 revolutions, culture memory (from 18th Century testamentary practices to the Great War) and sensorial urban history in the Romanian space.
PAGES: 204-214
KEYWORDS: Iarba fiarelor (white swallowwort); Wallachia; Organic Regulations regime; cultural conflict; previously unknown documents.
ABSTRACT:
The present text is a small commentary on a classic case of cultural conflict that occurred in Wallachia in 1835 under the Organic Regulations regime. Starting from the discovery of some unknown documents in the archives of Romanați county, relating to the public proclamation of the non-existence of the plant iarba fiarelor (white swallowwort), which was made use of by treasure hunters at the time, we have tried to establish what was at stake in this conflict. Popular culture suddenly became a threat to the authorities of a modern state that was operating a real process of socio-cultural dressage in that period, a move that inevitably brought it into a precisely datable conflict with those who still remained faithful to a folklore culture. One of those happy cases in which history comes to the aid of ethnology.
HOW TO CITE THE ARTICLE:
Mihai, Nicolae. 2023. “Did White Swallowwort (Vincetoxicum hirundinaria) Exist or Did It not During the Organic Regulations Regime? Notes on some Previously Unknown Documents from Wallachia.” Martor 28: 204-214. [DOI: 10.57225/martor.2023.28.13]
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