How to cite this article: Popescu, Ioana. 2002. “Changing as we go along...” Martor 7: 11

Title: “Changing as we go along...” !

Author: Ioana Popescu

How to cite this article: Popescu, Ioana. 2002. “Changing as we go along...” Martor 7: 11

Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The Museum of the Romanian Peasant)

URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/martor-7-2002/

Martor (The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Journal) is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1996, with a focus on cultural and visual anthropology, ethnology, museum studies and the dialogue among these disciplines. Martor Journal is published by the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Interdisciplinary and international in scope, it provides a rich content at the highest academic and editorial standards for academic and non-academic readership. Any use aside from these purposes and without mentioning the source of the article(s) is prohibited and will be considered an infringement of copyright.

Martor (Revue d’Anthropologie 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.

Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL.

Changing

along ...

MAHTOI{ appears now in a new format. Th e iss ue of our journal ha s taken the shap e of a di cti onary: key words, arranged in alphabe- ti ca l ord er, and glossed in a less familiar man- ner. Definition s are rare, most of the term s are just a pretext for recollecting certa in exp eri ences or ways of life in th e Bu charest of the '80s. Th e iss ue no longe r includes th e usual rnu seology and th e photographic images, in homeo- pathic proportion, are only meant to give a taste of a futur e, richly illustrated volume of testi- moni es related to the sam e period, which we pl an to edit in Romanian.

Such rad ica l departure from th e des ign of th e pre\·ious is actuall y du e to th e eve nts that happened ove r th e la st two years, whi ch ha ve bee n heavy and sudd en losses fo r th e small world of our mu se um and th e even smaller team of th e MABTOR .Journal.

The first to go away wa s Horia Bern ea, with- out whom th e Museum of th e Romanian Peasa nt wou ld not have broken new ground in European ctlin o111use0Jogy . Befo re he left us, he was mak- ing plam for a journ al iss ue dedica ted to th e Mediterran ean world , of whose spirit Romania is definitely a part.

And then, after she wrote about the way the mu se um an d its t e am grew under Horia Bern ea's inspired guidance, Irina Nicolau left us, too, in a discree t and equally sudden way. She is the one who, during the lesson s of alternative she held for th e yo ung, one day pro-

po se d th e urgent collection of as man y tes ti- monies on th e '80s as possible. This is how the series of intervi ews was initiated, as well as th e written confessions of older peo pl e whose li ves were insistently marked by that period.

The materials that are gathered here have proved to be th e res ult of very different ou tl ooks on that mom ent in history: nightmarish memo- ries stand side by side with nostalgic regrets, spa rks of black humor and even some original recipes. It would have been a pity to spoil thi s fabulous diversity by selecting th e texts accord- ing to so me criterion or other. Th erefo re., we simply decided to arrange th e key words in al- phabeti cal order. The annex at th e end of th e volume includ es th e list of th e authors/collectors (referred to by th eir initials) and th e list of the informants (referred to by numbers). In this wa y, we hop e to make the readin g of such va rious texts easier, while tho se who are interested can easi ly id entify th e so urces as well.

Will we ever be able to exorcise by tes tim o nv the direst decade of Cea usesc u's regime? Will we eve r be able to leave behin d th e irreparable losses that follow ed?

J

matches that won't burn .. .

Ioana POPESCU

Martor, VlI - 2002, The eighties in Bu charest