LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

Media and Social communication, The Roadside Crucifix... 299
near the monastery there is a roadside crucifix, a chapel shaped
monument, with oil paintings, iconography of true aesthetic value, of certain
special resonance, a hallmark of romanian identity in a multiethnic area.
In uzdin, Vojvodina, on the outskirts of a village we spotted a
place marked by the same historically hallmarked modus memoriabilis.
the legend of the place preceds the raising of the roadside crucifix: the
dream (if a blind girl washes with water from that spring, she will heal)
is associated with the gesture of gratitude and thus the crucifix is raised
(the triad cross-spring-tree is thus well represented). they created cultural
pieces of microhistory, which marked the cultural microregions.
Willingness to make space sacred has led the peasant to plant more
signs. thus water crosses, crosses upon the bridge, well crosses, memorial
crosses, oath crosses and road crucifixes appeared. the crossroad, the
marked place (where an incident occurred), the spring and the tree are
symbolic spaces, which are purified by the crucufux. they have kept their
magical-mythical character and nave evolved as aesthetic and artistic
representations, sometimes their final trait being the dominant one in
receiving the vital or funeral mark.
Community space is reworded by placing new signs of socio-cultural
significance. the wide range of forms of comemoration, only the alms
for the living (“the alms of will” as it is called in the oltenia plain) does
not require the placement of a cross. And yet, crucifix wells are raised
by the living, but the liturgical diptychs are for the living and the dead,
“to have a spring” and the elders say about the dead, “their health like
spring water” they say about the living. the cross in the ritual space is a
landmark of a definite function. the purpose of the Cross, an by default
that of the roadside crucufux, is a symbolic one: to make shade, to protect
from wind and rain. In “the Firtree Song”, a version which was picked up
in Ponoarele, Mehedinţi from domnica Pătraşcu (ciobanu, 1996, p. 132)
explained the main meaning of the firtree as funeral symbol:
Bradule, brăduţ gin munce / cine mi ţ-o porâncit / Ge aici ai coborât
(…) / – Mie mi-o porâncit / Trei dulgherei / cu trei barduţe la ei / că
mă duc în sat / să mă facă casă. / da ei m-o minţit / Şi m-a pus să fac /
Umbră la cap (s.n.) / Ge bărbat.
the same definition of the cross is given by the pocraina Djangolaska
informer, lozan Ivanova (Bulgaria). on the cross, mast or spear, as funeral
props, a piece of white cloth is draped. domnica Trop of Mehedinţi
Izverna, calls it “smoasce de la cruce”. At Florentin (Bulgaria), Gherghina
“of Truica” and Gheorgheva “of Titirelu” (born răducanu) tell us how to