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

Media and Social communication, The Roadside Crucifix... 301
In oltenia variuos funeral signs are placed at a grave: the stake, the
mast and the spear (at funerals), the stone cross and the crossroad crucifix
(after 6 weeks or, because of economic hardship, whenever the family can
pay for the funeral monument).
In Bulgaria, the pocraina, symbols of the sacred burial space have
been reduced to two: the mast (at the funeral) and cross (after 6 months or
one year) (Ivanova lozan Djangolaska informant). An interesting image
is that of the joined the cross (or mast) with colinda, a hazel twig they go
caroling with on Christmas eve. on Christmas day colinda is brought to
the cemetery and put on the grave or by the cross (picture of the ponoarele
village cemetery, Mehedinţi county). colinda has rhomboidal signs in
black and white made during a smoking process, the significance being life
and death, day and night, light and dark. Colinzile (the bats) are left to rot
at the grave. In cemeteries in uzdin, ecica and Vrsac (Vojvodina, Serbia)
wooden crosses are found only within the old cemetery space, where some
are covered by vegetation, a sign that current generations have forgotten
them. Instead crosses and funeral monuments of stone and marble are
ostentatiously present. With all this “invasion” of the modern, note the
presence of texts written in romanian, reminiscent texts of romanian folk
verses (rhymes and rhythmic texts). therefore the cultural background of
romanian identity is certified.
the sequence of appearance of funeral signs “at the head of the dead”
draws the temporal landmarks of the burial ceremony: the separation from
the old condition, reaching the new status and integration into the new state.
As sacred space, and marking time pickets, an unburrial of the quotidian
occurs (panea, 2003, p. 65). Spacing in time from the transition to postexistence
requires restoring social order, the rewording of space and time
only occurring at the times of comemorating the dead. It’s just a “spiritual
maintenance”, advancing throughgenerating, on the long run, the idea of
moşi (forefathers). The image of the departed therefore mirrors the image
of the mythical ancestor. It is a way of communicating within the family
through time and beyond. hence similarities in sequence of the ritual
funeral of romanians living in multiethnic communities and multilingual
spaces. It means preservation in timeof a group identity and a performance
of identity elements.
c. The cross – symbolic message, explicit message
the structure of the ritual discourse focuses on two levels: that of
immediacy, of the seen, and that of symbolic representation. therefore