Eastern Europe has seen considerable social, economic and political upheaval since 1989. Migration has been an important element of this change, with the removal of restrictions enabling individuals ...to move in search of opportunities. Resulting patterns of internal migration rest on a longer history of movement, linked to the communist-era pursuit of economic development and modernization. Proximity to Western Europe has seen some regions receive greater migrant flows, leading to resentment and distancing among the resident population. Focusing on rural settlements in the Banat region, southwestern Romania, this article examines how receiving communities perceive the effects of internal migration. The findings suggest entrenched stereotypes established during the communist-era remain prominent in patterns of stigmatization and maintenance of social distance. They also point to underlying tensions between the desire to protect local culture and tradition, while ensuring the continued viability of small settlements in the face of threats of depopulation.
In this study we pursued an analysis on the nature of continuity of the ethnic and religious structure of five mining centers in the Banat Mountains. The five centers are: Reşiţa, Oravița, Bocşa, ...Dognecea and Anina, and the analyzed time period is 1880-2011. The elements that influenced the ethnic and religious structure were represented by the colonization periods in this region, starting from the second half of the 19th century, which continued until the first part of the 20th century. The study was based on statistical data obtained from the specialized literature and from the National Institute of Statistics website. These data were then processed in the form of graphs and tables. Ethnic and religious continuity has been preserved throughout the analyzed period, ethnicities and confessions from 1880 being found in 2011. The numbers in 2011 were smaller than in 1880, but enough for continuity to be maintained.
Recent investigations of the Semlac loess section in the south-eastern Carpathian Basin, which is situated at an undercut slope position on the right bank of the Mureş River in its lower reaches ...(Banat region, western Romanian), are presented and discussed. Dating back to marine isotope stage (MIS) 10, the more than 10 m thick loess sequence includes four fossil soil-complexes developed in homogenous and relatively fine silty loess. Because of the good preservation of the sediment, Semlac is regarded as a key section for the Carpathian Basin, which offers possibilities to a) improve the understanding of the type and composition (loess homogeneity and pedogenic alteration) of the lowland loess sequences in the Carpathian Basin also beyond the last interglacial palaoesol complex, b) to reconstruct the temporal evolution of the local loess-palaoesol successions, c) gain better insight into the regional paleoenvironments of the last 300 ka and d) to compare the loess of the region to loess-sequences in adjacent areas and to dust proxy data in the northern hemisphere.
An integrated age model based on correlation to reference records and luminescence dating is compiled. Applying this age model we compare climate proxy data from Semlac to both global data and to data from the very southeast of the Carpathian Basin (Vojvodina, Serbia).
The obtained results provide new insight into the dust accumulation regime for the eastern Carpathian Basin and offer new palaeoenvironmental information for the region and are an important step towards establishing a catena from the thin loess-like sediments of the Banat foothills in the East towards the thicker and seemingly more complete loess sections of the south-eastern and central Carpathian Basin. Disentangling grain size data from soil formation proxies is used to investigate patterns of non-local dust. Patterns of non-pedogenetic fine material are similar to grain size proxies from China and other parts of the northern hemisphere, suggesting western and eastern Eurasian loess to have (at least partly) similar mechanistic/climatic origins.
•We present physical property data from the eastern Carpathian Basin for the last ca. 400 thousand years.•Temporal physical property patterns are smooth and different from sections near the Danube.•We discuss similarity of a model for dust accumulation regime with data to global dust deposition.
In the collections of the National Museum of Banat from Timisoara there is a very nice multi-spiral bracelet made of bronze plate, belonging to the Regelsbrunn type. The piece from Ghilad (Timiș ...County) is decorated with a median rib, and on the edges is arranged a string of pearls, made in the au repoussé technique. One end of the piece ends with a volute, and the other with a spiral, consisting of five turns. The bracelet was discovered in 1867 next to a ceramic vessel in a burial grave. Based on analogies, it dated back to the Late Bronze Age II (Bz C2/D - beginning of Ha A1 Central European) ca. 1450-1250 BC. It probably circulated in the late Cruceni-Belegiš cultural environment, characteristic of the low plain of Banat. Also on this occasion is published the multi-spiral bronze bracelet from Gornea (Sichevița commune, Caraș-Severin county), located in the collections of the Vršac City Museum, belonging to the same Regelsbrunn type. Due to the full section, the bracelet was cast, and then the ends were hammered in the form of spirals. Later it was decorated on either side of the median rib with a string of pearls made in the au repoussé technique. The piece was acquired by the Vršac Museum in 1905 and seems to come from a hoard found in 1882 in Gornea „Păzăriște”, in the Romanian Banat. It is also dated to the Late Bronze Age II (Bz C2/D - beginning of Ha A1 Central European) ca. 1450-1250 BC. Along with other discoveries in the area of the Danube Iron Gates, it probably circulated in the late Dubovac-Žuto Brdo-Gârla Mare cultural environment.
The faunal material that is the subject of this archaeozoological project comes from archaeological research on a Neo-Eneolithic settlement located on the border of Parţa village (Timiş County). The ...settlement represents one of the most important Neolithic settlements in northern Banat, and is believed to have been one of the region’s major settlements in the late Neolithic period. The numerous archaeological research campaigns have determined numerous data related to the spiritual life of the prehistoric communities in Parța, highlighted by the research of the two sanctuaries and the observations about ritual practices outside the shrines (house altars, ritual deposits, etc.). In most cases, these communities expressed in various ritual forms their veneration and gratitude to the gods, using animals or parts of them to perform these rituals. In this paper we want to address those issues related to the usage of animals (or animal parts) in ritual practices, insisting on the identified taxa and the distribution of animal remains in ritual complexes, continuing with the interpretation of the data obtained. Finally, we want to discuss possible hypotheses related to ritual practices, argued by paleofaunal data.
The research of the nobility's past in the Banat area occupies an important place in the research activity of those who have dedicated themselves to this noble subject. The nobility played a ...significant role in the Habsburg monarchy and therefore it is important to pay individual attention to each noble family in order to build on the role of the nobility in multiethnic, multilingual, multiconfessional and multicultural society between the liberation of Timisoara and Banat (1716- 1718) and the First World War (1914-1918). The noble families disappeared from the historical scene of Banat almost imperceptibly, as is the case of the Damaszkin family, but this did not erase the interest of researchers who researched the noble phenomenon. The very presentation of information about these families, tries to snatch from oblivion even the smallest part of the social elite in the Banat area. Researching the archival documents submitted to the Serbian Orthodox Episcopate of Timisoara, I was surprised to find two documents that provide valuable clues about the life and work of the Ljubomirovics Damaszkin family, which we make available to researchers to deepen the topic related to this family in particular.
Bringing back into actuality a personality as important as Ioan Boroș (1850-1937), a reference figure of the Banat Greek Catholicism during the second half of the 19th century and the first decades ...of the next, represents a significant acquisition, an important result of the research efforts that were conducted after 1989 in the area of church history. In this respect, two major historiographical restitutions must be mentioned; after they saw the light of the printing press, they contributed in a the decisive manner in placing in the spotlight the proposed archiereus Ioan Boroș to the Romanian historiography and to the contemporary Greek-Catholic ecclesial and community consciousness; it is the publication of his memorial notes, along with his will, correspondence and documents proving his elevation to the rank of honorary archiereus, in the period immediately following the Great Union. A first book containing his historical writings is of great importance in understanding his intellectual profile and the great diversity of the concerns that animated him. Considering the intellectual formation, the life experience and the exceptional church administrative skill that Ioan Boroș showed, we consider that it is not without interest to see how his memorial notes and, on a broader level, his scientific and publishing activity, reflect the multi-confessional character of Banat and especially the relations between the two Romanian confessions, Orthodoxy and Greek Catholicism. This is the aim of the present research paper.
The article raises questions related to field research methodology in a specific context. The authors take into consideration mainly the context of uncertainty, generated by Covid-19 pandemics which ...forced them to reshape the field research methodology as previously known and commonly used by Romanian ethnologists. The authors provide a brief presentation and analysis of the first steps done as part of what later would become a larger field experience in terms of investigating Romanian food heritage. It relies on five examples represented by five interviews conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic. The interviews that compose the case study have a special value. The negotiation to set up the meetings, the arguments of each of the parties, the conditions in which the discussions were organized are all angles that deserve to be discussed as source of what we might call ethnological motivation. What can determine the people, members of a specific culture, to share their knowledge and their life experience about a certain topic, when the very act of speaking might be a dangerous one? In each of these examples, the informant was responsive when informed that we were conducting research related to local traditions, specific family cuisine, without producing television shows, and without overexposing themselves. We notice the existence of a need to tell, a real duty to tell relevant information about one’s own culture, a vector that characterizes communities just as, for the researcher, there is a work ethic which implies his obligation to make all necessary efforts to find out information.
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