multigenre post

In honor of Tom Romano's recent multigenre proposals, I thought I'd publish a post that included more than mere words.

Reading Ion, I could picture the scenes in my mind so very vividly, mainly because I've walked through similar villages, grew up listening to Romanian folk music, absorbed my Maicuta's every word retelling the hora's she went to as a little girl, and am generally familiar with the culture in which the novel takes place. But for those who are not as familiar, perhaps a few pictures, songs, and videos will help color in the picture.

(Oh, the wonders of google and other modern technologies!)

To the left is a picture of a Romanian family in traditional dress. Specifics vary from region to region, as they do in any country, but for the most part, this is what the traditional Romanian costume looks like.

As I was searching for info on Romanian dress, I found this article that provides details about more contemporary Romanian traditions. (And, yes, that's where I got the family picture from. Apparently, either I'm a really bad researcher when it comes to Romanian dress, or there just aren't that many high-quality images to begin with.)

My great-grandmother (my father's mother's mother) used to tell us stories about the dances (hora) she went to in her youth, and I found a video that would give a small glimpse of what their dances looked like. You can access it here.

And--I couldn't resist!--here are two pictures from my father's village in Transylvania, where I grew up part of my life. This picture is taken from our cabin's balcony and overlooks Muntii Apuseni. Most likely, Rebreanu was writing about land similar to this countryside, with houses built close next to each other and fields spreading out as far as the eye can see.

This second picture is from the cemetery where my ancestors (on my father's side) are buried. I believe we've located the tomb of my great-great-grandfather. The village officials relocated the burial grounds around the turn of the century, so four generations is only as far as it goes here. (However, the old burial ground still contains the remains of my older ancestors, even if the site is no longer marked by crosses.)
Hopefully these resources will provide a more ample picture of Romania. I'm eager to learn more about how 1990's Romania (as I experienced it) had changed from the early 20th century Romania I'm reading about in these books.