The Oşeni and the Dynamics of their Emblematic Music












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            * Speranţa Rădulescu
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            Abstrakt

            The Oaş is a small rural region in the far north of Transylvania. Before 1990, its communi
            culture was still very lively. Music, with its distinct identity, was supported by several
            institutions: the Sunday dance, the wedding, collective pastoral feasts, the bee, and caro

            were better off than their fellow countrymen, because the men often left their villages to
            taking hard, but well-paid seasonal jobs all around the country (e.g. repairing high-volta
            their wealth grew, so did their ambition to show it off. Like today, the symbols of prospe

            (multistory, with monumental gates), and music, deliberately different from all other Roma
            Emigration to the West began in the 1990s and intensified in the 2000s. At the beginning, 

            with deprivation. In a few years, the Oşeni organized themselves in communities where each
            find shelter and a job. After a turbulent period, the Oşeni adhered to lawfulness, and the
            construction work grew substantially. They invest all of their money in houses (the constr

            is supervised by their parents, who stayed behind in the village), in lavish parties with 
            in expensive traditional costumes, which they put on occasionally, making sure they are al
            in them. They come back on short vacations at Easter, on the Feast of Dormition, and at Ch

            rest of the time, their houses are empty. In the new socio-economic mechanism, music, whic
            at home, but also take with them abroad, plays an essential role. Like houses, it runs a c
            to the heights, the super-acute register symbolizing prestige, success, and uniqueness. Th

            I am going to speak about, has now reached a pitch that threatens the singers’ throats and
            integrity of the accompanying violins.


            Klíčová slova
            Romanian (rural) music; emblems of identity; musical identity


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