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Folk medicine from Basarabia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. Historical-ethnographical aspects


Author: Grădinaru Natalia
Degree:doctor of history
Speciality: 07.00.07 - Ethnology, Cultural and Historical Anthropology
Year:2015
Scientific adviser: Olga Luchianeţ
doctor, associate professor (docent), Institute of Cultural Heritage of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova
Institution: Institute of Cultural Heritage of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova

Status

The thesis was presented on the 18 September, 2015
Approved by NCAA on the 19 November, 2015

Abstract

Adobe PDF document – 0.48 Mb / in romanian

Thesis

CZU 39(478)+615.89(091)(043.2)

Adobe PDF document 3.41 Mb / in romanian
202 pages

Keywords

folk medicine, ethnoiatry, rituals, customs, healer, symbolism, syncretism, magic, beliefs, superstitions, illness, health, mentality, imaginary

Summary

The structure of the thesis consists of introduction, three chapters, conclusions and recommendations, annotations in Romanian, Russian and English, bibliography of 268 sourses, 149 pages of basic text and 6 appendices. The results of the researches were published in 14 scientific studies.

The field of study: ethnology

The purpose of study is to carry a complex research of folk medicine phenomenon, which includes an ill person, illness, as well as representations of the society about health and illness; traditional healer and his various practices, – according to the requirements of suffering people, – also the status of people involved in this universe, images, symbols, beliefs and superstitions, which were a part of traditional views on life.

The research objectives consist in defining the concept of folk medicine and its derivation, in determining some theoretical and historiographical reference points in treatment of the problem; in revealing medicinal practices, their syncretic structure and aspect; in identifying peculiarities of Basarabian folk medicine in the suggested chronological period and the premises of their definition; in investigating the ways of transmitting and keeping folk medicine knowledge; in precision of the status and the role of folk therapist in traditional community; in identifying medical and cultural coordinates connected with the illness experience and illustrating the representations which the community built about a healthy person; in determining the importance of folk medicine study for revealing the defining aspects of traditional mentality.

Novelty and scientific originality resides in the fact that the research presents the first attempt of complex analysis, at national level, of the folk medicine concept, as a component of folk knowledge. The symbolism of folk therapeutics, terminology and specificity of the investigated folk therapeutic complex, imagological ethnoiatrical reference points, historicity of preoccupations connected with the subject, revealing narrative therapeutical structures in the phenomena of the universal folk culture – these are some of the novelty aspects elucidated in the thesis.

Important scientific problem solved in the field of research consists in identifying and elucidating folk therapeutic complex, the fact which led to the revival of an important scientific sphere of folk culture, as well as of an indispensable element of cultural patrimony.

Theoretical significance lies in the analysis of terminological aspects, evolutionary and conceptual, referring to folk medicine, heteropraxes, representations of mentality, through which health was regarded as a principle of balance, illness – as disharmony, healing – as re-harmonization, and of therapeutic concept, preserved in three forms of articulation – magic, religious and medical empirical.

Applied value of the thesis. The research can have educational, didactic and instructive purposes. The contents of the thesis can serve a source of information for lectures and special courses of ethnology and cultural anthropology, and for completing works of specialty dedicated to ethnology of Republic of Moldova.

Implementation of scientific results. The resuts of the research were presented at scientific conferences and published in varous specialty magazines, used for elaboration of optional course “Folk medicine” at State Pedagogical University ”I. Creanga”. The results could also be useful in the process of arrangement of ethnocultural complexes or thematic halls at ethnographical museums, at the same time they would contribute to cognition and appreciation of immaterial cultural patrimony of our country.