Revista de Etnografie şi Folclor, 2015 (Serie nouă, nr. 1-2)

2015 / nr. 1-2

SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF RELIGIOSITY IN THE TWO SĂPÂNTA CEMETERIES 9 IOAN POP-CURȘEU ABSTRACT This paper analyses the signification of popular religiosity in the two well known cemeteries from Săpânța (Maramureș, Romania). The cemeteries, fruit of the artistic vision of loan Stan Pătraș (1908-1977), contain many ranks of richly decorated blue crosses showing, in verses and images, episodes of the villagers’ lives. First, through iconographical analysis, I criticise the idea spread by communist propaganda that Pătraș leaves behind the tradition of religious art in favour of a laic and profane approach to death and the sacred. Then, 1 propose an interpretation of religious characters painted on the crosses of Pătraș and of his disciples: Christ, the Virgin, angels, death, white doves, Saint Elias... Before the conclusions, I try to understand why the universe of religious practices is seen in the rural community of Săpânța (but also in other social groups) as a mainly feminine one. Keywords: Săpânța, Maramureș, Merry Cemetery, social representations, religious representations, iconography, folk culture, popular culture. My recent research on the Săpânța Merry Cemetery (pursued mainly for the grant A Cognitive Architecture for Social Groups. Further Development and Validation ), has also focused on a deeper investigation of social representations. Apart from the already published results* 2, I have pursued studies on the collective views of the two Săpânța cemeteries, on how the official discourse relates to the new burial traditions or on how moral traditions are shared via (tombstone) epitaphs. ' Grant from the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research (CNCS - UEFISCDI), project number PN-I1-ID-PCE-2011-3-0482, director Petru Lucian Curșeu. The present paper is also a part of this research project. 2 Curșeu & Pop-Curșeu 2011; Pop-Curșeu 2013. REF/JEF, 1-2, p. 131-149, București, 2015

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