The Romanian traditional apparel and its history

the romanian traditional apparel and its history Re-enacting the tradition from 160 years ago


Piety overwhelms visitors as they enter the Namaiesti Monastery's Ethnographic Museum. Namaiesti is a village in Arges county, located in central-southern Romania. And piety prevails there not because we're speaking about a monastic museum but mainly because hundreds of days of work are behind each and every item on display. We get into the atmosphere of the fairy-tales, we're being welcomed by wedding pageantries, and welcoming us are hundreds of dummies clad in traditional apparel from head to toe. Nun Lucia Nedelea is the Reverend Mother of Namaiesti monastery. She told us how the museum came into being.


Reverend Mother Lucia Nedelea:


"The idea kind of crossed my mind, to get a small museum started, it's just that I didn't have that much to fill it with. And then I went to my mom's, since I was aware I hailed from family with quite a tradition behind it, and where the traditional costume held pride of place, I told mother what I wanted to do and then mom told me she would give me all her costumes that were left in the house, save for one, which she wanted to be dressed in, at her own funeral ceremony. I told her that's what tradition was all about, it was the Romanian people's identity card, that people had to be promoted, admired and carried forward. I told her that, first and foremost, for me, that costume had an artistic value, then it had a sentimental value, I went as far as telling her it even had a spiritual value. For me it was like an icon. I think I  told mom many other things back then, so much so that she gave it to me, and then I asked her, when she and her elderly ladies gathered in their little church, I wanted her to ask them who would like to donate and I told her that those who donated, their names would be written in the monastery's founders ledger and they would be mentioned during the sacred liturgy. And mom talked her grannies into doing that. "


The groom, the bride, their sisters, their brothers, the parents, the grandparents, the godparents, the priest and the deacons, all dressed up, are gathered in the room re-enacting the first wedding. 


Reverend Mother Lucia Nedelea:


"For the first wedding we've got the following (traditional costumes) 130, 150, 150, 130, 160, 150, 160  years old. And have headdresses, marame, in Romanian, a thin gauze countryside women cover their head with, when they have their traditional costume on, they're even 200 and 150 years old. I have a couple of such headdresses manufactured here by several nuns, it's a bunch of artists that we had here, they were masters of the needle who took the fame of all that abroad. You will also see in the church the holy shroud, an embroidery in gold and silver thread commissioned by Queen Marie and manufactured by the nuns here, in the monastery. Her Majesty ordered it, bought it and then donated it to the monastery, so that the nuns can also handicraft similar masterpieces"


And then when she found out she also had the priestess's old apron, she staged a second weeding, that of the priest's son, another impressive show of traditional costumes, with lavish embroidery, worked in sleave, everything of an indescribable beauty. Once donated, all those garment items were very well preserved, so that their initial brightness could be restored. 


Reverend Mother Lucia Nedelea:


"For one given item, we intervened 5, 6 times or so; we did the washing using rainwater, with home-made soap, it didn't come out as we wanted to, right from the first try, then we tried that for the second and the third time around, until we got them the way we wanted to and brought them to the stage you're now seeing they're in. "


Also with her mother's help, nun Lucia Nedelea put the peasant sandals on the dummies' feet and then she began to write the illustrated verse story of the dummies' weddings.


"As soon as we've staged the first wedding, mother reminisced about her childhood, when she had written a couple of lines and she sang me a little song, when I got home, telling me why didn't I try to compose a few lines for the weddings that we'd done, a poem, no matter how short it was. And that's how the idea crossed my mind and I began with the first wedding, then I staged the second one and after I've finished writing the poems, the verse presentation of the museum, I mean, I tried to write a first poem for Saint Basil. And I wrote a book in verse, that of the lives of the saints, and with God's help and if am still healthy, I shall begin the second volume."

We recall that the Romanian peasant embroidered blouse was awarded the gold medal at the World Exhibition held in Paris in 1909 and occasioned by the inauguration of the Eiffel Tower. And, since the peasant embroidered blouse was also among the exhibits, the nun continued to introduce to us the one-of-a-kind exhibits in the museum.


Reverend Mother Lucia Nedelea:


"This is the traditional embroidered blouse that won the gold medal back then, And here, I have created a little corner for my women predecessors. And here is the Reverend Mother who got me admitted to the monastery, 46 years ago. She is clad in a gown of genuine mohair, woven here, at the monastery, and which is more than a hundred years old. And what we have here, is a historical personality, that of nun Mina Hociota, who activated here during the inter-war period. She was an utterly special person; she literally broke the pattern of the ordinary woman. She was charismatic, she was brave, strong, intelligent and selfless. During World War One, she was on the frontline, in the trenches, she took out the wounded, she had them sent to hospital, to the infirmary, or she medicated them on the spot. Her medical knowledge was thorough, and later on the physicians in the area used to call on her because of such knowledge. For all her merits, she was awarded the Commemorative Cross of the 1916-1918 War, which was a Romanian commemorative medal instated by King Ferdinand on June 8, 1918, and awarded to all those who participated in World War One, she was raised to the rank of knight, she was a second-lieutenant and even had a short stint as commanding officer. For all that, she was awarded quite a few medals, distinctions and patents, of which the most important was the Star of Romania, which is the oldest national order that has so far been awarded to three women personalities alone. "


The museum in Namaiesti, Arges county, also displays the villagers' daily attire and women's traditional costumes, according to rank and status, with the young women wearing lively-coloured headwear while the married ones wore flowered headdresses against a black background. As for Reverend Mother Lucia Nedelea, she is glad to spin the yarn of each and every costume, in verse. And when she does that, the world of the museum is brought back to life, again and again. 

(Translation by Eugen Nasta)



www.rri.ro
Publicat: 2021-12-07 14:00:00
Vizualizari: 1610
TiparesteTipareste