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\"How do objects mediate human relationships, and possess their own social and political agency? What role does material culture--such as prestige consumption as well as commodity aesthetics, biographies, and ownership histories--play in the production of social and political identities, differences, and hierarchies? How do (informal) consumer subcultures of collectors organize and manage themselves? Drawing on theories from anthropology and sociology, specifically material culture, consumption, museum, ethnicity, and post-socialist studies, Materializing Difference addresses these questions via analysis of the practices and ideologies connected to Gabor Roma beakers and roofed tankards made of antique silver. The consumer subculture organized around these objects--defined as ethnicized and gendered prestige goods by the Gabor Roma living in Romania--is a contemporary, second-hand culture based on patina-oriented consumption. Materializing Difference reveals the inner dynamics of the complex relationships and interactions between objects (silver beakers and roofed tankards) and subjects (Romanian Roma) and investigates how these relationships and interactions contribute to the construction, materialization, and reformulation of social, economic, and political identities, boundaries, and differences. It also discusses how, after 1989, the political transformation in Romania led to the emergence of a new, post-socialist consumer sensitivity among the Gabor Roma, and how this sensitivity reshaped the pre-regime-change patterns, meanings, and value preferences of prestige consumption.\"-- Provided by publisher.

How do objects mediate human relationships, and possess their own social and political agency? What role does material culture – such as prestige consumption as well as commodity aesthetics, biographies, and ownership histories – play in the production of social and political identities, differences, and hierarchies? How do (informal) consumer subcultures of collectors organize and manage themselves? Drawing on theories from anthropology and sociology, specifically material culture, consumption, museum, ethnicity, and post-socialist studies, Materializing Difference addresses these questions via analysis of the practices and ideologies connected to Gabor Roma beakers and roofed tankards made of antique silver. The consumer subculture organized around these objects – defined as ethnicized and gendered prestige goods by the Gabor Roma living in Romania – is a contemporary, second-hand culture based on patina-oriented consumption. Materializing Difference reveals the inner dynamics of the complex relationships and interactions between objects (silver beakers and roofed tankards) and subjects (Romanian Roma) and investigates how these relationships and interactions contribute to the construction, materialization, and reformulation of social, economic, and political identities, boundaries, and differences. It also discusses how, after 1989, the political transformation in Romania led to the emergence of a new, post-socialist consumer sensitivity among the Gabor Roma, and how this sensitivity reshaped the pre-regime-change patterns, meanings, and value preferences of prestige consumption.

Heroes and Victims explores the cultural power of war memorials in 20th-century Romania through two world wars and a succession of radical political changes-from attempts to create pluralist democratic political institutions after World War I to shifts toward authoritarian rule in the 1930s, to military dictatorships and Nazi occupation, to communist dictatorships, and finally to pluralist democracies with populist tendencies. Examining the interplay of centrally articulated and locally developed commemorations, Maria Bucur's study engages monumental sites of memory, local funerary markers, rituals, and street names as well as autobiographical writings, novels, oral narratives, and film. This book reveals the ways in which a community's religious, ethnic, economic, regional, and gender traditions shaped local efforts at memorializing its war dead.

Using Romania as a case study, this book develops a fresh perspective on the transition from communism to capitalism by arguing that transition and democratisation studies should turn their attention towards processes of illusion formation and disillusionment as key to understanding the shift from one ideological framework to another.

2014 marked the 25th anniversary of the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe.The events of 1989 are widely seen as having ushered in new all-encompassing reforms in almost all areas of life.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, millions of Romanians emigrated in search of work and new experiences; they became engaged in an interrogation of what it meant to be Romanian in a united Europe and the globalized world. Their thoughts, feelings and hopes soon began to populate the virtual world of digital and mobile technologies. This book chronicles the online cultural and political expressions of the Romanian diaspora using websites based in Europe and North America. Through online exchanges, Romanians perform new types of citizenship, articulated from the margins of the political field. The politicization of their diasporic condition is manifested through written and public protests against discriminatory work legislation, mobilization, lobbying, cultural promotion and setting up associations and political parties that are proof of the gradual institutionalization of informal communications. Online discourse analysis, supplemented by interviews with migrants, poets and politicians involved in the process of defining new diasporic identities, provide the basis of this book, which defines the new cultural and political practices of the Romanian diaspora.

The fall of the Soviet Union was a transformative event for the national political economies of Eastern Europe, leading not only to new regimes of ownership and development but to dramatic changes in the natural world itself. This painstakingly researched volume focuses on the emblematic case of postsocialist Romania, in which the transition from collectivization to privatization profoundly reshaped the nation's forests, farmlands, and rivers. From bureaucrats abetting illegal deforestation to peasants opposing government agricultural policies, it reveals the social and political mechanisms by which neoliberalism was introduced into the Romanian landscape.

Bessarabia was the only territory representing an object of rivalry and symbolic competition between the Russian Empire and a fully crystallized nation-state: the Kingdom of Romania. This book is an intellectual prehistory of the Bessarabian problem, focusing on the antagonism of the national and imperial visions of this contested periphery. Through a critical reassessment and revision of the traditional historical narratives, the study argues that Bessarabia was claimed not just by two opposing projects of ‘symbolic inclusion,’ but also by two alternative and theoretically antagonistic models of political legitimacy. By transcending the national lens of Bessarabian / Moldovan history and viewing it in the broader Eurasian comparative context, the book responds to the growing tendency in recent historiography to focus on the peripheries in order to better understand the functioning of national and imperial states in the modern era.

Introduction. The objective of this study was to investigate some nutritional and functional components of the walnut fruit kernel and pellicle across twelve genotypes of Juglans regia L., six with a red pellicle and six with a light yellow pellicle. Materials and methods. Antioxidant activity, and contents of total phenolics, flavonoids, minerals and trace elements were determined as well as anthocyanins in red pellicles. Results and discussion. Total phenolic content ranged from 1,131 to 2,892 mg GAE 100 g-1 in kernels and from 11,525 to 33,833 mg GAE 100 g-1 in pellicles. The ratio between the average content in pellicles and that in kernels was found to be 12.7 for total phenolics and 12.9 for the antioxidant activity. Significantly higher average levels of total phenolic content and flavonoid content were found in yellow pellicles than in red pellicles, while no significant differences between the two groups of genotypes were found in kernels. High concentrations of anthocyanins were found in the red pellicles (1,636–2,956 mg CGE 100 g-1). The contents of calcium, magnesium, iron and manganese were significantly higher in genotypes with a red pellicle compared with genotypes with a yellow pellicle both in kernels and pellicles, while the opposite is true for potassium and sodium. Conclusion. The data confirm that walnuts are a good dietary source of total phenolics with high antioxidant potential, minerals (Ca, Mg and K) and essential elements (Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn), most of which are concentrated in the walnut pellicle. Despite the large amounts of anthocyanins found in the red pellicles, yellow pellicles had a stronger antioxidant activity than red pellicles. Introduction. L’objectif de cette étude était d’étudier certains composants nutritionnels et fonctionnels de l’amande du fruit du noyer et de sa pellicule à travers douze génotypes de Juglans regia L., dont six à pellicule rouge et six à pellicule jaune clair. Matériels et méthodes. L’activité antioxydante, les teneurs en composés phénoliques totaux, en flavonoïdes, en minéraux et oligo-éléments ont été déterminées, ainsi que les teneurs en anthocyanines des pellicules rouges. Résultats et discussion. La teneur totale en composés phénoliques a varié entre 1 131 et 2 892 mg GAE 100 g-1 dans les noix et entre 11 525 et 33 833 mg GAE 100 g-1 dans les pellicules. Le rapport entre la teneur moyenne des pellicules et celle des noix a été de 12,7 pour les composés phénoliques totaux et de 12,9 pour l’activité anti-oxydante. Des niveaux moyens significativement plus élevés de teneur en composés phénoliques totaux et en flavonoïdes ont été trouvés dans les pellicules jaunes que dans les pellicules rouges, tandis que pour les noix aucune différence significative n’a été observée entre les deux groupes génotypiques. De fortes concentrations en anthocyanes ont été mesurées dans les pellicules rouges (1 636–2 956 mg CGE 100 g-1). Les teneurs en calcium, magnésium, fer et manganèse ont été significativement plus élevées chez les génotypes à pellicule rouge que chez ceux à pellicule jaune, à la fois dans les noix et les pellicules, alors c’est l’inverse pour les teneurs en potassium et sodium. Conclusion. Ces données confirment que les noix sont une bonne source alimentaire en composés phénoliques totaux avec un potentiel anti-oxydant élevé, en éléments minéraux (Ca, Mg et K) et microéléments essentiels (Fe, Mn, Cu et Zn) dont la plupart sont concentrés dans la pellicule de la noix. En dépit de la grande quantité d’anthocyanes présents dans les pellicules rouges, les pellicules jaunes ont présenté une activité anti-oxydante plus forte que les pellicules rouges.

In 1949, Romania's fledgling communist regime unleashed a radical and brutal campaign to collectivize agriculture in this largely agrarian country, following the Soviet model. Peasants under Siege provides the first comprehensive look at the far-reaching social engineering process that ensued. Gail Kligman and Katherine Verdery examine how collectivization assaulted the very foundations of rural life, transforming village communities that were organized around kinship and status hierarchies into segments of large bureaucratic organizations, forged by the language of \"class warfare\" yet saturated with vindictive personal struggles.