Author Description

Feasting seems to be an inseparable element of peoples’—especially their collective—lives. ___|___ The proposed volume consists of original unpublished texts in which their Authors search for the answers to the following questions: How far have we gone astray from the primeval idea of celebrating the feast, from understanding tradition in terms of the Romanian historian of religion, Mircea Eliade, or the French sociologist, Émile Durkheim? Are there still any traditional, in its very meaning, feasts? If not—if they are invented (Hobsbawm and Ranger [1983] 1992)—why are they called “traditional”? What elements have changed and why? What has had the greatest impact on celebrating feasts? What are the new factors influencing the course of a feast’s celebration? ___|___ It was difficult to categorize the texts contained in this book because the subjects discussed in them very often overlap. Still, it was possible to recognize several accentuated aspects that served as the basis for the division of the book into three sections: 1) Culture and Identity; 2) Ritual and Cultural Values; 3) Culture and Policy. The contributors are scholars who represent various international institutions and fields of research, and use different approaches and methodologies to study the subject of the feast. This publication is an opportunity to bring the results of their research together in one book. The volume contains chapters in which various aspects of feasts, festivals, and festivities perceived as a mirror of social and cultural changes in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are presented. It provides a unique and rich resource in the fields of culture, folklore, religion, anthropology, sociology, as well as politics and other cultural and social sciences. In the future, we hope to broaden the scope of our research and to include more ethnic groups and their cultures in order to see the changes they have undergone and factors that caused them. _____ TABLE OF CONTENTS _____ Frédér