Oggetti filologici immaginari: le lettere scritte dai soldati-contadini romeni transilvani durante la prima guerra mondiale

Abstract

Within the framework of an ample project dedicated to the study of WW I memory literature in Romanian culture, the present study aims at reflecting upon particular philological objects, most of them – imaginary, while the few real ones take unexpected forms. Philologists have frequently remarked upon the lack of an extensive corpus of letters written by Transylvanian Romanian peasants (drafted into the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) and tend to put it down to the extremely precarious literacy standards of the category in question. Nevertheless, the “letter” as an instrument of correspondence between two worlds, an object both magical and redeeming, is a recurrent literary motif in the Transylvanian Romanian folklore inspired by the historical event in question. This topos is the object of our analysis. Between the modern written culture and the archaic oral one, imagining the letter in texts and folkloric artefacts belies the mentality conflicts triggered off by the war, as well as the means by which the rural (conservative) populace attempts to come to terms with the violence brought about by the new history ushered by the world conflict.