Rite – mythe – symbole. Les croix votives roumaines entre la tradition populaire et la création culte / Rite – Myth – Symbol. Romanian Votive Crosses between Popular Tradition and Cult Creation

Abstract

Rite – Myth – Symbol. Romanian Votive Crosses between Popular Tradition and Cult Creation. The Romanian Pre-Christian Pantheon is presented connected to the themes of cosmogony, having as background the mytical-magical and ritualistic-symbolical thinking, thus underlining the importance of the mythical-historical-religious dimension, and also the defining of sacred space in our Romanian perception. Moreover, the condition of artistic form, as a bearer of the spiritual message, is necessary for the identification of ancient motifs and of the way in which they influence art. These ancient motifs, of great symbolical depth, are connected to the solar cult and are preserved in decorations which can be found in the studied monuments: the cross, the column of the sky, the troiţa (a big cross made of wood or stone, adorned with paintings, sculptures, inscriptions and sometimes framed by a small construction, usually placed at crossroads, near fountains or places that are connected to an event; an icon, formed of three parts, the lateral ones are in hinges, like some shutters, connected to the one from the middle; a tryptich), the icon…

Keywords

• the troiţa
• cosmogony
• ryte
• myth
• symbol
• ancient motifs
• the solar cult