City of Crosses: Bucharest’s Re-consecration after 1990
Giuseppe Tateo
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, GermanySeptember 26, 2017 / 6.30 pm
Center for Urban History, Lviv
Bucharest’s public space has been marked with religious symbols immediately after the communist regime fell. This process unfolds by placing crosses in specific places, erecting new churches and cathedrals as well as by thronging the streets of the capital during processions and pilgrimages. Space has been re-consecrated through religious representations, but the meaning of this process is not unequivocal, as it is negotiated and debated among many actors. On the one hand, church-building activities and the monumentalisation of the cross have been a widespread practice pursued by more or less institutionalised groups as part of the dominant anti-communist discourse. On the other hand, anticlerical sentiments and secularist ideas are stronger than ever. If the label of religious revival seems now to be outdated, how should we understand the coexistence of such divergent phenomena in today’s Bucharest?
The lecture was in English, with simultaneous interpreting.
Credits
Сover Image: The Italian Church of the Most Holy Redeemer built in 1915-1916, Bucharest