Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor
Encyclopedia
Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor or Nicolaescu-Plopşor (konstanˈtin nikoləˈesku plopˈʃor; April 20, 1900 – May 30, 1968) was a Romania
n historian, archeologist, anthropologist
and ethnographer
, also known as a and folkorist
and children's writer
, whose diverse activities were primarily focused on his native region of Oltenia
. Primarily interested in the Balkans
' prehistoric period
, he researched various Paleolithic
, Mesolithic
and Neolithic
sites in his native country, placing them in a larger European context while producing his own systems of Prehistoric chronology and typology. His main contributions to archeology include the classification of Oltenian microlith
s, the study of local cave painting
s, and the disputed claim that a site in Tetoiu
evidenced a regional contribution to anthropogenesis.
Nicolăescu-Plopşor was also a politician and activist for the welfare of the Romani-Romanian minority
, to which he belonged. Before World War II
, he was one of the regional Oltenian leaders for the emerging Romani political movement, and a contributor to some of the first Romani-language
newspapers in local history. His work in Romanian literature
includes collections of Romanian folklore
and Romani mythology, as well as original anecdote
s and fairy tale
s with folkloric roots. An active collector of traditional items, he was also known for his activity as a museologist
and head of the Museum of Oltenia in Craiova
.
, Dolj County
. Of partial Romani Romanian ancestry, he was the descendant of Dincă Schileru, an Oltenian peasant representative in the ad-hoc Divan which decided on the 1859 union
between Wallachia
and Moldavia
. He completed his secondary studies at the Carol I High School in Craiova, and later graduated from the University of Bucharest
Faculty of Letters and History. During that time, he became a disciple of Romanian historian Vasile Pârvan
, noted for his work in researching and classifying the antiquities of Dacia
, and was colleagues with medievalist Constantin C. Giurescu
.
Shortly after being appointed a history teacher in Pleniţa, Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor focused on the work of investigating, documenting and preserving evidence about the historical past of Oltenian villages. He set as his personal ambition an archeological scrutiny of the entire region, in order to uncover "the traces of the most ancient people to have inhabited Oltenia", a population he initially believed had originated in Asia. Around 1923, Nicolăescu-Plopşor began digging on elevated sites known locally as măguri, uncovering crouched skeletons with residues of ochre
, before turning his attention to other locations, where he discovered the remains of prehistoric
dwellings. In the early 1930s, his discovery of microlith
s at Carpen (Cleanov village) and his native Sălcuţa (Plopşor) led him to propose the existence of two Mesolithic
archeological industries
native to Oltenia, a theory first outlined at the 15th International Congress of Anthropology.
In 1926, he traveled to Gorj County
, where he documented the existence of a hunting-themed and charcoal-based cave painting
in the proximity of cave bear
bones and Copper Age
pottery, but did not disclose its exact location (probably as a means to ensure its better protection). Spurred on by the research of French
scholar Henri Breuil
, with whom he began corresponding, Nicolăescu-Plopşor visited other such sites in Oltenia's Southern Carpathian
areas: Baia de Fier
(Peştera Muierilor
), Peştera Boierilor, Peştera Oilor, Romos
, etc. By the end of his career, he had explored some 120 individual caves.
from his native area, initially focusing on musical sources, the so-called cântece bătrâneşti ("old people songs"), and later following up with fairy tale
s and other prose works. His interest in inventorying folkloric elements often merged with his archeological work: reportedly, his explorations were accompanied by through interviews with locals, and purchases of traditional objects. In 1927, he also began his career in the local cultural press, by setting up the review Suflet Oltenesc ("Oltenian Soul"). In 1922, the researcher became honorary director of the Museum of Oltenia, a regional institution founded in 1915, and where he was also curator of the Archeology and Folklore Section. The collection was largely based on objects he had gathered during his many field trips. He was later involved in founding a Craiova branch of the National Archives
, serving as its director.
Shortly after 1930, Nicolăescu-Plopşor rallied with other intellectuals of Romani origin—Aurel Manolescu-Dolj, N. St. Ionescu, Marin I. Simion—in creating the first modern Romani (or "Gypsy") organization in Oltenia. It initially collaborated with the traditional structure of bulibaşas, or local community leaders, as well as with the national associations founded by Orthodox
Archimandrite
and Romani activist Calinic Şerboianu, until Manolescu-Dolj and Simion split the local group and proclaimed themselves each Great Voivode of the Gypsies
in Oltenia. Before these schisms, Nicolăescu-Plopşor was involved with the organization's two cultural venues, the newspapers Timpul and O Ròm, and published two bilingual Romani
-Romanian
collections of Romani song lyrics and mythology: Ghileà romanè - Cântece ţigăneşti ("Gypsy Songs") and Paramiseà romanè - Poveşti ţigăneşti ("Gypsy Stories"). In so doing, he became part of a cultural and political movement advocating the desegregation
of Romani people into Romanian society, the replacement of Romanian word ţigani (the equivalent of "Gypsies") with romi ("Romani people"), as well as the modernization
of Romani society and culture. He personally supported making Romani a language for the church service
in certain communities, and was among the first to propose its introduction into the Romanian curriculum
. Commenting on this phenomenon, Romanian historian Viorel Achim notes: "These ideas indicate the emphasis placed on the preservation of the Gypsies' identity. However, some [members] promoted integrationist ideas, such as the sedentarisation
of nomad
ic Gypsies at all cost, so the Gypsy movement in Romania in the 1930s cannot be considered a 'nationalist
' movement."
Eventually, Nicolăescu-Plopşor (like Manolescu-Dolj) joined the National Liberal Party-Brătianu
, a split from the dominant right-wing National Liberal Party
, and stood as a candidate in the 1934 elections for the Dolj County Council. He was also active as a publisher: in 1934, he issued in Craiova a modern edition of Cronografia, from the early 19th century manuscript of Dionise Eclesiarhul, the recluse Wallachia
n monk. He was also putting out a regional-themed book collection, under the name of Pământ şi Suflet Oltenesc ("Oltenian Land and Spirit"), noted for its publication of Ilariu Dobridor's verse. By 1936, Nicolăescu-Plopşor was editing a new cultural magazine, Gând şi Slovă Oltenească ("Oltenian Thinking and Writing"), listed by literary historian George Călinescu
as one of the main interwar periodicals in the region (alongside Ramuri, Mihail Guşiţă's Datina and Eugen Constant's Condeiul).
, and especially during the communist regime
inaugurated in 1947-1948. In 1946, he was appointed the Museum of Oltenia's full director, holding the office until 1952. In 1951, communist authorities tasked him with reporting on the opportunity of establishing a new museum at Slatina
, Regiunea Argeş
, an institution later redesigned as the Olt County
Museum. He was made a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy
in 1963.
Following the post-1950 discoveries of Paleolithic
human remains and choppers
at the Bugiuleşti and Valea lui Grăunceanu locations in Tetoiu
, as well as in other areas of northern Oltenia and Muntenia
, Nicolăescu-Plopşor became one of the main participants in uncovering and analyzing the newly-opened sites. Personally heading such excavations after 1960, and working together with his son Dardu Nicolăescu-Plopşor he claimed to have discovered Australopithecus
bones, and argued that these hominids engaged in conscious labor. Another focus of his work was the presence of Neanderthal
s at Bordul Mare (Şureanu Mountains
), where he personally uncovered traces of habitation after a 1954 expedition.
During his final years, Nicolăescu-Plopşor worked at Ada Kaleh
, an island on the Danube
which housed an isolated Turkish-Romanian
and Islamic
community. The site was supposed to be flooded upon the completion of the Đerdap dam
(a Romanian-Yugoslav
joint venture), and Nicolăescu-Plopşor's team were mapping out a plan to transfer the historical buildings up on the Romanian shore. In 1966, he completed his last work of literature, Tivisoc şi Tivismoc ("Tivisoc and Tivismoc"), of which two chapters had been published in 1964.
His final years were dedicated to the localization of sites referred to in historical sources, such as the Daco-Roman
city of Malva. He maintained that its ruins were to be found in the Dolj area of Fălcoiu
, contrary to both Vasile Pârvan
's Brădeşti
and later consensus about Malva and Romula
being one and the same locality.
investigations were closely linked to his interest in uncovering the Oltenian manifestations of Balkan prehistory
. He cited as his immediate predecessors a small group of amateur historians, among them Magnus Băileanu and a schoolteacher by the name of Calloianu. In supporting his own theory that ancient Oltenians had an Asian origin, Nicolăescu-Plopşor speculated on the basis of biological anthropology
and anthropometry
, suggesting that both the original Asian population and 20th century inhabitants had the same cephalic index
. He also concluded that the region almost completely lacked human presence during the Paleolithic
(a matter which he tentatively attributed to the harsh Pleistocene
climate) and debated such assessments with fellow archeologist Márton Roska. Nicolăescu-Plopşor also contested the conclusions of Ceslav Ambrojevici regarding a Middle Paleolithic
(Micoquien
) presence in the eastern areas of Bessarabia
region, suggesting, like others after him, that Ambrojevici had produced a flawed stratigraphy
. He did however produce an isolated opinion in respect to the Peştera Oilor remains, proposing that the Oltenian site dated back to the Paleolithic. Nicolăescu-Plopşor centered his review of the Middle Paleolithic
, and in particular the Mousterian
archaeological industry
, on the discoveries made further north, in Transylvania
, by Nicolae N. Moroşan. In relation to this subject, he theorized the existence of a particular Transylvanian trait: the supposed lack of flint
, as an explanation for the proliferation of quartzite
and bone Mousterian tools. In his initial verdicts on the Upper Paleolithic
, Nicolăescu-Plopşor followed a tendency common among scholars of his day, believing the Szeletian to be a manifestation of the Solutrean
in Hungary
and Transylvania, and saw both industries as related to the Aurignacian
.
The research into măguri prompted Nicolăescu-Plopşor to draw a comparison with the Mesolithic
køkkenmødding
sites of Northern Europe
, which he linked with the practice of hunting and fishing, whereas the Oltenian locations evidenced a lifestyle related to agriculture and herding. His investigation of the Mesolithic sites and his report on the Plopoşorian and Cleanovian as possibly distinct industries were criticized by Moroşan, who placed such discoveries in connection with Stone-Age sites in Poland and France
's Tardenoisian
sites. Similarly, his definition of remains found at Peştera Hoţilor, near Băile Herculane
, as Azilian
was disputed by fellow archeologist Dumitru Berciu
, who regarded them as early Neolithic
. Nicolăescu-Plopşor also focused on objects he identified as Neolithic (such as a statue and a stone hatchet), while commenting on the function of linear
and other forms of pottery (postulating that, given the spread of mixed techniques, the potter's wheel
was not perceived as an immediate technological advance) and the supposed attestation of Neolithic childhood games (including his theory that pierced and intact bone objects of uncertain use were an early version of knucklebones
). In his study of cave painting
s, Nicolăescu-Plopşor listed images he believed were representations of men and a solar motif, and theorized the existence of a Sun cult. Overall, he concluded, there was an autonomous "Oltenian cave art", which shared some traits with but was unrelated to that of Prehistoric Iberia
, while being seemingly connected to representations in Magura Cave
, Bulgaria
.
In time, the Romanian archeologist developed his own systems for subdividing prehistoric eras in an Oltenian context. Starting from the observation that Iron Age
Dacian
communities displayed a lifestyle similar to Neolithic patterns, and reducing protohistory
to a sharp divide between archeological evidence and the first written records, he concluded that, in Oltenia's case, "prehistory" extended throughout the Roman administration
and down to a period conventionally included in the Early Middle Ages
. His texts offered personalized and dialectical alternatives to the since standardized names, such as vârsta acioaiei instead of epoca bronzului ("Bronze Age
", acioaie being an archaism
), vârsta cavalerilor ("knight age") for epoca migraţiilor ("Age of Migrations") etc. His division of the Paleolithic closely followed the principles of Joseph Déchelette, with references to archeological industries between the Chellean
and the Magdalenian
.
), Mesopaleolithic (Levalloisian
and Upper Mousterian), Acropaleolithic (Aurignacian and Kostenkian), Epipaleolithic (Azilian and Swiderian
) and Preneolithic. In 1965, he had modified the scale to include the discoveries at Tetoiu
(Bugiuleşti, Valea lui Grăunceanu), which he attributed to an initial, Prepaleolithic, age. In tandem, Nicolăescu-Plopşor took personal part in reassessing the Pleistocene and Neanderthal
presence in Romania. His Bordul Mare expedition uncovered fossilized Neanderthal and game remains, as well as a characteristic hearth.
With his reassessment of earlier theories came the assessment that the supposed australopithecine
in the Tetoiu area used stones collected from great distances in carving out the carcasses of large animals—leading Nicolăescu-Plopşor to postulate that Tetoiu was a link between the australopithecine sites on three continents, evidencing "the oldest stages in the process of conscious work." The theory was viewed with reserve by his contemporaries, and accepted only as a hypothesis by the archeological mainstream of the 1970s. Among Nicolăescu-Plopşor's critics in this respect is archeologist Adrian Doboş, who creates an analogy with flawed deductions made about an archeological industry existing at Makapansgat
(conclusions which Nicolăescu-Plopşor himself cited as a precedent). A collateral implication of this discovery, based on stratigraphy
, was the claim that Oltenia had a contribution to anthropogenesis alongside the Oldowan complex uncovered in Tanzania
by Louis Leakey
.
During the late 1950s, Nicolăescu-Plopşor was prompted by new discoveries made in the Pestişu Mic
area to revisit his take on the Szeletian, which he came to view as a manifestation of the Mousterian and the inaugural industry of the Upper Paleolithic. This claim was reviewed a final time in 1966, when he concluded that the Szeletian did not exist east of Hungary. Other discoveries from the eastern region of Moldavia
led him to designate Aurignacian, Kostenkian and Gravettian
industries, primarily characterized by a type of flint deemed "of the Prut River". By the 1950s, he had arrived to the conclusion that the Mesolithic age was not an independent phenomenon, but rather a late form of the Magdalenian leading into the Neolithic. Doboş however notes that this was not an absolute conclusion, and that later texts show Nicolăescu-Plopşor contradicting himself in describing a Mesolithic "gradual transition" and the Epipaleolithic as "more or less: a delayed Paleolithic". Also according to Doboş, the researcher synthesized his opinion only in 1965, when he defined the Mesolithic as applicable only to those microlithic sites that stood "for a natural transition" toward the Neolithic, while arguing that no such examples could be found in Romania.
During the final two decades of Nicolăescu-Plopşor's activity, he adopted a controversial approach to naming and classifying local cultures, prioritizing Soviet
and Eastern Bloc
scholarship in accordance with the communist regime
's ideological requirements. In 1954, he celebrated Soviet historiography
for "thoroughly" investigating the Paleolithic from a global perspective, and ridiculed Western approaches as reductionist
. Focusing his attention on claims made by some Western researchers, who argued that Chellean industries were superior to Clactonian ones for supposedly racial
reasons, Nicolăescu-Plopşor accused his colleagues of scientific racism
, and indicated that Chellean and Clactonian industries occasionally developed in the same areas. The Romanian scholar primarily designated local Gravettian sites as Kostenkian, after the Soviet model, and generally renounced mentioning industries under their Western names. He also spoke in favor of replacing neologisms coined for specific items in prehistoric typology with adaptations from the Romanian lexis
. For example, he recommended following 19th century researcher Cezar Bolliac
in designating industrial nuclei as mătci ("sources" or "wombs").
, a 19th century storyteller culturally linked to the Moldavia
n region, and brought him the nickname of "Oltenia
n Creangă". Its main product is Tivisoc şi Tivismoc, but the category also includes a version of the Iovan Iorgovan
stories and a fairy tale
titled Cotoşman împărat ("Emperor Tomcat"). Such pieces were occasionally signed with the pen name
Moş Plopşor, tartorul poveştilor ("Old Man Plopşor, ringleader of the stories"). In his Precuvântare ("Foreword") for Tivisoc şi Tivismoc, the author explained his method in figures of speech
, with a children's rhyme:
The series of anecdote
s about Tivisoc and Tivismoc stands out among Nicolăescu-Plopşor's contributions as a spin-off of the popular Păcală
folktales. The two eponymous protagonists are "unborn children" to Păcală, an irreverent and often ingenious peasant whose exploits are an established presence in Romanian humor and early Romanian literature
. The writer defined his own text as "a bundle of crafted stories, garnished here and there with lies", and "a new story, from older, forgotten stories". His technique, Popescu assessed, "penetrates the world of Păcală, which it enlarges and deepens with a new yarn, the marriage of the famous folk hero." The "unborn" protagonists, who take turns recounting the anecdote pieces as first-person narrative
s, are original creations of Nicolăescu-Plopşor, their names being nonsensical counting rhymes
for the word loc ("place", as in stai pe loc, "stand your ground" or "you're it"). This replication of childlore
, Popescu argues, "suggests a certain closeness to the [children's] mentality and ways of understanding".
The narrative builds mainly on absurdist
imagery and pun
s, resulting in what Popescu calls "dense humor". The two brothers mirror each other's physical attributes, and are unrealistically grotesque in appearance: they display heterochromia
and hemihypertrophy
, their faces and feet being orientated backwards. Rejecting the prospects of being born to a priest or even a nobleman, the Ban
of Oltenia, they opt instead for Păcală, who is depicted as a destitute peasant from Vaideei (a village in the commune of Romos
, now in Hunedoara County
). The location was chosen for its humorous connotations, which, Popescu notes, had already made it the target of "innocent jokes [...] in Oltenian folklore": the name breaks into vai de ei, "woe to them". The village is depicted by Nicolăescu-Plopşor as a place in which poverty is met with self-irony, resulting in absurd jokes. For example, a Vaideeni man deplores the loss of a pear, stolen from his yard by a sparrow, because he intended to use its fibrous tail as a "cart axle". The ethnographic overview of Oltenia is complemented by a depiction of the region's southern parts, through an account of Păcală's trip through Craiova
and down to the Danube
. The episode allows for retrospective social criticism of peasant life as it supposedly was during the Romanian Kingdom
period, with references to the 1907 Revolt
and quotes from the quasi-anonymous rural poet Radu of Giubega. Nicolăescu-Plopşor's account also offers room for self-irony and satire
of the Oltenian ethos
, an attribute traditionally stereotype
d as obtuse pride: the supposed Oltenian reaction to the introduction of a railway system
is an attempt at derailing the trains with lures of maize. The same section includes jokes about Caracal
town, commonly ridiculed in local folklore as the place where the cart transporting imbeciles "tumbled over", and mentions in passing the legend of Caracal's fire lookout tower
, which was supposedly lost to flames. Such accounts, Popescu wrote, form "an important source of information for ethnographers and folklorists".
The main part of the story, in which the focus is on Tivisoc and Tivismoc, sees the unborn boys accompanying their future father on a quest to find a suitable mother, and later their trip to the mill, where they seem prone to do all things backwards and manage to literally lose their own heads (having to recover them from hungry dogs). The real adventure starts when birds transport them to Scaunu dreptăţii ("The Seat of Justice"), a mock version of the Last Judgment
, which provides the setting for anticlerical jokes and satire of Christian mythology
: God is depicted as aging and incompetent, Jesus
as a young man "dozing off and scratching his thin beard", Mary
as "a middle-aged woman with blue, terrified eyes". The two boys intervene to stop the lesser devils from pulling on the scales to send more people into Hell
, but are upset to note that God himself is inclined to pardon a swindling tavern-keeper because he had not kept tabs on a priest. Saint Peter
allows the two boys to bribe their way into Heaven
, whose human population has been driven to disgust by the endless supply of milk and mămăligă
—while in there, they repeat the story of Adam and Eve
and taste unpalatable fruit from the Tree of Knowledge
. The weight of this sin drags them into Hell, but they are able to easily impress the naīve devils, and eventually drive them away by burning some frankincense
(an illustration of the Romanian expression a fugi ca dracul de tămâie, "to run away like a devil from frankincense").
Once in charge of Hell, Tivisoc and Tivismoc free all categories of folk heroes who are also sinners, primarily hajduk
s and other celebrated brigands, but, Popescu notes, display Păcală's mix of "intelligence and stupidity" in planning their getaway: the entire group follows the two boys up a rope of sand. After a seven-year climb takes them back to the mill, they redirect the river to flow back into Hell, and manage to drown the returning devils. There follows a reunion with Păcală, his legendary wedding to a woman selected by Tivisoc and Tivismoc, and the boys' eventual birth and reluctant baptism
. Although they receive a human appearance, Tivisoc and Tivismoc still display supernatural attributes (such as consuming "fried chicken and garlic" instead of maternal milk). The story ends with their departure into the wild world, and the prospects of more adventures—possibly a second volume, which Nicolăescu-Plopşor never began writing.
, and caused the communist authorities to approve a plan with minimal investment in this area.
Following the 1989 Revolution
and the end of communism, as part of a larger trend to provide communes with individual coats of arms
, Sălcuţa
chose to be represented by a golden quill
and ink bottle, in honor of its native Nicolăescu-Plopşor. The industrial high school in Pleniţa bears his name, as Grupul Şcolar Industrial Constantin Nicolăescu-Plopşor, as does a street in Craiova
. In 1999, the Romanian Academy
and the University of Craiova
set up the C. S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor Socio-Human Research Institute, which publishes a yearbook of interdisciplinary
studies. The Museum of Oltenia holds a special Nicolăescu-Plopşor collection, which includes his book manuscripts and published works, as well as his correspondence with fellow intellectuals such as Dumitru Berciu
, Constantin Daicoviciu
and Ion Nestor.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n historian, archeologist, anthropologist
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and ethnographer
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
, also known as a and folkorist
Folkloristics
Folkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore. The term derives from a nineteenth century German designation of folkloristik to distinguish between folklore as the content and folkloristics as its study, much as language is distinguished from linguistics...
and children's writer
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
, whose diverse activities were primarily focused on his native region of Oltenia
Oltenia
Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....
. Primarily interested in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
' prehistoric period
Prehistory of Southeastern Europe
The prehistory of Southeastern Europe , defined roughly as the territory of the wider Balkans peninsula covers the period from the Upper Paleolithic, beginning with the presence of Homo sapiens in the area some 44,000 years ago, until the...
, he researched various Paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
, Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
and Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
sites in his native country, placing them in a larger European context while producing his own systems of Prehistoric chronology and typology. His main contributions to archeology include the classification of Oltenian microlith
Microlith
A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. It is produced from either a small blade or a larger blade-like piece of flint by abrupt or truncated retouching, which leaves a very typical piece of waste,...
s, the study of local cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
s, and the disputed claim that a site in Tetoiu
Tetoiu
Tetoiu is a commune located in Vâlcea County, Romania. It is composed of seven villages: Tetoiu, Băroiu, Budele, Măneasa, Nenciuleşti, Popeşti and Ţepeşti....
evidenced a regional contribution to anthropogenesis.
Nicolăescu-Plopşor was also a politician and activist for the welfare of the Romani-Romanian minority
Roma minority in Romania
The Roma constitute one of the major minorities in Romania. According to the 2002 census, they number 535,140 people or 2.5% of the total population, being the second-largest ethnic minority in Romania after Hungarians...
, to which he belonged. Before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he was one of the regional Oltenian leaders for the emerging Romani political movement, and a contributor to some of the first Romani-language
Romani language
Romani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
newspapers in local history. His work in Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
includes collections of Romanian folklore
Folklore of Romania
A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romanian communities resulted in an exceptionally vital and creative traditional culture. Folk creations were the main literary genre...
and Romani mythology, as well as original anecdote
Anecdote
An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
s and fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s with folkloric roots. An active collector of traditional items, he was also known for his activity as a museologist
Museology
Museology is the diachronic study of museums and how they have established and developed in their role as an educational mechanism under social and political pressures.-Overview:...
and head of the Museum of Oltenia in Craiova
Craiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
.
Early life
Nicolăescu-Plopşor was born in SălcuţaSalcuta, Dolj
Sălcuţa is a commune in Dolj County, Romania with a population of 2,488 people. It is composed of four villages: Mârza, Plopşor, Sălcuţa and Tencănău....
, Dolj County
Dolj County
Dolj -Jiu, "lower Jiu", toward Gorj ) is a county of Romania, in Oltenia, with the capital city at Craiova .- Demographics :In 2002, it had a population of 734,231 and a population density of 99/km²....
. Of partial Romani Romanian ancestry, he was the descendant of Dincă Schileru, an Oltenian peasant representative in the ad-hoc Divan which decided on the 1859 union
United Principalities
The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, also known as the Romanian Principalities, was the official name of Romania following the 1859 election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince or domnitor of both territories...
between Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
and Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
. He completed his secondary studies at the Carol I High School in Craiova, and later graduated from the University of Bucharest
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
Faculty of Letters and History. During that time, he became a disciple of Romanian historian Vasile Pârvan
Vasile Pârvan
Vasile Pârvan was a Romanian historian and archaeologist.He studied history in Bucharest, with Nicolae Iorga as one of his professors. He continued his studies in Germany. His Ph.D. thesis, written in 1909, was titled The nationality of merchants in the Roman Empire...
, noted for his work in researching and classifying the antiquities of Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
, and was colleagues with medievalist Constantin C. Giurescu
Constantin C. Giurescu
Constantin C . Giurescu was a Romanian historian, member of Romanian Academy and professor at the University of Bucharest.Born in Focşani, son of historian Constantin Giurescu, he completed his primary and secondary studies in Bucharest...
.
Shortly after being appointed a history teacher in Pleniţa, Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor focused on the work of investigating, documenting and preserving evidence about the historical past of Oltenian villages. He set as his personal ambition an archeological scrutiny of the entire region, in order to uncover "the traces of the most ancient people to have inhabited Oltenia", a population he initially believed had originated in Asia. Around 1923, Nicolăescu-Plopşor began digging on elevated sites known locally as măguri, uncovering crouched skeletons with residues of ochre
Ochre
Ochre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...
, before turning his attention to other locations, where he discovered the remains of prehistoric
Prehistory of Southeastern Europe
The prehistory of Southeastern Europe , defined roughly as the territory of the wider Balkans peninsula covers the period from the Upper Paleolithic, beginning with the presence of Homo sapiens in the area some 44,000 years ago, until the...
dwellings. In the early 1930s, his discovery of microlith
Microlith
A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. It is produced from either a small blade or a larger blade-like piece of flint by abrupt or truncated retouching, which leaves a very typical piece of waste,...
s at Carpen (Cleanov village) and his native Sălcuţa (Plopşor) led him to propose the existence of two Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
archeological industries
Archaeological industry
An archaeological industry, normally just "industry", is the name given in the study of prehistory to a consistent range of assemblages connected with a single product, such as the Langdale axe industry...
native to Oltenia, a theory first outlined at the 15th International Congress of Anthropology.
In 1926, he traveled to Gorj County
Gorj County
Gorj is a county of Romania, in Oltenia, with its capital city at Târgu Jiu.- Demographics :In 2002, it had a population of 387,308 and its population density was 69/km².* Romanians – over 98%* Rromas, others.- Geography :...
, where he documented the existence of a hunting-themed and charcoal-based cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
in the proximity of cave bear
Cave Bear
The cave bear was a species of bear that lived in Europe during the Pleistocene and became extinct at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum about 27,500 years ago....
bones and Copper Age
Copper Age
The Chalcolithic |stone]]") period or Copper Age, also known as the Eneolithic/Æneolithic , is a phase of the Bronze Age in which the addition of tin to copper to form bronze during smelting remained yet unknown by the metallurgists of the times...
pottery, but did not disclose its exact location (probably as a means to ensure its better protection). Spurred on by the research of French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
scholar Henri Breuil
Henri Breuil
Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil , often referred to as Abbé Breuil, was a French Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist...
, with whom he began corresponding, Nicolăescu-Plopşor visited other such sites in Oltenia's Southern Carpathian
Southern Carpathians
The Southern Carpathians or the Transylvanian Alps are a group of mountain ranges which divide central and southern Romania, on one side, and Serbia, on the other side. They cover part of the Carpathian Mountains that is located between the Prahova River in the east and the Timiș and Cerna Rivers...
areas: Baia de Fier
Baia de Fier
Baia de Fier is a commune in Gorj County, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Baia de Fier and Cernădia.It is a sister city to Boccioleto, Italy since 2007....
(Peştera Muierilor
Peştera Muierilor
Peștera Muierilor, or Peștera Muierii , is an elaborate cave system located in the Baia de Fier commune, Gorj County, Romania. It contains abundant cave-bear remains, as well as a human skull. The skull is radiocarbon dated to 30,150 ± 800, indication an absolute age between 40,000 and 30,000 BP....
), Peştera Boierilor, Peştera Oilor, Romos
Romos
Romos is a commune in Hunedoara County, Romania. It is composed of five villages: Ciungu Mare, Pişchinţi, Romos, Romoşel and Vaidei.-References:...
, etc. By the end of his career, he had explored some 120 individual caves.
Folkloristics, Romani activism and political career
In tandem with his archeological research, Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor worked on collecting Romanian folkloreFolklore of Romania
A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romanian communities resulted in an exceptionally vital and creative traditional culture. Folk creations were the main literary genre...
from his native area, initially focusing on musical sources, the so-called cântece bătrâneşti ("old people songs"), and later following up with fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s and other prose works. His interest in inventorying folkloric elements often merged with his archeological work: reportedly, his explorations were accompanied by through interviews with locals, and purchases of traditional objects. In 1927, he also began his career in the local cultural press, by setting up the review Suflet Oltenesc ("Oltenian Soul"). In 1922, the researcher became honorary director of the Museum of Oltenia, a regional institution founded in 1915, and where he was also curator of the Archeology and Folklore Section. The collection was largely based on objects he had gathered during his many field trips. He was later involved in founding a Craiova branch of the National Archives
National Archives of Romania
The National Archives of Romania , until 1996 the State Archives , are the national archives of Romania, headquartered in Bucharest and headed by Dorin Dobrincu since 2007. It is subordinate to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform...
, serving as its director.
Shortly after 1930, Nicolăescu-Plopşor rallied with other intellectuals of Romani origin—Aurel Manolescu-Dolj, N. St. Ionescu, Marin I. Simion—in creating the first modern Romani (or "Gypsy") organization in Oltenia. It initially collaborated with the traditional structure of bulibaşas, or local community leaders, as well as with the national associations founded by Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
Archimandrite
Archimandrite
The title Archimandrite , primarily used in the Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Catholic churches, originally referred to a superior abbot whom a bishop appointed to supervise...
and Romani activist Calinic Şerboianu, until Manolescu-Dolj and Simion split the local group and proclaimed themselves each Great Voivode of the Gypsies
King of the Gypsies
The title King of the Gypsies has been claimed or given over the centuries to many different people. It is both culturally and geographically specific. It may be inherited, acquired by acclamation or action, or simply claimed. The extent of the power associated with the title varied; it might be...
in Oltenia. Before these schisms, Nicolăescu-Plopşor was involved with the organization's two cultural venues, the newspapers Timpul and O Ròm, and published two bilingual Romani
Romani language
Romani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
-Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
collections of Romani song lyrics and mythology: Ghileà romanè - Cântece ţigăneşti ("Gypsy Songs") and Paramiseà romanè - Poveşti ţigăneşti ("Gypsy Stories"). In so doing, he became part of a cultural and political movement advocating the desegregation
Desegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...
of Romani people into Romanian society, the replacement of Romanian word ţigani (the equivalent of "Gypsies") with romi ("Romani people"), as well as the modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
of Romani society and culture. He personally supported making Romani a language for the church service
Church service
In Christianity, a church service is a term used to describe a formalized period of communal worship, often but not exclusively occurring on Sunday, or Saturday in the case of those churches practicing seventh-day Sabbatarianism. The church service is the gathering together of Christians to be...
in certain communities, and was among the first to propose its introduction into the Romanian curriculum
Education in Romania
According to the Law on Education adopted in 1995, the Romanian Educational System is regulated by the Ministry of Education and Research . Each level has its own form of organization and is subject to different legislation. Kindergarten is optional between 3 and 6 years old...
. Commenting on this phenomenon, Romanian historian Viorel Achim notes: "These ideas indicate the emphasis placed on the preservation of the Gypsies' identity. However, some [members] promoted integrationist ideas, such as the sedentarisation
Sedentism
In evolutionary anthropology and archaeology, sedentism , is a term applied to the transition from nomadic to permanent, year-round settlement.- Requirements for permanent settlements :...
of nomad
Nomad
Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
ic Gypsies at all cost, so the Gypsy movement in Romania in the 1930s cannot be considered a 'nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
' movement."
Eventually, Nicolăescu-Plopşor (like Manolescu-Dolj) joined the National Liberal Party-Brătianu
National Liberal Party-Bratianu
The National Liberal Party-Brătianu was a right-wing political party in Romania, formed as a splinter group from the main liberal faction, the National Liberals. For its symbol, PNL-Brătianu chose three vertical bars, placed at equal distance from each other...
, a split from the dominant right-wing National Liberal Party
National Liberal Party (Romania)
The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...
, and stood as a candidate in the 1934 elections for the Dolj County Council. He was also active as a publisher: in 1934, he issued in Craiova a modern edition of Cronografia, from the early 19th century manuscript of Dionise Eclesiarhul, the recluse Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
n monk. He was also putting out a regional-themed book collection, under the name of Pământ şi Suflet Oltenesc ("Oltenian Land and Spirit"), noted for its publication of Ilariu Dobridor's verse. By 1936, Nicolăescu-Plopşor was editing a new cultural magazine, Gând şi Slovă Oltenească ("Oltenian Thinking and Writing"), listed by literary historian George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
as one of the main interwar periodicals in the region (alongside Ramuri, Mihail Guşiţă's Datina and Eugen Constant's Condeiul).
After World War II
Nicolăescu-Plopşor reached scholarly prominence after World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and especially during the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
inaugurated in 1947-1948. In 1946, he was appointed the Museum of Oltenia's full director, holding the office until 1952. In 1951, communist authorities tasked him with reporting on the opportunity of establishing a new museum at Slatina
Slatina, Romania
Slatina is the capital city of Olt county, Romania, on the river Olt.The city administers one village, Cireaşov.-History:The town of Slatina was first mentioned on January 20, 1368 in an official document issued by Vladislav I Vlaicu, Prince of Wallachia. The document stated that merchants from...
, Regiunea Argeş
Regiunea Arges
Regiunea Argeş was one of the newly established administrative divisions of the People's Republic of Romania, copied after the Soviet style of territorial organisation. It existed until 1952, when its territory merged with Vâlcea region to form Piteşti region...
, an institution later redesigned as the Olt County
Olt County
Olt is a county of Romania, in the historical regions of Oltenia and Muntenia . The capital city is Slatina.- Demographics :In 2002, it had a population of 489,274 and the population density was 89/km²....
Museum. He was made a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
in 1963.
Following the post-1950 discoveries of Paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
human remains and choppers
Chopper (archaeology)
Archaeologists define a chopper as a pebble tool with an irregular cutting edge formed through the removal of flakes from one side of a stone....
at the Bugiuleşti and Valea lui Grăunceanu locations in Tetoiu
Tetoiu
Tetoiu is a commune located in Vâlcea County, Romania. It is composed of seven villages: Tetoiu, Băroiu, Budele, Măneasa, Nenciuleşti, Popeşti and Ţepeşti....
, as well as in other areas of northern Oltenia and Muntenia
Muntenia
Muntenia is a historical province of Romania, usually considered Wallachia-proper . It is situated between the Danube , the Carpathian Mountains and Moldavia , and the Olt River to the west...
, Nicolăescu-Plopşor became one of the main participants in uncovering and analyzing the newly-opened sites. Personally heading such excavations after 1960, and working together with his son Dardu Nicolăescu-Plopşor he claimed to have discovered Australopithecus
Australopithecus
Australopithecus is a genus of hominids that is now extinct. From the evidence gathered by palaeontologists and archaeologists, it appears that the Australopithecus genus evolved in eastern Africa around 4 million years ago before spreading throughout the continent and eventually becoming extinct...
bones, and argued that these hominids engaged in conscious labor. Another focus of his work was the presence of Neanderthal
Neanderthal
The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
s at Bordul Mare (Şureanu Mountains
Şureanu Mountains
The Şurianu Mountains, , Suriano in Italian, belong to Romania's Parâng range in the Southern Carpathians, with peaks frequently exceeding 2,000 metres....
), where he personally uncovered traces of habitation after a 1954 expedition.
During his final years, Nicolăescu-Plopşor worked at Ada Kaleh
Ada Kaleh
Ada Kaleh was a small island on the Danube populated mostly by Turks that was submerged during the construction of the Iron Gates hydroelectric plant in 1970. The island was about 3 km downstream from Orşova and measured 1.75 by 0.4–0.5 km....
, an island on the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
which housed an isolated Turkish-Romanian
Turks of Romania
Turks in Romania, also known as Romanian Turks, are ethnic Turks who form an ethnic minority in Romania. According to the 2002 census, there were 32,098 Turks living in the country, forming a minority of some 0.2% of the population.- History :...
and Islamic
Islam in Romania
Islam in Romania is followed by only 0.3 percent of population, but has 700 years of tradition in Northern Dobruja, a region on the Black Sea coast which was part of the Ottoman Empire for almost five centuries . In present-day Romania, most adherents to Islam belong to the Tatar and Turkish ethnic...
community. The site was supposed to be flooded upon the completion of the Đerdap dam
Iron Gate (Danube)
The Iron Gates The gorge lies between Romania in the north and Serbia in the south. At this point, the river separates the southern Carpathian Mountains from the northwestern foothills of the Balkan Mountains. The Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian, Turkish, German and Bulgarian names literally mean...
(a Romanian-Yugoslav
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
joint venture), and Nicolăescu-Plopşor's team were mapping out a plan to transfer the historical buildings up on the Romanian shore. In 1966, he completed his last work of literature, Tivisoc şi Tivismoc ("Tivisoc and Tivismoc"), of which two chapters had been published in 1964.
His final years were dedicated to the localization of sites referred to in historical sources, such as the Daco-Roman
Roman Dacia
The Roman province of Dacia on the Balkans included the modern Romanian regions of Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia, and temporarily Muntenia and southern Moldova, but not the nearby regions of Moesia...
city of Malva. He maintained that its ruins were to be found in the Dolj area of Fălcoiu
Falcoiu
Fălcoiu is a commune in Olt County, Romania. It is composed of three villages: Cioroiaşu, Cioroiu and Fălcoiu....
, contrary to both Vasile Pârvan
Vasile Pârvan
Vasile Pârvan was a Romanian historian and archaeologist.He studied history in Bucharest, with Nicolae Iorga as one of his professors. He continued his studies in Germany. His Ph.D. thesis, written in 1909, was titled The nationality of merchants in the Roman Empire...
's Brădeşti
Bradesti, Dolj
Brădeşti is a commune in Dolj County, Romania with a population of 4,785 people. It is composed of six villages: Brădeşti, Brădeştii Bătrâni, Meteu, Piscani, Răcarii de Jos and Tatomireşti....
and later consensus about Malva and Romula
Romula
Romula or Malva was an ancient city in Roman Dacia, nowadays being the village of Reşca, Dobrosloveni Commune, Olt County, Romania It was the capital of Dacia Malvensis, one of the three subdivisions of the province of Dacia....
being one and the same locality.
Early activities
The beginnings of Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor's archeological and paleoanthropologicalPaleoanthropology
Paleoanthropology, which combines the disciplines of paleontology and physical anthropology, is the study of ancient humans as found in fossil hominid evidence such as petrifacted bones and footprints.-19th century:...
investigations were closely linked to his interest in uncovering the Oltenian manifestations of Balkan prehistory
Prehistory of Southeastern Europe
The prehistory of Southeastern Europe , defined roughly as the territory of the wider Balkans peninsula covers the period from the Upper Paleolithic, beginning with the presence of Homo sapiens in the area some 44,000 years ago, until the...
. He cited as his immediate predecessors a small group of amateur historians, among them Magnus Băileanu and a schoolteacher by the name of Calloianu. In supporting his own theory that ancient Oltenians had an Asian origin, Nicolăescu-Plopşor speculated on the basis of biological anthropology
Biological anthropology
Biological anthropology is that branch of anthropology that studies the physical development of the human species. It plays an important part in paleoanthropology and in forensic anthropology...
and anthropometry
Anthropometry
Anthropometry refers to the measurement of the human individual...
, suggesting that both the original Asian population and 20th century inhabitants had the same cephalic index
Cephalic index
Cephalic index is the ratio of the maximum width of the head multiplied by 100 divided by its maximum length ....
. He also concluded that the region almost completely lacked human presence during the Paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
(a matter which he tentatively attributed to the harsh Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
climate) and debated such assessments with fellow archeologist Márton Roska. Nicolăescu-Plopşor also contested the conclusions of Ceslav Ambrojevici regarding a Middle Paleolithic
Middle Paleolithic
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology. The Middle Paleolithic and the Middle Stone Age...
(Micoquien
Micoquien
The Micoquien is an early middle paleolithic industry, that is found in the Eem and in early episode of the Würm glaciation . The Micoquien is distinguished technologically by the appearance of distinctly asymmetrical bifaces. Its discoverer and namer was the archeologist and art trader Otto Hauser...
) presence in the eastern areas of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
region, suggesting, like others after him, that Ambrojevici had produced a flawed stratigraphy
Stratigraphy
Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks....
. He did however produce an isolated opinion in respect to the Peştera Oilor remains, proposing that the Oltenian site dated back to the Paleolithic. Nicolăescu-Plopşor centered his review of the Middle Paleolithic
Middle Paleolithic
The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology. The Middle Paleolithic and the Middle Stone Age...
, and in particular the Mousterian
Mousterian
Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Homo neanderthalensis and dating to the Middle Paleolithic, the middle part of the Old Stone Age.-Naming:...
archaeological industry
Archaeological industry
An archaeological industry, normally just "industry", is the name given in the study of prehistory to a consistent range of assemblages connected with a single product, such as the Langdale axe industry...
, on the discoveries made further north, in Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, by Nicolae N. Moroşan. In relation to this subject, he theorized the existence of a particular Transylvanian trait: the supposed lack of flint
Flint
Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...
, as an explanation for the proliferation of quartzite
Quartzite
Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...
and bone Mousterian tools. In his initial verdicts on the Upper Paleolithic
Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...
, Nicolăescu-Plopşor followed a tendency common among scholars of his day, believing the Szeletian to be a manifestation of the Solutrean
Solutrean
The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Palaeolithic, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP.-Details:...
in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Transylvania, and saw both industries as related to the Aurignacian
Aurignacian
The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Palaeolithic, located in Europe and southwest Asia. It lasted broadly within the period from ca. 45,000 to 35,000 years ago in terms of conventional radiocarbon dating, or between ca. 47,000 and 41,000 years ago in terms of the most...
.
The research into măguri prompted Nicolăescu-Plopşor to draw a comparison with the Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
køkkenmødding
Ertebølle culture
The Ertebølle culture is the name of a hunter-gatherer and fisher, pottery-making culture dating to the end of the Mesolithic period. The culture was concentrated in Southern Scandinavia, but genetically linked to strongly related cultures in Northern Germany and the Northern Netherlands...
sites of Northern Europe
Northern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...
, which he linked with the practice of hunting and fishing, whereas the Oltenian locations evidenced a lifestyle related to agriculture and herding. His investigation of the Mesolithic sites and his report on the Plopoşorian and Cleanovian as possibly distinct industries were criticized by Moroşan, who placed such discoveries in connection with Stone-Age sites in Poland and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
's Tardenoisian
Tardenoisian
The Tardenoisian is an archaeological culture of the Epipaleolithic period from north-western France and Belgium. Similar cultures are known further east in central Europe and west across Spain....
sites. Similarly, his definition of remains found at Peştera Hoţilor, near Băile Herculane
Baile Herculane
Băile Herculane is a town in Romanian Banat, in Caraş-Severin County, situated in the valley of the Cerna River, between the Mehedinţi Mountains to the east and the Cerna Mountains to the west, elevation 168 meters. Its current population is approximately 6,000...
, as Azilian
Azilian
The Azilian is a name given by archaeologists to an industry of the Epipaleolithic in northern Spain and southern France.It probably dates to the period of the Allerød Oscillation around 10,000 years ago and followed the Magdalenian culture...
was disputed by fellow archeologist Dumitru Berciu
Dumitru Berciu
Dumitru Berciu was a Romanian historian and archaeologist, honorary member of the Romanian Academy....
, who regarded them as early Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
. Nicolăescu-Plopşor also focused on objects he identified as Neolithic (such as a statue and a stone hatchet), while commenting on the function of linear
Linear Pottery culture
The Linear Pottery culture is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic, flourishing ca. 5500–4500 BC.It is abbreviated as LBK , is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Incised Ware culture, and falls within the Danubian I culture of V...
and other forms of pottery (postulating that, given the spread of mixed techniques, the potter's wheel
Potter's wheel
In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in asma of round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during process of trimming the excess body from dried ware and for applying incised decoration or rings of color...
was not perceived as an immediate technological advance) and the supposed attestation of Neolithic childhood games (including his theory that pierced and intact bone objects of uncertain use were an early version of knucklebones
Knucklebones
Knucklebones also known as astragaloi, hucklebones, dibs, dibstones, jackstones, chuckstones or five-stones, is a game of very ancient origin, played with five small objects, originally the "knucklebones" of a sheep, which are thrown up and caught in various ways...
). In his study of cave painting
Cave painting
Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest European cave paintings date to the Aurignacian, some 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known...
s, Nicolăescu-Plopşor listed images he believed were representations of men and a solar motif, and theorized the existence of a Sun cult. Overall, he concluded, there was an autonomous "Oltenian cave art", which shared some traits with but was unrelated to that of Prehistoric Iberia
Prehistoric Iberia
The prehistory of the Iberian peninsula begins with the arrival of the first hominins 1.2 million years ago and ends with the Punic Wars, when the territory enters the domains of written history...
, while being seemingly connected to representations in Magura Cave
Magura Cave
The Magura Cave is among Bulgaria's most famous and beautiful caves. It is located in north-western Bulgaria close to the village of Rabisha, at 18 km from the town of Belogradchik in the Vidin Province. The total length of the Magura cave is 2,5 km...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
.
In time, the Romanian archeologist developed his own systems for subdividing prehistoric eras in an Oltenian context. Starting from the observation that Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
Dacian
Dacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
communities displayed a lifestyle similar to Neolithic patterns, and reducing protohistory
Protohistory
Protohistory refers to a period between prehistory and history, during which a culture or civilization has not yet developed writing, but other cultures have already noted its existence in their own writings...
to a sharp divide between archeological evidence and the first written records, he concluded that, in Oltenia's case, "prehistory" extended throughout the Roman administration
Roman Dacia
The Roman province of Dacia on the Balkans included the modern Romanian regions of Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia, and temporarily Muntenia and southern Moldova, but not the nearby regions of Moesia...
and down to a period conventionally included in the Early Middle Ages
Romania in the Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages in Romania spans the period from the withdrawal of the Roman administration from the province of Dacia in the 271–275 AD, thenceforward modern Romania's territories were to be crisscrossed by migrating populations for almost 1,000 years...
. His texts offered personalized and dialectical alternatives to the since standardized names, such as vârsta acioaiei instead of epoca bronzului ("Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
", acioaie being an archaism
Archaism
In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula...
), vârsta cavalerilor ("knight age") for epoca migraţiilor ("Age of Migrations") etc. His division of the Paleolithic closely followed the principles of Joseph Déchelette, with references to archeological industries between the Chellean
Abbevillian
Abbevillian is a currently obsolescent name for a tool tradition that is increasingly coming to be called Oldowan . The original artifacts were collected from road construction sites on the Somme river near Abbeville by a French customs officer, Boucher de Perthes...
and the Magdalenian
Magdalenian
The Magdalenian , refers to one of the later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic in western Europe, dating from around 17,000 BP to 9,000 BP...
.
Late contributions
By the early 1960s, the new discoveries of Paleolithic remains prompted Nicolăescu-Plopşor to review his general conclusions. At the time, he came to argue that the Romanian Paleolithic began with "pebble culture" (cultura de prund), or Eopaleolithic, which preceded Archeopaleolithic (between Chellean and ClactonianClactonian
The Clactonian is the name given by archaeologists to an industry of European flint tool manufacture that dates to the early part of the interglacial period known as the Hoxnian, the Mindel-Riss or the Holstein stages . Clactonian tools were made by Homo erectus rather than modern humans...
), Mesopaleolithic (Levalloisian
Levallois technique
The Levallois technique is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed by precursors to modern humans during the Palaeolithic period....
and Upper Mousterian), Acropaleolithic (Aurignacian and Kostenkian), Epipaleolithic (Azilian and Swiderian
Swiderian culture
Swiderian culture, also published in English literature as Sviderian and Swederian, is the name of Final Palaeolithic cultural complexes in Poland and the surrounding areas. The type-site is Świdry Wielkie, in Otwock. The Swiderian is recognized as a distinctive culture that developed on the sand...
) and Preneolithic. In 1965, he had modified the scale to include the discoveries at Tetoiu
Tetoiu
Tetoiu is a commune located in Vâlcea County, Romania. It is composed of seven villages: Tetoiu, Băroiu, Budele, Măneasa, Nenciuleşti, Popeşti and Ţepeşti....
(Bugiuleşti, Valea lui Grăunceanu), which he attributed to an initial, Prepaleolithic, age. In tandem, Nicolăescu-Plopşor took personal part in reassessing the Pleistocene and Neanderthal
Neanderthal
The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
presence in Romania. His Bordul Mare expedition uncovered fossilized Neanderthal and game remains, as well as a characteristic hearth.
With his reassessment of earlier theories came the assessment that the supposed australopithecine
Australopithecine
The term australopithecine refers generally to any species in the related genera Australopithecus or Paranthropus. These species occurred in the Plio-Pleistocene era, and were bipedal and dentally similar to humans, but with a brain size not much larger than modern apes, lacking the...
in the Tetoiu area used stones collected from great distances in carving out the carcasses of large animals—leading Nicolăescu-Plopşor to postulate that Tetoiu was a link between the australopithecine sites on three continents, evidencing "the oldest stages in the process of conscious work." The theory was viewed with reserve by his contemporaries, and accepted only as a hypothesis by the archeological mainstream of the 1970s. Among Nicolăescu-Plopşor's critics in this respect is archeologist Adrian Doboş, who creates an analogy with flawed deductions made about an archeological industry existing at Makapansgat
Makapansgat
Makapansgat is an archeological location within the Makapansgat and Zwartkrans Valleys, northeast of Mokopane in Limpopo province, South Africa. It is an important paleontological site, with the local limeworks containing Australopithecus-bearing deposits dating to between 3.0 and 2.6 million years...
(conclusions which Nicolăescu-Plopşor himself cited as a precedent). A collateral implication of this discovery, based on stratigraphy
Stratigraphy
Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks....
, was the claim that Oltenia had a contribution to anthropogenesis alongside the Oldowan complex uncovered in Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
by Louis Leakey
Louis Leakey
Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey was a British archaeologist and naturalist whose work was important in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa. He also played a major role in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for protecting wildlife there...
.
During the late 1950s, Nicolăescu-Plopşor was prompted by new discoveries made in the Pestişu Mic
Pestisu Mic
Pestişu Mic is a commune in Hunedoara County, Romania. It is composed of nine villages: Almaşu Mic, Ciulpăz, Cutin, Dumbrava, Josani, Mănerău, Nandru, Pestişu Mic and Valea Nandrului.-References:...
area to revisit his take on the Szeletian, which he came to view as a manifestation of the Mousterian and the inaugural industry of the Upper Paleolithic. This claim was reviewed a final time in 1966, when he concluded that the Szeletian did not exist east of Hungary. Other discoveries from the eastern region of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
led him to designate Aurignacian, Kostenkian and Gravettian
Gravettian
thumb|right|Burins to the Gravettian culture.The Gravettian toolmaking culture was a specific archaeological industry of the European Upper Palaeolithic era prevalent before the last glacial epoch. It is named after the type site of La Gravette in the Dordogne region of France where its...
industries, primarily characterized by a type of flint deemed "of the Prut River". By the 1950s, he had arrived to the conclusion that the Mesolithic age was not an independent phenomenon, but rather a late form of the Magdalenian leading into the Neolithic. Doboş however notes that this was not an absolute conclusion, and that later texts show Nicolăescu-Plopşor contradicting himself in describing a Mesolithic "gradual transition" and the Epipaleolithic as "more or less: a delayed Paleolithic". Also according to Doboş, the researcher synthesized his opinion only in 1965, when he defined the Mesolithic as applicable only to those microlithic sites that stood "for a natural transition" toward the Neolithic, while arguing that no such examples could be found in Romania.
During the final two decades of Nicolăescu-Plopşor's activity, he adopted a controversial approach to naming and classifying local cultures, prioritizing Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
scholarship in accordance with the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
's ideological requirements. In 1954, he celebrated Soviet historiography
Soviet historiography
Soviet historiography is the methodology of history studies by historians in the Soviet Union . In the USSR, the study of history was marked by alternating periods of freedom allowed and restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , and also by the struggle of historians to...
for "thoroughly" investigating the Paleolithic from a global perspective, and ridiculed Western approaches as reductionist
Reductionism
Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
. Focusing his attention on claims made by some Western researchers, who argued that Chellean industries were superior to Clactonian ones for supposedly racial
Racialism
Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations. Currently, racialism entails a belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but not necessarily that any absolute hierarchy between the races has been demonstrated by a rigorous and comprehensive scientific process...
reasons, Nicolăescu-Plopşor accused his colleagues of scientific racism
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
, and indicated that Chellean and Clactonian industries occasionally developed in the same areas. The Romanian scholar primarily designated local Gravettian sites as Kostenkian, after the Soviet model, and generally renounced mentioning industries under their Western names. He also spoke in favor of replacing neologisms coined for specific items in prehistoric typology with adaptations from the Romanian lexis
Romanian lexis
The lexis of the Romanian language , a Romance language, has changed over the centuries as the language evolved from Vulgar Latin, to Proto-Romanian, to medieval, modern and contemporary Romanian.-Medieval Romanian:...
. For example, he recommended following 19th century researcher Cezar Bolliac
Cezar Bolliac
Cezar Bolliac or Boliac, Boliak was a Wallachian and Romanian radical political figure, amateur archaeologist, journalist and Romantic poet.-Early life:...
in designating industrial nuclei as mătci ("sources" or "wombs").
Literature
According to folklorist Aurelian I. Popescu, the overall literary work of Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor is divided into two categories: the "exact collection" of folkloric records and the reworking of folkloric themes through the original interventions and expansions of a "great storyteller". The latter function saw Nicolăescu-Plopşor replicating the example of Ion CreangăIon Creanga
Ion Creangă was a Moldavian-born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his novellas and short stories, and his many anecdotes...
, a 19th century storyteller culturally linked to the Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
n region, and brought him the nickname of "Oltenia
Oltenia
Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....
n Creangă". Its main product is Tivisoc şi Tivismoc, but the category also includes a version of the Iovan Iorgovan
Iovan Iorgovan
Iovan Iorgovan is a character in Romanian mythology, similar in some ways to Hercules. The legend is present in the Cerna valley of south-western Transylvania. In the legend, Iovan is named "fiu de Ramlean" which can be translated as "son of Rome."...
stories and a fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
titled Cotoşman împărat ("Emperor Tomcat"). Such pieces were occasionally signed with the pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
Moş Plopşor, tartorul poveştilor ("Old Man Plopşor, ringleader of the stories"). In his Precuvântare ("Foreword") for Tivisoc şi Tivismoc, the author explained his method in figures of speech
Figures of Speech
Figures of Speech is a hip hop group consisting of MCs Eve and Jyant. They performed at the Good Life Cafe in the early 1990s and were featured on the Project Blowed compilation....
, with a children's rhyme:
După uşe, într-o ladă, Stau poveştile grămadă Şi-n hodaie pe sub pat, Mai am înc-un sac legat. De bag mâna-n săcăteu, Ies poveştile mereu. |
Behind the door, inside a chest, The stories are all piled up And in the room, under the bed, I have another tied-up sack. If I push my hand into the bag, The stories keep coming out. |
The series of anecdote
Anecdote
An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
s about Tivisoc and Tivismoc stands out among Nicolăescu-Plopşor's contributions as a spin-off of the popular Păcală
Păcală
Păcală is a fictional character in Romanian folklore, literature and humor. An irreverent young man, seemingly a peasant, he reserves contempt and irony for the village authorities , but often plays the fool...
folktales. The two eponymous protagonists are "unborn children" to Păcală, an irreverent and often ingenious peasant whose exploits are an established presence in Romanian humor and early Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
. The writer defined his own text as "a bundle of crafted stories, garnished here and there with lies", and "a new story, from older, forgotten stories". His technique, Popescu assessed, "penetrates the world of Păcală, which it enlarges and deepens with a new yarn, the marriage of the famous folk hero." The "unborn" protagonists, who take turns recounting the anecdote pieces as first-person narrative
First-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
s, are original creations of Nicolăescu-Plopşor, their names being nonsensical counting rhymes
Counting-out game
A counting-out game is a simple game intended to select a person to be "it", often for the purpose of playing another game. These games usually require no materials, and are played with spoken words or hand gestures....
for the word loc ("place", as in stai pe loc, "stand your ground" or "you're it"). This replication of childlore
Childlore
Childlore is the folklore or folk culture of children and young people. It includes, for example, rhymes and games played in the school playground...
, Popescu argues, "suggests a certain closeness to the [children's] mentality and ways of understanding".
The narrative builds mainly on absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
imagery and pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
s, resulting in what Popescu calls "dense humor". The two brothers mirror each other's physical attributes, and are unrealistically grotesque in appearance: they display heterochromia
Heterochromia
In anatomy, heterochromia refers to a difference in coloration, usually of the iris but also of hair or skin. Heterochromia is a result of the relative excess or lack of melanin...
and hemihypertrophy
Hemihypertrophy
Hemihypertrophy is a condition in which one side of the body or a part of one side is larger than the other. Children with hemihypertrophy have an increased risk of developing certain types of cancer, including Wilms tumor and liver cancer...
, their faces and feet being orientated backwards. Rejecting the prospects of being born to a priest or even a nobleman, the Ban
Ban (title)
Ban was a title used in several states in central and south-eastern Europe between the 7th century and the 20th century.-Etymology:The word ban has entered the English language probably as a borrowing from South Slavic ban, meaning "lord, master; ruler". The Slavic word is probably borrowed from...
of Oltenia, they opt instead for Păcală, who is depicted as a destitute peasant from Vaideei (a village in the commune of Romos
Romos
Romos is a commune in Hunedoara County, Romania. It is composed of five villages: Ciungu Mare, Pişchinţi, Romos, Romoşel and Vaidei.-References:...
, now in Hunedoara County
Hunedoara County
Hunedoara is a county of Romania, in Transylvania, with its capital city at Deva.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 485,712 and the population density was 69/km².*Romanians - 92%*Hungarians - 5%*Romas - 2%*Germans under 1%....
). The location was chosen for its humorous connotations, which, Popescu notes, had already made it the target of "innocent jokes [...] in Oltenian folklore": the name breaks into vai de ei, "woe to them". The village is depicted by Nicolăescu-Plopşor as a place in which poverty is met with self-irony, resulting in absurd jokes. For example, a Vaideeni man deplores the loss of a pear, stolen from his yard by a sparrow, because he intended to use its fibrous tail as a "cart axle". The ethnographic overview of Oltenia is complemented by a depiction of the region's southern parts, through an account of Păcală's trip through Craiova
Craiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
and down to the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
. The episode allows for retrospective social criticism of peasant life as it supposedly was during the Romanian Kingdom
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
period, with references to the 1907 Revolt
1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt
The 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt took place in March 1907 in Moldavia and it quickly spread, reaching Wallachia. The main cause was the discontent of the peasants about the inequity of land ownership, which was in the hands of just a few large landowners....
and quotes from the quasi-anonymous rural poet Radu of Giubega. Nicolăescu-Plopşor's account also offers room for self-irony and satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
of the Oltenian ethos
Ethos
Ethos is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power of music to influence its hearer's emotions, behaviors, and even morals. Early Greek stories of...
, an attribute traditionally stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
d as obtuse pride: the supposed Oltenian reaction to the introduction of a railway system
Caile Ferate Române
Căile Ferate Române is the official designation of the state railway carrier of Romania. Romania has a railway network of of which are electrified and the total track length is . The network is significantly interconnected with other European railway networks, providing pan-European passenger...
is an attempt at derailing the trains with lures of maize. The same section includes jokes about Caracal
Caracal, Romania
Caracal is a city in Olt county, Romania, situated in the historic region of Oltenia, on the plains between the lower reaches of the Jiu and Olt rivers. The region's plains are well known for their agricultural specialty in cultivating grains and over the centuries, Caracal has been the trading...
town, commonly ridiculed in local folklore as the place where the cart transporting imbeciles "tumbled over", and mentions in passing the legend of Caracal's fire lookout tower
Fire lookout tower
A fire lookout tower, fire tower or lookout tower, provides housing and protection for a person known as a "fire lookout" whose duty it is to search for wildfires in the wilderness...
, which was supposedly lost to flames. Such accounts, Popescu wrote, form "an important source of information for ethnographers and folklorists".
The main part of the story, in which the focus is on Tivisoc and Tivismoc, sees the unborn boys accompanying their future father on a quest to find a suitable mother, and later their trip to the mill, where they seem prone to do all things backwards and manage to literally lose their own heads (having to recover them from hungry dogs). The real adventure starts when birds transport them to Scaunu dreptăţii ("The Seat of Justice"), a mock version of the Last Judgment
Last Judgment
The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, or The Day of the Lord in Christian theology, is the final and eternal judgment by God of every nation. The concept is found in all the Canonical gospels, particularly the Gospel of Matthew. It will purportedly take place after the...
, which provides the setting for anticlerical jokes and satire of Christian mythology
Christian mythology
Christian mythology is the body of myths associated with Christianity. In the study of mythology, the term "myth" refers to a traditional story, often one which is regarded as sacred and which explains how the world and its inhabitants came to have their present form.Classicist G.S. Kirk defines a...
: God is depicted as aging and incompetent, Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
as a young man "dozing off and scratching his thin beard", Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
as "a middle-aged woman with blue, terrified eyes". The two boys intervene to stop the lesser devils from pulling on the scales to send more people into Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, but are upset to note that God himself is inclined to pardon a swindling tavern-keeper because he had not kept tabs on a priest. Saint Peter
Saint Peter
Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...
allows the two boys to bribe their way into Heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
, whose human population has been driven to disgust by the endless supply of milk and mămăligă
Mamaliga
Mămăligă is a porridge made out of yellow maize flour, traditional in Romania and Moldova. It is similar to the Italian polenta.In Transylvania and in Carpathia mămăligă is also called puliszka...
—while in there, they repeat the story of Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
and taste unpalatable fruit from the Tree of Knowledge
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
In the Book of Genesis, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or the tree of knowledge was a tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden. . God directly forbade Adam to eat the fruit of this tree...
. The weight of this sin drags them into Hell, but they are able to easily impress the naīve devils, and eventually drive them away by burning some frankincense
Frankincense
Frankincense, also called olibanum , is an aromatic resin obtained from trees of the genus Boswellia, particularly Boswellia sacra, B. carteri, B. thurifera, B. frereana, and B. bhaw-dajiana...
(an illustration of the Romanian expression a fugi ca dracul de tămâie, "to run away like a devil from frankincense").
Once in charge of Hell, Tivisoc and Tivismoc free all categories of folk heroes who are also sinners, primarily hajduk
Hajduk
Hajduk is a term most commonly referring to outlaws, highwaymen or freedom fighters in the Balkans, Central- and Eastern Europe....
s and other celebrated brigands, but, Popescu notes, display Păcală's mix of "intelligence and stupidity" in planning their getaway: the entire group follows the two boys up a rope of sand. After a seven-year climb takes them back to the mill, they redirect the river to flow back into Hell, and manage to drown the returning devils. There follows a reunion with Păcală, his legendary wedding to a woman selected by Tivisoc and Tivismoc, and the boys' eventual birth and reluctant baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
. Although they receive a human appearance, Tivisoc and Tivismoc still display supernatural attributes (such as consuming "fried chicken and garlic" instead of maternal milk). The story ends with their departure into the wild world, and the prospects of more adventures—possibly a second volume, which Nicolăescu-Plopşor never began writing.
Legacy
Controversy has traditionally surrounded the supposed australopithecine sites investigated by Nicolăescu-Plopşor. According to the Cambridge University's Ancient History collection of 1982, his theories regarding Tetoiu was "still open to question." According to a 2009 assessment by historian and journalist Vasile Surcel, these locations had not been revisited by any Romanian archeologist after the 1960s. Surcel claims: "Instead of continuing his research, his colleagues have preferred to ignore or quite simply not comment on them." The scholar's death also put a stop to conservation efforts at Ada KalehAda Kaleh
Ada Kaleh was a small island on the Danube populated mostly by Turks that was submerged during the construction of the Iron Gates hydroelectric plant in 1970. The island was about 3 km downstream from Orşova and measured 1.75 by 0.4–0.5 km....
, and caused the communist authorities to approve a plan with minimal investment in this area.
Following the 1989 Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
and the end of communism, as part of a larger trend to provide communes with individual coats of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
, Sălcuţa
Salcuta, Dolj
Sălcuţa is a commune in Dolj County, Romania with a population of 2,488 people. It is composed of four villages: Mârza, Plopşor, Sălcuţa and Tencănău....
chose to be represented by a golden quill
Quill
A quill pen is a writing implement made from a flight feather of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen, metal-nibbed pens, the fountain pen, and, eventually, the ballpoint pen...
and ink bottle, in honor of its native Nicolăescu-Plopşor. The industrial high school in Pleniţa bears his name, as Grupul Şcolar Industrial Constantin Nicolăescu-Plopşor, as does a street in Craiova
Craiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
. In 1999, the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
and the University of Craiova
University of Craiova
The University of Craiova is a university located in Craiova, Romania. It is an institution of higher education of complex integration, founded in 1947, with four faculties in the beginning, it has developed continuously, the number of specialization's increasing and today it meets the standards...
set up the C. S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor Socio-Human Research Institute, which publishes a yearbook of interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinarity involves the combining of two or more academic fields into one single discipline. An interdisciplinary field crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions have emerged....
studies. The Museum of Oltenia holds a special Nicolăescu-Plopşor collection, which includes his book manuscripts and published works, as well as his correspondence with fellow intellectuals such as Dumitru Berciu
Dumitru Berciu
Dumitru Berciu was a Romanian historian and archaeologist, honorary member of the Romanian Academy....
, Constantin Daicoviciu
Constantin Daicoviciu
Constantin Daicoviciu – May 27, 1973) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian historian and archaeologist.He was rector of Babeş-Bolyai University, and a member of the Romanian Academy....
and Ion Nestor.