The peasant before ethnology

In order to answer to this question, we should first take a look at the peasant before and without ethnology.

 As noted by Burgui?re in France, this peasant starts by being for a long time a rather ?invisible? one,[1] largely present in the artistic imagery of the educated people by means of ?pastorales? and ?bergeronnettes,? it?s true, but being refused a cultural autonomy (Burgui?re, 2000). When he starts to be an object of interest and scientific knowledge, it is initially for administrative reasons. The German case is well-known:

?As we know it for sure now, the real definition of Volkskunde refers, since the XVIIIth century when the word appeared for the first time in the context of administrative statistics, to the ?knowledge about the people? (Kentnisse über das Volk) and not to the ?traditions preserved by the people? (Uberlieferungen im Volk)? (Brückner, 1987: 228).

It is also the case in France with the ?statistiques départementales? during Napoleon?s rule (Burgui?re, op. cit.). We may find in Romania too, after the ?oriental crisis? and during the emergence of the Romanian principalities, a growing interest in general data about the people of these territories for diplomatic, administrative and/or economic reasons, a growing corpus of administrative and economic statistics and geographic descriptions that can be put together as ?knowledge about the people.?  It is the case of the ?consular documentation,? and, starting with the ?Organic regulations,? the ?periodic records.? It is what Stahl has chosen to call ?sociography? and which was a kind of ?statistics? in the original sense of a ?science of the states,? including useful information about one county?s geography, economics, social organization, customs, etc. (Stahl, 2001). These ?sociographers? were of two kinds. The first and most important one was made by experts sent by the surrounding empires, interested in better knowing their constituting nations in order to better control them. It is the case of representatives of the Enlightenment such as Georg Tallar, Gerhard Van Swieten, Francesco Griselini or J. J. Ehrler, sent to Transylvania and Banat by the Hapsburg authorities. Their approach and kind of ethnography they produced were close to those practiced by missioners and public servants in the remote colonies, the Romanian countries being for them a kind of ?small Americas close to us.? The second category is represented by local intellectuals, from Dimitrie Cantemir to Ionescu de la Brad or Spiru Haret, who, beside their personal theoretical views, were developing detailed descriptions of their countries, i.e. a kind of Volkskunde in its original sense of ?knowledge about the people? and for the own interest of this people. In spite of their good pieces of ethnography, all these cases are rather distant from the ethnological interest and perspective, the peasant being here mainly a socio-political category.

[1]See also Şerban Anghelescu in this volume for the Romanian case.