1732-8705 Revision of the Legend of Master Manole in Romanian Feminist Discourse after 1989 Bartosiewicz-Nikolaev Olga author Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie 03bqmcz70 Correspondence to: Olga Bartosiewicz-Nikolaev olga.bartosiewicz@uj.edu.pl 15 12 2023 Numéro spécial (2) Tom 23 (2023) 231 239 Copyright © 2023 2023 This research is funded by the National Science Centre in Poland under the project: The Topos of an “Immured Woman” in the Cultures of Southeastern Europe and Hungary, no. 2020/37/B/HS2/00152. <p>The paper focuses on the ideological shift after 1989 that determined the nature of the debates over the role of Ana, the female character of the <em>Legend of Master Manole</em>, and her sacrifice. Until 1989, her perspective was widely ignored because the canonical interpretation of the ballad emphasized the male perspective of Manole and his sacrifice for the act of creation. After 1989, the feminist discourse argued that the symbolic structures perpetuated by this myth were reinforced in Romania by the communist regime. The main aim of the article is thus to present how the newly formed feminist critique employed one of the canonical Romanian texts to show the functioning of the model of a self-sacrificing woman in the social imaginary.</p> 1 Alecsandri Vasile, 1908 [1852], Poezii populare ale românilor, București: Minerva. 2 Aleksić Tatiana, 2013, The Sacrificed Body. Balkan Community Building and the Fear of Freedom, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, ebook. 3 Ana Alexandra, 2018, Precarious locations: Feminist co-optation and strategies of resistance in the neoliberal age, Praktyka Teoretyczna 4(30): 153–179. DOI: 10.14746/prt.2018.4.6. 4 Andreescu Florentina C., 2013, The changing face of the sacrificial Romanian woman, (in:) Florentina C. Andreescu, From Communism to Capitalism. Nation and State in Romanian Cultural Production, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ebook, 105–128. 5 Bădescu Horia, 1986, Meșterul Manole sau Imanența Tragicului, București: Cartea Românească. 6 Botta Dan, 1968, Unduire și moarte. Scrieri IV, Bucureşti: Editura pentru Literatură. 7 Călinescu George, 2001, Istoria literaturii române: compendiu, București-Chișinău: Litera. 8 Ciompec Gheorghe, 1979, Motivul creației în literatura română, Bucuresti: Minerva. 9 Dundes Alan (ed.), 1996, The Walled-up Wife. A Casebook, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 10 Eliade Mircea, 1972 [1955], Master Manole and the Monastery of Arges, (in:) Mircea Eliade, Zalmoxis. The Vanishing God, transl. Willard R. Trask, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 164–190. 11 Eliade Mircea, 1996 [1972], Master Manole and the Monastery of Argeș, (in:) The Walled-up Wife. 12 A Casebook, ed. Alan Dundes, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 71–94. 13 Eliade Mircea, 2004 [1943], Comentarii la Legenda Meșterului Manole, București: Humanitas. 14 Gârdan Daiana, 2018, The Great Female Unread. Romanian Women Novelists in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: a Quantitative Approach, Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 4(1): 109–124. 15 Gould Carol C., 1984, Freedom and women, Journal of Social Philosophy 5(3): 20–34. 16 Grünberg Laura, 2008, biONGrafie AnA – istoria trăită a unui ONG de femei, Iași: Polirom. 17 Mandel Ruth, 1996 [1983], “Sacrifice at the bridge of arta”: Sex roles and the manipulation of power, (in:) The Walled-up Wife. A Casebook, ed. Alan Dundes, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 157–168. 18 Mihăilescu Ștefania, 2006, Din istoria feminismului românesc. Studiu și antologie de texte (1929– 1948), Iași: Polirom. 19 Miroiu Mihaela, 2006, EditoriAna sau despre înțelegerea de sine, Revista AnaLize, 1998/1–2, (in:) Mihaela Miroiu, Neprețuitele femei, Iași: Polirom, 93–99. 20 Miroiu Mihaela, 2015, On women, feminism, and democracy, (in:) Post-Communist Romania at Twenty-Five: Linking Past, Present, and Future, eds. Lavinia Stan, Diane Vancea, 87–105. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 21 Miroiu Mihaela, 2018 [1997], Ana’s land. The right to be sacrificed, (in:) Ana’s Land: Sisterhood in Eastern Europe (Women in Central &amp; Eastern Europe), ed. Tanya Renne, New York: Routledge, ebook, 136–140. 22 Miroiu Mihaela, 2020, Gândul umbrei. Abordări feministe în filosofie, ed. a II-a revăzută, Iași: Polirom. 23 Miroiu Mihaela, Popescu Liliana, 2004, Post-Totalitarian Pre-Feminism, (in:) Romania since 1989: 24 Politics, Economics, and Society, ed. Henry F. Carey, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 297–314. 25 Muellner Beth Ann, 2018, The walled-up wife speaks out: The Balkan “legend of the walled-up wife” and Carmen Sylva’s Meister Manole, Marvels &amp; Tales 32(2): 245–264. 26 Neubauer John, Cornis-Pope Marcel, 2007, Introduction: Folklore and national awakening, (in:) History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe. Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Volume III: The Making and Remaking of Literary Institutions, eds. Marcel Cornise-Pope, John Neubauer, Amsterdam–Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 269–285. 27 Păun Gheorghe, 2019, Lacrima Anei. Antologie, Pitești: Tiparg. 28 Răduț ă Magda, 2011, The day before, the day after. Canonic and self-legitimation changes in the Romanian literature before and after the fall of the communist regime, (in:) The Canonical Debate Today Crossing Disciplinary and Cultural Boundaries, eds. Liviu Papadima, David Damrossh, Theo D’haen, Amsterdam–New York: Rodopi, 151–166. 29 Rughiniș Cosmina, Grünberg Laura, Popescu Raluca (eds.), 2015, Alice în Țara Manualelor. O explorare a personajelor care îi inspiră pe copii în școală, București: Universitatea din București. 30 Straumanis, Joan, 1984, Duties to Oneself. An Ethical Basis for Self-Liberation?, Journal of Social Philosophy 15(2): 1–13. 31 ***, 1953, Programa de limba și lectură literară pentru clasele V–VIII, București: Institutul de științe pedagogice. 32 ***, 1977, Programele de literatura română, universală, limba română, pentru învățământul liceal (zi și seral) valabile în anul școlar 1977–1978, București: Editura Didactică și Pedagogică.