Romanian Human Habitat and Atypical Volohs’ Living in the Wooded Carpathians (Ukraine).
Case Study: Poroşcovo

Ilie GHERHEŞ1
1 Romanian Academy, Iaşi Branch, ROMANIA 
E-mail: ilie_gherhes@yahoo.com
Pages: 341-345

Abstract. The Volohs in the Woody Carpathians – a ruin of Romanian spirit, a priority of Romanian historiography. The paradigm of national-state unification in Central Europe and in the South-East areas is one different from the equation of the European occidental state establishment. Extending this assertion we will notice that the mechanism of the ethnic-state turmoil within the Woody Carpathians or even in a wider area, namely the Middle and Superior Basins of the River Tisza, is worth being subjected to a very detailed and complex analysis. Throughout these territories, the mysterious goddess Clio played a destiny game which led the crucible of history to give birth to a very heterogeneous ethnic and cultural picture. Left “without fate”, the Voloh people in the Woody Carpathians – a historically abandoned Romanian-speaking population, remained to vibrate in Romanian, to oscillate between appellations of “white gipsy” and “volohs” or Romanians without a lot. The epic of such Romanian remains a function of historical convulsions characteristic of an area ethnically energized up to “final victories” and depicts a painting with lights and shadows which are too poorly defined. The arch described by the evolution of this Romanian-speaking ethnic group frames the features of a ruin-monument of the Romanian spirit but also certain characteristics of an identity paradox, the embodiment of the dispute between the fragile statue of a not well-presumed identity and the hostile moment of a highly perceived existential change.

K e y w o r d s: Voloh people, Woody Carpathians, “white gipsy”, Romanian-speaking population, identity, existential change, ethnic mosaic