The Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography, a public cultural institution under the authority of the Cluj County Council, in partnership with “Sextil Pușcariu” Institute of Linguistics and Literary History of the Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca Branch, invite you to participate at the opening of the exhibition “People, Places and Words. The Romanian Linguistic Atlas in Images” (curator: Gabriela Violeta Adam), which will take place on Friday, August 30, 2024, at 12 o’clock, at Reduta Palace – the headquarters of the Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography (21, Memorandum street).

In the period 1930–1938, following the national enthusiasm after the Unification, one of the largest projects for the study of the spoken Romanian language and the culture of the Romanian nation was launched at the Romanian Language Museum: the Romanian Linguistic Atlas.

Along with the hundreds of thousands of words and forms recorded through direct linguistic surveys in each of the 388 map points of the Romanian Linguistic Atlas I and II, Sever Pop and Emil Petrovici have constantly shown their interest for local and national culture and, implicitly, they tried to illustrate the representative fields of national and ethnic identity, constituting a photographic archive.

The exhibition presents a selection of photographs, taken north and south of the Danube, offering an overview of rural life in the interwar period. At the same time having a sociological, historical and ethnological significance, the images capture portraits of the investigated subjects and their families, rural architecture, events in village life, household and household objects, traditional occupations. The legends that accompany some of these documents – descriptions of the represented reality – are proof of the fact that photography was, in the entirety of this research, part of the knowledge of the national language.

The opening of the exhibition will be followed by the conference “Romanian language in Transylvanian dictionaries. A journey through the history of words”, supported by Mr. Bogdan Harhătă, researcher at the “Sextil Pușcariu” Institute of Linguistics and Literary History of the Romanian Academy.

The event is organized within the “Romanian Language Week” project, with the support of the Cluj-Napoca City Hall, Local Council and Ghepard Communication. The exhibition will be open to the general public until September 27, 2024, from Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., last entry at 5 p.m.