Etudes balkaniques is a quarterly peer-review journal, which has been publishing research since 1964. Research papers related to the Balkan countries in French, English, German, Russian and Italian have appeared in it, thus making them available to a wide scientific community across borders.
CONSIDERATIONS EN MARGE DES REPONSES AU QUESTIONNAIRE «AL. ODOBESCU»
Cătălina Vătăşescu
Institut d’Études Sud-est Européennes
(Académie Roumaine)
Some Remarks concerning the Answers to the Questionnaire “Al. Odobescu”
Abstract: During the 19th, researches conducted by using a questionnaire were an important way of gaining scientific data in Europe. There were many of them in Romania at that epoch and of different natures: historical and archaeological (Al. Odobescu, 1869), linguistic and juridical (B. P. Hasdeu, 1877), merely historical (N. Densusianu, 1893, 1896). They were intended to obtain informations about traditional popular culture, for which purpose they appealed to correspondents acting as schoolteachers or priests in the villages throughout Romania. The answers given to Odobescu’s questionnaire, although highly valuable as means of knowing the rural mentality (including historical traditions and legendary explanations of many surrounding realities), are still used nowadays, but to a very poor extent, in comparison with the richness and diversity of the information they offer.
Keywords: Questionnaire as Scientific Method, 19th Century, Rural Mentality, Tradition, Legend
