Revision of the Legend of Master Manole in Romanian Feminist Discourse after 1989

Abstract

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 Legend of Master Manole, 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.