FONOTECA ARHIVEI DE FOLCLOR „VASILE ADĂSCĂLIȚEI” – UN TEZAUR AL „CÂNTECELOR DE DEMULT”

Vasile Adăscăliței (1929–2007), ethnologist, professor at the University of Iași, was particularly interested, during his teaching, research and publishing activity carried out for half a century, in customs related to the New Year, more precisely to the 12-day period between Christmas and Epiphany, i.e. customs involving groups of masked people and, mainly, the folk theatre of scholarly influence, in which he did pioneering work, being the first to dedicate a study to the subject. He also approached other customs, like those related to deathwatch. Nevertheless, the fundamental preoccupation of his activity was the foundation of a folklore archive. For half a century, starting with 1950, while being a student, he had continuously enriched the archive of the Folklore Seminar within the University of Iași with more than 40,000 items, including ca. 400 magnetic bands of recordings made during field research and 4,000 files of manuscript notes from indirect surveys. These two collections were accompanied by ca. 1,000 black-and-white photographs and slides. Since 2014, we have digitized the audio recordings of this folklore archive and named it “Vasile Adăscăliței”, in memory of its founder. Between 2018 and 2023 eight volumes had been released, grouped thematically, each of them accompanied by a CD. The first volume, “Conscription Songs”, was dedicated to the Centenary of the Great Union, and it was followed by volume 2 - “Longing and Mourning Songs”, volume 3 – “Old Songs”, volume 4 – “Deathwatch Games and Songs”, volume 5 – “Wedding Songs and Customs”, volume 6 – “Old Songs and Customs”, volume 7 – “New Year’s Customs”; a new volume, issued this year, includes “Charms and Beliefs”. All eight volumes sum up almost 1,500 selections recorded between 1966 and 1983, stored in the folklore archive founded over half a century ago by Professor Vasile Adăscăliței.