'THIS COUNTRY IS DYING'. ELDERLY PEOPLES' PERCEPTION OF THE TIME FLOW

• Authors: Wielecki K.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

This article talks about contemporary time - the time of oldness. The author presents the analysis of this time perception: how people remember the past, how they approach the history and the flow of time. It must be remembered that author's informants are people who relive their past. They have grown old and so has the country, though it is considered new. These metaphors are the main theme of this article. The first part is largely theoretical, presenting many inspiring concepts and ideas such as: social time, mythical thinking, epoch, political time and the generation. The author believes that the history told by the informants could be divided into the periods of cosmos and chaos, and their remembrance of the past is characterized by mythical thinking. For instance, the period from Moldova's proclamation of independence until presence is being presented as an opposition of the soviet times. Consequent section of the article talks about accelerating of the time and the feeling of standing at the edge of the time. The older generation is being described as the 'people of the road' who used to travel extensively during the USSR period and then suddenly had to stop. On the other hand the middle generation is forced to migrate to 'put the bread on the table'. This way the inter-generation transmission gets broken. Older villagers miss the time of their youth, when everyone had its place and tasks to carry out. In their eyes that was the time when they were citizens of the 'almighty' USSR they felt proud of. At present they are unable to find their place, they feel unneeded, while being a citizen of Moldova equals to poverty and weakness. Concluding, the author touches upon the issues of dignity and humiliation versus identifications.

Keywords

EN

INTER-GENERATIONAL TIES; OLD PEOPLE; TIME'S FLOW

Discipline

• ANTHROPOLOGY: ANTHROPOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Etnografia Polska
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 47-73
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Wielecki K.

• K. Wielecki, for postal address contact the journal editor

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

08PLAAAA03457068