The Ballad Cycle about the Drowned Wedding: Narrative Peculiarities

Abstract

This article analyzes the ballad cycle about the drowned wedding, which is widely circulated in the ethnological context of Bessarabia, but also among some peoples of the South-Danubian region. The ballad naturally falls into the universe of family life, where we attest to „a unitary system of relationships” (Caracostea 1969, p. 384) and human characters, with narrative particularities specific to the oral diary. The narrator – referent comes to communicate to us a dramatic history from the life of the epic heroes, in order to deepen situations, feelings, existenţial aspect, of a strong inner tension in the collective consciousness. The subject under discussion was approached using a specific methodology, targeting complex research goals and perspectives: highlighting the features of the oral journal, which is essentially deeply realistic in nature, but at the same time refers to the fate of man caught in the web of mysteries and unpredictable events, intuited by a fateful predestination.