Felvilágosodás és babonaság. Erdélyi néphiedelem-gyűjtés 1789–90-ben

In 1789, Michael Brukenthal, the governor of Fogaras District sent out a circular to 20 pastors and priests in Hungarian and German. In it he asked them what kinds of beliefs, superstitions, customs, rituals prevailed in their congregations. Three Saxon Lutheran, three Hungarian Calvinist, one Unitarian Hungarian and one Greek Catholic Romanian priest responded. The volume is an important and exciting document of folk mentality at the end of the 18th century. Not only does it tell us about the beliefs of the ethnically and linguistically diverse population of Transylvania but also provides insights into the mentality of the élite. It reveals to what degree could the priests enter into the popular imagination and also what kind of – at times hostile – milieu they landed in upon completing their studies abroad. The Introduction discusses Brukenthal’s activities: how he strove to understand the reasons behind certain phenomena (such as the Revolt of Horea) with much greater openness than his contemporaries; how and why he organized the “superstition survey” which inspired the questionnaire with the backing of the masonic lodge of Nagyszeben/Sibiu/Hermanstadt that was the hinterland of Brukenthal’s intellectual endeavors. The second half of the volume contains Brukenthal’s survey as well as the responses of the respondents Bálint Baló, Samuel Barbenius, Jacob Bayer, Michael Binder, János Bodor, Ioan Halmaghi, Sámuel Köpetzi Bodos, and Johann Gottfried Schenker who sent Brukenthal detailed German-, Hungarian- or Latin-language descriptions of the beliefs and magical practices prevailing among their congregants and their communities.