2025

Anna Adashinskaya

  • Junior Fellow
  • University of Bucharest
Picture of Anna Adashinskaya

Project

Voices in Stone: Exploring Commemorative Functions and Authorship of Graffiti in Early Modern Moldavian Churches

Program

Summer Institute for the Study of East Central and Southeastern Europe

Department

Romanian Centre for Russian Studies

Abstract

This project addresses the graffiti and dipinti left by the pilgrims and visitors of Moldavian churches during the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, in particular, St. Nicholas Church in Bălinești and the Monastery of Moldovița. This study regards the graffiti in connection to the images they are attached to and the spaces they are situated in, studying them as a reflexion of ecclesiastic rituals, manifestations of popular devotional practices performed by the visitors, and evidence of social hierarchies and interactions shaping the rural societies of the early modern Southeastern Europe. The project scrutinizes the commemorative strategies employed by the graffiti 'authors' in connection to the memorial rites.