The Gagauz are a Turkic-language-speaking ethnic group located mostly in Moldavia. Though their language separates them from the other ethnic groups surrounding them—who are either Slavic-language or Romanian speakers—they share with these other groups their Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Gagauz folk religion has not had any monograph-length study in English before, which makes this a welcome book.
After an introduction that orients the reader to the Gagauz and also to what is coming in the book, Kapaló turns to the theoretical problems in the study of folk religion, including especially the definition of folk religion, in his first chapter, “Folk Religion in Discourse and Practice.” His second chapter, “Historical Narrative and the Discourse on Origins,” then examines the scholarly and folk ideas concerning Gagauz ethnogenesis. The Gagauz language was not extensively written before the twentieth century, and their history was little commented on by others. Kapaló looks at how scholars, both Gagauz and non-Gagauz, have tried to fill that gap in historical knowledge, and how these efforts at explaining the genesis of the Gagauz as an ethnic group have affected their current image of themselves as a distinct ethnic group.
After these two chapters, Kapaló turns to the core of the book, his studies of the forms of Gagauz folk religion. In chapter 3, “Liturgy, Language and the Vernacularisation of Orthodoxy,” he examines the languages of Gagauz Orthodoxy. Because Moldavia has switched back and forth between Russia and Romania there are at least four languages that the researcher must pay attention to: Gagauz, Romanian, Russian, and Church Slavonic. Although translations of Orthodox religious materials, including the Bible, were limited, the Gagauz themselves translated many official and unofficial texts from Romanian, Russian, and Church Slavonic, drawing especially from the many apocryphal texts and saints’ lives available in Romanian and Russian popular editions.
The remaining chapters take up specific genres of Gagauz folk religion.
Chapter 4, “Language, Lay Agency and the ‘Surrogate’ Text: Bu Epistolii Yazd Kendi Allah–-‘This letter was written by God himself ’,” looks at a genre that is widespread in European popular and folk religion, the letter from heaven.
Chapter 5, “Healing and Divine Authority: Dü?tän Allahin Lafi Sana Geldi!–-‘The words of God have come to you in a dream’” examines Gagauz attitudes toward dreams and their interpretation, and also introduces Gagauz folk healing.
Chapter 6, “Healing, Text and Performance: Allahin Lafçaazinnan Okuyêêrim–-‘I heal with the little words of God’,” examines charms and their use in Gagauz folk healing.
Chapters 7 and 8, “Prayer as Social and Cosmological Performance: Durmaksiz Dua Ediniz. Her?eydä ?ükür Ediniz–-‘Pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances . . .’” and “Archaic Folk Prayer amongst the Gagauz: Kim Sölecek Bu Molitvayi Onu Iisözleyecek, Dedi Allah–-‘And God said that he will bless whosoever says this prayer’ examine the role of prayer in Gagauz folk religion.
The book ends with a brief conclusion, followed by several appendices containing the Gagauz texts of the texts translated in the book.
This book is a welcome addition to the literature available on Eastern European folklore and folk religion, but it does have some problems. First is that it is Kapaló’s dissertation published as a book, and it still has far too many traces of its origin as a dissertation, such as unnecessary literature reviews. Second, and more importantly, he often misses significant aspects of what is happening in Gagauz rituals and prayers. Though his informants clearly consider themselves Christians, and even though he is describing their folk Orthodoxy, he often minimizes the role of Christianity in their religious activities. For example, he writes concerning one category of charms that it is “characterized by what is considered to be a more complete fusion of Christian imagery with ‘folk’ mythic symbolism” (194). This might be so from the perspective of the scholar studying Gagauz folk religion, but it is obvious from what he writes that the Gagauz don’t think about these charms that way. The charms he quotes all contain Christian elements, and are performed in a Christian context, and often with Christian prayers in addition to the charms, yet Kapaló tends to minimize this in favor of more traditional analyses that see these elements as fundamentally different. Kapaló points out a number of times how he is concerned in his book with the way that scholars have forced academic categories onto folk religion, but in approaching the materials this way he has fallen into that mode of studying them himself.
Though flawed, Text, Context and Performance will be a book that anyone interested in the folk religion of Eastern Orthodoxy, or folk religion in general, will want to read. Kapaló’s studies and translations of Gagauz religious texts bring to the attention of folklorists the rich tradition of apocryphal religious literature, charms, and prayers in Gagauz and Romanian, two traditions that are little known in American folklore scholarship.
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[Review length: 808 words • Review posted on October 22, 2014]