The memory of symbolic indeterminations – the founding legends of Rasnov Citadel

Abstract

This paper retrieves elements and mechanisms of identity to be articulated in a symbolic inventory to the multi-ethnic community of Râşnov. Our aim is to identify the Transylvanian behavioral and attitudinal structures originating with the cohabitation of Saxons, Romanians and Szeklers. Our research points to the fact that the symbolic imaginary and the multiethnic cultural act are embedded in elements of local history and ethical culture and that they constitute a model to the moral experience, in the sense that it reconsiders the relations to the past, to the self and to the otherness. The axiological structures of this community have been identified through the involvement of the subjects in the legitimizing events, in the activated normative, symbolic, or pragmatic-intellectual memory forms.