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The paper presents the book of Henri H. Stahl, The Technique of the Sociological Monograph (1934) and delineates the author’s main achievements within the fieldwork methodology from the point of view of Romanian ethnology and folklore studies. As an important member of the interwar sociological school of Bucharest led by D. Gusti, Stahl was thoroughly interested in developing a comprehensive research methodology ready to be applied by the new members of the large research teams of the monographic campaigns. His method includes the attention devoted to getting in touch with the life of the village and the peasants while building psychological trust and empathy between interviewer and interviewee; this complex protocol of accommodation proves to be one of the first and the most sympathetic strategy in the history of anthropological fieldwork. Another aspect of primary interest in Stahl’s methodology is the fact it is drafted simultaneously with the development of peasant studies and rural sociology in the U.S., and the challenges that western anthropology faces in having to adapt its methods to studying peasant societies. Though Stahl often opposes in his studies the sociological school and the Romanian folklore studies, his contribution to Romanian folklore research was undoubtedly acknowledged and appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the content of the cadre file of Henri H. Stahl preserved in the Archives of the University of Bucharest’s Rectorate. In the form in which it has been preserved after 1989, the personnel file of H.H. Stahl seems, from several points of view, atypical. If we compare it with the cadre files of the 1950s, it surprises by the apparent “goodwill” of the communist cadres towards H.H. Stahl. This ideological solicitude is manifested in the interpretation given to main cultural and political events in H.H. Stahl’s life. In other circumstances such political past could be labeled as unusable in a communist context. Equally curious and noteworthy is the issue of the ethnic origin attributed (and not necessarily real or assumed by the one described in the file), more precisely the issue of Stahl’s nationality ( Jewish) which was recorded in the file. Analyzing Stahl cadre file we can wonder if the integrity of this dossier has not been compromised by removing, extracting or modifying documents by the personel staff services or by someone else. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I highlight mostly ignored aspects of the work of H. H. Stahl: his stance on the issue of “national specificity,” on village culture, and on the modernization of Romanian villages through “culturalization”. Reviewing some of his popularization and scientific texts from the 1930, but also his late contributions from the 1980, show a remarkable continuity and consistency of Stahl’s vision on these subjects. And it is not the kind of vision someone would expect from a socialist or Marxist social scientist. For Stahl, the village culture was the true (and unique) Romanian culture, a peasant culture that he was very fond of. In some respects, and, in fact, not so surprisingly, Stahl, what regards “national specificity” and village culture, is much closer to (the reactionary, traditionalist, autochthonous) Mircea Vulcănescu, his monographist fellow and personal friend, than any other leftist thinker in interwar Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to address the written and narrated memories of Henri H. Stahl who left behind two memorial works: Memories and Thoughts from the Old School of “Sociological Monographs”, published in 1981, and the collection of interviews from 1985-1987, which appeared in 2000, under the title Monography as Utopia. Although they were conceived only a few years apart, the two forms of memoirs show some significant differences. In the following study, I will present the specifics of each of them, in order to later propose a brief comparative analysis of the two texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]