Photo credit: (c) EUGENIA PASCA/AGERPRES STREAM

‘It is said that exchanging things is as old as the history of the humankind, just that its manifestation has been different from one society to another. The more economically developed a society, the better put together exchange relations are. An important part in the development of yesteryear as well as today’s exchanges has been played by fairs,’ Ph.D. Aurel Chiriac, an art critic and director of the Cris Land Museum Compound (MTC) Aurel Chiriac tells AGERPRES.

What set neatly apart fairs from the daily marketplaces in urban areas is that the former are held less often, just in some periods of time, with yearly or monthly frequency, subsequently known as weekly or annual fairs. Their past frequency, as gatherings out of the ordinary, was most often than not determined by cultural or spiritual events with impact on an area or community, on holidays, religious feasts, or by economic priorities of community interests conditioned by certain stages in agricultural works, animal farming. That explains why besides the seasonal fairs (spring, summer, autumn and winter fairs) or important religious feasts (St. Peter, St. Elijah, St. Dmitry, St. Nicholas) there were fairs at reaping or harvesting times or when sheep were shorn (to facilitate trade in specific products or get the farm hands needed for seasonal agricultural works).

‘We can mention to the point the example of the Beius fair, the Sangeorz fair of ?little servants,’ the ?reaping fair’ at Sampetru, where servants were hired for harvesting spring crops and setting up herds and reaping wheat. Such events, particularly those in mountain areas with a sparse population, were an occasion for people to get to know each other, to socialise and party, especially for young people, where personal relations would bud that would led to marriages,’ said Chiriac.

Although the main aim of the fairs in the Crisana area, for instance the fair at Lespezi — which last edition was held in 1830, the fairs at Calineasa, Halmagiu and Gaina Mountain was commercial exchanges among the people of the nearby areas, mostly related to their sheepherding or crafts making occupations, they were also known for their matrimonial valences as well. The maiden fair on Gaina Mountain and the wife-kissing fair at Halmagiu are famous fairs. Because of such traits — the wife-kissing fair at Halmagiu related to the shepherds kissing their wives goodbye for the time they would go up in the mountains with the sheep, while the fair on Gaina Mountain, with a great local impact, was seen also as a good opportunity for the marriageable girls’ dowries to be exhibited — they have gone down in the locals’ memory for their initial significance.

Fair holding in these areas was mentioned very early. As far back as the 12th century, the Saniob Monastery was allowed to hold trade fairs in the village near the church, a right that was later on awarded to more settlements: Oradea, Cheresig, Cefa, Ianosda, Targusor (Bihor County), Carei (Satu Mare County), Simand (Arad County).

Demographic increase, the development of the means of production and increasingly more important occupational specialisation generated in their turn an intensification in trade and implicitly an increase in the number of trade fairs.

Starting with the 18th century, the operation of such fairs was also mentioned at Marghita, Sacuieni, Diosig, Gyula, Debretin, Tileagd, Alesd, Cefa, Salonta, Beius, Beliu, Vascau, Dezna, Ineu, Zarand, Chisineu-Cris and Buteni.

Today, besides those fairs, others emerged for other reasons. One of them is the Trade Fair of Romanian Masters, a three-day event in Oradea, in the closest weekend to the feast of St. Elijah (July 20). The reason for its establishment was the promotion of genuine high-quality craftspeople work and reviving crafts by providing support for the craftspeople to sell their products.

The Trade Fair of Romanian Masters was first held in 1994 at the initiative of some lovers of folk products — MTC Director Aurel Chiriac and ethnographer Craciun Parasca, a councillor with the Bihor County Culture Directorate — with logistic and human support from the Ethnography Department of MTC.

‘Irrespective of their development and organisation, fairs are still the most natural ways for supply and demand to meet, where negotiations and the conclusion of trade still follow traditional ways, such as shaking hands, being an oasis with many particular features amidst a world that is increasingly more globalised. And the traditional arts we want to support in their most genuine forms, deserve all our efforts,’ said Chiriac.

He mentioned that nearly 10 years ago a draft law was drawn up for the statutes of folk masters designed in Oradea by him and ethnographer Parasca that got stuck with the Senate.

The masters themselves have acknowledged that the Oradea fair is the most profitable for them because, since it is held once a year, the people of Oradea appreciating genuine products anxiously wait for it. For that reason, competition to get in the fair is high. More than 10,000 Oradea people visit the stalls of the exhibiting craftspeople.

The first edition of the Trade Fair of Romanian Masters attracted 53 exhibitors that displayed products from the most important areas of folk creation: wood and leather processing, wicker works, wooden and glass icons, naive art, musical instruments, masks, pottery, painted eggs, folk costumes and countryside textiles.

Because of the seriousness of the principles underpinning the organisation of the fair, the number of exhibiting craftspeople has increased continually, from 70 in 1995, to 120 in 2014. In the next two decades, the number of exhibitors will increase along with the number of folk creation areas, organisers say.

Their care has always been bringing in novelties to the fair that relate to very old crafts, such as a shoemaker at the 2014 edition who makes shoes just like in the times of the ancestors, and a glassware master at the 2012 edition who stands for what once was a traditional occupation in Bihor area that was lost in the meantime.

The range of creation areas has expanded from one year to the other. While in 1994 there were 10 areas of crafts, in 2013 they increased to 17. Besides the ones mentioned above, there were some new ones, such as bone and metal processing, countryside ornaments, medicinal herbs, glass processing and gingerbread making.

Representativeness of the national area covered by the participants in the fair has increased from one edition to the other. While the 53 craft masters in the first edition came from 16 of Romania’s 41 counties, Bihor County included, the 120 participants in the 2014 edition came from 35 counties, 26 of them from Bihor County.

‘All the important ethnographic areas of Romania have at least one representative taking part in the event in Oradea,’ Chiriac underscores.

Out of the desire to give an international aspect to the fair of folk masters, the Cris Land Museum has since 2003 invited folk masters from Hungary (which number increased from four in 2013 to seven in 2014), one from Moldova in 1995, one from Serbia in 2014 and even one from Cameroon in 2013 and 2014.

Photo credit: (c) PAUL BUCIUTA/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

The objects crafted by the folk masters get to the homes of Bihor people, as well as to the ethnographic heritage of the museum, which has put together a collection of nearly 10,000 items of contemporary folk arts for the future generations to see. AGERPRES