Obștea vrânceană actuală. Definiția unei structuri Vrâncean Obștea Nowadays: Defining a Structure Section Studies

Abstract

This article pursues to define Vrâncean obștea nowadays. In the context of successive changes of property law in Romania and the major difficulties in the process of reestablishing property rights over the forests, we need a clear definition of obștea vrânceană as it is today comparing with the archaic form studied by Professor Henri H. Stahl, the form defined today as being obștea in sociological dictionary. This study encompasses three segments defining obștea vrânceană from juridical, organizational and institutional point of view. The difficult part consists in separating organizational part from the institutional one. How does obștea react as an organization and what does the institution of obștea means today? What do we study: a new form of common property developed after the law 1/2000 and the emergence of new social relations; the remains of an archaic social form, that manifest themselves through a reestablished use right; or the transformation of an institution that responds to other purposes by using the same constitutive elements like in the past? I will illustrate in the following pages that the contemporary obștea preserves the old major elements, adapted to a new context, and those define an institution more than just a simple organization.