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| photo by Iulian Oancia as on Google Streetview |
In Sibiu, a city of some 137,000 inhabitants (2011) in the Transylvania region in the center of Romania, there is a house that as of 2020 has been transformed into a museum of dolls .
Life and works
The collection came into existence around 2000, when the couple Maria and Mircea Drăgan, living in the town of Agnita in Transylvania and working as a mathematics teacher and a Romanian teacher respectively, decided to collect folk costumes from the surrounding countryside.
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| photo by Наталия Штупун as on Google Streetview |
That countryside around Agnita is known as the Hârtibaci Valley, also referred to as Green Valley, an area with lots of wild nature and historical buildings such as churches and castles.
Folk costumes also contribute to the unique character of the area and the couple Drăgan decided to collect them. Maria Drăgan in particular visited all the 46 villages in the valley and collected examples of folk costumes, often as worn by dolls, and all kinds of decorative and craft objects.
Mircea Drăgan, who was particularly interested in the history and customs of the inhabitants of the villages in the valley, conducted research on this subject, which was published in three volumes.
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photo by Ion "John" Ionica as on Google Streetview |
Maria not only collected all kinds of dolls dressed in traditional costumes, she also bought dolls at the market or got them from neighbors and friends.
For these dolls she made suitable costumes herself.
Eventually her collection would include about three hundred dolls. In the couple's home in Agnita, this collection of dolls was brought together in an exhibition.
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| this image and the next two are screenshots from the video mentioned in the documentation |
However, in order to be closer to their children and grandchildren, Maria and Mircea Drăgan left Agnita in 2020 and moved to Sibiu.
There they settled in a house along Calea Gușteriței, near the Cibin River., which they once more transformed into a museum where all the dolls they had collected got a place.
Some of those dolls looked out of the window at passers-by, but most were exhibited as can be seen in the images around.
The approximately 300 dolls on display are dressed exactly like the inhabitants of the Hârtibaci Valley,
The museum has also all kinds of attributes such as old furniture, carpets and cutlery that give visitors who are familiar with the traditions of the Valley, the feeling of being in a Hărtibacă household.
To give an idea of that feeling, here is a commentary Maria Drăgan gave on the first doll in the collection for whom she made a traditional costume, as was customary in her native village in the Valley: "We call her 'woman with a veil', a covering worn by married women".
The lady doll wears a jacket with a puff above the elbow and ruffled sleeves, a hat, a chevtar and a skirt with tassels. On her shoulder she wears a pair of sandals with a mătăuz in them. This is a bunch of basil that the bride threw at her in-laws' house on her wedding day. Whoever caught it was rewarded with a big drink.
So there you have it. It is not for nothing that the collection of dolls on display is formally called an ethnographic museum.
Documentation
* Article (March 2024) in newspaper Strada Cetatii
* Article (undated) on the website Zig Zag prin România
* Article (October 2018) on the website of newspaper Observer, with a short video
Maria and Mircea Dragan
Museum Doll House
Calea Gușteriței 54B
Sibiu, region Transylvania, Romania
open for visitors
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