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558 UN DEBAT : LES MENTAUTES COLLECTIYES 2

1. The Sourcos. Therc are t wo categories of sources which should be primarily taken inlo consideiation by student s of mentalities :

a. the conccpts which aro predominanl in Ihe langnage of an cpoch. Sucfc ,an uiuUy^is uijght help ujuoiitwe “JLlio inpętą) e^uipipęut ’’ut peoplę and at ihe xhrrie limę, dyinee thosc colicepW wliich hafl a special appeal to thiuking. Good examples of researches in tliis field are Klaus Boch-mann’s Der PolHisch-Soziale 1 Yortschatz des I?uin<inisvli< n von JS21 bis 1850 (Berlin, Akademie Yerlag, 1979) and Alexandrn !Niculescu’s reeenl article JLessico della rivolutione romena nel secoto A i A published in thi* Journal no. 4/1979;

b. the prodominant image8 in the visu;d arts of an epocli. Erwin Panovsky’ft iconology offers exeeUent theoretieal premisses to rcsearohes which go boyond techniques and .subjects and try to di.scover meanings aud yiews shared by grunps or large collectiritie-s, A st udy which opcned new roads to thin kind of analysi.s in Romania was Sorin Uleas Originea fi semnifieafia ideolog i cd a pidurii. eJtcrioore moldorenefti, iji “Studii $i eeieetśŁri de istorin artei'*, 1, 1903.

2. The Dynamics of mentalities might bc diseovered starting from the interplay betwcen two pairs of levels j

a. The Cnltural levels which in the periods preeediug the Ei.lighten-mcnt were fceparated niainly by the differcnt lnean.s of' < ommunication : the orał tradition was prcdonfmant in nuhl milieus, while in eifics and at eourt wiiting was cunenlly nscd. Lerels were deeper separatcd in the indnstrial period as a conseąnente of difference* in training and organi-Sation of cnltural life;

b. the temporal levcls which brought togethei* mental attitudes transmittcd from one generation to aiother by “the long duration’* and mental attitudes settlcd by responses given to new realities. The student might noticc that the new mental attitudes are the* result of a dramatieal proeess during which sometimes new coneept.s and images exert control ovcr pcople, sometimes the traditional ones ; never does a kind of medianieal suceession — tradition follow(‘d by innoration — give impetus to intclleetual ac(ivity or to cnltural life, in generał. Tradition and innovation always coexist swinging all thc* time.

Orał tradition has always facoured mental attitudes transmittcd by the long duration, whereas writing lias encouraged the formation of new attitudes; but it is verv important to kcep in inind the faet that cultural and temporal lcyels are in a permanent moye in ench socicty during a period or a longer interyal of time.

3. The Fundaniculal Mental Structures and Attitudes mav bo

reeonstituted by studying :

a. eollectire rcpreseiitations and attitudes, states of mind, opmions, cliches, myths (which might be coiisidered “frozeii eoncepts ’). The studio* regarding the attitude towards death might grtatly oontribute to the definition of the fundamenta! mental structures, but we seldom meet witli them. A good example is Jfans Georg Beck’s Dii Jigzantiner und ihr Jenseits. Zur E iitstelnt ngsgesch ichle einer MeiiUditat, Miincln n 1979. Snęli attitudes towards life* and death or priyatc and public activity make us bet ter understaml why pcople faroured, at a eertain moment,