Catalina Tesar

CATALINA TESAR, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Hungary, was approved a Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship in September 2023 to aid research and writing on “Time of Marriage. Gender, Wealth and Reproduction among Cortorari Transylvanian Roma.” Renamed “Women Married off to Chalices: Time and Kinship among Romanian Transylvanian Roma,” this book offers an intimate ethnography of the Cortorari Roma of southern Transylvania — a community that has long resisted assimilation despite centuries of state violence and integrationist policies. Known for their vibrant dress, distinct language, and refusal of wage labor, the Cortorari are especially notable for their endogamous marriage practices, arranged at early ages and anchored in traditions of kinship and inheritance. At the heart of these arrangements are chalices — heirloom objects passed down through male lines, seen not just as symbols of ancestral wealth but as tools for securing the future. Through the lens of marriage as a process rather than an event, this book explores how traditions endure and transform under shifting historical, economic, and political pressures. Drawing from over two decades of fieldwork, the narrative traces how Cortorari families navigate tensions between the permanence of kinship and the fluidity of individual lives. It reveals how their practices of reproduction, alliance, and material valuation challenge long-held assumptions about Romani timelessness or marginality. Instead, the Cortorari emerge as agents of their own historicity — actively shaping continuity and change in the face of modernity.