Birds' Way (Drumul Pasarilor) #113

 

 

Birds’ Way is a magical realist story, an Eastern European fairy tale, a creative documentary that follows the daily routine of an Old Believer community struggling to survive and maintain their traditions in spite of the overwhelming intrusion of modernity. The story takes place in the picturesque, isolated scenery of the Danube Delta, Romania. The protagonist is a Russian Lipovan community chased away from Russia three hundred years ago for not accepting the religious reforms of 1666. They found refuge in the Delta where they kept their language and rituals ever since, at least until now! Today they face new problems, the absence of a religious leader, the migration of the youth and the intrusion of new colonizers. The testimonies of these Old Believers about the recent transformations, their dying religion and the struggle to preserve archaic traditions reveal the vulnerability of a traditional community with poetry and humour. Their last “reader” and storyteller, 75-year-old Artiom, tells us the destiny of Old Believers as laid out in the Book.