"Emil Sigerius" Museum

The "Emil Sigerius" Museum of Saxon Ethnography and Folk Art in Sibiu was established in an attempt to fill a gap, presenting the role of the Transylvanian Saxons ethnic group in Transylvanian culture.

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The museum's collections are based on the Karpatenmuseum (the Carpathians Transylvanian Museum, or MSVK) collections opened in 1895 by the Siebenbügishen Karpathenverein Association. The first exposition was inside the Museum of Natural History building and was organized around the collection of Emil Sigerus, the most important collector of Transylvanian Saxon Folk Art at the end of the 19th century. In 1920 the museum's collections were included in the Brukenthal Museum and they were displayed in a new space inside the Brukenthal Palace; from 1950, they were included in the Folk Art Section.

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After the establishment of the new Museum of Traditional Folk Civilization in 1990, the Saxon collections were given over to the new establishment along with all other ethnology-related collections. In 1997, the Emil Sigerus Museum was opened in a building adjacent to the Franz Binder Museum in the Small Square. After the end of the restoration project restoring the House of the Arts in the Small Square, the museum will have a more appropriate space to exhibit its collections of over 2,700 ceramic pieces, including the permanent exposition of decorative tiles, over 4,000 objects in the classifications of costumes, textiles and embroideries and over 400 wooden, metal, or bone objects out of which over 150 are painted furniture items. Its heritage includes over 7,000 items from Transylvania from the 14th - 20th centuries. The most relevant belonged to renowned collectors such as Emil Sigerus, Julius Bielz, Wilhelm and Gisela Richter, Carl Engber and Erwin Ulbrich, completed by the acquisitions made by the museum specialists.

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The museum heritage comprises three collections - costumes-textiles, pottery, wood-bone-iron, each of them including extremely valuable pieces, representative for the culture and civilization of the Transylvanian Saxons and especially for their contribution to the growth and enrichment of Romanian and world culture. The permanent exhibition "Transylvanian Store Tiles (15th - 19th centuries), located in the pavement of the building in 12 Huet Place, is a unique original attempt of presenting one of the representative crafts of the Saxon community - the manufacturing of store tiles (the store tiles collection is considered to be the most complex valuable collection of this kind in the country and one of the richest in Europe; it was first presented within the permanent exhibition opened in 1998). The archaeological excavations conducted in 1996 revealed that in the place of the current building there was a wooden house, dated on the basis of a coin from the reign of King Bela IV (1235-1270). The building was raised on a trapezoidal surface, with a pavement, two storeys and an attic. Both fronts, the one facing Small Place and the other one towards Huet Place, with identical decoration, were restored by the end of 1997. The vaulted cellar, 3-3.5 m high, was inaugurated as exhibition hall in 1997, and since the autumn of 1998 it has housed the permanent exhibition of the "Emil Sigerus" Museum of Saxon Ethnography.

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The House of Arts (attested as the Butchers Hall since 1370) is considered the oldest guild house in Sibiu. In the 15th century, the building had only the ground floor, divided in 11 butcher shops with 8 open arches in front. The first floor was added later as a warehouse or meeting hall for butchers' guild. The building was used for a time by the sheepskin makers guild; in 1765 the first floor was used as show room. In 1789 was added the town coat-of-arms on the facade; in the 19th century the arches were closed and the ground floor was divided in small shops. Between 1967-1972 the building was restored and since 2002 it became property of the "Astra" National Museum Complex and was restored again. In 2007 the "Emil Sigerius" Museum moved here.

Sârba, a traditional folk dance

Sârba (meaning Serbian [dance] in Romanian) is a lively Romanian folk dance. Musically the term Sârba is usually applied to a lively 2/3 or 2/4 melody with triplet grouping, giving a 6/8 feel. It can be danced in a circle, line, or couple formations and was historically popular not only among Romanians, but also Ukrainians, Hungarians, East European Jews, and the Poles of the Tatra Mountains, or in dances such as the Serbian Čačak and the Bulgarian fast Pravo Horo. It is fast-paced and triplets are usually emphasized in the melody. The Sârba is still popular in Romanian traditional music and in Klezmer music.


In dance, the Sârba mostly refers to a lively 3-measure structured social dance, this is generally referred to as 'common Sârba'. The similar slower Brâul bătrân with Sârba belongs to a very ancient and widespread dance form throughout the Balkans.

Sârba is found in the same areas as Hora with the highest variety of variants being found along the sub-Carpathians. Unlike Hora, an open circle formation is the norm, apart from south Oltenia where it is generally danced in a closed circle.


The common Sârba alternates between traveling or resting phrases and phrases for improvisation or more complex steps. The dancers at each end are the leaders, with other dancers joining into the middle of line during the dance. In some areas there are Sârbe with a number of figures where the change of figure is indicated by commands from the leader. The other main type of Sârbe have a fixed choreography and are possibly newer. Ciuleandra is a specific type of Sârba from north Oltenia and Muntenia. It is danced in small circles, which change places with other small circles in the dance area.


Fixed form dances to Sârba music are also generally known as Sârba.

Dances with commands (the leader uses commands to determine the sequence) to Sârba type music, often with a 3-measure motif, have many names other than Sârba but are classified as Sârbe.

From Eliznik.

The Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art Câmpulung-Muscel

The Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art in Câmpulung-Muscel is hosted by one of the oldest civil houses in town, built in 1735, monument of Romanian old architecture. The appearance is typical for a Muscel area house, with two floors, a wooden pavilion which ends in corrugated masonry arches, extended with a room in console, with columns and balusters of wood, simple plaster profiles to windows, gaps under the arches of the pavilion, and covered with wood tiles.


The building was raised in 1735 by the chancellor Ştefănescu, as the last owner was the lawyer Gheorghe Ştefănescu, hence the name of Gică Ştefănescu Villa. In 1928, it was restored by the Câmpulung architect Dumitru Ionescu Berechet, who got his doctorate in architecture with this paper, which won the Official Salon award. In 1948 the building was donated to the Romanian Academy with a view to becoming a museum, and in 1952 the Câmpulung County Museum was reorganized here. In 1977 it became the Department of Ethnography and Folk Art of the Câmpulung County Museum. The building is very old, very well maintained and used also for organizing special events, temporary exhibitions, contacts with other institutions in the country.


The museum houses exhibitions of folk art and ethnographic objects from Muscel area. The building houses valuable collections of pottery, folk costumes, and fabrics. On the ground floor we can find a homestead kitchen looking like a canvas by Nicolae Grigorescu and Ştefan Luchian; the “small house” or drawing room endowed with spinning and weaving artifacts, and next to it the “large house” or guest house. On the upper floor the exhibits include pottery artifacts reminding of the Câmpulung potter’s art of yore, a gorgeous pyrographed furniture, and an enchanting Muscel costume parade.