La fienagione nelle Dolomiti venete

Collana di Studi e Ricerche sulle Culture Popolari Venete
Angelo Colla editore, Vicenza, 2012

After the publication last year of Il Veneto dei contadini 1921-1932 by Paul Scheuermeier, the same series now offers La fienagione nelle Dolomiti venete (“Haymaking in the Veneto Dolomites”) by Giuseppe Grava and Giovanni Tomasi. Here the two authors extend the geographical reach of their long-term cultural research project – it previously yielded La fienagione nelle Prealpi venete (1999) – from the Alpine foothills to the northern part of the province of Belluno as far as the Cadore and the German-speaking enclave of Sappada. This latest publication again focuses on the theme of haymaking and its language, an extremely valuable subject given the difficulty in finding the rare dialectological material forming the basis of the enquiry, the heritage of a diminishing number of informants. This all attests to the vitality in 2012 of the series entitled “Studies and Research in Veneto Popular Cultures” which, under the patronage of the Veneto Region, makes a systematic effort to conserve the memory of long-standing traditions. The book is illustrated with photographs and tables that make a key contribution to providing a complete view of the techniques and terminology of haymaking. Here the inextricable relationship between material culture and language is highlighted: on one hand is work and, on the other, the environment, a geo-anthropic landscape in which nature and human presence interact.