Oina game was included in the National Inventory of Living Elements of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the registration documentation being approved by the National Commission for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture. A living tradition of the national cultural heritage, oina game is part of the archaic family of stick and ball games, practiced in different cultures.
The old tradition of bat and ball games
Oina game is a living tradition of the national cultural heritage, being part of the archaic family of bat and ball games, practiced in different cultures. The bat and ball games, at the origin of oina, were present in the life of the communities in all the historical regions of Romania, with similar characteristics, but with different names. Among them, the specialists mention, among others: hoina, bogoi (Bucovina), fuga (southern Transylvania), ţuru, de-a lunga (central Transylvania), apuca, matca-mare (Maramureş), hâlca, lopta-pila, hapuc, hopaci (northern Transylvania), de-a patru să stăm, lopta-lungă, baci, baş (Banat)
Among the sports related to oina, the best known are North American baseball or English cricket. However, there are other versions of such games, less known, attested in Germany, in the Slavic countries, in the Nordic countries or in other lands. In 1948, the anthropologist Erwin Mehl emphasized one of the most visible cultural characteristics of these games: they are limited to the borders of each individual people, being impossible to transplant beyond them. The most often cited example is the demonstration baseball game held during the Olympic Games in Berlin (1936). On August 12, 1936, at the beginning of the game, the Olympic Stadium in Berlin was full, the organizers announcing the presence of no less than 90,000 spectators. At first, they were enthusiastic and eager to discover the Americans’ favourite sport, especially since the two teams from the United States had politely given them the Nazi salute. After the start of the game, however, the German spectators found that the game of baseball was incomprehensible to them, so they simply started to go away , leaving the stadium almost empty until the end of the game, disappointed by a game that a sports journalist later described as “intolerably boring”.
This seems to be a common feature of all bat and ball games, which can be a thought-provoking theme and an interpretive challenge for cultural historians. In some cases, as happens with oina, the game seems to be, in the absence of adequate education, difficult to understand even for many Romanians, who do not perceive easily its rules and do not show much interest in it.
Why is oina important?
Bat and ball games are important not only from a cultural point of view, due to their remarkable antiquity and their functions within communities, but also from a sporting point of view. Specialists believe that practicing the game of oina ensures a complex, balanced and sustainable physical development, having an important role in educating the young generations and in stimulating the acquisition of character traits necessary in life. Oina game can also prepare young people for the successful practice of other performance sports. The bat and ball games were not alien, in the past, even to the training and practice of warrior skills, as evidenced, among other things, by the records of the old chronicles from the northern European area. Mihail Sadoveanu, who was one of the great supporters of oina game, which he had practiced with passion in his youth, affirmed with conviction: „ Every worthy man must first and foremost learn to play oina game. Without this, he is a good-for-nothing and is not even a twopence worth!”
Declared a national sport by Law 96/2014 for the completion of the Physical Education and Sports Law, oina is, in Romania, the only performance sport that is not imported. Among the 77 sports federations in Romania registered with the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Romanian Federation of Oina is the only one that administers from a competitive point of view a sport that has been rooted in Romanian culture for many centuries. Even fighting or archery, which had equivalents in the Romanian area, are practiced today in forms and according to import regulations. Oina is the only sport that has its origin in a traditional autochthonous game and that was transformed into a sports game at the initiative of the Romanian authorities, by Romanian teachers and specialists.
The great reforming minister Spiru Haret (1851-1912) was the one who set up, in 1894, a commission to unify the technique and tactics of oina game, which included, among others, professors Radu Corbu, Gh. Moceanu, N. Velescu, N. Dumitrescu-Ţaranu, Dimitrie Ionescu. The first printed regulation of oina game was published by Dimitrie Ionescu, a teacher at the “Gheorghe Lazăr” High School in Bucharest, in the Albina magazine (1895). In 1898, the same Spiru Haret established „ annual contests of oina game for all pupils and students from primary, normal and secondary schools”, to take place „on the 10th of May celebration”, their regulation being considered of national importance and published in the very Official Gazette of Romania.
The regulations of this period brought this game into the world of modern regulated sports, establishing the configuration of the fields and a set of rules valid for all athletes. It is important to show that these regulations have not changed the essence of oina game. The clearest evidence in this sense is found in the description of the “hoina”, made by the Junimea member Alexandru Lambrior in the magazine “Convorbiri literare”, in 1876, many decades before the appearance of the regulations made by Spiru Haret’s commission, from which we select a few passages: „Hoina (oina) is played by several boys. First, two are chosen who play better and are called baci, then the others are distributed to the group of one or another of the bacis, according to their liking. Two marks are placed as far from each other as three bats./…Each hits the ball caught by the bat of the opposing team, only once, and after hitting, stands ready to run until the sign of the pasture and to speed up as soon as he saw the ball hit further. /…/Sometimes the whole crowd waits for the three beats of the bell; they go to the first, to the second they return and to the third, which is the strongest, the baci runs away and returns. The basis of this game lies not only in the long-distance kick, but also in the quickness of the run, and in the skill with which one guards against the ball’s bat.” This description already gives us the image of a complex and engaging game, whose general appearance does not present significant differences from its regulated form.
Oina has a comeback in the countryside
Created in the countryside, oina rediscovers its ties with the rural area thanks to the consistent efforts made in this regard by the Romanian Oina Federation. Unlike the era of Spiru Haret, when oina teams participating in the official championships came exclusively from the urban environment, nowadays most of oina clubs affiliated to the FRO operate in rural areas. There is still a competition specially dedicated to these clubs, oina Village Cup, in which between 6 and 15 teams participate annually, depending on the existing financial availability. Far from the specially arranged sports bases, many players of oina train and play on modest grounds, demonstrating their attachment to this traditional game.
It is very interesting that there are still localities where oina game is practiced during the Easter holidays, as was the case with the ball and bat games practiced in other areas of the European continent. In Coruia, Săcălăşeni commune (Maramureş county), where the game of oina is appreciated by the whole community, an unregulated version of it, called “de-a mingea“, is practiced in the yard of the old wooden church by players of all ages. In Mediaş Municipality (Sibiu county), on Stejarului street in the Moşnei district, a local variant of oina, called ţuru, is practiced on the first day of Easter, with participants of all ages. The game is played for several hours, from morning until lunch time. The players are divided into two teams on the spot, the team that spends the most time playing is considered the winner. In addition to the participants, this game is attended annually by many residents of Mediaş, who consider this game to be defining for the cultural heritage of their city.
Oina game was included in the National Inventory of Living Elements of Intangible Cultural Heritage on October 23, 2020, the registration file being approved by the National Commission for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture in the meeting of October 6, 2020. The research for the documentation and the inventory of oina game tradition was carried out by the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania and the Romanian Oina Federation, represented by Nicolae Dobre, the president of the Romanian Oina Federation; Dr. Cristian Văduva, FRO vice-president; Marius Bolba, oina section coordinator at CS Politehnica Cluj; Mihaela Hango, CS Izvorul Chiuieşti. The revision and completion of the documentation was carried out, within the National Commission for Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage, by the president of the commission, Dr. Emil Ţircomnicu, from the “Constantin Brăiloiu” Institute of Ethnography and Folklore in Bucharest; Prof. Dr. Ioana Fruntelată, University of Bucharest; Dr. Ioana Baskerville, Institute of Romanian Philology “A. Philippide” of Iasi.
Tudor Sălăgean, historian
