Eros And Thanatos: Instinctual And Emotional Responses To The Plague Epidemic In Ion Ghica’S Letters

As we are going through the experience of a pandemic, both public opinion and research have returned to past examples to analyze, discuss and predict how the Covid-19 pandemic is going to progress and affect us in the present and the foreseeable future Therefore, the aim of this study is to use an account of Caragea’s plague (1813-1814), written by Ion Ghica (1817-1897) several decades later, before the aforementioned author was even born, to measure the impact on collective memory of this specific event This account is both interesting and colorful since it plays on two distinctive drives of human nature: Eros and Thanatos by emphasizing the number of weddings officiated after the epidemic ended, with a detailed description of the rituals associated with both events: disease and wedding/death and life The recollection of Caragea’s plague in Ion Ghica’s letters uses a variety of details and, anecdotes and recounts a series of medical and funeral practices in an attempt to achieve authenticity © 2020,Brukenthal Acta Mvsei All rights reserved