Social Banditry and Femininity in the 19th Century Hajduk Novel

In the volume titled Bandits, Eric Hobsbawm associates women with banditry in three hypostases, determined by their “accepted sexual role:” the first situation concerns passive participation in “the wandering life of men,” the second is the hypostasis “of supporters and liaisons with the outside world,” while the last, and least common, role “is that of bandits themselves.” In Mina Haiduceasa. Fata Codrilor, the role of the hajduk-novel that the novelist George Baronzi assigns to his heroine, also entails a shift in the collective imagination since it implies ignoring the biological determinants. Baronzi's innovation lies in the reconfiguration of the image of the social bandit, since the heroic outlaw no longer appears as an exclusive juxtaposition of masculinity and protective aggression.

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