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The inauguration of the art collection Beatrice and Hrandt Avakian, held on a torrid day in August 1974, brought together an extremely numerous public. The exceptional interest manifested was owed to the fact that two siblings living in modest conditions, from hand to mouth,

22 Spătarului Street, Bucharest (see also in Romanian with illustration)  The siblings Béatrice and Hrandt Avakian set up their collections independently, nevertheless evincing a shared predilection towards Eastern art, to be accounted for among others, perhaps, by the

In 1878, Theodore Duret quoted the names of several amateurs (rather few, actually) in order to prove a fact that might have seemed a paradox at the time, namely that people with a certain reputation appreciated artists like Claude Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Berthe

By definition, the collector is a person who gathers various objects for his pleasure or for study. Didn't we all have this tendency, during our childhood? Remember how we used to show off on our collections of napkins, stamps, beer caps or chewing gum wrappers, of

A number of objects of the same kind or category which, put together and arranged systematically, have an artistic, scientific, documentary value – this is the definition of the word collection, of Latin origin. Accordingly, the collector would be the person that initiates,

The parties prepared in advance rarely happen to turn out well; while, the ones started up just like this, unexpectedly, without thinking, almost always turn out nicely… Why is this, I wonder? – Why it is so, why it is not so – we mustn't waste our time philosophizing,

excerpt Baneasa used to be the favourite meeting place for those living in Bucharest. It was there that they came to listen to the cuckoo singing for the first time, pretending that in this monotonous song they discovered the secrets of their lives. Back then Bucharest

excerpts At the end of every winter, in a hall illuminated by electric lights and covered by wooden floors, near the Central Station, at Locomotiva, the Craftsmen's Ball was the event of the season. Craftsmen from all over Bucharest brought their wives to party and

It seems almost provocative to launch such an issue on the local pleasures, pastimes and delights, while nowadays a troublesome Romania appears as plunged into unending economic and social difficulties, striving to cope with various shortcomings and weaknesses. However,

The legend is part of the martyr-cycle and it contains fairy tale elements (the dragons), which is not unusual in hagiography, as shown in the last chapter. It was copied by the parson Grigore from Mahaciu before 1600 after an original that has been lost. It is still preserved

excerpts The cosmic tree, whose root, trunk and branches uphold – by dividing yet uniting – the three cosmic levels, is the same as the funeral tree, because, to the folk mentality, the cosmic tree is the only passageway to the other realm that the soul of the dead

Corneliu Bucur has been the manager of the ASTRA Museum of Traditional Folk Civilization since 1990. In 1965, he graduated the Babes Bolyai Faculty of History and Philosophy in Cluj. In 1981 he presented his doctoral thesis, with the following theme: Introduction in the