Austria

A few days or so ago, the Romanian press offered us, its obedient and flabbergasted beneficiaries, another opportunity to please and sharpen our minds. A new Gallup poll. And what is Gallup? Gallup is some sort of a modern, computerized Pythia. Claiming scientific positivism

I couldn't say I was properly introduced to Magdalene, the wording would be equally pretentious and inexact; as a matter of fact, she actually rushed into my studio… She was tired, exhausted, shabby, as if she had come out of the hundred year war. I had worked all

UNDER THE QUESTION MARK: MAN If you were asked to portray yourself as you did in your books, diaries, or in Present Past, Past Present, how would you introduce yourself? Eugène IONESCO: It is very complicated. I don't know. I don't know who I am. I don't

As a princely seat Bucharest was once, for the Romanian authorities, a citadel watched over by God just like Byzantium was for the Eastern Christian world. Then, naturally, it was also the place where scholars needed by the Prince's Chancellery made their studies. They

'Where do we stand with the Bulgarians?' I ask my friend, X…'Neither here, nor there. ''What do you mean?…''What, don't you see?''I don't actually… for, as you said: neither here, nor there means we don't

*  Sunday, March 31, 1940Rotten weather. I stay indoors and work, bringing my Diary to date. The French and the British hold frequent, definitely long conferences – now in Paris, now in London – attended by militaries and politicians. This incessant activity evinces

Titu Maiorescu's diary is an unprecedented publishing event and, in its own way, unique in Romanian literature, by both the nature and value of the notes and by the length in time it covers – 62 years – and by the age of the author who had barely turned 15 when

I made my debut in 1974. I had graduated from high school the year before and in the summer of '73 Adina Cezar, Nataşa Trăistaru, Anca Mândrescu, Cristian Crăciun and I decided to establish a contemporary dance troupe. As far as I am concerned, the decision to put

Contemporary dance choreographers work on gestures. They do not necessarily have to be beautiful or interesting, but simply natural. Every single emotion expressed. The dancer always performs something, interprets something, lives that moment either through gesture, movement

The Balkans are Europe's ass.  The Romanian language has complete virtues, that is, it can be the vehicle of anything spiritual created by man. It is very hard to use. With it, one may become an eagle or a lectern singer. The Romanian language has all the axiological

Some time in the autumn of 1994, Sorin Alexandrescu asked in an interview in 22 magazine why, in the canonical battle between the various radical-democrat and nationalist structures of the opposition (and of the government), more attention is not paid to the real traditions

*excerpts THE SOPHISTICATED PEASANTS The Romanians are a social phenomenon. As a nation among nations, they are westerners evolved in the East. They are Latins surrounded by Slavs. They are Romans two thousand years away from Rome. They are contemporaries re-produced on