Iona

The Hungarians

None of the minorities living in Romania had a tenser relationship with the majority of inhabitants. Still, Romanians and Hungarians have been living together for centuries. The Hungarians in Transylvania praise their past, values and traditions within a context that permits

Ascensions

Climb… Climb… Keep climbing. Higher and higher. At the top, Love's waitingWith a bouquet of roses.  Climb. Go upward. Always higher. If you don't find a pathCarve it open. In LoveThere are no ready-made ways. You cleave them yourself.  Climb… Even if you

Balkania - Our Eternal Return

I think I would never have come to love Balkania so much, had I not met Marina Marinescu in Munich several years back. We had been acquainted since we met for the first time in Athens. Florin Marinescu, the specialist in Byzantine history to whom I was talking one day in

The Faces Of the City

Life Histories in Bucharest – the 20th Centuryexcerpt All the Greeks in the city sought to make me their son-in-law. Demostene Gramatopol, 1910-? My initial intention was to interview both Greeks belonging to the old Greek community in Bucharest, and some of those who

The Greeks

We do not hate the Greeks; quite to the contrary, we love them and we share the same heritage: a nationality to build; for we have the same interests, the same pains, the same hopes; and when we say 'we love them' we can bring proofs to support this statement:

The Beheaded Rooster

see movie trailer excerpt My grandfather was called Goldschmidt, H. H. I. G. Goldschmidt, and he came from Schirkanyen, near Fogarasch. He was a Saxon of Transylvania, coming from a family eight hundred years old! and, documents could prove it, a pure German for twenty five

The Bitter Aftertaste Of Finis Saxoniae

excerpt Let's not be beastly to the nemţi[1], indeed. We owe them solid buildings dating back to prosperous times, they founded many a fortified city and settlement of historic importance; in one of our common sayings, absolute fairness is equated to splitting costs

My Rosenau In The Carpathians

I have always wondered why so many of those who happen to be born within the Carpathian arch, in Transylvania, have a sense of coming from a unique, privileged area, why they keep an enduring and unquestioned commitment to it whatever may happen in their lives, whether they

The Saxons, The Romanians, The Fortified Town And Rural Tourism

excerpt Prejmer is a village a little further from Brasov, known, of old, for its peasant stronghold, the largest in Transylvania, begun in 1211 by the Teutonic knights. But also known, in the past, for the largest SAA (State Agricultural Association) in the area, which

The German In Romanian Mentality

The character, or the characteristics, of a human collectivity, to the extent to which there can be such globalizing characteristics, have constructed, it is known, from the very beginning of history, just as many reasons that influenced the ideas one people made of the

The Germans In Romania

There had been groups of German colonists in all the historical provinces, which came to make up Greater Romania at the end of 1918. But these Germans had not immigrated into Romania: they had come to Bessarabia when it belonged to Russia (and was returned to Soviet Russia

The Croats

Representing a southern Slavic origin population, the Croats in Romania are a homogeneous community with specific traditions and customs, being preponderantly Roman Catholic.  Short history Scholars from Croatia, especially linguists, are very interested in the language