Memory

The Almsmonger's Lover

excerpt They'd dozed off. The devilish furnace of the sun was blazing fiercely. They were positively stewing as through the shadow cast by their soles two Gypsy women walked by, bent under the burden of a galvanized bucket with a chunk of ice protruding from it. Ice-cold

The Ethnogenesis Of The Dobrujan Turks

The definition of the genesis, as well as the delimitation of the area where the Turkish people was formed, and from where they spread from Central Asia to the Mediterranean Sea, is still a controversial issue among specialists. Discussions between Turkology scholars usually

Doja's Horse, Spek's Tractor And The Missing Hook

Spek Jr. , from Satu Nou, had a tractor called Doja. Since nothing in the world is fortuitous, the name of that machine was not fortuitous either. Spek Sr. , a filthy Jew, as he was called by some people from Iosefin, was a fervent advocate of communism and had been hurdled

Sarichioi - A 19th Century Enigma

excerpts The village of Sarichioi is situated in southeastern Romania, in the region of Dobruja. In Turkish, Sarichioi means 'yellow' or 'sunny' village (sary – 'yellow, sunny' and köj – 'village'), but in spite of its Turkish

Love Thy Neighbor

excerpts . . . Chaplin. Einstein, Rubinstein, Chagall, Spinoza. I summon these exalted spirits above all because their proximity feels good; their genius, both innocent and supple, has a wholesome quality about it, and their absence from any intellectual banquet worthy

Jewish Identities In Interwar Bucovina

There were Jews in Bucovina even before its existence as a separate province. As early as the 18th century, some Jewish families in the German area looked for a better life in this northern part of Moldavia, which subsequently became Bucovina. Here they were given more protection

Khazar Jews. Romanian History And Ethnography

excerpts Motto: It is known that, when a people is about to disappear, first its high society disappears, and with it the literature. (Milorad Pavici, The Khazar Dictionary) Lazar Saineanu and his studies in folklore. An ethnographic controversyLazar Saineanu was a very

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 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

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

Triumphalus, Or The Sunset Of The Stallions

excerpt The Old Geezer had come again to the shore of the Black Sea to buy himself an eye. The other reason was to spend a honeymoon here. As a rule, he would go back with an extra honeymoon and the same number of eyes. Five years before, appalled as he was by the fact

Rich And Poor, 1945

excerpts I For a century, the psychology of the Romanian people has found itself in continual transformation. This has corresponded (since 1829, that is, since the treaty of Adrianopolis whereby the Romanian Principalities joined the Western capitalist complex) to a gradual,