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The Effects Of Disappointment

At the beginning of the '20s, fascism represented the newest and the most catching political phenomenon. Nevertheless, it failed to be a roaring success everywhere and especially at the very beginning. In Romania, the obsession of being permanently synchronized with

Tradition And Modernity In The 1920s (III)

excerpts Chapter III. Reason and rationalism under accusation  2 The truth is that any objective examination of the ideological phenomenon that we are studying cannot avoid the conclusion that things were quite similar in France and Germany. By entering the territory

Orthodoxy And Romanianness, 1929

excerpts Orthodoxy is the rhythm in which the most authentic breath of complete life can be found, of life lived with the wish for the progress by which the evil that hurt it is made good, and by which it is elevated towards the perfection, which is its real normal status.

The Generation Of '27, Between The Holocaust And The Gulag

excerpt After the year when its first program was launched, namely Mircea Eliade's Spiritual Itinerary, the generation of '27 (or the young generation, the generation of the '30s, the generation that lived life for life's sake, the experiential and Orthodox

A Certain Incapacity

The ultimate test for everyone – therefore for nations too – is the capacity to contemplate while suffering. The Asians, the Chinese and the Indians in particular, are definitely superior to us from this point of view. These people give so much importance to contemplation

In Defense Of Orthodoxy, 1923

Today an English bishop is holding a conference in Bucharest, as he did in Constantinople, on unifying our Orthodox Church with the Church of England. This is preposterous. Furthermore, it is a crime against our national being. We saw it coming and were expecting it. For

Religion And Identity In Interwar Romania: Orthodoxism

In the two decades between the world wars the majority of Romanian intellectuals were engaged in a grand debate about what it meant to be Romanian and how national character determined social and political development. [1] The ideological commitments of the protagonists

The First Book, The Last Book

excerpts Dear Mother, I'd like to tell you something, and just because if I tried to talk to you about it, you wouldn't let me, I'm putting it in writing. You said to me, I quote: You go to school, do a good job there, finish well and we'll let you do

The Storm

The two students, Andrei Banica and Tudor Leru were in a hurry. That's why they had taken the shortcut. Leaving the highway that was taking a detour on the bank of the river Aries, they decided to climb up Vanatu, the mountain bordering on the river like a huge flat

The Childhood Certificate

I once experienced a terrible fright. I woke up one day to discover a different world from what I knew it to be, more clear-cut, more plainly divided into complementary colors and opposite moral categories. It all looked like in a naive painting: clear and graphic. The only

The Moustache

Ever since I had known him (and there are many, many years since then, almost four), Georgica is profoundly dissatisfied with the fact he doesn't have a moustache, like every man, and isn't allowed yet to manage by himself. Why, Georgica wonders, why do you have

Shows

Due to a perverse intellectual precocity, Barutzu confuses literature with lard. . . You'll get a D in Romanian! Daddikins shouted at him, offended in his pedagogy. Barutzu feels no emotion whatever. He aberrantly lacks the common sense of merit, the patriotism of class