"Starting from the fact that the Romanian intellectual – as any other – speaks a foreign language, and is delighted to give information to traveling strangers, some foreigners jumped to the conclusion that Romanians do not prefer their language, a ridiculous and wholly unfounded remark. Specificity is not a given thing that is being acquired in time, so that we may affirm that we are "on the way to self determination", it is a congenital framework. And since it is not acquired, it cannot be lost. No matter how much estrangement efforts will the architect make, throughout all the changes undergone by the Romanian city it will reveal itself – to the keen eye – as unvarying. Accordingly, it would be wrong to say we have no specificity, as we borrow our rationalism from the French and the Orthodox mystique from the Russians."
by George Călinescu
