Hidden

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

Four Life Stories

At the Outskirts of Giurgiu*At the outskirts of Giurgiu there was a Turkish village, and that village was called Selima. When the Turks left the city, a hundred and a half years ago, we, the gypsies who tinned the pails, continued to live in that village. We remained in

Hans's Wife

Hans (some people called him Hanz, or Franz, others Krantz like the cake, and others didn't even take the trouble to call him that much) had a wife who towered over him by a full head, and had a truly horse-like face. Her legs were long and slender, and seemed to lack

The Life And Convictions Of Zacharias Lichter

excerpt Motto: Prophetic utterance comes into being via negation: it is the knowledge induced by ashes. In the aftermath of speaking the word entrusted to them, prophets taste the ashes of the world upon their tongues; their wisdom is the aftertaste of ashes.   A portraitMany

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

History According To Spiro Zervas

Lend us some cash, do, till pay-day, now how's one supposed to react to such an entreaty, and at such short notice, too?, one may have or not have the money, but when one has an equally hard time making ends meet, when the gap between the lustre of respectability and

The Forgotten Mosilor (May Fair) Street

Mosilor Street, the modern thoroughfare of a Bucharest that struggles so hard to appear occidentalized and yet doesn't quite manage to: something Balkan, Levantine lingers in the atmosphere of the streets, in spite of the concrete ten-floor blocks, of the road with

File: Mihail Sebastian

In March 1935 (on Thursday, March 21st, more precisely), Sebastian was invited to hold a conference at the French Institute in Bucharest; the relationship between the writer and the president of the Institute, Alphonse Dupront, was one of mutual regard, as we find out from

The Transfiguration Of Romania, 1936

excerpts Chapter II: The Romanian Adamism  Oh God! What have we been doing for a thousand years?! All our life, ever since a century ago, is nothing but the process through which we realized we actually did nothing… the comparison with what was accomplished in other countries

History Of Romanian Modern Civilization, 1924-1925

excerpts XVII 1. The impact of Western social ideology preceded the impact of capitalism, in other words, the social revolution preceded the economic revolution2. The revolution led by Tudor Vladimirescu and the existence of the national party cannot be viewed as the starting

New Critical Studies, 1920

The programmatic article of THE NEW TREND, 1906excerpts …To start a war against foreign culture because we, in our barbarity, have taken the bad parts from it, is – an exaggerated but suggestive comparison – to do like mulattos in Liberia, were they, disgusted by

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