Romania

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

excerpt It is said about Maiorescu that he did not really think Romanian scientific and philosophic creation possible, reckoning that the nervous cell is not strong enough. We do not know whether this statement is true or merely fabrication. The fact remains that it is

Chapter XII. The Current [1907] Psychological Traits of the Romanian PeopleAll foreigners that visited the Romanian countries were unpleasantly struck by the negative traits of our character. They don't care, says Mr. X. Marmier, for the name of their master. What they

historian In truth, Romanian society has a strong left-wing bent. A complete turnaround compared with the situation extant before communism. At that time, Romania inclined to the right, because it was a country of landowners, big and small (in particular peasants). Communism

Discussing the character of a nation is as complicated as describing a species of insects from prehistoric times. How can one enumerate its features? How can one analyze its morphology? How can one categorize its behavior? Any large-scale analysis will in fact reduce the

I will begin by quoting myself. Talking about the polemics between two people whose intelligence and moral stature I admire (the polemics took place, in its major parts, in the very pages of the 22 magazine), I used to say with a certain regret and doubtfulness: On whose

excerpts There are quite a few psychological complexes which seem to shape nowadays the popular, maybe even intellectual mentalities and to badly distort people's behavior, as well as their political judgments. It won't hurt pointing our finger at them, speaking

In D. Draghicescu's terms, this transactional spirit (Cough up more, sir! – Knock some off, mister!, as a folk saying goes) is the legacy of the Orient, a stamp of the Levant on our past, present and, presumably, future. In this key, the transaction points to a polymorphous

Strangely enough, in all the periods of political, economic and/or military infeudation either to Turkey or to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to Germany or to Russia, or to the Soviet Union, the Romanian Principalities and Romania always nurtured the illusion of autonomy from

Chapter XI. The Reforms of Romanian Institutions and their Psychological Consequences If, by using a certain amount of imagination, logic and common-sense, we reconstruct mentally what Romanians' life in the Carpathian or Balkan Mountains might have been, we easily

 I must admit I didn't quite understand in the beginning why, shortly after 1989, the Western mass-media has so hastily labeled us as suffering from a deep identity crisis. I was downright indignant: after having sadistically experimented Communism on us for half

excerpt It's lunch time. Instinctively, I make for Calea Victoriei, where this hour is set for the fashionable to meet between the Royal Palace and [Elisabeta] Boulevard, as on rue Vivienne during the Restoration. The beautiful shops that border the narrow sidewalks