Romania

Perdition, Old-Style

When on the 20th of September, 1459, the throne of Wallachia moved from Târgovişte to Bucharest, the new settlement, which was lying along Dâmboviţa River, was a picturesque settlement, with slow hills, lakes and boundless orchards and especially with venerable forests.

The Vandals' Academy

Bucharest, the city of all filth, all sorts of architectural absurdities, moronic and petty houses, disgusting hotels, stinky pubs… Bucharest full of flies and primitive latrines; Bucharest with no water and few sewers; Bucharest with horse-drawn trams; Bucharest with

A Century Of Our Past And Our European Identity Are Being Destroyed

Armenian Church; St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Cathedral; Stirbey house on Calea Victoriei excerpts from the debate organized by Ileana Foundation for Contemporary Fine Arts and Modern Architecture in Romania, hosted at UNA Gallery on May 12th 2008 Nowadays, the oldest

Little Paris

top row: Lipscani diggings, Unirea shoping center, house in Romanian Peasant Museum yard, National Museum of Contemporary Art bottom row: Collections Museum on Calea Victoriei, University Sq. , dilapidated building on Lipscani St. , old house on Mantuleasa St. It seems

What I Understand By A Capital

clockwise from top left: Coltei Church, Manuc's Inn, St. Anthony's Old Court Church, Metropolitan Church, Mihai Voda Church, Cretzulescu Church, St. Apostles' Church, St. George's Church. The administrative efforts that very enthusiastic and dedicated

Bucharest And Its Paradoxes

O Moft! Thou art the watchword and motto of our times. Vast syllable of unbounded content, in thee there is such comfortable room for countless meanings: joys and misfortunes, merit and infamy, guilt and misadventure, right, duty, sentiments, interests, convictions, politics,

Entrevista Con Mario Vargas Llosa

- ¡ Muy buenas tardes! ¿Como está Ud. , Sr. escribidor? (n. trad. – nombre arcáico que Mario Vargas Llosa usa en forma predilecta en vez del neologismo escritor. ) - Pues, muy bien. Mucho gusto, encantado de hablar con Ud. y con los amigos rumanos de allí. - Aquí,

Motivos Del Arte Popular Rumano. La Via Extraviada

. . . Camino extraviado, vereda perdida, vereda olvidada, vía serpenteante, vía errada, vía desviada, camino perdido, sendero extraviado, sendero extraviado con motivo de puntos, sendero extraviado con flores, sendero extraviado con soles, sendero extraviado con mallas,

Editor's Note

After 21 issues in English, the cultural exploit undertaken by PLURAL five years ago is attempting, experimentally, a new opening – this time to the Hispanic world, under the title The Confession as a Form of Dialogue –, while continuing its English series.  Direct

The New Man

An Individual without Individualism To a new society – a new man. Naturally, one would not fancy a communist world inhabited by middle-class people in disguise. That was the most delicate problem raised by transformist mythology. One could not rebuild the economy and

The Eroticized Universe

The Bucharest Surrealist Group1939-1947* […] Madness, black humor, dreams, eroticism, revolt: if one cannot speak of Unu (One) and Alge (Algae) as surrealist magazines in the strict sense, these themes indicate however the increasing attraction of a number of Romanian

For Writers Are All Jesters, And All The Jests Together: Literature

For writers are all jesters, and all the jests together: Literature  In the history of literature, Tristan Tzara is regarded as the founder of Dada, an international literary and artistic movement, born in Zurich in 1916, with ramifications and outposts across three continents.