The Dialectics Of National Self-Criticism
Some time in the autumn of 1994, Sorin Alexandrescu asked in an interview in 22 magazine why, in the canonical battle between the various radical-democrat and nationalist structures of the opposition (and of the government), more attention is not paid to the real traditions
Traditional And Modern
Showing the electors' arrival in Frankfurt due to the crowning of Joseph II as King of Rome, Goethe mentions the fact that among the most obedient and distinguished personalities some had ridden to Frankfurt according to the old traditional custom, while others had
Writers In Troubled Waters
Those writers obsessed by the form, which they do not hesitate to convert into a norm, are too well familiar with the pain that accompanies the process of completing a page in a duly controlled, stylish, manner. Ultimately, one writes on waters, since all messages are, from
Mateiu I. Caragiale
The well-known elements of fanciful prose are being joined by new features and grouped in a personal synthesis by the writing of Mateiu I. Caragiale. If we wanted to make a connection between Mateiu Caragiale and his father, the great Ion Luca, we would need to refer to
Europe Has The Shape Of My Brain
*More than a century ago Europe was not yet known as a cultural construction, an intellectual day-dream, a heap of broken images, a copy in a world without originals. Artists tried to escape the big fortress ensconced in coal smog and torn by wars, social conflicts, and
Urmuz, The Solitary
excerptsLet us begin with on obvious fact – Urmuz is a myth, is he not? Useless like all myths, functioning due to inertia, the coronation of certain clichés. Who reads Urmuz these days? Urmuz was the object of critical studies, his work has been translated, and his name
Victor Eftimiu
Would you please not rank me among collectors, although I pretend I am a connaisseur, in the meaning of the French word, academician Victor Eftimiu told me on one occasion in 1965, seated on a bergère, clad in a night gown, rather worn down but adorned with fine embroidery,
Delight In Barbu Slătineanu's House
After six years' work in the Sanitary Technical School I was admitted to the History of Art Institute. I was a researcher and I wasn't yet allowed to research the monuments of our medieval art I was so attracted to. Going through the pages of the history magazines
Romanians - 1943
excerpt THE ROMANIANS' SPIRITUAL LIFE The Two Myths of Romanian SpiritualityIn any culture, there is always a central myth that discovers it and that is to be found in all its major works of art. Romanians' spiritual life is dominated by two myths that express,
The Architect
Emil Popescu was an architect. His specialty was the oil factories and we can say, without any exaggeration, that wherever in the country an oil factory had been built in the last five or six years, one could easily tell it was the work of architect Popescu's skilled
The Black Spider
After the last act, with the collar of the raincoat raised, hiding the flowers picked up from the stage by the flyman, he was the last to go out in the street. The doors were closing on the dark halls. The square was empty. The light bulbs threw a bluish and so sad a light
L'Abbandonata
excerpt I was half asleep in a somewhat uncertain state of mind (and of body)… A vague and – at first – terribly tortuous state of wakefulness was gently falling over me; then, the same confounded state came back floating over me, translucent, like some veils unbraided