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When at only 19, Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940) defended his university degree examinations one of his examining professors characterized him as a true phenomenon both in point of memory and power of ratiocination. Then Iorga worked hard in Paris and in Germany, obtaining a

Among the elements making up the soulful repository of the Romanian people there is none to include more and to bespeak truer than its very language. In connection with this Romanian idiom – which, with due additions, proved apt to voice any idea, no matter how lofty,

The Romanians – at least the townspeople – have a southern nature. Southern liveliness is an energetic reactive that generates buffoonery in truly emphatic forms. Stupidity and vanity, which are latent in a phlegmatic and quiet northern human mass of people, erupt brightly

Our century witnessed the birth and death of a most interesting state, a state that no conscientious historian is allowed to overlook. I mean the Republic of Ploieşti, a state that, in spite of its only fifteen hours of life, has undoubtedly written a most famous page in

The threshold between the millenniums is an opportunity for evaluation: tributes, jubilees, festivals. Archives are being browsed, masterpieces are reappraised, and writings are redefined in the current context, then recirculated in today's competition. Everything becomes

At the same time, the great Russian also remarked that woman is always what we want to make of her. Femininity triggers off creative energies. Through it, the Author dominates the epic matter, and this helps him complete his plan, plot, work. Femininity delays the end by

I have meant to decompose and recompose the forms and the colors in order to prove and disclose their essence. Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu After a short story debut dominated by lyricism (Deep Waters, The Woman in front of the Mirror) and while trying (and managing) to

The bibliography of my works I threw into the pyre included a 125-pages psychoanalytical study about Iulia Hasdeu. I had discovered her diaristic notes at the State Archives. They were then, and still are, a novelty, and perhaps a sensational thing; I'm talking about

excerpts Almost every night I talk to Adela on the porch. The ladies go to sleep earlier. Adela shows an attentive, almost submissive, sympathy to the maestro. She is, however, more personal in opinions than before. But what is going on inside her? When she talks it always

excerpts The Diary and Its Readers We should not overdo it with diaries and letters. We usually tend to deem them more revealing of the man than his public work. All that is secretive, familiar draws us as if it were a confession. It is the pleasure of breaking an interdiction,

* Excerpts from an interview with prose writer, political analyst and journalist Stelian TĂNASE (Observator cultural no. 121, 18-24 June 2002) Why did you choose to publish At Home We Speak in Whispers at this particular moment? Books come and go in a writer's imagination.

1. The Mirror of the SelfThere are people, quite a few, and not particularly the happy ones, who are themselves their main concern. They pay a great deal of attention to all the signals their body sends. For them, the physical well-being is a goal in itself, which should