Calea Victoriei

excerpt …sage citoyen du vaste univers. [1] La Fontaine With you I liked to live through, in the memory, my thirty years of voyages, with you, again, should you not feel bored, I shall live through, in the memory, my childhood and early youth. This will entail returning

Architecture represents a means of interrogating history. Rather ominous, it is to be feared, when the question applies to the Romanian capital. Why so? The way Bucharest has been subjected to transformations in the last century accounts for the living changes affecting

A French historian said once that the work you would best like to dedicate your time to is the one that seems to compel you to do so. This is what happens to me right now. Urged by a real passion for knowing the events and forerunners that once lived in this place, I have

The author of the brilliant Ouvert la nuit series seems to be in a state of conflict with some Bucharest dwellers. Out of incontestable affection for our Capital, he tried to picture it as a city portrait for the Western world, and he managed to make enemies out of the very

What is one supposed to understand by image and to what extent should one take it to heart? Physiologically, the image is the consciousness one is left with about an absent object. It is, therefore, the opposite of perception, i. e. representation of a present object. In

Bucharest became the capital of Wallachia in the middle of the sixteenth century in preference to the earlier sub‑Carpathian capitals of Câmpulung, Curtea de Argeş and Târgovişte. It became the capital of the united Romanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia

About fifteen years ago, during the Brătianu Cabinet, I was editing 'The National Revolt'. It was an essentially combative paper, in strong opposition to the government. Our strength however lay not so much in the leading articles or in the polemic pieces as in

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

excerpts IV In his office on the ground floor, Saferian, on a chair and surrounded by four men, all standing, was contemplating an oil portrait, set near them against the back of an ordinary straw chair. It is an Ingres, most certainly, said one of the four, a man with trimmed

Member of the Academy Barbu Slătineanu was one of those people that draw your attention at first sight. The first time I met him was by chance: I was a doctor and I went to see his brother-in-law, Playno, who lived in the same house on Obedenaru street. Ever since, I considered

One should add to the romantic universe of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Wagner the love story of Maria Cantacuzino and the composer George Enescu, as the mystery of its extraordinary tension has been revealed in the recently published Ombres et lumières, Souvenirs d'une

N. D. Cocea (1880-1949): The Psychological Analysis of InfidelityWhat got into you, saleslady? / How come you hold your head so high / Over a black patch? That's how an old suburban song goes. Pentr-un petec de negreata / Over a Black Patch is also the title of the