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excerpts We have wondered many times if it is possible to find or to hypothetically build a matrix-space, or an unconscious spatial horizon, as an underlying spiritual layer for the Romanian folk culture anonymous creations. The subject is worth the risk of any and all

In Miorita I believe I could see the force of Romanianism, not only in transfiguring the brutality and coarseness of history, but also in opposing it the refuge in splendor. by N. Steinhardt

Chapter X. The Influence of Physical Factors. The Climate and the Geographical Position The crystalline atmosphere that envelops the Carpathian Mountains and the hills of Oltenia and Moldavia resembles perfectly the atmosphere from the mountains and hills of Florence. Wallachia's

Many are the peoples that crossed the land over which Romania extends today. They left their mark in ancient Dacia, Moesia and Thrace, in the Greek colonies, Roman provinces, and Byzantine themes. The indigenous populations blended with the newcomers and produced a Romance

The esthetic appreciation of the external aspect of the Romanian imposed a non-differential consideration of the two sexes. However, the image of man has usually been in the foreground. To balance things, the numerous descriptions of Romanian women must be reminded. The

excerpt The authentic, unaltered Romanian population is to be found especially in the mountains of Transylvania. These vigorous mountain people, so beautiful in their lively colored national costumes, are very interesting in the eyes of those who want to study the customs

When we are angry with the country and ourselves, our own people appears to us like a horde of cowards, thieves and idlers; when things go slightly better, we are instantly tempted to raise the temperature of our assessment by two or three degrees. Some believe that there

Chapter XVII. On the Moldavians' Habits (excerpts) While we are trying to describe the Moldavians' habits, about which no-one, or just few foreigners hold a true image, the love we feel for our country on the one hand prompts us to praise the people among which

Romanian bravery is neither a musketeer's, nor itinerant (like the Western knights'), or quixotic; it does not take initiatives: a typical example is [Mircea the Elder's battle against the Turks at] Nikopol. I do not attack, I defend myself; I do not tease,

The obvious indifference of the Romanian peasant to the neighboring peoples stems from the instinct that these are more or less recent. Our physical typology is altogether different from that of neighboring and Central-European peoples. If we have some affinities with meridional

Foreword The few words that I put as motto at the beginning of this book can be translated like this: God must have had a hidden plan for this people that the western states rediscovered on the banks of the Danube and adopted like Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses.

Toward the end of the Middle Ages, the Romanians, until then living in their traditional peasant autonomies, which stand for an entire, complete political order with archaic roots, arrived, after the abolition of anarchy, at their boundaries and, on one side, because of