Litera

Bucharest Wit

In Romanian, Bucharest is a plural noun. This implies it is a multifaceted city, dazzling in its diversity. However, it is not a conglomerate of villages, of boroughs, like London or New York. There are not self-contained neighborhoods, each with its main street (High Street),

Elena Văcărescu: An Unforgettable Character Of Bucharest

Special attention should be given to Elena Văcărescu, whose outstanding personality and whose life contributed greatly to the revival of the Romanian spirit, inherited from her forerunners. Until not long ago, mention was often made of the four Văcărescu poets and the

Bucharest - Memory Walled-In

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

Letters From Budapest

in Hungarian, Papirusz Book, Budapest, 1999 Budapest literary historian Martos Gabor (b. 1953), an expert in the Magyar literature written in Romania between 1970-1990, well-known in the Transylvanian cultural milieu, held a regular column in the Bucharest Hungarian cultural

The International George Enescu Festival Tradition And The Romanian Athenaeum - The Symbol Building For Romanian Musical Culture

In the heart of Romania's Capital stands the monumental building of the Romanian Athenaeum, the symbolic edifice of the most significant musical events ever since 1889 and, at the same time, the cradle of the International George Enescu Festival. There is no musical

Paul Morand And The Dwellers Of Bucharest

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

Paul Morand

The 1850 generation appealed to science, but the 1914 generation appealed to the body. The elliptical mechanisms devised by Morand found their audience in 1924, writes Thibaudet. Who is Paul Morand? Poet, novelist, essayist, diplomat, French ambassador to Romania, Italy,

Three Controversial Books

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

Romanian Profile

excerpts In the first half of the XVIIth century, there appeared a new combination of imported styles which has been characterized as the first Wallachian manifestation. The prototype of this style is the village church of Gherghiţa in Prahova county. A later example of

Inferiority Complex On The Dâmboviţa Riverbanks

There existed in cultural Bucharest between the world wars a sort of upside-down provincialism that believed only in the City of Light: What's new in Paris? There was always something new to talk about, even if, in some cases, the new from Paris had been seen around

The Bucharest Of Former Times

Volume I, 1871 - 1884 The Christmas of 1871? My young age then was so eagerly waiting for it. By 10 o'clock the night of the Eve, the shrill voices of the carolers would resound all over Bucharest. In those days the carolers were children from the edge of town, children

Route No. 1

Walking around the city arm in arm with literary recollections… Laying on façades invisible memorial plates with quotes in verse or prose… Experiencing live the sensation of osmosis between fiction and reality… Feeling literature become history, and history – literature…