Litera

* The boom of geographic discoveries and trading expeditions that began on the eve of the Renaissance and continued throughout that era developed a new taste for describing remote, if not downright imaginary, countries and peoples. Before being discovered, the savage was

excerpts Motto: It is known that, when a people is about to disappear, first its high society disappears, and with it the literature. (Milorad Pavici, The Khazar Dictionary) Lazar Saineanu and his studies in folklore. An ethnographic controversyLazar Saineanu was a very

excerpts Beyond any currents, interpretations and influences, Judaism brought at least three fundamental principles to the basis of European culture: the secularization of the eternal, the ennoblement of matter through spirit, and the consideration of the human being as

In the nineteenth century, and also in the inner-war period, Romania had one of Europe's largest Jewish communities. Between the wars, its Jewish population was the third largest in Europe both in absolute terms (after Poland and the USSR) and as a proportion of the

They arrived in Romania over a century ago, and they were skilled craftsmen and scholars. Now, even if they only represent a small community, a couple of thousand people, the Italians in Romania try to perpetuate and promote their traditional values.  Short historyItalians

Situated on a hill in the midst of the Csík valley in the heart of Szeklerland, the Franciscan order in the small village of Csíksomlyó hosts the largest annual pilgrimage in Central Europe. Regardless of their religious affiliation, three to four hundred thousand Hungarians

None of the minorities living in Romania had a tenser relationship with the majority of inhabitants. Still, Romanians and Hungarians have been living together for centuries. The Hungarians in Transylvania praise their past, values and traditions within a context that permits

Climb… Climb… Keep climbing. Higher and higher. At the top, Love's waitingWith a bouquet of roses.  Climb. Go upward. Always higher. If you don't find a pathCarve it open. In LoveThere are no ready-made ways. You cleave them yourself.  Climb… Even if you

I think I would never have come to love Balkania so much, had I not met Marina Marinescu in Munich several years back. We had been acquainted since we met for the first time in Athens. Florin Marinescu, the specialist in Byzantine history to whom I was talking one day in

Life Histories in Bucharest – the 20th Centuryexcerpt All the Greeks in the city sought to make me their son-in-law. Demostene Gramatopol, 1910-? My initial intention was to interview both Greeks belonging to the old Greek community in Bucharest, and some of those who

We do not hate the Greeks; quite to the contrary, we love them and we share the same heritage: a nationality to build; for we have the same interests, the same pains, the same hopes; and when we say 'we love them' we can bring proofs to support this statement:

Who is Eginald Schlattner and what story is he telling in his debut novel? For the readers in Romania, the Lutheran priest aged 65 who lives in his parish house at Rosia, near Sibiu, where he lives in a community mainly made up of Romanies, Romanians, and only a few Saxons