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I will begin by quoting myself. Talking about the polemics between two people whose intelligence and moral stature I admire (the polemics took place, in its major parts, in the very pages of the 22 magazine), I used to say with a certain regret and doubtfulness: On whose

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

Chapter VIII – The vocation of Romanians1. Expressions through which a people demonstrates its calling2. Misguidance in the study of Romanian vocation3. Characteristics of Romanian culture in the past4. Romanian reality as opposing Europeanization5. Emphasizing individual

Chapter IIROMANIANISM AND AUTOCHTHONISMexcerpts Continuing the clash of ideas of the previous decades, the 1930s too witnessed a confrontation on the evolution formula of the Romanian make-up. Two directions were pitted against each other. One favorable to the maintenance

Maiden Speech at the Romanian Academy, Bucharest, 1940excerpts Gentlemen of the Academy,Honorable Audience, I am elected to a newly-established institution, and I wish to preserve the academic tradition of lauding a forerunner, therefore I feel obliged to come forward with

excerpts Chapter IIISolitude Generally, the Romanian folk poetry shows a tendency toward an ideal and transparent world, which is full of serenity. The frequency of the optimistic motifs proves to what extent it would be good to know this surface only, but an inner disquiet

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

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