RUA

Dragobete

In several villages of Walachia, and especially in those of Gorj and Olt counties, the First and Second Finding of the Head of St. John the Forerunner, which always falls on 24th February, is called Dragobete. In these regions, Dragobete is a beautiful celebration day for

The Earth. Beliefs Of The Romanian People II

THE END OF THE EARTHI wrote in my other books about the popular beliefs regarding the future ending of the world and, consequently, of humankind as well as of the Earth we are living on. It goes without saying that the stories about the destruction of the Earth are scarce

The Weed Talk

I have never met Ştefan Bertalan. A founder of the sigma group in Timishoara, the most influential hub of constructivist experimentalism in Romanian art, Bertalan has always seemed to me somehow ill-timed, included in the canon, and confined therein. I came once into contact

Queen Kiazhna 1560-1568

excerpts ITHE TOMB The bells of the royal church of Bucharest tolled wailing and gradually; and from above, from up the opposite hill, answered the small round spire of Bucur's church. It was towards the end of February, in the year 1560, and recently the body of

Dimitrie Cuclin

COMPOSER, MUSICOLOGIST, WRITER, FOLKLORIST, INSTRUMENTALIST, ESTHETICIAN, PROFESSOR, BYZANTINOLOGIST, PHILOSOPHER Born in Galatzi (24 March 1885), he began his musical studies with his father, the composer and professor Constantin Cuclin, continued at the Bucharest Conservatoire

Traviata On The Grass

excerpt When I first met her, she said she adored Pablo Neruda's poetry and La Fontaine's erotic fables, which are un petit secret délicieux and, once a month, she would listen to a fragment of Le Petit Prince, interpreted by Gérard Philippe. She also told me

Piano Man

excerpt I paused a little in order to recall better the dark areas of my teenage years. I don't know why it is only about them that I feel like writing. But do I only have to write about them? Maybe the journal that I'm struggling every second not to finish the

Quote

In the cited cases, apart from the banality of sex, apart from the huge alcoholic-narcotic papier-mâché setting, apart from cussing and vomit, there seem to be no more 'facts of life'. This is where evil lies. There lies literary naught. Idei în dialog, February

The City Of Acacias

Chapter 5. The first and last nightsOne evening they were returning from a concert. It was getting late, but they still lingered on the streets, in spite of the cold, damp weather outside. They wouldn't part with each other after the two beautiful hours they had spent

Return To The Interwar Bucharest

excerpts  So closeSuddenly, the interwar people make the body visible: men are allowed to shave off not only their beards, but also their moustaches – a facial change that overthrows an aesthetic canon with centuries-old resistance – and women, punished and ridiculed

The Uprising

excerpts Titu Herdelea found out about the divorce from Nadina during their trip by train. He wouldn't believe it. It was only ten days later that Grigore's words confirmed it for him. And then he exclaimed in a sad tone of voice:She was, nonetheless, such a nice

What Mystery Love Is...

Around 1820, Barbu Paris Mumulean thus concluded one of his poems: Hankering I will not fade / Cupid cometh but in aid / thus in luxury I may / crave until I wilt away. In actuality, these verses word the ideal of a generation that sets out to inventory, and answer for,