Ares

Swampward Ho!

The two Popescus had meanwhile agreed that the first settlement the current location of the village could be traced down to, with any degree of accuracy, dated back to the middle of the 18th century or thereabouts, and belonged to a band of plain raiders coming to rest in

Memoirs Of A Witness

I was born and I spent my childhood in the capital of the country that is called Romania, a state that at that time had prided itself for about a decade with the name of Greater Romania, which was a creation of the preceding generation, but also the outcome of a long series

Vasile Socoliuc

Vasile Socoliuc was born on August 7, 1937, at Tisauti, Suceava County. After taking courses at the Fine Arts School in Bucharest, he attended the N. Grigorescu Fine Arts Institute, graphics department. He worked as a graphic artist with the Publishing House for World Literature,

My Grandfather Mehmed Ali

My grandfather Mehmed Ali was an old-fashioned Turk. He wore a long beard and the traditional Turkish costume. Each morning he would sit down next to the charcoal, the earthenware pot filled with live coals, sip his coffee and puff his long-stemmed chibouk. He would often

The History Of The Dobrujan Turks

The history of Dobrudja, this ancient stretch of land between the Danube and the Black Sea, the territory thereof rightfully has been noted as an authentic ethnic blend, has along the centuries imposed a genuine model of co-habitation. Dobrudja was the trunk carrying the

La Tzigane

Gais Bohémiens, d'où venez-vous?Béranger She's softly walking by with sylph-like grace,Her ample skirts unfold in gliding pleatsAs she moves lithely, at a hurried pace,Svelte as a lily, through unending streets.  Her dainty foot, arched elegantly, keenTo travel

Dilitufan

* Once upon a time there was an emperor, half snake, half man. This emperor had a daughter. She was locked in a room, so as not even the sun could touch her, until she was twenty-two. At that time, a Gypsy came to the pond to catch fish. He caught two fish, the kings of

The Dynamic Equivalence Of Gypsy Fashion

Gianina lu' Manşonică of Sinteşti interviewed by Tita Chiper Our host's courtyard could be best described as transition in progress, accurately preserving each of its successive stages: it begins with two run-down foreign cars, and ends with an ashen tent proudly

Four Life Stories

At the Outskirts of Giurgiu*At the outskirts of Giurgiu there was a Turkish village, and that village was called Selima. When the Turks left the city, a hundred and a half years ago, we, the gypsies who tinned the pails, continued to live in that village. We remained in

The Violin Player Ion Voicu

It is hard to say when the Gypsies came to Romania for the first time, and then settled for good, but the oldest documents date from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when the royal charters mentioned the fiddler slaves, sold alongside the dependencies and objects from

The Origin Of The Violin

In a beautiful forest on a mountain, there lived a girl with her four brothers, her father and mother, in a little house. The girl loved a handsome rich hunter, who often walked the woods but never tried to strike a conversation with the beautiful girl. So, Mara wept bitterly

Théodore Valério (1819-1879)

Gypsy slave French painter, engraver and lithographer Théodore Valério started to work and set up shows quite early. Between 1840 and 1850, he created in France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and then traveled to Hungary and the neighboring countries, including the