Caragiale

excerpt A commonsensical observation anyone could make is that in many of Caragiale's prose pieces the personal element comes out in a very direct manner, in the form of autobiographical reminiscences or fresh diary entries. Here is Caragiale as a child, tolling, together

'Where do we stand with the Bulgarians?' I ask my friend, X…'Neither here, nor there. ''What do you mean?…''What, don't you see?''I don't actually… for, as you said: neither here, nor there means we don't

A few years ago, among the most brilliant students of our University was a young man named Coriolan Drăgănescu. He was the possessor of a brisk intelligence, a character of bronze, and the temperament of a hero; besides, nature had endowed him with an oratory talent impossible

About fifteen years ago, during the Brătianu Cabinet, I was editing 'The National Revolt'. It was an essentially combative paper, in strong opposition to the government. Our strength however lay not so much in the leading articles or in the polemic pieces as in

excerpt 'A friend, newspaper reporter' tries to mystify the author by dropping the 'bombshell' about the arrest of some very dangerous anarchists, with bags full of dynamite, poison, daggers, pistols, and compromising letters. The man inquires around

Very few people today will remember a famous newspaper that used to appear at some point in the capital, during the war of independence. I mean here 'The Romanian Nation' that Frédéric Damé and I published together. The life of that paper was as short as it

It's all set! On Saturday I am to deliver a speech in the plenary meeting of the SPDRM. There's no way out: I did, in a moment of utter weakness, promise an old friend of mine, Mrs. Parigoridi – so it is now for me a matter of conscience, of honour, of heart

Our century witnessed the birth and death of a most interesting state, a state that no conscientious historian is allowed to overlook. I mean the Republic of Ploieşti, a state that, in spite of its only fifteen hours of life, has undoubtedly written a most famous page in

Caragiale cannot be celebrated officially and patriotically because his writings, his profile as an author, the entire symbolism around his name and works retain an active subversive dimension altogether incompatible with the intrinsic solemnity of a ceremony. One has to

The threshold between the millenniums is an opportunity for evaluation: tributes, jubilees, festivals. Archives are being browsed, masterpieces are reappraised, and writings are redefined in the current context, then recirculated in today's competition. Everything becomes

The Secret Correspondence between Mihai Eminescu and Veronica Micle Halfway through last year, a genuine editor's bomb was being thrown on our cultural market: the Polirom publishing house based in Iaşi had issued – and was launching on 15 June – a volume of secret

The first woman characters of the modern Romanian literature were anything but womanly. The Romanian romantic theatre and the historical romances of the nineteenth century abound in strong-willed, ambitious princesses, exasperated by the lack of guts in their male partners.