Codin
excerpt Holidays came. I and Codin had agreed never to show up in the neighborhood together, so as to spare my mother, who knew nothing. But now I could go, unhindered, and sit on the benches in Anghelina's tavern and watch my friend at will; since his unexpected intervention,
Religious Conversion In 19th Century Moldavia
The baptized JewIn the late 1990s I had planned to include at the end of my book The Imaginary Jew in Romanian Culture a chapter entitled The Baptized Jew. As I worked on this subject I realized that it had been extensively discussed by the historian Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu
The Faces Of the City
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
Intellectuals And Their Radical Political Involvement: Reflections And Subsequent Perceptions
In the last decades, particularly after the collapse of the communist regimes, ardent debates have taken place regarding the political commitment of certain great intellectuals and writers, generating even theoretical and philosophical reflections, concerning the relationship
History Of Romanian Modern Civilization, 1924-1925
excerpts XVII 1. The impact of Western social ideology preceded the impact of capitalism, in other words, the social revolution preceded the economic revolution2. The revolution led by Tudor Vladimirescu and the existence of the national party cannot be viewed as the starting
The Effects Of Disappointment
At the beginning of the '20s, fascism represented the newest and the most catching political phenomenon. Nevertheless, it failed to be a roaring success everywhere and especially at the very beginning. In Romania, the obsession of being permanently synchronized with
The Generation Of '27, Between The Holocaust And The Gulag
excerpt After the year when its first program was launched, namely Mircea Eliade's Spiritual Itinerary, the generation of '27 (or the young generation, the generation of the '30s, the generation that lived life for life's sake, the experiential and Orthodox
Nationality In Art, 1927
excerpts What is a nation? We shall define: A nation is the totality of blood-related individuals, living on a determined territory functioning as a necessary support to their existence, and sharing: a common language, which they have shaped themselves, a common past,
Religion And Identity In Interwar Romania: Orthodoxism
In the two decades between the world wars the majority of Romanian intellectuals were engaged in a grand debate about what it meant to be Romanian and how national character determined social and political development. [1] The ideological commitments of the protagonists
Porojan
excerpts Mirceşti, 1880 Dear friend, These days I've lost a childhood friend, whose name resembled more of a person who lives in a tent than of a gentleman, for his name was Porojan! He was one of our slaves, a gypsy, and baker by trade. I confess having felt a
Ideas And Ideology In Interwar Romania
For the Romanian cultural psyche, the interwar period still appears, after so many decades of indefatigable exegesis, as a real, alluring and embarrassing hortus conclusus, a closed garden of paradisiacal, yet so venomous intellectual flourishing. Major cultural achievements