Short

Three Controversial Books

What is one supposed to understand by image and to what extent should one take it to heart? Physiologically, the image is the consciousness one is left with about an absent object. It is, therefore, the opposite of perception, i. e. representation of a present object. In

Voyage To Southern Russia And Crimea, Through Hungary, Wallachia And Moldavia (Paris, 1837)

excerpts Chapter III: BUCHAREST-WALLACHIA (…) My advice to the fatigued traveler who arrives in Bucharest is to pay his first visit to the excellent Turkish baths which we were to try ourselves soon. These establishments, mostly situated in the quarter by the Dâmboviţa

Bucharest Described By Sulzer At The End Of The 18th Century

Among the foreign writers who passed through or stayed in Bucharest and who, on this occasion, wrote their impressions, is Franz Joseph Sulzer. He was from German Switzerland; he joined the Austrian army and due to his achievements became a captain. In 1776, Sulzer was invited

Once ...

The Cries of BucharestCities have their own special humming. Church bells, tram noises, horses, sergeants' whistles, car horns (banned in Bucharest), dogs barking, army trumpets, and so on, and so on – all combined, heard from a distance, forming a characteristic

At The Fair

Yellow and blue streetcars, princely coaches, churlish carts and bikes and a lot of folks on foot…From so many streets and ways, like on as many arms of a huge river waves upon waves of people are flowing as if into a boisterous sea, unto the barrier at the end of the

The Bucharest Of Former Times

Volume I, 1871 - 1884 The Christmas of 1871? My young age then was so eagerly waiting for it. By 10 o'clock the night of the Eve, the shrill voices of the carolers would resound all over Bucharest. In those days the carolers were children from the edge of town, children

Route No. 1

Walking around the city arm in arm with literary recollections… Laying on façades invisible memorial plates with quotes in verse or prose… Experiencing live the sensation of osmosis between fiction and reality… Feeling literature become history, and history – literature…

The Mogoşoaia Bridge

excerptsThe Beginnings With the passage of time the ancient road was called by sundry names: lane, bridge, promenade – as if it needed any name or title, this street of streets whose reign over the city goes back two hundred years. Victory Promenade! The Nation's

Inns, Churches, Parks And Avenues

Bucharest became the capital of Wallachia in the middle of the sixteenth century in preference to the earlier sub‑Carpathian capitals of Câmpulung, Curtea de Argeş and Târgovişte. It became the capital of the united Romanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia

Bucharest Of Yore

A thousand years ago on the spot where Bucharest stands today there rose a town called Perun; this Perun was the god of fire and thunder with the ancient Slavs, featured with a golden face, silver hair and beard. It replaced the Greeks' Zeus and the Roman Jove. The

Own Goal With Actor And Accountant

It was common knowledge that Iacint Manoil was a lady-killer. He was so ugly that they were impressed. And so direct in his stupidity that he came over as honest. Like a millstone. He was an actor. Only those very beautiful or as ugly as sin can make a career in this profession.

Wise Humor As A Sum Of Contraries

Speaking about I. L. Caragiale, i. e. the quintessential comic playwright in Romanian theater, N. Steinhardt made a few distinctions likely to offer generous openings: However powerful its spiritualism, Asia terrifies us with its uncivil dirt and squalor, while blind and