Stil

Majorities And Minorities In Documents From The Interwar Period

excerpts Over the last few years, one of the more or less impartially analyzed issues has been the relationship between Romanians – as majority population – and the others represented, broadly, by ethnic, religious, cultural communities etc. The current approach is

Preliminary Notes (1923)

excerpts On July 27th, we had an excursion by automobile to the petrol fields down in the valley leading from Bucharest to Sinaia. Mr. Lecca was with us. Just before lunch, he introduced me to another man who was visiting the petrol fields, and who was the Romanian Minister

Turks, Germans, Americans... And Other Nationalities

An event that happened several years ago and has turned, in time, into an urban legend, goes like this: the employees of a German-owned media trust had become lazy and unruly, would come to work when, and if, they felt like it, and would actually work only between two coffee

The Almsmonger's Lover

excerpt They'd dozed off. The devilish furnace of the sun was blazing fiercely. They were positively stewing as through the shadow cast by their soles two Gypsy women walked by, bent under the burden of a galvanized bucket with a chunk of ice protruding from it. Ice-cold

My Peaceful, Multiethnic Village

I saw the light of day in an atypical village of Bucovina. It was a multiethnic village, a kind of summary of Europe. A European Union avant la lettre. It is there, I believe, that a direction in my life was traced, an ecumenical dominant feature, one of understanding of

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

Hutsuls And Their Embroideries

Hutsuls or Huculs, a group of Ukrainian highlanders, live in the Carpathian mountains, to the South-East of the Boykos, a region bordering on the territory of the Romanians. They differentiate themselves from the surrounding Slavic peoples by physiognomy, and by their traditional

Take, Ianke And Cadir

excerpts CADIR: What you do?IANKE: Linger around!CADIR: What about the children? This is big trouble! Here you stay in the house so calmly and the children stay there crying. IANKE: I knew it! Didn't I tell you? They are crying and waiting for the train! Luckily there's

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 Ethnogenesis Of The Dobrujan Turks

The definition of the genesis, as well as the delimitation of the area where the Turkish people was formed, and from where they spread from Central Asia to the Mediterranean Sea, is still a controversial issue among specialists. Discussions between Turkology scholars usually

Doja's Horse, Spek's Tractor And The Missing Hook

Spek Jr. , from Satu Nou, had a tractor called Doja. Since nothing in the world is fortuitous, the name of that machine was not fortuitous either. Spek Sr. , a filthy Jew, as he was called by some people from Iosefin, was a fervent advocate of communism and had been hurdled

A-Peakin' An' A-Pinin'

Of the one I love, a songI will sing my whole life long. Sing, I will – sick to the bone,Like a loser, lest I'd moan.  She was daddy's precious gem,Wish I kissed her tunic's hem,Her red lips apt to inviteDaddy's teeth to take a bite. Oh, she was so