Radio România Internațional

Category: RRI Encyclopaedia

  • Cosmopolitan Bucharest

    Cosmopolitan Bucharest


    The 18th century, in the history of Romanian principalities,
    is known as the Phanariot century, broadly speaking. However, that timespan
    does not exactly coincide with the early and the late 1700s proper; in Moldavia
    it begins in 1711 and in Wallachia, in 1714. For both principalities, the
    Phanariot age ended in 1821. We recall that back then Tudor Vladimirescu’s revolution
    made it possible for the indigenous rulers to regain their thrones. During the Phanariot
    age, the Romanian Principalities were under the suzerainty of the Ottoman
    Empire. The sultan controlled the principalities in the region through a bunch
    of Greek civil servants who hailed from Istanbul’s Phanar district. They were
    the Phanariotes, the anointed ruling princes of Moldavia and Wallachia, for a
    limited period of time. The age was viewed and, quite aptly, still is, as an age
    of backwardness. The Romanian Principalities no longer were autonomous, they
    did not have their own currency and their own army. Besides, the Romanian
    principalities were getting Orientalized at a fast pace. The historian Tudor Dinu gives us all the details.

    Tudor Dinu:

    The age is a very interesting one because,
    on one hand, it marks the Orientalization process as, prior to the Phanariotes,
    Oriental culture was seldom present with us. For instance, in the markets
    around Bucharest all sorts of delicious produce were available for purchase. Then
    again, it also marks the incipient Westernization, since to a considerable
    extent the Phanariotes were the driving force for the advent of the Italian and
    then the French culture in the Romanian Principalities. The research that I
    carried revealed that it was not true that Westernization began after 1821. As
    for the Phanariotes, they did keep themselves abreast of Western civilization
    primarily because they wanted to provide intelligence services to the Porte, so
    that was another reason for the Western culture to make its presence felt with
    us.


    At first, Western customs and patterns had an unassuming presence
    in our society, being influenced by the fact that the Romanian Principalities
    were used more like a war theater for the conflicts between Austria, Russia and
    Turkey. Westernization proper began with the first Austrian occupation after
    1789. It was enhanced through the arrival of the Russian troops stationed in
    the Principalities, that including Bucharest. however, those were not the first
    foreigners who settled in Wallachia’s capital city, which beginning the Phanariot
    age, became a truly cosmopolitan city. Those foreigners, who in time became people
    of the place, also created the mixed specificity of the city. For instance, together
    with the Phanariotes a growing number of Greeks settled here, yet their community
    did not account for more than 5% – 10% of the entire population of Bucharest. It’s
    just that they were scholars, dignitaries, entrepreneurs, merchants and craftsmen,
    so they did step out of the line as against the rest of the population.


    As for the other foreigners in the city…who were they?

    Tudor Dinu:


    First off, it’s about the Jews, a very
    dynamic population, they were harassed by the Christian population instigated
    by the clergy, yet they were protected by the Phanariot rulers. Their contribution
    was fundamental, to the economic progress of Bucharest since they were tailors,
    bookbinders, metal workers. A dynamic presence was provided even by the
    Armenians who at that time may have been known as ‘Christian Jews’, since their
    customs were similar and so was their way of doing business. The Rroma were a very
    large population as well, at that time they were known as gypsies, tigani in
    Romanian. Their contribution was significant considering the difficult jobs the
    Romanian wouldn’t take, such as metal and iron work, but also the panning of gold
    in the waters of Dambovita river. Also, the Rroma were the kings of the street
    performances of that time. Their bears were hopping about, while their fiddlers’
    music made the delight of the pubgoers. I also did some research on the Turkish
    community, but they were in small numbers at that time, since the privileges
    granted to Wallachia only allowed for the ruler’s Turkish secretary and his team
    to be present in the country. He was known as Divan efendi. However, there
    was a princely brass band made of Turkish musicians, an Ottoman police force,
    the one of the Beshlii, the mounted Turkish cavalry, there were also a couple of
    merchants. People of the Balkans were much more numerous, the Christian ones, first
    of all, since for them Bucharest was like a true Eldorado. Gaining access to
    the Romanian space was, that was very difficult, some sort of special paper or
    visa, known as tescherea, was needed, which granted safe passage to the
    promised land. They were labelled Serbs
    in a broader sense, but there were also Albanians among them. The Serbs, that
    is the peoples south of the Danube, of Slavic origin, were mainly known as
    vegetable farmers and tanners. On Lipscani and Gabroveni, two of the streets
    in today’s historical center, many Bulgarians sold their merchandise, for
    instance.


    We
    know that the Saxons, a Germanic population, settled in Transylvania 800 years
    ago. Yet it was also in the Phanariot age that other German groups settled in
    Bucharest. They brought the technical and engineering spirit with them. In time,
    the French who would come over also arrived in large numbers. They were brought
    by the boyars as private tutors for their children.




  • Collection chess pieces

    Collection chess pieces


    Almost any
    object can become a collection item for a passionate collector. In fact, there are as many collections as
    there are collectors. The first collectors were, naturally, people who could
    afford it: sovereigns, noble men, officers, tradesmen, explorers, clerics, and
    the first collections would usually include art objects and jewelry. Today, some
    of the the biggest collectors are museums around the world, which have
    inherited, bought or have been donated the collections they house today.


    Some of the
    most popular collection items are chess pieces. The game of chess has long been
    one of the most respected games, described as a sport for the mind but used also
    as a metaphor to describe geostrategic, political and economic confrontations.
    So, check players are the big powers that rule the world, while the smaller
    countries are pieces on the board, moved backwards and forwards depending on
    the big players’ interests.


    From staging
    chess games with people, animals and props at kings’ courts to virtual
    realities created by computers, chess is one of the most powerful images of
    confrontation. Beyond any metaphor, the objects used in the game of chess, the
    pieces and the two-colored board, which can be collected, can vary from the
    cheapest and most banal, to the most expensive and exclusivist, genuine works
    of art, accessible only to those who can afford them.


    Florin Gheorghiu is an international chess master, one of the biggest
    Romanian chess players. One of his greatest performances is the draw in direct
    games with the great Bobby Fisher, considered by many the best chess player in
    history. We asked Florin Gheorghiu about the most impressive chess boards he’s
    seen in his career.


    Usually, the most beautiful and most valuable pieces are those that
    collectors keep in their homes, be they politicians, businesspeople, actors,
    directors, officers or regular people. There are pieces made of ivory, silver,
    sometimes even gold. Some of them are diamonds. But these are not pieces to
    play with in a competition. They are there to account for something
    representative from a personal or historical point of view. The collector shows
    their collection to friends or wants to take advantage of the prices that
    change on the international market and therefore gain something out of it. So,
    it has nothing to do with chess playing as a competition.


    There is evidence of important collections in the Romanian territories
    starting with the 19th century. One of the biggest collectors was
    engineer Constantin Orghidan (1874-1944), the one who created an impressive
    collection of coins, jewelry, documents and rare books. Another passionate
    collector was radiologist George Severeanu (1879-1939). He was passionate about
    history, and he collected coins and other artefacts which he donated to the
    Bucharest municipality. As regards chess pieces, they were mainly owned by
    nobility, who would order them from abroad. Collectors today have pieces that
    go back to the 18 hundred. They were sculpted in lacquered wood or ivory, others
    were cast in metal, all genuine objects of art.


    Usually, collectors own chess pieces, as the chess boards are rather
    rare. The game of chess became officially a sports discipline in 1886, when the
    first world championship was documented. 37 years before that, though, the
    English journalist Nathaniel Cooke created standard pieces for the game and the
    producer of sports gear, Jaques of London, bought the manufacturing rights.
    However, history would brand Cooke’s pieces as Staunton, after the name of the
    great chess master who appreciated Cooke’s pieces describing them as easily identifiable,
    very stable and nice looking. They say that the first sets of Staunton originals
    were numbered and signed by the master himself. Florin Gheorghiu told us that
    he too owns a set of Staunton pieces, a gift from the former Cuban leader Fidel
    Castro:


    I have never played with collection pieces, but for us,
    professional chess players, the most important have always been the Staunton
    chess boards. They are largely used in international competitions and world
    championships. I have a set myself, at home, which I received from Fidel Castro
    in 1966. He was probably impressed by my victory against Bobby Fisher, in
    Havana, and turned the event into a political achievement. So, he made me this
    surprise, to honour what, to him, was a victory of communism against
    capitalism. (MI)

  • Time and modernisation in the Romanian principalities

    Time and modernisation in the Romanian principalities

    Time has always been regarded by people as something that repeats itself, from the succession of days, nights and seasons, to that of ideas and patterns. The belief that time repeats itself is so strong that some have imagined history as having the same quality. The time measurement, however, made people understand that they are cyclical, indeed, but that they do not return. It is the same with history. It may seem that one period is similar to another, but in fact it is not so. Although similar, peoples lives are different, in different historical periods and are shaped by ideas.



    The increasingly rigorous measurement of time has never stopped and it continues today. Archaeologists have shown that before the clock was invented, people measured time by guiding themselves to the position of the sun and the moon. Sundials, in the Stone Age, helped people organise their activities. Solar obelisks, water clocks, and ancient hourglasses had the same function. The mechanical clock was the object that revolutionized time measurement and perception, rationalized and divided it into subdivisions. Todays electronic and atomic clocks continue a tradition of thousands of years of measuring time.



    Churches were the center of the medieval community in the West, and their high towers had intricate clockwork mechanisms that measured time. There was a time for the divine service, a time for work, a time for sleep and a time for relaxation and socialization. In Middle Ages, clockmakers took the manufacturing of clock towers to another level. In the Orthodox and later the Ottoman space, the places of worship did not have clocks, with the bells assuming that function. Time measurement was one of the Western models that entered the Romanian world at the beginning of the 19th century. Given that everything that would shape the Romanian society starting with the year 1800 came from the West, time measurement could not have come from elsewhere. Thus, the “Turkish” time as it was called, was replaced by the “European” time.



    The adoption of the Western model of time measurement was a sign of emancipation, of the connection to the new and of taking distance from all that had been oriental and Phanariot. Historian Dorin Stănescu studied the entry of the Western time measurement model into the Romanian world of the 19th century. It also meant the emergence of the concept of public clock, the object that made it easy for anyone to organize activities.



    Dorin Stanescu: “Public clocks entered late in the Romanian space. It was not until the 18th century that boyars began to buy clocks, and many well off people imitated them. The private clock, the public clock and the clock shop became part of the urban landscape and of everyday life. The Phanariot century in the Romanian principalities also meant borrowing the “Turkish” time model, brought here from the Ottoman Empire by the Greeks. Thus, time was calculated in keeping with the five daily prayers, the sunrise and the sunset. The European or German time measurement model will later replace the Turkish model. “



    The adoption of the new model of time measurement was a gradual transition, taking into account a period of coexistence of the two models. Romanians started referring more frequently to the “European time” and change became inevitable as generations changed. As always, the model was adopted easier by the younger generations who presented it as a brand of their own identity, in order to distance themselves from the generations of their parents and grandparents.



    Dorin Stănescu explains how people, although they adopted the new model, still referred to the “Turkish time” when they felt the need to report a special event, such as the earthquake of 1802: “The reports from the beginning of the 19th century are very interesting. They show us that people were connected to both the “Turkish” time and the “European” time. Historian Ilie Corfus has a book, entitled Notes from a long time ago, in which he mentions a series of notes from religious books in which people living in different periods wrote down their thoughts. I quote an example from 1802, of an occasional chronicler who wrote the following on the cover of a book: October 14, 1802, at 7 hours Turkish time and 12 hours German time, the earth shook on the day when I was at the fair in Targu Jiu. This need for accuracy is fascinating, as well as the way the chronicler refers to all known models of reporting time.



    After 1848, all that meant the spirit and mentalities of the Phanariot century was given up and the a la turca model was no longer used. “Everything changed with the adoption of the model of European time reporting. People planned their work better and the 8-hour working day concept spread. The emergence of railways and trains contributed to the accuracy of time measurement.





  • 110 years since the birth of Emil Cioran

    110 years since the birth of Emil Cioran

    Born on April 8th, 110 years ago, in Rasinari, Sibiu County, Emil Cioran would become one of the greatest philosophers of despair in the European post-war culture and one of the biggest stylists of modern French language. He started as a writer in the 1930s in Romania, with extremely unconventional texts, as member of the 1927 generation, whose undeclared leader was Mircea Eliade. In its turn, that generation of young intellectuals proved original and controversial, both due to its members’ special talents, and also due to some Legionnaire or far-right sympathies expressed by some of them, Cioran included.

    In the 1940s, thanks to a scholarship granted by the French state, Cioran went to Paris where from he would never return back home. It was there that he wrote, in French only, the books that made him famous in the West. After 1990s, he was discovered by the Romanian intellectuals who started publishing his books in Bucharest and taking him interviews, on the rare occasions when he accepted. One such interview was made by the director of the Humanitas Publishing House, Gabriel Liiceanu, who recalls Emil Cioran as he was at the age of 79:

    He was no longer a volcano, but he had preserved all the traits that characterised his personality. He was funny, his stylistics was unbelievable, and he was a great actor, a poser actually, just like Eugen Ionesco. Back then, in 1990, I had the revelation of the free man looking into another free man’s eyes who could act the words, by intervening in the discussion and accompanying words with gestures and facial expressions.

    The first book written by Emil Cioran in French was published in 1949 by Gallimard: Precis de decomposition (Treaty on Decay). There followed, until 1987, another nine, published by the same publishers in Paris. Except for the Rivarol Award, which he got in 1950 for French debut, Cioran refused all the awards and prizes he won later, such as Sainte-Beuve, Combat, Nimier.

    Here is Gabriel Liiceanu again about the existential drive behind Cioran’s writings:

    He truly believed and lived in his own way this drama of being thrown into the game of life, or stage, without anybody asking whether he had wanted it or not, just like the rest of us. At the age of 18-20, Cioran went through a terrible existential crisis. Somebody pushed me into life. I did not want it, it was not my choice, I don’t like where I am. So, what can be done? And his answer was: All I can do is relive myself from these negative emotions by slandering God, myself and everybody else. Everything is just an abomination, starting with the human race. In the interview he says at one point that my work emerged out of therapeutic, medical reasons. I wrote the same book, over and over again, based on the same obsession, because I noticed that was a form of liberation for me. So, in fact, I wrote out of necessity. Literature and philosophy were just a pretext, what mattered was writing as therapy.

    Recently, Humanitas has published another therapeutic text signed by Emil Cioran, a special book, the last one written in French, and titled The Diary of a Damned, edited by Constantin Zaharia. Writer and translator Vlad Zografi tells us more about the adventure of compiling this book out of texts he discovered at the Doucet library in Paris, which owns a large part of the Cioran archives:

    It’s hard to date them, but I think they’re from the 1941-1946 period. Some hand-written papers were found, which Constantin Zaharia transcribed. The text had no title and the ending is actually a phrase extracted from the content. What shocked me about it? It’s probably one of the very last texts that Cioran wrote in Romanian, before passing to French. It was a turning point then, when he was trying to translate Mallarme and he understood he had to give up Romanian. There are many words here that sound priestly, because, maybe, they’re from the time when Cioran did not have many interlocutors in Paris, before the emigration wave of 1946-1947. Back then he would read the Bible and religious texts which he would find at the Romanian church in Paris. And I would like to give you an example, because I didn’t read anything like that in the first texts written in Romanian by Cioran. He says: God, you have given me nothing. Not even I belong to myself. Time is senseless, like the smile of a blind man, and I spend my time chanting thoughts without end, which are of no concern to anybody. Could it all be, including you, just a crazy twist of a fallen mind? Am I, unwitting and damned, twirling between fear and callousness?

    Could these words be the signal of another identity crisis experienced by Emil Cioran back then, one that had him give up Romanian language? One can possibly find the answer in this unique book published in celebration of 110 years since the birth of the great Romanian thinker. (MI)

  • Romanian Easter traditions

    Romanian Easter traditions

    The Christian Orthodox world is
    celebrating Easter, one month after Western Christianity. We’ll be looking at
    how this holiday is celebrated in Romania, which is a majority Orthodox
    country. But first, let’s find out from ethnologist Delia Suiogan how the date
    of Easter is calculated and why Catholic and Protestant Easter doesn’t usually
    overlap with Orthodox Easter:




    The spring equinox is the common
    element in the calculation of the date of Easter in all calendars. Orthodox
    Christians follow the Julian calendar, while Catholics use the Gregorian calendar.
    There is a difference of 13 days between the two calendars. The spring equinox
    falls on 8th March according to the Gregorian calendar and on 21st
    March according to the Julian calendar. The date of the full moon is calculated
    depending on the two moments. When the full moon falls on a Sunday for the
    Orthodox, Easter will be celebrated a week later. The same for the Gregorian
    calendar, except for the 13-day difference, which is why the resulting date is
    different. It’s important to note that Easter is a celebration that takes into
    account the moon and not the sun, as is the case for Christmas. This naturally has
    a direct influence on traditions and customs. Catholic Easter is usually
    celebrated before Orthodox Easter.




    The week before Easter abounds in symbols.
    The whole period is traditionally marked by restraint and decorum in all
    aspects of social life. Sabina Ispas, the director of the Constantin Brăiloiu
    Institute of Ethnography and Folklore in Bucharest, explains:




    A service for the remembrance of
    the dead is performed on Thursday before Easter. According to some records from
    16th century, the family of the departed would gather at their
    graves, where they would lament their passing and burn incense. Bonfires would
    also be organised. This fire was not seen as destructive, but as encapsulating
    the significance of light. It’s a form of expression of divine energy, which would
    also come to manifest itself over the following days and nights. In the days
    leading up to Easter, evening services are held after the sun sets. On Thursday
    before Easter, for example, a service called the Mass of the 12 Gospels is held.
    This particular Thursday is also when eggs are traditionally painted, lambs are
    slaughtered and the Easter cake is made. Each activity performed in the
    household has a symbolic, allegorical meaning and heralds the moment of
    Resurrection on Saturday night. Friday before Easter symbolises the moment when
    Christ was laid in his tomb. On this day, people would traditionally eat very little
    or even fast all day. Bonfires would also be held in church courtyards, just
    like on Resurrection night.




    Saturday night before Easter is very
    important. No one is to sleep on this night, and people used to light bonfires in
    their gardens, while at midnight everyone has to be in church to receive the
    light. The candle lit in church, which people would take home, was believed to protect
    the family the entire year. The image of the people carrying lit candles is in
    fact quite spectacular, and can still be seen today, not only in villages, but
    in cities as well. A special basket containing samples of the Easter meal would
    also be prepared in advance and taken to church to be blessed, as people in traditional
    communities would never touch the food on special holidays such as Easter
    unless it was blessed. The central element of the Easter meal is the red-painted
    hard-boiled egg. Painting the eggs and preparing the food to be consumed on
    Easter were the main activities performed in the days leading up to this celebration.
    The northern Romanian region of Maramureş still preserves many of these old
    traditions. Sabina Ispas, the director of the Constantin Brăiloiu Institute of Ethnography
    and Folklore in Bucharest, tells us more about the symbolism of the Easter egg:




    The hard-boiled egg comes via Judaism.
    The Passover plate has a yellow egg in the middle next to some bitter herbs. In
    Romanian tradition, eggs are to be painted red. The modern practice of painting
    the Easter eggs green, blue and different other colours and combinations, not
    to mention their featuring all manner of images, such as cats, dogs and cartoon
    characters, has nothing to do with the traditional holiday. Eggs had to be
    painted red, and could only feature an image of the cross, of the grain of
    wheat, of the fish, and, of a more recent date, plant leaves.




    Lent, which is the long fasting
    period before Easter, only ends early on Sunday morning, after people return
    from church with the baskets of food blessed by the priest. The blessing itself
    follows a specific ritual. The image of people gathering in front of churches
    holding baskets full of traditional dishes and covered in beautifully decorated
    hand-stitched cloths is truly impressive. But regardless of how it is
    celebrated across different regions of the country, Easter still remains an opportunity
    for shared joy and an important event that brings families and communities
    together.

  • Rudimentorum cosmographicorum Ioan Honteri Coronensis libri

    Rudimentorum cosmographicorum Ioan Honteri Coronensis libri

    The Alba Iulia National
    Union Museum’s old books collection boasts a most precious item, a rather
    recent purchase made by the institution. It is a book titled     Rudimentorum
    cosmographicorum Ioan Honteri Coronensis     libri. The author is Transylvanian
    humanist Johannes Honterus. We recall Honterus was an iconic figure of the
    humanism and of the Lutheran Reformation in Transylvania in the 16th
    century. The first printed edition of the volume was brought out in 1546. The
    book has been reprinted many times ever since.


    Johannes Honterus was born in
    1498 in Kronstadt, which is the old German name of Brasov. Honterus died in
    Brasov also, in 1549, at the age of 51. His intellectual and editorial activity were
    intense, and so was his activity as a teacher. In 1522, Honterus earned his Magister
    Artium (Master of the Arts) degree from Vienna University. In 1530 Honterus had
    a teaching stint with the Krakow University, where he published his early
    works, a description of the world and a grammar of Latin. Honterus then relocated
    to Basel, where he learned the crafts of wood engraving and printing. In
    Switzerland, Honterus would print the famous Atlas of Transylvania, Chorographia Transylvaniae
    Sybembürgen in Latin. In 1533 Honterus returned to his native town where he was elected as a
    member of the local council. In Brasov, Honterus is the founder of one of
    Transylvania ‘s first printing presses. Then Honterus would print, among other
    books, The Reformation booklet for Brasov and the Barsa Country, The Apology
    and The Regulations for the use of the churches of all Germans in Transylvania.
    The three volumes stipulated the main tenets of the Evangelical reform for the
    Transylvanian Saxon churches under the influence of Lutheranism. In Brasov, in
    1546, due to Honterus’s endeavour, the region’s first paper factory was
    founded.


    The volume titled Rudimentorum
    cosmographicorum Ioan Honteri Coronensis libri has had quite an adventure,
    from an antiquarian in Wellington, in New Zealand, to Alba Iulia in Romania. Florin
    Bogdan is a museographer specializing in old rare books. Florin Bogdan:


    This book is in fact a pocket atlas. Everyone knows Honterus had a special
    interest in Geography, and not only in that. The first printed edition was
    brought out in Krakow in 1530. This one is a version of the book that was
    sensibly enriched by Honterus along the way, since several maps have been added
    to it. What we have actually is an unnumbered, 30-leaf book, that means 60
    pages, where the text proper of the book is laid out. Honterus describes the
    world as it was known at that time, in verse. The last part of the book is made
    of 14 leaves, unnumbered, they are actually plates with maps. First off, the Earth
    is being presented, just as cartographers and geographers used to know it in
    mid-16th century, then various regions are presented, with emphasis laid on Europe since it was the best-known part of the Globe at that
    time.


    Rudimentorum
    cosmographicorum has seen numerous printed editions. Florin Bogdan explains:


    Given that
    there are many editions that were brought out after the first printed edition,
    the one in Krakow in 1530, we can surmise the editions were somewhat limited, and
    so were the reprints of the book. It was also reprinted in Basel as well as in
    Zurich, in Brasov or in Bratislava, which means it was in fact extremely sought
    after. Nobody would print a book every two years unless that book is extremely
    sought after. In Zurich alone, the city where the copy was printed and which
    was purchased by the National Union Museum in Alba Iulia, from 1546, when the
    first printed edition was brought out, and until 1564, 7 editions of the book
    were printed. Now, speaking about this 1564 edition, according to the
    specialised Hungarian bibliography, there are 15 copies of the book. Similarly,
    the critical edition, if you will, of the work, which was brought out in 2017
    and which was based on the 1542 edition, printed in Brasov, provides a
    repertoire of all editions of Rudimentorum cosmographicorum.


    Through this volume, Honterus
    travelled as far as New Zealand, just as he himself would have liked to do, since he was passionate about Geography. From that remote destination, here we are,
    with the volume travelling all its way back to Romania, to the author’s
    birthplace. Florin Bogdan:


    It was
    purchased from an antiquarian’s in Wellington. We identified the book in an
    antiquarians’ database and we had an intense exchange of messages with that
    antiquarian’s afterwards. In the old days, the circulation of a book was not
    that easy to trace, yet we can hypothesize that in various respects, based on
    some hand-written notes that can still be seen of the leaves of the book.
    Somewhere around the 18th century the book was in the possession of
    someone who was conversant in Greek, he left an ownership signature somewhere.
    Unfortunately, that ownership signature can only be seen partially since the
    last part of the name of that person was close to the book spine. The moment
    the book was bound for the second time around, at least two letters
    disappeared, from that person’s name. We can also hypothesize that, if we take
    into account the fact that there was another note in the book, telling us about
    the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492. It is a note made in English,
    which clearly leads us into thinking that at one point the volume was in an
    English-speaking milieu. We can surmise that the volume was in England, or in even
    in the USA, or, why not, even in Australia.


    The book’s conservation condition
    is satisfactory. According to Florin Bogdan, the volume does not need any
    restoration interventions. The exhibit will be put to good use also through
    digitization, and not only because it will be exhibited. Its conservation will
    not be affected, longer term.

  • Ceausescu’s ruthless demolition of Romania’s historical monuments

    Ceausescu’s ruthless demolition of Romania’s historical monuments

    The southern area of
    Bucharest up until 1986 used to play host to the largest Christian Orthodox
    monastic compound in South-eastern Europe. It is known as the Vacaresti
    monastery. For long the compound had been rated the area’s most important
    landmark. Today, the denomination of Vacaresti still exists because of the
    boulevard taking us all the way up to Piata Sudului, the southern marketplace
    and the nature park, lying quite close to the place where the monastery once stood,
    four decades ago.


    The then Socialist Republic
    of Romania’s legislative assembly on October 29, 1974 voted into law the bill
    on urban and rural planning. It was actually a demolition policy of part of the
    city center of Bucharest, according to Nicolae Ceausescu’s vision. Until 1977,
    such a policy had been implemented on a limited scale, with details being
    especially taken into account. But the 1977 earthquake occurred, which prompted
    Ceausescu to implement the policy on a
    very large scale. Demolition was brutal, while the great thoroughfares were
    severely cut. And that lead up to the disappearance of tens of thousands of
    lodgings, private residences, one-of-a-kind buildings, such as the Brancoveanu
    Hospital or the Mina Minovici Forensic Medicine Institute as well as a great
    number of churches. The great Vacaresti monastery was one of the Orthodox
    worship places that back then was fatally brought down.


    The compound was erected
    between 1717 and 1722 by then the Wallachian ruling prince Nicolae Mavrocordat.
    He was the first Phanariot prince the Ottoman Empire appointed in the Romanian
    Principalities. The compound stretched on a surface area of some 18,000 square
    meters, having two precincts. It was built on the Martisor hill, a green area with
    lots of orchards. The architect G. M. Cantacuzino thought the Vacaresti monastery
    was QUOTE, the epitome of the master builders’ craft who were trained in the
    Brancoveanu art school, UNQUOTE.


    At the behest of the
    Bucharest Municipality’s History Museum, a documentary film was made in the
    early 1970. The Vacaresti Road is the only such film that survived in the
    archives. It provides a detailed presentation of the huge monastery that later
    disappeared. Today’s viewers may find the images of the past building all the
    more precious, since the worship place is no more. We have selected two
    excerpts from the film’s screenplay. The first one explains the importance of
    the Wallachian architectural tradition in the centuries prior to the building
    of the Vacaresti compound.


    The
    construction of the Vacaresti settlement began in the spring of 1716, on the
    slope of a hill generously overlooking the city of Bucharest, and was completed
    in 1722. Its founder was Nicolae Mavrocordat, a prince whose enthronement
    inaugurates the age of the Phanariot ruling princes in Wallachia, according to
    the text of the stone-written inscription in Romanian. The most famous
    Wallachian buildings were the Princely Church in Curtea de Arges, Cozia,
    founded by Mircea the Elder, the Mihai Voda Monastery, which at that time was
    uphill as compared to the city of Bucharest, while Radu Voda was downhill
    from the city, then there was the Sf. Gheorghe/Saint George church in
    Bucharest, while the most famous of them was the monastery Brancoveanu founded
    in Hurezi. These were the monuments that inspired ruling prince Nicolae
    Mavrocordat’s master builders when they erected the Vacaresti monastery.


    Mavrocordaț ruling princes’
    monastery was the culmination point of the arts in the 18th century
    in Wallachia. Here the most important sculpture works were found, such as the
    columns, the base reliefs, the church decorations, inside and outside the
    premises. Vacaresti boasted a large library, a wine cellar, buildings and
    outhouses of the monastic community. Below is the second excerpt from the
    screenplay of the documentary film about the Vacaresti compound. It focuses on
    the special attention Nicolae Mavrocordat gave to the monastery he founded.
    Proof of that are the generous donations the prince made to the monastery. A
    well-deserved credit was given to the prince by posterity.


    The ruling
    prince endowed the monastery he founded, also ruling that, using its revenues,
    ‘strangers should be welcomed, the naked ones should be dressed, the hungry
    should be fed, the diseased should be tended to, those who were thrust in the
    dungeon should be treated with clemency’. When, in September 1730, Nicolae
    Mavrocordat was killed by the plague, he was buried in the church of the
    monastery, in a beautiful marble tomb, with the carved armories of the two
    principalities over which he ruled.


    In the second half of the 19th
    century, the Vacaresti monastery changed its destination, in the wake of more
    than a century of monastic and spiritual life. During the 1848 revolution that flared up all across Europe, the Wallachian revolutionary leaders were
    imprisoned in the hospital of the monastery by the Russian army. So we’re not
    wrong saying the monastery was turned into a penitentiary, also due to its
    construction design. In the first precinct, ruling prince Nicolae Mavrocordat
    had a princely seat built and a guard house for the troops providing his
    security. In 1868 the monastery officially became a prison where those who
    plotted against the state were incarcerated, while the church and the second
    precinct retained their initial purpose. Icons of Romanian culture were imprisoned
    in Vacaresti, such as writers Liviu Rebreanu, Tudor Arghezi, Ioan Slavici. The
    founder, in 1927, of the fascist movement named Archangel Michael’s Legion,
    Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, was imprisoned there too. Codreanu confessed he was
    inspired by an icon in the church. When in 1948 the communist regime was
    completely instated in Romania, political opponents as well as laypeople were
    imprisoned in Vacaresti. One of them was the Greek-catholic bishop Vasile
    Aftenie.


    But the threat of
    disappearance was looming large over the Vacaresti compound in the early 1980s.
    Construction projects of a gigantic congress hall, of a huge stadium, of a
    sports facility and a court house prompted the then authorities to rule the
    demolition of the compound. Specialists made desperate efforts to save the
    compound; it was to no avail. Ceausescu himself issued the demolition order, on
    December 2nd, 1984. After the demolition, the crosses, the columns
    and all the sculpted pieces were for their most part stored in the Mogosoaia
    palace. A small part of them was stored in the Stavropoleos church.


    In 1990, the suggestion had
    been made to rebuild the whole compound from scratch, but a shopping mall was
    built there instead.



    .

  • The domestic universe of poet George Bacovia

    The domestic universe of poet George Bacovia

    On one of Bucharests interwar outskirts, to this day a rather modest neighbourhood of Romanias capital city, lies the small, seemingly insignificant, yet welcoming home of early 20th Century poet George Bacovia.



    Labelled by literary critics a symbolist poet, only to be included in a movement, Bacovia still charms his readers with his simple, sad poems that reflect and grant beauty to despondency. In fact, the sadness in his poetry was a reflection of his fragile and depressive nature.



    Bacovias survival depended mostly on his wife, Agatha, whom we also owe the existence of the small “George and Agatha Bacovia Memorial House. Curator Lelia Spirescu with the National Museum of Romanian Literature in Bucharest told us more about this house and its location on the outskirts of the capital city.



    Lelia Spirescu: “This was a ‘democratic area or neighbourhood, as the poet liked to call it. It was part of the underprivileged, proletarian world, rather than a wealthy suburb. Obviously, it matched his soul perfectly. Well, George Bacovia confessed at some point that most of his memories, both as a child and as a grownup, were tied to the town of Bacău. But it was in this house that he came to live together with and due to his wife, Agatha Grigorescu. She took a loan from the Teachers Association and managed to have this house built in record time, about one month. And she also oversaw the construction works. As I was saying, this place seemed tailored to his soul. George Bacovia was an introvert, a man who kept to himself, prone to sickness, fragile in both physical and psychological terms. He suffered from depression as well. Agatha on the other hand was an optimist, a fighter, all her life. Its true, she had no choice but to be one. She was his pillar of strength, both during his lifetime and after he died. She wanted his literary legacy to last forever, so she donated the house to the state, and it became a museum as early as in 1958, one year after the poet died.



    Although he spent most of his life in Bucharest, George Bacovia was deeply marked by his hometown of Bacău, in the east of the country.



    Lelia Spirescu: “Poet George Bacovia was born in Bacău on September 17, 1881, into a merchant family with a lot of children. Gheorghe Andone Vasiliu, known under his penname of George Bacovia, had 10 siblings. His first contact with Bucharest was in fact in 1903, when he came here to attend Law School, but he quit after the first 3 years. In 1907 he joined the Law School in Iaşi, where he graduated in 1911. He would move back and forth between Bucharest, Bacău and Iași. His wife was born in Mizil, Prahova County, in the south, on March 8, 1895 and her childhood was by no means easy. She lost her mother just days after she was born, and her father died when she was 15. She had 2 sisters, and she was raised by her family. She met the poet George Bacovia in 1916. She graduated from the School of Literature and Philosophy and she taught Romanian language and literature. She would also work as a substitute French teacher. She was a poet, too. She made her debut in 1923 with a poetry volume entitled “Twilight harmonies.



    Agatha provided George with the material and psychological support that he needed so much, and designed the house in Bucharest as a shelter for him and as a home that would reflect her personality as well, as Lelia Spirescu told us:



    Lelia Spirescu: “This house is quite modest, quiet, combining energies that were defining both for Agatha, and for George. The light and brightness of the house makes us think of her optimism, whereas the modesty and the dark tones of the furniture represent George Bacovia. These energies are present in the house to this day. You can feel both of them here when you visit the place.



    With only 3 rooms and a few small utilities rooms, the George and Agatha Bacovia Memorial House is filled with the couples personal items: furniture, books, radio sets, paintings, the violin that the poet used to play.



    Lelia Spirescu: “He loved drawing and music to the same extent. It was actually for drawing that he won his first prize ever, in 1899. That year was a landmark for him in 2 respects, because in 1899 he made his debut with the “Literatorul magazine run by poet Alexandru Macedonski, and also he won a top national place in a still nature drawing competition. He was also keen on music, which was actually his first love. He found music in his middle school years, when he played in the school orchestra and even got to conduct this orchestra with such talent that his music teacher advised him to go to the Music Conservatory. He didnt, he eventually chose poetry, but he remained loyal to music as well. His favourite instrument was the violin, and I think no other instrument could have resonated better with his emotions.



    After Bacovias death, the building and items in it were declared a “public utility collection managed by the poets wife and son, and in 1966, when the house was donated to the government, it was turned into a memorial museum. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

  • Petrache Lupu

    Petrache Lupu

    Back in the 1930s, a shepherd from Maglavit, a village on the bank of the River Danube, claimed he had a vision in which God had spoken to him. Terrified at first, but getting more confident by the day, the shepherd started telling villagers about the miracle he had witnessed, and spreading the word of God. This is how the Petrache Lupu phenomenon emerged. Seen as a mystic and a visionary, he grabbed the newspapers’ and illustrated magazines’ headlines for a long time. In a very short period of time, he became one of the most popular characters in Romania, not so much due to his personality or activities, but rather because of people’s appetite for the sensational.

    Lupu was a peasant like any other peasants of the early 20th century. He was born in 1907, the year when the last peasant uprising in Europe had just ended, an uprising that would bring many legislative changes, improving living standards in the rural areas. The modern values that Romanians had adopted starting with 1820 had taken a long time to reach the rural area and people there were very reluctant to embracing them as a way of life. Rural areas were known as places where superstitions were still extremely powerful, despite a consistent church presence. Therefore, against this background, Petrache Lupu emerging as a saviour should not be a surprise.

    An orphan since the age of 5, Lupu was raised by several families in the village. He had no formal education and was actually illiterate, with a very underdeveloped vocabulary. The weekly magazine ‘Realitatea ilustrata’ (The Illustrated Reality) covered widely in its July 1935 issue the so called ‘Miracle of Maglavit’. One of the facts mentioned in the article was that the shepherd had suffered from measles as a child, which left him with hearing and speech impairments. He was described as being lonely but not withdrawn. He was married and had two children. On the days of May 31, June 7 and June 14, 1935, while he was walking to the stables, Lupu allegedly saw an old man hovering above the land. Historian Roland Clark, who studies the religious phenomenon in interwar Romania, currently works on a book that also includes the famous Petrache Lupu case, the hero of the Maglavit story.

    Roland Clark: Petrache Lupu was a shepherd who saw God in 1935. He saw Him 3 times and the first time he said God came down on Earth as an old man. That old man smelled in a certain way. So Petrache went to the village’s priest and told him about the smell, and they decided together that the scent was that of chrism. The old man was covered in hair and told Petrache Lupu he was God and he wanted him to start preaching humility to people, to have them go to church, stop cursing, stop having abortions, ring the church bells and not work on holidays.

    Petrache went to the village, where he told the priest about the formidable apparition. The priest believed him and, together with the community, turned their village into a star, known all over the country.

    Roland Clark: Lupu was supported by the village priest and the bishop, and they both made a lot of money. People were sending money to Maglavit from all over the country, and nobody knows how much actually got there and how much was lost on the way. People discovered Petrache Lupu could heal some diseases, curing especially those who were paralized, deaf or could not speak. They say he himself had a speech impairment, while some say he couldn’t speak at all. Thousands of people organized pilgrimages to that small village and that raised a lot of concern among physicians. Having so many people gathered in a small space like that raised the danger of a serious health crisis. Moreover, if somebody said they got cured through faith, that could influence people and prevent them from seeing a doctor. Not many people would see a doctor back then anyway. They’d rather trust all sorts of healers rather than doctors proper.

    Waves of suffering people sieged Maglavit in search for hope. They say that approximately 2 million people went to see the ‘Saint of Maglavit’ hoping for a cure. Roland Clark says that many benefited from the mystic shepherd and that the case is illustrative of the level of education some of the segments of the population in those times had.

    Roland Clark: This case brings to the forefront many of people’s convictions about religion, superstition, science, medicine and politics. The Iron Guard too tried to infiltrate and get close to Petrache Lupu, everybody was somehow involved and had something to say about that man. By looking at him we can see what Romanian rural culture looked like back in the 1930s. the ‘Army of the Lord’ movement supported Petrache Lupu too. The neo-Protestants said he was just a con man and a fool that could not be trusted, but the Orthodox Church supported him.

    Petrache Lupu died in 1994 in his native village, aged 87. He left behind a legend and a monastery built in 2019. (MI)

  • Petrache Lupu

    Petrache Lupu

    Back in the 1930s, a shepherd from Maglavit, a village on the bank of the River Danube, claimed he had a vision in which God had spoken to him. Terrified at first, but getting more confident by the day, the shepherd started telling villagers about the miracle he had witnessed, and spreading the word of God. This is how the Petrache Lupu phenomenon emerged. Seen as a mystic and a visionary, he grabbed the newspapers’ and illustrated magazines’ headlines for a long time. In a very short period of time, he became one of the most popular characters in Romania, not so much due to his personality or activities, but rather because of people’s appetite for the sensational.

    Lupu was a peasant like any other peasants of the early 20th century. He was born in 1907, the year when the last peasant uprising in Europe had just ended, an uprising that would bring many legislative changes, improving living standards in the rural areas. The modern values that Romanians had adopted starting with 1820 had taken a long time to reach the rural area and people there were very reluctant to embracing them as a way of life. Rural areas were known as places where superstitions were still extremely powerful, despite a consistent church presence. Therefore, against this background, Petrache Lupu emerging as a saviour should not be a surprise.

    An orphan since the age of 5, Lupu was raised by several families in the village. He had no formal education and was actually illiterate, with a very underdeveloped vocabulary. The weekly magazine ‘Realitatea ilustrata’ (The Illustrated Reality) covered widely in its July 1935 issue the so called ‘Miracle of Maglavit’. One of the facts mentioned in the article was that the shepherd had suffered from measles as a child, which left him with hearing and speech impairments. He was described as being lonely but not withdrawn. He was married and had two children. On the days of May 31, June 7 and June 14, 1935, while he was walking to the stables, Lupu allegedly saw an old man hovering above the land. Historian Roland Clark, who studies the religious phenomenon in interwar Romania, currently works on a book that also includes the famous Petrache Lupu case, the hero of the Maglavit story.

    Roland Clark: Petrache Lupu was a shepherd who saw God in 1935. He saw Him 3 times and the first time he said God came down on Earth as an old man. That old man smelled in a certain way. So Petrache went to the village’s priest and told him about the smell, and they decided together that the scent was that of chrism. The old man was covered in hair and told Petrache Lupu he was God and he wanted him to start preaching humility to people, to have them go to church, stop cursing, stop having abortions, ring the church bells and not work on holidays.

    Petrache went to the village, where he told the priest about the formidable apparition. The priest believed him and, together with the community, turned their village into a star, known all over the country.

    Roland Clark: Lupu was supported by the village priest and the bishop, and they both made a lot of money. People were sending money to Maglavit from all over the country, and nobody knows how much actually got there and how much was lost on the way. People discovered Petrache Lupu could heal some diseases, curing especially those who were paralized, deaf or could not speak. They say he himself had a speech impairment, while some say he couldn’t speak at all. Thousands of people organized pilgrimages to that small village and that raised a lot of concern among physicians. Having so many people gathered in a small space like that raised the danger of a serious health crisis. Moreover, if somebody said they got cured through faith, that could influence people and prevent them from seeing a doctor. Not many people would see a doctor back then anyway. They’d rather trust all sorts of healers rather than doctors proper.

    Waves of suffering people sieged Maglavit in search for hope. They say that approximately 2 million people went to see the ‘Saint of Maglavit’ hoping for a cure. Roland Clark says that many benefited from the mystic shepherd and that the case is illustrative of the level of education some of the segments of the population in those times had.

    Roland Clark: This case brings to the forefront many of people’s convictions about religion, superstition, science, medicine and politics. The Iron Guard too tried to infiltrate and get close to Petrache Lupu, everybody was somehow involved and had something to say about that man. By looking at him we can see what Romanian rural culture looked like back in the 1930s. the ‘Army of the Lord’ movement supported Petrache Lupu too. The neo-Protestants said he was just a con man and a fool that could not be trusted, but the Orthodox Church supported him.

    Petrache Lupu died in 1994 in his native village, aged 87. He left behind a legend and a monastery built in 2019. (MI)

  • Cultural Bucharest

    Cultural Bucharest

    The Cotroceni Palace in Bucharest used to be a royal
    residence. Today it is the main building of the Presidential Administration.
    Right opposite to it, in the posh Cotroceni area, we can find two memorial
    houses dedicated to two of Romania’s interwar writers. They were so different
    from one another in terms of writing, yet they were so close in mundane life:
    they were actually close friends. They are prose writer Liviu Rebreanu and poet
    Ion Minulescu. In the former case, the museum-apartment bears the name of Liviu
    Rebreanu and his wife, Fanny Rebreanu, with the apartment being the only one
    such site in Bucharest where then the family’s domestic atmosphere has been
    recomposed; so was the writer’s study with his bookcase and the writer’s
    personal items. Liviu Rebreanu was a member of the Romanian Academy and a
    dignitary holding quite a few official positions. A textbook prose writer,
    Liviu Rebreanu was born in Transylvania, at a time when Transylvania was still
    part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Among other things, Liviu Rebreanu is
    remembered as the author who captured the psychology of his characters in an
    utterly realistic manner. Rebreanu was born in 1885 and died in 1944, shortly
    before the communist regime was instated in Romania. In 1934, he bought the
    apartment in Cotroceni for his adoptive daughter, Puia-Florica Rebreanu. Liviu
    Rebreanu never lived there, yet the house has emphatically preserved the daily
    life of the family’s intimacy. Here is museographer Adrian David, with details
    on that.


    The residence has quite aptly earned
    the status of Liviu Rebreanu Memorial House because, after the writer died in
    Valea Mare, near Pitesti, his wife move to this apartment with her daughter and
    son-in-law, and here they transferred whatever it was that they could retrieve from the writer’s former real estate property. The apartment, today known as the
    Rebreanu Memorial House was donated to
    the Museum of Romanian Literature in 1992 by the writer’s adoptive daughter,
    Puia Rebreanu. When the former owner dies in 1995 and following a time when the
    residence was refurbished, the apartment entered the museum circuit, in effect
    belonging to the Romanian state, together


    So those who, at present, may want to get the chance
    to know Rebreanu in the intimacy of his family, can travel to the Cotroceni
    area and visit the little block of flats where the museum-apartment can be
    found.

    Museographer Adrian David:


    Rebreanu’s desk, where he sat down and
    wrote his entire work…Those who come visit may notice, for instance, near the desk,
    the oriental table for the writer’s coffee serving set, these two items were
    always there since he was a coffee addict and a night-time writer. We’ve got
    Rebreanu’s lamp, owl-shaped and which Rebreanu had on the desk all the time. We
    have a clock Rebreanu brought for himself from his native Transylvania which
    back then was under Austrian-Hungarian occupation, It was an imperial clock, which
    took him back to the native region he had no choice other than leaving and
    relocating to the Old Kingdom. But over and above anything else,
    attention-grabbing for those who step into the memorial house is the lavish
    display of fine art. There are a great many works, most of them authored by
    some of Rebreanu’s friends, some of them were even made in Liviu Rebreanu’s
    house. For instance, in the lobby there are three portraits drawn by Iosif
    Iser. There were there after the 1913 Christmas, held in the Rebreanus’ house,
    where among the guests were painters Camil Ressu, Iosif Iser, alongside other
    very good friends. During that Christmas evening the fir-tree was on fire because
    of the candles, and, according to Puia Rebreanu’s own account, all the presents
    they received for Christmas were burned. But, she said, thank God Iosif Iser’s
    drawings remained intact, bringing back the memories of that day. Also, there
    are many icons, all of them from Transylvania. Rebreanu was very religious and
    very superstitious.


    In stark contrast with Liviu Rebreanu, another author
    lived in the adjoining apartment. He was symbolist poet Ion Minulescu, who was
    born in 1881 and who died also in 1944. His verse was extremely popular among
    the sentimental youth of that time. Even the design of that home, which was a
    lot more spacious, was different, as the imprint was that of a much more
    bohemian atmosphere as against the restraint of the Rebreanu residence.

    Adrian
    David:


    The block of flats where both memorial houses can be found, that of Ion
    Minulescu and that of Liviu Rebreanu, was brought into service in 1934. Back in
    the day it was known as the Professors’ Block of flats and was purpose-built
    for the teaching staff. Ion Minulescu’s wife, poet Claudia Millian, was a
    high-school teacher and a principal. Liviu Rebreanu got hold of the apartment
    with the help of Ion Minulescu, who facilitated Rebreanu a loan from the
    Teaching Staff Center. In the meantime, the two writers’ wives and daughters
    became friends. Actually, in the Ion Minulescu Claudia Millian Memorial
    House, all family members are represented in equal proportion, since, apart
    from Ion Minulescu, with whom we are very familiar, his wife and daughter were
    also artists and writers. Claudia graduated form the Conservatory of Dramatic
    Art, while Mioara Minulescu, their daughter, initially read Letters and the
    French language. Actually, Claudia Millian also studied with the Fine Arts
    Academy in the country and in Paris, while Mioara Minulescu studied at the Fine
    Arts Academy in Rome. And indeed, here, on the premises, there are a great many
    works signed by the two: mosaics, paintings, sculptures and various works of
    art.


    Apart from the two landlords’ works of art, the
    memorial house also plays host to the work of some friends of the family.

    Adrian David:


    With Minulescu, there are more than
    100 paintings. There are a couple of dozen sculptures. All signed by great
    names of the domestic fine arts, part of whom were very good friends of Claudia
    Milian’s. Her best friends were Cecilia Cuțescu- Storck and her sister, Ortansa
    Satmari.


    In the mid-1990s, after the death of the two writers’
    daughters, Puia Rebreanu and Mioara Minulescu, the two apartments were donated
    to the state so that they could be turned into memorial houses highlighting the
    activity of the two writers, but also the personality of the women who stood by
    their side.




  • Cultural Bucharest

    Cultural Bucharest

    The Cotroceni Palace in Bucharest used to be a royal
    residence. Today it is the main building of the Presidential Administration.
    Right opposite to it, in the posh Cotroceni area, we can find two memorial
    houses dedicated to two of Romania’s interwar writers. They were so different
    from one another in terms of writing, yet they were so close in mundane life:
    they were actually close friends. They are prose writer Liviu Rebreanu and poet
    Ion Minulescu. In the former case, the museum-apartment bears the name of Liviu
    Rebreanu and his wife, Fanny Rebreanu, with the apartment being the only one
    such site in Bucharest where then the family’s domestic atmosphere has been
    recomposed; so was the writer’s study with his bookcase and the writer’s
    personal items. Liviu Rebreanu was a member of the Romanian Academy and a
    dignitary holding quite a few official positions. A textbook prose writer,
    Liviu Rebreanu was born in Transylvania, at a time when Transylvania was still
    part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Among other things, Liviu Rebreanu is
    remembered as the author who captured the psychology of his characters in an
    utterly realistic manner. Rebreanu was born in 1885 and died in 1944, shortly
    before the communist regime was instated in Romania. In 1934, he bought the
    apartment in Cotroceni for his adoptive daughter, Puia-Florica Rebreanu. Liviu
    Rebreanu never lived there, yet the house has emphatically preserved the daily
    life of the family’s intimacy. Here is museographer Adrian David, with details
    on that.


    The residence has quite aptly earned
    the status of Liviu Rebreanu Memorial House because, after the writer died in
    Valea Mare, near Pitesti, his wife move to this apartment with her daughter and
    son-in-law, and here they transferred whatever it was that they could retrieve from the writer’s former real estate property. The apartment, today known as the
    Rebreanu Memorial House was donated to
    the Museum of Romanian Literature in 1992 by the writer’s adoptive daughter,
    Puia Rebreanu. When the former owner dies in 1995 and following a time when the
    residence was refurbished, the apartment entered the museum circuit, in effect
    belonging to the Romanian state, together


    So those who, at present, may want to get the chance
    to know Rebreanu in the intimacy of his family, can travel to the Cotroceni
    area and visit the little block of flats where the museum-apartment can be
    found.

    Museographer Adrian David:


    Rebreanu’s desk, where he sat down and
    wrote his entire work…Those who come visit may notice, for instance, near the desk,
    the oriental table for the writer’s coffee serving set, these two items were
    always there since he was a coffee addict and a night-time writer. We’ve got
    Rebreanu’s lamp, owl-shaped and which Rebreanu had on the desk all the time. We
    have a clock Rebreanu brought for himself from his native Transylvania which
    back then was under Austrian-Hungarian occupation, It was an imperial clock, which
    took him back to the native region he had no choice other than leaving and
    relocating to the Old Kingdom. But over and above anything else,
    attention-grabbing for those who step into the memorial house is the lavish
    display of fine art. There are a great many works, most of them authored by
    some of Rebreanu’s friends, some of them were even made in Liviu Rebreanu’s
    house. For instance, in the lobby there are three portraits drawn by Iosif
    Iser. There were there after the 1913 Christmas, held in the Rebreanus’ house,
    where among the guests were painters Camil Ressu, Iosif Iser, alongside other
    very good friends. During that Christmas evening the fir-tree was on fire because
    of the candles, and, according to Puia Rebreanu’s own account, all the presents
    they received for Christmas were burned. But, she said, thank God Iosif Iser’s
    drawings remained intact, bringing back the memories of that day. Also, there
    are many icons, all of them from Transylvania. Rebreanu was very religious and
    very superstitious.


    In stark contrast with Liviu Rebreanu, another author
    lived in the adjoining apartment. He was symbolist poet Ion Minulescu, who was
    born in 1881 and who died also in 1944. His verse was extremely popular among
    the sentimental youth of that time. Even the design of that home, which was a
    lot more spacious, was different, as the imprint was that of a much more
    bohemian atmosphere as against the restraint of the Rebreanu residence.

    Adrian
    David:


    The block of flats where both memorial houses can be found, that of Ion
    Minulescu and that of Liviu Rebreanu, was brought into service in 1934. Back in
    the day it was known as the Professors’ Block of flats and was purpose-built
    for the teaching staff. Ion Minulescu’s wife, poet Claudia Millian, was a
    high-school teacher and a principal. Liviu Rebreanu got hold of the apartment
    with the help of Ion Minulescu, who facilitated Rebreanu a loan from the
    Teaching Staff Center. In the meantime, the two writers’ wives and daughters
    became friends. Actually, in the Ion Minulescu Claudia Millian Memorial
    House, all family members are represented in equal proportion, since, apart
    from Ion Minulescu, with whom we are very familiar, his wife and daughter were
    also artists and writers. Claudia graduated form the Conservatory of Dramatic
    Art, while Mioara Minulescu, their daughter, initially read Letters and the
    French language. Actually, Claudia Millian also studied with the Fine Arts
    Academy in the country and in Paris, while Mioara Minulescu studied at the Fine
    Arts Academy in Rome. And indeed, here, on the premises, there are a great many
    works signed by the two: mosaics, paintings, sculptures and various works of
    art.


    Apart from the two landlords’ works of art, the
    memorial house also plays host to the work of some friends of the family.

    Adrian David:


    With Minulescu, there are more than
    100 paintings. There are a couple of dozen sculptures. All signed by great
    names of the domestic fine arts, part of whom were very good friends of Claudia
    Milian’s. Her best friends were Cecilia Cuțescu- Storck and her sister, Ortansa
    Satmari.


    In the mid-1990s, after the death of the two writers’
    daughters, Puia Rebreanu and Mioara Minulescu, the two apartments were donated
    to the state so that they could be turned into memorial houses highlighting the
    activity of the two writers, but also the personality of the women who stood by
    their side.




  • Writer and dissident I.D. Sîrbu

    Writer and dissident I.D. Sîrbu

    Ion Desideriu Sîrbu holds a special place
    among the intellectuals opposing the communist regime. He truly wrote what
    people call drawer literature, as many of his books remained unpublished due
    to communist censorship. After the collapse of the communist dictatorship, some
    of his volumes were published, and brought to light the model of Victor
    Petrini, the protagonist in Marin Preda’s The
    most beloved of earthlings. Just like Petrini, I.D. Sîrbu was a philosopher
    sentenced to prison in the 1950s for refusing to denounce his teacher, playwright,
    poet and philosopher Lucian Blaga. Dana Jalobeanu, a professor with the
    Philosophy Department at the University of Bucharest, told us more about
    Sîrbu’s missed philosophical vocation, but also about his great talent for
    writing.


    Sîrbu
    took his PhD in philosophy. He was a student and disciple of phisolophers
    Lucian Blaga and Liviu Rusu, both with the Unviersity of Cluj. At one point,
    when he was 28, he became the youngest associate professor at the Phisolophy
    Faculty in Cluj. Years later, as he himself writes, he became the oldest
    wagon-pusher at the mine in Petrila, aged 44. Ion
    Desideriu Sîrbu was someone whose fate was fiercely trampled by the cruel history
    of the 20th century. He survived writing literature, which was his
    way of taking revenge for being denied a career in philosophy. Shortly after
    1990, his novel, Farewell, Europe, had a huge impact. I couldn’t believe
    people could write something like that under communism. It wasn’t the only
    novel to be released, there was also a collection of letters, Letters to
    merciful God and The journal of a journalist without a journal. In the
    1990s, therefore, I was amazed to discover this author known to very few
    people, as only part of his writings and theatre plays had been published by
    communist authorities. Besides, there was this powerful aura surrounding Ion
    Desideriu Sîrbu. And people who actually knew him well were very surprised by
    the power of his literature.


    Arrested in 1956 and condemned as an enemy
    of the regime, at first for a year, then his sentence being commuted to seven
    years, Ion Desideriu Sîrbu worked in a mine, shortly after his release. The area
    was familiar to him, as he himself was the son of a miner, born in 1919 in the
    Petrila exploitation site close to the city of Petroșani. In 1964, he was
    forcefully relocated to Craiova, where he managed, after great efforts, to get
    a job with the National Theatre as a literary secretary. He was constantly
    watched by the local and central secret police. Still, his moral compass remained
    pristine, as literary critic Cosmin Ciotloș told us.


    This is someone who, no matter how many ordeals he suffered,
    no matter how many years he spent in prison unlawfully, refused become an
    informer for the secret police. He refused to become a collaborator, and he
    actually wrote about it. He came from a miners’ colony in Petrila, where
    turning in your fellow workers was the lowest you could get, as Sîrbu
    himself writes. It was the lowest line of moral integrity anyone could cross.
    At one point, Sîrbu wrote: ‘Judge me not for what I’ve done, but for all the
    things I haven’t done, I’ve refused to do, although I could have. This was his
    first stand. There’s another episode he recounted about his time in prison. All
    Christian religions were represented in prison, and Sîrbu managed to persuade
    his fellow inmates to celebrate Easter together, all on the same night. It was
    an ecumenical gesture, it goes without saying. But to me, it is more than that.
    I see a man who’s struggling to bring together religious sentiment. To him, the
    purpose of that moment was to save the souls of those people.


    Right now, Sîrbu’s home in Petrila has
    been turned into a Memorial House, hosting a cultural center curated by
    cartoonist Ion Barbu, who knew the writer.


    I met I.D. Sîrbu for the first and last
    time in 1988. He had come for a summer visit to Jiu Valley, as his sister,
    Irina Sîrbu lived in Petroșani. One afternoon he decided to walk from his
    sister’s house to his parents’ house, in Petrila, accompanied by me and my brother,
    Mihai Barbu. We walked 4 kilometers, making numerous stopovers and telling
    stories about the old Jiu Valley. When we reached his house, we crossed the
    cemetery, visited his parents’ graves, and even stopped the local school where
    I was doing voluntary work with children. I was teaching a drawing class,
    creating a history of Romanian literature by drawing portraits of writers. Some
    of them drew a sketch of Sîrbu, which was later included in an exhibition
    opened at the Museum of Romanian Literature in Bucharest. We then went to my
    apartment, where we spent another couple of hours. In the end, we shook hands
    and I’ve been boasting ever since I was the last man in Petrila he ever shook
    hands with. He was the warmest person I had ever met, telling some amazing
    stories that have earned my everlasting admiration of him.


    Passed away in 1989 after struggling with
    esophageal cancer, Ion. D. Sîrbu never got to see the demise of the communist
    regime, which came three months after his death. (V.P.)



  • Romanian fighter pilot Gheorghe Mociorniță

    Romanian fighter pilot Gheorghe Mociorniță

    When it comes to building and testing various flying machines, Romania
    boasts a tradition of more than 100 years. In early 20th century,
    some Romanians showed a keen interest in aviation and got involved in this emerging
    domain purely out of passion. States also got increasingly involved with the
    new domain, which became of economic, military and strategic importance. Some
    of the pioneering aviators became leading figures in this new life domain while
    others became part of the community of enthusiasts, who pushed this new domain into
    gaining momentum.






    However, inventors were not the only ones to have made a name for
    themselves in aviation. They shot to fame thanks to the performances they achieved,
    the time in history when their talents and inspiration manifested themselves and
    even to destiny. A major name of the Romanian military aviation was WWII hero,
    lieutenant Gheorghe Mociornita who had been killed in action at the age of only
    26 in the Czech Republic, on April 21st 1945, nine days before the
    war was over.




    Gheorghe Mociorniță came
    from a famous family in inter-war Romania. His father was a petroleum
    technician while his uncle was the well-known industrialist Dumitru Mociornita,
    a major entrepreneur in the country’s then leather and footwear industry.
    Strangely enough for a future fighter pilot, Mociornita had graduated from the
    Faculty of Letters and Philosophy with the Bucharest University. He got his
    flight permit and in 1943, when war was raging in Europe, after graduating from
    the military academy he became a fighter pilot.






    The Mociornita family was dealt a heavy blow back in 1941 when his elder
    brother was killed in the fights of Sevastopol in Crimea. In 1993, pilot Tudor
    Greceanu, a colleague of Mociornita’s, recollected the time he was flying the
    Messerschmitt fighters back in 1941 when the Romanian army conquered
    Odessa.




    Tudor
    Greceanu: A fighter squadron usually consisted of 15 planes at that time. Not
    all of them were operational but we counted on at least 12 flightworthy planes
    almost on a daily basis. The rest were undergoing various maintenance works or
    repairs. However, at a certain time after the fall of Odessa, out of all the 45
    planes of our three squadrons, we ended up only with 3. Because they were
    unable to replace them in due time back then. The Romanian state had initially
    purchased from Germany 3 squadrons of Messerschmitt fighters bf 109. We received
    the planes, got them ready and went straight to war. What was hit, damaged or
    in need of repair of course became unavailable.




    After getting his pilot license, Mociornita joined the 1st
    Fighting Squadron to do his training. In the spring of 1944 after the first
    allied bombs had fallen in the oil area of the Prahova Valley, Mociornita’s squadron
    was sent to intercept the US bombers. In the month of May, he scored his first
    victory against the enemy when he brought down two US bombers, which took off
    from the air base in Foggia, Italy. Until August the 23rd 1944, when
    Romania left the Axis, second lieutenant Mociornita had taken part in all the
    missions carried by his group.




    After August 23rd
    1944, Mociornita became lieutenant and was awarded the Romanian Crown medal for
    valor in the fight against the enemy and for the support given to the ground
    troops.




    The frontline moved to the West now and the young fighter pilot joined
    the efforts to liberate northern Transylvania from under Hungarian occupation
    and also in the liberation of Czechoslovakia. He was assigned various missions ranging
    from reconnaissance to air support for the ground troops. Taking off from air
    bases in Hungary, the 2nd Fighting Group, Mociornita was part of, provided
    air support to the advancing 27th Soviet army. In his last mission,
    the 29th, Mociornita was patrolling an area used by the retreating
    German troops. He was flying a Romanian-made fighter plane IAR 80 and with his
    wing-man started strafing the German columns. Because he had to fly at a lower
    altitude he was shot down by the anti-aircraft guns. His body was buried in the
    cemetery of Romanian heroes in Zvolen, Slovakia.






    During his 29 missions, the Romanian pilot Gheorghe Mociornita managed
    to shoot down three planes and is considered an ace. He was posthumously
    awarded the Romanian Star, the Romanian Crown and the Air Force Virtue while
    parts of his fighter plane were placed on display at the National Military
    Museum in Bucharest. A statue was erected to his memory in his native town in
    2015 and Romania’s 86 Fighting Group is bearing his name.




    (bill)

  • Bucharest’s slums

    Bucharest’s slums

    Although the first documented mention of Bucharest dates back to
    1459, there is substantial prior evidence attesting to this settlement that
    grew into a major hub for trade and craftsmanship since its early beginnings.
    After its certification, the city still continued to develop significantly. In
    1558, Prince Mircea the Shepherd started building a princely palace which, over
    the years, would become the nucleus of the upcoming capital city. Its ruins can
    be observed today in Bucharest, known as the Old Court. The district around the
    Princely Court, the church it is home to and the square around it used to make
    up the mahala, which is Romanian for slum, the term used for small urban
    communities that made up the city. Originating from Turkish, the name mahala
    is originally used to describe districts or neighborhoods, but more recently,
    in the modern and contemporary period, the term has become a pejorative name
    used to describe a marginal and poor area with high crime rates. In fact,
    Bucharest developed as a group of slums or small communities hurdled together.
    At the center of it was a church, architect Alexandru Buzatu told us.


    The meaning of the word mahala in Wallachia and Moldova in
    particular frequently overlapped with the sense of the word parish. There was
    often the case of a slum to be named the same as a parish or a church. One
    example is Batiștei slum, which was also home to Batiștei church. Naturally,
    this was a characteristic of medieval Bucharest up to the early modern period,
    the mid-19th century. Back then, religion was an important component
    of society, and the church was an important landmark of Romanian space. In
    fact, Bucharest evolved around the churches. The church was also a community
    center, channeling all the energy of the city.


    Moreover, these urban communities can be compared to old village
    centers, Alexandru Buzatu also told us.


    Around the city center, which hosted the old town and the trade
    area, various groups of people came to set up the so-called village hearth,
    building houses around it. When the group of houses became relatively numerous,
    a church was usually built. The church was either commissioned by the community
    or a guild, or by a prince or a nobleman. These village hearths flocked around
    the city center, and over time turned into slums or peripheries, but also
    parishes, as each of them had a church at its center. All this territorial
    expansion emerged in the absence of a belt of fortifications around the city,
    and this is a distinctive and key element of Bucharest. As it had no limits,
    the city expanded all around by means of slums. Still, the city did need some
    form of defense in the absence of walls, and this was secured by urban
    monasteries and inns, which more often than not were surrounded by defense
    walls and could be defended better than houses.


    Apart from the patterns of slums, another pattern gradually made its
    place into the history of Bucharest, the barrens and the marketplace. Alexandru
    Buzatu has the details:


    Apart from the church we often see an open-air area called
    marketplace or maidan, barrens. The term maidan is also of Turkish influence,
    although it is an older Persian term. What is the reason behind the association
    between the church and the marketplace? The church, as the center of the
    community, normally had an open area around where various activities were held,
    such as celebrations or trade fairs. One example is St. Anthony’s square near
    the old city. For a long time the church was home to the main trade centers in
    the city. Together, the church and the marketplace make up the center of a
    parish or slum, and channeled the energies of the urban life around it. Of
    course, the network of streets surrounding it spread throughout the city.


    With the modernization of Bucharest in the second half of the 19th
    century, and which continued in the 20th century, the city developed
    along the same patters as in the past. Even today, the relative perimeter of
    the old slums, with a church at their centers, bears testimony of the old and
    new, making up today’s Bucharest.