Category: RRI Encyclopaedia

Bucharest has a number of old roads forming the skeleton which the largest Romanian city has been built on, in the past 500 years. These old roads can be easily traced after the word “cale, which means “road, included in their name. A few examples would be Calea Victoriei, today the Victory Boulevard, Calea Calarasilor, Calea Mosilor, Calea Dudesti, Calea Floreasca and so on. The best known of them, however, is Calea Victoriei, one of Bucharests main north to south roads. The other old roads were equally important, Calea Vacaresti being one of them.

The starting point of Calea Vacaresti was not far from the current Union Square, in the oldest neighborhood of the city, known as Mahalaua Popescului (Popescului slum). Today the area is knows as the Jewish Neighborhood, due to the fact that many Jews used to live there. It was the location of the so-called Sephardic Bucharest, with synagogues and houses of the middle class. From the Union Square, Calea Vacaresti follows a south-eastern trajectory, along Dambovita river, towards Berceni neighborhood. Its name is connected to the Vacaresti Monastery, demolished in 1987, which was located in the south of Bucharest.

Calea Vacaresti, just like the entire city of Bucharest, underwent periods of transformation starting the second half of the 19th century, which coincided with the modernization of other neighborhoods and main roads. One such period, perhaps the most traumatic, was the 1980s, when Nicolae Ceausescus systematization programme changed it completely. Cristian Popescu, the author of the volume 1985-1987 Calea Văcărești, the Jewish Neighborhood and Other Forgotten Places, published a photo album of that period.

Historian Anca Tudorancea, a researcher with the Wilhelm Filderman, Jewish History Centre in Romania has also studied the area: That area was in fact Mahalaua Popescului, which today is marked on Google as the Jewish neighborhood. This became my research topic and still is. I have been researching the area for 20 years and I can still find new things about it. The conclusion could be that this digital mark is somehow simplistic, because there was not only one Jewish neighborhood. It is, in fact, the oldest inhabited area here, the centre of the neighborhood, where most temples and pieces of streets have been found. They had been there 20 years ago when I started my research at the Centre for the Study of Jewish History in Romania.

Calea Văcărești of today is difficult to recognize by a traveler of by a young Bucharester. Nevertheless, Cristian Popescus photo album helps us localize on todays street the frame of what had been lost in the 1980s: Many times, the names of the streets were preserved, but the streets themselves no longer exist. Only pieces of them have been left. For Calea Vacaresti at least, Cristian Popescus book is visual archaeology. What was there once no longer exists and roads are different from what they used to be. More than that, not only houses on certain streets disappeared, but also their inhabitants. The book makes a partially sentimental evocation of the streets and their inhabitants.

Calea Văcăreștilor can be today reconstituted with the help of Cristian Popescus book. There are also other writings that help us explore the area, though some of them have been distorted by ideology as Anca Tudorancea said. When we say Calea Văcărești, the first thought that comes to mind is literature. The name of the street itself has been turned into a literary stereotype. A book about it was written by Isac Peltz, who dedicated it to the memory of his mother. The book, which evokes a very poor society, was tolerated during communism because it enjoyed public success. No book that talked about the well-off people in the Jewish neighborhood would have been tolerated. But a book about the poor people was even encouraged, without having great literary importance. Some readers were shocked by the fact that such a world existed close to the center – a world of tailors and small merchants, of people who barely survived one day to the other, and which the author knew very well. (EE)

The history of Bucharest at the end of 1970s and 80s was marked by transformations that left deep traces in the memory of those who witnessed them first-hand. The brutal intervention of Nicolae Ceaușescu and the change to the city as a result of pointless demolitions led to the loss of a large section of old Bucharest. Its true that cities also change naturally in time, so some parts will inevitably be lost, but these gradual changes do not create the kind of social problems like that of the lack of habitation space that resulted from the demolitions carried out during the communist regime. Uranus, once one of the most beautiful parts of the Romanian capital city, is now 90% gone, and is an example of pointless demolition that led to a shortage of habitation space.

The Bucharest that today only exists in photographs and archival documents is an attraction for those who wish to relive the lost past. Images exert a powerful attraction, but words are no less fascinating, as can be seen from a book called “The city found in a box. An emotional chronicle of Bucharest” (Orașul găsit în cutie. O cronică afectivă a Bucureștiului) by the architect Gabriela Tabacu. The book looks back at Bucharest in the 1960s through the eyes of a ten-year-old girl who arrives in the capital city from Oradea, a town in north-western Romania. The writer Tatiana Niculescu commented on the book by Gabriela Tabacu and what she discovered reading it:

“We discover all kinds of places like the swimming pool at the Lido and the shops Polar and Unic, and things like the Parfait ice cream and the profiterole, which you could only find in the fanciest cafes in the centre of the city. I also remember well when I had my first profiterole, it was an event to remember, extraordinary, the joy of my life as a child. Not to mention the green grocers and of course, the transition from the old world, the world this childs parents used to inhabit, to the world after, and the world of the present. The world of the present somewhat resembled the world after December 1989, in that it was also a world in transition, towards what, though, nobody yet knows.”

The city was changing, but not as it would have been natural in a period of normality. However, those harsh years cannot be erased from the private and emotional memory of the individuals, says Tatiana Niculescu:

“The names of the streets were changing, statues were pulled down and replaced by others, the geography of the space in which this child discovers the world was changing. The world she discovers is the world of Bucharest. A city of innocence, but by no means a city of nostalgia. This must be emphasised and this is what gives the documentary value of this book: theres no nostalgia for those times, but simply a description and discovery of the world she lived in. Reading Gabriela Tabacus book I remembered the late poet Cristian Popescu who once said he detested the Ceaușescu era, didnt want to hear anything about it, it was the worst period of his life. At the same time, those times were his youth, he couldnt give up his, so he would always look back on those years with the eyes of his youth. Thats exactly what this book does, by adopting the point of view of a girl and following her as she grows up and as the city also grows.”

The adult who describes the world through the eyes of the girl living in the 1960s also explains the images imprinted in the memory of that girl, as the book also contains a lot of photographs. Tatiana Niculescu:

“The second part of the book is full of pictures. The architect Gabriela Tabacu writes a detached, architectural history of the buildings described by the child in the first part of the book. I read it through various points of view: the eyes of todays generation who never knew that Bucharest; the generation of the 1980s, who lived through the horror of that decade, will discover in this book an oasis of relative normality, of ideological stability, between 1959 and 1971; while those who experienced the period first-hand will read this book with renewed curiosity about those years and will find themselves in it in different ways.”

“The city found in a box. An emotional chronicle of Bucharest” is the Bucharest in the box of our minds as children. It is also a palpable recollection and utopia.

The Romanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia were under Ottoman sovereignty for over 100 years, from the start of the 18th century until 1877, and were therefore also influenced by Ottoman culture and civilisation. This influence was most visible during the Phanariote rule that began in 1714 in Moldavia and in 1716 in Wallachia and ended in both countries in 1812. During this time, the two principalities were ran by rulers chosen by the Ottoman Porte from among the Greek families from the Istanbul district of Phanar.

The “Orientalisation” introduced by the Phanariote rulers began to weaken, however, around 1806-1812 when, as a result of the Russo-Turkish war, the already westernised Moscow troops occupied the Romanian principalities. The salwars, both womens and mens, were replaced by dresses and trousers, respectively, the robes were replaced by riding coats and headscarves by hats. The adoption of the western fashion did not go unchallenged, and was not a smooth process, being interrupted by the political and military upheavals at the start of the 19th century that saw the Romanian principalities vacillate between Russia and Austria and the Ottoman Empire, the latter retaining its sovereignty over these parts for a long time. The decisive moment came, however, with the signing of the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829. From that point onwards, the oriental lifestyle would gradually but irreversibly be replaced by the western lifestyle.

Fashion was the first to embrace the new, something that can clearly be seen in the portraits of the aristocracy dating from this period. This was true not only of secular portraits, but also the so-called “votive frescos” found in churches. Those dating from the early 19th century show that many boyars, especially from the countryside, were faithful for a long time to the old dress code and Oriental fashion. However, the founders portraits found in churches also depict boyars who had embraced the western fashion. Usually depicted alongside their families, they are a testament of how the new and the old co-existed in the way they dressed at a time of changes and eclecticism.

We asked historian Tudor Dinu, who has researched the founders church paintings made during this time, to tell us his conclusions:

“I studied 141 founders church paintings dating from this period and they depict more than 1,100 figures dressed in the fashion of the day. Traditionalist boyars continued to wear robes and fur caps, while their young sons replaced these items with riding coats and top hats. Around 200 outfits dating from the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century can be found in the collections of Romanian museums, as well as around 200 easel portraits. I have identified 1,100 figures of church founders dressed either after the Turkish fashion or what they used to call the German fashion, by German meaning western. The discovery of this as yet unexplored source has a significant contribution to our understanding of the fashion of the day.”

In his book entitled “Fashion in Wallachia. Between Phanar, Vienna and Paris. 1800-1850” (Moda în Țara Românească. Între Fanar, Viena și Paris. 1800 și 1850), Tudor Dinu has focused mainly on village churches founded by boyars in the first part of the 19th century in todays Gorj and Vâlcea counties, an area that was relatively prosperous at that time and more shielded from wars. The portraits in these churches indicate a continuation of dress traditions at a time of profound changes, as well as the transition to the new fashion, a transition marked by the co-existence of old and new elements. Historian Tudur Dinu explains this eclecticism:

“Important boyars who also had titles or were members of the princely council and held state positions could not afford to give up, at least not in an official or semi-official setting, the oriental dress, which was a symbol of their social status. Even the headdress reflected their positions. The ruler, for example, would wear a fur cap called ishlik with a white top. High-ranking boyars would wear caps with red tops and lower-ranked boyars caps with green tops. While waiting to be appointed, boyars and their sons would wear a form of head covering called kalpak, which looked like a balloon or a pear. They couldnt therefore stop wearing these outfits except in unofficial settings, at least not until the 1830s. The women, however, appear to have adopted the new fashion with extraordinary ease. As soon as the Russians occupied these parts, the ladies began to imitate the fashion brought over by the Russians.”

Those who had embraced the renewal of fashion did not shy away from being depicted on the walls of the churches they founded in their new “German”, that is western dress. This is the case of the founders of the church in Hurezani village, in Gorj county, where all family members look as if they came straight out of a fashion magazine of the day. However, the new fashion was also fiercely opposed by some. Historian Tudor Dinu explains:

“Their argument had more to do with religious conservatism. They believed the new fashion encouraged both women and men to sin. Trousers were the subject of heated debates between the traditionalists and the progressives, especially as it wasnt exactly comfortable for men to replace the old type of dressing. The enteri, which was a kind of unisex robe, was comfortable for all body shapes, while fitting into the newly adopted trousers would require sacrifices. The same with the riding coast. It was equally uncomfortable for the ladies, because of the corsettes, which were supposed to highlight their wasp waists.”

The new fashion did prevail in the end, its adoption being soon followed by a change in furniture design, interior design and architecture.

“Lavender and Garlic” and “Pins and Blue Paper” are two special books, difficult to include into a specific genre, as they have fiction, memoirs and cookbooks, all in one. They were written by architect and set designer Sergiu Singer. Born in 1928 in Ploiești, Singer, who died in 2018 in Bremen, Germany, left Romania in 1963, but remained connected to his native country which he frequently revisited and wrote about and where he had very good friends. Some of them often remember him, as does the architect Radu Comșa, a lecturer at the Bucharest University of Arts: “I met Sergiu before I knew him or I knew him before I met him due to an architectural dilemma. I was walking on Iancu de Hunedoara Boulevard in Bucharest and I was looking at a group of buildings that were somehow very strange, because the building on the right was the Soviet-type and quite ordinary while the one on the left was a bit exaggerated in terms decoration, a bit ostentatious, and, in any case, out of line. And I sat and wondered if someone was fooling Stalin. Someone dared to be out of line at a time when architecture was the puppet of dictators, the domain in which no mistakes were allowed. When I met him and he told me that he had designed that facade, at the age of 27, I remembered the moment when I had noticed it. The meeting between us also had a theatrical effect. He had a very special way of presenting himself. He used to say: “Im Singer, like the sewing machine.”

Before becoming a professor himself, Sergiu Singer was, after graduating from the Faculty of Architecture, assigned to the studio of architect Ioan Giurgea. A fan of ornamentation in architecture, Giurgea realized that the apprentice was even more interested in decorations than he was, and directed him towards theater. Radu Comșa: “Through a happy coincidence, he met his classmate from St. Peter and Paul High School in Ploiești, actor Toma Caragiu, on the street. Caragiu hired him in 1957 at the Youth Theater in Ploiești. There he signed his first set design for the show “De Pretore Vincenzo” by Eduardo de Filippo. Sergiu told me that the premiere in Ploiesti took place only a few months after the world premiere in Italy. Thats how Sergiu got into theater, which would become his second great love. “

In the Federal Republic of Germany, where he emigrated in 1963, Sergiu Singer also focused on performing arts. Radu Comsa: “He arrived in Germany. I received as a gift from Sergiu a painting, representing the port of Hamburg. At one point I told him that the painting was not his style, as it was too gloomy. They are not your colors, there is no joy in it, I told him. He admitted that he had some difficult years right after getting to the Federal Republic of Germany. But he took up set design again. It started with “Antigone” in Gottingen and then, in the same theater, he signed the set design for another play, on the opposite end of the theatrical repertoire: “Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”. And so his career in Germany began. He started with theater plays, and then the opera. He also worked on a television show that was successful on ZDF and had a career of over 10 years. “

Although settled in Germany, Sergiu Singer found opportunities to visit Romania, where he would visit his old friends, one of them being actor Victor Rebengiuc: “Sergiu was a man who was born a friend. Because a friendship with him was forged on the spot. (…) I met him after I had graduated from the Institute of Theater in 1958. I was assigned to Craiova alongside a group of colleagues and, together with a professor, Vlad Mugur, we staged a play by Oscar Wilde, which was called “The Importance of Being Earnest”. The set for the show was made by Siegfried. The play was staged in Craiova. Thats where I met him and thats where we became friends, because we would see each other daily. I came to Bucharest shortly after the premiere of this show. In January I was already working at the Bulandra Theater or the Municipal Theater as it was called back then. We kept seeing each other, we were friends, we talked, but at some point he disappeared. I imagined that he left because he was a man who could stand on his own two feet anywhere in the world and did wonderful things. The moment he returned to Bucharest and Romania, he looked for me and we were able to resume our friendship.”

After the fall of communism, Sergiu Singer was able to follow his other passions: gastronomy and prose writing. This is how his two books – “Lavender and Garlic ” and “Pins and Blue Paper” – where the recipes of delicious dishes are tasted in the middle of the picturesque landscape of a Bucharest of the past, the one from Sergiu Singers serene and optimistic memories. (EE)

Compared even today to white gold, salt has been an extremely coveted commodity since ancient times, and regions rich in deposits gained an importance directly proportional to its value. This is also the case of the Romanian area, which has always been considered home to the largest salt deposits in Europe. Valerii Kavruk, manager of the National Museum of the Eastern Carpathians in Sfântu Gheorghe, told us a bit about the history of salt mining on the current territory of Romania:

“The serious, systematic concern for the exploitation of salt on the territory of Romania dates back to around 6050 BC. Of course, compared to other countries in Europe, at this moment the earliest age of salt exploitation in Europe is that of Romania. Very soon after this date, around 6,000 BC, we have somewhat later remains in southern Poland, near Krakow, and in Bulgaria, in the north-east, on the territory of todays Provadia. But these exploitations would appear a few centuries after those in the Romanian space. Moreover, in the areas with the oldest salt mines, salt ores are still exploited today, such as the rock salt deposits located on the surface of the soil, especially in the counties of Prahova, Buzău, Vrancea, and in the intercarpathian space at Praid. But the most widespread saline formations that man could exploit without modern technical equipment were the saltwater accumulations such as those in Bucovina and Subcarpathian Moldova.”

In the intra-Carpathian area, throughout the Maramureș Depression, there are hundreds of places where water springs from the ground. Also in Transylvania, most of the salt water springs are located along the Carpathians. And since ancient times, wood accompanied the exploitation of salt, developing a specific civilization in the respective regions. Valerii Kavruk has more:

“Most of the time, when we talk about antient times, we very rarely come across wood, because wood, being an organic material, is very perishable. During archaeological excavations if we find wood, we find it only in carbonized form, that is, a kind of coal. And wood is practically destroyed by microbes. In areas rich in salty soils or in salty waters or muds, optimal conditions are created to preserve this wood as it was thousands of years ago. In some areas, especially in Transylvania, where layers were created on the site of salt mining, and there are substantial deposits of mud, many wooden installations and tools were preserved. This does not mean that people did not use something else, nor does it mean that such structures and wooden objects did not exist elsewhere. It is only a coincidence that these conditions were met and that wood was preserved. Valerii Kavruk who, for several years, has been leading the research at the Băile Figa site, near the city of Beclean, Bistrița-Năsăud county, has also told us that in most arecheological sites where there used to be salt mines, traces of wood were found.

“There, a salt deposit of 3 meters thick has formed above the salt deposit. In this layer of mud, thousands of objects and traces of wooden structures have been preserved, which were made during the exploitations that started around 3500 years BC. Currently, there is nowhere in Romania as much wood from prehistoric times as there is in a single site at Băile Figa. Certainly, such wooden structures and objects are also found elsewhere, but at Baile Figa we know them better, because for now it is the only place where systematic archaeological excavations are carried out in one of these sites.

Wood is one of the few materials that is preserved very well in a salty environment, so various structures have appeared over time, also discovered at Băile Figa. One example would be the oak retaining fences built on the lands from which the silt was taken to reach the salt rock as well as the wooden galleries used inside the mines. (MI)

The
architect Irina Nemţeanu recently published a study entitled
Aspects of habitation of the Jewish community in Moldavia
(1775-1930) in
which she looks at the way of life of Moldavia’s old Jewish
communities.
Her endeavour started from her realisation that the history of
multiculturalism in the Romanian lands had an influence on the local
urban fabric and architecture.

With
respect to the history of Jewish
migration to Moldavia, this
aspect also depended on the social and economic policies pursued by
the different foreign occupations that dominated historical Moldavia:
the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian empires. The Jews began to settle
her even before 1775, when the migration waves intensified. They
benefited from a certain policy of the Ottoman empire, which had
sovereignty over the principality of Moldavia and thus held a
monopoly on the international sale of many goods that came from
Moldavia. Under the circumstances, the settlement of foreign
merchants in these parts – and who were not subject to the monopoly
imposed on the locals – gave an impetus to
trading
with
areas outside of the empire and made the Moldavian route one of the
most important trading routes in the region.

Irina
Nemțeanu explains in more details how the Jews came to settle in
Moldavia as a result of the regional policy of the big empires:

The
history of these communities in
Moldavia does not begin at the end of the 18th
century, but much earlier. We know there existed older communities in
Siret and Iași
from as early as the 17th
century. What happens at the end of the 18th
century is that the phenomenon was becoming much more visible at an
urban level. A very large number of communities began to migrate to
Moldavia as part of a certain context, which explains many things
that have to do with the areas outside of Moldavia. I’m also
speaking of the fact that the Habsburg Empire took over a number of
territories, including Bukovina, as well as of the area of resistance
in the Russian empire, for example. We should also take into account
the various restrictions faced by the Jewish communities who wanted a
certain amount of freedom of habitation and of practising trade,
freedom they were more likely to find in Moldavia. In certain
respects, the situation here was better than what was happening
elsewhere.

Quite
a few market towns had developed in time in Moldavia, which had been
crossed, as early as the Middle Ages, by a series of important
international commercial routes. The Jews settled in the proximity of
these market towns, even resuscitating some of them which had become
impoverished. Irina Nemțeanu explains:

On
the one hand, I’m referring to Moldavia’s major market towns
which acquired a new role from the beginning of the 19th
century owing to a special political and economic context, places
like Iași, Roman, Dorohoi and other big settlements. On the other
hand, a series of smaller towns began to develop in this changed
economic context and which grew in fact as settlements with a
commercial role near already existing villages and in some cases on
the land of Moldavian boyars. There are many such places: Podu
Iloaiei, Frumușica in Iași county, Ștefănești, Berești. There
are very many examples that in effect demonstrate that this was a
wider phenomenon, although also developing depending on certain
periods and the waves of immigration of these communities, which were
mainly made up of merchants and numbered many Jews.

The
Jewish houses and shops in the area were typical of merchant homes
everywhere: the shop on the ground floor and the residential quarters
either upstairs or at the back. Architect Irina Nemțeanu tells us
more about the characteristics of the Jewish districts in these
market towns:

We
can’t really talk of a Jewish architectural style, but we can say
there were certain common elements throughout the region. A defining
feature is a systematic organisation of certain functions around a
busy commercial route and the intention to hide the ethnic and
religious aspect. This latter aspect also had to do with the host
country, which imposed certain rules for the integration of this
community. On the other hand, at least until the mid 19th
century, the Jewish communities probably tended to hide their places
of worship. This is why the synagogues were most often located
somewhere in the background, not visible, but hidden behind the
houses and the shops. It’s also for this reason, in fact, that
until early 20th
century, owing to this characteristic of the Jewish communities, they
were to be found especially on the outskirts of the city.

Given
this tendency for the Jewish communities to hide the religious aspect
of their way of life, what can be said about the cohabitation of the
Jews with the majority population? Architect Irina Nemțeanu
explains:

There
are two different aspects. On the one hand, these communities lived
in market towns, where habitation would be naturally diffuse, mixed,
so they would have established connections with other allogeneic or
indigenous groups. The settlement was in fact a cultural melting pot.
On the other hand, owing to the fact that these communities were the
most numerous in the market towns, the latter appeared as if they
were almost Jewish settlements. It wasn’t necessarily an intention,
but the result of the settling of people who somehow shared a common
cultural past.

The
appearance of these former market towns is much changed today, with
many of the Jewish houses having disappeared in time. Those that are
still standing are in need of conservation and promotion as part of
the historical and ethnic context in which they first emerged.

Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu established herself in the Romanian interwar literature as one of the first and most important voices of the revived Romanian novel. The fact that this new path was opened by a woman, singled her out among other writers of that time, who were quite numerous and equally talented. That explains why, for a long time, in textbooks and even in the public conscience, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu seemed to be the only interwar writer worthy of being preserved in cultural memory. Nothing was further from the truth however, given that Hortensia had shared, until her debut, the common fate of women of her time. Born in 1876 to a wealthy family that had also given other writers, she married magistrate Nicolae Papadat when she was only 20. She had to follow him from one city to another, anywhere his profession called him. After the marriage, Hortensia gave birth to five children, the future author dedicating many years entirely to her household and family.

Literary critic Paul Cernat tells us more about her: Hortensia is definitely an interesting case in Romanian literature. Her biography was marked by her parents’ refusal to let her go study abroad, in France. She took her revenge by marrying a magistrate, Nicolae Papadat, who had little understanding of literature and who somehow made her life difficult. They had five children together. He was a decent guy, but for the future writer this marriage was not what she had wanted. She had to wait until she was almost 40 to make her literary debut. At first, she wrote under a different name, with the support of a fellow writer, Constanța Marino-Moscu, from the literary circle of Viața Românească magazine in Iasi. Constanta brokered the publication of Hortensia’s writings at the magazine run by literary critic and prose writer Garabet Ibrăileanu. Ibrăileanu would very quickly become Hortensia’s first mentor. She was lacking self confidence, probably because she had no higher education, so she looked for a mentor. She found him, first in the person of Ibrăileanu, later in that of Eugen Lovinescu. Since Garabet Ibrăileanu and Eugen Lovinescu represented literary groups with opposite ideologies – the first conservative, the second modernist – Hortensia’s proximity to Sburătorul literary group was considered a betrayal by those at Viaţa Românească.

The truth was that Lovinescu was encouraging the modernization and synchronization of Romanian culture with that of the West, and this tendency corresponded to the wishes of female writers. The collaboration with Sburătorul, which began in 1919, became permanent when the writer moved to Bucharest in 1933. Under the guidance of Lovinescu, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu wrote her best-known novels put together in the so-called Hallipa family cycle.

Paul Cernat: There was another very important moment that influenced Hortensia’s writing. It was the experience of the First World War, when she was, among other things, a nurse and when she came into contact with the horrors of death, of destruction, of bodies ravaged by war and destroyed by epidemics. It is from here that she probably got her obsession with the sick and the disease that we see in her great novels from the 1920s and 1930s. Perhaps this also mattered in the objectification of Hortensia, to quote Lovinescu, in switching the interest from introspection to the real, the external world. The Hallipa Family Cycle in 1920-1930, is a psycho-social fresco of Romania of those years. It is also an ultrasound, a radiograph of a suffering humanity, a humanity stripped of vitality, somehow paradoxical in its morbidity.

These novels will ensure Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu a position among the great interwar novelists, and, until recently, a place in high-school textbooks. The importance gained by female writers at that time is also explained by literary critic Paul Cernat: Hortensia debuted very late. She debuted when her children were adults. It is only when the children grew up that she could afford the luxury of debuting in literature. Probably Nicolae Papadat would not have accepted this happening earlier. He would have considered this activity of an unbearable frivolity, even morally dangerous. But the fact that Hortensia debuted late gave her the appearance of a great lady, not necessarily in Ibrăileanu’s literary circle, but in that of Lovinescu. At the time, there was also talk about the masculinization of Hortensia, and it wasn’t just feminist criticism that talked about the fact that her identity had been masculinized. Of course, there is a lot to discuss here. I mean, she didn’t let herself be shaped as much as it seemed. Hortensia knew how to cultivate her own personality, which ultimately imposed on everyone through the complexity and the high stakes of the literary game she practiced. I do not hesitate to place Hortensia in the proximity of Virginia Woolf, in terms of literary value, without having a theoretical, essayistic capacity, as was the case with Virginia Woolf. Unfortunately, however, the fact that she was valued and tagged as an exception by some high profile critics such as Lovinescu and Ibrăileanu, somewhow shadowed other writers.

Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu died in March 1955 during the first decade of the communist regime, forgotten both by the public and by the literary critics who, at that time, were serving the socialist realism. She would eventually be reinstated among Romanias most important writers, decades later. (EE)