Reviews

Entries Tagged as 'Reviews'

Poetry in Translation (CCCXLV), James KIRCUP (1918-2009) UK/ENGLAND: “No Men Are Foreign”, “Nimeni nu e străin”

July 11th, 2015 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CCCXLV), James KIRCUP (1918-2009) UK/ENGLAND: “No Men Are Foreign”, “Nimeni nu e străin” · Diaspora, Famous People, History, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations

No Men Are Foreign
James KIRCUP (1918-2009)
Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign
Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes
Like ours: the land our brothers walk upon
Is earth like this, in which we all shall lie.
Nimeni nu e venetic
James KIRCUP (1918-2009)
Străine, ia aminte, nimeni nu e venetic, iar glia nu-i străină.
Sub orice uniformă acelaşi trup zvâcneşte,
Asemeni cu al nostru; iar câmpul bătăliei, cuprins de fraţii noştri,
E-aidoma cu al nostru, sub care-om zace morţi.
în limba Română de Constantin ROMAN, Londra
© 2015 Copyright Constantin ROMAN

Poetry in Translation (CCCXXXIX), Herta MULLER (b. 1953), ROMANIA-BANAT/GERMANY: “Colour Grey”, “Gri”

June 15th, 2015 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CCCXXXIX), Herta MULLER (b. 1953), ROMANIA-BANAT/GERMANY: “Colour Grey”, “Gri” · Communist Prisons, Diary, Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, quotations, Reviews, Translations

I was nice to him
He was nice to me
Only
Our doors, our windows
Kept closed
Lest we smell each other.

Nu mă gândesc la tine
Dar când pământul aprig îmi va cuprinde pieptul
Voi visa tot mai mult la acele zile.

Five Book Reviews: Memoirs of Adrian Marino, Gheorghe Rafael-Stefanescu, Boris Johnson, George Orwell and Joseph Stalin

May 25th, 2014 · No Comments · Books, History, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews

This is the most meaningful metamorphosis in Orwell’s life, during which time he realizes the underlying workings of Communism. Such ideology he ditches to refute it completely in his future best sellers: “1984” and “The Animal Farm”. We find Orwell, as an intelligent man, flirting with the left-wing dictatorship (and the Civil War) only to reject it without a right of appeal. As an observer, living his life’s experience at first hand, this is a compelling experience
It is precisely the stuff for which George Orwell’s works were completely banned in Eastern Europe, to the last days of Communism.

Four Book Reviews by Constantin ROMAN – Biographies of Hugh Trevor-Roper, Salomé Zourabichvili, George Orwell,

May 14th, 2014 · No Comments · Books, History, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Reviews

When in old age he found himself the master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, he reviewed “Religion and Public Doctrine in Modern England” by Maurice Cowling, the history don, who had secured him the Mastership of the oldest Cambridge College. Cowling was the guru to such Conservative Party luminaries as Peregrine Worsthorne and Colin Welch of the Telegraph, and to that extent he was a person of influence. “The subject is the intellectual history of our time and the great spiritual crisis in which we have found ourselves,” Trevor-Roper wrote. “I find, on reading it, that this intellectual history has unfolded itself, and this crisis has been observed, and is to be resolved, almost entirely within the walls of Peterhouse.”

“Blouse Roumaine – The Unsung Voices of Romanian Women” – Selected and Introduced by Constantin Roman (Extracts from the Biography of Carmen Sylva – Queen Elisabeth of Romania)

April 28th, 2014 · No Comments · Books, Diaspora, History, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations

Vincent van Gogh about Elisabeth of Romania:
“A childless woman is like a bell without a clapper—the sound of the bronze would perhaps be beautiful, but no one will ever hear it.”
Quoted by Vincent van Gogh In a Letter to Theo Saint-Rémy, 19 September 1889

Cambridge History of Science – BOOK REVIEWS: CONSTANTIN ROMAN – “CONTINENTAL DRIFT – COLLIDING CONTINENTS, CONVERGING CULTURES”

January 29th, 2014 · Comments Off on Cambridge History of Science – BOOK REVIEWS: CONSTANTIN ROMAN – “CONTINENTAL DRIFT – COLLIDING CONTINENTS, CONVERGING CULTURES” · Books, Diaspora, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews

Prof> John D. Dewey, FRS,
(Universities of Oxford and California, Davis)

“Continental Drift” offered me a relaxing excellent read full of humour, humanity, wisdom and good science, way beyond the History of Science. This book is an Ode to the Joy of Freedom, of a kind celebrated in Enesco’s Rhapsodies, or the cosmic vision of Brancusi’s “Column of Infinity”: this is Constantin Roman’s “Ninth Symphony”. I trust the reader would share with me pleasures that have derived from reading ‘Continental Drift’.

POETRY IN TRANSLATION (CCXLIV): Pierre REVERDY, (1889 – 1960), FRANCE, “Tard dans la vie”, “Late in life”, “Amurgul vieţii”

January 24th, 2014 · Comments Off on POETRY IN TRANSLATION (CCXLIV): Pierre REVERDY, (1889 – 1960), FRANCE, “Tard dans la vie”, “Late in life”, “Amurgul vieţii” · International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations, Uncategorized

Je suis dur
Je suis tendre
Et j’ai perdu mon temps
A rêver sans dormir
A dormir en marchant
Partout où j’ai passé
J’ai trouvé mon absence
Je ne suis nulle part
Excepté le néant

Collection of Antique Prints and Engravings (16thc – 19th c), (Part II)

November 2nd, 2013 · Comments Off on Collection of Antique Prints and Engravings (16thc – 19th c), (Part II) · Art Collections, Art Exhibitions, Diaspora, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Reviews

From a prima facie evidence it seems that this collection is not matched by similar efforts in the public domain, either in Romania, or elsewhere. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, also has not got this material although it covers immediately adjacent areas, such as the Levant and the Middle East, through the recent acquisition of a collection from a retired Shell executive.
The late Professor’s Oprescu’s collection, given to the Romanian Academy Prints Department, has some beautiful examples of watercolours and sketches, some by Count Prezziosi, but does not overlap with our prints. Prince Nicholas of Romania’s collection of maps has been dispersed soon after the Second World War. Sadly “Ceausescu’s surrogate “Muzeul Colectiilor” of Calea Victoriei, in Bucharest has relegated an important inter-war collection of historic engravings, donated by a private collector, to a “deposit” in a damp basement, sadly forgotten and most certainly ruined: such is the wisdom of our Wallachian luminaries, otherwise, known as “boierii mintii”(…).

Collection of Antique Prints and Engravings (16thc – 19th c), (Part I)

October 29th, 2013 · 1 Comment · Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, Reviews

Constantin ROMAN bought his first prints whilst a postgraduate student in Cambridge, in the early 1970s, when very few people were interested in the subject and prices were accessible. Over the following thirty years, as a Geophysicist, he had the opportunity to travel extensively and added substantially to his collection, mostly from dealers in England, France and Holland. His particular interest concentrated on images from the Ottoman Empire in Europe, with emphasis on Wallachia and Moldavia (the Lower Danube and the Carpathians) as well as the Eastern part of the Habsburg Empire, (the Principality of Transylvania). Auxiliary themes of a wider regional interest (Polish, Russian, Balkan, Hungarian, Austrian, Turkish) are also present.

Subject Matter:

The subject of the collection has a strong topographical interest. It consists of maps (including plans of battles and strategic fortifications), views (landscapes and townscapes), costumes, portraits of historical characters, scenes of social and political interest, architectural / natural monuments, political cartoons of the 19th century, etc.

Şerban Veliciu: Recenzie – Deriva Continetală – Coliziunea Continentelor şi Convergenţa Culturilor”, sau – “Un Român în Derivă”

October 18th, 2013 · Comments Off on Şerban Veliciu: Recenzie – Deriva Continetală – Coliziunea Continentelor şi Convergenţa Culturilor”, sau – “Un Român în Derivă” · Books, Diaspora, OPINION, PEOPLE, Reviews, Translations

Deriva Continetală – Coliziunea Continentelor şi Convergenţa Culturilor” “Un Român în Derivă” Dr. Ing. Şerban Veliciu Profesor la Universitatea din Bucureşti, Citind “Deriva Continentală” aflăm despre meandrele carierei lui Constantin Roman, cel care a reuşit să strălucească în domenii în care, la începuturi, nu promitea prea mult. Am fost amândoi colegi de an la Facultatea […]

Centre for Romanian Studies