International Media

Entries Tagged as 'International Media'

Poetry in Translation (LXXXII) – Miriam Waddington (1917-2004) Canadian Poet

June 7th, 2011 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (LXXXII) – Miriam Waddington (1917-2004) Canadian Poet · International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, Translations

Miriam Waddington (née Dworkin, 1917 – 2004) was a Canadianpoet, short story writer and translator.
She joined the English department at York University. She retired in 1983.
Waddington was part of a Montreal circle that included F.R. Scott, Irving Layton and Louis Dudek.
Some of her published poems and stories have been translated and published in Russia, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Italy, South America and Romania – the latter `(see above) being translated by Constantin Roman.
An excerpt of her poem figures on the Canadian one-hundred dollar note:
“Do we remember that somewhere above the sky in some child’s dream, perhaps
Jacques Cartier is still sailing, always on his way always about to discover a new Canada?”

Comrade Jonathan Swift’s “subversive” Gulliver and the “Genius of the Carpathians”

June 3rd, 2011 · Comments Off on Comrade Jonathan Swift’s “subversive” Gulliver and the “Genius of the Carpathians” · Books, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations

“Publishing Swift’s satires in 1985, I myself fought a lot with the censor in order to include “A Modest proposal” concerning eating Irish children, which had become subversive here on account of meat shortage in Romania. Faced with the alternative of not publishing the book at all, or doing it without the famous text, I gave it up. The supreme level of censorship was a department of the (Communist) Party Central Committee.”
source of quotation:
http://www.blouseroumaine.com

Maria MESTEROU (France) artist painter – her work on the conservation of Orthodox images

May 26th, 2011 · 7 Comments · Art Exhibitions, Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, Reviews

Il m’est arrivé d’avoir à faire à une vaste gamme de techniques picturales, allant de la classique peinture sur toile, passant par celles sur plaques de cuivre et sur bois, jusqu’à la détrempe à l’œuf sur tissu non tendu sur châssis, comme ce fut le cas pour un très ancien voile grec couvert de beaucoup de scènes de l’Ancien et du Nouveau Testaments, dominées par deux grandes icônes de la Vierge et de Jésus Christ. Les deux premières images montrent le voile avant la restauration, avec, cependant, les visages de la Vierge et du Christ nettoyés. On voit ensuite son aspect final:

Churchill College, Cambridge, Romanian Poetry with George Steiner

April 14th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Diary, Diaspora, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

NOTE: for those readers who either do not know or do not want to know and especially for those who escaped Romania, this is to say how nearly impossible it was to cross the Iron Curtain during Ceausescu’s hellish dictatorship: many people risked their lives and paid the heavy price of exile – others who had no faith in any change for the better after Ceausescu’s fall, have joined the exodus and millions of uprooted who seek work and settled in other countries – Millions of them!! Romania’s 23 million-population would decrease even faster should it not be for the influx of Chinese workers and the high birthrate of the Roma ethnic minority. Such is the inheritance of five decades of Communism!

extract from:
www.constantinroman.com/continentaldrift
(there is a free Romanian translation downloadable in pdf (ask for link – large memory needed ) , because even 17 years after the fall of communism, in 1989, although these memoirs were published in England and in the USA, its translation cannot be published in Bucharest: it was turned down by Liicianu of “Humanitas”, by Patapievici’s “Romanian Institute” (Formerly the Fundatia Culturala Romana) and by Romanian editors with claims of being “aristocrats of the intellect” (boierii mintii) – read “leaders of opinion”.
“

Petitie a asociaţiilor de proprietari deposedaţi abuziv în perioada 1945-1989

April 13th, 2011 · Comments Off on Petitie a asociaţiilor de proprietari deposedaţi abuziv în perioada 1945-1989 · Diaspora, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE

Petitie a asociaţiilor de proprietari deposedaţi abuziv în perioada 1945-1989
Prin decizia pilot Maria Atanasiu c. Romaniei, CEDO a solicitat statului roman să modifice legislaţia de restituire şi procedurile de lucru, în aşa fel încât proprietarii deposedaţi sa-şi reprimească bunurile confiscate sau despăgubirile cuvenite, într-un interval de timp „rezonabil“.

Asociaţiilorde proprietari deposedaţi, solicită ca, la elaborarea legii de restituire şi a procedurilor de lucru, să se respecte următoarele principii:
Respectarea articolelor 16 alin. 1,2; 20 şi 44 din Constituţia Românei., precum şi a articolelor 6 şi 1 din Protocolul 1 al Convenţiei pentru apărarea Drepturilor Omului şi a Libertăţilor fundamentale
Respingem orice formă de discriminare a persoanelor îndreptăţite, precum:

o plafonarea valorii despăgubirilor sau diminuarea acestora faţă de valoarea de piaţă.
respingerea cererilor fostilor cetăţeni români, cetăţeni ai UE şi moştenitori ai unor cetăţeni români, sub pretextul ca nu mai sunt actualmente cetăţeni români.
.Intocmirea unui plan de măsuri clare si univoce, cu rezultate controlabile, cu activităţi, termene şi responsabilităţi bine definite, care să fie raportate periodic autorităţilor europene.
Admiterea rezolvarii revendicarilor în baza Codului Civil Roman, prin complete de judecata specializate.

Romanian MEP Adrian Severin makes headlines in London’s Sunday Times

March 30th, 2011 · Comments Off on Romanian MEP Adrian Severin makes headlines in London’s Sunday Times · Diary, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations

Romanian MEP Adrian Severin, a former Romanian Foreign Minister, makes headlines in London’s Sunday Times

Adrian Severin (born 28 March 1954 in Bucharest) started his politics career under Ceausescu’s Communist rule, as Instructor (lector) at the infamous Ştefan Gheorghiu Academy, the infamous university whuch hatched Romanian Communist cadres. it seems that such qualifications were particularly well suited for a glowing political career after the Communist dictator was put down in 1989.

After this infamous Palace Coup, Severin became a member of the National Salvation Front and the Democratic Party (which he left in April 1999). which was a convenient trampolin for him to be parachuted as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania between December 12, 1996 and December 29, 1997 under the Emil Constantinescu Conservative Administration.

With the accession of Romania to the European Union Adrian Severin became an MEP on 1 January 2007 as a member of the Social Democratic Party, part of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, .

Four years later, in 2011 the European Parliament opened a formal investigation into alleged corruption by Severin and two other MEPs. Severin insisted he had done nothing “illegal or against any normal behavior”, although he was accused of accepting bribe in exchange of initiating a law amendment. He was called by the Leader of the SD Group in the European Parliament to resign., which he refused, against all factual evidence. As a direct consequence Mr Severin was suspended from his position of Deputy-Leader of the SD Group and was compelled to leave his Parliamentary Group.

Unlike the Romanian parliament where such contrition is unheard of, in the European parliament, at least, when one is caught red-handed and one refuses to leave, one is given the Order of the Boot: which implies that by European standards, at least, all chicken come home to roost – not so in Romania which remains unruffled as such minor irritants are chicken feed!

Mr Severin’s political career is not yet over as his talents will be in dire need in his home country: watch out this space!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12806955

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An9Yo_gyYYQ

Lionel ROUX: “Odyssée pastorale” – Extrait “Chez les bergers des Carpates Roumaines”

March 2nd, 2011 · Comments Off on Lionel ROUX: “Odyssée pastorale” – Extrait “Chez les bergers des Carpates Roumaines” · Books, Diary, International Media, PEOPLE, Reviews

Son and grandson of moving shepherds…

in a biographical and reflexive quest, I was taken to look into a task that was the one of my father’s and my grandfather’s but will never be mine. My photographic quest draws its sources from a history of lines, of features, limits, traces, that constitute and mark a territory. It also finds roots in the ancient culture but in a very fragile way of the pastoral civilization.
In the beginning, there is the course where the line of the family roots stretches out between the alpine province and the Piémont mountains. The path (or rather paths) of the migratory shepherd, the trip that for centuries was brought twice a year by men and herds over the lands.
Shifts of altitude by the ones and shifts of attitude by my shepherd father to draw a line on this nomad life.
My artistic path, my photographer’s itinerary has been continually questionning the pastoral culture of the migration around the mediterranean area and even farther, ever since I was conscious of the fracture by my rejected inheritance.
It is not a simple quest for roots ( of which nomads don’t feel concerned ) but a semi-etnographic exploration of the mentioned event vanishing little by little : The trace of the pastoral routes, the mediterranean and african shepherd’s world.

Mon cheminement artistique mon itinérance de photographe n’a pas eu de cesse, dès lors que j’ai pris conscience de cette cassure (de cet héritage refusé) d’interroger l’épaisseur de cette culture pastorale de la transhumance, que ce soit en Europe ou en Afrique. Il ne s’agit pas d’une banale quête de racines (dont les nomades ne s’embarrassent pas), mais plutôt d’une exploration de ce qui se transforme peu à peu : la trace des trajets pastoraux, le monde des bergers.

Gabriel Badea-Paun awarded the prize “Le Second Empire-Fondation Napoléon”

December 11th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Books, Diary, Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE

Monsieur Gabriel Badea-Paun awarded the prize “Le Second Empire-Fondation Napoléon” for his monograph:

“Le style Second Empire : Architecture, décors et art de vivre”

Monsieur Gabriel Badea-Paun had received from Her Imperial Highness the Princess Napoleon the medal “Le Second Empire-Fondation Napoléon”. The ceremony had taken place on 7th December 2010 in Paris at the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in the presence of the Chancellor and Army General Jean-Louis Georgelin.
Born in Sinaia in 1973 Gabriel Badea-Păun has an MA in History and a doctorate in History of Art (Sorbonne, 2005) . He is a Knight of the Cultural Merit (Romania 2009) and in 2010 he received the “King Michael Medal for Loyalty”.

Can’t find the Word for Democracy!

October 25th, 2010 · Comments Off on Can’t find the Word for Democracy! · Art Exhibitions, International Media, quotations

Calman cartoon in the Times of London – alluding to the mob-rule by Romanian miners called by President Iliescu and Prime Minister Petre Roman to quell the fledgling Democracy movement in Bucharest.
Under the title “Fear of mob-rule grips Romania (June 1990) the caption says:
“Can’t find the word for Democracy in Romanian Phrase book” – caption

STOP PRESS: Romanians @ the Vancouver International Film Festival – 2010

October 4th, 2010 · Comments Off on STOP PRESS: Romanians @ the Vancouver International Film Festival – 2010 · Diary, International Media, Reviews

STOP PRESS: Romanians @ the Vancouver International Film Festival

(September 30 to 15 October, 2010)

Our Canadian Correspondent informs us about the following SIX Romanian Films being shown at the VIFF:

1. Aurora
2. The Autobiography of Nicholae Ceausescu
3. Belly Of The Whale (Burta Balenei)
4. Derby
5. If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle (Eu Cand Vreau Sa Fluier, Fluier)
6. Morgen

Centre for Romanian Studies