OPINION

Entries Tagged as 'OPINION'

Mircea Eliade si Părintele Arsenie Boca despre ieşirea din timpul istoric (Isabela Vasiliu-Scraba)

February 15th, 2011 · Comments Off on Mircea Eliade si Părintele Arsenie Boca despre ieşirea din timpul istoric (Isabela Vasiliu-Scraba) · Diary, Diaspora, OPINION, PEOPLE

*La Paris, pe când era discutat romanul metafizic al lui Mircea Eliade, un critic literar scăpat de teroarea comunistă din RPR observase dezinteresul Occidentului pentru suferinţele românilor întemniţati cu sutele de mii de mercenarii ocupantului sovietic al ţării. Referitor la acest vinovat dezinteres al umaniştilor francezi de stânga, Ierunca nota următoarele: “lui Sartre nu i se cere decât o informaţie obiectivă. Dar el dă dovadă de ipocrizie şi amnezii inexplicabile” (Virgil Ierunca, Trecut-au anii. Jurnal, Ed. Humanitas, Bucureşti, 2000). Probabil pe undeva pe aici se află şi motivul pentru care Eugen Ionescu nu a vrut niciodată să-l cunoască personal pe J.P.Sartre. Poziţia lui Mircea Eliade faţă de Sartre credem că a fost determinată mai ales de limitarea existenţei umane la social şi politic pe care o sesizase în scrierile existenţialistului. Pentru un erudit şi un literat care şi-a dedicat întreaga viaţă studierii fenomenului religios, observarea acestei limitării era desigur în defavoarea lui Sartre. Platonician ca şi Nae Ionescu, istoricul religiilor nota într-unul din jurnalele sale că pentru el socialul si politicul ţin de resortul literaturii şi nu al vieţii umane în esenţialitatea ei. După Eliade, evenimentele din timpul sacru sînt cu mult mai reale decât viaţa desfăşurată în timpul istoric (M. Eliade, Fragments d’un jurnal, p.429-430).

1980 – Thirty Years ago – Romania’s Communist Christmas

December 22nd, 2010 · 1 Comment · OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations

“I got up early, at the crack of dawn, to secure a place, by 6 AM, in an interminable queue, in the hope of buying milk and eggs for our silver wedding anniversary, but I came home empty handed. That afternoon I went again on an errand to see if I could buy anything for our dinner at our local market place. This was an open air market where peasants with a tiny plot of land could bring their vegetables. These were a luxury as they were so expensive, so I thought I had a better chance of finding something. The stalls made of wooden planks on struts were absolutely empty and in the fine rain they looked desolate and dirty. I scanned the stalls, as the last peasants were about to leave, for their villages, outside Bucharest. It was winter time and dark was falling early in the day. As I was about to give up, looking down, carefully to avoid the pot holes full of rain water, I just noticed a few potatoes which fell on the ground, under the stall, so I asked the peasant if I could pick them up. As I knelt on the ground, with difficulty, at my old age, because of my arthritis, I put them in my plastic bag and asked how much he wanted. He did not want to receive any money, in deference to my advanced age. I must have looked pityfull and exhausted. I hurried home with just an empty bag with three potatoes covered in mud. As I entered our block of flats I met this young neighbor of mine, who exclaimed in surprise: madame, she said, ‘where have you found these potatoes, because I looked the whole day and found none… and I have a young baby at home who has nothing to eat. I am desperate.’ So, I handed over to her the three potatoes, which were visible through the plastic bag and came home with nothing: but was glad to have done a good deed.” (Jenny Velescu, personal communication, 1981)
(Extract from the Anthology: “Blouse Roumaine – The Unsung Voices of Romanian Women”)

Deceniul Pierdut al Romaniei (Tom Gallagher)

November 13th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Books, OPINION, Reviews

Profesorul Tom Gallagher, analist politic al Romaniei, este un iscusit cunoscator al tarii noastre: clarviziunea sa, sub un unghi britanic, pigmentat de spiritul acid al stramosilor sai Irlandezi ne prezinta o imagine fara farduri a Romaniei, asa cum nu am vrea sa o stim, in toata splendoarea ei Carpato-Balcanica cu un puternic iz Oriental: caci fie ca am vrea sa ne confruntam cu noi insine si sa ne vedem precum imparatul despuiat, sau fie ca am dori sa ne amagim in continuare si sa ne credem scapati de napasta trecutului dictaturii comuniste, titlul cartii ne spune totul, incapsuland in cateva vocabule esenta mioritica a Romaniei de azi: Zece ani pierduti si marasmul unei neimpliniri!
Tom Galagher se fereste sa ne dea solutii, dar analiza lui ascutita a fenomenului politic si social romanesc este suficienta ca sa sugereze, prin excluderea practicilor negative si destructive romanesti, care ar fi alternativa. Si totusi sa piara gandul ca i-ar apartine doar acestui analist britanic calitatea de a ajunge la o concluzie lucida a “deceniului pierdut” sugerat chiar de imaginea copertii cartii: Am ramas, intr-adevear de caruta!

Am ramas, intr-adevear de caruta!

Hungarian ‘Savoir-faire’ and Romanian Navel-gazing

November 1st, 2010 · 1 Comment · Art Exhibitions, OPINION, Reviews

The Hungarian savoir-faire and Romanian narcissism:

Footnote to the Hungarian Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, Piccadilly on: “Treasures from Budapest – European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele”

Spanish-Romanian Cultural Complicities (I)

October 30th, 2010 · Comments Off on Spanish-Romanian Cultural Complicities (I) · Books, Diaspora, OPINION, PEOPLE, Translations

Another prominent exile was Alejandro Cioranescu (b Romania 1911 – d. Tenerife 1999) doctor Honoris causa of the University of Tenerife at La Laguna – an expert on the Spanish baroque and on the French-Spanish bibliography his books Estudios de literatura española y comparada (La Laguna, 1954), El barroco o el descubrimiento del drama (La Laguna,1957), Los hispanismos en el francés clásico (Madrid, 1987) and Bibliografía franco-española, 1600-1715 (Madrid 1977) remain to this day standard references in the field.

Amongst the ‘greats’ of universal literature who found exile in Spain was Horia Vintila (1915, Romania – 1992, Spain) who wrote directly in several languages including Spanish in which he published several novels Marta, o la segunda guerra, (Barcelona, 1987), Persecutez Boèce!, (Barcelona, 1983), Un sepulcro en el cielo, (Barcelona, 1987). He was the nominee of the prestigious French literary Prix Goncourt in 1960 which he was compelled to renounce following a character-assassination witch hunt masterminded by the Romanian secret services through the French left-wing press. It is worth noting that the novel in question “Dieu est ne en exil” which was translated in fourteen languages was NOT a political novel and it was inspired by the life of the exiled Roman poet Ovid who died on the Romanian shores of the Black Sea.

Horia Vintila was also a prolific essayist and literary critic in Spanish with titles such as: Presencia del mito, (Madrid, 1956), Poesia y liberdad, (Madrid, 1959), Espana y otras mundos, (Barcelona, 1970), Mestor de novehita, (Madrid, 1972), Introduccion a la mundo peor, (Barcelona, 1978), Literatura y disidencia, (Madrid, 1980), Los deechos humanus, la novsledel sigle XX, (Madrid, 1981). Horia Vintila was professor of Universal Literature at the Official School of Journalism and later founded the Chair of Universal Literature at the Complutense University in Madrid.

During the last two decades an expert of Romanian literature is the former director of the Instituto Cervantes in Bucharest, Joaquin Garrigos Bueno a prolific translator of more than 30 Romanian novels in particular of Mircea Eliade (Boda en el cielo, Diario intimo de la India, Los jovenes barbaros, La noche de San Juan) and Emil Cioran (El ocaso del Pensamiento, El libro de la quimeras, Brevario de los vencidos,) but also of Camil Petrescu, Emil Voiculescu, Liviu Rebreanu and other classics and contemporary writers.

Architect Octavian Ciupitu, “Curierul Romanesc”, Sweden, September 2009 – Book Review

October 26th, 2010 · Comments Off on Architect Octavian Ciupitu, “Curierul Romanesc”, Sweden, September 2009 – Book Review · Books, Diaspora, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews

an extract from the book “La Apa Vavilonului” (At Babel’s river), volume 2 (2001) by Monica Lovinescu (1923-2008), journalist, political analyst, radio broadcaster, anti-communist and Human rights Activist exiled in Paris:

In Romania dissidence was an exception. Our resistance was present when it did not exist in the other satellite countries and it ended just as it started with our neighbouring countries. We fought and died in the Carpathian mountains, as the West was blind and deaf, basking in its victory and forgetting its hostages. From the prisons where our élite was destroyed in the 1960s emerged only the shadows of our earlier determination. Three successive waves of terror – 1948, 1952 and 1958 – had drained the collective organism. We caved into, a near-total silence. We sacrificed ourselves for nothing. With this sense of utter uselessness most of the survivors emerged from the jails, some of whom, while “free”, remained at the beck and call of the Securitate..

Book Review – ‘Train to Trieste’ by Domnica Radulescu

September 17th, 2010 · Comments Off on Book Review – ‘Train to Trieste’ by Domnica Radulescu · Books, Diaspora, OPINION, Reviews

‘Last Train to Trieste’ by Domnica Radulescu
During the 20th century Romanians made France or Germany their adoptive country, although some settled elsewhere in the world. But those Romanians who wrote in French or German were little translated in English and even fewer of them wrote in English. We can think of Panait Istrati, Countess of Noailles, or Princess Bibesco, before WWII who wrote in French and after the war, amongst the exile novelists such as Virgil Gheorghiu, Mircea Eliade, Vintilă Horia, Gregor von Rezzori, Herta Muller, who wrote in French, Romanian or German.Nevertheless few of their titles were rendered in English and amongst the latter fewer still became bestsellers, let alone enjoy the accolade of an International Prize.

If the Czechs had Kundera, the Albanians Ismail Kadere, so far the spotlight of international repute has generally bypassed Romania, leaving her literature in the shadows. This lapse could not be assigned only to the paucity of translation alone, but primarily to the absence of a broader perspective by the Romanian fiction writers, who were reduced for far too long, by Nicolae Ceausescu, to write in the wooden language of Marxist sycophantic speak.

Domnica Radulescu, known as an Academic rather than a fiction writer is only at her second novel, yet the omens are good: watch out this space.

Isabela Vasiliu-Scraba: “Camera 13 a ‘Vilei Noica’ de la Păltiniş”

September 15th, 2010 · 3 Comments · OPINION, PEOPLE

Ignorarea voită a operelor lui Noica (v. Isabela Vasiliu-Scraba, Noica şi “discipolii” săi) -filozof care nu l-a recunoscut pe Liiceanu drept discipol, desemnându-l într-o conversaţie cu Octavian Nistor (1917-1993) “discipol al lui Henry Wald, nu al său” (1974) -, apare pregnant şi la citirea plăcii care indică “vila Noica”. Pe transparenta placă, dl G. Liiceanu a uitat să consemneze esenţialul: Anume că la Păltiniş, în cei 8mp ai camerei închiriate, Constantin Noica a sporit patrimoniul cultural românesc scriind opere de mare valoare filozofică precum: Sentimentul românesc al fiinţei (1978), Spiritul românesc la cumpătul vremii (1978), Trei introduceri la Devenirea întru fiinţă (1984), Scrisori despre logica lui Hermes (1986) şi ultima sa carte, apărută post-mortem întâi în germană, De dignitate Europa (1988) şi abia la şase ani de la moartea lui Noica în româneşte, limba în care fusese scrisă.

Tot în “confortul” de la Păltiniş a scris Constantin Noica minunatele sale rânduri despre Lucian Blaga (1895-1962), Mircea Vulcănescu (1904-1952), Mircea Eliade (1907-1987) şi Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889) chemându-şi aceşti prieteni “văzuţi şi nevăzuţi” să ridice împreună castele de gândire filozofică autentică.

A History of Geophysics At Cambridge, England – Book Review

September 9th, 2010 · No Comments · Books, OPINION, PEOPLE, Reviews

Last but not least I am bound to be nostalgic about that last chapter in Carol’s book which I witnessed at “Mad Rise” as the last PhD student of Sir Edward Bullard. Teddy, a successor of Sir Gerald’s, remained the last towering Head o the Department of Geophysics before it was diluted with Geology and Mineralogy to become the current Department of Earth Sciences. Teddy was always unconventional and enthusiastic about new ideas and steeled my resolve in querying the infallibility of Plate Tectonics dictum, such as the “rigidity” of lihospheric Plates in Persia, Tibet and Sinkiang – hence the birth, at Mad Rise, during the early 1970s, of the revolutionary concept of “non-rigid plates”, or “Buffer Plates”: four decades on this new concept gained international acceptance from an otherwise a very conservative and sometimes begrudging profession. Such iconoclastic exercise was not without its dangers in the ruthless rat race of the late 1960s – early 1970s and the chaps from Mad Rise know it too well. Carol Williams apologizes to her contemporaries for leaving out some of their seminal contribution and one must be forgiving and accept her plea in good faith, given the fact that one is compensated by huge helpings about some greats. Even Molly Wisdom is not forgotten: here the larger-than-life persona who, for twenty four years was a Departmental secretary, is afforded not less than seven entries, only to be dispatched variously as a “part-time typist”, a “former opera singer” (with a “shrill voice”…), “chairing” the Common Room table during coffee breaks… It seems as if Molly’s shrewd judgment of human frailties was too close for comfort to some who considered the Department as their sole preserve.
Dan P. Mckenzie, another of Bullard’s students, has generously produced the Preface, the Postface, his raft of scientific papers, reminiscences, his youthful portrait, and more, leaving poor Sir Isaac Newton with the consolation prize of “second best”.

William Blacker: “Along the Enchanted Way – a Romanian Story”

September 2nd, 2010 · No Comments · Books, OPINION, PEOPLE, Reviews

It takes an Irishman to write the best book on Romania since the WWII – the one before the war was yet another Irish – Patrick Leigh-Fermor.
William Blacker lived in Romania for over eight years in the early 1990s and went native, not just skin deep, but truly and convincingly: he learned the language, the customs, dressed as the other villagers of Maramures, learned their skills and traditions and listened to their stories steeped in ancient history: he was accepted as one of them surrounded with great affection and respect. He further went to one of the fortified Saxon villages, in Central Transylvania where he was “bewitched” by a beautiful gypsy girl with whom he lived for three years and by whom he had a natural son – Constantin.

Centre for Romanian Studies