Centre for Romanian Studies

Centre for Romanian Studies header image 1

Entries from July 30th, 2013

Poetry in Translation (CCII): Johann Wolfgang von GOETHE (1749 – 1832), GERMANY, “Nähe des Geliebten”, “Dor”

July 30th, 2013 · No Comments · International Media, Poetry, quotations, Translations, Uncategorized

Ich bin bei dir; du seist auch noch so ferne,
Du bist mir nah!
Die Sonne sinkt, bald leuchten mir die Sterne.
O, wärst du da!

Sunt lânga tine, departe de ai fi,
În dorul ce m-apasă,
Iar în amurgul serii, din nou aşi vieţui
De te-ai intoarce-acasă.

I am with you. However far you are,
I know you’re near!
The setting sun sets stars up over me.
I want you here!

[Read more →]

Tags:·············

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘H’

July 21st, 2013 · No Comments · Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Hitler:
“He looks like a bottle of mustard with a black label.”
Marthe Bibesco

Hour:
“A well spent hour is worth more than centuries and centuries of ignorance and neglect.”
Eugene Ionesco

Hunger:
“Old people do not need so many calories.”
Nicolae Ceausescu

[Read more →]

Tags:·······················

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘G’

July 21st, 2013 · No Comments · Diaspora, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Guilty:
“You are guilty of the spiritual impoverishment of the individuals, of their intellectual sterility, of the stifling of their personal duty, as well as of the creativity and inventiveness with which our people have been endowed. When they are treated as objects, deprived of their dignity, locked up in existentialist structures which do not suit them, paralized by the fear of the repressive regime, . Human beings end up behaving as objects. You are responsible for the physical debility of millions of citizens whom you have constrained through unheard of deprivations – of foodstuff, of heating, of medicines. The degrading of the human factor (the subversion of values, the egocentrism, the corruption) has jointly contributed, together with your political and economic errors, to the decadence of institutions, to the bankruptcy of trade and Industry, to the ruin of agriculture. Furthermore, you are also responsible for the demolition of churches and of prestigious historical monuments, of the falsifying and destruction of our past and lately of the destruction of our villages and of our rural traditions. In the historical past, our princes were building churches, after each military victory and perhaps sometime even after their defeat. You yourself, you are demolishing them, instead.”
(Doina Cornea (b. 1930), University Lecturer, Dissident)
(Open Letter to Nicolae Ceausescu, 23rd August 1988,
broadcast the same day on “Radio Free Europe” and published in Doina Cornea’s “Liberte?”, Eds Criterion, Paris, 1990)

[Read more →]

Tags:······························

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘F’

July 20th, 2013 · No Comments · Diaspora, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Famous:
“When one is famous one does not think any longer at outshining others”.
Elise BRATIANO

Fashion:
“Fashion is what clothes reality and offers dreams.”
Marthe BIBESCO,

Friendship:
“All friendship is a virtual drama, a sequel of subtle wounds.”
Emil CIORAN

[Read more →]

Tags:···························

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘E’

July 20th, 2013 · No Comments · Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Eternity:
“I too have taken a few steps on the sands of Eternity.”
Constantin BRANCUSI

Exile:
“I cry, with Psalm 136, the captivity of Babylon. For me, like for the Jews deported to Babylon, it is no longer imaginable to write poems in exile. I lost my country, my people is captive. The exile shuts the mouth”
Virgil GHEORGHIU,
Exile:
“You are suffering for being far away from your kith and kin, from the sky and the land where you were born. You should know that one and the same sky covers our wounded land and that your exile is only an initiation. Do not be sad during your stay in Tomis, rather prepare yourself for the life beyond, the eternal life, which is not far, where suffering is unknown, as the time finds its meaning only within the confines of suffering.”
Vintila HORIA

[Read more →]

Tags:·······················

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘D’

July 19th, 2013 · No Comments · Uncategorized

Pain and death are less involuntary than the choice of desire.
(Anna de Noailles)

A conscientious doctor must die with his patient, if the two cannot recover together.
(Eugene Ionesco)

[Read more →]

Tags:

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘C’

July 19th, 2013 · No Comments · International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations, Uncategorized

Chanel, Coco
“A woman who governs without parliament, for much longer than a minister. A woman who must take 400 decisions a year, whose jurisdiction enforces the law, beyond the frontiers of our country.”
Marthe Bibesco
“When we are no longer children, we are already dead.” Constantin BRANCUSI
“Take a circle and caress it – it will become vicious.”
Eugene Ionesco

[Read more →]

Tags:·········································

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘B’

July 18th, 2013 · No Comments · Books, Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

“A book is a delayed suicide.”
Emil CIORAN, (1911-1995), philosopher, writer

“I still have the Babel of this fabulous land in my ears: Romanian, Ukrainian, German, Yidish, Polish, Magyar, Armenian…”
Gregor von REZZORI, (1914-1998), Writer

[Read more →]

Tags:··················

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘A’

July 16th, 2013 · No Comments · Books, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

“Awake, awake Romanians from your lethargic sleep,
In which your foreign tyrants have sunken you so deep!
It’s either now or never to shape a fate for you,
To whose behest should cower your cruel enemies too!”
(Alexander Muresanu (1) (1816, Bistrita-Brasov, 1863),
Transylvanian poet, author of the national Anthem
(“Desteapta-te Romane”)

[Read more →]

Tags:··························

Poetry in Translation (CCI): Tzveta SOFRONIEVA (b. 1963, Bulgaria), BULGARIA & GERMANY, “When Zeus turned his back on her”, “Când Zeus i-a întors spatele”

July 5th, 2013 · No Comments · Diaspora, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations, Uncategorized

Când Zeus i-a întors spatele
limba care era casa strămoşilor mei
acum e doar un fulg în aripa Europei:
oare zbura- va ca să-şi admire frumuseţea,
ca un Narcis, primăvara?

[Read more →]

Tags:···········