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Entries Tagged as 'Germany'

Poetry in Translation (CCCLXXII), ROMANIA/GERMANY, Alexandru LUNGU (1924 Cetatea Alba, Bessarabia, Romania – 2008, Bonn, Germany): “Margini”, “Limit”

January 9th, 2016 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CCCLXXII), ROMANIA/GERMANY, Alexandru LUNGU (1924 Cetatea Alba, Bessarabia, Romania – 2008, Bonn, Germany): “Margini”, “Limit” · Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations

Leave me this limit
of the world
ultimate frontier uncertain space
sufficient to stop sliding
this lonely traveler’s foot
sufficient to stop my head
falling off the clouds.

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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.

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“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

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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!

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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)

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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?

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Letter from Germany – Scrisoare din Germania (I): the Tragedy of Romania

September 28th, 2012 · 5 Comments · Diary, OPINION, PEOPLE

Grandomania celor care « au ajuns », care s-au îmbogatit, este de neinchipuit. Sunt foarte multi cei care lucreaza dincolo de granitele tarii si care se intorc cu bani si cu dorinta de a avea ceva ce altii nu au. In felul acesta isi trintesc vile si case oribil de pompoase in afara Bucurestiului, case care arata ridicol intr-un sat unde bastinasii ramasi traiesc inca in casutele lor construite din lut si balegar, vopsite cu var si cu acoperisurile aplecate ca niste babute la taifas. Privelistea altadata atit de frumoasa este distrusa iar culmea este ca si in aceste curti unde casele se simt stinghere, vezi la gardul din fier forjat o caruta linga o vaca slaba care incearca sa pasca printre mormanele de caramizi sparte. Ce-ti pot spune mai mult, a fost un pelegrinaj in trecut trecind prin viitor, un ciudat amestec de stari sociale, o coloratura a unui popor care dupa parerea mea nu va avea niciodata sansa sa ajunga prea departe tocmai din cauza ca discrepantele sunt prea mari. Nu poti nicicind sa convertezi o babuta nevinovata la civilizatia secolului nostru, cind ea isi scuipa inca in sin cind ii faci o poza pe care imediat dupa aceea i-o arati pe celular. Si exact din acest motiv am mare mila si intelegere pentru cei care inca sunt cu o suta de ani inapoi si cea mai putina intelegere pentru cei care prin smecherii, minciuni si inselatorii incearca sa duca aceasta tara cit mai jos. Din pacate nu putem face nimic dar senzatia este dureroasa.
Sunt inca sub impresiile de acolo dupa cum observi, visez noaptea si ma scol cu senzatia ca mai sunt acolo, ma simt nefolositoare dar nu stiu ce as putea face… Sper ca nu te-am obosit cu povestile mele, in general întoarcerea mea scurta in Romania a fost interesanta si poate si o lectie pe care trebuia sa o iau dupa atitia ani…

I have never ever seen so much misery in a place where, given the resources at hand, there ought to be good order. Wherever you look there are luxury goods mixed with paraphernalia of poor taste, miserable goods. I have seen bare-feet, unwashed peasant farmers, in their horse-drawn wooden carts, busy talking on their cell phone; I have seen rural folk, who were exhibiting to all and sundry their newly- acquired luxury car, displayed on the back of a rusty lorry, which they were conveying, just to show off to the rest of the world to marvel at… I have seen hundreds of stray dogs curled up, asleep in the middle of the highway… In downtown Bucharest, I had seen hovels whose windows were covered with hanging tee shirts, or pyjamas, for lack of curtains… I have seen top-notch luxury malls with their ubiquitous uniformed security guards, only to discover, round the corner, people begging in the street.
In the countryside, I walked the main streets of villages covered in thick dust and boulders… I have seen sanitary installations, which were at least seventy-years old… I sat at dining tables laden with foodstuff, yet covered in shoals of flies, which cut my appetite… I cried my eyes out seeing the destitute elderly villagers, seated in the doorways of their rural homes, looking forlorn as the world went bye… I would have liked so much to fathom out what thoughts were visiting their vacuous faces… as the darkness enveloped their cottage, I would have liked to find out what they were doing in the evening, what were they thinking of, the next morning, as immediate prospects were fading fast, biting the dust of their farmyard… I tried to help as much as I could, I bought washing machines, clothes for the children and sundry goods needed in every household, but, as I said, it felt like a bottomless pit.
By contrast, the grandomania of the nouveau-rich, of those who made it overnight, was quite unbelievable. There are so many Romanians who work abroad only to return home playing a game of one-upmanship. In the outskirts of Bucharest they build for themselves some horrible, if pompous villas, which are completely out of kilter with the traditional rural abodes of their neighbours, living in cottages built of clay mixed with horse manure and straw, with whitewashed walls under a tilted roof, not unlike some old people seated on a bench, for a natter. The once bucolic rural atmosphere is completely ruined, yet to cap it all, in some of these farmyards, where such villas look out of place, one could discover, by looking through the iron fence, a wooden cart next to a malnourished cow, trying to graze next to a pile of broken bricks.
The overall impression I got is one of a journey into the past, yet one intermingled with the future, an odd mixture of social scales, a motley palette of a nation, which, in my opinion, will never have a chance of getting very far, at all, just because the discrepancies are too great to smooth over.

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Retrospectiva Mario RICCI (Italy) Retrospective

February 17th, 2011 · 2 Comments · Art Exhibitions, Diaspora, OPINION, PEOPLE, Reviews

Retrospectiva de peisajii – Mario Ricci, Italy Retrospective of Lazio Landscapes.
Romanian-born Mario Ricci comes from a dprominent family of architects, painters and leaders of the intellectual and cultural set of the 20th century Romania.
He distinguished himself in his career as a Civil Engineer with outstanding projects in Germany and the Middle East. His works as an amateur painter is part of a family tradition which includes his late paternal aunt, Zoe Ricci and step grandfather Dimitrie STIUBEI (1901-1986), both of whom died in exile.
Early in his artistic career Mario Ricci worked in the atelier of his grandfather on large official commissions in Tulcea and elsewhere, After his move to Germany Ricci had made made many copies after great masters as a means of acquiring different artistic skills (see his copies after Monet and van Gogh, above.

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Poetry in Translation (LXXIX): Anna Vivanti Chartres (1868-1942) – “Ego”

November 1st, 2010 · 1 Comment · Diaspora, PEOPLE, Poetry, Translations

Anna Vivanti Chartres (1868-1942), born in London, the daughter of Anselmo Vivanti an Italian political exile from Mantua and of Anna Landau, coming from a German Jewish family with strong literary traditions, Anna Vivanti married Jack Smith Chartres (1862-1927), an Anglo-Irish barrister of strong Republican leanings, who negotiated together with Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith the Anglo-Irish treaty leading to the Independence of the Republic of Ireland.

Anna Vivanti Chartres was a close friend of Giosue Carducci and her poetry is regarded being part of the ‘decadent’ stream of the late Italian romantic poetry.

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Nobel prize Winner – Exorting Romania to be honest about its Communist Past

October 8th, 2009 · Comments Off on Nobel prize Winner – Exorting Romania to be honest about its Communist Past · Diaspora, PEOPLE

Herta MUELLER 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature (Romanian-born German from the Banat of Timisoara, living in Berlin) ——————————————————————————————— Herta Müller has a sharp sense of realities, as demonstrated in her article published in Tagesspeil of 17 July 2008, which is echoed by the Frankfurter Rundschau: “It is a scandal that Romania put forward as its […]

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