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Entries Tagged as '“Marthe BIBESCO”'

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

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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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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

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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

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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

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Romanian-Jewish Topics (Part I)

May 10th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Books, Diaspora, PEOPLE, quotations

Romanian-Jewish Topics (Part One of Two): Quotations from an Alternative Anthology: “Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women” Presented and edited by Constantin Roman, Preface by Catherine Durandin, published by the Centre for Romanian Studies (London), 2009 1,100 pages, 160 biographies, 600 quotations, 4,000 references, credits, discography and URLs , 6 Indexes http://www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html […]

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ROMANIAN-JEWISH TOPICS: (Part two of two)

May 10th, 2009 · Comments Off on ROMANIAN-JEWISH TOPICS: (Part two of two) · Books, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

ROMANIAN-JEWISH TOPICS: (PART TWO OF TWO) (continued from Part ONE) Quotations from an Alternative Anthology: “Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women” Presented and edited by Constantin Roman, Preface by Catherine Durandin, published by the Centre for Romanian Studies (London), 2009 1,100 pages, 160 biographies, 600 quotations, 4,000 references, performances & exhibition credit, […]

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Pourquoi Matisse?

May 6th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Books, Communist Prisons, Diaspora, Famous People, History, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, quotations, Reviews, Translations

Après la chute de Ceausescu, l’image de la Blouse roumaine retrouva graduellement sa place, lentement, comme le réveil après un cauchemar surréaliste : est-ce que la transition existe ? Est-ce pour de vrai ? Le passé va-t-il se répéter ? Dans ce sens, une mise en garde fut émise par le porte-parole du Parlement polonais lorsqu’il déclara : « Il ne faut que quelques semaines aux Empires pour s’écrouler, mais la mentalité impérialiste a besoin de plusieurs générations avant de disparaître. »

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Alternative Romania: Women Celebrities an Anthology of Unsung Voices

May 5th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Books, Diaspora, PEOPLE

Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women
WHAT THE READERS SAY:

* “It is a Herculean Work…” (Editor, Buenos Aires)

* “It is beautifully written and meticulously researched and presented. It is accessible to the lay reader and will be a treasure-trove for further research by academics drawn from a wide range of disciplines ” (Political Analyst, UK)

* “For those who think that Romania is nothing more than Dracula and Ceausescu, the book has a lot to teach you… ‘ (IT geek, London)

* “Constantin Roman invites us for a walk, during which he enjoins past and present alike, in a brisk coming and going of the narrative. It is a narrative that cannot suddenly end, but rather one which compels us to start all over again and revisit. It is a truly wonderful gift, a very happy surprise indeed of an inherently original book, which haunts us like the persistent music of those Romanian women’s voices.” (French Government Adviser, Paris)

* There is no doubt, what so ever, that if Romania is the creation of a male society as well as of political conjectures, its place in the Western European psyche is entirely due to its women, who knew how to impose their reputation in the aristocratic salons of Paris, in the world of literature, or in the English clubs so intimately linked to politics. For “Blouse Roumaine” is an incursion charged with passion, which conjures varied names, such as Queen Marie of Romania, Countess Anna de Noailles, the Princess Bibesco, or the actress Elvire Popesco, not forgetting the diabolic Ana Pauker and Elena Ceausescu.” (Art Historian, Paris)

* “… an audaceeous choice…” (Reader, France)

* “So long as the masculine and the feminine are not absolutely complementary notions in terms of fair percentages, it is a good idea to write a book about Romanian Women of World repute.” (Novelist, Argentina)

* “… it represents the idea of metamodernism as cultural paradigm to an alternative synthesis of modern and postmodern paradigms” (Researcher, New Zealand)

* …an easy book, which offered me, at least, the joy of reading an interesting, well-documented Anthology, without being bored.” (American Scientist)

* ‘ Blouse Romaine’ is a fascinating book about women who, for the sake of their ideals, sacrificed everything in order to safeguard basic values of humanity, generosity and compassion, women who fought the communist dragon imposed by fellow women. (Researcher, Cluj, Transylvania)

http://www.blouseroumaine.com/buy-the-book/index.html

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Romanian Destinies in The Times of London Obituary: Monica Lovinescu

April 27th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Books, Diaspora, Famous People, History, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, quotations

Romanian dissident whose broadcasts from exile in Paris enraged the communist authorities
Monica Lovinescu
Asked in April 2002 about her opinion on the desirability of a Nuremberg-style trial of communism, Lovinescu answered:

The trial of communism might have offered Romanian mentality a real chance for change. The handful of initiatives taken so far are built entirely on moving sands. We cannot consider a Nuremberg-style trial simply because that involves winners and losers. Or, in this particular instance, communism lost its own war: it simply imploded, not exploded. But one should consider at least a moral prosecution. It is impossible to contemplate the fact that torturers in Romania have not been yet morally indicted.

Monica Lovinescu, M.Litt., Grand Officer, Order of the Star of Romania, was married to fellow journalist, literary critic and political analyst Virgil Ierunca (1920-2006). They leave no children and their estate has been bequeathed to a Romanian government foundation.

Monica Lovinescu
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The voice of the journalist and human rights activist Monica Lovinescu in her regular Paris broadcasts to the people of Romania during the postwar decades became synonymous with freedom and was a lifeline for those listeners behind the Iron Curtain.

As a result she was severely beaten up on the orders of the communist authorities in Bucharest, and, in a vengeful act, her elderly mother was sent to prison, where she died.

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