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Entries Tagged as 'Romania'

POETRY IN TRANSLATION (408), Liviu Antonesei (b. 1953, co. Iasi), ROMANIA: “În patria mea”, “In my country”

April 21st, 2017 · Comments Off on POETRY IN TRANSLATION (408), Liviu Antonesei (b. 1953, co. Iasi), ROMANIA: “În patria mea”, “In my country” · International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, Translations

în patria mea în care unii au pîinea
şi alţii cuţitul şi un inoxidabil
lanţ de interese îi leagă pe unii de
ceilalţi,
* * * * *
in my country some people are getting bread

and others – knife and the stainless chains

of interests linking some of us

to all the others…

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Lauren BACALL (Blouse Roumaine – extrait)

March 26th, 2017 · Comments Off on Lauren BACALL (Blouse Roumaine – extrait) · Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Lauren se souvient dans ses mémoires (By Myself), que lorsque sa mère et sa grand-mère ne voulaient pas partager leurs secrets avec le reste de la famille, elles parlaient roumain à la maison, un langage alors ‘mythique’, codé, et accessible seulement par les adultes. Leur cas n’était pas différent de celui des autres familles originaires d’Europe Centrale, arrivant de provinces aux frontières changeantes en fonction d’invasions armées, et comme Lauren le souligne (cf. la citation Les jours heureux,) la connaissance de plusieurs langues étrangères était banale.

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David OLDROYD – Book Review: Continental Drift, Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures

February 20th, 2017 · Comments Off on David OLDROYD – Book Review: Continental Drift, Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures · Books, Diary, Education, Famous People, History, PEOPLE, Reviews, Science

Constantin Roman a Romanian patriot and is presently a professor honoris causa in Bucharest, while residing with his family in salubrious Glyndebourne. Roman must, by his account, surely be one of the world’s most upwardly mobile earth scientists. Starting in England with only £5 in his pocket, by ability, persistence, and charm, and using Newcastle as a stepping‐stone, he became acquainted with the right people and obtained a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to do a Ph.D. on the tectonics of the Caucasus and across into Central Asia.

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Moving Here – A Continental’s Drift

February 9th, 2017 · Comments Off on Moving Here – A Continental’s Drift · Books, Diary, Diaspora, Famous People, History, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews, Short Stories & Cameos

My greatest trouble in England arose from my refusal to give up my Romanian nationality. In retrospect this may seem bizarre, especially that I was menaced on a number of fronts: by Securitate operatives masquerading as diplomats, keen to end my flouting of socialist order and drag me back to Romania; by a prospective mother-in-law who refused to allow her daughter to marry me, unless I accepted British citizenship… and by officials of the British Home Office, who assumed that my desire to retain what I saw as my unalienable right of birth, my nationality, might stem from communist loyalties.

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Constantin ROMAN: Memoirs “Continental Drift, Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures” (extract)

January 6th, 2017 · Comments Off on Constantin ROMAN: Memoirs “Continental Drift, Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures” (extract) · Books, Diary, Education, History, International Media, PEOPLE, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, Reviews, Science, Short Stories & Cameos

Mi-am analizat rapid, din interstiţiile memoriei, virtuţile eventuale ale originii noastre sociale, pentru ca să pot avea o ideie de cum m-aş fi putut bucura de libertatea de a călători în străinătate, atâta timp cât paşaportul era acordat doar pe criterii de apartenenţă la o anumită clasă socială şi politică privilegiată: era evident că în familia noastră nu ne-am născut “ilegalişti”. Departe de a aparţine categoriei privilegiate de comunişti nomenclaturişti, familia noastră nu dorea să se compromită luând din mers trenul communist, ba chiar dimpotrivă, după ce ne pierdusem prin expropriere şi naţionalizare toate economiile şi bunurile mobile şi imobile, ajunsesem să fim marginalizaţi. Şansa noastră de supravieţuire nu era foarte bună, să nu mai vorbim de luxul de a fi obţinut un paşaport.

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“Blouse Roumaine”: Henriette-Yvonne Stahl (Mrs. Petru Dumitriu), (1900-1984), Romania, “Prisoner of Conscience”

January 4th, 2017 · Comments Off on “Blouse Roumaine”: Henriette-Yvonne Stahl (Mrs. Petru Dumitriu), (1900-1984), Romania, “Prisoner of Conscience” · Books, Communist Prisons, Diary, Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, quotations, Reviews, Translations

By contrast to Stahl, Dumitriu was an unknown quantity, a rough diamond from the provinces, the young-man-in-a-hurry, ready to climb the greasy pole of the communist political establishment. This may not be the place to discuss this ‘fatal attraction’, which the fragrant 45 year-old Stahl had for the handsome 22 year-old muscle.

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POETRY IN TRANSLATION (407), Anonymous, ENGLAND: “Epitaf pe o lespede de mormânt”

December 30th, 2016 · Comments Off on POETRY IN TRANSLATION (407), Anonymous, ENGLAND: “Epitaf pe o lespede de mormânt” · Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Educated at the University of Cambridge, as a Scholar at Peterhouse. For a number of years Constantin ROMAN lived in France, Norway, Holland and Indonesia and traveled extensively, as guest speaker to Academia and Industry. He published articles in scientific journals (“Nature”, “New Scientist”, etc.), newspapers and magazines (“The Times”, “Cambridge Review”, “Encounter”, “Revista Monumentelor Istorice”, “Manuscriptum”, “Magazin Istoric”) on a variety of subjects relating to History of Art, Architecture, Conservation, Poetry and Earth Sciences (Seismology and Petroleum Geology).

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POETRY IN TRANSLATION (405 – 406), Florenta ALBU (1934 – 2003), ROMANIA: “Gauche-droite”, “Le chant de Bucarest”

December 29th, 2016 · Comments Off on POETRY IN TRANSLATION (405 – 406), Florenta ALBU (1934 – 2003), ROMANIA: “Gauche-droite”, “Le chant de Bucarest” · Books, Famous People, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations

Allez-y Arlequins
Chants d’Arlequins
Alors que les portes sont grandes ouvertes
Sur l’âme du vide…

Cette marche dans la boue
Une peur historique encore et encore en criant
Gauche – droite – gauche

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Dictionary of Romanian Quotations – Letter “L”

November 10th, 2016 · Comments Off on Dictionary of Romanian Quotations – Letter “L” · Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Lover:
“After the metaphors, the Chemist. This is how great sentiments are frittered away. To start as a poet and finish as a gynaecologist. From all conditions, that of the lover is the least enviable.”
(Emil Cioran (1911-1995), philosopher, writer)
(“Syllogismes de l’amertume”)

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

October 29th, 2016 · Comments Off on Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘I’ · Books, Diaspora, Famous People, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Imagination:
“Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly.”
(Lauren Bacall, By Myself, Jonathan Cape, London, 1979)
Indifference: “Let man lose his faculty of indifference: he will become a virtual assassin. Let him now make God out of a transformed idea – the consequences are incalculable. ” (Emil Cioran (1911-1995), philosopher, writer) (“Précis de decomposition”)

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