Reviews

Entries Tagged as 'Reviews'

Romanians have had enough: January 2012 Riots in pictures

January 18th, 2012 · No Comments · International Media, PEOPLE, Reviews

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvyQxZHNoKg&NR=1&feature=endscreen

http://www.carbonated.tv/news/romanian-protesters-clash-with-riot-police

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUovnttVlYQ&NR=1&feature=endscreen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZddLe7DidoU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbqmNFWK8-c

Book Launching (France): “Journal d’exil” by Mircea Milcovitch, Éditions Amalthée

January 8th, 2012 · No Comments · Books, Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews

Les “Éditions Amalthée” publieront dans la seconde moitié du mois de février 2012 le “Journal d’Exil”. Ce récit avait été rédigé après l’arrivée en France de l’artiste, entre octobre 1968 jusqu’à la fin de l’année 1969. Le livre est préfacé par le docteur Marc Andronikof.
he Éditions Amalthée publishing house will launch in February 2012 the Memoirs of artist sculptor Mircea Milcovitch (Mircea Milcovici), with a preface by Mark Andronikoff. This book is written by en exile, whose family was no stranger to the sad road of uprooting. Mircea’s father, himself a native of Bessarabia, was compelled to seek refuge in the Kingdom of Romania in the wake of the invasion by the Red Army, at the end of WWII. T
Whilst reading an early draft of this Memoir, one encounters a certain melancholy, imbued by generations of displaced ancestors, living at the confluence of warring empires. But beyond this one can detect a strong determination to live the newly-found freedom and to succeed in the artistic career.

Romanian Musings on Bela Bartok’s Memorial in London SW7

October 10th, 2011 · No Comments · Art Exhibitions, Diaspora, OPINION, PEOPLE, Reviews, Uncategorized

Bela Bartok was born in the Romanian Banat region, at Sannicolau Mare, the son of a Hungarian father and a Serbian Mother. As one would expect of a sensitive child born in this ethnic mosaic of the Habsburg Empire, young Bartok like his central European contemporary composers, drew his inspiration from the rich ethnic music of Central Europe: the composer’s “Romanian Dances” have long been included in the International musical repertoire and in the memory of the cognoscenti, compositions which reflect indirectly the international currency of Romanian compositions, the same pool from which Georges Enesco or Valentin Lipatti have drawn their inspiration.
The life of Hungarian sculptor Imre Varga (b. 1923) reflects, as one would expect, the historical and political meanders of his country, during the 20th century. By comparison, this presents many commonalities with his Romanian counterparts, who showed an equal enthusiasm at adapting to changing political circumstances, first during the right-wing nationalist dictatorship, followed by an anti-Stalinist war in the East, on the side of Germany, only to heap praise on a “liberating” Soviet Army and finally to end up as a member of the European Union: not exactly an easy sailing, during stormy times, when many contemporary artists either wrecked their careers, or chose instead to take the heavy road of exile, as was the case of our subject, whose memorial has just been erected in South Kensington.

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Tags:"Bela Bartok"

Patrick McGuinness’ first novel on Ceausescu’s Romania – on the Booker Prize Longlist for 1911

August 30th, 2011 · No Comments · Books, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews

It takes an Irishman, like Patrick McGuinness, to write a fiction book on Romania, which is certainly one of the best on this subject to come out in the last one hundred years.
It is superbly crafted, gripping, witty and full of unexpected twists and turns as would befit the dark days of Ceausescu’s terminal dictatorship. The author’s acid style may not be one to be enjoyed by humourless Romanians, who, in spite of the last two decades of “freedom” remain shackled to the old mentality of the fallen dictator: it nevertheless caught the attention of the Booker Prize Jury which shortlisted it for the prize to be given later in 2011.

Ceausescu’s fall is not unlike the recent stories of other fallen dictators and the paranoia they imposed on their subjects yet the current political scene in the Middle East and North Africa makes this theme so much more compelling.
Despite the real pain and memories of suffering which this narrative brings to people cowered by fallen dictators, Patrick McG’s story deserves the highest accolade.
Watch out this space!

Constantin ROMAN – Dérive continentale ou européen en dérive

July 27th, 2011 · No Comments · Books, Diary, Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, Reviews

Voici une lecture aussi passionnante que captivante, bien qu’elle ne soit pas, comme le suggère son titre, un récit scientifique*/. Son auteur, un dissident Roumain ayant fait ses études de géophysique à Bucarest pendant les années folles du régime immonde de Ceausescu, est quand même parvenu a s’en échapper, afin de participer à une conférence à l’Université de Newcastle, en Grande Bretagne. N’étant plus retourné en Roumanie qu’après la chute du régime communiste, il est resté néanmoins un patriote Roumain, actuellement Professeur honoris causa de l’Université de Bucarest, tout en gardant sa résidence, près de Glyndebourne, dans une partie “chic” de l’Angleterre. Selon son propre récit, Constantin Roman doit être l’un des jeunes cientifiques recevant l’un des meilleurs honoraires du monde . Une fois arrivé en Angleterre, muni seulement d’un billet de £5 dans sa poche, il a utilisé son expertise, son charme, les meilleurs contacts ainsi que l’appui de l”unversité de Newcastle

Keith RUNCORN, invited Constantin ROMAN to a NATO Conference on Palaeomagnetism

comme plateforme de lancement. En parvenant à entretenir les meilleurs contacts, notamment avec le Professeur Keith Runcorn, de la Royal Society, il parvint à obtenir une bourse de recherches au Collège de Peterhouse, à Cambridge. Cela lui a permis de faire sa thèse de doctorat sur la tectonique des Carpathes et de l’Asie centrale, en étudiant des données sismiques afin d’identifier les limites et le mouvement des plaques lithosphériques. Dans ce contexte, utilisant les zones de compression et d’extension, il a défini l’existence de deux plaques lithosphériques non-rigides, les “plaques tampon”, ou “buffer plates”, du Tibet et du Sinkiang, cantonnées respectivement entre les plaques lithosphériques rigides de l”Inde et de l’Eurasie. Au début des années 70 une pareille suggestion aurait été étiquetée pour le moins comme iconoclaste. Une fois son doctorat obtenu, sous la direction du professeur Sir Edward Bullard, Roman est devenu par la suite Conseiller International de l’industrie petrolière, ayant gagné, je suppose, des honoraires prodigieux. Cet ouvrage traite essentiellement, de la folie des dictatures et des bureaucraties mais aussi de la douce vie de doctorant-chercheur a Cambridge. Quand aux détails de la bureaucratie “kafkaiesque”, les autorités britanniques semblent aussi obstinées que leurs consoeurs roumaines

Carmen Sylva, Elena Vacarescu and the British Composer Sir Hubert Parry

May 28th, 2011 · No Comments · Art Exhibitions, Books, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations

This beautiful Queen Anne house @ nr 17 Kensington Square has the largest staircase in the square. Kensington Square, 17, was the home of Hubert Parry. His eldest daughter inherited the house in 1932. She was married to Lord Ponsonby, leader of the Labour opposition in the House of Lords. In 1936 Lord Ponsonby produced a detailed and well-researched history of Kensington Square.

A prolific musician, composer and from 1885 Director of the Royal Academy of Music who nursed a whole generation of British composers, Hubert Parry is much forgotten today except for his piece sang by riotous crowds at the last night of the Proms set on Blake’s poem “Jerusalem”. He composed chamber music, oratorios and symphonies.
On a more exotic note he set to music “The Soldier’s Tent” a poem by Carmen Sylva, Queen of Romania and Helene Vacaresco, which at the time of the Boer War was greatly en vogue raising the spirits of the British public at home.

The Soldier’s Tent
The Queen of Romania wrote the poem “The Soldier’s tent” put to music by Sir Herbert Parry – a song popular during the Boer War

“Carmen Sylva – reine Elisabeth de Roumanie” (Gabriel Badea-Paun) aux Editions “Via Romana”, 2011

May 27th, 2011 · No Comments · Art Exhibitions, Diary, Diaspora, PEOPLE, Reviews

Paris: GABRIEL BADEA-PAÜN signe sa biographie “Carmen Sylva Reine Elisabeth de Roumanie” Editions Via Romana
Né en 1973 à Sinaïa, Roumanie, auteur de plusieurs ouvrages de prestige sur l’histoire de l’art, Monsieur Badea-Paun est agrégé de L’université Paris IV Sorbonne, DEA en histoire de l’art, avec un mémoire sur Les portraits de la Famille de Hohenzollern par Philip de Laszlo. Sa thèse à Paris IV Sorbonne sous la direction du Professeur Bruno Foucart a eu pour sujet Antonio de La Gandara, le catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint et dessiné.

Monsieur Gabriel Badea-Paun est éagalement l’auteur de plusieures monographies ainsi que d’articles de l’histoire de l’art dans des revues de specialité en France et en Roumanie. Son dernier ouvrage sur la Reine Elisabeth de Roumanie, vient de parraitre en France aux editions Via Romana.

Maria MESTEROU (France) artist painter – her work on the conservation of Orthodox images

May 26th, 2011 · 7 Comments · Art Exhibitions, Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, Reviews

Il m’est arrivé d’avoir à faire à une vaste gamme de techniques picturales, allant de la classique peinture sur toile, passant par celles sur plaques de cuivre et sur bois, jusqu’à la détrempe à l’œuf sur tissu non tendu sur châssis, comme ce fut le cas pour un très ancien voile grec couvert de beaucoup de scènes de l’Ancien et du Nouveau Testaments, dominées par deux grandes icônes de la Vierge et de Jésus Christ. Les deux premières images montrent le voile avant la restauration, avec, cependant, les visages de la Vierge et du Christ nettoyés. On voit ensuite son aspect final:

Four decades ago – A Romanian in Britain (A Story from the Home Office website)

April 23rd, 2011 · No Comments · Books, Diary, Diaspora, PEOPLE, Reviews

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.

Afterwards Lord Goodman decided to champion my cause, writing to the head of the Home Office that I was a

“man of impeccable character clearly determined to belong here and make a significant contribution to our national life.””

In retrospect I hope that I discharged myself honourably of Goodman‘s expectations as I gave generously my expertise in discovering oil and gas for Britain and batting for Britain abroad on the cultural and scientific front, especially in my native country – Romania

Miracolul Bisericii de la Drăgănescu şi o profeţie a Părintelui Arsenie Boca

March 3rd, 2011 · No Comments · Art Exhibitions, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews

“Pictura sacră e istoria în imagini a vieţii Mântuitorului şi a celor transfiguraţi de El. Adică imaginea raiului. Sfinţia Ta [pr. Arsenie Boca] ai înţeles să faci o pictură transfigurată în nuanţe clare şi deschise, paradisiace, pentru a sugera lumea feerică de dincolo. Biserica de la Drăgănescu iradiază lumina raiului” (Nichifor Crainic).
„Ceea ce am admirat la Sfinţia Ta e că nu te-ai lăsat. Din zugrav de suflete, fericite să se modeleze după Domnul tuturor, iată-te zugrav de biserici, adică al celor ce poartă pe chipurile cuvioase reflexul desăvârşirii Fiului lui Dumnezeu. E o mare mângâiere, acum când nu mai ai prilejul să desăvârşeşti pe aspiranţi, să poţi mângâia cu penelul pe cei desăvârşiţi pentru a-i da pildă pe zidurile sacre. Mica biserică de la Drăgănescu are norocul să simtă pe zidurile ei zugrăvite predicile fierbinţi, pe care miile de oameni le ascultau la Sâmbăta de Sus. E o pictură nouă ca şi predica de atunci. Nimic întunecat în această primăvară care îmbracă cu plai înflorit bolţile bisericii. E o lumină de tonuri deschise către lume, ca spiritul şi chipul Mântuitorului coborât să ne aducă lumina de sus, ce iradiază din pictura Sfinţiei Tale. E un stil nou, e o pictură nouă, după viziunea nouă pe care o porţi în suflet” (Nichifor Crainic, 1971).

Centre for Romanian Studies