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.

H.M. King Mihai I de Romania

HM King Mihai I de Romania 2011 Christmas Message to the Romanian People

In 1940, after the departure of my father, I addressed you for the first time, on New Year’s Eve. I was, then, nineteen-years old, and our Country and, indeed, the whole Continent, were at war.

Today, from la Săvârşin, I am sending you my message, after seventy years of a nearly unbroken tradition. From Bucharest, Sinaia, Versoix, or from Săvârşin my message is addressed to you with the same love, care, respect and hope.

The passing of the years enables one to see how things had evolved and what had remained unchanged. Something which remained unaltered, in the life of Romanians, is the importance given by each family to Christmas and the New Year. The same festive thrill, the same wish to do good, to open one’s spirit to the miracle of the birth of Christ. During the last decade, at Săvârşin, our Family was able to enjoy the same folk traditions and family spirit which remained almost unaltered.

In this year of 2011, the same as it happened during my childhood years, or during the trying years of the War, grandparents, parents and children gather, around the Christmas tree, offering gifts, sharing the Christmas repast and being close to the dear ones.
During 2011, I met Romanians from all corners of our country and indeed from Europe. The festivities during the 90th year jubilee gave me the opportunity of meeting thousands of Romanians, who came to Săvârşin or Elisabeta Palace for a celebration which inspired the whole country. This proof of affection and love, crowned by the address given from Parliament to the Romanian Nation had the effect of soothing
the sufferings and shortcomings which we confronted during past decades.
The Queen and I are happy to gather our family around us and acknowledge all that our children and grandchildren endeavored so that the role of the Royal House may continue, for the good of Romania. The nativity of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, is indeed a family history, a family tried by difficult times, a beautiful lesson about the care given to ordinary people, just as ourselves are part of a greater family. This is a lesson not only of humility, but of pride, of pain as it is of an uplifting sentiment of humanity. In today’s world, this is a much-needed example, when so many people feel forgotten, humiliated or misunderstood.

As the New Year approaches, we wish it to be better than the year past. I have no doubt that we shall experience times of uncertainty and much left to be desired. Yet, we shall never have a chance to secure a safe path for the new generations if we always leave it to others to take care of our responsibilities.

This time of the year, my thoughts go to the Romanian soldiers, who risk their lives and their families’ happiness for the good of the Country. All my thoughts are extended to those who feel abandoned, unloved, or who are unwell. I address my good wishes to those Romanians who know that they contributed something worthwhile for the progress of their country. For the year 2012, I wish the Romanian people and those dearest to them, young and old, living within or without the boundaries of our country, a Happy Christmas, a peaceable spirit and many happy wishes to be shared by those dearest to them.
So help me God!
Mihai R.

Romanian Royal Coat of Arms

Gabriela Melinescu (b. 1942, Romania) Swedish Romanian Poet, Exile

Poetry in Translation (XCVII): Gabriela Melinescu, “Birth of Constellations” (Ivirea Stelelor)

Other people are born here, on Earth,
In a fresh scent of salt and milk.
The buds burst out biting the twigs,
With the silky movement of a serpent.

Would you, one evening, leave me again
Like a translucent bone on the hot sands
And fretting on the sky’s pavement, oh, Mater,
Would you ever remember our love?

In Româneşte de Constantin ROMAN
(Londra, Octombrie, 2011)
Copyright 2011 © Constantin ROMAN, Londra

Nichita Stanescu and Gabriela Melinescu

Bulldozer:
The woman told how it happened when the previous spring, taking advantage of his father’s absence, Thomas came to the village in his car, followed by a bulldozer and two trucks. In no time the entire house adjoining Jérome’s home was demolished. It was there that the professor’s parents lived, it was there that he was born and lived his youth. It is true that nobody lived in this house, but Jérome took care of it as if it was a historic monument. Every day he went there to open its windows and let in some fresh air. He dusted it and cleaned it and and for nothing in the world would have agreed to sell it or to dispose of the old peasant furniture inherited from his mother. The people in the village just looked on, without interfering; a thing like that could not happen without Jérome’s agreement, so why become involved? Yet that evening, as Jérome returned home, as he got out of his car, he was stunned. He saw a mound of rubble. He could not believe his eyes. He collapsed on the seat of his car, the head resting on the steering wheel, crying.
(Iulian, Rodica, Fin de chasse, page 53)

Fear of the Unknown:
We others were hesitating between the desire for change and that of stability – the latter being a mere euphemism for the fear of the unknown In the end we were actually retrenching even deeper in a hopeless waiting game, and into a real fear: silent war based on the antithesis of them-and-us, or “I-and-them”. Waiting. Watching the movements of others their speech. We were acting along a well-established stereotype, imprinted by an already long submission, by which we became accomplices of this brainwashing and of the hostage taking of our bodies. Our perspiration stank of their boots. Our skin stank of the breath exhaled during their interminable speeches and of the defecation of their slogans. The sweet effluence of love was turning to an acrid pestilence of formaldehyde, when all of a sudden somebody was ringing the doorbell at three o’clock, in the dead of night. To open, or not to open the door was irrelevant, as the engines of their black Marias, ready to take us away, were humming the whole night.
(Iulian, Rodica, Le Repentir, page 133)

Franco’s meat:
As for the effect of censorship and the access to printed matter, as the French saying goes: ”c’était la croix et la bannière”! Everything had to be negotiated – sometimes even a single word. For example in one of ‘Every day’s letters’ (Scrisorile de toatà ziua) – a book whose original title would have been ‘Letters to a close stranger’, the censor insisted that I should delete a passage where I was speaking in no uncertain terms about Franco’s dictatorship. The reason for it? Well, Ceausescu’s Romania had just signed with Spain’s dictatorship a lucrative contract for importing meat. As for the title of the book the word ‘stranger’, or ‘foreigner’ was suspect from the outset and more so if it were a ‘close stranger.
(Iulian, Rodica, personal communication, April, 2003)

God:
Marina admired the ravishing scene of the oak forest, traversed, in the late afternoon, by shafts of sunrays, like the immense flutes of of a grand organ instrument. A true autumn, whose unfolding beauty seemed to remain oblivious of the village misfortunes.
The villagers speech always alludes to God. God is above all a confused notion to which they assign all that they had not accomplished, as well as all that they will never accomplish, ever. God – the Almighty Peasant, the Almighty Purveyor of seed and harvest. God, that nobody could do without, which slips on, like a threadbare coat.
(Iulian, Rodica, Pavlov’s people, page 28)

Pavlov’s people:
Sometime she believes she can see around her robots that walk, and respond as if moved by some strange and monstrous force from within. There is no more flesh such as it is in the noble sense of accomplishment through food and love. It is void of the spirit which is nurtured by love.
(Iulian, Rodica, ibid., page 171)

Vivaldi:
Really, you must take care of yourself, said the editor smiling. A sweet young man, with shining teeth and fulsome lips, which were hardly masculine, rather ambiguously androgynous, like in a commercial poster. A great music fan he was: ‘Do you like Vivaldi?’ which was a sufficiently refined music fan not to have used Johannes Brahms by means of a seduction. It’s only today I found the record: ‘The Four Seasons’; you must hurry up, maybe you are lucky.
But Vivaldi was not just a beginning, it was rather the end, a consoling, incantatory, soothing end, a kind of anaesthetics. My editor seemed rather to propose a relaxation, in fact he needed one himself; let us relax, comrade, it is our right after this filthy job, comradely filthy job which we managed to finish: these were five whole chapters which he has suppressed, five whole epistles. This is what he did and I yielded. I yielded for two reasons: first because I was ready for it, from the very minute I wrote them. Somehow,I knew that ‘they will not go through’, , nevertheless I decided to ‘throw them to the lions.’ Otherwise, how will one begin a beginning? Secondly, my haggling was premeditated: in this manner, by making this sacrifice I could salvage ‘the rest’. Above all, ‘the rest’, must go through. Here it is, the haggling of a lifetime. I am laying down the arms, comrade, but for goodness sake let me in. Even disarmed I could pose a threat; well, near enough. Almost like it, but not quite. My haggling was a poor little haggling, a lamentable barter, on quite unequal terms and from that moment on a new beginning made itself be known, like a burning at the very root of the words and, not to reveal it, I had to grin. A satisfying grin – the book will be published after all. By paying the price of this burning, not to mention the price of this prostituting grin, which decorated my face. Vivaldi is quite appropriate, the classic balsam is appropriate too after any romantic outburst one needs to enter the classic order – this is at least what I have learned: let go of Brahms to return to Vivaldi and calm down.
(…). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
“Six months on I was summoned again. This time Vivaldi was in the company of a censor from the Censorship Committee, also a young lad, with a rodent-like snout and rodent’s teeth. Dressed all in grey. What? Did I ever say “grey”? He was grey all over, even his voice was grey.
– Comrade, we read your book; very interesting. Verily so. We agree to publish it, subject to revising certain passages. However our main objection stumbles on the title: what did you mean, comrade, when you called it “Letters to a very close stranger”?
- Well this is actually the title of the book.
– Who is this stranger?
- Hmm, it’s you, it’s him, it’s Viva.. it’s anybody and each one of us, it could be all of us.
– Well, I guess so, I understand you, but you must realise that this will generate misunderstandings…
- In whose mind and in what way?
– Well, actually this term, stranger, usually designates those who are… beyond, that is across the border…
I feel like shouting. I would have liked to have shouted:
- Literature has no borders, on the contrary I would have liked to shout to him. Did I actually shout at all?
As for myself I would not like to start putting words into my mouth. Now, gentlemen, does it mean that one no longer is allowed to use certain words in the dictionary, without becoming suspect? Gentlemen, comrades, let’s not exaggerate!
- Nobody is suspecting you of anything, smiled the Rodent. We really admire you. But why shoot ourselves in the leg? We and us, together, would like to see this book appear in print, wouldn’t you?
- Not at any price, I snapped defiantly.
- Let’s be reasonable, think of it. Just change the title. I give my word of honour that we shall not change anything else. To date, you have cooperated perfectly with my colleague, here present. Of course, that will imply that you will have to take out all mention of this … stranger, any hint of it. You may replace it with the name of a close friend. Anyway, you have the freedom to choose whatever, and snap, you get your OK and the manuscript goes to the printers.
- No.
– Of course yes. Just think of the potential implications at this political junction. It would be a pity.
- What political junction was he talking about? Hungary was forgotten and Czechoslovakia was about to be; Poland was not yet, as for Afghanistan, that was not conquered yet. And on the home front? The great earthquake and human quake have not yet materialised. The miners of the Jiu Valley were mining like mad the coal seams from the people’s coalmines and had not yet been visited by such reactionary, hostile, anti party-political, counter-revolutionary ideas as to going on strike.
– After all, who is he really, this close stranger? The Rodent smiled intimately.
– Just so, who amongst us might he be? Smiled Vivaldi.
I changed the title: The ‘stranger’ disappeared completely from the title page and from the body of all phrases.
They summoned me up again, this time accusing me of immorality, because on this occasion the main character, who was a female, was addressing her letters to too many men, therefore she was a woman who had many lovers!
– Comrade, there are too many men in her life. They also asked me to drop several lines describing a kiss on the lips between the protagonists. I replaced the kiss with a vigorous handshake.
Then I was accused of defeatism and of peddling a sombre philosophy, wholly anti-humanistic and anti-humane – never you mind about the confusion they were making between the two terms. Because in one of the letters the woman character was contemplating suicide, after a failed love affair. And furthermore we find nothing in your book about our current life, about our building the Socialist Society. The people were working their butts out building a glorious future, whilst I was chasing after my lost shadows.
(…)
In answer to their question what kind of book was it, I could not respond. – Would it be a recitative novel, or maybe a collection of essays? Neither really. At most I could describe it as a literary attempt at deconstructing the time and space.
– After all, who is this stranger, comrade? To whom are all these letters intended to? Either he is close and in this case he cannot be a stranger, but a citizen of our fatherland, one of us, a comrade, or, quite the contrary, he is a real stranger, in which case he cannot be close. Therefore, he is a citizen of another country and in that case, what need is that to talk about him, to talk to him?
– I must confess, I never thought along these lines. I did not want to.
Again, burning and grin.
The book was published under the title: ‘Every day’s letters’.
It is only now that I realise the great service the censors rendered. I was using the word ‘stranger’ when I was THERE, within the geographical space, where that word had a specific significance, a one and only meaning. And I did nothing else but to borrow from the censorship this unique meaning, this obsession.
What is a stranger?
The Stranger is the one who does not know.
A Stranger is the one who does not want to know.
The Stranger is the one who knows, but pretends that he does not know.
The Stranger is the one who knows and who stops the others to find out.
In other words, I too could be like him. There was a time when I did not know either. There was a time when I did not want to know. Another when I did know, but I pretended that I have not had a clue, whilst I carried on stopping the others finding out. A time when I lived at the surface of things, indifferent, with a superb if odious craving for a life, other than that of looking over my shoulder. The Stranger is myself, wouldn’t you agree, comrade Vivaldi, comrade Rodent? It is myself addressing the other self within me, this Stranger who would like to know.
(Iulian, Rodica, Midnight Letters, page 10)

BIOGRAPHY:

Rodica Iulian, Romanian Writer Exiled in France

Rodica Iulian is the pseudonym of Dr. Rodica-Iuliana Coporan.
In communist Romania, Rodica Coporan earned her living as a medical doctor, first as a village practitioner (GP) in the Carpathian Mountains, and then from 1960 to 1978 as a specialist at the Institute of Oncology in Bucharest. As her dream was to become a stage director, Rodica described the medical profession as being ‘against her most profound vocation’, yet one which she ‘exercised dutifully, even with a certain success’. In retrospect Rodica Iulian had no regrets about her medical career, when she was known as Dr. Coporan, because it provided her with an ‘insight into the human condition of suffering and despair under a communist régime’ (personal communication to the author) and, furthermore, it also secured a certain financial stability which allowed her to become a poet and novelist. In fact Pavlov’s People, her novel written in French after she left Romania, was inspired by her life in a Romanian village tucked away in the Carpathian Mountains, where she was a GP for three years during the nightmarish era of forced collectivisation in the late 1950s. But more was to be witnessed under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. In 1978 Dr. Coporan could not take it anymore and she resigned her position as a respected oncologist in a reputable hospital – an act of defiance, unknown in a country where the sole employer was the State. By then, her secondary activity was her saving grace. It was the same year that Rodica Iulian’s novel, Cronica nisipurilor, (Chronicle of Sands) received the prize of the Romanian Writer’s Union, in spite of the strong pressure from the Romanian Communist Party against her nomination.

Two years on after this break, another more severe fracture would mark her existence – her decision, in 1980, to leave Romania for good and ask for political asylum in France. Iulian emigrated at the age of 49, on a temporary tourist visa and carrying only a few possessions with her – a bold decision to make prompted by a profound despair. This sensation of trauma and displacement reappeared in many of the characters in her novels. Surprisingly, one year after she sought asylum in France a last volume of her poetry, Vitralii, (Stained glass), somehow made its way to print: it took a Transylvanian editor to display such an act of courage, as it was the prescribed punishment for all writers who defected to the West to have their works blacklisted for publication and all the books already published to be withdrawn from all bookshops and public libraries.

Rodica Iulian’s novels, written in French, reflect the dilemma of the exile torn between her perceived ‘duty’ towards her native culture and the desire to establish new roots in its adoptive country. In the process of establishing herself as a writer in the West, she would reposition Romanian literature as part of the canon of European literature. In this context, Rodica Iulian’s novels reveal the misunderstandings between the Romanian perceptions and expectations of the newly experienced contacts with the French culture. (One of the above quotations is such an example, when, as late as 2001, one detects a whiff of the nightmares experienced some two decades earlier, by Iulian witnessing Ceausescu’s bulldozers, flattening the historical centre of Bucharest.)

Rodica Iulian became a French citizen in 1985. From 1981 to 1993 she was a frequent contributor to the cultural programmes of Monica Lovinescu (q.v.) broadcast in Romanian by Radio Free Europe and since 1985 she has been a regular contributor to two other cultural programmes of Radio France International, covering the current art exhibitions in Paris, and also Itinéraires français about offbeat France. This same unknown France makes the backdrop to Fin de chasse (End of the hunt), Iulian’s third novel written in French, which takes place in a mountain village.

The rekindling of links with post-Ceausescu Romania was intermittent and somewhat bizarre: she found the same fellow writers, members of the Romanian Writers Union, who indicted Iulian for ‘betrayal of her country’ (tràdare de tarà) and withdrew her Union membership after her “defection” to the West in 1980. Some ten years on, these same characters embraced her with open arms. Her return visit was marked by the mending of some broken fences, as publishers in Bucharest agreed to print her novels again.

Iulian is acknowledged in Zaciu’s four-volume Dictionary of Romanian Writers, but twenty key years of her cultural activity in Western Europe are completely ignored.
Romania’s amnesia about its errand sons and daughters is alive and well, two decades after Ceausescu’s exit.

Rodica Iulian. "Fin de Chasse"

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Street Art: Shoreditch by Night

But for all the reasons I love Shoreditch, there is truly only one that pins my heart to a hoarding on Great Eastern Street, announcing to the passing crowds of out-of-town commuters and lorry drivers alike that this is the place of my soul; and that is the sprayed up, pasted-over and fucked-up walls of the hallowed triangle and its periphery.

For as many years as I have worked in the area, and eventually come to live in, I have been inspired to document the activities of each and every ne’er do well that sees fit to climb out of bed at a god-forsaken hour and crawl through the darkened back streets and passages for the sake of their art, for ‘as the city sleeps, the walls they weep’.

Who could forget the likes of Paul Le Chien and his 3 metre high penis adorning the side of Starbucks by the Old Street roundabout, or the street conversations starting with ‘love don’t pay the rent’. It’s these piffy statements on life according to the Shoreditch triangle that make it a unique spot in London, with the soon to be gone Foundry at its heart, which hopefully won’t take the spirit of the ‘Ditch with it as the inevitable wrecking ball hits.

It may well be that the council, alongside developers, is taking a heavy hand to the ‘hood, and the graffiti contained therein, but Shoreditch was, and remains, the place in which Banksy cut his teeth in London, and which saw his ‘battles’ with Eine. And of course, when other battles ensued, and the likes of Damien Hirst threw the legal book at a ‘young upstart vandal’, the crews closed ranks with their own, and fought back!

Despite the negative effects of gentrification and the mass of graff that marks out the railway lines on the way up north, or that spans the walls of the Regent’s Canal and other quarters, I still like to think that Shoreditch is the spiritual home of graffiti in the capital. And with the likes of Cept, Sweettoof, Gold Peg, Mighty Mo and the rest of the Burning Candy crew still plying their trade, alongside upcoming stars like Malarky, the walls of Shoreditch are very much alive and singing!

From the earliest times, when hordes flocked to the Curtain Theatre at the London city limits, till the ever present moment, Shoreditch has been a creative force in the beating heart of London, and graffiti is just another beautiful facet of that. Graffiti and street art might be one man’s scourge, but it means so many things to so many different people. And to me it makes Shoreditch the inspiration that it is, and is very much part of the place I have come to love and call my home.
Vincent Roman

Vincent is a full-time Shoreditch resident, part-time graff head, and some-time troublemaker living within the confines of the proverbial Hoxditch ‘loony bin’. Whether shooting graffiti or sipping Allpress lattes, he can be found wandering through the streets with his own inimitable blend of East London swagger.

Article published in:

http://madeinshoreditch.co.uk/2011/10/17/vincent-roman-why-i-love-shoreditch/

Shoreditch by Night

In Praise of the British Chicken

Ode to a British Chicken

My British Chicken,
I’m truly smitten
‘cause, if you vanished
I ‘d be really lost.

I‘d rather have you roasted,
As without you
My Menu, on the spot,
Will soon be tossed.

My ever-present chick,
You’re inexpendable
My gas ring will be pining
Without you

An Old Flame

And British Gas
For sure, will be insolvent,
As its best client,
Now will go to pass.

My dearest fowl
You got a life in prison
With all your sisters, without rhyme or reason,
All jam packed cheek by jowl.

In batteries you are now a statistic,
Industrial gulag, which puts to shame
A number rather more characteristic
Of Soviet era, at its grimmest game.

Junk Food

My dearest Supermarket, I’m addicted
To buy for ever all your tasteless junk,
As my dependency is now to be predicted
A boring number of a faceless skunk.

Your sheer manipulation, so disgusting,
Is flying in the face of common sense.
Blindfolded crowds are being hold to ransom,
Automatons with limbs, but without brains..

In my despair I’ll try to be more vocal
But am afraid, as being middle-class,
I will be deemed to fart above my station
And turn my reputation to an ass.

Post Script:

This being said, I praise Edwina Currie,
The Minister of salmonella fame,
Who caused the British Egg to go and hurry
To clean its act, in spite of all its gain.

Copyright © Constantin ROMAN
London, October 2011

Edwina Currie Memoirs

Bella Bartok Memorial in London SW7

Bela Bartok and Georges Enesco

Birth Place of Bela Bartok, Co Timis, Banat, Romania

Bela Bartok memorial in his native village, in Romania

Dacian treasure trove from Bartok's native village, now in Vienna Art Museum

Bela Kun memorial by Varga - now removed to the dustbin of history

http://www.romanianstudies.org/content/2009/10/herta-muller-the-journey-to-the-2009-nobel-prize-for-literature/

Bartok's grave in Budapest (courtesy: findagrave.com)

Bella Bartok Blue Plaque in London SW7

Memoria Diasporei despre Bartok si Enescu la Londra

Dezvelirea statuii compozitorului Maghiar Bella Bartok in cartierul South Kensigton din Sudvestul Londrei reprezinta o recunoastere in plus, nu numai a celebrului compozitor de talie universala, dar si un exemplu de promovare inteligenta a valorilor nationale in lume. Acest act ofera un moment de reflectie si poate comparativ cu modul Romanesc de promovare a valorilor nationale, pe plan international, de cumetriile Institutului Cultural Roman, Bucuresti.

Ei, o sa ma intrebati, poate, “ce are sula cu prefectura”? ce legatura aleatorica ar exista intre aceste idei, intre astfel de paralele si implicit de indemnuri?

Bella Bartok si George Enescu
Fara a ma pierde in explicatii alambicate, doar in cateva randuri, ar trebui sa amintim ca Bella Bartok s-a nascut in Banatul Romanesc, la Sannicolau Mare, ditr-un tata Maghiar si o mama de etnie Sarba. Cum este si firesc, pentru un tanar cu evidente sensibilitati fata de mediul in care s-a nascut, Bartok s-a inspirat, asa cum au facut-o contemporanii si predecesorii sai din sec XIX, din fondul muzicii etnice din Sudestul Europei: “Dansurile Romanesti” ale compozitorului au intrat demult in repertoriul mondial si implicit in memoria si sensibilitatea publicului civilizat si avizat, sensibilitate care reflecta indirect valorile muzicii Romanesti – aceeasi sursa din care s-au inspirat si contemporanii sai, George Enescu sau Dinu Lipatti.

Este poate semnificativ ca atat Bartok cat si Enescu s-au exilat din cauza schimbarilor politice survenite ca urmare al celui de al doilea razboi mondial: Bartok s-a destzarat datorita fascizarii Ungariei lui Horthy, ca sa se stabileasca in Statele Unite, unde, in ciuda asistentei financiare si artistice primite, si-a trait cu dificultate exilul, murind dupa cinci ani. In aceasta perioada de destzarare a compus doar doua lucrari: Concertul pentru Orchestra si o Sonata pentru vioara dedicata lui Yehudi Menuhin – violonistul care a fost scolit de Enescu…
George Enescu, impreuna cu sotia lui si-au parasit tara dupa razboi, ca sa-si traiasca ultimii ani de viata la Paris, intr-o perioada intunecata a diasporei romanesti. Aceasta din urma a fost bantuita de recriminari, suspiciuni, lovituri sub centura si contraziceri – cu efecte inevitabile negative. Aici, in Parisul postbelic, bratul omniprezent al simpatizantilor francezi ai Stalinismului, cat si coada sobolanului securist au fost proactive, asa cum au suferit, din experienta proprie, Monica Lovinescu, Eugene Ionesco, Virgil Gheorghiu, Horia Vintila, s.a., indurand persecutia impinsa pana chiar la procesul vrajitaorelor (viz. Monica Lovinescu, Vintila Horia, s.a).
Poate ar fi interesant de a reflecta mai adanc asupra efectului exilului asupra acestor compozitori contemporani, Bartok si Enescu.

Belle Bartok memorial, London SW7 by Imre Varga

Statuia din Londra a compozitorului Bella Bartok si sculptorul Maghiar Imre Varga

Cariera sculptorului Imre Varga (n. 1923) reflecta meandrele istorice si labirintul transformarilor politice a scenei Maghiare dinainte, din timpul si dupa cel de al doilea razboi mondial. Asa cum este de asteptat, viata si activitatea sculptorului Maghiar nu poate fi mult deosebita fata de cea a confratilor lui Romani din aceeasi perioada, care, cu acelasi entuziasm si-au intors cojocul pe dos, nu odata, dar de mai multe ori, reinventandu-se din nationalisti in luptatori antistalinisti pe frontul de Est, de partea Germaniei Fasciste si iarasi in artisti cantand osanale cotropitorilor Sovietici, ca mai apoi sa reprezinte o realitate mai putin sanguina, a unei tari membre a Uniunii Europene: adaptivitate in ape tulburi greu de navigat, in care multi conationali ori au esuat, ori au preferat, (intocmai exemplului subiectului din South Kensigton, care il admiram astazi), sa isi ia drumul greu al exilului.

Dar analizand cursul Istoriei, care nu ia in consideratie astfel de mizilicuri, ce ramane important pentru noi este obiectul insusi si ideea de a ridica la Londra o statuie a lui Bartok, initiativa si perseverenta pentru care trebuie sa ne dam jos palaria si sa salutam un fiu al Banatului si un prieten al Romaniei, dincolo de limitele inguste ale nationalismului sovin.
Banatul, aceasta provincie istorica, o parte din care a fost integrata Romaniei dupa Primul Razboi Mondial, a oferit, de-a lungul veacurilor, artisti, poeti si scriitori, printre care, mai recent, se numara si Herta Muller, a carei opera literara reflecta realitatea Romaneasca postbelica, pentru care a primit premiul Nobel (q.v. articolul anterior din Centre for Romanian studies): “Herta Muller – drumul spre Premiul Nebel pentru Literatura 2009″:

http://www.romanianstudies.org/content/2009/10/herta-muller-%E2%80%93-the-journey-to-the-2009-nobel-prize-for-literature/

Bela Kun memorial by Varga - now removed to the dustbin of history

Detail of Varga's memorial to Bela Kun, now removed to a scrapyard of communist sculptures

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NOTA de Subsol:
Pentru cei care nu cunosc istoria Europei din preajma primului razboi mondial ar trebui de consemnat, succint, ca acest Bela Kun, nascut KUHN, in comuna Lelei din Ardeal, in anul 1886, a fost educat la Liceul Reformat din Cluj. Recrutat in armata Imperiului Habsburgic, Kun a fost trimis pe frontul de Est, unde a fost luat prizonier de catre Rusi. Aflat in captivitate Bela Kun a fost recrutat in Partidul Bolsevic, in cadrul caruia a creeat ramura comunistilor Maghiari.
Reintors in Ungaria, in perioada tulbure a dezintegrarii Imperiului Habsburgic, Bela Kun a gasit terenul fertil pentru conditiile unei revolutii bolsevice (sustinute cu fonduri obtinute dela Lenin care l-a intalnit in Rusia). Acestea i-au permis sa creeze efemera “Republica Sovietica Maghiara”, care a durat mai putin de sapte luni de zile, inainte de a fi desfiintata de interventia Armatei Regale Romane, la 1 August 1919 – iar restul este istorie.

Sculptorul compozitorului Bartok este acelasi care a lucrat in Ungaria, in stilul “Artei cu Tendinta”, din perioada “hei-rupista” a regimului comunist Ungar.
Pe acest teren ideologic fertil, Imre Varga a avut comenzi ale “organelor de Partid si de Stat” ca sa creeze, printre altele, si imensul grup statuar glorificandu-l pe Bela Kun (vezi ilustratiile de mai sus): deci om de nadejde – omul zilei! Acestea se pot inca “admira” in parcul de “curiozitati” dela Budapesta, unde au fost deplasate toate creatile de propaganda comunista ale Realismului Socialist.

Maria Mesterou, Retrospective de peinture, Dreux, Octobre-Novembre 2011

Maria MESTEROU – Retrospectiva Franta (14 Oct. 2011 – 27 Nov. 2011)

L’univers de Maria Mestérou est un monde fait de mystérieux objets. L’espace qui les contient communique souvent avec l’étendue des horizons éloignés, de la mer. L’étrange charge que portent ces objets transfigure aussi le paysage, le plein air dans lequel ils sont placés. Ils font parfois la place à un personnage non moins mystérieux, sachant partager leur silence et entretenir le dialogue avec celui qui regarde. Ce ne sont pas des natures mortes dans le sens usuel du terme, c’est une insolite figuration. Peut-être la recherche d’un genre de dimension perdue ou le surnaturel trouverait forme dans le naturel, lui transférant une lumière d’attente, l’attente de la métamorphose finale. Les objets sont réunis pour un moment précis, d’où jaillit une beauté sereine. Leur rayonnement transcende leur apparence et prend des lueurs cosmiques. Le sensible sert le transcendantal dans un échange avec le spectateur, et cet échange est déjà de l’ordre de l’affectif.
Valérian Bryn

Née en Roumanie, diplômée de l’Institut des Arts Plastiques de Bucarest, commence sa carrière d’artiste dans des expositions officielles. Faisant partie d’un groupe de jeunes artistes non-conformistes, peint pendant de longs séjours de « plein air » dans un village des Carpates. Part pour la France à l’occasion d’une exposition personnelle de peinture en 1970, et décide d’y rester. S’installe à Paris et reçoit la nationalité française.
Un atelier de la Ville de Paris lui permet de se consacrer pleinement à la peinture et à l’estampe. Dès son arrivée, conçoit et imprime ses œuvres en sérigraphie, les édite et les diffuse avec les Éditions La Tortue, Pierre Hautot, Art Extension, Rombaldi (Paris), ainsi que les « Éditions Galleries » de Melbourne (Australie).
Participe avec ces éditeurs et galeries à quelques expositions internationales, est invitée aux principales biennales de l’estampe.
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De nombreuses expositions personnelles dans les Galeries La Tortue, Pierre Hautot (Paris), Jan De Maere (Bruxelles), J-M. Cupillard (Grenoble), Éditions Galleries (Melbourne). Après 1985 réduit son activité de graveur-sérigraphe pour se consacrer encore davantage à la peinture. Expose pendant longtemps au Salon Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, ensuite au Salon d’Automne dont elle devient membre sociétaire.
Travaille avec la Galerie Rolf Wahl (Paris), mais aussi avec les galeries La Pochade, de Champvermeil, Catherine Guerard (Paris), Catherine Fernet (Bruxelles) et Cegrac (La Corogne, Espagne). Crée des cartes de vœux pour U.N.E.S.C.O. Réalise des peintures murales, commandes d’État au titre de 1%, pour quelques écoles dans la Région parisienne.
Œuvres dans les collections de l’État français, de la Ville de Paris, de la Préfecture des Hauts-de-Seine, de la Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild, de la fondation Pernot-Ricard, du Musée de Gravelines. Œuvres dans quelques fondations et collections officielles aux États-Unis et dans de nombreuses collections privées en France et dans le monde entier.
Médaille de Bronze du Mérite Français pour les Arts Plastiques. Prix du Salon de Vésinet 1977. Invitée régulièrement pour enseigner la peinture et ses techniques, dans des stages de formation à la Manufacture des Gobelins et Mobilier National (Paris). Dernière exposition personnelle : Galerie Étienne de Causans, Paris, 2010.