Centre for Romanian Studies » PEOPLE

WInter Drifts and Snowdrift: latest news from Absurdistan!

editor — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:42:26 +0000

According to the Bulgarian rag “The Echo” – all is well with our “brothers in arms”, the Bulgars, but NOT so well across the border in Absurdistan:

Motorway to Bucharest, January 2012

In Bucharest, a number of major streets were closed to traffic and efforts continued to clear the snowdrifts on the city’s ring road. Snow-clearing vehicles from nearby towns were called in to aid the efforts, but these were delayed for some time after their drivers had to return and purchase road vignettes before proceeding on the motorway.

Romanians have had enough: January 2012 Riots in pictures

editor — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:50:23 +0000

Romanians have had enough: January 2012 Riots in pictures:

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

Domnikios et Tovaras

editor — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:27:02 +0000

Domnikios et Tovaras

Les Domnikios ont été des seigneurs depuis des temps immémoriaux : ils sont toujours venus au monde pour être des seigneurs. En vérité, ils se vantaient de descendre en droite ligne des empereurs byzantins et, à travers eux, d’une foule d’empereurs romains et de figures mythiques de l’Ancien Testament, allant ainsi jusqu’à Adam. À une époque plus récente, celle dont le souvenir garde la trace, il a été reconnu que les Domnikios ont continûment régné sur la principauté de Domnikia, quelque part dans les terres sauvages du tourbillon balkanique — et ce n’est qu’un débat académique que de savoir si la principauté de Domnikia a ainsi été nommée d’après les Domnikios, ou si, au contraire, les Domnikios ont emprunté ce nom aux terres sur lesquelles, des siècles durant, ils on régné sans partage en Despotes ou DOMNI. Car il y a ici un autre mystère quant à l’origine de ce nom dont les Domnikios sont si fiers : leurs hagiographes affirment sans l’ombre d’un doute que le mot « Domnikios » proviendrait du mot latin DOMINUS, contracté, des siècles plus tard, en « DOMN », ce qui signifie « seigneur » dans la langue vernaculaire domnikienne. Et cela démontre avec force que les Domnikios étaient destinés à être des chefs. Mieux encore : comme le latin « Dominus » signifie « Dieu », l’ancienneté domnikienne implique le fait qu’au début, ils étaient aussi des Dieux, ou des Dieux-régnants à Domnikia. Ainsi le veut la tradition depuis la plus haute antiquité, lorsque les attributs des souverains absolus se confondaient toujours avec ceux de la divinité. C’est pour cela que les prières orthodoxes domniqiennes s’ouvrent à chaque fois sur la phrase :

« Au commencement, ce fut Domn, et Domn était Dieu, et Dieu était Roi, et ils n’étaient qu’une et unique Foi, et cette Foi s’appelait Domnikios, le Dieu-Roi qui régnait sur Domnikia. »

Rien ne saurait être plus différent des Domnikios que les Tovaras : ceux-ci n’avaient ni ancêtres ni histoire — ils étaient des parvenus. En fait, les Tovaras savaient — et, à leur tour, les Domnikios ne le savaient que trop bien — que les Tovaras étaient contemporains des Domnikios, puisqu’ils avaient été créés à la même époque, et que leur destin était d’être « le sel de la terre » mais qu’ils étaient devenus les esclaves perpétuels des Domni. Mais les Tovaras ne pouvaient le prouver, car ils n’avaient jamais eu une terre à eux, leur progéniture ne portaient pas des noms patronymiques, ils n’avaient jamais été mentionnés par les chroniques de la principauté domnikienne et, par conséquent, les Tovaras, tout simplement, « n’existaient pas ». Les enfants des Tovaras naissaient toujours esclaves, ils portaient toujours le nom de leurs mères, parce qu’ils ne savaient jamais qui était le père. En revanche, de temps à autre, on pouvait leur permettre de porter le nom de l’endroit où ils étaient venus au monde sur les terres domnikiennes. Mais, en dépit de ces circonstances, les Domnikios ne pouvaient survivre sans les Tovaras, car, ainsi que le veut l’ancienne sagesse, chaque chef a, par définition, besoin d’un serf, tout comme chaque fouet de cirque, afin de justifier sa raison d’exister, a besoin d’un lion dressé.

Mais il y a une chose bien plus profonde qui distingue les Domnikios des Tovaras : c’est le sens même de parvenu du nom « Tovaras », le fait que celui-ci ne puisse être rattaché à aucune tradition. Car l’étymologie de « Tovaras » n’est nullement latine, mais slave, et les Slaves sont arrivés tard dans ces lointaines contrées, très tard dans l’histoire de Domnikia. Ce sont les Slaves qui ont donné le nom « Tovaras » aux serfs sans nom, car ils semblaient peu engageants et ainsi ils les ont appelé « Tovaritch ». En fait, avant que les Slaves n’envahissent Domnikia, on appelait toujours les fils sans nom des traînées avec un court et tranchant : « Hé, toi ! », et les serfs rampaient avec empressement vers leurs maîtres. Mais, maintenant, que leurs terres avaient été piétinées et leurs attributs diminués, les Domnikios, qui ont toujours et de manière congénitale zézayé, ont édicté que les serfs devaient recevoir le nom de « Tovaras », comme une sorte d’acceptation de mauvaise grâce de l’intrusion slave dans les affaires féodales de la principauté domnikienne.

Et c’est ainsi que les malheurs ont commencé, et que les digues de l’Enfer se sont rompues, et nous allions assister à des siècles de guerres civiles entre les Domnikios et les Tovaras, que, de temps à autre, entrecoupaient de brèves périodes de coexistence durant lesquelles tous retenaient leur souffle.

En Français par Radu PORTOCALA
© Romanian Studies Centre, London 2003 &
© Constantin ROMAN

Poetry in Translation (CI): Lord BYRON (1788-1824) – “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” – “Pelerinajul Tânărului Harold”

editor — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:50:30 +0000

Lord Byron (1788-1824)

LORD BYRON:
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Canto the Fourth
CXLI

He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck’d not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,

There where his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother — he, their sire,
Butcher’d to make a Roman holiday –

All this rush’d with his blood — Shall he expire
And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

Lordul Byron (1788-1824)
Pelerinajul Tânărului Harold
Al patrulea Canto CXLI

El auzise, fără să- şi dea seama. – căci gândul lui
Cu inima era, dar ea era acuma prea departe;
Şi nu mai cugeta la viaţa scursă, nici ls răsplata dată orişicui,
Ci doar la vatră visul să-l mai poarte,

Pe valea Dunarii, unde-s la joacă toţi fraţii săi barbari,
Cu gândul e la muma-i, la Dacia străbună,
Adânc măcelărită de braţ de legionari…

Tot visu-i i-e in sânge – Cum, moartea să-l răpună
Nerăsplătit? La arme, Goţi, mânia vă răzbună!

Versiune in limba Romănă
Constantin ROMAN
Londra, Ianuarie 2012
© Constantin ROMAN

Trajan's Column - Roman legions crossing the Danube

Trajan viewing the slaughtered Dacians (Column Rome)

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

editor — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 09:36:01 +0000

The 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.
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.

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.

Poetry in Translation (C): W.B. Yeates (1865 – 1939) – “When you are Old”, “

editor — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 12:27:28 +0000

Pe culmi de munţi, zburând spre zări pustii, O clipă, chipu-ţi trist a adăstat. Dar ai purces, cu dorul necurmat Si faţ-ascunsă printre galaxii.

When You are Old
by W. B. Yeates

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep...

Când esti bătrân

Când eşti cărunt, letargic şi bătrân,
Pe lângă sobă-o carte ai deschis…
Iar ochilor, târcoale dau, în vis,
Sclipirile ce-au fost, dar nu mai sânt.

Câţi oameni n-ar fi vrut să fi primit
Atâtea haruri dela Dumezeu,
Dar dintre toţi, eu singură, mereu
Am înţeles tot ce ai pătimit.

Pe culmi de munţi, zburând spre zări pustii,
O clipă, chipu-ţi trist a adăstat.
Dar ai purces, cu dorul necurmat,
Si faţ-ascunsă printre galaxii.

In Romaneste de Constantin ROMAN
Rendered in Romanian by Constantin ROMAN
© Constantin Roman, London, December 2011

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

editor — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:35:57 +0000

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

HM King Mihai I de Romania – Christmas Address to the Romanian People

editor — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:31:47 +0000

Mesajul adresat de Majestatea Sa Regele Mihai I pentru români, cu ocazia sărbătorilor de Crăciun 2011:

În anul 1940, după plecarea tatălui meu, am adresat primul mesaj de Anul Nou către voi. Aveam 19 ani, iar ţara şi continentul nostru se aflau în război.

În aceste zile, de la Săvârşin, vă transmit mesajul meu, după şaptezeci de ani de tradiţie aproape neîntreruptă. De la Bucureşti, Sinaia, Versoix sau Săvârşin, cuvintele mele s-au îndreptat mereu către voi cu aceeaşi iubire, grijă, respect şi speranţă.

Trecerea anilor îţi dă posibilitatea să vezi ce s-a schimbat în lume şi ce anume a rămas. Un lucru neschimbat în viaţa românilor este importanţa pe care familia o acordă Crăciunului şi Anului Nou. Acelaşi fior al sărbătorilor, acelaşi îndemn la bunătate, la deschiderea sufletului şi la minunea Naşterii Domnului. Ultimii zece ani la Săvârşin au adus Familiei mele bucuria de a vedea tradiţiile populare şi entuziasmul familiilor de la ţară aproape neschimbate.

Şi astăzi, în 2011, ca şi în anii copilăriei mele sau anii grei ai războiului, bunicii, părinţii şi copiii, alături de restul familiei se adună în jurul bradului, îşi oferă daruri, petrec la masa de Crăciun şi se bucură de apropierea celui drag.

În anul 2011 am avut multe întâlniri cu români din toate colţurile ţării şi de pe multe meleaguri ale Europei. Sărbătorirea Jubileului de 90 de ani mi-a dat ocazia să primesc mii de oameni la Palatul Elisabeta şi la Săvârşin, într-o sărbătoare care a cuprins întreaga suflare românească. Această dovadă de iubire şi de preţuire, încununată de adresarea de la tribuna Parlamentului către Naţiunea română, a fost o alinare pentru toate suferinţele şi neajunsurile pe care a trebuit să le trecem cu toţii în ultimele decenii.

Regina şi cu mine suntem fericiţi să avem alături familia noastră şi să vedem cât de mult copiii şi nepoţii noştri fac pentru ca rostul Casei Regale să continue, pentru binele României.

Naşterea Domnului Isus Hristos este tot povestea unei familii. O familie aflată în împrejurări grele. O frumoasă lecţie despre grija faţă de cei neînsemnaţi, despre cum noi, oamenii, suntem parte a unei mari familii. O lecţie de umilinţă, dar şi de mândrie. De durere, dar şi de înălţătoare umanitate. O lecţie necesară în lumea de astăzi, în care atâţia oameni se simt uitaţi, umiliţi sau neînţeleşi.

Se apropie un nou an, pe care vi-l doresc tuturor mai bun decât cel trecut! Sunt sigur că vor fi în continuare momente de cumpănă şi că multe aspecte din viaţa noastră vor lăsa încă de dorit. Nu avem nici o şansă de a aşterne un drum solid generaţiilor viitoare dacă vom lăsa mereu pe ceilalţi să rezolve ceea ce este răspunderea noastră.

Transmit gândul meu bun soldaţilor români care îşi riscă viaţa şi fericirea familiei pentru binele ţării. Totodată, gândurile mele se îndreaptă către toţi cei care se simt singuri, neiubiţi sau cei care sunt bolnavi. Felicit pe românii care ştiu că au făcut ceva bun pentru ca ţara lor să meargă mai departe. Şi doresc tuturor românilor, tineri şi bătrâni, din ţară şi din afara hotarelor ei, Crăciun fericit, cu pace în suflet, şi la mulţi ani pentru 2012, împreună cu cei dragi!

Aşa să ne ajute Dumnezeu!

Mihai R

Săvârşin, 24 decembrie 2011

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

editor — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:13:24 +0000

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.

O, would I ever
Be reborn?
With dilated pupils, o, breeze of pain
With white clouds, will you pass over my face?

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?

Nichita Stanescu and Gabriela Melinescu

Romanian Literature in Exile (I): Rodica Iulian (France), b. Romania 1931

editor — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:42:00 +0000

Rodica Iulian
(Pseudonym of Rodica-Iuliana Coporan, née Bàcànescu)
(b. 21 Dec. 1931, Craiova)
Oncologist, poet, novelist, broadcaster (Radio Free Europe and Radio France), exile living in France

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"