Blouse Roumaine –  the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women

Review by Octavian Ciupitu, Curierul Romanesc, Sweden

(after the Romanian Text of September 2009)

The above title refers to an E-book collated and edited by Constantin ROMAN and published in English, in January 2009, by the Centre of Romanian Studies (London). This is an anthology of the lives and times of 160 women, born between 1805 and 1983, whose claim to fame is linked to Romania.  In this first edition the book contains 1,047 pages, with  black-and-white as well as colour illustrations.

Constantin Roman set out with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm in revealing the destinies of some extraordinary women who were either native-born or, as the case maybe, were closely linked to the Romanian scene. The philosophy of this book is to present, for the first time in English as a language of wide circulation, the universal value of some outstanding women, some of whom are little-known outside Romania, but also some women whose contrasting destinies gained a controversial reputation. To these are added the names of fifteen “Honorary Romanians”, by marriage or by vocation, mostly royals.

This “Hall of Fame” displays a tapestry of individual biographical essays interwoven with the destinies of world celebrities of living memory, an exercise meant to demonstrate the seminal contribution  of  Romanian culture, which unbeknown to many permeated a wide world stage.

This review refers to the 1^st version of the 1^st edition which has 1,047 pages divided in the following chapters:

• Acknowledgements
• Foreward by Catherine Durandin
  
• Preface – Matisse’s ‘Blouse Roumaine’
• Chapter 1 – Five Millennia of Romanian Women
• Chapter 2 -  Gazetteers :

#  Gazetteer of 160 women by date of birth (1805-1983)

# Gazetteer of 160 Women presented in 58 categories by Call, Profession or Social Status

• Chapter 3 Profiles in Alphabetical order from A to Z
• Chapter 4 Indexes

# Index of Names

# Index of Geographical Locations

# Index of Quotations

• Appendix Notes on Romanian and foreign spelling equivalents – surnames and nouns

Daniel Rosenthal - 'Revolutionary Romania' (19th c)

The Foreword is signed by Catherine Durandin, Chevallier de la Légion d’Honeur, French Historian and Novelist, Professor of Romanian  at the INALCO - the Institut National de Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, author of several books on Romania, who was invested  with the Order of the Grand Cross of Romania.

The Preface chapter, entitled “Matisse’s Blouse Roumaine” is an eighteen-pages long essay on the theme of the Romanian ethnic blouse (iia romaneasca) as it is painted in the corpus of Henri Matisses’s oeuvre and beyond. Constantin Roman uses the pretext of Matisse’s iconic painting to discuss in a broader context the Romanian cultural phenomenon embodied by a woman wearing the ethnic embroidered blouse,  starting  with the canvass of Daniel Rosenthal (1820-1851) the painter of “Revolutionary Romania” (1848), then presenting Nicoalae Grigorescu’s (1838-1907) “Girl from Muscel County” and moving on to Queen Marie of Romania (1875-1938) and Princess Ileana of Romania, Archduchess of Austria (1909-1991) both of them wearing the Romanian garb, as seen in a photograph of the 1920s and finally arriving at Matisse’s celebrated eponymous canvass “La Blouse Roumaine”(1940)  now at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris and Pablo Picasso’s “Seated Woman with Book” (Norton Simon Museum, Passadena, California). Furthermore, the Preface presents two other themes entitled “A Romanian Blouse by Picasso?” and respectively “Post-WWII Romanian Women and the West”.

Chapter I: containing thirty two pages is most absorbing for its theme of  “Five Millennia of Romanian Women” which in its turn is subdivided in five separate subjects: “Women of the Carpathian-Danubian Space – Five thousand years of Civilization”, followed by “Women of Myth and Legend”, “Women of Old – from Antiquity to the end of the XVIII century”, “Modern and Contemporary Women – XIX and XX centuries” and respectively “ The New face of Romania – XXI century”.

Queen Marie of Romania, wearing the national dress

Chapter 2: has twenty four pages starting with a four-pages Timeline of Women by date of birth (1805-1983), beginning with the Revolutionary Ana Ipatescu (1805-1875) and finishing with the poet Ioana Alexandra Maris (b. 1983). This is followed by a nineteen-page Gazetteer of 160 Women within 58 distinct categories by Call, Profession or Social Status as follows: 22 Acadmics, 9 Actresses, 14 Anti-communist Fighters,  2 Architects, 9 Art Critics, 1 Book Binder, 6 Ballerinas,  20 Charity Workers, 2 Communist Politicians, 3 Courtesans,  2 Designers,  4 Diplomats,  11 Essay Writers, 6 Ethnographers,  87 Exiles or first-generation Romanians born abroad, 1 Explorer,  12 Feminists,  1 Folk Music Singer,  2 Gymnasts and Dressage Riders,  5 Historians, 15 Honorary Romanians,  3 Illustrators,  13 Journalists,  3 Librarians,  3 Linguists, 1 Literary Critic,  15 Mass Media Personalities,  5 Medical Doctors and Nurses,  1 Museographer, 1 Musical Instruments Makers,  24 Novelists,  15 Opera Singers,  14 Painters, 6 Peasant farmers,  4 Philosophers, 6 Pianists,  4 Pilots,  5 Playwrights,  29 poets, 30 Political Prisoners,  5 Politicians,  2 Revolutionaries. 34 Royals and Aristocrats,  8 Scientists, 4 Sculptors,  1 Slave, 20 Socialites and Hostesses,  51 Spouses and Relations of Public Figures,  2 Spies,  4 Tapestry Weavers,  25 Translators, 6 Unknown Illustrious,   4 Violinists, 3 Workers.

Given the aforesaid criteria, as each of the 160 women of this Anthology falls in several of the above categories, it stands to reason that the sum of all names in all categories put together are, understandably, well in excess of 160, more precisely they reach 577. To illustrate this point by giving a single example and searching for Silvia Constantinescu, the founder and promoter of the “Curierul Romanesc” Quarterly (Sweden) we find her name five times among the following categories of:  “87 Exiles”,  “13 Journalists”,  “3 Librarians”,  “15 Mass Media Personalities” and “25 Translators”, respectively.

Chapter 3: represents the main corpus of the Anthology containing 920 pages divided in sub-chapters each of these corresponding to a letter of the Alphabet. Each of the  sub-chapters is preceded by a list of names, period and date of birth and death, followed by individual biographical  essay for each woman. The structure of each entry observes an identical format: name, dates, category, portrait photograph,  quotations, critical biographical essay, primary and secondary sources, URLs and iconography. In the case of artist painters an exhaustive list of exhibitions is given; for instrumentalists and singers there are selected lists of main performances as well as recordings available on CDs and DVDs, or/and the location of Opera houses and theatres where they had main performances, or début. For the reader who wishes to find out in greater detail about the biography or achievement of particular women these references are a treasure trove of over 4,000 entries.

Chapter 4: contains 45 pages with three Indexes as follows: 20 pages – Index of Surnames, 12 pages – Index of Geographical Place Names and respectively 13 pages – an Alphabetical Index of  605 Quatations from ‘Abortion’ to ‘Zip’ and from ‘Indoctrination’ to ‘Torture’.

The ADDENDUM: is intended to guide one through the confusing differences of the Romanian and the foreign  spelling equivalents depending on the source language – Romanian, French, English, or German.

This wealth of information on women with  a varied and complex personality offers a fascinating learning curve for those readers gifted with an intelligent and inquisitive mind, who may be particularly   interested in a multidisciplinary approach of a social landscape projected against a European  history stretching over  two centuries.

As we follow the labyrinth of diverse destinies, depicted with fervour and consummate scholarship by the author, it is tempting to allow oneself to be spirited away in this ocean of  of information, where each detail competes with each other for its intrinsic value and occasionally even for its sensational dimension. The quotations too make for an illuminating reading on a path of discovery: to give only two examples which are close to the spirit and philosophy of the Curierul Romanesc Quarterly:

The first quotation is an extract from the book “La Apa Vavilonului” (At Babel’s river), volume 2 (2001) by Monica Lovinescu (1923-2008), journalist, political analyst, radio broadcaster, anti-communist and Human Rights Activist exiled in Paris:

In Romania dissidence was an exception. Our resistance was present when it did not exist in the other satellite countries and it ended just as it started with our neighbouring countries. We fought and died in the Carpathian mountains, as the West was blind and deaf, basking in its victory and forgetting its hostages. From the prisons where our élite was destroyed in the 1960s  emerged only the shadows of our earlier determination. Three successive waves of terror – 1948, 1952 and 1958 – had drained the collective organism. We caved into, a  near-total silence. We sacrificed ourselves for nothing. With this sense of utter uselessness most of the survivors emerged from the jails, some of whom, while “free”, remained at the beck and call of the Securitate..

Finally, a second quotation is extracted from the interview of September 1997 which Stefan Racovitza, an exile in Switzerland had with Silvia Constantinescu, the founder and editor of Curierul Romanesc Quarterly (Sweden):

“Yourself”… “and some other exiled Romanians, you were alluding to the inability of Western intellectuals to accept/understand the horrors of Communism and furthermore you were also alluding to the dominant position of the Left-wingers in the West. Such was the case in Sweden. This attitude made light work for the Romanian embassies and for the Romanian Orthodox Church in Bucharest to denigrate those amongst the exiles who were politically active. The same was the case in Stockholm when it came to the campaign of denigration against the “Curierul Românesc” newspaper. This was carried out as much through Romanian communist channels as through their Swedish counterparts, which were extremely enthusiastic in this vein.”

The above two quotations of this Anthology were specially selected in order to prove that the idea of keeping alive the Memory of Romania’s Calvary  under Communism  represents an important theme of this book beyond the inevitable need of spicing the interest of the Anglo-Saxon readership with lighter interludes!

For this reason alone  the idea of  disseminating the Blouse Roumaine far and wide fills in an important gap – an exercise which is long overdue.

http://www.blouseroumaine.com

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The original  Romanian text was published by architect Octavian Ciupitu in Curierul Romanesc, Sweden (see link below). Both the author and his wife Doamna Silvia Constantinescu founders of “Curierul Romanesc” allowed the translation of the above review  to be published by the Centre for Romanian Studies (London). The illustrations and the reference to the Foreword by Catherine Durandin were further added to the English version by the Centre for Romanian Studies (London).

Source:

http://curierulromanesc.net/

by kind permission.

Hotelul Savoy, din Strand, in inima cartierului Westend, era uneori resedinta Martei Bibescu cand trecea pe la Londra si care consemna in jurnalul ei:

Regele mi-a intrerupt visarea cu un mesaj de bun-venit – dar refuz sa fiu deranjata.

Personajul acesta era George al V-lea, varul reginei Maria…Ei, cu o sotie atat de glaciala cum era Queen Mary of Teck, nici nu era de mirare ca monarhul isi cauta destinderea in alte directii. Queen Mary era o nepoata a contesei Claudia de Rhedey, nascuta in Ardealul nostru, la Sangeorgiu de Padure. In 1835 la Viena Claudia se casatorise cu printul Alexandru de Wurtenberg, iar zece ani mai tarziu a murit intr-un celebru accident de trasura. Claudia, la randul ei, se tragea din os domnesc, fiind o stra-stranepoata a lui Vlad Tepes: oare aceasta sa fi fost filiera prin care genele acestei Queen Mary, devenita regina a Angliei sa fi aparut atat de “intepata”? Consoarta lui George V nu suradea nici odata, ceea ce nu putem spune despre frumoasa si captivanta Marta Bibescu, care in plus avea o conversatie si mai ales o prezenta stimulanta. Dar nu numai atat – pretendentii aristocrati isi faceau concurenta ca sa capteze atentia acestei “printese orientale”, care ii fermeca in asa fel incat ii transforma pe toti intr-un fel de aluat, intr-o masa de plastilina pe care Marta o modela in voia si dupa capriciile ei. Dar, printre candidatii care ii faceau curte, sa nu il uitam pe regele Spaniei, Alfonso XIII care o vizita pe Marta la hotelul Savoy sub pseudonimul unui obscur duce spaniol:

Nu o sa-i uit sarutul lui niciodata – atat de tanar, atat de cast…

In timpul celui de al doilea razboi, hotelurile de lux din Londra devenisera locuri de refugiu pentru aristocratii englezi care isi pierdusera casele in timpul “Blitzului” german: rachetele V-1 si V-2 faceau prapad si doar eforturile pilotilor polonezi refugiati in Anglia dupa 1939, cat si ale pompierilor londonezi au facut ca celebra catedrala St Paul, cladirea iconica a lui Christopher Wren, sa nu dispara complet sub flacarile bombelor incendiare. La Ritz, in timpul razboiului, venea si fermecatoarea Violet Trefusis, a carei mama, Doamna Keppel, era metresa oficiala a regelui Edward VII. Violet o vizitase pe Marta la Mogosoaia si a lasat posteritatii niste pagini cu o imagine idilica despre decorul palatului, despre lacul incarcat cu nuferi si vizitat de zane si mai ales despre printesa locului:

Asemenea Ondinei, nimfa apelor, palatul rasarea dintr-un covor de irisi si de nuferi. Un arhitect venetian din secolul XVII  l-a construit in stil Lombard. Ca si palatul unui doge, avea acea culoare pala a unei flori de gardenia usor arsa de razele soarelui, sau poate aceea a unei manusi de copil care s-a jucat toata ziua cu mingea: cladirea arata putin vetusta si in acelasi timp imbracata in haine de sarbatoare. Interiorul era decorat cu mozaicuri aurite, cu grile din fier forrjat, piei de leopard, jilturi si divane…. Afara un paun se infoia pe scarile de marmura, (Violet Trefusis, ‘Prélude to Misadventure’)

Trefusis pomenea de societatea engleza refugiata la Ritz, unde a intalnit si o alta printesa de a noastra, pe Anne-Marie Callimachi, nascuta Vacarescu, vara celebrei scriitoare si diplomate Elena Vacarescu, de la Paris:

Acestor saloane (de la hotelul Ritz, ale Dnei Keppel, mama lui Violet Trefusis) printesa Callimachi le aducea acea atmosfera de “Orient Express”, care (Violetei Trefussis) ii lipsea atat de mult. (Philippe Jullian and John Philips, Violet Trefusis Life and Letters, pp. 106)

Inainte de razboi, Anne-Marie Callimachi fusese atasata de presa a legatiei noastre din Londra (asa da, pe atunci legaturile se faceau la nivelul cel mai inalt, iar Romania era pe harta Europei pentru alte motive decat evocarile sordide de azi – ce diferenta astronomica fata de diplomatii Academiei ‘Stefan Gheorghiu’, ce aveau sa isi afiseze rinocerismul si incultura  prin capitalele lumii timp de peste cinci decenii si le mai demonstreaza in continuare!. Despre anturajul familiei Callimachi ne vorbeste si un alt scriitor englez, Sacheverell Sitwell, invitat de Carol II in Romania ca sa scrie o carte cu impresii de voiaj: aici este descris conacul Mànesti in toata gloria atmosferica dinainte de razboi:

… porti larg deschise spre un drum de pietris ce ducea la Mànesti. Un taraf de lautari canta in onoarea noastra. Pe margini erau brazdele de canna indica galbene si rosii, inainte ca sa apara conacul. Mànesti este casa primitoare unde ne-a invitat Printesa Callimachi: fusese ridicata pe mosia familiei, cam cu cincizeci sau saizeci de ani in urma de catre bunicul ei. De fapt casa reprezinta in sine un exemplu al vremurilor de atunci si unul care nu se poate lesne moderniza. Un pridvor oriental decorat cu un foisor din lemn sculptat te intampina sa patrunzi intr-un interior mobilat chiar de furnizorul curtii lui Napoleon III, pastrand asa cum arata sigiliul imperial sub multe din fotolii si canapele. Interiorul casei este in mare parte mobilat in stilul ‘Second Empire’ dar parcul conacului este mult mai vechi: are un elesteu. pe malul caruia sunt salcii batrane printre care se zaresc chioscuri in stil clasic. Totul evoca paginile unor romane de Turgheniev, petrecandu-se in vre-un conac sau chateau unde doamnele il citeau pe Byron sau tocmai il descopereau pe Chopin. Intr-un fel, parca si casa avea un aer putin rusesc amintind de Riviera Crimeii de la Ialta si Alupka, sau de castelul gotic din Blore al printului Vornotov. Ce ramanea intr-adevar reprezentativ Romanesc era insa masa de pranz, gustoasa si bogata in urma careia de abea tarziu dupa amiaza automobilele si-au reluat drumul. (Sitwell, Sacheverell, Roumanian Journey, pp. 33)

In mod curios putem beneficia nu numai de impresiile scriitorului rafinat care era Sitwell, dar chiar si de jurnalul de voiaj tinut de Gertrude Stevenson, bona care o acompania pe Doamna Sitwell in Romania. Scotiana asta simpla, dar cu pretentii literare calcate chiar dupa profilul lui Sitwell – a publicat o carte din care descoperim un unghi de observatie diferit de cel al stapanilor ei: de aici aflam despre obiceiurile de la masa boierilor romani si cele de la bucataria servitorilor tigani de la Mànesti, care mancau icre negre… Scotiencei asa ceva nu ii placea – evident acest rafinament nu patrunsese in toate colturile Insulelor Britanice. Nici nu merita sa mai ne intrebam, caci ar fi mult prea previzibil si prea trist ce s-o fi intamplat cu parcul si conacul de la Mànesti, ce fel de staul de vite o fi devenit sub auspiciile ilustrei republici populare prematur declarate socialiste? Faptul ca am mai avea un reper de referinta la “ceea ce am fost si de unde venim” o datoram unor calatori straini. iar lor si gazdelor lor trebuie sa le fim recunoscatori. Ce pacat ca paginile lui Sitwell despre Romania sunt atat de putin cunoscute comparat cu acelea ale prost-inspiratei “Trilogii Balcanice”, scrisa de o autoare frustrata intr-o lumina care ii arata pe Romani  sub prisma prejudiciilor arogante, lipsite de o cultura temeinica, tipica unei anumite categorii de pseudo-intelectuali anglo-saxoni din perioada antebelica.

Confluentele Anglo-Romane de mai sus apar in Antologia femeilor Romane “Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung voices of Romanian Women”, din ale carei pagini sunt inspirate crampeiele acestea. Pentru alte citate si personajii vizitati:

http://www.blouseroumaine.com/

Acest articol a fost mai intai publicat de Observatorul din Toronto, Canada

‘Queen of the Heights’, ‘Virtutea Aeronauticà’, (Gold Cross), (1897 – 1948) Pioneer aviator, first Romanian woman parachutist (1928), 1931 European parachute champion (6,000m), 1932 World Parachute Champion (7,200m), WWII fighter pilot, underground anti-communist freedom fighter, buried under an assumed name

Biographical Note:

Winner’s Glory:

” My life means nothing if I’m keeping it for myself. I dedicate my life to my country, and I want to live it in glory. I will only come back as a winner.”

(Smaranda Bràescu addressing American lournalists in 1931, in New York, before she beat the World record at parachute jumping, at 7,000 m)

Ethics:

” I brought a record to my country, and I can’t transform the glory into a business. I represent Romania and I must act accordingly.”

(Smaranda Bràescu, declining a lucrative contract for show jumping in America, after she beat the World record for parachute jumping, in 1932)

Extract Bio Note from the Anthology:

“Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women”:

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

With the advent of WWII, Smaranda Bràescu enrolled with other women pilots in the ‘White Squadron’, active on the Eastern front, where Romania was trying to retrieve from the Soviets the provinces taken by Russia as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. After 1944, Bràescu joined the 13^th squadron, which was fighting the Germans on the Western front, first in Transylvania, then in Hungary (Nyiregyhaza, Miskolc) and Czechoslovakia (Rimaska Sabota, Trencin and Piestany). Although a war hero Smaranda Bràescu soon fell foul of the communist puppet régime which was installed in Romania by Stalin’s armies. She protested to the United Nations about the legality of the 1946 elections and her letter of protest to the Allied Command in Romania fell into the hands of a Russian general. Thereafter Smaranda Bràescu became a pariah and had to join the underground resistance in order to escape imprisonment and certain death. She operated under an assumed name, first from a convent and then as an anti-communist resistance fighter. She died of cancer at the age of 51, and was buried in Cluj, under her assumed name of Maria Popescu, in a grave on which her merits and real identity could not be spelled out. The people who helped her were hounded out and given long prison sentences, including the doctors who looked after her in hospital.

But the wrath of the communist vendetta followed this woman-hero to her grave: twenty two years after “Maria Popescu” died, the tomb of Smaranda Bràescu was desecrated, the bones dispersed and the plot where her grave was located in the Central Cemetery of Cluj was sold to another family in 1970: now the conspiracy of silence was complete.

After the fall of Communism and 42 years after Smaranda Bràescu died, many a town street throughout Romania was named after her and in 1996 the President of Romania signed a decree for the award of the honorary parachutist battalion colours named after Bràescu (‘drapelul de luptâ al Batalionului 498 Parasutisti ‘Smaranda Bràescu’’).

In the summer of 2006, at the initiative of Tudor Sàlàgean, curator of the History Museum of Transylvania, the grave of the fallen hero was finally inscribed on a monument at Cluj Central Cemetery and a street in the city where she died under an assumed name was be named after her.

—————————————————————————————–

Smaranda Braescu (1897-1948)

In Memoriam

Smaranda, unde esti?

Te-ai avantat in zboruri printre nori

Din ceruri coborat-ai ca un fulg

Peste Ocean, cantata indelung

Urale ti-au adus de sarbatori.

N-ai vrut onoruri si nici bani mai multi

Cinstit-ai vrut sa stai printre Romani

Si te-ai intors atunci la noi in munti…

Cu “Escadrila Alba” ai rapus

Dusmani din Rasarit si din Apus.

In ’46 cand s-au masluit

Alegerile suflul ti-au taiat

Ca bunii tai cu jalba in protap

Mai-marilor de-atuncea te-ai jelit

Dar soarta ta fugar-ai fost sa fii.

Din talcul vietii tale ti-a fost dat

Sa nu renunti la lupta nici de cum

Cu fruntea-n sus sa mergi pe-acelasi drum

Cand boala floarea vietii ti-a curmat

Si-n groapa zaci sub nume de-mprumut.

N-au fost nici popi, nici rude, nici parinti

O candela sa-ti  puna pe mormant

Nici vesnici pomeniri, pomeni sau sfinti

Nu s-au aflat s-aline trupul tau

De cine-ai fost sa sufle vre-un cuvant.

Dar pilda ta n-a fost intr-un zadar

Acum ca roata vietii s-a rotit

Si patru zeci de ani trecut-au, chiar

O strada cu-al tau nume in sfarsit

Te va slavi atata cum mai stim.

(Poem by Constantin ROMAN, London, May 2006)

Constantin Roman © 2009. All Rights Reserved

Herta Müller (born in 1953) is an unusual choice for a Nobel prize for several reasons, some of which create, of necessity, controversy and heated debates not just in Germany, her adoptive country, but in Romania too – her country of birth.

Müller is ‘unusual’ because she is only the 12th female to get the Nobel for Literature in the last one hundred years: She also happens to come from a small and much troubled German ethnic minority from the province of Banat known as Suabian Germans (Schwaben Deutsche).

Furthermore, not since the Nobel Prize was given to Solzhenytsyn that such an accolade had been awarded to a writer who focussed on the repression under dictatorship in Eastern Europe and for this reason alone this event is significant.

Finally, from the Romanian perspective, Müller comes from a country which lives badly the complex of being a ‘small country’ (like Belgium, or Ireland, or perhaps even the Basque Country – Euskal Herria), little understood and much misunderstood. At least through her literary output Müller could change this perception: being nominated for the Nobel Prize, puts Romania on the map in a very different way from the past stereotypes, of vampires, orphanages, human trafficking, trampling on human rights and more. Today and for the past twenty years since the end of Nicolae Ceausescu, the cobbler-dictator, dubbed by its sycophants ‘the Genius of the Carpathians’ (oh, yes…) modern Romania finds itself at the horns of a dilemma: that is not so much HOW TO CONFRONT one’s historic past and assume it, but rather HOW TO BURY  this past. In this context Müller is a trouble-maker because she puts the finger on it and confronts headlong those in a position to make a CHANGE. yet are lacking the moral fibre to carry it out: Müller is the girl who kicked the hornet’s nest!

THE REPUBLIC OF BANAT:

The historic province of Banat stradlles both sides of the Lower Danube from Southern Hungary, through Serbia all the way to the Danube Gorges which cut through the Carpathian mountains of Romania. It was for two hundred years from the mid 16^th to the beginning of the 18^th century the theatre of fierce battles between the Austrians and the Turks who nearly occupied Vienna and transformed Hungary into a ‘pashalik’ (o province ruled by an Ottoman pasha), Prince Eugene of Savoy finally repulsed the Ottomans to the South and the East of the Danube but in the process the native population of Banat was decimated. This caused empress Maria Theresa to invite immigrants from Germany, Luxemburg, Alsace and the Rhine valley to colonise Banat and gave them land and tax privileges.

The colonists prospered in a foreign land: they built compact villages round their catholic churches and fiercely kept their language and their traditions. Today this dialect which has not changed for the past ten generations is the object of academic disquisition as a linguistic curiosity. However by the mid 19^th century the Habsburg empire owing to the nationalist pressure of the influential Hungarian population became a ‘Dual Monarchy’ under the name of ‘Austria-Hungary’, By this act Hungarians gained equal rights to those of the Austrians. In turn the Hungarians imposed a dour politics of ‘Magyarization’ intended to cause the existent mosaic of minorities (Germans, Romanians, Serbs, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Jews ) to loose their identity. The Suabian Germans of Banat, like all the other smaller minorities in Austria-Hungary  felt threatened and half a century later, after the end of WWI tried to found a separate German ‘Banat Republic’ around the city of Timisoara (now in Romania). The tough luck for such initiative was that the victors of Versailles  knew little geography and even less history and they had other ideas in mind. This is how the province of Banat became divided between S.W. Romania, NE Serbia and a much smaller Hungary.

SUABIAN GERMANS OF ROMANIA

BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS:

In this event the Suabian Germans of the Romanian Banat gained after 1919 new privileges in the way of German-speaking schools, newspapers, publications and even a German Theatre at Timisoara. One of the internationally known Suabian Germans in the 20^th century was Johnny Weissmüller (1904-1984) the Hollywood actor of Tarzan fame and the film scriptwriter and director of musicals Geza von Cziffra (1900-1989).

After the economic depression of the 1930s many Romanian Germans took National Socialism as a role model. Hitler embraced the German minorities living outside the border of the Reich, the ‘Volksdeutsche’ as his own and Romanian Germans did fight in the German armies on the Eastern Front whilst keeping their Romanian nationality.

THE PERSECUTION OF HERTA MULLER’S FOLK UNDER COMMUNISM:

Herta’s  father survived the war. Her mother was sent to Siberia and the rest of her family was exiled to the inhospitable and harsh steppes of the Lower Danube in Baragan Plains. Here the dispossessed Suabian farmers lived in mud huts reminiscent of the Palaeolithic. Their land and houses were confiscated and they were allowed to return to the Banat and start a new life from scratch only after the partial liberalisation following Stalin’s death, in 1953. This is the period which marked Herta Müller as a child  in Romania born that very year. These times are depicted by the writer in uncompromising colours:

In my family each member lived its inner private life like on an island. These were the 1950s, during Stalinism, living in this isolated village, whose main street had no tarmac to take us to the city, Yet in spite of this isolation  our village was not  a sort of natural reserve could not be immune from the inroads of politics . Here three or four political activists kept under control the whole village. They arrived from the city. They just graduated and were sent to this god-forsaken village to start their career as controllers, outdoing each others in threats, interrogations and arrests. Our village had 405 houses and 1,500 inhabitants. All of us went about our business living in fear. Nobody dared talking about it. Although I was a small child too little to understand the meaning of fear, yet the veru essence of fear, the sentiment of fear took hold of my brain. All members of my family were affected.

In 1968, when Müller was fifteen the Russian tanks entered Czechoslovakia to quell the Czechs struggle for democracy. At that point she felt that she had to do something: so she enrolled in an underground organisation of German-speaking students, Aktionsgruppe Banat which soon was infiltrated by the Securitate. Then followed arrest, interrogation and constant surveillance.  The singing of German folk songs and the reading of German literature became acts worthy of suspicion and reprimand by the secret services. From that moment on Müller remained on the Securitate’s radar screen. Eventually she graduated from the University of Timisoara to become a teacher, But when the Securitate wanted her to enrol as a collaborator she refused and lost her job  and with it her livelihood:

One day, on the way to the hairdresser, somebody suddenly grabbed me by the arm: it was a policeman who took me to the basement of a nearby block of flats, where three men lay in wait for me. The one who seemed to be the boss accused me, amongst others, of being a prostitute of Arab students and that I was doing it to be paid for  in kind for cosmetics (t.n.under communism   beauty products considered inessential were absent from  shops). I answered that I knew no Arab students to which he retorted that if he wanted to he could find twenty Arab students to testify against me. Then the slender policeman opened the door to let me out and threw my ID card on the ground As I bent he kicked me hard in the back: I fell face down on the grass, behind some bushes. I vomited like a dog, without raising my head.

EXODUS:

However, Ceausescu needed hard currency from the West to underpin his pharaoh projects, so something had to give way: the export of Jews and Germans in the 1960s and 1970s became very lucrative: these two minorities were useful commodity which brought a steady source of hard currency to the bankrupt communist economy. The Suabians, brought to the brink of despair and dispossession, took their chance and left their ancestral homes after living for 300 years in Banat. The destination for their ‘promised land’ was always West Germany, never East Germany! Once Müller and her husband requested to leave Romania their home was confiscated and they had to pay 12,000 Deutsche Marks (granted by the German  Federal Government) to obtain stateless papers and a visa to leave Romania for good. Their luggage was limited to 80 kilos per person. It was like the 18^th century slave trade of darkest Africa, except that this happened in the heart of 20^th century Europe. A community of 300,000 Suabians was reduced to 75,000 mostly elderly. Even more dramatic was the case of the much larger Saxon German minority of Transylvania, which settled in Romania since the 13^th century.  Being depopulated most of the fortified Saxon villages today are in a desperate state of disrepair, comparable to the ruins of a collapsed Roman empire.

The depletion of the Jewish community was even more dramatic from just under one million before WWII down to a few thousands. What General Antonescu’s dictatorship did not succeed before 1944  Ceausescu made a success of it.  Even smaller Greek and Turkish minorities amounting to a few thousand families also left although neither Greece nor Turkey assisted with cash for passports which had to be paid  instead by rich family and friends abroad. Only the Russian and Ukrainian minorities had nowhere else to emigrate to, as the situation in their countries was not much different from that in Romania. As for the Romanians they had to shut up and bear it: they did, with the exception of a few outbursts of despair by coal miners and workers of a tractor factory and of  the Romanian ‘ Charter 77’ signed by  a small number of people who were given harsh sentences.

Clearly in Ceausescu’s Romania Herta Müller had no other option than to join the Exodus. Her decision to leave her home country was not easy as she was brought to the brink of despair: for her it was a matter of physical survival. She was no ‘economic refugee’ she was a political refugee – a Romanian citizen of German stock who was persecuted for her moral values and her stubborn resistance to the dictatorship. In the above circumstances it was inevitable that, when she left Romania, the 35 years-old Müller took with her not just the prescribed 80 kilos of luggage but she smuggled out an invisible yet much heavier suitcase of painful memories of repression under dictatorship.

MULLER’S CODED LANGUAGE:

It is therefore little surprising that Herta Müller’s novels which she calls ‘auto-fiction’ depict her life in Romania in a language coloured by the pain of the exile:

I sang without hearing my voice. I fell from a fear full of doubt into a fear full of absolute certainty. I could sing the way water sings. Maybe the tune came from my singing grandmother’s dementia. Perhaps I knew tunes she lost when she lost her reason. Perhaps things that lay fallow in her brain had to pass to my lips.

(Herta Müller, The Land Of Green Plums)

Soon the muffled revolt of being forced to leave Romania comes to the surface:

I wished that [my interrogator] would carry a sack with all his dead. I wished his hacked-off hair would smell like a newly mown graveyard whenever he sat at the barber’s. I wished his crimes would reek when he sat down at the table with his grandson after work. That the boy would be disgusted by the fingers that were feeding him cake.

(Herta Müller, The Land Of Green Plums)

and again in one of her interviews she recalls the ‘language of innocence’ used in her childhood’s village:

In the village where I was brought up, there were no Romanians. I only learned Romanian at school, as a foreign language… In Timisoara the written word in the Suabian dialect coexists with the language of communication (Romanian).  To these two languages one added the wooden language of the communist party, which hijacked the idiom for its own benefit. Hence our utmost vigilance exerted to avoid using words or concepts in our vocabulary, which were stained or adulterated by the political ideology.  To describe our reality we were constantly in quest of an innocent language.

RECOGNITION IN GERMANY:

Her adaptation in Berlin – a place very different from her native village of Banat or even of Timisoara was not easy: there was the same language which separated her from a Metropolitan German. The Suabians were reputed to say:

We are good at everything except at speaking standard German.

Doubtless as an educated woman Herta smoothed over such differences, although her accent, her ‘vocabulary of innocence’ forged during the dictatorship days left a footprint in her spoken and written language. Some of her German critics accused her ‘stagnation’, of being ‘frozen in her past’ because her novels dealt mostly with the effects of totalitarianism, rather than moving on and dealing with the ’injustices perpetrated in Western society’… But their voices soon became a minority once Müller gained international reputation and acclaim. However, the clash between this uprooted exile writer from the East and the left-wing intelligentsia from the West, even the disowning by her Banat fellow Germans from West Germany, manipulated by Romania’s Securitate was vicious: ‘

Your books should be burnt and you with it – you are not wanted here.

Horia Vintila exiled Scholar and diplomat the target of a character assasination campaign by the Securitate to compell him renouncing the Goncourt Literary Price in Paris.

Such parallel confrontations have been familiar to most Romanian exile writers especially in France (q.v. Monica Lovinescu, Marie-France Ionesco) where character assassination attacks, mostly instigated by the Romanian Secret service agents abroad, were effectively sustained against Paul Goma, Virgil Gheorghiu, Emil Cioran, Eugene Ionesco, Mircea Eliade or Vintilà Horia. The latter was nominated in 1960 for the prestigious Goncourt Prize for his novel Dios ha nacido en exilio (Dieu est ne en exil) But following a witch hunt in the French press, including by Jean-Paul Sartre he was compelled to refuse the award and settle in Spain where he died in Collado Villalba in 1992. In the same context it is significant that in 1997 Herta Müller resigned her membership of Penn Germany in protest against the merger with the former PEN of East Germany, renowned for a membership riddled with former Stasi agents.

ROMANIA’S BETE NOIRE:

Romanians of Romania, still heavily handicapped by their communist ways had other methods of denying Müller her rightful place in literature:

she writes in German, therefore she is no Romanian writer…

When this wooden language could no longer hold reason, then resistance by omission became far more effective: for Herta Müller was again and again air-brushed out of all books of literary criticisms or anthologies published in Romania, even two decades after the fall of Ceausescu:

Literary critic and President of the Romanian Writers Union: a fan of the Socialist Realism in Literature: surprised that "a relatively young woman" such as Herta Muller got the Nob Prize: "she left Romania such a long time ago"...He made sure that Muller was air-brushed out of all his Anthologies.

Her literary contribution was ignored in the România Literarà list of Romanian writers, some 13 years after the demise of dictatorship. She was equally absent from both the four-volume dictionary of Romanian writers as well as from the latest compendium of Romanian exiled writers. This is, undoubtedly, Romania’s loss, because Müller’s fiction is deeply rooted in  Romanian soil and Romanian socio-political history. Still, by 2005 her resounding success abroad could no longer be ignored and in 2005 and some 18 years after she left Romania, she was  feted in Bucharest, where she made  a comeback with the translation at Editura Polirom of Este sau nu este Ion. In spite of this exercise in mending fences with the past Herta Müller has a sharp sense of realities, as demonstrated in her article published in Tagesspeil of 17 July 2008, which is echoed by the Frankfurter Rundschau:

It is a scandal that Romania put forward as its representatives (in Germany, a.n.)     two persons who during the dictatorship (a.n. Ceausescu’s) were collaborators of the secret services.

She is joined in her protest by the writer Richard Wagner who adds:

As it happened before in the past we shall carry on talking about an East-West dialogue between useful idiots and secret services informers, about cultural exchanges as well as about trends and research methods. All of it as if nothing had happened, as if nothing mattered. Quite the contrary it does very much matter both in Germany and in Romania. One has barely started understanding the past that one falls victim to amnesia. Democracy remains helpless whilst being  denied a template of real reference values.

Such bizarre methods of appointing writers of a dubious political past and morality to high profile positions in Europe, whether, in diplomacy or heads of Cultural Institutes (equivalent of Instituto Cervantes, the Goethe Institut, or the Institut Francais) or even to ‘Summer Schools’ of Romanian culture abroad is still possible today because the Head of the Cultural Committee in the Romanian Senate is a former Court poet of Nicolae Ceausescu, the head of the Romanian Writer’s Union was himself under dictatorship a successful approved writer under Gheorghiu-Dej and Ceausescu. The head of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Bucharest because of promoting such people came under direct criticism from Herta Müller who asked him to resign. For him this was NOT an error of judgment it was a pattern the consequence of which raises more fundamental questions about his own real agenda and moral fiber.

Some people said that:

‘in Romania Herta Müller is known more as a dissident rather than a writer’

Surely,  if her books are refused publication by editors in Bucharest, if they are not marketed after they are published, if she is treated as:

‘a minor German writer,  writing (mostly) in German, receiving literary prizes only in Germany’,

who is to blame?

Paul GOMA, Paris exiled writer and anti-communist dissident fell foul of Ceausescu for issueing a Romanian version of Charter 77: he notes that Herta Muller never supported his actions, never signed the Charter - He also says that he published the same kind of books in Germany as she did but ten years earlier!

Worse still, Paul Goma, the Paris exiled anti-communist writer and initiator of  Romania’s ‘Charter 77’ (yes there was one with a dozen signatures on it) complains:

I wrote books in Germany before Herta Müller… Why did not she write a book about her mother’s life in the Soviet gulags? Why hasn’t she signed Charter 77 at that time she was 24 years of age, old enough to understand!

In the meantime Müller’s god-forsaken village of Banat has lost all its German population sold up the Danube by Ceausescu to have then resettle in West Germany. This village is now repopulated by Romanian peasants who, on hearing the news, asked:

What is this Nobel Prize like?

When told it was a literary Prize awarding one million Euros, they were quick to inquire:

What‘s in for us?

They may well ask, indeed! If pigs had wings…

Among the rarefied and self-absorbed literary circles of Bucharest the news jolted them like a thunderbolt, so they put on a brave face,  begrudgingly:

Of course we are pleased to see that such a young writer got a prize

says Nicolae Manolescu, the President of the Romanian Writer’s Union who enjoyed forty blissful years of successful career under a Stalinist dictatorship. Gerontocracy in Romania still yields tremendous power and for it the 56 year-old Herta is ‘too young’ and will have had to wait in Romania a very long time before she got some recognition, until the cows came home! Pity she left for Germany, where the rules are different from Romania, otherwise, surely, she would have become ‘one of us’, a ‘promising writer,  that is, talented but unrecognised by the rest of world. Still, we address each other with that gracious title of ‘Maestro’, but all in all we are relegated by the rest of the world to the status of ‘unknown illustrious’.   All young Romanians know it perfectly and  at the first opportunity they vote with their feet – one million under dictatorship and several millions more, since Ceausescu was shot, now live abroad.

In the meantime, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Romanian stand of 140 square metres is morose and staff is sulking:

We were taken by surprise…we planned this stand a long time ago, before we knew that the Nobel Prize was awarded

implying that they could not change anything: they have no autonomy to change what Bucharest dictated to them or else they might risk punishment and burn their ‘literary’ boats home (and all the privileges that go with it).

All this for … eh… ‘Herta Who? Surely it’s not worth it!

They could not invite Müller even to sign the few books they have at the stand or maybe even to offer her a contract, or invite her German publisher along to say something…Romania is frozen in its old ways, in a communist time warp: wake up Romania!

Müller is used to it and she knows the game. After twenty years of persistent opposition she was just allowed to inspect her Securitate file from Bucharest – three volumes of 900 pages with huge chunks missing…

…of course, it was all  doctored…

she says. Indeed, whole incidents from her  life of persecution in Romania were completely air-brushed: without even any concern for being more subtle at this cut job: maybe these people are completely insensitive – they do not care because they feel they still have the upper hand in the day-to-day life in Romania.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE DISPOSSESSED:

At the Frankfurt Book Fair Herta directed her criticism at China, showing sympathy to its censored writers and to the Uigur dissidents thrown in political jails: even closer to home, in Europe, from the Caucasus to the Atlantic, she might find enough good causes to fight for, if she could only cope, as there are so few warriors for so many good causes to espouse and too many ignorant, complacent and political opportunists with different agendas:

Romanian women? what Romanian women?

asked a British publisher on reading the proposal for a  book on Romanian women voices, before the Nobel Prize was announced… to which he added demurely:

I only know of three!

The self-absorbed Anglo-Saxons  recognise few values outside their culture, so I did not ask him which specific women he had in mind?  Instead, by the way of an encouragement I prompted him:

This is already a good start!

but it was to no avail!

Now that he will know four such women instead of three, will Herta’s Nobel Prize for Literture change the tide and put Romania on the British and American publishing landscape? This should be the job of the Institutul Cultural Roman ran in earnest by Horia Roman Patapievici: but he is far too busy, as Muller pointed it out,  promoting his ex-informer pals and other staff like the Madam of the ICR Paris office who considers:

‘Romanians writing in a foreign language as not being Romanian’,

quite a hang over from her old communist  script, learned from George Calinescu‘s own History of Romanian Literure published under Ceausescu and paid for by C. Dragan.

Clearly Romania and Romanians live badly their isolation in Europe as in the rest of the world, but they have only themselves to blame for it – Herta Müller, a diminutive exiled lady, of slender frame, whose obduracy upset so many people, made no concessions: she may be only an exception. Still,

she is the girl who kicked the hornet’s nest.

so some good may come out of it!

As for the Nobel Literary Jury, Müller is different as a writer, demonstrating

the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicting the landscape of the dispossessed.

Multumesc and God bless you, Herta: I know that it is a tall order, but there might still be fresh hope for  some if not ALL the dispossessed!

NOTE:

More about Herta Muller, the  historical Social and Political landscape of Romania, read:

Blouse Roumaine, the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women

http://www.blouseroumaine.com

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Small SELECTION from the 160 Women featured in this Anthology:
ARISTOCRATS: Pss Catherine Caradja, Pss Marina Stirbey,

BALLERINAS: Alina Cojocaru, Magdalena Popa, Ruxandra Racovitza

COSTUME & STAGE DESIGNERS: Marie Jeanne Lecca, Maria Prodan Bjornson,

COURTESANS: Pss Georges Ghika (Liane de Pougy), Elena Lupescu
DESIGNERS: Mica Ertegün
EXPLORERS: Lady Florence Baker
GYMNASTS: Nadia Comaneci
MOVIE STARS: Lauren Bacall, Aurora Fulgida, Maria Forescu, Nadia Grey, Elvire Popesco, Silvia Sidney
OPERA: Maria Cebotari, Viorica Cortez, Ileana Cotrubas, Angela Gheorghiu, Nelly Miricioiu, Leontina Vaduva, Virginia Zeani
PAINTERS: Ioana Celibidache, Nathalie Dumitresco, Micaela Eleutheriade
PIANISTS: Cella Delavrancea, Clara Haskil, Madeleine Lipatti
POETS: Ana Blandiana, Nina Cassian, Anna de Noailles, Helene Vacaresco
POLITICAL PRISONERS: Ioana Arnautoiu, Madeleine Cancicov, Ana Novac, Elisabeta Rizea, Annie Samuelli, Sabina Wurmbrand
POLITICIANS; Elena Ceausescu, Hortense Cornu, Ana Pauker
REVOLUTIONARIES: Maria Grant Rosetti,
ROYALTY: Carmen Sylva, Pss Ileana, Archduchess of Austria, Queen Marie, Pss of Great Britain, Queen Anna, Pss of Denmark and of Bourbon-Parme, Helen Queen Mother of Romania, Pss of Greece,
SCIENTISTS: Ana Aslan, Ioana Meitani, Elisabeth Roudinesco
STAGE & COSTUME DESIGNERS: Maria Bjornson, Marie-Jeanne Lecca
VIOLINISTS: Lola Bobescu, Silvia Marcovici
WRITERS: Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco, Marthe Bibesco, Alina Diaconu, Dora d’Istria, Marie-France Ionesco, Rodica Iulian, Doina Jela, Oana Orlea,

WHAT THE READERS SAY:

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

* “It is beautifully written, 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, Edinburgh)

* “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.” (Scientist, U.S.A)

* “… your book is an overwhelming, gift…. a signal act of culture, an acknowledgment of the Romanian culture and spirit. It makes us a proud as a people, as it places us at a higherlevel, a step, closer to the skies which we are trying to reach because we think we deserve it, yet somehow, something is always in the way to pull us back. …

But you have attempted a huge step forward and we cannot but wonder how and by what means of inspiration…. what may be the source of your indomitable strength and perseverance? You must be blessed with the enlightenment of those Romanians and other people beyond who feel close to us and embody the Romanian spirit.” (Romanian Reader, U.S.A.)

ORDER:

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

HM Queen Anne de Romania, Princess of Denmark and of Bourbon-Parme
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http://www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html

Regina Anna de Romania, Printesa de Danemarca si de Bourbon-Parma se trage, asa cum spune numele, din Bourboni, care au fost regii Frantei si Spaniei, mai precis din ramura spaniola a Bourbonilor care erau si Duci de Parma.

Pornind pe linie directa ascendenta a familiei de Bourbon-Parma, deci pe linie barbateasca, ajungem la Ferdinand I de Bourbon, Duce de Parma (1751-1802) nepotul lui Filip V regele Spaniei si Duce de Anjou (1683, Versailles – 1746 Madrid).

Acest Ferdinand I Infante de Spania (1751-1802), care preceda cu sase generatii pe Ana de Bourbon-Parma a noastra [sper si a domniei tale], era casatorit cu Printesa Louise Elisabeth de France (1727-1759), fiica lui Ludovic XV regele Frantei si a sotiei lui Maria Leczynska (1703-1768) regina Frantei, care la randul ei era fiica lui Stanislas Lesczynski regele Poloniei si Duce de Lorena (1677-1766).
Acum, ca sa ajungem la Movilesti trebuie sa trecem pe ramurile femeiesti:

Bunica materna a lui Stanislas Lesczinski (socrul lui Ludovic XV) era Maria Ana Printesa Jabolonowska (1643-1687) nascuta contesa Kasanowska, iar bunica materna a acesteia din urma era Domnita Maria Movila ( 1591-1638) (fata lui Ieremia Voda), domnita moldoveanca al carui sot era Contele Stefan Potocki, Palatin de Wroclaw si prin care casatorie era cunoscuta in Polonia drept Marya Mohylanka.
Aceasta inseamna, bine inteles, ca prin stramosii ei Movilesti, Regina Anna de Romania se trage, prin Iermia Voda Movila, chiar din Petru Rares si din Stefan cel Mare si Sfant, iar prin acesta din urma din Dragos Voda primul descalecator al Moldovei.

Despre domnita Maria Movila contesa Potocka ne vorbeste istoricul Constantin GANE (1885-1962) in celebra lui lucrare “Trecute Vieti de Doamne si Domnite”.
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“Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women”

Presented and Selected by Constantin ROMAN

Anthology E-BOOK (11BM)

DISTRIBUTION: Online with credit card

LINK: CUMPARA:  www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html

CONTENTS:

2,250,000 words, 1,100 pages, 160 illustrations in text, 160 critical biographies, 60 social categories/professions, 600 quotations (mostly translated into English for the first time), 4,000 bibliographical references (including URLs, discography, exhibitions and performance credits), 6 Indexes (alphabetical, by profession, timeline, quotations, geographical  place names,  and surnames)

AUTHOR: Constantin Roman is a Scholar with a Doctorate from Cambridge and a Member of the Society of Authors (London). He is an International Adviser, Guest Speaker, Professor Honoris Causa and Commander of the Order of Merit.

INDEX BY PROSFESSION: 60 CATEGORIES by Call, Profession or Social Status

Academics (22), Actresses (9), Anti-Communist Fighters (14), Architects/Interior Designers (2), Art Critics (9), Artist Book Binders (1), Ballerinas (6), Charity Workers/Benefactors (20), Communist Public Figures (2), Courtesans (3), Designers (2), Diplomats (4), Essayists (11), Ethnographers (6), Exiles & First-generation Romanians born abroad (87), Explorers (1), Feminists (12), Folk Singers (1), Gymnasts, Dressage Riders (2), Historians (5), Honorary Romanian Women (15), Illustrators (3), Journalists (13), Lawyers (4), Librarians (3), Linguists (2), Literary Critics (1), Media (15), Medical Doctors/Nurses (5), Memoir Writers (16), Missionaries and Nuns (4), Mountainéers (2), Museographers (1), Musical Instruments Makers (1), Novelists (24), Opera Singers (16), Painters (14), Peasant Farmers (6), Philosophers and Philosophy Graduates (4), Pianists (6), Pilots (4), Playwrights (5), Poets (29), Political Prisoners (30), Politicians (5), Revolutionaries (2), Royals and Aristocrats (34), Scientists (8), Sculptors (4), Slave (1), Socialites/Hostesses (20), Spouses/Relations of Public Figures (51), Spies (2), Tapestry Weavers (4), Translators (25), Unknown Illustrious (6), Violinists (4), Workers (3)

NOTE:
Most of the above 160 Romanian women, in the best tradition of versatility, are true polymaths and therefore nearly each one of them falls in more than just one category, often three or more. This explains why adding the numbers of the 60 individual categories bears no relation to the actual total of the above 160 women included in Blouse Roumaine.
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LIST OF 160 CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES (each supported by Quotations and Bibliography)

AA *Gabriela Adamesteanu *Florenta Albu *Nina Arbore *Elena Arnàutoiu *Ioana Raluca Voicu-Arnàutoiu, *Laurentia Arnàutoiu *Mariea Plop – Arnàutoiu *Ana Aslan *Lady Elizabeth Asquith Bibescu

BB *Lauren Bacall *Lady Florence Baker *Zoe Bàlàceanu *Ecaterina Bàlàcioiu-Lovinescu *Victorine de Bellio *Pss. Marta Bibescu *Adriana Bittel *Maria Prodan Bjørnson *Ana Blandiana *Yvonne Blondel *Lola Bobescu *Smaranda Bràescu *Elena Bràtianu *Élise Bràtianu *Ioana Bràtianu *Elena Bràtianu- Racottà *Letitzia Bucur

CC *Anne-Marie Callimachi *Georgeta Cancicov *Madeleine Cancicov *Pss. Alexandra Cantacuzino *Pss.Maria Cantacuzino (Madame Puvis de Chavannes) *Pss. Maruca Cantacuzino-Enesco* Pss. Catherine Caradja *Elena Caragiani-Stoenescu *Marta Caraion-Blanc, *Nina Cassian, *Otilia Cazimir *Elena Ceausescu *Maria Cebotari *Ioana Celibidache *Hélène Chrissoveloni (Mme Paul Morand)*Alice Cocea *Irina Codreanu *Lizica Codreanu *Alina Cojocaru *Nadia Comàneci *Denisa Comànescu *Lena Constante *Silvia Constantinescu *Doina Cornea *Hortense Cornu *Viorica Cortez*Otilia Cosmutzà *Sandra Cotovu *Ileana Cotrubas *Carmen-Daniela Cràsnaru *Mioara Cremene *Florica Cristoforeanu *Pss. Elena Cuza

DD *Hariclea Darclée *Cella Delavrancea *Alina Diaconú *Varinca Diaconú *Anca Diamandy *Marie Ana Dràgescu *Rodica Dràghincescu *Bucura Dumbravà *Natalia Dumitrescu

EE *Micaela Eleutheriade *Queen Elisabeth of Romania (‘Carmen Sylva’) *Alexandra Enescu *Mica Ertegün

FF *Lizi Florescu, *Maria Forescu *Nicoleta Franck *Aurora Fúlgida

GG *Angela Gheorghiu *Pss Grigore Ghica *Pss. Georges Ghika (Liane de Pougy) *Veturia Goga *Maria Golescu *Nadia Gray *Olga Greceanu *Pss. Helen of Greece *Nicole Valéry-Grossu *Carmen Groza

HH *Virginia Andreescu Haret *Clara Haskil *Lucia Hossu-Longin

II *Pss. Ileana of Romania *Ana Ipàtescu *Marie-France Ionesco *Dora d’Istria *Rodica Iulian

JJ *Doina Jela *Lucretia Jurj

KK *Mite Kremnitz

LL *Marie-Jeanne Lecca *Madeleine Lipatti *Monica Lovinescu *Elena Lupescu

MM *Maria Mailat *Ileana Màlàncioiu *Ionela Manolesco *Lilly Marcou *Silvia Marcovici *Queen Marie of Romania *Ioana A. Marin *Ioana Meitani *Gabriela Melinescu *Veronica Micle *Nelly Miricioiu *Herta Müller *Alina Mungiu-Pippidi *Agnes Kelly Murgoci

NN *Mabel Nandris *Anita Nandris-Cudla *Lucia Negoità *Mariana Nicolesco *Countess Anna de Noailles *Ana Novac

OO *Helen O’Brien *Oana Orlea

PP *Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu *Milita Pàtrascu *Ana Pauker *Marta Petreu *Cornelia Pillat *Magdalena Popa *Elvira Popescu

RR *Ruxandra Racovitzà *Elisabeta Rizea *Eugenia Roman *Stella Roman *Queen Ana de România, *Pss. Margarita de România *Maria Rosetti *Elisabeth Roudinesco

SS *Annie Samuelli *Sylvia Sidney *Henriette-Yvonne Stahl *Countess Leopold Starszensky *Elena Stefoi *Pss. Marina Stirbey *Sanda Stolojan *Cecilia Cutzescu-Storck

TT *Maria Tànase *Aretia Tàtàrescu *Monica Theodorescu *Elena Theodorini

UU *Viorica Ursuleac

VV *Elena Vàcàrescu *Leontina Vàduva *Ana Velescu *Marioara Ventura *Anca Visdei *Wanda Sachelarie Vladimirescu *Alice Steriade Voinescu

WW *Sabina Wurmbrand

ZZ *Virginia Zeani

© copyright Constantin ROMAN, 2001-2009, all rights reserved

Daniel Rosenthal - 'Revolutionary Romania' (19th c)

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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Lauren Bacall, Movie Star (Lauren's mother was born in Romania and migrated to New York with her parents.

Lauren BACALL,

“Betty” (née Betty Joan Perske), Miss Betty Bacall, Mrs. Humphrey Bogart, (b. New York, 16 September 1924)
First-generation Romanian-American, film star, wife of Humphrey Bogart

Romanian immigrants:

Mother left Romania by ship – aged somewhere between one and two – with her father, mother, elder sister, baby brother. Her father had been in the wheat business, had been wiped out, and had turned out whatever silver and jewellery there was left to a sister for money, enough to transport his family to the promised land – the New World – America. They arrived in Ellis Island and gave their name – Weinstein Bacal (meaning wineglass in German and Russian). The man must have written down just the first half of the name – too many people from too many countries, too many foreign names – so it was Max and Sophie Weinstein, daughters Renée and Natalie’s, son Albert.
(Lauren Bacall By Myself, pp. 5, Jonathan Cape, London, 1979)

Happy Times:
We had happy times, my grandmother cooking, singing German songs, reading constantly in French, German, Romanian, Russian and English. She and mother spoke Romanian and German when she did not want me to understand.
(Lauren Bacall, By Myself, op.cit. 5)

Read more about Lauren Bacall:

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Georgeta (Georgette) CANCICOV, née Maria Jurgea
“The Angel Saviour of Moldavian Jews”
(b. 29 May 1899, Godinesti, County Bacàu – d. Bucharest, 16 April 1984),
Novelist, essayist, violinist, nurse in WWI, wife of Liberal justice minister and politician Mircea Cancicov

Georgeta Cancicov – Saviour of Moldavian Jews:
Taking advantage of the fact that Marshall Antonescu stayed at her house whenever he visited Bacàu and given the good relationship she had with him, Mrs. Cancicov interceded robustly and ensured that no ghettos be set up in Moldavia.
(…)
Then, there was the question raised that Jewish women be forced to perform labour in town. We again interceded with Mrs. Cancicov in a petition addressed to Marshall Antonescu, who decreed that the women should only do such work as befitting their profession, which was a gain in our favour.
(…)
On the eve of 22nd August 1944, there was an order to evacuate all Jews. (Consequently), on the morning of 23rd August, in the courtyard of the Church of Our Lady, a detachment of 600 Jews was gathered for evacuation. You can imagine their distress, as they had to leave behind their families and be driven among (the retreating) Hitler’s armies. As I intervened with Mrs. Cancicov, she communicated to me in writing that no Jews should be evacuated and I presented this order to the (military) commander. He checked with Mrs Cancicov, who confirmed, on her authority, that nobody should go, so he freed everybody. As a result no Jews from the any other detachments were evacuated either.
(…)
Of course, there were countless other little matters on which Mrs. Cancicov acted as the protecting angel and saviour of our wretched and oppressed Jewish people.
(D. Ionas, President of the Jewish community of Bacàu, Petition to the Prefect of the County Bacàu, dated 9th September 1945, in favour of Georgeta Cancicov, whose house was requisitioned by the Soviet Army, quoted by the Memoria)
(http://www.memoria.ro/?location=view_article&id=821&l=ro)

Jewish Ghettos:
There will be no Jewish ghettos set up here: (I defy you, that) should there ever be any of these set up, then I am going to be an inmate in one of them myself.
(Georgeta Cancicov, reassurance given to Schiller, the representative of the Jewish Community in Bacàu, quoted by D. Ionas, op.cit)

Read more about Georgeta Cancicov:

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Nina Cassian, - a successful Poet under dictatorship, who sought refuge in America at the end of Communism

Nina CASSIAN (Renée Annie Cassian)
(b. 27 November 1924, Galati),
Poet, novelist, translator, composer, exile and now expatriate living in New York since 1985

Conviction:
I worked to be understood by the farmers and workers, I was torturing myself and distorting my artistry. Some of us Romanian writers did it with conviction. That was the worst.
(Nina Cassian)

Excluded:
They don’t want me there, I’m not sure why. They used to consider me eccentric and rebellious…But now maybe it’s because they resent that I’m living a better life in America.
(Nina Cassian)

Uprooting:
It is a terrible tragedy, at age 60, to leave one’s country and live in a place where one is surrounded by a foreign language and with two impossible professions — poetry and classical music, I have had my share of fame and glory, and didn’t expect more.
(Nina Cassian)

Read more about Nina Cassian:

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Maria Forescu, Romanian Movie star of the silent cinema: died at Buchenwald

Maria FORESCU (née Maria Füllenbaum)
(15 Jan 1875 Cernàuti, Bukowina – (?) 23 November 1943, Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Thuringia, Germany)
Movie star, operetta singer, Nazi concentration camp detainee, killed at Buchenwald

Maria Forescu (née Maria Füllenbaum) is one of Europe’s earliest stars of the silent movie. She dedicated herself to her career with great zest, acting in over one hundred and sixty films from 1911 to 1933, a thread which was abruptly severed by Nazi censorship which resulted in her dramatic deportation to the infamous Buchenwald cocentration camp where she was killed ten years later, in 1943.
(Extract from the Biography of Maria Forescu published in “Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women”, 2009)

Read more about Maria Forescu:

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Nicoleta (Nicolette) Franck (née Apotheker/Apoteker)
(b. 21st July 1920, Iasi, România)
Lawyer, political analyst, journalist, translator, exile in Switzerland

Political illiteracy:
The tragedy of the vote (for presidential elections) of 26th November 2000 cannot be explained in any other way than in the perspective of the political illiteracy of the Romanian people. Our schools had not yet made good the teaching of history, and so distorted has it remained that our past is not correctly understood and thus we cannot shape the present or have a glimmer in the future.
(Nicoleta Franck)

Rumours:
Certainly after half a century of outright lies peddled by the communist régime, Romanians now believe only in rumours rather than public declarations. Consequently they are easily misled through whispered rumours, which are aimed at the calumny of honest people, pointing out their failures rather than at their achievements, – the latter, alas, being few and far between and rather slow in materializing.
(Nicoleta Franck)

Read more about Nicoleta Franck:

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Clara Haskil, Romanian born pianist: her talent was discovered by Carmen Sylva, Queen Elisabeth of Romania who gave her a scholarship to study in Vienna.

Clara HASKIL,
‘La Princèsse de la Musique’,
‘Clarinette’, (nickname given by Dinu Lipatti)
(b. 7 January, 1895, Bucharest– d. 7 December 1960, Brussels),
Pianist, exile in France and Switzerland

Clara Haskil about Georges Enesco:
I always felt alone when I played with Enesco. I could not see what we had in common. This great man and little me. Yet we were both Romanian, and apparently our playing blended perfectly. But what else? Such a towering figure. And me?
(Clara Haskil, ibid.)

Clara Haskil about Dinu Lipatti:
Oh, I could spend hours talking about Dinu. He was always so aware, so alive, in spite of all the terrible pain he had to suffer. And his music-making! I really can’t find the words to describe what I felt whenever I hear him play. I often thought he felt almost guilty he had been blessed with so much genius.”
(Clara Haskil, ibid.)

Clara Haskil about Dinu Lipatti:
How much I envy your talent, may the Deuce take it! Must you have so much talent and I so little? Is there justice in this world?
(Jean-Yves Conrad, Roumanie, capitale Paris, Guide des promenades insolites, sur les traces des Roumains célèbres de Paris, page 130)

Read more about Clara Haskil:

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Helen, Queen Mother of Romania and Mother of King Michael: during WWII she fought fearlessly to save Jewish lives: her tribute is alive at Yad Vashem

Princess HELEN of Greece and Denmark,
Romania’s ‘Queen Mother’ (Regina Mamà Elena)
(b. 2 May 1896, Athens – d. 28 November 1982, Lausanne, Switzerland)
consort of King Carol II,

Helen, Queen Mother of Romania, seen by Great Rabbi Alexandru Safran:
I would like to refer to the posthumous award of the title of “The Righteous Among the Nations” to Helen, Queen Mother of Romania. This letter is meant to bring to the fore two fundamental aspects pertaining to this matter: (1) actions by which the Queen Mother saved the lives of many Jews during the Second World War; (2) the risks personally taken by the Queen Mother in undertaking such actions.” (…)
“Such consciousness of possible risks extended over the whole period between 1941 and 1944. My own contact with the Queen Mother allowed me to gage her sharp and lucid perception of the realities of these unstable and turbulent times and at the same time to be appraised of her apprehensions concerning such risks. I can, at the same time bear witness that the Queen Mother constantly interceded on behalf of the Jews and that she saved Jewish lives in spite of all apprehensions: she was drawn to it by her kindness and her moral values.
Hoping that this letter will be helpful to the Commission of the Righteous Among Nations Award…
(Alexandru Safran, Grand Rabbi of Switzerland)

Read more about Helen Queen Mother of Romania:

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Lupescu - The indomitable Romanian royal seductress: she became King Carol II third wife: her remains were recently transferred from the Braganza chapel in Lisbon to a monastery in the Carpathians

Elena LUPESCU,
(née Elena Grünberg, alias ‘Wolf’),
(aka ‘Magda’, aka ‘Duduia’, aka ‘Princess Elena’)
Mrs. Elena Tâmpeanu – by her first married name
(b. 1896, Herta, România, or 1899, Iasi Moldavia – d. 1977, Estoril, Portugal)
Socialite, royal concubine, third wife of King Carol II, exile

Limerick on Madame Lupescu:
Have you heard of Madam Lupescu,
Who came to Romania’s rescue?
It’s a wonderful thing
To be under a King:
Is Democracy better I ask you?
(Anonymous)

Bleeding:
While he whom I adore, he in whom I put all my hope for the good of my country did not send me a telegram, not even a single line in order to share with me his happiness, happiness to which I had contributed… my heart is sad, it is bleeding because I expected to be the first to whom you would send a telegram.
(Elena Lupescu’s letter to Carol, Quoted by Lilly Marcou, Le Roi trahi – Carol II de Roumanie)

Read more about Elena Lupescu:

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Romanian-Jewish Topics(continued in Part Two):

© copyright Constantin ROMAN, 2003-2009, all rights reserved

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, discography and URLs , 6 Indexes

http://www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html

————————————————————————————–

As a young girl from Hungarian-occupied Transylvania, Ana NOVAC knew the whole gamut of Nazi concentration camps. She was a surviver of both Nazi and Communist dictatorships, who opted for freedom in France.

Ana NOVAC, (née Zimra Harsany)
‘The Romanian Anne Frank’
(b. Dej, Transylvania, 21 June 1929)
Actress, playwright, poet, novelist Auschwitz, Kratzau, Plaszow camps survivor, exile living in Paris

Nationality:
I was born in 1929 in Transylvania (România). One good morning when I was 11 years old I woke up to be a Hungarian citizen without having moved to another place, another street, or even without having changed my shirt. At the age of 14 I was deported to Auschwitz as a Jew. On my release in 1945 I had again become a Romanian citizen. That is why I have the greatest difficulty in establishing my nationality, other than from my identity papers which specified that I was Jewish.
(Ana Novac, The Beautiful Days of My Youth: My Six Months in Auschwitz and Plaszow)

‘Anti-semite’:
That text was rejected by the censors as ‘anti-Semitic’….’It is useless to explain to a bureaucrat trembling for his job and his life that one can be Jewish, persecuted, and a bastard at the same time; that martyrdom and heroism do not necessarily go together; that misfortune does not imply any merit and does not confer any more right to glory than a car wreck, or an earthquake.
(Ana Novac, The Beautiful Days of My Youth: My Six Months in Auschwitz and Plaszow)

Read more about Ana Novac:

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Ana PAUKER (née Hannah Rabinsohn, or Rabinovici)

Ana Pauker together with Elena Ceausescu shares the distinction of belonging to the Romanian Communist Demonology

‘A Jewish Female Bukharin’
(b. 1893, Codàesti, County Vaslui, Moldavia – d. Bucharest, 1960)
Granddaughter of Rabbi Hersch Kaufmann Rabinsohn, communist activist prior to WWI, political prisoner, exile in the Soviet Union, NKVD operative/ spy, returnee,
vice-president of the Council of Ministers, (1949-52), Foreign Minister, (1947-53),
Politburo Member responsible for the enforced collectivization of agriculture, (1944-56),

Rabbi Alexandru Safran on Ana Pauker:
“Ana Pauker, a rabbi’s daughter…. when she was Minister of Foreign Afairs, wanted everybody to know, especially when I was present, that she was not a Jew, she was a communist”….
“… when she saw me approaching the Prime Minister and the other ministers she stepped out of the line and turned aside for a moment in order not to greet me. She thus thought to demonstrate that she, the communist, did not want anything to do with the Chief Rabbi and Jewry; that she had less in common with him than even the other members of government….”
“…the expression of Ana Pauker’s face during her time of glory, had always been impertinent”.
(Alexander Safran, Grand Rabbi of Switzerland, formerly Grand Rabbi of Romania: Resisting the storm, Romania 1940-1947, op.cit 139, 161, 166)

Tesu Solomovici on Ana Pauker:
The most shining star amongst the huge number of Moscow-trained spies and activists was, undoubtedly the Jewish communist Ana Pauker. She knew Joseph Vissarionovitch Stalin personally and worked under the orders and direct command of the henchmen of the Soviet repressive services, Lavrentie Pavlovitch Beria, Victor Semionovitch Abakhumov, Piotr Vassilievitch Fedotov and Pavel Mihailovitch Fitin and furthermore she enjoyed the admiration of yet another dinosaur of Soviet power – Vyactheslav Molotov. Notwithstanding all that, Gheorghiu-Dej succeeded, with a patient cunning to pluck out all her feathers.
(Solomovitch: 54-55)

Read more about Ana Pauker:

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Elisabeth Roudinesco Parisian-born Psychoanalist of Romanian stock

Elisabeth ROUDINESCO (Elisabeta RUDINESCU)
(b. 1944)
Academic, psychoanalyst, historian of science, historian, journalist, editor,
French-born Romanian living in Paris

Antecedents:
“Being Jewish, in such conditions, did not make sense, because I was baptised, but not being Jewish did not make sense either, because this baptism did not imbue in me any integrating principles. How should I answer my classmates who might enquire about my origins and my religion? My father called himself an orthodox convert to Catholicism; my mother rather considered herself a Protestant and both parents felt rather detached from any religious tradition. Furthermore, my mother kept in a drawer a fake birth certificate which was produced for her benefit by a willing abbot, by which she was spared the obligation of wearing the yellow star badge and consequently saved from deportation. How could one believe, in such conditions, in the validity of a ‘real’ birth certificate and how will I know what might be the implications of ‘really’ belonging to a religion? It took me twenty years to unravel this imbroglio of my Jewish origins.
(Elisabeth Roudinesco, Généalogie)

Dracula:
“One day, as I returned from the cinema, where I discovered that the most famous Romanian on this planet was Count Dracula, I bought Bram Stoker’s book, which I read breathlessly. As soon as I reminded my father that his worthy ancestors may not have been those whose descendant he claimed to be, he raised his arms to the sky and treated me (in Romanian) of that highest swear word of being a ‘tzigan’. From then on we did not stop wrangling. He was always singing the merits of Voltaire, Anatole France and Paul Valéry, whose friend he was, while I loved Balzac, Michelet and Proust.”
(Elisabeth Roudinesco, ibid.)

Immigrant’s delusions:
“My father who emigrated (from Romania to France t.n.) in 1904, passed his time obfuscating his origins. Being wary of anti-Semitism (in France. t.n.) and anxious to prove his desire of being assimilated, he was claiming an Orthodox father and that he himself had converted to Roman Catholic. This is how he could claim, without admitting it, a link with Alexandru Socec. As for any reminiscences regarding his own itinerary, he invented a family novel to suit his imagination, to the point of thinking himself more French than the French themselves and to relegating his native Romania to the status of a country inhabited by vampires and gypsies. He had in his disquisitions two way of looking at history. A scholarly approach, based on academic books and which he presented and eschewed  in the clearest manner. By contrast his private life was punctuated by mystery and rumor. My father would assign to archives and to the truth a positivist cult, whilst for his own family history, he was covering his tracks and was clouding the genealogies.”
(Elisabeth Roudinesco, ibid.)

Read more about Elisabeth Roudinesco:

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Annie SAMUELLI, victim of Communist witch hunt

Annie SAMUELLI
(b. 1912 – d. ca. 2003)
Clerk at the British Legation Bucharest, political prisoner, exile

Cosmopolitan bourgeois:
The debased spies, recruited from among the cosmopolitan bourgeois, have finally received their retribution.
(The Communist newspaper Unirea commenting on Annie Samuelli’s ‘conspiracy in favour of Great Britain and the U.S.A’. in the 1948 political trials. Quoted by Tesu Solomonovici, in Securitatea si Evreii, vol 2, pp.51l)

Miracle Rabbi:
Carla, aged 40, arrived at our cell: she was a brilliant accountant. Carla was given a 20 years prison sentence for having been a member of a so-called ‘subversive organization’. Although a Roman Catholic she would tell us about the pilgrimage to the tomb of the ‘Miracle Rabbi’:

Some hundred years ago, this rabbi would have led his folk on foot all the way to a small Romanian village to escape a pogrom in Poland. This humble and enlightened man handed out wise counsel, which was of the greatest help to the community. After his death at a venerable age, people would still come along to his grave to ask advice. The ritual unfolded in the following way: in memory of the rabbi’s long treck from Poland, the pilgrims, Jews and Gentiles alike, would walk to the cemetery, which was rather far from the city. Along the way, they would pick up a stone. Any request or problem would be scribbled on a piece of paper, which was put under the stone and placed on the rabbi’s grave. In time, all these stones grew to become a gravestone in the shape of a pyramid, which grew and grew. Each time a request or a problem was satisfied, the pilgrim would return to collect the stone and destroy the piece of paper.

Carla heard the story from an inmate with whom she shared a prison cell in said town. Although she was Romanian Orthodox this woman prisoner was convinced that her husband was praying at the rabbi’s tomb for her to be given a reprieve of her prison sentence, because the rabbi had already miraculously saved their dying son.
‘Well, would you believe it?’ Carla would exclaim. ‘This woman was acquitted within six months. And you know how rare it is for a political prisoner to be freed. She had failed to denounce some refugee and she would have been sentenced to a minimum of five years. Now, owing to the Miracle Rabbi, she could go home’.
(Annie Samuelli, Dayyenu)

Read more about Annie Samuelli:

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Silvia SIDNEY, First Generation romanian-American Movie Star

Sylvia SIDNEY (aka SYDNEY), (née Sophia Kosow),
1stly Mrs. Bennett Cerf, 2ndly Mrs. Luther Adler, 3rdly Mrs. Carlton Alsop
(b. Bronx, New York, 8 August 1910 – d. New York, 1st July 1999)
First-generation Romanian-American, film and stage actress, needlepoint artist

As in the case of Lauren Bacall, (q.v.), another glamorous New York-born actress with Romanian roots, one may question Sylvia’s inclusion in the Blouse Roumaine. Sylvia’s father, Mr Kosow, was indeed Russian, but her mother was Romanian.

(Extract  from: ‘Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women’)

Read more about Silvia Sidney:

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Sanda Stolojan: a freedom fighter and sharp observer of Romanian exiles

Sanda STOLOJAN (née Alexandra Zamfirescu)
(b. 1919, Bucharest – d. 2 August 2005, Paris)
Essayist, poet, memorialist, translator, journalist human rights activist,
Personal interpreter for four French presidents, exile in France

Franco-Romanian Jews:
I went to Beaubourg to the symposium on Benjamin Fondane, on whom I was writing an article in the ‘Cahiers de l’Est’. In the auditorium many Romanian Jews were gathered , a world with which we other Romanians have few contacts other than some personal friends. An old émigré, Claude Émile Rosen, read one of Fondane’s poems in Romanian. Stefan Lupasco who knew Fondane was there too. Generally the tone of the evening, imprinted by the philosopher Chouraki, a specialist in the Jewish mystique, was Hebraic and anti-Romanian, with pre-war Romania painted in anti-Semitic colours all over. Throughout the course of the evening I felt an odd sensation of being there only tolerated, marginalized, in spite of being at the core of a cultural space with which I was very familiar. In a certain fashion I was the “Jew”, the foreigner within this audience. In fact our manner of living our exile is situated at the opposite pole of the sensitivity of these Franco-Romanian intellectuals of Jewish origin. It is all a matter of the past, a question linked to the antecedents of our lives, yesterday in communist Romania, today in Paris. Even further back, there is a matter of ancestors, ours steeped in the glebe of deepest Romania, in its beliefs and traditions, theirs errant for three thousand years; ours lost in the Neolithic mist, theirs mingled to the history of Babylon and Egypt. These are profound matters, old causes, as old as the biblical prophecies and their different interpretations which shaped us. And then there is the recent past, our situation and theirs under communism, which of late has forced us to take the road of exile, where we see them again, these old errant hands. Today the experience of exile ought to bring us closer to each other, but our contact with them, like that of last evening, only revealed to what extent we remained attached to our land archetype implanted in the Parisian milieu. What could be more foreign to their spirit than our obsessions, our reactions, our commitment. It is by rejecting this spirit of our soil that Cioran succeeded in placing himself above this state of mind which is justly ours, that of the provincials of Europe, a characteristic which was also his. Paradoxically, it is while strongly denouncing his origins that Cioran discovered his inner depth: for, as he said, ‘Nobody is in control of his own inner depth’. How could one solve this dilemma? How could our exile bring us closer to the Jewish exile?”
(Sanda Stolojan, Au balcon de l’exil Roumain a Paris)

Read more about Sanda Stolojan:

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Sabina Wurmbrand - a Pastor's Wife who knew the Communist Prisons

Sabina WURMBRAND (née Sabina Oster)
(1913, România –2000, California, U.S.A.)
Missionary of the underground church, pastor’s wife, political prisoner and prisoner of conscience, exile in the USA

Prison Carcer:
..I was marched to the guardroom and put into a prison cell. It was a narrow cupboard built into the wall in which you could just stand. The iron door had a few holes to admit air… After a few hours, my feet were burning. The blood in my temples beat with slow, painful thuds. How many hours could they keep me here?… Drops of water were falling from somewhere on the roof of the box. It was a desolate sound. I counted them to make time pass… I don’t know how long I did this, but at a certain moment.
I simply began to cry aloud to avoid despair:
’One, two, three, four,’
I cried, and again:
‘One, two, three, four…’
After a time the words became inarticulate. I didn’t know what I said. My mind had moved into rest. It blacked out. Yet my spirit continued to say something to God.
(Sabina Wurmbrand, The pastor’s wife)

Read more about Sabina Wurmbrand:

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© copyright Constantin ROMAN, 2003-2009, all rights reserved

Matisse et le Roumain Pallady (Nice, 1940)

En peignant La blouse roumaine, Henri Matisse donna à cette dernière une pérennité artistique et une reconnaissance internationale. En fait, la toile qui est aujourd’hui au Musée d’art moderne de Paris, était devenue le symbole de la roumanité et plus particulièrement de la féminité roumaine.

Mais POURQUOI une blouse roumaine ? Le choix de l’artiste était-il fortuit ? On peut se poser la question, car le peintre était plus connu pour ses modèles vêtus d’atours marocains ou parisiens, plutôt qu’en robe ethnique roumaine, ou mieux encore, pour ses modèles pas vêtus du tout… Alors, pourquoi une blouse roumaine ????

Bien que cela soit moins connu, il est vrai que le grand maître eut au moins une élève roumaine – la fascinante et patriotique artiste moldave Nina Arbore (voir plus loin). Plus tard, Nina Arbore laissa son empreinte sur la scène roumaine dans le mouvement d’avant-garde tout comme peintre de fresques monumentales, qui décorent l’intérieur de cathédrales modernes. Il est plus que probable que Nina Arbore ait porté, à plusieurs occasions, la chemise paysanne roumaine. Aurait-elle été la première ‘seductrice’, inspirant au Maître le désir de peindre un tel sujet, ou aurait-elle posé pour lui ? En tout cas, il y a des archives qui laissent à penser qu’un portrait de Nina Arbore par Matisse existerait dans la collection Shtchukin . Cela coïnciderait avec la période durant laquelle Nina était l’élève de Matisse, en 1910-1911. Le fait que le collectionneur russe Shtchukin ait pu vouloir acquérir le portrait d’une élève roumaine de Matisse peut être dû au lien très fort que la famille Arbore, de Bessarabie, avait avec les intellectuels russes en général et avec Pouchkine en particulier (voir Nina Arbore). Il est aussi vrai qu’avant la Première guerre mondiale, la Bessarabie, auparavant une province de Moldavie, faisait partie de l’empire russe (voir aussi Maria Cebotari).
Si l’on observe certaines premières toiles de Matisse, on peut y décerner l’idée d’une broderie ethnique, dans la blouse de la danseuse de 1939, Une danseuse au repos, où l’on voit une femme assise qui porte une blouse roumaine.

La même chose est vraie d’une autre toile de Matisse, Nature morte avec femme endormie, aujourd’hui dans la collection de la National Gallery of Art à Wasington DC. La personne assise est une femme qui porte une blouse brodée à longues manches, décorée dans la partie supérieure de la manche comme le sont les blouses roumaines.

Une version encore antérieure, où les verts prédominent, apparaît en 1937.

Mais comme pour toutes ses peintures, les idées de Matisse furent dans un premier temps essayées sur du papier et là encore, on peut trouver des exemples de blouses roumaines au crayon et à l’encre : l’un de ces dessins, Femme avec une blouse rêvant, est visible à la page 67 de la monographie de Volkmar Esser (Matisse – 1869-1954, Master of Colour, Taschen, Koln, 2002) et est daté de 1936. Là, les mailles fleuries abondent. C’était l’année où le Maître avait eu une commande pour le décor et les costumes d’un ballet russe.

Blouse Roumaine (Daniel Rosenthal, 19e s.). Matisse a eu toute une collection de blouses pareilles, offertes par son ami Roumain, Theodor Pallady

Donc, de ces exemples et d’autres, dont de nombreux couvraient un mur entier à la galerie Maeght lors de l’exposition rétrospective de Matisse, en 1945, on peut penser sans équivoque que l’idée n’était pas neuve dans l’esprit de l’artiste. Quoi qu’il en soit, ce qui était nouveau à cette occasion, en 1940, était que la BLOUSE ROUMAINE était devenue au centre du sujet, le portant au premier plan et lui donnant une identité spécifique, nommée. Le modèle dans la version de 1940 est moins contemplatif comparé aux versions précédentes et regarde droit dans les yeux, avec une grande intensité et détermination. La toile a dû faire l’objet d’une discussion, voire même l’idée a pu en être soufflée lors de la visite d’un vieil ami, le peintre roumain Theodor Pallady (1871 – 1956), dont le portrait a été dessiné par Matisse, à Nice en 1940 . Selon la critique d’art Ioana Vlasiu , Pallady aurait même fait cadeau à son vieil ami Matisse d’une collection de blouses ethniques brodées. L’amitié entre Matisse et Pallady remontait à l’époque où ils étaient ensemble à l’Ecole des Beaux Arts de Paris (1891 – 1899) et qu’ils fréquentaient le studio du peintre symboliste Gustave Moreau (1826 – 1898). Moreau était un ami de Chasseriau dont le modèle préféré n’était autre que la tante de Pallady, la princesse roumaine Maria Cantacuzino (1820 – 1898). Maria devait épouser plus tard Puvis de Chavannes qui l’a prise comme modèle pour symboliser sainte Geneviève, dans les fresques qui décorent le Panthéon à Paris. A travers leur correspondance qui dura presque un demi-siècle, un lien étroit se tissa entre le Français Henri Matisse et le peintre roumain Theodor Pallady. Excepté leur proximité dans le style et l’attitude, les deux amis partageaient un grand nombre de points communs, parmi lesquels l’image des muses roumaines, plus en vue en France au XXeme siècle, était un sujet récurrent. Dans sa correspondance, Matisse accompagnait ses lettres de dessins et utilisait Pallady comme une oreille compatissante, parlant parfois de ses angoisses personnelles et artistiques. Au Musée national d’art abrité dans le Palais royal à Bucarest, la collection d’art contemporain possède un dessin au fusain d’une femme qui porte une blouse paysanne roumaine et une veste, signé de Matisse, dessin qui précède ses peintures à l’huile bien connues sur le même thème.

Une blouse roumaine par Picasso ? Le triangle Pallady – Matisse – Picasso

Un fait a été mis en avant lors de l’exposition rétrospective de 2002 à la Tate Moderne de Londres consacrée à Matisse et Picasso : les deux peintres empruntaient souvent l’un à l’autre des thèmes, tout en les traitant dans leur idiosyncrasie. La Blouse roumaine aurait-elle pu être l’un d’entre eux ?
Picasso ne semble pas avoir donné un tel titre à aucune des toiles qu’il a peintes. Quoi qu’il en soit la monographie d’Yves-Alain Bois révèle un travail de Picasso ostensiblement inspiré par la Blouse roumaine de Matisse. Il s’agit de La femme aux mains bleues (collection privée), peinte par Picasso en février 1947, soit seulement quatorze mois après la rétrospective Matisse de décembre 1945 à Maeght. Le traitement que Picasso fait de la blouse est plus abstrait que celui de Matisse, mais là aussi l’artiste a décoré la robe avec de riches dessins qui couvrent les manches courtes et les épaules de la blouse mais en y ajoutant un genre de coiffe typique, portée par les demoiselles vierges roumaines, dont les fichus étaient serrés derrière la nuque. Même l’idée d’une fota (tablier ou jupe folklorique roumaine) géométrique est suggérée sur la jupe que porte la femme assise. Quoi qu’il en soit, on ne doit pas se laisser entraîner trop loin par de tels parallèles. Il suffit de dire que ce thème n’était pas récurrent dans le travail de Picasso, tout comme de nombreux autres thèmes que l’artiste emprunta à Matisse. Quoi qu’il en soit, en observant plus attentivement la toile, il est évident que les zigzags et les motifs nodules qui dominent dans la robe de la femme peinte en 1947 par Picasso sont empruntés aux vingt-cinq versions de blouses roumaines de Matisse, exposées en 1945, si l’on ajoute au douze Blouses les treize versions du Rêve.

Retournons à la plus célèbre version de la Blouse roumaine de Matisse, qui est exposée au Musée d’art moderne de Paris. Elle fut peinte en 1940, durant l’une des périodes la plus sombre de la guerre que la France ait eu à vivre sous l’occupation Nazie. Matisse allait bientôt abandonner Nice, qui allait être bombardée par les avions allemands, pour la relative sécurité de l’arrière-pays, à Vence. En lisant certains passages des journaux intimes de l’artiste écrits à cette époque, on peut se rendre compte que la gaîté de la Blouse roumaine agissait comme une antidote à la guerre, qu’elle représentait une lueur d’optimisme et d’espoir. Dans ce contexte, la signification de la Blouse roumaine pris de l’ampleur comme elle devenait l’objet d’une méditation philosophique. Que dit l’artiste ?

Le rêve (1940)
De nouveau la guerre. Il y a ici un tel cafard, une angoisse générale qui vient de tout ce qui se dit et répète sur la prochaine occupation de Nice que j’en suis très affecté par contagion et mon travail est particulièrement difficile. Heureusement je viens de finir presque un tableau commencé il y a un an et que j’ai mené à l’aventure -en somme chacun de mes tableaux est une aventure. D’abord très réaliste, une belle brune dormant sur ma table de marbre au milieu de fruits, est devenue un ange qui dort sur une surface violette -le plus beau violet que j’aie vu, -ses chairs sont de rose de fleur pulpeuse et chaude -et le corsage de sa robe a été remplacé par une blouse roumaine ancienne, d’un bleu pervenche pâle très très doux, une blouse de broderie au petit point vieux rouge qui a dû appartenir à une princesse, avec une jupe d’abord vert émeraude et maintenant d’un noir de jais. Que tu es belle, ma messagère au bois dormant ! Tes yeux sont des colombes derrière leurs paupières. Et elle rêve d’un prince français prisonnier d’antan dont j’ai lu et relu les poèmes pour en faire un choix. Je me suis toujours méfié de la littérature, mais je ne l’ai pas seulement illustrée, je l’ai soigneusement, amoureusement recopiée, et l’on en trouve l’émerveillement dans mes thèmes.
(Cantique de Matisse)

Donc le grand Matisse, alors presque âgé de 70 ans, rêve d’une princesse roumaine sous les traits d’une beauté endormie, et qui apporterait le réconfort durant les temps incertains de la guerre et de la vieillesse. La scène qu’il évoque est empruntée au Paris d’avant-guerre et même à un temps encore antérieur, à la Belle époque, avant la Première guerre mondiale, période que Matisse a connue dans sa jeunesse. C’était une époque où les princesses roumaines séduisaient les Français : Matisse avait peint vingt-cinq versions de ce thème, si l’on ajoute la série Le rêve à celle de la Blouse roumaine.

La Roumanie avant la Seconde guerre mondiale et l’Occident

Il y eut des égéries roumaines qui fréquentèrent les salons parisiens. Voilà quelques-unes d’entre elles :
On pensera en premier lieu à Maria Cantacuzino (Marie Cantacuzene) dont le portrait par Théodore Chasseriau (1819 – 1856) décore le Panthéon. Elle y représente Geneviève, la sainte patronne de Paris.
Elena Vacarescu (Hélène Vacaresco), dont les poèmes d’amour furent chantés par Tino Rossi (Si tu voulais) et dont la vie amoureuse inspira le roman à succès de Pierre Loti L’Exilée. Elle donna son nom à un prix littéraire, le prix Vacaresco Femina (qui est une partie du prix Femina).
Ou la célèbre comtesse de Noailles, née princesse Bassarabe-Brancovan (Basarab-Brancoveanu), la première femme à devenir commandeur de la Légion d’honneur. Les poèmes d’Anne de Noailles reçurent le Premier prix de l’Académie française, au tournant du siècle. Son portrait fut sculpté par Rodin et peint par Zuloaga.
Ou sa cousine, la poétesse parnassienne et femme du monde Marthe Bibesco, qui inspira Marcel Proust, Cocteau, Paul Valéry et d’Annunzio et qui attira dans son entourage tous ses contemporains dont le nom comptait, avec le zèle de l’entomologiste consumé, qui épinglerait les coléoptères dans son armoire à prix.
Ou peut-être la tragédienne Marie Ventura – un pilier de la Comédie Française qui surpassa la célèbre Sarah Bernhardt et devint l’actrice inoubliable des meilleures pièces classiques de Corneille, Racine, ou Molière.
Ou encore, la fascinante Elvire Popesco (Elvira Popescu), comtesse de Foy, du théâtre du Colombier et plus tard de la Comédie Française, qui enchanta le public par son apparition dans Ma cousine de Varsovie et devint célèbre sous le sobriquet de Notre dame du théâtre. Popesco joua avec Sacha Guitry dans Le paradis perdu… Sans aucun doute, Le paradis perdu était un sujet de grande anxiété pour Matisse et le retour à la vie du souvenir de ces muses éthérées roumaines sous la forme de la Blouse roumaine était un acte de foi.

La Roumanie d’après-guerre et l’Occident

La guerre allait mettre un terme à cette liaison fertile entre la Roumanie et les cercles artistiques et littéraires parisiens, tout comme le lien naturel qui existait entre la Roumanie et l’Occident fut brisé par le rideau de fer. Alors, le pays allait vivre pendant cinquante ans les âges sombres de la censure idéologique, de l’emprisonnement et de l’extermination.
Le fossé causé par ce retrait de la scène française fut comblé, d’une certaine manière, par un certain nombre d’exilés qui refusèrent de retourner dans leur pays perdu, mais leur joie de vivre fut émoussée par les angoisses liées à leur survie immédiate. Dans de rares occasions après la guerre froide, une soprano roumaine ou une ballerine pouvaient faire leur apparition, étincelante, sur la scène française, mais à cette époque le feu et l’imagination du public avait changé et l’impact n’avait plus rien à voir avec celui d’avant la guerre ou de la Belle époque. De plus, la Roumanie n’était désormais plus porteuse d’une image d’excellence intellectuelle mais était plutôt perçue comme un pays déshumanisé, la prison de l’histoire. Là-bas, non seulement les femmes partageaient les prisons de leurs maris, frères et fils, mais elles étaient de plus condamnées, à travers leurs corps, à remplir les attentes du Démiurge en ce qui concernait la hausse de la natalité, comme lors d’expériences génétiques interminables de proportions kafkaïennes:

Un peuple entier,
Pas encore né,
Mais condamné à voir le jour,
En colonnes avant de voir le jour,
Foetus contre foetus,
Un peuple entier,
Qui ne voit pas, n’entend pas, ne comprend pas,
Mais qui avance.
A travers le corps ondulant des femmes,
A travers le sang des mères
Qu’on ne consulte pas.
(Alan Blandiana, La croisade des enfants, 1984)

La descente dans un tel cauchemar, auquel la femme roumaine sous le communisme a dû faire face sans pitié, n’était autre que celui choisi par la femme même du Démiurge, acclamée dans des vers extravagants par les poètes du jour, comme on peut le voir dans les vers de Corneliu Vadim Tudor, qui, après 1990, est devenu un dirigeant politique d’un parti et un membre du Parlement, représentant le mouvement de l’extrême-droite nationaliste, Romania Mare. Voilà ci-dessous les vers qui s’adressaient à Elena Ceausescu elle-même, cités par Gail Kligman (p.128) dans son livre The politics of duplicity – controlling reproduction in Ceausescu’s Romania (University of California Press 1998) :

Femeie creatoare – Slava Tie (Salut à toi, femme créatrice !)

Soit bénie, femme inventive !
L’amour de la nation t’enveloppe,
Erudite, personnage politique et mère en même temps.
Toi, fort modèle à émuler, de charme et de sagesse
Qui sera toujours sentie et suivie
Sois pour toujours heureuse, toi, éternel symbole
Des héroïnes roumaines que tu es devenue
Poussée de l’avant aux côtés du héros du pays
Tout au long de la grande épopée du peuple roumain !

Durant un tel leadership épique d’un personnage si bien éduqué, incarné par Elena – La femme symbole de la création, aux côtés de son mari-héros Nicolae – il n’était pas question pour aucune autre femme roumaine de se voir autoriser quelque exercice de création que ce soit, sauf en termes de reproduction.

Comme si une politique aussi inhumaine n’était pas suffisante, les Roumains sous Ceausescu souffrirent aussi de la menace constante d’être expropriés de leurs maisons, sous prétexte de la modernisation du pays, avec une vingtaine de centre-ville rasés jusqu’au sol, et l’architecture historique s’évanouissant avec eux, dans le but de faire de la place pour les blocs d’appartements de style staniliste. Les gens avaient 72 heures pour récupérer leurs affaires et déménager dans des cages à lapin. Ils abandonnaient leurs meubles et leurs animaux familiers dans les rues (d’où les chiens errants de Bucarest, qui sont devenus proverbiaux.)
Pour ajouter à ce cauchemar social, afin de rendre le peuple peureux dans une soumission totale et de voler sa mémoire et sa fierté, durant le début des années 80, Ceausescu décida que la dette extérieure, contractée pour cause d’industrialisation déraisonnable, devrait être payée, et pour cela exporta la plupart des produits agricoles. Les Roumains se retrouvèrent sans denrées alimentaires de base et des queues de plusieurs mètres se formèrent devant les coopératives d’état, des queues où l’on attendait pendant des heures dans l’espoir que quelque chose de comestible soit achetable. Il n’y avait ni viande, ni poisson, ni oeufs, ni légumes – seulement quelques pommes de terre pourries, de temps en temps, qui ne convenaient pas pour nourrir les cochons et dans un bon jour on pouvait trouver des griffes de poulet avec lesquelles ont pouvait préparer un bouillon (voir Eugenia Velescu).
Le désespoir complet lié à la faim est résumé dans une lettre ouverte envoyée par les femmes de Roumanie à Elena Ceausescu, en 1980 (voir faim, pommes de terre), lettre qui fut publiée à l’Ouest. Les Roumains, connus pour leur esprit rebelle qui les autorise à rire même quand ils souffrent, comme l’expression d’une ultime catharsis ( a face haz de nacaz) pouvaient au moins sourire amèrement lorsqu’ils entendaient les enfants bohémiens roumains chanter leur parodie d’un chant de Noël, en 1980, neuf ans avant que le tyran et sa femme ne tombent, un jour de Noël.

Elisabeta Rizea, paysanne des Carpates qui a subi la torture des prisons communistes pour avoir aidé le maquis

Durant presque un demi-siècle, l’esprit de la Blouse roumaine souffrit d’une longue période d’éclipse, mais survécut pour raconter son histoire : ce sont les voix des femmes roumaines que nous avons introduites dans cette anthologie – quelques-unes célèbres, d’autres abominables et la plupart d’entre elles avec la fraîcheur de celles qui ne savent pas qu’elles sont des héroïnes – de simples fermières qui dépérissent dans des camps en Sibérie, des femmes de pasteur qui souffrent à cause de leur croyance religieuse, des femmes effacées qui furent envoyées dans des camps de concentration pour expier les choix politiques de leurs maris, ou pour d’autres pêchés que d’avoir publié le travail de leurs femmes – des femmes qui dans le cours normal des événements auraient traversé la vie sans qu’on les remarque, mais dont les tourments sous un régime génocidaire les mit en lumière dans la conscience de leur pays, pour leur bravoure, l’expression lyrique de leur souffrance, des femmes qui luttèrent dans le maquis et qui furent enterrées sous de fausses identités, et d’autres dont le corps fut jeté dans une fosse commune, sans nom – les noms de ces héroïnes ne peuvent se compter mais leur accumulation mérite notre attention.

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. »

Les blouses ethniques portées par les femmes paysannes étaient à la mode parmi les classes sociales supérieures depuis que les princesses de la famille royale roumaine ont commencé à les porter, vers le milieu du XIXeme siècle, a l’instar d’Elisabeth de Roumanie (voir Carmen Sylva) et plus tard, de la reine Marie et de ses filles.

Si l’on prend en compte le passage tumultueux de l’histoire récente, on peut se demander si les femmes roumaines vont reconquérir leur réputation étincelante, telle qu’elles l’avaient connue avant la guerre. Vue d’ici, la réponse n’est pas simple et la route tortueuse. La seule réputation qu’elles semblent avoir gagné actuellement à l’Ouest, est, tristement, une réputation de pauvreté et de désespérance, qui a poussé les statistiques sur les jeunes femmes issues de la Balkan vortex a de hauts niveaux de prostitution. Bien après la chute de Ceausescu, ses enfants qui furent un jour “condamnés a naître” sont aujourd’hui destinés à mendier pour assurer leur subsistance, à vendre leurs corps…

Cela prendra du temps avant que la Beauté endormie de la toile de Matisse ne se réveille pour enchanter une fois encore la scène mondiale.
Ce jour viendra, mais dans le même temps la princesse de la Blouse roumaine devra être vigilante à ce que le rêve devienne réalité, tout comme l’ange dépeint par le Maître, dans son journal écrit par temps de guerre.

(Extrait de l’Anthologie des femmes Roumaines, traduction du livre paru en Anglais sous le titre: ‘Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women’, introduced and edited by Constantin ROMAN, Centre for Romanian Studies, London, 2009.
http://www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html

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