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

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

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

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

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

Nichita Stanescu and Gabriela Melinescu

Street Art: Shoreditch by Night

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article published in:

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

Shoreditch by Night

Bella Bartok Blue Plaque in London SW7

Memoria Diasporei despre Bartok si Enescu la Londra

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

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

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

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

Belle Bartok memorial, London SW7 by Imre Varga

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Orpheous' by Janet CREE (private collection, London)

Orpheus never turned up for tea
Looking at a painting by Janet Cree (1910-1992)
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There is an instant fascination which this painting on panel offers the neophyte, as he identifies himself without any difficulty to the main personage – a scantily clad youth playing an antique lyra, surrounded by a bevy of entranced females, some prostrate with admiration, others overcome by pure love.
Orpcheus, because this is precisely the identity of our lucky young man, appears to be oblivious of the ecstatic atmosphere he creates around him as he is content playing on, regardless, while focusing his eyes on the horizon.

The painting is luminous, in shades of ivory white which dominate the panel, punctuated by pale and discreetly-coloured draping in the guise of clothes and darker greens of erect poplars. These are Lombardy poplars of a kind that one very rarely sees in England, because the painter, although being English herself and trained at a London Art School, she sets her subject in Italy.
For there is a pervasive “Italian feel” in the aura of this picture suggestive of an early Montegna, combined with a strong overprint of the British school of painting of the early 1930s… All in all, I should say, the painting conveys a very pleasant soothing air of some far-away garden of Eden, to which one might aspire but never gain access to. Hence the perpetual reverie that exudes this beautiful composition – more effective and prudent than taking a trip on a tablet of Ecstasy…

Our painter is called Janet Cree. Born in London in 1910, she is an artist of early promise as the Tate Gallery acquires one of her works when she is only 23 years of age. From then on we know little about her artistic fortunes and true to herself Janet carries on quietly with her craft, sending regularly her pictures to the RA exhibitions, without making waves. Soon the war takes its toll as the art aficionados go silent as the bottom falls out of the art market.
In spite of it all Janet Cree takes her due place in the dictionaries of contemporary British painters. Doubtless her family, as she sets up a home, makes demands on her time too,

John Platts-Mills, QC, MP (1906-2001) defending Counsel for the Kray Brothers and the Great Train Robbers

for she is now married to a mercurial lawyer whose physical and social stature is larger than life: this is John Platts-Mills, the six-foot New Zealand-born athlete and Oxford-educated student. He comes to Britain as a Rhodes scholar to Balliol College.
By this time, the trauma of the First War takes its toll on the mood of the young people, who are disaffected with the society and over-enthusiastic about the social and economic ‘paradise’ promised by Joseph Stalin.

Platts-Mills is no exception. At first he hopes that luck may strike closer to the British Isles as he gives his support to the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. That was not to be. For a moment it seems that his political sympathies go astride the main flow of the British establishment, as he is not considered good material to enroll as a RAF pilot during the war. Earlier on, in 1932 he is called to the Inner Temple, but will not become a King’s Council for a long time, because of his political sympathies.
However, at the beginning of the war the Allied troops suffer many set backs, which cause Platts-Mills’ fortunes to change for the better, as Churchill calls on him and urge him to be a go-between with Stalin’s Russia. This is the time when Platts-Mills throws himself arduously into Soviet-British PR, forging endless Soviet-British friendship societies all over Britain. Yet, on the political board of snakes and ladders fortunes change quickly and with the advent of the cold war the maverick barrister looses his political clout: in the process he also looses his Finsbury seat in Parliament, as he is expelled from the Labour Party. But hard luck turns to good fortune as his reputation precedes him. He becomes a much sought-after lawyer in some of the most controversial legal cases, defending the Kray brothers, the Great Train Robbers, the Shrewsbury two. He also acts as a secret adviser of Trade Union leader Arthur Scargill in the miners’ strike of the 1970s, which caused the fall of Edward Heath’s government. He appears on the Grunwick picket line and acted on the Bloody Sunday inquiry in Londonderry.

But before he becomes involved in these high-profile cases Platts-Mills takes care to pay his last respects to “Uncle Joe”, as he dies in the Kremlin, in 1953.
He is not alone in eulogising the infamous people’s executioner, as another fellow traveler and a Nobel Prize laureate, the Chilean Pablo Neruda depicts the Red dictator in heart-rending, sycophantic verse:

Red Dictator and Murderer Joseph Stalin: Platts-Mills attends his funeral in 1953

‘In three rooms of the old Kremlin
lives a man named Joseph Stalin
His bedroom light is turned off late.
The world and his country allow him no rest.’

And how! The fallen peoples of Eastern Europe know all about it in the new satellite prison-states that were occupied by Soviet troops.

This is no concern for our London lawyer who is fond of driving Rolls-Royces and Bentleys and decrees benevolently:

The Rolls-Royce - Platts-Mills preferred vehicle: he decreed that every working class man ought to have one!

‘Every working class man should have one!’

Quite so! And to start with those working classes could drive Rolls-Royces by proxy, through their representatives like Platts-Mills…and drink champagne also through their representatives.

Lybian dictator Col Gaddafi (by John Cox): visited by Mills at the time of the Lybian Embassy crisis in London

Clearly, John Platts-Mills had a fascination with more than one killer dictator, for, when his dutiful and self-effaced wife is somewhat surprised by his absence from home, she rings his Chambers to ask his whereabouts: well as it happened his image just appeared flittingly on British TV screens as a guest standing behind Colonel Ghaddafi, on a visit to Libya. This was the time of the Libyan embassy crisis in London, at which point the imperturbable Janet would answer quietly:

‘Well, in that case I will not lay out the table for tea.’

In her old age, the faithful and dutiful wife never questioned and never complained: for her the personage in the centre of her youthful painting was no other than her good-looking husband, the very iconic Orpheus who never turned up for tea.

Footnote to the Hungarian Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, Piccadilly on: “Treasures from Budapest – European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele”

London - "Treasures from Budapest - European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele"

LOCATION: For those readers who would not know, the Royal Academy of Arts is situated in Burlington House, in London’s West End avenue of Piccadilly: this is a prestigious location for several reasons, first of all because the hosting Institution is a venerable British household name of an artistic tradition going back to the 18th century. The RA, for short, organizes regular exhibitions of greatest prestige, on par with those of the greatest London Museums and commands an extensive following. The venue is Burlington House, one of the few aristocratic houses built in the 17th century to be located near to the Court of St James’s, which at that time was the main residence of the English Monarchs. Even today the foreign diplomats coming to London are “accredited to the Court of St James’s” although in fact they are received by HM the Queen at  Buckingham Palace. This makes the RA and Burlington House being situated near all the historic, political and cultural focal points in Central London such as the Royal Society, Clarence House, all the Gentlemen’s Clubs, Christies Auctioneers, all the important Art galleries of St James’s and Bond Street, Apsley House at Hyde Park Corner and all the best shops in Piccadilly and Regents Street and Bond Street, not to mention the tourists attractions of Piccadilly Circus, the Trafalgar Square with the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery and Soho, the Theatres and the Government buildings in Whitehall.

Given the above pointers it is clear that the Hungarian exhibition “Treasures from Budapest” of October 2010 could not have chosen a better location: it is central, it is prestigious, it is in an elegant building with excellent tradition and exhibiting space and a huge pull to the general and specialist public from England and abroad.

The Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London West End

The Hungarian PR coup is that much more remarkable as the RA plans events five to seven years in advance before a particular proposal could find a slot and eventually could materialize: some efforts such as the proposed exhibition of art treasures from the private Collection of the Princes of Liechtenstein stumbled on administrative difficulties which caused it to be abandoned recently: the Hungarians were lucky because their exhibition was brought forward; we understand from the British curators that their Hungarian counterparts in Budapest were co-operative, accommodating and extremely helpful: all to a good end! This venture will not have been made possible without the financial support of the OTB Bank: these days it is a sine-qua-non condition to have wealthy and willing sponsors and our Hungarian friends understood this simple truism.

THE EXHIBITION:

This exhibition showcases the breadth and wealth of one of the finest collections in Central Europe. It  comprises works from the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, with additional key loans from the Hungarian National Gallery. Most of the works come from the early collection of the Princes Esterhazy, great patrons of the arts: indeed the name is immediately connected with the baroque period when Haydn was a court Kapellmeister but also the princes were spending lavishly on commissioning and collecting paintings; the Raphael which is chosen for the poster is indeed a masterpiece of World art and is known as “The Esterhazy Madonna” (1508).

Leonardo da Vinci - Study of Soldiers (Art Treasures from Budapest)

Other signal canvasses which this event celebrates is  Leonardo (Study of soldiers head) at one end of the spectrum and at the other to Egon Schiele a main representative of early 20th century Austria Hungary and a protégé of Gustav Klimt. The Northern European schools are represented by Lucas Cranach, Rubens and Rembrandt, and the French by Poussin, Claude and Laurent de la Hyre. Highlights from the museum’s superb collection of works on paper include two studies by Leonardo for his mural of the Battle of Anghiari, fine drawings by Dürer and Altdorfer, and figure studies by Tiepolo and Watteau.

John Constable: Art Treasures from Budapest

Works by Royal Academicians Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Constable and Angelica Kauffman. Amongst other works  once owned by the British is for example a Cornelis van Poelenburgh’s portrait of the children of the Elector Palatine Frederick V – known as the “winter king” – was owned by Charles I and has his crowned monogram on the reverse of the panel.

Also, the small 1814 oil sketch by John Constable of East Bergholt, which not only depicts a huge gold standard at the heart of a massive peace celebration in the village but also an effigy of a beaten Bonaparte in his tricorn, hanging from a gibbet.

Egon Schiele - Art Treasures from Budapest

It is understandable that the central European artists, in particular German and Austrians would have a greater weight in the Hungarian art collections and more recently these made the object of press headlines as legal disputes arose over the original ownership and restitution of art treasures plundered by occupying armies from East and West: if the Western museum were good at returning their disputed oil paintings, the Russians had no such scruples – but the organizers of the RA could not be too careful as they covered all eventuality in a disclaimer under the banner:

Raphael's "Esterhazy Madonna" - the Poster of the Hungarian Exhibition

WHY talk about a Hungarian exhibition on a Romanian Cultural Studies site?

WHY indeed! At a first glance it may appear fortuitous to do just that and yet there may be many reasons to have done it and one can think of a few, at random:

* One could immediately think of the common historical space of Central-Eastern Europe at the archaeological treasure troves found in Transylvania before WWI and now belonging to Museums of Hungary.

* One could equally think of the Bibliotheca Corviniana, of that Hungarian Renaissance king of Romanian stock – Matthias Corvinus, born in Cluj/Koloszvar and his stupendous collection of illuminated manuscripts, mostly dispersed but some returned to Budapest, during the 19th century, by the Sultan.

* One could further connect with the Transylvanian origins of the Esterhazys before they  were ennobled by the Habsburgs or about the collections of other Hungarian aristocrats some of whom were magyarized Romanians such as the Banffy or the Szeczeny.

* Last but not least the post-Impressionist artist School of Baia Mare (Nagybánya) and in particular of  the paintings of Simon Hollosy (1857-1918) (of whom there is mention in the catalogue).

But more important it is to REFLECT on and see in PERSPECTIVE the Romanian cultural presence in the United Kingdom or rather the quasi-lack of it, or its very modest presence. To give very few examples on exhibitions of other Central and Eastern (former communist block) countries:

*  The Czechs and the Poles seem to have been absent for a long time in London for reasons difficult to explain, although their art treasures are quite exceptional in spite of the ravages of the 20th century

*  Bulgaria had a dazzling exhibition at the British Museum about The Gold of the Thracians

*  Serbia was very much present at the Royal Academy as part of the great “Byzantium” exhibition with several important religious works of art. By contrast Romania which could have contributed so much with the tapestries of the Moldavian monasteries had only ONE item offered by the National History Museum!

Clearly the ‘talibans’ of the Romanian Orthodox church do not see the benefits of Romanian cultural presence abroad – although the monks of Mount Athos or the hierarchy of St Anne’s, from Mount Sinai seem to have taken a more enlightened view!

*  The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford did however include a series of archaeological artifacts from Romania in an exhibition which included the Cucuteni Neolithic period including some from Bessarabi and Bulgaria: but this was mostly a specialist exhibition within a narrow niche specialism for historians and archaeologists, rather than of a general public appeal.

*  Our Russian overlords are nevertheless more active on the international PR cultural scene, whether in permanent exhibitions from the Hermitage (now sadly closed), from Russian Collections abroad (Diaghiliev costumes at the V & A) or the RA exhibition of Impressionist art.

*  Romania was an indirect beneficiary of the Brancusi retrospective at the Tate Modern – but this was not a Romanian initiative, per se, as the exhibits were overwhelmingly from the USA, UK and Western Europe: predictably there was a ‘back-door’ tentative to make a claim to such illustrious exhibition by some Romanian Cultural outfit, which went largely unnoticed even by those visitors who having seen the Brancusi exhibition did NOT absorb the detail of the artist’s  Romanianness. Why shall one blame them when even Romania waited the best of a century before it reclaimed the sculptor? The previous important Brancusi retrospective was in Paris, at the Cente Pompidou, in the mid 1990s.

* Romania’s really great cultural presence in Great Britain and in Western Europe was made under the Monarchy of King Carol I and Carol II respectively. After the vagaries of a XX century Europe in turmoil and the advent of the dictatorship which created a near embargo on artistic exchanges (other than folk dancing and the odd opera singer or ballerina who took the opportunity to defect) Romania excelled by a long absence from the world cultural scene. This situation could be assigned to several factors but it is mainly due to the destruction of the cultural elites which died under torture in communist prisons or hard labour camps and their replacement by the ‘great unwashed’ – essentially those ‘reliable’ Party officials with no vision, no clue, no desire and no imagination, other the perpetuation of physical and moral abuse, the fudging of History, the destruction of Memory and the shear isolationism (other than in sport). After the so-called ’1989 revolution’ which put down the dictator and his wife – the second echelons of the Communist Party swiftly filled in the gap and the trend of deculturalisation or the leveling by the lowest denominator was carried out at a national scale. Currently the greatest attraction of those governing the country are the rewards of corruption and wild Capitalism, where everything goes. This phenomenon is responsible for the paltry attempts at putting the country on the Cultural map of Europe and the World. The practice by the infamous “Institutul Cultural Roman” in Bucharest at spending huge amounts of money in organizing exhibitions in rural France, in villages that nobody heard about, really beggars belief! Why not in Paris or Lyon? Such inept locations of obscure villages may have as only excuse that nothing was thought or planned in advance and that the major funds were instead diverted towards such extraordinary feats as publishing the French translation of the  PhD thesis of some former Foreign Minster: his summum of philosophical wisdom  of some  40 years past: this was printed by an obscure Parisian publisher who subsequently sold the whole edition to the Romanian Cultural Institute – just as it was the practice before the ‘revolution’ with the works of Ceausescu and his wannaby ‘scientist’ wife.

Tell us what has changed?

One could go on with a long litany of half-cock attempts by Romanian officials under the guise of signal  ‘achievements’ which now they crow about from the rooftops of Romanian government buildings, events which pass completely unnoticed there where it matters.

We have it from a reliable source in London that attempts were made in the second half on the 1990s by some  Romanian exiles to initiate a prestigious exhibition iof the Post-Byzantine Orthodox tapestries of Moldavia. To this end a Minister of State was expedited to London to meet its British Counterpart. The latter who combined on his watch Sports with Art (oh, yes, under Labour anything was possible, including putting once’s foot in the mouth… ) offered as a venue  Kenwood House, a country house in Hampstead, some 16 Kms from Central London, in NW6… Not only the venue was geographical eccentric and inconvenient to be visited by the greater public, but the space was  in an ORANGERY (!!!), where such ancient treasures would have been damaged by sunshine, humidity and temperature variations …

The Orangery, Kenwood House improper for the display of ancient tapestries!

On hearing about the British proposal, (made in the best faith by a politico who had no clue, to his Romanian colleague who matched his ignorance), the Romanian  who initiated the consultative  meeting in London and who was a resident in Britain for many years exclaimed to the visiting Romanian Secretary of State:

“But (the British Secretary of State) talks through his hat!”.

Kenwood House Orangery: sunshine, humidity, temperature variation, lack of wall space and geographical eccentricity made it a totally unsuitable venue for a potential exhibition of Medieval tapestries

As the Romanian sense of hierarchy always required an inevitable kowtowing, such remark caused consternation, although it was made in private after the official meeting ended:

“Vai Domnule, cum puteti spune asa ceva? Un ministru nu vorbeste prin palarie!”

“Pray, Mister, how can you say such a thing? a Minister never talks through his hat!”

Of course there was no need to bother with further explanations which will have fallen on deaf ears. Still the Romanian cultural komissar was offered  generous logistics  PR assistance in London, including the promise of sponsorship by  international private banks: all in vain as the visiting Minister switched off completely! Predictably the  ‘official’ visit  to London never went beyond its tourist attraction and the project was still-born through lack of follow-up; quite typical, but not surprising:

Think small comrades and carry on navel-gazing – we are and we shall remain the ‘best and most talented Nation in Europe’, regardless of our failures and inadequacies!

But maybe ‘thinking Hungarian’ is not such a bad thing, after all, think Central London and allow for a five-year plan, which for ex-commies it should not be so difficult – it is like home from home!

Prince Jeremy Mohyla (1555-1606), Voyevode of Moldavia, tomb veil, Post-Byzantine School of tapestry weavers. Romania has the richest collection of Byzantine tapestries in the world - by some account, richer than Russia's

The Times Cartoon June 1990 (Calman): "Can't fin the Worf for Democracy (in Romanian Phrasebook)"

Calman cartoon in the Times of London – alluding to the mob-rule by Romanian miners called by President Iliescu and Prime Minister Petre Roman to quell the fledgling Democracy movement in Bucharest in June 1990, only six months after Ceausescu was put down in a classic coup-de-palais:
Under the title:

“Fear of mob-rule grips Romania”(June 1990)

the caption says:

“Can’t find the word for Democracy in Romanian Phrase book”

Vera Maria Atkins (née Vera-May Rosenberg)

b. 15 June 1908, Galati, Romania– d. 24 June 2000, Hastings, England)

WWII Secret Service Agent, SOE, Squadron Leader of the Women Auxiliary Forces (WAAF),

Croix de Guerre, Commandeur of the Légion d’Honneur (1987)

BIOGRAPHY:

Vera Maria Rosenberg was born in Galati, the only daughter of Max Rosenberg a well-to-do Jewish businessman from Germany. Max settled in Romania at the beginning of the 20^th century to manage his brothers’  shipping business in Galati and Constanta. Vera’s mother, Hilda Atkins  was born  in London. Max and Hilda met in South Africa where Hilda’s father Henry Atkins, made his fortune during the Boer War by supplying the British Army with porridge and tinned meat from Australia which he had the foresight to stockpile before the war in huge quantities. The Atkins business interests in South Africa flourished to diversify into building a booming Cape Town and also in acquiring a diamond mine. If the Boer war turned out to be a bonanza for the Atkins it was certainly an economic disaster for the business  interests of  Rosenberg. The downturn of Rosenberg’s business fortune  did not preclude Max from marrying Atkins’ daughter Hilda,  as they exchanged vows at the London Central Synagogue in 1902.  Thereafter Max was compelled to sell at a loss his South African assets  and move instead to Romania. Why Romania of all places? Because the small Balkan kingdom which became independent from the Ottomans only twenty years previously was experiencing an unprecedented boom marked by a huge economic growth. The Danube was its main export thoroughfare to central Europe and to the Black Sea for such commodities as timber, cereals, livestock and petrol from the country’s refineries.

Galati – Vera’s birthplace and self-denial:

Galati port on the Lower Danube, in Romania, where Vera's family made its fortune (Period woodcut, private collection, London)

The International Danube Commission was regulating the passage of foreign ships and Britain had its own representative there as well as a Consul at Galati.  By 1890s  Galati was a thriving port where foreign traders were  trying to gain a slice of the profits by exporting Romania’s riches. The port of Galati was of sufficient interest for the British to have there a Consul since before the Crimean War. Perhaps one of the most distinguished British envoys was one Charles George Gordon ( 1833-1885) before he made his reputation in Sudan as “Gordon of Khartoum”. At Galati Gordon was involved in the International Danube Commission: his opinions on the inter-ethnic relations during the mid 19^th century is revealing especially as they reflect the official Imperial attitude to such outposts of Europe (Thompson: 137).

Charles George Gordon, CB (1833-1885), British Consul at Galatz, before he became known as :'Gordon of Khartoum'.

By 1904 when Max Rosenberg came to Galati where the German Gebrueder Rosenberg of Cologne had shipping interests: they were exporting  timber from  their estates in the Carpathians on the fringes of  Austria-Hungary.  The city had no less than eighteen synagogues for its sizable Jewish community of some 20,000 souls.   Romania was for Vera’s father, Max Rosenberg a land of opportunity where he restored his personal fortune to become a powerful businessman with a shipyard at Galatz and a merchant fleet on the Danube, the Dunarea company registered in London. With success came money and with money came acceptance:  Rosenberg was entertaining foreign diplomats at shooting parties on his estate at Crasna, in Bukovina, or at his brother’s estate  at Valea Izului.

In spite of this comfortable “colonial” life style Hilda’s mother did not settle well in Romania as she was constantly pining for her more sophisticated life in London and for the climate and scenery of South Africa.   According to Vera’s hagiographer Sarah Helm, Vera, like her mother, appeared to have regretted her father’s choice of coming to Romania, in spite of the family’s financial gain which brought it considerable wealth. Romania secured for Rosenberg the foundation on which Vera enjoyed a favourable handicap in life which secured for her the best education open to daughters of Europe’s upper classes  to private schools in Switzerland, France and England and earlier on with foreign governesses in Romania.

However on a deeper reflection, there maybe a strong case against including Vera Rosenberg Atkins in an Anthology of Romanian Women, simply because her Romanian roots, per se, were not tenuous and in particular she appeared to identify herself more with her mother’s British heritage, rather than her father’s Romanian aspirations. Yet Max, whom Vera adored had a more pragmatic approach than the South African Hilda: Max was feeling at home wherever the going was good and business prosperous and in the 1900s this happened to have been on the Danube and in the Carpathians.

It is true that Vera had cosmopolitan roots and aspirations were reflected in a commensurately cosmopolitan upbringing. But her Romanian beginnings   were going to leave an indelible mark on her personality, although later on in her adult life she tried to deny them and even erase them from her memory. Such self-denial did not just apply to her Romanian birthplace but also to her Jewishness. Hers was not an isolated phenomenon, by any means: King Carol II Jewish mistress Madame Lupescu was such an example, or  the movie actress Nadia Gray, coming from a historic Romanian family the Herescu also airbrushed her Romanian roots in favour  of he maternal Russian, origins.  On the other hand Vera’s self-denial and fixation in playing down her Romanian background was consistent with her family tradition which for generations put a smoke screen over its more humble origins. These were the Etkens, her maternal folk, who fled the pogroms of Bielorussia, during the 19th century, to settle in South Africa and change their name to Atkins. Similarly Rosenberg’s own German Jewish origins from Kassel were presented as plain ‘German’ and to prove it Max was busy erecting a catholic chapel on his estate in the Carpathians, a pious feat for which the Pope sent him a medal.  Given the prevailing anti-Semitism of 19^th century Europe, these adaptations were necessary but in addition they had an overprint which was exacerbated by a certain snobbery amongst the Jews themselves – theirs was a strong preconception whereby German or English origins were  ‘superior’ to the East European roots.  One can see how Max and Hilda Rosenberg passed on to Vera these prejudices to which they were applying an additional more attractive gloss, in order to attain social kudos.

Max died in 1933 in Romania and Vera who was going to be naturalised British in the 1930s adopted her mother’s maiden name and subsequently considered  her birth in Galati as a mere  ‘accident of history’ dictated by her father’s commercial interests. Whether coincidentally or not the Romanian youth of this young lady remained an important component in the makeup of her personality and her future professional career.

The Romanian component:

Bucharest in the 1930s dubbed "le Petit Paris" it had a buoyant social and economic life. Here Vera Atkins escorted Count for Schulenburg.

The source of our interest in Vera’s Romanian biography is twofold – first because it sheds light on 20^th century Romania from 1900 to the Second World War and in particular on the playground of upper class Jewish community there, which was a world apart from the lower class immigrant Jews inhabiting the same towns and schtetles. Secondly because Vera’s glitzy life in the Bucharest of the  late 1920s and early 1930s was crucial in moulding her future career as a spy in the services of the SOE during WWII. This was the backdrop of a world which faded into history, a world so fondly recalled by Clara Haskill and so vividly portrayed by Gregor von Rezzori in his  memoirs. But above all it was the world frequented by the diplomat and writer Paul Morand, the gay life of a sophisticated Petit Paris, described by Satcheverell Sitwell and Queen Marie of Romania.  For Vera’s knowledge of languages including fluent English French, Romanian, German was common place among aristocratic families of Bucharest and this enabled her establishing a good social network and make her an effective communicator.

Count von Schulenburg (1875-1944), German Ambassador to Bucharest and friend of Vera Atkins: he was shot in 1944 following an aborted assassination plot against the Fuehrer

Count Friedrich von Schulenburg (1875-1944) the German Ambassador to Romania enjoyed Vera’s company as the young woman threw herself into the glitzy social whirl of Bucharest.  Later Schulenberg was going to be instrumental in forging the ‘German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact’  and the annexation of Romanian territory by the Soviets in 1940.  In 1944 Count Schulenburg was hung by Hitler for his implication in a plot against the Fuehrer.  But in the early 1930s when the Count was Ambassador in Bucharest  this was yet a good corner of Europe to live in. For  Vera the easy-going atmosphere of laissez-faire Romania was infinitely more attractive for a young debutante girl than the more rigid principles  of  the British society at the Court of St James’s during the reign of George V and his staid spouse Queen Mary, Princess of Teck. Vera’s pragmatic father knew it too well for he gained automatic acceptance in the Romanian high society where he created for himself the life of a country squire on his estate in the Carpathians.  In Romania Rosenberg enjoyed the luxuries of a ‘colonial life’ style, affording large houses and soft-footed servants, all more affordable than in Britain. Here it was easier for a foreign businessman to host a shoot of Carpathian bear or wild boar than stalking deer or shooting grouse in the Scottish Highlands.

Vera Atkins Biography "Spymistress" by William Stevenson

Maybe the answer to this option taken by Max came from Sarah Helm herself, Vera’s biographer, pointing out that the Jewish upper classes in Romania were accepted – as opposed to their lower class co-nationals, who were poles apart and had little to do if anything with each other. So much for the Rosenberg’s social history against the 20^th century Romanian backdrop.

Out of Romania:

In 1933, after her father’s death,  Vera emigrated with her mother to England, but soon after they settled in  France during the Socialist presidency of Léon Blum. This was an inspired move because elsewhere in Central Europe the Rosenberg cousins who stayed behind in Czechoslovakia were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz . One of Vera’s cousins, Walter Rosenberg (aka Rudolf Vrba, 1924-2006) became famous for escaping in April 1944 from  the concentration camp. His  statement known is history as the Vrba-Weltzer Report was to be the first source in informing the Allies about the methods of extermination  details of which were reported by the BBC. This prompted world leaders to appeal to the Hungarian dictator Horthy to halt the deportation of Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers. For a while some of the Central European  Jews  benefited from a temporary reprieve, and were allowed  a quick exit from the quagmire. In this context Romania represented a secure transit on the way to Palestine and the future state of Israel, although the British Foreign Office was none too happy about such influx of immigrants and advised the Romanian Government to stop it. After 1945 it was the turn of the Soviet occupation authorities to refuse giving exit visas to the ethnic Jews of Eastern Europe wanting to migrate to Israel.

Before the German occupation of France Vera enrolled as a student in modern languages at the Sorbonne, followed by one-year course at a finishing school in Lausanne, a privileged education in an incubator reserved for young ladies of upper class families. This background was going to keep her in good stead as an intelligence operative during WWII, a role defined by Ian Fleming in his classic retort:

In the world of spies, Vera Atkins was the boss.

Ian Fleming (1908-1964) who created Miss Monneypenny after Vera Atkins.

But occupied France was not the best place for an uprooted Jewish family and in 1940 Vera returned to England, where her career as an SOE operative took off under Maurice Buckmaster (1902-1992). During her time as an SOE officer the indomitable Atkins sent 470 agents including 39 women behind enemy lines into German-occupied French territory. Her spying persona inspired film makers as she became Miss Moneypenny in a James Bond movie and also the main character in Genevieve Simms movie Into the Dark.

Still the great paradox in Vera Atkins’ life remains the contradiction in offsetting the effect of Romanian anti-Semitism versus the brand practiced in France or Great Britain, three countries where she lived and where she enjoyed a very different social life and acceptance! Vera Atkins distanced herself from her native Romania where she enjoyed the spoils of her family riches, frequented the high society, was accepted, had fun and was safe. Her example is not singular, yet in spite of it Romania remains  to this day a fair game for western historians censoring her for her treatment of ethnic minorities. Surprisingly, in the same breath, the said academics seem to be incapable of discerning a more nuanced reality from a blanket stereotype: indeed, Vera’s family’s wealth and lifestyle  seem to contradict the said effects of Romania’s brand of nationalism.

By contrast in France, where anti-Semitism was rampant, this was an infinitely less safe place for Jews to live in, as they were sent in droves to concentration camps, which  was the case everywhere in Central Europe, as reported by Vera’s cousin in the famous Vrba-Weltzer Report broadcast by the BBC. In England the brand of anti-Semitism was more covert than in France or Romania, but persistent enough not to cause Atkins to be given the recognition she pined for: even many years after the end of  WWII she never received even as little as an OBE for her war-time services: of course, she was too stiff-upper lip to show her discomfiture! Still, some four decades after the end of war, in 1987, Atkins received instead  from the French president the Croix de Guerre, Commandeur of the Légion d’Honneur.

Vera Atkins died quietly, aged 92, in a home for the elderly in Hastings, in Southern England.

Vera ATKINS (b Galati , Romania, 1908 – d. Hastings, England, 2000)

A biography from the Anthology:

Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women

http://www.blouseroumaine.com

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

Edited by Peter Davison, Publ: Harvil Secker

ISBN 9781846553295

(sourced from ten original diary notebooks)

Orwell Diaries, London 2009

I bought Orwell’s Diaries thinking that I could glean more information about his philosophical conversion from Spanish Republicanism to what had become later a lucid critic of left-wing dictatorship. It appears, sadly, that two notebooks of diaries covering the Spanish Civil War have made their way into the archives of the NKVD (The Soviet Secret police) and are under lock and key to this day. Clearly even after his demise Orwell’s writings are considered by some still seditious.

I came across the works of Orwell, oddly enough, behind the Iron Courtain, in Romania, as a teenager enduring the harsh neo-stalinist dictatorship of Gheorghiu-Dej, the national-communist predecessor of Nicolae Ceausescu. This was no mean feat and a curious one at that: the classic ‘”1984″ novel was translated in French and serialised in the popular French weekly “Paris Match”, which at the time was embargoed in Romania, under severe censorship restrictions. However, by a miracle, my private French teacher in Bucharest had a former servant who was a cleaner/maid at the French Embassy in Bucharest and without doubt a secret service agent, because only politically ‘reliable’ natives were granted such jobs. This simple Romanian woman, who was barely literate spoke no French and brought home these magazines merely because she found the illustrations attractive. My French teacher, a cultivated lady from the former Romanian aristocracy, who was educated in Switzerland before WWII and under Communism fell on hard times being completely destitute, managed to borrow these magazines and transcribed by hand over several months the whole of Orwell’s 1984 novel.

I had the privilege of being lent these manuscripts and found the reading fascinating, more so as I identified myself perfectly with the character in this book and the whole atmosphere described by the author as one which we were experiencing on a daily basis in Romania under the communist dictatorship. My father upon discovering my illicit reading begged of me to return the manuscript forthwith because if we were denounced and found out, or if for any reason our house was searched we would be put in prison for reading Orwell.

In retrospect I still think that hardly any Western author and more so after the WWII had had the clear vision comparable to that of George Orwell, especially when one would think of those fellow-travelers and assorted “useful idiots” who were eulogising the Soviet dictatorship, in spite of irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

This edition of the diaries sheds a fresh light on George Orwell , on his private life as much as on his national and international political observations. They are replete with useful details for the historian, political analyst or academic, but not only – as it offers a fresh angle on the troubled history of Europe for nearly two decades of the 1930s and 1940s. There real nuggets of information which explain better the rationale behind our fathers and grandfathers political options, than what we were conditioned to believe from school books or politically correct textbooks. Al in all a riveting read which I recommend.

QUOTATIONS relevant to Romanian History:

* 6 June 1939:

Britain to grant arms credit of £100 million to Poland, Turkey and Romania (Daily Telegraph)

Germany said to be demanding entire Romanian wheat crop, also part of what is left over from 1938 crop (Daily Telegraph)

Russo-German pact signed. official statement from Moscow that ‘enemies of both countries’ have tried to drive Russia and Germany into enmity. jaqpanese opinion evidently very angered by what amounts to German desertion of anti-Comintern pact and Spanish (Franco) opinion evidently similarly afected. Romania said to have declared neutrality.

Moscow airport decorated with swastikas for Ribbentrop’s arrival.

Romania is fortifying its Russian frontier: 2-300,000 Russian troops said to be movingto Western frontier.

The Russians entered Bessarabia today. Practically no interest aroused and the few remarks I could overhear were mildly approving or at least not hostile. (Compare with) the intense popular anger over the invasion of Finland. I do not think the difference is due to a perception that Finland and Romania are different propositions. It is probably because our own desperate straits and the notion that this move may embarrass Hitler – as I believe it must, though evidently sanctioned by him.

During the bad period of the bombing when everyone was semi-insane (…) I found that scarps of nonsense poetry were constantly coming to my mind. They never got beyond a line or two and the tendency slacked off, but examples are:

An old Romanian peasant

Who lived in Mornington Crescent

The key does not fit and the bell does not ring

but we all stand for God Save the King.

British troops entered Irak a couple of days ago, People on all sides saying, ‘Mosul will be no good to Hitler even if he gets there. The British will blow up the wells long before.’ Will they, I wonder? did they blow up the Romanian wells when the opportunity existed? The most depressing thing in this war is not the disasters we are found to suffer at this stage, but the knowledge that we are being led by weaklings… It is as though your life depended on a game of chess and you had to sit watching it, seeing that the most idiotic moves being made and being powerless to prevent them.

A Spanish grandee and Ambassador to the Court of St James’s once compared the success of an Anthology to that of a culinary chef d’oeuvre: for Santiago de Mora Figueroa y Williams, Marques of Tamarón, a great Anglophile but also a refined European:

The perfect anthology, like the perfect hors d’oeuvre, should turn us into gluttons. The many small dishes add up to a balanced and nourishing meal, but they are so exquisite that they whet one’s appetite for more. And the anthology should also include unexpected delicacies, things that even the literary gourmet had not heard about.

On a deeper reflection, Tamarón’s metaphor encapsulates perfectly well the ethos of the ‘Blouse Roumaine’. Yet, as an Anthology of Romanian women, this corpus was initially conceived to connect with a French painting of Henri Matisse – the eponymous canvas, ‘La Blouse Roumaine’ (1940), which hangs today in the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris: for every and each biography contained in this Women’s Anthology is like a minutely embroidered stitch on an ethnic tapestry, such as we have admired, not so long ago in the Retrospective exhibition of Matisse’s collection of textiles, presented at the Royal Academy in London and later also shown in New York. For those of us who missed this exhibition the analogy to the current book is like a roll call of women presented in a sequence of biographical cameos. These sketches are displayed like a series of miniatures in a virtual National Portrait Gallery: they are all glittering stars from Western galaxies and Eastern nebulae, in all 160 of them…

The manuscript gestation involved a work of love and dedication, spanning over several years, a creation which gradually came to life very much like in the Marques of Tamarón’s definition – a “menu of diverse and delicious hors d’oeuvres, visually appealing” but at the same time teasing the imagination and stimulating the taste: for such choice not only offers food for thought as well as for the heart, but also food for academic appetite, extending the frontiers of taste beyond the familiar courses of history, politics, literature, music, film, theatre, feminism or science – for ‘Blouse Roumaine’ is at the same time a trans-disciplinary book.

This subjective if somewhat esoteric compilation of impressionistic essays is preceded by a historical, cultural and political overview of Romanian society. This introductory social fresco sets the tone of the narrative which is perceived through a European looking glass, allowing the reader to consider Romania not in its exotic isolation, but as part of a much broader ‘concert of nations’ and therefore evaluate it within a familiar territory. These will be countries such as France, Italy or Britain which for the last two hundred years were the playground of Romanian aristocrats (Bibesco, Noailles, Ghika, Brancovan, Cantacuzène)

and lately the land of exile of many an uprooted artist and writer (Brancusi, Ionesco, Cioran, Eliade, Georges Enesco, Dinu Lipatti, Clara Haskil, Nadia Gray, Elvire Popesco, Hélène Vacaresco).

The Anthology is complemented by texts often published for the first time in English and sourced from over 4,000 French, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German references. Six hundred quotations convey the narrative an arcane erudition inviting the reader on a joyful pursuit of an abstruse and little-explored subject. This is virgin territory offering sheer delight.

As we turn the pages of this book we are made witness to an exotic cavalcade of female characters who conjure the scent, colour and voices of time past to the present day, from the sunflower fields of the Danube Plains to the darkest forests of Transylvania, from the languid music of the Carpathian panpipes to the uplifting Parisian literary salons and the stages of La Scala, Covent Garden and the Metropolitan operas, or the prestigious Comédie Française and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Further afield some of these intrepid amazons reached the distant shores of the river de la Plata, or, in the 19th century discovered the sources of the White Nile.
Yet, if such momentous revelations were not surprising enough, ‘Blouse Roumaine’ would also evoke associations with scores of famous glitterati and politicians of European and American dimension… For these women of the Orient Express disembarking in Milan, Paris, London, New York or Buenos Aires, women who inspired poets and composers, who created new opera roles, these muses enthralled political eagles and aristocrats alike, caused crown heads to dream and lesser mortals to lose their heads.

Some of these women made their lovers’ suicide respectable, before they retired to the seclusion of their convent to pray for the salvation of their soul, where some of them were suspected of trying to seduce God!… Through these enchantresses come to life a choice array of foreign suitors, lovers, admirers, patrons and sometimes husbands: Lord Carnaervon, the Earl of Asquith, Lord Thomson of Cardington, Satcheverell Sittwell, Noel Coward, David Farrar, Paul Morand, Marcel Proust, Pierre Lotti, Anatole France, Puvis de Chavannes, Vincent Van Gogh, Mark Twain, Verdi, Puccini, Richard Strauss, Eric Satie and more recently Humphrey Bogart, Lord Lloyd Webber, Roberto Alagna, Michel Foucault or Jacques Lacan, to name just a few.

Princess Georges Ghika, aka Liane de Pougy

But looking at this rich social tapestry, this folk embroidery of multicoloured and infinite stitches, one is equally absorbed by the darker side of the 20th century history of women who died in prison for their political beliefs, of Passionarias       who, after the Second World War, took the armed struggle to the Carpathian mountains, women of the maquis, or simply the faceless yet equally important unknown illustrious peasant women, or middle class housewives who steeled their obstinate resolve and silent resistance against the levelling steamroller of dictatorship. 

Constantin ROMAN evokes these heroines with a melancholy acknowledgment of the brutal destruction of a society and culture. This Romanian society was alive and well and it was so aptly described before WWII by Paul Morand and Marcel Proust, by Marie of Edinburgh and Patrick Leigh Fermor, by Satcheverell Sittwell, Elizabeth and Margot Asquith, by Vineretta Singer de Polignac and Violet Trefussis, Olivia Manning, Panait Istrati or Gregor von Rezzori, Colette or Virginia Ocampo, by the Princess Hélène Chrissoveloni Soutso, Princess Marthe Bibesco,     or Countess Anna de Noailles.
This was the ‘faraway country’ which inspired Dorothy Parker’s classic verse:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.

For some of these women also represent the extravagant if exotic Romanian society evoked in the correspondence of Queen Victoria, Napoleon III, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Don Pedro of Portugal or Ramsey MacDonald, Winston Churchill, Roosevelt, and de Gaulle. In the process we also admire portraits left to posterity by artists of   world repute such as Rodin, Zuloaga, Whistler, Singer Sargent, de Laszlo, Vuillard, Paul César Helleu, Edmond Lapeyre, Puvis de Chavannes. Many other portraits are also immortalised by the London society photographers Walter Barnett, Van Dyke, Lafayette or Russell Westwood, or brought to life by film directors such as Federico Fellini of ‘La Dolce Vita’ fame, or more recently by opera stage directors such as Francesca Zamballo, David Pountney and even and quite oddly by a young student of Edinburgh University by the name of Gordon Brown, Britain’s future Prime Minister…

Princess Antoine Bibescu by Augustus John (1919)

There is never a dull moment in this gallery of royals and aristocrats but also of ordinary but exuberant women of talent, who fascinated the British society to the point of venting
its wit in the now classic limerick about King Carol II’s mistress, a diabolically seductive and unrepentant divorcee, who kept the English gossip columnists busy for many long years:

Have you heard of Madame Lupescu
Who came to Romania’s rescue?
It’s a wonderful thing
To be under a King:
Is democracy better I ask you?

At the other end of this social spectrum we discover women inspired by loftier ideals: enrolling as fighter pilots during WWII, or breaking world records at parachute jumping, pioneer solo pilots across the Mediterranean, or international sports champions, opera divas, suffragettes shaking the Parisian bastions of male power in the legal profession, in architecture or international diplomacy… women with guts who inspired so many.

These colourful strong-headed and often beautiful ladies, whether of the exile or home-grown variety had all, without exception, an amazing story to tell and often a memorable quote to impart. For Blouse Roumaine is not only a celebration, it is also a memorial to the past, as the stories unfold before our eyes not just as pickings for the literary gourmet and delicacies for the academic palate, but also as an Orthodox liturgy, a Romanian Epiphany which brings alive in our mind a nearly-forgotten but fascinating history with unexpected DNA links to the Western European psyche.

The lyrical, witty, and often satirical and uncompromisingly critical narrative of the ‘Blouse Roumaine’ may appear to some readers if not controversial at least thought-provoking, as it offers forays into some of the recesses of time prior to WWII, reflecting a somewhat politically schizophrenic world of contrasts. To complement this period the reader is offered also a close look into the emotional times of modern communist Nemesis. This is the darker world of the vengeful and remorseless Ana Pauker, Elena Ceausescu and their fawning Court poets which explains the legacy of their system in the post-modern Romania.
The synthesis of such bipolar images conjured in the Blouse Roumaine remains a memorable witness to:

‘the joy and pain and privilege of a writer to save the memories and thereby the physical beauty of past glories, a task which he sets about to carry out supremely well and with an immense joie de vivre’.

. – o O o – .

‘Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women’ preceded by a historical, social and cultural overview contains 1,100 pages, 160 critical biographies, 600 quotations, six indexes and 4,000 selected credits and references.

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The Author:

the Author: Constantin ROMAN

Constantin ROMAN was a Scholar of Peterhouse, the oldest Cambridge College, founded in 1284. He took his PhD in Geophysics at a time evoked in his Memoir published by the Institute of Physics Publishers (Bristol and Philadelphia, http://www.constantinroman.com/continentaldrift/

ROMAN is a Professor Honoris Causa and a Commander of the Order of Merit. He lives in London, where he is a Member of the Society of Authors, an independent consultant and a contributor to British media.

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