"Margaret Thatcher - the Path to Power" (Harper Collins, London 1995, ISBN 000 255806 8, 656 pages)

Interesting insight on her visit to Ceausescu in the mid 1970s: “Margaret Thatcher – the Path to Power” (Harper Collins, London 1995, ISBN 000 255806 8, 656 pages)

pp. 354:

“Ceausescu was playing a ruthless game in which ethnic tensions (with Hungary), East-West competition (between NATO and the Warsaw Pact) and rivalry within the communist world (between Soviet Union and China) were exploited as seemed appropriate at any juncture. (…) Although he became ffective leader in 1865, it was not until 1974 that he united the functions of Party Leader and Head of State and Government. From now on he was freer to indulge his political fantasies. For what we Westerners did not sufficiently grasp was that Ceausescu was a thrawback both to Stalinism whose methods he employed and indeed to a more traditional Balkan despotism for which the promotion of his family and flouting of wealth and power were essential trappings. Ceausescu himself never struck me as anything out of ordinary, just cold, rather dull, spewing forth streams of statistics and possessing that stilted formal courtesy that communists adopted as a substitute for genuine civilization.

Ceausescu and Nixon

We discussed the Soviet threat and he gave me a long account, faithfully mirrored later by guides, diplomats and factory managers of the astonishing successes of Romanian economy. He was particularly proud of the level of investment which, as a share of the national economy certainly dwarfed that of the Western countries. In fact, of course, misdirected investment is a classic feature of the planned economy; it was just that Romania whose people apart from its ruling elite its lived in poverty, misdirected more than other.”

pp. 355:

Elena Ceaausescu – from polymers to polygons:

Elena Ceausescu: she began to indulge in a personal fantasy world which matched her husband's absurdity.

I was also shown around a scientific institute specializing in polymer research. My guide was none other than Elena Ceausescu who had already began to induulge a personal fantasy world which matched her husband’ absurdity, if not in human consequences, she was determined to win a Nobel Prize in chemistry for work on polymers. it subsequently emerged that she could barely have distinguished a polymer from a polygon. But behind the defences of translation and communist long-windedness she put up quite a good show.

NOTE: For more information on the above visit and its bearing on human rights in Romania read:

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

“Blouse Roumaine  – Antologie de Femei Exceptionale” – Recenzie

Selectectata, prezentata si editata  de Constantin Roman,

Cu o Prefata de Catherine Durandin (Profesor la INALCO, Paris)

(Traducere din limba engleza, 1.100 pagini, 160 biografii critice, 600 citate, 4.000 referinte bibliografice, 6 indexuri)

Santiago de Mora-Figueroa y Williams, marchiz de Tamarón,  un aristocrat spaniol de vita veche,  European anglofil  rafinat  si pana nu de mult ambasadorul Spaniei la Londra, a comparat candva continutul unei antologii cu o capodopera culinara:

O antologie perfecta, aidoma unei capodopere perfecte, trebuie sa ne transforme pofta in pasiune, pentru simplul motiv ca acest ansamblu de hors d’oeuvres reprezinta in cele din urma nu numai un meniu bine echilibrat si gustos, dar  tot odata el trebuie sa fie atat de rafinat incat sa ne indemne sa gustam tot mai mult. La fel si o antologie trebuie sa ne prezinte cu niste  delicatese despre care sa nu mai fi auzit vre-o data nici un gurmand al literaturii.

Henri Matisse: "Blouse Roumaine" (1940)

Analizand cu mai multa atentie analogia marchizului de Tamarón, putem afirma ca ea, de fapt, reprezinta insasi filozofia antologiei “Blouse Roumaine”. Totusi, gandindu-ne retrospectiv la aceasta galerie a femeilor din Romania ne dam seama ca ea a fost initial conceputa dupa modelul unei ii romanesti, asa cum a fost ea pictata de marele Henri Matisse, in celebrul sau tablou intitulat “Blouse Roumaine”. Realizat in 1940, in plin razboi, cand Franta era ocupata de Hitler, Matisse si-a gasit refugiul in crearea a ceeace a devenit insusi simbolul femeilor romane. Tabloul se afla acum in colectia Muzeului de Arta Moderna de la Paris.  Aluzia noastra la pictura lui Matisse este facuta tocmai pentru ca aceasta  “Antologie a femeilor Exceptionale” din Romania se poate compara cu o broderie de borangic pe o ie populara romaneasca, asa cum publicul a putut, nu de mult, sa admire in expozitia retrospectiva de la Royal Academy

Catalogul retrospecivei dela Royal Academy, Londra, 2005, unde este prezentata colectia de ii romanesti oferita de Theodor Pallady prietenului sau Matisse.

(Matisse his art and his Textiles – the Fabric of Dreams, London, 2005) si in acelasi an la Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, unde a fost prezentata colectia de textile ale pictorului francez. Printre acestea o buna parte dintre exponate au fost iile romanesti primite cadou de Matisse de la prietenul sau Theodor Pallady si care l-au inspirat pe marele Maestru francez in seria de compozitii cu aceeasi tema – ia Romaneasca, adica acea  “ Blouse Roumaine”. Pentru cititorii care nu au vazut retrospectiva, analogia titlului cartii noastre poate fi comparata cu o galerie de miniaturi de portrete dintr-un muzeu de arta: aceste portrete de femei aparand ca niste astri care stralucesc in galaxii occidentale sau nebuloase orientale, o constelatie cuprinzand o suta saizeci de stele.

Realizarea manuscrisului a implicat o adevarata asceza,  dar si o curba de initiere, printr-o munca de daruire si dedicatie pe o perioada de un deceniu intreg.  Pe undeva, poate ca  gestatia cartii care a dat nastere unei opere asa cum a fost ea descrisa de Marchizul de Tamaron:

un meniu de gustari delicioase si deosebite, prezentate atragator, dar stimuland concomitent  imaginatia dar si  papilele gustative.

Ultima vizita a lui Pallady facuta lui Matisse la Nisa, putin inainte de al Doilea Razboi Mondial: cei doi erau prieteni inca din studentia lor dela Paris. Colectia de ii Romanesti care i-au inspirat "Visul" lui Matisse a fost un dar facut de Pallady.

Pentru ca o asemenea selectie nu numai ca ofera o hrana cerebrala si sufleteasca, dar si o hrana care sa satisfaca apetitul academic, impingand limitele  gustului dincolo de retetele obisnuite ale istoriei, politicii, literaturii, muzicii. cinematografiei, dramaturgiei, feminismului sau poate ale stiintei – pentru ca “Blouse Roumaine” este de fapt o carte transdisciplinara.

Acest ansamblu de eseuri impresioniste, subiective si  esoterice este precedat de un capitol introductiv care face o prezentare generala a societatii romanesti din punct de vedere istoric, cultural, social si politic. De fapt, fundalul  frescei sociale da tonul intregului narativ prezentat sub un unghi European, permitand cititorului sa evalueze Romania nu doar sub un unghi exotic si izolat national, dar mai de graba sub o perspectiva mult mai larga, al unui concert de natiuni, inlesnind o perceptie incadrata in coordonatele unui teritoriu familiar cititorului strain. Prin acest rationament autorul a facut incursiuni esentiale in tari ca Franta, Spania, Italia, Germania sau Anglia, tari care timp de doua secole au reprezentat acel “play ground” al aristocratiei si intelectualitatii romanesti, familii ca Bibescu, Sutu, Ghica, Brancoveanu, Cantacuzino, Rosetti, Golescu, Alecsandri si mai apoi ai a unor exilati si destarati de conditii diferite – artisti si scriitori ca: Brancusi, Eugen Ionescu, Emil Cioran, Vintila Horia, Mircea Eliade, George Enescu, Dinu Lipatti, Clara Haskil, Nadia Gray, Elvira Popesc, sau Elena Vacarescu.

Nu intamplator antologia este complectata cu un corp important de circa 600 de citate, in majoritate traduse in engleza pentru prima oara, pornind de la o baza bibliografica de circa 4.000 de titluri din Romana, Franceza, Spaniola, Italiana, Portugheza, Germana, precum si unele direct din originalul Englez. Aceste sute de citate confera narativului o eruditie speciala, indemnand cititorul sa intreprinda o misiune de explorare uimitoare si exaustiva al unui teritoriu putin cunoscut. Demersul prin care autorul mentine angajat cititorul deschide  o poteca noua intr-un teritoriu virgin, dar care ofera, la fiecare pas, o perspectiva de nestavilita desfatare.

Alina Cojocaru, prima balerina a Operei Covent Garden

Pe masura ce intoarcem paginile acestei carti, descoperim o cavalcada exotica de femei, care reflecta culoarea, parfumul si vocile unor timpuri trecute, dar si ale unor vremuri care ne aduc in cotidianul actual: culori din campurile de floarea soarelui din Lunca Dunarii pana la verdele inchis al acelui “codru des” omnipresent in spiritul romanesc, acel “codru frate cu Romanul” evocat de Eminescu, iar dupa ocupatia armatelor sovietice, codrul Muntilor Carpati unde s-a refugiat si a luptat rezistenta anticomunista ai anilor ’50 si ’60.  Iarasi alte evocari ne aduc aproape de sunetul buciumului  Muntilor Apuseni pana la muzica clasica a saloanelor pariziene, dela vocile cercurilor literare, pana la cele ale celebrelor scene dela Scala, Covent Garden, Opera Metropolitana din New York, sau ale prestigioaselor Comédie Française, Teatro Real de Madrid, sau Royal Shakespeare Company. In secolele trecute, cateva dintre aceste femei, aflate mereu in cautarea unui nou ideal, sau refugiu, au ajuns uneori pe meleaguri indepartate, pe malurile fluviului La Plata, sau in cautarea izvoarelor Nilului.

Dar dincolo de acele revelatii neasteptate, ‘Blouse Roumaine’ implica  legaturi cu figurile unor oameni de cultura si politica de dimensiune internationala, in special cea Europeana si Americana. Aceste convergente si complicitati sunt posibile pentru ca romancele noastre, debarcand la Milono, Paris, Madrid, Londra, New York, Montevideo  sau Buenos Aires au inspirat poeti si compozitori, au creeat noi roluri pe scena operei si teatrului si au tinut saloane literare. Aceste muze au captivat si cucerit mari oameni politici si aristocrati, facand capetele incoronate sa viseze si sa spere, iar muritorii de rand sa isi piarda complect capul. Unele dintre ele  au reusit sa confere chiar o respectabilitate actului de sinucidere al amantilor lor, inainte de a se lepada de rochile de bal in favoarea vestimtelor manastiresti pentru iertarea pacatelor lumesti. Si totusi, in ciuda unor asemenea optiuni, sau precautii,  unele dintre cuvioasele maici au fost suspectate de a fi intreprins o ultima cucerire – aceea de a-l seduce chiar pe Dumnezeu!

Anne de Pougy nascuta Anne Marie de Chassagne, inainte de a deveni printesa Ghika: dupa o viata mondena care a captivat atentia societatii franceze in perioada Belle Epoque si-a sfarsit viata la o manastire: "Parinte, a marturist printesa duhovnicului ei, in afara de omor si de furt am comis toate pacatele"

In umbra acestor incantatoare si redutabile amazoane deslusim o armata intreaga de curtezani, amanti, admiratori, sponsori si uneori soti: regele George V al Marii Britanii, regele Alfonso XIII al Spaniei, regele Carlos I al Portugaliei, Prinnti Mostenitori ai Romaniei, contele Carnarvon, contele Asquith, contele Mathieu de Noailles, lordul Thomson of Cardington, Sacheverell Sitwell, 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, iar mai recent Humphrey Bogart, Lord Lloyd Webber, Roberto Alagna, Michel Foucault sau Jacques Lacan.

Dar contempland aceasta  tapiserie, aceasta ie taraneasca cu bogate cusaturi policrome, nu putem sa nu descoperim si un aspect mai sumbru al secolului XX: ecestea sunt femeile care au pierit in inchisori pentru convingerile lor politice, acele ‘passionarii” romance, care la sfarsitul celui de al doilea razboi mondial  s-au refugiat in munti impreuna cu sotii si fratii lor, organizand acel ‘maquis’ anticomunist, sau pur si simplu milioanele de  femei  ‘ilustre necunoscute’, simple taranci sau femei casnice de la oras, care au scrasnit din dinti, opunandu-se in mod tacut, dar cu incapatanare  tavalugului dictaturii.

Constantin ROMAN evoca aceste eroine printr-o recunoastere plina de tristete a distrugerii brutale,   sub communism, a culturii si societatii romanesti – o societate care inainte de razboi era plina de un dinamism descris in cartile unor autori ca: Paul Morand si Marcel Proust, Marie de Edinburgh si Patrick Leigh Fermor, Sacheverell Sitwell, Elizabeth si Margot Asquith, de  Violet Trefusis si Olivia Manning, Panait Istrati sau Gregor von Rezzori, Colette, sau Virginia Ocampo, de catre Printesa Hélène Chrissoveloni Soutso, Printesa Marthe Bibesco, sau contesa Anna de Noailles.

Aceasta era tara misterioasa de pe  “meleaguri indepartate” care a inspirat celebrele versuri ale Dorotheei Parker:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, /A medley of extemporanea /

Regina Maria a Romaniei in port national

And love is a thing that can never go wrong / And I am Marie of Romania

Ceea ce intr-o traducere romaneasca libera ar fi:

Viata-i un ciclu de cantec al firii /  Un potpuriu de imprevizibil /

Dand gres Iubirii e imposibil / Pentru Maria a Romaniei

Unele dintre aceste femei evocate in Antologie reprezinta o societate romaneasca considerata ‘exotica’, sau ‘insolita’, societate care face obiectul corepondentei Reginei Victoria, a lui Napoleon III, sau ai primilor Mnistri Britanici Ramsey MacDonald si Winston Churchill, ai Presedintilor Roosevelt si de Gaulle. In paralel o sinergie diferita s-a materializat  printr-o serie intreaga de portrete de romance realizate de artisti straini de reputatie mondiala ca de pilda: Rodin, Ignacio Zuloaga, Whistler, Singer Sargent, de Laszlo, Vuillard, Paul César Helleu, Edmond Lapeyre, Puvis de Chavannes, s.a. Alte portrete s-au imortalizat de catre fotografi ai inaltei societati Londoneze precum: Walter Barnett, Alexander Bassano, Van Dyke, Lafayette sau Russell Westwood, sau au fost prezentate in filmele unor regizori precum Federico Fellini in ‘La Dolce Vita’ si mai recent de scenografii de opera Francesca Zamballo, si David Pountney.

Ignatio Zuloaga: portretul contesei Mathieu de Noailles, nascuta Printesa Brancoveanu (Muzeul de Arta , Bilbao)

De fapt parcurgand ‘Blouse Roumaine’  nu putem trai nici cel mai marunt moment de plictis, privind aceasta galerie de regine si femei aristocrate , dar si de femei din toate clasele sociale, femei pline de exuberanta, talent si imaginatie, care au fascinat in permanenta societatea britanica in perioada interbelica:  un exemplu tipic era  amanta regelui Carol II-lea, diabolic-de-seducatoare si  mondena (si divortata de doua  ori), Magda Lupescu, cea care i-a tinut ocupati timp de cateva decenii pe gazetarii  ziarelor de scandal, inspirand cupletul de mai jos:

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?

iar in traducere libera in romaneste:

Lupescu e-adevarat

Romania a salvat:

Ca sa stai sub un rege

E sublim, se-ntelege:

Nu-i democratia-usor de suportat?

La celalalt capat al spectrului descoperim femei inspirate de idealuri mai inalte; femei care si-au ales cariera de piloti de razboi, care au castigat medalii internationale de parasutism, care au realizat performante istorice de zbor fara co-echipier, trecand pentru prima oara Marea Mediterana, singure la mansa, sau devenind campioane mondiale  de atlentism, dar si devenind sufragete  zgaltaind din temelii redutele monopolului masculin in profesii ca diplomatia internationala, arhitectura, sau dreptul – femei dotate cu autentice “cojones”, care au inspirat mase de femei sa le urmeze exemplul.

Pentru ca aceste fiinte pline de viata, femei tenace dar si frumoase, fie ele ca ar fi luat drumul exilului sau ca ar fi optat sa ramana in tara, sub dictatura, au avut fiecare  in parte de istorisit  o poveste extraordinara sau poate cel putin au putut sa ne ofere un crampei de citat memorabil. Pentru ca “Blouse Roumaine” nu reprezinta doar o ‘Corala al Romaniei’ dar si un ‘Memorial al Durerii’, fiindca firul vietii acestor romance, mame, sotii, surori, reprezinta chiar acea pelicula de film care se desfasoara in fata ochilor nostri si care nu se poate rezuma doar la simple bucate pentru gustul initiatilor  academici: aceste vieti sunt de fapt o liturghie ortodoxa, o epifanie romaneasca care, prin ochii mintii, readuc la viata, o realitate fascinanta, dar estompata de sita vremii sau de amnezia preprogramata impusa de vremelnici guvernanti, o realitate care are catene organice nebanuite in subconstientul European.

Acest narativ al ‘iei romanesti’, prin continut lui  liric, dar si spiritual, cu accente satirice, fara compromisuri, poate aparea unor cititori, pe undeva, daca  nu polemic, cel putin sfidator, prin acele incursiuni in meandrele  istoriei recente, care  reflecta o realitate politica schizofrenica, a unei lumi plina de contraste si contradictii, pentru ca, in complectarea acestei perioade istorice, cititorului i se ofera o retrospectiva a unei epoci mai emotive a Golgotei ispasite sub comunism de o natiune intreaga: mai precis de eopca intunecata si necrutatoare a Anei Pauker si a Elenei Ceausescu, dar si al poetilor de Curte si ai unor pitici morali si saltimbanci, umbre din trecutul apropiat care explica mostenirea sistemului communist in Romania post-moderna.

Considerand toate aspectele mentionate mai sus, putem conchide, revenind tot la marchizul de Tamarón, ca  sinteza de imagini bipolare dar conjugate in paginile antologiei  “Blouse Roumaine” reprezinta o marturie cu totul aparte, marturia:

“unei bucurii, a unei dureri si al unui privilegiu  in a pastra memoria si prin acest act de pietate in a prezenta frumusetea fizica al unor glorii trecute, un obiectiv pe care autorul si l-a asumat  cu un brio si cu o  ‘joie de vivre’ inegalabile”.

“Blouse Roumaine  – Antologie de Femei  Exceptionale”

Selectectie, prezentare si editare  de Constantin Roman,

Cu o Prefata de Catherine Durandin (Profesor la INALCO, Paris)

(Text in limba engleza, 1.100 pagini, 160 biografii critice, 600 citate, 4.000 referinte bibliografice, 6 indexuri)

Constantin ROMAN, PhD (Cambridge), Professor Honoris Causa, Commander of the Order of Merit,

Constantin ROMAN, scriitor Anglo-Roman resident la Londra, doctor al Universitatii din Cambridge, Profesor Honoris Causa al Universitatii din Bucuresti, Comandor al Ordinului pentru Merit (Roomania), este Geofizician Consilier International pe probleme de Energie si fost Consilier Personal al Profesorului Emil Constantinescu, Presedintele Romaniei (1996-2000).

Catherine DURANDIN autoarea Prefetei Antologiei este scriitoare, istorica, analista politica, autoarea  unor romane si carti de istorie despre Romania,  Profesoara la INALCO (Institut National de Langues et Civilisations Orientales) de la Paris .si consiliera a Guvernului Francez.

Comanda Antologia in limba Engleza:

http://www.blouseroumaine.com

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.

—————————————————————————————————————

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

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

Index:
Table of Contents.

Postface:
A Conspiracy of Silence.

“Voices & Shadows of the Carpathians”
……………………………………………………………………………………..
An Anthology of Romanian Thought -
selected and introduced by Constantin Roman

Postface: A Conspiracy of Silence.
……………………………

Paul Celan, born in Bucovina, died in Paris -"the best German poet since Rilke"

“Now, I am a person who likes simple words. It is true, I had realised before this journey that there was much evil and injustice in the world that I had now left, but I had believed I could shake the foundations if I called things by their proper name. I knew such an enterprise meant returning to absolute naiveté. This naiveté I considered as a primal vision purified of the slag of centuries of hoary lies about the world.”

Paul Celan (1920-1970)
( “Edgard Jene and The Dream About The Dream”)
(“Collected Prose”, Carcanet, 1986)

One day, during a regular trip to that learned Institution off London’s King’s Road, which remains “John Sandoe’s Book shop” I was asked by one of its luminaries a simple, if justifiable question:

Gregor von Rezzori, Romanian novelist of German expression, born in Bucovina

“Is Gregor von Rezzori Romanian?”

I knew that “Grisha” was born in Bucovina, sometime before the Great War, when that Romanian province belonged, for over a century, to the now defunct Habsburg Empire. The answer was not simple because the author wrote in German and now, I thought he lived as an exile in Germany, where I knew he was deemed to be one of the greatest contemporary German writers. However, such detail needed not become a signal factor in assigning the author’s appurtenance, as scores of Romanian writers, like Cioran and Ionesco, lived as exiles in France and wrote in French. I knew the problem to be more complicated as the vexed matter of change in frontiers of an author’s place of birth, especially in the troubled lands of Eastern Europe, would not satisfy an intelligent inquirer, even less so in “Sandoe’s Bookshop”. Moreover in provinces such as Bucovina, which lay at the frontiers of the Russian, Prussian, Austrian and Turkish Empires, there was, inevitably, a mosaic of ethnic groups – Romanians, Austrians, Ruthenians, Poles, Jews, Ukrainians all with their individuality, but also with their intercourse, which blurred, to a degree, the distinctions: I knew von Rezzori to speak all these languages, which destined him to become a citizen of the world, an “international”, like those prized sportsmen who today played rugger for the teams of other countries. I hesitated for a while and to gain time I ventured to make what I thought to be a safe statement:

“He lives in Germany!?”

“No, he died in Tuscany, two years ago. His Italian widow came here to see us, recently.”

This was not a game of one-upmanship – just a friendly “away from home” rehearsal of a kind that one often heard in the ethereal but homely surroundings of this learned shop, where the owners were blessed with an abstruse yet stimulating knowledge. I was not surprised that my friend knew more than I did about the subject, but I was still taken aback – this was not a confrontation, for I was a regular of his shop and it was not the style of this charming place. I pondered for a while longer whilst trawling from the recesses of my mind for any evidence that might emerge from the “Snows of Yesteryears”, some detail that I might cling to for an answer. Then I said, perhaps a little mischievously:

“Ah, you see? He may have written in German, but he must be Romanian, as his wet nurse was a Romanian peasant.”

By that I meant, inter allia, that Rezzori was nurtured, in his formative years, by the Romanian psyche, so to my mind we had a good claim to the idea of the writer’s Romanianness. Besides, such affinities were apparent from the author’s admissions in his autobiographies and novels.

It was a quiet afternoon, with one of those rare moments when there was no other client in the shop, as we were engaged in this thought-provoking repartee, so out came the next salvo:

“But, is Paul Celan Romanian?”

My general attitude is never one to hide my ignorance if I were not to know the answer, perhaps because, and rather immodestly, I dare say, I am rather proud of what I do know. This is true especially on a Culture such as that of Eastern Europe, which suffered so much confusion and misunderstandings and is unjustly so sketchily known in England. But you see? This was not true in John Sandoe’s! Here the situation was different and the balance of erudition fell in their favour, in a nice way. So I said demurely:

“No, never heard of Paul Celan – who is he?”

“He is a poet and he comes from Czernowitz’ , like von Rezzori,” I was informed without a blink.

“I must read him! You see, he must be one of those exiled poets. If I had not heard of him this is because, in Romania, we were never taught at school about any of our fellow countrymen, from the Diaspora, who made their name abroad. The Communist censorship controlled all information: it always made sure that such books, written by Romanians living in the West, not only could not be found in bookshops or in the school curricula, but not even their name could be mentioned in bibliographies. It was a complete embargo of ideas. It was death by silence, it was a conspiracy of silence.”

Gradually I warmed to the subject and poured:

Emil Cioran, French Philosopher, born in Transylvania: he helped fellow-exile Celan to find an academic post in Paris. The Communist conspiracy of silence made it a punishable offence to mention any of the Romanian exiles living in the West: Celan like von Rezzori, Ionesco, Cioran, or Eliade were hardly known in their own country- Romania!

“This ideological censorship perpetrated by the Communists would have put to shame even the Catholic Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Names such as those of Mircea Eliade, or Emil Cioran were whispered in a hushed voice, lest one would be overheard and thrown in prison for “seditious propaganda”. Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros” was staged in Poland, but not in Romania. Even the works of those Romanian scientists who chose freedom were banned from public libraries. Literature of any kind, even scientific literature, was regarded as belonging to an “ideological domain” It remained the preserve of the Communist Party, of the one-party system, which dictated what staple diet was good for internal consumption.

You see, I have been over here for many years and I still have a lot to catch up with – the “ABC” rudiments of my culture and I had not yet reached the letter “c” for Celan.”

I was neither defensive nor ashamed of myself: I was just angry at the injustice of that cultural genocide practised during forty years of Marxist régime in Romania. Curiously this practice had not completely disappeared since the so-called “Revolution”, which was the coup de palais of December 1989, which put down the tyrant and his wife!

Suddenly I remembered that innocuous event, which took place in Eastbourne, several years ago, when the local branch of the “English-speaking Union” had invited the Cultural Attaché of the Romanian Embassy in London to address an audience of retired Civil servants and decent country squires. His disquisition on “Romanian Culture” was supposed to be informative. After his uninspired, uninspiring rambles, redolent of the style of the defunct Communist Party rallies, the Attaché took questions from the floor:

Caragiale, a 19th c playwright, one of the handful of pre WWII writers approved by the Communist regime in Romania

“Would he care to name” – he was asked- “a Romanian author of international repute, that could be read in English?”

Quite a legitimate question, I would have thought.

“Well, you see? There is one,” he answered, after much thought –

“He is a 19th century playwright by the name of Ion Luca Caragiale. The
problem is that he is too subtle to do him justice in translation: he is, in
fact, untranslatable and it is a pity!”

“Quite!”

I was as startled as the rest of the audience was at this odd response. I knew of Caragiale since my school days in Bucharest, at the time of Stalin’s purges and of the national-communism of Gheorghiu-Dej. Caragiale was the darling of the régime because he lampooned the “decadence” of the Romanian upper and middle classes of modern Romania, at the end of the 19th century, when the country was a young kingdom. Caragiale was in prose for the Romanians what Gilbert and Sullivan was in rime and song for the British. He was one of the few classics of Romanian literature who could be “adopted” and “used” in his entirety by a Marxist régime, for its propaganda purposes. All other of Caragiale’s contemporaries were either conveniently forgotten, or selectively censored to be repackaged as “progressive writers”:

“True they were capitalists, but they were progressive for their time”, this would be the excuse. We knew there were, of course other “progressive writers” who professed a more balanced view of society. But because their style was more nuanced, not sufficiently critical of the former pre-Communist régime, they did not mesh with the Communist Government propaganda and they did not make it to the book stores and schools. Such books were under lock and key in the dungeons of public libraries, under the label of “fondul special” (the “special fund”), which was open only under the strictest criteria to a handful of approved “researchers” , regarded by the régime as “reliable” enough to sing the praise of the one-party system. 19th century playwright by the name of Ion Luca Caragiale. The problem is that he is too subtle to do him justice in translation: he is, in fact, untranslatable and it is a pity!”

Great as he may have been, as a teenager, I soon got sick of this staple diet of Caragiale, marketed as the “unique genius” that Romania had ever produced! I wanted to find out more about the “other” Romanian writers like Ionesco, and Eliade who were published abroad and smuggled into the country at great risk. Now, some 30 years on, I was jerked into reality, as the name Caragiale popped up again in the words of this comrade from the Embassy. Thank God that this happened only in the back water of Eastbourne and that the audience was insignificant, otherwise the word might have spread like a foot and mouth virus to cause irreversible damage.

As it happened, it only reinforced the prejudice, albeit within a small group of English people, that Romania’s contribution, beyond Dracula and the orphanages was indeed insignificant. Witnessing this performance it was no longer surprising to come across such ill-conceived prejudices as that of Julian Barnes’s (“One of a Kind”) suggestion that all that Romania could produce was a single genius in any one field – Brancusi in Sculpture, Ionesco in Drama, Nastase in Tennis, Hadji in Football, Ceausescu in dictators… Quite a neat seditious little theory, enough to make the blood of any Romanian curdle! And yet, we Romanians we were our own worst enemies, at least if one were to judge our record by the performance of this official emissary.

For me what I heard from the lips of this “nouveau communist” was untrue and outright farcical. I wanted to shout to the audience the long array of Romanian poets and novelists who lived in the West and did write in other languages or were translated in German, English, Spanish or French. There were scores of them, some being lionised in Paris, given literary accolades and much coveted Literary Prizes, others compared to the great and the good of International Pantheon of literature:

“the Gorky of the Balkans” ,

“the best German poet since Rilke” ,

” the most elegant 20th Century French writer in the tradition of Baudelaire and Valéry”…

Since I chose Britain as my adoptive country, especially in my innocent days of scholarship at Newcastle and later on at Cambridge I was brutally aware of the ignorance of Romanian values in the West. After all why should it matter? We were only a small country on the map of world culture and for that reason we experienced the same complex as the other small European nations – Portugal, Belgium or Finland.
In my early years of exile, fired by a youthful naiveté, steeled by an tinge of arrogance, I was convinced that I could repair such injustice, that I could change the world and become an unofficial “Open University” of Romania – I felt I had a “Messianic” message to impart to the rest of the world and set up urgently to the task of writing articles, translating Romanian poetry in English, even organising exhibitions and festivals, to put the record straight. My research at Cambridge focused on the Carpathian earthquakes and made the subject of an article in ‘Nature’ or the “Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society”. I was busy publishing Romanian poems in “Encounter”. In the “Cambridge Review” I debated the “Romanian myth in the sculpture of Brancusi”. I cajoled George Steiner in chairing an evening of Romanian poetry at Churchill College. I played panpipe music, the Romanian shepherd’s lament, in the Chapel of Peterhouse. I trotted about the country addressing the WI in obscure provincial towns.
Other Romanian writers were pioneers of a new style: the Dada, the Lettrism, the Theatre of the Absurd… These exiles were part of the literary aristocracy of Paris, whose salons were frequented by Proust, Valéry, Apolinaire or Colette– all those enchantresses, who delighted, for decades, the refined Parisian society, the conductrix of good taste – Countess Anna de Noailles, née Princess Brancovan, Princess Marthe Bibesco, Hélène Vacaresco. All these were aristocrats by vocation and by blood – This is what our Romanian aparatchik did not want to spell out and was trying instead to cover up. Besides, for the Communists, these writers who chose Western Europe as their haven –still represented the embarrassment of a deep chasm between “them and us” – The “errand children” of Romania were not yet ready to be accepted to the bosom of their country of origin, even after Ceausescu was put down. The Romanian Diaspora was still on trial. We still had a long tortuous road ahead of us, for our minds to meet. It was not going to be easy bridging this spiritual gulf between the uprooted and the deep rooted, between the dispossessed and the repossessed, or, shall I say, the possessed of insidious propaganda – the brainwashed, the complacent and the political opportunists.

I never got tired of my “missionary” initiative, but I soon realised that the echoes were meagre compared to the effort that I put in this pathos. Soon after, like every other graduate, I was absorbed in my profession, in the less glamorous field of geophysics, or as the French had it encapsulated so well, I had to “waste my life by earning it”. Still, my initiation in the contribution which the exiled Romanians had made, grew ever more with every book or work of art I had acquired during this trail of exploration.

So, many years later, when listening to that Romanian Cultural Attaché addressing his unsuspecting audience in Eastbourne, I was shocked by the malevolent manner in which he dispatched his subject. In spite of this reaction I decided giving up my vocation of a “good soldier Schweick” and say nothing, not to muddy the waters of an otherwise sunny afternoon of the English Riviera. I was content to label this sorry diplomat a “rhinoceros”, a “relic” of our troubled past. Still I was surprised to hear , later on, that he was promoted to become an Ambassador in a Western democracy:

“Good work Comrade! Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose!” whispered in my ear my cynical “other self”.

I thought:

“His dutiful, zealous iconoclasm, his personal cultural revolution, his damage to Romania’s cultural heritage were all adequately recompensed by his masters, both overt and covert: Ceausescu’s shadow was cast large, well after his demise, it was functioning very well, according to the same tenets of “cultural demonology.”

The age of wisdom, but perhaps not the wisdom of the age, made me, at long last, discover the bliss of being reconciled with inequities that one cannot change. But was I?

Many more years after the Eastbourne episode, as I returned from John Sandoe’s bookshop in Chelsea, I was in reflective mood:

“How come that I did not know about Paul Celan, after all these years? It was no longer the Communists fault, it was MY fault.”

I trawled the internet, I scurried the bookshops. Even Waterstones had two books by Celan: I was surprised by my find.

Still, John Sandoe had quite a different dimension:

“I must put the record straight!”

I fell again in the same old trap in which I fell before so often, a trap which I promised to avoid: that is the hole in which all Romanians find themselves when they live in the West, a hole from the depths of which they cry:

“Look at us, we are famous, but nobody really knows about it! If they do they think that we are foreign!”

As they do go about explaining their seminal contribution, their splendid but ignored contribution, Romanians are experiencing that schizophrenic sentiment –an inferiority complex overprinted by an indelible conviction of belonging to an illusory important nation.

By assembling this compilation of thoughts and shadows from the Carpathian space, I hope that I could make peace, at least to a modest degree, with this dichotomy which confronts the Diaspora.

NOTE:

For more information on:

“Voices and Shadows of the Carpathians” see -

http://www.constantinroman.com/carpathians/

Postface:
A Conspiracy of Silence.

“Now, I am a person who likes simple words. It is true, I had realised before this journey that there was much evil and injustice in the world that I had now left, but I had believed I could shake the foundations if I called things by their proper name. I knew such an enterprise meant returning to absolute naiveté. This naiveté I considered as a primal vision purified of the slag of centuries of hoary lies about the world. “

Paul Celan (1920-1970)
( “Edgard Jene and The Dream About The Dream”)
(“Collected Prose”, Carcanet, 1986)

One day, during a regular trip to that learned Institution off London’s King’s Road, which remains “John Sandoe’s Book shop” I was asked by one of its luminaries a simple, if justifiable question:

“Is Gregor von Rezzori Romanian?”

I knew that “Grisha” was born in Bucovina, sometime before the Great War, when that Romanian province belonged, for over a century, to the now defunct Habsburg Empire. The answer was not simple because the author wrote in German and now, I thought he lived as an exile in Germany, where I knew he was deemed to be one of the greatest contemporary German writers. However, such detail needed not become a signal factor in assigning the author’s appurtenance, as scores of Romanian writers, like Cioran and Ionesco, lived as exiles in France and wrote in French. I knew the problem to be more complicated as the vexed matter of change in frontiers of an author’s place of birth, especially in the troubled lands of Eastern Europe, would not satisfy an intelligent inquirer, even less so in “Sandoe’s Bookshop”. Moreover in provinces such as Bucovina, which lay at the frontiers of the Russian, Prussian, Austrian and Turkish Empires, there was, inevitably, a mosaic of ethnic groups – Romanians, Austrians, Ruthenians, Poles, Jews, Ukrainians all with their individuality, but also with their intercourse, which blurred, to a degree, the distinctions: I knew von Rezzori to speak all these languages, which destined him to become a citizen of the world, an “international”, like those prized sportsmen who today played rugger for the teams of other countries. I hesitated for a while and to gain time I ventured to make what I thought to be a safe statement:

“He lives in Germany!?”

“No, he died in Tuscany, two years ago. His Italian widow came here to see us, recently.”

This was not a game of one-upmanship – just a friendly “away from home” rehearsal of a kind that one often heard in the ethereal but homely surroundings of this learned shop, where the owners were blessed with an abstruse yet stimulating knowledge. I was not surprised that my friend knew more than I did about the subject, but I was still taken aback – this was not a confrontation, for I was a regular of his shop and it was not the style of this charming place. I pondered for a while longer whilst trawling from the recesses of my mind for any evidence that might emerge from the “Snows of Yesteryears”, some detail that I might cling to for an answer. Then I said, perhaps a little mischievously:

“Ah, you see? He may have written in German, but he must be Romanian, as his wet nurse was a Romanian peasant.” By that I meant, inter allia, that Rezzori was nurtured, in his formative years, by the Romanian psyche, so to my mind we had a good claim to the idea of the writer’s Romanianness. Besides, such affinities were apparent from the author’s admissions in his autobiographies and novels.

It was a quiet afternoon, with one of those rare moments when there was no other client in the shop, as we were engaged in this thought-provoking repartee, so out came the next salvo:

“But, is Paul Celan Romanian?”

My general attitude is never one to hide my ignorance if I were not to know the answer, perhaps because, and rather immodestly, I dare say, I am rather proud of what I do know. This is true especially on a Culture such as that of Eastern Europe, which suffered so much confusion and misunderstandings and is unjustly so sketchily known in England. But you see? This was not true in John Sandoe’s! Here the situation was different and the balance of erudition fell in their favour, in a nice way. So I said demurely:

“No, never heard of Paul Celan – who is he?”

“He is a poet and he comes from Czernowitz’ , like von Rezzori,” I was informed without a blink.

“I must read him! You see, he must be one of those exiled poets. If I had not heard of him this is because, in Romania, we were never taught at school about any of our fellow countrymen, from the Diaspora, who made their name abroad. The Communist censorship controlled all information: it always made sure that such books, written by Romanians living in the West, not only could not be found in bookshops or in the school curricula, but not even their name could be mentioned in bibliographies. It was a complete embargo of ideas. It was death by silence, it was a conspiracy of silence.”

Gradually I warmed to the subject and poured:

“This ideological censorship perpetrated by the Communists would have put to shame even the Catholic Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Names such as those of Mircea Eliade, or Emil Cioran were whispered in a hushed voice, lest one would be overheard and thrown in prison for “seditious propaganda”. Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros” was staged in Poland, but not in Romania. Even the works of those Romanian scientists who chose freedom were banned from public libraries. Literature of any kind, even scientific literature, was regarded as belonging to an “ideological domain” It remained the preserve of the Communist Party, of the one-party system, which dictated what staple diet was good for internal consumption.

You see, I have been over here for many years and I still have a lot to catch up with – the “ABC” rudiments of my culture and I had not yet reached the letter “C” for Celan.”

I was neither defensive nor ashamed of myself: I was just angry at the injustice of that cultural genocide practised during forty years of Marxist régime in Romania. Curiously this practice had not completely disappeared since the so-called “Revolution”, which was the coup de palais of December 1989, which put down the tyrant and his wife!

Suddenly I remembered that innocuous event, which took place in Eastbourne, several years ago, when the local branch of the “English-speaking Union” had invited the Cultural Attaché of the Romanian Embassy in London to address an audience of retired Civil servants and decent country squires. His disquisition on “Romanian Culture” was supposed to be informative. After his uninspired, uninspiring rambles, redolent of the style of the defunct Communist Party rallies, the Attaché took questions from the floor:

“Would he care to name” – he was asked- “a Romanian author of international repute, that could be read in English?” Quite a legitimate question, I would have thought.

“Well, you see? There is one,” he answered, after much thought –

“He is a 19th century playwright by the name of Ion Luca Caragiale. The problem is that he is too subtle to do him justice in translation: he is, in fact, untranslatable and it is a pity!”

“Quite!”

I was as startled as the rest of the audience was at this odd response. I knew of Caragiale since my school days in Bucharest, at the time of Stalin’s purges and of the national-communism of Gheorghiu-Dej. Caragiale was the darling of the régime because he lampooned the “decadence” of the Romanian upper and middle classes of modern Romania, at the end of the 19th century, when the country was a young kingdom. Caragiale was in prose for the Romanians what Gilbert and Sullivan was in rime and song for the British. He was one of the few classics of Romanian literature who could be “adopted” and “used” in his entirety by a Marxist régime, for its propaganda purposes. All other of Caragiale’s contemporaries were either conveniently forgotten, selectively censored to be repackaged as “progressive writers”:

“True they were capitalists, but they were progressive for their time”, this would be the excuse. We knew there were, of course other “progressive writers” who professed a more balanced view of society. But because their style was more nuanced, not sufficiently critical of the former pre-Communist régime, they did not mesh with the Communist Government propaganda and they did not make it to the book stores and schools. Such books were under lock and key in the dungeons of public libraries, under the label of “fondul special” (the “special fund”), which was open only under the strictest criteria to a handful of approved “researchers” , regarded by the régime as “reliable” enough to sing the praise of the one-party system. 19th century playwright by the name of Ion Luca Caragiale. The problem is that he is too subtle to do him justice in translation: he is, in fact, untranslatable and it is a pity!”

Great as he may have been, as a teenager, I soon got sick of this staple diet of Caragiale, marketed as the “unique genius” that Romania had ever produced! I wanted to find out more about the “other” Romanian writers like Ionesco, and Eliade who were published abroad and smuggled into the country at great risk. Now, some 30 years on, I was jerked into reality, as the name Caragiale popped up again in the words of this comrade from the Embassy. Thank God that this happened only in the back water of Eastbourne and that the audience was insignificant, otherwise the word might have spread like a foot and mouth virus to cause irreversible damage.

As it happened, it only reinforced the prejudice, albeit within a small group of English people, that Romania’s contribution, beyond Dracula and the orphanages was indeed insignificant. Witnessing this performance it was no longer surprising to come across such ill-conceived prejudices as that of Julian Barnes’s (“One of a Kind”) suggestion that all that Romania could produce was a single genius in any one field – Brancusi in Sculpture, Ionesco in Drama, Nastase in Tennis, Hadji in Football, Ceausescu in dictators… Dracula in vampires….Quite a neat seditious little theory, enough to make the blood of any Romanian curdle! And yet, we Romanians we were our own worst enemies, at least if one were to judge our record by the performance of this official emissary.

For me what I heard from the lips of this “nouveau communist” was untrue and outright farcical. I wanted to shout to the audience the long array of Romanian poets and novelists who lived in the West and did write in other languages or were translated in German, English, Spanish or French. There were scores of them, some being lionised in Paris, given literary accolades and much coveted LiteraryPrizes, others compared to the great and the good of International Pantheon of literature; “the Gorky of the Balkans” , “the best German poet since Rilke”, ” the most elegant 20th Century French writer in the tradition of Baudelaire and Valéry”…

Since I chose Britain as my adoptive country, especially in my innocent days of scholarship at Newcastle and later on at Cambridge I was brutally aware of the ignorance of Romanian values in the West. After all why should it matter? We were only a small country on the map of world culture and for that reason we experienced the same complex as the other small European nations – Portugal, Belgium or Finland.
In my early years of exile, fired by a youthful naiveté, steeled by an tinge of arrogance, I was convinced that I could repair such injustice, that I could change the world and become an unofficial “Open University” of Romania – I felt I had a “Messianic” message to impart to the rest of the world and set up urgently to the task of writing articles, translating Romanian poetry in English, even organising exhibitions and festivals, to put the record straight. My research at Cambridge focused on the Carpathian earthquakes and made the subject of an article in ‘Nature’ or the “Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society”. I was busy publishing Romanian poems in “Encounter”. In the “Cambridge Review” I debated the “Romanian myth in the sculpture of Brancusi”. I cajoled George Steiner in chairing an evening of Romanian poetry at Churchill College. I played panpipe music, the Romanian shepherd’s lament, in the Chapel of Peterhouse. I trotted about the country addressing the WI in obscure provincial towns.
Other Romanian writers were pioneers of a new style: the Dada, the Lettrism, the Theatre of the Absurd… These exiles were part of the literary aristocracy of Paris, whose salons were frequented by Proust, Valéry, Apolinaire or Colette– all those enchantresses, who delighted, for decades, the refined Parisian society, the conductrix of good taste – Countess Anna de Noailles, née Princess Brancovan, Princess Marthe Bibesco, Hélène Vacaresco. All these were aristocrats by vocation and by blood – This is what our Romanian aparatchik did not want to spell out and was trying instead to cover up. Besides, for the Communists, these writers who chose Western Europe as their haven –still represented the embarrassment of a deep chasm between “them and us” – The “errand children” of Romania were not yet ready to be accepted to the bosom of their country of origin, even after Ceausescu was put down. The Romanian Diaspora was still on trial. We still had a long tortuous road ahead of us, for our minds to meet. It was not going to be easy bridging this spiritual gulf between the uprooted and the deep rooted, between the dispossessed and the repossessed, or, shall I say, the possessed of insidious propaganda – the impotent, the brainwashed, the complacent and the political opportunists.

I never got tired of my “missionary” initiative, but I soon realised that the echoes were meagre compared to the effort that I put in this pathos. Soon after, like every other graduate, I was absorbed in my profession, in the less glamorous field of geophysics, or as the French had it encapsulated so well, I had to “waste my life by earning it”. Still, my initiation in the contribution which the exiled Romanians had made, grew ever more with every book or work of art I had acquired during this trail of exploration.

So, many years later, when listening to that Romanian Cultural Attaché addressing his unsuspecting audience in Eastbourne, I was shocked by the malevolent manner in which he dispatched his subject. In spite of this reaction I decided giving up my vocation of a “good soldier Schweick” and say nothing, not to muddy the waters of an otherwise sunny afternoon of the English Riviera. I was content to label this sorry diplomat a “rhinoceros”, a “relic” of our troubled past. Still I was surprised to hear, later on, that he was promoted to become an Ambassador in a Western democracy:

“Good work Comrade! Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose!” whispered in my ear my cynical “other self”.

I thought:

“His dutiful, zealous iconoclasm, his personal cultural revolution, his damage to Romania’s cultural heritage were all adequately recompensed by his masters, both overt and covert: Ceausescu’s shadow was cast large, well after his demise, it was functioning very well, according to the same tenets of “cultural demonology.”

The age of wisdom, but perhaps not the wisdom of the age, made me, at long last, discover the bliss of being reconciled with inequities that one cannot change. But was I?

Many more years after the Eastbourne episode, as I returned from John Sandoe’s bookshop in Chelsea, I was in reflective mood:

“How come that I did not know about Paul Celan, after all these years? It was no longer the Communists fault, it was MY fault.”

I trawled the internet, I scurried the bookshops. Even Waterstones had two books by Celan: I was surprised by my find.

Still, John Sandoe had quite a different dimension:

“I must put the record straight!”

I fell again in the same old trap in which I fell so often before, a trap which I promised to avoid: that is the hole in which all Romanians find themselves when they live in the West, a hole from the depths of which they cry:

“Look at us, we are famous, but nobody really knows about it! If they do they think that must belong to another Culture!”

As they do go about explaining their seminal contribution, their “splendid but ignored” contribution, Romanians are experiencing that schizophrenic sentiment –an inferiority complex overprinted by an indelible conviction of belonging to an illusory important nation.

By assembling this compilation of thoughts and shadows from the Carpathian space, I hope that I could make peace with this Utopia, or at least come to grips with the horns of this dichotomy which confronts the Romanian Diaspora.

More information on “voices and Shadows of the Carpathians:

http://www.constantinroman.com/carpathians/

London, July 2001
Constant Roman © 2001. All Rights Reserved.

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