Baltchik 1920-1940: prémisses pour une utopie culturelle
Balchik 1920-1940: premises for a cultural utopia

Author(s): Liliana Burlacu
Subject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Studies of Literature, Local History / Microhistory, Romanian Literature
Published by: Сдружение „Транспонтика“
Keywords: Romanian Balchik; Bulgarian Balchik; artistic community; “Silver Coast” Free University; literary sociability; Octavian Moșescu
Summary/Abstract: The interest of this work is centred on the role that the Black Sea area has in supporting the cultural and literary construction of national identities. More precisely, the subject matter of the research is Balchik in the 19131940, when the town operated under Romanian administration, like the whole of Southern Dobrudja (the so-called Quadrilateral), ceded to Romania pursuant to the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest. Since Southern Dobrudja was much more exotic and more ‘Oriental’ than Romanian Dobrudja, Romanians would quickly come to view it as some sort of Côte d’Azur (in fact, this is why Balchik was also called Côte d’Argent, ‘Silver Coast’). While Queen Marie of Romania built a castle here, which, starting from 1926, became one of her preferred summer residences, a special cultural program, planned by mayor Octavian Moșescu at the beginning of the 1930s, would encourage the influx of writers, painters and artists (a summer university, namely Universitatea Liberă “Coasta de Argint” [the “Silver Coast” Free University] was established in 1926, together with a newspaper under the same name). Thus, Balchik would enter a summer “circuit” which was equally popular touristically and culturally, and which would bring fame to this vacation destination. Encouraged by the attempts of Romanian administration to set up an infrastructure in the 1930s (in the area, an aerodrome was opened and regular bus routes between Dobrich and Balchik were organised), the Romanians were to be drawn to Balchik, first of all, because of the exotic local life, which merged enchantingly, both in architecture and in the daily activities, the Bulgarian, Turkish and Roma traditions.Queen Marie, in particular, was keen on the preservation of authenticity. The interest in the multicultural heritage of Balchik was a component of the specific projects of the 1920s, but one of them had a focus on the Bulgarian culture. The newspaper Coasta de Argint, which had pages in Romanian, Bulgarian and, later, in Turkish, would publish Bulgarian translations of texts by Romanian writers (Mihai Eminescu, Ion Luca Caragiale) and Romanian translations of texts by contemporary Bulgarian writers (Iordan Stratiev, Elin Pelin (Dimitŭr Ivanov), Dora Gabe). Together with the Romanian writers, Bulgarian writers (Dora Gabe, Ivan Shishmanov) were also invited to hold lectures in the Free University of Balchik. If, between 1920 and 1940, Balchik became a special destination for the Romanians, a space that would become the object of paintings and a subject of literature, it was precisely because it operated as a perfect, voluntary and fortunate exile, both a real and an ideal one, where the Romanian culture would be engaged in a fruitful conversation with the other local cultures.

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