"Trupy wstawać". O "Weselu" w reżyserii Jana Klaty

Author(s): Artur Duda / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 4-5/2017

Artykuł jest próbą analizy i interpretacji reżyserskiej koncepcji wystawienia Wesela Stanisława Wyspiańskiego w Narodowym Starym Teatrze w Krakowie. Autor ukazuje kluczowe elementy wizji Jana Klaty, poczynając od umocowania tej wizji w tekście dramatu, poprzez użycie muzyki i tekstów blackmetalowego zespołu Furia, po rozwiązania scenograficzne, kostiumowe i aktorskie, które składają się na ogólną wymowę spektaklu jako „nocy żywych trupów”. Szczególną uwagę autor poświęca postaciom dramatu jako żywym umarłym oraz kreacjom zjaw z II aktu Wesela.

(Re)actualizarea simbologiei româneşti în spaţiul posttotalitar

Author(s): Mariana Anton / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 3/2011

Our study is focused on the hermeneutic approach on the Romanian simbology within the post-totalitarian age by displaying new perspectives of re-reading the literary work.

“Namaste”: Representations of India in Sega’s spiritual travelogue

Author(s): Adriana Raducanu / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2019

India has occupied a prominent place in the Romanian literary and cultural landscape since the 19th century and it continues to do so in ours. The claim of an almost-tradition of representations of India in Romanian literature can be easily sustained via a perusal of the works of Mihai Eminescu (the national poet) and Mircea Eliade (the famous comparatist of religions).India enabled the former to surpass a certain anxiety of influence, at both ontological and aesthetic levels and came to constitute a cultural axis mundi for the latter, a powerful catalyst for a lifetime work. This article will focus on Octavian Segarceanu’s (Sega) spiritual travelogue, Namaste: A Novel of Spiritual Adventures in India (the first in a trilogy) and argue that in the Romanian contemporary literary landscape he is one of the most prominent continuators of writings either alluding to or focusing on India. His spiritual travelogue depicts a country perceived by the post-modern consciousness of the contemporary man, acknowledged as a network of multiple (and often antagonistic) cultural influences, but also a country echoing his predecessors’ works. An act of ontological rebellion inspired Sega, the copy writer turned writer to question basic, internal modes of existing and to focus not only on being but being-able-to-be. In so doing, the present article argues that the author/foreigner/wanderer both turns the readership into witnesses to the candid autobiography of his feelings, as well as surveys the makings of a cosmopolitan identity, situated at the crossroads between West and East, film and literature, philosophy and faith.

2005 revisited

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Author(s): Ovio Olaru / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 5/2016

The text presents the evolution of t.s. khasis' poetry and its distinctive poetic voice in the picture of contemporary Romanian literature.

A CENTURY SINCE THE BIRTH OF FOLKLORIST AND PROSE WRITER OVIDIU BÎRLEA

Author(s): Iulia Mirela Tarko / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 11/2017

This article is meat to mark one hundred years since the birth of one of the most complex personalities of the Apuseni and, definitely, one of the greatest folklorists who lived in the second half of the 20th century. Ovidiu Bîrlea is an outstanding figure of the Romanian culture, evenly balanced between his vocation as scientist, folklore researcher - passionate, rigorous and hardworking when dealing with folk literature - and his vocation as prose writer, with an exquisite talent for storytelling and portraying emblematic characters, depicted in charming Romanian vernacular, by means of which the author presents the communities and the landscape of the beloved Apuseni Mountains, thus managing to reach the balance and perfectly combining these qualities into an original unit. Using a famous collocation belonging to Constantin Noica, Ilie Moise calls Ovidiu Bîrlea 'the complete man of Romanian folklore studies', noting that ' the image of this eminent researcher of oral culture and thorough observer of our rural world is still made up of snippets of recollection', and his niece/granddaughter, Doina Blaga, states that 'his difficult temper kept him away from other contemporary writers but without the latter contesting the value of his work', insisting that it is our duty to acknowledge his place in the Pantheon of the Romanian culture, due to his outstanding work.

A COMPLETION OF THE EXISTENTIAL FORMULA

Author(s): ?tefan Vladu?escu / Language(s): English / Issue: 10/2017

In the tableau of the current Romanian narrative, Augustin Buzura enhances within the novel of critical analysis intellectual heroes, memorably defined by means of an existential recognoscible formula. His books, that appeared 3-4 years before 1989 and every decade after this period, focus on physicians, (“The absentees” and “Vanities”) or journalists, (“The faces of silence,” “Faded roads” and “Requiem for madmen and beasts”). By his latest novel, (“An account of loneliness,” Iaşi, Polirom, 2009), the writer approaches the physician that follows after the journalist: Cassian Robert follows Matei Popa from “Requiem” (1999). At the same time, the completion of the existential formula specific to Buzura’s hero is achieved.

A DEATH-RELATED SUPERSTITION IN OVIDIU BÎRLEA'S 'DROUGHT'

Author(s): Iulia Mirela Tarko / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 12/2017

The third short story written by folklorist and prose writer Ovidiu Bîrlea, belonging to the volume Marks on Rock. Sketches and Stories (1974) deals with a profoundly dramatic theme, arousing several existential issues. Thus, the author approaches the human condition in relation to death, a kind of death that is assumed, premeditated and accepted, even imposed by the community, yet beyond the Christian morals. This fundamental theme has two main sub-themes: one of supreme sacrifice and the other, of suicide, both having not only obvious and easily-detectable elements in common but also numerous distinctive features. Under the mark of timelessness, 'The elderly told about a terrible drought in the valley of the Abrud River' or 'The people started talking [...]', the narration is not elusive, as it is in fairy tales or legends, but it depicts a world that is alive, tightly-nit and extremely credible, due to the great number of details but mostly to the complexity of the character.

A existat o terminologie politică în limba română la cumpăna veacurilor al XVIII-lea şi al XIX-lea ?

Author(s): Gheorghe Chivu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 1/2012

In an era marked by a well known cultural and political circumstance, in which language reflects the change of the South-Eastern European social and political patterns with the Western ones, the analysis of some of the components of the literary vocabulary shows the emergence of some incipient terminological specializations for designating the activity in the different areas of the Romanian political life.

A MANUSCRIPT OF TITUS POPOVICI, THE NOVEL: THE DEATH OF HAPPY OBJECTS

Author(s): Sonia Grec-Stef / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Little is known about Titus Popovici’s novel, Moartea obiectelor fericite (The Death of Happy Objects). This novel, dating from 1972, was never published integrally. The novel hides, under the general literary motifs of death and the misfit intellectual hero, subtle ironies for the current political state of that year: the communism. War, history, the issue of freedom, the psychological and the human decay, are just some landmarks of the novel. The novel is unfinished and unfortunately not known by the readers. However, the evil and the cruel violent scenes, evocation of the childhood and family love relations, or the grotesque appointments of individual and life, define Titus Popovici as fabulous writer and interpreter, who harnesses a unique political-historical experience. The Death of Happy Objects is the core, the deck between Ipu’s death (1970) and The stranger (1955) and the post-december prose The boots’ box (1990), and The discipline of mess (1998).

A MULTI-FACETED LOOK UPON GABRIELA ADAMEȘTEANU’S SHORT-STORIES: CRITICAL APARATUS, STRUCTURAL ASPECTS

Author(s): Florina Georgiana Olaru / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 14/2018

Short-stories have sometimes been considered as a creative-writing exercise, intermezzo to the ‘big novel’, as ‘hinterland to future novels’. This is a valid reason to focus upon the manner in which the literary exegesis approaches the narrative formula of the short-story, with main emphasis upon Gabriela Adameșteanu’s short-stories. The central themes pondered upon in her writings are history, life of the individual within buildings and institutions, silence, solitude, superficial marriage of convenience. Our essay focuses upon catching the similarities and particularities found in Gabriela Adameșteanu’s short-stories. On the one hand, we aim at portraying the lack of communication within the couple and analysis of dysfunctional relationships between spouses, ideas found in most of her short-stories and, on the other hand, those details that make her writings be unique, i.e. familiar hours spent with colleagues (in O plimbare scurtă după orele de serviciu), the theme of illness (in Vară-primăvară) or street images (in În tramvai and Ora de navetă). All these create that multi-faceted perspective upon a dysphoric world.

A PERSPECTIVE UPON DEATH IN ANTIM IVIREANUL’S DIDAHII

Author(s): Doina Pologea / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 10/2017

The author evokes the four ,,funeral ovations”of Saint Antim of Iviria, projecting a Christian perspective on death, as well as the care of the priest for the comfort of those who lose their beloved ones .Therefore, death is , “without distress to the faithful and righteous man” and deserves to be celebrated with sacred hymns and prayers.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL, APPARENTLY FOR CHILDREN: JOHNNY BOAMBĂ, BY THEODOR CONSTANTIN

Author(s): Larisa Ileana Casangiu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 10/2017

Published for the first time in 1968 and becoming almost unknown in the 90‘, the novel Johnny Boambă (by Theodor Constantin) is republished in 2008 by „Adevărul Holding‖ Publishing House, this latest edition confirming the actuality of its subject and bricking it in attention of the readers. The book has not become a bestseller and that it‘s why, in 2016, its prize is reduced in hypermarkets. In the absence of adequate commercials, an affirmation of the editor has conducted us to a possible explication of the low popularity of the book: ―Frustrations of the abandoned child would be reflected even later in some of his writings.‖1 Such an observation is connected with biographical criticism, considered antiquated nowadays, and discourages a potential reader to become reader indeed. Considering this novel a precious source of inspiration for the parents and for the educators, we try to reanalyze it (our first short presentation of this novel being done in 2006), in order to increase, in this way, the number of its readers.

A RE-READING OF THE TRANSFIGURATION OF ROMANIA –A DEFENCE OF A NEW EASTERN LATINITY

Author(s): Amalia Dragulanescu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 15/2018

Cioran’s vitalistic youth affords to mock most of the Romanian features, in the volume Schimbarea la faţă a României/ The Transfiguration of Romania, while allowing them the expected advantage. Undoubtedly, in line with D. Cantemir, Ion Heliade-Rădulescu, B.P. Haşdeu, Const. Rădulescu-Motru, G. Călinescu, C. Noica, and even N. Steinhardt, concerning the national specificity, the author tackles a Romanian apology in fact, with the air dissolving the Romanian frailties, at least for the future. The cultural synthesis, metaphysical vision, political criticism, sociological analysis, and especially the defense regarding the perfection of the Romanian features, which can never be expressed in well-defined patterns, this support “book” keeps a certain topicality, integrating itself by the well-cited transience, both into the postmodern paradigm, as well as to a series of further prolific readings.

A SHORT HISTORY OF GASTRONOMIC LITERATURE

Author(s): Nagy Imola Katalin / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 11/2017

This paper focuses on the history of Romanian gastronomic literature, namely the first century of Romanian cookbook writing. Cookery books and gastronomic texts are one of the most interesting text types, which can be fruitfully analyzed and approached from multiple perspectives: linguistics, cultural history, language history, terminology and history can contribute to exploit the multiple resources of such texts, which mirror not only the gastronomy of certain historical periods, but reflect the linguistic and social habits of a century or another. Recipes are not scientific texts, nevertheless they can be considered technical texts, as they contain the lexicon and terminology of cooking and gastronomy, one of the most ancient human activities. Romanian gastronomic literature is a topic approached by many researchers. Despite this fact, during a previous research we conducted upon the history of Hungarian gastronomic literature and the history of ”kürtőskalács”, we reached the conclusion that there is no comprehensive study upon the beginnings and history of Romanian cookbooks. That is why we attempt to fill this gap and offer a list of the most important cookbooks written and/or published in Romanian. We intend to cover the first century of this kind of literature, the period between 1841 and the 1940s.

About love, murder and emeralds. Ioan petru culianu's ”seriously” game with fiction

Author(s): Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 34/2015

This study looks into how Ioan Petru Culianu illustrated some of his ideas, as a historian of religions and as a philosopher of culture, in one of his literary works, The Emeralds Game. This novel is more than mere detective fiction, it is also a magic and esoteric novel, and to understand it we need to refer to magic, astrologic or geomantic practices. This means the considerations the author expressed in his other essential scientific works are “logically” extended, continued in this literary writing. The contemporaneity of the work is suggested by the significant fictional world it proposes, a world where the political blends with the religious, where reality blends with the psychological, science with adventure; all these aspects bring this novel to the same level with other similar novels, like Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose or Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.

ABOUT SPACES, LIMITS AND WANDERINGS IN ʺA WOMAN FOR APOCALYPSEʺ, BY VINTILA HORIA

Author(s): Liliana Danciu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 10/2017

The exile people live on their consciousness a real tragedy of a breaking off a sacred forgotten thing. They are forced to abandon it, but they'll miss it a lot. They'll miss it as much as Adam will always miss that "rib" which he desires tragically to obtain it with every embrace of the loved woman. The phenomenon of the exile represent a limited situation, through the man needs get lost in the unknown, estranging from the edenic place of "At home", assuming the Stranger condition with all that the popular and cultural literature has invested him. Even if the image of "At home" suffers some negative mutations from the hypostasis of the Stranger in a new world, which doesn't desire him, will establish him to revalue positively that Lost Paradise. Vintilă Horia is a great Romanian writer, who has unfortunately known the exile because of the contamination of "At home", which had become a space of reprisals and injustice. He was adopted by Spain, which has become another "At home" since he died. The novel A women for Apocalypse valorizes positively the feminine, so the feminine becomes the "key" of the mystical, ontological and spiritual rescue of the whole humanity. If the men bring about the war and hatred, the woman brings about the rescue, through her love. Time is not the enemy of the man any more, but it is his ally, because it hasn't got any power to terrorize and the death has been defeated by love. "At home" means the absolute love of a woman, who succeeds in raising the spirit to that initial Lost Paradise.

Activitatea de funcționar îndeplinită de Vasile Alecsandri.

Author(s): Radu Motoc / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 3-4/2016

The article reflectes the moments of civil servant and archivist activities fulfilled by Vasile Alecsandri. It is highlighted the reasons why the younger Vasile Alecsandri was promoted to the rank of Spathar (sword-bearer), then the great Spathar (sword bearer).

Adaptare și imitație în romanele "No Time Like the Present", de Nadine Gordimer și „Vremea Minunilor", de Cătălin Dorian Florescu

Author(s): Simina Timofte / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 1/2018

In a series of lectures in 1994, Nadine Gordimer remarks the different status of Africa which is no longer at the edge of the empire, but on the contrary, in the center of it. In this respect, post-apartheid Africa has rebuilt its national identity on the background of global events that write universal history, offering citizens the chance to escape their country's constraints and bring important key elements in the globalization process.Thus, replacing apartheid themes in a new country is an extreme taskby the applicant. Some of the favourite subjects of the "old guard" are the following: the importance of multiculturalism in post-apartheid South Africa, the writer's status, vulgarisation of violence due to mass-media, reconciliation with a violent past and their economic and cultural implications, the fight against AIDS, sexual emancipation, globalization and loss of cultural and national identity, uprooting, migration and economic exile which replaced major pre-existing concerns about violence, racial and gender discrimination, the relationship between literature and politics, or the role of ethics in literature.The same situation can be applied to eastern countries. Even though they were not "postcolonial" in the classical sense of the term, applicable to the former British, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch colonies, the "post-communist transition" through which they passed included the disarmament of a certain political and economic "occupation".People had to adapt to the new order, to the new reality, which was a complex process, a difficult one, that implied, many times, exile.Therefore, the purpose of my argument is to present what consequences can occur at the psychological level because of the attempt of adaptation of the characters to the new social and political order, by imitation, postcolonial and post-communist context. And here comes the question: does imitation facilitate adaptation? Although the logical answer would be yes, we will notice, by discussing the two texts, exactly the opposite.

Addiction to/in Ion Luca Caragiale: Buddies, Chit-Chat, Beer Houses, Coffee Houses

Author(s): Adriana Ghitoi / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

The following text proposes to demonstrate two things. First, the relationship of Romanian writer Ion Luca Caragiale with the critics over the decades is one of apparent addiction. These critics espouse everything from sublime adulation to unfair disparagement. Secondly, the article explores particular types of characters, the ‘buddies’, whose identitary parameters are close mutual dependence, addiction to conversation and to the place where this happens, the beer or the coffee house. Both hypotheses refute the grim predictions regarding a potential lack of endurance and the charge of having penned works of destructive satire, attacking the Romanian people and their country. Therefore, the first half of my paper will offer a review of literary critiques, while the second half will analyze, through the comparative method, “Amicii”, “Lache şi Mache”, “Amicul X” “Situaţiune”, and “O lacună”, five works of fiction that offer a typology of ‘buddies’. This will hopefully prove that Caragiale was not ‘anti-Romanian’, a ‘rascal’ or ‘laughing with cruelty’, but, on the contrary, was a ‘wise, good and ironic’ observer of human nature.

Adevarul ca interogatie: Leon Volovici

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Author(s): Iulian Boldea / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 9-10/2016

This essay offers a portrait of the literary historian Leon Volovici and also analyzes Leon Volovici's writings. His books are controlled by the rigor to reveal the intimacy of complex and controversial cultural phenomenas, guided by the obsession of the Truth perceived in its entirety as an invariant of human knowledge, as a basis and evidence of the world, assumed naturally, without logical crises or emotional exacerbations.