"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.

(Re)construcţia identitară. Între memoria trecutului şi „memoria viitorului”

Author(s): Otilia Ungureanu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 1/2019

Starting from the idea that the history exerts a major importance over the portrayal of the human being, the present paper aims to analyse the way in which the consciousness of the individual who fights with the historical mechanism of surviving reflects in literature. The recalled history achieves different extents according to the person who relates the facts. Joining four memorial writings led us towards the assumption that a human can choose to remember the past in a resigned way or on the contrary he may project a macabre vision of the lived reality. Thereby the memory places face to face two types of consciousness, defining itself as a restoring act, a manner of the recovery of the self but also as an instrument of revenge or image of absolute despair. Verbalization stands against silence and oblivion so as to preserve the memory and implicitly the man's identity who's reconciled with himself and with his destiny or the man's identity who is caught in the trap of the past, being emptied of the hope of a bright future. Intellectual's perspective is vehemently against the dilution of the trauma through Christian filtration, accepting the burden of hate, revolt, and despair in the name of those who were victims of Communist system.

130 YEARS OF POSTERITY - A HOMAGE TO EMINESCU. EMINESCU - EDUCATOR OF THE ROMANIAN PEOPLE

Author(s): Gabriela Pohoață / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2019

Even if Eminescu was not very keen on professorship, his contribution to the field of education in general, to the education of the Romanians in particular, cannot be questioned in the least. The ideas in his theoretical work had a major impact on the Romanian culture, instruction and modern education. His vision of education, his articles on teaching and education, as well as his involvement as a school inspector show Eminescu in a different hypostasis from that of poet-philosopher. This article presents Eminescu as an educator of the Romanian nation and herein we are trying to argue, by presenting certain opinions from his journalistic work2, his notable contribution to the development and modernization of the Romanian education, many of his ideas being of topical relevance for today’s education.

2005 revisited

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Author(s): Ovio Olaru / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 05/2016

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 community of spoken words: forms and practices of the conversation at Viața românească cenacle

Author(s): Maricica Munteanu / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

The present article analyses the conversation of the cenacle Viața românească by exploring three directions of research. In the first place, the study concentrates on the conversation as a phenomenon of loss, focussing on the voice of the writers and oral speech as signs of extreme fragility. On the one hand, the reflection on the absence of the spoken word articulates an imaginary of evanescence that functions as a collective representation of the community. On the other hand, it reconsiders the relation between the oral and the written word by favouring the conversation against the literary work. In the second place, the article investigates the forms of the conversation specific to the cenacle as they appear in the memoirs of some members. Representing the cenacle as a democratic society where each member has equal rights, the memoirs of the cenacle depict, at the same time, some regulations that limit the speech such as the anti-rhetoric, the delicacy, and the admiration. Finally, the last issue to be approached is the content of the conversation. On the one hand, the cenacle represents itself as an elevated group that discusses the issues of literature, investing in the “profitable” conversation (Glinoer, Laisney) at the expense of the agreeable interaction. On the other hand, the cenacle values the forms of entertainment as a way of detachment from writing, the study focussing, in the last part, on the functions of laughter inside the literary community.

A Comparative Analysis of Translations of Lucian Blaga’s Poetry into English

Author(s): Alexandra Mitrea / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

The complexity of Lucian Blaga’s poetry is a matter of common knowledge. Part of this complexity is related to the elements of prosody that Blaga skilfully employs, to say nothing of the philosophical vein which infuses his writings, and which derives, understandably, from his philosophical work. Mention should also be made of the lyrical character of Blaga’s dramatic works, which adds significantly to the effort of translating his writings into English, or any other language for that matter. In what follows, we intend to offer a bird’s eye view of the volumes that have been translated into English and to analyse a selection of poems comparatively, in order to signal challenges and discrepancies, born in the process of transferring literary material from Romanian to English, and to point out what has been lost, and, if that be the case, what has been gained in the translation process.

A COMPLETION OF THE EXISTENTIAL FORMULA

Author(s): Ștefan Vlăduțescu / 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 DIARY OF WILD EAST: CODRIN-LIVIU CUŢITARU’S CREATIVE LOCALISM

Author(s): Roxana Patraș / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2015

The essay endeavors to apply Edward Said’s remarks on traveling theory by sketching a three-stage model, grounded on the evolution of critical consciousness from locality (specialization and selection of theory), to localization (loan and adaptation of theory) and creative localism (resistance to theory). Our analysis addresses Codrin-Liviu Cuţitaru’s books, from The Depersonalized History (1997) to The Present Discontinuous (2014), which contain pertinent illustrations of traveling theories, mainly localizations of Derrida’s “dissemination”, Fineman’s “historeme”, and Fukuyama’s “post-history”. Cuţitaru’s reflection on the subject’s displacement from history grows into a more nuanced vision, enhanced by a bitter awareness of literature’s role as a discipline within the changing curricula experimented by the Romanian universities after the fall of Communism. Experiencing both the locality of his own specialization (Professor of English/ American Studies), and the localization of foreign theories in a provincialized academic center (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi, established in the capital of the former Principality of Moldavia), the Romanian scholar arrives at a very original theory of creative localism. This provides the critic not only with arguments for resisting foreign theory, but also for opening himself towards the tradition of previous schools of criticism from Iaşi.

A Dystopian Universe: ˮOmul din care a fost extras rǎulˮ (ˮThe Evil-Free Manˮ) by Matei Vişniec

Author(s): Adriana Sala (Vlăduț) / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

Matei Visniec`s play, Omul din care a fost extras răul (The Evil-Free Man) is a dystopia, casting the partnership between human brain and rat brain as the only possible model for an alleged progress in a society where positive thinking has taken the lead. Rats are called to ease man from the burden of having anything to do with his/her conscience. Man has given up the fight for humanity. This makes man vulnerable to a request expressed by rats to form a man-animal partnership but in which the rats must act like the inner self, like the innermost voice of the conscience. Should man accept such partnership, apart from its nauseating and anxiety-inducing effects, it would mean that man has given up any hope for mankind. Poetry could bring salvation, people need the imprecision, the lack of determination, the space for ambiguity but also for the visionarism which they find in poetical language.

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 határmenti falu: út a transznacionalizmus felé

Author(s): Snejana Ung / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 12/2020

Drawing on spatial theory and border studies, the article tackles the representation of the border village in two Romanian novels — Femeia în roşu (1990) and Noapte bună, copii! (2010). Starting from the assumption that spatiality is more than background, the author argues that the manner in which the two villages are depicted insists mainly on their border position and that herein the border is perceived as junction rather than as barrier. The first part of the text focuses on the particularities of the rural periphery, such as the proximity to Yugoslavia, the closed/open border, its materiality, and the dependency on larger settlements. The second part explores the significance of a specific peculiarity, namely the open border. Far from being a mere metaphor, the path to transnationalism opened up by proximity to Yugoslavia develops into a concentric mapping that goes from the rural periphery to the United States of America via Yugoslavia.

A Light in a Dark Age

Author(s): Alessandro Zuliani / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

The Italian philologist and former professor of Romanian language and literature Adriana Senatore is the author of an important monographic study on the Moldavian chronicler Miron Costin and his historical and poetic work.

A logikátlanság logikája

Author(s): Yvett Tóth / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 03/2021

Florin Lãzãrescu: Zsibbadtság. Ford. Bertóti Johanna. Napkút Kiadó – Kalota Művészeti Alapítvány, Bp., 2018.

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 micro-centric network. Post-communist Romanian mainstream and indie publishers of U.S. and Canadian contemporary poetry in translation

Author(s): Raluca Andreia Tanasescu / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

This essay examines the corpus of contemporary American and Canadian poetry translated into Romanian in stand-alone volumes between 1990 and 2017 and argues that translators had a deciding impact on the selection of authors, as well as on the configuration of the overall translation network. Romanian poet-translators engaged in an outward cultural movement that galvanized both their own writing and the national literature in general. In doing so, they developed various types of agency covering a wide range of translating patters, from no agency at all to full self-reliance, and a poetics of fecundity that testifies to their engagement with global events and with the microcosm of local literature. Engendered by an assumed material precariousness and by an overt desire for permanent change and synchronous alignment with world literature, these practices should be seen from a micro-centric perspective, that is, paramount in establishing positive relationships with U.S. and Canadian poetries and energizing the local literary scene, rather than simply reflective of a ‘minor’ mode of existence in the global and geopolitical arenas.

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 NEW CONCEPT OF LITERARY HISTORY

ROMANIAN LITERATURE AND THE NETWORK STRUCTURES

Author(s): Anamaria Omer / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

If we take into account the new technologies of the 21st century, could we imagine a concept of literary history which, in terms of its structural criteria, is fundamentally different from the traditional concepts we are accustomed to? Could we imagine the content of an alternative literary history abandoning the usual classification (based on literary epochs, literary currents or literary moments) and functioning on a network of interdisciplinary intersections between authors and texts? The present study attempts to draw the picture of a literary history based on network structures which connect authors and texts belonging to different epochs and currents by means of hypertextual nodes and links, rather than through linear chronologies.