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Review of: Antoaneta Olteanu, Sovietland, vol. I-IV (I: Utopia eșuată, II: Țara Gulagului, III: Patria omului sovietic, IV: Triumful vieții private), Târgoviște: Cetatea de Scaun, 2019, 1836 p., ISBN 978-606-537-456-0; 978- 606-537-457-7; 978-606-537-434-8; 978-606-537-435-5
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Language, the essential instrument of communicating social traditions, is an intrinsic part of any discussion on cultural heritage, such as myths and folktales. Myth manifests itself through language, and through its many figurative forms of expression, metonymy, synecdoche, or irony, the most important ones being symbols and metaphors. Often symbol is regarded as the primary vehicle of mythical images, yet metaphor goes beyond being simply a figure of speech, it manifests itself in speech as part of the process of conceptualizing a mental realm by another. To understand the complexities of archaic socio-cultural expressions with a contemporary set of concepts and imagery should be evaluated in the proper framework. The archaic metaphors in time lose their initial mythic connotations and, borrowing a concept from physics, collapse into a new ‘reality’, as for example the story of Păcală selling his cow to the tree. The Trickster, with special functions in the Indo-European social-cultural context is present from classic mythology to the current European folklore: as mythic characters, Hermes or Mercury in the Greek and Roman mythologies, Loki in the Norse sagas, Bricriu in the Irish songs, Pekulis/Patullos in the Baltic heritage, or Varuna in Hinduism, and as the popular trickster in each European cultural complex: Tyl Ulenspiegel in German culture, Peik in Scandinavia, Pooca/Puca in Ireland, Velnius in the Baltic region, the old Russian Veles, or Volos, and Păcală in the Romanian tradition. The names of these European folk tricksters, Pekulis, Patulos, Pooka, Pooc, Peik, Puc, Păcală, could have their origin in the Indo-European root *pek- (Pokorny, 1959, IEW 797) ‘livestock, domestic animal, cattle’, testifying the incredible vitality of this character. In this paper I will attempt to unveil the main characteristics and social functions that contributed to the everlasting presence of the Trickster in folklore.
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Review of: Ovidiu Pecican, Geografii alese / Legendele Clujului, Editura Limes, 2021/ Augustin Giurgiu, Confesiunile unui preot, Editura Veritas, Târgu-Mureș, 2022/ Gela Enea, Sună-mă cu taxă inversă, 2021/ Ion Cristofor, Laureat al norilor, 1982 – 2021, Editura Școala Ardeleană, Cluj-Napoca, 2022/ Ion Dulugeac, Mamaia Anta și Prințesa, Ed. Romhelion, Mogoșoaia, 2022/ Noemina Câmpean, Culori ectopice, Eikon, 2022/ The Save Ukraine exhibition, at the "Reperaj" Art Galleries (Oradea Citadel, April 9-May 4, 2022, curator Vioara Bara)/ International Theater Festival "Interferences" November 17-27, 2022.
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The article aims to emphasize how Marin Preda’s novels are related to the political novel. In this regard, we try to uncover, through some discourses, how criticism and literary history viewed this aspect regarding the possibility of approaching truth and ideas within the communist regime. Then, we try to check how in some respects Preda’s novels can be of interest beyond the period of their publication. Analysing other examples, we try to show how there still is a preoccupation with the writer’s biography that mediates the relationship with his works. The conclusions are that the reception of Preda’s literature depends on the background discourse and that both the latter and the literature itself contain a potential that contributes to the understanding of the world after 1989.
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The present work analyzes the relationship between subversion and dissent within the novel The Most Beloved of the Earthlings, insisting on the strategies through which the attacks on the regime were camouflaged. Despite the fact that the text represents a harsh document of the totalitarian period, in which art was under the control of the Security and presents a faulty political mechanism, in which values are overturned, it was able to pass censorship through the appeal to obliqueness, allusion and mask. The narrative techniques, the fictional mandate, the indirect criticism, the background noise and various tricks that Marin Preda uses to disguise the attacks individualize the novel and turn it into the most important piece of writing of the “obsessive decade”.
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N. Steinhardt was a constant supporter of courage as an essential character trait and in many of his works – journalism, literary criticism, memoirs, interviews and religious sermons – he demonstrated a clear propensity for this human quality. Courage was a leitmotif of Steinhardt’s creations, an aspect that becomes evident through his works in which he advocated for the courage to act, to express one’s opinion, to take a stand against injustice, to persevere, to be loyal and not to betray, to pave new paths. However, the essence of this preoccupation culminates with the detailed analysis of courage from a religious perspective in the sermons given by N. Steinhardt during his monastic life at the “St. Ana” Monastery in Rohia. In the book “ Dăruind vei dobândi. Cuvinte de credinţă,” the theme of courage is extracted with surgical precision from various pericopes or biblical fragments, an aspect that sheds light on N. Steinhardt’s hermeneutic qualities. The fact that he “practiced” courage, not just verbalized it, is revealed by the years spent in prison in the name of friendship and devotion to C. Noica and the other members of the Noica-Pillat group, by his subversive writings during the communist years, and by the testimonies of his friends and those who knew him.The work “ Dăruind vei dobândi “ is one of the few theological works that gives special attention to this Christian virtue – courage – and represents an existential guidebook based on Christian precepts and models. The call to courage is outlined both scripturally and theoretically, through all selected verses and examples from the Gospels, as well as practically, by assuming, during the sermons given at the Rohia Monastery, the courage of expressing his opinion, urging vigilance, critical thinking and resistance against all types of abuse. He always emphasized the idea of freedom, dignity, and the common good, despite the fact that assuming these values was a real rebellious attitude during the communist years.
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Romanian lore describes știma as an archaic deity that dominates the aquatic stability of flowing waters, such a creature being ascribed to every body of water. It has the power to overthrow this stability by conjuring either floods or severe droughts. “Știma” -s are described as women of unearthly beauty that take the shape of a fish (a huchen or redfish) when in water. This paper opens up for examination a somewhat neglected aspect of Romanian literature, i.e. literary works that take as their subject matter the nautical realm and the creatures that populate it, with V. Voiculescu’s “Lostrița” and M. Sadoveanu’s “Zâna lacului” as exemplification.Canonical nautical literature works, such as “Moby-Dick” (Melville, 1851) and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Coleridge, 1798), focus on the sea or the ocean and the creatures, either real or mythical, that dwell underneath their surfaces or in the air. Romania has not been a maritime nation per se, hence the scarcity of nautical literary texts. The narratives discussed focus on naturally flowing watercourses and the creatures specific to them. The authors in question have no first-hand knowledge related to either sailing or seafaring, which is precisely why they both focus on the mythological creatures that populate the rivers of Romania. Their short stories also display strong elements of romance intertwined with powerful forms of fantasy and the supernatural.
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Romanian folklore and its fundamental myths have aroused a real interest both for the researcher in the field of the history of religions and for the writer. Mircea Eliade found here a rich fund of magical-religious beliefs, untouched by the destructive effects of modern civilization. In the study “From Zalmoxis to Geghis-Han. Comparative studies on the religions and folklore of Dacia and Eastern Europe”, the Romanian scholar analyzed the etymology of the word “Dacian”, which he connects to a rite of warrior initiation, focused on the sacrificial rite of construction, the magico-cult significance of picking the blackthorn. Eliade’s fantastic prose is anchored on several themes and folklore motifs, among which we mention: Sânzienele (gentle fairies), the fairy-tale battle between good and evil, the magical-cult and destiny relationship between The Savior and The Star (The Forbidden Forest); “craftsman grandmother”, midwife and guardian of the threshold between the worlds, with her bear-daughters (La țigănci); Angel of Death, muse and “grace” (In the court of Dionysus, The three graces); the metamorph (the undead-woman, in Miss Christina; the undead, the Flyer, the kite, in the eyes of the profane, an Adamic being, purified from primordial sin, in the Edenic space of the island, in The Serpent; the giant, in A Big Man, etc.).In this paper we will focus on the metamorph and on how Mircea Eliade builds a true archetypal construct. The metamorph is the result of a metamorphosis, a process defined biologically (transformation of a lower creature into a higher one, passing through the natural stages of development), ontologically (essential transformation of an essential order, transition to another kind of being) and magically (transformation of a human being into the animal). The three types of metamorphosis can be hybridized, a process discovered in Mircea Eliade’s prose: in The Three Graces, the internal organs of the three patients undergo morphological and functional transformations into plants, women living half a year like flowers, young and beautiful, old and withered during the other half. In The Serpent, Andronic is a meta- and poly-morphus: the fairy-tale kite that abducts restless maidens and fierce wives, the satyr of Greek mythology, the male god of nature (Pan), the serpent, messenger of the dead and symbol of sexuality, fearsome undead, Primordial Adam, pure and untouched by any “lust”. All these stasis correspond to the imaginary projections of the other characters. The shapes of his transformations are regressive, finally reaching the purest ones: the Edenic man in harmony with nature, the virginal feminine and the creator. Miss Christina is not only the undead that haunts the mansion and excites the imagination of Mrs. Moscu’s guests, but the deity of the place, who ensures the connection of the sky, through its brightest star, Luceafărul, with the earth, the vast Bărăganu plain. The ignorant masculine (Egor) intervenes and destroys the magical connection between the hypostasis of the feminine (the old woman, the young woman, the child, the field), interposing the aggressive and destructive virility.
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In the Romanian fantastic fairy tales volumes “Fata răpită de Soare” (The Girl Kidnapped by the Sun), “Frumoasa Lumii” (The Beauty of the World) and “Inimă Putredă” (Rotten Heart), belonging to the I. Oprișan collection, several imaginary creatures from the earth, the air and the water can be identified. These creatures’ shapes and characteristics acquire fantastic dimensions and features, and their presence in the structure of the fairy tale marks a symbolic threshold. The human character in a crisis meets a numen being who mediates the passing from here to there, to the other realm. Thus, one passes from a familiar space to a contrasting, timeless one, representing a way towards self-knowledge. There will be confrontations in a fictional world with evil presences or benefic entities. Both in the ascendant and descendant spatial structures, the characteristics of the imaginary creatures usually get hyperbolic dimensions, thus increasing the suspence and emphasizing the dominant features.
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The paper aims to shed some light on the morphology of terrestrial and aerial life in Romanian folktales, by offering a list of creatures populating one realm or another, their description in accordance with a specific type of imaginary, the relationships established with humans. It will offer a comprehensive picture of the anthropomorphic elements that constitute the Romanian mythical fauna and express the fact that human mind has developed in relation with nature and magic. Therefore, I propose an insight into the folktale representation of the bulls (better known in Romanian folklore as aurochs), the horses and the birds which are found and depicted not only as mere animals or birds in the rich tradition of folktale, but as characters endowed with human speech, cognitive functions, their primary role in the folktale narrative being to aid the hero in his initiatory journey. Visual and symbolic features of the animals mentioned, as part of the Romanian mythical fauna, will be presented, with some aspects of their naming. Folktale names and the naming itself serve as a creative act helping us to understand the symbolic value imprinted by the community on these animal representations. Even though they have a zoomorphic appearance, they are not ruled only by the primary instincts of their species, they also have the ability to think and speak articulately. Moreover, all these types of animals belonging to the mythical fauna are relicts of the solar cult that developed in the area from which the folktales were collected. Thus, reference will be made to them as ‟fantastic animals”, in order to differentiate them from other types of characters, which only have the appearance of animals or can shape shift in animal bodies.
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Universal literature testifies the presence of animals since its beginnings, thus continuing oral traditions of all nations. Animal symbolism was attributed to human beings in different circumstances of life, in accordance with their personality and behavior. Liviu Rebreanu’s novel “Ciuleandra” (1927) comes with two characters, Puiu (Cub, in an approximate translation) and Ursu (Bear), and their struggle for a central place after the discovery of rivalry in love. The first one is rich and occupies an important social position, while the other earns everything by himself. While the name of the first character sends to frailness or childish behavior, the second one evokes the strongest animal of the Romanian forests, sometimes mocked at because of its massiveness and slowliness. The field of battle between the two characters is represented by their levels of conscience. Puiu Faranga crosses a series of concentric circles which should represent symbolic stages in his inner transformation on the way towards spiritual harmony. But in his psychological fight with Doctor Ursu, he is defeated for not knowing how to use his own powers. He will thus pass to another stage of his life, followed by the obsession of the folk dance “Ciuleandra”, imagined by Doctor Ursu as a scary vortex out of which one cannot escape
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The realist writer Liviu Rebreanu created admirable scenes and characters in his novels. Many of his writings open with the hora or the Sunday game, which become nodal points from which future events are foreshadowed. And not by chance, several novels end with the image of the chorus or dance specific to where the action takes place, completing the novel construction and highlighting the author's obsession with spherical structures. Hora is important because the whole village participates, and the general merriment. As in a movie, the novelist captures the smallest gestures and reactions of the participants, regardless of age, gender or social category. Followed closely in novels such as Ion, Răscoala or Ciuleandra, the village choir gradually presents the reaction of the fiddlers. The change of music drives the dance's madness through the rhythm imposed by them, through the subsequent requests of the players caught up in the frenzy of the game and who never want to stop the music to continue the game. No aspect of the chorus is neglected. The author highlights the variety of movements in both pair dances and collective choruses. The wildness of the dance triggers erotic impulses. The girls' thighs bubble, the girls' breasts touch the boys' chests, their arms wrap around the girls' middles, and the descriptions go on.In the novel Ciuleandra, hora becomes a dance of destiny because by participating in this dance, many find their soul mate. Hora and circle, in general, signify the solar disk and are specific symbols preserved through popular culture, dances, rituals, decorations, etc., demonstrated by archaeological discoveries. The serpent, and especially the ouroboros, which is circular and resembles the choruses or dances of the mentioned novels, both in form and manifestation, hibernates in the earth during the autumnal equinox. It returns to the surface at the spring equinox with the revival of vegetation, superimposing its biological cycle on top of the annual astronomical cycle of the sun. Because of this, the snake is considered an essential symbol of the cyclical regeneration of nature, life force, well-being and fertility. At the same time, it is viewed with fear because it is a poisonous animal that can produce death. Likewise, in the case of choruses, when the customs of their organization are violated, it foreshadows the unfolding of tragic events that are to come.
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The paper discusses how Andrei Codrescu creates images of the Devil and angels in his novels. Partially, he explains in his essays the inspiration for building the postmodern representation in his novel. Inspired by reality, Codrescu disguises characters and events in imaginary constructions of a sacred manifesting mainly in the American landscape. The underground becomes a place of sacredness as perceived by a sexually permissive society. At the same time, the angels appear incapable of understanding the posthuman world or are revolted against their mission on earth. Another category of angels is represented by transferring the name to women enslaved by a false diabolical and sexually corrupted Devil.
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The article briefly presents directions in the interpretation of folk tales and their connection to fairy tales as part of building (national) culture. The article’s focus is on the didactic function of both folk and fairy tales. Therefore, two comparisons show the similar function for both category of tales. A first comparison is for the category of fantastic tales, between the folk tale, “Voinicul florilor”, collected by I. Gr. Sbiera, and the fairy tale “Făt frumos din lacrimă”, by Mihai Eminescu. In the short-story-like tale category, the comparison is between the folk tale Stan Pățitul, collected by Ion Pop Reteganul, and the fairy tale “Dănilă Prepeleac”, by Ion Creangă.
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The Judeo-Christian culture is par excellence a logocentric culture, derived from the Word of the Creator and from the founding narrative, which, being fundamental elements for shaping this culture, is however transmitted in writing. From the Tablets of the Law, where the Decalogue is written by the finger of God himself, to the Pentateuch dictated to Moses (the Torah), or the Gospels instilled into the four apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, an entire sacred history unfolds under the sign of revelation and, implicitly, of the imperative to transmit the revealed truths, i.e. the “predanie”.Starting from this observation, our study aims to focus on, and analyse, some of the symbols that are recurrently exploited to suggest the idea of revelation received and transmitted instantaneously, starting from the representation of St. John the Evangelist dictating the Gospel (or The Book of the Revelation or the Apocalypse) to his disciple Prochorus.
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In the field of didactic creativity, the man from the chair has an important role. Each teacher wishes to prepare his students thoroughly, so he can tend to achieve exceptional lessons characterized by maximum efficiency. It is based on both its professional training and permanent improvement, and by solving in each lesson, practical problems of teaching-learning activity, active and exciting lessons, lessons in which students are stimulated to think, - develop imagination, develop their creative spirit. The creative behaviour does not only appear in the lesson, it comprises three essential moments: conceiving the lesson, its actual development, evaluating the results obtained through its development. At the stage of conceiving his lesson, in addition to the training acquired in the school and the experience gained with the students, the teacher analyzes different opinions and ideas, variants of didactic strategies, taking into account the level of pupils' training and the potential of the class, of each pupil in part and it is decided on the didactic models he wants to follow. The teacher determines whether he can use: a well-known didactic model of general didactics without modification, a didactic model for making changes, a completely new didactic model.
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Considered by Eugen Simion a „kind of drawer", which many practice, but few admit it in the space of literature, the journal is a possible form of creation. The journal is a species of the autobiographical genre that contains daily records of someone about certain events: military operations, an expedition, a voyage by sea. As a literary genre, the journal is at the border with the other genres of biography (autobiography, memoirs). We propose to identify common elements with these, but also those similarities that place the intimate journal on the border with literature.
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The article proposes an overview of what was the avant-garde in the Romanian cultural space, anartistic current that wanted the proposed change of perspective to be achieved by the rupture of everythingthat was unanimously accepted as a valuable, extremist variant of the Romanian modernism represented byIlarie Voronca, Benjamin Fundoinu, Ion Vinea and Tristan Tzara.
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This study is a comparative analysis between two classical writes from Romanian literature. Both of them explore irony in their works, but they explore different kinds of irony. Ion Creangă is best known for his „Amintiri din copilărie”, a work in which he narrates stories from his childhood. This is a buildungsroman in which the author uses frequently irony but just to make jokes or to make fun of trouble. Ion Luca Caragiale is one of the most satirical writers from Romanian literature. His irony is different from the irony Ion Creangă uses, meaning that Caragiale satirizes aspects from society or political life. „Momente și schițe” is a reference work in which the author presents and mocks wrongdoings who happened in Romanian society at the end of 19th century. So, the present analysis shows that this linguistic concept can have different uses and can express different idea.
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