romania revealed

Jeffrey Miron's connection to Romania.

Albeit, a circumnavigating one but filled with promise nonetheless.

A collection of non-culturally deterministic explanations of the Romanian transition.

I am wary of the overly-simplistic, culturally-determined arguments for the harshness and depth of the Romanian communist experiment. Those familiar with Romanian history know that the Orthodox Church plays a minor role in communism's ascent and maintenance of power in Romania. What really kept the communists in power was their ability to harness nationalism and the forces of history in the creation of a novel, indigenous, national-greatness communism whose vestiges pollute political discourse to the current day. Smug commentaries on Romanian political culture do not offer new frameworks for understanding the Romanian transition; they serve only to cement existing stereotypes and offer excuses for truly liberal scholarship.

What follows is a collection of resources which locate the challenges of the Romanian post-communist transition in something more sound than Samuel P. Huntington's overgeneralized framework.

I'll begin with Cheng Chen’s notable paper, “The Roots of Illiberal Nationalism in Romania: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Leninist Legacy”, which traces the post-communist problems of resurgent Romanian nationalism to the period of Leninist nation-building in Romania. A number of the resources which follow reaffirm Chen's historical institutionalist approach. He notes:

The initial condition for Leninist nation-building in Romania could not be more ominous. Not only was there no indigenous revolution, but also nowhere in Eastern Europe, with the exception of Poland, was the Soviet role in imposing Leninism more open… Paradoxically, the regime’s inflexibility in adopting Leninism was intrinsically related to its extremely weak starting point and its non-Romanian and even anti-Romanian origin.

Chen chronicles the communist leadership's attempt to indigenize communism through appeals to Romanian nationalism.

J.F. Brown's Eastern Europe and Communist Rule examines the history of East European communism, distinguishing the foreignness of communist ideology to Romanian political movements.

Stefan Auer's paper, "Nationalism in Central Europe-- A Chance or a Threat for the Emerging Liberal Democratic Order?", critiques the assumption that Eastern Orthodoxy is inherently more illiberal than Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Auer observers that Croatia, a predominantly Catholic country, has more serious and divisive problems with illiberal nationalism than Romania.

Katherine Verdery's National Ideology Under Socialism examines the "modes of control" implemented by the Ceausescu regime to keep internal dissent at bay.

Vladimir Tismaneanu's Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel is a wonderful example of thoughtful and thought-promoting scholarship on the postcommunist transitions.

Romanian anti-Semitism was encouraged and promoted by the Ceausescu cult's emphasis on the purely Romanian communism which replaced the foreign, Russian, and Jewish communism of the Pauker days. Contrary to its universalist creed, Romanian communism reinforced existing anti-Semitic impulses. Given that communist ideology lacked an indigenous following in Romania, many Romanians were able to blame "Others" for communism, particularly Russians and Jews. For an interesting perspective on Romanian anti-Semitism, read "Anti-Semitic Propaganda and Official Rhetoric Concerning the Judeo-Bolshevik Danger: Romanian Jews and Communism Between 1938-1944".

Juliana Geran Pilon's book, The Bloody Flag Post-Communist Nationalism in Eastern Europe, invokes a personal, incisive view of postcommunist nationalism in Eastern Europe with a special focus on Romania. As a Romanian Jewish emigre, Geran Pilon is particularly well-equipped to analyze social trends in Romania.

Daniel Fehrer's paper, "Long Lasting Legacy Dangerous Games and Dangerous Consequences, The Impact of Romanian National History Writing Under Ceausescu on Politics in Post-Communist Romania" is delightful and on-pointe.

Odds & Ends - The webpage dedicated to transdisciplinarity in science and religion provides a wealth of resources on Romanian transdisciplinary studies. The discussion of Daco-Roman theory as instituted by Gheorghiu-Dej at the Ancient Roman Forum is quite rich. The photo, Galati 2006, was taken by Jana Cavojska. I welcome any more suggestions to add to this list.

Notes for the daily margins.

Mircea Vasilescu, editor of Dilema Veche, shares his views on the conflict between editorial freedom and the demands of the marketplace in current Romanian journalism. 

It is easy to complain about the quality of the press in Romania, we all do it all the time, journalists, managers, readers. In the logic of lamentations and of our inferiority complex, we can say not only that "we don't have a Le Monde", but also that our tabloids are worse than the German Bild or the UK Sun. But the quality of the press overall depends on its relationship to the quality press, which addresses itself to a public somewhat more sophisticated in taste, but with ideas and opinions that matter to society. In this sector, the winning party will be those managers who have the patience over at least two or three years to find a formula that is sufficiently intelligent to deliver quality newspapers and journals to a waiting public. Something that demands not arid disputes but creative harmony between journalists and managers.

Metal-heads might appreciate this video of an interview with Samael's Vorph at a club in Cluj.

A Romanian doctor is suspended in the UK for what seems to be "racism", though it verges on "speciesism". Complicated, no doubt.

A robot for Romania was not in the IMF's bailout plan.

Those with a little extra cash in these sour times might find A guide to Romanian property investment useful right now.

The Italian construction firm, Mixer, has plans in Romania. And targets, too.

20 billion euros in rescue loans.

Virginity doesn't seem to have a high price these days. At least, not on the international marriage market.

Romania opens an emergency refugee center for, well, emergency refugees. I wonder if Roma are welcome..

[Photo by Cristina Birladeanu.]

Excerpt from "Portrait of M" by Matei Calinescu.

"I regard this portrait of M as a kind of "galaxy." It starts with his death and is virtually boundless. I do not know how it could be covered within the confines of one volume, but it will have to come to an end. This will doubtless be an arbitrary end, like any other ending: It may come as a result of an accident, out of exhaustion, or because some passage or word will appear to me as a convenient, suggestive, symbolic conclusion. It may, however, end abruptly, in a moment devoid of any special significance. A galaxy of fragments, memories, reflections, anecdotes and reading notes (always connected to him), of older and newer diary entries written when he was still alive, comments on the margin of diary entries, comments on comments, in random order, generally going counterclockwise, but not necessarily so. The only certitude is the fact that I start with the end, but the beginning-what is the beginning?-I am certain I will never reach the true beginning. The only thing one can say about the beginning is that it is a mystery more profound than the end.

A lengthier excerpt can be read online at Words Without Borders. [Credit for the photo goes to the talented Mihaela Gavrilean.]

A Romanian-Alabamian's dream come true.

What could a Romanian residing in Alabama possibly desire that would require an invocation of this dual identity? What would satisfy the hunger usually sated by Southern soul food spiced with mamaliga, sarmalute, and ciorba? Where does the dark mustiness of Southern literature nestle comfortably alongside the skittish combustibility of Romanian writing?

Forget the fact that I am a globalized mutt who has developed an intense mistrust of any kennel-- American or Romanian-- and prefers to live in cars where the windows are open. Forget my own misgivings about nationalism, patriotism, self-esteem, and resume voyeurism. Forget everything I've ever said or suggeted about politics and conspiracy and other forms of failed literature. For there is hope and excitement on the Romanian horizon. The Observer Translation Project aims to bridge the language barrier by providing translations of previously untranslated fictional gems. For those who long enchanted by the misgivings of the Romanian pen, this project is an oasis.

A Romanian writer is highlighted in every issue, thus opening the doors of cross-cultural discourse for the discovery of relics and treasures. Apart from translating novels, stories, and essays, the Project includes critical essays and translation notes.

Dip into pathological memory and the nostalgia of the return, the exile's tattoo, the dissident's favorite pair of blue jeans, the stoicism of Soviet toilets, Napoleon in Bucharest, the social stasis facilitated by intellectuals glorifying the ditch as the best abode, token immortalities, the heady drum-beat of a wasted morning, dinners with the devil or the pope, the din inside the artist's head, the cosmic significance of dark bodies, and so much more.

[The photo was taken by Miri Bratu. ]

Romanian writing featured in Words Without Borders.

Words Without Borders, subtitled "the magazine for international literature", turned my afternoon to gold. I've linked most of  the stories, essays, and poems by Romanians which I could find featured on the website. Many include poems by famous Romanian authors which were recently translated to English.

• "Pastoral" by Max Blecher
• "Inscription on a Tomb" by Tristan Tzara
• "Encounter" by Gabriela Adamesteanu
• "Domestic Sadness" by Tristan Tzara
• "Come With Me to the Countryside" by Tristan Tzara
• "The Birch Grove" by Luminita Mihai Cioaba
• "Queen of the Night" and "Stone Flower" by Luminita Mihai Cioaba
• "I" by Eugene Ionesco
• "Old Song" by Tristan Tzara
• "Voice" by Tristan Tzara
• "Last Night" by Paul Celan
• "A Kiss" by Ioan Flora
• "Friend Midear" by Tristan Tzara
• "Poem for Marianne's Shadow" by Paul Celan
• "Tip of the Day, or Shakespeare and Computers" by Adrian Otoiu
• "To Live In Sin" by Virgil Duda
• "A Friend of the Archangel" by Gabriela Melinescu
• "L'apparition" by Mariana Marin
• "Red and White" by Mariana Marin
• "Mynheer" by Mariana Marin
• "The Karenina Complex" by Mariana Marin
• "Beretta" by Mariana Marin
• "Crematorium" by Marta Petreu
• "Here" by Marta Petreu
• "In Another Life" by Marta Petreu
• Excerpt from The Roulette Player by Mircea Cartarescu
  

High school reunions in Romania.

Leave it to Andrei Codrescu to open the world of Romanian high school reunions to unwitting Americans. In this 9-page essay for Harper's, Codrescu moves through poetry, sex, epaulets, secret communist signals, hugs, kisses, wine, optimism, and other social graces. Enjoy.

Click here " to download "Big Chills: My High School Reunion in Romania" by Andrei Codrescu.

Jewish music in Romania, a post inspired by Ben Cohen.

Whenever the tuica was plentiful in our American home, my mother would try to convince her guests to dance the hora. The only other times I had the opportunity to dance the hora in the United States involved Eastern European Jewish friends. How is it that Eastern European Jews and Romanians share a national folk dance? Why did my strolls through the Jewish kletzmer festival in Cracow, Poland evoke an incredible, dolorous homesickness?

Kletzmer remains an enduring love for me-- it brings tears of joy to my eyes. Since there are few things in life powerful enough to elicit joy, that magnificent compost of sadness, awe, and elation, it was with great delight that I read Ben Cohen's essay on Jewish music in Romania.

Cohen's experise is personal-- he is a "bessarabisher yid". His grandparents were born in Bessarabia when it was part of Romania and lived in Chisinau until the time of the 1905 pogrom. Today, Bessarabia is the Republic of Moldova, and Cohen lives in Budapest. He notes:

"Although I live in Hungary, the majority of our music’s influences come from Romanian musicians. The reasons are simple. Romania was crucial to the development of klezmer dance repertoire. My ancestors came from Moldavia. I grew up eating mamaliga in New York City. My grandparents spoke Romanian Yiddish. And Romania is one of the few places in Europe today that can boast a rich and active traditional context for folk music."

After discussing the four categories of Jewish music repertoire as applied by Dr. Wallter Zev Feldmen, Cohen zeroes in on the city of Iasi.

When I began to record music in Romania in the late 1980s, many of the elder Gypsy musicians I approached in Transylvania enthusiastically played Jewish tunes for me, alongside the Romanian and Transylvanian Hungarian music I was asking after. I was intrigued. Where had they learned these tunes? From playing for Jewish weddings, they answered. And so I began to learn something of the styles and repertoire of Jewish music from the elder generation of Gypsy musicians such as Ferenc "Arus" and Bela Berki of Mera, Samuel "Cilika" Boross of Cluj, Bela Gaspar, Arpad Toni of Voivodeni, Vassile and Gheorghe Covaci in Maramures, and others. I made trips through Transylvania, Bukovina, Maramures, and Moldavia.

Eventually I had the great pleasure of meeting Prof. Itzik Shvartz and his wonderful wife Cili in Iasi in 1991. Prof. Shvartz, born in 1905, is a prolific writer, folklorist, linguist, and former director of the Iasi Yiddish theater who at this writing is still living in Iasi. He has known all of the 20th century’s important Romanian Jewish personalities as well as many of the Jewish musicians. His wife Cili was perhaps the best living Yiddish traditional singer in Europe until her death in 1998 (her kosher soda cookies were absolutely the best….).

From Itzik Shvartz I learned about the life of klezmer families in 20th century Iasi: the Bughici family, the Segal family, and the Weiss family. The Lemesh family were important musicians in the last century who also played in Avram Goldfaden’s original Yiddish Theater orchestra at the Pomul Verde wine cellar in Iasi, but that family no longer resides in Iasi – I have heard they moved to Philadelphia. 

Abraham Goldfaden, considered by many to be the "father of Yiddish theater", founded his theater troupe in Iasi, then moved to Bucharest, and then took it to the road. Nahma Sandrow recounts her trip to Pomul Verde and the heady influence of sweet Romanian wines in her article for The New York Times. Joel Berkowitz's article on Goldfaden is the best I've read on Goldfaden so far. I return the microphone to Mr. Cohen:

The Bughici band was primarily violin-based. Many of the Bughici family were murdered in the 1941 Iasi pogrom, but several survived, including Avram, the violinist, and Dimitru, who became a renowned piano teacher and jazz composer in Bucharest and now resides in Israel. During the 1970s, Prof. Shvartz had made some cassettes of the playing of Avram Bughici and Gheorghe Bughici, both on violin. Avram Bughici sold a book of repertoire to Itzik for use in the theater. Although the manuscript may now be lost, Itzik did make a cassette recording around 1975 with the accompaniment of accordionist Izu Gott (son of Dorohoi klezmer clarinetist Berko Gott), sight-reading the pieces on accordion. (Izu, a classically trained bassist who lives part of each year in Israel, has since served as music director of the Romanian Federation of Jews, as well as its president.) From Avram Bughici’s book we can assume the nature of the family’s repertoire – lots of khosidls, to be sure, several freylachs, with some theater songs and doinas.

The Segal family were considered more accomplished musicians, however, and played in the Iasi Yiddish theater as well. Unfortunately, a manuscript of their music may have been lost – we are still looking for it – but hopefully in the future I will get the chance to meet one Segal still big in the Romanian entertainment business – Gheorghe Segal, known as TV personality Gheorghe Sava – and ask if he knows anything about this. Sava’s father’s gravestone in the Iasi cemetery features a carved stone harp, as testament to his prowess as a musician.

Elsewhere in Moldavia we know of other Jewish musicians. In Roman, before the Holocaust, there was Hayim "Hersko" Herskovits, a trumpeter, as well as fiddlers Moishe Musikant and Iancu Malai. The popular Romanian song composer Richard Stein was also from Roman. Jewish musicians in Roman often played alongside Gypsies, and a basic band was formed of a violin or trumpet, accordion, and drum – a very typical lineup for a modern Moldavian band even today.

In modern Moldavian folk music we still find traces of Jewish repertoire in the music of the fanfara brass bands. The elder generation of Romanian and Gypsy folk fiddlers often have pieces of klezmer origin in their repertoires, although this is becoming rarer these days. Dances such as "Jidancuta", "Jidoveasca", and melodies commonly recorded by early klezmer musicians are still current among many village repertoires. 

Cohen provides a lot of detail and wonderful photographs about his experiences with Jewish music in Romania on Mark Rubin's blog. I encourage peeking. 

On Jewish music in Transylvania, Cohen writes:

In Transylvania we find fewer traces of Jewish musicians. One reason is the different social development of Transylvania’s Jews under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In this region, as in Hungary (after 1825), it was mostly Gypsy musicians who provided instrumental music for Jews. Transylvania was a part of Hungary previous to 1920. As "Hungarian" Jews, Transylvanian Jews were enfranchised as citizens in 1867, and even before that date were accepting social assimilation to a "Hungarian" national identity, after the German Jewish model. In 1867 Hungary’s Jewish communities split into Neolog (sort of "Reform") and Orthodox, with certain communities remaining as "Status Quo Ante". Thus, communities in Cluj (Kolozsvar in Hungarian), Arad, Sibiu, and Timisoara (Temesvar in Hungarian) were predominantly Neolog, and adopted Hungarian language in place of Yiddish.

Alongside many other Hungarian customs they adopted, Jews were great patrons of Hungarian popular music, or Magyar notak, and a Neolog wedding allowed for mixed-sex dancing. Gypsy musicians were hired for Jewish weddings, and played a few Jewish songs (usually "Belz" alongside various Yiddish theater songs and a few Sabbath zmiros) while providing csardas music for dancing. In Fizesul Gherleii (Ordongosfuzes in Hungarian) as well as Sarmas, local Gypsy village bands also played sets of "Jewish Dances". Zoltan Blum, a Jew from Fizesul Gherleii, remembers Jews dancing in a circle to this music before WWII. He also says that Jews in the village lived harmoniously with their neighbors, except for three things which they would never do with non-Jews: eat with them, bathe with them, or dance with them.

So much for the Austro-Hunagrian enlightened ideal. Clearly, Jewish music differs from Romanian folk music in some important ways. Seth Rogovoy distinguishes Romanian folk music from Jewish music in its connection to the Yiddish language and ornamentation:

Yet for all the “borrowings” of klezmer, for all the Romanian dance rhythms and the haunting melodies that some attribute to the music’s Gypsy flavorings, there is something essentially Jewish that separates klezmer from Gypsy or Romanian music. This is partly due to its close connection to the Yiddish language, spoken by Jews. It is also demonstrably a technical question of phrasing or ornamentation – those krekhts, or achy moans that are characteristic of klezmer violinists and clarinetists, along with the tshoks, or laugh-like sounds, and kneytshn, the sob-like “catch,” which are all directly borrowed from the characteristic vocal ornamentation of the khazones, the prayer melodies of the synagogue cantors. But even more than any of these specific cultural influences, there is something more intangibly Jewish that gives klezmer its distinctive flavor, that makes it different from other closely-related Balkan folk musics.

Romanian film director Radu Gabrea has produced several films on Jewish music in Romania. If you are interested in learning more about Romanian Jewish music, I suggest reading a little about the cimbalom and exploring the following links:

• Photos from the Jewish Music Research Center.
• Lost Trails' "The Lost Jewish Music of Moldavia", with violinist Constanin Lupu.
  
• "Jewish Musicians in Moldova" by Itsik Shvarts. Translated by Bob Cohen.
• View the Goldfaden Centennial Exhibit Online.
• The Yizkor Book Project's tour of Jewish heritage in Iasi.
• Explore Romanian folk music with the BBC Radio 3's guide.
• Video of John Belushi doing the classic Yiddish folk tune, "Romania, Romania" for SNL at Teruah.
• National Geographic offers a few Romanian folk tunes for sample in addition to a detailed look at gypsy folk traditions.
• For information about Belf's Romanian Orchestra, visit the Kletzmershack and scroll down.
• To find Jewish music online, use this wonderful Guide from The Jewish Theological Seminary.
• Dumneazu gets personal about Ukranian influences in Jewish folk music and also mentions Muzsikas, which produced a recording of Maramures Jewish music learned from Gheorghe Covaci. (I posted his photo of the band above.)
• Sephardic Jewish Community of Romania.
• For a list of names to google on this topic, see the line-up for The International Workshop on Yiddish Theatre, Dance, and Performance.
• Explore Jewish culture in Iasi with Haskedim.
• The hora from Moistworks.
  

"Anti-nostalgia links".

"On the level of historical insight and political thought there prevails an ill-defined, general agreement that the essential structure of all civilizations is at a breaking point. Although it may seem better preserved in some parts of the world than in others, it can nowhere provide the guidance to the possibilities of the century, or an adequate response to its horrors…

The conviction that everything that happens of earth must be comprehensible to man can lead to interpreting history by commonplaces. Comprehension does not mean denying the outrageous, deducing the unprecedented from precedents, or explaining phenomena by such analogies and generalities that the impact of reality and the shock of experience are no longer felt. It means, rather, examining and bearing consciously the burden that our century has placed on us — neither denying its existence nor submitting meekly to its weight. Comprehension, in short, means the unpremeditated, attentive facing up to, and resisting of, reality — whatever it may be…

We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live. And this is why all efforts to escape from the grimness of the present into nostalgia for a still intact past, or into the anticipated oblivion of a better future, are vain."

I thoroughly enjoyed chasing the "anti-nostalgia links" posted at O'Connor's Opinions-- enough, in fact, to start working on an anti-nostalgia links list of my own. Hat tip to the O'Connors for the inspiration. And due respect to Hannah Arendt for the above-listed quote from the preface to The Origins of Totalitarianism (a.k.a. my guidebook).                                      

• "The Gulag Archipelago in Romania: The Story No One Has Told Before" by Sandro Magister. This includes information garnered from the Vatican.
• Memo from Henry Kissinger to President Nixon on May 15, 1973 urging "high priority" relationship between US and Romania.
• "Behind the Facade of the Ceausescu Regime" by Vladimir Tismaneanu for RFE/RL
• The names, the short sentences describing their fate, the condemnations, the many who simply disappeared.
• The archives of Romanian state television in the 1970's.
• The Museum of Communism, created by one of my favorite people in Arlington, Virginia.
• Cum era? Cam asa: Memories of Romania's Communist Years edited by Calin-Andrei Mihailescu with excerpt at link.
• Bless This Prison video from Fundation ICAR.
• "Pioneers Forever" by Vasile Ernu.
• "The Legacy of Elena Ceausescu" by Catherine Lovatt for Central European Review

Donald Dunham's dissertation on Romanian art.

The Romanians are a social phenomenon. As a nation among nations, they are westerners evolved in the East. They are Latins surrounded by Slavs. They are Romans two thousand years away from Rome. They are contemporaries re-produced on Trajan’s Column.

They are peasants with the utmost in sophistication. They farm instinctively, but are suspicious of machinery. They speak a language like Italian but the majority of their words are Slavonic. They are superstitious but religious at the same time. They are astutely intelligent, but refuse to be intellectual. They submit to invasion but preserve their identity. They support great wealth and extreme poverty. They produce striking beauty yet can live in filth.

As a collective personality, the Romanians are Oriental in their souls although Latin on the surface. Their patience is almost unending but they are quick to explode in argument; they are peace-loving yet would disintegrate without controversy. They are passive but strong in their resistance; spontaneously adaptable, still difficult t influence. They are romantic but never escape from reality.

They are charming yet cruel in their ridicule, warmly emotional but calculating, generous yet concentrate on the ‘main chance.’ They are opportunistic but lose interest after they have gained the advantage; they seize the moment, still adopt the long view.

The Romanians are a people of colorful contrasts and extreme extremes, born in classic times, ravaged by barbarians, indentured to the Turks, dominated by the Byzantines, the Greeks, dictated to by the Hungarians, Poles, Austrians and others, seduced by the French and not recognized as a country until 1878. Yet they emerge with a character that defies this confusion, that is definitely, emphatically, unmistakably Romanian. This character was born of a Dacian shepherd and a Roman lass, whose progeny became dwellers with nature itself, epicureans with earthy values and a tough constitution.

It developed in composition and grew in strength under the invasions of waves of barbarians. Slavs were added to the original Dacians and the Roman colonizers. Christianization was extended in Wallachia and Moldavia by the Byzantine Church and intrigue was introduced as a science by the Greek ruling emissaries of the Sublime Porte. With the intrigue came the Greek culture of the mind – the analytical clarity of the Mediterraneans – which evaporated as Greek, as it was quickly absorbed as Romanian. Following this permeation came the magnetic seduction by Paris and the synthetic adoption of French-Western artistic values, by those classes who would afford to visit the “Rive Gauche” and return.

Today you find the cult of the mind imbedded as an element of character in all classes second only to emotional spontaneity as a national characteristic. The Greeks were more successful than the French because they came to Romania and did not make Romanians come to them, and because their main influence was middle class and thereby could infect those classes both above and below them. The French appealed to aristocracy; the upper and wealthy classes of Romania went to Paris yearning to prove themselves by Gallic standards, perhaps eventually to return to the country of their birth to demonstrate their cultural acquisitions.

It was 1947. The Soviets were stationed in Romania under the auspices of the Allied Commission.

Donald Dunham wrote his doctoral dissertation for Professor George Oprescu, who, at the time, was secretary of the International Commission for Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations. The subject of his dissertation, Rumanian Profile: A Study of National Character as Reflected in the Visual Arts, dove-tailed with the assumptions of the European nation-state. It was submitted to the Faculty of Arts and Letters on May 20th, 1948. Dunham introduced it as follows:

Rumanian Profile is a study of the character of the Rumanian people as reflected in their visual arts. It is based on the contention that man is better analyzed by his artistic achievements than by his behavior, that the history of art in many respects is a more exact commentary on a country than its political history.

Dunham provides a brief history of the Romanian nation and then begins to examine the relationship between a people and their national arts. He looks at the artistic traditions of the Romanian elite as they developed under Greek-Byzantine influence (particularly in architecture) and under French influence during the 19th century (particularly in painting). He explores parallels between the Romanian national painter Nicolae Grigorescu and the American expatriate James Whistler. Dunham contrasts the elite traditions with the peasant traditions, using embroidery as the medium for describing peasant art.

While Dunham deals richly with the artistic traditions of Moldavia and Wallachia, he does not touch upon the traditions of Transylvania. Dunham excuses this on the grounds that Moldavia and Wallachia, the original provinces of unified Romania, "possess the essential ingredients while the other areas are culturally on the periphery". However, in a conversation with Ernest H. Latham, Jr., Dunham suggested that the real reason for this exclusion was that his status as an American diplomat in the postwar period made it impossible for him to get permission to travel to Transylvania and other regions. He didn't want to write about architecture and art which he was unable to view in person. In this sense, his dissertation failed to adequately portray the relationship between the Romanian "national character" and its artistic traditions.

Despite its limitations, Dunham's dissertation is remarkable in the fact that it was "the first American doctorate conferred in Romania", according to the roundtable convened with that title by the Association of Friends of the United States in June 1995. It exemplifies the role of history as inculcator of national values and creator of national identity. Dunham's appreciation for Romanian people and culture might sound a little expansive to modern ears, but it is an excellent historical document.

An excerpt from his dissertation dealing with Wallachian architecture and Byzantine influence is available online courtesy of Plural magazine. The excerpt quoted at the beginning of this post is also available from Plural.

A cornucopia of thoughts on Romanian fatalism.

Nae Ionescu gathered a group of despairing young men about him and began to theorize. These men would later speak about the impossibilities of speaking to everyone around them.

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Mircea Vulcanescu died insisting that there could be no true revenge-- that no action possessed the power to create a hero, that the struggle for freedom was its own prison. The communists arrested him in 1946. Convicted as a war criminal, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

Fellow prisoners told the story of his death: he and a group of 12 other convicts form his cell were all punished to stay naked, without any clothes or chairs, in a very cold and wet cavern in the prison's dungeon, for reciting poetry (poetry was very popular in prisons that communists used to condemn people just for being intellectuals; it was one of the few resorts of resisting the mental torture). An young man fell to the floor, risking to die of a lung disease, and Mircea Vulcănescu practically forced him to stay on top of him, rather than on the wet stone floor, and thus saved his life. He said: "I'm an old man, how can I let a young man like you die?". Yet he was only 48, an age many do not regard as "old". Soon after this, the young man was better, but Mircea Vulcănescu developed pneumonia, and soon after he died. His last words to the world were: "Do not avenge us!"

His death, of course, remains unavenged. As he wished.

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Constantin Noica believed Romanians fell under the spell of determinism. Some things were fated.

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Stan Farnya sees an organic connection between Romanian fatalism and the rise of what he calls the "new fascism". From the fomer fascism of the Ionescu school to the "new fascism" stands a great gulf. But Farnya sees the seeds. And he believes the soil is well-nourished.

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The Filter, citing the Romanian response to a pile of rotting meat, can't see the fatalism for the trees. 

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The Union for the Reconstruction of Romania, goes so far as to limit membership to applicants who do not subscribe to the tenets of "Romanian fatalism". Members argue on sidewalks about the complacency of the pensioners perched on park benches.

If people only undertook those initiatives whose success was guaranteed we would all still be living in caves and pick fruit with sticks. The only guarantee we have is our name and reputation. You can believe us and come with us to take action to solve the many problems our country faces or sit on the fence to see what happens and wait for guarantees. Skepticism is a legitimate attitude but, unfortunately, not at all constructive. This precise attitude of the people allowed the political class to degenerate to the parasitic stage it is in today. Sociologists call this a "self-fulfilling prophecy". This means that if you strongly believe that something, good or bad, will happen then the chance of that event to happen significantly increases. The explanation is very simple: what you believe will influence the way you act and your attitude influences the events around the particular event. In our particular case, skepticism and fence-riding generates inactivity and negative thinking which in turn makes one see more the mistakes than successes which in turn produces inactivity and more inactivity. But changes don't come by magic, they need activism and energy. So the initiative will fail: bingo! You were right! "Just another political party, did I not tell you?" Isn't it wonderful to be always right? Even if it serves no purpose? This is the Romanian fatalism at work and it has already turned us into a spectator nation.

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In An Ontological Definition of the Romanian National Identity, Mihaela Alexandra Pop cites Vulcanescu's view that Romanians tend towards a "theophanic" identification rather than an individualist one-- they accept what comes as part of the universal order in which struggle is just the other side of foolishness. Rather than nourish a Protean self-understanding, Romanian folk tales and stories reward the man who sits back and thanks God for the troubles in life, as well as the freedom from responsibility for the outcomes.

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An executive study entitled "The Evolution of Mentalities in Eastern Europe and the Future of the European Project" from a summer school session asserts:

Romanian intellectuals such as Mihail Sebastian, Emil Cioran, Panait Istrati have described Romanians sometimes as fatalistic but also slightly megalomaniac, subdued, endowed often with a low self-esteem and a tendency to blame others for their mishaps. Romanians often see themselves as having good humor, as being optimistic and hospitable people.

One of the big thinkers at this session was Mircea Malitza, who served as Ceausescu's ambassador to the USA in the 1980's. Malitza knows a lot about the Romanian national psyche, and how Romanians can be broken into a thousand tiny pieces, so tiny that the edges fray. Malitza was a good servant to the communist regime. And fate was on his side. He now maintains an illustrious career as a member of the Romanian academy and an expert on Romanian national identity.

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Z. Ornea looks at Cioran's contribution to Romanian fatalism via his book, The Transfiguration of Romania. Ornea quotes Cioran extensively:

Truths sprung from compliance are not a matter of glory. No historic act was borne by wisdom; wisdom can only be manifest in sub or trans-history. Wisdom can be the negation of history, for it is distance taken from life, whereas history reinforces it. The daily truths of Romanians are paralyzing. They tend to strip man of any responsibility. Fatalism is an a-moralism of evolution. I can well understand the drives of individual and internal fatalism, translations of the dynamism of the inner demon, but it is a deviation and an anthropological blasphemy to cede to times… The fatalism of our people is a curse we shall have to rout in thunder. To the heart shall the lightning strike us. I want another people! The centennial plague that has befallen the Romanian is skepticism… A skeptical soul is not a creator as any structural skepticism implies exhausted sources, original sterility… Romanian skepticism – superficial in its scope and the nature thereof – is nonetheless deep-seated by its enrootment in the popular soul.

Adrian Codrescu on Romanian wine customs, French professors, and what to do when your glass is empty.

Our largish party included a near-retirement age French professor of history, I think he was, who taught at the Sorbonne. We drank a lot of Romanian red wine, the luxuriant dry Byzantium Cabernet Sauvignon from the legendary Dealu Mare vineyards, and went through several courses over the course of several hours, a standard Romanian repast. We talked mostly about food. After he had drunk more than a few glasses of wine, the French professor held forth on various subjects, discoursing in an elliptical way so that no one else could talk while he spoke. He talked about Iraq, launching into a kind of History Channel lecture on the Middle East, including a few indisputable, uninspired opinions about military strategy. Something about Napoleon. For him, the past was a series of coherent, causal events that fit into a neat narrative. For my part, I tried to get in that the war was nothing less than a calamity and then attempted to offer a few barbed opinions about the idiot president, George W. Bush. But I don't believe he heard me, possibly because he was giving a lecture rather than engaging in a conversation. He also didn't think much of the irrefutably superb Byzantium Cab, comparing it, predictably, to Bordeaux and Burgundies. Nevertheless he drank glass after glass of the vintage and got very drunk.

You aren't supposed to touch the wine bottle in a Romanian restaurant—it's practically an insult to pour your own. So the bottle that has been placed on the table in front of you rests there until the designated attendant picks it up and walks around the table silently, fluidly, ceremoniously pouring wine into glasses. The problem is that you can sit before an empty glass for twenty minutes, sort of watching it wistfully—the lonely half-full bottle sitting there in front of you, as well—waiting for the person charged with refilling a glass to come. This may be a consequence of the Communist days, when everyone was assigned a job, no matter how meaningful, though I'm not sure about that. It may go back to the time of Matei Corvin and Vlad Tepes. Or to Ovid, for that matter.

The French professor did not like to have wine poured into the glass that he'd been drinking from. He wanted a new wineglass each time he had a glass of wine, which was frequently, even if the burgundy liquid poured into it was the same as the one he had been drinking. He even threatened to smash his glass on the stone floor if he wasn't supplied with a new one every time a bottle was opened—he claimed that this was common practice in France. I'd never heard of this and, though I didn't offer my opinion this time, thought it was an excessive cultural ideal to enforce. Also, his theatrical refusal caused such a commotion that the guy appointed with the job of pouring the wine, upset, ran off to get the maître d'hôtel. This being Romania, it took a while for them to come. Meanwhile, my glass sat empty in front of me. When the maître d' and several members of the wait crew appeared, the Sorbonne professor, with practically no knowledge of Romanian, got into a row with them. He even wanted to stand up to make some kind of speech, but several of our party beseeched him to remain seated. Kind of swimming in the copious red liquid myself, I did try to say that I was originally from the West Coast, and that we replaced glasses sometimes when we changed wines at tastings, but I don't think I was heard above the fracas. I then realized why this professor from the Sorbonne was such a fucking idiot. This was his fly fishing.

[Excerpted from "Fly Fishing Romania" at The Exquisite Corpse. Follow the link to get the whole picture.]