Romanian Literature

Available on JSTOR:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/complitstudies.56.3.0487

ProjectMuse:
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/735021

This article illustrates through a data analysis of “the archive” and of what Jordan A. Y. Smith has recently defined as translationscapes, the way in which “the planetary world-as-world” emerged in Romania through translation only as late as 1948. Since translations of literature, as defined by the polysystem theory, are “a most active system within a polysytem,” one can assume that local production in certain cultures is strongly dependent on imports.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/complitstudies.56.3.0487

La tragedia rappresenta uno dei più vasti ambiti di interesse e di indagine dal punto di vista letterario, teatrale e filosofico. Questo volume ricerca, nello specifico, un possibile “sentimento tragico della Storia”, ispirandosi a Miguel de Unamuno. Si guarda a Karl Marx, quindi alla Storia come “tragedia” nell’interpretazione di Arnold Toynbee e di Oswald Spengler, alla dialettica tra tragedia e Storia di Lucien Goldmann – e György Lukács –, sino alla “tragedia del popolo” di Orlando Figes.

A teatro per costruire la Nazione. Con questa idea di straordinaria modernità, gli intellet-tuali romeni della prima metà dell'Ottocento si sono dedicati alla traduzione di opere del teatro tragico francese e italiano con passi-one e impegno. Consci di un gap secolare tra il mondo romeno dell' epoca, ancora legato a una civiltà orientale, e l'Occidente europeo, Ion Heliade Rădulescu, Gheorghe Asachi, Constantin Aristia e Constantin Negruzzi si sono dedicati alla traduzi-oni di testi teatrali destinati alla rappresentazione. Questo "laboratorio" linguistico e letterario ha come obbiettivo principale non solo la diffu-sione di una cultura "democratica", ma anche il perfezionamento della lingua nazionale sul modello delle grandi lingue di cultura, il francese e l'italiano, permettendo di fare accedere il romeno, per la prima volta, e per sempre, nel grande "concerto" delle lingue europee.

Limba româna pe scenă. Să construiești o națiune și o limbă literară națională poftind-o la teatru. Pornind de la ideea aceasta extrem de modernă, scriitorii români din prima jumătate a secolului al XIX-lea s-au dedicat trup și suflet traducerii de tragedii franceze și italiene. Conștienți fiind de existența unei falii seculare între cultura română de atunci, puternic ancorată în civilizația orientală, și Occidentul euro-pean, Ion Heliade Rădulescu, Gheorghe Asachi, Constantin Aristia și Constantin Negruzzi și-au luat asupra lor misiunea de a traduce piese de teatru destinate punerii în scenă. Acest "laborator" lingvistic și liter-ar avea drept obiectiv principal nu doar răspândirea unei culturi de tip "democratic", ci și perfecționarea limbii naționale după modelul mari-lor limbi de cultură, franceza și italiana, înlesnindu-i astfel românei, prima dată și pentru totdeauna, integrarea în marele "concert" al lim-bilor europene.

Nella storia lunga e sinuosa dei rapporti tra italiano e romeno, uno dei capitoli più importanti e gravidi di conseguenze è stato l’italianismo letterario di alcuni grandi scrittori romeni dell’Ottocento, come Ion Heliade Rădulescu o Gheorghe Asachi che, agli albori della letteratura romena moderna, hanno accolto e assimilato all’interno della propria lingua poetica una quantità straordinaria di elementi lessicali, stilistici e retorico-formali di origine italiana, frutto di intense pratiche di traduzione e di emulazione. L’italianismo letterario romeno segna, in questo modo, la fortuna postrema dell’italiano in Europa quale lingua della poesia e della letteratura, recuperando, a tappe forzate, processi e fenomeni che in Occidente si erano svolti nei secoli precedenti, a partire almeno dal Cinquecento.
Iniziando da Asachi e da Heliade e terminando con le elaborazioni formali di Mihai Eminescu, il presente volume ricostruisce, con particolare attenzione agli aspetti stilistici, le tappe della presenza italiana all’interno della lingua poetica romena, in un momento in cui la letteratura romena moderna muoveva i suoi primi passi, sperimentando i propri limiti e le proprie possibilità, guardando, per la prima volta, direttamente e intensamente in faccia le altre grandi lingue di cultura europee.

Civitas, le topos de la cité humaine dans la critique littéraire de D. Popovici. L'article vise un problème de survivance de la culture classique dans la critique littéraire de D. Popovici : l'usage et la fonction du topos de la cité humaine. En attribuant cette présence à la familiarisation avec l'oeuvre de Saint Augustin, De civitate Dei, on refait à travers plusieurs études du critique roumain la signification de cette référence dans le contexte de la littérature roumaine moderne. C'est à partir de l'interprétation de l'oeuvre augustinienne dans le Principe de l'espérance de Ernst Bloch, qu'on met en évidence sa capacité de représenter un « pathos du changement », mobilisé par D. Popovici dans l'explication de l'émergence de la culture roumaine et de son renouveau sur le seuil de la modernité.

Nel panorama della cultura romena attuale, Marta Petreu (n. 1955) è senza dubbio una figura di primo piano. Personalità culturale organica e complessa, docente e studiosa di filosofia romena, redattore capo di un importante mensile culturale, saggista e romanziera, Marta Petreu è e resta in primo luogo, intimamente ed essenzialmente, poeta, una delle più intense e autentiche voci poetiche romene degli ultimi decenni.
Al centro della sua poetica si trova, bruciante e violento, il problema del male, la flagrante incongruenza tra la presenza innegabile e ineludibile del male nel mondo e l’assenza di azione in esso da parte di Dio, la cocente impossibilità di riconciliare l’esperienza della sofferenza fisica e psichica, il dolore materiale del corpo e lo spasimo intangibile dello spirito, con il dogma della natura misericordiosa e amorevole di un Padre che si dimostra al meglio assente e obliatore, al peggio crudele e capriccioso. Cronaca eretica e ribelle di un’Apocalisse che non è evento ma condizione, la sua poesia scabra e inclemente è un’incisione nella materia viva del corpo che mette a nudo, con feroce tenerezza, la carne pulsante del dolore e del desiderio.

The substance of the present paper represents a text comparison between two books of theological polemic and philosophy, one from the 17th century, the other written at the end of the 18th century. The first one, Carte sau lumină..., Snagov, 1699, is the Romanian version of an Orthodox Greek text, both of them being printed in Wallachia in the context of advertising and imposing the Church Union upon the Orthodox believers in Transylvania; the latter is written by a Greek-catholic scholar, Petru Maior, who displays religious ideas and beliefs similar to those existing in the previous mentioned book, in order to determine a reconsideration of the Greek-catholic Church principles, and politic, by the high clergy. Knowing the fact that Carte sau lumină... has been in circulation in Transylvania, particularly in Blaj, our purpose was to see how strong the direct relation between the two books was, in terms of quotation, explicit or not. We conclude that, although the two books share ideas, principles, comments and interpretations of controversial biblical texts, Patru Maior quotes rather scarcely from the 17th century book; instead, he mentions and cites different other writers and texts containing the same type of information, to justify its position and convince his readers through transfer of multiple authority.

M. Blecher’s Poetry. Cultural Context, Publishing, Reception, Macro Data

The following paper tries to approach a not so well researched part of M. Blecher’s literary creation, mainly his poetry. Given the high level of appreciation and popularity that his prose works have achieved for the past few years (not only in Romania), it is only fair to come up with an exploration of his poetry. But in order to understand or analyze Blecher’s poetry, we need to clearly mark the cultural coordinates of the time when it appeared, as well as the production process of the only poetry book he published (Transparent Body). These coordinates and the three classic parts of the production process are the subject of this paper.

Keywords: Romanian literature, Romanian poetry, avant-garde, M. Blecher, Corp transparent

Remarked from her very first book, Voica (published in 1924), and up to her last novel Le Témoin de l’éternité, printed first in France in 1975 and translated into Romanian in 1995, Henriette Yvonne Stahl turned from a promising female writer into a unique voice in the inter-and post-war literary life in Romania.
Starting from Rimbaud’s illuminating pensée “Love has to be reinvented” (Felman 2007: 5), this paper aims to explore the identity of females in My Brother, the Man, drawing on identity and trauma as devised by Penny Brown (1992), Cathy Caruth (1995 and 1996), Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub (1992). In addition, the mixture of memory and narrative covers types of talk fiction (Kakandes 2005), the shift of focus from the subject of remembrance to the mode it takes place (Anne Whitehead 2009), and Beata Piątek who looks at how narratives impact readers (2014). Are the main characters engulfed in a dense life texture able to explore their personal dilemmas, difficult choices and detach from the flux of their own passions and desires? Or are they going to fall victims to their own inability of understanding the meaning of life, paralleled by the lack of vision and humanity manifested by secondary characters? Both male and female characters display a dominant profile, their actions and inner voices are marked by subtle or abrupt shifts, meant to stimulate a noticeable response from those they love or hate. The omniscient narrator employs a vast repertoire of techniques, meant to nuance egos and changes, moving from a classically-structured narrative to a detective story supporting inner monologues and deepened psychological impasses, occasionally bringing fictional personae closer to realist and existentialist fiction.

1. Einleitung

Die vorliegende Arbeit verfolgt mehrere Ziele - manche davon entsprechen denen einer Geschichte und/oder Historiographie des Übersetzens, andere sind Prototheorien des Übersetzens. Ein erstes translationswissenschaftliches Ziel besteht in der Herausarbeitung der expliziten Verbindungen, die sich bilden zwischen induktiven Vor-theorien zum Übersetzen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, der Entlehnung westlicher Theoriemodelle zu Kultur und Geschichte und linguistischer Theorien sowie zwischen einzelnen Zweigen der Translationswissenschaft: Übersetzungsgeschichte, Historiographie, Theorie, praxisorientierte Theorie und Philosophie des Übersetzens. Diese Arbeit, die sich vor allem auf Untersuchungen stützt, die in Scurta istorie a traducerii Repere traductologice (2007) [Kurze Übersetzungsgeschichte. Translationswissenschaftliche Herangehensweisen], Un capitol de traductologie românească (2008) [Ein Kapitel rumänischer Translationswissenschaft] und Tendinţe în cercetarea traductologică (2005) [Tendenzen translationswissenschaftlicher Forschung], aber auch in Repertoriile (RTR I, 2006) [Bestandsaufnahme der Übersetzungen] und (RTR II, 2006) [Bestandsaufnahme der Übersetzer], erschienen sind, versteht sich als Neuinterpretation der historischen Daten. Die Daten wurden deskriptiv-statistisch erfasst und werden nun aus einer argumentativen Perspektive präsentiert, wobei ähnliche, zeitlich abweichende, Konstellationen in Westeuropa vergleichend herangezogen werden. Es soll die Art und Weise dargestellt werden, wie sich induktive und empirische Übersetzungstheorien des 19. Jahrhunderts mit vorwiegend deskriptiver Herangehensweise und eher normative, deduktive, linguistische Theorien (Latinismus, Purismus, Italienismus), miteinander verbinden. Der Schwerpunkt der Arbeit liegt in der Untersuchung der logischen Regeln, auf denen die konkreten sprachlichen Fakten aufgebaut sind, die die Grundlage bilden für die Herausbildung der rumänischen Sprache. Diese sollen komparativ und/oder kontrastiv untersucht werden. 
Außerdem soll gezeigt werden - und das ist für die Übersetzungsgeschichte ebenso relevant wie für die Translationswissenschaft -, dass es eine vortranslationswissenschaftliche, sich entwickelnde, induktive Forschung gibt und dass diese die Grundlage bildet für die aktuelle Translationswissenschaft, die geformt ist von den jeweiligen Referenz-Gebieten, auf die Bezug genommen wird und von der Ausbildung jedes einzelnen Übersetzers. Auch die vorliegende dialektische Herangehensweise hat ein Korpus als Basis, ist also induktiv, ohne aber den absolut notwendigen Übergang zwischen induktiver und deduktiver Herangehensweise an das Phänomen, das untersucht werden soll, auszuschließen - was eine retrodiktive Perspektive und implizit eine Bestätigung beobachtbarer Auswirkungen erlaubt – und eine historisch-komparatistische Perspektive des übersetzerischen und übersetzungswissenschaftlichen Phänomens .

Ich gehe also von einer analytischen Methode (Dekomposition) zur synthetischen (Rekompostion) über, die Perspektiven und Ideen verknüpft und verbindet, um ein Gesamtbild des Phänomens der Übersetzung in Rumänien, der Methoden der übersetzerischen Praxis und der vor-translationswissenschaftlichen Reflexionen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert zu bieten.

The Child of the Sun: Royal Fairy Tales and Essays by the Queens of Romania, Elisabeth (Carmen Sylva, 1843-1916) and Marie (1875-1938).
Selected and edited, with an introduction and bibliography by Silvia Irina Zimmermann.
[Schriftenreihe der Forschungsstelle Carmen Sylva/ Fürstlich Wiedisches Archiv, Band 9 / Series of the Research Center Carmen Sylva - Princely Archive of Wied, vol. 9], Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag (Ibidem Press), 2020, 315 pages, 54 illustrations (7 colored), ISBN-13: 978-3-8382-1393-4.

Adaptarea cinematografică a romanului „Pădurea spânzuraților” de Liviu Rebreanu ar fi putut fi o coproducție româno-italiană regizată de Glauco Pellegrini. Înainte ca scenaristul Titus Popovici și regizorul Liviu Ciulei să fie implicați în proiectul ecranizării, la Studioul Cinematografic București (SCB) a circulat o variantă de scenariu semnată de scriitorul român Petre Sălcudeanu alături de italienii Ennio De Concini, Franco Rossetti și Glauco Pellegrini. Studiul analizează acest scenariu, păstrat în colecția Arhivei Naționale de Filme (ANF), comparându-l cu romanul lui Rebreanu, și încearcă să explice, pe baza documentelor SCB din Arhivele Naționale ale României, motivele pentru care proiectul coproducției a eșuat.

Articolul interoghează teza că Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889), cel mai important scriitor român din secolul al XIX-lea, a valorificat în scrierile sale jurnalistice eșantioane paremiologice culese din vorbirea oamenilor de rînd. În privința sutelor de proverbe prezente în articolele de presă redactate de Eminescu, îmi propun să arăt că scriitorul a naturalizat în mozaicul textelor gazetărești decu-paje livrești cărora le-a conferit aparența stilistică a unor elemente populare. Fără a nega că unele dintre proverbele la care poetul recurge pe teren jurnalistic provin din limba comună, în studiul de față mă preocupă mizanscena orchestrată de scriitor pentru a conferi aură folclorică unor decupaje culte. Nu în ultimul rînd, cercetarea atrage atenția asupra disponibilității lui Eminescu de a experimenta formule de scriere jurnalistică dintre cele mai variate, rafinate în acord cu ideile, temperamentul și imaginația artistului.

Constructed by Western discourse as part of the same absence/ non-significance area with which ‘the centre’ seems to associate ‘the margin’, Romanian literature (including writers and writings regarded as ‘canonical’ by the local school of criticism) has yet to find a way to decentre or dispute the dominant hegemony of the established Western canon. A case in point is exposed by Julian Barnes, in ‘One of a Kind’ (1982/1987). The accuracy of the detail in this short story reveals a narrator keenly acquainted with the realities of Romania and its culture during the communist era. Apparently objective and realist, the text artfully conceals the metafictional subversion of established truths and values, and sheds some light on a political context hindering the development of culture, which was virtually unknown to the English readership in the 1980s. This paper aims at discussing the strategies employed in this game of appearances, whose scaffolding shows the oppositions between subjectivity and objectivity, but also between Englishness and Romanianness.

Por que reunir-se em torno do Précis de décomposition-e celebrá-lo? Alguns diriam que não há nada aí a ser celebrado, muito pelo contrário. Cioran: pró e contra... Qual a importância do Breviário de decomposição, conforme o temos, desde 1989, traduzido ao português pelo professor José Thomaz Brum? Qual sua importância hoje, para além de um mero gosto pessoal, partilhado talvez por um punhado de leitores? Qual seria o seu valor de facto (filosófico, poético, espiritual)? Há muitas maneiras de enxergar o livro em questão, e de responder a estas questões...

Romanya Müslüman Tatar Türkleri Demokrat Birliği’nin maddî
desteğiyle basılan ve Dobruca Kırım Tatar millî şairi Mehmet Niyazi’nin aziz
ruhuna ithaf olunan Dobruca Kırım Tatar Ağzı Sözlüğü, Saim Osman Karahan
tarafından kaleme alınmıştır. 1860’larda Kırım’dan o zamanlar Osmanlı toprağı
olan Dobruca’ya göç eden bir Kırım Tatar ailenin çocuğu olarak 1939’da
Köstence-Romanya’da dünyaya gelen Saim Osman Karahan 1964’te Türkiye’ye
göç edip yerleşir. 1966’da Ankara’da kazandığı Fransız Dili ve Edebiyatı
Bölümü’nü 1970’te bitirir. Saim Osman Karahan İstanbul’da yayımlanan
Emel Dergisi ve Bahçesaray dergisinin yazı işleri müdürlüğünü 2009’dan beri
yürütmektedir. (Osman Saim Karahan, 23Nisan 2015'te İstanbul'da vefat etmiştir.)

Henri H. Stahl is known for his studies in social history and methodology, but he was also passionate about other, lesser known, research topics. Among these is his preoccupation with the development of a sociology of the Romanian peasant's culture and spirituality, which he later synthetised in his controversial work Critical Essays (1983). However, before he fully developed his theories on the matter, unhappy about his own incapacities, he attempted to give a literary shape to his vision of folk philosophy and life of Romanian villages. What resulted was a novel, today still unpublished but conserved in the Stahl Family Archive. The novel combines his field notes, methodological suggestions, as well as his personal opinions, emotions and feelings, which he never let intrude into his scientific work. The value of this unpublished text is today undeniable, and it deserves to be known by the public. The present article reveals, for the first time, the shape and the content of this novel, and draws out the circumstances of its creation. The article is succeeded by a short sample from the novel. Keywords: Henri H. Stahl, unpublished novel, sociology of folk culture, folk philosophy.

This paper aims to conduct a critical revision of Liviu Rebreanuʼs canonical status by comparing the image of the Romanian peasant established in his well-known novel The Uprising with the ones developed in no less than 18 Romanian novels approaching the 1907 Peasant Revolt as the major theme/subject or at least as a defining narrative structure. The main phases of Rebreanuʼs critical reception – all contributing to his consecration as the „national novelist” – will be revisited in order to evaluate if The Uprising really embodies the Romanian national identity to a higher degree than other novels dedicated to 1907 Peasant Revolt.

The article analyses two recent fictional reiterations of Count Dracula’s topos – namely, Alucard
in Kouta Hirano’s Hellsing manga series (1997-2008) and Fifi/FAD (Florin Anghelescu Dragolea) in Alexandru
Muşina’s novel Dracula’s Nephew (2012) – as two rather authoritative contemporary references modifying the
vampiric epitome originally outlined by Bram Stoker (and others). The focus is set on the evolution of ‘nation
branding’ related elements reflected inside the common fictional paradigm. More specifically, this imagological
investigation revolves around the ethical-symbolic dimension of the two selected contemporary works, in its
particular relation to the controversial tendency of ‘branding’ Romania (or Transylvania) as the ‘actual’ homeland
of the vicious vampire count. The ethical response both works imply is distinctive as well as significant, in the sense
that it illustrates a current tendency towards what will be referred to in the present study as a ‘pop-cultural
détente’.

This essay analyses the most recent novel of Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu (Solenoid, 2015). To this end, I will use a specific extension of career construction theory in the field of literary research that focuses on the notion of a ‘late-career novel’. After a short presentation of the theoretical framework and the evolution of Cărtărescu’s career, my approach turns to the hybrid nature of Solenoid, which reveals the complex (meta)narrative strategy its author deploys in order to attain an ever more prestigious position within the international literary canon. On the one hand, through the continuous interplay of his roles as Teacher, Writer, and Seeker, alternatively regarded as profession and vocation, Cărtărescu rewrites his own biography in order to dispose of any trace of institutionalised ‘literature’ in his discourse; on the other hand, the Romanian author ostentatiously exhibits his own marginal geo-cultural status, implying that it would grant him access to a more authentic and substantial understanding of life. These actions are part of a broader metanarrative pattern, which I denominate ‘hypercycle’ and whose conceptual background could not only offer a better understanding of Cărtărescu’s career, but also pave the way for further development of career construction theory.