“Alarm: Peace can win!”

The present study examines a Europe traumatized by two world wars and a cold war. A Europe that has observed and implenented its project – and needs to do something else than it has done before. Moreover, its positive links with Romania – a European country just like Europe, with its good and less good experiences and projections – have been seen precisely in this direction. What has been done and how does it work? This study aims at givimg more answers to the question.

Keywords: Europe, Romania, peace, war, experiences, development, resources, perspectives.

Lexical And Phraseological Units. Current Trends And The Emergence Of A New Language

Continuing the series of investigations devoted to contemporary Romanian, the paper calls attention to substantial structural changes: forms that do not exist in Romanian (e.g. made-up masculine equivalents of feminine nouns or vice versa), semantically unjustified conversions, or the excessive use of the figurative sense of some words. In addition to these, the paper also discusses the current penchant for loanwords and loan phrases (some of which are not listed in the dictionary), structural changes within some set phrases and idiomatic expressions (e.g. words replaced by synonyms, omission of linking words), as well as various hybrid forms. All of these contribute to the development of a new language, which coexists with the standard language, but which – given the frequency of these structures in common parlance – might also be contending against it for primacy.

Keywords: structural change, idiomatic expressions, loanwords, made-up grammatical forms, semantic inappropriateness

The Definite Article in Romanian and Modern Standard Arabic – A Contrastine Approach

This paper aims to present contrastively a set of functional aspects of some common structures that imply the presence or absence of the definite article in Romanian in comparison with their corresponding structures in Modern Standard Arabic. After some general considerations about the functions of the definite article inside the category of definiteness in Romanian and Modern Standard Arabic, we will present the major similarities regarding the occurrence and the absence of the definite article in both languages. Some of these similarities are partial and many times misleading, as the presence of the definite article in both languages doesn’t imply a total equivalence of the corresponding patterns in the two languages. The second part of this approach will focus on these significant differences, analyzing some common cases in which the definite article is present in Romanian language and absent in Modern Standard Arabic and vice versa. In conclusion, this contrastive analysis of the use of the definite article in Romanian and in Modern Standard Arabic reveals some similarities and differences between the definiteness patterns in the two languages, which can be integrated in the teaching process, in order to enhance the metalinguistic awareness of Arab students in learning Romanian as a second language.

Keywords: definite article, contrastive analysis, error analysis, Romanian as second language, Modern Standard Arabic

(Inter)subjectification and Grammaticalization: “Gen” in Contemporary Romanian

In this paper, I analyze the semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic development of the word gen in contemporary Romanian against the terminological couplet (inter)subjectification – grammaticalization. The most important conclusions of the present research highlight the following aspects: the early twentieth-century (inter)subjectification of the phrase în genul constitutes the main premise for the grammaticalization of the term; the postwar competition and specialization of Romanian phrases în genul, de genul, and de tipul; the full grammaticalization of the anteposed (adverbial) gen and the insufficient grammaticalization of the postposed (adjectival and adverbial) gen, witnessed in Romanian over the last two decades.

Keywords: gen, (inter)subjectification, grammaticalization, contemporary Romanian

A Language Full of Magic

The (present) study undertakes an investigation of the strategies used in magic-themed cartoons: interactivity, the mellowing of emotionally impactful images through various linguistic means (words with strongly negative meanings are rendered innocuous // some words are purged of their negative meanings; diminutives, superlatives, positive epithets are lavishly used, etc.). It also discusses the recurrence of the word “magic” and all its inflected forms // all its paradigmatic variants, of its lexical family, as well as of other words within its lexical field. All these converge towards the prospect of a brand new understanding of // approach to evil, where we no longer speak of dark forces, but rather of being different: wizards, vampires, and the famous Dracula have become cool, or at least kind, accommodating characters who want to integrate with people/human beings and be treated as their own kind, yet without having to give up what makes them different.

Keywords: magic, animated cartoons, interactive characters, positive meanings, word frequency

D’une culture à l’autre, d’un texte à l’autre – enjeux du détournement créateur dans l’œuvre de Cioran

Our article mainly concerns the relationship between interculturality and intertextuality throughout the works of the 20th century Romanian and French writer Cioran. Further to an observation of the meanings of these key terms, we are going to compare and analyze the different uses that Cioran makes of in his writings. In the first part, we shall observe the main features of the European culture, the second part being dedicated to Cioran’s attitude regarding the construction of his identity in the European context. Finally, we shall be interested in the way in which interculturality functions during the process of writing, by means of a “creative diversion” specific to the intertextual method that the authors largely applies to his literary texts.

Keywords: interculturality, intertextuality, creative diversion, cultural space, Cioran

Also for Non-Voters: Political Memes

Media language is the most common analyis subject when political discourses are being explored empirically. The present article is dedicated however to a less discussed domain, namely the internet memes and their public critique potential. Internet mems are creatively-playful, hyperbolic and oftentimes very bold texts consisting of linguistic and visual elements, whose inventory (phrases and motives) operates with modifications—on the level of the expectable, as well. The content variation, which touches in an ironical-sarcastic manner on current incidents, socially relevant topics and affirmations of public figures, illustrates how individual messages conveyed over suggestive visual elements linked to a concise and incisive phrase can be associated with political relevance. The subject matter focuses on humour as a form of resistance and on the plurimodal character of memes as a means of challenging and criticizing political adversaries and their argumentation weaknesses. The ridicule aimed at the mighty has subversive potential, which in internet memes is encoded transnationally and transculturally.

Keywords: political discourse, (Internet) memes, plurimodality, public communication, political realities critique

The Translatability of Negative Structures with Sociolectal and Stylistic Value

The study presented in this paper is part of a comprehensive research investigating various (often deviant) structures occurring in the literary dialogue and substantially contributing to the construction of literary heroes’ identities, which needs to be preserved in translation. However, differences in structural configurations between English and Romanian might raise serious problems in translation. The particular problem that this paper addresses is the contrastiveness and translatability from English into Romanian of negative structures which carry additional values of sociolectal or stylistic nature. The overall objectives of the research have been (i) to identify deviant negative structures in the literary dialogue, (ii) to analyze them contrastively and (iii) to try and find optimal translation solutions. The selection of the negative structures from literary works of fiction in English is grounded on their relevance for the shaping of the personal and social identities of the heroes using them in the dialogue. The analysis of some categories of English negative structures is followed by findings and conclusions referring to contrastive aspects of negatives in English and Romanian. Means of compensation are also suggested for the cases when the lack of formal equivalence between the two languages affects the preservation of the sociolectal or stylistic values in translation.

Keywords: translation, negation, literary dialogue, sociolect, stylistic value

Cultural Diplomacy – Literary Representations Of Soft Power And Smart Power: Tradition and Modernity

The present paper undertakes to highlight that cultural diplomacy emphasizes people-to-people connection by means of tangible cultural patrimony and intangible cultural heritage – as a fundamental dimension of cultural diversity in contemporary world. Cultural and public diplomacy shape a new paradigm of international relations, where the interdependent connection of art – culture – history – geography politics – economic development define its evolution, and enable a dialogue of cultures transcending geographical boundaries or political interest.
Literature and spirituality enable survival and endurance, temporal continuity as well as spatial connection and coherence in the relation between East and West, tradition and modernity, past memory and foreseeable future, despite and regardless of any social turmoil, economic growth or decline, or waves of national rise and fall.

Keywords: cultural and public diplomacy; art and spirituality; soft power and smart power

Emplaced, Encountered: The City As Nexus Of Power In Peter Ackroyd’s “The Plato Papers”

In his book, The Plato Papers, Peter Ackroyd offers a novel configuration of power: far from being monolithic and self-evident, it takes on subtle dimensions, exerting not a towering influence, but rather manifesting itself in word-making and world-writing: it is not just discourse in the Foucauldian sense that evinces traces of this power, but speech in its literal denotation. Plato, London’s philosopher, expounds upon the City’s history as both teacher and historian, thus appropriating power. His recounting – and therefore, reshaping – of history is made possible through an agency that is seized within the social sphere. The mutability of the past, its ambiguities and uncertainties, are the playing field within which antagonistic forces meet, inextricably dialectical. But it is an emplotted realm, rooted in a (meta)physical space, that is the subject of retelling: London itself, a ghost city, fluid. Set firmly in the middle of paradigmatic war, it is both pivot and catalyst, acting as an arena for clashing world-views. My paper seeks to investigate precisely how the interplay of time and space factor into notions of agency and power, what destabilizing workings they enforce, and what configurations they give rise to. Methodologies will include urban studies, critical theory and liminality studies.

Keywords: power, agency, liminality, urban studies, postmodernism

Jack Kerouac and Beat Spirituality: The Vehicle(s) to Enlightenment

This article analyses Jack Kerouac’s religious and literary “apostasy” from the forms of organized religion and the established norms of prose writing, in an attempt to prove that his turn to Mahayana Buddhism and “spontaneous prose” were the immediate expression of both his struggle to transcend the mundane and (re)create reality through art. He was ready to embrace everything but unwilling to give up anything, and thus he embarked on the Buddhist vehicle(s) to enlightenment, which allowed him to pursue his art and aspire to spiritual awakening. Kerouac’s life and work played a crucial role in the program of personal, social and literary transformation of America developed and implemented by the Beat Generation.

Keywords: Kerouac, Buddhism, Christianity, religion, spontaneous prose, Beat Generation.

Lawrence Durrell’s Mirrors: The Alexandria Quartet – a postmodern novel?

This paper is part of a larger project that aims to talk about the ways in which Lawrence Durrell combines, in The Alexandria Quartet, two essentially different types aesthetics (the modern and the postmodern one) and manages to create a powerful and durable piece of literature that still stands as one of the pillars of the 20th century novel. The current analysis focuses on the postmodern aspects that can be identified in The Alexandria Quartet, starting with the idea that Truth does not exist, and that perception is relative (idea that Durrell associated with Einstein’s theory of relativity).

Keywords: modernism, postmodernism, relativity, perspective, archetypal metafiction

“Wide Sargasso Sea” – About Dislocation and Its Consequences

This paper analyzes Jean Rhys’ most notable work, “Wide Sargasso Sea”, by employing two critical perspectives and raising questions about how intertextuality and postcolonialism modeled the work. Starting as a general presentation and highlighting critical biographical data that are seminal to the genesis of the novel, the article handpicks themes from the ones approached in the novel, such as race, language, social status and explores the narrative devices used to render these themes.

Keywords: intertextuality, postcolonialism, Jean Rhys, “Wide Sargasso Sea”.

The Year 1918 in the War Journal of Queen Marie of Romania

This study is focused on a tormented moment in history, 1918, viewed from the perspective of Queen Marie of Romania. The year, which starts dramatically for Romania, will bringt its end the fulfilment of a century-old dream of the Romanians, the Union of Transylvania with the Romanian Kingdom. We will refer to the main events of this special year of our history, by selecting and interpreting fragments from Queen Marie’s Journal, edited by Lucian Boia, with the title: “A War Journal – 1918”. The role of Queen Marie in supporting the Romanian Army, in fighting for the cause of Romania, as well as the loyal attitude towards the Allies, the limitless joy of the returning from exile and of the Union itself can be discerned with historical and even literary interest in the pages written in the heat of the moment with enthusiasm, sadness and despair. A living history, related by a great personality, with the great happiness of the fulfilment of an old dream of the Romanians – at the very moment of their coming into light from the Dark War.

Keywords: Union, Transylvania, Queen Marie, war, journal, Allies

Geocriticism: For an Interpretation of the Romanian Novel About the Revolution of 1989

The main aim of this paper is to present a recent approach to literary text – the geocritical method – both from a descriptive and a polemic point of view, and, at the same time, to determine the applicability of this method and the concepts issued by Betrand Westphal on the Romanian novel describing Bucharest during the Revolution of 1989. Following the routes presented in the novels of two contemporary authors, Mircea Cărtărescu and Bogdan Suceavă, I will try to propose a new method of topos analysis in the novel, which could re-evaluate the representation of the spaces caught at the boundary between reality and fiction (in the future).

Keywords: real vs. fictional, referentiality, geocriticism, polysensoriality, multifocalization.

The Power of Authorship. From Text-Function to Context-Position

It seems that 50 years after Roland Barthes published his famous essay concerning “The Death of the Author”, Michel Foucault’s equally notorious intervention, “What is an Author?”, remains the only significant (i.e. critical) reaction to this day. This debate is extremely important because, on the one hand, it outlines the power struggles between the old literary history and la nouvelle critique, while also prefiguring the paths of leaving French Theory behind (the passage from structuralism to poststructuralism and beyond), on the other. Using Jérôme Meizoz’s concept of posture, my intervention will examine how and why Foucault positioned himself as such in the cultural sphere, while also looking at the strategies he engaged in order to show that authorship is not only a function of the text, but a struggle of participants where both aesthetic and extra-literary criteria are equally involved.

Keywords: authorship, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, posture, power

Oneiric Paths in the Unconscious Imaginary

This article aims to identify the oneiric journeys through which the dreamer can access and explore the most intimate compensatory realities and possible worlds, where every contingency finds the necessary means and conditions to turn into a self-standing, purifying, effervescent reality. While dreaming, the individual is introduced to a self-generated fiction which appears to be unpredictable and unfamiliar. This study attempts to discover the particularities of these nocturnal worlds, focusing mainly on the relation between the dreamer and the spaces outlined in his dreams. Starting with a series of ideas taken from Franco Moretti’s “Graphs, Maps, Trees”, I aim to underline the dependency between the territories perceived in a dream state and the geography of the waking-life. Furthermore, I attempt to point out the way in which space influences the dreamer’s actions and attitude. Searching for new angles from which dream contents may be examined, I chose to analyze the journals of dreams written by Walter Benjamin, Federico Fellini and Corin Braga. If Moretti’s book draws a parallel between literature and society, the present article will concentrate on indicating ways in which oneiric archives describe worlds that have similar dynamics with the reality of the awakened consciousness. By stepping outside of the usual conflict between psychoanalysis and neuroscience and engaging in the process of distant reading, other types of data can be extracted and oneiric studies may reach new conclusions.

Keywords: dreams, topography, oneiric realities, distant reading, maps, graphs, literary geography, journal of dreams, Franco Moretti

The Poetry Games

The present study focuses on the ludic hypostases in Tudor Arghezi’s poetry, also exploring some suggestions coming from John Huizinga, Leo Frobenius and Roger Caillois. The analysis concerns the few stages of Arghezi’s poetry: on the lower level are the poems in the sphere of the paideic, the pure play, without existential implications, from the cycle entitled “Hore”; then the erotic-bucolic game of “The Evening Book”, the nostalgia of the infinity concealed in the naive-childhood miniature game, to the highest level of the game: the thanathical game, surprised in that metaphorical “Hide’n Seek”.

Keywords: modern Romanian literature, Tudor Arghezi, Johan Huizinga, Leo Frobenius, ludic, paideia.

Petru Creția. Literature as Truth

One of the most remarkable encyclopaedic natures throughout all Romanian culture, Petru Creția was, in the same time and with the same brilliancy, a moral essayist, a translator of Plato, a theorist of cultural modernity, an editor of Eminescu’s works, a poet, a civic activist. This study aims at defining all the strata composing his polymath personality – and subsequently to prove that, for Creția, disregarding the cultural matter in which his thinking exercised itself (literature, philosophy, activism, etc.), the normative of the splendid truth was central and definitive.

Keywords: contemporary Romanian literature, Petru Creția, encyclopaedic writing, Plato, Eminescu, moral literature, moral activism

From Historical Avant-Garde to the Neo-Avantgarde of the 2000s

The present paper attempts to investigate the extent of which the Romanian historical avant-garde has constantly updated itself throughout history, starting from the early reiterations in the 40s and 50s and ending with the poetry of the 2000s. In order to demonstrate this, I will asses both the socio-cultural context of Romanian post-war and post-communist transition, as well as the evolution of literary forms that allowed for the constant “updates” of the historical avant-garde in Romanian poetry. This article also debates the thesis of Peter Bürger and the way it can be applied both to the historical avant-gardes and to the poetry of the 2000s, as contemporary poetry does present the same rebellious attitude towards the institutionalised literature of its precursors.

Keywords: historical avant-garde, Generation 2000, fracturism, Marius Ianuș, manifesto. literary institutions

Monica Lovinescu as a Child within the “Sburătorul” Literary Circle

Widely known for its firm and radical anti-communist standing as well as for its famous radio program Theses and Antitheses (“Teze și antiteze”) broadcast by Radio Free Europe, Monica Lovinescu (1923-2008) was also the only daughter of the Romanian critic E. Lovinescu, who raised her from her early childhood within the literary circle he used to host in his house. In fact, the members of this literary circle had stood by Monica Lovinescu from her birth to 1943 (when E. Lovinescu, her father and the circle’s amphitryon died). At that time, the daughter had turned 20. Apparently, Monica Lovinescu provides the Romanian literature with an unusual situation — quite scarce, in fact — that might be resembled to Marie Nodier’s, the host’s daughter in the “Arsenal” literary environment. It is, briefly put, the situation of a child “raised” by an entire literary circle (l’enfant de cenacle). Indeed, taking into consideration that the circle’s activities were taking place in the flat of Lovinescu family, one can imagine that the little girl had toddled and grew up among these people. Her favorite game was “playing-the-literary-circle” and, when she began “writing” literature at 5 — before even learning the alphabet — she did it as a game inspired from the adults’ life. Due to this childhood circumstance, her writing has remained highly dependent on the loud-voice readings and, in all likelihood, circumscribed to an infantile spirit, the spirit of a literature that is “played”, thus never assumed entirely. At the same time, the influence does not seem to be unilateral. Not only did the child build herself in a special way due to the circle’s environment, but also the form of sociability re-shaped itself in order to integrate her presence. The writers developed various behaviors, attitudes, and postures in relationship with this “small” presence, investing their efforts in shared activities. Finally, the members of the “Sburătorul” literary circle delivered a circumstantial literature, which has Monica as main subject and object: a literature “for Monica” (dedicated to her) as well as a literature “with Monica”.

Keywords: literary sociability, Sburătorul, Monica Lovinescu, E. Lovinescu, Marie Nodier, circumstantial literature.

Aspects of the problem of Bessarabia in the political and commercial negotiations between Ukraine and Romania in 1918

The article addresses the issue of Bessarabia in the Romanian-Ukrainian political-diplomatic relations in 1918, when the leader of the Ukrainian state was the hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky. Unlike the predecessors of the Central Rada of Kiev, who had a friendlier policy towards Romania, in order to gain recognition in the international arena of the new Ukrainian state, Skoropadsky’s government decided to stop commercial relations and reduce diplomatic relations until the settlement of the issue on the affiliation of the counties from northern and southern Bessarabia, which the Ukrainian side considered most as Ukrainian. The article cites the memoirs of the Ukrainian Foreign Minister of that period, Dmytro Doroşenko, which refers to the activity of the Romanian commercial mission in Kiev in September 1918, as well as unpublished documents from the State Archives of Ukraine, regarding the Romanian-Ukrainian relations at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Keywords: Romanian-Ukrainian relations, Pavlo Skoropadsky, Constantin Contescu, Dmytro Doroşenko, Ukrainian State, Bessarabia

Problems Of Romanian Language In „Transilvania” Magazine In The Years Before The Great Union

Being an organ of the Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature and the Culture of the Romanian People, the „Transilvania” Magazine conducted a campaign for the cultivation and promotion of the Romanian language. The editors and collaborators understood that the development of the consciousness of national unity must take place on the basis of spiritual-religious and the linguistic unity among the Romanians. Among the desires of the Transylvanian scholar were, besides the dissolution of serfdom and the equality of rights between the nationalities of Transylvania, also the national union of all Romanians. Our paper is an overview of the linguistic research hosted by „Transilvania” during the First World War until Romania’s Great Union in 1918.

Keywords: Transilvania Magazine, Great Union, Romanians in Transylvania, Romanian language, Romanian linguistic research

„Revista Transilvania”, A Post-1989 Portrait

The present paper aims at contextualizing and building a synthesis of Transilvania magazine in the post-revolution period. The portrait displays a comprehensive inventary of the material that was published after the year 1990 until the 2000s. The main themes around which the text is organized are Communism, translations and the mechanism of censorship, religion and the debates around the literary canon and its possible reconsiderations. Besides, the text intends to offer a depiction of the transitional years by means of certain editorial options and operational selections.

Keywords: Transilvania magazine; post-communism; transition; culture; translation; religion.