The Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission of The Popular Republic of Ukraine in Romania

The first official modern diplomatic contacts between Bucharest and Kyiv date back to the beginning of the 20th century, when the young Ukrainian state, which had proclaimed its independence from Russian Empire, was making sustained efforts to establish diplomatic relations with other countries in the world. The events which occurred between 1917 and 1923 represent a special stage in the Romanian-Ukrainian relations. During that period, both sides made numerous attempts to establish diplomatic relations. The paper describes the activity of the Ukrainian diplomatic missions in Romania during the period mentioned above, highlighting the Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in Bucharest, led by professor Constantin Matievici.

Keywords: Romanian-Ukrainian relations, Ukrainian People’s Republic, diplomatic mission, Romania, Constantin Matievici

Miscellaneous Manuscript 19 in the Library of the Faculty of Thelogy in Sibiu and the Liturgic Reform in the Transylvanian Orthodox Church during the 17th Century

In the century of Reformation and in defiance of a decided opposition coming from the Byzantine-Slavic Orthodoxy observed in the Provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia, the Romanians of Transylvania managed to find a way to introduce their national language in the Church, by gradually translating those texts that were vital for the liturgical and spiritual life of a parish. The analysis of the miscellaneous Manuscript 19 from the Library of the Theological Faculty in Sibiu reveals a lot of information about the pioneering work that the priests and hierarchs in Transylvania had to do in order to have the Romanian language introduced in the services of the Church. The Reformation infused climate in 17th century Transylvania allowed for the coexistence of the old euchological tradition of the old manuscripts with the desire to renew the cult by introducing the national language in the liturgical life of the Church and by adding some new biblical pericopes, much needed for the pastoral missionary work. The Transylvanians’ knack for improvising their worship is quite evident, yet they always proceeded with caution in that direction, for they always kept it within the boundaries established by the preceding euchological tradition. These scriptural doublets, whose definite goal was to inspirit those who took part in the Mystery of the Holy Unction, were ingeniously created.

Keywords: Liturgy, Liturgical Tradition, Transylvania, Liturgical Manuscripts, Church in Transylvania

A Theory of Justice

The approach favored by Sen in his book on justice makes a difference from other competing theories of justice, in that Sen focuses on capabilities rather than on institutional arrangements. Splitting from the contractualist theories on justice, an especially from the theory of justice as fairness as it was formulated by Rawls, Sen is inquiring on the liberties enjoyed by people in their quest for their own happiness. By doing so, the social choice theory put forward avoids the sterile debate on the design of the best institutions and the required behavior in order to found a really fair society. By contrary, accepting the shortcomings of partial rankings of preferences and individual choices, Sen looks for the means making the good society work and for the way one can improve living on Earth. Far for despising the important advancements brought by the theory of justice as it was formulated by Rawls, Sen values both liberty and all disposable means for reducing iniquity, poverty, famine, terrorism and slavery that currently affects very cruelly many societies on the globe.

Keywords: social theory, social justice, social choice theory, Amartya Sen

The Structure of the Chinese Characters: the Current Characters (IV)

This specific article intends, with a hopeful thought, that one will recollect the article The Structure of the Chinese Characters (III), as the content is determined to be a continuation of my former explanation of the Ancient Characters. The desired purpose is to reveal some useful information on the structure of the Current Characters, therefore bringing certain clarity about this topic as a whole.

Keywords: Current Characters, Phonogram

“Grammatical Aspects of the 19-th Century Romanian Literary Language, Reflected in the Transylvanian Press of the Time

Leading men of letters and scholars who published in the press of the time were interested in the unity and unification of the language. They were coming with concrete ways of accomplishing this ideal, by pointing out the commonality of language throughout the Romanian territory, by reconsidering its Latin origin, spearheading the scientific leadership in the field, and attempting at accomplishing indeed the unity of language from a grammatical viewpoint.

Keywords: grammar, unity, Latin origin, Constantin D. Loga, Timotei Cipariu

The Avatars of Knowledge: Mediatization

The relation of human beings with reality and the issue of knowledge is based on two realms of the lived culture: the realm of experimented significances and the one of mediated ones. The first promotes a subjective reality, that organizes and confirms our self-consciousness, our direct contact with the elements of reality, determining a correspondence in substance between the knower and the object to be known. In the mediated knowledge, our interaction with the objective reality is achieved by translation of mediated significances into experienced significances; in other words, the mediated significances replace our relation with reality, they assume for themselves the necessity of direct contact, apparently simplifying and at the same time expanding the process of knowing.
Despite philosophical divergences within the classical knowledge, the generally shared feeling was that reality is identifiable, and hope was also nurtured that one day it would be possible to hold it down in a definition. Mediated knowledge bestows on us a realization that things do not exist in themselves or by virtue of their belonging to any superior reality, and neither by their intrinsic values; they exist only to that extent in which they are part of the process of communication. Through their mediated significances, reality is produced and reproduced, frontiers lose their fixity, they interfere and infuse with each other. The objects of reality and their defining concepts become elastic and multiply ad infinitum, producing the same number of composition patterns, as the number of existing techniques.

Keywords: knowledge, reality, tehnicization, representation, translation, relation, sign, event, facticity, referent, system, simulacre, mediation, individuality, communication.

Journalism in the post-truth era. Conceptual-Phenomenological considerations of the fake news syntagm

Not long ago, old media played a major role in fake news spreading, in influencing and propaganda. Conversely, nowadays, the evolution of the new communication technologies have led not only to the democratization and demonopolization of information but also to an informational entropy. After the presidential elections in America, in 2016, such phrases as post-truth and fake news have been widely associated with the current phenomenon of disinformation, thus professional mass media represents the one who directly faces this issue. Some of the approaches included in the present article are: the conceptualization of these two terms, the conclusions of recent studies, solutions suggested by media experts and professionals.

Keywords: journalism, mass-media, social media, post-truth, fake news

The French and francophone programs in Romania

We intend to present the French and francophone studies programs from nowadays Romania, insisting on the experience acquired by Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, where the French department was created in 1992. This department has gone through a series of important stages involving the creation of our BA and MA programs as well as the PhD program. The francophone studies programs are of interest for both the Romanian and French students who come to Romania. As for the French studies programs, apart from those that already have a tradition – Bucharest, Iaşi, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Timişoara – the departments created in the younger universities have a special dynamism: Braşov, Constanța, Sibiu, Piteşti, Ploieşti, Bacău, Suceava. Both categories continue and strengthen the educational process in French, adapting it to the conditions of the present.

Keywords: French programs, Francophone programs, University of Sibiu, education, French language.

Max Frisch – Diary 1946-1949. The Notes of an Allocentric (I)

Das Tagebuch ist der Schlüssel zu dem gesamten Literaturkonzept von Max Frisch. Man kann anhand seiner Tagebücher den Weg von der schriftstellerischen Objektivität zur Subjektivität verfolgen. Alle Tagebücher stehen im engen Zusammenhang mit Frischs literarischen Werken. Das Tagebuch vermittelt außerdem zwischen der zeitkritischen Essayistik und der fiktionalen Literatur von Max Frisch. Das erste veröffentlichte Diarium, das Tagebuch 1946-1949, enthält die Aufzeichnungen eines Allozentrikers.

Keywords: Tagebuch, Tagebuchliteratur, Künstlertagebuch

Comparative description on the literature situation in general and novel in particular in Romania and China in the interwar era,1918-1939

Modern literature mainly refers to the new literature which under the conditions of historical changes within the national society and the widely acceptance of the foreign literature. It not only expresses some modern ideas in modern language, but also innovates modern literature in an art form and expression, with the establishment of new literary genre and the creation of new literary content. Literature mainly reflects a certain spiritual world based on the reflection of society. With the development of society, its content and form are also changing. Taking Chinese and Romanian modern literature as an example, it has undergone a long development and has formed a unique modern literary system.
In this paper, I will introduce Chinese and Romanian history, society, economy in the interwar period. Based on these background information, I will present The Transformation of Chinese literature and the golden age of Romanian literature.

Keywords: China, Romania, modern, literature, background

Mihai Eminescu’s experience in Berlin, from the perspective of an “eyewitness”

“…Likewise, if I close one eye, I see my hand smaller than with both eyes. If I had three eyes, I would see it larger, and the more eyes I had, the larger everything around me would seem.”– that is how Eminescu`s novel Wretched Dionis – in Berlin finished – begins. Reiterating Dionis`s speculative exercise, we shall raise the question: Which would be the benefits of having access to a “third eye”, to an additional perspective of a hitherto neglected eyewitness to one obscure biographical episode of the poet – like the Berlin studies stage – and which would be the consequences of this new outlook? Such a new path is opened, we believe, by the testimony of the German writer and biographer Mite Kremnitz. The purpose of the present study is to highlight the historical biography issues and challenges and to make a contribution to the “Eminescu studies”, by offering a new perspective on this specific biographical episode. Our approach is legitimated by a set of circumstances, which authorizes Mite Kremnitz as one of the privileged witnesses to this episode, to which she has access from a triple position: as a direct witness to the Berlin realities, as a novelist who claims the right to rewrite the whole episode and finally, as the archivist of the Royal House, faced with the historical documents, some of which were probably written by Eminescu himself.

Keywords: Mihai Eminescu, Mite Kremnitz, Berlin studies, the Romanian Royal House, historical biography’s issues and challenges

In the shade of saints and mystics – a portrait of Cioran as a an “aesthetician hagiographer”

This article is based on Cioran’s Romanian and French works, analyzed from the perspective of multiple connections between his literary and religious experiences. In the first part, we will identify the main reasons of Cioran’s admiration of saints and mystics, the second part being dedicated to some mystical themes that are exploited by Cioran, the third part consisting in a text analysis focused on the intertextual use that Cioran makes of some English and German phrases that express the evanescent character of life (a mystical theme, by excellence). A place apart will be taken by the association that Cioran establishes between the exploits of different saints and mystics and the exploits of Shakespearean characters.

Keywords: sanctity, mysticism, intertextual writing, Cioran, Shakespeare

M. Blecher and the Jewish Writers in Interwar Romania. A Polysystemic Perspective

M. Blecher (1909-1938) is a Jewish-Romanian writer from a generation that saw a booming expansion of the Jewish presence in Romanian literature. Trying to explain this expanding presence in the interwar years, the article turns to Itamar Even-Zohar’s polysystems theory, discussing several types of motivation for change in Romanian interwar literature and for the emergence of several models of literature in regard to local tradition. Jewish writers may be seen as either shunning local cultural affiliation in their disputation of traditional literature (the avantgarde writers) or as trying to profit from a naturalistic turn in 20th century Romanian novel to marginal settings and dispossessed groups (the social novelists). Quoting Camelia Crăciun’s idea of a unified strategy for a group of JewishRomanian writers, the article sets out to evaluate M. Blecher’s particular response to the local tradition of the novel, on the one hand, and to the strategy of his Jewish-Romanian colleagues, on the other.

Keywords: Romanian literature as polysystem, Jewish writers in interwar Romania, M. Blecher and other JewishRomanian writers, Jewish cultural elements in M. Blecher’s work, Jewish-Romanian strategies for a social naturalistic novel

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

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.