The Carpathian Falcons

The article focuses on the „Șoimii Carpaților” sports organization, founded in the medical and bio political section of ASTRA under the chairmanship of Iuliu Hațieganu. For nation`s biological prosperity reasons, ASTRA insists on the importance of physical, moral and intellectual qualities. The association`s ways of action are: conferences, courses, games, exercises, sports, excursions, tourism, songs, national dances, seating, exhibitions, publications and competitions. It was intended to involve the school, the church, the military, the administration, the doctor and the farmer, and the contamination from the center or the sub-center was to be achieved through intellectual-moralphysical Olympiads and „soimiade”. In the so-called „soimiade”, the program was quite complex, including choirs, national costumes, national dances, and uniform gymnastics exercises and under one command. In addition to the correct performance of gymnastics exercises, members of the organization had to know four dances: hora, sârba, ardeleana and marioara. By the decree of 1937, O.E.T.R., „Soimii Carpaților” and „Arcăşiile din Bucovina” were included in „Straja Ţării” whose supreme commander was Carol II. Two years later, due to the deterioration of the international political and military situation, the activity of „Soimii Carpaților”organization was interrupted.

Keywords: ASTRA (Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature and the Culture of the Romanian People), Transylvania, physical education, „Șoimii Carpaților”/ Carpathian Falcons, șoimiade, gymnastics, games.

The need to popularize and the obsession for a perfect translation: British Bibles from Samuel von Brukenthal´s library

In the Brukenthal´scher Bibliothekskatalog (cca. 1803-1811), the inventory of Samuel von Brukenthal´s library, there are listed 34 different editions of the Bible. These are Lutheran, Catholic and Calvinist Bibles, in German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, English, French, Spanish, Hungarian, Dutch and even Welsh, printed in France, England, Scotland, The Netherlands, in some German cities and towns, in the Habsburg Empire etc. In the 18th century, the Principality of Transylvania was situated on the Eastern border of Catholic and Protestant Europe, the Europe where Brukenthal´s Bibles were produced. Among these, six were printed in the oposite part of the continent, in the island of Great Britain. The goal of this paper is to examine whether the British Bibles that ended up on the shelves of Samuel von Brukenthal´s library were appreciated and/or rare in a broader European context. In other words, how were these editions regarded on the European book market of the 18th century? Were they easy to find? Were they generally known by collectors? What was their value compared to other editions that existed on the market? Were they mentioned in the instructive bibliographies and dictionaries of rare books of the time or were they not only obscure, but also lacking any special value and thus were suited for a bibliophile from a rather peripheral region of Europe? The data gathered from 110 book auction catalogues from the second half of the 18th century and from the literary and scientific journals of the 17th and 18th centuries shows us that at least two British Bibles from the library of the Transylvanian aristocrat were sought after by bibliophiles from all across Europe.

Keywords: British Bibles, library, Samuel von Brukenthal, book market, 18th century.

Stylistic Features of Byzantine Paerenesis – Admonition to the Emperor

The paraenesis written by Katakalon Kekaumenos, along with other specific works of Byzantine Literature, is part of a larger historical and cultural process. This sort of writing that belongs to advice literature, is liable to different ways of interpretation. Kekaumenos’ Advices to an Emperor belongs to a distinct rhetorical tradition where the text has become a vehicle of political ideology. In the same time, Kekaumenos’ work is an attempt to break away from the conventional pattern by presenting not only the author’s political opinions as an aristocrat with a strong military background but also certain economic and administrative aspects of the imperial provinces. Kekaumenos gives a reason for writing this work in the next phrase: “I am not a writer…I had no intention to create a work for public, I haven’t written it with stylish words…Maybe my words belong to a simple man, but if you read them with good trust, you would find them truthful.” Indeed, one who considers his words carefully, would find a remarkable work in which the rhetoric and conventional development are missing while the practical and direct approaches are prevailing. The present work aims to contribute in emphasizing and analyzing some stylistic features used by the author in the structure of the parenetical discourse.

Keywords: paraenesis; advices; imperial; stylistic; rhetoric.

The Value Of Practical Experience In Franciscan Philosophical Thinking

Some personal and community experience is at the base of Franciscanism. Here, the theory and system are the result of an experience and a practice that condition the thinking. The philosophical and theological speculation of Saint Bonaventure, Roger Bacon, Scotus, Ockham, Piero di Giovanni Olivi, Raimondo Lullo, etc. may be incomprehensible without the experience of the Franciscan community and its intersection with the experience of Saint Francis of Assisi and the its vision on the world.

Keywords: experience, practical experience, intellect, science, culture, theology, philosophy, Franciscan philosophy, homo viator, concept, action, intuition, speculation, theory.

The Anthropological Memory Of Death In The Sermons Of The 19th – 20th Century. The History Of a Training For World War I

Proposed over the past two years, the Centenary of the Great Union obliges the cultural anthropology scholars to assume their own line of identifying the values through which we, the Romanians, have been educated to be willing to join the Union. We believe that one of the major social education lines is the preaching as the living school of the parishes. The funeral sermons especially reveal details of people’s lives, which deserve to be recorded. The present study proposes the analysis of some volume-witnesses from different parts of the country (Transylvania-Bucovina), including topics from the anthropology of mourning specific to Orthodoxy and Greek-Catholicism. Thus, we have a whole horizon of knowledge about the folk’s thinking related to death and how to face it; about the local patriotism and community culture. Moreover, we have an entire direction of constructive ideas about the unity of the nation and the language. Sources of first quality the funeral sermons enchanted by the form of expression and the historical content. Therefore, they deserve a careful research line. Many of the relevant ones can also be found in the preaching of Bessarabia. However, only now we are able to identify a few manuscripts in the field, trying to balance the information in the sequel. Specialized libraries do not retain such volumes. We believe, however, that the present study opens the research direction, proposing collaborations and data communications in the field.

Keywords: preaching, funeral sermons, education, folk thinking, cultural anthropology

About Iris Murdoch’s Novels via Carl Gustav Jung (I)

Clementina Mihăilescu’s book Interpersonal Relations in Iris Murdoch’s Novels via Kelly and Jung is closely related to the novelist’s endeavour to bring her knowledge as Platonist philosopher to bear on topics regarding the effects of the contingent and accidental nature of life, of the loss of faith (and of their subsequent consequences manifested under the form of the egoistic natural inclinations and of the dark side of the human personality). For this investigation of the hidden side of Murdoch’s literary characters to be successful, Mihăilescu has turned towards Carl Jung’s psychological model, more precisely his process of individuation, that resembles Murdoch’s ‘unselfing’ and George A. Kelly’s Personal Construct Psychology focused on corollaries of ‘commonality’ and ‘sociality’. Together with his vectors of action (through the constructs of ‘aggressiveness’ and ‘hostility’ and his vectors of perception, through the constellations ‘anxiety/certainty’, ‘threat/fear’ and ‘guilt/courage’), all incorporated in a diagram called by her “the metaphor of the iceberg”, meant to reveal and illuminate the geometry of the psychological space of Murdoch’s characters.

Keywords: contemporary British literature, Iris Murdoch, contemporary novel, Jung and modern literary consciousness.

On The Influence Through The Teory Of The World Systems: The Case Of Iberian Naturalism

In this paper I propose to review the concept of influence in the light of the “world system” theory of Immanuel Wallerstein. Drawing on the achievements of Durisin (1995), Moretti (2000) and Terian (2012, 2013) my goal is to identify literary legitimization strategies implemented in the Portuguese and Spanish literature between 1870 and 1890, as semi-peripheral literary systems in their relationship with the central cultural areas. The analysis of different kinds of dependence (or influence) literary allow me to point out, in the overall context of the tension between world literature and national literatures, the complexity of reception-creation process in interlitteraires reports.

Keywords: world system, Immanuel Wallerstein, Franco Moretti, Andrei Terian, influence, iberian naturalism.

Introduction In Affective Narratology. A Case Study: My Struggle By Karl Ove Knausgård

The present paper tackles the concept of affective narratology and proposes its application in the case of the novel Lupta mea. Cartea întâi: Moartea unui tată (My Struggle. Book One: A death in the family), by the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgård. Starting with the studies of Patrick Colm Hogan and Per Thomas Andersen, here are analyzed the innovations that the concept brings, emphasizing the way(s) in which it sets apart from classical narratology and how it influences the structure and dynamics of a literary text. Furthermore, there will be performed a close reading of the novel, focusing on the dysfunctional father-son relationship, using instruments provided by affective narratology.

Keywords: affective narratology, emotions, cognitive science, Min Kamp, Norwegian literature, Karl Ove Knausgård.

Establishing a Convention at the Beginning of the 21st Century: James Wood’s Hysterical Realism and Stefano Ercolino’s Maximalist Novel

Hysterical Realism is a term coined by James Wood, used to describe novels such as David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, Don DeLillo’s Underworld, or, the novel that stands at the foundation of this paper, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. The Maximalist Novel is a book Stefano Ercolino wrote in 2014, where he refers to a “hybrid genre” that appears in the second half of the 20th century, goes further into the 21st century and is characterized by ten fundamental elements. In attempting to offer a definition of the Maximalist Novel, Ercolino works with seven novels, most of which coincide with Wood’s novels. These rich, ambitious novels encompassing a plethora of characters and a multicultural reality have been incredibly popular at the end of the 20th century and well into the 21st century. Using White Teeth as case study in order to provide clear examples and useful guidelines, this paper sets out to identify the reasons behind the inefficacy of Wood’s attempt at defining a new literary genre and Stefano Ercolino’s successful attempt.

Keywords: hysterical realism, Zadie Smith, White Teeth, James Wood, 21st century literature, multiculturality, Maximalist Novel, Stefano Ercolinos

The Proper Names In The Novels Of Virgil Duda

This article follows the avatars of the onomatics of Virgil Duda’s prose, by analyzing a sample of several relevant novels from the point of view of their proper nouns. Jewish writer, brother of the essayist Lucian Raicu, Virgil Duda defines his writing personality in a much-commented analytical style, with many phrases, either by autobiographical or fictional subjects, circumscribed to the epoch he lived in – before and after the fall of communism. The proper nouns in this prose show a clear interest in this aspect, being secondary but not without function and significance, adequacy and expressiveness being their main qualities.

Keywords: proper nouns, post-war novel, neomodernism, metatext, 60th generation.

The Evolution Of The Romanian Erotic Novel From The First Half Of The 20th Century. Between Exercise and Canonization

This article tries to adapt recent methodologies used in literary studies such as macroanalysis and quantitative research to the Romanian novel from the first half of the twentieth century. The main focus of the present paper is on the erotic novel and its evolution from a simple literary exercise that followed Western plot patterns to its aesthetic apex in the 30s. By employing the theories of Franco Moretti, the article also attempts to reveal the trajectory of the erotic novel as a literary mirror into the modernisation of Romanian literature itself. Aspects such as import literature (as narrative models) and the circulation of Western literary trends in the Romanian cultural field will also be kept in mind for the purpose of understanding of how Romanian prose developed over the course of the aforementioned period.

Keywords: erotic novel, Franco Moretti, macroanalysis, canon, World Literature, distant reading, quantitative research

From ”Wounded Memory” to Liberating Writing: Herta Müller, The Appointment

”Some things only become evil when you utter them,” believes the narrator in Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet / The Appointment, the 1994 autobiographical novel of Herta Müller. ”Evil”, but, at the same time, real, by ”dramatizing” a trauma threatened by therapeutical oblivion. History of an alienation and perpetual blockage, ”repeated” in everyday routine, in a reality that becomes the ”stage” of repressed feelings, the space of their enactment, Herta Müller’s novel ”brings forth into the present” what personal memory and collective memory together tend to ”bury,” in a society affected by the delusional misidentification syndrome (J. Borel). As in Herztier / The Land of Green Plums and Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger / The Fox was Ever the Hunter etc., fictionalizing personal experience gives rise, here, to an exemplary history of memory abuse and identity alienation in the totalitarian world, as well as of the liberating virtues of writing that facilitates their plot.

Keywords: memory abuse, identity pathology, organised forgetting, totalitarianism.

About School and Education in Eminescu’s Journalistic Works

This study aims at presenting the views of Mihai Eminescu, the journalist, upon school and the education system in our country in the 19th century, as mirrored by the articles published by the poet in the press of the time. The analysis is supported by excerpts from the journalistic corpus being anchored in the social, political and cultural context that offer the matrix for journalistic writing. Eminescu’s observations are based, on the one hand, on his direct experience in the educational environment, experience acquired during his activity as school inspector in the counties of Iași and Vaslui, and on the other hand by the fact that he became familiar with the education systems adopted by other European countries (Germany, France, England), an aspect that favours the development of ample comparative analyses on this particular subject. At a time in which national unity was the supreme ideal of EasternEuropean states, the school remains, in Eminescu’s view, one of the most important elements for the conservation and cultivation of national identity.

Keywords: Romanian literature, education, school, 19th century, Eminescu’s journalistic works.

Paul Celan – Beyond Oblivion. From Mittel-European Czernowitz to Universal Poetry

Originally belonging to a regional literature, but one that was nevertheless perfectly synchronised with the rest of the European Modernity, Paul Celan is the poet of two worlds. Formed into the multiethnic, cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city of Czernowitz, he had, thanks to his exceptional knowledge of the German language (alongside French and Romanian), the chance of a European destiny. Thus, he is the poet of a cultural synthesis as well as one of an exceptional poetic elaboration that outlives his times and overcomes the traumas of history.
Paul Celan’s poetic imagery and his refined verse consecrated him as a major poet, one with a reflective consciousness dramatically anchored in the pursuit of the poetic logos, as well as an important humanistic voice, one that paved the way for the poets of a new and valuable generation (with Helmut Heissenbüttel, Ingeborg Bachmann, Hans Magnus Enzensberger amongst its members).
The cultural retrieval of this poet is not only due to the necessity of remembering the importance of his work as a poet and as a translator, but mostly it is due to the historical imperatives which reveal to us that, one hundred years ago, Bukovina’s multiculturalism represented an invariant of the free, liberal spirit seen as an expression of the universality of the small and marginal cultures which, nonetheless, played a catalyzing, innovative or experimental role on the scene of the European Nodernity.

Keywords: Paul Celan, Central European Modernity, expressionism, surrealism, trauma, remembrance, Eros, Thanatos.

Laudatio – On The Occasion Of The Award Of The Doctor Honoris Causa Title by the “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu To Prof.H.C. Dr. Stefan Sienerth

Dr. Stefan Sienerth, critic and literary historian in German studies, with emphasis on German literature in Romania, was awarded the title of doctor honoris causa of the „Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu on 26 April 2018. The Laudatio makes reference to his entire didactic and research activity. The scientific research component is the one that led Mr. Stefan Sienerth to high renown, for his achievements in the research of the Transylvanian Saxon literary heritage are exemplary. He wrote histories of German literature in Romania, poetry anthologies and critical texts, portraits of writers, reviews, collections of documents regarding the literary environment, which allow the researchers to access the work of German writers from Transylvania. He edited the works of many writers and numerous collective volumes.

Keywords: Stefan Sienerth, German poetry in Transylvania, dialectal lexicography, Institute for German Culture and History in Southeast Europe, anthology of critical texts, volume of interviews.