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The Observer, in short – 421

Lead article Monica Lovinescu was one of the leading voices at Radio Free Europe and an important foe of Communism. The Observer publishes a text dated July 13, 1981 from Lovinescu’s Posteritatea contemporana / Contemporary Posterity (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1994). It describes the Writers’ Union’s solidarity against the Communist regime. Monica Lovinescu died in Paris on April 20. Politics Bedros Horasangian writes in …

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The Observer, in short

Lead article Carmen Musat describes a paradox in the career of poet and translator Mircea Ivanescu. Nobel-able by all accounts and celebrated for translating James Joyce’s Ulysses and Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities into Romanian, Ivanescu has himself been strangely under-translated. Ivanescu received the “Gheorghe Craciun

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Lead article Ovidiu Simonca socks it to Bucharest’s mayor, Adrien Videanu, who was unable to answer basic questions about city planning last week in the face of a report from the Save Bucharest Association that concludes Bucharest is an urban disaster. The announcement can’t have come as a surprise, so perhaps it wasn’t startling either that the mayor was unable to explain Bucharest’s chaotic construction, …

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Lead article Carmen Musat salutes the efforts of the National Book Center and the Romanian Cultural Institute while calling for a broader mix of private and public initiatives in the domain of Romanian cultural promotion abroad. Politics Bedros Horasanagian leads a master class in lamenting the political class’s habitual lack of responsibility. Ciprian Ciucu writes about the Educational Pact and …

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Quotation of the week: It is therefore as necessary to defend an individual against the majority (in a democracy) as against the king in a monarchy. John Adams, Boston Gazette, September 5, 1763. Lead article The Observer says honi soit qui mal y pense and publishes an excerpt from C. Banu’s parodic, interwar manual, Glaucon’s Garden: The Good Politician’s Guide (Gradina lui Glaucon …

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Lead article Doina Ioanid writes: Romania is a divided world. The poor subsist on one side of the tracks. The political class lives on the other. What remains? Hope for a brighter future… Politics Bedros Horasangian talks about last week’s Social Democratic (PSD) and Democratic Liberal (PD-L) elections. Ciprian Ciucu warns against populism, always a favorite among politicians. Caius …

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Lead article Carmen Musat takes political inventory and finds Romania a small country with many parties, few reliable officials, and plenty of characters who change party, doctrine and discourse with unequalled nonchalance. Politics Bedros Horasangian wonders if we will have a Europe of nations, regions or individuals in the wake of Kosovo’s independence. Ciprian Ciucu argues against taking …

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The Observer, in short

Lead article Some observations never go stale. The section on “Jackass Justice

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The Observer, in short

Lead article Carmen Musat says that Romanian people and institutions have short memories. She expresses surprise at CNSAS’ being declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court—CNSAS is the National Council for Examining Securitate Files—and underlines a list of events connected to CNSAS with question marks. Politics Bedros Horasangian looks at CNSAS from a different perspective and invites us to take a lesson from …

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Lead article Carmen Musat takes the Romanian press to task. Partisanship in reportorial space, character assassination by implication and a tendency to spread conspiracy theories spell (unhealthy) symbiosis with the political class. Politics Bedros Horasangian looks at the run up to the U.S. elections. Ciprian Ciucu sounds off on the much protested tax for registering new vehicles. Anniversary The Observer celebrates Mircea Horia …

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Lead article The Observer marks the first anniversary of novelist and literary theorist Gheorghe Craciun’s death with the release of previously unpublished work. This week’s Observer opens with Craciun’s essay, Being “Different.

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Lead article Carmen Musat writes: last week Marius Oprea, the director of the Institute for Investigating the Crimes of Communism, sent an open letter to Vladimir Tismaneanu, head of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania. Although the letter was sent to all major publications, none published the letter in toto. Vladimir Tismaneanu and Sorin Iliesiu’s contradictory marginal notes did …

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Lead article Carmen Musat says that because it is forever caught in the race for ratings, tele-journalism suffers from a dangerous confusion between freedom of the press and freedom to arrive at pure invention. Politics Bedros Horasangian notices that the press recently criticized Adriean Videanu, for his winter vacation abroad, as if the vacation and not the snow had recently paralyzed traffic in the …

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The Observer in short

Lead article Ovidiu Simonca looks at Bogdan Olteanu’s attack on editorials by Mircea Cartarescu and the National Christian-Democratic Peasant Party’s attack on Horia-Roman Patapievici and wonders if writers have suddenly begun to count. Politics Bedros Horasangian reminds us that Kosovo is historically part of Serbia and argues that Romania should meditate for a modern, democratic Kosovo. Ciprian Ciucu criticizes inadequacies in educational …

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Lead article Carmen Musat looks at the socio-political scene and sees a gap between appearance and reality. Who is free of a Communist past? Who pretends to be? There are plenty of deceived supporters out there, which leads Musat to agree with Shakespeare’s Miranda: we are living in “a brave new world.

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Lead article Carmen Musat republishes her article about Theodor Stolojan, The Legitimacy of a Jolly Joker, previously issued a year ago (no. 351), due to its relevance to the present political situation. Stolojan changes again his party, this time fusing with the Democratic Party into the Democratic Liberal Party. Politics Bedros Horasangian has things to say about this year’s national day, on December 1. …

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Lead article Carmen Musat says, Romanian politics are an endless circus. The performers apparently can’t get enough. The voters in their turn have “had it up to here,

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Lead article Ovidiu Simonca welcomes Romania’s improved cultural integration into Europe and laments the general lack of diplomatic preparation that has lead to the current impasse in the Mailat affair. Politics Ciprian Ciucu, Bedros Horasangian, Claudia Postelnicu, Alexandru Hancu and Ioana Paverman have much to say about the referendum on the uninominal vote as well as Romania’s European Parliamentary elections, to be held on …

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Lead article Carmen Musat takes a Weberian view of the political scene and finds that while President Basescu is “the absolute champion of the ethics of intention,

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Lead article Carmen Musat looks at last week’s murder of Giovanna Reggiani in Rome by a Romanian citizen and says that neither geniuses not criminals represent an entire people, though we assume the glory and the shame of both. The shame that attaches to being Romanian in the aftermath of the Reggiani tragedy can not come exclusively from special cases of criminality any more than …

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