This year has appeared “Viaţa unui om singur” (A lonely man’s life), the memories of Adrian Marino. This book has triggered a lot of fuzz in Romania’s literary circles, even if its author has been dead for years. In fact, it was his choice that this volume should be published only five years after his death, in order to put a distance between his personality (bitterly contested in Romania) and his literary legacy.

But who was Adrian Marino and why should anybody be interested in his legacy, literary or non-literary? Why his ideas about politics, history, literature, sociology, culture, would be a point of interest for a non-Romanian speaker?

The answer is simple: Adrian Marino was an European in the first place and a Romanian only in the second place. Moreover, he was an Eastern European, a keen observer and witness of what Eastern Europe is (and used to be). His life and work is a testimony of this very special part of the world: from Finland to Greece, from Germany to Romania, from Slovenia to Ukraine, Easterners consider themselves “European” – but nobody else thought they belong to “true” Europe. In the best case, we were seen as half-breed. In the worst, we were considered merely “Soviets”!

This was the tragedy lived by Adrian Marino and others (Adam Michnik, Lev Kopelev, Vaclav Hável): intellectuals whose “europenity” was denied in Western Europe and considered a guilt in their own countries (by communist authorities or – in respect of Greece – by religious authorities; Finland is a happy exception).

Adrian Marino’s life: born in Iaşi, incarcerated for 14 years by communists, forcibly relocated in Cluj, making his debut at 44, an active and very industrious scientist for the rest of his life, one of the best Romanian specialists in theory of literature, the most translated Romanian critic ever, a polyglot in control of 7 languages (French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Romanian), he used to write and publish in three of them (French, Romanian, English), a fierce autonomist who hated Bucharest (or what he used to call “Bucharest cultural mafia”) and supported the other cultural “powers” in Romania (Timişoara, Cluj, Iaşi), a staunch anti-communist and anti-fascist, a lucid mind who despised nationalism and chauvinism, both Romanian and Hungarian (the two main nationalisms in Romania), a lifelong friend of Poland and enemy of Russia, Adrian Marino was also the driving force of Cahiers roumains d’études littéraires, one of the few free literary magazines in East. Of course, this is just a sketch of this unique personality, which wouldn’t be objective without his (many, heavy) shortcomings.

He was an incredible difficult person. Extremely overconfident, moody, bad-tempered, touchy, vindictive, almost irrational in “disliking” of some people (Gabriel Liiceanu, for instance), ludicrously praising others (Sorin Antohi, Dan Pavel, Stelian Tănase) who didn’t deserve at all to be praised. Ungrateful to his former master (George Călinescu), to the point of unfairly attacking his origin (“bastard of a Gipsy illiterate home-servant”), resentful to all the other who mean something in Romanian culture, no matter of their real or imaginary value (Constantin Noica, Mircea Eliade, Eugen Lovinescu, Andrei Pleşu, Paul Goma, Emil Cioran, Marin Preda, Nichita Stănescu, Marin Sorescu, and the list could go on indefinitely – it is enless!). He also had more than a grudge against some personalities from other cultural spaces (Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov, Jean Starobinski, Claude Karnouth, Rita Schober, Jean Rousset, René Étiemble, Guillermo Diaz-Plaja, Robert André and many, many others). To be fair, he hold in esteem a lesser number of “names”: Benedetto Croce, René Wellek, Claudio Guillén, Walter Sutton, Umberto Eco, Antonio Candido, Iordan Chimet (this last one is Romanian, but better known abroad than in his own country).

Yes, Adrian Marino was a great cultural figure. And, yes, he was a very lone man. But my feeling is that he loved to be alone. Maybe loneliness is a common fate for this kind of strong characters.

He died the day before yesterday, aged 75. He was one of the greatest actors in Romania, performing brilliantly in theatre and movies, for 48 years. Gheorghe Dinica was the best-known actor in Romania, and there are few Romanians who are not able to quote at least one of his famous lines; this is not because of lines themselves (after all, there were written by some other people), but because his peculiar voice and intonation, incredible personal: no one can take Dinica’s voice for somebody else’s.

But his legend goes further, as he was maybe the most renown boozers among Romanian cultural elite. And let me tell you that Romanians ARE heavy boozers, be they cultural elite or not! It is told that Gheorghe Dinica could party from after interpreting in a play – to the next performance on the stage, in the following day!

What about his tours? There is a whole oral literature, a real folklore, about his drinking-parties around the country, when his troop left Bucharest for the province. That was quite true mostly between 1979 and 1989 (“the gloomy decade”), when daily life had become a hell for ordinary Romanians. In such conditions, Dinica’s imbibe (he was a wine drinker), was seen by his countrymen as a form a protest.

And in fact it was one: after getting drunk and using his status of a great actor, Dinica allowed to call names against nomenclature (Communist establishment). He never got punished, not only because he was a star, but also because he was friend with many high-ranked officers – as anybody know, in Communist regimes, Secret Service officers were also very fond of drinking.

The last but not least, he was a good singer and a sharp interlocutor, often surprising and confusing even his fellow actors. There is such a story, when somebody who wished Maia Morgenstern “Happy Easter! Christ has resurrected!” (as traditional in Orthodox countries) had no answer from the actress. Dinica came closer and said: “You know, young friend… she has her doubts…”.

Nobody has ever heard of Napoleon Savescu. Of course! He’s not exactly a nobody, but he is close enough. He is of some interest for me not because he’s a moron, but because his naivete causes a lot of harm to Romania. How is that?

Napoleon Savescu is a Romanian physician who left Romania in 1977 and immigrated in the United States. He throve there as a doctor and a businessman, but also discovered his “violon d’Ingres” – an alternative theory of Romanian origins. The “official” scientific point of view, currently accepted, says that Romanians developed, as a people and a language, between III and XI A.C., in a vast area that belongs now to Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Republic of Moldova; they were not the masters of their lands, they were subjects of greater powers in the area (Goths, Gepids, Bulgars, Kipceaks, Huns, Byzantines, and finally Hungarians and Tatars), until the 13^th century, when they established their first kingdom (Walachia), and 14^th (Moldavia). In respect of language, their ancestry is Dacian (5%), Latin (45%), Slavic (30%), Turanic (15%), and unknown (5%). In “turanic” are gathered Mongolic, Turkic, Hungarian and old Bulgar influences.

Napoleon Savescu has a different opinion. He genuinely believes (and loudly claims) that Romanians existed in Romania “from the dawn of time”; that they are at least 6.000 years old (!); that they founded Rome; that Romanian is the first European language and all Europeans now speak “dialects” of old Romanian! Does it sound mad to you? But wait, there’s more!

Romanians, says Napoleon Savescu, invented the first writing system in the world; their science was so advanced, that they were teachers of Greeks, who vaguely remember them (the Romanians, their teachers!) as “pelasgians”, the wise and powerful people from the north, or (for other classical Greek authors), the first inhabitants of Greece (and what can those “first inhabitants” be if not Romanians?, asks Napoleon Savescu); if Atlantis was the first civilization across the Atlantic ocean, if Egypt was the first civilization in Africa, if Sumerians, Dravidians and Chinese were the first in Asia, then, says Savescu, it is crystal clear that their European counterpart were old Romanians! Of course, these marvelous “old Romanians” were Dacians, and that’s it!

He supports his opinions with excerpts from true historians’ works: Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, Nicolae Iorga, Constantin Giurescu, Grigore Tocilescu, Vasile Parvan, Teohari Antonescu, but also he credits amateurs: Cezar Bolliac, Mihai Eminescu, Nicolae Densusianu, Mircea Eliade, Nicolae Portocala, Alexandru Bratescu-Voinesti, Nicolae Ceausescu, Iosif Constantin Dragan. All of them, says Napoleon Savescu, shared my point of view. Could they ALL be wrong?!

Why is this clown so harmful to Romania? Because Romania and Hungary have a long and very bitter argument about Transylvania: who were the first settlers of Transylvania, Hungarians (since the tenth century), or Romanians (since a few centuries before)? The Hungarian thesis is very carefully build, and their point of view is quite convincing, as it lets out the inconvenient facts (and there are a lot of them). The Romanian thesis is equally well made, even it has a major drawback: the almost complete absence of written sources, for more than a thousand years!

Things got worse only when “patriots” like Napoleon Savescu step in: who can credit with any sympathy a nation who esteems a “scholar” like him?!

Alexandr Litvinenko was a hero.

After a career in KGB (Soviet secret service) and FSB (Russian secret service, after 1991), Litvinenko denounced the leadership of this institution as being corrupted and incapable of reformation. As a result, he spend some time (more than a year) in prison, facing three trials until he managed to escape Russia with his family. He was granted political asylum in Great Britain, where he commenced the struggle against Vladimir Putin’s regime, the struggle that would end with Litvinenko’s death.

He published two books in English, “Blowing up Russia: the terror from within” and “Lubyanka Criminal Group”, where he accused Russian government, top military and personal Vladimir Putin of crime against Russian people, genocide in the second Chechen war and assassination of independent journalists (for instance, Anna Politkovskaya).

On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko fell ill and was taken to a hospital, where he died three weeks later from lethal poisoning by radioactive polonium 210. The events leading up to his assassination were finally discovered by British investigation, who accused another former high FSB officer, Andrei Lugovoi, of premeditated murder. However, Russia refused the extradition of the latter, and more than that, by democratic election, Lugovoi became a member of Duma (Russian parliament), acquiring parliamentary immunity. He once affirmed he could eventually bid for presidency run, presenting himself as the traitor’s executioner! Many Russians take this for good, while others consider him a Kremlin’s killer and a great shame for their country.

Back to Litvinenko, I am going to tell you why I see him a hero. First, because he was very brave to start such an unequal fight with a man like Putin; second, because he was not intimidated when Politkovskya was shot to death after similar accuses against the president; third, because he died very bravely, refusing to take any painkillers (in spite of his terrible suffering), just to be able to tell the police what he knew about his killers and their boss, the one who ordered the crime: Vladimir Putin.

Who is this little, funny man, adored by millions, despised by far fewer? He is a nobody, and as a nobody will be soon forgotten (but not forgiven, as the evil he has brought over his country will last for years and decades). It may seem strange that he is a subject of concern for me (I live in Eastern Europe, not in South America!), but I have my reasons.

This Hugo Chavez is a dictator. But he’s even more: he is a socialist dictator, a friend of Russia, a leader in nationalization politics, a populist and a fool. He is loved and worshipped by two categories of people, maybe three: those who take advantage of his regime; fools (uneducated, simple-minded, young idealists, brain-washed leftists and so on); anti-globalization activists, who take him as a first-hand figure in their struggle (let me laugh!).

Why am I so convinced that Hugo Chavez is a pathetic soap balloon? Because I have seen before a very alike leader and I have suffered from the economic politics he followed: nationalization, price controls, export obsession, paying the debts of his country, populism, socialism, megalomania, anti-american and pro-russian extern policies, et caetera. As a coincidence, this “alike leader” also reigned over a Latin-speaking country! As a difference, he had not come into power by free elections.

And what happened? The people of my country lost their faith in honest work, as being a collabo of the regime was more rewarding; they cease to product their own goods and preferred to buy them from abroad, if possible; finally, the country was overrun by striking poverty, until the citizens revolted and killed the dictator in a kangaroo trial.

The main difference between Chavez’s Venezuela and my own country is oil production: when our reserves were drawing to a close (after the second world war), Venezuela’s were just at the beginning in respect of real exploitation. But oil will bring to venezueleans more evil than good: they learn right now that is more profitable to expect alms from the government instead of striving themselves, with work and businesses. The same thing happened in Libya, where people’s duty is only to be born – the government does everything for them!

I can risk a prediction, as a fair ending: Chavez will lose his power and life in less than ten years. He has taken power ten years ago and is in full process to destroy the country. His mad politics will kill him – and Venezuela will need a long, long time to restore itself.

10 years, I say!

Nicolae Densusianu was a Romanian ethnologist and a collector of folklore. His main work, for which he is chiefly remembered, was the posthumously printed, is “Dacia Preistorica” (Prehistoric Dacia). In his enormous and grotesque work, Densusianu combined the studies of folklore and comparative religion with archaeology to construct a theory about the prehistoric cultures of Dacia (which was a state in Eastern Europe in the last centuries BC and was conquered by Roman Empire in 106 AC.) The work has drawn criticism for unprofessionalism and evidence of nationalism, and for standing at the source of Protochronism.

His works theorize the existence of a Dacian-centered “Pelasgian Empire”, created in the 6th millennium BC, and which, he claimed, was governed by Uranus and Saturn and comprised all of Europe. Densuşianu, who believed that Latin was a dialect of Dacian language, also argued that the Dacians migrated to the Italy sometime before known Antiquity, where they laid the foundations of Rome.

Why is this nationalist dreamer so important to me, insomuch I write a post about him? After all, no one has ever heard of him outside of Romania, and even inside this country he stays almost an anonymous. Almost, but not entirely!

He used to be very influential among Romanian scholars, mostly during the last decades of communist regime, when many Romanian historians were scandalously unprofessional, writing their articles and books at direct political command; in those times, when communists tried to divert public concern from the economical disaster to nationalistic issues, they support their mad claims (“Romanians are the very founders of Europe and the world!”) with Densusianu’s work, which had a single quality: it was published in 1913, when Romania was quite rich and the living level one of the best in Eastern Europe.

The evil this book (Dacia Preistorica) has done (and is still doing today) to Romanian culture is great: because of it and of the works it inspired over the years, Romanians are ignored in respect of history and historical research: “How can we take you seriously”, other scientists ask, “if you come from a country where people think Dacia Preistorica is science?!”.

And they are right. Until Romanians cease dreaming, they don’t deserve better.

I know that Susan Travers was a woman and not a man, but, you see, I am Romanian, and in my language we have the same word for “man” and “human being” – that’s why I write about her at this category. But this is not the only reason.

Mrs. Travers was the only woman who served in French Foreign Legion, alongside with some of the best (and the toughest) soldiers of the world; some of them used to be convicted criminals, some of them were professional soldiers who made a mistake in their career, but all of them were far from being nice. Nevertheless, Susan Travers stayed among them for four long years of war, from 1941 to 1945, serving brilliantly as a driver on ambulances, lorries, staff cars and even on a self-propelled anti-tank gun! She had some affairs with some of the officers of the Legion, but finally got married to a soldier (Nicholas Schlegelmilch). She survived the war, had two sons and lived a quiet live, far from turmoil and the politics of the Fifth Republic.

Yesterday she would have been one hundred years, but she died six years ago, at 94. She published her memoires in 2000, when nobody from her old body fellows was still alive. I think this book (“Tomorrow to be brave”) is an incredible document for any man or woman who is still proud of his or hers European ancestry.

Even if I am inclined to be a kind of a sexist sometimes, I take advantage of this post to pay my respects to Mademoiselle Adjutant Chef Susan Travers. Please do the same and read her book. It pays off!

A British, a biologist (genetics and ethology), a writer, an atheist, a social activist; his moniker is “Darwin’s rottweiler”. Why is this man so important? Or, better said, why is this man so important to Romanians?

Richard Dawkins is a voice in a silenced world. This “silenced” world is Romanian culture, which abandoned any scientific approach, in favor of a fervent (boiling) religious one.

What has really happened? It is very alike to what had been happening every evening to my bitch Turca: during the day, Turca was chained, so that she wouldn’t have bitten the people who entered our yard. At evening, Turca was let free, so that she could guard the yard and the house (and, of course, to bite anyone who would have jumped over the fence!). But between those two moments (the “unchain” moment and the “patrolling the yard” moment), Turca used to run all over the yard, the garden and even the house, expressing her joy: the daily captivity was over, the freedom of the night was coming! She was very excited and very playful during those few minutes of “tasting liberty again” – but nobody ever dared to rebuke her, as my grandfather used to say: “Let her run, she had enough in that chain!”.

Romanian culture is now like Turca: enough with the chain of rationalism, let us run all over the place!

Before 1989, religion was severely controlled, there were practically no religious studies, and no priest or religion teacher could have entered a classroom; meanwhile, biology was taught for six years (in schools and high-schools), and the final two years were dedicated to evolutionism and genetics.

Now, after 1989, no kind of evolutionism is studied in schools or high-schools, but religion is kept in great esteem: any school day begins with a prayer.

What about culture? Well, it has become incredible biased, like the whole of society: orthodox religion is the big winner, the other Christian churches are also flourishing, there is real tolerance towards Muslims and Jews, but great intolerance towards atheists, who are put in the same pot with communists and Satanists!

From my point of view, Romanian culture is a scaring place, which drifts to a theocratic society. In such a society, any scientist who doesn’t express complete devotion to the “alpha church” will suffer greatly and will become an outcast. Of course, this dark scenario couldn’t be possible if younger generations were smarter than older ones; but they are not, on the contrary!

This is why Richard Dawkins is very important for Romanians: only two of his books have been translated so far (“Rivers out of Eden” and “The God Delusion”), but they were an earthquake: “Look, look, there are people who are still thinking! Incredible! So, not every educated person is praying and publicly kissing relics, as we are doing?! How is it possible, after all the horrors of communism…?!”.

OK, boys and girls. You are in charge now, you, the believers, the non-thinkers, you the many, you salt of the earth. But not for long, I hope: there is still the scientific community, there is still an atheistic Europe, a secular one. There are labs, there is progress, there is ideas’ movement, and above all, there is genetics. You’re in for big surprises!

So, there is no time to waste: hurry up to Jassy and kiss Parascheva’s relics!

First: he was last of them. “They” were a group of Romanian-speaking intellectuals known as “Criterion Association”, which is regarded as one of the most impressive examples of intellectual cohesion in inter-wars Romania. Some of them became famous worldwide: Eugen Ionescu, Emil Cioran. Some of them died before they could give their measure: Mihail Sebastian, Haig Acterian, Radu Gyr. Some of them compromised with the communist regime: Petru Comarnescu, Petre Pandrea. After the Association broke, most of them came under the influence of professor Nae Ionescu and suffered all their live because of it, one way or another: Mircea Eliade, Constantin Noica.
But the most influenced by Nae Ionescu’s ideas (orthodoxism, anti-Semitism, anti-atheism, anti-communism and a kind of “butlerian anti-technology beliefs”), and the only one who survived in Romania, was Petre Tutea. So, he was a kind of relic from a glorious time, that time when Romanian intellectuals experienced their own “revolution” – Iron Guard and its mystical credo: Romanians are the Chosen People.
Funny, isn’t it?

Second: during the communist era, the vast majority of Romanian intellectuals compromised or collaborated with the regime, so that, when it collapsed, public figures (intellectual or not) shared a huge feeling of guilt. (Julien Benda described something similar in French, in his book “La Trahison des Clercs”). One of the easiest ways to get rid of this embarrassing feeling was showing-off religiosity, specifically Orthodox beliefs: most Romanians are orthodox, and most educated Romanians consider the interbellum period as the climax of Romanian culture.
In that atmosphere, Petre Tutea appeared as a perfect solution: he came from interbellum; his stance was fiercely orthodox; he lacked politically ambitions (in Romania, politics are seen as “filthy”).

Why is now almost forgotten? Basically because he wrote nothing; moreover, in today Romania, his teachings are useless or even awkward: there is something special with Romanian Orthodox Church among all Christian churches; Anti-Semitism is good; Communism is bad.
How do these opinions fit in Europe in 2009, I wonder…?!

Of course, these are Djuvara’s ideas, not mine; I do agree with most of them, I do not with others (he believes that what comes next is a “New Middle Age”, a neverending little wars of warlords, one against the other, everybody fighting everybody, in absence of a recognized authority; he says that this new dark age will begin in the second half of this century, maybe a little latter, it all depends, he says, on oil, which is the core of “american way of dominance”; when oil will be no more, the US power declines and the New Middle Age begins. I don’t accept this prediction of his, although he writes very convincing, in a wonderful style. As a historian, he’s good, but as a writer, he’s marvellous!).

Why am I so sad, then, if I’ve come to put a post on the blog, on this topic? I am sad because nobody cares about Djuvara’s work. More specifically, his last book: had it been written in English, many people and scholars would have discussed his ideas. But in Romania?! No one gives a dime. After all, Romania is in Eastern Europe, and the widespread opinion here is “we have traded am Master for another, that’s all! This is the Cold War brought to us…”. In Russia (Djuvara makes a differece between Russia – today’s Russia – and what he names “Great Russia”, it means Soviet Union or Imperial Russia before 1918) the main opinion is “we did not lose the Cold War! I repeat, we did not lose the Cold War! What about Western Europe, let us take France, for instance? Their opinion is “what Cold War, what are you talking about?!”.

That’s why I am sad when a book like this appears in a language like Romanian and fathers no discussion. Pearl before swine!