The present text aims to problematise the work of I.L. Caragiale through the lens of reception theories, hermeneutics, and textuality while at the same time questioning some of the structuring themes ...of his writing, such as truth, the quest and the reader. Using texts such as ‘O conferență’, ‘Două loturi’, ‘Inspecțiune’, ‘Năpasta’, ‘D’ale carnavalului’, ‘Abu Hassan’, ‘1 Aprilie’ and others, the author aims to highlight elements of substance, attitude and style that converge in Caragiale’s writing, which, beyond the social, it associates the metaphysical comic or the idea of empty transcendence with the concern for truth, meta-textuality or the social. In this context, the proximity of I.L. Caragiale to Alphonse Allais or Henry James, in the interpretations of Umberto Eco and Wolfgang Iser, is supported beyond the similarities that legitimise the reading of I.L. Caragiale from the perspective of reception theories, by the fact that their relevant texts were written at the height of the Belle Époque. Therefore, Caragiale’s world appears as a luminous, complicit, seductive irony.
Who is Balthasar Hacquet (1739-1815)? A universal man and Enlightenment figure, Balthasar Hacquet was a physician, surgeon, geologist, mineralogist, botanist, fascinated by plants and animals, ...chemist, karstologist, palaeontologist, as well as ethnographer, ethnologist and anthropologist.The present study is prompted by the fact that between 1788 and 1789, Hacquet travelled through Bukovina, recently occupied by the Austrians, recording facts and giving testimonies on locals and settlers alike. The first part of the study analyzes the way Hacquet is published and received in Romania, between 1895 and 2007, from G. Bogdan-Duică (1895) to Nicolae Iorga, Leca Morariu, Radu Grigorovici, Leonte Ivanov. With insignificant exceptions, the most common opinion among Romanians is that Hacquet is unfair to the locals, conveying an unfavourable image of the Romanian-speaking population.Considering such an assessment inadequate, the author proposes in the second part of the study a re-reading of Hacquet's travel notes from an imagological perspective. The proposed analysis does not aim at reprimanding Hacquet for his views, nor at correcting them. Instead it aims at problematizing his perspective as the consequence of all sorts of contexts. Consequently, the ideas conveyed by Hacquet take on complex meanings that go beyond the limits of a divide between cultures.Finally, through the rereading it proposes, the study responds to its main objective, which is to dive into Hacquet's writing in order to reconstruct multiple aspects of life in Bukovina between 1788 and 1789.
Who is Balthasar Hacquet (1739-1815)? A universal man and Enlightenment figure, Balthasar Hacquet was a physician, surgeon, geologist, mineralogist, botanist, fascinated by plants and animals, ...chemist, karstologist, palaeontologist, as well as ethnographer, ethnologist and anthropologist.
The present study is prompted by the fact that between 1788 and 1789, Hacquet travelled through Bukovina, recently occupied by the Austrians, recording facts and giving testimonies on locals and settlers alike. The first part of the study analyzes the way Hacquet is published and received in Romania, between 1895 and 2007, from G. Bogdan-Duică (1895) to Nicolae Iorga, Leca Morariu, Radu Grigorovici, Leonte Ivanov. With insignificant exceptions, the most common opinion among Romanians is that Hacquet is unfair to the locals, conveying an unfavourable image of the Romanian-speaking population.
Considering such an assessment inadequate, the author proposes in the second part of the study a re-reading of Hacquet's travel notes from an imagological perspective. The proposed analysis does not aim at reprimanding Hacquet for his views, nor at correcting them. Instead it aims at problematizing his perspective as the consequence of all sorts of contexts. Consequently, the ideas conveyed by Hacquet take on complex meanings that go beyond the limits of a divide between cultures.
Finally, through the rereading it proposes, the study responds to its main objective, which is to dive into Hacquet's writing in order to reconstruct multiple aspects of life in Bukovina between 1788 and 1789.
The natives of the north-west of Moldavia (Bukovina since 1774) have been subjected to foreign attempts at crafting a regional image for their homeland. In the process, Austrian occupiers ...(Romanian-born Austrian officials included) and travelers considered the local cuisine as well. This paper looks into the first endeavors to project an image that creates a sense of place for Bukovina. Although hardly consistent, this foreign reading of local identities is homogenous enough so that the people of the area could look back on it themselves, much later, in their own ethnographic studies, not to mention documentary and fictional writings. My investigation closes in on several representations of the area’s staple food, which carry highly evocative meanings, framing Bukovinian cuisine as a social and historical marker of indigenous identity. Moreover, the focus on polenta (mãmãligã), an iconic Romanian dish, is of particular interest.
The premise that this article is built upon is that, following the political liberation of the 1968–1971 period in Romania and the placing of literature under the sign of political dogmatism after ...1971, the literary criticism of 1970s generation defined itself as a space of refuge for the liberal spirit. The form that this spirit took was that of irony, not in the typical sense of the term, that of expressing force, but in that in which Rorty uses it, meaning disbelief in the force. The analysis that I propose uses as a starting point the perspective proposed by Laurențiu Ulici, the most active figure in the public space created by the literary critics of his generation and also the most representative figure of that liberal spirit and of its relation to the sense of irony. Thus, my study tries to identify the most important traits of the ironic spirit of 1970s criticism and illustrates them by discussing the vision of the main literary critics of Ulici’s generation after having defined this ironic spirit through Richard Rorty’s theory.
Once in Vienna to get an education, the young Romanians that left Bukovina, be they sons of boyars, priests, peasants, or public servants, often found themselves in awe. One way or another, they soon ...experienced a hard time getting board and lodgings. To make ends meet, they had to pawn their belongings or borrow money, which spelled trouble for all of them. Consequently, their food choice and cooking skills welcome a cultural studies approach that reveals their worldview, identity or history proper. Taking into account mostly unknown memoirs, diaries and letters, the present paper aims to give insight into the eating habits and the world of young Bukovinians living in Vienna. Fitted within a chronological sequence, the case studies under scrutiny range from the Hurmuzachi brothers (Constantin, Eudoxiu, Gheorghe), Eminescu, and the so-called ‘Bukovinian colony’ to Ciprian Porumbescu and, eventually, Leca Morariu. Strangely enough, Morariu, although wounded in WWI, is the only one who managed to eat well while in Vienna. However, both his war and Vienna diaries are meaningful from many other perspectives than his meals. Beyond the actual or the implied questions they trigger, my somewhat random reading comes across as an opportunity to rediscover a lost world.
What is knowledge, according to postmodernism: re-cognition or creation? Does accepting all the existing synchronic and diachronic viewpoints weaken the need to undertake responsibility and become ...involved? Is putting things into perspective synonymous of no longer feeling responsible? What does the specificity of knowledge consist of in postmodernism? These are all questions to which our paper means to provide an answer by putting the relativist stance of postmodernism opposite the need of feeling it is incumbent upon oneself to play a part in creating the truth. In the author's opinion, while rejecting the idea of a preexisting truth and the solutions based on the existence of incompatible truths, knowledge means assuming an attitude denoting confidence in the truth of a committing skepticism. Situated somewhere between Rorty and Popper, this paper militates for the truth recovery.
The second part of the study (the first part appeared in the previous issue of the “Annals of Bukovina”) aims to solve three major problems: to analyse and explain the paternity of the “Ruthenization ...of Bukovina”, to reconstruct the personality and ideas of Zaharia Voronca and to sketch a dialog between the ideas of Zaharia Voronca and those of Elena Niculiță-Voronca. Implicitly, some of the ideas of the time regarding peasants’ situation, American mirage, anti-Semitism or impact of modern civilization are exposed. Regarding the “Ruthenization of Bukovina”, the study shows without any question that these are two different works, published in the same year, 1904. The first is a booklet written by Zaharia Voronca, edited in Mihalcea. The second is a large volume edited by „Minerva” Publishing House in Bucharest, signed “by a Bukovinian”, the author being Isidor Ieșanu. We found it was a good opportunity to present some of Isidor Ieșanu’s ideas from his books. As for the personality of Zaharia Voronca, we tried at first to define data of his personality, manifested in the trial of the “Arboroasa Society”. Subsequently, his most significant ideas are systematized and reconstituted, having as support the texts from the volume Rememorări Remembrances (1901), most of them originally published in “Timpul”, and Mihalcea, the monograph from 1912. As a man of his time, Zaharia Voronca discusses topics such as the ruthenization of Bukovina, the salaries of priests or the precarious life of the peasants, takes attitude toward certain decisions that are debated in the Parliament of Bukovina, intervenes in matters of legislation that concern everyday life etc. Open to modernity, he notes, in fact, the difficulties faced by the inhabitants of Bukovina, especially the Romanians. All this is also an occasion for the reconstruction of some particular aspects of life in Bukovina at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. According to the spirit of the place, there are also some ideas that Elena Niculiță-Voronca supports, along with Zaharia Voronca, such as the risk of the disappearance of the house industry. The text ends with the reconstruction in effigy of some of Elena Niculiță-Voronca’s feminist ideas.
Divided into two distinct sequences, the present study aims in a first instance to recover two representative figures of Bukovina from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th ...century: the quasi-unknown Elena Niculiță-Voronca and Zaharia Voronca. Through this recovery, which addresses both the biographical and the moral-ideational plan, the author intends to restore the atmosphere of the moment, putting in the foreground the relationship between Romanians and Ukrainians and the Romanians’ vision of the Austrian policies, reconstituting facts and identifying the dominant ideas of the time. However, the reconstitution of the two figures and their defining ideas is not possible without calling into question all sorts of relevant contexts. The first part of the study questions the case of the “Arboroasa” trial and the hypothesis that Zaharia Voronca was involved in a genuine conspiratorial action. It reconstitutes the figure of Zaharia Voronca during the trial and the possible reasons for the marriage with Elena Niculiță-Voronca and launches explanations for some surprising hypotheses. In the author’s opinion, Elena Niculiță-Voronca and Zaharia Voronca are united by several ideas that justify the events that the author reconstructs through their writings and the way in which they imagine each other in their own writings. Beyond all this, is it possible that there was a rift between Zaharia Voronca and Constantin Morariu, prison fellows during the trial of “Arboroasa”? And if there are arguments for such a rupture, how could it be explained? On the other hand, was there a visible metamorphosis over time of Zacharias Voroncaʾs personality? Wasn’t this rupture due precisely to some changes in Zacharias Voroncaʾs options? Trying to answer such questions, the author analyses a sequence from the diary of Elena Niculiță-Voronca, i. e. the record of her first trip to Vienna, in 1904, but also the way Elena Niculiță-Voronca appears in the texts written by Zaharia Voronca. The fact is that the two were united by the desire to reawaken in the villages where the Romanians considered themselves Ukrainians the consciousness of the Romanian identity. The first part ends with the reference to the Ruthenianization of Bukovina, a book from 1904, which will analysed in the second sequence of the study.
"In the study “The Bukovinian Incursions of V. Simiganovschi”, the author discusses a multitude of topics that contribute to the realization of a detailed analysis of the peasantʼs life in Bukovina. ...Mircea A. Diaconu explores, as much as possible, the world of the Bukovinian village as reflected in the pages of a booklet published in 1889 by the theologian student V. Simiganovschi: A Friendly Advice. Something about the state of our people and how to improve it. A few economic advices. In this booklet, beyond the treated themes, it is also shown to what extent the peasant problem, the colonizations and the representation of the Jews are complementary problems and difficult to separate. The author of the study starts the discussion about this quasi-unknown writer and the image he offers us about the peasants from much further away, bringing into question an eloquent case from two points of view, revealing: 1. the complicated and uneven reaction of the Romanians who have been under the Austrians for decades; 2. the tendency to interpret the facts solely in oneʼs own interest. In essence, the study wants to present Simiganovschiʼs booklet both from the perspective of the authorʼs intentions and from that of the way in which, indirectly, it becomes a mirror of the peasantʼs life and, moreover, of the intentions of its author. Simiganovschi wants to offer the peasant a guide to help him in his agricultural activities and in his daily life, in order to save himself from the danger of poverty and loss of identity. At the same time, he proposes some micro-narratives with an identity character, regarding the peasantʼs attitude towards school, towards drinking, towards daily life. Inevitably, considering that the blame for the fallen state of the peasant belongs to the Jews, the booklet is also considered a small manual of anti-Semitism, because the intention of awakening the national conscience is fatally doubled by blaming the Jewish immigrants in Bukovina. For contextual clarifications, the author also resorts to other related “documents”, which show how to configure the image of the Romanian peasant in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Thus, other references are also brought into question, mentioned being the writings of Ion Budai-Deleanu, of Gabriel Splény, the first governor of Bukovina, and also the literary texts of the Bukovinian priests Iraclie Porumbescu and Constantin Morariu. "
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