My Tired Father, by Gellu Naum

Surrealist Gellu Naum’s My Tired Father was published in Romanian in 1972 and translated into English in 1999.  Cryptically fragmentary and dreamlike, it is a free-flowing impressionistic series of sentences which seem to settle briefly on a meaning before whirling away again, leaving the reader trying to establish connections and find a through-line.  The title suggests it is about the author’s father, but it is rather the narrator’s story and his relationship with an actress called Catherine Mahoney.  Another character, Dr Abend (evening?) pops up from time to time, but his connection is hazy.  The narrator, a professional musician, marries Catherine and they live together for over a decade and have a child, until he leaves and she suddenly dies.

It is prefaced by an alleged interview conducted by the translator James Brook, though as he admits Naum was not available for a conversation, it would appear he made it up, claiming to have obtained Naum’s ‘telepathic consent’ for the exercise to be conducted over ‘the ether’.  Why he didn’t just call it an introduction and include Naum’s pretend responses as his own insights is a puzzle.  The result is informative, but it is a laborious conceit, and even ‘Naum’ becomes irritated with Brook’s questions.  What the author (who died in 2001) thought of having words put in his mouth is not recorded.  Perhaps Brook thought he was being appropriately surrealist, but it misfires.

Cast as a ‘pohem’, there is little poetic about My Tired Father, and it might as readily be called prohse.  One approaches a surrealist work with the expectation it will not make obvious sense (or if one is less charitably inclined that it will be unnecessarily obscure), and this one can feel self-indulgent.  But it is short, pithy, and the narrative flows smoothly, carrying the reader along.  One puts the book down with an intuition that some insight into the narrator’s life has been revealed, even if it is not clear what it is, and leaving traces which stick in the mind.  Given the time and place of its creation, it is probably a miracle it exists at all.

Romanian photographs in the Journal of the Royal Photographic Society

Saveta feeds the pig, but not in the Guardian
(Judy Ford)

The September/October 2022 issue of the Journal of the Royal Photographic Society has a section looking at newly-minted Fellows of the Society, with examples of their work.  One of these is a double-page spread of photographs taken in Romania by Paul Hassell FRPS, submitted in the travel photography category (pp. 534-5).  Although it is hard to judge on the basis of the 20 images making up his Fellowship portfolio (which can be found on the RPS website), including three in the magazine plus the cover, and accompanied by an introduction and a statement of intent, I found Hassell’s images problematic.

His statement of intent is couched in pessimistic terms:

‘These are pictures taken in the remoter villages in Romania. They hope to illustrate the challenge of everyday life in such an environment. …Time stands still here, the change comes only from the gradual moving away of the young to work in bigger towns and cities and abandon their roots. The older residents struggle to survive, living from hand to mouth with their traditions, their beliefs and history. These are photographs that aim to depict survival, each one being a window on how everyday life unfolds…’

We do not learn whereabouts in Romania these ‘remoter villages’ are, implying all remote areas are much alike, as opposed to having strong regional identities.  The stress is on stasis and survival, and tending towards poverty porn.  Most of the photographs show elderly individuals in a bleak snowy rural landscape, indicating the desertion of the communities by younger people.  Even the young man in the photograph captioned ‘Boy with horse’ isn’t particularly boyish.

In fact, the other two captions are very odd as well, and indicate a misplaced sense of irony trading on stereotypes of deprivation.  ‘Romanian market’ shows an elderly man standing in from of a lorry with a cow inside and a pile of felled trees behind him; not much of a market one might think.  ‘Local off licence’ features an old woman sitting in a ramshackle hut with what looks like a home-made still making illicit alcohol.

Hassell’s subjects are passive; his statement of intent concludes: ‘...engagement allowed a relation of character and community, but also circumstance, which is sadly based on their inability to change.’  Perhaps the problem is not their inability to change, but an economic system that depopulates the countryside because, with occasional exceptions, there is a lack of will to provide local opportunities to allow communities to prosper.  Hinting at a lack of insight, he mentions walking in the snow and hearing the sound of chainsaws, assuming it is the locals preparing for ‘the long winter ahead’, when it could as easily have been illegal loggers at work, unfortunately a thriving occupation.

The introduction notes that having made several trips to Romania, he knew ‘there was a narrative to be told’, as if somehow these issues had not been noticed before.  Hardly anyone smiles in the 20 photographs of the Fellowship submission because it would not fit the narrative of isolated hardship.  How this project was considered worthy of a Fellowship is something of a mystery because there is nothing new here, merely portraits betraying a voyeuristic, privileged perspective, for all the talk of the generous warmth of the people he met.

 

A much better example of how to photograph in Romania was actually provided in the May/June 2022 issue of the RPS Journal, in which Judy Ford LRPS has a much longer spread (pp. 290-301), a project supported by the 2020 Joan Wakelin Bursary.  Also focusing on rural communities, while not airbrushing the problems she goes deeper than Hassell to show a more rounded picture of life in the Romanian countryside.  For a start we are told this is a specific region – Maramureș – as opposed to Hassell’s generic ‘remoter villages’, and it is obviously not populated solely by old people and sheep, plus the odd horse, pig, chicken and cow.

Ford’s accompanying essay sets the rhythms of life in this region in a wider context: the price of milk is so low it is fed to pigs to fatten them; sheep are risky because of the depredations of bears, wolves and wild boar.  She mentions issues of deforestation, depopulation, and the encroachment of unsympathetic dwellings made from concrete which are generally funded by the middle generation who have worked in western Europe, and are often left unfinished.

Her primary interest is the generations of women, particularly the older ones, who are mostly widows, and how they manage with little state support and inadequate healthcare.  It is by no means a sanitised view.  With families gone to larger cities or abroad, many of whom do not return, loneliness and poverty are significant problems.  The middle generation of women face their own problems, juggling what few local employment opportunities are available with working abroad for part of the year, while bringing up families.

For the middle and younger generations, caught between the traditions of their forebears and a broader European perspective, exposure to western European fashions and goods tends to undermine the values espoused by the older generation.  There is a neat photograph of young girls at a religious event focusing on their footwear, with a pair of strappy heeled shoes among the opinci.  This is not a static world, but one where custom and modernity mingle in not always obvious ways.  Theirs is a difficult choice, to stay or seek wider horizons elsewhere, especially for those who would like a professional career.

Ford notes that in some respects society has gone backwards since 1989.  This is not only in terms of mass migration, but also because under Ceaușescu there was investment in rural infrastructure.  With his fall much of that was swept away in a tide of privatisation, and large companies squeezed out small agricultural producers.  Schools closed, reducing educational, and therefore career, opportunities.  Over 30 years on, the legacy remains, and the future is uncertain.

However, despite these problems, the local economy and society still function, underpinned in Ford’s view by three characteristics: ‘a strong connection with land and animals, a rich traditional culture and deep-rooted faith.’  One might add a toughness of character.  The photographs accompany text which is balanced, Ford having achieved a connection with her subjects far removed from Hassell’s uniformly dreary view of stoical individuals in a grimy landscape.

The most significant difference with Hassell’s photographs is that whereas his subjects are anonymous, the captions describing the situation and reinforcing the sense of stagnation, Ford nearly always provides the names of the individuals she photographs, suggesting a greater degree of empathy with them.  One ends up feeling that whereas for Ford the emphasis is on those she photographs, for Hassell it is rather about his progression as a photographer.

 

The Joan Wakelin Bursary is jointly administered by the RPS and the Guardian, and a heavily abbreviated version of Ford’s RPS article appeared in the newspaper on 9 May 2022.  Its editorial choices compare unfavourably to the tone of the RPS Journal article and it substitutes a pessimistic slant undercutting her concluding sentiment: ‘For those of us aiming to live more quietly and sustainably on this planet, there is wisdom to be found here.  My journey in Romania has been one of self-discovery – of unearthing values buried by the noise of our frantic world.’  The Guardian does have several of the same images, or similar, but omits some showing women being active, like Saveta feeding her pig, and adds a number not in the RPS article aligning more with Hassell’s approach than Ford’s supportive message.

To begin with, the title – ‘There is wisdom here’: Romania’s last peasant women – a photo essay’ – indicates the sub-editor has decided this is a dying way of life.  To reinforce this impression, there is a photograph taken in an abandoned house, another of an oil lamp, the caption referring to the lack of electricity and running water in many older dwellings.  A couple of posed portraits of wizened elderly women, one wearing traditional dress, in this context symbolise the ‘last peasant women.’  A blouse hanging from the ceiling, photographed through reflections, takes on a ghostlike transparency, as if its owner had simply vanished.  None of these images appears in the RPS article.

The photograph of the girls’ footwear at church has been omitted; instead there is a shot of a different group of children at a religious festival, wearing traditional costume.  Ford’s subtle point about old and new coexisting has been replaced by an image of a cultural practice that can be read as quaintly exotic, and sure to disintegrate under the pressure of external influences.

The sense of a couple of Ford’s sentences have been changed as well.  Where she says some teenagers and young women, ‘have older sisters already working in western Europe and are happy to work on the family homestead while other family members are abroad,’ the Guardian version says they ‘had older sisters already working in western Europe and were likely to follow the same path,’ the opposite of what Ford had written, as if young people cannot wait to flee the countryside for a better life abroad.

The other major change relates to a reference to Ceaușescu.  While conceding life in rural communities had been hard under the communist regime, Ford points out that there were positive aspects.  Keen not to say anything good about the pre-1989 period, the Guardian sub-editor has substituted: ‘Their culture survived because the communities were too small and remote for the traditions to be eradicated by Gheorghiu-Dej [not mentioned by Ford in the RPS version] and Ceaușescu under communism.’  While it is nice to have a spread in a major daily, Ford might be forgiven for being annoyed at the cavalier manner in which her analysis has been distorted to suit the Guardian’s agenda.

Și scrisorile lui/And his Letters, directed by Tudor Pojnicsan

Tudor Pojnicsan’s 2021 short film has a cast of two, Carla Graur and Dragoș Pleșa, though Pleșa carries the bulk of the action.  It is completely without dialogue, and the viewer’s inability to penetrate further than the images in attempting to probe their ambiguities fuels a sense of unease.

A young man is out in the woods taking photographs, the sound of birds filling the air.  A smooth transition to the lobby of his block is accompanied by an electronic score which becomes increasingly unsettling.  In his flat he drinks a glass of milk and examines the images on a laptop.  He clearly lives alone, and the flat is sparsely-furnished.  Economically, Pojnicsan has established the man’s isolation and focus on photography.

As part of his routine, he checks his mailbox in the lobby on his return.  One day he finds a letter, and the camera lingers on the boxes, suggesting they will play a significant role.  The man glances at the letter, but is more interested in studying the photographs on his computer.

Another day a second letter arrives but he does not immediately open it, instead looking thoughtful while drinking milk, before turning to his photographs.  A series of letters arrive; they are unsealed and we see they have no address, so presumably are hand-delivered.  He tries to ignore the box, but is drawn in the night to see if there is a letter, which there is.  After lying in bed reading it, he holds it against his chest.

One day as he checks his box a woman comes down the stairs and goes to hers a little way along the row.  We remember we saw her doing the same the first time he looked in his box – when there was no letter present.  She hands him a letter, and in the next scene we see them in bed together.  We assume they were love letters and have served their purpose.

But while he is asleep she looks at them, not something one would expect if she had written them herself.  When he comes into the block there is no letter in the box, and he is withdrawn as the pair eat, shaking her hand off as she touches him.  Are the letters after all from someone else?  He continues to look for letters in the box as he comes into the block, appearing anxious.

Now he is eating on his own, so it seems she has left him.  He breaks his glass, and for the only time, apart from in the wood, we hear diegetic sound as it smashes.  Then he trashes the flat before lying on the floor clutching the letters.  Recovering, he gets on with life.  But on his way out he finds a letter in the box, this time with a stamp.

He takes it to the woods where a woman is standing in the distance.  Resealing the letter, he walks towards the spot where she had been (when the camera indicates his point of view, she is no longer visible).  Is it the woman with whom he slept, and is it she who wrote the letters?  We have no insight into his interior life, and can only guess at what might happen next.  Whatever it is will happen out of sight.

Yet as he disappears into the distant trees, a hint that the resolution, whatever form it takes, will be positive is provided by the score.  Birdsong and the electronic music coexist briefly in the wood before the latter fades out and we are left with only natural sounds.  Real life trumps the artificial; direct experience is better than the mediated.

The film is available on the Cinepub YouTube platform:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eewKj_VmMMo

Moldova in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest is not something I would normally pay attention to, but these are not normal times.  This year the money was always on Ukraine to win, and rightly so.  A surprise was the UK coming second after a disastrous run in recent years (a positive result possibly also partially connected, albeit obliquely, with the situation in Ukraine).  However, another song caught my eye, and while it was not the Romanian one, there is a clear connection to Romania.

Zdob şi Zdub and the Advahov Brothers performed the Moldovan entry Trenulețul (The Train).  It was not written for the contest but was originally released in December 2021 as a promotion to celebrate the reopening of the rail connection between Chișinău and Bucharest.  Ostensibly about connecting people, which is entirely within the Eurovision ethos, it is also about the link between Moldova and Romania.  Roman Iagupov, the lead singer of Zdob şi Zdub, has denied any overt political intent, maintaining it is about the musician’s life, but it is difficult not to read a broader significance into the lyrics:

Merge trenul, parcă zboară
Dintr-o țară-n altă țară
Merge și nu poate pricepe
Care țară? Unde-ncepe?
Țară veche, țară nouă
Parcă-i una, parcă-s două
Ba aparte, ba-mpreună
Parcă-s două, parcă-i una

The train’s going, it’s like it’s flying
From one country to another
It is going but can’t understand
Which country? Where do you start?
Old country, new country
It’s like one, it’s like two
Separately, together
It’s like two, it’s like one

It isn’t only the train that finds the border arbitrary.  Despite Iagupov’s assertion to the contrary, perhaps made in order not to fall foul of the ostensible Eurovision ban on political content, the song can clearly be seen to emphasise the common heritage of Romania and Moldova, symbolised both by the railway and by the amusing appearance in the promotional video of a carpet featuring the portrait of Stephen the Great, a hero in both countries.  It also combines past and present musically in its style and with the refrain – sung in English – of ‘Hey ho! Let’s go! Folklore and Rock’n’roll’, emphasising both local tradition and a western-leaning (in these times meaning anti-Russian) focus; as the words say, ‘the train’s route is East to West.’

Jauntily upbeat and very funny as it is, it takes little effort to see that the Moldovan song reflects unhappiness with Russia’s behaviour, especially as there have been hints Moldova might be in its sights, after the possible annexation of the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria to create a new front from which to attack Odesa.  Russian propaganda, not noted for its subtlety, has been making the preposterous claim that Moldova, Ukraine and Romania are planning to invade Transnistria, as if those countries haven’t got enough to think about.  There have been false flag explosions in Transnistria (which hosts Russian ‘peacekeepers’) blamed by Tiraspol on Ukraine.  Meanwhile, the Kremlin has trotted out the familiar line about the Russian population in Moldova being ‘oppressed’, an assertion previously used as a pretext for interference.  Any timetable to take over Transnistria and then possibly Moldova has been slowed, if not derailed, by the mixture of Ukrainian fortitude and Russian ineptitude witnessed in recent months, but the danger has not completely receded and there are still concerns in Moldova about Russia’s intentions.

So what of the Romanian effort in this year’s contest?  Performed by someone who goes by the corporate-sounding name WRS, it’s enjoyably light and poppy, and will certainly get the guests out on the dancefloor at a wedding.  But it is bland, with no national character I could detect, and is mostly sung in English, with a chorus in Spanish for some reason.  Trenulețul, by contrast full of character, is actually more Romanian than the Romanian one, which says much about Moldovan identity and aspirations.

In the event, Moldova finished a respectable seventh, with 253 points, reflecting Zdob şi Zdub and the Advahov Brothers’ ability to combine a serious theme with entertainingly energetic music (Romania came in eighteenth, with 65 points).  It may be that an unintended consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, among a number, will be unification between Romania and Moldova: if the Moldovan Eurovision song is anything to go by, the train has already left the station.

The Accident, by Mihail Sebastian

The Accident (Accidentul, 1940) was Mihail Sebastian’s final work published under his own name.  Its elegiac tone belies the author’s personal turmoil and the extraordinary political situation through which he was living as a Jew in an increasingly authoritarian anti-Semitic state.  Its production was even more traumatic for him as he lost the original manuscript and had to rewrite it.  Although it was the fourth (and last) of his novels, it was the first to be published in English, in 2011.

The accident in question happens to Nora, a 34-year-old teacher of French.  On the 18th of December, 1934, she jumps off a Bucharest tram as it is still moving, slips, and falls over on the pavement, briefly stunning herself and hurting her knee.  A crowd gathers, out of which a man picks her up and unenthusiastically helps her to her apartment.  He is Paul, a lawyer, who is still in shock from the end of an intense relationship with Ann, a rising artist and a manipulative and unfaithful lover.  The breakup has left him obsessing about her and feeling apathetic about life.

Meeting in such unusual circumstances will have implications for both Nora and Paul.  Nora is an independent spirit, sensitive to others, and relaxed where Paul is tightly-wound.  After Paul helps her, then abruptly leaves her flat, Nora seeks him out.  She learns it is his 30th birthday, not an event he was planning to mark, and she decides to organise a surprise celebration for him.  They sleep together, but still he is emotionally absent.  She is concerned that his disengagement, marked by an annoying habit of shrugging his shoulders, hints at a suicidal impulse, but she also finds something worthwhile in him.  It is obvious she is far better for him than Ann was, if he could only see it.

Despite having known him for such a short time, she makes it her goal to rescue him from his depression, and the obvious way is to teach him to ski, something he had never done before.  Overcoming his ambivalence, she kits him out and takes him to the mountains near Brașov in Transylvania for the Christmas holiday.  It is a popular winter sports region and they find it difficult to secure accommodation.  They finally board with a Saxon pair who have a troubled family history, a young boy, Gunther Grodeck, and his gruff older companion, Hagen.

As the four become closer the story expands, with Nora extending her calming influence to Gunther as the four (and dog) absorb the peaceful atmosphere of the mountains and develop an affection for each other.  Initially resistant to instruction, Paul gradually learns to ski, and in its freedom is able to let go of his personal obsessions by rejecting his isolation.  Then, under Nora’s tutelage, he has to learn self-discipline, and to temper his wild feeling of freedom with the skills necessary to ski safely.  He has to learn balance.

So, after a few hiccups and some backsliding, with Nora frequently convinced Paul is going to leave, and Paul not sure whether to stay either, putting them into a state that is ‘together, yet alone’, the therapy proves successful.  Paul is seduced by the pleasure of skiing, an antidote to his unhealthy self-absorption and city-bred ennui.  He has learned to live in the present and not be weighed down by the past. 

At the end of the holiday, a chance meeting with Ann in a Brașov cafe demonstrates to all concerned that he has been cured of his obsession, now appreciating the difference between self-centred and deep selfless love.  The novel ends on an optimistic note with Paul purified by his time in the clean mountain air (it is no accident Nora’s surname is Munteanu, containing munte – mountain) and free of Ann’s unhealthy influence.  At the dawn of the new year, Paul and Nora are able to look to the future, not realising how few years of peace are left to them.

Stephen Henighan, who translated the novel, supplies an afterword outlining the cultural and political environment, and the trajectory of Sebastian’s career, as the context for a discussion of The Accident.  He points to a subtle hint of the coming conflict at the end of the novel when Paul does not appreciate that a bland headline in a Hungarian-language newspaper is a harbinger of the political deterioration during the rest of the decade.  It was the beginning of a period that was to end in tragedy for Sebastian; after the privations he had experienced during the war, the loss of his livelihood and the betrayals of friends. he died in a traffic accident, in 1945, aged 37.

In contrast to the impending catastrophe, as well as the romantic story of Nora and Paul, Sebastian depicts Romania at peace, before war and dictatorships blighted it for half a century.  It is a place where Romanians and Saxons live side by side, while maintaining their ethnic identities.  Bucharest, ‘the Paris of the East’, is thriving and cosmopolitan, full of life, like any other European capital.  Skiing and the mountains of Romania were important for Sebastian, becoming more so as his personal situation worsened, and he transmits this love through the story of Nora saving Paul from himself.

Although I have never tried it. I’ve always thought skiing possibly one of the dullest sports one can engage in, but having read Sebastian’s exuberant descriptions of skiing as a social activity I can now see its merits.  Not enough to want to strap on a pair of skis, admittedly, but I understand why Nora thought it would be good for Paul: vigorous activity can be an antidote to a feeling of dejection, distracting the sufferer and encouraging a positive attitude.  Paul was lucky to meet Nora in his hour of need, and even luckier that she possessed the cure for what ailed him.

Black Sea, by Caroline Eden

Caroline Eden’s Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes, Through Darkness and Light (2018) describes a tour of part of the regions bordering the Black Sea, including Romania.  The book combines an account of her travels with historical background and discussions of food, interspersed with recipes. She gets to Constanța after an exhausting 17-hour bus journey from Odessa, arriving just in time for Romania’s Navy Day celebrations (15 August), and she gives a colourful description of the festive atmosphere.

 Strolling around, she looks at the port city’s buildings, including of course the Casino, ‘a strong contender for the finest wasted building in the world,’ as she puts it.  A historical interlude describes the meeting in Constanța of King Carol I and Tsar Nicholas II on 14 July 1914, part of which took place in the Casino, and not forgetting to include details of what they ate, a menu heavily influenced by French cuisine.  There follow eight recipes representative of Romanian cooking.

 Unfortunately, Eden’s heart does not seem to be in Romania.  Its chapter is the shortest in the book, she spends a greater number of pages on the recipes than on the place, and she devotes more space than is necessary to the proprietor of the guesthouse she stays in and a chap from whom she buys an intricately carved wooden spoon.  She writes about other outsiders who wrote about Romania and its food – Sacheverell Sitwell, Patrick Leigh Fermor and William Blacker – though not specifically the Black Sea coast.  As a result, there is not much to be learned about this part of Romania from her brief stay, and soon she is off, with bigger fish to fry elsewhere.

Carpathia: Food from the heart of Romania, by Irina Georgescu

The title is something of a misnomer because Irina Georgescu’s beautiful book, published in 2020, covers cooking from all parts of Romania.  Now resident in the UK, she draws on her homeland’s cuisine which reflects its complex history, with influences as disparate as Turkish, Greek, Hungarian, Saxon and Slav.  The resulting volume is a labour of love.

 After the introduction, an appetiser setting out Georgescu’s stall and noting that Romanian food has been largely ignored, the book is divided into sections covering: small plates, starters and salads; breads and bakes; borș and ciorbă; main courses; desserts; and pickles, preserves, compotes and drinks. Additional sections are devoted to seasonal influences and superstitions in Romanian cooking; Romania’s culinary heritage; and Romania’s cultural values, emphasising tradition and artisanship, and a strong regional identity.

 All recipes are clearly set out, and although some look a bit tricky, many are easy to do, so the book will appeal to all levels of competence.  Occasionally there is a slight adaptation to take into account availability of ingredients, but generally they are presented as handed down from generation to generation.  Weights are given in imperial and metric.  Beautiful photographs are sprinkled through the book, showing both the dishes and evocative Romanian scenes.

 In addition to the recipes, we are told about Georgescu’s family, the challenges of the communist period, and the personal influences that shaped her love of cooking.  A need for versatility was caused by years of shortages and having to make the most of a little, using cheap ingredients.  The philosophy was to waste nothing – hence the use of offal, though many of the recipes are plant based.  Faced with uncertain times, there is much to be learned here about cooking economically.

 The Romanian devotion to family and friendship, and dining as a communal activity, are evident throughout.  Georgescu has documented what is largely an oral tradition, recipes passed down from mother to daughter (though Georgescu’s father is not exempt from kitchen preparations).  Every page evokes her love of her country and transmits it to the reader.  Even though she was born in Bucharest there is a romantic ambience, with the pastoral never far from the surface.

 Reading Carpathia is like being immersed in a travel guide, allowing the reader to tour Romania through its food.  One finishes it knowing more than about what Romanians eat, it is a window on the national identity.  The book is at once an act of memory and a connection from east to west.  Georgescu hints that one of her purposes in writing it was to help outsiders get to know the Romanians better and dispel misconceptions, and she has achieved that ambition, in addition to celebrating a cuisine possessing many delights.

Roumanian Fairy Tales, by Mite Kremnitz

‘Into the saddle then I sprung, this tale to tell to old and young.’

 Starting typically with ‘Once upon a time, something happened.  If it hadn't happened, it wouldn't be told,’ this collection of 18 Romanian fairy stories was compiled by Mite Kremnitz (1852-1916).  German-born Marie Charlotte von Bardeleben Kremnitz was a friend of Queen Elizabeth of Romania, who wrote as Carmen Sylva, and they collaborated on a number of literary productions.  Kremnitz’s Rumänische Märchen, Roumanian Fairy Tales, was published in Leipzig in 1882, and in an English translation in 1885.  Kremnitz did not do any field work to collect the stories, which are drawn from Romanian authors.

 The 18 stories are: ‘Stan Bolovan’, ‘The Wonderful Bird’, ‘The Twins with the Golden Star’, ‘Youth Without Age and Life without Death’. ‘The Little Purse with Two Half-Pennies’, ‘Mogarzea and His Son’,’ Cunning Ileane’, ‘The Princess and the Fisherman’, ‘Little Wild-Rose’, ‘The Voice of Death’, ‘The Old Woman and the Old Man’, ‘The Pea Emperor’, ‘The Morning Star and the Evening Star’, ‘The Two Step-Sisters’, ‘The Poor Boy, Mother's Darling Jack’, ‘Tellerchen’ and ‘The Fairy Aurora’.  Several were also published, in different translations, by Andrew Lang in his series of colour-coded fairy books, and some have been included in other collections.  

 They comprise the usual elements of fairy stories: the upright hero, often the monarch’s youngest son or a lad of lowly birth, setting out on quests, having adventures, doing valiant deeds, facing ordeals and overcoming evil, perhaps marrying a king’s daughter and inheriting the kingdom.  There are castles, dragons, fairies, enchantments, witches, virtuous daughters, wicked step-mothers and lazy step-sisters; humble folk attempting to get rich, and people of all classes hoping to remedy childlessness.  It is a universe where virtue is rewarded and injustice punished, even if there are many bumps along the way.

 Offsetting the fantastical elements are occasional assurances the account is true.  ‘I was present at these events, and now tell them to those who listen,’ ‘Whoever knows anything more may continue his story,’ and of course ‘If it hadn't happened, it wouldn't be told.’  Regularly there are variations on ‘if they have not died, they may be alive now.’  And perhaps in some dimension they are still alive: the tales certainly are alive, in that they have a timelessness which keeps them fresh.

 In a satisfying compilation, the one story which sticks out because of its complexity and length is the final one, ‘The Fairy Aurora’.  This is not a traditional tale but was written by Ioan Slavici (who contributed a number of stories to the book, including the opening ‘Stan Bolovan’) and published in 1872.  He claimed he had heard oral versions, but its literary feel jars when contrasted with the others’ simplicity of style.  He wrote ‘The Poor Boy’ specifically for the book, though again he said he set it down ‘just as it was related to him by the peasants.’  It seems unlikely no polishing went on, rather like those domesticated ‘folk songs’ sung by a baritone accompanied on the piano.

Epic Bike Rides of the World, by Lonely Planet

This 2016 Lonely Planet book covers a couple of hundred bike rides, most of which will appeal mainly to the committed cyclist with a good level of fitness (they are ‘epic’ rides after all).  Divided into Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania, 50 routes are described at some length, each followed by three brief ‘more like this’ suggestions.

 There is an account of one relating to the Danube, but it is confined to Austria.  Romania features very briefly in a ‘more like this’ section with a ride in Transylvania, the ‘this’ being the covered bridges of Vermont  Not particularly like the Făgăraș Mountains one would have thought; the link being they are ‘falling leaves rides’ to make in autumn.

 The suggested route starts in Bascov (near Pitești) and ends at Bâlea Lake, a distance of 73 miles.  Travelling in the autumn enables the rider to appreciate the ‘colour-infused Carpathian mountains.’  One can also appreciate the wildlife – including, we are informed, bears, lynx and wolves (this will probably put off a lot of potential tourists who contemplate the defensive properties of lycra against large predators).

 The writer recommends whizzing along the Transfăgărășan, though generous insurance cover and a sturdy helmet are surely advisable for anyone doing so.  While the reader is initially assured that the region goes beyond the vampire/creepy castle clichés, the section ends with a reference to Poenari Castle and Vlad the Impaler as inspiration for Dracula.

 As these supplementary routes are not listed in the contents, anyone idly picking up the book and scanning the front matter is not going to realise it is in the book; nor is there an index.  Of course, attempting any of the suggestions is going to require a lot more information, but the purpose is more inspirational than practical, and visiting Transylvania outside the peak tourist season to enjoy the beautiful colours is a useful idea.

Conversational Romanian Quick and Easy, by Yatir Nitzany

In his series of language books, of which Conversational Romanian Quick and Easy: The Most Innovative Technique to Learn the Romanian Language (2020) is one, Yatir Nitzany believes he has found a novel way to pick up the basics of a language with little fuss.  In this very short book he imparts the method he used, one he believes will work for anyone who follows it carefully.

His breakthrough came thus.  He was attempting to learn Spanish and, as do many others, found his progress frustratingly slow.  One day he realised that every language has a core of essential common words, and if these can be mastered it is possible to communicate adequately with native speakers.  He worked out what those words were in Spanish and ended up with a list of 350 most likely to be spoken in real-life situations.  These were capable of multiple connections with each other and, once memorised, were the means to generate enough sentences to be able to hold a conversation.

Putting the idea into practice, he found within a week he could converse in Spanish, and he went on to further study, using his technique as the basis to expand his understanding.  Then he applied the principles to other languages, including Romanian, realising they were all amenable to the 350-word method.  He was able to learn them with ease to a reasonable standard (the key words here being a reasonable standard).

The method is simplicity itself.  The reader learns batches of words which are then shown in sample sentences to assist memorisation.  As the learner progresses through the sets, words learned earlier reappear in the sample sentences to reinforce them.  Nitzany warns that each set must be mastered before going onto the next, then returned to regularly for review, until all 350 words are firmly memorised.

This is not a complete language-learning course; Nitzany concedes it is a method to allow the novice to be able to converse without frills, though it provides a platform for further elaboration.  It does not teach the fine points of grammar, and only the present tense is employed, but he argues these are unnecessary to get by and can be learned later.  The important thing is to be understood and this, he says, the learner scrupulously sticking to his method will be.

It sounds great for those with no prior knowledge, particularly useful for holidaymakers who wish to do more than ask for a couple of beers in a bar, or want a head start before embarking on a course.  So, does it actually work as claimed?  In my opinion, probably not.  Any method promising that a language can be picked up by rote learning really has to be overpromising.  There is no indication how Nitzany chose this particularly group of words as the key 350 in the entire language, and the selection feels subjective rather than based on a quantitative linguistic analysis.

Despite the book’s title, without some structure, trying to learn 350 words by constant repetition is not going to be easy and is certainly not going to be quick.  As for innovative, this is rather like a paper version of Memrise’s online flashcards, but duller.  The sample sentences help, but they are full of brackets with singular/plural and masculine/feminine constructions which look confusing and add complexity to the task of comprehension.  Some grammar rules are provided, though they are of limited help without more explanation

The likely outcome of following this process is that the learner will be able to perform well in recognition/recall tests of the individual words, but not be able to generate novel sentences fluently with roughly accurate adherence to standard syntax and without butchering word endings.  Learning this way, slavishly memorising lists of words for the recommended 30 minutes a day, sounds absolutely tedious and will likely lead to demotivation.

It would be interesting to know whether anyone has relied on Nitzany’s approach to master the basics of any of the languages he covers, of which there are over a dozen, plus quite a few Arabic dialects, and can hold a conversation in real situations.  He claims ‘hundreds’ of learners have used his books successfully but I haven’t found any testimonials to support it.  If anyone wishes to try learning the Nitzany way, it is best utilised in conjunction with other approaches that provide greater variety of practice.