The Days of the King, by Filip Florian

The Days of the King (Zilele regelui, 2008), by Filip Florian, is the follow-up to The Băiuţ Alley Lads.  Moving further back in time, it covers the period 1866 to 1881.  Romania is in the slow process of throwing off the Ottoman yoke and finding its identity.  The two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia are united, but in order to secure their stability and continued recognition by European powers invite a Prussian aristocratic army officer, Karl Eitel Friedrich Zephyrinus Ludwig of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, to become the Prince of the United Principalities.  He accepts, and after many travails eventually becomes King Carol I.

 While still in Berlin, Karl, then a mere captain of dragoons, has urgent need of attention for a nasty abscess in his gum, and he invites the dentist, Joseph Strauss, to follow him to Bucharest.  Accompanied only by his faithful and philosophically-inclined tomcat, Siegfried, Joseph leaves his bachelor lifestyle among his friends, says farewell to the Eleven Titties brothel, of which he is an habitué, and follows Karl in a convoluted journey across Europe (the Austro-Prussian War being in progress).  He establishes a practice in Bucharest’s Lipscani Street, even though Romanians do not greatly prize dental hygiene.

 The novel interweaves Joseph’s story with that of his adopted country against the backdrop of political manoeuvrings.  Joseph gradually makes a living and immerses himself in the city’s German community.  Meanwhile, the Prince undertakes the task of modernising and strengthening the principalities, imbuing in them a sense of nationhood, combatting corruption, and turning Bucharest from a dingy backwater with only one properly-made road into a capital worthy of an independent country.  Joseph witnesses the arrival of the railway, road improvements and, always symbolic of nationhood, the city’s first statue.  Siegfried, who possesses an almost mystical aspect, has his own narrative, and we follow his love life as well as Joseph’s.

 The Prince takes Joseph with him to Constantinople when he goes to see the sultan, during which Joseph administers him a tea brewed from fly agaric, leading to an amusing scene with the supposed vassal getting high and forgetting his royal etiquette; but he gradually distances himself, as Joseph is a reminder of events best forgotten, notably having procured for him the services of a blind prostitute.  A turning point in Joseph’s life comes when he meets and marries a Serb nanny, Elena, and they have a child.  They are deeply in love, though there are many things Joseph keeps from her.  Unfortunately, the Prince’s liaison with the prostitute leads to the birth of an illegitimate child, of which Karl is unaware, and Joseph’s desire to protect his reputation leads to a misunderstanding with Elena, who assumes the boy is her husband’s.

 The novel’s elegantly slow pace evokes the city’s character, and Joseph’s improving fortunes as Bucharest’s residents come to care about the state of their teeth.  He is a sympathetic character, and through him we see the changes over the course of the years as Romania begins to take its modern shape.  The German community integrates well, though that does not stop rioters damaging their property during the Franco-Prussian War as an expression of sympathy towards the French (an act for which the German victims exact an appropriate revenge).

 Joseph becomes a fully-fledged Romanian when, somewhat under pressure from his wife, he participates as a doctor with the rank of major in the Russo-Turkish war.  Significantly, when he has an audience with Karl, he speaks Romanian rather than German.  The novel ends in 1881 with Romania free of Ottoman control and taking its place as a fully-fledged kingdom, the prince crowned as Carol I.  As Siegfried’s long life comes to an end, marking the end of an era in more ways than one, indeed the days of the king have begun, perhaps Bucharest’s (not to mention Joseph and Elena’s) finest ones.

 Like The Băiuţ Alley Lads, The Days of the King was translated by the indefatigable Alistair Ian Blyth.  There is a useful section at the end of the book elucidating the novel’s political, military and religious background, and Bucharest’s topography, which helps the reader unfamiliar with this period of Romanian history understand the larger forces shaping Joseph’s life in his adopted land.

Învierea domnului Constantin/Resurrection of Mr. Constantin

Constantin Reliu is a Romanian man in his 60s who found himself in a remarkable (though oddly not unique) situation: he had been declared dead in absentia while demonstrably still breathing, and he found the legal system had no interest in reversing the situation.  Cornel Brad’s 45-minute 2019 documentary accompanies him as he attempts to get his life back on track, teasing out the story from a not particularly articulate subject.  So, who is he, and what brought about this sorry situation in which he found himself?

Reliu, from Bârlad in north-eastern Romania, is a cook by profession.  Leaving his family behind, he had moved to Turkey in 1992 to work and had been happy despite being bedridden for many months with a number of injuries following the 1999 Turkish earthquake.  That year was also the last time he had last seen his family and he had had no contact with them subsequently.  Unfortunately, he was caught up in a police sweep following the 2016 failed coup and deported to Romania by the Turkish authorities as his documents had expired.  He concedes he would have purchased forged documents in Turkey had he got round to it and stayed there indefinitely.

Planning to renew his documents and return to Turkey, what he only found out when he was back in Romania was that in 2013 his wife had requested the issue of a death certificate for him as the last known record was in 1999, and it was presumed he had died in the earthquake.  If it had not been for the deportation he might never have known what had happened, continuing his life in Turkey in blissful ignorance of his demise.  The practical consequence was that in Romania he found it impossible to earn an honest living, leaving him penniless, as employers would not hire him without ID, and for the same reason he could not receive state support.  The decision left him in legal limbo.

His plight generated a great deal of publicity, but the film gets behind the bald newspaper statements to hear his side of the story (though not his wife’s).  It describes his difficult homecoming in 2016, in poor health and out of contact with his family.  His wife was in a relationship in Italy he claimed was bigamous (which as he had been declared dead seems unlikely), and his daughter insulted him and refused to speak to him as she blamed him, perhaps with some justification, for deserting her. It’s all a bit like a reverse version of My Favourite Wife, with Reliu in the Irene Dunne part, though here it is Reliu who got the push, not the new spouse.

Back in his home town after almost a quarter of a century abroad, he looks lonely and lost, with his life on hold.  Fortunately he is able to stay in the family home in Bârlad, but he has trouble finding enough money to subsist on, and spends much of his time trying to obtain funds from friends.  He cannot afford medical treatment, though kind-hearted medical staff assist him.  He concludes that when he was in Turkey his family did not really care whether he was alive or dead, and when he got back to Romania he realised nobody was happy he had shown up.

He claims his wife acted deceitfully by having him declared dead, so she could acquire his assets; he implies that she knew he was probably alive, but a declaration of death was more convenient than divorce.  How she would know this he does not say.  He does say he had bought her many things which she had sold, she had put the flat in her name, sold the contents and then left for Italy.  Unfortunately for her, he continues, his turning up had ruined her plans, whereas if she had not had him declared dead, he would have gone quietly back to Turkey as soon as he had made the arrangements.

An obvious question is why Reliu did not contact his family during all those years in Turkey, and as he settles some scores with his wife a fuller picture of his motives emerges.  He alludes to how he cooled off in the marriage after a few months when he learned about her affairs, and he found her difficult to live with.  He would leave for periods, but after only a few days when he was back home she would ask when he was leaving again, bringing home lovers while he slept on the sofa (allegedly, one should add).

When he came home in July1999 he found his wife still carrying on.  Chagrined, he felt his best revenge was not violence or divorce but to let her suffer alone, though it doesn’t sound as though she was suffering too much.  He probably thought remaining incommunicado would prevent her marrying again, not dreaming what she would do.  As a form of punishment for an errant wife his scheme backfired spectacularly, and to a large extent he has been the author of his own misfortune.  He should have just divorced her, like most people do when their marriages break down, though he does not help his case as the injured party when asked what his major vice is, and he replies, surprisingly, ‘sex’ (Brad probably assumed he would say the cigarettes which must eat up a significant chunk of his disposable income).  There may be dimensions to the situation not covered by the film.

Naturally Reliu wanted to reverse the decision declaring him dead, but he found it was not as straightforward as going to court and pointing out he really wasn’t dead, and they could pinch him if they wanted to make sure.  His first attempt in March 2018 to have himself reinstated among the quick failed because the court upheld his status as dead, even though he was standing in front of them.  Apparently, this was because he was too late filing his claim, as if an artificial time limit took priority over the rights both of a citizen and of common sense.  It was a bizarre triumph of bureaucracy over humanity, content to perpetuate Reliu’s zombie-like status to keep the paperwork in order.

(Another example of state-sanctioned idiocy in Romania came a few days after that decision, when Valerian Vasiliu was given his driving licence back after a successful appeal against a speeding conviction, even though he had died in the meantime.  There seems to be a certain inflexibility in the Romanian judicial system which finds it difficult to back-pedal decisions even when they are shown to be risible.)

But, finally, Reliu had some luck.  The film was symbolically shot over Easter 2018, one resurrection prefiguring another, and end titles note he was finally declared legally alive after a second attempt in July 2018.  A wrinkle of that situation is his wife’s marital status, though as she could argue she remarried in good faith having a document to prove her first husband was deceased, it seems unlikely a bigamy charge would stick.  In any case, we are informed that Reliu finally filed for divorce, and asked for punitive damages, though on what grounds was not made clear.  At the time of making the film his wife and daughter had only had contact through lawyers.  Sadly, you know that being resurrected may ease his financial worries, but he is still not going to be a happy man.

The film is available on the Cinepub YouTube platform:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VPQ22h_k8I&t=692s

Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu’s Psychic Photographs

I have written a blog post about the psychic photographs of Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu (1838-1907).  A polymath with wide interests, today he is perhaps best known for the remarkable Iulia Hasdeu Castle at Câmpina, named after his highly accomplished daughter who died at the age of 18, leaving her promise unfulfilled.

 As a result of his bereavement, Hasdeu threw himself into Spiritualism, an element of which took the form of making psychic images.  A number of these have been published, and I have written about his efforts in this area.  The article is on my other blog here:

 http://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2021/04/bp-hasdeus-psychic-photographs.html

Born in Romania/Născut în România, by Liviu Ioan Stoiciu

Liviu Stoiciu’s Born in Romania/Născut în România (2014) is a collection of his poetry compiled by the Contemporary Literature Press, the online publishing house of the University of Bucharest.  The poems are presented both in Romanian and an English translation by Leah Fritz and Ioana Buşe, and are accompanied by a selection of photographs with rural subjects. The book’s title was chosen by the translators, not Stoiciu.  Editor Lidia Vianu’s introduction provides biographical details outlining Stoicu’s varied working life, background essential for an understanding of his writing.

 He was born in Moldova in 1950.  In 1968 he joined the army for two years and after that moved from job to job.  Refusing to become a member of the Communist Party, he remained an outsider and was considered a dissident.  This proved to be an advantage after 1989, and he was in the first post-Ceaușescu government, though not being a party man by temperament he quit after three months.  Despite his lack of a focused work life, he has always been a writer, having had his first poem published (in a communist paper) in 1967.

 The poems collected here tersely, and often cryptically, address such themes as aging, the elusiveness of memory, difficulties with relationships, the shallowness of modern life, the inevitability of change, the past as simultaneously sweetly nostalgic and an encumbrance that needs to be escaped, and foreboding for the future.  He touches on nature but also politics, apparently hopeful for improvements but pessimistic about the alienation of the human condition and the failures of institutions both religious and secular.

 If that all sounds on the dour side, he is not didactic about it and there is some humour, albeit wry.  His poetry interweaves lived experience with fantasy, but always foregrounds the independent spirit he has displayed throughout his career.  He said in an interview that his name is etymologically linked to stoic, and stoicism has been a touchstone.  It could be he doesn’t see much to laugh about: if for Brecht the bitch was in heat again, for Stoiciu it has had its puppies (‘Pierdut’/’Lost’), and we have to deal with the consequences.

 Following the poems are further biographical details (including the startling fact that his mother was killed by lightning a few months after his birth), and a list of his publications.  He has been a prolific author, having written novels, a play and journalism as well as poetry, though in recent years he seems to have slowed down.  Considering his emphasis on personal independence, it is surprising to read that he joined the Romanian Writers’ Union, though only after 1989.  Născut în România concludes with brief information about the translators and illustrator.

 It would have been useful to know the approximate dates of the poems’ composition in order to track the evolution of Stoiciu’s style and subject-matter, particularly to see what changes occurred after 1989.  The rationale for this selection, and a more extensive discussion of its themes, would have assisted enormously in orienting readers new to his work.  However, the volume is still a welcome introduction, even though it only skates the surface of his output.

 The e-book is available free on the Contemporary Literature Press website:

 https://editura.mttlc.ro/liviu-stoiciu-poems.html

Crossing Continents: Europe’s Most Dangerous Capital

The episode of BBC Radio 4’s Crossing Continents programme ‘Europe’s Most Dangerous Capital’, first broadcast in January 2021, returns to Romania to look at Bucharest’s parlous housing situation.  There are two related strands in the report.  The first is overcrowding in the blocks of flats built during the Ceaușescu era called ‘camine de nefamilisti’, ‘homes for those without families’.  Colloquially known as ‘cutie de chibrituri’, ‘matchboxes’, they were designed to house up to 400 singletons but are now often occupied by families who crowd into the small space.

The programme’s presenter, Simona Rata, grew up in one in Bucharest, sharing a room with her parents and grandmother, so she knows whereof she speaks.  Housing numbers of residents not envisaged by the architects puts strain on what already were basic shared facilities.  Their squalor earning them the nickname ‘Romania’s favelas’, camine de nefamilisti were intended to be temporary and are in poor condition.

The other significant problem facing Bucharest is earthquakes, obviously of even greater concern when buildings were poorly built and are already compromised by previous movements. The city has Europe’s highest earthquake rate, with an average of three significant tremors each century.  One in 1977 killed and injured a large number of people and destroyed up to 35,000 buildings, leaving huge numbers damaged. 

The communist regime claimed at the time that buildings had been repaired and refurbished, and their residents were told to return despite clear signs of faults which elsewhere would have had them condemned.  In practice there was little restoration and buildings remained in a dangerous condition.  After Ceaușescu fell people thought the issue would be dealt with, but it wasn’t.

So people are still living in buildings damaged in 1977 and by further earthquakes in 1986 and 1990, not as bad as 1977 but exacerbating the state of the already weakened structures.  In the past people had little understanding of the matter but are now becoming increasingly aware of the effects the earthquakes have had on the housing stock and the potential consequences of another major one to these buildings.

In 1996 the 100 buildings deemed most vulnerable to earthquakes were labelled with a red dot but remained inhabited and nothing further was done, on cost grounds.  Red dots are still put on buildings, the total now about 350, but estimates of the total in need of urgent attention range from 2,000 to 3,000.  It is going to take a huge effort to make the buildings of Bucharest safe.

Currently there is a debate about using public money to strengthen what are now private properties: Romania has the highest rate of home ownership in the world - 96%.  After 1989 there was a rush to sell off state-owned properties cheaply to avoid having to deal with the massive costs of rectifying past inactivity.  Purchasers were apparently generally ignorant of the problems, and wouldn’t have had the money to put them right anyway.  There is little political will to deal with the state of affairs.

In the meantime there is a campaign to take action to minimise deaths in future earthquakes, such as drawing up plans to coordinate the emergency response and training rescue dogs.  The intention is to act as a model to show the authorities the way forward.  The poor suffer disproportionately in any catastrophe, and Bucharest has a large population already living in difficult circumstances: residents of the cutie de chibrituri will likely suffer more than most.

This is not a programme that will please the Bucharest Tourist Board, especially the part about pedestrians being killed by falling masonry, but there were really two programmes here bolted together, one on Bucharest’s housing crisis, another on the lack of preparedness for an earthquake and the effect one would have on substandard buildings.  The result left many unanswered questions, and deeper analysis would have improved it immeasurably.

To begin with, why is there such a housing crisis forcing so many people to crowd into these tiny rooms, to the extent that one woman has made her home in what originally was a communal toilet (she is having to find the money to reimburse fellow residents the taxes they paid on the facility before she can claim ownership despite having met the purchase price).  Why was she allowed to buy it, and what are sanitary conditions like with such a concentration of residents?  What about Romanian health and safety legislation?

Broadening the discussion, how was the astonishingly high ownership rate achieved and how can so many people afford to buy when the average wage is so low?  Were people purchasing damaged property really unaware of what they were inheriting – does nobody in Bucharest have a survey done, or was it the only option if a rental sector did not exist?  What is the mortgage debt burden, and the repossession rate?  Are pressure on accommodation and limited rental options driving homelessness?

What is it like for those who do have to rent; what protections, if any, do they enjoy?  Why aren’t more houses being built both to ease pressure on the existing stock and allow unsafe buildings to be demolished?  Is government and business corruption a factor?  What, if anything, is the European Union doing to help?  Is the situation a driver of emigration (again, the toilet flat owner is having to work abroad to pay the outstanding debt)?

All that is too much to cover in a thirty-minute radio documentary, of course, but there are issues to explore of which overcrowding and hazardous buildings are symptoms.  I wanted to hear less about training rescue dogs for a future earthquake, rather about why things had gone so badly wrong with Bucharest’s housing, and more to the point what can be done to fix them.  Hopefully Simona Rata will go back to do another programme expanding on the subject, and not duck the difficult questions.

The Băiuţ Alley Lads, by Filip Florian and Matei Florian

Florian brothers Filip (born 1968) and Matei (born 1979) combined forces to write an elliptical tale of growing up in Romania during the communist regime’s final decade or so.  However, rather than producing a consolidated novel in traditional form, they riff off each other in separate sections, creating a kaleidoscopic picture of their childhoods in Băiuţ Alley, Camp Road, Bucharest.  The adult pair look back dispassionately but affectionately on their younger selves living in a standard, depersonalised block of flats known by a number and easily confused with others by the unwary.

 Presumably there was some kind of pre-agreed general structure, but the narrative has the feel of a conversation, unfolding with a degree of spontaneity as each author develops the other’s threads, weaving a tapestry that is a cross between a collaboration and a duel.  Is it a memoir or fiction?  Lack of dialogue suggests the former, but it is marketed as a novel.  Writing in novel form when there is a grounding in lived experience blurs the life-writing boundary, and the reader needs to be careful about taking the narrative(s) on trust.

 They boys have different attitudes, analytical Filip recalling practical aspects, an older brother perspective; Matei, trying to carve out a distinctive voice, foregrounds more lyrical, intuitive moments, highlighting feelings and with a proneness to fantasy (Matei’s imaginary friends Știm and Ștam, who appeared from the mustard, have their own section).  There is an 11-year age gap so they have diverging memories, Filip able to remember Matei as a baby and events Matei was unable to understand at the time.

 The result is a dialogue conducted by different but complementary voices, one offering events as he remembers them, the other critiquing and developing them from his perspective to show that memories, especially in childhood, can be distorted and the implications not comprehended.  It is a way for the brothers to discuss matters they did not necessarily completely digest or talk about at the time, aided by the level of detachment adulthood brings. 

 These are neighbourhood kids able to take care of themselves and their territory, and not above petty revenge on adults who displease them.  They spend a lot of time playing outside, forming friendships and enmities, getting into mischief and observing what is going on around them in a way that is less common now.  They come into contact with a broad cast of characters – the extended family, neighbours, teachers, friends.  There may be frictions but it is a reasonably happy community.

 They adore their mother despite the rueful acknowledgement of her lack of culinary skills.  She is a constant presence, father often being away at work on construction sites and, they later learn, chasing other women.  When he is home there are opportunities to go with him to football matches, or the cinema, and listen to radio shows together.  Filip and Matei share a love of football, playing it in the street and following Steaua București and Dinamo București.

 In some ways their childhood is typical of the 1980s, but in others, as in all countries, it has its particular rhythms.  Childhood everywhere, for most, has its own wonder, the freshness of a time before adult inertia sets in.  There is a great deal of humour, though at the same time willingness to tackle difficult issues that often come to children, such as the inevitable deaths, including of their beloved grandfather who had represented the rural wild places in contrast to the familiar city, the divorce of their parents, remarriage of their mother to a man they do not much care for, and the surprise appearance of a half-brother.

 The wider oppressive political situation is barely noticeable because we are seeing the world through the youngsters’ eyes, and they are more concerned with their immediate situation than they are with the form of the society in which they live.  The system may be filtered through to them by state-approved education and media, yet the children can rise above it – mainly by ignoring it.  Ideology has a tendency to become incorporated into games, and thereby rendered impotent.

 One may have needed to be present in that place and time to completely appreciate the references (despite helpful endnotes elucidating obscure aspects), but children are similar enough for readers with no first-hand knowledge of growing up there and then to be able to empathise with these Băiuţ Alley lads.  There is a poignance in their depiction, but it is not sentimental.  Nor is it miserabilist; this is certainly not the drab childhood an outsider might have expected to have been the norm in Ceaușescu’s Romania.

 Relations between brothers generally are rarely entirely smooth, but this pair came through, as not all siblings do, with their solidarity intact despite Filip’s frequent assertions of seniority: after all, they wrote a book together.  The overall feeling is one of warmth, and when the family leaves Băiuţ Alley, with the realisation that even without one’s presence life there goes on, the reader feels a sadness at the closing of the chapter, and the book.

 Băiuțeii was published in 2006, and the University of Plymouth Press edition, translated by Alistair Ian Blyth, in 2010.  The attractive UPP hardback, part of its series 20 Romanian Writers, includes a section of paintings by Ioan Atanasiu Delamare at the front.

Suspense 101 (2012)

Director George Dorobanțu made Suspense 101 (2012) the year after Bucharestless, and it represents a marked change of pace, from hymning the energy and variety of the city to a small-scale short with one actor in a single location.  The scenario for the 17-minute Suspense 101 is minimalist.  A woman, played by Iulia Verdeș, wakes up stretched across a corridor with her back against a door.  Questions immediately arise: how did she get there, has something been done to her?  She is disoriented and cannot move but her clothing doesn’t look disarranged.  There are personal possessions scattered round, and empty bottles that may have contained drugs. 

 As she gradually takes in her surroundings and begins to regain mobility, the silence is broken by strange noises, like a distant roar followed by thumps, and she realises there is something behind the door she is leaning against.  Now possessing some mobility, she is able to move to the other side of the corridor as the noises continue.  A strange light can be seen under the crack at the bottom of the door and the handle is shaken from the other side.  As tension mounts the camera breaks the 180-degree rule by shooting from either side of her to create a sense of instability. 

 The colours are muted, restricted to a muddy palette emphasising the grungy murk, the sort of space that does not encourage one to linger.  There are signs of habitation at one end of the passage and reddish light (suggesting blood) filtering in round a corner at the other, but there is a feeling of isolation, and an assumption no external help is going to be available.  The sense of foreboding is amplified by Lex Dumitru’s subtle sound design which plays with horror conventions and introduces noises that may or may not be significant.

 The poster’s strapline is ‘All you need for a thriller is a girl and a door,’ evoking the old saw that 'all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.'  It is fair to say though that a gun holds more promise than a door for excitement.  Raymond Chandler tied the two objects together when he said: ‘When stumped, have a man come through a door with a gun’, and here the suspense is generated by wondering if anything is going to come through the door, and what level of threat it would pose if it did.

 101 in the title suggests a basic introduction, and this is suspense stripped to its elements: a possible threat, dread, isolation, vulnerability, disorientation, uncertainty, voyeurism, a delayed payoff.  There may be danger, it is impossible to be sure, which generates tension in the character and in the viewer.  Both are fearful yet fascinated, the character perhaps unfeasibly fascinated when the natural impulse would more likely be to try to move away from the door towards the lighted end of the passage to escape – but then suspense and naturalism are not natural bedfellows.

 The film ends with the woman, who has hitherto always been seen in profile, looking straight at the camera, determination on her face, while inviting with a gesture a still-unseen opponent to advance.  Has the door now opened, is she facing whatever is coming through it, and is that something us?  Is the reality better or worse than imagination suggests?  Earlier she found she had a scorpion key fob, and at the climax a flick-knife with a scorpion motif on the handle which she handles confidently.  Perhaps it is whatever is on the other side which should be cautious in the encounter.

 The film is available on the Cinepub platform.

The Atlas of Beauty, by Mihaela Noroc

Romanian Mihaela Noroc has travelled extensively since 2013 photographing women in everyday situations, and in The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits (2017) she presents colour images taken in about 50 countries.  There are women of all kinds, from different backgrounds and of different ages (though the bulk of them are fairly young, perhaps reflecting the author’s own age).  Most are photographed in the street, presumably stopped in passing; in other cases she has sought out subjects, such as in Kurdish-held territory and in refugee camps.

A number of the photographs have a paragraph of biographical commentary attached, occasionally with the subject’s name, others simply note the places they were taken.  Several pages consist of thumbnails with no further information, presumably because of space constraints.  Often, however, we learn about subjects’ lives, which are frequently hard, and their aspirations, giving depth to the portraits.  Noroc is keen to show women carving a role for themselves, particularly in male-dominated professions.

 Naturally there are a number of photographs of Romanian women (Noroc lives in Bucharest), plus a Moldovan who happened to be in Romania to sing at a concert.  Romania has not been privileged in any way as Noroc is internationalist in her outlook, though surprisingly half the Romanian shots were taken in Bucharest when one would have expected her to have travelled more widely in her own country.

 While the book’s title might lead the reader to assume these are going to be Vogue-style shots, Noroc’s intention in fact is to challenge conventional notions, expanding the term to find beauty in all women, not restricting it to those who conform to a particular commercialised notion which is selling a sexualised image in the service of profit: a male conception of what constitutes attractiveness.  As she points out, that representation becomes a norm against which women often judge themselves, frequently with negative consequences. 

 Instead, Noroc wants to highlight that the western glamour standard is artificial (conversely those cultures which insist on a male-imposed idea of what constitutes ‘modesty’ also inhibit women’s free expression).  If those she approached felt they were not beautiful, or looking too dowdy to be photographed, they were judging themselves by an external criterion.  Women, she argues, should be able to be themselves, without external demands or constraints, to demonstrate there is diversity in beauty, and beauty in diversity.  It is an authenticity coming from within: she only uses natural light, a good decision as lighting can be used to manipulate the look and introduces an editorial aspect.

 She emphasises the importance both of valuing roots (often photographing women in traditional costumes) and of looking forward, always stressing tolerance, compassion and kindness.  There is a campaigning edge because she depicts women clearly living under oppressive cultural and religious strictures.  She uses her photography to break down barriers of all kinds, to remind us that we are part of one family and should be looking for connections, not differences, to improve the world.

 This is not a systematic survey, and many women refused her request to take a picture, because of mistrust or lack of confidence, but often because of patriarchal social pressures.  She also has quite a few countries to go, so it is a stretch to call it an atlas.  Admittedly in many cases Noroc faced language problems, but I would like to have had more text to amplify the photographs, and learn about the wider situations of those depicted.  The photograph was the thing, the words, which would have helped the reader to know about those photographed, are often either perfunctory or absent.

 One final point: noroc in Romanian means luck, so I wondered if it was actually a pseudonym.  Either way, she has made her own luck in initiating a project that reminds us of our interconnectedness, and in so doing touched many.

Forest of the Hanged, by Liviu Rebreanu

Liviu Rebreanu’s 1922 novel Pădurea Spânzuraţilor is dedicated to his brother Emil.  It was partly inspired by Emil’s execution for spying and desertion during the First World War while serving in the Austro-Hungarian army.  His death is paralleled by the fate of the main character, Apostol Bologa.

 Bologa is a Romanian fighting for Austria, a subject in its sprawling multi-ethnic empire.  Many serving in its army had divided loyalties, pitted against soldiers from the same background but on the other side (Romania fought the Central Powers off and on during the conflict).  Born in Transylvania – then Hungarian, later ceded to Romania under the provisions of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon – Bologa finds himself in the war more or less by accident, to impress a young lady, and possessing no strong patriotic motives.

 The titular forest of the hanged is a dark foreboding place where executions are conducted, the bodies left as a warning to others.  The novel opens with Bologa participating in a military tribunal and the subsequent hanging of a Czech officer, and ends with his own, giving the narrative a circular structure.  Initially he considers he is doing his duty, even exceeding it by testing the rope for the Czech’s execution.  Yet witnessing the death starts Bologa on a journey of introspection.

 He is not a physical coward and is wounded in action, his convalescence giving him time for reflection.  Coming to doubt his previous certainties, he realises he could easily do what the Czech officer did in the same circumstances.  He acknowledges the pointlessness of war, and asks himself precisely what cause he is fighting for when people are all the same under the skin.  Unfortunately, deciding on a course of action is not easy.  He is an intellectual who is contemplative by nature and slow to reach conclusions, hence the novel charts at length his struggle to reconcile his duty with his moral sense.

 Transferred to the Romanian front, these reflections become urgent.  He finds he has more in common with those he is facing than with those he serves.  For the Austro-Hungarian high command there is no problem sending ‘their’ Romanians to fight soldiers of the same ethnicity because they should be loyal to the emperor, but as he faces his fellow Romanians, Bologa’s sense of priorities shifts, reaching crisis point when he is again ordered to sit on a tribunal, holding life and death in his hands.  Appalled at the prospect, he walks haphazardly towards the Romanian lines, with severe consequences.

 This is not a novel about armies in battle, rather it charts Apostol’s inner turmoil.  It is a spiritual battle, as evinced by Biblical echoes.  God is a constant reference: Apostol’s name is derived from apostolic; three men protesting their innocence are hanged on Easter Monday, with orders given for their bodies to hang for three days; twelve alleged deserters are caught in the woods; there are numerous references to lightness and darkness.  Rebreanu sees Bologa as a martyr, thereby exonerating his own brother Emil, as he explores the multiplicity of motives that take men to war, and the multiplicity of emotions they feel when they are there.

The Romanian Riveter

Since the European Literature Network’s The Riveter magazine’s launch in 2017 there have been eight issues, previous ones devoted to translations into English of Polish, Russian, Nordic, Baltic, Swiss, queer, and German literature.  The latest addresses the Romanian scene and bills itself as ‘the first ever magazine of contemporary Romanian literature in English.’  In fact, it focuses mainly on a particular area of Romania, Timișoara and Banat, though other parts of the country are covered.

With under 180 pages at the disposal of the guest editor, Tudor Crețu, director of one of Timișoara’s literary festivals, this can only skim the surface of Romania’s (and its diaspora’s) output.  The emphasis is on fairly recent works, mixing well-known names with some unknown outside Romania.  Crețu introduces the selection by explaining the evolution of Banat’s literary history before and after the 1989 revolution, an event in which Timișoara played a significant role.  He stresses the richness of the region’s cultural heritage, sitting on the hinge between Central and Eastern Europe and soaking up a wide range of influences.

The rest of the magazine mixes poetry and prose with reviews and more general commentary.  Many of the contributors, the poets in particular, will be unfamiliar to a non-Romanian audience, and some have never previously been translated into English, but there are a few familiar names such as Mircea Cărtărescu, Norman Manea, Ioana Pârvulescu and in particular Herta Müller, who needs no help with her career, though her inclusion is justified by her origins in Banat.

Providing further perspectives, Alistair Ian Blyth discusses translations and their publishers and the significant contributions he has himself made, not only working on Romanian literature but also Moldovan; and Susan Curtis of Istros Books looks at the publishing of translations from Romanian, with well-deserved plugs for her own efforts to promote Romanian writing to English-language readers.

The Riveter aims to celebrate the best of European literature, and assist accessibility, to which end lists of selected poetry and fiction by Romanians (in German, Hungarian or French as well as Romanian) that have appeared in English since 2010 provide a useful source for further investigation.  The Romanian Riveter celebrates a national literature which deserves to be better known internationally.