Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0043/00430.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00430}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Romania
Chapter 6B.   Films, Literature and Research}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Eugene K. Keefe}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{literary
romanian
poetry
important
literature
writers
ion
century
life
development}
$Date{1972}
$Log{}
Title:       Romania
Book:        Romania, A Country Study
Author:      Eugene K. Keefe
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1972

Chapter 6B.   Films, Literature and Research

     The film industry has a long and venerable history dating back to 1912,
when the first full-length feature was produced. The silent comedies of the
1920s compare favorably with those produced by the best film makers of the
time. In the 1930s and 1940s, until the communist takeover, Romanian musicals
and tales of suspense and of the supernatural were popular at home and abroad.
Most of these films were produced with technical and financial assistance from
France and other countries (see ch. 11).

     Cultural restrictions in the 1950s and early 1960s prevented the Romanian
film industry from taking part in the technical and artistic developments that
were changing the film industry in France and other Western countries. As a
result, films produced in Romania as late as 1970 were technically and
artistically old-fashioned compared to those produced in noncommunist
countries and even in Czechoslovakia. Most critic outside the country compare
them to the good films produced by Hollywood in the 1940s. Nevertheless,
several Romanian films in the 1960s have won prizes at lesser known
international film festivals.

     Two of the important directors in the late 1960s were Mircea Dragan and
Ion Popescu-Gopo. Dragan specializes in historic adventure films of epic
proportions, whereas Popescu-Gopo concentrates on fantasies, including science
fiction. Popescu-Gopo is also well known for his animated films.

LITERATURE

     Literature in the form of folk tales and poetry is of ancient origin. A
vast collection of legends, tales, ballads, proverbs, and riddles had been
preserved and is known to both rural and urban Romanians. Legends and tales
deal with the daring exploits of a national hero, sometimes real and sometimes
imaginary. In the oldest tales, the adversaries are monsters and inhabitants
of the underworld; in later ones, they are the foreign conquerors and
occupiers.

     Ballads were originally intended to be sung but are now more often
recited as poems. They deal with the same subjects as legends and tales, and
many are of epic proportions. In the mountains of Transylvania and Moldavia
separate groups of ballads developed dealing with the pastoral life of the
people.

     The earliest known texts written in Romania are chronicles in Old Church
Slavonic. In the sixteenth century a number of religious texts were translated
into Romanian, and the introductions to them are the first known original
writings in the Romanian language.

     Of significance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were the
chronicles written by a number of writers in Moldavia and in Walachia.
Dimitrie Cantemir, ruler of Moldavia, wrote the Description of Moldavia and
History of the Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire during the same period. A
Transylvanian school of writing stressed the Latin origin of the Romanian
people and their language and utilized a latinized Romanian in its writing. It
was influential in awakening the national consciousness of Transylvanian
Romanians.

     Four members of the Vacarescu family wrote lyrical poetry in the
eighteenth century. The best of them, Iancu Vacarescu, is regarded as the
father of Romanian poetry. The lyric tradition was carried on in the early
nineteenth century, and much of the poetry dealt with historic subjects and
expressed the growing patriotism and nationalist sentiment of the time.

     In the early nineteenth century the Latinist movement of Transylvania
spread into Moldavia and Walachia and began to Romanianize the hitherto
Hellenic culture of the Romanian upper class. The founding of the College of
Saint Sava in Bucharest, using Romanian as the language of instruction, laid
the foundation for the development of a reading public for Romanian
literature. At the same time, the founding of a Romanian-language newspaper
with a literary supplement gave writers a publication outlet. The newspaper
was founded by Eliade Radulescu, who also founded the Philharmonic Society and
the Romanian Academy, thus giving major impetus to the development of Romanian
literature and culture.

     In Moldavia, Gheorghe Asachi originated the historical short story, wrote
verse, and also founded a newspaper. The literary supplement of Asachi's
newspaper provided an outlet for Moldavian writers.

     The nineteenth century was the romantic age of Romanian literature.
Writers and poets wrote under the influence of Russian, French, and English
romanticists whose works were widely translated. Outstanding among the poets
was Grigore Alexandrescu, who also wrote fables and satires along the lines of
Alphonse de Lamartine and Jean de LaFontaine. Many historical works were
written by Nicolae Balcescu and Mihail Kogalniceanu, both of whom were
political figures in the nationalist movement of their time as well as
important writers. The founding in 1840 of the literary magazine Dacia
Literata by Kogalniceanu marked the beginning of the traditionalist school,
which was characterized by the use of specifically Romanian themes. An
outstanding exponent of this school was the short story writer, Constantine
Negruzzi.

     The second half of the nineteenth century saw the development of modern
literature through the impetus of serious criticism based on German and French
philosophical thought and cultural trends. The period was dominated by Vasile
Alecsandri and Mihail Eminescu. During Alecsandri's long career, he produced
outstanding works in every form of literary expression-prose, poetry, drama,
and nonfiction. Together with Negruzzi and Kogalniceanu, he was one of the
early directors of the National Theatre in Iasi.

     Eminescu is Romania's outstanding poet and holds his place among the
important poets of the world. His lyrical poetry is influenced by Romanian
folklore, Hindu thought, and German philosophy. His ballad Luceafarul (Evening
Star) is a well-known classic. In addition to poetry, Eminescu wrote short
stories and political and philosophical essays. He was one of the leaders of
the Junimea, a literary circle for youth in Iasi, which was founded by the
important critic Titu Mairescu. Other important members of the circle were Ion
Luca Caragiale, a playwright who first introduced social comedy to Romania,
and Ion Creanga, who wrote about the peasant life from which he stemmed.

     Around the beginning of the twentieth century the growing popularity of
peasant themes and descriptions of peasant life in the writing of such authors
as Ion Slavici and Gheorghe Cosbuc led to the publication of a new literary
periodical, Samanatorul, and the development of a literary school that took
its name. The school stressed the national heritage of Romania, its folklore,
and its rustic life as subjects for literary creation, in contrast to the
cosmopolitan outlook of the Junimea circle.

     Parallel to the Samanatorul school developed poporanism (of the people),
which was similar to the then-current Russian populism in its social and
political motivation. Its organ was Viata Romaneasca, which featured populist
causes.

     Several writers remained apart from any of the schools. Among them was
Barbu Delavrancea, well-known for his trilogy about Stephen the Great and for
stories of Walachian peasant life, and the poet Alexandru Macedonski, who
introduced French symbolism to Romanian literature.

     The period between the two world wars gave rise to the novel, which
quickly took its place beside lyrical poetry as an important form of literary
expression. An important contributor to the  development of the novel was
Liviu Rebreanu, whose Forest of the Hanged is a powerful description of the
horrors of war. His other important novels are Ion, dealing with peasant life,
and Ciuleandra, a psychological novel.

     Mihail Sadoveanu, whose most important works were published in the 1920s
and 1930s, is considered the foremost realist of the twentieth century. His
writings deal mostly with history and with peasant life. In 1924 he won the
national prize for literature, and in 1949, the Gold Peace Medal.

     Outstanding interwar poets were Lucian Blaga, Ion Barbu, and Tudor
Arghezi. Blaga's poetry was an exposition of his philosophy based on the
traditional way of life interpreted as a cosmic mystery. Barbu's poems are of
an abstract and esoteric nature. Arghezi is considered the greatest poet since
Eminescu on the basis of his use of language and symbolism.

     Immediately after World War II poetry again took the lead in literary
expression. Although much prose was published, none of it was considered of
particular importance. The poetry can be divided into three main schools:
surrealist poetry, poetry of spiritual revolt, and a return-to-tradition
balladry.

     Several of the prewar writers and poets continued to produce after the
communist takeover and subjected themselves to the constraints of Socialist
Realism. Among them were Sadoveanu, Calinescu, Camil Petrescu, and Arghezi.
Others were denounced for their previous writings and became silent. The
literary output of the 1950s is generally regarded as second rate. Several
notable novels, however, were published in the early 1960s. Among them were
George Calinescu's Bietul Ioanide (Poor Ioanide), Ion Sadoveanu's Ion Sintu
(Saint John), and Petru Dimitriu's Cronica de Familie (Family Chronicle).
Of particularly outstanding merit and lasting quality are Marin Preda's
peasant epic Morometii (The Moroments) and Eugen Barbu's naturalist novel
Groapa (The Trench).

     With the relaxing of cultural controls in the mid-1960s, many of those
who had been silent resumed their writing, together with a new group of
younger writers. The mid- and late-1960s saw an outpouring of literary
creativity that had been pent up during the preceding decade. The variety
of genres and styles was impressive; some continued the traditions of the
past, others repudiated their literary traditions and ventured into new
areas of expression. Lyricism dominated the poetry of Ion Alexandru, Adrian
Paunescu, Marin Sorescu, and others. Their greatest appeal was among young
people whose doubts, hopes, and restlessness they expressed.

     Prose showed two trends: realism, which was now free to examine all
aspects of human existence; and antirealism, which showed influences of some
contemporary French writers.

     Literary criticism, which had played an important role in the development
of Romanian literature, was revived as a literary art and was removed from
politics. Both old and new works were examined and evaluated, and Romanian
literary traditions were studied and analyzed. The literary output of the
1950s was attacked for its lack of imagination and creativity.

     The retightening of controls in 1971 reduced the volume of new works
being published, and many writers retreated into a self-censorship, which
restricted their creativity. Literary periodicals and other publication
media were more selective in deciding what to publish, whereas some critics
attacked the volume and quality of the recent literary output.

SCHOLARSHIP AND RESEARCH

     A tradition of scholarship and research has in the past been limited to a
small intellectual elite centered in Bucharest and Iasi. The group was
oriented toward France and, to a lesser extent, Germany in terms of
professional contacts and sources of inspiration. During the 1930s a number
of sociologists at the University of Bucharest established a reputation for
outstanding and original work in their field.

     The great expansion of the educational system since the 1940s has
provided a much broader base for scholarly activity but, in keeping with
ideological dictates, scholarly activity must be socially useful, that is,
directly applicable to the needs of the society. Therefore, great emphasis
has been placed on applied research in the sciences and technology
designed to improve the economy. All research is sponsored by the state and
is directed and supervised by the National Council for Scientific Research.

     The interest in sociology has continued, but work in this field, as in
the other social sciences, has suffered from the restrictions imposed by
communist ideology. The only accepted philosophy is that of Marxism-Leninism,
and all scholarly work must be based on its precepts, which frequently leads
to sterile research or preconceived results.

     Two developments by Romanians in the field of medicine have caused
considerable controversy among specialists in other parts of the world. One
is a regeneration therapy for the aged based on the administration of
procaine, which was developed by Anna Aslan of the Institute of Gerontology.
The therapy, strongly backed by the government, is intended to free the
elderly from the various chronic discomforts of advanced age and thereby make
them more active. Many prominent gerontologists have questioned the efficacy
of the treatments and the results claimed by the Institute of Gerontology,
but others have reported it to be fully effective. A Romanian-developed drug
used in the treatment is extensively sold in Europe. The other medical
development acclaimed by Romania but questioned by many specialists in the
field is the use of an extract obtained from cattle eyes for the treatment
of many human eye diseases. The extract was developed by Professor Petre
Vancea.