Suchergebnisse

"Bringing together a wide collection of primary documents, this is an essential reader on the idea of 'Europe' from antiquity to the twentieth century. Including classic texts from antiquity alongside rare and newly translated material, this critical collection is an invaluable resource for students of European history and identity"--

The traditions of invention. Representations of the Romanian peasant from ancient stereotype to modern symbol -- A provincial imperialist and a curious account of Wallachia: Ignaz von Born -- "At ten minutes past two, I gazed ecstatically on both lighthouses": -- Time, self and object in early Romanian travel texts -- "Like a member of a free nation, he spoke without shame": foreign travellers as a trope in Romanian cultural tradition -- Dinicu Golescu's Account of my travels (1826): Eurotopia as manifesto -- National ideology between lyrics and metaphysics: the political writings of Mihai Eminescu -- Ion Luca Caragiale: the tall tale of the Romanian nation -- Eugen Ionescu's Selves, 1934-60 -- Beyond the land of green plums: Romanian language and culture in Herta -- Muller's work -- Sex, lies and stereotypes: images of Romania in British literature 1945-2000 -- Paradoxes of occidentalism: on travel and travel writing in Ceausescu's Romania

Literary and cultural images, once considered marginal to the main currents of political and institutional development in southeastern Europe, have been accorded much greater importance by scholars in recent years. In this volume Alex Drace-Francis brings together over fifteen years of work on the topic of representations of Romania and Romanians. Crossing the East-West divide, the book studies both external images of the country and people, and domestically-generated representations of Europe and 'the West'. It draws on material in a wide range of languages and offers a long-term view, providing a nuanced and historically-grounded contribution to the lively debates over Balkanism, Orientalism and identities in Romania and in Europe as a whole.

Ion Luca Caragiale (1852–1912) is best known as the leading Romanian dramatist from the nation-building period at the end of the nineteenth century. Caragiale also wrote satirical sketches on social issues of his day, capturing the appearance of new social types and issues of identity and alterity. The following two sketches, published in the Bucharest newspaper
Universul
in 1899 and 1909 respectively, not only offer entertaining snapshots of cultural formations but also anticipate more formal analyses of modern Romanian society in the making.