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Mar 26, 2019
3 min

Nicolae Titulescu: the Diplomat Who Fought War

Born in 1882 in the capital city of Oltenia, Nicolae Titulescu is undoubtedly that region’s most internationally influential native. The only twice-elected President of the League of Nations, he was the Romanian diplomat whom famous newspapers like British The Times and French Le Temps reverently commended for his “energy, devotion and skill” as a “brilliant defender of his country’s cause”, served with “unfailing distinction”, as well as for his “new conception of the societ

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A Star-Bound House: The Astronomical Observatory Admiral “Vasile Urseanu”

Ilinca Stroe

Feb 27, 2019
3 min

A Star-Bound House: The Astronomical Observatory Admiral “Vasile Urseanu”

Out of a love of sea a star-bound house was born: the Astronomical Observatory in Bucharest. It was 1908 when Admiral Vasile Urseanu was elected the President of the “Camille Flammarion” Romanian Astronomical Society (founded by Victor Anestin), and the new President pledged to finance the construction of a headquarters for the Society. The Admiral (1848-1926) was a man of his word. A graduate of the “Sfântul Sava” high school in Bucharest, he completed his military studies a

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Ana Pauker, the Iron Lady of Romanian Communism

Ilinca Stroe

Feb 13, 2019
5 min

Ana Pauker, the Iron Lady of Romanian Communism

“Stout, with unruly short greying hair, sharp blue eyes beneath the low eyebrows and a fascinating smile . . ., she made everyone feel that they were dealing with a true personality. I always felt when I was around her that she was like a boa constrictor which had just been fed, so it wasn’t going to eat you up on the spot! . . . My subsequent meetings with her showed me the cold and dehumanised brilliance thanks to which she had reached the powerful position she held now.”

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A People’s Masterpiece: Atheneul Român (the Romanian Athenaeum)

Ilinca Stroe

Jan 23, 2019
4 min

A People’s Masterpiece: Atheneul Român (the Romanian Athenaeum)

As you walk past the elegant statue of national poet Mihai Eminescu, located in the little park in front of it, as you climb up the flight of stairs, cross the peristyle with its six Ionic columns and five fine mosaic medallions depicting great Romanian rulers, as you enter the monumental ground floor circular lobby, with its 12 columns and four spiral staircases made of pink Carrara marble, and head towards the richly decorated concert hall on the first floor, you wouldn’t g

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Barbu Ştirbey, the Perfect Grey Eminence

Ilinca Stroe

Jan 16, 2019
3 min

Barbu Ştirbey, the Perfect Grey Eminence

They say he was the mastermind behind Romania’s Crown during the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, the great unifiers of the country. They say he charmed the King and seduced the Queen. They say he was the Queen’s lifelong secret lover. They say he was the natural father of her youngest son, Mircea, who died of typhoid fever when he was 3, in 1916. They dubbed him “the White Prince” for his dignified beauty, impeccable reputation, elegant manners, aristocratic posture

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Romania’s Treasures: the Jewish Romanians

Ilinca Stroe

Nov 28, 2018
13 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Jewish Romanians

Romania’s Jewish community has dwindled dramatically over the past decades: while in 1930 more than 4% of the country’s population was Jewish, ranking third among the country’s minority ethnicities, only 0.02% of Romania’s population is Jewish at present, according to the 2011 census. The main causes for this loss were, on the one hand, the Holocaust of the 1940s, in which 340,000 people perished [1], including the 1941 pogrom organised by the far-right Iron Guard legionari,

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Romania’s Treasures: the Hungarian Romanians

Ilinca Stroe

Nov 21, 2018
11 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Hungarian Romanians

When talking about Hungarian ethnics in Romania, one encounters a problem of scope and of historical positioning. Most of Romania’s Hungarian ethnics come from Transylvania, where Hungarian tribes arrived from the east and settled in the 9th century, gradually organising the land into administrative units which in the 12th century came to be part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Transylvania was then, for centuries, up until the Great Union we are celebrating this year, either part

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Romania’s Treasures: the German Romanians

Ilinca Stroe

Nov 14, 2018
11 min

Romania’s Treasures: the German Romanians

“When the Germans came to the country . . . they built a city for the Romanians, they taught them professions, they gave them land when they were fighting . . . The Germans took the Romanians out of their huts, made light for them, taught them what a radio was, started shaping people of culture,” Roma jazzman Johnny Răducanu maintains. [1] Although he was referring mainly to Romania’s royal family (of German descent), positive general stereotypes about Romania’s German ethni

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Ilinca Stroe

Nov 7, 2018
12 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Roma Romanians

In her Memoirs, Zoe Cămărăşescu, a Romanian aristocrat whose mother had been a lady-in-waiting at the belle époque Court of King Carol I and Queen Elisabeth, refers repeatedly to the Roma protagonists of her childhood memories. One such man is Vasile the coachman of the boyar Golescu family, “a former slave on their estate who, when the slaves were freed, declared that he didn’t need his freedom and wished to stay on with the Golescus”; Vasile was the family patriarchs’ most

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Ilinca Stroe

Oct 31, 2018
12 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Romanianists

100 years of Romania. What Romanians have done for their country this past century in areas ranging from the humanities to science and sports has drawn a great deal of attention, commentary and analysis. But what non-Romanians have done for the country in this century of “Greater Romania” may tend to be overlooked or regarded as occasional foreign input. This post, while unable to comprise all of the non-Romanian contribution to the country’s development over the last 100 yea

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Romania’s Second Unifier: Alexandru Ioan Cuza

Ilinca Stroe

Oct 17, 2018
5 min

Romania’s Second Unifier: Alexandru Ioan Cuza

There’s a Romanian saying, “Tot ce-i trei e bun” (“Good things go in threes”). It means that you have to try something twice and then once more to succeed - or, in other words, success comes with the third attempt, the third time round. Indeed, that is the case with Romania’s Union: in 1918, when King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Romania accomplished the unification of all the provinces inhabited by Romanians (i.e. Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, Bucovina and Bessarabia),

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Romania’s First Unifier: Michael the Brave

Ilinca Stroe

Oct 10, 2018
4 min

Romania’s First Unifier: Michael the Brave

This year Romanians are celebrating 100 years since the Great Union. Back in 1918, King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Romania saw their Old Kingdom, made up of the former principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, grow into greater Romania through the addition of the other provinces inhabited by Romanians: Bessarabia, Bucovina and Transylvania, which had been previously part of the Russian and Habsburg Empires, respectively. But Ferdinand and Marie were not the first unifiers o

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Ilinca Stroe

Sep 26, 2018
9 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Entrepreneurs

Looking into entrepreneurship in contemporary Romania can be a bit like entering perilous territory. As a recent documentary shows (Kapitalism: Our Improved Formula), business and politics have been far too close to each other since the 1989 Revolution, a “marriage” oftentimes wrought with suspicions of corruption. Hence let it be said from the very beginning that, in order to avoid exploring the slippery ground of allegedly corrupt business today, this article will focus on

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Ilinca Stroe

Aug 22, 2018
13 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Actors

If we were to search back in time for images of the first Romanian actors, we might well have to put up with scattered blurry memories of raw theatrical shows held at popular events such as fairs or some boyar’s wedding by possibly talented but undoubtedly anonymous performers. To put names to the blurred faces of the first Romanian actors, we have to look first at the emergence of formal, written drama and professional theatres in the three Romanian principalities. Thus, the

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Ilinca Stroe

Jul 30, 2018
14 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Humanists

Any piece of writing dealing with the humanities must necessarily start out by reminding its readers that the status quo of the humanities today is pretty much at a record low – at least in the common perception. When the present is all focused on digital technology, (computer) science and artificial intelligence (AI), mentioning the humanities draws at the very best a condescending “Oh, interesting...” – with the underlying message that the humanities spell out “losers”, in

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Peaceful Weekend Getaways: Three Monasteries

Ilinca Stroe

Jul 18, 2018
4 min

Peaceful Weekend Getaways: Three Monasteries

Personally, I love visiting cathedrals. Integrated into the urban landscape and yet cutting out a section of it which is emotionally special, a bridge to the everlasting past, historic cathedrals, with their high vaults, allow your spirit to straighten up and rise like the sound of a flute towards the high ceiling - liberated for a while from the inconveniences of here and now. And should pipe organ music accompany the spiritual mini-tour, access to some sort of “higher level

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Ilinca Stroe

Jul 12, 2018
19 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Athletes

How long have Romanians done sports? That can be answered highly accurately: not as long as the Greeks. For we didn’t invent the Olympic Games. We do, however, have a traditional national sport more often than not known as oină: it’s similar to baseball and it was first historically recorded in 1364 as being popular in old Wallachia; for a while, it became national policy enforced by the 1898 Education Reform, when the Ministry of Education made oină compulsory for physical e

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Dead Funny Up North: Săpânţa’s Unique Cemetery

Ilinca Stroe

Jul 4, 2018
3 min

Dead Funny Up North: Săpânţa’s Unique Cemetery

It probably takes comedian Hugh Laurie’s straight face to be able to announce serenely, “This lovely summer we warmly recommend that you go to the cemetery.” The Merry Cemetery. “Downtown” the village of Săpânţa, a little settlement perched up north in Maramureş County, close to Romania’s border with Ukraine, the Merry Cemetery is final home to around 800 deceased villagers, and a UNESCO heritage site which has made it repeatedly in the top 10 of world’s best funerary destina

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Ilinca Stroe

Jun 27, 2018
14 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Film Makers

Popcorn and movies – such a match made in heaven. Don’t ask when Romanians took to popcorn just to find out when cinema appeared in this country, though - in case that precise question was on the tip of your tongue (not). It doesn’t work like that, you see. Cinematography happened in Romania long before (and, for almost a century, most likely without) popcorn. Let’s see how it fared when it emerged at the turn of the century, through communist times, up to the brave and famou

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Ilinca Stroe

Jun 20, 2018
11 min

Romania’s Treasures: the Scientists

Scientists tend to be eccentric figures. Especially in popularisation articles like this one. Some Romanian scientists over the last two centuries or so have made no exception to that cliché, while others have stuck to the more “serious” image of the “proper academic”. Supposing we were wandering through the rooms (i.e. scientific fields) of some Madame Tussaud-style House of Romanian Scientists, let’s visit both types of figures. In computer science, Professor of Software En

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