A lonely man's life

Since I finished my work in the area of intellectuals from Central and Eastern Europe I took a break from reading too much about the latest public discussions. But as I am preparing to start writing a serious book about this, I reentered little by little my too familiar environment.

My week-end lecture was the thematic diary of the Romanian intellectual - Adrian Marino, whose posthum memories - at his request - confirmed both from the point of view of the content and of the reception the dramatic situation of the intellectual debate.

Adrian Marino was among the few Romanians published abroad during communism, with studies and books in the area of comparative literature. Avant-la-lettre he was among the very few cases of freelancer researcher, being - after the period spent in the communist prisons - disconnected of the official layer of the culture communist bureaucrats.

With a lot of sadness, he is describing his alienation in a world hungry to win benefits and prestige - the international intellectual stage - the marginal condition of the intellectual belonging to a minor culture - predominantly focused on the production of journalism and poetry - and fighting with the hunger for acquiring a pseudo-intellectual status in the world of reversed values during communism. A situation continued in post-communism. Not the quality of work prevails but the laudatio to the VIP of the time, hence the over production of works without real value. Those political compromises are the red line of the Romanian culture, from the supporters of the right wing during the inter-war period to the communist ideologues and their post-communist re conversions.

From the point of view of the reception of this book, the debate was focused on persons and not on the situation of the Romanian intellectuals. Another missed opportunity for coming to terms with the past and for starting the discussion about the European values and reliable concepts of a different intellectual atmosphere.

Many some of his descriptions are too severe and personal, based on personal interactions and subjective reasons. What I appreciated in his book is the risk of assuming his opinions, even it was transmitted when he was no more present. In a way, probably he predicted the reactions and chose to better be the big absent of the media shows.

Roma or Gypsy - the Romanians' problem

Image via Wikipedia/Meeting between the Romanian president (middle, left) and representatives of Roma organisations

A new round in the semantic clash from Romania regarding the Roma minority, was consumed a couple of days ago after the Government from Bucharest asked the MPs to accept changing the name of the community from Roma to Gypsy/Țigan. For the main Roma organizations, the name is having depreciative connotations. Other representatives of the community might consider it "normal". The main reason for the change - introduced in Romania at the beginning of 90s - is the possibility of a confusion between the name of the country - Romania - and the name of the community - Roma. (What about the capital city of Italy? Did anybody ask Berlusconi? Maybe not.) At the level of the authorities, the confusion was considered having negative impact on the country's image abroad, as the Roma are associated with a high level of infractionality. This linguistic make-up, dictated from up, will not change anything. At the end of the day, all are citizens of the same country, Romania. And not the name will change the image, but the behavior and the coherence in actions and the respect towards the international obligations assumed.

Propaganda and Cold War: The mystery of the Colorado beetle

On the right, an image during the Cold War, from East Germany, protesting against the so-called dropping of Colorado beetle by the Americans. It is hard to imagine how the country was back then: poor people, hardly finding food in the middle of a destroyed country. And, instead on focusing on reconstruction, they were arming the media against the Americans and the West. A desperate try to build consensus.

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