When the horrors brought upon humankind by humans themselves in the XXth century transformed reality into an unbearable enviroment, many sought comfort in the realm of the absurd. Eugen Ionesco (1909 – 1994) was one of its masters.

“Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible”. – Eugen Ionesco

Eugen Ionesco was born in Slatina (Olt County) in 1909, although he often claimed that he was born in 1912, as he wanted to make a connection to the year of Ion Luca Caragiale’s death (1912), whose great admirer he was. Others consider that he made himself younger because he wanted to really fit a critic’s favorable opinion about some young writers, who included him and Samuel Beckett.

His mother had French citizenship and, when he was four, he was taken by his parents to Paris, where his father attended the Law University. When the First World War began, his father returned to Romania, while he, his mother and his younger sister, Marilina, remained in France. Those were happy times for young Ionesco, who even wrote a “heroic” play and a comic scenario, while he was in the countryside.

Unfortunately, his father was not very fond of his family. He was supposed to have died on the front, but he actually never fought, but, instead, he developed an ability to side with those who held the power, no matter the political regime. Through his influence, he got a divorce, remarried without his family in France not even knowing and obtained his children’s custody, Eugen and Marilina, who returned to Romania in 1922.

The relationship with his father and his new family were very bad and he moved from their house in 1926. Some say that this troubled period of his life decisively influenced his literary personality.

Ionesco attended the college Sfantul Sava in Bucharest, passed the graduation exam at the Secondary School in Craiova in 1928 and followed the courses of the Faculty of Letters from Bucharest, where he studied French Literature.  That year also witnessed his literary debut, in Bilete de Papagal (Parrot Notes), a magazine famous for its tiny format. In 1934, his collection of articles entitled “Nu!” (“No!”), although very controversial through their iconoclast ideas and criticism of the established Romanian writers, gained him a prize from the Royal Foundations Publishing House. In 1935, he dared mocking Victor Hugo, in Hugoliade, a satirical biography of the great French writer.  In 1936, he married Rodica Burileanu, who he had made acquaintance with in the early ‘30s, and worked as a French teacher in Cernavoda. In 1938, he earned a scholarship in France, but he was forced to return to Romania when the Second World War began.

Ana Aslan (1897 – 1988) was a Romanian scientist whose long and fruitful life was dedicated to the fight against aging. Her proposal of a cure that would slow down the aging process, Gerovital, became known throughout the world and it was used by famous and common people alike.

Ana Aslan was born in Braila in 1887, as the youngest of the four children of an intellectual family, Sofia and Margarit Aslan. She followed the Romascanu School in Braila and, after her father died when she was only 13 years old, she moved with her family to Bucharest. She graduated the Central School from Bucharest at 15 and, the next year, she fulfilled her dream of flying, using a small Bristol-Coanda aircraft. As her mother didn’t grant her permission to follow the courses of the Medicine University, she stayed in a hunger strike until she got the approval.

During the First World War, she activated in the military hospitals, taking care of the wounded soldiers. After she returned to Bucharest, she worked under the supervision of the famous neurologist Gheorghe Marinescu. In 1922, she graduated the Medicine and started working in a clinic from Bucharest, under the coordination of proffessor Daniel Danielopolu. In the following years she also activated as a cardiologist at CFR Hospital, department chief at the Universitary Clinic of Filantropia Hospital and in the Internal Medicine department at the main hospital in Timisoara.

While she was in Timisoara she used procaine, a local anesthetic (often referred to as Novocain) on a young man suffering from rheumatism. Noticing the results, she continued her research and applied it to old men from asylums, recording the positive effects this substance had on the development of distrophic problems, related to old age.

In 1952, she invented and patented the H3 vitamin, also known as Gerovital (a combination of the Greek word “gero”, meaning “old”, and the Latin word “vita”, meaning “life”), based upon Novocain. In 1956, she presented her invention at the European Gerontology Congress at Karlsruhe and at the European Gerontology Congress at Basel, but her innovations were received with skepticism. During the following two years, the product was tested upon thousands of people and the results were favorable – they indicated that the aging process was slowed down by 40%. However, there were and still are critics claiming that Gerovital is nothing but a drug and that there are dangerous side effects such as low blood pressure, respiratory difficulties and convulsions.

In 1976, a 15 years old Romanian gymnast demonstrated that the organizers of the Summer Olympics from Montreal were not technically prepared to display perfection. Her name was Nadia Comaneci.

Nadia Comaneci was born in Onesti (that time named Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej) on the 12th of November of 1961. Her name was inspired by a Russian movie her mother was watching when she was pregnant and it can be translated as “hope” – one cannot imagine a more suitable name for the girl who, through her brilliant sports performances, gave hope to millions of people suffering the domination of the Communist regime.

Nadia entered gymnastics while she was still in kindergarten and, at the age of 6, she was discovered by Bela Karoly, the coach that would propel her to great successes and who would later emigrate in the USA, where he would also train important American gymnasts. The trainings were harsh, as some later accused Karoly, but Nadia didn’t have any problems adapting and, in 1970, she became the youngest ever to win the Romanian National Gymnastics Competition.

The turning point in the history of gymnastics at Montreal was prefaced by Nadia’s performances at the inaugural edition of the American Cup at Madison Square Garden in March 1976, when she received an unprecedented 10.0 at vault, which meant her jump had been perfect and no score deductions were required. Other impressive performances followed and United Press International named her “Female Athlete of the Year” for 1975.

Nadia’s exercise on uneven bars, during the team competition at the Summer Olympics in Montreal, in 1976 was scored at a 10.0. The moment was rather funny, as the scoreboards were not equipped such marks, so Nadia’s had to be presented as 1.00. The Romanian athlete was awarded with another six such scores and won the Gold medals for the all-round, beam, bar titles and a Bronze medal for the floor exercise. International recognition gathered immediately: for BBC, she was the Sports Personality of the Year in 1976, Female Athlete of the Year in 1976 (Associated Press) and she preserved the title awarded by the United Press International the previous year.

The Communist authorities didn’t miss the opportunities Nadia’s successes presented with and awarded her the title “Hero of Socialist Labor”, the youngest person ever to be offered such a distinction. Unfortunately, the authorities involved in her training and took her to Bucharest, without Bela Karoly. Her mind and body shape became far from excellent and, at the 1978 World Championships, she came in 4th at the all-round, fell during the uneven bars exercise, but won the Gold medal for the beam.

In 1979, she was back in business: she won her third consecutive all-round title, becoming the first gymnast ever to accomplish this and she attended the World Championships with a wrist cut and helped her team win the Gold medal. Nadia participated in the 1980 Olympics at Moscow and she was very close to defending her title in the all-round, as she came in second, after Yelena Davydova. She also won the Gold medals for beam and floor exercise (tied with Nellie Kim for this one).

Some prefer admiring wondeful landscapes, some enjoy themselves on beaches or skiing, but there are some interested in visiting those places that have witnessed some of the great tragedies of the humankind.

The Sighet Prison is located in Sighetu Marmatiei,  Maramures County. It is the most notorious prison in Romania, because the Communist regime used it to annihilate its adversaries, mostly illustrious politicians and public figures from the pre-Communist era. This prison was not accidentally chosen by the Party officials, as it was only two km far from the Soviet border and the inmates had nowhere to run.

The prison was built in 1897 when Transylvania was a part of the Austria-Hungary Empire. The Communist era of the Sighet Prison began in August 1948, when 18 students that had protested against the regime were brought here. They were kept until May 1949, a pale foreshadowing of the great abuses yet to come. Between 1950 and 1955, over 200 politicians, intelectuals, priests, journalists or officers, many of them over 60 years old, were imprisoned here; some had been victims of fake trials, other hadn’t even had one (they were sent for ”administrative punishements”).

Iuliu Maniu (one of the greatest political figure of his time, several times Prime Minister of Romania), Constantin and Gheorghe Bratianu (descendants of a prestigious family, who had a vital role in the development of modern Romania), Constantin Argetoianu (a very shrewd politician, many times minister) are a just a few of those who suffered the inhumane conditions from Sighet.

In 1955, when Romania was admitted in the United Nations Organization, and after the Geneva Convention, Sighet ceased to be a political prison and became a common law prison until 1977, when it stopped functioning. In January 1993, Ana Blandiana, a Romanian poet known for her resistance against the Communist regime, presented the Council of Europe with a project that aimed at transforming the former prison in a museum. The Memorial of the Victims of Communism was inaugurated in 1997.

A small statuary group The Cortege of the Sacrificed, executed by the sculptor Aurel Vlad, is placed in the museum’s courtyard. The first room the visitors enter is the Map Room, where there is a presentation of the geography of the Communist prison system, which consisted in approximately 230 establishments, between 1945 and 1989. The place that was provided by prison like Sighet with forced laboreurs and that was equal to a death sentence was the Danube – Black Sea Channel, where the inmates had to work in miserable conditions, sometimes with their bare hands.

The Picture Corridor is situated on the ground floor and it has its walls covered with 3600 anonymous pictures of those who spent agonizing moments in the dark, small cells, which can be visited, too. The one where Iuliu Maniu died tries to recreate the dreadful conditions from that time: the windows had wooden planks to prevent the prisoners looking outside, the floor was wet and dirty and the bed was made in such a manner that it didn’t allow someone to sit, just to lay.

These torments and many other one can find out while visiting the museum were meant to destroy the opponents step by step, both physically and psychologically.

]]> http://www.unseenromania.com/2010/01/06/black-tourism-in-romania/feed/ 2 http://www.unseenromania.com/2010/01/05/romanian-comedy-plays/ http://www.unseenromania.com/2010/01/05/romanian-comedy-plays/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:16:08 +0000 Daniel Voicu

The great Romanian theater plays have the disadvantage of having been written in a language that is not world spread, but have the advantage of depicting people and situations everyone can recognize, with a humor everyone can enjoy.

In 1910, when aviation was in its incipient stage, a Romanian named Henri Coanda (1886-1972) ventured beyond his time and tested the first jet aircraft in history.

Henri Marie Coanda was born in Bucharest in 1886 in a family with a tradition in exact sciences – his father, Constantin Coanda was a Mathematics Professor at a technical school in Bucharest and Prime Minister of Romania in the troubled year 1918; his mother, Aida Danet was the daughter of the French physician Gustave Danet. Even since he was a child, Henri Coanda was fascinated by ”the miracle of the wind”.

Coanda studied in Bucharest and, while he was in highschool, his father moved him to Iasi, at a prestigious military school, as Constantin Coanda wanted him to follow this career. Young Henri Coanda respected his father’s wishes, but preserved his interest for applied sciences. He spent some time in Germany at the Institute of Technology in Charlottenburg and in Belgium, at the Science University in Liege. When he returned to the country, he enrolled in an artillery regiment, built a missile airplane for the Romanian army, but he didn’t resist for long in the military restricted universe, so he got the permisson to leave it and went into a long automobile trip to Isfahan, Teheran and Tibet. When he returned, he started following the courses of Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Ingenieurs en Construction Aeronautique in Paris and he graduated as head of the first class of aeronautical engineers in 1910.

That same year, at the International Aeronautic Salon in Paris, at Issy-les-Moulineaux airport near Paris, he presented the first jet powered aircraft, called Coanda-10 (which he had designed and built in engineer Gianni Caproni’s workshop). The innovation this new flying device brought was that is used a four-cylinder piston engine to power a compressor, which fed two burners for thrust, instead using a propeller. Unfortunately, the jet wasn’t too stable and Coanda not a very experienced pilot, so he lost control of the device, which hit a wall near the taking off grounds and burst into fire. Coanda managed to jump out of the jet before this happened and he only suffered a couple of minor injuries. However, neither the public, nor the scientific world was too interested in his innovation and he abandoned it for some time. Gustave Eiffel, the constructor of the Eiffel Tower and of the Statue of Liberty said about the 24 year old Henri Coanda that he was born 50 years earlier than he should have.

]]> http://www.unseenromania.com/2010/01/04/henri-coanda-father-of-the-jet/feed/ 0 http://www.unseenromania.com/2009/12/07/gopo-a-romanian-walt-disney/ http://www.unseenromania.com/2009/12/07/gopo-a-romanian-walt-disney/#comments Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:19:04 +0000 Daniel Voicu

In 1957, a short animated film, about a strange little man, created by an unknown Romanian artist named Ioan Popescu-Gopo (1923-1989), won the greatest prize for this section at the Cannes Festival.

Ioan Popescu was born in Bucharest in 1923 and he got his nickname “Gopo” from the abbreviation of his parents’ last names – Gorenco (his mother) and Popescu (his father). He made his artistic debut in 1939 by drawing caricatures in different newspapers. He attended the courses of the Art Academy from Bucharest, but never graduated; what he succeeded in graduating was an animation course he followed in Moscow.

There are early proofs of his talent – his friends used to draw three dots on a sheet of paper, told him that those were the nose or a leg and challenged him to create a naked woman, starting from them. Needless to say, he always succeeded, no matter how far or strange the dots were placed.

Ioan Popescu-Gopo made his debut in animation movies in 1949 together with his father and another pioneer in this field, Matty Aslan, by creating a short animated film, “Punguta cu doi bani” (“The Bag with Two Coins”), a free adaptation of a popular story by Ion Creanga. In 1950, he started working for the Movie Studio from Bucharest and realized some educational animated films.

As he activated in the same field as the legendary Walt Disney, Popescu-Gopo was one of his great admirers, but he also strived to produce equally masterful animations. As he himself confessed, understanding that he could never match the American’s technical achievements, he decided to make anti-Disney movies, ones that didn’t distinguish themselves by color, grace or beauty, but by subject.

This is how Gopo’s Little Man appeared. This character is a schematized human, with a long head and with no facial features than two dots as the eyes, a circle as the nose and a line as the mouth. His first story was named Scurta Istorie (Short History) and it presents a strange and unique perspective upon the cosmogony and upon the evolution of life on Earth.

]]> http://www.unseenromania.com/2009/12/07/gopo-a-romanian-walt-disney/feed/ 0 http://www.unseenromania.com/2009/12/02/george-emil-palade-the-romanian-nobel-prize/ http://www.unseenromania.com/2009/12/02/george-emil-palade-the-romanian-nobel-prize/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:56:16 +0000 Daniel Voicu

The 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature, won by Herta Huller, a German writer who was born and spent a part of her life in Romania, reopened the debate whether a winner of this prestigious prize should also be claimed by his or her native country, not just by the adoptive one.

In the case of Emil Palade (1912 – 2008), although he lived and worked in the USA, his Romanian origins are no longer neglected, as he himself admitted in his acceptance speech. He was born in Iasi in a family that valued education above all else: his father was a Philosophy professor and his mother was a teacher. He started his studies in his native city and graduated through a baccalaureate at the Al. Hasdeu highschool in Buzau.

Although his father would have wanted him to study Philosophy, he was more inclined towards tangible and material issues, so he decided to enter the School of Medicine of the University of Bucharest in 1930 and he got his M.D in 1940, with a rather unusual topic – the nephron of the Cetaceean Delphinus Delphi. However, human beings became his main object of study, as he served in the Romanian medical corps, during the Second World War. In 1946 he married Irina Malaxa, daughter of a wealthy businessman, Nicolae Malaxa, and, in 1946, he decided to move to the USA to continue his research.

For a few months, he worked in the Biology Laboratory at New York University and, while there, he attended a seminar about electron microscopy, held by Albert Claude (1899 – 1983), who invited him to come to the Rockfeller Institute for Medical Research. Palade activated in the Pathology laboratory and initially worked on cell fractionation procedures. The scientific enviroment was extremely favourable – he had capable collaborators, the research institution didn’t lack funds, the field he was activating in was newly found, the competition between the scientist was fierce (in a positive way, of course) – so he had his contribution in several important results: the defining of the mithocondria’s structure and its role in energetic production, the description of the small particulate component of the cytoplasm (later called ribosomes), the investigation of the local differentiations of the endoplasmatic reticulum and the analysis of the chemical synapses.

Since his highschool he had been very interested in history, especially in Roman history, and, as a result, the Latin language proved to be very useful in providing him with names for his newly found corpuscles.

In 1961 he was awarded membership of the United States National Academy of Sciences and he won a couple of prestigious prizes, during the ‘60s – the Lasker Award (1966), the Gairdner Special Award (1967) and the Hurwitz Prize – shared with Albert Claude and Keith Porter (1970).

In 1974, George Emil Palade, Albert Claude and Christian de Duve were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for “their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell”. Palade’s Nobel Lecture, having as topic “Intracellular Aspects of the Process of Protein Secretion” was published by the Nobel Prize Foundation in 1992.

Besides working at the Rockfeller Institute for Medical Research, he also activated at the Yale University Medical School (where he was the first chairman of the Deparment of Cell Biology) and at the University of California, San Diego.

The day he was born, the 19th of November was declared the Romanian Researchers’ Day and it has been celebrated since 1944 by Romanian scientists, who present their latest discoveries in the fields they activate in.

A less known fact is that there is another Romanian scientist was supposed to be awarded the Nobel Prize, but who was prevented in receiving the international recognition because of the restrictions of the Communist regime. Ioan Moraru (1927 – 1989) was an important Romanian physician, specialised in Pathophysiology, Pathology and Forensics and vicepresident of the World Health Organization’s Executive Committee. He was also one of the members and founders of the organization named International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which, ever since its foundation in 1980 has used research, education and advocacy to help prevent nuclear war and encourage the abolition of all nuclear weapons.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula transformed a piece of Romanian history into an icon famous throughout the world, but there are other, less known, references about Romania and Romanians in various manifestations of universal culture.

Let’s continue with literature, for instance. In Breaking Dawn, the fourth novel of the best selling Twilight series, by Stephanie Meyer, there are two secondary characters, Stefan and Vladimir, originating from Romania, ancient vampires, former rulers of these creatures’ world and one more proof that Stoker’s novel was a cornerstone in the development of the fictional universe of these blood sucking entities.

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling also mentions Romania, but somehow differently – one of the places presented in the novels as where mighty dragons were bred is, as you may guess, Romania. This detail may not have been chosen accidentally, because the father of Vlad Tepes, the historical figure that inspired Dracula, belonged to the Order of the Dragon, a medieval congregation, similar to that of the Knights Templar.

Cinematography is also a field in which Romanian references appear now and then. In Carol Reed’s excellent thriller The Third Man, starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, there is a Romanian character, Popescu, involved in the conspiracies that take place in the post-war Vienna.

If you haven’t seen the excellent mystery movie Charade (1963), starring Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant and Walter Matthau, don’t read this paragraph, because it will spoil the excitement. But those of you who have seen it must remember that the plot reveals that all the action and crimes are related to some precious stamps on an envelope. Among them, the most valuable, is the one with the head of an aurochs. This stamp really exists and it is part of a short series emitted in 1858 in Moldavia, the first to appear in a Romanian country. The symbol on the stamp is related to the legend of the foundation of Moldavia and it was the country’s official emblem. Several years ago, at an auction in Geneva, a Romanian magazine bearing eight such stamps was sold at the value of approximately one million Euros.

A specific Romanian musical instrument is called “nai” (Pan Pipe) and the Romanian that has mastered it is Gheorghe Zamfir. The equally sad and beautiful sounds of this instrument can be heard on the soundtracks of The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe, The Return of the Tall Man with One Black Shoe, Once Upon a Time in America, Karate Kid and Kill Bill, vol. 1.

In his quest to revolutionize creation, Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) was inspired by various sources, be it Renaissance or African Art. At a party both Matisse and Constantin Brancusi took part, the sculptor came dressed with a specific Romanian shirt, called “ie” and the French painter developed an interest for its decorations and, in 1940, he executed the painting called “Romanian Blouse”.

The early advertising campaigns are also related to Romanians. In 1924, the wife of King Ferdinand I, Queen Maria of Romania, who became famous throughout Europe because of her energetic activity during the First World War, accepted to appear in a printed commercial in which she praised the properties of a cosmetic product called Pond’s Cold. It was the first testimonial of a public figure, used in commercial purposes, and it has remained one of the most efficient marketing techniques ever since.

Author: Iulian Fira

When you sign an important document or your wedding certificate, you shold bear in mind that the fountain pen you are using was invented by a Romanian, Petrache Poenaru (1799 – 1875). Actually, this was one tiny detail in his many achievements as an engineer and pioneer in the development of modern Romania.

He was born in 1799 in Banesti, Valcea County. His uncle, Iordache Otetelisanu, was one of the promoters of an institutionalized educational system, in a time when a great part of the population was illiterate. Poenaru attended the seconday school Obedeanu in Craiova and worked as a copyist at the office of the bishop of Ramnicu Valcea. Later on, between 1820 and 1821, he taught Greek language at the Metropolitan School in Bucharest.

In 1821, the Revolution led by Tudor Vladimirescu began. That time, Wallachia was under Turkish domination and was ruled by the Phanariots (Greeks originating from Constantinople and very loyal to the Sultan), who burdened the country with numerous taxes and an expensive and corrupt court. Tudor Vladimirescu gathered an army of Oltenian soldiers called ”panduri” and moved towards Bucharest to overthrow them. He was joined by many and, among them, was the young Petrache Poenaru. During his first skirmish, he proved he didn’t have any fighting abilities and his comrades took him in front of the revolution’s leader, for punishement. But Vladimirescu was impressed by the young man’s educated spirit and sharp mind and made him his personal assistant. From this position, he ellaborated the army’s manifesto, now considered one the first Romanian newspapers and designed their flag, which is now Romania’s national flag (red, yellow and blue).

Poenaru was lucky enough not to be around Tudor Vladimirescu when the leader was lured in a trap and assassinated, as he was sent in a diplomatic mission to advocate the Romanian cause to the representatives of the great powers, Russia, Austria or England. After news of Vladimirescu’s death spread, he took refuge in Sibiu.

When the political situation improved, he was able to earn a scholarship to study in Vienna, in 1822. There, he learnt about measuring tools and micrometers, unknown to the underdeveloped Romanian engineering field and discovered a great appetite for technical sciences, while also fervently studying Greek, Latin, French, Italian and English. In a letter sent to his family, he confessed that he thought the sweetest pleasure a man can experience is learning.

In 1824, the Wallachian ruler Grigore Ghica granted him another scholarship, which compelled Poenaru to return to the country after the studies ended and share his acquired knowledge as a teacher. In 1826 he went to France and attended Ecole Polytechnique from Paris, where he studied Geodesy and Surveying. He was so busy taking notes and copying courses, that invented a writing tool which allowed him to save time. This was the fountain pen, presently used by millions of people around the world. On the 27th of May 1827, the Manufacture Departament from the French Ministry of Interior registered Poenaru’s invention with the code 3208 and the description ”plume portable sans fin, qui s’alimente elle-meme avec de l’ancre" (never-ending portable pen, which recharges itself with ink). This invention prevented paper scratches, ink leaks and was made of replaceable parts.

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