Unseen Romania

Eugen Ionesco – Fighting The Absurd With Its Own Weapons

Daniel Voicu — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:02:50 +0000

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 – The Fight Against Aging

Daniel Voicu — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:21:57 +0000

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.

Dragomirna Monastery – Fortified Spirituality

Daniel Voicu — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:48:58 +0000

15 km North of Suceava, surrounded by powerful walls resembling those of a military fortress, there is Dragomirna Monastery, unique in Romania through its unusual proportions.

Its construction was initiated in 1602 by the Metropolitan of Moldavia, Anastasie Crimca (1560-1629), an important cultural figure of his time. He was a man of church (he first became a monk at Putna Monastery), but he also went on diplomatic missions in Poland and he founded the first known public hospital in Suceava in 1619. He was very fond of miniature drawing and he organized a school for this kind of art at Dragomirna. 25 decorated manuscripts are now spread abroad in Moscow, Sankt Petersburg or Vienna.

Initially, the monastic settlement only consisted in a small chapel, close to some water springs which were highly enjoyed by Moldavian rulers such as Stefan the Great or Petru Rares. The chapel, that can be seen even today, brought some innovations in the field of religious architecture: the shrine has a round shape, while the nave is rectangular and, instead of a narthex, it has an exonarthex, formed of three parts with three openings. The chapel is made of bricks and large stones and there is a strip of green enameled bricks surrounding the building under the windows and the other openings.

It didn’t take long and this chapel became too small for the needs of the community, so Anastasie Crimca initiated the construction of a new church, with the help of the Great Chancellor Luca Stroici and his brother, Treasurer Simion Stroici. The new edifice was built between 1608 and 1609 and it resulted in an unique construction, whose proportions amaze even today. The church, dedicated to the holiday the Descent of the Holy Ghost is very narrow and that is why is seems very tall, as it has a maximum height (considering the bell tower) of 40 m. The walls are made of yellow, resistant blocks of sandstone. The church’s shoulders and its edges are made of carved stone and they elevate to the roof; a stone belt, representing a triple twisted rope, an architectural element of Wallachian origins and a symbol of unity, surrounds the church at the middle. The tower is richly decorated with floral and geometrical motifs and the windows frames have Gothic shapes. The church’s resemblance to a ship is not accidental, as this was a symbol of Christianity.

Nadia Comaneci – The Mark of Perfection

Daniel Voicu — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:50:31 +0000

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).

Black Tourism in Romania

Daniel Voicu — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:55:56 +0000

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 Auschwitz concentration camp, now a memorial museum, is the saddest and best known example of "black tourism". Besides the Merry Cemetery from Sapanta, there are other places on Romania’s black tourism map.

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.

Ghosts in Romanian Traditions

Daniel Voicu — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:50:19 +0000

As every European country has its own set of traditions related to the way life evolves after death, the Romanians also have their own folkloric superstitions about ghosts and undead entities.

According to Romanian traditions, there are several kinds of ghosts, dependant on the way a person died. The first kind is represented by the ”building sacrifices”. This is a common superstition to many South-Eastern European populations, according to which no construction can be finished until a sacrifice is performed. Among other variants, this superstition generated the beautiful legend of the master mason Manole, who had to sacrifice his own wife, in order for the Monastery of Arges to be completed.

A related ceremonial is that consisting in taking or stealing a man’s shade and burying it at a building’s foundation. The master mason measures the shade, preferably belonging to persons bearing names like Oprea (derived from a Romanian word meaning “to stop”) or Stan, Stanca, Stana (derived from a Romanian word meaning “to stay”) with a reed and then he walls it. The consequences were fatal to that whose shade has been stolen – he or she died at maximum 40 days after the ceremonial. The masons’ bad reputation was enforced by some cases of illnesses and deaths of people accusing they were victims of the “stealing the shade” practice. Today, the humans were replaced by animals as sacrifices for the successful completion of a building.

In some areas, the oldest in the family used to step on the threshold of the new house first, because it was said that the first person to enter in a newly constructed building would die within a year and he or she would become a ghost, a guardian spirit of the house.

The friendly ghosts are said to get out every night, just after the roosters announce the midnight, in order to patrol their houses. When the night is over they return to the place they or their shade has been buried. Usually, the ghosts do not reveal themselves and do not disturb those living in the house, but they appear in front of the strangers who mean harm and scare them away; they also fight other evil spirits who try to destroy the house.

There are places where even the friendly ghosts enter the house and make noise so the owners give them food offerings, consisting in bread, boiled corn and salt.

A different kind of ghosts is represented by those who were victims of violent deaths: drowning, thunderstruck, murder and hanging, especially. These ghosts are generally aggressive with everyone, because they have been condemned to roam through unwanted spaces (inns, isolated roads or mills). There are also vengeful ghosts who came from people who suffered injustices, sinned and were not forgiven during lifetime, were victims of evil charms or they were people who were buried inappropriately.

The wandering ghosts have the same social needs as the living. They gather to have council and throw parties in places people usually avoid, in order not to be disturbed: graveyards, mills, ruins or deserted houses. If these meeting places are destroyed or moved, the ghosts scatter and seek revenge. These ghosts can be seen, but they cannot be touched; they resemble living humans, but they wear white, red or black garments. Mostly, the ghosts just give people a scare, but sometimes they can make them trip, get dizzy or they can even kill a living. That is why, when passing by a haunted place and seeing a ghost, one should cross himself, not look at it and not speak to it.

The holiday of Saint Andrew, celebrated on the 30th of November is a moment related to the Romanian ghost superstitions. During the night before the holiday, it is said that “strigoii” (ghosts with vampire features) came out, attack the animals, steal the men’s virility and play with the beasts (especially wolves, as this superstition related to Saint Andrew dates from pagan times, when this animal was the most important in the Dacian bestiary). The people try to prevent the nefarious actions of the “strigoi” by making great use of the garlic’s protective properties.

Author: Iulian Fira

Romanian Comedy Plays

Daniel Voicu — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:16:08 +0000

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.

“O scrisoare pierduta” (“A Lost Letter”) was written in 1884 by Ion Luca Caragiale. The author was a sharp minded person who looked at its contemporary society with an extreme criticism, combined with an enormous sense of humor. That time, democracy in Romania was rather fragile and it made room for many deviations and abuses. The 1884 elections were the historical source of inspiration for this play.

In a province capital town, the Prefect has a love affair with the wife of an old, prominent politician. A letter sent between the two lovers gets into the hands of another aspiring politician, who dreams of having himself elected in the Romanian Parliament and blackmails both the lady and the Prefect to accomplish his goals. The plot involves twists, insanely funny political speeches and other memorable characters, such as two moronic pseudo-politicians, an able policeman who officially serves the Prefect, but who understands that behind every powerful man there is a powerful woman, or the old husband who seems senile, but who is actually rather shrewd. The characters’ names are hard to translate in another language as they are suggestive for their bearers’ personalities.

The play has been so successful since it first appeared that, nowadays, some puns and lines have entered the Romanian daily language, while contemporary political figures and events can hardly escape being compared to those from “O scrisoare pierduta”.

Romania as an intercultural universe is superbly compressed in Tache, Ianke si Cadar (Tache, Ianke and Cadar), written by Victor Ion Popa in 1932. Tache is a Romanian, Ianke is a Jew and Cadar is a Turk, they are all old friends and merchants on the same street in Bucharest. Ianke and Tache tease each other and they both tease Cadar, who is the least talkative of them all. Tache has a boy and Ianke has a girl and they both lost their wives some time ago. The two children grew up together, they went together for studies abroad and, when they returned, they announce their parents that they are engaged. Tache and Ianke are surprised and disapprove their children’s decision, as each of them fears that his community, Jewish or Christian, would forsake him for this.

Desperate, the two lovers are about to pennilessly elope, but Cadar gets involved and devises a plan to help. The Turk goes to Tache and tells him that Ianke’s daughter was actually his and, as Tache has no more objections to the marriage, he asks for some money to help the two. He tells a similar story to Ianke (that Tache’s boy is actually his) and, again, asks for some money. The young couple leaves secretly, establish a successful business and, later on, they return and all are reunited.

The play subtly satirizes the prejudices related to nationality and religion and it demonstrates that they can be overcome by true love and friendship. The play’s witty lines offer a lot to any actor and none of the several generations of stage performers who were involved in the representations of “Tache, Ianke si Cadar” failed to delight the audiences.

Another famous Romanian comedy is “Titanic Vals”, written by Tudor Musatescu in 1932. As the name suggests it, it is related to the sinking of the Titanic. Spirache Necsulescu is a peaceful man, who values simplicity above else, without financial possibilities, but with a large family, consisting in a daughter from a first marriage, another daughter and two sons from the second marriage, a quarrelsome wife and an equally pestiferous mother-in-law. One day, he finds out that his rich brother died during the tragedy of the Titanic and that he left him his entire fortune.

The humor of the play, residing in the unusual methods the main character employs to pacify the petty aspirations of his family and the hostility of his wife and his mother-in-law towards the step daughter, combines with the love stories of the two girls, of whom, the younger is pregnant and she tries to hide it from her parents.

Author: Iulian Fira

Henri Coanda – Father of the Jet

Daniel Voicu — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:36:35 +0000

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.

Targoviste – A Capital’s Charm

Daniel Voicu — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:35:33 +0000

Targoviste is the largest and most important city in Dambovita County (Muntenia) and, for a long time (1396-1714), it was the capital city of Wallachia.

The first mention of Targoviste as the capital city of Wallachia was in 1396, when the Bavarian Johannes Schiltberger wrote in his travel diary that the rulers of the Romanian country had two main residences: Agrich (Arges) and Turcoich (Targoviste). Mircea the Elder’s heir, Mihai I made Targoviste the center of his administration and power.

The ruins of the Royal Court can be seen today and are a proof that the Romanian rulers did not lack the ambition to strengthen their prestige through monumental buildings.

The court consists of more bodies, dating from different periods. The cellars and a no longer functional small church were built by Mircea the Elder. Some repairs were executed during the reign of Vlad Dracul, Vlad Tepes’ father, but the most significant contributions to the development of the Targoviste Royal Court belonged to the short period of Petru Cercel (1583 – 1585).

He was a very interesting figure of his time, he was born and spent a great part of his life in exile, he travelled a lot and he was close friend to the king of France, who gave him a big pearl, which the Romanian ruler wore as an earring (which is the translation of his “Cercel” surname). He was very influenced by all the benefits of the Renaissance he experienced in the Western countries and he tried to introduce some innovations in Wallachia. The roof of his personal mansion had colored brick tiles and the court was surrounded by luxurious gardens and fountains.

Matei Basarab united the two parts of the Royal Court through a corridor, but the monument was no longer of interest for the Romanian rulers, as Targoviste lost its status as capital city. There was only one exception – the extraordinary cultural development during the time of Constantin Brancoveanu, who ordered a thoroughly restoration process.

Among its many historical buildings, the one that has become the symbol of Targoviste is the Chindia Tower. It was built in the XVth century by Vlad Tepes for military purposes, but it was also used as a treasury. Gheorghe Bibescu, ruler of Wallachia between 1843 and 1848, initiated its restoration, which began in 1847 and ended in 1851.

The name “Chindia” hasn’t been explained precisely yet; the generally accepted theory is that it comes from an old Romanian word which can be translated as “sunset”, the moment of the day when the soldiers from the tower gave the signal that the city’s gates should be closed.

After that signal, the city’s inhabitants were forbidden to walk on the street during night and to start open air fires that would make Targoviste visible from long distances.

Initially, the tower was built over the porch of Mircea the Elder’s church and it had two levels, of which, first was connected through a mobile bridge to a nearby house. Its present design dates from the time of Gheorghe Bibescu, when the tower gained 5 more meters in height and reached 27 m. The basis is a stone truncated pyramid, while the rest has the shape of a cylinder with a 9 m diameter and it is made of red bricks. The building has three levels and the access to the higher ones can be made using an interior spiral wooden staircase. The last level hosts an exhibition of documents and maps dating from Vlad Tepes’ time.

Gopo – A Romanian Walt Disney

Daniel Voicu — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:19:04 +0000

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.