Bøger udgivet af Center For Romanian Studies

Romania Revisited is the definitive story of the journeys made by English travellers to Romania between 1602 and 1941. The author, Alan Ogden, interweaves the impressions of previous generations into the witty account of his own journeys made in the summer and winter of 1998. Although the chapters are arranged to follow his own route, the author successfully integrates earlier writers into his narrative by linking them to towns and places. Starting with the Transylvanian adventures of Captain John Smith in 1602, the bibliography is the most detailed inventory yet published of English travel writing on Romania. Ogden, with his unerring sense of human nature, has selected those passages which throw light on the attitudes of earlier travellers and highlight some of their more amusing antics. He entertainingly arranges his sources into 'The Gentlemen' and 'The Ladies' and includes them in a useful general English-language bibliography. Both for those familiar with this subject and for the first time reader, the classification of writers is most helpful: The 'passers through' en route to and from Moscow, India, or Constantinople, like Lady Craven who was on extended holiday in the 1780s after being divorced by her husband; the 'adventurers, ' like the swashbuckling Hungarian mercenary Captain John Smith, later of Pocahontas fame; the 'first tourists' -- James Skene, Andrew Crosse, James Samuelson among them -- and his personal favorite, the intrepid Mrs. Walker; first, from the 1890s, Ogden identifies the interest in Princess Marie at the court, who went on to become queen and played a leading role in the First World War; then, with the advent of the motorcar and aeroplane, came 'the motorists, ' the most famous of which was Sacherverell Sitwell; he reserves a special category for the 'Romantics' like Patrick Leigh Fermor and Walter Starkie. The author's own journey is a comprehensive and perspicacious review of today's Romania. Ogden focuses on the heritage and art of the country, while providing a delightful account of his own experiences en route. The book is illustrated with the author's own photographs, based on the work of Karl Hielscher in 1933, and with helpful maps also drawn by the author. Romania Revisited makes a valuable contribution to the study of the external perception of Romania over the centuries and, at the same time, is the perfect travel companion for today's visitor.

Lucian Blaga (1895-1961) is judged by many to be Romania's most original philosopher and greatest poet of the twentieth century. While scholars with access to his works in Romanian are well-aware of their importance, his work has remained, up to now, little known in the English-speaking world. This book represents the one of the first efforts to make Blaga's work accessible to a wider audience. This book is a complete collection of Blaga's poetry, translated into English by Brenda Walker and Stelian Apostolescu. A joint publishing project with UNESCO, this book includes an introduction by Keith Hitchins of the University of Illinois, one of the leading historians of Romania in the United States and a scholar intimately acquainted with Blaga's life and work. In it, he discusses the importance of Blaga's life and work.

This book, written by two well-known specialists on twentieth century Romanian history, is the first comprehensive study of the Red Army¿s occupation of Romanian territory in 1940-1941, and its occupation of the country at the end of World War II, which lasted until the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country in 1958. Based on previously unavailable archival sources, it will be of interest to anyone interested in the occupation policies of the Red Army and Soviet policy in Eastern Europe at the end of World War II.The authors discuss the geopolitical and historical conditions that allowed the Red Army to occupy Romania, the consequences of the occupation for the country, particularly on political life, as it directly led to the establishment of a totalitarian Communist regime in Romania. An important part of the book also deals with the consequences of Red Army¿s stationing on Romanian territory, its impact on the evolution of social relations in the country, and the opposition of Romanian society to the Russian occupation. The circumstances surrounding the Red Army¿s withdrawal from Romania in 1958 is also discussed. The appendixes include translations of relevant documents referring to the Soviet occupation of Romania, making it a valuable book for students and researchers alike.