OBSERVATOR CULTURAL - Spiritul critic in actiune

Leading article
The subject of this week’s leading article signed by Carmen Muşat is Mircea Mihăieş’s public request that Radu Cosaşu be excluded from the Writers' Union on account of some so/called aggressive, procommunist articles written in the 50's, which incriminate, in the accuser’s view, Radu Cosaşu’s works. Carmen Muşat strongly dismisses Mircea Mihăieş’s gesture as a sign of 'dictatorial mentality', which enabled the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century to break all human rights. With a witty phrase, Carmen Muşat sees Mircea Mihăieş as a ‘Javert for our anxiety’.

Politics
Ciprian Ciucu and Sabina Fati write on the Conservative Party’s withdrawal from the government, the former insisting on the Party’s fickleness versatility and on its undemocratic character, while the latter comments upon the consequences of the withdrawal, the most important of all being the possible failure of the second prime-minister after Adrian Năstase, Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu.
Latest cultural events
Radu Portocală, director of The Romanian Cultural Institute in Paris (ICR), announced his resignation. The Cultural Observer reproduces Radu Portocală's resignation letter, next to Horia Roman Patapievici’s and Theodor Baconski’s declarations.
In memoriam
Lucian Raicu, one ‘of the leading critics of his generation’ [the generation of the 60’s], as Eugène Ionesco used to call him, has died on 23rd November 2006. Articles on Lucian Raicu’s work as a literary critic, signed by Gabriela Adameşteanu, Livius Ciocârlie and Paul Cernat are completed by an inset portrait of Lucian Raicu written by Norman Manea, who characterizes the critic as ‘the thinker of essence, the critic of human condition, of the unsolvable questions on human existence’. While Livius Ciocârlie insists on the solitude of criticism as an encounter between the self and the Other, the critic trying to recover the language of silence behind the text, Paul Cernat believes that Lucian Raicu practices a form of criticism close to identification criticism, professed by Georges Poulet, 'the real «method» of Lucian Raicu’ being ‘«the way of access» through empathy, intuition and interpretation towards the intimacy of creation’.

The Event of the Week
1.Geo Şerban writes about an exhibition of family documents which recompose the epoch of the Pillat family, exhibition held at the Museum of Romanian Literature, focused on Maria Pillat-Brateş' destiny as a water colour painter. The recuperation of Maria Pillat-Brateş's works is doubled by another exhibition held several months ago at ‘Dialogue Gallery’ and by a bilingual monographic album, Painting and Reverie/Pictură şi reverie. Geo Şerban finds in the painting of Ion Pillat’s wife (an interwar Romanian poet), mainly in those from the seclusion period in the Communist regime, a ‘Fiesta for the Eyes’.

Book reviews
1.A re-reading of Mircea Nedelciu’s Fabled Treatment (Tratament fabulatoriu) as a baroque and fantastic novel is the purpose of Adina Diniţoiu’s review. Instead of reading the novel through its first paratext (the Preface by Mircea Nedelciu for the first edition, published in 1986), Adina Diniţoiu suggests to read the text for its construction of intertwined multiple voices, for its rich imagery in constructing erotic relations and female characters.
2.Bianca Burţa-Cernat writes in a positive manner about Theodosius the Young (Teodosie cel Mic), the novel of Răzvan Rădulescu, also a scriptwriter famous for the script of Mr. Lăzărescu’s Death, that was awarded in the Cannes Festival.
‘At the same time a friendly book and one which does not leave out the neophytes either, Theodosius the Young is an attempt at recuperating, through fiction, the childhood and its imaginative resources’, writes Bianca Burţa-Cernat.
3.Two anthologies of the Romanian literary Avant-garde propose two distinct ways of understanding this cultural phenomenon. Bogdan Creţu analyses Marin Mincu's anthology, The Romanian Literary Avant-garde (From Urmuz to Paul Celan), as an essential work, because it introduces and refines Guglielmi’s distinction (historic avant-garde vs. experimentalism) in the Romanian literary field, marking its specificity. The second anthology, La Réhabilitation du rêve. Une anthologie de l’Avant-garde Roumaine, by Ion Pop is criticized by Igor Mocanu for the author’s partiality in the selection of the texts, leaving out many manifests and authors because they do not fit Ion Pop’s view in the Avant-garde.

4.Şerban Axinte discusses the latest entry in the Romanian literary historiography, The Biographical Dictionary of Romanian Literature (Dicţionarul biografic al literaturii române), a continuation of The Dictionary of Romanian Writers (Dicţionarul scriitorilor români). Unlike the work conducted by Eugen Simion (The General Dictionary of Romanian Literature), the one conducted by Aurel Sasu leaves out the value criterion and interpretation, presenting itself as a bio-bibliographical instrument for scholars.
5.Mihaela Ursa’s latest book, Scriitopia sau ficţionalizarea subiectului auctorial în discursul teoretic, is analysed by Delia Ungureanu in an article on the critical discourse as a space where the critic behaves like an author, fictionalizing the auctorial subject, who, across time, is but a phantom created by the critic’s imagination.
6.Florian Roatiş comments upon André Frossard’s Why Should We Live and Other Questions about God (De ce să trăim şi alte întrebări despre Dumnezeu), a very famous book on the conversion of the author, who accounts on his revelation of God’s presence in man.

1.Essay
Péter Demény continues his serial on Caragiale and Gheorghe Crăciun offers the 9th part of his Vices of the Postmodern World. Péter Demény’s ‘Permanent Moments’ is a polemical text towards Mircea Iorgulescu’s book on Caragiale (Marea trăncăneală). The author asserts that Caragiale's up-to-dateness lies more in the strong connection between the intermediate reality and his fictional characters and less in the aesthetic value of his works. Gheorghe Crăciun believes that in the postmodern world ‘the classic anthropological model has only apparently lost its viability’, because man’s desires and questions are the same, no matter whether they are more or less regarded in a system of thought.

2.Editorial Preview
The Cultural Observer reproduces fragments from Ioan Lăcustă's book, The Wake of Censorship (Cenzura veghează), a book to be published at Curtea Veche Publishing House, dealing with ‘censorship in Romanian newspapers’ in the first half of the 20th century, until the beginning of the Second World War.
3.Interview
An interview with Traian Ungureanu by Ovidiu Şimonca deals with the former's latest book, On the Securitate. Romania, the Country of «as if» (Despre Securitate. România, ţara «ca şi cum»). The interview’s core is Traian Ungureanu’s thesis on his recent study of re-evaluating the Romanian anticommunist resistance: we haven’t had a real society, we have had only a marginal form of resistance, but never a genuine anticommunist one. A strong, well argumented statement, which determines a new perspective on Romanian Communism, where the lack of a society united in its resistance led to the perpetuation of the regime.

Arts
1.Theatre
The first part of the article ‘1957 Transfiguration’ by Miruna Runcan, deals with the change in the cultural field of 1957: the intimate bond between theatre and film in Romania. Miruna Runcan organizes her discourse as a dialogue with Valerian Sava’s book, The Critical History of Romanian Contemporary Film (Istoria critică a filmului românesc contemporan, 1999), concerning the same exploration of 1957, when theatre and film met in an unfortunate way.
2.Film
Lucian Ghiţă writes about Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, a film about a reporter from Kazakhstan, who crosses America from East to West, searching for all American conquests in an unprejudiced, multilingual manner, deconstructing American myths for the Europeans, as well as linguistic and cultural borders. Mihai Fulger comments upon The Days of the Italian Film in Bucharest, when Pasolini’s films have been shown, dwelling on the director’s topicality.

3.Visual Arts
A ‘Remember’ article for the painter Octav Grigorescu, signed by Maria-Magdalena Crişan, discusses the importance of an almost forgotten painter of the 50’s and the 60’s, who ‘lived the act of creation as a dimension of the everyday existence’. His works are now the object of an exhibition in the Mogoşoaia Palace.
Marin Gherasim presents the sculpture of Alexandru Chira as an Olympus where simplicity, naïve art and symbols of ancient times meet. All these can be seen on the hill of Tăuşeni, a village near Cluj, where the sculptor chose to place his works.
An article by Ruxandra Ana presents a photography exhibition at MNAC (National Museum of Contemporary Art). ‘Just another story about leaving’ includes a series of self-portraits by the Swiss artist Urs Lüthi. The exhibition will be opened until 11th February 2007.

4.Music
Anca Florea presents a successful project initiated by ICR (Romanian Cultural Institute), ‘Romania next to you’, which promotes, through international tours, our greatest artists. The Tour of the Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra in Luxemburg, Brussels and Amsterdam was met with great excitement.
Florian Baiculescu signs an article about Romanian Piano Trio, a group of three artists who had a remarkable initiative to promote Schumann in a national Tour. The concert in Bucharest at the Radio Hall was the last of the Tour.
International Press Reviews
The last page of The Cultural Observer presents the latest topics of some European cultural magazines: Literaturen, Lire, Le Nouvel Observateur and Le Magazine littéraire.