Conferences

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On Sunday, 12^th November 2017, from 11.00, the Black Box Hall of NTB shall host the conference on the topic Three Aromanians: Bolintineanu, Anghel, Vinea given by Lecturer Răzvan Voncu.

About the Conference

Why „three Aromanians”?

Firstly, because there is nowadays, especially in the Romanian public space, an attempt to credit the otherness of Aromanians, in relation to the other Romanians. Or, the truth is that, scattered by history into several Balkan states and cultures, the Aromanians have produced top values in the Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian or Albanese cultures (even in other European cultures), but only in the Romanian culture are they home. Only here, they are organic presences, completing and perfecting major trends and epochs, such as the generation of Forty-Eighters, the era of Charles I and the interwar period. Nowhere else can there be composed a more credible panorama of the respective culture exclusively through Aromanians, than, marginally, in our culture, from the Middle Ages up to the present day.

Secondly, even the ones acknowledging the historic and liguistic truth of the belonging of Aromanians to Romanianship, have the tendency to project their contribution under the spectrum of spiritual conservatism. There is an obvious tendency to choose, among the illustrious role models of Aromanians in our culture, moreover the scholar Tache Papahagi, custodian of the ancient Romanian language and civilisation, than Marian Papahagi, the great humanist with European opennness. The illustrious Matilda Caragiu-Marioțeanu, European-scale dialectologist and linguist, and not Toma Caragiu, actor and poet, playful spirit and brilliant „troubler” of the waters of conformity...

I have chosen, therefore, from the long history of Aromanians in Romanian literature, three figures illustrating innovation, creativity, and the courage of change. The Romantic Dimitrie Bolintineanu, who confers an original nuance of Oriental sensuality to the forty-eight naïve romanticism. The enigmatic Dimitrie Anghel, imaginative dreamer and poet with an almost manic tendency towards aestheticising, without whom symbolism would be unimaginable in Romania. Ultimately, Ion Vinea, the creator of Romanian surrealism, who in the midst of irrational confusion, brings into our publishing between the two World Wars the befitting measure and balance of democratic convictions.

All three illustrate another facet of the Aromanian dimension in our literature. The facet of aesthetic and intellectual courage, of standing out, of founding creativity. And, not lastly, of the continuity of this Aromanian dimension, which is furthermore still present nowadays in Romanian culture. Răzvan Voncu    

About Răzvan Voncu

Răzvan Voncu (born in 1969), literary critic and historian, is a university lecturer at the Department for Literary Studies of the Faculty of Letters, within the Bucharest University. He teaches the History of Romanian Literature, the History of Romanian Jewish Intellectuality and Balkanology. He is the author of 16 books, including Contemporary Literary Sequences (2001; second edition, 2010), Medieval Horizons (2003), About Preda (2003), Critical Essays (2006), Night Fragments (2008), A Decade of Romanian Literature (2009), Ten Literary Studies (2010), The Labyrinth of Confession (2012), A Literary History of Wine in Romania (2013), Contemporary Romanian Poets, I (2015), The Architecture of Memory (2016). He collaborated, since 1989 up to now, with the majority of prestigious literary magazines: Luceafărul , Viața românească, Tribuna, Apostrof, Contemporanul, Cultura, Caiete critice, Literatorul, Poesis. Currently, he is editor-in-chief of the România literară magazine. He received several literary and journalistic awards, including the Prize of the Romanian Writers’ Guild for criticism, literary history and essay (2017), the „Marin Sorescu” National Award (2002), the „Titu Maiorescu” Award for literary criticism of the Romanian Academy (2003), the „Tudor Arghezi” National Award – Opera Omnia for literary criticism (2017) and the Prize of the Bucharest Subsidiary of the Writers’ Guild for Criticism, literary history and essay (2014). He has been translated into French, English, Italian, Serbian and Macedonian. He is a citizen of honour of the Târgu Cărbunești municipality.

Translated by Simona Nichiteanu