BRUKENTHALIA

Romanian Cultural History Review

Supplement of Brukenthal. Acta Musei

No. 4

2014

2

BRUKENTHALIA

Romanian Cultural History Review

Supplement of Burkenthal. Acta Musei

Revistă Română de Istorie Culturală

Supliment al Revistei Brukenthal. Acta Musei

Advisory Board

Francis CLAUDON, Professor, ‘Val de Marne’ University of Paris, France

Dennis DELETANT, Professor, ‘Georgetown’ University of Washington D. C.

Hans-Christian MANER, Professor, ‘Johannes Gutenberg’ University of Mainz

Pascal ORY, President of Association pour le Développment de l’Histoire Culturelle (ADHC)

Professor, 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University of Pars

Zoe PETRE, Professor emeritus, University of Bucharest

Alexandru-Florin PLATON, Professor, ‘Alexandru-Ioan Cuza’ University, Iaşi David D. SMITH, Professor, University of Aberdeen

Tony WALTER, Professor, University of Bath, Great Britain

Editor-in-chief

Adrian Sabin LUCA, Professor, ‘Lucian Blaga’ University, Sibiu

General Manager of Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu

Senior Editor

Mihaela GRANCEA, Professor, Faculty of Socio-Human Sciences, ‘Lucian Blaga’ University,

Sibiu

Editors

Anca FILIPOVICI, PhD, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

Ecaterina LUNG, Professor, Faculty of History, University of Bucharest

Andi MIHALACHE, Researcher, ‘Alexandru D. Xenopol’ Institute for History, Iaşi Olga GRĂDINARU, PhDc, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

Alexandru SONOC, PhD, Curator, Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu

Radu TEUCEANU, PhD, Curator, Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu

Editorial assistant

Anca FILIPOVICI, PhD, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

3

BRUKENTHAL NATIONAL MUSEUM * MUZEUL NAŢIONALBRUKENTHAL

BRUKENTHALIA

Romanian Cultural History Review Supplement of Brukenthal. Acta Musei

No. 4

EDITURA MUZEULUI NAŢIONAL BRUKENTHAL

Sibiu/Hermannstadt 2014

4

Editorial Policies and Instructions to Contributors

The review Brukenthalia receives contributions under the form of unpublished research papers,

review papers written in English. The field of interest is Cultural History. The editors alone are

responsible for every final decision on publication of manuscripts. The editors may suggest changes in

the manuscript. Such changes are not to be made without consultation with the author(s).

Manuscripts will be accepted on the understanding that their content is original and that they have

not been previously published in a different form or language.

Articles will be edited according to Brukenthalia style guide in matters of punctuation,

capitalization and the like. The accuracy of the translation is the author‘s responsibility. The authors

should ensure that the paper as ready for publication. Page proofs will be supplied, but only errors in

typesetting may be corrected at this stage.

All correspondence regarding contributions and books for review should be sent to the editors:

e-mail: mihaela_grancea2004@yahoo.com

ISSN 2285 - 9497

ISSN-L 2285 - 9489

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Table of contents

A. STUDIES. MISCELLANEA

Mircea-Sever Roman

Considerations on the Sumerian Hieratic City-State 9

Mihai Dragnea

The Thraco-Dacian Origin of the Paparuda/Dodola Rain-Making Ritual 18

Robert Mirică

The figure of the angel Temeluch in the apocryphal writings The Apocalypse of Paul and The

Revelation of Pseudo-John. A comparative study

28

Vlad Sofronie

The Title Fight between the Two Christian Empires in the Age of Crusades 34

Ligia Boldea

Pictures of the Serfs in Medieval Documents from Banat (14th and 15

th Centuries) 42

Mihaela Grancea

Truth in Fiction versus Fiction in Truth. Historical Novel and Romanian Folk Creation on the

Tragedy of the Brancoveanu Family

51

Iacob Marza

A Proposal for a Comparative Research. Two Gymnasium Libraries in Transylvania of the

Enlightenment Period

73

Andi Mihalache

Laocoon’s Prints. The Meaning Of Plaster Casts Of Antique Sculptures From A History Of Art

Perspective

81

Roxana- Mihaela Coman

Romanian travelers to the East between the quest for the exotic and diplomatic mission 92

Georgeta Fodor

Woman as a Nation’s Symbol: The Romanian Case 101

Silviu Cristian Rad

The Bible – Generator of Russian Literature in the Modern Era (F. M. Dostoyevsky, The Brothers

Karamazov)

110

Elena Andreea Boia-Trif

The Gypsy in the Transylvanian Romanian Mentality. 19th Century 116

Diana Crăciun

The Image of the 19th Century Worker in Wladyslaw Reymont's Literature 125

Irena Avsenik Nabergoj

Cultural History and Literary Representations of Jews in Slovenia 137

Gabriela Glăvan

Eerie Beauty: Premature Death in 19th Century Postmortem Photography 155

Mihaela Haşu Bălan

From Seppuku to Hikikomori. Suicidal Patterns in the 20th and 21st Centuries Japanese Literary

Imaginary

162

Loredana-Mihaiela Surdu

The European Idea Reflected by the Post-communist Romanian Intellectual Elite in Dilemma 169

Adriana Cupcea

Turks' Image in the Romanian History Textbooks, in the Post-Communist Period 175

Mariam Chinchrauli

Georgian musical art in the context of European and non-European musical culture (The Case of

Globalization in Georgia)

185

Maria-Nicoleta Ciocian

The Dialogue between the Contemporary Writer and the Bible 190

Dumitru Lăcătuşu

Convenient Truths: Representations of the Communist Illegalists in the Romanian Historiography

in Post-Communism

197

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B. STUDIES. CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES OF WAR

Dana Percec

The Happy Few, the Band of Brothers and the Two World Wars 205

Valeria Sorostineanu

Dilemmatic Loyalties. A Case Study: the Church District of Sibiu before the Great Unification 214

Carmen Ţâgşorean

Life on the Frontline and the Horrors of WWI as Seen by the Romanian Newspapers of

Transylvania: Libertatea, Deşteptarea and Românul (1914-1918)

223

Radu Teuceanu

Paul Eder’s Memories from the Bukovinian War (1915-1916) 236

Andreea Dăncilă Ineoan

‘... And the wind used to keep me company.’ The Notes of Archpriest Cândea during the Refuge in

Moldova, 1918

243

Alexandru –Ilie Munteanu

World War I narratives in Ion Agârbiceanu´s literary writings 250

Olga Grădinaru

The Germans, the Whites, the Reds and Other Enemies in M. Bulgakov’s The White Guard 255

Daniel Gicu

The Great War Seen through the Eyes of Romanian Peasants 265

Laura Coltofean

Death as a Political Instrument. Introducing the ‘Bolshevik’ and ‘Hungarian Death’ as Death of

Otherness

283

Cristiana Budac

Divergent Accounts of War German Expressionist Painting and British Official Photography 290

C. REVIEWS

Lucian Boia

Balchik, between Lieux de’Histoire and Lieux de Mémoire (Anca Filipovici) 301

Adriana Babeţi

The Amazons. A Story (Gabriela Glăvan) 303

Oana Bodea

About a Historical Behavior (Laura Stanciu) 305

Michel Pastoureau

Black. The Hero of a History (Gabriela Petică) 310

Ruth B. Bottigheimer

Fairy Tales: Between Literary and Oral Tradition (Daniel Gicu) 313

7

A.STUDIES

92

Romanian Travelers to the East between the Quest for the Exotic

and Diplomatic Mission

Roxana-Mihaela COMAN PhD Candidate, Faculty of History, University of Bucharest

E-mail: roxana.coman@rocketmail.com

Abstract. Travel has a long and complicated history, and has always been an experience

observed from the European point of view. A journey is more than just a walk from A to B, it’s a

bildungsroman, and it’s an identity interplay between us and others, because, in most of the cases, travel

is an initiatic journey for self-knowledge, self-worth, and recognition. Confronted with the reality of the

other we cannot help ourselves from comparing what we see or fell, hear, smell, with the familiar without

pointing out the differences, the strange.

Our study aims to analyze the types of travel writings by the Romanians who, for various reasons,

journeyed into the East, starting from the Near East (the Ottoman Empire).

Keywords: travel, perception, stereotype, travel writings, identity, cultural encounter

Peter Burke named travel history among

the subjects favored by the cultural historians

who took upon the study of cultural maps.

(Burke 2004, 59) Because any journey begins

with the existence of a map, physical or mental,

of the destination (1).

An example can be found in Timothy

Youngs work Travel writing in the 19th century

that begins with a quote from Trough the Dark

Continent by Henry Morton Stanley (Youngs ed.

2006, 1) Stanley says to his travel companion

that European’s recent map of the African

continent is blank, empty, and that he’s taken

upon himself to populate with cities, wonderful

images of the people that occupy them, while

being anxious to see if his predictions are true.

Travel literature doesn’t represent an

objective or photographic record of the

traveler’s experience in another foreign land.

These types of writings are the subject of

normative social influences such as the author’s

cultural background.

In this study we will try to answer some

questions regarding the travel records of the

(1) This paper is supported by the Sectorial

Operational Program Human Resources

Development (SOP HRD), financed from the

European Social Fund and by the Romanian

Government under the contract number SOP

HRD/159/1.5/ S/136077

Romanian travelers to the East: were they

products of the Western cultural phenomena?

Did the political situation between the Romanian

Principalities and The Ottoman Empire played a

key factor in the characteristics of the gaze?

Casey Blanton’s definition of travel

literature will provide a starting point for the

analysis. From his point of view, based on

psychological relation between the observer and

the observed, the topic of the travel books is the

result from ‘the interplay between the

philosophical preconceptions of the traveler and

the test to which they are submitted’.(Blanton

2002, 1-3) Outlining some of the features from

travel literature, Blanton names some of the

obvious ones: the existence of a narrator/

traveler with no specific purpose, just for the

pleasure of travel; a narrative style that borrows

from fiction to set a climax and anticlimax for

the action and the characters, a setting fitted for

the action, and a commitment to picture the odd

and the exotic, but using familiar methods.

When trying to discover similar patterns

among the Romanian travelers we ought to

make several distinctions. First of all, the

Romanian Principalities where among the

regions chosen by the Western travelers as being

part of the East. Secondly, from a social

standpoint, there were two major social classes:

the boyars and the peasants, and in between, the

incipient bourgeoisie. The reason behind these

explanations is mainly, due to the social changes

produced by the Western imports.

The social role of the 19th century

Romanian elite is borrowed from the Western,

93

especially French, aristocracy, in an attempt to

gain some prestige when faced with the

examples provided by the western world.

(Olariu 2006, 45)

And so, we can use some of the

definitions we discussed so far in order to

analyze the writings of the Romanian travelers.

At the border between the ‘reality’ of

the descriptions and the subjectivity of the

narrator/traveler’s gaze, travel writing is

considered by Florin Faifer a domain that ranges

from the murks of the subconscious to the

‘universe of the fictional’. (Faifer 1993, 6-7)

Travel literature has been used by

Romanian researchers in an attempt to better

understand the events from the Romanian

Principalities in the 19th century using the

descriptions made by foreign travelers. And, of

course, are a valuable source for cultural

historians because they are the products of

encounters between different cultures, a product

and a process.

We will attempt to use the theories and

characteristics mentioned above in order to

discuss the works of Vasile Alecsandri, Dimitrie

Bolintineanu, Dimitrie Ralet, Alexandru M.

Lahovary. We will try to point out the image

attributed to the Orient by individuals who,

somewhat journeyed inside their cultural

comfort zone (they were aware of the oriental

cultural background and the descriptions that

depicted them as existing within the East). Their

perceptions of the Orient, as defined by the

Western cultural norm, is quite revealing and

draws a certain evolution of mentalities

concerning the relations with the East.

Irina Mihai-Vainovski thinks that in the

second half of the 19th century travel literature

undergoes a process from the Romantic

exaltation to the scientific inquiries made by the

so-called ‘intellectual travelers’. (Mihai 2009,

11-12) We would add to these categories the

works of those sent to Constantinople on a

diplomatic mission (and tend to put the political

affairs first, and their perception is heavily

influenced by the outcome) and the descriptions

brought back by some Romanian artists, like

Theodor Aman.

Between 1848 and 1856, the main

features of the travel writings of the Romanian

travelers can be summed up in a Romantic quest

for the exotic, for those aspects that are outside

the concept of civilization. The authors tend to

give the impression that they took a mirror down

the street and their descriptions are the image

resulted.

The interval between the 1860 and 1880

was named by Irina Mihai as the ‘classic period’

of Oriental travel when there is a rising interest

for the African continent and some of the

territories under ottoman rule (Oriental Rumelia,

Bosnia, Albania).We can find articles published

in magazines and newspapers of the time by

Iulian Grozescu, Ioan Maiorescu, Iacob

Negruzzi, Ieronim Bariţiu, Cezar Bolliac, etc,

that try to inform the public regarding the

oriental ‘delights’. Their content is more

balanced between fascination and reality, and

more specific about the ethnographical detail.

(Mihai 2009, 15)

Maybe this phase owes its

characteristics to the political and diplomatic

relations between the Romanian Principalities

and the Ottoman Empire. Another possible

explanation can be provided by the Western

influence and taste for the Eastern travel adopted

through their period spent studying in Western

universities.

We can trace the second hypothesis in

some of the articles published in Romanian

papers taken from the foreign press, often

published without any alterations (copied from

their original form), or paraphrasing the terms

that didn’t have any correspondent in the

Romanian language.

Irina Mihai called some of these articles

‘de-exotised’ because they were adapted to fit

the level of understanding of the Romanian

public by containing comparisons of types of

costumes and descriptions with long

explanations. (Mihai 2009, 16-19) The French

cultural pattern for the oriental travel can be

found in the presence of works by Lamartine or

Chateaubriand or Victor Hugo in any personal

library owned by the representatives of the

Romanian elite. Travel becomes a way of life in

the 19th century, a trademark for one’s status.

As well as any other cultural

phenomena, the history of travel has its

moments of spontaneity, and reaches a stage in

which scientific inquiry and critical appraisal are

dominant.

The oriental temptation is present in the

Romanian poetry: The herder of Bosphorus by

Vasile Alecsandri, The flowers of the Bosphorus

written by the one who also wrote about the

historical legends of the Romanians, Dimitrie

Bolintineanu, etc. Also, the ones who traveled to

the Orient didn’t have the chance to publish their

experiences in independent volumes, but chose

to send articles to the local newspapers such as:

Curierul românesc, Albina românească, Foaia

duminecii, Mozaicul, Icoana lumei, etc.

94

providing their readers with means for travels

with the power of imagination. These papers

also translated various pieces from foreign

travels to the East (made by Lamartine,

Chateaubriand or Nicolas Forbin). (Faifer, 76)

The concept of the exotic becomes, by

the end of the 19th century, a concept familiar to

the cultural Romanian elite. Oriental interiors in

the Western-fashioned residences of the

Romanian intelligentsia (not only ottoman, but

Chinese and Japanese, also) become a trend.

There are more and more journeys into the

exciting East and more frequent, and tend to

break the comfort zone targeting regions such as

Tierra del Fuego, Australia etc. The Far East is

the main attraction and, when revisiting the

Middle or the Near East ‘it isn’t a foreign or

unknown land to the Romanian public, and

Romanians don’t perceive themselves in a

competition with the East in tracing their own

identity’. (Mihai 2009, 32-34)

One possible reason for this shift in

perception regarding the discourse about the

oriental can be found in the unfolding of the

events in the Romanian Principalities towards a

national state. But we can add the

Westernization of the Romanian elite might

have played a part in the shaping the context for

these changes.

Romantic exoticism and Romantic

nationalism The purpose of this study doesn’t reside

in the determining the authenticity of the

descriptions for the Orient and the public

reaction. But every analysis of the travel

literature must establish the certain report

between the body of text and the reality of the

event.

There are difficulties in establishing this

relation because it entails a multitude of

variations. Starting from an idea that the text has

its own reality, we are dealing with the text that

declares reality as its own meta-structure, but,

also, with a text that decides to break away from

reality. (Anghelescu 1988, 5)

The travel memoirs, even the ones

written by the Romanian travelers, have a

fundamental and unmistakable characteristic

over time. And that is the tendency to describe

to their readers information unknown to them, to

retell, as precise as possible, the itinerary of the

journey, with details about various smells, or

sounds, colors and types of physiognomies.

Travel writings, though a significant historical

source, represent the subjective reflection of the

Other through the traveler’s lenses, becoming

the result of a cultural encounter with the claim

to truthfulness.

In our opinion, the Romanian travelers

to the East didn’t sought an exotic escape from

an over industrialized landscape (because it

wasn’t the case in a predominantly agrarian

economy), but the desolation and degradation

found in the oriental depictions/representations

had the purpose of convincing them that they

made the right choice at the crossroad of the

18th-19

th centuries.

Belonging to the so-called

‘revolutionary generation’, Vasile Alecsandri

and Dimitrie Bolintineanu are among the first

ones to publish descriptions of oriental voyages.

They are, also, pioneers in breaching the oriental

comfort zone, traveling to Africa, a breach

considered by Mircea Anghelescu as a

consequence of the 1848 Revolution, a catalyst

for surpassing the traditional itineraries.

(Anghelescu, 1983, 9)

These traditional routes mentioned

above were the journeys undertaken by the sons

of the Romanian boyars to the Western

universities in order to study and reduce the gap

between the Romanian Principalities and the

Western world.

The travel writings of Vasile Alecsandri

and Dimitrie Bolintineanu, although they have

the same stylistic characteristics as the ones

written by French or English travelers, they

constitute the materialization of an Orient filled

with poetry and harmony, and feminine beauty.

We can observe a certain influence in picking up

some of the leitmotifs of French romantics such

as Chateaubriand and Lamartine, their attention

being drawn by the street movement, poly-

ethnicity of the bazaar and human types. The

result from the confrontation of what was

expected from the oriental landscape and the

reality of it consists in an ambiguous and

heterogeneous writing.

Vasile Alecsandri publishes his

impressions from the African/Oriental travel in

an article My travel diary. Morocco in the

edition of ‘Telegraful’ from 1868. It tells the

story of a long journey that began 1853, in the

south of France, passing through Spain and

ending in the north of the African continent. An

itinerary quite familiar and almost identical to

the one used by those who were searching for

the exotic. The most interesting aspect regarding

the memoirs of Vasile Alecsandri is the use of a

character, fictional more or less, who is

presented to the reader as a companion met in

unusual circumstances. Angel, the British, draws

a mental map of their expedition.

95

Angel suggested that ‘from Marseille

we go and visit the whole of the Spanish coast:

Barcelona, Valencia, Cartagena, Malaga, etc., up

to the Gibraltar rock. From there we travel to

Cadix, and from there our Spanish voyage truly

begins by visiting: Seville, Cordoba and

Granada. And then we reach Madrid, where we

stop for as long as we like, before returning to

France’. (Alecsandri 1960, 200)

Impressed by the Mediterranean views,

Alecsandri remembers episodes from his

previous travels. In 1845 he took a short voyage

to Constantinople where he met the consul of

Tripoli, Dickson, who was very fond of Turkish

coffee. (Alecsandri 1960, 204-205) Alecsandri

also gives various details about Turkish cities

Brussa, the old Ottoman capital, Ghemlic, and a

romantic description of the natural wonders of

the road.

The encounter with the Other is

rendered using as term of comparison the notion

of home, of his native land, and so, the exotic

romanticism coexist with the nationalist

romanticism in his travel stories. At the end of

his journey in Spain, he leaves France on a ship.

Alecsandri’s sea journey facilitates a moment of

meditation about his country’s situation: ‘among

my thoughts and dreams, my country reveals

herself as a loving mother calling me to her

bosom. Oh! Beloved country, oh! My beloved

heaven. Wherever I may wonder in this world, I

am accompanied by your holy

image’.(Alecsandri 1960, 216) He then proceeds

to remember his favorite scenes from Italy,

France, and the picturesque oriental landscapes.

The same motif, associating his

homeland with and oriental situation, is present

in Suvenirele din 1855 in his famous letters to

Ion Ghica. Travelling to Crimea, he reaches

Sevastopol, a city of great importance to the

recent Romanian history (a battle from the

Crimean war), naming it the New Jerusalem

because of the Oriental Question. Sevastopol

becomes in Alecsandri’s description ‘a sacred

place for us, Romanians, where the future of our

countries is being made. (…) under the influence

of those thought and driven by a great curiosity

a decided to do a pilgrimage into the old

Tauride, accompanied by a friend who

previously visited the region’.(Alecsandri 1998,

288)

The construction of the Other begins,

from an anthropological point of view, as a gaze

of the Western world over the non-European

people, situated outside of the civilized world’s

standards. And the story of this encounter

becomes the expression of crossing the cultural

boundaries using a fixed point, home. For Vasile

Alecsandri, home is a national remembrance, as

noticed in his letter to Ion Ghica, or is a

nostalgic meditation about the concept of a

homeland. This home is always present in his

evocation of the Oriental journey, the East

becomes a term of comparison between the

familiar and the foreign, with emphasis on the

familiar, of that loving mother/country.

Vintilă Mihăilescu argues that there is

an anthropological and universal fascination

about the distant, the foreign and the strange,

and that strangeness is ambivalent. It can be the

object of feelings of hate and rejection (the

Herodotus’s rule) or, on the contrary, one of

admiration and attraction. (Mihăilescu 2009, 63)

Alecsandri includes himself in the

European world, pertaining to the civilized

world, taking upon himself the role of an

omniscient narrator. On the 27th of September, at

8 o’clock in the morning, he reaches the

Gibraltar where he can already see the shores of

the African continent. He perceives the

landscape beneath his gaze as the juxtaposition

of two opposite worlds: the civilized Europe and

the wild Africa, admiring the majestic spectacle

of this union. (Alecsandri 1960, 242)

His scrutiny crosses city walls, bad

roads, admiring the sights offered by the

symbiosis of nature and human constructions,

but considering its people a ‘population of sick

and foolish men. The indigenous people I have

met so far have an air of suffering and saddening

misery; I have not seen yet a jolly face’ and

Tangier is like a ‘city burnt by a big fire, shaken

by an earthquake’. (Alecsandri 1960, 244-249)

Although Alecandri is obviously disappointed

when faced with the confrontation between

reality and expectation, it doesn’t prevent him

from dreaming away to the Orient with immense

gardens and silvery waters.

Nature has the Romantic aura of a deity

and Alecsandri gives the reader a slight

sensation that the aesthetic pleasure of the

journey is solely provided by its wonders. When

speaking about the governor of the city of

Tangier he pictures him as an oriental, barbaric

satrap, living isolated from his people. Based on

this description of Tangier’s ruler, he concludes

that, if in Morocco, a place where Europe meets

Africa, one can find such barbaric

manifestations, in the center of the continent,

what degree of wilderness must characterize the

populations living there. (Alecsandri 1960, 254-

255)

When speaking of Alecsandri’s

counterpart, Dimitrie Bolintineanu, the Orient

96

means the city with a certain significance for the

Romanian contries, Constantinople (he joins

Alexandru-Ioan Cuza on a diplomatic mission to

obtain the sultan’s recognition of the united

Romanian Principalities), but also, the Holy

Land, and the northern Africa.

Given the fact that Bolintineanu

received a scholarship in Paris (1846-1848), he

had the opportunity to read travel novels that

were in fashion then such as Volney’s (whom he

quotes often). But, unlike Bolintineanu’s French

counterparts, he came from a part of Europe

considered to be oriental in nature. Luminţa

Munteanu views Bolintineanu’s take of the

oriental image as one dominated by the Western

norm, existing outside of civilization, passive,

the fundamental opposite of the active and

progressive spirit of the West. (Munteanu 2009,

77-78)

The Danube is considered by many of

the Romanian travelers, including Dimitrie

Bolintineanu, as a liminal space, a hybrid space

between Us and Them. But, on the other hand,

in his description, the river becomes ‘a cradle of

liberty (…) a witness for the greatest deeds’

(Bolintineanu 1915, 12-13) filled with beauty

and riches, speaking about its ancient history.

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of

alterity, consists of the self-analysis that creates

self-images. The relation between Us and Them

in the case of the Romanian travelers to the East

from this interval (1848-1880) often contain

allusions to a national ideal and tend to describe

the oriental populations using pejorative terms

and poetical eulogies to home.

The self-images that can be found in

Bolintineanu’s accounts can only be understood

in tandem with the stereotypical images taken

from his lecture of French authors as he

confesses at some point: ‘I haven’t yet read a

book about travelling in the East in which the

author doesn’t mention a bearded and raggedy

dervish’. (Bolintineanu 1951, 284) He then

continues the series of unappreciative

stereotypes regarding the oriental people, mixed

with a slight note of optimism: ‘everything in

Turkey seems to be a ruin: people and places;

and this decay affects even its government. The

foreigner who sees these things for the first time

thinks the Turkey is fading. But it’s on the verge

of major changes’.

Bolintineanu’s opinions about the

political situation of the Ottoman Empire

(always named in the text as Turkey, as a secular

state), are due to better understanding of the

status of the Empire given the relations between

the two states. The cultural differences are fewer

than in the Western example. Luminţa

Munteanu considers that these constant

references to other travel books as a nuanced

and ironic remark regarding their lack of real

knowledge about the real Orient. (Munteanu

2009)

Călătoriile pe Dunăre şi în Bulgaria

have been considered to be a witness to

debunked discourse of the East because they

were made under the constraint of exile (as a

punishment for his role in the 1848 Revolution,

Bolintineanu was banished from the Romanian

countries until 1857; his travel accounts were

published a year later). (Munteanu 2009)

But that doesn’t prevent him from re-

creating an oriental atmosphere with beautiful

women, exotic and mysterious places e.g. Șam,

Candili, Scutari, Brussa. He uses various

toponyms and anthroponyms, names of types of

clothing or objects of everyday use. This type of

discourse adds, if it was still necessary, to the

intention of giving the reader the impression he

was more acquainted with the reality of the

Orient.

Unlike Vasile Alecandri, Bolintineanu

tends not to adopt the Western perception of the

East in its entirety. Regarding some of the

specifications made about the demography of

the Ottoman Empire, he contradicts what was

generally known to Western public (the

Europeans believed that the decrease in

population was due to their religion that allowed

polygamy, but Bolintineanu states that such

assumptions were false and based on a religious

aversion). (Bolintineanu 1951, 269)

His work about the journey through

Asia Minor is filled, almost annoying at some

point, with so much historical, demographical,

social information that it resembles more and

more with a travel guide or encyclopedia than a

personal experience. He quotes the writings of

Nicolas de Forbin. During his pilgrimage to

Jerusalem, he doesn’t act like a pilgrim, but,

rather in a matter similar to a tourist who came

to discover what happens at the Holy Tomb on

Easter.

He insists, with a Romantic mindset, to

describe buildings, natural landscapes,

sacrificing the human element. Călătoriile have

a bookish feeling, with long historical accounts

about various cities, biblical episodes e.g. the

battle of David and Goliath. Following the

itinerary established by his travel memoirs we

can have a compound of romantic exaltation,

historical and relevant facts in a tourist guide

manner and personal opinions regarding aspects

of culture. And what is more intriguing is that

97

the author never visited all those places, re-

telling the first or second-rate story of a fabulous

oriental journey, checking the usual destinations

on an usual Eastern tour.

The Orient through an artistic eye: the case

of Romanian artists Having declared that his sole purpose

for his voyage to Constantinople is to present his

recent painting The Battle of Olteniţa to the

ottoman sultan after being received so well in

the Parisian cultural circles, Theodor Aman

doesn’t publish his experience (he prefers to

correspond with his brother on the matter). It

seems to be important for Aman to specify to his

brother the reason behind his trip to

Constantinople in a letter dated October 1854:

the possibility to see the French troops in their

glory and watch the war’s unfolding. (Istrati

1904, 11) Unlike other orientalist painters,

Aman doesn’t assert a need for an escape from a

suffocating and industrialized society, or a

longing for spiritual renewal, as in the case of

Victorian orientalist painters.

In his letter exchange with his brother,

Aman fulfills the role of a narrator to a public

with little knowledge about the Orient. Maybe

his artistic education has a say in the matter, but

he describes the scenery with precision and an

abundance of details: ‘I thought I was dreaming

because it is indeed something enchanting, the

shores of Bosphorus being bordered by gardens,

the exquisite columns decorating the houses, the

multitude of boats that form the port, convince

the tourists to declare that it is the most beautiful

place seen by someone anywhere in the

Universe’. (Istrati, 13)

After the enthralling scenery at the

crossing of the Mediterranean Sea and the

entrance in the old Byzantion, Aman has a

similar reaction as a westerner to the reality of

an oriental, crowded city, the confrontation

between the ascribed exotic beauty and the filth

of a transit area. ‘But what a disappointment

upon entering the city, those foul streets,

innumerable dogs, those barefoot Turks with

barbaric appearance. The women, whom, in

another cities I have admired their poetic allure,

are nothing but ghostly figures, differing only in

color (…) contribute to a feeling of regret from

whoever visits this ancient city’. (Istrati 1904,

13) Aman uses all of his senses to perceive the

oriental flavor of the city, documenting every

little detail of the surroundings, informing his

brother about several Turkish traditions. For

instance he wrote that the men would gather and

dine every Friday evening, with women divided

in a different group – Aman makes some

observations regarding the structure and gender

roles in Turkish society, keeping also in mind

some of the culinary customs.

‘The men, as it is their custom, are

placed in separate groups from the women, they

drink and smoke. When I say drink it means

coffee because, due to their Islamic religion,

wine is forbidden, but they often drink it

whenever they are home alone’. (Istrati 1904,

13-14)

Theodor Aman was acclaimed among

the Romanian cultural elite for his series of

odalisques, greeted as works of significant

beauty. Depicted in several stances: smoking

hookah or playing the mandolin, or sitting in a

Turkish style, laying on the divan, the erotic

aspect of this kind of subject is slightly

diminished, the ambience being one of

detachment and the indolence of a Moorish

afternoon. With a nonchalant and dreamy

attitude, the odalisque’s source of inspiration

can be traced back to his journey from

Sevastopol to Smyrna. ‘Smyrna, where I could

only admire women’s beauty, but their waist

were ill-proportioned with the allure of their

heads and their eyes filled with fire’. (Istrati

1904, 12)

He speaks often of the female figures he

met in Istanbul, Pera, and some other cities in

Asia Minor, which always had an expression of

eternal somnolence, a recurring assertion in the

letters sent to his brother.

Aman’s oriental perception is

profoundly shaped by the western cannon, and

that can be seen in his sequel of paintings of

harems or odalisques, several types of human

characters (sketches such as Mosque, Turkish

fighter, Turkish coffee shops, Oriental

architecture, Street from Constantinople). This

sums up an image comprised of stereotypes

borrowed from orientalist stream in the

Romantic painting in the 19th century.

One of Aman’s peers, the painter

Gheorghe Tattarescu whose main focus

consisted, mainly, in the religious artistic theme

or the historical allegories, also took a short

voyage to Istanbul. The art historian Ion

Frunzetti mentioned that in 1851 Tattarescu used

this journey to reach out to some of the exiled

participants in the 1848 Romanian revolution.

A small notebook with several sketches

was used as a proof for his oriental voyage with

views of Athens, drawings of the Temple of the

wind, Mountain peaks in the Balkans,

Bosphorus, Prinkipo Island, Karavanserai,

Andal-hipar (one of the two fortresses that stand

98

on each side of the Bosphorus), Brussa and

many more. Although the oriental scenery

attracts his gaze and artistic prowess,

considering them worthy to be subject of an

entire sketchbook, ‘they are merely travel notes,

results of a different frame of mind from the

Romantic travelers infatuated with the exotic

scenery, such as Delacroix or Raffet (…)

landscape is not a subject favorable to

Tattarescu and his oriental voyage has no effect

on his style’. (Frunzetti 1991, 185-186)

Through the eyes of a diplomat Until this moment we attempted to

analyze the Orient’s representation through

visual, auditory and olfactory experiences by

some of the artists and men of letters. This

section of our study aims to discuss the features

of a discourse outlined in the memoirs and notes

pertaining to members of the Romanian cultural

elite sent on diplomatic missions in Istanbul.

We will begin with the work of Dimitrie

Ralet, a significant member of the boyars, who

dabbled with literature, but was, also, a gifted

politician who played an important part in the

1848 Revolution (a liberal with modernist

views). Ralet was nominated along with

Costache Negri by the Moldavian ruler Grigore

Ghica to find a solution to the situation of

monasteries dedicated to the ones from Athos.

His account Souvenirs and travel impressions in

Romania, Bulgaria, Constantinople was

published in Paris in 1858.

Recurring mentions in his notes are

those consisting in assertions about the political,

judicial and the various conflicts with the

suzerain state, Ottoman Empire. Ralet’s

accounts do not have the usual structure of a

travel report, instead they have a slight tendency

to be a manifesto for the independence of the

Romanian countries.

Touched by the natural wonders, he

described his journey on the Danube River with

details about every city encountered; when he

had an opportunity he informed his reader about

famous battles that occurred in the places he

visited.

Approaching the Bosphorus shores, he

talks about the history of the old city of

Byzantion, using more details and a somewhat

critical point of view to discuss the variegated

mix of ethnical costumes, the bright colors of

those ensembles in opposition with evident signs

of poverty. (Ralet 1979, 45). Ralet makes a habit

of informing his readers about the specifics and

main members of the ottoman society (his

knowledge of such details is due to the

numerous contacts between the upper-class

Romanians and Ottoman officials). He makes

note of the new and old melting pot (the 19th

century Tanzimat), the infusion of various

populations Muslim and Christian, the

Europeans that began to wear oriental clothing

and Turks which had to renounce them in favor

of the western attire.

Ralet, in behalf of his diplomatic role,

had the chance to witness up close the

diplomatic ceremonies and customs of the

Turkish Divan, commenting on how obsolete

they were. The Sublime Porte kept a

disproportionate arrogance during the audience.

Unlike other authors discussed

previously, Ralet uses quite frequently the term

oriental, when speaking about a council of

elders, regarding some of the customs and

functions, types of clothing and even a

proverbial oriental apathy, when patience is a

virtue. This kind of assertions can be understood

in the context of the voyage’s purpose: a

consular service.

A peculiar sequence of his stay in

Constantinople was dedicated to a rather

unexpected encounter with what he called ‘a

ghost of the past’. On one of his touristic walks

in the old part of the town, he came across a

Divan with elders sitting silently, dressed

according the norms of the high Ottoman

officials. Among this gathering he noticed a

familiar figure, that of one Walachian former

rulers, in an oriental costume: a cutlass around

his waist, a piece of garment denoting his rank

(căbăniţă), tall fur cap and a mace in his hand.

(Ralet 1979, 86-90) It was a scene from a history

museum, ‘a place filled with dreams of the past’,

Ralet took the image of an old buttonwood to

picture the Ottoman Empire as a state threatened

from all of its borders, shaken by the numerous

fought wars, but protecting and still keeping its

will to live.

During his visit to Boiagi-Kioi, a village

with many liaisons to the Crimean War, Ralet

took the advantage to bring up the Romanian

involvement in this conflict and the implications

of its actions.

The reader doesn’t miss in Ralet’s travel

notes the usual oriental images of slowness and

passivity that makes the people’s temperament

one of laisse faire, laisse passer, uncaring and

pessimistic about the future, giving in to carnal

desires. Also, the writer informs his audience of

the differences between the Orientals and

Romanians, the latter being part of the sort of

people meant to inquire, to discover, to progress,

to spend their existence in the fast lane, never

99

stopping until they reach the very end. This

paragraph placed beside the one at the beginning

of his journey when he talks about the Romanian

people in terms of an oriental race makes an

interesting point about the never-ending

fluctuation between the East and the West,

between being oriental by acculturation and

westerner by cultural heritage.

His last chapters of Souvenirs and

impressions take into consideration the

contradictory aspects of Ottoman society and

everyday life, making extensive notes about the

role of women, with personal observations about

literature, language, music, poetry and so on.

Ralet concludes his oriental voyage with

state affairs raised shortly after the signing of the

Paris Treaty (1856), discussing the current

political situation of the Romanian Principalities

and claiming that the events so far were never

intended to bring any damage to the relations

with the Ottoman Empire.

His travel writings are among the most

detailed work so far by any Romanian traveler,

with significant details regarding the Ottoman

culture and society, and hinting at the issues of

the two provinces struggling for autonomy.

Half a century later, we have the

Diplomatic memoirs of Alexandru Em.

Lahovary who was the Romanian Minister

Plenipotentiary at Istanbul during the interval of

1902-1906, a period of conflict between the two

states caused by the Armâni from the Ottoman

Empire. His account is mostly filled with details

about the Sultan Abdul-Hamid and the

diplomatic affairs.

Alexandru Lahovary tries to shed some

light on the personality of one the most

controversial sultan’s in the recent ottoman

history, he is adamant in describing the high

ranking officials and the evolutions of the

political talks. (Lavohary 1935, 10-11)

He has very few remarks about the

oriental customs and mundane aspects, when

compared to the political ones. But Lahovary

assures his readers that ‘Wallachia and Moldavia

were never the subjects of Ottoman rule. They

were only vassals of the Empire’. (Lahovary

1935, 19-21)

Unlike Dimitrie Ralet’s travel account,

Lahovary gives less or none, for that matter, an

exotic feeling replacing it with matters of the

state.

The travel literature discussed above

draws a certain image about and Orient

meaningful only when viewed through the

political and diplomatic aspects, reminding the

audience of the relations existing between the

Romanian countries and the Empire.

In order to conclude our study, we

would like to point out that, although Romanian

travelers use a literary genre borrowed from the

western culture, they distance themselves from

similar works by including elements regarding

their own identity and history, with an oriental

background. We can assert that the idea of

writing about the Orient not only in political and

historical terms is a way of placing a gap

between them and the oriental heritage and

transforming it in a literary representation/image

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Anghelescu 1983 Anghelescu, Mircea,

Călători români în Africa

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Africa), Bucureşti, Editura

Sport-Turism, 1983.

Anghelescu 1988 Anghelescu, Mircea, Textul

şi realitatea (The reality

and the text, Bucureşti,

Editura Eminescu, 1988.

Alecsandri 1960 Alecsandri, Vasile,

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Mihai 2009 Mihai, Irina, Călători

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