Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies (ISSN 2003-0924, Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University / Centre for the Research of the Imaginary "Speculum", "1 Decembrie 1918" University, Alba Iulia, Romania / University of Granada, Spain / Romanian Language Institute, Bucharest, Romania / Technical University of Civil Engineering – Department of Foreign Languages and Communication, Bucharest, Romania) publishes studies about Romanian language, literature, theatre and film, cultural studies, anthropology, history, translation studies, education as well as research seminars and reviews of works within these fields. It welcomes articles that focus on case studies, as well as methodological and/or theoretical issues. Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies is a forum that sets and requires international high quality standards. The journal accepts papers written in Romanian or English, as well as in French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. As of 2024 SJRS is a biannual publication, having two issues per year regularly published by May 15.
Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University
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Conceptual foundations and research scenarios in scientific translation
Scientific translation plays a crucial role in the global circulation of knowledge, yet it remains significantly underrepresented and insufficiently theorised within contemporary Translation Studies. This article positions scientific translation as a distinct field grounded in genre‑based analysis, epistemic discourse and technologically mediated scholarly communication. Drawing on previous work on scientific and technical translation (Dejica 2020, in press-a) and on a large‑scale review of Romanian doctoral research in translation studies (Dejica, Pungă, Badea & Vîlceanu, 2022), the study identifies a persistent mismatch between the communicative centrality of scientific discourse and its marginal presence in doctoral‑level inquiry. To address this gap, the article proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework structured around eight interrelated elements—type of study, approach, method, theory, domain, genre, medium and technology—and anchored in Translation‑Studies theories such as Skopos/Functionalism, Descriptive Translation Studies/Polysystem, Interpretive Theory, Relevance Theory, Translational Action, and competence frameworks including PACTE and EMT. The framework is operationalised through ten research scenarios designed to advance empirical, genre‑informed and technologically aware investigations into scientific translation. These scenarios address core features of scientific communication, including argumentation and claim construction, hedging and modality, terminological and conceptual systems, multimodal scientific discourse, accessibility and reader‑effort, multilingual citation practices, cross‑disciplinary genre variation and the professional ecology of scientific translation. Each scenario concludes with an explicit added‑value statement, highlighting its methodological contribution and potential relevance to doctoral training, editorial practice and scientific‑communication policy. By integrating conceptual clarity with scenario‑level specificity, the article offers a structured research agenda intended to support the systematic development of scientific translation as a rigorous, autonomous and socially relevant field within Translation Studies, while acknowledging the Romanian research landscape as its initial empirical context.
Copyright (c) 2026 Daniel Dejica https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Equivalence in the Romanian translation of Julie Otsuka’s novel The Buddha in the Attic
The study highlights how collective identity, culturally specific features, emotion, and ideological aspects, based on race and gender, are either preserved or not in the translation of The Buddha in the Attic, a novel by Julie Otsuka, a contemporary Japanese American writer. The novel tells the heartbreaking story of the Japanese picture brides and uses a narrative technique marked by the repetition of the collective voice “we”. The novel was translated into Romanian in 2013 by Casiana Ioniță, who rendered the original title as Buddha din podul casei. Building this investigation upon the works of scholars such as Eugene Nida (1964), Peter Newmark (1981, 1988), Anton Popovič (1976), Katharina Reiss (1989), Katharina Reiss and Hans Vermeer (1984), and Mona Baker (1992), the research aims to investigate the Romanian translation of The Buddha in the Attic through the lens of equivalence and non-equivalence, focusing on three chapters, “Come, Japanese!” (“Japonezii sunt bine-veniți!”), “Whites” (“Albii”), and “Traitors” (“Trădători”), especially analysing how phrases that carry ideological and cultural features are rendered in the translation. The article reveals how language reflects gender and racial constructs, emphasizing the translator’s role in conveying these aspects across cultural and linguistic contexts. By these means, the phenomenon of non-equivalence appears, where certain items of the ST cannot be completely reproduced in the target language.
Copyright (c) 2026 Raluca-Andreea Petruș, Ana Gvozdenovici https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Mircea Eliade: elementos sensoriales en La noche de San Juan
The senses are an essential instrument in our perception of the world, as well as in the creation of literary universes. Our paper will analyse how Mircea Eliade reads Bucharest through the senses in his novel The Forbidden Forest. From the nostalgia of exile, Eliade reconstructs his hometown through a mixture of sensory impressions. First among them goes sight, closely linked to time. Time –a most important concept in his work, both academic and literary– is also linked to memory; and memory is also connected to smell. Both approaches –sight and smell– explain the relevance of senses in Eliade’s work.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ines Carvajal Arguelles https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Panaït Istrati sous la loupe de la Sigourantza
From his debut in 1923, Panait Istrati has been referred to as a particular case on the global literary scene. The mixture of his tumultuous biography with honest writing renders a particular type of excitement, coupled with the interest in social issues, which was a dominant of Istrati’s works. While engaged in very modest jobs in his hometown port of Braila, he began writing articles in the left media in between 1906-1910, being immediately appreciated for his directness and brightness. His first visit to Paris, for a few months between December 1913 and April 1914 took him closer to the international milieu. Five years later, in 1919, he connected with the Nobel Prize laureate, Romain Rolland. This was the key turning point and inspired him to start writing in French rather than Romanian only. Istrati and Rolland exchanged numerous letters in between 1919 and 1935, the year Istrati died. Rolland became for Istrati a mentor-father figure and launched him on the literary milieu in 1923. This paper complements biographical and literary aspects about Panait Istrati, extracted from the extensive documentary material preserved in the Sigourantza archives. Our contribution will focus on original elements included in the collection. Considering the question regarding the novelty of aspects contained in the collection, I look at several examples about his family, acquaintances and intellectuals who were closer or less close to the writer. Information about the writer’s travels, visits by family members or discussions on social, political and literary subjects confirm the coordinates of sincerity, generosity and friendship known to specialists and the general public.
Copyright (c) 2026 Dana Radler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
De la Balta-Albă la Le lac Blanc. În interiorul logicii autocolonizării – între o orientalizare căutată și una jucată
Starting from a comparison between the Romanian version of Vasile Alecsandri’s short story 24 de ceasuri la Balta-Albă [24 Hours in Balta-Albă] and its French version, entitled Le lac Blanc (Balta alba). Traduit du moldave [The White Lake (Balta Alba). Translated from Moldavian], published in the pages of the prestigious journal L’Illustration, this article aims to highlight several aspects. On the one hand, that through the structural modifications he introduced to the original, the Romanian writer was preparing his text for an encounter with a different cultural space—a metropolitan one—and with an audience little or not at all familiar with the political situation of one of the emerging civilizations that, around the revolutionary year 1848, was knocking at the door of the modern nations. He did so in an original manner: first, by entering into dialogue with some of the texts that had opened the way for communication between the two cultural spaces; then, by correcting — through a skilful staging that targets colonial discourse — some of the perspectives exercised upon the Romanian Principalities, to which, by repositioning them on the map of the world, he attributed the status of an internal Other. On the other hand, that the modifications under discussion reflect an evident process of Orientalizing, which fits the logic of Alexander Kiossev’s (cultural) metaphor of self-colonization — an Orientalizing that is both sought after and performed, since only in this way could that „Hegelian expectation of recognition” (Gandhi, 1996, p. 16) be fulfilled. This reveals an Alecsandri aware of the fact that, within the self–other dichotomy, the role of one is to recognize, while that of the other is to be recognized.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ioan Fărmuș https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Sugestii pentru un model de adnotare a emoțiilor și sentimentelor în romanul românesc de consum din lungul secol al XIX-lea
Given the significant role of emotions and sentiments in Romanian popular novels from the long 19th century, sociological literary studies stand to benefit greatly from the automatic extraction of affective features in texts, a task made possible through Sentiment Analysis (SA) methods. In the absence of a SA model tailored to Romanian literature, this paper proposes a set of guidelines for developing such a model, drawing on both the state-of-the-art in computational literary studies and the specific characteristics of Romanian popular fiction. We argue that the most appropriate theoretical framework for this purpose is the Hourglass Model Revisited, which offers a robust foundation for manual annotation and the subsequent use of annotated texts in machine learning applications. Recognizing that the quality of manual annotation strongly influences the effectiveness of automatic feature extraction, we place particular emphasis on the creation of rigorous annotation guidelines, supplemented by numerous examples from three sentimental novels by N. G. Rădulescu-Niger and detailed discussion aimed at increasing analytical precision. The overarching goal of this research is to gain deeper insights into the ideas, values, and worldview of 19th-century Romanian readers by examining their expected emotional responses to popular fiction.
Copyright (c) 2026 Maria-Corina Dimitriu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Formele conflictului în Ghetto veac XX [Ghetto 20th Century] de Ury Benador
This article proposes a re-examination of interwar Romanian ghetto literature. This urban, marginal, and political space is documented in Romanian literary history almost exclusively through the autobiographical novels of the Jewish writers published between 1930 and 1940. Interethnic tensions intensified during this period and formed socially segregated spaces, such as ghetto areas. These territories were mostly generated by social conflict, which constitutes the main focus of this study. The analysis is based on Ury Benador’s Ghetto veac XX [Ghetto 20th Century], which is representative for this type of literature. The motivation behind selecting this novel lies in its complex narrative network, driven by interethnic conflict developed through causal relations. This novel presents a taxonomy of conflicts, indicating – as I will argue – that the civic, political, and domestic realms become mutually entangled. The novel sheds light on a particular perspective on antisemitism: it reveals how social conflict is not limited to public space, but, in fact, penetrates and disrupts the private life of the Jews. In the introduction of this paper, I examine the two main critical approaches developed upon the novel’s publication. On the one hand, the conservative strand of criticism insisted on the idea of the author’s “dangerous race”, thereby rejecting him through the eugenic and racist theories that were gaining ground in early twentieth-century Romania. On the other hand, modernist critics reduced the reading of the novel to the aesthetic and thematic frameworks promoted by this movement. Both perspectives prove to be limited. Therefore, I consider that a (re)reading of these texts can be productive for various reasons: primarily because it illustrates the perspective of the Jewish minority, excluded by the hegemonic discourse of the “pure” Romanian race; foremost, because an aesthetic analysis of these novels cannot overlook the social dimension of these texts. For a literary subgenre that emerges directly from a specific historical context, the aesthetic and social dimensions must be considered together, so as to undertake an analysis informed by the conditions of writing and publication of these texts. The initial section of the paper centers on social conflict and its permeable character, whereby civic tensions penetrate domestic life and manifest across multiple dimensions (economic, erotic, identity, spiritual). Considering the characters’ Jewish identity, I examine some text extracts through the lens of religious symbolism, highlighting the concepts of sacrifice and chastity inherent to their culture. Continuing in this vein, I further interpret the conclusion of the text as an attempt to transcend historical political constraints through the sacred. In the final section of the article, I examine the novel’s fragmented structure, which makes the reconstruction of a coherent narrative thread nearly impossible. My study points to an interpretation of this novelistic form as a literary social form, an argument justified by the political realities of the time, namely the intensification of antisemitism in Romania. If the form of the novel is perceived as the author’s ideological instrument, I consider that some of his formal options can be viewed either as acts of emancipation or outright subversion. From a methodological perspective, the study lies at the intersection of several academic fields, making use of variety of sources that include literary studies (Caroline Levine), historical research (Leon Volovici, Marius Turda), sociological analyses (Georg Simmel, Thorstein Veblen, Ernst Bloch, Michel Foucault), and works on the history of religions (Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert, Eusebiu Borca). Through this approach, my aim is to recover marginalized literature and to demonstrate how aesthetics and politics become inseparable in case of an autobiographical novel documenting Romanian interwar antisemitism.
Copyright (c) 2026 Irina Gorgan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
This paper explores, on many levels, the complex and multilayered symbolism of the island in the dramatic works of Mihail Sebastian, Jocul de-a vacanța [The Make-believe Holiday], Steaua fără nume [The Star with No Name], Ultima oră [Breaking News] and Insula [The Island], interpreting it not as a mere setting, but as a dynamic metaphor that reflects the psychological, existential, and relational landscapes of his characters. Both his literary creation and his biographical trajectory seem to be structured around a logic of insularity, conceived as a form of strategic distancing from an adverse environment be that social, historical or personal. This withdrawal into an interiorized space does not equate to passive isolation, but is configured as a gesture of silent resistance in the face of an alterity perceived as threatening, excluding and, often, violent. Thus, insularity becomes both a modus vivendi and an aesthetic of survival, articulating an identity marked by discretion, lucidity and fidelity to one's own values ​​in a deeply hostile context. Drawing on biographical, literary, psychoanalytic and philosophical frameworks, the study is structured into six chapters, each examining a different facet of the island motif. The opening chapter, The Island That Harbors No Wonders, addresses Sebastian’s biography and personal writings as a foundation for his dramaturgy of solitude, framing the island as an existential condition (a symbolic terrain shaped by the anxieties, disillusionments and inner exiles) rather than an idyllic retreat. The Island of the Self explores the ways in which his characters construct and negotiate their identities in conditions of isolation, engaging in a nuanced interplay between self-perception and otherness. Rather than presenting identity as fixed or coherent, the chapter highlights how solitude becomes a space of performative tension, where the estranged self is scrutinized and shaped through an internal dialogue with its own limits and imagined alternatives. The island is further examined in its negative valences in The Island-Dungeon, where it becomes a space of captivity, stagnation, and communicational breakdown. In contrast, The Island-Womb reclaims the insular space as one of warmth, intimacy, and regenerative potential, highlighting its positive, maternal associations. The fifth chapter, entitled The Expansion of the Island, proposes that love, however fragile or ephemeral, acts as a centripetal force capable of momentarily dissolving the boundaries of isolation, expanding the metaphorical island into a shared emotional territory. Even if it does not permanently resolve the condition of existential insularity, it creates brief moments of authentic connection that reconfigure the contours of the self and invite the possibility of communion. The final chapter, The Carnivorous Island, deconstructs the utopian mirage, revealing the island’s ultimate betrayal: its capacity to consume the individual and nullify idealistic aspirations. By tracing the metamorphoses of the island across Sebastian’s theatrical corpus, the paper demonstrates that the island functions as a liminal space, one in which the tensions between freedom and constraint, self and other, illusion and disillusion are staged with acute philosophical sensitivity.
Copyright (c) 2026 Lucia Ispas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Conceptul de „criză” în modernismul „târziu”: poezia americană a anilor ‘30 și poezia „generației războiului” în literatura română
A complex, intricate, and sometimes disruptive era, the first half of the 20th century was shaken by a significant number of crises, leading to fundamental transformations in the individual’s perception of the world and the self. Wars, sudden shifts of political regimes, economic decline, and existential anxiety gave shape to different “faces of modernity”, to use a syntagm borrowed from Matei Călinescu’s well-known study. Thus, modernism can be read as originating from a historical and a cultural crisis, as many scholars have noted, which are contingent on a crisis of identity and a crisis of language, reaching its highest point in modern poetry. Art and literature of the fifth decade, in general, and poetry, in particular, constituted responses and solutions to the fragmentation, gaps, and ruptures inherent to modernism, embedding them within legitimate aesthetic structures. However, countless authors of both literary and cultural studies have approached what is widely recognised as modern poetry mostly in matters of form rather than highlighting the social, economic or political implications central to its emerging context. The proliferation of this tendency led to modernism being, almost exclusively, associated in poetry with experimentalism and innovation in language. For instance, the avant-garde is considered more specific to European aesthetic modernism than other literary directions, yet equally fruitful and valuable. Nevertheless, amid the waves of crises that profoundly pervaded the social and aesthetic structures of modernity, language seemed to lose its ability to represent society and express the turmoil of that particular period, becoming fragmented in the process. Relying on the theory of an epistemological crisis set at the core of late modernism, developed by Justin Parks in his recent important study, Poetry and the Limits of Modernity in Depression America, this article advances the idea that at the basis of the identity crisis and of the language crisis, which crossed such a substantial segment of modern poetry – and the same is the case in both Romanian and American literature – stood, first of all, a social and a cultural crisis, intertwined with a spiritual one, usually not much brought into discussion. Moreover, the current article originally proposes closeness between the poets of the Great Depression, analysed by Parks in his essay, and the Romanian insurgent “war poets” (the syntagm is believed to have been used by Emil Manu in his often cited work, Eseu despre generația războiului [Essay on the War Generation]) grouped, at least initially, around the nonconformist magazine Albatros. On the one hand, Parks’ analysis of poetry in deep connection with various aspects belonging to the cultural and artistic production of the 1930s, and with society, in general, can be effectively grafted to the study of the Romanian poets who made their debut during the outbreak of the Second World War, confronting – like the American poets of the Depression – with the chaos of a society carved out by inequities and intense political upheaval. On the other hand, between the poetry written by Louis Zukofsky, Muriel Rukeyser, George Oppen or Langston Hughes and Geo Dumitrescu, Dimitrie Stelaru, Ion Caraion, and Constant Tonegaru’s texts can be traced a series of thematic, ideological and structural similarities, together with the language’s urgency of shifting from the detachment of aestheticism and from symbolism to social and political engagement on a stern, melancholic tone. In addition to these hypotheses, the concepts of crisis and authenticity can be combined to provide a broader understanding of how the poetic discourse of the second generation of modernists incorporated both individual and collective traumatic experiences, and managed to challenge not only the poetic tradition but also the political power.
Copyright (c) 2026 Sînziana-Maria Stoie https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Utopie postumanistă și parabolă politică în proza lui Sergiu Fărcășan
The paper proposes a reinterpretation of Sergiu Fărcășan’s prose – more precisely, of the novels Atacul cesiumiștilor (1963) [The Attack of the Cesiumists] and Vă caută un Taur (1970) [A Bull Is Searching for You], as well as the short story collection Mașina de rupt prieteniile (1968) [The Friendship-Breaking Machine] – highlighting the ambiguity of the science-fiction scenarios, which simultaneously legitimize and undermine a totalitarian political ideology. The selected texts are built upon the constant tension between the cliché of official propagandistic discourse – in which technological achievements serve humankind and stand as a sign of its superiority, as well as of the political regime that makes them possible – and the undermining of official policy through the use of parable and the imagining of utopian worlds. The posthumanist problematic – illustrated by the confrontation between the human and artificial-intelligence systems, the matter-information relationship, the prosthetics of the human body, the state of consciousness, or the cyborgization of the narrative – serve both the discourse of technological-optimism propaganda and a set of serious inquiries developed in a political and profoundly humanistic key. The propagandistic discourse acquires posthumanist overtones, for the technological progress leads to a deconstruction of the human, both through massification and through remodelling, whether mental or physical.
Copyright (c) 2026 Daniela Petroșel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Aceleași ape tulburi ale istoriei. Despre rinoceri și crocodili într-o lectură biopolitică
In this article, we propose a comparative analysis of the political imaginary in Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros and the (political) figures of crocodiles in Matei Vișniec’s The Moon’s Consulate or Adelina and the Swamp Crocodiles. Although the two playwrights employ animal metaphors (rhinoceroses and crocodiles) in different historical contexts, both authors mobilize literature, along with its political and social functions, to issue warnings against ideological indoctrination, political regimentation, and the growing threat of (post)modern dictatorships. As metaphors of ideological servility and of the (symbolic and political) metamorphosis of the individual, rhinoceroses and crocodiles signify forms of alienation, dissolution, and identity crisis under historical pressures. In light of the intensifying resurgence of political extremism, neo-Nazism, and neo-Legionarism in contemporary Romanian society, Vișniec offers a book for both children and adults that explores the mechanisms of ideological indoctrination, propaganda, and crocodilization as symptoms of dictatorship.
Copyright (c) 2026 Mădălina Ceciuleac https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Genul fantastic în context totalitar. Convergențe în reprezentarea anti-eroului la Mihail Bulgakov și la Matei Vișniec
Our article examines the convergences and divergences in the portrayal of the antihero in Mikhail Bulgakov’s Maestrul și Margarita [The Master and Margarita] and Matei Vișniec’s Sindromul de panică în Orașul Luminilor [The Panic Syndrome in the City of Lights]. Both novels construct intricate narrative frameworks where the antihero emerges through multiple characters, establishing an intertextual connection between the two works. By applying contemporary methodologies to analyze social and cultural contexts, this study highlights the significance of intertextual relationships while exploring the semantic dimensions of both texts beyond their structural similarities. In both works, the antihero embodies the intersection of social traumas induced by totalitarianism and playful, non-monstrous fantastic elements. Additionally, the urban setting – a prominent topos in postwar literature – undergoes a comparable process of fictionalization in both novels. Through the antihero’s compensatory positive attributes, an ethical framework is reestablished within the narrative universe. Bulgakov’s fantastic imagery sets a new paradigm, which, when compared with Vișniec’s approach, underscores the shared motifs and modalities of the fantastic, illuminating the drama of modern humanity in a world literature context.
Copyright (c) 2026 Elena Purușniuc, Ștefan-Tudor Baciu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Text și metatext în opera lui Ion Vianu: despre o poetică a mărturisirii
My paper proposes an exploration of the relationship between text and metatext, between memory and fiction, as well as a reflection on how the author constructs a poetics of confession. Starting from the premise that Ion Vianu’s writing represents a constant negotiation between autobiography and imagination, the article examines the way in which the act of remembrance transforms into an aesthetic and moral form of knowledge. The first part of the analysis focuses on the correspondence between Ion Vianu and Matei Călinescu, which reveals the author’s dissatisfaction with scientific discourse and his growing need to express what he calls the most precious content of his life. These letters, written over several decades, document the genesis of his literary vocation and express a double tension: on the one hand, between the analytical rigor of the psychiatrist and the freedom of the imagination, and on the other hand, between the intellectual discipline of reason and the ethical imperative of confession. The dialogue with Matei Călinescu thus becomes a privileged space for the — often intuitive — formulation of the principles of a personal poetics grounded in sincerity, introspection, and the transformative potential of memory. The paper also argues that Ion Vianu conceives literature as both an ethical and an aesthetic endeavor. His vision is based on a humanistic understanding of writing as an act of moral responsibility and communication with future generations. In the volume Apropieri [Approaches], Ion Vianu explicitly states that memoir writing is the genre in which the Platonic unity of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty is most clearly manifested. The aesthetic problem of the memoirist is, in his view, simultaneously a moral one; therefore, memoir literature is not a mere recording of the past, but a process of spiritual knowledge and even redemption—for both author and reader. For the author, the reinterpretation of life through language becomes a form of salvation, while for the reader it represents the reception of an ethical legacy. The text thus functions as an act of communication between author and reader — a dialogue that transcends mere confession and becomes testimony. In the second part, the analysis moves toward the fictional dimension of Ion Vianu’s work, where metatextual structures explicitly reveal his conception of the creative act. The novels Vasiliu, foi volante [Vasiliu, unbound sheets] and Caietele lui Ozias [The Notebooks of Ozias] are constructed as fictional memoirs, containing postludes, genealogies, and commentaries intended to guide the reader. The Postlude of Caietele lui Ozias [The Notebooks of Ozias] functions as an explicit poetics, expressing the idea that every creative act entails a destructive gesture, the writer’s first act being that of breaking reality into fragments. “Outside this initial act of destruction, there is no creation,” says Ion Vianu. These ideas synthesize Ion Vianu’s modern vision of literature as a deliberate reconstruction of reality through memory and imagination. The analysis then focuses on two characters who become fictional alter egos of the author: Dan Naidin and Ozias. Naidin embodies the creative instinct, asserting that his inventions will be truer than the rags of reality, while Ozias represents the reflective consciousness of the narrative, maintaining that only imagination and philosophy can reanimate scattered facts. Both characters function as doubles of the author, through whom he explores the tension between fact and fiction, authenticity and verisimilitude. Their narratives illustrate the dialectic that defines Ion Vianu’s entire oeuvre: memory as creative reconstruction, fiction as moral mediation, and truth as aesthetic synthesis rather than documentary fact. Writing thus becomes a form of aesthetic and moral resistance against oblivion and falsification. By transforming memory into narrative and narrative into ethical reflection, Ion Vianu redefines both the function of literature and the role of the writer in a post-totalitarian culture. The poetics of confession he proposes is, in this sense, not merely a literary mode of expression but a philosophical attitude — an effort to restore meaning, coherence, and human dignity through the act of writing.
Copyright (c) 2026 Andreea Raluca Abiculesei https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Écrire contre l’oubli et l’inaction : poétiques de l’engagement dans le théâtre de Matéi Vișniec
The dramatic work of Matéi Vișniec, centred on time, memory, and commitment, constitutes a privileged object of analysis for interrogating the modalities of a politically invested writing. This article examines the dramaturgical strategies through which the author confers an ethical dimension to his theatre. The analysis is structured according to three main axes: the representation of historical and traumatic memory, the denunciation of mechanisms of alienation and passive complicity, and the use of allegory and the grotesque as means to question the human condition. Through a varied corpus, the aim is to demonstrate how Vișniec transforms the stage into a space of resistance against oblivion and indifference, appealing to the spectator's responsibility.
Copyright (c) 2026 Abdellah ZINE EL ABIDINE https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The topology of the attic in the dramaturgy of H. Ibsen, F. Wedekind, and M. Sebastian
An important topos of the imaginary and, implicitly, of literature, the attic of the house is a symbol within the major coordinate of space which, through its functional meanings, consciously or unconsciously guides the actions of characters. In order to approach the attic as a domestic space, we have drawn on the theoretical insights concerning interior space developed by Abraham Moles and Élisabeth A. Rohmer (1972), and especially on those offered by Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space (1957/1963). Comparing the functions of the house built on the ground with those of the dwelling in an apartment block, Bachelard (1963, p. 26) proposes, for the drama of the “superimposed boxes,” the solution of reverie, more precisely “the metaphors of the ocean” (p. 28), a resolution that proves valid in a considerable number of literary works. It appears in Frank Wedekind’s Pandora’s Box (1904/1918), where the action of the final act takes place in the attic of an unconverted apartment building; through the two large windows, through which the sky should have been visible, the incessant drumming of rain penetrates, covering the city’s din and isolating the heroes who, each within his or her own interior space, are free to dream. In Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck (1884/1900), the attic acquires a particular significance: it is an attic-forest that points toward the Bachelardian hut-house, where one feels removed from urban concerns and the bustle of the city, and where, within the realm of absolute imagination, human beings can remain young for a long time. Similarly, Mihail Sebastian’s Insula [The Island] (1947/1956) perfectly illustrates this type of reverie; a representative episode is the aspirin-induced intoxication of the three protagonists who live in a garret, on which occasion they imagine the ocean and an island, accompanied by a series of auditory elements that frame their reverie. In the plays under analysis, the attic or garret represents rationality; it is the space in which the characters become aware of the true reality in which they live and, moreover, accept it while seeking solutions to overcome the impasses they face. It is the place where time is abolished and escapism becomes, for all of them, a therapy of the soul.
Copyright (c) 2026 Gabriela Chiciudean https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
This paper aims to approach the concept of myth from a synthetic and selective perspective, highlighting a series of theoretical and interpretative elements that constitute, in fact, the complexity of this notion. In this regard, the present analysis seeks, from beginning to end, to trace an interdisciplinary and transversal conceptual framework, integrating perspectives from the philosophy of culture, anthropology, structural semiotics, and mythology, the last one being regarded as the principal horizon of reference. Beyond the introductory section, which presents various definitions of myth, more or less general, this paper also focuses on an implicit exploration of the concept’s internal structure. This allows for a closer examination of those elements that ensure, in essence, the perpetuation and continuity of a myth over time. Concretely, by valorizing the reflexive vision of Lucian Blaga, the study emphasizes from the outset the intrinsic connection between myth and other notions such as abyssal categories, stylistic factors, stylistic matrix, and the creative unconscious. Moreover, within this analytical endeavor, the process of structural radiography to which the myth is subjected primarily takes into account Claude Lévi-Strauss’s vision, according to which the essence of the concept resides precisely in what the theorist himself called a simultaneity of temporal character, namely, the capacity of a myth to exist both diachronically and synchronically. Fundamentally, this aspect supports what we might consider, at a strictly cultural-semiotic level, the interferential identity of myth. In the same vein, by continuing and even enriching the temporal criterion, the paper evokes another relevant theoretical perspective, that of the Romanian ethnologist Romulus Vulcănescu, centered on the concept of mythical chronotope and on the idea of mythopoetic imagination. When considered together, these two aspects enable the expansion of any mythical imaginary, especially if we refer to Vulcănescu’s systematized temporal duality, concretized in the antithesis between diurnal time and nocturnal time. Furthermore, in order to complete the notion of the mythical chronotope, Vulcănescu’s view is complemented by that of Mircea Eliade, though this time through the lens of another fundamental opposition between profane space and sacred space. Advancing within the parameters of this analytical-interpretative approach, the paper also examines the implications of the semiotic interdependence between myth and ritual. Thus, following Luc Benoist’s perspective, one may understand that any ritual represents the symbolic animation of a myth, a process through which the human being is situated within another ontological, archetypal dimension of the ab origo type, thereby inevitably sustaining the permanent nature of myth.
Copyright (c) 2026 Raluca-Denisa Nicoară https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Transculturalismul și interculturalismul, itinerare social-economice (ne)viabile pentru egocentrism?
We live in a world where economic and social change often becomes routine, and restoring social order is increasingly difficult. It is a world that is constantly changing – and yet, as humanity, we seem to have limits about always evolving in the right and / or correct direction. Why? Such a question (only seemingly simple) requires nuanced answers: (i) As time passes (as strange as it may seem), we become more selfish, and we want much more than we need. It is not just about the relationship between resources and current consumerism, but also about the fact that we consider ourselves more entitled than others. In other words, we forget (or refuse to acknowledge) that, although a dose of selfishness is necessary for everyone, its dosage must be reasonable. (ii) We are not satisfied with that. To achieve our goal, we sometimes act for ourselves, but to the detriment of the communities we belong to. (iii) The general interest becomes secondary. (iv) In such conditions, the individual risks becoming a puppet actor, who particularises an ‘era’ of personal interest: he becomes more curious and courageous, but not necessarily wiser and assertive. The ‘door’ through which he identifies the values of others seems to be an increasingly visible sign of the individual’s adaptation not only to the schematization and simplification of everything, but also to mystification and / or isolation. Detailing the previous contents, this paper insists on positive economic and social change (we refer here to transculturalism and interculturalism), which social groups can generate in the current global context, so turbulent and harsh. The motivation behind our theme is relatively simple: if the obstruction implied by egocentrism marks the gesture of an authority to punish people for their own mistakes, the acceptance signifies the attention with which we treat the correction of errors. Our text views the world with spirit of introspection (more brutal or more subtle, as the case may be), with varying degrees of risk, depending on the selective ‘pattern’ of society and its limits. We refer here to the everyday importance of education, of community spirit, and of utilitarianism, which – in the end – can constitute multiple ‘doors’ to social acceptance (but to overcome inner fear, the three previous landmarks require a suitable key for each ‘door’). Under these circumstances, the main landmark of our work is formulated as a question: Could transculturalism and interculturalism formulate (in their combined complexity) a compass for the modern world? Hard to imagine such a commitment, though perhaps not impossible. To reach this social-economic and cultural level, individuals and communities would have to overcome human selfishness, i.e. to stop being self-centered. In essence, we are talking about the management of social-economic acceptance policies and those on diversity. From this perspective, modern societies are oscillating: they either seem to be spinning on the Ferris wheel, on the Tilt-A-Whirl or on the Roller-Coaster, or either seem to make Scrambling. But seem to do whatever it takes to win – and that doesn't mean promoting egalitarianism. No doubt their purpose is to evolve, but their dynamic architecture supports their national identity in different ways. Finally, for all social-economic entities, the most important test of sustainability is called dialog (universally valid deadline for acceptance).
Copyright (c) 2026 Gabriela Bodea https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Restitutio (2): doctoranzii profesorului Constantin Cubleșan. Dosar de studiu
The study file presents the activity of the doctoral supervisor, Prof. Constantin Cubleșan, within the Doctoral School of Philology of IOSUD-Alba Iulia. The twenty-three doctoral theses defended under his coordination during the period 17.04.2008-24.03.2017 are listed in chronological order, and the nine volumes authored by former doctoral students resulting later from the publication of some of these theses are also identified. For each doctoral student, the occupation and current place of work are indicated, as well as the email address. The twenty-four academics who have acted as referees within the thesis defense committees are also listed, with their professional affiliation and number of participations. The statistical distribution of former doctoral students by occupation and geographical location is conclusively and succinctly presented, and the number of citations in Google Academic of three of the published volumes of theses is recorded. Last but not least, three of the doctoral supervisor’s reviews are reproduced, later published as critical references or prefaces in the aforementioned volumes. In the second part, fifteen other doctoral theses are presented, with the same structural approach, for which Professor Constantin Cubleșan acted as a referent between 26.06.2009 and 24.10.2014, theses coordinated by his colleagues from the Doctoral School. One such report is also reproduced.
Copyright (c) 2026 Lucian Vasile Bâgiu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Greek revolution of 1821 and the Romanians: the 25th of March 1821 recalled in Ελπις [Elpís], the periodical of The Hellenic Union of Romania
This study presents the forerunners and artisans of the Greek Revolution of 1821, as well as the main events of the historical process unfolding during the Greek Revolution and the War of Liberation (1821–1829), as reflected and recalled in the periodical of the Hellenic Union of Romania, Ελπίδα/Speranța (Elpida/Speranța [Hope], 1993–2004), respectively Ελπίς/Speranța (Elpis/Speranța [Hope], since 2004). Special attention is given to the studies published in Ελπίς/Speranța by the periodical’s long-standing contributor Apostolos Patelakis, a university professor based in Thessaloniki, who can be rightly considered the most significant Philo-Romanian contemporary Greek author, writing an honest and earnest history of the Greek Revolution of 1821.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ela Cosma https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
“Light and darkness”: The Transylvanian Orthodox apostolate against racism in the time of Bishop Nicolae Colan
The idea for this research project, which is dedicated to the Orthodox theologian Puiu Ioan Hojda and his reflections on racism in the context of Christian theology, emerged after I had finished working on the archival guide for the Romanian Orthodox Theological Institute/Academy in Cluj. During that time, while consulting fundamental documents concerning the aforementioned prestigious institution in the Archive of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Vad, Feleac, and Cluj, I also came across manuscripts by theologians who had studied at this Academy at various points in its history. Through my research, I demonstrated that the Romanian Orthodox Church in Transylvania adopted a firm stance against racism, viewing it as a real danger to the spiritual lives of the faithful. Meanwhile, the communist political authorities launched their own rhetoric against this “scourge”. From their perspective, the idea of the “Superior Man” (American) and the “Superior Race” (Western) — who had created an atomic weapon of mass destruction to subjugate the world and those considered to belong to an inferior race — had to generate extensive counterpropaganda. This discourse was indeed created and had a significant impact at the time. The manuscript by the theologian Puiu Ioan Hojda is a compelling exploration of the intellectual history that led to the formation of radical European racism, which ultimately resulted in the major horrors of the 20th century.
Copyright (c) 2026 Attila Carol https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Feminist ideology and translated literature, Alexandra-Maria Vrînceanu
Alexandra-Maria Vrînceanu’s Feminist Ideology and Translated Literature, published in 2024, enters the relatively less researched field of gender-oriented translation studies, offering a rigorous overview of feminist translation theory and a substantial corpus of case studies. Combining a historical survey of feminism, an overview of translation studies, and detailed analyses of literary works by Muriel Spark, Erica Jong, Hélène Cixous, Margaret Atwood, and Magda Cârneci, the book focuses on the complex interplay between ideology, gender, the agency of the translator, and reception in the target culture. Vrînceanu’s volume leans neither towards separating literary and cultural theory from translation and traductology, nor towards subsuming one field under the other, but rather brings them into a mutually reinforcing relationship. In this way, it situates translation practice within established international theoretical frameworks, thus bridging a significant scholarly gap and offering a methodological model for future research by scholars, students, and translators alike.
Copyright (c) 2026 Mădălina Elena Mandici https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
James Joyce’s writing style translated into Romanian through Andra Ursa's lens
Andra Ursa conducts research analysis in the field of literary translation. She explores literary translation as a process of linguistic and cultural interpretation which does not reproduce the source text. Her analyses highlight the idea that translation is a dynamic process. In her book she examines the way in which Romanian translators and retranslators interpret James Joyce’s linguistic and stylistic innovations and complexities.
Copyright (c) 2026 Maria-Crina Herteg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Despre românul perfect. Disecând epoci istorice și politici extreme
Alina Bako presents Marius Turda's 2024 book, “În căutarea românului perfect: Specific național, degenerare rasială și selecție socială în România modernă” [In search of the perfect Romanian: National specificity, racial degeneration, and social selection in modern Romania] (published by Polirom), as a landmark and indispensable synthesis in the field of Romanian cultural and intellectual history studies. Marius Turda, a professor at Oxford Brookes University (UK) and a leading international expert on eugenics, racism, and biopolitics in Central and Eastern Europe, delivers a rigorous, evidence-based demythologization of modern Romanian history. At the core of his argument lies a stark conclusion: the notion of a “perfect Romanian” - an idealized, biologically and culturally pure national archetype - has never truly existed and was always a constructed fantasy rooted in anxiety, exclusion, and pseudoscientific ambition. Instead, Turda advocates for a healthier alternative: a tolerant, civic-oriented form of patriotism grounded in inclusion, democratic values, and critical self-reflection rather than ethnic or racial essentialism. The book meticulously brings together two dominant yet conflicting visions of Romanian identity that emerged in the 19th and especially the 20th centuries. On one side, romantic and literary discourses - prominent in the works of writers, poets, and cultural critics - celebrated the Romanian peasant as the embodiment of authentic national virtues: simplicity, moral purity, and deep connection to the land and traditions. On the other side, emerging medical, anthropological, and eugenic discourses expressed profound alarm over perceived "racial degeneration," demographic decline, and biological “weakness” among the population. Medicine was increasingly reframed not merely as a healing profession but as a “national science” tasked with engineering biological improvement through selective reproduction, social hygiene policies, and interventions aimed at strengthening the Romanian “race”. Turda examines these ideas with scholarly impartiality and nuance, situating Romania firmly within broader European trends. He shows how interwar eugenics, scientific racism, and antisemitism were not marginal or uniquely Romanian phenomena but part of a continent-wide intellectual current embraced by scientists, politicians, and cultural figures. In Romania, this manifested in exclusionary policies and rhetoric targeting Jews, Roma communities, people with disabilities, and other groups deemed “undesirable" or “degenerative”. Eugenic nationalism gained particular momentum after the creation of Greater Romania in 1918, finding enthusiastic support among prominent intellectuals such as Mihai Eminescu (in his proto-nationalist writings), Octavian Goga, Emil Cioran (in his early, controversial phase), and numerous physicians, biologists, and anthropologists who promoted ideas of racial purification and social selection. The analysis does not stop at the interwar period. Turda traces the persistence and adaptation of these discriminatory logics into the post-World War II era, including under communist rule, where certain biopolitical concerns were reframed in ideological terms while discriminatory practices against minorities and “socially unfit” individuals continued in different forms. By placing Romanian debates in transnational context, the book demonstrates how local ideas about national specificity and racial improvement circulated within - and were influenced by European networks of eugenic thought, from German Rassenhygiene to Anglo-American sterilization movements and French degeneration theories. Ultimately, În căutarea românului perfect functions as both a scholarly contribution and a vital educational and civic tool. It urges Romanian society to confront uncomfortable aspects of its past, dismantle lingering national obsessions with ethnic purity and biological exceptionalism, and prevent the repetition of historical abuses rooted in exclusion and pseudoscience. The book's significance has been widely recognized: in 2025, it was awarded the prestigious Observator Cultural Prize in the Essay/Publicistics category, affirming its impact on contemporary Romanian intellectual discourse. Through this meticulously researched and courageously honest volume, Marius Turda invites readers into an open, unflinching dialogue about the making (and unmaking) of modern Romania.
Copyright (c) 2026 Alina Bako https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0