Annual celebration dedicated to:
January 15, 2025 – the anniversary of Mihai Eminescu & Romania's National Culture Day
January 24, 2025 – Little Union of the Romanian Principalities
I was very happy to be able to organize on Wednesday (January 15, 2025) at my Circle the annual commemoration of the
famous Romanian poet, Mihai Eminescu,
whose birthday has been chosen in 2011 as Romania’s
National Culture Day. On this occasion, the Little Union of the Romanian Principalities has been
highlighted as well, reemphasizing its historic significance. We
had a large group of Romanians attending our event this time (17 friends) and for everybody’s
convenience, like the winters before, we successfully connected via modern
technology.
On the other hand, before I proceed with my usual briefing, I would like to let
all of you know that year 2025 marks the 175th anniversary of the
birth of Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889),
and the Romanian Academy declared the entire 2025 “Eminescu Year”…a great
period of time that allows us to promote even more the Romanian arts and
culture.
Further talking about our Circle, on
January 15, 2025, we were delighted to have with us two special guests – Hon.
Gabriel Rotaru (who is Consul General of
Romania in Vancouver and the Head of the Romanian Diplomatic Mission here, as
well as Minister Plenipotentiary of Romania in Canada) together with his lovely wife, Hon. Ştefana Rotaru (who is Deputy Consul General and Minister Plenipotentiary
of Romania in Canada).
The program of the evening began with much enthusiasm! After I delivered my
welcoming remarks, Hon. Gabriel Rotaru was invited to address the group.
Consul
G. Rotaru did open his speech with beautiful words of appreciation for the
activity of our literary & socio-cultural Circle constantly carried out
over the last seven years, encouraging all of us to continue with this
beautiful community work. Needless to say that his honest appreciation for our
Circle’s existence and ongoing activity deeply touched our hearts! Then Consul G. Rotaru’s speech reemphasized
Eminescu’s geniality as well as the vastness and complexity of his writings.
He
also underlined the importance of culture and its positive impact on people and
society at large.
We all were very pleased that Consul G. Rotaru stayed with us for the entire
event! When the conversation of the evening was focusing on the historic
significance of the ’Little
Union of the Romanian Principalities’, he shared with all of us his views on this as well.
Then Hon. Ştefana Rotaru was sharing with our group that the Consulate General
of Romania in Vancouver, together with the Romanian Cultural Institute in New
York, celebrate National Culture Day by promoting the “The Retreat” – a play inspired
by the opera “Vision of the Burrow” (of
Marin Sorescu, one of the most revered literary voices in Romania) and
created especially for a North American tour – with stops in New York,
Washington, D.C. and Vancouver, BC (a ‘tour
de force’ for actress Simona Măicănescu and
Mircea Florian; in Vancouver this will take place on Sunday, January 19, 2025,
at the Firehall Arts Center – in downtown Vancouver). After
that, Consul Ş. Rotaru
mentioned that the Romanian flag will fly at the ’Invictus Games’, Vancouver-Whistler
2025 (you can find more details about the
coming games on the Consulate’s face-book page).
Next,
our evening together continued with lots of heartfelt remarks from all our
participants, firstly expressing their genuine appreciation for the seven years
of existence of our literary & socio-cultural Circle! For me, these were
really heart touching words and heart touching moments!
Further, my guests offered a beautiful recital of favorite poems composed by the reputable
Mihai Eminescu (some of them published in
the comments section), there were also few small dissertations about
culture in general and poetry in particular. For instance, our dear friend Dorina read a beautiful material about Eminescu
and Queen Maria of Romania (materials
published in comments section), and our old friend, the poet Teodor
Trandafir recited few original poems (composed
by himself) and sang for us few songs (on
lyrics composed by Mihai Eminescu). Aside
of that, my dear friends, Tina & Viorica, recited few beautiful poems of
Eminescu, published for your convenience in comments section as well.
Personally, I was delighted to see that all my friends this evening generously
opened their hearts and many fond memories from our motherland were cherished
with love, kindness and deep sensibility….truly remarkable!
While
at this page, I would like to refresh that our website is read not only by very
many Romanians (friends, collaborators or
simply observers), but also by very many Canadians as well, and for the
general interest of all our readers, here I’m sharing few concise facts
about the 3 distinct themes encompassed this evening at our event:
1) About the famous Romanian poet, Mihai Eminescu
- Brief biography of MIHAI EMINESCU (15 January 1850 – 15 June 1889)
Mihai Eminescu was born on January 15, 1850, in Botosani. He was a poet, prose
writer, playwright and journalist, considered by posthumous literary critics as
the most important poetic voice in Romanian literature. He had a good
philosophical education, his poetic work being influenced by the great
philosophical systems of his time, by ancient philosophy, from Heraclitus to
Plato, by the great systems of thought of Romanticism, by the theories of
Arthur Schopenhauer, Immanuel Kant and the theories of Hegel.
He was active in ’Junimea’ literary society and worked as editor for the
newspaper ’Timpul’. He published his first poem at the age of 16, and at the
age of 19 he went to study in Vienna. The manuscripts of the poet Mihai
Eminescu, 46 volumes, approximately 14,000 pages, were donated to the Romanian
Academy by Titu Maiorescu, in the meeting of January 25, 1902. Eminescu died on
June 15, 1889, at the age of 39.
He was elected, post-mortem (October 28, 1948), as member of the
Romanian Academy.
2)
About Culture (in
general) & about Romania's
National Culture Day (also
mentioning few Romanian cultural Personalities, who honored their
country & its culture over time)
- Culture (general remarks)
A common way to understand culture is by
defining it in terms of its component parts: values (ideas), norms (behavior),
and artifacts (things or parts of
material culture).
Values are ideas about what is important
in life, and they guide the rest of the culture.
Norms are expectations of how people
should behave differently in different situations. Each culture has different
methods (sanctions) for enforcing its
norms. Sanctions also vary depending on the importance of the norm. The most
important norms formalized by sanctions are called laws.
Artifacts derive from cultural values and norms.
- Romania's
National Culture Day
Romania’s
National Culture Day
has been celebrated for the first time on January 15th, 2011,
and since then, the birthday of poet Mihai Eminescu (January 15, 1850) has
also been the day when culture as a whole is celebrated in this country.
"On the National Culture Day, we recognize
the role of the Romanian cultural personalities in the modernization and
democratization of Romania, in getting in line with the European values. The
exemplary involvement of thinkers, artists, promoters and founders of cultural
institutions in asserting the identity, statehood and national unity of Romania
will remain inscribed in capital letters in the chronicles.”
- Few
notable Romanian personalities who honored Romania and its culture over time
● Ciprian Porumbescu (1853–1883) was a Romanian composer, among the most
celebrated of his time. His popular works include ’Crai nou’, Song of the
Tricolour, Song for Spring, Ballad for violin and piano, & ’Serenada’. In addition, he composed the music for the Romanian
patriotic ’Song of Unity’, also known as ’On our flag is written Unity’ (Ro: ’Pe-al nostru steag e scris Unire’),
which was Romania's anthem from 1975 to 1977 and is currently used for Albania's national
anthem. His work spreads over various forms & musical genres, but
the majority of his work is choral and operetta.
● Nichita Stănescu (1933–1983) was a Romanian poet, essayist and playwright. He
becomes the fifth important model of Romanian poetry in the 20th century,
alongside Bacovia, Barbu, Blaga and Arghezi. In a history of poetic forms of
expression, Stănescu's style proposes an original discourse.
● Petre Ispirescu (1830–1887) was a
Romanian editor, folklorist, printer and publicist. He is best known for his
work as a gatherer of Romanian folk tales, recounting them with a remarkable
talent.
● Carol Davila (1828–
1884) was a Romanian physician,
considered to be the father of Romanian medicine. It was due to his many
activities that several scientific associations appeared in Romania, such as: ’The
Medical Society’ (1857), ’The Red
Cross Society’ (1876), ’The
Natural Sciences Society’ (1876).
With his assistance, two medical journals entered print: ’The Medical Register’ (1862) and ’The Medical Gazette’ (1865). During the Independence War (1877-1878) he was the head of the Army's sanitary service. Davila
is also credited with the invention of the ’Davila tincture’ for the treatment of cholera. Today,
the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, the largest of its
kind in Romania, is named in his honor.
● Tudor Vianu (1898–1964) was a Romanian literary
critic, art critic, poet, philosopher of culture, academic and translator. He had a major role on the reception and development
of Modernism in Romanian
literature and art. He was married to Elena Vianu, herself a literary critic, and was the father of Ion Vianu, a psychiatrist, writer and essayist.
● Ion Barbu (1895 –1961) was a Romanian mathematician and poet. His name is associated with the ’Mathematics Subject Classification’ number ’51C05’, which is a major posthumous recognition reserved only to
pioneers of investigations in an area of mathematical inquiry. As a poet, he is
known for his volume ’Mirrored
Play’ (Ro: ’Joc secund’), in which he sought to fulfill his vision of a poetry,
which he adhered to with the same virtues that he found in mathematics.
● Ștefan Odobleja (1902– 1978) was
a Romanian physician, scientist, philosopher and precursor of cybernetics. He was known for his
contributions to the study of cybernetics and artificial
intelligence. His major work, ’Psychologie
Consonantiste’, first published in 1938-39 in Paris,
introduced the concept of feedback in psychology.
● Grigore Alexandrescu (1810 – 1885) was a
nineteenth-century Romanian poet and translator, noted for
his fables with political undertones. He founded a periodical, called
’Albina Românească’.
Alexandrescu wrote ’Poezii’
(1832, 1838, 1839) and ’Meditații’ (1863), many of which were fables and satires influenced
by French literature.
● Grigore Moisil (1906–1973) was
a Romanian mathematician, computer pioneer,
and titular member of the Romanian Academy. His research was mainly in the
fields of mathematical logic (Łukasiewicz–Moisil
algebra), algebraic logic, MV-algebra and differential
equations. He is viewed as the father of computer science in Romania.
Moisil was also a member of the ’Academy of Sciences of Bologna’ and
of the ’International Institute of Philosophy’. In 1996, the ’IEEE
Computer Society’ awarded him posthumously the ’Computer Pioneer Award’.
● Dumitru Prunariu (1952– present) is a Romanian cosmonaut,
who flew in space aboard ’Soyuz 40’ spacecraft and ’Salyut
6’ space laboratory.
On
a personal NOTE about the Romanian cosmonaut Dumitru Prunariu:
I’m pleased to share that on January 21, 2025, we were absolutely delighted to
meet in person the Romanian cosmonaut
Dumitru Dorin Prunariu together with his lovely wife, who were guests of
honor at a reception organized by the Consulate General of Romania in Vancouver.
In a very enjoyable atmosphere, cosmonaut Prunariu
referred to the event he is participating at, here in Vancouver (at the official invitation extended by the UBC – Outer Space Institute); an event focusing on the current programs to reach the Moon, to
next year's initiatives regarding astronaut incursions, including Canadians in Cosmos,
as well as to the projects he has in collaboration with other international
associations, with an interest in outer space and lunar landing. He also
presented the initiatives, in which he is directly participating, to expand and
intensify programs related to the Moon, in which the main players are the
United States of America and China. In this context, he also pointed out the
importance of the projects promoted by “Space X” and the programs for
colonizing the planet Mars. He also referred to the activity of the “Romanian
Space Agency”, to the projects and the progress in space exploration, and to the
prospects for new participation of young Romanians in space exploration
missions.
 |
| Together with the Romanian cosmonaut Dumitru Dorin Prunariu & his lovely wife |
Additional media exposure of Dumitru
Prunariu’s visit to Vancouver
Cosmonaut
Prunariu’s participation at the agreeable reception organized by the Consulate
General of Romania in Vancouver, on January 21, 2025 was highlighted in an
article written by our friend Dorina (“Dumitru
Dorin Prunariu în dialog cu comunitatea româno-canadiană din Vancouver“) –
article further published by a number of reputable organizations, such as:
“Uniunea Ziariștilor Profesioniști din România” (from
Romania),
“Observatorul” (from
Toronto) &
“Litoral Press” (from
Romania).
3)
About Little Union of the Romanian
Principalities
The Little Unification (Ro: ’Mica Unire’) celebrates
the political union of 2 principalities (Moldavia
& Wallachia), which is considered the foundation of modern
Romania. The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, also known
as "The Romanian United Principalities", was the official name of the
Romania following the 1859 election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as the ruling
prince (Ro: ’domnitor’) of both
territories. Years later, on December 1, 1918, the
Great Union happened
(Ro: ’Marea Unire’), when the 3
Romanian Principalities (Wallachia, Moldavia & Transylvania) became one
country, one voice, called ’Romania ’, and the day of
1 December became Romania's National Day.
As usual, we all liked our time together and promised
ourselves to meet more often because the joy that’s always in our midst when we
gather at our Circle is valuable and beneficial for each of us. We all are glad
that we are able to recognize our blessings and properly appreciate them!
Wrapping up my briefing here, I want to express once
again my most sincere gratitude for all those who were by my side this
fantastic evening and until our paths will meet again, from me only the best!
Alice
“People are divided into two parts:
some of them look
for something and cannot find anything, and others find it but are not
satisfied.“ (Mihai Eminescu)
This event has been delivered in Romanian Language, featuring Romanian culture.
● The official PRESS RELEASE featuring our festive annual celebration published on their official website, by the GENERAL CONSULATE OF ROMANIA IN VANCOUVER
● A social media POSTING featuring our festive annual celebration published on their official face-book page, by
the GENERAL CONSULATE OF ROMANIA IN VANCOUVER
● ARTICLE featuring our event on January 15, 2025, published on their official website by OBSERVATORUL (a well read newspaper from Toronto, Canada)
