Excerpts : Princess Marthe Bibesco Ana Blandiana Smaranda Braescu Madelene “Madi” Cancicov Nina Cassian Elena Ceausescu Ioana Celibidache Queen Elisabeth of Romania Princess Gregoire Ghica Princess Ileana of Romania Dora D’Istria Monica Lovinescu Ileana Malancioiu Queen Marie of Romania Dr. Agnes Kelly Murgoci Mabel Nandris Countess Anna de Noailles Ana Novac Oana Orlea Ana Pauker Marta Petreu Elisabeta Rizea of Nucsoara Sanda Stolojan Leontina Vaduva Anca Visdei Sabina Wurmbrand   Mabel Nandris Née Mabel Farrell, Scholar, Journalist, Translator, benefactor of Romanian causes, wife of Professor Grigore Nandris, (b. Ireland – d. Cambridge), Altruism: “All things I had done for Romania I had done “pe degeaba” (for nothing” n.t.).” Communication to the Author Biography: Mabel Farrel was the born in Ireland, the daughter of a country vicar. She was one of the first women to be admitted and take a degree from trinity College Dublin, after which she left Ireland to become a foreign correspondent for “The Balkan Herald”. Her journalist travels brought her to Romania, soon after WWI when she met her future husband Grigore Nandris. Their romantic encounter happened on the peak of a Carpathian mountain, where the Irish blue stocking was fascinated by the young scholar from Bukovina who spoke passionately about his love for Beethoven. They met again by chance, in Bucharest where Grigore Nandris proposed and Mabel accepted. Grigore NNandris came from a farming family and he must have been the first generation who went to higher education. His speciality was Old Slavonic and Byzantine studies. This brought them on a British Council lecture tour of Britain and Ireland in 1941, when the war broke out and the Soviets occupied Bukovina, Grigore’s ancestral land where the young couple had made their home. From then on the Nandris were stranded abroad without financial backing and without a home to return to, as their part of Bukovina was annexed by the Soviet Union and most of their relations who stayed behind were deported by Stalin to concentration camps (q.v. Anita nandris-Cudla). After the war ended Grigore Nandris was offered an academic post by the London University School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the couple made their home in Kew. Here Mabel became an indefatigable defender of the Romanian causes. She had translated many books, often without any payment from the author or the publisher, simply because she felt that it was a good cause and an honourable way to keep Romania in the public’s consciousness. She also lovingly supported her husband’s writings, by doing that invisible but indispensable typing, editing and proof reading work. Amongst her translations are Romanian fairy tales, the Siberian Memoirs of her sister-in-law (q.v. Anita nandris-Cudla), the Memoirs of prince Nicolae of Romania, “The Lost Foot steps”, the prison memoirs of Silviu Craciunas, which were subsequently translated in fourteen languages from the English edition which was Mabel’s work and many other books and articles, some which remained in manuscript and were published only posthumously. Mabel Nandris died in Cambridge. Bibliography: Translation Credits: - Ion Creanga, Folk Tales from Roumania, translated by Mabel Nandris (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952), pp. 102-119. No copyright notice. - NANDRIS-CUDLA, ANITA.: “Twenty years in Siberia” / translated from Romanian by Mabel Nandris ; with an afterword by Gheorghe Nandris. Bucuresti : Editura Fundatiei Culturale Romane, 1998 - Silviu Craciunas, “The Lost Footsteps” translated by Mabel Nandris. Collins & Harvill, London, 1961 >> Back to TOP