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
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Ana Blandiana
(pseudonym for OTILIA VALERIA COMAN
RUSAN) (b 1942, Timisoara) Living in Romania - Poet, Dissident,
Co-founder of the Civic Alliance
303. Morning:
“Morning Elegy”
At the beginning I promised to say nothing,
But later, in the morning
I saw you coming past the gates with bags of ashes
Scattering them as if one was sowing wheat.
As I could no longer contain myself, I shouted: What are you
doing? What are you doing?
It is for you that I had snowed all over town, the whole night,
It is for you that I had blanched everything, the whole night,
O if
You only could understand how difficult it is to snow!
Last night, you were hardly asleep, as I flew into space
It was dark and cold out there. I had to
Fly all the way to that single point where
The vacuum makes the suns spin and it snuffles them out,
And as I was still throbbing for a while in this corner
So that I could return and snow over you
The smallest snowflake I had to watch, weigh, approve,
Mature, make it glisten by looking at it,
And now I am feeling sleepy and exhausted and am feverish.
As I am watching you spreading the dust of that extinguished
fire
Over my immaculately white work, I am smiling telling you:
Much higher snowdrifts will come after me
And they will cover you with all the white in the world.
Do try to understand, from the very beginning, this law,
Gigantic snowdrifts will come after us
And you will run out of ashes.
And even the smallest babies will learn how to snow
And the white will cover your poor attempts of denying it.
And planet Earth will enter the whirl of planets
Like a star glistening with snow.
Translated from Romanian by Constantin Roman.
492. Tragedy of the Ridiculous:
“Stupefied and even prostrate, the feelings which engulfed
the Romanian intellectual, following the elections of 26th November
and 10th December (2000), respectively, are enhanced even more
as the two rounds unfolded against one of the most brilliant
operations of political manipulation: that effect whereby the
first candidate in the opinion polls offered the extremist counter-candidate
in the first round of elections a slice of the electorate, so
that in the second round it would secure not only an uncontested
victory, but furthermore the stature of a national saviour.
That is because the Press (more or less independent) as much
as the intellectual associations (with the notable exceptions
of the “Civic Alliance” and the “university Solidarity”)
have fallen in the trap to such a degree not even fathomed by
those who engineered the ploy and therefor gave birth to this
impossible if indigestible mixture of misfortune and insult.
The optimistic tragedy is the oxymoron title of one of the most
famous plays of the socialist realism. Who might be the person
who would have the stamina to write the tragedy of the Ridiculous,
now that the only thing that could save us remains the plain
realism?”
“Tragedia ridicola- Tableta de sambata” :
in “Romania Libera”, December 2000)
Biography
Ana Blandiana is one of the best contemporary Romanian poets
and also one who had been translated in many languages. In 1976
she is invited by the Club des Poetes in Paris to an international
festival of poetry where fellow poets from 37 other countries
were taking part. She is born Otilia Coman in Timisoara the
hero-city which in 1989 started the revolt which was going to
remove Ceausescu from power. She studies in Oradea and graduates
in Philology from the University of Cluj, where her debut at
the age of 17 is made in “Tribuna”. For a while she
is editor of the students weeklies but remains active publishing
in quick sequence three volumes of poetry: “First Person
plural” (1965), “Vulnerable Heel” (1966) and
“Third Sacrament” (1969) respectively which receives
the “Herder Prize”. Although a freelance columnist
for Cultural weeklies in Bucharest Blandiana’s poems are
banned in the 1980’s by Ceausescu’s censorship. The
conflict with the Communist dictator starts at a time when his
antics were more absurd and the cult of personality more degrading
against a background of sub-standard living conditions. In 1985
Blandiana manages to circumvent the draconian censorship by
publishing poems with a covert criticism of Ceausescu, in the
cultural weekley “Amphiteatre. The full meaning of her
poems is decoded too late to stop the publication and as a result
Blandiana is banned completely from publishing, her name is
erased from reference books and the poet barred from getting
into print again. Still Blandiana poems circulate by word of
mouth and disseminate in manuscripts scribbled on loose sheets,
becoming an oral ‘Samizdat”. As a result Blandiana
is denounced in 1988 as the author of a poem which became notorious
– “Motanul Arpagic” (“Tom cat Onion”),
this time a thinly disguised fable, poking fun at the dictator
represented by a Tom cat. The poet remains free, but in fact
a virtual prisoner in her home, with the post curtailed, her
telephone cut off, under constant secret police surevillance
on her outings and her visitors intimidated. This situation
lasts for over a year from 1988 until Ceausescu is shouted down
on 22nd December 1989, when restrictions are lifted and the
Securitate surveilance car parked in fron of her house finally
disappears. From now on Blandiana takes an active role in the
newly formed “The Front for National Salvation” but
soon realises that she is manipulated by the neo-Communist faction
and resigns her position in 1990. Feeling very strongly about
transparency and moral values in political life, she is one
of the founders of the “Alianta Civica’ and an active
critic cum moderator of the Coalition governments in post-Communist
Romania: her voice often speaking out as the conscience of the
people. In spite of her political involvement she still writes
and publishes several volumes of poetry and prose, dealing with,
amongst others women’s issues: “The architecture of
waves” (1990), “One hundred poems” (1991), “A
Drawer full of applause”. She is married to a fellow writer
– Rusan, but carries on writing under her maiden name pseudonym.
Bibliography:
Blandiana, Ana, “Arhitectura valurilor “(1990),
Blandiana, Ana, “100 de poeme” (1991),
Blandiana, Ana, “Sertarul cu aplauze”
Blandiana, Ana, “Persoana intiia plural “ (1964; "First-Person
Plural"),
Blandiana, Ana, “A treia taina” (1969; "The Third
Sacrament")
Blandiana, Ana, “Somnul din somn” (1977; "The
Sleep Within the Sleep").
Blandiana, Ana, “Stea de prada” (1985; "Star
of Prey").
Blandiana, Ana, “The Hour of Sand: Selected Poems 1969-1989”
(1990).
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