Notă despre jurnalul lui Thomas Mann

Note on Thomas Mann's Diary

Author(s): Alexandru Al. Şahighian / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 48/2003

Keywords: exile; Nazism; anti-Fascist fight

After Hitler’s coming to power, Th. Mann was faced with a difficult choice, opting in the end for the exile and the anti/Nazi fight.

WHAT SOCIETY ARE WE LIVING IN?

In ce societate traim?

Author(s): Richard Sennett / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: – Flexible society; coexistence between civil society – state; risk society; democracy; transparent society

A series of point of view expressed by several sociologists regarding various aspects of modern society. Here are some of them: flexibility; the absence of a centre around which events and ideas could coagulate; the tendency to concentrate power in the hands of ever fewer individuals or small groups; faiths and ideologies loose their leading role; the globalization tendency with its contrary effects; the ideal society is an utopia, prone to totalitarianism. A representative selection from the volume „In welcher Gesellschaft leben wir eigentlich?“, to which an article by the Romanian anthropologist and sociologist V. Mihailescu has been added.

Russian Literature Today

Literatura rusa de azi

Author(s): Karlheinz Kasper / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: recent Russian literature; Evgeny Popov; Vladimir Sorokin; Viktor Pelevin

The German literary historian KK answers the questions of the Romanian Lettre Internationale on the new Russian literature. Literature represents a sensitive seismograph that registers the state of affairs and of mind in a certain geographical area at a certain historical time. The main authors and books of Russia’s literary scene mentioned by KK is a convincing proof in this respect.

Lomonossov

Lomonosov

Author(s): Andrei Bitov / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: Lomonossov; Katerina the Great; first Russian university.

An evocation of the enlightened Russian personality of the eighteenth-nineteenth century, a learned man who created the first university in Russia, himself a „university“ as Pushkin characterized him. Underestimated as a poet, overestimated as a scientist, a man of his time, a keen observer of the surrounding reality, a far-sighted philosopher who foresaw later scientific discoveries and warned his contemporaries against political developments in his own country.

Part of the Net

Parte din retea

Author(s): Andrei Gorzo / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: internet; virtual world; chat; computer games.

The internet – the virtual world where people meet, „chat“, play games,, „fight“ with each other, compete. The examples given by the author demonstrate that more and more people of various ages and walks of life use this network to „socialize“.

The Hitlerist Past “in Dead Angle”

Trecutul hitlerist "in unghi mort"

Author(s): Christine Resch / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: Traudl Junge; Hitler; Nazism; dictatorship; the perpetrators’ generation; post-war myths.

A movie-interview about the last secretary of the Führer, that lacks the critical approach of the evoked epoch, which has caused controversies

The Girl with an Earring

Fata cu cercel

Author(s): Tracy Chevalier / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

A fragment from Tracy Chevalier’s novel The Ring with a Pearl.

Destin(ation): Ithaca

Destin(atia) Ithaca

Author(s): Alberto Manguel / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: cultural memory; migration; urban geography.

A cultural journey on a literary map offers landmarks for the author’s wandering from one geographical place to the other on world’s map.

Men and women in “Cosa Nostra”

Barbatii si femeile din "Cosa Nostra"

Author(s): Valeria Pizzini Gambetta / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: Italian Mafia; Cosa Nostra; Sicilian Mafia

A excursion in the internal laws of the Italian Mafia “Cosa Nostra” that regulates the role played by women in this organization.

Sum and Rest

Suma si restul

Author(s): Rodica Culcer / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: Putin; the Kursk submarine; Tchetchnians; corruption; terrorism; liberal intellighentzia; censorship in Russia.

A short and pertinent analysis of the situation in Russia that explains the popularity Putin enjoys with the electorate. The economic growth of the past ten years is a positive aspect that has consolidated his position, along with the internal political situation oscilating between stability and terrorist threats. On the other hand, any objective observer cannot ignore the other side of Russia’s current reality – dubious oligarchs, poverty, endemic tuberculosis and Aids, radiations... On this context, what is Russia’s future?

Is Russia Sick?

Rusia e bolnava?

Author(s): Adrian Cioroianu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: fall of Communism; Soviet Empire; democratic capitalism; Russia; Putin; Cold War.

Is Russia on its death bed, as some observers and commentators assert? This is the question that the author tries to answer by commenting on several opinions expressed by former dissidents (Bukovsky, among others) who, after the fall of Communism and of the former Soviet Empire, consider that Russia, invaded by all the biases of the capitalist world and after having lost the Cold war, is dying. The author’s opinion is that Russia has many chances to survive.

A Grain Between Millstones

Un graunte intre pietrele de moara

Author(s): Alexandr Soljenitin / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: Andrej Sacharov; exile years; Communist Russia; ASlexandr Soljenitzyn

Notes from the exile years of a former dissident and a vivid conscience of his time and world who could not accept Communism but neither can he accept Western civilization that he dismisses in the name of Russia’s former values

Why isn’t Tchetchnia a Switzerland?

Cecenia - de ce nu-i o Elvetie

Author(s): Adrian Mihalache / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: Tchetchnia; Caucasian conflicts; Russian Empire

An excursion into the history of the Caucasian region – political reasons for being annexed to the Russian Empire, cultural differences between the occupying forces and the local population. Literary references create the image of a mountainous region that could have been characterized as a second Switzerland, but whose history transformed it into a vanquished people, whose spirituality, nevertheless, has not been defeated.

Note on a TV Show

Nota despre o emisiune TV

Author(s): Monica Gheţ / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: French-Russian relations; Sankt Petersburg; post-Communist young generation in Russia.

The author comments on a documentary broadcasted by TV5 and Figaro Magazine, presenting Sankt Petersburg as it is today and the situation in Russia as it is seen by the young Russian generation. The author also explains briefly the centuries-long relations between France and Russia and the spiritual alliance between the two countries.

History and Terror

Istorie si teroare

Author(s): Amitav Ghosh / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: Sri Lanka; Kashmir; September 11; contemporary terror; conflagrations of the ’80s; Paradise Lost as literary motif; 20th century migration.

„Paradise Lost“ is one of the literary motives endangered by insurgency and repression. Contrary to the hopes of immigrants in the past centuries, who imagined their future in the new world, present migrants – the author included – remember with nostalgia their past in the world they have been forced to leave. Dispersion, sadness and lack of any vision of the future – these are elements that characterize the past decades marked by terror and violence in various parts of the world.

Me, at Matinee and in the Evening

Eu, la matineu si seara

Author(s): B. Elvin / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: Ernest Hemingway; John Le Carre; Heinrich Böll; George Tomaziu; Saul Bellow; Buchenwald; Andre Gide; Paul Valery; Varlam Shalamov

Notes on writers, books, events, acquaintances, friends, incidental characters, over more than three decades, building up a colorful and vivid cultural picture extending from Bucharest to Berlin

A Short Cultural History of Absinth

Mica istorie culturala a Absintului

Author(s): Eduardo Berti / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: absinth; „fee verte“.

A medicine, an alcoholic drink, or a drug? The author tells the story of absinth from the eighteenth century to the present, where periods of enthusiasm alternate with prohibition. Rituals, cultural references and present revival of the public interest in absinth complete the excursion.

The Intellectual and the Power

Intelectualul si puterea

Author(s): Jose Antonio Marina / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: intellectual – society relation; truth and justice versus intellectual; intellectual and public opinion; personal power versus power of assertion; intelligence and ethics.

To define and fully understand the concept of “intellectual” one has to follow the history of this concept beginning with the end of the nineteenth century and to analyze the relation between thinking and the real world, theory and practice, the intellectual and power, political efficacy and moral cautiousness.

The Hong Kong Triads

Triadele din Hong Kong

Author(s): Chu Yiu Kong / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: – Mafia; Triads; migration of organized crimes; relations between the Chinese Communist elite and the Triads

The Asian Triads, their history and present position in China and Hong Kong represent not only a reality of this part of the world, but also a “rival” for the other Mafia groups in the Old World

The Bizarre Japanese Yakuza Network

Bizara retea japoneza Yakuza

Author(s): Peter Hill / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 45/2003

Keywords: Japan; Yakuza; Japanese Mafia

The Japanese organized crime is named Yakuza. Its strange laws, its position and role in the Japanese society and Japanese laws that sanctions this organization are the topics of this article.