(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not an official Fulbright Program blog; the views expressed are my own and not those of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State or any of its partner organizations.)

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Need to know: Romanians in history and culture

Big names associated with or from Romania:
As I gather more information, I will add to the entry.

Personal:
  • Nancy's cardiologist. Went to Romania recently on a legacy tour with his sons to see where his father practiced medicine before WWII. He established a Jewish clinic, but because of the discrimination of the day, could not get appropriate licenses to operate. When Russia took over that part of Romania, his father was sent to Siberia where he remained for the duration of WWII. When released after the war, he immigrated to the US. So he says that being sentenced to Siberia saved his life.
  • Greg Dederian, former graduate student whose mother immigrated from Romania
  • Marie Campbell, friend whose grandfather immigrated from eastern Hungary, what is now Transylvania, in early 1900s.
Art:
  • Constantin Brancisi, sculptor
  • George Enescu, composer
  • Nicolae Grigorescu
Movies in Romania:
  • Bram Stoker's Dracula
  • Borat (opening scene of his hometown is Glod, Romania)
  • 4 weeks, 3 days, and 2 hours
  • Night Train: death, diamonds, mystery on a train
  • Le Concert: Andrei Simoniovich Filipov, conductor of the Bolshoi orchestra, who was fired for hiring Jewish musicians. Reconstitutes the orchestra to play in Paris 30 years later.
  • Blood and Chocolate: teenage werewolf movie set in Bucharest, noted as one of the sexiest dozen werewolves in movies (along with Dracula, Jacob Black in Twilight, and Jack Nicholson Wolf)
  • Joyeux Noel: scenes in Romania, set in Germany and France during WWII
Humanities:
  • Mircea Eliade, scholar of comparative religion, The Sacred and The Profane, Shamanism, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom
  • Radu Ionid, The Holocaust in Romania. Definitive history of the Antonescu regime, 1940-1944.
  • Nicolae Klepper, Taste of Romania (yes it's a cookbook)
  • Herta Muller, 2009 Nobel Prize for literature: The Land of Green Plums, The Passport
  • Elie Wiesel, 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. Night, based on his experiences in WWII concentration camps.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade#The_general_nature_of_religion
http://www.latinoreview.com/news/a-dozen-of-the-sexiest-werewolves-in-film-tv-9173
http://www.imdb.com/country/ro
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35722.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_country#Romania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel