Ion Valjan: With the Voice of Time. The Hypostasis of a Romanian Belle Epoque

• Authors: Ştefania Maria Custură
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Ion Valjan is the literary pseudonym of Ion Al. Vasilescu (1881-1960), famous lawyer, playwright, writer of memoirs, publicist and politician. Dramatic author in the line of Caragiale, he was the manager of The National Theatre in Bucharest between 1923 and 1924, and general manager of theatres between 1923 and 1926. He wrote drama, he collaborated with Sburătorul, Vremea, Rampa, being appreciated by the exigent literary critique of the inter-war period. After the war, in 1950, he was involved in a political trial, accused of high treason, espionage for Great Britain, and got sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, where he died. Valjan is the author of the only theatrical show, played in a communist prison, Revista Piteşti 59. Ion Valjan’s memoirs, With the Voice of Time. Memories, written during the Second World War, represent a turn back in time, into the age of the author’s childhood and adolescence, giving the contemporary reader the chance to travel in time and space, the end of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the past century projecting an authentic image, in the Romanian version of a Belle Epoque, interesting and extremely prolific for the Romanian cultural life. Also, evoking his childhood years spent in cities by the Danube (Călăraşi, Brăila, Turnu-Severin), Valjan unveils the harmonious meeting of different peoples and their mentalities, which transform the Danube Plain into an interethnic space of unique value.

Keywords

EN

Balcanism; identity; alterity; Romanian belle epoque

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 25-34

Dates

published

2014-12-01

online

2015-01-27

Contributors

author

Ştefania Maria Custură

• Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Miercurea Ciuc, Romania) Department of Humanities

References

• Alexandrescu, Sorin. 1998. Paradoxul român. [The Romanian Paradox.] Bucharest: Univers.
• Boia, Lucian. 2009.“Germanofilii” - elita intelectuală românească în anii primului război mondial. [“Germanophiles.” The Romanian intellectual elite in the years of the First World War.]
• Mihăilescu, C. Dan. 2003. Bucureşti. Carte de bucăţi. [Bucharest. Book of Bits and Pieces.] Bucharest: Editura Fundaţiei Pro.
• Ricoeur, Paul. 1990. Soi-même comme un autre. apud. Andreea Deciu. 2001.
• Nostalgiile identităţii. [The Nostalgia of Identity.] Cluj-Napoca: Dacia.
• Valjan, Ion. 2013. Cu glasul timpului. Amintiri. [With the Voice of Time. Memories.] Bucharest: Humanitas.

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/ausp-2015-0003