saintluc62

Boots of Spanish Leather - Nanci Griffith Nanci Griffith & Emmylou Harris : Across The Great Divide Nanci Griffith & John Prine-Speed of the Sound of Lonelinesshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhxa_qOdNr0 Nanci Griffith - Tecumseh Valley - Live 1993 It's a Hard Life wherever you go - Nanci Griffith at Celtic Connections

Superbes photos

Volcans d'Auvergne Baie de Canche Parc du Marquenterre Néouvielle Aiguilles Rouges Forêt de la Massane Falaise de Cap Romain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzVRxT7Tpn4 relajacion musica Paisajes de Otono. Ideal Para Dormir. Relajación, música para calmar el alma. Pajaros Silvestres. Melodias con Piano y Guitarras. Paisajes de Invierno.Très bonne journée à toustes :blush:

Kate Wolf - Redtail Hawk Kate Wolf - Looking Back At You Kate Wolf - You Give Yourself to Love Kate Wolf - Shining!

SUEDE Triakel och Benny Andersson Swedish folk songs Triakel Gammel Sara - Old Sarah Triakel - Innan gryningen [The Silence of the Dawn] 1999 Triakel est un groupe folk suédoise. Ils effectuent surtout de vieilles chansons folkloriques suédois, particulièrement ceux de la région de Jämtland, mais incluent aussi des chansons d'artistes folk contemporain. Triakel a été fondée en 1995 par Emma Härdelin (Garmarna), Kjell-Erik Eriksson (Hoven Droven) et Janne Strömstedt (ancien Hoven membre Droven); Eriksson et Strömstedt avait pour donner des résultats en utilisant uniquement le violon et l'harmonium à New Year's Eve 1994 suite à une pari perdu, et la prestation a été un tel succès qu'ils ont décidé de continuer avec le projet. . Härdelin plus tard rejoint le groupe nouvellement formé en tant que chanteur, et le nom "Triakel" (une sorte de doux, de réglisse noire dans le dialecte suédois de Jämtland) a été choisi après une longue discussion. Sommaire [hide] 1 Discography 1 Discographie 1.1 Albums 1.1 Albums 1.2 Singles 1.2 Singles [*]2 External links 2 External links 2.1 Video 2.1 Vidéo // [ edit ] Discography [Modifier] Discographie [ edit ] Albums [Modifier] Albums Triakel (May 1998 , released by MNW Records Group AB ) Triakel (Mai 1998, publié par Groupe MNW Records AB) Vintervisor (Winter Songs) (November 2000 , released by Mono Music AB ) Vintervisor (Winter Songs) (Novembre 2000, publié par Mono Music AB) Sånger från 63° N (Songs from 63° N) (September 2004 , released by Triakel Records ) SANGER FRAN 63 ° N (Chansons à partir de 63 ° N) (Septembre 2004, publié par Triakel Records) Ten Years of Triakel ( 2005 , released by Triakel Records) Dix ans de Triakel (2005, publié par les Disques Triakel) [ edit ] Singles [Modifier] Singles Innan gryningen ( 1999 , featuring Benny Andersson of ABBA ) Innan gryningen (1999, avec Benny Andersson d'ABBA Site de Triakel : http://translate.google.fr/translate?hl=fr...GLL_fr%26sa%3DN

Patti LaBelle-Ain't No Way http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfIVfr-MZPg Yolanda Adams - Since The Last Time I Saw You http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGuUfH3VxRY Terence Trent D'Arby - Sign Your Name Ben E King + Juke - Stand By Me (1987)Bons slows à toustes et bonne soirée Faites pas trop de petits ce soir? :blush:

Abime de Bramabiau http://www.abime-de-bramabiau.com/

Mongolie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1QDcKxLORw yangchen lhamo tibet song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOAr8vTK8NM yangchen lhamo tibet song rin bo chen po ri nor bu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=977noD_VL7w Son site http://translate.google.fr/translate?hl=fr...l%3Dfr%26sa%3DN Sixth Album: Sixième de l'Album: Songs Under Moonshine Chansons sous Moonshine Let's Get Together Let's Get Together The Horse Rider The Horse Rider Songs Under Moonshine Chansons sous Moonshine On the Way to Pilgrimage Sur le chemin de pèlerinage Good Luck to You Bonne chance à vous Song of Happiness Song of Happiness The Beautiful Hometown The Beautiful Hometown Ala Gamo Ala Gamo Auspicious Bird Oiseau de bon augure Happy Song Happy Song Aro Khamba Aro khampas Love Song Love Song The Beautiful Girl The Beautiful Girl Ama Droma La Ama Droma La Place Where the Three Rivers Merge Endroit où les trois rivières de fusion Party in Shangri-La Party in Shangri-La

Pistolin Luc Junior Belloy l'Invulnérable " /> Bill Blanchart Astérix

Coucou :blush: USA Lucinda Williams - World Without Tears (live) Lucinda Williams - Essence (Live) Williams - Austin City Limits Something About What Happens When We Talk (Lucinda Williams) Lucinda Williams - Blue Lucinda Williams JOY (live) Lucinda Williams est une chanteuse américaine, née en 1953 à Lake Charles, en Louisiane. Elle grandit entre un père poète, professeur de littérature, et une mère musicienne. Sa musique est un mélange de blues, de folk et de musique country. Sa voix rocailleuse est tout autant au service de compositions originales que de chansons « traditionnelles ». Discographie Ramblin' On My Mind aka Ramblin' (1979) Happy Woman Blues (1980) Lucinda Williams (1988) Sweet Old World (1992) Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (1998) Essence (2001) World Without Tears (2003) Live @ The Fillmore (2005) West (2007) Little Honey (2008) Lu In '8 (live 2008)(4tracks

where do you go to my lovely http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO4IlDup-_I Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone - Notting Hill Soundtrack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00XC0uCMQ2s Marianne Faithfull - Guilt Something About What Happens When We Talk (Lucinda Williams)

cirrus minor John Denver - Country Roadshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFG5tDpm9ik Cat Stevens - Silent Sunlight (1972) Cat Stevens - I Want To Live In A Wigwam Buffy Sainte Marie - "The Big Ones Get Away"

oui, je sais, pas évident à trouver, mais maintenant tu sais et ceusses qui ont suivi savent aussi :blush: Bonne soirée

En1836, Prosper Merimée en fut le 2è inspecteur après Ludovic Vitet.Ils sillonnèrent la France pour repérer les édifices dont la conservation dépend d'une aide de l'état et les monuments historiques étaient nés.... Les premiers classés furent ceux figurant en photos sauf l'arc de Triomphe qui fut classé plus tard, donc l'intrus est Arc de Triomphe une fleur pour moi nanana :blush:

Angelo Branduardi Le seigneur des Bauxhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aldbWTpAZes Alla Fiera Dell'Est Angelo Branduardi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGLth4UeRI4 La Luna - Angelo Branduardi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1laW-xC744 Angelo Branduardi " Va où le vent te mène " http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1puifZOYKtg Ο ΣΟΥΛΤΑΝΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΒΑΒΥΛΩΝΑΣ ΚΑΙ Η ΓΥΝΑΙΚΑ " /> <H1 id=firstHeading class=firstHeading>Angelo Branduardi</H1><H3 id=siteSub> </H3> Branduardi à Naples, Italie, 2005Angelo Branduardi est un cantautore (auteur-compositeur) italien né le 12 février 1950 à Cuggiono, près de Milan. Sa famille s'installe à Gênes où il étudie le violon au Conservatoire Niccolò Paganini, avant d'être engagé comme soliste dans l'orchestre du Conservatoire. Plus tard, la famille d'Angelo Branduardi déménage à Milan, où il rencontre le poète italien Franco Fortini. Il suit des cours de philosophie et commence simultanément à composer des chansons. Au début des années 70, Angelo Branduardi rencontre Luisa Zappa qui écrira la plupart des textes de ses chansons, et deviendra sa femme. Multi-instrumentiste, il chante et il joue notamment du violon, de la guitare et du dulcimer. Branduardi enregistre son premier album Branduardi en 1974 et connaît dès la fin des années 1970 un succès phénoménal avec ses ritournelles, ses berceuses et ses danses populaires endiablées. Sa musique est généralement décrite comme une sorte de folk-rock d'influence médiévale. Il interprète en plusieurs langues ¿ italien, français, anglais, espagnol, langues anciennes ¿ les textes de Serge Essenine, Federico Garcia Lorca, François d'Assise et consacre un album complet à William Butler Yeats, le grand poète irlandais.Par ailleurs Angelo Branduardi s'est associé à plusieurs reprises aux oeuvres du compositeur français Alan Simon (Le petit Arthur, Excalibur la légende des celtes, Gaia)... Musicien sans concession, il a souvent fui le devant de la scène pour écrire des musiques de films, enregistrer de la musique ancienne (¿uvres de Giorgio Mainerio) ou peindre. éternel amateur, il est certainement un des derniers troubadours. Discographie selective [modifier] 1974: Branduardi '74 (sorti dans une version italienne et une version anglaise) 1975: La luna 1976: Alla fiera dell'est 1977: La pulce d'acqua 1978: é la foire de l'est (version française de Alla fiera dell'est) Highdown fair (version anglaise de Alla fiera dell'est) [*]1979: Cogli la prima mela La demoiselle (version française de La pulce d'acqua) [*]1980: Va où le vent te mène (version française de Cogli la prima mela) Life is the only teacher (version anglaise de Cogli la prima mela) Fables and fantasies (version anglaise de La pulce d'acqua) Gulliver, la luna e altri disegni [*]1981: Confession d'un malandrin (version française de Gulliver, la luna e altri disegni) Branduardi '81 (sorti également dans une version française) [*]1983: Cercando l'oro (sorti également, la même année, dans une version française sous le titre: Tout l'or du monde) [*]1986: Branduardi canta Yeats [*]1988: Pane e rose (sorti également, la même année, dans une version française sous le titre: Du pain et des roses) [*]1990: Il ladro [*]1992: Si può fare [*]1993: éa se fait (version française de Si può fare) [*]Futuro Antico 1 [*]1994: Domenica e lunedì [*]1995: La menace (version française de Domenica e lunedì) [*]1998: Il dito e la luna. [*]1999: Futuro Antico 2 (sur les traces des Patriarches) [*]2000: L'infinitamente piccolo (sorti également dans des versions: française, allemande, grecque et flamande) [*]2002: Futuro Antico 3 (Mantoue, la musique à la Cour des Gonzague) [*]2003: Altro ed altrove [*]2005: Platinum Collection (compilation comprenant un inédit et des réorchestrations) [*]2007: Futuro Antico 4 (Venise et le Carnaval) Liens externes [modifier] Wikimedia Commons propose des documents multimédia libres sur Angelo Branduardi. Site officiel d'Angelo Branduardi ABcom - Site multilingue sur Angelo Branduardi Branduardi.info Le Guide d'Angelo Branduardi europAMICI (Italien-français-alemanne sur Angelo Branduardi) Site en Italien sur Angelo Branduardi Autre Site en français Branduardi-ans Official Mailing List La Locanda del Malandrino - vari reportage di concerti con immagini e video

Bonjour Vicking, bonjour à toustes De vieilles reprises :blush: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWSCqqzcoyc DOM WSCHODZĄCEGO SŁOŃCA Wyk. Jacek Darabasz "Gin Iro No Michi" - Jacek Darabaszhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SngoKZ2vMeY ANIMALS RELAXING MUSIC Wyk Jacek Darabaszhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-6ZMZE43D8 Jacek Darabasz La_Comparsa

Hello :blush: Muddy Waters y Rolling Stones Muddy Waters - Blow Wind Blowhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwd1LsJyhis The Band & Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy(Live) Muddy Waters - Long Distance Callhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8i8pwyysKU Muddy Waters - Baby Please Don't Go

je me laisse emporter par tes vagues ondulantes Par les pensées qui me hantent, Par le bonheur qui m'est apporté chaque jour, Par cette eau, qui, des baches, s'écoule. Rêver nous promener main dans la main, Marcher des heures sur le sable fin, Cette envie de t'entendre gémir comme cet océan, Ce varech cette mer, vivante, mortelle souvent.... Cette dernière vague qui t'a fait échouer Sur ma plage désertée, abandonnée, Pour moi, tu es ma première sirène, En sortant de l'onde tu m'as dit: "je t'aime" Les battements de mon coeur, Au rythme des vagues, de mon bonheur. La plage a vu passer des gens heureux, Plus rarement un poète malheureux... Cette mer, chef d'orchestre, à l'occasion, Fêtant joyeusement une union, Gémissante pour une désillusion, Insupportable pour une séparation. Aujourd'hui la mélodie est joyeuse, Cette étendue d'eau merveilleuse, Elle me conduira vers toi, Elle me conduira à toi.

Farming in the Post - W.W.II Romania As Shown on Its Stamps In 1907 Romania, at that time a still underdeveloped country, has known an uprising of a part of its peasantry against the remainder of feudal rules and the resultant poverty. The stamp below in the middle was issued in a set celebrating the birth anniversary of the most important Romanian dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale. It shows a page of his book "1907 - From Spring to Fall" and the well known painting "1907" of the Romanian painter Octav Bancila (1872 - 1944), Sc. 814. The same painting was shown on a stamp issued in May 1967, Scott 1923. The Romanian government has bloodily repressed this also bloody uprising, but in 1920, thanks also to collaboration of big ground owners, it has operated a large reform and put an important part of poor peasantry in possession of ground. Thanks to a new dynamic due to a certain freedom to act, the farming has progressed then, and Romania became between the world wars of the 20th century an important exporter, often mentioned at that time as "The Granary" of the Europe. The situation radically changed after the W.W.II. Romania was practically occupied by the USSR, that imposed its own (pro-communist, then later entirely communist) government and the unique party system. To "celebrate" the new rulers of the country, Romanian post has issued many stamps with Lenin (first on Jan. 21, 1949, not shown) and even one with Stalin, as perforated and imperforated (see above on the right, Sc. 718, Stalin's 70th birth anniversary). Stalin's portrait is shown because the Romanian government will step by step implement the strategy that Stalin implemented in the Soviet Union, in order to "socialize" the agriculture of his country and to make the farmers, like all other social strata, dependent of the communist state. The first act of the communist government in the farming domain was the agrarian reform law of March 23, 1945. The big land owners (most of them fled the country) were expropriated and their land was distributed to peasantry. The reform was much less extensive that the reform of 1920, but was presented as the final solution of the agrarian problem. Above one can see on the sheet the Prime Minister Petru Groza personally distributing new property documents (sheet issued in June 1946, Mi. Block 31). This measure won for a short time sympathizers and voters for the new government. As usually after such reforms, a famine shortly followed (see above the "Help to Starving" sheet). The second act started in 1949, under the ruling of the First Secretary of the Romanian Workers Party, Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej (see above the stamp, Sc. 1822, and the sheet). The communist party officials, using the forces of the Securitate (Secret Police) and of the army, started by imposing to the majority of farmers the joining of the so called collective farms (named "kolkhoz" in USSR). The farmers were practically deprived of their ground and cattle, and were obliged to work together in these units. The recalcitrant who refused to join the collective farms were crudely repressed. The opposition of the peasantry was so important that the government hasn't dared to issue stamps on this event till 1951/1952. I show above several stamps from the Five Year Plan set, issued by the Romanian Popular Republic in 1952. The Plan started in 1951 and it failed, like many other similar plans started in other communist countries. But not all of its actions failed, unfortunately. For example on the green 7 Lei stamp (above, the first on the row) one can read: "In 1955 the socialist sector will prevail in the agriculture." Other two stamps of the Five Year Plan set of 1952 are also quite interesting. The red 3 Lei value show an armed soldier and is labeled: "The army of the R.P.R. (Romanian Popular Republic) defends our peaceful work." One can ask what has it to do with a Five year plan, but if you have read below about the collectivization, you will understand the real role of the army. On the dark green 30 Lei stamp one can read: "In the 5 years there will be afforested 32 times more than in 1940." Normally one could expect that equal periods of time are taken in a comparison, because only one year could be not very representative. The stamp issued in 1956 and labeled "5 years from the founding of collective farms, 1951 - 1956" is one of the most interesting in the Romanian post - W.W.II philately. It was issued the July 23, 1956 and was withdrawn after only a few days. The authors of the stamps have obviously taken the provisions of the Five Years Plan of 1951 as the starting point of collectivization, and not the earlier decision of the Communist party, that actually started the collectivization of agriculture. On October 18, 1956 the stamp was replaced by a new one, with the exactly same design (not shown, Sc. 1107), marked "7 years of collective farm, 1949 - 1956". On April 27, 1959 the post issued a set of 8 values, commemorating Ten Years of collective farming (Sc. 1269 - 1277.) The set is uninteresting, but some stamps display interesting labels, like Breed Fowls of Good Race, The Collective Farm "The Way to Abundance", More Milk, etc. One can understand also from this impulses that the collective farms continue for miserably performing in Romania, as in all other countries that applied the same system The most of production during those years actually came from the small individual parcels near its houses, that the peasantry could freely work. On April 27, 1962. was issued a set of 3 stamps (many thanks to Tom from UK for the scans), celebrating the Full Collectivization of the agriculture. This was the third act, the goal of the socialization of the whole Romanian farming being thus attained. The great result of this action will be that Romania, an important exporter of cereals before the W.W.II, will be obliged to import them, in order to feed its population. The sheet shown above was issued on June 29, 1982, Sc. 3076. Logically enough, it celebrates the 20th anniversary of the full collectivization of the farming in Romania. But it shows also the beginning of the forth and final farming act of the communist regime - the so called modernization of villages. The idea came from the secretary seneral of the Communist Party and Romania's president, Nicolae Ceausescu, shown above, on the right, on a stamp dedicated to his 70th birth anniversary (1987, Scott 3503) and 55 years of "revolutionary activity". He appears also on the stamp issued in 1986, Sc. 3379, dedicated to 65 years passed since the founding of the Romanian communist party. Just to note that Ceausescu was then 3 years old, this being just another expression of Ceausescu's personality cult, a Romania wide movement orchestrated by himself. Ceausescu decided to move by force the peasantry into blocks of flats, and to destroy the individual houses, in order to better control the rural population. The opposition that came from many villages (and less from governments) of Western Europe, twinned by the Operation Romanian Villages to Romanian ones in order to save them, slowed down a bit this last plan of the collectivization of the farming life. The fall of the Communism in 1989 put an end to this long destructive period of the Romanian farming life. Usually this sort of title leads to an article about the horrors of Nazism. This page is a bit different. It deals with horrors which the mainstream of modern historians and philosophers try to evade or forget - the crimes of Communism in the 20th century. The reason for this evasion is simple to understand. Most of the intellectuals still believe that the basic ideas behind Communism are generous and that only the implementation failed. Different reasons are given: bad places, bad people, bad moments. The purpose of this page is to illustrate, using some partly largely philatelic materials, how Communism was chosen (or imposed) and what consequences it had for people who had its extermination machine. The horrible Nazism period had a duration of about twelve years, and even if it finished over 50 years ago, it is still fully in the center of attention. Unfortunately, we hear much less about the fate of over a billion people who live today under communism. This short historical presentation, based on philatelic material, is therefore more relevant than ever. ROMANIA, THE DANUBE - BLACK SEA CANAL The first work on this canal started at the beginning of the 1950's. The freshly installed Communist regime decided eliminating many people it declared as enemies, and silencing the rest of the population at the same time. The Canal was an immense concentration camp, with many thousands of prisoners. During those times a "political" joke was sufficient for rejoining the camps. Some of prisoners were not allowed to even use overcoats during the very cold local winters nor to receive medical aid. A lot of prisoners died of cold, inhuman working and living conditions, and lack of medical attention. In 1951, in a set dedicated to the 1951-1955 Five Year Plan (a plan that failed miserably, like all others that followed), the 6 Lei value, shown above in its original and overprinted version of 1952, was dedicated to the Danube - Black Sea Canal (Scott 799-818, Michel 1276-1285). On the stamp one can read: "In the year 1955 the Danube - Black Sea canal will be put into operation". Work was stopped in 1953 and, after a parody of a trial, two state-employed engineers, who were not camp internees, were shot for allegedly sabotaging the project. Interestingly enough, for a long period (approximately 1955 - 1990) this stamp was banned from the Romanian catalogues and from the state philatelic commerce. It was a sore reminder of a never finished canal - a project that those in power felt that it should be as soon as possible forgotten . This sinister enterprise had many points of work. We will speak here only about one of them, named Peninsula. This forced work colony existed between 1951-1977, and it was named also the Extermination Camp Nr. 1. It was founded in the fall of 1950, in the North of the lake Siutghiol. on a peninsula that enters the lake, 5 Km away from the village Valea Neagra (Black Valley). Three years later the village was renamed The Light. About 8'000 people worked there (possible not only prisoners). The colony functioned also after the Canal works were closed. Between 1953-4 this was a camp for people who were imprisoned for non-denunciation, passing of the border, illegal wearing of arms. Closed in 1954, the camp was opened in 1955 for the common criminals, and it functioned till 1977. See above a post card, sent from the Colonia Peninsula, village Valea Neagră, cenzored by a square cancel with the number 40, passed by the distribution point Constanta the 8th of May.1952 and arrived at Calatele the 11th of May.1952. From the text: please send 4 white undershirts, 2 pairs of tennis shoes or sandals, brush, tooth paste and laundry soap. When you can, send also foodstuff (ten Kg). In each pack 100 cigarettes. (Many thanks to Dan Grecu. http://membres.lycos.fr/dgrecu/canalDMN.htm for his kind permission to reproduce as well the card, as the text referring to it and to the Peninsula). Thirty years later, more exactly in October 1975, the Romanian President Ceausescu, a loyal follower of those criminals who preceded him as rulers, restarted this megalomaniac project and, spending billions of dollars that his starving country badly needed, succeeded in finishing the works. At the time the project was restarted, water transportation had already begun being replaced by road transport, a development that only accelerated later and made the whole investment useless. The works started on another route, south of the city of Constanta, and they were finished in 1981. Later was finished also the part Poarta Alba - Midia - Navodari, one that practically followed the route of the old Canal. The souvenir sheet presented below (1985, Scott 3270, Michel 216) still evokes bad souvenirs to many Romanians. It shows the opening ceremony in Cernavoda, where the former President and the General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party, Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena (both executed five year later) inaugurated the new canal. Please notice on the material presented above the evolution of the name of the country from Republica Populara Romana toward the Republica Socialista Romania. Neither translation nor further comments are necessary. CENSUS AND MAPS Census: periodic governmental count of population (Merriam-Webster, 1989). The idea of this page comes from a discussion in which my talking partner wondered if it would be possible to write something interesting about the census stamps. In my opinion it is possible; it is up to my readers to judge if I succeeded or not in this task. The above stamps were issued on December 24, 1930 by the Romanian post (Scott 380-383, Mi. 393-396). I have got them for free from a Romanian collector, because I have bought some stamps from him in a philatelic club in Bucharest (opened daily on the Calea Dorobanti) and because they aren't in perfect shape. These are the first Romanian census stamps. They were issued in a period when the country experienced a long period of economic expansion. The stamp valued 1 Leu shows the map of Romania (at that time 20% bigger than today); the other three stamps show a mother with her child, the mother holding a census card in her left hand. The print run was of 200,000 sets. The blue stamp above, on the left, was issued on January 25, 1948. It is the Scott 678, Mi. 1093. It was printed in 1,000,000 copies. On the right is shown its overprinted version of 1952, Sc. 819A, Mi 1299 (print run: 96,150) . It is not a simply coincidence this was the first stamp of the newly proclaimed Romanian Popular Republic, the census being a political and economic action, perfectly planned by the new communist government . The information collected during this mandatory census was later used in the process of nationalization, i.e. of confiscation of private properties by the state, without compensation. The census stamps of 1948 displays the new map of the country and some workers and peasants. The new map of the country can be easily compared with that shown on the stamp issued in 1930 and with that shown on the sheet dedicated to the so called "Great Union", issued in 1994 (we show here the already corrected version of the sheet, that was firstly issued in 1993, when the 75th anniversary of the union was celebrated). Take also a look on the Tourism sheet, issued in 1967, Sc.1937. The missing provinces from the North-East, named Bessarabia and Bucovina, were (re)annexed by the neighbor and "liberator", the USSR, after the WW II. Eight years later the socialist state, now victorious in each respect over his own people, wanted a confirmation of its politics and organized a new census. This is reflected on the green stamps shown above, Scott 1081 & a, Michel 1564 & I, the print run of the regular stamp being of 832,000 pieces. The rare variety displayed on the left has the center inverted. On the image one can recognize a happy family with two children and the inverted map of Romania. The whole country was actually turned upside down, and this during tragic 45 years. To be complete, we show also the (blue) census stamp issued in 1992, Sc. 3693. The National Museum of Art of Romania Byzantium after Byzantium The theory of the Byzantine permanence has today an ever increasing number of proponents. A radical branch of modern historiography placed the fall of the Lower Empire in 1204, with the establishing of the "Latins" in Constantinople; the chronology in most textbooks stops at the year of the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, 1453, when the Byzantine political power disappeared, destroyed by the armies of Mehmed II. Nevertheless, historians no longer deny that for centuries, until the down of the modern age with the establishment of national states in Southeastern Europe, the institutions and ideas in this part of the world preserved and defended the only form of civilization to which they were culturally connected: those of Byzantium. The formula Byzantium after Byzantium concisely defines some of the most dramatic centuries of world history. It evokes the amazing vitality of the Hellenic-Latin synthesis which fulfilled throughout the Middle Ages the high calling to educate and guide people, even after they fell into a long period of slavery. It also points out the antecedents of a great part of European civilization which has its origins in this superb civilization, comprising all the best that the Old World had to offer. (After Virgil Candea, Introduction to Byzantium after Byzantium by Nicolae Iorga, ISBN 973-9432-09-3). The icon of Saints Simeon and Sava, shown on the right, is exposed in the National Museum of Arts of Romania. It originates from the cathedral Curtea de Arges. It's a Walachian workshop, painted between 1522 - 1523, tempera on wood. This votive icon belongs to the so-called group of "family icons" from the time of Prince Neagoe Basarab. His wife Despina Militza was the commissioner of the icon. She had close cultural links with her native Serbia, which accounts for the iconographic theme, the typology of the faces and the icon's execution, as well as for the presence of the two national Serbian saints. St. Simeon is depicted as a monk and St Sava as a bishop - a hint at the part he played in the organization of the Serbian Church in the 13th century. Kneeling in prayer at their feet is Despina Militza in mourning, following the death of her son, Teodosie (an event which dates the icon to 1522-1523). Next to her, the two princesses, Stana and Roxanda, are shown in the same attitude but wearing ceremonial costumes and gold crowns. Stylistically, the icon belong to 16th century Walachian painting. The modeling of faces, the oblong eyes, the angular folds of the costumes recall of mural painting in the cathedral Curtea de Arges, the work of a group of master painters directed by Dobromir of Targoviste (After Ana Dobjanschi, in "The National Museum of Art of Romania"). The different stamps displayed above show monasteries and churches from Romania. Please move the mouse pointer over the stamps for more information The National Museum of Art of Romania Art in Monasteries Byzantium endured through people and through autonomies, namely through that which, spiritually or politically, had maintained a relative freedom after the conquest of Constantinople. Among the people - exiles, clerics, scholars, merchants, and high officials - the most important were the archons and the princes. Among the autonomies, the most powerful and the most efficient were Moldavia and Walachia, much more so than the Christian communities on the continent or on the islands, at Athos or in the oriental patriarchies. The institutions, ideas, aspirations, education, way of life, and the superior type of human realization, everything that represented the grandeur of the world whose defeated descendants remained faithful to it were saved by hierarchs, archons, and Romanians. Due to them one can speak of a Byzantium after Byzantium. Or, as the historian Nicolae Iorga wrote: "There was a time when it appeared that the entire Byzantine, Balkan legacy would be inherited by the Romanian princes who, as the only ones who remained standing among the Christians, showed that they wanted to preserve it and that they were capable to sacrifice themselves for it". (After Virgil Candea, Introduction to Byzantium after Byzantium by Nicolae Iorga, ISBN 973-9432-09-3). In the Eastern Orthodox service, the kivotos is a vessel used for keeping the Holy Gifts; usually it looks like a model of the church to which it belongs. The kivotos shown on the right was presented to Hurezi monastery by its founder, Prince Constantin Brancoveanu. Provenance: Hurezi monastery (Valcea county). 1691 - 1692. Hammered silver, chiseled, gilded, polychrome application. H: 44.5 cm; L: 37 cm. Typical of the style which developed in the second half of the sixteen century, during the reigns of Cantacuzino and Brancoveanu, the kivotos impresses with its dimensions and the quality of execution. It is the most sumptuous piece of medieval Romanian silverwork in the collection of the museum. It has the shape of an Orthodox church with apostles under the arcades. Roth their figures and the scenes above the arcades are set against a colored enamel background. Floral patterns decorate the upper part of the kivotos and the windows of the high turrets. (After Victor Simion, in "The National Museum of Art of Romania"). The different stamps displayed above show monasteries and churches from Romania. Please move the mouse pointer over the stamps for more information The National Museum of Art of Romania The Curtea de Arges Cathedral and the Princess Roxanda The National Museum of Art of Romania re-opened recently, so I took advantage of my trip to Bucharest for pay a visit to the museum. From the Department of Medieval Art I have chosen to show you on this page a fresco fragment of the master Dobromir from Targoviste, painted in 1526. The fragment was taken from the cathedral in Curtea de Arges (read Arjesh) and shows one of the founders' portraits, originally located in the pronaos. The fragment was detached in 1881 - 1886, during a restoration. The Curtea de Arges cathedral and monastery is the place where many princes and kings of Romania are buried. The fresco on the stamp above, displayed on the left, shows the Walachian prince Neagoe Basarab, the initial founder of the cathedral and the first prince who was buried there, in 1521. The cathedral was sanctificated by Patriarch Teolipt I of Constantinopole, who created an ecumenical center at this seat (after N. Iorga). The fresco showing the Prince Basarab is situated in the cathedral itself. The stamp shown below on the left, dedicated to the 475th anniversary of the monastery, presents also the Prince Neagoe Basarab and his wife, the Princess Despina Militza. The Curtea de Arges cathedral appeared several times on the Romanian stamps, so I have the privilege to show many of them throughout this page. Unfortunately the fresco of Princess Roxanda hasn't appeared on a stamp yet, but it is so interesting that I have put it on this page too, in the hope that this wonderful work of art will be one day shown by the Romanian post. Princess Roxanda's portrait is part of the votive scene which make the completion of the painting found previously in the Curtea de Arges cathedral. It was there paired with the painting of her husband, the Prince Radu de la Afumati. Roxanda, depicted as the official founder, is holding the model of the church. She is wearing a ceremonial costume: white shirt with very large sleeves, pleated red dress and an Italian velvet mantle with gold motifs, and a fur collar folded over her shoulders. Her rich crown with fleurons is placed over a pearl string network which covers her hair. According to the Serbian fashion, her head-dress has prependoulia pendants which hang from her temple to the level of the lower jaw. Dobromir's painting perfectly matches the imposing size of the cathedral in Curtea de Arges. Apart from some seventeenth and eighteenth century retouches (partially removed during the restoration) the quality of his art is still noticeable in the precise and delicate drawing of the faces with oblong eyes and curved eyelashes, the warm and light modeling of the flesh. From the Voronet Monastery A nun monastery consecrated to St.George, Voronet lies at walking distance from the Gura Humorului town. An old Romanian chronicle written by Ion Neculce records that Stephen the Great founded Voronet Monastery in 1488 to fulfil a pledge to the hermit Daniil who had encouraged the ruling prince of Moldavia to chase the Turks from Wallachia. After having won the battle against the Turks, Stephen erected Voronet in three months and 21 days, on the very spot Daniil had his small wooden hermitage. Its interior and exterior paintings were made later on, between 1534-1535, during prince Petru Rares' rule and at the behest of Metropolitan Grigore Rosca, a salient scholar of his time, who also added to it a porch in 1547. Voronet Monastery is probably the most accomplished sample of artistic achievement in Moldavian architecture and painting. The monastery was built at a time of peace with the Turks, when Stephen had centralized the state, giving a new impetus to its economy and culture. The Church has a trefoil form proper to the medieval Moldavian architectural style, predominantly Byzantine. Voronet is quite impressive by its size, i.e. 25.50 m long (apart from the porch), and 7.70 m wide. The doors of the porch have a Renaissance framing, whereas the stone carvings of the broken arches at doors and windows belong to the Gothic style. The existence of exterior buttresses signal a Roman and Gothic architectural influence in the strengthening of constructions, and hence the affiliation to western styles of art. The paintings on the church walls which have been made by masters whose names remained unknown, except that of Marcu, master painter, whose name is inscribed on the left side of the entrance door, have a distinctive chromatic harmony, a special manner of composition, nerve and clarity. They are imbued with the softness and warmth of the Moldavian spirit, whereas their colors were drawn from the surrounding nature abounding in blue and green. Voronet Monastery has been dubbed the "Oriental Sistine Chapel", whereas Voronet blue, a color obtained from lapis lazuli entered the lexicon of art alongside Titian red and Veronese green. The artistic approach of painters has a warm humanism, as religious scenes depict Moldavian living people of those times. Thus the angels of the frescoes have the sweet faces of Moldavian women, the archangels blow the bucium - a Romanian shepherd's musical instrument similar to an alpenhorn-, the souls carried to heaven are wrapped in Moldavian towels, whereas the souls doomed to the fire of hell wear turbans just like the Turks - Moldavia's fierce enemies at the time. The "Last Judgement", painted on the western wall of the church, is probably the finest composition among the paintings of the monasteries in Moldavia. In the fire of hell (a grand funnel of live coals opening at the feet of Jesus), sinners among whom, illustrious characters, kings, popes are struggling their way out. Near the seat of judgement, Adam and Eve are represented, along with bands of prophets, hierarchs, martyrs and Moses. In another illustration, a hand is holding the scales of justice where the sins of mankind judgement are being weighed. To the right and to the left, the devils are quarreling for possession of the accused. Among the sinners, there are many Turks and Tartars, with harsh faces and fierce looks. The "Resurrection of the Dead", a very dramatic scene, is performed to the sound of the bucium. The animals, too, take part in the judgement, handing back fragments of human torsos to complete the bodies that were torn to pieces by wild beasts. The deer alone has nothing to hand back, for in Romanian folklore it stands for innocence. At the Gate of Heaven people rush to get in; the painter wishes to express humorously how people hurry to enter the Garden of Eden. The southern wall displays "Jesse's Tree", the fabulous genealogy of Jesus. A fresco including eight panels and almost one hundred characters develops in luxurious interweaving of vine branches and tendrils. Also on the southern side are painted the portraits of Grigore Rosca and Daniil the Hermit. On the northern wall, more exposed to the elements of weather, there are still a few elements representing the "Creation of the World" and a popular legend, "Temptation of Adam", which is also painted at Sucevita and Moldovita monasteries. Among the paintings on the interior walls of the church mentioned should be made of "The Last Supper", wheareas the nave holds a painting representing Stephen the Great, his wife, Lady Maria Voichita, and their son, Bogdan. The chair of the ruler in the church is a masterpiece of wood carving. The history of the Romanian culture has included Voronet Monastery as a place of reference where historic and religious works were issued. Among them, it is worth mentioning "The Old Manuscript from Voronet" and "The Psalm Book from Voronet". Daniil the Hermit has been canonized as a saint and celebrated by the Orthodox Church on the 18th of December; his tomb is to be found on the right hand side of the narthex. (Source: after a Romanian travel site). Background: Voronet Monastery, outer wall painting. Links to other Monastery Frescoes pages: Introduction, Moldovita, Sucevita From the Moldovita Monastery The first monastery erected on the site was the one built by Alexander the Kind-Hearted (Alexandru cel Bun, 1400-1432), between 1402 and 1410, but it collapsed at the beginning of the 16th century because of the very heavy rains and ground sliding; its ruins can still be seen today. Moldovita Monastery that one can we see today dates back to 1532 and is due to ruling prince Petru Rares (1532-1546)*. It has, like Sucevita, the aspect of a fortress, with imposing towers and high, thick walls (6 m high, 1.2 m wide). According to the architectural tradition set by Stephen the Great (Stefan cel Mare), the church has a three-cusped plan, as well as an open porch. The masters who painted its interior and exterior walls have decorated them with scenes from 16th century Moldavian daily life. But the most interesting painting is the Siege of Constantinople on the south façade, relating to the Romanians' fights against foreign invasions, especially Turks. The painting combines scenes of the siege of Constantinople from 1453 with others referring to a previous such attempt made by the Persians, in 626. The frescoes are due to Toma of Suceava and were painted in 1537, when Petru Rares had not yet given up his fight against the Sultan. Against an intense blue background, you can also see the Hymn to the Virgin composed by Metropolitan Sergius in thanksgiving for her intervention, while further along is a lovely Tree of Jesse, with dozens of figures entwined in a foliage. The Last Judgement is also present, and displays apocalyptic images of dignitaries being taken along by Satan to Hell. Another valuable fresco is that of the Customs of Heaven, also present at Humor, Arbore and Voronet monasteries, which is inspired by folk legends. In the ¿customs' of heaven, the souls are judged as soon as they have died and go over several barriers before they enter Paradise with the angels' help, after having paid their tribute to devil publicans. This is the origin of an old Romanian tradition of throwing coins into a dead person's coffin or into the recently dug grave, or throwing coins into the rivers that are crossed over by a burial procession on their way to the graveyard. On the right side of the nave, there is a mural painting of Petru Rares and his family, presenting the monastery to Jesus. Moldovita's frescoes along with the ones at Voronet, have best preserved their colours which are astonishingly fresh and vivid. The two-story "clisarnita" with a circular tower houses a rich museum with 17th and 18th century books, as well as other monastic treasures, including a silver-chased Evangelistry presented by Catherine the Great, empress of Russia. The latter piece has not only a highly artistic and religious value, but also an intrinsic one, as each and every page of this book was made from the skin of an unborn lamb, killed together with his mother. (Source: after a Romanian travel site). Background: Voronet Monastery, outer wall painting. From the Sucevita Monastery And from the Arbore Church Sucevita is chronologically the last and greatest monastic ensemble among the painted monasteries in Bukovina, as it has the appearance of a real fortress, with towers, buttresses and watch roads. t was erected in 1581 by Gheorghe Movila, Bishop of Radauti, and consecrated to the Assumption in 1584. Ruling prince Ieremia Movila, Gheorghe Movila's brother, added to the church two open porches (to the north and to the south); he also built massive houses, thick surrounding walls and defense towers. The legend has it that an old woman had been working there for thirty years, carrying in her ox wagon stone for the construction of the monastery. This is the reason why a female head is carved on a black stone in the monastery's yard. The fortress structure of the site had a defensive role; it actually prevented the mural paintings (made in 1595-1596) from serious damaging as it happened with frescoes of other painted monasteries. Paintings at Sucevita were best preserved both on the outside and on the inside. Frescoes are painted in purple red and blue against an emerald green background. There is plenty of gold too, taken from the art of miniature. They belong to Romanian masters of the Moldavian school of painting - Ioan the Painter and his brother Sofronie from Suceava. They have a strongly narrative character and many of them represent scenes taken from the daily life of the 16th century Moldavia. The most outstanding paintings are the Ladder of Virtue, presenting the angels who assist the righteous enter the Paradise, while sinners are punished by a grinning demon, and the Last Judgement, left unfinished because its painter fell down from the scaffoldings and died. The latter one has scenes with the Romanians' traditional enemies, the Turks, getting ready for the Last Judgement, joined by Jews, who were also considered to be pagans. Outside the porch, is to be seen the terrible vision of the Apocalypse, displaying two-headed Beasts and the traditional rivers of fire. On the south wall, there is a remarkable Tree of Jesse, displaying both the human origin of Jesus, under the form of His family tree, and His divine ascendance, as the Prayers to Holy Virgin scene is also painted nearby. Theologically, the Tree of Jesse is a symbol of the continuity between the Old and the New Testaments, as well as of the Logos before and after the arising of Jesus. The Tree in Sucevita is an evolved version, as compared to the same scene at Voronet. The Crowning of the Virgin, a theme which is not common for Byzantine art, is a sample of the Polish influence over Moldavia (due also to the Movila family's close relations to Poland); it can be also related to a syncretic vision bringing together Western and Byzantine forms of art. Other important paintings at Sucevita are the Siege of Constantinople (1453), and a scene presenting the first two verses of the Genese. The Siege of Constantinople proves the great impact this historical event had upon Eastern civilization and culture; it gives one a notion of how the siege was perceived and artistically rendered more than a hundred years later. The two verses offset the divine presence in the first moments of Existence, when God had begun to create the world. In the nave, on the right side wall, one can see a faded votive painting of Elisabeta, Ieremia's wife, together with her children. Become a widow, she never saw them on the throne, as she died in a Sultan's harem, far away from her country. Ieremia and his brother Gheorghe are buried nearby. The museum of the monastery holds precious objects, among which manuscripts and embroideries donated by the Movila family. Important restoration works were carried on between 1960 and 1970. Situated at 30 km from Suceava, Arbore Monastery was built between the 2nd of April and the 29th of August 1503, by Luca Arbore, one of Stephen the Great's generals, in the village of Soloca, that he owned. The monument has been consecrated to the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. Having a rectangular plan, the church has walls made of raw stone and vaults made of brick. Smaller than other painted churches, Arbore has a gloomy narthex and a nave with large windows. There is no steeple, as it was built by a landowner, and not by a ruling prince. It has remarkable fresco exterior and interior paintings against a predominant green background, unlike Voronet, where blue predominates. The green is in five shadows and 47 hues combined with red, blue, yellow, pink and ochre. The secret of combining colors was kept by Moldavian master painters to their grave, and is now lost in the mist of time. However, scientists were able to identify thirty substances, including animal size, vinegar, egg, gall and hone The paintings were made by a team led by Dragos Coman from Iasi. Most of them represent scenes taken from the Genesis and the Saints' lives. They are delicate and vivid, whereas houses are drawn in perspective. The best preserved frescoes are found on the relatively sheltered south and west walls. Among the most valuable scenes one may see are The Hymn of the Prayers to the Virgin, The Siege of Constantinople, The Last Judgement, The Prodigal Son and many others. The Siege of Constantinople is a syncretic representation of the attacks of Persians, Avars and Slaves upon Constantinople in 617. The two heavy slabs of stone preserved near the church since the time it was painted have fifteen small holes which used to serve as containers for the mixing of colours, thus providing the large display of shades used by Moldavian painters. In the narthex one may find the tombs of the church founders, i.e. Luca Arbore and his wife, Iuliana. Inside the monastery, an ethnographic museum with a rich display of the region's most valuable assets is worth visiting. The monastery was restored between 1909-1914 and 1936-1937, and is a UNESCO protected site. (Source: after a Romanian travel site). Background: Voronet Monastery, outer wall painting. Mihai Eminescu on Stamps Dedicated to the poet of my youth There are artists that concentrate the poetical soul of their countries and citizens. One of this rare poets is the Romanian Mihai Eminescu, born Jan. 15, 1850, in Ipotesti, Moldavia, Ottoman Empire, and died June 15, 1889, in Bucharest, Romania. Any cultivated Romanian knows his poetry, like for example the verses (translated into English by the author of this site): Ce-ti doresc eu tie, dulce Romanie, Tara mea de glorii, tara mea de dor? Bratele nervoase, arma de tarie, La trecutu-ti mare, mare viitor!What I wish you, sweet Romania My country of glory, my country of longing? Nervous arms, the weapon of strength, To your great past, a great future! For this reason I have chosen to show an excerpt of his poetry on the front page of this site. Being so popular, different Romanian postal administrations have commemorated the great poet, and this independently of the ideological orientation of their respective governments. In order to get more information about the stamps displayed, please move the mouse pointer over them and read the text that appears in the pop-up window. Mihai Eminescu was the poet who transformed both the form and content of Romanian poetry, creating a school of poetry that strongly influenced Romanian writers and poets in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is considered as being the father of the so called Romanian literary language, for over a century the official language in Romania. Eminescu was educated in the Germano-Romanian cultural center of Cernauti (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine) and at the universities of Vienna (1869¿72) and Berlin (1872¿74), where he was influenced by German philosophy and Western literature. In 1874 he was appointed school inspector and librarian at the University of Iasi but soon resigned to take up the post of editor in chief of the conservative paper Timpul. His literary activity came to an end in 1883, when he suffered the onset of a mental disorder that led to his death in an asylum. Eminescu's talent was first revealed in 1870 by two poems published in Convorbiri literare, the organ of the Junimea society in Iasi. Other poems followed, and he became recognized as the foremost modern Romanian poet. Mystically inclined and of a melancholy disposition, he lived in the glory of the Romanian medieval past and in folklore, on which he based one of his outstanding poems, "Luceafãrul" (1883; "The Evening Star"). Due to this poem, Eminescu is often named the "Luceafãrul" of Romanian poetry, Luceafãrul having in Romanian the significance of a special, radiant person. Look, that star that's shining up there, so far away; Her light has traveled eons to meet our eye today. Perhaps she even perished a long, long time ago; only her light but now did cross the way we go. The icon of this now dead star slow in the sky it rises. She was, while we could not her see. Now that we see, she's vanished. So, just alike, when feelings faded, prey to the grinding wheels of time, the specter of our weathered love is doomed to haunt us for a while. To the star Eminescu's poetry has a distinctive simplicity of language, a masterly handling of rhyme and verse form, a profundity of thought, and a plasticity of expression which affected nearly every Romanian writer of his own period and after. His poems have been translated into several languages, including an English translation in 1930, but chiefly into German. Among his prose writings, apart from many studies and essays, the best-known are the stories "Cezara" and "The Poor Dionis" (1872). He is also the author of some renown fairy tales. After: Encyclopedia Britannica on-line. You can find here some of Eminescu's renown poems, as well original versions, as translations into English and into other languag CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI Brancusi, the greatest Romanian artists, was born 1876 in the village Hobita of the Judet (district) Gorj, into a large family of peasant extraction. He died in Paris on March 16, 1957. Considered one of the greatest 20th-century sculptors, his work profoundly influenced modern concepts of form in sculpture, painting, and industrial design. His sculptures are characterized by the simplicity of forms and the sensitive use of materials, combining the simplicity of the Romanian folk art with the refinement of the avant-garde movements of his time. His work profoundly influenced the modern concept of form in sculpture, painting and drawing. In his memories the artist said that his carriage and his art of life were deeply influenced by his country of origins and by the simplicity, common sense and the love of nature. For more information about the works of art displayed please point the stamps with the mouse index.) Brancusi studied art in Craiova and Bucharest and in 1904 went to Paris where he was in contact with Auguste Rodin and in 1909-1910 worked with Amedeo Modigliani. Brancusi's early works were influenced by Rodin and by the Impressionists, but after 1908 his distinctive style rapidly evolved. He found inspiration in African and prehistoric sculpture and, with the basic intention of laying bare the underlying nature of an image, he sought extreme simplification of form. In describing the evolution of his art, he said: "One arrives at simplicity ¿ as one approaches the real meaning of things". Two simple shapes predominate in his work: the egg and the elongated cylinder. An example of the former is Sleeping Muse (1906, Museum of Art, Bucharest), in which the figure is represented simply as a stylized ovoid head. Bird in Space (1919, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and in many other versions) is a long, graceful cylinder of polished metal, its lines reminiscent of the curve of a bird's wing. Here Brancusi refined the organic form to the point where it became almost totally abstract, a conceptual rather than an actual representation. He worked in metal, stone, and wood. By concentrating on pure form, Brancusi prepared the way for 20th-century abstract sculptors, for good and for bad. On subsequent four pages I will draw his work nearer, by using for exemplification scans of an even better quality. Follow me, my reader! Background: Constantin Brancusi,1911. Maiastra. Polished bronze. 55.6cm, high on a stone base. Tate Gallery, London.

ROMANIAN CLASSICAL STAMPS Bull Heads, 1858 - 1859 Victor Manta, PWO, AIJP. Suisse The renown Romanian (Moldavian) coat of arms stamps issued in 1858 belong to the jewels of the world philately. Hand stamped in very small quantities, they were already collected by the greatest stamps collectors of the past, like Count Ferrari and Burrus. They display the head of a (probably mythical) animal named Bour and for this reasons they are known in Romanian under the name of Capete de Bour. This animal is the symbol of Moldova (Moldavia) and his head appears also on later Romanian stamps, because Moldova became later a province of Romania. The recently becoming independent Republic of Moldova has also good reasons to consider these stamps as its first stamps. The values shown by the stamps are: 2 parale, 54 parale, 81 parale, 108 parale. The stamps presented above were sold in 1999 auction of the Swiss auction house Corinphila. See above some fake stamps, fabricated in Romania in 1881, and known under the name of Moroiu fakes. A 135 parale value is the result of the big fantasy of the faker, the highest issued value being of 108 parale. They aren't very dangerous, like the so called Sperati fakes. Next to it please take a look at the 40 parale value from the second Bull's Heads issue, 1859. Dracula is a famous character of the writer Bram Stocker (1847-1912), inspired by a Valachian prince of the 15th century. Describing the archetype of a vampire, the Dracula novel, published in 1897, was at the origin of numerous movies, like F. Murnau's "Nosferatu the Vampire (1922), and of those directed by T. Browning (1931) and T. Fisher (1958). Dracula lived in a castle situated in the middle of Carpathian mountains, in the region of Transilvania. Valachia and Transilvania are parts of Romania, and for this reason the Romanian Postal Administration has issued on May 5, 1997 a set of interesting stamps dedicated to Dracula and to his archetype, the Prince Vlad. The mentioned set was issued as part of a general European postal action, dedicated to "Stories and Legends". The stamp of 400L shows the portrait of the Prince Vlad and that of 4250L displays an image of the terrific vampire (brrrr!). Both labels show the feared Dracula's castle, where upon the legend the victims quenched the thirst of the vampire with their own blood. Strangly enough, the young and nice female victims weren't totally innocent, because upon legend the vampire could begin the feast only when his victims agreed to the moods of their preferred blood sucker. The labels display the text: Povesti si legende, meaning Stories and Legends. The whole set was designed by the artist P. Comisarschi. The run was of 120,000 sets, that were issued in sheets of 12 stamps and 8 labels. Please note the big difference in face values of both stamps (practically an one to ten ratio). The postcard, showing the Vlad Tepes Tower in the Carol I parc of Bucharest, was issued by the Internationa Forum of Postcards Collectors, Bucharest 1999. Please take a look at the portrait of the Prince Vlad (known under the name Tepes = the Impaler), the son of a prince known under an even so nice name: Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Devil). Vlad Tepes (1431-1476), pronounced as Tzepesh, has reigned during the years 1448, 1456-1462 and 1476. Even if he wasn't a vampire, he was renowned for being extremely cruel. Tepes and the powerful boyars (reach land owners) permanently fought each other, and very often Tepes' the Impaler enemies finished their lives quite uncomfortably, on the top of piles. The miniature sheet commemorates the 500th anniversary of the founding by the Prince Vlad of the city of Bucharest, the capital of Romania. The sheet was designed by Serban Zainea. The face value is of Lei 20, and the print run was of only 30'000 pieces. A short personal story related to the above sheet. When the sheet appeared in 1959, I was a school boy in Bucharest. I have started with collecting of Romanian stamps just one year earlier and I was advised to begin with the newer stamps, because they usually were less expensive. The Tepes sheet was freely available at face for several years, but it was the most expensive one issued after 1948 by the Romanian postal administration, representing about 2% of the salary of a school teacher. For this reason, I could only dream to have it in my collection. In the meantime I have changed my collecting interests, but nevertheless I have got it (see the proof above)! This happened 25 years later, far away from Romania, when a friend offered it to me as a gift. Of course I could not refuse it. We all know that the patience is the highest quality of a stamp collector, isn't it? So just wait enough time, and the stamp of your dreams will be graciously offered to you! :-) More Draculas were issued in 1997, as part of the European postal plan "Stories and Legend." The stamp on the left was issued by Great Britain (Scott 1754, SG 1980) and shows Dracula himself; that from the right was issued by Ireland and displays the vampire, approaching a nice victims (Scott 1087, SG 1141). Does the victim look afraid? Not for sure; anyway she should be a bit more attentive in the future (in the hope that she has a future yet). You can learn more about the Prince Vlad Tepes by clicking here. Just a small amplification of a really interesting article. The author states that "dracul" means in Romanian also "dragon". Actually it means just "devil". In Romanian language, the son of Mr. Dracul will be normally called "al Dracului", i.e. (the son) of the Dracul . The way from "Dracului" to "Dracula" is very short indeed. BTW, the Romanian connotation of "al Dracului" is not only diabolical, but also cute or tricky. ROMANIA IN THE WORLD WAR I Romania takes no part in the First Balkan War of 1912-13, fought to drive the Ottomans out of the western Balkans. In the Second Balkan War of June-July 1913 it gains Southern Dobrogea from Bulgaria. At the outset of WWI Romania remains neutral despite its alliance commitments to Austria. It joins the war on the Allied side in Aug. 27, 1916 (by declaring war on Austro-Hungary) after receiving territorial promises. On the same day the High Command Headquarters issued decree No.2798 proclaiming a state of siege. As a consequence of this, censorship procedures were established with the first day of censorship being August 27 1916. In the capital town of each county a censorship office was established by the military. All the mail from a particular county had to be censored at the capital town. German Occupation Stamps, cancelled in Bucharest in 1917 Romanian forces move into Transylvania but are driven out within two months. By Jan. 1917 German-Austrian and Bulgarian offensives have overrun most of the country Before the occupation of Bucharest, the Romanian government decided on November 12/25 1916 to move all the official institutions to Iasi which was the "historical capital" of Moldavia, in lands held by their Russian ally. Russia leaves the war early in 1918, and Romania is forced to accept the Treaty of Bucharest of May 7, 1918 that makes the country a client of Germany and Austria. Please see below a Romanian banknote issued in 1917 by the Romanian General Bank, that is "backed by a depot in cash at the Bank of the German Empire, Berlin." Romania yields control of the Carpathian passes to Austria and cedes Dobrogea and the mouths of the Danube partly to Bulgaria, partly to a condominium of Germany, Austria and Bulgaria. The Central Powers accept Romania's acquisition of Bessarabia from Russia. Please see below a German occupation stamp, 1917, and a send/replay stationary card, June 1917, both overprinted Rumänien (Romania). Romania ends the war with high casualities and little glory, but it has an intact army and no strong neighbors. It is able to acquire all of Bessarabia and the Bukovina, all of historic Transylvania with adjacent lands to the west, and most of the Banat. As a result, Romania after 1919 is twice the size of pre-war Romania. Romania's monarchic constitutional order survives the war with little immediate change. Most of Romania's borders today are those of 1919, but WWII costs it not only Bessarabia and northern Bukovina (annexed by Soviet Russia) and southern Dobrogea (restored to Bulgaria), but for 40 years also its freedom. After: http://dmorgan.web.wesleyan.edu/balkans/wwone.htm) Because the Romanian PA hasn't issued special stamps related to the WWI during the war, we show some interesting postcards, displaying foreign soldiers and the common text: Our Allies. They were designed by Steurer. In the first row soldiers from: England, Russia (Cossack), and France. The above soldiers are from: Japan, Belgium, and Serbia. FROM DICTATORSHIP TO FASCISM AND BACK (PART ONE) Carol II (1893-1953) was the king of Romania between 1930 and 1940. Son of the King Ferdinand I, Carol was born in Sinaia. He became crown prince in 1914, when his father ascended the throne. His first marriage, to a commoner, was dissolved, and in 1921 he married a Greek princess. Four years later he left his wife, renounced his right to the throne, and went into exile in order to live with his mistress, Magda Lupescu. He returned in 1930, at the invitation of Prime Minister Iuliu Maniu, and he was crowned king, replacing his young son, Michael, who had been placed on the throne under a regency in 1927. Despite opposition from the politicians, Lupescu joined Carol II in 1931. Following his authoritarian bent, Carol gave covert support to the Iron Guard, the Romanian Fascist movement, but later became alarmed by its grows and popularity. A contest between the king and the fascist Iron Guard ensued, with assassinations and massacres on both sides. He then (1938) established a royal dictatorship and had the Iron Guard leaders executed. The country remained neutral at the outbreak (1939) of World War II, but in 1940 it became a neutral partner of the Axis powers (Germany and Italy). Romania was powerless (1940) to resist Soviet demands for Bessarabia and N Bucovina or to oppose Bulgarian and Hungarian demands, backed by Germany, for the S Dobrogea, the Banat, Crisana-Maramures, and part of Transylvania. The Iron Guard, thirsty of power, rose in rebellion against Carol's surrender of these territories. King Carol was deposed (1940) and exiled, and Michael returned to the throne. The army gained increased influence and the Marshal Ion Antonescu became dictator. His next step will be the creation of a National-Legionary State. Carol II was a passionate stamp collector, and also for this reasons during his reign appeared some of the most beautiful Romanian stamps. Lupescu, Magda (Elena), Pronounced as: mägdä loopeskoo, (Hertza, Bukovina, Austrian Empire, 15 Sep 1899 - Estoril, Spain 29 Jun 1977) became the third wife of Carol II of Romania. Carol renounced in 1925 his succession to the throne for her, but after becoming king (1930) he installed her as his official mistress. She was accused of exerting a corrupting influence on Romanian politics; part of her unpopularity was imputed to her Jewish origin. Lupescu shared Carol's exile from 1940, and married (1947) him in Brazil, becoming Princess Elena. After the death of her husband (1953, in Portugal), she lived in Portugal and in France. On January 21, 2003 the Romanian government, the former royal family, and the Romanian Orthodox Church have agreed to bring the remains of King Carol II and of his third wife, Elena Lupescu, to Romania. This happened in the month of February 2003. They will be interred at the Curtea de Arges Monastery, that is the traditional burial place of Romanian royalty. The distance between their tombs will be of about 100m.The photograph was taken in Caribbean, in exile, after the abdication of Carol II. FROM DICTATORSHIP TO FASCISM AND BACK (PART TWO) Garda de Fier (Iron Guard), also called Totul Pentru Tara (All for the Fatherland) was a Romanian fascist and anti-Semitic movement, whose members were known as "Legionnaires." The organization was established in July 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu under the name of Legiunea Arhangehelului Mihail (Legion of the Archangel Michael), and was changed to the Iron Guard in 1929. Popular among students, members of the party took part in the pogrom in Oradea, on December 9, 1927. In other cities as well, the Legionnaires, who were organized into paramilitary units, committed acts of vandalism. See above a label of unknown origin, with a swastika behind Codreanu, and provided with the eloquent text: Eroul Studentimei = The Hero of the Students. Under pressure from Romanian's patron power, France, the Iron Guard was dissolved at the end of 1933. But despite its official dissolution, it continued to functions. Close ties with the Nazis came about in 1936. In 1937 it participated in the elections, under the name Totul Pentru Tara, and received the third largest segment of the vote. The growth of the Iron's Guard power was facilitated by the leniency with which it was treated by the government until 1938, when King Carol II banned all political activity. He also realized the threat the guard posed to his regime, and ordered that its leaders be executed, including their leader and founder Codreanu. In the summer of 1940, the king became reconciled to Codreanu's successor, Horia Sima, and appointed him to the cabinet. On September 6, 1940 Sima and Ion Antonescu formed a National Legionary government, the legionaries representing a half of the government. In the new proclaimed National-Legionary State, the Guard began a reign of terror against it political adversaries and the Jews. To this end, they enacted racist legislation, and ties with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were strengthened. The legionaries created a parallel political police, killed many former ministers and high officials (60 were killed in the Jilava prison in November 1940), persecuted the Jews and, under the pretext of romanianization, strip them of their property and shared the pray among them. From January 21 to 23, Sima staged a coup against Antonescu, which failed because the army and Hitler remained loyal to Antonescu. The abortive coup was accompanied by anti-Jewish riots in which 123 Jews were killed. After the rebellion was quashed, further anti - Jewish legislation was introduced, whose final goal was the total removal of Jews from Romanian life. The Iron Guard leaders took refuge in Germany, where they became bargaining cards for the Germans in their dealings with Antonescu. Both stamps reproduced above show the legionnaires' leader Codreanu. The first one was issued on 8th of November 1940 and commemorates the 13th anniversary of founding of the Iron Guard by the same Codreanu. The second, issued on 1st of December 1940, commemorates also the joining of Romania of the Axis powers. The stamp on the right, issued on the 1st of November 1942, shows the Marshall Antonescu and the young King Michael I. The stamps shown below, issued on January 13, 1941, and the sheet shown above, were dedicated to the Iron Guardists Marin and Mota, who perished in the Spanish Civil war, and who were celebrated as heroes of and by the Iron Guard movement. There they were opposed, among others, to other Romanians (mainly communists), who fought in the so called International Brigades. The Spanish war the first confrontation of the big totalitarian European movements, the fascism (in power in Germany - of national-socialist origin, and in Italy - a form of guild socialism) and the communism (in power since 1917 in the Soviet Union, and supported by all communist parties worldwide). Nicolae Iorga, 1871-1940, was a Romanian historian and statesman. A professor at the University of Bucharest, he founded (1910) and later led the National Democratic party; after World War I he was president of the Romanian national assembly. In 1931-32 he was premier of a coalition government under King Carol II. In November, 1940, Iorga was murdered by the Iron Guard legionnaires. His many fine historical works include detailed studies of Romanian religion, education, and literature, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches (5 vol., 1908-13), and History of the Rumanians (10 vol., 1935-39, in Romanian). After 1965, Iorga's reputation as a great nationalist historian was acknowledged by the Romanian Communists, who had hitherto played down his work. The above stamps appeared in in 1971 and in 1990. ROMANIA IN WORLD WAR II A PACT WITH THE DEVIL AGAINST HIS BROTHER Following the German-Soviet non-aggression pact of August 23, 1939 and the French capitulation in June 1940, the French-British guarantee for Romania's territorial integrity from April 1939 had little value. A Soviet ultimatum on June 26, 1940 forced the Romanian to surrender Northern Bucovina and Bessarabia. This ultimatum was the result of a secret clause of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact (that included the splitting of a part of Europe between Germany and USSR) and allowed the advance of the Soviet troops till the river Prut. On 30th August 1940 most of Transylvania had to be ceded to Hungary by German orders, and finally after negotiations with Bulgaria, the treaty of Craivora Sept. 7, 1940 made Romania return Southern Dobrudja. This way Romania lost in about two months a third of its national territory, constituted in 1918. King Carol II got the blame for these disasters and was forced to abdicate. His son Michael was once more proclaimed King of Romania. The pro-German general Ion Antonescu formed a Government with representatives for the Iron Guard (Romanian fascist movement), and German troops were stationed in the country. Without abolishing the monarchy, he ruled the country as a dictator and joined Germany in the war against the Soviet Union, in order to recover the lost provinces. The set presented above was issued on 11th October 1941 and it was dedicated to the so called brotherhood in arms between the Romanian and German troops. All stamps display on the bottom the text: "The holy war against the bolshevism". The very high surtax was destined to finance the Anti-Bolshevism crusade. Point on the stamps with the mouse index for more information. In the beginning of the war Romania again secured Bessarabia, Bucovina and even more - "Transnistria" - between the rivers Dniestr and Bug. As the war developed, however, the Romanian army suffered serious defeats, among others in the battle of Stalingrad. The set shown above is dedicated to the Centenary of Romanian Artillery and displays scenes of battles for Stalingrad (1943), Odessa (1941), Caucasus (1942) and Sevastopol (1942). The set shown above is the most interesting of all, being very explicit. It appeared on the first of November 1942 and commemorates the first anniversary of the liberation of Bessarabia. All stamps display the text: "One year since emancipation". The first stamp, Sc. B195, shows the King Michael, Antonescu, Hitler and Mussolini, and the map of Bessarabia in the background. On the second stamp (Sc. B197) the Romanian troops are crossing the Prut River to Retake Bessarabia. On the third stamp (Sc. B196) are shown the King Michael and the Marshal Antonescu. A dictatorship replaced another one, and, despite the changes, the situation won't improve in the future... War means, of course, casualties. Consiliul de Patronaj (1942 - 1944) was an official government charity in WW2, under the patronage first of the Queen Mother and later the president was the wife of Marshal Antonescu. It issued official charity stamps, that were often used on documents together with normal revenues. On 29/10/1944 Consiliul de Patronaj changed its name to Liga operelor sociale, and stopped its activities as a result of the changed political situation. The above sheet was issued on June 22, 1943, together with a set of three stamps (not shown). The print run was of 50,000 blocks. It was postally valid only during a month. ROMANIA IN THE WW II THE "LIBERATION" OF BUCOVINA AND TRANSNISTRIA The set shown below commemorates the first anniversary of liberation of Bucovina by Romanian troops. It was issued on November 1st, 1942 and shows Bucovina's coats of arms and regions. The grin of the national symbolic animal, the Bull, shown on the first stamps, looks full of promises... And indeed, the occupation of the capital of Bucovina, Czernovitz (Cernauti) on 5th of July 1941 started with a three days permission given to the glorious army of the National-Legionary State to rob and violate the part of the civil population considered as hostile, i.e. of the Jews. Later a small part of the city will be transformed by the Romanian government in a ghetto for the whole Jewish population. Transnistria was the name given to the territory found between the rivers Dniestr and Bug, and occupied by the Romanian and German troops. The stamps shown below on the left celebrate the first anniversary of the conquest of Transnistria. They were for use only in this territory, which included Odessa. Date of issue: December 1942; Scott B192-194. They display the statue of the historian Miron Costin (1633-1691), after a monument in Iasi. The both stamps on the right were issued on July 2, 1943 (Sc. 554-557) and commemorate the second anniversary of the annexation of Transnistria. The Prince Duca (dead 1683), displayed on both stamps, was Prince (Domn) of Moldova and Getman (Hatman = Ataman = Ruler) of Ukraine. The Antonescu regime used two different methods in its treatment of the Jews - one applied to the Jews of Bessarabia and Bucovina and another to the Jews of the Regat. Only in the former did he implement a policy of mass murder. On June 12, 1941, Hitler revealed to Antonescu his solution to the problem of the "Jews of the east." The Romanian army was ordered to imprison the Jews living in the cities, and the gendarmerie was assigned the task of killing every Jew found in the rural areas. In fact, the annihilation of the Jews was carried out by German and Romanian army units, assisted by Einsatzgruppe D. In the first phase of the operation 160,000 Jews were killed, with local Ukrainians and Romanians taking part in the slaughter. On September 15, 1941, Antonescu ordered the expulsion of the 150,000 surviving Jews to Transnistria. En route, tens of thousands died and Transnistria became a mass grave. The Romanian army and gendarmerie also took part in the killing of tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews. Just to mention at the end that the Romanian stamps related to the WW II, Antonescu, Codreanu and to the occupied territories were prohibited in the communist Romania, i.e. during over 40 years, more exactly between 1947 and 1989. The displaying or commercialization of them was severely punished, so many collectors feared persecutions and destroyed them during that difficult period. Source: Microsoft Encarta, Simon Wiesenthal Multimedia Learning ROMANIA IN WORLD WAR II MICHAEL, THE LAST ROMANIAN KING Michael, born 1921, was king of Romania between 1927-30 and 1940-47). His father, Prince Carol (later King Carol II), renounced his right of succession in 1925, and young Michael ascended the throne under a regency on the death of Ferdinand. However, in 1930 his father returned to be recognized as king. When the King Carol II abdicated in 1940, Michael once more became king. Please see above and below portraits of King Michael, taken from different periods. On the first stamp King Michael is shown together with the Marshal Ion Antonescu (and with the Prince Michael the Brave between both). The stamp was issued on Sept. 6, 1943, and commemorated the 3rd anniversary of the government of King Michael and of Marshal Antonescu. In 1944 he overthrew the dictatorship of Ion Antonescu. In August, 1944, two Soviet army groups entered Romania. Michael overthrew Antonescu's regime, concluded an armistice with the Allies, surrendered to the USSR, and ordered Romanian troops to fight on the Allied side. The set issued on May 9, 1948 (Sc. B404-408, CB18-19) commemorates the brotherhood in arms between Romanian and Soviet armies during the WW II. The Romanian army participated in the liberation of Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia from the Nazi troops. Eventually compare this set with the brotherhood set issued in 1941 and dedicated to the collaboration between Romanian in German armies. Conflicts with the Communist-dominated coalition government, installed after World War II and supported by the USSR, led to the forced abdication of King Michael (Dec., 1947) and to his exile; he was stripped of his Romanian citizenship a year later. The peace treaty between Romania and the Allies, signed at Paris in 1947, in essence confirmed the armistice terms of 1944. Romania recovered Transylvania, but lost definitively Bessarabia, N Bukovina, and S Dobrudja. Romania was proclaimed a people's republic in 1947. King Michael married Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma in 1948; they live in Switzerland. Since the collapse (1989) of Communist rule in Romania, he has visited the country, but initially had problems with the government led by the President Iliescu. His citizenship was restored in 1997. The above stamps were issued on August 15, 1947 and April 8, 1948 respectively. On the second stamp the image of the king and the crown are heavily overprinted. The RPR overprint means Republica Populara Romana (Romanian Popular Republic). This marked also philatelically the start of a new (and the longest) dictatorship period in the tumultuous history of the modern Romania. Only the happy nations don't have history.

Dorcami, je me permet de faire connaître toute l'histoire de ton pays par les timbres. Désolé pour celles et ceux qui ne parlent pas l'anglais :blush: Je post donc sur ton topic... Si tu n'aimes pas, tu me le dis en privé, j'effacerai THE NAME OF THE COUNTRY AS IT APPEARS ON ITS STAMPS Quite often people ask questions about the name of Romania, especially because it appears differently, depending of the period when the stamps were issued. This is possible the first attempt in the philatelic literature to give a full explanation of the different modes in which this country's name was written, with some explanations why the name apparently changed. The Romanian people names its country România, with the emphasis on the "i". Please note the circumflex accent on the "a". This vowel doesn't exist in English, but is very used in Russian (written as "y" in English) and Turkish languages. Try to read it as the second "e" in the English word "yesterday". In English the name of the country is either Romania or Rumania. I prefer the first version, because it is closer to the name of the country in Romanian, and also to its origin (Roma, the capital of Italy, in Italian). In older stamp catalogues (like Stanley Gibbons) the name of the country appears sometimes as Roumania. Roumanie is the name of the country in French, Rumynia in Russian, Rumänien in German. On the Romania stamps the name of the country appears in the following forms: ROMANIA or ROMANIA POSTA. Often as ROMéNIA, which is the correctly written form POSTA ROMANA, more correctly written POSTA ROMéNA, means Romanian Post. Absolutely correctly it should be written POŞTA ROMéNĂ, but probably the Romanian characters won't be correctly displayed by your browser. POSTA ROMINA, more correctly written POSTA ROMéNA, means the same thing, and is written using an orthography that was introduced by the communist regime. Absolutely correctly it should be written POŞTA ROMéNĂ, but probably the Romanian characters won't be correctly displayed. REPUBLICA POPULARA ROMANA, sometimes abbreviated to R.P. ROMANA. Better: R.P. ROMéNA. Correctly: REPUBLICA POPULARĂ ROMéNĂ. The different forms, mentioned above, appear through the history of Rumanian stamps. In the following table I will try to show when which form were used when. Then below the table I'll try to explain also why the name changed. Please note that the names weren't used very consistently through the time. Period of TimeCountry's NameExampleJanuary 9/21, 1865 to February 15/27, 1872 + July 1880 to October 14, 1889 POSTA ROMéNAOctober 1/13, 1872 to November 10, 1947 (*) ROMéNIA or ROMéNIA POSTA or POSTA ROMéNA January 25, 1948 to April 15, 1954 REPUBLICA POPULARA ROMéNA or R.P. ROMéNA POSTA Mai 26, 1954 to March 25, 1964 REPUBLICA POPULARA ROMéNA or R.P. ROMéNA or POSTA ROMéNA April 25, 1964 to April, 1996 (**) (***) POSTA ROMéNAMarch, 1996 to Today ROMéNIA (*) The issue Aug. 1934, Carol II, appeared without POSTA (**) On the stamps Joint Issue Romania - Yugoslavia, Apr. 30, 1965 is written: ROMANIA POSTA (but not on the sheet) (***) For several months, in 1996, the stamps appeared alternatively with POSTA ROMéNA and ROMéNIA. About the changes The most important change on Romanian stamp happened on January 25, 1948, after the Romanian King, Mihai of Hohenzollern, was obliged to abdicate, and Romania became a republic. The first stamp of the newly created republic was dedicated to census. Another change happened on May 26, 1954, when the name of the country was changed to ROMéNIA, this due to the change of the Romanian orthography. In 1964 the ruling communists, transformed in national-communists, reverted the orthography of country's name back to ROMANIA. Just to notice that all these were pure orthographical changes, because the pronunciation never changed. Comment Some tried to explain the change of May 26, 1954 by the fact that Stalin, the USSR dictator, forced Romania to change the rules to make the language more Slavic in form, although a few exceptions, such as "România", were allowed to survive. The i-form,of "Romînia" would not look very good. [The Rough Guide to Romania, by Rough Guides (Editor), Tim Burford, Norm Longley (Contributor), Dan Richardson]. Actually Stalin died April 30, 1953. It's about a year after his death that his true followers changed the orthography, so that country's name changed accordingly, to ROMINIA. It wasn't more Slavic than earlier, but, and this was important, it was more distant from ROMA, Italy's capital. That meant more distant from the Western Civilization, from the Dacs and the Romans, etc., etc. So that actually the orthography of the name of the country wasn't allowed to survive either.The theory that asserts that it's under Stalin's pressure only that the orthography and the name of the country were changed, was pushed by the Romanian communist rulers (those who earlier executed Stalin's orders), in order to look better in the eyes of their own population. We see here how Western sources have taken the propaganda of the Romanian Communist Party without the necessary precaution. CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE Where is located Romania? Where is located Romania: in Eastern Europe, in Southeast Europe, in Central Europe, in Europe at all? OK, because the last question seems a bit strange to you, please keep reading. We will begin with a true story. A Romanian citizen (name of the country purposely changed) voted with his feet and arrived in the country of his dreams - Switzerland. He met there a nice Swiss girl (actually his future wife, but he didn't knew the end of the story yet), and, during a flowery afternoon of May, the girl proudly presented her freshly discovered boyfriend to her exact Swiss mother. Because, understandably enough, guy's German was different from the local dialect, quite the first question he was asked by his future mother-in-law was about his country of origin. The question isn't unusual in Switzerland, where about each 6th citizen was at that time a foreigner. To mother's stupefaction, the guy answered that he came from... Romania, at what the poor mother commented, totally confused: "But you know, *we* are Europeans!" This happened mid 1960s. We show below some maps of the eastern Europe, found on the Web, and also publish near to them some classifications of some European countries, that follow criteria like positions related to North, South, East of West of the continent, or geographic criteria like Balkan, Baltic, Caucasus. Please note the different opinions concerning the location of different countries, and eventually try to find out a certain tendency. Russian and East European Network Information Center (REENIC) Balkan: Albania Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Macedonia Romania Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) Central Asia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Courtesy of GeographyIQ Central Europe: Czech Republic Hungary Poland Slovakia Slovenia Baltics: Estonia Latvia Lithuania Caucasus: Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia Eastern Europe: Belarus Moldova Russia Ukraine Coming back to the above story, just to remind you that it happened during the period of the Cold War and of the so called Iron Curtain, that separated two different kind of societies, the free Western countries from the Socialist Camp. For this reason, for many inhabitants of the Western Europe the limit of the Europe that they knew was at the East of Finland, West Germany, Austria and Italy. This psychological limit was actually more than real, because too few of acquaintances went there or came from there, dead or alive. Fortunately, the political situation changed dramatically after the year 1989, and consequently a lot of countries re-appeared on the horizon. Even new names, for along time forgotten, like Croatia of Bosnia, were permanently mentioned in the (always bad) news. Canadian International Development Agency Balkans - Albania - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bulgaria - Croatia - Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - Macedonia - Moldova - Romania - Slovenia Baltic States - Estonia - Latvia - Lithuania Courtesy of: Canadian International Development Agency Caucasus - Armenia - Azerbaijan - Georgia Central Asia - Kazakhstan - Kyrgyz Republic - Tajikistan - Turkmenistan - Uzbekistan Central Europe - Czech Republic - Hungary - Poland - Slovak Republic Belarus Russia Turkey Ukraine For this reason some Westerners became interested in what happens "there", and some of them even dared to personally visit these recently liberated countries. This brought with it a certain change of the external limits of Europe too, and many remembered some obscure geography lessons where they were told that actually the Eastern limit of Europe are marked by the range of the Ural Mountains and the Ural river. Just to mention that these distant places are a bit more familiar to the author of this story then to to Westerners, among he lives at time, because he was born just there, in Ural. And suddenly a strange thing happened -- not only people, but the very center of Europe started to wander to the East too. There were the Czechs, Croats and other Romanians who begun to "pretend" that they never lived in the Eastern Europe. So that, little by little, on the one hand in order to be polite with them, on the other hand facing their strong geographical arguments, the center of Europe started to stepwise drift toward... Ukraine. Because the stamp collectors are among those particularly interested in geopolitics, we include a philatelic reference, the largely known US Scott catalogue, 1999 Edition: - Lithuania. Location: Northern Europe bordering on the Baltic Sea - Czechoslovakia. Location: Central Europe. - Romania. Location: Southeastern Europe, bordering on the Black Sea - Ukraine. Location: In Southeastern Europe, bordering on the Black Sea - Poland. Location: Europe between Russia and Germany. - Russia. Location: Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Courtesy of: The East Central European Center Why so far away, actually? OK, we'll answer by a hopefully easily understandable "technical" note: A meridian that splits the Europe in two equal parts passes through... Ukraine. One who knows that Switzerland is in the Central Europe and who will try finding out where is the symmetrical point, as referred to the mentioned meridian, in order to find out till where the Central Europe actually extends to the East, will have a big surprise. We had it too - the limit falls somewhere in Caucasus.. Well, not only the times, but also the positions, we are meaning those memorized by our brains, they are changin' too. Courtesy of: http://www.maps.com/explore/atlas/phy/europe.html Please see on the above map a graphical representation for the limits of the Central Europe. The lines painted in this color shows the Western (Portugal) and the Eastern (Ural) limits of Europe, and the line between them, having the same color splits the Europe in two equal parts. Please notice that is passes through Lithuania, Ukraine and Moldova. Optically, the line doesn't seem to be in the middle, but please consider that in this projection of Europe, the continent is seen from the height of Austria, and consequently the Eastern part of Europe is shown compressed. At best, take a look at Europe as shown on the Earth's globe, in order of see the real dimensions. The blue line that starts in Switzerland (a typical Central European country) goes to the line that splits in two the continent and is then prolonged by an approximate same distance to the East. The blue line, parallel to the Ural mountains, demarks the Eastern limit of the Central Europe. At its South part it crosses... Georgia. Returning to the question that we have asked in the title (Where is located Romania?), we infer that Romania is clearly located in the Central Europe, and by no means in the Eastern Europe! Credits: Many thanks to Dr. Georg Dobrovolny, Forum Ost-West, Berne, Switzerland, for precious insights. ROMANIAN CURRENCYAS IT APPEARS ON ROMANIAN STAMPS In the year 1868 a new currency was introduced on stamps, that replaced the older one, from Turk, Parale. The name of this currency, one that survived till today, is LEU. Singular: 1 leu (means one lion Plural: 2 or more lei The Leu was subdivided into 100 Bani, something that never changed since 1868. Singular: 1 Ban Plural: 2 or more Bani (bani means also money) 1 leu = 100 bani On the stamps, the name of leu (lei) can appear either fully, or abbreviated as L. The abbreviation for ban (bani) is b. When Lei appears before the numeric value, it is correct to write: LEI 1, Lei 2. It is also correct 1 + 1 LEI for surcharged stamps. On the stamps issued 1894 and later there are also values written as 1 BANI 1. This can be considered correct, because BANI 1 is (even is 1 BANI isn't, correct being 1 Ban). Examples (text)Examples (stamps)Example for baniExample of abbreviation b, B (for bani)Example for 1 LeuExample for LEITypical example for Lei and subdivisions (1.75)Example for the abbreviation L (for Lei)Example for 1 + 1 LEIThe apparently strange, but correct LEI 1.Notes For information about monetary reforms and inflation, as reflected by Romanian stamps, please visit the pages found under the menu point: Country, Postal History Romanian's neighbor Bulgaria, located on the South border, uses a currency with a similar name and the same significance. It was introduced on stamps in 1881 and is named Leva (lion). 1 Leva = 100 Stotinki. Tne name of stotinki comes from Sto, with the meaning 100 in Slavic languages. The first Bulgarian stamps show a stylized lion. The Epoch of Dacs and Romans on Romanian Stamps History would be an excellent thing if it would be true Lev Tolstoi We know that over 2000 years ago there was a people living on the actual territory of Romania, mainly in Transylvania and Oltenia, named the Dacs. They where organized in a kingdom and where ruled by a warrior king named Burebista. This king practiced what all other tribes tried also, i.e. invasions on the territory of the richest country of that time, the Roman Empire, and forced its population to "share" with him and with his fighters their most precious goods. The Romans reacted, but they lost some battles, being ruled at that time by a weak emperor named Domitian. This worked a certain time, but all changed when an young and ambitious Roman emperor, named Trajanus, decided to stop the bleeding. A first war (101-102 AD) between the Dacs, then lead by their king Decebal (Decibalus), and Romans ended by a defeat of Dacs and a peace treaty that foresaw the destruction of Dacs' fortresses and a Roman supervision of the Dacs' territory. Decebal quickly reconstructed the destroyed fortress and found new allies among Romans' enemies. For this reason Trajanus started a second war against the Dacs (105-106 AD). A Greek architect, named Apollodor of Damascus, built a bridge over the Danube at Drobeta (today Turnu Severin), considered a technical miracle of that time. After terrible battles the Roman legions won the war and entered in Sarmizegetusa, the capital of Dacs kingdom. The King Decebal committed suicide, avoiding being brought to Rome as a slave in the triumphal procession of Trajanus. The territory was renamed Dacia and it was ruled as a Roman colony. Colonists were brought from the whole Roman empire in order to replace the populations that died during the war. In a short time the colony became very prosperous, and will be known under the name of Dacia felix (the Happy Dacia). We have many information about the wars between the Romans and the Dacs thanks to the victory column build by Traianus after the war (Columna Traiana, located in Rome), one that survived by a miracle during two millenniums. This old history gives a first explanation why there is a population in the North of the Danube river that speaks for centuries a language derived from Latin, and this despite of being surrounded by populations that all speak Slavic languages (with the exception of Hungarians, who speak a language related to Finnish). If you are interested in more information about the stamps shown above and about their relationship with the history of Dacs and Romans, please move the mouse pointer over them and read the text that appears in the pop-up window. Note. The ironic jest of the Russian writer Lev Tolstoi, put as a motto of this page, doesn't refer the the history told above, this one being generally accepted, but to its continuation. We know for sure that in 271 AD the Roman Emperor Aurelianus decided the evacuation of Dacia, because his army couldn't protect anymore a colony located so far away from Rome. About what happened afterwards with the population living on this territory different historians hold different opinions, that (too) often depended on their political and national views and sympathies. These quarrels are fortunately of lesser important for us, the stamp collectors. VILLAGE MUSEUM AND PEASANT HOUSES Rural life and civilization played a significant part in Romania's past history. In the first centuries AD, the Roman colonization had a rural character and, before the first half of the current century, most of Romania's population lived in a village environment. Farming and village communities were organized in order to cover all everyday demands. Clothes were home-made as well as different tools. The Village Museum is the major attraction of the cultural tourism in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. A creation of sociologist Dimitrie Gusti in 1936, the outdoors museum located in northern Bucharest, on the Herastrau lake shore, with verdure and lakes all around, displays, on the 30 hectares it covers 70 exhibits of households, churches and traditional techniques and devices (water and windmills, oil presses, etc) from all the country's provinces. The originality of the folk creation, the sensibility and care for the beauty of the rural people is shown in the objects found inside their households - carpets, pottery, rugs, icons, furniture. To build up the Village Museum, which Dimitrie Gusti used to call "the very chime of the Romanian nation's anonymous past", the houses were dismantled piece by piece, transported by cart, train, boat etc, and then restored in Bucharest on the Herastrau Lake bank. The oldest houses date from the 17th century, but most of them were built in the 19th century. Houses coming from hill and mountain regions are easy to identify by the raised groundwork (hosting the cellar) unlike plain field houses with their low foundation. Houses from frequently invaded regions are half-buried in the earth. Usually, slant roofs preventing snow stacks indicate northern or mountain areas. Museum's Address: 28, Kiseleff Boulevard, zip code 71 321. Telephone: +40 (1) 617 17 32, +40 (1) 617 59 29 Fax: +40 (1) 312 90 68 Visiting hours: Monday: 9:00 - 17:00, Tuesday - Sunday: 9:00 - 17:00 (Oct - May), 9:00 - 20:00 (May - Oct). The three sets shown above present peasant houses from Romania. The first set was issued on Dec.25, 1963, Scott 1590 - 1596. The second set was issued in July 21, 1986 and commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Open Air Museum of Historic Dwellings in Bucharest, Scott 3387 - 3392. The third set was issued on Feb. 8, 1989 and present the architecture of Romanian peasants houses. Please move the mouse index over the stamps for more information about the individual stamps.