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Le « Voyage en Chine » de Nicolae Milescu, après avoir circulé en copies manuscrites dans plusieurs langues, est aujourd’hui un classique national. Trois de ses traductions-translations (acception de Antoine Berman) en roumain, sont évoquées comme étapes de sa valorisation idéologique, patrimoniale, scientifique.

Based on a testimony of the musician Marcel Mihalovici, the article first calls to mind Brancusi in Paris when Fundoianu / Fondane settles down there. In the French capital, the sculptor maintains the style of life of a “Danubian peasant”. He mistrusts the writers but realizes a drawing (portrait) of the young poet and philosopher. In turn, Fondane devotes to him the portrait “Constantin Brancusi” which is one of his best reviews, as the essay on Chagall and “Le faux traité d’esthétique”. He shows that the inspiration of the sculptor—as seen by Fondane—is not reducible to the materiality of the plastic art. Purified, it is a part of modern poetry, it creates a lexicon founding a new language, artisan skills, mathematics and religious expression.

Extracted from a gigantic archival work, these chose passages of the Bibliography established by Christian Pepino (2013, 3st edition), reflect the critical abundance, theoretical and creative / inventive, of the Rumanian puppet theatre. Rumanian titles of the books and articles have been translated into French. Whenever a Rumanian description or a commentary followed the bibliography reference, it was translated too, in order to provide a toll to the foreigner. As this bibliography aims to demonstrate, the Rumanian activity of literary creation, research, chronicle of spectacles for marionettes, from the beginnings to the 21st century, is far from having been entirely taken into account in the encyclopedias, dictionaries or international works studying the kind.

First, this analysis considers the functions of childish and adult play—according to the definition of Huizinga—in French texts of the 19th and 20th century. Secondly, a Rumanian album of 2002 (text by Mircea Cărtărescu, illustrations by Tudor Bănuș) Enciclopedia Zmeilor / The Encyclopedia of Dragons is quoted for his representation of the magic nowadays frequent in the art of film: the passage from real life (biological) to virtual existence (numerical). The text presents a collection by Viorica Huber-Rogoz published in Bucharest in 2011.This a new edition of pieces fort puppets written and played in Rumania between 1960 and 1980, at the time of establishing Șoimii Patriei / Hawks of Homeland (open to children of 4-6 years) under the nationalist dictatorship of Ceausescu. The analysis shows how the dramaturgy takes over the topics teaching the very young children the key elements of the national culture: local folklore, connection between folklore orality and the beginning of literary writing (chronicles), playful figuration of learning alphabet, Rumanian geography and science-fiction (the sea of dreams and the town of future), wonderful approach of the biography and the genius of the greatest sculptor in the 20th century, Constantin Brâncusi, born and trained in Rumania.

Ramona Badescu, writing for young people, was born in Romania, grew up in France and has been collaborating for years with designers for her albums. She has created Pomelo, a series around an elephant. Having been comedian, she takes part in experimental theatre and is now preparing a film about a rumanian subject. Following an exposition of her books in Strasbourg (winter / spring 2015), she presents her activity in eight answers to our questions. She also emphasizes the cultural shift between France and Rumania concerning the educational system.

O bătrână de unsprezece ani was presented in Strasbourg, by the author (first version) during the Journée d’études ‘Marionnettes roumaines…’, Strsabourg, 2014. Then published in Chisinău, it received in 2015 the most important Prize Cartea Anului / Book of the year, awarded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Moldova.

Déportation en Sibérie d’une famille paysanne roumaine‑1941-45 evokes the beginning of the stay in Gulag of Anița Nandriș‑Cudla. This Romanian peasant has been deported to Siberia for twenty years with her 11, 14 and 17 years old sons during the Soviet occupation (1941) of Mahala, her Romanian village close to Cernowitz (now in Ukrainia). Thirteen thousand people of the region shared the same fate. Between 1941 and 1945, the Kushinowka, Nadym, Suga camps were passed like tests of natural selection. Cleverness, eagerness and hygiene in impossible conditions are presented as factors of survival before the political rehabilitation in 1959. Bearing witness to the traditional “eternal” Romanian peasantry facing misfortune, in particular the Russians, the account is framed by a heavy paratext provided by the family. Written on the instigation of one of Anița’s brothers, the manuscript was hidden between 1982 and 1989 before being passed to the West as samizdat. The volume aims at denouncing genocidal communism, the martyrdom of a “Mother Courage” recalling the mythical image of the antique Geto-Daces. The book was awarded the “Lucian Blaga” prize of the Romanian Academy in 1992.

The article mentions the excellent reception of authors of the Modavian Republic in Paris, 2013: Nicoleta Esinencu, Savatie Bastovoi. It describes typic sovietic childhood of the Moldavian writers. The great individual event described in both books: the attainment of the state of pioneer, is situated in context of nostalgia for the soviet period, particularly exploited by the romanian best-seller of Vasile Ernu: Born in USSR. Last but not least, the thriller of Dumitru Crudu published in Bucaharest in february 2013: An American in Chisinău is summarized and quoted to complete the overview of a young bessarabian literature decided not to let steal its history, its lifestyle, its experiences in order to transpose them in literature.

The first poetry in romanian of Benjamin Fondane, translated or not into french, evokes numerous aspects of farmer’s life in Moldavia, shared by the Jews, in the villages of the “Herta” zone. This youthful lyrism also recalls the phenomenon of emigration, particularly to the United States of Romanian jewish populations, in the beginning of the twentieth century. The sometimes tragic consequences, mentioned more allusively in “Le Mal des Fantômes” complete the picture of end of civilization given by this french poetry written during the second world war.

Born in Moldova, titulary of a literary prize awarded in Chisinau in December 2012 for her first volume of poetry, Olga Baltag, currently a student (master d’études théatrales) at the University of Strasbourg, introduces herself, calls to mind her family, her secondary studies, her tentatives to have herself registered at university in Romania. She is interviewed by Hélène Lenz (three hours in December 2012). She communicates three poems chosen from her book and her first play Le Complot, written in french, read during a public representation in Strasbourg in june 2013.

Norman Manea answers three questions of Helene Lenz about his interest in George Enescu – the greatest Romanian composer of Moldavian origin –, the theatre he enjoyed during his studies in Romania, “his” Moldavia: the Bucovina of which he is native. He also mentions the authors of Bucovia as Moldavia to whom he feels close: Paul Celan, Max Blecher. He finally talks about Maria Banus and Seelma Meerbaum, the latter can be considered as a Romanian Anne Frank.

This analysis presents Sub camuflaj: 1943-44 / under disguise: 1943-44 published in Bucharest in 1977. It is the diary of the war’s end by Maria Banus (1914 – 1999), who is also the author of Tara fetelor / the maiden country. For the Israeli literary critic A. Mirodan this diary was scandalous due to its sexual immorality (relations with men in the matrimonial home) and due to sarcastic references to compatriots then threatened by deportation (Transnistria camps). The author of Sub camuflaj was widely published and translated during the communist period. Working Illegality in 1943-44 she describes the cleavage between jews excited by the hope for a renewal linked to the soviet arrival and young Romanians belonging to a nationalist, christian orthodox right, while the “legionaries” daily imposed their symbols if not the law in the capital. Several details show this group to be more legitimate and desirable than the first one. Heaped with praise after the war, M. Banus is forgotten in the eighties. As a refugee in France she opposes the Ceaucescu dictatorship. In 2008 her works remained unknown, a fact that the young literary critic O. Moraru attributes as well to antisemitism as to misogyny. Actually Sub camuflaj unites the qualities attributed to M. Banus durig the era of her glory: it is a diary of creation, a chronicle, a conjuration of daily fear, but also a saganovel. Its diarist intention avoids as well nationalist or religious as dogmatic feminist speech. One can compare Sub camuflaj to Journal 1935 - 1944 by Mihail Sebastian -1998 - (bestseller of Romanian translations after 1989). M. Sebastian (1907 - 1944) has also been marginalized as a jew during the war but his literary work is now often reedited in Rumania and abroad.

Studying the first book of H. Müller (2009 Nobel prize) published in France in 1988 (“Man is a big pheasant on earth”) and considering the censorship it was subjected to in Romania in1986, the article deals with relations between minorities and Romanians. One motif (glass objects bartered by the emigrants) allows for a digression on presupposed aesthetic, religious and political meaning of glass artwork in Banat and Trnssilvania.

This contribution presents an essay published in 1998 (The awakening Danube, M. Graff) which received a prize of Franco-German journalism. Ten years after the removal of the Berlin Wall this report shows Romania and Bulgaria under three aspects: – in both countries, great international transit is visible; – their historical and cultural past as well as their economic present links them strongly to germanism and the Germans; – they constitute a haven for fascinating and “explosive” minorities. The point of view of M. Graff is often related to the accounts of other French travellers of the 20th century (from 1913 on).