Nicolae Manolescu (Romanian pronunciation: [nikoˈla.emanoˈlesku] ; 27 November 1939 – 23 March 2024) was a Romanian literary critic. [1] [2] Elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy in 1997, he was upgraded to titular member in 2013.
Nicolae Manolescu (Romanian pronunciation: [nikoˈla.emanoˈlesku] ; 27 November 1939 – 23 March 2024) was a Romanian literary critic. [1] [2] Elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy in 1997, he was upgraded to titular member in 2013.
Manolescu was born in Râmnicu Vâlcea, the son of Petru Apolzan, a philosophy teacher, and his wife Sabina Apolzan (née Manolescu), a French teacher. After attending high schools in his hometown and in Sibiu, he studied philology at the University of Bucharest from 1956 to 1962, with an interruption in 1958–1959, when he was expelled from the university, [3] due to critical opinions voiced against Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej and the Romanian Communist regime.
After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he was a founding member of the Civic Alliance (AC) in November 1990, and, after July 1991, began a political career as leader of the minor Civic Alliance Party (PAC), a group that had split from the Alliance to pursue a more political activism, being its candidate for presidency in the 1992 elections; Manolescu subsequently represented the party in the Senate. [4] In 1993 Nicolae Manolescu was a leader of a short lived PNL, [5] a Romanian political party which in 1998 had merged with the National Liberal Party (PNL). Prior to its merger, Manolescu was its leader during the 1996 Romanian general election; [6] as the party's presidential candidate, he finished ninth with 0.7% of the vote. Until 2000, he was a member of the PNL National Council, when he resigned from this position and retreated from political life.
Manolescu published over 40 volumes on Romanian literature, the most acclaimed being A Critical History of Romanian Literature (vol.1) and a history of Romanian novels, entitled Arca lui Noe. His distinction between "doric", "ionic", and "corinthic" novels originated in the traditional orders of the columns of Ancient Greek temples, and covers the distinction between realistic, psychological first person narratives and contemporary, postmodern novels. As an editor of România Literară literary magazine, he reached a record in reviewing books for almost 30 years. [7] He was also the host of the popular Profesiunea mea, cultura ("My Profession Is Culture"), a talk show on cultural matters, aired by Pro TV between 1998 and 2001. [8]
Manolescu was a professor at the University of Bucharest, [9] from which he received a Ph.D. in Letters. He was the President of the Romanian Writers' Union, [10] and was designated the Romanian ambassador to UNESCO in 2006. [11]
In December 2000, he was awarded by the President of Romania the National Order of Faithful Service, Grand Cross rank, and in December 2008, the Order of the Star of Romania, Grand Cross rank. [3]
Manolescu died at the Elias Hospital in Bucharest, on 23 March 2024, aged 84. [3]
After the Communist rulership ended and the former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was executed in the midst of the bloody Romanian Revolution of December 1989, the National Salvation Front (FSN) seized power, led by Ion Iliescu. The FSN transformed itself into a massive political party in short time and overwhelmingly won the general election of May 1990, with Iliescu as president. These first months of 1990 were marked by violent protests and counter-protests, involving most notably the tremendously violent and brutal coal miners of the Jiu Valley which were called by Iliescu himself and the FSN to crush peaceful protesters in the University Square in Bucharest.
The Social Democratic Party is the largest political party in Romania. It is also the largest social democratic political party in the country. It was founded by Ion Iliescu, Romania's first democratically elected president at the 1990 Romanian general election. It is currently part of the National Coalition for Romania (CNR), which is a big tent grand coalition comprising also the National Liberal Party (PNL). The CNR formerly included the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR/RMDSZ) until mid June 2023.
Theodor Dumitru Stolojan is a Romanian politician who was Prime Minister of Romania from September 1991 to November 1992. An economist by training, he was also one of the presidents of the National Liberal Party (PNL) before being the founding leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) and then the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL). He was a Member of the European Parliament for Romania, representing the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) and then the National Liberal Party. He was also professor at the Transilvania University of Brașov between 2002 and 2012.
The National Liberal Party is a Christian-democratic and socially conservative political party in Romania. Re-founded in mid January 1990, shortly after the Revolution of 1989 which culminated in the fall of communism in Romania, it claims the legacy of the major political party of the same name, active between 1875 and 1947 in the Kingdom of Romania. Based on this historical legacy, it often presents itself as the first formally constituted political party in the country and the oldest of its kind from the family of European liberal parties as well.
Liberalism and radicalism are important political movements in Romania. Many political parties from these traditions have had important historical roles and substantial support, including representation in the Parliament of Romania. Not all Romanian political parties relevant to this tradition have explicitly described themselves as liberal or radical.
The Democratic Party was a social democratic and, later on, liberal conservative political party in Romania. In January 2008, it merged with the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD), a splinter group of the National Liberal Party (PNL), to form the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL).
Marian Munteanu is a former leader of the anti-government protests that took place in 1990 in Romania against the National Salvation Front (FSN). The anti-government protests were ended violently by the intervention of the miners from Jiu Valley. During the early 1990s, he was also the leader of the far-right political organization "Mișcarea pentru România".
Andrei Marga is a Romanian philosopher, political scientist, and politician. Rector – for the second time – of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, he was a member of the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party (PNŢCD), serving as Minister of Education in the Democratic Convention (CDR) coalition governments of Victor Ciorbea, Radu Vasile, and Mugur Isărescu (1997–2000). In January 2001, he replaced Ion Diaconescu as PNŢCD president, but resigned from this position in July 2001, amid political tensions within the party. He subsequently formed a new political party, more specifically the Popular Christian Party later during the same year. Later on, he became a member of the National Liberal Party (PNL).
The Democratic Liberal Party was a liberal-conservative political party in Romania. The party was formed on 15 December 2007, when the Democratic Party (PD) merged with the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD). On 17 November 2014 the PDL officially merged into the National Liberal Party (PNL), ceasing to exist. The PDL was associated with Traian Băsescu, who was previously leader of the PD and President of Romania from 2004 to 2014.
Paul Georgescu was a Romanian literary critic, journalist, fiction writer and communist political figure. Remembered as both a main participant in the imposition of Socialist Realism in its Romanian form and a patron of dissenting modernist and postmodern literature, he began his career in politics during World War II, when he sided with the anti-fascist groups and the underground Romanian Communist Party in opposition to the Axis-aligned Ion Antonescu regime. During the first twenty years of Communist Romania, Georgescu assisted Leonte Răutu in exercising Stalinist control over local literature, but also published young nonconformist authors, beginning with Nichita Stănescu and Matei Călinescu, in his Gazeta Literară. Sidelined over his own incompatibility with the Socialist Realist dogma, and returning to public life during the 1960s liberalization enforced by Nicolae Ceaușescu, he became openly adverse to Ceaușescu's variety of national communism and clandestinely cultivated the prohibited ideology of Trotskyism.
Radu-Anton Câmpeanu was a Romanian politician who was also jurist and economist by profession, after graduating from the University of Bucharest (UB) in November 1945, specializing in constitutional right. During the interwar period and up until 1945, he was the leader of the National Liberal students' association at nationwide level.
George Ivașcu was a Romanian journalist, literary critic, and communist militant. From beginnings as a University of Iași philologist and librarian, he was drawn into left-wing antifascist politics, while earning accolades as a newspaper editor and foreign-affairs journalist. As editor of Manifest magazine, he openly confronted the Iron Guard and fascism in general. In the mid-1930s, he became a member of the Romanian Communist Party (PCdR), though he maintained private doubts about its embrace of Stalinism. Despite enjoying protection from the more senior scholar George Călinescu, Ivașcu was persecuted, and went into hiding, during the first two years of World War II. He reemerged as a pseudonymous correspondent, then editorial secretary, of the magazine Vremea, slowly turning it away from fascism. In parallel, he also contributed to the clandestine left-wing press and supported the resistance groups, preparing for an Allied victory.
Remus Pricopie is a Romanian education administrator. He was the Education Minister in the Victor Ponta cabinet from December 2012 to December 2014.
Mircea Diaconu is a Romanian actor, writer, and politician. First appearing on stage in 1970, and on screen two years later, Diaconu pursued a lengthy career in both formats, working with a series of prominent directors. He acted in some sixty films through the 2000s, and continued to act in theatre during the ensuing decade. He took part in the Romanian Revolution of 1989. In 2008, he entered electoral politics, becoming a senator, and subsequently serving a term as a Member of the European Parliament. In 2019, he ran for president, placing fourth.
Sorin Mihai Cîmpeanu is a Romanian politician who served as Minister of Education in Ciucă Cabinet. He had previously held the same position in Ponta IV and Cîțu cabinets, and, between 5 and 17 November 2015, acted as Prime Minister of Romania, after President Klaus Iohannis accepted Prime Minister Ponta's resignation. Klaus Iohannis's appointment of Sorin Cîmpeanu was just a stopgap measure until a new candidate for the post was selected.
Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga was a Romanian comparatist and essayist. A native of the national capital Bucharest, she was educated at its main university and went on to become a professor there. Together with a focus on interdisciplinary studies, she devoted several studies to Mihai Eminescu. Dumitrescu was also a dignitary of the Romanian Communist Party. Following the Romanian Revolution, she lived in Rome for several years, then retired to a monastery.
The Save Romania Union is a liberal political party in Romania that sits on the centre-right of the political spectrum. It is currently the third largest party in the Parliament of Romania with 41 deputies and 20 senators, and a fifth at local level nationwide, after the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR/RMDSZ) and the People's Movement Party (PMP), two smaller centre-right political parties in the country.
Force of the Right, sometimes translated as Right's Force or Right Force, is a liberal-conservative political party in Romania founded in December 2021 by Ludovic Orban, former National Liberal Party (PNL) president and former Prime Minister of Romania between 2019 and 2020, in opposition to the current leadership of the PNL which is currently officially led by Nicolae Ciucă and unofficially by Klaus Iohannis.
Events from the year 1921 in Romania. The year saw the formation of the Romanian Communist Party out of the Socialist Party and subsequent imprisonment of the Communist leadership.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
