Assignment, Bucharest

„Assignment, Bucharest: An American Diplomat’s View of the Communist Takeover of Romania„ este o carte scrisă de un diplomat american care a servit în România din 1947 până în 1950, în perioada preluării comuniste a țării. Evenimente importante precum arestarea și procesul lui Maniu, la care Donald Carl Dunham a participat, sunt descrise cu mare atenție.

Dar ceea ce a rămas cu mine a fost această descriere a poporului român, care este încă adevărata, chiar şi în ziua de astăzi:

„The Romanians are a social phenomenon. As a nation among nations, they are westerners evolved in the East. They are Latins surrounded by Slavs. They are Romans two thousand years away from Rome. They are contemporaries re-produced on Trajan’s Column.

They are peasants with the utmost in sophistication. They farm instinctively, but are suspicious of machinery. They speak a language like Italian but the majority of their words are Slavonic. They are superstitious but religious at the same time. They are astutely intelligent, but refuse to be intellectual. They submit to invasion but preserve their identity. They support great wealth and extreme poverty. They produce striking beauty yet can live in filth.

As a collective personality, the Romanians are Oriental in their souls although Latin on the surface. Their patience is almost unending but they are quick to explode in argument; they are peace-loving yet would disintegrate without controversy. They are passive but strong in their resistance; spontaneously adaptable, still difficult to influence. They are romantic but never escape from reality.

They are charming yet cruel in their ridicule, warmly emotional but calculating, generous yet concentrate on the ‘main chance.’ They are opportunistic but lose interest after they have gained the advantage; they seize the moment, still adopt the long view.

The Romanians are a people of colourful contrasts and extreme extremes, born in classic times, ravaged by barbarians, indentured to the Turks, dominated by the Byzantines, the Greeks, dictated to by the Hungarians, Poles, Austrians and others, seduced by the French and not recognised as a country until 1878. Yet they emerge with a character that defies this confusion, that is definitely, emphatically, unmistakably Romanian.”

Descrierea de mai sus este exact ceea ce ar trebui să vă așteptați de la poporul român: contraste și rezistență. Și este exact ceea ce oferă Bucureștiul.