Volume VIII - IX (2003 - 2004)

Following the decades of his activity of a literary historian, or rather a historian of literary ideas, Prof. Marino has turned, after the 1989 Revolution, to the history of political ideas and ideology, a subject of his concern long before, but which he was hindered to freely pursue by the communist regime. His new research bears the title Freedom and Censorship in Romania, the first volume of which discusses the beginnings of the tradition of liberal thinking in Romania in the 18th century. The present article puts forward the initial phases of this work, outlining the theoretical framework of political thinking and freedom in the historical background of 18th century Romanian culture. The article was first published in Romanian in the periodical Observatorul cultural (The Cultural Observer) 134 (17.09. – 23.09.2002).

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The paper presents and characterizes certain aspects of the hermeneutic question related to tradition’s mode of being, also addressing the subject of translation. The hermeneutic task, that is, the interpretation of texts handed down from the past, is achieved on the account of two considerations: insight into the essence of historicism, and belief in the importance of tradition. The pivotal issue of the article is the discussion G. Figal’s recent formulation, that “the relationship of hermeneutics to tradition is not a self-evident but rather a broken relationship”. In the author’s approach, hermeneutics’ special place is defined “in-between” alienness and familiarity, but also between enlightenment and traditionalism.

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Maternal mortality rates are still surprisingly high, varying from country to country, according to their level of development, from 25 to …700 maternal deaths at 100,000 live births per year. And yet, this index is not well known, in statistics the most frequently used is “infant mortality”. Maternal mortality occurs at a unique, particular moment of human life, when a child is born. This moment is closely linked with the individual’s life within the society. It is the expression of a demographic behavior, of the personal wish to have children, which is also an answer to the social context. Maternal mortality depends on the one hand on genetic factors, on the general state of health, or on the problems which may occur with pregnancy, and which can lead to complications and even to maternal mortality. On the other hand, maternal mortality depends on an “underground” factor at least as important as the first, which is connected to the socio-economic conditions such as: poverty, poor accessibility to health services as well as the underprivileged condition of the woman, her discrimination which is still present, to variable degrees, but practically all over the world. The risk factors of pregnancy, including those of maternal mortality can largely be avoided by medical methods of supervision of the pregnant woman, prevention of possible complications and a permanent pre-natal care. We must not forget the socio-economic methods, less used, but which can yield basic solutions, and an important decrease of maternal mortality in the longterm.

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Censorship in the countries of the ex-communist bloc had a distinctive feature which separated it from censoring practices of primarily Western liberal democratic cultures. This distinctive feature is the fact that in these cultures and countries the subject and public analysis of censorship was itself censored. In this situation, the people of this region have particular reasons to approach the problem of censorship as one of high actuality. This is what this article attempts to do, by a careful and sharp situation analysis, reviewing the latest books on the topic of censorship published in Romania, and with repeated reference and connecting to Adrian Marino’s work, Cenzura în România. Schiţă istorică introductivă (Censorship in Romania: An Introductory Historical Outline), 2000.

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The text is a review of the four-volume encyclopedia of censorship, edited by Derek Jones as a result of an international collaboration, and published in 2001. The work was born out of an always timely interest in censorship, as the editor argues, since it is a relevant topic in every time, even when liberal democracy seems to impose itself as a political system in many regions of the world. Following a step-by-step presentation of the structure and topics of the encyclopedia, the author rests on the issue of censorship in Romania, as reflected in various entries of the four-volume work, emphasizing the importance of choosing Adrian Marino as the author of the entry on Romania.

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By the irony of fate, one of the most coherent protests against the totalitarian system before 1971 was articulated in the language of theater and cinematography – argues the author of this article. She offers a historical-analytical review of theater and film creation before 1971, focusing the discussion around two main issues: the re-theatralization of the theater, that is, the attempts to relieve the theater performance from ideological constraints; and the battle for the image, presented in aspects of Romanian film between 1960 and 1970, a pioneering period in Romanian cinematographic art.

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Prof. Popa’s article discusses the problem of censorship in a literary historical approach, connected to its practice in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the second half of the 19th century. The end of the Revolution of 1848 brought drastic measures for Romanians from Transylvania; their journals were interdicted, any initiative for publication was hindered or made almost impossible by the Austrian censorship, which also inhibited the literary communication between Romanians in Transylvania and outside the Carpathians. The negative effects of a much too severe censorship are presented on the basis of excerpts from literary and archival sources, such as the biography and correspondence of eminent figures of 19th century Romanian writers inside and outside Transylvania, or certain archival evidence found in the Viennese archives (reports about censored schoolbooks, blamed of having contained improper formulations). The reference to these reports, though not very lengthy, may well be considered a literary historical stronghold of the article.

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The purpose of this article is to map the possibilities of free individual thinking (and hence the freedom of reading) in what the author calls a typographic society; that is, a society in which every reader has the right to produce and interpret texts, and the power over the minds and interpretation is taken over by censoring instances. This investigation is achieved by the analysis of a 17th century text, John Milton’s Areopagitica. The author reveals Milton’s ideas about the freedom of reading, connected to the concept of Christian freedom, and related to it, his thoughts on censorship, which he perceives, according to his Protestant tradition, as coming from the Papacy. The results and also the failures of Milton’s line of argumentation are both presented, and the article ends with the actualization of Milton’s ideas for contemporary freedom of thinking.

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The paper deals with the role of Latin classics in eleventh-century Medieval Hungary and the Middle Ages in general, based on the example of the Benedictine abbey of Pannonhalma, which held the oldest library in Hungary. The investigation is based on four extant sources from the eleventh century, all referring to the use of Latin classical authors in a Hungarian environment, concluding that the importance of these classical sources can only be understood in a broad literary context.

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The elaboration of the bibliography of Information Sources in Librarianship in the "Lucian Blaga" Central University Library was motivated by a need of information in librarianship, and the conviction that librarianship is dependent on information consistency and its thorough use. On the basis of this research stands the literature of library science in the collections of the "Lucian Blaga" Central University Library, sorted in seven main classes, with an alphabetic arrangement of authors and titles within each. Each bibliographic reference was accompanied by a set of descriptors, for a manifold accessibility of the information.

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Following a short overview of the situation of library statistics in Romania for about the last 10 years – “usually carried out on a daily, quarterly, and yearly basis, out of inertia and (job) obligation” –, the paper discusses the recent directions, standards and regulations adopted in library statistics. Generalized statistical evaluation started with the year 2000, and was followed, a year later, by joining the LIBECON 2000 Program, initiated by the European Union. This process is being presented in details as the principal concern of the article; the discussion ends with a case study, which compares the statistical situation of the large university libraries in Romania, supported by a set of charts in attachment.

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The article presents the guidelines of library marketing activity based on a fictive example – the creation of a database containing the doctoral dissertations sustained at the Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj. After the discussion of the main steps to be taken when promoting such a product, the author presents the previous attempts for marketing the publications produced in the "Lucian Blaga" Central University Library, as a basis for a future systematic marketing process.

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The period between 1998-2002 was one of major changes for library statistics, data collection, development of performance indicators, and their better evaluation and use. This situation accounts for the assessment of Romanian public libraries from the perspective of the year 2001. The state of public libraries in Romania is presented and analyzed from various points of view, from general characterization to the analysis of statistic indicators of resources, document acquisition, facilities and services, and many more aspects of library activity.

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The article features Nastasia Fodorean, a former librarian at the University Library in Cluj, Romania. It is said that Fodorean opted to pursue a career in librarianship to be able to get a job in the city and university center of Cluj. Fodorean worked started her career in the Cataloguing Service of the university library where she was named department head in 1997. It relates the progression of the career of Fodorean as well as the challenges that she faced during the process.

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The article focuses on the subject bibliography and database developed by Ana Maria Căpâlneanu for the Lucian Blaga Central University Library Cluj in Romania. It notes that the bibliography covers only books and adds that such approach helps reinstate library science and librarianship as an institution. The bibliography is also available on electronic format, accessible via the homepage of the university library at www.bcucluj.ro. Monographic publications from the library collection are considered for the bibliography.

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