A pillar of Romanian culture, the poet Mihai Eminescu can also be seen as a unifying force for Romanians, as suggested by Camelia Manea, an associate professor at the University of Science and Technology, Politehnica Bucharest, Faculty of Educational Sciences, when she invites us to discover a possible Via Eminesciana. An experienced traveler, Camelia Manea has herself often visited the places where Mihai Eminescu once walked, searching for traces of his passage through these locations.<\/p>\n
Why a \u201cVia Eminesciana\u201d? Camelia Manea, associate professor at the Faculty of Educational Sciences explains:<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized that we should commemorate the events that took place years ago by trying out this innovative idea. We don\u2019t have cultural routes in Romania. Abroad, there\u2019s this beautiful tradition of honoring notable figures and the small stops they made around the world. It is a route that unites the hearts of Romanians. This year, happily, marks the 160th anniversary of the formative journey from Chernivtsi to Blaj. Eminescu set out under rather harsh circumstances for a 16-year-old; on January 24 (Old Style) 1866, Aron Pumnul died; his classmates\u2014and, above all, Eminovici, as he signed his name at the time\u2014published a pamphlet: \u201cThe Tears of the Gymnasium Students at the Grave of Their Beloved Teacher.\u201d Also in 1866, on February 25, Iosif Vulcan marked Eminescu’s debut in the magazine *Familia* in Pest with the poem \u201cIf I had.\u201d Vulcan published the poem under the name Eminescu, expressing from the very beginning his disapproval of the Slavonic patronymic suffix. Then the magazine *Familia* published 12 of his poems, and that is how the destiny of a great champion of Romanian culture started taking shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
What stops would there be along this Via Eminesciana? Camelia Manea:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve traveled this route\u2014in certain sections\u2014several times, driven by this curiosity myself, and found myself journeying through the villages of Bukovina, from Chernivtsi southward, from Scorojineni, through Crasna, to Vicov, Marginea, and Solca\u2014mythical places, areas of extraordinary beauty! The stop in Gura Humorului is remarkable! I continued on to C\u00e2mpulung Moldovenesc, then to Vatra Dornei. It\u2019s very interesting that Eminescu demonstrated an extraordinary maturity; he left Chernivtsi because he could no longer continue his studies and wanted to go to Blaj to take his final exams. How did he travel? Where did he stay? There aren\u2019t many accounts. Eminescu passed through Gura Humorului, where he was able to visit Humor Monastery; he also went to Vorone\u0163, the monastery founded by Princes Alexander the Good and Stephen the Great. The C\u00e2mpulung region is also charming, with its market town stretching along the Moldova River and the beautiful houses where he was hosted. A local legend says that Mihai Eminescu stopped at a peasant\u2019s house in Sadova, where he collected folklore. I\u2019ve been to Sadova, and indeed, the people there are extraordinary; if you\u2019re thirsty and they see you\u2019re not from around there, they\u2019ll come to the gate with a cup of water. Today, in C\u00e2mpulung Moldovenesc, there is a street named after the poet; a bust by sculptor Ioan Lucian Murnu has been placed in the park, and the stone pedestal bears both the poet\u2019s name and verses from the poem \u201cLa Bucovina.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camelia Manea also told us what other places could be included in Via Eminesciana.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cThe next stop would be Vatra Dornei. Here, too, we find a bust of Mihai Eminescu, sculpted by Ion Ionescu. The name of the town, Vatra Dornei, is mentioned in the poem \u2018Doina\u2019; around 1875, Eminescu was deeply moved by this journey. Today, we see that in all these towns he passed through, there are busts, streets, parks, and commemorative plaques that recall the Via Eminesciana. And it would be a shame not to try to mark this route, which, as I was saying, unites the souls of the Romanians of Bukovina\u2014including those who remain beyond the country\u2019s borders\u2014and those of the Romanians in Transylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n Setting out on the Via Eminesciana, in fact, we encounter prominent figures who have left their mark on the cultural history of the Romanian people. (MI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A pillar of Romanian culture, the poet Mihai Eminescu can also be seen as a unifying force for Romanians, as suggested by Camelia Manea, an associate professor at the University of Science and Technology, Politehnica Bucharest, Faculty of Educational Sciences, when she invites us to discover a possible Via Eminesciana. An experienced traveler, Camelia Manea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":851112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42520],"tags":[],"coauthors":[113240],"class_list":["post-1033296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-romania"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n