The Cotroceni Palace in Bucharest used to be a royal
\nresidence. Today it is the main building of the Presidential Administration.
\nRight opposite to it, in the posh Cotroceni area, we can find two memorial
\nhouses dedicated to two of Romania’s interwar writers. They were so different
\nfrom one another in terms of writing, yet they were so close in mundane life:
\nthey were actually close friends. They are prose writer Liviu Rebreanu and poet
\nIon Minulescu. In the former case, the museum-apartment bears the name of Liviu
\nRebreanu and his wife, Fanny Rebreanu, with the apartment being the only one
\nsuch site in Bucharest where then the family’s domestic atmosphere has been
\nrecomposed; so was the writer’s study with his bookcase and the writer’s
\npersonal items. Liviu Rebreanu was a member of the Romanian Academy and a
\ndignitary holding quite a few official positions. A textbook prose writer,
\nLiviu Rebreanu was born in Transylvania, at a time when Transylvania was still
\npart of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Among other things, Liviu Rebreanu is
\nremembered as the author who captured the psychology of his characters in an
\nutterly realistic manner. Rebreanu was born in 1885 and died in 1944, shortly
\nbefore the communist regime was instated in Romania. In 1934, he bought the
\napartment in Cotroceni for his adoptive daughter, Puia-Florica Rebreanu. Liviu
\nRebreanu never lived there, yet the house has emphatically preserved the daily
\nlife of the family’s intimacy. Here is museographer Adrian David, with details
\non that.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The residence has quite aptly earned
\nthe status of Liviu Rebreanu Memorial House because, after the writer died in
\nValea Mare, near Pitesti, his wife move to this apartment with her daughter and
\nson-in-law, and here they transferred whatever it was that they could retrieve from the writer’s former real estate property. The apartment, today known as the
\nRebreanu Memorial House was donated to
\nthe Museum of Romanian Literature in 1992 by the writer’s adoptive daughter,
\nPuia Rebreanu. When the former owner dies in 1995 and following a time when the
\nresidence was refurbished, the apartment entered the museum circuit, in effect
\nbelonging to the Romanian state, together <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So those who, at present, may want to get the chance
\nto know Rebreanu in the intimacy of his family, can travel to the Cotroceni
\narea and visit the little block of flats where the museum-apartment can be
\nfound. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Museographer Adrian David:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rebreanu’s desk, where he sat down and
\nwrote his entire work…Those who come visit may notice, for instance, near the desk,
\nthe oriental table for the writer’s coffee serving set, these two items were
\nalways there since he was a coffee addict and a night-time writer. We’ve got
\nRebreanu’s lamp, owl-shaped and which Rebreanu had on the desk all the time. We
\nhave a clock Rebreanu brought for himself from his native Transylvania which
\nback then was under Austrian-Hungarian occupation, It was an imperial clock, which
\ntook him back to the native region he had no choice other than leaving and
\nrelocating to the Old Kingdom. But over and above anything else,
\nattention-grabbing for those who step into the memorial house is the lavish
\ndisplay of fine art. There are a great many works, most of them authored by
\nsome of Rebreanu’s friends, some of them were even made in Liviu Rebreanu’s
\nhouse. For instance, in the lobby there are three portraits drawn by Iosif
\nIser. There were there after the 1913 Christmas, held in the Rebreanus’ house,
\nwhere among the guests were painters Camil Ressu, Iosif Iser, alongside other
\nvery good friends. During that Christmas evening the fir-tree was on fire because
\nof the candles, and, according to Puia Rebreanu’s own account, all the presents
\nthey received for Christmas were burned. But, she said, thank God Iosif Iser’s
\ndrawings remained intact, bringing back the memories of that day. Also, there
\nare many icons, all of them from Transylvania. Rebreanu was very religious and
\nvery superstitious. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In stark contrast with Liviu Rebreanu, another author
\nlived in the adjoining apartment. He was symbolist poet Ion Minulescu, who was
\nborn in 1881 and who died also in 1944. His verse was extremely popular among
\nthe sentimental youth of that time. Even the design of that home, which was a
\nlot more spacious, was different, as the imprint was that of a much more
\nbohemian atmosphere as against the restraint of the Rebreanu residence. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Adrian
\nDavid:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The block of flats where both memorial houses can be found, that of Ion
\nMinulescu and that of Liviu Rebreanu, was brought into service in 1934. Back in
\nthe day it was known as the Professors’ Block of flats and was purpose-built
\nfor the teaching staff. Ion Minulescu’s wife, poet Claudia Millian, was a
\nhigh-school teacher and a principal. Liviu Rebreanu got hold of the apartment
\nwith the help of Ion Minulescu, who facilitated Rebreanu a loan from the
\nTeaching Staff Center. In the meantime, the two writers’ wives and daughters
\nbecame friends. Actually, in the Ion Minulescu Claudia Millian Memorial
\nHouse, all family members are represented in equal proportion, since, apart
\nfrom Ion Minulescu, with whom we are very familiar, his wife and daughter were
\nalso artists and writers. Claudia graduated form the Conservatory of Dramatic
\nArt, while Mioara Minulescu, their daughter, initially read Letters and the
\nFrench language. Actually, Claudia Millian also studied with the Fine Arts
\nAcademy in the country and in Paris, while Mioara Minulescu studied at the Fine
\nArts Academy in Rome. And indeed, here, on the premises, there are a great many
\nworks signed by the two: mosaics, paintings, sculptures and various works of
\nart. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Apart from the two landlords’ works of art, the
\nmemorial house also plays host to the work of some friends of the family. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Adrian David:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With Minulescu, there are more than
\n100 paintings. There are a couple of dozen sculptures. All signed by great
\nnames of the domestic fine arts, part of whom were very good friends of Claudia
\nMilian’s. Her best friends were Cecilia Cu\u021bescu- Storck and her sister, Ortansa
\nSatmari. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the mid-1990s, after the death of the two writers’
\ndaughters, Puia Rebreanu and Mioara Minulescu, the two apartments were donated
\nto the state so that they could be turned into memorial houses highlighting the
\nactivity of the two writers, but also the personality of the women who stood by
\ntheir side.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A writer’s life in a museum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":169809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[43136,45624,44006,40582,40888],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-65018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-fine-arts","tag-icon","tag-memorial-house","tag-painting","tag-residence"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n