Adrian Majuru

Bucharest: between European modernity and the Ottoman East

Motto: “No city can offer a downcast, hopeless and miserable impression like Bucharest.”

Sir James Bailie Frase, 1836

“When I’m coming back from abroad, what impresses me are the beggars, the gypsies and the haggling, the absence of people’s urbanity.”

Petru Comarnescu, 1936 

Abstract: The article offers a comparative perspective on 19th century and contemporary Romanian society, comparing Larry Wolf’s book “Inventing Eastern Europe: the Map of Civilization on the mind of the Enlightenment” with contemporary Romanians’ aperception of the geographical space.

Keywords: The Ottoman Empire, Romania, Bucharest, European modernity, Larry Wolf

 This essay could be considered a response to Larry Wolff’s book, Inventing Eastern Europe: the Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. It also offers a comparative perspective between 19th century and contemporary Romanian society and a comparison of the themes of Wolff’s book with the “cohabits” that compose Romanian society today. I define cohabit as an unsuccessful joining between the Romanian people’s way of life — of Oriental type — and European cultural values. This cohabit was a determinant for the great conflict between two types of civilization, the Orient (the older form of civilization in Bucharest and Wallachia) and the Occident as a tendency of modernization.1 Finally, I’ll present some contemporary points of view about this very actual contrast, Orient versus Occident in Bucharest, within which the presence of the Orient is very strong. I selected some subtitles from Larry Woolf’s book and these subtitles are discussed.

Orient versus Occident or “Eastern habits”

The foreigner enters “into an unknown country, disconcerted” but often adapts himself to this new world. The foreigners made a modern and new society. 

The transition from old to new in Bucharest society in the early 19th century was clearly evident in the daily existence of its inhabitants and within the confines of private life. A great “divergence of contrasts” was at play, such that each family or professional group was conscious of making the leap from old to new and, of course, of the financial possibilities that would enable them to achieve this leap. For visitors from outside, who were not really familiar with this situation, Bucharest seemed amazing in its discordant juxtaposition of wealth and luxury, on one hand, and poverty and squalor on the other.2

In Bucharest, “palaces, clubs, theatres, couturiers and tailors, newspapers and coachmen” could be found, although as soon as one “set foot outside” into the city, one was engulfed “by the wilderness”.3

The town pulsed swiftly towards change in a radical and sweeping manner. By the middle of the 19th century the old “boyar” town ostensibly became a “scene from modern day Paris,” although deep in its urban structure a “harsh barbarianism” continued to stir, accompanied by an “unspoken immorality” and many “other monstrosities” such as an almost total lack of “gravity towards life”.4 The severing of “form from foundation” progressed unremittingly as an incessant confrontation between modern life and unchanging attitudes, accompanied by ideological and cultural debate constantly circulating in Romanian society. This rapid appropriation of the modern Western way of life brought about a considerable measure of superficiality, clumsy imitation, awkwardness, frustration, and repression.5

Bucharest society in the 19th century offered a rare spectacle for foreign visitors, since elements from the old style of Ottoman dress were worn simultaneously with new European garments.6 In some cases two extremes of clothing, along with all the intermediary stages, could be observed in one single family. This diversity and mixture resulted from the preference of the younger generation for the new as well as the skill of the Wallachian craftsmen who “out of indifference and poverty” were very “ingenious” at inventing their own urban style of dress.7

For those of the boyar class accustomed to specific modes of dress, thinking, behaviour, and environment, the adoption of new European fashions posed major problems. Circumstances, not only history, forced their re-orientation towards a lifestyle completely alien to that which they had known. In less than one generation they had to accept new styles of clothing, which in themselves imposed different behavioural codes in both the public and private spheres, styles which signified a pattern of daily life undergoing continuous, galloping change. Evidence for this can be found in the brief notes of the painter Barabas Miklos from Ardeal who visited Bucharest between 1831 and 1833.8

Luxury was the emblem of the cream of Bucharest society, and the huge expenses required to maintain it and the armies of servants attending to each petty and insignificant personal need demonstrate an interesting compromise between old ways which had been retained and the new ones which were vigorously applied in all aspects of Bucharest life. The contrast was noted with astonishment by numerous state diplomats based in Bucharest as well as by travellers who passed through or lived in the town for a while. The elegance of the carriages and coachmen, their presence in very large numbers in comparison with other European towns, and the expensive jewellery which formed an essential accessory for any lady of society who aspired to follow fashion are repeatedly mentioned in the journals of contemporaries.9

 Bucharest was situated at the crossing of the principle commercial routes linking Southeastern Europe to the centre of the continent. It was close to the Ottoman world a huge market, greater than that of Russia and to the economic and cultural vitality of central Europe through which it was organically linked to the West. It was a melting pot for elements of all the civilizations in this wide cultural expanse. At the end of the 18th century merchants, craftsmen, professional classes and others of different ethnic groups and religions arrived in successive waves with the Austrian and Russian armies, introducing an increasingly multicultural atmosphere to Bucharest. While these communities settled down and established distinct identities, in time the elite of Bucharest society formed a large and homogenous central social group with an urban mentality in the modern sense.

In contrast to “the tediousness of other towns in the Ottoman Empire,” Bucharest was the most important centre of attraction within reach of the Turkish border. At the beginning of the 19th century, it was a town full of life, “a place of relaxation and pleasure,” a real “arena of Hetaires,” a veritable “Hilariopolis — city of joys” — with an undeniable cosmopolitan character.

By the middle of the 19th century, Bucharest society had become very diverse. This social diversity could be found even at the margins of the town. Raoul Perrin described the human mosaic of Bucharest streets as “at once interesting as well as disgusting because of the poverty and squalor.” He continued, “There are all races: Wallachians, Moldavians, Turks, Rumelians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Bosnians, Greeks, Armenians, Russians, Crimeans, Transylvanians, Bessarabians, Hungarians, Italians, Germans and of course Jews. This race is to be found everywhere and in the East it is distinguished by

a degree of disorder and filth which could not be more disgraceful or revolting,”10 and De Giers described in amazement the “variety of costumes” he encountered in Bucharest where “all the races of the East and West dressed in the widest range of garments.”

What was the day-to-day life of a bourgeois family in Bucharest like at the beginning of the 19^th century? What were the daily private and public activities of a newly settled family, which adhered in all its details to a clearly defined urban culture, living in a town in the course of modernization and urbanization?

We can reconstruct this kind of environment from the description of the Transylvanian painter Barabas Miklos. The family the artist visited most often was that of a barber-pharmacist of Italian origin named Raimondi. The entire family “was very cultivated,” the two girls, Cecilia and Giuseppina, together with their mother, “spoke Romanian and Greek, the latter being the language of the Romanian aristocratic salon. They also spoke French and Italian fluently, and even Hungarian fairly well, that language having been learned from their Hungarian servants and wet nurses” who came from the Sekler area of south-east Transylvania and were well paid. Cecilia, the youngest of the family, was taking painting lessons with Barabas, while Giuseppina “occupied her time with music, playing the piano well.”11

In the circle of the Raimondi family we discover through Barabas’ stories a Greek “by the name of Breton” who had studied in Paris and “spoke Greek, French and Romanian” and whose wife was “a Hungarian from Braşov” and a painter.

On one occasion, Barabas took part in an interesting discussion with the Raimondi daughters, to whose home a Romanian bishop had also been invited. The conversation was in Romanian, and “one of the young ladies announced that instead of Hungarian she would prefer to learn English because that language is more beautiful. I who had heard plenty of English conversations contradicted her claiming that this was not true, although would the young lady propose that English literature interested her more I would not make any comment, except that I doubt that English is more beautiful than Hungarian! How amazed I was when the Romanian bishop sided with me, praising the Hungarian language and proving his point by reciting ‘Hopes,’ an ode of the poet Csokonai, with an accent so pure that you could not expect better even from a Hungarian poet.”12

This short reference is an indication that there were families of mixed ethnic origin — if not in the first generation, at least in the following ones — whose culture was rich and diversified. Their knowledge of foreign languages ranged from the most widely used languages in Europe to the Romanian and Greek in current use in the Wallachian region, the latter gradually being replaced by French.

In 1899 Ionescu-Gion wrote about the extraordinary “energy of Bucharest life” and the “overwhelming” preponderance of foreigners. The town “crawls with people, peasants, Romanian and Greek merchants; then, there are the foreigners who have settled for good in Bucharest” alongside “a few scattered French and Italians.” 13

The introduction of modernity as an institutional, social, and cultural model came about not only through adoption and imitation but also as a result of the stable co-existence of many ethnic groups in a multicultural Bucharest society. Without these preconditions, post-1900 Bucharest would not have had the aspect of a cosmopolitan city.

Being tied neither to the Ottoman Empire nor to Europe, Bucharest attracted merchants, craftsmen, specialized tradesmen, and independent professionals from all over Europe. These newcomers eventually became residents of the town and in the long term would determine the particular role of Bucharest in tying together West and the East, those two great cultural spheres which continuously rubbed together in this restricted space. On the one hand, there were the aristocracy, and many immigrants from Central Europe or the Occident (French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Austrian and Transylvanian) who advocated modernity. On the other hand, there were the common people, the Balkan elements, very numerous, who were anchored in the values of the Orient. On the Bucharest streets at the beginning the 19th century, people talked using words from different languages such as Romanian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek and Albanian, and after 1850, the influence of French was definitive.14 In other words, Bucharest was absorbing social elements of great ethnic, religious and cultural diversity. 15

The impressiveness of this process of immigration to Bucharest in the modern era is illustrated in a work edited by two police officers in 1923. They recall the numerous “newcomers” who “begin to settle down” within the city limits, including Jews, Albanians, Turks, Germans, Hungarians, Serbs, Bulgarians and even Italians and French. Of all these foreigners, Bucharest is “most sought after by the Greeks.” 16

After the Balkan peninsula fell under Ottoman domination, but especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, the north of the Danube area, the Romanian countries became a refuge for Christian people of the Balkan Peninsula. Emigration from the Ottoman Empire brought into the Romanian countries hundred of thousands up to millions17 of Balkan people of diverse origins: Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian, Serbian, Jewish, Armenian. These ethnic groups founded “Balkan” centers,18  compact Greek, Bulgarian, Albanian, or Serbian communities or ethnic microcosms appeared as quarters (“mahalale”19) in Romanian cities, and in Bessarabia’s rural area as “colonies”. Bucharest became the greatest centre of Balkan population. Also, the Romanian Principalities became a favourable place for economic, commercial, and cultural activities, and, in the 19^th century, for political ones.

The Balkan immigration established in Bucharest was professionally structured: merchants (shopkeepers, wholesalers, hawkers or costermongers), abagii (craftsmen of wool, abale), silver and gold jewellers, basmangii (headkerchief makers), grocers, bogasieri (merchants of staple goods), boiangii (painters), bakers, chefs, bumbăcari (merchants of cotton textiles), căldărari (craftsmen of pails), calpaccii (makers of Turkish caps), cavafi (merchants of old shoes), cazangii (coopers), craftsmen of bagpipes, shepherds, cowherds, shoemakers or cobblers, cişmegii (craftsmen of pumps), confectioners, carpenters, gaitangii (craftsmen and merchants of găitane — clothing accessories), gelepii (executioners and thugs), innkeepers, locksmiths, woodcutters, chandlers, butchers, marchidani (merchants of trifles), millers, olangii (craftsmen of shingles), papugii (shirkers), pasmangii (craftsmen of passementerie), fishermen, pivari (fullers), pâslari (lumbermen), plăpumari (blanket makers), bridge builders, ceaprăzari (craftsmen of buttons), sparemen, wheelers, soap makers, simigii (bakers of crackers), tinkers, glaziers, tufeccii (mercenaries), toptangii (merchants of trifles and old things), tobacconists, arnăuţi (soldiers). Besides these, there were also many clergymen, priests, teachers, printing workers, and even bishops.20

Moreover, Bucharest became one of the printing and editorial centres of the Balkan region, and many of the immigrant teachers taught in Romanian schools at the college level (Academiile Domneşti).

Shops were built, along with haberdasheries, churches, bakeries, workshops, inns, banks, commercial companies and then, step by step, schools, printing works, publishing houses, clubs for conferences or reading, sponsoring committees, cultural and political committees, secret revolutionary or radical committees.

The Balkan ethnic communities of Bucharest had an intense economic, cultural and political life. Their areas were quarters such as Dudeşti-Cioplea, Udricani, Căuzaşi, Sârbi, Curtea Veche, Colţea, Târgul de Afară, and professional streets such as Lipscani, Gabroveni, Cavafii Vechi, Colţea, Covaci, Şelari, Armenească.

This Balkan world of compact ethnic communities implanted here a veritable “Balkan civilization” made of new trades, types of clothing, words in the local parlance, habits, rituals and customs, mentalities, behaviours and attitudes, types of building and architectural styles (houses, inns, churches, and synagogues), as well as new types of domestic objects and weapons, interior furnishings, and ideas and political programs.

This situation, together with the presence of the political, intellectual, and financial elite, contributed substantially to the modernization of Bucharest society in particular and of Romanian society in general.21 Walachian society rapidly assimilated elements of modernity, which at the beginning were taken on by the aristocratic classes through cohabitation with newcomers, an occurrence frequently noted by foreign visitors.19 However, the new was generally introduced with awkwardness and in an inappropriate hurry, which created numerous paradoxes, as the old and modern combined to create a hybrid form. Raoul Perrin and Saint Marc refer to this phenomenon in their memoirs of 1830 to1831.22

Despite this awkwardness, the modernization of Bucharest society continued over a period of 150 years, although from 1800 the pace of change accelerated. The interchange between “the centre and the periphery” took on another dimension. The periphery was transformed from an exclusively marginal space to a transitory one, from a sub-urban space to a pre-urban one where modernity made its presence felt, even if less obviously than in the centre, and for which the centre became the determining model of conduct.

A vertical urban hierarchy influenced by professional and economic factors emerged as the central model, which constantly underwent transformation and renewal and was imitated and adopted

by the periphery, often with success. Following these changes, the periphery experienced a process of urbanization and modernization whereby the inhabitants of the fringes, swallowed over time by the city, adopted urban consciousness. Those who came into the city complied with its behavioural codes as far as materially possible. They used libraries and pursued education in high school or university. They participated in new activities, such as attending the theatres and cinemas, and wore suits with white shirts and handkerchiefs in their breast pockets or at least one of these accessories. They strolled in the park or along the boulevards, visited clubs, cafes, and restaurants, used prohibited vocabulary, attended to personal hygiene, and so on. Also, women gained much greater liberty, almost attaining equality in the domestic sphere, participating in decisions, and occupying a more central position in public life, where they were admired, courted, and offered attention; however, this occurred only in the urban centre, extending very rarely to the periphery.

These changes in the basic values of daily life disrupted family life. “In order to turn themselves into civilised Europeans” the husbands of ladies tried very hard not to appear jealous as they “against their will and inherent social convention allowed the ladies unconditional liberty,” an act which “tried them severely.” In other words, Bucharest came to know liberty on a scale comparable to the Capua of ancient Rome.23 Deep erosion of the sanctity of intimate life led to an acute crisis within the family.

Brusque and radical emancipation of the young wives and daughters of city dwellers and of the boyar class, compounded by the acceptance of divorce by the Orthodox Church, undermined the traditional coherence of the family. Adultery was transformed into “an element of progress” and “a first step to health” for Romanian society.24

Flirting, courting, marital or other kinds of infidelity led to another outburst with social repercussions for the collective consciousness — that of the race for extravagance and the frenzy to keep up with the latest fashions under the guise of modernity. The motivating force in this race was not

taste and refinement in costume or behaviour but the desire to show off in public with the latest carriage or dress, ordered from Paris or Vienna and adorned with the newest and most expensive jewellery.

Snobbism and superficiality became common characteristics of daily Bucharest life, and the lavishness of dress and its immense costs, coupled with a lack of good taste, assaulted the eye of any visitor from abroad. Nobody from the higher echelons of society or those who aspired to it would even think of walking, they always travelled by carriage, and the latest fashion accessories were paraded without any understanding or appreciation of their real value as symbols of modernity.25 For example, wearing clothing ordered in Paris or Vienna implied a certain degree of attention to daily personal hygiene (underwear, perfumed bathing lotions, rooms dedicated to washing) which was very rarely found in 19th-century Bucharest. Public toilets appeared in rudimentary form only after 1880, underground toilets only after 1926, and the clearing of mud, dust, garbage, etc., from the streets of Bucharest was only introduced toward the middle of the 20th century. Many young English governesses working for the Romanian “upper crust” considered that they served “part-civilised aristocrats who paid them extremely well, in a country of ‘white niggers.’” 26

In the middle of the 19th century, Sandor Verres, a Bucharest visitor, tells of evening strolls on the Mogoşoaia Bridge (today’s Calea Victoriei): “Evening after evening the high society of the town and all the beautiful women come here accompanied by their courtiers and handsome officers. Here too one can see street women who with great pomposity mingle with women of the highest class. It is most regrettable that this equality is accompanied by many undesirable aspects, not only here but everywhere in the world, such that we have arrived at the stage where no difference can be discerned between unmarried girls and women, between honest ladies and ladies of pleasure. . .”27

Gradually Bucharest fell into ‘sweet decadence’, a ‘pseudo-Western sophistication which led to that controversially famous claim to being “the Paris of the Balkans”.28

Through the force of its own character, Bucharest society at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th immediately absorbed all cultural differences because the lifestyle and fluidity of society lacked “any concern for past or future — for it had neither”.28 For example, balls were one of the daily pastimes that had the greatest impact on the upper and middle classes of society. Around 1874, young people of all kinds without a care for tomorrow could be observed attending balls “to educate the eye.” At these balls, “side by side with professional companions, prostitutes by trade, you can see children brought there ‘to learn how to dance’ and also a youngster of 10 or 11 years old who probably hasn’t even finished primary school, curious to join in the waltz and to initiate himself in what is known as the polite world of the salons.”29

The lack of seriousness with regard to daily life and the insecurity of its intimate side became permanent conditions for the majority of Bucharest’s social classes. In the almanacs of the period satirical tales predominate, and epigrams with clear insinuations of infidelity and adultery are everywhere.

In 1913, the wife of the Conservative party leader Petre P. Carp tried to explain “the cause of our decline,” finding the answer in “an almost total lack of moral character, coupled with a complete absence of general culture.”30 These missing qualities are in fact two of those which form the foundations of a modern society — education and trust — and they are still missing from Bucharest society today.

On the other hand, the Bucharest of this period of ethnic and multicultural diversity survived because of prevailing social and religious tolerance — somewhat reduced in the case of Jews. At the same time, the city remained fundamentally the same in character due to its Ottoman foundations laid down 200 years before the onset of modernization.

This foundation was an enduring reality in the history of Bucharest. Despite all the progress toward urbanization and modernization, those citizens — with their sense of the modern, their new styles of clothing, controlled behaviour and enriched vocabulary, and with their updated domestic interior and architecture — could not change; they remained deeply attached to the ‘values’ of the East.

Let us remind ourselves of the boyar Obedeanu who, in 1831, felt so uncomfortable in his European clothes that when he caught sight of himself in the mirror he flung the top hat from his head.

“All is as before” — wrote the author Cezar Petrescu in 1921 — “nothing has changed. Only peoples’ expressions are more vulgar and their pleasures more indulgent.”31

Hilariopolis32 or “an illusory city”

Bucharest’s habits have remained unchanged for three hundred years. Palaces and huts; people and garbage on the streets “after the Turk custom”; luxury and poverty;   modern and very expensive cars competing with carriages and sheep herds. The most original cohabit is between people and dogs: this cohabit created the “community dog” concept. The dogs are living on the streets in a simultaneous existence with the people. The people and the dogs are two parallel worlds.33

Franco Sivori in 1585 said that Bucharest “couldn’t be a city”34; in 1828 Alexander Danilevski came to Bucharest and met “people with Asian faces … talking a language impossible to understand.”35 For Radivitz “the illusion was disappearing when you entered in the city,”36 and the “strange city, nearly primitive” was almost “a great village of Mauretania.”37 Today, “only during the night can one ignore history because the darkness is blurring the terrible reality.”38  

“The geography’s progress” – a new country is born

During the medieval and pre-modern periods, the Romanian countries were named Walachia and Moldavia. In 1859, those two countries were united, and thus appeared a new country and a new name: Romania. Until 1859, Walachia and Moldavia appeared on the maps of Europe as component parts of the Ottoman Empire, although they weren’t made pashalik. After 1859 and indeed even after 1878, the old names, Walachia and Moldavia, were still present beside the new name. European geography assimilated the new name of this new country with difficulty.

“What is in fact Romania?” Ulisse de Marsillac asked himself in 1869. He answered thus: “Well, here is a name that appears neither in a dictionary nor on a geographical map and the diplomatic language didn’t assimilate yet.”39 After 1900, Romania’s high life circulated expressions such as: “Don’t you know that the English and the French do not have any idea what Romania means? What do we say about Americans? Si jeune et déjà moldovalaque? You are too Moldo-Walachian, sir, small country, small problems, interests reduced. Nothing to do. Whisky and then the family’s tomb.”40

“Small country, small problems…” This was a reality for the Romanian intellectuals after 1900, especially during the interwar period.41 Today, Bucharest is seldom mistaken for Budapest — Javier Solana made this mistake, for example. For the Occidental world, geography’s progress is still a problem, especially as far as Eastern and Southeastern Europe are concerned.

“I am Punkitititi.” I really am!

Now, I’ll present an interesting custom in Bucharest’s naming habits. Although the usual Romanian surnames are Elena, Constantin, Gheorghe, Ana, Maria, or another Christian surname, in 18^th century Bucharest society, many names were clearly of Oriental origin: Kalmuca, Ghiptana, Haita, Ardela, Sephora, Zafbeta, Zaneptu.42

After European influence made itself felt in the 19th century, the same women adopted new surnames: Nina, Dolly, Mary, Jane, Renne, and Elisabeth. In 1930, Cezar Petrescu wrote, “The modernization is only varnish; it changed Podul Mogo*oaiei street into the Victory Road. There are the same kiramelele (ladies) from another time, Arghira, Rozalina, but they are named Dolly or Mary.

All is as before.”43 Today, many people from Bucharest adopt the names of actors or soap-opera characters, such as Elvis, Esmeralda, Osama, or Greta Garbo.44 This custom was originally typical for ordinary people, a custom for the enraptured, but for the last 60 years, it has become a custom for the ruling elite, too.

“European countries without European morals” or “What can we hope?”45

“I asked my fellow-traveller, ‘What distance is between Paris and Bucharest?’ Three centuries, sir! was his answer,” wrote Ulysse de Marsillac in 1869. On the other hand, “nature made Romania a superb country. People spoilt it a lot.”46 This feeling has persisted; thus, for Paul de Alep, Walachia was “misfortune’s country”47 where “the people are alike with cattle” and “eternally dissatisfied wherever they are living.”48

Romanians are “inconsistent, hot-blooded and brutal characters”49 and their elites have an “absolute repulsion for movement.”50 In the middle of the 19th century, in Bucharest one could see “princes without palaces, clergy without morality, an Academy without members, a library without readers, immense streets without houses, splendid palaces near awful hovels, superb boulevards and horrible cloaca; everywhere water and never a fountain, a municipality without a head, a police force without policemen, a law court without justice, divorces without limits, husbands without wives, wives without husbands….”51 In 1828, “here everything (was) in a primitive state”52 and today, “here everything is jerk, nudge, interjection, snarling, slap in the face, shot, resentment, charge, sourness…”.53

Are we a damned country? In 1852, Bucharest was “the most corrupt city from Europe,”54 an embodiment of human dissolution. Thus, one who had lived here “couldn’t be again what one was before.” So, “are we a damned country? In Romania, for the common people, the human ideal is almost a self conceit. One doesn’t live decently. For a hundred years we had a major torture: worry for the morrow.”55

The general feeling now is that everything is a “useless faith”; suicidal ideas are frequent among the younger generations. “Is this life? I asked myself, why don’t I commit suicide soon?” 56 And then,

“What is it doing here? You haven’t medium, that’s all, absence of understanding and livelihood…”57 There is “an uncertain sentiment” for your life, for your future. And then, there is an inversion of values so that “if you are more beastly and ruder, you can become a multi-millionaire.”58

To conclude, in the Romanian society, a competition for first place continues between cultural European values and Oriental values, and the border that separates them is still tender and unstable.

 Notes