The Danube (49 page)
Authors: Nick Thorpe
15.
Nick Thorpe,
'89 – The Unfinished Revolution – Power and Powerlessness in Eastern Europe
, Reportage Press, London, 2009.
16.
Yehuda Bauer,
A History of the Holocaust
, Franklin Watts, New York, 1982.
17.
Danube Bike Trail
, Vols 1–4, Bikeline, Verlag Esterbauer, Rodingersdorf, 2008.
18.
‘Fukushima radiation spread as far as Romania’, 25 August 2011: 〈http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/3/034011/fulltext/〉.
1. The Beginning of the World
1.
Herodotus,
The Histories
, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt, Penguin Classics, Book 5, ch 10, Harmondsworth, 1954 p. 317.
2.
〈http://molluscs.at.gastropoda/index.html?/gastropoda/freshwater/neritidae.html〉
3.
Mór Jókai, ‘Arany Ember, 1872, The Man with the Golden Touch’, in Mór Jókai,
Timar's Two Worlds
, trans. Hegan Kennard, M. J. Ivers, New York, 2010.
4.
See 〈http://norwaygrants.org/en/Activities/Project-events/Biology-sociology-and-tourism-to-preserve-the-Danube-beluga-sturgeon/〉; 〈
www.ddbra.ro
〉.
5.
Neal Ascherson,
Black Sea – The Birthplace of Civilisation and Barbarism
, Jonathan Cape, London, 1995.
6.
For much of the data on sturgeon in this book, I am indebted to Radu Suciu, and to his teacher, Nicolae Bacalbaşa-Dobrovici (1916–2010).
7.
Razvan Voiculescu,
Dobrogea inceptul lumii
(Dobrogea – The Beginning of the World), bilingual Romanian and English edition, Editura Q-T-RAZ, Bucharest, 2008.
8.
On silkworms in the Ottoman empire, see 〈
http://www.academia.edu/168776/Patterns_of_Proto-industrialization_in_the_Ottoman_Empire_The_case_of_eastern_Thessaly_ca.1750–1860
〉.
9.
Gavrila Derzhavin, old Russian national anthem, trans. Alexander F. Beck. See 〈http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grom_pobedy,_razdavajsya!〉
10.
Patrick Kinross,
The Ottoman Empire
, Jonathan Cape, London, 1977; The Folio Society, London, 2003.
11.
Constantin Ardelean,
The European Commission of the Danube and the Results of Its Technical and Administrative Activity on the Safety of Navigation, 1856–1914
. See 〈
http://www.academia.edu/1016592
〉.
12.
For Ceauşescu's attempts to drain the Danube, see inter alia: Daily News, 22/2/90: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1241&dat=19900222&id=dGhTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DYYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2806,2185405.
13.
Well illustrated by the statement of the Romanian Communist Party dissident Silviu Brucan to this author, November 1987 in Silviu Brucan,
The Wasted Generation – Memoirs of the Romanian Journey from Capitalism to Socialism and Back
, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1993.
14.
Jacques Cousteau studied the Danube with his team from 1990 to 1992. See 〈
http://www.cousteau.org/expeditions/danube
〉.
15.
ICPDR Joint Danube Survey 2, Vienna, 2008.
16.
See 〈
http://www.bestcombat.cc-intro.info/beluga-sturgeon-community-based-tourism
〉.
17.
Kindly translated by Onur Yumurtaci of the Anadolu University Faculty of Communication Sciences, Department of Film and Television, Eskişehir.
2. The Kneeling Oak
1.
In Gerard Casey,
Between the Symplegades – Revisions from a Mythological Story
, Enitharmon Press, London, 1980.
2.
See 〈http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._A._Rosetti〉.
3.
For a good summary of the case against more barge traffic on the Danube, see 〈
http://www.wwf.hu/media/file/1180873628_danubereport_4.pdf
〉.
4.
The letter begins: ‘Hear now, my son, those things of which I think you should not be ignorant, and be wise that you may attain to government. For I maintain that while learning is a good thing for all the rest as well, who are subjects, yet it is especially so for you, who are bound to take thought for the safety of all, and to steer and guide the laden ship of the world.’ Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus,
De Administrando Imperio
,
c.950
AD
, ed. Gy. Moravcsik, trans. R. J. H. Jenkins, new, rev. edn, Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1967, pp. 49–51; 167–71, 57–63.
5.
Elizabeth Taylor died on 23 March 2011.
6.
Data cited by Aurel Bajenaru.
7.
No English translation exists. A French translation has been made, but is out of print. There is also a film called
Europolis
, based on the life of Eugeniu Botez / Jean Bart: Cornel Georghita,
Europolis
(2010); see 〈
http://www.europolis-film.com/?lang=en
〉.
8.
For the water tower of Sulina, see 〈
http://www.romguide.net/Visit/The-Water-Tower_vt5c5
〉; for The Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, see 〈http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/588/〉.
9.
Interviews by the author with Maria Sterp
et al.
, Poiana Sibiului, summer 2005.
10.
Sfântu Gheorghe film festival: 〈
http://www.festival-anonimul.ro/home_en
〉.
11.
Mak Dizdar,
Kameni Spavac – Stone Sleeper
, trans. Francis Jones, DID, Sarajevo, 1999.
12.
Jason and the Argonauts
, Stephanides Brothers’ Greek Mythology, Trans. Bruce Walter, Sigma, Athens, 1998.
13.
Romanian Folk Tales
, trans. Ana Cartianu, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1979.
14.
Nicolae Densusiana,
Prehistoric Dacia
, 〈
www.pelasgians.org/website1/06_02.htm
〉.
3. Mountains of the Fathers
1.
Ibn Battuta,
Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354
, trans. H. A. R. Gibb, George Routledge, London, 1929.
2.
Andrzej Stasiuk,
On the Road to Babadag – Travels in the Other Europe
, Harvill Secker, London, 2011.
3.
F. W. Hasluck,
Christianity and Islam under the Sultans
, 2 vols, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1929; H. T. Norris,
Islam in the Balkans – Religion and Society between Europe and the Arab World
, Hurst, London, 1993.
4.
Andrea Weichinger and Nick Thorpe,
The Vineleaf and the Rose, A Journey into Bosnia
, documentary, TintoFilms/ MTV, Budapest, 2001.
5.
See 〈http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8682669.stm〉.
6.
Hasluck,
Christianity and Islam
, Vol. 1, p. 95.
7.
For a fictional, but very readable, novel based on the Leprosarium in Tichileşti, see Ognjen Spahić,
Hansen's Children
, Istros Books, London, 2012.
8.
For the Lipovan Russians, see 〈
http://www.crlr.ro/index_en.php
〉.
9.
An Orthodox prayer from the third Sunday of Lent, which is known as the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross: ‘The Church fathers equate the life-giving cross with the tree of life and plant it in the middle of the Lenten pilgrimage. It was the tree that was planted in Paradise; it is to remind the faithful of both Adam's bliss and how he was of deprived of it.’ See 〈http://orthodoxwiki.org/Sunday_of_the_Holy_Cross〉; and: 〈http://byztex.blogspot.hu/2011/03/before-thy-cross-we-bow-down-in-worship.html〉.
4. The Colour of the River
1.
Gimbutas,
Goddesses and Gods
, p.238.
2.
Bertolt Brecht,
Selected Poems
, trans. H. R. Hays, Grove Press, New York, 1959. The poem is a remarkable recognition of the failure of communism, by a believer. A section of the poem reads:
You, who shall emerge from the flood
In which we are sinking,
Think –
When you speak of our weaknesses,
Also of the dark time
that brought them forth.
For we went, changing our country more often than our shoes,
In the class war, despairing
When there was only injustice and no resistance.
For we knew only too well:
Even the hatred of squalor
Makes the brow grow stern.
Even anger against injustice
Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we
Who wished to lay foundations of kindness
Could not ourselves be kind.
3.
Manuela Wullschleger,
Neolithic Art in Romania
, Arte-m, Bucharest, 2008.
4.
Gimbutas,
Goddesses and Gods
, p. 17.
5.
Chapman and Gaydarska,
Colour in Balkan Prehistory
.
6.
For more on the controversy, see especially 〈Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology#Marija Gimbutas〉.
7.
Romanian Radio International, article on Anghel Saligny, 18 October 2010.
8.
For the hardship experienced during the building of the canal, see, inter alia: 〈
http://www.magtudin.org/black%20sea.htm
〉.
9.
For the cave churches of Basarabi, see especially Constantin Chera,
Basarabi – The Cave Churches Complex – Description of the archaeological site and of the carved images
, 〈http://constanta.inoe.ro/pagini/p13.html〉.
10.
See 〈http://kroraina.com/pb_lang/pbl_2_4.html〉.
11.
The Romanians discount the Bulgarian claims 〈http://constanta.inoe.ro/pagini/p13.html〉.
12.
Herodotus,
The Histories
, Book IV, Chapter 93, p. 272 (referring to the Getae). For the controversy over who exactly the Getae, Dacians, Scythians and Thracians were, and where they came from, see 〈
http://www.sino-platonic.org/abstracts/spp127_getes.html
〉; see also
The Romanian Space in Medieval Cartographic Representations
, Radio Romania International, 27 January 2011.
13.
See 〈http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacian_language〉.
14.
Marguerite Yourcenar,
Memoirs of Hadrian
, Librarie Plon, Paris, 1951, trans. Grace Frick, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1959, p. 56.
15.
Heraclitus, fragment LXXIX. See commentary in Charles H. Kahn,
The Art and Thought of Heraclitus
, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, p. 201.
16.
Mihai Vlasie,
How to Get to the Monasteries of Romania
, trans. Luminita Irina Niculescu and Diana Presada, Editura Sophia, Bucharest, 2003, p. 48.
5. The Dogs of Giurgiu
1.
Elias Canetti,
The Memoirs of Elias Canetti – The Tongue Set Free
, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, New York, 1999, p. 7.
2.
See 〈
http://www.romguide.net/Visit/Lower-Danube-Museum_vt44b
〉.
3.
Pencho Slaveikoff,
The Shade of the Balkans – A Collection of Bulgarian Folksongs and Proverbs
, David Nutt, London, 1904; 〈
http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029895467/cu31924029895467_djvu.txt
〉.
4.
For more on Eliezer Papo, see 〈
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11891-papo-eliezer-ben-isaac
〉.
5.
See WWF Factsheet: ‘Navigation Project: Romania-Bulgaria’, 18 January 2010.
6.
Nick Thorpe
et al.
,
Tearing Down the Curtain: People's Revolution in Eastern Europe
, Headway Books, Hodder Arnold H & S, London, 1990.
7.
For Ruse, see Nikolai Nenov,
Guidebook
; 〈
www.parnas.bg
〉;
Thracian Treasure of Borovo
, 〈
www.museumruse.com
〉.
8.
Canetti,
Memoirs
, p. 7.
9.
The information here is taken from notes from the museum catalogue.
10.
Ali Haydar Midhat,
The Life of Midhat Pasha: a record of his services, political reforms, banishment, and judicial murder
, J. Murray, London, 1903.
11.
For Ilija Trojanow's documentary (in German), 17 December 2007, see 〈
http://www.zdf.de/Mainzer-Stadtschreiber/Gespr%C3%A4che-mit-Opfern-und-Zeitzeugen-5363280.html
〉.
6. Gypsy River
1.
Interview with the author, May 2011.
2.
Kinross,
The Ottoman Empire
, p. 56.
3.
See 〈
http://www.velikoturnovo.info/arte.php?Codf=3&Codr=29
〉.
4.
For Aleko Konstantinov, see
The Everyman Companion to East European Literature
, ed. R. B. Pynsent and S. I. Kanikova, J. M. Dent, London, 1993, pp. 199–200.
5.
Maria Todorova,
Imagining the Balkans
, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009, pp. 39–42.
6.
Sonia Kanikova on Aleko Konstantinov, in
The Everyman Companion to East European Literature
, ed. Pynsent and Kanikova.
7.
For details about the Persina Nature Park, see 〈
www.persina.org
〉.
8.
Kinross,
The Ottoman Empire
, p. 56.
9.
Ibid., p. 58.
10.
Mehmed Genç, ‘L'Economie Ottomane et la guerre au xvii siècle’,
Tunica
27, 1995, pp. 177–96, cited in
The Ottomans and the Balkans – A Discussion of Historiography
, ed. Fikret Adanir and Suraiya Faroqhi, Brill, Leiden, 2002, p. 15.
11.
Gábor Ágoston, ‘Habsburgs and Ottomans, Defense, Military Change and Shifts in Power’,
Turkish Studies Association Bulletin
, 22, 1, 1998, pp. 126–41.
12.
Metternich had changed his views markedly since 1828 when he wrote: ‘We look on the Ottoman Empire as the best of our neighbours: since she is scrupulously true to her word, we regard contact with her as equivalent to contact with a natural frontier which never claims our attention or dissipates our energies. We look on Turkey as the last bastion standing in the way of the expansion of another Power …’ Metternich's Letter to Prince Paul Esterhazy, the Austrian Ambassador in London, 2 December 1828. Cited in G. de Bertier de Sauvigny,
Metternich and His Times
, Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1962, p. 247.