Volume XIII (2008)

CULTURE, BOOKS, SOCIETY: LIVING AND DYING LIFE

Contents

Studies

István M. FEHÉR
Institution:
Department of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy, “Eötvös Loránd” University, Budapest
Email:
h914feh@helka.iif.hu
Abstract

The paper attempts to show the significance of Heidegger’s phenomenology of religion as an important step on his way to his magnum opus. In particular, I wish to exhibit traits characteristic of, and to prove decisive for, Heidegger’s path of thinking in terms of his confrontation with the leading philosophical tendencies of the age, thereby centring discussion around the reciprocal connections of phenomenology, historicism, hermeneutics, and Lebensphilosophie. Specifically, I will argue that it was with an eye to, and drawing upon, his previous understanding of religion and religious life, as well as of the relation between faith and theology, that Heidegger was to conceive of philosophy and its relation to human existence in Being and Time. He performed his hermeneutic turn through a reciprocal fusion and radicalization of phenomenology and life-philosophy – an operation permeated by the attempt to return to factical life and factical life experience in its originality. Rather than consciousness and its intentional acts, as conceived by Husserl, the thing itself philosophy had to return to was for Heidegger factical life. – The argument will be elaborated in two steps. First, I will sketch an outline of Heidegger’s development in the post-war years; second, against the background of this sketch I will focus more specifically on his 1920/21 course on the Phenomenology of Religion by selecting and highlighting some of the features I think are salient for Heidegger’s thinking no less than for the Sache selbst.

Full Text

Radu CHIRIŢĂ
Institution:
Faculty of Law, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Email:
radu@raduchirita.ro
Abstract

The legal nature of the right to life is a fundamental aspect of any discussion regarding the exercitation of this right by any human being. Therefore the State must respect a person’s right to life, if this right has a correlation in the person’s right to choose death can only be explained juridically by determining first the legal nature of the right to life. The thesis this article argues for is that the right to life contains two elements: a personal right to life, which appears as soon as a person is conceived, and a detached right to life, which belongs to society in general beginning with the moment when the foetus is viable. The first element which forms the right to life ceases at the moment when the person dies, while, sometimes, the detached right ceases or appears as a diminished social interest beginning with a moment anterior to death. Under these conditions, the legal nature of the right to life is situated during most of a person’s life at the confluence of the notions right and liberty. The paper argues for that, in principle, the right to life is not a liberty, therefore one cannot give it up in a valid way. However, in certain situations, the detached right to life may be diminished to such an extent that the right to life can pass as a liberty, composed in fact of the personal and subjective right to live which anyone may give up in a valid way. Consequently, as regards the voluntary interference with the right to life, the state cannot be obliged to give assistance to suicide, but it can be compelled to accept the impunity of euthanasia in certain conditions analyzed in the study.

Full Text

Teodora MANEA
Institution:
“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iaşi
Email:
teo.manea@gmx.de
Abstract

Biotechnologies have introduced at least two new perspectives on body-perception. The first is determined by the new methods of analyzing, investigating and interpreting the body. We know more and more about our body and we can predict some of the diseases that we or our children are going to develop. We tend to believe we can find our destiny in our genes. The second perspective concerns the new “products” of biotechnology, which can justly be called biofacts. A biofact is a living artefact, a new kind of being that is no longer autonomous and which is designed and engineered in a laboratory. These new perspectives on body-perception urge a reconsideration of the ontology of body. In my opinion, this ontology is dualistic. My thesis is that the materialization of the body, its reduction to a material substratum, and its separation from rationality and emotions, has turned the body into an artefact. I will describe in the first sections of this paper some aspects and key stages of this transformation, namely: 1) the externalisation of the body; 2) its interpretation and treatment as a machine and artefact; 3) the programming and reprogramming of bodies; 4) the social body; 5) undefined bodies (transsexuality); 6) hybrid bodies, and 7) bodies no longer alive (the "Body-Worlds" exhibition). In the last two sections of my paper, I stress the importance of ontology for ethical debates. We manage to realize the potential danger of the new technologies only if we know what kinds of entities they are related to. I follow Levinas’ definition of ethic as optic. Without an adequate perception we cannot gain adequate definitions of the new types of entities and of the new existential situations created by biotechnology. And as long as our language is inexact, we cannot formulate relevant ethical imperatives.

Full Text

Veronika SZÁNTÓ
Institution:
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy, Budapest
Email:
santov@gmail.com
Abstract

This paper traces the ethical consequences implicit in the collapse of the animal/human boundary. This boundary became suspect as early as the mid-17th century, but it was Darwinian evolution that gave the lethal blow to the distinction. There are two aspects in which the concept of evolution by natural selection gained ethical relevance: the one is the evolution of ethics, the other is the ethics of evolution. Although Darwin himself was engaged mostly in the former, his social scientist followers, such as Herbert Spencer, elaborated on the latter. However, whereas the Social Darwinists pretended to justify values on a scientific basis, their theories were based on the uncritical identification of their pre-existent value choices with the “ways of nature.” After the resurgence of biological inquiries into morality following World War II, leading sociobiologist E. O. Wilson claimed that the biologization of ethics is unavoidable. However, his results were self-contradictory that further left the main focus of ethics untouched and were prone to fall back into Social Darwinism. Environmental ethicists also capitalize on the Darwinian notion of the evolution of ethics. While their effort to use evolution as a justification for particular moral practices is still questionable, their interpretation of living structures as adapted normative systems is far more promising. The critical examination of the fact/value dichotomy in relation to moral as well as amoral living systems is crucial in a biologically sensitive moral philosophy that wants to avoid the pitfalls of its predecessors.

Full Text

Béla MESTER
Institution:
Senior Fellow of the Institute for Philosophical Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
Email:
mester@webmail.phil-inst.hu
Abstract

My objective in this paper is to show some parallels between the roles of monogenesis and polygenesis of humankind in the thought of early modernity and in contemporary paleoanthropology. My insights into the history of philosophy: a theory of ”praeadamitae” as an argument for the rejection of original sin in Unitarian theology of early modernity and its role in John Locke’s theory of state. Conflict between universality and particularity of morals in Voltaire’s thought in the mirror of his theory of “praeadamitae”. In the last part of my article I demonstrate the disadvantages of the lack of philosophical reflection of contemporary paleoanthropology.

Full Text

Péter SÁRKÁNY
Institution:
Apor Vilmos Catholic College, Vác, Hungary
Email:
lbe.alapitvany@gmail.com
Abstract

In my article I demonstrate the motivation theoretical connections of philosophical praxis / counseling. I argue that this approach is capable of clarifying the peculiarity of this new discipline of applied philosophy as philosophy, and the range of its competence and relation to other assistance professions, accordingly (psychotherapy, pedagogy, social work, etc). According to the article’s approach, philosophical praxis is not merely the application of philosophy to independently appearing life problems, but is itself a kind of practice, or in the language of tradition the praxis of theory (Aristotle), which at the same time always means life practice/philosophy. In the words of Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, it is “such a universal enlightening, which does not derive from the light of meaning, but is inflamed by life, when stumbling upon the hard cornerstones of its boundaries”.

Full Text

Cecília LIPPAI
Institution:
Central European University, Budapest
Email:
lippai_cecilia@yahoo.com
Abstract

The notion of the care of the soul, one of the central topics of antique philosophy re-emerges in the 20thcentury as the point where the interests of two seemingly very different thinkers meet. It is both interesting and puzzling how the thoughts of Jan Patočka and Michel Foucault coincide, not just in their emphasis, or even over-emphasis on the importance of the care of the soul, but also in their reinterpretation of the notion that aims to it revive and reveal its actuality. This paper discusses the shifts of accent from the Platonic formulation of the care of the soul (that of the First Alcibiades, the Apology and the Phaedo), to the two 20th century revivals, with special attention on how and where these leave behind their source of inspiration. What remains constant through these shifts of emphasis is not some specific or essential content of the notion, but only an abstract principle which, however, offers a frame and an invitation to fill out this frame upon every new reading, thus applying it to the historical present. The frame includes a warning about the problematic nature of some ‘present’ state of affairs, and an appeal for a philosophical attitude of resistance. Thus it becomes a model for a philosophical life with both negative and positive aspects: the warning comes through as a critique of its present (the notion always gets filled with content in opposition to something), the appeal requires resistance and change of attitude, while they both point into the direction of a positive solution to overcome some critical state or crisis.

Full Text

Alpár LOSONCZ
Institution:
Department of Social Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Serbia
Email:
corna@eunet.yu
Abstract

This article investigates the meanings of life in political philosophy. There are two answers to the question concerning the legitimacy of life in political philosophy. The first, negative answer is connected to Arendt, the second is connected to Michel Foucault, who delineated the genesis of biopolitics in Western tradition and argued that, ever since the classical age, “deduction” based on the practice of sovereign power has become merely one element in a range of mechanisms working to generate, incite, reinforce, control, monitor, optimize, and organize the forces of life. Nowadays, the capacity to manipulate our bare biological life, rather than simply govern the aspects of forms of life, implies biopolitics which contests how and when we use these technologies and for what purposes. The author of this article emphasizes the significance of the common treatment of biopolitics and sovereignty. Political philosophy demonstrates that there is irreducible difference between these types of power, but it is necessary to analyze them simultaneously. There are several tendencies (for example, biosecurity) that prove the importance of sovereign power for the practice of biopolitics. Nevertheless, sovereignty without biopolitics is exposed to weaknesses and regression. The task for political philosophy is to articulate the dynamic relations between sovereignty and biopolitics today.

Full Text

Lajos András KISS
Institution:
Department of Philosophy, College of Nyíregyháza, Hungary
Email:
kisslaj@zeus.nyf.hu
Abstract

We are usually inclined to consider well-functioning everyday-life concepts and interpretive patterns as timeless evidences, without questioning the origins of these concepts and patterns, or the particular historical and cultural conditions of their appearance and unproblematic functioning. Phenomenological sociology has taught us that the prescriptive forms of knowledge always become interesting and exciting when there is some kind of “disorder in the mechanism”, when the previously functioning reflexes seem to be questioned and become confused.

Accordingly, the first and also most important question is as follows: is there an eternally valid human nature, or do we only wish to believe in the existence of such a nature, prevailing over history? The answer is structured in the paper in two parts, discussing the postulates of post-human anthropology, and the ethical dilemmas raised in connection with the issues debated. Following the analysis, the paper concludes that as long as the discussions of moral philosophy fail to offer some generally acceptable solution, one must accept the regulating power of national and international law.

Full Text

István KIRÁLY V.
Institution:
Faculty of History and Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Email:
philobib@bcucluj.ro
Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that terrorism is such a usage of death which essentially is inseparable from the secret. We could describe terrorism as the breeding ground of terror and anxiety turned into an instrumentand evoked by death-causing, respectively by death-causing presented as constantly possible – that is: threatening – in its secret unidentifiability. For the power of terror consists exactly in the quite particular instrumentalization of death, as well as of man’s attitude towards death – especially the instrumentalization of the fear of death. One basic and essential characteristics and aspect of this instrumentalization is the secret. It is exactly the secret that organizes, articulates, wraps and brings to reality terrorists as individuals, terrorist organizations, their activity, aims, instruments, members, plans and in short all their deeds. In the terrorist act exactly “this” secret blows fatally into (and often also blows up in) the public… Therefore the secret is not “one” feature or “attribute” of death-causing terrorism, on the contrary, it is the atmosphere and the horizon in which terrorism is outlined as the mode of existence of the being called “man” – and in which, hence, it must be considered. Consequently, the war on terrorism (too) should/must widen into a “fight” against the denial of death. A fight which should/must be fought (after all) not only and not exclusively and mainly on the secret fields, but, on the contrary, in the depth and womb of history – which becomes more and more visible in the fractures of history by means of present day terrorism.

Full Text

Ancuţa-Lăcrimioara CHIŞ
Institution:
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Email:
anc_ara_chis@yahoo.co.uk
Abstract

The shapers of European thought (the ancient Greeks) declared that from a biological viewpoint the woman’s body constitution is inferior to the man’s, and therefore she must subordinate herself. From this point until the appearance of feminism which conceptualized the discrimination of women and demanded its elimination, millennia have passed during which power has strengthened as a privilege of masculinity. In order to emphasize discrimination, I started from the hypothesis of the sexist nature of the social-political environment. As any system of thought, patriarchy also has models which make it secure, and which stand at the basis of its undesired authority. While the equality of Spartan women revolted Aristotle, saying that thus even slaves could ask for equal rights, the evolution of society forced this aberration and stain on the face of humanity to be eliminated, and the perspectives of social-political equality of chances between women and men surpass the stage of requirement. However, women’s social-political discrimination is a reality, despite the anti-discrimination legislation in the whole world.

Full Text

Monica MUREŞAN
Institution:
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj
Email:
muresanmonica29@yahoo.com
Abstract

Besides birth and death, marriage represents one of the fundamental demographic phenomena through which we can diagnose a population. The introduction of civil marriage into Transylvania by means of law XXXI, XXXII and XXXIII from 1894 represented a breaking-point which opened the way for extensive transformations regarding society and mentality in the communities referred to. The impact caused by the introduction of civil marriage equalled the announced changes: both the society and the authorities reacted in a specific way to the anticipated “forcible modernization”.

The present study investigates the discourse regarding the introduction of civil marriage from the Transylvanian press of the years 1893, 1894, 1895 (I am referring to a series of newspapers and periodicals such as Foaia Poporului, Gazeta de Transilvania, Telegraful român, Unirea, Familia, Minerva, Vulturul, Calicul etc.), analyzed on the basis of studies written on this issue and archival materials. Three interpretative levels are suggested: primary level – the official discourse of civil authorities regarding the necessity of these laws –, secondary level – the resistance of the clergy against the introduction of civil marriage seen as a measure with serious moral consequences – and the third level intending to analyze the public opinion and the attitude of Transylvanian people towards civil laws from the end of the 19th century.

All these categories of sources and the interpretative levels aim to diagnose and analyze the attitudes for or against (as well as the arguments used by both sides) the introduction of civil marriage as a modernizing factor of the Transylvanian society at the end of the 19th century.

Full Text

Marian PETCU
Institution:
Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences, University of Bucharest
Email:
marian_petcu2003@yahoo.com
Abstract

The faits divers are events assimilated to the unpredictable, the extraordinary, or the violation of one or several norms, which rapidly become subjects of discussion and sources for rumour. Their being included into newspapers has brought major changes in journalism practices – the passage from office journalism, dominated by opinions, to field journalism, which presupposes the contact with social reality, the community, political or administrative institutions, etc. In other words, the passage to information journalism. On the other hand, the fait divers, together with serial novels and illustrations, has made journalism more attractive, has accelerated public debates, and, last but not least, has had, though indirectly, a considerable impact on popular literacy. Although the fait divers has been blamed at all times for bringing violence in front of the people, which has led to the accusation that the press has become a school of crime, it has still accelerated the professionalization of journalism. This article presents a historical overview of the appearance and evolution of the fait divers in the press, especially in the Trompetta Carpaţilor, as representative of the titles of that pioneering period, but also in other newspapers. Romanian journalism owes much to French journalism, which served in the first years as a model and a source of information. There is much evidence to this, the most obvious being the great amount of fait divers from France in the pages of Romanian journals and newspapers. The cyclical nature of journalism practice is also interesting from this perspective – after the fall of the communist regime in Romania (1989), expressive journalism with a strong political bias came back in force and acted as a form of symbolic revenge (purifying anti-communism), but exhausted its resources in a short time, giving way again to information journalism, to which the fait divers also pertains.

Full Text

Mihaela GRANCEA
Institution:
Faculty of History and Patrimony, Dept. of Modern and Contemporary History, Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania
Email:
mgrancearo@yahoo.com
Abstract

The analysis of the Săpânţa cultural phenomenon requires first of all the considering of the relation between tradition and innovation, and the manner it manifests itself in the cemetery of Săpânţa. Even if the painted, tall and narrow funerary crosses so peculiar for Săpânţa have performed the role of a substitute of the defunct, being at the same time the display surface for the epitaphs generally celebrating life, I still consider them an innovation introduced by Ioan Stan Pătraş. He intuitively exploited the local traditions of poetry, painting and architecture. Confusions still exist also with regard to the chronology of Pătraş’ concept; however, I advance the opinion that Pătraş’ art dates back to 1934.

The funerary inscriptions from Săpânţa have been considered, at least on the level of public opinion and present-day oral culture, as expressions of a secular and even socialist morality. However, I claim that they are an integral part of the system of popular aesthetic attitudes with a defensive value, emphasizing the value of life and the community axiologies which perpetuate themselves even after death.

Full Text

Marius ROTAR
Institution:
December 1, 1918 University, Alba Iulia
Email:
mrotar2000@yahoo.com
Abstract

The present article proposes to analyze the relationship between history/the historian and death. Starting with the evident increase in the number of articles, books and historical research on death, one could ask whether this relationship exists, whether this relationship is different in the context of other sciences analyzing death and dying. Thus, a series of possible correlations based on the idea that history could not exist without the event of death are surveyed with direct references to ideas formulated by Paul Ricouer, Jacques Derrida or Michel de Certeau. Later on we shall refer to the historiography of death and the critiques of this (especially the works of Philippe Ariès). The present discussion repeats a series of aspects comprised by an article by Antoon de Baets referring to the historians’ responsibility towards the past generations (these in the quality of deceased persons). A series of concepts such as death education and its impact on history, and the particular relationship between the historian, as a person/researcher, and death, as the main object of his analyses are also analyzed. Consequently, the confusing equation of the analyzed relationship is emphasized. This is dictated by the cohabitation of death and history as becoming and science, and, on the other hand, by the impossibility of comprising it completely in a single analysis of this type.

Full Text

Victor Tudor ROŞU
Institution:
National Museum of the Union, Alba Iulia, Romania
Email:
tudor.rosu@yahoo.co.uk
Abstract

The present article discusses the problem of language in the historical works of August Treboniu Laurian, an important man of culture and a revolutionary from the middle of the 19th century. The paper analyses the stylistic elements, contextualizing the presence and conformation of these indicators, often varying from one work to the other. The paper discusses elements of spelling, vocabulary, and historical terminology, which is Laurian’s case take on a Latinist form, standing as evidence for his purist conviction appearing in most of his works. Moreover, these aspects are also treated from the perspective of their contribution to the historiographic expression of the 19thcentury. A major point of the article is the attempt to place the structure of Laurian’s work in Hayden White’s famous scheme for 19th century historians (presented in his Metahistory), in which the consideration and relating of a historical construction follows the direction of formal argument, structure, ideological implication, and basic stylistic devices.

Full Text

Doru RADOSAV
Institution:
Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeş–Bolyai University,Cluj-Napoca
Email:
radosav@bcucluj.ro
Abstract

The paper analyzes the historical and symbolic aspects of the image of an anticommunist fighter, Teodor Şuşman junior, preserved in collective memory. Teodor Şuşman junior, son of Teodor Şuşman senior, leader of the anticommunist resistance movement in the Apuseni Mountains disguised himself as an icon painter after his father committed suicide in order to protect the community he belonged to against the persecution of the Securitate. The analyses of the oral history interviews discuss Teodor Şuşman junior’s travesty in the context of the history of clandestinity, of the marginal. They reveal that the community interpreted the two Şuşmans’ life according to symbolic patterns deeply embedded in collective thinking, their death being considered a sacrificial death taken on for the sake of the community.

Full Text

Ionuţ COSTEA
Institution:
Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeş–Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Email:
costea78@yahoo.co.uk
Abstract

The aim of this study is to outline how the cultural model of the hero-traitor functioned in the second half of the 20th century. The investigation focuses on the case study of the communist martyr hero, Lazăr of Rusca’s figure, heroized in the context of the political show trial of Timişoara held in the summer of 1949 and diffused by the propaganda machinery of the communist regime from Bucharest (party press, literature, monuments, denominations); on another level, we take into consideration the two modalities of representing Lazăr of Rusca in the rural community he came from: a) the way in which he was depicted by the anticommunist partisans and b) the image outlined by the narrative of the family members, which applies strategies for preserving the social prestige of the family in the post-socialist period.

Full Text

Ioana HOREA
Institution:
University of Oradea, Romania
Email:
ioanahorea@gmail.com
Abstract

Existentialism sees man in a permanent activity of self defining. Man cannot but act. While acting, he defies time, the flow of existence, and gives meaning to his life, living instead of being lived. But getting from the state of existing to that of actually living is not as easy as exposing the concept. Traps of life, deceiving paths, swindling facts are met at every step. Characters as those portrayed by Jean Paul Sartre, André Gide, Mircea Eliade and other modern writers concerned with how man relates to the others, to the surrounding social environment, to his own place in history and in the world, render some of the psychological aspects that constitute the human being’s correlation with the outer world. The inner response to the outer stimuli, the way of perceiving, interpreting the world and the manner of trying to direct this environment, to impose ourselves and become the decision makers in our destinies are masterly illustrated in the literary works of these modern writers. The apparent freedom to choose, the illusive reality, the need to fight, to defeat commonplace and go beyond the mundane by taking a sort of action, from the deeply desperate unexplainable deeds, to the conscious acts of will that could be historically remarkable, are to the same degree attempts to make time surrender, to draw some achievements that would give a meaning to life.

Full Text

István ANGI
Institution:
Gheorghe Dima Music Academy, Cluj
Email:
istvan_angi@yahoo.com
Abstract

The study analyzes from an aesthetic and a hermeneutical point of view three music pieces expressing sorrow and paint. The first is the memorable passage of J. S. Bach’s St. John Passion reproducing Christ’s last sorrowful words – es ist vollbracht, the second, the Andante doloroso of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31. in A-flat major, Op. 110, and the third the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s sixth and last symphony, the SymphonyPathétique.

In all three the intercategorial reflections place us into states of our emotionally experienced existence such as the forms of sorrow, loss, trials sometimes heightened to the extent of paroxysm. In the aesthetic approach of these compositions we find the numerous versions of fear, anxiety, fright, and in these always resounds the Aristotelian memento of fear and pity.

Full Text

Meda-Diana HOTEA
Institution:
Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj
Email:
meda@bcucluj.ro
Abstract

Lucian Blaga became one of the leaders of the Lucian Blaga Central University Library in Cluj in a period when the introduction of the Dewey decimal classification system raised much debate all over the world. Following the Soviet model, Romanian libraries as well introduced this classification system which would provide a better handling of their collections. The paper communicates Lucian Blaga’s lecture on this issue, preserved in a manuscript format in the Special Collections Department of the Lucian Blaga Central University Library.

Full Text

Roxana BĂLĂUCĂ
Institution:
Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj
Email:
broxana1985@yahoo.com
Abstract

The paper presents the engravings made by Theodor Aman, a 19th century Romanian artist, preserved in the Special Collections Department of the Lucian Blaga Central University Library, donated by Gheorghe Sion to the institution in 1923. Theodor Aman, who learned the various techniques of engraving in Paris, was mainly interested in Romanian history and traditions, representing in his works prominent historical figures, scenes from national history, characteristic Romanian customs and figures. A pioneer of Romanian graphic art he elevated the art of engraving to the rank of art in Romania.

Full Text

Vlad CODREA, Gabriela MORĂRESCU
Institution:
Babeş–Bolyai University, Cluj
Email:
gabim@hasdeu.ubbcluj.ro
Abstract

The Museum of Natural Sciences in Aiud houses one of the oldest museum collections of natural sciences in Romania. The manuscript written by Ferenc Benkő and László Nagy in 1797, Catalogus Raritatum et Benefactorum, owned by the Bethlen Documentary Library in Aiud, is representative for the evolution of the museum in Aiud at the turn of the 18th and 19th century.

Full Text

Alin Mihai GHERMAN
Institution:
Faculty of History and Philology, 1 Decembrie 1918 University, Alba Iulia
Email:
alinmihaigherman@yahoo.com
Abstract

Written in the period between 1691 and 1702, probably closer to the former date, Teodor Corbea’s Latin–Romanian Dictionary has continuously been an inexhaustible source of research for Romanian culture ever since the late 17th century. Reclining on Albert Szenczi Molnár’s Latin–Hungarian Dictionary as a source, as claimed by the author himself, Corbea’s dictionary takes over a selected list of Latin words from Szenczi’s work, translating or reworking its definitions.

The present research is only concerned with the dictionary’s entries connected to books, reading, and the library, convinced that this is the first Romanian text containing references to this field of interest. In addition, the paper also examines the historical uses of an unusual word appearing in Corbea’s dictionary, bibliotaphus.

Full Text

Librarianship

Ionel ENACHE
Institution:
Department of Library and Information Science, University of Bucharest
Email:
ionel_enache@yahoo.com
Abstract

This paper tries to bring some elucidations regarding the fundamentals of library marketing. The definitions, functions, principles and factors that influence this new field are presented.

This action is very difficult because of the great number of articles, the abundance of ideas and opinions, but also because of the many controversies and scepticism of some specialists in librarianship and information.

Full Text

Maria-Stela CONSTANTINESCU-MATIŢA
Institution:
Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj
Email:
stela@bcucluj.ro
Abstract

The present paper tries to emphasize aspects related to the life and activity of Károly Szabó, prominent personality of the Hungarian culture in Transylvania in the 19th century, well-known historian and bibliographer.

Károly Szabó was first librarian of the Transylvanian Museum Society beginning with the year 1860, first Director of the Cluj University Library in the period 1872–1890, Professor of the History Department of the Ferencz József Royal Hungarian University in cluj and the Rector of this institution in the academic year 1882–1883.

He lived between 1824 and 1890 and dedicated his entire life, all his energies and creative power to old Hungarian history, the study of historical sources in their original languages (he was familiar with several classical and modern languages), the translation of numerous texts, the elaboration and editing of a considerable number of books, studies and articles, and to his library and bibliographic work. His bibliographic activity resulted in his chief work entitled: Régi Magyar Könyvtár (Old Hungarian Bibliography) which is the basis of all modern Hungarian retrospective bibliographical works, and its author, Károly Szabó is considered the founder of Hungarian national bibliography. This work, which consists of 3300 pages contained by 4 volumes, belongs to the first patrimonial collections owned by the Lucian Blaga Central University Library in Cluj.

Full Text

Dénes GYŐRFI
Institution:
Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj
Email:
denes_gyorfi@yahoo.com
Abstract

The present article is a short presentation of the life and activity of Farkas Gyalui, former Deputy Director of Cluj University Library. Librarian, journalist, writer, and teacher, as well as an active agent of the cultural life in Cluj, Gyalui dedicated most of his life to the institution he for long wished to lead. As a librarian he was interested in the history of printing and libraries and wrote many important studies concerning the state of Hungarian and foreign libraries and library science, being a supporter of several modern developments in this field (legal deposit, interlibrary loan and public libraries).

Full Text

Mariana FALUP
Institution:
Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj
Email:
mfalup@bcucluj.ro
Abstract

This paper presents the development, functioning and importance of the national and international interlibrary loan and document delivery service of the Lucian Blaga Central University Library. Interlibrary loan is a service meant to ensure citizens’ fundamental right to information. By its means readers can obtain certain original documents or copies missing from a library’s collections from another library from the country or from abroad. The continuously increasing number of readers, and the small funds allocated for purchasing new publications greatly increases the importance of this service in our library.

Full Text

Ilona OKOS-RIGÓ
Institution:
Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj
Email:
iokosrigo@yahoo.com
Abstract

The paper presents the history and activity of one of smallest branch libraries of the “Lucian Blaga” Central University Library in Cluj, the Botany Library. The history of this branch institution has been closely intertwined with the history of the Botanical Garden in Cluj, which after several attempts was finally arranged in its present location after 1919. The Botany Library – with its 15,500 volumes of books, 10,000 volumes of periodicals and a valuable collection of offprints, having only one librarian – is a useful research area for Romanian and foreign professors, students and researchers alike.

Full Text

Ioana ROTUND
Institution:
Media Centre of the French Cultural Centre, Cluj
Email:
ioana@ccfc.ro
Abstract

The paper presents the collection and activity of the Media Centre of the French Cultural Centre in Cluj. Being part of a worldwide network of French cultural institutions, the Media Centre helps its visitors in their French language studies, offers them information on France and Francophone countries, on French culture and society. As a media centre its collection comprises besides books and periodicals a great number of CDs, DVDs and videotapes. By means of this varied collection and cultural programmes and events which take place here the media centre encourages the dialogue between cultures and cultural exchanges.

Full Text

Gabriela POP
Institution:
Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj
Email:
gabitzuka@yahoo.com
Abstract

In the former Orthodox synagogue of Cluj nowadays functions a part of the Dr Moshe Carmilly Institute for Hebrew and Jewish History founded in October 1990 as part of the Babeş-Bolyai University’s Faculty of History and Philosophy and the Jewish Studies Library founded in 1999. Both institutions are under the aegis of the former chief rabbi of the Neolog Jewish community in Cluj, Dr Moshe Carmilly Weinberger, prominent personality of Cluj in the interwar period. The paper presents the manifold activity of these cultural establishments which preserve and hand down to the younger generations the cultural and historical heritage of the nowadays reduced but until World War II flourishing Jewish community of Cluj.

Full Text

Maria PETRESCU
Institution:
Octavian Goga County Library, Cluj
Email:
lolapetrescu@yahoo.com
Abstract

This paper deals with the digitisation of documents, the advantages and characteristics of digitisation, as well as legal aspects connected to this enterprise. Digitisation (numerisation, scaning) is an information codification procedure which allows document copying. It can also be defined as a method of transforming information documents such as books, photography, sound or visual recording into electronic documents for purposes of preservation, information circulation, and a better accessibility to the public at large.

Full Text

Miscellanea

Irina PETRAŞ
Institution:
Union of Writers in Romania
Email:
irinapetras@yaho.co.uk
Abstract
Ionuţ COSTEA
Reviewed by
Sidonia NEDEIANU GRAMA
Institution:
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj
Email:
sidgra@yahoo.com
Abstract
Meda-Diana HOTEA
Reviewed by
Iacob MÂRZA
Institution:
1 December 1918 University, Alba-Iulia
Email:
iacob_marza@yahoo.com
Abstract
Mircea POPA
Reviewed by
Maria-Stela CONSTANTINESCU-MATIŢA
Institution:
Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj
Email:
stela@bcucluj.ro
Abstract
Gheorghe VAIS
Reviewed by
Raluca SOARE
Institution:
Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj
Email:
ralusoare@yahoo.com
Abstract
Gheorghe VAIS
Reviewed by
Adrian GRĂNESCU
Institution:
Octavian Goga County Library, Cluj
Email:
adig@bjc.ro
Abstract
Roman MORAR, Dana Liana PUSTA
Reviewed by
Ovidiu ROTARU
Institution:
University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Cluj
Email:
philobib@bcucluj.ro
Abstract