Notes on Romanian language history

This is a different post from the ones I wrote until now. If you are interested in the history of languages, please continue reading.
I will try to explain how the Romanian language and culture could survive for centuries. Although it wasn’t the official language in any country that is now part of Romania, no schools or documents were written in this language before the XVI century.

My country, Romania, has a historical particularity that makes it different from other countries in the region. Two thousand years ago, that land was inhabited by the Dacians. We don’t know their language because no written texts are left from them except the short “Decebalus per Scorilo” (Decebalus the son of Scorilo). We know that Ovid, the famous roman poet exiled by the emperor Augustus at Tomis (Constanta in present days), wrote poems in the local language. Unfortunately, those poems are lost. Later the Dacians were conquered by Romans in 106 AD, who stayed in the country until 271 AD. Then, many nomadic populations went through that space, and the Romanian language appeared in time. It is a Latin language with minor Slavonic and other external influences. More precisely, 70% of the language has Latin origins, and about 15% is of Slavic roots. Even if this language was formed around the X century, as most historians accept nowadays, the first written document in Romanian that we know about dates from mid-1521 (Neacsu’s letter). Now let’s compare the first documents in neighbors’ languages (from the same geographical area). The first manuscripts in Bulgarian are from the X century, in Serbian from the XI century, in Hungarian from 1192, in Russian XIth century, in Polish from 1270, and in Czech since the early XIII century. In my opinion, this is evidence that writing was not much valued within the Romanian population for a long time.

For some context, the official language used by the rulers and the Orthodox Church was old Slavonian Bulgarian in both Walachia and Moldova from the X century. But that was not the language spoken by the people. It was similar to the situation in the central and West of Europe. The church used Latin as an official language there, but the people did not understand it.

The corpus of official and religious documents in the old Slavonian language left from Moldova and Valachia is much less than those in Serbia or Bulgaria. The main reason is that in those regions, people spoke a Slavic language, while in Moldova and Valachia, that was not the case. Besides, as mentioned before, writing was not a priority among Romanians.

What has changed and made people start writing in Romanian? There are different theories on this topic among historians. The one that seems more accurate is that the Lutheran influence in Transylvania from the XVI century made people start writing in their native language. In support of that, we have the first documents printed in the Romanian language in Brasov from 1550s. The deacon Coresi moved from Targoviste to Brasov (at the time in a different country, Transylvania) and started publishing religious books translated into Romanian. In “Psaltirea romaneasca” printed in 1570 Coresi explains his reasons to publish in Romanian language: “Eu, diaconul Coresi, daca vazui ca mai toate limbile au cuvintul lu dumnezeu in limba lor, numai noi, rumanii, n-avam…” (I, Coresi the deacon, if I saw that all the languages have the word of god in their language, only us, romanians, don’t…)

The first school in Romanian was also founded in Brasov in the same century. Lutherans were strong supporters of using people’s language in the church. For example, Martin Luther translated the Bible into German in 1534.

We know how writing in Romanian began. Now let’s see how this language was still alive after centuries in which it was not used in official documents, church, or school.

Things written next are my personal opinion. My grandfather was a child in the 1930s in the countryside of the Dobrogea region. He told me that during that time (and probably many years before), people from the village gathered on Saturday nights at some inhabitants’ houses, where older people told stories, legends, myths, and poems from the past. There were things from ancient times and more recent times that those people experienced: for example, working on the bridge built over the Danube river in 1895 by Anghel Saligny or memories from the First World War. This form of transmitting information to the next generations made this population’s traditions, language, and culture survive over centuries despite no written documents. Children would listen to those stories, and some would transmit them later to the next generations. That is why there were many poems and songs because those are easy to remember. Also, those people developed their memory to keep those stories, poetry, and themes in their minds for a long time and transmit them to the next generations.

This is how people transmitted their culture from past generations over thousands of years. Of course, it was a living culture: some poems, stories, and songs were changed in time or space. There were different variants of the lyrics or the stories, and some stories changed or disappeared in time. There were actual historical facts and fictional stories transmitted to young generations.

Interestingly, those people in the 1930s lived the same way humans lived for thousands of years. They did not use any modern technologies available at the time, like electricity, cars, radio, etc. It is incredible how the world has changed in the last hundred years. We lost that connection with the past, and there is no way back.

In the 1920s, Dimitrie Gusti, a sociology professor, and his team went to many places in Romanian villages and wrote down or recorded the folklore and traditions of those places. He conducted ethnographic research on the country’s regions. I don’t know the state of those books and recordings, but someone should digitalize them before being lost forever.

Although the things mentioned here are not as exciting as battles and politics in Romanian history, this is an integral part of the country’s development.

Note: For information in this article I used a book written in Romanian by Petre P. Panaitescu “Inceputurile si biruinta scrisului in limba romana“. Panaitescu was a great Romanian historian. Yet this book was published in 1965 during communist times in Romania and had some theories aligned with the political views of the communist regime on history (nationalism, fight between poor and rich, no external influences in our country, etc.), so it needs to be read carefully. Nevertheless, the facts described here are accurate, but he could not publish the book without achieving compromises with the rulers in those times.

Trail of the Eagle’s Nests

This post will cover some spectacular tourist attractions close to Krakow. This is also a page of Poland’s history that resembles, in certain ways, what happens during the last months in Ukraine. The castles on the Trail of the Eagle’s Nests are located in the Polish Jura mountains, North of Krakow, and they can be reached by car in one or two hours of driving. The Polish Jura are old mountains with maximum heights under 500m, similar to the Dobrogea Mountains in Romania. The hills are not high, but the views are beautiful.

A map of the castles on the trail of eagle’s nests. The ones colored red no longer exist, and the black ones can be visited. Some are renovated while others are not.

In the XIV century, the Polish King Casimir the Great (1333-1370) built about 25 castles in these mountains between Krakow, his capital, and Czestochowa. These castles attract many tourists for the spectacular sightseeing in the present days. The area was the border between Poland and Silesia, a province of the Bohemian kingdom.

Casimir the Great did more than build castles. In 1367 he founded the University of Krakow. This University is vital for the city even in the present day. Krakow owes its current growth mainly to the University. The increasing IT sector is a good example. An investment in education pays a lot in the long term.

Let’s return to our topic. There is a good site with helpful information regarding castles in Poland. You can learn about the history of every building, and you can also see that many are entirely destroyed. This is because of an event that deeply impacted Polish history.

The 30 Years War finished in 1648. At the end of that war, Sweden remained with a powerful army and not enough money to pay its soldiers. As often happened in history, countries with mighty armies looked for opportunities to attack their neighbors. In 1655 Sweden decided to attack Poland, which was not affected after the 30 Years’ War. Poland offered plenty of things to loot for the invaders. The Swedish troops occupied almost the entire country as Poland had problems preparing its army to defend it.

The turning point of the events was the unexpected resistance of the Jasna Gora monastery. This monastery was and still is the most important religious site in Poland. In 1655 Polish people became highly emotional hearing about the fights for the sanctuary, and they gathered an army to start fighting the Swedes. The unsuccessful siege of the fortified monastery was lifted after more than one month. The Swedish forces eventually retreated with all the goods they could carry. One-third of the civil population of Poland died in that war.

These events remained in history as “The Deluge”. Henry Sienkiewicz wrote a novel on this topic. A well-known movie, “Potop”, was made based on the book in 1974.

The Swedish army destroyed all the castles part of the Trial of the Eagle’s Nest during the deluge. They tried to steal everything they found. The ruins remained in some cases since those events until recently. Because unfortunately, for every war, the impact and destructions last for generations after it ends.

Last decade, as Poland joined the European Union, they got funds from the union or other countries. They were able to renovate or rebuild some of these castles.

Many of the castles on the Trail of the Eagle’s Nest are open for tourists for small fees. In my opinion, the best time to visit them is in autumn when the trees from the surrounding hills are beautifully colored.

Maybe you wonder why these attractions were called Trail of the Eagle’s Nest? All of them are situated on high limestone cliffs or huge rocks, which suggests a resemblance to the eagle’s nests.

Besides castles in the same Jura mountains, you can see many gates created by nature by carving big stones. Examples are the Krakow gate and Twardowski gate.
These attractions combine history and nature. Maybe you’ll also find them interesting to visit someday.

Don’t look up

Early in January, during a road trip, I visited the charming medieval city of Torun. Among the attractions of the old city center is the house where the scientist Nicolaus Copernicus was born. The house is a museum dedicated to the memory of the astronomer for many years.

Torun – birth house of Nicolaus Copernicus

While visiting the museum, one thing got my attention. Copernicus published his main work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, in 1543, just before his death. The scientist waited for that long because he could not explain all the consequences of his theory. For example, if the Earth revolves around the Sun, why don’t people fall out during this rotation? Scientists did not discover the laws of gravity at that time. Eventually, he published his lifetime research and conclusions and let others continue his work and answer the questions that remained open. His book’s second and third editions appeared in 1566 and 1617. Yet, the fourth edition was published only in 1853, almost 240 years later. That was a long time!

I knew that the inquisition condemned Galileo Galilei for endorsing the theory that the Earth moved around the Sun. He had to recant his theory to avoid the death penalty. But I did not know that the persecution and denial of the Heliocentric idea lasted that long. Galileo, Kepler, and Newton (Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 1687) clarified things on this matter. By the end of the XVII century, scientists proved that Copernicus was right and that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Yet, the church continued to ignore the logic and the scientific realities for another 150 years.

Let’s see what happened during this time.

Copernicus’s theory was attacked by both Protestants and Catholics with theological arguments rather than scientific ones. The rejection happened from the mid-XVI century, immediately after the theory was published. There was not a dispute as Copernicus was already dead, and no one was defending his ideas at the time.

The church leaders in Rome considered that Copernicus was a crazy scientist who wasn’t right. Interestingly, in Poland, at that time, the church was more tolerant than all the other Catholic countries. Quite different than in present days.

Later, Galileo made discoveries aligned with the Heliocentric theory by looking at the sky. A trial followed, and the catholic church placed De revolutionibus on the index of Forbidden Books in 1616. Descartes initially sustained the Heliocentric idea but then changed his mind based on Galileo’s trial.

Two centuries later, after another trial, the church recognized that the Heliocentric theory was correct. Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus and Galileo’s Dialogue were omitted from the edition of the Index of Forbidden Books only from 1835.

Arnolfini Portrait – created with mannequins inside the museum as a depiction of life in the XV century. One can notice some differences compared to the painting.

The church used its power to silence the astronomers and scientists for a long time. It was better not to look up at the sky if they wanted to live. Or, at least, tell the church what they would like to hear. The church pretended to own the truth, but the wrong part at that time was imposing their truth on everyone.
Copernicus’s theory brought a significant change to the world. People were not ready for it in the XVI century. At that time, the tradition was more important than reason. Humans were more inclined to look in the Bible for truth than nature. It took a very long time to change that.

The statue of Copernicus is in the center of Torun. The text says: “Nicolaus Copernicus Thorunensis, terrae motor, solis caelique stator”(“Nicolaus Copernicus of Thorun, mover of the Earth, stopper of the Sun and heavens”)

Almost 500 years after his death, we still talk of the significant impact Copernicus, a man working by himself, had on the scientific revolution and human history. The most important lesson was not to accept things as they are given but use logic and observation instead. One can say that Copernicus started the renascent of science in Europe.

INFJ explained

As mentioned in a previous post, my Myers-Briggs type is INFJ. The initials come from Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Judging. Everyone agrees that this is the rarest psychological profile in the world (around 1-2% of the population) with women twice more than men. There is also an agreement on the fact that humans with this profile are misunderstood. In this post I will try to explain this misunderstood profile from my point of view.

INFJ people have an intense internal life. That can’t be observed from the outside. They look calm, and therefore people assume they are very cool inside. This difference makes INFJ people sometimes behave in a different way than other people would expect them. It is not that INFJ will surprise you in a bad or in a good way. They will be just different than what you think about them.

Because of their long-term thinking, INFJ can make predictions of how things will look in the future. It is not about guessing lottery numbers but rather making assumptions based on a system current state and the internal forces. Whether we talk about a political, economic, or social system.

INFJ’s most important value in life is love. This is why you can see this feeling mentioned in this blog. Love is something that resonates with such an individual and makes him go further in life. Casual relations are not possible for this type of people.

To give a personal example, more than twenty years ago when I had a problem one friend advised me to learn a poem. As you can imagine, learning a poem would not make any difference. It would not help my situation at all. Yet this was a turning point in my life as that recommendation was in line with my personality. I learned “Ballad of Reading Gaol” by Oscar Wilde. Of course, it was of no help in the short term, and I knew it. But in the long-term, it made a big difference for me.

Banksy – Escaping prisoner in Reading – March 2021. Probably a drawing of Oscar Wilde imprisoned in Reading. He wrote the “Ballad of Reading Gaol”. In my opinion, the symbol is that through literature Oscar Wilde was able to escape prison. Oscar Wilde himself said, “We are *all* in the *gutter*, *but some of us* are looking at the stars”

Let me give another example. Pablo Neruda once said, “If nothing saves us from death, at least love should save us from life”. For an INFJ this sounds like an absolute truth, you just feel like that is powerful. For other humans, it is not. They can replace the word love in the above sentence with whatever motivates them: money, power, glory, etc.

Banksy – Girl with a pierced eardrum, Bristol 2014. A parody of one of my favorite paintings “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Vermeer

INFJs genuinely care about other people and want to help them. They are glad of the success of other people. Envy is not part of their life.

INFJs avoid corrupt people or people who lie to them, for example. Often this avoidance is seen as a conflict by the other part. It is not a conflict, no hate or negative feelings are involved.

Because of their rich inner life, INFJs don’t drink coffee. In software companies, most people begin their day by drinking coffee. Instead, every morning I start by solving chess puzzles for a few minutes to get my brain up and running.

INFJ people do not talk about their personal life and what problems they might have. They never complain and give everything they have in relationships. They ask for nothing in return.

Banksy -Girl with ballon, London 2002. The most famous Banksy artwork

Music is an important component of INFJ life. You can see that most of my posts end with a musical moment. The music videos were not randomly chosen.

Every human being is different. A lot of the things that happen in our life are related to our previous experiences. Everyone is free to live their life as they want. However, some behavioral patterns do exist.

Why did I choose Banksy’s artworks for this post? We do not know who Banksy is, but I feel he is an INFJ. I found out that I am not even original in this opinion. Someone else already said that.

Banksy illustrates very well INFJ behaviors. He does unexpected things, he is misunderstood, he is very discreet about his life, has artworks about feelings, has a sense of humor. He is an idealist who does things and does not just talk about ideas.

Hoping that things are more clear now in case you’ll meet an INFJ somewhere in this world.

Spring in Krakow

Pablo Neruda once said that “you can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming”. Today, March 5th, beginning of spring, my intention is not to cut flowers but to write about something nice. One thing that came to my mind was to mention the beautiful and interesting things I see in Krakow when running on the shores of Vistula. The order of images listed here was chosen to make the narrative easier.

Let’s start with the symbol of the city, the Wawel Dragon. These days many kids take pictures in front of the legendary mighty dragon. To make it look more real, the dragon spits fire every few minutes. A dragon guarding a castle is a fairytale image.

Guarded by the dragon is the famous Wawel Castle. The former residence of Polish Kings before 1596 when the capital moved to Warsaw. The big castle and cathedral form an architectural complex similar to the one in Prague. In fact, Prague is the city with the most similarities compared to Krakow. Probably it is because both cities were for many years under Habsburg Monarchy domination.

From the castle, the running path follows the Vistula river until the foot of the hill that can be seen far away in this picture. There are a large park and a big forest. It is impressive to see a forest on a hill in a city. The highest peak that can be seen in the picture below is the Kościuszko Mound. That is a human-made mound to honor the memory of Polish national hero Tadeusz Kościuszko. As a fun fact, I remember in school learning at Geography that the highest peak in Australia is Mount Kosciuszko. At the time, I did not understand why. The internet was not available to search for the answer. I had to come to Krakow to find the answer. For the explorer who first climbed that mountain, it looked like the mound with the same name in Krakow.

The other way of the running path leads to the Kazimierz neighborhood. Far on the right side, you can see a wheel and a balloon.

The balloon and the Krakow’s Ferris Wheel. Unfortunately, the ballon was not flying when I took the picture. For me flying the ballon is not an option as I am afraid of heights.

Another nice bridge is Father Bernatek Footbridge adorned with sculptures. This bridge makes the connection with the Jewish neighborhood. Kazimierz is the bohemian part of the city, with a different atmosphere than in the city center. Under the bridge, a few ships were transformed into restaurants. Some ships make cruises on the Vistula river.

As mentioned above, Krakow reminds me mostly of Prague. I couldn’t resist adding a picture of this modern art symbol from Krakow similar to the ones from Prague. It is always funny to admire such examples of modern art. A theory is that the pig, set in a position to be lit ablaze, signifies renewal.

Running in a fairytale environment makes the experience more pleasant. Hoping that you enjoyed the pictures above, I wish you a great year ahead! Despite all the difficulties, life goes on!

Since all the pictures were near a river, I thought it appropriate to end with a song on a river

I had a dream in Washington D.C.

Two years ago, on a trip to East Coast, I visited Washington D.C. The US capital has many museums and plenty of tourist attractions. It is really an interesting city. It was the place in the US in which I learned most things.

Like all the visitors, I took a picture in front of the White House.

At that time, Donald Trump was the US President. The victory sign was my hope that one day this period of hate will end. That day has come. Donald Trump was not voted for a second term. Hence the timing for this post.

I did not resonate with the values promoted by Donald Trump. In my opinion, a country governed by fake news and lies goes in the wrong direction. Lying is a norm in day to day life in a dictatorship, but not in a democracy. I know that because I lived in Romania before 1989.

A day after the picture in front of the White House, still in Washington, I witnessed a scene that impressed me.

In Washington D.C. there are many memorial monuments. Including the famous Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam War Memorial. One of these memorial monuments is Martin Luther King jr. Memorial.

Next to Martin Luther King’s memorial, I saw an old man together with his family, children, and nephews. The old man was in a state of deep emotion. He was trying to convey his feelings to his family. I saw gratitude in that man’s looks towards Martin Luther King’s statue. His family moved on from the memorial. He remained for a while next to the monument. It was then I took the picture below.

The monument, inaugurated in 2011, is inspired by the line “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope”. From the memorable discourse, “I have a dream”.

“I have a dream” is maybe the most famous speech in US History. Martin Luther King had that speech during the March to Washington in August 1963.

At the time the man in the picture above was grieving next to the monument, Martin Luther King was gone from this world for fifty years. Yet, people are still honoring his memory.

Seneca once said that gratitude ages very fast. We rarely see this feeling expressed in the modern world.

The United States owe to Martin Luther King the fact that they are not a segregated nation. He paid that price with his life.

That scene in Washington D.C. made me think about the fact that for politicians, the test of time is the most important. If people will honor a politician’s memory years after they depart from this world, it means the politician fulfilled his or her mission. For those aiming for a political career, this should be the ultimate goal.

My political dream is for responsible leaders. Leaders who will think beyond themselves, their relatives, and friends in the first place. I hope that the human race will finally move over this form of tribal leadership.

The speech “I have a dream” was not prepared. It was improvised by Martin Luther King when Mahalia Jackson shouted to him “Tell them about the dream”.

The Pianist and Mihail Sebastian

When playing Chopin’s Nocturne 20 on September 23rd, 1939 at Warsaw Radio, Wladyslaw Szpilman did not know that it will be his last performance for a long time. Hours later, a German bombardment destroyed the power supply. The radio was shut down for almost six years.

Chopin Nocturne 20 played by Wladyslaw Szpilman

Last year, while reading The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman, I had no idea that Covid will come. That everyone will be isolated inside, living like the hero of this book during World War II. The book reminded me of a famous journal in Romanian literature, Mihail Sebastian’s Journal. As a consequence, this year, during isolation, I read, again, Sebastian’s journal. This happened after more than twenty years from my first lecture.

These days, when the Covid pandemic affects the whole world, I found these two books inspiring and powerful. Despite the tragedies happening at every step in the books, I found them very human. These are real-life stories. They describe how the authors kept going in difficult circumstances. I hope people reading these testimonies will find help in overcoming the current situation.

These books depict the stories of two men, a pianist, and a writer. Both were highly esteemed before the war for their talents. During World War II they lost everything they had. In both cases, the only reason behind this was their Jewish origin. One lived during the war in Warsaw. The other one in Bucharest. They went on living and fighting for their lives during hard times. They overcome the difficulties in the end.

If you don’t have the time to read the book, you can watch Szpilman’s story in the video below. Or you can watch the famous movie directed by Roman Polanski.

Szpilman recounting his life in Warsaw during the German occupation.

I don’t have a video for Sebastian’s story. But his journal is very well written. He was a talented writer. His family kept his journal private for more than fifty years after his death. It was published in 1996. By then, most of the people mentioned in the book were no longer alive.

Below is a short video of his biography. He was honored with a Doodle on the occasion of his birthday in October 2020.

Mihail Sebastian was honored with a Doodle on October 18th, 2020 on his 113th birthday anniversary

Both books offer great insight into historical events. And how ordinary people lived them. We can read in history books about what happened during World War II. However, reading about day to day life is like zooming in on a historical moment.

When reading Sebastian’s journal, I realized that possibly before the war, Sebastian listened to Szpilman playing live on Polish Radio. He mentions in the journal a few times listening to classical music at the Warsaw Radio. Once, it was a three piano concerto. Szpilman worked with Polish Radio since 1935.

That happened in a normal world, before the war. A writer passionate about music could listen to a talented musician from another European country. Then the war came. Szpilman was no longer playing the piano. Sebastian was not allowed to write plays or novels. Because he was a jew. However, during the war, in 1942, he wrote his best play. He named it “A star without a name”. Somebody else had to assume writing that play to bypass the law. Sebastian saw the great success of the play. Yet, he took no credit for it until the end of 1944.

Szpilman lived with his parents, his brother, and sisters at the beginning of the war. By 1945 all his family members died in the Treblinka concentration camp. Sebastian lived alone before the war. He had to move back with his parents and his brother during the war. He lacked money. At the end of the war, Szpilman was the only one alive from his family. Sebastian the only one who died.

There were many stories in both books that impressed me. In most cases, it’s about human nature. The books contain mostly sad and sometimes tragic scenes. But in the end, after going through all these difficult experiences, the message is optimistic.

In 1945, when the Polish Radio station broadcasted again, Szpilman played the same Nocturne by Chopin as in 1939. It was a superb way to resume life and overcome the pains suffered during the war.

One day, like him, we’ll have the chance to resume our usual lives.

Vera Lynn -We’ll meet again. A message that remains actual.

Goethe’s lessons for life

According to the Myers-Briggs personality test, Goethe was an INFJ, the same type as me. I recommend this personality test. You’ll learn many things about yourself. You can take this test online for free from many sites, including the one linked above.

Goethe liked to travel, and he traveled a lot for his time. This would be his first life lesson. Once, I realized that I have visited over twenty towns and cities in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, where Goethe walked over 200 years before me. I do agree that the places you’ve seen do not influence you as much as the people you interact with during a lifetime or the books you read. But still, they have a small impact on you.

A year ago, I took these pictures in Heidelberg Castle garden, a place where Goethe liked to walk.

For these “elective affinities” I resonate with Goethe’s vision on life and the world. When I was in high school, I liked some of his quotes. “Chess is the touchstone of intellect“. Being a chess player, I shared that opinion. “One look into the book and two into life“. The ideal proportion of reading and living. My favorite quote at that age was “Life is the childhood of our immortality“.

Years have passed and I see things differently now. I do no longer rate these sayings as high as I did then.

Later, when I was a student, I read “The Sorrows of Young Werther” and “Faust“. That was all I have ever read from Goethe. But I’ve also found out many interesting things about his life. Probably I liked those books as they were inspired by real-life happenings.

In “The Sorrows of Young Werther“, Goethe writes about a sad love story ending with the suicide of Werther. In fact, the novel recounts a biographic love of the author for Charlotte Buff (Lotte) while he worked as a lawyer in Wetzlar. Goethe redirects his sufferance for the lost love in writing about it. Instead of killing himself, he writes about the suicide of Werther. Psychologically this is explained by the fact that by focusing his energy on writing, Goethe was able to pass over this painful episode. This way he offered us another life lesson. In 1939 Thomas Mann wrote “Lotte in Weimar” on the ending of this famous story.

“Verweile doch! Du bist so schön!” – Goethe, Faust

“Faust” was Goethe’s most important creation and he worked on it for many years. It is also inspired by a sad story from Goethe’s biography. I don’t want to discuss it here. I knew about Faust’s story from a movie I saw in my childhood. He sold his soul to the devil and the devil made him look younger. The devil gave him anything he wanted. Only to make him say that life is so beautiful and wish that moment stay forever. If he will say “Verweile doch! Du bist so schön!” that moment he will die. This is the most famous line in German literature.

Perhaps, one life lesson behind this story is that anything is possible in life, even getting younger if you are willing to pay a price.

The first time I’ve heard about Faust’s story was during my childhood. I was impressed by the movie “La beaute du diable” with Gerard Philipe and Michel Simon. Faust signing the pact with the devil.

Over twenty years passed by and now I appreciate more some other words of wisdom from him.

“If you don’t feel it, you’ll never get it” – Goethe

It did happen to me to hear people talking about their lives, their problems, and the losses they suffered. It was a lot easy for me to understand those who talked about issues I was confronted with and felt the pain myself. Even if someone was talking about greater pains, for me it was easier to understand the pains I experienced before.

“Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.” – Goethe

Such a modern saying, we all know cases like this where having the best intentions the parents harm the lives of their children by “helping” them.

Actually, Goethe had many quotes that would categorize him as having a modern growth mindset.

“I love those who yearn for the impossible.” – Goethe

We live only once, so why not try to get out of the beaten path? This is a recommendation for people at any age to move out of their comfort zone. For trying to achieve what they feel would give meaning to their life. Even if we won’t succeed at least we’ve tried and did whatever we could.

Dear reader, hopefully, by going over these lines, you’ve found something to think about.

Egmont was a play by Goethe. Beethoven composed the music for this play. Celibidache conducted it in a destroyed post-war Berlin in 1950.

6000 km milestone and small health issues

For someone who doesn’t run at all, running 6000 km may seem a difficult task. On the other hand, we have the world’s best runner, Eliud Kipchoge, who runs around 10000 km every year. He is not alone, many of the world’s top long run athletes are running similar distances every year. It took me more than 5 years to run a total of 6000 km. Therefore at this moment, I am not a great runner but not a beginner anymore. Hopefully, before the end of 2022, I will reach the 10000 km milestone.

Recently, I came across an article about a Chinese woman, Zheng Churan, who runs 10000 km to save her husband from political jail. She shares her status on Twitter. By this day, the end of June 2020, she is close to 900 kilometers mark.

But, besides huge performance differences, Eliud Kipchoge and Zheng Churan have something in common. They both run for a cause. In the case of Kipchoge, he runs to prove that no human is limited. To demonstrate that, last year, in Vienna, he did finish the marathon distance in less than two hours for the first time in history, thus breaking a record that was considered impossible for humans.

In my opinion, running for a cause makes this activity less painful and gives you more motivation. Somebody may follow your example and the quality of their life will improve. Happy people will make a better world.

Since my previous blog post, and until mid-May, in Romania, like many other countries, we had a lockdown. The good part was that you were allowed to run around your home if you carried with you a declaration about where you live and where you run. This helped me keep running although there was no normal training.

I would like to share here two personal stories from the time of lockdown about health and running, maybe they will help others in the same situation.

I have an allergy for pollen for many years, each spring I start sneezing and I have difficulties in breathing. The treatment is to take for 10 nights XYZAL or Claritine and I feel very well. Unfortunately this year the treatment did not work although I tried both Claritine and XYZAL. I am not sure why yet, I have a few possible reasons to test next year. As a consequence mouth breathing was my only available option. Because of that, I was not able to sleep at all during the nights. However, I noticed that after a 10km or an hour of running I was breathing normally for two days. Then, I had to mouth breathe again. The change after every run was really impressive. It did happen all the times and it had the same effect. I’ve tried to find something similar over the internet. Similar problems or about running helping in case of allergies but I failed to find relevant information. I shared my experience with various runners but they did not hear about that either. Except for a friend who said that he experienced the same behavior in a similar situation. If someone knows about the problem I mentioned here or wants to find more information about this you can send me a message. After a few weeks, the problem totally disappeared. I took no other medicines than the ones mentioned above.

The second problem was that I got a painful callus on my left sole. I’ve never experienced that before. It seemed that I had a small grit in my flesh in that area. Every step I made hurt me. It was more painful when I walked barefoot at home than when I ran with shoes on. The running shoes were Adidas Energy Boost and were looking really well although I have used them for more than 600 km. It was hard to suspect that they caused the problem since I had no issues by using them for so long. It did not hurt me much when I ran with those shoes on.

I’ve tried changing the running shoes with a new pair of Energy Boost which I bought for some time because I was very happy running with the current ones. Nothing changed, the pain was there and kept staying with me. In the end, I chose to use two pairs of shoes: Adidas Adizero 3 for running less than 10km and Adidas Boston 7 for long runs. In time, the pain went away and I feel well now.

My advice for junior runners is to change the running shoes whenever they see a small problem with their feet that might be caused by the shoes. If you run more than 600 km with that pair of shoes consider replacing them even if they still look good.

I would like to end this post in a positive manner and mention that in June I ran 195 km which would translate to an average of 6.5 km/day or 4 miles per day during a month. This is my best distance in a month ever. I have no pictures for this article but I added pictures from my runs on Strava.

The best thing is that my health problems were left behind and I can continue all my activities.

December 1st Half marathon

December 1st is Romanian National Day and a running competition is organized each year in Bucharest to celebrate this occasion. Last year on December 1st it was snowing and the temperature was -10 Celsius. I went to see people running that day and I thought I’ll never run outside at that temperature. This year the weather was much better, a +4 Celsius and I decided to run a half marathon.

This year’s edition of December 1st Marathon celebrated the memory of Alexandru Ioan Cuza. He was the first ruler of Romania from 1859 to 1866. He was born exactly 200 years ago and became ruler of Romania 160 years ago. Another coincidence, the competition happened in the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” park in Bucharest.

The competition medal was engraved to honor Alexandru Ioan Cuza

As a side note, this April, I was visiting Heidelberg, the city where Alexandru Ioan Cuza died while in exile in 1873.

As for the race, the course map was a 4.2 km circle in the park which we ran five times by the half marathon runners and ten times by those running a marathon. It was not the ideal circuit, it had ups and downs, climbing and descending on stairs. With this in mind, I thought it was not a race for achieving a personal best time. Therefore having fun was more important on this special occasion.

At the start, there were 1200 people prepared for a run on a special day

During the race, I had a constant pace, except for the first km when it was very crowded with all the participants it was slower. I completed the half marathon in 1:53:38 and placed 147 from the 375 runners who finished the race. It was not my best time this season but not the worst either.

Many thanks to Radu Neagu who took the pictures above and sent me quickly as always! He did run an 11 km race which started after we finished the half marathon and had time to take us pictures before his run.

The MC for this event was Bogdan Nitulescu, my colleague from “Trupa lui Fane”. Bogdan does this job every year for this competition. Last year he stayed for more than 7 hours outside at -10 Celsius. This year the weather was much better. Many thanks, Bogdan, for encouraging us through the race in a cold December morning!

Bogdan looking happier this year. Thanks for your support!

This race was the first half marathon for my friend and colleague Bobo. It was a great result for him finishing in 1:56 such a race as the course was difficult and it was cold outside.

With Bobo at the end of his first half-marathon. Congratulations on your first half marathon!

The December 1st half marathon was a nice way to end the competitional season outdoor by running on a special occasion.