Bukovina Day (Wallachian festivities)

Started by Scion7, November 27, 2022, 08:20:13 PM

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Scion7

I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.
I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey Maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina.
In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it.
  -  Dracula, by Bram Stoker

Stoker was a wee bit off, of course.  The Huns were long gone, and Szekelys are Hungarians.
Was he taking mandrakes?  Maybe!    ;D

"What are the Romanians up to, then?" Ziua Bucovinei is a public holiday of Romania celebrated every 28 November that commemorates the uniting of the region of Bukovina with the Kingdom of Romania, on which they run amok, feasting on orangutans and quoting James Joyce.  Florestan may not be rational until tomorrow ... drink a pint for him at your local!

When, a few months before his death, Rachmaninov lamented that he no longer had the "strength and fire" to compose, friends reminded him of the Symphonic Dances, so charged with fire and strength. "Yes," he admitted. "I don't know how that happened. That was probably my last flicker."