National Culture Day/Academy President:Let us cherish our values as they are, in the European intellectual concert

On the eve of National Culture Day, President of the Romanian Academy Ioan-Aurel Pop urges cherishing national values "the way they are", cultivating the "sweet as honeycomb" Romanian language without ostentation and affectation, and placing them all in the European intellectual concert.

"European culture does not exist per se, because it is not the product of a European people or a European language. European culture exists through national cultures which express the specificity of each people, in the context of the common European heritage," Ioan-Aurel Pop told AGERPRES.

The Academy President considers that the celebration of Romanian culture on the birthday of poet Mihai Eminescu is not fortuitous, as he is "definitely iconic" in the constellation of the country's spiritual creators.

"He was not declared the epitome of Romanian culture by some court, nor was he imposed by any state institution, but by life itself, by the great collective personality of the Romanian people, and therefore he cannot be judged, admonished or taken off the pedestal though someone's will. In his work Eminescu expresses in a nutshell the entire history of Romanian and European culture. Eminescu's verse is classical like that of Horatius, Virgil and Ovid, he sings the gallant love and honor of medieval knights just like the bards and troubadours of yore, he depicts the 15th century Middle Age of Prince Alexander the Good as Victor Hugo did in Notre Dame de Paris for the French space. But Eminescu also anticipates the world of the future, projecting through his apprehension of the lightspeed reality and the eternally moving ideational universe the Romanian cultural and scientific creation in the last century of the second millennium and towards the third millennium. Born at a precise time (January 15, 1850) and in a certain place (in the Upper Country of Moldavia), Eminescu's creation ended with his earthly passing at a premature age, but he was touched by an angel's wing and was destined for eternity," said the academician.

For Ioan-Aurel Pop, "Eminescu is European, because he expresses the essence of the Romanian spirit, and is the most representative Romanian creator because he fitted the common European denominator", so that from this point of view he can stand with good reason "in the lineup formed - let's say - of Adam Mickiewicz, Petofi Sandor and Taras Shevchenko, representative of the Central-Southeast European side of continental romanticism."