NotaBene е електронно списание за философски и политически науки. Повече за нас
Marius Chelaru
Romania
Editor in Chief of Poezia; Deputy Editor in Chief of Convorbiri Literare / Literary Conversations and of Carmina Balcanica: Review of South-East European Spirituality and Culture
The contacts of our native people with the ones living in plagae mundi as the Romans called it/ "the corners of the world", plaga orientalis, therefore with the Orient (oriens - Orient/ East) (1), date back to ancient times. We can deal with this topic from the historical point of view: with the Turks and the Mongolians/ the Tartars - from pragmatic reasons, with the first about their religion, spirituality, mentality and their way of being -, later the Chinese and other peoples, among which the Japanese. But also as regards „the Orient of the mind" about which Bezombes (2) was talking, it must be admitted that there are nuances from case to case, with respect to an area between alteration - a term which, in itself, implies numerous debates -, exoticism (I am thinking of The Exotic in the book Nous et les autres by Todorov in which there is a reference to Victor Segalen (3) who created the word „exot"), orientalism and "interest in the Orient". These ones but also other various particular aspects, on a large scale are discussed, for instance, by Todorov and Lévinas, with his Altérite et transcendece or Entre Nous: Essais sur le penser-à-l'autre. Or M. Eigeldinger (4), who noticed that for writers, artists, the Orient is "a privileged place thanks to the solar fascination that it is exerted here with profound intensity". Or Pierre Martino, between certain limits, and Raymond Schwab, with La Renaissance orientale, 1950, with a focus on India and the significant role that the discovery/deciphering of the great Sanskrit texts had in the Occident - which, he wrote, provided the force that „regenerated European cultural and intellectual life between 1770 and 1870", especially in France and Germany ' - , that somehow anticipated E.W. Said (5), that published the book Orientalism, in 1978, with all his exaggerations.
Added to the military conflicts with the Persians, then with other Asian peoples, the Mongolians, the Tartars, the Ottoman Turks, the roads beyond Caucasus, towards China and even farther, with various „results"/ meanings and so on and so forth, the things evolved step by step towards understanding, getting acquainted with the other one's way of being, then, owing to the general evolution of society, with culture and spirituality. In addition to direct contacts, there contributed with discussions from case to case, various local and external factors, among which "the popular books" (6), but also numerous characters that we can mention, and before Nicolae Milescu Spătarul (1636 - 1708) or Cantemir - Kantemiroğlu in Turkish (who wrote also in Turkish and Persian), or Ienăchiţă Văcărescu (7) etc..
In other words, unlike the Occident, our relation was of a different nature from many points of view, we dealt neither with colonial matters nor with matters of any other kind as the ones mentioned by Said, not even with a matter of "regeneration" of cultural life of which Schwab made reference, and not even with a polemic like, for instance, the one between Montesquieu and Anquetil-Duperron (8).
Therefore, if we are to discuss about the Turks/ the Tartars or the Persians/The Arabs, the way in which the Romanians related to "the other", the way in which they perceived alteration and, maybe, the foreigner or/ and the exotic, the range of representations is pretty nuanced - from "the other", "from far away", „attacker/ plunderer", to the books/ culture of these areas. Among the ones that are fond, in a way or another, of the Orient - some of them (and) through direct contact, others rather through occidental influences -one can enumerate notable Romanian names, such as the name of Iacob Negruzzi, who wrote poems like Mervan, Kaher, Dimitrie Ralet, who, in a publication entitled "Literary Notes", written on the occasion of a visit to Constantinopol (he left Iaşi on the 9th of July 1855, he returned in March 1856), publishes (no reference of the source), in his view, some excerpts from the works of some Turkish poets (using the writing of: Muhlisi, Beliki, Razi, Tabii and so on and so forth, and „Saibi, the Persian"), Dimitrie Bolintineanu - with volumes like The Flowers of Bosphorus, about the Ottoman world full of pleasure, mystery and erotic things (9), translated in French by the author, published in 1866 in Paris with the title Brises de l'Orient, with a good public perception and good critical reviews. Mention should be made that our youth did not attend universities from the Ottoman Empire, but from the Occident, and that, although the Romanians manifested a real cultural interest that resulted in writing important literary works at the international level, the forms of oriental poetry remained unfamiliar to us. Moreover, they were used not even by the Turks and the Tartars from Romania.
Although there was a sort of curiosity in connection with "the other one" and we had some refined connoisseurs of the Turkish/ Tartar/ Persian languages and culture, we did not have (it goes without saying that there were many other aspects related to some particular conditions/ history/ mentality and so on and so forth) notable writers in Turkish, Tartar or Persian language like other peoples in the south-east of Europe. We are mentioning: Frasheri (the national poet of Albania, he debuted in Persian) or Muhlisi, probably the last Ottoman poet from Bosnia (born as Gornji Vakuf, he went to Mekka in 1748), who wrote in Persian and Turkish. The ghazal cultivated by our authors (Eminescu, Coşbuc) pervaded our literature by occidental means.
Under the circumstances, it may well be argued that the history of the Arabic printing press began with Antim Ivireanul, scholar, printer, bishop of Wallachia, therefore Arabic books were printed at Snagov, in 1701, Bucharest, in 1702, then Iaşi, under the coordination of the patriarch Silvester of Antiohia.(10)
In the context of the world events, especially the ones of the 18th century (remember Schwab), when the access to the oriental literature/ spirituality gained particular valences (without insisting on the evolution of the various trends in society and literature), several authors, among whom great names of the Romanian literature (Eminescu, Titu Maiorescu, Vasile Alecsandri - with poems such as El R'Baa, written in Maroc, The Fisherman of Bosphorus - written at Constantinopol, The Chinese Poem or The Mandarinl (11)), got acquainted with China and Japan (also), beginning with the 19th century by means of poetry. Ideas about Japan pervaded our area by other means as well, giving rise to variuos debates. We mention, for instance, that Léon de Rosny (a friend of V.A. Urechia), who, after he had published Anthologie japonaise, poésies anciennes et modernes des Insulaires du Nippon, Paris, Ed. Maisonneuve, 1871, he wrote Les Romains d'Orient. Aperçu de l'ethnographie de la Roumanie, in 1885, and he took the necessary steps to donate his impressive collection of oriental books to the Public Library from Galati.
In the context of romanticism, then of symbolism and of other European trends, there was a tendency towards a peculiar kind of exotic imagery that referred to Japan too. Alexandru Macedonski stands for a good example - he is believed to have bequeathed four written haiku poems in Romanian (12), which relate to Japan thanks to the atmosphere and the themes of the poems. The critic Tudor Vianu reminded his fondness for the Orient: "Macedonski's exoticism, with his geographical curve spreading from here as far as the Orient vision from Acşam Davalar and as far as the Japanese stuff from Excelsior [...] represents the fruit of that romantic passion for the local colour and for the picturesque". Quite naturally, we can discuss here about the various representations of the natural as well as of the artificial space with their particular nuances from case to case of "the Orient of the mind" created by the authors, sometimes based on their authentic experiences during their journey, a certain type of poetry, scenery, characters.
By the 19th century, things evolved towards a new stage-gaining awareness of the Japanese mentality/ spirituality/ culture turned out to be the poles of interest. In 1902 diplomatic discussions took place, in 1921 the Romanian legation was founded at Tokyo, and in 1922 the Japanese legation was founded in Romania.
In Romania, one can talk about people's concern with the Japanese poetry after the first half of the 19th century, although there are other versions. According to one source (no confirming documents) in 1878, king Carol I was said to have been offered a silk roll with ideograms by a Japanese prince, Nigata no Itu. The king sent it to Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu to translate it. If we are to take into consideration the highly debated testifying documents, Romania seems to be among the first countries in Europe with quite some interest in Japanese poetry. Jim Kacian, who writes that "there are cultural affinities between the people living in the Balkans and the ones living in Japan", got (13) his unverified information from the materials published after 1990 by the Romanians (Florin Vasiliu, then Vasile Moldovan and others).
Our press published information about Japan since the beginning in „Albina Românească" (nr. 12, 9th February 1841, p. 47-48 -The Japanese's ‚History of the creation of the world; nr. 10, 4th February 1845 - A Japanese History. An example of love for the ancestors, p. 37-38), whose first issue was published in 1829, under the coordination of the encyclopedic spirit of Gheorghe Asachi (14). Ion Heliade Rădulescu (1802-1872) (in The World Critical History, posthumous writing, 1892 - written between 1851-1854), wrote about Chinese philosophy, the adoption of Buddhism by the people in Tibet and Japan; one chapter is entitled "Japans". In „România liberă", year 9, nr. 2369, 13th of June 1885, in "The Schools' condition", one can find out details about the Japanese educational system. Among other articles and writings about the Japanese, we mention that Nicolae Iorga published in 1904, The War in the Extreme Orient', that was quoted in "Japan", an article from "Luceafărul", nr. 14-16, 15th of August 1904 by T.O Codru. Information about the country and the people" (15). Codru discusses about Japanese poetry (he quotes „Basil H. Chamberlain from the University from Tochio"): "Their poetry is ancient (the 11th century) and it draws on the beauty of nature and the romantic heroism of the Japanese. Up to the present, there have been only female poets. Poetry used to be the main pastime of the upper class in the Middle Age". The same issue of „Luceafărul" contains an article entitled „A Romanian woman in Japan. Mrs. Otilia de Cozmuţa". (Throughout the years, there was discovered the fact that other Romanian authors travelled to Japan and wrote about it (16), some of them remained almost unknown in Romania due to different reasons.)
People's interest for Japan, for Japanese spirituality and especially for haiku, but not only, kept growing. Beginning with nr. 17 of "Luceafărul" literary magazine, Otilia de Cozmuţa publishes texts about Japan, Japanese poetry, Japanese mentality, places from the Archipelago, and photos "taken from the very source". In 1909, nr. 14-15, 15th of July - the 1st of August, Alexandru Vlahuţă signs the article „A school" in which he writes also about Japan. In „Noua revistă română" (the New Romanian Magazine), coordinated by C. Rădulescu-Motru, nr. 20, on the 20th of September. 1909, vol. 6, N. Ştefănescu-Iacint, in the article "Romania facing the extreme current circumstances", writes about the interests/ similarities between Romania and Japan, "focusing on the politics of Russian expansion". In „Ţara Bârsei", Braşov, nr. 3, 1931, Gabriel Zare signs "Perspectives on Japan", mentioning "after Lafcadio Hearn", with explanations, notes and others.
Within the Romanian haiku milieu there was some information according to which in 1904, in "Evenimentul literar" ("The Literary Event") from Iaşi, the first essays on Japanese poetry were published (no testifying documents yet). It is certain that Japanese poetry attracted people's curiosity. Al. Vlahuţă published in 1911, in the volume Sitting by the fire, a text entitled Japanese Poetry and Painting, in which one can read several tanka poems (he names them "uta") translated by him from the anthology of Fuiwara no Teika, entitled in his version, "The utas of one hundred poets [...], the most widely spread book in Japan", which, the Romanian author writes, represents "the flower of all the flowers". (this is the single reference about the source of the poems, as regards other references, there is one only to "the emperor Koko" contained in a poem). Also in "Luceafărul", for which Octavian Goga (17) too worked as an editor, in addition to O de Cosmuţa, with titles as „Yocohama and Tochio" (story- poetry), „Japan (Information on the country and the people)", „On the Japanese's art", „Irova" and so on and so forth.), there are other authors who published: T.O. Codru, "A few Japanese poets (poetry)", Othmar, "A Romanian woman in Japan" (18), "The Japanese press"- M. Aegea. In nr. 14 - 16, on the 15th of August 1904, on page 264, under the pseudoym "Othmar", of which he made use on other occasions as well, Goga published a group of poems entitled A few Japanese poets. He does not mention the source he used (19), and he does not offer any explanations either about the way in which he dealt with the poems/terms in his version, some of them belonging to Man'yō-shū anthology (year 759). Goga maintains the number of lines and divides the poem in two stanzas. One cannot discuss here about formal aspects, symbolical connotations, the mountain symbolism, words associations. The differences between Chamberlain's version and Goga's version lead to differences in interpretation also. Goga's version is written in fluent Romanian and it is elaborated according to the norms of European poetry.
In the other part of the country, in the magazine entitled "Glasul Bucovinei", Cernăuţi, the 7th of January 1919, George Voevidca, born in 1893, published Oriental Flowers, five versions after tanka poems, translated from German (he was probably educated at Viena). His poems are not accompanied by any notes or information about the author, the source, but they have title, rhythm, rhyme like all the poems written in that epoch (with a peculiar local/ popular nuance, we could say - his father, Al. Voevidca, teacher and folklore specialist contributed to his son's education), without observing the rule 5-7-5 // 7-7 silabe. I have not found any information in connection with possible regular concerns of Voevidca with Japanese/oriental poetry/ literature.
The one line poem of Ion Pillat (1891 - 1945)(20) offers an interesting moment thanks to the perspective in which it was perceived and analyzed. There were lots of debates about his poem and critics wrongly claimed that it was inspired or related to haiku (21). (This is indicative of the fact that haiku was already popular in Romania.) Educated at Paris, Sorbonne, fascinated by the Orient (his poems have titles such as : Hokusai, Din Samisen, Saadi .) he published the volume One line poems in 1935. Pillat mastered varied oriental poetical genres, including haiku, but he wrote: "The one line poem must not be taken for the Greek epigram, the Persian rubai or the Japanese haiku"(22).
Traian Chelariu (23) (born in 1906, educated in the country as well as at Rome, Italy ), is one the writers who profoundly marked Romanian literature before the Second World War and before the establisment of the communist regime. In 1933 he published his first haiku Romanian anthology, Japanese soul, (with the sub-title Lyrical florilegium presented by Traian Chelariu). The poems were selected and translated from French and German and thanks to the the manner in which they were translated, to the attention with which he observed the rules he had a good command of - his main concern was with the number of syllables (he could not do it with one single poem; he rendered it as a footnote: "the translation is accurate but it is not in accordance with the 17 syllables of the haikai"), his anthology represented an event. In the first text (Instead of introduction ), the author writes about Japanese poetry: "no occidental influence", "mainly suggestion than elaboration", the "Japanese poetical hermetism" was imposed by "the extremely concise Japanese language"; why tanka rules are not modified in time: "Japanese literature is one of the richest in the world in works and authors. Since the majority of these works and authors are occasional poets and works, it is partially clear why none of them dared to vary or to replace the ancient". The most important rule, in his vision, for tanka (he uses the forms "tannka"/ "tanca", for haiku - „haïkaï", two poetical forms that render, he says, "all the nuances of the Japanese's life from the tones of the most intense gravity to the warm light of the most human humour"), is the number of syllables. He added: " we cannot discuss the content of the poems, the reader will understand it in so far as he loves especially the poetical forms whose virtue is represented by a maximum economy of words used to elaborate a meaning... In Japan... each word is pondered and placed in the chain of the seventeen or thirty one syllables in such a manner that, the most ample meanings can irradiate, if it is the case, from its essence and place".
Vasile Moldovan wrote, with good reason, that "this rigour of the first translator of haiku in Romanian influenced the Romanian poets that were to come up later", many poets " are striving to observe the classic pattern rigorously, sometimes to the detriment of the content ." He published tanka poems (that he calls "songs" and "haïkaï with titles, specifying that they do not have titles in the Japanese.
A second significant writer is Alexandru T. Stamatiad (24) (1885-1956), who translated from Baudelaire, Wilde, Poe, Khayyam, and published anthologies of oriental poetry: Chinese - From the jade flute, 1939, two of Japanese poetry - From the songs of the Japanese courtesans, 1942, Silk scarfs, 1943. In Sentimental landscapes there are a few terza rimes that we can call today, at the most, taking into account the period of the publication of the book, "haiku like poems" and, to a certain point, extrapolating, maybe even forcing a little bit, "senryu like poems". It may well be argued that one must appreciate the manner in which Chelariu, Stamatiad and other authors/ translators made an approach to haiku as well as the manner in the which poets in the Occident related to haiku in general.
The volume From the songs of the Japanese courtesans contains 25 poems with titles, some of them exceed the number of lines of a tanka poem whereas the majority of them exceed the number of the syllables. The poems have titles (The wailing willow, Joining you, The letter, Field maple leaves). Stamatiad gives neither the name of the author, nor a reference/explanation, a fact that will change, but to a little extent, not in detail, not significantly in Silk scarfs , Japanese anthology, 1943.
In comparison with Japanese Soul by Traian Chelariu (the sources of Stamatiad were translations into French quoted at the end of the book), Silk Scarfs is less elaborated, including both haiku and tanka like poems and others. It does not contain an introductory study, a critical approach, any other explanatory notes except for the beginning of each period (before which, on the introductory page, there are a few words such as: "The Heian epoch after the name of the city of Heian-jo or «The fortress of Peace», the capital of the empire, the city of Heian-jo, the current Kyoto was the residence of the emperors until 1868").
The systematization of the poets in accordance with the period in which they lived can be considered a plus, even if, most probably, after reading the sources, one can notice the influence of the books from which it was taken over; as we know, Chelariu also read these source (both of them give titles to haiku and tanka poems). Another plus for Stamatiad: he published two anthologies, the second one contains more than 250 pages. On the other hand, he did not explain as rigorously as Chelariu, in the way in which he succeeded, the observance of some formal rules required while writing tanka or haiku (the number of syllables, caesura). He used "tanka" or "haiku" neither in Sentimental landscapes nor in From the songs of the Japanese courtesans, he does not define in any way the poems translated into Romanian. In Silk scarfs on there are this kind of references on a single page from the book (25).
One of the main sources used by Traian Chelariu is the anthology of Revon, which made an approach to haiku in the section "La poésie légère" (from the period of Tokugawa - Revon epoch: "Tokougawa", chapter related to poetry, page 381), sub-point a, "L'épigramme japonaise: haïkaï". Mention should be made that, although Chelariu quoted for instance Revon (who wrote that haiku is an epigram; and, in Japanese soul page 6, he wrote: "the only variation of the tanca form was its reduction to even the more concise epigram form in which the famous haïkaï are written"), although Stamatiad mentions him as a source (without quoting him, he does not even use the "relation" epigram - haiku), neither of the Romanians gives the name "Japanese epigram" to their haiku versions in explicit terms.
I insisted on the sources since their mention by the two of them represented, in itself, a modality of informing the ones who are interested, who later expanded their reading. This resulted in the fact that I discovered some of sources quoted, then, by other authors who discussed about other aspects than the Japanese poetry. It may well be argued that significant steps were made by these two authors/translators judging by the way in which they organized the books, they offered the information, the notes, the quoted sources. And this thing happened in spite of the previously specified minuses (from the way in which the sources, the references were quoted, the manner of translation from the formal point of view of the Romanian version of the poems - most probably, they were translated rather like some poetical, "European" texts, not in accordance with the rules of the Japanese poetry -; it is completely futile to discuss about rules, about the subtleties referring to differences in vocabulary, social aspects, or about the use of the "generic" term of courtesan, globally, for the author). The volumes published by Chelariu and Stamatiad represented reference books in the epoch, attracted numerous readers who were willing to find more about Japan, Japanese spirituality, their way of being and probably generated other writings about Japan/ Japanese spirituality.
During the communist epoch, there were published some books about Japan, translations from Japanese literature, haiku was quite popular (important Romanian writers named their poems "haiku", without observing the requirements of the genre - for example: Nichita Stănescu), several anthologies were published, mention should be made about the steps that had been made before, there was a growing interest for oriental spirituality, especially the Japanese one, but the circulation of information was "guided"/ censured. After 1989, starting from the haiku authors, but not only, a different type of information was accessible to the readers, including lots of books and articles on Japan, Japanese culture/ spirituality. The moment the internet spread all over the world, the amplitude became considerable. The translations from the Japanese literature (also present before 1989, some of them connected with haiku) expanded. Nowadays one can talk about a significant number of books on various themes from history/religion/spirituality, poetry, prose, an important number of Japanese writers that were translated into Romanian.
Another notable factor was the existence of some associations of the Japanese poetry creators. In magazines and books there have been published various studies/ articles based on what haiku means and continuing with the particular concepts of Japanese aesthetics like ca wabi, sabi, aware (mono-no-aware), shibumi, karumi, ryuko - fueki, yūgen, that have been explained and theorized and that have represented a topic of discussion/ leading to a growing interest for Japanese spirituality. Although it is a genre with which the Romanian audience as well as the audience from many occidental countries is not really acquainted, haiku has incited the curiosity of those who didn't write haiku poems or who were not interested in this type of poetry, but who wanted to understand better how haiku was born, to understand the mentality/spirituality of the people who created this lyrical universe. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that, starting from haiku, many authors'/readers' interest has expanded towards the world that gave birth to it. In connection with haiku, there have been published various anthologies, theoretical books that contributed to understanding Japanese spirituality, giving rise to serious debates between the haiku writers: for instance the idea according to which a haiku poem with no paradox or which lacks the " zen moment" is not haiku.
Even though there are some voices (beginning with Antoine Volodine) who talk about "post-exoticism", with its nuances and connotations (quite interestingly, he published, under one of his heteronyms, Lutz Bassmann, in 2008, the volume Haïkus des prisons, with poems written in the style of what he wanted to demonstrate), but I think that in Romania the interest in the idea of alteration/ exotic did not take off by the previously mentioned means. On the other hand, it is remarkable that (unlike, for instance, what happened with the ghazal, and we could say a lot more here) starting (also) from haiku the interest in Japan gained an important place within the range of preoccupations of the Romanian haiku authors/ Romanian readers, expanding also towards its roots, including its relations with China.
In conclusion, there are different reasons and situations (and if we are taking into account particular epochs and contexts), the reference to an area or another of the "Orient", as regards the Japanese one - cultural, literary - makes us think of distinct particularities. Haiku (although used in a way or another by well known authors) stands for a niche genre and, in my view, it is unlikely that the situation might change. Nevertheless, it significantly contributes to attracting the audience towards Japan, Japanese spirituality and, based on these things, towards what Orient in its diversity and complexity is to us.
Notes:
Haijme Nakamura: the Orient must not be considered a cultural unit, but as a region including "various cultural areas". He uses the terms "Orient" and "Occident" especially for "the ease of the presentation", by "Occident" he is referring to "the Greek-Jewish-Christian tradition", by "Orient"- "especially to the traditions of India, China, Japan etc."
L'Exotisme dans l'art et la pensée, verse and prose anthology by Roger Bezombes, foreword by Paul Valery, Editions Elsevier, 1953
An interesting critical approach on the work of Segalen in China: Bai Yunfei, La réception de Victor Segalen en Chine entre littérature et idéologie, in "Perspectives chinoises", 2016/ 1. ("Il est très intéressant de constater que grâce à Jonathan Spence et Xi Chuan, Segalen fut subitement promu au rang des grands écrivains comme Borges et Calvino"; "la consécration officielle et officieuse de Segalen en Chine entre en résonance avec le statut que Segalen acquiert chez les théoriciens du post-colonialisme, grâce notamment à sa théorie du « Divers »".
Essays. On French poetry from romanticism to post-symbolism, anthology, foreword, translations, notes and commentaries by H. Zalis, Ed. Romcart, Bucharest, 1992, p. 94.
He considers Schwab „an orienteur than an orientalist, a man more interested in a generous awareness than in detached classification". In the foreword of Schwab's book in English he wrote: "Dualities, opposition, polarities-as between Orient and Occident, one writer and another, one time and another-are converted in his writing into lines that criss-cross, it is true, but that also draw a vast human portrait."
Among which Varlaam and Ioasaf, Nastratin Hogea .
After a period spent in exile, in 1790 the ruler allowed him to reach Adrianopol for a while, then he traveled to Constantinopole too. He mastered Turkish and he wrote also about the Ottomans .
Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron (1731-1805), about whom Raymond Schwab, published Vie d'Anquetil-Duperron, suivie des usages civils et religieux des Parses par Anquetil-Duperron, at Paris, in 1934.
„Oh, stranger, come and indulge yourself/ On these shores full of charm ,/ Where sadness does not want to go,/ Where love is still full of sweet dreams".
What printers accomplished at Iaşi and Bucharest led to the foundation of the first printing press of Orthodox books from Liban, in 1750, at Beirut, with printing material provided by the people from Wallachia.
About which Ioana M. Petrescu wrote that, here, "the exotic space" is perceived like "an attempt to beautify the terrifying".
I do not have testifying documents yet.
Jim Kacian's speech about Balkan Haiku Global Haiku Festival, Illinois, USA, April 15, 2000.
1788-1869; with a Ph. D in Philosophy, construction engineer. It seems that he was proficient in, except for Romanian, French, German, Polish, Russian, Italian, Greek, Latin and English, having vast general, cultural-scientific knowledge.
"Main" quoted sources: N. Iorga, The War from the Far-East- China, Japan, Asian Russian, Bucharest 1904. Ernst V. Hesse-Warteg, China und Japan, Lipsca 1900, Graf Hans von Königsmarck, Japan und die Japaner, Berlin 1900 ş.a..
Most recently, I have published in "Poezia" magazine a text by Radu Şerban, ex-ambassador of Romania at Tokyo, about writings begun in 1914 ş.a., signed by Dumitru Nistor.
A theme developed in Octavian Goga, Otilia de Cozmuţa, George Voevidca and the Japanese poetry, Iaşi, 2013.
T.O. Codru and T. represent the signatures of Octavian C. Tăslăuanu.
For instance, a poem was translated, with a single insignificant difference, an accent at „Mikáne", in the volume „Japanese literature including selections from Genji Monogatari and classical poetry and drama of Japan", with critical and biographical sketches by Epiphanius Wilson, a.m., revised edition, The Colonial Press, 1900.
From Ion Pillat and the one line poem. Past and present approaches also from the perspective of the Japanese poetry creators , 2011.
Florin Vasiliu or, Vasile Moldovan, who presented at the International Haiku Festival from Constanţa, in June 2005, the work A Romanian reply to haiku - the one line poem.
Ion Pillat, One line poems, Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 1936, p. 7-10.
A theme discussed in Traian Chelariu and Japanese poetry, Iaşi, 2011.
A theme discussed in Al. T. Stamatiad and Japanese poetry, Iaşi, 2011.
The sources that he quotes (18 titles of books and articles, in his writing: Leon de Rosny: Anthologie japonaise, Paris, 1871, W.G. Aston: Littérature japonaise. Paris, 1902, Noel Peri: Au Japon - Fleurs de cerisier, Revue de Paris, 1 Sept. 1905, Louis Aubert: Sur le paysage japonais. Revue de Paris, 15 Sept. 1905, Nico-D. Horigoutşi: Tanka, Petits poèmes japonais (traduction française de l'auteur). Paris, 1921, Michel Revon: Anthologie de la littérature japonaise. Paris, 1923, Paul-Louis Couchoud: Sages et poètes d'Asie. Paris, 1923, Masaomi Yoshitomi: Anthologie de la littérature japonaise contemporaine. Grenoble, 1924, Steinilber-Oberlin et Hidetake Iwamura: Chansons des Geishas. Paris, 1926, Sei-Shonogon: Les notes de l'oreiller. Paris, 1928, Georges Bonneau: Le Kokinshû. vol. premier. Paris, 1923, Georges Bonneau: Le Kokinshû, vol. deuxième. Paris, 1934, Kikou Yamata: Vies de Geishas. Paris, 1934, Georges Bonneau: Le Kokinshû. Supplément au vol. premier. Paris, 1935, Georges Bonneau: Anthologie de la poésie japonaise. Paris, 1935, Kuni Matsuo en collaboration avec Ryuko Kamaji et Alfred Smonlar: Histoire de la littérature japonaise des temps archaïques a 1935. Paris, 1935, Kuni Matsuo et Steinilber-Oberlin: Haikai de Basho et ses disciples. Paris, 1936, Kuni Matsuo et Steinilber-Oberlin: Anthologie des poètes japonais contemporains. Paris, 1939.