Alice Voinescu (en)

“Alice Voinescu was a great lecturer, she gave lectures full of substance, with great effect at the time”

Stelian Tănase: Tell me about some figures, personalities and people who have crossed your existence… Alexandru Paleologu: Among the people who have played a leading role in my life, I always mention Alice Voinescu when I am asked. I have spoken about her many times and I still do. I always have something to say about her and that’s because she was my father’s oldest friend and I was a friend of hers. Because we had reached a great degree of intimacy, I considered her a close relative, and because she played a great role, almost as great as my […]

A bright conscience: Alice Voinescu

Twenty-five years ago this year, on the 3rd of June, Alice Voinescu, a leading cultural figure between the two world wars, Doctor of Philosophy from the Sorbonne, Professor of Aesthetics and Dramatic Literature at the Royal Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Bucharest, a brilliant lecturer much appreciated by the general public and the author of volumes of essays, died: “Montaigne, homme et oeuvre” – published in 1936 -, “Aspecte din teatrul contemporan” – published in 1941 – and “Eschil” – published in 1946. In December 1953, Perpessicius described Alice Voinescu’s role in Romanian culture as follows (I quote): “The extent […]

“My whole generation loved her, and her direct pupils adored her”

There was also direct communication with Alice Voinescu, Professor of Universal History of the Theatre at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts. She usually held her classes in the Foundation’s conference room, opposite the Palace. The room was always full. Every year he would talk about something different. Greek tragedy, then Shakespeare, French classicism, Goethe… Alice Voinescu was undeniably an ugly woman, but when she spoke about theatre, her figure was illuminated from within and from above. Her expressive and pathetic words evoked eras, writers, plays and characters with disturbing authenticity. We waited for Antigone or Hamlet to appear, for Phaedra […]

Alice Voinescu, the embodiment of culture as a lifestyle, as a virtue

Tomorrow’s historian of the country’s decline today, the one who will serenely situate the phases of Romania’s cruel metamorphosis, this whole night seism, will be forced to weigh well – to give – to give – to believe what is fatal – but he will also have to capture those areas of readiness in which resignation, the will to powerlessness, active cowardice have been sown. The university, unfortunately, is one of these. Not a few of our academics find themselves in the chosen place of dishonesty and insincerity. And not from the eleventh hour – the evil hour that is […]

“Mrs. Voinescu, we were colleagues!”

In another wing of the prison (n.n. Jilava Prison), in the women’s wing, in a damp and dark cell, two inmates were having a heated conversation. A young prostitute and an elderly gypsy woman. They were telling each other episodes from their lives. The gypsy was a pickpocket and, in a burst of altruism and detail, she told the other how, on a tram, with great dexterity acquired through long practice, she had cut open the pocket of a “customer” in order to steal his wallet. Sitting in the next chair, one listens with the tense attention of someone accustomed […]

“An intellectual of great class”

As I walk nervously from one end of the cell to the other, the Jilava Isolatory, with cells 9-12, comes back to me with the same clarity. Professor Petru Manoliu, Doctor Tavernier, lawyer Caleia and architect Ursescu were part of the “Alice Voinescu” group. She was a university professor at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts and I knew her well, having spent an elementary summer with my mother. In the summer, during her holidays, she often came to our country house. A great intellectual, she had been dismissed from her professorship and had nothing to live on, so she gave […]

Alice Voinescu – a spiritual balm for the souls around her

Alice Voinescu was a balm for many people around her. Generous, altruistic, cultured like few women, full of a certain spirit of moral and spiritual wisdom, she had also initiated a so-called Oxfordist movement in our country, in addition to her inspired lessons in philosophy and dramatic literature. In the weekly meetings, which were quite frequent, she listened to the dramatic confessions and thoughts of those present. It was an atmosphere of communion in which Professor Alice Voinescu gave her opinion on what she had heard. (Arșavir Acterian – Jurnal 1929-1945/1958-1990, Editura Humanitas, București, 2008, p. 277)