Bălți city through the lens of (non)melancholic interwar writers

Abstract

The article proposes an approach to the topos of the city, illustrated by the city of Balți from the interwar period. The evocations of the interwar scholars who visited Balți and offered edifying testimonies are analyzed, among which Geo Bogza, Dimitrie Iov, Leon Donici, Neculai Macarovici, G.C. Lecca. They record the essence of the city through the lens of their own subjectivity. The result is a multi-perspective game of projections of a provincial urban space, gloomy, lonely, monotonous, which cultivates a kind of defensive resistance. The authors perform a series of (self)imagological exercises, from which results the way of being of the people from Balți and especially the way in which they are reflected in the lenses of the visitors. A special presence in the urban landscape is the woman from Balți who cultivates the moral enigma of silence. The city is an accomplice of the woman, and she becomes the symbol of the urban sight. A space of imagination and representation, the city is not just a functional place, but especially a cultural construct.

Keywords

• bălți
• imagology
• topos
• evocation
• subjectivity
• space
• scenery
• cultural construct
• urban sight