TABOR - Tradition and Contemporaneity in the Romanian Orthodox Church
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A century after our great Union, the nation in a state of vigilance. Sociological comments and notes to the novel of the Great Union
This article is a chronicle to Professor Mihail Diaconescu’s volume Sacrifice, where, in several chapters, the ocean of human suffering flows with devastating power. These are the chapters where Mihail Diaconescu evokes the trenches and clashes of the World War I. In the novel Sacrifice, there are moments of dramatic high-tension, when people, groups or even entire nations are facing the most drastic repressive measures taken by the imperial authorities. A nation’s identity in the bicephal empire is repressed. Repressive measures are criminal. Mihail Diaconescu evokes these measures with their terrible, monstrous side. As a writer concerned about the combination of heroic, tragic and moral, he brings something new in the Romanian prose. It is a thematic renewal, of course. It is also a renewal of the epic-artistic vision. It is, above all, a renewal based on his historical and sociological vision. Whether he sees history through sociology or social realities through historical erudition, the epic effect is remarkable.
 

AUREL V. DAVID