The writer Constantin Barbu is Nicolae Coande's guest at the "SpectActor Meetings", season 2024-2025. Concerned with historical thinking, but also with poetry that ignites the spirit of the world, Constantin Barbu will hold the conference "I lit the match that will set fire to Laniakeia", on Thursday, November 14, from 5 p.m., at the "Ion D. Sîrbu" hall of the Theater National "Marin Sorescu". On this occasion, the author invites you to an editorial event, the super-book of the same name, which includes 100 volumes of 100 poems each, a unique project outlined during the year 2024 (in 300 days, the author specifies), a daring odyssey of the poetic spirit in the "iron age".
Recently, on October 19, Constantin Barbu received the Dante Prize, awarded by the Accademia delle Arti e delle Scienze Filosofiche in Bari - For his commitment to affirming "sapienza ” and “virtus”, central values for both Seneca and Dante, key figures of classical wisdom and moral virtue, and for his contribution to the understanding and connection between cultures and thoughts of different eras, creating a bridge between antiquity and the Middle Ages and highlighting the concord (ie harmony) between Roman and medieval thought.
Admission is free.
Constantin Barbu
Born in 1954. Graduated from the Faculty of Philology, University of Craiova (1974-1978). Scholarship of the French Government 1977, at the University of Grenoble. He published his first article in the Romanian magazine Ramuri(1975), then he published the essay Luceafărul si Bhagavad-Gita(1976) in the magazine of the University of Craiova.
Publishes the first book, Essential speech. Essay on the reminder of Being (Editura Scrisul Românesc, 1985), foreword by Marin Sorescu. A metaphysics book received with enthusiasm and generosity by: Edgar Papu (Flacăra magazine), Adrian Marino (Tribuna magazine), Mihai Şora (magazine Branches). Anton Dumitriu and Dumitru Stăniloae send the author very special words, in private letters. Constantin Noica writes: "Constantin Barbu - exceptionally gifted for scholarly works and literary history" (1981). Noica places him at the head of "the 22" young geniuses of Romania*. Emil Cioran calls him: "an accomplice in the cult of Nothing" (1989).
In 1989, he publishes A grammar of Being which is, in fact, Hestia. Attempt to Unravel the Image of the World, fragments of the transsystem The Great Crossing of the Void (work comprising over a hundred books; it will be printed in 35 volumes from which they appeared until present the first 15 volumes). André Glücksmann recommends him to important French government institutions as "the most important philosopher in Eastern Europe". The philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas recommends him for a doctorate to Jacques Derrida with a paper onEpékeina tēs ousías. A dialogue with Lévinas on this topic appeared in the magazine Ramuri from Craiova). In 1990, the book Eminescu e il romanticismo europeo appeared at the Bulzoni Publishing House in Rome, with the authors Mircea Eliade, Constantin Noica, Emil Cioran, Mario Luzzi, Constantin Barbu, etc. In 1991 he published Eminescu. Poetry and nihilism (Ed. Pontica, 1991). He edits Mihai Eminescu's Manuscripts (in facsimile), a Corpus eminescianum and the Transliterated Opera - a project from which, by 1996, already 25 volumes. Imaginat, in Păltiniş, together with Constantin Noica, is the biggest project of Romanian culture. Rebuilding Eminescu's Library, he published 235 volumes out of 1250. In the Eminescu Archive he published volumes 1-31. In 1991 he received, in Brussels, from the Maurice Carême Foundation, an international Prize for the essay L'UniVers et le Vers.
He has published over 40 books of poems (selective): The Royal Illusion, Elegies of Absence, Versions of the Void, The Destroyed Language, Book about Solitude, Madness and Death. He has published over 35 books of essays (selective ): The Inexistent Self-Version, Epékeina tēs ousías, Poietic Conversion, Treatise on Archaea, Overcoming My Time, Hestia, The Grammar of Being, The Renewal of Time, The Experience of Swacuity, The Inner Book, The Change of the Rose, The Overbook Without Why ( in five volumes) etc. He printed original books by Cioran, Noica, Eliade. Some of his works have been translated into Italian, French, Swedish, English. He published The Reverse Code. Archive of the madness and killing of the nihilist Mihai Eminescu, volumes I-XX. He published Monumenta Romaniae Historica in 1200 volumes (unpublished color facsimile manuscripts from the 74 most important archives of the world). He edited Integrala Manuscriselor Cantemir, vol. 1-104 (out of the 200 projected). He edited in 100 volumes The Holy Orthodox Fathers. Ancient Romanian martyrs. The pious ones of old. Unpublished color facsimile edition, including manuscripts from the archives: Vatican, Rome, Naples, Milan, Turin, Venice, Sankt-Gallen, Freising, Fulda, Madrid, Paris, Vienna, Oxford, Berlin, Munich, etc. He gave lectures at the European Parliament and the German Academy. His books can be found in prestigious libraries around the world: National Library of France (Paris), Boris Yeltsin Library (Moscow), American Library of Congress, National Library of Belgium, National Library of Luxembourg; Italian National Library, German Academy.
Prizes (selective): in Brussels the International Prize from the Maurice Carême Foundation, the Prize of the International Association of Writers, the Pjëter Bogdani Prize, Brussels, Prishtina and the Poetry Prize of the Académie Européenne des Sciences, des Arts et Lettres, Paris. In 2022, he received the Mongolian Buddhist Center Medal, awarded by the head of the Mongolian Buddhist Center and abbot of Gandantegchenling Monastery, Gabji Demberel Choijamts. In Salamis, Greece, he received the "Alexander the Great" Gold Medal (2022). He is a full member of the Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea in Salzburg. He is a full member of the International Academy of Ethics in India. In October 2024 he received the Dante Prize: sapientia, virtus et concordia humanitatis of the Accademia delle Arti e delle Scienze Filosofiche, Bari.
