On the 9th of May 1935 King Carol II of Romania opened the festivities of the newly inaugurated Month of Bucharest (Luna Bucureştilor). The month-long event, which would take place annually until 1940, included festivals, exhibitions and various events meant to showcase urban modernization, cultural heritage, and the achievements of the regime in general. It also provided the occasion for the launch of a new book series, “Cities” (Oraşe), which opened naturally with a volume dedicated to Bucharest.
Mircea Damian’s Bucharest constitutes a fascinating window into interwar Bucharest and an odd choice for a celebratory book. The author himself, now forgotten, was a troublesome journalist who had been imprisoned in 1931 following a series of slanderous pamphlets against the king’s brother, Prince Nicolae. An aspiring provincial seeking his fortunes in the Capital, Damian loved Bucharest but knew it rather too well. His book is structured in short chapters that take the readers from the cheap and filthy hotels by the train station to the luxury stores and restaurants in the centre, through parks, markets, trams and waiting rooms, introducing them to students, servants, workers, shopkeepers or street vendors.
In an emotional tribute to a city where “even suffering is cheerful,” (10) Damian routinely addressed two uneasy subjects: the economic crisis and the unemployed. In a country that denied the existence of unemployment until 1934 and even afterwards recorded it sparsely, Damian’s unemployed were intrinsic to the fabric of the city. In Spring, they emerged from under the bridges on the Dâmboviţa river and “smiled to the sun with their whole hungry mouths” (92). They woke up on dewy benches in parks and promenades where the benches were free, but the chairs carried fees. They crowded in front of the town hall offering their services as witnesses to civil unions (147) or made a living lending the daily newspapers to impoverished coffeehouse patrons (116). If they still had a home, they lived with the threat of eviction (43) and longed for the “olive bread” offered in jail (8). And they were not the only ones affected. State employees, long envied for their job security, could “barely afford the clothes on their backs” following the three consecutive salary cuts known as ‘sacrifice curbs’ (78).
Still, the Depression only deepened the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Admiring the expensively dressed women on Calea Victoriei, Bucharest’s leading boulevard, Damian wondered: “Who says anything about a crisis?” (16) But the real portrait of affluence came from the quiet, discreet, elegant neighbourhoods of the Bucharest elite. Walking on the empty, freshly paved and meticulously manicured streets, the author concluded:
“No, the crisis did not reach the Filipescu Park. Nor the Bonaparte Park. I think nobody fired their gardener, nobody had to sell a car or two, nobody rented out half of their own house. Not even some of the servants were let go. At most they lost ten percent of their wages. […] Poor rich people!”
Source: Mircea Damian, Bucureşti (Bucharest: Editura Fundaţiilor Regale, 1935).