This article covers two sections: the first with a biography of Maria, the second about her art and music.

Biography: The Life of Maria Tanase

Maria Tanase was born on 25th September of 1913 as third child to Ana (Munteanu) and Ion Coanda Tanase in a suburb of Bucharest, Romania. She inherited from her parents her love to music in general and in particular to Romanian folk music. Maria never received a formal training, but some lessons in her school where she was also mentioned to be on stage, just as at “Cărămidarii de Jos” in 1921.

For a long time, few things have been known about her time during 1939 and 1944, when Romania fell under the dictatorship of Marshall Ion Antonescu and his fascistic, anti-Semitic allies from the “Garda de Fier” (Iron Guard) while Maria and her friends were modern and democratic. Her lover, Armand Calinescu – who made the imprisonment of the fascist leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu happen in 1938 – was murdered by Iron Guardist just one year after, in late 1939. The fascistic Government prohibited airing the songs of Maria Tanase as they accused her to alter “authentic” Romanian folk music. They destroyed also most of the existing recordings of Maria Tanase, yet, some survived. Nevertheless, Maria was still popular and was asked by the very Ministry to sing at a festival. She agreed, but only under the condition that her Jewish friends were not to be deported. Furthermore, she used the occasion to stress the merits of her Jewish friend, the music ethnologist Harry Brauner.

After WW II Maria Tanase continued her career under the now communistic regime and continued to represent Romania and its folk music in various countries. Her journeys included the former communist countries, but she toured often to destinations such as New York, too. She took part in some films, such as “Romania” (1947), acted 1945 in Leo Tolstoy’s play “The Living Corpse” and 1956 in “Horia” by Mihai Davidoglu. She received several honours and prizes for her cultural activity, but soon, Maria Tanase shall die from lung cancer, on 22th of June, 1963 at the age of 49.

The Music of Maria Tanase

When it comes to the art and music of Maria Tanase it seems best fitting to let Maria speak for herself. This for, Romania Central decided to translate an interview originally aired on SRR and available on YouTube.

Maria Tanase:
I was born in the old Caramidarilor suburbs, the suburbs where vegetables, fruit trees and flowers grow. In my father’s garden with apricots scent, with blossomed trees and talkative women, wives of simple hard-working people, with noisy and naughty boys who were covering the hills and gardens. There, in the Caramdarilor suburbs, is the place where I spent my childhood, I cried, I laughed and also there I sang.

Interviewer:
What songs have you interpreted?

Maria Tanase:
Folklore songs, I have never sang anything else besides Romanian folklore songs. Coming from the surroundings and from afar to the town, the peasants hidden in our suburbs, when finishing their work, with voices something full of passion somethings mild, they sang the songs from their homes. From them I have learned to sing, from them, from my father and my mother. For a long time persisted in my soul those sad, slowly, with cursing, revengeful, revolting feelings, wailing and swing songs, wedding songs.

Interviewer:
Your repertoire is very rich, very varied! How do you compose it?

Maria Tanase:
In my journeys along the countryside, I search and listen carefully and patiently the peasants’ songs. Then I try to enter and understand the music, the rhythm and the words’ meaning, mainly to understand the words sense. I try to find the traditions/habits specific to the region, and then the process is quite complicated, being based on observation, concentration and on difficult, thorough and persevering work. I do not interpret them immediately, my songs, collected songs. Primarily, I leave them to sound in my heart, and much later, months or even years later I pass them to the people. Years or months later I run them further on.

Interviewer:
How many songs of this kind you have on your repertoire?

Maria Tanase:
Almost 400.

Interviewer:
And which of them are your favorites?

Maria Tanase:
I have to admit that I have never sung a song that I do not love. But it is true that among them I have a few that are more dearly to me than others. I do not know why. Maybe because they are talking in the warm pace of doinas [a doina is a Romanian song of grief, Romania-Central.com], of the past and difficulties of our peasants and others talk about our days.

Interviewer:
In the last couple of years your repertoire has enriched with many original songs. Where you have collected them from?

Maria Tanase:
From everywhere. From almost all regions that I visit with my song: from Fagaras, Cluj, Radauti, Moldova, Oltenia, Banat.

Interviewer:
Do you want to talk us about your latest folkloric discovery?

Maria Tanase:
More than taking about it, allow me to sing it to you. It is about a swing song, collected by Cicerone Teodeorescu, from Nasaud region that starts like this…
(listen beginning at in the video 4:28).

Translation by Romania-Central.com

Please note that updated, detailed data is linked from the resume below for 2009 or on our Economy page.

Romania after one Year of Crisis

2009 was a very tough year for Romania’s economy, which proved virtually all forecasts from the year before wrong. Romania did not record the expected growth, but did a big step backwards after being hit by the crisis. Needles to mention, that no analyst could foresee such a development before the outbreak of the crisis, which happened to affect Romania beginning only during spring 2009 to its full extent. FDI inflows in the first quarter were even higher than in the first quarter of 2008. Yet, though higher than anticipated by the IMF, FDI in 2009 dropped likewise. Overall the Romanian GDP fell by some 7.7 %. The situation on the labor market – formerly characterized by notable shortages in labor supply and low unemployment – reversed completely.

Main driver have been falling exports due to a falling external demand and bad access to credit as international finical markets froze. Internal demand, formerly heavily based on credit was the second main driver of the former growth and thus, of the recession in 2009. The only positive things to be mentioned are a relatively low inflation rate and a shrinking Current Account deficit. However, both developments are again the result of a massive breakdown of disposable income and credit, which also resulted in dramatically shrinking import volumes. A rapid and massively dropping exchange rate for Romania contributed significantly to this development. The public deficit continued growing and Romania was one of the first which had to apply for a credit at the EU and the IMF. Though the Romanian Government denied last year that Romania was in danger of declaring bankruptcy and the huge credit of 20 Bln Euro was meant just a “safety belt for the private sector” the credibility of this notion is still missing.

The crisis between government and the president Traian Basescu did not ease the economic hardships, but delayed the payout of the second part of the IMF credit to 2010 and set the Romanian currency under further pressure. Coping with the political instability will be a major task for 2010 in order to strengthen the credibility in Romania and its economy.

Romania: Economic Outlook 2010

For 2010 the economy of Romania is widely believed to start recovering, yet slowly and not all of the massive drawbacks can be overcome in 2010. Especially the Romanian labor market will remain in a bad shape.

The former level of unemployment in Romania of just some 4.4% is not expected to be reached again before 2014, though a first decrease of 1.4% to 6.2% is expected for 2010. Real wages in Romania experienced a negative growth -2.3% though average gross salaries grew by some 5%. However, the times of double digit growth rates seem to be gone for the next few years when it comes to salaries in Romania.

The GDP of Romania is estimated to grow by 0.5% during 2010 (CNP, some banks even estimate a growth up to 1.9%), but the former level of 2009 will not be reached before the end of 2011 according to the latest CNP estimations. The very same is true for exports from Romania, which have been a main driver of growth during the past years.

Inflation is believed to remain on the low side for Romanian standards, yet still on the high side for overall trends in the EU. The Exchange rate for Romania’s currency is estimated to stabilize at 4.25 RON/EUR, yet this estimate has not remained unchallenged. Several analysts expected the LEU to drop until 4.5 RON/EUR. On the other hand, during the first half of January 2010 the RON appreciated considerable for some days, but without convincing that the effect will stand the test of time.

Charts: Forecasts for the Economy of Romania 2010

Note on the data: The CNP data for the past years exhibits some minor inconsistencies with the data provided by INSSE (Institutul National de Statistica). However, the trends overall are still consistent and under the current conditions good indicators. The overall conclusions for the economy of Romania in 2010 can be summed up with that times remain though.

Table: The Ecconomy of Romania 2010, Current Estimates

Source: CNP (Comisia Nationala de Prognoza)

This having said, we can enjoy a look on unemployment rates and conclude that unemployment had been in a sharp decline after 2002 until the outbreak of the financial crisis. More than that, after 2005 the Romanian labor market, at least for skilled labor in economic centers, was far from being crowded but characterized by a surging demand for labor supply and sharp competition for labor among enterprises. In some economic centers such as Bucharest one might even be tempted to speak of full employment.

However, beginning with early 2009 crisis set an abrupt end to the decline in unemployment rates and reversed the trend completely. The yearly average of unemployment in Romania raised to 8.4 % as estimated by the CNP (or 6.6 % as reported by INSSE, vs 3.7 the year before, Figure 1) while a full recovery will not happen according to the forecasts in the next years (table below).

Romania: Unemployment Rate, Occupied Persons – Forecasts 2008 – 2014

Source: CNP, 2009

A current forecast by the CNP sees Inflation in Romania for the next years as follows:

Table: Inflation Rate – Forecast 2008 – 2014

Source: CNP, 2009

It remains to be seen if these figures will be met. In the past Romania rather used to fail inflation targets.

Romania: Inflation – Data Series and Comparison

The following tables rely on Eurostats data. For benchmarking purposes we provide also EU-Data, as well as inflation figures for the Netherlands, our reference economy for Romania (as it is about the same population size) and Poland as a representative member for other Eastern European economies.

Table: Romania – Inflation Index 2000 – 2009 (HCPI)

Source: Eurostats, Base year = 2005, an * denotes estimates

The index data above shows well enough, that Romania is still well below all comparison levels when it comes to inflation in the EU. Nonetheless, we can also observe that inflation decelerated and left the years of double digit inflation rates behind.

Table: Romania – Inflation Rate 2000 – 2009 (HCPI)

Source: Eurostats; Base year = 2005, an * denotes estimates

Inflation rates for Romania and our reference economies as measured by the Harmonized Consumer Price Index (HCPI) and its annual change rates. Though Romania made considerable progress in this regard there is still a long way to go until European (even Eastern European) standards can be met.

Charts: Salaries and Income from Labor in Romania

Real wages in Romania followed largely the evolution of the Romanian GDP and exhibited since the nineties a w-shaped development path. After a sharp fall all during the 1990ies, interrupted just for a short period of artificial recovery, real wages began rising after 2000 when Romania overcame the recession of transition and enjoyed high GDP growth rates. Only in 2006 the Romanian real wage reached the starting level of 1990 (Figure 1).

Faster rising have been nominal gross and net salaries in Romania and reached some 457 EUR (gross), respectively 350 EUR (net) in 2008 after some years of double digit growth. These times seem to have come to an end after the outbreak of the crisis. Growth rates of the average salary in Romania have been modest during 2009 and are likely to remain modest, not even making up for inflation and the loss in purchasing power due to the deprecation of the Romanian currency. Faster rising are by the way labor costs, as an employee will receive some 75% of the gross salary, yet an enterprise will actually 1.81 as much the sum of the gross salary due to high payroll taxes in Romania.

However, only a small part of labor force actually earned the average salary, which is considerably risen by a small percentage of top earners (Figure 3).

Table: Romania – Average Gross and Net Salary Data and their Growth

The data represents the current estimates of the CNP (Comisia Nationala de Prognoza), Romania.

After being hit by the financial crisis in early 2009 (the crisis arrived with some delay in Romania, yet the harder) Romania’s GDP dropped back below the level of 2007 and there are no signs for a quick recovery. An estimate by the CNP expects the GDP of Romania to reach the former level of 2008 between 2011 and 2012, which is pretty much in line with current GDP forecasts from Eurostat.

Main contributors to GDP growth in Romania have been exports and internal demand, broadly financed by external debt. FDI contributed further and altered the GDP structure and composition. All three factors turned negative during 2009 and lead to a negative growth rate of the Romanian GDP by some 7.7%. Forecasts expect for 2010 a growth between 0.5% (CNP, IMF) and 1.9% (ING Bank).

The GDP structure of Romania has been characterized by a large share of the agricultural sector, a somewhat larger share of the industrial sector and a booming construction sector. The services sector has been fast growing, yet did not reach to the full extent the GDP shared of a western economy. During 2009 the construction sector was the first to freeze, while the others recorded severe drops, also. Read more on the structure of the Romanian GDP.

Charts and Tables: The GDP of Romania

The charts and tables below give not only the raw data for Romania, but introduce for comparison and reference purposes data for the EU 15, EU 27 and the Netherlands. The latter have been chosen as they are the own EU-country having comparable country size (when it comes to the number of inhabitants) and thus can serve as a benchmark for a healthy and modern economy of this size.

Charts: The GDP of Romania

Table: Romania – GDP at Market Prices Mio EUR

Source: Eurostat, an * denotes estimates

Table: Romania – GDP per Capita, Market Prices

Source: Eurostat, an * denotes estimates

Table: Romania – GDP per capita at PPS (Purchasing Power Parity)

Source: Eurostat, an * denotes estimates

Table: Romania – GDP as percentage of EU 27 GDP

Source: Eurostat, an * denotes estimates

His style is obviously most close to impressionism. For Romania, Nicolae Grigorescu is one of the most important founders of modern art in Romania. In 1990 a Metrou Station in Bucharest was renamed to Nicolae Grigorescu.

See the gallery below for some of his paintings…

Gallery with Paintings by Nicolae Grigorescu

Note: The pictures are public domain

What makes Romania’s culture in particular interesting are the various influences Romania was exposed to during history and which had their impact. For a long time there were strong Slavic influences, as well as the impact of the Byzantine Empire, later on followed by the Ottoman Empire. However, the Romanian style was always unique. Later on, Western influences prevailed, especially France was an important cultural partner.

However, culture began to consolidate significantly after 19859 when Wallachia and Moldovia united. New universities were established in Bucharest and Iaşi. Several cultural establishments should follow.

Romania’s national poet Mihai Eminescu wrote his famous poems in these times, but also the works of the playwriter Caragiale or of novelist Ion Creanga happened to be written in this period. Meanwhile modern painting in Romania was established by Stefan Luchian and Nicolae Grigorescu, while Ciprian Porumbescu left a stock of some 250 works composed by him.

However, the so called golden age of Romanian culture came in the first half of the 20th century, which founds its end with the beginning of the communist period after WW II. Eugen Lovinescu wrote in this “golden age”, Lucian Blaga and George Calinescu contributed their works then, just as Liviu Rebreanu with his novel “Padurea spanzuratiilor”. Furthermore, Romanian philosophy began to format on a more consolidated level, with such outstanding persons like Nicolae Iorga, hos legacy comprises the impressive number of some 1,2500 books and 25,000 articles. Romanian music became known worldwide due to the composers George Enescu and Constantin Dimitrescu.

During the communist era culture in Romania was subject to heavy censorship. But many members of the Romanian cultural scene preferred exile anyhow. The important contributor to religious history and author of many successful novels, Mircea Eliade chose the USA, while philosopher Emile Cioran chose France, just as the playwriter Eugene Ionesco (born: Ionescu).

Contemporary and renowned writers are Mircea Cărtărescu (with his books being translated in several languages), Gabriel Liceanu or Horia-Roman Patapievici. Andrei Pleşu is likewise popular and Mircea Dinescu, the poet who proclaimed the fall of communism during the revolution in 1989 is to be mentioned, too.

Theatre has some famous actors (like Maia Morgenstern) and plays (like the interpretation of Faust by the National Theatre Radu Stanca, Sibiu). But it are films which are currently high appreciated among the critics. Films from the so called „new wave” of Romanian films were several times honored with awards: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by Cristian Mungiu (2007) or the nominated film The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu by Cristi Puiu (2005) are good examples. Other films of this kind are California Dreamin’ by Cristian Nemescu (2007), The Way I Spent the End of the World by Cătălin Mitulescu (2006). A great success was Filantropica by Nae Caranfil(2002). Currently Nunta Muta by Horatiu Malaele seems to be well perceived.

Many other artists and works are to be mentioned. This for, Romania Central created a new category entirely dedicated to the Culture of Romania (less to the folklore however). In the next time we will subsequently fill this category with content. So stay tuned and subscribe to the RSS feed in order to get notifications about the updates. You may also follow our Twitter account.

Update Note: a Resume of 2009 and data for the economy of Romania in 2010 is available here.



But still, at the beginning of 2009 the predicted growth rates for the GDP of Romania still were positive – ranging from 3% – 5% in 2009 – now, just two month later the International Monetary Fond (IMF) warns that Romania’s GDP be will be hit be an outright recession this year: negative growth of 4% is expected by the evaluation comission of the IMF…

January 2009: The CNP (Comisia Nationala de Prognoza) downsized growth expectations for the GDP of Romania from somewhat over 6% (estimations from 2008) to 2.5% followed by 4.5% for the following year. The Romanian experts as interviewd by Business Standard all estimated (with a single exception) positive growth rates, ranging from 1.7 to 4.5%. The expected average growth rate for the GDP of Romania lied at 3.05%. Only one analyst expected negative growth.

But also the Economist Intelligence Unit still expected a positive growth rate for 2009 (2.6%) and for the upcoming years. Eurostat still seems to expect the Romanian GDP to grow by 4.7% this year.  Now, while Romania negiotiates with the EU and the IMF about a rescue package worth some 20,000,000,000 Euro, Cotidianul reports that the evaluation comission of the IMF expects negative GDP growth for Romania during 2009, accompanied by a fiscal deficit of 4.7%. Up to now, President Traian Basescu spoke just about negative growth of 1%  for the real GDP in 2009. This is rather in line with the most recent expectations of the  Minister of Finance, Gheorghe Pogea, who just recently mentioned similair expectations, as Cotidial reports as he admitted the possibility that GDP could shrink by 1%. However, other governmental sources declared meanwhile, that the targeted fiscal deficit of 2% will hardly be met, and that 3.5% are much more likely.

The same sources, accoring to the article by Cotidianul, claim that the credit to be accorded by the IMF, and partly the EU, will be worth some 18 billion Euro, which are to be paid quarterly over two years. During this time, Romania will not have pay back any of this money. Thereafter, Romania will have to pay for further three years, just the interest on the credit, while payback will start only after this period. Thus, after 5 years.

The report of the IMF is not published, yet. Cotidianul announced that the report will be officially published during the next days, and issued by the IMF itself. It is said to be the most pessimistic report up to now concerning the economy of Romania during 2009, and even for the next years.

Romania Central will come back to you with further news and comments as soon as the IMF report is available and discuss the development of the GDP and need for credit further.

Public Debt in Romania

Let’s start with a short resume of the last years. After Romania barely avoided default in 1999 with the help of the IMF, public debt in Romania as a percentage of GDP has been relatively low during the last years. Compared to Western European countries government debt in Romania and budget deficits were even modest. The budget deficit fluctuated around some – 2% of GDP after 2000, while the public debt of Romania measured as a percentage of GDP has been even shrinking, from 26% in 2000 to some 12.40% in 2006. That was perfectly fine even with the stability and growth pact of the EU, even though, during the last years the EU urged Romania not to loosen it’s fiscal policy.

On the other hand, the problem here – when focusing on the fine looking figures, only – lies in the method of measurement in combination with an additional factor, the the weak tax collection in Romania. The GDP of Romania experienced a strong growth in recent years (up to over 8% in 2008) and grew even stronger than public debt, which in absolute terms also has been growing, though, at a slower pace. One should assume, that this way sustainability of debt could be taken as granted (as a rule of thumb), as public revenue should increase likewise with GDP growth and money could be paid back in the future. However, this has not been the case in Romania. Romania’s fiscal sector had to face shrinking revenues all over the last years and an eroding tax base, even though, together with GDP growth, also employment in Romania was on the rise. The tax reforms introduced so far yielded only slight increases and could not make up the weaknesses of the tax collection system and the still negative impact of high social contributions. The Romanians’ eagerness of tax evasion and the propensity to activities in the shadow economy (estimated to be somewhere around 30% of GDP) might play some additional role. Hence, we can conclude, that other countries might have more debt, both absolute and relative to GDP, but they typically have also better prospects to pay the debt back.

This notion is also underpinned by the way Government spending in Romania is often allocated. Goverment spending in Romania has been hardly planned and in the end allocated to current spending, rather than to badly needed long-term investments, like infrastructure or other, competitvity rising measures. Last years, for example, Romanian administratives, espeacially teachers and professors claimed a salary increase by 50% and where finally granted increases of up to nearly 30% (according to the salary level). While long term-investments in education (increasing quality and quantity) would have been a good decision, even at the price of risen public debts, such populistic measures seem at the current stage of the economy of Romania desireable, but out of place.

Another issue is, that public debt in Romania is mainly externally financed.

External Debt in Romania

The lion’s share of external debt in Romania is held by the private sector, though. This is because of an amazing surge of consumption in Romania, which is often credit financed. Just like government debt, this is mainly external debt. And even though, this issue is mainly one of the private sector it could easily have public consequences. Due to the – rather unforeseen – financial crisis investors trust in emerging marketssuch like Romania is in decline, while exports tend likewise to decline. This is true for Romania, which is deeply involved in the strongly affected automobile industry, though Dacia has some fine sales due to its cheap vehicles. However, also Dacia’s sales seem declining compared to the last year. As a consequence, the anyhow deeply negative current account of Romania is set further under pressure what again detracts investor’s trust and makes external sources for financing, both private and public debt harder and more expensive to access.

Has Romania a Need for Bailout?

When following Western media it seems currently that Romania is in need of urgent help to avoid bankruptcy. Romania’s bonds have even been downgraded to »junk« by some rating agencies and the EU confirmed it’s readiness to help Romania with an emergency credit. The Romanian presedent, Traian Basescu, though seems – currently – somewhat more optimistitic. On the one hand, he plead for an external credit in ccoperation with the IMF and the EU, in order to face the challenge of the financial crisis. But Basescu talked rather about a »safety belft for the private sector« while he expressed little fear that the Government of Romania would be unable to pay back its public debt. This safety belt could be used to finance the Current Account deficit and to back the private sector if this would be unable to pay back its debt. The Romanian economist Daniel Daianu (same source) stresses the same, though with the slight difference, that he rejects the implaction of the IMF as this would imply the obligation to cut public expenditure. Daianu still stresses that Romania’s public deficit and debt is a small one and any cut would be »harmfull« (»rău«). However, the former Prime-Minister Tariceanu announced likewise that Romania does not have a need for assitance, but for a »capable government«. We well come soon back with more news on the public debt and budget deficit issues of Romania.