SIBIU AND THE COSMOS

-essay by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-


Council Tower in Sibiu
Photo: Victor Chifelea


IMC 2011 Logo
by Alexandru Sebastian Grigore


Artwork by Cornel Cimpoieru in the Council Tower
Photo: Bernd Brinkmann (Germany)


With only 155,000 inhabitants,
Sibiu
(Cibinum in Latin, Hermannstadt in German, Nagyszeben in Hungarian)
seems to be a small city.
But what a city!

Built by Saxon colonists
not too far from the ancient capital of the Dacians, Sarmizegetusa,
and close to a Roman settlement, Caedonia,
Sibiu was first established in 1191 and successively joined with
the Kingdom of Hungary,
the Principality of Transylvania
(as its Capital from 1672 to 1791),
to the Habsburg Empire
and, since 1918, to Romania.
It is a multicultural city, with marvellous
fortress walls, towers, churches, squares, museums, historical monuments
and many amazing achievements.

But now, during the 30th International Meteor Conference
(September 2011),
I prefer to speak about the Cosmos
as reflected in the consciousness of this city.

IMC 2011 PARTICIPANTS - GROUP PHOTO
AT ASTRA LIBRARY
-photo by Pompiliu Alexandru-




In the 16th century,
Nicolaus Olahus (a Romanian humanist born in Sibiu,
who became archbishop and primate of Hungary)
wrote astropoetically in an elegy dedicated to Erasmus de Rotterdam:

“Just as the Sun defeats all the stars,
he outclassed the other scholars.”

Also in the 16th century,
the Austrian-German scientist Conrad Haas described
the world’s first multistage rocket within the Sibiu military arsenal
but he added:

“My advice is for more peace and no war…”

In the 18th century,
Franz Joseph Muller von Reichenstein discovered the chemical element tellurium
when he worked in Sibiu.

tellurium
applications in solar panels
discipline of the sun

In the 19th century,
the Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature
and the Culture of the Romanian People,
ASTRA,
was founded in Sibiu too.
(ASTRA is an astral name, isn’t it?).

In 1894
one of the founding fathers of astronautics and rocketry,
Hermann Oberth
was born in Sibiu.

Since flight always fascinates sky lovers,
Sibiu was a city in which Aurel Vlaicu (1892-1913,
an extraordinary Romanian engineer, inventor and pilot)
earned his baccalaureate in 1902,
ten years before he won one of the competitions
of the greatest international air shows of that time (Aspen, Vienna, 1902),
and defeated the famous French pilot Rolland Garros and 40 other pilots.

In 1911, the most known Romanian philosopher
(living in France since 1941),
Emil Cioran,
was born close to Sibiu.
I’ve chosen two quotations from his Romanian books.

The first:

“There are tears which drill the Earth and rise just like stars in other skies.
Who did cry our stars?”
(from “On the Summits of Despair,” Bucharest, 1934;
this quotation makes me think that sometimes
meteors are called “tears of the sky”.)

And the second:

“The Universe does not lead to formula, but to poetry.”
(from “Tears and Saints” 1937, Bucharest;
I wonder what Emil Cioran would say if he could participate
at the International Meteor Conference in his city,
an event which makes room for both formulas and poems…
about the Universe!)

And in February 2009
Sibiu was the city that organized the official opening ceremony
of the International Year of Astronomy in Romania.

ROMANIAN ASTROPOETS WALK THROUGH SIBIU
(Protagonists: Dominic Diamant, Andrei Dorian Gheorghe and Gelu Claudiu Radu)
-photographic poem by Victor Chifelea-



















































































But today I’m thinking that
in 1788, the Thick Tower in Sibiu was the stage
of the first theatre performance in Transylvania.

AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE THICK TOWER THEATRE - “THALIA” HALL
(Mirel Birlan,
an astronomer whose name was given to
an asteroid - an actor
in the cosmic theatre)
-photo by Victor Chifelea-



After 2000, the annual International Theatre Festival in Sibiu
became the third largest in the world (after Edinburgh and Avignon).

Now, between September 15-18, 2011
Sibiu is the host of the 30th International Meteor Conference,
that includes the 15th Astropoetry Show,
an original kind of theatre,
composed of posters and live performances on astronomical themes.

OTHER PHOTO-VISIONS ON THICK TOWER THEATRE - “THALIA” HALL
1.Valentin Grigore
2.Casper ter Kuile (Holland)
3.Bernd Brinkmann (Germany)







In a city with a theatre
in a thick tower
some astrohumanists
can just promise
an astropoetry show
like a chubby fireball.

ROMANIAN RESOLUTE ASTROPOETS
(Andrei Dorian Gheorghe, Victor Chifelea and Dominic Diamant)
-photos by Gelu Claudiu Radu-






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