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13 COMPTES RENDUS 775

Another highiy suggestWe scene has proved to be the confrontatlon of the bear wlth the unicora (identifted with an anlmal famiilar to the Romanians: Alexander's horse) along with theflght of Samson with the Ilon, painted at Neghine$ti-Vilcea in 1882 (Radu Crefeanu “Synthests”, HI, 1976 p. 111, 117). The bearflghting the unicorn has been pointed out in the Byzantine and Bulgarian areas (Eleonora Costescu, “Revue des Etudes Sud-Est Europennes”, 1/1971). Samson and the lion are also deplcted — along with the “Malden and the Unicom" and the ^Msyrat>oOc chase" —in the decoratlon of the framlng of an introitus whlch belonged to Matthew Corvin (J. W. Einhom, p. 191; D—192).

To our knowledge, in the Romanian palntings the unicom does not confront the monkey_r as It sometlmes happens in western representations, but the bear. The bear-unicom fight coakl therefore be another argument enabling us to assign the chained bear fragment a syroboli c meaning (R. Crefeanu, “Magazin istoric”, 1970, p. 15). Let us mentlon also Mlhall Sadoveanu's short story Ochi de urs (Beafs eye) in which folk beliefs of the past are evoked, as well as the tale of emperors Darie and Por (the powerful enemies of Alcxander the Great) who are turoed into bears and compelled by the devils to guard the gates of Heli. (Oyidlu BIrlea, Miód cndclopedie a pooeętUor rom&neętl, Bucharest, 1976, p. 423).

Sonie old Romanian texts may one day offer a literary version of the fight of the unicom with the bear.

In presenting these disparate images we do not want to suggest the existence of any direct connections with the western or Byzantine works mentioned above but we think that a thorough study of these apparently modest paintings may supply interesting Information even on the old Romanian literaturę.

As we have started from J. W. EinhonFs Spiritalis unicomis, we cannot help feeling somewhat guilty of not having respected the difference between the lay and ecclesiastic signl-fications of the symbols and between the culture of the scholars and that of the folk media, seeing that the author attaches great importance to this difference. But the materiał provided by our lnvestigation area does not permit such delimitations which have to be taken into account by those who deal with western European culture. Whereas J. W. EinhonFs book lays stress on the European developments up to the mid sixteenth century, in dealing with Romanian artistic and literary productions we have studied the later centuries. The reader might be led to consider this as an epigonie phenomenon. But he would come nearer to the tmth łf he attempted to understand a world which, without being opposed to natural evo-lution, was preservtng lts old form of civilization. And it was particularly at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century that plastlc works were tumed out ln the rura) areas or smali market-towns whose inhabitants were reminiscent of the past but without shutting their eyes to the new.

We cannot, put an end to our account without mentioning the excellent photographic reproductions and the thorough bibliography which guide the reader throughout the excee-dingly rich materia! supplied by The unicorn as a Symbol Carrier.

Cdtdlina Yelculescu

Hellenism and the First Greek W ar of Liberation (1821—1830): Conlinuity and Change, avec une Introduction de JOHN A. PETROPOULOS. Editć par NIK1FOROS P. D1AMANDOUROS, JOHN P. ANTON, JOHN A PETROPOULOS, PETER TOPPING avec Faide de 1'Association d^fEtudes Grecąucs Modemes des Etats-Unis et du Canada (M.G.S.A.), Thessalonique, 1976, (Institut d^fEtudes Balkaniąues)

Rćunissant la plupart des Communications donnćes au Symposium organlsć & Harvard University (mai 1971), ce volume est dćdić au 150^e anniversaire de Findćpendance grecque modeme. Ainsi que John Petropoulos nous 1'apprend dans son Introduction, ces essais — k quelques exceptions prfcs — ne s'occupent pas de l'6vćnement mfime, mais ils traitent sur-tout de certains aspects que Fhistoriographie conventionnelle pourrait consldćrer secondaires. Le but de ces essais, pris dans leur ensemble, est d*examiner la naturę de l*ćvćnement et d*en &valuer la signification. Les auteurs ont abordć les probl^mes en partant des prćmisses suiyantes! 1) la naturę fondamentale d'un ćvćneraent ne saurait ktre saisie sans tenir compte de sa signification'; 2) sa signification ne peut ćtre apprćciće que si Fon a examinó les conditions qui Font prćcćdće et qui lui ont succćdć. II s'agit donc de disceraer l'ćvolution de tout un processus qui s'enchaine par cet ćv6nement. Aussi ce recueil s'6tend-il, par les question8 envisagćes, tant chronologiquement que sur 1'espace gćographique, autant qu*il est nćcessaire pour une vue d'ensemble complfcte.