Estera-Iulia Anastasiu

Memory, as it may be fascinating and impressive, it can also be misleading and capricious. How many times have we not been convinced of the truth of our opinions which, when confronted with facts, have turned out to be self-illusions, and how many conflicts have not been created simply because people choose to resort to their own vague memories and opinions from what they heard, rather than making inverstigation regardong their source? Whether it’s about solving old dilemmas or dictating an ongoing course of action, written history has on many occasions managed to offer direction to those who have sought one, complementing or even correcting individual and collective memory.

It is what the story made for Estera Cioban (married Anastasiu), who today shares with all those who want to know something about her beloved native town,  a work meant to be a synthesis of the facts that have been written and, more importantly , which could be written in our memory of this locality, and at the same time reminding each of us of not to forget  the value and potential of the road from which we started our journey in this life.

Like many of her colleagues, after completing her high school, Estera moved her steps to the famous Cluj, where the rooms of the Faculty of Letters at “Babeş-Bolyai” University were the place where the first massive modeling of thought was to take place, her inclination to writing. The profile chosen by her, Universal and Comparative Literature, has increased her appetite for further exploration of the culture left behind by the civilizations of the European space, so that, after graduating from the faculty, she continued with the Master of Society, Art, Identities in Central Europe. From medieval to modern at the Faculty of History and Philosophy was the most logical choice. The time spent amongst the historians gave balance to the predominantly artistic vision that our young woman had made about study, society and life, and what we have the opportunity to read today is the direct result of this period of her life.

“Know yourself” – this formula, which never claimed to be easy to go through, was the basis of the author’s searches in libraries and archives containing information about her home town, with the promise of a complete elucidation at the end of the research. But it was not the case. As anyone who has started on the path of knowledge and self-knowledge, it is not possible to fully assimilate information, as research itself pushes the horizon of knowledge further from the questioner. In the light of this new achievement, our young colleague invites us, on the one hand, that more than reading and intellectual assimilation of the material in this book, let us start in the experience of Mediaș city, visit our precious historic buildings and streets, own memories within this locality. On the other hand, we are encouraged to start looking for our own past and our own identity, and if our efforts prove to be endless, let us adopt a slightly more lenient version of the dictum that would sound like that : “Create yourself.”