Nichita Stănescu: “Chișinău is a white pearl, in so much pure green”

The article reconstructs the only visit of the Romanian poet Nichita Stănescu to Chişinău from a series of testimonies of local writers. Nichita Stănescu arrived in the capital of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1976, during a period of complicated Soviet-Romanian relations, which made difficult the communication between Romanian-language writers from the republics on the two banks of the Prut. The haloed poet in the Bucharest environment and recognized as an unmistakable symbol of Romanian lyricism enjoys special sympathy among the Romanian-language writers from Chișinău, so the news of his participation in the events of the Soviet Literature Week in Moldova festival provoked and attracted attention. Every gesture he made, from the barely sketched to the exaggerated expressions, became a veritable charming show that was fixed in the memory of the witnesses and generated miniature stories. The stories about Nichita Stănescu first circulated in oral form, as living folklore in the narrow circles of writers. When it became possible, a series of testimonies about the gestures of the beloved Romanian poet appeared in the press. Together, the evocations of the “gentle angel who announced the opening of the windows” created the portrait of a Nichita Stănescu of Chișinău residents. In turn, Nichita Stănescu left a particularly expressive and representative metaphor about the city of Chişinău, of which she said was “a white pearl, in so much pure green”.