If you were to construct the idealized setting for a Disneyfied Grimm Brothers tale, you would picture the Council Square (Piața Sfatului) in Brasov, Romania. Surrounded by mountains (where bears still roam), the old town preserves buildings from the 16th century, repurposed as boutiques, restaurants, small museums, and bookstores. A large sign BRASOV (picture the Hollywood sign) overlooks the town. Most of Romania escaped the large-scale destruction seen in Europe during the 2nd world war, so today’s visitor sees sites that would be familiar to 17th century burghers.
A bookshop that we wandered into, located just on the edge of the Council Square is Libraria Humanitas: “You have as many lives as you have read books.” The interior of the Libraria Humanitas feels like a worship space with its multiple chambers with cloister-vault ceilings. A side chamber dedicated to children’s books and activities features wall paintings that hearken to the building’s historic religious association.
The city is situated along what had historically been a profitable trade route from Western Europe to the Ottoman Empire. King Andrew II of Hungary in the 13th century invited craftsmen, miners, and merchants from the lowlands–Flanders, Luxembourg, Brabant–to settle with their skills in Brasov. This recruitment and resettlement of talent from one geographic area to another may be the historical reality behind the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Economic migration is not a new phenomenon.
I was reminded of this phenomenon when I read Making Nice by Ferdinand Mount. The novel is a satire about the toxic mix of social media and politics. A set piece in the novel features a social media mogul enacting a Pied Piper scheme to the initial amusement and then horror of his audience (all’s well in the end). Mount acknowledges sources about the history of the Pied Piper as a metaphor for the economic migration of skilled workers in western Europe to what is now central and eastern Europe, bringing their various skills with them. In a parallel vein, the social media moguls and political special advisors jump from one group of politicals to another with ease and aplomb. Here, too, is a fictional parallel to historical reality: King Andrew II invited the Teutonic Knights to fortify Brasov, but fifteen years later forced them out of Brasov–changing political fortunes.
Back in the bookshop where the customer is invited to live in different times and worlds, the main room is stacked with popular fiction by easily recognizable authors–JK Rowling, Stephen King, Deborah Harkness, among others–all in Romanian translation. In retrospect, I don’t know why I would expect to see English translations in a Romanian bookstore, but I asked about Romanian writers available in English. The clerk doubted that they had any, but she did locate two books, one by Herta Muller and another by a Russian writer who now lives in New York. That was enough, though, to make me happy–to have another land and time to live in.
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