Romanian Cultural Institute
| Founded | 1992 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Government of Romania |
| Type | Cultural institution |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
| Product | Romania cultural education |
The Romanian Cultural Institute (Romanian: Institutul Cultural Român, abbreviation: ICR) is a state-funded institution that promotes Romanian culture and civilization in Romania and abroad. The ICR was formerly set up through reorganization of the Romanian Cultural Foundation and Romanian Cultural Publishing Foundation.
A priority for ICR is to look on Romanian speaking communities in neighboring countries. From 1992, ICR is organising summer courses for improving language skills of personnel that teach Romanian in their respective countries.
A subsidiary of ICR in Cluj-Napoca, The Center for Transylvanian Studies, concentrates its activity on studying Transylvanian issues.
The Romanian Cultural Institute has branches in 18 major cities outside Romania:
Until mid-2012 the ICR was under the authority of the Romanian president who served as honorary president of ICR. In May 2012 Victor Ponta, a member of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and a political opponent of Romanian President and ICR honorary president Traian Băsescu, became Prime Minister and immediately moved to suspend and remove Băsescu from office through an impeachment process. In June 2012 the newly elected government under Prime Minister Ponta moved to transfer control of ICR and its resources from the Office of the President to the Romanian Senate and announced that the ICR's budget would be cut by 3.1 million euros, more than a third of its 2012 budget. On August 1, 2012, ICR President Horia-Roman Patapievici, the two ICR vice presidents and the ICR managing team resigned to protest the transfer of power, the announced budget cuts, and what they considered the politicization of Romanian culture.
Over the years, the Institute has been involved in a number of incidents that have been seen by some individuals in Romania and within the Romanian diaspora as controversial.
One such incident arose in July 2008 at the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York City after one of the local office's exhibits was criticized by a writer for a Romanian-language publication of diaspora Romanians, New York Magazin. Entitled Freedom for Lazy People, the exhibit showcased works by three well-known Romanian street artists. At issue were a few small figures scattered among the exhibit's various displays. Among a large number of street-art objects on one display table was a palm-sized toy pony with a small swastika stamped on its rear. While this small figurine was the only object in the entire collection that had any such reference, and the exhibitors explained that the meaning of the figures was ironical, the writer for the Romanian-language publication labelled the entire ICR-sponsored exhibit as populated by "sinister figures", obscene and anti-semitic. The New York Police Department, which had been called to investigate the so-called "anti-semitism", dismissed the issue as a "false alarm" and having no merit. However, the issue was then taken up by online tabloids and politicians in Romania critical of the ICR leadership. The president of the Romanian Senate, Nicolae Văcăroiu, a member of the opposition PSD party who had lost his previous position to Traian Băsescu, the honorary president of the ICR, asked the Culture Commission of the Senate to investigate this issue.
...
Wikipedia