The Harbour as a Multicultural Crossroad in Radu Tudoran’s and Jean Bart’s Writings

Abstract

The harbours are fascinating places. Their colourful world, their bustle, and their ethnic mixture create the image of one of a kind universe. They are the meeting place of cultures and values, as one can read in Radu Tudoran’s Un port la răsărit and Jean Bart’s Europolis.  The former novel takes place on the shore of Limanu Lake in Basarabia, and the latter is placed in Sulina. They both share the multicultural and multi-ethnic approach as the young engineer telling the story faces the crossroad between the Western world that ends at the Limanu shore and the Eastern Slavic world that starts there. In Jean Bart’s novel, Sulina seems more cohesive, as the Greeks, who are in the centre of the story, master the town gathering together the other communities. Still, the feeling of a crossroad persists, as the harbour is the place where boats come and leave in a way that suggests that people come and leave. There are some characteristics that feature the harbours’ communities: a state of emptiness combined with bustle, the stereotypes that describe the minorities and the destinies that end tragically in these communities where they can’t find their space: Nadia dies tragically, leaving her lover in deep mourning, Evantia also ends her life, leaving an orphan daughter. The crossroad shapes their destinies, and stimulates chaos and confusion.