[Cz-L] Czernowitzer Morgenblatt

   Dear Madam or Sir!
   My name is Ioana Rostos and I live in the town
of Suceava, in the Romanian half of the province
of Bukovina. I am an assistant professor at the
Department of Germanic Languages of the
Philological College in the ìStefan cel Mareî
State University of Suceava
(http://www.litere.usv.ro/html/limbi_germanice.html).
I am currently working on a doctoral thesis on
the subject of the daily newspaper ìCzernowitzer
Morgenblattî, yet another one of the numerous
German-speaking Jewish newspapers published in
Czernowitz between 1918 and 1940, i.e., during
the period of time in which the said city,
together with the whole of the province, belonged
to the Kingdom of Romania.
   That subject matter was suggested to me by the
renowned professor and publicist Andrei
Corbea-Hoisie, Ph. D., of the ìAl. I. Cuzaî State
University of Iasi, Romania, now Ambassador of
Romania in Austria. Unlike him, I am not Jewish,
but I belong, by birth and ancestry, to the
Eastern European Orthodox Church. However, living
in the Bukovina, my family and I have been
sustaining a good relationship with the local
Jewish communities.
   Although I have been able to gather some
materials on subjects such as: the life and
writings of the Jews in Czernowitz, the history
of Bukovina, the history of the Central and
Eastern European German/Jewish press, and also,
more specifically, on the ìCzernowitzer
Morgenblattî itself and on its most important
collaborators (including its founders, Elias
Eliahu Weinstein and Julius Weber, then Alfred
Margul-Sperber etc.), I still seem to be at a
loss as regards the examination of the newspaper
proper.
   The entire collection is certainly to be found
in the Library of the Romanian Academy in
Bucharest, but alas! from a paycheck of less than
$200 per month I simply do not have the means to
spend the few months in the capital, which would
be necessary for a thorough perusal of the
collection. On the other hand, certain rules
forbid the lending of old publicationsófor
obvious yet preposterous reasons of security,
being that I may well be the only individual in
Romania who is, at this point, interested in
reading the ìMorgenblattî. I did spend a few
hours in the said library a while ago, during
which I was able to become aware of the extremely
poor condition the paper is in: its pages are not
only, as expected, dusty and yellowish, but,
unfortunately, they are also frayed and moldy. In
other words, the sad truth is that priceless
collections of numerous historical publications
are slowly rotting away in no-access storage
rooms, with only few people in Romania and
worldwide sti!
  ll aware
  of their existence.
   Do make whatever you wish of this letter. If
you judge that it does by no means concern the
organization you represent, please disregard,
i.e. delete it right away. If, however, you have
an idea of how you could help me, then by all
means please do so. Or, if you can think of
anyone who might be interested in discussing the
subject of the ìMorgenblattî with me, please do
forward my letter to him/her. In any case, I
sincerely thank you for taking the time and
trouble to bear with me thus far.
   I also wish you a Happy New Year 2006! May your
organization continue to fulfill its purpose for
the benefit of all it is meant to serve.
   Sincerely yours,
   Ioana Rostos,
   Romania.
Received on 2005-12-30 08:42:46