O nouă apropiere franco-română: bimilenarul naşterii lui Publius Ovidius Naso în 1957 (o mărturie în Arhivele Naţionale ale Franţei)

Like many other aspects of the society, Romanian cultural life underwent radical changes during the first years of the communist regime. Apart from the new course imprinted by ideological pressure, it has become impoverished, forced to ignore its national traditions and it cut its ties with a large part of the intellectual world. The way in which, step by step, the cultural landscape freed itself from a double isolation constitutes a process worthy of interest for cultural history. In this sense, the events around the celebration of Ovid in 1957 represent lessons for the rediscovery of a symbol of the cultural past and of universal culture under the sign of the classical heritage. But it is also representative of another reality: at a time when traditional Franco-Romanian relations are seriously affected by the radical deterioration of diplomatic dialogue between the two countries, this event offers the opportunity for a new meeting between their intellectuals. Some unpublished sources existing in the National Archives of France corroborated with the reading of part of the Romanian press of the time allow us to reconstruct the importance of this episode.