If you could wander through interwar Bucharest, you would discover a vibrant city, scented with the contradictory blend of elegance and decadence, of luxury and misery. It would be a city where rattling trams traverse boulevards illuminated by gas lanterns, and where, in the cafés of the city center, people argue passionately about literature, politics, and love. But what did Bucharest really look like in those times? What atmosphere lay hidden beyond the sepia-toned photographs? For answers, the best guides are the writers who lived it and turned it into literature.

Mircea Eliade – Bucharest as an initiatory space

For Mircea Eliade, interwar Bucharest was not just a city but an initiatory labyrinth. In  „Romanul adolescentului miop” and "Gaudeamus," the capital becomes the backdrop for first love, revelations, and existential dilemmas. Eliade writes about a Bucharest where high school students dream of immortality in the library of "Gheorghe Lazăr," and where they stroll down Victory Avenue as if on a stage of maturation. Moreover, his house on Mântuleasa Street later becomes a symbol of urban magic in his fantastic prose.

Mihail Sebastian – A city of love and disillusionment

Mihail Sebastian captures a Bucharest that is both sophisticated and cruel, especially in "Orașul cu salcâmi" and "Jurnal." Here, the city becomes the backdrop for unfulfilled love stories and an intellectual bohemian atmosphere. Sebastian describes, with melancholic sincerity, the quiet streets of Cotroceni, with their blooming linden trees, as well as the literary cafés along the central boulevards, where writers quarreled over strong coffee. Unfortunately, the same city that had offered him the tenderness of a promising youth would later betray him with the rise of extremism and anti-Semitism.

Cezar Petrescu – The bustling everyday Bucharest

For Cezar Petrescu, interwar Bucharest was a city in perpetual motion. In his novel "Calea Victoriei," he depicts the metropolis as a place of stark contrasts: from refined aristocracy in elegant palaces to the marginal world of tricksters and swindlers. The boulevards, with their noisy automobiles, elegantly dressed ladies, and gentlemen in top hats, are described in vivid detail, making the reader almost physically feel the urban hustle of the era.

Geo Bogza – The industrial and painfully real Bucharest

While other writers capture a Bucharest of elegance or romance, Geo Bogza faces it head-on, with all its brutality. In his reportage, he speaks about the workers in the factories on the outskirts, the prostitutes on the dark alleys, the smell of industry, and the harsh lives of the underprivileged. It is a real, raw Bucharest, just as authentic as the one of grand balls and interwar parties.

Interwar Bucharest – A character in itself

In literature, interwar Bucharest is not just a setting but a character in its own right. It has charm, noise and fragrance. It is a city that promises but also disappoints, that lifts you up and brings you down. Seen through the eyes of its writers, Bucharest becomes a mosaic of emotions and destinies, a place of fascinating contrasts.

Perhaps today we no longer hear the clatter of horses on the cobblestones or the heated debates in literary cafés, but if you walk the city streets with your mind's eye, you can still see the shadows of the past slipping between modern buildings. Interwar Bucharest lives on in the pages of books and in the imagination of those who still seek it.