"Above the graves, people threw flowers and oblivion. We die twice: once as people and the second time in the memory of others. For great people, the second death is the true one," wrote the classicist, writer, translator, journalist, "professor of nobility" (as V. Ierunca characterized him), the one with whose death "the last aristocrat of exile goes" (as M. Eliade wrote with pain). It is about N. I. Herescu, and this book (along with others dedicated to him) is meant to fight against the "death" of an aristocrat of Romanian culture. Mihaela ALBU In the Romanian cultural space, the book that today's readers were waiting for a long time ago - being prepared by a partial edition of the protagonist's work (N. I. Herescu, Destiny without death. For classicism, ed. MNLR, 2011) - is due to the most authoritative exegete of N. I. Herescu's work and biography: professor Mihaela Albu. We could allow ourselves to make a mental addition to the title of the book, but with strong ethical resonances: N. I. Herescu was - as the author partially repeats Mircea Eliade's well-known qualifying phrase - indeed, the last aristocrat, but an aristocrat, a hero of Romanian culture, respectively of Romanian culture in exile. Liviu FRANGA
