Cecilia Coțovan, the Romanian poet from Athens who keeps her connection to Romania alive through literature: “The Romanian language remains my emotional matrix.”
For 12 years, the Diaspora Days in Iasi have brought before the Iași community the stories of Romanians who have built their lives abroad and who maintain, in different forms and intensities, ties to Romania. Among these stories is that of Cecilia Coțovan, a poet who has lived for nearly a quarter of a century in Athens, whose verses carry within them the longing for Romania and for Iasi, which has remained, she says, “the city of my soul.” It was at the Diaspora Days, which she attended this year, that we learned about her journey, and the conversation that followed took shape as a portrait of a woman who has turned distance from home into a form of creation.
From a promised year to a quarter of a century in Greece
Cecilia Coțovan has lived in Greece for nearly 25 years, although, she says, her departure wasn’t planned, and she never had any intention or desire to leave for another country. It all began with an unexpected calling: a proposal from the man who was her boyfriend at the time, who had left for Greece a year earlier, while she was a second-year Psychology student.
“It was a difficult decision, I could say, but one made with caution — to venture so far away for a single year, a period of time I believed to be final, agreed upon together with my partner,” Cecilia Coțovan recounts. But life, she says, has its own dictatorship, and that “just one year” turned into an engagement, followed by a marriage — still with the promise of returning the following year to continue her studies and finish university. “And then the next year came, and the next, because I never went back,” she confesses. So what was supposed to be only a temporary stop became a story of nearly a quarter century of rootedness and of finding herself anew on foreign ground.
The childhood of an introvert who found refuge in words
Before becoming the poet we know today, Cecilia Coțovan is careful to point out that she doesn’t consider herself a poet, but rather “someone who loves writing, words, and metaphors.” That passion existed, she says, from the very moment she began writing her first verses with a pen, a nib, and ink, back in primary school.
She was, she recounts, a very introverted child, shy, with very low self-esteem, yet always diligent and a top student at school — a degree of introversion which, even had she wanted to, she had no one to share with during that period, feeling somewhat misunderstood. Her passion for poetry and for writing in general wasn’t born suddenly, but grew out of a love for the craft of words and metaphors and their power to reshape her reality.
The pages of her school compositions became, she says, the space where she poured out all her inspiration, and the teachers who sensed this sensitivity in her offered encouragement. Later, in high school, writing became for her more of a therapeutic refuge, while she remained just as introverted, sensitive, and rebellious within herself. “The verses, the fragments I wrote back then, which only I read, sprang from my inner beauty,” says Cecilia Coțovan. Her verses were, for her, a dialogue with herself — the path through which she managed to overcome the psychological barriers she herself had raised, turning shyness into a tool for contemplation and self-discovery.
The clash between a bookish ideal and the life of an immigrant
Cecilia Coțovan’s relationship with Greece began, she says, on a bookish level, back in her school years, through admiration for the great philosophers and sages of Greece, and through fascination with the etymological harmony of the language. “For me, the simple fact that at school I would pronounce a Romanian word and say it came from Greek carried, somehow, an aura of magic,” she recalls.
Her arrival in Athens, however, brought a sudden clash between this bookish ideal and the pragmatism of everyday immigrant life. It was, she says, a period of great trials, which automatically repositioned her metaphors: bureaucracy, practical needs, then work and family responsibilities, followed by the birth of her only daughter, whom she raised and put through school without the support of any family member or acquaintance. “I basically had no one. All I had beside me was a family of Romanian friends,” says Cecilia Coțovan.
It was an intense period, in which her priorities temporarily constrained her creative life. But poetry didn’t disappear — it moved further into her inner space. “Even though I rarely had the physical time to put things down on paper, I would shape and reshape them in my mind, until they sprouted, invisibly, in the midst of everyday worries,” she recounts.
What she discovered and came to love in Greek culture
Beyond the challenges of those years, Cecilia Coțovan discovered and learned to love, in Greek culture, its unique light, the profound philosophy of living in the moment, and the human warmth that comes through in Greek traditions — elements that, over time, enriched her soul and her vision as a creator, although, she says, she doesn’t truly consider herself an artist even now.
The longing for Romania, the backdrop of her entire body of work
Asked how much of her experience as an emigrant is reflected in the poems she writes, Cecilia Coțovan says that the experience of being abroad is “the backdrop of my entire creative work.” It comes through most intensely in the poems dedicated to her parents — writings born of the pain of absence, of memories of them, of important moments throughout the year, even though she used to return to the country two or three times a year, for the holidays, precisely to be close to them, even if only for a little while. “Those meetings and reunions turned into the biography of my poetic longing,” she says. The longing for Romania has had, the poet confesses, a special and fundamental impact on her writing.
That feeling took on a new dimension when she met other creators of the Romanian word in the diaspora, with whom she formed friendships — poets who carried the same burden of being far from home. “We read each other’s writings, and that simple mark left at the bottom of the poems became our silent code of solidarity. We support each other’s longing through verse,” says Cecilia Coțovan.
Writing in Romanian on foreign soil — an act of identity loyalty
For Cecilia Coțovan, writing in her mother tongue on foreign soil is “a kind of act of identity loyalty and a way of communicating on a visceral level with everyone who feels Romanian.” The Romanian language remains, she says, her emotional matrix, the space where metaphors come naturally, on their own.
Although she has a strong command of Greek, she long put off the step of writing in that language, because Greek poetry has a different rhythm, a different structure from Romanian. What she writes in Romanian she later translates into Greek as well, with the necessary adaptations, because, she says, a poem can never be translated word for word from one language into another. Recently, Cecilia Coțovan took her first step toward Greek audiences, publishing her poems for the first time in a Greek-language anthology — a cultural dialogue that, she says, brought her a great deal of maturity.
The Romanian community in Athens, and involvement through art and volunteering
Unlike other countries, where Romanian communities are very large, in Greece the number of Romanians is smaller, with many having since relocated to other countries or returned home. For this reason, says Cecilia Coțovan, her space for interacting with her fellow Romanians was initially more limited. Even so, she has always used art as a bridge, constantly trying to support and promote Romanian magazines, talented children with a gift for painting or achievements in sport, both in the Greek diaspora and in Romania.
Her calling toward people has also shown itself intensely through volunteering: she took part in the Make-A-Wish Greece organization, bringing a ray of light into the lives of children going through severe suffering, and she has worked with the Red Cross in Athens. “In the end, whatever form it takes — poetry or human support — it’s all about comforting and healing the soul,” she says.
How Romanian poetry is received in Greece, and the Greeks’ love for Iasi
From her direct interactions with Greek audiences — whether people she knows personally or those from the online space drawn to the artistic sphere — Cecilia Coțovan says Romanian poetry and culture are received with particular warmth and respect. There is, she believes, a natural elective affinity between the two peoples, a sensitive thread they share.
One detail moves her in a special way: whenever Greeks hear that she’s from Romania, and especially from Iasi, they always bring up this city — for them, a place with deep historical and cultural significance, a symbolic space where the national memories of the two peoples become deeply intertwined. “I have a special love for this historic city,” Cecilia Coțovan says of Iasi.
The need for more, and more diverse, cultural events for the diaspora
Asked whether Romanians in the diaspora need more Romanian cultural events, Cecilia Coțovan’s answer is a firm yes. Romanians living outside the country’s borders, she says, have an acute need for more such events, but above all for a greater diversity of them. The Romanian community in the diaspora is, in her view, a complex mosaic, made up of every social category, with varied concerns and expectations.
“Cultural events shouldn’t be elitist or uniform — they need to offer bridges of connection for every Romanian, nourishing their sense of belonging and identity pride, regardless of their personal path,” says the poet. Diversification, she believes, needs to go beyond a purely intellectual level, in order to build bridges toward every social class.
Returning to Iasi for the Diaspora Days
Returning to Iasi for the Diaspora Days was, says Cecilia Coțovan, an experience of profound emotional and intellectual weight. Iasi is, she confesses, the city of her soul. Her participation in the event came about in an instant, after she saw a post from a friend she had kept in touch with — in fact, the only person she knew in Iasi — Magda Achim, a presenter at TVR Iași, who moderated the conference with rare elegance and who encouraged her to take part in the event.
“I feel deeply honored and fulfilled to have taken part in this national dialogue,” says Cecilia Coțovan. She is convinced that such events succeed in creating a real and lasting bridge between Romanians who have left and those who remained in the country. They are not, she believes, mere festive gatherings, but genuine networks of support and mutual understanding — and Romanians who stayed at home, just like those in the diaspora, breathe through the same cultural and spiritual fiber. Asked directly whether such events manage to create a real bridge between Romanians who have left and those who stayed in the country, her answer is unequivocal: “Absolutely, yes. Because that is the purpose — to stay connected with those who remained in the country.”
An editorial path built step by step
Cecilia Coțovan’s editorial path began with very measured steps. At first, she gracefully declined various proposals from magazines, publications, or publishers, believing, with humility, that her own work hadn’t yet reached the maturity needed for print. In the beginning, she liked to view her writing as a personal exercise, a form of spiritual hygiene reserved for introspection — “it may seem like a selfish way to see it, but that’s how I felt at the time,” she says.
Gradually, her confidence grew as she began collaborating with people she knew and trusted, who, in turn, inspired trust in her. Her first major opening came through participation in a large-scale international monthly magazine, published in English, featuring creators from every corner of the world — Cultural Reverence. That success gave her the courage to say “yes,” even if sometimes hesitantly, to other prestigious literary publications as well.
A poetry collection taking shape out of longing and revelation
Asked whether she is currently working on a poetry collection, Cecilia Coțovan says her creative activity is ongoing. As long as the words call to her and begin to settle onto the page, the project of a collection shapes itself on its own — out of longing, revelations, feelings, any kind of experience. She doesn’t set out to write poetry on a fixed schedule, day after day; she writes when her soul asks for it, adding, gradually, poem after poem. For now, she hasn’t thought of a title for the future collection — “that will come,” she says.
At the end of the conversation, asked what has remained Romanian in her after the years spent in Greece, Cecilia Coțovan’s answer is simple and absolute: “Everything, I would say. Everything, everything.”
Cecilia Coțovan’s story thus joins the gallery of portraits that the Diaspora Days in Iasi bring before the community year after year: people who left Romania and who, far from home, find their own language — whether through advocacy, photography, civic activism, or, as in her case, through poetry — and who, regardless of the distance, remain tied to the places that shaped them.
Translation from the video:
Dear Romanians, wherever you may be in this world, never forget that roots never dry up if we nourish them with our mother tongue and with the pride of being Romanian.
I would express this idea in a few simple verses:
Keeping Iași and its light close to my heart,
through my verse that flows like a tireless clock,
I remain a daughter of this country, no matter how far away,
bound to Romanians by gift and by the written word…
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