"Old Dilemma" is the successor to the well known Romanian cultural magazine Dilema. The motto of the paper "I'm an old man, Sir!" is a quotation from Ion Luca Caragiale, a Romanian author of the 19th century. Launched in 2004, Dilema Veche is directed by Andrei Plesu, a prominent intellectual, and a former Romanian minister of culture, who has said the magazine should be cultural, sociological, occasionally political, and resolutely European.