The classical era
Nineteenth-century writers belong to a generation marked by the social and political transformations following the revolutions of 1848. They therefore took an interest in emancipation and national unity, creating original style and works. Among these writers are Nicolae Bălcescu (1819-1852), Mihail Kogălniceanu (1817-1891), Costache Negruzzi (1808-1868, specialist in historical narratives), Ion Ghica (1816-1897) and Vasile Alecsandri (1821-1890). The latter is considered to be the founder of Romanian poetry and dramaturgy. The second half of the 19th century is the time of the great classics of Romanian culture, thanks to authors whose thought marked the society of their time. In 1863, at Iași, Titu Maiorescu founded the literary society Junimea (name evoking youth). Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889), today considered the great national lyric poet, is a member of this society. His early death at the age of 39 made him a symbol of eternal youth. It is said that no one better than he was able to paint the Romanian soul by drawing inspiration from local folklore (of which he was a passionate specialist) and history. Curiously, only one of his works (Poems) was published during his life. Later, his talent will be recognized and many artists will be inspired by the new language created by Eminescu. Other authors such as the prose writers Ion Creangă (1837-1889) and Ioan Slavici (1848-1925) or the playwright Ion Luca Caragiale (1852-1912) mark this period. For example, Caragiale humorously takes up the clichés of 19th-century Romanian society and the changes it underwent. He is credited with such pieces as A Lost Letter and A Stormy Night. Ionesco's "greatest of all unknown playwrights" was celebrated in Romania in 2002, with numerous events held in his honour.
New influences
The beginning of the 20th century and the inter-war period were marked by the emergence of new currents. Romania was experiencing a real cultural ferment and Bucharest was nicknamed "Little Paris". Magazines and literary circles multiplied and competed with each other. The most popular Romanian writer abroad was Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994), born in Slatina. This inimitable master of the absurd is one of the most famous playwrights of his century. His work was especially appreciated in France, where he went to live from 1936 onwards and where some of his plays continue to be performed. These include La Cantatrice chauve, Le roi se meurt and Rhinocéros, which depicts a man who tries to remain human in a world where all his contemporaries have become vile rhinoceros... We owe him new dramatic techniques. His recurring themes are the impossibility to communicate, loneliness and the quest for meaning. He demonstrates this masterfully in his major play, The Bald Singer. Jacques ou la Soumission, La Leçon, Les Chaises
... A new generation of writers appeared in the inter-war period: Mihail Sadoveanu (1880-1961, historical novels), Lucian Blaga (1895-1961, expressionist poetry), George Bacovia (1881-1957, poet "of despair"), Liviu Rebreanu (1885-1944, author of the famous Forest of the Hanged) or Camil Petrescu (1894-1957), novelist, playwright and poet, author of The Procrustean Bed and The Last Night of Love, the first night of war, are among them. Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), founder of the modern history of religions, mythologist, philosopher and novelist, also well known abroad, also belongs to this period.A difficult literary creation
During the inter-war period, Romanian letters were to some extent aligned with European ideas and cultural movements. The war and the communist regime put an end to this trend. Some writers from this period continue to write after the Second World War, trying to avoid as much as possible the compromises imposed by the regime. By banning all publications critical of their policies, the rulers partially sanitized literary creation. However, some authors of the time were very successful, loved by state critics and readers alike. This was the case with Marin Preda (1922-1980), the poet Marin Sorescu (1936-1997) and Nichita Stănescu (1933-1983).
At the same time, the communist regime was to engender a generation of opposition writers, inspired by the situation of the Romanian people. Virgil Gheorghiu (1916-1992) is one of the best known, not only in Romania, but also throughout the world, thanks to his novel The Twenty-Fifth Hour, translated and published for the first time in France in 1949. This novel tells the story of a Romanian peasant whose life is turned upside down from one day to the next when he is sent to a concentration camp because he is denounced as being Jewish. There follow escapes, tortures, wanderings, a number of absurd events caused by the totalitarian systems into which society has sunk on the eve of the twenty-fifth hour. His novel, which was subsequently published worldwide, was also brought to the screen by Henri Verneuil in 1967, with Anthony Quinn as the peasant Iohann Moritz and Serge Reggiani as the son of the priest Traian Coruga, the one who realizes that the twenty-fifth hour has arrived. Like most writers of the communist period, Virgil Gheorghiu was forced into exile. He died in 1992 in Paris and was buried in the Passy cemetery.
The novelist Petru Dumitriu (1924-2002), known in Romania and France, particularly for his books Rendez-vous au jugement dernier and L'Homme aux yeux gris, also belongs to this generation, despite a period of his literary activity when he had to bend to circumstances and write for the regime. He fled Romania in 1960, to be able to write freely. Other authors of the communist period were forced into exile. They continued to write and, since December 1989, one of the efforts of Romanian literature has been to restore to the younger generations the names and works of writers from the Romanian diaspora, who were banned in their countries of origin during the communist dictatorship. Among them, Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade, who disappeared without being able to see their country again, have gained international recognition. Born in 1911 at Rășinari, Cioran is the most respected Romanian philosopher. Graduated from the University of Bucharest in 1932, he is part of the group that profoundly influenced Romanian culture between the wars. During this period, he went astray supporting the fascist Iron Guard. In 1937, he obtained a scholarship from the French government and went to Paris. From 1947, banned from staying in his country by the communist regime, he wrote only in French. Among his works: Précis de décomposition (1949), Exercices d'admiration (1986), Solitude et destiny (posthumous, 2004). He died in 1995 and is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery. Born in 1907 in Bucharest, Mircea Eliade devoted his life to seeking to define human nature. Fascinated by ancient religions and philosophies from all over the world, he left at the age of 21 for India, where he studied Sanskrit, Indian philosophy and yoga at the University of Calcutta. He also spent six months in a hermitage on the Himalayan peaks. In 1933 his dissertation entitled Yoga: Essay on the Origins of Indian Mysticism was published. It is the only work of its kind by a non-Indian to have aroused great interest. Upon his return to Romania, Eliade was very active as a writer, researcher and professor of the history of religion at the University of Bucharest. It was during this time that he frequented the anti-Semitic circles, which were very influential in the country (where the Iron Guard was on parade), and this is a fact on which Eliade always remained discreet (unlike Cioran, for example, who acknowledged his mistakes). After the Second World War, Eliade, who was opposed to the new regime, had to leave his native country to flee communist repression. He lived in Paris until 1956 and was then appointed professor of the history of religion at the University of Chicago. He died in Chicago in 1986, without ever seeing his country again. Among his best-known works: Forbidden Forest, The Bengali Night (adapted for the cinema by Nicolas Klotz in 1988, with Hugh Grant in the role of young Allan), Treatise on the History of Religions, The Myth of the Eternal Return, The Novel of the Myopic Adolescent... In 2007, Francis Ford Coppola released the film The Ageless Man, shot in Romania and inspired by a short story by Eliade, Youth without Youth. It is the story of a teacher whose life, shortly before the Second World War, is turned upside down by an "extraordinary change" that will lead him to be prosecuted by the Nazis.Contemporary Romanian literature
Many contemporary writers experienced exile and were published abroad before being published in Romania. Many of them have chosen France as their host country: Matei Vișniec, Dumitru Tsepeneag, Paul Goma... Today, publishers are starting to translate some works into foreign languages, and literary festivals invite Romanian authors such as the Festival des Belles étrangères in France. Among the contemporary authors, we can notice : Dumitru Tsepeneag, born in Bucharest in 1937, is one of the fathers of dreaming, a literary current that opposes the socialist realism of the communist era. Exiled in Paris, he continues to write in Romanian and French. In 1975, he founded the literary quarterly Cahiers de l'Est in Paris, which was published until 1980. In 2003, he began publishing the magazine Seine et Danube. Among his best-known novels are Hôtel Europa and Pigeon vole.
Herta Müller, born in 1954, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. German novelist from the Banat region in Romania, she draws on her own experience during the dictatorship of Ceaușescu by evoking the freedoms denied, pressures, lives scorned. Her latest book translated into French is La Balançoire du souffle (2009).
As for Matei Vișniec, born in 1956, he trained as a philosopher and historian. He devoted himself to theatre, but was banned by the regime and came to seek political asylum in France. From 1990, he writes directly in French and his plays are a worldwide success. 2009 Godot Prize for Le mot progrès dans la bouche de ma mère sounded terribly wrong.
Mircea Cărtărescu, also born in 1956, is a theorist, poet and novelist with a flamboyant style. Winner of a string of literary prizes since 1989, he has enjoyed enormous success in Romania with his book Orbitor (1996). He has also published novels in French, including L'Œil en feu (2005). This notoriety allows him today to help beginning authors. Today, he holds an important place in Romanian literature. To his credit: more than thirty novels, eight of which have been translated into French.
The new generation is represented by Cecilia Ștefănescu, a novelist born in 1975 in Bucharest. She published her first novel Legături bolnăvicioase in 2002. It is a great success in Romania, and will even be adapted for the cinema. Some of her works have been published in French: L'Après-midi de Sal and Liaisons morbides.
