Alexandru Robot

Alexandru Robot (; born Alter Rotmann, also known as Al. Robot; Moldovan Cyrillic: Александру Робот; January 15, 1916 – ) was a Romanian, Moldovan and Soviet poet, also known as a novelist and journalist. First noted as a member of Romanian literary clubs, and committed to modernism and the avant-garde, he developed a poetic style based on borrowings from Symbolist and Expressionist literature. Also deemed a "Hermeticist" for the lexical obscurity in some of his poems, as well as for the similarity between his style and that of Ion Barbu, Robot was in particular noted for his pastorals, where he fused modernist elements into a traditionalist convention.

Adopted by the literary circles in the Bessarabia region, where he settled in 1935, Robot was employed by the literary review Viața Basarabiei. In tandem with his avant-garde activities, he was a political-minded journalist with communist sympathies, who wrote reportage pieces and essays around various social, political and cultural topics. During the 1940 annexation of Bessarabia, Robot opted to stay behind in Soviet territory, adopting Socialist Realism and paying allegiance to the Moldavian SSR's official line on nationality issues. This move sparked a posthumous controversy, but some have argued it only implied a formal submission on Robot's part.

Robot was declared missing some two months after the German-Romanian takeover of Bessarabia, dying in mysterious circumstances. His avant-garde literary work remained largely unknown until the 1960s, when it was rediscovered by a new generation of Bessarabian writers.

Biography

Early life The future poet was a native of Bucharest, born to Jewish Romanian parents Carol Rotman and Toni Israel, His father was, according to conflict accounts, either a clerk or the warden of a Jewish cemetery in Bucharest. He joined them again on Petrașincu's Discobolul, and also had samples of his work featured in Cristalul (published by a modernist circle in Găești).

Relocation to Bessarabia In 1935, Robot took the decision of leaving his home region, the Old Kingdom, and made his way to Chișinău, the cultural capital of Bessarabia region (at the time part of Greater Romania). Vladimir Prisăcaru however describes as "impressive" that manner in which Robot chose to identify himself with the culture of Chișinău (casually referred to by the poet as "our city"): "one is left with the impression that Al. Robot and Chișinău were displaying themselves as two communicating vessels." and a chronicle of Anton Holban's novel Ioana. Robot published a large number of critical sketches focusing on major figures in European and Romanian literature (from Luigi Pirandello, Sergei Yesenin and Charles Baudelaire to Mateiu Caragiale, Panait Istrati or Liviu Rebreanu), and was similarly interested in art, theater and ballet criticism (with pieces on Constantin Brâncuși, Victor Brauner, Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova). The same year, the Bucharest-based official literary review, Revista Fundațiilor Regale, hosted the essay of modernist critic Vladimir Streinu, which discussed in four individual sections the works of poets Robot, Haig Acterian, Ștefan Baciu and Cicerone Theodorescu.

Soviet career and disappearance Robot stayed behind in his adoptive region after Romania's 1940 cession of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. This, Iurie Colesnic suggests, was "a conscious choice", and justified by Robot's belief that avant-garde poetry was well-appreciated by the Soviet administration (making him "the most obvious intellectual victim of Soviet propaganda"). In particular, Lungu notes, Robot followed the official Soviet stance on a "Moldovan language", distinct from Romanian and regulated by the pedagogical institutions in Balta.

The political situation changed in late June 1941, when the Nazi German and Romanian troops began the sudden attack on the Soviet Union, occupying Bessarabia (see Romania during World War II). Robot was declared missing, and presumed dead, in August of the same year, his last known whereabouts being near Odesa, Ukrainian SSR. More specifically, critics have identified Robot as a Symbolist, In Țurcanu's view, Robot's poetry alternated such stylistic concerns with echoes from a wing of Romania's Symbolist environment: the aesthetic synthesis performed by celebrated writer Tudor Arghezi, whose Testament piece is believed by the same commentator to be at the source of Robot's Prefață ("Preface"). Călinescu makes mention of the connection between the choice of such subjects and Robot's Jewishness ("Biblical heredity"), expressed in stanzas ostensibly referencing the Land of Israel: Verse translation| In particular, he found "very beautiful images" in Robot's stanza about "a forest's mirroring in the water and the garden's mirroring in a cup": Verse translation|lang=ro Când plec la vânătoare cu câinii și cu arcul, Și beau din apă codrul în care-ai vrea să mori, Îți întâlnesc statura-n izvoare. Umpli parcul, Cu șoldurile strânse în jerbe de fiori.

Grădina îți aruncă toți arborii în ceașcă Și seara-și crește sânul singurătății până, La semnul frunții tale, poftită în caleașcă De un nebun cu harfă, care-a întins o mână. The poet's aesthetic accomplishment in prose form was discussed by Eugen Lungu, who called Robot "an acrobat of style." Moldovan poet and critic Igor Ursenco defines the plot as a set of "adolescent experiences and complexes", but argues that, from the point of view of Robot's experimental literature, the book was written as a set of "unmistakable exercises in maturity". Prisăcaru sees the novel as an "original and modernist" work, populated by "ghostly characters". It reads: "[On March 1] we will be decorating our necks, our chests, with the mărțișoare. These are the only decorations that are awarded without decrees, and without implying either heroism or virtue. [...] There is so much poetry in the fragility of mărțișoare, but it is such simple poetry that it was mistaken for the banal." Contrarily, in Pajurile mizeriei chișinăuiene, Robot spoke of Chișinău as a parochial and destitute place, with its overall image defined by the abundance of rooks: "The obsolete and disagreeable rooks, seemingly torn apart from a flag of morning, emblems and symbols of a calamity which never tears itself apart from Bessarabia's destiny, are characteristic for a city with two street car lines, one leading to the hospital and the other to the cemetery". Călinescu's work was subsequently attacked by the Romanian fascist newspaper Porunca Vremii, which specifically denied Robot's contribution to Romanian culture, and demanded for Călinescu to be punished so as to maintain "the cleanliness of the Romanian soul". Writing for Gândirea magazine in 1942, the fascist newspaperman N. Roșu also claimed: "in [Călinescu's] mockery of Romanian culture, Lascăr Sebastian and Al. Robot, ex-broadcasters for Radio Tiraspol, are assigned a place of importance. And Mr. G. Călinescu remains a university professor. For how long still? We shall see."

Inside the Soviet Union's Moldavian SSR, Robot's overall contribution was reassessed during the 1960s, and, similar to those of other authors who had died in the war, was republished by the state-run publishing houses. This view is contrasted by that of critic Iulian Ciocan, who deplores the isolation of Romanian writers in Bessarabia from the region's literary roots, and in particular their unfamiliarity with the "quality prose" of predecessors Robot and Constantin Stere.

According to Lungu, the Cibotaru edition even had an unforeseen subversive effect, by allowing local writers a rare glimpse into the non-official forms of literary culture. Reflecting back on the period, he notes: "The writings of this Bucharester hermeticist have withered away for a moment the emblems of socialist realism. [...] Robot's press contribution has forced us to acknowledge what stammerers we were, but also gave us some lessons free of charge." Making reference to the fascination of younger writers in the 1960s, he also argued: "The interwar was sending through him a sample of what we were and what we could be, and so retied a string that had been so brutally torn apart". The same year, his press articles were collected into a single volume, published in Bucharest by Editura Litera International company. An entry on Robot, one of 39 dedicated to Bessarabian authors, was included in the Czech-language Slovník rumunských spisovatelů ("Dictionary of Romanian Writers"), edited by Czech academics Libuše Valentová and Jiři Nasinec (2001). Samples of Robot's prose were also included in Eugen Lungu's 2004 anthology Literatura din Basarabia în secolul XX. Eseuri, critică literară ("20th Century Literature from Bessarabia. Essays, Literary Criticism"). A year later, his poetry was included in another volume of the series, this time published by poet Nicolae Leahu. Commenting on the latter selection in 2006, Ion Țurcanu noted: "Evidently, as poet, Robot is less known that he would have deserved." In the generation of Postmodernist writers to emerge around 1991, poet Emilian Galaicu-Păun also took inspiration from Robot's style, and published pieces with intertextual borrowings from Robot's own.

The poet was survived by his wife, who lived in relative obscurity in the Soviet Union and later in Moldova. In old age, she was interviewed by Moldovan journalist Gheorghe Budeanu, who recorded her recollections about life with Alexandru Robot, and details about the lesser known aspects of his biography. According to Colesnic: "she has not only rendered complete the portrait of poet Alexandru Robot, but also enhanced the enigma that still floats around [him]."