Șerban Cioculescu

Șerban Cioculescu (; 7 September 1902 – 25 June 1988) was a Romanian literary critic, literary historian and columnist who was born in Drobeta-Turnu Severin and died in Bucharest. He held teaching positions in Romanian literature at the University of Iași and the University of Bucharest, as well as membership of the Romanian Academy and chairmanship of its Library. Often described as one of the most representative Romanian critics of the interwar period, he took part in the cultural debates of the age, and, as a left-wing sympathizer who supported secularism, was involved in extended polemics with the traditionalist, far right and nationalist press venues. From early on in his career, Cioculescu was also noted for his selective approach to literary modernism and the avant-garde, preferring to place his cultural references with Neoclassicism.

Acclaimed for his research into the work and biographies of writers Ion Luca Caragiale and Tudor Arghezi, and considered one of the leading experts on these subjects, he was primarily a literary columnist. Throughout his lifetime, Cioculescu worked with prominent Romanian press venues, among them Adevărul, Curentul, Dreptatea, Gazeta Literară and România Literară. Marginalized by fascist governments during World War II and persecuted by the communist regime up to the 1960s, Cioculescu later developed an ambiguous relationship with the national communist authorities, returning to the cultural mainstream and regaining his influence over the literary scene. It was during the latter interval that Cioculescu provoked several controversies, primarily by speaking out against the rebellious Onirist writers and the innovative poetry of Nichita Stănescu.

Cioculescu had a complex relationship with the critics of his generation, between a lifelong friendship with Vladimir Streinu and a fluctuating rivalry with George Călinescu. He was brother to essayist, critic and victim of the communist regime Radu Cioculescu, and father to writer Barbu Cioculescu.

Biography

Early years As he was to recall later in life, Șerban Cioculescu was a sickly and inhibited child, who enjoyed spending his time in the family garden. Born in Bucharest, he was the second son of engineer N. Cioculescu, Both parents died when the brothers were still young children: their father in 1912, their mother in 1914. It was during one of Dragomirescu's classes that Cioculescu first met Vladimir Streinu, who became his best friend. Planning to write his Ph.D. on the life and work of French man of letters Ferdinand Brunetière, he had initially applied for a state scholarship, but lost it when the state police, Siguranța Statului, having caught rumor that he held suspicious left-wing ideas, opened a file on him. and linguist Alexandru Graur. Between 1928 and 1929, Cioculescu and Streinu were on the staff of Kalende, a literary magazine published in Pitești, Argeș County. Cioculescu entered the civil service, becoming an inspector of Romanian schools. His contributions also included polemical pieces on generically cultural subjects, such as a 1929 essay on the Romanians, their process of ethnogenesis and the links with the Roman Empire (titled Latinitatea noastră, "Our Latinness").

His earliest contribution to publishing was a 1935 volume covering the final part of Ion Luca Caragiale's life, as reflected by the correspondence between the writer and literary critic Paul Zarifopol.

Cioculescu and the "new generation" controversies At the time, he also made the acquaintance of Mircea Eliade, a rebellious essayist and modernist novelist who exercised his influence over a large part of Romanian public opinion, and who called for a spiritual revolution. Literary historians Z. Ornea and Nicolae Manolescu both note that, although Cioculescu and his group were very close to Eliade in terms of chronology, the difference in attitude made them seem and be referred to as the "old generation". Cioculescu reviewed Eliade's Itinerariu spiritual ("Spiritual Itinerary") collection for Viața Literară magazine. According to Eliade himself, this was done "critically but with great sympathy", This opinion is partly shared by Manolescu, who views Cioculescu's original reaction as "somewhat benevolent", while the subsequent articles on the subject featured a more polemical nature.

While the two figures continued to criticize each other in writing over theoretical aspects, Cioculescu admired Eliade the novelist. In 1932, the former was among the jury members granting the Editura Cultura Națională annual prize for literature, and was instrumental in assigning the distinction to Eliade's Bengal Nights novel. In late autumn, he attended a session of Eliade's group Criterion, which was at the time a platform organizing public debates around intellectuals of various hues, and was admitting speakers from the far left, the far right, and various moderate fields in between. The conference, which discussed the attitudes of French novelist and Marxist essayist André Gide, was interrupted by members of the fascist and antisemitic National-Christian Defense League, who heckled the speakers and threatened them with violence. The incident was reported by the League's newspaper Asaltul, which praised the affiliates for standing up against Gide's communism and homosexuality, and accused Cioculescu, Vulcănescu and sociologist Mihai Ralea of representing both pro-Soviet sentiment and pacifism. Cioculescu also offered a good review to Eliade's novel Întoarcerea din rai ("Return from Paradise"), first published in 1934. Reputedly, Nu had especially scandalized Cioculescu for denying the merit of Tudor Arghezi's poetry, and for defining Arghezi himself as a "mechanical poet".

Other debates of the 1930s In parallel, Cioculescu was making himself known for his resistance to the traditionalist and far right calls for state-imposed censorship, based on allegations that modernism was equatable to pornography. His defense of Arghezi's poetry and its daring themes in front of traditionalists also made him an adversary of his former teacher Iorga. The society, which also included Mihail Sebastian, Ion Biberi and Octav Șuluțiu, He urged Romanian publishers to review their criteria by opting for aesthetic value in favor of commercial success. Contrasting his works with theirs, Eliade claimed that he had introduced "aggressive and savage" erotic scenes to his novels so as to provide "a vital dimension" to his characters. During 1937, questioned by Azi newspaper on the issue of political censorship he stated that his beliefs were both anti-fascist and anti-communist, arguing that such phenomena could only be permitted "in the totalitarian state, fascist as well as communist".

World War II Cioculescu's stances resulted in his marginalization early during World War II, when, after the fall of King Carol II's National Renaissance Front, the fascist and antisemitic Iron Guard took over (see Romania during World War II). Dumitru Caracostea, appointed by the National Legionary government as head of Revista Fundațiilor Regale suspended the contributions of critics whom he considered supporters of Jewish literature: Perpessicius, Cioculescu and Streinu. The measure raised angry comments from the anti-fascist Lovinescu, who deemed it "idiotic". Also according to Brătescu, Cioculescu introduced his students to the banned or unpublished works of Arghezi, and openly praised the poet's political stance. In late 1940, Cioculescu also reacted to the Iron Guard's mass murders of politicians affiliated with previous regimes—the Jilava Massacre and the killings of Iorga and economist Virgil Madgearu. His Saint Sava student Brătescu, who frequented Iorga's circles in Vălenii de Munte, presented him with some of Iorga's final texts for Cuget Clar.

These incidents came shortly before the Iron Guard's own ouster from power (the Legionary Rebellion). Cioculescu maintained a low profile during the following period, when the country was placed under an authoritarian regime presided upon by the Guard's former ally, Conducător Ion Antonescu. The period saw Cioculescu focusing on his activities as a literary historian, publisher and editor. In 1940, he published his synthesis Viața lui I. L. Caragiale ("The Life of I. L. Caragiale"). The journal also published the fragments from Iorga's works in his possession. In 1942, Cioculescu oversaw the revised edition of Peregrinulu transelvanu ("The Transylvanian Pilgrim"), a travel account by the 19th century author and activist Ion Codru-Drăgușanu, detailing the author's impressions of England and France.

By 1944, he was reintegrated into the corps of school inspectors by the Antonescu cabinet's Education Minister Ion Petrovici (who had also employed Streinu as his adviser). The Cioculescu family's condemnation of official antisemitic policies and the Holocaust in Romania was however stated by Radu Cioculescu, who had witnessed and exposed murders committed by the Romanian Army on the Eastern Front.

In early 1944, when, as a result of Antonescu's Axis commitment, Bucharest was subject to a massive air bombardment, the Cioculescus took refuge to the southwestern periphery of Bucharest, moving into a small house in Ciorogârla. Shortly after Lovinescu's death, Cioculescu was also one of the literary professionals on the commission granting the newly established Lovinescu memorial award, presented to aspiring authors such as Ștefan Augustin Doinaș. His next book, Introducere în opera lui Tudor Arghezi ("An Introduction to the Work of Tudor Arghezi"), was printed in 1946. As he himself recalled, this decision came after Dean Constantin Balmuș promised him a teaching position at the University of Iași Faculty of Letters, if he agreed to obtain the necessary qualifications within a short interval. As early as October 1947, he was stripped of his University of Iași position through an ex post facto decision adopted by Education Minister Ștefan Voitec (and which reputedly contradicted Romanian law).

During the state-endorsed supremacy of the Socialist Realist establishment, Cioculescu was targeted by communist censorship, being closely scrutinized and having his publishing privileges reduced to a minimum. In a 1949 piece, communist ideologue Leonte Răutu singled out Cioculescu for his conclusion on 19th century Romanian author Mihai Eminescu, widely seen as Romania's national poet. Răutu's article, a negative review of "cosmopolitan" tendencies in local literature, reacted against Cioculescu's interpretation of Eminescu's work as a late consequence of German Romanticism. According to Mircea Eliade, who was living in self-exile to Western Europe and later the United States, Cioculescu was implicated in the 1955–1956 affair that led to the communist prosecution of tens of intellectuals, among them philosopher Constantin Noica and critic Dinu Pillat. The main pieces of evidence in this case were samizdat translations of texts by Romanian diaspora authors, primarily Emil Cioran, which were circulated in the anti-communist milieus. Another incriminating evidence used by the communist authorities was a clandestine translation of Eliade's own Noaptea de Sânziene novel, transported into Romania and made accessible to Cioculescu. According to Eliade, although Cioculescu "didn't have to suffer the consequences", it was he who lent a copy to Pillat, Streinu and writer Nicolae Steinhardt, all of whom were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. Slătineanu was also among those arrested, and died a mysterious death while being investigated. According to this account, Georgescu was infuriated by his subordinate's action, and made a point of disavowing it publicly—an attitude linked by him with Georgescu's dogmatism. According to Agopian, this was nevertheless a subtle attempt to prevent Cioculescu from discrediting his name by associating it with communist messages. Writing in 2001, critic Iulian Băicuș described the writer as a "convert on the Road to Damascus, which back then was passing through Moscow". In 1961, his brother, Radu Cioculescu, was a victim of communist repression, dying as a political prisoner in Dej penitentiary. After a twenty-year hiatus, Cioculescu returned with a volume of essays, Varietăți critice ("Critical Variations", Editura pentru literatură, 1966) and a monograph on Caragiale (I. L. Caragiale, Editura Tineretului, 1967). In collaboration with Editura Eminescu, he followed up with the collections Itinerar critic ("Critical Itinerary"), published by Editura Eminescu as five volumes (printed between 1973 and 1989) and a 1974 corpus of his lifelong studies on Caragiale (Caragialiana). His reception speech, a study on the life and work of Bessarabian author Teodor Vârnav, was issued as a separate volume (published by Editura Academiei) in 1975. The novelist later claimed that the two of them had discussed the unexpected consequences of Bengal Nights: Cioculescu reportedly confessed having met in Romania Maitreyi Devi, the Indian poet who is believed to have inspired the work, and who is alleged to have had a physical affair with young Eliade—rumors she repeatedly denied, most notably in her own Na Hanyate book. According to this account, Maitreyi was asked by the Romanian critics and librarians to approve of a local version for Na Hanyate, but requested an unaffordable sum of American dollars in return.

Cioculescu's published the last of his princeps edition volumes during the 1980s. In addition to Itinerarii critice, these included the 1982 Poeți români ("Romanian Poets", Editura Eminescu), as well as the 1985 collected commentary on Mihai Eminescu (Eminesciana, Editura Minerva) and similar contribution on Arghezi's career (Argheziana, Editura Eminescu). Cioculescu viewed Maiorescu as a providential figure, who had prevailed over a climate of cultural chaos, but believed his skills as a critic were not outstanding. Z. Ornea believes that Cioculescu and his colleagues nuanced the Junimist conservative outlook and belief in art for art's sake by borrowing from the historicism of its main left-wing adversaries, the Poporanists and socialists grouped around Viața Românească journal. He argued that such a synthesis was foremost illustrated by Cioculescu's affiliation with Adevărul, which maintained close relations with the Viața Românească group.

Also according to Ornea, the post-Junimist group, alongside Mihail Sebastian and Octav Șuluțiu, was also the leading school of interwar critics, without whom "interwar literature would be hard to imagine." Literary historian Sami Damian sees Cioculescu and several of the others among the "eminent" group of authors directly influenced by the older Lovinescu, opting to "apply a program of aesthetic independence". Similarly, critic and historian Mircea Iorgulescu discussed Cioculescu as a member of Lovinescu's "first posterity". However, Cioculescu did not relate to criticism as an integral aspect of literature, believing that it lacked a creative dimension, and warned against the danger posed by subjectivity. Commenting with irony on his entry in the same volume, Cioculescu himself stated, years after his rival's death: "I would be an ingrate not to thank the shadow of G. Călinescu for having publicly spared me, it being more suited to him to have me destroyed 'in confidence'." Ornea included Cioculescu among the secularists providing a convincing reply to the Orthodox group at Gândirea magazine, and notes that, in doing so, the group also expressed support for Westernization. Early in the 1930s, Cioculescu nominated Gândirea, alongside its partners Curentul and Cuvântul, as a partisan of a dogmatic Orthodoxy "plagued by nullification".

In this context, Cioculescu's main grievance against Eliade was the latter's rejection of rationalist approaches, as well as Eliade's exclusive focus on the Romanian Orthodox Church as a vehicle of Romanian spirituality. To this, he argued, were added Eliade's own eclecticism and "mystical spasms", which he believed explained why the thinker had tried to reconcile Orthodoxy with Anthroposophy, Eastern philosophy, Liberal Christianity or Urreligion. In tandem, Cioculescu also reacted against his fellow secularist, philosopher Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, who viewed Romanian spirituality as tied not to a religious institution, but to rural traditions and an immutable village—in Cioculescu's view, even this theory was proven false by the "rapid evolutionary process" which had transformed the Romanian peasantry.

Complimenting his colleague's stance, Lovinescu listed their common adversaries as "Orthodoxism" (favoring a theocracy around the Orthodox Church), Trăirism (the existentialist school formed around Nae Ionescu), the radicalized Criterion group, and the currents which, based on theories stated by historian Vasile Pârvan, placed emphasis on the Thracians and Dacians' contribution to Romanian ethnogenesis at the detriment of Romanization. His role in combating these phenomenons was acknowledged by Eugène Ionesco, who mentioned his former rival among the critics who preserved the "modernist, Westernized, rationalist" line from a traditionalist one which blended echoes from Iorga's Sămănătorul magazine with mystical or anti-Western messages (and whom Ionesco identified with Nae Ionescu, Vasile Pârvan, Lucian Blaga, Emil Cioran and Constantin Noica).

Main critical studies The two main subjects of Cioculescu's work were Caragiale and Arghezi, seen by Alex. Ștefănescu as his "elective affinities" (the same critic notes that the 1945 study of Dimitrie Anghel "was not preceded or followed by works on the same subject"). According to Călinescu: "[Cioculescu's] contributions on the subject of Caragiale merit a perfect trust. [...] The biographical talent, which he will not attribute to himself, is nonetheless present in Șerban Cioculescu." In addition to these tasks, Ștefănescu notes, the critic carried out polemics with Caragiale's various detractors, and produced critical commentary on the characteristics of his diverse writings and personality, as well as on those of his two sons Mateiu and Luca.

Cioculescu's other main interest, Arghezi's literary contribution, was the subject of many articles and essays. They pursued a lifelong literary conflict with Arghezi's opponents, responding to claims that his poems were often unintelligible, and commented at length on its "diversity" (bridging modernism and traditionalism). Cioculescu viewed Petrescu's stylistic innovation as having abolished "the technical duality of the novel: external observation and internal analysis", merging such elements into a "dynamic psychology". During the late stages of communism, when the regime tolerated the recovery of works by Symbolist poet George Bacovia and thus caused a Bacovian fashion among young writers, Cioculescu cautioned the readers not to take their hero's contributions at face value. In agreement with the theories of George Călinescu, he argued that the deep pessimism which had captivated the public was essentially artificial, and, citing the recollections of Bacovia's colleague I. M. Rașcu, noted that the everyday Bacovia was a cheerful and gregarious figure. In his depiction of Bucharest's bohemian scene, the author also sketches the portraits of writers Alexandru Cazaban, Victor Eftimiu, Oscar Lemnaru, Adrian Maniu, Ion Minulescu, Cezar Petrescu, Liviu Rebreanu, and of actor Puiu Iancovescu.

On his 100th birthday in 2002, Șerban Cioculescu was commemorated through festivities held at the Museum of Romanian Literature in Bucharest; the place chosen for this was a conference hall where he had presided over several writers' reunions in the 1960s and 1970s. Among the many reprints of his works before and after the 1989 Revolution is a 2007 third edition of Amintiri, edited by Simona Cioculescu and accompanied by his travel writings. In 2009, she also edited a collected edition of his theater chronicles for Semnalul. Șerban Cioculescu's name was assigned to streets in Găești and Pitești, as well as to a private high school in Turnu Severin.