Ion Sân-Giorgiu

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Ion Sân-Giorgiu (also known as Sîn-Giorgiu, Sângiorgiu or Sîngiorgiu; 1893—1950) was a Romanian modernist dramatist, essayist, literary and art critic, journalist, academic, and fascist politician. He was notably the author of works on the Sturm und Drang phenomenon and the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. During his early years, he was influenced by Expressionism and contributed to the literary magazine Gândirea; he progressively moved towards support for the Iron Guard (the Legionary Movement), edited the far right journal Chemarea Vremii, and spent his last years a member of Horia Sima's government in exile.

[edit] Biography

Born in Botoşani, Sân-Giorgiu was educated in Germany.[1] In 1921, he contributed a serialized column on "Dramatic Expressionism" to Adevărul Literar şi Artistic, later published as a single volume.[2] Sân-Giorgiu's views on Expressionism and modernism, like those of Gândirea itself, oscillated: in early 1923, he commented negatively in regard to the tendencies of younger poets to "discard metaphors", but later authored reviews and essays welcoming the trend.[3] At the time, Sân-Giorgiu notably contributed essays on the literature of Georg Kaiser and Walter Hasenclever to Gândirea.[4] His play Masca ("The Mask"), which followed Expressionist guidelines,[5] was among the series of avant-garde productions staged by Victor Ion Popa during the interwar period.[6]

During the early 1930s, he seconded Victor Eftimiu inside the Romanian PEN Club (of which he was General Secretary).[7] A frequenter of Casa Capşa restaurant, Sân-Giorgiu was, according to the art collector Krikor Zambaccian, involved in a dispute with poet Nicolae Davidescu which eventually turned violent.[8]

A member of the fascist National Christian Party and afterwards rallied to the authoritarian group created by King Carol II (the National Renaissance Front), Sân-Giorgiu was an official journalist under the latter's regime.[9] Initially, he was opposed to Antisemitism, defining it as "an act of poverty of a failed intellectual or a cheap opportunity of self-assertion" and "a stupid ferment of anarchical agitation".[10]

Nevertheless, as an Iron Guard sympathizer, he soon changed his position. In November 1940, after the Guard established its government (the National Legionary State), Sân-Giorgiu expressed his new thoughts on the Romanian Jewish community and racial policies in a column for Chemarea Vremii:

"Legionary Romania has solved the Jewish Question. That which the Oct. Goga-presided government has only attempted, the Legion has managed to achieve in less than three months. The Jews have been removed not just from the state apparatus, but also from the industry [and] commerce, where cooperative and neat Legionary organizations are striving and succeeding in taking their place. [...] We have a duty to pose overtly and without delay the problem of liquidating this miserable ghetto that is currently forming itself. It is time to ask: What do we do with them? Because to leave them free to multiply like rabbits, to consume our goods, to hate us and produce nothing in return, that cannot be. In Legionary Romania there is no room for drones. [...] It would serve Jews to know that we are not the passive bearers of a social rot, but the national surgeons of a national cancer. Hence I ask our own: what do we do with them? And I ask the Jews to reply honestly: what do you do?"[11]

During the same year, Sân-Giorgiu's newspaper published influential essays by Mihail Manoilescu, which advocated corporatism and called for its implementation in the National Legionary State.[12]

He survived the fall of the Iron Guard government (the Legionary Rebellion), but left Romania after Ion Antonescu's regime and Romania's alliance to the Axis Powers both crumbled in autumn 1944 (see Soviet occupation of Romania).[13] He joined Sima's Vienna-based Legionary cabinet, holding a nominal office as Minister of Education.[14]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Grigorescu, p.377
  2. ^ Grigorescu, p.377-378
  3. ^ Grigorescu, p.377-378
  4. ^ Grigorescu, p.387
  5. ^ Grigorescu, p.377, 388, 424-425
  6. ^ Grigorescu, p.424-425
  7. ^ Cioculescu
  8. ^ Zambaccian
  9. ^ Ornea, p.419
  10. ^ Sân-Giorgiu, quoted in "Romanian Intellectuals about the Jews"
  11. ^ Sân-Giorgiu, in Ornea, p.419
  12. ^ Ornea, p.282-283
  13. ^ Totok
  14. ^ Totok

[edit] References

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