Paul Goma

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Paul Goma
Born: October 2, 1935
Mana village, Kingdom of Romania
Occupation: Writer and dissident
Nationality: Romanian
Writing period: 1968 to present
Website: http://paulgoma.free.fr/

Paul Goma (b. October 2, 1935) is a Romanian writer and leading anti-communist dissident.[1] Currently he resides in France as a stateless political refugee.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Life

Goma was born to a Romanian family in Mana village, Orhei County, which at that time was a part of the Kingdom of Romania, nowadays part of Republic of Moldova. His parents, Eufimie (1909-1967) and Maria (née Popescu; 1909-1974) Goma were schoolteachers in Mana. His brother Petre was born in 1933 but died before his first birthday.

After the 1940 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, his father was taken away by the Soviet authorities and deported to Siberia. In October 1943, Eufimie Goma was found by his family, as a prisoner of war, in "Camp No. 1 for Soviet Prisoners", in Slobozia, Ialomiţa County, Romania.

In March 1944, the Goma family took refuge in Sibiu, Transylvania. In August 1944, finding themselves in danger of involuntary "repatriation" to the Soviet Union, they fled to the village of Buia, by the Târnava Mare River. From October to December 1944, the Goma family hid in the forests around Buia. On January 13, 1945 they were captured by Romanian shepherds and turned over to the Gendarmerie in Sighişoara, where they were interned at the "Centrul de Repatriere" ("Repatriation Center"). There, Eufimie Goma managed to forge documents for his family; however, Maria Goma's brother, who didn't have forged papers, was promptly "repatriated to Siberia". In June 1945, taking advantage of the forged documents, they returned to Buia.[2] Later on, Paul Goma would describe his family's refugee saga in the novels "Arta refugii" ("The Art of Refuge", a wordplay on the Romanian words for "refuge" and "taking flight"), "Soldatul câinelui" ("Dog's Soldier"), and "Gardă Inversă" ("Reverse Guard").

In May 1952, Goma, while a student in 10th grade, was detained for eight days by the Securitate for speaking out in the classroom about Romanian anti-communist partisans and for keeping a coded personal journal. In September-October of the same year he was barred from all the schools in Romania. After some unsuccessful attempts at re-admission he was finally allowed to attend Negru Vodă high school in Făgăraş.

In 1954 he was admitted to the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest. In November 1956, he was one of the organizers of the Bucharest student movement, in support of the Hungarian Revolution. As a result, he was arrested by the Communist authorities, incarcerated for two years in Jilava and Gherla prisons, where he was tortured, and then put under house arrest in Lăteşti (a village in the Bărăgan Plain) until 1963. [2]

In September 1965, he was re-admitted as a first-year student at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest. In the fall of 1967, under pressure from the Securitate, he was forced to give up his studies at the University.

On August 7, 1968, Paul Goma married Ana Maria Năvodaru. Their son Filip-Ieronim was born in 1975.

At the end of August 1968, Paul Goma became a member of the Romanian Communist Party, in an act of solidarity with the Romanian position during the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia (Romania did not take part, indeed condemning the invasion).

In the 1970s, Paul Goma was active in the creation of the Free Workers' Syndicate.

In 1971 it was proposed that Paul Goma be excluded from the Communist Party because he published his novel "Ostinato" in West Germany after the Communist censors refused to allow him to publish the book in Romania. Paul Goma refused to give up his Party membership by his own will.

In 1977, Paul Goma's public letter calling for respect for human rights in Romania and for Romanians to sign Charter 77 was read on Radio Free Europe. As a result, he was excluded from the Writers' Union of Romania and was repetedly followed, arrested, and tortured by the Securitate. On November 20, 1977, Paul Goma and his family left Romania and went into exile in France. [3][4]

In 1982, the Securitate planned to assassinate Goma. Matei Haiducu, the secret agent sent by the Securitate to carry out the plan, turned to French counter-intelligence (DST). With the help of the DST, Haiducu simulated an attempt on Goma's life, by poisoning his drink at a restaurant; the drink was then spilled by a French agent, pretending to be a "clumsy guest".

Although Goma's numerous works (both fiction and non-fiction) were translated worldwide, his books, except the first one, were published in Romania only after the 1989 Revolution. He now lives in Paris as a stateless political refugee, his Romanian citizenship having been revoked after 1978 by the communist government. He turned down an offer of citizenship from the French Republic, extended simultaneously to him and to the Czech writer Milan Kundera. In September 2006, a petition in favor of restoring his Romanian citizenship did not result in any progress on the issue.

[edit] Controversies

Some of Goma's post-2005 articles and essays have been criticised due to their allegedly antisemitic nature.[5] [6] Goma refutes these allegations[7] and has filed several libel lawsuits against his accusers.[8] He asserts that his wife is Jewish and states that similar arguments were used against him by the Securitate in the 1980s.[9] On January 30, 2007, Goma was awarded the "Citizen of Honor" distinction by the Municipal Council of Timişoara. In February 2007, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania and the Israeli Embassy protested against the distinction, arguing that Paul Goma is the author of multiple antisemitic articles.[10]

In April 2006 he was invited to become a member of the Tismăneanu Commission[11], a body charged with researching the crimes of the Romanian communist regime. In May 2006 he was dismissed by the Commission's president, Vladimir Tismăneanu, who justified the exclusion based on Goma's implicit and later explicit refusal to recognize the board as a valid instrument;[12] Goma maintains his view that personal issues played the bigger part in the final decision. [11]

[edit] Published works

  • (Romanian) Camera de alǎturi, Bucharest, 1968.
  • (German) Ostinato, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1971. ISBN 3518066382
  • (German) Die Tür, 1972.
    • (French) Elles étaient quatre, Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1974.
    • (Romanian) Uşa noastrǎ cea de toate zilele, Editura Cartea Româneascǎ, Bucharest, 1992.
  • (French) Gherla, Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1976.
  • (French) Dossier Paul Goma. L'écrivain face au socialisme du silence., Paris, 1977
  • (French) Dans le cercle, Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1977. ISBN 2070297098
    • (Romanian) In cerc, 1995.
  • (French) Garde inverse, Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1979.
  • (French) Le Tremblement des Hommes: peut-on vivre en Roumanie aujourd'hui?, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1979. ISBN 202005101X.
    • (Dutch) 1980.
    • (Romanian) Culorile curcubeului '77, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990. ISBN 973-28-0174-3
    • (Romanian) Culoarea curcubeului ’77. Cod „Bǎrbosul”, Polirom, 2005. ISBN 973-681-833-0
  • (French) Les chiens de mort, ou, La passion selon Piteşti, Hachette, Paris, 1981. ISBN 2010083091
    • (Dutch) Het vierkante ei, Elsevier Manteau, Anvers, 1983.
    • (German) Die rote Messe, Thule, Köln, 1984.
    • (Romanian) Patimile dupǎ Piteşti, 1990.
    • (Romanian) Patimile dupǎ Piteşti, Dacia, 1999. ISBN 973-35-0845-4
  • (French) Chassé-croise, Hachette, Paris, 1983.
  • (French) Le calidor, Albin Michel, 1987.
    • (Romanian) Din calidor, 1989.
    • (English) My Childhood at the Gate of Unrest, Readers International, July 1990. ISBN 0-930523-74-1
    • (Romanian) Din calidor: O copilǎrie basarabeanǎ, Polirom, 2004. ISBN 973-681-732-6
  • (French) L'art de la fugue, Julliard, 1990. ISBN 2260006353
  • (Romanian) Sabina, 1991.
    • (French) Sabina, 1993.
    • (Romanian) Sabina, Universal Dalsi, Bucharest, 2005. ISBN 973-691-031-8
  • (French) Astra, 1992.
    • (Romanian) Astra, Editura Dacia, 1992.
  • (Romanian) Bonifacia, 1993.
  • (French) Bonifacia, Albin Michel 1998. ISBN 2226025898
  • (Romanian) Adameva, Loreley, Iaşi, 1995. (not distributed)
  • (Romanian) Amnezia la români, Litera, 1995.
  • (Romanian) Scrisori întredeschise - singur impotriva lor, Multiprint "Familia", Oradea, 1995.
  • (Romanian) Justa Editura Nemira, Bucharest, 1995.
  • (Romanian) Jurnal pe sărite, Editura Nemira, Bucharest, 1997
  • (Romanian) Jurnal de cǎldura mare, Edutura Nemira, Bucharest, 1997
  • (Romanian) Altina - grǎdina scufundata, Editura Cartier, Chişinau, 1998.
  • (Romanian) Scrisuri. 1972-1998, Editura Nemira, Bucharest, 1999. ISBN 973-569-377-1
  • (Romanian) Roman intim, Editura Allfa, 1999. ISBN 9739477062
  • (Romanian) Jurnal de Noapte Lunga, Dacia, Bucharest, 2000.
  • (Romanian) Jurnal unui jurnal, Dacia, Cluj, 2000.
  • (Romanian) Jurnal de Apocrif, Dacia, Cluj, 2000.
  • (French) Profil bas, Des Syrtes, 2001. ISBN 2845450389
  • (Romanian) Sǎptamîna Roşie. 28 Iunie–3 Iulie 1940 sau Basarabia şi evreii, Museum, Chişinău, 2003. ISBN 978-9975-906-77-7
  • (Romanian) Jurnal, Criterion, Bucharest, 2004. ISBN 978-973-86850-8-6
  • (Romanian) Alfabecedar, Editura Victor Frunză, 2005.

[edit] Honours

[edit] References

  1. ^ Mihaela Mihăilescu, "Paul Goma and the Courage to Say No - A Romanian Experience", Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, Massachusetts, August 28, 2002. Retrieved on 2006-03-09.
  2. ^ a b Paul Goma, in (Romanian), Bio - Bibliografie, November 11, 2006
  3. ^ Paul Goma, in (Romanian) Culoarea curcubeului ’77. Cod „Bǎrbosul”, Polirom, 2005. ISBN 973-681-833-0
  4. ^ Paul Goma, in (French) Le Tremblement des Hommes: peut-on vivre en Roumanie aujourd'hui?, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1979. ISBN 202005101X.
  5. ^ Gabriel Andreescu, in (Romanian) "Goma şi tema antisemitismului", Ziua, February 17, 2005
  6. ^ Combating Holocaust Deniers and Protecting Jewish Memory (English). Anti-Semitism in Romania: 2002 Report. The Romanian Jewish Community. Retrieved on March 9, 2007.
  7. ^ Paul Goma, in (Romanian) "A fi "Antisemit", November 11, 2005
  8. ^ Dan Culcer, in (Romanian) "Pledoarie pentru Goma", March 3, 2007
  9. ^ Paul Goma, in (Romanian) "Jurnal 2006", 2006, pages 48, 191, 201.
  10. ^ Paul Goma, in (Romanian), "Scrisoare către prietenii din Timişoara — şi din toată ţara", February 22, 2007
  11. ^ a b Paul Goma, in (Romanian), "Despre Vladimir Tismăneanu - şi nu numai - în 11 puncte", June 22, 2006
  12. ^ Tismăneanu, in (Romanian) Armand Gosu, "N-am avut de-a face cu Securitatea", in 22, nr.849, June 2006

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Goma, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Writer and dissident
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Mana village, Republic of Moldova
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../p/a/u/Paul_Goma_0fc0.html"
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