Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu

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Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu (September 15, 1916, Valea Albă, Romania – June 22, 1992, Paris, France) was a Romanian writer, best known for his 1949 novel, The 25th Hour.

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[edit] Life

Virgil Gheorghiu was born in Valea Albă, a village in Războieni Commune, Neamţ County, in Moldavia. His father was an Orthodox priest in Petricani. Having been admitted with top marks, he attended high school in Chişinău from 1928 to June 1936, after which he studied philosophy and theology at the University of Bucharest and Heidelberg University.

During the regime of General Ion Antonescu, he was a diplomat between 1942 and 1943, working as a legation secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania. He went into voluntary exile when Soviet troops entered Romania in 1944. He was arrested at the end of World War II by American troops. After the war, he settled in France in 1948. A year later, he published the novel Ora 25 (in French: La vingt-cinquième heure; in English: The twenty-fifth hour), written during his captivity.

In 1952, a scandal erupted in Paris: it was discovered that before leaving Romania, Gheorghiu had written a book (Ard malurile Nistrului, 1941), heretofore unpublished in French, that scorned "the malicious Jew" and praised Hitler's troops. The philosopher Gabriel Marcel, who had written the preface for The 25th Hour, asked that his preface be omitted from future editions. Gheorghiu never clearly disavowed his anti-Semitic writings, but in his 1986 memoirs, he did write: "I am ashamed of myself. Ashamed because I am Romanian, like the criminals of the Iron Guard".

Gheorghiu was ordained a priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Paris on May 23, 1963. In 1966, Patriarch Justinian awarded him the cross of the Romanian Patriarchate for his liturgical and literary activities.

He is buried in Passy Cemetery, in Paris.

[edit] The 25th Hour

Gheorghiu's best-known book depicts the plight of a naive young farmhand, Johann Moritz, under German and Soviet occupation. Johann is sent to a labor camp by a police captain who covets his wife, Suzanna. Traian, son of the priest Koruga, is a famous novelist and minor diplomat whose first internment comes when he is picked up as an enemy alien by the Yugoslavs. Once imprisoned, the two heroes begin an odyssey of torture and despair. In the end, Traian dies in a concentration camp, while Johann enlists in the army, just as World War III is about to start.

In 1967, Carlo Ponti produced a film based on Gheorghiu's book. The movie was directed by Henri Verneuil, with Anthony Quinn as Johann, Virna Lisi as Suzanna, and Serge Reggiani as Traian.

[edit] Books

  • Ora 25, 1949. The twenty-fifth hour (translated from the Romanian by Rita Eldon), Alfred A Knopf, NY, 1950
  • La seconde chance, 1952
  • L'homme qui voyagea seul, 1954
  • Le peuple des immortels, 1955
  • Les sacrifiés du Danube, 1957
  • Saint Jean bouche d'or, 1957
  • Les mendiants de miracles, 1958
  • La cravache, 1960
  • Perahim, 1961
  • La maison de Petrodava (translated from the Romanian by Livia Lamoure), Éditions Plon, 1961
  • La vie de Mahomet (translated from the Romanian by Livia Lamoure), Éditions Plon, 1963. Éditions du Rocher, 1999, ISBN 2268032752
  • Les immortels d'Agapia, 1964. Éditions Gallimard, 1998 ISBN 2070402878. The immortals of the mountain (translated from the French by Milton Stansbury), Regnery Publishing, Chicago, 1969
  • La jeunesse du docteur Luther (translated from the Romanian by Livia Lamoure), Éditions Plon, 1965
  • De la vingt-cinquième heure à l'heure éternelle, Éditions Plon, 1965. Éditions du Rocher, 1990, ISBN 2268010384
  • Le meurtre de Kyralessa, 1966. The Death of Kyralessa (translated from the French by Marika Mihalyi), Regnery Publishing, Chicago, 1968, ISBN 0837179912
  • La tunique de peau, Éditions Plon, 1967
  • La condottiera, Rombaldi, Collection Le Club de la Femme, 1969
  • Pourquoi m'a-t-on appelé Virgil?, Éditions Plon, 1968
  • La vie du patriarche Athénagoras, Éditions Plon, 1969
  • L'espionne, Éditions Plon, 1973. Éditions du Rocher, 1990, ISBN 2268009858
  • Dieu ne reçoit que le dimanche, Éditions Plon, 1975
  • Les inconnus de Heidelberg, Éditions Plon, 1977, ISBN 2259001955
  • Le grand exterminateur, Éditions Plon, 1978, ISBN 2259003230
  • Les amazones du Danube, Éditions Plon, 1978, ISBN 2259004024
  • Dieu a Paris, Éditions Plon, 1980, ISBN 2259006132
  • Mémoires: Le témoin de la vingt-cinquième heure, Éditions Plon, 1986, ISBN 2259014356

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