Eugen Barbu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eugen Barbu
Born February 20, 1924(1924-02-20)
Bucharest
Died September 7, 1993 (aged 69)
Bucharest
Occupation novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, journalist
Nationality Romanian
Writing period 1955–1993
Genres historical novel, fiction
Literary movement Realism, neorealism
Influences
Influenced

Eugen Barbu (February 20, 1924 — September 7, 1993) was a Romanian modern novelist, short story writer, journalist, and correspondent member of the Romanian Academy. The latter position was vehemently criticized by those who contended that he plagiarized in his novel Incognito and for the anti-Semitic campaigns he initiated in the newspapers Săptămâna and România Mare which he founded and led.[1] He also founded, alongside his disciple Corneliu Vadim Tudor, the ultra-nationalist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and Anti-American Greater Romania Party (PRM).[2]

His most famous writings are the novels Groapa (1957) and Principele (1969).[3] Barbu's prose, in which the influence of neorealism has been noted, drew comparison to the works of Mateiu Caragiale, Tudor Arghezi, and Curzio Malaparte.[4] It was however, considered unequal by several critics, who took into measure Barbu's preference for archaisms, as well as his fluctuating narrative style.[5]

Barbu also wrote several film scripts,[6] some of which were for films starring his wife, the actress Marga Barbu (Florin Piersic's Mărgelatu series).

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life and literature

Born in Bucharest, Barbu briefly attended the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Law, and then graduated from the Faculty of Letters (1947); he subsequently worked as a journalist for the left-wing press.[7] Attending meetings of the Sburătorul society, he made his debut in 1955 (with the novella Munca de jos).[8] The following year, he published his first novel, Balonul e rotund.[9]

One of the few persons trusted with official criticism on both political and literary issues during the communist regime — under Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, and especially under Nicolae Ceauşescu),[10] —, he was noted for his early writings in praise of Soviet achievements such as the Sputnik program,[11] and his progressive move to a more nationalist tone as this became condoned (and later encouraged).[12] He was also involved in the censorship apparatus, a position which, some have argued, he used indiscriminately against his literary rivals.[13]

[edit] Official appointments

His Principele novel, set during the Phanariote era, was interpreted to be an ironic reference to Gheorghiu-Dej's rule and the labor camps of the Danube-Black Sea Canal, and was condoned by the regime during a period of relative liberalization — cut short by the July Theses of 1971.[14] At the time, he was also an editor of Luceafărul, before being dismissed following his prolonged and notorious conflicts with younger writers (while the regime was interested in ensuring the latter's confidence).[15] Barbu was an informal envoy to the United States during the late 1960s, visiting the influential exiled scholar Mircea Eliade at his home in Chicago, unsuccessfully calling for his return, and vouching for a "magnificent reception" to his home country (in order to mark the potential image coup).[16]

He was several times elected to the Great National Assembly,[17] until the plagiarism scandal prevented him from being again proposed for the office.[18] In 1977, Barbu won the Herder Prize, which permitted him to offer his protegé Tudor a scholarship year in Vienna.

[edit] Plagiarism scandal and Săptămâna

In 1979, România Literară published a special section in which it placed side by side a text from Incognito and one taken from a translated work by the Soviet writer Konstantin Paustovsky; the two sections were considered virtually identical.[19] The ensuing scandal animated the literary world, and has often been cited as a reference for similar and more recent controversies.[20] Speaking at the time, Barbu dismissed the accusations as character assassination.[21]

During the 1970s and 80s, he notably launched verbal attacks against Romanian intellectuals who had defected the country, as well as against writers who were critical of the regime[22] (the latter included Paul Goma, whom, in 1977, he called "a non-entity").[23]

Barbu's polemic articles were often obscene in tone,[24] and their message offered Ceauşescu a nationalist support which Vladimir Tismăneanu has identified as "chauvinistic".[25] By 1980, Tudor's editorials in Săptămâna drew complaints from members of the Jewish-Romanian community;[26] consequently, Barbu and Tudor came under the attention of the Securitate.[27] According to Ziua, a Securitate file of the time reveals that the two had begun questioning the détente between Romania and the United States, contradicting official policy, and theorizing that the Most favored nation status, which Romania had just received, was actually harming the country (while arguing that data to prove this had been kept hidden by a Jewish plot).[28]

Many attacks focused on Monica Lovinescu, who was broadcasting anti-communist messages on Radio Free Europe — in one instance during 1987, Barbu used his column in Săptămâna to belittle the work of Eugen Lovinescu, a major literary critic who was Monica Lovinescu's father; this drew criticism from the Romanian Communist Party (of which Barbu was a member) and alarm from the Securitate, as it went against more restrained official guidelines regarding the works of Eugen Lovinescu.[29]

[edit] Post-Revolution

After the Romanian Revolution, Barbu and Tudor emerged as ideologists of a new nationalist trend, which largely repeated themes present in previous official discourse, while casting aside references to communism.[30] Between 1992 and the time of his death, Barbu stood in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies as representative of the Greater Romania Party for Bucharest.

In early 2005, eleven years after his death, the satirical magazine Academia Caţavencu uncovered and publicized a Securitate file which seems to indicate that Barbu had sexual encounters with underage girls, provided by Tudor and paid for their services.[31] Tudor initially called on the CNSAS Commission investigating Securitate archives to explain if the find was real, and received a positive answer.[32] He later vehemently dismissed the allegations, indicating that virtually all of the girls' personal data was not found in census records, and that Anita Barton, the only one of them to have actually been found, was aged 19 at the time of her alleged meeting with Barbu.[33]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Grigurcu; Martin; Tismăneanu, p.183, 225
  2. ^ Martin
  3. ^ Călin
  4. ^ Iliescu
  5. ^ Grigurcu; Iliescu
  6. ^ Călin; Iliescu
  7. ^ Călin
  8. ^ Călin
  9. ^ Călin
  10. ^ Martin; Tismăneanu, p.183, 225
  11. ^ Grigurcu
  12. ^ Grigurcu; Martin
  13. ^ Grigurcu; Ioanid
  14. ^ Deletant, p.182
  15. ^ Grigurcu
  16. ^ Şimonca
  17. ^ Grigurcu; Teodorescu & Mihai
  18. ^ Teodorescu & Mihai
  19. ^ Groşan; Teodorescu & Mihai
  20. ^ Groşan; Teodorescu & Mihai
  21. ^ Teodorescu & Mihai
  22. ^ "File dintr-un..."; Tismăneanu, p.225
  23. ^ Ioanid
  24. ^ Tismăneanu, p.225
  25. ^ Tismăneanu, p.225
  26. ^ Savaliuc
  27. ^ Savaliuc
  28. ^ Savaliuc
  29. ^ "File dintr-un..."
  30. ^ Tismăneanu, p.249
  31. ^ Popescu
  32. ^ Popescu
  33. ^ Popescu

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Languages