The classical era
Nineteenth-century writers belong to a generation marked by the social and political transformations following the revolutions of 1848. They were therefore interested in emancipation and national unity, and created a style and original works. These writers include Nicolae Bălcescu (1819-1852), Mihail Kogălniceanu (1817-1891), Costache Negruzzi (1808-1868, specialist in historical narratives), Ion Ghica (1816-1897) and Vasile Alecsandri (1821-1890). The latter is considered the founder of Romanian poetry and drama. The second half of the 19th century was the era of the great classics of Romanian culture, thanks to authors whose thought left its mark on the society of their time. In 1863, in Iași, Titu Maiorescu founded the literary society Junimea (a name evoking youth). Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889), today considered the great national lyric poet, was a member. His early death at the age of 39 has made him a symbol of eternal youth. It is said that no one better than he was able to paint the Romanian soul, drawing inspiration from local folklore (of which he was a passionate specialist) and history. Curiously, only one of his works(Poésies) was published during his lifetime. Later, his talent would be recognized and many artists would draw inspiration from the new language created by Eminescu. Other authors, such as the prose writers Ion Creangă (1837-1889) and Ioan Slavici (1848-1925), and the playwright Ion Luca Caragiale (1852-1912), also marked this period. For example, Caragiale humorously took up the clichés of 19th-century Romanian society and the changes it was undergoing. His plays include Une lettre égarée and Une nuit orageuse. According to Ionesco, Caragiale is "the greatest of the unknown playwrights", and in 2002 he was celebrated in Romania with numerous events.
New influences
The early 20th century and the interwar period were marked by the emergence of new trends. Romania experienced a veritable cultural ferment, and Bucharest was nicknamed "Little Paris". Magazines and literary circles multiplied and competed with each other. The most popular Romanian writer abroad was Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994), born in Slatina. This inimitable master of the absurd is one of the most famous playwrights of his century. His work was especially appreciated in France, where he lived from 1936 onwards, and where some of his plays continue to be performed. These include La Cantatrice chauve, Le roi se meurt and Rhinocéros, about a man who tries to remain human in a world where all his contemporaries have become vile rhinoceroses... We owe him new dramatic techniques. His recurring themes are the impossibility of communication, solitude and the quest for meaning. He demonstrates this masterfully in his major play, La Cantatrice chauve. Later works include Jacques ou la Soumission, La Leçon and Les Chaises
A new generation of writers appeared between the wars: These included Mihail Sadoveanu (1880-1961, historical novels), Lucian Blaga (1895-1961, expressionist poetry), George Bacovia (1881-1957, poet of despair), Liviu Rebreanu (1885-1944, author of the famous Forest of the Hanged) and Camil Petrescu (1894-1957), novelist, playwright and poet, author of Procrustean Bed and The Last Night of Love, the First Night of War. Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), founder of the modern history of religions, mythologist, philosopher and novelist, who is also well known abroad, also belongs to this period.
A difficult literary creation
During the interwar period, Romanian letters were to some extent aligned with European ideas and cultural movements. The war and the Communist regime put an end to this trend. Some writers from this period continued to write after the Second World War, striving to avoid as far as possible the compromises imposed by the regime. By banning all publications critical of their policies, the rulers partially sanitized literary creation. However, some of the authors of the period enjoyed great success, loved by state critics and readers alike. These included Marin Preda (1922-1980), poet Marin Sorescu (1936-1997) and Nichita Stănescu (1933-1983).
At the same time, the Communist regime spawned a generation of opposition writers, inspired by the situation of the Romanian people. Virgil Gheorghiu (1916-1992) is one of the best known, not only in Romania but worldwide, thanks to his novel La Vingt-Cinquième Heure, translated and first published in France in 1949. The novel tells the story of a Romanian peasant whose life is turned upside down overnight when he is sent to a concentration camp because he is denounced as a Jew. What follows are escapes, torture, wanderings and a host of absurd events engendered by the totalitarian systems into which society sank on the eve of the twenty-fifth hour. Subsequently published worldwide, his novel was also made into a film by Henri Verneuil in 1967, starring Anthony Quinn as the peasant Iohann Moritz and Serge Reggiani as the son of the priest Traian Coruga, who becomes aware that the twenty-fifth hour has arrived. Like most writers during the Communist era, Virgil Gheorghiu was forced into exile. He died in Paris in 1992 and is buried in the Passy cemetery.
Novelist Petru Dumitriu (1924-2002), known in Romania and France for his books Rendez-vous au jugement dernier and L'Homme aux yeux gris, also belonged to this generation, despite a period in his literary career when he had to bow to circumstances and write for the regime. He fled Romania in 1960, to be able to write freely. Other authors of the Communist period were forced into exile. They continued to write and, since December 1989, one of the efforts of Romanian literature has been to restore to the younger generations the names and works of writers from the Romanian diaspora, banned in their home countries during the Communist dictatorship. Among them, Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade, who disappeared without ever seeing their country again, have gained international recognition. Born in 1911 in Rășinari, Cioran is Romania's most respected philosopher. Graduating from Bucharest University in 1932, he was part of the group that profoundly influenced Romanian culture between the wars. During this period, he lost his way by supporting the fascist Iron Guard. In 1937, he won a grant from the French government and moved to Paris. From 1947, banned from his homeland by the Communist regime, he wrote exclusively in French. Among his works: Précis de décomposition (1949), Exercices d'admiration (1986), Solitude et destin (posthumous, 2004). He died in 1995 and is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery. Born in 1907 in Bucharest, Mircea Eliade devoted his life to defining human nature. Fascinated by the world's ancient religions and philosophies, he left for India at the age of 21, where he studied Sanskrit, Indian philosophy and yoga at the University of Calcutta. He also spent six months in a hermitage on the Himalayan peaks. In 1933, his dissertation Yoga: essay on the origins of Indian mysticism was published. It is the only work of its kind by a non-Indian to have attracted widespread interest. Back in Romania, Eliade pursued an intense career as a writer, researcher and professor of the history of religions at the University of Bucharest. This was the period when he frequented the country's highly influential anti-Semitic circles (where the Iron Guard was on parade), a fact about which Eliade always remained discreet (unlike Cioran, for example, who acknowledged his errors). After the Second World War, Eliade, opposed to the new regime, had to leave his native country to escape Communist repression. He lived in Paris until 1956, when he was appointed Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago. He died in Chicago in 1986, without ever having seen his homeland again. His best-known works include Forêt interdite (Forbidden Forest), La Nuit bengali (adapted for the cinema by Nicolas Klotz, in 1988, with Hugh Grant in the role of young Allan), Traité d'histoire des religions (Treatise on the History of Religions), Le Mythe de l'éternel retour (The Myth of the Eternal Return), Le Roman de l'adolescent myope (The Novel of the Myopic Teenager)... In 2007, Francis Ford Coppola released the film L'Homme sans âge (The Ageless Man), shot in Romania and inspired by Eliade's short story, Youth without Youth. It tells the story of a professor whose life, shortly before the Second World War, is turned upside down by an "extraordinary change" that leads to his pursuit by the Nazis.
Contemporary Romanian literature
Many contemporary writers have experienced exile and were published abroad before being published in Romania. Many of them have chosen France as their home: Matei Vișniec, Dumitru Tsepeneag, Paul Goma... Today, publishers are beginning to translate certain works into foreign languages, and literary festivals such as the Festival des Belles Etrangères in France invite Romanian authors. Contemporary authors include : Dumitru Tsepeneag, born in Bucharest in 1937, is one of the fathers of onirism, a literary movement opposed to the socialist realism of the Communist era. Exiled to Paris, he continued to write in Romanian and French. In 1975, in Paris, he founded the literary quarterly Cahiers de l'Est, which was published until 1980. In 2003, he began publishing the review Seine et Danube. His best-known novels include Hôtel Europa and Pigeon vole.
Herta Müller, born in 1954, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. A German novelist from Romania's Banat region, she draws on her own experience during Ceaușescu's dictatorship, evoking denied freedoms, pressure and lives trampled underfoot. Her latest book translated into French is La Balançoire du souffle (2009).
As for Matei Vișniec, born in 1956, he trained as a philosopher and historian. He devoted himself to theater, but was banned by the regime and sought political asylum in France. From 1990 onwards, he wrote directly in French, and his plays enjoyed worldwide success. Prix Godot 2009 for Le mot progrès dans la bouche de ma mère sonnait terriblement faux.
Mircea Cărtărescu, also born in 1956, is a theorist, poet and novelist with a flamboyant style. Winner of a string of literary awards since 1989, he enjoyed huge success in Romania with his book Orbitor (1996). He has also published novels in French, including L'Œil en feu (2005). Today, this notoriety enables him to help authors who are just starting out. Today, he holds an important place in Romanian literature. To his credit: over thirty novels, eight of which have been translated into French.
The new generation is represented by Cecilia Ștefănescu, a novelist born in 1975 in Bucharest, whose best-selling novel Legături bolnăvicioase (2002) has been adapted for the cinema, and Adina Rosetti, born in 1979 in Brãila, whose first novel, Deadline (2010), was critically acclaimed in Romania when it was published. Most of their works have been translated into French.
