Anatol E. Baconsky
Encyclopedia
Anatol E. Baconsky also known as A. E. Bakonsky, Baconschi or Baconski, was a Romania
n modernist
poet, essayist, translator, novelist, publisher, literary and art critic. Praised for his late approach to poetry and prose, which transgresses the genres and introduces an aestheticized
, original and progressively dark perspective to Romanian literature
, he was also criticized for his early commitment to Socialist Realism
and communism
. Much of his work belongs to the field of travel literature
, recording his experiences in the Eastern Bloc
, the Far East
and Soviet Union
, and finally Central Europe
. He was also a critically acclaimed translator of foreign works, including the Mahābhārata
and poems by Jorge Semprún
, Artur Lundkvist
and others, the author of world literature anthologies
, and the editor of monograph
s on Romanian and foreign painters.
After a brief affiliation to Surrealism
in the 1940s, Baconsky was a prominent supporter of the communist regime
who joined its cultural establishment
. In the mid 1950s, he grew disillusioned with communist guidelines—this attitude was notably manifested in his activity as editor of the Cluj
-based magazine Steaua (where he reacted against the prevailing censorship
), his 1972 public reaction against the norms imposed by the Nicolae Ceauşescu
regime, and his samizdat
novel Biserica neagră ("The Dark Church"). Having spent much of final years in Austria
and West Berlin
, where he became a critic of consumerism
, Baconsky died in Bucharest
, a victim of the 1977 earthquake
.
Anatol E. Baconsky was the elder brother of Leon Baconsky, a literary historian and academic, and the father of writer and diplomat Teodor Baconschi
.
(presently Konovka, Ukraine
), he was the eldest son of Eftimie Baconsky, a Romanian Orthodox
priest, whose name he used as his patronymic
middle name
(usually marked by the initial). His brother Leon was born in 1928, around the time when the Baconsky family was spending long intervals in Drepcăuţi
, a locality on the Prut River shore. In 1936-1944, he was in Chişinău
, where he attended the Alecu Russo Gymnasium and High School, publishing his first poems in the school magazine Mugurel during 1942. During those years, Romania was engaged on the Axis
side in the war against the Soviet Union
, and Bessarabia soon became part of the Eastern Front
, before the King Michael Coup and the start of Soviet occupation
brought Nazi German
influence to an end (see Romania during World War II
). The Baconskys left the region, and Anatol attended the Lahovary High School in Râmnicu Vâlcea
(1944–1945). Eventually, the family settled in Ciomăgeşti
, Argeş County
, while Anatol took his baccalaureate
(June 1945) and briefly worked at a factory in the Transylvania
n town of Cisnădie
.
In November 1945, Baconsky moved to Cluj
. He began his studies at the Cluj University
Faculty of Law, while attending lectures in Philosophy and Aesthetics given by Lucian Blaga
and Eugeniu Sperantia. His first essay, which Baconsky considered his actual debut work, was published by the Tribuna Nouă newspaper. Beginning 1946, his work was given more exposure, and was published in local Transylvanian journals (such as the Carei-based Prietenii Artei) before being featured in the collective volume Antologia primăverii ("The Anthology of Spring"). He was at the time an adherent to Surrealism
, and a volume of his Surrealist poetry was supposed to be edited by Editura Fundaţiilor Regale, but never saw print, owing to the institution's disestablishment by the new communist authorities
. Literary historian Mircea Braga writes that, over the following years, Baconsky showed himself to be a staunch critic of Surrealism, and quotes him defining André Breton
's pupils as followers of a "rigid dogma". Literary critic and academic Diana Câmpan also that the split with Surrealism and the avant-garde
was a sign of his belief that negation could only result in value if substantiated, as well as his theory that aesthetic revolt, after manifesting itself as a disease, was degenerating into kitsch
.
Discarding Surrealism soon after, Baconsky moved to a poetic version of Socialist Realism
, partly influenced by the Soviet Proletkult
tradition (see Socialist realism in Romania
). In 1949, the year of his graduation, Baconsky was a regional delegate to the Writers' Congress in Bucharest
, a conference which led to the creation of the Romanian Writers' Union (USR). Also in 1949, he joined the writing staff of the Lupta Ardealului journal, and married Clara Popa, a student at the Cluj University Faculty of Letters. In October, his poetry was published in a bilingual almanac
co-edited by Romanian
and Hungarian writers (it was titled Împreună in Romanian
and Eggüt in Hungarian
, both words meaning "Together").
"). The new editor was by then involved in a number of disputes with other young authors, in particular those grouped around the Sibiu Literary Circle
, among them Ştefan Augustin Doinaş
and Nicolae Balotă.
It was at that stage that he began collaborating with Almanahul Literar, a newly founded magazine edited by communist poet Miron Radu Paraschivescu, which, in 1954, was renamed Steaua. Among his early assignments there was his participation on the literary jury that granted the magazine's annual prize (alongside literary men such as Paraschivescu, Emil Isac
, Dumitru Micu and Iosif Pervain). In one notable incident of 1950, the panel honored a high school student named Ion Motoarcă, without being aware that Motoarcă's communist poetry was in fact a parody
of Socialist Realist literature, authored as a prank by Baconsky's rival Doinaş. As was revealed decades later, Doinaş continued to ridicule the Steaua writers over several months, and, when he decided that the risk of repercussions was far too great, simply put an end to the prank. This he did by having Motoarcă decline all of Baconsky's suggestions with the claim that one "should not take lessons from a less gifted poet than himself." In parallel, Anatol E. Baconsky's relationship with Paraschivescu was tense: in February 1951, at a USR meeting in Bucharest, he was one of those who criticized Baconsky's new take on lyric poetry
, accusing him of "intimism".
However, in 1952, Paraschivescu left for Braşov
, and Baconsky took over as editor of Steaua, progressively changing its profile and shaping it into a literary and art magazine. Fellow poet and essayist Matei Călinescu
, who was acquainted with Baconsky and later joined the Steaua group, believes his older colleague had been "rewarded" the position by the ruling Romanian Communist Party
. In parallel, he established contacts with young authors in Bucharest, who became Steauas circle in the capital: Călinescu, Cezar Baltag
, Gabriel Dimisianu, Grigore Hagiu, Mircea Ivănescu
, Modest Morariu
, Nichita Stănescu
and Petre Stoica.
Baconsky also published poems in Viaţa Românească
magazine, including the 1951 Noapte în flăcări ("Night Ablaze"). In 1952, he was working on translating Stepan Schipachov's poem about Pavlik Morozov
, a Soviet boy who had denounced his family for opposing Soviet collectivization, and, after being killed by them, had been celebrated as a communist hero. He was in the process of publishing a series of reportages about the lives of Romanian workers, and, in 1952, stated that he intended to write poetry about life in the factories at Brad
, which he had visited. Some of his poems were published in the 1952 volume Poezie nouă în R.P.R. ("New Poetry in the P[eople's] R[epublic of] R[omania]"), together with those of Maria Banuş, Dan Deşliu, Mihu Dragomir, Eugen Frunză, Ştefan Iureş, Eugen Jebeleanu
, Veronica Porumbacu, Alexandru Toma
and twenty-four others.
, during which they were confronted with the new cultural guidelines stated by Georgy Malenkov
. A condemnation of the first- and second-generation proletkult writers, it saw Baconsky both as a critic and a target of criticism. His volume of reportage from the Bulgarian travel, Itinerar bulgar ("Bulgarian Itinerary"), saw print in 1954, together with the poetry collection Cîntece de zi şi noapte ("Songs of Day and Night", awarded the State Prize in 1955).
In 1998, literary critic Cornel Ungureanu proposed that, by that moment, Baconsky was finding his voice as a "rebellious author". According to Călinescu, the Baconsky of the late 1950s had "completely changed his orientation". Writing for Steaua in 1955, Baconsky submitted an essay reviewing and promoting the work of George Bacovia
, a Symbolist
and pessimist
who had been largely ignored by post-1948 critics (see Symbolist movement in Romania
).
Baconsky was again a USR delegate in June 1956, when he presented the body with the first of his reports, dealing with the state of Romanian poetry. This congress, literary critic Paul Cernat notes, coincided with a period when writers sought a "regeneration", to correspond with the relaxation brought by the death of Stalin. Also that year, he published his Două poeme ("Two Poems") book, comprising Cîntecul verii acesteia ("This Summer's Song") and Lucrări şi anotimpuri sau Mişcarea de revoluţie ("Labors and Seasons or The Orbital Revolution"). In autumn, he left for the Soviet Union and the Far East
, visiting North Korea
, the People's Republic of China
, and Siberia
n areas.
Beginning summer 1956, the communist regime clamped down on the cultural environment, its apprehension motivated by events in Communist Poland
, the scene of anti-communist workers' protests
, and Communist Hungary
, where an anti-Soviet revolt eventually broke out. According to historian Vladimir Tismăneanu
, Baconsky was one of the writers informed of the decision taken by communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
not to endorse liberalization
and destalinization, particularly after the events in Hungary threatened to disrupt communism throughout the Eastern Bloc
, and at a time when the regime condemned advocates of change (Miron Constantinescu
, Mihail Davidoglu, Alexandru Jar and Ion Vitner).
Anatol E. Baconsky was again present in poetry with the 1957 volume Dincolo de iarnă ("Beyond Winter"). According to Braga, it was the moment in which his poetry made decisive gains in originality, and the first stage in his renunciation of "Proletkult versification". It was followed by a collection of critical essays, Colocviu critic ("Critical Colloquy"). In October–November, Baconsky was again a traveler to the Soviet Union, reaching Moscow
, Leningrad
and the Baltic
, and the northern Black Sea
shore. Late in the year, he issued Fluxul memoriei ("The Flow of Memory"), seen by Braga as "essential in the development of his poetry."
".
Over the following decade, he focused mainly on reeding his earlier volumes of poetry, on publishing works of criticism and travel writing, and on translating works by various authors. His new home became a gathering spot for young writers who did not approve of communism's cultural guidelines, including Călinescu and other Bucharesters who had previously published their work in Steaua.
In 1960, Baconsky published his translation of early Korean poetry
(Poeţi clasici coreeni) and the reportage volume Călătorii în Europa şi Asia ("Travels in Europe and Asia"), comprising both new works and a reprint of Itinerar bulgar. The following year, he reprinted some of his poems under the title Versuri ("Verses"), and authored a similarly titled translation from the Italian
modernist
Salvatore Quasimodo
(reprinted 1968). These were followed in 1962 by his translation of The Long Voyage, a novel by Spanish
author Jorge Semprún
(published in Romania under the title Marea călătorie), and the cycle Meridiane ("Meridians"), comprising essays on 20th century literature
, and published over three years by the magazine Contemporanul
. Also in 1962, Baconsky published the poetry volume Imn către zorii de zi ("A Hymn to Daybreak"), and presented a second Writers' Union report (Situaţia poeziei universale contemporane, "The State of Contemporary Universal Poetry"). He also left on an extended tour of Moldavia
and Northern Dobruja
, spending much time in the Danube Delta
.
A year later, he published a translation of selected poems by Swedish
author Artur Lundkvist
, an anthology of his own translations from foreign writers (titled Poeţi şi poezie—"Poetry and Poets"—and featuring Baconsky's short essays as introductions for each of the authors). His work of the time also comprises the guide book
Cluj şi împrejurimile sale. Mic îndreptar turistic ("Cluj and Its Surroundings. A Concise Tourist Guide"). In 1964, having published a new collected volume of his poetry, Baconsky also completed a translation of Mahābhārata
, an ancient Indian epic
. Illustrated by Marcela Cordescu in its original print, it carried the subtitle Arderea zmeilor ("Burning of the Zmei
"). His new poetry volume, Fiul risipitor (Romanian for "The Prodigal Son
"), saw print in 1965.
's final years in power, and particularly after Nicolae Ceauşescu
's arrival at the head of the Communist Party inaugurated a period of liberalization
. The poet was elected to the Writers' Union Leadership Committee in February 1965. The same month, in this official capacity, he was allowed to travel outside the Iron Curtain
and into Western Europe
: he was in Austria
, invited by the Grazer Autorenversammlung
, and also visited France
and Italy
. Upon his return in April, he passed through Yugoslavia
, being welcomed by the Union of Yugoslav Writers. Owing to his new contacts abroad, Baconsky began publishing his work in international reviews, among them France's Cahiers de L'Herne; Austria's Literatur und Kritik
and Die Presse
; and West Germany
's Die Welt
, Akzente and Das Ensemble. Following his return, Baconsky published his essay volume Meridiane and a selection of poems translated from the American
Carl Sandburg
. His own lyrics were published in a Hungarian translation, authored by poet Sándor Kányádi
. In 1966, Die Welt published the report Baconsky sent to writers participating in the International Congress held in Austria.
In 1967, the writer completed work on his collection of old poetry and new pieces, also titled Fluxul memoriei ("The Flow of Memory"), and published his debut short story volume, Echinoxul nebunilor şi alte povestiri ("The Madmen's Equinox and Other Stories"). He revisited Italy and Austria, and, in 1968, traveled to West Germany. In his 1968 two-volume book Remember (title in the original), he republished his earlier travel writings into the East with modifications, and added an account of his western travels, headlined Fals jurnal de călătorie ("False Travel Journal"). He also hosted a weekly National Radio
program, titled Meridiane lirice ("Lyrical Meridians")—Baconsky read his introductions to works by various writers, and Romanian theater stars read fragments of their work.
In November, Anatol E. Baconsky was reelected to the Writers' Union Committee, and, in 1969, his Remember was awarded Steaua 's annual prize. He visited the Hungarian capital Budapest
, invited by the local branch of the International PEN
. Late in 1969, he published the poetry volume Cadavre în vid ("Thermoformed
Dead Bodies"), which was granted the 1970 Award by the Writers' Union. Also in 1970, his Echinoxul nebunilor was translated into German
by Austrian author Max Demeter Peyfuss, being released in Austria, West Germany and Switzerland
. The Romanian writer attended the event in Vienna
, before leaving for Paris
. The following year, he traveled to West Germany and again to Austria. Over the following three years, these visits were depicted by Baconsky in his permanent column at the journal Magazin. He also published his first volume on the art of Romania
—a monograph
dedicated to and named after painter Dimitrie Ghiaţă.
" (see July Theses
). The following year, invited to a meeting with the new President
, he joined sculptor George Apostu in publicly questioning the new guidelines.
In February 1972, he settled in West Berlin
, after the Academy of Sciences and Humanities
offered to host him for one year. He traveled outside the city: invited to Scandinavia
by the Swedish Institute
, he visited Denmark
and Sweden (crossing the Arctic Circle
during one trip); he also attended the International Writers' Congress in Austria, and made additional visits to Belgium
and the Netherlands. His volume on the art of Ion Ţuculescu
was published at home during that time.
His 1973 anthology of world poetry, Panorama poeziei universale ("The Panorama of Universal Poetry"), was noted by Hungarian
literary historian János Kohn among similar Romanian works of the period (including Ion Caraion's collection of American poetry
), as an important step in the history of Romanian translations. The book, based on the Meridiane lirice program, comprised works by 99 authors, from Endre Ady
to William Butler Yeats
. Cernat calls the volume "fundamental". All translations were done by Baconsky himself, whose effort was rewarded by the Writers' Union with its 1973 prize.
Together with other poets, he traveled again to Budapest, as part of a cultural exchange between Hungary and Romania, and, in 1974, was again on leave in Italy (invited by academics in the fields of philology
and Romanic languages), Austria, and ultimately West Berlin (where the Academy organized a gala in his honor). In 1975, he printed his last anthumous work, an album-monograph dedicated to Quattrocento
painter Sandro Botticelli
(published by Editura Meridiane). He had completed work on his only novel, Biserica neagră, whose anti-communist
undertones meant that it could not be published at home. Instead, the text circulated in samizdat
form, and was made into a series by the Munich
-based Radio Free Europe
, which broadcast clandestinely inside Romania.
In March 1977, Baconsky and his wife Clara fell victims to the 7.2 Richter scale earthquake
which devastated Bucharest. At the time, Baconsky was preparing for a new trip abroad: complying with Communist Romania's restrictions on the use of passports
, he had just asked authorities to release the document, and was carrying it on his person. His last volumes, Biserica neagră and Corabia lui Sebastian ("Sebastian's Ship"), remained unpublished.
, a style which is almost entirely absent from his published work, Baconsky embraced a style which reflected his communist
sympathies, and which is most often seen as the source of some of his poorest work. Cornel Ungureanu describes the early 1950s Baconsky as "an exponent of socialist realism" and a "passionate supporter of the communist utopia
"; his stance in respect to the authorities was described by literary historian Alex Drace-Francis as "conformist" (a word also used by Călinescu), while Paul Cernat circumscribes Baconsky to the "pure and tough Stalinism
" of the day.
His early works are seen by literary critic Sorin Tomuţa as "an unfortunate debut with conjectural lyrics". Likened by Matei Călinescu to the debut writings of the younger communist author Dan Deşliu, they became the topic of criticism from as early as the Nicolae Ceauşescu
years: Mircea Braga called them "platitudes" and "at most, documents for a certain mindset and 'artistic' practice", noting that their own author had come to reject them in later years. He also cites fellow critic Alexandru Piru, who defines Baconsky's early productions as bearing "the strong imprint of journalism".
This series included controversial stanzas about communization, the Romanian collectivization process
, and class struggle
against wealthy peasants known as chiaburi (Romanian for kulak
s). Other portions of his work were dedicated to industrialization policies, around subjects related to Brad
factories. Discussing his projects for 1952 in an interview with Contemporanul
, Baconsky explained: "I am especially interested in the matter of engineers who rose from the ranks of young workers. I want to follow [their] transformation on all levels and create the figure of a young engineer in one of my poems." One of his best-known poems of the period has to do with the chiaburi, and includes the lines:
Other such lyrics read:
Former Romanian Communist Party
activist Pavel Ţugui, whose opinions diverged from the party line
, claimed that, in effect, Baconsky was writing with subversive undertones from the time of his debut—literary chronicler Bogdan Creţu renders this opinion, but expresses doubt, calling Ţugui "dubious" and "in reality, a politruk
as sinister as all the others." Literary historian Eugen Simion also proposed that Baconsky was, in effect, parody
ing agitprop
literature of the day. Analyzing Baconsky's early political views, his biographer Crina Bud concludes that the poet was attracted into cooperation in order to make a living, and that, from the very start, he was playing a number of different and conflicting "roles".
The writer was already noted for being a man of refined tastes and for being interested by universal culture. Both Creţu and Cernat define him as "a dandy
of communism". The "dandy" trait had also been noted by Eugen Simion. Simion, who recorded his impression of Baconsky, spoke of his "romantic beauty", "sartorial elegance", and a form of "melancholy" which, he argued, recalled that displayed by 19th century author Gérard de Nerval
. Historian Vladimir Tismăneanu
sees Anatol E. Baconsky as one of the few genuine left-wing intellectuals who remained associated with the regime throughout the 1950s (in his definition, the group also comprised Geo Bogza
, Ovid Crohmălniceanu, Geo Dumitrescu, Petru Dumitriu, Paul Georgescu
, Gheorghe Haupt, Eugen Jebeleanu
, Mihail Petroveanu and Nicolae Tertulian).
During his period at Steaua, Baconsky encouraged young authors to express themselves and created, what both Tomuţa and Creţu define as a "literary oasis". Tismăneanu however criticizes the writer and other leftists on the cultural scene for not reacting against the post-1956 repressive mood, and argues that their inaction helped ideologists Leonte Răutu and his subordinate Mihai Beniuc
to restore Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
's control over the Writers' Union.
A particular controversy involves allegations against the young Baconsky for the way in which he treated his colleagues. Many voices in the literary community have come to suspect that he was an informant
for the Securitate
secret police, and that his reports helped in the arrest of other writers. Crina Bud proposes that, if such accounts are true, Baconsky may have used the Securitate in order to silence those who competed with him for the approval of his teacher, philosopher Lucian Blaga
. The accusations are traced by Cernat to two separate sources: Baconsky's adversaries in the Sibiu Literary Circle
and Securitate general Nicolae Pleşiţă
. During his early activities in Cluj, Baconsky is also alleged to have partaken in the marginalization of a less enthusiastic writer, Ion Dezideriu Sîrbu
, who was later to become a political prisoner
(in Sîrbu's memoirs, Baconsky is singled out as one of those who betrayed his confidence).
disavowed proletkult, criticizing its exponents for having authored a bland and distant form of literature (an accusation which Baconsky was regularly faced with from that moment on). Criticism was expressed early on by poetess Veronica Porumbacu, who reproached him having published too little "when the people is asking us to participate with all forces in the struggle." Also in 1953, Paul Georgescu
, literary columnist at Scînteia
, the main Communist Party organ, reacted against the Steaua leadership, and argued that Baconsky personally had developed "a high-flown style, designed to hide his unfamiliarity with life and lack of ideas." Georgescu also claimed that Baconsky's travel accounts had failed to show "how [Bulgarian] people live, how this country looks today [...]", and that his poems displayed various ideological mistakes. Writing for Viaţa Românească
, critic Eugen Campus endorsed earlier pronouncements and added that, although Baconsky was a "talented poet", he found his contributions showed "a tendency to repeat oneself—for all the originality it covets". Literary historian Ana Selejan notes that, upon the end of the debates, the poet found himself was "blacklisted" by the official critics.
In parallel, Baconsky criticized other writers on similar grounds. He aimed such remarks at his fellow poet Eugen Frunză, which brought him additional criticism from Georgescu and Mircea Gafiţa. Several of Baconsky's poems, in particular the 1953 Rutină ("Routine"), satirize
authors who did not seek to make their poems interesting to the general public. The latter, Selejan proposes, may be a covert reference to and ironic pastiche
of Mihai Beniuc
, one of the Socialist Realist poets most trusted by the regime. One of the stanzas reads:
Selejan also notes that Rutină, like the war poem Manifest ("Manifesto"), constitute a "dissonant note" when compared with other poems of the day, including those of Beniuc. Manifest, which may have been written in honor of the Romanian-hosted World Festival of Youth and Students
(1953), and which Selejan believes may display irony toward "poetic militantism in the present tense", compares the fate of World War II
soldiers with that of post-1945 youth, in meditative lyrics such as:
Progressively after the late 1950s, Baconsky entirely lost his confidence in communism—an attitude which culminated in his 1972 protest. His disappointment was especially known to his intimate circle. Based on this, Cernat defines the writer as an "informal anti-communist
", while Călinescu, who recalls participating in such conversations, notes: "Baconsky [displayed] an emphatic, lucid, irreconcilable anti-communism. Not even later [...] did I meet many people who had a more emphasized contempt, mixed with an intense repulsion, for the representatives of the [communist] party ideology, either within the literary world or outside it." He believes Baconsky's stance from 1958 onwards makes him the period's "only dissident", although he also notes that the poet criticized the communist system only "orally". Cornel Ungureanu, who stresses the importance of both his move to Bucharest and the numerous visits abroad, adds: "[he] was to walk down a road which most celebrity authors of the 1950s' communist east
[...] have walked down on: the one between fanatical exaltation and acute misanthropies
." According to Bogdan Creţu, 1967, when Echinoxul nebunilor was published, was the capital moment in Baconsky's non-compliance with the ideological requirements, with "more than honorable behavior" defining the second part of his career. However, Cernat speculates, the theory regarding his alleged collaboration to Securitate may offer clue that Baconsky's new stance was itself orchestrated by the Party, in an attempt to offer him credibility and permit him to sabotage the literary environment.
Baconsky allowed his intellectual opposition to communism to merge with his activities as a cultural promoter. In addition to promoting the work of George Bacovia
, Baconsky had sought to republish the works of Mateiu Caragiale
and his Decadent
novel Craii de Curtea-Veche
, but his efforts had been frustrated, and (according to Eugen Simion, their only effect was that Scînteia resumed its earlier campaign against Caragiale). In the climate of relative liberalization
coinciding with Nicolae Ceauşescu
's early years in office, his anthologies and essays helped reinstate works of literature who had been previously censored
. Ungureanu thus notes that Baconsky reintroduced the Romanian public to works of Central Europe
an authors, such as Franz Kafka
and Ingeborg Bachmann
, and argues: "He is the first one (or among the first ones) to 'reconquer' the Mitteleuropean space
for Romanian culture." Cernat portrays him as an "European humanist
with a vast and refined culture", while Creţu proposes that Baconsky and his generation colleague Ştefan Augustin Doinaş
may be Romania's "best translators of poetry". By 1970, Baconsky's younger colleague Gabriel Dimisianu notes, he had become one of the "writers and literary critics who had initially paid a toll to proletkultism, and now were silently parting with it, returning to literature, to actual criticism". This group, defined by Dimisianu as "the older allies of my generation", also includes Paraschivescu, Geo Bogza
, Ovid Crohmălniceanu, Geo Dumitrescu, Eugen Jebeleanu
, Marin Preda
, Zaharia Stancu
, as well as Baconsky's former rival Paul Georgescu.
and Symbolism
. Baconsky resisted such criticism, and, in one of his articles, openly stated that poets needed to return to a lyrical approach: "Ignoring the rich array of intimate feelings means mutilating the protagonist's personality, depicting him unilaterally, belittling the actual dimensions of his soul." Matei Călinescu argues that such a commitment to artistic purity was a sign of "what we could call the 'aesthetic resistance' to communism."
According to Badea, such experiments resulted in Baconsky's originality, "an anti-metaphor
ic offensive, built upon the confrontation between the life of lyrical characters with the destiny of ideal lives". The rejection of "decorative metaphors", Cernat notes, was a staple of Baconsky's work, and was explicitly stated in his post-1969 essays. Badea added that this Dincolo de iarnă, and the volumes which followed down to 1965, formed "the first page in a distinct chapter of our modern lyric poetry." Eugen Simion emphasized as the common trait of such poems: "a voluptuousness in things fading away, in the weariness provoked by the whispers of rain." In his definition, Baconsky had become "an aesthete of melancholy."
Baconsky's poems of the period speak of himself being "torn" by the contradictions of destiny, submitted to the command of a nature whose geography, Braga notes, is "dead", seeking to undermine his own humanity so as to become the ideal creator. Also according to Mircea Braga, "the manifesto
of [Baconsky's] onthologic unease" is his Imn către nelinişte ("Hymn to Disquiet"):
It was also at this stage that the poet began introducing references to remote or exotic locations in his works. His poems began to speak of mysterious Baltic
and Northern Europe
an landscapes, of ancient roads, medieval
settings and the desolation of history, as well as of Romania's natural sights (the Danube Delta
and the Carpathian Mountains
) and scenes from Romanian history (involving the Dacians
, the Scythes
and the Thracians
, or the Moldavian Prince Stephen the Great
). The pieces show his enduring fascination with water environments, references to which, according to Braga, he used to illustrate the "all-encompassing dynamic."
, Socialist Realism and the first change in orientation). Braga however insists that the change between the final two phases is not radical, and that they are separated by a break rather than a tear. Braga also believes that, in his depictions of melancholy and disease, Baconsky again focuses on unease and "the denial of the irreplaceable" (while letting the reader know that such a denial is "useless and inefficient"). In a 1985 essay, poet and critic Dinu Flămând discusses Cadavre în vid as "a book of suffering, unique in our literature, a tragic perception of the disinherited, a nightmare of teratologic
dreams in the new 'electronic season' ". It includes Sonet negru ("Black Sonnet
"), which Braga calls an "exceptional" sample of "feverish tensions, infinite searches [...], obscure impulses":
Mircea Braga writes that this and other late volumes, showing "a world born out of nightmares", are the product of several influences: alongside George Bacovia
's melancholic poems, they host echoes from both Expressionism
and Postmodern literature
. Flămând ranks the posthumous Corabia lui Sebastian among "the best works written in this second half of the [20th] century", and compares its "cynicism
" to the existential philosophy
of Emil Cioran
.
By that stage, Baconsky also became noted for theorizing the rejection of "consumerism
", advocating instead a return to established cultural values. According to Flămând's 1985 essay, Baconsky's rejection of "consumerism" and the West was decisive, and culminated in a virulent decision of what Baconsky is known to have called "the occidental pharaoh
". Braga also writes that, in both Cadavre în vid and Corabia lui Sebastian, Baconsky depicts his own version of a "crisis of the West" (the Abendland forming a setting of one poem), which he believed may have referenced Oswald Spengler
's similar verdict (see The Decline of the West
). Diana Câmpan noted the poems' dystopian
imagery: "The Abendland is [...] an eerie Leviathan
-like corpus, with attributes defining for humanity's decrepitude, a surrogate, anti-utopian citadel, handled in accordance with the laws of decline which grind the elites as well as the masses, the things as well their reflection". A part of the eponymous poem reads:
According to Mircea Braga, one of his last interviews shows that, while still criticized for "aestheticism", Baconsky merged his lyricism with an interest in social matters. The statement reads: "The writer is not a politician in the common and consecrated sense of the word. He does however have the role of a spiritual ferment [italics in the original]. He must not allow people to acquire cerebral obesity
. He is always dissatisfied with something or other, his position is that of a permanent antithesis
with the surrounding reality." Braga believes Baconsky's moral "rigor" to bear a "Transylvania
n sign", and to have been ultimately inspired by the philosophy of Lucian Blaga
. The related anti-capitalist
vision is questioned by Cernat. The critic indicates that, although sincere in its patriotism
, it was also "compatible" with the mixture of communism and nationalism
introduced by the Ceauşescu regime (see National communism
), and thus similar with the philosophical discourse of Constantin Noica
.
writers of the 1930s, which transcended the norms imposed by traditional travel accounts in order to express "the inadequate representational possibilities of traditional forms" and to comment on the metaphysics
of reality. Baconsky thus depicts his journey as an "interior adventure". This type of discourse, Drace-Francis contends, was a hint to his readers that the regime would not allow him to recount every detail of his journey. The book nevertheless also doubles as Baconsky's extended critique of the avant-garde of Europe, whose discourse, Diana Câmpan notes, Baconsky depicted as a form of desecration
. In Tomuţa's view, the depiction of Vienna
, with a focus on "the glorious vestiges of the past", takes the reader on a "voluptuous time travel." In the critic's definition, Baconsky's Vienna encloses a secondary reality, that is "ideal", "aestheticized", "fictional" and "bookish".
Drace-Francis also notes that the climate of relative liberalization and détente
of the 1960s not only made such journeys possible, but actually allowed writers the freedom to go beyond stereotyped depictions of capitalism
(while it remained uncertain whether Communist Romania's dialog with the West would "dominate the construction of epistemic value"). Overall, Cornel Ungureanu comments, Baconsky's accounts of his western travels are marked by "dark visions of the world." Ungureanu sees this as a sign of Baconsky's having "descended into Hell". Cernat, who extends his critique of Baconsky's anti-capitalist attitude to Remember, also argues that the author's "absolute freedom" of travel under a repressive regime indicates that his work was not perceived as a threat by the communist system.
Baconsky's prose fiction is closely linked to the themes and style of his poetry. In Braga's view, the fantasy
collection Echinoxul nebunilor is a prosaic representative of its author's early commitment to aestheticism; according to Cernat, its tone is "apocalyptic
". A characteristic of Baconsky's prose fiction is its resemblance to his poetry works, to the point where they were described by Crina Bud as "hybrid forms". In Bogdan Creţu's view, Biserica neagră, Baconsky's only novel, is written with "alexandrine
-like purity". Likewise, the Corabia lui Sebastian poems were noted for moving into the realm of prose. This transgression of limits summoned objections from prominent literary critic Nicolae Manolescu
, who reportedly believed Baconsky's work to be largely without merit.
Biserica neagră is also read as his most subversive work, described by critics as a "counter-utopia". Ungureanu sees it as a "Kafkaesque" work of absurdist
inspiration, and a further sign of the author "descending into Hell". Crina Bud links the anti-utopian quality to contemporary writings by, among others, Matei Călinescu (Viaţa şi opiniile lui Zacharias Lichter, "The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter") and Baconsky's friend Octavian Paler
(Viaţa pe un peron—"Life on a Platform"; Un om norocos—"A Lucky Man"). Written from the perspective of a sculptor, who is probably a transposition of Baconsky himself, it is a parable
of totalitarian
command, artistic submission, individual despair and withdrawal. The volume also offers a glimpse into the world of political imprisonment under communism.
by Marin Sorescu
in his 1964 volume, Singur printre poeţi ("Alone among Poets"). Sorescu's poem, titled A. E. Baconsky. Imn către necunoscutul din mine ("Hymn to the Unknown within Me"), makes use of Baconsky's lyrical style and displays of culture, showing the poet meditating about the ancient Scythian
and Thracian
peoples. It begins with the lines:
Unusual episodes involving Baconsky's death were reported by two of his writer friends, Octavian Paler and Petre Stoica—Paler recalled that the only book to have fallen out of his shelf during the 1977 earthquake was Remember; Stoica told a similar story involving a painting that Baconsky had made, and which he had received as a gift. The writer's death, Cernat writes, was a "troubling coincidence" with that of Alexandru Ivasiuc
: a former communist who, like Baconsky, had "radicalized" his vision and authored non-conformist pieces, Ivasiuc was himself a victim of the 1977 earthquake.
In the months following Baconsky's death, his new monograph on Sandro Botticelli
, centered on the artist's illustrations for Dante Aligheri's Divine Comedy
, was published in Romanian (re-issued in English during 1982). Cartea Românească reprinted Remember (1977), then Corabia lui Sebastian (1978). Also in 1978, his profile was included in 9 pentru eternitate ("9 for Eternity"), a volume dedicated to the literary men who had died during the earthquake, and edited by Mircea Micu and Gheorghe Tomozei. Eleven years later, a selection of his art criticism essays was published under the title Itinerarii plastice ("Artistic Itineraries"). Biserica neagră was only printed after the 1989 Revolution
toppled communism.
Of the several books dedicated to his life and work, Crina Bud's 2006 volume, Rolurile şi rolul lui A. E. Baconsky în cultura română ("The Roles and Role of A. E. Baconsky in Romanian Culture"), is described by reviewers as one of the most complete. Bogdan Creţu comments that views of Baconsky are traditionally divided between two "extremist" positions: "he was either castigated for his sins of youth [...] or mythicized and raised to a level that his work could not have honored." Like Crina Bud, he believes Baconsky to have been a "vanquisher from a moral point of view", adding that he earned "absolution" from the victims of communism: "the writer passed the fire ordeal
: he confessed." However, Cernat believes, Baconsky, like his fellow disillusioned communist Paler, refused to record his disappointment in writing other than allusively.
Baconsky and his wife Clara were noted art collectors. They owned representative works of Romanian art
, particularly modern
, including paintings by Dimitrie Ghiaţă, Ştefan Dimitrescu
, Iosif Iser
and Lucian Grigorescu
, as well as drawings by Constantin Jiquidi, Theodor Pallady
and Nicolae Tonitza
. Their collection also included 19th century Romanian Orthodox icons and early prints from William Hogarth
's A Rake's Progress
. In 1982, the family donated these works to the National Museum
, which set up a Baconsky Collection. 21 other works were donated to the Museum of Art Collections
, where they also form a separate fund. Many of the books owned by Baconsky were donated by his brother Leon to the Library in Călimăneşti
(which was consequently renamed the Anatol E. Baconsky Library).
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n modernist
Modernist literature
Modernist literature is sub-genre of Modernism, a predominantly European movement beginning in the early 20th century that was characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional aesthetic forms...
poet, essayist, translator, novelist, publisher, literary and art critic. Praised for his late approach to poetry and prose, which transgresses the genres and introduces an aestheticized
Aestheticism
Aestheticism was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design...
, original and progressively dark perspective to Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
, he was also criticized for his early commitment to Socialist Realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
and communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
. Much of his work belongs to the field of travel literature
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
, recording his experiences in the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
, the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
and Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and finally Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
. He was also a critically acclaimed translator of foreign works, including the Mahābhārata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
and poems by Jorge Semprún
Jorge Semprún
Jorge Semprún Maura was a Spanish writer and politician who lived in France most of his life and wrote primarily in French. From 1953 to 1962, during the era of Francisco Franco, Semprún lived clandestinely in Spain working as an organizer for the exiled Communist Party of Spain, but was expelled...
, Artur Lundkvist
Artur Lundkvist
Artur Lundkvist was a Swedish writer, poet and literary critic. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1968....
and others, the author of world literature anthologies
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
, and the editor of monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
s on Romanian and foreign painters.
After a brief affiliation to Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
in the 1940s, Baconsky was a prominent supporter of the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
who joined its cultural establishment
Socialist realism in Romania
After World War II, socialist realism on the Soviet model was imposed on the USSR's new satellites, including Romania. This was accompanied by a series of organisational and repressive moves, for instance the incarceration of numerous poets...
. In the mid 1950s, he grew disillusioned with communist guidelines—this attitude was notably manifested in his activity as editor of the Cluj
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
-based magazine Steaua (where he reacted against the prevailing censorship
Censorship in Communist Romania
Censorship in Communist Romania was widespread and virtually every published document, be it a newspaper article or a book, had to pass the censor's approval...
), his 1972 public reaction against the norms imposed by the Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
regime, and his samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
novel Biserica neagră ("The Dark Church"). Having spent much of final years in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
, where he became a critic of consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
, Baconsky died in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, a victim of the 1977 earthquake
1977 Bucharest Earthquake
The 1977 Vrancea Earthquake occurred on Friday, 4 March 1977, 21:20 local time and was felt throughout the Balkans. It had a magnitude of 7.2 with an epicenter in Vrancea at a depth of ....
.
Anatol E. Baconsky was the elder brother of Leon Baconsky, a literary historian and academic, and the father of writer and diplomat Teodor Baconschi
Teodor Baconschi
Teodor Baconschi , is a Romanian politician. He is the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania since December 2009.-Early years:Baconschi was born in Bucharest to the poet Anatol E. Baconsky and his wife Clara...
.
Early life
Born in Cofa village, northern BessarabiaBessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
(presently Konovka, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
), he was the eldest son of Eftimie Baconsky, a Romanian Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
priest, whose name he used as his patronymic
Patronymic
A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage.In many areas patronyms...
middle name
Middle name
People's names in several cultures include one or more additional names placed between the first given name and the surname. In Canada and the United States all such names are specifically referred to as middle name; in most European countries they would simply be regarded as second, third, etc....
(usually marked by the initial). His brother Leon was born in 1928, around the time when the Baconsky family was spending long intervals in Drepcăuţi
Drepcăuţi
Drepcăuţi is a commune in Briceni district, Moldova. It is composed of a single village, Drepcăuţi....
, a locality on the Prut River shore. In 1936-1944, he was in Chişinău
Chisinau
Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...
, where he attended the Alecu Russo Gymnasium and High School, publishing his first poems in the school magazine Mugurel during 1942. During those years, Romania was engaged on the Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
side in the war against the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and Bessarabia soon became part of the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, before the King Michael Coup and the start of Soviet occupation
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
brought Nazi German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
influence to an end (see Romania during World War II
Romania during World War II
Following the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the Kingdom of Romania officially adopted a position of neutrality. However, the rapidly changing situation in Europe during 1940, as well as domestic political upheaval, undermined this stance. Fascist political forces such as the Iron...
). The Baconskys left the region, and Anatol attended the Lahovary High School in Râmnicu Vâlcea
Râmnicu Vâlcea
Râmnicu Vâlcea is the capital city of Vâlcea County, Romania .-Geography and climate:Râmnicu Vâlcea is situated in the central-south area of Romania...
(1944–1945). Eventually, the family settled in Ciomăgeşti
Ciomagesti
Ciomăgeşti is a commune in Argeş County, in southern central Romania. It is composed of nine villages: Beculeşti, Bratia, Ciomăgeşti, Cungrea, Dogari, Fedeleşoiu, Giuclani, Păuneşti and Răduţeşti....
, Argeş County
Arges County
Argeș is a county of Romania, in Wallachia, with the capital city at Pitești.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 652,625 and the population density was 95/km².*Romanians – 96%*Roma , and other.-Geography:...
, while Anatol took his baccalaureate
Romanian Baccalaureate
The Bacalaureat is an exam held in Romania when one graduates high school .Unlike the French Baccalaureate, the Romanian one has a single degree...
(June 1945) and briefly worked at a factory in the Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n town of Cisnădie
Cisnadie
Cisnădie is a town in Sibiu County, Transylvania, Romania located approximately 10 km from Sibiu. As of 2002, it has a population of about 17,871...
.
In November 1945, Baconsky moved to Cluj
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
. He began his studies at the Cluj University
Babes-Bolyai University
The Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca is an university in Romania. With almost 50,000 students, the university offers 105 specialisations, of which there are 105 in Romanian, 67 in Hungarian, 17 in German, and 5 in English...
Faculty of Law, while attending lectures in Philosophy and Aesthetics given by Lucian Blaga
Lucian Blaga
-Biography:Lucian Blaga was a commanding personality of the Romanian culture of the interbellum period. He was a philosopher and writer higly acclaimed for his originality, a university professor and a diplomat. He was born on May 9, 1895 in Lancrăm, near Alba Iulia, Romania, his father being an...
and Eugeniu Sperantia. His first essay, which Baconsky considered his actual debut work, was published by the Tribuna Nouă newspaper. Beginning 1946, his work was given more exposure, and was published in local Transylvanian journals (such as the Carei-based Prietenii Artei) before being featured in the collective volume Antologia primăverii ("The Anthology of Spring"). He was at the time an adherent to Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, and a volume of his Surrealist poetry was supposed to be edited by Editura Fundaţiilor Regale, but never saw print, owing to the institution's disestablishment by the new communist authorities
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
. Literary historian Mircea Braga writes that, over the following years, Baconsky showed himself to be a staunch critic of Surrealism, and quotes him defining André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
's pupils as followers of a "rigid dogma". Literary critic and academic Diana Câmpan also that the split with Surrealism and the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
was a sign of his belief that negation could only result in value if substantiated, as well as his theory that aesthetic revolt, after manifesting itself as a disease, was degenerating into kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
.
Discarding Surrealism soon after, Baconsky moved to a poetic version of Socialist Realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
, partly influenced by the Soviet Proletkult
Proletkult
Proletkult was movement which arose in the Russian revolution and was active from 1917 to 1925 which aspired to provide the foundations for what was intended to be a truly proletarian art devoid of bourgeois influence.The name is a portmanteau of "proletarskaya kultura" , which are better-known as...
tradition (see Socialist realism in Romania
Socialist realism in Romania
After World War II, socialist realism on the Soviet model was imposed on the USSR's new satellites, including Romania. This was accompanied by a series of organisational and repressive moves, for instance the incarceration of numerous poets...
). In 1949, the year of his graduation, Baconsky was a regional delegate to the Writers' Congress in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, a conference which led to the creation of the Romanian Writers' Union (USR). Also in 1949, he joined the writing staff of the Lupta Ardealului journal, and married Clara Popa, a student at the Cluj University Faculty of Letters. In October, his poetry was published in a bilingual almanac
Almanac
An almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, and tide tables, containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar etc...
co-edited by Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
and Hungarian writers (it was titled Împreună in Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
and Eggüt in Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, both words meaning "Together").
Early years at Steaua
In 1950, Baconsky completed his first volume, Poezii ("Poems", published by the USR's Editura de stat pentru literatură şi artă). The following year, he printed another book of poetry, Copiii din Valea Arieşului ("The Children of the Arieş ValleyArieș River (Mureș)
The Arieș is a tributary of Mureș River in Transylvania, Romania.Most probably "Arieș" means "Gold River" in Dalmatian which is thought to be very similar to the Dacian language. It is concluded that the Romanian name most probably derives from the Dacian name of the river...
"). The new editor was by then involved in a number of disputes with other young authors, in particular those grouped around the Sibiu Literary Circle
Sibiu Literary Circle
The Sibiu Literary Circle was a literary group created during World War II in Sibiu to promote the modernist liberal ideas of Eugen Lovinescu....
, among them Ştefan Augustin Doinaş
Stefan Augustin Doinas
Ştefan Augustin Doinaş was a Romanian Neoclassical poet of the Communist era....
and Nicolae Balotă.
It was at that stage that he began collaborating with Almanahul Literar, a newly founded magazine edited by communist poet Miron Radu Paraschivescu, which, in 1954, was renamed Steaua. Among his early assignments there was his participation on the literary jury that granted the magazine's annual prize (alongside literary men such as Paraschivescu, Emil Isac
Emil Isac
Emil Isac was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian poet, dramatist, short story writer and critic. Noted as one of the pioneers of Symbolism and modernist literature in his native region of Transylvania, he was in tandem one of the leading young voices of the Symbolist movement in the neighboring...
, Dumitru Micu and Iosif Pervain). In one notable incident of 1950, the panel honored a high school student named Ion Motoarcă, without being aware that Motoarcă's communist poetry was in fact a parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of Socialist Realist literature, authored as a prank by Baconsky's rival Doinaş. As was revealed decades later, Doinaş continued to ridicule the Steaua writers over several months, and, when he decided that the risk of repercussions was far too great, simply put an end to the prank. This he did by having Motoarcă decline all of Baconsky's suggestions with the claim that one "should not take lessons from a less gifted poet than himself." In parallel, Anatol E. Baconsky's relationship with Paraschivescu was tense: in February 1951, at a USR meeting in Bucharest, he was one of those who criticized Baconsky's new take on lyric poetry
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
, accusing him of "intimism".
However, in 1952, Paraschivescu left for Braşov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
, and Baconsky took over as editor of Steaua, progressively changing its profile and shaping it into a literary and art magazine. Fellow poet and essayist Matei Călinescu
Matei Calinescu
Matei Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic and professor of comparative literature at Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana....
, who was acquainted with Baconsky and later joined the Steaua group, believes his older colleague had been "rewarded" the position by the ruling Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
. In parallel, he established contacts with young authors in Bucharest, who became Steauas circle in the capital: Călinescu, Cezar Baltag
Cezar Baltag
Cezar Baltag was a Romanian poet.-Selected works:*Vis planetar ,*Răsfrângeri ,*Monada ,*,,Aerul din preajma ta e nemişcat,*nemişcată marea dincolo de umerii tăcuţi....
, Gabriel Dimisianu, Grigore Hagiu, Mircea Ivănescu
Mircea Ivanescu
Mircea Ivanescu was an Romanian poet, writer and translator, forerunner of Romanian postmodernism, notably for the '80s generation. His translations from universal literature into Romanian include James Joyce, Franz Kafka, F...
, Modest Morariu
Modest Morariu
Modest Morariu was a poet, essayist, prose writer and translator from Romania. Former director of the Meridiane publishing house...
, Nichita Stănescu
Nichita Stanescu
Nichita Stănescu was a Romanian poet and essayist. He is the most acclaimed contemporary Romanian language poet, loved by the public and generally held in esteem by literary critics.-Biography:...
and Petre Stoica.
Baconsky also published poems in Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
magazine, including the 1951 Noapte în flăcări ("Night Ablaze"). In 1952, he was working on translating Stepan Schipachov's poem about Pavlik Morozov
Pavlik Morozov
Pavel Trofimovich Morozov , better known by the diminutive Pavlik, was a Soviet youth praised by the Soviet press as a martyr. His story, dated to 1932, is that of a 13-year old boy who denounced his father to the authorities and was in turn killed by his family. His story was a subject of reading,...
, a Soviet boy who had denounced his family for opposing Soviet collectivization, and, after being killed by them, had been celebrated as a communist hero. He was in the process of publishing a series of reportages about the lives of Romanian workers, and, in 1952, stated that he intended to write poetry about life in the factories at Brad
Brad, Hunedoara
Brad is a city in Hunedoara County in Romania. Its name comes from the Romanian word brad, "fir".*Romanians - 15,945*Hungarians - 299*Roma - 157*Germans - 53*Others - 31...
, which he had visited. Some of his poems were published in the 1952 volume Poezie nouă în R.P.R. ("New Poetry in the P[eople's] R[epublic of] R[omania]"), together with those of Maria Banuş, Dan Deşliu, Mihu Dragomir, Eugen Frunză, Ştefan Iureş, Eugen Jebeleanu
Eugen Jebeleanu
Eugen Jebeleanu , Romanian poet, was born in Câmpina, where he attended elementary school. After graduating from high school in Braşov at age 11 in 1922, he published his first poems five years later in the literary review Viaţa literară...
, Veronica Porumbacu, Alexandru Toma
Alexandru Toma
Alexandru Toma was a Romanian poet, journalist and translator, known for his communist views and his role in introducing Socialist Realism and Stalinism to Romanian literature...
and twenty-four others.
From Itinerar bulgar to Fluxul memoriei
In January 1953, the 26-year-old poet left Romania on his first trip abroad, visiting the People's Republic of Bulgaria. Back in Bucharest during March, he was present at a USR meeting indirectly provoked by the death of Soviet leader Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, during which they were confronted with the new cultural guidelines stated by Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death, he became Premier of the Soviet Union and was in 1953 briefly considered the most powerful Soviet politician before being overshadowed by Nikita...
. A condemnation of the first- and second-generation proletkult writers, it saw Baconsky both as a critic and a target of criticism. His volume of reportage from the Bulgarian travel, Itinerar bulgar ("Bulgarian Itinerary"), saw print in 1954, together with the poetry collection Cîntece de zi şi noapte ("Songs of Day and Night", awarded the State Prize in 1955).
In 1998, literary critic Cornel Ungureanu proposed that, by that moment, Baconsky was finding his voice as a "rebellious author". According to Călinescu, the Baconsky of the late 1950s had "completely changed his orientation". Writing for Steaua in 1955, Baconsky submitted an essay reviewing and promoting the work of George Bacovia
George Bacovia
George Bacovia was a Romanian symbolist poet. While he initially belonged to the local Symbolist movement, his poetry came to be seen as a precursor of Romanian Modernism and eventually established him in critical esteem alongside Tudor Arghezi, Lucian Blaga and Ion Barbu as one of the most...
, a Symbolist
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
and pessimist
Pessimism
Pessimism, from the Latin word pessimus , is a state of mind in which one perceives life negatively. Value judgments may vary dramatically between individuals, even when judgments of fact are undisputed. The most common example of this phenomenon is the "Is the glass half empty or half full?"...
who had been largely ignored by post-1948 critics (see Symbolist movement in Romania
Symbolist movement in Romania
The Symbolist movement in Romania, active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, marked the development of Romanian culture in both literature and visual arts...
).
Baconsky was again a USR delegate in June 1956, when he presented the body with the first of his reports, dealing with the state of Romanian poetry. This congress, literary critic Paul Cernat notes, coincided with a period when writers sought a "regeneration", to correspond with the relaxation brought by the death of Stalin. Also that year, he published his Două poeme ("Two Poems") book, comprising Cîntecul verii acesteia ("This Summer's Song") and Lucrări şi anotimpuri sau Mişcarea de revoluţie ("Labors and Seasons or The Orbital Revolution"). In autumn, he left for the Soviet Union and the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
, visiting North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
, the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, and Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
n areas.
Beginning summer 1956, the communist regime clamped down on the cultural environment, its apprehension motivated by events in Communist Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
, the scene of anti-communist workers' protests
Poznan 1956 protests
The Poznań 1956 protests, also known as Poznań 1956 uprising or Poznań June , were the first of several massive protests of the Polish people against the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland...
, and Communist Hungary
People's Republic of Hungary
The People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
, where an anti-Soviet revolt eventually broke out. According to historian Vladimir Tismăneanu
Vladimir Tismaneanu
Vladimir Tismăneanu is a Romanian and American political scientist, political analyst, sociologist, and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park...
, Baconsky was one of the writers informed of the decision taken by communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
not to endorse liberalization
Liberalization
In general, liberalization refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. In some contexts this process or concept is often, but not always, referred to as deregulation...
and destalinization, particularly after the events in Hungary threatened to disrupt communism throughout the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
, and at a time when the regime condemned advocates of change (Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu was a Romanian communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party , as well as a Marxist sociologist, historian, academic, and journalist...
, Mihail Davidoglu, Alexandru Jar and Ion Vitner).
Anatol E. Baconsky was again present in poetry with the 1957 volume Dincolo de iarnă ("Beyond Winter"). According to Braga, it was the moment in which his poetry made decisive gains in originality, and the first stage in his renunciation of "Proletkult versification". It was followed by a collection of critical essays, Colocviu critic ("Critical Colloquy"). In October–November, Baconsky was again a traveler to the Soviet Union, reaching Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
and the Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
, and the northern Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
shore. Late in the year, he issued Fluxul memoriei ("The Flow of Memory"), seen by Braga as "essential in the development of his poetry."
Move to Bucharest and debut in publishing
By 1958, Baconsky became a target of criticism in the literary community. The reaction, Braga noted, was "vehement", and, in January 1959, got Baconsky dismissed from his position as editor of Steaua. In October of that year, the poet left Cluj and settled in Bucharest. According to Ungureanu, the capital was "hostile" to Baconsky, and the move was the equivalent of an "internal exileInternal Exile
Internal Exile was Fish's second solo album after leaving Marillion in 1988. The album, released 28 October 1991, was inspired by the singer's past, his own personal problems and his troubled experiences with his previous record label EMI.The album's music reflects Fish's indulgence in the vast...
".
Over the following decade, he focused mainly on reeding his earlier volumes of poetry, on publishing works of criticism and travel writing, and on translating works by various authors. His new home became a gathering spot for young writers who did not approve of communism's cultural guidelines, including Călinescu and other Bucharesters who had previously published their work in Steaua.
In 1960, Baconsky published his translation of early Korean poetry
Korean poetry
Korean poetry is poetry performed or written in the Korean language or by Korean people. Traditional Korean poetry is often sung in performance. Until the 20th century, much of Korean poetry was written in Hanja and later Hangul.- History :...
(Poeţi clasici coreeni) and the reportage volume Călătorii în Europa şi Asia ("Travels in Europe and Asia"), comprising both new works and a reprint of Itinerar bulgar. The following year, he reprinted some of his poems under the title Versuri ("Verses"), and authored a similarly titled translation from the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
modernist
Modernist literature
Modernist literature is sub-genre of Modernism, a predominantly European movement beginning in the early 20th century that was characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional aesthetic forms...
Salvatore Quasimodo
Salvatore Quasimodo
Salvatore Quasimodo was an Italian author and poet. In 1959 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times". Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets...
(reprinted 1968). These were followed in 1962 by his translation of The Long Voyage, a novel by Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
author Jorge Semprún
Jorge Semprún
Jorge Semprún Maura was a Spanish writer and politician who lived in France most of his life and wrote primarily in French. From 1953 to 1962, during the era of Francisco Franco, Semprún lived clandestinely in Spain working as an organizer for the exiled Communist Party of Spain, but was expelled...
(published in Romania under the title Marea călătorie), and the cycle Meridiane ("Meridians"), comprising essays on 20th century literature
20th century in literature
See also: 20th century in poetry, 19th century in literature, other events of the 20th century, 21st century in literature, list of years in literature.Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century...
, and published over three years by the magazine Contemporanul
Contemporanul
Contemporanul is a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania from 1881 to 1891 being sponsored by the socialist circle of the city....
. Also in 1962, Baconsky published the poetry volume Imn către zorii de zi ("A Hymn to Daybreak"), and presented a second Writers' Union report (Situaţia poeziei universale contemporane, "The State of Contemporary Universal Poetry"). He also left on an extended tour of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
and Northern Dobruja
Northern Dobruja
Northern Dobruja is the part of Dobruja within the borders of Romania. It lies between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, bordered in south by Bulgarian Southern Dobruja.-Geography:...
, spending much time in the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...
.
A year later, he published a translation of selected poems by Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
author Artur Lundkvist
Artur Lundkvist
Artur Lundkvist was a Swedish writer, poet and literary critic. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1968....
, an anthology of his own translations from foreign writers (titled Poeţi şi poezie—"Poetry and Poets"—and featuring Baconsky's short essays as introductions for each of the authors). His work of the time also comprises the guide book
Guide book
A guide book is a book for tourists or travelers that provides details about a geographic location, tourist destination, or itinerary. It is the written equivalent of a tour guide...
Cluj şi împrejurimile sale. Mic îndreptar turistic ("Cluj and Its Surroundings. A Concise Tourist Guide"). In 1964, having published a new collected volume of his poetry, Baconsky also completed a translation of Mahābhārata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
, an ancient Indian epic
Indian epic poetry
Indian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent, traditionally called Kavya . The Ramayana and Mahabharata, originally composed in Sanskrit and translated thereafter into many other Indian languages, are some of the oldest surviving epic poems on earth and form part of...
. Illustrated by Marcela Cordescu in its original print, it carried the subtitle Arderea zmeilor ("Burning of the Zmei
Zmeu
The Zmeu is a fantastic creature of Romanian folklore and Romanian mythology. Sometimes compared to other fantastic creatures, such as the balaur or the vârcolac, the zmeu is nevertheless distinct, because it usually has clear anthropomorphic traits: it is humanoid and has legs, arms, the ability...
"). His new poetry volume, Fiul risipitor (Romanian for "The Prodigal Son
Parable of the Prodigal Son
The Prodigal Son, also known as the Lost Son and the Prodigal Father, is one of the parables of Jesus. It appears in only one of the Canonical gospels of the New Testament. According to the Gospel of Luke a father extravagantly gives his sons their inheritance before he dies...
"), saw print in 1965.
Early Ceauşescu years
Baconsky's situation improved during Gheorghe Gheorghiu-DejGheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
's final years in power, and particularly after Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
's arrival at the head of the Communist Party inaugurated a period of liberalization
Liberalization
In general, liberalization refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. In some contexts this process or concept is often, but not always, referred to as deregulation...
. The poet was elected to the Writers' Union Leadership Committee in February 1965. The same month, in this official capacity, he was allowed to travel outside the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
and into Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
: he was in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, invited by the Grazer Autorenversammlung
Grazer Autorenversammlung
The Grazer Autorinnen Autorenversammlung was founded under the name of Grazer Autorenversammlung in March 1973 and is one of the two major Austrian writers' association . H. C. Artmann was its first president...
, and also visited France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. Upon his return in April, he passed through Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
, being welcomed by the Union of Yugoslav Writers. Owing to his new contacts abroad, Baconsky began publishing his work in international reviews, among them France's Cahiers de L'Herne; Austria's Literatur und Kritik
Literatur und Kritik
The Austrian literary magazine Literatur und Kritik was founded in April 1966 by the Austrian writers Rudolf Henz, Gerhard Fritsch, and Paul Kruntorad as successor of the literary publication Wort in der Zeit, which had existed since 1955.-Profile:Compared to its predecessor, Literatur und Kritik...
and Die Presse
Die Presse
Die Presse is an Austrian daily newspaper based in Vienna. It was founded in 1946 by World War II resistance fighter Ernst Molden and stands in tradition of the Viennese newspapers "Die Presse" and "Neue Freie Presse" . The paper covers general news topics...
; and West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
's Die Welt
Die Welt
Die Welt is a German national daily newspaper published by the Axel Springer AG company.It was founded in Hamburg in 1946 by the British occupying forces, aiming to provide a "quality newspaper" modelled on The Times...
, Akzente and Das Ensemble. Following his return, Baconsky published his essay volume Meridiane and a selection of poems translated from the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
. His own lyrics were published in a Hungarian translation, authored by poet Sándor Kányádi
Sándor Kányádi
Sándor Kányádi is an ethnic Hungarian poet and translator from the geographical region Transylvania, Romania. He is one of the most famous contemporary Hungarian-language poets.-Biography:...
. In 1966, Die Welt published the report Baconsky sent to writers participating in the International Congress held in Austria.
In 1967, the writer completed work on his collection of old poetry and new pieces, also titled Fluxul memoriei ("The Flow of Memory"), and published his debut short story volume, Echinoxul nebunilor şi alte povestiri ("The Madmen's Equinox and Other Stories"). He revisited Italy and Austria, and, in 1968, traveled to West Germany. In his 1968 two-volume book Remember (title in the original), he republished his earlier travel writings into the East with modifications, and added an account of his western travels, headlined Fals jurnal de călătorie ("False Travel Journal"). He also hosted a weekly National Radio
Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company
The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company , informally referred to as Radio Romania , is the public radio broadcaster in Romania. It operates four national radio channels, and, under the Radio România Regional umbrella, eleven regional radio stations. The four national radio channels are: Radio...
program, titled Meridiane lirice ("Lyrical Meridians")—Baconsky read his introductions to works by various writers, and Romanian theater stars read fragments of their work.
In November, Anatol E. Baconsky was reelected to the Writers' Union Committee, and, in 1969, his Remember was awarded Steaua 's annual prize. He visited the Hungarian capital Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, invited by the local branch of the International PEN
International PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
. Late in 1969, he published the poetry volume Cadavre în vid ("Thermoformed
Thermoforming
Thermoforming is a manufacturing process where a plastic sheet is heated to a pliable forming temperature, formed to a specific shape in a mold, and trimmed to create a usable product...
Dead Bodies"), which was granted the 1970 Award by the Writers' Union. Also in 1970, his Echinoxul nebunilor was translated into German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
by Austrian author Max Demeter Peyfuss, being released in Austria, West Germany and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. The Romanian writer attended the event in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, before leaving for Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The following year, he traveled to West Germany and again to Austria. Over the following three years, these visits were depicted by Baconsky in his permanent column at the journal Magazin. He also published his first volume on the art of Romania
Art of Romania
Art of Romania encompasses the artists and artistic movements in Romania.-Romanian contemporary and modern artists:* Almaşan Virgil* Adela Andea* George Apostu* Corneliu Baba* Calin Baban* Sabin Bălaşa* Horia Bernea* Traian Brădean...
—a monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
dedicated to and named after painter Dimitrie Ghiaţă.
Final years
By 1971, Baconsky was outraged by the Ceauşescu regime having curbed ideological relaxation and proclaimed a Romanian "cultural revolutionCultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
" (see July Theses
July Theses
The July Theses is a name commonly given to a speech delivered by Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu on July 6, 1971, before the Executive Committee of the Romanian Communist Party...
). The following year, invited to a meeting with the new President
President of Romania
The President of Romania is the head of state of Romania. The President is directly elected by a two-round system for a five-year term . An individual may serve two terms...
, he joined sculptor George Apostu in publicly questioning the new guidelines.
In February 1972, he settled in West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
, after the Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
The Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften is the academy of sciences of the German states Berlin and Brandenburg. As the word "Wissenschaft", in German includes both the natural sciences and the humanities, the academy's title is best translated as Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of...
offered to host him for one year. He traveled outside the city: invited to Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
by the Swedish Institute
Swedish Institute
The Swedish Institute is a Swedish government agency with the responsibility to spread information about Sweden outside of Sweden. It exists to promote Swedish interests, and to organise exchanges with other countries in different areas of public life, in particular in the spheres of culture,...
, he visited Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
and Sweden (crossing the Arctic Circle
Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
during one trip); he also attended the International Writers' Congress in Austria, and made additional visits to Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and the Netherlands. His volume on the art of Ion Ţuculescu
Ion Tuculescu
Ion Ţuculescu was a Romanian expressionist and abstract oil painter, although professionally he worked as a biologist and physician. His artwork became well-known posthumously, when, in the spring of 1965, a major retrospective exhibition revealed him as one of the important post-World War II...
was published at home during that time.
His 1973 anthology of world poetry, Panorama poeziei universale ("The Panorama of Universal Poetry"), was noted by Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
literary historian János Kohn among similar Romanian works of the period (including Ion Caraion's collection of American poetry
Poetry of the United States
American poetry, the poetry of the United States, arose first as efforts by colonists to add their voices to English poetry in the 17th century, well before the constitutional unification of the thirteen colonies...
), as an important step in the history of Romanian translations. The book, based on the Meridiane lirice program, comprised works by 99 authors, from Endre Ady
Endre Ady
Endre Ady was a Hungarian poet.-Biography:Ady was born in Érmindszent, Szilágy county . He belonged to an impoverished Calvinist noble family...
to William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
. Cernat calls the volume "fundamental". All translations were done by Baconsky himself, whose effort was rewarded by the Writers' Union with its 1973 prize.
Together with other poets, he traveled again to Budapest, as part of a cultural exchange between Hungary and Romania, and, in 1974, was again on leave in Italy (invited by academics in the fields of philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
and Romanic languages), Austria, and ultimately West Berlin (where the Academy organized a gala in his honor). In 1975, he printed his last anthumous work, an album-monograph dedicated to Quattrocento
Quattrocento
The cultural and artistic events of 15th century Italy are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento...
painter Sandro Botticelli
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance...
(published by Editura Meridiane). He had completed work on his only novel, Biserica neagră, whose anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
undertones meant that it could not be published at home. Instead, the text circulated in samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
form, and was made into a series by the Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
-based Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
, which broadcast clandestinely inside Romania.
In March 1977, Baconsky and his wife Clara fell victims to the 7.2 Richter scale earthquake
1977 Bucharest Earthquake
The 1977 Vrancea Earthquake occurred on Friday, 4 March 1977, 21:20 local time and was felt throughout the Balkans. It had a magnitude of 7.2 with an epicenter in Vrancea at a depth of ....
which devastated Bucharest. At the time, Baconsky was preparing for a new trip abroad: complying with Communist Romania's restrictions on the use of passports
Romanian passport
The Romanian Passport gives its bearer the right to exit and enter the country through any of the border passing points, opened to the international traveler traffic. Outside Romania, the passport gives the bearer the right to assistance and protection provided by the diplomatic missions and...
, he had just asked authorities to release the document, and was carrying it on his person. His last volumes, Biserica neagră and Corabia lui Sebastian ("Sebastian's Ship"), remained unpublished.
Communism and Socialist Realism
After his short affiliation to SurrealismSurrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, a style which is almost entirely absent from his published work, Baconsky embraced a style which reflected his communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
sympathies, and which is most often seen as the source of some of his poorest work. Cornel Ungureanu describes the early 1950s Baconsky as "an exponent of socialist realism" and a "passionate supporter of the communist utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
"; his stance in respect to the authorities was described by literary historian Alex Drace-Francis as "conformist" (a word also used by Călinescu), while Paul Cernat circumscribes Baconsky to the "pure and tough Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
" of the day.
His early works are seen by literary critic Sorin Tomuţa as "an unfortunate debut with conjectural lyrics". Likened by Matei Călinescu to the debut writings of the younger communist author Dan Deşliu, they became the topic of criticism from as early as the Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
years: Mircea Braga called them "platitudes" and "at most, documents for a certain mindset and 'artistic' practice", noting that their own author had come to reject them in later years. He also cites fellow critic Alexandru Piru, who defines Baconsky's early productions as bearing "the strong imprint of journalism".
This series included controversial stanzas about communization, the Romanian collectivization process
Collectivization in Romania
The collectivization of agriculture in Romania took place in the early years of the Communist regime. The initiative sought to bring about a thorough transformation in the property regime and organisation of labour in agriculture...
, and class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
against wealthy peasants known as chiaburi (Romanian for kulak
Kulak
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union...
s). Other portions of his work were dedicated to industrialization policies, around subjects related to Brad
Brad, Hunedoara
Brad is a city in Hunedoara County in Romania. Its name comes from the Romanian word brad, "fir".*Romanians - 15,945*Hungarians - 299*Roma - 157*Germans - 53*Others - 31...
factories. Discussing his projects for 1952 in an interview with Contemporanul
Contemporanul
Contemporanul is a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania from 1881 to 1891 being sponsored by the socialist circle of the city....
, Baconsky explained: "I am especially interested in the matter of engineers who rose from the ranks of young workers. I want to follow [their] transformation on all levels and create the figure of a young engineer in one of my poems." One of his best-known poems of the period has to do with the chiaburi, and includes the lines:
Trece-o noapte şi mai trece-o zi, Se ascute lupta între clase, Iar chiaburii se arat-a a fi Elemente tot mai duşmănoase. |
A night passes, another day passes, The fight between classes is enhanced, And the chiaburi have shown themselves to be More and more vicious elements. |
Other such lyrics read:
Astea le vedem noi — dar chiaburii Văd în faţă negre văgăuni Şi în ochii lor văpaia urii Răscoleşte blestemaţii tăciuni. |
These are what we see—but the chiaburi See in front on them black precipices And in their eyes the glow of hatred Is stirring the cursed embers. |
Former Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
activist Pavel Ţugui, whose opinions diverged from the party line
Party line (politics)
In politics, the line or the party line is an idiom for a political party or social movement's canon agenda, as well as specific ideological elements specific to the organization's partisanship. The common phrase toeing the party line describes a person who speaks in a manner that conforms to his...
, claimed that, in effect, Baconsky was writing with subversive undertones from the time of his debut—literary chronicler Bogdan Creţu renders this opinion, but expresses doubt, calling Ţugui "dubious" and "in reality, a politruk
Political commissar
The political commissar is the supervisory political officer responsible for the political education and organisation, and loyalty to the government of the military...
as sinister as all the others." Literary historian Eugen Simion also proposed that Baconsky was, in effect, parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
ing agitprop
Agitprop
Agitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
literature of the day. Analyzing Baconsky's early political views, his biographer Crina Bud concludes that the poet was attracted into cooperation in order to make a living, and that, from the very start, he was playing a number of different and conflicting "roles".
The writer was already noted for being a man of refined tastes and for being interested by universal culture. Both Creţu and Cernat define him as "a dandy
Dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self...
of communism". The "dandy" trait had also been noted by Eugen Simion. Simion, who recorded his impression of Baconsky, spoke of his "romantic beauty", "sartorial elegance", and a form of "melancholy" which, he argued, recalled that displayed by 19th century author Gérard de Nerval
Gérard de Nerval
Gérard de Nerval was the nom-de-plume of the French poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie, one of the most essentially Romantic French poets.- Biography :...
. Historian Vladimir Tismăneanu
Vladimir Tismaneanu
Vladimir Tismăneanu is a Romanian and American political scientist, political analyst, sociologist, and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park...
sees Anatol E. Baconsky as one of the few genuine left-wing intellectuals who remained associated with the regime throughout the 1950s (in his definition, the group also comprised Geo Bogza
Geo Bogza
Geo Bogza was a Romanian avant-garde theorist, poet, and journalist, known for his left-wing and communist political convictions. As a young man in the interwar period, he was known as a rebel and was one of the most influential Romanian Surrealists...
, Ovid Crohmălniceanu, Geo Dumitrescu, Petru Dumitriu, Paul Georgescu
Paul Georgescu
Paul Georgescu was a Romanian literary critic, journalist, fiction writer and communist political figure. Remembered as both a main participant in the imposition of Socialist Realism in its Romanian form and a patron of dissenting modernist and postmodern literature, he began his career in...
, Gheorghe Haupt, Eugen Jebeleanu
Eugen Jebeleanu
Eugen Jebeleanu , Romanian poet, was born in Câmpina, where he attended elementary school. After graduating from high school in Braşov at age 11 in 1922, he published his first poems five years later in the literary review Viaţa literară...
, Mihail Petroveanu and Nicolae Tertulian).
During his period at Steaua, Baconsky encouraged young authors to express themselves and created, what both Tomuţa and Creţu define as a "literary oasis". Tismăneanu however criticizes the writer and other leftists on the cultural scene for not reacting against the post-1956 repressive mood, and argues that their inaction helped ideologists Leonte Răutu and his subordinate Mihai Beniuc
Mihai Beniuc
Mihai Beniuc was a Romanian proletcultist poet, dramatist and novelist. He graduated from the University of Cluj in 1931 majoring in psychology, philosophy and sociology. This was reflected in his writing, particularly the novels...
to restore Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
's control over the Writers' Union.
A particular controversy involves allegations against the young Baconsky for the way in which he treated his colleagues. Many voices in the literary community have come to suspect that he was an informant
Informant
An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
for the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
secret police, and that his reports helped in the arrest of other writers. Crina Bud proposes that, if such accounts are true, Baconsky may have used the Securitate in order to silence those who competed with him for the approval of his teacher, philosopher Lucian Blaga
Lucian Blaga
-Biography:Lucian Blaga was a commanding personality of the Romanian culture of the interbellum period. He was a philosopher and writer higly acclaimed for his originality, a university professor and a diplomat. He was born on May 9, 1895 in Lancrăm, near Alba Iulia, Romania, his father being an...
. The accusations are traced by Cernat to two separate sources: Baconsky's adversaries in the Sibiu Literary Circle
Sibiu Literary Circle
The Sibiu Literary Circle was a literary group created during World War II in Sibiu to promote the modernist liberal ideas of Eugen Lovinescu....
and Securitate general Nicolae Pleşiţă
Nicolae Pleşiţă
Nicolae Pleşiţă was a Romanian intelligence official and secret police investigator. From 1980 to 1984, he led the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Securitate, the secret service of Communist Romania...
. During his early activities in Cluj, Baconsky is also alleged to have partaken in the marginalization of a less enthusiastic writer, Ion Dezideriu Sîrbu
Ion Dezideriu Sîrbu
Ion Dezideriu Sîrbu was a Romanian philosopher, novelist, essayist and dramatist. A university associate professor and theater critic, he was a vicitm of the communist regime, spending about 6 years as a political prisoner...
, who was later to become a political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
(in Sîrbu's memoirs, Baconsky is singled out as one of those who betrayed his confidence).
Break with communism
Despite initially complying with ideological requirements, Baconsky was often subject to criticism in the official press. This occurred frequently after 1953, when Soviet politico Georgy MalenkovGeorgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death, he became Premier of the Soviet Union and was in 1953 briefly considered the most powerful Soviet politician before being overshadowed by Nikita...
disavowed proletkult, criticizing its exponents for having authored a bland and distant form of literature (an accusation which Baconsky was regularly faced with from that moment on). Criticism was expressed early on by poetess Veronica Porumbacu, who reproached him having published too little "when the people is asking us to participate with all forces in the struggle." Also in 1953, Paul Georgescu
Paul Georgescu
Paul Georgescu was a Romanian literary critic, journalist, fiction writer and communist political figure. Remembered as both a main participant in the imposition of Socialist Realism in its Romanian form and a patron of dissenting modernist and postmodern literature, he began his career in...
, literary columnist at Scînteia
Scînteia
Scînteia was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history...
, the main Communist Party organ, reacted against the Steaua leadership, and argued that Baconsky personally had developed "a high-flown style, designed to hide his unfamiliarity with life and lack of ideas." Georgescu also claimed that Baconsky's travel accounts had failed to show "how [Bulgarian] people live, how this country looks today [...]", and that his poems displayed various ideological mistakes. Writing for Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
, critic Eugen Campus endorsed earlier pronouncements and added that, although Baconsky was a "talented poet", he found his contributions showed "a tendency to repeat oneself—for all the originality it covets". Literary historian Ana Selejan notes that, upon the end of the debates, the poet found himself was "blacklisted" by the official critics.
In parallel, Baconsky criticized other writers on similar grounds. He aimed such remarks at his fellow poet Eugen Frunză, which brought him additional criticism from Georgescu and Mircea Gafiţa. Several of Baconsky's poems, in particular the 1953 Rutină ("Routine"), satirize
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
authors who did not seek to make their poems interesting to the general public. The latter, Selejan proposes, may be a covert reference to and ironic pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
of Mihai Beniuc
Mihai Beniuc
Mihai Beniuc was a Romanian proletcultist poet, dramatist and novelist. He graduated from the University of Cluj in 1931 majoring in psychology, philosophy and sociology. This was reflected in his writing, particularly the novels...
, one of the Socialist Realist poets most trusted by the regime. One of the stanzas reads:
Dimineaţă. Lumea-n drum spre muncă Te-a citit ivit pe undeva, Nimeni nu te cheltuie, te-aruncă, Putrezit de viu în lumea ta. |
Morning. People on their way to work Have read you as you crept up somewhere, Nobody employs you, they throw you away, Rotting alive as you are in your world. |
Selejan also notes that Rutină, like the war poem Manifest ("Manifesto"), constitute a "dissonant note" when compared with other poems of the day, including those of Beniuc. Manifest, which may have been written in honor of the Romanian-hosted World Festival of Youth and Students
World Festival of Youth and Students
The World Festival of Youth and Students is an international event, organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth , a left-wing youth organization, jointly with the International Union of Students since 1947....
(1953), and which Selejan believes may display irony toward "poetic militantism in the present tense", compares the fate of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
soldiers with that of post-1945 youth, in meditative lyrics such as:
Dragi prieteni nu vă amăgesc, Nu vă spun că morţii din războaie Trec în stele ca-ntr-un basm ceresc Şi privesc cu ochii la văpaie. |
Dear friends I will not deceive you, I won't tell you that the casualties of war Pass towards the stars like in some heavenly tale And rest their eyes upon the flame. |
Progressively after the late 1950s, Baconsky entirely lost his confidence in communism—an attitude which culminated in his 1972 protest. His disappointment was especially known to his intimate circle. Based on this, Cernat defines the writer as an "informal anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
", while Călinescu, who recalls participating in such conversations, notes: "Baconsky [displayed] an emphatic, lucid, irreconcilable anti-communism. Not even later [...] did I meet many people who had a more emphasized contempt, mixed with an intense repulsion, for the representatives of the [communist] party ideology, either within the literary world or outside it." He believes Baconsky's stance from 1958 onwards makes him the period's "only dissident", although he also notes that the poet criticized the communist system only "orally". Cornel Ungureanu, who stresses the importance of both his move to Bucharest and the numerous visits abroad, adds: "[he] was to walk down a road which most celebrity authors of the 1950s' communist east
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
[...] have walked down on: the one between fanatical exaltation and acute misanthropies
Misanthropy
Misanthropy is generalized dislike, distrust, disgust, contempt or hatred of the human species or human nature. A misanthrope, or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings...
." According to Bogdan Creţu, 1967, when Echinoxul nebunilor was published, was the capital moment in Baconsky's non-compliance with the ideological requirements, with "more than honorable behavior" defining the second part of his career. However, Cernat speculates, the theory regarding his alleged collaboration to Securitate may offer clue that Baconsky's new stance was itself orchestrated by the Party, in an attempt to offer him credibility and permit him to sabotage the literary environment.
Baconsky allowed his intellectual opposition to communism to merge with his activities as a cultural promoter. In addition to promoting the work of George Bacovia
George Bacovia
George Bacovia was a Romanian symbolist poet. While he initially belonged to the local Symbolist movement, his poetry came to be seen as a precursor of Romanian Modernism and eventually established him in critical esteem alongside Tudor Arghezi, Lucian Blaga and Ion Barbu as one of the most...
, Baconsky had sought to republish the works of Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Ion Caragiale was a Romanian poet and prose writer, best known for his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, which portrays the milieu of boyar descendants before and after World War I. Caragiale's style, associated with Symbolism, the Decadent movement of the fin de siècle, and early modernism, was...
and his Decadent
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
novel Craii de Curtea-Veche
Craii de Curtea-Veche
Craii de Curtea-Veche is a novel by the inter-war Romanian author Mateiu Caragiale...
, but his efforts had been frustrated, and (according to Eugen Simion, their only effect was that Scînteia resumed its earlier campaign against Caragiale). In the climate of relative liberalization
Liberalization
In general, liberalization refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. In some contexts this process or concept is often, but not always, referred to as deregulation...
coinciding with Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
's early years in office, his anthologies and essays helped reinstate works of literature who had been previously censored
Censorship in Communist Romania
Censorship in Communist Romania was widespread and virtually every published document, be it a newspaper article or a book, had to pass the censor's approval...
. Ungureanu thus notes that Baconsky reintroduced the Romanian public to works of Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
an authors, such as Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
and Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann was an Austrian poet and author.-Biography:Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of a headmaster. She studied philosophy, psychology, German philology, and law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna...
, and argues: "He is the first one (or among the first ones) to 'reconquer' the Mitteleuropean space
Mitteleuropa
Mitteleuropa is the German term equal to Central Europe. The word has political, geographic and cultural meaning. While it describes a geographical location, it also is the word denoting a political concept of a German-dominated and exploited Central European union that was put into motion during...
for Romanian culture." Cernat portrays him as an "European humanist
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
with a vast and refined culture", while Creţu proposes that Baconsky and his generation colleague Ştefan Augustin Doinaş
Stefan Augustin Doinas
Ştefan Augustin Doinaş was a Romanian Neoclassical poet of the Communist era....
may be Romania's "best translators of poetry". By 1970, Baconsky's younger colleague Gabriel Dimisianu notes, he had become one of the "writers and literary critics who had initially paid a toll to proletkultism, and now were silently parting with it, returning to literature, to actual criticism". This group, defined by Dimisianu as "the older allies of my generation", also includes Paraschivescu, Geo Bogza
Geo Bogza
Geo Bogza was a Romanian avant-garde theorist, poet, and journalist, known for his left-wing and communist political convictions. As a young man in the interwar period, he was known as a rebel and was one of the most influential Romanian Surrealists...
, Ovid Crohmălniceanu, Geo Dumitrescu, Eugen Jebeleanu
Eugen Jebeleanu
Eugen Jebeleanu , Romanian poet, was born in Câmpina, where he attended elementary school. After graduating from high school in Braşov at age 11 in 1922, he published his first poems five years later in the literary review Viaţa literară...
, Marin Preda
Marin Preda
Marin Preda was a Romanian novelist, one of the best-known post-WWII Romanian writers.Preda was born in Teleorman county, in a village called Siliştea-Gumeşti, into a family of peasants. He first studied at school in his home village, then schools in Abrud and Cristur-Odorhei...
, Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu was a Romanian prose writer, novelist, poet, and philosopher.Stancu was born in 1902 in Salcia, a village in Teleorman County, Romania. After leaving school at the age of thirteen he worked at various jobs. In 1921, with the help of Gala Galaction, he became a journalist...
, as well as Baconsky's former rival Paul Georgescu.
Lyrical transition
Following his break with the regime, Baconsky's style underwent major changes. Tomuţa notes he became "a first-rate stylist", while Doinaş stresses his "discreet but tenacious self-edification", leading to "an ardent consciousness, albeit perhaps belatedly gained". The new direction, heralded during his time at Steaua, was however much-criticized by the 1950s cultural establishment, who accused him of "intimism" and excessive "lyricism", and argued that his work was a return to aestheticismAestheticism
Aestheticism was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design...
and Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
. Baconsky resisted such criticism, and, in one of his articles, openly stated that poets needed to return to a lyrical approach: "Ignoring the rich array of intimate feelings means mutilating the protagonist's personality, depicting him unilaterally, belittling the actual dimensions of his soul." Matei Călinescu argues that such a commitment to artistic purity was a sign of "what we could call the 'aesthetic resistance' to communism."
According to Badea, such experiments resulted in Baconsky's originality, "an anti-metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
ic offensive, built upon the confrontation between the life of lyrical characters with the destiny of ideal lives". The rejection of "decorative metaphors", Cernat notes, was a staple of Baconsky's work, and was explicitly stated in his post-1969 essays. Badea added that this Dincolo de iarnă, and the volumes which followed down to 1965, formed "the first page in a distinct chapter of our modern lyric poetry." Eugen Simion emphasized as the common trait of such poems: "a voluptuousness in things fading away, in the weariness provoked by the whispers of rain." In his definition, Baconsky had become "an aesthete of melancholy."
Baconsky's poems of the period speak of himself being "torn" by the contradictions of destiny, submitted to the command of a nature whose geography, Braga notes, is "dead", seeking to undermine his own humanity so as to become the ideal creator. Also according to Mircea Braga, "the manifesto
Manifesto
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...
of [Baconsky's] onthologic unease" is his Imn către nelinişte ("Hymn to Disquiet"):
Astfel, întotdeauna să-mi fie dor de ceva, Să aştept, să caut, să am frământări, Să regret rătăcirile singure — volutele lor Asemenea şerpilor să se-ntoarcă mereu după mine [...] |
Thus, may I always be missing something, Waiting, searching, having unrests, Regretting the lonesome wanderings—their volute Volute A volute is a spiral scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals... s Always turning after me, as if snakes [...] |
It was also at this stage that the poet began introducing references to remote or exotic locations in his works. His poems began to speak of mysterious Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
and Northern Europe
Northern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...
an landscapes, of ancient roads, medieval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
settings and the desolation of history, as well as of Romania's natural sights (the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...
and the Carpathian Mountains
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
) and scenes from Romanian history (involving the Dacians
Dacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
, the Scythes
Scythes
Scythes was tyrant or ruler of Zancle in Sicily. He was appointed to that post in about 494 BC by Hippocrates of Gela.The Zanclaeans had contacted Ionian leaders to invite colonists to join them in founding a new city on the Kale Acte , or north shore of Sicily...
and the Thracians
Thracians
The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...
, or the Moldavian Prince Stephen the Great
Stephen III of Moldavia
Stephen III of Moldavia was Prince of Moldavia between 1457 and 1504 and the most prominent representative of the House of Mușat.During his reign, he strengthened Moldavia and maintained its independence against the ambitions of Hungary, Poland, and the...
). The pieces show his enduring fascination with water environments, references to which, according to Braga, he used to illustrate the "all-encompassing dynamic."
Cadavre în vid and Corabia lui Sebastian
With the somber collection Cadavre în vid, Baconsky entered what Braga calls a "forth artistic phase" (after SurrealismSurrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, Socialist Realism and the first change in orientation). Braga however insists that the change between the final two phases is not radical, and that they are separated by a break rather than a tear. Braga also believes that, in his depictions of melancholy and disease, Baconsky again focuses on unease and "the denial of the irreplaceable" (while letting the reader know that such a denial is "useless and inefficient"). In a 1985 essay, poet and critic Dinu Flămând discusses Cadavre în vid as "a book of suffering, unique in our literature, a tragic perception of the disinherited, a nightmare of teratologic
Teratology
Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological development. It is often thought of as the study of human birth defects, but it is much broader than that, taking in other non-birth developmental stages, including puberty; and other non-human life forms, including plants.- Etymology :The...
dreams in the new 'electronic season' ". It includes Sonet negru ("Black Sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
"), which Braga calls an "exceptional" sample of "feverish tensions, infinite searches [...], obscure impulses":
Singur rămas visezi printre făclii cai negri, câmpuri moarte, umbre vii, şi nu mai eşti în stare să le numeri. Şi capete tăiate-odinioară se-ntorc de undeva ca o povară ce-ţi va fi dat s-o porţi mereu pe umeri. |
Left alone, you dream among the torches of black horses, dead fields, living shadows, and are no longer able to keep count of them. And heads chopped off in olden days return from some place as a burden that you shall always have to carry on your shoulders. |
Mircea Braga writes that this and other late volumes, showing "a world born out of nightmares", are the product of several influences: alongside George Bacovia
George Bacovia
George Bacovia was a Romanian symbolist poet. While he initially belonged to the local Symbolist movement, his poetry came to be seen as a precursor of Romanian Modernism and eventually established him in critical esteem alongside Tudor Arghezi, Lucian Blaga and Ion Barbu as one of the most...
's melancholic poems, they host echoes from both Expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and Postmodern literature
Postmodern literature
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...
. Flămând ranks the posthumous Corabia lui Sebastian among "the best works written in this second half of the [20th] century", and compares its "cynicism
Cynicism
Cynicism , in its original form, refers to the beliefs of an ancient school of Greek philosophers known as the Cynics . Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and...
" to the existential philosophy
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
of Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
-Early life:Emil M. Cioran was born in Răşinari, Sibiu County, which was part of Austria-Hungary at the time. His father, Emilian Cioran, was a Romanian Orthodox priest, while his mother, Elvira Cioran , was originally from Veneţia de Jos, a commune near Făgăraş.After studying humanities at the...
.
By that stage, Baconsky also became noted for theorizing the rejection of "consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
", advocating instead a return to established cultural values. According to Flămând's 1985 essay, Baconsky's rejection of "consumerism" and the West was decisive, and culminated in a virulent decision of what Baconsky is known to have called "the occidental pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
". Braga also writes that, in both Cadavre în vid and Corabia lui Sebastian, Baconsky depicts his own version of a "crisis of the West" (the Abendland forming a setting of one poem), which he believed may have referenced Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Oswald Manuel Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German historian and philosopher whose interests also included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West , published in 1918, which puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations...
's similar verdict (see The Decline of the West
The Decline of the West
The Decline of the West , or The Downfall of the Occident, is a two-volume work by Oswald Spengler, the first volume of which was published in the summer of 1918...
). Diana Câmpan noted the poems' dystopian
Utopian and dystopian fiction
The utopia and its offshoot, the dystopia, are genres of literature that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction is the creation of an ideal world, or utopia, as the setting for a novel. Dystopian fiction is the opposite: creation of a nightmare world, or dystopia...
imagery: "The Abendland is [...] an eerie Leviathan
Leviathan (book)
Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil — commonly called simply Leviathan — is a book written by Thomas Hobbes and published in 1651. Its name derives from the biblical Leviathan...
-like corpus, with attributes defining for humanity's decrepitude, a surrogate, anti-utopian citadel, handled in accordance with the laws of decline which grind the elites as well as the masses, the things as well their reflection". A part of the eponymous poem reads:
dans al cetăţilor, crepuscul roşu, abend- land... agonia ticăloşitelor neamuri sufocate în aur şi purpură veche... mercenarul strein călăreşte seara pe colinele solitare visând jaf şi incendii - destul vouă! Cuvintele-peşti, moarte pe ape albe, meduzele infestează istoria... animale şi păsări de pradă pe steaguri se schimbă în hiene şi corbi... |
dance of the citadels, red crepuscule, abend- land... the agony of the bastardized nations suffocated in gold and old Tyrian purple Tyrian purple Tyrian purple , also known as royal purple, imperial purple or imperial dye, is a purple-red natural dye, which is extracted from sea snails, and which was possibly first produced by the ancient Phoenicians... ... the old mercenary rides evenings on the solitary hills dreaming of pillages and fires—enough of you! The fish-words, dead on the waters of white, the jellyfish are invading history... animals and birds of prey on flags transforming into hyenas and ravens... |
According to Mircea Braga, one of his last interviews shows that, while still criticized for "aestheticism", Baconsky merged his lyricism with an interest in social matters. The statement reads: "The writer is not a politician in the common and consecrated sense of the word. He does however have the role of a spiritual ferment [italics in the original]. He must not allow people to acquire cerebral obesity
Obesity
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...
. He is always dissatisfied with something or other, his position is that of a permanent antithesis
Antithesis
Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition...
with the surrounding reality." Braga believes Baconsky's moral "rigor" to bear a "Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n sign", and to have been ultimately inspired by the philosophy of Lucian Blaga
Lucian Blaga
-Biography:Lucian Blaga was a commanding personality of the Romanian culture of the interbellum period. He was a philosopher and writer higly acclaimed for his originality, a university professor and a diplomat. He was born on May 9, 1895 in Lancrăm, near Alba Iulia, Romania, his father being an...
. The related anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
vision is questioned by Cernat. The critic indicates that, although sincere in its patriotism
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
, it was also "compatible" with the mixture of communism and nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
introduced by the Ceauşescu regime (see National communism
National communism
The term National Communism describes the ethnic minority communist currents that arose in the former Russian Empire after Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Party seized power in October 1917....
), and thus similar with the philosophical discourse of Constantin Noica
Constantin Noica
Constantin Noica was a Romanian philosopher, essayist and poet. His preoccupations were throughout all philosophy, from epistemology, philosophy of culture, axiology and philosophic anthropology to ontology and logics, from the history of philosophy to systematic philosophy, from ancient to...
.
Late prose works
With Remember, Drace-Francis argues, Baconsky advanced a technique first used by avant-gardeAvant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
writers of the 1930s, which transcended the norms imposed by traditional travel accounts in order to express "the inadequate representational possibilities of traditional forms" and to comment on the metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
of reality. Baconsky thus depicts his journey as an "interior adventure". This type of discourse, Drace-Francis contends, was a hint to his readers that the regime would not allow him to recount every detail of his journey. The book nevertheless also doubles as Baconsky's extended critique of the avant-garde of Europe, whose discourse, Diana Câmpan notes, Baconsky depicted as a form of desecration
Desecration
Desecration is the act of depriving something of its sacred character, or the disrespectful or contemptuous treatment of that which is held to be sacred or holy by a group or individual.-Detail:...
. In Tomuţa's view, the depiction of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, with a focus on "the glorious vestiges of the past", takes the reader on a "voluptuous time travel." In the critic's definition, Baconsky's Vienna encloses a secondary reality, that is "ideal", "aestheticized", "fictional" and "bookish".
Drace-Francis also notes that the climate of relative liberalization and détente
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
of the 1960s not only made such journeys possible, but actually allowed writers the freedom to go beyond stereotyped depictions of capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
(while it remained uncertain whether Communist Romania's dialog with the West would "dominate the construction of epistemic value"). Overall, Cornel Ungureanu comments, Baconsky's accounts of his western travels are marked by "dark visions of the world." Ungureanu sees this as a sign of Baconsky's having "descended into Hell". Cernat, who extends his critique of Baconsky's anti-capitalist attitude to Remember, also argues that the author's "absolute freedom" of travel under a repressive regime indicates that his work was not perceived as a threat by the communist system.
Baconsky's prose fiction is closely linked to the themes and style of his poetry. In Braga's view, the fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
collection Echinoxul nebunilor is a prosaic representative of its author's early commitment to aestheticism; according to Cernat, its tone is "apocalyptic
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
". A characteristic of Baconsky's prose fiction is its resemblance to his poetry works, to the point where they were described by Crina Bud as "hybrid forms". In Bogdan Creţu's view, Biserica neagră, Baconsky's only novel, is written with "alexandrine
Alexandrine
An alexandrine is a line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often used alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted...
-like purity". Likewise, the Corabia lui Sebastian poems were noted for moving into the realm of prose. This transgression of limits summoned objections from prominent literary critic Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu is a Romanian literary critic. As an editor of România Literară literary magazine, he has reached a record in reviewing books for almost 30 years...
, who reportedly believed Baconsky's work to be largely without merit.
Biserica neagră is also read as his most subversive work, described by critics as a "counter-utopia". Ungureanu sees it as a "Kafkaesque" work of absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
inspiration, and a further sign of the author "descending into Hell". Crina Bud links the anti-utopian quality to contemporary writings by, among others, Matei Călinescu (Viaţa şi opiniile lui Zacharias Lichter, "The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter") and Baconsky's friend Octavian Paler
Octavian Paler
Octavian Paler was a Romanian writer, journalist, politician in Communist Romania, and civil society activist in post-1989 Romania.-Biography:Octavian Paler was born in Lisa, Braşov Country.He was educated at Spiru Haret High School in Bucharest...
(Viaţa pe un peron—"Life on a Platform"; Un om norocos—"A Lucky Man"). Written from the perspective of a sculptor, who is probably a transposition of Baconsky himself, it is a parable
Parable
A parable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive principles, or lessons, or a normative principle. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human...
of totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
command, artistic submission, individual despair and withdrawal. The volume also offers a glimpse into the world of political imprisonment under communism.
Legacy
Anatol E. Baconsky was a noted presence in the literary community of his day, and is believed to have influenced poet, novelist and translator Petre Stoica (who is described by Ungureanu as the writer's "friend and emulator"). Baconsky's poems were parodiedParody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
by Marin Sorescu
Marin Sorescu
- Biography :Born to a family of farmworkers in Bulzeşti, Dolj County, Sorescu graduated from the primary school in his home village. After that he went to the Buzesti Brothers High School in Craiova, after which he was transferred to the Predeal Military School. His final education was at the...
in his 1964 volume, Singur printre poeţi ("Alone among Poets"). Sorescu's poem, titled A. E. Baconsky. Imn către necunoscutul din mine ("Hymn to the Unknown within Me"), makes use of Baconsky's lyrical style and displays of culture, showing the poet meditating about the ancient Scythian
Scythes
Scythes was tyrant or ruler of Zancle in Sicily. He was appointed to that post in about 494 BC by Hippocrates of Gela.The Zanclaeans had contacted Ionian leaders to invite colonists to join them in founding a new city on the Kale Acte , or north shore of Sicily...
and Thracian
Thracians
The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...
peoples. It begins with the lines:
În mine-un scit se caută pe sine Având drept torţă marile nelinişti Cine eşti tu? Cine sunt eu? Unde e fluxul? Cine-s nohaii? [...] Dar niciodată eu nu-i spun nimic. Căci nu ştiu, nu ştiu, nu ştiu cine's eu. Mă bănui doar a fi, privind cravata-mi, Singura certitudine cu nod, Şi mă întreb sfâşietor: oare tracii, Vai, tracii, cum îşi croiau, prin veacuri, pantalonii? |
Within me a Scythe is searching for himself Having for a torch the great uneases Who are you? Who am I? Where is the tide? Who are the Nogais Nogais The Nogai people are a Turkic ethnic group in Southern Russia: northern Dagestan and Stavropol Krai, as well as in Karachay-Cherkessia and the Astrakhan Oblast; undefined number live in Chechnya... ? [...] But I never tell him anything. For I don't know, I don't know, I don't know who I am. I just suppose I exist, by gazing at my necktie, The only certitude that has a knot, And ask myself heartrendingly: the Thracians, Alas, the Thracians, how did they, throughout the ages, tailor their pants? |
Unusual episodes involving Baconsky's death were reported by two of his writer friends, Octavian Paler and Petre Stoica—Paler recalled that the only book to have fallen out of his shelf during the 1977 earthquake was Remember; Stoica told a similar story involving a painting that Baconsky had made, and which he had received as a gift. The writer's death, Cernat writes, was a "troubling coincidence" with that of Alexandru Ivasiuc
Alexandru Ivasiuc
Alexandru Ivasiuc was a Romanian novelist. He died in the 1977 Vrancea earthquake.-Life:He was born in Sighet, the son of a science professor. After the Second Vienna Award of 30 August 1940, the family was forced to flee to Bucharest, only returning to Sighet in 1951...
: a former communist who, like Baconsky, had "radicalized" his vision and authored non-conformist pieces, Ivasiuc was himself a victim of the 1977 earthquake.
In the months following Baconsky's death, his new monograph on Sandro Botticelli
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance...
, centered on the artist's illustrations for Dante Aligheri's Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature...
, was published in Romanian (re-issued in English during 1982). Cartea Românească reprinted Remember (1977), then Corabia lui Sebastian (1978). Also in 1978, his profile was included in 9 pentru eternitate ("9 for Eternity"), a volume dedicated to the literary men who had died during the earthquake, and edited by Mircea Micu and Gheorghe Tomozei. Eleven years later, a selection of his art criticism essays was published under the title Itinerarii plastice ("Artistic Itineraries"). Biserica neagră was only printed after the 1989 Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
toppled communism.
Of the several books dedicated to his life and work, Crina Bud's 2006 volume, Rolurile şi rolul lui A. E. Baconsky în cultura română ("The Roles and Role of A. E. Baconsky in Romanian Culture"), is described by reviewers as one of the most complete. Bogdan Creţu comments that views of Baconsky are traditionally divided between two "extremist" positions: "he was either castigated for his sins of youth [...] or mythicized and raised to a level that his work could not have honored." Like Crina Bud, he believes Baconsky to have been a "vanquisher from a moral point of view", adding that he earned "absolution" from the victims of communism: "the writer passed the fire ordeal
Trial by ordeal
Trial by ordeal is a judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by subjecting them to an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience...
: he confessed." However, Cernat believes, Baconsky, like his fellow disillusioned communist Paler, refused to record his disappointment in writing other than allusively.
Baconsky and his wife Clara were noted art collectors. They owned representative works of Romanian art
Art of Romania
Art of Romania encompasses the artists and artistic movements in Romania.-Romanian contemporary and modern artists:* Almaşan Virgil* Adela Andea* George Apostu* Corneliu Baba* Calin Baban* Sabin Bălaşa* Horia Bernea* Traian Brădean...
, particularly modern
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
, including paintings by Dimitrie Ghiaţă, Ştefan Dimitrescu
Stefan Dimitrescu
Ştefan Dimitrescu was a Romanian Post-impressionist painter and draftsman.-Biography:Born in Huşi into a modest family, he completed his primary and secondary studies in his hometown...
, Iosif Iser
Iosif Iser
Iosif Iser was a Romanian painter and graphic artist.Born to a Jewish family, he was initially inspired by Expressionism, creating drawings with thick, unmodulated, lines and steep angles...
and Lucian Grigorescu
Lucian Grigorescu
Lucian Grigorescu was a Romanian post-impressionist painter.In 1948, he was elected to the Romanian Academy. -External links:*...
, as well as drawings by Constantin Jiquidi, Theodor Pallady
Theodor Pallady
Theodor Pallady was a Romanian painter.-Biography:Pallady was born in Iaşi, but at a young age, his family moved to Dresden, where he studied engineering at the Dresden University of Technology between 1887 and 1889. At the same time, he studied art with Erwin Oehme, who, recognising his artistic...
and Nicolae Tonitza
Nicolae Tonitza
Nicolae Tonitza was a Romanian painter, engraver, lithographer, journalist and art critic. Drawing inspiration from Post-impressionism and Expressionism, he had a major role in introducing modernist guidelines to local art.-Biography:...
. Their collection also included 19th century Romanian Orthodox icons and early prints from William Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
's A Rake's Progress
A Rake's Progress
A Rake's Progress is a series of eight paintings by 18th century English artist William Hogarth. The canvases were produced in 1732–33 then engraved and published in print form in 1735...
. In 1982, the family donated these works to the National Museum
National Museum of Art of Romania
The National Museum of Art of Romania is located in the former royal palace in Revolution Square, central Bucharest, Romania, completed in 1937...
, which set up a Baconsky Collection. 21 other works were donated to the Museum of Art Collections
Museum of Art Collections
The Museum of Art Collections is a branch of the National Museum of Art of Romania and is situated in Bucharest. It contains 44 collections donated to the Romanian State beginning with 1927 by the families of: Hurmuz Aznavorian, Dumitru and Maria Ştefănescu, Josefina and Eugen Taru, Emanoil Romulus...
, where they also form a separate fund. Many of the books owned by Baconsky were donated by his brother Leon to the Library in Călimăneşti
Calimanesti
Călimănești, often known as Călimănești-Căciulata, is a town in Vâlcea County, southern Romania. It is situated in the historical region of Oltenia and the northern part of the county, on the traditional route connecting the region to Transylvania, and at the southern end of the Olt River valley...
(which was consequently renamed the Anatol E. Baconsky Library).
Poetry and prose fiction
- Poezii, poems, 1950
- Copiii din Valea Arieşului, poems, 1951
- Cîntece de zi şi noapte, poems, 1954
- Două poeme, poems, 1956
- Dincolo de iarnă, poems, 1957
- Fluxul memoriei, poems, 1957; retrospective edition, 1967
- Versuri, poems, 1961
- Imn către zorii de zi, poems, 1962
- Versuri, poems, 1964
- Fiul risipitor, poems, 1964
- Echinoxul nebunilor şi alte povestiri, short story anthology, 1967
- Cadavre în vid, poems, 1969
- Corabia lui Sebastian, poems, posthumous edition, 1978
- Biserica neagră, novel, in Scrieri, vol. II, posthumous edition, 1990
Travel writing
- Itinerar bulgar, 1954
- Călătorii în Europa şi Asia, 1960
- Cluj şi împrejurimile sale. Mic îndreptar turistic, 1963
- Remember, vol. I, 1968; vol. II, 1969
Criticism
- Colocviu critic, 1957
- Meridiane. Pagini despre literatura universală contemporană, 1965; second edition, 1969
- Dimitrie Ghiaţă, 1971
- Ion Ţuculescu, 1972
- Botticelli, 1974
- Botticelli, Divina Comedie, posthumous edition, 1977
Translations
- Poeţi clasici coreeni, 1960
- Salvatore QuasimodoSalvatore QuasimodoSalvatore Quasimodo was an Italian author and poet. In 1959 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times". Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets...
, Versuri, 1961; second edition, 1968 - Jorge SemprúnJorge SemprúnJorge Semprún Maura was a Spanish writer and politician who lived in France most of his life and wrote primarily in French. From 1953 to 1962, during the era of Francisco Franco, Semprún lived clandestinely in Spain working as an organizer for the exiled Communist Party of Spain, but was expelled...
, Marea călătorie, 1962 - Artur LundkvistArtur LundkvistArtur Lundkvist was a Swedish writer, poet and literary critic. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1968....
, Versuri, 1963 - Poeţi şi poezie, 1963
- Mahabharata - Arderea zmeilor, 1964
- Carl SandburgCarl SandburgCarl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
, Versuri, 1965 - Panorama poeziei universale contemporane, anthology, 1973