Dumitru Tepeneag
Encyclopedia
Dumitru Ţepeneag is a contemporary Romania
n novelist, essayist, short story writer and translator, who currently resides in France
. He was one of the founding members of the Oniric
group, and a theoretician of the Onirist trend in Romanian literature
, while becoming noted for his activities as a dissident. In 1975, the Communist regime
stripped him of his citizenship. He settled down in Paris
, where he was a leading figure of the Romanian exile.
In addition to his literary work, he is known for his independent left-wing
views, which were influenced by Libertarian socialism
and Anarchism
. Ţepeneag is one of the most important Romanian translators of French literature
, and has rendered into Romanian
the works by New Left
, avant-garde
and Neo-Marxist
authors such as Alain Robbe-Grillet
, Robert Pinget
, Albert Béguin, Jacques Derrida
, and Alexandre Kojève
. The founder of the magazine Cahiers de l'Est, he has also translated texts by Romanian poets into French
— examples include Leonid Dimov
, Daniel Turcea, Ion Mureşan, Marta Petreu
, Emil Brumaru
, Mircea Ivănescu
. His wife, Mona Ţepeneag, is herself a translator and essayist.
, Dumitru Ţepeneag graduated from the Mihai Viteazul High School in the city, and then enrolled at the University of Bucharest
Faculty of Law. He did not complete his studies and, instead, trained as a teacher at the Bucharest Pedagogical Institute, before dedicating himself to literature without ever professing.
In 1959, he met Leonid Dimov, a writer who shared his literary interests. Both took partial inspiration from Surrealism
, but rejected its focus on psychoanalysis
and the scientific ideas favored by André Breton
. Ţepeneag referred to this contrast by stating that "[w]e did not dream, we generated dreams."
In 1965-1966, Dumitru Ţepeneag and Dimov reached out to a panel of young writers contributing to the Bucharest magazine Luceafărul — Vintilă Ivănceanu, Virgil Mazilescu, and Iulian Neacşu. Together, they established the literary trend called "Aesthetic Onirism", which, initially, also included Sânziana Pop. In time, they were joined by Emil Brumaru, Daniel Turcea, Sorin Titel, Florin Gabrea and Virgil Tănase.
The group was for a while under the protective wing of Romanian poet Miron Radu Paraschivescu, a Communist Party
member who was generally seen as anti-dogmatic, and whose personal opinions were veering toward Trotskyism
. According to Ţepeneag, Paraschivescu, who was a former Surrealist, aimed at uniting avant-garde trends as a means to revitalize cultural life in Romania. This relationship allowed them to publish their works in his Povestea Vorbei, a supplement of the magazine Ramuri in Craiova
. Ţepeneag's work of the time was part of a Romanian intellectual reaction against Realism
and Socialist realism
, and coincided with the climate of liberalization
at the end of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
's period in power and the rise of Nicolae Ceauşescu
. In particular, the period was marked by developments at Luceafărul: in 1968, the hardliner Eugen Barbu
, who had attacked Ţepeneag and other young authors, was replaced by the liberal Ştefan Bănulescu as editor-in-chief of the magazine. Literary critic Gabriel Dimisianu indicated that, at first, Romanian authorities tended to ignore the Oniric grouping, whom they viewed as "benign" and "a small racket caused by some people on the margin".
Dimisianu also noted that the Oniric movement was the only cultural movement of the time who had developed in complete separation from official guidelines.
In this context, Ţepeneag's contribution was compared to those of contemporaries such as Ioan Alexandru
, Cezar Baltag
, Ana Blandiana
, Nicolae Breban
, Nicolae Labiş
, and Nichita Stănescu
. At the time, Dumitru Ţepeneag was influenced by various trends in experimental literature
, including, alongside Surrealism, the Nouveau roman
techniques first theorized during the 1950s.
Paraschivescu's project was halted late in 1966, when authorities shut down Povestea Vorbei. In reaction, Ţepeneag and his fellow group members asked to be assigned their own magazine, as a literary supplement of Luceafărul, but their request was never granted. The "Aesthetic Onirism" group was able to print a few volumes between 1964 and 1972, but disbanded soon after the July Theses
of 1971, when Ceauşescu imposed an even more severe system of censorship
.
During the following years, both at home and abroad, Ţepeneag began campaigning against totalitarianism
in Romanian society, and especially the lack of freedom in the Romanian literary world. Alongside Ivănceanu and others, he spoke out against official policies during sessions of the Romanian Writers' Union, an official body reuniting literary figures. As Dimisianu noted, Ţepeneag's protests were singular in that their tone was not just cultural, but overtly political. According to Ţepeneag, a conflict erupted inside the literary establishment after the magazine Amfiteatru allowed him, Ivănceanu and Laurenţiu Ulici to publish their grievances as part of a round table
session which, although censored by the regime, prompted pro-communist and conformist writers to condemn the Oniric grouping. During trips to the United States
and Western Europe
, he met with other notable dissidents, and, in 1973, was interviewed by Radio Free Europe
's Monica Lovinescu
(an interview which denounced communist policies and was clandestinely broadcast inside his native country).
As a result, at the same time as other outspoken dissidents — novelist Paul Goma
and poet Ileana Mălăncioiu among them —, he was marginalized inside the Writers' Union. Subsequently placed under surveillance by the Romanian secret police, the Securitate
, he was formally indicted
in 1975.
The same year, while he was in France on temporary stay, Ţepeneag's citizenship was stripped through a presidential
decree signed by Ceauşescu. Inside Romania, Onirism became the target of cultural repression, and the term itself was carefully removed from all official publications. Ţepeneag later commented that the regime had found "a scapegoat
" in Onirism, and argued that the movement rapidly decayed from that moment on. Nonetheless, Dimisianu noted that the current remained a strong influence on the unofficial cultural scene, and that, in time, Onirism was adopted by younger writers such as Ioan Groşan.
After moving to Paris
, Ţepeneag continued writing first in Romanian — works which were usually translated into French
by Alain Paruit —, and later directly in French. With time, his style evolved to a more classical narrative. Together with Mihnea Berindei, Dumitru Ţepeneag founded and coordinated the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Romania, which reported on nature of repression under Ceauşescu. A chess
aficionado, he also published a book on Alekhine's Defence
(La défense Alekhine, 1983).
After the Romanian Revolution of 1989
, he returned to Romania, where he was involved in handing out emergency humanitarian aid
from the West. Ever since, he has commuted between Paris and Bucharest, and has played a part in promoting Romanian literature to the foreign public. His diaries from the early 1970s, detailing the years of his dissidence, were published in Romania beginning in 2006. Ţepeneag has continued to publish in important Western magazines, and edited the Paris-based periodicals Cahiers de l'Est (later known as Nouveaux Cahiers de l'Est), Poésie, and Seine et Danube, with support from the Romanian Cultural Institute
.
position — literary critic Eugen Simion has defined him as "a heretic
on the left", and his colleague Paul Cernat as "unclassifiable". In a 2003 interview with Ziua
newspaper, he described himself as "an old anarchist". Elsewhere, the writer acknowledged that, during the 1960s and early 1970s, he viewed Ceauşescu's leadership as benign, and welcomed the distance the Communist Party took from the Soviet Union
(especially in 1968, when Romania did not take part in the Warsaw Pact
intervention against the Prague Spring
in Czechoslovakia).
During his years of exile, he came into conflict with Romanian intellectuals such as Mircea Eliade
and Ioan Cuşa, whose opinions, Ţepeneag argued, situated them among admirers of the fascist
Iron Guard
. He remained critical of Western society, especially after an article on Communist Romanian censorship he contributed to the French journal Le Monde
turned out to have been modified by the editors. According to his translator Paruit, Ţepeneag's leftist views may have contributed to his marginalization inside the Romanian exile, and may have even caused French authorities to view him with suspicion. Paruit noted that other writers, including Monica Lovinescu
and Virgil Ierunca
, both of whom reportedly refused to vouch for Ţepeneag, "simply did not understand that it was possible to condemn communism from anarchist positions."
Such conflicts also surfaced after the writer returned to Romania — notably, Ţepeneag clashed with novelist Augustin Buzura
, whom he accused of mismanaging the state-sponsored promotion of Romanian literature abroad. The polemic was alluded to in Buzura's 2003 volume Tentaţia risipirii, where the author responded to criticism from Ţepeneag, as well as to similar opinions expressed by Paul Goma
, Gheorghe Grigurcu, and other writers. Commenting on this dispute, literary critic Mircea Iorgulescu argued that Buzura's book had classified Dumitru Ţepeneag and his other adversaries as "insignificant authors", and expressed his opinion that such an attitude was incorrect.
In parallel, both Ţepeneag and Buzura, alongside writers such as Eugen Simion, Fănuş Neagu, Valeriu Cristea and Marin Sorescu
were the recipients of criticism from literary historian Alex. Ştefănescu, in his book on 20th century Romanian literature. Ştefănescu alleged that all four authors had associated with Romania's first post-Revolution President
, Ion Iliescu
, and, to varying degrees, with Iliescu's Social Democratic Party
. Of Ţepeneag in particular, Alex. Ştefănescu believed that he had lost his credibility for being part of "a group of writers well liked by Ion Iliescu". Responding to this, Simion argued that Ştefănescu was wrong to criticize authors based on "their political option".
Dumitru and Mona Ţepeneag's familiarity with Libertarian socialist
and Neo-Marxist
literature served as an influence for younger opponents of the Communist regime. Among them was the political scientist Vladimir Tismăneanu
, who noted that he was first introduced to such works by the couple.
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 novelist, essayist, short story writer and translator, who currently resides in 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...
. He was one of the founding members of the Oniric
Onirism
Onirism was a surrealist Romanian literary school most popular during the 1960s, in the wake of popular uprisings in Eastern Europe. One of the techniques it employed was automatic writing....
group, and a theoretician of the Onirist trend in 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....
, while becoming noted for his activities as a dissident. In 1975, 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...
stripped him of his citizenship. He settled down in 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...
, where he was a leading figure of the Romanian exile.
In addition to his literary work, he is known for his independent left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
views, which were influenced by Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...
and Anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
. Ţepeneag is one of the most important Romanian translators of French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
, and has rendered into 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...
the works by New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
, 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....
and Neo-Marxist
Neo-Marxism
Neo-Marxism is a loose term for various twentieth-century approaches that amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, usually by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions, such as: critical theory, psychoanalysis or Existentialism .Erik Olin Wright's theory of contradictory class...
authors such as Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet , was a French writer and filmmaker. He was, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simon, one of the figures most associated with the Nouveau Roman trend. Alain Robbe-Grillet was elected a member of the Académie française on March 25, 2004, succeeding Maurice...
, Robert Pinget
Robert Pinget
Robert Pinget was a major avant-garde French writer, born in Switzerland, who wrote several novels and other prose pieces that drew comparison to Beckett and other major Modernist writers...
, Albert Béguin, Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
, and Alexandre Kojève
Alexandre Kojève
Alexandre Kojève was a Russian-born French philosopher and statesman whose philosophical seminars had an immense influence on twentieth-century French philosophy, particularly via his integration of Hegelian concepts into continental philosophy...
. The founder of the magazine Cahiers de l'Est, he has also translated texts by Romanian poets into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
— examples include Leonid Dimov
Leonid Dimov
Leonid Dimov was a Romanian postmodernist poet and translator....
, Daniel Turcea, Ion Mureşan, Marta Petreu
Marta Petreu
Marta Petreu is the pen name of Rodica Marta Vartic, née Rodica Crisan , a Romanian philosopher, literary critic, essayist and poet. A professor of Philosophy at the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, she has published eight books of essays and seven of poetry, and is the editor of the...
, Emil Brumaru
Emil Brumaru
Emil Brumaru is a contemporary Romanian writer and poet.- Works :* Versuri , 1970* Detectivul Arthur , 1970...
, 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...
. His wife, Mona Ţepeneag, is herself a translator and essayist.
Biography
Born in BucharestBucharest
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....
, Dumitru Ţepeneag graduated from the Mihai Viteazul High School in the city, and then enrolled at the University of Bucharest
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
Faculty of Law. He did not complete his studies and, instead, trained as a teacher at the Bucharest Pedagogical Institute, before dedicating himself to literature without ever professing.
In 1959, he met Leonid Dimov, a writer who shared his literary interests. Both took partial inspiration from 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....
, but rejected its focus on psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
and the scientific ideas favored by 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"....
. Ţepeneag referred to this contrast by stating that "[w]e did not dream, we generated dreams."
In 1965-1966, Dumitru Ţepeneag and Dimov reached out to a panel of young writers contributing to the Bucharest magazine Luceafărul — Vintilă Ivănceanu, Virgil Mazilescu, and Iulian Neacşu. Together, they established the literary trend called "Aesthetic Onirism", which, initially, also included Sânziana Pop. In time, they were joined by Emil Brumaru, Daniel Turcea, Sorin Titel, Florin Gabrea and Virgil Tănase.
The group was for a while under the protective wing of Romanian poet Miron Radu Paraschivescu, a 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...
member who was generally seen as anti-dogmatic, and whose personal opinions were veering toward Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
. According to Ţepeneag, Paraschivescu, who was a former Surrealist, aimed at uniting avant-garde trends as a means to revitalize cultural life in Romania. This relationship allowed them to publish their works in his Povestea Vorbei, a supplement of the magazine Ramuri in Craiova
Craiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
. Ţepeneag's work of the time was part of a Romanian intellectual reaction against Realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
and 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 coincided with the climate 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...
at the end of 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 period in power and the rise of 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...
. In particular, the period was marked by developments at Luceafărul: in 1968, the hardliner Eugen Barbu
Eugen Barbu
Eugen Barbu was a Romanian modern novelist, short story writer, journalist, and correspondent member of the Romanian Academy. The latter position was vehemently criticized by those who contended that he plagiarized in his novel Incognito and for the anti-Semitic campaigns he initiated in the...
, who had attacked Ţepeneag and other young authors, was replaced by the liberal Ştefan Bănulescu as editor-in-chief of the magazine. Literary critic Gabriel Dimisianu indicated that, at first, Romanian authorities tended to ignore the Oniric grouping, whom they viewed as "benign" and "a small racket caused by some people on the margin".
Dimisianu also noted that the Oniric movement was the only cultural movement of the time who had developed in complete separation from official guidelines.
In this context, Ţepeneag's contribution was compared to those of contemporaries such as Ioan Alexandru
Ioan Alexandru
Ioan Alexandru was a Romanian poet, essayist and politician. After the Romanian revolution in 1989, Ioan Alexandru became a founding member and vice president of the PNŢCD...
, 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....
, Ana Blandiana
Ana Blandiana
Ana Blandiana is a Romanian poet, essayist, and political figure. She took her name after Blandiana, near Vinţu de Jos, Alba County, her mother's home village.-Literary career:...
, Nicolae Breban
Nicolae Breban
Nicolae Breban is a Romanian novelist and essayist.-Biography:He is the son of Vasile Breban, a Greek Catholic priest in the village of Recea, Maramureş County. His mother, Olga Constanţa Esthera Breban, born Böhmler, descended from a family of German merchants who emigrated from Alsace Lorraine...
, Nicolae Labiş
Nicolae Labis
Nicolae Labiș was a Romanian poet.-Early life:His father, Eugen, was the son of a forest brigade soldier and himself fought in World War II; he became a schoolteacher in 1931. His mother Ana-Profira, the daughter of a peasant killed in the Battle of Mărășești, was also a schoolteacher...
, and 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:...
. At the time, Dumitru Ţepeneag was influenced by various trends in experimental literature
Experimental literature
Experimental literature refers to written works - often novels or magazines - that place great emphasis on innovations regarding technique and style.-Early history:...
, including, alongside Surrealism, the Nouveau roman
Nouveau roman
The nouveau roman is a type of 1950s French novel that diverged from classical literary genres. Émile Henriot coined the title in an article in the popular French newspaper Le Monde on May 22, 1957 to describe certain writers who experimented with style in each novel, creating an essentially new...
techniques first theorized during the 1950s.
Paraschivescu's project was halted late in 1966, when authorities shut down Povestea Vorbei. In reaction, Ţepeneag and his fellow group members asked to be assigned their own magazine, as a literary supplement of Luceafărul, but their request was never granted. The "Aesthetic Onirism" group was able to print a few volumes between 1964 and 1972, but disbanded soon after the 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...
of 1971, when Ceauşescu imposed an even more severe system of censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
.
During the following years, both at home and abroad, Ţepeneag began campaigning against totalitarianism
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...
in Romanian society, and especially the lack of freedom in the Romanian literary world. Alongside Ivănceanu and others, he spoke out against official policies during sessions of the Romanian Writers' Union, an official body reuniting literary figures. As Dimisianu noted, Ţepeneag's protests were singular in that their tone was not just cultural, but overtly political. According to Ţepeneag, a conflict erupted inside the literary establishment after the magazine Amfiteatru allowed him, Ivănceanu and Laurenţiu Ulici to publish their grievances as part of a round table
Round table
A round table is a table which has no "head" and no "sides", and therefore no one person sitting at it is given a privileged position and all are treated as equals. The idea stems from the Arthurian legend about the Knights of the Round Table in Camelot....
session which, although censored by the regime, prompted pro-communist and conformist writers to condemn the Oniric grouping. During trips to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and 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 met with other notable dissidents, and, in 1973, was interviewed by 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"...
's Monica Lovinescu
Monica Lovinescu
Monica Lovinescu was a Romanian essayist, short story writer, literary critic, translator, and journalist, noted for her activities as an opponent of the Romanian Communist regime. She published several works under the pseudonyms Monique Saint-Come and Claude Pascal. She is the daughter of...
(an interview which denounced communist policies and was clandestinely broadcast inside his native country).
As a result, at the same time as other outspoken dissidents — novelist Paul Goma
Paul Goma
Paul Goma is a Romanian writer, also known for his activities as a dissident and leading opponent of the communist regime before 1989. Forced into exile by the communist authorities, he became a political refugee and currently resides in France as a stateless person...
and poet Ileana Mălăncioiu among them —, he was marginalized inside the Writers' Union. Subsequently placed under surveillance by the Romanian secret police, 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...
, he was formally indicted
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
in 1975.
The same year, while he was in France on temporary stay, Ţepeneag's citizenship was stripped through a presidential
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...
decree signed by Ceauşescu. Inside Romania, Onirism became the target of cultural repression, and the term itself was carefully removed from all official publications. Ţepeneag later commented that the regime had found "a scapegoat
Scapegoat
Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals , individuals against groups , groups against individuals , and groups against groups Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any...
" in Onirism, and argued that the movement rapidly decayed from that moment on. Nonetheless, Dimisianu noted that the current remained a strong influence on the unofficial cultural scene, and that, in time, Onirism was adopted by younger writers such as Ioan Groşan.
After moving to 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...
, Ţepeneag continued writing first in Romanian — works which were usually translated into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
by Alain Paruit —, and later directly in French. With time, his style evolved to a more classical narrative. Together with Mihnea Berindei, Dumitru Ţepeneag founded and coordinated the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Romania, which reported on nature of repression under Ceauşescu. A chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
aficionado, he also published a book on Alekhine's Defence
Alekhine's Defence
Alekhine's Defence is a hypermodern chess opening that begins with the moves:Black tempts White's pawns forward to form a broad pawn centre, with plans to undermine and attack the White structure later in the spirit of hypermodern defence. White's imposing mass of pawns in the centre often includes...
(La défense Alekhine, 1983).
After the Romanian Revolution of 1989
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...
, he returned to Romania, where he was involved in handing out emergency humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises including natural disaster and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...
from the West. Ever since, he has commuted between Paris and Bucharest, and has played a part in promoting Romanian literature to the foreign public. His diaries from the early 1970s, detailing the years of his dissidence, were published in Romania beginning in 2006. Ţepeneag has continued to publish in important Western magazines, and edited the Paris-based periodicals Cahiers de l'Est (later known as Nouveaux Cahiers de l'Est), Poésie, and Seine et Danube, with support from the Romanian Cultural Institute
Romanian Cultural Institute
The Romanian Cultural Institute is a state-funded institution that promotes Romanian culture and civilization in Romania and abroad. The ICR was formerly set up through reorganization of the Romanian Cultural Foundation and Romanian Cultural Publishing Foundation...
.
Political views and polemics
Opposing the Communist regime from the Left, Dumitru Ţepeneag has maintained an independent and individualistIndividualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
position — literary critic Eugen Simion has defined him as "a heretic
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
on the left", and his colleague Paul Cernat as "unclassifiable". In a 2003 interview with Ziua
Ziua
Ziua was a major Romanian daily newspaper published in Bucharest. It was published in Romanian with a fairly sizeable and often informative English section. Ziua was founded in 1994 by Sorin Roşca Stănescu, eventually becoming foreign-owned...
newspaper, he described himself as "an old anarchist". Elsewhere, the writer acknowledged that, during the 1960s and early 1970s, he viewed Ceauşescu's leadership as benign, and welcomed the distance the Communist Party took from 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....
(especially in 1968, when Romania did not take part in the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
intervention against the Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
in Czechoslovakia).
During his years of exile, he came into conflict with Romanian intellectuals such as Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
and Ioan Cuşa, whose opinions, Ţepeneag argued, situated them among admirers of the fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
. He remained critical of Western society, especially after an article on Communist Romanian censorship he contributed to the French journal Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
turned out to have been modified by the editors. According to his translator Paruit, Ţepeneag's leftist views may have contributed to his marginalization inside the Romanian exile, and may have even caused French authorities to view him with suspicion. Paruit noted that other writers, including Monica Lovinescu
Monica Lovinescu
Monica Lovinescu was a Romanian essayist, short story writer, literary critic, translator, and journalist, noted for her activities as an opponent of the Romanian Communist regime. She published several works under the pseudonyms Monique Saint-Come and Claude Pascal. She is the daughter of...
and Virgil Ierunca
Virgil Ierunca
Virgil Ierunca was a Romanian literary critic, journalist and poet...
, both of whom reportedly refused to vouch for Ţepeneag, "simply did not understand that it was possible to condemn communism from anarchist positions."
Such conflicts also surfaced after the writer returned to Romania — notably, Ţepeneag clashed with novelist Augustin Buzura
Augustin Buzura
Augustin Buzura is a Romanian novelist and short story writer, also known as a journalist, essayist and literary critic. A member of the Romanian Academy, he has been the president of the Romanian Cultural Foundation since 1990 and president of the Romanian Cultural Institute between 2003 and...
, whom he accused of mismanaging the state-sponsored promotion of Romanian literature abroad. The polemic was alluded to in Buzura's 2003 volume Tentaţia risipirii, where the author responded to criticism from Ţepeneag, as well as to similar opinions expressed by Paul Goma
Paul Goma
Paul Goma is a Romanian writer, also known for his activities as a dissident and leading opponent of the communist regime before 1989. Forced into exile by the communist authorities, he became a political refugee and currently resides in France as a stateless person...
, Gheorghe Grigurcu, and other writers. Commenting on this dispute, literary critic Mircea Iorgulescu argued that Buzura's book had classified Dumitru Ţepeneag and his other adversaries as "insignificant authors", and expressed his opinion that such an attitude was incorrect.
In parallel, both Ţepeneag and Buzura, alongside writers such as Eugen Simion, Fănuş Neagu, Valeriu Cristea and 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...
were the recipients of criticism from literary historian Alex. Ştefănescu, in his book on 20th century Romanian literature. Ştefănescu alleged that all four authors had associated with Romania's first post-Revolution 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...
, Ion Iliescu
Ion Iliescu
Ion Iliescu served as President of Romania from 1990 until 1996, and from 2000 until 2004. From 1996 to 2000 and from 2004 until his retirement in 2008, Iliescu was a Senator for the Social Democratic Party , whose honorary president he remains....
, and, to varying degrees, with Iliescu's Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (Romania)
The Social Democratic Party is the major social-democratic political party in Romania. It was formed in 1992, after the post-communist National Salvation Front broke apart. It adopted its present name after a merger with a minor social-democratic party in 2001. Since its formation, it has always...
. Of Ţepeneag in particular, Alex. Ştefănescu believed that he had lost his credibility for being part of "a group of writers well liked by Ion Iliescu". Responding to this, Simion argued that Ştefănescu was wrong to criticize authors based on "their political option".
Dumitru and Mona Ţepeneag's familiarity with Libertarian socialist
Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...
and Neo-Marxist
Neo-Marxism
Neo-Marxism is a loose term for various twentieth-century approaches that amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, usually by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions, such as: critical theory, psychoanalysis or Existentialism .Erik Olin Wright's theory of contradictory class...
literature served as an influence for younger opponents of the Communist regime. Among them was the political scientist 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...
, who noted that he was first introduced to such works by the couple.
Short stories
- Exerciţii ("Exercises"), 1966
- Frig ("Cold"),1967
- Aşteptare ("Waiting"), 1971
- Exercices d'attente ("Exercises in Waiting"), FlammarionGroupe FlammarionGroupe Flammarion is the fourth largest publishing group in France, comprising many units, including its namesake, founded in 1876 by Ernest Flammarion, as well as units in distribution, sales, printing and bookshops . Flammarion became part of the Italian media conglomerate RCS MediaGroup in 2000...
, 1972, trans. Alain Paruit - Attente ("Expectancy"), P.O.L., 2003
Novels
- Arpièges, ParisParisParis 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...
, Flammarion, 1973, translated by Alain Paruit after Zadarnică e arta fugii, first published in Romania by Editura Albatros in 1991; the 2nd edition, BucharestBucharestBucharest 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....
, Art, 2007; English version, translated by Patrick Camiller, Vain Art of the Fugue, Champaign, Il & London, Dalkey Archive Press, 2007; Turkish version, translated by Leyla Ünal, Sonsuz Kaçişlar, Istanbul, Pupa Yayinlari, 2010 - Les noces nécessaires, Paris, Flammarion, 1977, French version, translated by Alain Paruit after Nunţile necesare, published in Romania in 1992 and 1999; English version, translated by Patrick Camiller, The Necessary Marriage, Champaign, Il & London, Dalkey Archive Press, 2009 http://therumpus.net/2010/02/the-rumpus-international-rivers-interview-4-dumitru-tsepeneag-on-the-danube/
- Le mot sablier. Cuvântul nisiparniţă (“The Hourglass Word”), bilingual novel; published in Romania in 1994 and 2005
- Roman de gare, written directly in French, 1985, translated into Romanian by the author as Roman de citit în tren, IaşiIasiIași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
, Institutul European, 1993 - Pigeon vole, written directly in French, 1988; translated into Romanian by the author as Porumbelul zboară, BucharestBucharestBucharest 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....
, Editura Univers, 1997; English version, translated by Jane Kuntz, Pigeon Post, Champaign, Il & London, Dalkey Archive Press, 2008 - Hotel Europa, Bucharest, Editura Albatros, 1996; French version, translated by Alain Paruit, Paris, Éditions P.O.L., 2006
- Pont des Arts, translated by Alain Paruit, Paris, Éditions P.O.L., 1998; Romanian version published by Editura Albatros, 1999
- Au pays du Maramureş, 2001 and 2006; French version, translated by Alain Paruit, Paris, Éditions P.O.L.
- La belle Roumaine, PiteştiPitestiPitești is a city in Romania, located on the Argeș River. The capital and largest city of Argeș County, it is an important commercial and industrial center, as well as the home of two universities. Pitești is situated on the A1 freeway connecting it directly to the national capital Bucharest,...
, Editura Paralela 45, 2004; Bucharest, Art, 2007; French version, translated by Alain Paruit, Paris, P.O.L., 2006; Portuguese version, A Bela Romena, Editora Oceanos, 2009; Bulgarian version, translated by Rumyana Stancheva, Krasivana rumŭnka, Sofia, Balkani, 2010; Turkish version, translated by Leyla Ünal, Romen Dilberi, Istanbul, Pupa Yayinlari, 2010
Diaries
- Un român la Paris ("A Romanian in Paris"), ClujCluj-NapocaCluj-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...
, Editura DaciaEditura DaciaEditura Dacia is a publishing house based in Romania, located on Pavel Chinezul Street 2, Cluj-Napoca. Named after the ancient region of Dacia, it was founded in 1969 by a group of Transylvanian intellectuals, and printed works in Romanian, German and Hungarian.According to its official site,...
, 1993; definitive edition, Bucharest, Cartea Românească, 2006
Other works
- Întoarcerea fiului la sânul mamei rătăcite, Iaşi, Institutul European, 1992
- Călătorie neizbutită, Bucharest, Cartea Românească, 1999
- Războiul literaturii nu s-a încheiat, Bucharest, Editura ALL, 2000
- Destin cu popeşti, Cluj, Editura Dacia & Biblioteca Apostrof, 2001
- Clepsidra răsturnată. Dialog cu Ion Simuţ, Piteşti, Paralela 45, 2003
- Capitalism de cumetrie, Iaşi, Polirom, 2007
Further reading
- Nicolae Bârna, Ţepeneag. Introducere într-o lume de hârtie, Bucharest, Albatros, 1998
- Marian Victor Buciu, Ţepeneag între onirism, textualism, postmodernism, Craiova, Aius, 1998
- Daiana Felecan, Între veghe şi vis sau Spaţiul operei lui D. Ţepeneag, Cluj, Limes, 2006
- Laura PavelLaura PavelLaura Pavel is a Romanian essayist and literary critic.-Biography:Daughter of Dora Pavel, writer, and Eugen Pavel, linguist, scientific researcher. Married to the literary critic Călin Teutişan. She has a BA in Letters of the „Babeş-Bolyai” University in Cluj-Napoca, the Romanian-English section...
, Dumitru Ţepeneag şi canonul literaturii alternative, Cluj, Casa Cǎrţii de Ştiinţǎ, 2007 - Nicolae Bârna, Dumitru Ţepeneag, Cluj, Biblioteca Apostrof, 2007
- Laura Pavel, Dumitru Tsepeneag and the Canon of Alternative Literature, translated by Alistair Ian Blyth, Champaign & Dublin & London, Dalkey Archive Press, 2011