Ruxandra Cesereanu
Encyclopedia
Ruxandra-Mihaela Cesereanu or Ruxandra-Mihaela Braga (born August 17, 1963) is a Romania
n poet, essayist, short story writer, novelist and literary critic. Also known as a journalist, academic, literary historian and film critic, Cesereanu holds a teaching position at the Babeş-Bolyai University
(UBB), and is an editor for the magazine Steaua in Cluj-Napoca
.
The author of several prose and poetry volumes, Cesereanu became noted for her lyrical depictions of femininity and eroticism
, many of which attracted critical acclaim in her native country. They are believed by several commentators to have been influenced by Surrealism
and its Romanian successor, Onirism
, and seen as examples of Postmodernism
, while Cesereanu herself identified some of her writings with psychedelic
experience and with the coined term delirionism. She is also noted for collaborating with Romanian-born American
poet Andrei Codrescu
on two poems, both of which were completed through e-mail
exchanges.
Several of Cesereanu's studies deal with the impact of the communist regime
on Romanian culture and society, and in particular with the history of repression and penal labor. She has also contributed essays and coordinated research on various aspects of Romania's post-communist history
, as well as on the history of journalism in her country.
-Spanish
Department (graduating in 1985). She received her graduation diploma with a thesis on the work of poet Mihai Eminescu
(Moartea, visul şi somnul în opera lui Eminescu, or "Death, Dreaming and Sleep in the Work of Mihai Eminescu").
After being assigned a teaching position in 1988, she taught Romanian language and literature at educational institutions in Năsăud
, Bistriţa
, and Avrig
. In 1989, the year when the communist regime was toppled by the Romanian Revolution
, Cesereanu was working in Cluj-Napoca, where she was an editor for the Film Distribution Section of Transylvania
. In 1990, she became an editor for the film and movie magazine Ecran, before joining Steaua 's staff the following year. She also worked as a journalist for Ziarul de Cluj in 1998.
In 1994, Ruxandra Cesereanu began teaching at the UBB's Faculty of Letters, and moved on to the Faculty of Political Sciences' Journalism Department in 2000. She was the recipient of several scholarship
s: in 1992, the Central European University
granted her a one-year study course in Prague
, and in 1995 she received a similar grant from the Soros Foundation
.
After receiving a PhD
in 1997, with a thesis on the impact of communist persecution on Romanian culture (Infernul concentraţionar reflectat în conştiinţa românească, "The Inferno of the Prison System as Reflected in the Romanian Consciousness"), Cesereanu was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant
to the United States
, affiliating with the Columbia University
, Harriman Institute
in New York City
(1999-2000). She then received a four-month research grant in France
, followed by two creativity grants in, respectively, Rhodes
and Arles
. She became a Lecturer (2002) and then a Prelector (2003) for the UBB's Journalism Department.
Cesereanu is a member of the Romanian Writers' Union since 1994, and of the Romanian PEN Club
since 2001. She is also a member of the UBB's Center for Imagination Studies and of the Echinox Cultural Foundation. In addition to her work as a writer and commentator, Cesereanu has also produced a short documentary film
for the Cluj-Napoca branch of the national television channel
(Treisprezece biserici, "Thirteen Churches", 1998), and a four-episode talk show
series on cultural issues, aired by the same station during 2000. Cesereanu also organized two cultural events in her native city: a poetry symposium in 1998 and an art exhibit in 1999. The Cluj-Napoca Writers' Association granted her its Poetry Award on two separate occasions (1994, 2005), and its Essay Award in 1998 and 2001. She is a recipient of Apostrof
magazine's Ion Negoiţescu
Award in the Essay category (1998), and received the Lions Club
Prose Prize in 2005.
In addition to her contributions to Steaua, Apostrof and Ziarul de Cluj, Cesereanu had her articles hosted by publications such as Cuvântul
, Tribuna, Familia
, Revista 22
, Vatra, România Literară
, Observator Cultural
, Convorbiri Literare, Romanian Review, Orizont, Memoria and Echinox, as well as in Columbia University's Intermarium and the Moldova
n literary magazine Contrafort
.
Ruxandra Cesereanu is married to Corin Braga, a lecturer at the UBB's Faculty of Letters. She signs her works with her maiden name.
". Much of her early work, Cernat argues, is characterized by "mannerism
", related to Onirism
and using psychoanalytic
techniques. The links with Onirism and Surrealism
have also been noted by critic Matei Călinescu
, who also noted that Cesereanu took inspiration from the tradition of fairy tale
s and legends, in particular in pieces where she reinterprets Arthurian legends and retells the mythical search for the Holy Grail
. Cesereanu's collaborator and literary historian Doina Jela describes her prose as "postmodern
", while historian and civil society
activist Adrian Marino calls her "the most original, but also the most paradoxical writer from Cluj-Napoca".
Cesereanu's early poems, grouped in the volumes Grădina deliciilor ("Garden of Delights") and Oceanul Schizoidian ("The Schizoid Ocean"), both noted for their interrogative and occasionally violent stances, have been defined by the author herself as "extremely attached to a culture of corporality", depicting "battles with myself, with Death, with love, with God." The poetry volume Femeia-cruciat ("The Woman-Crusader") was imagined by the author as a dialog between the several aspects of femininity and four men, each standing for one of the main images of the male: "Magister (her master), the Brother, the Lover and Christ
." The book also depicts women through "a series of portraits", comprising "the neurotic
little girl, the femme fatale
, the crusader, the schizophrenia
c woman, the mystic, the profligate woman etc." This focus on female passion, which she noted was akin to an act of "exorcism
", is also present in the "letters of a courtesan
" series of poems she published under the title Veneţia cu vene violete ("Venice
with Violet Veins").
In 2002, Cesereanu published the novel Tricephalos (or "Trikephalos"). She speaks of it as: "A book of initiation into an eroticism
that is at once spectacular and abysmal, but also into the emptiness of this world. A book that has fulfilled me as both a writer and a woman." Cernat defines the volume as "the inkhorn myth-making of the eros
and of traveling [which] relishes into an extravagant spectacle of female stances". Literary critic Dan C. Mihăilescu describes it as "imbued in sexuality", and notes that some have even compared it to Emmanuelle
, a French
softcore
film.
Three years after Tricephalos, Cesereanu published Nebulon, a collection of short stories. The eponymous micro-novel Nebulon, based on the Arthurian legend, is one of many cultural references in the book: the other stories reference a wide range of cultural symbols, featuring, among other things, the imaginary symposium of Balkan
and Mediterranean
nations, an account involving the metamorphosis of a virgin fisherman in Tunisia
, a memoir of the author's own love for the British
rock band Pink Floyd
, and recollections from her childhood. Cesereanu's other Partly expanding on her earlier themes, the pieces were defined by Cernat as "exercises in virtuosity", and noted for their "imaginative exuberance". However, the critic objected to their "inkhorn" and "didactic
" aspects, raising concern that the author's tendency to "reveal the conventions of her own narratives" echoed "pedantry".
Early in the 2000s, Ruxandra Cesereanu took a more experimental
approach to poetry, theorizing a style for which she coined the term delirionism (from "delirium
"). According to her own definition, it implies "the transposition of a semi-psychedelic
trance
into poetry". She then publicized a Delirionist Manifesto, which was notably read by Romanian American
writer Andrei Codrescu
. According to Cesereanu, Codrescu welcomed the new trend, and identified himself as a delirionist.
In June 2007, Cesereanu and Codrescu published a lengthy experimental poem they authored together, which was completed through the means of e-mail
exchanges. Titled Submarinul iertat ("The Forgiven Submarine"), it is structured as a set of poetry lessons, handed down by a beatnik
poet and woman pianist to a submarine. Codrescu, who noted that he and his collaborator on the poem only met once in person by the time they started work, described the piece as "the complete story of a difficult love", commented on the writing process: "I was a sleepwalker and an obsessive person. I wrote like a madman and expected immediate replies from Ruxandra, and if the answer did not come on time, I went into hysteric
fits like a girl would."
Cesereanu noted that, although begun as a game, the writing drew praise from the influential Romanian writer Mircea Cărtărescu
, who recommended it for publishing. It was issued in a luxury edition of 150 copies, bound in velvet and illustrated with works by the Cluj-Napoca-based artist Radu Chio. The two authors wrote a second collaborative poem, Ospăţul alchimic ("The Alchemic Feast"), originally published on Cesereanu's blog
and later printed by the magazine România Literară
.
during the 1950s and 60s, as set in place by the communist secret police, the Securitate
. Dan C. Mihăilescu, who referred to Cesereanu as one in a "Cluj-Napocan, Transylvania
n 'trident' " of essayists, alongside Marta Petreu
and Ştefan Borbély, indicated she was "one of the most industrious literary historians, analysts of mentalities, of the ethno-psychologies etc." Speaking in 2004, she noted that her contributions in the study of what she calls "the Romanian Gulag
" aimed to provide material for a "trial of communism" in Romania. Paul Cernat argues that there may be a subtle connection between Cesereanu's fiction and her historical studies, indicating that the "archeology of nocturnal phantasms", a common theme in Cesereanu's poetry, may share focus with her interest in " 'domesticating' a savage imagination" Romanians have developed around the issue of communist terror.
Cesereanu notes that, although not a trained historian, she sought to contribute material that would bridge a gap in traditional historiography
. At the time, speaking of the prison system set in place in the Soviet Union
and throughout the Eastern Bloc
, Cesereanu stated: "I do not think that the Holocaust and the Gulag should be judged in competition to one another, as I do not believe in a hierarchy of horror. Horror is horror, there is no room set for a first prize with a wreath and then a second place, a third etc. Between the regimes that have produced the Holocaust and those that have produced the Gulag there were differences in the practice of terror, but the goal was one and the same." She also indicated that her investigations also dealt with politically-motivated "fratricide
" in general, including the Mineriad
s of the early 1990s, during which miners from the Jiu Valley
assailed the "Golani
" crowds protesting in Bucharest
.
In particular, Cesereanu focused on preserving the memory of the Romanian penitentiary system, objecting to a tendency toward "passivity and indifference", which, she argues, is present among those who have "collaborated with the communist regime" or are among "the more or less symbolic executioners". She also noted that, in addition to this category and the smaller one, comprising people who assume "a collective memory", there are those who assume a "neither pro- nor against position, because they have done nothing against the communist regime, but where obedient." She added: "I place my confidence in the youngsters and their appetite for the truth."
Cesereanu's research into violence also extended to investigating the tradition of abusive and demeaning language in Romanian journalistic prose, from the 19th century onwards. She subsequently published the 2003 study Imaginarul violent al românilor ("The Violent Imaginary of the Romanians"), which analyzes the references to violence in articles authored by the celebrated writers Mihai Eminescu
, Ion Luca Caragiale
and Tudor Arghezi
, provides an overview of the violent fascist
discourse of the interwar period
and World War II
(in particular that used by the Iron Guard
), and looks into the radicalism of the communist newspapers which monopolized information after 1947. The main focus, Cesereanu writes in the book, was on the "spectacular-inventive" use of "the law breaking register, the bestial, the putrid-excremental and the lecherous ones." According to Adrian Marino, this signified that the material dealt with was of a "maximal triviality, vulgarity and violence."
In its final part, the volume investigates the proliferation of abusive language and threats in the Romanian press of the early 1990s, focusing on papers who supported the ruling National Salvation Front, in particular Adevărul
, Dimineaţa, Azi
and the ultra-nationalist
România Mare. Notably, this chapter of the book focuses on hate mail
received by poetess Ana Blandiana
, who had become one of the Salvation Front's most prominent critics, and who, Doina Jela argues, was thus being subjected to intimidation from the part of former Securitate operatives who supported the new authorities. Also according to Jela, Cesereanu read the letters in their entirety (something which their addressee had always refused to do) and used their many claims and calumnies as evidence of a distorted and violent image Romanians in general had of the world at large. Of the book's perspective on the Mineriads, Marino wrote: "Written in sobre, calm manner, with outstanding clarity, well-informed, this 'bitter story' (which we have all lived through) [is] at the level of the best Romanian contributions in this field. And more than once above these." Noting the impact of "the author's literary talent" on her scientific work, he praised the work for its "fluent style, without any aridity."
Although critically acclaimed, the book raised some concerns that, in particular through its choice of title, it was over-generalizing mentalities not necessarily shared by the entire Romanian society. While himself objecting to this possibility of misinterpretation, Mihăilescu notes that Imaginarul violent al românilor documents a number of unusual connections between violent images in the Romanian press. He thus comments that the "imprecations" found in the far right
Sfarmă-Piatră
resemble the "appeals to assassination" authored by the Romanian Communist Party
's Silviu Brucan
, and that some of the more scornful pamphlets published by the left-wing Arghezi served as an inspiration to the ultra-nationalists Eugen Barbu
and Corneliu Vadim Tudor
. Adrian Marino commented that, although the book could not provide an exact portrayal of Romanian references to violence, it could serve as a study in "ethno-onthology", a concept first used by Romanian historian Sorin Antohi
. Cesereanu herself commented on her choice of title, indicating that she had aimed for "corporalization and personalization", and rejecting speculation that she was unfavorably comparing Romanians to other peoples.
Cesereanu also coordinated two volumes documenting the livelihood of marginalized categories in the post-revolutionary period. According to Cernat, they are both written as "experimental reportages". She has also contributed a book on the 1989 Romanian Revolution (Decembrie '89. Deconstrucţia unei revoluţii, "December 1989. The Deconstruction of a Revolution").
Traian Băsescu
, who was facing impeachment referendum
as a result of Parliament
decision. Together with 49 other intellectuals (among them Adriana Babeţi, Hannelore Baier, Mircea Cărtărescu
, Magda Cârneci, Livius Ciocârlie, Andrei Cornea, Sabina Fati, Florin Gabrea, Sorin Ilieşiu, Gabriel Liiceanu
, Mircea Mihăieş, Dan C. Mihăilescu, Virgil Nemoianu
, Andrei Oişteanu
, Horia-Roman Patapievici
, Dan Perjovschi
, Andrei Pippidi, Şerban Rădulescu-Zoner, Victor Rebengiuc
, Dan Tapalagă, Vladimir Tismăneanu
, Florin Ţurcanu, Traian Ungureanu, Sever Voinescu
and Alexandru Zub
), she signed an open letter
accusing parliamentary parties of benefiting from the crisis.
The signers accused the most radical anti-Băsescu parties, a core group including the Social Democrats
, the Conservative Party
and the Greater Romania Party
, of representing the legacy of communism and political corruption
. The letter noted that this group had objected to both the findings of the Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
, which offered the basis for the regime's retrospective condemnation, and to the judicial reform measures advanced by Băsescu.
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 poet, essayist, short story writer, novelist and literary critic. Also known as a journalist, academic, literary historian and film critic, Cesereanu holds a teaching position at the Babeş-Bolyai 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...
(UBB), and is an editor for the magazine Steaua in Cluj-Napoca
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...
.
The author of several prose and poetry volumes, Cesereanu became noted for her lyrical depictions of femininity and eroticism
Eroticism
Eroticism is generally understood to refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality and romantic love...
, many of which attracted critical acclaim in her native country. They are believed by several commentators to have been influenced by 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 its Romanian successor, Onirism
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....
, and seen as examples of Postmodernism
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...
, while Cesereanu herself identified some of her writings with psychedelic
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
experience and with the coined term delirionism. She is also noted for collaborating with Romanian-born American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
poet Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu is a Romanian-born American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio. He was Mac Curdy Distinguished Professor of English at Louisiana State University from 1984 until his retirement in 2009....
on two poems, both of which were completed through e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
exchanges.
Several of Cesereanu's studies deal with the impact 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...
on Romanian culture and society, and in particular with the history of repression and penal labor. She has also contributed essays and coordinated research on various aspects of Romania's post-communist history
History of Romania since 1989
- 1989 revolution :1989 marked the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. A mid-December protest in Timişoara against the eviction of a Hungarian minister grew into a country-wide protest against the Ceauşescu régime, sweeping the dictator from power....
, as well as on the history of journalism in her country.
Biography
Born in Cluj-Napoca, Ruxandra Cesereanu is the daughter of writer Domeţian Teodoziu Cesereanu and his wife Aurora, a teacher. She graduated from the Natural Sciences High School (now the Onisifor Ghibu High School), and studied Philology at the UBB's RomanianRomanian 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...
-Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
Department (graduating in 1985). She received her graduation diploma with a thesis on the work of poet Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
(Moartea, visul şi somnul în opera lui Eminescu, or "Death, Dreaming and Sleep in the Work of Mihai Eminescu").
After being assigned a teaching position in 1988, she taught Romanian language and literature at educational institutions in Năsăud
Nasaud
Năsăud is a town in Bistriţa-Năsăud County in Romania located in the historical region of Transylvania. The town administers two villages, Liviu Rebreanu and Luşca.The name Năsăud is possibly derived from the Slavic nas voda, meaning "near the water"...
, Bistriţa
Bistrita
Bistrița is the capital city of Bistriţa-Năsăud County, Transylvania, Romania. It is situated on the Bistriţa River. The city has a population of approximately 80,000 inhabitants, and it administers six villages: Ghinda, Sărata, Sigmir, Slătiniţa, Unirea and Viişoara.-History:The earliest sign of...
, and Avrig
Avrig
Avrig is a town in the Sibiu County, Romania. It has a population of 16,215 and the first documents attesting the village date to 1346.The town administers four villages: Bradu , Glâmboaca , Mârşa and Săcădate .- Geography :It lies on the left bank of the river Olt Avrig is a town in the Sibiu...
. In 1989, the year when the communist regime was toppled by the Romanian 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...
, Cesereanu was working in Cluj-Napoca, where she was an editor for the Film Distribution Section of 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...
. In 1990, she became an editor for the film and movie magazine Ecran, before joining Steaua 's staff the following year. She also worked as a journalist for Ziarul de Cluj in 1998.
In 1994, Ruxandra Cesereanu began teaching at the UBB's Faculty of Letters, and moved on to the Faculty of Political Sciences' Journalism Department in 2000. She was the recipient of several scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
s: in 1992, the Central European University
Central European University
For other uses, see European University Central European University is a graduate-level, English-language university offering degrees in the social sciences, humanities, law, public policy, business management, environmental science, and mathematics...
granted her a one-year study course in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, and in 1995 she received a similar grant from the Soros Foundation
Soros Foundation
A Soros Foundation is one of a network of national foundations, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, which fund volunteer socio-political activity, created by George Soros, international financier and self-proclaimed philanthropist, and coordinated since early 1994 by a management team called the...
.
After receiving a PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in 1997, with a thesis on the impact of communist persecution on Romanian culture (Infernul concentraţionar reflectat în conştiinţa românească, "The Inferno of the Prison System as Reflected in the Romanian Consciousness"), Cesereanu was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...
to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, affiliating with the Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Harriman Institute
Harriman Institute
The Harriman Institute, the first academic center in the United States devoted to the interdisciplinary study of Russia and the Soviet Union, was founded at Columbia University in 1946, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, as the Russian Institute....
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
(1999-2000). She then received a four-month research grant 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...
, followed by two creativity grants in, respectively, Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
and Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
. She became a Lecturer (2002) and then a Prelector (2003) for the UBB's Journalism Department.
Cesereanu is a member of the Romanian Writers' Union since 1994, and of the Romanian PEN Club
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....
since 2001. She is also a member of the UBB's Center for Imagination Studies and of the Echinox Cultural Foundation. In addition to her work as a writer and commentator, Cesereanu has also produced a short documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
for the Cluj-Napoca branch of the national television channel
Romanian television
Romanian television may refer to:* Communications media in Romania* Televiziunea Română, TVR, the national television network* List of Romanian language television channels...
(Treisprezece biserici, "Thirteen Churches", 1998), and a four-episode talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
series on cultural issues, aired by the same station during 2000. Cesereanu also organized two cultural events in her native city: a poetry symposium in 1998 and an art exhibit in 1999. The Cluj-Napoca Writers' Association granted her its Poetry Award on two separate occasions (1994, 2005), and its Essay Award in 1998 and 2001. She is a recipient of Apostrof
Apostrof
Apostrof is a monthly literary magazine published in Cluj-Napoca, Romania under the Romanian Writers' Union patronage. It was founded in 1990 by Babeş-Bolyai University professor Marta Petreu, who is also its editor in chief and main columnist...
magazine's Ion Negoiţescu
Ion Negoitescu
Ion Negoiţescu was a Romanian literary historian, critic, poet, novelist and memoirist, one of the leading members of the Sibiu Literary Circle. A rebellious and eccentric figure, Negoiţescu began his career while still an adolescent, and made himself known as a literary ideologue of the 1940s...
Award in the Essay category (1998), and received the Lions Club
Lions Clubs International
Lions Clubs International is a secular service organization with over 44,500 clubs and more than 1,368,683 members in 191 countries around the world founded by Melvin Jones Headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, United States, the organization aims to meet the needs of communities on a local and...
Prose Prize in 2005.
In addition to her contributions to Steaua, Apostrof and Ziarul de Cluj, Cesereanu had her articles hosted by publications such as Cuvântul
Cuvântul (literary magazine)
Cuvântul is a literary and political monthly, published in Bucharest, Romania. Tracing its origins back to 1990, it was successively edited by various figures in contemporary Romanian literature, among them Ioan T. Morar, Ioan Buduca, Radu G. Ţeposu and Mircea Martin...
, Tribuna, Familia
Familia (literary magazine)
The Romanian-language Familia literary magazine was first published by Iosif Vulcan in Budapest from June 5, 1865 to April 17, 1880. The magazine moved to Oradea and continued publication from April 27, 1880 to December 31, 1906....
, Revista 22
Revista 22
Revista 22 is a Romanian weekly magazine, issued by the Group for Social Dialogue and focused mainly on politics and culture....
, Vatra, România Literară
România Literară
România literară is a cultural and literary magazine from România founded in 1855 by Vasile Alecsandri and published in Iași between January 1, 1855 until December 3, 1855, when it was suppressed. The new series appeared in October 10, 1855 as a continuation of Gazeta literară...
, Observator Cultural
Observator Cultural
Observator Cultural is a literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania. It covers Romania's cultural and arts scene.-External links:*...
, Convorbiri Literare, Romanian Review, Orizont, Memoria and Echinox, as well as in Columbia University's Intermarium and the Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
n literary magazine Contrafort
Contrafort
Contrafort is a magazine based in Chişinău, Moldova. It was launched in October 1994. Contrafort promotes a modern critical spirit while focusing on the contemporary literature and culture of the Republic of Moldova.- External links : *...
.
Ruxandra Cesereanu is married to Corin Braga, a lecturer at the UBB's Faculty of Letters. She signs her works with her maiden name.
Poetry and prose of fiction
Ruxandra Cesereanu has a large number of contributions to literature, which, according to literary critic Paul Cernat, makes her "one of the most creative literary women in post-revolutionary RomaniaHistory of Romania since 1989
- 1989 revolution :1989 marked the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. A mid-December protest in Timişoara against the eviction of a Hungarian minister grew into a country-wide protest against the Ceauşescu régime, sweeping the dictator from power....
". Much of her early work, Cernat argues, is characterized by "mannerism
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
", related to Onirism
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....
and using psychoanalytic
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...
techniques. The links with Onirism and 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....
have also been noted by critic Matei Călinescu
Matei Calinescu
Matei Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic and professor of comparative literature at Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana....
, who also noted that Cesereanu took inspiration from the tradition of fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s and legends, in particular in pieces where she reinterprets Arthurian legends and retells the mythical search for the Holy Grail
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
. Cesereanu's collaborator and literary historian Doina Jela describes her prose as "postmodern
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...
", while historian and civil society
Civil society
Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...
activist Adrian Marino calls her "the most original, but also the most paradoxical writer from Cluj-Napoca".
Cesereanu's early poems, grouped in the volumes Grădina deliciilor ("Garden of Delights") and Oceanul Schizoidian ("The Schizoid Ocean"), both noted for their interrogative and occasionally violent stances, have been defined by the author herself as "extremely attached to a culture of corporality", depicting "battles with myself, with Death, with love, with God." The poetry volume Femeia-cruciat ("The Woman-Crusader") was imagined by the author as a dialog between the several aspects of femininity and four men, each standing for one of the main images of the male: "Magister (her master), the Brother, the Lover and Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
." The book also depicts women through "a series of portraits", comprising "the neurotic
Neurosis
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, whereby behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms. It is also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder, and thus those suffering from it are said to be neurotic...
little girl, the femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
, the crusader, the schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
c woman, the mystic, the profligate woman etc." This focus on female passion, which she noted was akin to an act of "exorcism
Exorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
", is also present in the "letters of a courtesan
Courtesan
A courtesan was originally a female courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
" series of poems she published under the title Veneţia cu vene violete ("Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
with Violet Veins").
In 2002, Cesereanu published the novel Tricephalos (or "Trikephalos"). She speaks of it as: "A book of initiation into an eroticism
Eroticism
Eroticism is generally understood to refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality and romantic love...
that is at once spectacular and abysmal, but also into the emptiness of this world. A book that has fulfilled me as both a writer and a woman." Cernat defines the volume as "the inkhorn myth-making of the eros
Eros (love)
Eros is one of the four words in Ancient Greek which can be rendered into English as “love”. The other three are storge, philia and agape...
and of traveling [which] relishes into an extravagant spectacle of female stances". Literary critic Dan C. Mihăilescu describes it as "imbued in sexuality", and notes that some have even compared it to Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle is the lead character in a series of French softcore erotic movies based on a character created by Emmanuelle Arsan in the novel Emmanuelle...
, a French
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...
softcore
Softcore
Softcore pornography is a form of filmic or photographic pornography or erotica that is less sexually explicit than hardcore pornography. It is intended to tickle and arouse men and women. Softcore pornography depicts nude and semi-nude performers engaging in casual social nudity or non-graphic...
film.
Three years after Tricephalos, Cesereanu published Nebulon, a collection of short stories. The eponymous micro-novel Nebulon, based on the Arthurian legend, is one of many cultural references in the book: the other stories reference a wide range of cultural symbols, featuring, among other things, the imaginary symposium of Balkan
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
nations, an account involving the metamorphosis of a virgin fisherman in Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
, a memoir of the author's own love for the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
rock band Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
, and recollections from her childhood. Cesereanu's other Partly expanding on her earlier themes, the pieces were defined by Cernat as "exercises in virtuosity", and noted for their "imaginative exuberance". However, the critic objected to their "inkhorn" and "didactic
Didacticism
Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...
" aspects, raising concern that the author's tendency to "reveal the conventions of her own narratives" echoed "pedantry".
Early in the 2000s, Ruxandra Cesereanu took a more experimental
Experimental literature
Experimental literature refers to written works - often novels or magazines - that place great emphasis on innovations regarding technique and style.-Early history:...
approach to poetry, theorizing a style for which she coined the term delirionism (from "delirium
Delirium
Delirium or acute confusional state is a common and severe neuropsychiatric syndrome with core features of acute onset and fluctuating course, attentional deficits and generalized severe disorganization of behavior...
"). According to her own definition, it implies "the transposition of a semi-psychedelic
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
trance
Trance
Trance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...
into poetry". She then publicized a Delirionist Manifesto, which was notably read by Romanian American
Romanian American
A Romanian American is a citizen of the United States who has significant Romanian heritage. For the 2000 US Census, 367,310 Americans indicated Romanian as their first ancestry, while 462,526 persons declared to have Romanian ancestry...
writer Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu is a Romanian-born American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio. He was Mac Curdy Distinguished Professor of English at Louisiana State University from 1984 until his retirement in 2009....
. According to Cesereanu, Codrescu welcomed the new trend, and identified himself as a delirionist.
In June 2007, Cesereanu and Codrescu published a lengthy experimental poem they authored together, which was completed through the means of e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
exchanges. Titled Submarinul iertat ("The Forgiven Submarine"), it is structured as a set of poetry lessons, handed down by a beatnik
Beatnik
Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...
poet and woman pianist to a submarine. Codrescu, who noted that he and his collaborator on the poem only met once in person by the time they started work, described the piece as "the complete story of a difficult love", commented on the writing process: "I was a sleepwalker and an obsessive person. I wrote like a madman and expected immediate replies from Ruxandra, and if the answer did not come on time, I went into hysteric
Hysteria
Hysteria, in its colloquial use, describes unmanageable emotional excesses. People who are "hysterical" often lose self-control due to an overwhelming fear that may be caused by multiple events in one's past that involved some sort of severe conflict; the fear can be centered on a body part, or,...
fits like a girl would."
Cesereanu noted that, although begun as a game, the writing drew praise from the influential Romanian writer Mircea Cărtărescu
Mircea Cartarescu
Mircea Cărtărescu is a Romanian poet, novelist and essayist.Born in Bucharest, he graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Letters, Department of Romanian Language And Literature, in 1980. Between 1980 and 1989 he worked as a Romanian language teacher, then he worked at the Writers'...
, who recommended it for publishing. It was issued in a luxury edition of 150 copies, bound in velvet and illustrated with works by the Cluj-Napoca-based artist Radu Chio. The two authors wrote a second collaborative poem, Ospăţul alchimic ("The Alchemic Feast"), originally published on Cesereanu's blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
and later printed by the magazine România Literară
România Literară
România literară is a cultural and literary magazine from România founded in 1855 by Vasile Alecsandri and published in Iași between January 1, 1855 until December 3, 1855, when it was suppressed. The new series appeared in October 10, 1855 as a continuation of Gazeta literară...
.
Literary and historical essays
Cesereanu dedicated part of her work to researching the impact of communist-organized state persecution, and to the historical investigation of political imprisonmentsPolitical 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’....
during the 1950s and 60s, as set in place by the communist 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...
. Dan C. Mihăilescu, who referred to Cesereanu as one in a "Cluj-Napocan, 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 'trident' " of essayists, alongside 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...
and Ştefan Borbély, indicated she was "one of the most industrious literary historians, analysts of mentalities, of the ethno-psychologies etc." Speaking in 2004, she noted that her contributions in the study of what she calls "the Romanian Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
" aimed to provide material for a "trial of communism" in Romania. Paul Cernat argues that there may be a subtle connection between Cesereanu's fiction and her historical studies, indicating that the "archeology of nocturnal phantasms", a common theme in Cesereanu's poetry, may share focus with her interest in " 'domesticating' a savage imagination" Romanians have developed around the issue of communist terror.
Cesereanu notes that, although not a trained historian, she sought to contribute material that would bridge a gap in traditional historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
. At the time, speaking of the prison system set in place in 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 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...
, Cesereanu stated: "I do not think that the Holocaust and the Gulag should be judged in competition to one another, as I do not believe in a hierarchy of horror. Horror is horror, there is no room set for a first prize with a wreath and then a second place, a third etc. Between the regimes that have produced the Holocaust and those that have produced the Gulag there were differences in the practice of terror, but the goal was one and the same." She also indicated that her investigations also dealt with politically-motivated "fratricide
Fratricide
Fratricide is the act of a person killing his or her brother....
" in general, including the Mineriad
Mineriad
See also The 1990s: the rise and decline of miners' unionsA Mineriad is the term used to name any of the successive violent interventions of miners in Bucharest. These interventions were generally seen as aimed at wrestling policy changes or simply material advantages from the current political...
s of the early 1990s, during which miners from the Jiu Valley
Jiu Valley
The Jiu Valley is a region in southwestern Romania, in Hunedoara county, situated in a valley of the Jiu River between the Retezat Mountains and the Parâng Mountains...
assailed the "Golani
Golaniad
The Golaniad was a protest in Romania in the University Square, Bucharest. It was initiated by students and professors at the University of Bucharest....
" crowds protesting 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....
.
In particular, Cesereanu focused on preserving the memory of the Romanian penitentiary system, objecting to a tendency toward "passivity and indifference", which, she argues, is present among those who have "collaborated with the communist regime" or are among "the more or less symbolic executioners". She also noted that, in addition to this category and the smaller one, comprising people who assume "a collective memory", there are those who assume a "neither pro- nor against position, because they have done nothing against the communist regime, but where obedient." She added: "I place my confidence in the youngsters and their appetite for the truth."
Cesereanu's research into violence also extended to investigating the tradition of abusive and demeaning language in Romanian journalistic prose, from the 19th century onwards. She subsequently published the 2003 study Imaginarul violent al românilor ("The Violent Imaginary of the Romanians"), which analyzes the references to violence in articles authored by the celebrated writers Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
, Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale was a Wallachian-born Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist...
and Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
, provides an overview of the violent 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...
discourse of the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
and 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...
(in particular that used by the 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...
), and looks into the radicalism of the communist newspapers which monopolized information after 1947. The main focus, Cesereanu writes in the book, was on the "spectacular-inventive" use of "the law breaking register, the bestial, the putrid-excremental and the lecherous ones." According to Adrian Marino, this signified that the material dealt with was of a "maximal triviality, vulgarity and violence."
In its final part, the volume investigates the proliferation of abusive language and threats in the Romanian press of the early 1990s, focusing on papers who supported the ruling National Salvation Front, in particular Adevărul
Adevarul
Adevărul is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in 1871 and reestablished in 1888, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Romanian Kingdom's existence, adopting an independent pro-democratic position, advocating land reform and universal suffrage...
, Dimineaţa, Azi
Azi (Romanian newspaper)
Azi is a Romanian daily newspaper published in Bucharest....
and the ultra-nationalist
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...
România Mare. Notably, this chapter of the book focuses on hate mail
Hate mail
Hate mail is a form of harassment, usually consisting of invective and potentially intimidating or threatening comments towards the recipient...
received by poetess 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:...
, who had become one of the Salvation Front's most prominent critics, and who, Doina Jela argues, was thus being subjected to intimidation from the part of former Securitate operatives who supported the new authorities. Also according to Jela, Cesereanu read the letters in their entirety (something which their addressee had always refused to do) and used their many claims and calumnies as evidence of a distorted and violent image Romanians in general had of the world at large. Of the book's perspective on the Mineriads, Marino wrote: "Written in sobre, calm manner, with outstanding clarity, well-informed, this 'bitter story' (which we have all lived through) [is] at the level of the best Romanian contributions in this field. And more than once above these." Noting the impact of "the author's literary talent" on her scientific work, he praised the work for its "fluent style, without any aridity."
Although critically acclaimed, the book raised some concerns that, in particular through its choice of title, it was over-generalizing mentalities not necessarily shared by the entire Romanian society. While himself objecting to this possibility of misinterpretation, Mihăilescu notes that Imaginarul violent al românilor documents a number of unusual connections between violent images in the Romanian press. He thus comments that the "imprecations" found in the far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
Sfarmă-Piatră
Sfarma-Piatra
Sfarmă-Piatră was an antisemitic daily, monthly and later weekly newspaper, published in Romania during the late 1930s and early 1940s...
resemble the "appeals to assassination" authored by the 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...
's Silviu Brucan
Silviu Brucan
Silviu Brucan was a Romanian communist politician. Though he disagreed with Nicolae Ceauşescu's policies, he never gave up his communist beliefs and did not oppose communist ideology...
, and that some of the more scornful pamphlets published by the left-wing Arghezi served as an inspiration to the ultra-nationalists 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...
and Corneliu Vadim Tudor
Corneliu Vadim Tudor
Corneliu Vadim Tudor is leader of the Greater Romania Party , writer, journalist and a Member of the European Parliament...
. Adrian Marino commented that, although the book could not provide an exact portrayal of Romanian references to violence, it could serve as a study in "ethno-onthology", a concept first used by Romanian historian Sorin Antohi
Sorin Antohi
-Biography:Antohi was born in Târgu Ocna. He received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Iaşi and a DEA from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He taught history at the University of Michigan, at the University of Bucharest and at the Central-European...
. Cesereanu herself commented on her choice of title, indicating that she had aimed for "corporalization and personalization", and rejecting speculation that she was unfavorably comparing Romanians to other peoples.
Cesereanu also coordinated two volumes documenting the livelihood of marginalized categories in the post-revolutionary period. According to Cernat, they are both written as "experimental reportages". She has also contributed a book on the 1989 Romanian Revolution (Decembrie '89. Deconstrucţia unei revoluţii, "December 1989. The Deconstruction of a Revolution").
Political advocacy
In early 2007, Cesereanu became involved in supporting PresidentPresident 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...
Traian Băsescu
Traian Basescu
Traian Băsescu is the current President of Romania. After serving as the mayor of Bucharest from June 2000 until December 2004, he was elected president in the Romanian Presidential Elections of 2004 and inaugurated on December 20, 2004...
, who was facing impeachment referendum
Romanian presidential impeachment referendum, 2007
The Romanian presidential impeachment referendum of 2007 was conducted in order to determine whether the president of Romania Traian Băsescu should be forced to step down.On April 19, 2007 the Romanian parliament suspended Băsescu...
as a result of Parliament
Parliament of Romania
The Parliament of Romania is made up of two chambers:*The Chamber of Deputies*The SenatePrior to the modifications of the Constitution in 2003, the two houses had identical attributes. A text of a law had to be approved by both houses...
decision. Together with 49 other intellectuals (among them Adriana Babeţi, Hannelore Baier, Mircea Cărtărescu
Mircea Cartarescu
Mircea Cărtărescu is a Romanian poet, novelist and essayist.Born in Bucharest, he graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Letters, Department of Romanian Language And Literature, in 1980. Between 1980 and 1989 he worked as a Romanian language teacher, then he worked at the Writers'...
, Magda Cârneci, Livius Ciocârlie, Andrei Cornea, Sabina Fati, Florin Gabrea, Sorin Ilieşiu, Gabriel Liiceanu
Gabriel Liiceanu
Gabriel Liiceanu is a Romanian philosopher.He graduated from University of Bucharest's Faculty of Philosophy in 1965, and from Faculty of Classical Languages in 1973. He earned a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Bucharest in 1976....
, Mircea Mihăieş, Dan C. Mihăilescu, Virgil Nemoianu
Virgil Nemoianu
Virgil Nemoianu is a Romanian-American essayist, literary critic, and philosopher of culture. He is generally described as a specialist in “comparative literature” but this is a somewhat limiting label, only partially covering the wider range of his activities and accomplishments...
, Andrei Oişteanu
Andrei Oisteanu
Andrei Oişteanu is a Romanian historian of religions and mentalities, ethnologist, cultural anthropologist, literary critic and novelist. Specialized in the history of religions and mentalities, he is also noted for his investigation of rituals and magic and his work in Jewish studies and the...
, Horia-Roman Patapievici
Horia-Roman Patapievici
Horia-Roman Patapievici is a Romanian physicist and essayist who currently serves as the head of the Romanian Cultural Institute. Between 2000 and 2005, he was a member of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, supporting more openness regarding the files of the...
, Dan Perjovschi
Dan Perjovschi
Dan Perjovschi is an artist, writer and cartoonist born in 1961 in Sibiu, Romania. Perjovschi has over the past decade created drawings in museum spaces, most recently in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in which he created the drawing during business hours for patrons to see. The drawings...
, Andrei Pippidi, Şerban Rădulescu-Zoner, Victor Rebengiuc
Victor Rebengiuc
Victor Rebengiuc is an award-winning Romanian film and stage actor, also known as a civil society activist. Since 1957, he has been a member of the Bulandra Theater company, acting in more than 200 roles on that stage alone...
, Dan Tapalagă, 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...
, Florin Ţurcanu, Traian Ungureanu, Sever Voinescu
Sever Voinescu
Sever Voinescu is a Romanian journalist, political analyst, diplomat and right-wing politician. A Foreign Affairs Ministry figure during the mid-1990s, he was later a Consul General of Romania in Chicago, United States. Voinescu became known as a columnist for Dilema Veche weekly and Cotidianul...
and Alexandru Zub
Alexandru Zub
Alexandru Zub is a Romanian historian, biographer, essayist, political activist and academic. A former Professor at the University of Iaşi, noted for his contribution to the study of cultural history and Romanian history, he is currently head of the A. D. Xenopol Institute of History and Archeology...
), she signed an open letter
Open letter
An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally....
accusing parliamentary parties of benefiting from the crisis.
The signers accused the most radical anti-Băsescu parties, a core group including the Social Democrats
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...
, the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (Romania)
The Conservative Party of Romania is a political party formed in 1991, after the fall of Communism, under the name of the Romanian Humanist Party . From 2005 until December 3, 2006, the party was a junior member of the ruling coalition...
and the Greater Romania Party
Greater Romania Party
The Greater Romania Party is a Romanian radical right-wing, ultra-nationalist political party, led by Corneliu Vadim Tudor. The party is sometimes referred to in English as the Great Romania Party....
, of representing the legacy of communism and political corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
. The letter noted that this group had objected to both the findings of the Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
The Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania , also known as the Tismăneanu Commission , is a commission instituted in Romania by President Traian Băsescu to investigate the Communist regime and provide a comprehensive report allowing for the condemnation of...
, which offered the basis for the regime's retrospective condemnation, and to the judicial reform measures advanced by Băsescu.
Originally published in Romanian
- Călătorie prin oglinzi ("Voyage Through Looking Glasses"), micro-novel, 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,...
, Cluj-Napoca, 1989 - Grădina deliciilor ("Garden of Delights"), poems, Echinox, Cluj-Napoca, 1993
- Zona vie ("Live Zone"), poems, Editura Dacia, Cluj-Napoca, 1993
- Cădere deasupra oraşului ("Fall Over the City"), poems, Transpres, SibiuSibiuSibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...
, 1994 - Purgatoriile ("The Purgatories"), short prose, Editura Albatros, Bucharest, 1997
- Oceanul schizoidian ("Schizoid Ocean"), poems, Editura Marineasa, TimişoaraTimisoaraTimișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
, 1998; second edition Editura Vinea, Bucharest, 2006 - Călătorie spre centrul infernului. Gulagul în conştiinţa românească ("Journey to the Center of Hell. The Gulag in the Romanian Modern Conscience"), essay, Editura Fundaţiei Culturale Române, Bucharest, 1998
- Trupul-Sufletul ("The Body-The Soul"), poems, Călin Stegerean, 1998
- Femeia-cruciat ("The Crusader-Woman"), anthology, poems, Editura Paralela 45, Cluj-Napoca & Bucharest, 1999
- Panopticum. Tortura politică în secolul XX ("Panopticon. Political Torture in 20th Century"), essay, Institutul European, 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...
, 2001 - Veneţia cu vene violete. Scrisorile unei curtezane ("Venice with Violet Veins. Letters of a Courtesan"), poems, Editura Dacia, Cluj-Napoca, 2002
- Tricephalos ("Trikephalos"), novel, Editura Dacia, Cluj-Napoca, 2002
- Imaginarul violent al românilor ("The Violent Imaginary of the Romanians"), essay, HumanitasHumanitas publishing houseHumanitas is an independent Romanian publishing house, founded on February 1, 1990 in Bucharest by the philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu...
, Bucharest, 2003 - Fărâme, cioburi, aşchii dintr-o Curte a Miracolelor ("Bits, Shards, Splinters from a Cour des MiraclesCour des miraclesCour des miracles was a French term which referred to slum districts of Paris, France where the unemployed migrants from rural areas resided...
"), reportages (as editor), Editura Limes, Cluj-Napoca, 2003 - Decembrie '89. Deconstrucţia unei revoluţii ("December 1989. Deconstruction of a Revolution"), essay, PoliromPoliromPolirom or Editura Polirom is a Romanian publishing house with a tradition of publishing classics of international literature and also various titles in the fields of social sciences, such as psychology, sociology and anthropology. The company was founded in February 1995. The first title...
, Iaşi, 2004 - Kore-Persephona, poems, Editura Vinea, Bucharest, 2004
- A doua Curte a Miracolelor ("The Second Cour des Miracles"), reportages (as editor), Editura Tritonic, Cluj-Napoca, 2004
- Nebulon, prose, Polirom, Iaşi, 2005
- Gulagul în conştiinţa românească. Memorialistica şi literatura închisorilor şi lagărelor comuniste ("The Gulag Reflected in the Romanian Consciousness. The Memories and Literature of Communist Prisons and Camps"), essay, Polirom, Iaşi, 2005
- Made in Romania. Subculturi urbane la sfârşit de secol XX şi început de secol XXI ("Made in Romania. Urban Subcultures upon the Close of the 20th Century and the Start of the 21st Century"), essay, Editura Limes, Cluj-Napoca, 2005
- Naşterea dorinţelor lichide ("The Birth of Liquid Desires"), prose, Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 2007
- Submarinul iertat ("The Forgiven Submarine"), with Andrei CodrescuAndrei CodrescuAndrei Codrescu is a Romanian-born American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio. He was Mac Curdy Distinguished Professor of English at Louisiana State University from 1984 until his retirement in 2009....
, Editura Brumar, Timişoara, 2007 - coma, Editura Vinea, Bucureşti, 2008
- Angelus, Editura Humanitas, Bucureşti, 2010
Translated works
- Schizoid Ocean, poems, translated by Claudia Litvinchievici, ESF Publishers, BinghamtonBinghamton, New YorkBinghamton is a city in the Southern Tier of New York in the United States. It is near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers...
, 1997 - Lunacies, poems, translated by Adam J. Sorkin, Claudia Litvinchievici and Ruxandra Cesereanu, New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Meeting Eyes Bindery, 2004 - Crusader woman, poems translated by Adam J. Sorkin with Ruxandra Cesereanu, Claudia Litvinchievici and Mădălina Mudure, Introduction by Andrei Codrescu, Afterword by Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu, Black Widow Press, BostonBostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, 2008 - Forgiven Submarine, poems with Andrei Codrescu, Black Widow Press, BostonBostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, 2009
External links
Ruxandra Cesereanu's blog- http://mesmeeacuttita.wordpress.com
- Mesmeea blog, la http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-voNwP7Ijbr5MnY1Xhgw-;_ylt=AtVhxbMkwj9it2.qcQSpOCusAOJ3?cq=1
- Articole publicate la Editura LiterNet.
- CV la universitatea Babeș-Bolyai Nausika - Scuola di Narrazioni Arturo Bandini
- Giovanni Magliocco, Le metamorfosi del doppio mitico in Kore-Persefona di Ruxandra Cesereanu (essay in italian, published in Amaltea Journal - University of Madrid)