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Polemici: Rolul procuraturii în evitarea Procesului comunismului, contrarevolutiei sPînă cînd se va bloca practic procesul comunismului, cel al victimelor reale? Ce se va întâmpla cu mărturiile de valoare inestimabilă culese de procurorii militari și depuse la dosarele create în cadrul cercetărilor privind evenimentele dintre decembrie 1989 și vara lui 1990? Cînd vor fi găsiți și pedepsiți responsbilii pentru declanșarea războiului civil din 1990? Asymetria |
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Scris de asymetria on Sunday, August 08 @ 14:53:27 CEST (65 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 22892 bytes in plus | Scor: 0) |
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Polemici: Ioan Rosca, Scrisoare deschisa catre Sorin Iliesiu împotriva imposturii « Actiunea dvs., executata cu neobișnuit spor, e dirijată din altă parte, dintr-un nod față de care Ilieșiu, Băsescu, Tismăneanu sînt doar pioni de retea.» Prezentăm această importantă scrisoare deschisă ca o acțiune de limpezire morală și de demascare a imposturii unui aparat manipulatoriu de produs anticomuniști complici ai sistemului politic postdecembrist. Asymetriaa href=" |
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Scris de asymetria on Friday, August 06 @ 15:47:52 CEST (98 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 19086 bytes in plus | Scor: 5) |
Polemici: Ruxandra A. Badea. Scrisoare deschisa catre domnul Ion CaramitruColaborator scrie " SCRISOARE DESCHISA CATRE PRESEDINTELE UNITER, DOMNUL ION CARAMITRU 22 aprilie 2010 Stimate domnule Ion Caramitru, Va adresez o scrisoare deschisa pentru ca subiectul pe care as dori sa il abordez nu este doar de interes personal, ci si de interes public pentru oricare cetatean interesat de viata culturala si, in special, de lumea teatrului din Romania. In data de 19 Aprilie 2010 am urmarit cu mare interes Gala Premiilor UNITER. Interesul mi-a fost sporit si de faptul ca piesa mea de teatru ‘Reluare’ a intrat, alaturi de trei alte piese, in selectia finala a concursului de dramaturgie ‘Cea mai buna piesa romaneasca a anului 2009’. Am asteptat cu nerabdare sa primesc invitatia de a participa la Gala UNITER la fel ca ceilalti nominalizati din randul actorilor, regizorilor, scenografilor s.a.m.d. Insa invitatia nu a venit. Asa cum nu a venit nici telefonul sau scrisoarea care ar fi trebuit sa instiinteze cei patru dramaturgi care au fost alesi pentru Selectia Finala. Ruxandra A. Badea " |
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Scris de asymetria on Tuesday, May 25 @ 20:13:45 CEST (170 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 4247 bytes in plus | Scor: 5) |
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Polemici: Mariana Claudia Popescu. Despre receptare si riscurile ei Colaborator scrie " Despre receptare și riscurile ei ( Pornind de la întrebarea domnului Boris Marian Mehr – Criza criticii române?) Intr-un peisaj literar foarte diversificat, așa cum este cel contemporan, demersul critic tinde să devină o zonă mai controversată decât literatura însăși. In pofida regulilor, normelor, principiilor care, teoretic, ar trebui să ghideze actul receptării în sensul unei anume obiectivități (nu una totală, care ar fi un exces impardonabil!), se poate constata o impetuozitate a "judecății de valoare"(ceea ce este aproape un paradox!) dictată nu de ID-ul psihanalitic ce s-ar putea manifesta printr-o reacție specifică în fața unei experiențe estetice, ci prin "fidelitatea" cu orice preț față de o grupare, o tendință, o generație etc. Desigur, în toate spațiile și epocile culturale există condiționări de natură socială, filozofică, estetică, uneori, inevitabil, prejudecăți, stereotipii de tot felul care nu vor să fie deranjate, instanțe care nu trebuie contrariate. In mod surprinzator, în actul critic, astăzi, atrage atenția nu excesul de libertate, care ar fi, într-un fel, justificat de marea varietate a operelor literare, ci un conservatorism sui generis, defensiv, protector și comod. O critică precum "ochiul imobil al unei camere de luat vederi", după expresia unui celebru teoretician, în care nu este nevoie și nici recomandat să-ți asumi puncte de vedere originale, decât dacă ești foarte cunoscut și recunoscut sau dacă scrii despre ce s-a mai scris. Altfel nu ești credibil, ești "suspect", trebuie să fii "recomandat", să nu dezamăgești. Să fim oare marcați până la acest nivel (cel estetic) de mecanismele și comportamentele subversive ale unei epoci trecute care mai zvâcnește și distorsionează ceea ce încercăm să numim normalitate? " |
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Scris de asymetria on Thursday, April 22 @ 23:37:14 CEST (308 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 9679 bytes in plus | Scor: 4.66) |
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Polemici: Claude Karnoouh. Obscenite ethique du capitalisme « Le jour où la merde vaudra de l’or, le cul des prolétaires ne leur appartiendra plus » (Henry Miller) Nota: G. M. TAMÁS despre Claude Karnoouh, în revista Cultura L’ami du peuple «Claude Karnoouh, antropolog, filosof si eseist francez, este întruchiparea tuturor atitudinilor neconventionale, politically incorrect, care se pot imagina. Un om de stânga, îi admira pe Heidegger, Céline, Jünger, Carl Schmitt, un inamic al tuturor dictaturilor, este de acord cu testamentul politica al Simonei Weil care ar interzice partidele politice si ar supune presa unei cenzuri de adevar, în acelasi timp un sustinator al libertatii nelimitate de opinii, un evreu, dusman înversunat al Statului Israel si al sionismului politic, un fost comunist, prieten al tuturor disidentelor anticomuniste, un om care dispretuieste toate nationalismele, dar învata de la Noica. Claude Karnoouh a fost acuzat de unul din adversarii sai, fostul sau amic, Andrei Plesu, de a fi devenit un român. E o acuzatie formulata cu multa Gemütlichkeit si ironie, si îndreptatita într-un fel poate diferit de intentiile politice ale d-lui Plesu. Claude Karnoouh – în anii numerosi petrecuti în Europa rasariteana – si-a însusit banuiala inerenta a acestei parti a lumii dupa care totul e de vânzare si care sustine ca luarile de pozitie în viata publica, mai ales ale intelectualilor, sunt motivate de vanitati si venalitati, de orgolii si de erotisme ale puterii. Pentru Claude Karnoouh, toate succesele culturale sunt suspecte, trucate, publicitare, aservite intereselor capitalului si elitelor statale. Îi sunt suspecte mai ales succesele radicalismului antisistemic pe care le priveste ca aspecte ale cooptarii energiilor rebele care mai ramân, vestigiale, în cultura occidentala. [...] dar putini au priceput ca românismul lui Claude are o latura insolita. Neobisnuita mai ales în Europa de Est de astazi. Claude Karnoouh este credincios. Fidelitatea lui apartine taranilor din Maramures. I-a cunoscut ca antropolog făcând cercetari de teren ani de zile, si a devenit un poporanist postmodern care rămâne un tânar parisian si un mosneag ardelean honoris causa. Indiferenta intelectualitatii si clasei politice românesti si est-europene fata de mizeria satului, a zonelor miniere abandonate, a cartierelor de blocuri lasate în voia lui Dumnezeu îl revolta – si în punctul acesta decisiv cred că are perfectă dreptate. Ura lui purtată împotriva elitelor liberale se adreseaza mai ales indiferenței acestora. În acest sens, Claude este un intelectual angajat de tip vechi. N-are numai dispreț pentru stilizarea decadenței și eșecului într-o aventura închipuită, ba chiar mincinoasă, de libertate.» |
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Scris de asymetria on Thursday, April 22 @ 21:08:03 CEST (204 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 19093 bytes in plus | Scor: 5) |
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Polemici: Boris Marian Mehr. Criza criticii române? Confratele Boris Marian Mehr difuzează un articol polemic pe care îl publicăm aici convinși că pune în evidență un fenomen real și trage un semnal de alarmă necesar. Singura rezervă pe care am avea-o este legată de titlul care, generalizând, pare să ignore că Manolescu și Ștefănescu nu sunt singurii critici literari din România. Iar colecțiile de texte «cronicărești» reșapate, publicate în format mare, cu un titlu inadecvat și împănate cu unele considerații «pseudoteroretice» și istorice nu le ridică la nivelul lui Lovinescu, Călinescu sau la acela al unei adevărate istorii literare, singura existentă pentru perioada de după 1944, cea a lui Marian Popa. Argumentația lui Boris Marian, care își asumă subiectivitatea pe teme literare, are însă o bătaie mai lungă : instituția Uniunii Scriitorilor. în momentul în care Uniunea e pe cale să-și piardă sediul, adică pământul de sub picioare, când se știe că arhiva Uniunii a fost distrusă prin neglijența criminală a acelora care trebuiau să vegheze la protejarea memoriei noastre colective, semnalele de alarmă sunt necesare și ar trebui să fie susținute și de alți confrați. Dan Culcer |
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Scris de asymetria on Saturday, April 17 @ 09:57:44 CEST (234 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 6880 bytes in plus | Scor: 4.5) |
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Polemici: Isabela Vasiliu-Scraba. Parul lung si blond al lui I. P. Culianu Rostul reclamei nu este cel de-a prezenta adevărul, ci de a face cât mai cunoscut un produs. In cazul produsului “Culianu” avem de-a face cu cea mai mincinoasă, mai des difuzată și mai exagerată reclamă care a fost vreodată făcută unui scriitor român. Isabela Vasiliu-Scraba |
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Scris de asymetria on Sunday, March 14 @ 09:07:07 CET (161 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 20103 bytes in plus | Scor: 5) |
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Polemici: Isabela Vasiliu-Scraba. Erata la Excluderea lui Noica si a poetilor martiri Erata Printr-o regretabilă fugă de condei, într-o frază din articolul “Excluderea lui Noica și a poeților martiri din cultura română” pare că nu am ține cont de o hotărâre judecătorească într-un proces de calomnie. De aceea rugăm a se citi în respectivul pasaj “instanța judecătorească i-a dat dreptate fostului bursier” Isabela Vasiliu-Scraba Erata face trimitere la precizările dlui Mircea Stănescu, trimise redacției și publicate în Asymetria. |
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Scris de asymetria on Sunday, March 14 @ 08:51:28 CET (166 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | Scor: 0) |
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Polemici: Mircea Stanescu. Precizari pe marginea unui eseu de Isabela Vasiliu Scraba D-lui Dan Culcer, Editorul revistei „Asymetria” Stimate Domnule Dan Culcer, Deunăzi am luat la cunoștință că în data de 17 octombrie 2009 revista „Asymetria” a publicat un articol semnat de D-na Isabela Vasiliu Scraba, în care Domnia Sa face o serie de afirmații legate de scrierile mele pe teme istorice și, mai grav, despre persoana mea. întrucât textul cu pricina a apărut în revista Dvs., pe care o prețuiesc, la fel ca și pe Domnia Voastră (de-a lungul timpului am fost onorat să fiu eu însumi publicat de Dvs. în „Asymetria”), țin să fac pentru cititorii revistei următoarele precizări: |
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Scris de asymetria on Wednesday, March 10 @ 08:14:32 CET (198 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 9561 bytes in plus | Scor: 0) |
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Polemici: Emil Duta. Superba continuitate. Penitenciarul ferma de la Pelendava Penitenciarul cu Regim Semideschis Pelendava este amplasat la 8 km est de municipiul Craiova, pe șoseaua Craiova - Caracal “Unitatea are la origine fosta anexă P.C.R. înființată înainte de 1960” (bingo..), care ulterior a aparținut de Oficiul Economic Central Carpați (1 noiembrie 1977). A funcționat ca unitate componentă a Oficiului Economic Central Carpați până la 01 septembrie 1990 când s-a transformat în întreprinderea Agroindustrială de Producție și Prestații Craiova. La 01.04.1991 este preluată de Serviciul Român de Informații București sub denumirea de Societatea "Pelendava" Craiova. De la 01.06.1995 devine Unitatea de Producție și Prestări Servicii Pelendava Craiova (tot SRI) până în iunie 1999 când se transformă în penitenciar trecând în administrarea Ministerului Justiției - Direcția Generală a Penitenciarelor. Superbă continuitate, încă din anii 50 această fermă nu și-a schimbat nici organizarea și nici modul de funcționare – organizare militarizată și mod de funcționare cu circuit închis. în 60 de ani de existență ușile acestui stabiliment nu au fost niciodată deschise publicului larg. |
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Scris de asymetria on Wednesday, March 03 @ 17:00:09 CET (222 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 23106 bytes in plus | Scor: 5) |
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Polemici: Ion Coja. În apararea Mioritei Rândurile de față sunt scrise dintr-un impuls polemic, stârnit de numărul tot mai mare al referințelor stupide care apar în presa românească și pe la autori mai căzniți, având ca țintă comportamentul „mioritic” al ciobănașului sau alte aspecte ale celebrului text. Paharul răbdării s-a fost umplut. |
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Scris de asymetria on Thursday, January 14 @ 14:01:09 CET (315 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 57284 bytes in plus | Scor: 0) |
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Polemici: Ion Coja. Emanciparea evreilor si tiganilor Lipsa de transparență în viața comunităților de țigani sau de evrei este bine cunoscută, dar acesta nu este un motiv ca lucrurile să rămână așa la nesfârșit. Nu cumva aceste politici și structuri tainice au un caracter antidemocrat? Antisocial? Antinațional? Nu numai anti-evreiesc sau anti-țigănesc, ci și anti-românesc etc.? Nu putem accepta la nesfârșit existența unor «instituții» comunitare netransparente sub pretextul că aceasta este o problemă internă! A cui internă? A unui «stat» care funcționează ilegal, parazitar și «pe blat» în trunchiul altui stat, cancerizându-l?… Nota: Asymetria, sătulă de efectul combinat al ideologiei și conformismului, letal, va refuza terminologia impusă după 1989 de așa zisa «societate civilă» în domeniile de analiză care ne preocupă. Așa cum mi se părea stupid pe vremea comunismului real să scriu «conducător-hipo» pentru «căruțaș», mi se pare tot atât de stupid acum să scriu «rom» în loc de «țigan», pentru a ocoli o presupusă valoare peiorativă din limbajul actual, păstrată în acest nume de etnie. Comunitatea țiganilor are tot dreptul de a se folosi de numele pe care și l-a dat, dar nu are dreptul să-mi impună să-l folosesc doar pe acesta, atîta vreme cât în textul meu sensul cuvântului «țigan» nu are nici o conotație peiorativă. Iar asociațiile de tip romanoton are trebui să aibă ca preocupare prioritară mai degrabă eliminarea din comportamentul unei minorități minoritare elementele negative și reale care îi încarcă acesteia imaginea cu conotații negative. Acestea nu sunt invenții și prejudecăți, ci fapte care pot fi analizate, ale căror cauze pot fi desemnate cu aproximație, dar care au nevoie de educația intra-comunitară ca să se modifice în sensul integrării în modernitatea tardivă. |
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Scris de asymetria on Monday, January 04 @ 18:53:52 CET (294 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 15232 bytes in plus | Scor: 5) |
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Polemici: Isabela Vasiliu-Scraba. Despre Noica în cifru "humanist" Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu observa pe 15 noiembrie 1869 cât de comod este “a iubi umanitatea, când aceasta ne scutește a vedea altceva în lume, afară numai de propria noastră nulitate” (apud. Mircea Eliade, Hașdeu gazetar politic). |
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Scris de asymetria on Tuesday, December 22 @ 16:20:37 CET (275 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 21011 bytes in plus | Scor: 5) |
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Polemici: Mac Linscott Ricketts. LES OUBLIS D'ALEXANDRA LAIGNEL-LAVASTINE-II Mac Linscott Ricketts LES OUBLIS D’ALEXANDRA LAIGNEL-LAVASTINE- II CONCERNING MIRCEA ELIADE PART 2 Dr. Laignel-Lavastine entitles the fourth chapter of her book, Cioran, Eliade, Ionescu: L’oubli du fascisme: “A Historian of Religions in the Service of the National Revolution: Mircea Eliade.” This chapter is about Eliade’s activities and writings in the 1930s, after his return from India at the end of 1931. Strangely, she has nothing to say about what Eliade did or wrote during those three years abroad. In view of the importance she places on his nationalism, why has she forgotten to mention the fact that while he was there, he had so closely identified himself with India that he sought to become a Hindu? As he would write later in his memoirs, reflecting on his banishment from the Dasgupta household (the consequence of his romance with his professor’s daughter): “. . . I had lost India itself. All that had happened to me had arisen out of my desire to identify myself with India, to become truly ‘Indian.’ . . . Never would I be able to attain an Indian identity.” Later, after his “second fall” at the ashram on account of another woman, he wrote: “I had failed my ‘adoption’ by Dasgupta and had, therefore, lost ‘historical’ India. And now . . . I had lost my chance to integrate ‘eternal,’ transhistorical India.” If he were truly a whole-hearted Romanian nationalist, why was he tempted to become an Indian? On p. 218 Laignel-Lavastine states flatly, “Anti-Semitism and xenophobia represent a constant in the discourse as well as the political thought of Eliade throughout the 1930s.” In my review of this rather chaotic Chapter IV, I hope to convince readers of the falsity of that statement by “recalling” things the author has “forgotten” and clarifying some of her “misunderstandings.” What the evidence will show, I believe, is that while Eliade became increasingly focused on social and national concerns from about 1934 on, eventually seeing in the Legionary Movement the best hope for the realization of his ideals—he never acquiesced in its anti-Semitism. “Romanianism” [Românism] and anti-Semitism, always joined in the writings of nineteenth- and twentieth-century national political leaders and in the popular mind, remained unmingled in his writings. In this respect, he was perhaps unique among his contemporaries, and not many of them understood him (nor do his interpreters today). In this same period, he was evolving from a champion of a “spiritual” young generation who had no concern for “politics” to the role of prophet to the nation, seeking to define its “mission” in the world, its “historic destiny.” But even as such, he still eschewed involvement in “politics,” which for him was something inevitably tainted, and in its stead he summoned his fellow intellectuals (of his own generation and younger) to participate in “history.” Mme Laignel-Lavastine nearly forgets to mention the Criterion Association, which Eliade called “the most original and significant manifestation of the young generation.” Its members included men and women of all political hues and all branches of culture. Democrats and Communists lectured and debated alongside extreme nationalists like Mihail Polihroniade and other Legionaries. There were two highly-successful series of public symposiums, lectures, and concerts in the autumns of 1932 and 1933, but a third one, in 1934, ended in a nationalistic-student disturbance and personal quarreling among some members. A. L-L., following H. H. Stahl, a sociologist associated with the group, states (with exaggeration) that the organization “passed from free discussion to fantasy” and ended with everyone “donning the green shirt.” She makes reference here also to Eugène Ionesco’s play, Rhinoceros, as depicting the intellectuals’ evolution in the thirties. It may be true that the majority of Criterionists became Legionaries or “sympathizers,” but the fact that they did was not, as our author implies, inevitable because of the group’s membership or basic orientation. The prevailing spirit of Criterion was a democratic one, but it was unable to maintain itself against the nationalistic, anti-democratic tide then sweeping Europe. On pp. 82-83 of L’oubli, in order to demonstrate that Eliade shared the view of nationalists such as Nicolae Iorga and Nae Ionescu, that to be a Romanian, one must be Orthodox, she quotes from two articles of 1933. In the first one cited, “Romanian Students Call for Revision of the Treaties,” Eliade expressed indignation that a student society at Geneva, subsidized by the Romanian government, whose members were Communists, had been agitating for a revision of the Versailles (Trianon) treaties of 1920 that had awarded Romania a sizeable part of Hungarian territory. In doing so, they were aligning themselves with Hungarian students. Eliade is upset because he believes these students should not be receiving money from the Romanian government while opposing its interests. “Why do they still call themselves ‘Romanian students,’ and why do they continue to have their society?” he demands. Laignel-Lavastine states that Eliade means they can’t be Romanians because they’re Communists. A more obvious reading is that they should not call themselves “Romanians” and accept government subsidies, while opposing national interests. The second article has to do with a village near Bra_ov, in Transylvania, where the Saxon (Protestant) element was in the majority. Eliade reports having met one of the ethnic Romanian inhabitants of the village who complained that the Saxon mayor was refusing to grant citizenship to the seven or eight “Romanian” inhabitants who had sought it for years. Mme A. L.-L. calls this story “undoubtedly a rumor,” even though Eliade had heard it first-hand. What interests her is Eliade’s expression of “xenophobic” sentiments against the “German minority” of the Bra_ov region, and she quotes liberally (and almost accurately!) from the article. Both of these articles should be read in the light of the difficulties arising from the incorporation of the large Transylvanian region into Greater Romania after World War I. While Romanians constituted the majority of the total population (57.8%), they were mainly peasants, while the Hungarians (24%), Germans (10%), and Jews (3.2%) were concentrated in the cities and larger towns, where they predominated. In Bra_ov, for instance, the ethnic Romanians were outnumbered two to one by Germans. Each group had its own language, which it was loath to abandon, and it own religion. The Jews tended to assimilate with the Hungarians, but between the wars some of them adopted the Romanian tongue. The peasants and villagers in most of Transylvania, ethnically Romanian, were minimally educated compared to the Magyars and Saxons, which, no doubt, resulted in their being regarded as inferiors. Eliade, as an ethnic Romanian, naturally resented the treatment the “true” Romanians received in the Brasov village, and his comments are heavy with sarcasm. At this point (p. 83), our researcher becomes confused. She states that Mihail Polihroniade, an old classmate of Eliade’s from lyceé, who had joined with Codreanu the previous year, reproduced these two articles “in his Legionary newspaper, Axa, on 12 September 1933, accompanied by an editorial congratulating him for his ‘conversion to Romanianism’—meaning, Legionary ideology.” Polihroniade did reprint two of Eliade’s articles, but only one of them was from the pair just discussed (“Romanian Students Demand Revision of the Treaties”). Other errors: while Axa was a pro-Legionary paper, it was not the “official” one (the Legion’s official paper was P_mântul Str_mo_esc [The Ancestral Ground]) and the date of the Axa article was the 19th, not the 12th, of September. The other article reprinted in Axa (discussed separately by Dr. Laignel-Lavastine on pp. 80-81, who found it in Oceanografie) is “To Cease Being Romanian!” Here Eliade criticizes a “new fashion” among young intellectuals and writers (probably Cioran first of all) of expressing their regret that they were born Romanian, because, as they see it, “Romanians are a race incapable of heroism, of philosophical problems, of artistic creation, and so on.” These youth have discovered “a whole European literature of a metaphysic and an ethic of despair,” and since despair is a sentiment unknown to the Romanian (thanks to the influence of the Orthodox Church), “the intellectual youth have deduced the irremediable stupidity of this people.” Anything not found in the philosophy of Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Pascal—whose thought “is impenetrable to the structures of Romanian thought,” in Eliade’s opinion—has no value to these youth. They have understood nothing of the genius of the Romanian people. They want “problematics, doubt, heroism,” but for the Romanian peasant, who is a realist, doubt and “problems” do not exist: “he believes naturally (‘as the waters flow, as the flowers grow’),” and his concept of a “hero” has nothing to do with that of an intellectual. We have many faults, Eliade confesses, but this is “our human condition” and it is no reason to be ashamed of having been born Romanians. Polihroniade found in this article and the one about the Romanian students at Geneva evidence that his old friend, Mircea Eliade, had undergone a “conversion to Romanianism.” Heretofore, “he has played with ideas and attitudes toward life, he has accumulated experiences, he has tramped around the world, he has shown brilliantly everywhere and always, but . . . he has refused any definitive anchorage in Romanian realities,” Polihroniade wrote. Now, he is “beginning to see Romanian realities and to integrate himself in them.” Eliade’s response was swift. Taking his title from his friend’s editorial, “A Conversion to Romanianism,” Eliade denies that he had ever ceased to be a Romanian. “On the contrary. I have always believed that only experiences, authenticity, and culture can purify the ethnic substance of an individual . . .” He defines his basic concept of the primacy of the spiritual over against the political. “There are a great many young people,” he avows, “who believe in the primacy of the spiritual, who believe that a purely spiritual action is more needful and more fecund than a political one.” To believe this, he insists, does not mean to be abstract or dead. “As for my Romanianism, I’ve never denied it. Indeed, I have suffered for it several times: when the Romanian Christian students disrupted a lecture at the [Royal] Foundation—and when I read how those two great savants, Moses Gaster and L_zar _aineanu, were expelled.” This last sentence is truly astonishing: Eliade states that he suffered for his Romanianism due to Romanian anti-Semitic acts: when a Criterion session (evidently the symposium on Gide, described in Autobiography) was disrupted by nationalists, and when he read about the expulsion from the country of two distinguished Romanian-born Jewish scholars (Gaster in 1885, _aineanu in 1901). In these few words, Eliade hopes to give the anti-Semite Polihroniade a lesson on the true meaning of Romanianism. Completely “forgetting” to mention Eliade’s statement about when he had suffered for his Romanianism, Mme Lavastine characterizes the article as a “hasty denial . . . in which he reaffirms his non-involvement in politics and claims to hold . . . to the ‘primacy of the spiritual’” (ellipsis in original)! Polihroniade issued a rejoinder accusing Eliade of confusing “Romanian” with “Romanianism.” “Romanianism means,” he emphasizes, “a conscious attitude in conformity with the interests and aspirations of the people.” (But hadn’t Eliade always exhibited that attitude? What he hadn’t done was to adopt anti-Semitism, which the extreme nationalists considered an essential part of Romanianism.) Polihroniade reminds his friend that many outstanding thinkers in history, believers in the primacy of the spiritual, also engaged in politics, as does Nae Ionescu today. Moreover, Eliade himself was “making politics” when he wrote about the Communist students at Geneva. As for his suffering when Gaster and _aineanu were expelled, he begs Eliade to “suffer with us, learning that in Maramure_ 60% of the fields and 90% of the forests are in the hands of the Jews.” Eliade made no direct response to that article, but in the fall he returned to the subject of the relationship between spirituality and politics, in an article Laignel-Lavastine seems to have overlooked or forgotten, “We Don’t Need Intellectuals.” “Spirituality is recognized and promoted today only insofar as it serves a polemical purpose,” he writes. “You can speak about man and man’s destiny only if you’re a Communist. You can speak about ethnicity and folklore only if you’re enrolled in a reactionary legion. . . . All, absolutely all, must have a political axis, value, and significance.” The central point of the essay is that intellectuals in Romania today find themselves unappreciated unless “they betray . . . their meaning for existence,” as it puts it. The problem of minorities in Transylvania recurs in a feuilleton from the spring of 1934, in which Mme Laignel-Lavastine finds evidence (p. 221) that Eliade advocated numerus clausus . Titled “Romanianism Compromised,” the article has to do with an episode that had recently occurred in parliament involving Octavian Goga. It seems that in the Chamber of Deputies, Prof. Goga, “lyrical and imprudent as always,” in Eliade’s phrase, had used the word “Romanianism” in speaking about the “denationalization of the cities,” the percentages of foreigners in all occupations, the preponderance of Magyar and Saxon elements in the governments of the Ardeal (Transylvania), and the Communists in Bessarabia. The speech, and especially the term “Romanianism,” had touched off a heated controversy, because, Eliade continues, “Romanianism” has become “taboo,” has fallen into disgrace. Speak the word openly, or say you’re a “nationalist,” and you’ll be called a Hitlerite, a hooligan, a racist, fascist, mercenary, war-monger, an assassin or a sympathizer with assassins. “If you chance to mention something about ‘this country’ (and don’t say it in a pejorative way), you’re suspected of ‘Guardism’ or of anti-Semitism.” Goga had cited statistics showing that in some parts of Maramure_, 90% of the population was “foreign.” Eliade states: “I’m revolted by those 26 foreign council members from Sighetul Marama_iei (compared to six Romanian members) and at those 35 Jewish councilors from Satu-Mare (compared to seven Romanians)—not because I’m a chauvinist, but because a feeble sentiment of social justice has penetrated my soul. I’d be angry if I knew that no minority council members existed in those regions—maybe not so much, but I would be angry . . . .” Apparently, the minorities were represented in greater percentages because of their being concentrated in the cities and were better-educated (although elections were by no means honest!). To Eliade, this seemed unnjust. “[Romanianism] does not mean either fascism or chauvinism—but simply the desire to realize an organic, unitary, ethnic, and equitable State,” Eliade contends. Laignel-Lavastine, Ph. D., cites this last sentence—fragmentarily and not quite accurately—and calls it a plea for numerus clausus (p. 222), which in these years Eliade “considered preferable to violent measures or brutal expulsion.” What he really wants, she says, is an ethnically pure Romanian nation. But she has forgotten one word in Eliade’s description of the ideal State: the word equitable! When this word is included, the meaning of the whole statement is altered. * On 9-10 December 1933, as elections were approaching in which the Legion had many candidates on the ballots, the Liberal Prime Minister, I. C. Duca dissolved the Iron Guard and imprisoned at least five thousand of Legionaries, several of them being killed in the process. The names of Guardist candidates were stricken from the ballots. The editors of Axa requested a number of persons to make statements about this action. Eight responses were published, including one from Eliade (the shortest in fact). Mme Lavastine notes this response (p. 97, n. 1), calling it a “vehement protest” against the interdiction of the “fascist organization, following the assassination of the Prime Minister” (emphasis added). Actually, the protest preceded the assassination by a week (23 Dec 33). Our historian fails to quote Eliade’s statement, although it is quite brief: “The dissolving of the Iron Guard is a political act and, as such, the judging of it surpasses the short response I wish to give now. But the way this dissolution was done, the barbarism exercised so exasperatingly and stupidly on some young people who have no fault but that of belonging to certain youth groups—revolts me. I don’t know if this is political or not. I only know that it is something barbarous and inhuman.” Our researcher seems not to have realized that thousands of Guardists were imprisoned before the assassination (and of course, many more were arrested afterward, though they were not detained very long). Two items from Eliade’s 1934 bibliography should be recalled here, but our researcher has forgotten to do so. On 1 January 1934 there was published a protest, signed by Eliade and other prominent men of many political persuasions, against the government’s detention of political prisoners. This protest may have been sparked by the mass arrest of Legionaries, but its intended application appears to be general: “political offenders” innocent of any crime. Calling the practice “an odious Medieval holdover,” the signatories called upon the public, especially the press and the intellectuals, to put into motion “legal action to remedy immediately this state of affairs.” Late in the year Eliade, alone, wrote an article protesting the inhumane treatment of political prisoners interned at Doftana, near Bucharest. Apparently, the majority of them were Communists (the party was illegal at this time). What goes on there, he writes, is horrifying. “The savagery at Doftana is downright sadistic. Prisoners are left for 23 hours with buckets of excrement beside them, uncovered. In their half-hour of liberty, they have to sing religious songs, instead of being left free to breathe. (And yet there are some brave men who shout, ‘Down with the Psalms of David!’)” They aren’t allowed food or clothing from home, there is no heat in the cells until January, it is almost impossible for relatives to visit. “Little do I care what these men believe. Little do I care if their souls are mutilated by a certain doctrine, a certain dogma. I cannot forget that they are first of all men.” Then, with uncanny clairvoyance, Eliade warns that this inhumanity could happen to us, “in one of the new worlds that is being prepared.” What he has described, he says, only proves the degree of “decomposition” and “mutilation” which we could be taught, “perhaps even by those men who suffer today at Doftana. It is enough for us to realize at what a beautiful culmination we have arrived.” Ever on the alert for anti-Semitic and anti-democratic allusions in Eliade’s writings, Laignel-Lavastine believes she has discovered one in the 1934 feuilleton, “The Masonic Mentality.” Eliade does, in fact, criticize here what he terms “the masonic mentality,” but he is employing the expression for an attitude by no means specific to Freemasons. The article is written ironically, “tongue-in-cheek,” something Mme Lavastine doesn’t seem to realize (79-80), and it was one of a series of semi-humorous feuilletons Eliade penned about this time, which are collected in Oceanografie. L’oubli’s author, however, judges the piece “strongly tainted by anti-Semitism.” That statement would make sense only if we assume that Eliade believed in the fantasy of a worldwide Judeo-Masonic-Communistic conspiracy—and of this there is absolutely no evidence. It is true, as Madame Lavastine reports, that Eliade sees Marxists, “enlightened ones,” and Freudians as examples of this “masonic mentality.” But what he means by the expression is “a simplistic way of viewing things, [using] abstract criteria for judging history,” without regard to reality. “For a Marxist, everything is clear, all of history is a play of rigid economic forces. . . . With a Marxist, you can’t discuss anything. With no intellectual of a ‘masonic’ formation can you have a discussion. In his head is too much ‘light,’ there are too many ‘certainties’. . . .” As for Freud, Eliade criticizes him for “transfering and secularizing the Absolute,” for making available to everyone—through three or four books—a key that explains all spiritual things, the meaning of existence, the soul, the supernatural. “Freud is a grave example of a betrayal of the Judaic spirituality. . . .” Admitting that he knows nothing of Freemasonry properly speaking except through its “nonsensical” literature, Eliade believes that the “masonic spirit,” as he defines it, has penetrated the whole of European mentality. Mme Lavastine refers several times in her book to this article, which for her is a crucial example of Eliade’s anti-Semitism—even though he seems to show nothing but respect for Judaism in his criticism of Freud. She finds it paradoxical that Oceanografie was distributed, originally (in 1934), by a Jewish bookstore, and illustrated with a sketch of Eliade by a Jewish artist. Perhaps these Jews understood Eliade better than she! Or perhaps she herself has fallen prey to “the masonic mentality”. . . . * Early in the summer of 1934 Eliade’s close friend and former coworker on the staff of Cuvântul, Mihail Sebastian, brought out a book, For Two Thousand Years. The volume is a thinly-disguised autobiographical novel in the form of a diary which relates the experiences and thoughts of a young Romanian Jew who suffers from the anti-Semitism of his classmates in lycée and the university, and who tries to resolve the problem of being both a Jew and a Romanian simultaneously. Published at a time when anti-Semitism was on the rise in Romania and Europe generally, the book would have proved controversial in any event, but the tremendous uproar following its appearance arose from its preface. It was written by the author’s much-admired professor and former employer, Nae Ionescu, a man once regarded as liberal on the “Jewish question”: half his Cuvântul staff members were Jews and he he was a popular speaker at Jewish student groups. But recently, since he had become a partisan of the Legion, his outlook had changed. Sebastian had requested the preface several years earlier (July 1931), and when he read it he was shocked. It was, more or less, an exposition of traditional theological anti-Semitic doctrine. But he could not refuse it, he could not “censor” his professor! Without attempting a summary of the 32-page preface, I will observe that it starts from the unanswered question of the anonymous hero of the novel, why must the Jew suffer? “The Jew is metaphysically obligated to be detested,” Sebastian had written. “This is his function in the world. Why? I don’t know. His curse. His destiny. If you will, his profession.” In the sequel to this book, he reiterated the point: he was speaking “metaphysically,” not politically or with regard to economics, he said. Even if these latter problems were to be solved, the Jew would still be hated and persecuted. Agreeing with Sebastian that the Jew must “agonize until the end of the world,” Ionescu proffers an explanation (or rather two) for this plight. Jews suffer at the hands of their neighbors because, by living according to their own laws, they pose a threat to law and order for the Christian nations where they reside. Since they cannot change what they are (“no one can cease being what he is” ), there is no chance for a cecession of this suffering until the end of time. This, then, is a “sociological” explanation. But Ionescu’s second answer is that the suffering of the Jews stems from a theological error, committed long ago: “Judah’s” failure to recognize the Messiah when he appeared. Because of this failure, the Jews as a people lost their chance for salvation, and forever after they have been despised and persecuted everywhere. Their case is unique: “We Christians suffer too,” he says. “But for us there is a way out, because we can be saved.” In her two widely-separated commentaries on this preface (pp. 100-104, 227-229), a writing she calls, with hyperbolic excess, “ferociously anti-Semitic” (227), Mme Lavastine points out that Ionescu places the blame on the Jews for their suffering, that the Jews represent a “deadly menace” for the Christian order, and that they must suffer for failure to recognize their Messiah (Christ) when he came. She forgets to observe that Ionescu does not accuse the Jews of “deicide,” as is usual for a “theological anti-Semite,” nor does he call them an inferior “race,” in Nazi terms. There is no allusion here to “Judeo-Bolsheviks” or a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy. Moreover, he maintains that he considers his analysis of the situation “objective” and not “anti-Semitic.” “Anti-Semites hold Jews to be inherently evil,” and this is a charge that cannot be verified, he emphasizes. Eliade wrote three (not two as A. L.-L. says) articles about this preface, the first a defense of the book, and the others contributions to a polemical exchange with a theologically-trained friend, Gheorghe Racoveanu. Mme Laignel-Lavastine’s discussion of these is quite inadequate. She accuses Eliade of lying when he claimed later to have been the “heroic defender” of his friend (228). In fact, there is evidence to the contrary: on the flyleaf of the copy of How I Became a Hooligan which he gave to Eliade, he wrote: “To Mircea, who did not let me despair while bearing the many miseries related here, [from the one] who will survive, if I do survive, only because he said a word, the most beautiful one.” Forgetting that Eliade was writing critically about the man whose assistant he was at the university, Laignel-Lavastine says that he reproaches him in “very courteous terms”—as if that were surprising! What is surprising, is that he wrote as critically as he did, accusing his logic professor of illogical reasoning on two heads: shifting from the philosophy of history (not philosophy in general, as she states) to theology, and committing “an error against hope and the freedom of Grace.” (Eliade’s analysis of these matters is too complex to examine here.) Still, Eliade is at pains to defend Nae Ionescu against charges of anti-Semitism. Had the Professor written only as a philosopher of history, he would have been an anti-Semite like Chamberlain or Rosenberg. But he did not: he wrote also as a Christian, introducing the idea of salvation. And as a Christian, he cannot be an anti-Semite, since that would mean he did not believe in the possibility of salvation for the Jews—a thing the Church has never said! Moreover, Eliade denies that Ionescu’s preface is “anti-Semitic.” He states that he has learned by experience not to accord any value to that term, as used in the press, and he cites several personal examples (none of this is in L’oubli). After he had addressed a Jewish student circle a year earlier, by invitation, he was called a “Yiddist” in a LANC newspaper. A little later he published “To Cease Being Romanian” and was hailed in another paper as having converted to Romanianism (and hence, to anti-Semitism). Then he lectured on Judaism at the university, and someone wrote that his real name was Eli. Most recently, after he had published “Romanism Compromised,” a leftist review had declared him an anti-Semite, a hooligan, and a dunce. He denies that to be a nationalist or to observe that the number of foreigners in certain enterprises is excessive makes one an “anti-Semite.” Conversely, one is not a “Jew-lover” if he speaks out against those who would exclude Jews totally from public and commercial life, or is “revolted when innocent men are savagely beaten by a gang of thugs,” or affirms that “Judaism is a marvelous revolution and that Christianity is a fulfillment of Jewish prophetism.” “How comfortable it is to be an anti-Semite!” he exclaims. “Everything is explained—the Yids are to blame for all problems in history and today. On the other hand, the “democrats” explain every bad thing as due to anti-Semites and hooligans. Rather than either, Eliade counsels choosing open-mindedness—the course, he says, Sebastian chose. On p. 288 of L’oubli du fascisme, the author brings up the paragraph in which Eliade makes some important, if confusing, statements about the alleged “anti-Semitism” of Hasdeu, Eminescu, and Vasile Conta, nationalists from the previous century. Since Eliade will often refer to these men (especially the first two) in future articles, it is important to see what he says here. First, he states, that unlike Nae Ionescu, “a Hasdeu, an Eminescu, a Vasile Conta could have had an anti-Semitic doctrine, because not one of them was a theologian, and not one was a true Christian.” Hasdeu was a “spiritualist” in his latter years (“though the closer he drew to spiritualism, the more he abandoned anti-Semitism”), Eminescu was a “philosopher” who had no love for Christian metaphysics, and Conta was a “fervent materialist.” “All three could have constructed an anti-Semitic philosophy of history, but they didn’t do it.” (Hasdeu tried to, but he lacked a basis for it.) “On the contrary, the anti-Semitism of these three great Romanians is peripheral; it is economic and intellectual. So peripheral that you can very well disregard it without altering or subtracting from the personalities of the three.” A. L.-L. comments sarcastically that Eliade “fully recognizes himself in that noble cause thus redefined” (229). Such a remark is quite unjustified and certainly unworthy of a scholar. These few sentences are highly important, I believe, for explaining why Eliade always seems to try to minimize the “anti-Semitism” of the “great Romanians” named here, and others. For him, there were different kinds of anti-Semitism, some of which he could overlook as “peripheral,” and some of which he could not (Chamberlain’s and Rosenberg’s, for instance). He could not accept an anti-Semitism based on Christian theology. As a humanitarian, he rejected anti-Semitic “hooliganism” and physical violence. And he always insisted that the anti-Semitism of the great Romanian statesmen was not equivalent to “Hitlerism” or fascism. For the Jew, of course (and for a liberal-thinking person like myself), any form of anti-Semitism is unacceptable. Likewise, for a post-Holocaust reader it is difficult to understand or excuse Eliade for his willingness to overlook the undeniably basic anti-Jewish elements in the “great Romanians.” As for Eliade himself, I find him personally free of the taint of anti-Semitism of any sort in his personal life, while at the same time regretting that he did not dissociate himself from others who were anti-Semitic. But I believe we must try to understand him in the context of his times, not rush to judge him from a later historical perspective. There is much more in this article which we cannot consider here. When published, there came a rejoinder, written by a friend, Gh. Racoveanu, arguing with scriptural passages, for the damnation of the Jews. Eliade’s reply was an erudite study, adducing massive evidence from the Bible and the Church Fathers that Jews and other non-believers may find salvation on the basis of their conduct. The only church leaders who had taught the eternal damnation of Jews were condemned as heretics, he points out. Racoveanu next produced a four-part article, keeping the debate alive, but adding nothing substantial. In his brief answer, which ended the polemics, Eliade asserts: “. . . In India I was close to the problem of the salvation of non-Christians: Hindus and Muslims. And these men are humane, just, courageous, without passions and without hatred.” Most of these statements, so important for gaining a true perspective on Eliade’s views on Jews and anti-Semitism, seem to have been forgotten or ignored by Mme Laignel-Lavastine. Instead, she stresses what he wrote about Hasdeu, Conta, and Eminescu, which constitutes a minor element in the economy of the three articles. She concedes that in these articles he tries to hold himself “at an equal distance from both camps,” and thus “the good anti-Semite, in short, does not give free rein to his malicious instincts: he examines the ‘problem’ coldly” (p. 229). An important article, nearly forgotten (?) by our researcher, deals with the distinguished Romanian-Jewish scholar, Moses Gaster, to whom reference has been made. Published in Vremea in mid-1936, at about the time the paper began to swing to the extreme right editorially, it constitutes a strong testimony to Eliade’s lack of anti-Jewish prejudice. The occasion for the article was the donation by Gaster of over two hundred ancient Romanian books and manuscripts to the Library of the Romanian Academy. Some of them the scholar had purchased from Eminescu. Eliade makes a point of stating that Gaster had published his first articles in the journal of “the anti-Semite Hasdeu.” After his expulsion from the country in 1885, Gaster had continued his researches in folklore—Romanian and Hebrew especially—gaining international renown. It had been wondered if he could ever forgive the insult of fifty years before. Now, it is evident that he had. Speaking critically of the government, Eliade wonders why Gaster, __ineanu, and Tiktin, scholars of “European class,” were expelled between 1870 and 1916, while no Jewish bankers or lease holders were, and Galician merchants were admitted in large numbers. Mme Lavastine comments only on this last point, which for her shows that “like all self-respecting anti-Semites, Eliade has his good and bad Jews” (p. 231). I would read the statement, in context, as a criticism of the government for its failure to recognize and honor its scholars, including those of the Jewish faith. Lavastine devotes more attention to an obituary Eliade wrote in 1939 on “The Death of Doctor Gaster.” She attributes Eliade’s purpose in writing the article “a few months after being released from internment camp at Miercurea Ciuc” and publishing it in the journal of the Royal Foundations, to his desire to cause his “Legionary episode” to be forgotten by the King and the new government “in the hope of obtaining a foreign post” (232). Such a statement is not scholarship, but slander. Read objectively, the article is a warm and sincere tribute to a man whom Eliade respects as both an outstanding scholar and a deeply religious man. As Eliade affirms: “In religion, Dr. Gaster was not a ‘modernist’; he believed in the spirit but also in the letter of the Law.” He was both a Zionist leader and Chief Safardim Rabbi in London. “Dr. Gaster never forgot he was a Jew,” Eliade writes, with evident appreciation. The article contains many biographical details, emphasizing them, he says, because his activities are too little known in Romania—although well-known elsewhere. Mme Lavastine forgets to cite any of these things. In “Race and Religion,” a little article of 1935, Eliade shows his position with respect to racial anti-Semitism then being propagated in Germany. A whole issue of the magazine Gândirea had been devoted to the subject of “Race, Religion, and Nation,” and Eliade comments on two articles that appeared there. He was pleased, he states, to find the editor (Nichifor Crainic) taking a definite stand against Rosenberg’s theories of so-called “Aryan Christianity” (anti-Semitic and anti-Roman), but he likes even better the concept of race put forward by Lucian Blaga, a poet and philosopher much admired by Eliade. “He does not conceive of race as a biological species—rigid and intolerant—but as a style of life, something spiritual. . . . It is the only natural and fertile position which can be taken toward the phenomenon of race.” This article bears comparison to one of 1933, “Racism in the Cinema,” wherein Eliade inveighed against two films he had seen recently, both of which had exalted the Aryan (white) race—in one case over the Chinese, in the other over the Huns of Attila. Speaking no doubt from his first-hand experience in India, Eliade warns that such “stupid propaganda,” when seen in Asia, makes those people hate us, since they assume we are all like that. Even though we Romanians are not guilty, “we encourage it by our silence.” Our tireless researcher, somehow, seems not to have found these articles, or perhaps she just forgot to include any reference to them in her book. * Eliade and “Politics” In 1951, after living more than six years as a refugee in Paris and without having set foot on his native soil for nearly a decade, Eliade published an article critical of his attitude, and that of his generation of intellectuals, towards politics in the 1930s: “Politics Ate Up His Head!” He recalled how “politics” had been for the young generation of 1925-35, a bad word. To “make politics” was considered a betrayal of the spirit, a denial of the “primacy of the spiritual” (the watchword of that idealistic and naive generation). They were taught, he says, by their leaders (Iorga, Pârvan, R_dulescu-Motru, and Nae Ionescu) “to have a holy horror of politicianismul, petty or corrupt politics, but their disciples understood them to mean politics in general. Here, Eliade says, the majority of the generation made its greatest error: “We left the way open to the inept, the opportunists, the mediocre.” Their detachment from politics explains the “fossilization of the personnel of the governing parties, as well as the spontaneous allegiance of the young intelligentsia to movements of a protesting nature, such as . . . the Legionary Movement. . . . The success of the Legionary Movement among the young is due, in large measure, to the fact that it did not seem to be, and did not behave like, a ‘political party.’” Older and wiser, Eliade now argues that from 1925 on his generation should have joined and participated actively in the old-line political parties—“all political parties.” Thus, in 1951, he urged the Romanians in the diaspora to inform themselves thoroughly about current political issues, to study Marxism so as to know how to confront persons indoctrinated in it, to learn the history of European political parties and study North American democracy, and to become knowledgeable about Near and Far Eastern history and current events. Dr. Laignel-Lavastine forgot to take notice of this article, which I cited at the head of Chapter 22 of my book, Mircea Eliade, The Romanian Roots. It is a key to much of what Eliade wrote in the 1930s—writings she insists on calling “political,” though Eliade did not regard them as such and said so repeatedly. Even his brief participation in the elections of 1937 when he gave aid to the Legion’s political party, “All for the Country” (Totul pentru _ara), he seems not to have regarded as “making politics.” I will not attempt in this review-article to point out all the “forgotten,” “overlooked,” or suppressed evidence in L’oubli that would support my statement, but my survey will, I hope, suffice to make the point. There was a noticeable change in the focus of Eliade’s thought within a year and a half to two years after he returned from India. Whereas before his departure his journalistic writings centered on “spiritual” and cultural matters, giving the impression that he was indifferent to the intense political agitation going on all around him in the university, after coming home his writings in Cuvântul of 1932 and 1933 evidence an awakened interest in society and political issues. This turnabout corresponded to a similar one made by his professor, Nae Ionescu, a few years earlier. During the 1920s, from his first lectures, his courses dealt with such subjects as love, ontology, religious experience, God—a revolutionary thing at that time for a philosophy instructor, since philosophy, then, was taught from the perspective of positivism. Today it can be seen that Nae Ionescu, alone, was “contemporary with Europe,” since positivism is now recognized as passé. For a decade, Eliade says, Ionescu was concerned with “being,” but lately he has turned to the problem of the “Romanian being,” that is, the ethnic essence, a nationalistic concern. “Preoccupied for ten years mainly with soteria—Nae Ionescu senses anew the direction history is headed, and in recent years he has accorded more importance to sympathia, to man in the world.” This does not mean “politics” in the common sense of the word, however, but rather a participation in history, within the limits allowed by fate. Eliade sums it up in this way: The road to being begins with a great search for the self, but it ends beyond the self, [either] in God (soteria) or in history (sympathia). On p. 173 of L’oubli, the author inaugurates a more-or-less systematic exposition of what she calls “The curriculum vitae of a Legionary sympathizer.” In the years 1934-35, she states, Eliade’s references to the Iron Guard, “sometimes explicit, sometimes allusive,” are “always positive” (p. 178). This, as we shall see, is simply untrue. When, exactly, Eliade “converted” to the Movement is “subject to controversy,” she concedes, but she is certain that Nae Ionescu’s “evolution,” in 1932-33, was “determinative.” Yet even before that, Eliade’s “political awakening” had occurred in India (as he himself says somewhere), and for proof of this, she cites a statement from an article he wrote in 1932, namely, that for Gandhi, “Freedom is not a political matter, but a metaphysical one.” Her summary of the article (appropriated directly from p. 631 of my book, but with some crucial nuances lost in the transmission!), lists four points, which for her are “all qualities he will attribute some years later to the ‘Legionary aristocracy.’” Eliade would, indeed, find some similarities in Gandhi’s movement and Codreanu’s, but Laignel-Lavastine forgets that Gandhi’s metaphysics, despite being Christian-influenced, was of a vastly different design, (for example, his concepts of the “magical power” of asceticism and the autonomy of the soul, both mentioned in the article). From 1932, Mme Laignel-Lavastine skips to 1934, but in so doing she forgets (or misses) several interesting and significant essays not included in her principal source, Profetism românesc, 2 (see below). This anthology is an excellent resource, but it cannot be used as a substitute for research of the old periodicals in the libraries. Having “forgotten” to make a thorough research there (aided by Mircea Handoca’s indispensable Biobibliographie ), Mme Lavastine’s work contains many unfortunate lacunae. For instance, there is Eliade’s delightful critique of a new Communist periodical, Blue Overalls. Eliade is critical of the paper, not because of its political orientation, but because of the mediocrity of its literary quality and its lack of independent thought. On the basis of previous works by its editors, which were characterized, he says, by a “delicious impertinence” and an “emancipation from canons,” he had expected something much better. Instead, the paper rehashes old issues, no longer current, in a dogmatic, even bourgeoisie manner. “The mediocrity and intolerance in the writings of the youth are sad symptoms. Because you can be intolerant only from a spiritual viewpoint, from a prophetic position. But you can’t be intolerant by loudly proclaiming the primacy of the economic.” Next chronologically is the feuilleton of Christmas, 1932, “Inclinations of the Young Generation.” “We shall speak here,” Eliade begins, “only about the spiritual orientation of the youth. Their political inclinations—which are expressed vigorously toward the right and the left, avoiding quite clearly the ranks of the political parties properly speaking—we consider less representative and less specifically Romanian, having their correlate in the youth movement in Germany, Italy, and Russia.” Nevertheless, the journalist cannot refrain from making several remarks with “political” import. “The political movement of the youth,” he says, does not resolve a real spiritual problematics or create a cultural one,” and in fact the political struggle often impedes these. Many youth have held aloof from politics, simply because they haven’t resolved their inner conflicts—and this Eliade fully approves, counting himself among them. The most hopeful inclination or “trend” he sees is toward humanism—of a specifically Romanian species. In an article of August 1933 Eliade contrasts nationalistic political thought from Eminescu to the present, with nationalistic politics. The former has made steady progress, but the latter, he complains, has continually declined and currently is in a state of “decisive decomposition.” Thinkers, he concedes, “have always been exterior to politics properly speaking: they have been journalists, professors, intellectuals. But the absence of political thinkers “at the helm” of the country has resulted in politicianism. Likewise, the attempt to produce literature on the basis of political thought, or even by using folkloric and rural themes, local color, vocabulary, etc. artificially, has failed. Such “art” lacks integrity and can have no universal appeal. “A universal work cannot be made on the basis of a political criterion; such a work is created only by starting from an ethnic intuition, a collective experience.” Attention has already been given to Eliade’s articles of 1933, written in his polemics with Polihroniade. In the second article, “A Conversion to Romanianism,” he pointed to a common misconception, that every young person who expresses his mind must have a “political attitude.” First, he draws a distinction between “history that is being made” and “history that is being consumed.” Only with respect to the latter is it necessary to have a “political attitude.” The youth who believe in the primacy of the spiritual, have “a broader, more human conception of history,” he explains. “They know that ‘spiritual’ ideas and experiences take decades to be actualized in the present, to be consumed.” Eliade wrote a number of articles for a paper called Credin_a [The Faith] under the pen name, Ion Pl_e_u, most of them after Cuvântul had been suspended in the wake of Duca’s assassination. One of these is mentioned in passing on p. 175 of L’oubli: “In Whose Name?” It is a sharp critique of the Liberal Party, then in power, which he says is a dead, bourgeoisie party, with no young members, and that it has made Romania a virtual colony of France. It “thunders and lightnings against Hitlerism and German imperialism, while it engages Romania blindly in a French imperialism.” Lavastine quotes the phrase, “we have nothing to do with the West,” but she forgets the preceding sentence: “We refuse French imperialism just as much as we refuse Hitlerism.” Another article from the same paper, touched on by Mme Lavastine (p. 208), is titled, “Contra Right and Contra Left.” Here he addressed, in a non-political and non-partisan fashion, a highly-charged political matter: a comparison between Communism and Fascism. The feuilleton, in short, finds nothing good in either. After ridiculing the attempt begun earlier to import foreign Marxist ideology, Eliade remarks that for the past year an effort has been underway to introduce another alien philosophy, “perhaps more dangerous than the first: the Fascist-Hitlerist ideology.” Unfortunately, he continues, Romanians have a habit of borrowing political doctrines from abroad. In this case they have accepted “rightest” and “leftist” concepts. “What we have to do with either the right or the left I have never understood. How can we imitate Hitlerism which persecutes Christianity, or Communism which burns cathedrals? . . . The Communist arsonists of cathedrals are hooligans—and so are the Fascist persecutors of the Jews. . . And yet intellectual men are doing their best to introduce into this country [one or the other] . . . Just as much blood will flow in our streets whichever power wins.” Mme Lavastine, who mentions only Eliade’s opposition Fascism and Nazism (forgetting Communism!), states that his objections to these doctrines pertain less to their ideology and practices than to the fact of their being foreign imports! * Although the uninformed reader of L’oubli du fascisme would not know it, in writing about Eliade in the thirties our researcher apparently made liberal use of a book which she cites only once, and then not accurately: Profetism românesc, vol. 2: România în eternitate. She states that this was a book Eliade envisaged publishing in the Romanian language during the Second World War, but abandoned the project as the defeat of the Reich was approaching, “for obvious reasons.” But she has confused this volume of 1930s’ articles with one Eliade planned to compile of essays he had published in the Portuguese press, as mentioned in the Journal on 8 March and 15 July of 1943. This volume he had intended, in late 1936, to publish under the title Romania in Eternity. It was to include articles of a nationalistic or patriotic type such as he had been writing for the past two or three years. He announced it in an article about Nae Ionescu—an article which itself was to be part of the book. However, Romania in Eternity never came to birth; instead, Eliade edited a collection of his professor’s essays from 1926-1933, The Wind Rose, with a postface based on the 1936 article he had written about him. Laignel-Lavastine refers to the book and its postface several times, mostly to illustrate Eliade’s “unfailing devotion” to his master. The compilation of some fifty-eight essays or feuilletons made by Nicolae Georgescu span the years 1934 to 1938, but most are dated 1935 or 1936. Laignel-Lavastine has cited a majority of them, but forgets to give credit (except once) to this book, obviously her main source of knowledge of Eliade’s journalistic writings of these years. For the explicitly “Legionary” articles, she has had to look elsewhere, since Georgescu did not include these in his collection. The first article from Georgescu’s anthology cited by Mme Laignel-Lavastine (p. 174) is an article of 1934, “The Day after Tomorrow,” but she has not understood its import nor does she “quote” from it accurately. Her first “quotation” about the “authentic intellectual” is a mistranslation of fragments from two (or more?) sentences, and does not represent his thought. Neither is Eliade speaking in “exasperation” when he asks why certain intellectuals “hesitate to embrace the messianism of popular and national currents . . .” Granted that the article is not easy to understand, a careful reading yields very different results. A key to interpreting it is in the distinction, made also in an article discussed above, between history that is being made and history that is being consumed. The “day after tomorrow” of the title refers to the day after something major has happened, such as a revolution. “More important than a victory is the first day of lucidity after the victory. And those hours, those days, belong to the class of men who have been so falsely called ‘intellectuals,’ giving the impression that they are abstract, schematic, having no contact with the realities of life and incapable of ‘deeds.’” Lest he be misunderstood, he states plainly that “far from being ‘abstractions,’ they are the only category of men who experience life directly . . .” These “intellectuals,” he continues, “have been stupidly maltreated for their inability to integrate themselves into the everyday, that is, to integrate themselves into history. But it is very natural to be so. . . [because] it is a history that is being consumed, a play of forces discharged many years before toward certain imponderables which could not be grasped by the immense majority of the contemporaries.” Then Eliade asks, what about tomorrow? “Why do certain intellectuals hesitate to collaborate wholeheartedly with those political forces that are in the course of being realized? Why don’t they integrate themselves in the messianism, the popular and national currents which are agitating the present-day forms of life in the country . . . ?” Unlike the older popular forms, this is not a history that is being consumed, but one that is being made, it would seem, and Eliade agrees. “But the day after is also a consumation, a realization of that which the creators of deeds sowed . . . many years ago.” Continuing along this line of reasoning, he adds: “It is, undoubtedly, a new life. But it was lived and experienced long ago, concretely, by the new man of past years, who is no longer the new man of today. That which is awaited now by tens of thousands of people, was long ago realized, . . . consumed—on the part of the true creators of deeds, the ‘intellectuals’ of a country.” Eliade holds up Nae Ionescu as an example of a “creator,” one who was and remains always ahead of his time. In politics, he was for a Peasantist State when others believed in a Liberal one; now he is “experiencing” the revolutionary, national state while others support the Peasants. In spiritual matters, his university lectures were revolutionary in the twenties; now those ideas are commonplace. Finally, Eliade summarizes his message: “Thus, it is not at all surprising if the ‘intellectuals’ remain always in advance, even when their ‘ideas’ and forms of life begin to be accepted by the rest of their vertebrate contemporaries.” Despite the reference to Nae Ionescu’s political views, the article as a whole has an anti-political attitude. The main point seems clear: intellectuals are the source of values for the future, and as such they do not “integrate themselves” in even the newest political movements. A similar “anti-political” point is made in the feuilleton, “Why Are Intellectuals Cowards?” —although Mme Lavastine doesn’t read it that way. She states that it testifies to “a favorable evolution in [Eliade’s] appreciation of the Iron Guard”(p. 175)! Her quotations from the article distort its plain meaning. The author is not simply upbraiding intellectuals for “trembling before a political Movement which has chances of success,” as she says, capitalizing “movement” to make it seem to refer to the Iron Guard. He has a more general criticism for intellectuals who line up with any political movement out of fear. “Whenever a political psychosis floats in the air, whenever something serious happens or is anticipated—a revolution, a harsh reform, an attack, an essential change of the social order—the poor Romanian ‘intellectual’ loses his mind.” Eliade speaks of the fear shown by some after a Communist-led railroad workers’ strike in 1933, and the fear of others toward the successes of “the Iron Guard” (his quotation marks). “. . . They have begun to approve it, not because they agree with the ‘Guard’s’ program, but because they’re afraid of being suspected and persecuted after its possible victory. I have nothing to say against ‘intellectuals’ who pass from one side of the fence to the other, moved by a certain social or national conscience. But I’m repulsed by the cowardice of apolitical intellectuals who suddenly reveal their adherence to a social movement on the verge of success (or seemingly so)” (cf. L’oubli). “. . . The powers which sustain the history of a country and nourish its mission—have nothing to do with the political . . .” The intellectuals are the sole bearers of these powers, so why should they be afraid? Moreover, he asserts that “no revolution and no political act concerns the intellectual directly.” The intellectual is too busy creating something that will last for eternity, or will have political value only much later. Toward present-day politics, the intellectual is not indifferent, but merely tolerant and understanding. “Give a helping hand, and pass on,” Eliade advises. Or else renounce being an intellectual, and become a “politician.” Once again, by forgetting the main idea of what Eliade wrote, and by citing fragments out of context, A. L.-L. leaves her readers with a false conception. * We have examined already several articles from 1934 unmentioned or misrepresented in L’oubli, which present aspects of Eliade’ viewpoint on “political” thought forgotten by Mme Laignel-Lavastine. The following year, 1935, was a rich one for journalistic expressions of Eliade’s nationalism, which he was always insistent was not something “political” and not “anti-Semitic.” Contending tirelessly for “the primacy of the spiritual,” he now dwells more and more on the “mission” or “destiny” of the Romanian people, its historic role in the cultural life of Europe and the world. The responsibility for fulfilling this mission he places on the “intellectuals,” the élite of his generation, those he had sought to lead “spiritually” in the 1920s. Most of these articles Laignel-Lavastine either “forgets” (omits) or treats as if they were political—ignoring Eliade’s protests—and citing as usual only those phrases that serve, or can be made to serve, her agenda. The author of L’oubli concedes (p. 170) that “a well-chosen selection of articles from 1934 alone” could leave the impression that Eliade was not an anti-Semite. Evidently she knew what they were, but she forgot to name any of them or divulge their contents to her readers! And we need not stop with 1934. Making our own “well-chosen selections,” we can proceed through the rest of the thirties, and still receive the same “impression.” Mme Lavastine has failed to mention something she must have read in my book, that Eliade assisted a Jewish writer, Ion C_lug_ru (1902-1956), in getting one of his most important novels published in 1935. He and Eliade had been colleagues at Cuvântul, and later at Vremea. When the editor said it was impossible for him to publish a book by such an author, Eliade threatened to break his own relations with that house if he did not do so. Laignel-Lavastine mentions Panait Istrate (1884-1935) twice in her book (18, 114), but forgets to say that Eliade wrote about him on two occasions. Istrate was a Romanian, settled in Paris, who had won renown for his social novels written in French. After being known for years as a Communist, he spent sixteen months in Russia (1927-28) and became disillusioned by what he saw there. He returned to Paris and wrote critically about the Soviet system. When he died in 1935 in Bucharest, his passing was barely noted in the press, even in Romania. For the left, he had become a “renegade” and “fascist,” even an “anti-Semite,” but he also remained suspect and despised by the extreme right. Eliade had written about him in his last year in lycée, praising his literary artistry and his genuine love for humanity. The later article, published at the time of his death, is a commentary on his “destiny,” from which he draws a moral—a lesson for all writers, including, presumably, himself: The destiny of Panait Istrate is one of dramatic simplicity. This great writer believed that the duty of everyone who holds a pen is to take a political and social stance. Istrati’s great success in the press of the left is due perhaps not so much to his talent, as to his political “attitude.” Istrate forgot, however, that a writer can renounce the stance he has taken only at the risk of definitively compromising himself. Istrate did not know—he had no way of knowing—that the one who adheres to a militant political position can no longer claim to be free, to make negative observations, and be thanked for doing so. . . . The one great weapon of a writer is his independence with respect to any political formation. Eliade, in these years, wrote often about Romanianism, but he had to explain repeatedly what he meant and did not mean by the term. For instance, in “The Crisis of Romanianism?” he reiterates that “Romanianism is equivalent to being Romanian. It is not something to be discussed—only to be affirmed . . . (continuare Partea a III-a) Nota: Continuarea studiului (cu notele de subsol) lui Mac Linscott Ricketts. LES OUBLIS D'ALEXANDRA LAIGNEL-LAVASTINE-II |
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Scris de asymetria on Friday, December 11 @ 16:22:52 CET (238 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 95723 bytes in plus | Scor: 0) |
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Polemici: Mac Linscott Ricketts. LES OUBLIS D'ALEXANDRA LAIGNEL-LAVASTINE- I Mac Linscott Ricketts. LES OUBLIS D'ALEXANDRA LAIGNEL-LAVASTINE CONCERNING MIRCEA ELIADE 1 PART I The volume, Cioran, Eliade, Ionesco: L'oubli du fascisme, by Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, Ph. D., published in April 2002 by Presses Universitaires de France (Paris), created a flood of responses, beginning almost immediately, both in France and Romania. It was a book purporting to show, with massive supporting evidence based on meticulous and original research (“in previously unexploited archives”), that the three men named in the title had all been tainted by collaboration with the Romanian government allied with the Third Reich in the Second World War, and that the first two, Cioran and Eliade, had even held and promoted the anti-Semitic doctrines of the Iron Guard, Romania's “fascist” movement. In other words, these men had “pasts” which they wanted to forget, and which they sought to conceal from the public after they became famous (only Cioran had repented openly). A Many of the first reviews, written almost certainly by persons who had not read the 550-page book but were naturally impressed by the size and scope of the tome, or who lacked the scholarly expertise to evaluate it, were favorable. Journalists, taking as fact the publisher's publicity printed on the back cover and the author's own claims in the opening pages, praised Mme Laignel-Lavastine's “meticulous scholarship” and the lengths to which she had gone in carrying out her “original research.” Nota: Republicăm o sumă de texte care au rămas în versiunes html a revistei Asymetria. Această versiune este încă disponibilă în unele arhive internaționale și publice, dar textele care au fost publicate înainte de 2006 au încă o actiualitate potențială, măcar pentru cercetători sau studioșii mai tineri. Incepem cu textul polemic scris de Mac Linscott Ricketts, un autentic specialist al operei lui Mircea Eliade, nici aservit, nici cumpărat, nici vândut unor interese de clan. |
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Scris de asymetria on Friday, December 11 @ 15:54:03 CET (256 citiri) (Citeste mai mult... | 43527 bytes in plus | Scor: 0) |
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Asymetria va recomanda O Revista liberă La Pensee libre Antiakvarium. Antologie de texte ideologice vechi și noi Constantin Noica: Cultura, performanta, antrenor Geovisite Revista NordLitera Arhiva Asymetria, începând cu septembrie 2000, este stocată și accesibilă consultării la adresa Internet Archives-Wayback Machine Universitatea din Lausanne. România : Hărți interactive. Geografie, demografie, climatologie, degradări, regiuni istorice. Colaborare helveto-română. Etimologii. Resurse lingvistice |
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Azi Inca nu exista cel mai bun articol, pentru astazi. |
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Ferește-te deopotrivă de prietenia dușmanului ca și de dușmănia prietenului. Viteazul privește pericolul; cutezătorul îl caută; nebunul nu-l vede. Nicolae Iorga |
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