Isabela Vasiliu-Scraba
CULTURAL INTERFERENCE
IN PRESENT-DAY EUROPEAN LITERATURE
About Roumanian influences
in Eugen Ionesco's work. The risks pertaining to the problem of influences. Aparadigmatic
case of cultural interference: Alexandru Cior[nescu. A few traits of the
European culture. An erroneous understanding of the West/Est opposition. Four
famous friends: Mircea Eliade, Eugen Ionescu, Emil Cioran, Constantin Noica. A
recent consequence of the erroneous understanding of the West/Est opposition.
In
general there are not many writers to admit to have models. Eugen Ionesco cuts a distinct figure. In his Jurnal en
miettes he openly admits his descent from Ion Luca Caragiale (1852-1919) and
Urmuz (1883-1923). He also mentions that he was influenced by the surrealist
poets and especially by Tristan Tzara. The memory of his youth, nostalgia for
the country where he had first met with
literary success(81) and, maybe, a certain amount of
vainglory make him state in an interview that Romania gave France a great many
celebrities: Anne de Noailles (born Princess Brincoveanu), Constantin Brancusi,
George Enescu, Stefan Lupascu (Stephane Lupasco) Panait Istrati, Barbu
Fundoianu (Benjamin Fondane), Ilarie Voronca, D. Trost, Isidor Isou, Tristan
Tzara, Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran.
The
mere number of these names proves that the Romanians have not remained on the
fringes of European culture.
Reading practically in all the
important modern language, the Romanians were allways in an intimate contact
with the world of culture. By translating the masterpieces of the other
european literatures, the have them made well known in Roumania, as has did all
his life the eminent translator Dan Dutescu (1918-1993), at his time professor
of english at the Bucharest University, and many other gifted translators.
The
great poets of the contemporary Romanian literature also did a lot of
translation work: Lucian Blaga, George Bacovia, Ion Barbu, Tudor Arghezi, Radu
Stanca, Stefan Augusti Doinas, Eta Boeriu, Ion Caraion, Barbu Brezianu, Dan
Botta, Ion Frunzetti, Gellu Naum, Alexandru Philippide, Vasile Voiculescu,
Romulus Vulpescu (*to mention only the poets).
We
believe there is no great writer, in any European country, who should read
exclusively in his mother language.
There
is no wonder that the German Schopenhauer read the Upanishades in the French
version of Aquentil-Dupperron; but it is perhaps less unusual that the French read the entire work of Schopenhauer
for the firs time in the French version of the Roumanian J.D. (Zizin)
Cantacuzino.
The
subject of foreign influences in the works
of the great Roumanian writers seems to have a much too wide sphere. Moreover, it is a risky problem,
given the routine established in the communist era which was quite hostile to
culture. This period marked a peak in point of studies on the inspiration
sources of various writers, meant to underrate their original contribution. Genuine
feats of erudition were meant to artificially diminish the personality of a
writer, by decomposing his work to the end of better evidencing the influences.
it was not only the differences that were neglected, but also the irreducible
substratum of the work, which accounts for its originality and its value and
which is above any influence.
Yet
this scholarly reasearch also yielded positive results: the foreign sources
were pinpointed so that today there is no need to dwell on them any longer.
In
connection with erudition we shall highlight here a case which is at the same
time unusual and paradigmatic for the <<interference of cultures>>
in Europe.
For
the purpose of drafting (in French) the seven volumes that included the
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FRENCH LITERATURE IN THE 16th CENTURY (Paris, 1959, 747 pages),
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FRENCH LITERATURE IN THE 17th CENTURY (Paris, 1965, 3 volumes,
2231 pages), BIBLIORAPHY OF FRENCH LITERATURE IN THE 18th CENTURY (Paris, 1969,
3 volumes, 2371 pages), Alexandru
Cioranescu (born in 1911 in Romania) read 60,000 titles.
In
his youth, he was a disciple of the Romanian historian Nicolae Iorga
(1871-1940), a professor at the Bucarest University) who in hs turn had
impressed his contemporaries with his vast erudition in the fields of history
and Romanian literature.
A specialist in comparative literature, Alexandru Cioranescu (who made his debut with articles published in the review of the Spiru Haret High School in Bucharest, just like Mircea Eliade) did not exhaust his forces by acheving this widw-scope project. He also wrote BIBLIOGRAFIA FRANCO-ESPAGNOLA 1600- 1714 (Madrid, 1977, 707 pages) and DU BAROQUE ESPAGNOL AU CLASSICISME FRANCAIS (Geneva, 1882, 611 pages). Also he found enough resources to translate Dante (LA DIVINE COMEDIE, Lausanne, 1964), to compile an etymological dictionary (DICTIONNARIO ETIMOLOGICO RUMENO, La Laguna, 1966, 1184 pages), to write studies on the history of Romania and of the Tenerife island, studies of Spanish and Romanian literature, of aesthetics and comparative literature, as well as three volumes of poetry and a novel. The list of praises he received is impressive: the <<Cultural Merit>> (Romania, 1943), <<Padre Anchieta>> (Brasilia, 1955), <<Gustave Brunat de l'Académie des Inscriptions de Paris>> (1960), <<Palmes académiques>> (Paris, 1960), <<Ordre National du Mérite>> (Paris, 1980), etc.
An astounding creation force was also evinced
by the former professor of the Department of the philosophy of Culture and
Aesthetics of the Complutense University in Madrid, George uscatescu
(1916-1995), author of more than one hundred volumes, an essayist awarded with
many a prize, a writer disputed by two cultures: the Romanian and the Spanish
one.
Yet
only Mircea Eliade, with his overwhelming erudition in the field of the history
of religions, can impress one to the some extent as Cioranescu does.
Member
of five academies and professor honoris causa of ten universities, Mircea
Eliade, him too a great admirer of
Nicolae Iorga, is the author of a scientific work comprising 40 titles
and of a literary work numbering 20 volumes.
Reverting
to the cultural interferences, the problem arises whether the culture of the
European countries indeed developed in isolation, in a hothouse climate. The
only acceptable answer is negative.
European
culture, Cristian since its beginnings,
because Europe itself began its existence at a time with Christianity, is being
constituted permanently through a dialogue of cultures. Interiorized and
conveyed by those who take part it in, European culture turns into a common
thesaurus of values that feeds the cultures of the European countries.
After
all, European culture exists on the basis of the Roman and Greek cultures, as
well as of the Christian culture. All nations, big or small, have inherited the
same values.
Today,
with the present dominated by the planetary dimension of the American culture,
a discussion on European culture may pass for a nostalgical evocation of the
past. In our opinion, this is but a false impression. The times are gone when
Paul Valéry observed bitterly that Europe's dream was the one of being governed
by a commission of Americans.
This
being so, we can now ponder on certain problems that may create
misunderstandings. At a time with the
expansion of the Soviet domination over the states in the centre and East of
Europe, after Yalta (1945), the opposition between East and West began being
used as an opposition between communism
and capitalism.
That
idea unfortunately rose to fame in political speeches that paid little
attention to nuances, but from the cultural point of view it is absolutely
meaningless.
The
three friends, Mircea Eliade, Eugen Ionesco and Emil Cioran, left Romania to
live in France. They had studied at famous high schools in Bucharest; they had
spent their university years in Bucharest, around Nae Ionescu (1890-1940),
their philosophy professor, a fascinating personality interwar Romania. After
his Indian episode (1928-1931), Mircea Eliade was his assistant for several
years.
It
would have been impossible for those young men, had they been moulded in an
oriental culture, to become all famous in a Western culture.
But
in fact, their group was made up of four friends, also including philosopher
Constantin Noica (1909-1987) who remained in Romania. After 12 years of prison
and house arrest, he became the most important Roumanian philosopher at the end
of this century. A disciple and admirer of Nae Ionescu's Constantin Noica succeded in carring on the
tradition of the Romanian school of philosophy in an epoch of restraining
dogmatism, without manifesting in his writings any sympathy for the official
Marxism. This amazing performance was possible owing to the extraqordinary
poetical style of his philosophical writings. But, since Romania is not France,
his glory is almost insignificant compared to the one of his friends. To have
suffered for this reason, Noica should have had the great vainglory of his
friend Cioran, which of course he did not have. At the time
when he could publicize in France the name of a Romanian philosopher, he chose
the philosophical work of Lucian Blaga
(1895-1961) and not his own writtings.
Again
in connection with the opposition between East and West, one should note a
recent consequence of this formula being used erroneously, i.e. the false
problem of <<Europe's CULTURAL reunification>>. The proposal is put forth that we should
help reunify something that has never ceased being a unity.
Over
the forty-five years of communism, the books written on order, the poems
praising the single party had enough time to fade away in a quite natural
manner. Only the genuine spiritual
values, which arise under any political regime, stand the test of time. A
decisive argument in favour of such an assertion is the Nobel Prize (1996)
that crowns the literary activity of
the polish writer Wislatwa Szymborska (b. 1923), who wrote and published her
entire work in communist Poland.
Finally,
we may say that one needs to be not only a Romanian but also an exile in order
to think like this: <<Spiritually, Greece won only when it
ceased being a power and even a nation; its philosophy and its arts were
plundered, others ensured them the
fortune of its creations, yet without being able to assimilate its
talents>> (Emil Cioran).
(81) See Gelu Ionescu, LES DEBUTS LITTERAIRES ROUMAINS D'EUGEN IONESCO
(1926-1940), translated by Mirella Nedelcu-Patureau, Heidelberg, Carl Winter -
Universitaetverlag, 1989.