Gândirea
![]() Cover of Gândirea, 1938 | |
Categories | Literary magazine |
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Frequency | Monthly |
First issue | May 1, 1921 |
Final issue | 1944 |
Country | Romania |
Language | Romanian |
Part of a series on |
Fascism in Romania |
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Gândirea ("The Thinking"), known during its early years as Gândirea Literară - Artistică - Socială ("The Literary - Artistic - Social Thinking"), was a
Overview
Founded by Cezar Petrescu and D. I. Cucu in the city of Cluj, and first issued on May 1, 1921, as a literary supplement for the Cluj-based Voința,[1] it was originally a modernist and expressionist-influenced journal. During its early existence, it attracted criticism from the traditional cultural establishment for allegedly allowing influences from Germanic Europe to permeate Romanian culture. Gândirea moved to Bucharest in October 1922, and, in 1926, its leadership was joined by the nationalist thinker Nichifor Crainic; he became its director and ideological guide in 1928, gradually moving it toward a mystical Orthodox focus — itself occasionally referred to as Gândirism. With just two interruptions in publication (1925 and 1933–34), Gândirea became one of the most important cultural magazines of the Romanian interwar period.
A proponent of home-grown traditionalist ideas, it eventually found itself in opposition to
Gândirea was briefly closed down over suspicions that it was supporting the fascist
Contributors
Several circles were formed around Gândirea, bringing together a large part of the period's Romanian intellectuals:
Many other intellectuals and artists had their work published in Gândirea, and some of them were only temporarily associated with the journal. They include Tudor Arghezi, George Călinescu, Șerban Cioculescu, Petre Pandrea , Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Marcel Janco, Ion Vinea, and Mircea Vulcănescu.
History
Beginnings
For much of the 1920s, the magazine was a venue for modernist criticism, and involved in theoretical debates over the influence of German- and Austrian-influenced Expressionism on early 20th century culture. Gândirea's early years coincided with the aftermath of World War I and the establishment of Greater Romania, making the magazine one of several newly established Romanian-language periodicals in the formerly Austro-Hungarian region of Transylvania. It has thus been argued that, before moving to Bucharest, the magazine was also involved in promoting a unitary Romanian culture inside the newly acquired province, but this appears to have been one of its secondary goals.[2]
Without producing its own an artistic program,
Despite hosting a large number of essays on art criticism, and in contrast to the style of
Literature produced by the first of several Gândirea circles received criticism from several traditionalist circles for being one of "sick modernists".
By that moment, however, the magazine was itself fusing Expressionist influences with traditionalist aesthetic goals, to the point where it had become, according to Lucian Blaga, "a bouquet of centrifugal tendencies".[16] During the 1920s, Gândirea hosted polemical articles by the traditionalists and traditionalist-inspired Iorga, Crainic, Cezar Petrescu, and Pamfil Şeicaru.[17] Writing much later, Crainic expressed his opinion that the two visions were only apparently contradictory:
"Expressionism in painting is a German fatality. But from [Germany] it has migrated towards us as well. [...] Have the poetry of Blaga and Adrian Maniu, the theater of Blaga, Maniu, lost their ethnic (and therefore traditional) specificity for having borrowed the expressionist style from wherever?"[18]
Reviewing the emphasis of traditionalism subsequently present in Gândirea's pages, the critic
Early conflicts
From the late 1920s and over much of its existence, Crainic's press engaged in polemics with modernists of the
During the 1930s, Gândirea was at the center of virulent polemics involving, on one side, former contributors such as
Following this, Vianu, whose political options contrasted with the new trend, chose to discontinue his contributions and joined the staff at Viaţa Românească;[26] although Lucian Blaga shared some views with Crainic, he too decided to distance himself from the magazine as early as 1930 (writing to Vianu that he did not consider himself a "disciple of our common friend Nichifor's Orthodoxy").[27]
Crainic's impact
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Sabin_Popp_-_Triptic_religios_02.jpg/230px-Sabin_Popp_-_Triptic_religios_02.jpg)
In December 1931, as the magazine celebrated its first decade, Crainic summed up Gândirea's guidelines, stressing that its commitment to Orthodoxy, the Romanian monarchy and nationalism:
"[...] set apart a person from our generation from a thousand others — [these] are nothing other than absolutely necessary conditions which make possible the true spiritual life. [...] This is what our precursors cannot comprehend, [being] a sad generation liquidating a culture that was not theirs and through this was not even cultural."[28]
The Viața Românească columnist George Călinescu was skeptical of Crainic's politics, and noted his alternation between various nationalist camps. Commenting on Gândirea's choice to support Carol II at the time when he replaced his son Mihai I as king (1930), he likened Crainic to Judas Iscariot:
"[Crainic is] a person incapable of any privation, seeker of pieces of silver and worldly pleasures, great seeker of noisy shindings where pistols are being fired, a cajoler and a careerist, outrageously dedicating Gândirea today to HRM Mihai, tomorrow to HRM Carol II, the day after tomorrow to the great apostle of the nation Nicolae Iorga, at any moment when the homage could be tied to the pursuit of a personal interest."[29]
At the time, Gândirism owed inspiration to
More than a decade later, Călinescu argued that an enduring trait of Gândirism (to which he referred as Orthodoxism) had been a manifest belief in miracles. He believed to have noticed this in the works of Gândirea contributors such as Mircea Vulcănescu (in his homage to the deceased painter Sabin Popp, whom he allegedly regarded as "a saint"), Vasile Ciocâlteu ("who asks from God, in one of his poems, the favor to hold hot coals in his hands") and the Athonite pilgrim Sandu Tudor (who believed in "the workings of a mysterious miracle" as explanations for various events).[32]
In his later columns for Gândirea, Crainic focused on explaining his ideal of ethnocracy in connection with the magazine's overall goals.[33] This involved the denunciation of "foreign elements" and "minority islands", with a specific focus on the Jewish-Romanian community ("Jews make use of an indolent hospitality in order to deprive our kin of its ancient patrimony")[34] and its alleged connections with the political establishment ("In statements, in speeches and in acts of government our democrats have always declared themselves on the side of intruders and the allogeneous").[35] According to Călinescu, Crainic, unlike the regime in Nazi Germany, was not condoning racism as much as religious antisemitism:
"For reasons of churchly policy, the race factor is averted and [Crainic] takes a stand against [racism in Nazi Germany] and those nationalists who advocate the elimination of Christianized Jews and deny them baptism. 'The Church is open to all'. Although it is not said outright, it is understood that a baptized Jew becomes a Romanian, Nation and Religion being correlated notions. [...] Gândirea has thus received plenty of rallied, that is to say Orthodoxized, Jews."[36]
In parallel, around 1931, the magazine's approach to philosophy was criticized by the Personalist thinker Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, who deemed it "belletristic"; the traditionalist philosopher Mircea Vulcănescu, although himself only occasionally associated with Gândirea, defended Crainic's influence in front of the pragmatic conservative Junimist tradition arguably represented by Rădulescu-Motru inside the University of Bucharest.[37] Writing in 1937, Crainic celebrated Gândirea's role in making nationalism and Orthodoxy priorities in Romania's intellectual and political life:
"The term 'ethnic' with its meaning of 'ethnic specificity' imprinted in all sorts of expressions of the people, as a mark of its original properties, has been spread for 16 years by the journal Gândirea. The same thing applies to the terms of autochthonism, traditionalism, Orthodoxy, spirituality and many more which became the shared values of our current nationalist language."[38]
1934 hiatus and recovery
A scandal erupted in 1934, when the magazine was closed down over Crainic's implication in the trial of
Following its reemergence, Gândirea was again involved in a debate with Rădulescu-Motru. Among others, the latter contended that the Gândirist focus on Orthodoxy clashed with the traditional openness Romanian nationalism (which he referred to as Romanianism) had towards
As early as April 1933, Crainic wrote articles welcoming Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany,[48] and began support for corporatist goals.[49] Four years later, he authored a Gândirea article in which he praised Benito Mussolini and Italian fascism as the most adequate authoritarian alternative to positivism, materialism, capitalism and socialism alike:
"[Fascism is] a spiritual political concept [whose] manifestations, torn away from the tight circle of positivism and freed from the suffocating prison of materialism, fall into order on the ghostly marrow of history, prolonging themselves into the recess of past centuries and into the anticipations of the coming century. [...] A man bears there, under his vast dome-like forehead, our European century: Benito Mussolini. [...] The State created by Mussolini is the exemplary State. [...] Fascism is no longer capitalism, no longer socialism, but an authoritarian adjustment of every factor in production, geared into a social organism where nothing is left to chance. [...] More than any other country, Romania needs such a moral transformation in the depths of its soul [...] the spirit of a
new Rome will suggest the shape of history destined to be created by a nationalist Romania."[50]
This coincided with friendly relations between Crainic and the Italian
Writing in 1938 for his Porunca Vremii, Crainic argued:
"There exists authority based on love. The latter is Mussolini's authority over his people. It bursts out of the characteristic forces of the creative personality, like fire provoked by exploding bombs. Mussolini does not terrorize, for Mussolini does not kill. Mussolini attracts. [...] All his system is based on the fervent and unanimous adherence of his people."[54]
Late 1930s polemics
After Emil Cioran published his The Transfiguration of Romania in 1937, Crainic reacted to the book's pro-totalitarian but overtly skeptic message, calling it "a bloody, merciless, massacre of today's Romania, without even [the fear] of matricide and sacrilege".[55] To Cioran's support for modernization on a model which owed inspiration to both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, as well as to his criticism of Romanian traditions, Crainic replied by urging young people in general not to abandon "faith in our kin's rising century".[55]
In early 1938, Nicolae Iorga, who had by then come into open conflict with the Iron Guard, voiced criticism of Cuvântul (a paper associated with the latter political movement), arguing that, despite an emphasis on traditionalism and localism, its ideological guidelines took direct inspiration from the foreign models of Nazism and Italian fascism.[56] The dispute, involving, on the other side, Nae Ionescu, drew echoes in Gândirea — also challenged by Vulcănescu's argument that Gândirea had failed in their attempt to identify with Orthodoxy, Crainic polemized that Gândirism was in fact opposed to all forms of leftist and rightist internationalism (the "internationalist currents dominating our age").[57] At the time, publications headed by Ionescu and Crainic, despite maintaining separate visions on several core issues, showed equal support for a number of ideas (up to a certain point, Crainic was a direct influence on Ionescu).[58] Iorga and Crainic had come to clash over Crainic's emphasis on religion (in front of Iorga's secularism), his political choices, as well as the few links Crainic still maintained with modernism.[59]
Similar criticism of Crainic's political influence on Gândirea was voiced, in retrospect, by
"A political-Orthodox movement crystallized inside a party is destined to be a vain attempt, no matter how much talent N. Crainic may have. And a political ambition is not enough in creating a large-scale social movement. Hence the deviation of Gândirea magazine from its initial impulse."[62]
The magazine's articles featured accusations that Tudor Arghezi's group, together with others writers, was condoning "pornography",[63] and Gândirea sided with Iorga's similar views on Arghezi's work.[64] In this context, Crainic and his collaborators included antisemitic texts in Gândirea's columns.[65] At the time, through the voice of Crainic, the magazine hailed Nazi Germany for having "immediately thrown over the border all Judaic pornographers and even those German writers infected with Judaism", and Fascist Italy for "immediately sanctioning a scabrous short story writer".[47]
1940s
Eventually, Crainic rallied with
In 1941, celebrating twenty years of existence, Gândirea hosted Crainic's thoughts on the "
"Throughout this time [...], Judaism was our most bitter enemy. Not an adversary, but an enemy [...]. Today, Judaism is vanquished. A splendid act of justice has suppressed [the left-wing publications] Adevărul, Dimineaţa and Lupta. The rest, it was only in 1940 that I could carry out when, as Minister of Propaganda, I extirpated all Jewish daily and weekly publications in Romania. The holy right of speaking in the name of Romanianism belongs now to Romanians exclusively. [...] There shall be no more artistic and cultural ideals where Judaism could dissimulate itself."[70]
Following the recovery of
Disestablishment and legacy
The magazine ceased publication in 1944, after the
In a poll of 102 Romanian literary critics conducted in 2001 by the literary magazine Observator Cultural, the novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, written by Mateiu Caragiale and published in Gândirea in 1926–1927, was chosen "best Romanian novel of the twentieth century".
Notes
- ^ Grigorescu, p.432-433; Livezeanu, p.112
- ^ Livezeanu, p.112
- ^ Grigorescu, p.375
- ^ Grigorescu, p.375, 381-382
- ^ Grigorescu, p.381-382
- ^ Grigorescu, p.387
- ^ Livezeanu, p. 114
- ^ Grigorescu, p. 432
- ^ Grigorescu, pp. 432-433
- ^ Grigorescu, p. 433
- ^ Grigorescu, p.433-434
- ^ Grigorescu, pp. 434-435
- ^ Rendered in Livezeanu, p. 111
- ^ Iorga, in Grigorescu, p. 376
- ^ Iorga, in Grigorescu, p. 377
- ^ Blaga, in Grigorescu, p.380; in Livezeanu, p.125
- ^ Livezeanu, p.115
- ^ Crainic, in Grigorescu, p. 378
- ^ Crohmălniceanu, in Livezeanu, p.111
- ^ a b c Livezeanu, p.118
- ^ Sfarmă-Piatră, in Ornea, p.439
- ^ Maier; Ornea, pp. 23-26, 438-441; Pop
- ^ Maier
- ^ Crainic, in Livezeanu, p. 123; in Maier
- ^ Crainic, in Ornea, p. 77
- ^ Ornea, pp. 116-117
- ^ Blaga, in Ornea, p. 116; see also Vasilache
- ^ Crainic, in Ornea, p.95
- ^ Călinescu, in Ornea, p. 264
- ^ Veiga, p. 169
- ^ Crainic, in Ornea, p. 102; in Veiga, p. 169
- ^ Călinescu, Compendiu..., p.356
- ^ Ornea, p.100-101
- ^ Crainic, in Ornea, p.100-101
- ^ Crainic, in Ornea, p.101
- ^ Călinescu, Compendiu..., p.362
- ^ Ornea, p.78-79, 180-181
- ^ Crainic, in Caraiani, note 23
- ^ Ornea, p.99; Veiga, p.169, 253, 255; see also Livezeanu, p.118
- ^ Ornea, p.99, 230-231, 298, 300
- ^ Ornea, p.244-245
- ^ Ornea, p.245
- ^ Rădulescu-Motru, in Ornea, p.121, 123
- ^ a b Crainic, in Ornea, p.124
- ^ Rădulescu-Motru, in Ornea, p.122
- ^ Crainic, in Ornea, p.125
- ^ a b Crainic, in Ornea, p.456
- ^ Ornea, p.253-255, 414
- ^ Ornea, p.253-255; Pop
- ^ Crainic, in Ornea, p.251-252
- ^ Veiga, p.252-253
- ^ a b c Veiga, p.253
- ^ Ornea, p.255-262
- ^ Crainic, in Ornea, p.253
- ^ a b Crainic, in Ornea, p.143
- ^ Ornea, p.98
- ^ Crainic, in Ornea, p.99
- ^ Vasilache
- ^ Livezeanu, p.118-122
- ^ Ornea, p.113
- ^ Șeicaru, in Ornea, p.107, 242
- ^ Șeicaru, in Ornea, p.107
- ^ Ornea, p.448
- ^ Ornea, p.456
- ^ Ornea, p.36, 69-70, 448, 456
- ^ Ornea, p.397
- ^ Ornea, p.328, 379-380
- ^ Ornea, p.328
- ^ Final Report, p.92; Livezeanu, p.118
- ^ Crainic, in Ornea, p.402; alternative translation in Final Report, p.92
- ^ Final Report, p.96
- ^ a b c Țiu
References
- Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, retrieved February 27, 2007
- George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române. Compendiu, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1983: Cap.XXVII, "Ortodoxiştii", p. 356-363
- Ovidiu Caraiani, National Identity and Political Legitimacy in Modern Romania, at the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, retrieved February 27, 2007
- Dan Grigorescu, Istoria unei generații pierdute: expresioniștii, Editura Eminescu, Bucharest, 1980
- Irina Livezeanu, "After the Great Union: Generational Tensions, Intellectuals, Modernism, and Ethnicity in Interwar Romania", in Nation and National Ideology. Past, Present and Prospects. Proceedings of the International Symposium held at the New Europe College, Bucharest, April 6-7, 2001, Center for the Study of the Imaginary, New Europe College, p. 110-127, retrieved February 27, 2007
- Anneli Maier, "Romanian 'Protochronism' and the New Cultural Order", at the Blinken Open Society Archives, November 1977, retrieved February 27, 2007
- Editura Fundației Culturale Române, Bucharest, 1995
- Mihaela Pop, The Promethean Man Eastward or Westward?, at the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy site, retrieved February 27, 2007
- (in Romanian) Ilarion Țiu, "Comunism – 'Ziariştii fasciști', în boxa acuzaţilor", in Jurnalul Naţional, March 8, 2006
- (in Romanian) Simona Vasilache, Review of Viorel Marineasa, Tradiție supralicitată, modernitate diortosită. Publicistica lui Nichifor Crainic și a lui Nae Ionescu la o nouă lectură, in Observator Cultural, retrieved February 27, 2007
- Francisco Veiga, Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919-1941: Mistica ultranaționalismului, ISBN 84-7488-497-7)
External links
- Gândirea archive, Babeş-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library