Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga | |
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Ion Borcea | |
Succeeded by | Vasile Dumitrescu-Brăila |
Co-Leader of the National Christian Party | |
In office 16 July 1935 – 10 February 1938 Serving with A. C. Cuza & Nichifor Crainic | |
Preceded by | Himself (as president of the National Agrarian Party) A. C. Cuza (as president of the National-Christian Defense League) |
Succeeded by | None (party banned under the 1938 Constitution) |
Founding President of the National Agrarian Party | |
In office 10 April 1932 – 16 July 1935 | |
Succeeded by | Himself (party merged into the National Christian Party) |
Personal details | |
Born | (1935–1938) | April 1, 1881
Spouses | |
Profession | poet, journalist |
Signature | |
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Octavian Goga (Romanian pronunciation:
Biography
Early life
Octavian Goga was born on 1 April 1881 in the village of Rășinari, on the northern slopes of the Southern Carpathians, in the house at 778 Ulița Popilor, the son of the Orthodox priest Iosif Goga and Aurelia, a teacher (and a collaborator in his youth at the newspaper Telegraful Român and the magazine Familia).[1] Between 1886 and 1890 Goga attended primary school in his native village, having Moise Frățilă, a patriotic intellectual and the possible character in the poem Dascălul, as his sister Victoria, who died early, was the character in Dăscălița.
Most of his holidays, as he recounts in various autobiographical texts, were spent in his father's native village, Crăciunelu de Sus, Alba County, on the Târnava Mică, now part of the commune of Cetatea de Baltă, where about 20% of the families in the village bear the name Goga. The poet said: "The life of the peasants on the delnițele Crăciunelului was my inspiration for Plugarii & Clăcașii.[2]
In 1890 the poet enrolled at the state high school in
On 14 October 1906 he married Hortensia Cosma, the youngest daughter of the politician and banker Partenie Cosma, director of the Albina Bank in Sibiu, one of the wealthiest Romanians in Transylvania.[3] The ceremony took place at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Sibiu, with Alexandrina and Alexandru Vlahuță as godparents. The marriage broke up after 14 years, when Goga fell in love with the singer Veturia Triteanu, born MureșanA , whom he married in January 1921.
Goga was a member of the Romanian National Committee in Paris.
Debut in journalism
In the issue of 12–24 December (no. 275, p. 1098) the newspaper Tribuna (Sibiu) published his first poem, Atunci și acum, signed "Tavi". Ion Pop-Reteganul from the Revista Ilustrată (Bistrița) wrote to him at the editorial office: "You have talent, young friend, cultivate it with diligence, for you can become great. The good day in the morning shows itself. Don't neglect your student duties." After this encouragement, the poem Nu-i fericire pe pământ is published on half a page.[4] Goga, a student at the Hungarian-language high school in Sibiu, had not yet turned seventeen.
The following poems he published in Iosif Vulcan's Revista Familia (Oradea, year XXXIV, 1898, no. 44, p. 13, November) and in the newspapers Tribuna and Luceafărul (no. 11, 1 December 1902, no. 14 - 15, 1 August 1903) were signed, above all, also "Octavian" and then "Nic. Otavă". It was not until 15 September 1903 that he signed his first poem (Sfârșit de septembrie) in Luceafărul under the name "Octavian Goga".
On July 1, 1902, Luceafărul, a publication for national culture and political unity of the Romanians in Transylvania, appeared in Budapest, where Goga published most of his poems. The founding of the magazine was due to the Romanian students who were active in Budapest within the "Petru Maior" Society: Alexandru Ciura, the author of the article "In lieu de programme" in the first issue, and Goga, who said in 1933 that the title of the magazine "was related to the state of mind and literary consciousness of those times". Most of Goga's works included in the volume Poezii (1905) appeared in the magazine Luceafărul, in whose pages the poet established himself as a genuine literary talent.
In 1904 the well-known poem Oltul appeared in Luceafărul (year III, no. 4, February 15, p. 91–92), then in no. 7, April 10, p. 151, the poem Dăscălița, signed "Nic. Otavă", and in 1905, the poems Plugarii, Lăutarul, Dascălul, Rugăciune, and Clăcașii.
Critical remarks on the editorial debut
Goga entered literary publishing with recommendations from Ilarie Chendi, Sextil Pușcariu, Nicolae Iorga, Ion Gorun, Vasile Goldiș, and Eugen Lovinescu.
In 1905 the volume Poezii appeared in Budapest, reprinted by the publishing house "Minerva" in Bucharest in 1907. and in Sibiu in 1910. After this editorial debut, which became a true literary event, the poet became increasingly in the public consciousness. The literary critic Ion Dodu Bălan considered that Goga's volume "signifies the beginning of a new epoch for our Romanian soul", because "no one has surpassed the vigour, purity and music of our language, the richness of colours, the originality of ideas, the serenity of concepts, the candour of expressions and the healthy national background, which is concentrated in these poems". The poems in this volume are considered "brilliant creations" and the most valuable critics "understand the social, national and aesthetic significance of this appearance in the history of Romanian lyric".
After the review in Revista Familia , Iosif Vulcan returns, on the occasion of the publication of the poem Așa a fost să fie, with the appreciation that Goga is "an original talent inspired only by the soul of the people", and the poem, "a literary event".[5] The volume Poems was enthusiastically received by critics and writers.
Other appreciations of esteem were formulated by Sextil Pușcariu, Ion Luca Caragiale, George Coșbuc, Alexandru Vlahuță, Eugen Lovinescu, Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea, and George Panu. Considered a poet of the nation on both sides of the Carpathians, the poet enjoyed remarkable literary prestige by the age of 25.
Death
Retired alone at Ciucea Castle - his wife
Goga was buried in Bucharest, at Bellu Cemetery. Later the poet's body was reburied at his mansion in Ciucea, according to his wishes.[7]
Activity
Journalistic activity
The poet's journalistic beginnings were linked to the magazine Luceafărul, founded on his initiative on July 1, 1902, in Budapest, together with Alexandru Ciura and Octavian Tăslăuanu. Goga remained successively as editor-in-chief or director until 1912. The appearance of the magazine Luceafărul was to a large extent confused with the concerns and sorrows of young students, animated by the same dreams:
Our magazine, as an organ of youth, is meant to introduce us to the public more closely, to establish a closer link between the public and youth.
— O. Goga
These young people from Budapest knew that they had a duty to defend the ideals of an entire community.
"It was with such a wealth of ideas," Goga confesses, "that the Budapest magazine Luceafărul was founded in 1902. For four years while I was there and a year in Berlin we went forward, affirming the idea of unity of soul".
Luceafărul appeared in Budapest on July 1, 1902, on the initiative and with the material support of A.P. Bănuț, supported by a group of patriotic Romanian students. "There was also a lack for Transylvania," said Goga, "of a literary magazine in whose pages the local character with all its differences from other parts of our nation was imprinted". Octavian Goga's contribution to the rise of Luceafăr was immense: "Octavian Goga," wrote Ion Chinezu, "wrote for other magazines, even founded some; his name is linked to Luceafărul".
With his activity in the Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature and Culture of the Romanian People (ASTRA), his publicity concerns intensified with the passing of time, revealing yet another side of his literary talent. Under his direction, the journal Țara noastră appeared on 1 January 1907, temporarily replacing the journal Transilvania. Goga, who effectively directed this weekly, appeared first as editor and then as owner-editor. In the first issue he published the editorial entitled "To our scholars", in which he stated that he aimed to write: "a good gazette. A gazette that bridges the gap between the souls of the scholars and the peasants who kneel to read it on Sundays. All scholars who feel in their hearts the resonance of a duty that demands fulfilment will have their say on this paper, the profits of which will benefit our cultural establishment." The magazine Țara noastră appeared weekly in Sibiu until 5 December 1909. It then reappeared in Cluj (1922 - 1931), with Octavian Goga as director, and then in Bucharest (1932 - 1938). The issue of 29 May 1938 was dedicated to the memory of its founder, who died on 7 May.
Until the outbreak of the
Goga focused his publicity on the problems of "Romanianism" (the origin of the Romanians, the uninterrupted continuity in the formation of the Romanian people, the idea of the unity of all Romanians, the ideal of union in a nation state, the struggle against Austro-Hungarian oppression). Through the magazine Luceafărul he managed to strengthen his cultural ties with Romania, towards the political union of later. The magazine Țara Noastra, which focused on Goga's ideology, also strengthened its ties with the people in the villages, advising them but also helping them with their spiritual and material needs.
Playwright activity
Although few in number, uneven and below the level of his poetic achievements, Goga's drama, especially through
With Meșterul Manole, performed in 1927 and published in 1928, Goga attempted to adapt the old myth to psychological drama, artistically rehabilitating the old plot of conjugal time by developing and examining erotic motivations. The main character was an artist, cynical, charming, an inveterate traveller, a great lover of passing erotic experiences.
Goga also left, as a draft, two one-act plays (Sonata lunei and Lupul), the sketch Fruntașul, a dialogue article from 1911 and the translation of Imre Madách's The Tragedy of Man'.
Translator activity
An opponent of the
Imre Madách attracted Goga from his youth, his first attempts at translating the Tragediei omului dating from his school years. After a few paintings and scenes from the Tragediei, published in Luceafărul in (1903) or in Țara noastră (1909), the appearance of the Tragediei omului in volume form in Goga's translation came in 1934, received as "a brilliant poetic creation having the same value as the original". The second Romanian edition (1940) appeared revised by the author.Tudor Vianu wrote that Memento mori and Tragediei omului are "poems of humanity seen through the hopes, defeats and struggles of peoples". George Călinescu observed that Goga's translation is done in a Romanian that approaches the perfection and beauty of Eminescu's language: "It is the language and even the style of Eminescu that is appropriate to our time and it is precisely interesting to see a classical poet who manages to be plastic through words, for the ear, not through colorism".
Political activity
Becoming a messenger of the nationalist aspirations of the Transylvanian Romanians, Goga was elected literary secretary of the
After the outbreak of the World War I, Goga settled in Romania, continuing the struggle for the annexation of Transylvania to Romania and for the completion of Romanian state unity. He launched an extensive publicity campaign in the newspapers Adevărul and Epoca on the situation of the brothers across the Carpathians, who were subject to persecution. Together with Octavian Codru Tăslăuanu, Onisifor Ghibu and Sebastian Bornemisa, he signed the letter to the Transylvanian journalists who had taken refuge in Romania (Epoca, 15 June 1915), with the aim of continuing the publicity work for the annexation of Transylvania.
On 14 December 1914 the "Extraordinary Congress of the Cultural League" was held (president Vasile Lucaciu, vice-president: Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea, secretary: Nicolae Iorga, and Goga was a member of the committee, representing Transylvania).
At the meeting organized by the "Political League of All Romanians", in Bucharest, on February 15, 1915, he declared: "For tomorrow's sacrifice we have crossed the border, let us come to Wallachia. We have lost our country, we have lost our homeland, but we still have our heads. We give them to you, do what you want with them. They can fall, Transylvania cannot fall".
Because of his political activity in Romania, the Hungarian government in Budapest brought Goga - as an
Romanian "Duce" or "Führer"
According to historian Ilarion Țiu, in the 1920s Goga was a supporter of
...The Prime Minister appointed by King Carol (II), the liberal Gheorghe Tătărescu, ... fails to win the elections (obtaining only 36% of the votes instead of the 40 percent required - by law - to hold a majority in Parliament). ...This electoral failure was due in part to a "non-aggression pact between Iuliu Maniu's nationalist peasants and the "All for the Country" party (the Legion's electoral label)...The King brought to the government two leaders of small far-right parties: the poet Octavian Goga and Professor A. C. Cuza, head of a party focused exclusively on anti-Semitism.
In 1926 together with
The government chaired by Goga (28 December 1937 – 10 February 1938) and dismissed after 44 days, was created by the
As a
Under the pretext that between 1918 and 1924 Jews from the former Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires had infiltrated Romania, the government chaired by Octavian Goga, in violation of the Constitution and Romania's international obligations, published on 21 January 1938 Decree No. 169 on the revision of citizenship, by virtue of which Romanian Jewish citizens were forced to prove their right to citizenship with documents, in accordance with the law of 25 February 1924, within 20 days of the posting of lists in communes and towns. On the basis of this decree, the situation of 617,396 Jews was reviewed, of whom 392,172 (63.50%) retained their Romanian citizenship and 225,222 (36.50%) lost it. The Jews who lost their citizenship received identity certificates valid for one year, with the possibility of extension, and were considered foreigners without a passport, subject to the legal regime as such.[14]
This was the first in a series of discriminatory laws, adopted as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing, whereby the Romanian state abandoned its citizens of Jewish origin, depriving them of the most basic civic rights. The Jewish minority, left to the whim of despotic regional civil servants, began to expatriate. A wave of Romanian intellectuals and industrialists of Jewish origin left Romania, Romanian economy and culture were damaged, and leading intellectuals protested vehemently.[15][16]
In an interview with the British newspaper Daily Herald in January 1938, King Carol II and Prime Minister Goga gave the figure of 250,000 and 500,000 Jews respectively as "illegal". While the King rejected the idea of expulsion, denying them any rights, Goga spoke of 500,000 so-called "vagrants", whom "we cannot consider as Romanian citizens". Octavian Goga proposed the deportation of 500,000 Jews to Madagascar (a concept known as the "Madagascar Plan"), while Istrate Micescu, the foreign minister in the Goga–Cuza government, declared: "It is urgent to sweep up our own backyard, as it is useless to tolerate all these scum in our country".[17][18]
Prime Minister Goga pursued a pro-Nazi policy by intending to ally with and adopt the policies of
The paramilitary wing of the National Christian Party, the Lănceri (meaning "Lancers", the word was derived from LANC, the Romanian acronym of National-Christian Defense League) contributed to the chaos, attacking both Jews and Iron Guard members.
Carol II first pushed towards a victory of the government in the snap elections in March 1938, which he had called on January 18, 1938. However, he soon abandoned Goga, preparing a coup together with the minister of the Interior Armand Călinescu, a former member of the National Peasants' Party, who acted as a guarantee for the king in the government. The coup was probably precipitated when Goga negotiated an electoral agreement with Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the Iron Guard, on February 8, 1938, thus posing a considerable threat to the King's power. On February 9, 1938, Carol II, Călinescu and the former national liberal prime minister Gheorghe Tătărescu set the coup for the next day. On February 10, 1938, Carol II received Goga and told him to postpone the snap elections, whereupon Goga resigned. Goga refused to participate in the national unity government the king appointed the same day and withdrew to his estate in Ciucea, Transylvania, where he suffered a stroke on 5 May 1938. He died two days later, on May 7, 1938.
Goga and Freemasonry
The
Election to the Romanian Academy
With the award of the "Năsturel-Herescu" Prize for his debut volume on March 21, 1906, Octavian Goga's poetic creation received the consecration of the Romanian Academy. The report to the plenary of the Romanian Academy for the award of the volume Poems was presented in February 1906 by Titu Maiorescu.[23]
In 1920, Goga was elected a member of the academy, his acceptance speech being entitled George Coșbuc. In 1924, the poet received the National Poetry Prize and the Mihail Sadoveanu Prize for prose.
Gallery
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Goga and Aurel Vlaicu
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Goga and writers Ștefan Octavian Iosif and Ion Luca Caragiale
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Commemorative plaque on Octavian Goga's birth home in Rășinari, which reads: "The house in which Octavian Goga, the poet of our sufferings, was born on 20 March 1881."
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Goga's writing desk at his castle in Ciucea
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Logo of the National Christian Party featuring a swastika, the initials of the party and the names of its joint leaders, A. C. Cuza and Octavian Goga
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The header of Țara Noastră, the official newspaper of Goga's National Christian Party, in 1935.
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Goga in his later years
Quotations
In press interviews at the time Goga said the following:
For us there is only one final solution of the Jewish problem—the collection of all Jews into a region that is still uninhabited, and the foundation there of a Jewish nation. And the further away the better.
— 1938 interview[24]
Writings
Poetry
- Cărbunii ("The Pieces of Coal")
- Rugăciune ("A Prayer")
- Plugarii ("The Ploughmen")
- Oltul ("The Olt River")
- Din larg ("From the High Seas")
- Profetul ("The Prophet")
- Ceahlăul ("The Ceahlău")
- O ramură întârziată ("A Tardy Branch")
- Trecutul ("The Past")
- Apus ("Sunset")
- Mare eternă ("The Eternal Sea")
- În mine câteodată ("At Times within Me")
- Toamna("Autumn")
- Noi ("Us")
Plays
- Domnul notar ("Mr. Notary")
- Meșterul Manole (see Meșterul Manole)
References
- ISBN 9780720602807.
- ^ "OCTAVIAN GOGA". www.primaria-rasinari.ro. Primăria Rășinari. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2023.
- ^ Bălan, Ion Dodu: Octavian Goga, Editura Minerva, București, 1975
- ^ Revista Ilustrată, an I, nr. 5 - 6, 1898, p. 107
- ^ Revista Familia year XXXV, no. 44, 1–13 November 1898, p. 523
- ^ Tiu, Ilarion (15 January 2007). "Octavian Goga". Jurnalul Național. Archived from the original on 6 September 2017. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ Ciucea lui Octavian Goga, cu sprijinul CJ Cluj și Muzeul "Octavian Goga" Ciucea; Casa Cărții de Știință, Cluj-Napoca 2003, p. 22
- ^ Goga, Octavian (1914). Domnul notar: dramă în trei acte din viața Ardealului (in Romanian). Bucharest: Flacăra.
- ^ Dorothea Sasu-Zimmermann, Petőfi in Romanian Literature, Kriterion Publishing House, Bucharest, 1980.
- ^ Țiu, Ilarion: Octavian Goga, op. cit.
- ^ Djuvara, Neagu: O scurtă istorie a românilor povestită celor tineri, p. 242, Ed. Humanitas, 11th edition, 2010.
- ^ Pop, Gheorghe T.: Caracterul antinațional și antipopular al activității Partidului Național Creștin, Dacia Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 1978
- ^ "Evreii di România (1939-1944)". www.itcnet.ro. Archived from the original on 6 March 2009. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "FINAL REPORT of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania" (PDF). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 11 November 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 August 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ Țurcanu, Florin: Mircea Eliade, prisoner of history, (translated from French by Monica Anghel and Dragoș Dodu), Bucharest, Humanitas, 2003
- ISBN 978-2130517832.
- ThoughtCo. Archived from the originalon 20 October 2011. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "I. STATUTUL LEGAL AL EVREILOR ÎN ROMÂNIA (1800-1944)". Comunitatea Evreiasca din Romania. Archived from the original on 13 June 2011. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ The New York Times, January 20, 1938
- ^ The New York Times, articles dated January 13, 1938; December 31, 1937; December 29, 1937 and February 11, 1938
- ^ Constantiniu, Florin, O istorie sinceră a poporului român, p. 351, ed. Univers Enciclopedic, Bucharest, 1997.
- ^ Trifu, V., în Nestorescu-Bălcești, Horia: Ordinul Masonic Român, p. 344, 1932.
- ^ Quote about Octavian Goga, at Wikicitat (in Romanian)
- ^ "Jews Spurned in Rumania". The Argus. Independent Cable Service. 24 January 1938. p. 9.
External links
- Works by or about Octavian Goga at Internet Archive
- Works by Octavian Goga at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)