On January 20, 2023, it will be 50 years since Alexandru Mironescu, university professor, chemical researcher, writer, political prisoner, founder and symbolic member of the “Unburnt Kupina” left this world.

The misfortune of many of Rugului Aprins’ personalities was that they gradually returned to the public memory only after 1989, mainly more than a decade even after the fall of the communist regime. And, of course, the way in which most of these personalities were evoked, rediscovered, promoted, was generally unprofessional. Professor Alexandru Mironescu (1903-1973) began to be published in the 90s, but only in the last ten years this symbolic personality of the “Burning Carpet” has become more and more talked about, there are studies, even doctoral theses that analyze the work, etc. In a good way editing magazine played a decisive role.

… Volume one “Great silence. Diary (July 2, 1967-September 29, 1968)”published by the publishing house “Aikon” (2014), attracted the attention of the public, especially due to its striking similarity with ““Happiness Diary” N. Steinhardt. The same intellectual fervor, the same style, rich in readings and cultural references of all colors, the same non-conformist Christian-Orthodox faith. By the way, there were friendly relations between them, and N. Steinhardt writes to Virgil Yerunza immediately after El’s death. Mironescu: “He was one of the cleanest people I’ve ever met. And we rarely meet a Christian: non-fanatic, unobtrusive, undemanding; fair and lenient.”

Like other members of the Rugului Aprins (Paul Sterian, Mircea Vulcanescu or pr. Benedikt Gius), Professor Alexandru Mironescu, in turn, came to France to obtain a doctorate in chemistry and physics. He is one of the personalities of Neopalima Kupina, whose work is constantly imbued with Western culture, in particular French nuances. Arriving in Paris in 1926, Al. Mironescu will defend his doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne in 1929.

Below I will focus on his Paris letters, partly published by the author himself in a volume published posthumously, Joasaph Valley (Editura Eminescu, 2001), a book that has been unfairly ignored for over two decades. Because over time these writings have become a golden vein for researchers of Neopalima Kupina, but also for Romanian culture in general. This is what the 23-year-old wrote to Alexandru Mironescu in May 1926:

“Dear parents, …I wrote to you that my master assessed the period of preliminary tests with me, about six months, before entering the thesis topic. But after two and a half months, he informed me that we will go to the topic. I am happy and did not expect such an event, because I knew that the decision was difficult and only after making sure that the applicant would not confuse them, but gave serious guarantees that he would be able to complete the work to the end, to the end. He carefully followed these previous works and noticed that I was doing better than he imagined. He then suggested that I study a complex and convoluted method that would lead to the raw material needed for my Ph.D. I am excited, as on the eve of a great battle […] I would like to inform you that the finality of my works seems to lead to unexpected results. The teacher greeted me with an almost surprised look. He told me today that the improvements I made to the method could make it industrial, although of course the main goal is scientific.” (p. 183).

It should be noted that the doctoral dissertation of the young Alexander Mironescu, defended at the Faculty of Sciences of the Sorbonne University in 1929, has such a twisted and strange for the uninitiated (like the undersigned) title: “Sur l’action des organomagnesiens sur le furfurol et l’ether pyromucique”. Indeed, in just a few years, Professor Mironescu’s hydrocarbon research would lead him to inventions approved in several Western countries.

And further:

“(Paris 1927) Dear Parents, I have not written to you much because of my terrible laboratory preoccupations… I am more and more engrossed in laboratory work and the work of my doctoral colleagues. It is a very pleasant feeling when you go from dilettante to deep work. Then, you see, if you are a poet, you can always doubt whether the poems are good, unless you are a bad poet, and then you have no doubts (natural compensations!), but you are sure of… your genius (can it be?) . Philosopher, novelist remain in question. Here, in the laboratory, everything is different. You get something or you get nothing; control is safe. Then something else strikes me. Perfect, sepulchral silence reigns in our laboratories. This is a type of Sahara. Here is a laboratory, laboratories are real factories. The equipment, the movement, the discussions, the teacher among the students, it’s a great show. And don’t think that they are financially better off than ours! No, but people here have ideas. Sometimes I think with some fear about returning to the stupid silence of our faculties! This was the case with our teachers, with most of them, when they returned to the stable, from abroad, they… calmed down.” (pp. 196-197).

Of course, at least anthropologically speaking, university life and research are quite different after almost a hundred years, including in Romania. Mironescu himself, during the few years of freedom before the communist night, showed amazing results: he was the author of research and inventions recognized and registered in interwar Europe, he came close to the philosophy of science, then to the philosophy of religion, the Christian mystical search, he was one of the outstanding figures of cultural spiritual movement, Neopalym Kupyn, the only one in Orthodoxy…

…In 2019, the second volume of “Enthralling Silence. Jurnal (1968 – 1969)”, so the continuation, this time published by the Humanitas publishing house. And this year, on the occasion of the half-century, the third volume, the last, will also appear on Humanitas diary (January 1, 1970 – November 7, 1972), ending about two months before the author’s death. Also, apparently this is his last work, the last scenario.

magazine Al Mironescu, highly praised in recent years, is also, I argue, a kind of testament, because on its pages we meet all the topics dear to the writer and philosopher Alexander Mironescu. I’ll give examples below using some excerpts from the last volume magazine, not yet published. I showed above the enthusiasm of young Al. Mironescu, who spent several years in Parisian doctoral studies, and his devotion to the great European culture. Years later, these lines of youth turned out to be visionary. This is what the writer notes first in a Parisian letter to his parents, sent in the late 1920s:

“I feel great melancholy at the thought that the moment of parting with Paris is approaching, to which I undoubtedly owe all my formation. here, [în] my spirit, light chosen from darkness. I don’t know how many smiles I will cause, but from now on the European environment is indispensable for me.” (Valley of Jehoshaphatpage 226)

and then in the last volume (3), which continues, para magazine:

“29.X.1971 My desire to be a European citizen was a living desire of my youth. It didn’t happen as quickly as I imagined and dreamed, but I never doubted what I felt was the inexorable meaning of the story. Of course, I give it [seama] better today than forty years ago, and better than many years ago, how complex the equation of the unfolding of history is, but I am confident, humanly speaking, that a United States of Europe will become a reality in the near future.”

Even if this concept and project of the United States of Europe is debatable and still contested, the European Union is a reality today, and Al. Mironescu once again proves his incredible ability to predict the future. This dialogue between the works of youth and the works of mature age fascinates, especially with its coherence and creative effervescence.

On the other hand, the same love for France does not prevent the professor from often criticizing:

“(7. VI. 1970) Not being a politician and not living in a well-informed world, I realized, in the light of certain spiritual criteria, with all clarity the great mistakes made in recent years by General de Gaulle, which is also clear today to those who supported and admired him.”

And he continues, showing a sincere interest in the architecture and culture of memory, as if anticipating a new era of Western historiography:

“David Russet, in a letter published in Le Monde, makes an extremely interesting and useful proposal, namely the establishment of a department in the Sorbonne: concentration literature, that is, literature related to camps and prisons, written, so to speak, by the victims. This is a big and important chapter.”

How many such necessary departments existed and exist in the West and in Romanian education today??…

In the same vein, reference to the prisons he himself suffered when he was incarcerated in the Burning Bush camp between 1958 and 1963 returns as a personal testimony:

(3.VI.1971) [Pe] all people who suffered persecution and imprisonment understand them very well and sympathize with them and want to remember them all their lives, tell others, their children and grandchildren, how terrible it is to live in such conditions, and those who, out of some illusion, out of some naive idealism or for other reasons helped to win and establish communism in the world and on other people’s backs or helped to destroy others, must go to confess their sins and ask forgiveness from God, the Father of all of us!”

Devoted with all his being to both scientific, philosophical and mystical knowledge – which he does not consider, only partially, in contradiction -, Professor Al. Mironescu often gives disturbing testimony. For a person with advanced degrees in chemistry and philosophy, this testimony becomes even more interesting: read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro