In the year that marks the centenary of Monica Lovinescu’s birthday, an anniversary that is expected mainly by the publishing house Humanitasrelatively restrained by the Union of Writers, and not at all by the Romanian Academy (which is more concerned with the grotesque, scandalous celebrations caused by the life and death of the foundry Constantin Beletanu-Stolnici), the same publishing house Humanitas published not only a selection of books by someone who became famous thanks to the play Theses and antitheses in Paris and chronicles from Romanian newsas well as two books of Virgil Yerunka. Romanian and Years passed. A fact that emphasizes not only the common destiny, but also the mission. A self-imposed mission that proved to be so from the first days when the two, arriving with scholarships in the French capital, tried to raise awareness of the dangers of communism for the country. Especially for Romanian culture.

Enough reading By the water of Babylonthe recovered diary of Monica Lovinescu, or Years passedto once again understand that at first independently, from a certain moment together, the two were affectionately called anything Monikasor Hieruntius, from the first days of their Paris exile were connected with Romanian current affairs. They lived as if they had stayed in the country. They did not consider themselves indifferent to their career, their career was actually Romania itself.

Pages have been restored in the magazine Years passedVirgil Ierunka restores not only what he calls Romanian go-te-wine from Paris in the first years after the establishment of Communism in Romania, as well as the efforts, very often struggles, to establish and preserve Romanian cultural magazines. Created, written and published with the idea of ​​making them a counterweight to the proletarian extravagance in the country. These magazines, among which the leading place belonged to To write longings, they were also to complement what could be heard over the airwaves. to Free Europethen in the first years of its existence, or at Radio Paris, where Monica Lovinescu and Virgil Yerunka will work for a long time. Having arrived here, I cannot pass by the detail made by the legendary director European freeNoel Bernard, to whose efforts, in addition to the American management of the station, so much was owed Theses and antitheses in Paris and The story is over.

Song, vol Romanian first appeared in Paris in 1964, brings together at least part of the articles written and published by Virgil Yerunka in the respective journals, most of them ephemeral, during the first fifteen years of exile. Everything is written in the name of truth, the fact is emphasized by the motto of the book – a quote by Georges Bernanos (But death will rob us tomorrow; andand the truth can set us free even today), as in the preface to the 1990 edition.

In the same preface, Ierunka acknowledges a certain dating that marks a number of articles anthologized in the book, the fact that the very choice of title signified a response to the process of Russification to which the country underwent in the first part of the communist period. dictatorship. The author also acknowledged the fact that some pages are marked with the letter o solemn and circumstantial easebut”Then …circumstances confused with fate.” The appearance of the volume no Romanian then it meant, as Virgil Ierunka well observed, defiance. Turning to some cultural policies that ignored, denied, ignored, suppressed Romanian values, and turned to the collaborationism that sowed chaos. Collaborationism, which did not belong solely and exclusively to Mihai Ralea, Mihai Novitsov, N. Tertulian, Traian Schelmar, Ovid S. Krokhmelnichan, but –hThis iscoward! –and George Calinescu and even Tudor Vianu.

The militant nature of the book is obvious from the moment of reading the abstract. The first sequence is titled Romanian, talks about Brancusi, Ion Barba, Blaga, Enescu, Lovinescu or Alisa Voinescu. That is, about the direct personalities of Romanian culture, who in one way or another suffered from the establishment of communism. Some were forced to choose the path of exile, others, such as Blaha, Barba, Vasile Voiculescu or Alisa Voinescu, although they remained in the country, were harshly and categorically expelled from the news, harshly and late with the right of appeal. index. E. Lovinescu was announced posthumously persona non grata. Virgil Ierunka summarizes their invaluable contribution to Romanian culture without adopting an encomiastical tone.

Here, for example, from the first part of the commentary to E. Lovinescu, Virgil Yerunka confirms his affiliation with Majores and the leader’s theses. Unimea in connection with bottomless forms. This fact does not prevent him from asserting a cultural crime committed by those who are perceived as such inquisitors the creator of the price tag Streamer. Virgil Jerunka also emphasizes the detail that Lovinescu was not, as is often mistakenly said, one of obsessed with literaturebut he felt the danger of Soviet Communism, as well as the danger of the degeneration of Marxism.

In the title sequence geography, we find the political commentator Virgil Yerunka. Pay attention to the resistance in the mountains of the country, to the anti-communist riots in Poznań or Budapest, to the attack on the Romanian embassy in Bern. Named chapter Vice versa relentlessly treats the distortion of Romanian culture in the 1950s. Iyerunka conveys the perniciousness of Benyuk’s attitude in a sharp tone, a poet who is considered immediate, observing what he calls being. the banishment of philosophy, that is, a complete mess, in which Vasile Parvan, Lucian Blaga, C. Radulescu-Motru, Naye Ionescu, Noica, Mircea Vulcanescu, Dan Botta found themselves. The collaborationism of Geo Boggs or Celinescu is severely criticized (we can read Yerunka’s sharp response to some criticisms put on paper by order of “Divinul’s criticism” under the pretext of a former student’s contribution to Romanian literature, published in Encyclopedia PlThis isIadeus), perhaps Tudor Vianu is too harsh, the instrumentalization of Caragiale’s works is against the wall.

From the sequence Ideological neo-serfdom I recall an article devoted to the publication of the story in the USSR One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, analysis of the cultural consequences of the Soviet-Chinese conflict.

Sequence Merger begins with a meaningful article caused by the unexpected death of Camus. No, not about the obituary, but about a very thorough analysis of someone who “was not generous with us, but just; he turned to us not out of sympathy, but out of duty.” Virgil Yerunka was deeply affected by the news of Camus’ death. Log pages saved in Years passed that the author an alien “he was for me the one who made literature a bracket to settle in … Read the full article and comment on Contributors.ro