Okhtonian historians of literature are not aloof, but sensitive to the artistic and aesthetic merits of dramatic literature created on the Myoritic plains. In the vast majority of cases, dramatists and playwrights are sent at the end of some chapters, sentences mostly replace analyses. The main exception is, of course, et pour cause, created by I. L. Caragiale. No matter how overrated her fantastic prose is today, Nenea Iancu still legitimizes herself as an iconic figure in Romanian culture through her works for the stage. By Stormy Night, The Lost Letter, Konu Leonidas vs. Reaction, Năpasta, even through controversial dcarnival. Which, to be fair, only really caught the attention of literary critics after Lucian Pintilier’s excellent 1964 play.

Therefore, I say that I would be completely surprised if I learned that a monograph dedicated to Victor Eftimiu appeared in an unknown publishing house. Even people from the theater agree that it is called that secondary dramatistOf course, I do not rule out that dissertations about his work will still be written in an unknown university, the number of those who have obtained the title of doctor, in my opinion, significantly exceeds the number of specialized subjects. history of literature, about which we could learn who knows what new today.

Eftimiou lived in a relatively diverse political world. Sometimes even with absolutely sensational twists. A world marked in the interwar period by the political influences of conservatives, liberals and peasants, on which the legionnaires, with whom Eftimiou came into conflict, were parasitized. He had a mixed attitude towards communism. He played communists, but distanced himself from them. A fact that could not fail to attract the attention of the Security.

He wrote a lot, frankly obsessively, suffered from both graphomania and argyrophilia, but in a certain sense he remained in the collective memory as the author of only two plays. In line‘pearls and The man who saw death. The first one, although it is a dramatized fairy tale, appears relatively rarely on the posters of theater institutions in Romania, I don’t think necessarily because modern children would become desensitized to stories. But in order to put it somehow solidly on stage, you need money, and not a little. Imagination is also needed. The second is much more affordable. The man who saw death“a work criticizing the politics of bourgeois times,” as it has been said long agois part of what I call rescue catalog. Like many other titles from interwar drama, which by themselves, by writing, guarantee success with the audience. More precisely, no matter how badly they were mounted jays Kiritescu, Titanic waltz and …I’m running away certainly, even the most famous works of Tudor Muschatescu Nameless star Mykhailo Sebastian, the audience rushes into the hall. The same thing with The man who saw death. I say this from my own experience. From the memories from the time when I was a part-time literary secretary in the then Zv State Theater in Oradea.

I made this probably too long introduction to the review devoted to Christian Preda’s book A slave to successappeared in 2022 in the collection Memoirs/journal publishing house Humanitas from the spirit, let’s call it, mimetic. Christian Preda begins his book with a reconstruction of the political biography, public trials of Victor Eftimiu (the book has the subtitle Political life of Victor Eftimiu according to six constitutions) causing the show p in line’pearls which reopened the Great Hall of the Bucharest National in 2015 as a petition asking for the urgent renovation of the Bucharest building on Silvestro Street, a building which, like many others, remained in a state of disrepair. And it is connected with character.

So, Cristian Preda, university professor, dean, former presidential adviser, qualified political scientist and not created by who knows what television, who was at a loss for words, a person with a civic position, who fulfills what Gabriel Liicianu called the profession of a citizen, don’t waste your time trying, as they used to say, o revaluation of literary heritage Eftimiu. Which is not to say that he hasn’t read most of what’s left of his writings. Plays, poems, works for children, more or less short prose, articles, editorials, political comments, scattered in the newspapers of that time. Or the assessment of some exegetes. From E. Lovinescu and G. Kelinescu to Z. Ornea and Nicolae Manolescu.

Christian Preda is no more than the case, sensitive to the jokes and legends born at the expense of Victor Eftimiu, and of which there are by no means few. Euthymius was selfish, he thought and tried to create his offspring, as we see today, with almost zero long-term results. The author of the biography does not insist more than it should, neither on the marriage of Eftimiou with the actress Agepsina Makri, nor on the cohort of mistresses, rightly or wrongly placed in the paws of the writer.

According to the model resumemodernity, Christian Preda reproduces the life story, actually, the winding political and literary paths of Eftimiu since the last years of his existence (problems that were raised in Ceausescu’s Romania by the writer’s visit to his native Albania, Albania during his dictatorship Enver Hogea, with which the regime in Bucharest at that time was not on friendly terms except tenderly) to the literary beginnings, even beyond the writer in terms of the relationship between culture and politics. About the relationship between the creator and the powerful of that time. From Titu Maiorescu and Iulio Maniu to Constantia Kraciun and Gheorghe Georgiou-Deja. The writer owes his return to the present at a time when his star seemed to be setting to some saving words of the latter (he already called Eftimiu his friend in not only public, but also official) circumstances.

However, these meetings were not the most spectacular during the entire existence of Victor Eftimiu. But the one with Stalin, consumed during mandatory initiative trips of intellectuals from the newly created communist bloc in the USSR, and the one with Enver Hogea. In whom Enver (this is what the Albanians terrorized by the dictatorship called their executioner with grotesque, sad forced familiarity) was, stop!, interested the man who saw death. Interest related to the problem of self-esteem. Where else to put it to qualify Albanian writer.Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro