I find the publisher’s decision extremely inspiring Humanitas simultaneously republish both volumes of the publication Romanian and Years have passed…Excerpts from the diary, greetings and accents, unlost lettersboth signed by Virgil Yerunka.

Both of them were written in essentially the same period, both are the product of the same thoughts and the same moods, both testify that from the very beginning, that is, from the first years of his Parisian exile, Virgil Ierunka lived as he Al himself notes in an interview. cystelecan, connected to Romania. Of course, there were several months when Virgil Yerunka lived in one neutral space“where there was only pain and sadness”, however, as Virgil Yerunka testifies in the same interview, he intervened at a certain moment, lighting after which the future author of the program the story is over to converted to Romania. Or, as we can read in the interview given to Octavian Paler, the importance of Romania increased for Virgil Ierunka after his arrival in Paris. She was both preservationbecome involvement and DWELLING.

No doubt this conversion/salvation came at a price. Some Romanian friends who found themselves on the banks of the Seine, like, for example, Professor Basil Munteanu, reproached Yeruntsi for squandering or, more precisely, sacrificing a possible French career, which they approached with a chance to be brilliant. Otherwise, after 1989, this reprimand was clearly humiliating and in completely different tones both to Monica Lovinescu and to Virgil Yerunka. There were also years of struggle to expose the fraud of Constantine Virgil Georgiou, who after the publication of the novel 25 hours, gained a bad reputation in the West, which Yerunka considered unfair and usurping. There was also a period of poverty, which the notations speak of Years passed…I describe it with lavish detail, but also with exemplary decency. There were also attacks from some scholars, even famous ones, who, while remaining in the country, and who, in order to remain in the University and the Academy, put themselves in the service of the communist authorities. There was also a certain period of uncertainty that some members of the emigration, knowing about Ierunka’s past as a left-wing journalist, otherwise never hiding it from him, had about him, who became an implacable opponent of established Soviet communism from where he was in Romania. Some disputes with the socialist Sherban Voyneya, which softened over time, were connected, for example, with the strange ban on cooperating with Free Europe. The ban, which came from the American directors of the station and against which the then director of the Romanian department, Gice Ionescu, could practically do nothing. Who would have guessed then that only a few years later, thanks to the inspiration and diplomacy of the new director, none other than Noel Bernard, Monica Lovinescu and Virgil Ierunka would become real icons free Europe in Romanian?

We find in Years passed the great names of the Romanian exile. First of all, Emil Cioran, Mircea Eliade, Eugene Ionescu, with whom Virgil Yerunka maintained a friendship that was not without crises. We find the story of a constant friendship with Lucian Bedescu, a man who has been with us almost since Bedescu was Virgil Jerunka’s French teacher at the high school in Rimnik-Vilca. Leading political figures of the Romanian emigration appear in various, sometimes antagonistic, poses. Konstantin Vishoianu and General Radescu. We meet again, depicted in different tones and colors, not always very kind, those who will be the editor of the first generations Free Europe. Mihai Farcaşanu, meteorological director, Mihai Cismarescu, George Cioranescu (deputy directors at different stages of the position), Yani Popa. Khoria Stamata enjoys a special attitude, whom Yerunka considers to be seriously and systematically insulting the value of his poetry. Among the French friends, Bernard Dort is the most consistently present.

Virgil Yerunka is connected with French academic life, helps in the defense of doctoral theses, assesses the merit of applicants and the quality of jury members. There is a certain passion that is characteristic of the youth, we also find the sentences, in my opinion, unjust, such as the one that Lucien Goldman constantly faces. Jean-Paul Sartre is subjected to unforgiving and justified criticism, Simone de Beauvoir is also not forgotten, la plus grande sartreuse, about whom we learned from the books of Thierry Walton, were persistent paid agents of Moscow. Albert Camus stands on the antipodes. After the outstanding article published on his unexpected death, the article which can be read in Vol Romanian, the descendants of Camus became an almost permanent affair of Virgil Yerunka. Finally, in Years passed there is evidence of closeness to Monica Lovinescu, of aspirations that from a certain moment became common, of the struggle to save Ekaterina Beletsa-Lovinescu from communist prisons.

But great magazine page topics have been found, saved and printed years passed they consist of preserving the Romanian character of exile and recording, correcting and rejecting the destruction caused by communist ideology in the country. Virgil Ierunka founded Romanian magazines published in the West or collaborated with them by donating them, he contributed to the knowledge in the free part of Europe of the great values ​​of Romanian culture, some of which were included in the index in the country, he collaborated in writing some encyclopedias, including part of TO sqThis isIadeus. A collaboration that provoked the ordered ire of G. Kelinescu, ire that was responded to in an article published in Romanian.

Forever associated with Romanian current affairs, Virgil Yerunka recorded in Years passed moral resignations of some big names of Romanian culture. Arghezi, Kelinescu, Geo Bogza, Alexandra Rosetti, Miron Radu Paraskivescu, of course, Mihail Ralea, Tudor Vianu are exposed to relentless shots. In addition, in an interview given in 1990 to Elena Shtefoy, published at that time in Counterpoint and republished in Years passedVirgil Yerunka operates an extremely interesting and, at the same time, appropriate classification co-authors in seven main categories. Cynics indulgent of rewarded perversity, disposable, honest spoilers, blackmailed by circumstances, experienced in and with missions and, finally, idealists.

Diary of exile this means the most consistent and, in my opinion, the most interesting part of the book. I also find the three interviews I have already mentioned interesting and extremely relevant, interviews collected in sequence Word for word with…. I was also interested in texts about Emmanuel Levinas, Dina Pill, Petre Shucea or Gice Ionescu. Just as I was appalled today by the baseless and vicious attack on the address dilemma and Andriy Pleshu from the article Accusing intransigence. To which the director of the unfairly accused magazine gave an exemplary answer, I would even say reign, in the texts that can be reread in the volume Faces and transition masks. This error in judgment of Virgil Yerunka proved that no one is infallible. _Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro