Octavian Goga: Sacerdote of the Nation. Revisiting the Romanian National Idea [2018 ed.] 9789731098593

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Răzvan Pârâianu OCTAVIAN GOGA: SACERDOTE OF THE NATION REVISITING THE ROMANIAN NATIONAL IDEA

Răzvan Pârâianu

OCTAVIAN GOGA: SACERDOTE OF THE NATION REVISITING THE ROMANIAN NATIONAL IDEA

Argonaut Cluj-Napoca, 2018

Seria ●Istorie●Documente●Mărturii●

Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naționale a României PÂRÂIANU, Răzvan, Octavian Goga: Sacerdote of the nation revisiting the Romanian national idea / Răzvan Pârâianu. – Cluj-Napoca: Argonaut; 2018. – 330, p.; 24 cm. ISBN 978-973-109-859-3

Poza care ilustrează coperta se găsește la CNSAS, dosar D15188 vol 3 fila 41.

Tehnoredactare: Myrobiblion Coperta: Myrobiblion © Argonaut & Autorul Editura Argonaut Str. Ciucaş, nr.5/15 Cluj-Napoca Tel: 0730/015.485 e-mail: [email protected] www.editura-argonaut.ro Consilier editorial atestat: Emil POP Editura Argonaut este acreditată CNCSIS/CNCS din anul 2002

To my daughter Teodora

Acknowledgments During my research for this book and the subsequent phase of writing the book, a number of people helped me to improve the text by generously sharing their time and expertise. I would like to thank them all for their encouragement, constant support and crucial advice. I have particularly benefited from the assistance and insights of my friends, colleagues, and teachers. The intellectual environment at my alma mater, the Central European University, was extremely inspiring and challenging, at the same time. During the innumerable conversations and chats we had over the years, their suggestions and criticism often helped me to clarify and refine many of my arguments and ideas. I would like to thank, in particular, my friend Marius Turda, whose input and suggestions were essential for revising and editing the entire manuscript. I am especially grateful for his unceasing encouragement to publish my work. I would also like to thank Raoul Alexandrescu, from the Library of the Romanian Academy, who helped me enormously in identifying many of the primary sources I used in my book. Last but not least, I would also like to express my gratitude and appreciation to Sorin Antohi, who was much more than just a professor for me. Without them all, the present volume would not have come into being.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. ...................................................................................................................... 11 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 11

§ 1. Who is Octavian Goga and why is he important? ....................... 11 § 2 Major themes and methodology .................................................. 16 § 3. The national idea and the militant literature............................... 20 § 4. Aims........................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER 2. ...................................................................................................................... 27 SOURCES AND INTERPRETATIONS....................................................................................... 27

§ 1. A short biography and the main works ...................................... 27 § 2. “The poet of our ordeal.” The reception of Goga’s first volume of poetry .................................................................................................... 34 § 3. The reception of his second volume of poetry ............................. 40 § 4. Political friends and enemies ..................................................... 44 § 5. Political recognition. ................................................................. 48 § 6. The National Ideology of the ‘30s............................................... 51 § 7. The tribute paid to Goga after his death ..................................... 54 § 8. In the communist national pantheon ........................................... 60 § 9. The post communist rediscovery of Goga ................................... 69 CHAPTER 3. ...................................................................................................................... 77 THE YOUNG MAN GOGA AND HIS TRIUMPH AS NATIONAL POET [1881-1907] ..................... 77

§ 1. Turn of the Century in Transylvania. Activism, Passivism and the Tribunist Movement............................................................................... 77 § 2. The Crisis of Traditional Politics ............................................... 83 § 3. Goga’s First Literary Attempts and the First Seeds of Revolt ..... 88 § 4. The Budapest Experience and Luceafărul .................................. 94 § 5. Goga’s Crisis of Identity, the Drive for Recuperating his Roots, and his Dream. .................................................................................... 102 CHAPTER 4. .................................................................................................................... 111 THE “FRESHENING” OF NATIONAL POLICY [1908-1910] ................................................... 111

§ 1. Goga’s Social Rise after his Literary Success. .......................... 111 § 2. Ţara Noastră and “The New Generation” ................................ 115 § 3. The ‘Refreshening’ Campaing and its Nationalist Notions ....... 120 § 4. The Debate on the “Two Cultures” .......................................... 126 § 5. The Electoral Failure and ‘The Romanian Lawyer’ ................. 138 § 6. Lyrical vs. Legal Nationalism, or the Grace and the Word in a Romanian Way .................................................................................... 150 CHAPTER 5 ..................................................................................................................... 155 THE ‘TRIBUNA’ SCANDAL [1911-1912] ............................................................................ 155

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§ 1. Chendi’s “Unconstrained Opinions” ........................................ 158 § 2. “Let’s Freshen Us!” ................................................................. 166 § 3. “Mangra, Tisza and Tribuna — a Bunch of Proofs” by Vaida... 180 § 4. “What is Tribuna of Our Days” ................................................ 185 § 5. “The National Council and Tribuna” ........................................ 193 § 6. “Towards the Abyss?” ............................................................. 202 § 7. “What are the Poets Looking for in Politics?” .......................... 208 § 8. The Incident Vaida-Goga and the “Peace from Arad.” ............. 229 CHAPTER 6. ................................................................................................................... 313 § 1. Turn de Century Romanian Culture and Policy ........................ 240 § 2. The Idea of Race ...................................................................... 248 § 3. The Idea of National Energy .................................................... 256 § 4. The Idea of National Union ...................................................... 263 § 5. The Idea of Authority ............................................................... 268 § 6. The Idea of Israel ..................................................................... 274 § 7. The National Idea: Myth, Epic or Ideology. ............................. 300 CHAPTER 7. .................................................................................................................... 313 CONCLUSIONS: THE RELEVANCE OF GOGA’S WORK TODAY ............................................ 313 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................... 325

§ 1. Periodicals.* ............................................................................ 325 § 2. References ............................................................................... 326 § 3. Primary sources. ...................................................................... 326 § 4. Secondary literature................................................................. 328 § 5. Articles .................................................................................... 330

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CHAPTER 1. Introduction § 1. Who is Octavian Goga and why is he important? To the uninformed Western reader, Octavian Goga might be, at first glance, an illustrious unknown person. A few might remember he was the Prime Minister of Romania sometime before the Second World War. At the same time, for a Romanian reader, Octavian Goga is one of the important poets of Romanian literature, a Transylvanian national fighter, a prominent figure among those intellectuals who resisted politically and culturally the Magyarization policy pursued by the Hungarian Kingdom before 1918. Some readers might remember his interwar political career. Regarding his legacy, Octavian Goga happened to die on the 6th of May 1938, in an ‘unlucky’ moment. In that year, King Carol II invested himself with extended powers dissolving the parliament and creating a unique party under his authority. In 1941, after two ultimatums and the subsequent lost of important territories, the royal dictatorship ended with the abdication of the King. The military dictatorship, that followed, led Romania into the Second World War, alongside Germany. This tragedy was put to an end by the Soviet takeover in 1948, after three years of political uncertaintyand social unrest. During the communist regime, which lasted almost half a century, the ideological pressure on human sciences and social memory spoilled the intellectual interest for a discussion of the political and literary work of Octavian Goga. Recent works on the interwar period and the rise of the Romanian extreme right movements focus rather on other public personalities or political movements such as Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and Ion Antonescu or the Iron Guard, while Octavian Goga and his National Agrarian Party or, later, the Christian National Party are usually ignored. There were indeed few attempts to rehabilitate Goga,1 the writer, and to invigorate a certain interest in his literary

1

The most notable attempt was the publication of the collection of articles selected and prefaced by Nicolae Schifirneţ. See Octavian Goga, Naţionalism dezrobitor, (Bucharest: Albatros, 2000).

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work.2 But Goga’s personality proved to be a difficult case to new (re)interpretations. There are several elements in his biography that made Goga problematic for the post-communist rapprochement of previously quasiprohibited writers. He was not only a monarchist, but a Carlist (i.e. a supporter of Carol II) as well, which is embarrassing for most political and/or cultural camps today. He was the first Romanian nationalist in who came into power after he had adopted the swastika as a political symbol.3 At the same time, he was the last Romanian leader to witness the collapse of the interwar democratic system in 1938 — shortly after his appointment as Prime Minister. These facts are only some of the reasons why there was no interest in Goga’s works after the fall of communism. What remain from his writings are just a few poems and articles (re)published in the early 1970s, usually over-cited and uncritically praised by commentators and literary critics. Who, then, was Octavian Goga? He was a Transylvanian Romanian who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, became ‘the national poet.’ At first, he was an epigone of Mihai Eminescu, wroting timid poems about his erotic/love experiences. At the beginning of his literary career, Goga had made some attempts regarding national and social subjects, but they were unconvincing and hesitant. Yet in Budapest during his university studies, he had the chance to meet Octavian Tăslăuanu and other intellectuals grouped around the cultural review Luceafărul. Soon after, they recognized Goga’s talent of “singing” about social and national persecution, and about the misery and hardship of Romanians living under the crown of St. Stefan. Becoming one of the most prominent figures among the Transylvanian elite — and this in a very short period of time — Goga started to nourish political ambitions. His enormous symbolic capital allowed him to claim to be a representative of all Romanians, or more precisely, of the Romanian soul. He started his controversial political career as soon as his first volume of poetry brought him nationwide recognition. Integrating various ideas and influences from his friends and colleagues, combining political opportunism with radicalism and real literary talent, his 2

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See Nicolae Manolescu, “Actualitatea lui Goga,” in Romania Literară, no. 12 (March 27, 1996) [journal on-line]; available from http:// www.romlit.ro; Internet; accessed 1 March 2003. The electoral symbol of the Christian National Party was a straight line because the swastika was not accepted by Romania’s electoral regulations. However, the swastika remained the unofficial symbol of the party. The straight line, the name of the party publication Linia dreaptă refers to the public career of Goga who, according to him, of course, had never changed his ideals and political principles. It is worth mentioning Drum Drept, a literary review published by N. Iorga in 1913-1916.

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political message was contested from the beginning by other political leaders for his various poetical licenses. Soon, Goga became a lightning rod for political scandal and, in the end, he had to leave Transylvania under quite disreputable circumstances. This episode of his life affected his attitude, keeping him in a permanent opposition to, and even open conflict, with the Romanian National Party (P.N.R.) in Hungary and, later, the National Peasant Party (P.N.Ţ.),4 whose leaders quarreled with Goga in 1911.5 This obsession with his former colleagues from the National Party was one of the constant elements of Goga’s political career. Therefore, while P.N.Ţ. moved towards a democratic position (sometimes with extreme leftist undertones), it was not surprising that Goga adopted autocratic ideas and right wing elements. Constantly attacking P.N.Ţ., he radicalized his political program to such an extent that in the 1930s he became the favorite Romanian partner for the German N.S.D.A.P.6 However, this obsessive opposition does not fully explain Goga’s political beliefs. There is something more profound in the intellectual sources of his politics, something related to the cultural atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Habsburg monarchy where many radical movements had found a fertile soil: the esthetization of politics, an appeal to passions rather than to reason, a youthful rebellion against traditional elites, and against their liberal programs. In short, Goga’s poetics of politics literally illustrates Carl Schorske’s dichotomy between culture of grace and culture of law.7 Going back to 1911 when this conflict began, it is clear that the two camps were largely represented by lawyers on one side and writers on the other side, each with completely different arguments and ways of approaching their problems. Following the politics in a new key, as Schorske put it, Goga gradually radicalized his initial tendencies and claimed the need for a national revolution. Once in power, however, the program proved to be only electoral rhetoric. His opportunism prevailed over his revolutionary intentions and this made him more comparable to another fin-de-siècle nationalist, Karl Lueger, the Mayor of Vienna. However, Goga’s political presence had a distinct role in shaping the

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In 1926, P.N.R. fused with the Peasant Party and formed the National Peasant Party (P. N. Ţ). In 1937, Carol II, King of Romania, appointed Goga as prime minister precisely because of his aversion to the National Peasant Party, the main opposition party against the royal camarilla. 6 See Paul A. Shapiro, “Prelude to Dictatorship in Romania: The National Christian Party in Power, December 1937-February 1938,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies, VIII (Spring 1974): 45-88. 7 Carl Schorske, “Grace and the word: Austria's two cultures and their modern fate,” in Austrian History Yearbook, no. 22 (1991): 21-34. 5

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radical rhetoric in interwar Romania. His literary rooted politics, his esthetic of power, his rhetoric about faith, and his political literature and nationalist poems are all excellent sources for analyzing the process of political radicalization in interwar Romania and can provide insight into Romanian extreme right movements and their quest for power in the late ‘30s. The present book presents an intellectual biography of Octavian Goga based on the numerous political articles written by him in a career that spanned over forty years. At the same time, it fills the gap separating his literature from his politics — a gap created by the communist posthumous reeducation of Goga —, and re-contextualizes him in the conflictual atmosphere at the beginning of the twentieth century rather than placing him in an idealized national movement. An intellectual biography of Octavian Goga is important for several reasons. He is an important writer who reached the top of political hierarchy after he had obtained the nationwide recognition as the national poet. It took him more than thirty years of political efforts and sustained journalist activities that resulted in an impressive number of articles and speeches. These texts are landmarks of his political evolution from an open national emancipatory position to an integrist, racial and extremist one. They offer a good perspective on the political radicalization quite common in Central and Eastern Europe at that time. This long period of public activity makes the case of Octavian Goga candidate for filling the gap between the generation of the 1930s8 and the previous generation of the 1918 Union.9 Numerous articles written about Goga can elucidate the relationship between the two generations and the balance between old and new ideas. It suggests that the generation of the ‘30s did not emerge out of nothing and there are certain mutual influences which makes the generational approach regarding the emergence of the extreme right movement in Romania irrelevant.10 As in many other countries in the region, the 8

There is a rich literature regarding the generation of the 1930s. The most notable are Zigu Ornea, Traditionalism şi modernitate în deceniul al treilea, (Bucharest: Eminescu, 1980), and Zigu Ornea, The Romanian Extreme Right. The Nineteen Thirties, (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1999). 9 After the Union of 1918 and the formation of Greater Romania, many intellectuals thought that the national ideals were accomplished. The generation of the 1930s claimed the beginning of a new stage in the construction of a ‘profound’ Romania and distanced themselves from the older generation. Once the ideal of Greater Romania was accomplished, they sought to build up the Romanianness, the quality of the Romanian people which was deteriorated by centuries of foreign domination. 10 See for example Zigu Ornea, Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească (Bucharest: Editura Fundației Culturale Române, 1996).

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experience of fin-de-siècle Habsburg Monarchy triggered similar experiences and encouraged political transformations. It is not a matter of a strong causal dependence but one of recovering the initial cultural and political circumstances in which some movements were originally rooted.11 Another reason is related to a discussion about the intellectual responsibility for the support of totalitarian and extremist movements in interwar Romania. Although Goga died 1938, other intellectuals close to his circles, who participated in various political and doctrinal activities, and who survived longer, obtained notable positions in the post war regime. One such case is Tudor Vianu, who managed to establish a school in literary criticism and a new nationalist current under the communist regime. Keeping in mind Goga’s inclination to address the intellectuals and their positive response to his political appeal, the problem of responsibility goes beyond his particular case. This raises another problem for which the case of Goga is relevant. This is the intellectual posterity of a writer and a politician who is considered to be one of classic authors of Romanian literature. As with many notable writers, Goga’s political activity and writings are largely overlooked in favor of his literary works12 — although even parts of these literary works are often ignored. The missing link between literature and politics makes most commentators attracted to Goga’s national ideology. Thus, many discussions of his writings remain simple justifications of a number of memorable expressions or of loci classici of his works. None went beyond the reasons given by Goga himself or challenged his views.13 This is why the problem of intellectual posterity is a matter of critical inquiry into his works. A critical approach to the rhetorical elements used by Goga in his political efforts, to the main ingredients of his national ideology, and to the use of various metaphors that shaped his national idea, exposes to further analysis an entire range of nationalist rhetoric of various followers and epigones, which use 11

In Romanian historiography, there is a cleavage between modern history and contemporary history and the landmark is the First World War. Then, for many researchers, the pre-1918 sources are disciplinarily invisible because of this kind of institutional cleavages. 12 The list of these truncated classics may cover the entire Romanian culture. Just to mention few cases: Alecsandri, Hasdeu, Delavrancea, Agîrbiceanu, Slavici, etc. It should be mentioned here another strong cleavage between history and literary studies that is common for Romanian. Becoming exclusively political, history left aside a large part of sources which are in-between literature and politics. The other case of literary criticism is similar because it is apolitical under the circumstances of a strong ideological pressure of the communist regime. 13 There is one notable exception in this respect, namely Aurel C. Popovici who dared to attack the national poet not only the politician in 1911. He passed away in 1917 before any palpable political success achieved by Goga. Popovici will be discussed later in the book.

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similar discursive elements. It is particularly interesting how various parts of this nationalist discourse survived and surfaced again under the communist regime in the ‘70s — not surprisingly, the same period during which Goga was rehabilitated (reevaluated to use the language of that period). These elements were ambiguous enough not to reveal their original sources and, at the same time, distant enough from other rhetorical components used by other far right movements in the ‘30s. The imbedded plea for a totalitarian regime, the integrist approach to nationalism as a secular religion, the culturally racial/ethnic arguments and the balance between fanatism and opportunism were concepts later adopted by the Romanian communist regime. Lastly, because of Goga’s sustained activity on the Romanian political scene, because of the bitter arguments he had with other leaders, and because of the public debated launched by or against Goga, his case offers an excellent starting point for a broader description of Romanian political culture in the first part of the twentieth century. By understanding the reasoning of each part and mapping their arguments, a better insight into a troublesome period in Romanian history can be attained. The present study does not exhaust all these problems but chooses to follow several key themes. Therefore, the apparent chronological order of the chapters of this book is parallel to a thematic order, which may incidentally cross the temporal limits of each section. There are, of course, major themes which are present with minor differences throughout Goga’s almost forty years of public life, as well as some minor or rather ephemeral themes which occured as a particular response to some political or cultural challenges. § 2 Major themes and methodology The first major theme in the public discourse of Octavian Goga is the idea of race. The Romanian race is personified in its pure version by the peasants from the south of Transylvania, the so called mărgineni. Using a common understanding of race as a cultural body, which was the dominant meaning at the end of the nineteenth century, the more remote and culturally isolated a community of people lives the more likely was to display the uncorrupted features of their race. The villages on the periphery of the Habsburg Empire, particularly those neighboring the Romanian Kingdom, being less exposed to other ethnic influences, were perceived as the perfect places for identifying the racial facies of the Romanians. This search for primordial racial attributes was common among many intellectuals in the region, generating a great deal of ethnographical research. The fact that Goga himself came from that area gave

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credence to his ideas of culturally racial purity, strengthening his claim for leadership and control over the country’s national destiny. Regarding his idea of race, Goga built on the notion used earlier by another writer, Ioan Slavici, namely one of a complete cultural/racial isolation as a way of national development. Isolating Romanian culture from unwanted Hungarian influences — an appealing theory under the circumstances of extensive Magyarization pressures from state institutions — became a slogan of some Transylvanian intellectuals including Goga. Ironically, Goga, the advocate of complete cultural isolation, found it appropriate to translate into Romanian some of the most important Hungarian writers (i.e. Petöfi Sandor, Madách Imre, and Ady Endre). The cultural exchanges proved to be more powerful than cultural isolation as much as the idea of racial-cultural purity was a populist rhetoric. However, this rhetoric deserves a closer attention as far as it played a significant role in the radicalization of political positions in the late 1930s. Directly related to his idea of race is the idea of national energy. For Goga, not all Romanians were culturally isolated. The young generation of Transylvanian Romanians raised under the tough circumstances of the postCompromise period was seen by him as a revolutionary generation able to isolate themselves from the pernicious impact carried out by foreign influences. Goga claimed, on behalf of the younger generation, or the steeled young men as he called them, a psychological rejection of Hungarian culture and civilization and the rediscovery of a true Romanian culture. At that time, there was an influx of Romanian newspapers, reviews and magazines into Transylvania, following the Kingdom of Romania’s independence in 1878. Goga’s was the first generation of Transylvanian Romanians who took the existence of an independent Romanian as a given fact and who witnessed the nation-state building process from the beginning. Yet, the old decrepit generation — as opposed to the young steeled generation — was blamed for their old fashioned loyalties and their blindness to the fate of the Romanian nation. These elders did not agree with the young intellectuals that “the Sun is rising from Bucharest” (Slavici). What was perceived as a generational cleavage — irrelevant because many old decrepit men were the same age as Goga — proved to be rich in consequences and inspired a rhetoric of change that became overwhelming after the end of the First World War in Romania. From that moment, the political literature was enriched with a new family of concepts and leading metaphors such as renew, reform, resurrection, revolt, revolution and further protest, uprising, turn upside down, whirlpool, whirlwind, storm, tempest, struggle, anxiety or molecular feverishness. Indeed, it was a kind of politics in a completely “new key”. The old decrepit men, stubbornly entrenched in a liberal

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culture of law and comprised mostly of lawyers and doctors, were unable to cope with this flow of metaphors and poetic licenses, the meaning and consequences of which they did not easily understand. Once again it was a common feature all over Europe to have youth movements rebelling against the rigid society of the fin-de-siècle — particularly so in the Habsburg Monarchy where political and social immobility nourished many radical and extreme movements. Another important concept Goga took from Ioan Slavici was the idea of the Union of all Romanians in a single state, the Romanian irredenta. From a nationalist point of view this was a normal development of the national consciousness. However, the changes and torments this idea underwent under the particular circumstances of fin-de-siècle Transylvania, provides an interesting perspective to understand this issue. On the one hand, the vast majority of Romanian intellectuals rejected any kind of irredentist propaganda. This was a delayed reaction to the 1848 revolution and to the claims of the Hungarian press that the Romanians are rebels, revolutionaries in the name of Russia (because of the common religion) or, later, in the name of the Romanian Kingdom. The common response of Romanian intellectuals was that there was no disrespect on their part of Habsburg rule; on the contrary, there existed a large and solid loyalty toward Franz Joseph, but as Habsburg emperor rather than Hungarian king.14 On the other hand, there were a few intellectuals who sought a union with the Romanian Kingdom, but within the Habsburg Monarchy.15 In other words, the Kaisertreu was at the core of Romanian political beliefs and actions, and it was particularly this core that was called under question by some young rebels. As a part of a provocative or revolutionary discourse, the irredentist idea was contaminated by the contesting mood (disunion rather than union of political forces). Or rather, by contesting the liberal order, the idea of a nationstate had from its beginning, an imbedded tendency towards authoritarianism. It followed the line of irredentism, union, complete union, anti-regionalism, 14

A victim of this kind of argument was Slavici who pleaded for a “cultural union of all Romanians.” During the First World War, he publicly supported the Central Powers and after the war he was charged with national treason by the martial tribunal. His answer was that he did not mean a political but a cultural union, because a political union without having a common cultural uniformity is pernicious. See Ioan Slavici, Închisorile mele, (Bucharest: Alpha & Paideia, 1996). 15 It was Aurel C. Popovici who pleaded for this option in his book Die Vereinigten Staaten von Gross-Österreich; politische Studien zur Lösung der nationalen Fragen und Staatsrechtlichen Krisen in Österreich-Ungarn, (Leiptzig: B. Elischer Nachfolger, 1906) who was one of the most influential political programs aimed to reform the Monarchy on a federalist basis.

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centralism, anti-democratism, the plea for an authoritative regime able to keep under control both foreign influences and internal disloyalty, and, finally, totalitarianism. All of these forms were rooted in the same revolt against traditional politics, against the civic culture of negotiation, which was described as a typical lawyer trick, as Jewish behavior, or as a sign of weakness. Close to this desire for extreme centralism is the idea of authority. For Octavian Goga, nationalism gradually opposed democracy as far as democracy tended to sustain ‘anti-national’ claims, such as regionalism, minority rights, cosmopolitanism, and the negotiation of the national ideal. Then, the model of deliberative democracy being replaced with the one of intuitive nationalism, a nation needs a providential leader who can prophesise the nation’s path. He must be an ethno-pedagogue, a father, a priest, a minister of the nation, the one who can correct the faults of the representative system. Democracy, in the sense of mass participation, was accepted only as an acclamative exercise of the peoples will. Because of their straightforwardness and their profound sense of respect for authority and for the upper classes, the Romanian peasants offered the perfect model of the new kind of ‘citizen.’ This is why Goga often referred to the peasantry as a reservoir of forces that should realize its full potential under the authority of a messianic leader. In this sense, Goga attempted to establish a secular religion in which the words, the ritual, the sacraments, the saints, the redemption, and all other elements were a pastiche of Christianity. Lastly, the idea of Israel played the role of the constitutive other and the permanent enemy of the nation. Israel, or “the Jew,” was all that was not the peasant. It is an urban existence, someone who is cosmopolitan, liberal, democratic, capitalistic, a minority, a regionalist, someone without a faith, ready to negotiate everything; in a nutshell, the entire modern society. Nourished by revolutionary incitments, Goga’s antisemitism was a mask for a much broader anti-liberal, anti-civic behavior, anti-urban culture, and against everything that contradicted the thinking of the ‘new men’. These six main themes are discussed in the next chapters alongside the literary political activities of Goga. All, even if implicit, were commonly included under the overarching concept of the national idea, which is more than a theme, becoming a unique principle of order and logic in his worldview. In doing so, there are several methodological choices that should be formulated. * The first methodological level is the ‘antiquarian’ one, namely the recovery of the general context and the presence of Octavian Goga within it, the identification of his main arguments, and the examination of his opponents’ positions. This excercise is necessary because most historical actors involved in

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this story are largely unknown. Beginning with biography, other details are necessary for a broader description of the public sphere. The next level is ‘morphological.’ The rhetorical recurrences and/or the important moments of change of Goga’s public discourse are emphasized, and the core metaphors and their main clusters around the discursive force lines are highlighted. This goes beyond the chronological order and establishes similarities and correspondences. Goga had preferences for a number of images and comparisons that give unity to his works, disregarding the genre of the text in which they are to be found. The third level is ‘semiotical.’ The meaning of metaphors and the direction of the ‘leading-metaphors’ are discussed. At the same time, the way in which reality is ‘emploted’ and the manner in which the (socially) given reality is rejected and another ‘fictionalized’ one is opposed to it is as well questioned under the present examination analyzed. Here lies the main source of Goga’s revolutionary nationalism and the reason for his literary and political style. The last level is the ‘narrative.’ Identifying the main tropes of Goga’s discourse, another narrative is to be created on the basis of the same elements except the direction intended by Goga. It is ‘Goga beyond Goga’ that may help with the understanding of his work in his terms. § 3. The national idea and the militant literature There are a number of notable works that are seminal for this approach. First, there is the interpretation of culture offered by Clifford Geertz. He defines culture as “the structure of meaning through which men give shape to their experience” and politics as “the principal arenas in which such structures publicly unfold.”16 He underlines the difficulties of analyzing the connection between culture and politics, because of a lack of an apropriate theoretical apparatus. Indeed, reading Goga’s works, the cultural conceptions displayed by him are merely evocative — and evocation is one of his most remarkable talents — the concrete observations are juxtaposed against each other and the pervading elements are revealed by rhetorical suggestions. The explicit arguments are rare in a language which is closer to poetry than politics; they might be called ‘aesthetic arguments.’ Often, the reader “is left with a collection of anecdotes connected by insinuation, and the feeling that though much has been toughed little has been grasped.”17 16 17

Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture, (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 312. Ibid.

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Though ‘strings of meaning’ may be a better formula for the present case study, the way of shaping experience and unfolding its meaning in the public arena provides a good description of Goga’s public career. It may be added that his experience was manipulated politically and the reason for this concern is his permanent drive to openly challenge the traditional political establishment. Political opportunism might be another important element of this career. To avoid any ambiguities inevitably created by such rhetorical and fluid concepts, it seems that a theoretical foundation should be built at the same time as the analysis, as Geertz suggests. However, there are several works on literary politics and cultural history which offer a useful perspective on how such an approach may work. The works of David Carroll, Ritchie Robertson and Brian Cheyette regarding literary fascism and the representation of ‘the Jew’ in modern culture are useful when interrogating the sources.18 These authors underline the importance of literary sources for understanding the extreme right (fascist and antisemitic positions). It is about the creation and dissemination of a Weltanschauung19 that contains both a radical ideology and a drive towards social violence. These scholars went back in time to identify the roots of radical ideas and to understand the inner logic that gave them efficiency and strength. These works and other like them make possible useful comparisons of extreme right movements within a wider European context and many German or Italian recurrent features are recognized in the Romanian variant. For example, Goga’s Christian-National Party was influenced and inspired by the examples of Mussolini and Hitler. Another set of approaches are those dealing with fin-de-siècle literature and politics. The first is Carl Schorske’s Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and

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David Carroll, French Literary Fascism. Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, and the Ideology of Culture, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Ritchie Robertson, The ‘Jewish Question’ in German Literature. 1749-1939. Emancipation and its disappointments, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Bryan Cheyette, Construction of ‘The Jew’ in English Literature and Society. Racial representations, 1875-1945, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 19 Here and alongside the entire thesis the definition of Weltanschauung is the one formulated by Erik Erikson. “We will call what young people in their teens and early twenties look for in religion and in other dogmatic systems an ideology. At the most it is a militant system uniformed members and uniforms goals; at the least it is a “way of life”, or what the Germans call a Weltanschauung, a world-view which is consonant with existing theory, available knowledge, and common sense, and yet is significantly more: an utopian outlook, a cosmic mood, or a doctrinal logic, all shared as self-evident beyond any need for demonstration.” Erik Erikson, The Young Man Luther, 3rd ed., (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1993; 1962), 41.

22

Culture.20 There are several issues raised by Schorske that are relevant here. His interpretations fit the case of Transylvanian Romanians almost perfectly, as shown in the aforementioned “politics of grace vs. the politics of law” dichotomy. Closely related to Schorske’s work are those of William McGrath and Peter Hának.21 These authors explored the cultural milieu and the causes of the young rebellion against the liberal establishement of the Habsburg Monarchy, as well as the success and failure of these movements. Jaques Le Rider’s Viennese Modernity and the Crises of Identity,22 brings an awareness of the psychological processes which accompanied the crisis of modernity. The topic is particularly relevant when it is about a writer, such as Goga, who is concurently a creator and a disseminator of collective identities. The link between modernity, identity crises and revolutionary mood is rich in consequences and offers a valuable interpretative framework for many sources regarding the first decade of the twentieth century. The help of psychohistory is appealing, particularly the classical The Young Man Luther by Erik Erikson,23 even if its limits are inevitable as far as human experiences are heterogeneous and unpredictable in terms of behavioral continuity.24 There are several reasons why a psychological approach is useful. One is the clear testimonies of an anxiety attack suffered by Goga in 1903, the moment when he managed the crisis in a similar way to Luther, as described by Erikson. His writings show a change that happened at that moment with long term consequences for the quasi-religious ideology built by Goga in the following decades. The next layer of these interpretative influences concerns the way in which literary politics is addressed within the cultural history of the period. One important work is Shulamit Volkov’s influential article “Antisemitism as a Cultural Code.”25 For her, Geertz’s structures of meaning function as cultural

20

Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, (New York: Knopf, 1979). William McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974); Peter Hának, The Garden and the Workshop: Eessays on the Cultural History of Vienna and Budapest, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). 22 Jaques Le Rider, Modernity and Crises of Identity: culture and society in fin-de-siècle Vienna, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993). 23 Erik Erikson, The Young Man Luther. A Study in Psychoanalysis and History, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1993). 24 For a critique on this issue see Fred Weinstein, “Psychohistory and the Crisis of the Social Sciences,” in History & Theory, 34 (1995): 299-319. 25 Shulamit Volkov, “Antisemitism as a Cultural Code. Reflection on History and Historiography of Antisemitism in Imperial Germany,” in Leo Baek Institute Year Book, 23 (1978): 25-46; it was recently republished in Shulamit Volkov, Antisemitismus als Kultureller Code: zehn Essays, (München: C. H. Beck, 2000). I will use the English version. 21

23

codes within an anti-modern Weltanschauung. There is an entire worldview in which each element is bound with the others in such a way that the visibility or invisibility of it does not tell much about its power and the role it plays within the internal logic of this view. The presence of this kind of Weltanschauung in many of the texts analyzed in this book, “the structure of meaning through which men give shape to their experience” of crisis, discrimination, persecution, and violence, relate to the works of René Girard, mostly to his well-known The Scapegoat.26 There are two elements in Girard’s work that are important to the present approach. One is an emphasis on the representation of persecution texts, and on stereotypes. The other is the presence of myth as a system of persecutory representation, paradoxical and consensual, and whose secrets are sacred. Girard’s sources might seem a far cry from a twentieth-century Romanian poet and prime minister, but the experience of reading Girard is helpful in order to go beyond Goga’s texts and their direct meaning. Somehow related to Girard but with a completely different intellectual genealogy, is the article “The Nazi Myth” by Philipe Lacue-Labarthe and JeanLuc Nancy.27 Their emphasis on fiction and fictionalized reality, mimetism, the identification mechanisms, and political production of art is important for this approach. The idea that “the Nazi myth is the construction, formation and production of the German people through and as a work of art,”28 is consonant with the Romanian case, beyond the ‘specific difference’ of nationalsocialism.29 One of the consequences of this myth is that the new Weltanschauung does not allow competition and should be an object of faith or must function as a religion.30 The last interpretative layer which is drawn from the above is the consideration of the political culture of extreme right movements as a secular religion that shared many features with a religion except the transcendence of salvation. The work of Emilio Gentile on The Sacralization of Politics in 26

René Girard, The Scapegoat, trans. Yvonne Freccero, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). 27 Philipe Lacue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, “The Nazi Myth” in Critical Inquiry, 16 (Winter 1990): 291-312. 28 Ibid. 29 The two propositions regarding this ‘specific difference’ that makes the national-socialism a purely German experience are 1) because the German problem is fundamentally a problem of identity, then the German form of totalitarianism is Racism, and 2) Because the myth can be defined as an apparatus of identification, the racial ideology has been confounded with the construction of a myth. Both sentences may refer to Romania as well. 30 Lacue-Labarthe, 75.

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Fascist Italy provides some useful insights. This approach is far from being an analysis only in terms of religion — to explain the mass fascination and commitment to such extremist ideologies — but explores how different rhetorical elements are mimetic of religious discourse and how the manipulation of such a discourse went so far that even its author began to believe they had incarnated a new Messiah for their nation. Goga sought to establish such a new religion based on a new credo, new dogmas and a new faith and strength among true followers and believers. § 4. Aims There are a number of ways to interpret a culture and a radical ideology that played a central role within it. Among them there are “the structure of meaning” (Geertz), Weltanschauung (Volkov), “cultural realm” (Cheyette), “myth” (Gerard), “religion” (Casillo) or, on the other side, ideology, cultural code, literary fascism, persecutory texts, fictionalized reality, myth and dogma. Which would be the most appropriate for the present case study? Which would describe better the relationship between Goga’s literary works and his political affairs? Both are a matter of further discussion. For the moment, I chose the national idea for that ethos of the early twentieth century that nourished radical or extremist ideologies. The holistic attribute of this term, as well as its commonsensical connotations, make it useful to the present analysis. As far as for the radical ideology encompassed by the political literature, I will maintain the term used by Goga himself, militant literature. It has enough imprecision and flexibility to be considered a subspeciae of ideology, myth, cultural code, dogma, etc. according to the contextual need. In other words, militant literature should be considered to be the public unfoldning of the national idea in which it was created. Thus, I am interested in the literary dimension of the roots of the national idea and in the particular literary forms that it took in Goga’s works. I seek to contribute to an understanding of the nature of this idea and to unveil the tradition it refers to and (re)creates in order to found and justify itself. I focus on the literary side in order to understand how nationalism, for many Romanians, was both ideology and aesthetics, and beyond that, a quasireligious experience. For many Romanian commentators, literature offers the basis for a deeper (i.e. truer) understanding of the nation and their commitment to literature formed and justified to an important extent their politics. In this cultural realm, the appeal to emotions, passions and faith is important. This is why I am interested in the particular nature of Goga’s commitment to politics

25

and in the way in which “literature is considered to represent nothing less than truth in politics.”31 Finally, I explore the assumption about literature as a basis of aesthetic politics, or of a secular32 religious ideology. How literature came to serve such a function, or how a certain form of nationalism came to be formulated in literary terms, are questions to be addressed. Sharing Cheyette’s concerns regarding these issues, I am interested in the ‘negative potential of literature,’ in other words, those theories and models that make the dogmatic function of literature.

31 32

Carroll, 11. I prefer the term ‘secular’ because ‘quasi-‘ might be read as incomplete or partially.

26

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CHAPTER 2. Sources and interpretations § 1. A short biography and the main works Goga, the son of a Transylvanian Greek-Orthodox priest, was sent first to the German school in Hermanstadt (now Sibiu) and then continued his education at the University of Budapest. He left home at the young age of nine, and lived in cities like Hermanstadt and Budapest, both with ethnically different populations. This experience influenced him a lot and made him to be concern by uprootedness and estrangement in his later writings. Besides his school activities, the young man Goga was interested in literature, particularly in poetry. He published his first poem when he was nineteen years old and from then onward he continued to contribute to various Transylvanian literary reviews (Tribuna and Familia) until joining the intellectual circle around Luceafărul review. There, Goga gradually oriented toward more social and national issues, being influenced by his close friend Octavian Tăslăuanu, the chief editor of Luceafărul. After graduating, he went abroad with a scholarship offered by the Romanian Cultural Association. He went to Berlin and Italy until he was called home by his family when his father became ill. In Bucharest, on his way home, he learned of the death of his father and also about the great success of his first volume of poems recently published by Tăslăuanu in his absence.1 The success was overwhelming for him, a young intellectual, who had left Transylvania with an uncertain future and no reliable source of income. After very generous reviews and many other positive reactions from outstanding intellectuals, he was awarded the Romanian Academy prize “Ion Năsturel,” which established him as an important poet, but also as an undisputed figure and a foremost fighter for the national and social rights of the Romanians in the Hungarian Kingdom. He obtained a position as a cultural secretary at ASTRA (The Association for Romanian Literature and Culture of the Romanian People from Transylvania) where he was appointed chief-editor of the journal Ţara Noastră (Our country). From this moment on, Goga’s 1

Octavian Goga, Poezii, (Budapest: Luceafărul, 1906). All notes referring to Goga’s articles, poems or volumes use first of all the pseudonym with which Goga signed these articles (i.e. Octavian, Nic. Otavă, Styx, G., O.G., ***, etc), and only when he uses his full name the note will mention just Goga.

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interest in poetry declined in favor of journalism. However, he published a new volume of poetry, The Soil is Calling Us (Ne cheamă pământul)2 and a small volume of articles A Number of Words (O seamă de cuvinte).3 His preferred topics were the cultural emancipation of the Romanian people, the traditional values and culture of Romanian villagers, and the necessity of reforming the national movement into a new dynamic and more popular force. Inevitable, his articles created uneasiness among the traditional Transylvanian elites. His articles from Ţara Noastră, Luceafărul, and Tribuna, frequently using a quasi liturgical vocabulary, had a new way of approaching political issues constantly appealing to the soul of the nation. They seemed completely foreign to the political establishment formed by lawyers and medical doctors with a completely different style in addressing political issues. However, as the “poet of our ordeal” and as a national hero very few dared to attack him openly, or rather in this new realm of literary politics created by Goga. A few years later, a political crisis blasted the entire Romanian public life in Hungary. In the parliamentary elections Romanians lost most of the seats they had before. From 15 parliamentarians only 5 remained. The National Committee accused the Hungarian government of interfering in the electoral process with corruption, violence, and intimidation. A number of young intellectuals, who called themselves “steeled young men” openly accused the Committee of being formed by “decrepit old men” who had lost any connection with the Romanian soul, being estranged by foreign culture and civilization. This was an open scandal that lasted two years between two journals, Tribuna and Românul, the former being the tribune of the steeled young men and the later being the newspaper established by the National Committee as a counteraction. This was the period before the First World War, when the Hungarian Government was seeking to negotiate with the Romanian representatives in order to improve external relations with the Romanian Kingdom. At this sensitive moment, a number of Romanian notables4 were discussing an agreement with István Tisza, the Hungarian Prime Minister. However, the Hungarian government considered them as not having a

2

Idem, Ne cheamă pământul, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1909). Idem, O seamă de cuvinte, (Sibiiu: Biblioteca Poporală a Asociaţiunii, No. 31, Tiparul Tipografiei Arhidiecezane, 1908). 4 This term may be odd but refers to a particular social structure of Hungarian Romanians similar with other L’Ancient régime type of society. “Notable,” in Romanian “fruntaş” (from “front”) the one who is to the fore, is very close to the French term used before the French Revolution (Assembly of the Notables). One usually used to be a leader (a local leader of the National Party) but he was a leader because he was a notable and not otherwise. 3

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representative legitimacy, after all the Romanian Party was banned in 1894, and Tisza discussed via an intermediary. Yet, Goga, the national poet, the hero of the Romanians, claimed that these “decrepit old men” did not have any authority to discuss the national question. Finally, Goga himself was accused of treason. It took the intervention of Constantin Stere, a prominent intellectual and, at that moment, a key figure in the Romanian Liberal Party of the Old Kingdom, to stop the scandal and make the so-called “Peace from Arad.” Tribuna was suspended and its editorial staff merged with Românul. In spite of removing all the accusations previously raised, all the former Tribunists decided one by one to leave Transylvania prior to the war. In the midst of the scandal, Goga published a thick volume, The Notes of a Passer By (Însemnările unui trecător),5 including articles he published in Ţara Noastră, Luceafărul and mostly Tribuna, cautiously selected to prove his national intransigence. After the scandal, Goga, along several other colleagues from Tribuna were accepted on to the board of Românul, but his contributions were sparse and largely insignificant. However, two of his articles are interesting. In them he attacked Hungarian culture with the same arguments previously used against his political enemies. At the time, his most important piece of writing was a play Mr. Notary (Domnul Notar),6 which was confiscated by the Hungarian authorities and caused a conviction for Goga. Goga was abroad at that moment and, seeing his predictment decided not to return home but instead went to Bucharest, where his play enjoyed a great success. The première at the National Theater was a huge triumph receiving standing ovations from the audience. Since the play describes the corruption of the electoral system in Hungary and the corrupted local Romanian notary (a lawyer) who betrayed the national movement for his own benefit and selfishness, this was a sweet revenge for Goga. The war had started at that moment and nobody was able to react to this attack. The public of Bucharest understood the intrigue of the play only in terms of national fight and liberation and its success brought Goga to the forefront of public life in Bucharest. During the war, Goga embarked in propaganda campaign against the Central Powers and for the entrance of the Romanian Kingdom in the Entente camp. In Bucharest, because of Hungarian censorship, Goga and Vacile

5

O. Goga, Însemnările unui trecător. Crâmpeie din zbuciumările dela noi, (Arad: Tribuna, 1911). It should be mentioned here the small booklet entitled Ce e tribuna zilelor noastre?, (Arad: Tribuna, 1911). 6 Idem, Domnul Notar, (Bucharest: Editura Institutului de arte grafice ‘Flacăra’, 1914).

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Lucaciu7 were the only ‘Transylvanian voices’ and they were vehemently asking for the salvation of the Romanian people from the Austro-Hungarian yoke. During the first two years of neutrality, Goga collaborated with Epoca (The Epoch) newspaper and many of these articles were collected in a volume, entitled Strigăte în pustiu (Shouts in the Desert),8 published in 1916. At the same time, he published another volume of poetry, Cântece fără ţară (Songs Without a Country).9 Finally, the long awaited war started. Goga, following the heroic example of Sándor Petöfi, the Hungarian national poet, volunteered for service but the experience was less heroic than he expected. He witnessed the disaster from Turtucaia. Afterwards, he was recruited for the military journal România where he started writing propaganda articles aimed at the front line solders. In early 1918, after the Romanian-German armistice, the Peace of Bucharest was signed. Goga, sentenced to death in Austria for his participation in the Romanian army, had to take refugee in France where he very actively lobbied for Romania. He was one of the founders of the Romanian National Council10 and collaborator with the journal La Roumanie. After the war, Goga returned to Bucharest and was readmitted to the National Committee. He participated in the first government after the union with Romania, as minister secretary of state for Transylvania. Old tensions soon reappeared and Goga turned once again against his colleagues and led a political movement that eventually abolished the autonomous Directory Council of Transylvania. His main argument was that this autonomy was not easing for the complete union but, on the contrary, was polarizing the post war discontent in geographical terms. His articles from România and România Mare [Greater Romania] were collected together with previous articles written during the war and published in the volume Mărăşeşti Teaches Us11 only in 1983. He, along with his political friends (called “gogişti” or gogists) joined the

7

Vasile Lucaciu was a prominent leader of the Romanian National Party in Hungary. After 1914, he resiged from the National Committee and moved to Bucharest togheter with Octavian Goga, where he became the president of the League for the Cultural Unity of all Romanians. 8 Idem, Strigăte în pustiu. Cuvinte din Ardeal într-o ţară neutrală , (Bucharest: Sfetea, 1915). 9 Idem, Cântece fără ţară, (Bucharest: Sfetea, 1916). 10 There are some details in V. Curticăpeanu, “L’action d’Octavian Goga pour l’unité politique roumaine,” Revue Roumaine d’Histoire, IX (1970): 83-106. However, the article lacks any critical distance from its subject. 11 Octavian Goga, Ne învaţă Mărăşeştii, Stelian Neagoe ed. (Jassy: Junimea, 1983). Mărăşeşti, Mărăşti, and Oituz were places where the Romanian army managed to stop the German military advance.

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People’s Party led by General Averescu12 in trying to create the first Romanian political party with braches across the new Romania. The new slogans were “Romanian blood and soil” and “the sword and the pen,” and they won the elections of 1920. He was appointed minister of education and denominations. All these political activities were paralleled by a vivid public presence mainly in the newspaper Renaşterea Română (The Romanian Renaissance), led by his brother Eugen Goga. The People’s Party did not enjoy a long success. After the decline of its popularity in 1923, Goga relaunched his weekly journal Ţara Noastră. His articles attacked the National-Peasant Party (P.N.Ţ.) and the Liberals alike. The main arguments advocated a complete union of the country. In his opinion, the Romanian peasants offer the only racial and cultural base for such integral unification. Another topic was the new constitution regarding the minorities. The place and role of minorities, mainly the Hungarian minority in Transylvania, was addressed in many articles of this period. Directly related to this issue, the problem of the attitude of P.N.Ţ., which rejected the constitution and refused to participate at King’s Ferdinand’s coronation in Alba-Iulia, was a frequent subject in many of these articles, which eventually were published in a volume entitled Fermenting Wine Must (Mustul care fierbe).13 The Romanian political life experienced a difficult crisis in 1927 when King Ferdinand and Ion I. C. Brătianu, the undisputed liberal leader, both died. The question of the day was: to support the restoration of Carol II, who renounced his throne for Elena Lupescu at the end of 1925 and left with her to Paris,14 or to support the Regency, established for the adolescent King Mihai I? Goga joined the camp of Carol’s supporters, dissociating himself from his political leader, general Averescu. After the disappearance of Brătianu, however, the liberals suffered a serious set back and finally P. N. Ţ. came into power under the leadership of Iuliu Maniu. Goga started a vehement campaign against the government, entering into a period of turbulent revolutionary fight. He collected his articles in a new volume called …The Same Fight: Bucharest-

12

Hero of the First World War, gen. Averescu founded the People’s Party (initially People’s League) in 1920. 13 Idem, Mustul care fierbe, (Bucharest: Imprimeria Statului, 1927). 14 See Paul D. Quinlan, Regele playboy: Carol al II-lea de România, Mona Antohi trans., (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2001).

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Budapest, (…aceiaşi luptă: Bucureşti-Budapesta)15 and also published his commentaries on a number of Romanian personalities.16 The restoration of King Carol II, in 1930, was a landmark for Romanian interwar politics. The country was affected not only by the political crisis, but was beset by economic and social crises as well. For many, the newly returned ‘prodigal’ king was the only hope for the recovery of the ‘week body’ of the nation. Shortly after, Carol entered into a conflict with Iuliu Maniu whose intransigence on questions of morality and political principles interfered with the political aspirations of the King. It was the right moment for Goga to act. After one year of attempts and negotiations, Goga formed a new party, the National Agrarian Party (P. N. A.), of which he was the uncontested leader. He started a vehement campaign against the liberals and the peasantists (as the P. N. Ţ. Members were called) in Ţara Noastră, which became the party’s newspaper. During the next two years, Goga dedicated himself to consolidating the party. The first campaign was the electoral one in the summer of 1932. The ‘Skoda Affaire,’ which broke out in the spring of 1933,17 caused the second campaign. Both of these campaigns were conducted against the background of political tensions between King Carol and Iuliu Maniu who did not agree with royal interference in politics. In his opinion, “the king should reign but not govern.” In this quarrel, Goga took the side of King Carol, arguing for a regime of higher authority and even supported the introduction of harsh measures meant to purge the so-called “decadent” political life of the country. The next campaign was caused by the elections of late 1933, when the Iron Guard18 was banned. Goga sympathized with the young legionary rebels and their ideals and openly defended them. This campaign ended with the death of Prime-Minister Ion Duca at the end of 1933.19

15

Idem,… aceiaşi luptă: Bucureşti-Budapesta (Bucharest: Editura ziarului Universul, Societate anonima, 1930). 16 Goga, Precursorii, (Bucharest: Cultura Natională, 1930). 17 There was a corruption and espionage scandal about a contract between the Romanian army and the Company Skoda. The contract was signed in 1930, under the governance of Iuliu Maniu. 18 The Legionary movement was founded by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (The Captain) in 1927 after he broke up with A. C. Cuza, the leader of the League of National Christian Defense. Both organizations were extreme right orientated, fascist in their ideology and practice. 19 Duca was appointed prime-minister by Carol in November 1933. As soon as he became prime-minister, he started to prepare for elections and outlawed the extremist Iron Guard. The day after the electoral results were published, Duca was assassinated by three legionaries. The responsibility for this assassination was attributed to the Iron Guard. However, many

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In the next years, Goga was involved in parliamentary debates and public demonstrations on behalf of his party, his arguments and views moving closer and closer to fascism. After visits to Rome and Berlin where he met with Mussolini and Hitler, he came back to Bucharest and drafted a new program called Romania for the Romanians. It was the moment when the slogan The national idea reach its peak, becoming The National Revolution. On this occasion, the issue of foreigners became more obvious in his speeches and this brought him closer to A. C. Cuza and his antisemitic party L.A.N.C. (The League of National Christian Defense) with whom P. N. A. fused in 1935. As a result of this fusion, Goga’s discourse became even more radical. He openly praised the German and Italian regimes for their new and dynamic politics which were able to restore the dignity and strength of their nations. Numerus clausus was another issue raised by Goga and an entire campaign against foreigners, mostly Jews, was seen as a ‘natural defense of the nation.’ The Nazi vocabulary was increasingly visible and the Judeo-communists targeted as the main enemy of Romania at that moment. For those acquainted with Goga’s politics, it was not surprising that the Judeo-Communists were identified with Maniu’s P. N. Ţ. This association might be ridiculous but hides much profound divisions and polarization within Romania’s political culture. The first layer was the increasing distance between the democratic and nationalist parties. Yet, not all the democratic parties were as ‘democratic’ as they claimed,20 and not all nationalist parties were as ‘authoritarian’ as they pretended to be. This break was centered on a concrete political issue, the role of the monarchy within the political system and Carol II’s increasing demands for more authority. This second layer: pro or against the King’s policy and, more to the point, his royal camarilla. Iuliu Maniu came to represent the resistance of those against royal authority, and Goga, the long lasting enemy of Maniu, the pro Carol political camp. In 1937, Maniu was considered the standard-bearer of public disappointment regarding the person of the King. Maniu was, at the certain moment, supported by communists and by the extreme right as well. In these circumstances, Carol appointed Goga as prime minister, knowing he would fiercely oppose Maniu and be an open supporter of his desire for more authority and power.

intellectuals were taken into custody by the liberal minister of interior and questioned regarding this issue. At that moment, Goga had parliamentary immunity but he was accused in the Chamber of Parliament of causing the death of Ion Duca through his articles and his newspaper Ţara noastră. 20 The most notable example case was the Communist Party that was illegal.

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In late 1937, Goga became prime minister and tried to implement his policies laid out in Romania for the Romanians. In his two months of governance, he enacted a number of anti-Jewish laws and managed to alienate himself from all political forces. Firstly, he estranged himself from A. C. Cuza, who favored more commitment toward antisemitism. Then, he antagonized many European cabinets with his filo-nazi and filo-fascist rhetoric. All the other parties understood very quickly that Goga’s political formula was pernicious. Carol II himself realized this and dismissed Goga and took the reins of power for himself. It was the end of democracy in Romania and the beginning of a series of authoritarian regimes. Goga retreated from political activity and two months later died of a heart attack. Posthumously, a volume of his poems was published, From Out in The Sea (Din larg),21 and a volume of public discourses Speeches (Discursuri).22 § 2. “The poet of our ordeal.” The reception of Goga’s first volume of poetry Goga’s literary success in early 1906 was impressive. Most cultural reviews referred to his volume of poetry as an important cultural event.23 There were three major personalities who set the tone for Goga’s reception and they remained significant for many further commentaries written about Goga as a poet. The first one is Ilarie Chendi who referred to him as “a new Transylvanian poet” a year before the appearance of the volume.24 He starts praising the “most noble branch of the Romanian people,” which is to be found in the limitrophe regions between Hungary and Romania. “Living far away from the radius of action of Magyarization, our mărgineni preserved their patriarchal character of their ancient life: when they do not sing or love, they are praying to sacred things.”25 For Chendi, this religious dimension is important for understanding Goga’s lyrics about “the sound of bells and the voice of the blessing priest”26 . Chendi, the former official critic of

21

Goga, Din larg, (Bucharest: Fundatia pentru Literatura si arta, 1939). Idem, Discursuri, (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1942). 23 The volume appeared in October 1905 but it is mentioned 1906 on the cover. The first edition edited by Octavian Tăslăuanu in Budapest was shortly followed by another one in Bucharest. 24 Ilarie Chendi, “Un nou poet ardelean,” Voinţa naţională, 1904, no. 5788 (August 1); republished in Fragmente, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1995): 64-71. 25 Ibid., 64. 26 Ibid. The italics are mine. The original word used by Chendi is “binecuvântător,” ‘the one who blesses,’ literally meaning a good or wise talker like the Latin counterpart ‘benedictus.’ 22

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Sămănătorul,27 was keen to value such literary elements, which made the review Luceafărul (Budapest) to be considered by many as a Transylvanian branch of Sămănătorul (Bucharest) In the same article, Chendi refers to the “profound understanding of family life” as a primordial virtue, in contrast with the moderns, for whom this is just a ridiculous bourgeois quality. Further, Chendi notices the “cry for those lost things,”28 and the local characteristic of these poems inspired by the rustic life of Goga’s childhood.29 Recollecting the village, his family, and his friends, there is a strong sense of melancholy, but Chendi underlines the lack of pessimism in Goga’s writing. The presence of national idea in some poems like “The Olt River” and “The Apostle” prompted Chendi to declare Goga a “powerful fighter” who can no longer be considered just a “bard of resignation.”30 Chendi wrote two other articles about Goga, 31 nominating Goga for the chair of Romanian literature in Sibiu. In this sense, he endorsed Goga’s great success and the extremely good critiques generated by this volume. For Chendi, “all writers, who retreated for a long time from the active fight, welcomed him as an apostle who came to preach a new Gospel.”32 However, Chendi tries not to limit Goga’s message only to nationalism and he mentions other poems not included in the volume. His argument is that Goga is more complex and original than some critics tended to consider himto be. Goga’s nationalism is discrete and profound but is accompanied by an original perspective of considerable artistic value. The volume is an obvious demonstration of the strength of the new cultural current (i.e. Sămănătorul).33 In the next article, 27

Sămănătorul, one of the most important cultural reviews in Bucharest and it was edited by Nicolae Iorga and later by Aurel C. Popovici. The review had a declared orientation toward traditionalism and peasantism. The classical account on this cultural movement at the beginning of the century is Zigu Ornea, Sămănătorismul, 2nd ed., rev. (Bucharest: Fundaţia Culturală Română, 1998). 28 Chendi, 65. 29 This mention of local character as opposed to universal one open a long lasting discussion on this issue. Many critics tried to prove the universal character of Goga’s literature. Yet, Chendi considers that “for us who are not directly aspire to universality, it is enough that somebody to manage to see and to interpret the poetry of his village to consider him one of the notables in literature.” Ibid., 64. 30 Ibid., 69. 31 Ilarie Chendi, “Octavian Goga. O constatare şi o propunere,” Tribuna, no. 202 (October 29) republished in Fragmente, 285-287; and “Tot despre Goga,” Tribuna, no. 208 (November 6) republished in Fragmente, 287-288. 32 Chendi, “Octavian Goga. O constatare şi o propunere,” 286. 33 Ibid., 286.

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Chendi resumes his argument criticizing the church hierarchy34 as being not cultivated enough and old fashioned. But even in these circumstances, Chendi points out that Goga is the son of a priest and does not have anything to do with any revolutionary movement. “On the contrary, he is from the family of pious priests and his entire poetry is sewed with very expensive threads of sacerdotal attire and has something from the shining of the Grail and from the smell of incense.”35 This was the tone set by Chendi, who was to remain one of the closer friends and inspirers of Goga and, later, one of the leading figure of the steeled young men. There was another writer and well known intellectual who welcomed the first volume of Goga in acclamatory terms. Constantin Stere,36 gave Goga a very warm welcome, describing him as a long awaited messenger from the “estranged Ardeal.”37 From the very beginning, Stere affirmed that the great value of these poems resides in their national activism and predicted “But, no matter how many things will be said by the professional critics, I dear a prophecy: Goga is predestinate to become the favorite poet of Romanian intellectuals.”38 Stere based his optimism on the premise that there is a great dose of idealism in these verses and that all intellectuals are prone to idealism without which they cannot survive. Here is an excerpt from Stere which is relevant not only because is demonstrates his perspective, but because it also reflects a significant part of the public opinion as well. And the Romanian intellectual — entirely produced according to the soul of western culture, [living] in the middle of his nation, which had been for centuries fallen into a wealthy “barbarity” precisely after the “generation of 1848” which was burnt up by its own work and vanished, — remained solitary and estranged, his soul preserving for the rest of his 34

The Romanian schools survived under the authority of church to the Maghyarization pressure of the Hungarian State. 35 Chendi, “Again about Goga,” 288. 36 About Constantin Stere, the best secondary source is the same literary historian Zigu Ornea, one of the few serious scholars in this field during the communist regime. See Zigu Ornea, Viaţa lui C. Stere, (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1989). Stere started his public career in the liberal party. Later, he was one of the founders of Poporanism (from popor that means folk) under the influence of Russian narodnikism. About this cultural movement see Zigu Ornea, Poporanismnul (Jassy: Junimea, 1964). After the First World War, Stere was seriously criticized because of his support for the Central Powers and his philo-Germanism. However, at the moment when the first volume of Goga was published he was a very reputed personality from Jassy. 37 Constantin Stere, Cântarea pătimirii nostre originally published in Viaţa Românească I (1906), no. 1 and signed C. Şărcălean, then republished in a brochure În literatură, (Jassy: Viaţa Românească, 1921), 47-91. 38 Ibid., 50.

37 life bears the stamp of “alma mater;” even when he is on the banks of Bahlui, he continues to remain French, German, or sometimes Italian or Spanish (although these more often than not loose their diplomas in a shripwreak)“among strangers.” The nature of a true intellectual is that he needs an idealist element in his life, he cannot live without it, from hand to mouth, like the “healthy barbarians” who, thank God, could live their life “as they took it from their parents,” without anxiety and without Lessing’s “perpetual search.” If he is selling his soul for a pottage of lentils, he is one of the “winners” of life, concluding the process of adaptation according to his digestive tube, — he is not an intellectual anymore and, actually, he was never a true intellectual.39

This interpretation of intellectuals as idealists will play a significant role in the way in which Goga perceived himself as an intellectual: the bigger one’s ideal the more an intellectual he is. The image of the intellectual estranged from his own people was very common as well in those years. The “solitary soul” “exhausted by so much loneliness,” and the “malformation and anxiety of his live” were common literary themes during the period.40 Yet, Goga is the prodigal son of his nation coming home, finding his way back to the soul of his folk. Once again, religious vocabulary is relevant, precisely when it comes from an intellectual like Stere who held openly declared sympathies for socialists. The solitary intellectual with his crown of thorns, with is thirsty for ideal and soulful harmony, followed alone and estranged his hard way on Golgota of “the perpetual search”… And yet, look at Octavian Goga. He is [one of] ours. Like us, he knows the bitterness of doubt and unfaithfulness, the pains of despair, he too feels the desert of soulful estrangement and the shame of falls into temptation; he is consumed too by remorse… The song of our ordeal…, the ordeal of a folk tormented by history… We came back home…41

39

Stere, 51. Italics in original. See the debate between Autochtonists and Westernizers, See Zigu Ornea, Tradiţionalism şi Modernitate în deceniul al treilea, (Bucharest: Eminescu, 1980), and Andrzej Walicki, The Slavophile controversy: history of a conservative utopia in nineteenth-century Russian thought, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), or Matei Călinescu, “Reacţii culturale împotriva modernităţii şi modernizării în România, 1900-1940.” Apostrof, XV, No. 5 (May, 2004): 4-5, 12, No. 7–8 (July-August, 2004): 6–7, 46, No 9 (September, 2004): 4, No. 10 (October, 2004): 4-5., No. 11 (November, 2004): 4-5. 41 Stere, 60, 72. Italics in original. 40

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Stere compares Goga with Eminescu and Coşbuc and finds in his poetry, more than in those of his great precursors,’ “the language of our religious writings — the only language read by the entire Romanian folk”42 and “a superior synthesis in the union of power and moral health with the ideals of the leaders of human thinking and the dreams of the great singers of the world.”43 He underlines, many examples from these poems in which Goga refers to the hard lives of the peasants, the sufferings of an enslaved country making out of their author a revolutionary if not “an archangel of revolt” who makes a hymn of oppressed work and “tries to thaw the ice of Cain’s indifference”44 Here, Stere makes distinct the issues of national being and that of social justice, both of them intermingled, however, connected to the same problem of the “estranged Ardeal.” For him, Goga is “a brave fighter for the salvation of his folk out of the chains of foreignness…. And he will wake up the sleeping consciousness, will light all the dark minds and will brighten the fronts of all prosecuted people, and will strengthen the hearts and arms of the righteous.”45 Goga was twenty-four years old when he received what could be called the most enthusiastic reception in Romanian literary history. No one before was welcomed with such warm feelings by the entire intellectual community. But the real confirmation came from Titu Maiorescu, one of the most respected intellectuals and the leader of the literary circle Junimea.46 As early as the 1860s, Maiorescu began a campaign against the overly strong presence of foreign influences (mostly French) in Romanian culture, against the overuse of patriotism in literature and against any utopian program of reforming/changing the Romanians into something other than what they were. The slogan he coined was the fight against “the forms without substance” and his main public organ was the Junimist review Convorbiri literare (Literary Talks). At the moment of Goga’s début, Maiorescu was already in his sixties and a respected politician, as well as an outstanding figure of the Romanian Academy. He presented the volume of Goga in front of the Academy nominating it for a prestigious literary prize. His words were restrained but powerful: It is true, patriotism, as an element of political action, is not a matter of art, no matter how many violations happened and are still happening against such a simple rule. Especially those not having enough literary 42

Ibid., 64. Ibid., 69. 44 Ibid., 84, 85. 45 Ibid., 79, 91. 46 Junimea is the [intellectual] youth. About Titu Maiorescu see the works of Eugen Lovinescu, Titu Maiorescu, 2nd ed. (Bucharest: Meridiane, 1972); As well Zigu Ornea, Junimea şi junimismul, 2nd ed., rev. (Bucharest: Minerva, 1998). 43

39 talent try to hide this deficiency by provoking certain psychological dispositions, which are important in other respects but not in esthetics. However, patriotism is, in some cases of sincere hearts, beyond any political tendency, a real and profound feeling, rather then a source of poetry. This seems to be the exceptional circumstances of our [present] author when he describes and condense the love and hate, the pains and hopes of a folk whose existence is threatened.47

Maiorescu does not mention the social aspect of these poems,48 or the religious language used by Goga. He sees as important the language of folklore, the moderation of the revolt caused by national injustice, and the correct balance between pessimism and optimism, or between sadness and joy. However, the main point of his plea regards the exceptional circumstances in which patriotism can become one of the sources of poetry. These circumstances are the way in which Goga described ordinary figures from his village and give to them an extraordinary illumination and brightness, which cannot be explained except by the “ignition of the fight for defending the national patrimony.”49 The exceptionalness comes from the fact that unlike the Romanian from the Kingdom of Romania, the Romanian from the Hungarian kingdom sees in his priest not only a religious preacher but an apostle of nationality; in his teacher he sees the oak that preserves the treasure of Romanian language and history as a defending weapon; he sees [his] plowman, with his strength and diligence, the guarantee of his own ethnic survival; he is opposed to the townsman, who is accomplice to a hostile administration,; in the fiddler, as opposed to the estranged town singer, the man who animates and disseminates his national songs.50

This eulogy brought immediate recognition for Goga as a poet and paved his way into the most aristocratic salons of Bucharest? Some keywords were the same: estrangement, national fight, apostle of nation, national treasure, and ethnic existence. Who might have believed to see such a speech made my

47

Titu Maiorescu, “Raport presented in the Romanian Academy for the accordance of a literary price,” published as “Poeziile lui Goga,” in Critice, vol. II, (Bucharest, Minerva, 1906), 393406. 48 In 1894, Maiorescu refused and returned the review Vatra, with Coşbuc’s “Noi vrem pământ!” because of the revolt contained in it. As a conservative, Maiorescu was not too sympathetic to any revolutionary literature. See Slavici, “Coşbuc şi Maiorescu,” in Amintiri, 144-148. 49 Maiorescu, 395. 50 Ibid.

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Maiorescu? There was a great success and at the same time a guarantee for Goga’s — so to say — moderation (i.e. lack of revolutionary attitude), which was otherwise a condition for the social acceptance in the Transylvanian establishment in Bucharest at that moment.51 This opened for Goga the way into politics as well. As Nicolae Iorga said: Any welcome in Romania cannot resemble the one which Goga will find [at home,] in the country for whose sufferings this book has been written.52

It was the beginning of a very promising career devoted to the struggle for national ideals, a career that turned out to be quite different from what these commentators had initially envisioned for Goga. § 3. The reception of his second volume of poetry In 1909, Goga published his second volume of poetry “The soil is calling us.” The critics were much more reserved in their praise for this volume. One explanation might be that the poems included in this volume — many of them from the same period as those from the first volume53 — are more 51

The argument of Chendi, regarding the moderation and reasonableness of Goga, was already mentioned above. For Transylvanian Romanians, this moderation was important for their rhetoric. For them, Romanians were the loyal subjects of His Majesty the Emperor, not king, they did not recognize the new constitution of the Dual Monarchy but they are an element of stability and moderation unlike the Hungarian nationalists. Then, this political passivism (i.e. the non participation within the political life of Hungary) was perceived as a loud and offended silence of the most loyal subjects of the throne. 52 Nicolae Iorga, “Poeziile lui Octavian Goga,” Sămănătorul, IV, no. 44 (October 30, 1905): 804. The reaction of Iorga might be a great missing among those chosen to figure in this section. However, the laconic style of Iorga makes him not a relevant source for illustrating the reception of Goga’s first volume of verses — in spite of the importance of Sămănătorul for the public opinion in Romania and, more important, in Transylvania as well. As a brief summary, Iorga made a presentation of Coşbuc and Iosif two important Transylvanian poets before Goga, who are seen as his precursors, and underlined the Romanianness of the native village of Goga. Goga is the poet of Ardeal (Transylvania) and is a local poet in the most higher and profound sense. For Iorga, Goga will became one of the national poets but coming not universality and generality but “from the unlimited love for his house, his land, his church, his village, and his Transylvanian country.” Ibid., 803. 53 There are several poems from 1902, for example. See the appendix for the complete list of Goga’s poems and their dates of publication. This is a typical example of taking Goga literally. He published his poems and articles in his volumes in another order according to his new political or literary agenda. Or, relying only on the volumes published by him the image is accordingly distorted because they contain precisely the self-image promoted by Goga. All

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psychological, focusing more on estrangement and loneliness, more anxious in some respects, and this tone was not easily understood by the public. Eugen Lovinescu in his Critics, offered one literary explanation: As much as Goga was original regarding his literary themes, he was original in style as well. But when he wanted to be the poet of “anxiety” Eminescu overwhelmed him by imposing on him his sensibility, his language and his harmony as well. 54

Yet, this explanation that neglects the context of the period in which this volume was published. In 1908, just a year before Goga published his volume, Tăslăuanu’s article “Două culturi”55 created a wave of critical reactions against Luceafărul, where the article was published. Aurel C. Popovici56 had a vehement reaction in Sămănătorul57 and a debate began on this topic. Tăslăuanu’s main argument was built on the estrangement of the Romanian elites from Transylvania. According to Tăslăuanu, the Romanian elites had lost contact with the masses and thus with Romanian culture. These elites were educated in foreign cities and universities and had different ideals and interests than “the people.” Though the tone was insolent and even insulting, most of his ideas were quite common for the readers of Luceafărul, Ţara Noastră or Tribuna. Goga himself wrote many articles on this topic and the relation

critics did not take into account this difference that some poems might be published in a volume in a different order that the one in which they were published in a journal or a review. The chronological order of their first appearances is a better criterion but it has the same problem. However, for the present purpose of this study, it is enough to remain at this level of contextualization. 54 Eugen Lovinescu, Critics, vol. II (Bucharest: Minerva, 1925, 1979): 135. This idea was adopted by Mircea Zaciu in his “Evoluţia recepţiei poeziei lui Octavian Goga,” in Lupta de clasă, (11 November 1971), republished in Ordinea şi aventura (Cluj: Dacia, 1973), 40-50. 55 Octavian Tăslăuanu, “Două culturi: cultura domnilor şi cultura ţăranilor,” in Luceafărul, VII, no. 4 (April, 1908): 59-64. This article and the debate caused by it are discussed in the fourth section of this study. 56 Around 1891, Popovici was initially a student in medicine in Vienna and Gratz. Then, as a vicepresident of the Romanian student association “România Jună” (Young Romania), get involved in the public disputes that preceded the memorandist movement. He organized all Romanian students from German Universities and published the monumental Replica, against the Answer of the youth from the high Hungarian Schools to the Momoire of the university youth from Romania. He was charged for agination against the Hungarian Nation and delict against justice and law, and he was sentenced to four years in prison. From that moment his live was dramatically changed. He chose to exlile himself in Bucharest. At the beginning of the 20th century, Popovici was on of the most respected figures for the Hungarian Romanians. 57 At that moment N. Iorga had left Sămănătorul and founded another cultural and political review: Neamul Românesc. Popovici was the chief editor of Sămănătorul.

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between his poems and this form of populist activism was evident: intellectuals are estranged and only a few, who happened to be young and steeled, managed to return to the national culture preserved mainly in the ethically pure Romanian areas. This might be a reason why Goga’s second volume was much devoted to the anxiety of estrangement and why it was not so welcomed by critics. Nicolae Iorga’s reaction Goga’s second volume is significant.58 He targets the aura of national poet which was built around Goga by his friends; he hints concretely at the bombastic vocabulary used by the poet, and he unveils the dissimulation of Goga’s poetical talent. For Iorga, the most striking novelty of these poems is the vocabulary: Open your hearing and be piously attentive; oracular solutions come from the deepest darkness where only the clairvoyant can see, [it is] about “enemy souls,” “terrifying glitters,” “terrible eddies,” “perpetual restless,” “agitation of passions,” “thirst of greatness,” “vain dreams,” “anchoritic nights,” “the proud dead,” “dead sadness,” “eternal pains,” and “buried pains,” “black revolts,” “ugly centuries,” “eager temptations,” “poisoning breath,” “wandering fate” and “wounded beauties,” “the magic of nature” and “the order of nature,” “the wisdom of nature,” “black soot,” “oceans of hate” and Cain! Oh, such beautiful verses — and tough as well — but such ugly icons. Oh, what a stifling darkness, what the atmosphere of Hell!59

What Iorga did not notice, was the infiltration of such expressions in Goga’s cultural and political articles and in those of his friends. He considered this falsification of Goga a result of his critics’ advice though in fact it signaled the emergence of a new political rhetoric. He particularly (but not explicitly) blamed Chendi for Goga’s new image as a poet who is not “the poet of our ordeal” any longer. This time: The poet should have a personality, a storming and satanic personality in which two worlds should fight: the old society with the new one, tradition with fashion, the hut with the palace, Răşinari with Pesta, all of them should torment him. If he were not a social, moral and national philosopher, what would his poetry be then? 60

For Iorga, Goga was captive to the many eulogies written about him and a prisoner of his glorification as the greatest poet from Ardeal or even of the

58

Nicolae Iorga, “Ne chamă pământul de Octavian Goga,” în Neamul Românesc, 1909: 413415. 59 Ibid., 414. 60 Ibid.

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entire Romanian nation. His “friends” were guilty of this because they played with “a toy, which they call critique.” They convinced Goga to use “very modern literary symbols, to borrow soulful conflicts and judgement over the world, from such a high standpoint, envied by all the other poets,”61 and to forget the village that he had loved in those time when he was not so famous and “high.” Only four years had passed since the publication of the first volume, but these were years full of significant events. The peasant uprising in the Romanian kingdom broke out in 1907. This uprising created an atmosphere of uneasiness among intellectuals regarding the peasant problem and the agrarian reform. Meanwhile, Goga, who didn’t write a single sentence about the uprising, became the secretary of ASTRA, moved to Sibiu and became a preeminent member of the Transylvanian Romanian establishment. He convinced Tăslăuanu to come to Sibiu and to continue to publish Luceafărul there. Goga already had his own literary review Ţara Noastră, and was a constant contributor to Tribuna where his political articles had a certain audience. He was no longer just a debutant student writing in a literary review in Budapest, but a member of an emerging new generation of intellectuals with a clear audience and a distinct political program. Under these circumstances, Iorga’s article signaled the beginning of Goga’s literary sunset and the rise of his political journalism. It pointed out that Goga distanced himself his original sources of inspiration. Lovinescu’s interpretation might be right about the way in which Goga got close to his previous topics, which were inspired by Eminescu. However, this is only part of a transformation which happened to Goga after the publication of his first volume. Iorga, who saw how Goga embraced the ideological image of the young intellectual of his nation, indicates the other. The poet transformed himself into the foremost fighter and messiah of the people. Unfortunately, where ideology starts poetry ends. A few years later, another critic clamed: “with each verse you feel that the creative power is over…. Goga’s star is going down and nothing makes us believe it will rise again.”62

61 62

Ibid., 413. Ion Trivale, “Din umbra zidurilor,” Noua Revistă Română, XIV, no. 22 (November 17, 1913), 342-344.

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§ 4. Political friends and enemies As was already mentioned, the elections of 1910 in Hungary, the failure of the Hungarian nationalist coalition who ran the country from 1905/6, the successful return of István Tisza and the defect of the Romanian National Party, created a very tense atmosphere among Romanian elites in Hungary. Ironically, P.N.R. had more MPs during the harsh times of the Coalition than it had in the former liberal government. Who was guilty for such a situation? The young intellectuals of Tribuna, Luceafărul, and Ţara Noastră put it bluntly: the Romanian political establishment was guilty for such a fiasco and, more painfully, for the many defections from the P.N.R. to Tisza’s Labor Party. The argument was foreseeable: these politicians were estranged from their people. This open accusation caused a huge scandal and upset everyone. Tisza wanted to enter discussions with the Romanian notables63 and to negotiate a modus vivendi with them. On another side, the members of P.N.R. suddenly found themselves accused of not being representatives of their people. Moreover, the young steeled men claimed the politicians did not know the language of their folk, the tradition of their people and the deeper ideals of their nation. On the other side, the Romanian politicians from Bucharest were bound by their alliances with Austria-Hungary and Germany and thus any problem in Transylvania was thought to have serious impact on Romania’s foreign policy.64 Only one person had enough authority to face this attack and to calm the provocative rhetoric of the young steeled men. This person was Aurel C. Popovici, whose prestige after he published Replica (1892) and The United States of Great Austria (1906) was unrivalled. The Transylvanian Romanian politicians saw him as the only hope to resist the young rebels. He was one of the directors of Sămănătorul, which was well received in Transylvania, and he also had very good relations with the archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburg throne. His articles were extremely well received by foreign journals, like Österreiche Rundschau, and many saw him as the undisputed leader of the Romanians in the Austria-Hungary. He was called to react to the Tribuna campaign and he did so extensively. It was his habit to react as soon as possible

63 64

P.N.R. was still banned and entered in parliamentary elections just as an electoral committee. The pro-German attitude of the Romanian government was a given as King Carol I was clearly pro-Germany and would not accept any other direction of alliance policy. In 1871 he was very close to abdication when the Romanians chose to support France against Germany at the end of the war when Germany declared herself Empire.

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to any public movement toward change, modernism, revolt/revolution, and democracy. He was a conservative, or rather the main conservative Romanian thinker in Transylvania and Austria-Hungary This is not the place for a deep analysis of the Tribuna scandal, though in terms of Goga’s public reception it was a significant moment. One of Popovici’s articles is relevant here. It is called “Poets and Politics”65 and tries to be as general as possible. Firstly, Popovici agrees that poets should not be separated from the reality of their own people, floating over them in the highest ethereal spheres. The true poets are very few, particularly in the modern period, when “literary production is competing with the industrial one, in quantity and quality as well.”66 Some time ago, a poet’s reputation was more difficult to achieve, without communications, and without the critics’ friendship. For Popovici, a poet needs fantasy and feeling to be remembered by the people. But there are various forms of fantasies. “Isn’t stupidity a kind of fantasy?” he asks.67 No, those inspirations that created and create eternal works of art are coming from the true fantasy, from the true feeling…. The truth is not a question, but for those stuck in the mud of individualist democracy, for “authors” [that are made], in a pulverizing dialectic, in “free opinions”, and in the principle quot capila sententiae…. A poet should feel together with his people and this is happening very rarely. This is why really big poets are very rare and this is why even they are far from being perfect.68

He takes Goethe as example and finds examples of true German feeling but signs of cosmopolitanism as well. In Goethe’s works, “cosmopolitanism is just a verbal feeling and not a true one.” Faust is not created to be sensitive, debilitated, curious like a woman, skeptical, cynical, perpetually displeased, a hybrid, but he is created to be the ideal of classical German manhood for all future generations of his people. He is a model of virile prowess for any nation which has aspirations for the future.69

These thoughts are expected from a radical conservative, one who called himself a reactionary in the true sense of the word. His feelings about modernity and ideas about being a writer, the ideal of manhood and the kind of 65

Aurel C. Popovici, “Poeţii şi politica” I & II, Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIII, no. 266 (December 3/16, 1910): 1-2; no. 267 (December 4/17, 1910): 1-2. 66 Ibid., I, 1. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. Italics in original. 69 Ibid., I. 2.

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national aspiration needed are illustrative of his position regarding the new young (steeled) men and their critics of society. Popovici clearly states “Goethe was not a politician and no other valuable poet was, so [….] a poet cannot be a political man because fantasy is his domain.”70 Eminescu himself tried to write (not to make) politics and this attempt had a bad influence over him, not to mention other weak poetical souls or poets without Eminescu’s power of intellect. The second part of the article is dedicated to Goga. Here Popovici has no mercy for the young steeled rebels who dared to call the Romanian politicians “mules that are grazing serenely on Vesuvius.”71 Our young poet has just stopped his Pegasus in the manger for Tribuna and yet, as soon as he tried to spur it back to Olympus, the bloody beast doesn’t want to get out from the stable. I am not surprised that the poet has started to shout that Ardeal is full of mules. But this is just a poetical chimera because if Mr. Goga stays on an animal that has evolved from Pegasus into a mule this does not infer that we have more mules in Ardeal, as he claims, but only that the poet is exaggerating, confusing Ardeal with his personal stable from Arad. There, it seems that are many Pagasuses in full biological evolution, in full Darwinian transformation.72

Popovici uses the very inspired terms “political poets” and “poetical politics” to describe the campaign of Tribuna. Besides the inevitable caustic irony and sarcasm, Popovici used an anti-rhetoric to dismiss the claims of intellectualness by his opponents. For him, their rhetoric is empty, their fight is fake, their courage is missing, their legacy is nothing but ridiculous. The real enemies are not the leaders of the Romanian National Party but the Hungarian government, he claimed. Goga is a victim of his political friends (mostly Chendi) claims Popovici. His friends do not have the talent of their poet; they are only bunglers and amateurs. But they have a significant influence on Goga and thus “we can see the influence of politics over a poet.”73 Goga confesses he cannot stay away

70

Ibid. This expression was coined by Goga when he was in Italy. At that moment he refers to “a man with beautiful wives” as being the mules. See Octavian Goga, Pagini noi, ed. Veturia Goga (Bucharest: Tineretului, 1967). Coming back home, he changed his mind about this witticism and unrespectfully used it against the leaders of the Romanian National Party. Octavian Goga, “Pro domo," in Tribuna, XIV, no. 257 (December 11/ November 28, 1910): 1-2. 72 Popovici, “The poets and the politics,” II, 2. 73 Ibid. 71

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from public life, his heart is fretted by the oppression of his people, his temples are heated by the sufferings he sees, yet if he is a fighter or a warrior he did not find the real enemies. Those people who are true warriors, and really possessed by the irresistible power of an angel or demon, when they are going to fight they are not “crying” with those cowards, they are not “gladdening” with those spoiled and libertine, but they are going to fight! They are going into a fierce fight! They are going to strike the enemies or be themselves wounded or killed, as God wants! Those people do not write poems but [produce] facts, Mr. Goga!74

And here came Popovici’s main argument. Goga, the national poet, the national and hero, did not write any article against the oppressors, any text defending the language of his ancestors, any critique of the political situation.75 His powerful personality did not come to strengthen the rows of nationalist fighters but to bring discord and disunion. His target was the National Committee and not the Hungarian government, not the oppressors but the oppressed people. He did not see the crimes of the Hungarian police but the small imperfections of those leaders who got old in the fight not having time “to visit Louvre, Scotland or Vesuvius and not knowing Paris, Rembrandt paintings or other foreign beauties.”76 Goga’s main guilt is impiety and disrespect for the elder political leaders who did not praise themselves as being steeled and who, otherwise, accepted Goga in the National Committee with open hearts and hopes. Goga was not a Romanian Tyrtaeus 77 but a big disillusion. I thought that if God wanted us, those older, to be poor in spirit as we are, a Goga, a Goga, a Goga has finally came and with his genius and art would lightning strike and thunders from an astounding highness and would pour fire and brimstone into the enemy camp… Goga, Goga, Goga will finally throb your hearts, even of those old men, by a holy enthusiasm, and he will start all of us in the sacred and legal fight, small and big, old and young, shoulder by shoulder, as an army of heroes inspired by a new prophet; I thought that if the Greek Tyrtaeus raised

74

Ibid. It is quite interesting that the national poet, who claimed several times to be imprisoned by Hungarians because of his political articles, was trialed twice for his own articles and found not guilty and then the third time when he was convicted to four weeks in ordinary jail, was for a poem and an article written by others but published by him. It is interesting that this last trial happened in the middle of the scandal and gave a greater legitimacy to Goga as a fighter for the national ideals. 76 Ibid., II, 2. 77 Tirteus was the poet who encouraged the Spartans in the fight with the Messenians. 75

48 the courage of the Spartans at the epical heights and so they won the war with the Messenians, this Tyrtaeus of the Romanians, too, will gather our rows, will inflame us, will bath us in abnegation flowers through his “evocations”, through his tyrannical power of being the rhapsode of an entire nation!…78

It is visible here that Popovici tries to counterbalance Goga’s rhetoric and that his friends and to turn upside down this poetical politics or political poetics of “the poet of our ordeal.” There is such a distance between the comments of 1906 and the criticisms and sarcasm of 1911. The aura of the national poet seriously paled in comparison to that ofthe political journalist. § 5. Political recognition At the beginning of 1913, the Tribuna scandal was over. The last crisis was on Christmas day of 1912 when Vaida Voevod accused Goga of treason because he allegedly offered his offices to the Hungarian Prime Minister. Constantin Stere had to come to Arad to make peace between the two camps. The result was that Vaida was sincere but badly informed by the Hungarian officials. However, Tribuna ceased to exist and the entire editorial staff was merged with that of Românul. Ţara Noastră ceased to exist too. Slowly, all the young steeled men left Hungary, most of them to Romania. Goga remained in Sibiu for a while. He finally wrote several articles against the Hungarian government and published his third volume of poetry. But the reactions were minimal. Ion Trivale, already mentioned, was predicting the sunset of Goga’s star. The volume was mentioned by several other reviews but not extensively. Goga entered into his first “reception eclipse.”79 Yet, a new wave of popularity came to Goga not as a poet but as a playwright. There was a prophetic affirmation in an article by Slavici, who said “reading these lyrical verses we have the feeling that the author will give us 78 79

Ibid. Mircea Zaciu, in his article mentioned above, see note 49, identifies two “eclipses” of Goga’s reception. One is in the interwar period and is due to the modernist reaction, the other one is in the early communist period when Romanian literature abandoned the “traditionalist epigonism.” He mentioned indeed the memory of the political mistakes made by Goga as another reason for his eclipse in the early communist years. However, adopting this term of “reception eclipse” (not really appropriate), another eclipse from 1909 to 1914 can be seen and even further into the 1920s, and it was due to a similar “memory of his political mistakes.” It can be said that after 1917-9 the poet benefited from the politician in the same way in which in 1906-8, the politician benefited from the poet.

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valuable works both epic and dramatic.”80 Slavici was not a literary critic but a great novelist. However, he was the first to see Goga’s skills in evoking powerful images, creating memorable characters, and lending a sense of drama to his story. Goga did not become a great dramatist but his theater play Mr. Notary attained great success because it happened at the beginning of the First World War when there was widespread awareness about the problem of the Hungarian Romanians in Bucharest, where the play had its premiere. As already mentioned, the success was overwhelming and re-launched Goga into the forefront of public life. The premiere was at the National Theater on February 16, 1914. Three months later (May 29), Barbu Delavrancea nominated Goga as a correspondent member of the Romanian Academy.81 Coşbuc had died and Goga was the immediate choice for his place in the academy as the “poet of Ardeal.” It was a significant recognition of Goga’s intellectual capabilities, which were at the time seriously questioned, as previously seen. In a few weeks the First World War started and launched Goga as the spokeperson for the Romanians in Ardeal. His activities in various committees and associations kept the national issue on the public agenda.82 It was a political popularity that Goga was quick to use. A year later he was a candidate, together with Vasile Lucaci, for a parliamentary seat in the Romanaţi county (in Caracal) as an independent.83 They lost the elections because of the liberal opposition but their candidacy made an impression. The new debate was about the right of Transylvanian Romanians to participate in parliamentary elections in Romania and many others followed Goga and Lucaciu’s cause. In an electoral speech Barbu Delavrancea expressed his support for the two Transylvanian Romanians: Two men, two good brothers, bone from our bones, blood from our blood, wanderers out of their country, and our country as well, pushed 80

Ioan Slavici, “Pământul ne chemă,” in Minerva, I (1909), no. 83 (March 9, 1909): 1; republished in Ioan Slavici, Works, vol. X (Bucharest: Minerva, 1981): 358-361. The former is cited here. 81 Barbu Delavrancea, “Expunere asupra activităţii literare a lui Goga,” in Opere, vol. 5, Emilia Şt. Milicescu ed. (Bucharest: Minerva, 1969): 531-532. From the very beginning the Romanian Academy played an integrating role for many Romanians from Hungary who chose to come to Romania. Notable personalities of this institution were keen to welcome various (self)-exiles who established a particularly strong relation between Romanian Academia and Hungarian Romanians. Studza, Bianu, and many other were very efficient in strengthening the links between ‘the two sides of Carpathians,’ as they used to say. 82 The Cultural League is the main association that was very busy in national activism regarding Transylvanian Romanians. One of the few studies on this topic is Vasile Netea and C. Gh. Marinescu, ‘Liga Culturala’ si unirea Transilvaniei cu Romania, (Jassy: Junimea, 1978). 83 Father Lucaci put his candidacy in Galaţi.

50 by their dream, and our dream too, they arrived in our country, their country too, and tell their millenary sufferings, our sufferings too: Father Vasile Lucaciu and Octavian Goga… Who might dare say to Goga and Lucaciu that they are not Romanian citizens? Who might be the stupid insolent who doesn’t see in this election a precursory sign for the day of tomorrow, for the day of sacrifice, union and glory? … They represent the Ardeal. They are virtually the Ardeal…. They are not the candidates of the conservatives. They are not of the liberals. They are of all Romanians and their victory is the victory of our country…84

This was the second time when Goga was identified with Romania and the Romanian nation. He was at the beginning of a new political career that eventually led him to claim “Ardeal is me!”85 He was not a Transylvanian poet or a Transylvanian politician, but the Transylvanian Romanian par excellence. At the moment of the Caracal elections, Goga became the symbol of the union of all Romanians and the fight for this union. The portrait done by Delavrancea is illustrative of this new popularity: Octavian Goga is a young man, blond, with vivid eyes and a piercing look. He is a poet, a dramatist, a journalist and an orator. [He is a] Great poet, a seducing playwright, an unrivaled journalist and a prominent orator. His written word is thrusting like a regal seal on the minds of those who understand it. His spoken word heats you like the flames of a torch rolled by the wind. His flying verb seduces and convinces. His heroic temperament is a brilliant representative of the Romanians. Descendant of many generations of priests from Răşinari, he is a jewel, in the full meaning of the word, with which we are proud — those from here and those from the other side of the Carpathians —, [he is] our gift conceived from the pain of those humiliated, who did not lose hope, a phenomenon raised from the historical abyss, a sunlight in the gulf of times. He cannot be defeated by persecution or exile, by hate or envy. There is no honor to greet him, there is no need to diminish him. From the moment when he came into this world, it was inevitable that he would become: a primordial force of thinking and fighting.86

These great words by Delavrancea definitively re-launched the public career of Goga, and gave him the opportunity to get closer to militant circles in Bucharest, and to publish in Epoca whose editor was Delavrancea. The next years, Goga was very active and wrote many articles for this journal. All of 84

Barbu Delavrancea, “Lucaci şi Goga,” in Epoca, XXII, no. 358 (December 30, 1915): 1; republished in Opere, vol. 7, Emilia Şt. Milicescu ed. (Bucharest: Minerva, 1970): 404-408. 85 He made this affirmation in a speech from 1933 published in Ţara Noastră, XI, no. 290 (April 11, 1933): 1. 86 Delavrancea, “Lucaci and Goga,” 405-406.

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them were advocating for Romania’s entrance into the war against the Central Powers, to liberate Transylvania. He published one volume of articles and one of poetry, militant texts again arguing Romania to join the war against AustriaHungary. His political activities, thus, helped him to survive as a writer, securing a distinct audience among the supporters of his militant politics. § 6. The National Ideology of the ‘30s Songs Without a Country (1916) was the last volume of poetry published by Goga during his life. From 1918 onward, political activities absorbed the entire energies of the poet. Though he wrote some new poems, he did not have time to prepare a new volume, which was eventually published posthumously. Goga’s militant politics lead him to take part in many public debates that left him little time for literary activities. In 1927 his play Master Manole received positive but limited reviews. However, his articles and speeches had a distinct literary dimension. He was praised by his followers as one of the most prominent Romanian intellectuals, one with an exemplary dedication to his country and with a great passion for his national ideals. His poems were published in many editions and some of his verses were even used as political slogans. The aura he had as “the singer of our sufferings,” the poet of peasants and the bard of national dreams, as well as a victim of a barbaric Hungarian administration and the thinker dedicated to his country, were all useful in his political campaigns. His popularity was diminished a little during the 1930s because of the attacks from modernist critics and because of the emergence of a new generation of young intellectuals for whom the ideals of Nation-State were no longer paramount, in that Greater Romania was already a given for them. Yet, this “eclipse” of popularity was far less severe and of a shorter duration that some commentators claimed. The crisis of the 1930s, the new wave of revolt and radicalism, and the rise of extreme national movements, brought Goga back to the center of attention of public opinion. Goga himself adopted more radical concepts and refined his rhetoric. New analyses of his works were published but they were less literary critiques than nationalist assertions. “The poet” became “the intellectual” and his literary talent was seen as providing an objective or scientific knowledge of the profound soul of the nation. Among those who refer to Goga in such terms are Radu Dragnea in Gândirea, and Tzigara-Samurcaş in Convorbiri literare. In 1931, Gândirea dedicated a special issue to Goga on his fiftieth birthday. Radu Dragnea wrote an article entitled “Octavian Goga and the National

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Principle,”87 in which he tried to convey Goga’s importance for the Romanian national movement at that moment. According to Dragnea, for Goga “politics is a prolongation of the ethnic in his songs.”88 Between his politics and poetics there is an indissoluble unity because both are “mirroring the same organically experienced truth.”89 Goga is a writer who expresses himself only after he lived, probed or learned directly from his own experience, and thus he says only what passed through this laboratory, what rose from ancestral feelings to the light of consciousness and has the power of the truth. It is no doubt that there is a big difference between that sincerity that is materially based on the individual and the spiritual sincerity of the group. What is not experienced this way but came as a fashion or through books is, for Goga, under the implacable sentence of the untruth: what is not a feeling rooted in ethnic consciousness is a lie in art and a lie in politics.90

This is why Goga is outside the party system, he is above the party segregation rooted in a formless and politically homogeneous mass of people. For him, Goga is not an original but a banal man who thinks, and his philosophy is the banality of the entire society, peasants, townsmen, rulers and masters. It is “the Romanian banality, which is the school of Romanian national classicism.”91 He does not make literature based on realities but his thinking is circumscribed to realism and national dogmatism, excluding any idea of dilettantism. Goga’s great historical merit is his view on the Romanian provinces. Contrary to all other politicians, he envisions these provinces in an organic interposition and not as a geometrical superposition. His model of a state is the Historical Romanian State and not the history-less state, which is a juridical entity and an instrument in the hands of politicians.92 Beyond the daily surface of reality there is a soulful reality, a spirituality of the Romanian people in which politics should be rooted. This spirituality is a common truth that founded a national ontology that is more powerful than any other contingent construction doomed to fail as any creation that is not solidly founded on Romanian reality.

87

Radu Dragnea, “Octavian Goga şi Principiul Naţional,” Gândirea, XI, no. 11 (November, 1931): 421-425. 88 Ibid., 422. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid., 421. 92 Ibid., 424.

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At the same time, in Convorbiri literare, Sandu Tzigara-Samurcaş writes about “Octavian Goga’s Nationalism.”93 A year earlier, Tzigara-Samurcaş, the son of professor Nicolae Tzigara-Samurcaş,94 published abook on fascism.95 His article on Goga’s nationalism is a warm apology to Goga and his policy. He mentioned Goga’s purely Romanian native environment as a “favorable milieu to the development of his national genius.”96 He goes even further and says that: From profound relationship with the biggest spring of national energy, the idea of race sprang up and guided him throughout his life…. This direct contact with the soul of his people was never lost by the poet; on the contrary, he amplified and ennobled it, crossing it through the sieve of literature and nationally political affirmations.97

Literature is connedted with politics in a way that ennobles politics. For Goga and for Tzigara-Samurcaş, literature is an apostleship and the “fundamental spring of national idea.”98 Goga’s verses are singing not only the sadness of his people but a vision of salvation as well. His prophetic optimism “in which the revolt is boiling” was influenced by Eminescu’s poetry. However, Goga did not want to be subjective as Eminescu in his sentimental poetry, says Tzigara-Samurcaş, but the Eminescu’s national credo was the sure compass for Goga. The “guerilla fight against Magyars, the fight that prepared the foundation for the soulful union of Romanians […] weared the mystical faith in the purifying storm of the future.”99 The vocabulary that TzigaraSamurcaş uses is similar with Goga’s. He identifies precisely the sensitive nationalist lines and points the important element for his extreme-right views. Goga’s integral nationalism stands against political regionalism and the wave of foreignness, preparing the spiritual unity that should come after the political

93

Sandu Tzigara-Samurcaş, “Naţionalismul lui Octavian Goga,” Convorbiri literare, 1933, no. 66 (June), 526-537. Ion Dodu Bălan mentioned this article in a short bibliography at the end of his monograph but he wrongly attributed it to Nicolae Tzigara-Samurcaş and missed the page numbers. This monograph will be referred to in the next section. 94 Nicolae Tzigara-Samurcaş, the director of Convorbiri literare at that moment, was a reputed professor of ethnography. He founded in Bucharest the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Convorbiri literare was already oriented on the nationalist lines by his predecessor Simion Mehedinţi who was its director between 1907 and1923. However, this nationalist trend increased under Tzigara-Samurcaş’s leadership (1924-1939). 95 Sandu Tzigara-Samurcaş, Fascismul, (Bucharest: 1932). 96 Tzigara-Samurcaş, “Octavian Goga’s nationalism,” 526. 97 Ibid., 526-527. 98 Ibid., 530. 99 Ibid., 532.

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union.100 And he had been all the time faithful to his credo based on the national idea; and his nationalism affirms not negates, builds not destroys […] Goga’s political action is consonant with his beliefs. The program of his party was based on both the national idea and the agrarian idea. It was rooted in the idea of order and authority, the restoration of values, moral purification and the intellectualization of political life. For Tzigara-Samurcaş, Goga is the speaker for the entire nation, a nation seen as a holly entity whose soul is like a church. “Any profanatory attack against this church is more harmful than one against any other place of praying.”101 Nationalism facilitated the entry of Sacred into politics and all nationalists were sensitive to this rhetoric. The “intellectualization of politics,” in Goga’s terms, referredt to those people cultivated in national(ist) culture, people who embraced the national spirituality, people who believe in the national idea. Spirituality is folklorized, and the folklore spiritualized. The Holly Spirit of Nation took the highest place in a hierarchy whose worship became for the true believers the purest form of politics. § 7. The tribute paid to Goga after his death In the late 1930s, the political atmosphere severely deteriorated. The political crisis was paralleled by corruption and an economic crisis, which polarized and radicalized the political camps. Many argued that democracy was no longer a desired polical system. Nationalism became explicitly antidemocratic, and, symmetrically, democracy became anti-national. The rise of the extreme right and the hesitant and ultimately the brutal policy of Carol brought the political confrontation close to a public revolt. In these circumstances, Goga was identified with the National Revolution within the political system, which is why Carol chose him to form the government in 1937. It was an extremely nationalistic government but loyal to the King. His

100

Ibid., 535. This argument was brought by the young steeled men, while others considered the spiritual unity the first stage for a further political union. The young steeled men and the first generation after the union tried to use the state to homogenize Romanians hurrying up the process of ‘cultural union.’ A previous generation considered the ‘cultural union’ as being crucial in order to achieve the national state. The example of Ioan Slavici is the most notable in this respect. He supported the Central Powers in the First World War because he genuinely believed in Germany as a model of development. He was trialed and jailed in 1921 for his attitude. In his defense he said that the political union would have been premature at that moment because of the cultural diversity in all historical regions of Romania. 101 Ibid., 537.

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removal after only two months of governance and his death soon afterward broke whatever thin bridge was created between the two camps. All cultural reviews and magazines dedicated a special issue in the memory of Goga and praised him as a remarkable personality tormented by the national ideal. In spite of his political mistakes, all commentators acknowledged that his idealism and tragic life was completely dedicated to his nation. There are several articles notable for this wave of funereal sympathy for the lost poet of the nation. The first one is “Octavian Goga. Homme Politique”102 by Horia Teculescu, which is worth quoting in the original: Il a imprimé un idéal à l’époque où il a vécu; il a dirigé les aspirations d’un people, il a scellé de son âme de début d’un siècle; il a été le «continuateur de l’esprit public» à qui il a fait faire un pas en avant…. Sa vie a été une lutte continuelle jusqu’a tombeau, un combat pour le bien de son people, la forme la plus noble de l’énergie humaine; son activité par sa complexité: il a été à la fois poète, prosateur, dramaturge, essayist, orateur, conférencier, journaliste, homme politique, théoricien de l’idée nationale et guide de son people. Dans toutes des directions, il a ouvert des horizons, approfondi des preblèmes et élevé un idéal; il a rendu la vie plus intense, et ennobli tout ce quíl a touché. Il ne faut donc pas s’étonner qu’il ait eu dans son activité politique un prestige nouveau, et une autorité exceptionnelle: il a élevé l’home politique au niveau d’home d’État, et de père de la patrie.103

Remembering a few episodesfrom Goga’s political life, Teculescu considers that Goga made the national idea the fundamental principle of life and the unique formula for the future, “the pole star that vividly shines for Romanian consciousness.”104 And, at the present, “almost all political personalities adopted his principle, which is the sign of the superb victory…. His credo will lead Romania for a long time from now on.”105 This credo implies a spiritual transformation and a rise of the moral level; at the same time the intellectuals should unite and strengthen their links with the people. The national idea, in Goga’s terms, the fanatical faith in the specific patrimony of the nation, is the foundation of a new religion. Teculescu tries to identify some of Goga’s intellectual sources, includingin Plato, Aristotle (the superiority of the merit), Croce (liberty is inseparable from authority), Ch. Maurras (there is no order

102

Horia Teculescu, “Octavian Goga, Home Politique,” Revue de Transylvanie, IV, no. 3-4 (July-December, 1934): 194-209. 103 Ibid., 194. 104 Ibid., 206. 105 Ibid., 208.

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without authority), Hegel, Eminescu, Salazar, Pareto and Mussolini, influences that did not undermine his own spirit and personality. In the same issue, another article. Entitled “Octavian Goga, Poète de la destinée roumain”106 and written by Ion Chinezu, it builds a bridge between Goga’s poetic and political live: “It is very rare when the poet and the fighter have the same essence; the artist and statesmen do not usually reach an agreement. But in Goga’s case these diverse qualities are founded, reinforced and illuminate each other; and from their powerful union it unveils one of the richest existences, one of the most beautiful lives in our tormented history.”107 For Chinezu, Goga’s life displays a rare unity in spite of his varied activities. There is only one block with different planes and lines. Thus, there is no difference between his last articles and his first poems from 1905: they have “the same atmosphere, the same language, the same interior rhythm,” in other words they have “an organic continuity.”108 Reviewing the beginning of Goga’s career, following extensively his Fragments of personal recollections, Chinezu explain how his poems were grafted onto reality and how the social themes overlapped with the national themes, resulting in a militant poetry. The influences of Dostoyevsky, Rousseau, Gogol, Korolenko, Cehov, Tolstoi, and Petöfi offer the spiritual atmosphere of his social messianism with mystical accents. These aspects of Goga’s works transcend the esthetical values “penetrating within the patrimony of thinking and sensibility of the people.”109 It is a fundamental and indispensable element without which “the image of the Romanian soul would be incomplete.”110 Goga’s pen was a creator of history and the poet has been a man of his time in all meanings of the term. Şerban Cioculescu in Revista Fundaţiilor Regale offered another analysis.111. He starts by saying that a writer who is closer to the culture of his national collectivity has an evolution on a straight line on temperament unity, while when he distances himself from this culture he follows the curves and zigzags of his internal evolution and horizon changes. In other words, the culture of national collectivity gives strength and unity to each individual from

106

Ion Chinezu, “Octavian Goga, Poète de la destinée roumain,” Revue de la Transylvanie, IV, no. 3-4 (July-December, 1938): 179-193. 107 Ibid., 179. 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid., 192. 110 Ibid. 111 Şerban Cioculescu, “Octavian Goga,” Revista Fundaţiilor Regale Carol II, V, no. 7 (Julie 1, 1938): 142-158; republished in Poeţi români (Bucharest: Eminescu, 1982): 205-220.

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within. This is the case with Goga, as seen by Cioculescu, because his combative temperament, essentially political, unites the character of a fighter with an artistic character in the same literary clothes. The unity is indestructible and the artistic value infused all activities undertaken by Goga. This unity was underlined by many commentators and critics of Goga, as was the intimate relation of Goga with the soul, spirituality or culture of his people. This relation caused Cioculescu to affirm that the estrangement or uprootedness in Goga’s poems is not internalized but is presented rather as a preoccupation of the village.112 Furthermore, his return to his native village, the so called repeasantization of Goga, is the deliberate act of somebody who believes in subjective mortification and the rediscovery of ancestral consciousness.113 This is the key to understanding Goga’s literary works and politics; it is the condition of the militant souls who have renounced their own private lives in order to embrace the common suffering of the people. Soon after the emotional impact of Goga’s death had gone, his works were (re)considered from a literary point of view. As soon as his posthumous volumes were published, and other memoirs and personal accounts became public,114 Goga’s works were thematically reexamined and integrated into the history of Romanian literature. The first and most notable attempt at this was the chapter dedicated to Goga by George Călinescu in his History of Romanian Literature.115 While he accepts that the journalistic debates and political fights were too recent for seeing them in a proper perspective, he does agree with Goga’s prophetic and messianic tone, with his aura as apostle of the nation, with a new “strange religion that has its hagiology, considering Stefan the Old as the highest saint, archangel.”116 The same misfortune from Eminescu’s poetry is found in Goga’s works, as well as the idea of a hidden destiny which marked his life. “It is the unmotivated wailing of an ancient people grown old in its cruel experience of life which becomes a ritual mourning, transmitted on

112

Ibid., 210. Ibid., 215. This idea, very close to Goga’s interpretation of rustic life, implies that the peasants do not have any kind of subjectivity and they are living like a collective social body with a common consciousness. 114 It is the case of Sever Bocu, Drumuri şi Răscruci, (Timişoara: 1939), or Octavian Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga, Amintiri şi contribuţii la istoricul revistei Luceafărul, (Bucharest: Bucovina, 1939) 115 George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini până în prezent, (Bucharest: Fundaţia pentru Literatură şi artă, 1941; Minerva, 1982): 605-612. The later edition is used here. 116 Ibid., 609. 113

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but not explained.”117 Because of their simplicity, Goga’s verses deeply penetrates into the soul of the masses. Goga’s origins are relevant in this respect. Călinescu pays tribute to those Romanian villages like Răşinari which have ancient roots and a certain dignity in their national existence: Goga was a peasant without doubt, but a peasant from such an old race that he had aristocratic features. His [face] lines were thickened, sharp, [with] little delicate bones. His peasantness was as nervous as his nobleness and the foreigner who might have seen him next to a window with clay vessels may think he sees the purest [Romanian] native.118

These comments are very much in line with those which accompanied Goga’s literary career from its beginningt’s start. Goga’s Romanianness – a source of his poetical talent - was announced by Iorga and Chendi, as already mentioned. Dimitrie Popovici put forth an interesting interpretation of Goga’s poetic messianism in an article published in Luceafărul.119 Popovici sees three “moments” of this poetic messianism. One is the moment when Goga unmasks the deficiencies of contemporary society. Another is the moment in which he depicts the future society, and the last one is the moment in which Goga calls and leads the masses toward a new society. These three elements in Goga’s works are important in that extent in which messianism is considered to have a central role in his work. However, it is also crucial to consider the unity of his literary and political activities. Thus, his poems would be conceived in the first phase of this messianism, his journalism in the second one, and his speeches in the last one, as a schematic and preliminary division. One final analysis is Folk, Village and City in Octavian Goga’s Poetry120 by Ovidiu Papadima. His article is one of the most mindful texts that have been written about Goga’s poems. There are several points made in it, which are important for the present context. First, and the main argument of Papadima, is that the source of Goga’s poetry is not the Romanian village but the tension between the village and the city. For Papadima, Goga is caught in between the village and the city without being properly part of either. This argument is convincingly supported alongside very detailed illustrations and careful 117

Ibid., 610. Ibid., 607. 119 D. Popovici, “Mesianismul poetic al lui Octavian Goga,” Luceafărul, II (1942), (JulyAugust); republished in a collection of articles Din presa literară românească (1918-1944), (Bucharest: Albatros, 1986): 6-14. The former is used here. 120 Ovidiu Papadima, Neam, Sat şi Oraş în Poezia lui Octavian Goga, (Bucharest: Fundaţia Regală pentru Literatură şi Artă, 1942). 118

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interpretations. The second point is that, the stranger mentioned in his poems is Goga himself. This estrangement is the tension that is the “fundamental accent of the poetical personality of Goga.”121 There are two levels of reality, as Papadima sees it, one is the apparent world, visible, objective, and daily, while the second one is more profound and tragic: the level of estrangement. This is a relevant observation and can explain why Goga uses the concept of “reality” in two distinct ways. One is negative, full of disillusions and pains, while the other one, which he called “soulful reality,” is objective, bright, and hopeful. Both have something to do with the two worlds of his literary universe, and both are extremely telling for the attitude taken by the author regarding these mutually excluding universes. The last point made by Papadima is that the villagers from Goga’s poems are not real, but an ideal projection of the world of his childhood. This is why those characters often praised as typical of the Romanian village (i.e. the Apostle, the Teacher, the Folksinger, the Innkeeper etc.) are “supermen […] dazzlingly projected over the reality of the village by an intellectual who must believe they are real otherwise he might soulfully collapse.”122 Unfortunately, this analysis was applied by Papadima only to Goga’s poems and not to his other writings. The idea of being in between two worlds, one rural and the other urban, and the identification of so many intellectuals with Goga, may say interesting things about a world that was, on the one hand, too modernized to be still rustic, archaic, and autarchic, and on the other hand not yet modernized enough to identify itself with the city, with modern civilization, and with cosmopolitanism. The role played by nostalgia and the vision of another “superindividual and timeless reality,”123 which came in violent conflict with the given reality of daily live, the poetical construction of this superindividual and timeless reality as a national ontology that should struggle to exist with whatever opposes to it, and the role played by loneliness, anxiety and the estrangement of the first generation of urbanized intellectuals in supporting radical reforms and utopian programs, are all important factors in understanding the interwar drive toward extremism felt by many Romanian intellectuals.

121

Ibid., 17. Ibid., 15. 123 Ibid., 12 122

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§ 8. In the communist national pantheon In 1942 when these articles and studies were written, Romania was already at war. In 1944 the war alliance with Germany ended. Russians occupied the country and the communist regime came to power heavily supported by the Red Army. In a country where the Communist party counted only around one thousand members, the repression was ferocious. The entire cultural life collapsed under the ideological pressure of Marxism-Leninism and most authors were imprisoned soon after the take over. The reason given for such draconian measures was denazification but the real motive were denationalization and de-bourgeoization. Some survived by paying the moral price of collaborating with the regime, but nobody dared to mention Goga’s name of Goga. Between 1945 and 1957 there was nothing about Goga, but in 1957 a text was written by Mihai Beniuc,124 the chair of the Union of the Romanian writerst. Beniuc established the new coordinates of Goga’s reception under communist rule. First of all, he restated the value Goga’s works and argued that he is among the seven most important poets of Romanian literature. Then, Beniuc underlines the folkloric tradition of Goga’s works and the great tradition of Eminescu which Goga continues. He mentions the national feeling circumscribed to a much larger social message. There is an imbedded revolutionary humanitarianism in Goga’s works, a humanitarianism which Goga abandoned when he started his political career. In this way, “the politician has been separated from the poet and gradually estranged himself from the democratic ideas”125 that he represented earlier. From his old treasure he lost the revolutionary message. He had good intentions, says Beniuc, but as Shakespeare said, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. This ideologically forced divorce of politic and poetic in interpreting Goga led to a misunderstanding of his politics of culture and his poetics of politics. This was the price to be paid by Goga posthumously for his entrance into the communist pantheon. In the same year, encouraged by this green light given by at level o the highest of literary establishment, Ion Dodu Bălan published his first article

124

Mihai Beniuc, “Octavian Goga, poetul,” a preface of Meşterul Manole (Bucharest: ESPLA, 1957); republished as a preface too in Octavian Goga, Versuri, (Bucharest: Editura Tinertului, 1966): 5-21. This former version is used here. 125 Ibid., 11.

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about Goga.126 Later he became the official literary historian of Octavian Goga and his main editor. His monograph will become the definitive study of Goga as the national poet, overlooking any political activities and writings except few decontextualized fragments illustrating his patriotism. Bălan’s work will be addressed a bit later. There are several other texts that are worth mentioning at this moment in order to illustrate this new interpretative framework. The first is a chapter by Dumitru Micu on Goga from his History of Romanian Literature127— a university textbook. Micustarts by looking at the social function of art as it was understood by Goga. He refers exclusively to the beginning of Goga’s literary career when his poetical force derived from “the immense boiling pains of an enslaved people.”128 Mentioning fragments of Goga’s literary testimonies in which “the writer was seen as a disseminator of faith and a disseminator of victory,”129 and relating this victory exclusively with the fierce exploitation of the Hungarian nobility,130 Micu claims that the great success of Goga’s debut was the source for a “political parvenuism” that later diverted him from the original social ideals of his youth, distancing him from the vivid source of his inspiration. This interpretation has elements of some truth in it. One is the political parvenuism of Goga after 1906, the other one is the existence of a clear leftist source of inspiration used by Goga that can be called “social ideals.” Usually these elements were neglected by the interwar critics and also refuted by Goga himself. The rest of the interpretation as well as other details used by Micu are either insulting (i.e. anemic, retrograde, chauvinist terms with a clear ideological connotation under the communist regime) or simply fabrications. Goga was not a representative of the Romanian bourgeois, and his politics was not disconnected from the social reality of his time; on the contrary, he followed quite closely the radicalization of the masses caused by the endemic crises of the 1930s. Also the archaic, provincial and church terms used by him were not a means for highlighting the oldness of the Romanian people and for denouncing their cruel fate, but had a much more important role in building a

126

Ion Dodu Bălan, “Pe marginea poeziei lui Octavian Goga,” Viaţa românească, X , no. 5 (May, 1957). 127 Dumitru Micu, “Octavian Goga,” in Istoria Literaturii Române, (Bucharest: Editura Pedagogică, 1964): 123-148. 128 Ibid., 124. 129 Ibid. This quote is one of the most over-quoted fragments of Goga’s works. 130 One of the novelties of these communist texts is the specific references to Hungarian exploitation and Hungarian nobility.

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world-view from which to start his fierce critique against the society of his time. Another error was that it was not Iuliu Maniu who accused him of treason, but Alexandru Vaida-Voevod; however Maniu was a much preferred target of the communist propaganda. And, finally, it was not the leaders of the National Party who were guilty of Goga’s failure in the 1910 elections — though Goga might have assumed this — but the violence and corruption of those elections. What remains, from Micu’s analysis, is the image of a bright people with a collective memory, collective pains and collective feelings — the accent on collectivity was of course welcomed at that moment — and this millenary collectivity is manifested in history through genial personalities who at various moment of time voiced this collective consciousness. The mechanism was to remember Goga’s role as a writer. The critic/writer knows what the collective fundamentals are and thus can judge if Goga’s poems reflect the reality (the profound reality or soulful reality, as Goga would say) or if they are just retrograde, anemic etc. Another article to be published at this time is an historical account of “Goga’s Fight for the Unitary Romanian State” by V. Curticăpeanu.131 It is useful to consider literary critics in parallel with historians because it reveals the bifurcation of history and literature in Romanian studies.132 For Curticăpeanu, Goga was not only a remarkable poet, essayist, journalist and orator, but a politician, and a stubborn militant for the national cause as well. He was ready to overlook some of Goga’s activities, and to concentrate on the politically extremist period after 1935. For example, he says that “from 1922 to 1935, Goga accommodated himself to the political circumstances receiving several state positions, mostly cultural ones.”133 Only in the turbulent period before the Second World War, had Goga “slipped on the side of retrograde politicianism and in the muddy waters of fascism.”134 But by and large, according to Curticăpeanu, Goga’s political activities cannot overshadow his contribution to the formation of the Romanian unitary-state. 131

V. Curticăpeanu, “Lupta lui Octavian Goga pentru realizarea statului român unitar,” Studii, XXII, no. 5 (May, 1969): 927-945. A French translation was published next year: V. Curticăpeanu, “L’action d’Octavian Goga pour l’unité politique roumaine,” Revue Roumaine d’Histoire, IX (1970), 1 (January): 83-106. 132 It is worth mentioning that A. D. Xenopol — an important theoretician of history at the end of 19th century — wanted to resign when the faculty of history was separated from the faculty of letters. 133 Curticăpeanu, 927. Particularly in this period, Goga was only minister of the interior between March 30, 1926 and June 4, 1927. 134 Ibid.

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For his first period of activity, Curticăpeanu considers that “Goga dedicated his fight first of all to the political ideal and only secondly to the literary one.”135 His poems are called “truly national psalms,” and he has the intuition of a profound sense of political circumstances and continued in the line of the great national fighters from 1848. His entrance into politics coincides with the change of political tactics of 1905 when P.N.R. began its active politics.136 Goga joined the democratic bourgeoisie137 and participated in the 1910 elections when he failed to get eleccted. This failure was seen by contemporaries as a “glorious page of their national fights”138 because of the arbitrariness of the government. The scandal of Tribuna is depicted as a debate over P.N.R.’s tactic and orientation, with Goga advocating the complete isolation of the party from the Hungarian parties. Nothing was mentioned about the real scandal and the arguments against the Romanian decrepit old men and the end of Tribuna. Then, another interesting moment identified by Curticăpeanu was when Goga “realized that the Romanians from the Habsburg Monarchy could not alone make an important political act if the entire people did not participate in it.”139 This is why Goga resigned from the National Committee and decided to go to Bucharest together with Vasile Lucaciu. “This fact had a particular signification and produced a great revival of the irredentism movement in the south and east of the Carpathians.”140 Yet, quoting an article of Goga from another historical study, 141 Curticăpeanu places in this 135

Ibid., 929. In 1905, the “activist” group won over the “passivist” one. There is a great confusion over the interpretation of this moment in that the “passivists” were the more radical at that time refusing to accept the constitution of the Hungarian State after 1867. However, in the following years the “activists” represented the only opposition to the Nationalist Coalition in the Hungarian parliament and that made them more radical. 137 This term is invented by communist historiography in order to rescue for national history various nationalists who fought for their ideology and programs. They are opposed to ordinary and/or retrograde bourgeoisie that is a reactionary social class, as Marxism-Leninism ‘scientifically’ proved. 138 Curticăpeanu, 933. 139 Ibid., 935. 140 Ibid., 936. The communist rhetoric tried to avoid as much as possible the names of Romanian historical regions. This is why Moldova became the east of the Carpathians and Muntenia and Oltenia, the south of the Carpathians. Even Transylvania is not mention by Curticăpeanu in this article, tough being in the Habsburg Monarchy and its union with the Old Kingdom the main subject of the history of this period, its mentioning was inevitable. Interesting enough, this homogenization of the Romanian toponymy stands on the same line of thought for which Goga pleaded. 141 Miron Constantinescu and Ştefan Pascu (eds.), Desăvărşirea unificării statului naţional român. Unirea Transilvaniei cu vechea Românie, (Bucharest: Editura Acedemiei RSR, 1968). 136

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period Goga’s efforts of Goga to create a Transylvanian legion from those refugees and soldiers who deserted the Austrian-Hungarian army. The information is not accurate. This did not take place in Bucharest, where Goga started his campaign against Romanian neutrality, but in Jassy, and it was not in 1914/1915 but in 1917.142 Curticăpeanu praises the democratic ideas of Goga which were based on two “bright principles that appear nowadays in Romania: the national principle with its integral value and the democratic principle with all its consequences, which becomes today a popular religion.”143 Goga’s words rang true for Romania of Curticăpeanu’s own time. The last subject addressed by Curticăpeanu was the revolutionary and even socialist conception of Goga in the period from the end of the Second World War. He mentions Sever Bocu’s testimonies, who witnessed the great impression made on Goga by the Bolshevik revolution and noted Goga’s radical ideas, inclcuding the dethroning of King Ferdinand, the proclamation of a Republic and, expectedly, the dismissal of the Dirigent Council from Sibiu created by the National Party after the war. Curticăpeanu agrees that Goga did not have “a clear revolutionary conception” but he was among the progressive part of the Romanian intelligentsia because of his principles and ideas. After the accomplishment of the union in 1918, the political frictions and contradictions made Goga less progressive and pushed him away into the opposite camp. But even so, “his name is noted among those notable personalities forming the Union generation of 1918.”144 His great political role cannot be, Curticăpeanu says, overshadowed by the tragic episode of 1936-1938 in which Goga was “pushed by the dark forces of internal and international reactionarism.”145 This was the official position of the communist interpretation about Goga. A great poet, a national fighter, a great journalist, who unfortunately went rogue between 1936 and 1938. Gradually this period is mostly referred to with 142

See Octavian Goga, “Acum începe războiul nostru,” România, I, No. 131 (June 15, 1917): 1. România Mare is the journal of the Romanian volunteers and soldiers from France, appeared in Kiev (July 20 – December 22, 1917) and Paris (January 7 – April 8, 1919) under the direction of Sever Bocu. Because of the war circumstances in which it appeared, it is very difficult to find this journal. However, in 1917, Goga’s articles published the main war journal of the Romanian army, Romania were reprinted. 143 Curticăpeanu, 942. He quoted Octavian Goga, “Discurs rostit cu ocazia proclamării la Paris de către Adunarea Generală a românilor din provinciile asuprite si din Regat, a Consiliului National al Unităţii Române din 3 Oct 1918," La Roumanie, I, No. 39 (October 1, 1918): 1. 144 Curticăpeanu, 944. 145 Ibid., 945. The tragic episode of his fascist politics is reduced as much as possible and dismissed as irrelevant and foreign to Goga’s national politics and literature.

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various euphemisms, while no one made actually explicit what was wrong with Goga’s political activities. The only item mentioned was that he helped Carol’s plans to establish his “royal dictatorship.” Ion Dodu Bălan’s monograph146 became the classic study on Goga though it does not have the kind of unity which could be expected from such an enterprise. Various chapters are merely smaller essays on various themes of Goga’s works. It starts quite chronologically but this temporal unity is lost when the narrative reaches the political issues. The uneasiness of dealing with some topics and moments of Goga’s public career is evident. Bălan postulates the idea of the continuity of the Romanian national movement in the 19th century and considers Goga as one of its representatives. Accordingly, there are many more references to early nineteenth century facts and figures than to the events and personalities of Goga’s time. The scandal of 1910-1912 is entirely avoided while his imprisonment by the Hungarian authorities in 1911 is overemphasized as a moment typical of the national fights of Romanian in the Habsburg Monarchy. Tactfully, Bălan does not mention the four incriminating texts which were not written by Goga.147 The chapter dedicated to Goga’s activism during the war and his interwar political career is surprisingly under-quoted. Bălan praises the patriotic activism of Goga, but cites few sources148 in support of his eulogy. Goga’s articles are less visible and not properly analyzed. As for the general background of the period, Bălan tries to compose a politically correct narration, mixing various facts with a host of mistakes. It is senseless to point out all these errors and inaccuracies, but it is relevant to note that the main villain is Carol II and that there is no mention of Goga’s philo-fascist politics, his visits to Mussolini and Hitler, or his violent campaign against Romania’s constitutional regime. For Bălan, Goga’s right wing politics are a result of his political ambition, a consequence of the bourgeois nature of his party, and an effect of King Carol’s actions behind the political scene. For Bălan, the distance between the creation of the National Agrarian Party in 1932 and its accession to power in 1937 is insignificant. No reference is made to Goga’s almost 300 articles and speeches,

146

Ion Dodu Bălan, Octavian Goga: monografie (Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1971, 1975). Bălan published in 1957 his first article on Goga, defended in 1968 his doctoral thesis on Goga. It was published in 1971, with a second edition published in 1975. He then edited three volumes of works and many other volumes of poetry. See Octavian Goga, Opere, Ion Dodu Bălan ed., (Bucharest: Minerva, 1978). 147 They are Horea Petra-Petrescu, Dimitrie Marcu, and Ioan Vlad. See “Procesul d-lui Oct. Goga,” Românul, I, no. 32 (February 10/23, 1911): 3-4. 148 In total are just nine citations, many of them irrelevant for the political position of Goga.

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there is no discussion on the doctrine of Goga’s party, and no interest in showing the way Goga used his literature to illustrate his politics. Just as Curticăpeanu said, for Bălan, Goga had been a tragic victim of King Carol and of the bourgeois political system of Romania. The second part of the study is definitively thematic. Goga’s dedication to popular sufferings, his idea of composing a monograph of the Romanian village in verses, the nationally militant sides of his literature, and Goga’s notion of class struggle are the main issues addressed here. Yet, there is an interesting part in which Bălan discuss the “the esthetic function of the religious element in Goga’s poetry.”149 This topic is relevant for a certain argument of this study and thus deserves closer attention. It is about messianism and prophetism in Goga’s literature. Under the communist regime this religious dimension constituted an evident impediment in the reevaluation of Goga’s literary personality. The first volume of Goga’s poetry from 1905 starts with The Prayer. In many other poems Goga refers to various religious elements, such as God, Father, Messiah, Jesus, The last supper, priest, prophet, icons, apostle, Gospel, etc. In a study unpublished until 1998,150 Nichifor Crainic, the chef editor of Gândirea in the 1930s and early ‘40s, underlined precisely these profound religious feelings that are behind Goga’s lyrics. For Crainic, “Goga had loved [people] by instinct and divine grace, he did not want to hate, but he did not manage [to avoid hating].”151 This is a tribute to Goga from a person who ended in opposition with Goga regarding the policy of the National Christian Party, but who did love Goga’s personality, his national militantism, and his literature. Crainic reads Goga’s poems in the key of demophilia, the love for people that Jesus taught his followers. Mercy, love, self-sacrifice are the main coordinates of these verses and this make Goga one of the central Christian poets of Romanians. This was not an isolated opinion about Goga during the interwar period, and this is why Bălan had to reinterpret Goga’s religiosity somehow making him more suitable for the communist sensibilities. Bălan starts to make comments on Romanian religiosity in general. “The Romanian is not a bigot and mystical by nature, is neither torn by metaphysical crises nor by the craving for holiness and he often confuses, because of practical reasons, the terrestrial plan with the celestial one…. Any ordinary man… is a man born and raised in

149

Bălan, 205-228. Nichifor Crainic, “Octavian Goga,” in Spiritualitatea poeziei româneaşti, (Bucharest: Muzeul Literaturii Române, 1998): 149-164. 151 Ibid., 154. 150

67 Christian faith, following customs, but he is never preoccupied to scrutinize its essence.”152

Very much in the same manner that Christian toleration was gradually transformed into a folkloric attribute of the Romanians, Bălan also secularized as much as possible the Romanian Christian tradition by making the distinction that religion is concerned with God, holiness and the other world while Romanian spirituality is rooted in the daily live of the people. It is a very problematic attempt that necessitated invoking various writers from the early modern period (i.e. Dosoftei). It is this reality, Bălan claims, that opposes the unreality of sacred texts, a reality that included customs, traditions, popular culture etc, and was depicted by Goga using religious metaphors. “The religious text has been a pretext for expressing our realities.”153 This was the case for Goga as it was the case of all texts with religious topics from Romanian literature. Goga’s “The Prayer” is then just a pretext for his identification with the fate of his nation. Next follows a long exposé of a number of Romanian writers who corroborate Bălan’s theory about Romanian spirituality. His hazardous conclusion is that “Romanian literature, with few exceptions, does nothave religious poetry from which the divine mystery emanates at any moment.” Bălan also claims that Goga contributes to that load of prayers and hymns with strong lay accents, filled with social and national problems. Under these conditions, “the ‘religious’ elements change their structural sense in the context of his verses, because the poet does not want to confess mystical convictions, or to justify church dogmas with logical arguments.”154 Goga is not a religious poet because his poems do not praise dogmas, obedience, resignation, futile sacrifice, humiliation, fade faith, and poverty. His religious elements are purely esthetic. Bălan finds two reasons to support this claim; one is the romantic tradition of which Goga is a late representative, calling him “the last great romantic messianic from the Romanian poetry,”155 yet without insisting on this term. The other reason is that Goga had many generations of priests in his family. He adopted religious terms in the same way in which he adopted folkloric ones. Thus, the historical context is the explanation of Goga’s use of religious terms.

152

Ibid., 207. Ibid., 209. Italics in original. 154 Ibid., 211. Bălan uses quotation marks whenever mentions “religious” elements. 155 Ibid., 213. 153

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The valuable insight provided by Bălan is that he notices that in Goga’s literature, the divine existence does not have a transcendental dimension. Goga’s credo is much more terrestrial, contingent, contextualized. Putting aside the theological discussion on the religiosity of Romanian spirituality, this can be a useful point in analyzing Goga’s literature. Indeed, he does not call for penance before the imminent foundation of the Kingdom of God, but to revolt in the name of a Romanian Kingdom, a purely Romanian world, homogenized, centralized, and unified. Goga is messianic but most of the time the messiah is himself. His religion is not esthetic but secularized; Goga tries to establish a political religion, or a patriotic religion in which his national ideology is the ultimate dogma. He asks his followers to be fanatics in their faith in the national idea, he asks them to follow him as the messiah because he can feel the national soul, and he can foresee the great commandments of the country. Bălan’s main concern regarding Goga’s religious terminology is radically different from the purpose of the present study. He tries to accommodate Goga within the communist pantheon and not to see the inner rhetorical mechanisms of his literary politics. A closer look into these matters might have been dangerous under a regime that largely shared many elements of Goga’s rhetoric of extreme nationalism. Goga is a revolutionary in his works but of the fascist, not the communist sort. He adopted the revolutionary terminology of Mussolini and Hitler, and like many others supporting a totalitarian regime, he was trying to create a symbolic framework in which the total power of the state was to be exercised. The model of religion, the idea of unconditional submission, and fanaticism, was appealing for the son of father Iosif from Răşinari. Goga explicitly advocated “another religion”156 and his entire religious vocabulary was fully employed in his political discourse. The last sections of Bălan’s monograph are dedicated to some marginal aspects of Goga’s works: his translations, dramaturgy, and journalism. A special remark for the former is necessary because Bălan refers only to those commemorative articles on the great precursors of Romanian nationalism. Evoking the great figures of Romanian history and culture, Goga tried to construct a sort of hagiology of the “new religion” that he envisioned. Yet, for Bălan, this literature is “didactic”157 because a leading principle for Goga was that “literature is a work of pedagogy for the masses.”158 Once again, Goga’s opinion coincides closely with the socialist principles of militant literature. Bălan’s idea that “literature strengthened the organic feeling of fraternity of the 156

Octavian Goga, “O religie nouă,” in Ţara noastră, XI, no. 3 (April 13, 1932): 1. Bălan, 299. 158 Quoted by Bălan. Ibid. 157

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popular masses, tormented the consciousness toward aspirations of unity, and organized the energies on the battle line for conquering the ancestral ideals”159 might be Goga’s as well. The only problem with Goga, according to Bălan, is that under the influence of Sămănătorism and Poporanism he ignores the working class. His critical spirit often led him against wrong targets; for example, he considered the socialists to be of “foreign import”. Goga’s loss of “direction”, caused his wandering in the regrettable and condemnable nationalist horizons.160 By and large, these examples describe the communist perception of Goga. They are not exhaustive but illustrate the most sensitive issues of this period and the important interpretations that will help construct several arguments in this study. § 9. The post communist rediscovery of Goga In the first years after 1989, the cultural market was flooded with many texts banned for a half of century: memoirs, notes, diaries, etc. Goga and many of his contemporaries were present again in Romanian bookshops.161 It was a natural moment for reinterpreting Romania’s recent past and the role played by leading personalities. Indeed, the second edition Goga’s Mustul care fierbe was published in 1992, and a study of his political activity by Mihai Fătu followed shortly.162 . Except for a very short and evocative text published in 1955 by Pamfil Şeicaru, and re-published in 2002,163 Fătu’s is the only analysis of Goga, the political man. It is a political history that completely overlooks the literary and cultural aspect. For Fătu, Goga is one of the classics of Romanian literature and a very great politician who, at the end of his career, made a number of poor choices and mistakes. What is interesting about this interpretation is that 159

Ibid., 300. Ibid., 305. 161 Octavian Goga, Mustul care fierbe, (Bucharest: Scripta, 1992), 162 Mihai Fătu, Cu pumnii strânşi. Octavian Goga în viaţa politică a României (1918-1938), (Bucharest: Globus, 1993). 163 Pamfil Şeicaru, “Poezie şi politică: Octavian Goga,” in Carpaţi, 1955, no. 9-11; Republished next year as a brochure and recently in Pamfil Şeicaru, Scrieri din exil, (Bucharest: Saeculum I. O., 2002): 216-241. This short text was published in Madrid and until very recent has been unknown to the Romanian public. In the same category of texts it is the article of Paul A. Shapiro restricted to the period in which Goga was prime minister: “Prelude to Dictatorship in Romania: The National Christian Party in Power. Dec. 1937-Febr. 1938,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies (Pittsburg), VIII (Spring 1974): 45-88. 160

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actually Fătu subscribes to the same worldview as Goga did; his images and metaphors being largely indistinct or paraphrased from Goga. This probably is the reason for quoting Goga so extensively, some quotations being more than two pages long. Fătu is an open admirer of Goga and his arguments, when there are arguments, are identical with those of Goga. When they are about Goga’s ‘exaggerations’ Fătu suddenly disappears from the text. Fătu sees an indestructible unity in Goga’s works and he identifies himself with Goga’s national idea, although at the end he rejects Goga’s fascist views. Not surprisingly, Fătu himself is contradictory. He claims, for instance, that “what is monumental in Goga’s ideology about the national idea is the organic unity of all Romanians, a unity of soul, of feelings and aspirations with millenary roots in his unique and unitary abode,”164 while a little bit later he confesses that Goga used in a very confused way his term of national idea, that many foreign ingredients came to give substance to it and, finally, that even Goga did not understand completely what he was talking about.. As in many other cases, the historian interprets his primary sources based only on a vague personal view of the contemporary society of his subject. It is interesting how Fătu tries to discuss Goga’s antisemitism in the interwar Romanian period. During the war and immediately after it, he finds some reasons for accepting Goga’s concern about minorities and particularly the situation of the Jews. While, talking about a later period he barely finds acceptable the idea of “foreign invasion,” because, he argues, “the gradual infusion of antisemitic feelings is due to a hyperbolisation, a deformation of the causalities of the deficiencies of the Romanian society under the condition a massive presence of Jewish population who flooded Romania, in the storm of the war from Russia, Galitzia, Hungary and Germany, seeking survival.”165 But Fătu does not provide the sources of Goga’s antisemitism, but a very long quotation from an article, at the end of which Goga intuited that phenomenon, “sprung from reality.”166 In other words, Fătu does agree with Goga’s nationalism and the national idea, while in particular, he disagrees with some of Goga’s contextual exaggerations. He is not interested in the genesis of these “exaggerations” because they are, in his opinion, peripheral, accidental, unimportant, although regrettable. By no means are they a consequence of his nationalism, but of the extreme circumstances at the time. The second feature of his study is how the literary works of Goga are ignored, though Fătu stated very clearly the unity of Goga’s works: “he created 164

Ibid., 23. Ibid., 30. 166 Ibid., 32. 165

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a political weapon out of his poetry.” No mention is made of Goga’s poems, or to the metaphorical language used in his poems and articles. Actually, Fătu overlooks the entire period prior to 1918, including Goga’s political activities, because of the disciplinary cleavage that exists in Romanian historiography between ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ history.167 Goga, of course, continuied his efforts to conceptualize the state as a homogeneous, centralized, and authoritarian state, and there is no difference or cleavage between his pre-1918 and post-1918 fight for national emancipation. The cult of the state is the common element between Goga’s thought and that of late communist ideology. This was the main direction of reevaluating Goga’s activities in the late 1980s. In many respects, Fătu’s study belongs to the late communist historiography but because of its excessive nationalism and/or the difficulty of interpreting the subject on the official lines it had to wait for the end of the regime to be published.168 This trajectory from communist to post-socialism nationalism, in which the national ideology is radicalized, is typical for many authors of history texts. Fătu is a particular figure among communist historians. He took the communist nationalist ideology literally and personally. His claims about “commitment to an ample process of reconsideration of mode of thought and writing our national history,” and “the spiritual and professional trajectory taken by him as a historian who belongs to the Romanian people through genealogy and faith,” are illustrative in this respect.169 It is not only the lack of talent, but probably the professional isolation that made his study have an ephemeral and quasi-anonymous public life.170 The second commentary on Goga’s political activities and articles published after 1989 is by Constantin Schifirneţ, entitled “Octavian Goga’s conception of nation,” serves as the preface to a collection of selected articles written by Goga.171 Schifirneţ, in this short preface, purges Goga’s story of embarrassment elements, building a real monument to Goga. He puts asides exaggerations, 167

See note 8 from Introduction. Fătu confesses that he had started the work on this study in 1981. See Fătu, 10. 169 Ibid. 170 The book was not widely distributed, the publishing house disappeared, any other studies do not mention it, etc. However, unlike literary critics, the Romanian historians very rarely are quoting each others. Mostly because their way of writing tries to “reconstruct” a certain period, they are more interested in details and sources and not in arguments. This is why Fătu does not mention works by Ioan Scurtu or Florea Nedelcu, or historians of interwar Romanian history. 171 Octavian Goga, Naţionalism dezrobitor, Constantin Schifirneţ ed. (Bucharest: Albatros, 1998): v-xxxiii. 168

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mistakes, or other wrong political choices of Goga and sticks to the solid concept of nation. In Schifirneţ’s opinion, Goga was not a doctrinaire — as Fătu tried to prove — but a creator of “images and words out of the reality of the nation’s sufferings and sacrifices.”172 Ultimately, Goga has the incontestable merit of thinking and acting under the same principle of the national idea, though the period was confused, inconsistent, and ambiguous.173 Schifirneţ chooses to portray Goga’s public activity using five elements: a) the role of the writer for the national development, b) inspiration values taken from the peasant life, c) the role of national elite, d) his moral intransigence and criticism based on these values and, last but not least, e) the national idea, seen as the Archimedean point of his thinking. In the first section of the preface, Schifirneţ pays tribute to militant literature as understood by Goga. He even places Goga in the broader context of Central and Eastern Europe in which “the writer and the journalist are involved in the whirl of events and predisposed to put their creation under the commandments of the national idea.”174 Schifirneţ considers Goga’s case exemplary in this respect. His militancy did not reduce the esthetical attributes of his literature. On the contrary, Goga’s nationalism had an esthetic dimension, which assured his popularity. Aspiring to become a pedagogue of the nation, poetry was insufficient for Goga; this is why he became attracted to journalism very early on in his life. “The trader with the national idea” is the opposite character, the journalist condottiere, as Goga often said it in his writings. The nationalpress is the most important instrument for state consolidation, being a source of civic education, a course of national pedagogy. Schifirneţ does not comment on this perspective on the national press and does not take distance from it; however he implies that Goga is a real model for “a journalist who adapted himself to his role in forming favorable opinions for the national idea.”175 The second element is “the peasant matrix.” The village is the foundation of Romanian ethnicity of which fundamental traits can be found in Goga’s works. Goga believes it is possible to discover Romanian spirituality in the peasant, the kind of spirituality that is not contaminated by other cultures. Schifirneţ affirms “it is wrong to consider Goga as an uprooted rural man or as nostalgic after his childhood because it is nothing else than a deformation of the real sense of

172

Ibid., v. Ibid., xxxiii. 174 Ibid., viii. 175 Ibid., xi. 173

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Goga’s thought.”176 And here Schifirneţ takes Goga literally when he depicts himself as simply an observer of village life, and when he uses the Romanian village as a criterion for the affirmation of the Romanian nation because it includes the defining components of national being. He goes even further in justifying Goga: It must be said that in any modern state the rural culture has been considered as one of the preeminent arguments in supporting nationhood. In justifying the national reality, it is crucial to prove the existence of indelible traits: stability, oldness, continuity, homogeneity, originality, and specificity of an ethnic group. Or in Goga’s vision, the Romanian peasant and village possess those virtues that cannot be seen in the urban areas or in other social categories… Goga’s conception about the peasant’s exemplarity should be understood in its concrete mechanisms that led him to express his thoughts. Goga… manifested an acute interest for rigorous delimitation of what we call today the agents of modern development of the nation-state.177

The intellectual affiliation with Goga is evident although Schifirneţ tries to appear as neutral as possible. He takes for granted many “profound characterizations and judgments” without considering their original sources and wrongly affirming their originality and genuineness. This is the case with Goga’s conception of the elite. The idea of the “two cultures of the nation” has a long history; it was not Goga’s original observation, Schifirneţ implies. As mentioned earlier, Goga adopted it from Tăslăuanu, who in his turn adopted it from other Austro-Marxist authors of the time. The very idea of the existence of two cultures (peasants and elites) is an ideological reading of social realities out of which many traditionalist currents were formed (i.e. sămănătorismul, poporanismul, etc). The lack of communicability between the two cultures has as a corollary the estrangement of elites and their need of returning to the roots of culture. This is basically narodnikism and was common in European presocialist movements. Goga happened to illustrate this social and political cleavage. What is indeed true in Schifirneţ’s interpretation, an understanding of Goga the intellectual who is in opposition to the previous traditional elite, perceived as uprooted and estranged. For Goga, to be part of the national elite is to join the efforts of certain elected individuals who participate in the ethnic pedagogy. The priest and the teacher are the popular figures of this militant image of 176

Ibid., xii-xiv. Schifirneţ most probably refers to Ovidiu Papadima interpretation on Goga’s work, above mentioned, though he does not mention him. 177 Ibid., xiv-xv. It is unknown from where Schifirneţ borrowed this “agents of modern development of nation-state.”

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society because they are in a direct relation with the peasants, and, some may say, the journalist who contains both. All of them are the national enlighteners, the apostles of their folks. Once again, Schifirneţ is a captive mind in the militant universe of Goga’s nationalism when he recognizes “the profoundness of Romanian existence”178 in it. The scandal of 1910 was one of the outcomes of this ideological understanding of Transylvanian realities. Schifirneţ, who in 1997 published two volumes about and from Aurel C. Popovici’s work, is aware of the Tribuna scandal and refers to it. However, he cannot understant the main issue of this scandal. Actually, Schifirneţ cannot imagine a Transylvanian Romanian society that was not fully irredentist. Taking as real the natural inclination of ethnic groups to create nation-states, Schifirneţ explains somehow why not all Romanians in Austria-Hungary were enthusiastic about the irredentist movement. The explanation was simple and provided in one of Goga’s articles: these Romanians we just estranged from the national idea. Any ideology that seeks to create a new world and a ‘new man’ has its own morality that is based on the choice between good and bad, between two cultures. This is the fourth element that Schifirneţ found to be important: Goga’s moral intransigence and criticism. He praised Goga’s moral verticality though he cannot see the ideological roots of his nationalist ethic. Guilt, treason, desertion, virtue, dignity, and heroism are based on a “new moral generated by the national idea.”179 The indifference of public opinion toward moral desertions was the principal obstacle to national emancipation, but at the same time was also the main drive of the political radicalism in Goga’s articles. Or, taking for granted this ‘new morality” as a valuable element, Schifirneţ does not take into account Goga’s inclination toward the extreme-right. Goga’s concept of primenire (refreshing, invigoration, change) is perceived as “a necessary process for accomplishing the national idea.”180 This is why Schifirneţ cannot see how damaging the national idea was for the Romanian society of the interwar period. It was not only criticism but a ‘national revolution’ aiming to change the entire society, and not simply to fix a few deficiencies in it. Finally, the national idea, the expression used so often by Goga, is “the premise and the target of national liberation, of which consequence the Romanian state can be created within ethnic borders.”181 Schifirneţ 178

Schifirneţ, xx. Ibid., xxiv. 180 Ibid., xxvii. 181 Ibid., xxix. 179

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acknowledges the centrality of the national idea for Goga’s works and sees the primordialist stance on which it was based. What he does not see, and this is in the Marxist-Leninist tradition, is the political foundation of an extremist movement. Ethnic diversity was the main obstacle against the national idea and thus it should be removed by any means. Goga considered that this diversity was a historical accident that must be corrected by adequate Romanian national policy. Minorities, historical regions, ethnic differences, and in the final end, the entire society must undergo a national purge out of which the homogeneous nation state should emerge. Following Goga, Schifirneţ believes thata nationalism is a liberating principle, no matter how many collateral victims it may cost. Goga’s slogan “Romania for the Romanians” is, for Schifirneţ, a generous but condemning in some respects principle, though the cruel reality stands against it.182 The minority rights imposed by foreign insistences were one of the elements of this “cruel” reality. Another is the penetration of state institutions by ethnic minorities supported by some Romanian groups. Schifirneţ proposes as solution an economic and financial strategy or a social and cultural program rather than the administrative anti-Semitic restrictions chosen by Goga. But he too accepts that “Goga is not to be blamed for a lack of vision as far as many other historians, sociologists, and politicians bet on the same solutions.”183 * These are quite a few among all the comments and critics of Goga’s works. With some notable exceptions, most of them advocate Goga’s opinions without taking any critical distance from his idea(l)s. After the communist take over, the problem of reevaluating Goga was so difficult that most of the authors chose just fragments of his life and works, fragments out of which no complete understanding of Goga could emerge. The post communist re-reevaluation happened actually alongthe same lines like the previous communist one, but the emphasis on nationalism was more visible.

182 183

Ibid., xxxii. Ibid., xxxiii.

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CHAPTER 3. The Young Man Goga and his Triumph as National Poet [1881-1907] § 1. Turn of the Century in Transylvania. Activism, Passivism and the Tribunist Movement. Goga was born on March 20, 1881, in the same year in which Romanian National Party was created by a national conference in Sibiu. What is relevant for the formation of young Goga was the public debate between the so-called passivists and activists vis-a vis the Romanian participation in the political life of Hungary and the subsequent acceptance of the Hungarian constitution and of the union of Transylvania with Hungary (1868).1 The passivist policy of the Romanian elite of Transylvania was a response to the Compromise of 1867 when the Habsburg Empire became a dual monarchy and Transylvania was incorporated into Hungary. Greek Catholic (Uniate) clergy and members perceived this as a betrayal by the Court of Vienna despite Romanian loyalty proven in 1848. The opposition to the 1867 Hungarian Constitution was clearly voiced by Simion Bărnuţiu and Ioan Raţiu and continued until 1905 when it finally faded. The moderates were inspired by the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Andrei Şaguna. They advocated that it is better to do something than to do nothing.2 These two tactics regarding national policy had various forms depending on the context and were endorsed by supporters in each camp. Originally, the two camps were delimited not only by their political attitude but by their confession as well. Their two main journals were Gazeta de Transilvania (Gazette of Transylvania) and Telegraful Român (Romanian Telegraph) both under the authority of church hierarchs. The situation became more complicated after 1884 when a third camp emerged around the journal Tribuna. ‘The Tribunists,’ as they called themselves, were a group of young intellectuals led by Ioan Rusu-Şirianu and Ioan Slavici. The Tribunists dramatically changed the Romanian public life in Transylvania managing to pfuse a form of radicalism with activism that was successful in an atmosphere of despair and confusion after two decades of apathy and non-action.

1

For an overview of this debate see Keith Hitchins, A Nation Affirmed: The Romanian National Movement in Transylvania, 1860-1914, (Bucharest: The Encyclopedic Publishing House, 1999). 2 Ibid., 115.

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The local roots of Tribuna are closer to those of Telegraful Român because it is at the latter journal where the Tribunists began their propaganda. It was Nicolae Cristea,3 appointed by Şaguna as director of Telegraful Român, who invited Slavici, Brote and other young intellectuals to edit Foişoara Telegrafului Român (The Leaflet of the Romanian Telegraph). Slavici, the main founder of Tribuna, was close to the conservative circle of Junimea in Jassy. There, Titu Maiorescu, one of the leading figures of Junimea, inaugurated the so-called “new direction on Romanian culture,” which vehemently opposed the Transylvanian Latinist School whose representatives were, initially, the Uniate clergy. One of Maiorescu’s main opponents was Bariţiu, a radical advocate of passivism. One of Bariţiu’s theories was that modern Romanians, as descendants of the ancient Romans, should adopt the Roman code of law because this code is the most appropriate for the national character of the Romanians. Maiorescu reacted to this proposal in a series of bitter philippics.4 As a conservative, he argued against radical or revolutionary reforms.5 This early cultural debate had many consequences during the 1880s when the Tribunists sought to promote their own “new direction” in Transylvania. In a certain way, also, Tribuna definitively brought Junimist ideas to Transylvania.6 There, the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church warmly welcomed the new direction because it was a useful counterbalance to the overwhelming influence of the Greek Catholic clergy, who enjoyed a widder prestige in terms of defending Romanian national values. Undermining the Latinist tendency was similar to undermining the legacy of the Transylvanian School. This is why the “new direction” was initially harbored by Telegraful

3

For the role played by Nicolae Cristea see Keith Hitchins, “Nicolae Cristea şi mişcarea naţională românească din Transylvania,” in Studii prinvind istoria modernă a Transilvaniei, (Cluj: Dacia, 1970): 117-166. 4 Titu Maiorescu, Critice, (Bucharest: Editura pentru literatură, 1967). 5 In the same way he opposed to the liberal model of modernity that was perceived by him much as a copy of France modernity than a pertinent political program, “a form without substance” as he put it, a formula that became famous. 6 Tăslăuanu, in his Testimonies, reject this idea. He underlines that Romanian language was ‘clean’ from foreign influences in those purely Romanian villages from the periphery of the Habsburg Empire. At the same time, the religious language preserved, in his opinion, a language untouched by Latinist influences. His aim was to undermine the Junimist influences on Luceafărul. See, Tăslăuanu, Testimonies, 27.

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Român.7 Moreover, Telegraful Român promoted and even distributed Convorbiri Literare, the Junimist journal from Jassy, to his subscribers.8 Yet, Slavici, from a humbler social extraction than most of the Junimists, was receptive to liberal influences as well. Sensitive to the populist rhetoric of liberals, he accepted financial support from the Romanian Liberal Party in order to found Tribuna in Hermanstadt (Sibiu). In 1877, this party returned to power under the leadership of Ion Brătianu, and the achievement of independence strengthened its position. In 1883, the young Romanian Kingdom joined the Triple Alliance. From that moment the situation of Hungarian Romanians became a matter of diplomacy discord for Bucharest and Budapest. A rapprochement between Hungarians and Romanians was necessary in order to ease diplomatic relations between the two countries. The treaty was kept secret precisely because of the unfavorable public opinion about this alliance. Under these circumstances, Brătianu financially supported Tribuna in order to establish a new current of moderation and mutual understanding between Romanians and Hungarians in Transylvania.9 In other words, the appearance of Tribuna was a sign that Bucharest was a political center able to influence the political pleas of Transylvanian Romanians. As a result of these various influences, Tribuna appeared in 1884 in Hermanstadt and soon became a distinct voice among all the other Romanian journals. The cultural program it promoted was Junimist conservative and its political program was inspired by the Romanian liberals, the result being an interesting form of populism or neo-conservatism. Slavici called this current ‘poporanism,’ whose meaning was closer to the narodnik movement, a return to the people. The Tribunists were closer to the activists but did not identify with them. Their activism was mainly cultural, seeking to unite Romanian culture, i.e. to reduce the cultural differences among the Romanians from both sides of the Carpathians on the basis of Junimist principles. This cultural activism, or militancy, was an intermediate stage between the passivism of the 1870s and the political activism of the 1900s.10 There is no doubt that Tribuna

7

Initially there were four journalists who in 1876 created The Leaflet of the Romanian Telegraph, namely Ilarion Puşcariu, Dimitrie Comşa, Daniil Popovici Barcianu and Eugen Brote. The Leaflet survived about two years and it was assimilated into the main journal. 8 See Lucian Boia, Eugen Brote, (Bucharest: Litera, 1974): 27. 9 Titu Maiorescu, Istoria politică a României sub domnia lui Carol I, (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1994): 148. Originally was published in 1917 under the title Istoria contemporană a României. 10 Ioan Slavici, Tribuna şi tribuniştii, (Orăştie: Minerva, Institut Tipografic, 1896) republished in Ioan Slavici, Opere, vol. 13, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1984): 187-275; See also Ioan Slavici,

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had a significant role in the education of young Goga, both in literary and political terms. Romanian liberals’ influence over Tribuna turned against the Tribunists themselves a decade later. The road to political activism was obstructed by the harsh policy of the Hungarian Liberal Party in power for more than 30 years. Under the leadership of Kálmán Tisza, “the General,” prime minister of Hungary between 1875 and 1890, Hungary’s Liberal government sought to restrict as much as possible non-Hungarian national movements and to preserve the Hungarian nation-state as he envisioned it. His policy was successful and in the late 1870s the Romanian national movement was barely active.11 Under these circumstances, the new activism of the Tribunists initiated the Memorandum, a petition to Emperor Franz Joseph to express the grievances of the Romanians. The final version was drafted in 188912 but only in 1892, the P.N.R. decided to form a delegation to travel to Vienna in order to hand Franz Joseph the document. The plan was a fiasco. The delegation did not meet Franz Joseph, and they were forced to leave the document at the chancellery. Furthermore, the document was send back unopened to Ioan Raţiu, the P.N.R’s president. All of the members of the delegation were charged with treason and many convicted. A year latter, the P.N.R. itself was officially banned by the Hungarian Prime-Minister, Sándor Werkele. This failure and the disappearance of the P.N.R.13 created confusion among the Romanians and seriously undermined the trust of many intellectuals in the good faith of the Emperor. This crisis highlighted the problem with Romanian liberal influences in Transylvania. The Tribunists and other Romanian leaders trusted the new liberal leader, Dimitrie Sturdza, who, in 1891, began a violent electoral campaign, exploiting the Romanian problem in Hungary.14 He took control of The League for the Cultural Union of all Romanians15 founded by Slavici, and used it to obtain public support urging the draft of a student manifesto. The movement was amplified when a group of Romanians from Kolozsvár responded to this manifesto and when thereafter Aurel C. Popovici published Sbuciumările politice la Românii din Ungaria, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1911); and Amintiri, (Bucharest: Editura pentru literatură, 1967). 11 Hitchins, A Nation Affirmed, 122. 12 The previous versions were drafted by V. Babeş (1884), and I. Slavici (1887). The last version which was chosen was of Iuliu Coroianu (1888). 13 P.N.R. survived only as an electoral committee able to function only before the elections. 14 Dimitrie Strudza was the first Romanian politician who brought into the parliament the Transylvanian problem and the Jewish question for his political advantage. See in this respect Titu Maiorescu, Istoria politică a României …, 199-204. 15 Shortly called Liga Culturală (The Cultural League).

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Replica.16 Eventually, Popovici was tried in absentia, found guilty of subversion, and convicted to four years in prison. Soonafter, the trial of the Memorandists began and Tribuna ceased its publication until 1894. Meanwhile, the Romanian liberal champion for the rights of Hungarian Romanians, Dimitrie Sturdza, was appointed prime minister by Carol I. He had exploited the public emotions caused the Memorandists’ trial and openly charged the conservatives for betraying the Transylvanian Romanians. Once in power, instead of supporting the Memorandists, he offered them only the chance to emigrate to Romania where to resume their fight under the banner of the Cultural League. Latter, he was forced to apologize to the Hungarian government and even to decorate Sándor Jeszenszky, the chief prosecutor in the Replica and Memorandum cases.17 Eventually, due to Carol I’s intervention, the Memorandists were released from prison and a royal pardon was granted to all of those involved. If Hungarian liberalism was never an option for the new Romanian Transylvanian elite,18 after the Memorandum the Romanian liberals too became politically unpalatable for the Transylvanian Romanians. Once released from prison, the leaders of the P.N.R. were eager to get rid of the Tribunists from the National Committee. The main charges were that the Tribunists abandoned the goal of Transylvanian autonomy19 and they subdued the Romanian national movement in Hungary to the partisan political life of Bucharest. Then, the 16

Aurel C. Popovici, Cestiunea Română din Transilvania şi Ungaria. Replica Junimei Academice Române din Transilvania şi Ungaria la “Răspunsul” dat de junimea academică maghiară “Memoriului” studenţilor Universitari din România co o hartă etnografică a Austro-Ungariei şi a României, 2nd ed. (Vienna, Budapest, Graz, Cluj: Editura proprietatea autorului, 1892). The length and quality of this Replica was impressive for that moment. Popovici managed to mobilize students from all European Universities and to gather an extraordinary amount of data. Comparing to other accounts on the situation of Romanian within the Habsburg Monarchy (Brote, Slavici, and others), this exposé exceeded by far any other similar attempts. This is why, probably, the leaders of P.N.R. focused only on principles in their Memorandum and not on data, which were to be found in Replica. There are no sources for comparison, but it seems that Replica had a better distribution in Romanian and in Europe as well than Memorandum. 17 Sándor Jeszenszky was an interesting figure in the history of Romanian-Hungarian relations. After the Memorandum episode, he was appointed by Prime Minister Dezső Bánffy as the chair of the department of ‘nationality affair’ (1895-1901). Later, in the elections of 1910, he was the supervisor of the most aggressive elections of Hungary. See Zoltán Szász, History of Transylvania, (Boulder: Social Science Monographs, 2002), 696, 717-718. 18 It is about the young activist generation after 1903, when the Romanian National Party from Transylvania was united with the Romanian National Party from Banat and Hungary in a single party. 19 This goal was previously questioned by neither passivists nor activists.

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problem of Tribuna came to the fore. Who controls Tribuna and how can Tribuna be the official journal of the P.N.R. though its editorial staff was rejected by the National Committee? Finally, Raţiu managed to force Brote to sell the Typographic Institute and to put it under the much stricter control of the National Committee. Tribuna continued its publication, but its importance rapidly decreased. Meanwhile, the Tribunists found support in Arad20 where they founded Tribuna Poporului (The People’s Tribune) in 1897 under the direction of Ioan Rusu-Şirianu, Slavici’s nephew. Once again, the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church helped the Tribunists.21 More precisely, Iosif Goldiş, the vicar of Nagyvárad/Oradea Mare, who run in the parliamentary election with a governmental program and eventually became a deputy for the Ceica electoral district (circle) a year before, helped the Tribunists to edit their journal again in Arad, which was, by then, the center of the newly emerging activism. Soon after, the debate activism versus passivism was resumed and no agreement was reached until 1905 when under the circumstances of the electoral defeat of the Hungarian Liberal Party and the political crisis caused by a nationalist coalition that won the elections, the Transylvanian Romanians decided the moment was favorable for political action. Ironically, the Romanians entered the Hungarian parliament at a moment when the liberals withdrew from it. Then the only period of open activism for the P.N.R. was the period in which the Hungarian parliament was controlled by a coalition of nationalist parties and the only opposition was from the other nationalities. This fight between passivists and activists, and the evolution of Tribuna was the background for the development of young man Goga. In Hermanstadt, Braşov and Budapest, he witnessed the struggle between these factions. His father, an orthodox priest was a subscriber to Telegraful Român22 and later to Tribuna. Tribuna was not only a political journal, but a cultural one as well. The Tribunists published many literary texts in a fresh and modern language, comparing with those traditionally close to the Latinist School, based on the cultural criteria of Junimea. This way of merging politics with literature was novel and Tribuna manage to reach an unprecedented popularity because of it. 20

Arad was not in Transylvania proper and Transylvanian autonomy was never an issue for the Romanian elites from Arad. Then, the passivist camp was weak. 21 Iosif Goldiş, the Orthodox bishop of Arad, Vasile Mangra, the Episcopal vicar of Oradea, Roman Ciorogariu, the director of the theological institute in Arad, and Vasile Goldiş, the secretary of the consistory and nephew of Iosif Goldiş. Nicolae Oncu, director of Victoria Bank in Arad, was among the supporters of the People’s Tribune as well. It is interesting that the first chief-editor of Tribuna Poporului was Aurel P. Barcianu, possibly a relative of Goga on the maternal side. 22 Ion Dodu Bălan mentions that Iosif Goga even wrote couples of articles in Telegraful Român.

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It came naturally that Goga collaborated with Tribuna from early on in his career, already in late 1899 when he was in Braşov. However, Goga will become a Tribunist later, after achieving his literary success. § 2. The Crisis of Traditional Politics There are many studies about Transylvania in the late nineteenth century as far as Transylvania became an important element in political legitimization of the Romanian communist regime. According to these studies, the history of Transylvania within the Habsburg Monarchy was characterized by a permanent struggle for Romanian national emancipation and a continuous struggle for union with the other Romanian provinces in order to fulfill the millenary national ideal of the nation-state. This is why the history of Transylvania is a political history par excellence. A broader consideration of Transylvania within the Habsburg Empire may bring some new interpretative elements and break the monotonous list of debates and negotiations between factions of the P.N.R. or between the P.N.R. and the Hungarian Government. In this respect, the cultural history of fin-de-siècle Vienna and Budapest may be inspiring and useful in order to recuperate the intellectual sources of many Romanian intellectuals who were educated in German, Austrian or Hungarian universities. Many historians do mention the student associations active in national propaganda,23 but most of them fail to grasp the extent of involvement of these young intellectuals in the cultural environments of their university cities. The case of the Tribunists is telling in this respect. The story goes back to 1871 when a group of students in Vienna sought to organize a pilgrimage to Putna, a monastery where Stephen the Great, a medieval voivode of Moldavia, was buried. They created România Jună (The Young Romania), a student association, and organized the 400 years celebration of Stephen’sdeath as a commemorative event for all Romanians. Among those students were Mihai Eminescu and Ioan Slavici.24 Besides the immediate national connotations, these efforts of a group of young Romanian intellectuals from Vienna to call for ‘cultural unity’ had another meaning. It was the moment when a new philoGerman cultural current emerged among Romanians in the Old Kingdom while the French liberal tradition was in decline. Eminescu and Slavici were Junimists, and they fought against other currents inspired by the Enlightenment tradition and romantic liberalism. As Slavici recalled: 23 24

It was the case of Romania Jună from Vienna so active in drafting and publishing Replica. See Ioan Slavici, Amintiri, 40-77.

84 When I came to Vienna, I found there Bukovinian, Transylvanian, Hungarian, Banatian, Moldavian, Muntenian Romanians, and even a Bassarabian, Stamati, and a Mecedonnian, Carajani. Then, some of them were Bariţians, others Babeşians, and others Şagunians or federalists. Yet, there were among us people like me who realized that all of us are Romanians and that we should work together in the cultural life even though we preserved our own political opinions.25

These new advocates of Romanian culture were deeply influenced by German politics and culture and impressed by Germany’s sound victory over France (1871). Civilisation was slowly overshadowed by Kultur, and these young students were the bearers of this change and the disparate ingredients of the German ideology based on a new sense of unity and a new understanding of culture as a unifying factor in society. The Romanian conservatives came to power and the intellectuals around Junimea literary circle entered Parliament in 1871, because of the political crisis caused by the German victory over France.26 Their political success was perceived by many Transylvanian Romanians as a consecration of the “new direction” of Romanian culture advocated by Maiorescu and his Junimist colleagues. This “new direction” was adopted by the Tribunists who brought to Transylvania not only political ideas from Romania but also fresh cultural models. Their position was not that of in-between activists and passivists, but of outsiders. The Tribunists created a new political realm in which the idea of national identity became more important than the ideal of Transylvanian autonomy. They aimed to address all Romanians and to claim their cultural union, and as a matter of fact, the Romanians from Hungary (the Banat, Partium and Maramures) were as numerous as those from Transylvania proper, a fact that did not seem important for the Romanian traditional elites. The

25 26

Ibid., 239. Traditionally Romanian liberals were philo-French. The news about the defeat of France caused disturbances that the minister of interior was unable or unwilling to stop. Then Carol I, a Hohenzollern otherwise, wanted to abdicate after facing such an affront. The royal lieutenant, Lascăr Catargiu, asked him to change his mind and promised an authoritative conservative government. Soon after the moment when the conservatives were asked to form the government, one of the conservative leaders, Costa-Foru, went to Jassy and offered the Junimists the chance to play a role in the new political circumstances. The Junimists, a group of young conservative aristocrats, accepted and formed the young wing of the Conservative Party. From then on, Junimea reach higher respectability and political influence. Their political influence lasted until the end of the First World War. Their traditional philo-German policy caused their post war unpopularity and the dissolution of the Conservative Party. See Titu Maiorescu, Istoria politică a României.

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Tribunists democratized the idea of nation and of national policy, addressing the popular masses or at least trying to broaden their audience. Their discourse was profoundly different from those used by the activists and the passivists. Keith Hitchins refers to a change in the leadership of the national movement that happened in the 1870s. Then, church leaders slowly lost control of the national movement in favor of a new generation of politicians with rather liberal professions. In the 1880s, there began similar changes and the lawyers were challenged by young writers who attained legitimacy in the eyes of the public opinion. The way of arguing based on rationality and justice was replaced by a cultural argument that refused the given reality in favor of another, more ‘profound’ and idealistic, national reality. For example, the issue of Transylvanian autonomy was central for Raţiu’s generation but was somehow irrelevant for the Tribunists because it referre only to those from Transylvania and not to all Romanians who lived in various Austro-Hungarian provinces (the Banat, Bukowina, Maramures), each with its own institutional traditions. For the former, institutions were paramount to express the right of national existence. For the latter, cultural creativity was the best plea for affirming national rights. According to the Tribunists, the lawyers and medical doctors distanced themselves from the popor (i. e. ordinary people) due to their studies at foreign universities. Furthermore, institutions ‘imposed’ on the Romanians living in various empires were nothing else than obstacles toward the accomplishment of the ‘real’ union that can only be achieved based on the ‘true’ Romanian, the peasant untouched by a foreign civilization. It was a different culture which challenged the traditional political establishment; as Carl Schorske brilliantly put it, there were two cultures, “the culture of law and the culture of grace.”27 The similarities with the Austrian case do not stop here. The crisis of liberalism was general and dominatedd the political realm. On the one hand, Hungarian liberalism was not an option because the Hungarian liberals designed the 1867 Compromise and the 1868 union of Transylvania with Hungary. Then, a less and less liberal policy towards the nationalities followed by a liberal government discouraged many Romanians to consider Hungarian liberalism as an option, though there were people like Vasile Mangra and others who chose to be on the government electoral lists. However, after the electoral defeat of 1906, István Tisza dissolved the Liberal Party and, after four years of no active politics, he founded the National Party of Work (Nemzeti

27

Carl Schorske, “Grace and the World: Austria’s Two Cultures and Their Modern Fate,” Austrian History Yearbook, XXII (1991): 26.

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Munkapárt). This may imply that liberalism was not the reason for Mangra’s support of the Hungarian government but rather loyalty for the Emperor.28 On the other hand, the disappointment in Romanian liberal policy towards the Romanian question in Hungary was paramount. After the episode of the Memorandum and Sturdza’s shameful back tracking, the Transylvanian Romanians realized that Romanian liberals were not able or willing to help them and to put pressure on the Hungarian government. Their ambiguous support for the Tribunists made the entire Romanian establishment in Hungary very cautious about the political influence coming from the Romanian Kingdom. The crisis of liberalism was more profound than the level of political debates, affecting the entire political culture. Its main vehicle was the mistrust in institutions that were controlled by an increasingly centralized Hungarian government. Administration, schools and even the church came under the control of the government. In an unsigned article in Tribuna, it was suggested that the Romanians should renounced their confessional schools because of governmental pressure (the Appony law), relying instead on journalism to provide a national education.29 Under these circumstances, culture and art became more important that politics and administration, and the idea of national emancipation slowly turned from a focus on political rights, state positions and administrative control to one on literature and art. As Schorske noticed, “art became transformed from an ornament to an essence, from an expression of value to a source of value.”30 More voices accused the Romanian political establishment in Hungary of being estranged from the people and indifferent to their needs. This is reflected in 1875, when the activists lost the elections in Miercurea,31 and again in 1889 when Hossu-Longin accused the Transylvnanian Romanian intellectuals of “failing to form a close relationship with the mass of the people and gain their confidence.”32 This accusation soon became the cornerstone of the Tribunists. No matter how many political efforts were undertaken by the P.N.R., no matter what brilliant discourses were delivered in the Hungarian parliament, no matter what

28

This was the argument of Ioan Slavici in his Sbuciumările politice…, already mentioned. The author was most probably Ilarie Chendi. ***, “Rolul presei nostre,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 238 (November 5/18, 1910): 1. 30 C. Schorske, Fin de Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980): 10. 31 Telegraful Român, XXIII, no. 50 (June 26/July 8, 1865): 1 and no. 55 (July 13/23, 1875): 1; mentioned by Hitchins, 116. 32 Quoted by Hitchins, 135. 29

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obstacles were overcome, the reason for P.N.R’s electoral failure was found in its lack of intimacy with the popor. The sign of having a good relationship with the popor was not a political activity but a literary one. In this respect Goga appeared at the right moment and the right place as an incarnation of this intimate relationship with the soul of the people. The problem of estrangement and alienation did not have a solution or even a meaning for traditional liberal culture. Political immobility, artificiality and pretence undermined the social perspective, raising the problems of identity and communication.33 The language as a basis of social and political identity affected by distrust and the cleavages between appearance and reality made the new messianic message possible. “The politics of reason was transformed into a politics of fantasy.”34 Initially, nobody realized these change. When they did, cafter Aurel C. Popovici dared to attack Goga’s rhetoric, vocabulary and fantasies, it was too late In the last instance, the change envisioned by the Tribunists was similar with the political novelty brought about by Lueger’s Christian Socials in Vienna: a new rhetoric, a new kind of party organization, and new methods of political struggle.35 Essentially, it was an effort to bring new segments of the non-voting population under party influence and to differentiate between political audiences.36 An article published by Românul against these new Tribunist ideas is significant in this respect.37 The Tribunists, as Lueger’s Chistian-Socials, sought to “shift beyond notability and voluntarism to a more coercive, disciplined style of politics in which the party ceases to be a collection of individuals and become an entity surpassing individual discretion or defense.”38 In the article by Alexandru Vaida-Voievod, we can see a number of reactions to the Tribunists’ ideas, reactions that are suggestive of the kind of criticism Tribuna was directing

33

See in this respect Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein’s Vienna, (New York: Touchstone, 1973): 63-65. 34 Ibid., 50. 35 Carl Lueger, the well known mayor of Vienna, was very popular among Romanians for his anti-Hungarian views. See John W. Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848-1897, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1981) 36 Ibid., 370. 37 Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, “‘Idei’ pe cari pretinde ‘Tribuna’ să le realizeze comitetul partidului naţional român — Cum şi cînd a stăruit ‘Tribuna’ pentru relizarea acestor idei’,“ in Românul, I, no. 109 (May 18/31, 1911): 2-4. 38 Boyer, 372.

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towards the National Committee.39 One idea was to create cultural centers all over the country and not only in the large cities. Though it was about “cultural decentralization,” actually the Tribunist author supported the idea of a much better and uniform organization of the Romanian villages. The other one was to organize a census for the Romanian population with the help of priests and teachers. What Vaida replied, was that the P.N.R. had an insufficient organization to support such a large enterprise; more importantly, the P.N.R. itself did not exist as a ‘party’ but as an electoral ‘club’. Other accusations made by the Tribunists were on the same line. For example, the P.N.R. was blamed for being unable to defend the Romanian schools from forced Magyarization, and, because of its lack of efficiency, the P.N.R. had lost the elections. The overwhelming argument was a lack of organization, although it was somehow ridiculous to ask for a better organization under the existing circumstances, in which the party was banned and reduced to an electoral committee. In addition, to this new style of organizing a party, a new rhetoric and aesthetic was advocated by the Tribunists. The notion of nation was gradually change into a supra-individual and a more profound reality that existed above the individual. Art became a didactic instrument involved in political and social affairs. It was the influence of Jungenstill or Sezession whose members offered the background for this aestheticization of public discourse.40 Without a party, without schools, without other institutions and administrative control, the Tribunists sought to use the most precious weapon in their national fight, journalism, but in doing so they aimed to change the entire public discourse. In 1902, Luceafărul appeared in Budapest. The entire style of the young student review was modelled after Sezession though the editors were interested in literature rather than visual arts. However, the program was the same: a literature or culture freed of traditional prejudices, related to the present reality and disseminated as widely as possible. § 3. Goga’s First Literary Attempts and the First Seeds of Revolt There are few accounts about Goga’s childhood, some of them late recollections by Goga himself, texts which were adapted to reflect the lines of his new ideological agenda. Onisifor Ghibu is among Goga’s early friends who 39 40

Vaida, “Idei…” In this respect see James Shedel, Art and Society. The New Art Movement in Vienna, 18971914. (Palo Alto: The Society for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship, 1981).

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wrote about him before the enrolement at to the University of Budapest.41 According to Ghibu and, as a matter of fact, seeing his high-school records,42 Goga was a serious student with very good results. He was known as a capable young man who writes nice poems and knows many verses from Hungarian and Romanian literature.43 He was aware of his potential and was acting accordingly. When he was invited by the reading society “Vörösmarty Mihály” for a lecture, he only derisively accepted to present a lecture “On nothing.” Later, he refused to join the Hungarian national holiday celebration of the 15th of March because the song he was asked to sing included the verses “If my country would call me to fight and die for her, I’ll do it with enthusiasms.”44 Another episode was about Goga’s history professor, Tompa Arpád, who could not tolerate the indifference of his students and threw a clock at Goga. Such outburst seems to be the exception, but Goga and his friend Lucaci went directly to the director of the high-school and asked to be moved to another school in Braşov. The director’s embarrassment and the commitment of the two students suggest that the incident was rather uncommon and the decision to depart for another school might have been already taken by them. However, Ghibu implies that “the departure of the two students brought a shadow of uneasiness over the fame of the school.”45 The story is quite far from what Goga later remembered as a continuous struggle for national survival and the permanent pressure of Magyarization. However, he might have had moments of depression, as he was away from his parents and home. Some verses illustrate this separration: It is hard to live among strangers And you feel hard pains when you prick yourself At their indifference!46

41

See Onisifor Ghibu, “Octavian Goga,” in Amintiri despre oameni pe care i-am cunoscut, (Cluj: Dacia, 1974); and in Oameni între oameni, (Bucharest: Eminescu, 1990): 27-128. The later version is used here. 42 Published by Bălan in Octavian Goga, 43-51. 43 Ghibu, Oameni între oameni, 27-28. 44 Ibid., 31. 45 Ibid., 32. 46 Octavian Goga, “E greu să stai între străini,” in Poezii, Dan Smântânescu (ed.), (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1973): 78; This volume of poetry includes just 41 poems or poetical attempts found in Goga’s Latin notebook, few of his early published poems and some variants of the other ones published later. He used to write poems on different notebooks and some of them were preserved in his memorial house in Ciucea or in other private collections. The Latin notebook was found in the early 1960s in the box full of school notebooks possessed by an old teacher from Braşov. This notebook was transformed by Goga in a veritable confessional.

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After Goga left the Hungarian high-school in Sibiu and went to Braşov to a Romanian school, he retained a certain aura of dissent. However, in Sibiu, his former colleagues, according to Ghibu, celebrated him as a hero.47 They read his poems “In Calumniatores,” which was among the first poems published by Goga, with a great admiration and jealously for his courage.48 In this poem, Goga reacted against the negative public reception for the Tribunist idea of a national monument dedicated to Avram Iancu. What is interesting in this poem is not the idealization of the past or the praise of Iancu but Goga’s polemical nerve. Nowadays, oppressors invaded our temple And thievishly profaned the old sacred altar, They try to steal the only gift of fate: The sweet memory in which our ancestors still lives, Those who had lived only for us.49

Actually, in the second poem published in Tribuna, he defended the Tribunist ideas. However, this was the last year of high school and after the Baccalaureate, he went to Budapest to continue his studies. From there, he continued his literary collaboration with Tribuna until the summer of 1902 when he began to publish in Luceafărul. The first poems of Goga were mostly about nature, love, disappointments, and unhappiness.50 These were common topics for an epigone of Eminescu. Goga, as many other young men of the time, was seduced by late romanticism. Eminescu was even more appealing for the young man Goga, for his father too was a supporter of the Junimist “new direction” in Romanian culture for which Eminescu was the undisputed national poet. The fact that Eminescu was hosted in 1868 by Goga’s grandfather, who helped him cross the border into Romania, made this relationship even stronger. Eminescu’s romantic influence was openly acknowledged by Goga in his Autobiographical fragments:51 47

Ghibu, Oameni între oameni, 32-33. In 1894 Ioan Russu Şirianu came up with the idea of building a monument to the 1848 Romanian hero, Avram Iancu. The idea was endorsed by Tribuna and Foaia Poporului but encountered a serious opposition from the Hungarian government. See P. Abrudan, “Lupta pentru apărarea memoriei lui Iancu”, Studii, 1972, no. 4: 701-771. However, Ghibu mention only the “opposite camp” that might refer to the National Committee as well. Because “those from the opposite camp” started a campaign of imprecations against the Tribunists, it is hard to believe that the Hungarian Government is mentioned as the opposite camp. 49 Octavian Goga, “In calumniatores,” in Tribuna XVII, no. 1 (January 13, 1900): 2. 50 The first poem published by Goga was “There is no happiness on earth,” Octavian, “Nu-i fericire pe pământ,” Revista ilustrată, I (1898), no. 5-4 (May-June): 107. 51 Octavian Goga, Fragmente autobiografice. Mărturisiri literare, (Bucharest: Institutul de Literatură şi Folclor, 1934). At the same time, it was published in Ţara noastră, XIII, no. 559 48

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However, if we follow Goga’s writings chronologically, it seems that there is not a clear distinction between his early works and those which brought him nationwide fame. There are many rhetoric recurrences which may suggest a continuity beyond the topics that indeed changed around 1904. There was an overwhelming atmosphere of depression, disillusion, disappointment and hopelessness that survived in his first erotic poems. Besides eroticism, there is a background of distrust, misfortune or disgust toward urban life. It is interesting how, in an early essay, “In the Bosom of Nature,”52 he praises nature and rejects urban life. [In the bosom of nature] everything looks holly and innocent. You are caressed by the silence of nature, you are delighted by the swinging of the old lime trees, you feel free and start to grasp more profoundly the muddy [strata] of your heart when the gentle sound of the [church] bell is fondling your hearing; you forget the kind of nervous traders, who are trembling after the widow’s money, you forget about the noise of the city that is hurrying all day from a corner to another and is drumming in your ears…. You cannot see here the veil of hypocrisy and fierce hate; everywhere here true and unhypocritical love smiles at you; you see the warm smile of beauty and the smooth face of truth; the beauty is relaxing your blurred eyes from the heavy and dark veil of the outside world, and the truth wakes you up from the drunkenness caused in your brain by sick and scorned cyanides.53

The same atmosphere is present in the next essays “Autumn” and “From Niţă’s notes.” The dichotomy between nature or the village and the city is increasingly personalized. He refers to “trading souls,”54 with “great palaces and small hearts, with big churches and petty faith.”55 Mrs. Tildi, “from the second floor, fourth door on the left,”56 who laughs at the poor young sick boy, Niţă, contrasts with Niţă’s mother who suffers enormously seeing his son

(March 29, 1934): 1-2, no. 560 (March 30, 1934): 1-2, no. 561 (March 31, 1934): 1-2, and no. 562 (April 1, 1934), p. 1-2. This text was an answeer to a quiestionaire that took the form of a conference, one from a series organized by Dumitru Caracostea. The entire series was published in a volume only in 1971, Dumitru Caracostea, Marturisiri literare, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1971). For the present study the original text is used. 52 Octavian, “În sânul natureĭ”, in Familia, XXXV (1899), no. 8 (21 January/5 February): 88. 53 Ibid. 54 Literary means ‘townsman souls,’ but the word town (târg) means at the same time market. This is why townsman, in this context, is closer to an artisan and trader that an inhabitant of the town. 55 Octavian, “Toamnă,” in Tribuna literară, XVII, no. 209 (1900): 150. 56 Octavian, “Din hârtiile lui Niţă,” in Tribuna literară, XVIII, no. 103 (July 14, 1901): 132.

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passing away after a painful illness caused by too much learning and from living among strangers. The difference is even more radical when the goatherder of the village, Niculai Borza, opposes the son of a notary, Mr. Jean Nicoleano. What is important, for the further evolution of Goga, was his ambivalent feeling about Mrs. Tildi. She was amused by the provincial young boy with nice angry eyes. She bought a new tie for him helping him to arrange it, but, at the same time, she would laugh knowing Niţă’s mother kneeling for the sake of his son’s recovery. There is a love-hate, or better eroticism-loathing relationship that translates disappointment and despaired from “her” to the city and vice-versa. This relationship between a young women and the city is more explicit in another poem by Goga, “The Day,” in which a day is a nice and pure maid who comes for the first time to the city and at the end of the day “she tumbles down exhausted and unclean.”57 Then, the dichotomy between the village and city has a parallel in the opposition of the country girl and city lady, the maid and the misstress, which polarizes the author’s affection. It is interesting how in this corrupted and dead world, where seemingly everything is for sell, the woman is laughing at the young lover. This laugh may unveil the townspeople’s superiority and sarcasm toward the village people, which Goga might have been encountered in his school period. On the contrary, when is about a young country girl, the entire story turns upsidedown. “He,” who had to leave and eventually to regret, lost the true love when he left the village and now regrets the purity and sincerity of the country girl. It is the case of “Serene Moments”58 or “You Have Left Away”59 among many others. Around 1900, Goga had a crisis of hypochondria, imagining an early death caused by too much learning. He suspected tuberculosis and this feeling of an imminent end influenced his writings.60 In his essay “From Niţă’s notes,” Niţă is dying because of too much learning and his mother accused “the school that sucked and stole the red from [his] face.”61 The idea of being sick because of too much learning and because of living in a city often occurs in Goga’s early

57

Octavian Goga, “Ziua,” in Luceafărul, XI, no. 29 (October 1, 1912): 575; the entire poem is quoted in R. Pârâianu, “Envisioning the City in the Literature of Early Twentieth Century,” in Jahrbücher für Geschichte und Kultur Südosteuropas, 2 (2000): 134. 58 Octavian, “Clipe senine…,” in Familia, XXXVII, no. 5 (February 4/17, 1901): 54. 59 Octavian, “Te-ai dus…,” in Familia, XXXVII, no. 8 (February 25/ March 10, 1901): 88. 60 There are various fragments from letters and notes written by Goga in this period, which prove this malaise of the young man Goga. See Bălan, 52-53 or Smântânescu (ed.), 9-10. 61 Octavian, “From Niţă’s notes.”

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poems. Probably, the perceived imminence of death made Goga more inclined to morbidity and despair and to misanthropic attitudes. Religion is another element. Goga often mentions God, Holy Mary, sin, temptation, “Lord’s Prayer” [Our Father…], the Passions, icons, confession, etc. in his poems. On the one hand, this religious vocabulary increases his despairing cry against the outside world: “I seem to be a man who cries in his confession.”62 On the other hand, it further develops the village-city dichotomy with new attributes. The city is dark, sinful, hopeless, restless, pagan, illusory, and unnatural, while the village is bright, holy, pure, serene, immobile, Christian, real and natural. Gradually, the tone is transformed and the initial erotic poems reached a universal dimension and Goga’s disappointment and rage become a worldwide revolt. It is also the case of “If I were” in which he cries out his rebellion as an unbeliever against God himself. If I were God in Heaven, For those who ask my mercy With humble and pious thought Bending down their front in dust, I would send them all A lightening on cloudy wings, To strike their beggar knees. If I were the gracious God, To the condemning atheist, Who questioned my legitimacy, And blamed my aim, — A flying light I would send him, From beside a wing of cloud, To see the winner crowned.63

The spirit of revolt against conformism grew in his student period but Goga was already inclined to such rebellious attitudes before arriving in Budapest. There is an attitude of protest in many of his early poems, which challenge not only the urban world but everything conventional in daily life. There are many references to religious notions, but his poetry is far from being a pious religious literature because of his imbedded tendencies toward protest and revolt. His is a religious vocabulary used for esthetic64 and 62

Octavian, “Sonet,” in Tribuna literară, 1901, no. 132: 115; republished with some changes in Luceafărul, VIII, no. 3 (February 1, 1909): 53. The verse quoted here was then changed into: “Obedient I sit and cry in my confession.” 63 ***, “De-aş fi,” in Luceafărul, II, no. 12-13 (June 1, 1903): 211. 64 This was the idea of Ion Dodu Bălan in his monograph mentioned in the previous section of the present thesis.

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ideological transfiguration of reality and not for spiritual devotion.65 As Ioan Lupaş, Goga’s life time friend, wrote in a letter: You, a priest! Don’t you feel your entire nature revolting against all lies; against everything fake, hypocrite, and self-humiliating? And how do you think that those from Sibiu would tailor you as a marionette, who is bending its back at any sign from above?... Let aside you lack of the most crucial [element]: faith!... Your temper is to keep in your hand the whip, lashing everything, laughing at anything — and by no means to agree with the postulates of those from above.66

Following Lupaş, this liturgical repertoire might be called a religion without faith, or sacredness without transcendence. However, the notions borrowed from Christian worship are not part of a religious doctrine but part of the world created by Goga. These notions accompany the misery and decadence of the city, the immobility and purity of the village, and, more importantly, the dream of a better future world announced by Goga. The revolt and anger against the present world, together with continuous references to religious notions, are fundamental to what many commentators later called Goga’s prophetism or messianism. This spirit of revolt is not central in Goga’s early poems and is not even coherent or permanent. It is rather an unspoken tendency, which continuously grew until 1902 when Goga joined the editorial team of Luceafărul. Only there, Goga unfolded his revolutionary temper and found an appropriate literary form for it. The experience of Budapest seems a trigger for his literary career. On the one hand, the crisis caused by moving in Budapest was significant. Switching from periphery to the capital was an enormous step for the young man Goga, a step that eventually led to a crisis of anxiety in 1903. On the other hand, his friendship with Tăslăuanu, Bocu, Chendi and others from Luceafărul editorial board allowed Goga to forge his incipient and diffuse spirit of revolt into a coherent literary ideology. § 4. The Budapest Experience and Luceafărul After graduating high school, Goga went to Budapest where he registered at the Faculty of Philosophy. He spent four years there, until 1904 when he

65 66

This was the main argument of Nichifor Crainic in his article on Goga mentioned above. From a letter by Lupaş to Goga, from October 1, 1902, cited in Domokos Sámuel, Octavian Goga. Anii studenţiei. Traducerile, (Bucharest: Kriterion, 1978): 13-14.

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obtained an “Absolutorium” degree.67 Without being interested in becoming a secondary grade teacher, Goga did not take the final license exam.68 Besides his school activities, he dedicated much time to the editorial activities of Luceafărul, participated in the student cultural association “Petru Maior”, and served for a short period on its board. There are enough sources regarding his Budapest period, but most of them69 refer to his literary collaboration with Luceafărul. And, for Goga, this collaboration was a real debut because he definitively shaped his style, refuting his previous poems. For many contemporary commentators, Luceafărul was Goga, though he was not the main editor or founder of this literary review. Though his school results were excellent, Goga’s main activities remain closer to literature. Often, Goga took refugee in his home village, letting Lupaş take care and inform him about school,70 postponing many of his exams. His lack of enthusiasm regarding his studies has various reasons. One was the financial situation that forced the young student to spend long periods of time at home in Răşinari. Another was his health. It seems that his early hypochondria got worse in Budapest.71 Finally there was the general political tension in Transylvanian Romanian schools. The troublesome Magyarization policy of the Hungarian government made the survival of Romanian schools very difficult. As a professor of history, Latin and literature (Goga’s specialization), Goga would have been forced to abandon many of his ideals. This uncertainty and insecurity regarding his future career caused many problems to the young man Goga. Disillusioned by a didactical profession, he dreamed of becoming a priest, or to ‘re-peasantize’ himself. His family, particularly his father, was concerned about his future.72 And, in 1905, Goga’s marital proposal was 67

Tăslăuanu included in his Recollections all courses taken and marks obtained by Goga during all academic years. There are couples of facsimiles as well including his diploma and other official documents. See Octavian Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga. Recollections. (Bucharest: Bucovina, 1939): 80-87. 68 Ibid., 87. Ion Dodu Bălan, who reproduced these information in his monograph (without mentioning the source though the text is identical), replaced this information with his assertion about Goga’s ‘thirst’ for study and knowledge that led him to “the austere classes of German Universities and through the bustle of Sorbonne.” As it will be seen further, Goga went to Berlin with a scholarship granted by ASTRA but did not manage to go to Paris because of the sudden death of his father. Bălan, Octavian Goga, 90-91. 69 Octavian Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga; and Onisifor Ghibu, “Octavian Goga” in Oameni între oameni. 70 See Domokos Sámuel, Octavian Goga. Anii studenţiei. Traducerile, 10. 71 In 1903, Goga’s sister, Victoria, died from tuberculosis. This tragic lost amplified Goga’s fears of having tuberculosis himself. 72 See Tăslăuanu, 151.

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rejected by a young lady. Among other reasons, she mentioned the material situation of the young man and his undecided career. 73 This situation ended in 1906 with the great success of his first volume and his employment as a secretary of ASTRA.74 However, the situation of the young man Goga was not as dramatic as it was presented in his writings. He participated in various student activities organized by the reading society “Petru Maior” where he enjoyed a high reputation among his colleagues. Onisifor Ghibu mentioned in his memoirs several notable events of this kind. One is the celebration of Familia at forty years of its existence. At the end of the banquet, Goga dared to propose a toast to the “political unity of all Romanians”75 though many officials were there. Another moment was the pilgrimage to Putna to the tomb of Stephen the Great, commemorating 400 years from his death.76 On this occasion, Goga composed the first draft of a poem dedicated to Stephen the Great that later will be published under the title “From our country.”77 On both of these occasions, Goga represented the Romanian student association from Budapest where he was active. He gave several lectures in front of his colleagues78 who elected him on the student committee and as a librarian of the student association. It might have been a coincidence, but Goga left the association “Petru Maior” when he met Tăslăuanu, disappointed by his activities there or perhaps he was seduced by Tăslăuanu’s projects. However, at the beginning of 1902, he asked for a leave of absence for personal reasons. Returning back to Budapest, in autumn, he met Tăslăuanu who had arrived as a secretary to the Romanian Consulate.79 He was not a writer but a person with important organizational 73

The young lady was Adelina Olteanu, who became later Mrs. Tăslăuanu. The entire episode is narrated by Tăslăuanu in his Recollections. Ibid. 150-164. 74 Tăslăuanu implies that this position as a second secretary of ASTRA was arranged by his father before dying in order to secure Goga’s financial future as head of the family. Idem., 174. 75 Ghibu, Oameni între oameni, 40. 76 Ibid. 77 Nic. Otavă, “De la noi,” Luceafărul, III, No. 12-13 (July 1, 1904): 227. The poem opens the issue dedicated to Stephan the Great. 78 Domokos Sámuel, Octavian Goga, 15-17. Domokos mentions “Principle of Dualism in Religion and Philosophy” (November 22, 1901) and “Ianus” (December 3, 1901). 79 Tăslăuanu mention in his Testimonies that he was sent in Budapest by Ioan Bianu who was the librarian of the Romanian Academy and a close friend of Dimitrie Sturdza. Octavian Tăslăuanu, Spovedanii, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1976): 107-117. This volume was published by Gelu Voican Voiculescu, a nephew of Tăslăuanu, after the original manuscript. The text was severely censored. The section regarding the Romanian Consulate originally contained a long history of the Habsburg Monarchy. Under these circumstances, the relation between

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skills ready to play an active role in Romanian national movement in Hungary.80 His national activism, irredentism, and radicalism, definitively influenced young man Goga who had not found yet his own way. According to Tăslăuanu, his fist meeting with the students from Budapest, including Goga, happened in the autumn of 1902 when the academic year began and all Romanian students met for the beginning of the school. During the inevitable student drinking feast, Tăslăuanu began a harsh criticism of the students with respect to their national activities. This episode can be a late remembrance of Tăslăuanu but reading his first articles in Luceafărul this criticism is immediately recognizable. In an article entitled “Pro domo,” Tăslăuanu criticized the inactivity of the Romanian students. He condemned the low interest of the Romanian students and the lack of concern shown by the older generation, insensitive to the phenomenon of estrangement of young Transylvanian Romanian elites from their national culture. In 1903, he wrote: The very sad fact, that we are not capable, because of various and complex reasons, to raise our children in the spirit and direction asked by our ethnic aspirations, is the most telling factor for our lazy development in all respects…. The atmosphere of this foreign culture and education, which suffocates our students during their university studies, is the main reason for their complete and nice disorientation, which blurs the spirit of our youth on Romanian issues. This dark atmosphere prevents the clear sight and discovery of the happy routes that lead [us] to the solution of the “grievances” painted on the banner of exhausted aspirations of our nation, for which with more chances than the present forefighters, the program of university education should adapt in such a manner that [the young intellectuals], entering [their mature] life, are not compelled to stay aloof from those situations that actually invite them to work.81

He further criticized the student cultural associations because of their puerile discussions, endless administrative concerns and ridiculous personal animosities. Tăslăuanu made it clear that these cultural associations “should be patriarchal fireplaces where the scared fire of national culture is piously maintained.” Having in mind these lines, Goga’s retreat from “Petru Maior” student association becomes understandable. He returned to Budapest but Tăslăuanu and the Romanian Liberals, to whom Tăslăuanu had to report various observations from Budapest, is not explicit. 80 The portrait made by Sextil Puşcariu in his recollections is relevant in this respect. He sees Tăslăuanu’s central role in publishing Luceafărul, as a consequence of his organizational abilities. See Sextil Puşcariu, Călare pe două veacuri, (Bucharest: Editura pentru Literatură, 1968): 306-314. However, Puşcariu was a colleague of Tăslăuanu in high-school and his late memoirs might be distorted by time. 81 T. “Pro Domo,” in Luceafărul, II, no. 19 (October 1, 1903): 303-304

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instead of resuming his activities as a member of the student association, he was captivated by Tăslăuanu’s plea for more radical nationalist action, which in his version was an irredentist one. Two years later, Luceafărul was surrounded by the same atmosphere of indifference and its chief editor complained about similar things.82 This is a situation usually ignored by most of the commentators. Luceafărul has a prominent place in the history of Romanian literature. Or, at that time, the financial difficulties encountered by its editorial board imply a limited audience for the young cultural review of students from Budapest. Sămănătorul, Viaţa Românească and other reviews from Romania were interested, of course, in presenting Luceafărul, probably because of their own literary ideological reasons.83 However, besides the issues of distribution and popularity, these pleas for a more intense activism of the young literati and harsh philippics against those indifferent to national culture became an important component of their rhetoric. This fight against indifference had as its target their fellow Romanians and not the Hungarians. As in any other militant literature, which attempts to disseminate [activist] consciousness among the masses, many texts published in Luceafărul were severe critics against Romanian students and Romanians in general. One example is the article “Return” published by Goga at the beginning of 1903, when a number of proofs (try & buy copies) were returned by various personalities. In this article, Goga released his angrer and frustration caused by the poor success of their review. He bitterly accused everybody: In these moments of bitter disappointment, we’ve made a painful discovery: we learn to know the soul and the spirit of sacrifice of many so called “notables” among us, who are called the pillars of the Romanian peole, and we know of them, preaching very nice things from journals. We’ve got closer to their spirit […], — but we are disappointed; in vain we touched their heart of “good Romanians,” the source of their nice words, and we see that it is not beautiful. And we are sad and we feel very sorry even today. We carry the pain of our lost illusions, the sorrow caused by the lost of very precious thing from [our] house, like an engagement ring, for example, a beautiful dream of youth….

82

See Octavian Tăslăuanu, “Pro Domo,” in Luceafărul, IV, no. 13-14 (March 15, 1905): 263265. 83 There are many attempts of Ciura, Tăslăuanu, Goga etc. to distance themselves and their review from Sămănătorul, though the common opinion was that Luceafărul is part of the Sămănătorism as a general phenomenon. One of the first articles is by Al Ciura, “Quo vadis?” Luceafărul, II, no. 1 (January 1, 1903): 2-3.

99 We don’t need money, fees or rate payments. We want encouragement, we want love! What you have given [us]? The laconic «return»: the complete ignorance.84

Because of a perverse tendency of totalization and the inner mechanism of self-radicalization, an ideology is predisposed to attack the intermediary positions, and more often those ‘indifferent’ ones, than those radically different. In the late nineteenth century, the entire Romanian national movement under the influence of Sămănătorism, was driven by the idea of building a new consciousness of Romanians based on the ‘folk spirit’ (Volksgeist),85 which ought to be the substance of the modern forms of Romanian culture. The literary ideology or ‘doctrine’ of Luceafărul followed these commandments. They were not necessarily, as Tăslăuanu noticed, sourced from Sămănătorul but they were common ideals shared by a young generation of intellectuals educated in Germany.86 Tăslăuanu was fortunate to be in Bucharest for his university studies during the particular period (1898-1902) in which these ideas became coherent as an ideology. He witnessed, according to his testimony, the appearance of Floare albastră,87 a precursor of Sămănătorul, and being close friend with its editors. Among them, Sandu-Aldea88 had a great 84

Octavian Goga, “Retour,” Luceafărul, II, no. 2 (January 15, 1903): 34. In Mannheim’s terms, the national differences were integrated in the Hegelian ‘world spirit’ (Zeitgeist) in such a way that the historical-political currents of thought were incorporated in the domain of philosophy. Then one consequence is that “the experiences of everyday life are no longer accepted at face value.” Another one might be the identification of ‘world spirit’ with the ‘folk spirit’ at the particular level of a given nation. In other words, nationalism became an idealism particularly applied to a certain nation. As Ghibu says: “a fighter for the high ideals un humankind concentrated on his on people.” Ghibu, Oameni între oameni, 39. I referred as well to Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, (London: Routledge, 1991): 60. 86 See in this respect Elena Siupiur. “Die Deutschen Universitäten und die Bildung der Intelligenz in Rumänien und den Ländern Südosteuropas im 19. Jahrhundert.” New Europe College Yearbook 1994-1995 (1998): 213-246. It is interesting to see Ornea’s interpretation on the sources of Sămănătorism. He has a contextual explanation in which the ‘national question’ and ‘rural question,’ prevalent social and political problems of Romania at the end of the century, caused the naissance of this cultural movement. He completely neglects the foreign intellectual influences in favor of the social local context. 87 Floare Albastră, (Oct. 1989 — May 1899) a literary weekly review. 88 Constantin Sandu-Aldea (Nov. 14, 1874 – March 21, 1927) was of peasant social extraction. Born in Tichileşti (Brăila), graduated the Superior School of Agriculture from Herăstrău, did two years of specialization in Montpellier, and had his doctorate studies in Berlin. Nowadays almost unknown, at the beginning of century he was a respected personality. Writer and editor of various journals (Floare albastră, Epoca, România jună, Sămănătorul), official in the Ministry of Domains as chief of Agricultural Statistic department, member correspondent of 85

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influence on him, Tăslăuanu considered him one of the most representative Romanian writers.89 In the same period, other publications appeared with a similar position, and one of them was România jună.90 Many intellectuals grouped around these journals were Transylvanian Romanians exiled to Romania and young Tăslăuanu socialized with them in Bucharest, sharing with them the same ideas and aspirations. Tăslăuanu was not a writer but a good organizer and a passionate militant for this ‘new current’ in Romanian culture. Coming to Budapest, he became the spiritus rector of Luceafărul imposing his principles on his colleagues and collaborators in the same way as Iorga did with Sămănătorul. His main concerns were about the estrangement of Romanian intellectuals, the return to cultural (rural) origins, and the (cultural) union for all Romanians. These were not original ideas but part of the same cultural movement in which Sămănătorul took a leading position. Tăslăuanu was not a doctrinaire or theorist, but he attempted to apply these principles in editing Luceafărul. As he declares: “we asked that the artist to be the expression of Romanian soul in his creation, but this not in the detriment of esthetic criteria.”91 Coming from Bucharest and fanaticized by an intransigent nationalism, I plead for manifestations sourced from the depths of the nation in all branches of activity, then in poetry too. And art should stay in the service of our national cause.92

And later, adopting a citation by Simionescu-Râmniceanu, Tăslăuanu agrees that: Only the expression of great souls, which incorporate the spirit of the people and of their time, have produced art of a universal and perennial Academy and director of the Superior School of Agriculture from Herăstrău, Sandu-Aldea was a clear public presence in Romania before the first World War. He wrote a large number of volumes of poetry, prose and translations. See Lucian Predescu, Enciplopaedia Cugetarea, (Bucharest: Georgescu Delafras, 1940, 1999) 89 Eugen Lovinescu has a similar opinion about him: “the most characteristic expression of Muntean [Wallachian] Sămănătorism.” His heroes are very temperamental, ornery, passionate, etc. Primitive energies, romantic contrasts, love for the land, the picturesque landscape of Bărăgan, are coondonates of the same love for his rural characters balanced by a constant hate for the upper classes and and for foreigners. Lovinescu, History of Romanian Literature, 227229. 90 România Jună, (Dec. 1899 — Oct. 1900), one of the first independent (i.e. nationalist) daily newspapers was edited by Aurel C. Popovici and Şt. Pertică. 91 Marin Simionescu-Râmniceanu, “Cîteva lămuriri asupra cărţii dlui Sandu-Aldea In urma plugului,” in Luceafărul, V, no. 4 (February 15, 1906): 91-94; quoted in Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga, 210. 92 Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga, 15-16.

101 value — as much as it is possible to talk about the eternity of human creations.93

It can be seen that this “new current,” as Nicolae Iorga called it, was less esthetic and more social and national. The esthetic principles were dependent on an ineffable ‘soul of the people’ or ‘folk spirit’ and this dependence made the literary ideology or esthetic doctrine almost impossible to be made explicit. For Ornea, this movement was a sociological current because “it was based on a sociological understanding of Romanian structures,” and the “expression of aspirations shared by small producers from rural areas, who considered the city a danger.”94 However, Sămănătorism had a social perspective over the nation and a definitive political program, but it went far beyond that agenda, carrying with it a reaction against modernity in all of its aspects. Sămănătorism was a neo-conservative response to modernity. The village, the peasant and agriculture became the epitomes of the pre- or anti-modern culture, radically opposed to modern civilization. The symbol was the sower, Sămănătorul in Romanian. The peasant and the intellectual mutually identified with each other, essentially being the cultivators of Romanian culture. In this way, some privileged personalities had the chance of being “the expression” of their nation or “folk spirit” having a strong relationship with the rural and ordinary life of the peasants. It was a radical “democratization” of the notion of nation which was then applied to the entire rural population, the aristocracy and the intelligentsia. Yet, among the Romanians, there were few estranged individuals, carriers of foreign forms of civilization, insensitive to national values (as defined by Sămănătorists), educated abroad, of urban extraction or uprooted from their rural communities, a bourgeois, usually liberal, democrat or even socialist, cosmopolitan, of mercenary spirit, etc. They were perceived as the main enemies because they jeopardized the attempts of “true” Romanians to find the nation’s own way toward another kind of modernity, a national modernity. For the Sămănătorist generation, this return took the form of a return to the rural roots, to a popular folk culture. In Transylvania, the meaning of this return had a distinct connotation because of the Magyarization policy of the Hungarian

93

Marin Simionescu-Râmniceanu, “In urma plugului,” in Luceafărul, no. 4 (February 15, 1906) and 5 (March 1, 1906); quoted in Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga, 211. This book review was written by Simionescu-Râmniceanu in Berlin where from it was sent to Budapest. 94 Ornea’s explanation is founded on Marxist assumptions, mainly on the understanding of culture as a superstructure of social and economic relations. He mentions that “even for Sămănătorists these sociological facts were unclear.” Ornea, Sămănătorul, 115, 117.

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State. The city was not only a foreign form of civilization, but also a foreign city as such. Returning to the pre-modern village was equivalent to rejecting political, social, and cultural realities. § 5. Goga’s Crisis of Identity, the Drive for Recuperating his Roots, and his Dream The period spent by Goga in Budapest was one of crisis. It began in 1899 when he moved from Sibiu to Braşov, and its main cause was the experience of living in a foreign city. A different social fabric, another way of socialization and a foreign language made the city a problematical environment for the young man Goga, and he experienced solitude, anxiety and depersonalization. The feeling of an imminent estrangement and a perceived social failure were issues addressed not only by Goga but by an entire generation facing the same problems. In one way or another, this was a crisis of identity. Jaques Le Rieder in his well-know Modernity and Crises of Identity,95 analyzing the intellectual circle of ‘Young Vienna,’ considers the identity crisis as a deconstructive process that causes the (re)construction of a new identity. This reformulation of identity is in the last instance a reformulation of the modern condition as well.96 However, this reformulation of identity does not necessarily lead to ‘Postmodernity’, as was the case with the ‘Young Vienna’ intellectuals. It might lead to an ideological solution as well. In Goga’s case, the nationalist ideology, in its Sămănătorist variant, offered an immediate solution. The term “crisis of identity” is too general and ambiguous and used in various circumstances. Even the word “crisis” can be misleading as far as it denotes an impending catastrophe, though it is rather a necessary turning point, a crucial moment “when development must move one way or another marshaling resources of growth, recovery, and further differentiation.”97 In other words, a crisis of identity is not a loss of identity but a period when the existing identity comes under question and competes with other identities. It is a moment of disorientation. This is why “identity confusion” or even “acute identity confusion” is a better term than a “crisis of identity.” According to Erik Erikson: a state of acute identity confusion usually becomes manifest at a time when the young individual finds himself exposed to a combination of 95

Jaques Le Rider, Modernity and Crises of Identity. Culture and Society in Fin-de-siècle Vienna, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993). 96 Ibid., 40. 97 See Erikson, Identity, 15-19.

103 experiences which demand his simultaneous commitment to physical intimacy, to decisive occupational choice, to energetic competition, and to psychosocial self-definition.98

The occupational choice or, more generally, “the life task” proved to be of major concern for the young man Goga. In Budapest, he entered a period of mistrust and pessimism regarding his future as a secondary school teacher. Influenced by his previous experiences and under the influence of his new friends, Goga attempted to envision and assume various other prospects. His letter to Lupaş proves that he thought about joining the priesthood. Then, in a more radical way, he thought of becoming a peasant. According to his words, he wanted to re-peasantize himself in a sort of radical regression to the presumably previous social status of his family. In 1903, overcame by sadness and depression, he went home to recover. This moratorium had an ideological outcome.99 He adopted an historical identity, i.e. the intellectual engaged in a national fight. He chose a negative identity: to be a writer, a poet.100 It was a life task change accompanied by ideological rejuvenation. A new social order, in fact a new (image of the) world, was created in order to solve or dissolve the initial confusion.101 The tendency to regress to previous stages, when his identity was clearer, can be the cause for a “confabulatory reconstruction of his origins.”102 On the one hand, he recreated his childhood103 98

Ibid., 166. “A moratorium is a period of delay granted to somebody who is not ready to meet an obligation or forced on somebody who should give himself time. By psychosocial moratorium, then, we mean a delay of adult commitment, and yet it is not only a delay. It is a period that is characterized by a selective permissiveness on the part of society and of provocative playfulness on the part of the youth, and yet it also often leads to deep, if often transitory, commitment on the part of youth, and ends in a more or less ceremonial confirmation of commitment on the part of society. Such moratoria show highly individual variations, which are especially pronounced in very gifted people, and there are, of course, institutional variations linked with the ways of life of cultures and subcultures.” Ibid., 157. 100 A negative identity, is “an identity perversely based on all those identifications and roles which, at critical stages of development, had been presented to him as most undesirable or dangerous and yet also as most real.” Ibid., 174. It is possible that the idea of becoming a poet to be a negative identity regarding the other identities expected by his family, i.e. career in church or school as his direct ancestors. 101 This interpretation found in Erikson’s works is consonant with the interpretation given by Peter Hának in his “Social Marginality and Cultural Creativity in Vienna and Budapest (18901914).” 102 Erikson, Identity, 174. 103 “The ideal projection of his childhood” as Papadima refers to, as it was mention already. See note 118 of the second chapter. 99

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in a radically different way than the present. His first years spent in Răşinari were haloed in his poems as a lost Paradise which he was compelled to leave. It is interesting how the moment of leaving had evidently common elements with the recollections of Tăslăuanu about his moment of leaving Bilbor.104 On the other hand, regression is consonant with the themes of return, revolution (in its original meaning), and a rejection of the present world, attitudes that complement the already existing spirit of protest of some of Goga’s verses. It can be the source of a negative identity that has a vindictive dimension “toward the roles offered as proper and desirable in one’s family or immediate community.”105 Goga adopted his pen name Nic. Otavă in January 1903 and used it until January 1905. Otavă was a direct reference to his idealized childhood, a sensorial allusion to the smell of recently mowed grass and a metaphor for primenire, the social and cultural renewal or change advocated by him and his friends. Nic. (Nicolae) Otavă is the intermediary between Octavian and Octavian Goga not only as a signature of the young man Goga but as a mediatory identity that may illustrate the crisis of identity suffered by him. In Goga’s case a number of experiences can be identified in order to recognize his crisis of identity. According to Erikson, the simultaneous commitment to psychical intimacy, to decisive occupational choice, to exigent competition, and decisive psychosocial self-definition can offer the kind of experiences that cause a state of acute confusion. Or, all of these experiences, more pre-adult in their nature than post-adolescent, can be illustrated with Goga’s writings. In chronological order, the first experience can be found when the young Octavian was preparing himself for the baccalaureate (the summer of 1900). There is sufficient evidence to document Goga’s difficult intellectual atmosphere in Braşov and after then in Sălişte, alonside his colleague and friend Ioan Lupaş, who was more skillful in learning.106 Goga was successful and in the autumn of 1900, he went to Budapest. There he faced a problem of self-definition, a crisis that occurred “exactly when he half-realize[d] that he [was] fatally overcommitted to what he [was] not.”107 In Budapest Goga

104

Bilbor, Tăslăuanu’s native village of was located in the North-East of Transylvania. See Tăslăuanu, Spovedanii, 66-70. There are clear (mutual) influences between Goga and Tăslăuanu though it is hard to indicate whose ones were prevalent because Tăslăuanu wrote them in the late twenties. 105 Erikson, Identity, 172-173. 106 Ghibu, 36. 107 Erikson, Identity, 43.

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realized that he did not want to be a teacher. He was unable to concentrate on school tasks, spent long periods in Răşinari, and read excessively. In this case, self-definition was closer to the problem of occupational choice. In 1902, he joined the circle of Luceafărul, but this problem was by no means solved. The concerns expressed by his father108 or Adelina Olteanu’s rejection of his marriage proposal were signs of the painful situation in which young Octavian found himself. The last element is a problem of intimacy. Varying from weakness to repudiation, Goga had difficulties in attaining intimacy with women. Repudiation is addressed his poem “Farewell” dedicated Leniţa Cernea,109 while his weakness might me identified in his passion for Adelina Olteanu, as described by Tăslăuanu.110 These intimacy experiences, which by no means are just sexual, had two consequences. One was the sense of isolation felt by the young man Goga. Hesitant in his commitment, Goga often called himself a “passer by” in order to underline his impersonal relationships with others. The other was a stereotyped and formalized (or grandiloquent) way of establishing relationships. There is a sense of depersonalization in Goga’s writings, a removal of his self from his poems and articles, which was never complete or definitive. Primarily, it is related to his tendency towards isolation but its consequences go beyond the immediate isolation into the ideological reconstruction of his self-identity. The ideological rejuvenation (Erikson’s term) is the process of restoring the psychosocial identity in a way involving the entire world (view). There is a shift between “the suicidal Nothingness” to “the dictatorial Allness” that an ideology may permit a general or world-scale demolishing and rebuilding. This ideology was found by Goga in Tăslăuanu’s nationalism, a totalism able to restore the perceived lost world of childhood,111 a sense of radical rapprochement of a world from which he was estranged. It is not surprising, then, Goga’s recollections of his village, particularly the moment of leaving Răşinari and its striking resemblance with Tăslăuanu’s Testimonies. Over all, it is an experience suggestive to generalize, adopt or transfer, beyond the national ideology, and to trigger a veritable mimetic competition among a generation of

108

Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga, 152. Octavian, “Despărţire,” in Familia, XXXVII, no. 12 (March 25/April 7, 1901): 135. See Dan Smântânescu, “Prefaţă” to Octavian Goga, Inedite poems, (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1973): 11. See also Ghibu, 35-36. 110 Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga, 97-105 and 153-160. 111 According to Erikson, there is “nostalgia for a situation of infantile trust.” Erikson, The Young Man Luther, 256. 109

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young intellectuals who can remember and reconstruct the moment of leaving their native villages under similar terms. Ideology is a clear way out of the confusion of values experienced by youth, but it has a price. Ideologies ask for uncompromising commitment to their absolute hierarchy of values, for a rigid principle of conduct, total resignation, martial discipline, and total inner reform.112 As Goga used to say, ideology asks for fanaticism, in his case for “the supreme abstraction: the national idea.”113 Besides the identity crisis, an ideology adopted by a youth helps solving other following crises of early adulthood: the crises of generativity and integrity.114 The first is defined by a “sense of stagnation, boredom and impersonal impoverishment… as a result of a generative failure on the part of the parents” that takes the form of an unavoidable estrangement. An adopted ideology may solve this crisis moving the problem to another level, from individual to collective. Not just one individual suffers this crisis but an entire generation obliged to learn in a foreign language, to adopt alien forms of civilization, and to enter into a society ruled by different principles than their original national community.115 The second crisis is defined by a search for integration of triumphs and disappointments in the same sense of order and meaning, in the same “straight line” as Goga used to say.116 The integrative proclivity of ideology is once again helpful because it gives a sense of comradeship, social solidarity, in time and space, beyond other different pursuits and interests, conveying human dignity and love. Goga’s crisis of identity ended in 1905 when he adopted an historical identity: the intellectual engaged in the national struggle. The triumph of his first volume of poetry and the eulogizing critiques received from prominent personalities of various political directions were decisive in assuming a new life task, a commitment that dominated his entire life. It is significant that this ideological rejuvenation happened at the same moment with the loss of his father, when Goga was compelled to make a decisive choice in term of his 112

Erikson. Identity, 191. Octavian Goga, “Badea Gheorghe,” in Ţara noastră, IV, no. 18 (May 6, 1923): 561-563. 114 See Erikson, Young Man Luther, 243, and Identity, 138-140. 115 The best examples of such transfer are the articles by Goga: “Generaţia nouă,” Ţara noastră, II, no. 11 (March 9, 1908): 87-88; “Două culturi,” in Tribuna, XII, (May 21/June 3, 1908): 3. “Educaţia în şcolile ungureşti,” in Insemnările unui trecător; the same arguments was used for Hungarian culture, after the end of the scandal of Tribuna, in “Un anacronism: cultura maghiară,” in Românul III, no. no. 284 (December 6/ January 7, 1912): 1-2; and “Două suflete două literaturi,” in Luceafărul, XII, no. 6 (March 16, 1913): 177-183. 116 “O linie dreaptă,” in Ţara noastră, VI, no. 29 (July 19, 1925): 913-915; and in “Linia dreaptă,” in Linia dreaptă, I, no. 1 (November, 1935): 1. 113

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career, now as head of his family. This replacement might have a rich meaning in terms of an Oedipal competition. He sought to be a priest, but the very notion of priesthood had been radically transformed by the new ideology adopted. For the generation of Sămănătorul and Luceafărul, the priest was essentially a sower of ideals (‘illusions’ in their terms).117 This is why the “spiritual return to a faith”118 took a nationalist form. At that time, nationalism was the dominant ideology among the Trasnylvanian Romanians. This became a source of certitude, integration, totalization and identity, and at the same time, the means of societal change society. Nationalism was for Goga a dogma, a series of ideas felt profoundly true beyond any need of demonstration. Transcendence and holiness were relocated in the soul of the nation, the folk-soul, to which the intellectual should be closer than other people in the same way in which a priest should be closer to God.119 In this sense, Goga’s nationalism can be seen as a pseudo-religion, with Goga as its priest. Summing up, there is a permanent overlapping of the three “worlds,” each potentiated by the others. In the following table, several frequent images are schematically ordered to illustrate these three components of Goga’s literary universe: [past/lost world] The Old Law The Village, The old ruined church Childhood Brightness, Sereneness Holiness Peace Home, return Uselessness God, Nature

[present society] The outer world

[future ideals] The dream

The City, Gomorrah

The Church of our hopes

Adulthood Darkness, night Sinfulness Pain Wandering, exile Despair, Unrest

Youthfulness A star light, Luceafărul Faith Fight Revolt Hope Messiah, The young Prince, The Beautiful Lad

—

Table 1. Goga’s Tripartite Literary World and its Recurrent Images.

117

See Octavian Goga, “Chemarea preoţimii noastre,” in Luceafărul, VI, no. 2-3 (February 1, 1907): 27-31 118 Erikson, Identity, 256. 119 ”Looking inside myself and descending in the gulf of my soul, there from where the true advices are originating, beyond anything human, in this abyss where the soul meet eternity, what is called by the priests «Divinity» — descending myself there, I tell you: we are on the slope and you should take care, you the present generation.” “Politica nouă a conservării naţionale. Discursul d-lui Octavian Goga la marea întrunire dela Ploieşti a partidului naţionalagrar,” in Ţara noastră, XI, no. 24 (May 13, 1932): 1.

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The recurrence of these terms and images are relevant for the evolution of Goga’s literary ideology and his creation of a specific world-view that offers the background of his later political discourse. After 1904, the image of a new brave world of “steeled young men” fighting for a new faith, a new kind of leadership and a new church of national ideals was already expressed in his poems; in a word: primenire [renewal]. It is an act of self-identification in which Goga define himself and his generation as belonging to a group of young people who experienced a similar childhood in a Romanian village and adolescence in a foreign city or school.120 They rejected the kind of adulthood expected from them by society. One important exigency for this identification is the ideological depersonalization of childhood or an association with the broader case of an entire generation. His childhood became the childhood of all steeled young men of whom Goga represents the undisputed leader. In a poem chosen to inaugurate the first volume of poetry, Goga made clear this identification in terms of rejecting his own passions and adopting the sadness of a world as his own: Rush my passions, Forever smash their call, And for the pain of other souls Teach me how to cry, my Lord. Not my condition, ever victim Of the cruel and bad fate, But the sorrow of a world, my Master, Shall cry in my tears.121

In another poem dedicated to his bride in 1906, “The Ray,” Goga decisively identifies himself with the oppressed masses “of those without a name.” This working self-definition will be assumed for the rest of his life: I am the singer of those without a name, A cry torn out of the torment of the time, Out of the storm of sorrow [exisiting] in the world.122

120

See Octavian Goga, “Generaţia nouă,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 11 (March 9, 1908): 87-88. Goga was prosecuted for this article and eventually found not guilty for subversive propaganda against the Hungarian nation. See as well his plea in front of the court: “Discursul de apărare rostit de dl.Goga la curtea cu juraţi din Cluj în 10 Noembrie a.c.,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 46 (November 9/22, 1908): 371-373; republished as “Educaţia în şcolile ungureşti,” in Însemnările unui trecător, (Arad: Tribuna, 1911): 47-57. 121 Octavian Goga, “Rugăciune,” in Luceafărul, IV, no. 17 (September 1, 1905): 327. 122 Octavian Goga, “O rază,” in Viaţa românească, I, no. 6 (June 6, 1906): 421—424.

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His own grievances did not disappear, but they were projected onto a national scale as the grievances of his nation. He claims to be a spokesman of the nation, or even the spokesman of divinity,123 the one who knows the soul of his people, the needs and dreams of his people. From that moment, Goga no longer uses a pseudonym for his writings but only his full name, as evidence of his newly found identity.124

123

See Octavian Goga, “Profetul,” in Ţara noastră, IX, no. 1 (January 1, 1928): 6-7. Only in 1919-1920, while he was minister in the Government of Vaida-Voevod and gen. Averescu, he published several articles in Renaşterea Română edited by his brother, signing Styx because it was not common for a minister to launch public attacks in mass media.

124

110

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CHAPTER 4. The “Freshening” of National Policy [1908-1910] § 1. Goga’s Social Rise after his Literary Success Around 1904, Goga overcame the confusion regarding his career. He definitively renounced his aspirations to become a secondary school teacher and did not apply for the final exam. He graduated the university only with an “Absolutorium” degree.1 He then successfully applied to a scholarship offered by “Transylvania” society in Bucharest for a trip to Berlin and Paris2 to continue his studies in history. In October 1904, he left together with Ioan Lupaş for Budapest and from there to Berlin to register at the University of Berlin. There are not accounts of his stay in Berlin. Ghibu mentions in his memories, based on the letters received from Lupaş, that both young students were not excited by their studies in Berlin and decided instead to visit Italy in the spring of 1905. From there, because of financial problems and otherwise busy to visit art museums, they did not send a single letter home. After this visit to Italy, both returned back to Romania.3 Goga spent the summer of 1905 in Răşinari, where he met Adelina Olteanu. Their idyll, which started in 1904, continued in 1905, and eventually he proposed to marry her, but she refused. This episode caused tension between him and Tăslăuanu, as Adelina, soon after, became Mrs. Tăslăuanu. It was in August 1905, at a ball celebrating ASTRA,4 that Adelina refused Goga and accepted Tăslăuanu’s proposal. Originally, Goga intended to leave at the end of September for Paris to continue his studies, according to the provisions of his scholarship. He found out about his recently published volume and changed his plans; he went to Budapest instead, received 2000 copies of the volume and then traveled to Bucharest to promote it.5 In Bucharest, Goga was introduced to many notable

1

Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga, 87. All documents regarding his application were published by Tăslăuanu. Ibid., 106-111. Goga applied in September 15, 1904 and received the positive answer in the beginning of October. The grant, call “Al. Papiu Ilarian,” was 1800 fr. per year. 3 Ghibu, Oameni între oamenii, 44. In September 1905, Goga wrote a letter to Mr. Raţiu, the president of “Transylvania” Society, attaching a report of his studies in Berlin. Yet, according to Tăslăuanu, this report was not found in the archive of “Transylvania.” 4 With this occasion, the Ethnographic Museum of the Association was inaugurated. 5 Ibid. 2

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intellectuals by his Transylvanian friends (mostly Ilarie Chendi and Onisifor Ghibu). His name was already well known. Two eminent professors from Bucharest, Ioan Bianu and Titu Maiorescu, mentioned his name in their inaugural lecture. When Ghibu, a student at the University of Bucharest, took him to the class, Goga was impressed by the warm welcome given by the other students. Soon after, he was invited to the royal court by Queen Elisabeth. A poet herself (known under the penname Carmen Sylva), she greeted him as a great poet and even asked permission to translate some of his poems into German.6 This ‘honeymoon’ in Bucharest tragically ended at the beginning of December, when news about his father’s illness reached him and he immediately left for Răşinari. Iosif Goga died at Christmas. Until the last moment, he probably was very concerned about his family’s future because he provided the only financial support. According to Tăslăuanu,7 he used all his influences to obtain for his son the position of second secretary at ASTRA. And, on 16 December, Goga was elected by the Central Committee as second secretary (assistant or junior secretary) with seven votes out of twelve. This event changed Goga’s plans and opened new opportunities for him. First, he had to give up his grant and renounce his trip to France. He was now the head of the family. This position offered him modest financial security so he had to accept it though his job was rather bureaucratic than creative, and quite short of his aspirations. However, as a second secretary of ASTRA, Goga had the chance to engage in militant cultural politics. This was the second great change, marking the beginning of Goga’s public activism. After six months, Goga proposed to the general meeting of ASTRA the foundation of a new review, Ţara noastră, to address a larger audience than Transilvania, which was the official organ of the Association.8 At the same meeting of December 1905, the Association decided to participate into the International Romanian Exhibition in Bucharest planned for July 1906, celebrating forty years of the reign of King Carol I. The Romanian 6

Elisabeth, previously Princess of Wied, played an important role in the cultural life of Romania as protector of the arts and writer. She wrote mainly in German. 7 Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga, 174. Ion Dodu Bălan, use this information with no other comment. Bălan, Octavian Goga, 90. An argument for his father’s intervention to obtain this post might be the hurry in which Goga had to apply. The application was written by Claudia Goga, his sister, before he came home, according to Tăslăuanu. However, the vacant position was published by Transilvania in 10 November and the meeting of the Central Committee decided for 16 December. 8 See Octavian Goga, “Cuvânt de încheiere,” in Transilvania, nr. 3-4 (July-August, 1906): 167-171.

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Central Committee decided to participate independent of the Hungarian exhibit, having their own pavilion based on an ethnographic exhibition opened in Sibiu in 1905. Goga was directly involved in organizing the Romanian pavilion and his participation brought another important change for Goga. On this occasion, Goga met the family of Partenie Cosma,9 one of the wealthiest Romanians in Transylvania. Mrs. Maria Cosma and her daughters became involved in the organization of this exhibition, as a matter of prestige. Eventually, Goga was introduce to Hortensia Cosma, the youngest daughter of Cosma whom he would marry on 14 October. The exhibition was a great success for the Transylvanian Romanian pavilion and particularly for Goga. The young couple celebrated their engagement on the first day of the exhibition. They were considered a symbol of the Romanian nation from Hungary and its profound feelings for the Romanian Kingdom. Goga was invited again to the court, together with the M. Cosma, in order to offer a hand made album with popular fabrics and seams from Ardeal. The album had an embroidered dedication for the queen followed by a poem by Goga “Waiting” in which a young maid is sewing her trousseau dreaming of a beautiful lad who was promised by charmed fairies (iele) to be found by a mother from an eastern country. It was a direct allusion to Queen Elisabeth, seen as an adoptive mother to all the young maids of Ardeal, as compensation for her lost child.10 From then, with her exhausted needle She chooses the threads, Thinking for the good and holy face Of the remote mother. Waiting, out of dreams She makes a beautiful necklace, There are only tears and hopes Embroidered on the white linen. 11

9

Partenie Cosma (1837-1924) was at that moment the director of “Albina” Bank. He was one of the great personalities of Transylvania and a prominent figure of Transylvanian national movement. Cosma was one of the founding fathers of the Romanian National Party being one of its first presidents (in 1881). Being disappointed by the prevailing passivism among Romanians, he retired from politics in 1884 and dedicated his efforts to the Association. Unfortunately, there is no study on his life and activities. His influence on or relation with Goga is largely neglected though it is most likely he had something to say on his son in law’s public activities. 10 Her daughter, Princess Maria died in 1874 at four years old. 11 Octavian Goga, “Aşteptare,” in Luceafărul, V, no. 11-12 (June 15, 1906): 256.

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This beau geste was highly appreciated by Queen Elisabeth and by the entire court, opening many aristocratic doors for Goga. He was already consecrated as a great poet when on 21 March 1906 the Romanian Academy offered him the “Năsturel Herescu” prize for Romanian literature, and Titu Maiorescu gave a eulogizing report to the plenum of the Academy. After the academic accolades, social recognition came quickly from the Romanian public opinion. As Chendi noticed, what did not happen to Eminescu happened to Goga; namely the instant recognition as the national poet. The string of events did not stop here. On 21 September, Goga was appointed ASTRA’s general literary secretary, in recognition of his activities, his nation-wide fame and, not least, for being the future son in law of Partenie Cosma. As Tăslăuanu puts it, in Transylvania it was more important to be Partenie Cosma’s son-in-law of than the national poet.12 It would have been shameful for ASTRA not to offer a better position to Goga, cconsidering the financial support it received from Cosma. Three weeks later, on 14 October, the wedding was celebrated almost as a national holiday. Finally, having more solid financial means, Goga sought to move Luceafărul to Sibiu and to become its co-proprietor. His love for Hortensia Cosma eased his relationship with Tăslăuanu, and after receiving the prize from the Academy of 4000 lei, it was possible to do so. Goga’s interest in cultural reviews was obvious and he seemed committed to a much sustained journalist activities. His plans were favoured by Tăslăuanu’s appointment as administrative general secretary of ASTRA at the same time as Goga. Just two days before the wedding, they signed a contract and managed to move Luceafărul to Sibiu where they expected a broader audience. This contract remained valid until 1909 when Goga decided to withdraw from the board of Luceafărul because of his overwhelming political activities. However, his participation was less substantial that Tăslăuanu expected. His editorial activities were sporadic and his poems rare.13 Once in Sibiu, Luceafărul lost its initial momentum. Coincidentally or not, Goga’s literary creativity visibly diminished, probably due to his publicist activities. In 1905, Goga was twenty five years old and ready to play a more active role in the national movement. In the same year, the Romanian National Party entered the Hungarian parliament for the first time. With his literary fame, Goga was well placed to aspire to a prominent political position. As secretary 12 13

Tăslăuanu, Octavian Goga, 197. According to the point no. 5 of the contract, Goga obliged himself to publish all his poems in Luceafărul. See Tăslăuanu, Spovedanii, 268-269. As Tăslăuanu noticed further, Goga did not respect the clauses of the contract.

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of ASTRA, he was able to translate his literary ideology into a more explicit political platform. His social ascension eased his aspirations and gave him a more prominent place. § 2. Ţara Noastră and “The New Generation” Once hired by ASTRA, Goga began a constant activity for his cultural credo. From the first general meeting he attended, he presented his cultural programme based on two fundamental assumptions.14 First, the Romanian peasants are the Romanian people and their needs are the needs of the nation. Thus, the cultural activities of the Association must be oriented toward the emancipation of the peasantry. Second, the Romanian leaders and/or intellectuals, have lost their sense of communality with peasantry being educated at foreign schools and embracing a foreign culture. Goga’s plea was for a revival of cultural propaganda according to the principle on which the Association was founded. For this, he proposed to transform the current review Transilvania into an annual bulletin only for administrative information and to found a new cultural and political review explicitly dedicated to the Romanian peasants. This new review would be freely distributed among the Romanian villages with the support of the rural intelligentsia who might form small cultural centers in each community. This idea played a central role for the further program of the ‘steeled youth’ who sought cultural decentralization in order to address the needs of the rural masses.15 Very few understood from Goga’s first speech the radical change proposed with his idea of nation. According to Goga, “Everything that had been done was rather an activity in the narrow frame of literati’s class interests while the peasant remained an extra-muros element.”16 He argued for a broader social dissemination of cultural activities, which must be understood on the basis of a much “closer contact” with the masses. It was a clear democratization of the idea of the nation, democratization that attacked the very idea of socially existing “walls” in favor of those previously excluded or quasi-excluded from the significant body of nation: the peasantry. His pleas for the Romanian

14

Octavian Goga, “Raportul secretarului II către şedinţa plenară,” in Transilvania, IV, no. 4-6 (1906): 167-171; republished in Tăslăuanu, Spovedanii, 276-282. 15 See ***, “Solidaritate,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 283 (31 December, 1910 / 13 January, 1911): 12. And the answer of Aurel C. Popovici, “Dela Spanachendi cetire… (II),” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 19 (January 26, 1911/ February 8, 1911): 1-2. 16 Goga, “Raportul…,” 278.

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peasant and his grievances were often an implicit critique against the Romanian leadership perceived as being up-rooted from its original “soil,”17 the peasantry. ASTRA’s General Assembly accepted Goga’s ideas and a new cultural and political review, Ţara Noastră [Our Country] appeared at the beginning of 1907 under Goga’s directorship. His weekly articles published in Ţara Noastră were cultural propaganda articles, followingthree recurrent and interconnected themes. One is the Romanian peasant and his needs, which should be the base for any national policy. Another one is the Romanian local leader, who grew up in a peasant family but in the last years he had been estranged from his family and nation because of schooling and the city in which he lives.18 Be they an advocate, a doctor, a banker, or a political leader, the burden of these people was “the same little house in a hamlet under a mountain”which they left behind together with their family. The literate who goes to the city is gradually reducing this relations with his peasant brothers, who remained at home. […] The village cannot please him anymore. […] It is natural for a man to feel at home where his daily struggles are unfolding, where his work flourishes. But it is not natural for the soul to break all of its past threads. To forget is sometimes the uttermost sin.19

Particular attention was paid to priesthood. Though the priest did not typically leave the villages they abandoned the interests of the peasants in favor of their own materialistic and self interest. The school is, again, the main reason for this estrangement. Long ago, priests were not different from their other villagers while now they are true educated gentlemen with few things in common with their neighbours. They are no longer the fathers or the advisers

17

Originally a title of an article about the Romanian immigrants in America, “Pământul nostrum ne cheamă” published in Ţara noastră, I, no. 49 (December 2, 1907): 741-744, The soil is colling us became the title of the second volume of poetry of Goga. 18 This estrangement of the intellectuals from their peasant or national roots was a common theme for the Sămănătorist critique of literature and society. It goes back in time to the conservative reaction against cosmopolitanism, reaction which was represented mainly by Mihai Eminescu. The Sămănătorist variant of this evaluation brought a new dimension when assumed the cleavage between the village and the city as the main source for the cultural estrangement of the Romanian elite. Extremely relevant were the articles of Coşbuc and Vlahuţă from the fist issues of Sămănătorul. See George Coşbuc, “Uniţi,” in Sămănătorul, I, no. 2 (December 9, 1901): 17-18; and Alexandru Vlahuţă, “Cărţi pentru popor,” in Sămănătorul, I, no. 3 (December 16, 1901): 33-34. 19 ***, “Să ne apropiem,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 39 (September 23, 1907): 631-633. It is one of Goga’s articles as far it was included by him in his volume O seamă de cuvinte, (Sibiiu: 1908).

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of peasants, but official clerks in a state institution, “functionarized priests” — as Goga called them.20 Lastly, the young generation was the missing link between an estranged elite and an underdeveloped peasantry. The school played a completely different role in ‘steeling’ this generation, strengthening the young Romanian students who were taught in Budapest and other foreign cities. As in other cases, the school had a contradictory role: to promote the cultural mobility of the Romanian elite21 and, at other time, to ‘steel’ the Romanian youth.22 Is it was educated in a foreign culture, this young generation personifies the principle of change, rejuvenation, renewal, and the chance of having a brighter national destiny. They are closer to the Romanian peasants and their needs though they suffered enormously during their quasi-exiled period of studies. They have a strong national culture though they have been dramatically exposed to the official Magyarisation policy of the Hungarian school system. Goga further claims that these young men have a stronger set of values, a new understanding of morality, a better knowledge of Romanian language and literature, and a new faith in their nation. The general refreshening23 of the moral values foreseen by Goga is based on a particular traditionalist understanding of society and a quasi-religious perception of reality. The critique of the present offered him the opportunity to further elaborate his notions on the younger generation. The idea of a steeled young generation came about after Nicolae Iorga published an article in which he, the inspirer of the Sămănătorist ideology, complained about the poor quality of the young Transylvanian intellectuals who, in his opinion, were forced to learn in a “Jewish and American city” — Budapest. A particular passage is relevant: 20

Octavian Goga, “Chemarea preoţimii noastre,” in Luceafărul, VI, no. 2-3 (February 1, 1907): 27-31. 21 Goga, “Din păcatale noastre,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 7 (February 11, 1907): 103-105; or Goga, “Pierdut,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 1 (January 1, 1908): 2-6; 22 Goga, “Generaţia nouă,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 11 (March 9, 1908): 87-88; and his defence in court “Discursul de apărare rostit de dl.Goga la curtea cu juraţi din Cluj,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 46, (November 9, 1908): 371-372; later publiched as “Education in the Hungarian Schools” in Insemnările unui trecător. 23 The term used by Goga is “primenire” which means “refreshening,” “renewal,” but the closest meaning is “refreshening.” This term will be preferred here because it indicates a metaphor often used by Goga but not entirely explicit all the time, according to which politics is similar with clothes that cover the national ideas. Or, as in the case of clothes, there is necessary to tide, refresh and even change them. After 1923 this metaphor is often used by Goga in his discourses, but the origin of this figure of speach is in this warm apology for the refreshening of the political life of the Hungarian Romanians.

118 [Budapest is] a big Jewish and American city, with a lot of noise and insolence, [where], as everywhere, the Jew is putting his seal and the material interest rules in all its rudeness. Smoke of fabrics and minds with smoke; docks of stone and also hearts of stone; underground trains and intrigues of the same kind; shops for trading as well as journals, politics and literature of trading. The Café is here what the public square was for a Greek or a Roman, what a salon or a club is for us. Culture is everywhere but in a utilitarian and trivial way: science and literature are taken from the feuilletons of Itzic and Moritz, political ideas are those from the editorials of Kalman and Leibu, both [authors] dressed as medieval troubadours or national knighs. Relations among people are done and undone very easy, without regret and remorse: you understand very well how somebody who was licking your feet yesterday, is today splashing you with insults. Life has only inexorable needs and you must make your own way through — says America — even if it is necessary to punch your father’s face. Just to obtain a name, situation and money — what else do you need! Ideas are just toys that can be in one way or the other, feelings are just the changing masks of a greedy and cruel soul. And so many sons of ploughmen, priests, [and] artisans, who succeed to go throughare blending within this chaos: at first they are astonished, thereafter they get accustomed and melt within the environment. They are coming back home with steeled souls, with their hands ready to fight, with their speedy feet ready for advancing, with flexible spine, and very often with a face accustomed to show a cynical smile as an answer to any confrontation. 24

At first, Iorga associates a cynical, stoned or calloused soul with the “steeled youth.” For him, the younger generation, students who studied in Budapest, eventually ended up being insensitive to others’ need; they become selfish and materialistic as the culture of the city. Although Iorga shares the same image of the city as Goga does, and as many others close to the Sămănătorist movement, he points to the new generation accusing it of being different than the older one, the latter considered to have been more serious, sincere, trustful, believers in high (national) ideals, inflexible regarding moral values, and rigorous about their intellectual works. But Iorga, who had no aptitudes in developing abstract theories, refers to a particular person when he wrote these lines. He addresses this criticism mainly to Ilarie Chendi, the former spiritus rector of Sămănătorul, with whom Iorga had a quarrel regarding the cultural direction of

24

Nicolae Iorga, “O primejdie pentru viata morala a Rominilor de «dincolo»,” in Neamul Românesc, III, no. 25 (February 26, 1908): 385-387. It is worth mentioning the name “Judapest” coined by the antisemitic mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger.

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the journal.25 Or, Chendi was one of Goga’s best friends, and Goga attempted to defend him together with the “new generation” from Ardeal. Thus, the young students are indeed steeled by the harsh conditions of cosmopolitan Budapest, however not in the sense of selfishness and materialism, but in the sense of having a stronger national consciousness and readiness to fight for the national ideals. The hostile laws and foreign education did not pervert the young souls but, on the contrary, they imposed the isolation26 of these bright young men from the decadent city. In principle, Iorga had the same interpretation as Goga about generational decline and the decadence of the city. However, differences are noticable as well. Iorga makes a difference between the generation educated under German rule and the recent generation educated under the Hungarian regime. For Goga, this distinction is irrelevant. The old generations are basically less educated than the recent ones, and thus closer to the ordinary people; the aristocracy was estranged long ago and the local elite had functioned rather as popular advisors than as a social stratum. Furthermore, Goga identifies the year 1848 as a moment of change when a real intelligentsia began to appear. From that moment, the hiatus between peasantry and intellectuals permanently grew until recently when “the new generation” began the movement backward towards the peasant, thus restoring the unity of Romanian culture and society. This movement back to their social origins was Goga’s main argument. Iorga’s article helped Goga to better identify his group of companions, who could further attack “the old decrepit men” in the name of higher ideals and moral values of “the steeled young men.”

25

Chendi came on the board of Sămănătorul in the autumn of 1902. In January 1903 Chendi offers the chair of the board to Iorga hoping to use his academic authority to the benefit of the review. Yet, Iorga had his own aspirations and took much seriously his leadership than Chendi had expected. After one year of provisory cohabitation, Chendi was forced to retreat from the board after a fierce quarrel with Iorga. See Ornea, Sămănătorul, 50-58. 26 This idea was not at all new. It was Slavici’s idea of cultural isolation to prevent any cultural contamination and to offer a good background for national cultural development. As Goga mentions in an article against Slavici from 1911, “Slavici, the founder of Tribuna, the fearless journalist, the implacable activist and peremptory politician, who inaugurated for us the current of complete isolation from anything that is Hungarian….” See “A murit un om: Ioan Slavici,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 149 (July 19, 1910): 1-2.

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§ 3. The ‘Refreshening’ Campaing and its Nationalist Notions In his first articles published in Ţara noastră, Goga outlined his main ideas about the necessary changes of the national movement and, eventually, of the idea of nation. The first is the idea of race, “notes of race” or “particularism of race”, all built upon the notion of nation restricted to the ordinary people. Romanians were never townsmen but “countrymen.”27 Furthemore, were “the pillars of this country lay on their shoulder and if the shoulders are shaking then the pillars are shacking too.”28 Goga underlines the point that the Romanians are “a peasant nation”29 because “from immemorial times until recently, our people had lived in this country as a single social layer, as peasantry.”30 In another article, Goga further elaborates his notion of nation attributing to all nations a particular soul that distinguishes one from another.31 This collective soul, which guides the people in its own way, is defined by language, law, costumes, songs and dances, and old customs.32 The nation that changed these constitutive elements has a “foreign spirit” in it, a spirit who alters or even kills the soul of the respective folk. Finally, he exclaims: “We will be like our ancestors used to be!”33 The second is the idea of (cultural) union. As previously mentioned, it was alleged that many intellectuals lost contact with their own people, the soul of the nation, and became estranged due to the foreign spirit of their education. There are two ways of approaching the issue of cultural union. On the one hand, it is about the cultural activity of various institutions, such as ASTRA, and of various journals. These activities should be oriented toward the peasantry whose situation is unbearable. On the other hand, cultural activities should be directed toward a reconnection of intellectuals with their own social roots. The future of the nation depends on an educational policy that supports the emancipation of ordinary people.34 Education is a unifying principle that can restore the original unity of the nation. This noble ideal should be served

27

Goga, “Către cărturarii noştrii,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 1 (January 1, 1907): 3. Goga, “Nu mai vrem umilinţă,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 2 (January 7, 1907): 26. 29 ***, “Să ne apropiem,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 39 (September 23, 1907): 631-633 30 Goga, “Adevărul,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 2 (May 11, 1908): 163-164. 31 Goga, “Moştenirea Noastră,” in Ţara Noastră, I, no 13 (March 25, 1907): 199-202. 32 Ibid., 202. 33 Ibid. 34 Goga, “La şcoală,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 36 (September 2, 1907): 583-585. 28

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not only by school35 but by cultural associations, journals and reviews, popular libraries36 and other cultural associations. The third is the idea of (moral) authority. Because the Romanian elite lost contact with the soul of the nation, the problem of leadership is paramount. It is interesting how Goga understands the role of the great men within the life of their nation. Influenced probably by Iorga’s programme to design a national pantheon of the most notable personalities, Goga made efforts to create his own precursors. These great men managed, in his opinion, to embrace a part of the nation’s soul and to understand the proper ways of their people. Later, in the 1930s, when Goga assumed for himself the same privileges as his precursors, this idea was elaborated, the soul was explicitly the soul of the nation. However, for the period referred here, the idea of (moral) authority was only employed as a main critical principle against the Romanian elite uprooted and estranged from their own people. Moral decadence is one of the first themes explored by Goga in his early articles. Even in 1903, he urged a moral refreshing before the racial character of Romanians might be irremediable affected: A refresh is needed because the moral level of our days, which is not good at all, shall be powerlessly broken like the strength with which it serves you; only in this way we can look to the followers of these times with the joy of healing of an evil, as [after] a epoch of transitory weakness…, which did not became racial weakness through permanent propagation.37

Essentially, the exemplar morality resides in peasantry.38 The intellectuals are those who move away from this primordial moral cleanliness, and the new generation, the ‘steeled young men’, can revive this exemplarity through their return to their roots, the peasantry, restoring not only the unity of the nation but 35

It should be noted here that in 1907 the parliament of Budapest issued the Act XXVII, known as Apponyi’s law which “obliged all elementary schools where the syllabus was taught in non-Hungarian languages, including those run by churches and communities, to give over sufficient hours to teaching Hungarian so that «on completion of the fourth year children whose native language is not Hungarian shall be able to express their thoughts intelligibly in Hungarian by the spoken word and in writing».” (Within the quote is cited the law itself) See Ignác Romsisc, Hungary in the Twentieth Century, (Budapest: Corvina, 1999): 65. This law which was to be fully effective in three years, brought about not only a higher degree of usage of Hungarian in the Romanian schools but a completely undesirable intrusion of the state administrative control over the Romanian schools, which had until that moment autonomy under the authority of Church. 36 Goga, “Bibliotecile poporale,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 15 (April 8, 1907): 231-234. 37 Goga, “3/15 Mai. Ei şi noi,” in Luceafărul, II, no. 10-11 (June 1, 1903): 177. 38 See Goga, “Adunări poporale,” in Ţara Noastră, III, no. 31 (August 2/15, 1909): 247.

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also its moral qualities. It was a matter of leadership and a direct attack against the Romanian elites. At the same time, it was a protestant attitude towards spiritual life and towards the Romanian church (mostly the Orthodox Church, however he did not restrict himself in any way to the Orthodox community) itself as far as the clergy preserved an important part of the national leadership on the national movement. The question of Romanian clergy is directly connected with the problem of national leadership. Although priests and church hierarchs were not directly connected to the decadent spirit of the city, they were not like their predecessors; they did not have the same “patriarchal intimacy with their people.”39 Perhaps, this is the reason why Goga shows such an irreverent attitude towards priesthood. “Popă” (from the Slavonic “popŭ”) is an informal way of referring to a priest. Usually the traditional appellative for a priest is “Father,” though “popă” in used, as Goga did, in a disrespectful manner although not always in a negative way. For example the poem “The Chorister Bagpipe” begins with “It is good that we have a meritorious popă.” 40 Even further, in the article “The Burden of Our Priesthood,” the old fashion Romanian priest reveal “the qualities of the true “fathers:” the same warm and serene intimacy, and good wisdom. Here the priest is called “the old historical ‘Romanian popă’, the oldest and strongest pillar of our century long life.”41 Another notable element is the priest’s meetings with his flock on the porch (podmol) of his house. The church does not appear when the priest meets the villagers. The church remains a decorative element in Goga’s recollections about his village, or an element of a pantheistic vision of nature, but never what a church used to be, a place for the reunion of Christian community.42 In “The Apostle,” the villagers wait for their priest on his own porch.43 However, the implications are not restricted to the religious or communitarian life but hint at a leadership type foreseen by Goga. The idea of refreshening is often translated as a change of the social relationship between “the coat” and “the (peasant) shirt,” as Goga used to say, as a rapprochement between the elite and the peasantry, a re-planting of intelligentsia in their original social soil. Under these circumstances, the priest is no longer only a priest, and Goga allows for enough room for the laymen to share the same 39

Goga, “Chemarea preoţimii noastre,” in Luceafărul, VI, no. 2-3 (February 1, 1907): 27-31. Octavian, “Cantorul Cimpoi,” in Luceafărul, II, no. 3 (February 1, 1903): 46. 41 Goga, “Chemarea preoțimii noastre,” 28. 42 Ștefan Călinescu, Lectiuni de teologie dogmatica, (Bucuresti ; Gutenberg: Joseph Göbl, 1904) 43 Nic. Otavă, “Apostolul,” in Luceafărul, III, no. 9-11 (15 Iunie, 1904): 208. 40

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attributes of a priest: mainly, the guidance of the peasant community. A particular fragment from an article entitled “On the Porch” makes possible such an interpretation. He (our intellectual) will realize with his [own] mind that there on the porch, in the summer and autumn evenings, the secrets from the books can be unveiled. He will realize the natural thought that our priest or any other literate person can be the apostle of our dreams and our wills. There at podmol, on the porch, the good advises will take shape in the peasants’ souls, in the silence of the evenings.44

“Our priest or any other literate person reader can be the apostle of our dream” illustrates Goga’s intentions in supporting a Romanian prophetism long before this term to be coined by the next generation of the 1930s.45 The apostleship envision by Goga is a combination between a priest with little theological education but fully dedicated to his community and a young intellectual well educated but who devotes his abilities for the cultural and political emancipation of the peasantry. For the first, school (the seminary) is not important or even undesirable, while for the second it is important. In an article entitled “From our home,” the old Popa Solomon talks with the mayor (judele) about his son Traian who attends the theological school in Blaj. The old priest is proud of his son who is a real gentleman and who in one year will graduate from school and remain at home to help his father with the religiousservice. Yet, the mayor expresses his doubts about the hopes of his old friend because the young man Traian no longer looks like a peasant. He has German clothes and even a pocket watch. Puzzled, the mayor even asks, “Forgive me father [Solomon], but why is school so much needed for priesthood?”46 Further, the mayor talks with the young gentleman and tells the priest what the villagers needs. He underlines that a priest should be a father for all the peasants, a father and not a lordly gentleman. The priest must help the people, tell stories on Sunday evenings, read the letters received by people from their sons in the army, lend money without usury, read the religious service, and

44

Goga, “La podmol,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 22 (May 27, 1907): 362. Italics in original. Initially Ilie Marin called Goga “poëtas vates” and this epithet has a great career. It was used by Lovinescu (1934), Beniuc (1966), Aurel Martin (1966), Alexandru Piru (1971), Bucur Ţincu (1973), I. D. Bălan (1978), Mircea Zaciu (1971, 1996), See Ilie Marin, “Poëta vates,” in Tribuna, XII, no. 10 (January 12/25, 1908): 1-2; and Aurel Martin, “Poeta vates,” in Gazeta literară, no. 699 (March 31, 1966). 46 Goga, “De la noi,” in O seamă de cuvinte, (Sibiiu: Biblioteca Poporală a Asociaţiunii, no. 31, Tiparul Tipografiei Arhidiecezane, 1908): 78-79. 45

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advise the people. He recommends to the young man Traian to renounce the priesthood if he “gets too advanced with his schools.” He ends with “We need a father in the village.”47 In an earlier article, “Another Year, Other Hopes,” Goga criticises the publication of a new theological review that does not address the actual needs of the Romanians. His opinions about theology and a specialized review for theologians are blunt. We consider that neither the dogmatic trickeries nor the endless excursuses on the swampy land of canons can build the moral and intellectual foundation for our priesthood for accomplishing its cultural mission. Good Lord, not the correct listing of the problems from whatever council from Nicaea but the good knowledge of rational economy and civic rights, the understanding of our political and literary history, [and] the assimilation of a pure Romanian language, these, together with patriarchal honesty and the old fear of God, can help the cultural development of our priesthood.48

In other words, not Christian theology should be assimilated by priests but they should become acquainted with the problems of the present.49 It is necessary, in Goga’s opinion, for a new kind of priest as a local political leader similar with that of former generation of priests who led the peasants in the 1848 revolution.50 In conclusion, the general refreshening of moral values, envisioned by Goga, implies a more energetic nationalist activism in which the priests should extensively use their authority in order to mobilize the peasants. Where the priest is not able to play such nationalist role, the young generation must assume this duty, inspired by the example of the older generation of priest and using their education for gaining social emancipation and civic rights for Romanian peasants. Finally, Goga’s vision about a general refreshening was based on a particular understanding of religiousness, which was no longer a Christian but a

47

Ibid, 82. O. G. “Alt an, alte nădejdii,” in Luceafărul, V, no. 21-24 (December 15, 1906): 471-472. 49 In another article, on the contrary, Goga accuses the church of tolerating various pagan practices because of the selfishness of the priest who founded a source of incomes acting as buffoons or magician, misleading the credulous peasants. In this particular case, the priest was considered uneducated. See Goga, “Vrem calea adevărului,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 40 (September 3, 1907): 647-649. 50 In the article previously mentioned, “From our home,” the mayor reminds Traian about his grandfather who was shot by Hungarians because he, as a priest, organised a meeting and advised the peasants to follow the [revolutionary] gentlemen from Blaj. 48

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nationalist faith. The “national idea” professed in his articles implies an archaic patriarchate in which the young intellectuals have a similar position and enjoy similar respect like the former generation of priests, being the new apostles of the nation. The new society which resulted after this freshening should be founded on a new morality and a strong belief in nation character, similar with a religious faith that goes beyond “the cold judgment, emerging out of the soulful palpitations.”51 This faith wears the seal of the Romanian soul. A very emotional appeal for a new faith is made in an article describing Goga’s visit to his friend Seton-Watson in Scotland.52 On a Sunday evening, having an intellectual conversation with his host, they had to interrupt their discussion at nine o’clock because by tradition the lord of the house reads from the Bible to his servants. It is hard to believe that reading the Bible Sunday might have been an experience that impressed Goga in such a way. The reason for his astonishment is “the holly patriarchal sereneness” in which an intellectual performs a traditional ritual. More than a ritual, it was an exercise in leadership, a perfect illustration of the new role of intellectuals envisioned by Goga. This episode prompted, Goga to begin a new diatribe against the Romanian intellectuals. And now, forgive me and don’t get angry if, without waiting for an answer, I wonder which is your faith, you the over-praised intellectual of my nation? When you started from your little house from countryside and went to the Hungarian school, you still used to say “Our Father” in the evening and to dream fairies and other spirits. You carried the ancient heritage in your soul like a candle which mysteriously glimmer and shows your way. But the heritage was wasted. It has gradually vanished; it was crumbled on your way. Your teachers, who thought you trigonometry and the poems of Vörösmarthy, strangled the visions of wonderful peasant pantheism in your soul. They stole from you, day by day, giving you in exchange only some certificates […]. When you crossed the threshold of these schools, you were deprived of all your fortune inherited from your parents, [you remained] with a horrifying emptiness in yourself. [Just as] a poor lost boat thrown at the mercy of the waves…53

The reason for this estrangement is, as expected, the “foreign book” that means the foreign education received by the young intellectuals. This article summarizes the theme of anxiety caused by estrangement, which is present in 51

Goga, “Vrem calea adevărului,” 648. Goga, “Vrem o credinţă,” in Însemnările unui trecător, (Arad: Tribuna, 1911): 27-33. 53 Ibid, 32. It seems that, in this article, the peasant pantheism is wonderful and not only mistakes and prejudices like in “Vrem calea adevărului” above mentioned. 52

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Goga’s poems from this period. Without faith and without the fairy world of childhood, the poor young intellectual is doomed to painful wanderings, struggling to find a moral foundation. “How to follow a straight line in your wanderings, if you are so uprooted?” Goga asks rhetorically. Material existence will predominate over the ideal (moral) one, and “no storming impetus toward an ideal would enslave your soul.”54 This text unveils the way in which Goga understands the “enslavement” to be an ideal, the obedience to and the faith in the “idea of nation,” “an ideal of the steeled life”, as Popovici would say it a couple of years later. § 4. The Debate on the “Two Cultures” These revolutionary ideas of social and moral renewal must have had some impact on public opinion of the time as far as all local leaders, church hierarchs, and intellectuals were strongly criticized. It was an article by Tăslăuanu, entitled “Two Cultures: The Culture of Gentlmen and the Culture of Peasants” that triggered this dispute.55 In it, Tăslăuanu argues that there are two cultures, one for the gentlemen, which is international (cosmopolitan), and one for the peasants, which is national and local. He recalls the Latinist School that created another language similar to Latin, which was almost unintelligible for the ordinary people. However, in Tăslăuanu’s opinion, this was just an incipient manifestation of a national cultural cleavage. Recent cultural tendencies were hurting the interests of the Romanian people as far as the cultivated social stratum was “increasingly more greedy and more willing to acquire wealth for their ruling descendants”56 More than that, these elites are reactionary: “any honest and poor intellectual who wants to organize the peasantry for its interests and against the parasitic tendencies of the greedy gentlemen would encounter the most violent reactionarism.”57 In spite of them being exploiters of the people, these elites did not hesitate to speak in the name of the nation but actually they spoke against the interests of the peasants. The last question raised by Tăslăuanu was: “Could we find, among the recent generations, people who 54

Ibid. Octavian Tăslăuanu, “Două culturi. Cultura domnilor şi cultura ţaranilor,” in Luceafărul, VII, no. 4 (February 15, 1908): 59-64. 56 Ibid., 63. In Romanian the word “domn” means at the same time a gentleman and a ruler or political leader. In this particular situation “domnie” means leadership but it actually infers “gentleman-ship,” because of the presupposition that all gentlemen are nobleman, lord or masters of ordinary men (i.e. peasant people). 57 Ibid., 64. 55

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might be bold enough to start, completely disinterested, the fight against the foreign culture of our gentlemen?”58 This idea was not new among European and Romanian intellectuals. It was earlier expressed by Disraeli in his novel Sybil.59 Then, in 1905, Sandu-Aldea published a novel entitled Two nations.60 A couples of years latter, Lenin wrote a text entitled “Critical remarks on the National Question” in which he put the problem as follows: There are two nations in every modern nation — we say to all nationalist-socialists. There are two national cultures in every national culture. There is the Great-Russian culture of the Purishkeviches, Guchkovs and Struves — but there is also the Great-Russian culture typified in the names of Chernyshevsky and Plekhanov. There are the same two cultures in the Ukraine as there are in Germany, in France, in England, among the Jews, and so forth. If the majority of the Ukrainian workers are under the influence of Great-Russian culture, we also know definitely that the ideas of Great-Russian democracy and SocialDemocracy operate parallel with the Great-Russian clerical and bourgeois culture.61

The overall tone of Tăslăuanu’s article was quite aggressive and immediately perceived as such by other reviewers. The first reaction was from Tribuna and Ioan Russu-Şirianu.62 Şirianu mentioned a previous article published by Tribuna in which the adoption of foreign culture by the Romanian

58

Ibid. “Well society may be in its infancy,… but, say what you will, our Queen reigns over the greatest nation that ever existed. Which nation?” asked the younger stranger, “for she reigns over two.… Yes…Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; as if they were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of different planet; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws…. THE RICH AND THE POOR.” quoted in Robert Blake, Disraeli (New York: Carroll & Graf Publisher, Inc., 1987), 201. 60 Sandu-Aldea, Două naţiuni, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1905). The book was extensively reviewed in Luceafărul. Tăslăuanu thought of Sandu-Aldea as being one of the most representative writer for the cultural current he argued for. 61 V. I. Lenin, “Critical Remarks on the National Question”, in Collected Works, tom. XX, (Moscow Publisher, 1964), 32. Text available at https://www.marxists.org/ archive/lenin/works/1913/crnq/index.htm. 62 ***, “Două culturi (I&II),” in Tribuna, XII, no. 39 (February 17/ March 1, 1908): 1-2 and no. 44 (February 23/ March 7, 1908): 1-2. These two articles were not signed but at their beginings these is specified (R) and respectively (R. Ş.) which is an indication of their author. 59

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elites was criticized.63 Şirianu agreed with the author’s point that “national consciousness floats over the surface of consciousness while the foreign culture has deep roots in the mysterious depths of the uncontrollable unconsciousness,”64 and that the school was the main reason for this happening. Then, Şirianu mentioned another article by Brote on the same matter but he considers that the capital events of the previous year (that is the major peasant uprising in the Romanian Kingdom) interrupted the incipient discussion. Now, after one year, Şirianu wass happy to see his “younger colleagues” from Luceafărul “becoming alarmed” about the same “sad reality.” His main point was the lack of interest among the Transylvanian Romanian elite to support a national literature. This argument is identical with the one made by Goga in his “Return.”65 This is why Romanian intellectuals from Transylvania appeared to be so enstranged and even foreign among their co-nationals in Romania66 The next reaction was published by Convorbiri literare. It was an article by Aurel C. Popovici entitled “Criminal Demagogy.”67 For Popovici, Tăslăuanu’s article was only the sign of an irresponsible socialist and anarchist agitation, a demagogical attempt to separate the Romanian peasantry from its traditional ruling class, and the replacement of the Romanian-Hungarian struggle with a Romanian-Romanian fratricidal war just more savage and fierce. For Popovic, there was a civic duty to counteract such propaganda of utopian constructs and to defend the social order. Popovici, then, launched a vehement attack against democracy, which for him waspure demagogy. Democracy, socialism, and anarchy were all part of the same revolutionary ethos.68 Then, Popovici points out the socialist and anarchist dimension of Tăslăuanu’s article: hate for the gentlemen (priests, teachers, owners, lawyers, clerks etc.), and antipathy for the Romanian upper strata. According to Popovici, Tăslăuanu’s intentions, are the abolishment of the wealthy class and peasant labor exploitation, and the just division of collective work.. Ultimately, the problem was the existing Romanian state. Its institutions are the representatives of the wealthy, educated, and ruling classes. Under these circumstances, the political union of the Romanians does not imply a cultural

63

***, “Liceul din Caransebeş,” in Tribuna, XI, (February 10, 1907): 1; this article is quoted by Şirianu in his “Two Cultures.” 64 “Două culturi I,” 1. 65 Goga, “Retour,” in Luceafărul, II, No. 2 (January 15, 1903): 34. 66 “Două culturi I,” 2. 67 Aurel C. Popovici, “Demagogie criminală,” in Convorbiri literare, XLII, no. 3 (March, 1908): 296-307. 68 Ibid., 299.

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union of69 a multi-cultural state due to the multi-national education of its elite (German, French, Russian, Hungarian, Austrian, etc.). The elite tends to be cosmopolitan, neglecting the local mass culture or the national peasant culture, and a nation-state cannot exist without a national culture.70 Popovici’s accusation of anarchism is not entirely correct as far as Tăslăuanu is concerned. Tăslăuanu clearly endorsed the need of a state. For instance, he considers “the organization of the people in a state is asked by the gentlemen’s interests,”71 in other words, the state represents the interests of the upper classes, without whom there would not be no need for a state. But the main target is not necessarily the state. Attacking the ‘upper culture,’ Tăslăuanu attacks the entire urban society and modern institutions (the school for example) that pervert the original national purity of the peasantry.72 There is an anti-social component in his article which assaults urban society, exiling it outside the notion of the Romanian nation. This component was the common denominator of all the “steeled young men” who gathered around Luceafărul, Tribuna, Ţara Noatră. It was this revolutionary mood that in 1911 triggered a scandal between Tribuna and Românul. And, it is not by chance that the National Committee asked Popovici to respond to the younger generation’s criticism. He had actually warned them that any educated people should counter-act such irresponsible propaganda. In the next issue of Luceafărul, Tăslăuanu responded to these critics with a short note in the “Chronicle” section of the review. He visibly tempered his tone stating that his lines were the result of his “cleanest and deepest conviction.” He rejected all accusation because the respective article was not written with annihilating tendencies against anything that is precious to the soul of our intelligentsia, but with the pure and honest intention of establish as bluntly as possible the evil known by everybody; of establishing and searching the means for removing this evil. 73

69

This idea was professed by Slavici who openly said that the political union before cultural one is senseless. See Ioan Slavici, Închisorile mele, (Bucharest: Allfa & Paideia, 1996): 199-218. Later, in the ‘30s, Goga too will adopt similar ideas, not about the State but about the “gentlemen” who do not have a unified culture, by education, and could create a Romanian State; the real unity was to be found at the bottom of the society amongthe peasantry. 70 Tăslăuanu, “Două culturi,” 60. 71 Ibid,. 62. 72 “Culture presupposes the existence of society, because only in its bosom individuals can develop their spiritual and moral aptitudes.” Ibid. 73 Tăslăuanu, “Cronică. Două culturi,” in Luceafărul, VII, no. 6 (15 March 15, 1908): 133-134.

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Then, he claimed that his goal was to organize the peasantry in economic and cultural terms, and participate in the general effort of social emancipation. However, in his original article where everything related with organization refers only to “the gentlemen” and their selfish interests. He promised to return to this issue, but it took him three years to write another two articles on this theme.74 A week later, in Sămănătorul, Ioan Scurtu dedicated two notes75 to Popovici’s article and to Tăslăuanu’s response. He agreed with Popovici, whose article he extensively cited, and criticized Tăslăuanu for his “opportunism.” Scurtu’s reaction was understandable because at that time he wanted Popovici to become a member of his editorial board.76 Meanwhile, Tăslăuanu had responded to Popovici in a series of four articles published in Lupta entitled “Political guidelines.”77 But Tăslăuanu’s ironic tone and the occasional insolence angered Popovici, and he answered in a series of four articles.78 This series of articles prompted Tăslăuanu to challenge Popovici to a duel, a duel that actually never happened.79 Invited to join the editorial board of 74

Tăslăuanu, “Organizarea satelor nostre,” in Luceafărul, X, no. 9 (May 1, 1911): 197-200; partially republished in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 88 (April 22 / May 5, 1911): 1-2; and “Organizarea economică a ţărănimii,” in Luceafărul, X, no. 11 (June 16, 1911): 290-291. 75 Ioan Scurtu, “Revista generală. Demagogie criminală,” in Sămănătorul, VII, no. 13 (March 23, 1908): 264-266; and “Luceafărul,” in Sămănătorul, VII, no. 13 (March 23, 1908): 266267. 76 Iorga withdrew from the board in January and Scurtu remained the interim director of Sămănătorul. He desperately needed a new formula and a new director. Most probably, the polemic around “Two Cultures” made him to take a decision in favour of Aurel C. Popovici who had already been invited to collaborate with the review. See Ornea, Sămănătorul, 74-82. The reasons why Ornea is permanently critical regarding Aurel C. Popovici are not explicit. Most probably they have to do with the radical conservativism of Popovici as it was understood by Ornea, who had leftist sympathies. His interpretation is favorable to Tăslăuanu and his inclination toward Poporanism (the competitor current of Sămănătorul established by the intellectuals around Viaţa Românească and Constantin Stere) See Ibid., 91. 77 Oct. C. Tăslăuanu, “Îndrumări politice... Răspuns d. Aurel C. Popovici I,” in Lupta, II, no. 77 (5/18 April, 1908): 3; II, no. 78 (6/19 April, 1908): 2-3; III, no. 79 (9/22 April, 1908): 3-4; and no. 80 (10/23 April, 1908): 3-4. 78 Popovici, “Idei anarhice,” part I-IV, in Lupta, II, from no. 86 (April 23/ May 6, 1908) to no. 89 (April 27/May 10, 1908): 1-2; and in Sămănătorul, VII, from no. 19 (May 4, 1908) to no. 22 (May 25, 1908): 394-398, 415-418, 434-437, and 456-458. 79 In Lupta, II, no. 93 (1/14 May, 1908): (6) it was published Tăslăuanu’s challenge and in no. 105 (15/28 Mai): 6 the answer of Popovici’s two witnesses. It seems that Tăslăuanu came in Bucharest, on 9 May, and did not go immediately to Popovici’ witnesses to agree on the duel conditions. On 12 May, MP N. Seulescu and Major V. Verzea, the two witnesses, decided the question over in Tăslăuanu’s absence. In their letter to Popovici and published by Lupta they added another reason saying that Tăslăuanu does not have any basic knowledge about the rules of a duel and actually “his attempt is just a try to rehabilitate himself and to give a kind of

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Sămănătorul, Popovici published a series of theoretical articles about the dangers of democracy, the founding principles of the nation, the decadence of civilization, state and national policy, expressing his conservative ideas.80 In parallel, “Anarchical ideas,”81, a long article, in four parts, against Tăslăuanu, was republished from Lupta (Budapest): together with another article against Constantin Stere, who “dared” to criticized Popovici.82 For a few weeks, Sămănătorul was transformed into a platform directed exclusively against Tăslăuanu and his “criminal,” “anarchical,” or “dissolving” ideas.83 Returning to the course of debate, a short overview of Tăslăuanu’s reaction in Lupta is necessary. His main point was that Popovici’s conservativism is based on a political theory founded on a particular understanding of natural laws and the nature of human society that cannot be fully know by an individual, and thus they are relative and indeterminate. Tăslăuanu agrees that Popovici: has a wide theoretical training in political matters, knows the entire European literature related with political sciences. He read en entire life reaching the level of political philosophy or even political metaphysics.84

However, for Tăslăuanu, Popovici does not have experience in practical politics in spite of his culture. Then, he was only a theoretician who takes for granted certain ideas. Finally, no one can justify the domination of the ruling classes with reference to natural laws; the state is not necessary the only source of liberty, and the state is not the onlyy a means of life for nations. This is why, respectability to his anti-Romanian policy of discord between our brothers from the other side [of the Carpathians], — because of these reasons we would not accept you to give satisfaction to this gentleman even if it would have been expressed in a suitable conditions.” A week later, in no. 110 (May 22/ June 3, 1908): 6, a second letter was published this time on behalf of Tăslăuanu’s witnesses: Ioan Russu Abrudeanu and Al. C. Satmary. Their version they put forward was that they looked for Popovici on 12 May at 10:30 a.m. but they did not find him; they returned at 12:30 when Popovici sent them to his witnesses. Thereafter, they met his witnesses who just gave them the (first) letter above mentioned. In conclusion, both Russu Abrudeanu and Satmary considered their duty accomplished. 80 These articles eventually were published in volume: Aurel C. Popovici, Naţionalism sau Democraţie (Bucharest: Minerva, 1910) 81 Popovici, “Idei anarhice. În chestia d-lui Tăslăuanu”, part I-IV, in Lupta, II, from no. 86 (April 23/ 6 Mai 6, 1908) to no. 89 (April 27/May 10, 1908): 1-2. 82 Popovici, “Idei disolvante. Răspuns «Vieţii Româneşti» I-III,” in Sămănătorul, VII, no. 20 (May 11, 1908): 399-405; no. 21 (May 18, 1908): 419-424; and no. 22 (May 25, 1908): 439447. 83 In Sămănătorul, VII, from no. 19 (May 4, 1908) to no. 22 (May 25, 1908): 394-398, 415-418, 434-437, and 456-458. 84 Tăslăuanu, “Îndrumări politice” I, 3.

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according to Tăslăuanu, the dissolution of the state is not equivalent with the destruction of the nation. In the second article, Tăslăuanu however distanced himself from an incipient critique of the state. He agreed that the differentiation of human society in dominant and dominated people is a law of nature, but a natural law too is “the action of those who try to overthrown the social order or of those who want to transform the entire globe into a single state.”85 Here, Tăslăuanu professes a relativism according to which “conservative ideas are as necessary as the revolutionary” ones because the fight between these two tendencies is, in fact, another law of nature.86 Furthermore, Tăslăuanu claims that any cultivated man, should “surpass his narrow and selfish interests.” Accordingly, the first step is to “unchained humankind from the savage primitive feelings of perceiving the other fellow only as the enemy, as only good for exploitation, and only to manipulate their intellectual inferiority.”87 Somehow, Tăslăuanu attempted to accommodate his Marxist ideas with the conservative stance of his opponent, involving this time God’s will and biblical principles. He even exclaimed: “Do not think that these are socialist doctrines. No! These moral percepts are the base of Christianity.”88 Finally, quoting Ernst Mach’s Erkenntnis und Irrtum (Knowledge and Error), Tăslăuanu pleaded for progress in spreading welfare to the entire society and the better use of common resources. Mentioning the case of Romania that witnessed such a violent uprising the year before, he expressed his hopes for a better life on behalf of the peasantry. The reforms issued after the uprising might have diminished the gulf between the two classes and bring relief. And, most importantly, “instead of the boyars, who did not have too much love for their nation’s fate, gradually, others will take the leadership of the masses in their hands, working with parental and fraternal love for the the unity and development of the Romanian people”.89 In the last article, Tăslăuanu defended himself from the accusation of disseminating hate against the educated stratum of society, the gentlemen. He 85

Ibid. II, 2. Tăslăuanu refers to H. G. Wells, Une utopie moderne in which his utopian universal state he founded. Popovici vehemently and mistakenly reacted to this saying that the natural laws are not to be found, by any serious scholar, in Wells’ works, though Tăslăuanu did not infer such things. 86 It is worth mentioning that, regarding this idea, Tăslăuanu has an illustrious precursor in Ion Heliade-Rădulescu, Equilibrium între antithese (1859-1869). 87 Ibid., 3. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid.

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accused foreign culture as the main cause for the estrangement of Romanian political leaders or opinion makers; they are renegades, who prefer to make peace with the enemy for their own interest rather than fight for their nation.90 Only priests and teachers are still untouched by this “scourge of foreignness,” but they are about to be bought by the government. Tăslăuanu expresses his fears that in a couple of years, these priests and teachers will be “functionarized” (professionalized under the control of the government) and “will play czardas even when they sing Ardeleana.”91 Finally, Tăslăuanu responded with the same figure of speech as Popovici, “if urging the intellectuals to get rid of foreign culture is criminal demagogy, then, yes, we are criminal demagogues because only such demagogy can save our nation.” Tăslăuanu points out the need of saving the schools and the necessity of economically organizing the peasantry. He attempts to make clear that he envisions a national strengthening from below and not from above as Popovici does, distancing himself in the end from any revolutionary aims. “We, who are the sons of peasants, cannot strive for becoming the masters of our fathers but leaders and advisors.”92 The context in which Tăslăuanu decided to publish his articles was rather difficult forthe Romanian deputies in Hungary.93 It was not the moment to criticize them for being estranged, embedded in a foreign culture, and finally of not being the real representatives of the Romanians. It is true that Tăslăuanu did not directly refer to the Romanian deputies but by criticizing the Romanian leadership these deputies were nevertheless included in the criticism. Budapesti Hirlap made the connection and accused the Romanian deputies of not being the true representatives of the Romanian people.94 Tăslăuanu was forced to retract: “It is a lie,” he says, “that our educated people do not have any cultural relationship with the peasantry, that the gulf between these two strata is so large

90

Tăslăuanu makes and allusion here to Victor Babeş who was about to found the Moderate Party with a platform based on Hungarian-Romanian rapprochement. See Ţara Noastră, III, no. 38 (September 20 / October 3, 1909): 303-304 where the program of the Moderate party was published. Though in the same issue Demetriu Marcu published an anticle against this political moderation, many politicians never forgot and forgiven this gratuit publicity of the moderate platforme. 91 Ibid. IV, 4. “Ardeleana” is the name of a popular dance from Ardeal (Transylvania). 92 Ibid. 93 In the Hungarian Parliament, from 1906 to 1910, the representatives of nationalities were the only opposition to the Coalition of Hungarian nationalist parties after the Liberal Party was dissolved by its president, István Tisza, after the disastrous failure of the elections of 1906. 94 See Budapesti Hírlap, no. 92 (April 15, 1908): 1. In this article, Goga is considered to be the author of the “Two Cultures,” though its author is acquainted with the entire debate.

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that the peasantry does not have any trust in its actual leadership.”95 Tăslăuanu accused the Hungarian government of trying to disseminate not only racial hatred but discord among the nationalities of the country. He considered himself to be innocent regarding the misuse of his ideas and blamed Popovici for it. A week later, Popovici published an answer, “«The Consequence» of the Demagogue,” in which he accused Tăslăuanu of attempting to rid himself of responsibility, blaming instead Hungarian political leaders. Then, “if it was so,” Popovici asked, “why did Tăslăuanu helped these [Hungarian] politicians?”96 Tăslăuanu’s riposte was bitter.97 He denounced Popovici for having no sense of reality and no “political wisdom”. His tone and style became more personal and vindictive. Thus, Popovici was described as a “despot” who does not think of the consequences of his writings, aiming only for personal public success. He needed an opportunity, a socialist-anarchist par example, in order to unfold his rhetoric, driven by his ambition and praising himself for his own political knowledge.98 In contrast, Tăslăuanu describes himself as animated by his love for his nation and people in general, having strong convictions from his intuition of reality and not out of books. This is, he states, the difference between him and Popovici. A second article from Budapesti Hírlap considers Popovici a nationalist while Tăslăuanu is called a modernist.99 Returning back to Vienna, Popovici found the last issues of Lupta with the articles of Tăslăuanu, “Political guidelines.” He got angry because he realized from the very beginning the intentions of his opponent, from a private letter in which Tăslăuanu attempted to convince him to join the the young generation. In a later article, at the end of the polemic, Popovici explained why he was so passionate in criticizing Tăslăuanu and why he believed that criticizing such people was his moral duty. Quoting this letter, the intentions of Tăslăuanu and his friends became evident, at least for Popovici. 95

Tăslăuanu, “Perfidii,” in Tribuna, XII, no. 81 (April 8/21, 1908): 2-3. Popovici, “«Consecinţa» demagogului,” in Tribuna XII, no. 86 (17/30 April, 1908): 2. 97 Tăslăuanu, “Înţelepciune politică,” in Tribuna, XII, no. 92 (April 26 / May 9, 1908): 2-3. 98 Ibid., 3. 99 “Nationalists and Modernists,” in Budapesti Hírlap, (April/May, 1908). This article is referred to in a note published in Tribuna, XII, no. 94 (April 29 / May 12): 3-4. For the author of this article, the Romanian nationalists (as Goga or Iorga) are recruiting their followers from the students less educated and of modest social extraction, while the modernists are young intellectuals with a solid (Hungarian) culture usually sons of lawyers, medical doctors or owners. It is interesting how in this interpretation Goga came as an opponent of Tăslăuanu as a nationalist against a modernist. 96

135 We believed that a purification of our morals is absolutely necessary if we want that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow to be us the masters of the situation… For example, today a national autonomy, with the people we have, would be a real national disaster.100

Whoever “us”might be, those who must became the masters of the situation, the objective of getting rid of the actual national leadership was evident. Believing Popovici was on their side, Tăslăuanu urged him to not continue his critique because otherwise he might become his most stubborn enemy. After this letter, Popovici was bewildered and enraged when he saw that Tăslăuanu is the one who continued the polemic. Then his answer was vehement. Reiterating Tăslăuanu’s ideas from his “Two Cultures,” Popovici accused him of being a “collectivist socialist,” an “anarchic-socialist cosmopolite” who dared to claim for himself the monopoly of representing the people because he is the only “son [of a peasant] with a certificate”101 though he is a son of a priest. He actually “doesn’t have any idea what means the Romanian people: he doesn’t know it, doesn’t understand it, and doesn’t feel its needs.” His ideas, all of them foreign and dangerous, are completely alien from the Romanian mentality and are like a “Trojan horse inside the walls of our nation.”102 More than that, these ideas are taken from bad books or from works that he never understood.103 The second article is exclusively dedicated to how Tăslăuanu wrongly cited the authors he used (Poincaré, Mach, Lamprecht, and Wells). Gradually, the tone became more violent and sarcastic. Popovici agrees that there are needs and wrong habits but the national feeling cannot be awoken through insults, calumnies, or slaps. Or, what Tăslăuanu does is to slap the national feelings of the Romanians. His declaration, that the peasantry is exploited by Romanian gentlemen, boyars or [their] employees and not by Hungarians, is a crime equal to national treason. “It is the first attempt of ignorant arrogance of a bold smatterer to influence our cultural notions… propagating absolutely foreign doctrines, Jewish ones, of unrelieved hate among the sons of the same people.”104 From now on, Popovici frees his anger and attacks exclusively the person of Tăslăuanu who is nobody, in his opinion,

100

Popovici, “Un epilog,” in Tribuna, XII, no. 105 (May 11/24, 1908): 3. Italisc are mine. Popovici, “Idei anarhice,” I, 1. 102 Ibid. 103 The epithets are relevant for the tone used by Popovici: “ridiculous profanation of science,” “cerebral indigestion,” “green horses on the walls.” Ibid., 2. “Green horses on the walls” is a Romanian expression for “nonsense” translated ad literam. 104 Ibid. III, p. 2. 101

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or just an “exploiting” editor or an employee of the ruling class who dares to insults the Romanian national leadership. Popovici makes clear that: Whoever attacks our belief in God, or our national language, or our moral notions, or our organization in “people and leaders,” or our positive faith and morality, he attacks us in all our roots of national being…. The particular culture of a nation is its holiest cause and, at the same time, the most complex one, because it is the synthesis of its national being in the world.105 Popovici reacted according to the danger he perceived and to his outrage seeing such insolence from the young generation. His vehemence and sarcasm made Tăslăuanu demand satisfaction. How the entire affair ended was previously mentioned. The polemic was soon over with “An Explanation”106 by Tăslăuanu. Then, Tăslăuanu condemn Popovici for his rude violence and for avoiding the duel. He did recognize the letter he sent to Popovici but made him a denouncer and a falsifier of his original goals.107 Under these circumstances, he says, any dialog with Popovici is senseless. Aiming for social consolidation and strengthening, for wealth and happiness of everybody, Tăslăuanu underlines, it is not an anarchist ideal but a national and human one. Actually, Popovici does not know what the meaning of the concepts he uses, Tăslăuanu claimed. Moreover, how could he be the one who incites class hatred when precisely the opposite is true, Tăslăuanu asks? He then promised to discuss at another time the theoretical problem of the two cultures and never again reply to any personal attack from Popovici or others like him. This was the end of one of fiercest intellectual controversies in early 20th century Romania. * The importance of this polemic resides in its main challange: to refresh fthe ruling class and the revitalization of the Romanian leadership. It was the first episode of an important crisis of the traditional Romanian elite in Transylvania that burst out after the elections of 1910 when the Romanian National Party lost most of the seats previously held in the Hungarian Parliament. The “steeled young” openly attacked “the decrepit old men” from the National Committee. 105

Ibid. Tăslăuanu, “O lămurire,” in Luceafărul, VII, the supliment of no. 11-12 (June 15, 1908): 1-2. 107 He claims that Popovici mistakenly read “us” as Tăslăuanu and his group of followers and not Romanians in general as he actually meant. It is about the quotation referred to in the note 102 this chapter. A little bit further Tăslăuanu himself wrongly quotes Popovici in order to prove his dishonesty. 106

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The arguments were the same. Except for the theoretical references, this debate of the two cultures prefigures the great controversy of 1910-1912. Then, Goga was the leader of the rebels and the most prominent figure of those grouped around Tribuna. In the end, the other camp asked Popovici to counteract the same “heresy” that he crushed in 1908 when it was about the ‘two cultures’ of Tăslăuanu. What was not evident in 1908 appears so in 1910 when the good intensions of the young generations were about to be fulfilled: their demagogy was criminal indeed. At the same time, the ideas professed by Tăslăuanu in his articles prefigured Goga’s ideas. They contained the revolutionary ethos of the young generation, the drive against the urban part of society, the sources of a new kind of radicalism, which brought many young intellectuals closer to Russian Bolshevism in the 1920s and thereafter to German Nazism in the 1930s. * Lastly, Goga’s late reaction to this controversy is telling for the development of his later position. Originally, he dissociated himself from Tăslăuanu in a letter to Maiorescu. I did not know anything about the appearance of this article, which I strongly disagree with, and I consider it inappropriate to the present circumstances. I am not solidary with any letter of this text; the article surprised and infuriated me. My conception is fundamentally different from these opinions and I will make public this thing being committed to retreat myself from the board of review, which I founded, if I cannot succeed to put it under the authority of an editorial board108

The tone of this letter is quite desperate and probably has to do with Maiorescu’s decision to unsubscribe to Luceafărul and even to convince others to do the same.109 Initially, Goga probably convinced Tăslăuanu to temper his tone but changed his mind later. He published an article entitled “The Truth” in which he agreed with Tăslăuanu’s controversial interpretation.110 Tăslăuanu

108

The letter is dated March 5, 1908. Daniela Poenaru (ed.), Octavian Goga în corespondenţă, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1975): 115. 109 See I. A. Bassarabescu, Lumea de ieri, (Bucharest: Cugetarea, 1943): 139-140. Maiorescu wrote a letter on 12 February 1908 in which he asked Bassarabescu to renounce his collaboration with Luceafărul. This letter is published in Mihai Beniuc, “Preface” to Octavian Goga, Verses, 7, but the entire episode is completely misinterpreted in order to assume a radical (‘progressist’ in the jargon of the time) position taken by Goga. 110 Goga, “Adevărul,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 2 (May 11, 1908): 163-164; in Luceafărul, VII, no. 11-12 (June 1, 1908): 291-293. “Două culturi,” in Tribuna, XII, no. 113 (May 21 / June 3,

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had, according to Goga, several thoughtless judgments but by and large his attempt was to remedy, with honesty and good faith, some of the wrongs of society. Be it a socialist revolution or not, Goga and his friends were ready to take the lead of “an army mastered by the power of an idea” in a “fight for refreshening,” in other words, to start a veritable crusade against the contemporary Romanian civil society.111 Though, the controversy was over, the “fight for refreshening” did not cease; a battle was lost, but not the war. From now on, the attacks of the ‘steeled young’ ones became more concrete and personal. § 5. The Electoral Failure and ‘The Romanian Lawyer’ For a while, after the episode of the “Two Cultures,” Goga had a much less visible public life. He did not publish much just a couple in Ţara noatră and none in Luceafărul. He might have been dedicated to his new volume of poetry but, at the same time, his cold relations with Tăslăuanu can be a reason as well. It is possible he never forgot the way in which his friend had “stolen” his girlfriend112 or he just tried to emancipate himself from Tăslăuanu’s influence.113 He continued to publish his poems in Luceafărul114 and, most probably, he was concerned about his future volume of poetry. After the volume appeared,115 Goga resigned from the editorial board of Luceafărul and in November announced the cessation of Ţara Noastră for a year, a period in 1908): 3; in Însemnările unui trecător, (Arad: Tribuna, 1911): 110-117; in Pagini publicistice, (Cluj, Dacia, 1981): 69-77. 111 At that moment the meaning of civil society was restricted to “urban society” though later might include other social and political notions. The attribute “civil” can be understood as well as an antonym of “militant” or “mobilization.” 112 In Ţara Noastră, I, no. 16 (April 15): 249 there is published a photo with “beautiful Romanian woman” who is nobody else than Adelina (Olteanu) Tăslăuanu (she died on 25th January 1910). 113 In Manuscriptum, IV, no. 4 (April): 130 there is published a letter of Goga to Chendi, dated in 1909, in which he is very sarcastic with Tăslăuanu who is described as disoriented, megalomaniac and, finally, stupid. He mentions his intention to retire from the board of Luceafărul because of Tăslăuanu’s unwillingness to accept any literary guidance from him and Chendi. See Bălan, Octavian Goga, 98 as well. 114 Goga remained faithful to the contract he signed with Tăslăuanu in October 1906 when he became co-owner of Luceafărul. The article 5 of the contract obliged Goga to publish his poems in Luceafărul, though it is not mentioned “exclusively.” See Tăslăuanu, Spovedanii, 268. 115 Pământul ne cheamă appeared at the beginning of April 1909.

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which he intended to make a trip abroad.116 He went to Budapest from where he planned to go to Berlin, but he was arrested117 because he let unsolved several press trials against Ţara Noastră and the “responsible editor” had just died.118 He was released after 8 days, having paid 10,000 crowns guarantee, and a year later (end of January 1911) he appeared in court in Cluj where he was convicted to one month in prison and 600 crowns penalty. Meanwhile, the political crisis in Hungaryaccentuated. At the end of 1909, the coalition government was forced to resign and in January 1910, Count Khuen-Héderváry was called to form a government and to prepare for general elections. It was a very confused situation for the nationalities in general and for the Romanian National Party in particular. No one knew whether the government would need the support of the nationalities’ parties in the next legislation. In addition, count István Tisza formed a new party,119 and many commentators foresaw a competition between the governmental party and Tisza’s.120 Many attempts were made by both sides to initiate negotiations (called “discussions” at the time) with the nationalities and to find a solution of modus vivendi and political survival of the Hungarian state. The crucial question was the electoral reform, i.e. the universal vote, which had been already adopted in the other part of the Empire (Cisleithania). The most important attempt was made by Ioan Mihu, an important personality, who was politically neutral and offered his services to mediate between the government and the Romanian National Party.121 His attempt not only failed but it showed the gulf that had been politically created between the Romanian and the Hungarian political leaders. The three years of cohabitation in parliament with the nationalist coalition radicalized all positions. On the one hand, the Romanian programme (autonomy for Transylvania and the federalization of Empire) was impossible to accomplish in the Hungarian parliament. On the

116

Octavian Goga and Ilarie Chendi, “Către cititor,” Ţara Noastră, III, no. 47 (November 22/December 5, 1909): 373. This was the last issue of the review before the First World War. 117 ***, “Arestarea poetului Goga,” Tribuna, XIII, no. 278 (December 20/ January 2, 1909): 3. 118 His name was Dumitru Marcu. Romanian journals used to name a “responsible editor” who should take the responsibility in case of a press trial. Most of the articles used not to be signed precisely in order to protect the identity of the real journalist. The articles and poems in questionwere not by Goga but he remained the only responsible editor to face justice. 119 The National Party of Work was founded on 19 February 1910. 120 All the articles published by Tribuna and Lupta in the first weeks of 1910 can prove this search for a political solution for R. N. P. It is not the aim of this study to reconstitute the political life of Hungarian Romanians but because there is no reliable study on this subject, many details will be referred to further. 121 See Ioan Mihu, Spicuiri din gândurile mele, (Sibiu: Tiparul tipografiei Arhidiecezane, 1938)

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other hand, the idea of a unitary Hungarian national-state prevented the possibility of any faithful agreement.122 Other attempts were less respectable, or at least were perceived as such at that time. For example, even in 1908, once the crisis begun, Emil Babeş123 started a campaign for a new Romanian moderate party, which was founded in September 1909.124 It is more likely that Babeş and his moderates were the epitomes of the estranged intellectual who lost the ideals of his father, who lost “intimacy with the masses,” as described by Goga.125 Initially, the new government had a positive reception, Khuen-Héderváry was perceived as the “man of the Emperor,” the one sent to make peace with the nationalities. Some leaders were reserved as was, for example, the response of Teodor Mihali to the government programme,126 others were more optimistic about the “brotherly collaboration with the Hungarians.”127 However, the National Committee was optimistic about the future results of the elections. In February, the committee from Arad appointed Goga as their candidate in the electoral circle of Chişineu, after Iustin Marişeu, a lawyer from Arad had given up his candidacy and offered his place to Goga. For the next months, the electoral campaign128 absorbed Goga completely, who did not

122

Ibid., 8-9. Emil Babeş, a lawyer from Budapest, was the son of Vincentiu Babeş, one of the outstanding Romanian politicians from the previous generationr — a founder of R. N. P. —, and the brother of Victor Babeş (the well known biologist) and of Aurel Babeş (philosopher and chemist). Vincentiu Babeş was a supporter of Mocsonyi (a mocionist) and he believed that Romanians should support the nationalist Hungarian party, the ‘48ers or the Independence Party, in order to teach a lesson to the Emperor. Probably this idea was made possible by Emil Babeş’s tendency toward ‘moderation’ and the agreement he with the Hungarian government. 124 See “Declaratie deschisă” and “Programul detaliat,” in Ţara noastră, III, no. 38 (September 20/ October 3, 1909): 303-304. In the same issue, Demetriu Marcu signed “Păcate strămoşeşti,” Ibid., 301. Though Babeş is heavily criticized for his “moderation,” usually called “treason,” many Romanian politicians were angry that his program was thus publicized gaining an undeserved popularity. 125 Goga describes Babeş as a rustic Shylock. And “the psychology of Mr. Babeş is the psychology of an uprooted man… who cannot guess the hidden mystery of the Romanian soul.” See Goga, “Diagnoza unui străin,” in Însemnările unui trecător , 205-209. 126 Teodor Mihali, “Discursul despre programul guvernului,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 9 (January 14/27, 1910): 2-3. 127 ***, “Pionierii păcii,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 16 (January 21/February 4, 1910): 1-2; or later ***, “Un succes al politicei naţionale,” in Tribuna, no. 27 (February 6/19, 1910): 1-2. 128 The electoral campain was open in 1st of March and the first results were published on the first of June. Three days later the final results were known. 123

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write any articles or poems during this period. He made several visits in his electoral circle delivering speeches at popular meetings.129 In a speech givento his electors from Chişineu, he attempted to justify his entrance in militant politics. What a writer might be looking for in politics, and what qualities might a poet have to be a good politician, he asked. It is impossible for an artist to isolate himself during these hard times that the Romanians live, “he cannot keep distance from the profane mob, imposed by the well-known Horatian judgment.”130 The poet should descend into the midst of the masses and “his art should be the charmed trumpet through which the national aspirations are propagated,” because it is the time when “more and more apostles, with a clean heart and hands, with boldness and the consciousness of [the] right[s] of [their] souls advised by an ideal, are required to preach the fundamental truth of our political beliefs.”131 Then Goga made a virulent description of the previous regime of the coalition who, like all leeches, had sucked too much blood, had inflated and finally cracked. New people followed. Some are survivors of the old liberal party and others are new and foreign to the local Hungarian political customs (i.e. Khuen-Héderváry). Unfortunately, Goga continued, Count Tisza is the mentor of the present government and in his last speeches he proved to be a sincere enemy of the Romanians. Finally, Goga concludes by saying that the Romanians should definitively underline the “character of complete intransigence, which must be the fundamental principle of all our political concerns…. there is only one formula of performing our duty towards the nation: Romanians praising the same flag and then whatever intentions the government might have we will live as we had lived until now: though ourselves.”132 Goga’s debut in politics might have been seen as a success of his integration in the R. N. P. lines, if the results were not bad. He ran against Lázár Zoárd, representing Gyula Justh’ party, and Baron Wenkheim, who was on the government party’s list, and lost in the second round of election in favor of Wenkheim, with 1,034 votes to 1,246.133 However, according to a report by Tribuna, Goga was accompanied by all the local elite, various personalities

129

In the Arad County there were five electoral circles: Iosăşel, Boroşineu, Şiria, Radna and Chişineu. The candidates of R. N. P. were Dr. Gh. Popa, Sever Bocu, Dr. Ştefan C. Pop, Vasile Goldiş, and respectively Octavian Goga. At that time, Bocu and Goldiş were in the editorial board of Tribuna. 130 “Discursul d-lui Octavian Goga,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 48 (March 3/16, 1910): 3. 131 Ibid., 4. 132 Ibid. 133 In the first round he got 860 votes comparing with 360 of Zoárd and 920 of Wenkheim.

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from Arad, and most of the party leaders from the region. Many intellectuals went on a pilgrimage to see and support Goga in his campaign. “The meeting [in Miniş] had the character of an intellectual reunion, so rare nowadays in our country,” as the reporter noted in his account. There were a number of lawyers who accompanied Goga, including Dr. Iustin Marşieu, Dr. Teodor Burdan, Dr. Romulus Velici, Dr. C. Iancu and Dr. Gh. Crişan, or local notables like Dr. Cornel Ardeleanu, Dr. Gheorghe Popovici, and Dr. Iustin Petruţ. At Sintea a student of law, Costa, dressed in a popular costume welcomed Goga as the leader of the riders, and in the same village another student of law, Nicolae Ardelean, as well dressed in a popular costume recited a poem in honor of Goga.134 It is particularly interesting the participation of these lawyers or students of law in Goga’s campaign because it became later an in important topic in the campaign of the steeled young Tribunists: “the Romanian lawyer.” In Transylvania, lawyers had been for decades a main force in the national movement.135 They had a liberal profession, and independent financial means. In 1903, a report from the prefect of Hunedoara to the Minister of Interior specified that “the Romanian lawyers who live in the villages and communes of the country have close relations with the priests and teachers and found small credit institutes and reading associations, choirs, etc. which served their political purposes.”136 Their presence in the National Committee influenced many of politics of the R. N. P. The entire national program had an aspect of a juridical protest against the compromise and its lawful enforcement. Subsequently, the entire Hungarian political system was interpreted as a series of law infringements against which the Romanians should vehemently protest. It is not the place here to reconstruct the political career of all Romanian lawyers in the Romanian National Party, but to underline their central role and the respect they enjoyed, and to highlight their juridical approach to the “national question.” Several articles from Tribuna are particularly telling in this

134

***, “Campania electorală. D. Goga în cerc,” in Tribuna¸ XIV, no. 87 (May 5/ April 22, 1910): 6-7. In each place, Goga was welcomed by a group of riding villagers at the margins of the village. 135 In the 1870’s the Church lost the control of the national movement partially because its autonomy was gradually diminished through a number of laws, partially because the Compromise raised a number of juridical problems that gave the opportunity to the Romanians lawyer to play a more central role and to assume the leadership of R. N. P. In the National Conference from Sibiu, May 1881, the number of lawyers exceeded for the first time the number of clericals. See Liviu Maior, Mişcarea Naţională Românească din Transilvania, 1900-1914, (Cluj: Dacia, 1986), 13-14. 136 Quoted by Maior, Mișcarea Națională Românească… , 62-63.

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respect.137 Several institutions were admonished for trusting their affairs to foreign lawyers rathern than a Romanian one. These cases were seen as ungrateful and discouraging, and they might cause an incalculable disaster “if we will lose the defenders of our rights.” In the first article, three points were made: 1. If we have troubles with the administration for our Romanian behaviour, we rely on our lawyers for their advice and free and benevolent support. 2. If we make a collect for our holly church, for school or for poor student, where to go b to our lawyers? 3. If an interpellation in the county congregation against the outside injustices is to be made, who else should do it except our lawyers? Because only them know the law and have a heart for our pains. And so many other troubles!... When did the foreign lawyers run in our help? When did they defend the rights of Romanian people… free of charge? Or, when did the Israelite community trust any trial to a Romanian lawyer?138

There were indeed timid accusations against some lawyers who did not respect their own language keeping their correspondence in Hungarian, a motif which demoralized the peasants.139 But there were few reasons to anticipate the fire under which the lawyers came just a few months later. The first assault happened in November 1910 in a short satirical sketch entitled “The Notable.”140 Traian Hurmuzău, its main character, is an outrageous type of hypocrite. In the first part, he refuses to help in the trial of a poor peasant without a fee, which is impossible for the peasant to pay. The peasant ironically says: “since all the woods were cut, all the thieves moved to the city.” Hurmuzău’s despotic attitude and the humiliation of the peasant are in contrast with his ambition of playing a role in the local national political leadership. He composes a discourse for a forthcoming occasion, a speech in which he puts together slogans and hilarious errors.141 137

***, “Advocaţii români,” in Tribuna, XIII, no. 231 (October 24 / November 6): 3; ***, “Advocaţii români,” in Tribuna, XIII, no. 232 (October 25 / November 7): 4-5; ***, “Advocaţii noştri,” in Tribuna, XIII, no. 235 (October 30 / November 12): 2. 138 ***, “Advocaţii români.” 139 Lio, “Advocaţi, cari nu-şi respectă limba,” in Tribuna, XIII, no. 235 (October 30/November 12, 1909): 3. 140 I. Dumeţu, “Fruntaşul,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 253 (November 24/December 7, 1910): 1-3. “Drumeţu” means “The Walker” or “The passerby.” 141 Ibid., 1. The verse cited at the beginning is from “Hora unirii” by Vasile Alecsandri, one of the most popular songs of Romanians. To mistake the author of this song with Eminescu or Mureşan is like saying: “To be or not to be as Goethe said.”

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In the second part, there is a banquet of local cultural association where all the local leaders toast to the literature and culture of the people. Dr. Trăian Hurmuzău delivers his speech in an approving atmosphere. Somewhere, in a corner, a lawyer candidate recognizes the verses cited by Hurmuzău as being from Eminescu. The archpriest entertains a Hungarian official (solgăbirău) and everybody drinks in honour of the nation. This festiveness contrasts with the poor peasant family that, in the last part of the sketch, listen to their child reading a letter from his bigger brother who is with a soldier in Bosnia. The young soldier has just found that this father was forced to sell his two oxen. He ponders going to America because there is not much to do at home. Everybody cries and the youngest son asks: “mom, it isn’t a crow [nest], is it? It is an owl’s one, isn’t it?”142 The offense was serious. Nobody previously dared to talk about lawyers in such terms. More than that, this was not a concrete and individual accusation but a literary piece, a character who might be nobody and everybody. How to react to such a literary sketch? how to counteract fiction or a figure of speech? these were new dilemmas for the Romanian political leaders. A lawyer attempted to respond several months later in the newly founded newspaper of P.N.R., Românul, in an article entitled “The Lawyers and our National Fight.”143 He explains that lawyers and judges are mediating conflicts and thus they are a mallum necesarium, a plague imposed by necessity. He admits that this profession is otherwise useless and everywhere where the number of lawyers increases it means that the “the apple is putrid.”144 Turning to the national leadership, the author recognizes that the political leadership of Romanians is mostly composed of lawyers. During the previous legislation they were an absolute majority, and during the last elections, they were the majority among the candidates in the counties. Local councils were dominated by lawyers as well. The banks were colonized by lawyers, the church institutions and schools had lawyers, the cultural associations, etc. All of them had lawyers. Is it good or not? eventually asks the author. And his answer is “there is no other way” because the entire system of Hungarian governance is based on the law, and this law has the mark of both agrarian feudalism and capitalism, both employing lawyers as “actors, prompter, or travesties,” for 142

Ibid., 3. Traditionally, an owl is considered to bring unhappiness and bad luck. ***, “Avocaţii şi lupta noastră naţională. Spovedania unui avocat,” in Românul, I, no. 28 (February 5/18, 1911): 1-2. 144 Ibid., 1. 143

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twisting and rolling the laws and institutions to the detriment of other nationalities. This is why, “the entire fierce fight, which must be carried by our National Party, mostly resides in preventing attacks against us.” In other words, because of the oppression of the Hungarian state, the Romanians sought the help of lawyers and even their leadership in order to counteract the laws issued against them. The author argues that the goal of national policy is to unveil the persecutions of state institutions and the falsehood of this system because “the unlawfulness power always looks after an appearance of lawfulness and justice.”145 In conclusion, Romanian lawyers are not the cause but the effect of the evil. In addition, they have more money, more time, and more independence, all qualities needed for militant politics. Comparing this and other articles with Goga’s criticism, it is obvious that a essential difference was built between the young steeled writers and the old decrepit lawyers. On the one hand, the very definition of nation used by the young Tribunists, which is exclusivist and relies only upon the peasant masses, offended the self-identification of the Romanian townsmen.146 They were considered estranged from the social body of nation through education, customs and even language. This controversy about the two nations is not only a clash between a socialist versus a conservative understanding of society but given the restriction of the nation’s working class, in this case the peasantry,147 it is also against a liberal understanding of nation. On the other hand, the goal of national policy is defined differently according to the each set of adopted premises. The “lawyers” were mentally living in a liberal world in which the rule of law is undisputed. The entire Romanian problem was a direct result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise. Removing the cause, the effect should disappear. There is no room for propaganda in their approach, except if it is about to unveil the infringements of the law. For, an infringement of law was obvious to anyone with an education in law. On the contrary, for the writers, the laws were unimportant because they were manilpulated by their Hungarian opponents and by those recently

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Ibid., 2. For the number and importance of the Romanian Urban population see Eugen Brote, “Românii orăşeni,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 6 (January 10/23, 1910): 1-2. It is interesting how the previous generation of Tribunists were not so keen in embracing “peasantism.” Brote died in December 1912. 147 This is why the anonymous lawyer from Românul refers to the very little “benefit” of his guild that is unproductive. This social cleavage is not necessary a socialist or social-democrat idea but it can be trace back until the writings of Eminescu and his “superposed strata.” 146

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Magyarized.148 For writers, the national strategy was focused on the “internal” rather than the “external struggle.” For them, the Romanians should fight in their opinion for a better national consciousness or for another “feeling of solidarity.”149 They must culturally unite themselves, in other words to provide a cultural and an economic homogenization, and thus become the soldiers of the National Party. The notion of “culture” contains the difference between the two camps: “The National fight is par excellence a cultural fight, a fight for preserving the national culture that is the crystallized expression of the nationality.”150 As Popovici ironically notes in Tribuna, if something is wrong with the party, it is not the fault of the Hungarian government who attempts to undermine the Romanian National Party but of the Romanians themselves who did not reach the appropriate level of national consciousness and cultural unity, and of the political leaders who did not work hard enough for the national cause. His irony was much closer to the truth than Popovici expected, and acknowledged as such by the Tribunists themselves. In these circumstances, who was the best contender for a cultural fight that a poet, the national poet Octavian Goga. How was such a transition between traditional liberal politics and new forms of cultural sensibility possible? How did the lawyers become old decrepit men, charlatans or exploiters, though a couples of years before they where the respected leaders of their community? How did a writer or a poet reach such a level of consideration as to be considered the only personality able to assume the leadership of the nation? This was not an isolated case. All over Europe similar transformations of public opinion occurred. The process accompanied a general wave of populism that affected culture and politics as well. “Art became transformed from an ornament to an essence, from an expression of value to a source of value,” as Carl Schorske noticed in the case of Vienna.151 The threat or seduction of a mass movement, the attraction and even captivation of ideology, undermined the “traditional liberal confidence in its own legacy or rationality, moral law, and progress.” The poet perceived himself as the perfect antinomy to the lawyer precisely in these terms of rationality, law and progress.

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The most successful case is the one of the Hungarian Jews. This is why all those Magyarized are symbolically identified with the Jews. Their essential qualities were unanimously considered as being: no country, no language, no moral, selfishness and materialism. 149 Goga, “Adevărul,” 164. 150 ***, “Adunarea electorală din Chişineu. Viitorul canditad al cercului: d. Octavian Goga,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 48 (March 3/16, 1910): 3. 151 Carl E. Schorske, “Politics and Psyche: Schnitzler and Hofmannsthal,” in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. Politics and Culture, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 10.

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He has another “new moral”152 and another referential system because he perceives another reality, much deeper and much profound, touching the essences, un-mediately feeling the soul of the people. For him the immediate reality, the contingency, the vulgar world is a land of appearances where casually he might live, but his real universe is the dream, the ideal, the immanence and the essence. The sketch “The Notable” is signed Drumeţu, one of Goga’s pseudonyms, that means a “walker,” a “passerby,” a “stranger,” meaning precisely this sense of not belonging to this world but to another one, more ideal, more intellectual (in this case meaning idealistic), and/or more psychological. The new politics should be based on the people, not on the people’s will but on the psychology of masses. The national leader should feel the soul of his people and grasp the way on which the folk wants to step further. The leader must have abilities to analyze his people psychologically in order to recognize the true character of his nation and to identify those lost, those estranged, and those uprooted. Psychology153 is, for the young steeled Tribunists, a technique essential for the kind of prophetism advocated by Goga. Borrowing an expression from Schorske, “politics is here psychologized, and psychology politicized.”154 There is another article important for understanding the way in which another lawyer attempts to defend his profession.155 He raises three arguments in favor of the Romanian lawyer. The first is the existence of a strange system in sharp contrast with the inner world of any Romanian lawyer. Adopting a Junimist vocabulary, the arbitrary and intrusive system is the form that runs against the substance, putting the lawyer often in awkward situations, which may be easily misunderstood. Thus, judging from the outside, an inexperienced observer may consider the lawyer, as so many times it is seen, a “jongleur” with a “condemnable falsity,” “a lack of character,” and a “spiritual emptiness,” able even to “repudiate his Romanianness.” The lawyer fights with this insidious “form-system” that forces him to use a language neither his own nor of his clients, and this is often not seen by others. 152

Goga, “O nouă morală,” in Însemnările unui trecător, 229-233. Psychology plays a similar role in Goga’s ideology similar to “science” in Marxism. He mentions a couple of hundred times this word throughout more than five hundred articles. However, all political ideologies pay an important amount of theoretical effort for dealing with the psychology. Just by chance, Goga happened to be in Berlin during his first year of scholarship (1904-1905) at the same time with Ortega y Gasset, whose “The revolt of Masses” might have influenced Goga though it is improbable he met Ortega y Gasset in Berlin. 154 Schorske, “Politics and Psyche,” 11. 155 Dr. Voicu Niţescu, “Avocatul Român,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 277 (17/30 December, 1911): 1-2. 153

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The second argument is the existent corruption in society. The lawyer is not the problem but the client who is ready to cheat his parents, to torture his brothers and to kill his children. The picture is terrifying, “this client is a nest of dark sins.” He is the “client-beast, who stubbornly preserves his barbaric qualities, inherited from his cannibal ancestors.”156 The client “is ready to fraternize with Hell only to triumph” over his adversaries. This is why most clients go to foreign lawyers, who know the language of the system better, as previously mentioned. The last argument is the faithfulness of the Romanian lawyer, his commitment to the national ideals and his dedication to militant activism. Those “who attack and defy the lawyers, all the lawyers, attack the life of our nation itself.”157 Niţescu makes an apology for the Romanian lawyers in eloquent terms: The Romanian lawyers are today the pulse of our public life and I dare to affirm that without them the mirror of this life would be much darker. They are the factors that give to our desperate fight the intensity necessarily needed by any fight for saving of a life so hard preserved [until now]. They are the warm heart from which came the hopeless calls under the flag, which is the symbol of our defense; they are the councillors who establish, with the laws in their hands, the route on which the army should advance, not to be catch in a trap by the enemy’s cunningness. They sacrifice their wealth, time and health; they sacrifice themselves for the sake of the victory of the ideal. Being in love with the highest and holly ideal they follow, they call in their help all who know and want to fight for their folk and law. They make room in their rows to the priests, teachers and to the entire intelligentsia, because they perfectly realize that justice is for all and the truth is one and for all.158

Reading these lines, it is clear that the lawyer and the poet are two competing personages, as two swords that do not enter in the same sheath.159

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Ibid., 1. Ibid., 2. 158 Ibid., 2. 159 The opposition between Goga and Niţescu can be seen as exemplary. Niţescu was the living argument against Goga’s ideology and politics. He was younger than Goga (with two years), then hard to be considered “decrepit” and “old.” He was a journalist and a militant nationalist, things uncharacteristic for the nature of a lawyer, as seen by Goga. He spent three months in prison for an article from “Tribuna,” while Goga was not so “successful” with his articles. He had a long political career in the Romanian National Party (latter Peasant-National Party) until 1933, a long period in which Goga wrote almost exclusively against his former enemies. Unfortunately, there are no studies dedicated to Niţescu, who was caught and imprisoned by the communist regime and eventually was released in 1955, because of the ideological 157

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Alexandru Vaida-Voevod wrote a vehement defense of lawyers and a bitter criticism of those writers who allowed themselves in such critical exercises against the leaders of the party. He specifically names them in his texts. One is Tăslăuanu who in a short response to a reader found the opportunity to advise a young lady about her two suitors, one a lawyer and the other a priest. Then, he charges him with “We believe that the young candidate of lawyer is not so ideal but only in your imagination. In reality he is that kind of person who manages to hide his soulful emptiness under the mask of politeness.”160 Another is Goga with his “The Notable” who describe such an imbecile lawyer. There, in Goga’s “New incitements,”161 he found the same “imbeciles” “transported by the discourses of Mucius Scaevola but at the same time selling the nanny goat (capra) of the peasant or burdening the pocket of his silk coat with the benefits of a simoniac affaire.” The other one is Sever Bocu, stating that Goga entering into the National Committee, mostly formed by lawyers, “will bring a new tone, the tone of our Romanian culture, which has found a new formula in the thoughts of this generation.”162 Finally, Vaida considers such allegations crimes against the nation and urge their authors to stop these senseless attacks. Finally, Goga responds in an article in which he disclaims all accusations.163 First he accused his opponent of inappropriately quoting his texts, and even charging him with sentences he never wrote.164 Then, he refuses to consider the sentimental tribulation of a young girl in love as a national concern. Or, it is natural, he continues, that the “author should enjoy the freedom of modeling the characters as he wishes, according to his observations [….] Who might think to blame Caragiale” for his iconoclast sketches. Is Vaida-Voevod so innocent in literary matters, as he seems to be? He, after all, works on a pressure on scholarship during the last decades. He might offer the other side of the picture, ‘the Romanian lawyer.’ 160 Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, “Avocatul român,” in Românul, I, no. 276 (December 17/30, 1911): 3-4; See as well, [Tăslăuanu], “Poşta redacţie,” in Luceafărul, IX, no. 24 (December 16, 1911): 565-566. 161 Vaida, “Avocatul român,” 3; See also Goga, “Îndemnuri noi,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 245 (November 14/27, 1910), pp. 1-2. 162 Vaida, “Avocatul roman,” 3. Vaida’s article is not elaborated very scrupulous because it seems to be a quick answer to the article of Bocu, which appear just few days earlier. See Sever Bocu, “Premenirea,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 272 (December 13/26, 1911): 1-2. 163 Goga, “Advocatul român şi demagogul român,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 279 (December 21/ January 3, 1911): 1-2. 164 Goga mentions a sentence from a recent article in which an anonymous author says that he declared about his electoral activists that they “told such stupidities to the electorate that the floor was cracking.” See Cronicar, “’Un an de luptă.’ Articol din afară,” Românul, I, no. 272 (December 13/26, 1911): 3-4. It is true that Goga never wrote this sentence.

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translation of Wilhelm Tell, but he is the obedient employee of those who want to get rid of “Mr. Poet,” i.e. the National Committee. And this cheap apology is just demagogy, attempting nothing else than to convince the lawyers to unsubscribe to Tribuna. At the end, Goga repeated that he never “made the mistake of generalizing a critique to the entire guild, because I [he] realize that sin is the result of a fully individual impulse; but I will not keep silence for isolate phenomena I see around myself.”165 Though, he directly states that he has nothing to do with the Romanian lawyers in general, and finally, in order to have the last word, he cites ex-cathedra Eminescu: “…in general the lawyers are the most corrupted intelligences of the world.” § 6. Lyrical vs. Legal Nationalism, or the Grace and the Word in a Romanian Way The controversy over the Romanian two cultures may offer the opportunity to bring into the discussion another interpretation on “two cultures” by Carl Schorske.166 It is not a question of whether a social cleavage between the working class or bourgeoisie existed in Romania before the First World War, but a question of a profound transformation of culture that might have occurred at the end of the nineteenth century all over Habsburg Monarchy and even Europe. Schorske begins from the premise of the two existing cultural roots, which are Baroque and the Enlightenment, kept together in a fragile liberal synthesis. In his opinion, towards the end of the Habsburg Monarchy, the liberal tradition came under threat because of a new young generation, who practicing politics in a ‘new key’ questioned the foundation of the liberal principles. Then, the two roots were released and evolved separately and, eventually, in contradiction, causing two types of modernism, each according to its own sensitivity: the “culture of law” and, respectively, the “culture of grace.” The Schorskean dichotomy was between the “culture of law” and the “culture of grace” as twin principles of the same liberal tradition which eventually turned to be opposite from each other. However, this disjunction in “two cultures,” one concerning the law and the other art seems to be helpful in the present case. As mentioned above, Tribuna and the Tribunists, in the first decade of the twenty century, opposed the poet to the lawyer, as the 165

Goga, “Advocatul român şi demagogul roman,” 2. Carl Schorske, ‘Grace and the Word: Austria’s Two Cultures and Their Modern Fate,” Austrian History Yearbook, XXII (1991): 26.

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representatives of two cultures, or two sensibilities and two kinds of leadership. The dispute was far from the artistic life and resided exclusively in the political sphere, thus being more concrete and more violent. In one camp, there were the writers and their journals. They mistrusted the schools because the schools were considered to be foreign and estranged, and, accordingly, they expressed their suspicions about that society which is based on rule, authority, lawfulness and obedience. Their trump cards were emotions, instincts, and feelings that made possible another rationale, a “politics in a new key” as Schorske would say. In the other camp, they are the jurists from the National Committee. They are not necessary older than the others, they are not less cultivated or less intelligent than their challengers. Initially, they were even sympathetic with the new literary movement of the ‘steeled young men’. Yet, the appetite for leadership of the young writers and the electoral fiasco of 1910 triggered the conflict. Someone may consider this fight as purely political, others may view it as entirely cultural, but the main battlefield was populist nationalism. It can be inferred that this open controversy indicates a shift of faith from the rule of law to the rule of (national) feelings, from juridical/argumentative nationalism to a more lyrical/emotional nationalism. As far as the spirit of the law was overthrown by the soul of the nation, the trust in traditional politics based on legalist claims was gradually eroded.167 The new political strategy was centered upon mass politics. As Goga notes in an article, even the political activities of the parliament are not a means for reaching immediate successes but “an instrument to disseminate political education to the popular masses.”168 No matter how much the Romanians claimed their political rights, without the masses, this fight was doomed to be pointless. The word without art and grace became impotent, politics without propaganda, mass activism and passionate militantism became impotent as well. This was the fundamental arguments of the Tribunists against the National Committee. Without the writers, the committee was impotent.169 The metaphor with the young or steeled young men goes along the same lines. The lawyers were not “decrepit old men” because they were aged but because they were impotent, unable to fight. The charcter who perfectly contrasts with “the lawyer” is “the poet.” Gifted with a powerful sense of reality, he has an obvious intuition of the political situation, he is armed with all necessary knowledge for being

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Memorandum was last important political action of this kind of legalist politics. Goga, “Deputaţii noştri,” in Însemnările unui trecător, 93. Italics in original. 169 “Vlăguit”, “desvlăguit” and other similar terms, that means exhausted and impotent as well, were frequent. They came from “vlagă” a Slavonic term for energy, vitality, power. 168

152 among the most notable councellor of his nation and he has proved it, through a series of political articles, that he knows how to see the situation from the most appropriate and serious point of view…. our fight will gain in him a leader gifted with all necessary qualities needed for his duty.170

“If Goethe did not exist, the Germans would not have had a Bismarck or a Moltke,” claimed the author of another article, citing the Viscount Richard Haldane.171 From early 1910 until the last issues of Tribuna, many articles pleaded for a higher role for ‘the writer’ in national politics. Most of the time, this call was about Goga, as was the case in the article “Writers in Politics” mentioned above. In the subtext it was suggested nothing less than that without Goga the Romanians will not have a Bismark or a Moltke. Others were more general and referred to “literature and politics,” in which arguments were made for a greater influence of literature and literati in politics. Goga had a vehement reaction against Românul that published some critical remarks about somebody who dared to talk in a meeting about the superiority of culture over politics. His conclusions are bitter: The intellectual preoccupations of most of the leaders, — there are exceptions anytime — are painfully modest in our country. Our politician does not have either any special cultural activity, or too much appreciation for others’ work. He is raised in a foreign school, where he could not learnthe national culture….172

And because everywhere the leadership is based on superior cultural education, he goes further in claiming such leading role for the young generation of writers. What would be more than normal than our leaders to understand that in our situation the involvement of writers in the political efforts (literally kneading) and the involvement of all those for whom the pen is the supreme justification of their existence is a very good thing. Through these elements, the atmosphere of our political propaganda becomes intellectualized and gains a more profound meaning.173

It is interesting how the Tribunists pleaded for intellectualization, for a better education, for a higher culture and at the same time against schools that 170

***, “Scriitorii în politică,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 49 (March 4/17, 1910): 1-2. The fist part is quted from Ilarie Chendi. 171 ***, “Rostul scriitorilor,” in Tribuna, XVI, no. 19 (January 24 / February 6, 1912): 1-2. 172 Goga, “Intelectualizarea politicei noastre,” in Tribuna, XV, No. 209 (September 24 / October 7, 1910): 2. 173 Ibid. Italics in original.

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estranges the people from their roots and traditions. What were they actually stating? How did they view this intellectualization? The answer can be found in an article about “The Role of our Press:” the journals can replace the schools, the church, the parliament. And further: In our country, where nationalities are outside the state and its institutions, the newspaper shall substitute all things. This is why they remain most of the time our only parliament and our unique controlling authority; the newspapers are our school and religion, and they constitute the only source for strength and orientation.174

Goga professed a similar faith, as seen. He directly refers to the reading a journal, because it is time for other solutions for their problems as far as it is clear that the “school of tomorrow” will have another spirit, foreign and unknown for most people.175 The journals are often described as the gospel of tomorrow, the good news that shall be shared with the masses.176 Besides the exulting moments about the burden of the media in national movements, the notions of national strategy expressed in the articles of Tribuna were completely odd to the other camp of “lawyers.” But how might this ideas sound to people who tried vehemently to prevent the lost of their school, who sacrificed themselves in their political fight for national rights, except as mere treason? The differences between the two stances were not only about strategy, or the audience, but even the logic was different, and this was acknowledged in an articleentitled “A Judged Thing and a Pendent Matter.”177 Published in Tribuna, in the middle of the scandal, the article refers to an accusation of treason raised by Românul against Tribuna. In this long and rather sophistic expose of abstract arguments, two ideas came to the fore. One is that the accusations raised by Românul require solid facts in order to be proved, but evidence did not exist. “An unfounded accusation is an unjust accusation,” and this has the authority of “a judged thing.” The other is that the criticisms printed by Tribuna against the National Committee, are a matter of principles, convictions, and opinions that are decided by arguments not by facts. “Can someone consider our critics unjust, our ideas about the need of a national 174

***, “Rolul presei nostre,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 238 (November 5/18, 1910): 1-2. In 1907 the Appony law was passed through the Hungarian parliament and the fate of Romanians schools was a central subject for all the journals and newspapers. 176 The books of the New Testament are called the Evangels from the Greek euangelion, literally meaning “the good news.” Goga was perfectly familiar with this meaning. 177 ***, “Un lucru judecat şi o chestiune pendentă,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 260 (November 29 / December 12, 1911): 1-2. 175

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culture wrong, or [opinions about] the insufficiency of some of our leaders [incorrect]?” asks the author. He further claims that in a controversy of ideas, discussion can remain open and can be any time resumed, and this is the “pending matter” of the renewal. Of course, “the lawyers” from the National Committee were completely indignant when they were called decrepit old men, estranged, inactive, not enough cultivated, or stupid and even “asses grazing on Vesuvius,” and all these without a proof, but in the name of national culture and the universal principles of refreshening. At the end of 1910, the National Committee decided that the situation was unbearable. “The lawyers” chose to establish another journal in order to counteract the pernicious propaganda of Tribuna. After the appearance of Românul as the official organ of the National Committee, the authorized newspaper attacked the ‘young steeled rebels’ in their own city. What started as a divergence of opinions and rhetoric became a fierce struggle for political survival.

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CHAPTER 5 The ‘Tribuna’ scandal [1911-1912] After the elections of 1910, the Romanian public remained puzzled in their attempt to understand their new situation. The new government, which originally seemed to be an ally against the previous nationalist coalition, proved to be a much more dangerous enemy for the immediate goals of the National Party.1 Tisza’s speech in Oradea let few illusions about his political intentions.2 In the same summer, Ioan Mihu was asked by the government to mediate in an attempt to reconcile the opposing parties. After many discussions with Romanian political leaders, he drafted an outline of the Romanian party’s minimum demands, as a basis for further negotiations with the government. In spite of Mihu’s good faith and assiduity, his efforts were doomed from the beginning. The two sides were polarized and radicalized to such an extent that a rapprochement was almost impossible. However, these “discussions” were a matter of public interest and the press commented on their every detail.3 Another public issue raised that year was the defection of Lupta, the official journal of the Romanian National Party in Budapest. Dimitrie Birăuţiu,4 the 1

This paradoxical situation was a consequence of the franchise reform. The new government was invested by the Emperor with the direct task of solving the crisis of nationalities and issuing a new much permissive electoral law. In the new circumstances, the political groups of nationalities became an embarrassment factor for the government who sought to increase the political participation of the masses in the political process without losing the control of the country, as far as Hungarians barely outbalance the other ethnic groups of the Kingdom (about 51%). Or, the political goals of all these political groups were mostly to attain a minimum of independence from the central authority and to build upon it a national political institution, be it under the authority of Hungarian government or not. 2 “Discursul contelui Tiza”, Tribuna, XIV, no. 136 (July 1/14, 1910): 3-5. 3 It is not here the place to analyze this episode of Romanian Hungarian relations before the First World War. Mihu’s Glances of my Thoughts remain one of the best account of these discussions, because includes many private letters, articles or official notes in its annexes. Among the secondary literature there can be listed Liviu Maior “The Conference of 1910. The Romanian Hungarians negotiations,” in his The Romanian National Movement from Transylvania 1900-1914, or F. Pölöskei, “István Tisza’s Policy toward the Romanian Nationalities in the Eve of World War I, Acta Historica, XVIII, no. 3-4 (March-April, 1972): 289. 4 Dimitrie Birăuţ or Birăuţiu, the owner of the typography “Poporul Român” in which Lupta was printed, was a minor publicist in Budapest who chose to play the card of the government. There are some information in Tăslăuanu, Testimonies, and Octavian Goga, because Luceafărul was published in the same typography as well at the very beginning. The general opinion about Birăuţiu was that he was an opportunist able of trading everybody for is interest.

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editor at Lupta and Poporul Român, decided to take control of the party’s newspaper adopted an independent line regarding the “discussions” with the government, putting the National Committee in an embarrassing situation. At the beginning of July, both Lupta and Poporul Român were suspended by the National Committee, but they continued to appear until the end of 1910 in spite of this interdiction. This episode is not important by itself, but it triggered a discussion about the role of the national media and about the incapacity of the National Committee to exercise authority over its own journal.5 Both issues played a central role in the scandal of 1911 and therefore they are interesting as a ‘premonition’ of what was to come. Chendi’s article, “Our National Press,” is an interesting reaction to the situation which considers the role that the nationalist press in the political struggle: The most part of our intellectual education should be done in this public way, our school being unable to do it properly because of the narrow laws. Furthermore, the civic education and the one specifically national are also to be the responsibility of the press. The popularization of science, political and social ideas, the incitement to order and discipline and to the calm preservation of enthusiasm and trust in the future, are tasks of the press too. Most of our press has the burden of being a practical guide for language, a corrector of public taste and feeling, and finally the most comprehensive spring that strengthens the national energy.6

Recollecting the great figures of the Romanian press, Chendi turned finally to Birăuţiu who in his opinion personified a new sort of journalist, who was a speculator, a dealer, and, why not, a double-dealer. This characterisation is reminiscent of the early articles and poems of Goga in which he depicted the townsmen as having a ‘trading mentality’. The resemblance is not exaggerated; most articles critical of Romania’s “gentlemen,” its leaders and notables, suggest a direct link between their cultural estrangement and their urban life, far away from their national roots, their schooling, and their individualism. And in Now, the small note found in Cugetarea Encyclopedia by Lucian Predescu mentions about Birăuţiu that he was brought in justice twelve times but acquitted most of the time. Overall he spent 14 days in prison and obliged to pay about 3500 crowns penalties. Unfortunately, there are no other sources about this personage and no studies about his activity. The only Memories which were susceptible of describing at least the episode from 1910 are by Vaida-Voevod, who was the chief redactor of Lupta, but probably uncompleted, there is no mention about this events. 5 See “Suspendarea ziarelor Lupta şi Poporul Român”, Tribuna, XIV, no. 142 (July 8/21. 1910): 5; “Criza din Budapesta” , no. 146 (July 13/26, 1910): 1-2; or “Lupta continuă să apară” [Lupta Continues to be Published], ibid., 5. 6 Ilarie Chendi, “Presa noastră naţională”, Tribuna, XIV, no. 147 (July 14/27, 1910): 1.

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most of the Tribunists’ articles, individualism was only a step away from selfishness and the trading mentality. Just a week later, an article by Făgeţel was published in the feuilleton of Tribuna, “The Writers and the Urban Life.” Taking a Sămănătorist line, Făgeţel argued that the Transylvanian writers were “discountried” (desţăraţi) in Bucharest.7 Urban life was strange to them, and they could only clumsily refer to its realities in their writings. Furthermore, he referred to Goga’s poems as an example of this variety of intellectual urban uprootedness. At that moment, when public opinion was preoccupied with these problems, Goga was abroad. After the electoral campaign, he had departed on a trip through Europe, from München, to Brussels and then on to Paris. He was not present when the scandal began, as at the conclusion of his trip he was invited to visit Abernethy in Scotland by R. W. Setton-Watson.8 He visited Paris again later that year. Though Goga was abroad for most of the latter part of 1910, he was kept informed by his friends and wrote articles enough to keep up a weekly presence in Tribuna. He reacted to the crisis caused by Lupta in an incendiary article entitled “New Incitements” in which he claimed that Birăuţiu and other persons like him were not a problem of concern. The real challenge, he claimed, was to refresh the Romanians’ politics and the politic-makers. It would be a big mistake to believe that all this movement, all this torment full of a noble indignation of so many people, has as a supreme goal the crushing of an individual, his destruction. No! This Mr. Birăuţ is a too insignificant a figure, too microscopic in the little gang of infusorians [sic!] who muddy our water. As a single person, however malignant and clever in his manoeuvers he may be, he cannot cause such an elementary eruption of sadness. It would be a mistake to believe that all these people cannot realize that it is not necessary to take the sling to kill bedbugs but through silence these inoffensive types can be more easily buried.9

This was Goga’s adopted tone concerning people like Birăuţ(iu) or Burdea, Şenghescu, Mangra, and other opportunists and deserters from the national camp. Goga wrote many articles against these people. His intentions, however, 7

Contantin Şoban-Făgeţel, “Scriitorii şi viaţa oraşelor”, Tribuna, XIV, no. 153 (July 22 / August 4, 1910): 1-2. “Desţăraţi” is an ad hoc term coined by the author to mean ‘people without a country’. 8 R. W. Seton-Watson (Scotus Viator) published already couples of books on “the problem of nationalities” in Hungary: The Future of Austria-Hungary (1907), Racial problems in Hungary (1908), and he was about to finish his Corruption and reform in Hungary — A Study of electoral practice (London: Constable & Co., 1911). 9 Goga, “Îndemnuri noi”, Tribuna, XIV, no. 245 (14/27 November, 1910): 1-2.

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did not exclusively aim only at them but the entire society in which such defections were accepted. These figures were considered irrefutable illustrations of a broader campaign against the “sins of our society”, as he called them. In the abovementioned article he made explicit reference to this drive against a broader phenomenon that he perceived as being dangerous: There is something else here, something that stirs this current of increasing discontent. It is a more recent tendency, a new incitement in our society, from which these rebellious accents start. It is the tendency of eliminating those intruders in the public life; it is a kind of crepuscule of nullities, the tendency of enthroning honesty and talent instead of speculative abilities. This drive for the regeneration of our society has been felt eternally by several elected souls and through a new generation it comes now to the surface and addresses the floor. [The fact that] the movement has started with the crushing of an adventurer from the party gazette means that this individual represents a type, that must be sacrificed, and that he is a more recent and brutal incarnation of this cohorts, who swarm among us and with whom we are fed up. This is why, once this movement has started, it will last further and will strengthen itself, no matter if Birăuţ submerges again into obscurity or if he continues to write. We are interested in the plural of this ignoble type in the same way in which the Thirty Years War started with the defenestration of three city councillors from the city hall in Prague; thus here too a new era of reforms is just announced, reforms that are awaited by a newer strata, which today steps on the arena with a new ideal of life and work.10

This aggressive tone was consonant with the spirit of Tribuna brought by Chendi and his scandalous “Unconstrained Opinions.” § 1. Chendi’s “Unconstrained Opinions” Chendi’s “Unconstrained Opinions” and other following articles raised the main issues and formulated the main disagreements between Tribuna and the National Committee.11 At the beginning of September, his first article titled

10 11

Ibid., 2. Though the article was not signed Chendi was indicated by Sever Bocu as the true author of these “Unrefrained Opinions.” All the other articles that followed were signed with “the author of the unrefrained opinions,” who became a personage in itself. See Sever Bocu, “Premenirea,” Tribuna, XV, no. 272 (December 13/26, 1911): 1-2. However, Popovici in his violent (as always) reaction in Gazeta Transilvaniei recognized Chendi’s style from the very beginning. The Works of Ilarie Chendi edited by Dumitru Bălăeţ in four volumes until now contain only the writings published by Chendi during his life in volumes. There is nothing

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“The Need for a New Group(ing)”12 had as a subtitle an expression that soon became famous, “Unconstrained Opinions.” He did not refer to any Birăuţ or Burdea but to the current Romanian leaders, levelling strong accusations and radical judgments. Though the political situation was critical and there was no relief in sight, he accused the National Committee of doing nothing to improve the situation. “Our rows are too rare,” he claimed, “the selection of our leaders very poor,” “there is no political will,” and there is no concrete action against the government.13 Moreover, the lack of authority was perfectly proved by the case of Lupta. For Chendi, the problem was that the Committee had too little authority and no political life with the notable exception of the election periods. He felt that a lack of “great national energies” was behind this general apathy, and a lack of virility in political affirmations of the nation’s rights. No matter how much we should be thankful to the present and to the love of our leaders, we cannot suppress the wish of seeing in front of us more potent individualities, more appropriate to the present bad circumstances. It is like feeling the need of superior people able to keep our souls together and to take us with them, faster and safer, to the victory. We feel the need to see our leaders winning or falling with glory, and not humbly regretting in an equivoque state.14

For Chendi, the leaders were exhausted and had to be changed because they would jeopardize the movement. This was because they could not understand the “voice of the time” that called for renewal and for the elimination of all ballast. He called for a public inquiry about those able to take a leadership position and continue the fight, those who are healthy and powerful, constituting the “essence of national vigour.” He eliminated the bishops because they could not be independent from the government; he eliminated the traitors and the “lost”, and he eliminated “those people who are decent but aged in the service of the nation, […] brave hearts with weak arms” who barely understood the spirit of the time (he probably infers der Zeitgeist). What remained after this purge was the younger generation, the “steeled young forces from his impressive amount of political articles, not to mention the unsigned articles of this period. 12 [Ilarie Chendi], “Nevoia unei grupări. Păreri libere,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 189 (September 4/17, 1910): 2-3. It is worth mentioning that in the title and in the whole article, there is a indetermination regarding the immediate meaning of “group” or “grouping,” the former implying another political group, a dissidence from the party, the later suggesting just another mobilization under the umbrella of the present party. Both interpretations can be supported by this article. 13 Ibid., 3. 14 Ibid.

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with a solid training.” There is no difference, stated Chendi, “between these elements and the leaders of our enemies, neither regarding their knowledge nor their individual qualities.”15 These young people were scattered in various directions of activities but they had a social independence and a sufficiently serious political education which allowed them to play a leading role. “They are the newest expression of our national energy and their claim for the leadership of today and tomorrow is obvious.” Chendi then called for those young Romanian politicians to gather all these dispersed forces in order to relaunch the national fight. He declared that “all of them would come as if hearing a charmed alpenhorn” and that they would be willing to work for a “radical change in the character of our fights,” forming a headquarters of fighters fanatically loved and unrestrainedly supported by the people. As it was previously mentioned, the rebellion of the steeled young intellectuals was a question of leadership. This was clearly stated by Chendi in his Unconstrained Opinions: “The question of leadership is of paramount importance and there is no room for reserve or caution.”16 It was a prompt confirmation of Tisza’s words on universal suffrage: I admit that in the nationalist circles, in which social discipline is stronger, the leadership would remain for a while in the hands of those who deserved it. But this would last just for a short period of time because the electors would fall very easily under the influence of the nationalist agitators…17

Tisza, as a conservative liberal, attempted also to prevent the universal vote in Hungary. Besides this particular case, throughout Europe existed a potential relationship between the universal vote and this politics “in a new key,” which eventually would have caused the collapse of the traditional liberal elite after the First World War. Chendi wrote other articles18 until the end of November when a series of articles in Gazeta Transilvaniei vehemently attacked his “Unconstrained

15

Ibid. It seems that Chendi has a greater esteem about the Hungarians politicians than about the Romanian ones. The same can be found in the article of Goga “The Intellectualization of our Politics,” previously mentioned. This esteem was immediately perceived by all the members of the committee. 16 Ibid. 17 “Cuvântarea Contelui Tisza István,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 8 (January 13/26, 1910): 3. 18 Autorul părerilor libere (Ilarie Chendi), “Coarde simţitoare,” in Tribuna, XIV, no, 203 (September 23 / October 6, 1910): 1-2; “Manifestul tinerimei,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 231 (October 28 / November 10, 1910): 1; and “Ziua de mâne,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 246 (November 16/29, 1910): 3-4..

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Opinions.”19 At the beginning of December, the Conference of the Romanian National Party repudiated Tribuna as the official party organ and decided, in a second conference, to counteract it with another daily newspaper edited in the same city of Arad.20 Then, the entire propaganda for the refreshment of political life turned into a desperate defensive campaign. Ironically, the National Committee undertook many of the things previously asked for by Tribuna concerning the defection of Lupta. On 1 January 1911 the new official journal of the Committee, Românul, appeared in Arad and a new polemic began. Under these circumstances, Chendi did not have time to continue with his “Unconstrained Opinions,” particularly when he found himself in the midst of criticism. At the end of January, Aurel C. Popovici published a series of vehement articles21 which Chendi then answered, provoking a further two articles by Popovici22 in reply. At that moment, Goga, who had faced meanwhile a trial, wrote “Treuga Dei,”23 in which he undertook a unilateral moratorium on behalf of Tribuna, declaring that the atmosphere was too poisoned by the intolerance of both opposing camp and there was no way of continuing with insults. Returning to the seeds of the scandal: Chendi’s “Unconstrained Opinions” and his pleas for a change in the national leadership, there are several other issues raised. In the second of his articles, “The Sensitive Strings (Feelings)” Chendi went even further than his first article and directly named those aged people who could no longer fight for the national cause. Though he began by cautiously claiming that his words were just warm and sincere advice for the retreat of those who could work no longer as they had worked before, and even 19

***, “O mică socoteală,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIII, no. 252 (16/29 November, 1910): 1; and ***, “Cele câte-va rânduri” (I-III), in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIII, Nr. 253 (18 November / 1 December, 1910): 1, Nr. 255 (20 November / 3 December, 1910): 1, no. 257 (23 November / 6 December, 1910): 1. 20 ***, “Hotărârile conferenţei Comitetului Naţional,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIII, no. 271 (10/23 Decembrie, 1910): 1. 21 Aurel C. Popovici, “Intriga cea veche,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIII, no. 265 (Decembrie 2/15, 1910): 1-2; “Pentru ‘desvăguiţii năstrujnici’… (I-II),” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 14 (January 20 / February 2, 1910): 1-2 and no. 15 (January 21 / February 3, 1910): 1-3. “Dela Spanachendi cetire… (I-II),” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 18 (January 25/ February 7, 1911): 1-2 and no. 19 (January 26 / February 8): 1-2; and “Nitză Spanac. Autorul părerilor libere. O execuţie analitică-literară (I-V),” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 24 (February 1/14, 1911): 1-2; no. 25 (February 2/15, 1911): 1-2; no. 26 (February 4/17): 1-3; no. 29 (February 8/21, 1911): 1-3; Nr. 30 (February 9/22, 1911): 1-3. 22 Popovici, “Cum răspunde d. Chendi (I-II),” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 42 (February 23 / March 8, 1911): 1-2; and no. 43 (February 24/ March 9, 1911): 1. 23 Goga, “Treuga dei,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 65 (March 20/April 2): 1-2.

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that “we are against any kind of innovations based on more drastic measures,” in the end he chose three figures of the Romanian establishment, none other than the Orthodox metropolitan Bishop Meţianu, the President of the ASTRA, Iosif Serca-Şuluţiu, and the President of the National Party, Gheorghe Pop de Băseşti, as examples of old and weak political leaders. His irreverent rhetorical questions were “what does Meţianu represent for our political changes?” or “through what ideas did Pop influence public life and which are his qualifications for this activity and his capacity as an opinion (direction) maker?” For Şuluţiu, who died six months later, he only remarked that “kindness and nobleness are not sufficient qualities for the director of a cultural institution.” Chendi concluded that “set aside the false sentimentalism and the ingratitude […] the work of the ’48 movement was done by men about 20-30 years old and not by elder people with their shaken beliefs.” The third article did not raise any new issues except an homage to the youth from Sibiu who proved their enthusiasm for change and renewal. As a negative example he mentioned Brassó (Braşov) where there were no sign of “demurăsenization”24 or of renouncing “the influence of mechanicist spirit of the teacherhood.”25 The last two articles from this series contained a warning about the forthcoming political battle over the electoral law, “the most criminal law” which would be “the touchstone of our virtues”26 in the next political battle. In his opinion Romanians could not afford “to muddle further”27 the situation, as the fight promised to be merciless. In the given circumstances and with the present leadership, Chendi suggested that there was no hope for a good result. Once again, he argued that the leaders should depart and be replaced by others, much younger and more powerful. Nobody should feel sorrow if he must leave his place in which he accomplished his duty as far as he could, as a brave soldier. We feel in the deep of our souls, that there are many among us who should make this sacrifice of resignation, because the days to come will be very hard and our arms should be strong and young to carry our flag. With the weakness of some of our leaders, the enthusiasm and optimism of the fighting masses cannot be maintained. They are exhausted, they themselves need encouragement; their voice is barely audible, either in 24

From Aurel Mureşianu, one of the great Romanian personalities from the mid-19th century. He was the co-founder of Gazeta Transilvaniei. Chendi refers here to the influence of Gazeta de Transilvania (latter Gazeta Transilvaniei), the first political journal of Transylvanian Romanians, which was conservative at that time. 25 Chendi, “Manifestul tinerimei,” 1. Of course, Gazeta Transilvaniei reacted vehemently to this offense with the articles previously mention; q. v. note 19. 26 Chendi, “Ziua de mâne,” 4. 27 From the German “es wird weiter gewurstelt!”

163 Vienna or in the parliament where a terrorist gang suffocate them. Then, release the superior nervous powers of those with greater vigour, to restore the fight, to bring a more vivid, warm, sincere, and greatly categorical tempo. There is an absolute need for masses to take their breath when the pressure is so high. It is necessary that we start our action again through mass movements, meetings and conferences, in which the government and crown must be clearly told how we understand today to make justice ourselves and how the humiliating charlatanry about reconciliation influenced our soul.28

This quotation illustrates the “internal struggle” claimed by the steeled young Tribunists, as mentioned in the previous chapter. They believed that only through meetings and conferences, and not through parliamentary participation or memoranda, that they could communicate to the government and crown their sense of justice and assert their solutions. This way of concentrating almost exclusively on the “internal” rather than “external” struggle, was extremely confusing, misleading and harmful to the National Committee. It was perceived as an attempt to weaken the Committee and give a free hand to the government. This was the argument of the first article of Popovici, “The Old Intrigue,” in which the entire situation was interpreted as a consequence of Romanian liberal interference in Transylvania from two decades earlier.29 Calling to mind John Bolinbroke’s idea that history is a philosophy that must be learned through examples, he gave the example of the crisis of the 1890s, when Sturdza, Jeszenszky, Slavici, Mangra, Brote seemingly complotted against the Committee. Eventually, he claimed “a historical filiation” between the two crisis caused by the same Tribuna. The “affaire” would grow more and similar to the crisis of fourteen years earlier because, in reality, it was the same crisis. The immediate answer by Tribuna was that the current generation of Tribunists had nothing to do with the earlier generation and its mistakes. The argument was that it was the Tribuna that had strongly condemned the old Tribunists, i.e. Slavici, Brote etc., when they defected from the National Party.30 However, that was not all. Chendi (most probably) began a campaign of biting remarks concerning Popovici; he offered to donate all the money allegedly received from Jeszenszky to the winner of a contest for the best essay

28

Ibid., 3. See the first section of the chapter three. 30 ***, “Fanteziile d-lui Popovici,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 261 (December3/16, 1910): 2-3; and ***, “Intriga cea veche,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 268 (December 11/24, 1910): 5. 29

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on “The Merits of the English writer Bolinbroke.”31 This association persisted: another time, Chendi called Popovici ‘Bolinbroke’ and labelled Popovici’s writings “Bolinbrokiades.” These slights angered Popovici, who responded in kind. He took Chendi’s last volume, Impressions,32 and poked fun at its author’s intellectual pretensions. It is enough to say that Popovici made fun of Chendi, calling him ‘Niţză Spanac’,33 or a ‘salad’ of undigested ideas picked up aleatory from the reading of Nietzsche. To some extent, Chendi’s unrefrained malice and irony deserved this reaction. His answer to Popovici was one of his last open contributions to this scandal,34 which had otherwise been triggered by his own articles. He attempted to undermine Popovici’s reputation accusing him of having a utopian mind, owing to his unrealizable political ideas. Taking aim at Popovici’s works, Chendi alleged that entire chapters of the famous Replica had not been written by Popovici, but by industrious students from Vienna and other universities. Of Popovici’s journalistic career, Chendi accused his rival of managing to “bury” România Jună35 and Sămănătorul. Next, Chendi likened The United States of Great Austria to such an ingenious construction as a bridge across the ocean; a similarly nice but worthless project, and he quoted Goldiş (now the chief editor of the rival journal Românul), who wrote —when the work was published — a 31

***, “Banii lui Jeszenszky. Monomania d-lui A. C. Popovici,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 19 (January 25/ February 7, 1910): 4. 32 Ilarie Chendi, Impresii, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1908). 33 ‘Niţză Spanac’ is a sarcastic play on the name Nietzsche, spelled ‘Niţză’, a short form of ‘Ioniţă’, that is in turn a diminutive for Io(a)n, probably the most popular proper Romanian name; and ‘Spanac’, or Spinach, in the sense of ‘hogwash’. He later used other variants as Spanachendi or Lichendi, which are similarly derisive. 34 Ilarie Chendi, “Pentru dl A. C. Popovici. Un răspuns,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 34 (February 12/25, 1911): 1-2. 35 România Jună was a journal founded by Popovici in Bucharest with a short life (ten months, December 1899 – October 1900). It is an important journal for the first decade of twenty century because it was the first “independent” daily newspaper with a nationalist orientation. In other words, Popovici put in practice for the first time the idea that nationalism is above politics, above political parties and above political doctrines. According to the current perception at that time, political parties look only after their own interests while a true nationalist look after the entire nation’s interests. This would be the crossroad where Romanian nationalism estranged from the traditional political system and begun to search for another solution. Politicians and party went into shadow for the next decades being considered as selfish and dishonest, corrupted and bankrupt; in the same period was coined the term politicianism in order to cover these reproachful aspects of politics. This is why, in “Niţză Spinach (II),” Popovici makes a difference between “a political man” and “a politician,” the last one being just a neologism from French and actually means a rascal, a political speculator and a demagogue.

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respectful but rather negative review. Chendi’s interpretation was that the campaign against him was due to the bad character of Popovici, his reactionarism and his constant inclination to control les mœurs of the people: When ideas are not popular anymore, because they are not engrafted on reality and anybody has the right to reject them, then it is natural for the deception to follow, and only sorrow and strong words remain the weapons of a disappointed man… In these times, sorrows are inevitable, because the manifestations against loathing always provoke a strong reaction. In any bold thought the reactionary kind of person finds an anarchist or a pamphleteer. It starts to smell like censorship in the press, like a boycott and conjectural charges. The police, the Catonism and the authority are looking for new victims, considering [any] movement embarrassing. And you, Mr. Popovici, who look like being raised as an Austrian bureaucrat of the Metternich school, you have all the signs of a professional reactionary, made not born, and you find yourself in your own medium when you choose this activity of espionage, denunciation, and human hunting, believing that at least this last form of activity will bring you celebrity and the laurels of a nation’s gratitude.36

For Chendi, unfortunately, his late answer did not have too great an effect and it represented a resignation to this situation. His irony was intermingled with sadness and disappointment, a mood that hurried his dramatic end.37 Popovici, in his last two articles, stated point by point all of the accusations mentioned in his previous articles and he argued that they remained without a proper answer. He stated that it was not his political ideas or projects that were questioned but the quality of a journalist who rudely attacked the respectable leaders of the National Party. Quoting his opponent, Popovici poked fun at his mistakes, his ignorance and his malice. It seems that “perfidy” is the notion under which Chendi remained in the memory of his contemporaries.38

36

Ilarie Chendi, “Pentru dl A. C. Popovici. Un răspuns,” in Tribuna, XV, nr. 34 (12/25 February, 1911): 1-2. 37 In the next year, Chendi has a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized in a sanatorium. With small periods of time when his sufferings were eased, the acute neurasthenia got worst. In 23rd of July 1913, still in hospital, he committed suicide. 38 In an article from 1912, the young critique Eugen Lovinescu put it in this way: “The Chendism is the perfidy of perfidy.” E. Lovinescu, “Perfidy,” Rampa, January 23, 1912; quoted in Dumitru Bălăeţ, “Chronology” in Ilarie Chendi, Writings, D. Bălăeţ (ed.), 1st vol., (Bucharest: Minerva, 1988): XLVII. It is interesting that because Constantin Stere enjoyed the sympathy of many commentators during the communist period, mostly because of his left wing tendencies, and because Popovici was one of his public contesters — their dispute happened at the same time with the episode of “The Two Cultures” — the inherent negative evaluation of

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The last article of this debate was a rather short note about Popovici’s inability to carry on the discussion in a polite manner.39 Mentioning the testimonies of Morariu and Stere, who had both known the incisiveness of Popovici, the author implied that Popovici was a passional person who accordingly could not restrain himself from violent language. This was the epilogue to the first phase of the scandal, which was initiated by Chendi. § 2. “Let’s Freshen Us!” In November 1910, Goga returned from Scotland. He knew more or less of the events at home from the letters he received. Once returned, his first “literary” contribution was a sketch, “The Notable,” in which he negatively depicted a Romanian notary who collaborated with Hungarian officials against the Romanian nationalists in the last elections. Goga took the side of his friend Chendi and in an open letter he reiterated his points concerning his own collaboration with Tribuna.40 Firstly, he declared that he had chosen to collaborate with Tribuna because of its intransigence and, obviously, if he noticed any sign of the abandonment of this attitude he would cease his collaboration forthwith. Secondly, he considered his articles as attempts to indicate some “general circumstance and kind of people” that aimed to reveal social, cultural and political phenomena as they are reflected in a judgment, “considered right and honest” by him. Thirdly, he denied any affiliation with a “gang,” or any influence from a particular person, his intentions being purely altruistic. Yet he declared his support for “the author of the unrestrained opinions” because he also had perceived a state of “numbness” or “torpidity” in Romanian public life. Finally, he declared his intention to arrange a volume of his articles for publication, and he affirmed his trust in positive activities and not in reciprocal accusations and suspicions.

Popovici reflected a positive interpretation of Chendi, who became a sort of young promising critique unfortunately lost too early to be a major name in Romanian culture. 39 ***, “De ce nu se poate discuta cu dl A. C. Popovici,” in Tribuna, XV, Nr. 48 (1/14 Martie, 1911): p. 3. The author is unlikly to be Chendi. 40 Goga. “O scrisoare a domnului Goga,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 261 (December 3/16, 1910): 1. The letter is dated Paris, December 12 (new style) that proves Goga went back to Paris after his Scotish trip. Taking in consideration his other letter, a week later, Goga spent three weeks in Paris in November wherefrom he returned at the end of the month. It seems that the second letter published by Tribuna is chronologically anteriour to the first though it was published later. See Goga, “Pro domo,” Tribuna, XIV, no. 257 (December 11/November 28, 1910): 1-2.

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Traveling back home, Goga wrote another article as a reply to a good friend who had advised him to stay away from the trivial problems of home.41 Allegedly, his friend asserted that a writer should keep his distance from “the large and dirty river of life… and not to throw himself into the middle of the waves.” He was implored to remain in the splendid isolation of the artistic sphere, far away from the vulgar reality of common life. Goga passionately responded that he could not afford to “close the windows and keep his soul in a snail shell”, and to thereby stay away from the daily problems of life. He continued making a warm apology for a militant literature that chose its subjects from ordinary reality and from the screams of the masses. He closed with an anecdotal thought that he once had while visiting Vesuvius, which took the form of the famous parable of the mules serenely grazing on the slopes of that volcano. This wit, which caused a “furore” among the leaders of the National Party, was incriminated by one sentence alone: “You guess my thought. Yes, this is what I wanted to say: how many mules we have in Ardeal, which are grazing on the sides of our Vesuvius…”42 This was the most powerful weapon of Goga’s journalism: his talent of evoking powerful and persistent images. Who might have remembered that Chendi was first to use the expression “the steeled young men”43? But Goga’s evocation of the cruel life of Romanian students in a foreign capital, which tended to denationalize them, remained the loci clasici of this epithet that gained fame in those years. The same was true again: this evocation of the mule on Vesuvius replaced all the prosaic accusations of Chendi against the leaders of the National Party. Another example is offered by Goga’s next article to appear in Tribuna, “The Right to Criticize.”44 There, Goga begins by relating an old journalist’s anecdote about a young writer. The story begins: Once on a Monday morning the young writer was late to the office. Eventually, he arrived late in the afternoon. When questioned, he was embarrassed but finally agreed to tell what happened. He participated in a “general reunion meeting … in the village…” (the description was left deliberately vague) which he had attended with the president and the secretary. But nobody came. In the end, they held the

41

If this letter is real, its author might be Goldiş. Personally, I believe this letter is invented by Goga because the similarities of language with other Goga’s writings, but it might be only paraphrased or cited from memory. 42 Ibid., 2. 43 Popovici found it in Chendi, Impresii, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1908). 44 Goga, “Dreptul criticei,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 259 (December 1/14, 1910): 1-2. It is interesting that Chendi has an article with the same tile in 1904 from Voinţa Naţională included later in his Feuilletons (1904).

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meeting with just seven people, including themselves. The audience was formed of a priest, a teacher and three old and helpless peasants. They talked for about an hour, but it was too warm and all the audience was yawning. They quickly finished and were invited to dinner by the priest. The priest’s wife was industrious and talented, the wine was good, and therefore they feasted until midnight. When they left, they were all quite drunk, and the president began to argue and fight with the secretary. The poor young writer had to separate them for the rest of their journey. He was so exhausted that in the morning he was unable to wake up. The old journalist, presumably the chief of the younger one, forgave him. Yet, three days later he was astonished to read in a newspaper a report of about half a page concerning the grandiose meeting that had happened last Sunday. He read: how the president talked with tears in his eyes and how the audience was moved by the speech of this wise leader… and so on for entire columns… Of course, at the end: take example from these brave Romanians! God save the diligent president and his unexhausted secretary45

From this tragicomic anecdote, Goga went further in exposing this reflexive comment on the differences between reality and the self-content accounts published in the official journals of the party. He recalled the poor dilettantes from a small village who were called in the journal “eminent artists who surpassed all expectations,” a little nice girl lauded as “our famous tragedian,” an archpriest who was unscrupulous about bribery but who was called “a true apostle of our cause,” a petty politician from the countryside with poor intellectual means who was acclaimed as “our great orator who inflames our souls” and so on. All of these images surpassed any argumentative critique against the Romanian establishment. Goga’s demand for criticism ran against traditional hypocrisy (of any society, some may add), and against reality itself as compared with the high ideals of the younger generation. Nowadays, in our society there are visible gladdening signs of the crushing of the (wrong) advice of a traditional hypocrisy and (new) personalities who are bold enough to lift the veil from the face of so many pious lies and to look at life right in its face to see all its wickedness… the truth hurts but heals.46

As more general observation: activists and militants could turn quickly to hate their own society (or social group) for being less mobilized, for lacking group 45 46

Ibid., 1. Ibid., 2.

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consciousness (whether class or national), or for letting petty daily interests govern over high ideals. Goga ends his article in an ambiguous way. On the one hand, he praised the Tribunists for affirming the truth about Romanian public life. However, to acknowledge that the nice little girl from a small town was not a famous tragedian was not the same as to affirm that the president of the Association, the president of the National Party, and the Orthodox metropolitan bishop, were exhausted and politically unfit for their leading positions, as Chendi did. Goga did not refer directly to Chendi’s “Unconstrained Opinions,” he only ingeniously exemplified them. On the other hand, he invoked “the great social and cultural freshening (primenire)” which had to come, without specifying what this ‘freshening’ really meant. Though Chendi explicitly mentioned the problem of leadership within the Romanian national mass movement, Goga kept an ambiguous position, announcing great changes while demanding small corrections. This ambiguity served to deflect any possible reaction against his articles. For example, he ended “The Right to Criticise” by stating “This bunch of people is made up of men too idealistic to be a cohort of job hunters, and too young to be intimidated in their boldness by the howl of Birăuţiu…,” but this article was not about Birăuţiu, against whom the entire public opinion revolted. These articles published by Goga did not stand without reply. Two days later, after “The Old Intrigue,” Popovici published other two feuilletons entitled “The Poets and the Politics”47 — as a counterpart of “The Writers in Politics” published by Tribuna when Goga began his electoral campaign earlier in the spring.48 His statement was clear and direct: “A poet cannot be a political man (leader) because his domain is fantasy.”49 He rhetorically asked what kind of Germany or Italy might be seen if Bismarck or Cavour were poets instead of politicians. Concerning Eminescu, the immediate Romanian reference regarding a poet involved in politics, Popovici ambiguously remarked that “he wrote not did politics,” in other words he was a political thinker and not a statesman. What was wrong with the poets, according to Popovici, was that the writing of beautiful poems did not necessarily imply the capacity for political 47

Popovici, “Poeţii şi politica” (I), in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIII, no. 266 (December 3/16, 1910): 1-2; and (II) no. 267 (December 4/17, 1910): 1-3. 48 ***, “Scriitorii în politică,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 49 (March 4/17, 1910): 1-2. The author can be Goldiş because he was the one who helped Goga during the electoral campaign following Goga in his electoral trips, he was the one who wrote the repport for the electoral meetings, and he trusted very much in the political career of Goga. 49 Popovici, “Poeţii şi politica” (I), 2. In a later article, Popovici made the distinction between a politician and a “political man” (statesman) which corresponds to the French distinction between “politicien” and “l’homme politique,” the first meaning being derogative.

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thought, an argument that was reiterated in later articles. He ended the first part by citing Emanuel Geibel: “Oh, my friend, man can be capable of lyrical poetry and yet be a stupid devil.”50 The second article was entirely dedicated to Goga. He was sarcastic about the Pegasus of poetical imagination transformed into a political mule. “Tribuna became the organ of political poets… who make only ‘evocations’… Goga is wrong because Ardeal is not full of mules, but Arad is full of poets.”51 He made fun of a few ambiguous passages from “Pro domo” in which Goga claimed he could not return to the practice of peaceful creation without “hearing his voice in the cry of the many, crying with the unhappy and being glad with those spoiled by fate.”52 Popovici retorted that this was not the way to immortality but to ridicule. Was Goga a warrior spirit? if so, he should not cry with the unhappy or be glad with the libertines, but he should go to fight against the enemies, to crush them in a fierce battle, to wound them and to be wounded. “Mr. Goga,” Popovici exclaims, “deeds not poems!” And he continues: He attacked all the time, with malice, the Romanians, but not only once those who put Romanians in their present situation! — How? A «poet of the nation» forgot the politics of our oppressors, and now “fights against Romanians?!... I have awaited just a national article written by the much praised Mr. Goga, an article in which Goga criticizes the Magyarizers, those who prevent the children from learning the language of their ancestors and God in their own language. I have been waiting to see how he would attack — he «the national poet» — the crimes of the gendarmes, who shot Romanians like rabid dogs; how he, «the national bard», would defend the right to existence of our national language, faith, traditions, and customs; how he would electrify all of us with his indignation against the oppression of Romanian costumes; I have just waited to see his “In Oppressores,” a philippic, not one but many, full of poetical talent, of deep feelings, of sculptural images, of vivid youthful vigour, and with lively and immortal visions as a true «poet» of the entire soul of the Romanian people!... Do we have such a poet today in Ardeal? Unfortunately, we do not.53

Popovici was cruel but not entirely unreasonable. He understood that a new political culture emerged out of these political poetics, a culture that was 50

In German in original: “O Freund, man kann ein lyrischer Dichten / Und doch ein dummer Teufel sein!.” Ibid. 51 Ibid. II, 1. 52 Goga, “Pro domo,” 1. 53 Popovici, “Poeţii şi politica” II, 2-3. Italics in original. “In Oppressores” is a famous poem of Coşbuc. As a matter of fact Goga wrote in 1900 “In Calumniatores,” having as model Coşbuc, as Ghibu notices. See Ghibu, Oameni între oameni …, 32-34.

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fundamentally opposed to whatever tradition the Romanians had at that moment. Or, threatening the political tradition at that moment was, for Popovici, similar to jeopardizing the political projects of the moment, amongst which was his ambitious project for the federalization of the Austrian Empire.54 This was perhaps the reason for his vehemence. Goga responded twice to Popovici. The first reaction was regarding an obscure paragraph at the end of “The Old Intrigue,” which was full of ambiguous allusions and implicit accusations. Goga played the role of an innocent person who wanted to believe Popovici but, unfortunately, understood nothing of him.55 He made fun of the “poetical tendencies” of Popovici and, eventually, compared him to a gigantic cannon seen in Scotland, a cannon that was used only once because it proved so extremely dangerous to its crew. In other words, Popovici as Mons Meg, the nickname of the storied cannon, seemed terrifying with his enormous reputation, but he was useless against the enemy because he was dangerous for his own companions. The next reaction was against “The Poets and the Politics.”56 According to Goga, Popovici attempted to take him out of politics, to put to an end his political career, but these efforts were senseless as far as Goga claimed to have no political career. In fact, at that moment Goga was abroad in Paris and occupied no political position. However, this lack of participation in political action did not correspond to Popovici’s criticism. Goga’s articles were themselves political actions in favour of a new generation of the steeled young writers. Most of them contain incitements, more or less explicit, against the present leadership of the National Party. Being the most prominent representative of the new generation, as most other writers did not involve themselves in politics, Goga’s so called “political career” was not so gross an exaggeration. Disclaiming any political aspirations, Goga continued by suggesting that the offense caused by his metaphor of the mule on Vesuvius was a pure invention because nobody from the National Committee felt offended by this, because he had been invited to collaborate with Tribuna by Goldiş, the future director of the committee’s authorized journal. In other words, Goga questioned why

54

All texts written by Popovici have an ad hoc character, Popovici being literally a “reactionary,” or better “a replicant” (one who replies), one who rather reacts to specific circumstances than to be a genuine theorist. 55 Goga, “Mons Meg. Bănuielile d-lui Dr. Aurel C. Popovici,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 268 (December 10/24, 1910): 1-2. 56 Goga, “Judecăţile unui ‘om mai în vârstă‘ şi lămuririle unui ‘băiat mai tânăr‘,“ in Tribuna, XIV, no. 281 (December 29 / January 11, 1910): 1-3.

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nobody felt offended by his “Pro domo” when it was published and why only now most consider this text an insult to all the members of the committee. Goga vehemently denied Popovici’s claim that his articles aimed to harm only the Romanians and not their oppressors. He replied: Of course, I attacked Mangra, Slavici, Brote, Şenghescu and other “Romanians” of this sort. What to do else? Not to ‘attack’ them or to ‘attack’ them with kindness? Or, maybe you think about those “attacks” against Birăuţ and other persons like him. Or, you dislike those few critical lines against the unbearable situation from within the party… How? When? Where?... please show me the “nastiness.”57

It was true that the majority of Goga’s articles from 1907 to 1910 referred mostly to persons like Şenghescu or Birăuţ who perfectly illustrated the process of estrangement, or national uprootedness, which was his main concern. What was not immediately evident, was the inclination to generalize these cases and to blame the entire society for these defections. And when it was directed at the entire society, the political class of the notables was found guilty of these failures. The criticism was not too explicit and remained more often at the general level, but after the elections and after Chendi’s “Unrestrained opinions,” the situation became unbearable for many leaders of the party. Goga was probably sincere when he claimed that he never changed his style, but what he failed to acknowledge was the change that occurred within Tribuna. His articles became a strong argument in favour of the new direction advocated by the Tribunists. The charge of intransigence was directed rather against other Romanians, whose intransigence was found lacking according to the Tribunists’ standards, rather than against the Hungarian government, as Popovici correctly noticed. The last argument raised by Goga against Popovici’s accusations was the intransigence alleged in his articles, for which the forthcoming trial was in clear evidence. Maybe he had no heroic deeds, Goga continued, “but for a poet the poems are deeds, and these deeds weigh at least as much as a discourse in the parliament, an article in Gross-Oesterreich, or a philippic of yours in the Gazette from Braşov.” As for poems, Goga refused to discuss them with a person who would criticize Goethe for his Faust, “who is a weak sensitive person, curious like a woman, sceptical, cynical, permanently discontent, a hybrid…” and not a truly national character. However, except these few articles and declarations, Goga was not entirely convinced to involve himself with this debate about “freshening” and

57

Ibid., 2.

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“unconstrained opinions.” He made this explicit in a declaration which stated that he ceased writing for a while because did not want to be accused of holding precipitated or thoughtless opinions. 58 Actually, he was busy with his travels. On the other hand, a difficult trial was impending. At the end of January, Goga was sentenced to a month in ordinary prison, and at the beginning of the following year he was imprisoned again for articles and poems written by others and not by him.59 Before his incarceration he made a final attempt to help his friend Chendi. In “How the Souls Are Poisoned,”60 he attempted to prove the fallacy in Popovici’s argumentation and to demonstrate that Chendi was a scapegoat for all the accusations raised against Tribuna, including the treason and the dishonest relations with Jeszenszky.61 He claimed that instead of answering the question of how Chendi betrayed the national cause, Popovici had accused him of not knowing enough grammar. However, Popovici did not accuse Chendi of treason but of impertinence, insolence, arrogance and ignorance. In the article “The Old Intrigue,” he did not name Chendi at all and referred only to the tumultuous history of Tribuna that from its first years had played an ambiguous role in the politics of Hungarian Romanians.62 In other words, Popovici did not confuse the responsibility for publishing “the unconstrained opinions” with the responsibility for writing them.63 Thus, Goga was not correct in his article. Two weeks later, when he was most likely concerned about his trial in Cluj, Goga wrote another much discussed article entitled “Treuga Dei.” His general intention was to offer a unilateral moratorium in the fight between Tribuna and Românul, the tone and some caustic expressions and exaggerated complaints were deeply offensive to the opposing camp. Among other things, he complained that from the begging his side’s sincerity had been rewarded only

58

Goga, “Declaraţie,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 3 (January 4/17, 1911): 2 This declaration is dated January 10 (new style), Paris, which indicates he retured to Paris before Chirstmas. 59 q. v. note 121 / cap. 3. To quote Goga himself: “It is true, I did not identify with the verses for which I have been convicted… I cannot accept any solidarity with a literary product of somebody else.” See “Graţierea lui Goga. Scrisoare către Budapesti Hirlap,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 38 (March 02/February 19, 1911): 4. 60 Goga, “Cum se otrăvesc sufletele...,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 29 (February 6/19, 1911): 1-2. 61 q. v. note 17 / cap. 3. 62 Tribuna was sponsored by Sturdza, the leader of the Romanian Liberals. q. v. notes 10 and 15 / cap. 3. 63 Goga, in a later article, make explicitly this confusion saying that the journal is not the property of some people who happened to have the owning documents but it is the property of those who write an a daily basis in it. See Goga “Adevăraţii ‘proprietari’ ai ziarului Tribuna,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 109 (May 18/31, 1911): 1-2.

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with doubts and insults, their sincere opinions and good wishes were overwhelmed by tenebrous suspicions, and their “tendencies, raised from love for truth and from the youthful thirst for ideal, have been thrown in the mud of petty passions.” Goga invoked furthermore, “the dark ghosts from the shadows,” “visions full of nausea,” “all the cravings for an easy berth,” “all the spectres of the reconciliation with Hungarians” etc. Yet, Goga saw two advantages from this fratricidal fight, and both are intensely relevant for an analysis of this episode. On the one hand, he considered that “the right of criticism… based on the principle of sincerity” was definitively granted. New “positive incitements” surfaced out of the “ruins of flat rhetorism,” “fresh tendencies of boldness against our enemy,” “violent outbursts of passion against the traitors,” and moreover “the aim for superior cultural orientations” were definitively gained. In fact, he claimed that the public interest in “collective matters,” as opposite to petty, selfish mores, had been increased: Hence, we are on the way to create, in our society too, a public opinion, as an implacable tribunal, which steers any social evolution and which is impossible to be done until the right of criticizing is not fully granted for journalism.64

This was the main novelty of the Tribunist movement. To address public issues before a larger audience, to mobilize the masses and to organize them, definitively, constituting a clear renewal compared with the traditional politics of “notables.”65 The so-called internal struggle, expressed through the slogan “through ourselves!”, corresponded to this democratization of public sphere, a process that is consonant with the general circumstances of the contemporary political discussion of electoral reform. An excellent example of such an organization was offered by the Viennese Christian Social Party of Karl Lueger. John Boyer analysed this political feature of the new radicalism, already visible all over Europe, and he has explained how the traditional methods (liberal in that case) that depended on the old voluntaristic, smallnotable tradition were collapsing in the face of the new elements developed by the Christian Socials. These elements were: a massive audience, the subordination of individual notability to formal and central bureaucratic control, the new emphasis on political effectiveness and the interest group

64 65

Goga, “Treuga dei,” în Tribuna, XV, Nr. 65 (2 Aprilie, 1911): 1. q. v. note 4 / cap. 2

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structure.66 He indicated that the political press of Vienna served as a “surrogate political organization” not only by disseminating political ideas but by offering value judgments as well. There was little consultation and no institutional relationship between the Liberals of Vienna and those from the provinces.67 This situation resembled that of the Romanian National Party from Hungary. The party was not quite a party in the modern understanding of this notion; it was formally banned as an official party and had an intermittent existence as an “electoral committee.”68 Coordination between its Central Committee and local organizations was totally missing.69 The press was its only visible structure except for during those short periods of elections, and any defection of the press was accordingly perceived as a deadly challenge, although Tribuna did not cease to challenge the Central Committee from the beginning. This was not an explicit political challenge, but a structural one referring to a “need for organization,” renewal and a change of leadership. Goga and his friends were correct when they claimed the real problem was not with particular individuals, but that it was a matter of principle. However, a new kind of organization requires a new kind of leadership. From this point of view it is significant that the first generation of Tribunists were inspired by the experience of national movements in Vienna of early 1870s. As a matter of fact, the Romanian Viennese students decided to establish a new journal through which a true national ideal would be propagated. When Romanian students from Vienna decided to convene a Congress of Romanian Students (1871) at Putna (where Stephan the Great, a famous Moldavian voivode, was buried), liberal culture was undergoing a period of incipient crisis, politically triggered by the collapse of the French Empire and the proclamation of the German Empire. The entire German intelligentsia was in effervescence over the national question,70 inspired by the 66

John W. Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848-1897 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981): 365. 67 Ibid., p. 326, 327. 68 See “The Act of the dissolution of the Romanian National Party” (1894) published by Seton Watson as an appendix (no. 16) in his work, Scotus Viator [Seton Watson], Racial Problems in Hungary, London Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd, 1908): 475. 69 It is worth mentioning that Goldiş in his electoral speech at Miniş recognizes he did not visit Miniş until that moment though he was the representative of the circle in the last administration. See ***, “Dechiderea campaniei electorale în comitatul Aradului,” Tribuna, XIV, no. 46 (March, 1/14, 1910): 2. 70 The question of “Little Germany vs. Great Germany” (Kleine vs. Große Deutschland) had its influence among Romanians. After 1877 Romanian Principalities conquered their

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works of Nietzsche and Wagner.71 The Romanian students were not insensitive to the preoccupations of their German colleagues from whom many ideas were adopted and adapted for their own national movement. On the other hand, the other advantage seen by Goga was the repudiation of all calumnies brought against Tribuna. Here Goga is again ambiguous about the innocence of the Tribunists72 but not about the aim of controlling the national movement. His vision about the role of the journals in organizing the masses is remarkable: Until they (the enemies of progress) will give their support, this gazette has always a certain right of existence. All declarations, resolutions, protests and telegrams and all twitches of the too intolerant officials would be in vain. Some priest from the skirt of the mountain, in the evening, would take his glasses and go through the militant pages. In his serene thought will their seeds be sown which then will yield. The following day he will pass to the teacher the lesson taken from the gazette. Then, in the third day, the entire village will understand [about the journal’s message]. In this way, the freshening of the people’s mind will be done and will lead to victory.73

Considering the low level quarrel between Tribuna and Românul, Goga concluded that Tribuna had won the competition and had some responsibility to reduce the dispute and to manage the crisis. “Treuga dei” was immediately noticed by all the other journalists. Goga’s patronizing tone and his optimism regarding the indisputable victory of Tribuna were overly ostentatious. Immediately, Goldiş reacted ironically.74 He undermined Goga’s claim, making fun of his terribleness and megalomania: independence and in 1883 the Romanian Kingdom was proclaimed. Whatever importance Hungarian Romanians might have given to these events, it was natural for them to “borrow” the terms of discussions from a discussion already happened — precisely when most of them spent their university period in German or Austrian Universities. 71 For the political influence of the Wagnerian ideas in Austria, see the work of William McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria, (New Heaven: Yale University Press, 1974). 72 Might be a matter of rhetorical error when he claims that: “if it would have been proved the duplicity of this journal, then we would have lost not only a very powerful mean of national propaganda but we would have faced a moral disaster, sought to provoke deep soulful perturbations.” Goga, Treuga dei, 2. But “if would have been proved” this duplicity then, from the point of view of national movement, the loss of Tribuna would have been a necessity and not a disaster. 73 Ibid., 2. This vision on the role of mass media in “political information” was never taken so far until the early communist regime. Only them organized common reading session for the villagers and forced the rural teachers to read the party journal Scânteia (The Spark). 74 Vasile Goldiş, “Ave Caesar,” Românul, I, no. 66 (March 22 / April 4, 1911): 2-3.

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“Ave Caesar, moritori te salutant.” Full of false humility, he ironically asked the “divine conqueror”: Who was the person who followed with impartiality the dispute between the two camps, mentioned by Goga, because it was not him? Why did Goga refer to criticism at the level of principles without personal attacks, because this was not the method of his articles? Which are those new beliefs he mentioned so often, because he did not indicate any of them? And who was the person to whom the members of the committee should thank and obey for the great achievement so proudly declared? Then, in the second part of the article, Goldiş’ tone became more sober and he reiterated the main question: who was responsible for the political direction taken by Tribuna, because nobody seemed to take the responsibility for it. Gazeta Transilvaniei also noticed “Treuga dei” and Goldiş’ answer. The author remarked that “Goga proposes the peace… but he haughtily comes with the cudgel up.”75 In other words, he did not acknowledge the responsibility of Tribuna for this painful quarrel and did not respond to the crucial question: who is responsible for the new political direction of Tribuna? After a substantial citation from Goldiş’ article, an open letter to Goga followed, as “coming from the clean feeling of our youth.” There is a warm appeal to Goga to remain in the serene atmosphere of poetry and not to descend “into the palace of the nation-killing fights.”76 For the anonymous author of the letter, the proper place of the national poet was among those brave leaders and not “among those who detract and boo the most valuable and noble things we have, crushing with a terrible cruelty the high illusions of the innocent youth.”77 A day later, Valeriu Branişte replied to Goga in Drapelul. He was surprised by the optimism of Goga regarding the victory of Tribuna. “For God’s sake! Where does Goga live?”78 How is it possible for him not to see what happened and how is it possible to believe in the good faith of his companions? Branişte, as with all the members of the National Committee, was sure about the filiation of the new Tribuna with the old Tribuna. For him, “the new incitements are a kind of measles, a childhood disease, which we have experienced already several times without too much trouble... we will survive this time too.”79 He

75

***, “Iarăşi d-nul Goga,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 67 (March 24 / 6 April 6, 1911): 2. 76 Anonymous, “Scrisoare deschisă cătră poetul nostru Octavian Goga,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 67 (March 24 / April 6, 1911): 2. 77 Ibid. 78 His article was republished in Românul five days later. Valeriu Branisce. “Treuga dei – Răspuns dlui O. Goga,” in Românul, I, no. 70 (March 30/ April 11, 1911): 1-2. 79 Ibid.

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recalled that in 1888 Tribuna had published similar “incitements” against the old leaders of the party. At that moment, Slavici, Mangra and Brote were the opinion leaders of the steeled youth. He extensively quoted from varied old and new articles in order to prove the similarity between the two campaigns. Nihil novi sub sole, as he exclaimed. Finally, his advice for Goga was to stop this tragicomedy, because even unwillingly they were doing Mangra’s job just as Goldiş had done twenty years earlier. The only good thing Goga could do, Branişte considered, would be to fight against the “bacilli of the mitre desire,” as Goga called it. There was the same problem then and now, and Branişte expressed his doubts about Ciorogariu himself.80 His argument was that the Hungarian government would be helpless to deal with Romanians if these “bacilli” did not exist. Regarding “Treuga Dei,” Branişte claimed that there was no way of accepting this peace. On the contrary, he asserted: “we shall fight until all people will be fully enlightened on [these matters].” Goga probably felt surrounded in that moment, because he had lost his affected style. In a short article he answered to Goldiş’s “Ave Caesar” by vehemently requesting Goldiş to indicate where, when and how he had said about the lawyer from Arad that “they were saying such stupidities that the floor was cracking under them.”81 If Goldiş would offer the requested details then he, Goga, would come to Canossa. Goldiş did offer the proof but Goga did not agree82 and he ignored Goldiş from then on. Yet, the answer to Branişte was more relevant in relation to Goga’s attitude regarding Tribuna and the scandal.83 He attempted to answer to three questions: What is Tribuna? How did he start to collaborate with Tribuna? And why does he continue to write for it? In a long excursus, Goga explained how the younger generation under new 80

Originally Goga coined the expression “bacilli of the miter desire” thinking to Goldiş, whose uncle was Josif Goldiş, a church hierarch of the Orthodox Church who played an ambiguous role in the national movement in Arad (q.v., note 18, cap. 3). Now Branişte turned this allusion against one of Tribuna’s owners, who happened to be one of the notable figures among the hierarchs of the region, Roman Ciorogariu. 81 Goga, “Câteva cuvinte pentru d-l Vasile Goldiş,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 69 (March 25/April 7, 1911): 4. 82 Goldiş “Pentru d. Octavian Goga,” in Românul, I, no. 71 (March 31/ April 12, 1911): 3-4. In this article, Goldiş mentions the article in which Goga used this sentence, “New Incitements.” He mentions that he does not know if it was about the lawyers from Arad or somebody else, but definitively about people from the leadership of the party. The original sentence of Goga was actually: “In this impetus toward idealism, whose heights only the generous spirits can reach, will fall and be sacrificed all those hollow, who cannot surface anymore [the public life], though the pedestal cracks under them when they talks.” Goga, “New Incitements,” 2. 83 Octavian Goga, “O mărturisire” [A Testimony], Tribuna, XV, no. 73 (March 31/ April 13, 1911): 1-3.

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influences constructed a different mentality. This “intellectual revolution,” which inevitably “had modified values and crushed altars,” was accompanied by a critical spirit that caused a legitimate moment of crisis. Under these circumstances, Tribuna was the first journal that perceived the new current and offered its columns to the young writers. In this way, many poets, essayists, and novelists came one by one to offer their collaboration to Tribuna, and, Goga underlined, they did not ask about administrative details and the legal conditions of the existence of the journal. They came under the only impetus of their beliefs “being convinced that this is the best means of propaganda for their ideas… because a gazette can live only as much as its writers have roots in the public feeling.” Then, the campaign began against Tribuna: intrigues, letters, threats, etc. Yet, he stated again, the arguments against Tribuna had no results. For Goga, to compare the new generation with the one of twenty years earlier was senseless, and was, however, favourable to his companions. Concerning the secret conspiracy within Tribuna, the only individual to be mentioned was Father Ciorogariu, but the entire story is too dirty, he claimed, to be easily believed and there were no proofs except for the many doubts disseminated by the “authorized” journal of the National Committee. Within these answers to the questions raised by Branişte, there was a comparison that suggested the role of journalism envisioned by Goga: a journal was a church, and the journalists were its priests praying for the national ideal. In his own words: You [Mr. Branişte] are like a person who shouts the opposite: — I don’t want to go to the church where you are calling me because there is a bloody priest, an unbearable priest… This is how you talk and you don’t want to listen to me when I tell you very kindly that: — My [dear] gentlemen, be aware that the unbearable priest you are talking to, and who was singing nasally, died twenty years ago! Only the church remains! Just see this church: it is washed and painted again! The officers and the icons were changed too and there is a wonderful chorus! You too can come to pray there…84

The comparison was possibly occasioned by Father Ciorogariu, simultaneously a cleric and the owner of Tribuna. In fact, Goga truly believed in this association between the journal and church. His further articles, many of which address the problem of modern journalism, offer an impressive number of recurrences of this idea with varied different tones and themes. However, the general concern of that moment was not the role of the journalism in the national movement but the role of Tribuna in relation to the 84

Ibid., 3.

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National Committee. Branişte’s immediate answer referred to this later aspect of the controversy.85 He expressed three “misunderstandings” and asked Goga to elucidate them. One is Goga’s intention of “leaving the arena of all these harassments,” as he wrote at the end of his “Testimony.” Was his “Treuga Dei” an invitation to cease the suburban (uncivilized) personal attacks and to return to a more decent level of discussion? Or, was it only a decision to leave the political struggle for good? If the former was the case, then he wondered how someone could support so vehemently a political program of the renewal of all values, culminating with “the tendency of replacing the purely sentimental and platonic concept of duty to the nation with rigid rationality based on statistical data,” while actually nobody was opposing to it. This is the first consternation of Branişte, who added “The bloody matter is that precisely in the case of our youth we cannot find this rigid rationality based on statistical data.”86 Later, Goga declared that at the first sign of tolerance, they, the young writers, will immediately leave the journal. Yes, replied Branişte, that might be so, but twenty years ago Goldiş was a captive in the same kind of intrigue and the lesson of those conflicts is that it might be too late to wait for the young writers to realize the entire manoeuvre. In this sense the recent past of Tribuna may have offered the answer to the present crisis. The last declaration of Father Mangra was relevant, as Branişte urged Goga and his companions to read it again, more carefully,87 because what happened once might happen again, or as Branişte cites a German proverb, “who lie once is no more believed, even when he says the truth.” Or, he continued, “these lies are countless under the cover of intransigence.” § 3. “Mangra, Tisza and Tribuna — a Bunch of Proofs” by Vaida This last answer to Goga seemed to be the last barb of the quarrel. Chendi dedicated his efforts to the reviews section of Luceafărul, Popovici published an article about education, Tăslăuanu wrote an article about the possible organization of the villages (promised three years earlier), and Goga, in the special issue for Easter, made a warm apology for the traditional cutoms of a people (he was inspired by his experience during his visit to Setton Watson in the previous year). Apparently, “Treuga Dei” was respected by all. Meanwhile, public attention was diverted from the scandal to the literary meeting of the 85

Branisce, “Mărturisirea d-lui O. Goga,” in Românul, I, no. 76 (April 3/16, 1911): 1-2. Ibid., 1. 87 Valsile Mangra, “Declaraţie”, Telegraful roman, no. 23 (1911). 86

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Romanian writers in Sibiu, which had been organized by the Association and the Union of Romanian Women from Sibiu, at the beginning of March. The “steeled young” writers sought to confirm their positive activities and their good faith in the “cultural union” of the Romanians. Inviting various young writers from the Romanian Kingdom,88 in Sibiu they hosted a very successful seminar. Encouraged by their success, they held another event in Arad a month later.89 These events were not entirely dissociated from the atmosphere in Arad, which had been poisoned by accusations and doubts. They were concrete examples of the ideology shared by the Tribunists, or, as one of them expressed in a later article, “deeds, not words, matter most.”90 Another “steeled young man” warned the Romanians that “while we get hoarse in the public meetings, Count Khuen and others like him make (let’s be aware: make) laws against us, whose effect we cannot remove with phrases…. And only then, when one of our deeds will pierce him like a sharp lance he will wince as if lashed. ”91 “Deeds not words!” was the battle cry of the Tribunists who attempted to restate the old slogan “Through ourselves.” What kind of deeds? Tăslăuanu made explicit in his first article on “The Organization of the Villages.” He declared that the organization of the villages is a matter of life and death for the Romanians. “The basis for such organization is economic but the obstacles are so high that only through a constant propaganda and continuous work they may be removed.”92 This was why Tăslăuanu argued that the organization of culture should precede that of economics because it is easier to achieve. The Association was a valuable instrument and all its agencies would be employed for this purpose. In this way, “the cultural reunions will be designed to prepare the peasantry for the economic organization as well…. And this organization will be the basis for the entire activity toward a new national revival.”93 For this

88

They were Emil Gârleanu, A. Hertz (Dinu Ramură), Victor Eftimiu, Corneliu Moldovanu, Cincinat Pavelescu, Maria Cuţan, Caton Theodorian, Barbu Constantinescu, Ms. M. Filotti. See “Şezătoarea Scriitorilor Români,” in Luceafărul, X, no. 6 (March 3/16, 1911): 142-143. In the next issue of Luceafărul, Tăslăuanu published a long report of this event and the picture of all participants. 89 ***, “Şezătoarea literară din Arad,” in Luceafărul, X, no. 10 (May 3/16, 1911): 244. The guests were the same, excepting Alexandru Stamatiad, a symbolist poet from Bucharest 90 ***, “Apostolatul faptei,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 198 (September 10/23, 1911): 1-2. 91 Un tânăr oţelit [A Steeled Young Man], “Octavian Goga,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 209 (September 24/ October 7, 1911): 1-2. 92 Oct. C. Tăslăuanu, “Organizarea satelor,” in Luceafărul, X, no. 9 (April 18/ May 1, 1911): 198. 93 Ibid., 199.

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organization, the Tribunists were deeply committed to organize events such as literary reunions. Their intentions were to create another kind of communality and solidarity among the Romanians, who were victims of modern individualism and selfishness.94 From the other camp, the perspective was different. “The Lawyers” might have considered it childish, if not criminal, to respond with cultural reunions to the laws of the government. The “decrepit old” members of the Committee were infuriated by this populist strategy. They declared that the Romanian writers from Romania must not involve themselves in the internal problems of the Hungarian Romanians, but their reaction was exaggerated and they even offended some of their own supporters, as was the case of Caragiale.95 At the beginning of May, this apparent armistice was over. Alexandru Vaida-Voevod published in Brassó / Braşov a brochure about the intrigues of Tribuna. Its name was suggestive: Mangra, Tisza, and Tribuna — A Bunch of Proofs Gathered from Tribuna.96 This small booklet inflamed the atmosphere between the two camps. Here were the “proofs” of the treason stubbornly requested by the Tribunists. In its 126 pages, Vaida exposed the alleged duplicity of Tribuna by citing an impressive number of “evidences” right from its articles. By and large, there are three main parts of this pamphlet, containing 15 sections. The first part corresponds to the contradictory declarations and interpretations offered by Tribuna at various moments and the indisputable

94

Most of the articles, which criticize the individualism and selfishness of society, were against the very poor results of the public subscriptions done for various cultural goals. As early as in 1903, Goga wrote his bitter “Retour” [return] against those notables who do not understand the need of supporting a very young Romanian review returning the try copies unopened and with the laconic “retour” written on them. Years after this incipient manifestation of revolt against hypocrisy and selfishness, the Association gave to the young Goga and Tăslăuanu, and other like them, the opportunity of continuing their critique. The article above mentioned, “Apostolatul faptei,” refers to the very poor collect done at the Jubilee of the Association where the rich dresses drastically contrasted with the generosity of the members of the Association. 95 Caragiale supported the Committee and wrote some articles in Românul against the “renewing” enthusiasm of the Tribunists. He was offended by the claim that the Romanian writers should take care of their own business and not to interfere in others’. He wrote couple articles on this subject: Caragiale, “Nevoile obştii şi aşa numitele “casa noastră”...,” Românul, I, no. 64 (March 19/ April 1, 1911): 1-3; and “Scrisoare de răspuns”, Românul, I, Nr. 94 (April 30 / May 13, 1911): 1-2. This blunder was exploited by Tribuna in its campaign. 96 Alexandru Vaida-Voievod, Mangra, Tisza şi Tribuna. Un mănunchiu de dovezi adunate din “Tribuna”, (Braşov: Tipografia A. Mureşianu, 1911). It was mentioned for the first time by Tribuna on 7th of May, 1911. Many parts of this text were published in Românul in the further weeks.

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agreement with Tisza’s public statements, Mangra’s declarations, and Slavici’s brochure. Often citing in parallel on three columns, Vaida confronted the Tribunists with themselves proving the inconsistence of their “intransigent” orientation. The cornerstone of these texts was the idea that the National Committee lacked sufficient authority and legitimacy, and that there may be others who could be better trusted with government policy and/or the destiny of the nation. The second part was dedicated to the elucidation of the men of Tribuna. Vaida focused on four personages: Iosif Scheopul, Sever Bocu, Nicolae Oncu and Roman Ciorogariu. He claimed that, while Scheopul and Bocu were two minor and despiteful figures of the editorial staff, and Oncu was only a tricky opportunist, Ciorogariu was actually the only one to really control Tribuna, and he was accordingly to be blamed for its duplicity. As a friend and “co-liturgist” of Mangra, Ciorogariu was the missing link between Tribuna and the “abominable traitor.” Vaida claimed that the hidden motive of the entire intrigue was the promise of Tisza to increase the number of Orthodox dioceses and thus the number of Romanian bishops.97 For Ciorogariu, having no other opportunity (there was no vacant diocese at the time) but a great appetite to obtain a bishopric mitre, this was a means of increasing his chances in the service of the Hungarian government and, at the same time, of preserving his image as an intransigent nationalist. In the last part, Vaida established responsibilities and levelled some accusations. He formulated twenty one questions for Oncu and Ciorogariu and explained the position taken by the National Committee. At the same time, he vehemently denounced the irreverence of the Tribunists regarding people who were aged in the struggle and electoral fights while others were excited by the poems of Petöfi during their school years. Vaida presented the preceding events of the foundation of Românul,98 drawing a parallel with a similar crisis happened in 1897.99

97

Vaida cites an editorial in Tribuna no. 179 from 1911, but it must be a mistake because no. 179 is dated in August, after the appearance of Vaida’s brochure. 98 While the Tribunists accused unloyal competition, Vaida specified three reasons for settling Românul in the same county with Tribuna. First, the news service was better then than somewhere else. Second, the postal service was better as well. And third, in Arad and Bihar counties Mangrism flourished partially because of Tribuna and its attacks against the National Party. According to Vaida, Românul was not “a organ of publicity” aiming to compete Tribuna on market, but the official organ of the party aiming to publicize the party policy, “a self-defense weapon for the party discipline.” 99 Q.v. section 1 of the cap. 3.

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Vaida concluded his pamphlet on a comical note. He composed an article confected from fragments taken from Tribuna and Budapesti Hírlap, titled “The Crepuscule of the Smouldering Nullities.” Furthermore, he listed the sources for each paragraph, suggesting that there was no substantial difference between the twenty paragraphs chosen from Tribuna and the four from Budapesti Hírlap. His last comment is that “the government ceased their financial support for Ungaria edited by Moldovan Gergely because after all the journal of Oncu and Ciorogariu better serves Hungarian policy than Ungaria.”100 This was a serious offence for the Tribunists. There was an interesting missing element in Vaida’s interpretation: he made no mention of Goga. However, the pamphlet concluded with an open letter to Goga in which Vaida recognized that he consciously avoided mentioning Goga, who he was convinced had been fooled by Bocu, Scheopul, Oncu and Chendi into joining their group. It was impossible for Vaida to believe that this was the only good way for the young poet to serve the national cause, and not realize that he was under their (the Tribunists’) power. What more could Goga have wanted? asked Vaida. He wanted to be the literary secretary of the association and he had been appointed to this position. He wanted to be elected to the National Committee, and he was elected. He wanted to be nominated as a candidate of the National Party in the last elections and so he was. Even the electoral district chosen for him was one of the areas with the highest percent of Romanians, accordingly easing the electoral efforts of the young poet. “The Committee of the National Party,” exclaimed Vaida, “did all they could for helping your confirmation [as a leader] in our public life.”101 The only option for Goga, if he really sought to play a political role, was to return to the committee, Vaida claimed. He went even further and made a warm apology to Goga. However, your name remains clean and bright. This name cannot be mentioned together with those of Bocu, Scheopul, Montani, Chendi, Ciorogariu and Oncu. Out of pure love for you and for your name, for the future interests of the Romanian people, I implore you to denounce the unworthy association. And if you consider to be confirmed in politics, come back to the committee, which you left without any reason. We will welcome you with open hearts and true love, which does not

100

Vaida, Mangra, Tisza…, 120. Gergely Moldovan was professor at the University of Cluj and the coordinator of The Answer of the Hungarian Students to the Memorial of the Romanian students. His Hungarian feelings and active support for the Magyarization of the Romanians made him a visible personage of Cluj. Q.v. note 14, cap. 3. Ungaria [Hungary] was probably his gazette subsidized by the government. 101 Vaida, Mangra, Tisza,…, 123. Italics in original.

185 want to exploit your fame, but to see you great and glorious.… We want to see you building, not demolishing. The thought that a Goga might desert from the ranks of the devoted fighters of this party, which is the only one justified to represent the Romanian People in political struggle, is unbearable.102

Goga was forced to renounce to his silence and to respond to Vaida’s accusations. Nine articles103 followed and they were collected later in a brochure edited by Tribuna, titled What is Tribuna of Our Days. § 4. “What is Tribuna of Our Days” How Goga defended Tribuna, his colleagues and his own contribution to the journal is important for the course of the scandal. He ignored all accusations made by Vaida and instead accused the members of the committee and Vaida of spreading calumnies and plotting against Tribuna. He began by condemning the cost of publishing and distributing the booklet while there were no resources for more positive projects. They (the members of the Committee) did not find time and money to publish a brochure explaining the party program,104 the benefits of universal suffrage, or the danger of the Apponyi law. Was it now necessary to start this new quarrel? asked Goga rhetorically. The answer was negative, and he would have happily continued his condescending silence but now he had to defend an institution against whom an unjust destructive campaign had begun. The result of these discussions was, in Goga’s opinion, only the blunt affirmation of the truth: “Tribuna is today, as in the recent past, an organ of publicity, which in the framework of the fundamental principles of the National Party represents the line of intransigence regarding our enemies and the critical spirit in judging our internal problems.”105

102

Ibid., 125-126. Goga, “Noua harţă şi urzitorii ei,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 108 (May 17/30, 1911): 1-2; “Adevăraţii ‘proprietari’ ai ziarului Tribuna,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 109 (May 18/31, 1911): 12; “Un paradox frovol: tovărăşia Tribuna Mangra,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 110 (May 19 / June 1, 1911): 1-2; “Tabu,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 111 ( May 21 /June 3, 1911): 1-2; “Rostul scriitorilor în ‘politică’,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 112 (May 24 / June 6, 1911): 1-2; “Două mentalităţi: Budapesta-Bucureşti,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 114 (May 26 / June 8, 1911): 1-2; “Prin noi înşine,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 115 (May 27 / June 9): 1-2; “Adevăruri,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 116 (May 26 /June 10, 1911): 1-2; and “Scrisoare deschisă către D. Alexandru Vaida,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 126 (June 10/23, 1911): 1-4. 104 This accusation was turned against Goga himself by Popovici, as it will be mentioned further. 105 Goga, “Noua harță …,” 2. 103

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The next argument was that Tribuna was not owned by those mentioned in the official papers but by those writers “who imprint their soul in the in the daily printed letters.”106 Reiterating the ideals of the young generation and the circumstances under which the young writers came one by one to the editorial board of Tribuna, Goga rejected the accusation of being inconsequential and reminded to Vaida that before the scandal all the members of the committee had appreciated the same journalists who were now being blamed. Or, how could it be that Tribuna was accused of inconsequence and duplicity by people who had themselves proved to be inconsequential. The Tribunists could not be inconsequential, Goga argued, because they were newcomers with nothing to do with the intrigues of twenty years earlier. What might intellectuals like Gorun, Puşcariu, Chendi, Ciura, Agârbiceanu, Bârsan, Lupaş, Ghibu, Osvadă, Soricu, Pop and others have to do with something that took place two decades earlier, Goga asked. How could these people be associated to old intrigues of Brote, Sirianu, Slavici and Mangra? These authors did not explicitly express their support for the “freshening” campaign, but their further collaboration with Tribuna was considered a statement in favour of this campaign.107 Concerning the hidden relationship between Tribuna and Mangra, the allegations sustained by Românul were ridiculous, claimed Goga. Was it or was it not the case that Tribuna was the first to blame Mangra and Slavici for their errors? Were the articles that “politically killed” these renegades not Goga’s? Goga was revolted by the allusion that the old friendship between Ciorogariu and Mangra was raised as an argument against the journal, but he did not mention at all either the fact that Tribuna had published Mangra’s program and one of his parliamentary discourses, or the ambiguous and possibly duplicitous texts in which some opinions expressed by Tribuna were dangerously close to some of Mangra’s public statements. In the last instance, the line of Goga’s argumentation was based on only one argument: how could somebody be suspected of duplicity when it was well known that the person in question was the most radical and intransigent one. The rest of the articles were less related to Vaida’s pamphlet. There were new pleas for “freshening.” In an article, Goga drew a comparison between the members of the committee and Polynesian primitives, as both societies had a series of interdictions and taboos. In these societies, some words were considered sacrosanct and thus unspeakable. Goga ironically claimed that the 106

Goga, “Adevăraţii ‘proprietari’…,” 1. Except Chendi, all the others did not participate in the public debate. There are few chances for Ghibu to be the author of some articles because usually he did not sign his articles having an official position and fearing for his professional security.

107

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National Committee imposed such a primitive taboo on its members, who wouldn’t hear any criticism about it. Yet, he was sure that the progress of civilization would remove these remnants of savagery, and “the honest criticism will replace the bombastic hypocritical rhetoric.”108 In another article, Goga satirized one deputy of the National Party who had the misfortune of being seen in a square delivering a speech in Hungarian. He recalled how a writer, who came to Arad for the literary reunion, upon seeing the scene had innocently remarked that the Hungarian soul is so far from the Romanian one because its apparent manifestations were profoundly different. After he allowed his friend to expose his theory, Goga delivered the decisive argument: the inflamed Hungarian orator with his terrible shouts was the Romanian Ştefan Csicsio Pop.109 However, this accusation was unfair and immoral because Ştefan Pop was the one who helped Goga in his electoral campaign.110 Moreover, Goga, who delivered his defence discourse in Hungarian (Cluj, 1908), ‘exercised’ his intransigence against anyone who refused to defend themselves in a language other than Romanian.111 To accuse these people of having a “hybrid mentality,” only because they have “Hungarian eyebrows” or “another voice modulation,” or because of their foreign education was exaggerated. Goga reduced the entire situation to a simple dichotomy between a Budapest mentality and a Bucharest mentality. His opponents were magyarized, in his opinion, while he and his friends personified the radical resistance against this tendency. Thus, the opposition between the two camps was based not only on a divergent political orientation but also on a profoundly different understanding of society and culture. This was the reason why Goga reiterated his ideas about the “Burden of Writers in Politics.” His understanding of the notion of a “political writer” did

108

Goga, “Taboo,” 1. As a matter of fact, Ştefan Pop incidentally participated then in a political event of the Justhist and Social Democrats parties, being invited to declare the support for the universal suffrage on behalf of the Romanians. See Valer Moldovan, “Comitetul naţional şi «Tribuna» (III),” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 149 (July 9/22, 1911): 1. 110 Ibid. According to Moldovan, once Pop traveled a night in a peasant wagon to come in Şepreuşeni where Goga was in difficulty. When he arrived, Goga kissed his hand and his front thanking for his beau geste. 111 See Vaida, Mangra, Tisza…, 83. Though, Vaida did not refer to Ştefan Pop but to Gheoghe Pop, Vasile Lucaciu, Teodor Mihali and Valeriu Branişte, “whose penalties, together, make more than ten years… not weeks but years,” his example resist as far as Goga generalized his story. He makes a paradigmatic case out of Ştefan Pop and refers further to all Romanian intellectuals who poisoned the atmosphere in which a handful of young writers are struggling to “keep untouched the patrimony of the national culture.” Goga, “Două mentalități …,” 1. 109

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not restrict literature to the prosaic topics of politics, but limited politics to “petty harassments.” For Goga, These people, of course, will not understand ever, that in the struggle for national revival of an oppressed people, the cultural propaganda from the writers’ letters is definitively a political act, much more important that the myriad of speeches made after the particular model of Hungarian oratory…. According to this judgment, a leader of our “politics” will deeply despise the role of literature, being fully convinced that a talented writer is more insignificant by far than a lawyer’s mouth, which in impeccable Hungarian can ruin Tisza’s policy. 112

The two mentalities previously mentioned were personified in Tribuna as “the lawyer” and “the writer.” Ştefan Pop, lawyer and leader of the P. R. N., was not only the wrong person in the wrong place, but an epitome of the kind of politician that Goga considered to be obsolete and with a “hybrid mentality.” Even the notion of modern politics, political and parliamentary representation, was foreign to Romanian culture, as defined by Goga, because of their “dealing” or “trading” tendencies. This character of city dwellers had been criticized by Goga from his first essays. Yet, who else was the perfect example of a townsman with a hybrid mentality than the lawyer? Moreover, the intransigent Tribunists affirmed the radicalism of writers, who were the representatives of (national) culture in contrast to the “moderation” of lawyers, who were the representatives of (cosmopolitan) civilization. For the Tribunists, art was a temple and the artist a sacerdotal of the nation, and there was no room for publicans and Pharisees in this church. A fragment from a later article was relevant to this understanding of politics as a divine service advocated by Tribuna: A good poet is the quintessence or the highest expression of the soul of a people. All the cries of pain, all cheers of joy, and all the feelings that doze in the soulful deep of a nation will borrow resonance from his soul and will surface at light, like a flame. Take off your shoes, you, unworthy townsmen, when you come closer to the sacred fire. You, who didn’t ever feel the holy pain of creation, you who were never hurt by your own thought, you who feed yourselves by the intellectual remnants fallen from the tables of others, you who cannot make two steps without quoting somebody, like a blind man missing the light and the young girl leading him by hand through the town, hide yourself and shut up! From where did you get this boldness to hit that one that burns his soul to enlighten others, to strike the mind that thinks for you? Art is a holy temple. Artists, these priests consecrated from above, bring pure sacrifices to the altar: their thoughts and feelings.

112

Goga, “The Burden…,” 1.

189 Drop your insults at the door and enter with piety in this church.113

There was not only a divergence of opinion and a profound difference of understanding these public matters, but there was also contempt on behalf of the Tribunists for these “hybrids.” These “hybrids” were considered unable to reach a high level of national culture, no matter the number of their trials or how they defended Romanian causes, no matter how many convictions they had for reasons of nationalist agitation, or how they struggled in the parliament. Their speeches were only imitations of Hungarian discourses, and many times, their “comments on the paragraphs of the state budget [law]… seem only some words empty of any wisdom,”114 as another Tribunist formulated it. Goga did not consider this ‘trading’ mentality as a purely abstract characteristic. This trait, strengthened during years of foreign education, had a direct outcome: the various attempts of reconciliation between Hungarians and Romanians. Mihu’s attempt to mediate an agreement between Tisza’s government and the Romanian National Party was regarded as merely one among many manifestations of such a mentality. Or, Românul suspected the antipathy displayed by Tribuna as a clear proof of its duplicity, because once the agreement had been reached, the “moderates” would cease to be important pawns in Tisza’s strategy and Mangra or Ciorogariu would lose all their importance. Instead, for Tribuna, these negotiations were only marks of the character of the actual leaders of the party, of their lawyerness.115 Vaida had mentioned in his brochure this question of Mihu’s dialog with Tisza and accused Tribuna of duplicity and malevolence in its reports on this matter due to the Tribunists’ servility to Mangra and others like him.116 Goga responded to this allegation in a separate article, “Through Ourselves.” He explained the action initiated by Tribuna with the necessity of strengthening the “internal struggle” against the government. Before any negotiation with the Hungarians, “a self-elucidation effort” was obligatory, and this effort had been completely neglected until now.

113

***, “Precupeţii în templu,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 279 (December 21/January 3, 1911): 3 ***, “Tinerii oţeliţi dela 1902... (II),” in Tribuna, XV, no. 270 (December 10/23, 1911): 1-2. 115 The book of Ioan Mihu has an impressive amount of annexes, containing letters and other documents related to his “discussions” with Tisza. The position of the leader of the National Party is very clear for the very beginning: they could not refuse a dialog because otherwise they might be claimed responsible to the failure of a pace making attempt. Their legitimist and loyalist ethos, to prove themselves to be an element of order in the Monarchy, rejecting any revolutionary tendency, prevailed. Mihu, Fragments of my thoughts. 116 See Vaida, Mangra, Tisza…, 17-21. 114

190 It is natural that until the establishment of a normal equilibrium between the people and the government we cannot expect favourable circumstances. Then, it is normal for our leaders to establish our wills regarding the power of the state, but it is natural as well that, if they want to contribute to the removal of the present circumstances, the means of internal strengthening are elucidated too. Only in this way can the desired change be prepared and accelerated. So, essentially, not only a conduit line towards the adversary is required, but a sense of duty towards ourselves too…. The classical proof is the national program of 1881, which in 9 points clarifies the legal pretensions of our nation regarding the elements of our state life, without regulating our duties towards ourselves, without establishing a norm for our struggle at home, so to speak, an internal rule for those activities of the institutions we have…. Particularly in the young generation’s mind was rooted the belief that instead of exaggerating the importance of our actions against the enemy, it was better to be convinced by the idea that we should live on our own powers and thus to develop a work more intensive at home.117

Goga affirmed that disinterest for the internal strength caused the many recent losses and no palpable gains, and, moreover, it caused “the continuous perseverance in reducing our pretensions to a minimum,” and of “the renouncing policy and continuous action” of the party leaders. Under these circumstances, the aim of the steeled youth was to begin a campaign of “freshening” regarding the internal organization of Romanian national movement, more precisely of its leadership. In this order of ideas, their proposals for various projects could be regarded as required elements of an “inner consolidation.” It was about saving the schools, preparing a statistical analysis of the Romanian population, editing popular brochures, organizing mass meetings, and other projects besides. Or, to oppose to these projects in the name of “national solidarity” and to crush them with a formidable intolerance, throwing many accusations of treason against their proponents, was much more comfortable but “this comfort does not go too far.” Eventually, Goga affirmed seven “truths,” which can be summarized as follows. 1. Not Tribuna but its enemies were responsible for the new quarrel. 2. Tribuna’s present detractors are its former most enthusiastic supporters, and any allegation about an “old intrigue” should reflect on them as well. 3. The hidden relationship between Tribuna and Mangra is a calumny because Tribuna was the first journal that accused Mangra. 4. The campaign against Tribuna was caused by an intolerance of any critique and freedom of thought.

117

Goga, “Prin noi înşine,” 1-2.

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5. Tribuna was a free tribune where a number of writers came and worked together for a regeneration of the Romanian cultural and political life in Hungary. 6. The journal was the echo of soulful unity with the Romanian Kingdom on the basis of a close collaboration with writers from Romania. 7. The principle of this collaboration and their common work was “through ourselves,” a principle that obliges one to constantly work on behalf of the National Committee. For the sake of symmetry, Goga concluded his series of articles with an open letter to Vaida.118 Considering Vaida not as prosaic or foreign to artistic matters as his committee colleagues, he addressed him directly and asked him to understand the role he had assumed. “In the whirl of life I’ve been always led by the belief that the soul of a writer should be a lens through which the feelings of the masses are concentrated.”119 This is why, he claimed, it was difficult for him to write about himself. However, how could Vaida think, he asked, that there may be some hidden desires behind his leading role? On the contrary, to choose a seat in the National Council would have been a proof of a “warm selfishness.” He was not withdrawn in the “splendid isolation of a serene art in his ivory tower, listening to the song of the spheres, and sending once in a while a perfumed madrigal from the sweet chilly heights of the Olympia.”120 Instead, the hard way taken by Goga proved the good faith of his actions. Otherwise, he would not be insulted by various members of the committee or the editorial board of Românul. Furthermore, he specified two main reasons for continuing his collaboration with the young writers from Tribuna: to support the liberty of thinking and to defend an institution which he considered of national utility. Actually, he claimed, he did not change his position, but the committee decided to attack Tribuna, for no reason. He recalled the beginning of the scandal, when from abroad he occasionally sent articles following the same line of reasoning against renegades and betrayers. Then, many people attempted to convince him to stop his collaboration with Tribuna, but nobody offered him a sufficient reason to do so. How he could change his attitude, he asked, when there was no reason for such a change. What kind of constancy and intransigence might be in such behaviour if at the first doubt or intrigue he would drop his friends? Thereafter, the scandal was unfolded by the members of the committee, and disseminated among the Romanian people. “Good Heavens,” exclaimed Goga, 118

This letter is rather a late article which was probably decided by Goga at the same time with publishing these articles in a separate brochure. 119 Goga, “Scrisoare deschisă …,” 1. 120 Ibid.

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“with so much energy so many good things might have been done for the poor peasants.”121 Finally, he stated, it was up to Vaida and his colleagues to determine the extent of the dispute and how far the pathos and intolerance would go. “Soon we’ll likely see Agârbiceanu, Lupaş, and others, or myself called traitors, we who catch in our pen fragments from the soul of this poor people while you enthrone as the highest model of nationalism the most vocal orators from Lugoj…”122 Closing the letter, Goga translated for Vaida a poem by Richard Dehmel, which “seems to reflect a few nuances of the present situation:”123 In the desert the mob suffered, a pale maid asked for help, more than for her thirst but for her sadness, and yet at the horizon a man, a passer-by appears. He let a few drops of blood to fall from his hand, but drop-by-drop a spring arose while he became withered. People were astonished, and some of them were angry: “He makes fun of us!” they cry. The poor man called them with his last breath: “Come and drink! For you is this blood!” and then the maid answers, “they need water [not blood].” Lastly, Goga commented: “I do believe that in the place in which the blood of this passer-by was drained, a temple of liberty will be raised for the wandering people of the desert.” This allegory suggests once again how Goga envisioned himself. On the one hand, he was the one who suffered the most in the name of “those many,” he was the one who sacrificed himself for the good of the people, he was the one who was blamed and insulted for his altruistic help. In the last instance, he was the new Messiah or Jesus as he suggested several times in his verses. On the other hand, he remained a “passer-by,” a person who could not fully identify himself with the mob and who avoided intimacy with the contingent people full of low passions. He was driven by an ideal far beyond the daily “whirlpool of life,” an ideal that went to the profundity of the national soul.124 It was not surprising that Goga’s answers not only failed to calm the quarrel but inflamed the atmosphere. His condescension and megalomania too insensibly crushed the sensibilities of the members of the committee. Goga 121

Ibid., 4. Ibid. 123 Richard Dehmel was one of the German poets before the First World War influenced by Nietzsche. 124 In the epoch, most of the nationalist writers made a distinction between the nation or the folk and the population or the mob. This distinction was based on the separation created by German thinkers between Community (Gemeinschaft) and Society (Gesellschaft). This speculative thought indicates a societal crisis at the profound level of solidarity, which bounds together individuals and creates the social body. Goga used most of the time this distinction though not explicit. 122

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considered the reaction of his enemies as a clear sign of a general aversion to writers in general, and poets in particular, who daydream and fantasize instead of working hard. However, most members of the committee loved his poems and greatly admired him as a poet and a fighter. Except for Popovici, nobody dared to attack him directly. It was only he who decided unilaterally to resign from the Committee where many considered it was his proper place. However, he was too enthusiastic for daily humbling activities, which required important sacrifices but with insignificant results. Initially, the association was too narrow for his perspective, then the committee was as well. He aspired to a broader audience, the entire nation, and Tribuna was the only means for addressing this audience. According to his convictions, the choice was between the committee and the journal, because he was convinced that Tribuna might play a larger role in organizing the party than the committee. This message was clearly understood by all the members of the committee. As Chendi stated from the beginning, this was a question of leadership change. The next person to raise Goga’s hackles was Valer Moldovan in a series of articles entitled “The National Committee and Tribuna.” § 5. “The National Council and Tribuna” The difference between a writer and a lawyer was never so radical as the Tribunists asserted in their articles. Many members of the committee shared most of the same ideas and beliefs as their detractors. One example is relevant in this respect. As was already mentioned, Goga and his friends built their interpretation on the basic assumption that those students who attend the Hungarian school were estranged. This idea of the harmful effects of a foreign language school was a common contemporary belief, but Onisifor Ghibu elaborated this idea by adding academic references and examples from other countries.125 He was interested in the principles of a “national pedagogy”126 and

125

Ghibu, who had a solid education in theology and philosophy, was eventually inclined to pedagogy. He studied at Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Göttingen, and München, but only at Jena he concluded this studies with a PhD dissertation on Der moderne Utraquismus oder Die Zweisprachigkeit in der Volksschule (The Modern Utraquism or the Bilingualism in the Popular Schools), arguing against a bilingual education in primary schools, against the Hungarian education in particular. 126 His early intellectual sources were closer to Fichte and Pestalozzi. At Jena he was increasingly influenced by Wilhelm der Rein, Rudolf Eucken, and Heinrich Wienel, professors of pedagogy, philosophy and respectively theology at University of Jena at that

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studied the situation of the Hungarian schools in which a number of other nationalities were forced to use the Hungarian language in their popular (primary) schools. Yet, it was remarkable to find similar ideas in Vaida’s diary, e.g. “if somebody studies in Hungary he becomes Magyar in his notions of life and mentality.”127 The Apponyi Laws were a pressing problem for all nationalities living in Hungary.128 Ghibu attempted to refute the laws with academic arguments; the Tribunists offered the journal’s pages for continuing the education of their people; while members of the committee acknowledged their political defeat and focused on the next battle for universal suffrage. However, most argued that people cannot be properly trained to reach the highest values of humankind, if they have not been trained in their maternal language. This was not the only belief shared by the opponents in the scandal of Tribuna. Another was their view on mass politics and mass psychology. Universal suffrage was seen as a solution to the national question in Hungary, and many Romanian leaders did not share with Popovici his conservative views about democracy. One of these leaders was Valer Moldovan. Moldovan, a lawyer’s son and himself a lawyer, seemed to be in perfect contrast with the Tribunists. He was recently included on the National Committee and, from the beginning of the scandal, he spoke against Tribuna.129 However, he had contributed several articles to Tribuna prior to the debate, one of which led him to be charged in 1903 with a libel and instigation against the Hungarian nation-state.130While he blamed the young writers for being too tempestuous and irreverent with the elders,131 Moldovan shared with them the vision of a holistic political representation of the Romanians. Like the Tribunists, he considered the Romanian National Party to be the representatives of the entire nation and not only of a restricted coterie. In the same way,

time. See Onisifor Ghibu, Pe baricadele vieţii. Anii mei de învăţătură, (Cluj: Dacia, 1981): 220-300. 127 Liviu Maior, Alexandru Vaida-Voevod între Belvedere şi Versailles Insemnări, Memorii, scrisori, (Cluj: Sincron, 1993): 197. 128 q.v. note 36, cap. 4. 129 Valer Moldovan, “Nervozitate sau premenire,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIII, no. 267 (December 4/17, 1910): 1-2; “Partidul naţional roman,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIII, no. 276 (December 18/31, 1910): 1; “Şcoala tinerilor oţeliţi,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIII, no. 286 (December 30/ January 12, 1911): 1. 130 Scotus Viator, “Appendix: Romanian Political Trials (1897-1908),” in The Racial Problems…, 451. The Trial happened at 11th of November 1910 in Kolozsvár (Cluj). He was found guilty and convicted to a penalty of 500 crown but no imprisonment. 131 Moldovan, “Nervozitate sau premenire.”

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Tribuna was perceived to be a voice of the entire nation and not related to the interests of a small circle of people.132 There was a concurrent representativeness, and Moldovan argued in favour of the committee. “Politically speaking, the Romanian National Party identified itself with the interests of the Romanian people and, consequently, the possibility that the political interests of the Romanian nation may collide with those of the Romanian National Party is excluded, and this is not only in theory.”133 If this idea was not taken as indubitable, Moldovan argued, then any “transigent” position can be advocated. The interest of the people should remain the basis for any national policy. The only impediment was the identification of the interest of the people. In order to undermine their legitimacy, Tribuna claimed that the members of the committee were lawyers estranged from their national culture and social roots. In turn, Românul accused the Tribunists of treason and duplicity. Both were actually eager to represent in a holistic manner the nation, the profound essence of their people beyond the casual electoral failures or unsuccessful subscriptions. This question of representation is significant for the crisis of 1910/1, which prefigured in some respects the crises of the interwar period. It was a crisis of traditional liberal representation, which was political, individual, and argumentative. The challenge was to find another mode of representing the people, which was cultural, holistic (collective) and lyrical. The scandal of Tribuna was the first occasion of this kind of crisis in Romanian public life and, apparently, was due to the debate over universal suffrage. The case of Moldovan was important because he was closer to the frontline. In his article “The Influence of the Masses in Politics,”134 Moldovan elaborated his own understanding of this problem. For him, there was a collective soul of the masses that can be experienced by anybody participating in a mass demonstration. Even when the respective person might have a different opinion and might have been dedicated to defending it, “the spirit of the masse” would change his mind and that person could surprisingly find himself the position of defending the opposite side. This metanoia, Moldovan added, cannot happen in a small reunion but only in large mass demonstrations.

132

This was the bottom line argument of Goga in his brochure. Moldovan, “Partidul naţional roman.” In an article from Tribuna, XIV, no. 262 (December 4/17), a sentence caused many worries to the member of the committee: “It is possible to reach a moment when or a situation in which the national idea ought to be sustained against the party.” 134 Moldovan, “Influneţa masselor în politică,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 95 (May 1/14, 1911): 1-2. 133

196 Nothing really unusual happened. That person cannot blame himself for inconstancy and inconsequence. For anybody can feel that it happened so naturally as if there was no other way. He was completely possessed by this collective spirit, in a compulsory way, as well as thousands of individuals in that meeting.135

This feeling of belonging to a human communality was a positive value according to Moldovan. He related this “collective soul” to the democratic character of Romanian political struggle. Universal suffrage required mass politics in Moldovan’s opinion, and a higher degree of mass organization, which was actually the main point made by the Tribunists in their argumentation. Or, the deficient political mobilization, Moldovan continued, asks the National Party to operate with the masses more than it used to do before. Was it good for the progress of our cause? His answer was yes. Though there were cases of deceptions arising from people who have previously worked with the masses, particularly clerics, by and large, progress can be expected. Universal suffrage, understood as mass politics, would lead to a sanitisation of political behaviours. “Those notables who wish to remain on the surface or even to reach the trust and vote of an electoral circle, on the basis of universal suffrage, should sustain an uninterrupted relationship with the electors on a daily basis.”136 However, there were many examples of notables who demonstrated an “outrageous cynicism” and behaved shamefully given their social status. Try only once to punish, draconically, those who attempt to become priests or teachers in a certain village with the help of bribe or raki. Repeat this as many times as the same cases occur and you will see that the people are not so bad but much worse are those who spoil and corrupt them…. During the recent electoral campaigns, not only once, I had the opportunity of militating for Romanian candidates in villages where besides the priest, the teacher and the local notary there can be hardly found another elector, and even that one is the publican of the village. I’ve been stunned by the outrageous cynicism with which these aristocrats of the villages, peasants as well judging by their social origins and clothes but raised above others by their function, listened to us. In the best case, they attentively listened to us indeed and, with certain complacence, promised their votes, but they eventually voted with the candidates of the government in the elections.137

135

Ibid., 1. Ibid., 2. Someone may easily relate this warning with the case of Goldiş who was elected in 1906 in electoral circle without being actually there at all. q. v. the note 69 of this chapter. 137 Ibid. Italics in original. 136

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The similarities between these critical notes by Moldovan and the image created by Goga in his sketch, “The Notable,”138 are impressive. This similarity suggests that the political life of the Hungarian Romanians at the beginning of the twentieth century was far from being a romance of self-devotion, selfsacrifice, unity and intransigence as many commentators asserted. A “freshening” might have been needed in certain cases, but the difference was made by the role given to the National Committee in this narrative. For Moldovan, the committee could not be found guilty for others’ wrongdoings and weaknesses, while for Goga, Chendi, and for the rest of the Tribunists, the committee was the main cause for such problems. For Moldovan the faults of local leaders were isolated mistakes and they would disappear as soon as universal suffrage was adopted. On the contrary, for Goga and his followers, the “sins” were more profound and reflected a general quality of Romanian public life. These differences created a distinction between the needs of evolution and revolution. The change of leadership was a revolution demanded by the steeled youth, but their protest went far beyond politics. Moldovan rightly recognized the holistic approach of Tribuna, and openly declared that: the Romanian National Party is the political organization of the Romanian people and it is a malevolence or a sheer political ignorance to pretend the party, and particularly its executive organ, to direct not only the purely political problems but religious, cultural, economic matters also. Goga wants the National Committee to be a sort of parliament of all our internal affairs, dealing with the issues of popular schools and national statistics. On this line, we can go even further and ask the committee to control the activity of the literary secretary of the association, or to interfere in the life of church institutions….139

Moldovan mentioned several times that “the activity of the National Committee is purely political.” His understanding of what the committee was or what it should be was very far from Goga’s understanding of this matter. Goga envisioned the committee as an editorial staff, rather an institution of propagating or “sowing” ideals than making politics. In his case, nationalism transformed the common understanding of politics into a “cultural” directorate over all matters concerning the nation. Under the circumstances of scarce institutional means, his approach seemed reasonable for many but this standpoint unfortunately survived much longer than these circumstances endured. It was an important breakthrough in political tradition, the idea of a

138

See the section 5 of the previous chapter. Valer Moldovan, “Ce e “comitetul” zilelor noastre?,” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 118 (June 1/14, 1911): 1-2.

139

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totalitarian power based on a new holistic approach towards the nation.140 However, Moldovan chose to remain in the domain of politics, at least in his old fashioned understanding of it. In the last part of “What is the ‘committee’ of our days?,” Moldovan raises the questions of whether the members of committee had accomplished their obligations in a satisfactory way, and, if not, whether the committee was responsible for these shortcomings. It was a clumsy excuse to refer to the political repercussions of Tribuna’s actions against the committee. In a couple of days, he began a series of articles, in five episodes, entitled “The National Committee and Tribuna,”141 aiming to counteract Goga’s brochure. Because of his modest polemical talent, these articles were rather a sum of statements about the scandal than a coherent argument. The first concerned the source of the scandal. Tribuna is undoubtedly the cause, “the Fates of the entire quarrel.”142 Moldovan agreed that from its foundation, Tribuna had performed many services for the national cause, but, at the same time, it had done many wrongs concerning the interests of the nation. “Putting them in a balance, the wrongs committed intentionally or unintentionally with the services made to the national cause,… the later would not weigh too much more.”143 The fact that many leaders of the party greeted Tribuna a year earlier with the occasion of the inauguration of its centre, the “palace” of Tribuna, was nothing more, in Moldovan’s opinion, than a moment of reconciliation when they ignored the incorrect and equivocal position of some Tribunists for the sake of unity and concord. Moldovan recalled that the moderation of the committee had been proven in December when they had to take a decision regarding Tribuna. Even Goldiş, the chief editor of Românul, published his answers to Tribuna’s 140

This totalitarianism, or better proto-totalitarianism, was not an invention of the Tribunists. Their first reference was those literary circles close to the emergence of the Sămănătorist movement. Beginning with Făt-Frumos, edited by Aurel C. Popovici, a new era began in Romanian journalism. The new nationalist wave was claimed to be “independent” (i.e. above) from current political trends. Many writers divided or dichotomized the political spectrum in nationalists and not nationalist, thus questioning the national character of the old traditional parties, the Liberals and Conservatives. However, the much general reference available at that time was the German Weltanschauung of the Wagnerians. Their idea of politics as a Gesamtkunstwerk, a work over the entire society as a complete work of art, made possible such ambiguous and eclectic redefinition of politics. 141 Valer Moldovan, “Comitetul naţional şi «Tribuna» (I),” in Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 145 (July 5/18, 1911): 1-2; (II), no. 147 (July 7/20, 1911): 1-2; (III), no. 149 (July 9/22, 1911): 1; (IV), no. 150 (July 10/23, 1911): 1; no. 151 (July 12/25, 1911): 1. 142 That is to say as the Fates are darning the human fate so Tribuna have darned the intrigue of the entire quarrel. Moldovan, “Comitetul naţional … (I),” 1. 143 Ibid.

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accusation in other journals. For weeks, Românul published nothing regarding the scandal. Thereafter, Tribuna made an offer of an armistice with Goga’s “Treuga Dei,” though it was Tribuna that “splashed with mud all our leaders.” And even then, the armistice was first broken by Tribuna. Under these circumstances, the entire juridical and moral responsibility rests with Tribuna according to the Latin maxim “Qui est causa causae est causa causali.”144 Concerning the accusations levelled at the committee, Moldovan found ridiculous the allegations of “intolerance to critique” or “reluctance to refresh” that had been raised against the committee members. On the one hand, he claimed, no one had attempted to harm freedom of opinion or to eliminate objective critiques. On the other hand, these “journalistic critiques,” even when they were serious and objective, could not edify and correct wrong habits because usually the audience was formed of honest people and not of those whom the criticism was aimed. On the contrary, this “journalistic criticism” brought only frustration and ignited passions, being the source of all altercations. In other words, “Medicina pejor morbo,”145 a proverb that Moldovan found it suited to this case. He recalled that, in the period of passivism, a similar malaise had overtaken Romanian society in Hungary. Nothing worked against it except the political decision of the committee to change their tactic in favour of activism. All of the articles and notes against the many traitors who flourished at that time not only failed to bring any relief but even harmed public enthusiasm. They had to cease publishing such critiques and focus instead on a positive solution. As Slavici’s short novel Popa Tanda,146 Moldovan added, father Trandafir, after he became unbearable to the villagers because of his constant criticism, he regained their respect by concentrating on his household and thus becoming a model for all his people. This was the main point made by Moldovan, instead of useless and harmful criticism, which “lashes the same horse that draws [the wagon],”147 it was better to offer to the public audience a better model of morality and conduct. But who was a model for the present? Moldovan was outraged by Goga’s interpretation of “Two Mentalities,” which was actually a pendant to Tăslăuanu’s “Two Cultures” but in cultural terms.148 He accepted that many lawyers did not use a clean and elevated Romanian language but this was due rather to the harsh circumstances under which Romanian public life was forced 144

“Who caused the cause is the cause of the results too,” in Latin in original. “The remedy is worst than the disease,” in Latin in original. 146 Ioan Slavici, “Popa Tanda,” Convorbiri Literare, IX, no. 3 (June 1, 1875): 147 Moldovan, “The Committee… (II),” 2. 148 See the previous section about Goga’s “Two mentalities” and Moldovan’s reaction. 145

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to evolve, rather than to any kind of disrespect or contempt for Romanian literature and culture. Or, how could Goga infer “national estrangement” or “foreign mentality” on behalf of a respected leader of the party? Was it only because he was not a writer, and anybody who was not a writer was estranged or foreign? Questioning the central arguments of Goga, Moldovan came to the problem of the role of the writers in politics. He noticed that except Goga, few writers had been seduced by involvement in politics. It was true that many of them were constant collaborators with Tribuna but only Goga assumed an active role. From time to time, they might have signed an open declaration of support or refused to collaborate with Românul, but their interest in militant politics was at best an unclear matter. However, nobody thought to stop the political élan of the skilled and talented young intellectuals. The only concern that might be raised was about the loss that would be suffered by literature when a writer sought to be a politician. But even so, assuming the role of a politician, a writer cannot ask to be praised more than others because it is not evident that a great writer can also be a great politician too. Moldovan strengthened his affirmation with Coşbuc’s verses: “Any poet is bad as a king, but any King as a poet / Is a genius nobody has seen before.”149 Ironically, Moldovan turned his attention to “the role of writers in literature,” suggesting that all ideas initiated by the Association came from the administrative secretary (Tăslăuanu) and not at all from the literary secretary (Goga), “who might have a larger domain of activity [than politics] in this nice chair to which public trust has raised him.”150 One could take exception with the two “literary reunions” that happened in Hermanstadt/Sibiu and Arad, Moldovan continues, but at the same time, another could counter that the two cities are the two largest Romanian cultural centres so the two reunions had a superfluous result, preaching to those already converted or “sending the owls to Athena.”151 Moreover, these two cities were deliberately chosen because the steeled young writers needed applauses and praises and they intended to use these reunions as a political weapon against their political adversaries. As for the literary-cultural apostleship, Moldovan ended by noticing that not all manners from Bucharest are welcomed in Ardeal, namely the “spicy party, known under the name of the ‘cult of free love,’ organized at the Romans’ Emperor Hotel in Sibiu after the literary reunion.”152 It was a ruthless argument against those who advocated for “another morality” based on “renewed 149

Moldovan, “Comitetul … (IV),” 1. Ibid. 151 Ibid. 152 Ibid. 150

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commandments” of social and public life on the lines of intransigence and integrity.153 The last contribution that Moldovan offered was that there were some serious and honest Tribunists who wrote their articles without hidden or dubious intentions, and that there is indeed no palpable proof of Tribuna’s dishonesty. This was why, comparing the relation between the committee and Tribuna with a marriage, Moldovan invoked a paragraph of a law about “the divorce in the case in which the adultery was not proven.”154 Taking into consideration the political harms done to the National Party, only a separation between the party and the journal could solve the problem. According to the respective law, Moldovan claimed that the numerous proofs of inconsistency and duplicity from one side could allow the other side to ask for separation because of “harming the conjugal duties.” This was the case of Tribuna, against whom there were many such indirect proofs but no direct evidences of its treason. Deliberately or not, Moldovan exposed himself to the frequent Tribunist irony of having a “[law] paragraph mentality.” After all, he remained a respectable member of lawyers’ branch who defended the National Committee, of which he was also a member, against the accusation brought by Tribuna. His final warning was prophetic for Goga, though “prophetism” was actually a weapon of the other camp. Be careful what you are doing! Most of you are young and talented, and your names and fame will survive for the next generations. We will be very sorry to see your name, won in literature, spoiled by political sins against the Romanian nation. It would be indifferent if these sins were done with “good faith” or, as the Holy Scripture mentions, “without knowing.”155

In the last lines of the article, he asked for a constant and common effort against a hostile state apparatus, and he declared himself out of the present conflict. This article was his last one on the issue.

153

Apparently, Moldovan expressed some rumors about the literary reunion. However, both Goga and Tăsalăuanu severely replied to this calumny with two letters published together, O. Goga and Octavian Tăslăuanu, “Cum discută d. Dr. Valer Moldovan,”in Tribuna, XV, no. 153 (July 14/27, 1911): 2-3. 154 Moldovan, “Comitetul… (V),” 1. 155 Ibid.

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§ 6. “Towards the Abyss?” Besides the general outlook over the quarrel between Tribuna and the National Council, and the reproaches addressed to Goga, Vaida’s brochure raised a number of concrete accusation and proofs that were scrupulously detailed. The central point was that among the people who supported Tribuna, Father Protosingel Roman Ciorogariu156 was mostly responsible for its duplicity and the independent position adopted by the journal. His “mitre appetite” was found at the source of the entire affair, affirmed Vaida. Ciorogariu responded to this accusation five months later. He wrote six articles titled “Towards the Abyss”157 followed by a brochure with the same title.158 However late the answer might have been, it was important because it revealed the position of one of the “sleeping partners” (comanditar) of Tribuna. Ciorogariu’s reaction contained four parts. One goes back to 1908 when he was accused of country treason in a trial where a draft of an article written by him was used as evidence to incriminate him. It was an article in which Ciorogariu defended the church’s autonomy against the government. The draft was stolen and given to Count Apponyi, the minister of education at that time. Ciorogariu claimed that there was a conspiracy planned by one professor from the seminary of Arad against him. Though the charges proved to be fabricated, the government discontinued his salary for a longer period because of the suspicion raised by this trial. Ciorogariu rhetorically asked, how to betray the nation and the country (patria) at the same time,159 how to be found guilty by both sides, by the government and by the National Party. The second part counteracted some punctual accusations brought against him. As director of theological institute of Arad, Ciorogariu was often in contact with state officials. Volens nolens, he was close to officials and the 156

Ciorogariu was professor at the theological seminar of Arad and had the grade of ”protosingel” an equivalent of “protopope” in the Monastic hierarchy. 157 Roman Ciorogariu, “Spre Prăpastie (I),” in Tribuna, XV, no. 228 (Octombrie 18/31, 1911): 2-3; (II), no. 229 (October 19/ November 1, 1911): 3-5; (III), no. 230 (October 20/ November 2, 1911): 3-5; (IV), no. 231 (Octombrie 21/ November 3, 1911): 2-4; (V), no. 232 (October 22/ November 4, 1911): 2-3; (VI), no. 233 (October 23/ November 5): 3-4. 158 Ciorogariu, Spre prăpastie, (Arad: Tribuna, 1911). 159 At that time, patriotism was used as an antonym to nationalism by most of commentators because of the governmental rhetoric centred on ‘patriotism.’ Then, a patriot was a supporter of the Hungarian state, and to be patriotic was to support the government and to defend the Hungarian constitution. Often this adjective actually was an invective against some people like Burdea, Babeş, Mangra, etc.

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church hierarchs who opposed or disagreed with the national program. Whereas Ciorogariu represented the institute, Goldiş, who came to the institute supported by his uncle, the Bishop Iosif Goldiş, not only knew the true nature of his relationship with the authorities, but developed his own personal, less official ones, seeking advancement in his career. It was the case of Iosif Siegescu, for example, who was fawned over by Goldiş on the occasion of Siegescu’s official visit to the institute. Now Goldiş was the chief editor of Românul and spread rumours about his former master. Another Iago of this kind, presented by Ciorogariu, was Ioan Suciu. He was a lawyer who years past was the casual victim of a plot organized against Oncu. On that occasion, he found some incriminating details about Oncu and made them public for the sake of public morality, but in the following trial he lost his case and his respectability too. Father Mangra was the person who helped him and gave him a second chance. However, Suciu had never forgotten Ciorogariu, the Oncu supporter. These people and others like them, eager to succeed in one way or another, planned many plots not for the National Party and not for the government, but for their own benefit. Their interference with the bishopric elections, their conspiracies against the current bishops, and their duplicity between the party and the government, did much more harm than his alleged “mitre appetite,” Ciorogariu claimed. Furthermore, he added, the episode of elections and Mangra’s decision to become a candidate on the governmental list was another case of deliberate disinformation. Among many others, Ciorogariu claimed that he had attempted to convince Mangra to give up his plan. According to him, only Suciu was less intransigent and advised Mangra to run as an independent candidate if the governmental lists were too shameful for him. Tribuna was the first to criticize Mangra, Ciorogariu continued (while the others were busy criticizing him), because of the duplicitous attitude of the committee and not of the board of Tribuna. He recalled how both Goldiş and Csicsio Pop allowed members of the National Party to undertake electoral campaigns for candidates of the government or the Independent party. The committee agreed to support any candidate who supported the agenda of universal suffrage in those counties where there were no Romanian candidates. However, by supporting in various electoral circles first a Justhist, then a Kosuthist, perhaps followed by a governmental candidate, the committee created confusion among the Romanian electorate. How could the Romanian National Party counteract Tisza’s policy if

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in some cases prominent members of the party supported Tisza’s candidates,160 asked Ciorogariu. Concerning his political friendship with Mangra, Slavici and Brote, the entire story offered by Românul was only a dirty fabrication, Ciorogariu argued. He continued an official relationship with Mangra, as far as the circumstances required such relation, but otherwise in private they remained cold and even hostile following an exchange of letters in which Mangra attempted to make amends but received a clear refusal. Taking into consideration these circumstances, the accusations made by Vaida or Marişieu were more than untrue, they were a deliberate calumny as his relationship with Mangra was known to the committee. Still, they accused him of continuing his friendship with Mangra after Mangra had betrayed the party.161 The same Marişieu, who testified to this friendship, described his trip to Tekirghiol together with Ciorogariu.162 Ciorogariu had told Goldiş about his intention to stop in Bucharest and visit Slavici and Brote because of some old financial problems, and Goldiş agreed and even asked him to inform them of some details regarding Tribuna.163 A year later, Ciorogariu complained that all of these events mixed together in a conspiracy of fabrication about Ciorogariu, Mangra, Slavici and Brote in favour of Tisza, though people very close to the National Committee and the board of Românul knew perfectly well how the events had actually unfolded. The third argument raised by Ciorogariu reiterated and sometimes reproduced some of the ideas he had published in response to Chendi’s “Unconstrained Opinions.” Ciorogariu confessed that he was “Senior,” the 160

Ciorogariu mentions a letter of Iustin Marişeu, in which he calls for support Wittman in the electoral circle of Sântana. Apparently, Mr. Wittman declared to be a champion of the universal suffrage, but Ciorogariu explains how he actually was the father-in-law of the protonotary of Arad, where Marişeu has a brother-in-law who is candidate for a position of notary. Ciorogariu ironically notices, “The dodonic conclusion of the national conference perfectly fitted the (cheddar) cheese of this causal nexus.” 161 At the beginning of March, 1911, Iustin Marişeu published a declaration in which he stated: this affirmation. See Gazeta Transilvaniei, LXXIV, no. 51 (March 2/15, 1911). 162 Tekirghiol [The lake of Tekir] is a treatment resort in Dobrudgea, on the Black Sea coast where the salty water and the mud of the lake are used in the treatment of various diseases. After 1912, when the scandal was over, Sever Bocu invested in hotel there. It was finished in 1915 and lasted until the entrance of Romanian Kingdom in First Word War, when it was devastated by the Bulgarian army. See Bocu, Roads and Crossroads, 86-90. 163 Brote was employed by Tribuna to write a daily correspondence from Bucharest. The journal owned a sum of money for these correspondences which, however, remain unpublished. This situation had to be stopped and Ciorogariu visit at Bucharest was welcomed by Goldiş for this reason.

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author of two articles published in Tribuna in the autumn of 1910.164 He had not stopped the “freshening” campaign, he continued, because the “renewal” was a natural process that brought new talents to the fore. Nobody could stop such a renewal without causing anaemia and even death to the nation. His reasoning went as follows: In politics, authority is required, but authority is based on public trust, and without public trust, the art of governing is impossible. The recently perceived lack of authority caused the emergence of new forces that were self-confident in their potential to bring the whole nation together around them. Some of these forces (i.e. Mangra) were exaggerated in their breaking with the party, but the people did not trust them and thus they were politically finished. Others, with good faith, attempted to renew the party. The Archimedean point of their policy was a “moral cleanliness.” He regretted that this campaign was focused against the president of the party, of the association or the church, as had happened in the article of “unconstrained opinions”165 that appeared on Christmas day. Eventually, Ciorogariu concluded that Vaida had wrongly accused him of this campaign because on the one hand, he did react to these critics, but on the other, he was not the master of Tribuna — Vaida called him a dictator — and he was in no position to dictate what was to be or not to be published. He ended with his famous over-quoted expression: “I do not stand above Tribuna, but Tribuna stands above me.”166 His last part was about “confessionalism,” or about his allegedly biased rhetoric and behaviour in favour of his own confession. Here Ciorogariu exposed many generous ideas about concord and understanding between the Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic confessions, and he considered that “socially speaking, my leading principle is the internal consolidation of each church, for both churches are capable of acting for the national culture, a domain in which both churches meet each other.”167 He exculpated himself from the blame of Românul and referred to several cases in which he had asked the Uniate church for help in saving the schools placed under the authority of

164

Senior, “Nevoia unei grupări. Răspunsul unui ‘bătrân’,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 197 (September 16/29, 1910): 2-3; and “Păreri libere,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 205 (September 25 / October 8, 1910): 2-3. 165 See above the note 18. 166 In an introductory study by Vasile Popeangă, he considered Ciorogariu as “the decisive factor in editing the journal Tribuna between 1903-1912.” See V. Popeangă, “R. Ciorogariu, personalitate marcantă a generaţiei unirii,” in Roman Ciorogariu, 1852-1936, (Oradea, Intreprinderea poligrafică Crişana, 1981): 75. 167 Ciorogariu, “Toward the Abyss (III), 2.

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the Orthodox Church.168 Yet, only the “confessionalism” of the Uniates kept them from finding a solution. Nevertheless, Ciorogariu agreed that the recent celebration of ASTRA proved the strong cultural union of the two confessions169 and he warned against the calumnies and manoeuvres of Românul that could have jeopardized this union. Another argument questioned the kind of “confessionalism” that was purportedly professed in Tribuna when the majority of the members of its board were Greek-Catholics. In the end, Ciorogariu rendered an emotional conclusion to his apology. He recalled how modest he had been and how he refused Suciu’s insistences to become a candidate in Hălmagiu, when he was at the Seminary of Arad. He did not want “to leave this garden for the political arena,” underlining that he was never a competitor for Goldiş or the other deputies, and, however, if he were the spiritus rector of Tribuna, the deputies and candidate deputies would owe him their fame, because Tribuna was “their triumphal chariot to the heart of the people.”170 Ciorogariu listed himself among the Mangra generation alongside Oncu, Suciu, Mihaiu Veliciu, Gheorghe Vuia, Gheorghe Popoviciu, Gheorghe Lazăr, and Sava Raicu, whom he considered the founders of a political school of thought for the Romanian people. The work of this generation focused on the economic and cultural institutions of the nation, as Ciorogariu proudly affirmed, and they reintroduced the Romanian language to the County Hall, which became a “provincial parliament where Romanian life manifested itself.” Tribuna transformed Arad into a political centre from whence the new activism sprang. Yet Ciorogariu eventually turned his defence against Goldiş. During all these profound transformations, he argued, people like Goldiş were busy with their petty careers, afraid of offending government officials and refusing to themselves even an innocent trip to Predeal. Goldiş, according to Ciorogariu, attempted to take advantage of his personal relationship with Iosif Goldiş, or with the governmental deputy Ioan Beleş, to whom he wrote “innumerable letters confessing his loyalty and patriotic feelings.” Coming to Arad, where initially Iosif Goldiş had helped him to apply for a position in the state school,

168

Besides public schools, there were a number of schools under the authority of the church. They managed to preserve their autonomy but the Appony law endangered their independence. In the daily used vocabulary, “popular schools” were considered both state and church schools, but “our” or “Romanian” were called only those independent from the Hungarian state. 169 See Serbările dela Blaj – 1911. O pagină din istoria noastră culturală, (Blaj: Tipografia seminarului Teologic Gr. Cat., 1911). 170 Ciorogariu, “Spre prăpastie (IV), 3.

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he eventually came to the institute and became a member of the board of Tribuna with Mangra’s help. Meanwhile, Suciu attempted to compromise Oncu in a Hungarian journal (Arad és Vidéke) using forged documents. He too came under the patronage of Mangra on the board of Tribuna. Ciorogariu drew to the attention of “whoever might be interested,” that during those years Tribuna was full of “munificent flatteries” about all its editors, except for himself. Furthermore, when the National Committee decided to change its tactics and pursue activism, four deputies were only in Arad, and there was no doubt that this success was due to Tribuna. In the parliament, Goldiş’ Marxism estranged Romanian peasants from the party program, as they were completely ignorant of socialist theory. This Marxism “killed the popular idealism” and, unsurprisingly, electoral failure followed. Now their intrigues were “dust and ashes” because the nation had been awakened by a new generation that took “everything for our nation” as its motto. They identified the wounds of the nation and the people heard “the freshening voice of the poet like hearing John the Golden Mouth of Romanian culture.”171 Concerning the “unrestrained opinions,” Ciorogariu asked why Goldiş had let him alone reply. Why had others like Vaida, Maniu, or Lucaciu, not come and openly discussed the issue of renewing the national movement? Why did they let him alone to defend the respectability of the elders? Ciorogariu found only one answer to these embarrassing questions: Goldiş’ goal was to take over the party. Tribuna had been sacrificed for the sake of discussions with Tisza and with the government, and Goldiş received a license to destroy the publication by any means as a strategic goal for the forthcoming negotiations. Ciorogariu ended with a direct charge. “I blame Mr. Vasile Goldiş in front of the entire community, that with bad faith he pushed the Romanian nation into this abyss.”172 Who had won? Nobody, Ciorogariu believed, because the foundation on which the party was built, the ethical ideal, cannot be replaced with the summoned interests of the leaders… this ideal was torn into pieces and abandoned to the passions…. The true priests are chased by the lying prophets. In this abyss, nobody can think about national defence and the temple of culture. Inter arma silent musae…. For me it is not a question of politics but of honour. I did not work and suffer thirty one years for the good of the nation to be buried as a scoundrel… This is all I want, nothing more. And if the truth is to die

171

Ibid., 4. St. John Chrisostomos (Golden Mouth in Greek), the patriarch of Constantinople from 397 to 407, was known for his many sermons against those sinful and corrupted people. He became the victim of high rank officials who felt being targeted by his sermons. 172 Ciorogariu, “Spre prăpastie (IV),” 4.

208 under the Machiavellian art of Goldiş, my place is under the sword. I will take my cross and go on climbing my Golgotha.173

Ciorogariu was not as fair as he was emotional. First, he easily forgot Chendi’s insolence. It was true that he replied shortly after the appearance of the “unrestrained opinions” with two articles,174 but this answers, reiterated now in this series of articles, were timid and named Chendi’s accusation only “a cruelty” in the context of a legitimate youthful tendency towards “renewal.” Second, Ciorogariu, in his attempt to exculpate himself, accepted the influence of Mangra over Tribuna’s program, and accepted that at least two of its editors, Goldiş and Suciu, had a duplicitous position dictated by their own personal interests. The intrigue described by Ciorogariu around Mangra, Goldiş and Suciu entirely justified the “Old Intrigue” claimed by Popovici, Vaida, Moldovan and all members of the committee. Moreover, Ciorogariu gave special consideration to the young generation of writers grouped around Tribuna, but he avoided mentioning that none of them served on the editorial board. Scheopul, Bocu, Montani and all the others were not the young steeled generation of writers mentioned by Goga, most of whom had remained politically neutral in this scandal as Moldovan clarified in his abovementioned articles, but were journalists employed by Tribuna. What became clearer after reading Ciorogariu’s articles is that the roots of the scandal went much deeper than has been suggested by the present sources. The problem of internal cohesion and social relation among the Tribunists is a subject for further research in order to clarify how this daily newspaper was actually edited and to determine who had more influence on its direction. § 7. “What are the Poets Looking for in Politics?” Initially, the leadership of the party was the main target of criticism. Accordingly, the committee members reacted against the owners of the Tribuna, who were considered responsible for this attack. Vaida’s brochure initiated a new phase of the scandal in which the two camps targeted other personages of the public scene. Besides Oncu and Ciorogariu, he mentioned only Bocu and Schiopul. Ciorogariu went further involving Suciu and Goldiş. Once this Pandora’s Box was open, both journals were flooded with myriad 173

Ibid. Senior, “Nevoia unei grupări. Răspunsul unui ‘bătrân’,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 197 (September 16/29, 1910): 2-3; and Senior, “Păreri libere,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 205 (September 25 / October 8, 1910): 2-3.

174

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accusations, declarations, counter-declarations, etc. In several weeks, all the pages of both Tribuna and Românul were entirely dedicated to counteracting the others camp’s claims. Instead of bringing this quarrel to a conclusion, the conflict was deepened to the exasperation of the entire Romanian public. Meanwhile, Goga was silent. He barely replied to Teodor Mihalyi, who called Constantin Lucaciu “a traitor and a fratricide,”175 for his open declaration that he was pleased by one of Goga’s articles, “The Intellectualization of Our Politics,” at the occasion of a public festivity.176 At the same time, responding to an article written by Aurel Vlad,177 he claimed that the solution to the conflict could not exclude either Tribuna or Românul. On the contrary, it should be an inclusive one: Tribuna should be restored as the organ of the National Party while Românul ought to be moved to Cluj.178 Vlad’s argument was based on the fact that the board of Tribuna had not changed in ten years, and the new comers like Goga had not effectively changed the direction of the journal although they claimed that such a change had really happened. He assumed the existence of two groups under the umbrella of Tribuna: one purely nationalist and another that tended to “governmentalize” the National Party. Vlad believed that this latter group was visible even in 1902 when he, against the party’s will, decided to run in election with the program of the Romanian National Party. On this occasion he was 175

Goga, “Vorbe mari,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 259 (November 26/ December 9, 1911): 1-3. Constantin Lucaciu was the brother of Vasile Lucaciu, a priest from Nagybánya / Baia Mare, who was one of the most popular national militants of the Romanian National Party in Hungary. MP during the coalition regime, he became famous for his philippics against the Apponyi Law. He was imprisoned several times for his incendiary articles and speeches. “Doina lui Lucaciu” (Lucaciu’s Song), a popular song about his sufferings, became a revolutionary march against the Hungarian oppression. What is worth mentioning is that Lucaciu was criticized by Goga precisely in the article referred to by his brother Constantin. There, Goga describe Lucaciu’s participation to the Congress of Races (London, 1910) in the following terms: “pathetic tirades,” “a vague and flat account of some past events,” “pulpit apology about our Romanic origins,” “few accents of rhetorism that does not bother anybody.” See Goga, “Intelectualizarea politicei noastre,” Tribuna, XV, No. 209 (September 24 / October 7, 1910): 1-2. It seems that Constantin Lucaciu was a constant admirer of the Tribunists, if is to take into consideration an earlier article of him from Tribuna. Constantin Lucaciu, “Să ne primenim,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 259 (December 1/14) 1910): 1-2. 177 Aurel Vlad, “Partidul Naţional Român şi Tribuna,” in Românul, I, no. 256 (November 23/December 6, 1911): 1-2. Aurel Vlad, one of the first who broke with the passivist tradition and run in the parliamentary election without the approval of the committee, was considered by the Tribunists a precursor in many respects. This is why Goga decided his article has a decent tone and deserve an answer. 178 Goga, “Trecut şi prezent. Ziarul Tribuna şi comitetul national,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 260 (November 27 / December 10): 5-6. 176

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surprised to encounter one of the leaders of the Tribunists, Aurel Petrovici, as a propagandist for the governmental candidate. Goga’s reply was that if the past was to be unburied, then the Tribunists were not afraid of. The continuity of the Tribunist conspiracy was Vlad’s main thesis, and without it the entire scaffolding of his argumentation would have collapsed. Or, Goga was living proof of whatever change might have happened within Tribuna. In spite of the arguments raised by Goldiş to the contrary,179 the cause of continuity was difficult to support. Goldiş’ thankless task, as an eyewitness to Tribuna’s evolution in the previous decade, was to testify to the intrigue of the old Tribunists and, at the same time, to justify his sincere misplacement among them. How could one otherwise explain his article in which István Tisza was eulogized,180 this article which was brought as evidence by Ciorogariu?181 About the end of November 1911, it was obvious to all the members of the committee that this formula was wrong. They needed somebody more powerful to counteract the presence and the contributions of Goga. As Vaida had remarked, Goga was “the power of Tribuna,” his name was the shield behind which all former Tribunists continued to write and promote their own policy. Goga’s fame was synonymous with nationalist intransigence and as far as Goga continued his public campaign in Tribuna’s columns, the journal was inexpugnable. Under these circumstances, the committee decided to ask for the help of the only person who ever had the courage to confront Goga, and who had a strong enough public reputation to resist to such a campaign. He was Aurel C. Popovici. His dogmatic conservativism, authoritative rhetoric, and passionate style, together with his impressive biography were considered by the members of the committee as a suitable counterweight to the young rebels. Popovici began his new campaign against Tribuna with a vehement reaction against those “Spinachendies” who dared to criticize Theodor Mihali for an unelaborated speech in the parliament. In his article, entitled “We are ashamed,” Popovici bitterly mocked the scornful shame of the Tribunists about Mihali’s parliamentary discourse. He commented: 179

He reacted immediately, which proves the importance of this continuity for the logic of Românul campaign. See Vasile Goldiş, “O alternativă” [An Alternative], Românul, I, no. 262 (November 29/ 12 December 12, 1911): 5-6. 180 Vasile Goldiş, “Contele Tisza István,” Tribuna Poporului, 1903, no. 197 (November 10): 1-2 and republished now in Românul, I, no. 264 (December 2/15, 1911): 1-2 in order to exculpate himself. Originally, the article was published in Hungarian and was not signed. 181 Initially, Vaida in his brochure accused this article as a clear evidence of Tribuna’s double face in 1903, in particular Mangra and Ciorogariu. Then, Ciorogariu declared that this article was due to Goldiş, in agreement with Mangra, and does not imply his responsibility or Tribuna. See Vaida, Mangra, Tisza…, 97; and Ciorogariu, “Spre prăpastie (II),” 3.

211 They are right, why did Mihali not speak about the “sociological phenomena?” about the “evolving way” of the “digressions of the official politics?” about the “continental dégringolade around the traditional perfidy of Albion?” about the “incommensurable consequences of the historical fatality that caused Italy, our ally, to compromise the equilibrium of the European powers?!!” etc. because this is the style of the “literate” lads from Tribuna. Yet, Mr. Mihali, the son of a peasant and a poor doctor of law, who is completely ignorant about the meaning of the “in-te-llec-tu-a-li-sa-tion of our politics,” — mentioned the governmental promises of observing the laws favourable to nationalities and their breaking; he has shown that, on the contrary, administrative abuses are the rule when is it comes to the nationalities; he explained how the Romanians asked for help and justice against the officials bureaucrats…. For each issue…. the stenograms note “denials,” “protests,” “tumult, shouts in the entire Chamber but more often in the right,” etc. — exactly what the scribes from the Tribuna offices are doing to Mr. Mihali. 182

Popovici was outraged by the impertinence of this journal written by people who have never delivered a speech in the parliament, and who did not know what it would mean to speak in a hostile Chamber. This article was an “infamy,” “a shame” for all Romanians “published by a journal that pretends to be Romanian.” Popovici insisted, “everybody realizes this gazette is a true national shame.” A week later, he continued that the existence of Tribuna convinced the Hungarian government that it was senseless to support journals edited by “renegades” like Moldovan Gergely183 because people like the “exnationalists” Mangra, Slavici and Brote, and still-nationalists Ciorogariu and Şchiopul, convinced the government of their good services, offering themselves to do the politics once done by renegades of Gergely’s stature.184 The argument was similar to Vaida’s way of reasoning, i.e. Tisza was the most fervent enemy of the Romanian National Party, Mangra was his ally, and whoever would criticize the committee would serve the interests of Tisza and if he persevered in this attitude, he could be considered an instrument of Tisza’s policy and a traitor. Therefore, to discredit the National Committee was the main goal of Tisza, and this was accomplished “from above” by Mangra, and “from below” by Tribuna. To increase its credibility, Tribuna hired a number of generous young boys, poets and prosaists “to repair a little bit its lost virginity.” Popovici

182

Popovici, “Ni-e ruşine”, Românul, I, No. 259 (November 26/ December 10, 1911): 1. The same argument was used by Vaida in his brochure. q. v. the note 97 above. 184 Popovici, “Tribuna duşmanilor,” in Românul, I, No. 265 (December 3/16, 1911): 1-2. 183

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goes further with this comparison, Tribuna being for him like a sinful woman who nobody trusted no matter how much he would cry her innocence. In the same way in which there are women lost to human society, there are gazettes lost for the political parties. Only naives, who do not know the basic elements of politics, may still believe it is possible for such a gazette to be useful to the party so many times cynically betrayed by it. Such gazette is impossible to be rehabilitated even though the biggest poet ever seen… would court ‘her’ or even take ‘her’ to wife… The poets can sing the charm of a Messalina in immortal diatribes…, but when they start to exalt the virtues of such spoiled and painted coquette, people will surprisingly ask, why did these poets became prosaic so quickly?185

For the next articles, Popovici abandoned his satirical style in favour of a didactical one, a change occasioned by another critical article by Tribuna against Mihali. Though the National Party program explicitly referred to the autonomy of Transylvania, Mihali pleaded in his discourse for more decentralization, and then, the Tribunist author trumpeted Mihali’s inconsequence. Popovici, who disliked any idea of decentralization,186 decided to defend his convictions.187 He invited the Tribunists to reflect on the reason for which Count Andrássy, “one of the most fierce chauvinists, not only doesn’t want to hear about administrative decentralization, but he strengthened the counties’ autonomy to such extent that the royal prerogatives became illusory.”188 For Popovici, only ignorant Tribunists and megalomaniac intellectuals, who never spent time and energy defending the autonomy of Transylvania, could plead for such decentralization, criticizing Mihali. This critique led Popovici onto another of his favourite topics: the authority of the party leaders and party discipline. He dedicated another two articles to these issues,189 striving for a higher degree of discipline and obedience in the party’s ranks. He unfolded his conception of politics in order to make clear two arguments against Tribuna. His first argument demarcated the separation 185

Ibid. In his United States of Great Austria, Popovici pleads for a federative reorganization of the empire but the federal units were envisioned as strong centralized political entities built on ethnic structure of the state. 187 Popovici, “Agenţi vorbind deprincipii!...,” in Românul, I, no. 266 (December 4/17, 1911): 12. For him, Hungary suffers of too much decentralization and due to this decentralization all the abominable abuses and arbitrary persecutions are possible. France and Romania are not good examples because their cases are not similar. 188 Ibid. 189 Popovici, “Disciplina de partid (I and II),” in Românul, I, no. 267 (December 7/20, 1911): 3, and no. 268 (December 8/21, 1911): 1-2. 186

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between politics and culture. For him, a party “represents a particular conception of state and political life, of religious and moral life,”190 and it should not be concerned with literature. “In any cultivated country, a man who may dare to melt party problems with poetical or novelistic matters, or with problems of grammar or style, in a single word literature, would be considered an imbecile or a .” The only concern for a party, precisely when it is in opposition, is how to raise and raise continuously itself, how to strengthen and concentrate its power as much as possible on the individual powers against the government and against the other parties. Moreover, not only literature was placed outside of its domain of activity but even public education lay beyond it too. In the “classically liberal countries,” he claimed, “public education was left on behalf of private initiative, and there, where ministers of education exist, no party would be preoccupied by the mainstreams of didactic activities, or by parental obligation or liberty to send their children to school, or by the foundation of new schools, or by the nominalization and retribution of the professorial body.”191 This radically conservative vision of the state’s obligations in terms of culture and education represented the difference between Popovici and Goga. While Goga imagined a society in which the writer made the ethno-pedagogy of the nation, while the next day the priest would read the journal together with peasants “in podmol,” and then the teacher would teach his ideas in the classroom, Popovici stood against any populism of this kind and also against demagogy, whatever popular form it would take. The next argument was that “a party is an army” and any criticism should be made to headquarters “but not in the face of soldiers or non-commissioned officers! And surely not in the face of the enemy.”192 Popovici underlined that, under the circumstances in which the entire political system was against the National Party, there was no room for “freedom of discussion,” or “freedom of criticism,” at least in public. If somebody desired to attack and insult other members of the party, then the only option for that person was to leave the party in order to have complete freedom of political action. For Popovici, it was impossible for such a person to preserve the right to criticize the party leadership while remaining a member of the same party. This notion of party’s discipline points to another important difference between Popovici’s and Goga’s understandings of political life. Contrary to traditional beliefs about the role of the press, Goga and his companions 190

Popovici does not have an acute sense of separation between religion and politics, because his conservativism prevents him to consider secularization an option. 191 Popovici, “ Disciplina de partid I,” 2. 192 Popovici, “ Disciplina de partid II,” 1.

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considered a journal not only as a passive propagandist organ employed by the party, but as an active element in the organizing of the party itself. For Goga, the party represented the nation, and the nation was the entire Romanian population, in an even understanding of society, which was called by Popovici “a politically disastrous revolutionary uniformity.”193 In Popovici’s terms, Goga did not distinguish between commissioned and non-commissioned officers in the national army but considered all of them the soldiers of the same national ideal. This distinction can be noticed in many Tribunist articles, in an ironical variant, as the contrast between authorized and unauthorized writers, journalists, politicians and nationalists. It was an attempt of reductio ad absurdum, to ridicule the committee by implying that Goga might be unauthorized to speak out in the name of the nation. In Tribunist rhetoric, Goga was not only a talented writer and a polemist, but also an “argument” in himself. If Goga did not have the right to speak out, who else might have had it? Moreover, if Goga did not have his proper place on the committee, then who were those people who impeded him from representing his beloved nation? These were unanswered questions and all the committee’s members were afraid of addressing such sensitive topics. This was not the case for Popovici. For Popovici, someone who would give many assurances of loyalty and good faith to the party and would at the same time attack it was merely a vain and hypocritical person. At the time he did not explicitly mention Goga, but this situation did not endure; the day following the publication of “The party’s discipline” an article by Goga inflamed the situation. “A Year of Fights” summarized the implications of the entire scandal from Goga’s point of view,194 pointing out its gains and the reason for which the Tribunists should be proud and optimistic. Celebrating the anniversary of the scandal’s eruption, this article was a declaration of trust in the Tribuna’s power to obtain a quick victory over the committee. Goga described in his unmistakable style the moment of the Budapest party conference when it was decided that Tribuna no longer represented the party’s interests and should be treated accordingly, and that it was necessary to found a new journal in Arad (Românul) to counteract the influence of Mangrism in Arad and Bihar. Then, the committee had been “kidnapped by the councils of some people driven by passions,” and “a flood of injuries and trivialities” has started and with “a paragraph tailored in hurry,” they attempted to “behead the old organ.” This verdict was “a certificate of the defeat of basic rationality by the petty passions.” It was a proof of “scandalous

193 194

Popovici, “Agenţi vorbind …,” 2. Goga, ”Un an de luptă,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 267 (December 6/19, 1911): 1-2.

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intolerance, of arbitrary overlooking of the freedom of thought on behalf of the representatives of a fighting people.”195 Then, for the young writers grouped around Tribuna, it was a question of morality, of fighting for the truth. They found a “platform of solidarity” in refusing the “undeserved sentence.” Initially, some rumours of discontent, thereafter a single voice of protest arose from these people who were foreign to the past of Tribuna. The vanguard of this movement was taken by “the intellectual elements out of our intelligentsia,” (sic!) who understood that “a scandal that passes away is more supportable than the dying justice.”196 According to Goga, the outcome of this quarrel was that “the regenerative tendencies of our society were unveiled” and “the progressive elements,” grouped around Tribuna, came to the fore. These elements “befriended Romanian education,” being aware of the importance of a national culture. They introduced a more “bluntly critical spirit…, which blew to pieces a number of legends…, breaking the manacles of the traditional hypocrisy.” This criticism deposed many people “from their pedestal of mute admiration, where they were placed with a culpable easiness,” losing “the fake lustre of idolatry.” Many social deficiencies were revealed and “the necessity of intellectualizing the atmosphere of public life” was indicated.197 In the end, Goga considered that all of these aspects proved the beginning of a serious reform of Romanian public life. Tribuna’s propaganda was based on the principles of silence, work and sincerity, and “it found the appropriate answer in the soul of the masses,” whose undeniable evidence is “the vitality of one sentenced to death… who proudly celebrates today the day when his enemies cheered his crucifixion.” Popovici reacted immediately to this article, denouncing Goga’s vanity, hypocrisy, and grandiloquence. He was prepared to react because he had already decided to devote a much closer analysis to Goga’s contributions to Romanian public life, reading closely all his articles “in respect of the poet’s 195

Ibid., 1. Ibid. The rhetorical elements of Goga’s discourse are often more expressive than the immediate intended meaning. It is the case of this expression “the intellectual elements out of our intelligentsia.” Goga’s own understanding of the Two Cultures implies a two folded society: peasant and intelligentsia (in Romanian cărturărime, a word originated in neo-Greek that means learned or erudite people). Then, Tăslăuanu’s gentleman is for Goga an educated person. Yet, he describes the Tribunist movement in terms of “intellectualization of our politics,” often referring to the steeled young writers, grouped around Tribuna, as a group of intellectuals, people with much scrupulous intellectual preoccupations. Merging together these two expressions, the result is the kind of grandiloquence (i. e. the Tribunists appear to be more intellectual than other intellectuals are) so hunted by Popovici. 197 Ibid., 1-2. 196

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personality and fame.”198 After such an enterprise, Popovici remarked that there was none too much substance in Goga’s prose. When you read, phrase by phrase, you feel attracted by the rhythm of his precious periods and as if waiting for the idea to emerge [out of his text] at any moment. But precisely this idea is late and, from his prose stack, you only take a handful of shiny golden straws without a single piece of grain…. Read attentively these phrases, which at the first glance seem to say something, particularly due to expressions like “selection,” “differentiation” that confer a scientific character [to this text]… Try to imagine the concrete representation of those who wants to say these words and you will see that everything is a rhythmical talk but without any sense.199

For Popovici, the only sentences with some sense were those about the “bluntly critical spirit” and the “demolition of the pedestal of mute admiration,” both of which translated into the “cynical besmirchment” of our notable men. According to Popovici, Goga was “the spoiled child” of Tribuna, who established “the school of brutal irreverence” towards the elders, “the liberty of envious vanity” incapable of revenge against those who can work. Armed with the notes he made on the margins of his collection of Goga’s articles, Popovici began a series of commentaries about the “freshening,” “new moral values,” and “superior ideas” advocated by Goga. In eleven articles, he scrutinized Goga’s life, prose and poetry, ideas, beliefs, and morals, everything that might be susceptible to constituting an argument for a leading role of the poet in political and national affairs. Popovici was convinced that the image of a mentor that had formed around Goga was an illusion mastered by the petty journalists of Tribuna. He began a campaign to expose all empty words, all trivial suggestions, all impossible ideas, inconsistencies and fallacies of Goga’s rhetoric. In the last instance, exposing Goga was exposing Tribuna; Goga was the journal’s “principal force and greatest authority,” and thus he should be known as he is, and not as the Tribunists sought to present him. Popovici’s volume offered the requisite elements for understanding his entire political, cultural and moral program as far as it contained only those articles with a general subject disregarding those polemical.200 Popovici’s first illustrative example of Goga’s empty verbosity was the recommendation for “serrying the lines.”201 Popovici made fun of such a

198

*** [Aurel C. Popovici], “Un an de luptă,” in Românul, I, no. 269 (December 9/22, 1911): 3. Ibid. Italics in original. 200 Popovici, “Îndrumătorul,” in Românul, I, no. 270 (December 10/23, 1911): 1-3. 201 Popovici, “Înfiriparea consequenţei”, Românul, I, no. 271 (December 11/24, 1911): 1-2. 199

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ridiculous new “superior concept,” as if the idea of the unity of the Romanians had not been present, from proverbs to modern poetry, in the popular culture. On the contrary, from Alecsandri and Mureşianu, to Eminescu and Coşbuc, all great figures of national culture impelled the Romanians to stick together. In other words, this “phenomenal reformer” merely reinvented the wheel. Even so, Goga’s insistence on the need for solidarity and union of the nation would be no bad thing if he was a practitioner of what he preached. On the contrary, instead of increasing solidarity, Goga was made mostly responsible for “breaking and scattering our lines.” Somebody who sincerely wants the union of all forces should not attribute the sins of the few to all of us, presenting a rascal, as “Dr. Trăian Hurmuzău” is, as the prototype of the Romanian leader; that one does not throw the Romanian hierarchs in mud and in the next day raise them to the heavenly height; that one does not ridicule the low level of culture of the majority of people who were let by God or circumstances to the head of the people; that one does not qualify our political ideas and traditions as altars that should be demolished; that one does not call our prominent people “idols” who must be pulled down; that one does not praise in himself together with Chendi, Schiopul, Tăslăuanu & co. “the new moral values” and does not present them as “those only destined” to counsel our politics according to “the superior conceptions,” which are the ultimate expression of triviality; that one does not made fun, at any occasion, of grammar mistakes and of “too ornate phrases” from the discourses of those who fight under so harsh circumstances.202

Popovici underlined that the result of such campaign was the contrary to the “serried lines” so warmly advocated by Goga. He cautioned Goga with the biblicay say “they that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind.” However, Goga was not solely responsible for what had happened. Popovici accused the Tribunists of making an idol out of Goga, an idol who considered everything possible when it was about him. His untouchable position created a “sovereign contempt” of the passer-by regarding all people.203 The only explanation found by Popovici was that initially Goga, the poet, had been encouraged by some nice people but later “a bunch of ignorant reviewers and some naïve enthusiasts raised him into the heavens as had never happened with any other great poet or writer of the Romanians... and then, the young poet improvised himself into a censor Cato of all our experienced people, into a new mentor of our politics and

202

Ibid., 1. Popovici, “Indrumător ori sirenă în politică?...,” in Românul, I, no. 273 (December 14/27, 1911): 1-2.

203

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culture.”204 If Goga claimed the “freedom of critique,” then why not mount a critique of the critic? Popovici questioned the legitimacy of Goga’s criticism of the present situation and the reasons why he had attracted a larger audience. He continued in his articles to ask who Goga really was, what he had done for the Romanian nation, and what ideas could be found in his writings. In short, is he or is he not worthy of a leading role in Romanian politics and culture? Has he a young soul made of true steel, or he is now a skylark rather than an owl… a Cassandra who introduces cold and poisonous snakes into the bosom of the nation and death into our hearts… Is he a poet who preserves untouched the flame of hope in our souls? Or he is one who cries in beautiful verses the sadness of “our sufferings” and who forebodes, in the same beautiful verses, the close death or “our move in another country?”205

Popovici was convinced that the latter case was true for Goga. For him Goga was a Siren, like those who attempted to entice Ulysses with their charming voices that concealed evil intentions. For him, this old story contained in a poetical form a powerful truth: the decay of the ancient Greek nation seduced by the fascinating voices of sophists and demagogues. These were the same “superior conceptions” brought by Licrofon, Calicle, and others like them who killed the Hellenist culture. “Do we have to deal with a Goga or a demagog(a)?... That is the question.”206 In his next article,207 Popovici continued his inquiry. Who is the young person who introduces himself with such unusual arrogance as the “genial tutor” or the “invincible guide” of the Romanian nation? Popovici’s indictment was merciless: Goga studied philosophy but it seems he did not become a philosopher.208 Did he study law? His articles proved the contrary, and the same about political sciences. Did he study the history of our political 204

Ibid., 1. Popovici alludes to “Oltul” by Goga in which if it is to perish all the Romanian people from Hungary then the riever (Olt) shall move the dust of the bodies in other country (i.e. Romania) Ibid., 2. 206 Ibid. Italics are in English in original to ridicule the English expressions used by Goga in some of his articles. “Demagog” is “demagogue” in Romanian, therefore the pun dema-Goga. 207 Popovici, “Tipul polihistorului mălăeţ”, Românul, I, no. 274 (15/28 December, 1911): 1-3. “The Mellow Polihistor” is a term coined by Goga to refer to a type of smatterer who makes a parade of his knowledge, which are few and scattered. In his “New Incitements,” Goga describe this kind of person. However, on the other occasion, Goga used “polihistor” as a term for “erudite,” but in a negative sense and used only relatively to Iorga, with whom in the early 1920s he was in political conflict. 208 Popovici’s information is incorrect. Goga did not study philosophy but history, literature and classic languages. 205

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struggles? He did not, because he made unforgivable mistakes. Did he follow the great political and cultural problems of humankind? No, he was completely ignorant of them. Was he preoccupied at least by the problems of South-East Europe? No, he failed to even guess the existence of such problems. Does he know the evolution of the political systems of other countries? No, he was not even curious about the Hungarian parties, not to mention those of other countries. Had he any practical experience of political life? No, never had the occasion to face the Hungarian Chamber where he could exercise his oftmentioned “repulsive energy.” He did not participate in any county council as other politicians had in their youth. Finally, was he at least a good orator? Had he any discourse that may be considered impressively superior to those of the present leaders? No, there is no such thing. He spent only six years as a clerk of the association, but a young bright intellectual could have done miracles even there. Of course, the brochures published by the association could not be a motive for praising him because they were previously written and published by others, and the association only republished them. With nothing else to Goga’s name except these brochures, then, Popovici asks: where from are these airs of being a guiding philosopher in the matters of religion, politics and culture? Where from are these airs of a man with an impressive life-given wisdom, with the richest experiences and the most positive political actions in his record, who demolishes old ideas and old moral values and makes new ones, pretending to be “the guide” of all leaders of the Romanian nation? How? Did the ignorant start to give lessons to the competent? Did blind become guides for those who can see? Did the feuilletonists begin to give political directions?209

One of the most recurrent figures used by Goga is “the writer,” who through his work, became the transmission belt between elite and masses, prefiguring a new kind of leadership needed in the coming new era. He frequently made warm apologies for writers in general, seen as the voice of national aspirations, ‘the singer of our sufferings.’ Popovici combated this tendency of over-praising 209

Ibid., 2. There are a number of articles that use to be quoted in relation with Goga’s activity in the association. However, most of them underlines that the number of brochures edited by Astra impressively increased during the years in which Goga was the literary secretary. See Vasile Curticăpeanu, “Intemeierea societăţii “Astra" şi rolul ei în cultura poporului roman,” in Studii, revistă de istorie, no. 6, 1961; V. Curticăpeanu, “Lupta lui Octavian Goga pentru realizarea statului român unitar,” in Studii, no. 5/1969, republished as “L'action d'Octavian Goga pour l'unité politique roumaine,” in Revue Roumaine d'Histoire, IX (1970), no. 1, 83106; Mircea Popa, “Octavian Goga şi Societatea Astra,” in Revista de istorie şi teorie literară, 3/1968, 517—523; or M. Popa, “Octavian Goga în cadrul societăţii Astra,” in Centenarul revistei Transilvania. Sesiunea de comunicări 11—12 mai, 1968, 45—57.

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the writers because he argued that “if a poet or a singer sings very nicely it does not necessarily follow that an entire nation must follow the political ideas of that singer or the poet.”210 Another reason raised by Goga was that there were “respectable citizens who read only four books in their entire life,” and these people had pretensions of leading national movement just because of their social status. Or, was it better not to read than to read and to misunderstand everything, Popovici replied. Goga might have done better to avoid those authors he did not properly understand, than to make fun of respectable people. Once again, it was about the lawyers. A doctor in law or a lawyer who would not read more than four law textbooks and would orient himself only after Holy Scripture and would find inspiration only in “Wake up, Romanian,” even so theses “illiterates” would be wiser than Mister Mentor, and would know the national politics and the “great problems of the people” better than the two “learned”… secretaries of the association with the entire mob of Bocus and Schiopuls together! I can assure Mr. Goga that our entire peasantry esteems the knowledge of those lawyers and priests a thousand times more than that of Mr. Goga, and all Spanachendis and Lichendis of our days, who with their arrogant preciousness constitute a bigger danger for the Romanian nation.211

Goga repeatedly mentioned that lawyers do not use a pure Romanian language, and their dialect has a strange accent, many grammatical mistakes and a horrible provincial style because of their foreign education. Yet, if one was to examine the quality of Goga’s writings, Popovici considered within them to be reasons enough to criticize “the new beliefs” and “the new idols raised on Tribuna’s paper shields.” In his next articles, Popovici promised to reveal Goga’s grammatical and stylistic mistakes. As about the poetry, he declared his commitment “to insist on those lyrical notes that demonstrate, in the light of poetry, the soulful power of the new mentor.” In conclusion, Popovici defined three directions of his further inquiry. These were Goga’s morality, language and literary ideas. In the case of “The New Moral values…”212 Popovici described Goga’s volume of articles as a rich collection of trivial, arrogant texts in which the author “sententiously speaks out” on the completely unknown matters before him. Lacking a general and well-founded idea, the volume’s notions were undermined and the pages seemed empty, containing only demagogic

210

Ibid., 2. Ibid. Italics in original. 212 Popovici, “Nouile valori morale...,” in Românul, I, no. 275 (December 16/29, 1911): 1-3. 211

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statements and tendentious accusations. Some lawyers and protopopes were found being scoundrels, but Goga, without naming them, concluded that all the local leaders were the same. Then, in another place, he revealed the shame of the philanthropies of some people who voted with the government for their entire life, and before dying made a donation for the Romanian people. Occasionally, Goga has the “civic courage” to name another scoundrel, Dr. Trăian Hurmuzău, and, Popovici ironically added, it would be better if this Hurmuzău should be dismissed from all the committees and positions he held and in his place Goga should be elected. “Down with Hurmuzău, long live Goga!” At another time, when Siegescu visited Hermanstadt/Sibiu, Goga expressed his disgust that nobody dared to tell him, privately, “Mister, you are a nobody,” but neither Goga nor Tăslăuanu or his friends had the courage to do so. At the end of Goga’s volume, Popovici found other of these “superior conceptions” about the party. He was astounded by the ignorance of the author who asked about the cultural, religious and economic deeds of the committee, and about the status of the party. Following Vaida and other previous commentators, Popovici reiterated that the committee was nothing other than “an electoral central committee” of the Romanian National Party and if this committee would assume tasks beyond laws, then its entire activity would be compromised. Besides this legal impediment, a party is a political organ and it should not be seen as a “parliament for our internal matters.” It is impossible for the party to take decisions on religious problems, in education, or in cultural matters because otherwise the activities of those institutions involved would be compromised. Even accepting these interferences of the party, on what ground shoud this right of political and cultural autonomy be established. When and where did Mr. Goga obtain from the government, parliament or monarch this right of autonomy for our central and cultural committee?... More understanding of the situation is demonstrated by undergraduate students who are still learning the basics of public rights and the penal code… The only superior idea that Goga might have had is to not publish this book, and to renounce this presentation to the Romanian public of these trivial and ridiculous absurdities as superior “ideas” and “concepts,” as “new moral values,” as “a new ideal of life and work,” to renounce and to compromise himself forever as a cultivated man, as a political man, as a man in whose word “the great problems of nation” can resound.213

Furthermore, Popovici did not only question Goga’s political knowledge and his honesty. He went far beyond the ideas expressed by Goga and cast 213

Ibid., 3.

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doubt upon Goga’s faith, denouncing him as “a faithless apostle.”214 How else can the last sentence of Goga’s article, “We Want a Faith,” be read if not: “we are today in the situation that we do not know what we want and where we go.” Following this striking affirmation, Popovici went further and read Goga’s poems in the light of this spiritual confusion identified in him. He found precisely those poems in which Goga expressed his estrangement from his village, those in which the old world of the village died along with the child within him, where therefore the young man Goga found no proper place in a world that seemed strange/estranged to him. Read in a traditionalist key, some of Goga’s verses are perfectly fitted to Popovici’s argument. Who would advise the youth towards a perfect moral rigourism, and who would to crush all the sins in his way? The same who reflexively wrote: Drawn by the vain dreams, in vain you climb your way, Poor traveller (passer-by), in this world, you don’t belong to anyone.215

Could somebody who claimed that “the forgiveness, the sweet evangelic virtue, would be a stupid thing,” be considered as “the new embodied soul of Messiah,” or the apostle of the nation? By all means, no, and Popovici added, “we will not crush the sins, as the poet asks, because we cannot. Our Romanian grammar teaches us to condemn and not crush the sins, but we will crush the dangerous agrammated literates as we used to crush flies, frogs, or snakes, if they do not make penance and correct themselves.”216 For Popovici, this self-appointment to the role of Messiah was unforgivable. He was reminded of the Lichtenberg’s words, “the man who in his youth believes himself to be a genius is a lost man,”217 and this maxim seems to have a particular significance for Goga who used to introduce himself as the Saviour of the Romanian Nation. However, “if the coming of the Saviour Jesus was prophesized by others, the arrival of the Saviour Octavian seems to be prophesized by himself.” And Popovici quoted the famous verses from “The Serfs,” where the child of a poor peasant woman is the new embodied soul of the Messiah. With the blonde hair and blue eyes of many other children in Goga’s poems (and of the poet himself),

214

Popovici, “Apostol fără credinţă...,” in Românul, I, no. 276 (December 17/30, 1911): 1-2. Ibid. The fragment is quoted from the Goga’s “Abyss.” The reflexive tone of the poem, corroborated with the volume of articles where he call himself “a passerby,” suggests indeed that the traveler is the author himself. 216 Ibid. Italics in original. 217 Popovici, “‘Pitici 'n putintă’... în pofte voinici... (I and II)”, Românul, I, no. 277 (December 18/31, 1911): 1-3; and no. 178 (December 20/ January 2, 1911): 1-2. 215

223 He, the beautiful one, good brother with the Soil, The New embodied soul of the Messiah, He will be the judge of tomorrow, Who in a hurried shining morning, With his brave and daring hand, Will crush the book of the old laws.218

For Popovici, the only appropriate word for such immodesty was vanity. Even when Goga did not present himself as a new Messiah, he made efforts to depict himself as an educated man, and the school played an accordingly central role in his writings. On the one hand, the school was the cause of his early illness and his symbolic death as a peasant child. It was the end of his childhood and the end of his rustic life as well; the borderline of his early faith in beauty, purity, innocence, etc. On the other hand, mostly in his articles, Goga identified the foreign school as the cause for his/their steeled-ness. Gradually he identified with his entire generation. From this school the young steeled intellectuals came with “a new spirit of inquiry” or a new scientific discipline,” although these expressions are rhetorical artefacts rather than real qualities. They attempted to translate the boldness of the young Tribunists by questioning and criticizing the social realities of their time. In the last instance, the core element of all this recurrent phraseology was the right of critique and its justification. Actually, from his first article in Ţara Noastră, Goga stated that The political program of those grouped around this review does not differentiate itself from the principles that direct the honest fighters of our nation… Our principal effort will be to discuss with honest boldness everything we think is of general interest for our public life and to look to the facts from above and from below with all the incitements of a critical spirit, which will speak out loud and clear.219

In particular, this kind of vagueness infuriated Popovici. What political program? What honest fighters? he asked. Was it about Mangra, Slavici and Brote? Was it about their political program of reconciliation with the Hungarians that cut short the National Party? Popovici found Goga’s criticism empty of any positive political idea or program. Goga, the spiritus rector of the new critical spirit, not only had no remarkable deeds to his name but was also absent of political ideas and “incitements.”220 This is why Popovici called Goga 218

Ibid. See the note 165 of the chapter 3 as well. Goga, “Pe drum nou,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 1 (January 1, 1908): 1. This issue is the first issue of the review under the ownership of Goga. During the year 1907, 220 Popovici notices that among all approximately 70 articles, there is no one to address any thesis from the party’s program. 219

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and his followers “short in their strength, vigorous in their appetite.” He insisted in two articles on the right of criticism claimed by the Tribunists, particularly on Goga’s “Taboo.” Here it was not about the vanity of a spoiled young writer and the impertinence of some ignorant journalists, but about a profound difference of the meaning of culture, particularly national culture. The crucial factor in arming this difference was freedom of expression. On the one hand, Goga, as a writer, did appreciate freedom as a basic condition of creation. Culture itself is the result of the creative efforts of humankind/the nation and, therefore, any restriction of this creation may cause important cultural damage. On the other hand, Popovici, as a conservative, had the tendency to rely on restrictions and self-restraint in defining culture. His notion of culture concerned moral principles, or in other words a set of rules that governed society by restraining and even forbidding some actions, ideas and words. Reiterating his ideas from earlier articles, including his “The Poets and the Politics,” Popovici attempted to convince his audience that “a writer is more important if besides a creative talent he has a truly conservative character, that is a character that will never sacrifice the cardinal interests of his nation to the petty temptations of his personal vanity.”221 For Popovici, whatever harmed traditional values, culture and moral principles did harm to society itself and opened the way towards progress and revolution, an inferno where the creative power of humans made everything possible, including the worst scenario. This is why, for him, a “true writer” must be a conservative, a reactionary, a man who defends moral values and society. For such a conservative, a young revolutionary who spoke about new moral values, traditional hypocrisy, taboos, was an odious creature that was used to tempting the weak. Taking into consideration the liturgical vocabulary used by Goga, the vehemence of Popovici is understandable. Goga and Popovici represent two ideal types of intellectual, one who attempts to change society in a radical way, and one who strives for its preservation. At the same time, it is interesting to note that the clash of these two characters did not represent a left wing and a right wing cleavage. Though Goga was suspected by many of having leftist affinities at that time, and it was true in some respects, the main battlefield lay between two ways of understanding nationalism: the conservative and the revolutionary.222

221

Popovici, “Pitici 'n putintă’…(I),” 1. In last instance, this revolutionary mood makes the necessary link with the left wing ideologies, particularly with Stere’s Poporanism. On the other side, Goga himself was attracted by poporanism and socialism because of the same revolutionary disposition. After the

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While Popovici invoked popular culture, traditions, faith and proverbs, for Goga the world of the village was a dead world, helplessly inactive in face of the dangers of the city. Yet, from this perspective, Popovici turned against Goga himself his accusation of estrangement. In the next two articles, he made accusations out of the “progressive tendencies” identified in Goga’s works. First, he found the idea that the writers were “the representatives of the most advanced beliefs and from their attitude the ideality of the people’s fight should appear.”223Popovici asked what could actually be meant by “advanced beliefs” if not all anti-national ideas like socialism, atheism, cosmopolitism, materialism and Esperantism.224 He insisted, an idea is more advanced the less national it is…. While religion, love for the people, country, language, local customs, historical traditions and proverbs, are old, rotten, or retrograde beliefs in the eyes of all those “advanced” in the sophisms or stupid demagogy of our days. In consequence, your “most advanced beliefs,” Mr. Goga, are entirely antinational and they will remain so even if another hundred volumes are published like those previous works.225

As he noted several times, for Popovici, nationalism was one with conservativism and vice versa, because nationalism was the preservation or the conservation of religion, tradition, custom and faith. In a special issue for New Year’s Eve, when the scandal was in its final stage, he published an article in which he praised the exemplarity of popular tradition as compared with “phraseologies of the belletrists.” This celebratory article was written in general terms, but references to the current circumstances were more than visible. We, the Romanians, do not want a faith; we do not look for “advanced beliefs.” We do have our faith: the faith of our parents…. The beliefs of a nation are not invented and changed like a fashion, but they are

Bolshevik revolution, Goga was obsessed by the way in which the communists recreated society and enforced “a new moral.” 223 Goga, "A murit un om: Ioan Slavici,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 149 (July 19, 1910): 1-2. Italics in original. 224 At first glance, this affirmation looks hazardous. There are not other instances in which Goga used the term “advanced” in a similar way until that moment. However, searching this term within the corpus of Goga’s articles, the preference of the author for this term is visible. There is a later article, published by Goga a month later after the death of his great opponent, in which a particular phrase entirely justifies Popovici’s interpretation. Then, under the fresh impressions of the Russian revolution, Goga wrote: “In couples of days, the vast area of the Muscovite state realized a political transformation incited by the most advanced ideas of progress.” See Goga, “Triumful Europei,” in România, I, Nr. 41 (March 14, 1917): 1. 225 Popovici, “Intransigenţă şi consequenţă,” in Românul, I, no. 279 (December 21, 1911/ 3 January, 1912): 1. Italics and bold are in original.

226 preserved from generation to generation from immemorial times. For you are born with them.226

The second instance in which Popovici claimed Goga’s was estrangement was related to one of the central ideas of the Tribunists, namely, the danger of Hungarian culture and education for young Romanian students. Goga himself warned about this danger. It was the case of his “New Generation,” where he adopted the expression of “steeled young” intellectuals. He even claimed that: any decent man will recognize that even the most insignificant closeness to the Hungarians, in any domain, opens a little door through which a foreign spirit will snake into our soul; any observer of our present situation will accentuate all the time that only a complete isolation can save our national patriotism so endangered today.227

Popovici quoted precisely this fragment, recognizing that he agreed with this “isolation.” Yet he was puzzled by this intransigent author who was the only Romanian writer to dare translate Hungarian literature, including authors like Petöfi and Madáh Imre, into Romanian. What kind of intransigence and consequence might be about when on one page may be found virulent tirades against any intimacy with Hungarian culture whilst on another may be read the writings of Petöfi, Madáh Imre, Arany János, etc.? Until now, out of our bright young leaders, nobody dared to come with translations from Hungarian. This innovation was brought by the “freshening” of our culture, the apostle of “consequence,” of “intransigence,” of “moral rigourism,” of the “new ideal of life” and other phrases rhymed or not!”228

In the end, Popovici claimed that Goga lacked any national beliefs, and that on the contrary, “Mr. Goga, who criticizes the mentality of other people, is one of the few cultivated Romanians with a perfectly foreign mentality.”229 Moreover, many of his writings testified to the weakness and the lack of interior strength of their author. They were conspicuous examples in which Goga, the alleged national fighter, was actually less committed to the ideals than he had assumed. Otherwise, how could a fighter lament, “My Lord, teach me to cry” or to claim, “We want a faith.” Yet, Popovici was chilled by the 226

Popovici, “Lumina credinţii, lumina minţii,” in Românul, I, no. 283 (December 28 1911/January 10, 1912): 16. 227 Goga, ”Morala celor mici,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 161 (July 24 / August 6, 1911): 2. 228 Popovici, “Intransigenţă şi consequenţă,” 2. 229 Popovici, “’Să ne mutăm în altă ţară!’ Noul ideal de viaţă oţelită,” in Românul, I, no. 280 (December 22, 1911/ January 4, 1912): 1.

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implications of such an attitude having originated with a national poet who should support and fight for a national ideal. He mentioned the poem “Olt” in which the titular river was asked to revenge the doomed Romanian nation and “to dig the dust of our bodies from where they buried us,” and which concluded thus: “Let’s move ourselves into another country!” Although the poem was counted among Goga’s masterpieces, Popovici considered its message unimaginable: “A national poet should not write such verses!” he claimed. Why not deride, then, the early great poets like Mureşianu who sang in his “Wake up Romanian!,” “we won’t surrender this country even to the Death!,”230 and Popovici added: No, Olt! Do not revenge us! For those who fight for their ideals do not fight for revenge but for their convictions of having the divine right to a better life and a national culture…. No, Olt! We will not die! For the land is holy, and the soul of this nation is innocent, wise, brave, and with a faith in God like very few other people in the world. They will perish, many will perish, and even if all will perish, we will succeed and will continue to live further, always further!231

In the end, Popovici accepted that Goga might have been a gentle and cultivated, intransigent and consistent young person, or interested in the great problem of his nation, but he was destroyed by the city, by his vision, from “Prima Lux,” “the red mouth of the dragon,” “the beast with shining scales.”232 These were the terrifying images by which Goga depicted the approaching city in the eyes of the young boy going for the first time to school. In another poem, the student was visited years later by an old man to whom he told his story. Then, the old man left with tears in his eyes by such a bitter lesson, and the youth mourned after him, “Don’t tell this to anybody else, poor old fellow with the white coat!...”233 Popovici compassionately asked Goga why he had not come to visit him when he was invited, and why he went only (paraphrasing Goga) to “the spirits from the dark who were looking to strangle our buds of 230

This is the present national anthem of Romania composed by Andrei Mureşianu in the early 1850s. Goga made a lot of fun of the local notables who, “attending a meeting, they stand at the first notes from “Wake up Romanian!,” sung by a folk music band, are heard, and at the banquet they wait the steak to rise himself and say this toast.” However, other references to Mureşianu’s famous song are usually more respectful and admiring. See Goga, “Curente de idei în literatura Ardeleană dela 1848 până în zilele noastre (I),” in Tribuna, XV, no. 180 (August 18/31, 1911): 5. 231 Popovici, “Intransigenţă …,” 2. 232 Quoted by Popovici from Goga, “Prima lux,” Luceafărul, VII , no. 19 (October 1, 1908): 455 233 Quoted by Popovici from Goga, “Mi-a bătut un moş la poartă...,” in Luceafărul, VIII, no. 1 (January 1, 1909): 6

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hope,” or rather, to the all Spanachendies and Lichendies? Eventually, Popovici continued, Goga could be forgiven if he put aside philosophical, cultural and political adventures and started to cultivate himself as a true national poet should. This was the last article in a series of ten dedicated to Goga, which Popovici, according to his words, had written in Bucharest before going to Vienna for some personal affairs.234 Back in Bucharest, he read Goga’s reply, “Under the Rain of Arrows,” a joint answer to Popovici and Goldiş. Goga, ironically assuming the role of the scapegoat for the miseries of the Romanians, declared that he would remain under the “rain of arrows” until he found the appropriate moment to answer sometime in the spring, until then promising to follow “all the jumps of Popovici in defending the party’s discipline.”235 Seeing no trace of remorse of his victim, Popovici committed to continuing the debate for as long as was necessary. Goga found it appropriate to write almost one hundred articles. Accordingly, he should not be worried of ten articles written by him, Popovici claimed. Now was his time to aim at Goga’s linguistic achievements, “to down under the ray of my research,” as the poet used to say, the grammar, syntax, style and logic of his language. Unfortunately, it was too late for this campaign. Two days later, an article by Vaida blasted the public life of Romanians in Hungary. It was the beginning of the Goga-Vaida Affair, as it was called, which preoccupied the entire Romanian press for the following month. Under these circumstances, Popovici ceased his series of critiques, and “The Light of Faith, the Light of Mind” was his last article in this campaign. Though Popovici’s literary criticism was grossly exaggerated, sardonic and dogmatic, the literary aim of his politics perfectly opposed the political aim of Goga’s literature. The conflict between Popovici and Goga reveals two extremely different characters and, more interestingly, two notions of nationalism. Each of them may illuminate significant things about the other, particularly when they were in open conflict, as was the case during Tribuna’s scandal. Goga was exaggerated, sarcastic and tendentious too. It was not a matter of right or wrong, but about a clash of two different personalities and styles. The rhetorical differences highlight the role played by particular elements within their discourses. This was the case with Goga’s habit of underlining relatively trivial affirmations and accentuating them with 234

Popovici, “O situaţie schimbată...,” in Românul, I, no. 280 (December 22 1911 / January 4 1912): 2-3. 235 Goga, “În ploaia de săgeţi,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 273 (December 14/27, 1911): 1-2. Though the tone continues to be ironic, the lack of coherence and elaboration may reveal an increasing nervousness of the author.

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paradoxical expressions, which Popovici identified in the expression “work of rest and leisure.”236 At other times, seemingly archaic terms were placed next to neologisms, creating a similar effect.237 From the point of view of argumentative rhetoric, the collage of trivial matters, pretentious and bombastic styles, and pathos were typical of half-wits, as Popovici suggested. These were common accusations raised against the Tribunists during the scandal. However, what “the lawyers” failed to notice was the emotional weight of these sentences. Implicit or explicit metaphors, bombastic or not, succeed in evoking emotionally powerful images that went beyond the normal lines of argumentation. For this reason Popovici was Goga’s most dangerous enemy in this debate. His reaction to Goga was not based on arguments alone but on Goga’s own images, twisting and turning them against their author. Sometimes his paraphrases were unfair and cruel, but he noted that this was the only way of responding to such rhetoric. Nobody else successfully opposed this rhetoric, and most of them preferred to approach Goga rather than estrange him from the National Committee. Popovici used the opposite strategy. If Goga claimed that the members of the committee were estranged from the Romanian nation, then he found evidences in Goga’s own writings to support the allegation that Goga was the one who was estranged from his people. § 8. The Incident Vaida-Goga and the “Peace from Arad.” On Christmas Eve 1911, Românul published a scandalous article by Vaida about some ‘political licenses’ committed by Goga. 238 Vaida reported a discussion he had with a high-ranking Hungarian official. The story began before the elections of early 1910, when the National Committee had initiated

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Popovici, “Pitici 'n putintă’….(I),” 1. It is quoted from Goga, “Pe drum nou,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 1 (January 01, 1908): 1. It is interesting that a similar expression occures in an earlier article in a different form: “We will work here and there for the arrival of an era of rest and leisure.” See Goga, “O deosebire,” in Luceafărul, VI, no. 6 (March 15, 1907): 110111.These two instances, suggest Goga was attentive to the sonority of the phrase more than to the actual meaning of it, the second example being only a meaningless contraction of the first. 237 There are many instances in which this figure of speech seems an accident caused by the urge to avoid the local dialect often corrupted by Hungarian influences. Those outdated terms are neologisms as well, imported from Romania. 238 Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, “Câte-va dintre numeroasele ‚licenţe politice’ comise de d. Octavian Goga în activitatea sa poetică,” in Românul, I, no. 282 (December 24/ January 6, 1911): 1-2.

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talks with the government.239 A permanent commission of ten rotating committee members had been appointed to stay in Budapest to continue these talks. At the time, Goga was on the National Committee and knew every detail of the talks. Once, the commission was called by the respective official to announce to them the conditions under which the government would guarantee “clean” and “honest” elections. All commission’s members agreed that the terms of the offer were unacceptable, and without waiting for a decision of the Committee, they rejected not without mentioning the solidarity of its members. At that moment, Mr. Békeffi240 replied that he knew about dissent within the committee, and that the younger generation was disappointed by the executive bureau. He explicitly stated that he had received this information from Goga who had paid him a visit. Another time, after the elections, in a discussion with a Hungarian deputy colleague, Vaida discovered new details. Not only had Goga offered internal information to “Békeffi” but he had even offered his services. Completely puzzled, Vaida sought further details. Approaching a confidant of Békeffi, he discovered that Goga put the problem in unambiguous terms. Goga had persuaded Békeffi that a more fruitful a relationship would not be with the present leaders, but with the trustful group that was under his influence. More than that, he referred to the actual leaders as unreliable from the point of view of democracy and electoral reform, as old and “clericalized.”241 In the end, Vaida made a suggestion. If Goga died this account, then Vaida and Goga should each name two witnesses to form an independent jury that would examine and weigh the evidences.

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After the resignation of the government of Alexander Wekerlé, supported by the nationalist coalition, the king appointed the Count Károlyi Khuen-Héderváry prime-minister in order to organize the general elections. Khuen-Héderváry had the concrete task to solve the nationalities’ problem. Under these circumstances, the talks with the Romanian National Party were preliminary discussions about the minimum of pretensions the Romanian might have. The stake of these discussions was not the fairness of the elections but the very existence of the Romanian National Party. The party was officially banned and the participation of few candidates in elections with the party program was in the government’s hands because of the administrative means of varying the census of those eligible to vote. At that time, in Hungary only 6% of the entire population was entitled to vote, but the regulations were not strict and the criteria were not the same for the entire country. 240 It is an ad-hoc name of the high-rank official used by Vaida for discretion. It was about József Kristóffy, former minister of interior presently royal counselor. He drafted the first Hungarian law that stipulates universal suffrage, equal and secret vote. 241 Vaida, “Câte-va dintre …,” 1. The episode is described in his Memoirs as well. See Alexandru Vaida Voevod, Memorii [Memoirs], 1st vol., (Cluj: Dacia, 1994): 140-144.

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A few days later, Tribuna published Goga’s denial on the front page.242 He called Vaida’s article untruthful and blamed it on a shameful error or a criminal intention and he announced that he had chosen his two witnesses, as Vaida suggested. Eventually, he declared that if something in Vaida’s story was true, or if it would be proved that he had privately spoken with any Hungarian politicians in the last four years, then he would be ready to resign all his positions and to leave the country. The two trusted persons chosen by Goga were Lucian Borcian and Octavian Tăslăuanu. They introduced themselves to Vaida on the second day of Christmas, and decided to form a jury of honour. Vaida proposed Andrei Bârsan to be the president of this jury and he chose his own trusted persons: Nicolae Vecerdea and Gustav Venter.243 The jury, thus constituted, had its first meeting the next day, on 27 December (9 January) and they issued a communiqué244 regarding the Vaida-Goga affair. They decided that the evidences presented by Vaida were insufficient and thus they must continue investigating Vaida’s allegations. Actually, Vaida offered them only two legally authenticated declarations made by Milan Hodža245 and Szakolczai,246 who testified that Goga came to Kristóffy and offered him his services in the name of the youth of P.N.R. The only solution was to take Goga to confront Kristóffy. Unfortunately, this solution did not prove easy, firstly due to the inference of Bocu. Bocu, for unknown reasons, decided to take action. He went to Kristóffy and interviewed him.247 Kristóffy confirmed that Goga had visited him but when asked to describe Goga it was evident that he described another person, a tall person, brown-haired, lean, with a dark moustache. That person, Kristóffy continued, came and offered the electoral circle (constituency) of Iosăşel,248 asking for 20,000 crowns towards the costs 242

Goga, “Un atentat,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 284 (December 29/ January 11, 1911): 1. Nicolae Vecerdea was the director of Albina Bank in Brasov; August Venter wasa lawyer from Brasov; Lucian Borcia a lawyer from Sibiu and Octavian Taslauanu, as it was already mentioned, the secretary of Astra Association in Sibiu. 244 Andrei Bârseanu et all., “Chestiunea dr. Vaida-Goga. Un comunicat al juriului de onoare,” in Românul, I, no. 286 (December 31, 1911/ January 13, 1912): 1. 245 M. Hodža was deputy in the Hungarian parliament and he was concerned about creating a common action with the Romanian deputies. Any separate agreement between the government and the Romanian leaders would have jeopardized his efforts in creating a common opposition. 246 The private secretary of József Kristóffy. 247 The interview is published by Goga in “Incidentul Goga-Vajda. Fără comentar,” in Tribuna, XVI, no. 10 (January 13/26, 1912): 1-2. 248 His statement was not clear. It might imply that the pretended Goga suggested that he would participate in elections as a governmental candidate in Iosăşel circle and the cost for his electoral campaign would be 20.000 crowns. 243

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of the electoral campaign. On the other hand, Kristóffy denied that he had received any offer of peace negotiations in the name of the youth of P.N.R. He denied as well that Goga, or the person pretending to be Goga, expressed disappointment and disrespect for the actual leadership of the party, and this testimony contradicted the account given by Vaida in his article. Consequently, Gustav/August Venter refused to participate in the planned visit to Kristóffy, together with all the other members of the jury, arguing that Bocu had compromised the visit. Vecerdea soon adopted the same position. Eventually, only Tăslăuanu and Adalbert Cosmutza went to Kristóffy, accompanied by Goga. There, of course, Kristóffy expressed his surprise at seeing Goga. “How, are you Goga? Goga who talked with me was tall and brown-haired.”249 Kristóffy agreed to sign a declaration, co-signed by Tăslăuanu and Cosmutza, testifying to the misunderstanding. Under these circumstances, the jury of honour declined any further responsibility about this affair. Its members made a statement and then dissolved the jury.250 Bârsan, the president, declared his trust in the innocence of Goga but could do nothing else under these circumstances. Goga was in an embarrassing situation. On the one hand, his reputation was severely harmed by Vaida’s accusations. On the other, it was impossible to prove that the declarations of Hodža and Szakolczai were not reflections of the truth. His hurried visit to Kristóffy turned against him. Moreover, the term for fulfilling his prison sentence was close. Then, he sent a telegram to Constantin Stere. “Come here immediately! It is a matter of life and death.”251 Besides being an admirer of Goga, Stere was deeply interested in the conditions under which the Romanians outside Romanian Kingdom were living. He immediately left Jassy for Bucharest where he had some consultations with the leader of the Liberals, I. C. Brătianu, and with the King Carol I. On his arrival in Arad, he publicly offered his help in solving this situation, based on his old friendship 249

These were the terms retained by Vaida and related many years later in his recollections. Vaida assumed a conspiracy of Goga and Tăslăuanu, claiming he was distracted enough accepting Tăslăuanu to inform Goga about the plan agreed by the jury. Immediately after, Goga and Tăslăuanu would have met in Arad, Bocu would have gone to Nădlac where he met Aurel Petrovici, an old friend of Kristóffy, and with a recommendation letter from him to Kristóffy himself. When Venter and Vaida reached Budapest, Goga and Tăslăuanu had visited already Kristóffy. See Vaida, Memoirs, 142. 250 The jury noticed Goga with a letter published by Goga in the same group of acts entitled “Incidentul Goga-Vajda. Fără comentar” above mentioned. 251 Quoted by Ornea from an interview of Stere from 1932. Ornea suggests Goga telegraphs Stere before going with Tăslăuanu to Kristóffy, based on a letter of Goga to Chendi dated January 3/16. See Ornea, Stere’s Life, vol. 1, 567-568.

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with the two opponents.252 At the same time, he asked all the journals to cease publishing new articles on this matter, in order not to aggravate the already difficult situation.253 The key to the problem was the same Kristóffy,254 and Stere decided to organize a collective audience with him in order to solve once for all his contradictory declarations. When they went to Kristóffy, Stere put the ten members of the committee (including Goga) in a line facing Kristóffy. Stere asked him if he had given money to Goga and if he could identify Goga among those present. Kristóffy reiterated his previous declaration that he did give money to Goga, but he did not see him among the present persons. Everything happened as if the previous visit of Goga and Tăslăuanu to Kristóffy never happened, but both sides declared to be satisfied and Goga’s reputation was restored. Finally, on the 8 February, Stere published his final report. His conclusions were that Goga was innocent, and Vaida was the victim of circumstances, his information being authentic. The rest of affair was abandoned because it was impossible to discover the identity of Goga’s imposter, what their interests might have been, why Kristóffy gave money (20,000 crowns) to an unknown person and why he had not verified their identity. With this report, the affair Goga-Vaida was over, but not the scandal. Stere sought to end the “fratricidal fight” that fragmented the Romanian public opinion. At the beginning of February 1912, Goga entered the prison at Seghedin,255 but Stere continued his negotiations. He took a short holiday while

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C. Stere, “Comunicat. Afacerea Goga-Vaida,” in Tribuna, XVI, no. 9 (January 12/25, 1912): 1. 253 Due to the request made by Stere, all the journals avoided to give any details about the course of negotiations. At the same time, the neither Vaida, nor Goga, Bocu or others give enough details about this difficult period. The only clear report was given by Stere at the end of negotiation. Though his account is elaborated and comprehensive, it does not contain the current details of his action. See Stere, “Raport asupra conflictului,” in Tribuna, XVI, no. 24 (January 29/ February 11, 1912): 1-4. 254 Ornea affirms that Vaida’s accusations were based of Kristóffy’s contradictory declarations without mentioning Hodža and Szakolczai at all. In the last instance, it was Kristóffy who declared different things about the alleged visit of Goga to him. However, the accusation raised by Vaida was not based only on one declaration, but he went through finding other sources. This was the reason invoked by Vaida for which he did not reveal sooner the treason he discovered. 255 Soon after his imprisonment, Goga published a poem in Luceafărul, “The Poet,” XI, no. 10 (March 4, 1912): 196, dated Seghedin, February. In his comments on this poem, Ion Dodu Bălan refers to a note in which it was described how Goga “left in silence, without any suit, without any cry of his people,” and that “he was punished for an article in which he pronounced on the miseries of our life and the suppression of the Hungarian medieval class.”

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he went to Bucharest to inform Brătianu about the results, and then to Jassy where an important banquet was organized, on 8/21 February, to celebrate his success.256 A few days later, Stere returned to Arad to pacify the steeled young men with the committee, and Tribuna with Românul. His solution was simple: the two journals should fuse into a single publication, and all the resigned members of the committee should be restored as full members with complete rights. Additionally, Ciorogariu would be accepted as a replacement for Lemeny who had meanwhile died. Stere strove to avoid any offence against all the parties involved, and to assure the possibility of further common activity. He wrote a letter to Goga in prison, entreating him to accept the sacrifice.257 Finally, an agreement was reached on 21 February/5 March 1912 and at the end of the month Tribuna ceased to exist. All the Tribunists were included in the editorial board of Românul, although many preferred to leave the country. After his release, Goga made public his position in a number of interviews,258 to make clear that he accepted the solution enforced by Stere. Soon after, he went to Paris from where he contributed a number of poems to Luceafărul. During this time spent in Paris he prepared a third volume of poetry, which appeared in 1913, and wrote the play “Mr. Notary” which he finished at the end of 1913. It seemed that he finally secluded himself in the ivory tower of art, as he used to say, neglecting the daily problems at home. Meanwhile, the tone of Românul about its former rival gradually changed. After a period of silence, short but admiring notes were introduced into the journal. Occasionally, even some poems and articles were republished from Luceafărul. Only at the beginning of November did Goga and other former Tribunists sign a declaration in which they accepted the offer of the National Committee to collaborate with Românul. The twenty nine signatories of this declaration affirmed that:

Or, Goga was convicted for four texts that were not written by Goga, and this poem originally appeared in Tribuna, XIV, no. 280 (December 25 / January 7, 1910): 1. See Octavian Goga, Poems, Ion Dodu Bălan (ed.), (Bucharest: Minerva, 1963): 429-430. In his monograph on Goga, Bălan confuses/conflates the episode from the spring of 1911, when Goga spent eight days in prison before his trial, with this imprisonment from March 1912, when he fulfilled of his sentence. See Bălan, Octavian Goga, 121-122. 256 ***, “Sărbătoarea dela Iaşi,” in Tribuna, XVI, no. 34 (February 12/25, 1912): 5-8. 257 This letter of Stere was included in the collection of Goga’s correspondence, Octavian Goga in Correspondence, vol. II, 408-410. 258 Gheorghe Stoica, “De vorbă cu Goga,” in Tribuna, XVI, no. 40 (February 19/ March 3, 1912): 1-3; and “Politică şi literatură, de vorbă cu O. Goga,” in Flacăra, I, no. 22 (March 17, 1912): 169-170.

235 We have the strong belief that the Romanian people from this country, under the present circumstances, should find itself very well organized in the same political camp. This camp is for us the Romanian National Party, whose principles constituted constantly the foundation of our convictions and whose unity we consider to be a political dogma. We believe that in the framework of the party organization, being attracted here all the elements willing to work, all currents of thought, surfaced by the national interest, can manifest themselves as far as they do not collide with the programmatic truths of our political life and with the united action of the National Party. 259

Who could have believed that such a declaration would be made by the Tribunists? Only a year earlier such claims would have been unimaginable. Hundreds of articles were written against the party, the committee, party solidarity and other taboos. It was the end of two years of open debate. Three weeks later, Goga published an article entitled “Our Union.”260 This was his personal declaration about reconciliation in which he referred to the unbearable present circumstances, the need of putting aside personal vanities, and the end of futile harassments in the name of the people. The campaign of the “steeled young men” was over, but its consequences lasted for a further three decades, because the political career of Goga developed in a permanent opposition to his former adversaries from the National Committee.

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Ion Agârbiceanu, et all, “Declaraţie,” in Românul, II, no. 241 (November 1/14, 1912): 1. The other signers of this declaration were I. Agârbiceanu, Tit Liviu Blaga, T. Brediceanu, Constantin Bucşan, Z. Bârseanu, Il. Chendi, A. Crişanu, S. Dragomir, I. Dumă, I. Enescu, S. Puşcariu, P. Roşca, I. U. Soricu, V. Stanciu, S. Stanca, A. Esca, O. Goga, E. Goga, O. Ghibu, St. O. Iosif, I. Lupaş, I. Matei, P. Nistor, V. C. Osvadă, Gh. Pop, Gh. Stoica, T. Suciu, O. C. Tăslăuanu, and L. Triteanu. 260 Goga, “Unirea nostră,” Românul, II, 262 (November 28 / December 11, 1912): 1-2.

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CHAPTER 6 The Cult of Culture and the National Idea The last two chapters restored the chronological succession of events in the scandal of Tribuna and the reaction of the National Committee in order to demonstrate the two camps’ evolution and radicalization. The details of this scandal, many of them trivial or irrelevant in some aspects, serve to illustrate the tone of the public debate and to recover the attitudes of each personage regarding the arguments raised by their opponents. In many cases, the emotional charge of these exchanges shaped the further political career of the social actors involved in this episode. Their malice, irony, and sarcasm are important as far as they survived long after the circumstantial arguments of the scandal had disappeared. These emotional charges contained in many texts, and discussed in the previous chapter, have a particular significance beyond the casual personal relations established among the personalities involved in the scandal. The emotive dimension of these texts, consisting in various figures of speech, evocations and other literary techniques, marks a moment of change from a traditional way of politics to the much more modern technique of propaganda. This change indicates the decline of the previous system based on local notabilities and their personal respectability. It is not surprising that such a change was a cause of considerable sorrow and repulsion and triggered many accusations from both sides. The Tribunists attacked the sources of social respectability, and their actions quickly gave way to calumnious accusations to which the other camp reacted with the same measure. However, the conflict escalated more quickly than anybody expected and it was amplified by many personal intrigues and frustrations. The fact that Goldiş was chosen to be the director of the new Românul, the new journal that counter-acted Tribuna, only exacerbated that conflict. On the one side, members of the committee accused the Tribunists’ intrigues against the party as being in the same line with the movement initiated by Tribuna fifteen years earlier, when the National Committee was forced to take over Tribuna, but they were in an embarrassing position because of Goldiş who served on the editorial board of Tribuna longer than anybody else. His declaration that he was wrong because he was misled was not a convincing explanation of the Tribunists’ conspiracy against the party, and many of these accusations turned against Goldiş, as was the case with the Hungarian issue of Tribuna in which an admiring editorial dedicated to

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Count Tisza was written by Goldiş himself.1 On the other side, Tribuna was forced to fight against Goldiş who was one of its editors-in-chief, knowing well how things were developing on the editorial board, and who initially invited the present writers to collaborate with Tribuna.2 This awkward situation contributed to a quick radicalization of the tone of the two journals, both sides often forgetting how the whole conflict had begun. Besides the campaign initiated against the members of the committee, who over-reacted to the accusations made by Tribuna against them, the Tribunists actually attempted to change the sources of social respectability in a way that would give a more central role to their propaganda. The young zealous intellectuals were disappointed by a political situation for which they saw no solution except the reorganization of the party around the journal. This solution had three advantages. The first was that the journal was controlled by the Hungarian government to a lesser extent than the party and thus a journal might more autonomously organize the masses. The second advantage was that a journal could address the masses in a manner in which a party could not. Lastly, the deterritorialization of politics was to the detriment of the local solidarities and legitimacies on which the local notables built their authority. This deterritorialization would bring higher efficiency, flexibility, and dynamism, similar elements on which the Social-Christians of Lueger built his success.3 Unfortunately, the majority of the committee members did not agree or even understand such changes. For them, a party journal was just an official organ of publicity in which party members could find news about the current situation. Proselytism was completely foreign to their minds as being a Romanian was for them a sufficient condition for a person to vote with the Romanian National Party, and any propaganda under such circumstances would be a futile act of preaching to true believers. The Tribunists knew that this idyllic image of their co-nationals was wrong. They saw that besides the necessary organizing effort, a much more vigorous propaganda was needed, precisely when the discussion over universal suffrage was a current public issue in Hungary. According to them, an internal struggle for mobilisation is as necessary as an external one against the state.

1

Q. v. note 180, cap. 5. Goga claimed that Goldiş invited him to collaborate at Tribuna after he published the incriminated “Pro domo.” More details were already presented in cap. 5. §2. 3 See John W. Boyer, Political radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna. Origins of the Christian Social Movement. 1848-1897, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 366-371. It is interesting that Lueger was often present in pages of Tribuna. 2

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Another reason for undertaking such a reconstruction is to make explicit the various political options that were available to Romanian notables at the beginning of the twentieth century. The “young steeled men” were neither more nor less radical or intransigent than the members of the committee, as many commentators have interpreted the scandal, actually taking for granted the interpretation offered by Goga. The core innovation of the Tribunists was their populism, which moved the accent from traditional politics to mass mobilization. They envisioned a situation in which the editorial board of their journal was more important that the executive committee of the party. Their imagined strategy was built on the idea of addressing a larger audience in order to trigger a mass movement.4 Inevitably, this movement would have diminished the importance of the previous organization based on local loyalties, in favour of an idealized and ubiquitous Romanian who would follow the ideological advice of the party journal. Just as Sezession pleaded for mass art and attempted to “democratize” artistic goods, a new type of politics (“in a new key”) struggled to include in the political realm all people as a homogeneous whole and in a way that was not socially structured as before. This comparison with Sezession is not exaggerated; for the new generation of the Fin-de-siècle, art (culture) and nationalism (politics) took on new meanings and conflated themselves in a unique ideology in which feelings were more important than arguments, journals than parties, and poets than politicians. The final argument for a chronological reconstruction is that there is not a thorough study of this debate, and many personages of this episode were relatively obscure in the present-day narratives about the period. The immediate explanation is that most of these studies shared the same nationalist point of view that suggested the most important event of the period was the creation of

4

The communist historiography overused the notion of national mass movement for Transylvania before the First World War. Or, there are enough evidences that a mass movement did not exist at that time because the mass communication and the public opinion were not properly developed. An interesting testimony is given by Goga himself in an interview taken by Gheoghe Stoica when the poet was imprisoned at Seghedin. He declared that “About public opinion can talk somebody when is about other countries, in occident where the society has its own cultural and moral traditions, as it is the case in France where the case of Dreyfuss could revolutionize a whole world. In our case, there are no established precepts, certain fixed points on which the public consciousness could support itself. In the most elementary questions, judgment balances are current and I cannot imagine a bigger mistake than to expect any satisfaction from behalf of society for any kind of sacrifice made in his name. You should find the impulse for work always within himself and you should not ask for others’ appreciation.” Gheorghe Stoica, “De vorbă cu Goga,” in Tribuna, XVI, no. 40 (February 19/ March 3, 1912): 1.

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Greater Romania at the end of the First World War to which all previous events contributed to a lesser or greater extent. If such an interpretation is chosen, the selection of sources is doomed to misunderstand the conflicted situation among Hungarian Romanians. In this interpretation, anything that does not confirm the monolithic cohesion of the people (which is a priori assumed) is considered accidental, insignificant, or due to the reactionary forces. However, the main problem for the present analysis is not to reverse the priorities of Romanian national historiography but to identify the main issues of the public discourse before the First World War, and in particular the themes of Goga’s literary politics. These themes allow one to interpret the reaction to various political events and to understand the ideological evolution of their author. The following sections reevaluate the themes, or “ideas” in his vocabulary, identified as central within Goga’s politically literary universe. As previously mentioned, they are “the race,” “the national energy,” “the national union,” “the authority,” and “Israel,” all reflecting the entire ideological world created by Goga, “the national idea.” § 1. Turn de Century Romanian Culture and Policy A parenthesis is necessary to introduce some aspects of this new type of politics that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century in reaction to the traditional parties, the liberals and the conservatives. There are a number of particular events that triggered this reaction. The first was a secret political treaty in 1883 between the Romanian Kingdom and Austria-Hungary, which formed an alliance that included Germany on the day it was signed. This treaty was kept secret from the Romanian public, but its consequences, particularly a favourable attitude of the Romanian State towards Austria-Hungary, were visible enough to cause irritation and anger when news was received concerning the harsh measures taken by the Hungarian government against the non-Hungarian nationalities. The Romanian conservatives’ overall attitude of non-interference in the home affairs of a neighbouring country provoked aversions even among their possible supporters. However, there persisted a general tacit consent to keep this alliance secret. Yet, in 1892 Dimitrie Sturdza became the leader of the Romanian liberals, who were in opposition at that time. He decided to use the Transylvanian question as a political weapon against the conservatives and the crown in order to force the hand of the king to ask the liberals to form the Cabinet. As Titu Maiorescu stated, it was the first time that the national question had been raised

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in the Romanian parliament.5 The political campaign of Sturdza, from 1892 to 1895, influenced the Romanians in Hungary, who concluded that it was an appropriate moment to send a memorandum to the emperor. There was no consensus on this issue within the Romanian National Party. There was a sizable group, led by Mociony, who opposed this memorandum but eventually accepted the will of the majority.6 Another group was undecided and doubtful about the form of such a memorandum. This group was led by Ioan Raţiu who was the president of the party. The last and the most vocal group was the Tribunists. Though they had been supported by the Romanian liberals in 1884, when Tribuna was founded, in order to ease relations between the Hungarian government and the Romanian National Party, now under different circumstances, they were the most radical militants for a Romanian memorandum. It was not surprising that Slavici wrote the first draft of the memorandum, which was found too radical and rejected by the national committee. But Slavici did not give up, and he went to Bucharest where he found new support for his version of the memorandum. On 24 January 1891,7 Gheorghe BogdanDuică, Ioan Russu-Şirianu and the student leaders from Bucharest organized the League of Cultural Unity of Romanians, known as the Cultural League.8 They published Memoir of the university students regarding the situation of the Romanians from Transylvania and Hungary, in 13,000 copies, which was

5

Titu Maiorescu, The Political History of Romania…, 195-204. See Sever Bocu, Drumuri și răscruci, 43. 7 Tough the public campaign of Dimitrie Sturdza stared only in 1892, it seems that he prepared the appearance of Memorandum much before becoming the leader of the liberals. Two arguments can be brought in favor of this supposition. The first is that the Tribunists were from the very beginning relying on the help of the Romanian Kingdom to their movement. Or, at that time, most likely the conservative government would not support it. They might have had concrete promises from Sturdza in this sense. The second is the role played by Gh. Bogdan-Duică and Ioan Russu-Şirianu, both of them having close relations with Sturdza. See I. Slavici, “Unitatea noastră culturală,” in Amintiri, (Bucharest: Editura pentru Literatura, 1967). Originally, this article was published in serial by Tribuna at the beginning of 1907. 8 Cultural League was formed around a group of Transylvanian students who began to organize a student campaign in order to impress the public opinion. In October 1890 the first reunions happened in the Aula of Bucharest University, at the beginning of 1891 they managed to organize the League and eventually to attract members from outside University among personalities of that time. The first congress happened in May 11-13, 1891 and, at that time, the League might have called the attention of Sturdza. It was a good opportunity to take advantage of this movement. 6

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remarkable for that period.9 After the foundation of the league, the course of events diverged into two paths. On the one hand, the memorandum movement continued its course in Transylvania, where all the petitioners were put on trial and imprisoned for years. On the other hand, the memorandum published by the League received a reply from the Hungarian students, which in turn elicited a response by the Romanian students from Austria-Hungary.10 This is the beginning of a European-wide campaign in favour of the Romanians in Hungary.11 Yet, after such an aggressive campaign, and only nine days after his appointment as Prime Minister, on 13 October 1895 Sturdza refuted his previous opinions.12 To the Memorandists he offered the alternative of immigrating in Romania and continuing there their struggle for the solution of the “Transylvanian question” under the banner of the Cultural League. This change alienated an emerging group in the liberal camp who were concerned about the fate of the Romanians from abroad. The foundation of the Cultural League signified a moment when nationalism was considered a special political doctrine that was above the other political orientations, i.e. conservative and liberal. One keyword was to be found in the name of the league, and it is a “union.” The other keyword is “cultural.” In other words, the solution for the “Transylvanian question,” and shortly after, for all problems faced by the Romanians, resided in a doctrine that transcended the traditional political spectrum on the base of the “cultural union” of all Romanians. They accordingly suggested that the solution may be found according to the ancient and wise tradition of the people. Immediately after the epilogue of the “Memorandist campaign,” the Cultural League declined in its importance.13 However, the impact of the “national 9

The names of the Tribunists did not appear at that moment in relation with this memorandum in order to protect them. The volume was interdicted in Hungary. 10 As mentioned before in the chapter 3, §1. 11 In 1895, Eugen Brote being for a short period, the president of the Romanian National Party from Hungary, while the former leaders were imprisoned, published another large “political memorandum,” The Romanian question in Transylvania and Hungary, (Bucharest: Voinţa Naţională, 1895) published by the publishing house of the main liberal journal from Bucharest. As all the others memoranda, it was translated in couples of European languages and distributed abroad. 12 His famous speech from Jassy, from 13th October 1895 caused a lot of sorrow among the Hungarian Romanians. It was a clear choice between being prime-minister and continuing to struggle for an ideal. Rudolf Welser von Welserheimb, the Austria-Hungarian Minister in Bucharest, asked King Carol I for a clear statement on behalf of the government about the “Transylvanian question.” 13 Theodorescu mentions a period of disagreements among the members of the League, dissensions due most probably by the turn in the liberal politics. The same happened with the

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question” preserved this organization, and, probably, attracted to it a certain group of those aware of national matters, and who found no place in the traditional parties.14 During those years, a new tendency was an increasing national activism. This movement carried an anti-political ethos that prefigured the nationalist radicalism of the 1930s. The dichotomy between culture and politics was understood as a cleavage between union and disunion; the cultural union was par excellence opposed to the political disunion of the parties. An appeal for the unification of all Romanians under the same banner of a national ideal and the flourishing of civil associations dedicated to this ideal,15 was in the last instance a sign of the emergence of public opinion and the appearance of a new type of intellectual. This was l’intellectuelle engage,16 who was independent from a political point of view and who despised the petty concerns of those bound to a certain party. To such an audience, new nationalist journals and reviews addressed a new type of message. Some of these were România Jună, Sămănătorul, and Neamul Românesc which flourished in the first decade of the twentieth century.17 Romanian National Party in Hungary, the Tribunists being dismissed from their positions and forced to give up their journal to the national committee. In this respect, the testimonies of Slavici and Bogdan-Duică are relevant. See George Bogdan-Duică, Partea mea din criza Tribunei. Câteva lămuriri, (Orăştie: Minerva, 1896), and Ioan Slavici, Tribuna şi tribuniştii, (Orăştie: Minerva, 1896). 14 Except few accounts about the Cultural League from the beginning the twentieth century, there are no other reliable studies about this Leagues and many other associations that existed in the period referred here. One of the reasons is the archive of the Cultural Leagues was entirely destroyed during the First World War. See Gh. Bogdan-Duică, Politica Ligii Culturale (1915), Nicolae Iorga, “Liga Culturală,” in Boabe de grâu, VIII, no. 8 (October, 1930): 451-456; Bogdan Theodorescu, “Date istorice din vieaţa Ligii Culturale,” in Boabe de grâu, VIII, no. 8 (October, 1930): 457-463. Contrary to Slavici, Theodorescu mentions three Romanians from Hungary who participated in the first congress of the League from May 1891. They are Vasile Lucaci, Septimiu Albini, Sever Axente, among whom only Albini was a Tribunist. More recent studies are due to C. Gh. Marinescu, “Pagini din activitatea Ligii Culturale pentru desăvârşirea unităţii de stat a României,” in Studii şi materiale de istorie, vol. 2, (Suceava: 1971), and Vasile Netea and C. Gh. Marinescu, Liga Culturală şi Unirea Transilvaniei cu România, (Jassy: Junimea, 1978). The later is an ideological account based on the idea of union, as the only concern of the entire Romanian society before the First World War, and the idea of mass participation, i.e. working class, as a leading principle for the national development of modern Romania. 15 There were a number of Leagues that appeared in this period: The League against the Alcohol, The Antisemite League, The League of National Defense, etc. Unfortunately, there are no reliable studies to be referred about these leagues and their evolution. 16 This French term is relevant also for the concomitance of this movement with Dreyfuss affaire, which had a considerable influence among the Romanian intellectuals. 17 See chapter 3, §4.

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Under these circumstances of nationalist effervescence, two names became known and respected. They were Nicolae Iorga and A. C Cuza. Both contributed many articles to România Jună and Sămănătorul until Iorga, whose academic authority exceeded any imaginable dimensions as well as his hypertrophic ego,18 became the director of Sămănătorul. From that moment, his stubborn efforts to annex the Cultural League into his own national movement were enormous. Eventually, he was appointed the secretary of the League (in 1914) and finally the president (in 1919). These two figures made important contributions to the transformation of the nationalist movement, which had been formed under the banner of cultural union, into a nationalist political party in 1910: the National-Democrat Party. Neamul Românesc under the direct supervision of Iorga and benefiting from Cuza’s assiduity in publishing innumerable anti-Semitic articles became a link between the party and the Cultural League, in a way similar to that envisioned by the Tribunists for their journal, between the National Party and the association. From 1891 to 1910, the movement for the cultural union of all Romanians was gradually distilled into a nationalist doctrine under the direction of these two friends and partners: Iorga and Cuza. Iorga brought to this partnership his academic reputation, an impressive capacity for work and a stubborn character which actually led him into conflict with virtually all of his companions and associates. Conversely, Cuza brought to this political venture an impressively agile spirit and aptitude for an extremely vilifying irony. His relations with the other nationalist movements (i.e. anti-Semitic and anti-alcoholic) and integrative theoretical skills developed into a monomaniacal obsession with the Jews. There is a discourse, one of a few otherwise, in which Iorga exposes his theoretical views on the nature of national politics and its relation to national culture.19 This text illustrates the mutations within the political discourse at that time. First, within the “national question” are above all the parties and the Cultural League representing the interests of the entire Romanian nation beyond the narrow political fragmentation of parties and coteries. “The parties should better continue to fight each other with their specific means, and leave the national question, which was more often ignored and never served by them.” Instead, the Cultural League should speak out because:

18

See C. Rădulescu-Motru, “Naţionalismul,” Scrieri politice, Ist ed. in 1909, (Bucharest: Nemira, 1998): 178-225. 19 N. Iorga, Cultura naţională şi politica naţională. Discurs ţinut de N. Iorga în seara de 14 Octombrie 1908 la Bucureşti (Sala Dales), (Vălenii-de-Munte: Neamul Românesc, 1908).

245 it means the union of the Romanians from all social strata, of those who know and feel Romanian, the union of the Romanians from those states, who know or almost know Romania, and who with the help of God and with our humble assistance, will really know sometime Romanian; — the League means the union of all social strata, — because, if there are social classes for other activities, for the cult of the national ideal there are no social differences within the same people, — it means the union of all social classes of our people in order to create our cultural consciousness, to take care of this culture that does not know and should not know state borders, because state borders are for those who walk, but the Romanian culture soars high like an eagle, and because through the victory of this national culture will be accomplished that thing that we will not name now, but what rests in your souls and makes to raise in this moment before your eyes the icon of a different Romania, the icon of the only true and entire Romania.20

It is interesting how Iorga gives another understanding of politics. His notion of national policy is rooted in national culture, in a way in that had never happened before. According to him, traditional politics was founded on the interests of particular groups of people, and therefore differentiated, separated and even opposed segments of society in the political realm, reflecting the individual interests of each participant. Alternatively, by placing the national culture at the bottom of the political program, a new political system could be founded on the basis of cultural unity and not on the disunity of incidental individual interests. This notion of culture is different and close to the ancient animist worldview: Culture is the root of all things; culture is the soul and all things begin from the soul. The material things, allowed or not allowed, never decide the life of a people: the people’s life springs from its soul, and its soul is its culture. The people that has a culture has a soul and a consciousness, and everything else starts from consciousness and soul. It is like in the Scriptures: what was at the beginning? What? The World or the Word? In the beginning, there was only the Word! We who represent the Word, 20

Ibid., 4. The discourse is published after stenographical notes and thus there are some inherent incoherencies. At the end of the citation, the allusion to a political union of all Romanians is evident. At that moment, any direct reference to an irredentist program would have been disastrous for a political movement. However, in 1914 when Iorga became the secretary of the Cultural League, the name of the League was changed in the League for the Political union of all Romanians. See Theodorescu, “Historic Details…,” 458. This change happened with the occasion of the extraordinary congress of the League happened in December 14/27, two mounts after the death of King Carol I. A week after, Goga and V. Lucaci resigned from the National Committee and came in Bucharest to join the League. Vasile Lucaci, most probably, came with the idea to join the League because he remained in close relations with many of its members after he participated in its first congress.

246 who serve the Word, not only above the different political parties but even ignoring them, we come and claim: nobody can to speak about a more clean, honest, and useful Romanian politics except those who are around the fireplace where the burning fire lights the life of the entire people, who are around the hearth of culture. 21

The people who support the hearth of culture are teachers and writers. They can speak in the name of the nation because they are close to the sacred fire, to the soul and the culture of their nation. Iorga warned that no one should rush them away from politics because politics must not be restricted only to lawyers and culture must not be considered a lucrative activity. The Cultural League cannot be placed “next to the dentist Rosenthal,” as he claimed. This argument from 1908, about “those who are around the hearth of culture,” the writers and professors who are closer to the soul of the nation, anticipated the argument of the Tribunists against the national committee. Writers and professors were therefore entitled to make national policy, precisely the external policy mostly needed, an allusion to the system of alliances of the Romanian Kingdom before the First World War and to the unspoken ideal of Greater Romania. Based on the consciousness of the burden of national culture, based on the consciousness of our nation from everywhere, on the consciousness of his soul, [taking into consideration] his natural tendencies toward the same ideal, we come to tell you: this Romanian Country might have had many needs, might have had the need of an internal policy, but more than anything else it had the need of an external policy. We, the people from the Cultural League, we the preservers and the defenders of the Romanian national culture from everywhere, we came here to tell you — and we hope our voice will reach further than you, up, higher up —, we came to tell you that this nation if it will stay further as it stays regarding the advance of the foreigners, if it will stay further under the Hungarian fist, if it will remain under the Russian despision, under the Austrian indifference, if it stays without the possibility of moving, or without the possibility of conquering something, the advance of the arrogance of the powerful and the advance of the battle cry that sounds across the Danube, this is due to the fact that our nation did not have yet in this country an external policy.22

Two decades later, without previous political inhibitions, and explaining the nationalist doctrine, Iorga referred to this folk wisdom as a source for national

21 22

Ibid., 7. Ibid., 7-8.

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policy. His presentation, for a scientific purpose,23 is in some respect retrospective and, therefore, relevant to the course of thought that preceded the foundation of the National-Democrat party. Based on the intuition of something particularly valuable in the tradition and popular customs of the people, he attempted to provide a stronger foundation for the national culture and to define it as something inherited and not acquired. The “soul of the nation” is a transindividual reality that encompasses the ancestral experiences of the Romanian people from all times. Let us not pretend to teach our people what they don’t know, and to approach, as humble apprentices, what people know better than we do. Let us avoid taking pedant attitudes, scavenging western theories and pretending to change the customs of thought of the nation, and to begin the study of the customs of thought of our nation, take inspiration ourselves from all traditions of the people to which we belong, summing in our souls all the experiences of so many centuries, and only after we will know these things to think about the elaboration of a doctrine in order to offer to the people… Consequently, the first explanatory element of the nationalist doctrine was the state of consciousness of its founders…, a kind of instinctual nationalism and very democratic. … I am very happy to represent that nationalism which came out of democracy, from the century-old life of the great masses of Romanian people, and that I represent that democracy which cannot be ever separated from the consciousness of the Romanian people.24

It is not only about a vague apology for the ancestral qualities of his nation. For Iorga, the state is a creation of the nation, which initially was not differentiated but forming only one social class: the peasantry. Thus, the state should be led only by its founders, in this case the peasantry, and not the aristocracy as in other countries. This idea of the initial class homogenization and the nationalist doctrine of Iorga were not popular at that moment in the Romanian Kingdom, but they found the most fertile soil abroad, among the Hungarian Romanians where the aristocracy was Hungarian, the upper and middle classes were Hungarian or Magyarized, and where the Romanian National Party was the only party to defend the rights of the majority of Romanians. The Tribunists adopted most of the ideas disseminated by Iorga in Sămănătorul and after 1906 in Neamul 23

Dimitrie Gusti initiated a study about the doctrines of the political parties. A number of outstanding politicians and political thinkers were asked to present different political doctrine ant the results were published by the Romanian Social Institute. 24 Nicolae Iorga, “Doctrina naţionalistă,” in Dimitrie Gusti (ed.), Partidul politic, (Bucharest: Cultura naţională, 1923).

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Românesc. Their respect for Iorga grew not only because of his academic achievement but also because of his constant interest in the cause of Hungarian Romanians. Neamul Românesc had a constant section with news about Romanians abroad.25 Few other reviews attracted the same attention to these matters and accordingly, Iorga’s reputation and influence dramatically increased. This “ideology of culture,”26 in which both culture and politics changed their meanings to describe the more profound, imperceptible, ancestral or a-historical traits of the nation, was based on a racial template. For the late nineteenth century nationalists, race was the sum of characteristics that a nation had from its very beginning and only therein may someone find the true “hearth of culture” or the “soul of the nation.” Not explicit, the “idea of race” played an important role in the literary ideology of all cultural currents and was the cornerstone of the nationalist program. The “idea of race” was present in Goga’s works as well from his early writings. In the following section this “idea” is analysed under the aspects of the role it played in the literary politics of Goga and his followers. § 2. The Idea of Race A leitmotiv of Tribuna in the period of the conflict against the National Committee was the young generation who under the hard circumstances of their studies had recovered their roots, language and national culture and vehemently opposing the general trend towards assimilation. Out of this generation a number of young men asked for the floor to speak in the name of their people. Their power was their sincerity and their boldness came from their intimacy with the masses from whom they actually originated, as they claimed. They were like the mythological Anteus, for whom any touch of the Earth meant a surge of energy because his father was the Earth himself. Thus, Hercules had to raise him aloft and defeat him without letting him down at all. As Anteus, this young generation took its power from their native soil, and they 25

Each issue of Neamul românesc had at the end of it a section with news, with two subsections: I. [News] “From Our Country,” II. [News] “From the Romanians From Across the Borders,” and II. [News] “From Abroad.” The first subsection had two parts: A. “the Rural Question” latter called “our peasants” and B. “Our Jews.” A note used to specify that “all unsigned notes are written by Iorga,” and most of them were unsigned. 26 This term, particularly efficient in describing the situation in which culture was transformed in a political argument, is adopted from Carroll, initially used for describing Thierry Maulnier’s type of “national culturalism.” See David Carroll, French Literary Fascism, 247.

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were helpless when removed from it.27 The city, the school, the modern society were the main causes for their “patricidal” segregation from their soil, but these young bright intellectuals managed to return home, to their people, to their villages, and to their families, or moreover to their native soil. Goga’s comparison with the giant Anteus was created around a powerful metaphor: the soil symbolizes the race. It transgresses the present masses, which are under the pressure of the incidental flow of time, and gives substance to the feeling of belonging to a certain land. At the same time, the soil is in direct relation with those who work on the land and the peasants are the representatives of the nation, as was already mentioned. This was why the great Romanians of whom Goga made a eulogizing portrait were mostly people of modest social origins. George Coşbuc was born in a village in Bukovina to a priest family; Nicolae Grigorescu was the child of a very poor family from Dâmboviţa, to the north of Bucharest; and Aurel Vlaicu came from a peasant family in Hunyád/Hunedoara County. These were only a few examples among many exemplar Romanians who proved the genius of their race. The most appealing case was Vlaicu. The sympathy and the enthusiasm for the great achievement of this talented son of a Romanian peasant from Binţinţi who in a period of flying fever all over Europe became the first Romanian aviator, building his own plane,28 and thus proving in the creative energies hidden in the peasant masses.29 27

The legend is firstly mentioned by Goga in *** [Goga], “Să ne apropiem,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 39 (September 23, 1907): 633. In the following years, Anteus did not explicitly appear in Goga’s article though he constantly referred to the power given by the native soil. It seems that the legend was evoked only at the beginning of a public campaign as it was the case in 1907, in 1923 when Ţara noastră reappeared, and then in 1930 when Goga was prepared to initiate his own political movement, the National-Agrarian Party. With each occasion, Goga restated his intimacy with the Romanian soil, with his folk, with the profound spirit of his nation. The other two articles in which he mentioned the myth of Anteus are "Literatura militantă,” in Ţara noastră, IV, no. 48 (December 2, 1923): 1523, and “Cuvinte către tineret,” in Ţara noastră, X, no. 8 (February 16, 1930): 314. 28 In 1903, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the first sustained flight of “a heavierthan-air machine,” an airplane. Vlaicu did the same in 1910, with a machine projected by his own, being the first Romanian aviator. He was a younger colleague of Goga in high school from Sibiu, continued his studies in Budapest and München, and worked almost a year in the Opel factory in Russelsheim as an engineer. Haunted by the idea of building an airplane, he resigned and returned home in Binţinţi where he finished to build his airplane and had his first demonstration in the 1910. See ***, “Vlaicu zboară,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 171 (August 14/27, 1910): 1-2. 29 See Goga, ”Drumul unui cuceritor: Aurel Vlaicu (I and II),” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 199 (October 1/September 18, 1910): 1-4 and no. 200 (October 2 /September 19, 1910): 1-4; republished in Luceafărul, X, no. 20 (October 16, 1910): 445-456; ”Vlaicu,” Luceafărul, XI,

250 We are a vigorous people and we have in our veins a century’s accumulated vitality. We did not squash our power, we are not lived (sic!), in our souls there is the whole power accumulated by our ancestors still dormant. All this energy didn’t have time to discharge itself and if we would have the opportunity to unveil it, it might be a surprise for the entire world. We don’t have poets and writers, do we? But we didn’t have paper and pencils! We always live in terrifying darkness. In the eyes of one of our shepherds from Poiana-Sibiului is sparking ten times more intelligence, his movement has more rhythm, his incomparable profile much more nobleness than the figure of a certain inhabitant of the suburbs of Berlin, who is educated and reads the news from “Lokal-Anzeiger” every day. But we are living in an extraordinary darkness and poverty kills us. How many talents were ruined so, limiting their geniality to the primitive simplicity of peasant art. If we would have had another protection, if all the governments would not have followed the systematic and criminal suffocation of our people, with how many works of art would humankind have been richer? But what to do now, when all the twitches of talent are enchained by these thieves of universal evolution? We remain in the hands of fate and only by chance may a wave of light surface. For example Coşbuc, only chance took him out of darkness! Just think, how many minds are isolated in the peasants’ huts! What more to say about art and literature can you still find in folklore or in the ornaments of a peasant shirt! But in science, in the broader field of human technical innovation, where the lack of culture cut down the wings of any impulse! Our peasant is an inventive spirit and only some infernal watermill on the Olt, done by some peasant by himself, unveils a miraculous talent…30

A year later, Luceafărul republished this article with many illustrations of Vlaicu, of his airplane and his home. The images with his parents in front of their house and with its traditional interior are remarkable and extremely emotional if compared to the great achievement of Vlaicu. The “culture of peasants” proved its potential through this genial young intellectual with such solid roots in his people. Vlaicu was the living demonstration of the Semănătorist assumptions that real creative potential resided in the humble peasant masses and not in the cosmopolite intelligentsia. He was a wave of light, which hit out of the vast areas of our popular genius, which amazed for a moment the entire world and turned home again, as a messenger who fulfilled his duty. A flame that danced by night in midst of the plain to announce to the village that a treasury is

no. 18-19 (September 15, 1913): 567-569; republished in Ţara noastră, IV, no. 36 (September 9, 1923): 1137-1142; and both were included in the volume Precursorii [The Precursors] (1930). 30 Goga, “Drumul unui cuceritor: Aurel Vlaicu I,” 1-2.

251 buried there…. It was a new proof for those who do not understand where we should search for our destiny… He went to school abroad. He did polytechnic studies in Germany, he learned Hungarian and German, he attended concerts and theatre, but this foreign culture was not able to scatter his patriarchal incitements, from which he never separated. Vlaicu remained a peasant…31

Vlaicu’s tragic death in 1913 when he attempted to fly over the Carpathians transformed him in a symbol of a young generation animated by an ancestral dream, which was to cross the mountains and to unify the Romanian people. He was not alone. Eminescu, Coşbuc, Iosif, among the poets, or Iancu, Şaguna, Lucaci, among the political leaders, were the precursors of the historic realization of a Romanian folk spirit. This was the meaning of the precursors given by Goga to these prominent figures of Romanian history, to pave the way of the cultural and, thus, to political affirmation of the Romanians. It was rather a vague idea about the elite formation process based on unspoken hopes and obscured feelings rather than an outlook on society based on rational thought. This was the doctrine of the Tribunists, which was a particular variant of Sămănătorism, both currents being influenced by German ideology32 and carried back home by the “young steeled man” after completing their studies abroad. One assumption allowed this current of thought to develop and to gain ascendancy over other socio-literary doctrines in the period prior to the First World War. It stated that a cultural creation is equivalent to a political affirmation. There was no general agreement on what possible culture, cultural awakening, prosperity (“propăşire”), advance, strength, mission or affirmation would mean, and there were few contemporary theoretical references to these concepts. However, the transformation of cultural propaganda in favour of an autochthonous creation in a political program is historically identifiable in the first decade of the twentieth century, when România Jună, Sămănătorul, and Neamul Românesc established the new nationalist current, and, closely related with the Sămănătorist movement, the National-Democrat Party was founded.

31 32

Goga, “Vlaicu,” 553-554. Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair. A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961). The cultural pessimism referred to by Stern, and common for many neo-romantic writings, is shared by Goga as well. Many commentators interpret this pessimism as an influence of Eminescu, but it might be too simplistic and however exceeded the literary realm to confine it only to a literary current. A. C. Popovici referred to this “cultural despair” when criticized Goga of pessimism, fatalism and other negative traits for a “national poet.”

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The new nationalist current, of which the Sămănătorist movement was only a particular variant, and Iorga in particular, established a relationship between culture and politics that had never existed before. This relationship allowed Iorga to claim that only those “people from around the hearth of culture” had the right to talk about a true national policy, especially an external policy. The “people from around the hearth of culture” were professors and writers. Of course, the order was reversed once the Tribunists adopted this idea. The writer was more entitled to establish the main lines of a national politics and more qualified for the leadership of his nation than, for example, a lawyer. For Goga, this new hierarchy of symbolic authority was centred on the poet, seconded by the priest and then the teacher. Yet, this idea was not new. For the Romanian public, this sounded very familiar. “The Poet as a Hero” was the third chapter of a highly popular book at the time. It was Thomas Carlyle and his On heroes that inspired Goga, just as it had Iorga two decades earlier.33 Carlyle saw universal history as the history of Great Men or Heroes, and this enormously influential work is an illustration of history on six levels according to a typology of his heroes who are characterised as the divinity, prophet, poet, priest, man of letters, and king. Iorga claimed for him and his followers the title of man of letters, or “man of the word,” but Goga considered himself to be more than that, a poet and even a prophet. Ilie Marin named him “poeta vates”,34 borrowing directly from Carlyle the notion of Vates which in Latin means to be at once a poet and a prophet. Because the poet was closer to the “hearth of culture,” he was more entitled to speak out in the name of his nation, and thus to decide national policy, the external relation of the Romanian state, as Iorga declared. This was not an incidental figure of speech. The idea was found in Carlyle’s work, with a great poet a nation “can speak” even against a larger and more powerful state if it lacked such a poet. Italy can speak because of Dante, while Russia cannot speak, in spite of all its army, because there is no Russian poet to allow this great empire to speak. Yes, truly, it is a great thing for a Nation when it obtains an articulate voice; when it produced a man who will melodiously speak forth what the heart of it means! Italy, for example, poor Italy lies dismembered, scattered asunder, not appearing in any protocol or treaty as a unity at all; 33 34

See N. Iorga, O viata de om asa cum a fost, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1978): 150, 198. Ilie Marin, “Poëta vates,” Tribuna, XII, no. 10 (January 12/25, 1908): 1-2. The expression “poeta vates” is a pleonasm as far as vates means “poet” in the same extent in which it means “prophet.” However, the expression was adopted as such by many commentators, as it was the case of Aurel Martin, “Poeta vates,” Gazeta literară, XIII, no. 13/699 (March 31, 1966) and many others after him.

253 yet the noble Italy is actually one: Italy produced its Dante; Italy can speak! The Czar of all the Russias, he is strong, with so many bayonets, Cossacks and cannons; and does a great feat in keeping such a tract of Earth politically together; but he cannot yet speak. Something great in him, but it is a dumb greatness. He has had no voice of genius, to be heard of all men and times. He must learn to speak. He is a great dumb monster hitherto. His cannons and Cossacks will all have rusted into nonentity, while that Dante's voice is still audible. The Nation that has a Dante is bound together as no dumb Russia can be.35

Thus not only a universal history but a national history is the creation of national heroes, in this case the national poets. Poets have not only the right but also the duty to speak out in the name of their nations because only they can assure an audible voice, can affirm the right of existence, and can defend the rights of their respective nation. Popovici attempted in vain to question the right of the poet to interfere in politics. It was too late to question this already wellestablished belief.36 There is a direct consequence of this assumption regarding the political preeminence of culture. The supporters of this new nationalist current had to ask themselves who are those people from “around the hearth of the national culture,” and what is that “soul of the culture” that gives only to some peoples the right of establishing an authentic national policy. The answer was given by the notion of race. Just as an individual has certain inherited and acquired traits, in the same way, a nation has some original characteristics, the sum of which define the race, and some others, the historical characteristics achieved during its history, the sum of which define the national character.37 Of course, there was no general agreement about these definitions and about the relation between them, but by and large race was generally used in reference to some general, ahistorical or profound characteristics, while the nation was more contextualized and related with other nations, with whom it happened to come into contact or conflict.

35

Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, 1st ed. in 1840, The first decade of twentieth century was a period when Eminescu was discovered as a political thinker. Gr. Paucescu (1891), Al. D. Xenopol (1893), I. Scurtu (1905), A. C. Cuza (1914) reedited the works of Eminescu, including more and more the political articles of the poet. 37 A comprehensive overview of the question of race, national character and the environmental influences over it are in the chapter “Les facteurs constants de l’histoire,” from one of the most influential work of the period discussed here, Alexandru D. Xenopol, La Théorie de l’histoire. Principes fondamentaux de l’histoire, 1st ed. 1899, (Paris: Ernest Laroux, 1908): 164-204. 36

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Placing the “soul of the nation” or the “genius of race” in such an atemporal concept rendered anything else acquired by experience or education irrelevant for defining an authentic national policy. Under these circumstances, the only solution to the national question was to restore the initial inborn qualities of the nation, being the racial traits which had decayed during historical evolution. The reservoir of these racial traits must be found away from the modern, cosmopolitan, urban civilization, among those peasants who seemed to live outside history. Thus, for following this line of argumentation, the Sămănătorist movement, which centred its literary ideology on the peasantry, was a byproduct of the new nationalist current and not its mainstream.38 It followed that education, as institutional training, was considered insufficient and sometimes even pernicious for the youth. Some additional contextual explanations may be offered for this. On the one hand, this belief was rooted in a reaction against the rationalism of the enlightenment, emblematic of some neo-romantic cultural environments.39 On the other hand, in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, education caused a cultural import from countries where young students continued their university studies, which elicited a reaction against this foreign influence.40 For the Romanian

38

For Zigu Ornea, who began his analysis based on a Marxist theory, the “peasant question” was the dominant reason for the emergence of Sămănătorist movement. See Ornea, Sămănătorul, 17. Indeed, the peasant uprisings from 1888 and 1907 were important elements for the peasantist movement. Besides the inevitable emotional impact, these uprisings increase the public hostility toward the traditional parties that came to an agreement and crushed the peasant revolts. However, not the “peasantism” was the common traits of the new nationalists, movements, reviews and leagues that flourished at the beginning of the twentieth century but the racial understanding of Romanian culture. At that time, this was the reason for many polemics about who are and who are not within the Sămănătorist movement, which was the most influential among other many movements, currents, groups, circles, leagues and other smaller associations. 39 The irrational tendencies of the early twentieth century thought varied from philosophical systems, theoretical models in various disciplines, to spiritualism, occultism, and other speculative exercises fashionable at that time. It is worth mentioning the appealing theory of Carl G. Jung on The Psychology of the Unconscious (1912). The idea of a collective unconscious, which is racial, inherited, and transpersonal, containing archetypes, was extremely appealing for the young intellectuals who challenged the liberal world of their fathers, as C. Schorke sugessted. 40 A particular episode is relevant for the beginning of the twentieth century. It happened in 1906 when N. Iorga initiate a campaign against a French “boulevardier” play, “Madame Flirt,” that eventually degenerated in street fights with the police. See N. Iorga, Istoria literaturii române contemporane. Partea a doua: In căutarea fondului, (Bucharest: Adevěrul, 1934): 66-68; and N. Iorga, O viaţă de om aşa cum a fost, 401-406.

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Kingdom, this influence was accused of being French,41 although the vast majority of Romanian students chose German universities, and only for their doctoral degree would they go to Paris.42 This reaction was another aspect of the ideological debate between “La civilisation” and “Der Kultur,” because most public campaigns were against French influences, or the “bonjourists” as the young intellectuals were called by their detractors. As for the Romanians from the Hungarian Kingdom, the Hungarian influence was considered dangerous because it was supported by an official assimilation policy directed against the non-Hungarian nationalities. In both cases, education was not a main concern for the critics of foreign influences, but it became so after an exchange of critical articles between Iorga and Goga about the Romanian steeled youth from Hungary.43 Yet, while Iorga was a respected university professor,44 Goga, who was disappointed by his studies, renounced his professional career in favour of being a writer. Their relation and attitude towards education were definitively different. Accordingly, for Goga, education was a real danger. First, because the young pupils were taken away from their home and forced to live in a city, an alien environment that was dangerous for their health. Second, because the school instilled elements of Hungarian culture into their defenceless souls. Yet, for Goga, there was a problem in applying Carlyle’s “theories of heroes” and the ideology of peasantism simultaneously. On the one hand, the nation’s history is the history of its great men, and on the other hand it is a history of the peasantry because Romanian society only recently knew the modern class differentiation.45 For this dilemma, the youth was a solution, particularly those young intellectuals like Vlaicu who had originated from 41

For the French influence on the Romanian culture see the work of Pompiliu Eliade, which has the advantage of being an account from before the Sămănătorist movement. Pompiliu Eliade, De l’influence française sur l’esprit public en Roumanie (Paris: 1989); and Histoire de l’esprit publique en Roumanie au dix-neuvième siècle (Paris: 1905). However, Eliade’s position is in favor of French influence and fought against the Sămănătorism of behalf of the liberals. See P. Eliade, Sămănătorul de neghină [The Sower of Weed], (Bucharest: 1906). He even published a review entitled Sămănătorul de ură [The Sower of Hate], parody of Sămănătorul, with exactly the same format and graphic. 42 About the nineteenth century Romanian student trajectory in the German universities, see the studies of Elena Siupiur. 43 See above chapter 4, §2. 44 Iorga became deputy professor in 1894 when he was twenty three years old, and a year later full professor. 45 This was a leitmotif in Goga’s articles. See his “Ţăranul în literatura noastră poetică,” “Adevărul,” “Curente de idei în literatura Ardeleană dela 1848 până în zilele noastre” already mentioned.

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Romanian villages. These were the heroes, the precursors of the Romanian nation. They were the ones who would restore the racial (inborn) traits of the Romanian nation because of their unmediated relationship with the original, “uneducated,” ancestral heritage of the nation. This is a profound sense of “renewal” or “freshening” (primenire) permanently used by Goga. The Romanian nation should be cleaned, renewed, refreshed, and reawakened in order to restore to it the archetypal spiritual qualities of the race. A freshening is needed, because the present moral level, which leads us only towards the worst, should be broken…; only in this way could we see our descendants with the joy of curing the evil, as in an epoch of transitory weakness, which is an incidental result of the turbulences of the reawakening period [we pass through] but which did not become a racial weakness through continuous propagation.46

Duiliu Zamfirescu in his poetry and contributions to Convorbiri Literare was a vehement critic of the populist tendency of Sămănătorul, Ţara noastră, Luceafărul.47 Of him, Goga wrote that “he is so far from our way of being that we can say that here there is not only a difference of class perception but a gulf of evident racial differences.”48 Except for other references to Hungarian politicians, there were a few other mentions of race and no theoretical templates of the idea of race in Goga’s articles. However, there are two relevant articles about Hungarian culture in which Goga began to elaborate his notion of race, a notion that he often used after the First World War in his public speeches and editorials. Goga’s idea of race was not occasioned by Romanian but by Hungarian culture, which he considered to be populated by Jews. Therefore, these articles will be discussed in a further section regarding the “idea of the Jew.” Before these, there are three other “ideas” which illuminate the direct implications of the “idea of race.” § 3. The Idea of National Energy For an “ideology of culture” in which inherited traits are considered valuable while those acquired by education, particularly a foreign education, are useless 46

Goga, “3/15 Mai. Ei și noi,” 177. Goga takes into consideration the possibility of racial alteration when the historical circumstances are unfavorable for a longer period of time. 47 See his famous Romanian Academy reception speech when, contrary to any custom, he decided to deliver a fierce philippic against populism in literature instead of praising his predecessor. Duiliu Zamfirescu, Poporanismul în literatura: discurs rostit la 16 (29) maiu 1909, (Bucharest: Institutul de Arte Grafice “Carol Göbl", 1909). 48 Goga, “Ciocoismul vine la noi,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 159 (July 22/ August 4, 1911): 2.

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and even harmful, cultural imports are often seen as undesirable, because they falsify the authentic culture of the people as it had been passed down over the centuries. Taking this view, each people has its own “hearth of culture,” its own soul, and cannot share with other people its culture without being in danger of degeneration or even extinction. In other words, culture is national and cannot be otherwise (i.e. cosmopolitan) if it is an authentic culture. At the end of the century, writings on philosophy of culture flourished across Europe alongside this line of argumentation. Romanians were extremely receptive to this current. In 1904, Constantin Rădulescu-Motru published an influential essay on Romanian Culture and Politicianism, in which he made a merciless critique of the current political culture. Where there is no (national) culture, there is only barbarity, where there is barbarity, there is only selfish individualism, and where there is individualism, there are only egoist politicians who do not care about the fate of their nation but only about their wealth.49 In other words, contemporary politicians could not assure a national leadership and a national policy because they lacked culture, an argument that resembles the case raised by the Tribunists against the National Committee in 1911. According to Rădulescu-Motru, there are three forms of culture: pseudoculture, semi-culture, and authentic culture. Pseudo-culture is a state of barbarity superficially “painted” with cultural ornaments that are imported from other cultures. Under pseudo-culture there is disharmony, cynicism, permanent agitation, no profundity, a permanent lie, a lack of energy, and no creation able to shake the soul of the people. Such individuals, out of their pseudo-cultivated societies, we can find in all the great Europeans capitals like Paris, London, or Berlin. From here, they entertain in their former country the continuous flow of foreign influences; they are the apostles of the universal pseudo-culture.50

Another state of culture is semi-culture. It is only a transitional stage from barbarity to culture. According to Rădulescu-Motru, in a semi-cultivated society there is a visible lack of harmony, a disparity of soulful tendencies, and a discontinuity of the social consciousness, but this is not because of the culture’s falsification but rather its incompleteness. In such a society, it is possible to see “complete individuals.” From these two kinds of quasi-culture, the true culture is profoundly different because it offers to its respective people the means for attaining a strong individuality. Within a true culture

49

C. Rădulescu-Motru, “Cultural Română şi politicianismul,” 1st ed. In 1904, Scrieri politice, (Bucharest: Nemira, 1998): 72-84. 50 Ibid., 77.

258 all the traits of society, all the great and original works emerged out of its soul and are summarized. The perfect culture decides the permanent differences among nations, which is the highest manifestation of individuality. Its elements are the masterpieces of nature; they are the justification of the human life itself. 51

After creating such a framework of analysis, Rădulescu-Motru examines the situation in which the Romanians find themselves. His conclusion is that the Romanians are in a state of semi-culture but because of their leaders who profess a cultural mimetism, they tend towards a pseudo-culture. Or, without a true culture, the Romanians are deprived of a historical sense, legitimate authority and solidarity that are the natural consequences of culture. What must be done under such circumstances? Rădulescu-Motru states that the answer is given by “the application of psychological laws in the problem of culture.” In the same way that the unity of the individual is not a substantial unity but a unity of a soulful function, as Wilhelm Wundt discovered, the cultural unity of the people is a necessary condition for the development of a unique and genuine individuality.52 In nature, a living organism has a complex system of functions that follows an initial design. The vital energy has an irreversible course toward fulfilling this initial plan, and this direction decides the type of the organism and its individuality.53 This is precisely what happens with a people. There is an initial plan that should be fulfilled, and in order to do so, all of the people should unite their souls in a harmonious effort toward this ideal. This effort of creating a “unity of consciousness,” the best weapon that a man may have, is the element that can transform a population into a nation. Rephrasing this culturalist interpretation, the Romanians had ab origine native characteristics, as did any barbaric people (pre-historical), a particular mythological way of thinking, and a certain historical destiny. Few nations are able to fulfil their destiny. Some people remain in a state of semi-culture, others decay into a state of pseudo-culture, and both vanish after they are conquered by other nations. The Romanians are in position of deciding whether they want to disappear or to dramatically change their culture. The national energy, which drives the social body towards the fulfilment of its historical destiny, is the youth. They realized the discrepancy between the essence and the form of Romanian culture. During the period of their university studies, the Romanian students saw a similar phenomenon in the decay of western civilization, and

51

Ibid, 73. Ibid., 99-103. 53 Ibid., 101. 52

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they decided to return to their roots, to militate against the pseudo-culture of the current leaders and to help their co-nationals to fulfil their culture. These young intellectuals, having a close relation with the Romanian people due to their social origins, could recognize more easily the true direction that Romanian culture should follow. They were the national energy which eventually would fulfil the destiny of the Romanians. These general ideas about the nation, culture and historical destiny had a particular meaning for the Hungarian Romanians. They found in this theory an argument against the forced Magyarization policy of the Hungarian state. Enforcing the Hungarian language in Romanian primary schools was seen as a direct attack on Romanian culture and thus on the very existence of the Romanian people. Everything should be done to prevent the dissemination of this pseudo-culture among the Romanians. One of these “steeled young men” was Onisifor Ghibu, the younger colleague and friend of Goga, and constant contributor to Tribuna. After studying in Budapest, Strasbourg, and Jena54 where he earned a doctoral degree, he came back to Sibiu where, besides his official career as a school referent, he joined the Tribunist circle. He wrote an impressive number of articles about the schools, national education, and the necessity of opposing the measures taken by the Hungarian government.55 At the same time, he openly advocated the need for a freshening of Romanian culture in terms that resembled Rădulescu-Motru and many other thinkers of the period. Our culture is at best a conglomerate of different elements good and bad, serious and ridiculous, solid and superficial. From these kinds of elements, it results that we did not entirely realize that our culture should spring from ourselves, and that it must be national in the truer sense of the word. Instead of creating, we copied, and instead of watering ourselves from a fresh spring, we ran to a puddle with foul water. Instead of beginning from our nature/ temperament, he followed others and, unfortunately, these others were not some skilled artisans but some ordinary bunglers. Two moments should be important for our cultural life: first, it should be based on our ethnic life and, second, graduating our schools to not directly enter in those of our bungling neighbours, but to direct our

54

His autobiography contains useful details for reconstructing his intellectual sources. See O. Ghibu, Pe baricadele vieţii, (Cluj: Dacia, 1891). 55 His articles are partially colleted in a volume but most of them remain not reedited. They are difficult to be identified because most of them are unsigned or sighed with a pseudonym used by others as well (for example “a friend of the school). See O. Ghibu, Nu din partea aceea, (Bucharest: Eminescu, 1985).

260 attention towards the true centres of enlightenment from which, watering ourselves, we can became what our genius pretends to be ….56

However appealing these calls for the rediscovery of “our ethnic life” may have been, the problem was that they were expert reports addressed to experts. These articles were not easily followed by ordinary people, being too technical and including too many references to German philosophy, pedagogy, social thinking, etc. It was embarrassing to advocate a return to ethnic specificity using German sources. To make an attempt at the seduction of the public opinion these ideas had to be indigenized, refined and presented as an original and autochthonous interpretation of reality. This was the role of Goga and the other writers of the younger generation whose mission was to create those masterpieces able to “shaken the public opinion,” or to give the Romanians the right of speaking in front of the great empires. As Rădulescu-Motru noticed, “there is no education before textbooks,” and there is no cultural unity before a nationalist direction in culture. After the professors had spoken, identifying the social malaise, it was the time for writers to speak out in the name of their people. Professors and writers, both close to the “hearth of culture,” as Iorga put it, were the heroes of this transformation of Romanian culture, assuring the fulfilment of its destiny. The writer as a champion of national culture was a common personage during the last decades of the nineteenth century. However, there was one writer who is paradigmatic for the present discussion. This was the case of Maurice Barrès, who published in 1897 his widely known novel Les déracinés, as a part of the trilogy Le Roman de l’énergie nationale. Barrès relies upon a notion of culture that covered the most profound expression of an authentic, unified people, and he used this notion as a political weapon.57 According to Carroll, “Barrès’ vision of France as a unified spiritual totality depends on the myth of an original, authentic national culture, which is presented as an alternative to social and political disharmony and the “decadence” of the nation

56

O. Ghibu, “Primenirea culturii noastre,” in Nu din partea aceea, 71. Typically for such collections of articles edited during the communist period, the end of the second paragraph was censored. There Ghibu depicts how the Chinese went to Japan to see where from they got their strength that allowed them to defeat the Russian empire. The article originally appeared in Biserica şi şcoala, XXXIII, no. 33 (August 16/29, 1909): 1-2. It is worth mentioning that the review was under the direction of Roman Ciorogariu. 57 Carroll’s interpretation of Barrès is relevant for the following parallel Barrès-Goga. See David Carroll, “The Use and Abuse of Culture: Maurice Barrès and the Ideology of the Self,” in French Literary Fascism, 19-41.

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in modernity,”58 allowing him to identify the enemies of the nation among those who do not share the same notion of culture: the uprooted. There are two characteristics of this notion of culture that are relevant: tradition and aesthetic. On the one hand, Carroll acknowledges that tradition plays an analogous function to race in racist theories by offering cultural typologies of what it is to be French.59 The normative role is crucial for understanding this notion of culture, which is inherited and not acquired. On the other hand, Carroll recognizes that this normative role is essentially aesthetic. The culturalist nationalism of Barrès postulates the unity of taste and aesthetic values as a criterion for identifying the foreign, the uprooted and the native. One nation, one culture, and one set of aesthetic values are the coordinates of the same comprehensive unity/totality of culture as a specific self-sufficient world, which later was a source of inspiration for totalitarianism: one people, one nation, one state, one party, one leader, etc. The Barrèsian Nation-Self is mirrored by Goga’s National Soul which constitutes, as Carroll notices, “a world, that is, a culture into itself.” However, there is a notional tension regarding this Self. On the one hand, it has the necessary unity and totality that make it a world sufficient to itself. On the other hand, “the Self is never complete or fully formed,… is always in the process of creating itself and defending itself in its war against the others.”60 At the bottom, it is a Hegelian scheme: the National Idea is or shall be embodied in the National Culture of the present.61 This Idea, which is the collective Self in the case of Barrès, is “the starting point from which to build a new sense of morality (and politics) and a new feeling of national unity, a new or renew cultural identity.”62 Those who are expected to be the heroes of such a 58

Ibid., 20-21. Ibid., 30. Carroll is not entirely correct when he sees this unifying principle as discovered or invented; it was only borrowed from a corpus of works on this matter that was already overwhelming at that moment. 60 Ibid., 23. 61 Lucian Blaga explains how the Hegelian conception is applied for the national culture. “For Hegel, culture is the accomplishment of the absolute spirit and the historical stages of culture are as many as the phases of the dialectical evolution of the Idea itself, of the Divine Logos. Thus, the human being and his creation substitutes and identifies, according to Hegel, the Divinity. Man is the great highway of Divinity, or of the universal rationality.” Further, Blaga underlines that in his philosophy of culture, there is no Logos but Noos which does not have anything in common with the Hegelian Logos because it is unconscious. This explanation offered by Blaga, elucidates how Culture ceased to be the historical embodiment of the universal rationality and became a manifestation of national irrationality. See L. Blaga, Geneza metaforei şi sensul culturii, 1st ed in 1937, (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1994): 188. 62 Ibid., 22. 59

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transformation are the young people, because they are yet not contaminated by the previous civilization and they represent social vitality. The youth are the symbol of change par excellence and, under these circumstances, are easily equated with national energy. Yet, there is another reason. They represent the guarantee for the authenticity of the ethnic origin of the Self, because this Self is ethnic, autochthonous, inherited, and in possession of all the attributes of a racial characteristic. In the case of Goga, the national soul, peasantry and national energies were intimately connected. The peasants, who lived in a patriarchal world, cut off from the outside, offered the greatest promises of a new resurrection and a dramatic change of direction in Romanian politics. He repeatedly referred to this combination of traditional dignity, patriarchal relation and popular vigour as a source for a cultural freshening and even a revolution. The followings are only a few instances in which he praised these ethnic energies. The soul of our peasantry gradually regenerates itself and raises itself freshened from the dark of the historical humiliation. The old weaknesses are thrown away as some bad clothes and, instead of them, [they are replaced with] the surplus of physical energy of a people, which has lived in the healthy [condition] of patriarchal relations, begetting the moral baptism of cultural growth.63 Each political action should be determined by the public spirit of a people. And this Romanian People with its repulsing vigour did not reach yet the epoch of degeneration when its existence is supported by negotiations. This time is not a time for dealers. This people is imbued more and more with energies, the blast of which will crush the small souls.64 The people, which at the first call quivered and followed the voice of duty, has vigour and boldness, impetuousness and a storm in its soul. A half million of soldiers, who raise themselves from their peasant hearths and in a week cross the Danube, is a symbol of national energy.65

In spite of his lack of an elaborated theory or doctrine, these represent the sources of a revolutionary disposition in Goga that became overwhelming after the First World War, when he radicalized his political position and claimed to represent the National Revolution. However, the national energies sought the same petty politicians with small souls who would “deal” the faith of the Romanians. The serial crises of the 1930s were the perfect context for such a 63

Goga, “Cinstea cârjii,” in Însemnările unui trecător, 79. Goga, “Micii negustori,”in Însemnările unui trecător, 121. 65 Goga, “Zile mari,” in Românul, III, no. 151 (July 12/25, 1913): 1-2. 64

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radicalization, but what is important is that the main elements of his political vocabulary and his vision of politics as a cult of national culture were already formed before the war. § 4. The Idea of National Union The logic of the national idea, which arose from an atemporal tradition in order to embody itself in the national culture, is based on the unifying principle of the uniqueness of the people. As in the case of Xenopol’s concept of race or Rădulescu-Motru’s understanding of culture, the individuality of the national culture is of paramount importance. “Breeding” the national idea needed a concerted effort against anything that was foreign or strange to this idea. An imagined wartime dialogue with a French officer illustrates this kind of purging of the national spirit. The military doctor was unimpressed by a young man reciting Baudelaire and when he was questioned by a young lady from the Red Cross about his attitude he replied: While your young friend Vasilesco recited the poem, I was thinking on an interesting question. I was thinking of the delightful surprise of our French companions when they found you, who are not only politically attached to France but after whom the French culture modelled its caprices…. We were surprised by your bilingualism, and we wondered how is possible that a whole society is driven by such an unusual talent for a foreign language?... but soon we had a small deception, flattering somehow for our pride, put in a strange light by your national feeling. We heard that your abilities in using our language are partially because some of you speak better French than Romanian…. Under other circumstances, we would have been glad of such a thing. Today, when we are allies in a war, we see these things in their profound meaning. We are surprised by your role as intellectual colonists of France, but in this epoch of exultation of national feeling, we would like to see you conscious of your own pain. Because, you see, the idea of sacrifice is always related with the love for our own home rather than with the racial sympathies. And the grave of your parents, my gentlemen, is by far closer to your soul than the Dôme des Invalides which is the full property of France and only secondly of yours and of humanity….

264 This isolation from your people has the property of putting yourself in soulful disagreement with the surrounding world, without the possibility of a vivid relationship with the actuality of a faraway medium, the influence of which cannot touch you at distance. From this misunderstanding a fatal moral anachronism is born.66

This fragment is relevant because it is one of the most elaborated arguments imagined by Goga, and because of its reference to France, which was not seen as an enemy at all. Isolation is the key word. In order to oppose the cosmopolitan pseudo-culture, the national culture should be isolated from all other cultures, enabling the restoration of the primordial unity of culture and society. Foreign influences falsify a culture, causing a “fatal moral anachronism.” This is why the young generation should return to the people, to the sources of their culture. Anything else is corrupted by contact with other cultures and is therefore dangerous. A return to the peasantry is a restoration of the primordial cultural and social unity. The popular feeling is considered the window toward this immanent popular soul. It is not by accident that the poet should be the prophet of the new culture, because he knows better the way to the soul of his people, he knows the feelings of this people, and he can work better than others with a “collective lyricism”67 that is able to blast the inner energies of the nation. From immemorial times until recently, our people from this country had lived through a single social layer: the peasantry. The same sufferings, the same beliefs tormented the poor ploughmen bound to the soil allover this land. United by the incitements of the same life, the same customs, the serfs of “Romanian law” had a single bed for their thoughts and hopes, and on Mureş, Târnave and the Criş rivers, in their little white houses covered with straw, only one soul lived in thousands of fragments. The soul of this people was as the surface of a lake from “our mountains”. The sun was evenly illuminating the water’s surface and waking up the same reflections, and the storm was muddying the deep and a drop from this vast surface of water might have elucidated you about its secret. Our people were a unity.68

66

Goga, “Să vorbească frontul…,” in România, I, no. 18 (February 19, 1917): 1. This expression was used by Edgar Papu in a work published in a posthumous volume. See Edgar Papu, “Lirismul Colectiv,” in Excurs prin literature lumii, (Bucharest: Eminescu, 1990): 7-25. This idea of a collective feeling of the nation is overwhelming, though most of the time remained only implicit, in the Romanian culture. There are “feelings” considered to be typically Romanian (“dor”) which is untranslatable because of this; there are popular kind of versification which are typically Romanian too (“doină”), etc. 68 Goga, “Adevărul,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 2 (May 11, 1908): 163. 67

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This was the core meaning of cultural unity. On the one hand a young intellectual who knew French better than Romanian, and on the other, the soul of the nation that was until recently as the surface of a lake. The metaphor of the lake or the sea was often used by Goga in his articles and poems. Some commentators referred to Goga’s lyricism, melancholy, and contemplative inclinations, but nobody noticed the mutual contamination between his articles and poems. For example, his poem “The Dead Sea” can be read as a metaphor for the disappearance of the Tribunist movement at the beginning of 1912: The sailors say the sea is death From ancient times the water is widowed by its life There is any drop of soul carried by its waves And on the Dead Sea nobody rows. … What a sad story, the sailors says, I wouldn’t believe these words, maybe, But, my poor mind in the passion of pain, I am thinking to you and I understood the story…69

Is it an exaggeration or not? It would be another project to identify the water-like metaphors within Goga’s works. The lake, the sea, the waves, the water’s surface, the deep, and the open sea are used in various ways, mostly describing a certain political context. Yet, there are concrete examples in which Goga himself indicates such a reading. For example, in the following fragment he compares society and the sea: It is an old and quite common comparison between society and a permanently agitated sea. It is one of the most suggestive. Eternal unrest is the foundation of both, when the quiet kneading or the mad storm torments them alike. But the resemblance can be carried further into the smallest details. See, for example, how the surface makes clear in both cases the mystery of the deep. If you look to the waves that the sea surfaces you understand what sleeps in her august bosom. You know if it is peace or sirocco approaching. Then, you have a look at the people surfaced by a certain epoch and you realize what passions kneaded the society of those times.70

There is an entire symbolism of water employed by Goga because the water covers the deep, its surface hides the soulful profundity, and its calm announced the coming storm. On the other hand, water remains the same whatever volume it fills. It is a perfect match for the collective soul which remains the same in all individuals who are part of the same people. At a certain moment, Goga 69 70

Goga, “Mare moartă,” in Luceafărul, XI, no. 28 (September 1, 1912): 549. Goga, “Un suflet frumos,” in Însemnările unui trecător, 256.

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mentioned a sort of anamnesis of the serene peasant life that any intellectual would have at a certain moment. Mysterious and powerful is the root of the human soul in his native land... The recollection of his childhood years, [spent] on the shingle of a certain village sowed on the side of a hill, does not stop... The recollections remain and shine in the deep of the soul as pearls on the bottom of water. Being stirred by a wave, they surface, cheering and worrying us for a moment. We, all the learned people of the Romanian people, settled with our duties throughout this motley country, although we lost, intentionally or not, the visible relation with our peasantry, we often feel their echoes in our souls.71

Cultural unity means in the last instance the complete harmony of the people, regardless of their social status, the restoration of the primordial patriarchal unanimity on the great problems of the people, and the recreation of an active coherence of the leaders within the spirit of their people. It is a political unity because it refers to the political organization and leadership of the national movement. As mentioned in the previous chapters, the Tribunist movement for the “freshening” of Romanian culture and society was a movement for exchanging the current leaders of the National Party with younger people who would able to restore this soulful unity of the nation. The young people are the energy of the nation because they represent the means of self-regeneration of the national body. However, mostly after the First World War there was another political unity inferred that was concerned with the “torments of the Romanian soul under a foreign yoke.” It was the political union of Transylvania with the Romanian Kingdom. The Cultural League had from its beginning a program to restore the unity of the nation.72 This unity was first of all cultural. They were people who envisioned the idea of a political union but most of its members understood their mission in cultural terms, as described above. This was not the only way of avoiding a conflict with the crown and with the political establishment on the matter of the alliance with Austria-Hungary, but in some cases it was a manifestation of a deep conviction that the Romanian Kingdom must have good relations with the Hungarians because both were in between the Slavs and

71 72

Goga, “La podmol,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 22 (May 27, 1907): 359. Italics are mine. ***, “Manifestul ligei pentru unitatea românilor,” in Voinţa naţională, VIII, no. 1892 (January 25 / February 6, 1891): 2; As Seton Watson noticed, many times the name of the league was erroneously called the “League for the Union of all Romanians.” Seton-Watson, The Racial problem in Hungary, 180.

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the Germans, and were thus in danger of disappearing.73 There were few Hungarian Romanians who envisioned the fate of their countrymen separated from the Habsburg Empire, most of them being young graduates of the University of Bucharest who happened to attend Iorga’s course.74 Under the directorship of Tăslăuanu, Luceafărul was one of the few reviews with a visible irredentist program and Goga was more or less contaminated by the enthusiasm of the others. He even made a reckless gesture when he toasted to the political unity of the Romanians,75 yet in his articles he made few allusions to such a unification. As Popovici noticed, Goga’s repulsive energy was exercised rather against the members of the committee than against the Hungarians. At the end of the scandal and the disappearance of Tribuna, Goga went to Paris where he worked on his play Mr. Notary and on his volume of poetry From under the shadow of the walls. He wrote few articles for Românul in this period and he did not allude to any irredentist tendencies. On the contrary, on the occasion of the death of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, he described the event as a “national catastrophe.”76 For him, the Romanians had a historic instinct to orient their expectations towards the imperial throne. While their expectations were mercilessly contradicted, the heir or the crown was a hope for change because “he understood the importance of the Romanian people as a support for the monarchy…. This soulful prop was a real compass of our political consciousness.” He was killed by “the browning (gun) of an imbecile,” a fanatic and exalted pupil. We can promise that the Romanian people, whose feelings of soulful unity were never so strong as they are now, whose consciousness of justice for its cause is equal to its regret for the dead, our people will look with the same attachment and faith to the monarch from tomorrow, if he will build on the same foundation as the deceased.77

These are not lines written by the irredentist activist presented by many commentators on Goga’s public career. However, at a certain moment, Goga decided to go to Bucharest and join the efforts of the Cultural League. It is most likely that he was convinced by Barbu Delavrancea who did everything

73

This is the case of A. D. Xenopol who exposed his theory in an article that caused a lot of sensation at that time. See A. D. Xenopol, “Politique de races” Roma: Cronache della Civilità Elleno-Latina, 1903). 74 It was the case of Tăslăuanu. See Tăslăuanu, Testimonies, 298-300. 75 The episode described by Ghibu, happened at the jubilee of Familia q. v. the note 75, chapter 3. 76 Goga, “O catastrofă naţională,” in Românul, IV, no. 77 (April 6/19, 1914): 1-2. 77 Ibid., 2.

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possible to acclimatize Goga to Bucharest. At the end of May 1914 Delavrancea proposed to the Romanian Academy that it should elect Goga as a correspondent member,78 and he offered him the opportunity to publish his articles in Epoca. After the success of Goga’s play on the stage of the National Theatre,79 and seeing the reaction of the Hungarian authorities who banned his volume and charged him with the libel of anti-Hungarian agitation, Goga was more inclined to move to Bucharest where his career would have been assured. At outbreak of war, military mobilization, his refusal to enlist into the AustroHungarian Army, the inevitable charge against him and his conviction were altogether many reasons to reconsider the opportunity to continue his life in Bucharest. There were many friends ready to welcome him and to offer him a prominent position in the Cultural League. This actually happened on 14 December, when the Congress of the League appointed Goga to the League’s executive committee. At the same time, Goga wrote a letter to the National Committee of the Romanian National Party asking them to accept his resignation because the political platform of the party limited his intentions to promote the political unity of the Romanian people. Only then did the ideal of Greater Romania become manifest in his writings. § 5. The Idea of Authority The cultural foundation of politics, in the way previously described, had a direct consequence on the emergence of a new type of leadership legitimacy. The members of the committee, most of whom were lawyers or medical doctors, had an empiric legitimacy as the social elite of the Romanians. They enjoyed the institutional and financial independence accorded by their liberal professions, and were therefore able to involve themselves in political activities. They, as notables, had an inherent local legitimacy that was largely based on the peasants’ traditional respect for the learned people (gentlemen). There was no need to prove their qualities or to earn the public’s respect, because they were in a “natural” way the notables of society. Precisely this kind of “natural” legitimacy was criticized by the Tribunists. They asked why these people deserved respect, what these people had done to enjoy such respect, and why others who are able to do much more for the national cause were not respected. In other words, the Tribunists asked for a normative legitimacy 78

Barbu Şt. Delavrancea, “Expunere asupra activităţii literare a lui Octavian Goga,” in Opere [Works], vol. 5 Publicistică, Emilia Şt. Milicescu (ed.), (Bucharest: Minerva, 1969): 531-532 79 It was played on February 16, 1914.

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according to the imperatives of the national culture. During the scandal, these questioned recurred. Initially, the reason for questioning the authority of the National Party came from the relatively important number of defections from the party, which allegedly represented the entire Romanian people. There were the cases of Burdea and his Lupta, Emil Babeş, then Mangra, Slavici, and Brote. What had the party done to prevent such treasons? Nothing. What did other Romanian institutions do? Nothing or even worse. For example, in 1908 Telegraful Roman called Babeş “a loyal son of the Romanian nation and adherent of the nationalist peace.” Then Goga reacted: Those who are in the chair of this institution must realize that in any circumstances they cannot distance themselves from the norms imposed by the general spirit, the consciousness of the community on which this institution is built. They know, they must know because at the moment when the head of such an establishment turns away from this route, he destroys the only pedestal of his authority.80

In 1910 Mangra found a place for himself on the government electoral list. Everybody was shocked and Goga “decapitated” him, as he mentioned so many times: Considering him (Mangra) an exponent of the national idea, endangered in a corner of this country, people have gifted him with all the attributes of a leader and have strengthened as much as possible the pedestal of his moral authority. This judgment opened his way toward bishophood.81

Apparently, these kinds of reactions were inoffensive for the party leadership. However, the very notion of authority “built on the general spirit” was one of Tribuna’s most used arguments against the members of the committee. Almost all Goga’s articles are applications of this principle of authority rooted in the public spirit. “The intellectualization of our Politics,” “The Triumph of the idea,” and “The appreciation of the valuable people in our society,” are only few examples mentioned in the previous chapter, regarding this understanding of political authority. It was to Popovici’s merit that he was only one who realized this changed understanding of the notion of authority, and he reacted to it in his personal way. “If a poet or a lutenist sings very

80

Goga, “Apariţii ciudate,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 35 (August 24/September 6, 1908): 283-284. The institution in question is the Orthodox Church. Goga criticize here Telegraful roman, the official organ of the Orthodox Church, for its position regarding the political enterprise of Emil Burdea and his moderate party. 81 Goga, “Un falş Coriolan,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 80 (April 10/23, 1910): 1.

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nicely,” he argued, “it does not necessarily follow that an entire nation must follow the political ideas of the singer or the poet.”82 Besides this de-legitimation role, which was present throughout the Tribuna scandal, there was another role played by the idea of authority. It was the role of legitimizing a new type of leadership. The key question was, who are those who have the authority to lead the Romanians under all aspects of their public life? First, those who are young. Then, even if their parents are not peasants, those who originated in a village and are thus sensitive to the world of the Romanian peasants. Those educated, but not estranged from their people. The foreign school strengthened their revulsion at foreign civilization, and enhanced their will to return to their roots, to “re-peasant-ize” themselves. Once they returned to their roots, these steeled young men were prone to embracing Romanian traditions, customs, and laws within public life and the dissemination of them as widely as possible among the masses. Under fortunate conditions when the spirit of the people surfaced in the public life, then these young leaders would be the providential commanders of their people in the fight for justice and the historical rights of their ancient people. Such figures appear in history as the heroes of the great mass uprisings such as Horia or Iancu. One of the most inspiring examples is Petöfi who illustrated the poet-hero. As Carlyle established, the poet “could not sing the Heroic warrior unless he himself were at least a Heroic warrior too.”83 Petofi was such a poet. Goga enthusisastically translated his poems, one of which was prophetic of the kind of death the poet had chosen: I feel a fear that is laying down in my soul: To die in a bed with the head on the pillows! … Oh, gracious Lord in heaven, Another death I ask for me! … There I want to fall myself On the battlefield!84

Petöfi was a hero and Goga emulated his great example of self-sacrifice. In 1916, he joined the Romanian Army but after the disaster of Turtucaia, where

82

Popovici, “The Type of the Mellow Smatterer,” 2. Carlyle, 67-68. 84 A. Petöfi, “În suflet simt o teamă cum s-aşterne,” translation by O. Goga, in Luceafărul, III, no. 24 (December 15, 1904): 404; and republished in Luceafărul, XI, no. 31 (November 16, 1912): 676. Petöfi died (missed in combat) in 1848 in the battle from Világos (Şiria) against the Russian army. 83

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he did not effectively participate in combat, he preferred less heroic activities as editor of the army daily newspaper Apărarea Naţională.85 Such heroic self-sacrifice in the name of his nation was a sign of a profound relation with the spirit of the nation. How else could a man find the power within himself to do such heroic deeds? Where did he find such strength of character, except from the spirit of his nation? Only those people who had an intimacy with their people, with their traditions and ancestors were capable of such heroism. In the last instance, Goga accused the members of the committee of not being heroic enough in the given circumstances and of lacking authority among their party members. Moreover, heroism, as the opposite of individualism and selfishness, was a mark of the highest and most authentic culture that established a relationship of authority and solidarity among a people, as Rădulescu-Motru explained.86 For Goga, heroism and, its ultimate form, self-sacrifice were manifestations of the sacred spirit of the nation, real hierophania in a world that had almost lost the spirit of the primordial community. Sacrifice and energy were necessary elements for a society if it was to gain its own consciousness, to develop its culture and fulfil its historical destiny. Sacrifice was not only the opposite but the negation of the individual and the manifestation of the community. There was no society which was not based on an original sacrifice, which bound people together around the same social values. We saw how the number of weak people increased and how they tried to legitimate their softly bending posture with the attitude of opportunism of our church hierarchs. We had started to see a moral crisis of our society in which the spirit of sacrifice seemed more often replaced by the impulses of a brutal selfishness, which is characteristic in times of political uncertainty and insecurity.87 Only those chosen can raise themselves to the moral level of a life of sacrifice and renouncement, finding their relief in their belief that through their sacrifice they opened the way for the next generations…. The impulses of utilitarianism burst out more powerfully than ever and the moral transformation of our society passes through a period of an acute crisis. 85

Goga was openly accused after the war of being a deserter but General Vlădescu, the commander of Goga at that time, denied such allegation. However, the argument brought by Goga that he was only a volunteer and not a soldier, was strange enough to raise some doubts about this episode. See Octavian Goga, Afirmarea ideii naţional-creştine, (Bucharest: Tipografia ziarului Universul, 1936) republished in Cristian Sandache, Doctrina naţionalcreştină în România, (Bucharest: Paideia, 1997): 103. 86 Rădulescu-Motru, “Romanian Culture and the Politicianism,” 72. 87 *** [Goga], Goga, ”Cuvântul arhiereilor,” in Ţara Noastră, III, no. 36 (September 6/19, 1909): 285.

272 A thing is certain: we don’t have anything to do other than enjoy this justification. Any stem is able to flourish and produce fruits only if it is cleaned of its rotten parts. Any fighting people should shake out the moral ballast if it wants to go further. Let us, the hungry people, sacrifice ourselves, and do not regret. A process of natural selection starts, the public morality is freshening. We remain fewer but cleaner, more stubborn, and more implacable in our fight. 88

Or, what kind of spirit of sacrifice might have been had by the members of the committee, and Romanian notables in general, if they were not able to sacrifice a modicum of money in order to support the publication of a cultural review by Romanian students, to sustain a more vivid activity of the Association; not to mention the schools endangered by the Apponyi law? It was a matter of life and death for the national spirit because, as Rădulescu-Motru warned, there were few nations that had reached a perfectly mature culture. In the case of individuals, a perfect culture is an ideal reached only by those chosen few. The majority of people would not reach a developed culture and most of them would remain in a stage of semi-culture, or worse, they could decay into a stage of pseudo-culture.89 Finally, there is another meaning to Goga’s use of “sacrifice”. A leader should build his authority on his altruism, and eventually on his self-sacrificing attitude, and the same was true about an entire society. Society, in order to prove its national energy and willingness for culture, should “weed” its rows, removing the weak and corrupted from its body. One fragment of an article is particularly relevant in this respect. It is a fresher tendency, a new incitement in our society, which generates these accents of revolt. It is the tendency of suppressing those uncalled for our public life, a kind of crepuscule of nullities, the aim of enthroning honesty and talent instead of speculative abilities. This regenerative drive of our society has been felt constantly by some chosen souls and now, through stepping up in the arena of a new generation, it shows up and asks for the floor. [The fact] that the movement began with the crush of the adventurer from the party gazette means that the fellow is the exponent of a kind, [people] who should be sacrificed because they are a more recent and more brutal incarnation of this cohort, who are sneaking around us and whom we have become sick of. This is why, the movement, once started, will last and strengthen further, no matter whether Birăuţ will sink again into obscurity or continue to write. We are interested by the plural of this ignoble fellow; in the same way that the thirty years war had started when three communal councillors were

88 89

Goga, “”Ne primenim,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 161 (July 31 / August 13, 1910): 1-2. Rădulescu-Motru, “Cultura română și politicianismul,” 71.

273 defenestrated from the city hall of Prague, here too there is announced an epoch of reforms, which are awaited by a newer stratum that steps up in the arena with a new ideal of life and work.90

There are a number of keywords in this fragment that are striking if they are compared with Goga’s extreme-right ideology of the 1930s. The first was the idea of sacrificing people, which is was metaphor on behalf of society. In complement, there were “chosen” people who could speak out in the name of their nation and could thus assume the authority in sacrificing people. Although the mention of the defenestration episode was quite a transparent allusion, ‘sacrifice’ did not necessarily equate to murder, but rather to the removal of people from the social body. Read in 1910 or in 1938, this paragraph remained consistent. The new generation, who “asked for the floor,” the “nullities that snake around,” the “new ideal of life” and the “revolt of the decent people” were constant recurrences during this period. These were precisely those recurrences avoided by nationalist commentators, who tended to admit “some” exaggerations in Goga’s political activity, while affirming that there were some grave circumstances under which Romanians searched for a solution.91 In fact, precisely these constitutive elements of the “idea of authority,” the divine election of the chosen people and their right of sacrificing the individual in the name of the nation, were the necessary ingredients for a radical nationalist ideology. In the political fight of a people, the leaders are consecrated by the general opinion, they are unveiled, and they are imposed by the communitarian feeling, which place them in the first rows. The public consciousness pushes them to the surface as the deep of the revolted sea pushes the army of the waves. The torment of a single individual is not decisive, but the belief of those many about the respective individual. But there is another problem of principle, which closes the way for Mr. Babeş in our public life. It is the truth that is affirmed, bolder than ever, that in our fighting people cannot have a leading position if they are not driven in their activity by a powerful content of national culture. We need notables whose souls are steeled in the sacred fire of a specifically Romanian culture, and leaders whose incitements originate in their consciousness of right and dignity, which can be lightened only by the soulful treasure of a people. Only such people can ask our attention in

90 91

Goga, “Îndemnuri noi”, Tribuna, XIV, no. 245 (November 14/27, 1910): 1. In 1997, ANTENA1 broadcasted a TV documentary entitled “Octavian Goga: historical controversies.” The guests of this film, Gh. I. Bodea, Liviu Groza, Mihai Fătu, Marcel Stirban, Dan Brudaşcu, Ioan Scurtu, Pan Vizirescu etc, used this strategy in order to exculpate Goga for his extreme right policy. On the same line of argumentation, there is the work of Fătu previously mentioned in the second chapter, Cu pumnii strânși.

274 these days, when our soulful abolishment is targeted in any way, because only they, with their advice, can show us the proper way for our aspirations. Those who do not have such qualities will be sacrificed or they will accept the role of gregarious people, who receive and fulfil orders.92

As mentioned before, Rădulescu-Motru coined the term “politicianism” in order to name the malaise of the Romanian state. Popovici as well opposed, in one of his articles, the politician to the statesman, and from this comparison the politician emerged in a negative position. The League of the Cultural Union of the Romanians was initially a reaction against a political establishment that was unable to properly address the question of the Romanians from Hungary. In turn, Tribuna’s campaign was a result of the disastrous 1910 elections in Hungary. In both cases, it seems that political incidents triggered the response of the national intelligentsia, but they were not accidental occurrences that paralleled the formation of public opinion and national consciousness. They are, and they were perceived as such, a clear manifestation of the traditional political elite. There were no longer statesmen such as Ion C. Brătianu in the Romanian Kingdom, or Tisza Kálmán in the Hungarian Kingdom, who were, first of all, “the king’s most trusted men.” In 1910, this was a mistake committed by Slavici, Brote and probably Mangra. All of them believed that István Tisza was the king’s most trusted man sent to solve the problem of nationalities. To some extent, it was true on behalf of the crown, but society was no longer ready to accept such a kind of legitimacy because the new concept of legitimacy was based on the national will and not on natural law. Yet there was a problem: to know the will of the people. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the meaning of the Romanian cultural movement was to offer a kind of divination, metaphorically speaking. Those people close to the “hearth of culture” could understand or feel the “instinct of the masses,” or the “ancestral incitements” about future, while the rest of the people, the “gregarious people,” who should only “receive and fulfil orders,” remained only at the surface of the deep sea of the Romanian soul. § 6. The Idea of Israel Speaking in the name of the young generation, Goga affirmed the necessity of sacrificing some people who proved, through their behaviour, that they had 92

Goga, “Diagnoza unui străin,” in The Notes of a Passerby, 208-209. Italic and bold in original.

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little in common with the “general spirit” of the people, and even offended it through their selfishness, materialist interests, and parvenu attitudes. Sacrificing them was a figure of speech referring to a public ban of these people from public life, i.e. politics and journalism. Besides these people, like Birăuţ, Mangra, Şenghescu, etc., there were a number of others, less visible, who in their petty positions harmed the “general spirit” of the Romanians. Then it was not only a problem of some egotists, but a state of mind shared by a certain social segment. This implied that the “sacrifice” of these people was not limited only to the public sphere but it implied a censorship of the social body. And indeed, if cultural and social life were freshened by the “new incitements” of the steeled young Tribunists, then certain regrettable aspects of the lives of the notable, “gentlemen” or learned people, should cease to exist. In the background of the freshening movement was a deeply rooted aim to reform the entire society. Some behaviours were considered undesirable for the new national culture and society that would be enthroned. At the same time, those who were unwilling to renounce such behaviours were considered additionally undesirable to participate in the great cultural union of all Romanians. What has this to do with the Jews? For someone like Goga, seeking for an ethnic construction of the cultural life of Romanians, obviously, they were doomed to exclusion from the very beginning. The problem of the Jews was that they were not just like other nations.93 According to the speculative theories advanced by the philosophy of cultures, centred on race, culture, nation, etc., the Jews were not at all a nation but the antonym of a nation.94 They were perceived as the greatest danger for a nation because their example 93

All the theoretical works about race, culture, and nation had to explain the extra-ordinary character of the Jews. For example, A. D. Xenopol, in his Fundamental Principles of History, gave the example of the Jews when he came to the problem of national character. He explained that the Jews abandoned themselves to the commercial practices during the medieval period because of their precarious condition among other people. See Xenopol, Principes fondamentaux…, 184. In his Politics of Race, Xenopol define the Semite as a community of blood and race, explaining that this combination made language a second rank element of the national character of the Jews. See Politique de races, 14-16. 94 This dichotomy was very flexible and knew many forms of manifestations according to each political orientation. However, for the present discussion, the work of A. C. Cuza, Nationalism in Art, is particularly relevant because was the official interpretation of Sămănătorul. He was highly praised in the pages of Tribuna where he incidentally published couple of articles. See A. C. Cuza, “Chemarea Universităţii noastra,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 244 (November 6/19, 1911): 1-2; and A. C. Cuza, “Scăderea populaţiei evreieşti din România (interview),” in Tribuna, XV, no. 264 (December 2/15, 1911): 1-2. At the same time, when Cuza was accused of plagiarism, he was immediately defended by Tribuna. See Gh. Popp, “Plagiatul dlui A. C. Cuza,” in Tribuna, XVI, no. 26 (February 2/15, 1912): 1-2.

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could corrupt other people, as was considered to have been the case of the Hungarians Jews. The entire discussion about Hungarian cultural dominance was centred on the nature of this Hungarian culture. The general consensus on this matter was that, in fact, the Romanians do not face another nation that could possibly be more powerful than them, but they faced instead a corrupted nation that could corrupt the Romanians as well through their cultural preeminence.95 The Hungarians were corrupted because they allowed a coexistence with the Jews, and they would corrupt the Romanians in turn only if the Romanians would make the same mistake. The worries expressed by Goga and by his colleagues were caused precisely by this corruption of society by those individuals who, whether they were Jewish, Hungarian or Romanian, now shared the same qualities of being Semite. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Semitism was an exclusion principle for the idea of nation, and for a normative or restrictive understanding of the social body, the exclusion principle has at least the same importance as the inclusion principle. In the following sections, the emergence and the consequences of this exclusion principle is followed in Goga’s writings. At the same time, the intellectual sources and the meaning of Semitism are highlighted in order to offer a new insight into the constitutive elements of the literary antisemitism in Goga’s militant literature. a. The Rotten Society The early twentieth century, many intellectuals, grouped around reviews and leagues under the banner of national culture, shared an understanding of their society as decadent, corrupted, and rotten. A society that had all the attributes of the modern world, which was called “pseudo-culture” by Rădulescu-Motru, or an “uncultivated civilization” by A. C. Popovici, came under heavy criticism on behalf of those close to “the hearth of culture.” Not only scientists, social thinkers, political philosophers and historians but also writers joined these efforts of regenerating or resurrecting the spirit of their nation and the glory of their ancestors. Many studies from that period suggest a feeling of repulsion toward the modern world which was typical for neo-romantic sensibilities. However, this repulsion or disgust would not have been prominently

95

The idea of Hungarian inferiority was for the first time sustained by Aurel C. Popovici in his The United States of Great Austria (1906). His argument was that the assimilation is in the last instance a racial interbreeding, which cause degeneration, and that “interbred nations are known for their lack of character.” Thus, the assimilation policy of the Hungarian state goes against the Hungarian race, which is already weak because of the Jewish assimilation. In Popovici’s opinion, this is the main reason why Hungarians will never accomplish the Magyarization of Romanians.

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manifested without an immediate reason. This reason was the inadequacy of the newly emergent nation-state to the pre-existing ancient-regime type of political culture. This was the bottom line of the crisis, which was first a political crisis and not a cultural or a social one. In Vienna, on the portal of the Secession Building the young artists chose to engrave their motto: “To the age its art, to art its freedom.” Similarly, the Tribunists could have chosen for the palace of Tribuna a comparable motto: ‘to the age its politics, to politics its freedom.’ In other words, each age has its leaders and the key to understanding an age is to see the quality of the leaders or, vice-versa, if the necessary leaders are to be found, the age should first be understood. Moreover, freedom was interpreted as evading the limitations of incidental constraints of the daily materialist or selfish politics. The metaphor of the (sea) surface is at heart of this interpretation of society. If you what to understand the soulful aim of a historical period you do not have anything else to do than to look in the soul of the people who were surfaced by time…. searching their souls, you will understand the secrets of that age…. You have only to review the notables in order to understand the flock…. It is easily seen how the few who rose above the masses forged their soul wearing the mark of this muddy epoch. 96

Yet, this surface is not always clean. Sometimes trifles, lies, foreign influences, and waste float on this surface.97 Recently a certain conviction became predominant, that it is pernicious to let on the surface of political life such creatures, whose vulgar mercantilism cannot cause anything else than the corruption of the masses.98

In short, the “surface of the sea” is ambivalent. On the one hand, it carries the waves and the storms that came from the deep, and then the leaders are a manifestation of the spirit of their people. On the other hand, it carries the daily trash gathered on the surface because it is easier and it floats.99 In the same way, there are two kinds of leaders: those who are a sign of the present decadence floating on the surface, and those who feel the “incitements” of the 96

Goga, “Un suflet frumos,” 256. As it was mentioned by Goga in ”Vrem o credinţă,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 81 (April 10/23, 1911): 1-4. 98 Goga, “Mici negustori,” in Ţara Noastră, II, no. 5 (January 27, 1908): 37. 99 Following this metaphor, the surface reveal the turmoil of the deep only the open sea (“la larg”) and not on the shore where reflects only the temporary constrains. After the First World War, Goga used many time this idea of “the open sea” as an unrestricted domain of manifestation of the National Idea. 97

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deep and announce the changes that will come. For Goga, the scandal caused by Tribuna was a manifestation of the fight between the two kinds of leaders, between those “steeled in the sacred fire” of culture and those individuals driven only by selfishness. Who are those people who are selfish, materialist, corrupted, and career orientated? Where do they come from and how is possible for them to have success and even to enjoy some respect? Why does public opinion not crush them immediately? These are the main questions raised by Goga. The answer was at hand. These people are estranged from the soul of their people because of their foreign education. Not only their institutional education but also the world in which they lived gave them strange inclinations. Hungarian schools, a cosmopolitan city, a capitalist society, and the culture of law, epitomized by the modern (Hungarian) civilization, produced the estrangement of the Romanian upper social stratum, the gentlemen, from their natural cultural roots. Goga was revolted by the intimacy that many notables displayed with the Hungarian establishment while their relationship with ordinary people remained at best on the declarative level. Who are these people who dare to speak in the name of the nation while actually defiling the purity of the soul of their people? In Goga’s opinion, they were townsman, lawyers, merchants, and bankers. What did they have in common? The Hungarian or other foreign education was the immediate answer. All of them attained a remarkable level of abilities in trading, interpreting, bargaining and contracting things in their own interests. The merchant, the one who is born merchant, from a people who cannot do anything other than speculate in whatever activities they undertake; the merchant stirs the temptation of the poor sad man, who with his body and soul weakened, gives up and gets drunk before drinking.100

Goga’s antipathy towards the city and the city dwellers has been previously mentioned. If there was to be found somewhere a selfish, materialistic, corrupted and career oriented society, then only in a city could it be found, according to Goga. Yet, there was a personage able to personify all these vices of modernity, and this personage was the Jew. The Jew bargains for his merchandise,101 and “the utilitarian habit” is “characteristic for the dealing spirit of our Jewished capital.”102 The Jew is the insolent notary103 who, “as many other pants wearers (“nădrăgari”), shout on and pretend to be extraordinary in 100

G. [Goga], “Zile grele,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 12 (March 18, 1907): 184. See Goga, “La anticar,” in Luceafărul, I, no. 5 (September 1, 1902): 72-73. 102 Goga, “Expoziţia de Pictură a lui d-lui Oc. Smighelschi,” in Luceafărul, II, no. 24 (December 15, 1903): 396. 103 Goga, “Chemarea preoţimii noastre,” in Luceafărul, VI, no. 2-3 (February 1, 1907): 27-31 101

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face of the innocent peasants.” The “little Jews from the many lawyers’ offices of this country squeakily swear”104 offending decent people. The Jew is the intermediary between the peasants and their landlord, being the farmleaseholder who sucks the blood of poor people.105 The Jew was the innkeeper who poisons the drink and cheats the peasants selling them on credit more than his customers can pay.106 The Jew is the traveling salesman who offers to the peasants cheap clothes that seduce the peasant women to forget their art of weaving the folk shirts.107 In fact, all “rotten” merchandise have a Jewish label.108 The Jew is even the schoolmate of the young Romanian intellectual with whom he does not exchange a word.109 However, two representations are recurrent in Goga’s articles. They are the Jew as a journalist and Budapest as a Jewished city,110 both of them indebted to Sămănătorul.111 Though the Jew did not play an important role in the main argumentation for cultural union, gradually the Jew became the symbol of a modern rotten society, Goga’s case being only one of the many examples in which such an association was made. b. The Semitism It is not the place here to analyse the history of antisemitism, but one aspect is particularly important. It is the charge that the Jews killed Jesus Christ. This was a longstanding Christian accusation against the Jews and for many late nineteenth century commentators the use of such an argument was a sign of the survival for such obsolete medieval intolerance. Yet, what can N. C. Paulescu112 or A. C. Cuza113 have in common with the Christian Orthodox

104

Goga, “Nu mai vrem umilinţă,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 2 (January 07, 1907): 23-26 Goga, ”Din păcatale noastre,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 7 (February 11, 1907): 103-105. 106 Goga, “Carte...,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 9 (February 25, 1907): 9-10. 107 Goga, “Moştenirea Noastră,” in Ţara Noastră, I, no 13 (March 25, 1907): 199-202. 108 Goga, “Sociale,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 7 (February 10/23, 1908): 57-58; 109 Goga, “Generaţia nouă,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 11 (March 9, 1908): 87-88. 110 It was famous at that time the expression of the antisemite mayor of Vienna Carl Lueger, “Judapest.” 111 Under the directorship of Nicolae Iorga, from the first issue, Sămănătorul published innumerable antisemite articles of A. C. Cuza, among which one of the longest series of articles were entitled “The Yids in Mass Media” and “Annexes to the Yids in Mass Media.” On the other hand, Iorga was the first who used the expression “a Jewished and an Americanized city” for Budapest, as it was mentioned with the occasion of the first use of the term “steeled young.” 112 N. C. Paulescu, Degenerarea jidanilor, (Bucharest: 1923). Paulescu makes mélange of biology and theology, in which man was gifted by Goga with human and social instincts. Those vicious people are degenerated because they did not follow the God’s commandments. It is a kind of science of the vices, which are four: drunkenness, prostitution, stealing, and proud. All of them are a corruption of an important instinct, such nutrition, reproduction, 105

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theological tradition? They actually over-interpreted the idea that the Jews are sinful because they did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and attempted to find, on scientific bases, proofs for this sinfulness. On the one hand, it was posited that a person with an evil nature would have a disharmonious, ugly and even deformed face, and this was the working hypothesis of Paulescu. On the other hand, it was held that a person with wicked character could not produce valuable works of art, and would in fact be unable to create art at all.114 As a matter of fact, in these writings, the Jew is not opposed to the Christian ideal but to the Greco-Roman classical ideal of man. The real purpose of these texts was to find a scientific basis for virtus romana, as a social foundation for the state.115 The Tribunists were animated by the same aim, but they chose a different direction. For them, the Jew was an immoral being, a person with whom it was impossible to sustain a modern state, or to join the national community. Slavici’s articles illuminate such an understanding. There are only two or three decades from when many of us recognized the entrance of the Jews into our cultural life as a great success, and when those “smart” Jews, who started to work together with us, were warmly embraced and encouraged…. But, soon after, it was unveiled that the Jews do not have the needed aptitudes for a common work, therefore even if they are willing to do good things they actually did only evil…. The Characteristic of the Semitic spirit is the lack of common feeling.116

property, and domination. A vice being an infringement of the Creation Law, are sins that cause degeneration. Or, according to Paulescu, who else is more sinful than a Jew. In the second part of the booklet, he makes many efforts to demonstrate through scientific facts that the Jews have the monopoly of all abnormal physiological and psychological pathologies, in other words they are stigmatized. 113 A. C. Cuza, Învăţătura lui Isus, judaismul şi teologia creştină, (Jassy: 1925). Cuza’s theory is much simple: Jesus was an Aryan. Accordingly, the Christian theology must get rid of the Old Testament and preserve only the New Testament as the Bible of the Cristian faith. His booklet caused many negative reactions from behalf of the church hierarchs. 114 A. C. Cuza was interested in the national foundation of art. His work Nationality in Art was highly influential at the beginning of the twentieth century. See Naţionalitatea în artă. Principii, fapte, concluzii, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1908). 115 The issue of state foundation was of paramount importance as far as the institutions were missing or corrupted because of centuries of foreign domination. How to establish the civic virtues of a population predominantly rural was a question for many thinkers in the period. One of the most interesting readings, from other many, is Grigore Antipa, Problemele evoluţiei Poporului Român, (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1919). 116 Ioan Slavici, “Propaganda semitică,” in Apărarea Naţioală, III, no. 112 (December 22, 1902): 1.

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For Slavici, the Semite was a selfish man par excellence. He could not, physiologically speaking, share the same feelings with others. He might be capable of helping other people but, even then, he did not have the natural intentions that others have. Yet, this handicapped did not necessarily afflict only the Jews. Slavici took aim at a more general malaise of modern society, namely the lack of community.117 “This way of seeing things,” he continues, “is so common in our society that it is difficult to find people who admit that it is Semitic.” Here, the definition of the Jew is ethic and not ethnic. The moral values, “common feelings” as they were named by Slavici, are the aggregative elements of a society that cannot live on utilitarian principles alone. Without them, social decomposition is imminent. Or, the Semites are those people who cannot live altruistically, poisoning the incipient common life of the people in the same state. In the last instance, the Jews could join the anti-Semitic efforts of other people in getting rid of those “degenerate individuals,” unable to love their fellows, true barbarians who exploit the work of other people and seek to enslave others.118 Slavici was not interested in building a theory of anti-Semitism. His articles about Semitism are and unelaborated. However, there is a series of articles in which he attempted to make a more general interpretation of Semitism. The five articles, entitled “The Semitism,”119 undertake a historical overview of the meaning of Semitism inferred by Slavici. According to him, two principles have manifested themselves from the very beginning of human history, both in a permanent conflict with each other. They might be called egoism vs. altruism. On the one hand, egoism is the tendency of accumulating wealth only for the selfish interests of the owner. In other words ‘the more he gets the more he wants.’ Although economic life flourishes and wealth is accumulated, this tendency disseminates poverty, sorrow, injustice, slavery, etc. The more fortune exists, the more unhappiness is caused. The main point is that wealth corrupts people; not only the rich, but also the poor, because wealth enslaves and the slaves are not virtuous but morally corrupted. The Biblical story of the

117

Another form of the dichotomy between La civilisation and Der Kultur was the opposition between society (Die Gesellschaft) and community (Die Gemeinschaft). Slavici, familiarized with the German culture, was worry about building a state without a real community as its foundation. 118 Slavici, “Barbaria modern,” in Apărarea Naţională III, no. 79 (April 9, 1902): 1. 119 Slavici, “Semitismul,” in Tribuna, XII, no. 131 (June 14/27, 1908): 1-2; no. 132 (June 15/28, 1908): 1-2; no. 133 (June 17/30, 1908): 1; no. 133 (June 18 / July 1, 1908): 1-2; no. 133 (June 19 / July 2, 1908): 1-2.

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Egyptian slavery of the Jews is emblematic of this.120 Yet, it is impossible to create a state with morally corrupted people. They cannot live together because they are egoist; they do not love each other, they do not feel the same, and they do not care about others. For a state or a society of people living together this egoist tendency is the germ of rot and decay. On the other hand, altruism is the manifestation of a virtuous people who care more about their countryman than themselves. Such altruism is close to stoicism and asceticism. With such people, a state and its institutions have a good foundation and those states that decay may find a chance of recovering. Human civilization has known several times such a resurrection of the altruist spirit. Slavici mentions the Assyrians who took over Babylon, the Macedonians under Alexander the Great who defeated the already decayed Greek cities, and the Romans who triumphed over the Middle Orient full of rich satraps. Heroism was a clear sign of altruism, for how else could someone sacrifice himself for the good of the others? This is why the altruistic principle not only succeeds but does so in a heroic manner. There is one more element needed to complete the picture. Slavici named the egoist principle “Semitism” and the altruist principle “Aryanism,” which he asserted are two forces that permanently fight each other. This understanding of these matters proved contagious; Slavici’s notion of Semitism is indebted to Ion Heliade-Rădulescu, who in an article “The Israelites and the Judahs”121 made a similar antithetical distinction among the Jews themselves. Like Slavici, Heliade was interested in state-building, institution-formation, civic education, and moral cultivation of the masses. Both were concerned with the characteristics necessary for transforming a population into a nation, and both considered Semitism a corruptive scourge for any people. The negative personages in their stories were not (only) the Jews but depraved people more generally who corrupted others to their immorality. The role of the Jew was rather to personify a social evil that, through the traditional stereotypes about

120

The Jews had to remain three generations in the desert in order to purify themselves before entering in the Promised Land because they were corrupted by slavery. 121 Ion Heliade-Rădulescu, “Israeliţii şi Judanii,” in Equilibru intre antithesi, sau, spiritul si material, (Bucharest: 1859-1869). Heliade uses the word “Judani,” which is very close to “Jidani” (Yids), for the descendants of Judah, the ancestor of David. Heliade, being a republican, considered the royalty equivalent with despotism, and despotism with a vicious rulers and societies. His interpretation is striking similar with Slavici’s one with the only difference of the terminology. In these two versions, mutandis mutandi, “Semites” are the “Judans,” and the “Arians” are the “Israelites” (sic!), in the sense that the Jews can be good and bad in the same extent as any other people.

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the Jews, attained a more substantial image,122 rather than to articulate a Judeophobic theory or to promote racial hatred. In other words, the danger was the Judaization process and not the Jews as such, and this was quite a difference between Sămănătorul and Tribuna. Goga was influenced by both currents of anti-Semitism and he integrated in his writings elements from both streams. On the one hand, the Jew as a city dweller, selfish, utilitarian, materialist, (double) dealer, lawyer, “ciocoi,” moneylender, and bloodsucker are motifs used in Goga’s writings much as they were in Slavici’s. The poor Romanian peasants are exploited by the Jews, who are employed at their turn by the local gentry. Goga created his own Jewish personage, Sirrah Putrid-Beard (Jupân Barbă-Putredă), “an old bent Yid, fleecy beard, curled ringlets and squirrel eyes.” I remember from my childhood. It is like really seeing him even now, the Sirrah Putrid-Beard, how the villagers called the innkeeper Yid. Then he was an old man with a face like Caiaphas and with the white rusty beard. He was walking with a stick, because he was so weak, and in his entire creature only the eyes were vivid, those eyes that were rolling under the shaky eyelids. This old man, derided by all the villagers and behind whom the children were yelling, measured for forty years the brandy at the door of the Christians from the village from Târnave. Meanwhile, many things changed in the village: the notables came to a morsel of bread, people from good families went away and became

122

Many commentators usually refer to “the image of the Jew” but this term fails to take into consideration the relational changes happened within the social insight according to the various political positions or ideologies adopted. On the one hand, these mutations may not change the “images” but the role played by this “images” within the whole image of society or the nation. It was the case of “the leeches” which had different in the 1860s, in Alecsandri’s play (The Village Leeches), than in the 1936, in Codreanu’s propagandist manifesto. Though the immediate meaning was the same, “bloodsucker,” the aim of using this metaphor was different. On the other hand, the “image” does not give an account about those who are referred to. Referring to the examples already mentioned, it was not unimportant that Alecsandri used this expression for a Greek first of all, the criminal in the respective play, and only secondly for the Jew who helped the criminal with his lies. The kind of person described by a leech is not a Jew but the “ciocoi,” the intermediary between the peasants and their landlords (landlseing) and those who obtained the privilege of having the monopoly of commerce in the village. The entire Romanian literature of mid-nineteenth century was saturated of such references which if are xenophobic in some respects, they are aimed against the Greeks who were the traditional victims of such literary satire. The other attribute of “ciocoi” is that they are exploiting parvenus, the favorite personage of many literary texts, as it is the case of Alecsandri’s “The Boyars and the Ciocois,” for example. See V. Alecsandri, “Boieri şi ciocoi” and “Lipitorile Satului,” in Opere, vol. VI, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1979): 281396, 443-517.

284 servants, one judge123 of the village signed for some “gentleman” and they sold all his properties, many people went to prison directly from the tavern table, — only he remained peaceful and wealthy.124

The old Jew had two children, in Goga’s story. He sent them to the school in Aiud, paying a high tuition, and now they resided as true gentlemen in Budapest. They dressed like gentlemen, they did not wear ringlets and they spoke only Hungarian. When the old Putrid-Beard died, he left a large amount of money to his sons. Then, both became respectable persons, one the owner of a distillery, the other a deputy. This is the story, good people. In this way, this smart kind of people rise on your back. They rise and subdue, because money comes only in their hand, and money means power. The full sense of your toil is in the Distillery, from whose chimney flows the proud smoke in the sky, there is all. There is money for brandy and eggs, and grain and wine and everything else. And Mr. Herşală cultivates his thick nape. He changed his coat and name. He does not remember anything.125

In the story, Herşală, the elder son of Putrid-Beard, even dared to refuse some decent villagers who came to him asking for a job. “And do you know what he said? He said they are thieves!” Goga’s Putrid-Beard is a classical figure of “ciocoi,” who enriched himself on the back of the people, climbed the social ladder and, then, selfishly forget about his origins. There is not much difference between Putrid-Beard and Sirrah Moise (Alecsandri), Dinu Păturică (Nicolae Filimon) or Tănase Scatiu (Duliu Zamfirescu). Nevertheless, a particularly inspiring author for Goga was Sandu-Aldea whose novels Behind the Plough and Two Nations were equally dominated by the passionate love for the world of the peasants and a violent hate for the city.126 As a matter of fact, the proximate character for Putrid-Beard is Iani Livaridi from Aldea’s Two Nations. Livaridi is a foreigner (a Greek), a leaseholder, and a moneylender. He sent his child to learn in a private school and then to Paris to study law. Eventually, his son became a successful lawyer and Livaridi became enriched

123

It is an archaic name for some notables in Romanian villages. Goga, “Poveste de jale,” in Ţara noastră, I, no. 4 (January 21, 1907): 55-59. The judge mentioned by Goga is an old-fashioned name for local community leader, possibly the mayor of the village. 125 Ibid. “Thick nape" is an expression for intensiveness, indifferent "without any feelings," and rudeness. 126 Constantin Sandu-Aldea, In urma plugului, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1905) and Două neamuri, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1906). About Sandu-Aldea, see Eugen Lovinescu, Istoria Literaturii Române Contemporane, vol. III, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1981):113-117. 124

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on the back of the poor villagers and moved to Bucharest to join his son. Though Livaridi is not a Jew, his story is remarkably similar with the one written by Goga. All of these literary productions, including Goga’s, have their intrigue built on an ethical basis, and in the last instance, constitute a critique of a social phenomenon, i.e. satire of the parvenu. Putrid-Beard is a rather idyllic personage in comparison with his son Herşală, who is an “improvised” man. There is a peculiar use of the attribute “improvised” for people as well as for society. It actually means “parvenu,” and this is the closest notion to the implication of Goga’s use of “estrangement.” It is about a person who climbed too fast on the social scale being unable to cultivate himself with the same rapidity. At the same time, it is about an urban civilization, a society formed by parvenus, which has an “improvised” culture. By all means, it is a “pseudoculture,” as Radulescu-Motru called it; it is “Semitism” as Slavici described it, an amalgam of selfish people driven only by greed, envy, laziness, and other deadly sins. In this imagined world, the industrialists, lawyers, bankers and middlemen are worse than Sirrah Putrid-Beard who might poison people but not an entire society. Yet, there is another attribute used by Goga, which adds a new dimension to what was inherited as Semitism from Slavici. This attribute is a continuation of Cuza’s ideas of the sinfulness of the Jews. According to Goga, there is a dangerous sin within modern society and this sin is personified by the Jew. This sin is “cynicism,” a term which conveys all of the attributes implied by Slavici and more. It is the idea that the Jew is a non-believer par excellence, the one who killed Jesus Christ and might do it again. The idea of a cynical Jew, subtly changes the accent from theology, as was the case with Cuza, to a philosophy of culture. It does not concern the Jesus who was crucified two millennia ago, but the Jesus who is to come and may be crucified again. The Jew is not only the personification of the petty sins of modern man, but the embodiment of modern society’s cynicism. It is a cynicism that prevents people from recognizing Jesus, or a prophet, an apostle, a precursor, a hero, and, why not, a national poet (vates) whose arrival may also be expected. Under these circumstances, the young Romanian intellectuals accustomed to “Jewish cynicism” in the Hungarian state schools127 “improvised” a society that had nothing in common with the traditional patriarchal society from which they originated. Because of this lack of a national culture, they were doomed to a

127

Goga, “Discursul de apărare rostit de dl.Goga la curtea cu juraţi din Cluj în 10 Noembrie a.c.,” Ţara noastră, II, no. 46 (November 9/22, 1908): 371-373.

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permanent “movement of groping around,”128 and to a “fatal psychological disequilibrium of an improvised class.”129 “In our society, the sins are coming to the surface every day,”130 being perpetuated by school, journals, and newspapers. The involvement of journalism in this notion of the Jewish danger is crucial and had several sources of inspiration. On the one hand, the innumerable articles against the Jewish press published by Cuza in Sămănătorul entertained an antipathy for the kind of progressive journalism professed by democratic and leftist newspapers like Adevărul, Dimineaţa or Opinia.131 The idea crossed the mountains easily and, Iorga, for one example, wrote in his article “A Danger for the Moral Life…”132 extremely relevant lines on this issue. You can find your culture everywhere, but in a utilitarian and petty form: science and literature as in the feuilletons of Itzic and Moritz, political ideas like in the editorials of Calman and Leibu, both dressed, of course, as medieval troubadours and national knights. The relations among people are done and undone easily, without upset and remorse: you understand well how it is possible that the same one, who yesterday was licking yours feet, splashes you with insults today. Life has only inexorable needs and you must make your own way — says America — even punching your father’s face with your fist. [Everything is] only to gain name, situation, and money — Ideas, what do you need them for! — they are only toys that can be, in a way or another, changing masks of the greedy and cruel soul.133

On the other hand, the entire Austrian-German national movement had a problem with “the Jewish press.” In 1888, Georg von Schönerer vandalized the offices of the journal, Neue Wiener Tagblatt, which was considered by him to be a “miserable Jewish sheet.” Later, in the 1890s, Carl Lueger vehemently

128

Goga, “Adevărul,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 2 (May 11, 1908): 163-164. Goga, “Adunări poporale,” in Ţara Noastră, III, no. 31 (August 2/15, 1909): 246-247. 130 Goga, “Roadele iertării,” in Ţara noastră, III, no. 5 (January 27, 1909): 37-38. 131 There are daily newspapers with a democratic and progressivist orientation. They were not democratic in the present sense of the notion, but they constituted the opposition to the culturalist current being the fierce supporters of “civilization,” “progress,” democratization,” “Jewish assimilation,” even “socialism.” It was not surprising that Goga, when he was appointed prime minister of Romania in 1938, suspended these journals as being dangerous for the Romanian nation, and suspended them “because they were Jewish.” 132 It is the article that caused Goga’s reply in which he used for the first time the term “the young steeled men.” See chapter 4, §2. 133 Nicolae Iorga, “O primejdie pentru viata morala a Rominilor de «dincolo»,” in Neamul Românesc, III, no. 25 (February 26, 1908): 385-387. 129

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attacked Neue Freie Presse.134 His populist rhetoric often mentioned the Jews as the only beneficiary of the liberal post-1848 reforms and accused them of being parvenus.135 The Jewish attachment to the liberal Viennese political establishment put them on the defensive along with other liberals. The same was true for Hungary. For the Romanians, Hungarian liberalism was represented by István Tisza, who proved to be a much more dangerous adversary for the Romanian National Party than the nationalist coalition that ruled the country from 1906 to 1910. However, because of his personal understanding of journalism as an ethnopedagogical instrument, or as a church of the national soul, Goga had a more vehement reaction against those who, according to him, perverted public opinion, corrupted the common spirit, and poisoned the soul of people with cynicism and liberalism. They were Itzic, Moritz, Calman, and Leibu, as Iorga mentioned, who educated the masses in a modern pseudo-culture while “real values”136 were not recognized. But Goga did not refer to these people by their Jewishness alone. As in Slavici’s interpretation, they could be anyone who was inoculated with the modern vice of cynicism, and who further disseminated this germ through daily newspapers and reviews. This relationship is not explicit and lives through those attributes in Goga’s political literature. They are shared by the corrupted souls of the Romanians and the Jews alike, people from the surface of public life. Often, this relation is underlined by specifying “Jewish” or “Jewished” (“jidovit” or “ovreiesc”) together with these attributes. The capital is Jewished,137 and the press from Budapest is also Jewished.138 The journalists who interview the Romanian leaders time to time are Jews,139 and Paukerov, one of the journalists from the official organ of the National Party is

134

See Menachem Z. Rosensaft, “Jews and Antisemites in Austria at the End of the Nineteenth Century,” Leo Baek Institute Year Book, XXI (1976): 57-86. According to Goga, a Jewish journal that launches its theories covered by a façade of humanitarian sprit and western culture. Goga, “Triumful Europei,” in România, I, no. 41 (March 14, 1917): 1. 135 The idea was not new. In France happened the same when the Jews were considered as the only beneficiaries of the French Revolution, as Edouard Drumont did in his La France Juive: essai d'histoire contemporaine. See Robert F. Byrnes, “Antisemitism in France Before the Dreyfus Affair.” In Jewish Social Studies, Vol. XI, no. 1 (January, 1949): 49-68. 136 Goga, “Aprecierea valorilor la noi,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 266 (December 4/17, 1911): 1-2. 137 Goga, “Expoziţia de Pictură a lui d-lui Oc. Smighelschi,” in Luceafărul, II, no. 24 (December 15, 1903): 396. 138 The first mention is in a note that accompanies Goga’s poem “Waiting.” Goga “Aşteptare,” in Luceafărul, V, no. 11-12 (15 June, 1906): 256. 139 *** [Goga], “Fruntaşi ai neamului,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 249 (19 November 19/ December 2, 1910): 2.

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an expelled Jew from Bucharest.140 Bishop Radu from Oradea gave soirees for Hungarians and Jewesses from Oradea.141 Though most of Goga’s articles point out the wrongs of Romanian society and the sins of its leaders, the Jews are overtly present and intimately related to “the vulgar spirit of the asphalt,” with “the ugly excrescence of modern life” in which life itself was entirely commercialized to such extent that there was no room for love, idealism or altruism.142 Modern life, as opposite to tradition, folk culture, and patriarchal customs are all susceptible to being described as Jewish in Goga’s literary world. Modernity or modern civilization was something foreign that “improvised” itself over the culture of the common people, corrupting those who succeeded to ascend on the social scale. While the common people, most of whom were peasants, remained untouched by this germ, the notables, initially young intellectuals studying in a foreign city or capital, were contaminated even without knowing it. Their disinterest for their native villages, their mercantile activities, and their inclination to bargain over the non-negotiable (the national idea), are for Goga clear signs of their estrangement. Thus, modernity is an estrangement from the archaic world of the peasant, and the modern world is a foreign world. This affirmation was found painfully true by the many Romanian students in Budapest, for example. Or, the problem was that the soul of the nation lived in this patriarchal lost world of the villages and not in the city, as the Sămănătorism affirmed. Whatever else, it is soulless and lifeless, and doomed to rot. In this context, the Jews were a useful way to unambiguously label this hated world. There are several reasons why the Jew became the epitome of the modern man. First, there were numerous negative images and prejudices inherited from the premodern times. Instead of explaining how a young gentleman developed a wrong habit, it was easier to call him Herşală and to make him the son of Putrid-Beard, the Jewish innkeeper from the village, who was known by everybody. Second, the Jew was the foreigner par excellence, the ‘wandering Jew’143 who settled wherever he found a weak society able to be corrupted and 140

Goga, “Mons Meng,” 2. Goga, “Morala celor mici,” in Tribuna, XV, no. 161 (July 24/ August 6, 1911): 2. 142 Styx [Goga], “Sociale,” in Ţara noastră, II, no. 7 (February 10/23, 1908): 57-58. In this short article, Goga accuses the horrible practice of mercantile arrangement via matrimonial press notices. He considers this practice a Jewish influence. 143 There is a short novel entitled “The Wandering Jew” by Agârbiceanu that is relevant for this discussion. In a café, a young man did not find his place among people animated by nationalist feelings and worried by the international situation. Each group of people discusses the current situation and the implication for the national question, only the young in question is afraid of 141

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exploited. He was a person with no country, no land, no tradition, and no culture (language), who could more easily be cosmopolitan and internationalist than nationalist. Third, the Jews identify themselves with modernity. The synchronism was striking: while all the cultivated nations found it appropriate to reject liberal society and modern civilization and search for their archaic roots, the Jews seduced by the liberal ideology embarked themselves in a movement of accepting modern civilization, and assimilating into liberal society.144 Fourth, the Jew was found inferior, in various degrees, by many social thinkers. While the notion of nation became preponderant in the humanities, the Jew without a language of their own, without a compact territory of their ethic group, and, most importantly, without a state, were in an awkward position to compete for a place in a world of nations. For a fifth reason, the Jews offered the chance for a pseudo-religious interpretation of the struggle between national culture and international civilization. The modern world, identified with the Jews, was a world inhabited by a cynical, nonbeliever, individualist, materialist, and selfish people. This modern world is opposed to the village world in the same way in which the Semitism, the spirit of the modern world, opposes the spirit of the people, the national idea. What originally was an opposition between the city and the village was gradually transformed into an antagonism between Semitism and the National Idea. In order to enhance the tension between the two, Goga went so far as to coin a relatively contradictory term, namely national Semitic culture.145 c. Nationalist Fight against Semitism If Semitism is a “fictionalized reality”146 based on a racialized notion of modern civilization,147 then nationalism is its challenger. The entire world is not being seen in such entourage in order to not risk his chances for an important position for which he is about to have an interview. It is remarkable that alongside the short piece of writing there is no qualification of the young man except the one from the title, “the wandering Jew.” The young man is not distinguished by any particular traits except his uneasiness and worry before an interview. See Ion Agârbiceanu, “Jidovul rătăritor,” in Românul, II, no. 264 (November 30 / December 13, 1912): 1-3. 144 This synchronism was remarkable in Romanian Kingdom, where at the turn of the century many Jewish journals pleaded for modernity, civilization, emancipation, liberalism, democracy, etc, while most of the Romanian nationalist papers run a violent campaign against these notions. 145 The term is contradictory for Goga’s own beliefs. Goga, ”Un anacronism: cultura maghiară” [An Anachronism: Hungarian Culture], Românul II, no. 284 (December 6 / January 7, 1912): 3-4 146 The term “fictional constructions,” used by Cheyette, besides its pleonastic form, do not correspond to the proper sense of Semitism because Semitism is not a notion or a concept but a way of understanding the modern world. Some commentators use the terms “myth” or

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seen as a struggle between good and evil on a global scale, and this fight has a definitive spiritual (pseudo-Christian) dimension. This conflict is founded on the very existence of the nation. For a nationalist, it is a matter of life and death because a nation cannot survive if it is forced to live in a foreign culture. The alternative is decadence, decay, decomposition, and eventually the death of the nation. However, the nation, like Semitism, has a transcendental nature. They are each the historical embodiment of an atemporal spirit. First, this is about the spirit of the people that carries over time the immutable traits or instincts of the race. If the folk-spirit is free to create itself in an epoch of time, then the nation culturally flourishes as well as economically benefits. In the second case, it is about the spirit of the Semites which carries the characteristic of the Jewish race. Whenever and wherever it can find favourable conditions, Semitism prospers to the detriment of the nation. The problem is not between nation and Semitism, because Semitism has a defining handicap: its incapacity for creation and its cultural impotence.148 Semitism can only prosper economically, and this prosperity is on the back of the Nation. Thus, the burden of a nationalist is to fight against Semitism for the freedom of his nation, and a nationalist is an antiSemite par excellence. This is the schematic story behind many literary or politically literary productions at the beginning of the century. The terms may have been different, but the meaning of the conflict between present cosmopolitan civilization and the atemporal national culture was the same. It was the revised conflict between form and content that for the Romanians found its classic expression in Maiorescu’s principle of “the forms without content.”149 It is a scenario from which the Jew may be absent because the literary means can use the power of metaphor, allusion, the transfer of attributes, etc. in order to suggest without

“ideology,” which both prove their inadequacy. Then, the term “fictional reality,” used by Philipe Lacue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, is preferable because give a better account on how these texts ordinate and, in the last instance, create the reality. See Philipe Lacue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, “The Nazi Myth” already mentioned. 147 Cheyette mentions the “racialized sense of alienation.” Cheyette, 6. 148 This idea has a long history. Its loci classici is Wagner’s Das Judentum in der Musik (1850). One of the influential Romanian works that reiterated the cultural impotence of the Jews were A. C. Cuza, Nationalism in Art (1908). As well see Ilariu Dobridor (alias Constantin Iliescu Cioroianu), “Sărăcia spirituală a evreilor,” in Gândirea, XVI, no. 10 (December, 1937): 502513. 149 The entire Romanian culturalist movement was based on this Junimist principle. An entire intellectual lineage relates all the nationalist movements to this basic principle of a critique of modernity: the modern civilization is only a surface polish and it is not based on more profound cultural content. The forms are empty and thus doomed to perpetual change.

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being explicit. Goga employed these techniques as well. He wrote very few articles in which he referred exclusively to the Jews, but their presence is significant through their attributes. He was not interested in developing a wellarticulated theory about foreign civilization and the estrangement caused by it, or about the national culture and the energy of the folk spirit. However, it was impossible for him to designate his opponents, be them Goldiş, Vaida, Moldovan, or Popovici, as Semites. It would have been openly outrageous. Therefore, he employed his literary skills to only allude to the intimacy between Romanian leaders and Semitism via medium of Hungarian culture. When the scandal was over, any critique of the Romanian party leaders was out of question. Yet, Goga wrote two further articles150 against Hungarian culture in which he elaborates on its Semitic features. It is remarkable how he used similar images, metaphors and attributes, as he used in his previous articles in order to demonstrate the radical estrangement of this culture from the great Hungarian tradition of Petöfi, Jókai, Kemény or Mikszáth. His articles were apparently prompted by a parliamentary discourse of Count Zichy, Minister of Education at that time. Count Zichy displayed an exaggerated pride for Hungarian national culture in bombastic terms, as would any other Hungarian, as Goga explained. The political supremacy of the Hungarians was founded on such grandiloquence which was demonstrated in daily journals, parliamentary speeches, and even in literature. It is sad, Goga continued, that there were some cases in which a few isolated Transylvanian Romanians believed in the self-asserted supremacy of the Hungarians, having been “blinded by the shining facade of Hungarianness.”151 These people have “the psychology of a hybrid,” and they are inclined towards a “guilty conciliation when about to come into relation with strangers.” A scientific research of the aspects of the “so-called Hungarian culture” was necessary, and a clear mind would be needed to undertake such research, he claimed. For the moment, Goga confined himself to sketch only one idea: “the anachronism that is committed when the Hungarian culture is mentioned.” He noticed that in recent Hungarian literature, typical Hungarian figures were quite rare. You cannot find anymore the energetic accents of Turanian violence, but in front of you there are drawn sad icons, dark and old clichés of international art. A tormented soul, the anguish of an exaggerate individual, a brutal cynicism and an unknown frivolity ask for the floor in the present [literary] production…. The bridge that links those from today with the past of the Hungarian soul is broken, and the reflexes of 150

Goga, ”Un anacronism: cultura maghiară”, Românul II, no. 284 (December 6, 1912 / January 7, 1913): 3-4. 151 Ibid., 3.

292 those social elements (actors) who made the history of this people do not have anymore a word in literature.152

The literature was no longer an expression of the Hungarian soul because it did not emerge out of the “fibres of specifically Hungarian thought.” It was not about the talent of the writers but the national character of their works. The theatre personages were not peasants, gentry, or other traditional characters, but “the lawyer from Lipótváros,” the utilitarian bourgeois or the city dweller insensible to the beauties of nature. The poet catches in his verses the fever of the soul tormented by all the miseries of the asphalt, and from his stanzas you can take only the spleen and the sadness of the modern pagan deprived of any kind of faith. In stead of the coloured images of the old pantheism, you can find only sullen darkness.153

These are the damages caused by Budapest, exclaims Goga. The “improvised” “American” city, with its cabarets, jargon and Jews, is “the most powerful emporium of Semitic national culture.” Racial blending produced an ethic amalgam which, as way of life and as a mentality, is foreign to the Hungarian nation composed of peasants, gentry, and the new bourgeoisie of the provincial cities. “This amalgam is dominated by the racial features of its Semitic element, which is superior in its intellectual faculties and economic power.” No one would believe, continued Goga, that a talented writer with fresh memories of his ghetto past could be “Hungarian in Literature.” His “racial notes (features)” are visible for both, the Jews and the Hungarians, though “destiny forced them to make a literary compromise.” The Jew was the same everywhere, and easily recognizable for Goga, because this was a character deeply devoted to the modern world. Thus, the Jew was interested

152

Ibid. Italics are mine. Ibid. This fragment gives the entire dimension of the pseudo-religious character of the argument. The townsman does not have any faith in comparison with a “traditional/old pantheism” of the villagers. In sprite of the liturgical vocabulary often used by Goga and other nationalist at the time, the world of the Nation is a pagan (i.e. pantheist) and not a Christian world. The best example was offered by the polemic between Lucian Blaga and father Dumitru Stăniloae on the Romanian Christianity. Blaga built a metaphysical world of the national spirit in which the Orthodox Christianity is only a late and foreign import. Stăniloae accused this interpretation as being false because Christianity is a defining constitutive element of Romanianness. See L. Blaga, Religie şi spirit, (Bucharest: 1942) and D. Stăniloae, Poziţia dlui Lucian Blaga faţă de creştinism şi ortodoxie, (Sibiu: Tipografia Arhidicezană, 1942). Though the polemic was late comparing with the period discussed here, it is relevant for the subject because the sources of Blaga’s philosophy were close to those of Goga.

153

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neither in a patriarchal life nor in rustic landscapes. He was not a serene and contemplative observer, but rather a tormented soul. His literature was overpsychologized and there was no room in his texts for “undomesticated passion and the intense voluntarism of the blood,” be it Hungarian or not, as in the case presented by Goga. Reconstructing the author’s personality, according to his writings, you are painfully surprised by this new consciousness…. This gentleman is the type of common modern Ahasver you can meet at Ostanda, on Riviera, on the boat traveling to Singapore and he is called Mayer, Durand or Löwy but is all the time the same. … Isolated from all the traditions of a millenary heritage, he does not understand the mystery of this land, this air, lights, shadows, and colours, and when he travels in the restaurant wagon through the Hungarian steppe, his look is more bored than mine.154

Finally, Goga choses an example of such writer found in the person of Ignotus, the director of a Nyugat [The West], an important radically modern cultural review from Budapest.155 The opinions expressed by Ignotus in a recent article about nature, tradition, and art could not be more opposite to Goga’s principles. Ignotus feels “a painful loneliness that presses his soul, when he is in the midst of the forest,” the wild nature enervates him and the rustling of the trees gives him shudders. “Or, how should he not be painfully impressed by nature,” sarcastically asks Goga, “if Mr. Veigelsberg’s lungs, who interrupted the contact with nature for tens of generations, accustomed with the thick air of the ghetto, do not support the ozone anymore.”156 His shudders are caused by the traditional fear of the Jew. As about the past, Ignotus affirmed that “there is only one duty we have regarding the past: to forget it,” and Goga sardonically adds, “I do believe you Mr. Ignotus, you have all the reasons…” In conclusion, Goga claimed that Hungarian national literature ceased to exist after the poems of Petöfi and Arany János, or the novels of Mikszáth, and thus the present national literature could not Magyarize the Romanians, at best it could Semiticize them.

154

Ibid. According to Frigyesi, Nyugat was not simply the continuation of the modernist trends of the 1890s but a new modernism, which was not only a broke with romanticism but went deeper in founding new form of expression, further from the decorative and light world of the predecessors. See Judith Frigyesi, Béla Bartók and the Turn-of-the-Century Budapest, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998): 72. 156 Ibid. Goga use in a “ghetto” in a way that suggest “city” and vice-versa. Both are dark “in the shadow of the walls.” 155

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This rude assault against the Hungarian literary avant-garde was a striking surprise for many Hungarian writers, because this avant-garde, due to its democratic views, was opposed to the Hungarian political establishment, the aristocratic domination of politics, and the political plans of Count István Tisza. In short, the Hungarian writers associated with the literary circle of Nyugat were the natural allies of the Romanians157 who fought for the political rights of their nation, particularly when the fight concerned a poet who rose against the traditional leadership within his own political camp. Many Hungarian writers had sympathy for the young rebel, who accused the old leaders of being “rusted and senile,” who was imprisoned for his faith, and who translated many Hungarian poems into Romanian. Yet, this Romanian national fighter accused his Hungarian admirers of not being Hungarians, of being unrepresentative of their nation, and of being Semites. In the following article,158 Goga responded to accusations of antisemitism and conservativism brought against him by many writers close to the literary circles he incriminated.159 He declared that the veritable Hungarian, “with Hungarian blood,” with the centuries-long history of the Arpadian tribes, could be seen even today in the person of an arrogant provincial bureaucrat or a rigid train conductor. Their “racial characteristics” were recognizable even in the “politics of brachial force” of Count Tisza, “who whatever sympathy or compassion may cause, remains a Hungarian, as Hungarians have been for a thousand years.” In other words, Tisza is a typical Hungarian, the kind of person who inherited the millenary Hungarian history, and who was unlike those corrupt, decadent, and sinful Semites who opposed Tisza’s policy.160 157

This argument was brought by Ady against Goga in an open letter published in Világ. Ady asked Goga “how could he sell his peasant folk making peace with the enemies of democracy and liberty, with the savage descendants of the feudal aristocrats, who were hunting serfs like foxes.” Ady Endre, “Magyar és roman — Level Goga Oktáviánhoz,” Világ, no. 22 (January 25, 1914). This letter received an answer from Tăslăuanu in Luceafărul. Tăslăuanu mistakes, intentionally or not, the meaning of “making peace with the enemies” and put it in the context of peace negotiations between the National Committee and Tisza’s government. Or, Ady referred precisely to this attack of Goga against the democratic forces, attack that certainly pleased István Tisza. *** [O. Tăslăuanu], “Poetului Ady,” in Luceafărul, XIII, no. 2 (January 16, 1914): 61. 158 Goga, “Două suflete două literature,” in Luceafărul, XII, no. 6 (March 16, 1913): 177-183. 159 Ady Endre, “Goga Octavian vádjai” [Octavian Goga’s Accusations], Nyugat, VI, no. 10 (May 16, 1913): 789; Braun Robert, “Goga Oktávián a magyar kultúráról,” Huszadik Század, (1913): 199-212; and Solymosi Elek, “Néhány szó Goga Oktáviánhoz,” in Közérdek, no. 31 (1913). 160 This episode of Goga’s reaction against the Hungarian culture was mentioned by two commentators only, and in both cases, the entire argument of Goga was falsified in order to

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This article makes explicit another important element of Goga’s understanding of literature. As A. C. Cuza had enunciated, Goga believed that the main principle of art was that “art cannot exist except as national art.”161 Moreover, “The estrangement of a work of art is its destruction… Nationality is the creative power of art — art is the creative power of nationality.”162 Accordingly, there is a profound relationship between art and nationality because they are the results of the same racial characteristics. The soul is mirrored by a work of art, and this is as true for an individual163 as it is for the entire nation. Thus the epic works of Arany “mirrored the Magyar soul” while the new productions of modernist writers did not. An observer like Goga could follow the recent Hungarian literature and identify the racial processes that had recently taken place. What happened today with our Hungarian neighbours is a fatal process of ethnic interbreeding, with its moments of natural crisis and with similar results like somewhere else. Two heterogenic elements are face to face, willing to assimilate each other, and thus they reciprocally leaven and adapt themselves. On one side are the autochthonous Hungarians with their well-defined character, on the other side are the immigrant Jews who similarly step into the arena with their plenitude of racial features. The process of amalgamation of the two leavens is only beginning, thus it is still possible to recognize the special mark of the particular ethnic character of each. What is then more natural than the manifestation of this parallelism in the realm of literature, where each personality shows itself in the Armor of its millenary heritage?164

It is interesting how Goga, in order to avoid an accusation of antisemitism, accepts a racial/artistic individuality for the Jews. Accepting the existence of Jewish national characteristics was equivalent with considering them equal to other nations, in particular relation to the Hungarians. Goga underlined this

avoid any discussion about antisemitism, racism, and conservativism. They are Domokos Sámuel, Octavian Goga, a költő és műfordító, (Bucharest: Kriterion, 1971), and its translation into Romanian, Domokos Sámuel, Octavian Goga. Anii studenţiei. Traducerile, (Bucharest: Kriterion, 1978); and Mircea Zaciu, “Glose. Arhive budapestane,” in Tribuna, XI, no.3 (January 19, 1967): 3. The monograph of Ion Dodu Bălan does not contain any mention of this incident. 161 A. C. Cuza, Naţionalitatea în artă, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1908), 12. 162 Ibid., 11. 163 In the previous article, Goga mentioned at a certain moment “reconstructing the personality of the author from after one book, you remain painfully touched by this new consciousness.” It is not the first time when he implies a transparent relation between the author and his work, but it is the first time when he put it more explicit. Goga, “An Anachronism…,” 3. 164 Goga, “Două suflete…,” 178.

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from the very beginning of his answer. “Ignotus makes a mistake when he believes that I consider the Semitic Culture inferior to the Hungarian one, but he is wrong too when he believes that through the Jewish-Magyar interbreeding the traditional character of autochthonous Hungarian spirit is not falsified.” For the sake of the argument, the cultural inferiority caused by racial interbreeding was sufficient for the time being, and Goga attempted to consider Semitism as a national culture among others. However, the picture he describes is relevant in itself. In Hungary, at the beginning of the constitutional era, the granting of [civil] liberties opened the gates for the Jewish elements, which, because of the persecutions suffered in the neighbouring provinces, began to flood the country. This flooding caused a particular phenomenon of the interbreeding of two peoples, a unique phenomenon in its way. Namely, the Jews settled themselves in the cities, where with their superior cultural qualities, with the vivid intelligence inherent to their race, seized the commercial and industrial life of the prosperous country, introduced the forms of western civilization on the land where all the marks of patriarchal order were preserved untouched. They definitively took over the capital or even founded it, impregnating their racial character over the city while the descendants of historical Magyarhood continued their life in traditional patterns: they delivered speeches, sowed grain, borrowed money with high usury, neglected their peasantry and put their knee on our chest. Such circumstances caused a unique phenomenon of a people that was forced to receive in its bosom all the elements of modern life through the intermediary role of another people, with another racial character. What is more interesting is that even the capital of the country, the pulsing centre of the entire national organism, the retort through which the public spirit and cultural percepts are reflected. Budapest was not established as other capitals of other nations as a normal deposit of element from the bosom of the autochthonous people in its way towards progress, but of elements of a foreign immigrant race. In this way, the process of interbreeding of the two factors began, at the same time with a fierce hidden battle of adaptation between the autochthonous and the newcomers, between the Hungarians and the Jews. Each with their aptitudes, with their particular history, with different soulful impulses. We have seen the parallel manifestation of two nations and it is natural that this contest be visible in the realm of literature. The differentiation is still evident, because the process of becoming related is only beginning and there is no definitive result of the two elements, a third element with a different ethnic character. In the same language, two parallel literatures were born: the Magyar literature and the Semitic literature. One is written by Hungarians and another one by the Jews. Organically, each is the expression of the distinct racial character. As far as the Hungarians incorporated in their works the spirit of Arany János, through the Semitic pens the Talmud of the bi-millennial Ahasver asks for the floor. A new literature was tailored for Hungarians, a literature that has nothing to do

297 with the Magyar soul. Other passions, other colours, fresh notes, unknown torments. In a new language speaks the voice of Jehovah…165

According to Goga, a foreign modernity is a deadly danger for a nation, which cannot evolve in its own forms but in borrowed ones. According to this interpretation, Semitism is modern culture that may prevent the national culture from finding its own way into modern civilization. This is the defining dimension of Semitism, seen as completely new when compared with medieval Judaism or other pre-modern ethnic and religious denominations of the Jewish community. During the debates over Jewish emancipation, Judaism was described by the opponents of the emancipation laws as a remnant from the dark ages of superstitions, a bigoted kind of society unable to assimilate the values of modernity. On the contrary, Semitism was portrayed by the nationalists of the late nineteenth century as a foreign modernity, a versatile and transactional type of society,166 faithless and cynical, having no roots. There are two “personages,” which simultaneously existed in the Romanian literature due to the late debate over the emancipation law. Though there are many mutual contaminations between the two “personages,” by and large they survived independently due to the different aims of each other.167 It is remarkable how the conflict between nationalism and Semitism recurred in Goga’s writings. It appeared again years after the First World War. In 1930, Goga collected a number of articles in a volume entitled …the same fight: Budapest-Bucharest. The suggestion was evident. “The poisoned heritage of the past, full of the heresies of a foreign pressure, is felt anywhere in the formation of these governors, who are not predestined for a leading role neither by their culture, nor by their talent or soulful heritage.”168 It was not a reference 165

Ibid., 179-180. Ahasver was a biblical reference (Daniel 9 and Osea 4) where the Jews, under the rule of Darius the son of Artaxerxe (Ahasveros), were describe as stubborn, impure, libertine, unfaithful, liar, criminal, and sinful, worth of God’s condemnation. 166 It is worth mentioning the influence exercised by the work of Werner Sombart, Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (1911). G. Bogdan-Duică, who extensively reviewed Sombart’s work in Luceafărul, eventually produced a larger study about the “Jewish question.” See Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică, “Ovreii — Teoria lui Werner Sombart,” in Luceafărul, X, no. 12 (March 18, 1912): 229-232; and Românii şi Ovreii, (Bucharest: Institutul de Arte Grefice Tipografia Românească, 1913). Bogdan-Duică was a constant collaborator of Luceafărul, member of the board of Tribuna, and member in the Cultural League. In 1919, Bogdan-Duică was the academician who answer to Goga’s inaugural speech, both being nominated in the same year as titular members of the Romanian Academy. 167 Many writers envisioned a kind of filiation between the two personages as Goga did with his Putrid-Beard and his son Herşală. 168 Goga, “Preface,” …aceiași luptă: Budapesta-București, 2.

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to the Jews but to his former adversaries from the national committee. The main problem addressed by Goga was the regionalist tendencies of different political factions, particularly the National Party that was accused of not being national at all. However, in subsidiary, other political elements were discussed by the author. Among them, the minorities and the communists were present as well. In fact, it was about the Semitism, which could be dissimulated under various aspects of reality as a whole preserved in each fragment of it. Goga saw in the political torment of the 1920s the same “soulful and mindful deformation through which the Hungarian-Semite Budapest still persecutes” the Romanians,169 the exultation of the masses with the most abject instincts170 and an outrageous philo-Semitism,171 while the politicians (Maniu and Cicio Pop) “retired under the warm quilt of legality and irremediably narcotized by the Magyar-Semite culture.”172 Yet, not all the articles were aimed against the National (Peasant) Party. Goga refers directly to “The Dangers of the Foreigners”173 and to “The Expulsion of the Foreigners”174 in which the Jews were directly mentioned as undesirable and dangerous for the Romanian state. Goga revealed that it was the time for Romanian literature to experience phenomena similar to those in Hungary four decades earlier. In a speech to the Romanian Academy, he identified the same discontinuity, the disappearance of the traditional characters, a maladive hyper-sensibility, and the virus of internationalism.175 He extensively quoted his article about the anachronism of Hungarian culture to conclude: Yes, gentlemen. Israel is a traveller. Israel does not settle himself. Israel came to us too. The chronology is delayed by approximatively two decades, but it is the same strategic plan: the surrounding movement from the periphery to the centre. The stages are methodically climbed: commerce, industry, landed estates, city blockhouses, and gazettes… the ladder was cautiously climbed with a plan. Well, now Israel decided to do Romanian literature. He reached the last step: he had entered into the temple. Until twenty years ago, this intention would not have been guessed…. They were so far from our thought and syntax that nobody

169

Ibid., 143. The term “abject instincts” is almost a leitmotif of the entire volume, incidentally related with an “oriental hedonism.” Ibid., 34, 285. 171 Ibid., 59. 172 Ibid., 114. 173 Goga, “Primejdia străinilor,” in Ţara noastră, IV, no. 21 (27 May 27, 1923): 657-659. 174 Goga, “Expulzarea străinilor,” in Ţara noastră, IV, no. 40 (October 7, 1923): 1265-1266. 175 Goga, “Discurs rostit la Academia Română la 21 Aprilie 1937,” in Octavian Goga, Discursuri, (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1939): 57-74. 170

299 imagined that they deserved to be taken into consideration… Merchant of public opinion they sold their products everywhere with an unexhausted clamour…. Who would have believed before the war that in the first days of Greater Romania, in Bucharest would start a Semitic literary offensive? Yet, the miracle happened, and the mongrels settled in our literature. This is a recognized fact rigorously exact which must be established here with the entire authority of the Romanian Academy cupola…. The Romanian Academy is a trench of national defence. This is why, thinking to others’ misfortune and to our possible disaster, evoking the shadow of the soldier from Oituz and assuming it as a salvation slogan, I shout from here to be heard from afar: — It is impossible to cross here!176

Under these circumstances, Goga proclaimed the national offensive against the “assault of the foreigners,”177 and against the Semitic invasion. The Jews were gradually mentioned more often after 1935, when Goga’s party fused with Cuza’s League of National Defence. However, in Goga’s articles was present the protest against the alleged permissiveness of Romanian society regarding foreigners, from inside and outside as well. The idea of the foreigner, be it in the form of an inherited mentality from Budapest, as communists or minorities (“minoritarians”), was the main danger for the nation against whom the national idea should fight. It is intimately related to the city, “ethnically distinct islands,” “abnormal excrescences in a permanent tension with the great whole,” “spots of foreignness,” or “shelters for the parasites of the dominant element.”178 Under such circumstances, it is normal for the cities to appear in their traditional hypostasis, leaving the role of the supreme depositary of the national destiny to the rural population. Globally speaking, then, our bourgeoisie, through its differentiation of soul and blood, takes the aspect of a parasitic layer and does not accomplish any special function for strengthening the national organism.179

This is the burden of any nationalist writer and politician, to struggle for the victory of “the national idea,” to fight against modern urban civilization which is metaphorically speaking Semite, when is not literally Jewish.

176

Ibid., 69-74. Goga “O fază nouă: ofensiva naţională,” in Ţara noastră, VII, no. 1 (January 3, 1926): 1-5 178 Goga, “Oraşele,” in Ţara noastră, V, no. 30 (27 July, 1924): 925-27. 179 Ibid., 926. Goga’s article was occasioned by some considerations of Iorga about the foreignness of Kishinev / Chişinău, the capital of Bassarabia, which is a German-Semite city. After the First World War, the ethnic composition of the cities of Greater Romania was considered to be quite a problem. 177

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§ 7. The National Idea: Myth, Epic or Ideology The national idea is the overarching concept for all of the themes previously discussed. It is a vague term, which describes a state of mind rather than a concrete notion. The “supreme abstraction,” as Goga named it,180 is the name of a feeling of belonging to a community that transcends time, history, and definitively the individual. It is closer to instinct, and thus it can be “conscientized,” to become aware of it at the level of the individual and the community. Goga refers many a time to the new incitements [“îndemnuri” or “imbolduri”] felt by the new generation. These incitements, or better instigations, are related, intentionally or not, with instinct.181 Sometimes the style is redundant like in the following phrase, “guided by the instinctual advice of an incitement of healing.”182 It is not a simple mistake but an accent on a very important belief, which is that “the national ideal is fraternally connected with the elementary incitements of popular instincts.”183 Moreover, The principle of national life — the will of unifying the ethnic borders with those political —, planted in the deep of the human soul, guided by instinct during the dark ages and wearing different forms, snatched victory after victory during the last century and became a dogma for the present-day state concept becoming the solid foundation of the organization from tomorrow… The national principle opens itself (sic!) from the primitive phase of the conservation instinct and receives the conscious advice of a superior justification.184

Until 1915, Goga used almost indistinctively “national idea,” “national ideal,” “national principle,” and “national spirit.” From the moment he began the campaign the Romanian Kingdom’s entry into the war, the “national principle” was gradually reserved for nation-state formation according to ethnic borders. This change did not alter the original meaning as the idea of state formation was at the heart of the “national idea,” the collective feeling having always a political outcome. However, before being a principle in the drawing of

180

Goga, “Badea Gheorghe,” in Ţara noastră, IV, no. 18 (May 6, 1923): 562. Goga might have been aware of the fact that in Latin, “instinctus” is the participle of “instiguo.” 182 Goga, “Cinstea cârjei,” in Însemnările unui trecător, 76-84. 183 Goga, “Idealul politic în conştiinţa populară,” in Românul, II, no. 265 (December 1/14, 1912): 1. 184 Goga, “Calvarul nostru. Conferinţa d-lui Octavian Goga,” in Epoca, XXII, no. 23 (January 25, 1915): 1. 181

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political borders, the national idea was a principle for national individuation or for the drawing of ethnic borders too. The more you stay and think, more broadly you see the borders of our heritage inherited from our ancestors, heritage whose conscious or instinctual guidance causes this beautiful harmony that makes our peasant such a complete and healthy being, nice and interesting, and that at the same time defends him as a fortress from the influences of foreign people who surround him.185

What is the national idea for Goga, beyond the incidental circumstances and contingent events with which it was related? What is the role of this “supreme abstraction” in the texts written by Goga? It might play the role of a myth because the “national idea” has something to do with origins, common ancestors, the collective soul, the primordial community, exemplarity, assumed identities, etc. The problem is that Goga was aware of the use of myths and symbols in his articles, though these concepts are not central in his texts. He refers to classical Greek myths, like Anteus, Orpheus, Janus, and other mythical characters as representing the condition of being a writer, but he uses the notion of myth as a source of the national literature, in the sense that popular myths preserved, over the centuries, the soul of the Romanian nation. There are two instances in which he made such claims, and both were related to another poet, often considered Goga’s predecessor, George Coşbuc. The sincerity of a literary inspiration only then can be saved when it originates within ourselves, when it springs from the hidden fibres of our soul, when it stirs mysteries and stones pains from our own torment… [Coşbuc] stopped his clear eyes on the peasant courtyard, he was mesmerized by the smell of the wild flowers, he swung his imagination on the waves of light of the Romanian myths and made out of his writing a mirror of our organic nationalism, a national literature.186 Coşbuc meditated upon a great national epos in which the Romanian mythology was to be integrated and in which, as an Iliad or an Odyssey, the childhood of our nation, the period of legend and mystery when in the intimacy with nature our soul was forged, was to be (re)mirrored. Without any doubt, for such was the resonance of this past, his vision was the most appropriate, [because] nobody has descended so deeply in the blooming regions of the other world, nobody came from so far like him.187

185

Goga, “Părinţi şi fii,” in Tribuna, XIV, no. 220 (October 13/26, 1910): 1-2. Goga, “Curente de idei în literatura Ardeleană dela 1848 până în zilele noastre. (III),” in Tribuna, XV, no. 182 (August 20/ 2 September 2, 1911): 1-2 187 Goga, “George Goşbuc. Discurs de recepţie la Academia Română,” in Ţara noastră, IV, no. 22 (June 3, 1923): 689-708. 186

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Definitively, for Goga, (popular) myths have something to do with the “national idea,” being an archaic form of its manifestation. Or, applying again this notion over Goga’s own understanding of it might cause a sort of pernicious indeterminacy. The entire period before the First World War witnessed great efforts to create new myths, if not to recover old ones. The psychologized theories, the models of collective unconsciousness, archetypal structures and instinctual settings concurred for a veritable fashion regarding the myth and the mythical, magical or mystical thinking.188 Under the inspiring Wagnerian works and under the influence of Nietzschean thinking, many thinkers engaged in a remarkable effort to search for the foundations of social life: the original founding myths. Goga was aware of the power of the myth in stirring mass emotions, in offering a model of collective identification which eventually generates exemplary cohesion of the primordial community. He attempted to use this notion in his own way or for his own purpose. Yet the myth of national idea, supposedly shared by the majority of the people, incidentally needs propaganda in order to survive. These intriguing circumstances may be explained through the degeneration, decay, or rottenness caused by modern civilization, but whatever explanation might be found, the mythological quality of the national idea is largely contradicted. There is another reason for which the notion of myth is not appropriate for describing Goga’s “national idea.” This is because of the contemporary fashion of disclosing modern myths as deliberate ideological constructs. Deconstructing myths has become a part of the present common culture189 that attributes to a myth a sum of pejorative epithets, which has to do with a futile negative evaluation of the respective political ideology or movement that used such myths. Under such circumstances, naming the “national idea” a myth may take for granted the success of the early twentieth century generation’s efforts to create a “national idea” myth, or may imply that these efforts were a great manipulation of public opinion. Both alternatives are unfavourable to understanding the role played by the national idea in Goga’s works and political practice.

188

It is worth mention the works of Lucian Blaga that exercised a notable influence on Goga’s conceptual framework. Blaga attempted to create a philosophical system based on the metaphysic of the folk spirit, the “metaphysic of the Subject” as Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy referred to in their The Nazi Myth, 26. 189 Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy mention this anti-mythological ethos of mass-media, which itself secrete “mythologies.” The Nazi Myth, 22, note 5.

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The national idea implies not only the existence of a myth but one that has a past of its own, a clear manifestation in history.190 It is a record of the great men who created the history of their nation. The great personalities of a nation are animated by the eternal spirit of their people. In a panegyric for Augustin Bunea, Goga described this process of historical embodiment. These personalities embody the mysterious power of the genius of a people and through their work they represent the perpetual change to which the society is destined. They are the leaders in whose activity the torment of an epoch is concretized: [they are] “the elect” as the Scripture names them, or “the heroes” as the philosopher (Carlyle) calls them. The entire historical evolution of a people cannot be imagined except as a result of the work of these personalities, because the words of Carlyle are true: “Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.” And, as the bodies of the mountains are in a long and brotherly embracement [from the bottom] to the highest top, so the personalities, who are succeeding each other in the historical development of a nation, have an intimate organic relation.191

Thereafter, these great people enlightened the intellectuals and, eventually, “from their freshened minds and regenerated souls the national consciousness took shape.” These great people are the carriers of the national genius through which “the torch of the national and cultural reawakening is passed from hand to hand.”192 It is a national epic of the historical manifestation of the folk spirit, of which the highest form is the nation-state. After the war, the notion of national epopee became recurrent in Goga’s articles. The heroism of the Romanian army led him to claim that the great epic of the nation was about to be fulfilled and finally the entire nation would be as one. “Their instincts of peasants, soil- and sun-lovers, triumphed over the individual impulses. The national epopee gathered them in the same bundle.”193 Yet, a few years later, deceptions came and Goga proclaimed, in 1926, the national offensive194 and, in 1933, the national revolution.195 It was a clear shift from the earlier tone because the epic of the national idea did not end when expected. Thus, the national idea may be considered an epic, which evoked a great a moment of

190

Q. v. the note 61 above. Goga, “La Groapa lui Bunea,” in Însemnările unui trecător, 252. 192 Ibid. 193 Goga, “În România nouă,” in La Roumanie, I, no. 55 (30 January 30, 1919): 1. 194 Goga, “O fază nouă : ofensiva naţională,” in Ţara noastră, VII (1926), no. 1 (January 3): 1-5; republshed in Ţara nostră, XV, no. 1203 (July 31, 1936): 1-2 195 Goga,”Revoluţia naţională,” in Ţara noastră, XII, no. 471 (December 2, 1933): 1. 191

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national cohesion as had happened in the recent history, but nevertheless it is an unfinished epic, whose end has to come in the near future. Another meaning implied by Goga was the one of ideology. Though he did not refer directly to a “national ideology” until the end of the First World War, Goga’s insistence on “cultural propaganda” or “the propagation of the national feeling” suggested the existence of a national ideology.196 However, once he became involved in active politics, the notion of national ideology constantly appeared in Goga’s articles and speeches. It is not a clear political concept but rather a figurative way of referring to the national idea in the context of real politics. It is not surprising then that the father of the national ideology was another poet or, better, the poet, the great precursor of Romanian nationalism, Mihail Eminescu. He was “the centre of gravity of the national ideology that keeps us alive,”197 and even more, “he is the father of the modern national ideology in our evolution.”198 The national ideology was inspired by the national idea present in the minds of people educated in the spirit of national culture. It was a self-asserting process in which the national idea expressed itself through the elected people who were closer to the ahistorical folk spirit. Our National Idea, starting from the organic consciousness of unity, which was constantly preserved by the anonymous masses, was gradually detached (sic!) and conquered all minds becoming our supreme dogma. The War fell down as a ripe fruit of this ideology of the time.199 The history from the ancient to the present, particularly the last two centuries, has clearly shown that, under the temporal political borders, our people was guided by the instincts of an organic unity and, in all its manifestations, it followed a national consciousness that never failed. This ideology breathes from all its collective acts of the masses and from all programmatic actions of all notable personalities.200

Was the national idea an ideology in Goga’s case? From the perspective of the author it was not, because an ideology, at least in Goga’s understanding, was too contextualized within a given period of time. As in the case of the 196

It is interesting that until 1914, Goga did not use at all the term ideology and the first mentions were about the “Magyar ideology,” which later considered to be “nourished by a historical fiction.” See Goga, “Marii vinovaţi,” in Adevărul, XIX, no. 9353 (August 17, 1914): 1; and “Patrioţii de la Budapesta,” in Ţara noastră, V, no. 34 (August 24, 1924): 1056 197 Goga, “Pânze de păianjen,” in Ţara noastră, V, no. 40 (October 5, 1924): 1266. 198 Goga, “Monumentul lui Mihail Eminescu. Cuvântare rostită la Sân Nicolaul Mare,” in Ţara noastră, VI, no. 42 (October 18, 1925): 1338. 199 Goga, “Ideea naţională — conferinţă ţinută în faţa studenţilor din Cluj,” in Ţara noastră, IV, no. 50 (December 16, 1923): 1588-1589 200 Goga, “Două simboluri,” in Ţara noastră, IV , Nr. 25 (June 24, 1923): 785-788.

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ideology of the 1848 revolutionaries, the national ideology was a clear manifestation of the national idea carried out by the masses but particularized for a particular moment of national development. Whatever good or bad ideology might be at a certain moment, it will become odd and obsolete in time and a new generation must come and speak in favour of the renewal of the national ideology. According to Goga, an ideology is like clothes, a metaphor that allowed him to demand the “freshening” of the clothes of the national idea.201 Besides this contextual determination of the national ideology, Goga’s notion of ideology is closer to what is today known as the Marxist usage of ideology.202 In other words, the national ideology is a sum of beliefs and dogmas that, taken together, offers the framework of a political doctrine.203 As for the general use of ideology, Goga’s national idea is closer to Mannheim’s notion of ideology. Thus, the national idea can be properly described as a general overarching world view shared by a group of people.204 This world view (Weltanschauung) integrates the entire reality in a unity that gives to the individual the psychological comfort of being socially integrated. This social integration takes place on the spiritual (noological) level, where the unity of the world is fulfilled. It is significant that the individual, as Mannheim states, “can only be considered as the bearer of an ideology.”205 Yet, there are some missing elements about the ideology of the national idea. In Goga’s works, the national idea was never developed into a “systematically integrated thought-system” and the integrative quality of it was mostly at the declarative level. Then, what may be Goga’s national idea? Following a suggestion made by Homi Bhabha, the national idea can be described as a “continuous narrative of

201

Until the First World War, Goga opposed the “white clothes” to the “German clothes” as the marks of two worlds: the village vs. the city. After the War, gradually he began mentioning “old clothes” in order to describe the policy of the National Party led by the same “rusty and decrepit old man.” 202 The Marxist opposition between “ideology” and “historical materialism” is relevant for understanding Goga’s “national ideology” if the rapport between the two elements of the opposition is turned upside down. For Goga, it is not the ideology the one which disguised, more or less conscious, the reality but “materialism” falsify the real nature of the national idea. If is to identify a false consciousness (Engels), then this false consciousness can be only the result of the materialist pseudo-culture which speculates the inferior instincts of the masses. 203 Karl Marx and Frederic Engels, The German Ideology, [Book on-line] (1946, accessed 2 March 2004); available from http://www.ex.ac.uk/Projects/meia/Archive/1845-GI/; Internet. 204 Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, (London: Routledge, 1991): 51-55. 205 Ibid., 52.

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national progress.”206 The idea of a national narrative is consonant with Goga’s intentions as well. Far from any systematic or integrative doctrine, and fascinated by the patriarchal order of the past, for Goga the national idea was in essence a story of the Romanian people, a story transmitted orally from generation to generation on the veranda of the rural priests who, like a father, tells the same story to the peasants. “The living story of our people,” the “great sad story,” “the century-long story of our torments” contains all the incitements of the past that an intellectual would need. The stories of Horia, Avram Iancu, and of all people who fought for their own nation were “grains from our beloved story of all of us, a fragment from the great and sorrowful epopee of the Romanian people…”207 It has its own ‘rationality’ ruled by “textual strategies, metaphoric displacements, sub-texts, and figurative strategies”208 that are more important that the direct and literal political meaning. The main vehicle of this story is poetry par excellence, be it in prose or in verses. Wonderful story and mysterious story, Whispered in the dim and mute twilight, Under the autumn sun who dies on the hills, When the old man told me you, I did not understand you. But after the hazy years, which flourished in my way Each hour, their treasure of tears, The unclear mystery of your wisdom, The oldies’ story, remain within myself. And only late, some time, I understood the thrill And I sow how you insist and frighteningly grow, From the first moment when my foot touched The charmed soil of the Romanian country.209

The national idea is less a conceptual structure and more a symbolic structure that orients an entire life alongside its own plans. It is a story that makes explicit, in its own way, the mystery of the spiritual community of the people. It reveals rather than describes a plan, which is of a divine nature, transindividual and atemporal. The facts are tailored for the requirements of the story and thus the coherence of the narrative is achieved beyond reality, which

206

Homi Bhabha, “Introduction,” The Nation and Narration, (London: Routledge: 1990): 1. Goga, “Curente de idei în literatura Ardeleană dela 1848 până în zilele noastre (I),” in Tribuna, XV, no. 180 (August 18/31, 1911): 5. 208 Bhabha, 2. 209 Goga, “Povestea Ardealului,” in Calendarul Minerva 1915, (Oradea, Minerva, 1914): 171. 207

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may be corrupted by other narratives. Thus, the national idea is a historical narrative in a way implied by Hayden White: As a symbolic structure, the historical narrative does not reproduce the events it describes; it tells us in what direction to think about the events and charges our thought about the events with different emotional valences. The historical narrative does not image the things it indicates; it calls to mind images of the things it indicates, in the same way that a metaphor does.210

Hopefully, the nature of Goga’s writings does not make it necessary to either justify the transformation of history into a philosophy of language or to support that the narrative that language is essentially metaphoric, as in the case of Ankersmit.211 The poetic function of the national idea as a narrative is hardly contestable though there were no attempts to make explicit this function. As stressed in the second chapter, many commentators began to gradually recover Goga’s personality and works based on an assumption suggested by Goga himself, i.e. the unity of his creation. Though a particular sentence from his Autobiographical Fragments was over-cited in order to prove the unity of Goga’s creation, this affirmation was not verified. In other words, nobody attempted to understand the role of politics in Goga’s poetry, and vice-versa, the role of the poetic in Goga’s politics. Summing up, the national idea played the role of a narrative in Goga’s works. It was nourished by mythical, epical and ideological elements which were gradually incorporated within it. On behalf of the myth, the exemplarity of the primordial social cohesion is one basic premise (dogma, as Goga would have used) of the narrative. The main coordinate on which the national idea developed itself into the realm of myth is a kind of identification within the patriarchal society praised by Goga. On behalf of the national epopee, the exemplary way in which the national heroes fought for their nation under the influence of their ancestral national instincts, particularly in recent times, was another basic premise of the narrative. This time, the main coordinate on which the national idea developed itself into the realm of the epic is a kind of evocation of the great heroes (Horea, Iancu, etc.) who identified themselves with the popular masses. Finally, on behalf of national ideology, the necessary cohesion of the nation against its present enemies was the other premise of the narrative. The main coordinate on which the national idea developed itself into 210

Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992): 91. 211 Franklin R. Ankersmit, History and Tropology, (Berkley: University of California Press, 1994): 64-65.

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the realm of ideology was the conflict created against the perfect negation of the national community, which meant the urban modern Semitized society. Accordingly, this narrative plays the role of a metaphor that does not image, but that gives directions and establishes a set of emotions regarding these directions. It has the function of a symbol rather than an icon of reality. White’s contrast between the symbolic and iconic aspects of metaphor212 incidentally fit with Goga’s usage of two identical terms: the symbol and the icon. Reviewing his articles and poems, it is fairly notable that when the world of the village is evoked a recurring element in these images is an icon or the icon of St. Nicholas or St. Mary. Most of the time, these images are melancholic and lifeless, “the icons of a dead world.”213 On the contrary, the term ‘symbol’ is related mostly to “the dream” of another better existence of the nation. In one instance the two terms were juxtaposed in a more explicit opposition. In the first article about Vlaicu, Goga recalls his visit to Vlaicu’s family in Binţinţi. Traveling with Vlaicu, both “revived icons from long ago, from school.” At the end of his visit, Ion, Vlaicu’s brother, remained at home working up some frames for an icon of St Nicholas. In both cases, the icon is a metaphor for the still life of the village which is a-historical in his view. On the contrary, when Vlaicu died in an attempt to fly over the mountains, Goga believed his death had a symbolic significance. In the way in which it happened, his tragedy has a symbolic signification. It is a wave of light, which broke out from the vast regions of our popular genius, astonished for a moment the entire world and then it turned back home as a messenger who fulfilled his duty. A flame, which dances in the midst of the field by night, that everybody that there is buried a treasure… Now, Vlaicu is not anymore. He was lightened by our dream, of everybody, in which he dipped his wings to cross the mountains, to demolish in the consciousness of millions of people the obstacle that separates us.214

The symbol mentioned by Goga is the organic unity of the Romanian people, be it cultural or political, and it is recurrent in most of his articles. In a later text, he made the meaning of it explicit as the organic unity of the Romanian people under harsh historical circumstances.215

212

See White, Tropics…, 91-92. Agog [Goga], “La Anticar”, Luceafărul, I, no. 5 (September 1, 1902): 72. 214 Goga, ”Vlaicu,” Luceafărul, XI, no. 18-19 (September 15, 1913): 553, 559 215 Goga, “Two Symbols,” 786-787. It is about the work of Iancsó Bendek, The History of Romanian Irredentism (Budapest: 1923). 213

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This opposition, though exaggerated in some respects for the sake of argument, actually stands for the basic division of Goga’s literary world. At the end of chapter three, a tripartite division is schematically presented on three columns corresponding to the village, the city and the dream. A completion of this thematic scheme is useful in order to understand the continuity between the poetic and political texts, both having in the subtext the same narrative and using largely the same metaphors. Moreover, the persistence of the same images offers a good perspective on the consubstantiality of the two realms: politics and literature, which reside both within a figurative universe. [Past/Lost World] The Village — Racial traits The ancestral instincts A patriarchal society The semi-culture The Good Old Law, The old ruined church

[Present Society] The outer world, the city Semitism Cosmopolitanism Materialism The improvised society Pseudo-culture

[Future Ideal World] The dream The national idea Nationalism Idealism The new generation veritable culture216

Gomorrah

The Church of our hopes A star light, Luceafărul

Holiness Peace Home, return Uselessness

Darkness, night The shadow of the walls Sinfulness, cynicism Pain Wandering, exile Despair, Unrest

God, Nature

—

Brightness, Sereneness

Faith Fight Revolt Hope Messiah, The young Prince, The Beautiful Lad

Table 2. Goga’s Tripartite Figurative Political World and some of its Recurrent Images. Under these circumstances, the national idea appears as a protest against a modern society that had lost its original cohesion and fragmented itself into individuals led only by inferior (selfish or animal) instincts. The national idea was the dream of a new society that should revive the old qualities of the patriarchal order. This dream was not an individual fantasy but was rooted in the great collective unconscious of the people. Then, only those people chosen by divine fate would feel the ancestral instincts of their nation and be able to speak out in the name of their people. The apostles of the new belief were waiting to prepare the world for the arrival of a new Messiah. They would be

216

The notions used by Constantin Rădulescu-Motru are added here only because they are useful to understand the culturalist interpretation of the new generation of intellectuals affiliated to the Cultural League. Goga definitively joined the League in the late of 1914.

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able to disseminate “general feelings” and faith in the new world that should come. They were the writers, in particular the journalists,217 who were the avant-garde of their nation. In the life of the fighting people, the writers have been and will remain the avant-garde that open the battle. Their works are the trumpets thorough which the aspiration of the people is propagated. In their large soul, they forge the great pains of the crowd. They are the representatives of the most advanced beliefs and from their behaviour the ideality of the fight of a people should result. With their eyes enslaved by a face, which floats far away, they go forward and their road is straight. They know only stops but not turning points. They are apostles, not publicans. They preach and do not trade. Transactions are done at the green table by the politicians with an elastic consciousness, while the writers build between heaven and earth the golden bridge on which shines the soul of the people. During the fighting times, fires burns on the top of the mountains. These fires are the sign that the war has started, and that in the valley the armies are ready to fight. These fires, — a symbol of nonsleeping alertness, — are the unrest of a people: the writers.218

There are several immediate implications of this militant literature. One is the bellicose ethos maintained among the Romanian intelligentsia. It was a constant source of violence until the 1930s when, due to the repeated crises endured by Romania,219 a siege atmosphere became overwhelming and thus explosive. Goga and many of his former Tribunist colleagues (Lupaş, Ghibu, etc.) sustained most of the radical student movements of the late 1920s and 1930s, and these movements eventually led to the formation of the extreme right Legion of the Archangels Michael and Gavril, later the Iron Guard. Their support was not insignificant; they legitimated the extremist behaviour of the radical students with their reputations as established academicians and respected politicians.

217

It is remarkably how most of the Romanian writers stoically engaged into a tremendous journalist effort, nowadays largely forgotten, for illuminating the masses. Their self-perception regarding their role within the national movement was similar with the one envisioned by Goga. However, Goga was keen to affirm his role as a writer in order to hide the lack of purely literary inspiration and the decline of his literary creation. 218 Goga, “A murit un om…” 219 It was the political crisis of the Regency happened after the death of Ferdinand I, and then the economic crisis started in 1930, precisely in the moment then the political crisis seemed to be solved through the restoration of Carol II. Additionally, it was a diplomatic crisis due to the European context in which Germany, Italy and Hungary aimed to revise the Versailles peace treaty and Romania became diplomatically isolated being unable to develop a defense system of alliances.

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Another implication was a totalitarian tendency that was developed based on the integralist aim of the narrative and the type of symbolic representation of the nation. The young steeled intellectuals, animated by the national idea in a sense that made them the carriers of the ahistorical folk spirit of their nation, were the true representative of the people and not those elected by a mob stirred by inferior individual instincts. The national idea offered the possibility of a metaphysical representation of the entire nation, past, present, and future in the same holistic participation in the collective soul. This kind of representation was profoundly illiberal and escaped immediate political criticism because it was not based on a rational argument but on feelings. These feelings, for example the communion with the nation, were seen as the highest form of human manifestation, being essentially altruistic and making it possible for political communities to take concrete shape as a nation-state, the only political entity appropriate for developing the racial, original traits of a nation. The arguments of the petty politicians or lawyers were useless because they were corrupted by a foreign education and civilization. The national culture had to be self-referential, any other contact with a foreign culture falsified the original spiritual seed. The other implication of the militant literature was that the narrative national idea was essentially anti-Semitic. Though the Jew was not permanently present, he played the role of the “enemy from within the walls,” as far as the entire present civilization was contaminated with the characteristic attributes of Semitism. After the novel Two Nations by Sandu-Aldea, in which the opposition between the native and the foreigner was built up as a dichotomy between the Romanian peasants and the Greek “ciocoi,” the culturalist movement of the beginning of the twentieth century was interested in such antinomies. Tăslăuanu elaborated on “The Culture of Peasants and the Culture of Gentleman,” and eventually Bogdan-Duică went further and referred to the other “Two Nations: The Romanians and the Jews.”220 Goga ingeniously combined these antinomies into a narrative of national progress and struggle. His enemies were sometimes Liberal politicians, other times Peasant-National leaders, most of the time the progressist Jewish press, but the attributes of all those adversaries against whom he dedicated his entire career remained largely the same, as did the image of the pure Romanians, those who were found in their most authentic form, immodestly, in his native region. In other words, adopting White’s tropes of discourse, the national idea was gradually developed in Goga’s writings as an aggressive, integralist, and anti-

220

Bogdan-Duică, “Two nations: The Romanians and The Jews,” in Românii şi Ovreii, 14-33.

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Semitic narrative that was based on a synecdochic strategy in which each aspect of modern civilization stood for the whole modern world. The modern civilization, from the first articles written by Goga, was covered by disgust and blame which transformed the narrative into a satire that ironically presented the present society as being uprooted and estranged, and that ridiculed it as parvenu and “improvised” in comparison with the real peasant folk. The dirty and trading mores of urban the population was gradually described as inhabiting a Semitic world in this narrative, Semitism being a metaphor for modern society (i.e. urban, cosmopolitan, capitalist, individualist, liberal, secularized, etc.) contaminated by such dreadful sins as cynicism and scepticism. Such people were unable to recognize the apostles of the new world. Eventually, Semitism was transformed into ‘the Jews,’ a process which is essentially metonymic, as a necessary rhetorically reductionist technique in addressing larger audiences. Addressing these problems in the case of Goga’s work does not constitute a theoretical effort to draw a technical framework in order to build another interpretation, but it is an attempt to indicate the importance of figurative and poetic language in shaping political discourse. In other words, it is to sustain that the national idea was an outcome of the poetical universe imagined by Goga.

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CHAPTER 7. Conclusions: The Relevance of Goga’s Work Today In 1915, Goga went to Bucharest and entered active militant politics, joining his friends from the Cultural League in creating an aggressive propaganda campaign for the entry of Romania into the First World War. Their campaign militated against the Central Powers, more specifically against the Habsburg Empire, in the hope of liberating Transylvania from the Hungarian yoke. Much of the Romanian intelligentsia welcomed and surrounded him with great admiration and appreciation. His public image, completely restored after the success of his play Mr. Notary, rose so high than it was identified to Transylvania itself. Goga was perceived as the voice of Transylvania, the highest authority about the problems of the Romanians from the other side [of the Carpathians]. His work and public activities were considered by many as a guarantee of his idealism and faith in the national cause. He enjoyed consideration from left-wing circles who read in his works a plea for the oppressed people and a social critique against “the gentlemen.” The entire postwar political trajectory followed by Goga was oriented towards fulfilling his ideas regarding the Romanian nation, even though this led him closer to the extreme right. It might be a truism to affirm that he was a nationalist and that his national idea was nothing uncommon in comparison with those of other contemporary writers and politicians. What distinguished Goga from other intellectuals was the peculiar profile of him, the curious combination of a writer and a politician, which made him both and none at the same time. His literary universe offers an excellent opportunity to explore the figurative dimension of politics and the political importance of literature, in a world in which culture had become an aggressive argument against the politicians. As discussed in the previous chapters, most of the arguments raised by the Tribunists, and in particular by Goga, aimed to a new kind of politics and leadership for the national movement. It was not only a change at the level of leadership but a revolution in thinking about the national movement. The Tribunists attempted to trigger a mass movement, addressing and organizing a larger audience using their popular journal. For this purpose it was necessary to find instruments other than the former traditional ones employed by local notables. Even the logic of the discourse suffered important changes and the argumentative lawyers’ style was replaced with an emotional or lyrical style of the writers. The scandal of Tribuna was a clash between two logics of nationalism: one was a traditional

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argumentative nationalism and the other one a lyrical nationalism. The innovation of the Tribunist discourse was that they replaced rational arguments against the Austrian-Hungarian compromise with emotional “arguments” for the cultural union of the Romanians. They stressed the importance of the internal battle for “serrying the lines” before taking action against the oppressive government. This effort to mobilize the masses was the main goal of Tribuna, from its foundation (1884) until its end (1912), and gathered to it most of the important Romanian writers from Hungary. It was not only a political but a literary battle, and because of the attempt to find an appropriate form to address the mass feelings it needed a figurative endeavour. Under these circumstances, Goga was exceptionally well placed to become an important leader of opinion. Although the Tribunist movement failed to impose its own line upon the National Committee, and eventually it was dissolved by Stere’s “Peace of Arad,” Goga succeeded in producing a powerful narrative about the national idea, a discursive rhetoric in which mythological, epical and ideological elements were created and fused together in order to move the masses. Alongside the present study, the inception of this narrative was presented. On the other hand, Goga’s articles allow one to follow the evolution as well as the intellectual conception and political practice of his national idea over almost four decades. Thus, Goga’s works fill the gap between the late nineteenth century nationalist activism of the Cultural League and other militant associations, and the radicalism of the 1930s. To a larger extent, the political circumstances and the social actors were different, but the main coordinates of the national idea remained the constant “straight line” of his life, as he proudly declared. Goga did not play an important political role during the 1920s and 1930s but his discourse influenced many outstanding intellectuals who recognised him with respect and consideration. Following his public activities provides a good opportunity to analyse the radicalization of the nationalist discourse in Romania during the respective period. The national idea was never the exclusive idea of one individual or an ideology adopted by a concrete group of people, but a blurred narrative shared by many intellectuals of different political orientations, a narrative that had to remain as vague as possible because it was based on an unfathomable collective soul of the nation, on ancestral “incitements” of the race, and on imponderable feelings shared by the people. The internal dynamics of such a narrative, its sources, the way in which various events were incorporated within it, and nevertheless the way in which it was put into practice, can together be relevant for understanding the emergence of the extreme right wing movements of the 1930s. Through its

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restraint to the pre-war period, the present study has elucidated a formative phase in the young Goga’s development as a public opinion maker. This period was not only formative but also the richest. During the scandal of Tribuna, as discussed in chapters 4 and 5, many public personalities involved themselves with the public debate which provides a comprehensive image over the political spectrum of the Hungarian Romanian at that pivotal moment. In other words, in a relatively short period of time (one year), most of the Romanian public figures were compelled to express their position. The scandal crossed the border and became a public issue within the Romanian kingdom as well, influencing political life to a greater extent than any other external factor. It was presented in most of the cultural and political reviews of the time and all intellectuals attempted to offer a solution to what was perceived as a “painful discord among our brothers from the other side.” This is why the scandal can offer invaluable sources for studying the main lines of political and social thinking regarding the fundamental concepts of modern politics in Romania. As discussed, notions of nation, social cohesion, cultural unity, legitimacy, and social respect came under scrutiny because of the iconoclastic action of Tribuna. It might have been an exaggeration, but the hundreds of articles published over a year or a year and a half can constitute a “thick description” that helps to interpret the web of significances of the national culture, taken as the notion in use at the beginning of the twentieth century. The national culture and the national idea are not notions that can be fully understood within the context of the work of a single author,1 whichever theoretical or speculative thinker he might be, but it should take into account the web of public meaning mediated by such articles. Goga’s works had this role of mediating the public meaning of the national idea in a way that made him representative of an entire generation. In this sense, many contemporary commentators saw his works as a “song of our sufferings,” or as a burden of a writer who should be a catalyst of common feelings and a creator of common patrimony, as Goga himself claimed. Last, the nature of this literature, which is largely reflexive, allows investigations into the psychological processes which are beneath the phenomenon of adopting a radical ideology common for many young intellectuals at the beginning of the twentieth century. Ideology has not only a unifying role at the level of culture, or “national culture” as in this case, but it also has a recuperating effect at the level of the individual after an identity

1

It is the case of Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, A. D. Xenopol, or Lucian Blaga whose works and concepts were incidentally mentioned in this study.

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confusion or crisis. The rapid identification with the entire community, the quick switch from the nothingness to the allness, and the transformation of an individual pathology into a condition of the entire social group, are the collateral effects of such psychological recuperation. Goga’s works are an important source for this kind of psychological process. The present task is not to clinically observe a patient, but to acknowledge the role of literary creation in solving these crises and to investigate the importance of figurative language in shaping a new fictional universe in which individual identity is not threatened. There were two layers of discussion regarding the role of figurative language. On the one hand, metaphorical language is important for the process of identity building, and this layer corresponds, by and large, to the issues addressed in the third and fourth chapters. On the other hand, a metaphorical discourse is significant in disseminating a new identity, and not only in disseminating but in producing a strong emotional relation between the subject of this discourse and the given narrative, through which they assume the new identity.  The story of Octavian Goga began in a village at the foothills of the Carpathians, near the Romanian border of the Habsburg Monarchy. There, the young Octavian, the son of Father Iosif, undertook his first literary attempts. He was undoubtedly encouraged by his mother, Aurelia, who had her own literary aspirations and published a number of poems in Familia. There was a bucolic period of happy childhood for the young Octavian. Unfortunately, it did not last. He was nine years old when he had to leave his village to attend the Hungarian school in Hermanstadt/Sibiu. Goga came from a cultivated family for which education had a long lasting tradition. Yet, it is not clear why they chose the Hungarian school for the young Octavian. Most probably, it was due its proximity to Sibiu, which Răşinari can be considered a part of the outskirts of. At the same time, it is possible that Father Iosif had in mind a future career for his son. Knowing better the Hungarian language would offer the young Octavian a better chance for a higher social status. This moment in September 1890 seems to have been crucial in the psychological evolution of the young Octavian. The city was entirely foreign, at that time being German. Moreover, the school itself was foreign. His knowledge of Hungarian language was not sufficient to satisfy the pretensions of his professors and he probably experienced a difficult time there. These difficulties are suggested by his transcripts2 in which he was marked as “insufficient.”

2

I. D. Bălan publishes Goga’s transcripts for the entire secondary school. For Hungarian Language, he was qualified for the first year (three trimesters) with insufficient, sufficient,

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He eventually graduated from the school but not without a conflict with one of his professors, for which he was forced to move to another school in Brassó/Braşov for the final year. However, his situation became far worse when he went to Budapest for his university studies. Living in a foreign city with modest financial means and learning without pleasure made for an unhappy period for the young Octavian. The only pleasure he allowed to himself was the literary and editorial activities of Luceafărul. It was an escape from daily life, a way to socialize with other Romanian students and to share his concerns about the depressing future of a Romanian intellectual in a country where most cultural institutions were subordinated to the governmental policy of Magyarization. The young Octavian’s period in Budapest was definitively a period of crisis. He sought to solve this profound crisis by a literary creative effort. The result was the richest period of his life when he wrote most of his poems in the process of formulating the terms of his crisis. In these poems, he exteriorized, in one way or another, the crisis he passed through. He wrote memorable verses about the condition of being uprooted from his village, about the serene rural world of his childhood, about the misery of daily life in a modern dirty city, and about his dreams for a better future. At the time, these were common topics for many young intellectuals who happened to leave their small villages to come to the capital for their studies. Yet, the literary destiny of Goga would not be the same if he had not met the providential Tăslăuanu. He was a graduate of the University of Bucharest and was a supporter of the new culturalist current, particularly of Sămănătorism. He offered a solid direction for the confused young Octavian and initiated him into the secrets of Sămănătorism. The events were precipitated. School was about to finish and the final exams were close. Goga was unhappy with the career had he chosen but did not find another solution for the time being. He experienced several sentimental affaires but unsuccessfully. In the last instance, Ms Adelina Olteanu refused him because he did not have the proper means to support a family. Then, in the summer, the crisis erupted. His chronic hypochondria accentuated and, together with the dark thoughts about his future, made the young Octavian very sick. He secluded himself for a while at home in Răşinări, a period that functioned as a

sufficient; the second year, sufficient, good, sufficient; third year, insufficient, sufficient, sufficient; fourth year, sufficient all; fifth year, insufficient, insufficient, sufficient; sixth year, very good all; seventh year, good all; and eighth year, very good. These transcripts indicate that at least in the first years of secondary school, Goga faces serious problems. Seemingly, he began to improve his knowledge of Hungarian language only after the fifth year when he was close to a second examination.

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moratorium, after which he was ready to fully embrace the Sămănătorist ideology. Suddenly, the crisis was not a problem of the young Octavian but actually a problem of Romanian society itself. The transition from nothingness to allness was over. The modern world of the city was found guilty for the misery of an entire generation of young intellectuals. These intellectuals were steeled under the pressure of the foreign environment and committed to returning to their lost world of the village. Goga offered himself as the most representative example of such a young steeled man and the great success of his first volume of poetry strengthened his self-image as a spokesman of his nation. Incidentally, Father Iosif passed away immediately after Goga’s first volume appeared. Therefore, his son had to take his place as the head of the family and its main financial supporter. He accepted the position of secondary secretary of ASTRA, which offered him modest financial security. Taking care of the Transylvanian pavilion at a Romanian exhibition in 1906 at Bucharest, he was introduced to the Cosma family, one of the wealthiest families from Transylvania, and in the next year he married its younger daughter. This marriage opened the door to high society for the young poet and immediately he was appointed the first literary secretary of ASTRA. It would have been embarrassing to keep Partenie Cosma’s son-in-law in a humble position while his father-in-law was one of the principal benefactors of the association. The committee of ASTRA decided to accept Goga’s project of publishing a new cultural review, Ţara Noastră, to meet the needs of a broader audience, a popular (in a sense closer to the meaning of the German “völkisch”) review for the peasant masses. Goga, of course, was appointed its director, and thus he began publishing on a weekly basis articles about the “sins” of the present society, petty consciousnesses, the burden of the priesthood, etc. Once the crisis was identified, it was the time to formulate solutions; this was no longer his crisis but a crisis of the entire society, and this was Goga’s most creative period as a journalist. His campaign would have passed unnoticed if not for the occurrence of a political crisis. The elections of 1910 and the disastrous results obtained by the National Party triggered a series of critical reactions. For many, it was unbelievable that the Romanian National Party reduced its presence in the Hungarian parliament to one-third, compared with the period when the coalition of the nationalist Hungarian parties ruled the country. Goga too ran for a parliamentary seat and he was defeated. Yet, after several months, Tribuna began to publish a series of articles pretending to be an honest critic of the situation and contributing to a broader decent discussion about the critical situation of the moment. The articles were not entirely honest or decent. They were insolent and rude attacks against the leadership of the National Party. One

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publicist, Ilarie Chendi, published a couple of articles entitled “Unrestrained opinions,” demonstrating a remarkable violence against the ‘aged’ national leaders. At that moment, Goga was in Paris, recuperating from an exhausting electoral campaign and waiting for a press trial for a number of literary pieces he had published in his review. He found the opportune moment to intervene in the dispute. By and large, his arguments were similar to those of his previous articles, only this time his criticism had a direct target: the National Committee who had dared to declare Tribuna as being not an official journal of the party but “an independent organ of publicity.” What followed next was a year of public debate known as “the scandal of Tribuna.” Although Goga was not initially a member of the board of Tribuna, nor was he a constant collaborator, he quickly became the most prominent figure of the Tribunists. His articles were published as editorials on the first page and preferentially in the popular (“poporal”) Sunday issue. The tone of his articles, the (self-)alleged impartiality and general ideas he professed, give him an aura of being the theoretician of the young rebels. In a couple of months, he came under “the rain of arrows” from Românul, a newly established journal of the National Committee. The end was close. The entire Romanian public opinion was interested in stopping this fratricidal fight. Eventually, the epilogue was triggered by a serious accusation raised by Vaida-Voevod against Goga. Vaida accused Goga of offering his services to the Hungarian government against the “old decrepit and rusted” leader of the National Committee. At stake was a much discussed Hungarian-Romanian agreement. The government was keen to find an independent group or an outstanding personality with whom to it could reach an agreement of mutual coexistence with its Romanian minority, as the national parties had radicalized their positions during the previous period of political opposition to the government of coalition. The offence was serious and only the intervention of Constantin Stere put an end to it and to the entire scandal. Goga was exonerated of all charges, Tribuna was forced to cease publication and its board was incorporated into the editorial board of Românul, some leaders of the Tribunists were invited to rejoin the national committee, and other Tribunists left the country. This was the so-called peace of Arad. Soon, the entire affair was forgotten because of the Balkan wars and then the Great War. Though it might seem a minor episode in the history of Hungarian Romanians, compared with the First World War and the union of Transylvania, Banat, South of Maramureş and Crişana (Bihar) with the Romanian Kingdom, the scandal of Tribuna allowed Goga to refine his arguments and ideas not only as a literary medium but as a political weapon as well. At the same time, it offered him an opportunity to define his doctrinal position and political

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enemies. The entire post-war career of Goga is a tribute to this formative period in which most of his ideas were formulated. Once the solutions for the crisis were found, it was a time to disseminate them in order “to form a broader current of thought,” or a mass movement animated by the same ideas. This period of the propagation of his ideas corresponds with Goga’s most creative period as an orator. He vehemently opposed the National Party after the war because he considered this party a vestige of the Habsburg regime that stood against the complete unification of the country. Goga’s idea was that the complete union of the country could not be achieved unless the entire state building process began again from the bottom, i.e. from the peasantry, which was the only social stratum not corrupted by foreign education and foreign administrations. Then, he passionately criticized the National Peasant Party during the early 1930s, because he considered this party as a perpetrator of the political crisis opposing to the return of Carol II to his legitimate throne. Goga’s idea of authority led him to the camp of Carol’s supporters, though the heir to the throne had officially renounced his succession.3 Finally, in the late 1930s, he fanatically embraced the fascist model and began preaching a national revolution against the political establishment, particularly against the National Peasant Party. For him, to be a fanatic was equivalent to having a strong belief in the national idea. The opponents of the national ideas, naturally, were foreigners, be they estranged intellectuals educated in a foreign culture, or minorities. The quintessence of the foreigner was the Semite. The Romanian politicians were educated, before the war, in Budapest which was a Semitized city, as he claimed. Now, in Greater Romania, he considered the problem to be the same, … the same fight: BudapestBucharest, the same enemy. In this way, Goga became the first extreme right prime minister of Romania, but ironically it did not happen because of his ideas but because he remained the only party leader loyal to Carol II, who appointed him against all the constitutional rules. In two months, the same Carol II dismissed him, a fact that caused to Goga much sorrow and eventually his heath. There is one aspect that might have a particular significance for Octavian Goga. He reached nation-wide fame in the moment he became an orphan of his father. There are few sources to illustrate a possible Oedipal complex in his case, though it remains a plausible hypothesis. On the one hand, his father was clearly upset because of his son’s career choice; he was worried at the young 3

There was a situation similarly with the abdication of Edward VIII, except Carol II was only the heir of throne when he renounced to his succession, and he did not have a brother but a minor son.

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Octavian’s refusal to become a priest as he was, and then his son rebelled against the career he chose by refusing to fulfil his last exams. How many times would the poor old father tell his son “how good would have been now if you were a priest,”4 or that “the poet always has his pockets empty and turned out.”5 There are very few sources to attest the paternal worries for the young Octavian and the inevitable aspirations a father might have for his son. It is even possible that Goga’s hypochondria might have been a defensive mechanism against his father’s exigencies, knowing he would not dare to exaggerate after the tragedy that had befallen his sister, Victoria. On the other hand, the young Octavian was a rebellious adolescent who revolted against the misery of the everyday life that forced him to leave his family, his friends and his village. For him, rejecting a teaching career concentrated, for a moment, his entire repulsion against the world he wanted to reject. The difficulties faced by his parents in supporting their children in school were evident reasons for his radical rejection of the life task prospected by his parents. Once his father passed away, the balance was broken. Not only he had nobody else to challenge, but he became the head of the family. In one way or another, Goga attempted to take the place of his father. It was not a direct identification with his father, but a symbolic association with his role as a priest. He dreamt once of being a priest but as a denial of his current plans. Yet, there is another figurative meaning of this envisioned priesthood. In his literary universe, the journal, or better The Journal, is a church in which the eternal truth of the national idea is preached. The entire society is envisioned as the patriarchal society of the parishioners’ flock of this church, and he, the writer, is the sacerdote of the nation because he reveals and disseminates the sacred truths of the nation, feeling the ancestral instincts and the depth of the national soul. He envisioned himself sitting on the veranda and sharing folk wisdom with the villagers. For him, the national idea is the doctrine of this pseudo-religion, which provides an ideology, a myth and a history all at the same time. It is an idea that organizes the affective life of the community, offering the necessary cohesion against a kind of modernity envisioned as an essentially disintegrating phenomenon. The national idea is, in this context, the leading metaphor for an entire society. This evokes an epic of the extraordinary deeds of the predecessors or precursors who manifested themselves in history as a great collective folk genius. Accordingly, it implies a temporal order and a particular 4

From a letter of Father Iosif, dated March 1, 1903 published in Daniela Poenaru (ed), Octavian Goga în corespondenţă, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1975): 43. 5 From a letter of Father Iosif, dated March 1900. Ibid., 29.

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program for his supra-collective manifestations, offering a direction and a plan for the current national struggle. It contains a set of symbols and mythological elements that offer a model of exemplarity and a means of cohesion, implying a profound identification of people with a type of patriarchal society taken from dreams about his serene childhood. Finally, the national idea contains the effigy of evil that is modern society, and this representation has racial connotations because modern civilization is characterized as being Semitic. Therefore, besides an ideologically imbedded conflict, the national idea implies a new type of morality drawn in opposition to what was considered the mores of modernity. At its most basic, the national idea was a narrative of a national spirit embodied in the history of a nation. It was a narrative, transfigured in a pseudo-religion, with a clear messianic message: the fulfilment of the national idea. Under these circumstances, the role of the writer, a national writer and not “a merchant of words,” is the prophet of the new epoch of national glory, the apostle of the national idea and the sacerdote of the nation. This was precisely the role assumed by Goga. He transfigured the idyllic image of his father among the peasants of his village into a dream of a better world from which the daily sins of the modern bourgeois are purged forever. It was a pure process of wishful thinking in which the native village is transposed to the scale of the entire country, eliminating the urban civilization that appeared foreign and sinful. This dream of Goga became the dream of an entire generation. Goga, as a poet, was only better placed to approach these sensitive matters with literary means. Neither science nor philosophy could give a satisfactory answer to this crisis, partially because of their limited audience, partially because of their foreign sources,6 but mostly because they were not properly equipped to generate and to manage collective emotions. A new genre of literature emerged, the kind of literature able to organize the collective emotions. It has been called militant literature, which represents a clear departure from the traditional argumentative type of nationalism of the nineteenth century, in favour of a lyrical nationalism of the twentieth century

6

Until the present days the nationalist theoreticians of nationalism have the problem of adopting foreign concepts in defining the national character, because if the national idea is self-asserting and independent from the context it manifests itself, theoretically would not need other notions that those of the local culture it attempts to define. Or, most of the concepts used by the classical nationalist Romanian thinkers are borrowed form the German culture, where otherwise they fulfilled their studies. This is why poetry is better place to approach these matters. It does not care about its sources of inspiration and the result is judged not according to its rational arguments but to its esthetical and emotional effects.

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that is still popular today. From that moment, nationalism was no longer a matter of noesis but a matter of poesis, arguments being replaced with emotions. In this respect, Goga’s case was neither the first nor the classical example of this transition, but it is the best instance in which the coincidence of politics and culture can be analysed alongside the entire spectrum: from poetry to political oratory.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

§ 1. Periodicals.* Apărarea Naţională (The National Defence), 1902-1903 (A nationalist daily newspaper, Bucharest) Epoca (The Epoch), 1915 (The political daily newspaper of the Junimist conservatives, Jassy) Familia (The Family), 1899-1901 (A cultural review, Oradea) Linia draptă (The straight line), 1935-1936 (A cultural-political review of the Christian National Party) Luceafărul (The Morning/Evening Star), 1902-1914 (A cultural review, Budapest and Sibiu) Lupta (The Fight), 1908-1910 (The official organ of the Romanian National Party edited by Alexandru Vaida-Voevod in Budapest) Neamul Românesc (The Romanian Folk), 1906-1912 (The cultural and political review of National-Democrat Party published by N. Iorga, Bucharest) Noua revistă Română (The New Romanian Review), 1908Renaşterea Română (The Romanian Rebirth), 1918-1921 (The official organ of the Peoples Party, Bucharest) România (Romania), 1917 (The official organ of the Romanian Army, Bucharest and Jassy) România (Romania), 1920 (The official organ of the Peoples Party, Cluj) România (Romania), 1917-1919 (The official organ of National Defence) România Mare (Greater Romania), Românul (The Romanian), 1911-1913 (The official organ of the Romanian National Party in Hungary, Arad) Sămănătorul (The Disseminator/The Sower), 1908-1912 (A weekly cultural review, Bucharest) Ţara Noastră (Our Country), 1907-1910 (The official organ of ASTRA, Sibiu) Ţara Noastră (Our Country), 1910-1913 (A cultural review edited by Goga, Sibiu) Ţara Noastră (Our Country), 1923-1931 (The cultural and political review of Goga, Cluj and Bucharest) Ţara Noastră (Our Country), 1932-1938 (The official daily newspaper of Agrarian National Party and, from 1935, of Christian National Party) Tribuna (poporului) (The Tribune of the people), 1908-1913 (A daily newspaper, Arad; from 1903, when Tribuna from Sibiu ceased to appear, is called Tribuna)

326

Tribuna (The Tribune) 1899-1903 (A daily newspaper, Sibiu) Viaţa Românească, 1908-1912 (A cultural review, Jassy) § 2. References Domokos, Sámuel. A Román Iradolom Magyar Bibliográfiája 1831-1960 (The Magyar Bibliography of Romanian Literature). Bucharest: Irodalmi Könyvkiadó, 1966) Hangiu, I. Dicţionarul Presei Literare Româneşti 1790-1990 (The Dictionary of the Romanian Literary Press). Bucharest: Fundaţia Culturală Română, 1996. Predescu, Lucian. Enciclopedia Cugetarea (The Thought Encyclopaedia). Bucharest: Georgescu Delafras, 1940. For the present dissertation I used the new anastatic edition. Bucharest: Saeculum and Vestala, 1999. Triteanu, Mihail. Luceafărul. A Bibliography. Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică Română, 1972. § 3. Primary sources. Ady Endre. Poemele tuturor tainelor - Antologie lirică (The Poems of all Mysteries - A Lyrical Anthology). Bucharest: Grai şi Suflet - Cultura Naţională, 1995. Ady Endre. The Explosive Country - A Selection of Articles and Studies, 18981916. Budapest: Corvina Press, 1977. Bogdan-Duică, George. Românii şi Ovreii (The Romanians and the Jews). Bucharest: Institutul de Arte Grefice Tipografia Românească, 1913. Bordeianu Mihai, Ştefan Lemny (eds.), Octavian Goga în corespondenţă, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1983). Cuza, Alexandru C. Naţionalismul în artă (Nationalism in Art). Bucharest: Minerva, 1908. Daniela Poenaru (ed). Goga Octavian in corespondenţă. 2 vol. Bucharest: Minerva, 1975. Goga, Octavian. Poezii (Poems). Bucharest: Editura pentru literatură , 1963. Goga, Octavian. Mustul care fierbe (The Fermenting Must). Bucharest: Scripta, 1992. Goga, Octavian. Ne învată Mărăşeştii (Mărăşeşti Teaches Us). Jassy: Junimea , 1983. Goga, Octavian. Pagini publicistice (Journalistic Pages). Cluj: Dacia , 1981. Goga, Octavian. Pagini noi (New Pages). Bucharest: Tineretului, 1967. Goga, Octavian. Precursorii (The Precursors). Bucharest: Minerva, 1989. Goga, Octavian. Teatru (Theatre). Bucharest: Minerva, 1984.

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Goga, Octavian. Ce e Tribuna zilelor noastre ? Răspuns la broşura Mangra, Tisza şi “Tribuna” (What is today Tribuna? An Answeer for the Stitched Book "Mangra, Tisza şi 'Tribuna' "). Arad: Tribuna institut tipografic, Nichin şi Cons., 1911. Goga, Octavian. Însemnările unui trecător - Crâmpeie din zbuciumările de la noi (Notes of a Passer-by - Fragments of the Struggles from our Province). Arad: “Tribuna” institut tipografic, Nichin şi Cons., 1911. Goga, Octavian. Ideea naţională. Conferinţă ţinută studenţilor universitari la “Teatrul Naţional” din Cluj în 9 Decembrie 1923 (The National Idea. The Conference Sustained in Front of the Students at the "National Theatre from Cluj in December, 9, 1923). Cluj: Tipografia Dr.Sebastian Bornemisa, 1923. Goga, Octavian. Pagini din luptele ardelenilor pentru unire (Pages From the Transylvanian Struggles for the Union). Chişinău: Tipografia Eparhială “Cartea Româneascã”, Biblioteca “Astrei” Basarabene, 1927. Goga, Octavian. Fragmente auto-biografice (Autobibliographical Fragments). Bucharest: Ed.”Cartea Românească”, 1933. Hodža, Milan. Federation in Central Europe. Reflections and Reminiscences. London: Jarrolds Publisher Ltd., 1942). Iorga, Nicolae. O luptă literară (A Literary Fight). Bucharest: Minerva, 1979. Lovinescu, Eugen. Istoria literaturii române contemporane, 1900-1937 (The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature, 1900-1937). Bucharest: Ancora, 1927. ________. Istoria literaturii române contemporane (The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature). Bucharest: Minerva, 1981. ________. Critice (Critics). Bucharest: Minerva, 1979. ________. Titu Maiorescu. Bucharest: Minerva, 1972. Maior, Liviu. Alexandru Vaida-Voevod între belvedere şi Versailles. Cluj: Sincron, 1993. Mihu Ioan. Spicuiri din gândurile mele. Politice, culturale, economice (Fragments of my thoughts. Political, Cultural, Economical), ed. Silviu Dragomir. Sibiu: Tiparul Tipografiei Arhidiecezane, 1938. Popovici, Aurel C. Cestiunea Românã din Transilvania şi Ungaria. Replica Junimei Academice Române din Transilvania şi Ungaria la “Respunsul” dat de Junimea Academică Maghiară “Memoriului” studenţilor Universitari din România cu o hartă etnografică a Austro-Ungariei şi a României (The Romanian Question in Transylvania and Hungary. The Rejoinder of the Young Romanian Academics from Transylvania and Hungary to the "Answer" Given by the Young Magyar Academics to the "Memorial" of the University Students from Romania). 2d ed. Vienna,

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Budapest, Graz, Cluj: Publishing house — property of the author, litotypography Carol Göbl, Bucuresci, 1892. Popovici, Aurel C. Principiul de naţionalitate - Conferinţă desvoltată la 30,I,1894 În “Ateneul Român” din Bucureşti (The Principle of Nationality The Conference Developed in January, 30, 1894 at the Romanian Athenaeum). Bucharest: Author’s publishing house, 1894. Popovici, Aurel C. Stat şi naţiune - Statele Unite ale Austriei Mari : studii politice în vederea rezolvării problemei naţionale şi a crizelor constituţionale din Austro-Ungaria (State or Nation - The United States of Great Austria: Political Studies in order to solve the National Problem and the Constitutional Crises in Austria-Hungary). Bucharest: Fundaţia pentru literatură şi artă “Regele Carol II”, 1939. Popovici, Aurel C. Naţionalism sau democraţie: o critică a civilizaţiunii moderne (Nationalism or Democracy: A Critique of the Modern Civilisation). Bucharest: Minerva, 1910. Puşcariu, Sextil. Memorii (Memories). Bucharest: Ed.Minerva, 1978. Puşcariu, Sextil. Călare pe două veacuri - amintiri din tinereţe (1895-1906) (Mounted on Two Centuries - Recollections from my Youth: 1895-1906). Bucharest: Editura pentru literatură, 1968. Slavici, Ioan. Sbuciumările politice la românii din Ungaria (The Political Convulsions of Romanians from Hungary). Bucharest: “Minerva”, Institutul de arte grafice şi Editură, 1911. Slavici, Ioan. Închisorile mele (My Prisons). Bucharest: Alfa & Paideia, 1996. Slavici, Ioan. Amintiri (Recollections). Bucharest: Editura pentru literatură, 1967. Slavici, Ioan. Opere (Works), vol. X-XIV. Bucharest: Minerva, 1994. Tăslăuanu, Octavian C. Octavian Goga - Amintiri (Octavian Goga Recollections). Bucharest: “Bucovina” I.E.Torouţoiu, 1939. Tăslăuanu, Octavian C. Spovedanii (Confessions). Bucharest: Minerva, 1976. Vaida-Voievod, Alexandru. Mangra, Tisza şi “Tribuna”. Un mănunchi de dovezi adunate din “Tribuna” (Mangra, Tisza and "Tribuna." A Handful of Proves Gathered from "Tribuna"). Braşov: by the author, 1911. Vaida-Voevod, Alexandru. Memoirs. Vol. I-IV. Cluj: Dacia, 1994-1998. § 4. Secondary literature. Boia, Lucian. Eugen Brote 1850-1912. Bucharest: Litera, 1974. Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich. A new history. London: Macmillan, 2000. Carroll, David. French Literary Fascism. Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, and the Ideology of Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

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Casillo, Robert. The Genealogy of Demons: anti-Semitism, Fascism, and the myths of Ezra Pound. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988. Cheyette, Bryan. Construction of ‘The Jew’ in English Literature and Society. Racial representations, 1875-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Erikson, Erik H. Young Man Luther. A study in psychoanalysis and history. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays. New York: Basic books, 1973. Gentile, Emilio. The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Cambridge: Mass, 1996. Hitchins, Keith. A Nation Affirmed: The Romanian National Movement in Transylvania, 1860-1914. Bucharest: The Encyclopedic Publishing House, 1999. LaCapra, Dominique. Rethinking Intellectual History: Text, Context, Language. New York: Ithaca, 1983. Le Rider, Jaques. Modernity and Crises of Identity. Culture and Society in Finde-siècle Vienna. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993. Lilla, Mark. The Reckless Mind. Intellectuals in Politics. New York: New York Review Books, 2001. Maior, Liviu. Memorandumul. Filozofia politică a petiţionarismului românesc (Memorandum. The Political Philosophy of Romanian Petitionhood). Cluj: Dacia, 1992. McGrath, William J. Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria. New Heaven: Yale University Press, 1974. Ornea, Zigu. Ţărănismul. Studiu sociologic (Peasantism. A Sociological Study). Bucharest: Political Printing House, 1969. ________. Poporanismul. Bucharest: Minerva, 1972. ________. Traditionalism şi modernitate în deceniul al treilea (Traditionalism and Modernity in the Third Decade). Bucharest: Eminescu, 1980. ________. Sămănătorismul. 2nd revised edition. Bucharest: Fundaţia Culturală Romănă, 1998. ________. The Romanian Extreme Right. The Nineteen Thirties. Boulder: East European Monographs, 1999. Robertson, Ritchie. The ‘Jewish Question’ in German Literature. 1749-1939. Emancipation and its discontents. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Romsisc, Ignác. Hungary in the Twentieth Century. Budapest: Corvina, 1999. Schorske, Carl. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, New York: Knopf, 1979.

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________. Thinking With History. Explorations in the Passage to Modernism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Shedel, James. Art and Society: the New art Movement in Vienna, 1897-1914. Palo Alto, Calif.: Society for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship, 1981. Szász Zoltán. History of Transylvania. Vol. III. From 1830 to 1919. Boulder: Social Science Monographs, 2002. Talmon, Jacob L. Political Messianism. The Romantic Phase. London: Secker & Warburg, 1960. ________. Myth of the Nation and Vision of Revolution. Ideological Polarization in the Twentieth Century. New Brunswick: Transaction Publisher, 1991. Vatamaniuc, Dumitru. Ioan Slavici şi lumea prin care a trecut (Ioan Slavici And The World He Passed Through). Bucharest: Academiei, 1968. Vermes Gabor. Istvan Tisza, The Liberal Vision and Conservative Statecraft of a Magyar Nationalist. New York: East European Monographs, Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1985. Volovici, Leon. Nationalist ideology and antisemitism: the case of Romanian intellectuals in the 1930s. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1991. §5. Articles Lacue-Labarthe, Philipe and Jean-Luc Nancy. “The Nazi Myth.” Critical Inquiry. 16 (Winter 1990): 291-312. Popa, Mircea. “Octavian Goga şi Societatea ASTRA.” Revista de istorie şi teorie literară, no. 3 (March, 1968): 517-523. Shapiro, Paul A. “Prelude to Dictatorship in Romania: The National Christian Party in Power. Dec. 1937-Febr. 1938.” Canadian-American Slavic Studies (Pittsburg), VIII (Spring 1974): 45-88. Volkov, Shulamit. “Antisemitism as a Cultural Code. Reflections on History and Historiography of Antisemitism in Imperial Germany.” Leo Baek Institute Year Book. 23 (1978): 25-46. Weinstein, Fred. “Psychology and the Chrisis of the Social Sciences.” History and Theory. 34 (1995): 299-319.