Gândirea
Encyclopedia
Gândirea known during its early years as Gândirea Literară - Artistică - Socială ("The Literary - Artistic - Social Thinking"), was a Romania
n literary
, political
and art magazine.
and D. I. Cucu in the city of Cluj
, and first issued on May 1, 1921 as a literary supplement for the Cluj-based Voinţa, it was originally a modernist
and expressionist
-influenced journal. During its early existence, it attracted criticism from the traditional cultural establishment for allegedly allowing influences from Germanic Europe
to permeate Romanian culture
. Gândirea moved to Bucharest
in October 1922, and, in 1926, its leadership was joined by the nationalist
thinker Nichifor Crainic
; he became its director and ideological guide in 1928, gradually moving it toward a mystical
Orthodox
focus — itself occasionally referred to as Gândirism. With just two interruptions in publication (1925 and 1933–34), Gândirea became one of the most important cultural magazines of the Romanian interwar period
.
A proponent of home-grown traditionalist ideas, it eventually found itself in opposition to Sburătorul
, the modernist magazine headed by literary critic Eugen Lovinescu
, as well as to the journal Viaţa Românească
, which stood for the left-wing
and agrarian
current known as Poporanism
. In its later years, Gândirea routinely hosted fascist
-inspired and antisemitic articles, largely reflecting Crainic's own political views. By then, numerous disputes were taking place between Crainic's supporters and former Gândirea collaborators such as literary critic Tudor Vianu
and poet Tudor Arghezi
. Additional debates were carried between Crainic and the centrist
political figures Nicolae Iorga
and Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
over the nature of nationalism and religion in Romania. The magazine often identified its secularist
adversaries with materialism
, and occasionally accused modernist figures in Romanian literature
of writing pornography
.
Gândirea was briefly closed down over suspicions that it was supporting the fascist Iron Guard
, and, between 1938 and 1944, endorsed the successive dictatorial regimes of the National Renaissance Front
, the National Legionary State
, and Conducător
Ion Antonescu
. During World War II, it expressed support for Antonescu's antisemitic policies, which Crainic claimed to have inspired. Together with all other publications Crainic was heading, Gândirea ceased to be published in 1944, as Romania ended its alliance with the Axis Powers
.
, Vasile Băncilă, Lucian Blaga
, Dan Botta, Alexandru Busuioceanu
, Mateiu Caragiale
, Vasile Ciocâlteu, Oscar Walter Cisek
, Anastase Demian, Radu Gyr
, N. I. Herescu, Vintilă Horia
, Adrian Maniu, Gib Mihăescu
, Tiberiu Moşoiu, Ştefan I. Neniţescu, Ovidiu Papadima
, Victor Papilian, Ioan Petrovici, Ion Pillat
, V. I. Popa, Dragoş Protopopescu
, Ion Marin Sadoveanu
, Ion Sân-Giorgiu
, Zaharia Stancu
, Dumitru Stăniloae
, Paul Sterian, Francisc Şirato
, Al. O. Teodoreanu, Ionel Teodoreanu
, Sandu Tudor, Tudor Vianu
, Pan M. Vizirescu, Vasile Voiculescu
, G. M. Zamfirescu.
Many other intellectuals and artists had their work published in Gândirea, and some of them were only temporarily associated with the journal. They include Tudor Arghezi
, George Călinescu
, Şerban Cioculescu
, Petre Pandrea, Mircea Eliade
, Emil Cioran
, Marcel Janco
, Ion Vinea, and Mircea Vulcănescu
.
on early 20th century culture. Gândireas early years coincided with the aftermath of World War I and the establishment of Greater Romania
, making the magazine one of several newly-established Romanian-language
periodicals in the formerly Austro-Hungarian
region of Transylvania
. It has thus been argued that, before moving to Bucharest, the magazine was also involved in promoting a unitary Romanian culture
inside the newly-acquired province, but this appears to have been one of its secondary goals.
Without producing its own an artistic program, Gândirea counted among the few Romanian publications to praise Expressionist culture (its editors often extended the term to non-Expressionists such as Constantin Brâncuşi
, Max Reinhardt
, Alexander Archipenko
, and Dmitry Merezhkovsky
). This focus on emotion and expression was especially present in essays contributed by Adrian Maniu and Ion Sân-Giorgiu
, as well as in Ion Marin Sadoveanu
's chronicles about the impact of Gothic
traditions on early 20th century literature. The Expressionist trend, accompanied by Gândireas frequent and sympathetic reviews of Futurism
and Dada
, caused Crainic (who was only a correspondent at the time), to express his distaste.
Despite hosting a large number of essays on art criticism, and in contrast to the style of avant-garde
journals such as Contimporanul
, Gândirea rarely featured Expressionist graphics. Notably, in 1924, the editors chose to illustrate an issue with a print by the proto-Expressionist Edvard Munch
, commented upon by Tudor Vianu
. Nevertheless, later in the same year, painter Francisc Şirato
used Gândirea as a means to popularize his essays on Visual Arts in Romania, in which he publicized his break with Expressionist influences and his newfound interest in Romanian specificity in local art
and folklore. In parallel, Oskar Walter Cisek's art chronicle (published between 1923 and 1929), gave, overall, equal exposure to all existing modernist trends.
Literature produced by the first of several Gândirea circles received criticism from several traditionalist circles, for being one of "sick modernists". Notably, the historian and politician Nicolae Iorga
, one of the major cultural figures of his time, cited fears that Romania was becoming "Germanized". He argued that, aside from Crainic's poetry it published, the magazine was copying Germanic ideals originating with the art groups of Munich
and Vienna
("[Gândirea is] the window copy of modernist jargon muttered by Munich only to be responded through other parrotings, insane or charlatanesque, by Vienna").
By that moment, however, the magazine was itself fusing Expressionist influences with traditionalist aesthetic goals, to the point where it had become, according to Lucian Blaga
, "a bouquet of centrifugal tendencies". During the 1920s, Gândirea hosted polemical articles by the traditionalists and traditionalist-inspired Iorga, Crainic, Cezar Petrescu
, and Pamfil Şeicaru. Writing much later, Crainic expressed his opinion that the two visions were only apparently contradictory:
Reviewing the emphasis of traditionalism subsequently present in Gândireas pages, the critic Ovid Crohmălniceanu argued that it was no less an evidence of a new kind of literature. Although the main proponent of traditionalism, Crainic himself remained open to some modernist influences, and translated the innovative works of Rainer Maria Rilke
into Romanian.
school, which at times turned into accusations that Lovinescu was "a petty poser" and "a falsifier of Romanian culture". Crainic and his traditionalist followers rejected Lovinescu's views on local "synchronism" with Western culture
. Their attitude in regard to the latter has drawn comparisons with Protochronist
messages in Communist Romania
, both claiming the superiority and primacy of Romanian culture
over its Western counterparts. Although Crainic publicized his thoughts on the matter mainly through his other periodical, Sfarmă-Piatră
, Gândirea notably hosted a 1926 article in which he likened the fight against Lovinescu's influence to "a second independence [of Romania]".
During the 1930s, Gândirea was at the center of virulent polemics involving, on one side, former contributors such as Tudor Arghezi
and Tudor Vianu
, and, on the other, those younger journalists who recognized Crainic as their mentor. Initially, this took the form of a Gândirist critique of both Modernism and the socialist
-inspired current known as Poporanism
: in a 1930 article for Gândirea, Crainic notably indicated his distaste for "the irremediable materialism" he believed to be professed by the rival Viaţa Românească
.
Following this, Vianu, whose political options contrasted with the new trend, chose to discontinue his contributions and joined the staff at Viaţa Românească; although Lucian Blaga shared some views with Crainic, he too decided to distance himself from the magazine as early as 1930 (writing to Vianu that he did not consider himself a "disciple of our common friend Nichifor's Orthodoxy").
In December 1931, as the magazine celebrated its first decade, Crainic summed up Gândireas guidelines, stressing that its commitment to Orthodoxy, the Romanian monarchy
and nationalism
:
The Viaţa Românească columnist George Călinescu
was skeptical of Crainic's politics, and noted his alternation between various nationalist camps. Commenting on Gândireas choice to support Carol II
at the time when he replaced his son Mihai I
as king (1930), he likened Crainic to Judas Iscariot
:
At the time, Gândirism owed inspiration to Russian émigré
authors, both Orthodox traditionalists such as Nikolai Berdyaev
and several advocates of the nationalist and mystical Eurasianist
trend (Nikolai Trubetzkoy
, Pyotr Savitsky, Pyotr Alexeyev, and Ivan Ilyin
). Around 1934, Crainic reflected upon the connection his magazine had with other traditionalist cultural institutions, and concluded that his group was fulfilling the legacy of the more secular
but equally traditionalist magazine Sămănătorul
("Over the land that we have learned to love from Sămănătorul we see arching itself the azure tarpaulin of the Orthodox Church. We see this substance of this Church blending in with the ethnic substance.")
More than a decade later, Călinescu argued that an enduring trait of Gândirism (to which he referred as Orthodoxism) had been a manifest belief in miracle
s. He believed to have noticed this in the works of Gândirea contributors such as Mircea Vulcănescu
(in his homage to the deceased painter Sabin Popp, whom he allegedly regarded as "a saint"), Vasile Ciocâlteu ("who asks from God, in one of his poems, the favor to hold hot coals in his hands") and the Athonite
pilgrim Sandu Tudor (who believed in "the workings of a mysterious miracle" as explanations for various events).
In his later columns for Gândirea, Crainic focused on explaining his ideal of ethnocracy
in connection with the magazine's overall goals. This involved the denunciation of "foreign elements" and "minority islands", with a specific focus on the Jewish-Romanian community
("Jews make use of an indolent hospitality in order to deprive our kin of its ancient patrimony") and its alleged connections with the political establishment ("In statements, in speeches and in acts of government our democrats have always declared themselves on the side of intruders and the allogeneous"). According to Călinescu, Crainic, unlike the regime in Nazi Germany
, was not condoning racism as much as religious antisemitism:
In parallel, around 1931, the magazine's approach to philosophy
was criticized by the Personalist
thinker Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
, who deemed it "belletristic
"; the traditionalist philosopher Mircea Vulcănescu
, although himself only occasionally associated with Gândirea, defended Crainic's influence in front of the pragmatic conservative
Junimist
tradition arguably represented by Rădulescu-Motru inside the University of Bucharest
. Writing in 1937, Crainic celebrated Gândireas role in making nationalism and Orthodoxy priorities in Romania's intellectual and political life:
's assassins, all of them members of the fascist
Iron Guard
(a movement to which Crainic was close at the time). Instigation of the killing was attributed to, among others, Crainic, who faced trial; Gândirea, like Calendarul (his other major journal), was closed down by the authorities. The editor was eventually acquitted
, but Calendarul was never allowed to resume print. Instead, Crainic focused his energy on issuing Sfarmă-Piatră
.
Following its reemergence, Gândirea was again involved in a debate with Rădulescu-Motru. Among others, the latter contended that the Gândirist focus on Orthodoxy clashed with the traditional openness Romanian nationalism (which he referred to as Romanianism) had towards modernization
, equating Crainic's thought with "xenophobia
" and "nationalist patter". In response, Crainic accused Rădulescu-Motru of displaying "a Masonic
aversion towards Orthodoxy", and of not having grasped the sense of spirituality (to the statement "Romanianism is a spirituality coming to justify a realist order", he replied "Any man knows that the word spirituality has a strictly religious meaning"). Later, he defined Rădulescu-Motru's thought as "militant philosophical atheism
", and, in a Gândirea article of 1937, referred to him as a "philosophic simpleton [găgăuţ]".
As early as April 1933, Crainic wrote articles welcoming Adolf Hitler
's rise to power in Germany, and began support for corporatist
goals. Four years later, he authored a Gândirea article in which he praised Benito Mussolini
and Italian fascism
as the most adequate authoritarian
alternative to positivism
, materialism
, capitalism
and socialism
alike:
This coincided with friendly relations between Crainic and the Italian Comitati d'azione per l'universalità di Roma (CAUR, the "Fascist International"), first evidenced in 1933-1934, at a time when Mussolini was undecided over the local political movement which was to attract his support. CAUR was planning to advance Crainic money to start a new publication, entirely dedicated to support for the Italian model, but the design was abandoned when Ugo Sola, the Italian ambassador in Bucharest
, advised against it (Sola had been refused by the Iron Guard when approaching them with a similar proposal). As CAUR ended its all its relations with the Guard (who opted instead in favor of Nazi backing), it kept its contacts with Crainic and other less revolutionary-minded Romanian politicians — Mihail Manoilescu
, Alexandru Averescu
, Nicolae Iorga
, Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
, Octavian Goga
and A. C. Cuza
. In 1935, Crainic, who had been a vice president of Cuza's National-Christian Defense League
, joined the fascist National Christian Party
, but split with it after his ethnocratic
ideal was dismissed by older party politicians (1937).
Writing in 1938 for his Porunca Vremii, Crainic argued:
published his The Transfiguration of Romania in 1937, Crainic reacted to the book's pro-totalitarian
but overtly skeptic
message, calling it "a bloody, merciless, massacre of today's Romania, without even [the fear] of matricide and sacrilege". To Cioran's support for modernization on a model which owed inspiration to both Nazi Germany
and the Soviet Union, as well as to his criticism of Romanian traditions, Crainic replied by urging young people in general not to abandon "faith in our kin's rising century".
In early 1938, Nicolae Iorga, who had by then come into open conflict with the Iron Guard, voiced criticism of Cuvântul
(a paper associated with the latter political movement), arguing that, despite an emphasis on traditionalism and localism, its ideological guidelines took direct inspiration from the foreign models of Nazism and Italian fascism. The dispute, involving, on the other side, Nae Ionescu
, drew echoes in Gândirea — also challenged by Vulcănescu's argument that Gândirea had failed in their attempt to identify with Orthodoxy, Crainic polemized that Gândirism was in fact opposed to all forms of leftist and rightist internationalism
(the "internationalist currents dominating our age"). At the time, publications headed by Ionescu and Crainic, despite maintaining separate visions on several core issues, showed equal support for a number of ideas (up to a certain point, Crainic was a direct influence on Ionescu). Iorga and Crainic had come to clash over Crainic's emphasis on religion (in front of Iorga's secularism
), his political choices, as well as the few links Crainic still maintained with modernism.
Similar criticism of Crainic's political influence on Gândirea was voiced, in retrospect, by Pamfil Şeicaru (himself connected with the Iron Guard for part of his life). Şeicaru believed that the magazine aimed to adapt the influential ideas of Roman Catholic
political activism (the Catholic Action
) to an Orthodox environment: "[Crainic's] Orthodoxism was meant to facilitate the establishment of a party similar to the Democatholic ones". He also argued that
The magazine's articles featured accusations that Tudor Arghezi
's group, together with others writers, was condoning "pornography
", and Gândirea sided with Iorga's similar views on Arghezi's work. In this context, Crainic and his collaborators included antisemitic texts in Gândireas columns. At the time, through the voice of Crainic, the magazine hailed Nazi Germany for having "immediately thrown over the border all Judaic pornographers and even those German writers infected with Judaism", and Fascist Italy for "immediately sanctioning a scabrous short story writer".
Carol II
's National Renaissance Front
(FRN) and the authoritarian cabinet of Ion Gigurtu
, inspiring the drafting antisemitic legislation, and being appointed to the leadership of the Propaganda
Ministry. Despite the violent conflict between Carol and the Iron Guard, he continued to be ambivalent towards the latter, especially after the FRN was confronted with the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and the Second Vienna Award
; Crainic allowed its activists to broadcast their anthem on public radio
, carrying on as minister during the World War II Iron Guard government (the National Legionary State
).
In 1941, celebrating twenty years of existence, Gândirea hosted Crainic's thoughts on the "Jewish Question
" and the new authoritarian and antisemitic regime of Ion Antonescu
, which it had come to support:
Following the recovery of Bessarabia
during Operation Barbarossa
, Gândirea joined the group of magazines that were blaming the territory's original loss on the Bessarabian Jewish community
, while Crainic identified past and present Soviet policies with Judeo-Bolshevism
.
entered Romania (see Soviet occupation of Romania
). In May 1945, Crainic was tried in absentia
by a Communist Party
-dominated People's Tribunal
, as part of the "fascist journalists' group" (alongside Pamfil Şeicaru, Stelian Popescu
, Grigore Manoilescu, and Radu Gyr
). He was charged with instigating racial hatred, endorsing the war against the Soviet Union
, and helping to keep secret the war crime
s of the Antonescu regime. Found guilty, Crainic was sentenced to life imprisonment
and hard labor (captured in 1947, he was to serve 15 years in the prisons of Communist Romania
).
In a poll of 102 Romanian literary critics conducted in 2001 by the literary magazine Observator Cultural
, the novel Craii de Curtea-Veche
, written by Mateiu Caragiale
and published in Gândirea in 1926-1927, was chosen "best Romanian novel of the twentieth century".
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n literary
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
, political
Political journalism
Political journalism is a broad branch of journalism that includes coverage of all aspects of politics and political science, although the term usually refers specifically to coverage of civil governments and political power....
and art magazine.
Overview
Founded by Cezar PetrescuCezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu was a Romanian journalist, novelist and children's writer.He was inspired by the works of Honoré de Balzac, attempting to write a Romanian novel cycle that would mirror Balzac's La Comédie humaine...
and D. I. Cucu in the city of Cluj
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
, and first issued on May 1, 1921 as a literary supplement for the Cluj-based Voinţa, it was originally a modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
and expressionist
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
-influenced journal. During its early existence, it attracted criticism from the traditional cultural establishment for allegedly allowing influences from Germanic Europe
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
to permeate Romanian culture
Culture of Romania
Romania has a unique culture, which is the product of its geography and of its distinct historical evolution. Like Romanians themselves, it is defined as the meeting point of three regions: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, but cannot be truly included in any of them...
. Gândirea moved to Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
in October 1922, and, in 1926, its leadership was joined by the nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
thinker Nichifor Crainic
Nichifor Crainic
Nichifor Crainic was a Romanian writer, editor, philosopher, poet and theologian famed for his traditionalist and antisemitic activities...
; he became its director and ideological guide in 1928, gradually moving it toward a mystical
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
focus — itself occasionally referred to as Gândirism. With just two interruptions in publication (1925 and 1933–34), Gândirea became one of the most important cultural magazines of the Romanian interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
.
A proponent of home-grown traditionalist ideas, it eventually found itself in opposition to Sburătorul
Sburatorul
Sburătorul was a Romanian modernist literary magazine and literary society, established in Bucharest in April 1919. Led by Eugen Lovinescu, the circle was instrumental in developing new trends and styles in Romanian literature, ranging from a new wave of Romanian Symbolism to an urban-themed...
, the modernist magazine headed by literary critic Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
, as well as to the journal Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
, which stood for the left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
and agrarian
Agrarianism
Agrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
current known as Poporanism
Poporanism
The word “poporanism” is derived from “popor”, meaning “people” in the Romanian language. The ideology of Romanian Populism and poporanism are interchangeable. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, populism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for...
. In its later years, Gândirea routinely hosted fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
-inspired and antisemitic articles, largely reflecting Crainic's own political views. By then, numerous disputes were taking place between Crainic's supporters and former Gândirea collaborators such as literary critic Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
and poet Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
. Additional debates were carried between Crainic and the centrist
Centrism
In politics, centrism is the ideal or the practice of promoting policies that lie different from the standard political left and political right. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of left-right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between...
political figures Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
and Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
Constantin Radulescu-Motru
Constantin Rădulescu-Motru was a Romanian philosopher, psychologist, sociologist, logician, academic, dramatist, as well as centre-left nationalist politician with a noted anti-fascist discourse...
over the nature of nationalism and religion in Romania. The magazine often identified its secularist
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
adversaries with materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
, and occasionally accused modernist figures in Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
of writing pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
.
Gândirea was briefly closed down over suspicions that it was supporting the fascist Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
, and, between 1938 and 1944, endorsed the successive dictatorial regimes of the National Renaissance Front
National Renaissance Front
The National Renaissance Front was a fascist Romanian political party created by King Carol II in 1938 as the single monopoly party of government following his decision to ban all other political parties and suspend the 1923 Constitution, and the passing of the 1938 Constitution of Romania...
, the National Legionary State
National Legionary State
The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...
, and Conducător
Conducator
Conducător was the title used officially in two instances by Romanian politicians, and earlier by Carol II.-History:...
Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
. During World War II, it expressed support for Antonescu's antisemitic policies, which Crainic claimed to have inspired. Together with all other publications Crainic was heading, Gândirea ceased to be published in 1944, as Romania ended its alliance with the Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
.
Contributors
Several circles were formed around Gândirea, bringing together a large part of the period's Romanian intellectuals: Ion BarbuIon Barbu
Ion Barbu was a distinguished Romanian mathematician and poet.He was born in Câmpulung-Muscel, Argeş County, the son of Constantin Barbilian and Smaranda, born Şoiculescu. He attended Ion Brătianu High School in Piteşti and Gheorghe Lazăr High School in Bucharest...
, Vasile Băncilă, Lucian Blaga
Lucian Blaga
-Biography:Lucian Blaga was a commanding personality of the Romanian culture of the interbellum period. He was a philosopher and writer higly acclaimed for his originality, a university professor and a diplomat. He was born on May 9, 1895 in Lancrăm, near Alba Iulia, Romania, his father being an...
, Dan Botta, Alexandru Busuioceanu
Alexandru Busuioceanu
Alexandru Busuioceanu was a Romanian essayist, poet, historian and diplomat.As a historian he wrote studies about Zamolxis, the god of the ancient Dacians...
, Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Ion Caragiale was a Romanian poet and prose writer, best known for his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, which portrays the milieu of boyar descendants before and after World War I. Caragiale's style, associated with Symbolism, the Decadent movement of the fin de siècle, and early modernism, was...
, Vasile Ciocâlteu, Oscar Walter Cisek
Oscar Walter Cisek
Oscar Walter Cisek was a Romanian writer, diplomat, and art critic, who authored short stories, novels, poems and essays in both German and Romanian.-Biography:...
, Anastase Demian, Radu Gyr
Radu Gyr
Radu Gyr was a Romanian poet, essayist, playwright and journalist....
, N. I. Herescu, Vintilă Horia
Vintila Horia
Vintilă Horia was a Romanian writer.-Biography:Born in Segarcea, he graduated from the Saint Sava National College, then studied Law, and then Letters, including terms at universities in Italy and Austria...
, Adrian Maniu, Gib Mihăescu
Gib Mihaescu
Gib I. Mihăescu was a Romanian novelist and dramatist.Born in Drăgăşani, Mihăescu wrote short stories such as Grandiflora, and novels. His work depicts obsessive, often erotic, feelings. His works include Rusoaica , Femeia de ciocolată , and his masterpiece, Donna Alba...
, Tiberiu Moşoiu, Ştefan I. Neniţescu, Ovidiu Papadima
Ovidiu Papadima
Ovidiu Papadima was a Romanian literary critic, folklorist, and essayist....
, Victor Papilian, Ioan Petrovici, Ion Pillat
Ion Pillat
Ion Pillat grew up in Bucharest. He was a poet, best known for his volume Pe Argeş în sus and Poeme într-un vers...
, V. I. Popa, Dragoş Protopopescu
Dragos Protopopescu
Dragoş Protopopescu was a Romanian writer, poet, critic and philosopher. He was professor at the University of Cernăuţi....
, Ion Marin Sadoveanu
Ion Marin Sadoveanu
Ion Marin Sadoveanu was a Romanian playwright.- Biography :...
, Ion Sân-Giorgiu
Ion Sân-Giorgiu
Ion Sân-Giorgiu was a Romanian modernist poet, dramatist, essayist, literary and art critic, also known as a journalist, academic, and fascist politician. He was notably the author of works on the Sturm und Drang phenomenon and the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
, Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu was a Romanian prose writer, novelist, poet, and philosopher.Stancu was born in 1902 in Salcia, a village in Teleorman County, Romania. After leaving school at the age of thirteen he worked at various jobs. In 1921, with the help of Gala Galaction, he became a journalist...
, Dumitru Stăniloae
Dumitru Staniloae
Dumitru Stăniloae was a Romanian Eastern Orthodox priest, theologian, academic, and professor. Father Stăniloae worked for over 45 years on a comprehensive Romanian translation of the Philokalia, a collection of writings by the Church Fathers, together with the hieromonk, Arsenie Boca, who brought...
, Paul Sterian, Francisc Şirato
Francisc Sirato
Francisc Şirato was a Romanian painter, graphic artist, art critic, and designer.-External links:*...
, Al. O. Teodoreanu, Ionel Teodoreanu
Ionel Teodoreanu
Ionel Teodoreanu was a Romanian novelist and lawyer. He is mostly remembered for his books on the themes of childhood and adolescence.-Biography:...
, Sandu Tudor, Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
, Pan M. Vizirescu, Vasile Voiculescu
Vasile Voiculescu
Vasile Voiculescu was a Romanian poet, short-story writer, playwright, and physician.-Early life and education:Voiculescu was born in Pârscov, Buzău County, Romania, to a family of wealthy peasants. He attended primary school in Pleşcoi, a village near his home, for a year, after which he was sent...
, G. M. Zamfirescu.
Many other intellectuals and artists had their work published in Gândirea, and some of them were only temporarily associated with the journal. They include Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
, George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
, Şerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu was a Romanian literary critic, literary historian and columnist, who held teaching positions in Romanian literature at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, as well as membership of the Romanian Academy and chairmanship of its Library...
, Petre Pandrea, Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
, Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
-Early life:Emil M. Cioran was born in Răşinari, Sibiu County, which was part of Austria-Hungary at the time. His father, Emilian Cioran, was a Romanian Orthodox priest, while his mother, Elvira Cioran , was originally from Veneţia de Jos, a commune near Făgăraş.After studying humanities at the...
, Marcel Janco
Marcel Janco
Marcel Janco was a Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect, art theorist and cultural promoter, known as the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading exponent of Constructivism in Eastern Europe. His first contribution came in the 1910s, when he joined up with poets Tristan Tzara and Ion Vinea...
, Ion Vinea, and Mircea Vulcănescu
Mircea Vulcanescu
Mircea Vulcănescu was a prominent Romanian philosopher, economist, ethics teacher and sociologist.-Biography:He studied philosophy and law at the University of Bucharest, graduating in 1925...
.
Beginnings
For much of the 1920s, the magazine was a venue for modernist criticism, and involved in theoretical debates over the influence of German- and Austrian-influenced ExpressionismExpressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
on early 20th century culture. Gândireas early years coincided with the aftermath of World War I and the establishment of Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
, making the magazine one of several newly-established Romanian-language
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
periodicals in the formerly Austro-Hungarian
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
region of Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
. It has thus been argued that, before moving to Bucharest, the magazine was also involved in promoting a unitary Romanian culture
Culture of Romania
Romania has a unique culture, which is the product of its geography and of its distinct historical evolution. Like Romanians themselves, it is defined as the meeting point of three regions: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, but cannot be truly included in any of them...
inside the newly-acquired province, but this appears to have been one of its secondary goals.
Without producing its own an artistic program, Gândirea counted among the few Romanian publications to praise Expressionist culture (its editors often extended the term to non-Expressionists such as Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
, Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt (theatre director)
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...
, Alexander Archipenko
Alexander Archipenko
Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko was a Ukrainian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist.-Biography:...
, and Dmitry Merezhkovsky
Dmitry Merezhkovsky
Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky, , 1865, St Petersburg – December 9, 1941, Paris) was a Russian novelist, poet, religious thinker, and literary critic. A seminal figure of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry, regarded as a co-founder of the Symbolist movement, Merezhkovsky – with his poet wife Zinaida...
). This focus on emotion and expression was especially present in essays contributed by Adrian Maniu and Ion Sân-Giorgiu
Ion Sân-Giorgiu
Ion Sân-Giorgiu was a Romanian modernist poet, dramatist, essayist, literary and art critic, also known as a journalist, academic, and fascist politician. He was notably the author of works on the Sturm und Drang phenomenon and the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
, as well as in Ion Marin Sadoveanu
Ion Marin Sadoveanu
Ion Marin Sadoveanu was a Romanian playwright.- Biography :...
's chronicles about the impact of Gothic
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
traditions on early 20th century literature. The Expressionist trend, accompanied by Gândireas frequent and sympathetic reviews of Futurism
Futurism (art)
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
and Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
, caused Crainic (who was only a correspondent at the time), to express his distaste.
Despite hosting a large number of essays on art criticism, and in contrast to the style of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
journals such as Contimporanul
Contimporanul
Contimporanul was a Romanian avant-garde literary and art magazine, published in Bucharest between June 1922 and 1932...
, Gândirea rarely featured Expressionist graphics. Notably, in 1924, the editors chose to illustrate an issue with a print by the proto-Expressionist Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...
, commented upon by Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
. Nevertheless, later in the same year, painter Francisc Şirato
Francisc Sirato
Francisc Şirato was a Romanian painter, graphic artist, art critic, and designer.-External links:*...
used Gândirea as a means to popularize his essays on Visual Arts in Romania, in which he publicized his break with Expressionist influences and his newfound interest in Romanian specificity in local art
Art of Romania
Art of Romania encompasses the artists and artistic movements in Romania.-Romanian contemporary and modern artists:* Almaşan Virgil* Adela Andea* George Apostu* Corneliu Baba* Calin Baban* Sabin Bălaşa* Horia Bernea* Traian Brădean...
and folklore. In parallel, Oskar Walter Cisek's art chronicle (published between 1923 and 1929), gave, overall, equal exposure to all existing modernist trends.
Literature produced by the first of several Gândirea circles received criticism from several traditionalist circles, for being one of "sick modernists". Notably, the historian and politician Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
, one of the major cultural figures of his time, cited fears that Romania was becoming "Germanized". He argued that, aside from Crainic's poetry it published, the magazine was copying Germanic ideals originating with the art groups of Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
("[Gândirea is] the window copy of modernist jargon muttered by Munich only to be responded through other parrotings, insane or charlatanesque, by Vienna").
By that moment, however, the magazine was itself fusing Expressionist influences with traditionalist aesthetic goals, to the point where it had become, according to Lucian Blaga
Lucian Blaga
-Biography:Lucian Blaga was a commanding personality of the Romanian culture of the interbellum period. He was a philosopher and writer higly acclaimed for his originality, a university professor and a diplomat. He was born on May 9, 1895 in Lancrăm, near Alba Iulia, Romania, his father being an...
, "a bouquet of centrifugal tendencies". During the 1920s, Gândirea hosted polemical articles by the traditionalists and traditionalist-inspired Iorga, Crainic, Cezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu was a Romanian journalist, novelist and children's writer.He was inspired by the works of Honoré de Balzac, attempting to write a Romanian novel cycle that would mirror Balzac's La Comédie humaine...
, and Pamfil Şeicaru. Writing much later, Crainic expressed his opinion that the two visions were only apparently contradictory:
"Expressionism in painting is a German fatality. But from [Germany] it has migrated towards us as well. [...] Have the poetry of Blaga and Adrian Maniu, the theater of Blaga, Maniu, lost their ethnic (and therefore traditional) specificity for having borrowed the expressionist style from wherever?"
Reviewing the emphasis of traditionalism subsequently present in Gândireas pages, the critic Ovid Crohmălniceanu argued that it was no less an evidence of a new kind of literature. Although the main proponent of traditionalism, Crainic himself remained open to some modernist influences, and translated the innovative works of Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
into Romanian.
Early conflicts
From the late 1920s and over much of its existence, Crainic's press engaged in polemics with modernists of the Eugen LovinescuEugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
school, which at times turned into accusations that Lovinescu was "a petty poser" and "a falsifier of Romanian culture". Crainic and his traditionalist followers rejected Lovinescu's views on local "synchronism" with Western culture
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
. Their attitude in regard to the latter has drawn comparisons with Protochronist
Protochronism
Protochronism is a Romanian term describing the tendency to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretations, an idealised past to the country as a whole...
messages in Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, both claiming the superiority and primacy of Romanian culture
Culture of Romania
Romania has a unique culture, which is the product of its geography and of its distinct historical evolution. Like Romanians themselves, it is defined as the meeting point of three regions: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, but cannot be truly included in any of them...
over its Western counterparts. Although Crainic publicized his thoughts on the matter mainly through his other periodical, Sfarmă-Piatră
Sfarma-Piatra
Sfarmă-Piatră was an antisemitic daily, monthly and later weekly newspaper, published in Romania during the late 1930s and early 1940s...
, Gândirea notably hosted a 1926 article in which he likened the fight against Lovinescu's influence to "a second independence [of Romania]".
During the 1930s, Gândirea was at the center of virulent polemics involving, on one side, former contributors such as Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
and Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
, and, on the other, those younger journalists who recognized Crainic as their mentor. Initially, this took the form of a Gândirist critique of both Modernism and the socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
-inspired current known as Poporanism
Poporanism
The word “poporanism” is derived from “popor”, meaning “people” in the Romanian language. The ideology of Romanian Populism and poporanism are interchangeable. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, populism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for...
: in a 1930 article for Gândirea, Crainic notably indicated his distaste for "the irremediable materialism" he believed to be professed by the rival Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
.
Following this, Vianu, whose political options contrasted with the new trend, chose to discontinue his contributions and joined the staff at Viaţa Românească; although Lucian Blaga shared some views with Crainic, he too decided to distance himself from the magazine as early as 1930 (writing to Vianu that he did not consider himself a "disciple of our common friend Nichifor's Orthodoxy").
Crainic's impact
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
and nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
:
"[...] set apart a person from our generation from a thousand others — [these] are nothing other than absolutely necessary conditions which make possible the true spiritual life. [...] This is what our precursors cannot comprehend, [being] a sad generation liquidating a culture that was not theirs and through this was not even cultural."
The Viaţa Românească columnist George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
was skeptical of Crainic's politics, and noted his alternation between various nationalist camps. Commenting on Gândireas choice to support Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
at the time when he replaced his son Mihai I
Michael I of Romania
Michael was the last King of Romania. He reigned from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930, and again from 6 September 1940 until 30 December 1947 when he was forced, by the Communist Party of Romania , to abdicate to the Soviet armies of occupation...
as king (1930), he likened Crainic to Judas Iscariot
Judas Iscariot
Judas Iscariot was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He is best known for his betrayal of Jesus to the hands of the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.-Etymology:...
:
"[Crainic is] a person incapable of any privation, seeker of pieces of silver and worldly pleasures, great seeker of noisy shindings where pistols are being fired, a cajoler and a careerist, outrageously dedicating Gândirea today to HRM Mihai, tomorrow to HRM Carol II, the day after tomorrow to the great apostle of the nation Nicolae Iorga, at any moment when the homage could be tied to the pursuit of a personal interest."
At the time, Gândirism owed inspiration to Russian émigré
White Emigre
A white émigré was a Russian who emigrated from Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, and who was in opposition to the contemporary Russian political climate....
authors, both Orthodox traditionalists such as Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev was a Russian religious and political philosopher.-Early life and education:Berdyaev was born in Kiev into an aristocratic military family. He spent a solitary childhood at home, where his father's library allowed him to read widely...
and several advocates of the nationalist and mystical Eurasianist
Eurasianists
Eurasianism is a political movement within the primarily Russian emigre community.-Early 20th century:Eurasianists was a political movement in the Russian emigre community in the 1920s...
trend (Nikolai Trubetzkoy
Nikolai Trubetzkoy
Prince Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy was a Russian linguist and historian whose teachings formed a nucleus of the Prague School of structural linguistics. He is widely considered to be the founder of morphophonology...
, Pyotr Savitsky, Pyotr Alexeyev, and Ivan Ilyin
Ivan Ilyin
Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin was a Russian religious and political philosopher, White emigre publicist and an ideologue of the Russian All-Military Union.-Young years:...
). Around 1934, Crainic reflected upon the connection his magazine had with other traditionalist cultural institutions, and concluded that his group was fulfilling the legacy of the more secular
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
but equally traditionalist magazine Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul or Semănătorul was a literary and political magazine published in Romania between 1901 and 1910. Founded by poets Alexandru Vlahuţă and George Coşbuc, it is primarily remembered as a tribune for early 20th century traditionalism, neoromanticism and ethnic nationalism...
("Over the land that we have learned to love from Sămănătorul we see arching itself the azure tarpaulin of the Orthodox Church. We see this substance of this Church blending in with the ethnic substance.")
More than a decade later, Călinescu argued that an enduring trait of Gândirism (to which he referred as Orthodoxism) had been a manifest belief in miracle
Miracle
A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...
s. He believed to have noticed this in the works of Gândirea contributors such as Mircea Vulcănescu
Mircea Vulcanescu
Mircea Vulcănescu was a prominent Romanian philosopher, economist, ethics teacher and sociologist.-Biography:He studied philosophy and law at the University of Bucharest, graduating in 1925...
(in his homage to the deceased painter Sabin Popp, whom he allegedly regarded as "a saint"), Vasile Ciocâlteu ("who asks from God, in one of his poems, the favor to hold hot coals in his hands") and the Athonite
Mount Athos
Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece. A World Heritage Site, it is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the...
pilgrim Sandu Tudor (who believed in "the workings of a mysterious miracle" as explanations for various events).
In his later columns for Gândirea, Crainic focused on explaining his ideal of ethnocracy
Ethnocracy
Ethnocracy is a form of government where representatives of a particular ethnic group hold a number of government posts disproportionately large to the percentage of the total population that the particular ethnic group represents and use them to advance the position of their particular ethnic...
in connection with the magazine's overall goals. This involved the denunciation of "foreign elements" and "minority islands", with a specific focus on the Jewish-Romanian community
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
("Jews make use of an indolent hospitality in order to deprive our kin of its ancient patrimony") and its alleged connections with the political establishment ("In statements, in speeches and in acts of government our democrats have always declared themselves on the side of intruders and the allogeneous"). According to Călinescu, Crainic, unlike the regime in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, was not condoning racism as much as religious antisemitism:
"For reasons of churchly policy, the race factor is averted and [Crainic] takes a stand against [racism in Nazi Germany] and those nationalists who advocate the elimination of Christianized Jews and deny them baptism. 'The Church is open to all'. Although it is not said outright, it is understood that a baptized Jew becomes a Romanian, Nation and Religion being correlated notions. [...] Gândirea has thus received plenty of rallied, that is to say Orthodoxized, Jews."
In parallel, around 1931, the magazine's approach to philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
was criticized by the Personalist
Personalism
Personalism is a philosophical school of thought searching to describe the uniqueness of a human person in the world of nature, specifically in relation to animals...
thinker Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
Constantin Radulescu-Motru
Constantin Rădulescu-Motru was a Romanian philosopher, psychologist, sociologist, logician, academic, dramatist, as well as centre-left nationalist politician with a noted anti-fascist discourse...
, who deemed it "belletristic
Belles-lettres
Belles-lettres or belles lettres is a term that is used to describe a category of writing. A writer of belles-lettres is a belletrist. However, the boundaries of that category vary in different usages....
"; the traditionalist philosopher Mircea Vulcănescu
Mircea Vulcanescu
Mircea Vulcănescu was a prominent Romanian philosopher, economist, ethics teacher and sociologist.-Biography:He studied philosophy and law at the University of Bucharest, graduating in 1925...
, although himself only occasionally associated with Gândirea, defended Crainic's influence in front of the pragmatic conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
Junimist
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
tradition arguably represented by Rădulescu-Motru inside the University of Bucharest
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
. Writing in 1937, Crainic celebrated Gândireas role in making nationalism and Orthodoxy priorities in Romania's intellectual and political life:
"The term 'ethnic' with its meaning of 'ethnic specificity' imprinted in all sorts of expressions of the people, as a mark of its original properties, has been spread for 16 years by the journal Gândirea. The same thing applies to the terms of autochthonism, traditionalism, Orthodoxy, spirituality and many more which became the shared values of our current nationalist language."
1934 hiatus and recovery
A scandal erupted in 1934, when the magazine was closed down over Crainic's implication in the trial of Premier Ion G. DucaIon G. Duca
Ion Gheorghe Duca was prime minister of Romania from November 14 to December 30, 1933, when he was assassinated for his efforts to suppress the fascist Iron Guard movement.-Life and political career:...
's assassins, all of them members of the fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
(a movement to which Crainic was close at the time). Instigation of the killing was attributed to, among others, Crainic, who faced trial; Gândirea, like Calendarul (his other major journal), was closed down by the authorities. The editor was eventually acquitted
Acquittal
In the common law tradition, an acquittal formally certifies the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as the criminal law is concerned. This is so even where the prosecution is abandoned nolle prosequi...
, but Calendarul was never allowed to resume print. Instead, Crainic focused his energy on issuing Sfarmă-Piatră
Sfarma-Piatra
Sfarmă-Piatră was an antisemitic daily, monthly and later weekly newspaper, published in Romania during the late 1930s and early 1940s...
.
Following its reemergence, Gândirea was again involved in a debate with Rădulescu-Motru. Among others, the latter contended that the Gândirist focus on Orthodoxy clashed with the traditional openness Romanian nationalism (which he referred to as Romanianism) had towards modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
, equating Crainic's thought with "xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
" and "nationalist patter". In response, Crainic accused Rădulescu-Motru of displaying "a Masonic
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
aversion towards Orthodoxy", and of not having grasped the sense of spirituality (to the statement "Romanianism is a spirituality coming to justify a realist order", he replied "Any man knows that the word spirituality has a strictly religious meaning"). Later, he defined Rădulescu-Motru's thought as "militant philosophical atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
", and, in a Gândirea article of 1937, referred to him as a "philosophic simpleton [găgăuţ]".
As early as April 1933, Crainic wrote articles welcoming Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's rise to power in Germany, and began support for corporatist
Corporatism
Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...
goals. Four years later, he authored a Gândirea article in which he praised Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
and Italian fascism
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
as the most adequate authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
alternative to positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
, materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
, capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
and socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
alike:
"[Fascism is] a spiritual political concept [whose] manifestations, torn away from the tight circle of positivism and freed from the suffocating prison of materialism, fall into order on the ghostly marrow of history, prolonging themselves into the recess of past centuries and into the anticipations of the coming century. [...] A man bears there, under his vast dome-like forehead, our European century: Benito Mussolini. [...] The State created by Mussolini is the exemplary State. [...] Fascism is no longer capitalism, no longer socialism, but an authoritarian adjustment of every factor in production, geared into a social organism where nothing is left to chance. [...] More than any other country, Romania needs such a moral transformation in the depths of its soul [...] the spirit of a new RomeThird RomeThe term Third Rome describes the idea that some European city, state, or country is the successor to the legacy of the Roman Empire and its successor state, the Byzantine Empire ....
will suggest the shape of history destined to be created by a nationalist Romania."
This coincided with friendly relations between Crainic and the Italian Comitati d'azione per l'universalità di Roma (CAUR, the "Fascist International"), first evidenced in 1933-1934, at a time when Mussolini was undecided over the local political movement which was to attract his support. CAUR was planning to advance Crainic money to start a new publication, entirely dedicated to support for the Italian model, but the design was abandoned when Ugo Sola, the Italian ambassador in Bucharest
Italian Ambassador to Romania
Ambassadors of Italy have been sent to Romania from as early as October 27, 1878, when the Romanian Principality gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire ....
, advised against it (Sola had been refused by the Iron Guard when approaching them with a similar proposal). As CAUR ended its all its relations with the Guard (who opted instead in favor of Nazi backing), it kept its contacts with Crainic and other less revolutionary-minded Romanian politicians — Mihail Manoilescu
Mihail Manoilescu
Mihail Manoilescu was a Romanian journalist, engineer, economist, politician and memoirist, who served as Foreign Minister of Romania during the summer of 1940...
, Alexandru Averescu
Alexandru Averescu
Alexandru Averescu was a Romanian marshal and populist politician. A Romanian Armed Forces Commander during World War I, he served as Prime Minister of three separate cabinets . He first rose to prominence during the peasant's revolt of 1907, which he helped repress in violence...
, Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
, Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod or Vaida-Voievod was a Romanian politician who was a supporter and promoter of the union of Transylvania with the Romanian Old Kingdom; he later served three terms as a Prime Minister of Greater Romania.-Transylvanian politics:He was born to a Greek-Catholic family in the...
, Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga was a Romanian politician, poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.-Life:Born in Răşinari, nearby Sibiu, he was an active member in the Romanian nationalistic movement in Transylvania and of its leading group, the Romanian National Party in Austria-Hungary. Before World War I,...
and A. C. Cuza
A. C. Cuza
A. C. Cuza was a Romanian far right politician and theorist.-Early life:Born in Iaşi, after attending secondary school in his native city and in Dresden, Cuza studied law at the University of Paris, the Universität unter den Linden, and the Université Libre de Bruxelles...
. In 1935, Crainic, who had been a vice president of Cuza's National-Christian Defense League
National-Christian Defense League
The National-Christian Defense League was a virulently anti-Semitic political party of Romania formed by A. C. Cuza.-Origins:The group had its roots in the National Christian Union, formed in 1922 by Cuza and the famed physiologist Nicolae Paulescu. This group, which used the swastika as its...
, joined the fascist National Christian Party
National Christian Party
The National Christian Party was a Romanian political party, the product of a union between Octavian Goga's National Agrarian Party and A. C. Cuza's National-Christian Defense League; a prominent member of the party was the philosopher Nichifor Crainic...
, but split with it after his ethnocratic
Ethnocracy
Ethnocracy is a form of government where representatives of a particular ethnic group hold a number of government posts disproportionately large to the percentage of the total population that the particular ethnic group represents and use them to advance the position of their particular ethnic...
ideal was dismissed by older party politicians (1937).
Writing in 1938 for his Porunca Vremii, Crainic argued:
"There exists authority based on love. The latter is Mussolini's authority over his people. It bursts out of the characteristic forces of the creative personality, like fire provoked by exploding bombs. Mussolini does not terrorize, for Mussolini does not kill. Mussolini attracts. [...] All his system is based on the fervent and unanimous adherence of his people."
Late 1930s polemics
After Emil CioranEmil Cioran
-Early life:Emil M. Cioran was born in Răşinari, Sibiu County, which was part of Austria-Hungary at the time. His father, Emilian Cioran, was a Romanian Orthodox priest, while his mother, Elvira Cioran , was originally from Veneţia de Jos, a commune near Făgăraş.After studying humanities at the...
published his The Transfiguration of Romania in 1937, Crainic reacted to the book's pro-totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
but overtly skeptic
Skepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
message, calling it "a bloody, merciless, massacre of today's Romania, without even [the fear] of matricide and sacrilege". To Cioran's support for modernization on a model which owed inspiration to both Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and the Soviet Union, as well as to his criticism of Romanian traditions, Crainic replied by urging young people in general not to abandon "faith in our kin's rising century".
In early 1938, Nicolae Iorga, who had by then come into open conflict with the Iron Guard, voiced criticism of Cuvântul
Cuvântul
Cuvântul is a newspaper from Rezina, the Republic of Moldova, founded in 1995 by Tudor Iaşcenco.- External links :*...
(a paper associated with the latter political movement), arguing that, despite an emphasis on traditionalism and localism, its ideological guidelines took direct inspiration from the foreign models of Nazism and Italian fascism. The dispute, involving, on the other side, Nae Ionescu
Nae Ionescu
Nae Ionescu was a Romanian philosopher, logician, mathematician, professor, and journalist. Near the end of his career, he became known for his antisemitism and devotion to far right politics, in the years leading up to World War II.-Life:...
, drew echoes in Gândirea — also challenged by Vulcănescu's argument that Gândirea had failed in their attempt to identify with Orthodoxy, Crainic polemized that Gândirism was in fact opposed to all forms of leftist and rightist internationalism
Internationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
(the "internationalist currents dominating our age"). At the time, publications headed by Ionescu and Crainic, despite maintaining separate visions on several core issues, showed equal support for a number of ideas (up to a certain point, Crainic was a direct influence on Ionescu). Iorga and Crainic had come to clash over Crainic's emphasis on religion (in front of Iorga's secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
), his political choices, as well as the few links Crainic still maintained with modernism.
Similar criticism of Crainic's political influence on Gândirea was voiced, in retrospect, by Pamfil Şeicaru (himself connected with the Iron Guard for part of his life). Şeicaru believed that the magazine aimed to adapt the influential ideas of Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
political activism (the Catholic Action
Catholic Action
Catholic Action was the name of many groups of lay Catholics who were attempting to encourage a Catholic influence on society.They were especially active in the nineteenth century in historically Catholic countries that fell under anti-clerical regimes such as Spain, Italy, Bavaria, France, and...
) to an Orthodox environment: "[Crainic's] Orthodoxism was meant to facilitate the establishment of a party similar to the Democatholic ones". He also argued that
"A political-Orthodox movement crystallized inside a party is destined to be a vain attempt, no matter how much talent N. Crainic may have. And a political ambition is not enough in creating a large-scale social movement. Hence the deviation of Gândirea magazine from its initial impulse."
The magazine's articles featured accusations that Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
's group, together with others writers, was condoning "pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
", and Gândirea sided with Iorga's similar views on Arghezi's work. In this context, Crainic and his collaborators included antisemitic texts in Gândireas columns. At the time, through the voice of Crainic, the magazine hailed Nazi Germany for having "immediately thrown over the border all Judaic pornographers and even those German writers infected with Judaism", and Fascist Italy for "immediately sanctioning a scabrous short story writer".
1940s
Eventually, Crainic rallied with KingKing of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
's National Renaissance Front
National Renaissance Front
The National Renaissance Front was a fascist Romanian political party created by King Carol II in 1938 as the single monopoly party of government following his decision to ban all other political parties and suspend the 1923 Constitution, and the passing of the 1938 Constitution of Romania...
(FRN) and the authoritarian cabinet of Ion Gigurtu
Ion Gigurtu
Ion Gigurtu was a Romanian politician, Land Forces officer, engineer and industrialist who served a brief term as Prime Minister from July 4 to September 4, 1940, under the personal regime of King Carol II. A specialist in mining and veteran of both the Second Balkan War and World War I, he made a...
, inspiring the drafting antisemitic legislation, and being appointed to the leadership of the Propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
Ministry. Despite the violent conflict between Carol and the Iron Guard, he continued to be ambivalent towards the latter, especially after the FRN was confronted with the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and the Second Vienna Award
Second Vienna Award
The Second Vienna Award was the second of two Vienna Awards arbitrated by the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Rendered on August 30, 1940, it re-assigned the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary.-Prelude and historical background :After the World War I, the multi-ethnic...
; Crainic allowed its activists to broadcast their anthem on public radio
Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company
The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company , informally referred to as Radio Romania , is the public radio broadcaster in Romania. It operates four national radio channels, and, under the Radio România Regional umbrella, eleven regional radio stations. The four national radio channels are: Radio...
, carrying on as minister during the World War II Iron Guard government (the National Legionary State
National Legionary State
The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...
).
In 1941, celebrating twenty years of existence, Gândirea hosted Crainic's thoughts on the "Jewish Question
Jewish Question
The Jewish question encompasses the issues and resolutions surrounding the historically unequal civil, legal and national statuses between minority Ashkenazi Jews and non-Jews, particularly in Europe. The first issues discussed and debated by societies, politicians and writers in western and...
" and the new authoritarian and antisemitic regime of Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
, which it had come to support:
"Throughout this time [...], Judaism was our most bitter enemy. Not an adversary, but an enemy [...]. Today, Judaism is vanquished. A splendid act of justice has suppressed [the left-wing publications] AdevărulAdevarulAdevărul is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in 1871 and reestablished in 1888, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Romanian Kingdom's existence, adopting an independent pro-democratic position, advocating land reform and universal suffrage...
, Dimineaţa and Lupta. The rest, it was only in 1940 that I could carry out when, as Minister of Propaganda, I extirpated all Jewish daily and weekly publications in Romania. The holy right of speaking in the name of Romanianism belongs now to Romanians exclusively. [...] There shall be no more artistic and cultural ideals where Judaism could dissimulate itself."
Following the recovery of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
during Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, Gândirea joined the group of magazines that were blaming the territory's original loss on the Bessarabian Jewish community
Bessarabian Jews
-Early history:Jews are mentioned from very early in the Principality of Moldavia, but they did not represent a significant number. Their main activity in Moldavia was commerce, but they could not compete with Greeks and Armenians, who had the knowledge of the Levantine commerce and relationships...
, while Crainic identified past and present Soviet policies with Judeo-Bolshevism
Jewish Bolshevism
Jewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism, and known as Żydokomuna in Poland, is an antisemitic stereotype based on the claim that Jews have been the driving force behind or are disproportionately involved in the modern Communist movement, or sometimes more specifically Russian Bolshevism.The expression...
.
Disestablishment and legacy
The magazine ceased publication in 1944, after the August 23 Coup overthrew Antonescu and the Soviet Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
entered Romania (see Soviet occupation of Romania
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
). In May 1945, Crainic was tried in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
by a Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
-dominated People's Tribunal
Romanian People's Tribunals
The two Romanian People's Tribunals , the Bucharest People's Tribunal and the Northern Transylvania People's Tribunal were set up by the post-World War II government of Romania, overseen by the Allied Control Commission to try suspected war criminals, in line with Article 14 of the Armistice...
, as part of the "fascist journalists' group" (alongside Pamfil Şeicaru, Stelian Popescu
Stelian Popescu
Stelian Popescu was a nationalist Romanian journalist.From 1914 to 1943, Popescu was director of Universul....
, Grigore Manoilescu, and Radu Gyr
Radu Gyr
Radu Gyr was a Romanian poet, essayist, playwright and journalist....
). He was charged with instigating racial hatred, endorsing the war against the Soviet Union
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, and helping to keep secret the war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
s of the Antonescu regime. Found guilty, Crainic was sentenced to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
and hard labor (captured in 1947, he was to serve 15 years in the prisons of Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
).
In a poll of 102 Romanian literary critics conducted in 2001 by the literary magazine Observator Cultural
Observator Cultural
Observator Cultural is a literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania. It covers Romania's cultural and arts scene.-External links:*...
, the novel Craii de Curtea-Veche
Craii de Curtea-Veche
Craii de Curtea-Veche is a novel by the inter-war Romanian author Mateiu Caragiale...
, written by Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Ion Caragiale was a Romanian poet and prose writer, best known for his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, which portrays the milieu of boyar descendants before and after World War I. Caragiale's style, associated with Symbolism, the Decadent movement of the fin de siècle, and early modernism, was...
and published in Gândirea in 1926-1927, was chosen "best Romanian novel of the twentieth century".
External links
- Gândirea archive, Babeş-Bolyai UniversityBabes-Bolyai UniversityThe Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca is an university in Romania. With almost 50,000 students, the university offers 105 specialisations, of which there are 105 in Romanian, 67 in Hungarian, 17 in German, and 5 in English...
Transsylvanica Online Library