| Literature |
The 16th-18th centuries saw developement of the written culture. Those works, although not devoid of a certain aesthetic value, cannot be considered as literary works proper.
The end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century heralded a real start in Romanian literature. It was a period of evolution and breakaway of the structural univers specific to literature from the nonhomogeneous and polychrome area of the earlier written culture. Moreover, it was a final breakaway from the previous cultural world, determined by a radical change of the Romanian society (an accelerated process of westernisation and liberalisation, the change of the literary language by its connection to the European styles, as well as of the institutional aspect of culture).
The first half of the 19th century was a time of great project for the creation of a national literature, as well as of diversification (after 1830 all the possible genres were approached) and professionalisation of writing. The renewal of language included also improper or caricatural expression, hence the urgent appel launched by the 1848 Generation, by the writers involved in the 1848 events, for a return to the folklore, which was seen as a source of aesthetic regeneration, owing to the simplicity and beauty of its language. They included Vasile Alecsandri (1821-1890), a trailblazer in poetry, prose writing, drama, as well as a collector of folklore, and Costache Negruzzi (1808-1868) who was not only the founder of the Romanian short story but also of a model still not matched in historical short story writing.
The second half of the 19th century was characterised by great quality leaps in literature. A remarkable contribution was made by Junimea cultural society (f. 1863) and especially by its mentor, Titu Maiorescu (1840-1917), through his struggle against mediocrity and for the introduction of the aesthetic criterion in setting the hierarchy of values. The review published by that society, Convorbiri literare, helped impose the great 19th century writers: Mihai Eminescu, Ion Luca Caragiale and Ion Creanga. Eminescu (for Romanians he is the prototype of the poet and of poetry), who was conversant with the higest philosophical speculations and, at the same time, was a great admirer of folk poetry, gave maximum brilliance to Romanian Romanticism, having radically changed the poetic language by doing away with rhetoric. Ion Luca Caragiale's plays are a merciless mirror of the Romanian society of the time, standing out by their biting criticism of political obsession and moral vacillation, ridiculing the coontradiction between effective obscurity and pretensions as weel as the deformation of language. "Owing to the value of his comedies of morals and characters, unfortunately written in a language not benefiting international circulation, Ion Luca Caragiale is perhaps the greats of the unknown playwrights", wrote Eugen Ionesco, the reputed creator of the absurd theatre. The Junimea Society also discovered and launched Ion Creanga, the other member of the triad of great classics, a matchless story teller standing out by the oral style he used in his work, and Ion Slavici (1848-1925), a Transylvanian writer, the author of the first masteripiece of Romanian novel writing (Mara, 1894). In opposition to Junimea and Convorbiri literare, the Literatorul literary circle and review carried the first manifestos of symbolism, which could be detected in the poem of Alexandru Macedonski (1854-1920).
The period between the two World Wars was characterised by great effervescence. Poetry gravitated around several great models: the materialisation of the abstract and the ennoblement of the blunt expression by Tudor Arghezi (1880-1967), the expressionist poetry by Lucian Blaga (1895-1961), the symbolist poems by George Bacovia (11881-1957), or the hermetic verse by Ion Barbu (1895-1964), also a brilliant mathematician whose name went down in the history of mathematics thanks to his theory of spaces. The traditional type poetry was briliantly represented by Ion Pillat (1891-1954) and Vasile Voiculescu (1884-1963). In prose writing, the great name of the time was Liviu Rebreanu (1885-1944), whose novels Ion and Padurea Spânzuratilor (Forest of the Hanged) are great masterpieces. The former is a realistic work with naturalist influences, a tregedy of rural life, stripped of the idyllic character that previously prevailed in literature. The latter introduces the pshychological novel in Romanian literature. Quite different is Mihail Sadoveanu (1889-1961), who wrote a large number of novels and stories whitch are rather singular in Romanian literature owing to their metaphoric density and infusion of Oriental wisdom. In playwrighting innovating tendencies were less spectacular. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning the theatre of ideas of Camil Petrescu (1894-1957), Lucian Blaga's drama of mythic dimensions, the plays of Mihail Sebastian (1908-1945), remarkable by the sensibility and purity of their characters.
Literary criticism and essay writing matched the pace of poetry and prose writing. If the pre-war period was represented by great critics "who set the direction", like: Nicolae Iorga, Garabet Ibraileanu (1871-1936), Mihail Dragomirescu (1868-1942), who were ideologists of literary trends, between the two World Wars the sole and last such great critic was Eugen Lovinescu (1881-1946) prominent promoter of the modernist trend. Literay criticism and history acquired a professional status. George Calinescu (1889-1965) subjected the whole Romanian literature from its origins to the present times to an axiological judgement.
Jurnalistic criticism, represented by Vladimir Streinu (1902-1971), Pompiliu Constantinescu (1901-1946), and academic criticism, represented by Tudor Vianu (1897-1964), developed side by side. But apart from the great personalities, that period saw a diversification of trends as never registred before. Traditionalism, which was represented especially by the review Gândirea (1922-1944), headed by Nichifor Crainic (1889-1972), was opposed by modernism, promoted by the literay circle review Sburatorul (1919-1922, 1926-1927), led by Eugen Lovinescu. The review, Contimporanul (1922-1932), headed by Ion Vinea (1895-1964), made the passage from modernism to avant-garde. Review of the avant-garde proper started being issued, facilitating the literary debut of Tristan Tzara (1896-1963), the founder of Dadaism, Gherasim Luca (1913-1994) si Ilarie Voronca (1903-1946), who later on made a name for themselves abroad, as well as of writers who distinguished themselves in Romania literature, like Gellu Naum, who has faithfully promoted surrealism in his entire work, or Geo Bogza (1908-1993), who was also an outstanding name in the genre or reportage in Romanian literature. The link of the Romanian literature to the European trends, wich was achieved by the interwar generation, was abruptly cut short by the onset of communism.
The "proletcultism" of the '50s left little room for authentic literature and, even if blamed in the late '60s, literature no longer had freedom of creation. It enjoyed the necessary financial resources as it becam subsidised by the state and, in spite of the ideological restrictions, disruptions like those experienced in the '50s became no longer possible. Authentic literature was extremely well received by readers, who identified in it the symbol of a civic attitude. Never before was there such an accord between public and critical taste like the one in the last decade of Ceausescu's dictatorship. Prose writers like Marin Preda (1922-1980) and Augustin Buzura, poets like St. Augustin Doinas, Nichita Stanescu (1933-1983), Marin Sorescu (1936-1997), Ana Blandiana were appreciated by both prestigious critics (Nicolae Manolescu, Eugen Simion) and readers. The last decade of Ceausescu's regime saw the rise of a group of young writers who started a relentless struggle against the attempts to level the artistic language.
The years after 1990 have been a period of "tests" and also difficulties generated by the switch of the readers' interest towards literary works that had been inaccessible to them before or towards the mass-media. Moreower, the constraints of a culture not subsidised under the conditions of an incipient market economy influenced the publication of their books. However the crisis has not affected creation as well. Young writers in particular (the "1990s writing" who are imposing themselves especially in prose and essay writing) seam determined to rebuild the bridges towards readers.
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