Alexandru Talex

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Talex at a Museum of Romanian Literature conference, October 1984

Alexandru Talex, born Atanase Alexandrescu (7 December 1909 – 17 November 1998), was a Romanian activist journalist, cultural promoter, translator, and literary historian, noted in particular for being the friend and apologist of novelist Panait Istrati. Like Istrati himself, he was for a while associated with a revolutionary nationalist group, the Crusade of Romanianism.

Biography[edit]

Early life[edit]

Atanase Alexandrescu, the future Alexandru Talex, was born in Bucharest on 7 December 1909;[1] according to his own testimony, he attended Mihai Viteazul College, where his teacher of Latin was the renowned culture-critic, Eugen Lovinescu.[2] He entered literary life shortly after enlisting at the University of Bucharest Faculty of Letters—his first works were "critical notes" in the student journal Licăriri (February 1931).[1] He followed up with numerous articles in the press, including in publications such as Azi, Adevărul, Dimineața and Vremea,[1] and was in attendance at Lovinescu's literary salon, Sburătorul.[2] For a while in 1930–1932, he was featured alongside Lovinescu in Cristalul magazine, put out in Pitești by Mihail Ilovici.[3]

As a university student, Talex met and befriended colleagues Mihai Stelescu and Doru Belimace, both of whom were active within the revolutionary fascist Iron Guard. According to Talex's own recollections, this made it hard for them to remain friends—though he himself was a "know-nothing" in political matters, he had a "vague" preference for democracy, which he saw as a marriage of "liberty and social justice", and had been impressed by Julien Benda's anti-authoritarianism.[2] Talex recalls breaking off any connection with Belimace when the latter joined an Iron Guard death squad, assassinating Prime Minister Ion G. Duca.[2] He was soon attracted into a collaboration with the Crusade of Romanianism, founded by Stelescu in opposition to the Guard. According to his own account, the two men reconciled shortly after Stelescu had left the Guard and been denounced as its "traitor"; he informed Stelescu that this meant "you have regained your human nature."[2]

Talex was editor-in-chief of the Crusade's eponymous newspaper (Cruciada Românismului) between 1934 and 1936.[1] In retrospect, he regarded his contribution as on the "spiritual side", noting that Stelescu was tasked with the political messaging—and that this latter type of messaging primarily consisted of exposing the Guard's immorality.[2] It was also at this stage that Talex met Istrati, in late 1934,[1][2] after having chronicled Istrati's novel, Le bureau de placement, in Cruciada's first issue.[4] According to Talex's own account in old age, Istrati had enjoyed reading Cruciada, and wanted to meet its authors.[2] He and the ailing novelist, who would die soon after, became good friends. In his final months, Istrati was a Cruciada contributor, in terms that he negotiated as "absolute freedom of expression".[2] In January 1935, Cruciada hosted a debate between Istrati and Stelescu, on the issue of antisemitism—abhorred by Istrati, but still upheld by Stelescu. Talex also intervened, wiuth a successful attempt at calming both men; in his article, he reassured Istrati that "our antisemitism" was indeed "combative", but also that it was "humane".[5] Talex's other object of admiration was the historian and political thinker Vasile Pârvan, on whom he wrote his graduation thesis. He was impressed with Pârvan's personality, and worked in particular to familiarize the public with Pârvan's anti-Russian stances, which he himself took to be morally and historically justified.[2] Under his tenure, Cruciada regularly featured quotes from Pârvan, seen as an authority on cultural matters, and also as someone who had prophesied Istrati's arrival.[6] Talex now turned against Lovinescu, describing him as a "con artist" in one of his articles for Cruciada (March 1935).[7]

During one of their daily encounters, Istrati has asked Talex to move in with him and maintain his personal archive. Talex hesitated long enough for Istrati's tuberculosis to evolve to critical, then terminal, stages. They continued to meet each during the novelist's final months, when Istrati whimsically asked him to run away with him in the woods—as Talex recalls, this was a joke aimed at those who had called Istrati a closeted homosexual.[2] Shortly after his friend's death, Talex took the controversial decision of translating and publishing in Cruciada a French-language article that he had recovered from Istrati's papers. This was later featured in anthologies as Istrati's twelfth Cruciada newspaper—seen by literary historian Mircea Iorgulescu as a purposeful misdirection of the public by Talex.[8]

Talex assigned himself the task of curating Istrati's papers, editing his works, and explaining his perspective on society. As argued by Iorgulescu, this was originally a contribution to the Crusade's "possessive cult" of Istrati, used by the party as a political asset.[9] According to literary historian Teodor Vârgolici, Talex still had an "essential contribution toward informing the Romanian mind as to Panait Istrati's true image, both his own and that of his work. [...] Talex assigned himself a moral duty of perpetuating [Istrati's] message into posterity."[1] The young journalist also felt personally responsible for the safety of Istrati's young widow, the former beauty queen Margareta Curelea-Istrati, who managed to beat her own tuberculosis infection.[10] Their neighbor and fellow writer, Maya Belciu, reports that Talex and Margareta lived together, and that the two of them, or Talex and another woman, had a daughter, Nina, who was raised in the same house at Calea Moșilor 131.[10]

From Cruciada to România Liberă[edit]

Meanwhile, in July 1936, Stelescu was publicly murdered by another Guardist death squad. Talex attended his funeral at Bellu cemetery, where he delivered an oration that called Stelescu a martyr, adding: "Crusaders of love, honor the judgment of your commander with holy devotion, and fight with a true heart for the Crusade of Romanianism, and against anarchy. Tell everyone that this hateful and cowardly crime not only made you more alive, but even more that it steeled you."[11] The assassination exposed factional splits among the Crusaders themselves. Talex, who had graduated from university in 1935,[1] eventually handed in his resignation from Cruciada on 6 September 1936, invoking "ideological disagreements" with the new party leadership;[12] his walk-out was closely followed by thirteen other members, including Vladimir Cavarnali and Cruciada's other editor, Paul Bărbulescu.[13] In 2010, journalist Florian Bichir credited accounts which suggest that Talex was in reality an informant for the Siguranța secret service, and that, in this capacity, "he put the choke on quite a few people" (i-a înfundat pe mulți).[14]

Talex's first contributions to Istratian literature were his back-translations of various stories by Istrati, who had written most of his work in French.[1] His own work as editor was first consecrated in 1936, when he put together the Istrati anthology Artele și umanitatea de azi ("Arts and the Current State of Humanity"). It comprised Istrati's last articles in Cruciada, as well as his own "thorough analytical and biographical overview" of his deceased friend.[1] He followed up with a string of Istratian translations, producing Romanian versions of his essays and novels—from În lumea Mediteranei (1936) to Haiducii (1943).[1] Aspiring to also be recognized as an expert on Pârvan, he earned the confidence of Pârvan's sister, Elvira Apăteanu, who allowed him to take possession of her brother's surviving letters. Talex claims that he then let the literary historian George Călinescu borrow these; he was enraged when Călinescu presented the documents as his own finds, and tried to engage him in a public polemic; he published his own version of the letters in Vremea, with assistance from that paper's editorial secretary, Alexandru Sahia.[2]

In late 1938, all of Romania's parties were nominally replaced by a catch-all National Renaissance Front, under King Carol II; in January 1939, it received the bloc adherence of Talex and other 19 former Crusade activists, credited as such by the official newspapers.[15] In 1941–1943, at the height of World War II (which saw Romania's engagement on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union), he was a staff writer at Acțiunea newspaper, also publishing a translation of Octave Aubry's historical novel, L'Impératrice Eugénie.[1] In 1944, he produced his first book-sized biography of Istrati, noted for its through investigation of Istrati's final engagements, as a critic of communism and more specifically an anti-Soviet intellectual;[1] though published with an imprint of Vremea, the book was criticized in that same newspaper by columnist George Ivașcu, who saw it as "pure idolatry".[16] The book also downplayed Istrati's earlier support for Leninism, making only a brief mention of his original reasons for visiting the Soviet Union.[17] Talex was affiliated with Ion Vinea's Professional Journalists' Union (UZP), which at one point awarded him a substantial grant in recognition for his administrative work.[18] In early August 1944, with Vinea absent from the country, he was pro-tempore chairman of the UZP, and also voted in as its treasurer.[19]

The 23 August Coup ended Romania's alliance with Nazi Germany and opened the country to a Soviet occupation. This strike was partly engineered by an underground network comprising the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and its satellite organization, called Union of Patriots. According to a later report by communist Alexandru Graur, Talex was also involved, on their side, mainly as a contributor to the illegal newspaper, România Liberă (for which he was translating information picked up from Radio Londres).[20] Graur's account is also partly validated by another participant, Ivașcu, according to whom Talex was present with one of the successive teams of România Liberă editors, back when the newspaper was still published at a secret location.[21]

During the UZP revamp in November 1944, Talex was officially included on a list of dounding members, alongside figures such as Graur, Ivașcu, Radu Boureanu, Scarlat Callimachi, N. D. Cocea, Alecu Constantinescu, George Macovescu, Eugen Jebeleanu, Ion Pas, Grigore Preoteasa, Stephan Roll, Cicerone Theodorescu, Șerban Voinea, and Ilie Zaharia.[22] His first job after the coup was at Tudor Teodorescu-Braniște's daily, Jurnalul de Dimineață, where he worked continuously between 1944 and 1947.[1] By June 1945, he had joined the Romanian Social Democratic Party, participating on its Socialist Group for Art and Culture.[23] Alongside Ștefan Tita, he served on the PSDR press bureau during the national party conference of December.[24] Also in 1945, he translated Jean Jaurès' speech on "Art and Socialism", followed in 1946 by his version of Dmitry Furmanov's biography of Vasily Chapayev.[1] His activity at Jurnalul saw him both championing left-wing causes and engaging in public disputes with the PCR. On October Revolution Day 1945, he gave a celebratory speech at Bucharest's Gioconda Theater.[25] In March 1946, he signed up to a communist protest against Francoist Spain, demanding that it be isolated internationally after Cristino García's execution.[26] A month later, communist Tudor Olaru hinted that Talex, noted as "that ex-ringleader of Cruciada Românismului", was friends with the PSDR's anti-communist leader, Constantin Titel Petrescu—and therefore hostile to the PCR as well.[27]

Communist recovery and later years[edit]

This transitional interval was ended by the inauguration of a Romanian communist state. As noted by literary scholar Angelo Mitchievici, Talex was "successfully recycled" by the PCR, which allowed him to gloss over his earlier engagements with the far-right.[28] According to Bichir, he also successfully transitioned from the Siguranța to the communized police force, or Securitate, which had him as an informant; his subsequent work toward upholding Istrati's reputation may have therefore been his attempt "to find some sort of retribution for his own deeds, when faced with eternity."[14] Later in his life, he was allowed back as a professional editor, and employed as such by Viața Economică review; he was also published in magazines such as România Literară and Manuscriptum.[1] From the 1960s, the regime experienced a national-communist turn, which also signaled Istrati's public rehabilitation; Talex was not a visible participant in the first installments of this process. As observed in 1970 by Monica Lovinescu, the staff critic at Radio Free Europe, "Panait Istrati has been annexed by a sinister pair: Al[exandru] Oprea and Eugen Barbu", who were highlighting the compatibilities between Istrati and the new dogmas. If the more qualified Talex was skipped, it was because of his "capital defect, which is that he has been Panait Istrati's true friend."[29] He was instead recognized as a leading authority by a younger Istrati scholar, Mugur Popovici, who came to visit him in his home, where he also met Margareta.[2]

Talex was dissatisfied with Oprea and Barbu, since they had proceeded to publish Istrati's novels, most of which were originally written in French, in new back-translations to Romanian, even though Istrati himself had penned Romanian versions. His public protest was heard by the managers at Editura Minerva, who asked him to complete a list of all works that Istrati had ever rendered into Romanian, and agreed to publish these against Oprea and Barbu.[2] Talex himself finally returned with an edition which put together Istrati's confessions regarding his beginnings in literature, Cum am devenit scriitor ("How I Became a Writer"), appearing at Craiova in 1981.[1] This was followed by his definitive versions of Istratian novels or novellas, this time as translated by Istrati himself: Chira Chiralina (1982), Viața lui Adrian Zograffi (1983), Neranțula (1984).[1] Iorgulescu acknowledges that this series has its relative merits, such as being the best one to have been produced under communism, but also pointed out that Talex's dilettantism got the best of him. The edition's notes had "somewhat mythomaniacal" statements that served to both preserve the Istrati "cult" and elevate Talex's own status. One such example was Talex's artificial stretching of his friendship to the author, from four months (during which Istrati had been mostly "bedridden, cared for by his family") to a full two years.[30]

Talex's contributions were also recognized in France, where he and Margareta made several extended visits, sometimes meeting with Belciu, who had settled there. One of these took them to Menton on the French Riviera, as guests of Istrati's friend Jean Stanesco.[10] In 1984, at Éditions Gallimard,[2] Talex published Le pèlerin du cœur ("A Heart's Pilgrim"), grouping together Istrati's more obscure, or never-before published, articles and essays.[1] The following year, he contributed a Romanian volume of Istrati's memoirs, which he had translated from the French and accompanied with his own "lavish notes and commentaries."[1] As Iorgulescu indicates, this work included some of Istrati's explicit connections to far-right ideologies, though with Talex's editorializing, which called Cruciada a "magazine of very young folks" and depicted Stelescu as exclusively a victim of the Guardists.[31] A regular in the international Cahiers Panaït Istrati, where he published an "extremely valuable" record of Istrati's correspondence with Romain Rolland,[1] Talex also reviewed for print the complete exchanges of letters between Istrati and other cultural figures (such as Georg Brandes, Jean Guéhenno, Josué Jéhouda and Marcel Martinet). These were issued as a single volume in 1988.[1] Belciu reports that he was sought after by many people who were either connected with Istrati or maintained a cult of the latter. Examples of the former included a daughter of "Old Man Dumitru", who had been portrayed in Istratian prose, while one of the latter category was a French bricklayer who simply wanted to know what it was like to have looked into Istrati's eyes.[10]

Nina Talex was a poet affiliated with the Comentar literary club, and had some of her works published as part of the 1977 edition of the nationwide communist festival, Cîntarea României.[32] Alexandru and Margareta were privately opposed to the regime, and allowed Popovici to read up on their collection of anti-communist literature—comprising authors such as Eugène Ionesco, Artur London, Nadezhda Mandelstam, and Jean-François Revel.[2] At the international congresses he attended, Talex networked with anti-communist readers, and used his connections to his advantage. At one such encounter in March 1989, speakers such as Heinrich Stiehler opened up the neglected topic of Crusader fascism; as noted by Iorgulescu, Talex and Ion Stănică were among those who shut down the debate, by arguing that Stelescu had been labeled as such in communist propaganda and historiography, and therefore that the claim was untrue. The same researcher described this stand as self-contradictory, since Talex had been allowed to republish at least part of the Cruciada articles by the same regime he claimed was maligning Cruciada as fascist.[33]

Talex lived to see the Romanian Revolution, which toppled communism in December 1989. Popovici was able to record his first and only interview with Talex just shortly after, in March 1990. During their exchanges, Talex expressed the opinion that Istrati would have supported the regime change of 1989, as befitting his image of a "revolution carried out under the banner of childhood".[2] In 1991, he was able to publish at Editura Dacia his rendition of Istrati's main anti-communist essay, as Spovedanie pentru învinși.[1][34][35] The book was lauded as a revelation by literary chronicler Cornel Ungureanu, who also noted that Talex's translation of it was simply "bad".[34] A Romanian version of Le pèlerin du cœur appeared in 1998, alongside a revised two-volume edition of Cum am devenit scriitor,[1] this time including all pages that could not be published under communism.[2] Talex was by then a widower, and largely cared for by his daughter Nina—according to Belciu, the task of tending to him destroyed what remained of Nina's physical youth.[10] He himself died in Bucharest, on 17 November 1998.[1] As remarked on the occasion by Belciu, his entire corpus of writings made no mention of his own biography: "In forgetting himself, he only existed so that He [Istrati] would continue to exist."[10] He was posthumously credited as a contributor to Istrati's complete-works edition, put out by Vârgolici in 2003.[1] He had also produced a bibliography of Pârvan's press articles, which he left in the care of historian Alexandru Zub.[2]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Teodor Vârgolici, "Talex, Alexandru", in Dicționarul general al literaturii române. S/T, p. 618. Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, 2006. ISBN 973-637-070-4
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s (in Romanian) Mugur Popovici, "Interviu. 'Panait Istrati m-a ajutat să rămân om într-o lume de lupi'. O convorbire inedită cu Alexandru Talex", in România Literară, Issue 48/2009
  3. ^ "Mihail Ilovici", in Argeș, Vol. XVIII, Issue 2, February 1983, p. 12
  4. ^ Iorgulescu (1991), p. 5
  5. ^ Iorgulescu (1991), p. 5
  6. ^ Iorgulescu (1991), p. 5
  7. ^ Z. Ornea, Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească, pp. 439–440. Bucharest: Editura Fundației Culturale Române, 1995. ISBN 973-9155-43-X
  8. ^ Iorgulescu (1991), p. 4
  9. ^ Iorgulescu (1991), p. 5
  10. ^ a b c d e f Maya Belciu, "Un prieten de cursă lungă", in România Literară, Issues 51–52/1998, p. 20
  11. ^ "Mihai Stelescu meggyilkolása után", in Új Kelet, 21 July 1936, p. 3
  12. ^ "Dela 'Cruciada Românismului'", in Dimineața, 8 September 1936, p. 2
  13. ^ "Dela Cruciada Românismului", in Adevărul, 10 September 1936, p. 7
  14. ^ a b Florian Bichir, "Editorialul EVZ. Cruciada mea nu-i a voastră!", in Evenimentul Zilei, 1 May 2010, p. 8
  15. ^ "Alte adeziuni la 'Frontul Renașterii Naționale'", in România, January 8, 1939, p. 4
  16. ^ George Ivașcu, "Cartea. Panait Istrati", in Vremea, 2 July 1944, p. 3
  17. ^ Mitchievici, pp. 88–89
  18. ^ Al. Raicu, "'Sper să mai am timp!'. Despre Paul Daniel și B. Fundoianu", in Almanahul Literar 1986, p. 60
  19. ^ "Adunarea generală a Uniunii ziariștilor", in Universul, 11 August 1944, p. 3
  20. ^ Ilie Zaharia, "Întîlniri cu Al. Graur", in Minimum, Issue 15/1988, p. 48
  21. ^ C. Stănescu, George Ivașcu, "Intelectualul și istoria. Documente ale conștiinței politice militante a scriitorului român", in Scînteia, 6 October 1977, p. 4
  22. ^ "Sindicatul Ziariștilor Profesioniști a fost constituit", in Timpul, 19 November 1944, p. 5
  23. ^ "Înființarea secției de presă din 'Gruparea socialistă de artă și cultură'", in Universul, 21 June 1945, p. 2
  24. ^ "Deschiderea conferinței Partidului Social-Democrat — Cuvântarea d-lui C. Titel Petrescu", in Timpul, 3 December 1945, p. 1
  25. ^ "Cultură și arte. Note. La aniversarea Revoluției din Octombrie", in Scînteia, 6 November 1945, p. 2
  26. ^ "Intelectualii români vestejesc regimul de inchiziție al lui Franco", in Scînteia, 3 March 1946, p. 1
  27. ^ Tudor Olaru, "Fapte cu tâlc! Obiectivitate cu tâlc", in Scînteia, 20 April 1946, p. 1
  28. ^ Mitchievici, p. 94
  29. ^ Monica Lovinescu, Unde scurte, pp. 430–431. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1990. ISBN 973-28-0172-7
  30. ^ Mircea Iorgulescu, "Cronică literară. Studii și ediții istratiene", in Revista 22, Issue 726, February 2004, p. 15
  31. ^ Iorgulescu (1991), p. 4
  32. ^ George Chirilă, "Orizont. Comentar", in Contemporanul, Issue 6/1977, p. 10
  33. ^ Iorgulescu (1991), p. 4
  34. ^ a b Cornel Ungureanu, "Cronica literară. Spre Utopia, dus-întors. Confesiunea unui fiu al veacului", in Orizont, Vol. III, Issue 17, April 1991, p. 10
  35. ^ Mitchievici, pp. 88, 94, 95

References[edit]

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