Laszlo Alexandru

 

WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

english version by Axel H. Lenn

Romanian literature after 1989 has become an open space for debate. The freedom of speech, regained after decades of communist totalitarianism, should currently allow not uproar alone, but thorough discussion as well. Everything should be reconsidered, starting with the judging criteria to apply.

One of the most delicate issues, not yet settled and troubling the sleep of many local figures, refers to the Romanian writers’ collaborationism. Following the Western nations’ liberation from fascist oppression, prestigious authors were judged in court, some of them sentenced to death and executed or committed suicide (as happened in France). Following the Eastern nations’ liberation from communist oppression – a scourge with far more devastating impact considering the longer acting period, the tens of millions of supplementary victims, the ruined national economies etc. – no cases of writers brought to court exist.

If criminal conviction was left out, moral conviction should be brought forth. Neither the relations of kinship, friendship or discipleship, nor the complicity of those assuming similar gestures shall impede a lucid analysis of the facts. The longer the time, the clearer the perspectives.

The problem is the more complicated nowadays as critical spirit ought to use a double approach in Romanian culture. Notorious, shameful gestures are still unsettled both on the right wing (fascist delirium and collaboration of authors in the ‘30s and ‘40s) and on the left wing (communist bows and complicity of authors from the ‘50s till the ‘80s). Critical approach was not allowed to function in any of the directions under communist censorship.

Finally, we may reflect clearly on both forms of compromise. Free debate shall not be stopped by the transparent perfidiousness of those distracting attention (for instance, every time Eliade’s or Cioran’s fascist orientation is brought up, there’s always a prestigious figure directing debate should focus on the left wing, not on the right). Even in Noica’s most evident case, an ex legionary (right wing) fascist follower and later an… aristocrat collaborator of Ceausescu’s (left wing) propaganda, is still far from being granted settlement by Romanian intellectuals.

I remind all those considering to decline these difficult duties I.D. Sîrbu’s passionate words: “nobody and nothing disappears completely; no secrets stay unknown, no crimes remain unheard of, no criminals have their names hidden forever; everything, absolutely everything is still being paid for and repaid in this world, if not by us then by our children and descendants; there’s a part of the human brain that can be destroyed using shocks and drugs, but the essential, the tragic core of every victim here, as if it were a secret seed, keeps flying like dandelion in the wind or hides itself in the ground, awaiting rain or future justice”.

(January 2004)