Laszlo Alexandru

 

“LONG LIVE THE CAPTAIN!”

english version by Felicia Waldman

            Offensive and defensive have different features in the public space of ideas and it would be naïve of us to take one for the other. Sorin Lavric has been on desperate defense ever since he had the bad inspiration to publish his volume on Noica and the Legionary Movement (Bucharest, Humanitas, 2007). He did – indeed – enjoy a first round of applause from several literates gravitating in the host publisher’s sphere of influence (Bedros Horasangian in Ziua [The Day], Vladimir Tismăneanu in Evenimentul zilei [Event of the Day], or Dan C. Mihăilescu, at about all crossroads). However, despite the mobilizing efforts, the book’s serious errors could not be withheld for long. In fact, I have signaled them myself in a previous intervention.

          1) S. Lavric endeavors to impose a unique perspective on the study of history, based on comprehensive, abetting, sympathetic involvement in the facts under research, excluding any other type of approach.

2) S. Lavric offers a unilateral view on interwar fascist extremism, “from the inside”, but stops short of critically examining the legitimacy of the facts and options of the time.

3) S. Lavric glorifies, in passages suggesting a “Song to Legionary Romania” (‘Song to Romania’ was a famous communist festival), controversial figures of Romanian fascism (Zelea Codreanu, Moţa, Marin, the Decemvirs, the Nicadors etc.).

4) S. Lavric wishes to hair dress a subversive, essentially terrorist, movement, and makes scandalous analogies with the Christian groups in Antiquity’s catacombs (?!).

5) S. Lavric denies himself an elementary ethical credibility, when he warmly sympathizes with the man who ordered several slaughters (Corneliu Zelea Codreanu), while self-sufficiently ignoring the tragedy of his hundreds of direct or indirect victims.

6) S. Lavric does not hesitate to dedicate glorifying litanies to the bloody fascist movement: “The legionary movement represents the passing from internal order to external order; it represents the gradual solidification of an external beauty based on a spiritual irradiation coming from within” (p.192).

7) S. Lavric persistently exonerates Constantin Noica for his legionary adhesion and political activity, explaining them sometimes by his sudden religious conversion, other times by his unending desire to impose good by force, etc.

8) S. Lavric minimizes, and even tries to cover up, the anti-Semitic outbursts in C. Noica’s journalism.

9) S. Lavric falsifies notorious facts of Romanian history in order to relativize the Iron Guard’s guilt: a) he counts the victims of fascist assassinations, but “forgets” to include a lot of corpses; b) he downplays the impact of the legionary crimes; c) he charges the killings bill on the account of the other interwar politicians; d) he gives artificial substance to an anarchist and anti-Semitic movement, comparing it, in scope, with parties or personalities that have effectively assumed the country’s ruling; e) he systematically slanders the Movement’s adversaries; f) he contests the development – in fact the very occurrence – of the legionary rebellion.

          That Sorin Lavric’s numerous theoretical and practical counterfeits rely on a sad approximation of the Romanian language – predicates that forget to agree with the subjects, commas miraculously springing between subject and predicate, disagreeing personal pronouns, annoying pleonasms, disgraceful cacophonies, abrupt repetitions – is just a banal element of props pigmenting the show’s hammy nature.

          Whoever published such a book and met with such an evaluation of its failures would normally take a break to think before coming out in public again. This is not the case with S. Lavric, who draws his breath and dashes to call me – HE calls ME – to account for my review, in Tribuna [The Tribune] no.132/2008. It is a neat sample of ingenuity to pretend you give answers when in fact you avoid explanations, arguments and demonstrations while draining unsuspected virtues from the affirmative apodictic method: “it is known that this was a setup…”; “only an ignorant or an impostor could still claim today the truthfulness of…”; “I have dared say the truth about the legionnaires”; “the truths I am expressing”; “the truth is the best lawyer ever”; “the reader can find out what truly happened at the time”; “finding a truth”. Any shrink embarking upon judging his expressive recurrence will conclude that Sorin Lavric has a tensional relation with the concept of truth.

          I see that today’s hagiographer of the legionnaires got my observations all wrong, from another sidewalk, in another quarter. His request “that Mr. Laszlo give us a prophetical hint as to whom Romanians could replace Noica with”, since he is such a genuine “national symbol” under threat, is like presenting a bald man with an ivory comb. Critical analysis does not fit into the sheath of mythologizing prejudice. It does not manipulate glorious statues and sublime heroes, but operates with concrete observations, based on precise facts and accurate information. The author published by Humanitas mistakes his addressee when spurring me to give a helpful hand in the manufacturing of mausoleums. As to his competitive obsession, expressed with striving irony (“the cultural prestige he enjoys suppresses any bellicose upsurge on my part”, “my only concern is to rise to his standard” etc.), I could not care less. I do not counter him to compete with him, but to correct him. We obviously evolve on different coordinates.

          What surprises me, however, is that after pretending to have read me, Sorin Lavric asks questions from the very text he has just finished reading. Although I made it clear enough, the monographer of the Pure Spirit of Păltiniş questions me in hypocritical amazement: “Who did Noica betray, mister Laszlo?” Since for the lazy schoolboy repetitio mater studiorum, I will say it once again: Noica betrayed, for instance, the other accused in the group bearing his name (see N. Steinhardt’s saddened memories in Jurnalul fericirii [Diary of Happiness]). Noica betrayed his exiled friends who, after having collected money to ransom him from prison, found themselves facing an agent of communism and of Ceauşescu (see Monica Lovinescu’s memories). Noica betrayed members of the anticommunist exile, whom he described in detail, after having met them, upon his return to Romania, for the use of the Securitate (see the C.N.S.A.S. archives). Are these few examples enough, mister Lavric, or is it necessary to remind the case of Mihai Rădulescu, dead in prison? Would you like details, or would you rather this stays between you and me?

          The effort this new type researcher puts into making tabula rasa around him is ultimately lamentable. I reproach to him that he is as silent as a mouse about the previous monograph on C. Noica signed by Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, he replies to me that he does not share the viewpoints and stakes pursued by his colleague. As if this was the point! What I had actually asked of him was to admit that someone had been there before, and to accept that that someone spoke – based on quotations – about Noica’s anti-Semitism more, and better, than he ever would. Was it so hard?

          Cunningness is visible not only in the description of punctual situations but also in the overall approach. Sorin Lavric builds out of plasticine a false adversary whom he fights to exhaustion. He is under the impression that he has been called to correct the lies launched by the communists about the legionnaires. In his childish imagination, on the one side there are the untruths propagated by Ceauşescu’s state historiography, and on the other the Truth itself, transported on a white horse by today’s apologist of fascism. As if between far left mystification and far right mystification there would be nothing left at present.

          Fortunately, this is not the case. Even if the Humanitas author stubbornly disregards the authentic scholarly landmark in the field, this does not mean it is not out there. In 2005 – therefore not so long ago – Polirom Printing House published the Final Report of the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania. Its authors are reputed researchers and experts from the “Nicolae Iorga” History Institute of Bucharest, the National School of Political and Administrative Sciences of Bucharest, the Center for the Study of Jewish History in Bucharest, the “A. D. Xenopol” History Institute of Iaşi, the “Al. I. Cuza” University of Iaşi, the “Dimitrie Cantemir” University of Iaşi, the Association of Holocaust Survivors in Romania, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania, the Central Historical National Archives of Bucharest, New York University, the European Sociology Center in Paris, the “Ludwig Maximillians” University of Munich, the History Institute in Germany, Tel Aviv University, the Yad Vashem Institute of Jerusalem, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Radio Free Europe – Radio Liberty, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, members of the Israeli Parliament, ambassadors of the State of Israel etc. The Commission was chaired by the prestigious Elie Wiesel (winner of the Nobel Prize), and its conclusions were publicly assumed by two Romanian presidents. As an official document, the Final Report can be read either as a book, or electronically on the website of the Romanian Presidency, as well as on those of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem.

          Why did the tiny hagiographer of Constantin Noica not confront his extremist impressions with the official – scholarly, historic and diplomatic – viewpoint of the Romanian state, as proclaimed today in Romania and abroad? Was the “fight with the shadow” of the late communist propaganda more comfortable?

          A little comparative exercise can be but instructive, as it will show us whom we are dealing with. Sorin Lavric is convinced, in his book, that the legionary rebellion of 1941 is just a mystification, fabricated by the clichés of communist propaganda (see p. 254). When I had contested his hypothesis, reminding him of the numerous innocent people who died under those circumstances, including the horrible anti-Semitic pogrom at the Bucharest slaughterhouse and in the city outskirts, S. Lavric self-sufficiently corrected me: “Even the most obstinate legionnaire hunters no longer mention today the slaughterhouse episode, as it is well known it was a setup of the SSI led by Eugen Cristescu”. “It is known”, “finding a truth”, “the truths I am expressing” – big words, meant to cover imposture.

          The Wiesel Commission’s Final Report clearly shows, in relation to the legionary rebellion episode, that “almost two thousand Jews, men and women from fifteen to eighty-five years old, were abusively detained and then taken to the Legion’s fourteen torture centers (police stations, the Bucharest Prefecture, the Legion headquarters, Codreanu’s farm, the Jilava town hall, occupied Jewish buildings, and the Bucharest slaughterhouse). The arrested included wealthy Jews and employees of Jewish public organizations. The Bucharest slaughterhouse was the site of the most atrocious tortures. On the last day of the rebellion, fifteen Jews were driven from the Prefecture to the slaughterhouse, where all of them were tortured and/or shot to death. Antonescu appointed a military prosecutor to investigate the events. He reported that he recognized three of his acquaintances among the “professionally tortured” bodies (lawyer Millo Beiler and the Rauch brothers). He added, «The bodies of the dead were hanged on the hooks used by slaughterers». Mihai Antonescu’s secretary confirmed the military prosecutor’s description and added that some of the victims were hooked up while still alive, to allow the torturers «to chop up» their bodies. Evidence indicates that the CML (Legionary Workers Corps) actively participated in the pogrom – torturing, killing and looting. (…) In all, 125 Jews were killed during the Bucharest pogrom. The Bucharest pogrom also introduced the chapter of mass abuse of Jewish women, who were sometimes raped in the presence of their families” (see p. 112).

          The only question that persists is whether the prestigious International Commission and the Romanian Presidency are by any chance wrong in presenting the facts, or the author published by the Humanitas Printing House of Bucharest is lying through his teeth.

 

*

 

 

          Historical falsehood can only be imposed with the consistent support of consecrated names. I was surprised to read in Evenimentul zilei of 20 February 2008 Vladimir Tismăneanu’s plea in favor of the untruths thrown on the market by Sorin Lavric. I will skip over the fact that the journalist speaks warmly about… the literary virtues of the legionaroid litany: “excellently written”, “written with passion, stylistic elegance and rigor” etc. The disagreements, cacophonies, repetitions and aggressive pleonasms are probably meant to configure the hidden charm and rigorous elegance of counterfeit… Why on the earth has the politologist felt the need to express his opinion in fields he does not master? Was it not simpler to confine himself to the aspects he knows very well, which he here falsifies? For the monograph published by S. Lavric is anything but “a lucid, honest and uninhibited exploration”, since beyond his “lack of inhibition” in contradicting notorious facts, his “lucidity” becomes a form of fanaticism. As for his “honesty” in using partial and partisan quotations, there is not much left to say.

          As the overseas commentator assures us without blinking, “with a fine psychological sensitivity, Lavric detects the origin of Noica’s intellectual self mutilation in his embracement of the legionary dogma”. Not even! The young author confesses in the pages of his volume precisely his incapacity to find an answer to the edgy question of… the psychology of Noica’s intellectual self mutilation: “This utterly uncontrollable and unpredictable phenomenon to which Noica gave in – the bedevilment he suffered when putting his faith in the service of “supreme good” – remains one of the great mysteries of human nature” (see p. 251). What book did Vladimir Tismăneanu actually read?

          Likewise, I cannot understand why the hard-working analyst of communist dictatorship in Romania complains about the flagrant ill will shown by the press in commenting his activity. For what other than ill will does he himself show to the other monstrosity of the 20^th century, fascism, when he eulogizes the counterfeit published by Humanitas (“Sorin Lavric’s book is a welcome critique of the manipulative, instrumental and ultimately hypocritical antilegionarism of both the Dej and – perhaps the even more cynical – Ceauşescu age communists”)? In fact, S. Lavric’s intervention wrestles with the antifascist theses of all times (be they centrist or leftist, democratic or extremist). Vl. Tismăneanu’s favorite youth shamelessly waves at us the recapped tall tales of eternal legionarism: the myth of the Captain, the myth of the spiritual predominance of the Green House gunmen, the luminous myth of the Nicador and Decemvir assassins, the contestation of the Guardist political crimes’ dimension, the contestation of the Legionary Rebellion etc. etc.

          How can someone claim objectivity in reception when he puts his prestige and professional competence in the service of conjunctural interests? How can he who excels in detrimental favoritisms ask for unbiased assessment?

          Vladimir Tismăneanu’s fervor in falling into ecstasy in front of such historical kitsch is only surpassed by Dan C. Mihăilescu’s zeal, on a parallel slope. The playful TV man seems to have assumed the task of accrediting a patent falsehood. As the book was about to appear – abetting sidelong glances, fashionable small jokes, smiles like among the connoisseurs… After some objections had been expressed in the cultural press – panicked efforts, acted indignation, precipitated defense (“indeed, it is nuancedly, gradually, comprehensively and documentedly, that Sorin Lavric reads the episode of Noica’s joining the legionary movement in his book published in December 2007 at Humanitas” – see Idei în dialog [Ideas in Dialogue], no.3/2008, p.7-10; all the epithets and commas in the quotation belong to the television-star).

          I kind of expected Dan C. Mihăilescu to turn reality upside down and present it to us – so very playfully – in all his ingenuity. He is not disturbed, for instance, by the prefabricated campaign for the promotion of S. Lavric’s book; by contrast, he is offended by the few individual reserves, and ascribes them to a universal conspiracy (“Old practices, present with us just as elsewhere, but which, here, thanks God, have reached the stage where they discourage less and less, in favor of impartial studies”). He urges his readers to document themselves not from the Wiesel Commission’s Final Report or other professional works, but from the pages of blushing far right memoirs (“It is not necessary to bound those unfamiliar with the topic to wander through the bibliographical maze, culminating in the syntheses of Armin Heinen, Francisco Veiga, Eugen Weber etc. It will be enough for them to read Mircea Vulcănescu’s comprehensive testimony in Nae Ionescu aşa cum l-am cunoscut [Nae Ionescu as I Knew Him] (…) where, in regard to the Movement’s structure, things are perfectly summarized”). Right, excellent source for scholarly documentation!

          Dan C. Mihăilescu believes, by a flagrant misrepresentation, that “the paramilitary and assassin segment of the legion” was provoked and intensified by “the public order institutions, instigated by the dictatorial drive of Carol II”. From here to the abrupt exoneration of the legionnaires – since both camps of the conflict committed excesses, and both produced victims, both are equally guilty, right? – there is only one step, which he takes ungracefully (“When the two faces of evil motivate and intensify each other for years and years, an honest historian cannot condemn monovalently”). The essential detail Dan C. Mihăilescu forgets to give his readers is that for a number of years, the Legionary Movement was on constant offensive against the Romanian state and its employees. The authorities made constant efforts to save their skin from the threat of political crime, raised to the level of militant strategy. When Corneliu Zelea Codreanu killed police prefect Manciu, in 1924, Carol II was still far from the throne. (The prince was busy with love stories at the time and was about to leave the country.) The Captain’s criminal aggressions against the state institutions preceded by years the severe retaliations! However, today’s green commentators forget the “details” of chronology in their pursuit of misconstructions at any cost.

          When chronology is finally invoked, the distortion is again transparent. For instance the tele-commentator Mihăilescu makes essential distinctions between Codreanu- and Sima-type legionarism, or between Eliade & Noica type “spiritualist” militancy and the final pogrom (“Yes, let us accept that all is not the same, that the student type legionarism of Mircea Eliade’s debut years was one thing and the rebellion of January 1941 an entirely different issue, that, whatever one says, between first phase Codreanu type, and final Sima type, legionarism there are severe, sometimes radical, distinctions…” etc.). As if this were not the same terrorist movement, which evolved from individual crimes – while in political opposition – to mass crimes – once it had come into office! As if Mircea Eliade’s legionarism had not developed from the theoretical, religious-militant phase, to the practical one of the electoral campaign in villages during the winter of 1937! As if Constantin Noica’s legionarism had not progressed from the initial xenophobic ideas to concrete militancy, as editor in chief of the fascist officious paper Buna Vestire! The contemporary exoneration technique knows the most diversified stratagems: a sign of equality is set between the terrorism practiced by a criminal group and the enforcement measures taken by the state in defense; the leading intellectuals’ “conceptual” aberrations are admitted, but their effective political activity is covered up.

          Under these circumstances, it would be naïve of me to ponder on the ethical frailty of Dan C. Mihăilescu’s intervention. How come a book meant to rehabilitate the Legionary Movement, and its journalist, Constantin Noica, becomes admirable in his eyes, while all those disturbed by the stridency of such untruth end by being made guilty under his pen? How come, when faced with punctual critique, based on quotations, arguments and explanations, Dan C. Mihăilescu replies by panic-stricken exclamations and overexcitement (“sample of volunteer blindness and vulgar reductionism”; “so much venom, so much hatred, such an awful sample of – how shall I put it in a finer manner? – torturing exegesis and contortionist thinking”)? It is disqualifying for the journalist on Dîmboviţa to resort not to ideas but to the foamy diabolization of his adversary, placing him in false contexts such as “the years when Silviu Brucan requested the death of Iuliu Maniu, or when Radu Popescu, Oscar Lemnaru, Zaharia Stancu, N. Gogoneaţă et. comp. vituperated against Cioran and Eliade. Such guillotine-texts were familiar only to the French, in 1945-47, when, in the killing tradition of vindictive revolutionary terror, the execution without any trial, decapitation, dishonoring, defenestration of the collaborators was requested…” etc.

          Where did Dan C. Mihăilescu learn the use of such flat deceptions from the panoply of violent propaganda as miming indignation, transfiguring the facts, ironizing the adversary in view of discrediting him, coming up with panic-stricken and catastrophist exaggerations etc.? The lying school of the late magazine Luceafărul [The Morning Star] seems to have left indelible traces. To the readers familiar with literary life under Ceauşescu it is no secret that Dan C. Mihăilescu was a reliable boot in the football team playing against the writers who resisted the regime through culture, in the 1970s-1980s. Under the leadership of communist poet Nicolae Dragoş, and from 1980 of the sinister Nicolae Dan Fruntelată (editors in chief), and the unavoidable Mihai Ungheanu (deputy editor in chief) respectively, Dan C. Mihăilescu raised ample litanies in the “party and state” magazine, always at the masters’ order. He was on duty in the “working with the book” sector at the time, but he would not avoid direct homage either, if necessary. For instance, under the crushing title “Awaiting the great political event: the 12^th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party”, the tempestuous Dan C. Mihăilescu spoke about Patria inimii [Motherland of the Heart] in the following terms: “To be a communist writer [underlined by D.C.M.] is to willingly put yourself in the service of your country and therefore to work on yourself like on dough, to knead yourself for a long time, to willingly set yourself near a spring of warmth (which is the love for your motherland) so you may grow inside, and also willingly leave your aromas and taste on your fellows’ palate” (see Luceafărul, no.46/Saturday 17 November 1979, p.7).

          After having worked on himself like dough and kneading himself for about thirty years, Dan C. Mihăilescu has now willingly set himself near a spring of warmth, so that he may grow, and has subsequently left his aromas and taste on our palate. He simply shifted the (p)reference poles: from “communist writer”, he has turned into an admirer of the Legionary Movement’s hagiographers. He has discovered that you can equally scratch the back of your head with the left or right hand respectively, according to the occasion.

          What remains is a trace of regret for the stylistic agility, the provocatively exhibited bibliography, the expressive agility and joyful feet game of the intellectual who – if accompanied by a little more good faith – might have been. But was not meant to be.

 

          P.S. Sorin Lavric – who started the whole mess – tells me in his toilsomely but abundant reply in Tribuna that neither him nor his friends have heard of any book published by me. This is only natural; I could hardly expect to be present on the bookshelves of libraries bearing the names of George Manu, Şerban Milcoveanu or other green collar comrades. Otherwise, I think the about ten books I have authored (not counting the translations) have the right to exist too by the side of the one or two books published by S. Lavric, of which one is absolutely miserable. The problem with the Humanitas youth is that he does not forget his characteristic style even when answering the reviewer who reproached him his cacophonies, for he serenely states: “îi iau remarca ca pe o glumă” [I take his remark as a joke]. Ha-ha, what a good joke! Sorin Lavric seems to be predestined to write in the future an impressive, grandiose, amazing, book with an unmistakable title: “Long live the Captain!”