Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 1, 1 (2009) 170-175
Communicative Spirit between Writers and Scripts in the Romanian and Hungarian Languages
Nicolae BUCUR
Sapientia University Department of Sociology b.ioannicolae@yahoo.com
Abstract The paper looks at Octavian Codru Taslauanu and Octavian Goga, two major figures of Romanian literature and culture from the beginning of the twentieth century. The relationship that developed between the two, both on a personal and on a professional level, represents a central focus of the discussion, reveled through references to letters, memories, and confessions of the two writers themselves, but also through quoting opinions of Laszlo Galdi and Samuel Domokos. The two Romanian writers also collaborated with the Luceafarul periodical, the importance of which in shaping Goga's literary career is also highlighted, as well as Goga's contribution to transforming the student publication into a veritable literary and cultural forum. Taslauanu's concerns for primarily aesthetic, and only secondarily nationalistic criteria in appreciating literary works and as guidelines for the Luceafarul are also emphasized, while the paper also outlines the Hungarian reception and literary histocial views on these major Romanian cultural figures.
Keywords: Goga, Taslauanu, Luceafarul, aesthetic criteria, nationalism.
". . . Whoever is not capable to do his education in the sense of a moral flexibility which shall protect him from sacrifices and surprises should put a distance between himself and this world and to devote himself to loneliness . . ." Octavian Goga
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Continuing Octavian Goga's idea taken from Crumbles1 where morals written at different periods of his life are gathered, we can say that there are different ways of escaping loneliness but one very essential has always been communicating with the likes.
At the beginning of my teaching career, my literary interests guided me towards a work concerning the life and works of Octavian Codru Taslauanu, originating from Bilbor-Harghita, a friend of Octavian Goga's, both known for their activity at the Luceafarul periodical founded on 1st July 1902 in Budapest. Possessing some interesting material, some of which unpublished, amongst other preoccupations, I had been working for a few years hoping to complete and extend the study on him.
As a state of mind or an intention cannot stay inside for a long time and a state of mind, no matter how authentic it could be, cannot become a "truth" but only in and through communication, I wrote a letter to Samuel Domokos Dr., University Professor in Budapest, well-known researcher and literary historian, telling him about my intentions and asking him to accept my application to doctoral studies at the Romanian Language and Literature Department whose Head he was at the Eotvos Lorand University Budapest. Amongst others, I wrote to him that "I would be delighted to have you as my scientific coordinator with the thesis on Octavian C. Taslauanu provided you accept this unexpected and courageous proposal" (posted on 17 January 1982).
On 25th March 1982, Professor Samuel Domokos sent me a letter as cordial as possible which began as follows: "Dear Colleague, my answer comes late but as a positive one, though I do not like Taslauanu whose untruths about Goga I confuted. He was a passionate nationalist and he hindered Goga's relationship with Ady. I accept your topic on condition it does not refer to Goga. But I propose another topic from the Romanian-Hungarian folk researches, fairy tale anthologies, folk poetry or bilingual materials of which we do not have much. I see that you like folklore and probably you know Hungarian? I like this topic very much and it would be a great success for our relations ..."
In my response, I thanked him for the precious information given, specifying at the same time that choosing a folklore topic has aroused my attention.
Although the topic referring to the life and especially the activity of O. C. Taslauanu and O. Goga did not become a doctoral thesis, I have not abandoned the subject as the present paper proves.
In his books Octavian Goga and Memories from Luceafarul, O. Taslauanu presents us a "little known and little emphasized" (202) Goga but avoiding a sterile
Octavian Goga began in Iasj on 17th November 1916 his intimate diary entitled Crumbles from a Fall, diary that he kept until 26th December of the same year. Crumbles includes the poet's morals written in different periods of his life, partially published in Revista fundatiilor (6th year, December 1939) and then in Tribuna (9th year, No. 31 (444), 5th August 1965).
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biographism. As he also states, "even though some relationships and influences between Goga's everyday life and his poetry can be traced, I think it is a pure waste of time to reveal the mystery of the poet's sources of inspiration" (77).
Taslauanu's writings on Goga written in a balanced but somehow unobjective way are a mixture of biography, literary history and scattered comments of literary criticism.
As in every beginner, Goga found in Taslauanu a devoted and loyal friend, and, more importantly, a permanent spiritual stimulant. "His character prone to get discouraged needed this very much" (10) as Laszlo Galdi remarks in his work dedicated to the poet and he continues, "in their conversations which lasted till dawn, Taslauanu beamed this active spirit through which he managed to revive Luceafarul after its uncertain beginnings" (10).
loan Lupa§'s letters reveal that Goga was tormented by pessimism and disappointments having an innate predilection towards melancholy leading him to an intimate-minor poetry in 1903-1904 to which Samuel Domokos, in his study on Goga adds: "we do not think that these states of mind would have been connected to his conceptions" (61-62). Let us interpret this way, comparing the two statements of Samuel Domokos, the first referring to Taslauanu: "Let us not forget that Taslauanu was older having a greater life experience and being more practical than Goga." (62); the second focusing on Goga, "characterized by a profound national sentiment, having firm political convictions, needing no advice from others in this field!" (62).
As we will see, the events of his life contradict the above opinions. The documents prove that it was Taslauanu's merit to have guided Goga towards the core of his national and social inspiration. Here is the confession: "I encouraged him as I saw that he found his original sources of inspiration and creation in the rural life" and then "he decided to tune his lyra and sing the pain of the oppressed nation he was part of (Amintiri 18).
In what concerns the poet's inclination towards pessimism, Taslauanu claims it not to be of personal nature, "but derives it from the millennial sufferings of our peasantry that we meet in the folk songs and bitterness of the everyday speech" (80). Calinescu, analysing his poetry, remarks a similar idea: "an ineffable of metaphysical origin, an unmotivated pain of an ancient people grown old by the cruel experience of life expressed through ritual wailing conveyed without explaining the meaning" (610).2
Taslauanu is right, as noticed by several critics and literary historians, when he states that Goga would not have written his beautiful verses had there not been the Luceafarul. He would not have elaborated his programmatic poetry "had there not been a periodical which published what he wanted" (21) and adds, "It was
The same quotation can be found in the 1941 edition, page 540.
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Luceafarul that gave Octavian Goga and Ion Agarbiceanu to literature" (21). Taslauanu also leaves us this meaningful confession about the most significant poet of the Luceafarul periodical: "The shining talent of Goga ornamented the periodical, but even this had the merit to keep the lyra of the poet tuned and wove his glory of rays which crowns his forehead with immortality" (Spovedanii 131).
Samuel Domokos, author of studies on Goga, becomes suspicious, discontent with Taslauanu's statement: "Does Goga owe more to Luceafarul or the periodical owes more to the poet?" and notes that "more precisely, it can be said: they could not have existed without each other" (62).
Let me make a short digression. Let us suppose Luceafarul had not existed, Goga would have found another periodical but it is not sure that he would have found a publisher (let alone a mentor) to whom he could have attached as a Transylvanian as we could see in Taslauanu's case. In other words, Samuel Domokos does not think (deliberately or not) that a periodical (at that time and circumstances, Luceafarul but let us not neglect O. Taslauanu) could have smoothened the way of a young writer of Goga's talent. We ground our affirmation with a single example (less valuable, let us admit it!): Familia, where Eminescu published for the first time, with its publisher Iosif Vulcan—who became his literary godfather as it is known—would it not have helped the future "development" of the poet?
A vigilant observer of the Romanian realities of those times, O. Taslauanu, as Goga himself, fought to transform Luceafarul from a student publication with minor cultural goals into a literary and cultural periodical which should embrace the general Romanian problem of the time. Concerning the "nationalism" of the periodical, Taslauanu specifies, "we have not cultivated a cheap and noisy nationalism but we struggled to raise the cultural level of the readers with serious studies" (Amintiri 55-56). Otherwise, Laszlo Galdi sees in Taslauanu the one who "had strong but sincere and objective national feelings. He does not avoid Romanian-Hungarian relations... but he studies them with the candidness of a man who loves truth" (34).
Even Samuel Domokos stated that the publisher of Luceafarul "defended the need of the national character of Romanian literature, regarding from the point of view of the Romanians of Transylvania" (65).
In Memories from Luceafarul, Taslauanu states "the generation of Luceafarul has enriched the Romanian literature with the specific Transylvanian art and raised the cultural level of Transylvania", to specify in Octavian Goga: "In reality, we did not give birth to a new current but we continued the Transylvanian traditions" (26).
In many articles and notes Taslauanu defends the priority of the aesthetic criterion in appreciating literary works explaining its inter-conditioning with the ethical and ethnical factor.
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Seen through the eyes of today's researcher, we can discover contradictions, animosities, debatable opinions in the writings of the publisher of Luceafarul, some of these remarked in our paper "Considerations, conceptions and aesthetical, cultural creeds with Octavian C. Taslauanu."
Besides these, we mention that the Romanian literature of those years was enriched at the chapter of artistic translations thanks to Octavian Goga, who thus lined up to the tradition of his predecessors, G. Co§buc and St. O. Iosif Dan Bruda§cu's book, Octavian Goga—translations from universal poetry (2005) had to appear so that an order could be made regarding "Goga's detractors and minimalizers" (Bruda§cu)3 (Hungarians and Romanians as well) who hurried to minimalize some translations from Petofi and Ady and, in the case of some Hungarian critics and literary historians (like Aladar Schopflin), who made remarks according to which Petofi, Ady and Madach would have "decisively" influenced Goga's creations without whom the poet from Ra§inari "could not have reached the peaks of perfection and activism-visionarism that he did . . ." Dan Bruda§cu, with an extraordinary moral correctness, also mentions Goga's defenders. One of the Hungarian personalities who had a realistic and benevolent vision defending Goga was Samuel Domokos who is to be considered "the best-balanced Hungarian hermeneutist of Goga's work" (Bruda§cu). He outlined that the Transylvanian poet has already traced the inner spiritual lines of his original creations long before he started translating the works of Hungarian writers and considered the poets of Transylvanian origin, G. Co§buc, St. O. Iosif, and Goga as real peaks of literary translations at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Samuel Domokos remarks:
Goga did not become an exceptional poet because he followed Petofi's poetical programme but because he had the necessary talent to speak in the name of an oppressed people and to be its guide. Without these extraordinary qualities he would have become a mere epigone, whoever the chosen master would have been. He owes his poetical affirmation not to his masters but primarily to his talent. (91)
The moral debt of the poet to align with the multitude, to step beside it, to identify with its aspirations, the noise and the profile of the streets is the most recurrent idea in Octavian Goga's poetry and writings. The same idea was shared by Endre Ady, the one connected to life, the poet who had seen redemption just in Man and Humanity. His song as well as Goga's, being that of the streets, dreaming for all. The mutual respect and love of the two representatives of Romanian and Hungarian spirituality remain examples for future generations.
See also Adrian Botez's book on Goga.
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The one who wrote "I did not have the gift of silence. I could not hide anything, neither good nor bad" (18) or "No one has the right to steal the beauty from our souls" (287), Octavian Goga, and the one who "loved the much suffering world", saying "the real dream is the courageous dream" (14-17), wishing "to belong to someone" (16, 311), Endre Ady in all that they did in thought, acts and creation nowadays belong to both nations.
(Translated by Zsolt Orban)
Works cited
Ady, Endre. Versek. [Poems.] Bucharest: Irodalmi, 1962.
Botez, Adrian. Mostenirea lui Octavian Goga in Luceafarul Romdnesc. [Octavian
Goga's Inheritance in the Luceafarul Romdnesc] si: sp, 2005. Brudascu, Dan. Octavian Goga. Translations from Universal Poetry. Cluj Napoca:
Sedan, 2005. Calinescu, G. Istoria literaturii romdne cle la origini pdnd in present. [History of the
Romanian Literature from the Origins to the Present.] 2nd ed., revised and
adnotated. Published and prefaced Al. Piru. Bucharest: Minerva, 1982. Domokos, Samuel. Octavian Goga - Stuclii. Anii studentiei. Traducerile. [Octavian
Goga - Studies. Student Years. Translations.] Romanian transl. Dan Culcer.
Preface I. D. Balan. Bucharest: Kriterion, 1978. 61-62. Galdi, Laszlo. "Goga pesti evei es a Luceafarul." [Goga's Years in Budapest and the
Luceafarul] Cf Egyetemes Philologiai Kozlony 1941, fasc. II. Budapest (1941):
10 Schopflin, Aladar. "A roman Petofi." ["The Romanian Petofi."] Pesti Naplo 26 (Dec.
1916) Taslauanu, Octavian C. Amintiri de la Luceafarul. [Memories from the Luceafarul.]
Bucharest: Bucovinai, 1936. —. Octavian Goga. Bucharest: Bucovina, 1939. —. Spovedanii. [Confessions.] Bucharest: Minerva, 1976.
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