Product Code Database
Urmuz (, pen name of Demetru Dem. Demetrescu-Buzău, also known as Hurmuz or Ciriviș, born Dimitrie Dim. Ionescu-Buzeu; March 17, 1883 – November 23, 1923) was a Romanian writer, lawyer and civil servant, who became a cult hero in Romania's avant-garde scene. His scattered work, consisting of absurdist short prose and poetry, opened a new genre in Romanian letters and Romanian humor, and captured the imagination of modernists for several generations. Urmuz's Bizarre (or Weird) Pages were largely independent of European modernism, even though some may have been triggered by Futurism; their valorization of nonsense verse, black comedy, Nihilism tendencies and exploration into the unconscious mind have repeatedly been cited as influential for the development of and the Theatre of the Absurd. Individual pieces such as "The Funnel and Stamate", "Ismaïl and Turnavitu", "Algazy & Grummer" or "The Fuchsiad" are parody fragments, dealing with monstrous and shapeshifting creatures in mundane settings, and announcing techniques later taken up by Surrealism.
Urmuz's biography between his high school eccentricity and his public suicide remains largely mysterious, and some of the sympathetic accounts have been described as purposefully deceptive. The abstruse imagery of his work has produced a large corpus of diverging interpretations. He has notably been read as a satirist of public life in the 1910s, an unlikely conservative and nostalgic, or an emotionally distant esotericist.
In Urmuz's lifetime, his stories were only acted out by his friend George Ciprian and published as samples by Cuget Românesc newspaper, with support from modernist writer Tudor Arghezi. Ciprian and Arghezi were together responsible for creating the link between Urmuz and the emerging avant-garde, their activity as Urmuz promoters being later enhanced by such figures as Ion Vinea, Geo Bogza, Lucian Boz, Sașa Pană and Eugène Ionesco. Beginning in the late 1930s, Urmuz also became the focus interest for the elite critics, who either welcomed him into 20th-century literature or dismissed him as a buffoonish impostor. By then, his activity also inspired an eponymous avant-garde magazine edited by Bogza, as well as Ciprian's drama The Drake's Head.
The name under which the writer is universally known did not actually originate from his own wishes, but was selected and imposed on the public by Arghezi, only one year before Urmuz committed suicide.Cernat, Avangarda, p.340; Deligiorgis edition, p.5; Sandqvist, p.221 Vasile Iancu, "Avangardiștii de ieri și de azi", in Convorbiri Literare, May 2005 Geo Șerban, "Cursă de urmărire, cu suspans, prin intersecțiile avangărzii la români", in Lettre Internationale Romanian edition, Nr. 58, Summer 2006 Gabriela Ursachi, "Martie", in România Literară, Nr. 12/2003 The spelling Hurmuz, when used in reference to the writer, was popular in the 1920s, but has since been described as erroneous. The variant Ormuz, sometimes rendered as Urmuz, was also used as a pen name by the activist and novelist A. L. Zissu. , in Realitatea Evreiască, Nr. 237 (1037), September 2005, p.9; Liviu Rotman (ed.), Demnitate în vremuri de restriște, Editura Hasefer, Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania & Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania, Bucharest, 2008, p.175.
The word hurmuz, explained by linguists as a curious addition to the Romanian lexis, C. Lacea, "Curiozități semantice", in Transilvania, Nr. 10-12/1914, p.469 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library) generally means "glass bead", "precious stone" or "Symphoricarpos". It has entered the language through oriental channels, and these meanings ultimately refer to the international trade in beads centered on Hormuz Island, Iran. Anthropologist and essayist Vasile Andru highlights a secondary, scatological, meaning: in the Romani language, a source of Romanian slang, urmuz, "bead", has mutated to mean "feces". An alternative etymology, exclusive to the author's pseudonym, was advanced by writer and scholar Ioana Pârvulescu. It suggests the combination of two contradictory terms: ursuz ("surly") and amuz ("I amuse").
The future Urmuz was born in the northern town of Curtea de Argeș, and, at age five, spent one year in Paris with his parents.Călinescu, p.888; Deligiorgis edition, p.5 The family eventually settled in Romania's capital, Bucharest, where his father was hygiene teacher at Matei Basarab National College, later city health inspector, and rented houses in Antim Monastery quarter. Young Mitică was described by his sister as mainly unpretentious and introverted, fascinated by scientific discovery and, in his childhood years, a passionate reader of Jules Verne's science fiction books.Cernat, Avangarda, p.340; Sandqvist, p.224–225 At a later stage, he was also possibly familiarized with and influenced by German idealism and by the philosophical views of 19th-century poet Mihai Eminescu.Cernat, Avangarda, p.340 Paul Cernat, "Urmuz: un conservator eretic?", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 193, November 2003 A more evident influence on the future writer was Ion Luca Caragiale, the main figure in early 20th-century Romanian comic theatre.Cernat, Avangarda, p.340; Sandqvist, p.209 "Anchetă. I. L. Caragiale – azi", in Convorbiri Literare, February 2002Ioana Pârvulescu, Lumea ca ziar. A patra putere: Caragiale, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2011, p.87.
Ionescu-Buzău's family had artistic interests, and Urmuz grew up with a fascination for classical music and fine art, learning to play the piano and taking up amateur oil painting.Cernat, Avangarda, p.340, 341; Ciprian, p.40–42 He got along best with his mother, who was also a pianist. The devout daughter of an Orthodox priest, she was unable to instill in her young son the same respect for the Church.
Urmuz's arrival to literary history took place in the atmosphere of Bucharest gymnasia. It was at this junction that he became a mate of Ciprian, who later described their encounter as momentous: "I don't much believe in destiny. ... Yet I find it such an odd incident that my bench mate, from my failing grade year through to my high school graduation, was ... this tiny man of a rare originality, who had a massive say on how my life would turn up." Ciprian describes what follows as his own "initiation in artistic matters": he recalls conversations with "Ciriviș" where they debated the "perfection" of Ancient Greek sculpture, and mentions that young Urmuz, unlike himself, regarded theater as a "minor art".Ciprian, p.40–42 Instead, Urmuz preferred to attend concerts at the Romanian Atheneum, and, Ciprian writes, had an advanced understanding of absolute music even at age thirteen.Ciprian, p.42 Reportedly, the young man was also in the attendance at lectures given by Titu Maiorescu, a philosopher and aesthete who had influenced both Eminescu and Caragiale.
The core group of Urmuzian disciples, organized as a secret society, comprised Ciprian (nicknamed "Macferlan" by Urmuz), Alexandru "Bălălău" Bujoreanu and Costică "Pentagon" Grigorescu, together known as the pahuci. Allegedly, the obscure word originated from the Hebrew language for "yawns". Their activity centered on daring pranks: Urmuz and the other three young men once made an impromptu visit to the isolated Căldărușani Monastery, in Ilfov County, where the deposed and disgraced Metropolitan Ghenadie was living in banishment. Passing themselves off as newspaper editors, they demanded (and received) honored guest treatment, tested the monks' patience, and were later introduced to a well-disposed Ghenadie.Ciprian, p.50–57 Ciprian also recalls that Urmuz's philosophical musings or deadpan surreal humor were a direct inspiration for other pranks and experiments. He describes how Ciriviș acted out sadness for the plight of a screechy sledge (declaring "my heart is at one with all things in existence"), but then duped onlookers into believing that the squeaks came from a woman somehow trapped under the vehicle.Ciprian, p.59–60 Reportedly, Urmuz also approached his seniors training at Seminary or other traditionalist institutions, earned their attention by claiming to share the nationalist agenda, and then began reciting them nonsense lyrics such as an evolving draft of his mock-fable "The Chroniclers".Ciprian, p.61–62
Outside school, the young man was still introverted, and, Sandqvist notes, "extremely shy, especially with girls."Sandqvist, p.225 Ciprian recalls Ciriviș's engrossing : he acted familiar to any young woman who caught his eye, assuring her that they had met once before, and, having stirred her curiosity, falsely recounting how they both used to kill Flesh-fly for sport.Ciprian, p.63–64
The pahuci welcomed their graduation with one final act of defiance against the school principal, whom they visited in his office, where they began hopping about in circles.Ciprian, p.71–72 Even though their group did not survive once its members took different career paths, they had regular reunions at the Spiru Godelea tavern, where they earned notoriety for their rude and unconventional behavior.Ciprian, p.72–73, 373 Urmuz enrolled at the Bucharest Medical School, allegedly after pressures from his stern father.Sandqvist, p.224–225 According to Ciprian, this training did not agree with his friend, who would complain of being "unable to make himself understood by the cadavers."Ciprian, p.73. See also Sandqvist, p.225 This was probably a sign that the young man could not bear to witness dissection. He eventually entered the University of Bucharest Faculty of Law, which was to be his alma mater,Ciprian, p.77; Crohmălniceanu, p.570–571; Deligiorgis edition, p.5 while also taking lectures in composition and counterpoint at the Music and Declamation Conservatory. Additionally, he completed his first service term in the Romanian Infantry.
Urmuz became head of his family in 1907. That year, his father and two younger brothers died, and his sister Eliza was married. He also continued to take the initiative in daring acts of épater le bourgeois. Ciprian recalls the two of them renting a carriage which Urmuz would order around, making a right at every junction, and effectively going around in circles around the Palace of Justice. Urmuz then proceeded to pester the street vendors, stopping over to buy a random assortment of useless items: , a pile of charcoal, and an old hen which he impaled on his walking cane.Ciprian, p.73–77; Crohmălniceanu, p.571. See also Sandqvist, p.19
Eventually, Urmuz was made a justice of the peace in the remote Dobruja region: for a while, he was in Casimcea village. Doru Mareș, "Teatru. Teatru dobrogean", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 7, April 2000 Later, he was dispatched closer to Bucharest, at Ghergani, Dâmbovița County. These assignments were interrupted in 1913, when Urmuz was called under arms, in the Second Balkan War against Bulgaria.
Ciprian mentions having lost touch with his friend "for a long time", before receiving a letter in which the latter complained about the provincial apathy and the lack of musical entertainment; attached was a draft of the "Algazy & Grummer" story, which Ciprian was supposed to read to the "seminary brethren", informing them "about the progresses registered in young literature".Ciprian, p.77–78. See also Sandqvist, p.227 Ciprian tells of having discovered the writer in Urmuz, and popularizing this and other stories in his own circle of intellectuals.Ciprian, p.78–79, 82 He also mentions that, in his budding acting career, he was basing some of his performances at Blanduzia Garden on Urmuz's letters.Ciprian, p.114
These developments coincided with the outbreak of World War I. Between 1914 and summer 1916, when Romania was still neutral territory, Ciprian's efforts of circulating the Bizarre Pages may have reached a peak. Urmuz's texts were probably spread around in handwritten copies, becoming somewhat familiar to Bucharest's bohemian society, but Urmuz himself was still an anonymous figure.Cernat, Avangarda, p.9, 269, 340, 342, 343. See also Crohmălniceanu, p.55 Both Ciprian and fellow actor Grigore Mărculescu are said to have given public readings from the Bizarre Pages at Casa Capșa restaurant.Crohmălniceanu, p.571–572 According to literary historian Paul Cernat, if rumors about Ciprian's early performances of Urmuz's texts are true, it would constitute one of the first samples of avant-garde shows in Romanian theatrical tradition.Cernat, Avangarda, p.269, 342
Around 1916, Urmuz had obtained a relocation, as judge in the Muntenian town of Alexandria. It was there that he met with poet and schoolteacher Mihail Cruceanu, also on assignment. As Cruceanu later recalled, Urmuz was captivated by the artistic revolt carried out in Italy by the Futurism group, and in particular by the poetry of Futurist leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.Cernat, Avangarda, p.91 According to literary historian Tom Sandqvist, Urmuz may have first read about the Italian initiatives in the local newspaper Democrația, which had covered them in early 1909.Sandqvist, p.22 As a result of this or another encounter, he decided to include, as a subtitle to one of his manuscripts, the words: Schițe și nuvele... aproape futuriste ("Sketch story and Novellas... almost Futuristic").Blaga, p.323; Cernat, Avangarda, p.91, 340, 381; Sandqvist, p.22, 237
Having reached the rank of Lieutenant, Demetrescu-Buzău was again called under arms when Romania joined the Entente Powers. In one account, he saw action against the Central Powers in Moldavia, following the Army's northward retreat. However, this is partly contradicted by his correspondence from Moldavia, which shows that his new office was as a quartermaster, and which records his frustration at not having been allowed to fight in the trenches. According to another account, he was mostly bedridden with malaria, and therefore unable to perform any military duty.
The year 1922 brought Urmuz's debut in print. Fascinated by the (then unnamed) Bizarre Pages, poet and journalist Tudor Arghezi included two of them in Cuget Românesc newspaper. Arghezi reportedly made efforts to persuade his more serious fellow editors of Cuget, and possibly intended to undermine their attempt of putting out a newspaper of record.Cernat, Avangarda, p.340, 356; Sandqvist, p.221 The gazette had also published a manifesto by Arghezi, in which he had outlined the goal of combating "sterile literature", and his intention of cultivating the "will to power" in post-war literary culture. Urmuz was thus the first avant-garde writer popularized by Arghezi, in a list which, by 1940, also came to include a large section of the younger Romanian modernists.Cernat, Avangarda, p.48, 340
Arghezi later wrote that his relationship with Urmuz was difficult, especially since the grefier panicked that the establishment would discover his other career: "he feared that the Cassation Court would better detect him as Urmuz than under his own name". The memoirist refers to Demetrescu-Buzău's perfectionism and unease, enhanced in the week before publication: "He would wake up in the middle of the night and would send a very urgent letter, asking me if the comma after a 'that' should be moved before. I found him wandering around my house at night, shy, restless, fainthearted or in a hopeful trance, that something of substance may or may not be found in his prose, that perhaps there's an error, asking me to publish it, and then again to destroy it; to publish it together with a eulogistic note, and then again to curse him. He bribed the to change phrases and words that I had to put back into place, as previous editorial interventions were for sure better than his."Crohmălniceanu, p.571 The letters they exchanged show that the grefier was not enthusiastic about even seeing his texts and his pseudonym in print, to which Arghezi was replying: "from among the few we'll be cooperating with, you were my first choice".
By May 1922, Urmuz had grown more confident in his strength as a writer. He sent Arghezi a copy of the "Algazy & Grummer" story, which, he joked, needed to be published for "the nation's benefit". He also proposed headlining it with the additional title Bizarre Pages. The work was never published by Cuget, probably because of a change in priorities: around that date, the paper hosted traditionalist editorials by culture critic Nicolae Iorga, which were incompatible with Arghezi's fronde.
Writing in 1927, Arghezi publicized his regret at not having cultivated the friendship: "I never saw him again and I am weighed down by the irreparable grief of never seeking him out. I believe my optimism could have rekindled in his cerebral chaos those candid and pure things that were beginning to die." Several Urmuz exegetes have traditionally seen the suicide intrinsically linked to Urmuz's artistic attitude. For scholar Carmen Blaga, it was the "dissolution of his faith" in Romania's intellectual class, along with economic decline and "an existential void", that prompted the writer to opt himself out.Blaga, p.325–326 This resonates with claims by the first-generation followers of Urmuz: Geo Bogza suggests that his mentor killed himself once the deconstructive process, performed by his "sharp intellect", reached a natural conclusion; Cezar Gheorghe, "Trăim într-o lume urmuziană", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 469, April 2009 Sașa Pană claims that Urmuz was tired of merely amusing the "cretins" and "profiteers" who held sway over Bucharest's literary scene, and, determined to turn his literary persona into "stardust", took the risk of destroying his physical self.Pană, p.70–71 Additionally, academic George Călinescu argued that there was a philosophical rationale "very in tune with his century": "he wanted to die in some original way, 'without any cause'."Călinescu, p.888
Kept at the city morgue, the body was assigned to Urmuz's brother-in-law and fellow clerk C. Stoicescu, who stated that the writer had been suffering from neurosis. Urmuz was buried on November 26, in his family plot at Bellu cemetery. On the day, the event was publicized by a small obituary in Dimineața daily, signed with the initial C (presumably, for Ciprian).Cernat, Avangarda, p.342 Both this and other press notices failed to mention that the grefier and the published author were one and the same, and the general public was for long unaware of any such connection. Story goes that an anonymous woman visited the family shortly after the burial, inquiring as to whether the deceased had left any letters.Sandqvist, p.234
In its manuscript form, Urmuz's definitive corpus of works covers only 40 pages, 50 at most.Simona Popescu, "Urmuz, the Solitary", in Plural Magazine, Nr. 19/2003 Various other manuscripts survive, including diaries and hundreds of , but have for long been unknown to researchers.Blaga, passim; Cernat, Avangarda, p.381; Crohmălniceanu, p.570, 571
The contact with Futurism, although acknowledged by Urmuz, is judged by many of his commentators as superficial and delayed. Literary historian Nicolae Balotă first proposed that the Romanian had merely wanted to show his sympathy for (and not a like-mindedness with) Futurism; that the works in question date back before the Futurist Manifesto, to the Cocu period; and that the Bizarre Pages have more in common with Expressionism than with Marinetti.Cernat, Avangarda, p.91, 361–362 According to Cernat: "By the looks of it, the were completed largely independent of influence from the European avant-garde movements .... We do not know, however, how many of these were already completed in 1909, the year when European Futurism was 'invented'." Emilia Drogoreanu, a researcher of Romanian Futurism, stresses: "The values and representations of the world celebrated through Futurism exist within the Urmuzian text, but are entirely uprooted from the significance offered them by the". Dan Gulea, "Perspective asupra futurismului", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 231, July 2004 Although she finds various similarities between Urmuz and Marinetti, Carmen Blaga notes that the former's jadedness was no match for the latter's militancy.Blaga, p.325–328, 330
Various authors have also suggested that Urmuz was actually a radical conservative, whose vehemence against platitude in art only camouflaged a basic conventionalism. This perspective found its voice with Lăcătuș, who sees Urmuz as a conservative heretic, equally annoyed by bourgeois and anti-bourgeois discourses. Writing in 1958, Ciprian also reflected on the possibility that Ciriviș was actually "teasing" the avant-garde tendencies emerging in his day, but concluded: "I would rather assume that under these various experiments was smoldering the lust for shaking the individual out of his skin, of tearing him away from himself, of disassembling him, of making him doubt the authenticity of accumulated knowledge."Ciprian, p.62–63 He writes that Urmuz's work lashed out at "human nature in its most intimate creases."Cernat, Avangarda, p.342; Ciprian, p.82 Accordingly, some authors have even considered Urmuz the inheritor of late-19th-century Decadence Paul Cernat, "Futurism și interculturalitate", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 231, July 2004 or of a matured alexandrine purity. Alexandru Ruja, "Cultură și sens", in Orizont, Nr. 7/2007, p.9 In other such readings, Urmuz appears to lend his backing to the Sexism Ioana Pârvulescu, "Erau interbelicii misogini?", in România Literară, Nr. 6/2010 or Antisemitism viewpoints of his contemporaries. Crohmălniceanu also writes: "the musings comprised in his manuscript notebooks ... are restrained, flat, commonplace, as if the work of a different man."
Much debate surrounds the issue of Urmuz's connection to an absurdist streak in earlier Romanian literature and folklore. In the 1940s, George Călinescu discussed in detail an Urmuzian tradition, of as being characteristic for the literary culture of Romania's southern, , cities. He noted that Urmuz was one of "the great grimacing sensitive" Wallachians, a "Balkans" succession which also includes Hristache the Baker, Anton Pann, Ion Minulescu, Mateiu Caragiale, Ion Barbu and Arghezi.Călinescu, p.53, 814; Cernat, Avangarda, p.351, 352, 357 In his definition, the source of Arghezi and Urmuz is in the folkloric tradition of self-parody, where the doina songs degenerate into spells or "grotesque whines".Cernat, Avangarda, p.351–352 The image of a folkloric Urmuz was soon after taken up by other critics, including Eugenio Coșeriu and Crohmălniceanu.Crohmălniceanu, p.184. See also Sandqvist, p.228, 230, 248
Ciprian noted that Urmuz was unlike the "cheeky, daring, disorganized" pranksters whom he superficially resembled, that nothing in Urmuz's exterior gave the impression that he was in any way "spoiled".Ciprian, p.60–61 Time, he suggests, did not alter Urumuz's "attitude on life": "Only now the about-turns were more daring and the tightrope acts was much more savvy."Ciprian, p.77 In 1925, commenting on Urmuz's flair for depicting the "overall pointlessness of human existence", Ciprian also argued: "For the mediocre mindset, Urmuz may seem incoherent and unbalanced—which is why his work is not addressed to the masses."Cernat, Avangarda, p.343 Critic Adrian G. Romilă writes that the new "paradigm" in Urmuz's literary universe appears significant and laborious, but adds: "That which we do not know is if the writer ... wasn't purely and simply playing around." However, Ioana Pârvulescu assessed that Urmuz, an author of "extreme originality", Ioana Pârvulescu, "Drumuri care se bifurcă", in România Literară, Nr. 44/2004 "put his own life into play and games ... and that is why his work is more tragic than comedic or is nested in that no man's land where tragedy and comedy overlap."
Crohmălniceanu sees in the Bizarre Pages indication of a "singular" and tragic experience,Crohmălniceanu, p.570–571 while Geo Șerban argues that Urmuz's "verve" comes from destructive pressures on his own psychology. Reviewer Simona Vasilache also suggests that the Bizarre Pages hide a "long digested" rage, with serious and even dramatic undertones. Other essayists have spoken about Urmuz's "cruelty" in depicting anguishing situations, in criticizing social life and in using language stripped of its ; they call him "one of the cruelest authors I ever did read" (Eugène Ionesco) and "cruel in a primitive sense" (Irina Ungureanu). As Ciprian reports, Urmuz was also self-deprecatory, amused by the others' attention, and claiming that his own elucubrații ("phantasmagorias") could only still be used to "trip the seminary brethren".Ciprian, p.78–79 One of his aphorisms hints to his internal drama and its role in creation: "There are cases when God can only help you by giving you more and more suffering."
A major disagreement among critics relates to Urmuz's ambiguous positioning, between literature, Anti-art and metafiction. In reference to the Bizarre Pages, Crohmălniceanu introduced the term "antiprose".Cernat, Avangarda, p.382–383; Crohmălniceanu, p.570–576 In Crohmălniceanu's view, the antiliterary "device" Urmuz invented is impersonal and regulated, in the manner of Dada "readymades", but as such ingenious and therefore inimitable.Crohmălniceanu, p.56–57, 570–576 Authors such as Adrian Marino, Eugen Negrici, Lucian Raicu and Mircea Scarlat have spoken about Urmuz as a revolutionist of language, who liberated texts from coherence and even semantics; whereas others—Livius Ciocârlie, Radu Petrescu, Ion Pop, Nicolae Manolescu, Marin Mincu, —have regarded him as mainly a textualist, interested in reusing and redefining the limits of poetry or narration, but creating a coherent, if personal, universe.Cernat, Avangarda, p.370–372, 375–377, 383–384, 390–391 According to Vasile Andru, Urmuzian literature is by definition open to all these associations, its antiliterary aspects illustrating the modern gap between "nature and nurture". Critic C. Trandafir, who sees Urmuz's apparent textualism as canceled out by deeper meanings in his prose, writes: "The man who wrote the 'bizarre pages' had a clear critical awareness of the transformations needed within literary discourse."
Simona Popescu, the poet-essayist, presumes that Urmuz's inner motivation was his "psycho-mania", which holds no respect for either convention or posterity, but only for committing one's own "abyssal obsessions" to paper: "death, the Eros, creation, and destruction." Adrian Lăcătuș also makes note of Urmuz's ambiguous allusions to autoeroticism, incest, bisexuality or paraphilia. Additionally, various commentators suggest that Urmuz's creative spark hides an unresolved conflict with his father. According to Cernat, Urmuz was in conflict with "paternal authority" and more attached to his mother, an "Oedipus complex" also found in some other literary figures of the pre-modernist generation.Cernat, Avangarda, p.18, 385 Others too see in Ciriviș's pranks a planned revenge against parental and social pressures.Blaga, p.324 His sister Eliza credited such accounts, by noting: "You can tell he failed in life because he obeyed his parents blindly, and perhaps also in part due to his lack of will, his shyness, his fear of the public."
Urmuz the aphorist genuinely trusted that the "Soul" of the world was a unity of opposites, and, inspired by the philosophy of Henri Bergson, also spoke of a "universal vital flux".Blaga, p.326–327 Lăcătuș and others suggest that Urmuz's worldview is the modern correspondent of Gnosticism and Manichaeism: in one of the manuscripts he left behind, Urmuz speculates about there being two Gods, one good and one evil. A distinct, and disputed, Ștefan Borbély, "Luciferism și literatură", in Apostrof, Nr. 5/2011; Ioana Bot, "Maledicțiunea omniefabilei confuzii masonice", in Dilemateca, June 2011, p.62 interpretation was put forth by researcher Radu Cernătescu, who believes that Urmuz's life and work reflected the doctrine of Freemasonry. Cernătescu reads indications of Masonic "awakening" throughout Urmuz's stories, and notes that the pahuci brotherhood was probably the junior or parody version of a Romanian Masonic Lodge.
According to Ciprian, one of Urmuz's earliest prose fragments was composed, with "The Chroniclers", during pahuci escapades. Its opening words, Ciprian recalls, were: "The deputy arrived in a brick and tile cart. He was bringing no news, but offered his friends, upon arrival, a few Leclanché batteries".Ciprian, p.62 The same author suggests that these drafts were much inferior to Urmuz's published works, beginning with "Algazy & Grummer".Ciprian, p.78
In its definitive version, the Algazy piece offers a glimpse into the strange life and cannibalistic death of its storekeeper characters: Algazy, "a nice old man" with his beard "neatly laid out on a grill ... surrounded by barbed wire", "does not speak any European languages" and feeds on municipal waste; Grummer, who has "a Humorism" and "a beak of aromatic wood", spends most time lying under the counter, but sometimes assaults customers in the middle of conversations about sports or literature. When Algazy discovers that his associate has digested, without giving a thought to sharing, "all that was good in literature", he takes his revenge by consuming Grummer's rubbery bladder. A race begins as to who can eat the other first. Their few remains are later discovered by the authorities, and one of Algazy's many wives sweeps them up into oblivion.Deligiorgis edition, p.54–63. See also Sandqvist, p.19–20, 230 A different, early variant is quoted "from memory" and commented in Ciprian. In this account, Algazy the storekeeper is persuaded by his domineering wife to make their only son a magistrate. Grummer prepares the boy for his unexpected novitiate, strapping him down to the floor of a cave that must have the scent of colts.Ciprian, p.77–78
From its very title, "Algazy & Grummer" references a defunct firm of suitcase manufacturers. Urmuz's own note to the text apologizes for this, explaining that the names' "musicality" is more suited to the two fictional characters than to their real-life models, and suggesting that the company should change name (or that its patrons must adapt their physical shape accordingly). Gheorghe Crăciun, " How to Do Characters with Words", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 24, August 2000Blaga, p.327; Deligiorgis edition, p.54–55 Simona Vasilache, "Doi coțcari", in România Literară, Nr. 27/2010 The narrative may hint to the everyday tensions between these entrepreneurs, and perhaps to the boredom of a career in sales; according to philologist Simona Constantinovici, it is also the confrontation of an entrepreneurial Turk (Algazy) and an intellectual Jew (Grummer), represented as a fight between the ostrich and the platypus. Simona Constantinovici, "Eveniment: Festivalul 'Zile și nopți de literatură'. De ce (nu) ne place excentricul și grotescul personaj urmuzian? Cazul Algazy & Grummer", in România Literară, Nr. 27/2010 Beyond the mundane pretext, the story was often described as Urmuz's manifesto against any literary technique, Ana-Maria Popescu, "Povești postmoderne și ușor feministe", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 295, November 2005Cernat, Avangarda, p.383, 390 and even a witty meditation on the signified and signifier.Blaga, p.326, 327 Carmen Blaga further proposes that Urmuz philosophic intent is to show the gap between universe, in which all things are possible and random, and man, who demands familiarity and structure.Blaga, p.327, 330
Ismaïl "is made up of eyes, sideburns, and a dress", tied with rope to a badger and stumbling down Arionoaia Street. Protected from "legal responsibility" in the country ("a seed-bed at the bottom of a hole in Dobruja"), the creature raises an entire badger colony: some he eats raw, with lemon; the others, once they have turned sixteen, he rapes "without the smallest qualm of conscience." The seed-bed is where Ismaïl also interviews job applicants, received on the condition that they hatch him "four eggs each". The process is supported by his "chamberlain" Turnavitu, who exchanges love letters with the applicants. Ismaïl's actual residence is kept a secret, but it is presumed that he lives, sequestered from "the corruption of electoral mores", in an attic above the home of his grotesquely disfigured father, only to emerge in a ball gown for the yearly celebration of plaster. He then offers his body to the workers, in hopes of thus resolving "the labor issue". Whereas Ismaïl has once worked as an air fan for "dirty Greek coffee houses" in the Lipscani quarter, Turnavitu has a past in "politics": he was for long the government-appointed air fan at the fire precinct kitchen. Ismaïl has spared Turnavitu a life of near constant rotation, remunerating his services: the seed-bed interviews, the ritualized apologizes to the leashed badgers, the praise of Ismaïl's fashion sense, and the swabbing of canola over Ismaïl's gowns. Their relationship breaks down as Turnavitu, returning from the Balearic Islands in the form of a jerrycan, passes the common cold to Ismaïl's badgers. Sacked from his job, he contemplates suicide ("not before seeing to the extraction of four Canine tooth in his mouth"), and hurls himself into a pyre made up of Ismaïl's dresses; the patron falls into depression and "decrepitude", retreating to his seed-bed for the rest of his own life.Deligiorgis edition, p.23–29. A short variant, quoted "from memory" and commented upon, in Ciprian, p.78–79. See also Sandqvist, p.20, 223
Like "Algazy & Grummer", "Ismaïl and Turnavitu" probably has a skeletal structure borrowed from real life: Turnavitu was a distinguished clan within Bucharest's Greek nobility, tracing its origin back to the Phanariote era. Mihai Sorin Rădulescu, "Genealogii: Discreția unui bucureștean de altădată", in Ziarul Financiar, August 29, 2008 The semi-fictional world is populated by other symbols of Romania's connection to the Orient, that are meant to evoke "the banality of a distinctively Balkan scenery" (Carmen Blaga).Blaga, p.330 Other interpretations have seen in the two protagonists caricatures of political corruption and parvenu morals.
As an early supporter of Urmuz, Ciprian spoke of "The Funnel and Stamate" as "without parallel" in its satire of family life, suggesting that the scene were all the Stamates are tied to a single stake is "more evocative than hundreds of pages from a novel"Ciprian, p.82 (part of the story has also been read as a sexist joke on fashionable androgyny, since Stamate has a "tonsured and legitimate wife"). Urmuz's original version in fact carries the subtitle "A Four-Part Novel", in which Paul Cernat reads the intention of parodying the staple genres of traditional literature;Cernat, Avangarda, p.195 according to Ioana Pârvulescu, the definition needs to be taken seriously, and makes the text ("perhaps the shortest novel in European literature") a "microscopic" Romanian equivalent of modernist works by James Joyce. Linguist Anca Davidoiu-Roman notes: "Urmuz's antinovel ... apparently preserves the structures of the novelistic genre, but undermines them from the inside, cultivating the absurd, the black humor, ... the nonsensical and the zeugma." Anca Davidoiu-Roman, "Mască și clonă. Despre atitudinile parodiei", in Familia, Nr. 9/2009, p.102 The core theme is believed to be sexual: a paraphrase of Romeo and Juliet, with Stamate as the ridiculously abstract thinker falling for the debased stand-in of femininity; or even the detailed creation of "an aberrant mechanism for erotic gratification." Stamate himself is also described as standing in for "the unimaginative bourgeois".
There, a group of "Vestal Virgin" whisks him away, praying to be shown the beauty of "immaterial love" and begging him to play a sonata. His music is overheard by the goddess Venus. Instantly "defeated by passion", she asks Fuchs to join her on Mount Olympus. The act of lovemaking between clueless, overanxious Fuchs and the giant goddess is compromised when Fuchs decides to enter his whole body into Venus' ear. The embarrassed and angered audience humiliates the guest and banishes him to Venus; merciful Athena allows him to return home, but on condition he does not reproduce. However, Fuchs still decides to spend some of his time practicing his lovemaking on Traian Street, hoping that Venus will grant him a second chance, and believing that he and the goddess could breed a race of Supermen. In the end, the prostitutes also reject his advances, deeming him a "dirty satyr", no longer capable of immaterial love. The story ends with Fuchs' flight into "boundless nature", whence his music "has been beaming away with equal force in all directions", fulfilling his destiny as an enemy of inferior art.Deligiorgis edition, p.72–91. See also Sandqvist, p.230–233
Urmuz's story has been variously described as his praise of artistic freedom, and more precisely as an ironic take on his own biography as a failed musician.Sandqvist, p.230–233 On a more transparent level, it references classical composer , depicted by posterity as a "puberal" and "clumsy" man, and known as a disgraced favorite of Romanian Queen-Consort Elisabeth of Wied.Sandqvist, p.231–233 "The Fuchsiad" may also contain Intertextuality nods to A Midsummer Night's Dream.
In its subtext, "Emil Gayk" teases the Irredentism ambitions of the interventionist camp, in respect to Transylvania province. Urmuz quotes a humorous slogan, circulated as a lampoon of nationalist attitudes: "Transylvania without the Transylvanians". This probably references the fact that, although Romanian by culture or ethnicity, many Transylvanian intellectuals were primarily the loyal subjects of the Habsburg monarchy. Adrian Marino, "Naționalismul provincial", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 88, October 2001 According to Crohmălniceanu, the actual purpose is to overturn "ossified" constructs, as in the case of territorial demands which cover no real surface.Crohmălniceanu, p.56 Similarly, Șerban speaks about "Emil Gayk" as a piece in which magnified "paltry aspects" and "anomalies" are supposed to send the reader into a "state of vigil".
The plot of "Going Abroad" depicts someone's convoluted attempt to leave the country for good. The unnamed seven-year-old "he" in the story settles his scores with the assistance of "two old ducks" and embarks for the voyage, only to be pulled back in by "paternal feelings"; he consequently isolates himself in a tiny room, where he converts to Judaism, punishes his servants, celebrates his Silver Jubilee, and rethinks his escape. His wife, jealous of his contacts with a seal, decides against it, but offers him various parting gifts: flatbread, a kite, and a sketchbook by art teacher Borgovanu. This results in a quarrel, and the protagonist finds himself tied by the cheekbones, "delivered unceremoniously on dry land." For a third attempt at leaving, the husband relinquishes wealth and titles, strips down and, bound with a bark rope, gallops to another town, joining the bar association.Deligiorgis edition, p.38–42 The story ends with a rhyming "moral":
"Going Abroad" is possibly about Urmuz's own difficulties in deciding his own fate, transposed into a faux sample of travel literature, an example of what Balotă calls the failed homo viator ("human pilgrim") in Urmuz.
"A Little Metaphysics and Astronomy", which is structured like a treatise, opens with a pun on the creation narrative, postulating that God created fingerspelling before "the Word", and venturing to suggest that "the heavenly bodies", like abandoned children, are in fact nobody's creation, that their spin is really a form of attention seeking. Here, Urmuz questions the possibility of a single cause in the universe, since God's interest is in unnecessary duplications or multitudes in stars, men and fish species.Deligiorgis edition, p.92–95 Beyond the jokes on scientific pretense, Vasilache reads "A Little Metaphysics..." as a clue to Urmuz's own disillusioned worldview, which she traces back to the suicidal warnings in Urmuz's notebooks. She argues that such a melancholy and lonely diarist is in contrast with Urmuz's literary persona, as known from the Bizarre Pages. Likewise, Carmen Blaga describes the text as a sober meditation on "the tragic sense of history" and "the fall into temporality".Blaga, p.326
Among the last Urmuzian works to be discovered is "Cotadi and Dragomir". The first in the duo is a muscular but short and insect-like merchant, who wears dandruff, tortoiseshell combs, a lath armor which greatly hiders his movements, and a piano lid screwed to his buttocks. The descendant of Macedonian nobility, Cotadi feeds on ant eggs and excretes Carbonated water, except when he corks himself to solve the "agrarian question". For fun, he lures his clients into angry conversations—these end with him banging the piano lid, which is also a urinating wall, on the shop's floor. Dragomir is long, crooked, brownish and kind-hearted; he intervenes in the disputes between Cotadi and the more stubborn customers, imposing respect with his main prop: a cardboard contraption that extends upwards from his neck. Cotadi rewards such attentions with servings of octopus, Sorbus domestica and paint, granting Dragomir the right to nest inside his gate wall. They plan to be buried together, "in the same hole", with French oil as a daily supply. From such an oily grave, Cotadi hopes, an olive tree plantation may spring up, to benefit of his descendants.Deligiorgis edition, p.44–53. See also Sandqvist, p.20–21, 230 Like "Algazy & Grummer", "Cotadi and Dragomir" can be read as alluding to the triteness of business life.
Ciprian simply discussed the piece as "Urmuz's idiotic lyrics", while Călinescu found it a "pure fable, on the classical canon, but nonsensical".Călinescu, p.888; Cernat, Avangarda, p.353 Cernat also described its "moral" as "empty" and "tautological",Cernat, Avangarda, p.191 but other critics see a hidden layer of meaning in the seemingly random cultural imagery. Ion Pop, commenting on Urmuz's hypertextuality, assumes that the "pelican and pouchbill" motif comes from a book once used as teaching aid.Cernat, Avangarda, p.391 He also suggests that the passion and hunger which ties together the various characters is in fact the thirst for freedom, for movement and for exotic settings: "Rapaport" is the Wandering Jew, Aristotle is the mentor of a great conqueror, and Galilei is invoked for his remark "And yet it moves". The mention of "Sarafoff" has been read as an indirect homage to Caragiale—whose humorous sketches helped give Sarafov a Romanian fame. Ion Pop, "Avangarda românească, avangarda europeană", in Cuvântul, Nr. 325Cernat, Avangarda, p.372, 390
Cernat describes the growth of Urmuz's myth as similar to Early Christianity: Ciprian as a "prophet", Arghezi as a "baptist", the modernist aficionados as "apostles" and "converts".Cernat, Avangarda, p.342–351, 357 Over time, various exegetes have noted that the modernist aspects of Arghezi's prose, written after 1923, show his debt to Urmuz's absurdism and Surreal humour.Călinescu, p.690, 815; Cernat, Avangarda, p.334, 345, 348, 351, 377; Crohmălniceanu, p.57; Loredana Ilie, "Hipotextul caragialian în opera lui Tudor Arghezi", in the University of Iași's Philologica Jassyensia, Nr. 2/2010, p.87, 90 Arghezi's Bilete de Papagal review was also a promotional instrument for the Bizarre Pages: in 1928, continuing the Cuget Românesc project, it circulated "Algazy & Grummer".
While his role as a pre-Dadaist is up for debate, Urmuz is thought by many to have been a considerable influence on a Romanian founder of Dada, Tristan Tzara.Cernat, Avangarda, p.110, 128–129, 341, 343, 346, 367–368; Sandqvist, p.209, 227, 234–235, 248 Liviu Grăsoiu, "Redescoperire", in Convorbiri Literare, December 2007 During its first years, the Romanian avant-garde would generally not mention Urmuz outside Arghezi's circle, but a surge in popularity came in stages after the European-wide impact of Dadaism, and especially after Tzara alienated some of his Romanian partners. This was the case of poet Ion Vinea and painter Marcel Janco, who together founded a modernist art magazine called Contimporanul. Late in 1924, Contimporanul teamed up with Ciprian, who gave a public reading from Urmuz during the Contimporanul International Art Exhibit.Cernat, Avangarda, p.156
The following year, Ciprian's eponymous text "Hurmuz", published in Contimporanul, listed the main claims about Urmuz's pioneering role.Cernat, Avangarda, p.342–343 Also then, the Futurist journal Punct, a close ally of Vinea and Janco, gave exposure to various unknown Urmuzian pages.Sandqvist, p.230 In December 1926, a Contimporanul editorial signed by Vinea announced to the world that Urmuz was "the discreet revolutionist" responsible for the reshaping of Europe's literary landscape: "Urmuz-Dada-Surrealism, these three words create a bridge, decipher a parentage, clarify the origins of the world's literary revolution in the year 1918."Cernat, Avangarda, p.128–129, 343; Cornel Ungureanu, "Ion Vinea și iubirile paralele ale poeților", in Orizont, Nr. 5/2007, p.2 In its coverage of the international scene, the journal continued to suggest that the suicidal author had anticipated the literary fronde, for instance calling Michel Seuphor a writer "à la Urmuz".Cernat, Avangarda, p.217 In addition to republishing some of the Bizarre Pages in its own issues, it took the initiative in making Urmuz known to an international audience: the Berlin-based magazine Der Sturm included samples from Urmuz in its special issue Romania (August–September 1930), reflecting a Contimporanul who's who list.Cernat, Avangarda, p.221, 362, 367; Grigorescu, p.389 At around the same time, poet Jenő Dsida completed the integral translation of the Bizarre Pages into Hungarian. Dragoș Varga-Santai, "Poezia maghiară din Ardeal în traducerea lui Kocsis Francisko", in Transilvania, Nr. 11-12/2006, p.57
In his Contimporanul stage, Janco drew a notorious ink portrait of Urmuz.Sandqvist, p.226, Plate 11 In old age, the same artist completed several cycle of engravings and paintings that alluded to the Bizarre Pages.Cernat, Avangarda, p.368; Ion Pop, "Un 'misionar al artei noi': Marcel Iancu (II)", in Tribuna, Nr. 178, February 2010, p.11; Liana Saxone-Horodi, "Marcel Ianco (Jancu) într-o nouă prezentare", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 571, April 2011 Vinea's own prose of the 1920s was borrowing from Urmuz's style, which it merged with newer techniques from the avant-garde groups of Europe.Cernat, Avangarda, p.181–185, 351 He followed Urmuz's deceptive "novel" genre of "The Funnel and Stamate", which also became a characteristic of works by other Contimporanul writers: Felix Aderca, F. Brunea-Fox, Filip Corsa, Sergiu Dan and Romulus Dianu.Cernat, Avangarda, p.194–198 In addition, Jacques G. Costin, who moved between Contimporanul and the international Dada scene, was for long thought an imitator of Urmuz's style.Călinescu, p.906; Cernat, Avangarda, p.187, 189–191, 398; Crohmălniceanu, p.570; Ion Pop, " Exercițiile lui Jacques G. Costin", in Tribuna, Nr. 160, May 2009, p.8–9 Dan Gulea, "Jacques Costin, avangardistul", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 181, August 2003 Several critics have nevertheless revised this verdict, noting that Costin's work builds on distinct sources, Urmuz being just one.Cernat, Avangarda, p.190–191, 322–323, 329
Bogza was previously editor of a short-lived magazine named Urmuz, published in Câmpina with support from poet Alexandru Tudor-Miu, and keeping contact with other Urmuzian circles: it was saluted by Arghezi and published a drawing portrait of Urmuz (probably Marcel Janco's). Bogza's first editorial piece proclaimed: "Urmuz lives. His presence among us whips to lash our consciousness." Later, in unus inaugural art manifesto, Bogza described his suicidal mentor as "The Forerunner".Cernat, Avangarda, p.331, 346. See also Sandqvist, p.372–373, 375 Others in this group incorporated "Urmuzian" metamorphoses into their technique and, at that stage, the Bizarre Pages were also imitated in style by Pană's sister, Magdalena "Madda Holda" Binder, influencing stories by Pană's young follower Sesto Pals Michael Finkenthal, "Sesto Pals, dialoguri între întuneric și lumină", in Viața Românească, Nr. 11-12/2009 and novels by the isolated Surrealist H. Bonciu.Călinescu, p.900; Gabriela Glăvan, "H. Bonciu – Dincolo de expresionism", in the West University of Timișoara Anale. Seria Științe Filologice. XLIV, 2006, p.265; Florina Pîrjol, "Neaparat cîte un exemplar în liceele patriei!", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 279, July 2005 In the mid-1930s, unu illustrator Jules Perahim drew his own version of Urmuz's portrait. Simona Vasilache, "Unicate", in România Literară, Nr. 28/2008
After the Contimporanul group split and a young generation reassimilated modernism into a spiritualistic framework ( Trăirism), critic Lucian Boz was the first professional to find no fault with the Bizarre Pages, and made Urmuz interesting for mainstream and elitist criticism.Cernat, Avangarda, p.330–331, 333, 334, 339, 346, 347–348 Between the unu Surrealists and Boz's version of modernism were figures such as Ion Biberi (who popularized Urmuz in France)Cernat, Avangarda, p.330, 404 and Marcel Avramescu. Avramescu (better known then as Ionathan X. Uranus) was notably inspired by Urmuz's pre-Dadaist prose, which he sometimes imitated.Cernat, Avangarda, p.333, 344–345, 346, 347; Crohmălniceanu, p.570 Marian Victor Buciu, "Un avangardist dincoace de ariergardă", in România Literară, Nr. 17/2006 Ion Pop, "Un urmuzian: Ionathan X. Uranus", in Tribuna, Nr. 96, September 2006, p.6–7 Other authors in this succession were Grigore Cugler, widely credited as a 1930s Urmuz, Șerban Axinte, "Grigore Cugler, prin literatura 'de unul singur' ", in Cuvântul, Nr. 378; Cernat, Avangarda, p.344, 369–370; Crohmălniceanu, p.570; Ion Pop, "Un urmuzian: Grigore Cugler", in Tribuna, Nr. 161, May 2009, p.7–9; Ion Simuț, "Al doilea Urmuz", in România Literară, Nr. 23/2004; Vlad Slăvoiu, "Un avangardist recuperat", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 316, April 2006 and Constantin Fântâneru. Igor Mocanu, "C. Fântâneru. Absurd și suprarealism – o îngemănare inedită", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 354, January 2007 The early 1930s also brought the publication of several new works of memoirs mentioning Demetrescu-Buzău, including texts by Cruceanu and Vasile Voiculescu—the latter was also the first to mention Urmuz on Romanian Radio (January 1932);Cernat, Avangarda, p.344, 346 another such Radio homage was later authored by Pană.
The channels of communication once opened, Urmuz came to be discussed with unexpected sympathy by Perpessicius, Călinescu and other noted cultural critics, consolidating his reputation as a writer.Cernat, Avangarda, p.321–323, 331, 339, 344, 346–354 Călinescu's attitude was particularly relevant: the condescending but popularizing portrayal of Urmuz, which became part of Călinescu's 1941 companion to Romanian literature (Urmuz's earliest mention in such a synthesis), was first sketched in his literary magazine Capricorn (December 1930) and his 1938 university lectures.Cernat, Avangarda, p.344, 346, 350–353 Although he confessed an inability to view Demetrescu-Buzău as a real writer, Călinescu preferred him over traditionalism, and, critics note, even allowed the Bizarre Pages to influence his own work as novelist.Cernat, Avangarda, p.350, 352–355 Meanwhile, a blunt negation of Urmuz's contribution was restated by the academic figure Pompiliu Constantinescu, who nevertheless commented favorably on the writer's "ingeniousness".Cernat, Avangarda, p.344, 349 Eugen Lovinescu, another mainstream literary theorist, angered the avant-garde by generally ignoring Urmuz, but made note of Ciprian's readings "from Hurmuz's repertoire" at the Sburătorul literary sessions.Cernat, Avangarda, p.348
Urmuz may have acted as a direct or indirect influence of mainstream authors of fiction, one case being that of satirist Tudor Mușatescu.Cernat, Avangarda, p.323 Similar observations were made regarding the work of modern novelists Anișoara Odeanu Bianca Burța-Cernat, "Înainte de Ionesco", in Revista 22, Nr. 1020, September 2009; Cernat, Avangarda, p.345 or Anton Holban. Daniel Dragomirescu, "Modernismul lui Anton Holban", in România Literară, Nr. 38/2008
The Drake's HeadSummarized in Ciprian, p.373–411 was Ciprian's personal homage to the pahuci: it shows a grown-up Ciriviș, the main protagonist, returning from a trip abroad and reuniting with his cronies during an overnight party. The Drake's Head brotherhood spends the small hours of the morning bullying passers-by, chasing them "like birds of prey" and pestering them with absurd proposals. Quite jaded and interested in wrecking the very "pillars of logic", Ciriviș convinces his friends to follow him on a more daring stunt: trespassing private property, they take over an apple tree and treat it as a new home. Claiming that land ownership only covers the actual horizontal plane, they even strike out an agreement with the stupefied owner. Nevertheless, a pompous and indignant "Bearded Gentleman" takes up the cause of propriety and incites the Romanian Police to intervene. The play premiered in early 1940. The original cast included Nicolae Băltățeanu as Ciriviș and Ion Finteșteanu as Macferlan, with additional appearances by Ion Manu, Eugenia Popovici, Chiril Economu.Ciprian, p.261–261, 408–410
Cernat sees The Drake's Head as a sample of Urmuzian mythology: "Ciriviș ... is shown as a quasi-mythological figure, the boss of a parodic-subversive fellowship which seeks to rehabilitate a poetic, innocent, apparently absurd freedom". According to Cernat, it remains Ciprian's only truly "nonconformist" play, particularly since it is indebted to "the absurd Urmuzian comedy".Cernat, Avangarda, p.271 Some have identified the "Bearded Gentleman" as Nicolae Iorga, the traditionalist culture critic—the claim was later dismissed as mere "innuendo" by Ciprian, who explained that his creation stood for all "demagogue" politicians of the day.Ciprian, p.408, 410–411
The anti-Urmuzian current, part of a larger anti-modernist campaign, found an unexpected backer in George Călinescu, who became a fellow traveler of communism. In his new interpretation, the Bizarre Pages were depicted as farcical and entirely worthless.Cernat, Avangarda, p.354–356 For a while, the Bizarre Pages were only cultivated by the Romanian diaspora. Having discovered the book in interwar Romania, the dramatist and culture critic Eugène Ionesco made it his mission to highlight the connections between Urmuz and European modernism. Ionesco's work for the stage, a major contribution to the international Theater of the Absurd movement, consciously drew upon various sources, including the Romanians Ion Luca Caragiale and Urmuz. The contextual importance of such influences, which remain relatively unknown to Ionesco's international audience, has been assessed differently by the various exegetes,Lucian Boia, Romania: Borderland of Europe, Reaktion Books, London, 2001, p.261. ; Cernat, Avangarda, p.345, 356, 358, 365; Martine Dancer, "Desenele de atelier și 'universul' operei", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 100, January 2002; Gelu Ionescu, "Ionescu/Ionesco", in Apostrof, Nr. 12/2006; Ion Pop, "Eugen Ionescu și avangarda românească", in Viața Românească, Nr. 1-2/2010; Ștefana Pop-Curșeu, "Eugène Ionesco cel românesc în viziune occidentală", in Tribuna, Nr. 175, December 2009, p.7; Ion Vianu, "Ionesco, așa cum l-am cunoscut (evocare)", in Revista 22, Nr. 1029, November 2009 Gabriela Melinescu, "Absurdul ca un catharsis", in România Literară, Nr. 17/2007 as Ionesco himself once stated: "Nothing in Romanian literature has ever truly influenced me." Thanks to Ionesco's intervention, Urmuz's works saw print in Les Lettres Nouvelles journal.Cernat, Avangarda, p.404; Geo Șerban, "Mic și necesar adaos", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 315, April 2006 Allegedly, his attempt to publish Urmuz's work with Éditions Gallimard was sabotaged by Tristan Tzara, who may have feared that previous claims about his absolute originality would come under revision.Cernat, Avangarda, p.110, 367–368 Upon translating Urmuz's writings, Ionesco also drafted the essay Urmuz ou l'Anarchiste ("Urmuz or the Anarchist", ca. 1950), with a new drawing of Urmuz by Dimitrie Vârbănescu (Guy Lévis Mano collection).Monica Breazu, "Un manuscris inedit de Eugen Ionescu în arhivele editorului Guy Lévis Mano", in Magazin Istoric, January 2010, p.17–18
The entirety of Urmuz's work was republished in English by writer Miron Grindea and his wife Carola Grindea, in ADAM Review (1967, the same year when new German translations were published in Munich's Akzente journal).Cernat, Avangarda, p.368 From his new home in Hawaii, Romanian writer Ștefan Baciu, whose own poetry borrows from Urmuz, Simona Sora, "Poezia unui șpriț la gheață", in Dilema Veche, Nr. 133, August 2006 further popularized the Bizarre Pages with Boz's assistance.Cernat, Avangarda, p.368; Ilie Rad, "Scrisorile din exil ale lui Lucian Boz", in Contemporanul, Nr. 11/2009, p.35 Another figure of the anti-communist diaspora, Monica Lovinescu, adopted Urmuzian aesthetics in some of her satirical essays. Serenela Ghițeanu, "Prima piesă din puzzle", in Revista 22, Nr. 913, September 2007 The diaspora community was later joined by Andrei Codrescu, who became a neo-Dadaist and wrote stories he calls "à la Urmuz".Andrei Codrescu, "Word to the Reader", in A Bar in Brooklyn: Novellas & Stories, 1970–1978, Black Sparrow Books, Boston, 1999, p.7.
Although the ban on Urmuz was still in place, George Ciprian made a daring (and possibly subversive) gesture by publishing his affectionate memoirs in 1958.Cernat, Avangarda, p.356 A few years later, the episodic relaxation of communist censorship allowed for the republication of the Bizarre Pages, mistakenly included in a complete edition of Ciprian's literary works (1965). Such events heralded a revival of scholarly interest in proto-Dadaism, beginning with a 1970 monograph on Urmuz, by the Sibiu Literary Circle member Nicolae Balotă.Blaga, p.323; Cernat, Avangarda, p.346, 357, 365–366 Also then, Pană was free to circulate a new revised edition of his interwar anthology, reissued in collaboration with Editura Minerva.Cernat, Avangarda, p.357; Crohmălniceanu, p.640 Ion Bogdan Lefter, "Urmuz în trei tipuri de ediții", in Apostrof, Nr. 4/2010 It was later completed by an Urmuz corpus, which notably hosted the scattered diaries, as recovered by critic Gheorghe Glodeanu. In 1972, Iordan Chimet also included "The Chroniclers" in a nonconformist anthology of youth literature. Marina Debattista, "Subversiunea inocenței", in România Literară, Nr. 22/2007 In those years, the Bizarre Pages also inspired critically acclaimed illustrations by Nestor Ignat Daria Ghiu, "Nestor Ignat: realitatea întoarsă pe dos", in Revista 22, Nr. 1094, February 2011 and Ion Mincu, and the multimedia event Cumpănă ("Watershed") by composer Anatol Vieru.Cernat, Avangarda, p.389
With the 1960s, a national-communist ideology was officially established in Romania, and this encouraged the rise of "protochronism" as a cultural phenomenon. The protochronists exaggerated past Romanian achievements, and magnified previous claims about the folkloric roots of Urmuz's literature. Some protochronists also described a positive, jocular, "village idiot" Urmuz, more presentable than Europe's misanthropic avant-garde.Cernat, Avangarda, p.357–358, 369, 372–377, 385–388, 404 A leading representative of this trend was literary theorist Edgar Papu, who exaggerated Vinea and Ionesco's homage to Urmuz and Caragiale to argue that Romania was the actual origin of Europe's avant-garde movements.Cernat, Avangarda, p.358–359, 373, 387; Mihăilescu, p.145–146 The idea proved popular beyond protochronism, and was arguably found in essays by Nichita Stănescu and Marin Mincu.Cernat, Avangarda, p.359, 360, 373–376 Many Europeanism intellectuals rejected protochronism, but, in their bid of making Urmuz palatable to cultural officials, often interpreted him strictly through the grid of Marxist humanism (as used by Balotă, Matei Călinescu or Nicolae Manolescu).Cernat, Avangarda, p.364–366, 377, 385, 404 A third camp, comprising more or less vehement opponents of Urmuz, joined the literary debates after 1970; it includes Alexandru George, Gelu Ionescu, Alexandru Piru and Marin Nițescu.Cernat, Avangarda, p.361, 378–382
Some years later, Romania witnessed the birth of the Optzeciști generation, whose interest was in recovering Caragiale, Urmuz and the 1930s avant-garde as its models to follow, and who reactivated corrosive humor as a way of fighting oppression.Mihăilescu, p.215, 234 Among the individual Optzeciști who took special inspiration from the Bizarre Pages are Mircea Cărtărescu, Octavian Soviany, "A doua carte a nostalgiei", in Cuvântul, Nr. 327 Nichita Danilov, Adina Dinițoiu, "Goana după metafizica literaturii", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 411, February 2008; Horia Gârbea, "Monolog politic în tramvaiul 5", in Luceafărul, Nr. 7/2008; Alex. Ștefănescu, "Nichita Danilov, poet și prozator", in România Literară, Nr. 10/2008; Eugenia Țarălungă, "Miscellanea. Breviar editorial", in Viața Românească, Nr. 8-9/2008 Florin Iaru, Sorin Alexandrescu, "Retrospectiva Nicolae Manolescu (V)", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 92, November 2001; Ioan Holban, " Înnebunesc și-mi pare rău", in Convorbiri Literare, November 2005 Ion Stratan Mihai Vieru, "Perimetre de exprimare ale liricii strataniene", in Familia, Nr. 7-8/2009, p.97–98 and "the sentimental Urmuz" Florin Toma. Bianca Burța-Cernat, "Minunata călătorie a lui Florin Toma în Imaginaria", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 309, February 2006 Dissident poet Mircea Dinescu also paid homage to Urmuz, imitating his style in one of his addresses to the communist censors.Cernat, Avangarda, p.388–389
With that, the influence of Urmuz again radiated outside the Romanian-speaking circles: while poet Oskar Pastior translated the Bizarre Pages into German,Cernat, Avangarda, p.368; Ernest Wichner, "Oskar Pastior, laureat al Premiului Büchner", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 323, June 2006 Herta Müller, a German Romanian novelist and dissident, is thought to have been influenced by some of Urmuz's writing techniques. Nora Iuga, "Poezie germană cu rădăcini românești", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 319, May 2006; Bogdan Suceavă, "Timpul cînd Niederungen a apărut în România", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 496, October 2009 Marin Mincu and Marco Cugno also introduced Urmuz's literature to the Italian language public, with a 1980 collection. In Romania, as part of centennial celebrations, scattered translations old and new were issued by Minerva as a hexalingual album, with noted contributions from Ionesco, Voronca, Mincu, Cugno, Leopold Kosch, Andrei Bantaș etc.Cernat, Avangarda, p.368, 386–388 Other translations from Urmuz were pioneered in English by Stavros Deligiorgis (standard bilingual edition, 1985) and later by Julian Semilian. Rodica Grigore, "Gândurile sunt cuvinte", in Ziarul Financiar, May 27, 2008 The same effort was undertaken in Dutch language by Jan Willem Bos Ovidiu Șimonca, " 'E anormal ca în România să nu se citească literatură română'. Interviu cu Jan Willem Bos", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 450, November 2008 and in Swedish language by Dan Shafran. Andrei Pleșu, "Legi împotriva competenței", in Dilema Veche, Nr. 119, May 2006
The literary currents of postmodernism often appropriated Urmuz as their guide. This tendency was illustrated by the writings of new figures in Romanian literature: the Minimalism and neo-naturalists (Sorin Gherguț, Paul Cernat, "Un 'trimbulind' underground", in Revista 22, Nr. 1102, April 2011 Andrei Mocuța, Adina Dinițoiu, "Povești 'pe limba alambicului' ", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 503, December 2009 Călin Torsan), Bianca Burța-Cernat, "Poetica deșeurilor reciclate", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 414, March 2008 the neo-Surrealists (Cristian Popescu, Iulian Boldea, "Remember Cristian Popescu. Visul himeric", in Cuvântul, Nr. 297 Iulia Militaru, Cezar Gheorghe, "Poeme despre spaima devenirii-copil", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 532, July 2010 Cosmin Perța, Iulian Tănase, Adina Dinițoiu, "O nouă colecție de poezie pe piața literară", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 499, November 2009; "Căutătorii inimii grifonului", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 544, October 2010 Stelian Tănase), Stelian Tănase, Gabriela Adameșteanu, "București, strict secret", in Revista 22, Nr. 910, August 2007 the Feminist theory (Catrinel Popa, Adina Dinițoiu, "Poezie. Catrinel Popa, Caietul oranj", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 120, June 2002 Iaromira Popovici), the political satirists (Dumitru Augustin Doman, "Contact. Dumitru Augustin Doman, Concetățenii lui Urmuz, Ed. Muzeul Literaturii Române, 2007", in Arca, Nr. 1-2-3/2008 Pavel Șușară) and the electronic literature writers (Cătălin Lazurcă). Lucia Simona Dinescu, "Stil dublu rafinat", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 374, May 2007
There were also loose stage or multimedia adaptations of the Bizarre Pages, including ones by Mona Chirilă (2000), Gabriela Riegler, "Teatru. Dramaturgia românească la Timișoara", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 33, October 2000 Gábor Tompa (2002), Cristina Rusiecki, "Info teatral", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 129, August 2002 Radu Macrinici (2005), Doina Ioanid, "Un spectator la Unidrama", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 299, December 2005 Pro Contemporania ensemble (2006), Oltea Șerban-Pârâu, "Viziuni hipnotice", in Ziarul Financiar, September 1, 2006 Christian Fex and Ramona Dumitrean "Trei știri teatrale", in Apostrof, Nr. 1/2008 (both 2007); Urmuz's work has also been cited as an influence by the Romanian-born dramaturge David Esrig, who has used it in workshops. Simona Chițan, "Esrig: 'Nu orice țipăt e teatru' ", in Evenimentul Zilei, August 5, 2009; Iulia Popovici, "Teatru. Arta, munca și ștacheta", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 436, August 2008 A theatrical company with Urmuz's name existed for a while in Casimcea, home of the Zilele Urmuz Festival. In 2011, two separate operatic renditions of Urmuz's work were showcased by Bucharest's SIMN Festival. Oltea Șerban-Pârâu, "SIMN 2011 – să auziți ce n-ați mai văzut", in Ziarul Financiar, May 26, 2011
|
|
