Book by a 25-year-old author, withdrawn for political reasons. Comparison with the abdication of King Michael I
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Loading... - Kirsten Cooper
- 28 Jul 2022
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In May 1995, in the middle or towards the end of the month, the third edition of the Bookfest Book Fair began, which took place in the National Theater building. The publishing house of the European Institute in Iasi, which a year before had printed my Thoughts on Nae Ionescu, asked me to say a few words on the occasion of the release of a translation of Origen. Which I did, in a room where there were only seven or eight people, including Mihai Åžora.
In the evening, Anca Dumitrescu-Untu, the director of the publishing house, gave a table of 12 cutlery in the garden of the University House, a real park stretching across three streets in the center of Bucharest. I found Mihai Åžora there, I got to know a good-natured and soft-spoken teacher from Iesian, a typical Moldovan figure, and then I was introduced to Pavel Chihaia, a distinguished septuagenarian, tall, slender, with a profile - the face smead, well-trimmed temple - fine and strong personality... In 1970, when I was finishing high school, a writer had shown him to me on Academiei Street, near the Dintr-o Zi Church, the occasion to find out that he was the author of the famous Romanian Blockade, a myth book, printed in December 1947 and melted down two months later. Blockade had been republished in 1991, when I read it in a state of spiritual tension, amazed by its freshness and modernity.
Originally published on Christmas Eve in 1947, Blockade bore the signature of a writer of only 25 years, fully formed, who was starting his career as a French or American novelist. The book was withdrawn from bookstores for political reasons. An intelligent journalist recently compared the fate of this novel with the abdication of King Mihai I.
Once the Blockade appeared, Pavel Chihaia became a crushing literary presence in relation to his congeners Marin Preda and Petru Dumitriu, who sought a modus vivendi, during the Terror period of 1948-1953, between their strong talent and socialist realism. Pavel Chihaia chose to remain silent and was part of a militant anti-communist organization for a while, having the chance not to be arrested. He continued to write. Proof, his bestselling novel Hotarul de nisip, dating from 1952-53, which, just like Blockade, resists rereading, even though a lifetime has passed since it was written. The theme, which became an obsession, is the escape from the sovietized country, recurring in an atrocious and brilliant short story, Escape to Paradise, which turned 60 years old.
The mentioned titles represent only a part of the biography of Pavel Chihaia, who avoided returning to literature even in the era of liberalization and "thaw" of the 60s of the last century. He persisted in the dignity of refusal even after he had become known as a historian of the Romanian medieval culture. In the five massive volumes illustrating this field, the reader can discover meditations on the Prayer of the Heart or on a great living hesychast, abbot Vasile from Poiana Mărului. Under this aspect of the Orthodox confession, Pavel Chihaia should be seated next to Virgil Cândea and Florin Constantiniu. Read More…
