Page 202 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 202
Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices
manian poetry cannot but coincide with that of modern Romanian poet-
ry. The critic goes on to explain how, in the history of Romanian poetry,
only modernism is a ‘sentiment’ (1968, 26) and a ‘state of mind’ (1968, 43),
while the other ‘-isms’ are ‘programmes’ or ‘styles’—in other words, mere
variants of modernism: “[m]odernism, which is elsewhere a negation of
symbolism … carries here its own torch without interruption” (1968, 19);
“traditionalism is but a form of modernism … It is a trend of modern po-
etry” (1968, 26); “the modernist period also coincided with programmat-
ic orientations; the avant-garde was one of them” (1968, 44). Manolescu
continues by denouncing—admittedly in euphemistic terms—the ‘laps-
es’ of Romanian poetry during socialist realism:
A decade—in which poetry appears to have forgotten, through a pecu-
202 liar form of amnesia, its traditions, returning to forms of times past and at-
tempting to curiously revive them, while ignoring what it had organically
evolved into and pretending to be what it was not or what it could not be
(1968, 129).
Thus, upon the emergence from socialist realism, modernism was the
only authentic and valuable option for Romanian literature—or, at least,
that is what transpires from Manolescu’s historical overview.
But what exactly lured Romanian critics to modernism, when, in the-
ory, they could have adopted and supported any of the movements and
ideologies of the literary past? Why didn’t they promote ‘realism’ in a
slightly less ideological form? Or perhaps ‘classicism,’ which still embod-
ied the peak of literary art for many aestheticians of the last century? To
answer these questions, we may be tempted to consider various circum-
stantial explanations: modernism was the dominant movement in Ro-
mania prior to the imposition of communism; modernism was still the
leading trend in the Western artistic circles of the early 1960s; or, more
evidently: given the virulence with which it was condemned a mere dec-
ade earlier, modernism appeared as the absolute antonym of socialist real-
ism. However, such explanations fail to account for the core of the prob-
lem. For if we were to consider, along Fredric Jameson’s lines, that “the
ideology of modernism as such ... is first and foremost that which pos-
its the autonomy of the aesthetic” (2002, 161), then it would be evident
that postwar modernism provided Romanian writers with precisely that
which socialist realism denied them: the superficial right of not subordi-
nating aesthetics to ideology and, consequently, the promise of freedom
(Goldiș 2011, 122–125). A simple promise that, despite being broken time
and again in the decades to come, was nonetheless an incomparably bet-
manian poetry cannot but coincide with that of modern Romanian poet-
ry. The critic goes on to explain how, in the history of Romanian poetry,
only modernism is a ‘sentiment’ (1968, 26) and a ‘state of mind’ (1968, 43),
while the other ‘-isms’ are ‘programmes’ or ‘styles’—in other words, mere
variants of modernism: “[m]odernism, which is elsewhere a negation of
symbolism … carries here its own torch without interruption” (1968, 19);
“traditionalism is but a form of modernism … It is a trend of modern po-
etry” (1968, 26); “the modernist period also coincided with programmat-
ic orientations; the avant-garde was one of them” (1968, 44). Manolescu
continues by denouncing—admittedly in euphemistic terms—the ‘laps-
es’ of Romanian poetry during socialist realism:
A decade—in which poetry appears to have forgotten, through a pecu-
202 liar form of amnesia, its traditions, returning to forms of times past and at-
tempting to curiously revive them, while ignoring what it had organically
evolved into and pretending to be what it was not or what it could not be
(1968, 129).
Thus, upon the emergence from socialist realism, modernism was the
only authentic and valuable option for Romanian literature—or, at least,
that is what transpires from Manolescu’s historical overview.
But what exactly lured Romanian critics to modernism, when, in the-
ory, they could have adopted and supported any of the movements and
ideologies of the literary past? Why didn’t they promote ‘realism’ in a
slightly less ideological form? Or perhaps ‘classicism,’ which still embod-
ied the peak of literary art for many aestheticians of the last century? To
answer these questions, we may be tempted to consider various circum-
stantial explanations: modernism was the dominant movement in Ro-
mania prior to the imposition of communism; modernism was still the
leading trend in the Western artistic circles of the early 1960s; or, more
evidently: given the virulence with which it was condemned a mere dec-
ade earlier, modernism appeared as the absolute antonym of socialist real-
ism. However, such explanations fail to account for the core of the prob-
lem. For if we were to consider, along Fredric Jameson’s lines, that “the
ideology of modernism as such ... is first and foremost that which pos-
its the autonomy of the aesthetic” (2002, 161), then it would be evident
that postwar modernism provided Romanian writers with precisely that
which socialist realism denied them: the superficial right of not subordi-
nating aesthetics to ideology and, consequently, the promise of freedom
(Goldiș 2011, 122–125). A simple promise that, despite being broken time
and again in the decades to come, was nonetheless an incomparably bet-
