BETWEEN MARGINAL REBELS AND MAINSTREAM CRITICS: JEWISH ROMANIAN INTELLECTUALS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD Camelia CRĂCIUN A DISSERTATION in History Presented to the Faculties of the Central European University in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Budapest, Hungary 2009 CEU eTD Collection Supervisor of Dissertation Prof. ANDRÁS KOVÁCS Copyright Notice and Statement of Responsibility Copyright in the text of this dissertation rests with the Author. Copies by any process, either in full or part, may be made only in accordance with the instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European Library. Details may be obtained from the librarian. This page must form a part of any such copies made. Further copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the written permission of the Author. I hereby declare that this dissertation contains no materials accepted for any other degrees in any other institutions and no materials previously written and/or published by another person unless otherwise noted. CEU eTD Collection iii ABSTRACT My research aimed at answering a few questions related to the first group of Jewish intellectuals born and growing up within Romanian culture and thus deeply acculturated. Chronologically, I followed their activity from slightly before WWI, during the interwar period, before and after the long-belated Emancipation, until anti-Jewish legislation in late 1930s marginalized and then excluded them from Romanian society and cultural life. The main problems which the current study tried to answer were why this group of intellectuals chose some specific identity models, who they were and how they articulated their public discourse in connection with their Jewish identity and Romanian cultural canon. Thus my research focused first on the socio-cultural and political context determining their options and shaping their later discourse, then it moved to a socio-cultural analysis of their intellectual and private individual paths and finally it analyzed their works in terms of identity discourse and integrative approach. Following the theoretical level of research organized by concepts such as CEU eTD Collection “conflict” and “inclusion”, defined in turn by “identity construction” and by “strategies of integration”, my research identified a series of conclusions for the study of acculturated Jewish intellectuals in the process of redefining their position in order to penetrate a iv conservative cultural milieu. Thus, among the factors influencing the profile of the intellectuals and their identity, the tension between advanced acculturation and persistent marginalization and exclusion set the background for a strong conflict explainable through Robert Merton’s theory. Acquiring solid Romanian education, the young intellectuals were justifiably acting as insiders of the local culture, but due to the legal and social context they remained social outsiders, generating a high amount of individual frustration. This frustration materialized in the emergence of a rebellious group, which found in the marginal yet non-canonic modernist and avant-gardist trends the most suitable option reflecting their outsider position and saving them from a national cultural repertoire incompatible and unable to accommodate to their values. In this context, the long belated Emancipation finally legally secured a space for the assertion of Jewish identity within the Romanian space, manifested through the emergence of a “Jewish literature” in the Romanian language focusing mainly on social criticism. Deleuze and Guattari’s theoretical demonstration supported my analysis, but a reverse of this theory had to be employed in the sense of “reterritorialization.” The construction of the “Jewish literature” represented the belated cultural reflection of a social reality neglected for a long time by a conservative culture and consisted in a spin-off replica of a nation-wide intellectual debate searching for the essence of “Romanian identity” while constructing a “minority’s culture” within the Romanian language. While analyzing the identity representation within their works, a constant integrative position was adopted by all, CEU eTD Collection despite their affiliation to rebellious avant-garde or to “Jewish literature,” aiming at a transformation of the cultural canon in order to include the new reality of multi-cultural Romanian society within its borders. v To the enduring support of my mother, Prof. Camelia-Doina Crăciun, to whom I dedicate this work To the loving memory of my father, Eng. Nicolae Crăciun, and of my maternal grandparents, Maria Varvarikis-Gál and András Gál, who taught me the first lessons on multiculturalism CEU eTD Collection vi Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. András Kovacs, for his enduring support and guidance, as well as my mentor, Prof. Leon Volovici, for his patient confidence in my work and for his steady support and guidance along the way. Also, my research greatly benefited from the kind support of Dr. Ditza Goshen, Director of the Center for the Study of Romanian Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as Dr. Măriuca Stanciu, Library of the Romanian Academy of Sciences, Bucharest, to whom I would like to thank. I would like to express my gratitude to the Hanadiv Foundation for their support that made this extensive research possible in France, Romania and Israel through a Hanadiv Foundation Doctoral Fellowship during the 2004/2005 academic year. I also greatly benefited from a reputed Chevening Scholar Fellowship at the University of Oxford supported by the Foreign Commonwealth Office and Open Society Institute in 2006/2007. CEU eTD Collection vii NOTES FOR THE READER Most of the works mentioned in the current research were never translated into English. The Romanian original versions appear here in my English translation and I do hope the beauty of the original pieces was not destroyed by my too-close-to-the-original version. The second note is related to the work and profile of Beniamin Fudoianu, internationally known as Benjamin Fondane. Due to the fact that my current research focused on the activity of the Jewish intellectuals of Romanian language, I preferred using his Romanian pseudonym, Beniamin Fundoianu, throughout the text. CEU eTD Collection Table of Contents Introduction. 1 A. Historiography of the Topic B. Theory. C. Concepts. D. Methods. E. Comparative Dimension. Chapter 1. Between Marginal Rebels and Mainstream Critics: Identity Options of Romanian Jewish Intellectuals. 21 A. Between Marginalization and Exclusion. The Romanian Context. The Legal Factor The Socio-Political Factor. The Romanian Cultural Milieu. B. Between Acculturation and Identity Preservation. The Jewish Community A Portrait of the Romanian Jewry. CEU eTD Collection Political Orientations. Economic and Social Structures. Educational Life. Jewish Press. The Emergence of Romanian Jewish Intellectuals. C. Identity Options and Cultural Discourses. Jewish Acculturated Intellectuals in the First Decades of the 20th Century. From Social Revolt to Modernity as an Option. Creating Jewish Identity in Romanian Culture. “Double Identity” as an Integrative Project. Conclusions Chapter 2. A Generational Portrait: Romanian-Language Jewish Intellectuals during the Interwar Period . 74 A. The Origins: Regional and Cultural Identity. B. Socio-Economical Background. C. Religious, Linguistic and Early Educational Environment. D. Formative Environment and Intellectual Influences. E. Intellectual Contacts: Networks, Informal Groups, Intellectual Circles. F. The Professional Background of the Writers. G. Occupations and Affiliations. H. Pseudonyms and Identity. I. Main Attraction: Journalism. J. Political Orientations. CEU eTD Collection K. Intellectual Horizons: France and International Networks. Conclusions. Chapter 3. From Social Revolt to Modernity as an Option. 121 A. Representations of Jewish Identity in the Work of Benjamin Fondane. The Romanian Period. Fondane’s French Years B. Ilarie Voronca and the Interplay of Symbolic Registers. Reconstructing the Romanian Landscape. Subverting the Public Discourse: the Remembrance of Violence. Poetry as the Identity Core. C. Identity as the Periphery of the Self: Max Blecher. Representations of Identity in the Work of Max Blecher. Jewish Life as an Existential Background. Cultural Identity at the Periphery of Experience. Conclusions Chapter 4. Constructing Jewish Identity in Romanian Culture. .170 A. I. Călugaru: Jewish Life between Traditionalism and Modernization. Against Forgetting: A Monograph of the Moldavian Jewish Life. Poverty, Sickness, Hunger: A Naturalistic Description of the Shtetl. The Crisis of Traditional Identity: the Modernity and the City. CEU eTD Collection Political Alternatives and Socialism. B. I. Peltz: The Identity Crisis of the Jewish Community. Literature of the Periphery as a Genre: Integrating Jewish Life. The Economic Factor: Social Consequences and Identity Changes. A Generational Critique of Identity Crisis. C. Ury Benador: Politics and the Crisis of the Jewish Intellectual. The Profile of the Jewish Intellectual. Identity and Politics: the Crisis of the Jewish Intellectuals Conclusions Chapter 5. The “Double Identity” Model and the Integrative Project. .222 A. “Romanian writer” OR “Jewish writer”: the Survey of Facla Journal. B. Mihail Sebastian or the Dilemma of Double Identity. The Position of the Intellectual. a) Detachment. b) Observer and critic. c) Concentrating