Pogromurile din Bucovina si Dorohoi • The Pogroms of Bukovina and Dorohoi

 

Carmen Tagsorean, PhD Candidate, "Babes-Bolyai" University of Cluj-Napoca:
HE LIVED TO WRITE, HE WROTE TO LIVE – MARIUS MIRCU
Abstract: Some of the most important names of Romanian cultural life belong to the writers of the Jewish community. Whether we refer to the interwar or postwar period, their talent is illustrated both in the press and in the literature of the time. One of the existential dilemmas they had to face was that of their double identity. They belonged to the Jewish community, but, at the same time, to the Romanian society. Many of the Jewish writers put their thoughts on paper either in Romanian or in German (the Jews from Bukovina). Although slightly known in 2014’s Romania, but highly valued and praised in Israel where he was nicknamed "the senior of the Romanian writers", the journalist and writer Marius Mircu was part of the elite group of Jewish intellectuals. His contribution to the preservation of the Jewish history in Romania (nineteenth and twentieth centuries) is still valued by the Jewish community. Marius Mircu’s cultural identity has been created by the blending of three cultures: Jewish, Romanian, and French (he lived and studied in France between 1929 and 1932). Through this study we aim to clarify if the writer was haunted by the anxieties of his cultural identities.

 

Conclusions: Romanians, as well as the Jews in Romania, were really fortunate to have in their service a personality so complex and well-balanced as Marius Mircu. Born and raised in a bicultural community (half Romanian and half Jewish), Marius Mircu learned from early childhood integration and assimilation that over time turned him into a personality with a great potential to represent both cultures in his writings. His dual identity was not a handicap for him; on the contrary, it gave him a vantage point from which he was able to observe, to extract the essential and to give back a wise and colorful picture of the humanity he lived in. He built a bridge between the two communities, dedicating his talent and energy to the cause of love and understanding among peoples. He did it in both languages, for both cultures. A gifted human being, he lived to write and he wrote to live.

Courtesy: Biblioteca Digitala a Bucurestilor