HISTORY OF GENERATION 2000 IN ROMANIAN POETRY. A NEW PARADIGM FOR EUROPE

Abstract

On the context of Generation 2000 we find very different writers, who have a specific stylistic and configurative identity, able to assure their creative originality. We will notice every time Dan Coman's poems as different than Radu Vancu or Stefan Manasia's ones and this is a natural fact. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Headnote

Abstract:

On the context of Generation 2000 we find very different writers, who have a specific stylistic and configurative identity, able to assure their creative originality. We will notice every time Dan Coman's poems as different than Radu Vancu or Stefan Manasia's ones and this is a natural fact.

Key Words: fracturism, literary phenomenon, literary criticism, paradigm

Fracturism

Generation 2000 is real74. Firstly, discussions about the reality of this literary phenomenon were pretty frequent and polemical, but the decade which passed confirmed, without doubt, the intuition of them which announced, in the beginning of the 2000s, the birth of a new paradigm in Romanian literature.

The first extremely important episode has as protagonists Marius Ianuç and Dumitru Cmdu, who published Manifestul Fracturist (The Fracturist Manifesto), in a first version, in October 1998 in Monitorul de Bra§ov. The creation of this article is, according to Ianuç, the reference to an incident "on the night of 10/11* September .98 (when we were beaten in streets) in order to give up writing poetry. From that moment on, our writings were called fractures"75.

Marius Ianuç was bom on 24th December 1975 at Bra§ov and he studied at the Faculty of Letters (University of Bucharest), being for a time the animator of the "Litere" Cenacle, led previously by Mircea Cärtärescu. His editorial debut with Manifest fracturist §i alte fracturi (Vinea Publishing, 2000) imposed trenchantly the apparition of a new generation of poets, Generation 2000. Marius Ianuç made also a significant contribution with the establishment of Fracturi magazine (appeared on 2002-2003), where many poets, who became popular later, published their poems (such as Ionut Chiva, Mihail Vakulovski, Dumitru Crudu, Zvera Ion, Ruxandra Novae, Elena Vlädäreanu, Räzvan Tupa). The other important figure of this beginning, the Moldavian poet Dumitru Crudu (bom on 8th November 1967), graduated the Faculty of Letters (University "Transilvania" of Braçov) and he became one of the most important poets of Generation 2000. He invented theoretically a new literary orientation like Fracturism with Marius Ianuç, trying to find a new "method" for poetry.

Marius Ianuç and Dumitru Crudu's moment was actually the most important moment which gave life to this new generation. But the protagonist of the affirmation and consecration of this phenomenon was Marin Mincu, the leader of "Euridice" Cenacle (seconded by his wife, Çtefania Mincu, and also by Octavian Soviany).

This literary critic (August 28, 1944 - December 4, 2009) is also the first one who drew attention to Manifestul Fracturist, by writing an article about this important document and by republishing this literary program in Vatra magazine.

Marin Mincu and "Euridice" Cenacle

Before realizing a more detailed presentation of "Euridice" interval, we have to generally describe an essential process which created the best context for the apparition of "Euridice" like a literary phenomenon. These next insurgents had to prove an excellent formation as poets, that was acquired in other societies, previously attended, before becoming active members of "Euridice". Most of them initially participated to the meetings of wellknown cenacles from Romania, organized in big academic centers like: "Litere" Cenacle from the Faculty of Letters of Bucharest, "Pavel Dan" Cenacle from the University of Timisoara and other many student cenacles all over the country. Extremely important were also the creative workshops organized by writers like Nina Vasile or Octavian Soviany at Bucharest, Andrei Bodiu or Alexandru Muçina at Braçov. This kind of activity has proved to be a very important way for debutants to change the vision of their "teachers".

"Euridice" Cenacle's epoch was defined by an incontestable effervescence of affirmation and crystallization of the new literary generation and it was described by the same literary critic Marin Mincu, the persevering mentor of the cenacle and of the new movement in general. Dosarul Cenaclului Euridice ("Euridice" Cenacle's File) is his important writing containing three significant volumes (two of them appeared, in 2003, at Ziua Publishing, and the last one, in 2004, at Pontica Publishing). In this consistent anthology, all dialogues from cenacle's meetings are precisely reproduced and their theme is every time the meeting between a recognized writer and a young author (for example, Grete Tarder and Elena Vlädäreanu, Radu Aldulescu and Räzvan Tupa, Bogdan Ghiu and Mariela Rotaru and so on).

In addition to this dialogues (very exciting ones and very worthy to be the principal study objects of every researcher on Generation 2000), the tomes include a very rich anthological material and imagistic representations of the personalities who participated, during this period, to the popular meetings every Wednesday at 6am, in Sala Oglinzilor (Hall of Mirrors) of Casa Monteoru (Monteoru House). The location was, since 14th January 2004, Rotonda Muzeului Literaturii Române (Museum of Romanian Literature's Rotunda) and later, after Alexandru Condeescu's death, Biblioteca Metropolitan (Metropolitan Library).

The name of the cenacle was chosen by Mincu in conjunction with the homonymous poetry collection that he elaborated many years at "Pontica" Publishing. The literary critic confesses the beginning conditions: "I believed that the Cenacle will not have success (as Nicolae Breban said) and that I will have to renounce - from week to week - to the mandate that Eugen Uricaru offered me, without having the possibility to finish a seemingly utopian project, that was considered by many of my colleagues futureless in a post-apocalyptic epoch, completely refractory to poetry"76. Despite Marin Mincu's pessimistic diagnostic, the cenacle had success and this literary critic leaded it stoically until his death, on December 2009. The activity of the cenacle was resumed on May 2010 and the new moderators were Çtefania Mincu, Octavian Soviany and Felix Nicolau.

The important contribution of this group to the formation and stabilization of the new literary orientation is reflected by the principal objectives of "Euridice" project. Cenacle was a meeting place, par excellence, for active writers, irrespective of generation or place from which they are coming, a meeting that intended an efficient and reconciliatory dialogue between many generations (there are many authors from different promotions, like, for instance, Florin Iaru, loan Es. Pop, Ruxandra Cesereanu, Radu Aldulescu, $erban Foartä, Marius Ianuç, Adrian Urmanov, Elena Vlädäreanu, Zvera Ion and so on). "We should also say that, adequately and really academically sometimes, in the space of the cenacle there were gleaming debates about most acute problems, styles and ideas, in a strictly applied situation - a workshop - or more opened, theoretical and hermeneutical; those debates received many times polemical accents that were resolved at the cenacle or that, later, continued in national magazines"77.

The second most important objective was to encourage young writers (that just published their first book), but also to circumscribe the principal directions of their writings. This cenacle "legalize", for example, Fracturism group (being discussed the issue of the new authenticity) and it becomes also the space were Adrian Urmanov proposed the utilitarian poem's formula. Another sign of the cenacle's real importance is that, during the meetings, there were many discussions about the existence of cardinal premises of the Generation 2000's reality.

The 30th meeting (on 19th March 2003) is very important on this topic, because it started from Mincu's speech about this question: "From what we observed, this proposal for discussion that we made at the cenacle about the apparition of a new literary generation caused some agitation in "Ziua literarä", "Luceafarul" or "Cotidianul" [magazine]"78. In this speech, Marin Mincu offers some interesting arguments to the reality of this new generation in Romanian literary zone: "Regarding to the article I signed in "Ziua literarä" magazine, "A new literary generation?", I wanted to draw attention to the fact that I initiate there a problem starting from a precise symptom, perceptible by anyone, and that is the clear modification of the horizon of expectation"79. Another reason is the mutation bore by the notion of "authenticity", which is becoming exclusively ontological, in avanguardist way, opposing to the Romanian postmodernist authenticity, which is too adherent to the writing ("The perception is already more acute, we passed from the writing's authenticity and we retrieved again, or we are retrieving again, what we called, in the Interwar Period, experience's authenticity"80). This kind of authenticity implies, organically, a removal of language artifices: "The new literature [...] wants another impact on the real, which is not mediated anymore by any kind of rhetorical forms; this is a visceral impact, quasi-epidermal"81. Marin Mincu evokes also the condition of the receptor in relation by this new paradigm: "Actually, this is not such an important question, because this receptor is always in the limelight or in the second one or in the tenth one, according to the writing; and, if we don't have the writing's issuer, the author, we have the receptor in vain"82. Furthermore, at that time, this literary critic doesn't accept the evaluation of the new literature using the axiological criterion, which was considered, at that moment, nonfunctional ("Regarding to the new generation, this opposition released at the cenacle by Stoiciu, namely minor poetry or/and major poetry, is not certifiable, because, for the time being, the axiological perspective, as I said, is operable only on very small portions")83.

In addition to this convergent nucleus represented by the cenacle, the affirmation of this new literary generation was assured also by a principal reality of the last years: the world of the Internet. Specialized sites, free and accessible to every user, became quickly a space where many popular writers published their texts, and the configuration of the page allowed a very prompt dialogue regarding the posted writings.

A site like agonia.ro, which has been, in the beginning of the last decade, a very popular place for writers, quickly became dominated by an increasing number of dilettantes. This fact impelled the best writers to find a new virtual place, a really "exclusive" one: clubliterar.com (also active in the present). It is an important particularity of this new paradigm the fact that many recognized poets, who obtained the most representative literary prizes, published their creations using the Internet: Claudiu Komartin, Vlad Moldovan, Dan Sociu, Radu Vancu and so on.

Generation 2000 after "Euridice"

In 2006, Räzvan Jupa, in the article entitled "generation 00 expired, poetry follows" (published on clubliterar.com and on Versus/Versum magazine) supports the idea of the extinction of Generation 2000 and the idea of an imitation period beginning right after. This vision, expressed too early, is really disputable, if we observe the evolution of Romanian literature in the last 8 years.

It is really true that an important mutation produced inside the paradigm and it is also really true that in the new wave of literature we can notice an significant dose of imitation (even in the situation where sometimes - inevitably - some writers imitate themselves), but it is not a crucial level, but a normal one, that we can notice in the case of any generation. What happens, actually, during this past years? Some of the beginning's writers renounced poetry, even the founders of this literary orientation (Çtefan Ba§tovoi, Andrei Peniuc, Adrian Urmanov; Marius Ianuç recants his creation completely, on April 2010, like Baçtovoi and Peniuc, and it was an option motivated by a return to religious feelings).

In another train of thoughts, many confirmed names of Generation 2000's first age are continuing their activity in the literary world, with inevitable transformations of their style or of their creation genres. They became important figures on Generation 2000's history (for example, Dumitru Crudu, Rizvan Tupa, Dan Coman, Çtefan Manasia, Ionu( Chiva, Dan Sociu, Claudiu Komartin, Teodor Dunä, Elena Vlädäreanu, Cosmin Per(a, Minina Vlada and so on). On the other hand, new talents come to the stage (and they continue to use the Generation 2000's principal creative lines): Livia Roçca, Svetlana Cârstean, Vlad Moldovan, Cätälina Cadinoiu, Stoian G. Bogdan, sorin despoT, Teodora Coman and we can, undoubtedly, mention many names (I tried, actually, to illustrate by some revealing examples the Generation 2000's directions, without trying to create an exhaustive list at this time.

Literary criticism

Generation 2000 also involves another essential part and this is the literary criticism. The first stage of the new orientation is especially influenced - as I said - by Marin Mincu, but also by Nicolae Tzone84 (regarding poetry, his active publishing house "Vinea" made an decisive contribution to the encouragement of young writers), both of them Generation 2000's first critics and literary ideologists. From this time forward, "welcome criticism" receives the essential role regarding to the esthetical validation of young literature. A very important question should be: "Who are now the new figures?" Certainly, many consecrated literary critics are continuing to publish articles regarding the living artistic phenomenon. But we have to record also the apparition, in the Romanian literary sphere, of many critics who just published their first books and who have substantial contributions in cultural magazines: Mihaela Ursa, Alex Goldiç, Paul Cemat, Daniel Cristea-Enache, Alexandru Matei, Cosmin Borza, Andrei Terian, Bianca Bur(a-Cemat, Radu Vancu, Mihai Iovänel etc. Certainly, in the articles they sign we have, time and again, the chance to find conclusive considerations about literature's configuration and about the evolution of this literary orientation.

Conclusions

Undoubtedly, on the context of Generation 2000 (and this observation is valuable in the case of any literary orientation), we find very different writers, who have a specific stylistic and configurative identity, able to assure their creative originality. We will notice every time Dan Coman's poems are different than Radu Vancu or $tefan Manasia's ones and this is a natural fact.

Alex Goldiç notices that "the confrontations between groups, the canonic obstinacies, and precursors' sacrifice" disappeared. "Most of Generation 2000's writers, publishing their second or third book, picked indeed their own way. Some of them try systematically to reinvent themselves"85. But there is, absolutely, a general base which contains the fondamental creative lines - formal and ideational - able to confer cohesion to all writers' creations (this is the fact that allows the existence of a literary generation) and that is active, inside the paradigm, from the beginning until the present, transgressing the particularities of the epochs and remaining available irrespective of mutations that influenced the Generation 2000 over time. In other words, Generation 2000's fundamental traits are recognizable in all creations of representative writers and that is what embodies them in this literary orientation.

Footnote

74 Sanda Cordoç, "Generaba 2000 exista", Vatra, no. 456, 2009.

Footnote

Dumitru Crudu, Marius Ianuç, "Manifestul Fracturist", 2006 [http://www.poezie.ro/index.php/essav/202813/Manifestul Fracturist]. accessed on 7th December 2013).

Footnote

76 Marin Mincu (coord.), Dosarul Cenaclului Euridice, vol. 1, Bucharest, Ziua, 2003, p. 5.

Footnote

77 Ibidem, p. 6.

78 Idem, Dosarul Cenaclului Euridice, vol. 3, Constanza, Pontica, 2004, p. 493.

79 Ibidem, pp. 493-494.

80 Ibidem, p. 494.

Footnote

81 Ibidem.

82 Ibidem.

Footnote

83 Ibidem, pp. 494-495.

84 Cosmin Borza, "Poezia «douämiista» - între generate çi creafie", Vatra, no. 456, 2009.

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