Grigore Cugler (; or Gregori Cugler; also known under the pen name Apunake; – September 30, 1972) was a Romanian avant-garde short story writer, poet and humorist. Also noted as a graphic artist, composer and violinist, he was a decorated World War I veteran who served as the Romanian Kingdom's diplomatic representative in various countries before and after World War II. The nephew of poet Matilda Cugler-Poni, he was the author of unconventional and often irreverent pieces, which have drawn parallels with the work of Alfred Jarry and Urmuz. Their author was celebrated by some of his generation colleagues for his independent voice in Romanian literature.
An anti-communist, Cugler renounced his post in 1947, just before the establishment of a communist regime, and lived the final decades of his life in Peru. Promoted by the Romanian diaspora but largely ignored at home until the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he became the subject of interest in post-communist literary criticism.
Biography
Early life and family On his paternal side, Cugler descended from an ethnic German family of Austrian nobility. His ancestor, Maximilian von Kugler (1790—1868), was a Habsburg civil servant and lawyer who moved to Moldavia to serve for the prince Mihail Sturdza. Mihai Sorin Rădulescu, Elita liberală românească, 1866-1900, Editura All, 1998, p. 94. Members of the family had settled in Moldavia by the middle of the 19th century, and his great-grandfather Karl von Kugler, later known as Carol von Cugler, was employed as urban planner in Iași, Ildico Achimescu, "Apunake", in Bănățeanul, May 23, 2006George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini până în prezent, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1986, p.422-423 Mircea M. Pop, "Trei cărți noi la editura Pop din Ludwigsburg. Avangardistul Grigore Cugler, în germană", in Arca, Nr. 1-2-3/2006 and became a naturalized Romanian citizen. His daughter and Grigore's aunt, Matilda, was a noted poet who associated with the literary society Junimea, Florin Manolescu, "Cronici de atelier. Preface to Grigore Cugler, Apunake și alte fenomene & Afară-de-Unu-Singur, Editura Compania, Bucharest, 2005, at Editura LiterNet; retrieved February 18, 2008 and whose second husband was chemist Petre Poni.
Born in Roznov, Neamț County, Cugler was the son of Grigore Cugler and his wife Ana, daughter of Universul journalist Nicolae Țincu. He was also the cousin of art critic Petru Comarnescu.
Cugler graduated from the Romanian Army's college at Dealu Monastery. Later, speaking of himself in the third person, he recalled with irony that his graduation "pleases him to this day." He served in the World War I Romanian Campaign, was injured, and had his two fingers from his left hand amputated. In his own recollections, he spoke of his own involvement in the war as "a promenade", and indicated that the medals he received after being wounded in November 1916 were owed to him "not taking cover in time" while defending Pitești train station against the Central Powers' forces. He was subsequently present in Moldavia, the only region held by the Romanian authorities after the Central Powers occupied southern Romania. He referred to this period in his life as "dieting", alluding to the hardships of war, and indicating that this judgment also applied to occupied Bucharest.
Interwar literature and diplomatic service In 1918, Cugler moved to Bucharest, where he studied at the University's Faculty of Law and the Music Conservatory. His teachers at the latter institution were celebrated musicians such as George Enescu, who reportedly held Cugler in high esteem, Alfons Castaldi, and Mihail Jora. The composer of several waltzes and lieder, Cugler won the Enescu Award for musical creativity in 1926. After 1927, he was assigned to a succession of diplomatic posts in Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, and ultimately Norway. According to literary critic Florin Manolescu, he also represented Romania in Bratislava, at the time part of Czechoslovakia. While in Stockholm, he met Ulla Gerda Lizinca Matilda Dyrssen, also known as Ulrike or Ulrica Dyrssen, daughter of a Swedish diplomat and granddaughter of a Swedish Navy commander, and, in 1937, married her in Bucharest.
He was an adept of anthroposophy.
In 1933–1934, he debuted as a writer with a series of unusual sketch stories, poems and aphorisms, all of which were first published the magazine Vremea. Alexandru Ruja, " 'Traista-n băț și scripca subțioară...' ", in Orizont, Vol. 19, Nr. 10 (1501), October 2007 It is however probable that his earliest literary experiments were published by his cousin Petru Comarnescu in the magazine Tiparnița Literară around 1927–1928. Also in 1934, he completed and printed his first volume, titled Apunake și alte fenomene ("Apunake and Other Phenomenons").Cernat, p.369 The writing was illustrated with his own drawings, which he himself fancied as a means to cause "unease" to his readers. A subject of interest in the literary community, it generated a following among young intellectuals, some of whom titled themselves apunakiști ("apunakists"), while Cugler himself became confounded with his character and came to bear his name. In 1946, he issued another volume of his works, named Vi-l prezint pe Țeavă ("Meet Țeavă"—țeavă being the Romanian for "pipe").
Grigore Cugler was opposed to the Romanian Communist Party's takeover of the country, effected in successive stages after World War II (see Socialist Republic of Romania). In late 1947, just after the Communist Ana Pauker took over as foreign minister, he decided to resign his diplomatic position, motivating his gesture in a letter to Pauker as the consequence of "the new orientation in Romanian government policies, which part with my convictions and sentiments". Manolescu argued that the choice of words was in contrast with the usual perception of their author as "trifling". Reportedly, Cugler's action caused consternation in Bucharest, where no one had yet attempted to confront Ana Pauker using such terms. He himself spoke of his departure as an "unlimited vacation", and, shortly before leaving, handed down copies of his texts for Vremea to his friend Petru Dumitraşcu.
Exile and final years Together with his family, Cugler settled in Peru's capital, Lima. Reportedly, he picked his place of exile by randomly setting his finger on a spinning globe. Vasile Iancu, "Avangardiștii de ieri și de azi" , in Convorbiri Literare, May 2005 He found a job as an insurance agent by day, indulging his musical passion in the evening, as a violin soloist for the Lima Philharmonic Orchestra. In November 1956, Peruvian Minister of Education Jorge Basadre appointed Cugler to a government commission supervising the activity of state-financed educational institutions in the field of music (the Commission for the Study of Musical Culture).Jorge Basadre, "Comisión para el estudio de la Cultura Musical. Resolucion Ministerial № 13910", in El Peruano, November 14, 1956
While in exile, Culger also issued his final volume, Afară-de-Unu-Singur (also spelled Afară de unul singur, both titles translating as "Out on One's Own"), which he issued as a samizdat and only printed in 50 copies. According to its author, the book had an earlier linotype edition, which had been printed in Bucharest before his departure. He defined this earlier volume as "discreet, elegant, but without a watch on its wrist and blowing even in yogurt" (in reference to the Romanian proverb "He who was once burned by soup will even blow to cool yogurt"). Late in his life, he completed various literary pieces such as a mock fairy tale "in cackling style", and the texts Amintiri din copilărie ("Memories of Childhood"), ...şi la lume iarăşi date ("...and Handed Back to the World"), and Cine fuse şi se duse ("Who Was It and Now Is Gone"). Many of these writings were also illustrated in his own hand, which he amusedly defined as "a worrying aspect".
Cugler maintained contacts with intellectuals of the Romanian diaspora, several of whom were reportedly fascinated by his work and character. Early on, he joined the Romanian National Committee, created by former premier Nicolae Rădescu as a member of the anti-communist and American-based Assembly of Captive European Nations, serving as its representative in the Peruvian capital."Collections. Romanian. Comitetul Naţional Român" , at the Hoover Institution; retrieved February 19, 2008 He was visited in Lima by poet Nicolae Petra, as well as by literary promoters Ştefan Baciu and Mircea Popescu, both of whom edited literary magazines for the community of exiles. The former two left memoirs on the period, in which they evidence that Cugler was pining for his native Romania, and that Romanian culture was dominant in his house. In 1968, he was interviewed for Radio Free Europe by prominent Romanian journalist Monica Lovinescu.
Work
Main characteristics and the Apunake theme Cugler wrote his work in Romanian, French and Spanish. In all, he was fluent in eight languages, including dialects of Arabic.
On original writer, defined by literary historian Paul Cernat as "eccentric", Cugler was not affiliated with any of the avant-garde trends. His work is often thought to have, at least in part, owed inspiration to Urmuz, a solitary avant-gardist of early 20th century Romanian literature.Cernat, p.369-370 However, Manolescu indicates, he made a point of not joining any modernist trend. He never read Urmuz's stories, but was probably familiar with works by the rebellious French author Alfred Jarry and his work showed connections with Jarry's ’Pataphysics. In one of his stories, titled Superbardul ("The Super-Bard"), Cugler mocked Surrealism and its automatist techniques, depicting an imaginary writer who writes nonsensical syllables on strips of paper which he glues to all sorts of objects, and which he later assembles on a silvery string.
It has also been suggested that his personal style bears likeness to a variety of later works, and that it shares traits with the Absurdist plays of Eugène Ionesco. Comparisons have also been made between Cugler and another Absurdist playwright, Samuel Beckett, as well as between him and pessimistic Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran. Other writers whose work was argued to be similar with Cugler's include Christian Morgenstern, Lewis Carroll and Daniil Kharms.
Manolescu describes Cugler's literature as dominated by "a way of being opposed to routine, to ankylosing academism, to casern mentality and, in general, to all of our Pavlovian customs", while literary historian Alexandru Ruja sees his style and outlook as "the imponderability of writing, [...] the total liberty of creative attitudes", stressing that they amounted to "a different way of making literature". Cugler spoke of his own debut in literature as: "[I] started to pick on everybody." Manolescu proposed that the writer's perspective on life was "structuralist", and that it displayed "an intelligence blessed with an enormous associative capacity in respect to the most diverse patterns, identified as if in jest."
Florin Manolescu noted that these traits were present in the names he picked for his characters, objects, and the imaginary places they are to be found in, names which are often interconnected and usually puns: Kematta (from , "the summoned female"), Adu Milmor-t (from adu-mi-l mort, "bring him to me dead"), (a common noun version of Thermopylae, taking the form of manufacturing and commercial terminology) or Vesquenouille (a mock Francization of vezi că nu-i, "see that it's no longer there"). He proceeded to define such methods as "literary pantography".