Alexandru Toma (occasionally known as A. Toma, born Solomon Moscovici; February 11, 1875 – August 15, 1954) was a Romanian poet, journalist and translator, known for his communist views and his role in introducing Socialist Realism to Romanian literature. Having debuted as a Symbolist, Toma was influenced by 19th-century writer Mihai Eminescu, an admiration which came to characterize his entire work. The official poet during the early years of the Communist regime and appointed a full member of the Romanian Academy, he is considered by many commentators to have actually been a second-shelf writer, with a problematic legacy.
Toma was, alongside novelist Mihail Sadoveanu, one of the literary figures whose writings were associated with the early years of Communism in Romania. Officials equated him with Eminescu, whose lyrical poems he would often adapt to the Socialist Realist guidelines, replacing their pessimism with an officially endorsed uplifting message. His other writings included positive portrayals of Stakhanovite workers, praises of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, as well as poems for children. Supported by the regime and widely publicized until shortly before his death, he fell out of favor and his work was gradually marginalized during the final years of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's rule.
He was the father of Sorin Toma, a Romanian Communist Party activist and journalist himself noted for his commitment to Socialist Realism, as well as for his officially endorsed attacks on the influential poet Tudor Arghezi. Alexandru Toma's nephew, Virgiliu Moscovici-Monda, was himself a Symbolist poet.
Biography
Early life and career The future Alexandru Toma was born into a Jewish family in Urziceni, where his father Leibu Moscovici worked as a grocer.Boia, p.73, 81; Călinescu, p.845. See also Podoleanu, p.333; Rotman, p.175 Leibu's other son, Zeilic, fathered Virgiliu Moscovici, who also pursued a career in literature during the interwar period, publishing several of his works under the pen name Virgiliu Monda.Călinescu, p.844-845. See also Rotman, p.174
Toma completed his secondary education in the industrial city of Ploiești, after which he graduated in Letters and Philosophy from the University of Bucharest.Podoleanu, p.333 He qualified as a history and philosophy teacher, and was employed as such by several schools in Bucharest, including Basarab and Saint Sava colleges.C. Popescu-Cadem, Document în replică, Mihail Sadoveanu City Library, Bucharest, 2007, p.260. . See also Podoleanu, p.333 His poetic work, and his first translations from foreign authors, were published by Lumea Ilustrată magazine. He was using the pen name Endymon. This period saw his alignment with the Marxist movement: after writing for Munca daily, he became involved with the socialist tribune, Lumea Nouă, where he published rhyming satires under the pseudonyms of Hâncu and Falstaff. He became known to the socialist public as St. Tomșa, and, using this signature, published translations from Adelbert von Chamisso, Heinrich Heine, Nikolaus Lenau, Sándor Petőfi etc.
Toma was mostly active in the press of Moldavia region, writing for left-wing newspapers such as Evenimentul. Hary Kuller, , in Realitatea Evreiască, Nr. 278-279 (1078-1079), June–July 2007, p.19 He was notably present (in 1897) on the writing staff of Noutatea, published in Iași by Avram Steuerman-Rodion and various others. Victor Durnea, "Pseudonimele lui G. Ibrăileanu. Colaborator la Noutatea (Iași, 1897)" , in România Literară, Nr. 11/2008 Toma was progressively involved with the far left circles and the Romanian Kingdom's labor movement. However, in 1897, he is known to have authored a Romanian-language translation of poems by Elisabeth of Wied, the wife of King Carol I—this detail was later expunged from his official biographies.Boia, p.73 G. Pienescu, "Note din lăuntru. Cum am devenit cărțar", in Viața Românească, Nr. 6-7/2009 In his own recollections, Toma admitted having met the Queen-consort and, in her entourage, the celebrated dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale.Ștefan Cazimir, Caragiale față cu kitschul, Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 1988, p.101. . See also Crohmălniceanu, p.177
Toma's literary debut was associated with Symbolism, and critics traditionally include him among the "proletarian" wing of the Romanian Symbolist movement.Paul Cernat, Avangarda românească și complexul periferiei: primul val, Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 2007, p.16. In 1902, he began corresponding with Symbolist poet Elena Farago, whose career he closely followed;Ion Pătrașcu, Mariana Leferman, Documentar: Elena Farago, Coca Farago, Biblioteca Județeană "Aman", Craiova, 2000, p.6-7 Moscovici-Monda also adopted Symbolism, representing its late stages in local literature.Călinescu, p.844-845 By the early 1910s, Toma had also been published by the prestigious Iași review, Viața Românească. Ilarie Chendi, "Vieața literară în 1911 (o privire generală)", in Luceafărul, Nr. 3/1912, p.63 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library) By 1912, he was exploring Romanian nationalist themes, deploring the fate of Romanians in the Bessarabia Governorate in a doina "for our lost brothers".Nicolae Cazacu, "Condamnarea raptului Basarabiei", in Anuarul Catedrei de Științe Socioumane, 2012, p.11
Shortly after World War I, Toma returned with a translation from Molière's Tartuffe, published in 1918, and staged by the National Theatre Bucharest a year later.Podoleanu, p.333, 334 In 1925, Viața Românească released his brochure Zi de vară până'n seară ("One Full Summer's Day").Podoleanu, p.334 Toma's first edition of collected works, bearing the title Poezii ("Poems"), was published by Editura Cultura Națională in 1926. The volume was paid for by Toma's friends and collaborators, but received much critical interest,Șăineanu, p.25 and was positively reviewed by modernist theorist Eugen Lovinescu in his History of Contemporary Romanian Literature.Eugen Lovinescu, Istoria literaturii române contemporane, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1989, p.87. It earned Toma the Romanian Academy's Ion Heliade Rădulescu Award.
Toma was in demand as a translator. He authored versions of: La Renaissance, by Count Gobineau (Ancona, 1925); Leo Tolstoy's stories for children (Editura Adevĕrul, 1930); Hugo Bettauer's Joyless Street (Hertz, 1931); Heinrich Lhotzky's pedology (Adevĕrul, 1932); and Kurt Münzer's I'm Hungry (Adevĕrul, 1932). The poet also worked as editor of the children's magazines Steaua Copiilor and Amicul Copiilor, before launching the literary review Lectura.
At that stage in his life, Toma had joined the communist underground.Boia, p.73; Mihăilescu, p.11 As his wife Sidy later recounted to Communist Party officials, both she and her husband helped hide Party members in their home during the interwar period, when the movement had been outlawed. Christian Levant, "Dosarul Toma și câteva fișe de cadre celebre", in Adevărul, May 9, 2006 She also noted that it was Alexandru Toma who introduced his son Sorin to Marxism. The latter also became an activist of the Communist Party, taking refuge in the Soviet Union during World War II, fighting as a partisan after the start Operation Barbarossa, returning to Romania with the Red Army (see Soviet occupation of Romania), and later working as editor in chief of the Communist newspaper Scînteia.Vladimir Tismăneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2003, p.310. In Romania, the fascist and antisemitic National Legionary government expelled Toma from the Romanian Writers' Society (SSR), together with all other Jewish members (October 1940). Victor Durnea, "Societatea scriitorilor români", in Dacia Literară, Nr. 2/2008 Later, the Ion Antonescu dictatorship included both Alexandru Toma and Moscovici-Monda on a nationally circulated list of banned Jewish authors.Rotman, p.174-175
Official endorsement Alexandru Toma's moment of preeminence occurred by the time he was in his seventies, when the newly established Communist regime came to promote him as a paramount representative of Proletkult literature and as the greatest Romanian poet alive. He was readmitted into the reformed SSR during September 1947, shortly after an inner purge of writers perceived as fascist. Writing in 1948, Romania's official Marxist-Leninist ideologue and Agitprop supervisor Leonte Răutu casually referred to Toma as "the poet most connected to the [communist] party", while criticizing his own subordinate, Nicolae Moraru, for having failed to acknowledge the fact.Vasile, p.77. According to Vasile (p.81), Toma was the Agitprop Directorate's "favorite". This review coincided with a cultural campaign partly replicating the Soviet Zhdanov Doctrine, during which Romanian culture was purged of influences deemed reactionary (see Socialist realism in Romania).Boia, p.71-73 Thus, Toma's works were for the first time introduced in the school textbooks, where, alongside those by Communist short story writer Alexandru Sahia and the left-leaning novelist Sadoveanu, they stood as the sole samples of 20th-century Romanian literature.Boia, p.72 The three figures were also among the few interwar authors to be frequented by official works of criticism.Mihăilescu, p.87 Both he and Sadoveanu, together presiding over the 1949 establishment of a politicized Writers' Union,Vasile, p.81-82 were paid homage with special festivities, which, according to literary critic Florin Mihăilescu, evidenced a personality cult equivalent only to those of Joseph Stalin and local Party leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.Mihăilescu, p.89 The regime also awarded Toma its State Prize First Class for Poetry.Selejan, p.243
Virtually all of Toma's literary contributions were published in one volume, titled Cîntul vieții ("The Song of Life") and prefaced by the Communist essayist Ion Vitner,Boia, p.75, 78; Selejan, p.324 which went through three editions between 1950 and 1954.Boia, p.75, 78 According to literary historian Ion Simuț, the 1951 print reached 15,000 copies, which was exceptional for its time. Ion Simuț, "Simptome. De ce sînt secrete tirajele cărților?", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 115, May 2002 Also unusually for the period, the book was also circulated abroad, in state-sponsored translations (Hungarian in 1955 and 1955, German and Russian in 1956; an English-language translation saw print in 1951).Boia, p.75 In addition to Cîntul vieții, some of Toma's poetry was collected in Poezii alese ("Selected Poems"), published in 1952 and 1953.Boia, p.75; Selejan, p.28, 277 The original edition featured a preface by Sergiu Fărcășan, and was printed in 10,150 copies, while the second one, issued for schoolchildren by the specialized publisher Editura Tineretului, reached 30,000 copies.Selejan, p.28, 277 His works for children were featured in various separate editions. Toma also republished his Tartuffe,Ion Brăescu, Clasicismul în teatru, Editura Meridiane, Bucharest, 1971, p.134. and contributed to a 1956 anthology of poems translated from the work of Heinrich Heine. Boris Marian, , in Realitatea Evreiască, Nr. 247 (1047), February–March 2006, p.13