Anatol E. Baconsky (; June 16, 1925 – March 4, 1977), also known as A. E. Bakonsky, Baconschi or Baconski, was a Romanian modernist poet, essayist, translator, novelist, publisher, literary and art critic. Praised for his late approach to poetry and prose, which transgresses the genres and introduces an aestheticized, original and progressively dark perspective to Romanian literature, he was also criticized for his early commitment to Socialist Realism and communism. Much of his work belongs to the field of travel literature, recording his experiences in the Eastern Bloc, the Far East and Soviet Union, and finally Central Europe. He was also a critically acclaimed translator of foreign works, including the Mahābhārata and poems by Jorge Semprún, Artur Lundkvist and others, the author of world literature anthologies, and the editor of monographs on Romanian and foreign painters.
After a brief affiliation to Surrealism in the 1940s, Baconsky was a prominent supporter of the communist regime who joined its cultural establishment. In the mid-1950s, he grew disillusioned with communist guidelines—this attitude was notably manifested in his activity as editor of the Cluj-based magazine Steaua (where he reacted against the prevailing censorship), his 1972 public reaction against the norms imposed by the Nicolae Ceaușescu regime, and his samizdat novel Biserica neagră ("The Black Church"). Having spent much of final years in Austria and West Berlin, where he became a critic of consumerism, Baconsky died in Bucharest, a victim of the 1977 earthquake.
Anatol E. Baconsky was the elder brother of Leon Baconsky, a literary historian and academic, and the father of writer and diplomat Teodor Baconschi.
Biography
Early life Born in village, northern Bessarabia (presently Konovka, Ukraine), he was the eldest son of Eftimie Baconsky, a Romanian Orthodox priest,Braga, p.XXX whose name he used as his patronymic middle name (usually marked by the initial).Câmpan, p.101 His brother Leon was born in 1928, around the time when the Baconsky family was spending long intervals in Drepcăuți, a locality on the Prut River shore. In 1936–1944, he was in Chișinău, where he attended the Alecu Russo Gymnasium and High School, publishing his first poems in the school magazine Mugurel during 1942.Braga, p.VII–VIII, XXX After the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia in 1940, Romania joined the Axis powers in the war against the Soviet Union, and Bessarabia became part of the Eastern Front, before the 1944 Romanian coup d'état and the start of Soviet occupation brought Nazi German influence to an end (see Romania during World War II). The Baconskys left the region, and Anatol attended the Lahovary High School in Râmnicu Vâlcea (1944–1945). Eventually, the family settled in Ciomăgești, Argeș County, while Anatol took his baccalaureate (June 1945) and briefly worked at a factory in the Transylvanian town of Cisnădie.Braga, p.XXX–XXXI
In November 1945, Baconsky moved to Cluj. He began his studies at the University of Cluj's Faculty of Law, while attending lectures in Philosophy and Aesthetics given by Lucian Blaga and Eugeniu Sperantia.Braga, p.XXXI His first essay, which Baconsky considered his actual debut work, was published by the Tribuna Nouă newspaper. Beginning 1946, his work was given more exposure, and was published in local Transylvanian journals (such as the Carei-based Prietenii Artei) before being featured in the collective volume Antologia primăverii ("The Anthology of Spring"). He was at the time an adherent to Surrealism, and a volume of his Surrealist poetry was supposed to be edited by Editura Fundaţiilor Regale, but never saw print, owing to the institution's disestablishment by the new communist authorities.Braga, p.VIII, XXXI Literary historian Mircea Braga writes that, over the following years, Baconsky showed himself to be a staunch critic of Surrealism, and quotes him defining André Breton's pupils as followers of a "rigid dogma".Braga, p.VIII Literary critic and academic Diana Câmpan also that the split with Surrealism and the avant-garde was a sign of his belief that negation could only result in value if substantiated, as well as his theory that aesthetic revolt, after manifesting itself as a disease, was degenerating into kitsch.Câmpan, passim
Discarding Surrealism soon after, Baconsky moved to a poetic version of Socialist Realism, partly influenced by the Soviet Proletkult tradition (see Socialist realism in Romania).Cornel Ungureanu, postface to Babeți & Ungureanu, p.518 In 1949, the year of his graduation, Baconsky was a regional delegate to the Writers' Congress in Bucharest, a conference which led to the creation of the Romanian Writers' Union (USR). Also in 1949, he joined the writing staff of the Lupta Ardealului journal, and married Clara Popa, a student at the University of Cluj's Faculty of Letters. In October, his poetry was published in a bilingual almanac co-edited by Romanian and Hungarian writers (it was titled Împreună in Romanian and Együtt in Hungarian, both words meaning "Together").
Early years at Steaua In 1950, Baconsky completed his first volume, Poezii ("Poems", published by the USR's Editura de stat pentru literatură şi artă). The following year, he printed another book of poetry, Copiii din Valea Arieșului ("The Children of the Arieș Valley").Braga, p.XXXII The new editor was by then involved in a number of disputes with other young authors, in particular those grouped around the Sibiu Literary Circle, among them Ștefan Augustin Doinaș and Nicolae Balotă. Paul Cernat, "Despre A.E. Baconsky, cu dus-întors", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 352-353, December 2006 George Neagoe, "Păcatele tinereții. Ștefan Aug. Doinaș a.k.a. Ion Motoarcă" , in Cultura, Nr. 66/2010
It was at that stage that he began collaborating with Almanahul Literar, a newly founded magazine edited by communist poet Miron Radu Paraschivescu, which, in 1954, was renamed Steaua.Braga, p.XXXI–XXXII; Călinescu & Vianu, p.152 Among his early assignments there was his participation on the literary jury that granted the magazine's annual prize (alongside literary men such as Paraschivescu, Emil Isac, Dumitru Micu, and Iosif Pervain). In one notable incident of 1950, the panel honored a high school student named Ion Motoarcă, without being aware that Motoarcă's communist poetry was in fact a parody of Socialist Realist literature, authored as a prank by Baconsky's rival Doinaș. As was revealed decades later, Doinaș continued to ridicule the Steaua writers over several months, and, when he decided that the risk of repercussions was far too great, simply put an end to the prank. This he did by having Motoarcă decline all of Baconsky's suggestions with the claim that one "should not take lessons from a less gifted poet than himself." In parallel, Anatol E. Baconsky's relationship with Paraschivescu was tense: in February 1951, at a USR meeting in Bucharest, he was one of those who criticized Baconsky's new take on lyric poetry, accusing him of "intimism".
However, in 1952, Paraschivescu left for Braşov, and Baconsky took over as editor of Steaua, progressively changing its profile and shaping it into a literary and art magazine.Braga, p.XXXII; Călinescu & Vianu, p.152 Fellow poet and essayist Matei Călinescu, who was acquainted with Baconsky and later joined the Steaua group, believes his older colleague had been "rewarded" the position by the ruling Romanian Communist Party.Călinescu & Vianu, p.152 In parallel, he established contacts with young authors in Bucharest, who became Steauas circle in the capital: Călinescu, Cezar Baltag, Gabriel Dimisianu, Grigore Hagiu, Mircea Ivănescu, Modest Morariu, Nichita Stănescu and Petre Stoica.Călinescu & Vianu, p.151, 152
Baconsky also published poems in Viaţa Românească magazine, including the 1951 Noapte în flăcări ("Night Ablaze").Selejan, p.15, 87 In 1952, he was working on translating Stepan Schipachov's poem about Pavlik Morozov, a Soviet boy who had denounced his family for opposing Soviet collectivization, and, after being killed by them, had been celebrated as a communist hero.Selejan, p.15 He was in the process of publishing a series of reportages about the lives of Romanian workers, and, in 1952, stated that he intended to write poetry about life in the factories at Brad, which he had visited. Some of his poems were published in the 1952 volume Poezie nouă în R.P.R. ("New Poetry in the P[eople's] R[epublic of] R[omania]"), together with those of Maria Banuş, Dan Deşliu, Mihu Dragomir, Eugen Frunză, Ştefan Iureş, Eugen Jebeleanu, Veronica Porumbacu, Alexandru Toma and twenty-four others.Selejan, p.242–244
From Itinerar bulgar to Fluxul memoriei In January 1953, the 26-year-old poet left Romania on his first trip abroad, visiting the People's Republic of Bulgaria. Back in Bucharest during March, he was present at a USR meeting indirectly provoked by the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, during which they were confronted with the new cultural guidelines stated by Georgy Malenkov. A condemnation of the first- and second-generation proletkult writers, it saw Baconsky both as a critic and a target of criticism.Selejan, p.159, 162 His volume of reportage from the Bulgarian travel, Itinerar bulgar ("Bulgarian Itinerary"), saw print in 1954, together with the poetry collection Cîntece de zi şi noapte ("Songs of Day and Night", awarded the State Prize in 1955).
In 1998, literary critic Cornel Ungureanu proposed that, by that moment, Baconsky was finding his voice as a "rebellious author". According to Călinescu, the Baconsky of the late 1950s had "completely changed his orientation". Writing for Steaua in 1955, Baconsky submitted an essay reviewing and promoting the work of George Bacovia, a Symbolist and pessimist who had been largely ignored by post-1948 critics (see Symbolist movement in Romania).
Baconsky was again a USR delegate in June 1956, when he presented the body with the first of his reports, dealing with the state of Romanian poetry. This congress, literary critic Paul Cernat notes, coincided with a period when writers sought a "regeneration", to correspond with the relaxation brought by the death of Stalin. Also that year, he published his Două poeme ("Two Poems") book, comprising Cîntecul verii acesteia ("This Summer's Song") and Lucrări şi anotimpuri sau Mişcarea de revoluţie ("Labors and Seasons or The Orbital Revolution"). In autumn, he left for the Soviet Union and the Far East, visiting North Korea, the People's Republic of China, and Siberian areas.
Beginning summer 1956, the communist regime clamped down on the cultural environment, its apprehension motivated by events in Communist Poland, the scene of anti-communist workers' protests, and Communist Hungary, where an anti-Soviet revolt eventually broke out. According to historian Vladimir Tismăneanu, Baconsky was one of the writers informed of the decision taken by communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej not to endorse liberalization and destalinization, particularly after the events in Hungary threatened to disrupt communism throughout the Eastern Bloc, and at a time when the regime condemned advocates of change (Miron Constantinescu, Mihail Davidoglu, Alexandru Jar and Ion Vitner).Vladimir Tismăneanu, Stalinism pentru eternitate, Polirom, Iaşi, 2005, p.187.