Viaţa Basarabiei (Romanian for "Bessarabia's Life", ) is a Romanian-language periodical from Chişinău, Moldova. Originally a literary and political magazine, published at a time when the Bessarabia region was part of Romania, it was founded in 1932 by political activist Pan Halippa and writer Nicolai Costenco. At the time, Viaţa Basarabiei was primarily noted for rejecting the centralism of Greater Romanian governments, to which they opposed more or less vocal Bessarabian regionalist demands and a nativist ethos.
Declaring itself to be a traditionalist venue, interested in preserving local specificity in the cultural field, Viaţa Basarabiei was in effect a voice for cultural innovation and a host to modernist writers such as Vladimir Cavarnali, Bogdan Istru or George Meniuc. After the Soviet Union's 1940 annexation of Bessarabia, the editorial board split, and Halippa revived the magazine at a new location in Bucharest. It was published there for most of World War II, and was eventually disestablished. Its editors were subject to persecution in both Soviet territory and Communist Romania. The magazine was revived in 2002 by Mihai Cimpoi, being printed under the auspices of both the Romanian Writers' Union and the Moldovan Writers' Union.
History Creation Viaţa Basarabiei, founded as the literary voice of Bessarabian regionalism, was first printed in January 1932. Its first issue included a foreword by Halippa, in which the latter, previously a key figure in the 1918 union with Romania and activist of the National Moldavian Party, outlined and pledged to follow a set of political and cultural ideals. Călina Trifan, "Variaţiuni pe o temă", in Contrafort, Nr. 4-5 (90-91), April–May 2002 The name adopted by Halippa's publication was homonymous with that of two other press organs: a newspaper published in 1907; and a daily of the National Peasants' Party, published from 1930 to 1944.Grossu & Palade, p.15, 19 The name was also equivalent in translation to those of non-Romanian Bessarabian papers: the Russian-language Besarabskaya Zhizn''' (published around 1917) and the Yiddish Dos Besaraber Lebn (1918-1940).Grossu & Palade, p.17-18
The new magazine was, according to Romanian literary critic Ion Simuţ, a "regional adaptation" of the Moldavian-based journal Viaţa Românească. Ion Simuţ, "Există o critică regională?" , in România Literară, Nr. 27/2005 According to Moldovan writer and researcher Călina Trifan, the connection between these two platforms was the theory of "national specificity" in Romanian culture, first elaborated by Viaţa Românească before World War I, and resurrected into an "evidently regionalist" ideology by Halippa and Costenco (see Poporanism). Himself a member of the Viaţa Românească circles, Romanian literary historian George Călinescu spoke of Viaţa Basarabiei and other cultural platforms of the day as proofs that Bessarabia manifested "great interest in literature."George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini pînă în prezent, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1986, p.968 The popularization of literature in the 1930s, Călinescu noted, meant that "even the hospitalized people of the sanitarium in Bugaz had their own [literary periodical]".
Regionalist agenda The localist point of view was a common feature of other Bessarabian periodicals during the interwar period (Cuget Moldovenesc, Bugeacul, Poetul, Itinerar). Alexandru Burlacu, "Despre fenomenul sincronizării în literatura basarabeană", in Revista Sud-Est, Nr. 2/2003Grossu & Palade, p.20 However, Viaţa Basarabieis anti-centralist political bias, evident after Nicolai Costenco's arrival as managing editor (1934), Eugen Lungu, "O literatură fără jurnal?", in Revista Sud-Est, Nr. 4/2000 was described by various researchers as proof of extremism, bordering on Moldovenism and anti-Romanian sentiment. Simuţ writes: "During the '30s, N. Costenco was promoting an exclusive and aggressive, hardly imaginable form of regionalism [...]. [His was] the most dangerous political way of thinking for the Bessarabian 'nation', whose logic leads into euphoric isolationism, that is to say a form of enclavization, [...] an aberrant form of defense." According to scholar Alexandru Burlacu, Costenco was an "ideologist of nativism pushed to the point of absurdity". Alexandru Burlacu, "Poezia basarabeană: Arcadia în negativ (I)" , in Convorbiri Literare, March 2002 Moldovan essayist and critic Eugen Lungu, who suggested that such reactions may be traced back to a "parochial complex", also noted of Costenco: "He promoted [by means of Viaţa Basarabiei] a ferocious nativism, sometimes to the point of degenerating into anti-Romanianism. An animator and aesthete of cultural regionalism, convinced in his romantic frenzy of an ultraspecial genius of 'the populace', he exulted a rambunctious messianism of Slavic inspiration." By then, Costenco and some of his fellow contributors to the magazine also had leftist sympathies, making them critics of the right-wing trends in Greater Romanian politics. Iurie Colesnic, "Alexandru Robot – poetul enigmelor (90 de ani de la naştere)" , in the National Library of Moldova's Magazin Bibliologic, Nr. 1/2006, p.72-73
In his column pieces for the magazine, Costenco repeatedly stipulated the existence of a Bessarabian ethnicity, displaying "spiritual superiority" when compared to Romanians, and suggested that all of Greater Romania's historical regions had "particular, exclusive national consciousnesses". Another one of his ideas, outlined in ideological articles such as the 1937 piece Necesitatea regionalismului cultural ("The Need for a Cultural Regionalism"), was that Romanian immigrants into Bessarabia, or venetici ("newcomers"), were to locals what sparrows are to nightingales. Costenco also argued that the area's history as a part of the Russian Empire, and its consequent familiarity with Russian culture, were marks of both dissimilarity and excellence: "The culture of those who can speak Russian is overwhelmingly superior in its august silence, when compared with the old kingdom's culture, with its chatty and insolent representatives. [...] By combining [the] two cultures, the Slavic and... the Latin one, tomorrow's Bessarabia shall become, from a spiritual point of view, a chain of mountains, the tops of which will be glowing in full splendor over the times and borders."
Costenco's stance mirrored the attitudes of some other Viaţa Basarabiei contributors. The magazine published some of the last political texts by the old anarchist Zamfir Arbore, who stated his bitter rejection of Romanian society.Maria Lidia, Martin Veith, "Memoirs of an Anarchist in Romania. Zamfir C. Arbure (Ralli)", in KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library, No. 57, March 2009 Although a lifelong supporter of unionism, the Romanian Orthodox priest and writer Vasile Ţepordei, who was a regular contributor to Viaţa Basarabiei and other regional reviews, spoke of Romania having treated Bessarabia as an "African colony", creating opportunities for "adventurers" and "nonentities" from the other historical regions. Ioan Lăcustă, "Din lacrima Basarabiei...", in România Literară, Nr. 35/2005 Halippa's own pronouncements of the period expressed his disappointment with centralist policies, leading to accusations that he himself had become anti-Romanian. Leonid Cemortan, "Drama intelectualilor basarabeni de stînga" , in Revista Sud-Est, Nr. 3/2003
Various commentators have noted that Viaţa Basarabiei partly shaped the negative perception of Romanian authorities, as embraced by many locals. Dan Mănucă, "Obsesii regionaliste", in Convorbiri Literare, January 2003 Literary critic Dan Mănucă notes that this cultural and political phenomenon, later exacerbated by Soviet historiography, was in fact also an answer to the Romanian government's assignment of incompetent officials at a local level. However, Moldovan philologist Alina Ciobanu-Tofan notes, there was a separation between "the provocative statements" made by Viaţa Basarabiei editors and actual interwar accomplishments: "cultural regionalism has stood as the fundamental prerequisite in maintaining the Bessarabian spiritual phenomenon afloat, it being the only way for accomplishing the actual unification of Romanian spirituality, the synthesis of all creative contributions". The regionalist platform continued to tolerate contributions from Romanian men of letters who did not identify with such policies. One such case was that of Constantin Ciopraga, a literary critic who made his debut in the magazine's pages, and who, according to Mănucă, was most likely interested in "supporting Romanianism in the land between the Prut and the Dniester [that is, Bessarabia]." Dan Mănucă, "Cumpătarea umanismului", in Convorbiri Literare, May 2008
Traditionalism and modernism Stylistically, Nicolai Costenco's review was generally committed to the traditionalist and anti-modernist side of the Romanian literary environment. In articles for the magazine, Costenco offered praise to the publications issued by the nationalist thinker and historian Nicolae Iorga, from the defunct Sămănătorul (the coagulant factor of Romanian traditionalism) to the neo-Sămănătorist Cuget Clar. The Bessarabian journalist merged his rejection of Romanian modernism into his discourse on the regional issue, arguing: "We, as Bessarabians, are pleased that the Bessarabian folk is impervious to the poisoned heat radiating from present-day Romanian culture." According to Burlacu, the use of traditionalist rhetoric is also observable in those articles which speak of Bessarabia's identity, in the magazine's critique of modernist poet Tudor Arghezi, and in poet Sergiu Matei Nica's Orthodox statements of devotion.
In practice, Viaţa Basarabiei was more open to modernism than its editorial policies dictated. The paradox was underlined by Burlacu, who noted that Costenco himself was beginning to incorporate poetic traits from Symbolism, a literary form that Iorga had equated with sickness. The magazine therefore played host to Bogdan Istru, George Meniuc and other writers who illustrated the final developments of Romania's Symbolist movement, and whose work also adopted some avant-garde characteristics. After 1935, Viaţa Basarabiei employed as a member of the editorial staff the modernist poet and communist sympathizer Alexandru Robot, whose articles covered such political issues as the trial of Romanian Communist Party member Petre Constantinescu-Iaşi.
Writing for the magazine, Costenco himself offered much praise to the lyrical work of Vladimir Cavarnali, whose style was by then incorporating influences from Russian Symbolism, Expressionism or Futurism over a generic Symbolist framework. Alexandru Burlacu, "Poezia basarabeană: Arcadia în negativ (II)", in Convorbiri Literare, April 2002 One of Costenco's essays, published by Viaţa Basarabiei in 1937, stated: "the poet is a hero, a titan—the multitudes should follow him, so that, once in communion with his songs, they may build themselves a future without any lies". The critic encouraged Cavarnali to pursue this tendency, in order to provide his readers with "the Great Poem of the native, Bessarabian, soul". Costenco was also a promoter of Robot's Somnul singurătăţii ("The Slumber of Solitude", 1936)—an avant-garde volume which he positively reviewed for Viaţa Basarabiei.