Ion Negoiţescu (; also known as Nego; 10 August 1921 – 6 February 1993) was a Romanian literary historian, critic, poet, novelist and memoirist, one of the leading members of the Sibiu Literary Circle. A rebellious and eccentric figure, Negoiţescu began his career while still an adolescent, and made himself known as a literary ideologue of the 1940s generation. Moving from a youthful affiliation to the fascist Iron Guard, which he later came to regret, the author became a disciple of modernist doyen Eugen Lovinescu, and, by 1943, rallied the entire Sibiu Circle to the cause of anti-fascism. He was also one of the few openly homosexual intellectuals in Romania to have come out before the 1990s—an experience which, like his political commitments, is recorded in his controversial autobiographical writings.
After World War II, Negoiţescu's anti-communism, dissident stance and sexual orientation made him an adversary of the Romanian communist regime. Marginalized and censored, he spent three years as a political prisoner. Ultimately reinstated during a late 1960s episode of liberalization, he continued to speak out against political restrictions, and came to be closely monitored by the Securitate secret police. In 1977, he joined Paul Goma and Ion Vianu in a civil society protest against the rule of Nicolae Ceauşescu, but was pressured into retracting. Eventually, Negoiţescu defected to West Germany, where he became a contributor to Radio Free Europe and various other anti-communist outlets, as well as editor of literary magazines for the Romanian diaspora communities. He died in Munich.
Ion Negoiţescu's review of Romanian literature and contributions to literary theory generally stood in contrast to the nationalist and national communist recourse to traditionalism or anti-Europeanism, and engaged it polemically by advocating the values of Western culture. His diverse work, although scattered and largely incomplete, drew critical praise for its original takes on various subjects, and primarily for its views on the posthumously published writings of national poet Mihai Eminescu. In tandem, the implications of Negoiţescu's private life and the various aspects of his biography, such as his relationship to exposed Securitate informant Petru Romoşan and the revelations of his unpublished diary, have remained topics of controversy in the years after his death.
Biography
Early life Born in Cluj, Negoiţescu was the son of Ioan, a career officer in the Romanian Land Forces, and his wife Lucreţia née Cotuţiu. Alex. Ştefănescu, "Ion Negoiţescu" , in Convorbiri Literare, May 2005 His maternal grandfather, a member of the Romanian Orthodox clergy in Transylvania, had taken part in the Memorandum movement under Austro-Hungarian rule. In contrast, Negoiţescu's father came from outside Transylvania, being born to parents from the Romanian Old Kingdom. Ioana Pârvulescu, "Rătăcirile elevului Negoiţescu" , in România Literară, Nr. 24/2002 Ştefăniţă Regman, "Cerchiştii înainte de coborârea în Infern" , in România Literară, Nr. 23/2007 The future author studied at the Angelescu High School in his native city, and debuted in 1937, when he had lyric poetry fragments published in the local newspaper Naţiunea Română.Adrian Newell-Păun, "Book Review. From the Library of ACCEPT. Straja dragonilor by Ion Negoiţescu" , in the Accept Newsletter, No. 29, March 2000 At age sixteen, Negoiţescu also published his first of several reviews in the student magazine Pâlcul, analyzing the Symbolist poetry of Mateiu Caragiale. Bogdan Creţu, "Tînărul Ion Negoiţescu: devenirea unui mare critic (I)" , in Convorbiri Literare, December 2007 It was as a high school student that he first met poet and thinker Lucian Blaga. Reputedly, Blaga saw his adolescent disciple as a geniusCălinescu & Vianu, p.343 and encouraged him to seek a career in literature. Negoiţescu took his Baccalaureate in 1940, and subsequently enlisted at the Cluj University's Letters and Philosophy Department, where he studied under Blaga.
Having discovered his sexual inclination early in life, Negoiţescu claimed to have had his first sexual experiences while still a young boy.Adriana Stan, "Iubirea 'prin simţuri' ", in Dilemateca, September 2009 According to his own testimony, he made his coming out at around age sixteen, when he wrote about his homosexuality in a test paper which he then handed to his supervising teacher. Reportedly, the paper was graded a ten out of ten, without further commentary from its recipient. Mihai Iancu, "Gay & Lesbian. Oameni de altădată" , in Time Out Bucharest, February 1, 2008 Negoiţescu later openly assumed his sexual identity and, in contrast to other gay men of 20th century Romania, did not deny it in front of the conservative cultural establishment (see LGBT rights in Romania).Călinescu & Vianu, p.344, 360 Mirela Corlăţan, "Petru Romoşan, turnătorul lui Horia Bernea şi al lui Ion Negoiţescu" , in Cotidianul, July 30, 2009Virgil Nemoianu, Imperfection and Defeat: The Role of Aesthetic Imagination in Human Society, Central European University Press, Budapest, 2006, p.142. At the time however, the various ways in which the adolescent Negoiţescu disregarded social conventions caused a rift between him and his parents, resulting in the first of his several suicide attempts. Negoiţescu's subsequent life was marked by successive bouts of clinical depression and self-hatred.
Fascist episode and the Sibiu Literary Circle As a high school student before and after the outbreak of World War II, Ion Negoiţescu also became interested in politics, and rallied with the Iron Guard, a revolutionary fascist movement which would establish the National Legionary regime (in existence between 1940 and 1941). As he himself later recalled, he contributed to the group's press and, wearing the green-colored paramilitary uniform of the Guardists, took part in National Legionary street parades. Bogdan Creţu, "Tînărul Ion Negoiţescu: devenirea unui mare critic (II)" , in Convorbiri Literare, January 2008 This choice intrigued his biographers and reviewers of his work, who generally agree that it clashed with the young man's tolerant nature and individualism.Manea, p.167-168
In autumn 1940, following the Second Vienna Award which granted Northern Transylvania to Hungary, Negoiţescu followed the Cluj University's Romanian section as it relocated to the south of the new border, in Sibiu. As a contributor to the student magazine Curţile Dorului, he met and befriended poet Radu Stanca. It was also during that interval that he participated in the establishment of the Sibiu Literary Circle, with other young men who followed Blaga. His colleagues there included Stanca, Nicolae Balotă, Ştefan Augustin Doinaş, Cornel Regman and Eugen Todoran.Balotă, p.195-213 Ion Simuţ, "De la cerchism la euphorionism" , in România Literară, Nr. 20/2008 Cornel Ungureanu, Ion D. Sîrbu - inedit: Alt roman epistolar, at the Memoria Digital Library; retrieved October 8, 2009 They were joined by Victor Iancu,Balotă, p.197-198, 200 Ovidiu Cotruş,Călinescu & Vianu, p.342 Ioanichie Olteanu,Balotă, p.201, 212-213 Ion Dezideriu Sîrbu, Deliu Petroiu, Eta Boeriu and Ovidiu Drimba. At the time, Negoiţescu was also acquainted with linguist Ştefan Bezdechi and philosopher Petre Ţuţea.
By that point in his life, Negoiţescu made himself known as the ideologue of his generation, expanding his cultural horizon and familiarizing himself with the Classics, with German philosophy, and with the main works of Romanticism, while dedicating his efforts to promoting the work of isolated young authors such as Stanca and Mircea Streinul. He had slowly moved into the anti-fascist camp, objecting to both the Iron Guard and its partner-rival, the authoritarian general and newly appointed Conducător Ion Antonescu. In 1941, he published Povestea tristă a lui Ramon Ocg ("The Sad Story of Ramon Ocg"), a lengthy prose poem which he presented as a novel. That same year, in autumn, he traveled to the capital city of Bucharest, visiting modernist critic and theorist Eugen Lovinescu, the doyen of a literary circle known as Sburătorul. Negoiţescu, who had just purchased himself the new critical synthesis newly published by Lovinescu's rival George Călinescu, commented on its strengths and weaknesses with his host. Andrei Terian, "Păcatele tinereţilor", in Ziarul Financiar, December 12, 2008 The meeting left an impression on Lovinescu, whose diary for that day reads: "I have the feeling he is 'different', he is an 'exceptional' young man, who is set to have a singular destiny."
Anti-fascism and Euphorion projects On 13 March 1943, at a time when Romania had rallied with Nazi Germany and the Axis powers, he defied Antonescu's regime by affiliating the entire Circle with Lovinescu, himself marginalized for supporting liberal democracy and for rejecting the application of ideological censorship. Signed with the pseudonym Damian Silvestru and drafted by Negoiţescu, the letter stating this position was published by novelist Liviu Rebreanu's magazine Viaţa. The Sibiu writers' statement ridiculed the officially encouraged traditionalist and nationalist literature, whose bucolic and anti-modernist themes it called păşunism (from păşune, "pasture"), while accusing its proponents of having replaced aesthetic appraisal with extreme dogmatism. These judgments scandalized the far right press, who successfully identified their actual source, calling on the Antonescu government to impose severe punishment: the fascist venue Ţara notably stated that the young men "should have patriotism inscribed with a whip on their sternums". Among the accusations launched by the fascist and antisemitic venues, Negoiţescu found himself explicitly described as a "Bolshevik", "traitor" and "hireling of the Jews". Ştefăniţă Regman, "Negoiţescu ameninţat cu evacuarea" , in România Literară, Nr. 6/2008 In contrast with such reactions, Lovinescu found himself positively impressed by the group' gesture, and sent the Sibiu writers a letter which acknowledged them as his disciples. His sympathetic portrait of Negoiţescu, published later in the year by Timpul newspaper, further publicized this special connection. The piece was nevertheless received with noted reserve by Negoiţescu's own friends and colleagues, who did not necessarily share the two theorists' confidence in each other's ideologies.
In early 1945, some months after the King's Coup deposed Antonescu and aligned Romania with the Allies, Ion Negoiţescu also became editor of the newly founded Revista Cercului Literar, a review published by, and named after, the Sibiu group. Alongside members of the Circle, the main contributors included the movement's mentor Blaga and various other established Romanian writers. Negoiţescu's own works of that year included the study Viitorul literaturii române? ("The Future of Romanian Literature?"), in which he expressed a belief that urbanization and urban-themed modernist literature had rendered its traditionalist competitor, with its rural subjects, at the same time obsolete and objectionable. By 1945 however, the Sibiu group was breaking up, largely owing to the decline of cultural activity, as well as to the recovery of Northern Transylvania (since the young writers were able to consider returning to their respective homes).