Gândirea ("The Thinking"), known during its early years as Gândirea Literară - Artistică - Socială ("The Literary - Artistic - Social Thinking"), was a Romanian literary, political and art magazine.
Overview
Founded by Cezar Petrescu and D. I. Cucu in the city of Cluj, and first issued on May 1, 1921, as a literary supplement for the Cluj-based Voința,Grigorescu, p.432-433; Livezeanu, p.112 it was originally a modernist and expressionist-influenced journal. During its early existence, it attracted criticism from the traditional cultural establishment for allegedly allowing influences from Germanic Europe to permeate Romanian culture. Gândirea moved to Bucharest in October 1922, and, in 1926, its leadership was joined by the nationalist thinker Nichifor Crainic; he became its director and ideological guide in 1928, gradually moving it toward a mystical Orthodox focus — itself occasionally referred to as Gândirism. With just two interruptions in publication (1925 and 1933–34), Gândirea became one of the most important cultural magazines of the Romanian interwar period.
A proponent of home-grown traditionalist ideas, it eventually found itself in opposition to Sburătorul, the modernist magazine headed by literary critic Eugen Lovinescu, as well as to the journal Viaţa Românească, which stood for the left-wing and agrarian current known as Poporanism. In its later years, Gândirea routinely hosted fascist-inspired and antisemitic articles, largely reflecting Crainic's own political views. By then, numerous disputes were taking place between Crainic's supporters and former Gândirea collaborators such as literary critic Tudor Vianu and poet Tudor Arghezi. Additional debates were carried between Crainic and the centrist political figures Nicolae Iorga and Constantin Rădulescu-Motru over the nature of nationalism and religion in Romania. The magazine often identified its secularist adversaries with materialism, and occasionally accused modernist figures in Romanian literature of writing pornography.
Gândirea was briefly closed down over suspicions that it was supporting the fascist Iron Guard, and, between 1938 and 1944, endorsed the successive dictatorial regimes of the National Renaissance Front, the National Legionary State, and Conducător Ion Antonescu. During World War II, it expressed support for Antonescu's antisemitic policies, which Crainic claimed to have inspired. Together with all other publications Crainic was heading, Gândirea ceased to be published in 1944, as Romania ended its alliance with the Axis powers.
Contributors Several circles were formed around Gândirea, bringing together a large part of the period's Romanian intellectuals: Ion Barbu, Vasile Băncilă, Lucian Blaga, Dan Botta, Alexandru Busuioceanu, Mateiu Caragiale, Vasile Ciocâlteu, Oscar Walter Cisek, Anastase Demian, Radu Gyr, N. I. Herescu, Vintilă Horia, Adrian Maniu, Gib Mihăescu, , Ștefan I. Nenițescu, Ovidiu Papadima, Victor Papilian, Ioan Petrovici, Ion Pillat, V. I. Popa, Dragoș Protopopescu, Ion Marin Sadoveanu, Ion Sân-Giorgiu, Zaharia Stancu, Dumitru Stăniloae, Paul Sterian, Francisc Șirato, Al. O. Teodoreanu, Ionel Teodoreanu, Sandu Tudor, Tudor Vianu, Pan M. Vizirescu, Vasile Voiculescu, G. M. Zamfirescu.
Many other intellectuals and artists had their work published in Gândirea, and some of them were only temporarily associated with the journal. They include Tudor Arghezi, George Călinescu, Șerban Cioculescu, Petre Pandrea, Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Marcel Janco, Ion Vinea, and Mircea Vulcănescu.
History Beginnings For much of the 1920s, the magazine was a venue for modernist criticism, and involved in theoretical debates over the influence of German- and Austrian-influenced Expressionism on early 20th century culture. Gândireas early years coincided with the aftermath of World War I and the establishment of Greater Romania, making the magazine one of several newly established Romanian-language periodicals in the formerly Austro-Hungarian region of Transylvania. It has thus been argued that, before moving to Bucharest, the magazine was also involved in promoting a unitary Romanian culture inside the newly acquired province, but this appears to have been one of its secondary goals.Livezeanu, p.112
Without producing its own an artistic program,Grigorescu, p.375 Gândirea counted among the few Romanian publications to praise Expressionist culture (its editors often extended the term to non-Expressionists such as Constantin Brâncuși, Max Reinhardt, Alexander Archipenko, and Dmitry Merezhkovsky).Grigorescu, p.375, 381-382 This focus on emotion and expression was especially present in essays contributed by Adrian Maniu and Ion Sân-Giorgiu,Grigorescu, p.381-382 as well as in Ion Marin Sadoveanu's chronicles about the impact of Gothic traditions on early 20th century literature.Grigorescu, p.387 The Expressionist trend, accompanied by Gândireas frequent and sympathetic reviews of Futurism and Dada, caused Crainic (who was only a correspondent at the time), to express his distaste.Livezeanu, p. 114
Despite hosting a large number of essays on art criticism, and in contrast to the style of avant-garde journals such as Contimporanul,Grigorescu, p. 432 Gândirea rarely featured Expressionist graphics.Grigorescu, pp. 432-433 Notably, in 1924, the editors chose to illustrate an issue with a print by the proto-Expressionist Edvard Munch, commented upon by Tudor Vianu.Grigorescu, p. 433 Nevertheless, later in the same year, painter Francisc Şirato used Gândirea as a means to popularize his essays on Visual Arts in Romania, in which he publicized his break with Expressionist influences and his newfound interest in Romanian specificity in local art and folklore.Grigorescu, p.433-434 In parallel, Oskar Walter Cisek's art chronicle (published between 1923 and 1929), gave, overall, equal exposure to all existing modernist trends.Grigorescu, pp. 434-435
Literature produced by the first of several Gândirea circles received criticism from several traditionalist circles for being one of "sick modernists".Rendered in Livezeanu, p. 111 Notably, the historian and politician Nicolae Iorga, one of the major cultural figures of his time, cited fears that Romania was becoming "Germanized".Iorga, in Grigorescu, p. 376 He argued that, aside from Crainic's poetry it published, the magazine was copying Germanic ideals originating with the art groups of Munich and Vienna ("[Gândirea is] the window copy of modernist jargon muttered by Munich only to be responded through other parrotings, insane or charlatanesque, by Vienna").Iorga, in Grigorescu, p. 377
By that moment, however, the magazine was itself fusing Expressionist influences with traditionalist aesthetic goals, to the point where it had become, according to Lucian Blaga, "a bouquet of centrifugal tendencies".Blaga, in Grigorescu, p.380; in Livezeanu, p.125 During the 1920s, Gândirea hosted polemical articles by the traditionalists and traditionalist-inspired Iorga, Crainic, Cezar Petrescu, and Pamfil Şeicaru.Livezeanu, p.115 Writing much later, Crainic expressed his opinion that the two visions were only apparently contradictory: "Expressionism in painting is a German fatality. But from [Germany] it has migrated towards us as well. [...] Have the poetry of Blaga and Adrian Maniu, the theater of Blaga, Maniu, lost their ethnic (and therefore traditional) specificity for having borrowed the expressionist style from wherever?"Crainic, in Grigorescu, p. 378
Reviewing the emphasis of traditionalism subsequently present in Gândireas pages, the critic Ovid Crohmălniceanu argued that it was no less an evidence of a new kind of literature.Crohmălniceanu, in Livezeanu, p.111 Although the main proponent of traditionalism, Crainic himself remained open to some modernist influences, and translated the innovative works of Rainer Maria Rilke into Romanian.Livezeanu, p.118
Early conflicts From the late 1920s and over much of its existence, Crainic's press engaged in polemics with modernists of the Eugen Lovinescu school, which at times turned into accusations that Lovinescu was "a petty poser" and "a falsifier of Romanian culture".Sfarmă-Piatră, in Ornea, p.439 Crainic and his traditionalist followers rejected Lovinescu's views on local "synchronism" with Western culture.Maier; Ornea, pp. 23-26, 438-441; Pop Their attitude in regard to the latter has drawn comparisons with protochronist messages in Communist Romania, both claiming the superiority and primacy of Romanian culture over its Western counterparts.Maier Although Crainic publicized his thoughts on the matter mainly through his other periodical, Sfarmă-Piatră, Gândirea notably hosted a 1926 article in which he likened the fight against Lovinescu's influence to "a second independence [of Romania]".Crainic, in Livezeanu, p. 123; in Maier
During the 1930s, Gândirea was at the center of virulent polemics involving, on one side, former contributors such as Tudor Arghezi and Tudor Vianu, and, on the other, those younger journalists who recognized Crainic as their mentor. Initially, this took the form of a Gândirist critique of both Modernism and the socialist-inspired current known as Poporanism: in a 1930 article for Gândirea, Crainic notably indicated his distaste for "the irremediable materialism" he believed to be professed by the rival Viaţa Românească.Crainic, in Ornea, p. 77
Following this, Vianu, whose political options contrasted with the new trend, chose to discontinue his contributions and joined the staff at Viaţa Românească;Ornea, pp. 116-117 although Lucian Blaga shared some views with Crainic, he too decided to distance himself from the magazine as early as 1930 (writing to Vianu that he did not consider himself a "disciple of our common friend Nichifor's Orthodoxy").Blaga, in Ornea, p. 116; see also Vasilache
Crainic's impact
In December 1931, as the magazine celebrated its first decade, Crainic summed up Gândirea'''s guidelines, stressing that its commitment to Orthodoxy, the Romanian monarchy and nationalism: "[...] set apart a person from our generation from a thousand others — [these] are nothing other than absolutely necessary conditions which make possible the true spiritual life. [...] This is what our precursors cannot comprehend, [being] a sad generation liquidating a culture that was not theirs and through this was not even cultural."Crainic, in Ornea, p.95
The Viața Românească columnist George Călinescu was skeptical of Crainic's politics, and noted his alternation between various nationalist camps. Commenting on Gândireas choice to support Carol II at the time when he replaced his son Mihai I as king (1930), he likened Crainic to Judas Iscariot: "[Crainic is] a person incapable of any privation, seeker of pieces of silver and worldly pleasures, great seeker of noisy shindings where pistols are being fired, a cajoler and a careerist, outrageously dedicating Gândirea today to HRM Mihai, tomorrow to HRM Carol II, the day after tomorrow to the great apostle of the nation Nicolae Iorga, at any moment when the homage could be tied to the pursuit of a personal interest."Călinescu, in Ornea, p. 264
At the time, Gândirism owed inspiration to Russian émigré authors, both Orthodox traditionalists such as Nikolai Berdyaev and several advocates of the nationalist and mystical Eurasianist trend (Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Pyotr Savitsky, Pyotr Alexeyev, and Ivan Ilyin).Veiga, p. 169 Around 1934, Crainic reflected upon the connection his magazine had with other traditionalist cultural institutions, and concluded that his group was fulfilling the legacy of the more secular but equally traditionalist magazine Sămănătorul ("Over the land that we have learned to love from Sămănătorul we see arching itself the azure tarpaulin of the Orthodox Church. We see this substance of this Church blending in with the ethnic substance.")Crainic, in Ornea, p. 102; in Veiga, p. 169