(; literally "Stone-Crusher" or "Rock-Breaker", named after one of the Uriași characters in Romanian folklore) was an antisemitic daily, monthly and later weekly newspaper, published in Romania during the late 1930s and early 1940s. One in a series of publications founded by Nichifor Crainic (better known as the head of Gândirea magazine), with support from Universul editor-in-chief Stelian Popescu, it attempted to regroup the various fascist and pro-fascist movements around Crainic's "ethnocratic" principle. The editorial staff comprised a group of far right intellectuals; alongside the editor-in-chief Alexandru Gregorian, they included Ovidiu Papadima, Vintilă Horia, Dan Botta, Dragoș Protopopescu, Toma Vlădescu, and Pan M. Vizirescu.Ornea, pp. 245, 439 It notably hosted contributions by writers Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voinești, Radu Gyr and Ștefan Baciu.
Noted for its contemptuous style of journalism and its recourse to violent language, Sfarmă-Piatră launched press campaigns against various figures who advocated left-wing or centrist positions, as well as against prominent members of the Jewish-Romanian community. Among the targets of its attacks were mainstream politicians such as Constantin Argetoianu and Constantin Stere, and the well-known writers Tudor Arghezi, Eugen Lovinescu and Mihail Sadoveanu. The publication was involved in a lengthy conflict with left-wing newspapers such as Adevărul and Dimineața, as well as with two rival voices on the far right—the National Christian Party (PNC) of Octavian Goga and A. C. Cuza, and Mihail Manoilescu's Buna Vestire.
Initially adverse to King Carol II and attempting a rapprochement with the fascist Iron Guard, it came to support Carol's National Renaissance Front after 1938. During World War II, it switched its position, offering to back to the Guard's National Legionary regime and finally to that of Conducător Ion Antonescu. The 1941 edition of Sfarmă-Piatră is remembered for welcoming Operation Barbarossa and the Iași pogrom, and for circulating antisemitic canards. The paper was ultimately shut down after Antonescu's fall in 1944, and its staff either went into hiding or was prosecuted for various political crimes.
History
Beginnings The paper was a successor to Nichifor Crainic's daily Calendarul. The latter had been shut down by the authorities in December 1933, just after Romanian Premier Ion G. Duca was murdered by the Iron Guard's Nicadori death squad. By then, Dragoș Protopopescu, the managing editor of Calendarul, had become a close associate of the Guard.Bălu, pp. 58–59; Clark, pp. 118, 136–138, 160–161, 201–202 Together with Protopopescu, with Cuvântul journalist Nae Ionescu, and with other far-right supporters in the press, Crainic was arrested on charges of having morally instigated the killing. They faced trial on such charges in 1934. Still, they were eventually acquitted.Ornea, pp. 244–245 On the occasion, Crainic and the others publicly distanced themselves from the Guard and its leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, but, at various times, switched back to supporting Codreanu's politics.Ornea, p. 245 By then, Crainic was also putting an end to his brief association with the PNC. This was the start of internecine conflicts within Romania's radical right, highlighted when Crainic criticized Alexandru Vaida-Voevod (whose own right-wing party, the minor Romanian Front, was about to merge into the PNC).Ornea, pp. 245–246, 255–258
Crainic sought to revive Calendarul, but his attempts were frustrated by successive governments down to 1938. As such, Sfarmă-Piatră saw print on November 14, 1935, once Crainic received his funding from sympathizer Stelian Popescu. In its first issue, it proclaimed a commitment to ethnic nationalism. Sfarmă-Piatră also produced a manifesto targeting corruption, stating that it was time to "obliterate those rookeries that the naive see as temples and the con artists claim are eternal", while stating that its goal was to bring down "the freckled dragons" of Romanian political life.
According to literary historian Z. Ornea, the journal was soon noted for abusing "the violent, sneering, vulgar and unsubstantial lampoon". Noting the heavy use of demeaning epithets, literary critic Ruxandra Cesereanu describes Sfarmă-Piatră and all its partners on the far right as chiefly preoccupied with "besmirching writers and public figures", Ruxandra Cesereanu, "Zavistia. Imaginarul lingvistic violent al extremei drepte românești", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 109, March–April 2002 while political analyst Michael Shafir summarizes its content as "viciously antisemitic".Michael Shafir, "Varieties of Antisemitism in Post-Communist East Central Europe. Motivations and Political Discourse" , in the Central European University's Jewish Studies Yearbook , 2003, p. 182 According to literary historian Nicolae Manolescu, Gregorian, Crainic's right-hand man, was from the inception "a notorious antisemite". Nicolae Manolescu, "Câteva precizări cu privire la George Ivașcu" , in România Literară, Nr. 51–52/2011
Sfarmă-Piatră constantly popularized the claim that Romania was subject to a Jewish invasion and featured articles in which Jews who took on Romanian-sounding names were referred to under their original ones, seeking to brand and marginalize them.Final Report, p. 184 It also stoked hatred against Jewish people of influence, claiming that King Carol's camarilla was in effect a Jewish dominion over Romania, and repeatedly attacking Carol's mistress, Elena Lupescu, who was of part-Jewish origin.Ornea, p. 398 From the moment of its creation, Sfarmă-Piatră published regular pieces against the rival journals Adevărul and Dimineața, and attempted to maintain close links with other ultra-nationalist journals: Porunca Vremii, Vremea, Curentul.Ornea, pp. 245, 246
From early on, Sfarmă-Piatră also made a point of attacking the political establishment, and in particular members or former leaders of the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ): Argetoianu, Stere, Vaida-Voevod and Victor Iamandi. It specifically targeted several politicians and intellectuals (Sadoveanu, Argetoianu, Vaida-Voevod) for their known or presumed association with the Freemasonry. Through Crainic's articles, Sfarmă-Piatră also issued occasional praise for Foreign Minister Nicolae Titulescu, commending him for standing up to Hungary's revisionist designs on Romania. Titulescu had in fact intervened in favor of Calendarul men during their 1934 imprisonment.Bălu, pp. 59–60
As noted by researcher Valeriu Râpeanu, it was still unusual for a far right man to give such endorsement to the pro-democracy Titulescu. Valeriu Râpeanu, "Pro și Contra Nicolae Titulescu: Ion Petrovici: 'O autentică strălucire intelectuală'; N. Iorga: 'Profesorul unei universități căreia n-a avut timp să-i consacre ostenelile sale' ", in Curierul Național, January 18, 2003 One such article portrayed him standing up to the Chamber of Deputies as if dressed "in the fiery cape of Romanian consciousness." Valeriu Râpeanu, "Nichifor Crainic despre Nicolae Titulescu: 'Gloria lui internațională era mândria națională' " , in Curierul Național, January 11, 2003 More praise for the Foreign Minister was contributed to Sfarmă-Piatră by Dragoș Protopopescu, who may have hoped that Titulescu would assign him to a diplomatic post.
Sfarmă-Piatră, modernism and traditionalism Sfarmă-Piatră regularly featured appeals to rescue Romanian culture from what it claimed were dangerous tendencies: modernism, the avant-garde, and the more traditional left-wing critical school, Poporanism. In 1936, under the signature of one Septimiu Bucur, it claimed that after the demise of Junimea society a generation before, Romania no longer had a decent school of literary criticism. Bucur spoke out against Poporanists such as Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea (a Jewish immigrant, whom he described as "alienated" from Romanian life) and Garabet Ibrăileanu (whose views he rejected as too regionalistic).Ornea, pp. 438–439 Bucur focused some of his criticism on Eugen Lovinescu. An editor of Sburătorul magazine, the latter had by then abandoned his conservative position to support urban culture, modernism, and impressionistic writing. Lovinescu stood accused of having introduced "a plant with poisoned juices" to Romania's soil and of condoning "the recent invasion of kike aliens" on the national stage.
Published a year after Bucur's, Ovidiu Papadima's contributions were also turning on Lovinescu. Announcing to the world that "the era of unforgiving judgments is approaching", Papadima accused Sburătorul of having engineered "spiritual decay" within a modernist "invasion" and hoped that, like the intrusion of "foreign capital" on the local market, such ideas would be reversed.Ornea, p. 439 Papadima identified the enemy in both culture and economy: "the rapacious claws of the Judaic spirit." Ridiculing Lovinescu as "a desk sociologist" with "the temperament of a subdued ruminant", unable to resist "modernist dares", Papadima concluded that Jewish intellectuals were exploiting Lovinescu's vanities for their own benefit. Within the group of Lovinescu manipulators, Papadima nominated Sburătorul Jewish authors Benjamin Fondane, Camil Baltazar, Ilarie Voronca and Felix Aderca. Another such article mockingly twisted the modernist doyen's name into Oegen Lovinescu, and referred to his elder colleague Pompiliu Constantinescu as Fonfăilă Constantinescu (from fonf, "mouth-breather").Ornea, p. 441 The campaign against Sburătorists became a common feature of the far right newspapers, and Sfarmă-Piatră continued to host articles where Lovinescu was denounced as "histrionic" and "the falsifier of Romanian culture".
Criticism of Mihail Sadoveanu was also regularly found in the radical right-wing press from 1936 after the novelist took on managerial offices at Adevărul and Dimineața newspapers. Sadoveanu, a traditionalist among the Poporanists, much celebrated for his historical novels, antagonized the nationalist publications when, in that context, he explicitly stated a commitment to democratic methods.Ornea, p. 459 Among many others, Alexandru Gregorian, denounced Sadoveanu for "betrayal", in the Sfarmă-Piatră piece M. Sadoveanu. Împărat ("M. Sadoveanu. Emperor").Ornea, p. 463 Gregorian described his rival as manipulated by the Jewish entrepreneur Breuer, and, emphasizing Sadoveanu's prominent status within Romanian Freemasonry, a worshiper of both the Supreme Architect and Ucigă-l toaca (that is, the devil). His two newspapers, Gregorian claimed, were like a "ghetto", with Sadoveanu as a circumcised "aurochs of Moldavia". He also cited Sadoveanu's obesity and other alleged health issues, concluding that he was a walking "cadaver". Crainic also backed the accusation of "treason" against Sadoveanu. In a Sfarmă-Piatră article, he equated the writer with Ieremia Golia, a 16th-century boyar who had changed his allegiances between competing Moldavian rulers, and who was the villain in Sadoveanu's own novels.Ornea, p. 464
Religious agenda and anti-"pornography" campaign In opposition to modernity, the newspaper promoted a rural ethos and publicized calls for a Christian revival. Vintilă Horia was at the time noted for promoting a neo-traditionalist artistic credo. His articles for the Sfarmă-Piatră saw modern civilization as ungodly and dehumanizing, seeking a revival of the ancient ways (as illustrated by Horia's own travelogue of the Eastern Carpathians). Cristian Radu, " 'Sentimentul românesc al ființei' în opera lui Vintilă Horia", in Tribuna, Nr. 150, December 2008, p. 13 The young writer idealized landscapes which facilitated withdrawal and contemplation, and, in one of his columns for Crainic's paper, imagined an ideal "autumnal" man: "smoke-filled, emerging from the fog, steeped in hard consonants and chafing vowels."* Georgeta Orian, "Poezia lui Vintilă Horia" , in the December 1 University of Alba Iulia's Philologica Yearbook , 2000