Emil Isac (; May 27, 1886 – March 25, 1954) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian poet, dramatist, short story writer and critic. Noted as one of the pioneers of Symbolism and modernist literature in his native region of Transylvania, he was in tandem one of the leading young voices of the Symbolist movement in the neighboring Kingdom of Romania. Moving from prose poems with cosmopolitan traits, fusing Neo-romantic subjects with modernist free verse, he later created a lyrical discourse in the line of Social Realism. Isac was likewise known for criticizing traditionalist and nationalist trends in local literature, but, by the end of World War I, opened his own poetry to various traditionalist influences.
Isac was a participant in civic or political causes, defending the rights of ethnic Romanians in Austria-Hungary from a socialist position, and, during the 1918 union with Romania, served as a community representative. He was however interested in preserving good relations between his ethnic group and the Hungarians. An occasional contributor to Hungarian-language reviews, he reached out over political divides, maintaining close contacts with Hungarian intellectuals such as Endre Ady, Oszkár Jászi, János Thorma, and Aladár Kuncz.
During the final part of his career, which was spent in Communist Romania, Emil Isac was affiliated with Steaua magazine and enjoyed political endorsement. In this context, he took the controversial decision of adapting his style to Socialist Realism, producing a number of political poems which doubled as agitprop.
Biography
Early life A native of Kolozsvár (Cluj), a city in Transylvania, the future writer was born to ethnic Romanian parents: his father, Aurel Isac, was a lawyer, later noted for representing the Romanian civil disobedience Memorandum movement, after it was prosecuted by the Hungarian authorities; his mother, Elisabeta-Eliza née Roșescu, was a schoolteacher.Biobibliografie selectivă. Viaţa, n. pag. As the poet later recalled in a tongue-in-cheek memoir of his childhood: "I was born in Cluj, when the Someș was boiling with blood and my father reaped the flowers of pain [...]. I came around when called upon by my mother—and the priest baptized me in Eau de Cologne, or blood, or tears, or holy water—and my godfather wanted to give me the name Alfred, for he loved Musset, but my father gave me the name Emil, since he loved Rousseau."Călinescu, p.702
From a young age, Isac was an avid reader. As he later recalled, he found an optimistic faith in science after being introduced to Jules Verne's popular novels. Corneliu Apetroaiei, "Eternul Jules Verne" , in Clujeanul, April 12, 2005 He began his education in German, attending a Transylvanian Evangelical Church school in his native city, and later (1895–1901) a Hungarian-language Catholic school run by the Piarists. Isac was eventually moved to Năsăud (Naszód), at a military academy for the Romanian border regiment in Austro-Hungarian service (1902–1904), but, in 1907, took his Matura at the Hungarian Lycée in Sibiu (Nagyszeben). In the meantime, he made his debut in literature. His first published piece was a 1902 essay on the life and work of Romantic poet Vasile Alecsandri, published in Hungarian by Ellenzék magazine. "Isac Emil" , biographical note in Cronologia della letteratura rumena moderna (1780-1914) database , at the University of Florence's Department of Neo-Latin Languages and Literatures; retrieved April 28, 2010
It was followed a year later by his Hungarian-language translation of two poems, collected from Romanian folklore and printed by the local periodical Koloszvári Friss Ujság under the pen name Emisac. Also in 1903, Isac made his second debut, in Romanian, with La umbra plopilor ("In the Shadow of Poplar Trees"), a poem published by the Transylvanian literary venue Familia. He was later a member of Familias editorial staff, where, in March 1905, he wrote Jules Verne's obituary. Over time, his other contributions were featured in such Transylvanian Romanian periodicals as Cele Trei Crișuri, Gazeta de Transilvania and Tribuna.
Emil Isac's editorial debut came in 1908, with the lyric poetry collection Poezii. Impresii și senzații moderne ("Poems. Modern Impressions and Sensations"). The work attracted attention from critics, in both the Romanian-speaking areas of the Austro-Hungarian realm and the bordering Kingdom of Romania: Sever Dan in Transylvania and Mihail Dragomirescu in Bucharest both reviewed it for the cultural press.Biobibliografie selectivă. Referințe critice, n. pag. Its rejection of convention was hotly contested by the tribune of Transylvanian traditionalism, Țara Noastră: it called Isac a "bane" for his generation and a "political traitor", referring to his lyrics as "babblings". "Vieața literară. Jertfirea lui Isac", in Țara Noastră, Nr. 8/1909, p.41-42 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library)
In 1910, Isac took a degree in law from Franz Joseph University. It was during this episode that he met the modern Hungarian writer Aladár Kuncz, who was his lifelong friend.Neubauer, p.169 Isac's own affiliation with Symbolism was facilitated by a voyage to France, where he observed first-hand the impact of artistic innovation. Reportedly, in 1912, Isac also traveled to study in the German Empire, intending to get a master's degree in Berlin. Cincinat Pavelescu, Lui Emil Isac (wikisource)
Political beginnings and Symbolist militancy
Like his father before him, Emil Isac became interested in advancing the cause of Romanians throughout Transleithania (the regions administered directly from Budapest). This nationalist militancy merged with his advocacy of left-wing causes, leading him to become a member of the Transylvanian Social Democratic Party. After 1911, he was in correspondence with the Romanian National Party activist Vasile Goldiș. The young poet was a frequent traveler into the Romanian Kingdom, and he contributed to periodicals of various cultural and political interests which were published there. His work was thus featured in leftist newspapers and reviews, among them Adevărul Literar și Artistic, Dimineaţa, Facla, România Muncitoare, but was also hosted by mainstream or even traditionalist media (Sămănătorul, Universul). Making his acquaintance with Romania's Symbolist trend, Isac also contributed to periodicals which either tolerated or promoted artistic innovation, among them Noua Revistă Română, Rampa, Seara, Versuri și Proză and Vieața Nouă.
Isac became a personal friend of Vieața Nouă editor, the Symbolist promoter and philologist Ovid Densusianu. The latter referred to his pupil as "Transylvania's talented poet", which perplexed the anti-Symbolist critic Ilarie Chendi; Chendi contrarily claimed that Isac was "made famous by frivolous people". Ilarie Chendi, "Vieaţa literară în 1911 (o privire generală)", in Luceafărul, Nr. 3/1912, p.63 (digitized by the Babeş-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library) Emil Isac's later memoirs describe in some detail Densusianu's dandy habits and generosity, which the academic kept as a standard even as he was facing material ruin, and note that such efforts accounted for Denusianu being ostensibly "weighed down", "impoverished", "submerged in thoughts". Iordan Datcu, "Omagiu lui Ovid Densusianu" , in România Literară, Nr. 19/2006
Although involved in such projects, Emil Isac spend the pre-World War I years building bridges with members of the ethnic Hungarian elite in Transylvania and beyond. He maintained personal contacts with opinion leaders, among them poets Endre Ady, Mihály Babits, Dezső Kosztolányi, and painter János Thorma. Following his interest in Hungarian culture, Isac was one of the Romanians who maintained connections with the influential Hungarian-language review Nyugat, which was at the time equally interested in chronicling Romanian literature. Writing in 1913, Ignotus, Nyugat editor and leading cultural critic, defended the political participation of non-Hungarian communities, commending both Isac and the traditionalist Romanian poet Octavian Goga for their resistance to Magyarization.Fenyo, p.62
While Goga, defended by Endre Ady during his political imprisonment of 1912, soon disappointed the group with his antisemitic rhetoric and his uncompromising stance,Fenyo, p.61-62; Neubauer, p.168-169 Isac remained close to the liberal or left-wing Hungarian circles. After witnessing the end of Goga's friendship with Ady, he was himself involved in a conflict with the former's radical approach, arguing that people "on both sides" needed "to evaluate, without prejudice, their own blemishes and virtues". Gabriela Adameşteanu, "Promovarea culturii costă bani, bani şi iarăşi bani!" (interview with Jenö Farkas) , in Revista 22, Nr. 880, January 2007 Around 1912, Isac was working with Kuncz on a trans-communal theatrical project: the staging of Ady's A műhelyben ("In the Workshop") by a theater in Bucharest, to coincide with the Budapest performance of plays by Isac and the prestigious comedy author Ion Luca Caragiale.Fenyo, p.63 The project was abandoned, probably because of Caragiale's sudden death in Berlin.
In April of that year, Emil Isac also joined the circle formed around Ion Minulescu and his rebelliously Symbolist magazine, the Bucharest-based Insula.Cernat, p.26-27 By the same time, the young poet was entering another polemic with the more traditionalist wing of Romania's intellectual movement, represented at the time by historian and literary theorist Nicolae Iorga, former editor of the nationalist tribune Sămănătorul. In 1912, he became a contributor to the short-lived Symbolist review Simbolul, issued in Bucharest by the high school students Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco and Ion Vinea (all of whom were later avant-garde figures). It was there that Isac published satire specifically aimed at Iorga's group.Tom Sandqvist, Dada East. The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, 2006, p.76. Those articles where he specifically targeted Iorga's principles enlisted a negative response from Consânzeana, the Orăştie-based review of Romanian Orthodox priest Ioan Moţa (it called Isac Don Quijote de la Cluj, "the Don Quixote of Cluj").Daniel Iancu, "Istorie şi istorici în revista Cosânzeana (1911-1915)" , in the December 1 University of Alba Iulia's Buletinul Cercurilor Ştiinţifice Studenţeşti, 2, 1996 , p.235
Meanwhile, Isac's articles continued to champion mutual respect between Hungarian and Romanian intellectuals: a letter defending Ady in his dispute with Goga saw print in Ady's Világ review (February 1913), and another one, to Ignotus, was published in Nyugat as Az új magyar irodalom ("The New Hungarian Literature"); the same year, Nyugat also received his Új románság ("New Romanians") essay, in which Isac claimed that the two communities had a common interest in resisting the threat of Pan-Slavism.Neubauer, p.168 A year later, at the buildup to World War I, Nyugat published Isac's review of Goga's political play Mr. the Notary, his sympathetic obituary to the neutralist King Carol I of Romania, and his A román-magyar béke ("The Romanian-Hungarian Peace"), which optimistically argued that the policies of István Tisza could limit dangerous distrust between the two sides in question. The same journal published Isac's one-page-long sketch story, A szerecsen ("The Moor").Fenyo, p.62; Neubauer, p.169
World War I and unionist activity