Eugen D. Relgis (backward reading of Eisig D. Sigler; first name also Eugenio, Eugène or Eugene, last name also Siegler or Siegler Watchel; 22 mars. Eugen Relgis Ephéméride Anarchiste entry; retrieved 10 March 2011 22 March 1895 – 24 May 1987) was a Romanian writer, pacifist philosopher and anarchist militant, known as a theorist of humanitarianism. His internationalist dogma, with distinct echoes from Judaism and Jewish ethics, was first shaped during World War I, when Relgis was a conscientious objector. Infused with anarcho-pacifism and socialism, it provided Relgis with an international profile, and earned him the support of pacifists such as Romain Rolland, Stefan Zweig and Albert Einstein. Another, more controversial, aspect of Relgis' philosophy was his support for eugenics, which centered on the compulsory sterilization of "degenerates". The latter proposal was voiced by several of Relgis' essays and sociological tracts.
After an early debut with Romania's Symbolist movement, Relgis promoted modernist literature and the poetry of Tudor Arghezi, signing his name to a succession of literary and political magazines. His work in fiction and poetry alternates the extremes of Expressionism and didactic art, giving artistic representation to his activism, his pacifist vision, or his struggle with a hearing impairment. He was a member of several modernist circles, formed around Romanian magazines such as Sburătorul, Contimporanul or Șantier, but also close to the more mainstream journal Viața Românească. His political and literary choices made Relgis an enemy of both fascism and communism: persecuted during World War II, he eventually took refuge in Uruguay. From 1947 to the moment of his death, Relgis earned the respect of South American circles as an anarchist commentator and proponent of solutions to world peace, as well as a promoter of Latin American culture.
Biography
Early life and literary debut The future Eugen Relgis was a native of Moldavia region, belonging to the local Jewish community. His father, David Sigler, professed Judaism, Boris Marian, , in Realitatea Evreiască, Nr. 227 (1027), March–April 2005, p.13 and descended from tanners settled in Neamț County.Dorian & Șerban, p.III-IV Eisig had two sisters, Adelina Derevici and Eugenia Soru, both of whom had careers in biochemistry.Dorian & Șerban, p.IV Born in either Iași Eugenio Relgis. 1895–1987, Proyecto filosofía en español entry; retrieved March 10, 2011, "Relgis, Eugen", Dictionaire international des militants anarchistes entry; retrieved March 10, 2011"Note on the Eugen Relgis Papers", at the International Institute of Social History; retrieved March 9, 2011 Agustín Courtoisie, "Notas de Análisis. Eugen Relgis (1895–1987): un pensador rumano en Uruguay", in ORT Uruguay Letras Internacionales, Nr. 74Dorian & Șerban, p.II; Rose, p.12; Rotman, p.175 or Piatra Neamț, Geo Șerban, Leon Volovici, , in Realitatea Evreiască, Nr. 306-307 (1106–1107), October–November 2008, p.11 Eisig was educated in Piatra Neamț, where he became friends with the family of novelist and Zionist leader A. L. Zissu. It was in Zissu's circle that Relgis probably first met his mentor, the Romanian modernist author Tudor Arghezi; at the time, Arghezi was married to Constanța Zissu, mother of his photographer son Eli Lotar.Cernat, p.56 The young writer later noted that he and Zissu were both touched by the wild landscape of the Ceahlău Massif and Piatra's shtetl atmosphere. In another one of his texts, Relgis recalled having been influenced in childhood by selective readings from the Romanian Jewish scholar Moses Schwarzfeld and his Anuarul pentru Israeliți journal (he told that, during later years, he had collected the entire Anuarul collection).Dorian & Șerban, p.V
Taking his first steps in literary life, Eisig Sigler adopted his new name through forms of wordplay which enjoyed some popularity among pseudonymous Jewish writers (the case of Paul Celan, born Ancel). Arnold Helman, , at the ; retrieved March 10, 2011 He was from early on a promoter of Symbolist and modernist literature, a cause into which he blended his left-wing perspective and calls for Jewish emancipation. Writing in 2007, literary historian Paul Cernat suggested that Relgis, like fellow humanitarian and Jewish intellectual Isac Ludo, had a "not at all negligible" part to play in the early diffusion of Romanian modernism.Cernat, p.34 Relgis' main contribution in the 1910s was the Symbolist tribune Fronda ("The Fronde"), the three consecutive issues of which he edited, in Iași, between April and June 1912.Cernat, p.55-57
Like Ludo's review Absolutio (which saw print two years later), Fronda stood for the radical branch of the Romanian Symbolist movement in Iași, in contrast to both the left-leaning but traditionalist magazine Viața Românească and the more conventional Symbolism of Versuri și Proză journal.Cernat, p.55-56 Its editorial board, Relgis included, went anonymous, but their names were known to other periodicals of the day and to later researchers. According to Cernat, Relgis was "the most significant Frondiste", seconded by two future figures in Romanian Jewish journalism: Albert Schreiber and Carol Steinberg. Like Ludo and poet Benjamin Fondane, the Fronda group represented those Romanian Jewish aficionados in Iași who followed the Symbolist-modernist school of Arghezi, and who promoted Arghezi's poetry in northern Romania: Frondas writers were noted for saluting Viața Românească when it too began hosting poems by Arghezi.Cernat, p.56, 57
Fronda put out three issues in all, after which time Relgis became an occasional contributor to more circulated periodicals, among them Rampa (founded by Arghezi and the socialist agitator N. D. Cocea) and Vieața Nouă (led by Symbolist critic Ovid Densusianu). In 1913, he collected his loose philosophical essays, or "fantasies", in the volume Triumful neființei ("The Triumph of Non-Being"). , at the ; retrieved March 10, 2011Lovinescu, p.100; Rose, p.12 He published his first two books of poems during World War I, but before the end of Romania's neutrality period. The first one was a collection of sonnets, Sonetele nebuniei ("Sonnets of Madness"), printed at Iași in 1914; the second was published in the capital, Bucharest, as Nebunia ("Madness").Călinescu, p.1029 Some of these poems were illustrated with drawings in Relgis' own hand.
From Umanitatea to Mântuirea After training in architecture, Relgis was enrolled at the University of Bucharest, where he took courses in Philosophy. During the period, he first left Romania on a trip to the Ottoman Empire and Kingdom of Greece. He interrupted his studies shortly after Romania entered the war, in the second half of 1916. Back in Iași after the Central Powers stormed into southern Romania, he was reportedly drafted into the Romanian Land Forces, but refused to take up arms as a conscientious objector; briefly imprisoned as a result, he was in the end discharged for his deafness.
Resuming his publishing activity upon the end of war, Eugen Relgis began publicizing his humanitarianist and pacifist agenda. In summer 1918, Relgis became one of the contributors to the Iași-based review Umanitatea ("The Humanity" or "The Human Race"). Historian Lucian Boia, who notes that Umanitatea was published when Romania's temporary defeat seemed to announce sweeping political reforms, believes that the magazine mainly reflected the "nebulous" agenda of a senior editor, the Bessarabian journalist Alexis Nour.Boia, p.259-260 In addition to Relgis and Nour, Umanitatea enlisted contributions from Ludo and Avram Steuerman-Rodion.Boia, p.260 The short-lived magazine, Boia writes, supported land reform, labor rights and, unusually in the context of "pronounced Romanian antisemitism", Jewish emancipation. On his own, Relgis published a magazine of the same title, issued during 1920.Dorian & Șerban, p.II According to one account, Umanitatea was closed down by Romania's military censorship, which kept a check on radical publications. In 1921, an unsigned chronicle in the Cluj-based Gândirea journal recognized in Relgis "the kind and enthusiastic young man who was propagating [...] the religion of man through Umanitatea magazine". "Cărți și reviste. G. Fr. Nicolai, Biologia războiului", in Gândirea, Nr. 3/1921, p.54 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library)
Relgis resumed his literary activity early in the interwar period. He authored his ideological essay Literatura războiului și era nouă (Bucharest, 1919); another such piece, Umanitarism sau Internaționala intelectualilor ("Humanitarianism or the Intellectuals' Internationale"), taken up by Viața Românească in 1922.Dora Litani-Littman, Abraham Feller, "Relgis (Sigler), Eugen", Encyclopaedia Judaica entry (republished by the Jewish Virtual Library); retrieved March 10, 2011 Viața Românească also published Relgis' abridged translation of The Biology of War, a pacifist treatise by German physician Georg Friedrich Nicolai. 1922 witnessed the birth of Relgis' manifesto Principiile umanitariste ("Humanitarianist Principles"), which offered Relgis' own conclusions on world peace, while reaffirming the need to create an international pacifist forum of intellectuals. It carried a preface by Nicolai.
Relgis also set up the First Humanitarianist Group of Romania, as well as a leftist library, Biblioteca Cercului Libertatea ("Freedom Circle Library"). Joined in such efforts by the veteran anarchists Han Ryner and Panait Mușoiu, Relgis also circulated an Apel către toți intelectualii liberi și muncitorii luminați ("Appeal to All the Free Intellectuals and the Enlightened Workers"). Before 1932, the Humanitarianist Group created some 23 regional branches in Greater Romania. Beginning 1925, Relgis also represented Romanian pacifists within the War Resisters' International.
In the meantime, he continued to publish sporadic poems, such as Ascetism ("Asceticism"), featured in Gândirea. Eugen Relgis, "Ascetism", in Gândirea, Nr. 10/1921, p.189 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library) The year 1923 witnessed the beginnings of a friendship between Relgis and the aspiring pacifist author George Mihail Zamfirescu. Relgis prefaced Zamfirescu's book Flamura albă ("The White Flag"), and contributed to Zamfirescu's magazine Icoane Maramureșene ("Maramureș Icons"). Mircea Popa, "George Mihail Zamfirescu" , in the December 1 University of Alba Iulia Philologica Yearbook , 2006, I, p.30 A prose volume, Peregrinări ("Wanderings"), saw print with Editura Socec the same year. Relgis also published, in 1924, the 3 volumes of his main novel Petru Arbore (a Bildungsroman named after its main protagonist).Călinescu, p.1029; Lovinescu, p.237-238; Rose, p.12 Two new volumes of his topical essays saw print in later years: the first one, published by the printing offices of fellow journalist Barbu Brănișteanu, was Umanitarism și socialism ("Humanitarianism and Socialism", 1925); the second, printed in 1926, was titled Umanitarismul biblic ("Humanitarianism in the Bible"). His press activity included contributions to Zionist papers: a writer for Știri din Lumea Evreiască, he was also briefly on the staff of Zissu's Mântuirea.
Sburătorul and Umanitarismul