Ion Vinea (born Ioan Eugen Iovanaki, sometimes Iovanache; April 17, 1895 – July 6, 1964) was a Romanian poet, novelist, journalist, literary theorist, and political figure. He became active on the modernist scene during his teens—his poetic work being always indebted to the Symbolist movement—and founded, with Tristan Tzara and Marcel Janco, the review Simbolul. The more conservative Vinea drifted apart from them as they rose to international fame with the Dada artistic experiment, being instead affiliated with left-wing counterculture in World War I Romania. With N. D. Cocea, Vinea edited the socialist Chemarea, but returned to the international avant-garde in 1923–1924, an affiliate of Constructivism, Futurism, and, marginally, Surrealism.
Vinea achieved his reputation as the co-founder and editor or Contimporanul, Romania's major avant-garde publication throughout the 1920s, where he also published his fragmentary prose. He expounded his social critique and his program of cultural renewal, fusing a modernist reinterpretation of tradition with a cosmopolitan tolerance and a constant interest in European avant-garde phenomena. He drifted away from artistic experimentation and literature in general by 1930, when he began working on conventional newspapers, a vocal (but inconsistent) anti-fascist publicist, and a subject of scorn for the more radical writers at unu. After a stint in the Assembly of Deputies, where he represented the National Peasants' Party, Vinea focused mainly on managing Cocea's Facla. By 1940, he was an adamant anti-communist and anti-Soviet, ambiguously serving the Ion Antonescu dictatorship as editor of Evenimentul Zilei.
Spending his final two decades in near-constant harassment by communist authorities, Vinea was mostly prevented from publishing his work. Driven into poverty and obscurity, he acted as a ghostwriter for, then denouncer of, his novelist friend, Petru Dumitriu. He held a variety of employments, making his comeback as a translator of Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare. He died of cancer just as his own work was again in print. Vinea had by then been married four times, and had had numerous affairs; his third wife, actress-novelist Henriette Yvonne Stahl, was still redacting his unpublished novels. These fictionalize episodes of his own life in the manner of decadent literature, establishing Vinea's posthumous recognition as an original raconteur.
Biography
Simbolul years Born in Giurgiu, the future Ion Vinea was the son of Alexandru Iovanaki and Olimpia (née Vlahopol-Constantinidi). Although, in adulthood, Vinea categorically denied his Greek ethnicity,Cernat (2007), p. 207; Funeriu, p. 6; Tatu, p. 76 his parents was of documented Hellenic origins. While a paternal grandfather was officially listed as "of Romanian nationality and origin", his wife was French—and her surname of "Chauvignac" is the origin of the pen name "Vinea".Constandina Brezu, "Ion Vinea — fișier", Luceafărul, Vol. IX, Issue 42, October 1966, p. 7 The poet also belonged to the upper strata, through both his paternal and maternal lineages. Ion's father was a nephew of Prince Cariagdi, once described by Romanian poet-journalist Mihai Eminescu as one of the country's most odious "Phanariotes".Dumitru Velea, "Eminescu azi. Eminescu — despre geniul național al poporului român", in Vatra, Vol. XIX, Issue 223, October 1989, p. 10 Virtually adopted by Cariagdi after his parents committed suicide, Alexandru took an engineer's diploma from the École Centrale. He did not practice: known to the authorities as either a "winemaker" or "unemployed", he always lived off on a country estate in Drăgănești.Funeriu, pp. 5–6, 10
Olimpia, a classics teacher, was a Graeco–Ottoman immigrant, whose parents still resided in Istanbul during the 1890s. Accounts differ as to her more distant ethnic origins, with some claiming that she was an Aromanian, and others a Romaniote Jew.Tatu, pp. 76–77 She was nine years younger than her husband, who, in his thirties, became seriously ill. According to one account, Ioan was Iovanaki's son in name only, conceived by Olimpia, a woman of outstanding beauty,Funeriu, p. 6 Sanda Cordoș, "Răsfățatul vitregit", Revista 22, Issue 1222, August 2013 with Henry C. Dundas, the British consul in Galați. Paul Cernat, "Senzaționalul unor amintiri de mare clasă", Observator Cultural, Issue 130, August 2002 Throughout his life, the writer was colloquially known as Englezul ("The Englishman").Magda Ursache, "Să revenim la argument!", in Confesiuni, Vol. V, Issue 38, January 2017, p. 10
When Vinea was still an infant, the Iovanakis moved from Giurgiu to Bucharest, capital of the Romanian Kingdom, where, in 1905, they had another son, Nicolae.Funeriu, p. 6; Tatu, p. 77 Ioan always had a conflicted relationship with Alexandru,Cernat (2007), pp. 18, 183 and, according to his friend Nicolae Carandino, "was raised by his mother".Carandino, p. 169 In his childhood, he trained himself to read in both Romanian and French, also speaking good Latin and German; he much later taught himself English.Mircea Vaida, Elena Vinea, "Vinea — 5 ani — Remember. 'Ieși dintr-un sertar, melancolie'. Interviu cu soția poetului", in Tribuna, Vol. XIII, Issue 30, July 1969, p. 4Funeriu, pp. 13–14. See also Cernat (2007), p. 78 While attending primary school at Sfânta Vineri Institute from 1902, he was neighbors and friends with musician Lily Haskil, who gave him piano lessons.Iosif Sava, Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga, "Muzica și literatura. Ion Vinea sau stratul adînc al muzicii", in Ramuri, Issue 7/1987, p. 16 In some accounts, he is depicted as a childhood friend of her more famous younger sister, Clara Haskil, though he only met the latter around 1937. Vinea himself discovered a talent for the piano, and later took private lessons alongside Haskil and Jacques G. Costin, both of whom remained his friends for life.Cernat (2007), p. 188. See also Funeriu, p. 6 Music remained a secondary pursuit throughout his life, but he was generally shy about performing in public—his most noted performance came later in life, when, while visiting violinist George Enescu, he was persuaded into accompanying Enescu on the piano.
From 1910, when he enlisted at Saint Sava National College, Vinea applied himself to philology, covering modern French literature—then Symbolism, which became his main focus.Funeriu, pp. 6–7 He had the older Symbolist Adrian Maniu for a school tutor,Cernat (2007), pp. 49, 51 but generally did poorly, averaging 8.33 in literature and philosophy (less than the 9.75 he got in choral music). In October 1912, together with Saint Sava colleagues Marcel Janco and Tristan Tzara, Vinea set up the literary magazine Simbolul. Although juvenile and short-lived, it managed to attract contribution from some of Romania's most visible Symbolists: Alexandru Macedonski, N. Davidescu, Emil Isac, Ion Minulescu, Claudia Millian, Al. T. Stamatiad, and Maniu.Cernat (2007), pp. 48–51; Funeriu, p. 7. See also Sandqvist, pp. 72–78, 384
Simbolul was also a public signal of Vinea's anti-establishment fronde, openly taunting writers associated with traditionalism or ruralizing Poporanism.Cernat (2007), pp. 49, 50; Funeriu, p. 7; Sandqvist, p. 77 Nevertheless, his own poems, published therein, were generally tame, heavily indebted to the likes of Macedonski, Minulescu, and Albert Samain.Cernat (2007), pp. 48–49; Funeriu, p. 7 Shortly after the Simbolul episode, Vinea vacationed in Gârceni, on Tzara's estate, and at Tuzla. The Tzara–Vinea collaboration produced a new species of self-referential modernist poetry, which transcended the Symbolist conventions.Cernat (2007), pp. 109–110, 116–122, 153, 403, 405; Sandqvist, pp. 126, 134–135, 160–162 Both youths were also fascinated with the same "neurasthenic girl", who appears in their works as Sașa (Sacha), Sonia, or Mania, their relationship with her was apparently broken up when she was hospitalized for her mental condition.Cordoș (2016), pp. 127–130
Post-Symbolist "new faith" From mid 1913, Iovanaki was a columnist and left-leaning lampoonist at N. D. Cocea's Facla and Rampa, working under a variety of pen names: "Ion Iovin", "Evin", "Ion Japcă", "Ion Eugen Vinea", "Crișan", "I. Iova", and, possibly, also "Stavri" or "Puck".Funeriu, pp. 7–8. See also Cernat (2007), pp. 15, 61–71, 92–93, 142, 147 Constantin Beldie took him on board at Noua Revistă Română.Funeriu, p. 7. See also Cernat (2007), pp. 102, 109, 123 Finally adopting the Ion Vinea signature in 1914, he quickly matured into a "feared and merciless" polemicist with "infallible logic",Funeriu, pp. 7–8 writing "texts of elegant vehemence, bearing the clear imprint of his intellect." Mircea Anghelescu, "Pamfletul la ordinea zilei", România Literară, Issue 40/2014 As noted by literary historian Paul Cernat, he took care not to define himself not as a professional and "classifying" critic, but rather as an independent thinker in the manner of Remy de Gourmont and Charles Baudelaire; however, his efforts were aimed at compensating for the lack of Symbolist critics and exegetes.Cernat (2007), pp. 61–63, 65–68, 181, 339, 410 Looking for references outside Symbolism, then finding them in Walt Whitman, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Henri Bergson, he prophesied that a "new faith" and an anti-sentimental literature were in the making.Cernat (2007), pp. 68–71, 121
As a culture critic and artistic doctrinaire, he found affinities with the Western European Futurists, Cubists, and especially Simultanists, whose non-static art, he believed, was a more accurate representation of the human experience.Cernat (2007), pp. 92–94 Like the Futurists, young Vinea cheered for industrialization and Westernization, giving enthusiastic coverage to the Young Turk Revolution.Cernat (2007), pp. 93–94 He was thus also an advocate of social realism, praising Maxim Gorky and, in later years, Dem. Theodorescu, Vasile Demetrius, Ion Călugăru, and Panait Istrati.Cernat (2007), pp. 74–75, 98, 143, 206, 214–215, 219–220 Vinea's hobbyhorse was defending cosmopolitanism against traditionalist nationalism: he publicized the formative contribution of Greeks, Jews, and Slavs to old and new Romanian literature, and ridiculed the conservative antisemitism of critics such as Ilarie Chendi, Mihail Dragomirescu, and Nicolae Iorga. Luminița Marcu, "Incendiarul ziarist Ion Vinea", Observator Cultural, Issue 154, February 2003Cernat (2007), pp. 35, 65–66
Other noted targets were moderate "academic" Symbolists, including Anna de Noailles, Dimitrie Anghel, and especially Ovid Densusianu; and modernists of uncertain convictions, among them Eugen Lovinescu—to whom Vinea reserved some of his more bitter sarcasm.Cernat (2007), pp. 62–65, 108, 134 In a 1916 piece, he imagined Lovinescu as "a youth, already a bourgeois, already bloated and probably soft".Cernat (2007), p. 65 Vinea was himself greatly charismatic, variously described by his peers as "enviable", "beautiful and serene",Funeriu, p. 14 but also "spoiled". According to fellow modernist Felix Aderca, Vinea sacrificed himself to "originality" and "style", mocking his inferiors and only picking up on "the finest poetic waves".Funeriu, pp. 599–600 He made a point of showing that he despised literary cafés, the gathering spots of "poets with no muse". He did however attend Terasa Oteteleșanu and other such bars, mixing in with the literary crowd.Sandqvist, pp. 118, 120 Consumed by his involvement in public life, he graduated from Saint Sava in 1914 with the mediocre average of 6.80.Funeriu, p. 8