Stephan Roll (pen name of Gheorghe Dinu, also credited as Stéphane, Stefan or Ștefan Roll; June 5, 1904 – May 14, 1974) was a Romanian poet, editor, film critic, and communist militant. An autodidact, he played host to the Romanian avant-garde at his father's dairy shop, publishing his work in short-lived reviews and in two volumes of poetry. As one of the editors of the magazine unu, he turned from Constructivism, Futurism and jazz poetry to the more lyrical format of Surrealism. Roll's political radicalism seeped into his avant-garde activity, and produced a split inside the unu group; Roll's faction discarded Surrealism in favor of proletarian literature, and affiliated with the underground Romanian Communist Party.
An antifascist who supported groups such as Amicii URSS and promoted Soviet viewpoints, Roll worked on various leftist periodicals, including those of the Adevărul group and Cuvântul Liber. He kept a low profile during World War II, when he was employed by the daily Timpul, discreetly expressing his criticism of Nazi Germany, later contributing to the clandestine România Liberă. Reemerging under the Romanian communist regime, he became a propagandist and, in his final years, worked on reducing the avant-garde content of his debut works, republishing them in altered editions. He was survived by his painter wife, Medi Wechsler-Dinu.
Biography
Early life and unu years Roll was a native of Prekopana village in the Ottoman Empire's Manastir Vilayet; today, this is Perikopi in the Florina regional unit of Greece. His parents were Bulgarian peasants: Enache Dinu, a komitadji who fled to Bucharest in 1907, and his wife Paraschiva.Ion Pop, in Aurel Sasu (ed.), Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române, Vol. II, p. 483. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. His formal education consisted of four grades at the Bulgarian school in Bucharest from 1911 to 1915. Avram Croitoru, , in Realitatea Evreiască, Nr. 294–295 (1094–1095), April–May 2008, p. 11 As his letters show, he always had difficulties writing proper Romanian, and devised his own spelling of various words. Doris Mironescu, "Avangarda în corespondență: prietenie literară", in Convorbiri Literare, August 2012
Dinu spent his youth in a multicultural environment, spending time in the Romanian Jewish neighborhoods, and acting as the shabbos goy, preserving links with the Zionist A. L. Zissu. Igor Mocanu, "Europa, după ploaie (despre Avangarda românească în arhivele Siguranței)", in Contrafort, Nr. 5/2008 From 1915 to 1929, he worked as a shop boy at his father's dairy, Lăptăria Enache (or Secolul), near the Bucharest Bărăția. His links with radical left-wing circles were documented from late 1921, when Siguranța, the Romanian Kingdom's secret police, was informed of his possible connections with the terrorist Max Goldstein.
During the 1920s, Enache's shop became a meeting place for avant-garde poets and artists such as Victor Brauner (who painted its exterior), Ion Pop, "Între Gheorghe Dinu și Stephan Roll", in România Literară, Nr. 20/2004 Ilarie Voronca, and Sașa Pană. Inspired by the more senior poet Ion Vinea, the group stated its allegiance to Constructivism, and published in Vinea's Contimporanul.Cernat, p. 151; Sandqvist, pp. 354, 363 Together with Voronca and Brauner, Roll edited 75 H.P. magazine, which appeared for one number in October 1924.Sandqvist, pp. 220, 357, 387 Later, he and Voronca joined Scarlat Callimachi's Punct.Sandqvist, pp. 363, 389 He signed his articles with his birth name, and his poetry as Stephan Roll, a pen name he allegedly picked up at random from a Swiss magazine, after noting that he was the only non-pseudonymous writer of his intimate circle.
Dinu worked as an editor for Integral magazine (1925–1928), where he also made his debut as a film critic, alongside Benjamin Fondane and Ion Călugăru.Cernat, p. 286 While visiting Câmpina in 1927, Roll met the aspiring poet Geo Bogza, who had read his Contimporanul pieces, and helped him to launch another avant-garde periodical, UrmuzBadea, pp. 30–31 (to which he also contributed).Sandqvist, pp. 218, 372–373 They were joined in Bucharest by the draftsman Jules Perahim, who was aged fifteen at the time,Fauchereau, p. 18 and later also by Sandu Eliad and M. H. Maxy. Alexandru Mica, "'Mario, ce-ar fi să lași revista și să te apuci de cântat cântece populare?'. Centenar Maria Tănase (25 septembrie 1913 – 22 iunie 1963). Sandu Eliad în dialog cu Alexandru Mica", in Cultura, Nr. 439, September 2013
From 1928 to 1932, Roll edited the magazine unu, and, according to Pană, was the "quicksilver"-like animator of its literary club. However, he also wrote for Meridian and Facla. By 1930, he and his unu colleagues had signed up to international Surrealism, and were especially interested in cultivating its automatic writing technique.Crohmălniceanu, pp. 70, 74 As noted by Pană, Roll took this affiliation seriously, spontaneously experimenting with absurdist humor. He "very seriously" recounted stories of pseudo-zoology to an audience of fellow tram riders, insisting that giraffes owed their elongated necks to a diet of drain spouts. Michäel Finkenthal, "Ce s-a întîmplat cu 'algiștii' în 1933?", in Apostrof, Nr. 1/2007 During that episode, unu hosted outsider literature by Petre Poppescu, a psychiatric inmate, as well as cut-out obituaries from the mainstream press.Călinescu, p. 889 Also featured were drawings by Brauner with captions by Roll, such as their posthumous homage to Serafina, Roll's she-dog,Crohmălniceanu, p. 67 whom he had trained to lash out at conformist authors who happened to be visiting Enache's dairy. Iulian Andrei Crăciun, "O doamnă cât un secol. Timpul și Margareta", in Adevărul, March 2, 2012 His defense of the avant-garde led him to publish passionate pieces in defense of Bogza, who was facing trial for his highly erotic collection, Jurnal de sex, a "simulated hymn of voluptuousness and shamelessness, of a sadistic dairy, of spasm and organic inebriation". Mircea Popa, "Geo Bogza, insurgentul", in Familia, Nr. 11–12/2005
Communist schism According to scholar Paul Cernat, Roll and Pană publicized their "superficial adhesion" to Surrealism only because it provided expression to their dreams of political revolution. Cernat notes the same for two other unu writers, Miron Radu Paraschivescu and Claude Sernet.Cernat, p. 244 Already during the 1930 Bogza trial, Roll drew parallels between the calls for artistic censorship and the rise of fascism. Soon, the unu group severed its links with Vinea and Contimporanul: the latter was becoming more mainstream, more eclectic, and more tolerant of "reactionary" figures such as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Sandu Tudor, and Mihail Sebastian.Cernat, pp. 174–178, 221–222, 229, 237–238, 241–244 In unu, Vinea was attacked as an "Old Man", his Constructivism denounced as opportunistic and "utilitarian".Cernat, pp. 242–243 The group won a victory over Vinea by obtaining foreign support: Roll published in Der Sturm an introduction to Romanian Surrealism, followed by samples from Bogza, Fondane, Pană, and other poets. Reportedly, the moderate Der Sturm had to insist that unu radicals grant it this favor.Cernat, pp. 221–222
For his closeness to the banned Romanian Communist Party (PCdR), Roll was under constant Siguranța surveillance.Boia, pp. 87–88 Răzvan Voncu, "Integrala Stephan Roll, la o nouă ediție", in România Literară, Nr. 1–2/2015 He opened the magazine to PCdR cadres, publishing a book of poems by Ion Vitner, which was swiftly confiscated by the authorities. Roll had a difficult relationship with his nominal protege Bogza, offering him advice that Bogza ignored. The dairy shop went bankrupt and was eventually sold to another Bulgarian family, allegedly because Dinu supplied free meals to destitute clients.
Over the following months, Romanian Surrealism suffered a crisis, as the left-wing faction sought to expel the apolitical ones from its ranks. By 1931, Roll was writing in unu open praises to "robust life" in the Soviet Union, contrasting its five-year plans with the Great Depression.Crohmălniceanu, p. 72 Soon after, Roll made a decisive contribution to excluding Voronca from the unu group for publishing a collection with an "official" press and applying for membership in the Romanian Writers' Society.Cernat, pp. 243–244 He then attacked Surrealism itself: "yesterday's metaphysics", he noted in unu, "must be channeled into present-day scientific materialism". In his letters of the period, Voronca noted that Roll worked to destroy his and Bogza's reputation, drawing Pană closer to his communist circle. Răzvan Voncu, "În actualitate, avangarda interbelică", in România Literară, Nr. 46/2012 Bogza, meanwhile, sided with Voronca, which led to a definitive split. At the time, Roll also publicized his love for Marxism in his letters to the Fondane, reproaching him his "lack of a firm stance" and "refuge in an unreal world". In an early 1933 article for Cuvântul Liber, Roll expressed his support for Louis Aragon, calling Surrealism a "false avant-garde" as long as it did not tap into "the anarchic economic structure of society".Crohmălniceanu, p. 167
Between Cuvântul Liber and Reporter In December 1932, Pană put out a final, suicidal, issue of unu.Călinescu, p. 891 Roll, who remained close friends with the avant-garde reporter F. Brunea-Fox, went on to edit the newspapers Adevărul and Dimineața. From 1934 to 1938, he also put out Cuvântul Liber, signing up to the Amicii URSS society, which was a front for the PCdR.Cioroianu (1998), p. 59; (2005), p. 114 In his own definition, Cuvântul Liber stood for "the progressive left during those years of fascist exacerbation".Beke, pp. 137–138 However, Răzvan Voncu claims that, going far beyond the antifascist commitment of his unu colleagues, Roll established links with the Soviet espionage and acted as their agent of influence. PCdR records show that he was viewed with suspicion, a "fractionist" who supposedly wanted the party leadership purged of its non-Romanian cadres. Ion Pop, "Între revoluție și revelație", in Tribuna, Nr. 137, May 2008, pp. 9–10
In 1934, following a clampdown on Iron Guard fascism and the PCdR alike, Roll complained to Fondane that "all publications are now being sieved through military censorship." During that year, he wrote in support of the communist unionists who were on trial for the Grivița railway strike,Crohmălniceanu, p. 162 working with the International Red Aid and enlisting support from intellectuals such as Alexandru Ciucurencu and Jószef Meliusz.Beke, pp. 143–144 He also made occasional returns to cultural polemics, issuing a political critique of the Contimporanul artist Marcel Janco, Geo Șerban, "Ascensiunea lui Dolfi Trost", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 576, May 2011 and, befriending folklorist Harry Brauner, was among the first to hear and encourage Maria Tănase, who became Romania's leading recording star.
Around 1936, a card-carrying member of the PCdR, Dinu involved himself in rallies supporting jailed communists Iorgu Iordan and Petre Constantinescu-Iași. Pavel Țugui, "George Ivașcu, cronicar de război, la ziarul Vremea (1941-1944). I", in România Literară, Nr. 17/2013 He was also a contributor to N. D. Cocea's Era Nouă, a PCdR-backed review, introducing the public to revolutionary works by Geo Milev.Crohmălniceanu, pp. 154–155 He later joined Cocea's Reporter magazine, where he contributed the film column, written from a Marxist and anti-consumerist perspective.Crohmălniceanu, p. 158 In 1936, he and Paraschivescu were guest editors at Korunk, the Hungaro–Romanian Marxist review founded by László Dienes, publishing therein his essay on "The Formation of Romanian Intellectuals", and contributions by Tudor Arghezi, Belu Zilber, Ghiță Ionescu, Stoian Gh. Tudor, and Alexandru Sahia.Beke, pp. 137, 138–143