Tașcu Gheorghiu (29 September 1910 – 17 October 1981) was a Romanian writer and visual artist. The scion of an Aromanian-and-Greek family from Constanța, he had a secluded childhood and adolescence—practicing bohemianism and decadent art upon discovering Mateiu Caragiale as his lifelong literary inspiration. He integrated for a while with the Romanian avant-garde scene, publishing the short-lived magazine Liceu, where his colleagues included Virgil Teodorescu. Gheorghiu's accomplished short prose, heavily inspired by Urmuz, announced him as a major talent, but he quit literature abruptly within months of his debut; he stuck to Teodorescu's surrealist group in Bucharest, but only as an animator and illustrator, and, like some of the surrealists, also adopted leftist stances and collaborated with the outlawed Romanian Communist Party. Though improvident and hampered by his lifestyle choices, he eventually obtained a philosophy degree from the University of Bucharest.
Gheorghiu's politics swung to the right during the final stages of World War II, when he came to resent the Soviet occupation. The communist regime formed in 1948 allowed him to publish in its press, but official censors kept watch over his output, rightfully suspecting him of disloyalty. At the onset of de-Stalinization in the late 1950s, he was allowed to publish translations of non-political Western literature, including the forerunners of the decadent style, infusing them with his own stylistic choices—in turn shaped by Caragiale's distinct language. He contributed to the national corpus of Shakespearean translations, with the first-ever Romanian rendition of Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1962). Gheorghiu was also rendered famous by his take on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Leopard (1964). In tandem, he was also rediscovered as a draftsman, his sketches taken up by some of the leading Romanian magazines.
A hero to young bohemians of the 1960s, Gheorghiu maintained a highly unusual schedule, with days spent in restaurants and sleepless work-nights; his material excesses clashed with his poverty, as until 1970 he was confined to a one-room apartment with no plumbing. His fame was increased in the late 1970s, when he published complete illustrated versions of the Chants de Maldoror and the Season in Hell. He died shortly after his 71st birthday, just as his own avant-garde prose was being rediscovered and popularized by scholars of the movement. His translations continued to be published, as was his correspondence with Gelu Voican Voiculescu (the latter being for a while misidentified as surrealist Gellu Naum).
Biography Rebellious youth Gheorghiu was born in Constanța on 29 September 1910. His parents were Aromanians, recently arrived as settlers from the Kingdom of Greece.C. Popescu, p. 937 Tașcu, who tended to describe himself in terms borrowed from Mateiu Caragiale, and as such bookish or self-aggrandizing, once indicated that his ethnic heritage was at least partly Greek, and claimed that his family had aristocratic tastes (if not also aristocratic origins).Constantin Olariu, "Boema anilor '55—'70", in România Literară, Issues 51–52/1995, p. 12 A novelist friend, Pericle Martinescu, similarly mentioned Tașcu's Hellenic origins, also recounting that his "more distant" relatives included a military man, Mihai Gheorghiu, whose father once owned Constanța's Regal Hotel.Pericle Martinescu, Jurnal intermitent, pp. 325–326, 334–335. Constanța: Ex Ponto, 2001.
By his own account, Tașcu was lonesome as a child, and inclined to daydream—blaming the Black Sea and Constanța's "harrowing beauty" for his disposition.Dorin Tudoran, "Biografia debuturilor. Invitatul nostru: Tașcu Gheorghiu. 'Acum, cînd intru cu mîinile-n ceață, pot spune, cu toată umilința și modestia: sînt plin de poezie!'", in Luceafărul, Vol. XVIII, Issue 40, October 1975, pp. 3–4 The young man graduated from the local Mircea cel Bătrân High School,C. Popescu, p. 937 taking his Romanian baccalaureate in July 1929."Rezultatul Bacalaureatului", in Dobrogea Jună, 14 July 1929, p. 1 At age sixteen, he had read Caragiale's breakthrough decadent novel, Craii de Curtea-Veche, and had been amazed by it. Going through the rest of his life as a Caragiale aficionado, he knew the text almost by heart; he only met the author once in his life, introduced to him by another novelist, Anton Holban.Papuc & Gheorghiu, p. 52 He was by then imitating the book's eccentric characters, and, before the age of twenty, was only rarely seen awake in daytime.Ștefan Stoian, "Elegie la cel furat de farmec", in Luceafărul, Vol. XXX, Issue 24, June 1987, p. 6 The other heroes of his adolescence were the Comte de Lautréamont and a local poet-mathematician, Ion Barbu.
Gheorghiu's own literary and editorial debut was in 1932: alongside Virgil Teodorescu and Mircea Pavelescu, he published the Constanța magazine Liceu. It also featured his first stories, that he signed as "Șuly"; written in an avant-garde vein that showed strong influences from Urmuz's prose.C. Popescu, pp. 937–938 The fragment called Unghi ("Angle") was later rediscovered by literary historian Matei Călinescu as a "strange and intense" masterpiece of the blossoming avant-garde movement.Călinescu, p. 116 Young Gheorghiu enlisted at the University of Bucharest, where he was colleagues with Martinescu and scholar Ion Ureche, but continued to live in Constanța, at Principesa Ileana Boulevard 25, to at least 1935.Nicolae Scurtu, "Restituiri. Întregiri la biografia lui Tașcu Gheorghiu", in România Literară, Issue 34/2011, p. 14 During his studies, he also rented a one-room apartment Broșteanu Street, by Dorobanți. Only fitted with a wood-burning stove, with a squat toilet on the outside, it remained his only home in Bucharest for more than thirty years.
Gheorghiu had ended his engagement with "what they call literature" after Liceus two-issues run, entering what Călinescu describes as a phase of "impenetrable and definitive silence." According to the same commentator, this was the ultimate evolution of artistic denialism, as practiced by the avant-garde, and a logical consequence of Urmuz's message; as such, Gheorghiu was "the most steadfast and self-reliant of our avant-garde writers".Călinescu, pp. 116–117 However, he still contributed to opinion journalism. A man of left-wing convictions, he collaborated with reportage pieces in Bucharest's Reporter for much of the 1930s.C. Popescu, p. 938 Like his friends Teodorescu and Paul Păun, he adopted programmatic surrealism, describing himself as a follower of André Breton's. However, he insisted that his surrealist contribution was mainly in the visual field, with a large number of drawings that he intentionally destroyed (though "some have escaped this fate"). His friend Constantin Olariu similarly reports that Gheorghiu's surrealist years were spent "doodling on the corners of some tables", revealing only him only as a "conformist cadger".
In March 1935, Gheorghiu signed up to a letter of protest by "the Christian students", demanding a clampdown on the antisemitic Iron Guard, and official protection for his Jewish colleagues; the list of signatures also included Teodorescu, Constanța Crăciun, Gellu Naum, and Miron Radu Paraschivescu."Un protest al studenților creștini împotriva agresiunilor", in Facla, 12 March 1935, p. 3 In May of the following year, he helped draft a protest against Constanța's authorities, after these had rounded up militants of the outlawed Romanian Communist Party (PCR or PCdR) and Dobrujan Revolutionary Organization. This activity drew attention from the far-right daily, Porunca Vremii, who laughed him off as a pseudo-intellectual and an agent of communist subversion, believing that his only diploma was with the Commercial Academy.Const. Cărpinișanu, "'Intelectualii' constănțeni și comuniștii bulgari din Cadrilater", in Porunca Vremii, 16 May 1936, p. 3 Around then, Teodorescu and Gheorghiu had become occasional contributors to Ogorul newspaper, put out by the National Peasants' Party in Constanța County. Historian Stoica Lascu believed that they did so as cadres of the PCR or of its Union of Communist Youth, which had friendly relations with Peasantist left.Stoica Lascu, "Prezentarea presei locale interbelice în cadrul Muzeului de istorie națională și arheologie din Constanța (II)", in Revista Muzeelor și Monumentelor. Muzee, Issue 2/1979, p. 49 In Ogorul, Gheorghiu objected to the youth's "continuous fascization", proposing instead a rally around "democracy, constitutional liberties, [and] peace."
Surrealism and post-surrealism
After struggling to complete courses in sociology (with Dimitrie Gusti) and pedagogy, Gheorghiu ultimately took a bachelor's degree in philosophy. For a while, he pursued a terminal degree, but gave up on the project; in old age, he refused to comment on the failure of his studies. In 1938, he was being kept under watch by the Siguranța agency, which monitored dissent in the Kingdom of Romania; its agents suspected that, like Teodorescu and Păun, he was working for the PCR.Michäel Finkenthal, "Intersecții. Gherasim Luca și Virgil Teodorescu (II)", in Observator Cultural, Vol. XX, Issue 970, May 2019, p. 20 He was still keeping company with the militant avant-garde after the outbreak of World War II: in early 1940, he joined Păun and other surrealists in their conflict with a former ally, Zaharia Stancu, reaffirming their group loyalties with a party in Bucharest; its other guests were Teodorescu, Maria Banuș, Constantin Ionescu Gulian, and Jules Perahim.Geo Șerban, "Soluția ludică", in Observator Cultural, Vol. XII, Issue 318, May–June 2011, p. 15 During a Nazi-aligned rule by Ion Antonescu, Gheorghiu also maintained contacts with his various leftist friends, Romanian as well as Jewish. Paraschivescu attested his presence during an October 1942 gathering at Bucharest's Café de la Paix, which was particularly lively. Other attendees included Perahim, Geo Dumitrescu, Virgil Ierunca, Gherasim Luca, Dolfi Trost, as well as the non-communist Mircea Streinul.Cristian Livescu, "Centenar Gherasim Luca, poetul mistuit de 'iubirea mereu reinventată' (II)", in Convorbiri Literare, August 2013, p. 77
Gheorghiu himself remembered eventually taking his distance from the surrealist cell, indicating that the reasons for this were non-ideological, and the terms amiable. During the final stages of World War II, he also became critical of communism. In 1944, he was in Constanța. Here, he caught news of an anti-fascist coup and the start Soviet occupation, immediately followed by rumors that a local vendor, Pascalide, had been arrested for unlawful speculation. In later years, Gheorghiu still remembered the newspaper hawker's commentary, adopting his expression, ie dă rău ("things be bad"), as a descriptor for the country's subsequent communization.Șerban Foarță, "Softul român. Cassandra din Tomis", in Observator Cultural, Vol. XIV, Issue 428, August 2013, p. 24 He was finally in contact with Barbu, who was likewise involved in cultivating Caragiale's legacy—he credited the more senior poet as his only living teacher, through whom he got to understand classics such as Mihai Eminescu. Around 1947, Barbu made him "secretary in perpetuity" of the Mateiu Caragiale Club,Papuc & Gheorghiu, pp. 52, 54–55 formed by him at Casa Capșa restaurant. This gave the young man nominal authority over other Caragiale exegetes, including Marcel Breslașu, Oscar Lemnaru, and Alexandru Rosetti.Carmen Drăgan, "Pentru mateini și nu numai. Craii... sau permanenta actualitate a lumii lui Gore Pirgu", in Jurnalul Național, 29 April 2009, p. 7 Gheorghiu was always proud of having been dedicated one of Barbu's short poems, in which he was described as "the perpetual nobleman".Dan Ciachir, "ABC. Tașcu Gheorghiu", in Săptămîna, 23 October 1981, p. 3