The directory «Plots»

Călinescu George
(1899—1965)

George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, writer and journalist, one of the outstanding figures of Romanian letters of 20th century. He was born in Bucharest, where he later went to university studying Italian, but much of his formative years were spent in Iaşi. He moved between these two centres for much of his life, as he gained his Ph. D. in Iaşi and lectured at the university there before becoming a professor at Bucharest University in 1945. Mostly remembered for his History of Romanian Literature from its origins to nowadays, an exhaustive review of Romanian authors and literary currents, he also published studies on major Romanian writers such as Eminescu, Creangǎ, Filimon, Alecsandri. In his novels he adopted a Balzac-inspired realism, celebrated in his Enigma Otliliei (The secret of Otilia), acid picture of inter-bellum Bucharest small-bourgeoisie. At the beginning of Communist regime, Călinescu, as many other university professors, was banned from the University. Director of an obscure Romanian Instutute of Literary Theory and Folk Studies, he regained public stature only during the post-stalinist decade. Accommodating the socialist propaganda, he was rehabilitated few years before his death and eventually honored as the most important figure of Romanian literary critics.

Rumania, 1999, George Călinescu