From Publishers Weekly
Romanian poet, philosopher and editor Petreu shows in this dense but fresh work that many Romanian intellectuals were seduced by fascist ideology during the interwar years—and that philosopher Cioran, an "aphorist of humorous despair," was haunted by this legacy for the rest of his life. Petreu details the ultranationalist, pro-Christian ideology of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, a movement of intellectuals that gained prominence in Romania after WWI. As with many ideologies of the era, Petreu writes, anti-Semitism lay at the movement's core. Cioran's own ideology, rooted in the wish to turn Romania's "depressing present into a grandiose future," included a more complex view of Jews, outlined in his 1936
The Transfiguration of Romania. He envied what he saw as Jewish productivity in government, business and the arts. But Petreu shows how his outlook, adapted from Spengler, also necessitated hostility toward Jews and other non-Romanians. Cioran left Romania after WWII and became ashamed of his earlier fascism, but Petreu mines his life for lessons to be learned today about how good intentions can lead to extremism.
(Nov. 4) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
More than any other study of Cioran, Marta Petreu's intensive investigation of his life and work confronts the central problem of his biography: his relationship with political extremism. The scene of Cioran's excesses is Romania and Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, a time of xenophobia, anti-Semitism, racism, Nazism, and Stalinism. Norman Manea's Foreword reminds us of Cioran's stature in Western intellectual circles and explains the critical importance of An Infamous Past.
