The status of the Romanian literary avant-garde after 2000: from marginalization to recovery

Abstract

The present paper proposes a theoretical approach related to the critical reception of the Romanian literary avant-garde after 2000, a literary phenomenon in‑between marginalization and recovery tendencies. Starting from interwar critical studies from Romania (E. Lovinescu, G. Călinescu, etc.), with predominantly negative perspectives regarding the critical reception of the avant-garde, we will observe how certain clichés of the reception of the phenomenon, seen as “extremist”, as marginal, were perpetuated, with the “barrier” of the apparently impossible literary canonization. After 2000, however, literary studies discuss the historicization of the avant-garde phenomenon, which therefore became canonical in Romanian literary history. However, several elements of the “niche” avant-garde remained in the subsidiary, in the “shadow”. This is what we call the marginal(ized), the secondary avant-garde, which includes a series of less known and researched avant-garde writers, but who contributed to the complex shaping of the avant-garde imaginary.

We will analyse several types of works published after 2000, in order to highlight the complexity of the avant-garde, under constant recovery: literary anthologies (Ion Pop, Nicolae Bârna), avant-garde dictionaries (Lucian Pricop, Dan Grigorescu), several critical studies after 2000 (Ion Bogdan Lefter, Ovidiu Morar, Emilia Drogoreanu, Paul Cernat, Dan Gulea, Emanuel Modoc, Delia Ungureanu, Daniel Clinci, Petre Răileanu, Gabriela Glăvan, Ion Pop, etc.). Many of them focus on the recovery trends of some forgotten writers, with the possibility of their inclusion in the central, canonical avant-garde, while other studies pursue new research methodologies, such as the avant-garde seen in a transnational context, in world literature context, etc.

An issue that we develop in the context of this extended future research, which is also highlighted upon in the present work, is that of post-Urmuz epigonism within Romanian literary avant-garde, a fact that explains the placement of many writers in the sphere of critical marginalization. Thus, many texts by less researched writers are forgotten, being always associated with the central avant-garde models, especially Urmuz, but also Tristan Tzara or other influential writers within the central avant‑garde groups. It is precisely this problem that made us analyse the way in which the writers who are part of the marginal dimension of the avant-garde are recovered through contemporary literary studies from Romania.