An Infamous Past: E.M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania

by Marta Petreu, Bogdan Aldea (Translator), Norman Manea (Foreword by)

A writer who does stupid things in his youth is like a woman with a shameful past―never forgiven, never forgotten. E. M. Cioran, the renowned Romanian-French nihilist philosopher and literary figure, knew this better than anyone. Alongside Heidegger, Sartre, Paul de Mann, and others, Cioran was one of the great scholars of the twentieth century to be seduced by he experienced a most disturbing intellectual and moral drama. More than any other study of Cioran, Marta Petreu's intensive investigation of his life and work confronts the central problem of his 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. In an incendiary book published in the mid-thirties, Cioran openly praised Hitler and Lenin and compared the leader of the fanatical Romanian Iron Guard to Jesus himself. This book, The Transfiguration of Romania , is the focal element of Ms. Petreu's analysis, which she carries on to Cioran's posthumously published Notebooks , characterized by the regret and remorse of his twilight years. In straightforward and lucid prose, grounded in a wealth of documentary evidence, she provides the entire history of a painful individual and collective drama. For many of Cioran's yearnings would later be realized in Ceausescu's dictatorship of Romania―to the regret of the Romanian people. Norman Manea's Foreword reminds us of Cioran's stature in Western intellectual circles and explains the critical importance of An Infamous Past .

Genres: Biography, Philosophy, Romania

348 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 2005

About the author

Marta Petreu is the pen name of Rodica Marta Vartic, née Rodica Crisan (born March 14, 1955 in Jucu), a Romanian philosopher, literary critic, essayist and poet. A professor of Philosophy at the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, she has published eight books of essays and seven of poetry, and is the editor of the monthly magazine Apostrof. Petreu is also noted as a historian of fascism, which she notably dealt with in her book about the controversial stances of philosopher Emil Cioran (An Infamous Past: E. M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania, 1999).

Reviews

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first came across Cioran by reading "On the Heights of Despair" in college. I loved it. I felt like for the first time I was encountering someone who also had a bad penchant for cosmic pessimism. It was cathartic to read angst-ridden rants while being depressed over Heidegger's Being and Time. So, I read several of Cioran's other books. Not as biting, but I was still interested and wanted to learn more. At the time, I started researching the "conservative revolutionaries" of the 1930s -- thinkers like Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Stefan George, Ernst Jünger, et al., and I started to notice some affinities between the themes in Cioran and these thinkers. Eventually the darkness got a bit annoying and started to seem really hackneyed. It eventually clicked: yeah, Cioran basically makes all the same points as the fascists. He goes on and on about how mythos and emotion and irrational drives trump reason or logos, how the nation must come first and have an imperialist drive to crush other nations, how sacrifice for a higher cause is awesome, and all the other clichés. I started to get really annoyed by the way he refuses to actually dig into a subject and reflect on it, but usually only offers fleeting metaphors and parables. Some say this is great style, but it hardly helps get to the core of any subject.

So, eventually I came across Marta Petreu's book and decided to check it out.

On the one hand, this book certainly points out Cioran's right-wing affinities. However, the author constantly fails to really get what the essence of nationalism, fascism, or anti-Semitism is about. Instead, one gets these tepid attempts to claim that Cioran was "subtle" and "not really an anti-Semite." The killer evidence is that, to paraphrase, "Cioran, even though he says negative things about jews, also says positive things." Positive racism is still racism. On his death bed, Cioran says, "I...am...not...anti-Semitic!" The same kind of thing goes on with Nationalism: the author acts as if disappointed nationalists who only say negative things about their nation are somehow still not nationalists. On the other hand, the author points to where Cioran had affinities with "left-wingers." So, Cioran liked Lenin and the fact that the soviets pursued "social equality." He goes on about how he supports the permanent-revolution, but it has to be national. The book just goes around in circles comparing Cioran's positions to others in an endless commentary, attempting to show how Cioran didn't exactly fit in with the fascists, but was oh-so original.

I suspect behind all the confusion lies these obnoxious thesis about left and right extremism going in a circle, both meeting, and how both are totalitarian. Of course, being totalitarian, they "aren't democracy." With this brilliant observation, one learns nothing about fascism, communism, or democracy. I absolutely hate when she talks about Marxism. It's just totally ignorant, but then so is Cioran's conceptions of Marxism which are all filtered through far-right sources. That's all irritating. The book really should have been edited down to about 150 pages. As someone else noted, Cioran really is a broken record.

All in all, the book kind of sucked and was annoying to read.

[Don Janssen]

When a student I had a friend who, although claiming to be an anarchist, sometimes voiced his admiration for the late French president, Général de Gaulle. When I said him that this seemed somewhat contradictory, he was honest enough to admit that he probably just claimed absolute freedom for himself (==> anarchism) while for others a strong leader might be more appropriate. Something like this seems to have been the position of the young E.M.Cioran as well.

Marta Petreu's book about Cioran's 'Infamous Past' contains several (verbatim) repetitions, which seems to suggest that it consists of originally separately published essays that were put together in a single book. A good thing though is the very detailed chronology of Cioran's life. Readers not familiar with Romania's history between the two world wars might be well advised to read this chronology first.
The book focuses around Cioran's book 'Schimbarea la față a României' (The Transfiguration of Romania), published in 1936. It gives a description of the book, the intellectual influences that acted upon Cioran, and how he looked back, later in life when he lived in France, on what he had written during the years 1933-1937.
Once of these influences was Oswald Spengler's 'Untergang des Abendlandes'. Another influence (or circumstance) was the Iron Guard movement.

In your youth you have to be fiery, Cioran once wrote. There was the 'Generation of 1927': the idealistic youngsters, who didn't want to get involved in politics, and preferred 'spiritual matters'. E.M. Cioran had a comparable mindset. Then, around 1933, the group gets involved in politics, adhering to the Iron Guard, the right-wing, nationalistic movement, that over the years became more and more violent. It acted under a Christian inspiration (hence its former name: 'Legion of the Archangel Michael'), which is surely what attracted the members of the 'Generation of 1927'. Cioran is in Germany in 1933/4, and writes very enthusiastic reports about the Hitler regime, and declares himself in favour of tyranny, something that also for Romania would be the best 'solution'.

Solution for what? one might ask. The young Cioran was highly dissatisfied with Romania, its (lack of) culture, its (lack of) history. He has harsh remarks about his fellow compatriots (which the author, Marta Petreu, sometimes seems to appreciate). Cioran was obsessive in his 'love' for his country; it maddened him to see that Romania was such an insignificant country, or rather, that he himself was born in such a country. He looked around for a drastic solution.

I think we can partly pinpoint here one explanation for the switch the 'Generation 1927' made. When you are dissatisfied with what you see around you in daily life, a dismissal of politics and focus on 'higher', spiritual matters is a way out. But when the feeling of dissatisfaction remains, resorting to support for radical, violent, political change is then another option: the basic dissatisfaction is the same, just as is the impatience, the all-or-nothing attitude.

Cioran's thoughts have never been quite the same as the doctrine of the Iron Guard. In his view their nationalism was reactionary, in the sense that they always looked at the past, never at the future. And while he supported the view that Romania ought to imitate the West in order to advance, the Legionnaires abhorred such a view. But he did send his book to Codreanu, the leader of the Iron Guard, hoping for a positive reaction. But the reaction wasn't positive, and this may have brought Cioran (back) to his non-political attitude. Nevertheless, Cioran's political views were pretty nasty. Marta Petreu sometimes aptly invokes Ceauşescu, who in fact did 'transfigure' Romania, and we all know what came from that. She has also put together a 'constructed confession', consisting of all Cioran's sayings in which he looks back on the opinions of his youth, and tries to explain them. Looking back, he called it a 'collective hallucination'.

[Matthew W · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has pretty much every fact and detail one would want to know in relation to Cioran's short relationship with the Iron Guard. Cioran went into self-imposed exile due to his "embarrassment" in regard to his brief youthful political aspirations. Essentially, Cioran's philosophy was never in tune with Codreanu and the Iron Guard (aside from his deserve for a rejuvenated Romania). For example, while the Iron Guard saw Jews as eternal inferiors, Cioran saw them as eternal superiors. Naturally, ultra-pessimist-priest Cioran was put off by the Christian mysticism of the Iron Guard as well. Interestingly, although Cioran's politics were largely inspired by the works of Oswald Spengler, he still remained a Spenglerian during his post-fascist years.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

E. Cioran will always be remembered as a rabid anti-Semite and an ardent supporter of Hitler. In fact, Cioran saw Hitler as the Messiah, Thus he wrote:"If I were a Jew, I would kill myself". He was the product of the gutter of Romanian history of the 1930-1940s, when the Iron Guard criminals were the masters of Romania, until Codreanu and his fellows were stopped and killed following the orders of King Carol the 2nd.
All the efforts invested by this monster-like philosopher to recant and "regret" his words and deeds before WW2 should NOT be taken seriously. His twisted mind , like those minds of many of his intellectual friends,took over his writings and he will always be remembered as one of the most ridiculous and pernicious people who have ever populated this planet. One of those friends, Mircea Eliade, has never regretted his past. But Cioran's break with his past is NOT to be believed at all.
Romania was and still is a corrupt, rotten and anti-Semitic,xenophobic country and one should not be surprised that many people in Western Europe regard Romanians as the Zigeuner of Europe.

[Simon Brass · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love his works, I love studying totalitatianism but..