Starting with 1869, when Eminescu was 20 years old and studying in Vienna, and until 1883, when the first signs of the disease can be seen, we can see several stages in his life. He was an active man, involved in the civic construction of his country, whether he was a student in Vienna (1869 - 1872) or Berlin (1872-1874), librarian, auditor and school inspector (1874-1876), journalist at the newspaper Timpul , in Bucharest (1876-1883). During all these periods, the poet showed a genuine interest in the development and modernization of Romania.
Mihai Eminescu's contribution to the awakening and education of national feelings is impressive. He showed ardent patriotism, conscience, work, generosity, militating for the cultural unity of all Romanians. He served the general interests of the country not only through the pen.
It is no less true since 1989, M. Eminescu's journalism was accused of xenophobia and ethnocentrism. In the writings of Leon Volovici and Ruxandra Cesereanu are pertinent arguments in this regard, but without a presentation of the national and European historical context, which would have revealed anti-Semitic currents in Western countries with which we often compare, just to highlight the gaps. Without eluding these aspects, we want to show, through this article, what Eminescu did very well in the public space. The modernity of the poet, which could be compared to the European cultural personalities of his time, is not only related to the field of literature. Eminescu was modern also by his exigency in relation to the Romanian society and institutions of the time. The merit of the “unparalleled poet” (G. Călinescu) for having tried, through his personal conduct and the printed word, to promote the dignity and awakening of the nation cannot be disputed.
As he received money, he bought books
On August 14-16, 1871, on the initiative of Romanian students studying in Vienna, the 400th anniversary of the construction of the Putna Monastery by Stefan cel Mare was celebrated in Bucovina and the first student Congress of Romanians everywhere was organized. The great event had among the organizers Mihai Eminescu together with Ioan Slavici. Among the participants were intellectuals with authority in the public space, a bridge between the glorious past (Stephen the Great, whose remains were buried at the Putna Monastery), the recent past - The Revolution of 1848 (M. Kogălniceanu and Vasile Alecsandri participated in the event) - and future - students, the generation that will prepare the Great Union of 1918. It is rightly considered that the orientation of efforts towards preserving the identity of nation, language and faith will keep the Romanian consciousness awake from the Kingdom of Romania and the Romanian territories under foreign dominions: Transylvania, Bucovina and Bessarabia. Therefore, the aim was to create a close bond between young people in the country and abroad. The festive speech, which was given by the historian A.D. Xenopol, the one who, in that year, had just returned from Berlin with two doctorates - in Law, respectively Philosophical -, was chosen from several proposals by T. Maiorescu, V. Alecsandri, I. Negruzzi and V. Pogor.
In order to understand more clearly the role of Mihai Eminescu at this event, we must redo the poet's school career. When he left Chernivtsi for Vienna he had managed to finish only two middle school classes (due to lack of material means - Eminescu was the seventh child out of 11 -, he dropped out of school, deciding to prepare for private exams), being forced to repeat the two. However, Mihai Eminescu had a solid culture in his favorite disciplines: literature, history and philosophy. His passion was reading, reading in German and then in French in the original. In school, like so many other humanist intellectuals, he had no desire for mathematics. Years later, when he is preoccupied with scientific problems, he will confess that the way of teaching based on memory, and not on judgment, made him hate mathematics and that without adequate knowledge of this discipline it is impossible to decipher the universe.
 |
| The school where Eminescu studied in Cernauti between 1858-1860 |
The atmosphere in which Eminescu begins to develop and become aware of his own identity, ie at the age of 10-12, is marked by the lessons of his beloved teacher from the gymnasium in Chernivtsi, Aron Pumnul, and by the Romanian books of literature and history. national library of his master. Aron Pumnul, born in Braşov, with studies in philosophy in Cluj and theology in Vienna, following the participation in the Revolution of 1848 in Transylvania, is forced to take refuge in Chernivtsi. This is the environment in which those beliefs and attitudes were formed and developed for the future poet that will later feed the feeling of duty and sensitivity to the cultural and social problems of the country.
The atmosphere in which Eminescu begins to develop and become aware of his own identity, at the age of 10-12, is marked by the lessons of his beloved teacher from the gymnasium in Chernivtsi, Aron Pumnul, and by the Romanian books of literature and history, national library of his master. Aron Pumnul, born in Braşov, with studies in philosophy in Cluj and theology in Vienna, following the participation in the Revolution of 1848 in Transylvania, is forced to take refuge in Chernivtsi. This is the environment in which those beliefs and attitudes were formed and developed for the future poet that will later feed the feeling of duty and sensitivity to the cultural and social problems of the country.
Sent by his father to Vienna in 1869 and not having a baccalaureate, Eminescu enrolled at the university as an auditor in Philosophy, but also attended other courses. He met Slavici, who was pursuing both his military service and the courses of the Faculty of Law. And here Eminescu read a lot. Slavici says of him that “he was therefore acquainted with the new publications, and with the old books found in the antique shops. At the same time, he wanted to read to you in public, and he didn't go to public libraries. As soon as he received the money from home, he bought books and for a few days no one saw him during his student years in Vienna, in the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire could meet Romanian students from the Romanian provinces, which were, at that time, under foreign dominions, mainly from Transylvania, Banat, Bucovina. Unlike Eminescu, many of these young people could speak very little in their mother tongue. As a result, the degree of cohesion between them was not very high either. There were also two student societies (the Social Scientific Student Society "Romania and the Literary and Scientific Society of Romanians in Vienna", with a small activity on the national field. Eminescu joins both. In addition to these students, Eminescu also comes with an experience of knowing the Romanian realities in several areas. Before arriving in Vienna, in the years 1866-1869, the future poet was a young man in Iorgu Caragiali's troupe, then secretary in Mihai Pascaly's band. The pilgrimages took him from Chernivtsi to Blaj, Sibiu, Giurgiu and Bucharest.
Good faith and dexterity
Most of the information about the Putna celebrations, which come to illustrate the way Eminescu reacted in everyday life, bringing to the fore another facet of his complex personality, usually stereotyped only in the image of a poet romantic and always in love, come from Ioan Slavici's Memoirs: “Eminescu was not among the initiators of the celebration, but the idea of the congress from him started and the celebration would not have been made if he had not insisted any price for the congress to be possible. Knowing him as a poet, even many of those who knew him personally learned to take him as an inaccessible dreamer for his daily preoccupations. But so he was only regarding his existence; when it came to the pains of the Romanian people, he burned in an unquenchable fire and became a man of initiative and action, persevering relentlessly, who did not give us respite, but always pushed us forward”.
An interesting observation, also from Ia Slavici, refers to the organizational skills of the poet, revealed on the occasion of the Putna festivity. Eminescu, realizing the importance of teamwork, said: "Make everyone do what they do with pleasure and not only do things go well, but you also make people good friends."
In 1874-1876, Mihai Eminescu was, in turn, a librarian, then a substitute teacher in Iaşi and a school auditor for Iaşi and Vaslui counties. Just as he was demanding of himself, Eminescu demanded of others. Eminescu was a man with a great sense of duty, all the activities in which he was involved were flawless. His style of work was a perfectionist, he performed his duties conscientiously, and even more so, viewed from the outside, he assumed every role, as if it were his true vocation.
In the role of director of the Central Library in Iaşi, an appointment made during the ministry of T. Maiorescu for Instruction, Eminescu was not content to do what, stereotypically, we might think is happening in a library. For him, no job was a sinecure. As a result, he starts to inventory the volumes in the library, prepares reports to the relevant institutions, to purchase a collection of manuscripts, and contacts an antique dealer to buy some books, etc.
As a substitute for the logic course, at the Academic Institute of Iaşi, held before him by A. D. Xenopol, in the absence of a logic textbook, Eminescu collected material to conceive one in the school year 1874-1875. In the following semester, as a substitute for the German language teacher, the poet makes a great effort to teach Goethe's language. Its way of teaching remains innovative today. he divides the students according to their aptitudes, notes their evolution, examines them often and is very demanding. The students, most of them from rich families, revolt, and the direction finds Eminescu a scapegoat.
He had grown up in Moldova, Bucovina, Sibiu, Blaj, Bucharest and in his many travels always among the Romanian people he had read chroniclers and many church books, he knew Romanian literature in all its phases, and now in my long life n -I met a man possessed both by him by the thought of national unity and by the drive to give himself wholly for the rise of the Romanian nation.
Ioan Slavici
Always current writing
Eminescu's activity, together with Slavici and Caragiale, at the conservative newspaper Timpul, was studied for a long time. Like any exceptional professional, Eminescu placed great value on integrity, so that in his criticisms were found not only the representatives of the liberal government, in power, but also conservative politicians.
About this period, his friend Slavici would write Romanian citizenship… It sometimes seemed to him that these seizures are not a special note only for political opponents, but also appear in the middle of the party represented by Timpul; he hit then and his own with even more lack of mercy ”. Therefore, several conservative leaders have Junimii's mentor for Eminescu to temper his attacks on them, citing as a reason that Time was the unofficial organ of the Conservative Party. The editor-in-chief of the newspaper himself, I. A. Cantacuzino, demanded that Eminescu not express his system of beliefs and beliefs in the newspaper.
The problems regarding the vices of the Romanian state institutions, denounced by Eminescu in opinion articles, are relevant. Therefore, they no longer need any analysis. Here's a sample. "There are thousands of cases of these [appointments to public office - CS], which we could cite to the shame of the current generation and to the greater shame of the Romanian nation, which suffers all this in silence, which allows as its sweat, destined to be used productively, to be wasted in payments for suicide and for the learning of the incapable of all kinds. Whoever thinks he is capable of performing three or four functions with equal conscience, either makes illusions about his capacity, and then he is without fair judgment, or he does not make this illusion and then it is "something even worse".
Most of the time when we are dealing with exceptional personalities, like Mihai Eminescu, we discover that their writing always remains current, that only the date of publication has changed.
In a political and historical context oversaturated with problems and failures, in a system that generates pressures of all kinds and in which employment in state institutions was not based on meritocratic principles, only a healthy will like the one that Mihai had Eminescu could leave behind such a huge legacy. Let's reflect on the life of Mihai Eminescu and the importance of the concepts of integrity and honesty in any historical period, even more so today.
The article was written by Dr. Cristina SIRCUŢA for the magazine Magazin istoric, January 2019.
For other articles in the field of history and literature, you can consult the magazine by reading it in the reading room of our library.
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu