Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania: The Criterion Association

by Cristina A. Bejan

2021 International Book Award finalist in Education/Academic and General categories. In 1930s Bucharest, some of the country's most brilliant young intellectuals converged to form the Criterion Association. Bound by friendship and the dream of a new, modern Romania, their members included historian Mircea Eliade, critic Petru Comarnescu, Jewish playwright Mihail Sebastian and a host of other philosophers and artists. Together, they built a vibrant cultural scene that flourished for a few short years, before fascism and scandal splintered their ranks. Cristina A. Bejan asks how the far-right Iron Guard came to eclipse the appeal of liberalism for so many of Romania's intellectual elite, drawing on diaries, memoirs and other writings to examine the collision of culture and extremism in the interwar years. The first English-language study of Criterion and the most thorough to date in any language, this book grapples with the complexities of Romanian intellectual life in the moments before collapse.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Romania, Politics, Romanian Literature

352 pages, Paperback

Published September 2, 2020

About the author

Cristina A. Bejan is a Rhodes and Fulbright scholar. She has had fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), the Wilson Center and Georgetown University.

She received her Masters and DPhil in Modern History from the University of Oxford and her BA in Philosophy (Honors) from Northwestern University, where she also studied theatre. While a researcher for USHMM, she authored 64 articles on camps in Africa and Europe for the "Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos - Vol. 3." She currently teaches history at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

A playwright and spoken word artist, her creative work has appeared in the US, UK, Romania and Vanuatu. Bejan runs the arts and culture collective Bucharest Inside the Beltway, based in Denver, CO and Bucharest, Romania. Please visit www.cristinaabejan.com for more info.

Reviews

[Jennifer Ramsey]

I was a little intimidated when I chose this book because it is definitely academic. I was not a history major but I absolutely love history – I knew about Romania growing up because I had a friend in school whose family was from there. So I knew about Ceausescu and communism and how much the country had suffered. So I have always had this interest in Romanian history, which is why the book caught my attention and fascism is such an en vogue topic now I thought I had to give it a try. I didn’t know that Romania was fascist before it became communist and I thought this book could teach me about that period of history. It’s an amazing book, Bejan paints a vivid picture of the politics of the country after World War I. The main characters of her story are a group of intellectuals who created the Criterion Association, which was an impressive society that had events about everything you could possibly imagine. The majority of this group falls into fascism and Bejan explores how and why. She writes like a storyteller, honestly, not like some incomprehensible academic, which is why I enjoyed reading the book so much. I felt like I learned about 20th Century Romania, I discovered some fascinating figures such as Mircea Eliade and Mihail Sebastian (among so many others – she even has a Cast of Characters at the beginning so you can keep it all straight!) who I now want to read their works (novels, plays), and in terms of our contemporary discourse about fascism and extremist politics, I feel like I have a firm understanding of a historical case. There are also – for those who like old photographs – some great photographs throughout the book that really make the personalities come alive. So, it’s a history book but not like that – it’s an engaging read about an important topic in a lesser-known country. As we move further into the 21st Century, what happened in the 20th can feel more and more distant. This is a book that brings it to life.

[Cristina A. Bejan]

Book review by Romanian Holocaust scholar Emanuel Grec, published in REVISTA GOLAN June 12, 2023. Link to full review posted after Grec’s intro paragraph:

“În jurnalul său din perioada interbelică, Octav Șuluțiu își descria generația ca fiind una nerăbdătoare, ce voia să expună societatea românească la influențe noi, cât mai repede, una ce avea un simț al lucrurilor făcute rapid, și o generație ce își prelucra propriile idei pentru ca totul să fie pus în acțiune. Acest simț grăbit al unei întregi generații, poate uneori chiar nevrotic, este surprins excelent în noua carte scrisă de Dr. Cristina A. Bejan, Intelectualii și fascismul în România interbelică: Asociația Criterion, apărută la editura Litera în 2023. Nu o să descriu aici în detaliu amănuntele oferite de carte, lăsând asta pentru cititori, însă o să punctez de ce o consider importantă și de ce studiul fascismului românesc reprezintă o notă de turnesol în societatea românească contemporană…”

https://revistagolan.com/noi-nu-stim-...

[Justin Goodman]

It might be the thrill of learning about a historical moment entirely unknown to me, but Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania is surprisingly gripping. I say surprisingly because it's prone to the formula of academia ("in this book I will..." etc) with several paragraphs that whose entire content was listing playbills for symposia (which, to be fair, had a purpose in context). What's particularly fascinating about this monograph is tentative it is about its subjects. The fascism of several Criterionists, most strongly felt with Mircea Eliade (who seems to have never apologized or made amends for his Iron Guard activities) and Marietta Sadova (who remained a staunch Iron Guardist until her death), is displayed almost with a feeling of betrayal. It's bruised pride, and it makes for an unnerving tone - probably the most engaging part for me. Bejan's not apologetic so much as torn on how to engage with their works. Appropriately she uses Julian Benda's The Treason of the Intellectuals as her framework, more or less condemning the politicization of the non-political.

Which might be where I'm wariest about the book. It's one thing to say an academic has to look clear-eyed at the life and work of an author - that's entirely reasonable and needed. It's another to frame the problem of the Iron Guard Criterionists as 'giving into politicization,' as if the problem was merely that they politicked too hard. This comes with the old Cold War tone of equating Communism and Fascism, which, while relevant to the modern world, is it's own conversation not entirely relevant here. Point being that the reluctance to condemn unapologetic fascists comes across as the flip side of a reluctance to acknowledge the political reality of all intellectual activity. This feels a little too much like taking on the position of the subjects - in particular the Criterion Association founder and 'hero' of the book, Petru Comarnescu - as opposed to typical academic distance.

Nonetheless, setting aside the record-keeping requirements and the ambiguous politics, it's a thorough attempt to broach what is an immensely complicated legacy for the Criterion Association and for the nation Bejan has familial ties to. History, it turns out, is a muddle; if I had to write about the Modernist circles of America, I would find my sad share of fascist sympathies and apolitical self-conceptions. Bejan's book makes it easy to appreciate the grapple with history, all the more so because of its thoroughness.

[Coaiemici123]

Maculatură pur descriptivă, "analiză" superficială, sinteză și fundamente teoretice complet inexistente, bazată predominant pe citate și pe propoziții de genul "În data de (blabla) asociația criterion a ținut conferința despre x, prezidată de y, în care au vorbit z". Dacă îți dorești să afli strict factual ce au făcut unii și alții din generația de intelectuali interbelici, atunci citește această carte. Dacă cauți explicații fundamentate științific despre adeziunea intelectualilor interbelici la fascism, există texte mult mai bune.

[Ana]

Wow! Felicitari Cristina! Ma bucur de autograf si partial am gasit din raspunsurile cautate. Te felicit pentru curajul de a atinge asa o tema.
Astept urmatoarea carte cu o tema si mai interesanta.
Go girl!!!

[Ana]

Thanks Cristina! I'm glad to know you and you work.

[niste eroi]

TLDR : cu putin noroc bugetarii inutili din Institute vor ramane fara o vaca de muls din cele din Interbelic, in cazul de fata Criterion.Mai au de muls burse si sinecuri din extrema dreapta, Antonescu, anti-semitimul etc. Dar cartea de fata cu siguranta le a stricat stipendiile acestor paraziti care publica tampenii pe banda rulanta pe banii cetatenilor.

Naratiune bine legata plus detalii foarte bune. Vezi greva de la Grivita din 1933.
Ar trebui sa fie un bestseller printre liceeni si studenti.
Urez succes cartii sa ne scape de produse expirate precum maculatura lui Boaia sau carnea expirata plina de muste a celor de teapa lui ioan aurel pop.

[Monica Dorean]

Cristina Bejan wrote a well documented book about Interwar period Romanian Criterion Association! Highly recommend!

[Reader]

foarte bună

[Istoric Expert]

O carte extraordinară! Este scrisă ca o biografie a celor mai mari minți ale României. Chiar prima biografie despre societatea lor culturală, Asociația Criterion. Povestiri la superlativ și accesibile cititorilor de toate nivelurile. Sper din tot sufletul ca guvernul român să facă acest text obligatoriu în fiecare liceu.