George Ivașcu
| George Ivașcu (Gheorghe I. Ivașcu) |
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|---|---|
Ivașcu in 1971
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| Born |
June 22, 1911 Cerțești, Galați County |
| Died | June 21, 1988 (aged 76) Bucharest |
| Pen name | Analist, Radu Costin, Dan Petrea, Paul Ștefan, Radu Vardaru |
| Occupation | journalist, literary critic, literary historian, civil servant, university professor |
| Nationality | Romanian |
| Period | 1929–1988 |
| Genre | biography, essay, reportage, journalism, |
| Literary movement |
Modernism Socialist realism Marxist literary criticism |
George Ivașcu (most common rendition of Gheorghe I. Ivașcu; July 22, 1911 – June 21, 1988) was a Romanian journalist, literary critic, and communist militant. From beginnings as a University of Iași philologist and librarian, he was drawn into left-wing antifascist politics, while earning accolades as a newspaper editor and foreign-affairs journalist. Openly confronting the Iron Guard and fascism in general, he was persecuted and went into hiding during the first two years of World War II. He reemerged as a pseudonymous correspondent, then editorial secretary, of the magazine Vremea, slowly turning it away from fascism. In parallel, he also contributed to the clandestine left-wing press, preparing for an Allied victory.
After a brief career in the communist regime's bureaucracy, Ivașcu found himself exposed to accusations of perfidy. Due in large part to a case of mistaken identity, he was prosecuted for fascism and war crimes, and spent almost five years in confinement. Released and rehabilitated by the same regime, his alleged compromises with both fascism and communism have been at the center of controversies ever since.
In his later years, Ivașcu profited from liberalization and, as editor of Contemporanul, Lumea, and România Literară, allowed nonconformist talents to express themselves with confidence, while he himself oscillated between national communism and Western Marxism. His tolerance of dissent irritated the regime, and Ivașcu was pushed back into accepting and even promoting communist censorship during the final two decades of his life.
Born in Cerțești, Galați County, he enlisted at the Gheorghe Roșca Codreanu High School in Bârlad. In March 1929, as a terminal year student, he published his first literary contribution: a poem titled "Reveries", in the Lugoj student magazine Primăvara Banatului. Upon completing his secondary studies, Ivașcu moved to Iași, entered the local university, and graduated from its Letters and Philosophy Faculty in 1933. A librarian at his Iași faculty in 1932, he became a teaching assistant there upon graduation and until 1936, owing his appointment to professor Iorgu Iordan (and replacing Gheorghe Ivănescu, who was studying abroad). From 1935 until 1937, he was also secretary of the Institute of Romanian Philology and of its publication, which hosted Ivașcu's essays on Alf Lombard and Ion Creangă.
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