Simbolul

Simbolul

Cover of Simbolul's first issue, with artwork by Marcel Janco
Editor	Tristan Tzara
Categories	art magazine, literary magazine, satirical magazine
First issue	October 25, 1912
Final issue	December 1912
Country	Romania
Language	Romanian

Simbolul (Romanian for "The Symbol", pronounced [simˈbolul]) was a Romanian literary and art magazine, published in Bucharest between October and December 1912. Co-founded by writers Tristan Tzara and Ion Vinea, together with visual artist Marcel Janco, while they were all high school students, the journal was a late representative of international Symbolism and the Romanian Symbolist movement. Other figures associated with the magazine were Adrian Maniu, Emil Isac and Claudia Millian, the wife of poet and Tzara's mentor Ion Minulescu. Simbolul also featured illustrations by, among others, Janco and his teacher Iosif Iser.

Despite going through just four issues, Simbolul helped the transition toward avant-garde currents in Romanian literature and art, by publishing anti-establishment satirical pieces, and by popularizing modernist trends such as Fauvism and Cubism. Its successors on the local literary scene were Vinea's moderate magazines Chemarea and Contimporanul, while Tzara and Janco evolved to a more radical stance, taking part in founding the avant-garde trend known as Dada.