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Jehuda semper patet:
Thus spoke Nae Ionescu. More disturbing was
that the paragons of the Young Generation took his arguments at face
value and engaged in a theological dispute about the Jewish chances for
salvation. With his extraordinary magnetism - remembered by Eliade in
his memoirs - Nae Ionescu contributed decisively to the "Guardist
Conversion" of the Generation. In the context of the Nazi racial revolu–
tion and the murderous actions of the Iron Guard, Nae Ionescu's lines
represented a pseudo-theological warrant for genocide. To exonerate him
and present his views as a legitimate dogmatic stance, as some Romanian
intellectuals have lately done, is morally idiotic and intellectually dishon–
est. I totally agree with Matei Calinescu, who considers that the
"Preface" to
For Two Thousand Years
was one of the first major cases of
"rhinocerization" among the Romanian intellectuals of the time,
"serving as an unfortunate but mesmerizing example to many of the
younger writers, journalists, philosophers, professors, and artists who, after
1933, but particularly after 1934, joined the Iron Guard in droves."
Such exoneration is particularly disquieting today in post-Ceausescu
Romania, where many within the new generation of students and intel–
lectuals identifY themselves with the spirit of the rebellious radicals of the
thirties. For instance, student leader Marian Munteanu has founded an or–
ganization calJed
Miscarea pentru Romania
(The Movement for Romania)
and invoked Nae Ionescu and his school as his models. Both Ionescu's
"Preface" and Cioran's
Romania's Transfiguration
have recently been
reprinted by Humanitas Publishing House in Romania. The head of
Humanitas is Gabriel Liceanu, Constantin Noica's main disciple and
anointed heir (and currently an adamant critic of the Iliescu regime). In
1992, Liceanu himself published a book called
Cearta
at
filosofia (The
Quarrel with Philosophy),
in which he performed a lengthy
tour de force
in
examining Cioran's theoretical tribulations without any reference whatso–
ever to Cioran's Fascist past. Not surprisingly, one cannot find any anti–
Semitic fulminations in the meticulously revised edition of
Romania's
Transfiguration,
whose updating Cioran personally supervised. The whole
fourth chapter, titled "National Collectivism," as well as the long afore–
mentioned passages referring to the need for more fanaticism in
Romania's politics, has been carefully deleted. The preserved passages on
Jews do not lend themselves to moral objections in the light of the
Holocaust. The reader who might have expected Cioran to have elabo–
rated on these problems will be disappointed. Neither he nor Liceanu
found it necessary to offer a critical introduction to a book that was one
of the main manifestos of European Fascism in its "National Bolshevik"
versIOn.
