Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
8 April 1911
Romania)
Paris, France
Existentialism
Influences[show]
Influenced[show]
Emil Cioran (Romanian pronunciation: [emil toran] ( listen); 8 April 1911 20 June 1995) was
a Romanian philosopher and essayist, who published works in both Romanian and French.
Cioran was born in Resinr (Rinari), Szeben County, which was part of Austria-Hungary at the
time. His work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, and frequently engaged
with issues of suffering, decay, and nihilism. Among his best known works are On the Heights of
Despair (1934) and The Trouble with Being Born (1973). Cioran's first French book, A Short
History of Decay, was awarded the prestigious Rivarol Prize in 1950. The Latin Quarter of
Paris was his permanent residence and he lived much of his life in isolation with his partner
Simone Bou.
Contents
[hide]
1Early life
2Career
o 2.1Berlin and Romania
o 2.2France
3Major themes and style
4Legacy
5Major works
o 5.1Romanian
o 5.2French
6See also
7Notes
8References
9External links
Early life[edit]
Cioran was born in Resinr (Rinari), Szeben County, which was part of Austria-Hungary at the
time. His father, Emilian Cioran, was an Orthodox priest, while his mother, Elvira (ne
Comaniciu), was originally from Veneia de Jos, a commune near Fgra.
Career[edit]
Berlin and Romania[edit]
In 1933, he received a scholarship to the University of Berlin, where he came into contact with
Klages and Nicolai Hartmann. While in Berlin, he became interested in the policies of the Nazi
regime, contributed a column to Vremea dealing with the topic (in which Cioran confessed that
"there is no present-day politician that I see as more sympathetic and admirable
than Hitler",[1]while expressing his approval for the Night of the Long Knives"what has humanity
lost if the lives of a few imbeciles were taken"),[2] and, in a letter written to Petru Comarnescu,
described himself as "a Hitlerist".[3] He held similar views about Italian fascism, welcoming
victories in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, arguing that: "Fascism is a shock, without
which Italy is a compromise comparable to today's Romania".[4]
Ciorans first book, On the Heights of Despair (literally translated: "On the Summits of Despair"),
was published in Romania in 1934. It was awarded the Commissions Prize and the Young
Writers Prize for one of the best books written by an unpublished young writer. Successively, The
Book of Delusions (1935), The Transfiguration of Romania (1936), and Tears and Saints(1937),
were also published in Romania (the first two titles have yet to be translated into English).
Although Cioran was never a member of the group, it was during this time in Romania that he
began taking an interest in the ideas put forth by the Iron Guarda far right organization
whose nationalist ideology he supported until the early years of World War II, despite allegedly
disapproving of their violent methods.
Cioran revised The Transfiguration of Romania heavily in its second edition released in the
1990s, eliminating numerous passages he considered extremist or "pretentious and stupid". In its
original form, the book expressed sympathy for totalitarianism,[5] a view which was also present in
various articles Cioran wrote at the time,[6] and which aimed to establish
"urbanization and industrialization" as "the two obsessions of a rising people".[7] Marta Petreu's An
Infamous Past: E.M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania, published in English in 2005,
gives an in-depth analysis of The Transfiguration.
His early call for modernization was, however, hard to reconcile with the traditionalism of the Iron
Guard.[8] In 1934, he wrote, "I find that in Romania the sole fertile, creative, and invigorating
nationalism can only be one which does not just dismiss tradition, but also denies and defeats
it".[9] Disapproval of what he viewed as specifically Romanian traits had been present in his works
("In any maxim, in any proverb, in any reflection, our people expresses the same shyness in front
of life, the same hesitation and resignation... [...] Everyday Romanian [truisms] are
dumbfounding."),[10] which led to criticism from the far right Gndirea (its editor, Nichifor Crainic,
had called The Transfiguration of Romania "a bloody, merciless, massacre of today's Romania,
without even [the fear] of matricide and sacrilege"),[11] as well as from various Iron Guard
papers.[12]
France[edit]
21 rue de l'Odon (red point)
Legacy[edit]
After the death of Cioran's long-term companion, Simone Bou, a collection of Cioran's
manuscripts (over 30 notebooks) were found in the couple's apartment by a manager who tried,
in 2005, to auction them. A decision taken by the Court of Appeal of Paris stopped the
commercial sale of the collection. However, in March 2011, the Court of Appeal ruled that the
seller was the legitimate owner of the manuscripts. Amid the manuscripts, which were mainly
drafts of works that had already been published, an unedited journal was found which
encompassed his life after 1972 (the year in which his Notebooks end). This document is
probably Ciorans last unpublished work.
An aged Cioran is the main character in a play by Romanian dramatist-actor Matei
Viniec, Mansard la Paris cu vedere spre moarte ("A Paris Loft with a View on Death"). The
play, depicting an imaginary meeting between Viniec and Emil Cioran,[18] was first brought to the
stage in 2007, under the direction of Radu Afrim and with a cast of Romanian
and Luxembourgian actors; Cioran was played by Constantin Cojocaru.[19] Stagings were
organized in the Romanian city of Sibiu[18][19] and in the Luxembourg, at Esch-sur-Alzette (both
Sibiu and Luxembourg City were the year's European Capital of Culture).[18] In 2009,
the Romanian Academy granted posthumous membership to Cioran.[20]
Major works[edit]
Romanian[edit]
Pe culmile disperrii (literally On the Summits of Despair; translated "On the Heights of
Despair"), Editura "Fundaia pentru Literatur i Art", Bucharest 1934
Cartea amgirilor ("The Book of Delusions), Bucharest 1936
Schimbarea la fa a Romniei ("The Transfiguration of Romania), Bucharest 1936
Lacrimi i Sfini ("Tears and Saints"), "Editura autorului" 1937
ndreptar ptima ("The Passionate Handbook), Humanitas, Bucharest 1991
French[edit]
See also[edit]
Antinatalism
Diogenes of Sinope
Romanian philosophy
Misanthropy
Notes[edit]
1. Jump up^ Cioran, 1933, in Ornea, p.191
2. Jump up^ Cioran, 1934, in Ornea, p.192
3. Jump up^ Cioran, 1933, in Ornea, p.190
4. Jump up^ Cioran, 1936, in Ornea, p.192
5. Jump up^ Ornea, p.40
6. Jump up^ Ornea, p.50-52, 98
7. Jump up^ Cioran, in Ornea, p.98
8. Jump up^ Ornea, p.127, 130, 137-141
9. Jump up^ Cioran, 1934, in Ornea, p.127
10. Jump up^ Cioran, 1936, in Ornea, p.141
11. Jump up^ Crainic, 1937, in Ornea, p.143
12. Jump up^ Ornea, p.143-144
13. Jump up^ Cioran, 1940, in Ornea, p.197
14. Jump up^ Cioran, 1972, in Ornea, p.198
15. Jump up^ Weiss, Jason (1991). Writing At Risk: Interviews Uncommon Writers. University of Iowa
Press. ISBN 9781587292491.
16. Jump up^ Cioran, December 4, 1989, in Newsweek
17. Jump up^ Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston, Searching for Cioran (Indiana University Press), p.6
18. ^ Jump up to:a b c (in Romanian) "Teatru romnesc n Luxemburg", at HotNews.ro; retrieved
November 15, 2007
19. ^ Jump up to:a b Ioan T. Morar, "Cronic de lng teatre. A fcut Emil Cioran karate?", in Academia
Caavencu, 45/2007, p.30
20. Jump up^ (in Romanian) Membrii post-mortem al Academiei Romne, at the Romanian
Academy site
References[edit]
Ornea, Z. (1995). Anii treizeci. Extrema dreapt romneasc. Bucharest: Fundaiei Culturale
Romne. ISBN 973-9155-43-X. OCLC 33346781.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Emil
Cioran.