RETURNING TO THE BATTLE FOR THE NOVEL: THE COMPLEXES OF ROMANIAN LITERATURE AND THE ISSUE OF TRANSLATIONS IN CAMIL PETRESCU`S VISION
Ioan FĂRMUȘ, Universitatea „Ștefan cel Mare” din Suceava
Abstract
The Complexes (of Inferiority) of Romanian Literature have been widely discussed in the book that a brilliant
critic like Mircea Martin dedicated to G. Călinescu. Today, his observations have become fundamental references in
the study of the interwar period: the youth of Romanian culture, its placement in a marginal European geography, the
recognition of gaps between the great European literature and the local one. Over time, these factors not only generated an awareness of a handicap, but also a series of anxieties that intensified as our literature, in the late interwar
period, entered the final stages of synchronization. To this debate, which centered around the issue of the internationalization of Romanian literature, Camil Petrescu also contributed in various journalistic interventions. Along with
the concept of presentification (the idea of making contemporary events or themes relevant in literary works) as a
strategy to elevate the Romanian novel onto the international literary stage, the theorist also brought up the thorny
issue of translations. The following article discusses precisely how a writer who still holds the title of cultural innovator positions himself regarding the cultural strategies and editorial policies of the time, in an effort to give Romanian
Keywords: cultural complexes, translations, presentification, interwar novel, Camil Petrescu, autocolonization,
Romanian Literature.
