Un scandal literar uitat de-acum o sută de ani:„afacerea Porn”
A Forgotten Literary Scandal from one Hundred Years Ago: the «Porn Affair»

Summary/Abstract: In early 1910, a literary scandal broke out in Romania, whose unwilling protagonist was Eugen Porn, a young journalist from Noua Revistă Română, a weekly published by C. Rădulescu-Motru, who expressed some critical views on the Romanian literary habits. As Eugen Porn was a non-naturalized Jew, whose application for naturalization was still debated in the Romanian Senate, his critical views generated a wave of protests coming from the nationalistic periodicals (Cumpăna, Falanga literară şi artistică) and from a large group of prominent writers from the Society of Romanian Writers. Described as a „fraudulent intruder” in the Romanian literature, the protesters called not only for his removal from the Romanian literary scene, but also for the rejection of his naturalization. Noua Revistă Română has constantly defended E. Porn, especially through the voice of C. Rădulescu-Motru, at the same time exposing the literary anti-Semitism of Porn’s detractors. Therefore, two camps emerged, pro and against Porn, respectively, whose positions are x-rayed by the present study. The pro-Porn camp eventually won, succeeding to mobilize on its side a large number of writers, as some sort of a symbolic, yet belated compensation for the passivity from a decade ago towards Lazăr Şăineanu, who was forced to leave into exile because of the indifference of his fellow literates, among other causes.

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