THE PAINFUL MEMORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR: RETREAT TO THE ”CAPITAL OF RESISTANCE” IN THE ROMANIAN WAR NOVELS FROM THE INTERWAR PERIOD
THE PAINFUL MEMORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR: RETREAT TO THE ”CAPITAL OF RESISTANCE” IN THE ROMANIAN WAR NOVELS FROM THE INTERWAR PERIOD

Summary/Abstract: A nation's participation in war involves more or less assumed risks, and the interplay of all the mechanisms involved in the logistics of war can never be known in advance. This study argues that, following the principle of causality, the war literature centred on the major military conflict of the early twentieth century eloquently seconds history in its presentation of events. Revisiting one of history's eternally contested dilemmas of the human perspective on an approaching war, the genre literature reinforces the idea that the 'diagnosis' is often wrong and far too optimistic. Novels by Romanian writers of the interwar period present the tragic exodus to Moldova as an artistic replica of an event that is strikingly similar to the simplified presentation of historical fact. The idea that emerges from the fictional framework of these novels is that the exit from neutrality, although animated by the best intentions, has a high degree of dangerousness, and its repercussions are only the predictable consequence of a reality that is deliberately ignored. However, literature does not limit itself to justifying this error of perspective and its results - the unreasonable enthusiasm of the public, the weaknesses of the political class, the ignorance of one's own capacity for struggle - but, through its obsession with making the spasms and nebulousness of history accessible, seeks to clarify the disturbances of perception and orientation and, ultimately, to make human existence more coherent, more tolerable and less overwhelming. What is certain is that Romania's military intervention in the First World War, a crucial event in national history, was made at the cost of immense sacrifices, and fiction encapsulates in words what history enshrines in eternity through blood. The image of an entire nation taking refuge has aroused great interest among novelists, and their artistic contribution on this thematic segment illustrates the interdependence of history and literature, not only by presenting events chronologically, but above all by facilitating an understanding of a frightening historical reality and the sinister energies unleashed with the outbreak of the Great War.

• Details
• Contents