VLADIMIR TISMANEANU
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the 1930s, a "Dreyfus affair" was unimaginable in Romania.
The strength of Volovici's book lies in its demonstration of how a
group of outstanding writers, inspired by an intel1ectual guru with
Christian pretensions and Mephistophelic influence, made their pact with
the darkest forces of this century and never engaged in a serious coming
to
terms with their own past. Like Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt,
Cioran has avoided any direct avowal of his Fascist past. The issue of re–
sponsibility is not part of his ethical concern. While Volovici offers the
first comprehensive and remarkably balanced analysis of this fascinating
chapter of intel1ectual and political history, there is, however, a missing
epilogue: the story did not end in the 1930s and 40s, and the Generation
has made a spectacular comeback in post-1989 Romania. For instance,
former Ceausescu sycophant Dan Zamfirescu re-edited Nae Ionescu's
volume
Roza vinturilor (The Wind Rose)
with an afterword by Mircea
Eliade, and he stated in the foreword that "no other book is more ur–
gently needed to be known and revalued into a direction vital for the na–
tional existence of the Romanians." The truth is that no other book, with
the exception of Cioran's
Tranifiguration,
has had such deleterious effects
on the minds and souls of the young Romanians.
Radical ideas do not exist in a vacuum, and their impact on human
existence can often be disastrous. Whatever the reasons for young
Cioran's moral dissatisfaction, his political wager was tragically wrong.
During those times of shame and horror, Cioran, Eliade and their fellow
mystical revolutionaries were impervious to what was indeed the revela–
tion of sorrow: the coming of the statistical murders and the appal1ing
realities of the concentration camps. Later, they continued to remain
silent, prolonging an abysmal moral error and perpetuating nebulous am–
biguities.
