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An Other Transnationalism: Romanian Jewish Emigrants in Francophone Avant-Garde Literature

2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 73; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/fs/kny258

1468-2931

Sami Sjöberg,

European Cultural and National Identity

The Romanian-born Jewish poet Ilarie Voronca declared in the surrealist review unu that ‘of all NATIONS I choose imagi-NATION’.1 By 1928 he was already disappointed with the growing nationalism of his native country, intrigued by the artistic avant-garde, and had had his first taste of French cultural life. A distinct French cultural presence was manifest in the pages of unu in the form of contributions by André Breton, Paul Éluard, and Robert Desnos, among others. Arguably, Voronca’s statement on imagination can be seen in the light of the avant-gardist topos of denouncing all nations in favour of a nationless/stateless utopia, but it also manifests transnationalism in its efforts to circumvent conventional categories of belonging, such as nation or ethnicity, during a period when the nationalist ideals of the nineteenth century had become hegemonic in Europe. Therefore, Voronca seems to aspire to undermine any ‘national’ sense of ego, that is, a subjective identification with a nation. In line with Voronca’s pungent yet playful announcement, transnationalism is here understood as intersecting flows of ideas, cultural products, and people across national borders. This article investigates transnationalism as a feature of avant-garde literature, especially in its Franco-Romanian Jewish context.