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169-813: Fondane began a second career in 1923, when he moved to Paris . Affiliated with Surrealism , but strongly opposed to its communist leanings, he moved on to become a figure in Jewish existentialism and a leading disciple of Lev Shestov . His critique of political dogma, rejection of rationalism , expectation of historical catastrophe and belief in the soteriological force of literature were outlined in his celebrated essays on Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud , as well as in his final works of poetry. His literary and philosophical activities helped him build close relationships with other intellectuals: Shestov, Emil Cioran , David Gascoyne , Jacques Maritain , Victoria Ocampo , Ilarie Voronca etc. In parallel, Fondane also had

338-594: A Breton woman, with whom he was in correspondence for the rest of his life. Under contract with the Falma-film company, Fondane was received with honors by the Romanian Argentine community, and, with the unusual cut of his preferred suit, is said to have even become a trendsetter in local fashion. For Ocampo and the Sur staff, literary historian Rosalie Sitman notes, his visit also meant an occasion to defy

507-536: A Nazi regime in Germany brought Fondane into the camp of anti-fascism . In December 1934, his Apelul studențimii ("The Call of Students") was circulated among the Romanian diaspora, and featured passionate calls for awareness: "Tomorrow, in concentration camps , it will be too late". The following year, he outlined his critique of all kinds of totalitarianism , L'Écrivain devant la révolution ("The Writer Facing

676-770: A Proto-Celtic form reconstructed as * kwar-is-io -. Alternatively, Pierre-Yves Lambert proposed to translate Parisii as the 'spear people', by connecting the first element to the Old Irish carr ('spear'), derived from an earlier * kwar-sā . In any case, the city's name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology . Residents of the city are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens ( [paʁizjɛ̃] ). They are also pejoratively called Parigots ( [paʁiɡo] ). The Parisii ,

845-406: A 1922 piece for Rampa , he remembered Bogdan-Pitești in ambivalent terms: "he could not stand moral elevation. [...] He was made of the greatest of joys, in the most purulent of bodies. How many generations of ancient boyars had come to pass, like unworthy dung, for this singular earth to be generated?" Pressed on by his family and the prospects of financial security, Fondane contemplated becoming

1014-473: A Chandelier"). For a while, the poet also joined his colleague Ilarie Voronca on the legal department of L'Abeille insurance company. After a period of renting furnished rooms, Fondane accepted an offer from Jean, brother of the deceased literary theorist Remy de Gourmont , and, employed as a librarian- concierge , moved into the Gourmonts' museum property on Rue des Saints-Pères, some distance away from to

1183-567: A betrayer of the avant-garde) and witnessing from afar the eventual implosion of Romanian Surrealism on the model of French groups. In such dialogues, Roll complains about right-wing political censorship in Romania, and speaks in some detail about his own conversion to Marxism . With Fondane's approval and Minulescu's assistance, Priveliști also saw print in Romania during 1930. Published by Editura Cultura Națională , it sparked significant controversy with its nonconformist style, but also made

1352-423: A brief return home, he left for Western Europe again, visiting Italy , Spain , and southern France . A year later, Alecsandri attended a party celebrating the name day of Costache Negri, a family friend. He there fell in love with Negri's sister. The 21-year-old and not long divorced Elena Negri responded enthusiastically to the 24-year-old youngster's love declarations. Alecsandri began writing love poems until

1521-484: A career in cinema: a film critic and a screenwriter for Paramount Pictures , he later worked on Rapt with Dimitri Kirsanoff , and directed the since-lost film Tararira in Argentina . A prisoner of war during the fall of France , Fondane was released and spent the occupation years in clandestinity. He was eventually captured and handed to Nazi German authorities, who deported him to Auschwitz-Birkenau . He

1690-830: A comment on Romanian translation projects ( Ferestre spre Occident , "Windows on the Occident "), he was later assigned the theatrical column. Fondane's work was again featured in Flacăra magazine (at the time under Minulescu's direction): the poem Ce simplu ("How Simple") and the essay Istoria Ideii ("The History of the Idea") were both published there in 1922. The same year, with assistance from fellow novelist Felix Aderca , Fondane grouped his earlier essays on French literature as Imagini și cărți din Franța ("Images and Books from France"), published by Editura Socec company. The book included what

1859-692: A contributor to newspapers or literary journals in France, Belgium, and Switzerland : a regular presence in Cahiers du Sud of Carcassonne , he had his work featured in the Surrealist press ( Discontinuité , Le Phare de Neuilly , Bifur ), as well as in Le Courrier des Poètes , Le Journal des Poètes , Romain Rolland 's Europe , Paul Valéry 's Commerce etc. In addition, Fondane's research

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2028-454: A diary he kept at age 16, his birthday was officially recorded as November 15. Fondane was the only son of Isac Wechsler and his wife Adela (née Schwartzfeld), who also bore daughters Lina (b. 1892) and Rodica (b. 1905), both of whom had careers in acting. As a child Benjamin spends a lot of time in the north of Moldova in a place known as Fundoaia and hence the name he chooses for himself Fundoianu. From this rural and picturesque area he receives

2197-658: A fact checker for some months after his arrival to the capital. His activity as a journalist also allowed him to interview Arnold Davidovich Margolin , statesman of the defunct Ukrainian People's Republic , with whom he discussed the fate of Ukrainian Jews before and after the Soviet Russian takeover. Over the following years, he restarted his career in the press, contributing to various nationally circulated newspapers: Adevărul , Adevărul Literar și Artistic , Cuvântul Liber , Mântuirea , etc. The main topics of his interest were literary reviews, essays reviewing

2366-530: A fair amount of sunshine. Each year there are a few days when the temperature rises above 32 °C (90 °F). Longer periods of more intense heat sometimes occur, such as the heat wave of 2003 when temperatures exceeded 30 °C (86 °F) for weeks, reached 40 °C (104 °F) on some days, and rarely cooled down at night. Spring and autumn have, on average, mild days and cool nights, but are changing and unstable. Surprisingly warm or cool weather occurs frequently in both seasons. In winter, sunshine

2535-588: A house a short distance away from Foișorul de Foc . Between these changes of address, he established contacts with the Symbolist and avant-garde society of Bucharest: a personal friend of graphic artist Iosif Ross , he formed an informal avant-garde circle of his own, attended by writers F. Brunea-Fox , Ion Călugăru , Henri Gad , Sașa Pană , Claude Sernet-Cosma and Ilarie Voronca , as well as by artist-director Armand Pascal (who, in 1920, married Lina Fundoianu). Pană would later note his dominant status within

2704-720: A huge and emotional crowd down the Champs Élysées towards Notre Dame de Paris and made a rousing speech from the Hôtel de Ville . In the 1950s and the 1960s, Paris became one front of the Algerian War for independence; in August 1961, the pro-independence FLN targeted and killed 11 Paris policemen, leading to the imposition of a curfew on Muslims of Algeria (who, at that time, were French citizens). On 17 October 1961, an unauthorised but peaceful protest demonstration of Algerians against

2873-953: A large estate in Mircești , a village near Siret River . The young Vasile spent time there studying with a devout monk from Maramureș , Gherman Vida, and playing with Vasile Porojan, a Gypsy boy who became a dear friend. Both characters would later appear in his work. Between 1828 and 1834, he studied at the Victor Cuenim "pensionnat", an elite boarding school for boys in Iași . He moved to Paris in 1834, where he dabbled in chemistry , medicine , and law , but soon abandoned all in favor of what he called his "lifelong passion", literature . He penned his first literary essays in 1838 in French , which he had mastered to perfection during his stay in Paris. After

3042-523: A lawyer. Having passed his baccalaureate examination in Bucharest, he was, according to his own account, a registered student at the University of Iași Law School, obtaining a graduation certificate but prevented from becoming a licentiate by the opposition of faculty member A. C. Cuza , the antisemitic political figure. According to a recollection of poet Adrian Maniu , Fondane again worked as

3211-497: A literary movement" under Lovinescu's leadership. Nevertheless, before that date, Lovinescu himself had come to criticize his former pupil (a disagreement which echoed his larger conflict with the unu group). Also in the 1930s, Fondane's work received coverage in the articles of two other maverick modernists: Perpessicius , who viewed it with noted sympathy, and Lucian Boz , who found his new poems touched by "prolixity". Back in France, where he had become Shestov's assistant, Fondane

3380-693: A manifesto of the revolutionary movement in Moldavia, "Dorințele partidei naționale din Moldova" ( Wishes of the National Party of Moldavia ). However, as revolution failed, he fled Moldavia through Transylvania and Austria, moving on to Paris, where he continued to write political poems. After two years, he returned to a triumphant staging of his new comedy, "Chirița în Iași". He toured the Moldavian countryside, collecting, reworking, and arranging

3549-543: A manifesto on modernist music ), and supported Surrealist poet-director Antonin Artaud in his efforts to set up a theater named after Alfred Jarry (which was not, however, an all-Surrealist venue). In this context, he tried to persuade the French Surrealist group to tour his native country and establish contacts with local affiliates. By 1926, Fondane grew disenchanted with the communist alignment proposed by

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3718-496: A new romantic interest, in spite of promises made to Elena Negri on her deathbed. At age 35, the now renowned poet and public figure fell in love with the young Paulina Lucasievici, the daughter of an innkeeper. The romance moved at a lightning pace: they moved in together to Alecsandri's estate at Mircești and, in 1857, their daughter Maria was born. Alecsandri found satisfaction in the advancement of those political causes he had long championed. The two Romanian provinces united and he

3887-589: A personal project (reputedly, he was accepted there with a second application, his first one having been rejected in 1929). He worked first as an assistant director, before turning to screenwriting. Preserving his interest in Romanian developments, he visited the Paris set of Televiziune , a Romanian cinema production for which he shared directorial credits. His growing interest in Voronca's own poetry led him to review it for Tudor Arghezi's Bucharest periodical, Bilete de Papagal , where he stated: "Mr. Ilarie Voronca

4056-474: A poem, "Steluța" ( Little Star ). Later, he dedicated his "Lăcrimioare" ( Little Tears ) collection of poems to her. In 1848, he became one of the leaders of the revolutionary movement based in Iași . He wrote a widely read poem urging the public to join the cause, "Către Români" ( To Romanians ), later renamed "Deșteptarea României" ( Romania's Awakening ). Together with Mihail Kogălniceanu and Costache Negri, he wrote

4225-402: A precaution against the antisemitic measures in the occupied north , he eventually made his way into the more permissive zone libre , and only made returns to Paris in order to collect his books. Throughout this interval, the poet refused to wear the yellow badge (mandatory for Jews), and, living in permanent risk, isolated himself from his wife, adopting an even more precarious lifestyle. He

4394-556: A reaction which surprised and impressed the young author. Although his poems went unpublished, his Iași-themed article A doua capitală ("The Second Capital"), signed Al. Vilara , was featured in an April 1916 issue. A follower of Arghezi, he was personally involved in raising awareness about Arghezi's unpublished verse, the Agate negre ("Black Diamonds") cycle. Remaining close friends with Fondane, Galaction later made persistent efforts of introducing him to critic Garabet Ibrăileanu , with

4563-489: A reply to Roland de Renéville 's monograph Rimbaud le Voyant ("Rimbaud the Seer"), consolidated Fondane's international reputation as a critic and literary historian. In the months after its publication, the book earned much praise from scholars and writers—from Joë Bousquet , Jean Cocteau , Benedetto Croce and Louis-Ferdinand Céline , to Jean Cassou , Guillermo de Torre and Miguel de Unamuno . It also found admirers in

4732-474: A student journal, signing his editorial with the pen name Van Doian , but only produced several handwritten copies of a single issue. Fondane's actual debut dates back to 1914, during the time when he became a student at the National High School Iași and formally affiliated with the provincial branch of the nationwide Symbolist movement . That year, samples of lyric poetry were also published in

4901-732: A sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones , inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the Île de la Cité , which gradually became an important trading centre. The Parisii traded with many river towns (some as far away as the Iberian Peninsula) and minted their own coins. The Romans conquered the Paris Basin in 52 BC and began their settlement on Paris's Left Bank . The Roman town

5070-499: A sudden illness forced Elena to head abroad to Venice . He met her there, where they shared two torrid months. They cruised to Austria , Germany , and to Alecsandri's former romping grounds, France. Elena's chest illness aggravated in Paris, and after a brief stint in Italy, they both boarded a French ship to return home 25 April 1847. Tragedy struck on the ship, when Elena died in her lover's arms. Alecsandri channeled his mourning into

5239-518: A translation of S. Ansky 's The Dybbuk . The troupe ceased its activity in 1923, partly because of significant financial difficulties, and partly because of a rise in antisemitic activities, which put its Jewish performers at risk. For a while, Insula survived as a conference group, hosting modernist lectures on classical Romanian literature—with the participation of Symbolist and post-Symbolist authors such as Aderca, Arghezi, Millian, Pillat, Vinea, N. Davidescu , Perpessicius , and Fondane himself. He

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5408-458: A vast array of Romanian folklore, which he published in two installments, in 1852 and 1853. The poems included in these two enormously popular collections became the cornerstone of the emerging Romanian identity, especially the ballads " Miorița ", "Toma Alimoș", "Mânăstirea Argeșului", and "Novac și Corbul." His volume of original poetry, "Doine și Lăcrămioare", further cemented his reputation. Broadly revered in Romanian cultural circles, he oversaw

5577-718: A warm friendship with Constantin Brâncuși , the Romanian-born modern sculptor, visiting Brâncuși's workshop on an almost daily basis and writing about his work in Cahiers de l'Étoile . He witnessed first-hand and described Brâncuși's primitivist techniques, likening his work to that of a "savage man". Rimbaud le voyou was eventually published by Denoël & Steele company in 1933, the same year when Fondane published his poetry volume Ulysse (" Ulysses ") with Les Cahiers du Journal des Poètes . The Rimbaud study, partly written as

5746-527: Is Montmartre at 130 m (427 ft). Excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes , Paris covers an oval measuring about 87 km (34 sq mi) in area, enclosed by the 35 km (22 mi) ring road, the Boulevard Périphérique . Paris' last major annexation of outlying territories in 1860 gave it its modern form, and created the 20 clockwise-spiralling arrondissements (municipal boroughs). From

5915-771: Is 450 km (280 mi) southeast of London, 287 km (178 mi) south of Calais , 305 km (190 mi) southwest of Brussels , 774 km (481 mi) north of Marseille , 385 km (239 mi) northeast of Nantes , and 135 km (84 mi) southeast of Rouen . Paris has an oceanic climate within the Köppen climate classification , typical of western Europe. This climate type features cool winters, with frequent rain and overcast skies, and mild to warm summers. Very hot and very cold temperatures and weather extremes are rare in this type of climate. Summer days are usually mild and pleasant, with average temperatures between 15 and 25 °C (59 and 77 °F), and

6084-616: Is at the top of his form. I'm gladly placing my stakes on him." In 1931, the poet married Geneviève Tissier, a trained jurist and lapsed Catholic . Their home on Rue Rollin subsequently became a venue for literary sessions, mostly grouping the Cahiers du Sud contributors. The aspiring author Paul Daniel, who became Rodica Wechsler's husband in 1935, attended such meetings with his wife, and recalls having met Gaultier, filmmaker Dimitri Kirsanoff , music critic Boris de Schlözer , poets Yanette Delétang-Tardif and Thérèse Aubray , as well as Shestov's daughter Natalie Baranoff. Fondane also enjoyed

6253-414: Is believed to be a philosophical essay, Le Lundi existentiel ("The Existential Monday"), on which Fondane was working in 1944. Little is known about Provèrbes ("Proverbs"), which, he announced in 1933, was supposed to be an independent collection of poems. According to various accounts, Fondane made a point of not leaving Paris, despite the growing restrictions and violence. However, others note that, as

6422-746: Is derived from its early inhabitants, the Parisii , a Gallic tribe from the Iron Age and the Roman period . The meaning of the Gaulish ethnonym remains debated. According to Xavier Delamarre , it may derive from the Celtic root pario- ('cauldron'). Alfred Holder interpreted the name as 'the makers' or 'the commanders', by comparing it to the Welsh peryff ('lord, commander'), both possibly descending from

6591-440: Is scarce. Days are cool, and nights are cold but generally above freezing, with low temperatures around 3 °C (37 °F). Light night frosts are quite common, but the temperature seldom dips below −5 °C (23 °F). Paris sometimes sees light snow or flurries with or without accumulation. Paris has an average annual precipitation of 641 mm (25.2 in), and experiences light rainfall distributed evenly throughout

6760-632: The Junimea society. Through Moses Schwartzfeld, Fondane was also related with socialist journalist Avram Steuerman-Rodion , one of the literary men who nurtured the boy's interest in literature. The young Benjamin was an avid reader, primarily interested in the Moldavian classics of Romanian literature ( Ion Neculce , Miron Costin , Dosoftei , Ion Creangă ), Romanian traditionalists or neoromantics ( Vasile Alecsandri , Ion Luca Caragiale , George Coșbuc , Mihai Eminescu ) and French Symbolists . In 1909, after graduating from School No. 1 (an annex of

6929-542: The comédie en vaudeville tradition. In the end, however, the independent product could not compete with the Hollywood industry, which was at the time monopolizing the French market . In parallel with these events, Fondane followed Shestov's personal guidance and, by means of Cahiers du Sud , attacked philosopher Jean Wahl 's secular reinterpretation of Søren Kierkegaard 's Christian existentialism . Despite selling many copies of his books and having Rapt played at

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7098-757: The Amigos del Arte society of Buenos Aires , Fondane left for Argentina and Uruguay in summer 1929. The object of his visit was promoting French cinema with a set of lectures in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and other cities (as he later stated in a Rampa interview with Sarina Cassvan-Pas , he introduced South Americans to the work of Germaine Dulac , Luis Buñuel and Henri Gad ). In this context, Fondane met essayist Eduardo Mallea , who invited him to contribute in La Nación ' s literary supplement. His other activities there included conferencing on Shestov at

7267-619: The Champs-Élysées extended the city west to Étoile , while the working-class neighbourhood of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine on the eastern side of the city grew increasingly crowded with poor migrant workers from other regions of France. Paris was the centre of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity, known as the Age of Enlightenment . Diderot and D'Alembert published their Encyclopédie in 1751, before

7436-825: The College of Sorbonne , and a palace for himself, the Palais-Cardinal . After Richelieu's death in 1642, it was renamed the Palais-Royal . Due to the Parisian uprisings during the Fronde civil war, Louis XIV moved his court to a new palace, Versailles , in 1682. Although no longer the capital of France, arts and sciences in the city flourished with the Comédie-Française , the Academy of Painting, and

7605-555: The English poet David Gascoyne , who was afterward in correspondence with Fondane, and the American novelist Henry Miller . Ulysse itself illustrated Fondane's interest in scholarly issues: he sent one autographed copy to Raïssa Maritain , wife of Jacques Maritain (both of whom were Catholic thinkers). Shortly after this period, the author was surprised to read Voronca's own French-language volume Ulysse dans la cité ("Ulysses in

7774-663: The European Space Agency , the European Banking Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority . The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris. The 81,000-seat Stade de France , built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup , is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis . Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on

7943-463: The Expressionist tribune Der Sturm published samples of his works, alongside those of nine other Romanian modernists, translated by Leopold Kosch. As Paul Daniel notes, the polemics surrounding Priveliști only lasted for a year, and Fondane was largely forgotten by the Romanian public after this moment. However, the discovery of Fondane's avant-garde stance by traditionalist circles took

8112-738: The French Academy of Sciences . To demonstrate that the city was safe from attack, the king had the city walls demolished and replaced with tree-lined boulevards that would become the Grands Boulevards . Other marks of his reign were the Collège des Quatre-Nations , the Place Vendôme , the Place des Victoires , and Les Invalides . Paris grew in population from about 400,000 in 1640 to 650,000 in 1780. A new boulevard named

8281-544: The Fundoaia estate (which the poet later used as the basis for his signature). Adela was from an intellectual family, of noted influence within the urban Jewish community: her father, poet B. Schwartzfeld, was the owner of a book collection, while her uncles Elias and Moses both had careers in humanities . Adela herself was well acquainted with the intellectual elite of Iași, Jewish as well as ethnic Romanian , and kept recollections of her encounters with authors linked with

8450-665: The Grand Paris project, to integrate Paris more closely with the towns in the region around it. After many modifications, the new area, named the Metropolis of Grand Paris , with a population of 6.7 million, was created on 1 January 2016. In 2011, the City of Paris and the national government approved the plans for the Grand Paris Express , totalling 205 km (127 mi) of automated metro lines to connect Paris,

8619-493: The Montgolfier Brothers launched the first manned flight in a hot air balloon on 21 November 1783. Paris was the financial capital of continental Europe, as well the primary European centre for book publishing, fashion and the manufacture of fine furniture and luxury goods. On 22 October 1797, Paris was also the site of the first parachute jump in history, by Garnerin . In the summer of 1789, Paris became

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8788-532: The Paris Commune held power for two months, before being harshly suppressed by the French army during the " Bloody Week " at the end of May 1871. In the late 19th century, Paris hosted two major international expositions: the 1889 Universal Exposition , which featured the new Eiffel Tower, was held to mark the centennial of the French Revolution; and the 1900 Universal Exposition gave Paris

8957-599: The Pont Alexandre III , the Grand Palais , the Petit Palais and the first Paris Métro line. Paris became the laboratory of Naturalism ( Émile Zola ) and Symbolism ( Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine ), and of Impressionism in art ( Courbet , Manet , Monet , Renoir ). By 1901, the population of Paris had grown to about 2,715,000. At the beginning of the century, artists from around

9126-634: The Pont des Arts . During the Restoration , the bridges and squares of Paris were returned to their pre-Revolution names; the July Revolution in 1830 (commemorated by the July Column on the Place de la Bastille ) brought to power a constitutional monarch, Louis Philippe I . The first railway line to Paris opened in 1837, beginning a new period of massive migration from the provinces to

9295-496: The Romanian repertoire (a goal published as an art manifesto in Contimporanul ), Insula produced mostly conventional Symbolist and Neoclassical plays: its inaugural shows included Legenda funigeilor ("Gossamer Legend") by Ștefan Octavian Iosif and Dimitrie Anghel , one of Lord Dunsany 's Five Plays and (in Fondane's own translation) Molière 's Le Médecin volant . Probably aiming to enrich this program with samples of Yiddish drama , Fondane began, but never finished,

9464-442: The Seine in the city centre has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991. Paris is home to several United Nations organizations including UNESCO, as well as other international organizations such as the OECD , the OECD Development Centre , the International Bureau of Weights and Measures , the International Energy Agency , the International Federation for Human Rights , along with European bodies such as

9633-402: The Siege of Paris (885–886) , for which the then Count of Paris ( comte de Paris ), Odo of France , was elected king of West Francia . From the Capetian dynasty that began with the 987 election of Hugh Capet , Count of Paris and Duke of the Franks ( duc des Francs ), as king of a unified West Francia, Paris gradually became the largest and most prosperous city in France. By the end of

9802-465: The Trei Ierarhi Monastery ), he was admitted into the Alexandru cel Bun secondary school, where he did not excel as a student. A restless youth (he recalled having had his first love affair at age 12, with a girl six years his senior), Fondane twice failed to get his remove before the age of 14. Benjamin divided his time between the city and his father's native region. The latter's rural landscape impressed him greatly, and, enduring in his memory, became

9971-426: The United States and by Victoria Ocampo in Argentina. Paris Paris ( French pronunciation: [paʁi] ) is the capital and largest city of France . With an estimated population of 2,102,650 residents in January 2023 in an area of more than 105 km (41 sq mi), Paris is the fourth-largest city in the European Union and the 30th most densely populated city in

10140-420: The University of Buenos Aires and publishing articles on several subjects (from Shestov's philosophy to the poems of Tzara), but the fees received in return were, in his own account, too small to cover the cost of decent living. In October 1929, Fondane was back in Paris, where he focused on translating and popularizing some of Romanian literature's milestone texts, from Mihai Eminescu 's Sărmanul Dionis to

10309-447: The anthology L'Honneur des poètes ("The Honor of Poets"), published by the Resistance activists as an anti-Nazi manifesto. Fondane also preserved his column in Cahiers du Sud for as long as it was possible, and had his contributions published in several other clandestine journals. After 1941, Fondane became friends with another Romanian existentialist in France, the younger Emil Cioran . Their closeness signaled an important stage in

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10478-594: The galley proofs , and received instead an irritated reply from manager Al. Ștefănescu; he was eventually featured with poems in three separate issues of Revista Critică . At around that time, he also wrote a memoir of his childhood, Note dintr-un confesional ("Notes from a Confessional "). Around 1915, Fondane was discovered by the journalistic tandem of Tudor Arghezi and Gala Galaction , both of whom were also modernist authors, left-wing militants and Symbolist promoters. The pieces Fondane sent to Arghezi and Galaction's Cronica paper were received with enthusiasm,

10647-424: The poetic drama pieces Philoctète , Les Puits de Maule ("Maule's Well", an adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The House of the Seven Gables ) and Le Féstin de Balthazar (" Belshazzar 's Feast"); a study about the life and work of Romanian-born philosopher Stéphane Lupasco ; and the selection from his interviews with Shestov, Sur les rives de l'Illisus ("On the Banks of the Illisus "). His very last text

10816-522: The prose poem genre, while Gaultier did the same for his philosophical outlook. The self-exiled debutant was nevertheless still viewing his career with despair, describing it as languishing, and noting that there was a chance of him failing to earn a solid literary reputation. The mid-1920s brought Benjamin Fondane's affiliation with Surrealism , the post-Dada avant-garde current centered in Paris. Fondane also rallied with Belgian Surrealist composers E. L. T. Mesens and André Souris (with whom he signed

10985-400: The third-busiest airport in Europe , and Orly Airport . Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro , serves 5.23   million passengers daily. It is the second-busiest metro system in Europe after the Moscow Metro . Gare du Nord is the 24th-busiest railway station in the world and the busiest outside Japan , with 262   million passengers in 2015. Paris has one of

11154-432: The xenophobic and antisemitic agenda of Argentine nationalist circles. Centered on the tango , Fondane's film enlisted contributions from some leading figures in several national film and music industries, having Miguel Machinandiarena as producer and John Alton as editor ; in starred, among others, Orestes Caviglia , Miguel Gómez Bao and Iris Marga . The manner in which Tararira approached its subject scandalized

11323-416: The Île Saint-Louis and the larger Île de la Cité , which form the oldest part of Paris. The river's mouth on the English Channel ( La Manche ) is about 233 mi (375 km) downstream from Paris. Paris is spread widely on both banks of the river. Overall, Paris is relatively flat, and the lowest point is 35 m (115 ft) above sea level . Paris has several prominent hills, the highest of which

11492-553: The "most significant and devoted of Shestov's followers". In 1929, as a frequenter of Shestov's circle, Fondane also met Argentinian female author Victoria Ocampo , who became his close friend (after 1931, he became a contributor to her modernist review, Sur ). Fondane's essays were more frequently than before philosophical in nature: Europe published his tribute Shestov (January 1929) and his comments of Edmund Husserl 's phenomenology , which included his own critique of rationalism (June 1930). Invited (on Ocampo's initiative) by

11661-450: The 12th century, Paris had become the political, economic, religious, and cultural capital of France. The Palais de la Cité , the royal residence, was located at the western end of the Île de la Cité. In 1163, during the reign of Louis VII , Maurice de Sully , bishop of Paris, undertook the construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral at its eastern extremity. After the marshland between the river Seine and its slower 'dead arm' to its north

11830-452: The 1860 area of 78 km (30 sq mi), the city limits were expanded marginally to 86.9 km (33.6 sq mi) in the 1920s. In 1929, the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes forest parks were annexed to the city, bringing its area to about 105 km (41 sq mi). The metropolitan area is 2,300 km (890 sq mi). Measured from the 'point zero' in front of its Notre-Dame cathedral , Paris by road

11999-443: The Argentine public, and it was eventually rejected by its distributors (no copies survive, but writer Gloria Alcorta , who was present at a private screening, rated it a "masterpiece"). Fondane, who had earlier complained about the actors' resistance to his ideas, left Argentina before the film was actually finished. It was on his return trip that he met Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, with whom he and Geneviève became good friends. With

12168-559: The City"): although puzzled by the similarity of titles with his own collection, he described Voronca as a "great poet." Also then, in Romania, B. Iosif completed the Yiddish translation of Fondane's Psalmul leprosului ("The Leper's Psalm"). The text, left in his care by Fondane before his 1923 departure, was first published in Di Woch , a periodical set up in Romania by poet Yankev Shternberg (October 31, 1934). The 1933 establishment of

12337-731: The Frank , the first king of the Merovingian dynasty , made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île de la Cité failed to avert sacking by Vikings in 845 , but Paris's strategic importance—with its bridges preventing ships from passing—was established by successful defence in

12506-426: The French Surrealist photographers' group was Eli Lotar , the illegitimate son of Arghezi). The "cine-poems" were intentionally conceived as unfilmable screenplays, in what was his personal statement about artistic compromise between experimental film and the emerging worldwide film industry . The book notably comprised his verdict about cinema being "the only art that was never classical." With time, Fondane became

12675-564: The French police and gendarmes arrested 12,884 Jews, including 4,115 children, and confined them during five days at the Vel d'Hiv ( Vélodrome d'Hiver ), from which they were transported by train to the extermination camp at Auschwitz . None of the children came back. On 25 August 1944, the city was liberated by the French 2nd Armoured Division and the 4th Infantry Division of the United States Army . General Charles de Gaulle led

12844-792: The King ), which became the national anthem of the Kingdom of Romania from 1884 until the abolition of the monarchy in 1947. Alecsandri was also a member of the Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society . Long suffering from cancer , Alecsandri died in 1890 at his estate in Mircești. Alecsandri had an important political career. He was one of the supporters of slave emancipation. He was allegedly antisemitic , although, according to some Romanian historians (including Neagu Djuvara ), he had distant Jewish roots. The appearance of

13013-402: The Moldavian teenager, describing him as "a rare bird" and "a poet of talent". The same year, at age 52, Isac Wechsler fell ill with typhus and died in Iași's Sfântul Spiridon Hospital , leaving his family without financial support. At around that time, Fondane began work on the poetry cycle Priveliști ("Sights" or "Panoramas", finished in 1923). In 1918, he became one of the contributors to

13182-635: The Panthéon Cinema, Benjamin Fondane was still facing major financial difficulties, accepting a 1936 offer to write and assist in the making of Tararira , an avant-garde musical product of the Argentine film industry . This was his second option: initially, he contemplated filming a version of Ricardo Güiraldes ' Don Segundo Sombra , but met opposition from Güiraldes' widow. While en route to Argentina, he became friends with Georgette Gaucher,

13351-536: The Paramount studios the same year, disappointed with company policies and without having had any screen credit of his own (although, he claimed, there were over 100 Paramount scripts to which he had unsigned contributions). During 1935, he and Kirsanoff were in Switzerland, for the filming of Rapt , with a screenplay by Fondane (adapted from Charles Ferdinand Ramuz 's La séparation des races novel). The result

13520-525: The Place Royale, now Place des Vosges . In spite of Henry IV's efforts to improve city circulation, the narrowness of Paris's streets was a contributing factor in his assassination near Les Halles marketplace in 1610. During the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu , chief minister of Louis XIII , was determined to make Paris the most beautiful city in Europe. He built five new bridges, a new chapel for

13689-853: The Revolution"), supposed to be delivered in front of the Paris-held International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture (organized by left-wing and communist intellectuals with support from the Soviet Union ). According to historian Martin Stanton, Fondane's activity in film, like Jean-Paul Sartre 's parallel beginnings as a novelist, was itself a political statement in support of the Popular Front : "[they were] hoping to introduce critical dimensions in

13858-528: The Revolution, but after 1799 it surged with 160,000 new residents, reaching 660,000 by 1815. Napoleon replaced the elected government of Paris with a prefect that reported directly to him. He began erecting monuments to military glory, including the Arc de Triomphe , and improved the neglected infrastructure of the city with new fountains, the Canal de l'Ourcq , Père Lachaise Cemetery and the city's first metal bridge,

14027-532: The Surrealist venue of Bucharest, which was edited by several of his avant-garde friends at home. His contributions there included a text on Tzara's post-Dada works, which he analyzed as Valéry-like "pure poetry". In December 1928, unu published some of Fondane's messages home, as Scrisori pierdute ("Lost Letters"). Between 1931 and 1934, Fondane was in regular correspondence with the unu writers, in particular Stephan Roll , F. Brunea-Fox and Sașa Pană , being informed about their conflict with Voronca (attacked as

14196-682: The Tuileries Palace. In 1793, as the revolution turned increasingly radical, the king, queen and mayor were beheaded by guillotine in the Reign of Terror , along with more than 16,000 others throughout France. The property of the aristocracy and the church was nationalised , and the city's churches were closed, sold or demolished. A succession of revolutionary factions ruled Paris until 9 November 1799 ( coup d'état du 18 brumaire ), when Napoleon Bonaparte seized power as First Consul. The population of Paris had dropped by 100,000 during

14365-717: The author the target of critics' interest. As a consequence, Fondane was also sending material to Isac Ludo 's Adam review, most of it notes (some hostile) clarifying ambiguous biographical detail discussed in Aderca's chronicle to Priveliști . His profile within the local avant-garde was also acknowledged in Italy and Germany : the Milanese magazine Fiera Letteraria commented on his poetry, reprinting fragments originally featured in Integral ; in its issue of August–September 1930,

14534-467: The capital of France, was the most populous city of Europe. By comparison, London in 1300 had 80,000 inhabitants. By the early fourteenth century, so much filth had collected inside urban Europe that French and Italian cities were naming streets after human waste. In medieval Paris, several street names were inspired by merde , the French word for "shit". During the Hundred Years' War , Paris

14703-471: The celebrated literary café Les Deux Magots . In the six years before Pascal's 1929 death, Fondane left Gourmont's house and, with his sister and brother-in-law, moved into a succession of houses (on Rue Domat, Rue Jacob, Rue Monge), before settling into a historical building once inhabited by author Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (Rue Rollin, 6). Complaining about eye trouble and exhaustion, and several times threatened with insolvency, Fondane often left Paris for

14872-686: The centre stage of the French Revolution . On 14 July, a mob seized the arsenal at the Invalides , acquiring thousands of guns, with which it stormed the Bastille , a principal symbol of royal authority. The first independent Paris Commune , or city council, met in the Hôtel de Ville and elected a Mayor , the astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly , on 15 July. Louis XVI and the royal family were brought to Paris and incarcerated in

15041-514: The circulation of Romanian literature in France, he received official funds from the Culture Ministry's directorate (at the time headed by Minulescu); in addition, he published unsigned articles in various newspapers, and even relied on handouts from Romanian actress Elvira Popescu (who visited his home, as did avant-garde painter M. H. Maxy ). He also translated into French Zissu's novel Amintirile unui candelabru ("The Recollections of

15210-537: The city. In 1848, Louis-Philippe was overthrown by a popular uprising in the streets of Paris. His successor, Napoleon III , alongside the newly appointed prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann , launched a huge public works project to build wide new boulevards, a new opera house, a central market, new aqueducts, sewers and parks, including the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes . In 1860, Napoleon III annexed

15379-433: The clash of cultures. Although a Sburătorist , he was still in contact with Galaction and the left-wing circles. In June 1921, Galaction paid homage to "the daring Benjamin" in an article for Adevărul Literar și Artistic , calling attention to Fondane's "overwhelming originality." A year later, Fondane was employed by Vinea's new venue, the prestigious modernist venue Contimporanul . Having debuted in its first issue with

15548-414: The contribution of Romanian and French authors, various art chronicles, and opinion pieces on social or cultural issues. A special case was his collaboration with Mântuirea , a Zionist periodical founded by Zissu, where, between August and October 1919, he published his studies collection Iudaism și elenism ("Judaism and Hellenism "). These pieces, alternating with similar articles by Galaction, showed how

15717-573: The cultural segments of the Romanian diaspora : around 1924, he and Millian were founding members of the Society of Romanian Writers in Paris, presided upon by the aristocrat Elena Văcărescu . Meanwhile, Fondane acquired a profile on the local literary scene, and, in his personal notes, claimed to have had his works praised by novelist André Gide and philosopher Jules de Gaultier . They both were his idols: Gide's work had shaped his own contribution in

15886-519: The curfew led to violent confrontations between the police and demonstrators, in which at least 40 people were killed. The anti-independence Organisation armée secrète (OAS) carried out a series of bombings in Paris throughout 1961 and 1962. In May 1968, protesting students occupied the Sorbonne and put up barricades in the Latin Quarter . Thousands of Parisian blue-collar workers joined

16055-594: The current (primarily defined by him as an artistic transposition of eternal idealism ), and comprised the slogan: "We are too many not to be strong, and too few not to be intelligent." In May 1920, another of his Rampa contributions spoke out against Octavian Goga , Culture Minister of the Alexandru Averescu executive, who contemplated sacking George Bacovia from his office of clerk. The same year, Lumea Evree published his verse drama fragment Monologul lui Baltazar (" Belshazzar 's Soliloquy"). Around

16224-475: The establishment of " România Literară ", to which writers from both Moldavia and Wallachia contributed. He was one of the most vocal unionists, supporting the union the two Romanian provinces, Moldavia and Wallachia. In 1856, he published in Mihail Kogălniceanu's newspaper, Steaua Dunării, the poem " Hora Unirii ", which became the anthem of the unification movement. The end of 1855 saw Alecsandri pursuing

16393-809: The fact that his sister and brother-in-law (the Pascals) had returned impoverished from an extended stay in Paris , Fondane crossed Europe by train and partly by foot. The writer (who adopted his Francized name shortly after leaving his native country) was eventually joined there by the Pascals. The three of them continued to lead a bohemian and at times precarious existence, discussed in Fondane's correspondence with Romanian novelist Liviu Rebreanu , and described by researcher Ana-Maria Tomescu as "humiliating poverty". The poet acquired some sources of income from his contacts in Romania: in exchange for his contribution to

16562-527: The far right. In 1942, his own Romanian citizenship rights, granted by the Jewish emancipation of the early 1920s, were lost with the antisemitic legislation adopted by the Ion Antonescu regime, which also officially banned his entire work as "Jewish". At around that time, his old friends outside France made unsuccessful efforts to obtain him a safe conduct to neutral countries. Such initiatives were notably taken by Jacques Maritain from his new home in

16731-417: The fields they felt the fascists had colonized." Fondane nevertheless ridiculed the communist version of pacifism as a "parade of big words", noting that it opposed mere slogans to concrete German re-armament . Writing for the film magazine Les Cahiers Jaunes in 1933, he expressed the ambition of creating "an absurd film about something absurd, to satisfy [one's] absurd taste for freedom". Fondane left

16900-550: The first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum (Latin "Hill of Martyrs"), later " Montmartre ", from where he walked headless to the north of the city; the place where he fell and was buried became an important religious shrine, the Basilica of Saint-Denis , and many French kings are buried there. Clovis

17069-681: The first socialist mayor. He was re-elected in March 2008. In 2007, in an effort to reduce car traffic, he introduced the Vélib' , a system which rents bicycles. Bertrand Delanoë also transformed a section of the highway along the Left Bank of the Seine into an urban promenade and park, the Promenade des Berges de la Seine , which he inaugurated in June 2013. In 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy launched

17238-473: The following years, Fondane was one of the more prolific contributors to that newspaper, and frequently made use of either pseudonyms ( Diomed , Dio , Funfurpan , Const. Meletie ) or initials ( B. F. , B. Fd. , fd. ). These included his January 1916 positive review of Plumb , the first major work by Romania's celebrated Symbolist poet, George Bacovia . In 1917, after Romania joined the Entente side and

17407-548: The form of bemusement or indignation, which lasted into the next decades. The conservative critic Const. I. Emilian , whose 1931 study discussed modernism as a psychiatric condition, mentioned Fondane as one of the leading "extremists", and deplored his abandonment of traditionalist subjects. Some nine years later, the antisemitic far right newspaper Sfarmă-Piatră , through the voice of Ovidiu Papadima , accused Fondane and "the Jews" of having purposefully maintained "the illusion of

17576-565: The front line at the First Battle of the Marne . The city was also bombed by Zeppelins and shelled by German long-range guns . In the years after the war, known as Les Années Folles , Paris continued to be a mecca for writers, musicians and artists from around the world, including Ernest Hemingway , Igor Stravinsky , James Joyce , Josephine Baker , Eva Kotchever , Henry Miller , Anaïs Nin , Sidney Bechet and Salvador Dalí . In

17745-547: The front page of Dimineața daily, which campaigned for Romanian intervention against the Central Powers (they were the first of several contributions Fondane signed with the pen name Alex. Vilara , later Al. Vilara ). His parallel contribution to the Bârlad -based review Revista Critică (originally, Cronica Moldovei ) was more strenuous: Fondane declared himself indignant that the editorial staff would not send him

17914-579: The future critic, who remained one of Fondane's best friends (and whose poetry Fondane proposed for publishing in Revista Noastră ). Late in 1914, Fondane also began his short collaboration with the Iași Symbolist tribune Vieața Nouă . While several of his poems were published there, the review's founder Ovid Densusianu issued objections to their content, and, in their subsequent correspondence, each writer outlines his stylistic disagreements with

18083-486: The group, describing him as the "stooping green-eyed youth from Iași, the standard-bearer of the iconoclasts and rebels of the new generation". The group was occasionally joined by other friends, among them Millian and painter Nicolae Tonitza . In addition, Fondane and Călugăru frequented the artistic and literary club established by the controversial Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești , a cultural promoter and political militant whose influence spread over several Symbolist milieus. In

18252-481: The innermost three departments around Paris, airports and high-speed rail (TGV) stations, at an estimated cost of €35 billion. The system is scheduled to be completed by 2030. In January 2015, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed attacks across the Paris region. 1.5 million people marched in Paris in a show of solidarity against terrorism and in support of freedom of speech. In November of

18421-509: The inspiration for the poems that will later be published in a collection called Priveliști "Landscapes" in Hebrew. As a teenage boy, Fundoianu traveled a lot in the north of Moldova, collected and delved into the local Romanian folklore of the villages, and from that too he was inspired to write songs which, according to his words, he started composing at the age of 8. Wechsler was a Jewish man from Hertsa region , his ancestors having been born on

18590-564: The late 12th century, Philip Augustus extended the Louvre fortress to defend the city against river invasions from the west, gave the city its first walls between 1190 and 1215, rebuilt its bridges to either side of its central island, and paved its main thoroughfares. In 1190, he transformed Paris's former cathedral school into a student-teacher corporation that would become the University of Paris and would draw students from all of Europe. With 200,000 inhabitants in 1328, Paris, then already

18759-457: The latter's career: Cioran was slowly moving away from his fascist sympathies and his antisemitic stance, and, although still connected to the revolutionary fascist Iron Guard , had reintroduced cosmopolitanism to his own critique of Romanian society. In 1943, transcending ideological boundaries, Fondane also had dinner with Mircea Eliade , the Romanian novelist and philosopher, who, like their common friend Cioran, had an ambiguous connection with

18928-587: The magazine Chemarea , published in Iași by the leftist journalist N. D. Cocea , with help from Symbolist writer Ion Vinea . In the political climate marked by the Peace of Bucharest and Romania's remilitarization, Fondane used Cocea's publication to protest against the arrest of Arghezi, who had been accused of collaborationism with the Central Powers. In this context, Fondane spoke of Arghezi as being "Romania's greatest contemporary poet" (a verdict which

19097-489: The magazines Valuri and Revista Noastră (whose owner, writer Constanța Hodoș , even offered Fondane a job on the editorial board, probably unaware that she was corresponding with a high school student). Also in 1914, the Moldavian Symbolist venue Absolutio , edited by Isac Ludo , featured pieces he signed with the pen name I. Hașir . Among his National High School colleagues was Alexandru Al. Philippide ,

19266-415: The main Surrealist faction and its mentor, André Breton . Writing at the time, he commented that the ideological drive could prove fatal: "Perhaps never again will [a poet] recover that absolute freedom that he had in the bourgeois republic ." A few years later, the Romanian writer expressed his support for the anti-Breton dissidents of Le Grand Jeu magazine, and was a witness at the 1930 riot which opposed

19435-646: The modern city of Paris was first mentioned in the mid-1st century BC by Julius Caesar as Luteciam Parisiorum (' Lutetia of the Parisii ') and is later attested as Parision in the 5th century AD, then as Paris in 1265. During the Roman period, it was commonly known as Lutetia or Lutecia in Latin, and as Leukotekía in Greek, which is interpreted as either stemming from the Celtic root *lukot- ('mouse'), or from * luto- ('marsh, swamp'). The name Paris

19604-535: The money received in Buenos Aires, the writer contemplated returning on a visit to Romania, but he abandoned all such projects later in 1936, instead making his way to France. He followed up on his publishing activity in 1937, when his selected poems, Titanic , saw print. Encouraged by the reception given to Rimbaud le voyou , he published two more essays with Denoël & Steele: La Conscience malheureuse ("The Unhappy Consciousness", 1937) and Faux traité d'esthétique ("False Treatise of Aesthetics ", 1938). In 1938, he

19773-751: The most sustainable transportation systems and is one of only two cities in the world that received the Sustainable Transport Award twice. Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre received 8.9   million visitors in 2023, on track for keeping its position as the most-visited art museum in the world. The Musée d'Orsay , Musée Marmottan Monet and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art. The Pompidou Centre , Musée National d'Art Moderne , Musée Rodin and Musée Picasso are noted for their collections of modern and contemporary art . The historical district along

19942-732: The new site of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (1996), the Arche de la Défense (1985–1989) in La Défense , as well as the Louvre Pyramid with its underground courtyard (1983–1989); Jacques Chirac (2006), the Musée du quai Branly . In the early 21st century, the population of Paris began to increase slowly again, as more young people moved into the city. It reached 2.25 million in 2011. In March 2001, Bertrand Delanoë became

20111-439: The other. During the first two years of World War I and Romania's neutrality , the young poet established new contacts within the literary environments of Iași and Bucharest . According to his brother-in-law and biographer Paul Daniel, "it is amazing how many pages of poetry, translations, prose, articles, chronicles have been written by Fundoianu in this interval." In 1915, four of his patriotic -themed poems were published on

20280-521: The poetry of Ion Barbu , Minulescu, Arghezi and Bacovia. In the same context, the expatriate writer helped introduce Romanians to some of the new European tendencies, becoming, in the words of literary historian Paul Cernat , "the first important promoter of French Surrealism in Romanian culture." In the mid-1920s, Fondane and painter János Mattis-Teutsch joined the external editorial board of Integral magazine, an avant-garde tribune published in Bucharest by Ion Călugăru , F. Brunea-Fox and Voronca. He

20449-620: The population of France. The Paris Region had a nominal GDP of €765 billion (US$ 1.064 trillion when adjusted for PPP ) in 2021, the highest in the European Union. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, in 2022, Paris was the city with the ninth-highest cost of living in the world. Paris is a major railway, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Charles de Gaulle Airport ,

20618-456: The pseudonym I. G. Ofir , in the local literary review Floare Albastră , whose owner, A. L. Zissu , was later a noted novelist and Zionist political figure. Later research proposed that these, like some other efforts of the 1910s, were collective poetry samples, resulting from a collaboration between Fondane and Groper (the former was probably translating the latter's poetic motifs into Romanian). In 1913, Fondane also tried his hand at editing

20787-757: The purpose of having him published by the Poporanist Viața Românească review, but Ibrăileanu refused to recognize Fondane as an affiliate. Fondane had more success in contacting Flacăra review and its publisher Constantin Banu : on July 23, 1916, it hosted his sonnet Eglogă marină ("Marine Eclogue "). Between 1915 and 1923, Fondane also had a steady contribution to Romanian-language Jewish periodicals ( Lumea Evree , Bar-Kochba , Hasmonaea , Hatikvah ), where he published translations from international representatives of Yiddish literature ( Hayim Nahman Bialik , Semyon Frug , Abraham Reisen etc.) under

20956-562: The realm of far right ideas. By the early 1930s, Fondane was in contact with the mainstream modernist Jacques Rivière and his Nouvelle Revue Française circle. In 1928, his own collaboration with the Surrealists took shape as the book Trois scenarii: ciné-poèmes ("Three Scenarios: Cine-poems"), published by Documents internationaux de l'esprit nouveau collection, with artwork by American photographer Man Ray and Romanian painter Alexandru Brătășanu (one of his other contacts in

21125-544: The red clay of Roland Garros . Paris hosted the 1900 , the 1924 , and the 2024 Summer Olympics . The 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups , the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup , the 2007 Rugby World Cup , as well as the 1960 , 1984 and 2016 UEFA European Championships were held in Paris. Every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The ancient oppidum that corresponds to

21294-445: The regular Hollywood films . Exploring what he defined as "the great ballet of contemporary French poetry", Fondane also published individual notes on writers Aragon, Jean Cocteau , Joseph Delteil , Paul Éluard and Pierre Reverdy . In 1927, Integral also hosted one of Fondane's replies to the communist Surrealists in France, as Le surréalisme et la révolution ("Surrealism and Revolution"). He also came into contact with unu ,

21463-485: The required 3,000 francs fee through a public subscription, enlisting particularly large contributions from music producer Renaud de Jouvenel (brother of Bertrand de Jouvenel ) and philosopher-ethnologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl . Only months after this event, with the outbreak of World War II , Fondane was drafted into the French Army . During most of the " Phoney War " interval, considered too old for active service, he

21632-405: The resort of Arcachon . Claudia Millian, who was also spending time in Paris, described Fondane's new focus on studying Christian theology and Catholic thought, from Hildebert to Gourmont's own Latin mystique (it was also at this stage that the Romanian writer acquired and sent home part of Gourmont's bibliophile collection). He coupled these activities with an interest in grouping together

21801-580: The same year, terrorist attacks , claimed by ISIL, killed 130 people and injured more than 350. On 22 April 2016, the Paris Agreement was signed by 196 nations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in an aim to limit the effects of climate change below 2 °C. Paris is located in northern central France, in a north-bending arc of the river Seine , whose crest includes two islands,

21970-565: The setting in several of his poems. The adolescent Fondane took extended trips throughout northern Moldavia, making his debut in folkloristics by writing down samples of the narrative and poetic tradition in various Romanian-inhabited localities. Among his childhood friends was the future Yiddish-language writer B. Iosif, with whom he spent his time in Iași's Podul Vechi neighborhood. In this context, Fondane also met Yiddishist poet Iacob Ashel Groper —an encounter which shaped Fondane's intellectual perspectives on Judaism and Jewish history . At

22139-737: The signatures B. Wechsler , B. Fundoianu and F. Benjamin . Fondane also completed work on a translation of the Ahasverus drama, by the Jewish author Herman Heijermans . His collaboration with the Bucharest-based Rampa (at the time a daily newspaper) also began in 1915, with his debut as theatrical chronicler, and later with his Carpathian -themed series in the travel writing genre, Pe drumuri de munte ("On Mountain Roads"). With almost one signed or unsigned piece per issue over

22308-596: The students, and the movement grew into a two-week general strike. Supporters of the government won the June elections by a large majority. The May 1968 events in France resulted in the break-up of the University of Paris into 13 independent campuses. In 1975, the National Assembly changed the status of Paris to that of other French cities and, on 25 March 1977, Jacques Chirac became the first elected mayor of Paris since 1793. The Tour Maine-Montparnasse ,

22477-606: The surrounding towns and created eight new arrondissements, expanding Paris to its current limits. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Paris was besieged by the Prussian Army . Following several months of blockade, hunger, and then bombardment by the Prussians, the city was forced to surrender on 28 January 1871. After seizing power in Paris on 28 March, a revolutionary government known as

22646-415: The tallest building in the city at 57 storeys and 210 m (689 ft) high, was built between 1969 and 1973. It was highly controversial, and it remains the only building in the centre of the city over 32 storeys high. The population of Paris dropped from 2,850,000 in 1954 to 2,152,000 in 1990, as middle-class families moved to the suburbs. A suburban railway network, the RER (Réseau Express Régional),

22815-725: The theatrical troupe Insula ("The Island"), which stated its commitment to avant-garde theater . Probably named after Minulescu's earlier Symbolist magazine, the group was likely a local replica of Jean Copeau 's nonconformist productions in France. Hosted by the Maison d'Art galleries in Bucharest, the company was joined by, among others, actresses Lina Fundoianu-Pascal and Victoria Mierlescu , and director Sandu Eliad . Other participants were writers (Cocea, Pană, Zissu, Scarlat Callimachi , Mărgărita Miller Verghy , Ion Pillat ) and theatrical people ( George Ciprian , Marietta Sadova , Soare Z. Soare , Dida Solomon , Alice Sturdza , Ionel Țăranu ). Although it stated its goal of revolutionizing

22984-420: The throne Henry IV , after converting to Catholicism to gain entry to the capital, entered the city in 1594 to claim the crown of France. This king made several improvements to the capital during his reign: he completed the construction of Paris's first uncovered, sidewalk-lined bridge, the Pont Neuf , built a Louvre extension connecting it to the Tuileries Palace , and created the first Paris residential square,

23153-428: The time of his relocation to Bucharest, Fondane first met the moderate modernist critic Eugen Lovinescu , and afterward became both an affiliate of Lovinescu's circle and a contributor to his literary review Sburătorul . Among his first contributions there was a retrospective coverage of the boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier , which comprised his reflections on the mythical power of sport and

23322-564: The time, Fondane became known to his family and friends as Mielușon (from miel , Romanian for "lamb", and probably in reference to his bushy hairdo), a name which he later used as a colloquial pseudonym. Although Fondane later claimed to have started writing poetry at age eight, his earliest known contributions to the genre date from 1912, including both pieces of his own and translations from such authors as André Chénier , Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff , Heinrich Heine and Henri de Régnier . The same year, some of these were published, under

23491-487: The tract O lămurire despre simbolism ("An Explanation of Symbolism"). In 1919, upon the war's end, Benjamin Fondane settled in Bucharest, where he stayed until 1923. During this interval, he frequently changed domicile: after a stay at his sister Lina's home in Obor area, he moved on Lahovari Street (near Piața Romană ), then in Moșilor area, before relocating to Văcărești (a majority Jewish residential area, where he lived in two successive locations), and ultimately to

23660-427: The two factions. His anti-communist discourse was again aired in 1932: commenting on indictment of Surrealist poet Louis Aragon for communist texts (read by the authorities as instigation to murder), Fondane stated that he did believe Aragon's case was covered by the freedom of speech . His ideas also brought him into conflict with Pierre Drieu La Rochelle , who was moving away from an avant-garde background and into

23829-495: The volume "Legende", and he dedicated a series of poems to the soldiers who participated in the Romanian War of Independence . He also wrote the lyrics of Ștefan Nosievici 's march " Drum bun ". In 1879, his "Despot-Vodă" drama received the award of the Romanian Academy . He continued to be a prolific writer, finishing a fantastic comedy, "Sânziana și Pepelea," (1881) and two dramas, "Fântâna Blanduziei" (1883) and "Ovidiu" (1884). In 1881, he wrote Trăiască Regele ( Long Live

23998-523: The world in 2022. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance , diplomacy , commerce , culture , fashion , and gastronomy . Because of its leading role in the arts and sciences and its early adaptation of extensive street lighting, it became known as the City of Light in the 19th century. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region , or Paris Region, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 inhabitants in January 2023, or about 19% of

24167-431: The world including Pablo Picasso , Modigliani , and Henri Matisse made Paris their home. It was the birthplace of Fauvism , Cubism and abstract art , and authors such as Marcel Proust were exploring new approaches to literature. During the First World War , Paris sometimes found itself on the front line; 600 to 1,000 Paris taxis played a small but highly important symbolic role in transporting 6,000 soldiers to

24336-401: The year. Paris is known for intermittent, abrupt, heavy showers. The highest recorded temperature was 42.6 °C (108.7 °F), on 25 July 2019. The lowest was −23.9 °C (−11.0 °F), on 10 December 1879. For almost all of its long history, except for a few brief periods, Paris was governed directly by representatives of the king, emperor, or president of France. In 1974, Paris

24505-423: The years after the peace conference , the city was also home to growing numbers of students and activists from French colonies and other Asian and African countries, who later became leaders of their countries, such as Ho Chi Minh , Zhou Enlai and Léopold Sédar Senghor . On 14 June 1940, the German army marched into Paris, which had been declared an " open city ". On 16–17 July 1942, following German orders,

24674-611: The young man's views in cultural anthropology had been shaped by his relationship with Groper (with whom he nevertheless severed all contacts by 1920). Fondane also renewed his collaboration with Rampa . He and another contributor to the magazine, journalist Tudor Teodorescu-Braniște , carried out a debate in the magazine's pages: Fondane's articles defended Romanian Symbolism against criticism from Teodorescu-Braniște, and offered glimpse into his personal interpretation of Symbolist attitudes. One piece he wrote in 1919, titled Noi, simboliștii ("Us Symbolists") stated his proud affiliation to

24843-423: Was a Romanian patriot, poet, dramatist, politician and diplomat. He was one of the key figures during the 1848 revolutions in Moldavia and Wallachia . He fought for the unification of the Romanian Principalities , writing " Hora Unirii " in 1856 and giving up his candidacy for the title of prince of Moldavia , in favor of Alexandru Ioan Cuza . He became the first minister of foreign affairs of Romania and

25012-421: Was a highly poetic production, and, despite Fondane's still passionate defense of silent film , the first talkie in Kirsanoff's career. The poet was enthusiastic about this collaboration, claiming that it had enjoyed a good reception from Spain to Canada , standing as a manifesto against the success of more "chatty" sound films. In particular, French critics and journalists hailed Rapt as a necessary break with

25181-639: Was appointed minister of External Affairs by Alexandru Ioan Cuza . He toured the West, pleading to some of his friends and acquaintances in Paris to acknowledge the newly formed nation and support its emergence in the turbulent Balkan area. The diplomatic tours tired him. In 1860, he settled in Mircești for what would be the rest of his life. He married Paulina more than a decade and a half later, in 1876. Between 1862 and 1875, Alecsandri wrote 40 lyrical poems, including "Miezul Iernii, "Serile la Mircești, "Iarna," "La Gura Sobei", "Oaspeții Primăverii", and "Malul Siretului." He also dabbled in epic poems, collected in

25350-418: Was assigned a permanent column, known as Fenêtres sur l'Europe/Ferestre spre Europa (French and Romanian for "Windows on Europe"). With Barbu Florian , Fondane became a leading film reviewer for the magazine, pursuing his agenda in favor of non-commercial and "pure" films (such as René Clair 's Entr'acte ), and praising Charlie Chaplin for his lyricism , but later making some concessions to talkies and

25519-439: Was at the time working on his own play, Filoctet (" Philoctetes ", later finished as Philoctète ). In 1923, Benjamin Fondane eventually left Romania for France, spurred on by the need to prove himself within a different cultural context. He was at the time interested in the success of Dada , an avant-garde movement launched abroad by the Romanian-born author Tristan Tzara , in collaboration with several others. Not dissuaded by

25688-483: Was beginning work on other books: the essay on 19th-century poet Arthur Rimbaud — Rimbaud le voyou ("Rimbaud the Hoodlum")—and, despite an earlier pledge not to return to poetry, a new series of poems. His eponymously titled study-portrait of German philosopher Martin Heidegger was published by Cahiers du Sud in 1932. Despite his earlier rejection of commercial films, Fondane eventually became an employee of Paramount Pictures , probably spurred on by his need to finance

25857-475: Was born in the Moldavian town of Bacău and he was of Greek origin. His parents were Vasile Alecsandri, a middle-ranking nobleman , from the noble Greek family of Alecsandri, and Elena Cozoni, a Romanianized Greek woman. They had seven children, of which three survived: one daughter, Catinca, and two sons, Iancu — a future army colonel – and Vasile. The family prospered in the lucrative business of salt and cereals trade . In 1828, they purchased

26026-424: Was built to complement the Métro; the Périphérique expressway encircling the city, was completed in 1973. Most of the postwar presidents of the Fifth Republic wanted to leave their own monuments in Paris; President Georges Pompidou started the Centre Georges Pompidou (1977), Valéry Giscard d'Estaing began the Musée d'Orsay (1986); President François Mitterrand had the Opéra Bastille built (1985–1989),

26195-410: Was captured by the Germans in June 1940 (shortly before the fall of France ), and was taken into a German camp as a prisoner of war . He managed to escape captivity, but was recaptured in short time. After falling ill with appendicitis , he was transported back to Paris, kept in custody at the Val-de-Grâce , and operated on. Fondane was eventually released, the German occupiers having decided that he

26364-466: Was filled in from around the 10th century, Paris's cultural centre began to move to the Right Bank. In 1137, a new city marketplace (today's Les Halles ) replaced the two smaller ones on the Île de la Cité and Place de Grève (Place de l'Hôtel de Ville) . The latter location housed the headquarters of Paris's river trade corporation, an organisation that later became, unofficially (although formally in later years), Paris's first municipal government. In

26533-491: Was granted municipal autonomy by the National Assembly. The first modern elected mayor of Paris was Jacques Chirac , elected March 1977, becoming the city's first mayor since 1871 and only the fourth since 1794. The current mayor is Anne Hidalgo , a socialist , first elected in April 2014 , and re-elected in June 2020 . Vasile Alecsandri Vasile Alecsandri ( Romanian pronunciation: [vaˈsile aleksanˈdri] ; 21 July 1821 – 22 August 1890)

26702-470: Was hosted by specialized venues such as Revue Philosophique , Schweizer Annalen and Carlo Suarès ' Cahiers de l'Étoile . After a long period of indecision, the Romanian poet became a dedicated follower of Lev Shestov , a Russian -born existentialist thinker whose ideas about the eternal opposition between faith and reason he expanded upon in later texts. According to intellectual historian Samuel Moyn , Fondane was, with Rachel Bespaloff , one of

26871-460: Was in the military reserve force , but in February 1940 was called under arms with the 216 Artillery Regiment . According to Lina, "he left [home] with unimaginable courage and faith." Stationed at the Sainte Assise Castle in Seine-Port , he edited and stenciled a humorous gazette, L'Écho de la I C-ie ("The 1st Company Echo"), where he also published his last-ever work of poetry, Le poète en patrouille ("The Poet on Patrolling Duty"). Fondane

27040-441: Was invaded by the Central Powers, Fondane was in Iași, where the Romanian authorities had retreated. It was in this context that he met and befriended the doyen of Romanian Symbolism, poet Ion Minulescu . Minulescu and his wife, author Claudia Millian , had left their home in occupied Bucharest, and, by spring 1917, hosted Fondane at their provisional domicile in Iași. Millian later recalled that her husband had been much impressed by

27209-465: Was later to be approved of by mainstream critics). According to one account, Fondane also worked briefly as a fact checker for Arena , a periodical managed by Vinea and N. Porsenna . His time with Chemarea also resulted in the publication of his Biblical -themed short story Tăgăduința lui Petru (" Peter's Denial "). Issued by Chemarea ' s publishing house in 41 bibliophile copies (20 of which remained in Fondane's possession), it opened with

27378-434: Was no longer fit for soldierly duty. He was working on two poetry series, Super Flumina Babylonis (a reference to Psalm 137 ) and L'Exode ("The Exodus"), as well as on his last essay, focusing on 19th-century poet Charles Baudelaire , and titled Baudelaire et l'expérience du gouffre ("Baudelaire and the Experience of the Abyss"). In addition to these, his other French texts, incomplete or unpublished by 1944, include:

27547-554: Was occupied by England-friendly Burgundian forces from 1418, before being occupied outright by the English when Henry V of England entered the French capital in 1420; in spite of a 1429 effort by Joan of Arc to liberate the city, it would remain under English occupation until 1436. In the late 16th-century French Wars of Religion , Paris was a stronghold of the Catholic League , the organisers of 24 August 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in which thousands of French Protestants were killed. The conflicts ended when pretender to

27716-408: Was one of the founding members of the Romanian Academy . Alecsandri was a prolific writer, contributing to Romanian literature with poetry, prose, several plays, and collections of Romanian folklore, being considered, alongside Mihai Eminescu , which admired and was inspired by the writings of Alecsandri, as one of the most important Romanian writers in the second half of the 19th century. Alecsandri

27885-430: Was originally called Lutetia (more fully, Lutetia Parisiorum , "Lutetia of the Parisii", modern French Lutèce ). It became a prosperous city with a forum, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre . By the end of the Western Roman Empire , the town was known as Parisius , a Latin name that would later become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis ,

28054-439: Was probably the first Romanian study of Marcel Proust 's contribution as a novelist. The author announced that he was planning a similar volume, grouping essays about Romanian writers, both modernists (Minulescu, Bacovia, Arghezi, Maniu, Galaction) and classics ( Alexandru Odobescu , Ion Creangă , Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea , Anton Pann ), but this work was not published in his lifetime. Also in 1922, Fondane and Pascal set up

28223-435: Was sent to the gas chamber during the last wave of the Holocaust . His work was largely rediscovered later in the 20th century, when it became the subject of scholarly research and public curiosity in both France and Romania. In the latter country, this revival of interest also sparked a controversy over copyright issues . Fondane was born in Iași , the cultural capital of Moldavia, on November 14, 1898, but, as he noted in

28392-436: Was still in contact with writers of various ethnic backgrounds, and active on the clandestine literary scene. In this context, Fondane stated his intellectual affiliation to the French Resistance : his former Surrealist colleague Paul Éluard published several of his poems in the pro-communist Europe , under the name of Isaac Laquedem (a nod to the Wandering Jew myth). Such pieces were later included, but left unsigned, in

28561-516: Was working on a collected edition of his Ferestre spre Europa , supposed to be published in Bucharest but never actually seeing print. At around that date, Fondane was also a presenter for the Romanian edition of 20th Century Fox 's international newsreel , Movietone News . In 1939, Fondane was naturalized French . This followed an independent initiative of the Société des écrivains français professional association, in recognition for his contribution to French letters. Cahiers du Sud collected

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