Stephan Roll (pen name ofGheorghe Dinu, also credited asStéphane,Stefan orȘtefan Roll; June 5, 1904 – May 14, 1974) was aRomanian poet,editor,film critic, and communist militant. An autodidact, he played host to the Romanian avant-garde athis father's dairy shop, publishing his work in short-lived reviews and in two volumes of poetry. As one of the editors of the magazineunu, he turned fromConstructivism,Futurism andjazz poetry to the more lyrical format ofSurrealism. Roll's political radicalism seeped into his avant-garde activity, and produced a split inside theunu group; Roll's faction discarded Surrealism in favor ofproletarian literature, and affiliated with the undergroundRomanian Communist Party.
An antifascist who supported groups such asAmicii URSS and promoted Soviet viewpoints, Roll worked on various leftist periodicals, including those of theAdevărul group andCuvântul Liber. He kept a low profile during World War II, when he was employed by the dailyTimpul, discreetly expressing his criticism ofNazi Germany, later contributing to the clandestineRomânia Liberă. Reemerging under theRomanian communist regime, he became a propagandist and, in his final years, worked on reducing the avant-garde content of his debut works, republishing them in altered editions. He was survived by his painter wife,Medi Wechsler-Dinu.
Roll was a native of Prekopana village in theOttoman Empire'sManastir Vilayet; today, this is Perikopi in theFlorina regional unit of Greece. His parents were Bulgarian peasants: Enache Dinu, akomitadji who fled toBucharest in 1907, and his wife Paraschiva.[1] His formal education consisted of four grades at the Bulgarian school in Bucharest from 1911 to 1915.[1][2] As his letters show, he always had difficulties writing proper Romanian, and devised his own spelling of various words.[3]
Dinu spent his youth in a multicultural environment, spending time in theRomanian Jewish neighborhoods, and acting as theshabbos goy,[2] preserving links with theZionistA. L. Zissu.[4] From 1915 to 1929,[1] he worked as a shop boy at his father's dairy,Lăptăria Enache (orSecolul), near theBucharest Bărăția. His links with radical left-wing circles were documented from late 1921, whenSiguranța, theRomanian Kingdom's secret police, was informed of his possible connections with the terroristMax Goldstein.[4]
During the 1920s, Enache's shop became a meeting place for avant-garde poets and artists such asVictor Brauner (who painted its exterior),[5]Ilarie Voronca, andSașa Pană. Inspired by the more senior poetIon Vinea, the group stated its allegiance toConstructivism, and published in Vinea'sContimporanul.[5][6] Together with Voronca and Brauner, Roll edited75 H.P. magazine, which appeared for one number in October 1924.[1][7] Later, he and Voronca joinedScarlat Callimachi'sPunct.[8] He signed his articles with his birth name, and his poetry asStephan Roll,[5] a pen name he allegedly picked up at random from a Swiss magazine, after noting that he was the only non-pseudonymous writer of his intimate circle.[2]
Dinu worked as an editor forIntegral magazine (1925–1928),[1] where he also made his debut as a film critic, alongsideBenjamin Fondane andIon Călugăru.[9] While visitingCâmpina in 1927, Roll met the aspiring poetGeo Bogza, who had read hisContimporanul pieces, and helped him to launch another avant-garde periodical,Urmuz[10] (to which he also contributed).[1][11] They were joined in Bucharest by the draftsmanJules Perahim, who was aged fifteen at the time,[12] and later also bySandu Eliad andM. H. Maxy.[13]
From 1928 to 1932, Roll edited the magazineunu,[1] and, according to Pană, was the "quicksilver"-like animator of its literary club.[5] However, he also wrote forMeridian andFacla.[1] By 1930, he and hisunu colleagues had signed up to internationalSurrealism, and were especially interested in cultivating itsautomatic writing technique.[5][14] As noted by Pană, Roll took this affiliation seriously, spontaneously experimenting withabsurdist humor. He "very seriously" recounted stories of pseudo-zoology to an audience of fellow tram riders, insisting that giraffes owed their elongated necks to a diet of drain spouts.[15] During that episode,unu hostedoutsider literature by Petre Poppescu, a psychiatric inmate, as well as cut-out obituaries from the mainstream press.[16] Also featured were drawings by Brauner with captions by Roll, such as their posthumous homage to Serafina, Roll's she-dog,[17] whom he had trained to lash out at conformist authors who happened to be visiting Enache's dairy.[18] His defense of the avant-garde led him to publish passionate pieces in defense of Bogza, who was facing trial for his highly erotic collection,Jurnal de sex, a "simulated hymn of voluptuousness and shamelessness, of a sadistic dairy, of spasm and organic inebriation".[19]
According to scholarPaul Cernat, Roll and Pană publicized their "superficial adhesion" to Surrealism only because it provided expression to their dreams of political revolution. Cernat notes the same for two otherunu writers,Miron Radu Paraschivescu andClaude Sernet.[20] Already during the 1930 Bogza trial, Roll drew parallels between the calls for artistic censorship and the rise of fascism.[19] Soon, theunu group severed its links with Vinea andContimporanul: the latter was becoming more mainstream, more eclectic, and more tolerant of "reactionary" figures such asFilippo Tommaso Marinetti,Sandu Tudor, andMihail Sebastian.[21] Inunu, Vinea was attacked as an "Old Man", his Constructivism denounced as opportunistic and "utilitarian".[22] The group won a victory over Vinea by obtaining foreign support: Roll published inDer Sturm an introduction to Romanian Surrealism, followed by samples from Bogza, Fondane, Pană, and other poets. Reportedly, the moderateDer Sturm had to insist thatunu radicals grant it this favor.[23]
For his closeness to the bannedRomanian Communist Party (PCdR), Roll was under constantSiguranța surveillance.[24][25] He opened the magazine to PCdR cadres, publishing a book of poems byIon Vitner, which was swiftly confiscated by the authorities.[15] Roll had a difficult relationship with his nominal protege Bogza, offering him advice that Bogza ignored.[3] The dairy shop went bankrupt and was eventually sold to another Bulgarian family, allegedly because Dinu supplied free meals to destitute clients.[2]
Over the following months, Romanian Surrealism suffered a crisis, as the left-wing faction sought to expel the apolitical ones from its ranks. By 1931, Roll was writing inunu open praises to "robust life" in the Soviet Union, contrasting itsfive-year plans with theGreat Depression.[26] Soon after, Roll made a decisive contribution to excluding Voronca from theunu group for publishing a collection with an "official" press and applying for membership in theRomanian Writers' Society.[5][27] He then attacked Surrealism itself: "yesterday's metaphysics", he noted inunu, "must be channeled into present-dayscientific materialism".[5] In his letters of the period, Voronca noted that Roll worked to destroy his and Bogza's reputation, drawing Pană closer to his communist circle.[28] Bogza, meanwhile, sided with Voronca, which led to a definitive split.[3] At the time, Roll also publicized his love forMarxism in his letters to the Fondane, reproaching him his "lack of a firm stance" and "refuge in an unreal world".[15] In an early 1933 article forCuvântul Liber, Roll expressed his support forLouis Aragon, calling Surrealism a "false avant-garde" as long as it did not tap into "the anarchic economic structure of society".[29]
In December 1932, Pană put out a final, suicidal, issue ofunu.[30] Roll, who remained close friends with the avant-garde reporterF. Brunea-Fox,[18] went on to edit the newspapersAdevărul andDimineața. From 1934 to 1938, he also put outCuvântul Liber,[1] signing up to theAmicii URSS society, which was a front for the PCdR.[31] In his own definition,Cuvântul Liber stood for "the progressive left during those years of fascist exacerbation".[32] However,Răzvan Voncu claims that, going far beyond the antifascist commitment of hisunu colleagues, Roll established links with the Soviet espionage and acted as their agent of influence.[25] PCdR records show that he was viewed with suspicion, a "fractionist" who supposedly wanted the party leadership purged of its non-Romanian cadres.[33]
In 1934, following a clampdown onIron Guard fascism and the PCdR alike, Roll complained to Fondane that "all publications are now being sieved through military censorship."[15] During that year, he wrote in support of the communist unionists who were on trial for theGrivița railway strike,[34] working with theInternational Red Aid and enlisting support from intellectuals such asAlexandru Ciucurencu andJószef Meliusz.[35] He also made occasional returns to cultural polemics, issuing a political critique of theContimporanul artistMarcel Janco,[36] and, befriending folkloristHarry Brauner, was among the first to hear and encourageMaria Tănase, who became Romania's leading recording star.[13]
Around 1936, a card-carrying member of the PCdR, Dinu involved himself in rallies supporting jailed communistsIorgu Iordan andPetre Constantinescu-Iași.[37] He was also a contributor toN. D. Cocea'sEra Nouă, a PCdR-backed review, introducing the public to revolutionary works byGeo Milev.[38] He later joined Cocea'sReporter magazine, where he contributed the film column, written from a Marxist andanti-consumerist perspective.[39] In 1936, he and Paraschivescu were guest editors atKorunk, theHungaro–Romanian Marxist review, publishing therein his essay on "The Formation of Romanian Intellectuals", and contributions byTudor Arghezi,Belu Zilber,Ghiță Ionescu,Stoian Gh. Tudor, andAlexandru Sahia.[40]
In 1937, he participated in the campaign for free speech mounted byZaharia Stancu'sAzi newspaper, defending the avant-garde's Bogza andH. Bonciu against accusations from the nationalist far-right.[41] Also that year, he founded the satirical reviewPinguinul, described bySiguranța as a "camouflaged communist organ".[4] Publishing art by Perahim and Brauner, and texts by Bogza, it was forcefully closed down after putting our four issues.[42] For a while, Roll entertained the idea of relaunching it under the namePitpalacul.[4]
From 1938 to 1940, Roll edited Stancu'sLumea Românească newspaper,[1] where he continued to press for antifascism, alongside Bogza,George Macovescu,Petru Manoliu, and various others.[19] Although connected with the PCdR and accepting its instructions, it was more closely aligned with theRadical Peasants' Party.[43] During its brief existence, it published Bogza's counterattack on the traditionalists such asStelian Popescu, exposing pornographic traits in their own press.[44] Roll carried on with his attack on Surrealism and automatism: having already hosted Soviet attacks onpsychoanalysis atCuvântul Liber, he wrote a critical obituary forSigmund Freud inAzi (October 1939). It denounced Freudism as the "opium of the people", a distraction from "revolutionary ardor".[45]
In 1940, Roll transferred to Mircea Grigorescu'sTimpul daily, his main place of employment to 1947.[1] With the start of World War II fascism and Romania's alliance withNazi Germany, he hid his political commitments. Sometimes with Grigorescu's blessing, he and other crypto-communists (Paraschivescu and Macovescu) published texts that hinted at their support for theAllied Powers.[46] He was in a relationship withMedi Wechlser, a Jewish painter whom he had met ca. 1934.[18] Theracial laws prevented them from getting married,[47] and banned Medi from artistic life.[18]
During theNational Legionary regime, Roll extended his protection to a hunted communist sympathizer,George Ivașcu.[37] In 1943, he became one of the main contributors to Ivașcu's clandestine newspaper,România Liberă, signaling his closeness to the undergroundUnion of Patriots.[48] According to Dinu's own account, the newspaper was planned in his own home, with support from Medi, Macovescu, and Tereza Ungár-Macovescu.[35]
In his forties, Stephan Roll emerged as an important figure among communist writers, and, as noted by criticIon Pop, "enrolled himself heart and soul in support of propaganda".[33] Shortly after thepro-Allied coup of August 1944, he rallied with theRomanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union, and became co-editor, withAthanase Joja,Simion Oeriu andPetre Pandrea, of itsVeac Nou magazine.[49] He wrote enthusiastic reportage pieces of his travels in the Soviet Union, including a chronicle of theTbilisi—Spartak derby and interviews with homecomingRomanian POWs.[50] His stated conclusion was that the "Soviet man" was "the first-class citizen of the coming world".[51] With Stancu and Paraschivescu, he was a witness for the prosecution at the trial of journalists who had supported fascism, organized by theRomanian People's Tribunals in 1945.[52] However, there is some indication that Roll secretly resented communist policies, in particular the recruitment drive for party cadres. He is credited as having invented the one-liner:Puțini am fost, mulți am rămas ("So very few we were, so many of us remain").[53]
Between 1947 and 1956, under the earlycommunist regime, he editedMunca newspaper andGazeta Literară magazine. From 1956 to 1967, he was secretary of theNewspapermen's Union.[1] In the 1950s, he married Medi, with Pandrea as their godfather.[2][18][47] Their marriage was childless.[47] Dinu-Roll published his retrospective volume in 1968,Ospățul de aur ("Golden Feast"). Prefaced byAlexandru A. Philippide, it made young writers aware that the journalist and the avant-garde poet were one and the same man.[54] However, the pieces published here were toned down bycommunist censorship and by Roll's own reservations, and some were heavily retouched.[5][25]
Following the writer's death in 1974, his widow Medi recovered and copied the original drafts of his poems, which were published by Macovescu andEugen Jebeleanu inGazeta Literară.[2] Ion Pop resumed the editorial work, and in 1986 produced a new edition that was more faithful to the original formats. The project was again taken up after the1989 Revolution, and, in 2014, Pop ultimately produced an uncensored corpus of Roll's literary contribution.[25] Continuing to paint, Medi made local history when, upon turning 100 in 2008, she exhibited fresh works of art.[18]
Roll's poems successively display echoes of the main currents through which the Romanian avant-garde passed. His early "integralist" Constructivism, with its hints ofFuturism andDada, produced manifesto-like poems, odes to modern life, and samples ofjazz poetry,[5] as well as an homage to the avant-garde cult figure,Urmuz.[55] According to Cernat, they are "urban-cosmopolitan poems, abundant in ruptures, arbitrariness, and stridency".[56] Their "dynamic" and "synthetic" style drew attention from the modernist criticEugen Lovinescu, who noted that Roll managed to outdo his Futurist masters in "virtuosity".[57]
Roll's transition to Surrealism brought his recovery of earlier, more classical, poetic models. Atunu, he praised theComte de Lautréamont,Arthur Rimbaud, andCharles Baudelaire.[58] This influence is seen in the 1929 collectionPoeme în aer liber ("Outdoor Poetry") and the prose poems included in the 1930Moartea vie a Eleonorei ("Eleonora's Living Death"), both of which came with illustrations byVictor Brauner.[59] These more elegiac poems depict the natural universe with sensory freshness, celebrated for a particular ability for conjuring up images, which have playful, ironic and burlesque touches.[1][5][60] One of these pieces isDiana, described by Ion Pop as "one of his most beautiful" and as proof of Roll's stylistic debt toIlarie Voronca:
Privește: lumina e albă | Look up: the light is white |
In its various editions,Ospățul de aur collects both poems and essays about his generational colleagues, written in the same poetic style and brimming with imagery. The posthumous collectionBaricada din călimară ("A Barricade in the Inkpot", 1979) sheds light on his activity in the 1930s as a radical-left journalist.[1]
According to criticRăzvan Voncu, he endures in cultural memory as "a second-shelf author, albeit one whose biography and work contain, in effigy, all defining traits of the interwar avant-garde."[25] Another reviewer, Doris Mironescu, finds him "mediocre" and "entirely unoriginal".[3] Contrarily,Marin Mincu pays homage to Roll as Romania's "most authentic avant-garde writer", finding him superior to poetsMircea Dinescu andAna Blandiana.[61]
