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Jean Parvulesco | |
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| Born | Ion Pârvulescu (1929-09-29)September 29, 1929 |
| Died | November 21, 2010(2010-11-21) (aged 81) |
| Citizenship | Romanian French |
| Occupations | philosopher, writer, film critic, journalist |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | French philosophy |
| School | Pan-European nationalism Eurasianism |
| Institutions | GRECE |
| Notable students | Alexander Dugin |
| Language | French |
Jean Parvulesco (bornIon Pârvulescu, September 29, 1929 – November 21, 2010) was aRomanian-Frenchfar-right[1][2][3] philosopher, writer and journalist. An heir toTraditionalist thought in the perennialist lineage ofRené Guénon, but above all that ofJulius Evola, a sympathizer of theNouvelle Droite and an atypical Catholic close to a form of telluricpantheism, he is best known for his numerous novels and for a new, poetic style of writing infused with intuitions and “mystical” enigmas. He had an important influence on several far-right figures in Europe.[4]
Born inPitești,Romania in 1929, having attended a cadet school, Ion Pârvulescu fled the newly establishedcommunist regime of Romania in July 1948 by swimming across theDanube intoYugoslavia. Arrested by the Yugoslav authorities and sent to a political forced-labor camp nearTuzla, he escaped and clandestinely reachedAustria in August 1949. He arrived inParis in 1950 and attended philosophy and literature courses at theSorbonne, though without serious commitment, preferring instead to frequent literary, artistic, and cinematic circles. He also served as secretary-general of the “Union Center of Democratic Romanian Journalists and Publicists in Exile,” founded in 1950 and comprising about thirty members.[5] He was later naturalized as a French citizen.[6] He also had ties to theIron Guard exiles in France.[7]
In February 1978, he was among the founding members of the Committee of Intellectuals for a Europe of Freedoms.[8]
The author of a prolific and diverse body of work (novels, essays, and poetry), claiming numerous literary influences, Jean Parvulesco began publishing mainly from the 1980s onward. He became close to theGroupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne (GRECE), then to its splinter group European Synergies,[9] as well as toRaymond Abellio,Jacques Bergier,Arno Breker,Jean Daniélou,Guy Dupré,Mircea Eliade,Vintila Horia, Henry Montaigu,Louis Pauwels,Dominique de Roux, and in the world of cinema toJean-Luc Godard and actresses such asCarole Bouquet,Aurora Cornu,Ava Gardner, andBulle Ogier.
He maintained relations with authors as diverse asPierre Boutang,Alain de Benoist,Marguerite Duras,Julius Evola,Martin Heidegger, Michel Marmin,Ezra Pound, Michel d’Urance, among others. In 1973, he metMichel Mourlet, then editor of the magazineMatulu, where he published a long article onLe Cercle rouge byJean-Pierre Melville. He also published three major studies on Mourlet:
From the late 1950s onward, he frequented nationalist-revolutionary circles alongside figures such asJean Dides. He admired theOrganisation de l'armée secrète (OAS) and belonged to the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement.[10] He later wrote geopolitical articles in various publications, including the daily newspaperCombat,advocating the creation of a “Paris–Berlin–Moscow axis” to counter “Anglo-Saxon hegemony,” a concept previously advanced byGabriel Hanotaux and mentioned by Raymond Abellio in the second volume of his memoirsLes Militants.
A fictional writer character bearing his name appears inÀ bout de souffle (1959); because of his proximity to the OAS and his presence inSpain at the time of filming, the role was played by Jean-Pierre Melville due to their physical resemblance.[11]Antoine de Baecque interprets this appearance as a “cryptically encoded underground reference to a young fascist of Romanian origin, Jean Parvulesco, encountered by Godard at the Latin Quarter film club, who fascinated him by his radically extremist positions, a fervent admirer of GeneralFrancisco Franco’s legions and of theNouvelle Vague”.[12] He also appears in films byÉric Rohmer (The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque),Barbet Schroeder (Maîtresse), among others.
From June to August 1960, he published a series of seven articles in the Spanish Falangist magazinePrimer Plano, strongly favorable to the Nouvelle Vague, attempting to demonstrate that it was imbued with far-right ideas. The academicHélène Liogier notes that he “seems particularly well informed about Nouvelle Vague films and directors,” even claiming personal acquaintance with them.[13]
Jean Parvulesco collaborated withMatulu,La Place royale,Contrelittérature,Éléments,Nouvelle École,Rébellion,L'Athenaeum (Russian international review),La Revue littéraire, among others. He was also close to screenwriter-director Tony Baillargeat, who announced plans to devote a documentary to him. He appeared as an extra inMaîtresse by Barbet Schroeder, opening a door toGérard Depardieu in the opening scenes before turning him away. In 1996, he appeared in Bertrand Delcour’s novelBlocus solus, centered on the figure ofGuy Debord.
Translator and essayistPhilippe Baillet, who knew him, described him as an “inimitable prankster and literary madman (but mad with a feigned and controlled madness)”.[14][15][16]
In 2015, the Romanian branch ofRussiaToday organised a conference dedicated to Jean Parvulesco at theNational Library of Romania, among the attendees beingAlexander Dugin and his daughter,Daria Dugina.[17]
In 2017, an international conference devoted to his work was held inMoldova,[18] which was attended by the thenPresident of MoldovaIgor Dodon.[19] Other attendees includedIurie Roșca and Presidential advisorIon Ceban.[20]
Christophe Bourseiller, close to Jean-Luc Godard in his childhood and who met Jean Parvulesco in 2010 to invite him to the TV programCe soir (ou jamais !), devoted his bookEn cherchant Parvulesco to the relationships between the three men. Romanian journalistMirela Roznoveanu described him as " a strange character, a mixture of genius and legend, an original and paradoxical mind".[21] In the volumeAt the water of Babylon,Monica Lovinescu reminds of “Jean Parvulescu as so amateur of apocalypses and who as his “fascist” available rendered impeccably the agonical days and nights of camp”.[22]
Jean Parvulesco was the father of writer and journalist Constantin Parvulesco, who is said to have retired to a Romanian monastery in theCarpathian Mountains under the name Father Nikandros.[23] He was the grandfather of Stanislas Parvulesco, one of the claimants to the “throne” ofAraucanía and Patagonia.[24]
Analyzing his articles inPrimer Plano on the Nouvelle Vague, the academic Hélène Liogier states that he “defends the virtues of order dictated by the papacy and monarchy,” is “in favor of a nationalism with European borders,” “praises the action of violence,” stigmatizes Enlightenment philosophers andJean-Paul Sartre, condemns the “decadence of the capitalist and liberal bourgeoisie,” shows “exacerbatedanti-communism and a trace ofantisemitism,” and is “convinced of the existence of a conspiracy orchestrated by subversive forces”.[25] He admiredPierre Drieu la Rochelle, whom he regarded as a truemessiah, and lamentedNazi Germany’s defeat at the end of theSecond World War.[26] He was also deeply influenced bypostmodernism.[27]
He defended the construction ofEurasia as a “site of dialectical confrontation between theUnited States and theSoviet Union,” leading to the “final assumption of the whole toward a new unity of civilization [within] a single community of civilization, being, and destiny.” HistorianNicolas Lebourg interprets this as “a geopolitical-esoteric reformulation of nationalist-European theses on the white world, and a prefiguration of end-of-century theses on the new Eurasian-American entente known as the ‘Septentrion’”.[28] In opposition toAmerican imperialism, he asserted that the USSR would save thewhite race.[29]
After thedissolution of the USSR, he advocated a “great Eurasian pan-European empire” uniting “Western Europe and Eastern Europe, Russia and Greater Siberia, India and Japan”,[30] against theUnited Kingdom and theUnited States.[31] He describedVladimir Putin as “a terrestrial representation ofChrist Pantocrator,” preparing the advent of the “Eurasian Empire of the End”.[32]Nicolas Lebourg emphasizes that “while the French far-right continued to think through the filter of the Cold War, Parvulesco revived the theme of the Paris–Berlin–Moscow axis, a subject of reflection in French diplomacy for over a century”.[33]
According to Lebourg, Jean Parvulesco “was undoubtedly one of the first authors to introduceMackinder into the French nationalist milieu, in a journal he edited withYves Bataille”.[34] He was the translator of the first texts ofFrancis Parker Yockey and one of the openly acknowledged inspirations of the Russian ideologueAlexander Dugin.[35] Through Dugin, who was his friend and disciple, Jean Parvulesco influenced the political life in Russia, contributing to the establishment of the youth movementNashi.[36]
Lebourg concludes that “Parvulesco was an international transmitter of marginal ideas; his legacy is that of a name turned into a password—highly specific, but contributing to a transnational political imagination”.[37]
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