The Walls Behind the Curtain: East European Prison Literature, 1945–1990

Radu Gyr (pseudonym of Radu Demetrescu; 1905–1975)

270 | roMania radu gyr (pseudonym of radu demetrescu; 1905–1975) A native of Câmpulung Muscel, the first capital of Wallachia about 150 kilometers north of Bucharest, Gyr became an active member of the Legion of St. Michael the Archangel at an early age. He rose to the rank of commander and head of the legionary movement in Oltenia. Already admired as a poet in the 1920s, he collaborated with most of the prominent literary reviews of the period and was honored in the 1920s and 1930s by such institutions as the Society of Romanian Writers, the Literary Institute, and the Romanian Academy. He enjoys the dubious distinction of being the only poet in Romanian history condemned to death for his poetry, in particular his poem “Ridică-te Gheorghe, ridică-te Ione!” (Rise Up, George, Rise up, John!), which was viewed by the authorities as an appeal to the peasantry to resist collectivization. The following excerpts are from Poezii din închisori (Prison Poetry), edited by Zahu Pană (Canada: Editura “Cuvântul Românesc,” 1982), 13, 66, 91, and have been translated from Romanian by Harold B. Segel. from Poezii din închisori Voi n’aţi fost cu noi în celule (You Weren’t With Us in the Cells) You were not with us in the cells to know that it is a life of darkness, under the claws of a wild beast, with insatiable maws, you do not know that it is a man when he begins to howl, crushed by manacled ankles. You did not weep into your hands, bitter, pierced by the knife of betrayal. Beneath a sky without stars, on the way to the grave, you did not bear the burden of holy pains for the glory and well-being of the homeland. In song together with us passing among shadows of a wall, You did not know the sublime beauty of longing bursting, of the heart leaping pursuing the harp of life. This is the work of a frail arm, this is the yoke, this is the smirk of a monster, roMania | 271 as the bone crunches when the cold penetrates, this is the hunger, this is the thirst, you have not from where to tell about yours. You do not know how in a bloodthirsty prison hope and dream lie, when heavy doors are shut by a bolt and in terrible fear of its grip the vanquished sells himself. You have been at a resplendent banquet chasing after splendor and pride, neither pity for us, nor yearning, nor right, nor a kindled lamp or liberty itself, but the thorns of immense mourning. Thus are you all who believe that the fist is the sole renown. Hypocritical in thought, you pass us by when we with cheeks the color of earth and eggplants, taste of calamity and horror. 272 | roMania When all the gates burst open and the dead begin to howl, when the chains and walls fall to pieces, you shall not know what the resurrection from death means, since you were not with us in the cell. Poveste (A Tale) I’ve had a child and a wife now a hundred, a thousand years. Do you hear the spiders? Do you hear the rats? I have had a child and a wife. When was that happiness with terrestrial diaphanous images? Mists, the ends of worlds, hurricanes, have torn child and wife from my life. A hundred years, five hundred years have passed, mountains have toppled over, gods have increased. At rare times memories concealed by boulders explode like dynamite. And detonated briefly in their darkness a face smiles at me and destroys. From a bed, two small hands, drowsy, extended, as if dumbfound me: “Daddy!” Here no one calls me by name. Hundreds of years pass randomly. Here I am: hey, that one, someone, afterward I fall again into posthumous obscurity. But what? Has heaven been torn asunder? Is God dead? Are we only three among all? Life is ashes and just we have remained in a fortress: eternity, the cell, and I! . . . If I could but see the fragment of a star! What a wild beast eternity is, what a wild beast! I would beg it to give me an end of a rope so that I might hang myself with it for millenia. roMania | 273 Ridică-te Gheorghe, ridică-te Ione! (Rise Up, George, Rise up, John!) Not for a...