La Roumanie dans l’œuvre de Panaït Istrati

Abstract

Panait Istrati (1884-1935) is a Roumanian writer of French expression. His work, viewed, generally, as striking, was widely acclaimed during the first two world wars. Although most of his writings, autobiographical in large part, describes his peregrinations conducted in the Mediterranean periphery for twenty years, this homing pigeon turned writer, never forgets his native country, consistently present in his books. One can always find the most profound and authentic aspects of his beloved country throughout his writings.

Romania is at the heart of all Istrati’s works: whether it is the captivating oriental atmosphere bathing Kyra Kyralina, his first book, inspired, according to the author, by the cosmopolitan city of Braila, his native town. Whether is depicting the rural world with its peasants whose souls forged by a historical adversity often crual, whether he is describing with vivacity their evocative written traditions, or the description of different human groups tightly linked to the Romanian people such as: the Lipovènes or the Gypsies; let’s not forget that nature always present at the heart of the numerous evocations of the forests, of the Danube or the Baragan. Stongly influenced, notably in the first cycle of Récits d’Adrien Zograffi, by the oral tradition of the southern Danubian regions, the writings of the “Romanian storyteller who became a French writer” are so imbued with the presence of geographical, historical and Romanian sociology that they constitute a true ethno-cultural testimony to the country. Not of course in the scientific meaning, but, much more powerfully, in that of a resonant tribute to the emotion and love of the writer who, even though he has chosen another language for writing, has celebrated through his art the living sources of his identity.