Liviu Deleanu

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Liviu Deleanu

Born Lipe Kligman

21 February 1911
Iai

Died 12 May 1967 (aged 56)

Chiinu

Occupation poet, playwright

Nationality Moldovan

Liviu Deleanu (born Lipe Kligman; 21 February 1911, Iai - 12 May 1967, Chiinu) was
a Moldovan and Romanian poet and playwright, a doyen of postwar Moldovan literature.

Contents
[hide]

1Biography
o 1.1In Iai
o 1.2In Bucharest
o 1.3In Moldavia
2Style
3References

Biography[edit]
In Iai[edit]
Liviu Deleanu was born in Iai, the capital of the Romanian province of Moldavia, in a house
on strada Veche (Veche street) in 1911. His father, Semi (Shmil) Kligman, was a poet
in Yiddish and Hebrew, who supported his earliest poetic efforts. Deleanu hated his childhood,
recalling the privations faced by him and his mother after his father was conscripted during the First
World War. His mother, who was not well educated, instilled in him a love of language and folk
imagination. However, it was his aunt, famous in the family for her verses, from whom he inherited
his poetic gift.[1]
Deleanu studied at a cheder and at a Romanian gymnasium. At age 11, he began an apprenticeship
as a lithographer and a proofreader, and quickly entered the literary life. He joined the
magazine Vitrina Literar (Literary showcase) as a staff-member at the age of 16, where he wrote
under the pseudonyms Cliglon and C.L. Deleanu. The same year, under the name Liviu Deleanu, he
published his first collection of poetry Oglinzi fermecate (Magic mirrors).[2]
In 1928, along with the poet Virgil Gheorghiu (1903-1977), Deleanu founded his own
journal Prospect (subtitled Simptom literar), which was recognised by George Clinescu in his
authoritative Istoria literaturii romne (History of Romanian Literature) as one of the first modernist
periodicals published in Romania.[3] In the first three issues, edited by Deleanu himself, appeared
poems by him and Virgil Gheorghiu; from the fourth issue onwards, other names appeared as well:
Mihail Bicleanu, Saa Pan, Aurel Zaremba and others.
In Bucharest[edit]
In 1928, Deleanu continued his literary career in Bucharest. During his sojourn in the Romanian
capital, he wrote theatre reviews, reportage, articles on art, advertising, printed translation from the
Yiddish, and published fragments of his novel in such journals as Adam (the organ of the Jewish
community of the city), Ediie special (Special edition), Bilete de papagal (a satirical magazine
edited by Tudor Arghezi) and Cuvntul liber (The Free Word). His second collection of poetry Ceasul
de veghe (The Hour of the Vigil) was released by Santier publishing house in 1937 to favourable
reviews from Bucharest's critics such as George Clinescu ('Mr. Deleanu's collection of poems
reveals humanitarian concerns, sympathy for the miners, workers, designers, vagrants. The subject
should not frighten, because Mr. Deleanu has treated it with remarkable skill...'),[4] Izabella
Sadoveanu, and Enrica Furtuna.
Deleanu's third collection Glod alb (White mud) was published by Cultura Poporului (Popular
Culture) in 1940. In it was included a long poetic cycle on the Spanish Civil War that was originally
written in 1937, Sabii peste Spania (Swords over Spain), along with well-known poems such
as Serenade pe baricade (Serenade on the barricades), Don Quijote, Guernica, A doua
moarte (Second death). In the prewar years, some of Deleanu's poems became popular songs,
including Sanie cu zurgli (Sleigh bells - set to music by Richard Stein, 1909-1992), which was for
a long time considered the national song.[5]
In Moldavia[edit]
After the absorption of Bessarabia into the USSR, Deleanu moved to Chiinu and immediately
joined the literary life of the city. Along with Bogdan Istru, he translated the National Anthem of the
Soviet Union into Moldovan.
During the Second World War, he lived in Moscow, translating Russian poetry into Moldovan. Some
of the poets he translated were Ivan Krylov, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolay
Nekrasov, Sergei Yesenin, Sergey Mikhalkov, Korney Chukovsky, Aleksandr Tvardovsky as well
as Agniya Barto. He wrote Balada lui Kotovschii (The Ballad of Kotovsky), Ballada urii and several
other works. From 1943, he also worked as literary editor of the ensemble Doina.[2]
Returning to Chiinu in 1944, Deleanu received news of the death of his parents during the Iai
pogrom of 1941, in which during a week, more than 14,000 Jews of the town were murdered.
Deleanu wrote the anguished poem Comar (Nightmare).
The same year, he met his soon-to-be wife, Baka Rivilis (1921-2005), at Soroca, where she was
working at the provincial archives. For the rest of his life, she remained a faithful and energetic
promoter of Deleanu's oeuvre while maintaining a busy schedule of her own translation work.[6]
In the post-war years, he wrote Elegy to victory and his great poem Krasnodon (1950; but a
reworked version of this appeared in book form titled Tineree fr moarte (Immortal youth) came out
in 1957, with eleven subsequent editions), which was influenced by A. A. Fadeyev's Young Guard. In
1951, he wrote the dramatic poem Buzduganul fermeca (The magic mace), based on a Moldovan
folk-tale; it remains very popular in the Moldovan theatre to this day. His wartime poems were
published in the 1952 collection Vremuri noi (New times).[2]
In subsequent years, he published numerous other collections of poetry: Mi-i drag s meteresc (I
love tinkering, 1953), Poezii i poeme (Poems, 1954), Cnturi de ieri i de azi (Songs of the past and
the present, 1958), Stihuri alese (Collected poetry, 1958), Freamt (1962), Ieire din legend (Exit
into legend, 1963), Dragostea noastr cea de toat zilele (Our everyday love,
1966), Versuri (Verses, 1967). He also wrote books for children: Poezii pentru copii (Verses for
children, 1947), Nepoica o nva pe bunica (The Granddaughter teaches her grandmother,
1952), Licurici: stihuri pentru mici (Firefly: poems for little ones, 1961), Triluri vesele (Merry trills,
1963 and 1979).
After his premature death, Deleanu's oeuvre went into several editions, including the
collections Scrieri (Writings in two volumes), De la mic la mare (For little ones and big ones,
1968), Cartea dorului (Book of wishes, 1968), Destinuire (1970), Strigt din inim (Cry from the
heart, 1976), Cu cntri i flori pe plai (With songs and flowers of the realm, 1980), i de n-ar fi
cuvntul iubire (Were there no word for love, 1981), Chem cntecul (Call songs, 1982), Ala-bala
portocala (1984), Ciocrlii pentru copii (Larks for kids, 1987), Poezii (Poems, 1991), Zpcil(2002).
Selected poems began to appear in collections in Romania: Rscolite tceri (2001) and Prutele,
tcutele! (2003) in Timioara, and Vremi n alte vremi topite (2005) in Iai. The publisher Causa
Mundi (Chiinu) released Deleanu's translations of Pushkin's The Fisherman and the Golden
Fish (Povestea pescarului si a pestisorului de aur, 2005). Many of his children's poems gained
prominence in Russian translation.
Some of Deleanu's works were set to music: Poem on Haia Lifi by the composer Solomon Lobel
(1910-1981) for mixed choir, a cappella and solo (1965).[7]
During the last months of his life, Deleanu finished The Book of Wishes, having written a poem a
day. He died in hospital on 12 May 1967. During his literary career in Moldova, Deleanu never
received any literary prizes. Posthumously, however, he was awarded the Boris Glavan Komsomol
Prize in 1967 for his poem Tineree fr moarte (Immortal youth). These days, his poems are
included in the curricula of Moldovan schools.
In Romania, Deleanu's works remain practically unknown, and only recently have they started
appearing in disparate books and magazines, despite the fact that his Romanian sojourn had been
one of the most fruitful of his life. The reasons for this obscurity can be found in the realities of pre-
war Romania and the political circumstances that forced him to emigrate to Soviet Moldavia. For the
same reasons, Deleanu's artistic oeuvre accomplished while in Romania remained practically
unknown in Soviet Moldavia as well.[3]

Style[edit]
Deleanu's poetry evolved from the modernism of his early days to a more traditional style of classical
poetry in his later years. Its motives, concepts and expressive works of the period between the first
and second world wars, are modern, fitting perfectly in the direction of Romanian poetry of those
years. He used modernist techniques and stylistic devices of poetry including free verse. In the
1950s and 1960s, however, Deleanu's literary profile took a new and different form. In his poetry
collections, which included literary works of absolute maturity, he cleaved to the traditional in his
classic expression. The world of his creations of the postwar period is based on a certain themes:
love, nature, the process of creation, the fate of the creator, and age over time - the motives which in
the context of the Bessarabian poetry of the postwar period, clearly depict the image of a lyric poet
of genuine sensitivity. His poetry indicates a special interest in formal and expressive perfection.[8]

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ Petru Negura (1 March 2009). Ni hros, ni tratres: Les crivains moldaves face au pouvoir
sovitique sous Staline (in French). Editions L'Harmattan. pp. 274275. ISBN 978-2-296-21603-7.
Retrieved June 28, 2013.
2. ^ Jump up to:a b c "Liviu Semyonovich Deleanu". Encyclopedia of Russian Jewry (in Russian).
Retrieved June 28, 2013.
 3. ^ Jump up to:a b Azriel, Iulia (March 2005). "Liviu Deleanu, un poet uitat". Convoribiri Literare (in
Romanian). Retrieved June 28, 2013.
4. Jump up^ George Clinescu (September 12, 1937). "Cronica Literar: T. Plop-Ulmann, L. Deleanu, I.
Popa, S. Bucur, V. Triboniu, Poezii". Adevrul literar i artistic.
5. Jump up^ Romanian Review. 33. "Romania". 1979. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
6. Jump up^ Tatyana Solovyova (October 14, 2005). "Memories of Baka Deleanu". Jewish news portal
of Moldova, Dorledor.info. Retrieved June 28, 2013.
7. Jump up^ Ioni, Elisabeta (1969). "Haia Lifi". Anale de Istorie. Bucharest: Institutul de Studii
Istorice i Social-Politice de pe lng C.C. al P.C.R. XV (5): 178180.
8. Jump up^ Cazacu, Adriana (2010). Modernism and traditionalism in the poetic oeuvre of Liviu
Deleanu (Ph.D.). Moldova State University.

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