183. Letter sent by Emil Cioran, in which he talks about the publication of his debut work "On the Heights of Despair" and the desire to "sense more accurately and directly the inner rhythm of the new Germany", September 1933, a very rare collector's item (1 page)

Starting price

EUR 400

Sold

EUR 1.700

Session

Thu, 3 October 2024 19:00

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Emil Cioran, at the age of 22, receives a two-year Humboldt scholarship in Germany. The letter refers to the mandatory medical examination he had to pass to be admitted to Germany, the publication of the novel "On the Heights of Despair", which will appear in 1934 and for which he will receive the Prize of the Commission for awarding young unpublished writers and the Prize of Young Romanian Writers, and his personal desire to stay in Berlin, from where he could better see and feel "the inner rhythm of the new Germany". From a literary point of view, the key passage of the letter is: "The feeling of gratitude [towards the doctor, for giving him the green medical light for departure to Germany] I can only express it by writing in the Romanian press all that my love for Germany will dictate. According to your advice my curiosity will embrace [in Germany, from where he says he intends to send articles to the Romanian press; most of the articles sent from there appeared in "Vremea" and "Calendarul"] not only specialized studies, but also concerns of ethical psychology and social life". The need felt in the last years of the interwar period by the young generation for a spiritual awakening, emanating from the exaltation of vital, anti-rationalist values, which culminated in right-wing extremism, influenced Cioran's vision. Although he was never a member of the Legionary Movement, during the interwar period he sympathizes with its ideas, without agreeing with its violent methods. Having left for Berlin with a scholarship in 1933, he proclaimed himself in an article an admirer of Hitler and provocatively justified the Night of the Long Knives. He will then definitively repudiate, with fury and shame, this vision, seeing it as an inadmissible wandering of youth, arguing through it the refusal of any involvement of the individual in history.

Dimensions

width 21 cm, height 34 cm

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