The idea to bring together in one volume (be it even one issue of a prestigious publication) excerpts from the works of ethnic minority writers seems to me generous and even necessary. From the very beginning, one characteristic distinction appears useful to me. Since this is about the expressiveness of the writing art, the writers whose work is included here are not the same. Some (Hungarian and German writers) wrote in their mother-tongues, others (Jews and Armenians) even wrote in Romanian. Due to this, the latter only belong genetically (by birth) to minorities; in fact, through the language of their creation, they are Romanian writers, therefore they basically belong to the Romanian literature. The others, who write in their native language, are in fact Romanians only owing to their residence; but, they are still studied as part of the Romanian literature, because simultaneously they are part of the language they use to create. And all this because language is the basic element in the act of literary creation. Paul Celan, a German-language poet and a Jew from Romania, was an expatriate who lived in Paris. Today he is considered the most important German poet of the 20th century. And great Romanian writers like Eugen Ionescu and Emil Cioran, although they wrote in Romanian until 1940, settled in France, and they wrote their exceptional work in French, so they are considered great French writers. But beyond this distinction, which is still essential, these writers undoubtedly belong to their ethnic minorities, and their work is a useful or grand contribution (depending on its aesthetic value) to the aesthetic enrichment of the literature thesaurus in their country of origin. And, I repeat, if this is the case, they also belong to the greater or lesser Romanian literature, by birth. In the latter case, this is a privilege we must take note of: their contribution to the literatures of two countries (languages). In a democratic climate, writers can communicate in the language they consider as their mother-tongue. (In fact, the same happened in non-democratic circumstances). However, the democratic climate increases and nuances their opportunities to publish their works and to have them fairly assessed from the aesthetic point of view. It is necessary to mention that a truly democratic political climate must not be characterized by tolerance for ethnic minorities, but by perfect equality of treatment. Tolerance is another word for putting up with. Equality of treatment eliminates not just any and all discrimination, but it also ensures perfectly similar rights with those of the majority. We can say that today in Romania, although discriminating interjections are still heard sometimes, the tendency is even to go beyond the spirit of tolerance, to really achieve this necessary equality of treatment. Some time in the future, let us hope it will not be too late, this aspiration will become fact.
by Z. Ornea (1930-2001)
