Urmuz

(17.03.1883 – 23.11.1923)Through Urmuz, Romanian Surrealism is previous to the French one and independent. Leaving behind the trivial objective chance, Breton thought it fit to use the inner chance, i.e. that chance grouping of subconscious elements which are not constrained by intelligence. Bergsonism and Freudianism at the same time, i.e. a culture of the absolute time, of the dream.Urmuz, his true name Demetru Dem. Demetrescu-Buzău, was not in the least crazy, the way philistines would be willing to consider him, although he committed suicide, otherwise the possessor of a philosophy very much in the spirit of the age. He wanted to die in an original way, "without a reason." The son of a doctor from Curtea de Arges, he had received little education. He had been to Paris in his childhood, was then a student at Gh. Lazar high school and after law studies went into magistrature at the High Court of Appeal.His writings, sometimes lucidly devised buffoonery, parodies, puns of sophist nature, fables, intelligent jokes, had a surprising influence on the cultural life of the time, supporting the growth of an aesthetic consciousness. In this way the idea was born to handle an old genre, especially the folk melancholy song, with pure formality, having the most heterogeneous of contents. This is how surrealist folklore appeared. 1941 


by George Călinescu (1899-1965)