IDENTITY LANDMARKS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF PANAIT ISTRATI'S CHARACTERS
IDENTITY LANDMARKS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF PANAIT ISTRATI'S CHARACTERS

Summary/Abstract: Analysing the issue of identity in relation to otherness, we focus our reflections on the characterological types representative of Panait Istrati's writing, in order to highlight the identity dimension of Istrati's work. It is obvious that the literary analysis of Istrate’s writing is not possible without identifying the particularities of the narrative chronotope and the network of symbols, recurring metaphors. In the bundle narratives, Panait Istrati places characters who are always travelling, their adventures being primarily initiatory. Friendship is often established between Istrati’s characters, whether outlaws or intellectuals, itinerant merchants or simply vagabonds, and this often extends to the brotherhood of the cross. The myth of friendship and the passion for freedom are just some of the phrases loaded with new symbolic meaning. The ordering criterion for analysing Istrate’s characters remains the classification made by the academic Eugen Simion in 2019, and the reference texts are illustrative of the Danube-Balkan Cycle (Chira Chiralina, Ciulinii Bărăganului) and the outlaws’ prose cycle (Domnița de la Snagov, Prezentarea haiducilor). With heroes thirsting for friendship, love, freedom and truth, the writer has succeeded in foraying the deepest horizons of the human being, illustrating one of its identity hypostases, the divinity in man.

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