Gheorghe Ivănescu. Momente (auto)biografice
Gheorghe Ivănescu – (auto)biographical moments

Summary/Abstract: Professor Gheorghe Ivănescu was a prominent figure in Romanian linguistics, c. m. of the Romanian Academy, and, at the same time, founder of the linguistic school at the universities of Iași and Timișoara, as well as a pioneer of new approaches in the study of the Romanian language. The importance of his scholarly work was recognized from the very beginning in the field of diachronic linguistics. Our paper aims to emphasize a few aspects of the scholar’s biography, which are comprised in the documents of the Gheorghe Ivănescu file from the archive of the West University of Timisoara. The variety of writings, activity reports, autobiographies, declarations, and references written by the professor himself allows us to understand some moments that shaped the destiny of G. Ivănescu, and invite us to reflect upon the condition of the scholar during communism. His confessions reveal the problems, the delicate situations, the professional relations, and the value judgements concerning himself as well as those around him. The strong convictions of the professor shaped his life and career at a time when Romanian science was dominated by materialistic-dialectical thought and by the Marxist-Stalinist ideology. The quoted documents show the way in which personal biography becomes intertwined with the scientific personality which fights for its ideas, concepts, and beliefs.

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