PAVEL CHIHAIA – PORTRETUL SCRIITORULUI LA RĂSCRUCEA VREMURILOR
Pavel Chihaia – the portrait of the writer at the crossroads of history

Summary/Abstract: Pavel Chihaia (b. 23rd of April 1922, Corabia, Romania – d. 18th of June 2019, München, Germany) debuted in 1947 with the novel Blockade, surprising by the themes chosen – the life of Constanta harbour before the First World War – but also by the mature style of writing. This is the only book he gets to publish while staying in the country, before the official establishment of communism. Thus, he is part of the writers who debuted between 1944 and 1947, suggestively named by the critics ,,the lost generation”. The loss means for this writer the social marginalization and the prohibition to publish, but Pavel Chihaia turns it, by his moral choise, into winning a bet with the history. He joins the anti-communist resistance movements, his books are retired, then he has some temporary jobs, under his qualification, a time in which he writes shelf literature. Leaving the country for the West didn’t mean breaking up with the Romanian themes, which he develops in some dissident fictions and also in a great work of history and criticism of the Romanian medieval art. The letters and the diary are also ethically and aesthetically valuable. After 1989, the attempt to restore the exiled writers brings him back to the public’s attention and makes the publication of all his writings possible. Still, he chooses to live in Germany for the rest of his days, thus sharing the destiny of the most Romanian dissidents. Pavel Chihaia illustrates, by a literature of trauma, the writer’s destiny at the crossroads of history.

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