Recuperarea identităţii prin memorii: cazul Nicolai Costenco
Regaining Identity through Memoirs: Nicolai Costenco’s Case

Summary/Abstract: Prison memoirs are, undoubtedly, a true testimony of experiences and events kept in the hidden drawer of the author's consciousness. Nicolai Costenco, a Bassarabian writer was marked by the totalitarian system, being deported and experiencing enforced uprooting, humiliation and intimidation. All these were recovered and materialized through the memoirs The Tale of the Eagle, published posthumously. However, the memoirs represent the truth necessary for the literary rehabilitation of the author who, prior to the deportation, considered himself able to oppose, to have the right of reply. Having returned from Siberia, precaution and fear coexisted with the rebellious spirit of N. Costenco who was pushed to the limit. This inner struggle gave birth to two diametrically opposed works about Russian prisons: the novel Severograd and the volume of memoirs The Tale of the Eagle.The article aims at analysing Nicolai Costenco’s works in the attempt to identify the role of the process of reconstructing the past for the narrator who has experienced both uprooting and detention.

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