Ilie Purcaru

Ilie Purcaru
Purcaru c. 1980
Born	(1933-11-05)5 November 1933 Râmnicu Vâlcea, Kingdom of Romania
Died	10 October 2008(2008-10-10) (aged 74) Bucharest, Romania
Occupation	Journalist
Period	c. 1949–2008
Genre	Reportage lyric poetry political poetry free verse prose poem young adult literature travel literature memoir biography
Literary movement	Socialist realism Neoconstructivism Protochronism
Signature

Ilie Purcaru (5 November 1933 – 10 October 2008) was a Romanian journalist and poet, much of whose writing was in support of the communist regime. A native of the Oltenia region, he had an early debut in the Romanian Communist Party press, and was hailed as a child prodigy in the realm of poetry; trained as a conventional Socialist realist, by the late 1950s he was trying to promote Neoconstructivism, but found himself repressed by communist censorship. Purcaru was recovered for his propaganda-writing, then helped re-establish the Craiova-based magazine Ramuri, which he directed until 1969. Partnering up with Miron Radu Paraschivescu, he provoked censors by publishing Onirist poets, as well as by cultivating former fascists. He was nevertheless largely compatible with the regime's national-communist turn; as a pioneer of the reportage genre, he expanded on influences from Geo Bogza and Tudor Arghezi to create a new, distinctly poetic, language of propaganda. In tandem, Purcaru visited Southeast Asia as a press correspondent, being a personal witness to the Vietnamese and Laotian Wars.

Though widely seen as a gifted writer even in the realm of propaganda, Purcaru elicited an enduring controversy by veering into the extremes of national-communism, which came with his embracing the views and the linguistic violence of Protochronism. While he remained a relative moderate in this camp, and published an interview with the anti-Protochronist Nicolae Manolescu, he was still treasured by the regime, and as such served in official capacities until the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Embroiled in a corruption scandal, and barred from working in the press, he was defended by Adrian Păunescu, and employed by him at Flacăra. Especially in that context, Purcaru began exploring the life of peasants, described by him as icons of honesty; he also added to the controversy surrounding his life by making repeated contributions to Nicolae Ceaușescu's cult of personality.

This standing in national-communist literature came alongside a belated return to poetry, with verse that was praised for its tender, bookish, humorous touches. Purcaru remained active after the Revolution, especially as the editor of short-lived publications, one of which was in support of the Democratic Laborists, and another put out by the Romanian Hearth Union. He also served for a while as editorial secretary at Dimineața, of the governing Democratic National Salvation Front. Purcaru was ready to accept the regime change, but found himself shunned by the literary mainstream. In old age, he also joined a new publishing venture launched by Păunescu in opposition to Flacăra. Before his death, Purcaru was reediting his earlier works, issuing the complete notebooks of his journeys in North Vietnam and the Kingdom of Laos.