Momente din istoria catedrei de engleza

Data infiintarii: noiembrie 1936. Anul infiintarii este confirmat de A. Cartianu in articolul publicat cu ocazia sarbatoririi celei de a 50-a aniversari a catedrei. Data apare in majoritatea studiilor publicate pe acesat tema, iar Geta Dimitriu a gasit consemnarea datei in arhivele Universitatii. Deci sarbatorirea a 80 de ani de la infiintarea catedrei ar trebui sa aiba loc in 2016. Trebuie cautata consemnarea din arhivele Universitatii la care se refera Geta Dimitriu, mai precis daca este vorba de un document oficial emis de Universitate/minister sau un decret regal. De asemenea, un masterand poate urmari presa anilor 1936-1937 (Universul ? Adevarul, Curentul) pentru a vedea daca se gaseste o mentiune a infiintarii catedrei si a deschiderii oficiale a cursurilor. Trebuie sa aflam mai exact care a fost rolul familiei regale.

Este sigura data sosirii Profesorului John Burbank la Bucuresti: primavara lui 1937, ocupand postul “cu contract”. Trebuie vazut, eventual din presa, daca a avut loc o festivitate de deschidere a cursurilor candva dupa sosirea lui la Bucuresti sau odata cu inceperea anului universitar 1937/1938, daca deschiderea a avut loc atunci, cu prima serie de studenti inscrisi la engleza ca disciplina de baza. (English majors).

Referinte privind infiintarea catedrei se gasesc in aricolele dnei Cartianu publicate in Anale, (1977 si 1987). De asemenea, in cele doua volume Facultatea de litere a Universitatii din Bucuiresti. 150 de ani de invatamant filologic romanesc 1863-2013. Traditie si Valoare, Ed.Universitatii din Bucuresti, 2013. Autoarea, Adina Berciu-Draghicescu, mentioneaza (p. 107) Catedra de Limba si Literatura engleza, cu specificarea « infiintata cu concursul Guvernului britanic in 1936, ocupata pana in 1940 de John Burbank, iar din 1940 de Dragos Protopopescu de la Universitatea din Cernauti ». Catedra este din nou mentionata in acelasi volum (p. 108), ca existand in 1948, cu … Dragos Protpopescu ca titular, desi in acelasi volum gasim informatia ca fusese indepartat din invatamant (« comprimarea persoanei »!) in 1947. La aceeasi pagina, este trecuta printre catederele si semnariile existente in UB «in preajma reformei din 1948 », cu mentiunea « infiintata in 1936/1937 de catre guvernul englez, sub conducerea professorului John Burbank».

Informatii relevante din acelasi volum:

p. 72. « Sub auspiciile Asociatiei Anglo-Romane (creata in 1927 si patronata de Carol II), in octombrie 1937 a fost inaugurata Scoala de Limba si Literatura engleza. La 1 octombrie 1938, lordul Lloyd, presedintele British Council, a creat Institutul Britanic care avea ca obiectiv organizarea de cursuri de limba engleza, conferinte si cursuri de literatura si civilizatie britanica. Aceste cursuri se esalonau pe 3-5 ani si se soldau cu un certificat, similar actualului Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English. Comitetul care superviza activitatea Institutului era format din George Oprescu, Victor Valcovici, Dimitrie C. Mateescu (secretar al Asociatiei Anglo-Romane) si John Amery.

Este mentionat (la aceeasi pagina) si Institutul American, fondat in 1932 de catre Societatea « Amicii SUA », patronata de I.G. Duca. Este probabil ca Insitutul oferea si cursuri de engelza, unde predau, probabil, lectori romani. (Societatea a renascut dupa 1989. De obtinut informatii suplimenatre de la Rodica Mihaila.).

Ivor Porter, Operation Autonomous: With S.O.E. in Wartime Romania. London: Chatto and Windus, 1989 (Porter, Ivor. Operaţiunea „Autonomous”. În România pe vreme de război. Trad. George G. Potra si Delia Răzdolescu. Bucureşti: Humanitas, 1991).

Ivor Forsyth Porter CMG, OBE (12 November 1913 – 29 May 2012) was a British Ambassador and author. In 1939, Porter was sent to Bucharest, on an academic post with the British Council but was quickly transferred to the Legation, and remained there until it was withdrawn from Romania on 12 February 1941. On 1 March 1941, Porter was recruited by SOE, and was one of a covert three-man mission that was parachuted into Romania in December 1943 to instigate resistance against the Nazis at “any cost” (Operation Autonomous). The SOE agents were captured and held as prisoners-of-war until, on 23 August 1944, King Michael of Romania carried out his anti-German coup d’état. Porter met King Michael that night and remained in the country during the King’s desperate efforts to prevent Soviet domination. In June 2008 he was awarded the Cross of the Royal House of Romania. Porter wrote two books after retirement: Operation Autonomous: With SOE in Wartime Romania and Michael of Romania: The King and the Country. Operation Autonomous was short listed for the Time-Life/Pen Award for non-fiction. In 2005 he was made Commander of the Romanian order of “Meritul Cultural”.

Exerpts:

I took up a British Council lectureship at Bucharest University in March 1939, the month Hitler’s troops occupied Prague and Mr Chamberlain was finally convinced that war was inevitable. Without fully realising it I had become a small cog in our belated attempt to stop the spread of German influence in Eastern Europe.”[cf. p. 9 din traducere]

It would have seemed absurd to a government as commercially minded as Mr Chamberlain’s to spend money on propaganda in a country like Romania where students clamoured to learn our language and governments to increase their trade with us, and where we already had more friends than in any other East European country except possibly Greece. When Lord Lloyd, the Chairman of the British Council, requested £275,000 for worldwide cultural activities in the financial year 1939–40, the year we went to war and needed to keep and win friends, he referred, half apologetically and half ironically, to the Council’s activities in Romania: ‘In Bucharest it was pressure of impatient students which forced us to open the Institute of English Studies before we were really ready.’ At King Carol’s request, the mayor of Bucharest had offered the Council land ‘for a building similar to the French and Italian’. Since then Lord Lloyd had obtained a professorship and a lectureship at the university, which were filled by Burbank and myself.” [cf. pp. 15-16]

In 1937, the Council had sent out John Amery as Director of Studies (of the School). He had seven teachers and 1,600 students when he started and two years later the numbers had doubled.” [cf. p. 34]

In 1939, on Professor Burbank’s initiative, a summer school was held at Sinaia under the auspices of the Universities of Bucharest and Cluj. Lectures on different aspects of British culture were attended by some seven hundred students. Phonetic specialists came up from the British Institute in Athens. Professor Grimm, the splendid, bearded scholar who had translated the poems of Robert Burns into Romanian, represented Cluj University. The brilliant Professor ‘Tommy’ Thompson of the Bucharest Institute was there. My main contribution was to persuade Professor Bonamy Dobrée to attend. […] Bonamy, who lunched regularly with T.S. Eliot and Herbert Read, brought to our academic life in Romania a gust of fresh critical air. He got on well with the staff and students, sang Basque songs one evening, and was excited about the work of Harry Brauner who was already recording Romanian folk music. […] For three weeks we held our summer school in Sinaia […]” [cf. pp. 52-53]

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Reginald Donald Smith (Reggie) (31 July 1914 – 3 May 1985), was a teacher and lecturer, BBC radio producer, possible communist spy and model for the character of Guy Pringle in the novel sequence Fortunes of War written by his wife, Olivia Manning. After tackling multiple temporary jobs including actor, postal worker, archeologist, editor, and teacher, Smith applied for a post with the British Council, and was posted as lecturer in English in Bucharest, Romania in 1938. He returned on leave to the UK in the summer of 1939, and was introduced to the novelist Olivia Manning by the writer Walter Allen. In preparation for the meeting, Smith had read her work. He admired it greatly, and considered it showed “signs of genius”; he was also immediately smitten with its author. A few weeks later, on 18 August 1939 the pair were married at Marylebone registry office, with McNeice and the poet Stevie Smith as witnesses. Unconventional as ever, the bridegroom failed to produce a wedding ring for the ceremony. Throughout their marriage, Smith strongly supported his wife’s writing, encouraging and sustaining her during Manning’s frequent despondency and discouragement about her success.

A few days later, Smith and his bride were recalled to Romania, arriving just as Britain declared War on Germany. Smith was exempt from military service due to his work with the British Council, though it is likely that his poor eyesight would have meant failing the required medical. During their 13 months in Romania, Smith and Manning witnessed the approaching war, including the abdication of King Carol and the rise of Fascism. The couple’s experiences were to form the basis of the first two novels of the Fortunes of War, The Great Fortune and The Spoilt City. Smith appears in the novel as the central character of Guy Pringle, a large, extroverted, and gregarious communist who pays little attention to his new wife while lavishing attention and time on everybody else. The Smiths participated regularly in the café society, but Manning often went home early, leaving her new husband to expound earnestly but naively on the merits of communism, including how much better Jews would be well treated in a Russian-occupied Romania, and excusing the Soviet pact with Hitler, and the Red Army‘s invasion of Finland. Just as in the novels, Smith’s name was broadcast by the Gestapo as that of a spy.

In October 1940, the couple escaped the rising fascism, fleeing to Athens, Greece. Typically when choosing what to pack Smith chose his books rather than work suits, which he needed for his ongoing lecturing for the British Council. In April 1941, as the German army neared the Greek capital, they were once again forced to flee, this time to Egypt. After a delay, Smith was once again given a teaching posts by the British Council in October 1941, this time at Farouk University in Alexandria. The pair’s time spent in Greece and Egypt formed the foundation for the last novels of the Fortunes of War.

In September 1942, the couple moved to Jerusalem, where Smith became the controller of programmes of the Palestine Broadcasting Service, later moving to the post of acting deputy postmaster-general for the Palestine government. Subsequently released MI5 files claim that throughout the war, Smith had been secretly working to increase Soviet influence in the countries where he was posted.

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Olivia Manning (Wikipedia presentation)

In July 1939, Walter Allen introduced Manning to the charming Marxist R.D. “Reggie” Smith. Reggie was a large, energetic man, possessed of a constant desire for the company of others. The son of a Manchester toolmaker, he had studied at Birmingham University, where he had been coached by the left-wing poet Louis McNeice and founded the Birmingham Socialist Society. According to the British intelligence organisation MI5, Reggie had been recruited as a communist spy by Anthony Blunt on a visit to Cambridge University in 1938.When he met Manning, Reggie was on leave from his British Council position as a lecturer in Romania. He had diligently prepared himself for the introduction to Manning by reading her works, and felt that her book The Wind Changes showed “signs of genius”. He described Manning as a jolie laide, possessing lovely hair, hands, eyes and skin though an overlong nose, and fell in love at first sight. When he borrowed a half-crown from her on their first meeting, and repaid it the next day, he knew they would marry. Manning was less certain of the relationship, but Reggie quickly moved into her flat, proposing in bed a few weeks later. They were married at Marylebone Registry Office on 18 August 1939, with Stevie Smith and Louis McNeice as witnesses. The bridegroom, unconventionally and true to form, did not produce a ring for the ceremony. A few days after the wedding, the couple received word that Reggie had been recalled to Bucharest. They left within a matter of hours; Manning later wrote to Stevie Smith from Romania asking her to find out what had happened to their flat and to take care of her books while she was away. The couple travelled by train to Bucharest, arriving on 3 September 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany. Between the two world wars, Romania had looked to France to guarantee its security against German territorial aspirations. However, the impact of the Munich Agreement (1938), the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (1939), and the Fall of France (1940) increased German influence and control over the country, and included demands that Romania cede territory and resources. The couple’s time in Bucharest coincided with the rise of fascist and totalitarian power within ostensibly neutral Romania, while war threatened from without, driving thousands of refugees within its borders. They moved in with the diplomat Adam Watson, who was working with the British Legation. Those who knew Manning at the time described her as a shy, provincial girl who had little experience with other cultures. She was both dazzled and appalled by Romania. The café society, with its wit and gossip, appealed to her, but she was repelled by the peasantry and the aggressive, often mutilated, beggars. Her Roumanian experiences were captured in the first two volumes of The Balkan Trilogy (The Great Fortune and The Spoilt City), considered one of the most important literary treatments of Romania during the war. In her novels, Manning described Bucharest as being on the margins of European civilisation, “a strange, half-Oriental capital” that was “primitive, bug-ridden and brutal”, whose citizens were peasants, whatever their wealth or status.

Manning spent her days writing; her main project was a book about Henry Morton Stanley and his search for Emin Pasha, but she also maintained an intimate correspondence with Stevie Smith, which was full of Bloomsbury gossip and intrigue. She undertook a dangerous journalistic assignment to interview the former Romanian Prime Minister Iuliu Maniu in Cluj, Transylvania, at the time full of German troops, and soon to be transferred by Romania to Hungary as part of the Second Vienna Award of August 1940, imposed by the Germans and Italians. Like many of her experiences, the interview was to be incorporated into a future work; others included her impromptu baptism of Reggie with cold tea because she feared being separated from him after death, and Reggie’s production of a Shakespeare play, in which she was promised a prime role that was given to another. Reggie was relentlessly gregarious, and throughout his life his warmth, wit and friendliness earned him many friends and drinking companions. In contrast, Manning was reticent and uncomfortable in social settings, and remained in the background. She acted, in her own words, as a “camp-follower”, trailing after Reggie as he went from bar to bar, often choosing to go home early and alone. While Manning remained faithful to Reggie during the war, their friend Ivor Porter was to report that Reggie had numerous affairs.

The approaching war and rise of fascism and the Iron Guard in Romania disconcerted and frightened Manning. The abdication of King Carol and the advance of the Germans in September 1940 increased her fears, and she repeatedly asked Reggie “But where will the Jews go?” Just before German troops entered Romania on 7 October at the invitation of the new dictator Ion Antonescu, Manning flew to Greece, followed a week later by Reggie.

The Society of Friends of Romania si ‘Societatea Amiclor Statelor Unite’

The Society of Friends of Romania was founded in New York, in 1920, under the patronage of Queen Marie of Romania (on her famous post war tour of America at the time) and with the support of American personalities such as John Forster Dulles and William Nelson Cromwell. (J. F. Dulles had participated at the Versailles Conference and the Queen had probably known him there. In 1917, he was sent as a diplomat to Panama, where he met William Nelson Cromwell, an attorney involved in the promotion of the Panama Canal project. This could explain Cromwell’s involvement in the Society of Friends of Romania project According to information available on Wikipedia, ‘one of his main pro bono activities was the founding of “The Society of Friends of Roumania” in 1920 under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Marie of Romania, granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. The New York-based Society under his tutelage promoted numerous exchanges between the two countries and published the distinguished Roumania — A Quarterly Review’.

The counterpart ‘Societatea Amiclor Statelor Unite’ (The Friends of the United States Society) was founded in 1926, under the patronage of I. G. Duca, then Minister for Foreign Affairs of Romania and with the support of William Smith Culbertson, US minister plenipotentiary in Bucharest. The support group included also Charles Upson Clark (Professor of History at Columbia University (author/editor of Greater Romania, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1922 and of Bessarabia, Russia and Romania on the Black Sea, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1927), Nicolae Titulescu, Constantin Brancusi, George Enescu and several Romanians who had completed studies at American universities (to list some of them).

In 1932, the aims of the Society were extended through the creation of an American Institute in Romania, presided by Nicolae Iorga. It was headed by M. Oromolu as president, Nicolae Petrescu and Sabin Manuila as vice presidents, and by Vintila Ciocalteu, Emil Craciun, Nicolae Ionescu-Mihaiesti, Grigore T. Popa. Most of them had been beneficiaries of Rockefeller grants to study at American universities. The activities of both the Society and the Institute included organizing American English language courses, – attended by thousands of Romanian students and intellectuals -, ‘lectures on the American way of life, the celebration of G. Washington’s bicentenary (in 1932) and of other American presidents, a weekly radio broadcast dedicated to the US, jazz concerts, auditions of American classical music, American films, etc. A Bulletin of the American Institute in Romania was published regularly between 1934 and 1937. The activities ceased in 1941when Romania joined the Axis powers in the war against the Soviet Union. As expected, they were resumed with intensified strength towards the end of 1944, after Romania had joined the Allied powers in the war against Nazi Germany. (In fact, as pointed out the current booklet of the Society, they had been considered as ‘temporarily suspended’, by those eager to resume them as soon as conditions would allow it. A Romanian-American Review (Revista Romano-Americana) was published between 1945 and 1947. Unfortunately, this promising resumption of activities was short lived. Petre Comarnescu was arrested (together with a group of alleged ‘spies’). In 1947 apare ultimul număr din publicaţia la care ţinea foarte mult, ,Revista româno-americană”. E atacat de ,Scânteia”, ,România liberă” şi ,Contemporanul” El, care, avea, ca primă şi ultimă vocaţie, scrisul, scrisul liber, este împresurat tot mai apăsător de disperare, îngrijorare, însingurare, îi dispare acea joie de vivre, înlocuită fiind de presiunea, atroce, a noii ideologii, comuniste. Constată îndată, iarăşi şi iarăşi, că nu mai poate să fie reprezentat prin scris, că este silit să scrie pe teme comandate, pe teme la ordinea zilei: în ,Naţiunea” scrie despre lupta de clasă, despre Comuna din Paris, despre naţionalizarea din 1948, recenzează cartea lui Horia Deleanu, Impresii literare sovietice, în ,Flacăra” îşi arată adeziunea la ,cauza muncitorimii” şi la ,poziţia progresistă”, în ,Timpul” scrie despre munca voluntară. Şi lui, ca şi atâtor intelectuali autentici, i se secţionează viaţa în două: prima moare încet, iar a doua acum se formează în spiritul vremii”. Trăieşte cel mai profund impact al comunismului asupra sa: scindarea personalităţii. Spre deosebire de alţii, el avea, în concepţia politrucilor din literatura vremii, o culpă specială, aceea de occidental humanist” (cum se autocaracteriza), de autor al unei opere de americanolog, al unor cărţi precum: Homo americanus (1933), Zgârie-norii New York-ului (1933), America văzută de un tânăr de azi (1934), Chipurile şi priveliştile Americii (1946), la care se adăugau traduceri din literatura americană. Unii politruci nu doar gândeau că scriitorul este un trădător, ci nu se sfiau să-l acuze direct. într-o şedinţă de la Uniunea Scriitorilor, menită să demaşte cosmopolitismul, Mihail Davidoglu şi-a pus cenuşă în cap spunând autocritic că citise şi-i plăcuseră scrieri ale lui Eugene O’Neill, traduse de Comarnescu. Atunci, Traian Şelmaru a arătat cu degetul spre traducător: ’Duşmanul e aici, printre noi!” în alt context, Zaharia Stancu îl atacă pentru poziţia lui estetică în propunerile de a fi jucate piese de O’Neill şi Synge.

Mihnea Gheorghiu, one of the editors of the Romanian-American Review was removed (temporarily) from his post in the English Department of the University of Bucharest. By the end of 1947, after the communists had completed the full takeover of the country, all activities of the Association were stopped,

It took the fall of communism in Romania in December 1989 for the Asociatia ‘Amicii Statelor Unite’ (the Association of the Friends of the United States) to be revived in April 1990. Its new founders included Mircera Malita as President, Nicolae Cristescu, the then rector of the University of Bucharest, V.N Constantinescu the rector of the Politechnical Institute of Bucharest, N. Simionescu the director of the Cell Biology Institute, academician N. Cajal, director of the Microbiology Institute, as well as other personalities such as the poets Marin Soerscu, Ana Balndianba and Cezar Baltag, the art critics Dan Haulica and Dan Grigorescu. Dan Dutescu, a former member of the English Dept. of the University of Bucharest and one of the best translators of English literature into Romanian was also a member. So were also several researchers who had helped initiate the study of Romanian – American relations: Cornelia Bodea, Paul Cernovodeanu, Ioan Comsa and Ion Stanciu.