Conferences

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On Sunday, 13 March 2016, 11.00 a.m., at the Black Box Hall of NTB, Mr. Ion Pop shall hold the conference on the topic Tristan Tzara, Dadaism and the Romanian Avant-Garde.

About the Conference

Dedicated to the centenary of the Dada movement, launched in Zürich in February 1916, the conference aims at sketching a critical portrait of the main Dadaist mentor who was Tristan Tzara, starting with his training years as a Romanian poet, in the post-symbolist atmosphere of Bucharest, alongside young men like Ion Vinea, Adrian Maniu and others. The „first poems” written in 1913-1915 shall be commented upon, before the poet went to study in Switzerland, as a preparation phase for what was to become the „Zürich riot”. In the centre of the presentation shall be the timespan 1916-1921, of the Seven Dada Manifestos, significantly illustrated by the poetic production marked by the movement’s programme and spirit, with important consequences over the entire oeuvre, e.g. in the ample landmark poem Approximate Man (1931). The third sequence of the lecture shall be dedicated to the Dadaist echoes in the Romanian avant-garde landscape, also registering the presence of Tristan Tzara through collaborations sent to inland avant-garde magazines, which were printing in parallel his verses written in Romanian, which were kept in his friends’ archives. Natural references to the international context, in which the Dada movement was born and thrived, are taken into account in order to highlight the particular place this moment plays in the literary and artistic life of the first decades of the 20th century.

About Ion Pop

He was born on July 1^st 1941, in Mireşu Mare, Maramureş county. He was a professor at the Faculty of Letters of the “Babeş-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca (1964 - 2007). He managed, as an editor-in-chief and director, the cultural magazine for students “Equinox” (1969 - 1983). He worked as an associate assistant professor at the Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University (1973 - 1976), and in 1990 - 1993 he acted as a director of the Romanian Cultural Centre in the French capital. In 2015, he was elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy.

Published poetry collections: Proposals for a Fountain (1966), My Wretched Prudence (1969), Late Grammar (1977), The Sun and Oblivion (1985), General Postponement (1990), The Discovery of the Eye (2002), Offensive Elegies (2003), Letters and Bees (2010), Facing the Sea (2011), The Staircase (2015). Literary criticism and history: Romanian Poetic Avant-Garde (1969), The Poetry of a Generation (1973), Nichita Stănescu – the Poetic Space and Masks (1980), Lucian Blaga. The Lyrical Universe (1981), Fragmented Readings (1983), The Game of Poetry (1985), The Avant-Garde in Romanian Literature (1990), Writing and Being. Ilarie Voronca and the Metamorphosis of Poetry (1993), Gellu Naum. Poetry against Literature (2001), Life and Texts (2001), Lucian Blaga in 10 Poems (2004), Introduction to the Romanian Literary Avant-Garde (2007), « Equinox ».Voices of Poetry (2008), From Avant-Garde to Rear Guard (2010), The Ladder in the Library (2013). Journalism: French Hours, I, 1979; II, 2002); Interviews. Between Biography and Bibliography (2011); Daily Disorder (2012). He coordinated the Analytical Dictionary of the Romanian Literary Oeuvre (4 vol. 1998-2003, final edition 2007). He compiled an anthology of the Romanian literary avant-garde, La réhabilitation du rêve, Paris-Bucharest, 2006, and the anthology Romanian Avant-Garde, Bucharest, 2015. He translated books by Georges Poulet, Jean Starobinski, Gérard Genette, Tzvetan Todorov, Eugène Ionesco, Tristan Tzara, Ilarie Voronca, Paul Ricœur, Benjamin Fondane, Paul Morand.

Translated by Simona Nichiteanu