The Oil Crisis in the Interwar Romanian Literature. Three Case Studies

Different as they are, the poetics of the Romanian avant-garde and of the “young generation” intend to capture the immediate (ir)reality, including its social-political ambiguities. In doing so, they rely on a state-of- the-art toolkit of literary devices, enriched with techniques taken from genres deemed non-literary, like reportage or diary. We will look into the ways in which Al. Tudor-Miu, Geo Bogza, and Mihail Sebastian reflect (on) the oil crisis in Valea Prahovei, culminating with the 1933 strike, in their reports, poems, or fiction, eventually trying to outline the role of modernist literature in its dialogue with ego- or microhistory.

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