Early life Fondane was born in
Iași, the cultural capital of Moldavia, on November 14, 1898, but, as he noted in a diary he kept at age 16, his birthday was officially recorded as November 15. Fondane was the only son of Isac Wechsler and his wife Adela (née Schwartzfeld), who also bore daughters Lina (b. 1892) and Rodica (b. 1905), both of whom had careers in acting. As a child Benjamin spends a lot of time in the north of Moldova in a place known as Fundoaia and hence the name he chooses for himself Fundoianu. From this rural and picturesque area he receives the inspiration for the poems that will later be published in a collection called Priveliști "Landscapes" in Hebrew. As a teenage boy, Fundoianu traveled a lot in the north of Moldova, collected and delved into the local Romanian folklore of the villages, and from that too he was inspired to write songs which, according to his words, he started composing at the age of 8. Wechsler was a Jewish man from
Hertsa region, his ancestors having been born on the
Fundoaia estate (which the poet later used as the basis for his signature). Adela was from an intellectual family, of noted influence within the urban Jewish community: her father, poet B. Schwartzfeld, was the owner of a book collection, while her uncles
Elias and
Moses both had careers in
humanities. Adela herself was well acquainted with the intellectual elite of Iași, Jewish as well as
ethnic Romanian, and kept recollections of her encounters with authors linked with the
Junimea society. Through Moses Schwartzfeld, Fondane was also related with
socialist journalist
Avram Steuerman-Rodion, one of the literary men who nurtured the boy's interest in literature. The young Benjamin was an avid reader, primarily interested in the Moldavian classics of
Romanian literature (
Ion Neculce,
Miron Costin,
Dosoftei,
Ion Creangă), Romanian traditionalists or
neoromantics (
Vasile Alecsandri,
Ion Luca Caragiale,
George Coșbuc,
Mihai Eminescu) and French
Symbolists. In 1909, after graduating from School No. 1 (an annex of the
Trei Ierarhi Monastery), he was admitted into the
Alexandru cel Bun secondary school, where he did not excel as a student. A restless youth (he recalled having had his first love affair at age 12, with a girl six years his senior), Fondane twice failed to get his remove before the age of 14. Benjamin divided his time between the city and his father's native region. The latter's rural landscape impressed him greatly, and, enduring in his memory, became the setting in several of his poems. The adolescent Fondane took extended trips throughout northern Moldavia, making his debut in
folkloristics by writing down samples of the
narrative and poetic tradition in various Romanian-inhabited localities. Among his childhood friends was the future
Yiddish-language writer B. Iosif, with whom he spent his time in Iași's Podul Vechi neighborhood. In this context, Fondane also met Yiddishist poet
Iacob Ashel Groper—an encounter which shaped Fondane's intellectual perspectives on
Judaism and
Jewish history. At the time, Fondane became known to his family and friends as
Mielușon (from
miel,
Romanian for "lamb", and probably in reference to his bushy hairdo), a name which he later used as a colloquial pseudonym. Although Fondane later claimed to have started writing poetry at age eight, his earliest known contributions to the genre date from 1912, including both pieces of his own and translations from such authors as
André Chénier,
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff,
Heinrich Heine and
Henri de Régnier. The same year, some of these were published, under the pseudonym
I. G. Ofir, in the local literary review
Floare Albastră, whose owner,
A. L. Zissu, was later a noted novelist and
Zionist political figure. Later research proposed that these, like some other efforts of the 1910s, were
collective poetry samples, resulting from a collaboration between Fondane and Groper (the former was probably translating the latter's poetic motifs into Romanian).
Debut years Fondane's actual debut dates back to 1914, during the time when he became a student at the
National High School Iași and formally affiliated with the provincial branch of the
nationwide Symbolist movement. That year, samples of
lyric poetry were also published in the magazines
Valuri and
Revista Noastră (whose owner, writer
Constanța Hodoș, even offered Fondane a job on the editorial board, probably unaware that she was corresponding with a high school student). Also in 1914, the Moldavian Symbolist venue
Absolutio, edited by
Isac Ludo, featured pieces he signed with the pen name
I. Hașir. Among his National High School colleagues was
Alexandru Al. Philippide, the future critic, who remained one of Fondane's best friends (and whose poetry Fondane proposed for publishing in
Revista Noastră). During the first two years of
World War I and
Romania's neutrality, the young poet established new contacts within the literary environments of Iași and
Bucharest. According to his brother-in-law and biographer Paul Daniel, "it is amazing how many pages of poetry, translations, prose, articles, chronicles have been written by Fundoianu in this interval." In 1915, four of his
patriotic-themed poems were published on the front page of
Dimineața daily, which campaigned for Romanian intervention against the
Central Powers (they were the first of several contributions Fondane signed with the pen name
Alex. Vilara, later
Al. Vilara). His parallel contribution to the
Bârlad-based review
Revista Critică (originally,
Cronica Moldovei) was more strenuous: Fondane declared himself indignant that the editorial staff would not send him the
galley proofs, and received instead an irritated reply from manager Al. Ștefănescu; he was eventually featured with poems in three separate issues of
Revista Critică. At around that time, he also wrote a
memoir of his childhood,
Note dintr-un confesional ("Notes from a
Confessional"). Around 1915, Fondane was discovered by the journalistic tandem of
Tudor Arghezi and
Gala Galaction, both of whom were also
modernist authors,
left-wing militants and Symbolist promoters. The pieces Fondane sent to Arghezi and Galaction's
Cronica paper were received with enthusiasm, a reaction which surprised and impressed the young author. Although his poems went unpublished, his Iași-themed article
A doua capitală ("The Second Capital"), signed
Al. Vilara, was featured in an April 1916 issue. A follower of Arghezi, he was personally involved in raising awareness about Arghezi's unpublished verse, the
Agate negre ("Black Diamonds") cycle. Remaining close friends with Fondane, Galaction later made persistent efforts of introducing him to critic
Garabet Ibrăileanu, with the purpose of having him published by the
Poporanist Viața Românească review, but Ibrăileanu refused to recognize Fondane as an affiliate. Fondane had more success in contacting
Flacăra review and its publisher
Constantin Banu: on July 23, 1916, it hosted his
sonnet Eglogă marină ("Marine
Eclogue"). Between 1915 and 1923, Fondane also had a steady contribution to Romanian-language Jewish periodicals (
Lumea Evree,
Bar-Kochba,
Hasmonaea,
Hatikvah), where he published translations from international representatives of
Yiddish literature (
Hayim Nahman Bialik,
Semyon Frug,
Abraham Reisen etc.) under the signatures
B. Wechsler,
B. Fundoianu and
F. Benjamin. Fondane also completed work on a translation of the
Ahasverus drama, by the Jewish author
Herman Heijermans. , flanking
Iosif Ross. 1915 photograph His collaboration with the Bucharest-based
Rampa (at the time a daily newspaper) also began in 1915, with his debut as theatrical chronicler, and later with his
Carpathian-themed series in the
travel writing genre,
Pe drumuri de munte ("On Mountain Roads"). These included his January 1916 positive review of
Plumb, the first major work by Romania's celebrated Symbolist poet,
George Bacovia.
In besieged Moldavia and relocation to Bucharest In 1917, after Romania joined the
Entente side and was invaded by the Central Powers, Fondane was in Iași, where the Romanian authorities had retreated. It was in this context that he met and befriended the doyen of Romanian Symbolism, poet
Ion Minulescu. Minulescu and his wife, author
Claudia Millian, had left their home in occupied Bucharest, and, by spring 1917, hosted Fondane at their provisional domicile in Iași. Millian later recalled that her husband had been much impressed by the Moldavian teenager, describing him as "a rare bird" and "a poet of talent". The same year, at age 52, Isac Wechsler fell ill with
typhus and died in Iași's
Sfântul Spiridon Hospital, leaving his family without financial support. At around that time, Fondane began work on the poetry cycle
Priveliști ("Sights" or "Panoramas", finished in 1923). In 1918, he became one of the contributors to the magazine
Chemarea, published in Iași by the leftist journalist
N. D. Cocea, with help from Symbolist writer
Ion Vinea. In the political climate marked by the
Peace of Bucharest and Romania's remilitarization, Fondane used Cocea's publication to protest against the arrest of Arghezi, who had been accused of
collaborationism with the Central Powers. In this context, Fondane spoke of Arghezi as being "Romania's greatest contemporary poet" (a verdict which was later to be approved of by mainstream critics). According to one account, Fondane also worked briefly as a
fact checker for
Arena, a periodical managed by Vinea and
N. Porsenna. His time with
Chemarea also resulted in the publication of his
Biblical-themed
short story Tăgăduința lui Petru ("
Peter's Denial"). Issued by
Chemareas publishing house in 41
bibliophile copies (20 of which remained in Fondane's possession), it opened with the tract
O lămurire despre simbolism ("An Explanation of Symbolism"). In 1919, upon the war's end, Benjamin Fondane settled in Bucharest, where he stayed until 1923. During this interval, he frequently changed domicile: after a stay at his sister Lina's home in
Obor area, he moved on Lahovari Street (near
Piața Romană), then in
Moșilor area, before relocating to
Văcărești (a majority Jewish residential area, where he lived in two successive locations), and ultimately to a house a short distance away from
Foișorul de Foc. Between these changes of address, he established contacts with the Symbolist and
avant-garde society of Bucharest: a personal friend of graphic artist
Iosif Ross, he formed an informal avant-garde circle of his own, attended by writers
F. Brunea-Fox,
Ion Călugăru,
Henri Gad,
Sașa Pană,
Claude Sernet-Cosma and
Ilarie Voronca, as well as by artist-director
Armand Pascal (who, in 1920, married Lina Fundoianu). Pană would later note his dominant status within the group, describing him as the "stooping green-eyed youth from Iași, the standard-bearer of the iconoclasts and rebels of the new generation". The group was occasionally joined by other friends, among them Millian and painter
Nicolae Tonitza. In addition, Fondane and Călugăru frequented the artistic and literary club established by the controversial
Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești, a cultural promoter and political militant whose influence spread over several Symbolist milieus. In a 1922 piece for
Rampa, he remembered Bogdan-Pitești in ambivalent terms: "he could not stand moral elevation. [...] He was made of the greatest of joys, in the most purulent of bodies. How many generations of ancient
boyars had come to pass, like unworthy dung, for this singular earth to be generated?" Pressed on by his family and the prospects of financial security, Fondane contemplated becoming a lawyer. Having passed his
baccalaureate examination in Bucharest, he was, according to his own account, a registered student at the
University of Iași Law School, obtaining a graduation certificate but prevented from becoming a
licentiate by the opposition of faculty member
A. C. Cuza, the
antisemitic political figure. According to a recollection of poet
Adrian Maniu, Fondane again worked as a fact checker for some months after his arrival to the capital.
Sburătorul, Contimporanul, Insula Over the following years, he restarted his career in the press, contributing to various nationally circulated newspapers:
Adevărul,
Adevărul Literar și Artistic,
Cuvântul Liber,
Mântuirea, etc. The main topics of his interest were literary reviews,
essays reviewing the contribution of Romanian and French authors, various art chronicles, and opinion pieces on social or cultural issues. A special case was his collaboration with
Mântuirea, a Zionist periodical founded by Zissu, where, between August and October 1919, he published his studies collection
Iudaism și elenism ("Judaism and
Hellenism"). These pieces, alternating with similar articles by Galaction, showed how the young man's views in
cultural anthropology had been shaped by his relationship with Groper (with whom he nevertheless severed all contacts by 1920). In May 1920, another of his
Rampa contributions spoke out against
Octavian Goga,
Culture Minister of the
Alexandru Averescu executive, who contemplated sacking George Bacovia from his office of clerk. Among his first contributions there was a retrospective coverage of the
boxing match between
Jack Dempsey and
Georges Carpentier, which comprised his reflections on the mythical power of sport and the clash of cultures. Although a
Sburătorist, he was still in contact with Galaction and the left-wing circles. In June 1921, Galaction paid homage to "the daring Benjamin" in an article for
Adevărul Literar și Artistic, calling attention to Fondane's "overwhelming originality." A year later, Fondane was employed by Vinea's new venue, the prestigious modernist venue
Contimporanul. Having debuted in its first issue with a comment on Romanian translation projects (
Ferestre spre Occident, "Windows on the
Occident"), he was later assigned the theatrical column. Fondane's work was again featured in
Flacăra magazine (at the time under Minulescu's direction): the poem
Ce simplu ("How Simple") and the essay
Istoria Ideii ("The History of the Idea") were both published there in 1922. The same year, with assistance from fellow novelist
Felix Aderca, Fondane grouped his earlier essays on
French literature as
Imagini și cărți din Franța ("Images and Books from France"), published by
Editura Socec company. The book included what was probably the first Romanian study of
Marcel Proust's contribution as a novelist. The author announced that he was planning a similar volume, grouping essays about Romanian writers, both modernists (Minulescu, Bacovia, Arghezi, Maniu, Galaction) and classics (
Alexandru Odobescu,
Ion Creangă,
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea,
Anton Pann), but this work was not published in his lifetime. Also in 1922, Fondane and Pascal set up the theatrical troupe
Insula ("The Island"), which stated its commitment to
avant-garde theater. Probably named after Minulescu's earlier Symbolist magazine, the group was likely a local replica of
Jean Copeau's nonconformist productions in France. Hosted by the Maison d'Art galleries in Bucharest, the company was joined by, among others, actresses Lina Fundoianu-Pascal and
Victoria Mierlescu, and director
Sandu Eliad. Although it stated its goal of revolutionizing the
Romanian repertoire (a goal published as an
art manifesto in
Contimporanul),
Insula produced mostly conventional Symbolist and
Neoclassical plays: its inaugural shows included
Legenda funigeilor ("Gossamer Legend") by
Ștefan Octavian Iosif and
Dimitrie Anghel, one of
Lord Dunsany's
Five Plays and (in Fondane's own translation)
Molière's
Le Médecin volant. Probably aiming to enrich this program with samples of
Yiddish drama, Fondane began, but never finished, a translation of
S. Ansky's
The Dybbuk. For a while,
Insula survived as a conference group, hosting modernist lectures on classical Romanian literature—with the participation of Symbolist and post-Symbolist authors such as Aderca, Arghezi, Millian, Pillat, Vinea,
N. Davidescu,
Perpessicius, and Fondane himself. He was at the time working on his own play,
Filoctet ("
Philoctetes", later finished as
Philoctète).
Move to France 's self-portrait and last known depiction (1929) In 1923, Benjamin Fondane eventually left Romania for France, spurred on by the need to prove himself within a different cultural context. He was at the time interested in the success of
Dada, an avant-garde movement launched abroad by the Romanian-born author
Tristan Tzara, in collaboration with several others. Not dissuaded by the fact that his sister and brother-in-law (the Pascals) had returned impoverished from an extended stay in
Paris, Fondane crossed Europe by train and partly by foot. The writer (who adopted his
Francized name shortly after leaving his native country) was eventually joined there by the Pascals. The three of them continued to lead a
bohemian and at times precarious existence, discussed in Fondane's correspondence with Romanian novelist
Liviu Rebreanu, and described by researcher Ana-Maria Tomescu as "humiliating poverty". The poet acquired some sources of income from his contacts in Romania: in exchange for his contribution to the circulation of Romanian literature in France, he received official funds from the Culture Ministry's directorate (at the time headed by Minulescu); in addition, he published unsigned articles in various newspapers, and even relied on handouts from Romanian actress
Elvira Popescu (who visited his home, as did avant-garde painter
M. H. Maxy). He also translated into French Zissu's novel
Amintirile unui candelabru ("The Recollections of a Chandelier"). In the six years before Pascal's 1929 death, Fondane left Gourmont's house and, with his sister and brother-in-law, moved into a succession of houses (on Rue Domat, Rue Jacob, Rue Monge), before settling into a historical building once inhabited by author
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (Rue Rollin, 6). Complaining about eye trouble and exhaustion, and several times threatened with insolvency, Fondane often left Paris for the resort of
Arcachon. Claudia Millian, who was also spending time in Paris, described Fondane's new focus on studying
Christian theology and
Catholic thought, from
Hildebert to Gourmont's own
Latin mystique (it was also at this stage that the Romanian writer acquired and sent home part of Gourmont's bibliophile collection). He coupled these activities with an interest in grouping together the cultural segments of the
Romanian diaspora: around 1924, he and Millian were founding members of the Society of Romanian Writers in Paris, presided upon by the aristocrat
Elena Văcărescu.
Surrealist episode The mid-1920s brought Benjamin Fondane's affiliation with
Surrealism, the post-Dada avant-garde current centered in Paris. Fondane also rallied with
Belgian Surrealist composers
E. L. T. Mesens and
André Souris (with whom he signed a manifesto on
modernist music), and supported Surrealist poet-director
Antonin Artaud in his efforts to set up a theater named after
Alfred Jarry (which was not, however, an all-Surrealist venue). In this context, he tried to persuade the French Surrealist group to tour his native country and establish contacts with local affiliates. By 1926, Fondane grew disenchanted with the
communist alignment proposed by the main Surrealist faction and its mentor,
André Breton. Writing at the time, he commented that the ideological drive could prove fatal: "Perhaps never again will [a poet] recover that absolute freedom that he had in the
bourgeois republic." A few years later, the Romanian writer expressed his support for the anti-Breton dissidents of
Le Grand Jeu magazine, and was a witness at the 1930 riot which opposed the two factions. His
anti-communist discourse was again aired in 1932: commenting on indictment of Surrealist poet
Louis Aragon for communist texts (read by the authorities as instigation to murder), Fondane stated that he did believe Aragon's case was covered by the
freedom of speech. His ideas also brought him into conflict with
Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, who was moving away from an avant-garde background and into the realm of
far right ideas. By the early 1930s, Fondane was in contact with the mainstream modernist
Jacques Rivière and his
Nouvelle Revue Française circle. (one of his other contacts in the French Surrealist photographers' group was
Eli Lotar, the illegitimate son of Arghezi). The "cine-poems" were intentionally conceived as unfilmable screenplays, in what was his personal statement about artistic compromise between
experimental film and the emerging worldwide
film industry. The book notably comprised his verdict about cinema being "the only art that was never classical."
Philosophical debut With time, Fondane became a contributor to newspapers or literary journals in France, Belgium, and
Switzerland: a regular presence in
Cahiers du Sud of Marseille, he had his work featured in the Surrealist press (
Discontinuité,
Le Phare de Neuilly,
Bifur), as well as in
Le Courrier des Poètes,
Le Journal des Poètes,
Romain Rolland's
Europe,
Paul Valéry's
Commerce etc. In addition, Fondane's research was hosted by specialized venues such as
Revue Philosophique,
Schweizer Annalen and
Carlo Suarès' ''Cahiers de l'Étoile''. According to intellectual historian
Samuel Moyn, Fondane was, with
Rachel Bespaloff, one of the "most significant and devoted of Shestov's followers". In 1929, as a frequenter of Shestov's circle, Fondane also met
Argentinian female author
Victoria Ocampo, who became his close friend (after 1931, he became a contributor to her modernist review,
Sur). by the
Amigos del Arte society of
Buenos Aires, Fondane left for Argentina and
Uruguay in summer 1929. The object of his visit was promoting French cinema with a set of lectures in Buenos Aires,
Montevideo and other cities (as he later stated in a
Rampa interview with
Sarina Cassvan-Pas, he introduced
South Americans to the work of
Germaine Dulac,
Luis Buñuel and
Henri Gad). In this context, Fondane met essayist
Eduardo Mallea, who invited him to contribute in
La Nacións literary supplement. In October 1929, Fondane was back in Paris, where he focused on translating and popularizing some of Romanian literature's milestone texts, from
Mihai Eminescu's
Sărmanul Dionis to the poetry of
Ion Barbu, Minulescu, Arghezi and Bacovia. In the same context, the expatriate writer helped introduce Romanians to some of the new European tendencies, becoming, in the words of literary historian
Paul Cernat, "the first important promoter of French Surrealism in Romanian culture."
Integral and unu In the mid-1920s, Fondane and painter
János Mattis-Teutsch joined the external editorial board of
Integral magazine, an avant-garde tribune published in Bucharest by
Ion Călugăru,
F. Brunea-Fox and Voronca. He was assigned a permanent column, known as ''Fenêtres sur l'Europe/Ferestre spre Europa'' (French and Romanian for "Windows on Europe"). With
Barbu Florian, Fondane became a leading film reviewer for the magazine, pursuing his agenda in favor of non-commercial and "pure" films (such as
René Clair's ''
Entr'acte), and praising Charlie Chaplin for his lyricism, but later making some concessions to talkies and the regular Hollywood films. Exploring what he defined as "the great ballet of contemporary French poetry", Fondane also published individual notes on writers Aragon, Jean Cocteau, Joseph Delteil, Paul Éluard and Pierre Reverdy. In 1927, Integral'' also hosted one of Fondane's replies to the communist Surrealists in France, as
Le surréalisme et la révolution ("Surrealism and Revolution"). He also came into contact with
unu, the Surrealist venue of Bucharest, which was edited by several of his avant-garde friends at home. His contributions there included a text on Tzara's post-Dada works, which he analyzed as Valéry-like "pure poetry". In December 1928,
unu published some of Fondane's messages home, as
Scrisori pierdute ("Lost Letters"). Between 1931 and 1934, Fondane was in regular correspondence with the
unu writers, in particular
Stephan Roll,
F. Brunea-Fox and
Sașa Pană, being informed about their conflict with Voronca (attacked as a betrayer of the avant-garde) and witnessing from afar the eventual implosion of Romanian Surrealism on the model of French groups. In such dialogues, Roll complains about
right-wing political
censorship in Romania, and speaks in some detail about his own conversion to
Marxism. With Fondane's approval and Minulescu's assistance, As a consequence, Fondane was also sending material to
Isac Ludo's
Adam review, most of it notes (some hostile) clarifying ambiguous biographical detail discussed in Aderca's chronicle to
Priveliști. His profile within the local avant-garde was also acknowledged in
Italy and
Germany: the
Milanese magazine
Fiera Letteraria commented on his poetry, reprinting fragments originally featured in
Integral; in its issue of August–September 1930, the
Expressionist tribune
Der Sturm published samples of his works, alongside those of nine other Romanian modernists, translated by Leopold Kosch. As Paul Daniel notes, the polemics surrounding
Priveliști only lasted for a year, and Fondane was largely forgotten by the Romanian public after this moment. However, the discovery of Fondane's avant-garde stance by traditionalist circles took the form of bemusement or indignation, which lasted into the next decades. The
conservative critic
Const. I. Emilian, whose 1931 study discussed modernism as a psychiatric condition, mentioned Fondane as one of the leading "extremists", and deplored his abandonment of traditionalist subjects. Some nine years later, the antisemitic far right newspaper
Sfarmă-Piatră, through the voice of
Ovidiu Papadima, accused Fondane and "the Jews" of having purposefully maintained "the illusion of a literary movement" under Lovinescu's leadership. Nevertheless, before that date, Lovinescu himself had come to criticize his former pupil (a disagreement which echoed his larger conflict with the
unu group). Also in the 1930s, Fondane's work received coverage in the articles of two other maverick modernists:
Perpessicius, who viewed it with noted sympathy, and
Lucian Boz, who found his new poems touched by "prolixity".
Rimbaud le voyou, Ulysse and intellectual prominence Back in France, where he had become Shestov's assistant, Fondane was beginning work on other books: the essay on 19th-century poet
Arthur Rimbaud—
Rimbaud le voyou ("Rimbaud the Hoodlum")—and, despite an earlier pledge not to return to poetry, a new series of poems. Despite his earlier rejection of commercial films, Fondane eventually became an employee of
Paramount Pictures, probably spurred on by his need to finance a personal project (reputedly, he was accepted there with a second application, his first one having been rejected in 1929). a
Romanian cinema production for which he shared directorial credits. In 1931, the poet married Geneviève Tissier, a trained jurist Fondane also enjoyed a warm friendship with
Constantin Brâncuși, the Romanian-born modern sculptor, visiting Brâncuși's workshop on an almost daily basis and writing about his work in ''Cahiers de l'Étoile''. He witnessed first-hand and described Brâncuși's
primitivist techniques, likening his work to that of a "savage man".
Rimbaud le voyou was eventually published by Denoël & Steele company in 1933, the same year when Fondane published his poetry volume
Ulysse ("
Ulysses") with
Les Cahiers du Journal des Poètes. The Rimbaud study, partly written as a reply to
Roland de Renéville's
monograph Rimbaud le Voyant ("Rimbaud the Seer"), to
Jean Cassou,
Guillermo de Torre and
Miguel de Unamuno. Shortly after this period, the author was surprised to read Voronca's own French-language volume
Ulysse dans la cité ("Ulysses in the City"): although puzzled by the similarity of titles with his own collection, he described Voronca as a "great poet." Also then, in Romania, B. Iosif completed the Yiddish translation of Fondane's
Psalmul leprosului ("The Leper's Psalm"). The text, left in his care by Fondane before his 1923 departure, was first published in
Di Woch, a periodical set up in Romania by poet
Jacob Sternberg (October 31, 1934).
Anti-fascist causes and filming of Rapt The 1933 establishment of a
Nazi regime in Germany brought Fondane into the camp of
anti-fascism. In December 1934, his
Apelul studențimii ("The Call of Students") was circulated among the Romanian diaspora, and featured passionate calls for awareness: "Tomorrow, in
concentration camps, it will be too late". The following year, he outlined his critique of all kinds of
totalitarianism, ''L'Écrivain devant la révolution'' ("The Writer Facing the Revolution"), supposed to be delivered in front of the Paris-held International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture (organized by left-wing and communist intellectuals with support from the
Soviet Union). According to historian Martin Stanton, Fondane's activity in film, like
Jean-Paul Sartre's parallel beginnings as a novelist, was itself a political statement in support of the
Popular Front: "[they were] hoping to introduce critical dimensions in the fields they felt the
fascists had colonized." Fondane nevertheless ridiculed the communist version of
pacifism as a "parade of big words", noting that it opposed mere slogans to concrete
German re-armament. During 1935, he and Kirsanoff were in Switzerland, for the filming of
Rapt, with a screenplay by Fondane (adapted from
Charles Ferdinand Ramuz's
La séparation des races novel). The result was a highly poetic production, and, despite Fondane's still passionate defense of
silent film, The poet was enthusiastic about this collaboration, claiming that it had enjoyed a good reception from
Spain to
Canada, standing as a manifesto against the success of more "chatty" sound films. In particular, French critics and journalists hailed
Rapt as a necessary break with the
comédie en vaudeville tradition. In the end, however, the independent product could not compete with the Hollywood industry, which was at the time monopolizing the
French market. In parallel with these events, Fondane followed Shestov's personal guidance and, by means of
Cahiers du Sud, attacked philosopher
Jean Wahl's
secular reinterpretation of
Søren Kierkegaard's
Christian existentialism.
From Tararira to World War II Despite selling many copies of his books and having
Rapt played at the Panthéon Cinema, Benjamin Fondane was still facing major financial difficulties, accepting a 1936 offer to write and assist in the making of
Tararira, an avant-garde
musical product of the
Argentine film industry. This was his second option: initially, he contemplated filming a version of
Ricardo Güiraldes'
Don Segundo Sombra, but met opposition from Güiraldes' widow. For Ocampo and the
Sur staff, literary historian Rosalie Sitman notes, his visit also meant an occasion to defy the
xenophobic and antisemitic agenda of Argentine nationalist circles. Centered on the
tango, Fondane's film enlisted contributions from some leading figures in several national film and music industries, having
Miguel Machinandiarena as producer and
John Alton as
editor; (no copies survive, but writer
Gloria Alcorta, who was present at a private screening, rated it a "masterpiece"). He followed up on his publishing activity in 1937, when his selected poems,
Titanic, saw print. Encouraged by the reception given to
Rimbaud le voyou, he published two more essays with Denoël & Steele:
La Conscience malheureuse ("The Unhappy Consciousness", 1937) and ''Faux traité d'esthétique
("False Treatise of Aesthetics", 1938). In 1938, he was working on a collected edition of his Ferestre spre Europa'', supposed to be published in Bucharest but never actually seeing print. In 1939, Fondane was
naturalized French. This followed an independent initiative of the
Société des écrivains français professional association, in recognition for his contribution to French letters. Only months after this event, with the outbreak of
World War II, Fondane was drafted into the
French Army. During most of the "
Phoney War" interval, considered too old for active service, he was in the
military reserve force, but in February 1940 was called under arms with the
216 Artillery Regiment. According to Lina, "he left [home] with unimaginable courage and faith." Stationed at the
Sainte Assise Castle in
Seine-Port, he edited and
stenciled a humorous gazette, ''L'Écho de la I C-ie
("The 1st Company Echo"), where he also published his last-ever work of poetry, Le poète en patrouille'' ("The Poet on Patrolling Duty").
First captivity and clandestine existence Fondane was captured by the Germans in June 1940 (shortly before the
fall of France), and was taken into a German camp as a
prisoner of war. He managed to escape captivity, but was recaptured in short time. After falling ill with
appendicitis, he was transported back to Paris, kept in custody at the
Val-de-Grâce, and operated on. Fondane was eventually released, the
German occupiers having decided that he was no longer fit for soldierly duty. In addition to these, his other French texts, incomplete or unpublished by 1944, include: the
poetic drama pieces
Philoctète,
Les Puits de Maule ("Maule's Well", an adaptation of
Nathaniel Hawthorne's
The House of the Seven Gables) and
Le Féstin de Balthazar ("
Belshazzar's Feast"); a study about the life and work of Romanian-born philosopher
Stéphane Lupasco; and the selection from his interviews with Shestov, ''Sur les rives de l'Illisus
("On the Banks of the Illisus"). His very last text is believed to be a philosophical essay, Le Lundi existentiel
("The Existential Monday"), on which Fondane was working in 1944. Little is known about Provèrbes'' ("Proverbs"), which, he announced in 1933, was supposed to be an independent collection of poems. According to various accounts, Fondane made a point of not leaving Paris, despite the growing restrictions and violence. Throughout this interval, the poet refused to wear the
yellow badge (mandatory for Jews), and, living in permanent risk, isolated himself from his wife, adopting an even more precarious lifestyle. Such pieces were later included, but left unsigned, in the
anthology ''L'Honneur des poètes
("The Honor of Poets"), published by the Resistance activists as an anti-Nazi manifesto. Fondane also preserved his column in Cahiers du Sud'' for as long as it was possible, and had his contributions published in several other clandestine journals. In 1943, transcending ideological boundaries, Fondane also had dinner with
Mircea Eliade, the Romanian novelist and philosopher, who, like their common friend Cioran, had an ambiguous connection with the far right. In 1942, his own Romanian citizenship rights, granted by the
Jewish emancipation of the early 1920s, were lost with the antisemitic legislation adopted by the
Ion Antonescu regime, which also officially banned his entire work as "Jewish". At around that time, his old friends outside France made unsuccessful efforts to obtain him a
safe conduct to neutral countries. Such initiatives were notably taken by Jacques Maritain from his new home in the
United States Deportation and death He was eventually arrested by
collaborationist forces in spring 1944, after unknown civilians reported his Jewish origin. Held in custody by the
Gestapo, he was assigned to the local network of
Holocaust perpetrators: after internment in the
Drancy transit camp, he was sent on one of the transports to the
extermination camps in
occupied Poland, reaching
Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the meantime, his family and friends remained largely unaware of his fate. After news of his arrest, several of his friends reportedly intervened to save him, including Cioran, Lupasco and writer
Jean Paulhan. Accounts differ on what happened to his sister Lina. Paul Daniel believes that she decided to go looking for her brother, also went missing, and, in all probability, became a victim of another deportation. According to other accounts, Fondane was in custody while his sister was not, and sent her a final letter from Drancy; Fondane, who had theoretical legal grounds for being spared deportation (a Christian wife), aware that Lina could not invoke them, sacrificed himself to be by her side. Optimistically, Fondane referred to himself as "the traveler who isn't done traveling". He was aware of impending death, and reportedly saw it as ironic that it came so near to an expected
Allied victory. His body was cremated, along with those of the other victims. ==Literary work and philosophical contribution==