Open AccessAndrei Ciurunga: Poetry of the Carceral Universe
Author(s) -
Alexandru Burlacu
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
philologia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2587-3717
pISSN - 1857-4300
DOI - 10.52505/1857-4300.2021.3(315).01
Subject(s) - poetry , destiny (iss module) , prison , communism , lyrics , pseudonym , german , history , literature , art , law , archaeology , political science , politics , physics , astronomy
This article examines the poetry of Andrei Ciurunga (1920-2002), the pseudonym of Robert Esenbraun, born in a family of German settlers in southern Bessarabia. Under the communist regime he was sentenced on two occasions (the first time to four years, 19501954, the second time to 18 years to prison – from 1958), he was detained for a little more than ten years, undergoing amnesty in 1964. Memorable is the poem published after the fall of communism. It is a poem „coming from the heart”. The author has identified his destiny with the poetry of detention in all prisons and jails of Romania (Gherla, Salcia, Jilava, Văcărești, Peninsula, Poarta Albă, Danube - Black Sea canal). The lyrics "From the Canal" are distinguished by the invention of a new fixed form of poetry, the decastih. They were mentally composed and circulated widely among the detainees. It reveals, retroactively, another world, a world from the carceral inferno.