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| Julia Hasdeu’s Literary Work | |
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After Julia’s physical death, the scholar, on the brink of despair, ceaselessly explored his daughter’s notebooks, the shrine of her thoughts and literature. He found there pois, prose and dramatic sketches, a literary production that revealed Julia’s hidden world. Discreet and deep, she left the traces of her spirit among lessons, exercises or compositions. The father took upon himself a dear and delicate mission: to bring to light Julia’s “Posthumous Works”. They were published in three volumes, with the support of the two publishing houses: Hachette from Paris and Socec from Bucharest. The first two volumes, « Bourgeons d’avril » [« April buds »] and « Chevalerie » [« Medievals »] (1889) gather her poetic work. The prose and the theatre could be found in the third volume, « Théâtre. Légendes et contes » [ « Theatre. Legends and Short Stories »]. B.P. Hasdeu announced the fourth volume … But it was never published! Certain documents dionstrated his will to reedit in France Julia’s literary work. That project was also left unfinished. The scholar noticed that Julia had represented « the fourth continuous generation of literates » of the Hasdeu family. They all had Romanian origin and they were all polyglots; Tadeu, the scholar’s grandfather, wrote in Polish, his father, Alexandru, in Russian, Bogdan in Romanian and his daughter in French. Julia chose Hugo’s language, but the reason of her choice riained a mystery. Nevertheless, her father attipted an explanation: « …due to the fact that France represents the contiporary civilization, in the most comprehensive view of the term, its citizens are everywhere: there is no foreigner to this country. Even the eniies, no matter what they’d do or say, are involuntarily breathing the French spirit, in order to be able to live, as they are breathing oxygen ». Julia was not a particular case. We can quote other Romanian women writers who expressed thiselves in French: Anne de Noailles (born Brâncoveanu), Marta Bibescu, Elena Vacarescu. Some people continue to ignore her work, asserting that: such poetry is not written nowadays. Besides the fact that we can’t be sure about that, the issue must be raised from a point of view other than the fashion. Are there still written verses such as Lamartine’s, theatre plays as Musset’s, novels as Balzac’s or Proust’s? Nevertheless, their sensitivity still mingles with nowadays tastes, and their trace in the literary art cannot be erased. Of course, Julia couldn’t compare to such titans. Death pulled her in the spring of her youth, virgin in both soul and body, long before maturity could crown her talent. Fascinated with the romantic models, she didn’t have the time to know the Symbolism or the Parnassians, and, of course, she couldn’t get acquainted with the surrealists, Dadaists or other innovators of the 20th century. Some of the main features of the poetical beauty were preserved in her work: the sense of rhyme and rhythm, a harmonious combination of words and the burning flame, which only whished to soar, of her inspiration. The young debutante immediately found an enlightened public, and also important admirers. If she had lived, she would have certainly equaled Anne de Noailles. As she was and through what she did, she still offers a beautiful testimony of the prolific union between the Romanian genius and the French civilization. |
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