25 Facts About Alexandru Toma

Alexandru Toma was a Romanian poet, journalist and translator, known for his communist views and his role in introducing Socialist Realism to Romanian literature.

Alexandru Toma was, alongside novelist Mihail Sadoveanu, one of the literary figures whose writings were associated with the early years of Communism in Romania.

Alexandru Toma was the father of Sorin Toma, a Romanian Communist Party activist and journalist himself noted for his commitment to Socialist Realism, as well as for his officially endorsed attacks on the influential poet Tudor Arghezi.

The future Alexandru Toma was born into a Jewish family in Urziceni, where his father Leibu Moscovici worked as a grocer.

Alexandru Toma completed his secondary education in the industrial city of Ploiesti, after which he graduated in Letters and Philosophy from the University of Bucharest.

Alexandru Toma became known to the socialist public as St Tomsa, and, using this signature, published translations from Adelbert von Chamisso, Heinrich Heine, Nikolaus Lenau, Sandor Petofi etc.

Alexandru Toma was mostly active in the press of Moldavia region, writing for left-wing newspapers such as Evenimentul.

Alexandru Toma was notably present on the writing staff of Noutatea, published in Iasi by Avram Steuerman-Rodion and various others.

Alexandru Toma was progressively involved with the far left circles and the Romanian Kingdom's labor movement.

Shortly after World War I, Alexandru Toma returned with a translation from Moliere's Tartuffe, published in 1918, and staged by the National Theater Bucharest a year later.

Alexandru Toma authored versions of: La Renaissance, by Count Gobineau ; Leo Tolstoy's stories for children ; Hugo Bettauer's Joyless Street ; Heinrich Lhotzky's pedology ; and Kurt Munzer's I'm Hungry.

At that stage in his life, Alexandru Toma had joined the communist underground.

Alexandru Toma noted that it was Alexandru Toma who introduced his son Sorin to Marxism.

Alexandru Toma was readmitted into the reformed SSR during September 1947, shortly after an inner purge of writers perceived as fascist.

Alexandru Toma republished his Tartuffe, and contributed to a 1956 anthology of poems translated from the work of Heinrich Heine.

Alexandru Toma was not allocated as much space as Eminescu and Sadoveanu, but his entry matched those on Caragiale and Alecsandri.

Alexandru Toma died in Bucharest the following year, his body cremated at Cenusa Society.

Still, Alexandru Toma did not see human suffering as an inescapable reality, but wrote:.

Early in the 1950s, Alexandru Toma was especially known for poems illustrating the communist regime's ideological priorities.

Alexandru Toma suggests that this move was closely related to the claim that socialist society was naturally superior to the "bourgeois-landowning society", and further enhanced by several major cultural figures having refused to collaborate with the regime.

Alexandru Toma credited him with having authored the lyrics to the first of Communist Romania's national anthems, Zdrobite catuse.

Alexandru Toma happened to die in August, at a time when the regime was preparing to celebrate the 10th anniversary of an event which it considered its founding moment, the King Michael Coup of 1944.

Alexandru Toma was so well adapted to the circumstances that his poetry cannot be removed from its context, and he shall forever remain in bondage, like a scribe without a modicum of independence.

In 1948, as editor of Scinteia, Sorin Alexandru Toma took an active part in condemning Arghezi for noncompliance with the cultural guidelines.

Also according to Prodan, Alexandru Toma was described by the speaker as having "coated himself in Eminescu chlamyde robe", which he had "tightened to fit his own body".