64 Facts About Eugen Relgis

Eugen D Relgis was a Romanian writer, pacifist philosopher and anarchist militant, known as a theorist of humanitarianism.

Eugen Relgis's internationalist dogma, with distinct echoes from Judaism and Jewish ethics, was first shaped during World War I, when Relgis was a conscientious objector.

Eugen Relgis was a member of several modernist circles, formed around Romanian magazines such as Sburatorul, Contimporanul or Santier, but close to the more mainstream journal Viata Romaneasca.

Eugen Relgis's political and literary choices made Relgis an enemy of both fascism and communism: persecuted during World War II, he eventually took refuge in Uruguay.

From 1947 to the moment of his death, Eugen Relgis earned the respect of South American circles as an anarchist commentator and proponent of solutions to world peace, as well as a promoter of Latin American culture.

The future Eugen Relgis was a native of Moldavia region, belonging to the local Jewish community.

Eugen Relgis was from early on a promoter of Symbolist and modernist literature, a cause into which he blended his left-wing perspective and calls for Jewish emancipation.

Fronda put out three issues in all, after which time Relgis became an occasional contributor to more circulated periodicals, among them Rampa and Vieata Noua.

Eugen Relgis published his first two books of poems during World War I, but before the end of Romania's neutrality period.

Eugen Relgis interrupted his studies shortly after Romania entered the war, in the second half of 1916.

In summer 1918, Eugen Relgis became one of the contributors to the Iasi-based review Umanitatea.

On his own, Eugen Relgis published a magazine of the same title, issued during 1920.

Eugen Relgis resumed his literary activity early in the interwar period.

Eugen Relgis authored his ideological essay Literatura razboiului si era noua ; another such piece, Umanitarism sau Internationala intelectualilor, taken up by Viata Romaneasca in 1922.

Viata Romaneasca published Eugen Relgis' abridged translation of The Biology of War, a pacifist treatise by German physician Georg Friedrich Nicolai.

Eugen Relgis set up the First Humanitarianist Group of Romania, as well as a leftist library, Biblioteca Cercului Libertatea.

Eugen Relgis prefaced Zamfirescu's book Flamura alba, and contributed to Zamfirescu's magazine Icoane Maramuresene.

Eugen Relgis published, in 1924, the 3 volumes of his main novel Petru Arbore.

Also during the early 1920s, Eugen Relgis came into contact with the Bucharest-based Sburatorul circle, which stood for modernist literature and aesthetic relativism.

At that stage in his career, Eugen Relgis was a contributor to the Bucharest left-wing dailies Adevarul and Dimineata, part of a new generation of radical or pacifist authors cultivated by the newspaper.

Eugen Relgis published his work in a variety of periodicals, from Vinea's modernist mouthpiece Contimporanul, Ludo's Adam review and the Zionist Cuvantul Nostru to the Romanian traditionalist journal Cuget Clar.

Eugen Relgis was a delegate to pacifist reunions in Hoddesdon, England and Sonntagberg, Austria.

Eugen Relgis exchanged letters with various other prestigious left-wing intellectuals: Zweig, Upton Sinclair, Henri Barbusse, Max Nettlau etc.

Eugen Relgis became a contributor to Sebastien Faure's Anarchist Encyclopedia, with the "Humanitarianism" entry.

Around 1930, Eugen Relgis was in Paris, where he met with Han Ryner, and in Berlin, where he conversed with his mentor Nicolai.

Eugen Relgis was by then an advocate of eugenics, an interest reflected in his 1934 tract Umanitarism si eugenism, published by Editura Vegetarianismul company.

Eugen Relgis was at the time active within the Jewish Cultural Institute, an annex of the Bucharest Choral Temple.

Eugen Relgis was still active on the literary scene during the first two years of World War II, before Romania formalized its military alliance with the Axis Powers.

Eugen Relgis was however able to publish an article in the Jewish-only magazine Renasterea Noastra, on the occasion of Iosif's yahrtzeit, where he compared the Gutmans to Laocoon and His Sons.

Eugen Relgis was again active in the political press, lending his signature to several independent newspapers: Sebastian Serbescu's Semnalul, Tudor Teodorescu-Braniste's Jurnalul de Dimineata etc.

Eugen Relgis described himself as diametrically opposed to the process of communization, as well as to the Soviet occupation of Romania.

Eugen Relgis later went to Montevideo, in Uruguay, where he lived the remainder of his life.

Eugen Relgis embarked on a series of university lectures, which carried him throughout Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil.

Also in 1950, with his Montevideo printing office Ediciones Humanidad, Eugen Relgis released a Spanish edition of his Principiile, a version of Max Nettlau's World Peace volume, as well as reissuing Cosmometapolis.

Eugen Relgis tried to get his contributions translated into Portuguese, asking anarchist philosopher Jose Oiticica for assistance.

Eugen Relgis was at the time employed by El Plata daily, editing its Wednesday literary page, and helping to discover, in 1954, the twelve-year-old poet Teresa Porzecanski.

In 1954, Eugen Relgis printed another biographical study, on Romain Rolland: El hombre libre frente a la barbarie totalitaria.

In 1958, the University of the Republic published Eugen Relgis' acclaimed political essay Perspectivas culturales en Sudamerica, for which he received a prize from the Uruguayan Ministry of Public Instruction and Social Prevision.

Eugen Relgis' reputation was consolidated in the intellectual circles and, in 1955, his name was unsuccessfully advanced for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1962, Eugen Relgis visited Israel and Jerusalem, tightening his links with the Romanian Israeli community, including the Menora Association and Rabbi David Safran.

Eugen Relgis became an occasional contributor to Mujeres Libres, the Spanish anarcha-feminist tribune in the United Kingdom.

Eugen Relgis died before this could happen, in Montevideo, at age 92.

Eugen Relgis' humanitarianism was a practical extension of anarcho-pacifism.

Eugen Relgis himself spoke of his movement as a form of "active thought", and "a critical method applied to natural, human and social realities", while expressing admiration for the nonviolent resistance tactics advocated in British India by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or Rabindranath Tagore.

Eugen Relgis adhered to philosopher Martin Buber's ideas about reuniting the three paths chosen by diaspora Jews: universalism, Zionism and Conservative Judaism.

Eugen Relgis later wrote that Jews, and Israelis in particular, were entrusted with keeping alive "the ancient wisdom, poetry and faith", with creating "new values from the old ones".

Eugen Relgis identified this as a merit, describing South America in general and Uruguay in particular as exceptionally fertile and a "healthier" example for the whole world, offering safe haven to independent thinkers and defying the ideological divisions of the Cold War era.

Also important in Eugen Relgis' assessment was Latin America's capacity to resist modern dehumanization by granting a social role to its intellectuals, an idea impressed upon him by the writings of Uruguayan humanist Jose Enrique Rodo.

Eugen Relgis' theory was received with interest by some of his South American colleagues.

In favoring this option, Eugen Relgis identified himself with those of his anarchist forerunners who were dedicated neo-Malthusians, and especially with Manuel Devaldes.

Eugen Relgis praised Devaldes' call for vasectomy as a regulatory practice, calling the procedure "a true revolution" in population growth.

Eugen Relgis's works defended other anarchists who recommended the practice, including the tried anarchist eugenists Norbert Bardoseck and Pierre Ramus.

The emergence of an exemplary Latin American culture was conceived by Eugen Relgis as running parallel to a future American racial type.

Eugen Relgis blended a critique of capitalism, advocacy of internationalism and modern art interest with all his main contributions to literature.

Eugen Relgis' essay described industrial society in harsh terms, as directed by "the bloody gods" of "Capitalism and War", and cautioned that the advocacy of anonymity in modern art could lead to kitsch.

Some of Eugen Relgis' preferences were shaped from his time at Fronda.

Glasuri in surdina is noted for depicting the disorientation of a young man who becomes deaf: Eugen Relgis' alter ego, Miron, finds that such a disability has turned his old friends into opportunistic exploiters, but his imaginative spirit and his self-determination allow him to rebel and start over in life.

Relgis' patron Eugen Lovinescu was especially critical of the work, judging its "self-analyzing" internal monologue as burdensome.

Eugen Relgis himself warned that the book should not be seen as his autobiography, but as the "spiritual mirror" of each reader.

In one piece quoted by George Calinescu, Eugen Relgis showed a bricklayer contemplating the modern city from the top of a scaffolding structure:.

The political ideas of Eugen Relgis were largely incompatible with the totalitarianism prevalent in Romania between World War II and the Romanian Revolution of 1989: as Rose notes, the scholar was persecuted by "four dictatorial regimes in his native country".

Attempts to recover Eugen Relgis' work were made during the latter half of Romanian communist rule and after the 1989, several of them from within the Romanian Jewish community.

Late in the 1980s, Volovici contacted Eugen Relgis' surviving sisters, then Eugen Relgis himself, becoming curator of the manuscripts left behind by the philosopher upon his relocation to South America.

Eugen Relgis' likeness is preserved in drawings by Marcel Janco, Lazar Zin, Louis Moreau and Carmelo de Arzadun.