45 Facts About Geo Bogza

At a later stage, Geo Bogza won acclaim for his many and accomplished reportage pieces, being one of the first to cultivate the genre in Romanian literature, and using it as a venue for social criticism.

An editor for Viata Romaneasca and Romania Literara magazines, Geo Bogza was one of the leaders of the Romanian Writers' Union and a member of the Romanian Academy.

Geo Bogza was the older brother of Radu Tudoran, himself a known writer, whose political choices were in stark contrast with those of Geo Bogza, and made Tudoran the object of communist persecution.

Geo Bogza had lifelong contacts with some representatives of the Romanian avant-garde, among them Victor Brauner, Max Blecher, Sesto Pals, Sasa Pana, and Paul Paun, and was friends with, among others, the essayist and theologian Nicolae Steinhardt, the dissident Gheorghe Ursu, and the filmmaker Mircea Saucan.

At one point during the late 1930s, Geo Bogza was irritated after reading an article authored by one of his fascist adversaries, Alexandru Hodos.

Hodos implied that Geo Bogza was not an ethnic Romanian, which prompted the latter to elaborate on his origins and his name.

Geo Bogza, who indicated that he was baptized Romanian Orthodox, stressed that his given name, Gheorghe, had been turned into the hypocoristic Geo while he was still a child, and that he had come to prefer the shortened form.

Geo Bogza attended school in Ploiesti and trained as a sailor at the Naval Academy in Constanta, but never sought employment in the Romanian Naval Forces.

Geo Bogza returned to his native Prahova County, lived in Bustenari, and eventually settled in Bucharest.

Geo Bogza established a friendship and collaboration with the photographer Iosif Bernea and the painter Victor Brauner, and was close to the writer and future Orthodox hermit Nicolae Steinhardt.

Early in his youth, while in Bustenari, Geo Bogza met and fell in love with Elisabeta, whom he married soon after.

Reportedly, Geo Bogza asked to be defended by Ionel Teodoreanu, a known writer who had training in law, but he was ultimately represented by Ionel Jianu.

Geo Bogza was frequently attacked by Iorga's nationalist magazine Cuget Clar.

In 1934, while visiting Brasov in the company of his wife, Geo Bogza met Max Blecher, a young man who was beddriden by Pott's disease and had started work on the novel later known as Intamplari din irealitatea imediata.

Geo Bogza's growing sympathy for communism and his connections with the outlawed Romanian Communist Party made Bogza a target of the authorities' surveillance.

Late in 1937, Geo Bogza traveled to Spain as a war correspondent in the Civil War, supporting the Republican side.

Geo Bogza was accompanied on this journey by Constantin Lucretia Valceanu, who had ambitions of becoming a writer, and whom Bogza asked to contribute to a never-completed novel inspired by the war.

The writer had grown close to the PCR, but their relations soured c 1940, when Bogza was confronted with news that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had signed a non-aggression pact.

Geo Bogza did not however cut off links with Surrealism, and was one of the few to be acquainted with the literature of his friend Sesto Pals, which he later helped promote at home and abroad.

In 1955, Geo Bogza became a full member of the Romanian Academy.

Geo Bogza was skeptical about the goals of the PCR, and his support for it was much reduced in time.

The new doctrine, eventually consecrated in Ceausescu's July Theses, saw him taking the opposing side: during the early 1970s, Geo Bogza published pieces in which he voiced covert criticism of the new policies.

Geo Bogza was nonetheless often ambiguous in his relations with the authorities, while his public statements oscillated between covert satire and open praise.

Geo Bogza had a permanent column in the influential magazine Romania Literara.

Rumors spread that Geo Bogza had orchestrated the scandal, after he had been confronted with an initiative to transform the Union into a "Union of Communist Writers".

Geo Bogza was close to the outspoken dissident Gheorghe Ursu, as well as to filmmaker Mircea Saucan, himself an adversary of the communist regime.

Geo Bogza died in Bucharest, after being hospitalized for a while at the local Elias Hospital.

Much of Geo Bogza's work is related to social criticism, reflecting his political convictions.

In reference to this trait, Mihuleac commented that the 20-year-old Geo Bogza was in some ways a predecessor of later generations of protesters, such as the American Beatniks and the United Kingdom's "angry young men".

Geo Bogza allegorically spoke of feeling "the tuica and pumpkin-like" smell of Nicolae Ilie's feces "every time I raise a loaf of bread or a mug of milk to my mouth".

Geo Bogza extended an appeal to the oil industry workers, in which he identify oil with foulness and with himself:.

One of the first and most acclaimed authors of reportage in Romanian literature, Geo Bogza was credited by journalist Catalin Mihuleac with establishing and "ennobling" the genre.

Geo Bogza is occasionally cited alongside his contemporary F Brunea-Fox, whose equally famous reportages were less artistic and had more to do with investigative journalism.

Also according to Mihuleac, Geo Bogza went through a radical change around 1935, when his writing turned professional and his subjects turned from "himself" to "the multitudes".

Geo Bogza toured the impoverished areas of Bucharest, recording activities around the city landfill and the lives of dog catchers who gassed their victims and turned them into cheap soap.

In parallel, Calinescu contended, Geo Bogza's path mirrored those of Italian Futurists such as Ardengo Soffici and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and that of the French Hussards leader Paul Morand.

In one of his satirical pieces, Geo Bogza mocked the Romanian Post seemingly excessive regulations to have writing utensils made available for the public, but secured in place with a string:.

In one such article, Geo Bogza claimed to have witnessed the sight of proletarians who were living in "new and white-painted houses" and had manufactured business cards for themselves, proudly advertising their qualifications in the field of work and positions in the state-run factory.

At some point during the second half of 1969, instead of his usual column, Geo Bogza sent for publication a drawing of three poplars, with a caption which read:.

Geo Bogza's position allowed him to extend a degree of protection to literary figures persecuted by the authorities.

Grigurcu, who placed stress on the closeness between these writers and dissenting but high-ranking Communist Party activists such as Gheorghe Radulescu and George Macovescu, called attention to the fact that Bogza had refused to sign his name to an appeal for radical change, drafted by novelist Paul Goma in 1977.

Geo Bogza often credited real-life events and persons in his poetry.

Sesto Pals authored Epitaf pentru Geo Bogza, first published by Nicolae Tzone in 2001.

Geo Bogza was the subject of a portrait painted by his friend Victor Brauner, which was itself the topic of scandal.

Geo Bogza's trial has been the subject of an episode in the series Bucuresti, strict secret, produced by writer and political scientist Stelian Tanase and aired by Realitatea TV in 2007.