29 Facts About Grigore Cugler

An anti-communist, Grigore Cugler renounced his post in 1947, just before the establishment of a communist regime, and lived the final decades of his life in Peru.

On his paternal side, Grigore Cugler descended from an ethnic German family of Austrian nobility.

Grigore Cugler's ancestor, Maximilian von Kugler, was a Habsburg civil servant and lawyer who moved to Moldavia to serve for the prince Mihail Sturdza.

Grigore Cugler's daughter and Grigore's aunt, Matilda, was a noted poet who associated with the literary society Junimea, and whose second husband was chemist Petre Poni.

Grigore Cugler was the cousin of art critic Petru Comarnescu.

Grigore Cugler graduated from the Romanian Army's college at Dealu Monastery.

Grigore Cugler was present in Moldavia, the only region held by the Romanian authorities after the Central Powers occupied southern Romania.

Grigore Cugler referred to this period in his life as "dieting", alluding to the hardships of war, and indicating that this judgment applied to occupied Bucharest.

In 1918, Grigore Cugler moved to Bucharest, where he studied at the University's Faculty of Law and the Music Conservatory.

The composer of several waltzes and lieder, Grigore Cugler won the Enescu Award for musical creativity in 1926.

Grigore Cugler was opposed to the Romanian Communist Party's takeover of the country, effected in successive stages after World War II.

Reportedly, Grigore Cugler's action caused consternation in Bucharest, where no one had yet attempted to confront Ana Pauker using such terms.

Grigore Cugler himself spoke of his departure as an "unlimited vacation", and, shortly before leaving, handed down copies of his texts for Vremea to his friend Petru Dumitrascu.

Together with his family, Grigore Cugler settled in Peru's capital, Lima.

Grigore Cugler found a job as an insurance agent by day, indulging his musical passion in the evening, as a violin soloist for the Lima Philharmonic Orchestra.

Grigore Cugler defined this earlier volume as "discreet, elegant, but without a watch on its wrist and blowing even in yogurt".

Grigore Cugler maintained contacts with intellectuals of the Romanian diaspora, several of whom were reportedly fascinated by his work and character.

Grigore Cugler was visited in Lima by poet Nicolae Petra, as well as by literary promoters Stefan Baciu and Mircea Popescu, both of whom edited literary magazines for the community of exiles.

The former two left memoirs on the period, in which they evidence that Grigore Cugler was pining for his native Romania, and that Romanian culture was dominant in his house.

On original writer, defined by literary historian Paul Cernat as "eccentric", Grigore Cugler was not affiliated with any of the avant-garde trends.

Grigore Cugler's work is often thought to have, at least in part, owed inspiration to Urmuz, a solitary avant-gardist of early 20th century Romanian literature.

Grigore Cugler never read Urmuz's stories, but was probably familiar with works by the rebellious French author Alfred Jarry and his work showed connections with Jarry's 'Pataphysics.

In one of his stories, titled Superbardul, Grigore Cugler mocked Surrealism and its automatist techniques, depicting an imaginary writer who writes nonsensical syllables on strips of paper which he glues to all sorts of objects, and which he later assembles on a silvery string.

Grigore Cugler proceeded to define such methods as "literary pantography".

The tendency to reject Grigore Cugler's writings began early: as Manolescu noted, he was not reviewed at all in George Calinescu's History of Romanian Literature, which first saw print in 1941.

Grigore Cugler was not however present in similar collections, including the one edited by Ovid Crohmalniceanu.

In 2006, Grigore Cugler's writings were printed in a German-language edition, compiled by Romanian-born academic Horst Fassel on the basis of texts preserved by linguist Eugenio Coseriu and titled Apunake.

Grigore Cugler's works were printed in various editions by several publishing houses, beginning with a 1996 edition of his Apunake and a 1998 reprint of Afara-de-Unu-Singur in Manuscriptum magazine.

Grigore Cugler and Ulla Dyrssen had three daughters together: Christina, born in Stockholm; Margaret, born in Oslo; and Alexandra, born in Lima.