Felix Aderca - Legacy

Legacy

Aderca's activities left an enduring trace in the autobiographical writings of his fellow authors, from Sebastian to Lovinescu, and from Eftimiu to Camil Petrescu. Lovinescu's notes and diaries, published decades after his death, offer a parallel intimate record of his friendship with Aderca: from a claim (disputed by Petrescu) that Aderca's automobile was of poor quality to detailed records of how his literary circle received his and Sanda Movilă's works, publicly read by them at Sburătorul sessions. According to these notes, the Sburătorul leader was also closely informed about the troubles Aderca faced in his married life. Aderca is also mentioned in the memoirs of novelist Lucia Demetrius, and his special contribution to the cultural life of Oltenia was the topic of an homage piece by essayist and memoirist Petre Pandrea. Aderca's alleged mistakes in translating from German, like his other literary inconsistencies, form subjects for several short pieces by satirist Păstorel Teodoreanu. Part of Teodoreanu's volume Tămâie şi otravă ("Incense and Poison", originally published in 1934-1935), they include a piece titled Un parvenit al tiparului: F. Aderca ("A Parvenu of Letters: F. Aderca").

The selectively permissive stance of communist authorities took a toll on Aderca's legacy: according to one testimony, his biography of Christopher Columbus was the only one of his texts still sold in bookstores during the 1950s, with the added effect that an entire generation of readers believed Aderca to have been a one-book author. In the decades following the his death, his various works were published individually or collectively, into new editions. This category includes: Murmurul cuvintelor ("The Murmur of Words", collected poems, 1971), Răzvrătirea lui Prometeu ("Prometheus' Rebellion", 1974), Teatru ("Drama", 1974), Contribuţii critice ("Contributions to Criticism", 1983 and 1988), Oameni şi idei ("Men and Ideas", 1983). In 1966, Oraşele înecate was reprinted into a new edition, this time under the title Oraşe scufundate. The editor, Ovid Crohmălniceanu, claimed that this change reflected Aderca's own intention, as allegedly expressed by him in old age. The book was translated into German, and became familiar to an international public. Several other editions of Aderca's works were reprinted in the period after the 1989 Revolution, including Femeia cu carne albă, Zeul iubirii and Revolte, as well as a 2003 Editura Hasefer reprint of Mărturia unei generaţii. Also issued at the time were several new editions of volumes by Aderca, including his full biography of Peter the Great and his Oameni excepţionali. His life and work were the object of several monographs, several of which were authored and published by Henri Zalis. Interest in the writer is nevertheless said to have dramatically declined over the following period. Among those who still promoted Aderca's work, poet and translator Petre Solomon, who was a student of his during the war years, credited his teacher with having decisively influenced his earliest perception of art.

According to Ioana Pârvulescu, Aderca, the "protean writer", was "placed on the margin" by 21st century critics. He was still the subject of commemorations organized by Jewish Romanian representative bodies, including one ceremony held in 2008 (hosted by Zalis and attended by, among others, intellectuals Lya Benjamin, George Bălăiţă, Ştefan Iureş, Hary Kuller, Toma George Maiorescu and Dumitru Radu Popescu). According to Gheorghe Grigurcu, the antisemitic interpretation of Aderca's contributions survive in the post-Revolution essays of Mihai Ungheanu, one of the literary critics earlier known for promoting the nationalist tenets of Protochronism.

Felix Aderca was survived by his son Marcel. Known for his own work as a translator, he was an editor of his father's work and caretaker of his estate. In keeping with Felix Aderca's last wish, he inventoried the manuscripts and photographs in this collection and, in 1987, donated the entire corpus to the Romanian Academy. His own contribution as an editor and biographer includes a collection of his father's thoughts on the topic of antisemitism: F. Aderca şi problema evreiască ("F. Aderca and the Jewish Question", published by Editura Hasefer in 1999). A branch of the Aderca family, descending from the writer's brother, still exists in Israel, and Felix Aderca's name was assigned to an annual prize granted by the Association of Romanian-language Israeli Writers.