Cristina A. Bejan Phd

Metropolitan State University of Denver | Metro State Denver · Department of History

In 1930s Bucharest, some of the country’s most brilliant young intellectuals converged to form the Criterion Association. Bound by friendship and the dream of a new, modern Romania, their members included historian Mircea Eliade, critic Petru Comarnescu, Jewish playwright Mihail Sebastian and a host of other philosophers and artists. Together, they...

Bejan offers a much-needed account of the disintegration and termination of the Criterion Association and publication. The popular explanation for Criterion’s end is the fermentation of extremist political allegiances. However, there is an additional explanation, which is difficult to find in the existing literature on Criterion. This is the scanda...

Bejan explores the extent of the association’s further cultural and intellectual activities, as well as the creation of the publication bearing the same name. In January 1933, Criterion scheduled a series entitled ‘Trends.’ Due to the Griviţa riots, Criterion was not able to resume public activity until the following fall. Then, the association hel...

Bejan examines the immediate precedent factors to the creation of the Criterion Association: the social atmosphere in Bucharest (both positive and negative sides, and the friend/enemy dichotomy representative of many friendships between Criterionists), previous cultural groups that held conferences and a thorough examination of the Forum Group, whi...

The conclusion provides an overview of the book and demonstrates how political allegiances arose within the Criterion space and contributed to its demise. Bejan returns to Benda’s 1927 warning and reasserts that this book has attempted an objective analysis of the figures involved. The question of the value of the Criterionists’ literary or scholar...

This chapter is devoted to the experiences of the key Criterionists in the 1920s and early 1930s. Bejan starts with a portrait of the most important intellectual influence on the Young Generation, Nae Ionescu. The chapter then introduces the most significant members of the Young Generation as well as how they knew each other. This chapter then pres...

This chapter is about the moment of political conversion for certain Criterionists. Bejan examines four members of Criterion who sympathized with the Iron Guard (Eliade, Cioran, Noica, Sadova) and three who resisted (Comarnescu, Sebastian, Ionesco). The investigation of Sadova exposes how the National Theatre was used as a propaganda tool and how t...

This chapter explores Criterion’s first season of events. The Criterion Association was devoted to covering relevant cultural, political and intellectual topics of the day, exposing all points of view and reaching far beyond the limits of the elite circle of the Young Generation. The symposia were attended by representatives of all ranks of Buchare...

In this chapter, Bejan traces the fates of the members of the Young Generation after WWII and the installation of communism in Romania. After examining those who escaped and had successful careers in exile (Eliade, Cioran and Ionesco), the chapter uncovers the diverse destinies of those left behind in Romania (Vulcănescu, Sebastian, Comarnescu, Tud...

This monumental seven-volume encyclopedia, prepared by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, examines the universe of camps and ghettos)―more than 40,000 in all―that the Nazis and their allies operated, from Norway to North Africa and from France to Russia. Volume I...