PROSE FROM BESSARABIA (1918-1940)
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About author:
Alexandru BURLACU
Doctor of Philology,
University professor
The “Bogdan Petriceicu-Hasdeu” Institute of Philology at the State University of Moldova
E-mail: alexandru.burlacu@sti.usm.md
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52505/llf.2025.2.01
Abstract: This article examines prose from Bessarabia published between 1918 and 1940, highlighting its eclectic character in the process of assimilating the modernist canon and its evolution within an asynchronous framework, marked by a certain distance from the literary developments of the cultural “center”. During the 1920s and 1930s, a speculative orientation persisted according to which the representation of the Romanian individual was sought almost exclusively in folklore, rural life, and the figure of the peasant. This thesis was reactivated by traditionalist writers, known as semănătorists, as well as by naturalists: while the former invested it with positive meanings, the latter emphasized its negative implications. For the Bessarabian writer, the problem of synchronization – still a pressing issue today – entails the creative autochthonization of literary models, the assimilation of the artistic experience of major predecessors, and the appropriation of narrative techniques, strategies, and principles of epic construction.
Keywords: prose, ontological model, naturalism, traditionalism, modernism.