Tristan Tzara (born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; April 4 or April 16, 1896[1]–December 25, 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement. Under the influence of Adrian Maniu, the adolescent Tzara became interested in Symbolism and co-founded the magazine Simbolul with Ion Vinea (with whom he also wrote experimental poetry) and painter Marcel Janco. During World War I, after briefly collaborating on Vinea's Chemarea, he joined Janco in Switzerland. There, Tzara's shows at the Cabaret Voltaire and Zunfthaus zur Waag, as well as his poetry and art manifestos, became a main feature of early Dadaism. His work represented Dada's nihilistic side, in contrast with the more moderate approach favored by Hugo Ball.After moving to Paris in 1919, Tzara, by then one of the "presidents of Dada", joined the staff of Littérature magazine, which marked the first step in the movement's evolution toward Surrealism. He was involved in the major polemics which led to Dada's split, defending his principles against André Breton and Francis Picabia, and, in Romania, against the eclectic modernism of Vinea and Janco. This personal vision on art defined his Dadaist plays The Gas Heart (1921) and Handkerchief of Clouds (1924). A forerunner of automatist techniques, Tzara eventually rallied with Breton's Surrealism, and, under its influence, wrote his celebrated utopian poem The Approximate Man.
During the final part of his career, Tzara combined his humanist and anti-fascist perspective with a communist vision, joining the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and the French Resistance during World War II, and serving a term in the National Assembly. Having spoken in favor of liberalization in the People's Republic of Hungary just before the Revolution of 1956, he distanced himself from the French Communist Party, of which he was by then a member. In 1960, he was among the intellectuals who protested against French actions in the Algerian War.
Tristan Tzara was an influential author and performer, whose contribution is credited with having created a connection from Cubism and Futurism to the Beat Generation, Situationism and various currents in rock music. The friend and collaborator of many modernist figures, he was the lover of dancer Maja Kruscek in his early youth and was later married to Swedish artist and poet Greta Knutson.
S. Samyro, a partial anagram of Samy Rosenstock, was used by Tzara from his debut and throughout the early 1910s.[2] A number of undated writings, which he probably authored as early as 1913, bear the signature Tristan Ruia, and, in summer of 1915, he was signing his pieces with the name Tristan.[3][4]
In the 1960s, Rosenstock's collaborator and later rival Ion Vinea claimed that he was responsible for coining the Tzara part of his pseudonym in 1915.[3] Vinea also stated that Tzara wanted to keep Tristan as his adopted first name, and that this choice had later attracted him the "infamous pun" Triste Âne Tzara (French for "Sad Donkey Tzara").[3] This version of events is uncertain, as manuscripts show that the writer may have already been using the full name, as well as the variations Tristan Ţara and Tr. Tzara, in 1913-1914 (although there is a possibility that he was signing his texts long after committing them to paper).[5]
In 1972, art historian Serge Fauchereau, based on information received from Colomba, the wife of avant-garde poet Ilarie Voronca, recounted that Tzara himself had explained his chosen name was a pun on the Romanian-language trist în ţară ("sad in one's country"); Colomba Voronca was also dismissing rumors that Tzara had selected Tristan as a tribute to poet Tristan Corbière or to Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde opera.[6] Samy Rosenstock legally adopted his new name in 1925, after filing a request with Romania's Ministry of the Interior.
In the 1960s, Rosenstock's collaborator and later rival Ion Vinea claimed that he was responsible for coining the Tzara part of his pseudonym in 1915.[3] Vinea also stated that Tzara wanted to keep Tristan as his adopted first name, and that this choice had later attracted him the "infamous pun" Triste Âne Tzara (French for "Sad Donkey Tzara").[3] This version of events is uncertain, as manuscripts show that the writer may have already been using the full name, as well as the variations Tristan Ţara and Tr. Tzara, in 1913-1914 (although there is a possibility that he was signing his texts long after committing them to paper).[5]
In 1972, art historian Serge Fauchereau, based on information received from Colomba, the wife of avant-garde poet Ilarie Voronca, recounted that Tzara himself had explained his chosen name was a pun on the Romanian-language trist în ţară ("sad in one's country"); Colomba Voronca was also dismissing rumors that Tzara had selected Tristan as a tribute to poet Tristan Corbière or to Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde opera.[6] Samy Rosenstock legally adopted his new name in 1925, after filing a request with Romania's Ministry of the Interior.
Tzara was born in Moineşti, Bacău County, in the historical region of Moldavia. His parents were Jewish Romanians who reportedly spoke Yiddish as their first language;[7] his father Filip and grandfather Ilie were entrepreneurs in the forestry business.[8][9] Tzara's mother was Emilia Rosenstock, née Zibalis.[9] Owing to the Romanian Kingdom's discrimination laws, the Rosenstocks were not emancipated, and thus Tzara was not a full citizen of the country until after 1918.[8]
He moved to Bucharest at the age of eleven, and attended the Schemitz-Tierin boarding school.[8] It is believed that the young Tzara completed his secondary education at a state-run high school, which is identified as the Saint Sava National College[8] or as the Sfântul Gheorghe High School.[10] In October 1912, when Tzara was aged sixteen, he joined his friends Vinea and Marcel Janco in editing Simbolul. Reputedly, Janco and Vinea provided the funds.[11] Like Vinea, Tzara was also close to their young colleague Jacques G. Costin, who was later his self-declared promoter and admirer.[12]
Despite their young age, the three editors were able to attract collaborations from established Symbolist authors. Alongside their close friend and mentor Adrian Maniu (an Imagist who had been Vinea's tutor),[13] they included N. Davidescu, Alfred Hefter-Hidalgo, Emil Isac, Claudia Millian, Ion Minulescu, I. M. Raşcu, Eugeniu Sperantia, Al. T. Stamatiad, Eugeniu Ştefănescu-Est, Constantin T. Stoika, as well as from journalist and lawyer Poldi Chapier.[14] In its inaugural issue, the journal even printed a poem by one of the leading figures in Romanian Symbolism, Alexandru Macedonski.[14] Simbolul also featured illustrations by Maniu, Millian and Iosif Iser.[15]
Although the magazine ceased print in December 1912, it played an important part in shaping Romanian literature of the period. Literary historian Paul Cernat sees Simbolul as a main stage in Romania's modernism, and credits it with having brought about the first changes from Symbolism to the radical avant-garde.[16] Also according to Cernat, the collaboration between Samyro, Vinea and Janco was an early instance of literature becoming "an interface between arts", which had for its contemporary equivalent the collaboration between Iser and writers such as Ion Minulescu and Tudor Arghezi.[17] Although Maniu parted with the group and sought a change in style which brought him closer to traditionalist tenets, Tzara, Janco and Vinea continued their collaboration. Between 1913 and 1915, they were frequently vacationing together, either on the Black Sea coast or at the Rosenstock family property in Gârceni, Vaslui County; during this time, Vinea and Samyro wrote poems with similar themes and alluding to one another
It was in this milieu that Dada was born, at some point before May 1916, when a publication of the same name first saw print. The story of its establishment was the subject of a disagreement between Tzara and his fellow writers. Cernat believes that the first Dadaist performance took place as early as February, when the nineteen-year old Tzara, wearing a monocle, entered the Cabaret Voltaire stage singing sentimental melodies and handing paper wads to his "scandalized spectators", leaving the stage to allow room for masked actors on stilts, and returning in clown attire.[37] The same type of performances took place at the Zuntfhaus zür Waag beginning in summer 1916, after the Cabaret Voltaire was forced to close down.[38] According to music historian Bernard Gendron, for at long as it lasted, "the Cabaret Voltaire was dada. There was no alternative institution or site that could disentangle 'pure' dada from its mere accompaniment [...] nor was any such site desired."[39] Other opinions link Dada's beginnings with much earlier events, including the experiments of Alfred Jarry, André Gide, Christian Morgenstern, Jean-Pierre Brisset, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jacques Vaché, Marcel Duchamp or Francis Picabia.[40]
In the first of the movement's manifestos, Ball wrote: "[The booklet] is intended to present to the Public the activities and interests of the Cabaret Voltaire, which has as its sole purpose to draw attention, across the barriers of war and nationalism, to the few independent spirits who live for other ideals. The next objective of the artists who are assembled here is to publish a revue internationale [French for "international magazine"]."[41] Ball completed his message in French, and the paragraph translates as: "The magazine shall be published in Zürich and shall carry the name 'Dada' ('Dada'). Dada Dada Dada Dada."[41] The view according to which Ball had created the movement was notably supported by writer Walter Serner, who directly accused Tzara of having abused Ball's initiative.[42]
A secondary point of contention between the founders of Dada regarded the paternity for the movement's name, which, according to visual artist and essayist Hans Richter, was first adopted in print in June 1916.[43] Ball, who claimed authorship and stated that he picked the word randomly from a dictionary, indicated that it stood for both the French-language equivalent of "hobby horse" and a German-language term reflecting the joy of children being rocked to sleep.[44] Tzara himself declined interest in the matter, but Marcel Janco credited him with having coined the term.[45] Dada manifestos, written or co-authored by Tzara, record that the name shares its form with various other terms, including a word used in the Kru languages of West Africa to designate the tail of a sacred cow; a toy and the name for "mother" in an unspecified Italian dialect; and the double affirmative in Romanian and in various Slavic languages.
He moved to Bucharest at the age of eleven, and attended the Schemitz-Tierin boarding school.[8] It is believed that the young Tzara completed his secondary education at a state-run high school, which is identified as the Saint Sava National College[8] or as the Sfântul Gheorghe High School.[10] In October 1912, when Tzara was aged sixteen, he joined his friends Vinea and Marcel Janco in editing Simbolul. Reputedly, Janco and Vinea provided the funds.[11] Like Vinea, Tzara was also close to their young colleague Jacques G. Costin, who was later his self-declared promoter and admirer.[12]
Despite their young age, the three editors were able to attract collaborations from established Symbolist authors. Alongside their close friend and mentor Adrian Maniu (an Imagist who had been Vinea's tutor),[13] they included N. Davidescu, Alfred Hefter-Hidalgo, Emil Isac, Claudia Millian, Ion Minulescu, I. M. Raşcu, Eugeniu Sperantia, Al. T. Stamatiad, Eugeniu Ştefănescu-Est, Constantin T. Stoika, as well as from journalist and lawyer Poldi Chapier.[14] In its inaugural issue, the journal even printed a poem by one of the leading figures in Romanian Symbolism, Alexandru Macedonski.[14] Simbolul also featured illustrations by Maniu, Millian and Iosif Iser.[15]
Although the magazine ceased print in December 1912, it played an important part in shaping Romanian literature of the period. Literary historian Paul Cernat sees Simbolul as a main stage in Romania's modernism, and credits it with having brought about the first changes from Symbolism to the radical avant-garde.[16] Also according to Cernat, the collaboration between Samyro, Vinea and Janco was an early instance of literature becoming "an interface between arts", which had for its contemporary equivalent the collaboration between Iser and writers such as Ion Minulescu and Tudor Arghezi.[17] Although Maniu parted with the group and sought a change in style which brought him closer to traditionalist tenets, Tzara, Janco and Vinea continued their collaboration. Between 1913 and 1915, they were frequently vacationing together, either on the Black Sea coast or at the Rosenstock family property in Gârceni, Vaslui County; during this time, Vinea and Samyro wrote poems with similar themes and alluding to one another
It was in this milieu that Dada was born, at some point before May 1916, when a publication of the same name first saw print. The story of its establishment was the subject of a disagreement between Tzara and his fellow writers. Cernat believes that the first Dadaist performance took place as early as February, when the nineteen-year old Tzara, wearing a monocle, entered the Cabaret Voltaire stage singing sentimental melodies and handing paper wads to his "scandalized spectators", leaving the stage to allow room for masked actors on stilts, and returning in clown attire.[37] The same type of performances took place at the Zuntfhaus zür Waag beginning in summer 1916, after the Cabaret Voltaire was forced to close down.[38] According to music historian Bernard Gendron, for at long as it lasted, "the Cabaret Voltaire was dada. There was no alternative institution or site that could disentangle 'pure' dada from its mere accompaniment [...] nor was any such site desired."[39] Other opinions link Dada's beginnings with much earlier events, including the experiments of Alfred Jarry, André Gide, Christian Morgenstern, Jean-Pierre Brisset, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jacques Vaché, Marcel Duchamp or Francis Picabia.[40]In the first of the movement's manifestos, Ball wrote: "[The booklet] is intended to present to the Public the activities and interests of the Cabaret Voltaire, which has as its sole purpose to draw attention, across the barriers of war and nationalism, to the few independent spirits who live for other ideals. The next objective of the artists who are assembled here is to publish a revue internationale [French for "international magazine"]."[41] Ball completed his message in French, and the paragraph translates as: "The magazine shall be published in Zürich and shall carry the name 'Dada' ('Dada'). Dada Dada Dada Dada."[41] The view according to which Ball had created the movement was notably supported by writer Walter Serner, who directly accused Tzara of having abused Ball's initiative.[42]
A secondary point of contention between the founders of Dada regarded the paternity for the movement's name, which, according to visual artist and essayist Hans Richter, was first adopted in print in June 1916.[43] Ball, who claimed authorship and stated that he picked the word randomly from a dictionary, indicated that it stood for both the French-language equivalent of "hobby horse" and a German-language term reflecting the joy of children being rocked to sleep.[44] Tzara himself declined interest in the matter, but Marcel Janco credited him with having coined the term.[45] Dada manifestos, written or co-authored by Tzara, record that the name shares its form with various other terms, including a word used in the Kru languages of West Africa to designate the tail of a sacred cow; a toy and the name for "mother" in an unspecified Italian dialect; and the double affirmative in Romanian and in various Slavic languages.
In late 1919, Tristan Tzara left Switzerland to join Breton, Soupault and Claude Rivière in editing the Paris-based magazine Littérature.[81][25] Already a mentor for the French avant-garde, he was, according to Hans Richter, perceived as an "Anti-Messiah" and a "prophet".[82] Reportedly, Dada mythology had it that he entered the French capital in a snow-white or lilac-colored car, passing down Boulevard Raspail through a triumphal arch made from his own pamphlets, being greeted by cheering crowds and a fireworks display.[82] Richter dismisses this account, indicating that Tzara actually walked from Gare de l'Est to Picabia's home, without anyone expecting him to arrive.[82]
He is often described as the main figure in the Littérature circle, and credited with having more firmly set its artistic principles in the line of Dada.[83][25] When Picabia began publishing a new series of 391 in Paris, Tzara seconded him and, Richter says, produced issues of the magazine "decked out [...] in all the colors of Dada."[58] He was also issuing his Dada magazine, printed in Paris but using the same format, renaming it Bulletin Dada and later Dadaphone.[84] At around that time, he met American author Gertrude Stein, who wrote about him in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,[85] and the artist couple Robert and Sonia Delaunay (with whom he worked in tandem for "poem-dresses" and other simultaneist literary pieces).[86]
Tzara became involved in a number of Dada experiments, on which he collaborated with Breton, Aragon, Soupault, Picabia or Paul Éluard.[87][1][4] Other authors who came into contact with Dada at that stage were Jean Cocteau, Paul Dermée and Raymond Radiguet.[88] The performances staged by Dada were often meant to popularize its principles, and Dada continued to draw attention on itself by hoaxes and false advertising, announcing that the Hollywood film star Charlie Chaplin was going to appear on stage at its show,[49] or that its members were going to have their heads shaved or their hair cut off on stage.[89] In another instance, Tzara and his associates lectured at the Université populaire in front of industrial workers, who were reportedly less than impressed.[90] Richter believes that, ideologically, Tzara was still in tribute to Picabia's nihilistic and anarchic views (which made the Dadaists attack all political and cultural ideologies), but that it had a measure of sympathy for the working class.[91]
Dada activities in Paris culminated in the March 1920 variety show at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre, which featured readings from Breton, Picabia, Dermée and Tzara's earlier work, La Première aventure céleste de M. Antipyrine ("The First Heavenly Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine").[92] Tzara's melody, Vaseline symphonique ("Symphonic Vaseline"), which required ten or twenty people to shout "cra" and "cri" on a rising scale, was also performed.[93] A scandal erupted when Breton read Picabia's Manifeste cannibale ("Cannibal Manifesto"), lashing out at the audience and mocking them, to which they answered by aiming rotten fruit at the stage.[94]
The Dada phenomenon was only noticed in Romania beginning in 1920, and its overall reception was negative. Traditionalist historian Nicolae Iorga, Symbolist promoter Ovid Densusianu, the more reserved modernists Camil Petrescu and Benjamin Fondane all refused to accept it as a valid artistic manifestation.[95] Although he rallied with tradition, Vinea defended the subversive current in front of more serious criticism, and rejected the widespread rumor that Tzara had acted as an agent of influence for the Central Powers during the war.[96] Eugen Lovinescu, editor of Sburătorul and one of Vinea's rivals on the modernist scene, acknowledged the influence exercised by Tzara on the younger avant-garde authors, but analyzed his work only briefly, using as an example one of his pre-Dada poems, and depicting him as an advocate of literary "extremism".
He is often described as the main figure in the Littérature circle, and credited with having more firmly set its artistic principles in the line of Dada.[83][25] When Picabia began publishing a new series of 391 in Paris, Tzara seconded him and, Richter says, produced issues of the magazine "decked out [...] in all the colors of Dada."[58] He was also issuing his Dada magazine, printed in Paris but using the same format, renaming it Bulletin Dada and later Dadaphone.[84] At around that time, he met American author Gertrude Stein, who wrote about him in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,[85] and the artist couple Robert and Sonia Delaunay (with whom he worked in tandem for "poem-dresses" and other simultaneist literary pieces).[86]
Tzara became involved in a number of Dada experiments, on which he collaborated with Breton, Aragon, Soupault, Picabia or Paul Éluard.[87][1][4] Other authors who came into contact with Dada at that stage were Jean Cocteau, Paul Dermée and Raymond Radiguet.[88] The performances staged by Dada were often meant to popularize its principles, and Dada continued to draw attention on itself by hoaxes and false advertising, announcing that the Hollywood film star Charlie Chaplin was going to appear on stage at its show,[49] or that its members were going to have their heads shaved or their hair cut off on stage.[89] In another instance, Tzara and his associates lectured at the Université populaire in front of industrial workers, who were reportedly less than impressed.[90] Richter believes that, ideologically, Tzara was still in tribute to Picabia's nihilistic and anarchic views (which made the Dadaists attack all political and cultural ideologies), but that it had a measure of sympathy for the working class.[91]
Dada activities in Paris culminated in the March 1920 variety show at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre, which featured readings from Breton, Picabia, Dermée and Tzara's earlier work, La Première aventure céleste de M. Antipyrine ("The First Heavenly Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine").[92] Tzara's melody, Vaseline symphonique ("Symphonic Vaseline"), which required ten or twenty people to shout "cra" and "cri" on a rising scale, was also performed.[93] A scandal erupted when Breton read Picabia's Manifeste cannibale ("Cannibal Manifesto"), lashing out at the audience and mocking them, to which they answered by aiming rotten fruit at the stage.[94]
The Dada phenomenon was only noticed in Romania beginning in 1920, and its overall reception was negative. Traditionalist historian Nicolae Iorga, Symbolist promoter Ovid Densusianu, the more reserved modernists Camil Petrescu and Benjamin Fondane all refused to accept it as a valid artistic manifestation.[95] Although he rallied with tradition, Vinea defended the subversive current in front of more serious criticism, and rejected the widespread rumor that Tzara had acted as an agent of influence for the Central Powers during the war.[96] Eugen Lovinescu, editor of Sburătorul and one of Vinea's rivals on the modernist scene, acknowledged the influence exercised by Tzara on the younger avant-garde authors, but analyzed his work only briefly, using as an example one of his pre-Dada poems, and depicting him as an advocate of literary "extremism".
During World War II, Tzara took refuge from the German occupation forces, moving to the southern areas, controlled by the Vichy regime.[1][4] On one occasion, the antisemitic and collaborationist publication Je Suis Partout made his whereabouts known to the Gestapo.[149]He was in Marseille in late 1940-early 1941, joining the group of anti-fascist and Jewish refugees who, protected by American diplomat Varian Fry, were seeking to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. Among the people present there were the anti-totalitarian socialist Victor Serge, anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, playwright Arthur Adamov, philosopher and poet René Daumal, and several prominent Surrealists: Breton, Char, and Benjamin Péret, as well as artists Max Ernst, André Masson, Wifredo Lam, Jacques Hérold, Victor Brauner and Óscar Domínguez.[150] During the months spent together, and before some of them received permission to leave for America, they invented a new card game, on which traditional card imagery was replaced with Surrealist symbols.[150]
Some time after his stay in Marseille, Tzara joined the French Resistance, rallying with the Maquis. A contributor to magazines published by the Resistance, Tzara also took charge of the cultural broadcast for the Free French Forces clandestine radio station.[1][4] He lived in Aix-en-Provence, then in Souillac, and ultimately in Toulouse.[4] His son Cristophe was at the time a Resistant in northern France, having joined the Franc Tireurs Partisans.[149] In Axis-allied and antisemitic Romania, the regime of Ion Antonescu ordered bookstores not to sell works by Tzara and 44 other Jewish-Romanian authors (see Romania during World War II).[151]
In December 1944, five months after the Liberation of Paris, he was contributing to L'Éternelle Revue, a pro-communist newspaper edited by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, through which Sartre was publicizing the heroic image of a France united in resistance, as opposed to the perception that it had passively accepted German control.[152] Other contributors included writers Aragon, Char, Éluard, Elsa Triolet, Eugène Guillevic, Raymond Queneau, Francis Ponge, Jacques Prévert and painter Pablo Picasso.[152]
Upon the end of the war and the restoration of French independence, Tzara was naturalized a French citizen.[1] During 1945, under the Provisional Government of the French Republic, he was a representative of the Sud-Ouest region to the National Assembly.[139] According to Livezeanu, he "helped reclaim the South from the cultural figures who had associated themselves to Vichy [France]."[147] In April 1946, his early poems, alongside similar pieces by Breton, Éluard, Aragon and Dalí, were the subject of a midnight broadcast on Parisian Radio.[153] In 1947, he became a full member of the PCF[68] (according to some sources, he had been one since 1934).
In October 1956, Tzara went visited the People's Republic of Hungary, where the government of Imre Nagy was coming into conflict with the Soviet Union.[149][156] This followed an invitation on the part of Hungarian writer Gyula Illyés, who wanted his colleague to be present at ceremonies marking the rehabilitation of László Rajk (a local communist leader whose prosecution had been ordered by Joseph Stalin).[156] Tzara was receptive of the Hungarians' demand for liberalization,[149][156] contacted the anti-Stalinist and former Dadaist Lajos Kassák, and deemed the anti-Soviet movement "revolutionary".[156] However, unlike much of Hungarian public opinion, the poet did not recommend emancipation from Soviet control, and described the independence demanded by local writers as "an abstract notion".[156] The statement he issued, widely quoted in the Hungarian and international press, forced a reaction from the PCF: through Aragon's reply, the party deplored the fact that one of its members was being used in support of "anti-communist and anti-Soviet campaigns."[156]
His return to France coincided with the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution, which ended with a Soviet military intervention. On October 24, Tzara was ordered to a PCF meeting, where activist Laurent Casanova reportedly ordered him to keep silent, which Tzara did.[156] Tzara's apparent dissidence and the crisis he helped provoke within the Communist Party were celebrated by Breton, who had adopted a pro-Hungarian stance, and who defined his friend and rival as "the first spokesman of the Hungarian demand."[156]
He was thereafter mostly withdrawn from public life, dedicating himself to researching the work of 15th century poet François Villon,[145] and, like his fellow Surrealist Michel Leiris, to promoting primitive and African art, which he had been collecting for years.[149] In early 1957, Tzara attended a Dada retrospective on the Rive Gauche, which ended in a riot caused by the rival avant-garde Mouvement Jariviste, an outcome which reportedly pleased him.[168] In August 1960, one year after the Fifth Republic had been established by President Charles de Gaulle, at a time when French forces were confronting the Algerian rebels (see Algerian War). Together with Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, Jérôme Lindon, Alain Robbe-Grillet and other intellectuals, he addressed Premier Michel Debré a letter of protest, concerning France's refusal to grant Algeria its independence.[169] As a result, Minister of Culture André Malraux announced that his cabinet would not subsidize any films to which Tzara and the others may contribute, and the signatories could no longer appear on stations managed by the state-owned French Broadcasting Service.[169]
In 1961, as recognition for his work as a poet, Tzara was awarded the prestigious Taormina Prize.[1] One of his final public activities took place in 1962, when he attended the International Congress on African Culture, organized by English curator Frank McEwen and held at the National Gallery in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.[170] He died one year later in his Paris home, and was buried at the Cimetière du Montparnasse.
His return to France coincided with the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution, which ended with a Soviet military intervention. On October 24, Tzara was ordered to a PCF meeting, where activist Laurent Casanova reportedly ordered him to keep silent, which Tzara did.[156] Tzara's apparent dissidence and the crisis he helped provoke within the Communist Party were celebrated by Breton, who had adopted a pro-Hungarian stance, and who defined his friend and rival as "the first spokesman of the Hungarian demand."[156]
He was thereafter mostly withdrawn from public life, dedicating himself to researching the work of 15th century poet François Villon,[145] and, like his fellow Surrealist Michel Leiris, to promoting primitive and African art, which he had been collecting for years.[149] In early 1957, Tzara attended a Dada retrospective on the Rive Gauche, which ended in a riot caused by the rival avant-garde Mouvement Jariviste, an outcome which reportedly pleased him.[168] In August 1960, one year after the Fifth Republic had been established by President Charles de Gaulle, at a time when French forces were confronting the Algerian rebels (see Algerian War). Together with Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, Jérôme Lindon, Alain Robbe-Grillet and other intellectuals, he addressed Premier Michel Debré a letter of protest, concerning France's refusal to grant Algeria its independence.[169] As a result, Minister of Culture André Malraux announced that his cabinet would not subsidize any films to which Tzara and the others may contribute, and the signatories could no longer appear on stations managed by the state-owned French Broadcasting Service.[169]
In 1961, as recognition for his work as a poet, Tzara was awarded the prestigious Taormina Prize.[1] One of his final public activities took place in 1962, when he attended the International Congress on African Culture, organized by English curator Frank McEwen and held at the National Gallery in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.[170] He died one year later in his Paris home, and was buried at the Cimetière du Montparnasse.
Much critical commentary about Tzara surrounds the measure to which the poet identified with the national cultures which he represented. Paul Cernat notes that the association between Samyro and the Jancos, who were Jews, and their ethnic Romanian colleagues, was one sign of a cultural dialog, in which "the openness of Romanian environments toward artistic modernity" was stimulated by "young emancipated Jewish writers."[171] Salomon Schulman, a Swedish researcher of Yiddish literature, argues that the combined influence of Yiddish folklore and Hasidic philosophy shaped European modernism in general and Tzara's style in particular,[172] while American poet Andrei Codrescu speaks of Tzara as one in a Balkan line of "absurdist writing", which also includes the Romanians Urmuz, Eugène Ionesco and Emil Cioran.[173] According to literary historian George Călinescu, Samyro's early poems deal with "the voluptuousness over the strong scents of rural life, which is typical among Jews compressed into ghettos."[174]
Tzara himself used elements alluding to his homeland in his early Dadaist performances. His collaboration with Maja Kruscek at Zuntfhaus zür Waag featured samples of African literature, to which Tzara added Romanian-language fragments.[78] He is also known to have mixed elements of Romanian folklore, and to have sung the native suburban romanza La moară la Hârţa ("At the Mill in Hârţa") during at least one staging for Cabaret Voltaire.[175] Addressing the Romanian public in 1947, he claimed to have been captivated by "the sweet language of Moldavian peasants".[139]
Tzara nonetheless rebelled against his birthplace and upbringing. His earliest poems depict provincial Moldavia as a desolate and unsettling place. In Cernat's view, this imagery was in common use among Moldavian-born writers who also belonged to the avant-garde trend, notably Benjamin Fondane and George Bacovia.[176] Like in the cases of Eugène Ionesco and Fondane, Cernat proposes, Samyro sought self-exile to Western Europe as a "modern, voluntarist" means of breaking with "the peripheral condition",[177] which may also serve to explain the pun he selected for a pseudonym.[6] According to the same author, two important elements in this process were "a maternal attachment and a break with paternal authority", an "Oedipus complex" which he also argued was evident in the biographies of other Symbolist and avant-garde Romanian authors, from Urmuz to Mateiu Caragiale.[178] Unlike Vinea and the Contimporanul group, Cernat proposes, Tzara stood for radicalism and insurgency, which would also help explain their impossibility to communicate.[179] In particular, Cernat argues, the writer sought to emancipate himself from competing nationalisms, and addressed himself directly to the center of European culture, with Zürich serving as a stage on his way to Paris.[78] The 1916 Monsieur's Antipyrine's Manifesto featured a cosmopolitan appeal: "DADA remains within the framework of European weaknesses, it's still shit, but from now on we want to shit in different colors so as to adorn the zoo of art with all the flags of all the consulates."[78]
With time, Tristan Tzara came to be regarded by his Dada associates as an exotic character, whose attitudes were intrinsically linked with Eastern Europe. Early on, Ball referred to him and the Janco brothers as "Orientals".[37] Hans Richter believed him to be a fiery and impulsive figure, having little in common with his German collaborators.[180] According to Cernat, Richter's perspective seems to indicate a vision of Tzara having a "Latin" temperament.[37] This type of perception also had negative implications for Tzara, particularly after the 1922 split within Dada. In the 1940s, Richard Huelsenbeck alleged that his former colleague had always been separated from other Dadaists by his failure to appreciate the legacy of "German humanism", and that, compared to his German colleagues, he was "a barbarian".[110] In his polemic with Tzara, Breton also repeatedly placed stress on his rival's foreign origin.[181]
At home, Tzara was occasionally targeted for his Jewishness, culminating in the ban enforced by the Ion Antonescu regime. In 1931, Const. I. Emilian, the first Romanian to write an academic study on the avant-garde, attacked him from a conservative and antisemitic position. He depicted Dadaists as "Judaeo-Bolsheviks" who corrupted Romanian culture, and included Tzara among the main proponents of "literary anarchism".[182] Alleging that Tzara's only merit was to establish a literary fashion, while recognizing his "formal virtuosity and artistic intelligence", he claimed to prefer Tzara in his Simbolul stage.[183] This perspective was deplored early on by the modernist critic Perpessicius.[184] Nine years after Emilian's polemic text, fascist poet and journalist Radu Gyr published an article in Convorbiri Literare, in which he attacked Tzara as a representative of the "Judaic spirit", of the "foreign plague" and of "materialist-historical dialectics".
Tristan Tzara (Moineşti, Bacău megye, 1896. április 16. – Párizs, 1963. december 25.) eredeti nevén Sami Rosenstock (felvett neve románul megszomorított országot jelent), román művész. Költő és esszéista, élete nagy részét Franciaországban töltötte.
Nevét a Dada alapítójaként ismerik. A dadaista avantgárd mozgalom forradalmi hatást gyakorolt a művészetekre.
Tzara himself used elements alluding to his homeland in his early Dadaist performances. His collaboration with Maja Kruscek at Zuntfhaus zür Waag featured samples of African literature, to which Tzara added Romanian-language fragments.[78] He is also known to have mixed elements of Romanian folklore, and to have sung the native suburban romanza La moară la Hârţa ("At the Mill in Hârţa") during at least one staging for Cabaret Voltaire.[175] Addressing the Romanian public in 1947, he claimed to have been captivated by "the sweet language of Moldavian peasants".[139]
Tzara nonetheless rebelled against his birthplace and upbringing. His earliest poems depict provincial Moldavia as a desolate and unsettling place. In Cernat's view, this imagery was in common use among Moldavian-born writers who also belonged to the avant-garde trend, notably Benjamin Fondane and George Bacovia.[176] Like in the cases of Eugène Ionesco and Fondane, Cernat proposes, Samyro sought self-exile to Western Europe as a "modern, voluntarist" means of breaking with "the peripheral condition",[177] which may also serve to explain the pun he selected for a pseudonym.[6] According to the same author, two important elements in this process were "a maternal attachment and a break with paternal authority", an "Oedipus complex" which he also argued was evident in the biographies of other Symbolist and avant-garde Romanian authors, from Urmuz to Mateiu Caragiale.[178] Unlike Vinea and the Contimporanul group, Cernat proposes, Tzara stood for radicalism and insurgency, which would also help explain their impossibility to communicate.[179] In particular, Cernat argues, the writer sought to emancipate himself from competing nationalisms, and addressed himself directly to the center of European culture, with Zürich serving as a stage on his way to Paris.[78] The 1916 Monsieur's Antipyrine's Manifesto featured a cosmopolitan appeal: "DADA remains within the framework of European weaknesses, it's still shit, but from now on we want to shit in different colors so as to adorn the zoo of art with all the flags of all the consulates."[78]
With time, Tristan Tzara came to be regarded by his Dada associates as an exotic character, whose attitudes were intrinsically linked with Eastern Europe. Early on, Ball referred to him and the Janco brothers as "Orientals".[37] Hans Richter believed him to be a fiery and impulsive figure, having little in common with his German collaborators.[180] According to Cernat, Richter's perspective seems to indicate a vision of Tzara having a "Latin" temperament.[37] This type of perception also had negative implications for Tzara, particularly after the 1922 split within Dada. In the 1940s, Richard Huelsenbeck alleged that his former colleague had always been separated from other Dadaists by his failure to appreciate the legacy of "German humanism", and that, compared to his German colleagues, he was "a barbarian".[110] In his polemic with Tzara, Breton also repeatedly placed stress on his rival's foreign origin.[181]
At home, Tzara was occasionally targeted for his Jewishness, culminating in the ban enforced by the Ion Antonescu regime. In 1931, Const. I. Emilian, the first Romanian to write an academic study on the avant-garde, attacked him from a conservative and antisemitic position. He depicted Dadaists as "Judaeo-Bolsheviks" who corrupted Romanian culture, and included Tzara among the main proponents of "literary anarchism".[182] Alleging that Tzara's only merit was to establish a literary fashion, while recognizing his "formal virtuosity and artistic intelligence", he claimed to prefer Tzara in his Simbolul stage.[183] This perspective was deplored early on by the modernist critic Perpessicius.[184] Nine years after Emilian's polemic text, fascist poet and journalist Radu Gyr published an article in Convorbiri Literare, in which he attacked Tzara as a representative of the "Judaic spirit", of the "foreign plague" and of "materialist-historical dialectics".
Tristan Tzara (Moineşti, Bacău megye, 1896. április 16. – Párizs, 1963. december 25.) eredeti nevén Sami Rosenstock (felvett neve románul megszomorított országot jelent), román művész. Költő és esszéista, élete nagy részét Franciaországban töltötte.Nevét a Dada alapítójaként ismerik. A dadaista avantgárd mozgalom forradalmi hatást gyakorolt a művészetekre.
A Dada mozgalom az I. világháború idejéből, Zürichből eredeztethető, Tzara, Hans Arp, és Hugo Ball alkotta művészcsoporttól.
Tzara írta az első dadaista írásokat: La Première Aventure céleste de Monsieur Antipyrine (Antipyrine úr első mennybéli kalandja) (1916), Vingt-cinq poèmes (Huszonöt vers) (1918) [1], valamint a mozgalom kiáltványát, Sept manifestes Dada (Hét Dada kiáltvány) (1924).
Élete meghatározó mozzanata volt, hogy 1919-ben Párizsba költözött, ahol csatlakozott az André Breton, Philippe Soupault és Louis Aragon alkotta csoporthoz, sok vihart kavaró tevékenységük, a polgárpukassztásra, a nyelvi szerkezetek összezavarására irányult.
1929 végén beleunva a nihilzmusba és a destrukcionizmusba, csatlakozott a konstruktívabb szürrealistákhoz. Ideje nagy részét a szürrealizmus és a marxizmus összeegyeztetésére fordította. 1947-49 között a szürrealizmus jegyében együtt dolgozott Joan Miróval, aki nyolc képből álló sorozatot festett Tzara műveihez.
1937-ben csatlakozott a Francia Kommunista Párthoz. A 1930-as években részt vett a spanyol polgárháborúban, a II. világháborúban a francia Résistance, az ellenállás aktív részese volt. 1956-ban kilépett a kommunista pártból, ezzel tiltakozva a magyar forradalom szovjet elfojtása ellen.
Tzara írta az első dadaista írásokat: La Première Aventure céleste de Monsieur Antipyrine (Antipyrine úr első mennybéli kalandja) (1916), Vingt-cinq poèmes (Huszonöt vers) (1918) [1], valamint a mozgalom kiáltványát, Sept manifestes Dada (Hét Dada kiáltvány) (1924).
Élete meghatározó mozzanata volt, hogy 1919-ben Párizsba költözött, ahol csatlakozott az André Breton, Philippe Soupault és Louis Aragon alkotta csoporthoz, sok vihart kavaró tevékenységük, a polgárpukassztásra, a nyelvi szerkezetek összezavarására irányult.
1929 végén beleunva a nihilzmusba és a destrukcionizmusba, csatlakozott a konstruktívabb szürrealistákhoz. Ideje nagy részét a szürrealizmus és a marxizmus összeegyeztetésére fordította. 1947-49 között a szürrealizmus jegyében együtt dolgozott Joan Miróval, aki nyolc képből álló sorozatot festett Tzara műveihez.
1937-ben csatlakozott a Francia Kommunista Párthoz. A 1930-as években részt vett a spanyol polgárháborúban, a II. világháborúban a francia Résistance, az ellenállás aktív részese volt. 1956-ban kilépett a kommunista pártból, ezzel tiltakozva a magyar forradalom szovjet elfojtása ellen.
Politikai tevékenysége közelebb vitte az emberi lét kérdéseihez. Fokozatosan vált lírai költővé. Ezt a művészi korszakát a L'Homme approximatif (A megközelítőleg ember) (1931), Parler seul (Magában beszélő) (1950), ésLa Face intérieure (A belső arc) (1953) művei jellemzik.
A párizsi Montparnasse temetőben nyugszik.
1986-ban a Francia és a Magyar Írószövetség megalapította a Tristan Tzara fordítói díjat.
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