Emil Cioran

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Emil Cioran

Emil M. Cioran , Romanian. [ tʃoˈran ] ( pronunciation ? / i ), French [ sjɔˈʀɑ̃ ], (born April 8, 1911 in Răşinari in Transylvania , Austria-Hungary ; † June 20, 1995 in Paris ) was a Romanian philosopher and essayist who had worked in France lived. Audio file / audio sample

Life

Cioran's house in Răşinari
21 rue de l'Odéon (red dot)
Grave in the Montparnasse cemetery

Emil Cioran was born as the second child of the Orthodox priest Emilian and his wife Elvira Cioran in Rășinari , a small town twelve kilometers south of Sibiu in multi-ethnic Transylvania , which at that time belonged to the Hungarian half of Austria-Hungary and from 1918 to Romania. After attending the humanistic high school Colegiul National Gheorghe Lazar in Sibiu, he began studying philosophy and aesthetics at the University of Bucharest at the age of seventeen . There he met other intellectuals in 1928 such as Constantin Noica , Mihail Sebastian , Eugène Ionesco , Mircea Eliade , with whom he maintained an intensive friendly relationship. The Bucharest intellectual and student classes were strongly influenced by Nae Ionescu at the time . Ionescu was the founder of Romanian existentialism known as Trairism (Rum. Traire , "experience"), a movement characterized by irrationalism, mysticism, messianism, anarchism and even fascism .

Cioran was a sympathizer of the Iron Guard and an admirer of Hitler , the Nazi regime and its anti-Semitism until the beginning of World War II . He later apologized for this. In 1933 he wrote about Hitler as a person: “There is no politician today whom I consider more personable and more admirable than Hitler”, and in 1934 with regard to the Röhm Putsch : “What is lost for humanity when the lives of a few less spiritual and morally weak people are taken? "

From 1933 to 1935 Cioran stayed in Berlin. In 1937 he moved to Paris, where he lived for the rest of his life in the Latin Quarter , from 1960 in a small attic apartment.

He wrote his early works in Romanian, those after 1945 in French. The philosopher added the initial M. to his name: EM Cioran , because he found E. Cioran to sound tender in French and therefore inappropriate to the character of his writings.

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He is one of the essayists and radical cultural critics of the post-war period. As a stylist, he caused a sensation among French existentialists for his pessimistic , anti-natalistic and disillusioning aphorisms and essays. His preference for the form of the aphorism also results from a general aversion to systems of thought and schematizing categories. He wrote about this in On the summits of desperation :

“I would love a world in which there was no criterion, no form and no principle, a world of absolute indeterminacy. Because in our world all criteria, forms and principles are stale. "

He was strongly influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche and Buddhism . Susan Sontag saw Cioran in 1991 in In the Sign of Saturn as a "Nietzsche of our days", and Gabriel Liiceanu described him as a "contemporary Nietzsche who went through the school of French moralists". For Cioran himself, however, Nietzsche was too optimistic and too little radical in thinking. In the Syllogisms of Bitterness he writes: "Thanks to the maturity of our cynicism we have gone further than Nietzsche", and in The Disadvantage of Being Born: Thoughts and Aphorisms he answers a student's question about his relationship with Nietzsche as follows:

“I replied that I had given up dealing with him a long time ago. [...] Because I find him too naive. I accuse him of his devotion and even his moments of fervor. He only overthrew the idols to replace them with others. [...] He only observed people from a distance. If he had looked at her up close, he would never have concocted or praised the superman. "

Cioran's thinking was - also in the context of the time - characterized by extremely hopeless, pessimistic and nihilistic views. He expressed this in a mostly all-critical and cynical analysis of present and current conditions using form. At the age of twenty he wrote in On the summits of desperation :

“I don't know at all why we are doing something down here, why we must have joy and aspirations, hopes and dreams. [...] But what is there to win in this world? [...] There are no arguments for life. "

After On the Summits of Despair and The Book of Deceptions , Cioran's most important work, The Doctrine of Decay , was published in 1949 . It was translated into German by Paul Celan in 1953 . Here Cioran anticipates the later emerging program of deconstruction , which was mainly represented by post-structuralists such as Jacques Derrida and others. The original title of the work is also Précis de décomposition . Here Cioran exposes everything that tradition has to offer in terms of values ​​to the inexorable contradiction of critical reflection. Cioran described his deconstruction approach as follows:

“You think, you begin to think, in order to tear ties, to dissolve relationships, to undermine the framework of the 'real'."

Cioran's decades-long thoughts on topics such as God, failed creation, gnosis , insomnia and suicide were reflected in a plethora of aphorisms, reflections and essays without assuming the character of doctrinal propositions . The following quote combines some of his leitmotifs and gives an impression of his thinking, which was essentially existential struggle:

"We have all inherited it, the inability to stay with oneself, of which the Creator has offered such a deplorable demonstration: witnesses, that is, in a different way, on a different scale to continue the enterprise that bears his name, it is called, add something from deplorable mimicking of his 'creation'. Without the impulse given by him, the need to lengthen the chain of beings would not exist, nor would the need to subscribe to the activities of the flesh. Every giving birth is suspect; the angels are fortunately incapable of doing this, for the continuation of life is reserved for the fallen. "

Anecdotes

  • Cioran rejected all literary prizes (Sainte-Beuve, Combat, Nimier, Morand etc.) - except for one: in 1949 he accepted the “prix Rivarol”; he justified this with his financial position.
  • After the Germans marched into Paris in 1940, he threw a pack of cigarettes to a convoy of prisoners on Place Saint-Michel. When a German soldier pointed his weapon at him, Cioran saved his knowledge of German: "Out of humanity!"
  • As an invitee to an American university, he was presented as one who is equal / equal to the greatest philosophers. Then he said anxiously: Mais je ne suis qu'un plaisantin! (for example: "But I'm just a rascal / prankster!")

Works (chronological) (selection)

  • Revelațiile durerii. ("Discoveries of Pain.") 1932. Editura Echinox 1990, ISBN 973-9114-01-6 .
  • On the peaks of despair. Frankfurt / M. 1989. (OA: Pe culmile disperării. 1934)
  • The Book of Deceptions. Library Suhrkamp 1046, Frankfurt / M. 1990. (OA: Cartea amăgirilor. Bucharest 1936)
  • Schimbarea la față a României. ("The Transfiguration of Romania.") 1937.
  • From tears and from saints , Frankfurt / M. 1988, extensive revision by C. of Lacrimi si Sfînți (1937), as Des larmes et des saints (1986) in Paris.
  • Twilight of thought. Suhrkamp Frankfurt / M. 1993. (OA: Amurgul gândurilor. Sibiu, 1940)
  • About France . Suhrkamp 2010, ISBN 978-3-518-42146-8 ("Despre Franta / De la France")
  • Passionate guide. Suhrkamp 1996, ISBN 3-518-40765-1 (created ≈ 1941–1944).
  • Doctrine of decay. Trans. V. Paul Celan . Reinbek 1953, ISBN 3-608-93302-6 (OA: 1949)
  • Mon pays ("Mein Land") (≈ 1949, fragment published in 1996)
  • Syllogisms of bitterness. Frankfurt / M. 1969, ISBN 3-518-37107-X (OA: Syllogismes de l 'Amertume 1952)
  • Existence as a temptation. Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-608-95177-6 (French first edition 1956).
  • About reactionary thinking. Two essays (on Joseph de Maistre and Paul Valéry ). Frankfurt / M. 1980, ISBN 3-518-01643-1 (first edition 1957).
  • History and utopia . Stuttgart 1965, ISBN 3-608-93267-4 (OA: Histoire et utopie , 1960)
  • The crash into time. Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-608-93392-1 (OA: La chute dans le temps. 1964)
  • Notes from Talamanca . (1966), weissbooks 2008, ISBN 978-3-940888-24-2 (French EA 1997)
  • The failed creation. 1979 suhrkamp tb 550, ISBN 3-518-37050-2 (first edition 1969).
  • Cahiers 1957-1972. (Selection); Frankfurt / M. 2001, ISBN 3-518-41274-4 (see also 2011)
  • The disadvantage of being born: thoughts and aphorisms. 1979 suhrkamp tb 549, ISBN 3-518-37049-9 (French EA 1973).
  • Quartered. suhrkamp tb 1838 Frankfurt / M. 1982, ISBN 3-518-38338-8 (first edition 1979)
  • Contradictory contours: literary portraits. Frankfurt / M. 1986, ISBN 3-518-01898-1 (1985)
  • The shattered curse. Aphorisms. Frankfurt / M. 1987, ISBN 3-518-01948-1 (French OA 1987)
  • Works . Suhrkamp Quarto, 2008, ISBN 978-3-518-42007-2 (16 major works, 2085 pages)
  • About Germany. Articles from 1931–1937. Ed., Translated to Romanian, me commentary v. Ferdinand Leopold. Suhrkamp 2011, ISBN 978-3-518-42197-0 .
  • Notes 1957–1972. Ed. V. Simone Boué. Karolinger Verlag, Vienna and Leipzig 2011, ISBN 978-3-85418-143-9
Audio
  • Cafard. Original sound recordings 1974–1990. Edited by Thomas Knöfel and Klaus Sander. Audio CD, 77 minutes and accompanying book, 96 pages. supposé, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-932513-00-2 .
Contributions
  • Prometheus is compromised forever. Prospects for the post-story. In: Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner (Ed.): The future of the past: living history, lamenting historians. Herder library 9508: Initiative 8, Freiburg im Breisgau / Basel / Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-451-09508-4 , pp. 135-144. (Note: This text, translated by Elmar Tophoven , can also be found as the chapter After the story in: Geviertigte , there translated by Bernd Mattheus .)
  • Several articles in: The stake. Yearbook from the no man's land between art and science.
  • A Portrait of Civilized Man. In: The Hudson Review (Spring, 1964), pp. 9-20.
conversations
  • Emile M. Cioran, A conversation: conducted by Gerd Bergfleth. Konkursbuchverlag, Tübingen 1985, ISBN 3-88769-301-9 .
  • EM Cioran; A conversation with Sylvie Jaudeau. Erker Verlag, St Gallen 1992, ISBN 3-905546-21-3 .
  • Entretiens. Gallimard 1995 (various collected conversations, interviews)
Selected texts
  • Shattered certainties. An EM Cioran reader. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-39778-8 .
Letters

literature

Web links

Commons : Emil Cioran  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Émil Cioran  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ingeborg Breuer, Peter Leusch, Dieter Mersch: Worlds in the head. Profiles of contemporary philosophy. Rotbuch Verlag, Hamburg 1996, p. 52 u. 53.
  2. ↑ Quoted from: Zigu Ornea: Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească. Ed. Fundației Culturale Române, Bucharest 1995, p. 191.
  3. ↑ Quoted from: Zigu Ornea: Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească. Ed. Fundației Culturale Române, Bucharest 1995, p. 192.
  4. ↑ Sanda Stolojan: Nori peste balcoane. Jurnal din exilul parizian. Ed. Humanitas, Bucharest 1996, p. 191.
  5. ^ Emil Cioran: On the peaks of despair. Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 86.
  6. ↑ Think against yourself. Reflections on Cioran. In: Susan Sontag: In the sign of Saturn. Hanser, 1990, pp. 17-39.
  7. ↑ Quoted from Mazzino Montinari, Wolfgang Muller-Lauter, Heinz Wenzel: Nietzsche studies. Volume 35, de Gruyter, 2005, p. 225.
  8. ↑ Emile M. Cioran: Syllogisms of bitterness. Fischer, Frankfurt, 1969, p. 26.
  9. ↑ Emile M. Cioran: To be born of disadvantage: thoughts and aphorisms. suhrkamp tb 549, 1979, p. 71 f.
  10. ↑ Ingeborg Breuer, Peter Leusch, Dieter Mersch: Worlds in the head. Profiles of contemporary philosophy. Rotbuch Verlag, Hamburg 1996, p. 49 ff.
  11. ↑ On the peaks of despair . Frankfurt 1989, pp. 11, 15 f., 76 and 93 ff.
  12. ↑ Ingeborg Breuer, Peter Leusch, Dieter Mersch: Worlds in the head. Profiles of contemporary philosophy. Rotbuch Verlag, Hamburg, 1996 p. 51.
  13. ↑ a b Emil Cioran: The failed creation. suhrkamp tb 550, 1979, p. 100.
  14. ^ Emil Cioran # Anecdotes in the French language Wikipedia
  15. ↑ Adam Soboczynski : Sleepless in the Abyss. Cioran was the aphorist of the negation. His early work “Über Frankreich” is now being published from the estate . In: Die Zeit , No. 24/2010
  16. ↑ Hudson Review
  17. ↑ Sensual misanthropist. DKultur January 15, 2008; Review of the biography Mattheus.
  18. ↑ About his main fascist work "Transfiguration of Romania". Detailed Review In: Frankfurter Rundschau , September 5, 2006, p. 26
personal data
SURNAME Cioran, Emil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cioran, Émile Michel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Rășinari , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 1995
Place of death Paris , France