Mihai or Mihail Gafița (Francized Mikhaï Gafitza;[1] October 21, 1923 – March 4, 1977) was a Romanian literary historian, critic, editor, and children's novelist, also noted as a communist activist and politician.
In the mid-1960s, Gafița was director of a state-run publishing venue, Editura pentru Literatură, and was turning away from political writing—earning praise for his monographs on Petrescu and Duiliu Zamfirescu.
Gafița was able to survive politically; he formed a lasting partnership with the unconventional novelist Marin Preda, which, in 1970, saw them taking over as managers of the reestablished publishing house, Cartea Românească.
Gafița's stated resolve, that he would reach out to dissident writers, earned him attention from the Securitate secret police, and left him exposed during the Neo-Stalinist turn codified by the July Theses (1971).
[10] Also serving as editor of Universul Copiilor in his student years, Gafița printed his own fairy-tale volume, Norocel și Zmeul Zmeilor ("Lucky Boy and the Boss of the Zmei"), in 1946.
[13] Ștefănescu also notes Gafița's role in applying communist censorship: after Petrescu's death, the editor reduced the posthumous novel Vladim sau drumul pierdut from a 3,000-page manuscript to a 500-page published version, "purified of any demobilizing sadness.
"[13] In 1952, Gafița reported to the Workers' Party on the success of propaganda literature, criticizing authors such as Eusebiu Camilar, Ben Corlaciu, Alexandru Kirițescu and Cella Serghi, all of whom had presented unsatisfactory novels or plays depicting the collectivization of agriculture; he opposed these to the more orthodox writings of Mihu Dragomir, Petru Dumitriu, and Ioanichie Olteanu.
[14] In June of that year, Viața Romînească journal hosted his praise of Aurel Mihale's Ogoare noi ("New Fields"), seen by Gafița as the quintessential collectivization novel (though still imperfect, with its failure to underscore issues of class conflict).
Gafița participated in the special meeting of the USR at which Malenkov's demands were made public; during the subsequent discussion, he opined that Romanian writers were not necessarily bound by Soviet realities, since Romania was at a different stage in socialist development.
[17] In early and mid-1953, Gafița took Malekov's theses and applied them to the analysis of new literary productions, and engaging in debates with the more tolerant staff of Almanahul Literar, including Anatol E. Baconsky.
The latter had embraced Marin Preda as the great new Romanian novelist, who had ushered in a "new stage" of communist literature; Gafița contended that this analysis was conveniently nonspecific, asking Baconsky to explain his position.
[18] He also ridiculed Almanahul Literar for publishing alcohol education poetry by Victor Felea, and for allowing young critics to comment negatively on poets such as Dragomir and Eugen Jebeleanu.
[22] Completing editorial stints with Viața Romînească and Gazeta Literară, Gafița was co-opted as secretary of the USR; from 1955, he was also made lecturer at the Bucharest faculty of philology.
[2] He was at the time involved in promoting Camilar's new works of historical fiction, whom he praised for establishing the connection between Socialist-Realism, with its aesthetic preference for "large movements of the masses", and Romanian folklore.
In a July 1958 piece, he attacked critics Alexandru Piru and Ion Negoițescu for their "systematic and brazen attitude in rejecting the theses of Marxism-Leninism", accusing them of upholding the "bourgeois ideology".
[25] In early 1961, Gafița Sr was employed as manager by Editura de Stat pentru Literatură și Artă (ESPLA, the state-run publishing venue), which allowed him and his family to move into a spacious apartment.
[1] As argued in 2010 by essayist Magda Ursache, the ascent of Nicolae Ceaușescu as communist leader had ushered in an era of "mock-liberalization", in which there was little room for "literary Stakhanovites" such as Gafița, Ion Vitner, and Leonte Răutu.
[34][35] This initiative revived an interwar publishing house: the old CR had been broken apart in 1948, on charges of being "fascist"; the national communist establishment, which had taken over by 1965, restored is part of a quasi-liberal set of de-Stalinization measures.
[35] His liberalizing contribution was curbed by the July Theses of that year, when Neo-Stalinism became an official tenet; as a result, Gafița and Preda were placed under near-constant surveillance by agents of the Securitate.
[34] These reported on his private conversations, where he presented himself as chief of the "best publishing house", and openly acknowledged that he took pains to ensure publication for the politically unorthodox.
Duiciu noted the work's "retroprojection" of 19th-century cultural debates, with his plea for reassessing Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea—at a time when "critics, the majority of whom are young", were busy with discovering and discussing Postmodernism.
[4] Dimisianu similarly argued: "Talkative and associative, he accessed an endless trove of events from our literary life, old and new alike; I have no idea if he ever put to paper anything of what he recounted with such dedication, with humor, and sometimes with sadness, but he surely would have wanted to".
The text drew criticism from A. Braester in Era Socialistă, since Gafița, though an "eminent man of progressive culture", had failed to explain the passages in which Petrovici expressed his sympathy for Romania's far-right movements (including the Iron Guard).
[48] In 2012, author Gelu Ionescu argued that Gafița, a "staunch defender of socialist realism", was only appointed to lead the CR because Preda wished to have "less of a hassle in dealing with 'the structures'".
[51] Specialized in minority issues, Gabriel later moved into the diplomatic service;[25] his contributions were tinged by controversy upon the discovery that, as "Rosetty", he had been a Securitate informant after 1977—in June 2009, a definitive court ruling defined him as engaged in political persecution under the previous regime.