During the first twenty years of Communist Romania, Georgescu assisted Leonte Răutu in exercising Stalinist control over local literature, but also published young nonconformist authors, beginning with Nichita Stănescu and Matei Călinescu, in his Gazeta Literară.
"[10] In the 1950s, Georgescu became an activist of the PCR Central Committee's Agitprop section, an office which reportedly led literary circles to perceive him as the éminence grise of chief ideologues Leonte Răutu and Iosif Chişinevschi.
[20] At that stage, Călinescu recalls, Georgescu developed a fondness for both him the young modernist poet Nichita Stănescu, as well as with their literary friends Cezar Baltag, Nicolae Breban, Grigore Hagiu, Modest Morariu and Petre Stoica.
"[46] A differing opinion is held by Norman Manea, who argues that, among the writers born in the same period, Georgescu and a few others, including the far right philosophers Mircea Eliade and Emil Cioran, stood out for compensating "the everyday banality and void", not just through literature, but also through the "collective explosion" of ideology.
In one such case, occurring in 1952–1953, he joined the Scînteia editors in their campaign to silence criticism of debutant poet Eugen Frunză, condemning his own magazine Viaţa Românească and Anatol E. Baconsky's Steaua for their earlier reviews.
[58] Cassian, who recalls that the book Georgescu reviewed was "my most proletkultist", and her attempt to recover from being marginalized by communist politicos, accuses the critic of having "compromised" her, of pursuing "an indication from the Party [...], coupled with his own well-known cynicism", and of resorting to "ad hominems".
[60] The researcher emphasizes their failure to join the pro-liberalization initiatives of Miron Constantinescu, Mihail Davidoglu, Alexandru Jar and Vitner, all of whom had called for De-Stalinization at a time when PCR general secretary Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was refusing to enforce it.
[63] He called attention to supposed attempts at reviving the conservative and neoclassical tenets of the 19th century literary group Junimea through the works of its leader Titu Maiorescu, making similar claims about the legacy of post-Junimist and modernist critic Eugen Lovinescu, founder of Sburătorul review.
[64] Writing in 2002, Florin Mihăilescu reviewed the Congress report, concluding: "Thus, the replacement of aesthetic judgment with ideological control becomes glaring, spectacular and almost unimaginable, especially coming from a critic of unquestionable acuteness, as is Paul Georgescu.
"[64] According to Matei Călinescu, Paul Georgescu made special efforts to push Marxist-Leninist rhetoric and conclusions into the texts of non-communist authors he reviewed for publishing, in particular those of philosopher and critic Tudor Vianu.
In his recollections, first published in 1998, Călinescu wrote: "In 1957-1958, [...] I could see with my own eyes how the magazine's editor in chief, Paul Georgescu, was in the printing house, adding the political clichés and the daily slogans into the galley proofs of Tudor Vianu's weekly articles.
[7] His role in the censorship process reportedly earned Georgescu personally the hostility of poet Ion Barbu, a modernist from Lovinescu's circle, whose political opinions and artistic tenets had made him virtually unpublishable.
[6] Mihăilescu records several currents in interpreting Georgescu's relationship with the regime: "The generation colleagues and communist party comrades remember the writer's unshakable faith in the socio-political ideals of Trotskyism, in parallel with his non-extinguishable idiosyncrasy toward all things on the Right [...].
Before the April Theses put an end to liberalization, Georgescu joined a new wave of anthologists and commentators openly engaged in the recovery of modernism, or calling for artistic innovation (among them were Alexandru Ivasiuc, Adrian Marino, Sașa Pană and Eugen Simion).
In this interpretation, he stood among those who protected the ideals of Europeanism and cosmopolitanism, in the company of other communists dissatisfied with the official line (Crohmălniceanu, Savin Bratu, Vera Călin, Paul Cornea, Silvian Iosifescu), of former political prisoners of communism (Nicolae Balotă, Ovidiu Cotruș, Ștefan Augustin Doinaș, Adrian Marino, Ion Negoițescu, Alexandru Paleologu), and of many younger figures who were just making their debut on the literary scene.
[86] This community, Martin notes, resisted the ethnic nationalism and protochronism promoted with acquiescence from the regime, by such figures as Paul Anghel, Eugen Barbu, Edgar Papu, Mihai Ungheanu and Dan Zamfirescu.
[6] Such confrontational stances were reportedly reflected in his regular activities: according to Cosașu, Georgescu reacted to the power regained by the Securitate secret police under Ceaușescu, and ridiculed its tactics by circulating political jokes and gossip.
[50] The writer also records how Georgescu had ceased his collaboration with Scînteia over this type of ideological differences, and how he showed contempt the radical nationalist discourse promoted by Eugen Barbu's Luceafărul and Săptămîna or by Adrian Păunescu's Flacăra.
[36] According to Ion Simuţ, the volume ranks with other "epic episodes set against the Dog Days", in novels by "Wallachian" southerners: Agopian, Ştefan Bănulescu, Fănuş Neagu, Marin Preda, Nicolae Velea.
[36] Against the summer-enhanced steadiness of regular life in the Kingdom of Romania, the novel sets the rising threat of fascism, depicting in particular Dimancea's growing fear toward the political agitator Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and his embryonic Iron Guard.
[6] Commenting on the use of word plays and the accumulation of metaphors, Simuţ argues: "[these] are put to use into a signification which goes beyond simple gratuitousness; language is to Gabriel Dimancea a windscreen that emerges suddenly, like a wall, in front of those who seek pathways toward understanding him and uncovering his secret.
"[36] The dense nature of the account, Simuţ believes, doubles as a pace-maintaining technique, to make up for the steadiness of the plot, to entertain by means of a "comedy of language", to illustrate the breakdown of intelligent behavior, and to blur the lines between real and imagined.
According to literary chronicler Ioan Holban, the Huzurei setting is "a desolate place, stupefied by the torpor, with squeamish people always sweaty from the heat, moving idly from one tavern to another [...] and devoting themselves to that almighty goddess that is the siesta [...].
Hostility toward him was reportedly widespread in the literary community at the time of his death, which, in his 1989 obituary for the author, Nicolae Manolescu equated with ingratitude: "the 'trifles' of daily life [which Georgescu provided to his peers] have become essential in the biographies of aspiring writers.
[16] Reflecting on Georgescu's fiction, Ioan Holban notes that, during Romania's transitional stage, Țăndărei came to resemble Huzurei more and more, especially after it became the center of a human trafficking and illegal immigration scandal pitting United Kingdom authorities against members of the local Romani community.
[45] Controversies surrounding Georgescu and his fellow communist literary figures resurfaced in late 2008, when Nicolae Manolescu published the synthesis Istoria critică a literaturii române ("The Critical History of Romanian Literature").
On the other side, the debate involved Dan C. Mihăilescu, who had earlier criticized other intellectuals for upholding a positive image of Georgescu the novelist while "neglect[ing] the other bio-bibliographic compartments of a cultural and political doctrinaire", defining it as "an error.
One of these fictional figures is Ion Mincu, a minor presence in Preda's Cel mai iubit dintre pământeni; the other is Mr. Leo, the protagonist of Constantin Ţoiu's Căderea în lume ("Falling into the World", 1987), a physically disabled communist who plays host to the lionized literary society of Bucharest during a New Year's Eve celebration.
[87] In what Manolescu describes as an "exceptional" part of the latter book, Ţoiu turns the party into political confrontation, opposing Leo to the younger Babis Vătăşescu, who has just discovered his family's past involvement with the fascist Iron Guard.
[87] Also according to Manolescu, the book evades the official "stencil" of Socialist Realist writers such as Petru Dumitriu, and the censorship of the times, by depicting Vătăşescu's fascist uncle as having "immense intellectual radiance and fundamental moral honesty", while Mr. Leo himself is not "the hero without fear and beyond reproach".