Alexandru Robot

Alexandru Robot (born Alter Rotmann, also known as Al. Robot; Moldovan Cyrillic: Александру Робот; January 15, 1916 – c. 1941) was a Romanian, Moldovan and Soviet poet, also known as a novelist and journalist.

First noted as a member of Romanian literary clubs, and committed to modernism and the avant-garde, he developed a poetic style based on borrowings from Symbolist and Expressionist literature.

Also deemed a "Hermeticist" for the lexical obscurity in some of his poems, as well as for the similarity between his style and that of Ion Barbu, Robot was in particular noted for his pastorals, where he fused modernist elements into a traditionalist convention.

Robot made his editorial debut in 1932, at age 16, with the lyric poetry volume Apocalips terestru ("Terrestrial Apocalypse").

Over the following period, he was acknowledged in sympathetic literary chronicles authored by critics with academic credentials or by fellow poets, among them George Călinescu, Eugen Lovinescu, Perpessicius and Ion Pillat.

In June 1933, Rampa published his interview with Romanian philosopher and modernist novelist Mircea Eliade, in which the latter discussed his recent journey into British India.

Adopted by the literary circles in the Bessarabia region, where he settled in 1935, Robot was employed by the literary review Viața Basarabiei.

In tandem with his avant-garde activities, he was a political-minded journalist with communist sympathies, who wrote reportage pieces and essays around various social, political and cultural topics.

In 1935, Robot took the decision of leaving his home region, the Old Kingdom, and made his way to Chișinău, the cultural capital of Bessarabia region (at the time part of Greater Romania).

This sudden choice, Moldovan literary historian Iurie Colesnic notes, was an unusual one: "It is hard to understand what drew [Robot] to Chișinău, where the literary environment was one of very modest means, where pressure upon Bessarabians on the Romanian language issue was very acute, where all things political was required not to have left-wing influences, for Bessarabia was under suspicion of being Bolshevized."

The subsequent identification with the region was a partial one, as suggested by Moldovan critic Eugen Lungu's use of "semi-Bessarabian" in his definition of Robot's cultural belonging.

Vladimir Prisăcaru however describes as "impressive" that manner in which Robot chose to identify himself with the culture of Chișinău (casually referred to by the poet as "our city"): "one is left with the impression that Al. Robot and Chișinău were displaying themselves as two communicating vessels."

Shortly after his arrival, the young author was employed by fellow poet Nicolai Costenco on the editorial staff of Viața Basarabiei literary review, but mostly worked as a reporter for Gazeta Basarabiei newspaper.

By then, Robot was a committed follower of leftist causes, who, Colesnic writes: "never tried to conceal his political opinions. [...] He was a sympathizer of the communist movement".

The ideological choice in favor of communism and anti-fascism was partly reflected in his work for Viața Basarabiei, his various reportage pieces, and his travel literature.

Robot traveled extensively throughout Bessarabia and the Budjak, covering the life of Lipovan fishermen in Vâlcov and public interest issues such as the trial in Chișinău of Romanian Communist Party militant Petre Constantinescu-Iași.

Vladimir Prisăcaru writes that Robot had a "hard to explain predilection" for covering the Budjak (a region which is now part of Ukraine), and argues that the author had, "without hidden interest, evidenced [the region's] Romanian character".

His various other articles cover several subjects, including: a study of works by Ștefan Petică (a main representative of Romania's Symbolist current); an essay-like piece of social criticism, Pajurile mizeriei chișinăuiene ("The Crests of Chișinău's Squalor"); and a chronicle of Anton Holban's novel Ioana.

Robot published a large number of critical sketches focusing on major figures in European and Romanian literature (from Luigi Pirandello, Sergei Yesenin and Charles Baudelaire to Mateiu Caragiale, Panait Istrati or Liviu Rebreanu), and was similarly interested in art, theater and ballet criticism (with pieces on Constantin Brâncuși, Victor Brauner, Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova).

In particular, Robot received praise for his interview with the Bessarabian-born actress Maria Cebotari.

A second volume of his poetry, Somnul singurătății ("The Slumber of Solitude"), saw print in 1936.

It notably received praise from Costenco in Viața Basarabiei—according to Colesnic, although Robot was a "very subtle competitor" of Costenco, such appreciation from the latter illustrated "a justified literary solidarity, given that both had leftist political sympathies and promoted them consistently."

At the time, Costenco was nuancing his own support for a neo-traditionalist school in literature (for which he had sought inspiration in the work of Romania's nationalist ideologue Nicolae Iorga), and was growing fond of avant-garde tendencies.

The same year, the Bucharest-based official literary review, Revista Fundațiilor Regale, hosted the essay of modernist critic Vladimir Streinu, which discussed in four individual sections the works of poets Robot, Haig Acterian, Ștefan Baciu and Cicerone Theodorescu.

During the 1940 annexation of Bessarabia, Robot opted to stay behind in Soviet territory, adopting Socialist Realism and paying allegiance to the Moldavian SSR's official line on nationality issues.

This move sparked a posthumous controversy, but some have argued it only implied a formal submission on Robot's part.

Robot was declared missing some two months after the German-Romanian takeover of Bessarabia, dying in mysterious circumstances.

Robot stayed behind in his adoptive region after Romania's 1940 cession of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union.

This, Iurie Colesnic suggests, was "a conscious choice", and justified by Robot's belief that avant-garde poetry was well-appreciated by the Soviet administration (making him "the most obvious intellectual victim of Soviet propaganda").

Colesnic also writes: "I suppose that his disappointment after one year of living under the communist regime was profound and hard to mend."

A similar argument is made by Eugen Lungu, who suggests that Robot "mimicked [...] the adherence to the happiness of the kolkhozniks" and, like other writers from the newly created Moldavian SSR, was made to comply with Socialist Realism.

His avant-garde literary work remained largely unknown until the 1960s, when it was rediscovered by a new generation of Bessarabian writers.

The future poet was a native of Bucharest, born to Jewish Romanian parents Carol Rotman and Toni Israel, with a working class family background.

His father was, according to conflict accounts, either a clerk or the warden of a Jewish cemetery in Bucharest.

Alter Rotmann studied for a while at the city's Spiru Haret High School, but dropped out in order to begin work as a reporter for the cultural magazine Rampa, and later had his articles featured in such periodicals as Universul, Cuvântul Liber and Viața Literară.

Writing in 2006, Moldovan philologist Vladimir Prisăcaru (Vlad Pohilă) defined the then aspiring author as "a precocious and vigorous, picturesque, dissipated and extremely prolific talent."

The same years brought Alexandru Robot's contribution to short-lived magazines published by avant-garde circles from the Romanian Old Kingdom.

Alongside authors such as Dan Petrașincu and Pericle Martinescu, he was featured in bobi, a young writers' periodical.

He joined them again on Petrașincu's Discobolul, and also had samples of his work featured in Cristalul (published by a modernist circle in Găești).

Robot was also among the young writers who contributed to the literary review Ulise, launched in Bucharest by critic Lucian Boz.