980 words
Emil Cioran was a Romanian philosopher. Cioran was born on April 8, 1911 in Rășinari (Transylvania, then part of Austria-Hungary and today part of Romania) and died stateless in Paris on June 20, 1995. A nationalist writer in his youth, after the Second World War he achieved fame as a French-language author of essays and aphorisms of a markedly dark and apparently nihilistic bent. (more…)
Alphonse de Neuville, The Huns at the Battle of Chalons
2,411 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note: The following extracts are drawn from Emil Cioran, Précis de décomposition (Paris: Gallimard, 1949). The title is editorial.
There are no beings more dangerous than those who have suffered for a belief: The great persecutors are recruited among the martyrs who were not beheaded. (13)
John William Waterhouse, Diogenes (1882)
872 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
One cannot know what a man must lose to have the courage to defy all conventions; one cannot know what Diogenes lost to become the man who allowed himself to do everything, who turned his most intimate thoughts into acts of a supernatural insolence, as would a god of knowledge, at once libidinous and pure. No one was more frank; an extreme case of sincerity and lucidity, as well as an example of what we could be if education and hypocrisy did not restrain our desires and actions.
369 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Hailing from some unfortunate tribe, he paces about the West’s boulevards. Having loved one fatherland after another, he no longer hopes for any: Frozen in a timeless dusk, a citizen of the world – and of no world, – he is ineffective, nameless, and without vigor. (more…)
1,472 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note: This article is translated from the French version in Emil Cioran, Apologie de la Barbarie: Berlin–Bucharest (1932-1941) (Paris: L’Herne, 2015). (more…)
497 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
We can penetrate the error of a being, reveal to him the inanity of his schemes and of his errors; but how can we tear him away from his relentlessness in time, when he hides a fanaticism as ingrained as his instincts, as ancient as his prejudices?
1,016 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note: This article is translated from the French version in Emil Cioran, Apologie de la Barbarie: Berlin – Bucharest (1932-1941) (Paris: L’Herne, 2015), pp. 67-71. (more…)
1,980 words
Emil Cioran
Apologie de la Barbarie: Berlin – Bucharest (1932-1941)
Paris: L’Herne, 2015
This is a very interesting book released by the superior publishing house L’Herne: a collection of Emil Cioran’s articles published in Romanian newspapers, mostly from before the war. (more…)
The French signing the armistice with the Germans at Compiègne on June 22, 1940.
3,210 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note: The following extracts are drawn from Emil Cioran, De la France (Paris: L’Herne, 2015). The original was written in Romanian in 1941. The title is editorial.
Sébastien Bourdon, The Sacrifice of Iphigenia
833 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note: The following extracts are drawn from Emil Cioran, De la France (Paris: L’Herne, 2015). The original was written in Romanian in 1941.
Countries – unfortunately – exist. Each one crystallizes a sum of errors called values, which it cultivates and combines, and which it circulates and gives currency towards. Their totality constitutes the individuality of each country and its implicit pride – but also its tyranny, because it weighs unconsciously on the individual. (more…)
2,942 words
Emil Cioran
De la France
Paris: L’Herne, 2015
This is a strange, vile little book as only Emil Cioran knew how to produce. It was only recently published, in both the original Romanian and in French translation,[1] having been written in 1941 and left to languish for decades in some cardboard box in the Cioran archives. (more…)
1,761 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note: The following are excerpts from the preface to a collection of early articles by Emil Cioran translated from Romanian into French. I found this very interesting concerning the young Cioran’s embrace of fascism as embodying the “barbarism” he considered necessary to halt decadence. I have broken up some of the paragraphs. (more…)
1,468 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note: This has been retranslated from a French translation. I have improved the paragraphing. The title is editorial. Source: Emil Cioran, Apologie de la barbarie: Berlin-Bucarest 1932–1941 (Paris: L’Herne, 2015), “L’Italie est-elle une grande puissance ?,” pp. 203-209. Originally published in Vremea, May 31, 1936.
Emil Cioran
495 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
The following is Alain Soral’s negative assessment of Emil Cioran, as contained in his “dictionary” of aphorisms. While this appraisal is not exactly fair, the text expresses some understandable frustration with the nihilist Cioran and gives one a sense of the oppressive atmosphere, for Right-wingers, of the postwar French literary scene. (more…)
873 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note: The following are some rare more-or-less political comments from the post-war Emil Cioran, more in keeping with his pessimistic outlook. These are translated from Emil Cioran, De l’inconvénient d’être né (Paris: Gallimard, 1973). The title is editorial.
1,097 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note: Emil Cioran is notorious as perhaps the most pessimistic philosopher of all time. Nonetheless, I was able to find some aphorisms of his which I would consider inspiring. These are translated from Emil Cioran, De l’inconvénient d’être né (Paris: Gallimard, 1973).
2,524 words
Marta Petreu
An Infamous Past: E. M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania
Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005
‘The Romanians, what have they ever done for us, eh?’ So might Emil Cioran, himself a Romanian, have wondered when he wrote his third book The Transfiguration of Romania, published in 1936. Bewailing Romania’s insignificant past and culture, he proposed a program that would transform the country in parallel with the contemporary national revivals in Germany and Italy then underway. (more…)
968 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
Translated from the French. Improvements from the original Romanian are therefore welcome.
No politician in the world today inspires as much sympathy and admiration in me as Hitler. There is something irresistible about the destiny of this man, (more…)
1,364 words
Corneliu Codreanu
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
Emil Cioran was a Romanian philosopher who, before becoming a noted esthete of nihilism in the Parisian literary scene, dared to be a hopeful fascist. Translated from the French. Improvements from the original Romanian are therefore welcome. The title is editorial.
4,540 words
Bradley R. Smith
A Personal History of Moral Decay
Charleston, W.V.: Nine-Banded Books, 2014
“I’m setting out to see the world and make my fortune, just like they did in the old days. I know I’m past the age when these things are normally taken care of, but I’m a slow starter.”
