Talk:Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu

Untitled
Strangely, the French version of "The Twenty-Fifth Hour" is COMPLETELY different from the English one, though both by the same Virgil! The French book is a classic. --212.36.213.203 19:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)--212.36.213.203 19:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)--212.36.213.203 19:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)--212.36.213.203 19:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

His early years
I was looking through stuff about Eliade, and I found a relevant "tidbit". The article apparently lacks some essential and troublesome information - see this Romanian-language collection of studies, on page 169. I have to tell you, given the fairy-tale like nature of his book (well, the film - I haven't read the book), I always suspected he was busy burying something (aside from an antisemitic text, that is). This is worth looking into. Dahn 13:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * And I did some more looking into. According to this, Monica Lovinescu thought he was an agent of the Gestapo, and Neagu Djuvara described him as "an abject person". Hm. Dahn 13:57, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * He was definitely hiding something shady in his past. What exactly did he do the Foreign Ministry, working for a government that was participating in genocide? I smell a rat. 2A0A:EF40:122D:7801:20E2:85D:3AF5:4C79 (talk) 08:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting find, but this Ziua article by Alexandru Popescu looks a bit confusing. We have: All in all, certainly something to look into, but, except for the first item (and perhaps the last one), I'd hesitate to put much more in from the Ziua article in here, before things can get clarified and/or other sources can be found. Turgidson 14:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * "Inca de atunci, colaboreaza cu Serviciul Secret de Informatii. In 1943, la propunerea lui Eugen Cristescu, noul sef al SSI, Gheorghiu este numit consilier cultural la Legatia Romaniei de la Zagreb, unde a indeplinit si misiuni de ordin informativ." OK, this is straightforward—so he was working for the SSI during WWII, under diplomatic cover in Croatia. I think it's worth including in the article.
 * "Potrivit unor documente ale Securitatii, C.V. Gheorghiu ar fi avut relatii cu serviciile informative americane." This is less clear.  Which US intelligence services, and when—Office of Strategic Services during WWII, or CIA later?  What kind of "relations"?  How would the Securitate know?  Where are those documents?  At any rate, from the context I take that this pertains to the OSS, and the period right at the end of WWII, when VG was taken prisoner by US troops; what is probably meant is that he was interrogated by the OSS about his activities during the war, which I think was standard operating procedure.  (I also think something like this is in the 25th Hour.)
 * "Dupa marturiile Monicai Lovinescu, C.V. Gheorghiu a fost "informator al Gestapoului", "cel mai important agent-taupe al Securitatii sub numele de cod Ovidiu"." Now, this says VG was a mole for the Gestapo(!)  OK, why not, but this would need some kind of corroboration.  Moreover, I don't understand why ML refers to the Securitate here (after all, the Gestapo disbanded at the end of WWII, whereas the Securitate was only created in August, 1948). Perhaps she meant Siguranţa statului, and she (or Popescu) conflated the two?
 * " Printre performantele de agent ale lui Gheorghiu se numara "denuntarea lui Paul Goma ca agent comunist". Un scandal de proportii a fost declansat de un interviu din Le Quotidien de Paris (1981) in care C.V. Gheorghiu a sustinut ca disidentii din Est lucreaza pentru KGB." Hmmm... This is getting baroque.
 * "Un bun cunoscator al emigratiei romanesti, Neagu Djuvara, il considera pe C.V. Gheorghiu "un personaj abject"." OK, this is a straightforward assessement, by a well-known figure (a corroboration would be good to have, though.)

Minor point to begin with: it's not in Ziua, it's in Ziarul Financiar - personally, and you're free to disagree, I would not have posted this here if it was sourced from Ziua :). As it is, the source is inexact, but not unreliable - as long as we attribute and indicate that these charges are mostly speculative, we should be able to use the source.
 * check
 * I agree: we could mention is as "the Securitate alleged that he had contacts with American intelligence services" (because I presume that it is why they would bother mentioning it), or not mention this at all on account of it being vague
 * she probably refers to, on one hand, his WWII years, and, on the other, his alleged involvement with the Securitate in exile. Certainly, I don't expect the article to say "he was a Gestapo/Securitate agent", but this quote could perhaps be worthy a mention in a section on appraisals/controversy?
 * As I found out over the last months, anything surrounding Goma is baroque :). There is nothing questioning or confirming this tidbit, as far as I can see, so it may be cited as an "according to...". If I'm allowed to speculate, I think that Goma may have "forgotten" this incident because he was so busy quoting Gheorghiu's antisemitic rant for his own little canard.
 * check Dahn 18:41, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ziua/Ziarul F. -- oops, my eyes play tricks with me today. (I'm sure there is some research out there explaining such optical illusions.) I'll try to check #2 -- as I said, I think that he may even have talked about this himself, either directly, or in a thinly disguised autobiographical form.  The whole timing issue with Gestapo/Securitate in #3 is problematic -- it may be worth pursuing, but I wouldn't even know where to start checking for such things.   First things first, though -- I think we need an article on Siguranţa statului, where one could find out more about the whole intelligence/counter-intelligence milieu in Romania during WWII (including a page on Eugen Cristescu, I'd assume).  If this could be developed, then it may become clearer how to fit this in the bigger picture. Also, I have the scantiest idea what the Gestapo or the Abwehr were doing in Romania at the time, although I assume they must have been quite busy, as hinted at in the Manfred Freiherr von Killinger article (though note that the page Otto Albrecht von Bolschwing is still mising...).  Turgidson 19:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is much left to add about all those issues. Concerning #3: I guess I was vague, but my point was that Lovinescu may have actually claimed that Gheorghiu was an agent for the Securitate (for the Securitate as well) much later, in, say, the 1960s or 1970s. It's the only way I can read that comment for it to make sense. What do you think? Dahn 19:48, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Looking at the relevant paragraph again, it seems to me the confusion is due more to rather sloppy editing at ZT: the two sentences (about Gestapo and Securitate) are separated by just a comma, making it difficult to ascertain what was meant by that.  BTW, I've had that problem with several other articles from the Romanian press -- many journalists and/or copy editors do not seem to have mastered the art of either (1) quoting ad literam an interview or (2) quoting pieces of the interview, with context supplied to make sense, if the spoken words were a bit unclear.  (Don't  they teach that in Journalism 101?) At any rate, yes, it looks more and more like that comma separates two completely different ideas and time frames (40s vs 60s/70s).  Turgidson 20:11, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I endorse that assessment of Romanian journalism in general, but note that, in this case, the situation is special (for better or worse). The article is apparently connected with a book: they say it is a fragment, but I tend to assume it is a summary of a fragment. This is because any book structured and compiled in this way would not be worth the money (and I'm guessing a publisher is keenly aware of such issues), and because the article is part 9 of a series (considering that it is a summary of 1914 to 1989 or so, it must mean that the man published his whole book in the newspaper - which I find improbable). If it is indeed a summary, then the sloppiness of it could perhaps find an explanation - the author was simply chopping his own text, having in mind that he was doing this for people to have something to read on the tube. Who can blame him? :) Dahn 20:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * es:Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu says:
 * En 1952 estalló un escándalo en París: se descubrió que antes de abandonar Rumanía, Gheorghiu había escrito un libro (Ard malurile Nistrului, 1941), que de aquí en adelante no sería publicado en francés, en el que atacaba a "Los judíos maliciosos" y alababa a las tropas de Hitler. El filósofo Gabriel Marcel, que había escrito el prefacio de "La Hora 25", pidió que su prefacio fuese omitido de las futuras ediciones. Gheorghiu, obedeciendo a su conciencia, no desautorizó nunca claramente sus escritos antisemitas, pero en sus memorias de 1986, escribió: "Me avergüenzo de mí mismo. Me avergüenzo porque soy rumano, como los criminales de la Guardia de Hierro".
 * It is unreferenced, though.
 * --Error (talk) 04:42, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Another Virgil Gheorghiu
The surrealist poet who was an acquaintance of Geo Bogza (see here). I turned the link there into a Virgil Gheorghiu (avant-garde poet), but do you think "Virgil Gheorghiu" should redirect here, or should we have a page for the name, with a "may refer to" and move this page to something like "Virgil Gheorghiu (novelist)"? Dahn (talk) 14:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Another possibility: rename this page to Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu, as in rowiki (but unlike frwiki), and have VG redirect to CVG, instead of the other way around? Turgidson (talk) 15:52, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, that sounds good to. The only problem is that, apparently, nobody but rowiki refers to this VG as CVG. Dahn (talk) 15:59, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * There is a ref to C. Virgil Gheorghiu...  Turgidson (talk) 16:10, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, then, CVG it is. You wrote: "and have VG redirect to CVG". That is a bit unclear: are you saying that VG should be a disambig page, or that VG should redirect to the avant-garde poet? Or is it some other solution you endorse? I'm okay with any of them, I just want to know what will be modified next. Dahn (talk) 16:22, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * How about: (1) plain vanilla VG page as disambig page, pointing to (2) CVG or VG (novelist) [I'm still not 100% sure what's better], and (3) VG (poet) [why also add avant-garde? is there another poet that may conflict?] By the way, WorldCat lists both VG and CVG, but VG clearly dominates. Ah, decisions, decisions... Turgidson (talk) 17:16, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I added "avant-garde just" to be sure (tomorrow, it may turn out that CVG also wrote poetry, or any other such problem). I agree with your 1-2-3 approach, and I would agree with the alternative. Should I start moving them around, or should we wait some more just to be sure? Dahn (talk) 00:06, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Please make a choice, and go ahead. I'm not that good at moving things around -- I tried once a long time ago (something about the Leaota Mountains), and I kind of got burned, losing some of the editing history. I gotta learn how to do this reliably—one of these days—but maybe I'll try with something easier than this pas de trois (if I may conconct a term :)).  Turgidson (talk) 00:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Dahn (talk) 00:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)