Octavian Goga, the restless soul of Ardeal

One summer night back in 1905, "Gambrinus" restaurant in Bucharest was more crowded than usual. In one corner, at the only table surrounded by silence, George Cosbuc and Ioan Gorun were fighting fiercely over the chess border, assisted by Nerva Hodos and the restless Caragiale, who was uneasy with his position of kibitzer.

At one point, Caragiale grasps a new volume of poetry brought by Hodos and starts skimming it just to pass the time. In a few minutes, he turns the book, looks for the name of the author, sniffs a "What the hell!", stops the game and forces the others to listen to a poem named "The Olt"... "But who is this, heigh?" uncle Iancu, obviously delighted, asks Gorun.

"A young poet from our places, from Ardeal." "Let's start from the beginning" - and the great Caragiale read aloud, until midnight, the whole first volume of Octavian Goga. The master was commenting together with its three companions on each poem, recalling that some time ago, when he met the young poet in Berlin, he introduced himself as an "architect." "Let's drink for him," George Cosbuc suggested. "Let's drink, for he's damn talented!" answered Caragiale, exhausted by reading and by the last pint of beer, whose glass was reflecting the sunrise.

South from Sibiu, not farther than 12 kilometres away, there is a small farming town, documentary attested even since 1204, named Rasinari by the will of Radu Voda, the ruler of Muntenia. From the main street, with houses embracing in a "familial" architectural assembly, Ulita Popilor comes out climbing abruptly a paved slope. Here, at number 778, is the house of priest Ioan Bratu, the one that once hosted a vagrand "ragged from sleeves to elbows and wearing a pair of pants torn up and torn down," Eminescu by his name, helping him to get to ?ara Romaneasca.

On March 20, 1881, the same priest Ioan Barbu became the grandfather of another great national poet, Octavian-Ion, who appeared among Rasinari inhabitants from the marriage between priest Iosif Goga with the youngest daughter of Ioan Bratu, Aurelia. Descending from a long chain of orthodox priests and patriot scholars from Rasinari, Octavian Goga enjoyed an almost perfect childhood.

He lived in a house whose shelves were filled not with cream pots or pickle jars, but with books gathered in time, starting with the 15th century. The autumn of 1890 brutally tears the peace of the child raised in a Romanian atmosphere. Octavian joins the only school existing at that time in Sibiu, with courses taught in Magyar language and with chauvinist teachers, loyal to the Magyar state. After several years, he leaves Sibiu following a conflict with the history teacher, joining the Romanian high school in Brasov.

Here he enters the cultural life, at first with "poor love lines," as he said himself, then in force, through the Reading Club. Starting with 1905, the Ardeal speaks through his passionate verse in the volumes "Ne cheama pamantul" ("The land calls us"), "Din umbra zidurilor" ("From the shadow of walls"), "Cantece fara tara" ("Songs without a country") and others.