A City in Dérive: Bucharest in Mihail Sebastian’s Journal 1935–1944: The Fascist Years

Abstract

Mihail Sebastian’s Journal 1935–1944 accurately reflects the changing historical realities in Romania in general and in the capital city of Bucharest in particular, before and during the Second World War. As a Jewish Romanian writer, Sebastian records a landscape of ideological change that has a clear impact on him as a lawyer, an intellectual and a member of the city’s literary high society. This article proposes a new reading and analysis of Sebastian’s work, by focusing on the close relationship between the writer and the city as a vibrant, organic space. My work introduces a new critical vocabulary to the literary analysis of Sebastian’s Journal, through the use of terminology commonly employed by performance studies. The Situationist practices of walking and drifting, further conceptualised by performance studies scholar Carl Lavery, will be utilised as methods of exploring the visual and emotional richness of Sebastian’s work. The intimate relationship between the writer and the city will be constantly framed by the historical and political realities of the time, ensuring a balanced discussion of both literary achievement and historical witnessing.