A genius of poetry martyred in the communist prisons

Gheorghe Calciu told me that Costache Oprișan, the leader of the student legionaries, had died in his arms. I had known Costache Oprișan since 1940 and was interested in his development.

In 1941 Oprișan fled to Germany as a high school graduate. He was particularly interested in philosophy and literature. As a result, some of the most highly educated people in these disciplines were eager to cultivate him. By 1946, he was constantly studying and had acquired a remarkable knowledge of philosophy.

In 1946, Oprișan came to Romania and was active for a while in the legionary line. Then his activity was interrupted following the agreement between the Legionaries and the Communists, so that the Legionaries would not work and the Communists would leave them alone. But when the agreement was broken by the communists, Oprișan was arrested and sentenced. Taken to Pitești, Țurcanu’s anger turned against him. Strong-willed and well-built, his physical resistance was broken by repeated beatings.

Tuberculosis wore him down and slowly killed him under Calciu’s attentive care. Naturally, he was denied medication.

Oprișan intended to write an epic of the spirit in 12,000 verses with this very title: Epic of the Spirit in Three Songs. It would have taken about 10 years to complete. The whole plan was conceived in the poet’s imagination. The spirit appears in the world as an innocent child, serene and thirsty for knowledge, eager for light, but in need of a guide. And it needs Don Quixote in order to cross the space and the epochs of history in the evolution of the spirit.

Don Quixote represents the disinterested and pure character, untouched by material interests.

The author had to begin the epic with the androgynous myth, in which man was a fully realised man and woman, the sexes not yet separated. But this was to enter a deep antiquity.

Then it went on to Democritus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the great ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. It took you step by step through the evolution of the mind, through all the ages of history, up to the present day. This, of course, includes Christian spirituality.

Philosophical rationalism, cold and dry, was to be called: The Stone Mountain.

The great literary productions should be included in the chapter or chapters: The Literary Tavern.

The spirit, now grown up, should part with the good guide who had led him as a minor. From now on he would travel the world alone. But he would not let him go alone without giving him a few talismans that he could use in case of great need.

And in the author’s vision, one day the great need came: the spirit reached a high mountain that he could not climb. So he took out the two talismans: The Holy Cross and the Prayer. He went down on his knees, placed the Holy Cross in front of him and began to pray fervently. Tears flowed from his eyes, but not of despair, but of hope and joy. An angel came down from heaven, kissed him, took him on his wings and flew with him over the mountain.

The author had already written about 200 stanzas of the epic, which were like milestones in the three songs that Calciu knew by heart and recited to me.

To try his hand at poetry, Oprișan tried out about 10 poems, which he dedicated to his fiancée. Calciu recited them all. They were very beautiful. Some were love poems.

I concluded that Oprișan had a great talent. He was a poet who had found his own way. He was not a tributary of Eminescu, Goga, Arghezi, Coșbuc or other poets. He appeared as an original poet. But only the embodiment of his complete work could show us the extent of the value of the work and of the poet.

Calciu may have preserved and written the 200 stanzas of the epic and the 10 poems of Oprișan. In that case, all is not lost.[1] I can only say this: Calciu spoke with great admiration of Oprișan and his philosophical and literary qualities. We don’t know, but with Costache Oprișan’s death, the Romanians and the world may have lost a genius who, who knows when, may appear again.

The description of Costache Oprisan’s martyrdom moved me deeply. He melted day after day after the great beatings he had endured, with no hope of help and without asking for it, scorned by the “officials”, knowing that he would not receive it.[2]

Calciu’s grieving hands closed his eyes.

(Fr. Nicolae Grebenea – Memories from the Darkness)

[1] In 2009, the Christiana Publishing House published Books of the Spirit and Other Poems, the posthumous work of the martyred poet Constantin Oprișan. Mr. Marcel Petrișor, cellmate of Constantin Oprișan, Gheorghe Calciu and Iosif V. Iosif, explains in the book’s preface that “all three of us tried to memorise the verses of the great poem “Noologic”, as well as other smaller pieces that we later reconstructed from memory with Gheorghe Calciu, as much as we could after so many years. There are also places that we have both forgotten, but I like to think that we have preserved – quite faithfully – the essentials…”.

[2] Constantin’s reluctance to ask for help from the authorities was not motivated by pride or aversion, but by the clarity of seeing that there was no way out and the serene acceptance of death, with all its agony.