Editura Ion Creangă
Encyclopedia
Editura Ion Creangă was a publishing house based in Bucharest
, Romania
. Founded as a state-run company under communist rule
and named after the 19th century writer Ion Creangă
, it ranked high among Romanian publishers of children's literature
, fantasy literature
and science fiction
. Its activity resulted in many Romanian-language translations of world children's classics, among which were bestselling
versions of Jules Verne
's complete works and J. R. R. Tolkien
's The Hobbit
. The company also stood at the core of a phenomenon in local book illustration
, assigning contracts to recognized artists such as Sandu Florea
, Val Munteanu, Lívia Rusz
and Eugen Taru
.
During the late years of communism, the enterprise was subject to the intervention of official censorship
. In 1988, its publishing of Ana Blandiana
's poems, which featured allusions to the communist system, resulted in culturally repressive measures personally ordered by President
and Communist Party
leader Nicolae Ceauşescu
. Editura Ion Creangă survived the 1989 Revolution
, but was no longer able to compete with rival companies. It effectively ceased its activity during 2003.
characteristics found in Eastern Bloc
literature aimed at adults. According to his assessment, while some of the books issued preferred for publishing aimed at attacking "bourgeois" society, even they were ambiguous and may not have contributed to indoctrination beyond the facade aspects.
From early on, the publishing house became an important venue for the Romanian school of book illustration. According to visual artist and journalist Cristiana Radu, the company stood for a "richer and more colorful" tradition of visual art for children, which "paradoxically" thrived under the communist period. In her assessment: "Perhaps also because reality was grayer and more deprived of visual stimuli, the books themselves worked as aesthetic markers. The books which have lit my childhood often crossed the borders, were taken into consideration by foreign editors, reaching countries such as France
. During those years, Romania was the country of its area with the richest tradition in this field." Writing in 2007, Arina Stoenescu, herself an illustrator, recalled the contributions of Rusz, Munteanu and Taru as a defining element of her own childhood reading experience. She argued: "The logotype of Ion Creangă Publishing House became a well known symbol, the distinguishing mark of many books with excellent pictures."
Enlisted by Utan, Rusz contributed drawings to reprints of classical works for children in Romanian literature
, such as Nicolae Constantin Batzaria
's Poveşti de aur ("Golden Stories") and Creangă's collected fairy tale
s and Childhood Memories
. The latter edition is deemed "legendary" by author György Györfi-Deák. After 1971, the company also issued Caseta cu bucurii ("A Caseful of Joys" or "My Bedtime Library"), the main works for children by Emil Gârleanu, with illustrations by Ileana Ceauşu-Pandele.
Some projects of the period recovered the legacy of Romanian Surrealism
. One notable Editura Ion Creangă edition was Iordan Chimet
's Cele 12 luni ale visului. O antologie a inocenţei ("The 12 Months of Dreaming. An Anthology of Innocence"), noted for revisiting the Surrealists' visual vocabulary and for subverting the official communist take on culture. In 1979, another acclaimed edition reissued Apolodor the Penguin by 1940s Surrealist Gellu Naum
, with drawings by Dan Stanciu.
In addition to encouraging artistic expression in regular book illustration, Editura Ion Creangă played a part in promoting Romanian comic book
authors. Among them was Sandu Florea
, known for his work in science fiction comics, and who allegedly became the first local comics author to make a living exclusively from his art. In 1974, Ion Creangă also published Mircea Possa's Titilică, băiat fără frică ("Titilică, a Fearless Boy"), which some regard as one of the best Romanian comic books in its generation.
's translation from Jonathan Swift
's Gulliver
, called "without doubt the best of all [Romanian Gulliver editions] so far" by scholar Mihaela Mudure, as well as Wilhelm Hauff
's Märchen (Basme, illustrated by Rusz) and, in a "richly illustrated edition" of 1978, J. M. Barrie
's Peter and Wendy
(translators Ovidiu Constantinescu and Andrei Bantaş
). Also noted were its luxury edition of Gargantua and Pantagruel
, issued in collaboration with the Sibiu
typography Arta Grafică, and a 1978 version of Ugo Scotti Berni's La promessa sposa di Pinocchio. The company also ran a special paperback series, Poveşti nemuritoare ("Immortal Tales"), which, in addition to Romanian folklore, introduced the public to samples of foreign legends, including Turkish
ones. In cooperation with Raduga Publishing House, Editura Ion Creangă also published the Neznaika
(Habarnam) series by Soviet
author Nikolay Nosov
(1986).
A notable series inaugurated by the company was the Jules Verne
"yellow covers" reader, published as a set of 40 volumes bound in boards and illustrated with copies of the original French lithographs
. As noted by Zarafu, management decided in favor of the oldest illustrations only because their copyright had expired. The Verne books were all bestseller
s by Romanian standards, reportedly selling on average some 200,000 copies per issue.
Among these volumes, linguist Raluca Anamaria Vida chose as a study case Insula misterioasă ("The Mysterious Island
"), translated by Veronica and Ion Mihăileanu. Contrasting it to previous translations from the 1950s, Vida argued that the Mihăileanus' work was better suited to the original text. She also analyzed the relative liberalization
that had occurred in the meantime, noting that the new version was more accepting of Verne's references to religion, and lacked the "ridiculous footnotes" which encouraged the reader to interpret the text from a Marxist-Leninist
perspective. Also in the "yellow covers" series was Vladimir Colin
's translation of Carpathian Castle
, a book set in Transylvania
and having ethnic Romanians
among its protagonists. Colin's rendition, in part a retranslation, parted with other Romanian versions. These had noted Verne's use of obscure words to designate places and names as his approximate renditions of Romanian, and had sought to reconstruct them into readable Romanian; instead, Colin preferred to observe the original spelling throughout.
In 1975, Editura Ion Creangă also published the first Romanian version of J. R. R. Tolkien
's The Hobbit
, translated from English by Catinca Ralea, and carrying the title O poveste cu un hobbit ("A Story with a Hobbit
"). According to journalist Adina Popescu, Ralea's text was "excellent", and the volume itself stood among "the fundamental books of the last generation to have lived its childhood during communism." O poveste cu un hobbit featured original illustrations by Rusz, who relied exclusively on her imagination for depicting the main characters, as the lack of Tolkien editions in Romania made it impossible for her to find other points of visual reference. Her contribution has nevertheless earned her an international profile among Tolkien illustrators.
In additions to adaptations into Romanian, Editura Ion Creangă was noted for a state-assigned translation program into minority languages
, specifically Hungarian
(for Hungarian-Romanians
) and German
(for German-Romanians
). Ion Creangă, Kriterion, Albatros, Facla publishing houses were especially active in fulfilling the growing need for German-language books, in particular by presenting special awards to German authors and translators. These activities also incorporated a political aspect: a 1975 official report on cultural policies, which listed Ion Creangă alongside Editura Dacia
and Kriterion as the year's most significant contributors to the program, explained the role it had in the "communist education of readers".
The group was also active in circulating translated Romanian works for children within the wider world: from 1971, Caseta cu bucurii and some of Gârleanu's other works were also issued in German, Hungarian, English, Swedish
and Czech
. A 1986 Spanish
edition, titled Mi biblioteca para leer, was published in cooperation with Cuba
's Editorial Gente Nueva.
noted: "In the '80s, reading was the only way to make one's spare time informative and entertaining. Many have [since] forgotten that all they could watch on television amounted to a daily two-hour program, content aside..." In the final decade of communist rule, Editura Ion Creangă published some works of propaganda for the youth, including communist education teaching aides by Tudor Opriş and Maria Obaciu.
Additionally, the publishing house felt the tightening of censorship
, a policy encouraged by communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu
. A notable incident took place in 1988, when Editura Ion Creangă and poetess Ana Blandiana
became involved in a political scandal involving the highest levels of communist power. Having debuted in children's poetry with the fascicle Întîmplări din grădina mea ("Incidents in My Garden"), Blandiana followed up with Alte întîmplări din grădina mea ("Some Other Incidents in My Garden") and Întîmplări de pe strada mea ("Incidents on My Street"). The latter transformed its hero, Arpagic the Cat, into a satirical
depiction of Ceauşescu, in particular by introducing oblique references to the leader's personality cult and propaganda system. The public followed up on the hint, and a number of clandestine jokes surfacing at the time reportedly referred to Ceauşescu as "Arpagic".
Censors deciphered these messages only after the volume's release, and reported the matter to Ceauşescu personally, leading to an almost complete ban on Blandiana's work. The Securitate
secret police oversaw further punitive measures, forcing the early retirement of Editura Ion Creangă's chief manager Viniciu Gafiţa and moving proofreader Doina Mandaj, stripped of her political position, to the Albatros group. In the short interval before Întîmplări de pe strada mea was withdrawn from shops, rumors spread about the irritation it caused to communist authorities, and, as a consequence, sales increased significantly.
which toppled communism. Around the year 2000, it was managed by poetess Daniela Crăsnaru. It was at the time engaged in the process of recovering anti-communist literature, publishing a diary of Gulag
imprisonment, by the Bessarabia
n author Naum V. Lospa.
The company faced competition from newly-founded independent publishers of children's books, and remained the only publisher in this class to receive subventions from the Ministry of Culture. In 2001, these amounted to 178 million lei
, the 5th largest in this category of sponsorships. A slow privatization
process began in 2003, under the watch of the Agency for the Recovery of State Assets. Editura Ion Creangă effectively closed down, even though the privatization monitoring case was only sealed in November 2009.
Comparing the book illustration scene at Ion Creangă with the post-1989 situation, Cristiana Radu contended that new publishers resorted to "traditional, tame and descriptive variants" or "the Disney
solution", while the public was left without "visual education". In later years, Editura Ion Creangă editions became involved in debates about intellectual property
and copyright infringement
in respect to communist-era works. Humanitas consortium
released, in 2003 and 2010, new versions of Nosov's Habarnam; a controversy was sparked when Humanitas demanded the closure of Romania's Nosov fansite
, which, claiming that the communist copyright law was void, had digitized the 1986 edition.
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. Founded as a state-run company under communist rule
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
and named after the 19th century writer Ion Creangă
Ion Creanga
Ion Creangă was a Moldavian-born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his novellas and short stories, and his many anecdotes...
, it ranked high among Romanian publishers of children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
, fantasy literature
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. Its activity resulted in many Romanian-language translations of world children's classics, among which were bestselling
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
versions of Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
's complete works and J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's The Hobbit
The Hobbit
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
. The company also stood at the core of a phenomenon in local book illustration
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
, assigning contracts to recognized artists such as Sandu Florea
Sandu Florea
Sandu Florea is a Romanian-American comic book and comic strip creator, also known as an inker and book illustrator. A trained architect and a presence on the science fiction scene during the 1970s, he became a professional in the comics genre with albums such as Galbar, and was allegedly the only...
, Val Munteanu, Lívia Rusz
Lívia Rusz
Lívia or Livia Rusz is a Romanian and Hungarian graphic artist, best known for her work in illustration, comic strip and comic book genres...
and Eugen Taru
Eugen Taru
Eugen Taru was a Romanian graphic artist, best known for his work in the political cartoon, caricature, comic strip and book illustration genres...
.
During the late years of communism, the enterprise was subject to the intervention of official censorship
Censorship in Communist Romania
Censorship in Communist Romania was widespread and virtually every published document, be it a newspaper article or a book, had to pass the censor's approval...
. In 1988, its publishing of Ana Blandiana
Ana Blandiana
Ana Blandiana is a Romanian poet, essayist, and political figure. She took her name after Blandiana, near Vinţu de Jos, Alba County, her mother's home village.-Literary career:...
's poems, which featured allusions to the communist system, resulted in culturally repressive measures personally ordered by President
President of Romania
The President of Romania is the head of state of Romania. The President is directly elected by a two-round system for a five-year term . An individual may serve two terms...
and Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
leader Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
. Editura Ion Creangă survived the 1989 Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
, but was no longer able to compete with rival companies. It effectively ceased its activity during 2003.
Beginnings and consolidation
Founded in 1969, the publishing house established its reputation during the following two decades. Among its early employees were poet Gheorghe Zarafu, who presided over the enterprise for a while in the 1970s, and writer Tiberiu Utan, who was himself manager of the group in the same decade. Writer and translator Adrian Solomon argued that, "with a few obnoxious exceptions", Editura Ion Creangă mostly published works which generally avoided or went beyond the propagandaPropaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
characteristics found in Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
literature aimed at adults. According to his assessment, while some of the books issued preferred for publishing aimed at attacking "bourgeois" society, even they were ambiguous and may not have contributed to indoctrination beyond the facade aspects.
From early on, the publishing house became an important venue for the Romanian school of book illustration. According to visual artist and journalist Cristiana Radu, the company stood for a "richer and more colorful" tradition of visual art for children, which "paradoxically" thrived under the communist period. In her assessment: "Perhaps also because reality was grayer and more deprived of visual stimuli, the books themselves worked as aesthetic markers. The books which have lit my childhood often crossed the borders, were taken into consideration by foreign editors, reaching countries such as France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. During those years, Romania was the country of its area with the richest tradition in this field." Writing in 2007, Arina Stoenescu, herself an illustrator, recalled the contributions of Rusz, Munteanu and Taru as a defining element of her own childhood reading experience. She argued: "The logotype of Ion Creangă Publishing House became a well known symbol, the distinguishing mark of many books with excellent pictures."
Enlisted by Utan, Rusz contributed drawings to reprints of classical works for children in Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
, such as Nicolae Constantin Batzaria
Nicolae Constantin Batzaria
Nicolae Constantin Batzaria, Besaria, Basarya or Bazaria , was a Macedonian-born Aromanian cultural activist, Ottoman statesman and Romanian writer...
's Poveşti de aur ("Golden Stories") and Creangă's collected fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s and Childhood Memories
Childhood Memories (Creangă)
Childhood Memories is one of the main literary contributions of Romanian author Ion Creangă...
. The latter edition is deemed "legendary" by author György Györfi-Deák. After 1971, the company also issued Caseta cu bucurii ("A Caseful of Joys" or "My Bedtime Library"), the main works for children by Emil Gârleanu, with illustrations by Ileana Ceauşu-Pandele.
Some projects of the period recovered the legacy of Romanian Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. One notable Editura Ion Creangă edition was Iordan Chimet
Iordan Chimet
Iordan Chimet was a Romanian poet, children's writer and essayist, whose work was inspired by Surrealism and Onirism. He is also known as a memoirist, theater, art and film critic, book publisher and translator...
's Cele 12 luni ale visului. O antologie a inocenţei ("The 12 Months of Dreaming. An Anthology of Innocence"), noted for revisiting the Surrealists' visual vocabulary and for subverting the official communist take on culture. In 1979, another acclaimed edition reissued Apolodor the Penguin by 1940s Surrealist Gellu Naum
Gellu Naum
Gellu Naum was a prominent Romanian poet, dramatist, novelist, children's writer, and translator. He is remembered as the founder of the Romanian Surrealist group...
, with drawings by Dan Stanciu.
In addition to encouraging artistic expression in regular book illustration, Editura Ion Creangă played a part in promoting Romanian comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
authors. Among them was Sandu Florea
Sandu Florea
Sandu Florea is a Romanian-American comic book and comic strip creator, also known as an inker and book illustrator. A trained architect and a presence on the science fiction scene during the 1970s, he became a professional in the comics genre with albums such as Galbar, and was allegedly the only...
, known for his work in science fiction comics, and who allegedly became the first local comics author to make a living exclusively from his art. In 1974, Ion Creangă also published Mircea Possa's Titilică, băiat fără frică ("Titilică, a Fearless Boy"), which some regard as one of the best Romanian comic books in its generation.
Translation projects
A significant portion of the group's activities was dedicated to translations from foreign literature, some of which marked important moments in local editorial history. Such milestones included several editions of Leon LeviţchiLeon Levitchi
Leon Leviţchi was a Romanian philologist and translator who specialised in the study of the English language and literature...
's translation from Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
's Gulliver
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
, called "without doubt the best of all [Romanian Gulliver editions] so far" by scholar Mihaela Mudure, as well as Wilhelm Hauff
Wilhelm Hauff
Wilhelm Hauff was a German poet and novelist.-Early life:Hauff was born in Stuttgart, the son of August Friedrich Hauff, a secretary in the ministry of foreign affairs, and Hedwig Wilhelmine Elsaesser Hauff...
's Märchen (Basme, illustrated by Rusz) and, in a "richly illustrated edition" of 1978, J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
's Peter and Wendy
Peter and Wendy
Peter and Wendy, published in 1911, is the novelisation by J. M. Barrie of his most famous play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up...
(translators Ovidiu Constantinescu and Andrei Bantaş
Andrei Bantas
Andrei Bantaş was a Romanian dictionary author, translator and teacher. He was Professor of English language and literature at the University of Bucharest, Romania....
). Also noted were its luxury edition of Gargantua and Pantagruel
Gargantua and Pantagruel
The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel is a connected series of five novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It is the story of two giants, a father and his son and their adventures, written in an amusing, extravagant, satirical vein...
, issued in collaboration with the Sibiu
Sibiu
Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...
typography Arta Grafică, and a 1978 version of Ugo Scotti Berni's La promessa sposa di Pinocchio. The company also ran a special paperback series, Poveşti nemuritoare ("Immortal Tales"), which, in addition to Romanian folklore, introduced the public to samples of foreign legends, including Turkish
Turkish folklore
The tradition of folklore—folktales, jokes, legends, and the like—in the Turkish language is very rich, and is incorporated into everyday life and events.-Nasreddin Hoca:...
ones. In cooperation with Raduga Publishing House, Editura Ion Creangă also published the Neznaika
Neznaika
Dunno, or Know-Nothing is an anti-hero created by the Soviet children's writer Nikolay Nosov.Dunno, recognized by his bright blue hat, canary-yellow trousers, orange shirt, and green tie, is the title character of Nosov's world-famous trilogy, The Adventures of Dunno and his Friends , Dunno in Sun...
(Habarnam) series by Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
author Nikolay Nosov
Nikolay Nosov
Nikolai Nikolaevich Nosov was a Soviet children's literature writer, the author of a number of humorous short stories, a school novel, and the popular trilogy of fairy tale novels about the adventures of Neznaika and his friends.-Early life:...
(1986).
A notable series inaugurated by the company was the Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
"yellow covers" reader, published as a set of 40 volumes bound in boards and illustrated with copies of the original French lithographs
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
. As noted by Zarafu, management decided in favor of the oldest illustrations only because their copyright had expired. The Verne books were all bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
s by Romanian standards, reportedly selling on average some 200,000 copies per issue.
Among these volumes, linguist Raluca Anamaria Vida chose as a study case Insula misterioasă ("The Mysterious Island
The Mysterious Island
The Mysterious Island is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1874. The original edition, published by Hetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways, though thematically it is...
"), translated by Veronica and Ion Mihăileanu. Contrasting it to previous translations from the 1950s, Vida argued that the Mihăileanus' work was better suited to the original text. She also analyzed the relative liberalization
Liberalization
In general, liberalization refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. In some contexts this process or concept is often, but not always, referred to as deregulation...
that had occurred in the meantime, noting that the new version was more accepting of Verne's references to religion, and lacked the "ridiculous footnotes" which encouraged the reader to interpret the text from a Marxist-Leninist
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
perspective. Also in the "yellow covers" series was Vladimir Colin
Vladimir Colin
Vladimir Colin was a Romanian short story writer and novelist. One of the most important fantasy and science fiction authors in Romanian literature, whose main works are known on several continents, he was also a noted poet, essayist, translator, journalist and comic book author...
's translation of Carpathian Castle
Carpathian Castle
The Carpathian Castle is a novel by Jules Verne first published in 1893.-Title:The original French title was Le Château des Carpathes and in English there are some alternate titles, such as The Castle of the Carpathians, The Castle in Transylvania, and Rodolphe de Gortz; or the Castle of the...
, a book set in Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
and having ethnic Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
among its protagonists. Colin's rendition, in part a retranslation, parted with other Romanian versions. These had noted Verne's use of obscure words to designate places and names as his approximate renditions of Romanian, and had sought to reconstruct them into readable Romanian; instead, Colin preferred to observe the original spelling throughout.
In 1975, Editura Ion Creangă also published the first Romanian version of J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's The Hobbit
The Hobbit
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
, translated from English by Catinca Ralea, and carrying the title O poveste cu un hobbit ("A Story with a Hobbit
Hobbit
Hobbits are a fictional diminutive race who inhabit the lands of Middle-earth in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction.Hobbits first appeared in the novel The Hobbit, in which the main protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, is the titular hobbit...
"). According to journalist Adina Popescu, Ralea's text was "excellent", and the volume itself stood among "the fundamental books of the last generation to have lived its childhood during communism." O poveste cu un hobbit featured original illustrations by Rusz, who relied exclusively on her imagination for depicting the main characters, as the lack of Tolkien editions in Romania made it impossible for her to find other points of visual reference. Her contribution has nevertheless earned her an international profile among Tolkien illustrators.
In additions to adaptations into Romanian, Editura Ion Creangă was noted for a state-assigned translation program into minority languages
Minorities of Romania
Officially, 10.5% of Romania's population is represented by minorities . The principal minorities in Romania are Hungarians and Roma people, with a declining German population and smaller numbers of Poles in Bucovina...
, specifically Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
(for Hungarian-Romanians
Hungarians in Romania
The Hungarian minority of Romania is the largest ethnic minority in Romania, consisting of 1,431,807 people and making up 6.6% of the total population, according to the 2002 census....
) and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
(for German-Romanians
Germans of Romania
The Germans of Romania or Rumäniendeutsche were 760,000 strong in 1930. They are not a single group; thus, to understand their language, culture, and history, one must view them as independent groups:...
). Ion Creangă, Kriterion, Albatros, Facla publishing houses were especially active in fulfilling the growing need for German-language books, in particular by presenting special awards to German authors and translators. These activities also incorporated a political aspect: a 1975 official report on cultural policies, which listed Ion Creangă alongside Editura Dacia
Editura Dacia
Editura Dacia is a publishing house based in Romania, located on Pavel Chinezul Street 2, Cluj-Napoca. Named after the ancient region of Dacia, it was founded in 1969 by a group of Transylvanian intellectuals, and printed works in Romanian, German and Hungarian.According to its official site,...
and Kriterion as the year's most significant contributors to the program, explained the role it had in the "communist education of readers".
The group was also active in circulating translated Romanian works for children within the wider world: from 1971, Caseta cu bucurii and some of Gârleanu's other works were also issued in German, Hungarian, English, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
and Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
. A 1986 Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
edition, titled Mi biblioteca para leer, was published in cooperation with Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
's Editorial Gente Nueva.
Communist pressures and Arpagic scandal
Progressively in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Ion Creangă's projects often stood in contrast with the tightening of political pressures and the economic decline. According to Arina Stoenescu: "By the end of the communist era, when the poor quality of paper and print made the pictures in fiction literature almost unintelligible, the strong colors and powerful black and white illustrations managed to reach the children and offered them a friendlier and happier sight of the world." Looking back on the same interval and the successful Verne collection, writer Ion HobanaIon Hobana
Ion Hobana was a Romanian science fiction writer, literary critic and ufologist...
noted: "In the '80s, reading was the only way to make one's spare time informative and entertaining. Many have [since] forgotten that all they could watch on television amounted to a daily two-hour program, content aside..." In the final decade of communist rule, Editura Ion Creangă published some works of propaganda for the youth, including communist education teaching aides by Tudor Opriş and Maria Obaciu.
Additionally, the publishing house felt the tightening of censorship
Censorship in Communist Romania
Censorship in Communist Romania was widespread and virtually every published document, be it a newspaper article or a book, had to pass the censor's approval...
, a policy encouraged by communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
. A notable incident took place in 1988, when Editura Ion Creangă and poetess Ana Blandiana
Ana Blandiana
Ana Blandiana is a Romanian poet, essayist, and political figure. She took her name after Blandiana, near Vinţu de Jos, Alba County, her mother's home village.-Literary career:...
became involved in a political scandal involving the highest levels of communist power. Having debuted in children's poetry with the fascicle Întîmplări din grădina mea ("Incidents in My Garden"), Blandiana followed up with Alte întîmplări din grădina mea ("Some Other Incidents in My Garden") and Întîmplări de pe strada mea ("Incidents on My Street"). The latter transformed its hero, Arpagic the Cat, into a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
depiction of Ceauşescu, in particular by introducing oblique references to the leader's personality cult and propaganda system. The public followed up on the hint, and a number of clandestine jokes surfacing at the time reportedly referred to Ceauşescu as "Arpagic".
Censors deciphered these messages only after the volume's release, and reported the matter to Ceauşescu personally, leading to an almost complete ban on Blandiana's work. The Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
secret police oversaw further punitive measures, forcing the early retirement of Editura Ion Creangă's chief manager Viniciu Gafiţa and moving proofreader Doina Mandaj, stripped of her political position, to the Albatros group. In the short interval before Întîmplări de pe strada mea was withdrawn from shops, rumors spread about the irritation it caused to communist authorities, and, as a consequence, sales increased significantly.
Final years
The publishing house survived the December 1989 RevolutionRomanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
which toppled communism. Around the year 2000, it was managed by poetess Daniela Crăsnaru. It was at the time engaged in the process of recovering anti-communist literature, publishing a diary of Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
imprisonment, by the Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
n author Naum V. Lospa.
The company faced competition from newly-founded independent publishers of children's books, and remained the only publisher in this class to receive subventions from the Ministry of Culture. In 2001, these amounted to 178 million lei
Romanian leu
The leu is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 bani . The name of the currency means "lion". On 1 July 2005, Romania underwent a currency reform, switching from the previous leu to a new leu . 1 RON is equal to 10,000 ROL...
, the 5th largest in this category of sponsorships. A slow privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
process began in 2003, under the watch of the Agency for the Recovery of State Assets. Editura Ion Creangă effectively closed down, even though the privatization monitoring case was only sealed in November 2009.
Comparing the book illustration scene at Ion Creangă with the post-1989 situation, Cristiana Radu contended that new publishers resorted to "traditional, tame and descriptive variants" or "the Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
solution", while the public was left without "visual education". In later years, Editura Ion Creangă editions became involved in debates about intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
and copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
in respect to communist-era works. Humanitas consortium
Humanitas publishing house
Humanitas is an independent Romanian publishing house, founded on February 1, 1990 in Bucharest by the philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu...
released, in 2003 and 2010, new versions of Nosov's Habarnam; a controversy was sparked when Humanitas demanded the closure of Romania's Nosov fansite
Fansite
A fansite, fan site, or fanpage is a website created and maintained by a fan or devotee interested in a celebrity, thing, or a particular cultural phenomenon...
, which, claiming that the communist copyright law was void, had digitized the 1986 edition.