„Cazul” Bietul Ioanide sau despre receptarea critică în diferite etape ale istoriei literare românești postbelice

This article aims to present some aspects regarding the critical reception of the novel Bietul Ioanide, whose subject is configured in the post-war period. After circulating in typescript, the publication of the novel (Editura de Stat pentru Literatura și Artă, 674 pages, 1953) led to a wave of critical reactions among the followers of socialist realism, followed by a real campaign of denigration.
The 1965 second edition of Bietul Ioanide, with revised critical commentaries and various interpretative keys of a literary and ideological nature, contributed decisively to illustrating the subtle game established by the novelist in the letter addressed to Al. Piru in 1950, in which he claims that eros and not politics is dominant in the novel. Bietul Ioanide is a problematic novel, in which G. Călinescu – starting from a historical event, the evolution of the Legionary Movement in Romania in the years 1938–1941 – questions the credibility of official ideologies. Their representatives acquire unlimited power by resorting to crimes and atrocities against humanity. At the same time, G. Călinescu renounces the prejudice regarding the intimate diary, considered by the writer to be an effeminate and egocentric creation.