On Becoming “Princesse Bibesco”: The Intimacy of Modern Identity, Between the Self and the World

• Published in: Primerjalna književnost 2023, Vol.46 (1), p.79-96
• Main Authors: Duţu, Carmen Beatrice, Patraş, Roxana, Patraş, Antonio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; Bibescu, Martha; Censorship; Consciousness; Dictionaries; Exile; French language; Intimacy; Literary canon; Modernism; Modernity; Narratives; Romanian language; Romanian literature; Self concept; Social classes; System theory; Transnationalism; Women; Writers
• ISSN: 0351-1189; 2591-1805
• DOI: 10.3986/pkn.v46.i1.05

With the exception of Eva Behring who does not regard Martha Bibescu (1886–1973) as an “exile writer,” the few dictionaries and lexicons tackling Romanian exile writers only mention this turn-of-the-century Romanian-French woman writer’s name with modest assertiveness. This narrative of her censorship is probably the story of any exile woman writer, yet with a few entanglements created by her special social status (she became a “Princess” by marriage), by her outstanding political allegiances, and by her Bovaric spirit: malicious critics commented that her epitaph is a composition of four personae, none of them authentic. In this article, we present reasons and contexts of/for Martha Bibescu’s exclusion from the Romanian national literary canon. Moreover, assuming “a new geographical consciousness” that might bring to the fore the transnational routes of emancipation, our specific aim in the present article is to move away from the enduring narrative of censorship in Martha Bibescu’s case and to propose her as a candidate figure for a transnational literary canon, forging a specific, modern, intimate écriture. Our stance is that shaping a complex intimacy, in-between the ways of the Self and the ways of the world, represents these women writers’ major contribution to modernity and should be counted as one of the characteristics of modernism.