Corneliu Ungureanu, at the opening of the exhibition 'In the Shadow of Destiny' by the artist Igor Isac, on June 12, 2013. PHOTO: Agerpres
The writer, critic and literary historian Cornel Ungureanu passed away on Wednesday, November 19, informs Agerpres. The President of the Timișoara Branch of the Romanian Writers' Union was 82 years old.
The writer Robert Șerban said, for the quoted press agency, that it is a sad day, because a man whom the entire literary community, not just Banat, has appreciated and known for decades has passed away.
“Mr. Ungureanu was not only a formidable writer, not only an extraordinary critical spirit, but also a generous man, a man who loved literature as few writers do. He was for so many years the president of the Timișoara Branch of the Writers' Union (since 1990, n.ed.) and he was, from my perspective as a younger man, like a father. And not only to my generation, but to the entire literary world in Timișoara. He was a man who capitalized on Banat, who wrote about the Banat cultural world, a man who knew like no one else the literary geography of Romania, a man who put enormous energy and enthusiasm into everything he did”, declared Robert Șerban.
“Every meeting with his lordship was an extremely tonic one, because he never hid the joy of a meeting. And he was, moreover, I think, the man who held the cultural community, not only literary, because his lordship transgressed the arts, he worked as a theater director, he was an extremely good connoisseur of film, visual arts and literature. He was a common good, a common denominator at the same time, in the arts of Banat. The loss of Cornel Ungureanu is irreparable and I think everyone feels how I feel tonight”, said the writer Şerban.
Who was Cornel Ungureanu
Born in Lugoj, on August 3, 1943, Cornel Ungureanu graduated in philology from the Western University of Timișoara, Romanian-German section, in 1965, becoming a doctor in Romanian and comparative literature from the University of Bucharest in 1984.
He was a professor at the Western University of Timișoara, literary critic and historian, literary columnist of “Orizont” magazine starting in 1963. From 1990 he became editor and deputy chief editor of “Orizont” magazine.
He has published over 2,000 articles and studies in the cultural press from Romania, Yugoslavia, Germany.
His research devoted to the literatures of Central Europe was brought together in the volumes “Imediata noastra appiere” (I, 1980; II, 1990) and “Mitteleuropa periferilior” (2002).
Ungureanu is the author of anti-journals: “He died in Tibet” (1998), “Despre regi, saltimbanci i mimuțe” (I, 2001; II, 2003; III, 2004).
Cornel Ungureanu was president of the Management Board of the “Third Europe” Foundation, and his studies were translated in Germany, Hungary, Serbia.
