Journal of Danubian Studies and Research, Vol 2, No 2 (2012)

Abstract

Mihail Sebastian – the Romanian writer of Jewish origin - lived in one of the most
tumultuous and frustrating periods of history, the two world wars, marked by deep social and political
changes, and, last but not least, by psychological ones. He was part of a generation who experienced
an age of profound changes, when instability, insecurity and alienation were the factors that led to
analyzing the inner world. Mihail Sebastian was destined to be “the child of suffering”, according to a
wrong mentality induced against the Semitic community along the time; and thus, his life took the
shape of his destiny. Undoubtedly, Joseph Hechter’s (his real name) childhood was frustrating, the
writer often evoking it as a troubled childhood, which was to mark him for the rest of his life; Mihail
Sebastian recognized the enormous inferiority complex that the “lost” child had because of his
Hebrew identity. That is why, Sebastian aspired to re-create a painful reality through art; his work
tried a solution, a version of an autobiography marked by the awareness of loss. As far as his birth
place is concerned (the city of Braila, on the Danube river), for Sebastian it represented a “mythic
geography”. “Jewish, Romanian and Danubian” is how the writer named himself or “the most
Romanian Jewish”. Therefore, we can talk about Sebastian’s triple identity: Romanian, Jewish and
writer of the Danube.