Petre Ţuţea

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Petre Ţuţea (October 6, 1902 - December 3, 1991) was a Romanian philosopher, journalist and economist.

Legendary Romanian philosopher Petre Ţuţea was born in the village of Boteni, Muscel region. His father was a Romanian Orthodox priest and his mother, Ana Ţuţea, was of peasant stock. Ţuţea graduated from the University in Cluj where he also obtained a PhD in Administrative Law. He moved to Bucharest and founded a leftist newspaper, "Stanga" ("The Left"), that was quickly and forcefully closed by the government.

In 1934 Ţuţea and four other writers published a nationalistic program of economic and social development, "Manifestul revolutiei nationale" ("Manifesto for a National Revolution"). Around the same time he met the influential philosopher Nae Ionescu and wrote for his famous newspaper "Cuvântul" along with Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Radu Gyr, Mircea Vulcanescu, Mihail Sebastian and other known writers. He became a sympathizer of the Legionary Movement, a right-wing organization also known as the Iron Guard.

Ţuţea was initially arrested by the Communist regime for 5 years without accusation, released and arrested again in 1956, then tried and sentenced for "Conspiracy against the State" (a standard accusation thrown at many intellectuals) to 18 years of hard labor, of which he served 8 years in various prisons, ending up in the infamous prison of Aiud.

After the release of all political prisoners in 1964, Petre Ţuţea became famous as a socratic type of philosopher. He also started to write books and essays, created an original dramatic form, "Theater as Seminar" and produced a philosophical manifesto, "The Philosophy of Nuances" (1969). Due to censorship very little of his work could be published and virtually nothing appeared after 1972.

Under permanent observation, Ţuţea had many of his manuscripts confiscated by the dreaded Romanian secret police a.k.a. the Securitate. In the late 1980's he started working on a massive unfinished project in five volumes, "Man, a Christian Treatise of Anthropology". After the 1989 uprising Ţuţea received frequent requests from journalists and TV crews for interviews while living for one year with a student in theology, Radu Preda. During the last year of his life, Ţuţea was interned in a Christian hospice, "Christiana", where he passed away of old age.

Petre Ţuţea never saw any of his published books, and many editions from the early 1990's were printed in a hurry by inexperienced editors, who made numerous mistakes. Even today many Romanians believe that he didn't write anything beyond "322 memorable words", a collection of aphorisms that is still in print.

[edit] Significant editions of Ţuţea's books, published in Romanian:

Între D-zeu şi neamul meu ("Between God and my Nation" - an early, fragmentary, very popular collection of interviews. Also contains unreliable editions of various essays)

322 de vorbe memorabile ("322 Memorable Words", a collection of aphorisms collected from interviews, alphabetically ordered by the editor)

Filozofia nuanţelor: Eseuri, Portrete, Corespondenţă ("The Philosophy of Nuances, with other Essays, Portraits and Correspondence)

Aurel-Dragoş Munteanu (a book written in 1972 about the Romanian writer who was one of Ţuţea's best friends, later became a famous dissident and diplomat)

Mircea Eliade (book about Eliade's scholarly, artistic and religious outlook)

Reflecţii religioase asupra cunoaşterii ("Religious Reflections Upon Knowledge", a book on Plato's philosophy seen from a religious point of view)

Lumea ca Teatru: Teatrul Seminar (World as Theatre: Theatre as Seminar)

Omul; Tratat de antropologie creştină (Man: A Treatise of Christian Anthropology - an unfinished project of five volumes, of which the first two are published here: I. Problems, or The Book of Questions; II. Systems or The Books of Logical Wholes - Mathematical and Autonomous, Parallel to Ontic Wholes)