Cioran manuscripts, donated to Romanian Academy

Their buyer, businessman George Brailoiu, was awarded the “Academic Merit” distinction for his decision.

The businessman George Brailoiu, who bought the lot of manuscripts and documents which belonged to Emil Cioran, put on auction last week in Paris, announced yesterday he would donate them to the Romanian Academy.

“I considered that these manuscripts should be in the possession of the Romanian Academy, which has the duty of preserving the Romanian language,” George Brailoiu argued, in the press conference organized, yesterday, at the Academicians’ Club, at the Romanian Academy. “I know you want to find out the inner motivation for my gesture, so take as it a symbolic gesture at a time when we all need symbols,” Brailoiu further stated, adding that in the following days he would finalize the transport papers for the collection. Yesterday, Brailoiu was also awarded the “Academic Merit”, the greatest distinction of the Romanian Academy, in a festive session meant to mark the centenary of Emil Cioran’s birth.

“I believe Mr. Brailoiu’s gesture is an exceptional one in contemporary Romanian society, where there’s no shortage of bad news. It was an extraordinary piece of news, which delighted everyone, the fact that a businessman spent a good deal of money to bring Cioran’s manuscripts back home,” academy member Eugen Simion stated. According to the latter, it was already announced that these manuscripts would be reproduced in facsimile, as Eminescu’s manuscripts, and published in a limited edition, at the Academy’s expense. In turn, the academician Marius Sala stated that Brailoiu’s only condition regarding the donation to the Academy was that he too should receive a copy of Cioran’s manuscripts.

Brailoiu was asked whether he intended to buy Cioran’s French notebooks as well, but Eugen Simion answered, on his behalf: “The French won’t part with them”. George Brailoiu, a 42-year-old lawyer, bought, via his company, KDF Energy, the entire lot of 123 manuscripts and personal documents which belonged to Emil Cioran, at the end of the Paris auction organized by Binoche & Giquello, offering the entire amount reached adding up the bids made for every individual item – EUR 406,000, taxes not included, that is, a total EUR 507,500. Brailoiu subsequently stated, for the media, he would donate the collection to the Romanian state, arguing he was “a fan of Cioran’s work and wanted the documents should be brought back home and become a part of the national heritage”. The company KDF was founded in 2002 and is, at present, the leader of the Romanian carbon emission certificates market.

Fraud accusations

However, yesterday the Romanian film director Sorin Iliesiu made some shocking accusations regarding Cioran’s manuscripts, saying for inpolitics.ro that the recent auction has been ‘a true fraud, as Cioran archive had been in Romania for decades and not in France. “The recent sold objects were not given by Cioran to Tacous, as media speculates, but they have been always in Romania in the house of Cioran’s brother, in Sibiu,” said Iliesiu, who added that, at least, the collection was in the country in 2008. Iliesiu, who is the author of the “Apocalypse according to Cioran” movie, expressed intention to notice the Prosecutor’s office on the matter.