Liviu Rebreanu’s 1922 novel Pădurea Spânzuraţilor is dedicated to
his brother Emil. It was partly inspired
by Emil’s execution for spying and desertion during the First World War while
serving in the Austro-Hungarian army. His
death is paralleled by the fate of the main character, Apostol Bologa.
Bologa is a Romanian fighting for Austria,
a subject in its sprawling multi-ethnic empire.
Many serving in its army had divided loyalties, pitted against soldiers
from the same background but on the other side (Romania fought the Central
Powers off and on during the conflict).
Born in Transylvania – then Hungarian, later ceded to Romania under the
provisions of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon – Bologa finds himself in the war more
or less by accident, to impress a young lady, and possessing no strong
patriotic motives.
The titular forest of the hanged is
a dark foreboding place where executions are conducted, the bodies left as a
warning to others. The novel opens with
Bologa participating in a military tribunal and the subsequent hanging of a
Czech officer, and ends with his own, giving the narrative a circular
structure. Initially he considers he is
doing his duty, even exceeding it by testing the rope for the Czech’s
execution. Yet witnessing the death
starts Bologa on a journey of introspection.
He is not a physical coward and is
wounded in action, his convalescence giving him time for reflection. Coming to doubt his previous certainties, he
realises he could easily do what the Czech officer did in the same
circumstances. He acknowledges the
pointlessness of war, and asks himself precisely what cause he is fighting for
when people are all the same under the skin.
Unfortunately, deciding on a course of action is not easy. He is an intellectual who is contemplative by
nature and slow to reach conclusions, hence the novel charts at length his
struggle to reconcile his duty with his moral sense.
Transferred to the Romanian front, these
reflections become urgent. He finds he
has more in common with those he is facing than with those he serves. For the Austro-Hungarian high command there
is no problem sending ‘their’ Romanians to fight soldiers of the same ethnicity
because they should be loyal to the emperor, but as he faces his fellow
Romanians, Bologa’s sense of priorities shifts, reaching crisis point when he
is again ordered to sit on a tribunal, holding life and death in his
hands. Appalled at the prospect, he walks
haphazardly towards the Romanian lines, with severe consequences.
This is not a novel about armies in
battle, rather it charts Apostol’s inner turmoil. It is a spiritual battle, as evinced by
Biblical echoes. God is a constant
reference: Apostol’s name is derived from apostolic; three men protesting their
innocence are hanged on Easter Monday, with orders given for their bodies to
hang for three days; twelve alleged deserters are caught in the woods; there
are numerous references to lightness and darkness. Rebreanu sees Bologa as a martyr, thereby
exonerating his own brother Emil, as he explores the multiplicity of motives
that take men to war, and the multiplicity of emotions they feel when they are
there.
