Tristan Tzara (Sami Rosenstock a.k.a. Samuel Rosenstock) (April 16,
1896 – December 25, 1963) was a
Romanian poet and essayist. He was one of the founders of the Dada
movement, known best for his manifestos. He was a collaborator with Marcel Janco. It is
speculated that the word "Dada" comes from the Romanian "Yes, yes" and is thus originated from Tzara and Janco's contributions.
It is more commonly believed Tzara picked a random word out of a French dictionary and got "Dada", a child's word for a
hobby horse.
Tristan Tzara in 1919
Life and work
Tzara was born in Moineşti, Bacău Province,
Romania to a family of Jewish Romanians. Tzara wrote the first Dada
texts, La Première Aventure céleste de Monsieur Antipyrine (The First Heavenly Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine)
(1916), Vingt-cinq poèmes (Twenty-Five Poems)
(1918) [1], and the movement's manifestos, Sept manifestes Dada (Seven
Dada Manifestos) (1924).
In Paris he engaged in tumultuous activities with Dadaists André Breton, Philippe
Soupault, and Louis Aragon to shock the public and to disintegrate the structures of
language.
In 1925 married at Stockholm the Swedish painter Greta Knutson(1899 - ),with whom would have a son , Christophe , born in 1927. The couple got divorced during
the war in 1942
In late 1929, weary of nihilism and destruction, he joined his
friends in the activities of Surrealism. He devoted much of his time to the reconciliation of
Surrealism and Marxism and joined the French Communist
Party in 1937. He was active in the French
Resistance movement during World War II. He left the Communist Party in
1956, in protest against the Soviet quelling of the
Hungarian Revolution.
His political commitments brought him closer to his fellow human beings, and he gradually became a lyrical poet. His poems
revealed the anguish of his soul, caught between revolt and wonderment at the daily tragedy of the human condition. His later works started with L'Homme
approximatif (The Approximate Man) (1931), and continued with Parler seul (Speaking Alone) (1950), and La Face intérieure (The Inner Face) (1953). In these, the scrambled
words of Dada were replaced with a difficult but humanized language. He died in Paris and was interred there in the
Cimetière du Montparnasse.
See also
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
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Audio
A French-language interview with Tzara recorded in 1959 can be heard on the audio CD Futurism & Dada Reviewed and a
1948 reading by Tzara of his poem Pour compte on the audio CD Voices of Dada.
Pour compte, as well as L'amiral cherche une maison à louer and Dada into Surrealism can also be found
online at Ubu Web.
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