Mircea Streinul (2 January 1910 – 17 April 1945) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian prose writer and poet.
Born in Cuciurul Mare, in the Bukovina region, his parents were the Romanian Orthodox priest Gavril Streinul and his wife Olimpia (née ÃÂandru). He attended primary school in his native village. From 1920 to 1928, he studied at Aron Pumnul High School in CernÃÂuÃÂi, the capital of the region, which had meanwhile become part of Romania. While there, he was a member of the SteluÃÂa cultural society and managed the school magazine, Ecoul tinerimii. With three classmates, he published the single number of Caietul celor patru magazine. In 1929, he entered the theology faculty of CernÃÂuÃÂi University, graduating in 1934. While a student, he contributed to the local publications Tribuna, Spectatorul, Munca intelectualÃÂ, Evenimentul, Glasul Bucovinei and Junimea literarÃÂ.
In 1931, he and four colleagues founded the Iconar group; together with I. Vesper, he established a publishing house with the same name that put out some 30 volumes of poetry in 1933âÂÂ1934. The mission of the press and the magazine (also called Iconar) was to promote Bukovina's new literature, a synthesis of tradition and modernity. In 1935, he became ill with tuberculosis. From 1937 to 1938, he lived in the national capital Bucharest, where he edited the Iron Guard-affiliated newspaper Buna Vestire. Back at CernÃÂuÃÂi from 1938 to 1940, he led Suceava newspaper, was press adviser for ÃÂinutul Suceava and vice president of the Bukovina Writers' Society. In 1940, he was a clerk in the Propaganda Ministry. As his disease worsened, he was obliged to stay at Filantropia Hospital and, from 1944, at the Filaret Sanatorium; he died the following April.
His first book, Carte de iconar (1933), included poems; this was followed by other short verse collections: Itinerar cu anexe în vis (1934), Tarot sau CÃÂlÃÂtoria omului (1935), Divertisment (1936), Zece cuvinte ale fericitului Francisc de Assisi (1936), Comentarii lirice la "Poeme într-un vers" de Ion Pillat (1937) and Corbul de aur (1938). In 1939, he collected the previous decade's work into Opera liricÃÂ. Shifting toward prose, he published the novella Aventura domniÃÂoarei Zenobia Magheru (1938), followed by the novels Ion Aluion (1938, reissued in 1941 as Somnul negru), Lupul din ÃÂara HuÃÂulilor (1939), Guzli sau Tsu-Tsui (1939), ViaÃÂa în pÃÂdure (1939), Drama casei Timoteu (1941), PrÃÂvÃÂlia diavolului (1942), Soarele rÃÂsare noaptea (1943) and BÃÂieÃÂi de fatà(1944).
His lyric verse was replete with myth, reflecting a pantheistic vision close to that of Lucian Blaga, but more obsessed with the oneiric, hallucinatory and obsessed with death, recording visions in a manner reminiscent of Rainer Maria Rilke and Georg Trakl. He translated from the latter as Cele patru poeme în prozàale austriacului Georg Trakl (1939). His early prose features sharply drawn evocations of rural life in Bukovina, evolving toward tragic depictions of fates determined by World War I and a Fyodor Dostoyevsky-like psychological analysis. In his later novels, Streinul added a fantastic-grotesque dimension.
He was a contributor to Capricorn, Azi, Frize, MeÃÂterul Manole, Gândirea, Universul literar, Revista FundaÃÂiilor Regale and Vremea. He authored an anthology, PoeÃÂi tineri bucovineni (1938), and a libretto for Paul Constantinescu's opera MeÃÂterul Manole. He won the Romanian Writers' Society Prize in 1935.