Moldovan writer passes away

Chisinau, 13 September /MOLDPRES/ - Poet, essayist, publicist, translator, eminent man of culture, holder of the Mihai Eminescu medal Anatol Gugel died at the age of 100 years today morning.  

Anatol Gugel was born in a family of a lawyer in Iasi, Romania, on 6 April 1922. His father died of typhus and his mother returned to Chisinau to her parents with the small six-month old child. Gugel studied at the Chisinau-based B.P. Hasdeu lyceum, where he formed a friendship with the future writer, Alexandru Cosmescu. Anatol Gugel passed his baccalaureate examinations in 1941. After the finishing of the lyceum, he continued the education at the Pedagogical Institute from Chisinau in 1945. In the beginning of the World War II, Gugel was evacuated along with the institute to Buguruslan (Russia), where he continued his education. After the graduation of the institute, in 1944, Gugel returned to Chisinau and starting from the spring of 1945 till present, he dedicated himself to the writing.          

In 1997, along with philologist Efim Levit and musicologist Efim Tcaci, Anatol Gugel became one of the founders of the Democratic Antifascist Alliance from Moldova. He participated in the compilation of four collections of documents about the history of the Holocaust from Moldova. He was editor founder of the culture magazine of the union of Jewish organizations from Moldova (2001) Nu vom uita! (We will not forget!). Four numbers of the Russian-Romanian bilingual magazine were edited.

Anatol Gugel debuted with poems in the Licurici magazine of the Chisinau-based B.P. Hasdeu Lyceum from Chisinau in March 1940.

He became member of the Moldovan Writers’ Union (USM) in 1946. Anatol Gugel was awarded the Mihai Eminescu medal in 1998 and the USM’s Prize of Excellence in 2004.