VERSCHAEVE, CYRIEL. – Flemish priest and spiritual poet, born at Ardooie (West Flanders) on 30 April 1874, died in exile at Hall (Tyrol) on 8 November 1949.
He pursued his humanistic and philosophical studies at Roeselare, and his theological studies at Bruges, where he was ordained a priest in 1897. From his youth he was GEZAELLE (v.), Hugo Verriest, and Rodenbach, leaders of the new Flemish generation (“Vlaamse Beweging”). From 1897 to 1911 he was a professor of rhetoric at Tielt, where he published his first literary works. In 1911 V. became assistant parish priest at Alveringhem, and the history of his life became inseparable from that of his thought and writings. Already during the First World War he had been the support of the Flemish soldiers mistreated in the rear by their own officers; between the two wars, Flemish youth drew from his writings and speeches the ideal of a religious and moral, spiritual and cultural, social and national “resurgence.” During the Second World War, impelled by a purely idealistic enthusiasm, he resolutely fought the enemies of his unrecognized people and of the Church threatened by atheistic communism. The Belgian Military Court ignominiously sentenced him to death in 1946. But V. had already fled into exile. V. survives in the esteem of the Flemish people.
V. is essentially “the eagle of greatness.” His numerous works (poems, dramas, essays, lectures) ceaselessly scrutinize the mystery of the human being, stretched between passions for greatness and misery, yet touched by the divine breath. His personal meditation, nourished by the continual study of the great spirits of humanity, sought to penetrate the mystery through a synthesis of speculation and feeling. His language is of rare richness. Despite his defects, V. remains the genius who illustrates his century and his people.