VERSCHAEVE, CYRIEL. - Flemish priest and spiritual poet, b. at Ardooie (West Flanders) on 30 April 1874, d. in exile at Hall (Tyrol) on 8 November 1949.
He did 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 under the direct influence of Gezelle (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 story of his life becomes one with that of his thought and his writings. Already during the First World War he had been the support of the Flemish soldiers mistreated behind the lines by their own officers; between the two wars Flemish youth drew from his writings and his speeches the ideal of a religious and moral, spiritual and cultural, social and national "risorgimento." In the Second World War, out of pure idealistic fervor, he fought resolutely against the enemies of his unrecognized people and of the Church threatened by atheistic communism. The Belgian military court ignominiously condemned 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 many works (poems, dramas, essays, lectures) ceaselessly scrutinize the mystery of the human being, torn between his passions for greatness and for wretchedness, and yet touched by the divine breath. His personal meditation, fertilized by the continuous study of the great spirits of humanity, sought to penetrate the mystery with a synthesis of speculation and feeling. His language is of a rare richness. Despite his faults, V. remains the genius who illuminates his century and his people.