Henri Stahl

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Henri Stahl (1877-1942) was a Romanian stenographer and writer. Stahl was the chief stenographer of the Romanian Parliament and in 1908, he created an original system of a stenography, which became the Romanian stenography standard. In 1914, he published the first Romanian "classic science fiction" novel, Un român în lună ("A Romanian on the Moon"). He was the father of Şerban Voinea, an activist of the Romanian Social Democratic Party, of novelist Henriette Yvonne Stahl, and of sociologist Henri H. Stahl.[1]

[edit] Biography

Born to a family of Alsatian and French-Swiss ancestry, Stahl was a student of historian Nicolae Iorga and he kept a good relationship with his professor for all his life.[1][2]

Stahl's first writing was Un român în lună, which he showed to Iorga prior to attempting to publish it. He met Iorga's opposition, who asked him "to forget the moon and stars" and try to write a book using the same style which he used for the first chapter of his book, in which he describes the city of Bucharest.[3] As such, Stahl's literary debut was in 1910 with Bucureştii ce se duc ("Disappearing Bucharest"),[3] a colourful description of people and places from the Romanian capital at the beginning of the 20th century.[4]

Nevertheless, Stahl did publish his science fiction novel, first in 1913 a few chapters in the Victor Anestin's Ziarul Călătoriilor journal, and printed all of them as a single volume in 1914.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Mircea Ioanid, "Oameni care mi-au fost dragi. H. H. Stahl", in Magazin Istoric, November 1995
  2. ^ Nicolae Iorga, Scrisori către Catinica (edited by Andrei Pippidi), Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1991, p. 145
  3. ^ a b c Florin Manolescu, Literatura S.F., Editura Univers, Bucharest, 1980 p. 231-233
  4. ^ (Romanian) Simona Câlţia, "Henri Stahl, Bucureştii ce se duc", in Observator Cultural, Nr.171, May-June 2003