Alexis Nour (Romanian pronunciation: [aˈleksis ˈno.ur]; born Alexei V. Nour, also known as Alexe Nour, Alexie Nour, As. Nr.;[1] Russian: Алексе́й Ноур, Aleksey Nour; 1877–1939) was a Bessarabian-born Romanian journalist, activist and essayist, known for his advocacy of Romanian-Bessarabian union and his critique of the Russian Empire, but also for controversial political dealings. Oscillating between socialism and Russian nationalism, he was noted as founder of Viaţa Basarabiei gazette. Eventually affiliated with Romania's left-wing form of cultural nationalism, or Poporanism, Nour was a long-term correspondent of the Poporanist review Viaţa Românească. Publicizing his conflict with the Russian authorities, he settled in the Kingdom of Romania, where he openly rallied with the Viaţa Românească group.
During World War I, Nour agitated against any military alliance between Romania and Russia. He stood out among Germanophiles and local supporters of the Central Powers, agitating in favor of a military offensive into Bessarabia, and demanding the annexation of Transnistria. This combative stance was later overshadowed by revelations that Nour was spying for Russia's intelligence service, the Okhrana.
Still active as an independent socialist in Greater Romania, Alexis Nour won additional fame as an advocate of human rights, land reform, women's suffrage and Jewish emancipation. During the final decade of his life, Nour also debuted as a novelist, but did not register significant success. His late contributions as a Thracologist were received with skepticism by the academic community.
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The future journalist, born in Russian-held Bessarabia (the Bessarabia Governorate), was a member of the ethnic Romanian cultural elite, and, reportedly, a graduate of the Bessarabian Orthodox Church Chişinău Theological Seminary.[2][3] According to other sources, he spent his early years in Kiev and graduated from the Pavlo Galagan College.[1] Nour furthered his studies in other regions of the Russian Empire, where he became a familiar figure to those who opposed Tsarist autocracy, and exchanged ideas with radical young men of various ethnic backgrounds.[3] He is known to have studied Philology at Kiev University, where he affiliated with the underground Socialist-Revolutionary (Eser) Party, probably infiltrated in its ranks by the Okhrana.[2]
Nour's return to Bessarabia followed the Russian Revolution of 1905 and subsequent reforms, including the legalization of mainstream political parties. He switched his allegiance, and joined the local section of the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party, the leading force in Russian liberalism. It was during this time that he became correspondent for the Kadet tribune Besarabskaya Zhizn', a member of the Kadet bureau in Bessarabia, and the private assistant of regional party boss Leopold Sitsinski.[1] Nour was soon expelled from the Kadet group (reportedly, for having pocketed some of the party's funds) and began frequenting the political clubs of Romanian nationalists.[2]
In 1906, Nour was affiliated with Basarabia, the short-lived Romanian-language newspaper which represented the platform of ethnic Romanian intellectuals in the region, and which was closed down by Imperial Russian censorship.[4][5] The short-lived periodical, financed by sympathizers from the Kingdom of Romania (including politician Eugeniu Carada), was pushing the envelope on the issue of Romanian emancipation and trans-border brotherhood, beyond what the 1905 regime intended to allow.[6] In his first-ever article for the review, Alexis Nour suggested that the regional movement for national emancipation still lacked a group of intellectual leaders, or "elected sons", capable of forming a single Romanian faction in the State Duma.[7] Despite such setbacks and the continued spread of illiteracy, Nour contended, Bessarabia's Romanians were more attached to the national ideal, and more politically motivated, than their brethren in Romania-proper.[7]
The following year, in April, Nour himself launched, sponsored and edited the political weekly Viaţa Basarabiei, distinguished for having discarded the antiquated Romanian Cyrillic in favor of a Latin alphabet, wishing to make itself accessible to readers in the Kingdom of Romania; an abridged, "people's" version of the gazette was also made available as a supplement, for a purely Bessarabian readership.[8] As later attested by Bessarabian Romanian activist Pan Halippa (founder, in 1932, of the similarly titled magazine), his predecessor Nour had tried to emulate the Basarabia program of popular education in Romanian, with the ultimate goal of ethnic emancipation.[5] In his capacity as editor in chief, Nour joined Gheorghe V. Madan, publisher of Moldovanul newspaper, in inaugurating the Chişinău-based Orthodox Church printing press, which began publishing a Bessarabian Psalter during spring 1907.[9]
Also described as one of the journals whose mission was to popularize the Constitutional Democratic program inside the Bessarabia Governorate,[10] Viaţa Basarabiei only survived until May 25, 1907, publishing six issues in all.[11] Reportedly, its demise happened on Russian orders, after Nour's editorial line had found itself in conflict with the censorship apparatus.[5]
By then, Nour had also become regional correspondent for Viaţa Românească, a magazine published in the Kingdom of Romania by a left-wing group of writers and activists, the Poporanists. From 1907 to 1914, his column Scrisori din Basarabia ("Letters from Bessarabia") was the prime source of Bessarabian news for newspapers on the other side of the Russian border.[1] It mainly informed Romanians on the state of mind and political climate of Bessarabia following the First Duma election.[10] Initially, they describe 1907 Bessarabia with noted regret, as the place where "nothing happens", in contrast with a more politically oriented Romania, where the Peasants' Revolt had seemingly radicalized public opinion.[12] Nour also questioned the national sentiment of Bessarabia's landowning elite, which had largely been integrated into Russian nobility and served Imperial interests.[12] In December 1908, he reported with enthusiasm that the Bessarabian Orthodox clergy upheld the use of Romanian ("Moldavian") in its religious schools and press. The measure, Nour noted, gave formal status to the vernacular, in line with his earlier efforts at Viaţa Basarabiei.[13]
Additionally, Nour's Viaţa Românească articles played a part in unmasking his former journalist colleague Madan, the newly appointed censor of Romanian literature within the Russian Empire, as a Russian spy in Bessarabia and Romania.[14] In his reply, published by the Bucharest-based political gazette Epoca in September 1909, Madan claimed that Nour was at once a socialist, an internationalist and a follower of Constantin Stere's Bessarabian separatism.[15] Later research into Special Corps of Gendarmes archives identified Madan as the informant who provided the Imperial authorities with first-hand reports on the perception of Bessarabian issues in Romania, including on Nour's own 1908 article on the Orthodox priests' support for the vernacular.[13] However, the Romanian elite also took distance from Nour, even before 1910. As argued by activist Ion Pelivan, the publicist was living far beyond his means, raising concern that he was receiving payments from the Russian authorities.[2]
Alexis Nour was, between June 1910 and August 1911, the editor of his own press venue, the Russian-language newspaper Bessarabets (which also published a literary supplement).[1][16] The paper had a small circulation, and was entirely financed by the local magnate Vasile Stroiescu.[2] Nour's own literary contributions included translations from Russian classics. One such rendition from Leo Tolstoy, dating from around 1909, was one of the few Romanian-language books to see print in the Bessarabia Governorate before World War I.[17] Beyond the political notices, Viaţa Românească published samples of Nour's literary efforts, including memoirs, sketch stories and novellas.[1]
When the Bessarabets venture came to an end, Nour was again employed by Besarabskaya Zhizn', before switching to the controversial gazette Drug, representing the far right of Tsarism.[18] Associating with the ultra-conservative and antisemitic editor, Pavel Krushevan, Nour became the editorial secretary, and even joined up with the ultra-nationalist Union of the Russian People.[19] With other members of the editorial board, he was soon after involved in a regional press scandal. Nour himself was suspected of having blackmailed Dimitrie Krupenski and Roman Doliwa-Dobrowolski, Marshals of Nobility in Bendery and Orgeyev respectively. When Doliwa-Dobrowolski sued Drug and the other journalists were rounded up for questioning, Nour fled back to Kiev.[19] Probably helped along by his Okhrana contacts, he obtained a passport, and exiled himself from Russia.[19] After spending some time in the German Empire, he left for Romania, and, with Constantin Stere's help, enlisted as a student at the University of Iaşi.[19]
Soon after the outbreak of World War I, Alexis Nour was residing in neutral Romania, active within the Viaţa Românească circle from his new home in Iaşi.[20] Like other members of this group (and primarily its founder Stere), he campaigned in favor of rapprochement with the Central Powers, recommending a war on Russia for the recovery of Bessarabia.[21] Nour thought further than his colleagues, speculating about an alliance of interests between Romanians and Ruthenians (Ukrainians). His essay Problema româno-ruteană. O pagină din marea restaurare a naţiunilor ("The Romanian-Ruthenian Issue. A Page from the Great Restoration of Nations"), published by Viaţa Românească in its October–November–December 1914 issue, inaugurated a series of such pieces, which talked about Ukraine's emancipation, the Bessarabian union, and, unusually in this context, the incorporation of Transnistria into Romania (with a new frontier on the Southern Bug).[22]
The latter demand was without precedent in the history of Romanian nationalism,[19] and Nour is even credited with having coined the term Transnistria in modern parlance, alongside the adjective transnistreni ("Transnistrians").[1] Elsewhere, Nour argued that there were over 1 million transnistreni Romanians, a claim which endured as one of the largest, directly above the 800,000 advanced by Bessarabian historian Ştefan Ciobanu.[23] The only larger such estimate came, twenty years after Nour's, from within the Transnistrian community of exiles: ethnographer Nichita Smochină claimed a figure of 1,200,000.[24]
Another one of Nour's analytical texts, titled Din enigma anilor 1914—1915 ("Around the Enigma of 1914—1915"), ventured to state that the German Empire and its allies were poised to win the war, ridiculed the Entente's Gallipoli Campaign, and suggested that a German-led Mitteleuropean federation was in the making.[25] This prognosis also offered a reply to the pro-Entente lobby, who prioritized the annexation of Transylvania and other Romanian-inhabited regions of Austria-Hungary over any national project in Bessarabia. In Nour's interpretation, the German project for Mitteleuropa amounted to the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary, leaving Transylvania free to elect in favor of joining Romania.[26]
Also in 1915, Nour designed and published in Bucharest an ethnographic map of Bessarabia on a scale of 1:450,000. Building on a cartographic model first used by Zsigmond Bátky in his "Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen" ethnographic map and later adapted to the Balkans by Jovan Cvijić, Nour's map divided the regions depicted into communal entities, represented as pie charts of the various nationalities.[27] The resulting majority (2 out of 3 million inhabitants) was Romanian, with a note explaining that these were known locally as "Moldovans"—being Nour's contribution to the debate on Moldovan ethnicity.[19] Beyond Bessarabia, Nour's map states a claim about the Romanians of Transnistria, including their presence in a locality named Nouroaia.[19]
The pie-chart procedure as a whole was criticized by French geographer Emmanuel de Martonne, who viewed it as inaccurate in rendering the comparative numerical force of the individual populations.[27] Martonne stated having personally verified the accuracy of Nour's map at some point before 1920, and concluded: "Although it is not exempt from all criticism, it is generally as exact as is permitted by the Russian documents on which it bases itself. As is the case with [Bátky's data on the Romanians in] Hungary, one presumes that any error is to the disfavor of Romanians."[28] Bessarabian historian Ion Constantin sees the map as one of Nour's "meritorious" contributions to the cause of Romanian emancipation.[19]
Nour took his ideas outside the Poporanist clubs, and became a contributor to the unofficial Conservative Party press. He became a regular contributor to Petre P. Carp's newspaper pro-Bessarabian and anti-Russian gazette Moldova, which stood by the belief that "Germany is invincible".[29] Nour also expanded on his wartime vision in the Germanophile daily Seara. In 1915, he stated the need for Romania to join the Central Powers' effort of liberating Bessarabia, Ukraine and Poland from Russia, prophesied that Austria-Hungary would inevitably collapse, and depicted future Romania as both a Black Sea and Danubian power.[30] With time, the Bessarabian journalist claimed, the Straits Question would be solved, Romanian rule over Odessa and Constanţa would create commercial prosperity, and Romania, a great power, would be entitled to a share of the British, French or Belgian colonial empires.[30] Another of his Seara articles, published in April 1916, argued that German victory in the Battle of Verdun was a matter of days or weeks, after which Europe would be dominated by an "industrious, healthy and conscious, 70 million-strong" German people.[30] Reviewing Nour's project some 90 years later, historian Lucian Boia assessed: "One finds in Nour the drama of the Bessarabian who assesses all things, often in a purely imaginary pitch, around his own ideal of national emancipation."[30]
Against the wishes of Viaţa Românească Germanophiles, Romania eventually entered the war as an Entente ally, and, in 1917, was invaded by the Central Powers. During these events, Nour was in Iaşi, where the Romanian government had retreated,[31] and whence he made his first contributions to foreign-based magazines.[1] In spring 1917, shortly after the February Revolution toppled the Tsarist regime, his Bessarabian career received full exposure. The committee for exploring the Special Corps of Gendarmes archive made public his reports to the Okhrana, confirming his colleagues' suspicions and exposing Nour to public shame.[19]
Nevertheless, the October Revolution and its aftermath seemed to credit Nour's prophecies: although Romania was losing to the Central Powers, the Moldavian Democratic Republic proclaimed by Bessarabian activists looked set to unite with the defeated country. This was noted at the time by the newly appointed Germanophile Premier of Romania, Alexandru Marghiloman, who credited Nour with having helped revise Romanian foreign policy: "[His] map has since been laid out on all tables of the great European conferences, in all chancelleries, and is the soundest document for those who wish to untangle the matter of Bessarabia's nationalities."[1] In April 1918, Nour was again in Chişinău, celebrating the positive vote on Bessarabia's union. This was a risky gesture on his part: present at Londra Restaurant, where Marghiloman was being greeted by the unionist leaders, he was spotted by his former friends, and only rescued from near-certain lynching by the intervention of outgoing MDR Prime Minister Petru Cazacu.[19]
On June 24, weeks after Romania sued for peace with Germany, Nour inaugurated in Iaşi a new magazine, Umanitatea ("The Human Race" or "The Humanity"), which only published one more issue, on July 14, before closing down.[31] Umanitatea emphasized Nour's leftist projects for social change, and, according to Lucian Boia, offered a reply to Premier Alexandru Marghiloman's promise to reform the 1866 constitutional regime.[32] The magazine's agenda called for a three-pronged reform: labor rights in the industrial sphere, the reestablishment of a landed peasantry, and Jewish emancipation.[31] The latter statement of support, Boia notes, was singular "in the context of a quite pronounced Romanian antisemitism", and further emphasized by the presence of Jewish Romanian intellectuals—Isac Ludo, Eugen Relgis, Avram Steuerman-Rodion etc.—among Umanitatea contributors.[31] Boia also notes that the entire Umanitatea program was another sample of Nour's "great projects, quite nebulous and limitless".[31]
During the interwar period, when different political circumstances resulted in the creation of Greater Romania (including both Bessarabia and Transylvania), Nour remained active on the literary and political scene, and was for a while editor in chief of the mainstream literary magazine Convorbiri Literare.[19][33] He was present in other major literary magazines, including Viaţa Românească and Însemnări Literare, where he mainly published translations from and introductions to Russian literature.[1] By 1925, he was also a contributor to a left-wing literary newspaper based in Bucharest, Adevărul Literar şi Artistic.[1][34] In one of his essays for Convorbiri, he attested that his only son, whom the Russian Civil War had caught at Odessa, was a victim of the Soviet Russian-organized shootings of Romanian hostages. According to Nour's account, the young man had died in a mass execution ordered by Commissar Béla Kun, after being made to dig his own grave.[33] Despite such claims of loyalty, Nour is said to have been the focus of official investigation during a clampdown on wartime Germanophiles.[19]
Alexis Nour centered his subsequent activities in the area of human rights defense and pro-feminism. At a time when Romania lacked women's suffrage, he argued that there was an intrinsic link between the two causes: in a piece published by the feminist tribune Acţiunea Feministă, he explained that his struggle was about gaining recognition for "the human rights of women".[35] According to political scientist Oana Băluţă, Nour's attitude in this respect was comparable to that of another pro-feminist Romanian writer, Alexandru Vlahuţă.[35]
Alexis Nour turned to fiction writing, completing the novella Masca lui Beethoven ("Beethoven's Mask"), first published by Convorbiri Literare in February 1929.[36] One of the last projects to involve Nour was a collaborative fiction work, Stafiile dragostei. Romanul celor patru ("The Ghosts of Love. The Novel of the Four"). His co-authors were genre novelists Alexandru Bilciurescu and Sărmanul Klopştock, alongside advice columnist I. Glicsman, better known as Doctor Ygrec. With its speculative undertones, most of which were introduced in the text by Doctor Ygrec,[37] Stafiile dragostei is sometimes described as a parody of science fiction conventions, in line with similar works by Tudor Arghezi or Felix Aderca (see Romanian science fiction).[38] However, Nour's contribution to the narrative only covers its more conventional and less ambitious episodes, which depict the epistolary novel of a sailor, Remus Iunian, and a recluse beauty, Tamara Heraclide—according to literary critic Cornel Ungureanu: "In the 1930s, everyone wrote epistolary novels and sentimental journals, but the worst would have to be those by Mr. Alexis Nour".[37]
In his final years, Alexis Nour had a growing interest in the Prehistory of Southeastern Europe and the proto-Romanian polity of Dacia. The last two of Nour's scholarly works were published posthumously, in 1941, with a Romanian Orthodox Church publishing house, at a time when Romania was ruled by the fascist National Legionary regime. One was specifically dedicated to, and named after, the little-known "cult of Zalmoxis" (Cultul lui Zalmoxis). University of Turin academic Roberto Merlo notes that it formed part of a Zamolxian "fascination" among Romanian men of letters, also found in the research and essays of various others, from Mircea Eliade, Lucian Blaga and Dan Botta to Henri Sanielevici and Theodor Speranţia.[39] The other study focused on Paleo-Balkan mythology, and in particular on the supposed contributions of ancient Dacians and Getae to Romanian folklore: Credinţe, rituri şi superstiţii geto-dace ("Gaeto-Dacian Beliefs, Rites and Superstitions"). The book was a co-recipient of the Vasile Pârvan Award, granted by the Romanian Academy.[40] The decision was received with indignation by archeologist Constantin Daicoviciu, who deemed Credinţe, rituri şi superstiţii geto-dace unworthy of attention, as an indiscriminate collection of quotes from "authors good and bad", without any "sound knowledge" of its subject.[40]