Elena Bacaloglu

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Elena (Hélène) Bacaloglu

Bacaloglu's studio photograph and autographed dedication, 1914
Born 1878
Died 1947 (aged 69)
Bucharest
Occupation journalist, critic, political militant
Nationality Romanian
Period 1903–1923
Genres essay, psychological novel
Literary movement Impressionism

Elena A. Bacaloglu, also known as Bacaloglu-Densusianu, Bacaloglu-Densuşeanu etc. (Francized Hélène Bacaloglu; 1878–1947), was a Romanian journalist, literary critic, novelist and fascist militant. Her career in letters produced an introduction to the work of Maurice Maeterlinck (1903), several other critical essays, and two novels. She married and divorced poet Radu D. Rosetti, and Ovid Densusianu, the Symbolist poet and literary theorist.

Bacaloglu lived most of her later life in Italy, where she affiliated with the literary and political circles. Her subsequent work included campaigns for Pan-Latinism and Romanian irredentism. This second career peaked upon the close of World War I, when Bacaloglu became involved with Italian fascism. Introduced to Benito Mussolini and Benedetto Croce, she helped transplant fascism on Romanian soil. Her National Italo-Romanian Cultural and Economic Movement was a minor and heterodox political party, but managed to earn attention with its advocacy of political violence.

This classical Romanian fascist movement survived the troubles of 1923, but disbanded in 1925, and was entirely eclipsed by the Iron Guard. Shunned by Mussolini, Bacaloglu lived her final decades in relative obscurity. Her fascist ideas were taken up by some in her family, including her brother Sandi and her son Ovid O. Densusianu.

Biography

Early life and literary debut

The Bacaloglus were a family of social and political importance, descending from the Bulgaro-Romanian Ion D. H. Bacaloglu, a recipient of the Order of Saint Stanislaus.[1] The family was first mentioned in Bucharest about 1826, settling in Wallachia as foreign nationals and setting up business as land speculators.[2]

Elena's father was Bucharest civil administrator Alexandru Bacaloglu (1845–1915), related to scientist Emanoil Bacaloglu. He was married to Sofia G. Izvoreanu (1854–1942).[1] Alexandru and Sofia's children, other than Elena, were: Constantin (1871–1942), a University of Iaşi physician; Victor (1872–1945), an engineer, writer and journalist; and George (Gheorghe) Bacaloglu, an artillery officer and literary man.[3] Another brother, lawyer Alexandru "Sandi" Bacaloglu, was less known until a 1923 incident propelled him into the public arena.[4]

Compared to Romanian other women of the fin de siècle, and even to some men, Elena was highly educated, taking her diplomas at the University of Bucharest Faculty of Letters and the Collège de France.[5] It was in Paris (where she was chaperoned by Constantin Bacaloglu) that she met Ovid Densusianu, her future lover.[6] However, her first marriage was to Radu D. Rosetti, a young prosecutor, who was to become a highly successful lawyer and a minor neoromantic poet.[7] They were engaged on December 19, 1896, and had their religious wedding in January of the next year, with politician Nicolae Filipescu as godfather.[8]

The marriage did not last, and the Rosetti–Bacaloglu divorce was registered in 1899.[9] On August 7, 1902,[10] she married Ovid Densusianu, who was fast becoming the theoretical voice of Romanian Symbolism. Historian Lucian Nastasă describes theirs as an odd union. Elena was "extremely beautiful"; Ovid, much less educated than his wife, was also "short and limp".[11] They had a son, Ovid Jr (or Ovid O. Densusianu), born on March 22, 1904.[12]

Bacaloglu's editorial debut was in 1903, when Editura Socec published her monograph Despre simbolizm şi Maeterlinck ("On Symbolism and Maeterlinck").[13] Together with the essays of Alexandru Bibescu (1893) and Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan (1908), it constitutes an early Romanian attempt to define the limits of Symbolism, Decadence and modernity. In Bacaloglu's interpretation, Symbolism and Decadentism were the two sides of a coin: while the Decadents gave voice to the late-19th-century "degeneration" of the Latin race, the Symbolists epitomized the Latin "revival", a triumph of mysteries and metaphysics. Straddling these two eras were Maeterlinck's Hothouses, which she was the first to discuss from a Romanian perspective.[14] According to literary historian Angelo Mitchievici, Despre simbolizm tackles the literary critic's perspective as a "participatory-impressionistic formula, not lacking in refinement".[15]

In 1906, Bacaloglu also published her psychological novel, În luptă ("In Combat"), followed in 1908 by another novelistic work, Două torţe ("Two Torches").[16] Her writing was poorly reviewed by the literary chronicler at Viaţa Românească, who argued that În luptă was impossible to read through.[17] Other magazines, including Noua Revistă Română[18] and Convorbiri Critice,[19] hosted samples of her literary work.

Relocation to Italy

Bacaloglu (back row, marked 5) and the Latina Gens, gathered around Sebastião de Magalhães Lima (1) and Jules Destrée (2), in July 1916

Meanwhile, Bacaloglu had separated from Densusianu, divorcing him in 1904.[20] She spent most of her time in Italy, writing articles for Il Giornale d'Italia, Madame, and the political magazine L'Idea Nazionale.[21] For a few months in 1908, she had an affair with the poet-playwright Salvatore Di Giacomo, whose Assunta Spina she translated for Convorbiri Critice (August 1909).[21] She later married a third time, to an Italian.[22]

In the early 1910s, Bacaloglu was living in Rome, where, in September 1912, she published a monograph about the love affair between Romanian poet Gheorghe Asachi and his Italian muse, Bianca Milesi.[23] She represented Romania at the Castel Sant'Angelo National Exhibit, and, as "Hélène Bacaloglu", gave French-language conferences about Di Giacomo. During the period, she came into conflict with Romanian antiquarian Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş. Mandated by the Romanian government, Tzigara replaced Bacaloglu at the National Exhibit's Romanian Committee. He described Bacaloglu as an illegitimate, self-appointed, representative, and noted that the Italian press also mistrusted her abilities.[24] Bacaloglu presented her own version of the events in a protest to the curators, later published as a brochure.[16]

Her conferences on Di Giacomo were received with more sympathy: Alberto Cappelletti gave them a good review in Il Giorno, and E. Console republished them as a fascicle, but all such collaborations ended abruptly when her collaborators became dissatisfied with her character and the quality of her prose.[25] She still continued to be held in esteem by her Romanian peers and, in 1912, was voted into their Romanian Writers' Society.[9]

Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, Bacaloglu turned to political activism and interventionism, campaigning for still-neutral Romania to join the Entente Powers, and supporting the annexation of Romanian-inhabited Transylvania. To this goal, she published in Bucharest the Italian-language essay Per la Grande Rumania ("For Greater Romania") and the French-language Preuves d'amour. Conférences patriotiques ("Proofs of Love. Patriotic Conferences").[16]

In Bacaloglu's activity, irredentism blended with the cause of Pan-Latinism. She joined the Pan-Latin association Latina Gens, which welcomed in members of all "Latin" nations and worked for the creation of a "Latin federation".[26] Working for this organization, she played a part in the creation of a "Romanian Legion in Italy", grouping Romanians from Transylvania and Italian sympathizers, which fought the Central Powers on the northern Italian front. However, Bacalogu and Latina Gens were not invited at the Legion's founding ceremony, held at Cittaducale in June 1918.[27]

According to Victor Babeş, the Transylvanian doctor and publicist, Elena Bacaloglu was "the great propagandist of Romanianism abroad, and especially so in Italy".[28] The cause of "Greater Romania" fascinated two of Bacaloglu's three brothers: Victor, the author of patriotic plays,[29] created one of the first all-Romanian newspapers in Bessarabia; George fought with distinction during the war of 1916, fulfilled several diplomatic missions, and was later a Prefect of Bihor County, Transylvania.[30] Elena, Constantin and Victor were all correspondents for George Bacaloglu's cultural review, Cele Trei Crişuri, well into the 1930s.[31]

Fascist experiment

One of the first Romanians to gain familiarity with the modern far-right movements in Europe, and, historians assess, driven by an "enormous ambition",[32] Bacaloglu contemplated transplanting Italian fascism into Greater Romania. She returned there and, in 1923, founded the National Italo-Romanian Cultural and Economic Movement (MNFIR), seeking to imitate Benito Mussolini's Fasci Italiani paramilitaries.[33] This project had preoccupied her since 1920, when she presented a proto-fascist appeal to the Italian nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio.[34] Besides Mussolini and d'Annunzio, she addressed Italian journalists Giuseppe Bottai and Piero Bolzon, who agreed to become members of Bacaloglu's Romanian fascist steering committee.[34] At the time, Bacaloglu was also a friend of philosopher and fascist admirer Benedetto Croce, and corresponded with him on a regular basis.[9]

Skeptical at first,[34] Mussolini eventually acknowledged her admiration. He corresponded with Bacaloglu, sending her point-by-point instructions about "Latin expansionism" and about economic cooperation against capitalism. These were made public by Bacaloglu in her brochure Movimento nazionale fascista italo-romeno. Creazione e governo ("National Italo-Romanian Fascist Movement. Creation and Steering"), published in Milan after Mussolini's victorious "March on Rome".[35]

The main difference between the two fascist movements was their attitude on the "Jewish Question": the Italo-Romanian Movement was antisemitic; the original Fasci were not.[36] The goal was supported by other Constantin Bacaloglu, in his work at Iaşi University. Working with the antisemitic opinion leader, A. C. Cuza, he gave endorsement to the rioting students who wanted to expel most of the Romanian Jewish students, and tolerated their use of fascist symbolism.[37] However, according to political scientist Emanuela Costantini, the antisemitic agenda of the Movement was comparatively "moderate"; she highlights instead Bacaloglu's other ideas: "an anti-industrialism in the populist mold", and a version of nationalism heavily inspired by the Action Française.[38]

The Romanian branch of Italian fascism was always minor, and vied for attention with a plethora of paramilitary groups. As suggested by Costantini, it shared their anticommunism and contempt for democracy, but was the only one to be directly inspired by Mussolini's ideology.[39] Only about a hundred people were persuaded to join,[40] even though, as historian Francisco Veiga notes, many represented the more active strata of Romanian society (soldiers, students).[36] Powerful cells gravitated around the University of Cluj (Transylvania)[41] and Constantin Bacaloglu's own Iaşi University.[42] Women themselves were largely absent: still not granted the vote under the 1923 Constitution, they generally preferred enrollment in specifically feminist organizations, and were never popular with the more significant Romanian fascist parties (including, from 1927, the Iron Guard).[43]

1928 manifesto of the National-Christian Defense League, published under the swastika logo. It proclaims: "Romanian brethren! The Land of the Romanians faces a great peril. The kikes, with assistance from Judaized Romanians and the political parties, as tools of the kikes, are gambling with the future of the Country and Folk."

Throughout its short existence, Bacaloglu's association was very vocal in condemning the Romanian status-quo and the Treaty of Versailles. During the early 1920s, Bacaloglu herself denounced Romania's foreign policies in articles she wrote for the Italian newspapers, depicting liberal politicians as lackeys of the French Republic.[44] She believed that the Little Entente, which was partly dedicated to countering Italian irredentism but included Romania, would leave the two countries prey to capitalist and Jewish exploitation.[45] Some reports suggest that the "Romanian fascio" took it upon itself to threaten enemies of the deposed, but politically ambitious, Crown Prince Carol (who did not in fact approve of the Romanian fascists).[46] In October 1923, Nicolae Iorga, a historian who opposed Carol's return, accused the organization of sending him hate mail.[46]

Antifascist clampdown and disgrace

The MNFIR became the object of government repression, soon after the antisemitic student Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was arrested on charges of terrorism. Codreanu had attempted to assassinate the staff of Adevărul, including the Jewish manager Iacob Rosenthal, and, during the interrogations, implicated other fascist alliances. His testimony was disputed by Vestul României, the pro-fascist newspaper of Timişoara, which claimed: "The attempt [...] is not the work of terrorists, as was quickly proclaimed by some of our colleagues, but the mere revenge of one Sandi Bacaloglu who wished to defend the honor of his sister, that had been compromised by one Adevărul article, wherein it had been claimed that Elena Bacaloglu had been convicted for immodesty by the appellate court of Geneva."[47]

The news was taken up in another Transylvanian paper, Clujul, which claimed that "the lawyer Bacaloglu" had "taken revenge on his sister's slanderer".[48] Also according to Clujul, Titus Panaitescu Vifor, who lived in Rome and was not involved in the Rosenthal incident, remained recognized as the "fascist leader"—he presided upon a National Romanian Fascia (FNR). Meanwhile, George Bacaloglu, interviewed by the press, denied any connection with his sister's movement.[49]

Sandi Bacaloglu was soon imprisoned, facing charges of attempted assassination and sedition.[50] Accounts differ as to what became of Elena Bacaloglu's fascist party. She is credited as a founder of the successor National Fascist Movement (MNF), closed down by Romanian Police in 1925.[51] However, this mainly Transylvanian party did not have a direct link with the Bacaloglus. Before the police clampdown, the FNR announced in Clujul its goal of destroying "the intrigues of foreigners", and its motto ("The Fascio does not forget!").[52] It also informed Transylvanians that Sandi Bacaloglu, recently freed and presenting himself as a Mussolini envoy, was not a fascist, and could not claim to represent any local fascist party.[52]

Bacaloglu herself became a persona non grata, and deported from Italy, after Mussolini grew aware of her dissident stance.[41] Veiga writes: "the leadership of the main faction passed to Titus Vifor following a split."[36] According to historian Armin Heinen, the MNFIR was never a fully fledged party, whereas Vifor's more powerful movement (also known as "Saviors of the Motherland") could present a more attractive platform to some of Bacaloglu's disillusioned followers.[53] The FNR, described as the result of this schism, was explicitly Nazi as well as corporatist, and as such still had little to do with the Mussolinian program.[54] Somewhat larger in numbers, this group managed to absorb two other nationalist political clubs, emerging from this fusion with a program supporting dictatorial politics and the expulsion of all foreigners.[55]

Later years

A police report of the period suggests that "the Fascist Party of Romania" intended to join up with Cuza and Codreanu's National-Christian Defense League and the Romanian Action, into country's first "National Christian Party".[56] In October 1925, Cuza officially announced that the National Romanian Fascia, the Romanian Action, and the Transylvanian Social-Christian Party had voted to dissolve and merge with the League, with the common goal being "the elimination of the kikes". Sandi Bacaloglu signed his name to the appeal as a Fascia representative, and became a member of the LANC's executive council, on par with Ioan Moţa, Ion Zelea Codreanu, Iuliu Haţieganu, Valeriu Pop, Iuniu Lecca.[57]

Afterward, Sandi Bacaloglu ran in the general election of 1926 on the same list as Cuza and Codreanu.[58] In 1927, his sister still held claim to being leader of "the national fascist movement", with temporary headquarters in "the Solacoglu House", Moşilor, Bucharest.[59] She also believed that the Romanian state owed her some 4 million Lei, which she tried to obtain from Interior Affairs Minister Octavian Goga and from Writers' Society president Liviu Rebreanu. In her letters to Rebreanu, she made transparent allusions to the possibility of mutual help but, researcher Andrei Moldovan suggests, was incoherent and needlessly haughty.[60] For his part, Vifor had probably put his activity on hold by January 1929, when he was assigned a diplomatic post in Barcelona.[61]

Also in 1929, the Bacaloglu fascio was revived a third and final time, when a certain Colonel Stoica tried to use it in his coup against government, called "operatic plot" by Veiga.[36] The writer herself remained active on the margin of Romanian politics, and continued with her appeals to Rebreanu (who was also being asked to help George Bacaloglu revive Cele Trei Crişuri)[62] and writer-bureaucrat Eugen Filotti. In 1931, she claimed that a conspiracy, headed by diplomat Filip Lahovary and the leaders of the National Liberal Party, wanted to assassinate her "through hunger" and prevented her from even talking to people of influence.[63] She also stated that, in exchange for recognition of financial support, she could obtain Mussolini's endorsement for the opposition National Peasants' Party.[63]

By then, her son by Densusianu was also entering public life. Educated in Italy and Romania, Ovid Jr trained as a schoolteacher[12] and then became a press officer at the Interior Ministry.[64] He also had prospects of becoming a writer, and is especially remembered for a novel, Stăpânul ("The Master").[65] He adhered to his mother and uncle's fascist ideology: he was a staff writer for the Iron Guard paper Porunca Vremii, translated the political essays of Mussolini and Antonio Beltramelli, and campaigned in support of Italy during the Ethiopian War.[12] In May 1936, he helped Mihail Manoilescu establish the local network of Fascist Action Committees (CAUR).[66]

Ovid Densusianu Sr died unexpectedly on June 8, 1938, after surgery and sepsis.[67] A year into World War II, Elena was issued new papers attesting her move to Bucharest, and was still living there in April 1945.[68] During the same interval, Titus Vifor reactivated his fascism, and was assigned by the Iron Guard's "National Legionary State" to direct the Romanian Propaganda Office in Rome, together with writers Aron Cotruş and Vintilă Horia.[69]

Elena Bacaloglu died in 1947, and was buried in Bellu cemetery.[1] She was survived by Ovid Jr. After the establishment of Communist Romania, he focused on his work as a philologist, but was still arrested in 1958, and spent six years as a political prisoner.[12] He died in Bucharest, on April 19, 1985.[12]

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Gheorghe G. Bezviconi, Necropola Capitalei, Nicolae Iorga Institute of History, Bucharest, 1972, p.58
  2. ↑ George Potra, Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Bucureşti (1800–1848), Editura Academiei, Bucharest, 1975, p.38, 247–248, 325–326, 525–526
  3. ↑ Babeş, p.12. Vital dates in Onofrei et al., p.239, 242
  4. ↑ Vestul României, Nr. 32/1923, p.3, 4
  5. ↑ Nastasă (2010), p.51, 117, 133–134, 310
  6. ↑ Nastasă (2010), p.133–134
  7. ↑ Călinescu, p.593
  8. ↑ "Ultime informaţiuni", in Epoca, December 24, 1896, p.3
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Nastasă (2010), p.51
  10. ↑ Nastasă (2010), p.134
  11. ↑ Nastasă (2010), p.50–51
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Maria Şveţ, "Ovid-Aron Densuşianu", in Calendar Naţional 2004: Anul Ştefan cel Mare şi Sfânt, National Library of Moldova, Chişinău, 2004, p.110. ISBN 9975-9992-9-8
  13. ↑ Mitchievici, p.130–133; Onofrei et al., p.243
  14. ↑ Mitchievici, p.131–133, 135
  15. ↑ Mitchievici, p.132
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Onofrei et al., p.243
  17. ↑ P. N., "Recenzii. Elena Bacaloglu, În luptă", in Viaţa Românească, Nr. 4/1906, p.175–176
  18. ↑ Elena Bacaloglu, "Vis şi realitate", in Noua Revistă Română, Nr. 9/1908, p.129–137
  19. ↑ "Revista Revistelor", in Noua Revistă Română, Nr. 6/1909, p.306
  20. ↑ Nastasă (2010), p.57, 117, 275
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Sallusto, p.174
  22. ↑ Payne, p.135
  23. ↑ Călinescu, p.983; Onofrei et al., p.242–243
  24. ↑ Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş, Memorii. II: 1910–1918, Grai şi Suflet – Cultura Naţională, Bucharest, 1999, p.9. ISBN 973-95405-1-1
  25. ↑ Sallusto, p.174–175
  26. ↑ Tomi, p.280–282
  27. ↑ Tomi, p.281–282
  28. ↑ Babeş, p.12
  29. ↑ Onofrei et al., p.242
  30. ↑ Babeş, p.12–13
  31. ↑ Ileana-Stanca Desa, Elena Ioana Măluşanu, Cornelia Luminiţa Radu, Iliana Sulică, Publicaţiile periodice româneşti (ziare, gazete, reviste). Vol. V, 1: Catalog alfabetic 1931–1935, Editura Academiei, Bucharest, 2009, p.261. ISBN 973-27-0980-4
  32. ↑ Bucur, p.77; Heinen, p.103
  33. ↑ Bucur, p.77; Constantini, p.19–20; Epure, p.115–116; Heinen, p.102–104
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 Heinen, p.103
  35. ↑ Epure, p.116; Heinen, p.103
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 36.2 36.3 Francisco Veiga, La mística del ultranacionalismo: Historia de la Guardia de Hierro, Rumania, 1919–1941, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellaterra, 1989, p.140. ISBN 84-7488-497-7
  37. ↑ Nastasă (2011), p.218, 234, 238, 240, 243, 268, 301, 304–305
  38. ↑ Constantini, p.20
  39. ↑ Constantini, p.19
  40. ↑ Bucur, p.77; Constantini, p.20; Heinen, p.103
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 Constantini, p.20; Heinen, p.103
  42. ↑ Nastasă (2011), p.40
  43. ↑ Bucur, passim
  44. ↑ Epure, p.116
  45. ↑ Heinen, p.102–103
  46. ↑ 46.0 46.1 (Romanian) Petre Ţurlea, "Din nou despre poziţia Partidului Naţionalist Democrat faţă de evrei", in Vasile Ciobanu, Sorin Radu (eds.), Partide politice şi minorităţi naţionale din România în secolul XX, Vol. IV, TechnoMedia, Sibiu, 2009, p.139. ISBN 978-606-8030-53-1
  47. ↑ Vestul României, Nr. 32/1923, p.3
  48. ↑ (Romanian) "Martirul Rosenthal", in Clujul, Nr. 31/1923 (digitized by the Babeş-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library)
  49. ↑ (Romanian) "Fascismul în Bihor", in Vestul României, Nr. 29/1923, p.2 (digitized by the Babeş-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library)
  50. ↑ Vestul României, Nr. 32/1923, p.4
  51. ↑ Constantini, p.20; Heinen, p.103; Payne, p.135
  52. ↑ 52.0 52.1 (Romanian) "Mişcarea faşcistilor români. Programul faşcistilor", in Clujul, Nr. 6/1924 (digitized by the Babeş-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library)
  53. ↑ Heinen, p.103–105
  54. ↑ Payne, p.135–136
  55. ↑ Constantini, p.20; Heinen, p.104
  56. ↑ Nastasă (2011), p.324–325
  57. ↑ (Romanian) A. C. Cuza, "Chemare către toţi românii", in Înfrăţirea Românească, Nr. 11/1925, p.3–4, 10 (digitized by the Babeş-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library)
  58. ↑ "200 Anti-Semitic Leaders Are Candidates for Election in Roumania", Jewish Telegraphic Agency release, May 12, 1926
  59. ↑ Moldovan, p.42
  60. ↑ Moldovan, p.24
  61. ↑ (Spanish) "Cámara de Comercio rumanoespañola", in La Vanguardia, January 9, 1929, p.8 (hosted by La Hemeroteca de La Vanguardia desde 1881)
  62. ↑ Moldovan, p.45–46
  63. ↑ 63.0 63.1 Moldovan, p.44
  64. ↑ Nastasă (2010), p.310
  65. ↑ Călinescu, p.1032
  66. ↑ Veronica Turcuş, "Din raporturile intelectualităţii universitare clujene interbelice cu elita academică italiană: Emil Panaitescu în corespondenţă cu Giuseppe Lugli", in the Romanian Academy (George Bariţ Institute of History) Historica Yearbook 2011, p.10
  67. ↑ Nastasă (2010), p.429–430, 448–449, 463–464
  68. ↑ "Partea II. Particulare", in Monitorul Oficial, April 24, 1945, p.2520
  69. ↑ (Italian) Carmen Burcea, "L'immagine della Romania sulla stampa del Ventennio (II)", in The Romanian Review of Political Sciences and International Relations, No. 2/2010, p.31

References

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