Constantin Gane

Coat of arms used by Gane and his family

Constantin Gane (March 27, 1885 – April or May 1962) was a Romanian novelist, amateur historian, biographer and memoirist. Born into the boyar aristocracy of Western Moldavia, he worked as a lawyer in Bucharest, achieving literary notoriety with his recollections from the Second Balkan War and the Romanian front of World War I. By the 1930s, he was primarily a writer on historical and genealogical topics, famous for his contribution to women's history. An apologist for Romanian conservatism and Junimism, Gane also completed in 1936 a biography of Petre P. Carp. He was editor at Convorbiri Literare and a columnist for Cuvântul, also putting out his own magazine, Sânziana.

The late 1930s attracted Gane into fascist politics, leading him to join the Iron Guard. This in turn led to his marginalization and internment by the National Renaissance Front government. Returning to prominence during World War II, when the Guard produced its National Legionary State, Gane served as Romanian ambassador to the Kingdom of Greece, then retired from politics and resumed his work in literature. Again repressed following the establishment of a Romanian communist regime, he spent 13 years in confinement, ultimately dying at Aiud prison in 1962. His work was banned by communist censors, then selectively recovered from 1969. It was revisited and republished in the post-communist decades, although interest in it remained marginal.

Biography

Youth and writing career

Born into an old boyar family in Botoșani, Constantin was the son of Ștefan Gane,^[1] related to Postelnic Matei Gane and writer-politician Nicolae Gane.^[2] Through the latter, the family were also distant relatives of the ethnographer Arthur Gorovei, who lived in Nicolae Gane's house at Fălticeni and assisted Constantin with genealogical research.^[3] The writer's mother was Constanța née Canano, one of the last surviving members from a Moldavian family of notables.^[4] Ștefan and Constanța had another son, Gheorghe, who trained as an engineer and married the Bessarabian belle Elena Morariu-Andreevici. She was the niece of Silvestru Morariu Andrievici, Bishop of Bukovina, and the great-granddaughter of poet Constantin Stamati.^[5]

Constantin graduated from the local A. T. Laurian High School in 1903 and went on to study law in Germany, obtaining a doctorate from the University of Rostock in 1910.^[6] After returning home, he worked as a lawyer for some fifteen years, both in his native town and in the national capital Bucharest.^[6] In the early 1910s, his prose was hosted in Viața Romînească magazine.^[1] In 1913, Gane took part as a volunteer in the Second Balkan War, and also fought in the campaigns of World War I from 1916. His combat experience was recorded in Amintirile unui fost holeric ("The Recollection of a Former Cholera Patient", 1914; Romanian Academy prize) and Prin viroage și coclauri ("Through Ravines and Boondocks", 1922). This was followed in 1923 by a family history, Pe aripa vremei ("On the Wing of Time").^[6]

Gane was passionate about history, traveling domestically and abroad, rifling through archives and libraries, visiting museums and artistic monuments and researching oral tradition.^[6] He published prose (especially of a historical character), articles, notes and reviews, correspondence, travel accounts, plays and novel fragments in Epoca, Universul Literar, Curentul, Cele Trei Crișuri, Politica, Revista Fundațiilor Regale, Luceafărul and Flacăra, and Convorbiri Literare,^[6] serving for a while in 1926 as the latter's editor.^[7] He returned in 1927 with the notes of Întâmplarea cea mare ("Major Occurrence"), followed by a series of historical novels and tracts: Trecute vieți de doamne și domnițe ("Bygone Lives of Queens and Princesses", 3 volumes, 1932–1939); Farmece ("Charms", 1933); Acum o sută de ani ("One Hundred Years Ago", 2 volumes, 1935); P. P. Carp și locul său în istoria politică a țării ("P. P. Carp and His Place in the Country's Political History", 2 volumes, 1936); Domnița Alexandrina Ghica și contele D'Antraigues ("Princess Alexandrina Ghica and the Count D'Antraigues", 1937); Dincolo de zbuciumul veacului ("Beyond the Fretting of an Era", 1939).^[6]

He also held conferences and, between 1929 and 1937, a series of radio lectures on historical, cultural and literary themes, including the first trial of Mihail Kogălniceanu, Dimitrie Cantemir, and the novels of Stefan Zweig.^[6] Before 1934, he lived on Enei Street, after which he moved to a home on Calea Griviţei, near Gara de Nord.^[8] He joined the Romanian Writers' Society that year,^[6] and, in 1937, founded and led the Bucharest-based Sânziana magazine. During this time, he also published a historical column in the newspaper Cuvântul.^[9]

Far-right engagement, repression, and death

Politically, Gane gravitated toward the far-right, and joined the Iron Guard before 1938. This made him a target for repression by the rival National Renaissance Front: its regime prevented political suspects from working and, according to the diaries of Victor Slăvescu, Gane "had no means to support himself";^[10] Sânziana was banned in early 1938.^[9] When banks refused to loan Gane any money, Slăvescu offered him gifts, which Gane promised to repay with books from his own collection.^[10] By September 1939, civil war had erupted between the Front and the Guard. Gane was arrested alongside many other Guardists, and held in confinement at Miercurea Ciuc,^[9] but was soon released following pleas from Petre P. Panaitescu and Radu R. Rosetti.^[10] In 1940–1941, the Iron Guard took over government and established the "National Legionary State". Promoted in that interval, Gane returned to radio journalism, producing propaganda for the Guard's social service, Ajutorul Legionar.^[11] He served as ambassador to the Kingdom of Greece; while there, he advocated on behalf of the Aromanians.^[6]

Returning to Romania for the rest of World War II, Gane also put out a 1943 sequel to Trecute vieți..., tiled Amărâte și vesele vieți de jupânese și cucoane ("Bittersweet Lives of Dames and Boyaresses"). His final work was a historical novel, Rădăcini ("Roots", 1947).^[6] Prosecuted by the new communist regime for his involvement with the Guard, he was sentenced in 1949.^[6] He died in Aiud prison thirteen years later, after illness and mistreatment, and was buried in an unmarked grave.^[5][12] His death is commonly believed to have occurred in April, but the Gane family records the date as May 13.^[5]

In 1969, a relative liberalization allowed mentions of the deceased writer, and his nephew, Gheorghe Gane, Jr (1925–2008), published a brief bio in Clopotul of Botoșani. He also kept his uncle's genealogical archive in a Bucharest garage, before emigrating to West Germany; some of these papers were then preserved by genealogist and family friend Ștefan C. Gorovei.^[13] Trecute vieți de doamne și domnițe was reissued by Editura Junimea in 1971–1973, albeit touched by communist censorship.^[12] Such treatment was ended by the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which allowed Gane's work to be revisited. A Constantin Gane Street was consecrated in Botoșani, while, in 2006, Amărâte și vesele vieți... went through a reprint at Gheorghe Marin Speteanu publishers of Bucharest. Nevertheless, as Gorovei argues, by 2011 Gane was still "entirely outside the scope of public attention."^[5] Humanitas published an unabridged edition of Trecute vieți... in 2014.^[12] This was followed in 2016 by a reprint of Amărâte și vesele vieți..., at Editura Corint.^[14]

Work

Gane's debut was as a humorist—a talented one, according to fellow writer-historian Nicolae Iorga.^[1] The war memoirs were noted for their sincerity and patriotic emphasis. His first book featured a detailed description of his bout with cholera, which he contracted while fighting in Bulgaria.^[6] It was among the first literary records of the Second Balkan War in Romania—alongside works by Iorga, Al. Lascarov-Moldovanu, and Haralamb Lecca.^[15] Întâmplarea cea mare is a more subtle travel account where the author digresses into meditations on Romanian and foreign history. The artifacts of ancient Egypt and especially Greece lead him to literary and mythological reflections. He also describes these countries' present-day realities, sometimes in a humorous tone.^[6]

When writing about Romanian history, his historic and literary talents combined to produce evocative social and political portraits. Pe aripa vremei traces his family's genealogical tree up to the foundation of Moldavia, while Acum o sută de ani recounts the main events that occurred in the Danubian Principalities a century earlier (1834–1835).^[6] His interest in the human character was explored in Farmece, an account of Despot Vodă; and in Dincolo de zbuciumul veacului, which selects grandiose and tragic figures from the turbulent Middle Ages. Rădăcini did not have much impact, although it was favorably reviewed by Perpessicius; his one play, Phrynea, remains in manuscript form.^[6]

Gane's historical accounts suffer from minute genealogies, an excess of documentary detail, polemical interventions and confusing or incoherent passages.^[6] The literary scholar George Călinescu ridiculed Gane for passing trivial facts about his own family into his works. Gane responded that there was nothing commonplace about his family.^[14] The works did earn praise from various professional historians, including Iorga^[12] and, later, Lucian Boia; the latter sees Gane as "an 'amateur' historian, but quite professional with the amplitude of his documentation and his unfaltering narration".^[16] Gane's 1936 homage to Petre P. Carp is noted for its "hagiographic" defense of the statesman, including against assessments that Carp was wrong not to nationalize the oil industry;^[17] some of the chapters, such as the one devoted to Junimea society, are of documentary interest.^[6]

Gane's masterpiece remains Trecute vieți de doamne și domnițe, volume I of which was granted a prize by the Romanian Academy. As noted by critics, the subjects are unusual and captivating, revealed in stories full of color, recounted in a language of archaic vigor.^[6][12] Writer Gheorghe Grigurcu calls it "one of the essential books of my childhood [...], with its rich literary savor pulsating within the arteries of complicated historical reconstructions".^[18] According to literary critic Ioan Milică, Gane reused classical storytelling formulas recalling Ion Budai-Deleanu and Ion Creangă in creating portrait-caricatures—for instance, that of the sailor-prince Nicholas Mavrogenes.^[12]

The book features a vast array of noble ladies from the time of the first voievods until the union of the Principalities, against the backdrop of chaotic historical events. Among the more memorable figures are Doamna Chiajna and Elisabeta Movilă, and the tragic end of Ruxandra Lupu has drawn praise.^[6] Love stories, abductions and releases, spectacular executions (such as those of Constantin Brâncoveanu and his sons), rises and falls succeed one another in a steady rhythm that recreates the atmosphere of the periods it depicts.^[6] As noted by reviewer Sorin Lavric, Amărâte și vesele vieți... is a counterweight, indirectly showing the relative emancipation of women under the Regulamentul Organic regime, but also the "baseness" of life in the post-aristocratic age.^[14]

Notes

References

• Lucian Boia, Capcanele istoriei. Elita intelectuală românească între 1930 și 1950. Bucharest: Humanitas, 2012. ISBN 978-973-50-3533-4
• Ștefan C. Gorovei, "Dialog epistolar Artur Gorovei–Constantin Gane", in Acta Moldaviae Septentrionalis, Vol. X, 2011, pp. 225–236.
• Nicolae Iorga, Istoria literaturii românești contemporane. II: În căutarea fondului (1890–1934). Bucharest: Editura Adevĕrul, 1934.