Mihail Sadoveanu
Encyclopedia
Mihail Sadoveanu was a Romania
n novelist, short story writer, journalist and political figure, who twice served as acting republican head of state
under the communist regime
(1947–1948 and 1958). One of the most prolific Romanian-language
writers, he is remembered mostly for his historical
and adventure novel
s, as well as for his nature writing
. An author whose career spanned five decades, Sadoveanu was an early associate of the traditionalist magazine Sămănătorul
, before becoming known as a Realist
writer and an adherent to the Poporanist
current represented by Viaţa Românească
journal. His books, critically acclaimed for their vision of age-old solitude and natural abundance, are generally set in the historical region
of Moldavia
, building on themes from Romania's medieval
and early modern history
. Among them are Neamul Şoimăreştilor ("The Şoimăreşti Family"), Fraţii Jderi ("The Jderi Brothers") and Zodia Cancerului ("Under the Sign of the Crab"). With Venea o moară pe Siret... ("A Mill Was Floating down the Siret
..."), Baltagul
("The Hatchet") and some other works of fiction, Sadoveanu extends his fresco to contemporary history and adapts his style to the psychological novel
, Naturalism
and Social realism
.
A traditionalist figure whose perspective on life was a combination of nationalism
and Humanism
, Sadoveanu moved between right-
and left-wing political forces throughout the interwar period
, while serving terms in Parliament
. Rallying with People's Party, the National Agrarian Party, and the National Liberal Party-Brătianu
, he was editor of the leftist newspapers Adevărul
and Dimineaţa, and was the target of a violent far right
press campaign. After World War II
, Sadoveanu became a political associate of the Romanian Communist Party
. He wrote in favor of the Soviet Union
and Stalinism
, joined the Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union and adopted Socialist realism
. He was awarded high positions in political and cultural life, but his works of the time, in particular the controversial novel Mitrea Cocor, are generally seen as his poorest. Many of his texts and speeches, including the famous slogan Lumina vine de la Răsărit ("The Light Arises in the East"), are also viewed as propaganda
in favor of communization.
A founding member of the Romanian Writers' Society and later President of the Romanian Writers' Union, Sadoveanu was also a member of the Romanian Academy
since 1921 and a recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize
for 1961. He was also Grand Master
of the Romanian Freemasonry
during the 1930s. The father of Profira and Paul-Mihu Sadoveanu, who also pursued careers as writers, he was the brother-in-law of literary critic Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan
.
, in western Moldavia. His father's family hailed from the southwestern part of the Old Kingdom
, in Oltenia
. Their place of origin, Sadova
, provided their chosen surname (lit. "from Sadova"), which was adopted by the family only in 1891. Mihail's father was the lawyer Alexandru Sadoveanu (d. 1921), whom literary critic George Călinescu
described as "a bearded and well-to-do man"; according to the writer's own notes, Alexandru was unhappy in marriage, and his progressive isolation from public life impacted on the entire family. Mihail's mother, Profira née Ursachi (or Ursaki; d. 1895), hailed from a line of Moldavian shepherds, all of whom, as the writer recalled, had been illiterate
. Literary historian Tudor Vianu
believes this contrast of regional and social identities played a part in shaping the author, opening him up to a "Romanian universality", but notes that, throughout his career, Sadoveanu was especially connected with his Moldavian roots. Mihail had a brother, also named Alexandru, whose wife was the Swiss
-educated literary critic Izabela Morţun (later known as Sadoveanu-Evan, she was the cousin of socialist
activist Vasile Morţun). Another one of his brothers, Vasile Sadoveanu, was an agricultural engineer.
Beginning in 1887, Sadoveanu attended primary school in Paşcani. His favorite teacher, a Mr. Busuioc, later served as inspiration for one of his best-known short stories, Domnu Trandafir ("Master Trandafir"). While away from school, young Sadoveanu used much of his spare time exploring his native region on foot, hunting, fishing, or just contemplating nature. He was also spending his vacations in his mother's native Verşeni. During his journeys, Sadoveanu visited peasants, and his impression of the way in which they were relating to authority is credited by critics with having shaped his perspective on society. Shortly after this episode, the young Sadoveanu left to complete his secondary studies in Fălticeni
and at the National High School in Iaşi
. While in Fălticeni, he was in the same class as future authors Eugen Lovinescu
and I. Dragoslav
, but, having lost interest in schoolwork, he failed to get his remove, before eventually graduating top of his class.
on Moldavian Prince Stephen the Great
, but his first literary attempts date from the following year. It was in 1897 that a sketch story
, titled Domnişoara M din Fălticeni ("Miss M from Fălticeni") and signed Mihai din Paşcani ("Mihai from Paşcani"), was successfully submitted for publishing to the Bucharest
-based satirical magazine Dracu. He started writing for Ovid Densusianu
's journal Vieaţa Nouă in 1898. His contributions, featured alongside those of Gala Galaction
, N. D. Cocea
, and Tudor Arghezi
, include another sketch story and a lyric poem
. Sadoveanu was however dissatisfied with Densusianu's agenda, and critical of the entire Romanian Symbolist movement
for which the review spoke. He ultimately began writing pieces for non-Symbolist magazines such as Opinia and Pagini Literare. In parallel, he founded and printed by hand a short-lived journal, known to researches as either Aurora or Lumea.
Sadoveanu left for Bucharest in 1900, intending to study Law at the University
's Faculty of Law, but withdrew soon after, deciding to dedicate himself to literature. He began frequenting the bohemian
society in the capital, but, following a sudden change in outlook, abandoned poetry and focused his work entirely on Realist
prose. In 1901, Sadoveanu married Ecaterina Bâlu, with whom he settled in Fălticeni, where he began work on his first novella
s and decided to make his living as a professional writer. His first draft for a novel, Fraţii Potcoavă ("The Potcoavă Brothers"), came out in 1902, when fragments were published by Pagini Alese magazine under the pseudonym M. S. Cobuz. The following year, Sadoveanu was drafted into the Romanian Land Forces
, stationed as a guard near Târgu Ocna
, and inspired by the experience to write some of his first social criticism
narratives.
After that time, he spent much of his home in the country, where he raised a large family. Initially, the Sadoveanus lived in a house previously owned by celebrated Moldavian raconteur Ion Creangă
, before they commissioned a new building, famed for its surrounding Grădina Liniştii ("Garden of Quietude"). He was the father of eleven, among whom were three daughters: Despina, Teodora and Profira Sadoveanu, the latter of whom was a poetess and a novelist. Of his sons, Dimitrie Sadoveanu became a painter, while Paul-Mihu, the youngest (born 1920), was author of the novel Ca floarea câmpului... ("Like the Flower of the Field...") which was published posthumously.
in 1903, Sadoveanu contributed works to the traditionalist journal Sămănătorul
, led at the time by historian and critic Nicolae Iorga
. He was by then also a contributor to Voinţa Naţională, a newspaper published by the National Liberal Party
and managed by politician Vintilă Brătianu
—beginning December of the same year, the paper serialized Şoimii ("The Hawks"), an extended variant of Fraţii Potcoavă, with an introduction by historian Vasile Pârvan
. In 1904, he regained Bucharest, where he became a copyist
for the Ministry of Education's Board of Schools, returning to Fălticeni two years later. After 1906, he rallied with the group formed around Viaţa Românească
, which was also joined by his sister-in-law Izabela.
Sămănătorul and Viaţa Românească, having comparable influence over the literature of Romania
, stood for a traditionalist and ruralist approach to art, even though the latter adopted a more left-wing perspective, known as Poporanism
. The leading Poporanist ideologue, Garabet Ibrăileanu
, became a personal friend of the young writer after inviting him on an excursion down the Râşca River
. With his subsequent pieces for Viaţa Românească, Sadoveanu became especially known as the raconteur of hunting trips, but also sparked controversy when a young woman writer, Constanţa Marino-Moscu, accused him of having plagiarized
her works in his Mariana Vidraşcu, a serialized novel which was discontinued and later largely forgotten.
1904 was Sadoveanu's effective debut year: he published four separate books, including Şoimii, Povestiri ("Stories"), Dureri înăbuşite ("Suppressed Pains") and Crâşma lui Moş Petcu ("Old Man Petcu's Alehouse"). The beginning of a prolific literary career covering more than a half century and of his collaboration with Editura Minerva
publishing house, this debut was marked by intense preparation, and drew on literary exercises spanning the previous decade. His Sămănătorul colleague Iorga deemed 1904 "Sadoveanu's Year", while the influential and aging critic Titu Maiorescu
, leader of the conservative
literary society Junimea
, gave a positive review to Povestiri, and successfully proposed it for a Romanian Academy
award in 1906. In a 1908 essay, Maiorescu was to list Sadoveanu among Romania's greatest writers. According to Vianu, Maiorescu saw in Sadoveanu and other young writers the triumph of his theory on a "popular" form of Realism, a vision which the Junimist thinker had advocated in his essays from as early as 1882. Sadoveanu later credited Iorga, Maiorescu, and especially so the cultural promoter Constantin Banu and Sămănătorul poet George Coşbuc
, with having helped him capture the interest of the public and his peers. He was by then facing adversity from opponents of Sămănătorul, primarily critic Henri Sanielevici and his Curentul Nou review, which published claims that Sadoveanu's volumes, which depicted immoral acts such as adultery
and rape
, showed that Iorga's program of moral didacticism
was hypocritical. As he latter recalled, Sadoveanu was himself upset with some of Iorga's critical judgments regarding his own work, noting that the Sămănătorist doyen had once declared him equal to Vasile Pop (one of Iorga's protegés, and viewed as overrated by Sadoveanu).
The same year, Sadoveanu became one of Sămănătoruls editors, alongside Iorga and Iosif. The magazine, originally a traditionalist mouthpiece founded by Alexandru Vlahuţă
and George Coşbuc
, proclaimed with Iorga its purpose of establishing "a national culture", emancipated from foreign influence. However, according to Călinescu, this ambitious goal was only manifested in a "great cultural influence", as the journal continued to be an eclectic
venue which grouped together ruralist traditionalists of the "national tendency" and adherents to the cosmopolitan
currents such as Symbolism. Călinescu and Vianu agree that Sămănătorul was, for a large part, a promoter of older guidelines set by Junimea. Vianu also argues that Sadoveanu's contribution to the literary circle was the main original artistic element in its history, and credits Iosif with having accurately predicted that, during a period of literary "crisis", Sadoveanu was the person to provide innovation.
He continued to publish at an impressive rate: in 1906, he again handed down for print four separate volumes. In parallel, Sadoveanu pursued his career as a civil servant. In 1905, he was employed as a clerk by the Ministry of Education, headed by the Conservative Party
's Mihail Vlădescu. His direct supervisor was poet D. Nanu, and he had for his colleagues the geographer George Vâlsan and the short story writer Nicolae N. Beldiceanu. Nanu wrote of this period: "It is a clerical packed full with men of letters, no work is being done, people smoke, drink coffee, create dreams, poems and prose [...]." Having interrupted his administrative service, Sadoveanu was again drafted into the Land Forces in 1906, being granted an officer's rank. An already overweight man, he had to march from Probota
in Central Moldavia to Bukovina
, which caused him intense suffering.
. Kept in office by the National Liberal cabinet of Ion I. C. Brătianu
, he served under the reform-minded Education Minister Spiru Haret
. Inspired by the bloody outcome of the Revolt, as well as by Haret's moves to educate the peasantry, Sadoveanu reportedly drew suspicion from the Police
when he published self-help
guides aimed at industrious ploughmen, a brand of social activism which even resulted in a formal inquiry.
Mihail Sadoveanu became a professional writer in 1908-1909, after joining the Romanian Writers' Society, created in the previous year by poets Cincinat Pavelescu and Dimitrie Anghel
, and becoming its President in September of that year. The same year, he, Iosif, and Anghel, together with author Emil Gârleanu, set up Cumpăna, a monthly directed against both Ovid Densusianu
's eclecticism and the Junimist school (the magazine was no longer in print by 1910). At the time, he became a noted presence among the group of intellectuals meeting in Bucharest's Kübler Coffeehouse.
In 1910, he was also appointed head of the National Theater Iaşi, a position which he filled until 1919. That year, he translated from the French
one of Hippolyte Taine
's studies on the genesis of artworks. He resigned his office within the Writers' Society in November 1911, being replaced by Gârleanu, but continued to partake in its administration as a member of its leadership committee and a censor. He was a leading presence at Minerva newspaper, alongside Anghel and critic Dumitru Karnabatt, and also published in the Transylvania
n traditionalist journal, Luceafărul.
Sadoveanu was again called under arms during the Second Balkan War
of 1913, when Romania confronted Bulgaria
. Having reached the rank of Lieutenant
, he was stationed in Fălticeni with the 15th Infantry Regiment, after which he spent a short period on the front. He returned to literary life. Becoming good friends with poet and humorist George Topîrceanu
, he accompanied him and other writers on cultural tours during 1914 and 1915. The series of writings he published at the time includes the 1915 Neamul Şoimăreştilor.
In 1916-1917, as Romania entered World War I
and was invaded by the Central Powers
, Sadoveanu stayed in Moldavia, the only part of Romania's territory still under the state's authority (see Romanian Campaign
). The writer oscillated between the Germanophilia of his Viaţa Românească friends, the stated belief that war was misery and the welcoming of Romania's commitment to the Entente Powers
. At the time, he was reelected President of the Writers' Society, a provisional mandate which ended in 1918, when Romania signed the peace with the Central Powers, and, as Army reservist
, edited the Entente's regional propaganda outlet, România. He was joined by Topîrceanu, who had just been released from a POW camp
in Bulgaria, and with whom he founded the magazine Însemnări Literare. Sadoveanu subsequently settled in the Iaşi neighborhood of Copou, purchasing and redecorating the villa known locally as Casa cu turn ("The House with a Tower"). In the 19th century, it had been the residence of politician Mihail Kogălniceanu
, and, during the war, hosted composer George Enescu
. During that period, he collaborated with leftist intellectual Vasile Morţun and, together with him and Arthur Gorovei
, founded and edited the magazine Răvaşul Poporului.
In 1921, Sadoveanu was elected a full member of the Romanian Academy
; he gave his reception speech in front of the cultural forum two years later, structuring it as a praise of Romanian folklore in general and folkloric poetry in particular. At the time, he renewed his contacts with Viaţa Românească: with Garabet Ibrăileanu
and several others, he joined its interwar
nucleus, while the review often featured samples of his novels (some of which were originally published in full by its publishing venture). His house was by then host to many cultural figures, among whom were writers Topîrceanu, Gala Galaction
, Otilia Cazimir, Ionel
and Păstorel Teodoreanu, and Dumitru D. Pătrăşcanu, as well as conductor Sergiu Celibidache
. He was also close to a minor socialist
poet and short story author, Ioan N. Roman, whose work he helped promote, to the aristocrat and memoirist Gheorghe Jurgea-Negrileşti, and to a satirist named Radu Cosmin.
Despite his health problems, Sadoveanu frequently traveled throughout Romania, notably visiting local sights which inspired his work: the Romanian Orthodox
monasteries of Agapia
and Văratec
, and the Neamţ Fortress. After 1923, together with Topîrceanu, Demostene Botez and other Viaţa Românească affiliates, he also embarked on a series of hunting trips. He was charmed in particular by the sights he discovered during a 1927 visit to the Transylvania
n area of Arieş
. The same year, he also visited the Netherlands
, which he reached by means of the Orient Express
. His popularity continued to grow: in 1925, 1929 and 1930 respectively, he published his critically acclaimed novels Venea o moară pe Siret..., Zodia Cancerului and Baltagul
, and his 50th anniversary was celebrated at a national level. In 1930, Sadoveanu, Topîrceanu and the schoolteacher T. C. Stan wrote and edited a series of primary school textbooks.
In 1926, after a period of indecision, Sadoveanu rallied with the People's Party, where his friend, the poet Octavian Goga
, was a prominent activist. He then rallied with Goga's own National Agrarian Party. During the general election of 1927, he won a seat in the Chamber
for Bihor County
, in Transylvania, holding a seat in the Senate
for Iaşi County
after the 1931 suffrage. Under Nicolae Iorga
's National Peasants' Party
cabinet of the period, Sadoveanu was President of the Senate. The choice was motivated by his status as "a cultural personality". Around that date, he was affiliated with the National Liberal Party-Brătianu
, a right-wing party inside the liberal current
, who stood in opposition to the main National Liberal group. In parallel, he began contributing to the left-wing daily Adevărul
.
Sadoveanu was by then affiliated with the Freemasonry
, as first recorded by the organization in 1928, but was probably a member since 1926 or 1927. Reaching the 33rd degree within the organization and overseeing the Masonic Lodge
Dimitrie Cantemir
of Iaşi, he was elected Grand Master
of the National Union of Lodges in 1932, thus replacing the vacating George Valentin Bibescu
. There subsequently occurred a split between Bibescu and Sadoveanu's supporters, aggravated by their publicized conflict with a third group, that of Ioan Pangal—splits which ended after some three years, when Sadoveanu marginalized both of his opponents, without however earning legitimate recognition from the Grand Orient de France
. By 1934, he was recognized as Grand Master of the United Romanian Freemasonry, which regrouped all major local Lodges.
and fascist
press, replying to their attacks in several columns. Affiliates of the radical right organized public burnings
of his volumes. The scandal prolonged itself over the following years, with Sadoveanu being supported by his friends in the literary community. Among them was Topîrceanu, who was at the time hospitalized, and whose expression of support was made shortly before his death to liver cancer
. In September 1937, as a statement of solidarity and appreciation, the University of Iaşi conferred Sadoveanu the title of doctor honoris causa.
Mihail Sadoveanu withdrew from politics in the late 1930s and early 1940s, as Romania came to be led by successive right-wing dictatorships, he offered a measure of support to King
Carol II
and his National Renaissance Front
, which attempted to block the more radically fascist Iron Guard
from power. He was personally appointed a member of the reduced corporatist
Senate by Carol. In 1940, the official establishment Editura Fundaţiilor Regale published the first volume of his Opere ("Works"). Sadoveanu kept a low profile under the Iron Guard's Nazi
-allied National Legionary
regime. After Conducător
Ion Antonescu
overthrew the Guard during the Legionary Rebellion
and established his own fascist regime, the still-apolitical Sadoveanu was more present in public life, and lectured on cultural subjects for the Romanian Radio
. After publishing the final section of his Fraţii Jderi in 1942, Sadoveanu again retreated to the countryside, in his beloved Arieş area, where he had built himself a chalet and a church; this seclusion produced his Povestirile de la Bradu-Strâmb ("Bradu-Strâmb Stories"). During those years, the sixty-year old writer met Valeria Mitru, a much younger feminist
journalist, whom he married after a brief courtship.
In August 1944, Romania's King Michael Coup toppled Antonescu and switched sides in the war, rallying with the Allies
. As a Soviet occupation
began at home, Romanian troops fought alongside the Red Army
on the European theater. Paul-Mihu Sadoveanu was killed in action in Transylvania on September 22. During the same months, Sadoveanu was a candidate for the Writers' Society presidency, but, in what has been read as proof of a rivalry within the Freemasonry, was defeated by Victor Eftimiu
. Later that year, the 40th anniversary of Mihail Sadoveanu's debut was celebrated with a special ceremony at the Academy and Tudor Vianu's speech, offered as a retrospective of his colleague's entire work.
in Romania, Sadoveanu supported the new authorities, and turned from his own version of Realism
to officially-endorsed Socialist realism
(see Socialist realism in Romania
). This was also the start of his association with the Soviet-sponsored Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union (ARLUS), which was led by biologist and physician Constantin Ion Parhon
. Having served as a host to official Soviet envoys Andrey Vyshinsky
and Vladimir Kemenov during their late 1944 visits, he soon after became president of the ARLUS "Literary and Philosophical Section" (seconded by Mihai Ralea and Perpessicius
). In February 1945, he joined Parhon, Enescu, linguist Alexandru Rosetti, composer George Enescu
, biologist Traian Săvulescu and mathematician Dimitrie Pompeiu
in a protest against the cultural policies of Premier
Nicolae Rădescu
and his cabinet, one in a series of moves to discredit the non-communist Rădescu and make him leave power. With Ion Pas, Gala Galaction
, Horia Deleanu, Octav Livezeanu and N. D. Cocea
, Sadoveanu edited the association's weekly literary magazine Veac Nou after June 1946.
Sadoveanu's literary and political change became known to the general public in March 1945, when he lectured about Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
at a conference hall in Bucharest. Part of a conference cycle, his speech was famously titled Lumina vine de la Răsărit, which soon became synonymous with the attempts to improve the image of Stalinism
in Romania. ARLUS would issue the text of his conference as a printed volume later in the year. Also in 1945, Sadoveanu journeyed to the Soviet Union together with some of his fellow ARLUS members—among them biologists Parhon and Săvulescu, sociologist Dimitrie Gusti
, linguist Iorgu Iordan
, and mathematician Simion Stoilow
. Invited by the Soviet Academy of Sciences
to attend the 220th anniversary of its foundation, they also visited research institutes, kolhozy, and day care
centers, notably meeting with Nikolay Tsitsin, an agronomist favored by Stalin. After his return, he wrote other controversial texts and gave lectures which offered ample praise to the Soviet system. That year, the ARLUS enterprise Editura Cartea Rusă also published his translation of Ivan Turgenev
's A Sportsman's Sketches
.
During the rigged election of that year
, Sadoveanu was a candidate for the Communist party-organized Bloc of Democratic Parties (BPD) in Bucharest, winning a seat in the newly-unified Parliament of Romania
. In its first-ever session (December 1946), the legislative body elected him its President. He was at the time residing in Ciorogârla
, having been awarded a villa previously owned by Pamfil Şeicaru, a journalist whose support for fascist regimes had made him undesirable, and who had moved out of Romania. The decision was viewed as evidence of political corruption
by the opposition National Peasants' Party
, whose press deemed Sadoveanu the "Count of Ciorogârla".
In 1948, after Romania's King
Michael I
was overthrown by the BPD-member parties and the communist regime
officially established, Sadoveanu rose to the highest positions ever granted to a Romanian writer, and received significant material benefits. In 1947-1948, he was, alongside Parhon, Ştefan Voitec
, Gheorghe Stere, and Ion Niculi
, a member of the Presidium of the People's Republic
, which was elected by the BPD-dominated legislative, and, as leader of that body, filled in for the position of republican head of state
. He also kept his seat at the Academy, which at the time was undergoing a communist-led purge, and, with several other pro-Soviet intellectuals, was voted in the Academy Presidium.
. According to writer Valeriu Râpeanu, this last appointment was a sign of Stancu's marginalization after he had been excluded from the Romanian Communist Party
, while the Writers' Union was actually controlled by its First Secretary, the communist poet Mihai Beniuc
. Sadoveanu and Beniuc were reelected at the Union's first Congress (1956). In the meanwhile, Sadoveanu published several Socialist realist volumes, among which was Mitrea Cocor, a controversial praise of collectivization policies
. First published in 1949, it earned Sadoveanu the first-ever State Prize for Prose.
Throughout the period, Sadoveanu was involved in major communist-endorsed cultural campaigns. Thus, in June 1952, he presided over the Academy's Scientific Council, charged with modifying the Romanian alphabet
, at the end of which the letter â
was discarded, and replaced everywhere with î
(a spelling Sadoveanu is alleged to have already shown preference for in his early works). In March 1953, soon after Stalin's death, he led discussions within the Writers' Union, confronting his fellow writers with the new Soviet cultural directives as listed by Georgy Malenkov
, and reacting against young authors who had not discarded the since-condemned doctrines of proletkult
. The author was also becoming involved in the Eastern Bloc
's peace movement
, and led the National Committee for the Defense of Peace at a time when the Soviet Union was seeking to portray its Cold War
enemies as warmongers and the sole agents of nuclear proliferation
. He also represented Romania to the World Peace Council
, and received its International Peace Prize for 1951. As a parliamentarian, Sadoveanu stood on the committee charged with elaborating the new republican constitution
, which, in its final form, reflected both Soviet influence and the assimilation of Stalinism into Romanian political discourse. In November 1955, shortly after turning 75, he was granted the title of "Hero of Socialist Labor". After 1956, when the regime announced that it had embarked on a limited version of De-Stalinization
, it continued to recommend Mihail Sadoveanu as one of its prime cultural models.
Having donated Casa cu turn to the state in 1950, he moved back to Bucharest, where he owned a house near the Zambaccian Museum
. From January 7 to January 11, 1958, Sadoveanu, Ion Gheorghe Maurer
and Anton Moisescu
were acting Chairmen of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly
, which again propelled him to a position as titular head of state. His literary stature but also his political allegiance earned him the Soviet Lenin Peace Prize
, which he received shortly before his death.
After a long illness marked by a stroke
which impaired his speech and left him almost completely blind, Sadoveanu was cared for by a staff of physicians supervised by Nicolae Gh. Lupu and reporting to the Great National Assembly. The Sadoveanus withdrew to Neamţ
region, where they lived in a villa assigned to them by the state and located near the Voividenia hermitage
and the locality of Vânători-Neamţ
, being visited regularly by literary and political friends, among them Alexandru Rosetti. Mihail Sadoveanu died there at 9 AM on October 19, 1961, and was buried at Bellu
cemetery, in Bucharest. His successor as President of the Writers' Union was Beniuc, elected during the Congress of January 1962.
Following her husband's death, Valeria Sadoveanu settled in proximity to the Văratec Monastery
, where she set up an informal literary circle and Orthodox prayer group, notably attended by literary historian Zoe Dumitrescu-Buşulenga and by poetess Ştefana Velisar, and dedicated herself to protecting the community of nuns. She survived Mihail Sadoveanu by over 30 years.
and his depictions of rural landscapes. An exceptionally prolific author by Romanian standards, he published over a hundred individual volumes (120 according to the American
magazine Time
). His contemporaries tended to place Sadoveanu alongside Liviu Rebreanu
and Cezar Petrescu
—for all the differences in style between the three figures, the interwar public saw them as the "great novelists" of the day. Critic Ovid Crohmălniceanu describes their activity, altogether focused on depicting the rural world but diverging in bias, as one sign that the Romanian interwar itself was exceptionally effervescent, while Romanian-born American historian of literature Marcel Cornis-Pope sees Sadoveanu and Rebreanu as their country's "two most important novelists of the first half of the twentieth century". In 1944, Tudor Vianu
spoke of Sadoveanu as "the most significant writer Romanians [presently] have, the first among his equals."
While underlining his originality in the context of Romanian literature and among the writers standing for "the national tendency" (as opposed to the more cosmopolitan
modernists
), George Călinescu also noted that, through several of his stories and novels, Sadoveanu echoed the style of his predecessors and contemporaries Ion Luca Caragiale
, Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voineşti, Emil Gârleanu, Demostene Botez, Otilia Cazimir, Calistrat Hogaş, I. A. Bassarabescu and Ionel Teodoreanu
. Also included among the "national tendency" writers, Gârleanu was for long seen as Sadoveanu's counterpart, and even, Călinescu writes, "undeservedly upstaged" him. Cornis-Pope also writes that Sadoveanu's epic is a continuation of "the national narrative" explored earlier by Nicolae Filimon
, Ioan Slavici
and Duiliu Zamfirescu
, while literary historians Vianu and Z. Ornea note that Sadoveanu also took inspiration from the themes and genres explored by Junimist
author Nicolae Gane. In his youth, Sadoveanu also admired and collected the works of N. D. Popescu-Popnedea, a prolific and successful author of almanac
s, historical novel
s and adventure novel
s. Later, his approach to Realism
was also inspired by his reading of Gustave Flaubert
and especially Nikolai Gogol
. Both Sadoveanu and Gane were also indirectly influenced by Wilhelm von Kotzebue, the 19th century Imperial Russian
diplomat and author of the Romanian-themed story Laskar Vioresku.
In Vianu's assessment, Sadoveanu's work signified an artistic revolution within the local Realist school, comparable to the adoption of perspective
by the visual artists of the Renaissance
. Mihail Sadoveanu's interest in the rural world and his views on tradition were subjects of debate among the modernists. The modernist doyen Eugen Lovinescu
, who envisaged an urban literature in tune with European tendencies, was one of Sadoveanu's most notorious critics. However, Sadoveanu was well received by Lovinescu's adversaries within the modernist camp: Perpessicius
and Contimporanul
editor Ion Vinea, the latter of whom, in search for literary authenticity, believed in bridging the gap between the avant-garde
and folk culture
. This opinion was shared by Swedish
literary historian Tom Sandqvist, who sees Sadoveanu's main point of contact with modernism was his interest in the pagan
elements and occasional absurdist
streaks of local folklore. In the larger dispute about national specificity, and partly in response to Vinea's claim, modernist poet and essayist Benjamin Fondane
argued that, as a sign Romanian culture
was tributary to those it had come into contact with, "Sadoveanu's soul can be easily reduced to the Slavic soul".
" lifestyle. The literary historian noted that he took a personal interest in educating his many children, and that this also implied "making use of a whip". An Epicurean
, the writer was a homemaker, an avid hunter and fisherman, and a chess
aficionado. Recognized, like his epigram
ist colleague Păstorel Teodoreanu, as a man of refined culinary tastes, Sadoveanu cherished Romanian cuisine
and Romanian wine
. The lifestyle choices were akin to his literary interests: alongside the secluded and rudimentary existence of his main characters (connected by Călinescu with the writer's supposed longing for "regressions to the patriarchal times"), Sadoveanu's work is noted for its imagery of primitive abundance, and in particular for its lavish depictions of ritualistic feasts, hunting parties and fishing trips.
Călinescu opined that the value of such descriptions within individual narratives grew with time, and that the author, once he had discarded lyricism, used them as a "a means for the senses to enjoy the fleshes and the forms that nature offers man." He added that Sadoveanu's aesthetics
could be said to recall the art of the Golden Age
in Holland: "One could almost say that Sadoveanu rebuilds in present day Moldavia [...] the Holland of wine jugs and kitchen tables covered in venison and fish." Vianu also argued that Sadoveanu never abandoned himself to purely aesthetic descriptions, and that, although often depicted with Impressionistic
means, nature is assigned a specific if discreet role within the plot lines, or serves to render a structure. The traditionalist Garabet Ibrăileanu
, referring to Sadoveanu's poetic nature writing, even declared it to have "surpassed nature." At the other end, the modernist Eugen Lovinescu specifically objected to Sadoveanu's depiction of a primordial landscape, arguing that, despite adopting Realism, his rival was indebted to Romanticism
and subjectivity
. Lovinescu's attitude, critic Ion Simuţ notes, was partly justified by the fact that Sadoveanu never truly parted with the traditionalism of Sămănătorul
. In 1962, Time
also commented that his style was "curiously dated" and recalled not Sadoveanu's generation, but that of Leo Tolstoy
and Ivan Turgenev
, "although he has nothing like the power or skill of any of them." For Călinescu and Vianu too, Sadoveanu is a creator with seemingly Romantic tastes, which recall those of François-René de Chateaubriand
. Unlike Lovinescu, Vianu saw these traits as "not at all detrimental to the balance of [Sadoveanu's] art."
Seen by literary critic Ioan Stanomir as marked by "volubility", and thus contrasting with his famously taciturn and seemingly embittered nature, the form of Romanian
used by Mihail Sadoveanu, particularly in his historical novel
s, was noted for both its use of archaism
s and the inventive approach to the Romanian lexis
. Often borrowing plot lines and means of expression from medieval and early modern Moldavian chroniclers such as Ion Neculce
and Miron Costin
, the author creatively intercalates several local dialects and registers of speech, moving away from a mere imitation of the historical language. Generally third-person narratives, his books often make little or no dialectal difference between the speech used by the story-teller and the character's voices. According to Călinescu, Sadoveanu displays "an enormous capacity of authentic speech", similar to that of Caragiale and Ion Creangă
. The writer himself recorded his fascination with the "eloquence" of rudimentary orality
, and in particular with the speech of Rudari
Roma
he encountered during his travels. Building on observations made by several critics, who generally praised the poetic qualities of Sadoveanu's prose, Crohmălniceanu spoke in detail about the Moldavian novelist's role in reshaping the literary language
. This particular contribution was first described early in the 20th century, when Sadoveanu was acclaimed by Titu Maiorescu
for having adapted his writing style to the social environment and the circumstances of his narratives. Vianu however notes that Sadoveanu's late writings tend to leave more room for neologisms, mostly present in those parts where the narrator's voice takes distance from the plot.
Another unifying element in Sadoveanu's creation is his recourse to literary types. As early as 1904, Maiorescu praised the young raconteur for accurately depicting characters in everyday life and settings. Tudor Vianu stressed that, unlike most of his Realist predecessors, Sadoveanu introduced an overtly sympathetic view of the peasant character, as "a higher type of human, a heroic human". He added: "Simple, in the sense that they are moved by a few devices [which] coincide with the fundamental instincts of mankind, [they] are, in general, mysterious." In this line, Sadoveanu also creates images of folk sages, whose views on life are of a Humanist
nature, and often depicted in contrast with the rationalist
tenets of Western culture
. Commenting on this aspect, Sadoveanu's friend George Topîrceanu
believed that Sadoveanu's work transcended the "more intellectual [and] more artificial" notion of "types", and that "he creates [...] humans." The main topic of his subsequent work, Sandqvist argues, was "an archaic world where the farmers and the landlords were free men with equal rights" (or, according to Simuţ, "a utopia
of archaic heroism").
Thus, Călinescu stresses, Sadoveanu's work seems to be the monolithic creation through which "a single man" reflects "a single, universal nature, inhabited by a single type of man", and which echoes a similar vision of archaic completeness as found in the literature of poet Mihai Eminescu
. The similarity in vision with Eminescu's "nostalgia, return, protest, demand, aspiration toward a [rural] world [he has] left" was also proposed by Vianu, while Topîrceanu spoke of "the paradoxical discovery that [Sadoveanu] is our greatest poet since Eminescu." Mihail Sadoveanu also shaped his traditionalist views on literature by investigating Romanian folklore, which he recommended as a source of inspiration to his fellow writers during his 1923 speech at the Romanian Academy
. In Călinescu's view, Sadoveanu's outlook on life was even mirrored in his physical aspect, his "large body, voluminous head, his measured shepherd-like gestures, his affluent but prudent and monologic speech [and] feral indifference; his eyes [...] of an unknown race." His assessment of the writer as an archaic figure, bluntly stated in a 1930 article ("I believe him to be very uncultured"), was contrasted by other literary historians: Alexandru Paleologu
described Sadoveanu as a prominent intellectual figure, while his own private notes show that he was well-read and acquainted with the literatures of many countries. Often seen as a spontaneous writer, Sadoveanu nevertheless took pains to elaborate his plots and research historical context, keeping most records of his investigations confined to his diaries.
s (members of Moldavia's medieval aristocracy), showing the ways in which they relate to each other, to their servants, and to their country. In one of the stories, titled Cântecul de dragoste ("The Love Song"), Sadoveanu touches on the issue of slavery
, depicting the death of a Rom
slave who is killed by his jealous master, while in Răzbunarea lui Nour ("Nour's Revenge"), a boyar refuses to make his peace with God until his son's death is avenged. Other fragments deal solely with the isolated existence of villagers: for example, in Într-un sat odată ("Once, in a Village"), a mysterious man dies in a Moldavian hamlet, and the locals, unable to discover his identity, sell his horse. The prose piece Năluca ("The Apparition") centers on the conjugal conflict between two old people, both of whom attempt to hide the shame of their past. George Călinescu notes that, particularly in Năluca, Sadoveanu begins to explore the staple technique of his literary contributions, which involves "suggesting the smolder of passions [through] a contemplative breath in which he evokes a static element: landscapes or set pieces from nature."
Sadoveanu's subsequent collection of short stories, Dureri înăbuşite, builds on the latter technique and takes his work into the realm of social realism
and naturalism
(believed by Călinescu to have been borrowed from either the French
writer Émile Zola
or from the Romanian Alexandru Vlahuţă
). For Călinescu, this choice of style brought "damaging effects" on Sadoveanu's writings, and made Dureri înăbuşite "perhaps the poorest" of his collections of stories. In Lovinescu's view, Sadoveanu's move toward naturalism did not imply the necessary recourse to objectivity
. The pieces focus on dramatic moments of individual existences. In Lupul ("The Wolf"), an animal is chased and trapped by a group of peasants; the eponymous character in Ion Ursu leaves his village to become a proletarian
, and succumbs to alcoholism
; the indentured laborer in Sluga ("The Servant") is unable to take revenge on his cruel employer at the right moment; in Doi feciori ("Two Sons"), a boyar comes to feel affection for his illegitimate son, whom he has nonetheless reduced to a lowly condition.
In 1905, Sadoveanu also published Povestiri din război ("Stories from the War"), which compose scenes from the lives of Romanian soldiers fighting in the War of 1878. Objecting to a series of exaggerations in the book, Time
nevertheless noted that Sadoveanu "sometimes had the writing skill to make compelling even quite traditional reactions to old-fashioned war". It concluded: "Sadoveanu's sketches have the virtues—and the vices—of old hunting prints and the romantically mannered battle scenes of the 19th century."
, is a serene place, visited by quiet and subdued customers, whose occasional outburst of violence are, according to Călinescu, "dominated by slow, stereotypical mechanics, as is with people who can only accommodate within them a single drama." The literary critic celebrated Crâşma lui Moş Petcu for its depictions of nature, whose purpose is to evoke "the indifferent eternity" of conflicts between the protagonists, and who, at times, relies "on a vast richness of sounds and words." He did however reproach the writer "a certain monotony", arguing that Sadoveanu came to use such techniques in virtually all his later works.
However, Sadoveanu's stories of the period often returned to a naturalistic perspective, particularly in a series of sketch stories
and novella
s which portray the modest lives of Romanian Railways
employees, of young men drafted into the Romanian Land Forces
, of Bovaryist
women who playfully seduce adolescents, or of the provincial petite bourgeoisie
. At times, they confront the morals of barely literate people with the stern authorities: a peasant obstinately believes that the 1859 union
between Wallachia
and Moldavia was meant to ensure the supremacy of his class; a young lower-class woman becomes the love interest of a boyar but chooses a life of freedom; and a Rom deserts from the Army after being told to bathe. In La noi, la Viişoara ("At Our Place in Viişoara"), the life of an old man degenerates into bigotry and avarice, to the point where he makes his wife starve to death. Sadoveanu's positive portrayal of hajduk
s as fundamentally honest outlaw
s standing up to feudal
injustice, replicates stereotypes found in Romanian folklore, and is mostly present in some of the stories through (sometimes recurrent) heroic characters: Vasile the Great, Cozma Răcoare, Liţă Florea etc. In the piece titled Bordeenii (roughly, "The Mud-hut Dwellers"), he shows eccentrics and misanthropes
presided upon by the dark figure of Sandu Faliboga, brigands who flee all public authority and whom commentators have likened to settlers of the Americas
. Lepădatu, an unwanted child, speaks for the entire group: "What could I do [...] wherever there are big fairs and lots of people? I'd have a better time with the cattle; it is with them that I have grown up and with them that I get along." Romanticizing the obscure events of early medieval history
in Vremuri de bejenie ("Roving Times", 1907), Sadoveanu sketches the improvised self-defense of a refugee community, their last stand against nomadic Tatars
.
In reference to the stories in this series, Călinescu stresses that Sadoveanu's main interest is in depicting men and women cut away from civilization, who view the elements of Westernization
with nothing more than "wonderment": "Sadoveanu's literature is the highest expression of the savage instinct." In later works, the critic believed, Sadoveanu moved away from depicting isolation as the escape of primitives into their manageable world, but as "the refinement of souls whom civilization has upset." These views are echoed by Ovid Crohmălniceanu, who believes that, unlike other Romanian Realists, Sadoveanu was able to show a peasant society that was not merely the prey of modern corruption or historical oppression, but rather refusing all contacts with the wider world—even to the point of Luddite
-like hostility in front of new objects. Some of the early stories, Crohmălniceanu argues, do follow the moralizing Sămănătorist
pattern, but part with it when they refuse to present the countryside in "idyll
ic" fashion, or when they adopt a specific "mythical realism".
Sadoveanu began his career as a novelist with more in-depth explorations into subjects present in his stories and novellas. At the time, Crohmălniceanu stresses, he was being influenced by the naturalism of Caragiale (minus the comedic effect), and by his own experience growing up in characteristically underdeveloped Moldavian cities and târg
uri (somewhat similar to the aesthetic of boredom, adopted in poetry by George Bacovia
, Demostene Botez or Benjamin Fondane
). Among his first works of the kind is Floare ofilită ("Wizened Flower"), where a simple girl, Tincuţa, marries a provincial civil servant, and finds herself deeply unhappy and unable to enrich her life on any level. Tincuţa, seen by Călinescu as one of Sadoveanu's "savage" characters, only maintains urban refinement when persuading her husband to return for supper, but, according to Crohmălniceanu, is also a credible witness to the "small-mindedness" of "bourgeois" environments. A rather similar plot is built for Însemnările lui Neculai Manea ("The Recordings of Neculai Manea"), where the eponymous character, an educated peasant, experiences two unhappy romantic affairs before successfully courting a married woman who, although grossly uncultured, makes him happy. Apa morţilor ("The Dead Men's Water") is about a Bovaryist woman who discards lovers over imprecise feelings of dissatisfaction, finding refuge in the monotonous countryside. Călinescu noted that such novels were "usually less valuable than direct accounts", and deemed Însemnările lui Neculai Manea "without literary interest"; in Ovid Crohmălniceanu's view, the same story presents relevant detail on professional and intellectual failure.
Praised by its commentators, the short novel Haia Sanis (1908) shows the eponymous character, a Jewish
woman who throws herself into the arms of a local Gentile
, although she knows him to be a seducer. Călinescu, who wrote with admiration about how the subject dissimulated pathos into "technical indifference", notes that the erotic rage motivating Haia has drawn "well justified" comparisons with Jean Racine
's tragedy Phèdre
. Crohmălniceanu believes Haia Sanis to be "perhaps [Sadoveanu's] best novella", particularly since the "wild beauty" Haia has to overcome at once antisemitism, endogamy
and shame, before dying "in terrible pain" during a botched abortion
. Sadoveanu's work of the time also includes Balta liniştii ("Tranquillity Pond"), where Alexandrina, pushed into an arranged marriage
, has a belated and sad revelation of true love. In other sketch stories, such as O zi ca altele ("A Day like Any Other") or Câinele ("The Dog"), Sadoveanu follows Caragiale's close study of suburban banality.
The novella Hanu Ancuţei ("Ancuţa's Inn"), described by George Călinescu as a "masterpiece of the jovial idyllicism and barbarian subtlety", and by Z. Ornea as the first evidence of Sadoveanu's "new age", is a frame story
in the line of medieval allegories such as Giovanni Boccaccio
's Decameron
and Geoffrey Chaucer
's Canterbury Tales
. It retells the stories of travelers meeting in the eponymous inn. Much of the story deals with statements of culinary tastes and shared recipes, as well as with the overall contrast between civilization and rudimentary ways: in one episode of the book, a merchant arriving from the Leipzig Trade Fair
bemuses the other protagonists when he explains the more frugal ways and the technical innovations of Western Europe
. Sadoveanu applied the same narrative technique in his Soarele în baltă ("The Sun in the Waterhole"), which, Călinescu argues, displays "a trickier style."
In Şoimii, Sadoveanu's first historical novel
, the main character is Nicoară Potcoavă
, a late 16th century Moldavian nobleman who became Hetman
of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and Prince of Moldavia. The narrative, whose basic lines had been drawn by Sadoveanu in his adolescent years, focuses on early events in Nicoară's life, building on the story according to which he and his brother Alexandru were the brothers of Prince Ioan Vodă cel Cumplit
, whose execution by the Ottomans
they tried to avenge. The text also follows their attempt to seize and kill Ieremia Golia, a boyar whose alleged betrayal had led to Prince Ioan's capture, and whose daughter Ilinca becomes the brothers' prisoner. This story as well features several episodes where the focus is on depicting customary feasts, as well as a fragment where the Potcoavăs and their Zaporozhian Cossack allies engage in binge drinking
. Glossing over several years in Nicoară's life, and culminating in his seizure of the throne, the narrative shows his victory against pretender Petru Şchiopul and Golia, and the price he has to pay for his rise. Alexandru, who falls in love with Ilinca, unsuccessfully asks for the captured Golia not to be killed. Following the murder, both brothers become embittered and renounce power. Călinescu described Şoimii novel as "still awkward", noting that Sadoveanu was only beginning to experiment with the genre.
The 1915 Neamul Şoimăreştilor is a Bildungsroman
centered on the coming of age of one Tudor Şoimaru. The protagonist, born a free peasant in Orhei
area, fights alongside Ştefan Tomşa
in the 1612 battles to capture the Moldavian throne. After participating in the capture of Iaşi
, he returns home and helps local boyar Stroie in recovering his daughter, Magda, who had been kidnapped by Cossacks. Şoimaru, who feels for Magda, is however enraged by news that her father has forced his community into serfdom
. Trying to deal with his internal conflict
, he travels into Poland-Lithuania
, where he discovers that Stroie is plotting against Tomşa, while Magda, who is in love with a szlachta
nobleman, scorns his affection. He returns a second time to Orhei, marries into his social group, and plots revenge on Stroie by again rallying with Ştefan Tomşa. Following Tomşa's defeat, he again loses the lands of his ancestors, as Stroie returns home to celebrate his victory and have the Şoimarus put to death. Unexpectedly warned of this by Magda, Tudor manages to turn the tide: he and his family destroy Stroie's manor, killing the master but allowing Magda to escape unharmed. In Călinescu's view, the novel is "somewhat more consistent from an epic perspective", but fails to respect the conventions of the adventure novel
it sets out to replicate. The critic, who deemed Magda's courtship by Tudor "sentimental
", argued that the book lacks "the richness and unpredictable nature of the love intrigue"; he also objected to the depiction of Tudor as indecisive and inadequate for a heroic role. However, Ovid Crohmălniceanu argued that the suddenness of Tudor's sentimental commitments was characteristic for the "peasant soul" as observed by Sadoveanu.
, and is seen by Călinescu as "of a superior artistic level." The plot centers on a conflict between Duca and the Ruset boyars: the young Alecu Ruset, son of the deposed Prince Antonie, is spared persecution on account of his good relations with the Ottomans, but has to live under close watch. Himself a tormented, if cultured and refined, man, Alecu falls in love with Duca's daughter Catrina, whom he attempts to kidnap. The episode, set to coincide with the start of a major social crisis, ends with Alecu's defeat and killing on Duca's orders.
In the background, the story depicts the visit of a Abbé
de Marenne, a Roman Catholic
priest and French envoy, who meets and befriends Ruset. Their encounter is another opportunity for Sadoveanu to show the amiable but incomplete exchange between the mentalities of Western
and Eastern Europe
. In various episodes of the novel, de Marenne shows himself perplexed by the omnipresent wilderness of underpopulated Moldavia, and in particular by the abundance of resources this provides. In one paragraph, seen by George Călinescu as a key to the book, Sadoveanu writes: "[De Marenne's] curious eye was permanently satisfied. Here was a desolation of solitudes, one that his friends in France could not even guess existed, no matter how much imagination they had been gifted with; for at the antipode of civilization one occasionally finds such things that have remained unchanged from the onset of creation, preserving their mysterious beauty."
In a shorter novel of the period, Sadoveanu explored the late years of Vasile Lupu
's rule over Moldavia, centering on the marriage of Cossack leader Tymofiy Khmelnytsky
and Lupu's daughter, Ruxandra. Titled Nunta Domniţei Ruxandra ("Princess Ruxandra's Wedding"), it shows the Cossacks' brutal celebration of the event around the court in Iaşi, depicting Tymofiy himself as an uncouth, violent and withdrawn figure. The narrative then focuses on the Battle of Finta
and the siege of Suceava
, through which a Wallachia
n-Transylvania
n force repelled the Moldo-Cossack forces and, turning the tide, entered deep into Moldavia and placed Gheorghe Ştefan
on the throne. Sadoveanu also invents a love story between Ruxandra and the boyar Bogdan, whose rivalry with Tymofiy ends in the latter's killing. While Călinescu criticized the plot as being over-detailed, and the character studies as incomplete, Crohmălniceanu found the intricate depiction of boyar customs to be a relevant part of Sadoveanu's "vast historical fresco." In both Zodia Cancerului and Nunta Domniţei Ruxandra, the author took significant liberties with the historical facts. In addition to Tymofiy's death at the hands of Bogdan, the latter narrative used invented or incorrect names for some of the personages, and portrays the muscular, mustachioed, Gheorghe Ştefan as thin and bearded; likewise, in Zodia Cancerului, Sadoveanu invents the character Guido Celesti, who stands in for the actual Franciscan
leader of Duca's Iaşi, Bariona da Monte Rotondo.
With Fraţii Jderi, Sadoveanu's fresco of Moldavian history maintains its setting, but moves back in time to the 15th century rule of Prince Stephen the Great
. Writing in 1941, before its final part was in print, Călinescu argued that the novel was part of Sadoveanu's "most valuable work", and noted "the maturity of its verbal means." In the first volume, titled Ucenicia lui Ionuţ ("Ionuţ's Apprenticeship"), the eponymous Jderi brothers, allies of Stephen and friends of his son Alexandru, fight off the enemies of their lord on several occasions. In what is the start of a Bildungsroman, the youngest Jder, Ionuţ Păr-Negru, consumed by love for Lady Nasta, who was kidnapped by Tatars
. He goes to her rescue, only to find out that she had preferred suicide to a life of slavery. Călinescu, who believed the volumes show Sadoveanu's move to the consecrated elements of adventure novels, called them "remarkable", but stressed that the narrative could render "the feeling of stumbling, of a languishing flow", and that the dénouement was "rather depressing". The second book in the series (Izvorul alb, "The White Water Spring") intertwines the life of the Jderi brothers with that of Stephen's family: the ruler weds the Byzantine
princess Mary of Mangop, while Simion Jder falls for Maruşca, who is supposedly Stephen's illegitimate daughter. The major episodes in the narrative are Maruşca's kidnapping by a boyar, her captivity in Jagiellon Poland, and her rescue at the hands of the Jderi. The 1942 conclusion of the cycle, Oamenii Măriei-sale ("His Lordship's Men"), the brothers are shown defending their ancestral rights and their lord against the Ottoman invader and ambivalent boyars, and crushing the former at the Battle of Vaslui
.
The Jderi books, again set to the background of primitivism and natural abundance, also feature episodes of intense horror. These, Călinescu proposes, are willingly depicted "with an indolent complacency", as if to underline that the slow pace and monumental scale of history give little importance to personal tragedies. The same commentator notes a difference between the role nature plays in the first and second volumes: from serene, the landscape becomes hostile, and people are shown fearing earthquakes and droughts, although contemplative depictions of euphoria play a central part in both writings. The meeting between the wider world and the immobile local tradition surfaces in Fraţii Jderi as well: a messenger is shown wondering how the letter he brought could talk to the addressee; when she is supposed to encounter strange men, Maruşca requests to be allowed to "shy away" in another room; a secondary character, claiming precognition
, prepares his own funeral.
For the 1925 Venea o moară pe Siret..., Sadoveanu received much critical acclaim. The boyar Alexandru Filotti falls in love with a miller's daughter, Anuţa, whom he educates and introduces to high society. The beautiful young lady is also courted by Filotti's son Costi and by the peasant Vasile Brebu—in the end, overwhelmed by jealousy, Brebu kills the object of his affection. George Călinescu writes that the good reception was not fully deserved, claiming that the novel is "colorless", that it was merely based on the writer's early stories, and that it failed in its goal of depicting "crumbling boyardom".
In Baltagul
(1930), Sadoveanu merged psychological techniques
and a pretext borrowed from crime fiction
with several of his major themes. Written in just 30 days on the basis of previous drafts, the condensed novel shows Vitoria Lipan, the widow of a murdered shepherd, following in her husband's tracks to discover his killer and avenge his death. Accompanied by her son, and using for a guide the shepherd's dog, Vitoria discovers both the body and the murderer, but, before she can take revenge, her dog jumps on the man and bites into his neck. By means of this plot line, Sadoveanu also builds a fresco of transhumance
and traces its ancestral paths, taking as a source of inspiration one of the best-known poems in local folklore, the ballad Mioriţa
. Vitoria's sheer determination is the central aspect of the volume. Călinescu, who ranks the book among Sadoveanu's best, praises its "remarkable artistry" and "unforgettable dialogues", but nonetheless writes that Lipan's "detective-like" search and a "stubbornness" are weak points in the narrative. Crohmălniceanu declares Baltagul one of the "capital works" in world literature, proposing that, on its own, it manages to reconstruct "an entire shepherding civilization"; Cornis-Pope, who rates the book as "Sadoveanu's masterpiece", also notes that it "restated the theme of crime and punishment".
. His contributions notably include accounts of his hunting trips: Ţara de dincolo de negură ("The Land beyond the Fog"), and one dedicated to the region of Dobruja
(Privelişti dobrogene, "Dobrujan Sights"). Călinescu wrote that they both comprised "pages of great beauty". Ţara de dincolo..., primarily showing recluse men in real-life symbiosis with the wilderness, also attention for its sympathetic depiction of the Hutsuls
, a minority
Slavic
-speaking population, as an ancient tribe threatened by cultural assimilation
. Sadoveanu's other travelogues include the reportage Oameni şi locuri ("People and Places") and an account of his trips into Bessarabia
(Drumuri basarabene, "Bessarabian Roads"). He also collected and commented upon the memoirs of other avid hunters (Istorisiri de vânătoare, "Hunting Stories").
A noted writing in this series was Împărăţia apelor ("The Realm of Waters"). It forms a detailed and contemplative memoir of his journeys as a fisherman, and, according to Crohmălniceanu, one of the most eloquent proofs of Sadoveanu's "permanent and intimate correspondence with nature." Călinescu saw the text as a "fantastic vision of the entire aquatic universe", merging a form of pessimism
similar to Arthur Schopenhauer
's with a "calm kief
" (cannabis
-induced torpor), and as such illustrating "the great joy of participating in the transformations of matter, of eating and allowing oneself to be eaten." Sadoveanu also contributed an account of his travels into the Netherlands
, Olanda ("Holland"). It provides insight into his preoccupation with the meeting of civilization and wilderness: upset by what he called "the [Dutch] rampancy of cleanliness", the writer confesses his perplexity at coming face to face with a contained and structured natural world, and details his own temptation to go "against the current". One of Sadoveanu's main conclusions is that Holland lacks in "true and lively wonders". Sadoveanu also sporadically wrote memoirs of his early life career, such as Însemnări ieşene ("Recordings from Iaşi"), which deals with the period during which he worked for Viaţa Românească
, a book about the Second Balkan War
(44 de zile în Bulgaria, "44 Days in Bulgaria
"), and the account of years in primary school, Domnu Trandafir. They were followed in 1944 by Anii de ucenicie ("The Apprenticeship Years"), where Sadoveanu details some of his earliest experiences. Despite his temptation for destroying all raw personal notes, Sadoveanu wrote and kept a large number of diaries, which were never published in his lifetime.
, an English
architect and stonemason who spent years in Tartary
(a book he titled Cuibul invaziilor, "The Nest of Invasions"). This was evidence of his growing interest in exotic subjects, which he later adapted to a series of novels, where the setting is "Scythia
", seen as an ancestral area of culture connecting Central Asia
with the European region of Dacia
(partly coinciding with present-day Romania). The home of mysterious Asiatic peoples, Sadoveanu's Scythia is notably the background to his novels Uvar and Nopţile de Sânziene. The former shows its eponymous character, a Yakut
, exposed to the scrutiny of a Russian
officer. In the latter, titled after the ancestral celebration of Sânziene
during the month of June, shows a French intellectual meeting a nomadic tribe of Moldavian Rom people
, who, the reader learns, are actually the descendants of Pechenegs. Călinescu notes that, in such writings, "the intrigue is a pretext", again serving to depict the vast wilderness confronted with the keen eye of foreign observers. He sees Nopţile de Sânziene as "the novel of millenarian immobility", and its theme as one of mythological proportions. The narrative pretexts, including the Sânziene celebration and the Rom people's social atavism
, connect Nopţile... with another one of Sadoveanu's writings, 24 iunie ("June 24").
According to Tudor Vianu, the 1933 fantasy
novel Creanga de aur ("The Golden Bow") takes partial inspiration from Byzantine literature
, and is evidence of a form of Humanism
found in Eastern philosophy
. Marcel Cornis-Pope places it among Sadoveanu's "mythic-poetic narratives that explored the ontology
and symbolics of history." The writer himself acknowledged that the esoteric
nature of the book was inspired by his own affiliation to the Freemasonry
, whose symbolism it partly reflected. Its protagonist, Kesarion Brebu, is included by Vianu among the images of sages and soothsayer
s in Mihail Sadoveanu's fiction, and, as "the last Deceneus
", is a treasurer of ancient secret sciences mastered by the Dacians
and the Ancient Egypt
ians. The novel is often interpreted as Sadoveanu's perspective on the Dacian contribution to Romanian culture
.
Sadoveanu's series of minor novels and stories of the interwar years also comprises a set of usually urban-themed writings, which, Călinescu argues, resemble the works of Honoré de Balzac
, but develop into "regressive" texts with "a lyrical intrigue". They include Duduia Margareta ("Miss Margareta"), where a conflict occurs between a young woman and her governess
, and Locul unde nu s-a întâmplat nimic ("The Place Where Nothing Happened"), where, in what is a retake on his own Apa morţilor, Sadoveanu depicts the cultured but bored boyar Lai Cantacuzin and his growing affection for a modest young woman, Daria Mazu. In Cazul Eugeniţei Costea ("The Case of Eugeniţa Costea"), a civil servant kills himself to avoid prosecution, and his end is replicated by that of his daughter, brought to despair by her stepfather's character and by her mother's irrational jealousy. Demonul tinereţii ("The Demon of Youth"), believed by Călinescu to be "the most charming" in this series, has for its protagonist Natanail, a university dropout who has developed a morbid fear of women since losing the love of his life, and who lives in seclusion as a monk. In the rural-themed Paştele blajinilor ("Thomas Sunday") of 1935, a defeated brigand seeks a dignified end to his wasted life. Written in 1938, the short story Ochi de urs ("Bear's Eye") introduces its hero Culi Ursake, the toughened hunter, into a bizarre scenery that seems to mock a human's understanding.
During the period, Mihail Sadoveanu also wrote children's literature
. His most significant pieces in this field are Dumbrava minunată ("The Enchanted Grove", 1926), Măria-sa Puiul Pădurii ("His Highness the Forest Boy", 1931), and a collection of stories adapted from Persian literature
(Divanul persian, "The Persian Divan
", 1940). Măria-sa Puiul Pădurii is itself an adaptation of the Geneviève de Brabant
story, considered "somewhat highbrow" by George Călinescu, while the frame story
Divanul persian consciously recalls the work of 19th century Wallachia
n writer Anton Pann
. In 1909, Sadoveanu also published adapted version of two ancient writings: the Alexander Romance
(as Alexandria) and Aesop's Fables
(as Esopia). His 1921 book Cocostârcul albastru ("The Blue Crane") is a series of short stories with lyrical themes. Among his early writings are two biographical novel
s which retell historical events from the source, Viaţa lui Ştefan cel Mare ("The Life of Stephen the Great") and Lacrimile ieromonahului Veniamin ("The Tears of Veniamin the Hieromonk
"), both of which, Călinescu objected, lacked in originality. The former, published in 1934, was more noted among critics, for both intimate tone and hagiographic
character (recounting Stephen's life on the model of saints' biographies).
and George Călinescu, although it may have been intended to rally "prestige and depth" to Socialist realism, only succeeded in bring their late works to the level of "propaganda and agitation
materials." In contrast to these retrospective assessments, communist literary critics and cultural promoters of the 1950s regularly described Sadoveanu as the model to follow, both before and after Georgy Malenkov
's views on culture were adopted as the norm.
In his Lumina vine de la Răsărit, the writer built on the opposition between light and darkness, identifying the former with Soviet policies and the latter with capitalism
. Sadoveanu thus spoke of "the dragon of my own doubts" being vanquished by "the Sun of the East". Historian Adrian Cioroianu
notes that this literary antithesis
came to be widely used by various Romanian authors who rallied with Stalinism
during the late 1940s, citing among these Cezar Petrescu
and the former avant-garde
writer Saşa Pană
. He also notes that such imagery, accompanied by portrayals of Soviet joy and abundance, replicated an ancient "structure of myth", adapting it to a new ideology on the basis of "what could be imagined, not of what could be believed." Ioan Stanomir writes that Sadoveanu and his fellow ARLUS members use a discourse recalling the theme of a religious conversion
, analogous to that of Paul the Apostle (see Road to Damascus), and critic Cornel Ungureanu stresses that Sadoveanu's texts of the period frequently quote the Bible
.
Following his return from the Soviet Union
, Sadoveanu published travelogues and reportage piece, including the 1945 Moscova ("Moscow
", co-authored with Traian Săvulescu and economist Mitiţă Constantinescu
) and the 1946 Caleidoscop ("Kaleidoscope"). In one of these accounts, he details his encounter with Lysenkoist
agronomist Nikolay Tsistsin, and claims to have tasted bread made from a brand of wheat
which yielded 4,000 kilogram
s of grain per hectare
. In a later memoir, Sadoveanu depicted his existence and the destiny of his country as improved by the communist system
, and gave accounts of his renewed journeys in the countryside, where he claimed to have witnessed a "spiritual splendor" supported by "the practice of the new times". He would follow up with hundreds of articles on various subjects, published by the communist press, including two 1953 pieces in which he lamented Stalin's death (one of them referred to the Soviet leader as "the great genius of progressive mankind").
Upon its publication, the political novel Mitrea Cocor, which depicts the hardships and eventual triumph of its eponymous peasant protagonist, was officially described as the first Socialist realist writing in local literature, and as a turning point in literary history. Often compared to Dan Deşliu's ideologized poem Lazăr de la Rusca, it is remembered as a controversial epic dictated by ideological requirements, and argued to have been written with assistance from several other authors. Seen by historiographer Lucian Boia
as an "embarrassing literary fabrication", it was rated by literary critics Dan C. Mihăilescu and Luminiţa Marcu both as one of "the most harmful books in Romanian literature", and by historian Ioan Lăcustă as "a propaganda writing, a failure from a literary point of view". A praise of collectivization policies
that some critics believe was a testimony that Sadoveanu was submitting himself and imposing his public to brainwashing, Mitrea Cocor was preceded by Păuna-Mică, a novel which also idealizes collective farming
.
With his final published work, the 1951-1952 novel Nicoară Potcoavă, Sadoveanu retells the narrative of his Şoimii, modifying the plot and adding new characters. Noted among the latter is Olimbiada, a female soothsayer and healer through whose words Sadoveanu again dispenses his own perspective on human existence. The focus of the narrative is also changed: from the avenger of his brother's death in Şoimii, the pretender becomes a purveyor of folk identity, aiming to reestablish the Moldavia of Stephen the Great's times. Praised early on by Dumitriu, who believed it was proof of "artistic excellence", Nicoară Potcoavă is itself seen as a source for communist-inspired political messages. According to Cornel Ungureanu, this explains why it highlights the brotherhood between Cossacks and Moldavians, supposedly replicating the official view on Soviet-Romanian relations. Cornis-Pope, who considers the novel one of Sadoveanu's "mere variations" on old subjects, suggests that it transforms its protagonist "from medieval fighter into political philosopher who announces the rise of a 'new world'." Victor Frunză also notes that, although Sadoveanu returned to old subjects, he "no longer rises to the level he had reached before the war."
The final part of Sadoveanu's creation also comprises a series of pieces where the narrative approach was, according to Crohmălniceanu, "corrected" to show his favorite recluse type won over by the new society. In essence, Ungureanu argues, the new style that of "reportage and plain information, adapted to orders coming from above". Such works include the 1951 Nada Florilor ("The Flowers' Lure") and Clonţ-de-fier ("Iron Bucktooth"), alongside an unfinished piece, Cântecul mioarei ("Song of the Ewe"). In Nada..., the peasant boy Culai follows his hero, tinsmith
Alecuţu, into factory life. Clonţ-de-fier, an ideologized retake on Demonul tinereţii, is about a monk returning from seclusion into the world of workers, where the landscape is reshaped by large-scale construction works. According to Ungureanu, it also shows Sadoveanu's universe stripped of "all its deep meanings." While their author came to personify the new cultural guidelines, Sadoveanu's previous books, from Fraţii Jderi to Baltagul, were subject to communist censorship
. Various statements contradicting the ideological guidelines were cut out of new editions: the books in general could no longer include mentions of Bessarabia
(a region first incorporated into the Soviet Union
by a 1940 occupation) or Romanian Orthodox
beliefs. In one such instance, censors of Baltagul removed a character's claim that "the Russian" was by nature "the drunkest of them all, [...] a worthy beggar and singer at the fairs."
to left-wing stances several times in his life. In close connection with his traditionalist views on literature, but in contrast to his career under a Conservative Party
and National Liberal
cabinets, Sadoveanu initially rallied with nationalist
groups of various hues, associating with both Nicolae Iorga
and, in 1906, with the left-wing Poporanists
at Viaţa Românească
. An early cause of his was his attempt to reconcile Iorga with the Poporanists, but his efforts were largely fruitless. In the 1910s, the anti-Iorga traditionalist Ilarie Chendi recognized in Sadoveanu one of the Poporanists who promoted "the spiritual healing of our people through culture."
Around that time, he formulated a ruralist and nationalist perspective on life, rejecting what he deemed "the hybrid urban world" for "the world of our national realities". In Călinescu's analysis, this signifies that, like his predecessor, the conservative Eminescu, Sadoveanu believed the cities were victims of the "superimposed category" of foreigners, in particular those administrating leasehold estate
s. Following the 1907 Peasants' Revolt
, Sadoveanu sent a report to his Minister of Education Spiru Haret
, informing him on the state of rural education, and, beyond this, of the problems faced by villagers in Moldavia. It read: "The leaseholders and landowners, no matter what their nationality, make a mockery of the Romanians' labors. Every surtucar [that is, urbanized character] in the village, mayors, notaries, paper-pushers, shamelessly [and] mercilessly milk this milk cow. They are joined by the priest—who [...] is in disagreement with the teacher." With Neamul Şoimăreştilor, the burdens of feudal society and mercantilism
, most of all the restriction of economic rights, were becoming a background theme in his fiction, which later depicted Stephen the Great
as the original champion of social justice
(Fraţii Jderi). During most of his World War I
activity, Sadoveanu also followed the Poporanists' Russophobia
and dislike of the Entente side
, describing the Russian Empire
's national policies in Bessarabia as far more barbaric than Austria-Hungary
's rule over Transylvania. In 1916, he abruptly switched to the Entente camp: his enthusiasm as propaganda officer was touched by controversy once Romania experienced massive defeats; Sadoveanu himself abandoned the Entente cause by 1918, when he was decommissioned
, and resumed his flirtation with Constantin Stere
's Germanophile
lobby.
Călinescu sees Sadoveanu, alongside Stere, as one of Viaţa Româneascăs chief ideologues, noting that he was nonetheless "rendered notorious by his inconsistency and opportunism." He writes that Sadoveanu and Stere both showed a resentment for ethnic minorities
, particularly members of the Jewish community
, whom they saw as agents of exploitation, but that, as Humanists
, they had a form of "humane sympathy" for Jews and foreigners taken individually. The Poporanist aspect of Sadoveanu's literature was also highlighted by Garabet Ibrăileanu
in the late 1920s, when he referred to his contributions as evidence that Romanian culture was successfully returning to its specific originality. In essence, Crohmălniceanu writes, Sadoveanu was tied to Viaţa Românească by his advocacy of national specificity, his preference for the large-scale narrative, and his vision of pristine, "natural", human beings.
According to Z. Ornea, Sadoveanu's affiliation to the Freemasonry
shaped not only his political "demophilia
", but also his "Weltanschauung
, and, through a reflex, his [literary] work." By consequence, Ornea argues, Sadoveanu became a supporter of democracy
, a stance which led him into open conflict with extreme nationalists. Alongside its Humanism, Sadoveanu's nationalism was noted for being secular
, and thus in contrast with the Romanian Orthodox
imagery favored by nationalists on the far right
. Sadoveanu rejected the notion that ancestral Romanians were religious individuals, stating that their belief was in fact "limited to rituals and customs." He was also a vocal supporter of international cooperation
, particularly among countries in Eastern
and Central Europe
. Writing for the magazine Familia
in 1935, 17 years after Transylvania
's union with Romania
and 15 years after the Treaty of Trianon
, Sadoveanu joined the Hungarian
author Gyula Illyés
in pleading for good relations between the two neighbors. As noted by Crohmălniceanu, although Sadoveanu's interwar novels may depict both clashes between polities and benign misunderstandings, they ultimately discourage ethnic stereotype
s, suggesting that "the gifts and qualities of various kinships" are mutually compatible. According to Marcel Cornis-Pope, this cooperative vision is the background theme to Divanul persian, a book "demonstrating the value of intercultural dialogue
at a time of sharp political polarization." The same text was described by Vianu as evidence of Sadoveanu's "understanding, gentleness and tolerance".
In 1926, the year of his entry into Alexandru Averescu
's People's Party, Sadoveanu motivated his choice in a letter to Octavian Goga
, indicating his belief that the intelligentsia
needed to partake in politics: "It would seem that what is foremost needed is the contribution of intellectuals, in an epoch when the overall intellectual level is decreasing." His sincerity was doubted by his contemporaries: both his friend Gheorghe Jurgea-Negrileşti and the communist Petre Pandrea recount how, in 1926-1927, Sadoveanu and Păstorel Teodoreanu requested public funds from Interior Minister Goga, with Sadoveanu motivating that he wanted to set up a cultural magazine and later spending the money on his personal wardrobe. In contrast, Adrian Cioroianu notes that the People's Party episode, and especially the "mutual wariness" between Sadoveanu and the National Liberals
, underlined the writer's sympathy for the "intellectual Left". Himself a Marxist
, Ovid Crohmălniceanu suggested that, as early as the 1930s, Sadoveanu's attitudes were rather similar to the official line of communist groups.
, a leftist newspaper owned by Jewish entrepreneurs, Sadoveanu was targeted by right-wing voices, who claimed that he had chosen to abandon his nationalist credentials. Thus, Sadoveanu became the target of a press campaign in the antisemitic and fascist
press, and in particular in Nichifor Crainic
's Sfarmă-Piatră
and the journals connected with the Iron Guard
. The former publication deplored his supposed "betrayal" of the nationalist cause. In it, Ovidiu Papadima
portrayed Sadoveanu as the victim of Jewish manipulation, and equated his affiliation to the Freemasonry with devil worship, and mocked his obesity
, while Crainic himself compared the writer to his own character, the treacherous Ieremia Golia. Porunca Vremii often referred to him as Jidoveanu (from jidov, a dismissive term for "Jew"), depicted him as an agent of "Judaeo-communism
" motivated by "perversity", and called on the public to harass the writer and beat him with stones. It also protested when the public authorities in Fălticeni
refused to withdraw Sadoveanu the title of honorary citizen, and again when the University of Iaşi made him a doctor honoris causa, and, through the voice of novelist N. Crevedia, even suggested that the writer should use his hunting rifle to commit suicide. In 1937, Porunca Vremii congratulated ultra-nationalists who had organized public burnings
of Sadoveanu's works in Southern Dobruja
and in Hunedoara
, as well as non-identified people who sent the writer packages containing shredded copies of his own volumes. In April 1937, the anti-Sadoveanu campaign was met with the indignation of various public figures, who issued an "Appeal of the Intellectuals", signed by Liviu Rebreanu
, Eugen Lovinescu
, Petru Groza
, Victor Eftimiu
, George Topîrceanu
, Zaharia Stancu
, Demostene Botez, Alexandru Al. Philippide, Constantin Balmuş and others. Denouncing the campaign as a "moral assassination", it referred to Sadoveanu as the author of "the most Romanian [works] in our literature." Sadoveanu himself defended his fellow writer Tudor Arghezi
, who stood accused by the far right press of having written "pornography
".
Reviewing the consequences of these scandals, Ovid Crohmălniceanu suggests that all of what Mihail Sadoveanu wrote from 1938 to 1943 is in some way connected to the cause of anti-fascism
. According to Cornis-Pope, Sadoveanu's dislike for the far right can be discovered in Creanga de aur, which doubles as "a political parable
opposing an archaic peasant civilization to the growing threat of fascism." However, George Călinescu claims, the writer himself had not actually revised his nationalist outlook, that he continued to believe that minorities and foreigners were a risky presence in Greater Romania
, and that his Humanism was "a light tincture". In one of his columns, Sadoveanu replied to those organizing the acts of vandalism, indicating that, had they actually read the novels they were destroying, they would have found "a burning faith in this nation, for so long mistreated by cunning men". Elsewhere, stating that he was not going to take his detractors into consideration, Sadoveanu defined himself as an adversary of both Nazi Germany
and any form of advocacy for a "National-Socialist
regime in our country".
Sadoveanu's subsequent endorsement of authoritarian
King
Carol II
and his corporatist
force, the National Renaissance Front
, saw his participation in the monarch's personality cult. In 1940, he offered controversial praise to the ruler through the official journal, Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, which caused Carol's political adversary, psychologist Nicolae Mărgineanu, to deem Sadoveanu and his fellow contributors "scoundrels". His renewed mandate in the Senate
was a favor from Carol, also granted to George Enescu
, philosopher Lucian Blaga
, scientists Emil Racoviţă
and Iuliu Haţieganu
, and several other public figures. During the Ion Antonescu
dictatorship, Sadoveanu kept a low profile and was apolitical. However, Cioroianu writes, he supported the invasion of the Soviet Union
and Romania's cooperation with the Axis Powers
on the Eastern Front
, seeing in this a chance to recover Bessarabia
and the northern part of Bukovina
(lost to the 1940 Soviet occupation). In spring 1944, months before the King Michael Coup toppled the regime, he was approached by the clandestine Romanian Communist Party
and its sympathizers in academia to sign an open letter
condemning Romania's alliance to Nazi Germany
. According to the communist activist Belu Zilber, who took part in this action, Sadoveanu, like his fellow intellectuals Dimitrie Gusti
, Simion Stoilow
and Horia Hulubei
, refused to sign the document. Also according to Zilber, Sadoveanu motivated his refusal by stating that the letter needed to be addressed not to Antonescu, but to King Michael I
. However, and aside from its main topic, Păuna-Mică was noted as one the few prose works of the 1940s to mention the wartime deportation of Romanian Jews by Antonescu's regime; Caleidoscop also speaks about the 1941 Iaşi pogrom
as "our shame", and commends those who opposed it.
Following his Lumina vine de la Răsărit lecture, Sadoveanu became noted for his positive portrayals of communization and collectivization
. In particular, Sadoveanu offered praise to one of the major pillars of Stalinism
, the 1936 Soviet Constitution
. In 1945, claiming to have been "flashed upon" by "Stalin's argumentation", he urged the public to read the document for its "sincerity"; elsewhere, he equated reading the constitution with "a mystical revelation". Adrian Cioroianu
describes this as "an office assignment" from the ARLUS, at a time when the group was circulating free translated copies of the Soviet constitution. The enthusiasm of his writings also manifested itself in his public behavior: according to his ARLUS colleague Iorgu Iordan
, Sadoveanu was emotional during the 1945 Soviet trip, shedding tears of joy upon visiting a day care
center in the countryside. Running in the 1946 election
, Sadoveanu blamed the old political class in general for the problems faced by Romanian peasants, including the major drought
of that year. By then, his political partners were making use of his literary fame, and his electoral pamphlet read: "There is no doubt that the thousands of people who have read his works will rush out on [election day] to vote for him." After 1948, when the Romanian communist regime
was installed, Sadoveanu directed his praise toward the new authorities. In 1952, as Romania adopted its second republican constitution
and the authorities intensified repression against anti-communists
, Sadoveanu made some of his most controversial statements. Declaring the defunct kingdom
to have been a "long interval of organized injustice and crooked development in all areas", he presented the new order as an era of social justice, human dignity, available culture and universal public education
.
Criticism of Sadoveanu's moral choices also focuses on the fact that, while he led a luxurious existence, many of his generation colleagues and fellow intellectuals were being persecuted or jailed in notoriously harsh circumstances. Having tolerated the purge within the Romanian Academy
, Cioroianu notes, Sadoveanu accepted being colleagues with newly-promoted "secondary characters [...] whom the new regime needed", such as poet Dumitru Theodor Neculuţă and historian Mihail Roller. In his official capacity, Sadoveanu even signed several death sentences
declared by communist tribunals, and, in the wake of the Tămădău Affair
of summer 1947, presided over the Chamber sessions which outlawed the opposition National Peasants' Party
: according to researcher Victor Frunză, he was a willing participant in this, having been upset by the exposure of his personal wealth in the National Peasantist press. Later, Sadoveanu made a reference to his former colleague, the National Peasantist activist Ion Mihalache
, arguing that his old Agrarianist
approach to politics had made him a "ridiculous character". Ioan Stanomir describes this fragment as one of "intellectual abjection", indicating that Mihalache, already a political prisoner
of the regime, was to die in captivity. However, as leader of the Romanian Writers' Union, the aging writer is credited by some with having protected poet Nicolae Labiş
, a disillusioned communist who had been excluded from the Union of Worker Youth
in spring 1954, and whose work Sadoveanu treasured. He is also reported to have helped George Călinescu publish the novel Scrinul negru, mediating between him and communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
.
Mihail Sadoveanu provided a definition of his own political transition in conversation with fellow writer Ion Biberi (1946). At the time, he claimed: "I have never engaged in politics, in the sense that one assigns to this word." He elaborated: "I am a left-wing person, following the line of a Poporanist zeal in the spirit of Viaţa Românească, but one adapted to the new circumstances." Cioroianu sees in such statements evidence that, trying to discard his past, Sadoveanu was including himself among the socialist
intellectuals "willing to let themselves be won over by the indescribable charm and the full swing of the communist utopia
", but that he may in reality have been "motivated by fear". Paraphrasing communist vocabulary, Stanomir describes the writer as one of the "bourgeois
" personalities who became "fellow travelers" of the communists, and argues that Sadoveanu's claim to have always leaned towards a "people's democracy" inaugurated "a pattern of chameleonism". In the view of historian Vladimir Tismăneanu
, Sadoveanu, like Parhon, George Călinescu, Traian Săvulescu and others, was one of the "non-communist intellectuals" attracted into cooperation with the Romanian Communist Party
and the communist regime (Tismăneanu also argues that these figures' good relationship with Gheorghiu-Dej was a factor in the process, as was Gheorghiu-Dej's ability to make himself look "harmless"). Others have submitted that Sadoveanu's faction in the Freemasonry
, which included far left
advocates Mihai Ralea and Alexandru Claudian, and officially supported evolutionary socialism, was a natural partner of the communists, to the point of sanctioning its own state-organized suppression.
According to Adrian Cioroianu, Sadoveanu was not necessarily an "apostle of communization", and his role in the process is subject to much debate. Describing the writer's "conversion to philosovietism" as "purely contextual", Cioroianu also points out that the very notion of "light arising in the East" is read by some as Sadoveanu's encoded message to other Freemasons, warning them of a Soviet threat to the organization. The historian notes that, for all their possible lack in sincerity, Sadoveanu's statements provided a template for other intellectuals to follow—this, he argues, was the case of Cezar Petrescu
. Other statements made by Sadoveanu also displayed a possibly studied ambiguity, as is the case with a 1952 lecture he gave in front of young writers attending the Party-controlled School of Literature, where he implicitly denied that one could be created a writer unless by "God or Mother Nature
".
, and Al. Lascarov-Moldovanu; his storytelling techniques were also sometimes borrowed by comedic novelist Damian Stănoiu, and, in later years, by historical novelist Dumitru Vacariu. According to Călinescu, Sadoveanu's early hunting stories published by Viaţa Românească, together with those of Junimist
Nicolae Gane, helped establish the genre within the framework of Romanian literature, and paved the way for its predilect use in the works of Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voineşti. Călinescu also notes that Scrisorile unui răzeş ("Letters of a Peasant"), an early work by novelist Cezar Petrescu, are deeply marked by Sadoveanu's influence, and that the same writer's use of the Moldavian dialect is a "pastiche" from Sadoveanu. Ion Vinea too, while expressing admiration for Sadoveanu, defined all his disciples and imitators as "mushroom-writers from Sadoveanu's woods" and "butlers who steal [their lord's lingerie] in order to wear his blazon". The issue was much later discussed by writer-critic Ioan Holban, who likewise described most historical novelists inspired by Sadoveanu as "insignificant" to Romanian letters.
Under the early stages of the communist regime
, before the rise of Nicolae Ceauşescu
engendered a series of rehabilitations
and accommodated nationalism, the Romanian curriculum
was dependent on ideological guidelines. At the time, Sadoveanu was one of the writers from the interwar whose work was still made available to Romanian schoolchildren. In the 1953 Romanian language and literature manual, he represented his generation alongside the communist authors Alexandru Toma
and Alexandru Sahia
, and was introduced mainly through his Mitrea Cocor. At the time, studies of his work were published by prominent communist critics, among them Ovid Crohmălniceanu, Paul Georgescu
, Traian Şelmaru, Mihai Novicov, Eugen Campus and Dumitru Isac, while a 1953 reissue of Baltagul was published in 30,000 copies (a number rarely met by the Romanian publishing industry in that context). In later years, Profira Sadoveanu became a noted promoter of her father's literature and public image, publishing children's versions of his biography, notably featuring illustrations by Mac Constantinescu (1955 edition).
Although Sadoveanu continued to be hailed as a major writer during the Ceauşescu years, and the seventy years of his debut were marked with state ceremony, the reaction against Soviet influence affected presentations of his work: his official bibliography no longer included any mention of Păuna-Mică. Among the memoirs dealing with Sadoveanu's late years were those of Alexandru Rosetti, published in 1977. The official revival of nationalist discourse in the 1960s allowed controversial critic Edgar Papu to formulate his version of Protochronism
, which postulated that phenomenons within Romanian culture preceded developments in world culture. In this context, Papu spoke of Sadoveanu as "one of the great precursory voices", comparing him to Rabindranath Tagore
. After the 1989 Revolution
toppled communism, Sadoveanu remained an influence on some young authors, who recovered the themes of his work in a Postmodern
or parodic
manner. Among them is Dan Lungu
, who, according to critic Andrei Terian, alluded to the Hanu Ancuţei frame story
when constructing his 2004 novel Paradisul găinilor. In 2001, a poll carried among literati by Observator Cultural
magazine listed six of his works as some of the best 150 Romanian novels.
Mihail Sadoveanu's various works were widely circulated abroad. This phenomenon began as early as 1905, when German-language
translations were first published, and continued during the 1930s, when Venea o moară pe Siret... was translated very soon after its original Romanian edition. In 1931, female author and feminist
militant Sarina Cassvan included French-language versions of his texts into an anthology designed to promote modern Romanian culture internationally. Also then, some of Sadoveanu's texts were rendered in Chinese
by Lu Xun
.
Tudor Vianu attributes the warm international reception Sadoveanu generally received to his abilities in rendering the Romanians' "own way of sensing and seeing nature and humanity", while literary historian Adrian Marino points out that, Sadoveanu and Liviu Rebreanu
were exceptional in their generation for taking an active interest in how their texts were translated, edited and published abroad.
Later, publicizing Sadoveanu's work to Eastern Bloc
and world audiences became a priority for the communist regime. Thus, Mitrea Cocor was, together with similar works by Zaharia Stancu
and Eusebiu Camilar, among the first wave of Romanian books to have been translated into Czech
and published in Communist Czechoslovakia. Alongside similar works by Petru Dumitriu, Mitrea Cocor was also among the few English-language editions sanctioned by the Romanian regime, being translated and published, with a preface by Jack Lindsay
, in 1953. Nine years later, the collected short stories were a tool for cultural exchange between Romania and the United States
. Sadoveanu's good standing in the Soviet Union after World War II
also made him one of the few Romanian writers whose works were still being published in the Moldavian SSR
(which, as part of Bessarabia
, had previously been a region of Greater Romania
).
Sadoveanu's diaries and notes were collected and edited during the early 2000s, being published in 2006 by Editura Junimea and the MLR. The main coordinators of this project were literary historian Constantin Ciopraga and Constantin Mitru, who was Sadoveanu's brother-in-law and personal secretary. The popularity of his writings remained high into the early 21st century: in 2004, when the country marked a hundred years since Sadoveanu's debut, Şoimii was published in its 15th edition. According to Simuţ, the occasion itself was nevertheless marked with "the impression of general indifference", making Sadoveanu seem "a submerged continent, remembered by us only with piousness and confusion".
's piece of the same name, with both authors sketching an affectionate portrait of one another. Topîrceanu also parodied his friend's style in a five-paragraph sketch, part of a series of such fragments, recorded their encounters in various other autobiographical writings, and dedicated him the first version of his poem Balada popii din Rudeni ("Ballad of the Priest from Rudeni"). Under the name Nicolae Pădureanu, Sadoveanu is a character in the novel and disguised autobiography În preajma revoluţiei ("On the Eve of the Revolution"), authored by his colleague Constantin Stere
. Sadoveanu is honored in two writings by Nicolae Labiş
, collectively titled Sadoveniene ("Sadovenians"). The first, titled Mihail Sadoveanu, is a prose poem which alludes to Sadoveanu's prose, and the other, a free verse
piece, is titled Cozma Răcoare.
In his scientific study of Sadoveanu's work, Eugen Lovinescu
himself turns to pure literature, portraying Sadoveanu as a child blessed by the Moirae
or ursitoare
with ironic gifts, such as an obstinacy for nature writing
in the absence of actual observation ("You shall write; you shall write and could never stop yourself writing [...]. The readers will grow tired, but you will remain tireless; you shall not known rest, just as you shall not know nature [...]"). George Călinescu was one to object to this portrayal, noting that it was merely a "literary device which hardly covers the emptiness of [Lovinescu's] idea." Also during the interwar, philosopher Mihai Ralea made Mihail Sadoveanu the subject of a sociological study investigating his literary contributions in the context of social evolutions.
A portrait of Sadoveanu was drawn by graphic artist Ary Murnu, within a larger work which depicts the Kübler Coffeehouse society. Sadoveanu was als the subject of a 1929 painting by Ştefan Dumitrescu, part of a series on Viaţa Românească
figures. In its original edition, Mitrea Cocor was supposed to feature a series of drawings made by Corneliu Baba
, one of the best-known Romanian visual artists for his generation. Baba, who had been officially criticized for "formalism
", was pressured by the authorities into accepting the commission or risk a precarious existence. The result of his work was rejected with a similar label, and the sketches were for long not made available to the public. Baba also painted Sadoveanu's portrait, which, in 1958, art critic Krikor Zambaccian as "the synthesis of Baba's art", depicting "a man of letters aware of his mission [and] the leading presence of an active consciousness". Constantin Mitru inherited the painting and passed it on to the Museum of Romanian Literature (MLR). A marble bust of Sadoveanu, the work of Ion Irimescu
, was set up in Fălticeni in 1977. In Bucharest, a memorial plaque was placed on Pitar Moş Street, on a house where he lived for a period. During the 1990s, another bust of Sadoveanu, the work of several sculptors, was unveiled in Chişinău
, Republic of Moldova
(the former Moldavian SSR), part of the Aleea Clasicilor sculptural ensemble.
Sadoveanu's writings also made an impact on film culture, and in particular on Romanian cinema
of the communist period. However, the first film based on his works was a German
production of 1929: based on Venea o moară... and titled Sturmflut der Liebe ("Storm Tide of Love"), it notably starred Marcella Albani
, Alexandru Giugaru
and Ion Brezeanu. The series of Romanian-made films began with the 1952 Mitrea Cocor, co-directed by Marietta Sadova (who also starred in the film) and Victor Iliu
. The film itself was closely supervised for conformity with ideological guidelines, and had to be partly redone because its original version did not meet them. Mircea Drăgan
directed a 1965 version of Neamul Şoimăreştilor (with a screenplay co-written by Constantin Mitru) and a 1973 adaptation of Fraţii Jderi (with contributions by Mitru and by Profira Sadoveanu). In 1969, Romanian studios produced a film version of Baltagul, directed by Mircea Mureşan
and with Sidonia Manolache as Vitoria Lipan. Ten years later, Constantin Vaeni released Vacanţă tragică ("Tragic Holiday"), based on Nada Florilor, followed by a 1980 adaptation of Dumbrava minunată and Stere Gulea
's 1983 Ochi de urs (tr. "The Bear Eye's Curse"). In 1989, just before the Romanian Revolution, Dan Piţa
produced his film The Last Ball in November
, based on Locul unde nu s-a întâmplat nimic.
During the early decades of communist rule, Sadoveanu, Alexandru Toma
and later Tudor Arghezi
were often paid homage with state celebrations, likened by literary critic Florin Mihăilescu to the personality cult reserved for Stalin and Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
. For a while after the writer's death, the Writers' Union club, commonly known as "The Writers' House", bore Sadoveanu's name. Casa cu turn in Iaşi, which Sadoveanu had donated to the state in 1950, went through a period of neglect and was finally set up as a museum in 1980. Similar sites were set up in his Fălticeni house, and in his final residence at Voividenia, while the Bradu-Strâmb chalet was controversially granted to the Securitate
, and later to the Romanian Police
. Each year, Iaşi commemorates the writer through a cultural festival known as the "Mihail Sadoveanu Days". In 2004, the 100th anniversary of his debut was marked by a series of exhibits and symposiums, organized by the MLR. Similar events are regularly held in various cities, and include the "In Sadoveanu's Footsteps" colloquy of writers, held during March 2006 in the city of Piatra Neamţ
. Since 2003, in tribute to Sadoveanu's love for the game, an annual chess
tournament is held in Iaşi. The Sadoveanu High School and a bookstore in Bucharest are named after him, and streets named after him exist in, among other places, Iaşi, Fălticeni, Timişoara
, Oradea
, Braşov
, Galaţi
, Suceava
, Călăraşi
, Târgu Jiu
, Miercurea Ciuc, Petroşani
, and Mangalia
. Paşcani hosts a cultural center, a high school and a library named after him. Sadoveanu's memory is also regularly honored in the Republic of Moldova, where, in 2005, the 125th anniversary of his birth was celebrated in an official context. A street in Chişinău and a high school in the town of Cupcini
are also named after him.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n novelist, short story writer, journalist and political figure, who twice served as acting republican head of state
President of Romania
The President of Romania is the head of state of Romania. The President is directly elected by a two-round system for a five-year term . An individual may serve two terms...
under the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
(1947–1948 and 1958). One of the most prolific Romanian-language
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
writers, he is remembered mostly for his historical
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
and adventure novel
Adventure novel
The adventure novel is a genre of novels that has adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, as its main theme.-History:...
s, as well as for his nature writing
Nature writing
Nature writing is generally defined as nonfiction prose writing about the natural environment. Nature writing often draws heavily on scientific information and facts about the natural world; at the same time, it is frequently written in the first person and incorporates personal observations of and...
. An author whose career spanned five decades, Sadoveanu was an early associate of the traditionalist magazine Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul or Semănătorul was a literary and political magazine published in Romania between 1901 and 1910. Founded by poets Alexandru Vlahuţă and George Coşbuc, it is primarily remembered as a tribune for early 20th century traditionalism, neoromanticism and ethnic nationalism...
, before becoming known as a Realist
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
writer and an adherent to the Poporanist
Poporanism
The word “poporanism” is derived from “popor”, meaning “people” in the Romanian language. The ideology of Romanian Populism and poporanism are interchangeable. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, populism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for...
current represented by Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
journal. His books, critically acclaimed for their vision of age-old solitude and natural abundance, are generally set in the historical region
Historical regions of Romania
At various times during the late 19th and 20th centuries, Romania extended over the following historical regions:Wallachia:*Muntenia or Greater Wallachia: as part of Wallachia, joined Moldavia in 1859 to create modern Romania;...
of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
, building on themes from Romania's medieval
Romania in the Middle Ages
The Middle Ages in Romania began with the withdrawal of the Mongols, the last of the migrating populations to invade the territory of modern Romania, after their attack of 1241–1242...
and early modern history
Early Modern Romania
Early Modern Romania is the portion of Romanian history that falls in the early modern period, roughly from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century...
. Among them are Neamul Şoimăreştilor ("The Şoimăreşti Family"), Fraţii Jderi ("The Jderi Brothers") and Zodia Cancerului ("Under the Sign of the Crab"). With Venea o moară pe Siret... ("A Mill Was Floating down the Siret
Siret River
The Siret or Sireth is a river that rises from the Carpathians in the Northern Bukovina region of Ukraine, and flows southward into Romania for 470 km before it joins the Danube...
..."), Baltagul
The Hatchet (novel)
The Hatchet is a 1930 crime novel novel written by Mihail Sadoveanu. The main character of the novel is the wife of a shepard living in the Moldavian village of Măgura Tarcăului, Vitoria Lipan, which has a premonitation that her husband, Nechifor, on a trip to buy a new flock in the town of...
("The Hatchet") and some other works of fiction, Sadoveanu extends his fresco to contemporary history and adapts his style to the psychological novel
Psychological novel
A psychological novel, also called psychological realism, is a work of prose fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action...
, Naturalism
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
and Social realism
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
.
A traditionalist figure whose perspective on life was a combination of nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and Humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, Sadoveanu moved between right-
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
and left-wing political forces throughout the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, while serving terms in Parliament
Parliament of Romania
The Parliament of Romania is made up of two chambers:*The Chamber of Deputies*The SenatePrior to the modifications of the Constitution in 2003, the two houses had identical attributes. A text of a law had to be approved by both houses...
. Rallying with People's Party, the National Agrarian Party, and the National Liberal Party-Brătianu
National Liberal Party-Bratianu
The National Liberal Party-Brătianu was a right-wing political party in Romania, formed as a splinter group from the main liberal faction, the National Liberals. For its symbol, PNL-Brătianu chose three vertical bars, placed at equal distance from each other...
, he was editor of the leftist newspapers Adevărul
Adevarul
Adevărul is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in 1871 and reestablished in 1888, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Romanian Kingdom's existence, adopting an independent pro-democratic position, advocating land reform and universal suffrage...
and Dimineaţa, and was the target of a violent far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
press campaign. After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Sadoveanu became a political associate of the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
. He wrote in favor of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
, joined the Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union and adopted Socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
. He was awarded high positions in political and cultural life, but his works of the time, in particular the controversial novel Mitrea Cocor, are generally seen as his poorest. Many of his texts and speeches, including the famous slogan Lumina vine de la Răsărit ("The Light Arises in the East"), are also viewed as propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
in favor of communization.
A founding member of the Romanian Writers' Society and later President of the Romanian Writers' Union, Sadoveanu was also a member of the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
since 1921 and a recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize
Lenin Peace Prize
The International Lenin Peace Prize was the Soviet Union's equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize, named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government, to notable individuals whom the panel indicated had "strengthened peace among peoples"...
for 1961. He was also Grand Master
Masonic Lodge Officers
This article relates to mainstream Craft Freemasonry, sometimes known as Blue Lodge Freemasonry. Every Masonic Lodge elects or appoints Masonic Lodge Officers to execute the necessary functions of the lodge's life and work...
of the Romanian Freemasonry
Freemasonry in Romania
The beginnings of Freemasonry in the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia date to the 18th century and the activities of the humanist scholar Anton Maria del Chiaro, secretary to voivodes Constantin Brâncoveanu and Constantine Mavrocordatos...
during the 1930s. The father of Profira and Paul-Mihu Sadoveanu, who also pursued careers as writers, he was the brother-in-law of literary critic Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan
Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan
Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan was a Romanian literary critic, educationist, opinion journalist, poet and feminist militant. She spent her youth advocating socialism, and rallied with left-wing politics for the remainder of her life, primarily as a representative of Poporanist circles and personal friend...
.
Early years
Sadoveanu was born in PaşcaniPascani
Paşcani is a city in Iaşi County in the Moldavia region of Romania on the Siret river. , it has a population of 42,172. Five villages are administered by the city: Blăgeşti, Boşteni, Gâsteşti, Lunca and Sodomeni....
, in western Moldavia. His father's family hailed from the southwestern part of the Old Kingdom
Romanian Old Kingdom
The Romanian Old Kingdom is a colloquial term referring to the territory covered by the first independent Romanian nation state, which was composed of the Danubian Principalities—Wallachia and Moldavia...
, in Oltenia
Oltenia
Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....
. Their place of origin, Sadova
Sadova, Dolj
Sadova is a commune in Dolj County, Romania with a population of 8,500 people. It is composed of two villages, Piscu Sadovei and Sadova....
, provided their chosen surname (lit. "from Sadova"), which was adopted by the family only in 1891. Mihail's father was the lawyer Alexandru Sadoveanu (d. 1921), whom literary critic George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
described as "a bearded and well-to-do man"; according to the writer's own notes, Alexandru was unhappy in marriage, and his progressive isolation from public life impacted on the entire family. Mihail's mother, Profira née Ursachi (or Ursaki; d. 1895), hailed from a line of Moldavian shepherds, all of whom, as the writer recalled, had been illiterate
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
. Literary historian Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
believes this contrast of regional and social identities played a part in shaping the author, opening him up to a "Romanian universality", but notes that, throughout his career, Sadoveanu was especially connected with his Moldavian roots. Mihail had a brother, also named Alexandru, whose wife was the Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
-educated literary critic Izabela Morţun (later known as Sadoveanu-Evan, she was the cousin of socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
activist Vasile Morţun). Another one of his brothers, Vasile Sadoveanu, was an agricultural engineer.
Beginning in 1887, Sadoveanu attended primary school in Paşcani. His favorite teacher, a Mr. Busuioc, later served as inspiration for one of his best-known short stories, Domnu Trandafir ("Master Trandafir"). While away from school, young Sadoveanu used much of his spare time exploring his native region on foot, hunting, fishing, or just contemplating nature. He was also spending his vacations in his mother's native Verşeni. During his journeys, Sadoveanu visited peasants, and his impression of the way in which they were relating to authority is credited by critics with having shaped his perspective on society. Shortly after this episode, the young Sadoveanu left to complete his secondary studies in Fălticeni
Falticeni
Fălticeni is a city in Suceava County, Romania, capital of the former Baia County . As of 2003 the population is 28,899, and the city covers an area of 28,76 km², of which 25% are orchards and lakes. The city is 25 km away from Suceava, the capital of the county...
and at the National High School in Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
. While in Fălticeni, he was in the same class as future authors Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
and I. Dragoslav
I. Dragoslav
I. Dragoslav or Ion Dragoslav, pen names of Ion V. Ivaciuc or Ion Sumanariu Ivanciuc , was a Romanian writer...
, but, having lost interest in schoolwork, he failed to get his remove, before eventually graduating top of his class.
First literary attempts, marriage and family
In 1896, when he was aged sixteen, Sadoveanu gave thought to writing a monographMonograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
on Moldavian Prince Stephen the Great
Stephen III of Moldavia
Stephen III of Moldavia was Prince of Moldavia between 1457 and 1504 and the most prominent representative of the House of Mușat.During his reign, he strengthened Moldavia and maintained its independence against the ambitions of Hungary, Poland, and the...
, but his first literary attempts date from the following year. It was in 1897 that a sketch story
Sketch story
A sketch story, or sketch, is a piece of writing that is generally shorter than a short story, and contains very little, if any, plot. The term was most popularly-used in the late nineteenth century. As a literary work, it is also often referred to simply as the sketch.-Style:A sketch is mainly...
, titled Domnişoara M din Fălticeni ("Miss M from Fălticeni") and signed Mihai din Paşcani ("Mihai from Paşcani"), was successfully submitted for publishing to the Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
-based satirical magazine Dracu. He started writing for Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu was a Romanian poet, philologist, linguist and folklorist. He is known for introducing new trends of European modernism into Romanian literature.He was a professor at the University of Bucharest, and a member of the Romanian Academy....
's journal Vieaţa Nouă in 1898. His contributions, featured alongside those of Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction was a Romanian Orthodox clergyman and theologian, writer, journalist, left-wing activist, as well as a political figure of the People's Republic of Romania...
, N. D. Cocea
N. D. Cocea
N. D. Cocea was a Romanian journalist, novelist, critic and left-wing political activist, known as a major but controversial figure in the field of political satire...
, and Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
, include another sketch story and a lyric poem
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
. Sadoveanu was however dissatisfied with Densusianu's agenda, and critical of the entire Romanian Symbolist movement
Symbolist movement in Romania
The Symbolist movement in Romania, active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, marked the development of Romanian culture in both literature and visual arts...
for which the review spoke. He ultimately began writing pieces for non-Symbolist magazines such as Opinia and Pagini Literare. In parallel, he founded and printed by hand a short-lived journal, known to researches as either Aurora or Lumea.
Sadoveanu left for Bucharest in 1900, intending to study Law at the University
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
's Faculty of Law, but withdrew soon after, deciding to dedicate himself to literature. He began frequenting the bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
society in the capital, but, following a sudden change in outlook, abandoned poetry and focused his work entirely on Realist
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
prose. In 1901, Sadoveanu married Ecaterina Bâlu, with whom he settled in Fălticeni, where he began work on his first novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s and decided to make his living as a professional writer. His first draft for a novel, Fraţii Potcoavă ("The Potcoavă Brothers"), came out in 1902, when fragments were published by Pagini Alese magazine under the pseudonym M. S. Cobuz. The following year, Sadoveanu was drafted into the Romanian Land Forces
Romanian Land Forces
The Romanian Land Forces is the army of Romania, and the main component of the Romanian Armed Forces. In recent years, full professionalisation and a major equipment overhaul have transformed the nature of the force.The Romanian Land Forces were founded on...
, stationed as a guard near Târgu Ocna
Târgu Ocna
Târgu Ocna is a town in Bacău County, Romania, situated on the left bank of the Trotuş River, an affluent of the Siret, and on a branch railway which crosses the Ghimeş Pass from Moldavia into Transylvania. Târgu Ocna is built among the Carpathian Mountains on bare hills formed of rock salt...
, and inspired by the experience to write some of his first social criticism
Social criticism
The term social criticism locates the reasons for malicious conditions of the society in flawed social structures. People adhering to a social critics aim at practical solutions by specific measures, often consensual reform but sometimes also by powerful revolution.- European roots :Religious...
narratives.
After that time, he spent much of his home in the country, where he raised a large family. Initially, the Sadoveanus lived in a house previously owned by celebrated Moldavian raconteur Ion Creangă
Ion Creanga
Ion Creangă was a Moldavian-born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his novellas and short stories, and his many anecdotes...
, before they commissioned a new building, famed for its surrounding Grădina Liniştii ("Garden of Quietude"). He was the father of eleven, among whom were three daughters: Despina, Teodora and Profira Sadoveanu, the latter of whom was a poetess and a novelist. Of his sons, Dimitrie Sadoveanu became a painter, while Paul-Mihu, the youngest (born 1920), was author of the novel Ca floarea câmpului... ("Like the Flower of the Field...") which was published posthumously.
Sămănătorul, Viaţa Românească and literary debut
After receiving an invitation from poet Ştefan Octavian IosifStefan Octavian Iosif
Ştefan Octavian Iosif was a Romanian poet and translator of Aromanian origin.-Life:Born in Braşov, Transylvania , he studied in his native town and in Sibiu before completing his education in Paris. While in France, he met Dimitrie Anghel, who would became a long-time friend...
in 1903, Sadoveanu contributed works to the traditionalist journal Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul or Semănătorul was a literary and political magazine published in Romania between 1901 and 1910. Founded by poets Alexandru Vlahuţă and George Coşbuc, it is primarily remembered as a tribune for early 20th century traditionalism, neoromanticism and ethnic nationalism...
, led at the time by historian and critic Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
. He was by then also a contributor to Voinţa Naţională, a newspaper published by the National Liberal Party
National Liberal Party (Romania)
The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...
and managed by politician Vintilă Brătianu
Vintila Bratianu
Vintilă Brătianu was a Romanian politician who served as Prime Minister of Romania between 24 November 1927 and 2 November 1928.Vintilă and his brothers Ion and Dinu were the leaders of the National Liberal Party of Romania...
—beginning December of the same year, the paper serialized Şoimii ("The Hawks"), an extended variant of Fraţii Potcoavă, with an introduction by historian Vasile Pârvan
Vasile Pârvan
Vasile Pârvan was a Romanian historian and archaeologist.He studied history in Bucharest, with Nicolae Iorga as one of his professors. He continued his studies in Germany. His Ph.D. thesis, written in 1909, was titled The nationality of merchants in the Roman Empire...
. In 1904, he regained Bucharest, where he became a copyist
Copyist
A copyist is a person who makes written copies. In ancient times, a scrivener was also called a calligraphus . The term's modern use is almost entirely confined to music copyists, who are employed by the music industry to produce neat copies from a composer or arranger's manuscript.-Music...
for the Ministry of Education's Board of Schools, returning to Fălticeni two years later. After 1906, he rallied with the group formed around Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
, which was also joined by his sister-in-law Izabela.
Sămănătorul and Viaţa Românească, having comparable influence over the literature of Romania
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
, stood for a traditionalist and ruralist approach to art, even though the latter adopted a more left-wing perspective, known as Poporanism
Poporanism
The word “poporanism” is derived from “popor”, meaning “people” in the Romanian language. The ideology of Romanian Populism and poporanism are interchangeable. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, populism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for...
. The leading Poporanist ideologue, Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
, became a personal friend of the young writer after inviting him on an excursion down the Râşca River
Râsca River (Moldova)
The Râşca River is a tributary of the Moldova River in Romania.-References:* Administraţia Naţională Apelor Române - Cadastrul Apelor - Bucureşti* Institutul de Meteorologie şi Hidrologie - Rîurile României - Bucureşti 1971...
. With his subsequent pieces for Viaţa Românească, Sadoveanu became especially known as the raconteur of hunting trips, but also sparked controversy when a young woman writer, Constanţa Marino-Moscu, accused him of having plagiarized
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
her works in his Mariana Vidraşcu, a serialized novel which was discontinued and later largely forgotten.
1904 was Sadoveanu's effective debut year: he published four separate books, including Şoimii, Povestiri ("Stories"), Dureri înăbuşite ("Suppressed Pains") and Crâşma lui Moş Petcu ("Old Man Petcu's Alehouse"). The beginning of a prolific literary career covering more than a half century and of his collaboration with Editura Minerva
Editura Minerva
Editura Minerva is one of the largest publishing houses in Romania. Located in Bucharest, it is known, among other things, for publishing classic Romanian literature, children's books, and scientific books.-External links:**...
publishing house, this debut was marked by intense preparation, and drew on literary exercises spanning the previous decade. His Sămănătorul colleague Iorga deemed 1904 "Sadoveanu's Year", while the influential and aging critic Titu Maiorescu
Titu Maiorescu
Titu Liviu Maiorescu was a Romanian literary critic and politician, founder of the Junimea Society. As a literary critic, he was instrumental in the development of Romanian culture in the second half of the 19th century....
, leader of the conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
literary society Junimea
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
, gave a positive review to Povestiri, and successfully proposed it for a Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
award in 1906. In a 1908 essay, Maiorescu was to list Sadoveanu among Romania's greatest writers. According to Vianu, Maiorescu saw in Sadoveanu and other young writers the triumph of his theory on a "popular" form of Realism, a vision which the Junimist thinker had advocated in his essays from as early as 1882. Sadoveanu later credited Iorga, Maiorescu, and especially so the cultural promoter Constantin Banu and Sămănătorul poet George Coşbuc
George Cosbuc
George Coşbuc was a Romanian poet, translator, teacher, and journalist, best remembered for his verses describing, praising and eulogizing rural life, its many travails but also its occasions for joy....
, with having helped him capture the interest of the public and his peers. He was by then facing adversity from opponents of Sămănătorul, primarily critic Henri Sanielevici and his Curentul Nou review, which published claims that Sadoveanu's volumes, which depicted immoral acts such as adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
and rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, showed that Iorga's program of moral didacticism
Didacticism
Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...
was hypocritical. As he latter recalled, Sadoveanu was himself upset with some of Iorga's critical judgments regarding his own work, noting that the Sămănătorist doyen had once declared him equal to Vasile Pop (one of Iorga's protegés, and viewed as overrated by Sadoveanu).
The same year, Sadoveanu became one of Sămănătoruls editors, alongside Iorga and Iosif. The magazine, originally a traditionalist mouthpiece founded by Alexandru Vlahuţă
Alexandru Vlahuta
Alexandru Vlahuţă was a Romanian writer. His best known work is România pitorească, an overview of Romania's landscape in the form of a travelogue. He was also the main editor of Sămănătorul magazine, alongside George Coşbuc....
and George Coşbuc
George Cosbuc
George Coşbuc was a Romanian poet, translator, teacher, and journalist, best remembered for his verses describing, praising and eulogizing rural life, its many travails but also its occasions for joy....
, proclaimed with Iorga its purpose of establishing "a national culture", emancipated from foreign influence. However, according to Călinescu, this ambitious goal was only manifested in a "great cultural influence", as the journal continued to be an eclectic
Eclecticism
Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...
venue which grouped together ruralist traditionalists of the "national tendency" and adherents to the cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism...
currents such as Symbolism. Călinescu and Vianu agree that Sămănătorul was, for a large part, a promoter of older guidelines set by Junimea. Vianu also argues that Sadoveanu's contribution to the literary circle was the main original artistic element in its history, and credits Iosif with having accurately predicted that, during a period of literary "crisis", Sadoveanu was the person to provide innovation.
He continued to publish at an impressive rate: in 1906, he again handed down for print four separate volumes. In parallel, Sadoveanu pursued his career as a civil servant. In 1905, he was employed as a clerk by the Ministry of Education, headed by the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (Romania, 1880-1918)
The Conservative Party was between 1880 and 1918 one of Romania's two most important parties, the other one being the Liberal Party...
's Mihail Vlădescu. His direct supervisor was poet D. Nanu, and he had for his colleagues the geographer George Vâlsan and the short story writer Nicolae N. Beldiceanu. Nanu wrote of this period: "It is a clerical packed full with men of letters, no work is being done, people smoke, drink coffee, create dreams, poems and prose [...]." Having interrupted his administrative service, Sadoveanu was again drafted into the Land Forces in 1906, being granted an officer's rank. An already overweight man, he had to march from Probota
Probota
Probota is a commune in Iaşi County, Romania. It is composed of three villages: Bălteni, Perieni and Probota.-References:...
in Central Moldavia to Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
, which caused him intense suffering.
1910s and World War I
Sadoveanu returned to his administrative job in 1907, the year of the Peasants' Revolt1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt
The 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt took place in March 1907 in Moldavia and it quickly spread, reaching Wallachia. The main cause was the discontent of the peasants about the inequity of land ownership, which was in the hands of just a few large landowners....
. Kept in office by the National Liberal cabinet of Ion I. C. Brătianu
Ion I. C. Bratianu
Ion I. C. Brătianu was a Romanian politician, leader of the National Liberal Party , the Prime Minister of Romania for five terms, and Foreign Minister on several occasions; he was the eldest son of statesman and PNL leader Ion Brătianu, the brother of Vintilă and Dinu Brătianu, and the father of...
, he served under the reform-minded Education Minister Spiru Haret
Spiru Haret
Spiru C. Haret was a Romanian mathematician, astronomer and politician. He made a fundamental contribution to the n-body problem in celestial mechanics by proving that using a third degree approximation for the disturbing forces implies instability of the major axes of the orbits, and by...
. Inspired by the bloody outcome of the Revolt, as well as by Haret's moves to educate the peasantry, Sadoveanu reportedly drew suspicion from the Police
Romanian Police
The Romanian Police is the national police force and main civil law enforcement agency in Romania. It is subordinated to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform.-Duties:The Romanian Police are responsible for:...
when he published self-help
Self-help
Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...
guides aimed at industrious ploughmen, a brand of social activism which even resulted in a formal inquiry.
Mihail Sadoveanu became a professional writer in 1908-1909, after joining the Romanian Writers' Society, created in the previous year by poets Cincinat Pavelescu and Dimitrie Anghel
Dimitrie Anghel
Dimitrie Anghel was a Romanian poet.His first poem was published in Contemporanul...
, and becoming its President in September of that year. The same year, he, Iosif, and Anghel, together with author Emil Gârleanu, set up Cumpăna, a monthly directed against both Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu was a Romanian poet, philologist, linguist and folklorist. He is known for introducing new trends of European modernism into Romanian literature.He was a professor at the University of Bucharest, and a member of the Romanian Academy....
's eclecticism and the Junimist school (the magazine was no longer in print by 1910). At the time, he became a noted presence among the group of intellectuals meeting in Bucharest's Kübler Coffeehouse.
In 1910, he was also appointed head of the National Theater Iaşi, a position which he filled until 1919. That year, he translated from the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
one of Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate...
's studies on the genesis of artworks. He resigned his office within the Writers' Society in November 1911, being replaced by Gârleanu, but continued to partake in its administration as a member of its leadership committee and a censor. He was a leading presence at Minerva newspaper, alongside Anghel and critic Dumitru Karnabatt, and also published in the Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n traditionalist journal, Luceafărul.
Sadoveanu was again called under arms during the Second Balkan War
Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 29 June 1913. Bulgaria had a prewar agreement about the division of region of Macedonia...
of 1913, when Romania confronted Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
. Having reached the rank of Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
, he was stationed in Fălticeni with the 15th Infantry Regiment, after which he spent a short period on the front. He returned to literary life. Becoming good friends with poet and humorist George Topîrceanu
George Topîrceanu
George Topîrceanu was a Romanian poet, short story writer, and humourist.-Biography:Born in Bucharest, Topîrceanu began his schooling in the city, and then moved to the hilly countryside of the Argeş county, in the Şuici commune, where he formed his taste for themes taken from nature...
, he accompanied him and other writers on cultural tours during 1914 and 1915. The series of writings he published at the time includes the 1915 Neamul Şoimăreştilor.
In 1916-1917, as Romania entered World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and was invaded by the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
, Sadoveanu stayed in Moldavia, the only part of Romania's territory still under the state's authority (see Romanian Campaign
Romanian Campaign (World War I)
The Romanian Campaign was part of the Balkan theatre of World War I, with Romania and Russia allied against the armies of the Central Powers. Fighting took place from August 1916 to December 1917, across most of present-day Romania, including Transylvania, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian...
). The writer oscillated between the Germanophilia of his Viaţa Românească friends, the stated belief that war was misery and the welcoming of Romania's commitment to the Entente Powers
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
. At the time, he was reelected President of the Writers' Society, a provisional mandate which ended in 1918, when Romania signed the peace with the Central Powers, and, as Army reservist
Reservist
A reservist is a person who is a member of a military reserve force. They are otherwise civilians, and in peacetime have careers outside the military. Reservists usually go for training on an annual basis to refresh their skills. This person is usually a former active-duty member of the armed...
, edited the Entente's regional propaganda outlet, România. He was joined by Topîrceanu, who had just been released from a POW camp
Prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...
in Bulgaria, and with whom he founded the magazine Însemnări Literare. Sadoveanu subsequently settled in the Iaşi neighborhood of Copou, purchasing and redecorating the villa known locally as Casa cu turn ("The House with a Tower"). In the 19th century, it had been the residence of politician Mihail Kogălniceanu
Mihail Kogalniceanu
Mihail Kogălniceanu was a Moldavian-born Romanian liberal statesman, lawyer, historian and publicist; he became Prime Minister of Romania October 11, 1863, after the 1859 union of the Danubian Principalities under Domnitor Alexander John Cuza, and later served as Foreign Minister under Carol I. He...
, and, during the war, hosted composer George Enescu
George Enescu
George Enescu was a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher.-Biography:Enescu was born in the village of Liveni , Dorohoi County at the time, today Botoşani County. He showed musical talent from early in his childhood. A child prodigy, Enescu created his first musical...
. During that period, he collaborated with leftist intellectual Vasile Morţun and, together with him and Arthur Gorovei
Arthur Gorovei
Arthur Gorovei was a Romanian writer, folklorist and ethnographer. In 1940, he was elected an honorary member of the Romanian Academy.-Publications:...
, founded and edited the magazine Răvaşul Poporului.
Creative maturity and early political career
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
; he gave his reception speech in front of the cultural forum two years later, structuring it as a praise of Romanian folklore in general and folkloric poetry in particular. At the time, he renewed his contacts with Viaţa Românească: with Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
and several others, he joined its interwar
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
nucleus, while the review often featured samples of his novels (some of which were originally published in full by its publishing venture). His house was by then host to many cultural figures, among whom were writers Topîrceanu, Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction was a Romanian Orthodox clergyman and theologian, writer, journalist, left-wing activist, as well as a political figure of the People's Republic of Romania...
, Otilia Cazimir, Ionel
Ionel Teodoreanu
Ionel Teodoreanu was a Romanian novelist and lawyer. He is mostly remembered for his books on the themes of childhood and adolescence.-Biography:...
and Păstorel Teodoreanu, and Dumitru D. Pătrăşcanu, as well as conductor Sergiu Celibidache
Sergiu Celibidache
- Biography :Celibidache was born in Roman, Romania, and began his studies in music with the piano, after which he studied music, philosophy and mathematics in Bucharest, Romania and then in Paris...
. He was also close to a minor socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
poet and short story author, Ioan N. Roman, whose work he helped promote, to the aristocrat and memoirist Gheorghe Jurgea-Negrileşti, and to a satirist named Radu Cosmin.
Despite his health problems, Sadoveanu frequently traveled throughout Romania, notably visiting local sights which inspired his work: the Romanian Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
monasteries of Agapia
Agapia Monastery
The Agapia Monastery is a Romanian Orthodox monastery located 9 km west of Târgu Neamţ, in Agapia Commune, Neamţ County. It was built between 1642 and 1647 by Romanian Voivode Vasile Lupu. The church, restored and modified several times during the centuries was painted by Nicolae Grigorescu,...
and Văratec
Varatec Monastery
Văratec Monastery is a Romanian Orthodox religious settlement located in north-eastern part of the country, in Văratec village, Agapia Commune, Neamţ County.-External links:***...
, and the Neamţ Fortress. After 1923, together with Topîrceanu, Demostene Botez and other Viaţa Românească affiliates, he also embarked on a series of hunting trips. He was charmed in particular by the sights he discovered during a 1927 visit to the Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n area of Arieş
Arieș River (Mureș)
The Arieș is a tributary of Mureș River in Transylvania, Romania.Most probably "Arieș" means "Gold River" in Dalmatian which is thought to be very similar to the Dacian language. It is concluded that the Romanian name most probably derives from the Dacian name of the river...
. The same year, he also visited the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, which he reached by means of the Orient Express
Orient Express
The Orient Express is the name of a long-distance passenger train service originally operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. It ran from 1883 to 2009 and is not to be confused with the Venice-Simplon Orient Express train service, which continues to run.The route and rolling stock...
. His popularity continued to grow: in 1925, 1929 and 1930 respectively, he published his critically acclaimed novels Venea o moară pe Siret..., Zodia Cancerului and Baltagul
The Hatchet (novel)
The Hatchet is a 1930 crime novel novel written by Mihail Sadoveanu. The main character of the novel is the wife of a shepard living in the Moldavian village of Măgura Tarcăului, Vitoria Lipan, which has a premonitation that her husband, Nechifor, on a trip to buy a new flock in the town of...
, and his 50th anniversary was celebrated at a national level. In 1930, Sadoveanu, Topîrceanu and the schoolteacher T. C. Stan wrote and edited a series of primary school textbooks.
In 1926, after a period of indecision, Sadoveanu rallied with the People's Party, where his friend, the poet Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga was a Romanian politician, poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.-Life:Born in Răşinari, nearby Sibiu, he was an active member in the Romanian nationalistic movement in Transylvania and of its leading group, the Romanian National Party in Austria-Hungary. Before World War I,...
, was a prominent activist. He then rallied with Goga's own National Agrarian Party. During the general election of 1927, he won a seat in the Chamber
Chamber of Deputies of Romania
The Chamber of Deputies is the lower house in Romania's bicameral parliament. It has 315 seats, to which deputies are elected by direct popular vote on a proportional representation basis to serve four-year terms...
for Bihor County
Bihor County
Bihor is a county of Romania, in Crişana, with capital city at Oradea. Together with Hajdú-Bihar County in Hungary it constitutes the Biharia Euroregion.-Demographics:...
, in Transylvania, holding a seat in the Senate
Senate of Romania
The Senate of Romania is the upper house in the bicameral Parliament of Romania. It has 137 seats , to which members are elected by direct popular vote, using Mixed member proportional representation in 42 electoral districts , to serve four-year terms.-Former location:After the Romanian...
for Iaşi County
Iasi County
Iași is a county of Romania, in Moldavia, with the administrative seat at Iași.-Demographics:As of 1 July 2007, Iași County had a population of 825,100, making it the second most populous county in Romania after Bucharest, with a population density of 150/km².*Romanians - 98.1%*Roma -...
after the 1931 suffrage. Under Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
's National Peasants' Party
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party was a Romanian political party, formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party from Transylvania and the Peasants' Party . It was in power between 1928 and 1933, with brief interruptions...
cabinet of the period, Sadoveanu was President of the Senate. The choice was motivated by his status as "a cultural personality". Around that date, he was affiliated with the National Liberal Party-Brătianu
National Liberal Party-Bratianu
The National Liberal Party-Brătianu was a right-wing political party in Romania, formed as a splinter group from the main liberal faction, the National Liberals. For its symbol, PNL-Brătianu chose three vertical bars, placed at equal distance from each other...
, a right-wing party inside the liberal current
Liberalism and radicalism in Romania
This article gives an overview of Liberalism and Radicalism in Romania. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in this scheme...
, who stood in opposition to the main National Liberal group. In parallel, he began contributing to the left-wing daily Adevărul
Adevarul
Adevărul is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in 1871 and reestablished in 1888, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Romanian Kingdom's existence, adopting an independent pro-democratic position, advocating land reform and universal suffrage...
.
Sadoveanu was by then affiliated with the Freemasonry
Freemasonry in Romania
The beginnings of Freemasonry in the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia date to the 18th century and the activities of the humanist scholar Anton Maria del Chiaro, secretary to voivodes Constantin Brâncoveanu and Constantine Mavrocordatos...
, as first recorded by the organization in 1928, but was probably a member since 1926 or 1927. Reaching the 33rd degree within the organization and overseeing the Masonic Lodge
Masonic Lodge
This article is about the Masonic term for a membership group. For buildings named Masonic Lodge, see Masonic Lodge A Masonic Lodge, often termed a Private Lodge or Constituent Lodge, is the basic organisation of Freemasonry...
Dimitrie Cantemir
Dimitrie Cantemir
Dimitrie Cantemir was twice Prince of Moldavia . He was also a prolific man of letters – philosopher, historian, composer, musicologist, linguist, ethnographer, and geographer....
of Iaşi, he was elected Grand Master
Masonic Lodge Officers
This article relates to mainstream Craft Freemasonry, sometimes known as Blue Lodge Freemasonry. Every Masonic Lodge elects or appoints Masonic Lodge Officers to execute the necessary functions of the lodge's life and work...
of the National Union of Lodges in 1932, thus replacing the vacating George Valentin Bibescu
George Valentin Bibescu
George Valentin, Prince Bibescu was a Romanian early aviation pioneer.Prince George III Valentin Bibescu , nephew of Gheorghe Bibescu, domnitor of Wallachia, was born in Bucharest....
. There subsequently occurred a split between Bibescu and Sadoveanu's supporters, aggravated by their publicized conflict with a third group, that of Ioan Pangal—splits which ended after some three years, when Sadoveanu marginalized both of his opponents, without however earning legitimate recognition from the Grand Orient de France
Grand Orient de France
The Grand Orient de France is the largest of several Masonic organizations in France and the oldest in Continental Europe, founded in 1733.-Foundation:...
. By 1934, he was recognized as Grand Master of the United Romanian Freemasonry, which regrouped all major local Lodges.
Late 1930s and World War II
He was publishing new works at a regular rate, culminating in the first volume of his historical epic Fraţii Jderi, which saw print in 1935. In 1936, the writer accepted the honorary chairmanship of Adevărul and its morning edition, Dimineaţa. During that time, he was involved in a public dispute with the far rightFar right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
and fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
press, replying to their attacks in several columns. Affiliates of the radical right organized public burnings
Book burning
Book burning, biblioclasm or libricide is the practice of destroying, often ceremoniously, books or other written material and media. In modern times, other forms of media, such as phonograph records, video tapes, and CDs have also been ceremoniously burned, torched, or shredded...
of his volumes. The scandal prolonged itself over the following years, with Sadoveanu being supported by his friends in the literary community. Among them was Topîrceanu, who was at the time hospitalized, and whose expression of support was made shortly before his death to liver cancer
Liver cancer
Liver tumors or hepatic tumors are tumors or growths on or in the liver . Several distinct types of tumors can develop in the liver because the liver is made up of various cell types. These growths can be benign or malignant...
. In September 1937, as a statement of solidarity and appreciation, the University of Iaşi conferred Sadoveanu the title of doctor honoris causa.
Mihail Sadoveanu withdrew from politics in the late 1930s and early 1940s, as Romania came to be led by successive right-wing dictatorships, he offered a measure of support to King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
and his National Renaissance Front
National Renaissance Front
The National Renaissance Front was a fascist Romanian political party created by King Carol II in 1938 as the single monopoly party of government following his decision to ban all other political parties and suspend the 1923 Constitution, and the passing of the 1938 Constitution of Romania...
, which attempted to block the more radically fascist Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
from power. He was personally appointed a member of the reduced corporatist
Corporatism
Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...
Senate by Carol. In 1940, the official establishment Editura Fundaţiilor Regale published the first volume of his Opere ("Works"). Sadoveanu kept a low profile under the Iron Guard's Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
-allied National Legionary
National Legionary State
The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...
regime. After Conducător
Conducator
Conducător was the title used officially in two instances by Romanian politicians, and earlier by Carol II.-History:...
Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
overthrew the Guard during the Legionary Rebellion
Legionnaires' Rebellion and Bucharest Pogrom
The Legionnaires' rebellion and the Bucharest pogrom occurred in Bucharest, Romania, between 21 and 23 January 1941.As the privileges of the Iron Guard were being cut off by Conducător Ion Antonescu, members of the Iron Guard, also known as the Legionnaires, revolted...
and established his own fascist regime, the still-apolitical Sadoveanu was more present in public life, and lectured on cultural subjects for the Romanian Radio
Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company
The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company , informally referred to as Radio Romania , is the public radio broadcaster in Romania. It operates four national radio channels, and, under the Radio România Regional umbrella, eleven regional radio stations. The four national radio channels are: Radio...
. After publishing the final section of his Fraţii Jderi in 1942, Sadoveanu again retreated to the countryside, in his beloved Arieş area, where he had built himself a chalet and a church; this seclusion produced his Povestirile de la Bradu-Strâmb ("Bradu-Strâmb Stories"). During those years, the sixty-year old writer met Valeria Mitru, a much younger feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
journalist, whom he married after a brief courtship.
In August 1944, Romania's King Michael Coup toppled Antonescu and switched sides in the war, rallying with the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
. As a Soviet occupation
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
began at home, Romanian troops fought alongside the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
on the European theater. Paul-Mihu Sadoveanu was killed in action in Transylvania on September 22. During the same months, Sadoveanu was a candidate for the Writers' Society presidency, but, in what has been read as proof of a rivalry within the Freemasonry, was defeated by Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu was an Albanian-Romanian poet, playwright, and a contributor to Sburătorul, a Romanian literary magazine. His works have been performed in the State Jewish Theater of Romania....
. Later that year, the 40th anniversary of Mihail Sadoveanu's debut was celebrated with a special ceremony at the Academy and Tudor Vianu's speech, offered as a retrospective of his colleague's entire work.
Communist system and political rise
After the Soviet-backed advent of the Communist systemCommunist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
in Romania, Sadoveanu supported the new authorities, and turned from his own version of Realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
to officially-endorsed Socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
(see Socialist realism in Romania
Socialist realism in Romania
After World War II, socialist realism on the Soviet model was imposed on the USSR's new satellites, including Romania. This was accompanied by a series of organisational and repressive moves, for instance the incarceration of numerous poets...
). This was also the start of his association with the Soviet-sponsored Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union (ARLUS), which was led by biologist and physician Constantin Ion Parhon
Constantin Ion Parhon
Constantin Ion Parhon was a Romanian neuropsychiatrist, endocrinologist and politician. He was the President of the Provisional Presidium of the People's Republic of Romania from its proclamation on December 30, 1947 to April 13, 1948, and Chairman of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly...
. Having served as a host to official Soviet envoys Andrey Vyshinsky
Andrey Vyshinsky
Andrey Januaryevich Vyshinsky – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat.He is known as a state prosecutor of Joseph Stalin's Moscow trials and in the Nuremberg trials. He was the Soviet Foreign Minister from 1949 to 1953, after having served as Deputy Foreign...
and Vladimir Kemenov during their late 1944 visits, he soon after became president of the ARLUS "Literary and Philosophical Section" (seconded by Mihai Ralea and Perpessicius
Perpessicius
Perpessicius was a Romanian literary historian and critic, poet, essayist and fiction writer. One of the prominent literary chroniclers of the Romanian interwar, he stood apart in his generation for having thrown his support behind the modernist and avant-garde currents of Romanian literature...
). In February 1945, he joined Parhon, Enescu, linguist Alexandru Rosetti, composer George Enescu
George Enescu
George Enescu was a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher.-Biography:Enescu was born in the village of Liveni , Dorohoi County at the time, today Botoşani County. He showed musical talent from early in his childhood. A child prodigy, Enescu created his first musical...
, biologist Traian Săvulescu and mathematician Dimitrie Pompeiu
Dimitrie Pompeiu
-Biography:After studying in Dorohoi and Bucharest, he went to France, where he studied mathematics at the University of Paris . He obtained a Ph.D. degree in mathematics in 1905 with a thesis, On the continuity of complex variable functions, written under the direction of Henri Poincaré...
in a protest against the cultural policies of Premier
Prime Minister of Romania
The Prime Minister of Romania is the head of the Government of Romania. Initially, the office was styled President of the Council of Ministers , when the term "Government" included more than the Cabinet, and the Cabinet was called The Council of Ministers...
Nicolae Rădescu
Nicolae Radescu
Nicolae Rădescu was a Romanian army officer and political figure. He was the last pre-communist rule Prime Minister of Romania, serving from December 7, 1944 to March 1, 1945....
and his cabinet, one in a series of moves to discredit the non-communist Rădescu and make him leave power. With Ion Pas, Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction was a Romanian Orthodox clergyman and theologian, writer, journalist, left-wing activist, as well as a political figure of the People's Republic of Romania...
, Horia Deleanu, Octav Livezeanu and N. D. Cocea
N. D. Cocea
N. D. Cocea was a Romanian journalist, novelist, critic and left-wing political activist, known as a major but controversial figure in the field of political satire...
, Sadoveanu edited the association's weekly literary magazine Veac Nou after June 1946.
Sadoveanu's literary and political change became known to the general public in March 1945, when he lectured about Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
at a conference hall in Bucharest. Part of a conference cycle, his speech was famously titled Lumina vine de la Răsărit, which soon became synonymous with the attempts to improve the image of Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
in Romania. ARLUS would issue the text of his conference as a printed volume later in the year. Also in 1945, Sadoveanu journeyed to the Soviet Union together with some of his fellow ARLUS members—among them biologists Parhon and Săvulescu, sociologist Dimitrie Gusti
Dimitrie Gusti
Dimitrie Gusti was a Romanian sociologist, ethnologist, historian, and voluntarist philosopher; a professor at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, he served as Romania's Minister of Education in 1932-1933...
, linguist Iorgu Iordan
Iorgu Iordan
Iorgu Iordan was a Romanian linguist, philologist, diplomat, journalist, and left-wing agrarian, later communist, politician. The author of works on a large variety of topics, most of them dealing with issues of the Romanian language and Romance languages in general, he was elected a full member...
, and mathematician Simion Stoilow
Simion Stoilow
Simion Stoilow or Stoilov was a Romanian mathematician, creator of the Romanian school of complex analysis, and author of over 100 publications.-Biography:...
. Invited by the Soviet Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
to attend the 220th anniversary of its foundation, they also visited research institutes, kolhozy, and day care
Day care
Child care or day care is care of a child during the day by a person other than the child's legal guardians, typically performed by someone outside the child's immediate family...
centers, notably meeting with Nikolay Tsitsin, an agronomist favored by Stalin. After his return, he wrote other controversial texts and gave lectures which offered ample praise to the Soviet system. That year, the ARLUS enterprise Editura Cartea Rusă also published his translation of Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches, is a milestone of Russian Realism, and his novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century...
's A Sportsman's Sketches
A Sportsman's Sketches
A Sportsman's Sketches was an 1852 collection of short stories by Ivan Turgenev. It was the first major writing that gained him recognition...
.
During the rigged election of that year
Romanian general election, 1946
The Romanian general election of 1946 was a general election held on November 19, 1946, in Romania. Officially, it was carried with 79.86% of the vote by the Romanian Communist Party , its allies inside the Bloc of Democratic Parties , and its associates — the Hungarian People's Union , the...
, Sadoveanu was a candidate for the Communist party-organized Bloc of Democratic Parties (BPD) in Bucharest, winning a seat in the newly-unified Parliament of Romania
Parliament of Romania
The Parliament of Romania is made up of two chambers:*The Chamber of Deputies*The SenatePrior to the modifications of the Constitution in 2003, the two houses had identical attributes. A text of a law had to be approved by both houses...
. In its first-ever session (December 1946), the legislative body elected him its President. He was at the time residing in Ciorogârla
Ciorogârla
Ciorogârla is a commune in the southwestern part of Ilfov County, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Ciorogârla and Dârvari. The Ciorogârla River flows through this location; its name, of Slavic origin, means "murky stream".-Further reading:...
, having been awarded a villa previously owned by Pamfil Şeicaru, a journalist whose support for fascist regimes had made him undesirable, and who had moved out of Romania. The decision was viewed as evidence of political corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
by the opposition National Peasants' Party
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party was a Romanian political party, formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party from Transylvania and the Peasants' Party . It was in power between 1928 and 1933, with brief interruptions...
, whose press deemed Sadoveanu the "Count of Ciorogârla".
In 1948, after Romania's King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Michael I
Michael I of Romania
Michael was the last King of Romania. He reigned from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930, and again from 6 September 1940 until 30 December 1947 when he was forced, by the Communist Party of Romania , to abdicate to the Soviet armies of occupation...
was overthrown by the BPD-member parties and the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
officially established, Sadoveanu rose to the highest positions ever granted to a Romanian writer, and received significant material benefits. In 1947-1948, he was, alongside Parhon, Ştefan Voitec
Stefan Voitec
Ştefan Voitec was a Romanian socialist and communist journalist, politician, and statesman of Communist Romania.-Biography:...
, Gheorghe Stere, and Ion Niculi
Ion Niculi
Ion Niculi , Romanian communist politician, served as vice president of the Presidium of the Romanian People's Republic .-Underground activist:...
, a member of the Presidium of the People's Republic
People's Republic
People's Republic is a title that has often been used by Marxist-Leninist governments to describe their state. The motivation for using this term lies in the claim that Marxist-Leninists govern in accordance with the interests of the vast majority of the people, and, as such, a Marxist-Leninist...
, which was elected by the BPD-dominated legislative, and, as leader of that body, filled in for the position of republican head of state
President of Romania
The President of Romania is the head of state of Romania. The President is directly elected by a two-round system for a five-year term . An individual may serve two terms...
. He also kept his seat at the Academy, which at the time was undergoing a communist-led purge, and, with several other pro-Soviet intellectuals, was voted in the Academy Presidium.
Final years, illness and death
After the Writers' Society was restructured as the Romanian Writers' Union in 1949, Sadoveanu became its Honorary President. In 1950, he was named President of the Writers' Union, replacing Zaharia StancuZaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu was a Romanian prose writer, novelist, poet, and philosopher.Stancu was born in 1902 in Salcia, a village in Teleorman County, Romania. After leaving school at the age of thirteen he worked at various jobs. In 1921, with the help of Gala Galaction, he became a journalist...
. According to writer Valeriu Râpeanu, this last appointment was a sign of Stancu's marginalization after he had been excluded from the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
, while the Writers' Union was actually controlled by its First Secretary, the communist poet Mihai Beniuc
Mihai Beniuc
Mihai Beniuc was a Romanian proletcultist poet, dramatist and novelist. He graduated from the University of Cluj in 1931 majoring in psychology, philosophy and sociology. This was reflected in his writing, particularly the novels...
. Sadoveanu and Beniuc were reelected at the Union's first Congress (1956). In the meanwhile, Sadoveanu published several Socialist realist volumes, among which was Mitrea Cocor, a controversial praise of collectivization policies
Collectivization in Romania
The collectivization of agriculture in Romania took place in the early years of the Communist regime. The initiative sought to bring about a thorough transformation in the property regime and organisation of labour in agriculture...
. First published in 1949, it earned Sadoveanu the first-ever State Prize for Prose.
Throughout the period, Sadoveanu was involved in major communist-endorsed cultural campaigns. Thus, in June 1952, he presided over the Academy's Scientific Council, charged with modifying the Romanian alphabet
Romanian alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters:The letters Q , W , and Y were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982, although they had been used earlier...
, at the end of which the letter â
Â
is a letter of the Friulian, Romanian, Vietnamese, French, Galician, Portuguese, Frisian, Welsh, Turkish, and Walloon alphabets.- Croatian and Serbian :...
was discarded, and replaced everywhere with î
Î
is a letter in the Friulian, Kurdish, and Romanian alphabets. This letter also appears in French, Welsh and Walon language as a variant of letter “i”.- Afrikaans :...
(a spelling Sadoveanu is alleged to have already shown preference for in his early works). In March 1953, soon after Stalin's death, he led discussions within the Writers' Union, confronting his fellow writers with the new Soviet cultural directives as listed by Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death, he became Premier of the Soviet Union and was in 1953 briefly considered the most powerful Soviet politician before being overshadowed by Nikita...
, and reacting against young authors who had not discarded the since-condemned doctrines of proletkult
Proletkult
Proletkult was movement which arose in the Russian revolution and was active from 1917 to 1925 which aspired to provide the foundations for what was intended to be a truly proletarian art devoid of bourgeois influence.The name is a portmanteau of "proletarskaya kultura" , which are better-known as...
. The author was also becoming involved in the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
's peace movement
Peace movement
A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...
, and led the National Committee for the Defense of Peace at a time when the Soviet Union was seeking to portray its Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
enemies as warmongers and the sole agents of nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the...
. He also represented Romania to the World Peace Council
World Peace Council
The World Peace Council is an international organization that advocates universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mass destruction and all forms of discrimination...
, and received its International Peace Prize for 1951. As a parliamentarian, Sadoveanu stood on the committee charged with elaborating the new republican constitution
1952 Constitution of Romania
The 1952 Constitution of Romania, also called the "constitution of building socialism", expressed the consolidation of Communist power, featuring greater ideological content than its 1948 predecessor. A draft was written by a commission elected by the Great National Assembly on March 27, 1952 and...
, which, in its final form, reflected both Soviet influence and the assimilation of Stalinism into Romanian political discourse. In November 1955, shortly after turning 75, he was granted the title of "Hero of Socialist Labor". After 1956, when the regime announced that it had embarked on a limited version of De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
, it continued to recommend Mihail Sadoveanu as one of its prime cultural models.
Having donated Casa cu turn to the state in 1950, he moved back to Bucharest, where he owned a house near the Zambaccian Museum
Zambaccian Museum
The Zambaccian Museum in Bucharest, Romania is a museum in the former home of Krikor Zambaccian , an Armenian businessman and art collector. The museum was founded in 1947, closed by the Ceauşescu regime in 1977, and re-opened in 1992. It is now a branch of The National Museum of Art of Romania...
. From January 7 to January 11, 1958, Sadoveanu, Ion Gheorghe Maurer
Ion Gheorghe Maurer
Ion Gheorghe Iosif Maurer was a Romanian communist politician and lawyer.-Biography:Born in Bucharest to a Saxon father and a Romanian mother of French origin, he completed studies in Law and became an attorney, defending in court members of the illegal leftist and Anti-fascist movements...
and Anton Moisescu
Anton Moisescu
Anton Moisescu was a Romanian politician who was the acting Chairman of the Presidium of the Grand National Assembly from 7 January 1958 until 11 January 1958, together with Mihail Sadoveanu, and thus interim head of state...
were acting Chairmen of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly
Great National Assembly
The Great National Assembly was the legislature of the Romanian People's Republic and the Socialist Republic Romania. When Communism was overthrown in Romania in December 1989, the National Assembly was replaced by a bicameral parliament, made up of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.The Great...
, which again propelled him to a position as titular head of state. His literary stature but also his political allegiance earned him the Soviet Lenin Peace Prize
Lenin Peace Prize
The International Lenin Peace Prize was the Soviet Union's equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize, named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government, to notable individuals whom the panel indicated had "strengthened peace among peoples"...
, which he received shortly before his death.
After a long illness marked by a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
which impaired his speech and left him almost completely blind, Sadoveanu was cared for by a staff of physicians supervised by Nicolae Gh. Lupu and reporting to the Great National Assembly. The Sadoveanus withdrew to Neamţ
Neamt County
Neamț is a county of Romania, in the historic region of Moldavia, with the county seat at Piatra Neamț. It has three communes, Bicaz-Chei, Bicazu Ardelean and Dămuc in Transylvania.-Demographics:...
region, where they lived in a villa assigned to them by the state and located near the Voividenia hermitage
Hermitage (religious retreat)
Although today's meaning is usually a place where a hermit lives in seclusion from the world, hermitage was more commonly used to mean a settlement where a person or a group of people lived religiously, in seclusion.-Western Christian Tradition:...
and the locality of Vânători-Neamţ
Vânatori-Neamt
Vânători-Neamţ is a commune in Neamţ County, Romania. It is composed of four villages: Lunca, Mânăstirea Neamţ, Nemţişor and Vânători-Neamţ....
, being visited regularly by literary and political friends, among them Alexandru Rosetti. Mihail Sadoveanu died there at 9 AM on October 19, 1961, and was buried at Bellu
Bellu
Bellu is the most famous cemetery in Bucharest, Romania.It is located on a plot of land donated to the local administration by Baron Barbu Bellu...
cemetery, in Bucharest. His successor as President of the Writers' Union was Beniuc, elected during the Congress of January 1962.
Following her husband's death, Valeria Sadoveanu settled in proximity to the Văratec Monastery
Varatec Monastery
Văratec Monastery is a Romanian Orthodox religious settlement located in north-eastern part of the country, in Văratec village, Agapia Commune, Neamţ County.-External links:***...
, where she set up an informal literary circle and Orthodox prayer group, notably attended by literary historian Zoe Dumitrescu-Buşulenga and by poetess Ştefana Velisar, and dedicated herself to protecting the community of nuns. She survived Mihail Sadoveanu by over 30 years.
Context
Often seen as the leading author of his generation, and generally viewed as one of the most representative Romanian writers, Mihail Sadoveanu was also believed to be a first-class story-teller, and received praise especially for his nature writingNature writing
Nature writing is generally defined as nonfiction prose writing about the natural environment. Nature writing often draws heavily on scientific information and facts about the natural world; at the same time, it is frequently written in the first person and incorporates personal observations of and...
and his depictions of rural landscapes. An exceptionally prolific author by Romanian standards, he published over a hundred individual volumes (120 according to the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
magazine Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
). His contemporaries tended to place Sadoveanu alongside Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu was a Romanian novelist, playwright, short story writer, and journalist.- Life :Born in Târlișua , Transylvania, then part of Austria-Hungary, he was the second of thirteen children born to Vasile Rebreanu, a schoolteacher, and Ludovica Diuganu, descendants of peasants...
and Cezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu was a Romanian journalist, novelist and children's writer.He was inspired by the works of Honoré de Balzac, attempting to write a Romanian novel cycle that would mirror Balzac's La Comédie humaine...
—for all the differences in style between the three figures, the interwar public saw them as the "great novelists" of the day. Critic Ovid Crohmălniceanu describes their activity, altogether focused on depicting the rural world but diverging in bias, as one sign that the Romanian interwar itself was exceptionally effervescent, while Romanian-born American historian of literature Marcel Cornis-Pope sees Sadoveanu and Rebreanu as their country's "two most important novelists of the first half of the twentieth century". In 1944, Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
spoke of Sadoveanu as "the most significant writer Romanians [presently] have, the first among his equals."
While underlining his originality in the context of Romanian literature and among the writers standing for "the national tendency" (as opposed to the more cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism...
modernists
Modernist literature
Modernist literature is sub-genre of Modernism, a predominantly European movement beginning in the early 20th century that was characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional aesthetic forms...
), George Călinescu also noted that, through several of his stories and novels, Sadoveanu echoed the style of his predecessors and contemporaries Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale was a Wallachian-born Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist...
, Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voineşti, Emil Gârleanu, Demostene Botez, Otilia Cazimir, Calistrat Hogaş, I. A. Bassarabescu and Ionel Teodoreanu
Ionel Teodoreanu
Ionel Teodoreanu was a Romanian novelist and lawyer. He is mostly remembered for his books on the themes of childhood and adolescence.-Biography:...
. Also included among the "national tendency" writers, Gârleanu was for long seen as Sadoveanu's counterpart, and even, Călinescu writes, "undeservedly upstaged" him. Cornis-Pope also writes that Sadoveanu's epic is a continuation of "the national narrative" explored earlier by Nicolae Filimon
Nicolae Filimon
Nicolae Filimon was a Wallachian Romanian novelist and short-story writer, remembered as the author of the very first Realist novel in Romanian literature, Ciocoii vechi şi noi , which was centered on the self-seeking figure of Dinu Păturică...
, Ioan Slavici
Ioan Slavici
Ioan Slavici was a Transylvanian-born Romanian writer and journalist. He made his debut in Convorbiri literare , with the comedy Fata de birău...
and Duiliu Zamfirescu
Duiliu Zamfirescu
Duiliu Zamfirescu was a Romanian novelist, poet, short story writer, lawyer, nationalist politician, journalist, diplomat and memoirist. In 1909, he was elected a member of the Romanian Academy, and, for a while in 1920, he was Foreign Minister of Romania...
, while literary historians Vianu and Z. Ornea note that Sadoveanu also took inspiration from the themes and genres explored by Junimist
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
author Nicolae Gane. In his youth, Sadoveanu also admired and collected the works of N. D. Popescu-Popnedea, a prolific and successful author of almanac
Almanac
An almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, and tide tables, containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar etc...
s, historical novel
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
s and adventure novel
Adventure novel
The adventure novel is a genre of novels that has adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, as its main theme.-History:...
s. Later, his approach to Realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
was also inspired by his reading of Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
and especially Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...
. Both Sadoveanu and Gane were also indirectly influenced by Wilhelm von Kotzebue, the 19th century Imperial Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
diplomat and author of the Romanian-themed story Laskar Vioresku.
In Vianu's assessment, Sadoveanu's work signified an artistic revolution within the local Realist school, comparable to the adoption of perspective
Perspective (graphical)
Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...
by the visual artists of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. Mihail Sadoveanu's interest in the rural world and his views on tradition were subjects of debate among the modernists. The modernist doyen Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
, who envisaged an urban literature in tune with European tendencies, was one of Sadoveanu's most notorious critics. However, Sadoveanu was well received by Lovinescu's adversaries within the modernist camp: Perpessicius
Perpessicius
Perpessicius was a Romanian literary historian and critic, poet, essayist and fiction writer. One of the prominent literary chroniclers of the Romanian interwar, he stood apart in his generation for having thrown his support behind the modernist and avant-garde currents of Romanian literature...
and Contimporanul
Contimporanul
Contimporanul was a Romanian avant-garde literary and art magazine, published in Bucharest between June 1922 and 1932...
editor Ion Vinea, the latter of whom, in search for literary authenticity, believed in bridging the gap between the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
and folk culture
Folklore of Romania
A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romanian communities resulted in an exceptionally vital and creative traditional culture. Folk creations were the main literary genre...
. This opinion was shared by Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
literary historian Tom Sandqvist, who sees Sadoveanu's main point of contact with modernism was his interest in the pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
elements and occasional absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
streaks of local folklore. In the larger dispute about national specificity, and partly in response to Vinea's claim, modernist poet and essayist Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane or Benjamin Fundoianu was a Romanian and French poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as a Symbolist poet and columnist, he alternated Neoromantic and Expressionist themes with echoes from Tudor...
argued that, as a sign Romanian culture
Culture of Romania
Romania has a unique culture, which is the product of its geography and of its distinct historical evolution. Like Romanians themselves, it is defined as the meeting point of three regions: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, but cannot be truly included in any of them...
was tributary to those it had come into contact with, "Sadoveanu's soul can be easily reduced to the Slavic soul".
Characteristics
Sadoveanu's personality and experience played a major part in shaping his literary style. After his 1901 marriage, Mihail Sadoveanu adopted what Călinescu deemed "patriarchalPatriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
" lifestyle. The literary historian noted that he took a personal interest in educating his many children, and that this also implied "making use of a whip". An Epicurean
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom...
, the writer was a homemaker, an avid hunter and fisherman, and a chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
aficionado. Recognized, like his epigram
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
ist colleague Păstorel Teodoreanu, as a man of refined culinary tastes, Sadoveanu cherished Romanian cuisine
Romanian cuisine
Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character...
and Romanian wine
Romanian wine
Romania is one of the world's largest wine producers, producing around 610,000 tons of wine. In recent years, Romania has attracted many European business people and wine buyers, due to the affordable prices of both vineyards and wines compared to other wine producing nations such as France,...
. The lifestyle choices were akin to his literary interests: alongside the secluded and rudimentary existence of his main characters (connected by Călinescu with the writer's supposed longing for "regressions to the patriarchal times"), Sadoveanu's work is noted for its imagery of primitive abundance, and in particular for its lavish depictions of ritualistic feasts, hunting parties and fishing trips.
Călinescu opined that the value of such descriptions within individual narratives grew with time, and that the author, once he had discarded lyricism, used them as a "a means for the senses to enjoy the fleshes and the forms that nature offers man." He added that Sadoveanu's aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
could be said to recall the art of the Golden Age
Dutch art
Dutch art describes the history of visual arts in the Netherlands, after the United Provinces separated from Flanders. Earlier painting in the area is covered in Early Netherlandish painting and Renaissance art.-Golden Age:...
in Holland: "One could almost say that Sadoveanu rebuilds in present day Moldavia [...] the Holland of wine jugs and kitchen tables covered in venison and fish." Vianu also argued that Sadoveanu never abandoned himself to purely aesthetic descriptions, and that, although often depicted with Impressionistic
Impressionism (literature)
Influenced by the Impressionist art movement, many writers adopted a style that relied on associations. The Dutch Tachtigers explicitly tried to incorporate impressionism into their prose, poems, and other literary works...
means, nature is assigned a specific if discreet role within the plot lines, or serves to render a structure. The traditionalist Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
, referring to Sadoveanu's poetic nature writing, even declared it to have "surpassed nature." At the other end, the modernist Eugen Lovinescu specifically objected to Sadoveanu's depiction of a primordial landscape, arguing that, despite adopting Realism, his rival was indebted to Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
and subjectivity
Subjectivity
Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
. Lovinescu's attitude, critic Ion Simuţ notes, was partly justified by the fact that Sadoveanu never truly parted with the traditionalism of Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul or Semănătorul was a literary and political magazine published in Romania between 1901 and 1910. Founded by poets Alexandru Vlahuţă and George Coşbuc, it is primarily remembered as a tribune for early 20th century traditionalism, neoromanticism and ethnic nationalism...
. In 1962, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
also commented that his style was "curiously dated" and recalled not Sadoveanu's generation, but that of Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
and Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches, is a milestone of Russian Realism, and his novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century...
, "although he has nothing like the power or skill of any of them." For Călinescu and Vianu too, Sadoveanu is a creator with seemingly Romantic tastes, which recall those of François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...
. Unlike Lovinescu, Vianu saw these traits as "not at all detrimental to the balance of [Sadoveanu's] art."
Seen by literary critic Ioan Stanomir as marked by "volubility", and thus contrasting with his famously taciturn and seemingly embittered nature, the form of Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
used by Mihail Sadoveanu, particularly in his historical novel
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
s, was noted for both its use of archaism
Archaism
In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula...
s and the inventive approach to the Romanian lexis
Romanian lexis
The lexis of the Romanian language , a Romance language, has changed over the centuries as the language evolved from Vulgar Latin, to Proto-Romanian, to medieval, modern and contemporary Romanian.-Medieval Romanian:...
. Often borrowing plot lines and means of expression from medieval and early modern Moldavian chroniclers such as Ion Neculce
Ion Neculce
Ion Neculce was a Moldavian chronicler. His main work, Letopiseţul Ţărâi Moldovei [de la Dabija Vodă până la a doua domnie a lui Constantin Mavrocordat] was meant to extend Ion Neculce's narrative, covering events from 1661 to 1743.-Life:Ion Neculce...
and Miron Costin
Miron Costin
Miron Costin was a Moldavian political figure and chronicler. His main work, Letopiseţul Ţărâi Moldovei [de la Aron Vodă încoace] was meant to extend Grigore Ureche's narrative, covering events from 1594 to 1660...
, the author creatively intercalates several local dialects and registers of speech, moving away from a mere imitation of the historical language. Generally third-person narratives, his books often make little or no dialectal difference between the speech used by the story-teller and the character's voices. According to Călinescu, Sadoveanu displays "an enormous capacity of authentic speech", similar to that of Caragiale and Ion Creangă
Ion Creanga
Ion Creangă was a Moldavian-born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his novellas and short stories, and his many anecdotes...
. The writer himself recorded his fascination with the "eloquence" of rudimentary orality
Orality
Orality is thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy are unfamiliar to most of the population. The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition...
, and in particular with the speech of Rudari
Boyash
Boyash refers to a Romani ethnic group living in Romania, southern Hungary, northeastern Croatia, western Vojvodina, Slovakia, the Balkans, but also in the Americas and Australia. They are part of Romani branch of Roma...
Roma
Roma minority in Romania
The Roma constitute one of the major minorities in Romania. According to the 2002 census, they number 535,140 people or 2.5% of the total population, being the second-largest ethnic minority in Romania after Hungarians...
he encountered during his travels. Building on observations made by several critics, who generally praised the poetic qualities of Sadoveanu's prose, Crohmălniceanu spoke in detail about the Moldavian novelist's role in reshaping the literary language
Literary language
A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...
. This particular contribution was first described early in the 20th century, when Sadoveanu was acclaimed by Titu Maiorescu
Titu Maiorescu
Titu Liviu Maiorescu was a Romanian literary critic and politician, founder of the Junimea Society. As a literary critic, he was instrumental in the development of Romanian culture in the second half of the 19th century....
for having adapted his writing style to the social environment and the circumstances of his narratives. Vianu however notes that Sadoveanu's late writings tend to leave more room for neologisms, mostly present in those parts where the narrator's voice takes distance from the plot.
Another unifying element in Sadoveanu's creation is his recourse to literary types. As early as 1904, Maiorescu praised the young raconteur for accurately depicting characters in everyday life and settings. Tudor Vianu stressed that, unlike most of his Realist predecessors, Sadoveanu introduced an overtly sympathetic view of the peasant character, as "a higher type of human, a heroic human". He added: "Simple, in the sense that they are moved by a few devices [which] coincide with the fundamental instincts of mankind, [they] are, in general, mysterious." In this line, Sadoveanu also creates images of folk sages, whose views on life are of a Humanist
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
nature, and often depicted in contrast with the rationalist
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
tenets of Western culture
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
. Commenting on this aspect, Sadoveanu's friend George Topîrceanu
George Topîrceanu
George Topîrceanu was a Romanian poet, short story writer, and humourist.-Biography:Born in Bucharest, Topîrceanu began his schooling in the city, and then moved to the hilly countryside of the Argeş county, in the Şuici commune, where he formed his taste for themes taken from nature...
believed that Sadoveanu's work transcended the "more intellectual [and] more artificial" notion of "types", and that "he creates [...] humans." The main topic of his subsequent work, Sandqvist argues, was "an archaic world where the farmers and the landlords were free men with equal rights" (or, according to Simuţ, "a utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
of archaic heroism").
Thus, Călinescu stresses, Sadoveanu's work seems to be the monolithic creation through which "a single man" reflects "a single, universal nature, inhabited by a single type of man", and which echoes a similar vision of archaic completeness as found in the literature of poet Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
. The similarity in vision with Eminescu's "nostalgia, return, protest, demand, aspiration toward a [rural] world [he has] left" was also proposed by Vianu, while Topîrceanu spoke of "the paradoxical discovery that [Sadoveanu] is our greatest poet since Eminescu." Mihail Sadoveanu also shaped his traditionalist views on literature by investigating Romanian folklore, which he recommended as a source of inspiration to his fellow writers during his 1923 speech at the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
. In Călinescu's view, Sadoveanu's outlook on life was even mirrored in his physical aspect, his "large body, voluminous head, his measured shepherd-like gestures, his affluent but prudent and monologic speech [and] feral indifference; his eyes [...] of an unknown race." His assessment of the writer as an archaic figure, bluntly stated in a 1930 article ("I believe him to be very uncultured"), was contrasted by other literary historians: Alexandru Paleologu
Alexandru Paleologu
Alexandru Paleologu was a Romanian essayist, literary critic, diplomat and politician. He is the father of historian Theodor Paleologu.-Biography:...
described Sadoveanu as a prominent intellectual figure, while his own private notes show that he was well-read and acquainted with the literatures of many countries. Often seen as a spontaneous writer, Sadoveanu nevertheless took pains to elaborate his plots and research historical context, keeping most records of his investigations confined to his diaries.
Debut
The writer's debut novel, Povestiri, was celebrated for its accomplished style, featuring early drafts of all themes he developed upon later in life. However, Călinescu argued, some of the stories in the volume were still "awkward", and showed that Sadoveanu had problems in outlining epics. The pieces mainly feature episodes in the lives of boyarBoyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
s (members of Moldavia's medieval aristocracy), showing the ways in which they relate to each other, to their servants, and to their country. In one of the stories, titled Cântecul de dragoste ("The Love Song"), Sadoveanu touches on the issue of slavery
Slavery in Romania
Slavery existed on the territory of present-day Romania from before the founding of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in 13th–14th century, until it was abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s. Most of the slaves were of Roma ethnicity...
, depicting the death of a Rom
Roma minority in Romania
The Roma constitute one of the major minorities in Romania. According to the 2002 census, they number 535,140 people or 2.5% of the total population, being the second-largest ethnic minority in Romania after Hungarians...
slave who is killed by his jealous master, while in Răzbunarea lui Nour ("Nour's Revenge"), a boyar refuses to make his peace with God until his son's death is avenged. Other fragments deal solely with the isolated existence of villagers: for example, in Într-un sat odată ("Once, in a Village"), a mysterious man dies in a Moldavian hamlet, and the locals, unable to discover his identity, sell his horse. The prose piece Năluca ("The Apparition") centers on the conjugal conflict between two old people, both of whom attempt to hide the shame of their past. George Călinescu notes that, particularly in Năluca, Sadoveanu begins to explore the staple technique of his literary contributions, which involves "suggesting the smolder of passions [through] a contemplative breath in which he evokes a static element: landscapes or set pieces from nature."
Sadoveanu's subsequent collection of short stories, Dureri înăbuşite, builds on the latter technique and takes his work into the realm of social realism
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
and naturalism
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
(believed by Călinescu to have been borrowed from either the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
writer Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
or from the Romanian Alexandru Vlahuţă
Alexandru Vlahuta
Alexandru Vlahuţă was a Romanian writer. His best known work is România pitorească, an overview of Romania's landscape in the form of a travelogue. He was also the main editor of Sămănătorul magazine, alongside George Coşbuc....
). For Călinescu, this choice of style brought "damaging effects" on Sadoveanu's writings, and made Dureri înăbuşite "perhaps the poorest" of his collections of stories. In Lovinescu's view, Sadoveanu's move toward naturalism did not imply the necessary recourse to objectivity
Objectivity (philosophy)
Objectivity is a central philosophical concept which has been variously defined by sources. A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.- Objectivism...
. The pieces focus on dramatic moments of individual existences. In Lupul ("The Wolf"), an animal is chased and trapped by a group of peasants; the eponymous character in Ion Ursu leaves his village to become a proletarian
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
, and succumbs to alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
; the indentured laborer in Sluga ("The Servant") is unable to take revenge on his cruel employer at the right moment; in Doi feciori ("Two Sons"), a boyar comes to feel affection for his illegitimate son, whom he has nonetheless reduced to a lowly condition.
In 1905, Sadoveanu also published Povestiri din război ("Stories from the War"), which compose scenes from the lives of Romanian soldiers fighting in the War of 1878. Objecting to a series of exaggerations in the book, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
nevertheless noted that Sadoveanu "sometimes had the writing skill to make compelling even quite traditional reactions to old-fashioned war". It concluded: "Sadoveanu's sketches have the virtues—and the vices—of old hunting prints and the romantically mannered battle scenes of the 19th century."
Early selections of major themes
Sadoveanu renounces this grim perspective on life in his volume Crâşma lui Moş Petcu, where he returns to a depiction of rural life as unchanged by outside factors. Petcu's establishment, located on the Moldova ValleyMoldova River
The Moldova River is a river in Romania, in the historical region of Moldavia. The river rises from the Obcina Feredeu Mountains of Bukovina in Suceava County and joins the Siret River near the city of Roman in Neamţ County....
, is a serene place, visited by quiet and subdued customers, whose occasional outburst of violence are, according to Călinescu, "dominated by slow, stereotypical mechanics, as is with people who can only accommodate within them a single drama." The literary critic celebrated Crâşma lui Moş Petcu for its depictions of nature, whose purpose is to evoke "the indifferent eternity" of conflicts between the protagonists, and who, at times, relies "on a vast richness of sounds and words." He did however reproach the writer "a certain monotony", arguing that Sadoveanu came to use such techniques in virtually all his later works.
However, Sadoveanu's stories of the period often returned to a naturalistic perspective, particularly in a series of sketch stories
Sketch story
A sketch story, or sketch, is a piece of writing that is generally shorter than a short story, and contains very little, if any, plot. The term was most popularly-used in the late nineteenth century. As a literary work, it is also often referred to simply as the sketch.-Style:A sketch is mainly...
and novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s which portray the modest lives of Romanian Railways
Caile Ferate Române
Căile Ferate Române is the official designation of the state railway carrier of Romania. Romania has a railway network of of which are electrified and the total track length is . The network is significantly interconnected with other European railway networks, providing pan-European passenger...
employees, of young men drafted into the Romanian Land Forces
Romanian Land Forces
The Romanian Land Forces is the army of Romania, and the main component of the Romanian Armed Forces. In recent years, full professionalisation and a major equipment overhaul have transformed the nature of the force.The Romanian Land Forces were founded on...
, of Bovaryist
Bovarysme
Bovarysme is a term derived from Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary . It denotes a tendency toward escapist daydreaming in which the dreamer imagines himself or herself to be a hero or heroine in a romance, whilst ignoring the everyday realities of the situation. The eponymous Madame Bovary is an...
women who playfully seduce adolescents, or of the provincial petite bourgeoisie
Petite bourgeoisie
Petit-bourgeois or petty bourgeois is a term that originally referred to the members of the lower middle social classes in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
. At times, they confront the morals of barely literate people with the stern authorities: a peasant obstinately believes that the 1859 union
United Principalities
The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, also known as the Romanian Principalities, was the official name of Romania following the 1859 election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince or domnitor of both territories...
between Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
and Moldavia was meant to ensure the supremacy of his class; a young lower-class woman becomes the love interest of a boyar but chooses a life of freedom; and a Rom deserts from the Army after being told to bathe. In La noi, la Viişoara ("At Our Place in Viişoara"), the life of an old man degenerates into bigotry and avarice, to the point where he makes his wife starve to death. Sadoveanu's positive portrayal of hajduk
Hajduk
Hajduk is a term most commonly referring to outlaws, highwaymen or freedom fighters in the Balkans, Central- and Eastern Europe....
s as fundamentally honest outlaw
Outlaw
In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...
s standing up to feudal
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
injustice, replicates stereotypes found in Romanian folklore, and is mostly present in some of the stories through (sometimes recurrent) heroic characters: Vasile the Great, Cozma Răcoare, Liţă Florea etc. In the piece titled Bordeenii (roughly, "The Mud-hut Dwellers"), he shows eccentrics and misanthropes
Misanthropy
Misanthropy is generalized dislike, distrust, disgust, contempt or hatred of the human species or human nature. A misanthrope, or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings...
presided upon by the dark figure of Sandu Faliboga, brigands who flee all public authority and whom commentators have likened to settlers of the Americas
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
. Lepădatu, an unwanted child, speaks for the entire group: "What could I do [...] wherever there are big fairs and lots of people? I'd have a better time with the cattle; it is with them that I have grown up and with them that I get along." Romanticizing the obscure events of early medieval history
Romania in the Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages in Romania spans the period from the withdrawal of the Roman administration from the province of Dacia in the 271–275 AD, thenceforward modern Romania's territories were to be crisscrossed by migrating populations for almost 1,000 years...
in Vremuri de bejenie ("Roving Times", 1907), Sadoveanu sketches the improvised self-defense of a refugee community, their last stand against nomadic Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
.
In reference to the stories in this series, Călinescu stresses that Sadoveanu's main interest is in depicting men and women cut away from civilization, who view the elements of Westernization
Westernization
Westernization or Westernisation , also occidentalization or occidentalisation , is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in such matters as industry, technology, law, politics, economics, lifestyle, diet, language, alphabet,...
with nothing more than "wonderment": "Sadoveanu's literature is the highest expression of the savage instinct." In later works, the critic believed, Sadoveanu moved away from depicting isolation as the escape of primitives into their manageable world, but as "the refinement of souls whom civilization has upset." These views are echoed by Ovid Crohmălniceanu, who believes that, unlike other Romanian Realists, Sadoveanu was able to show a peasant society that was not merely the prey of modern corruption or historical oppression, but rather refusing all contacts with the wider world—even to the point of Luddite
Luddite
The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life...
-like hostility in front of new objects. Some of the early stories, Crohmălniceanu argues, do follow the moralizing Sămănătorist
Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul or Semănătorul was a literary and political magazine published in Romania between 1901 and 1910. Founded by poets Alexandru Vlahuţă and George Coşbuc, it is primarily remembered as a tribune for early 20th century traditionalism, neoromanticism and ethnic nationalism...
pattern, but part with it when they refuse to present the countryside in "idyll
Idyll
An idyll or idyl is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus' short pastoral poems, the Idylls....
ic" fashion, or when they adopt a specific "mythical realism".
Sadoveanu began his career as a novelist with more in-depth explorations into subjects present in his stories and novellas. At the time, Crohmălniceanu stresses, he was being influenced by the naturalism of Caragiale (minus the comedic effect), and by his own experience growing up in characteristically underdeveloped Moldavian cities and târg
Târg
A târg was a medieval Romanian market town. The term originates from the Slavic root torg for "trade". Târgs were originally established on the places where periodic fairs were held. With time, they became permanent settlements as craftsmen built their workshops near the place where the fair was held...
uri (somewhat similar to the aesthetic of boredom, adopted in poetry by George Bacovia
George Bacovia
George Bacovia was a Romanian symbolist poet. While he initially belonged to the local Symbolist movement, his poetry came to be seen as a precursor of Romanian Modernism and eventually established him in critical esteem alongside Tudor Arghezi, Lucian Blaga and Ion Barbu as one of the most...
, Demostene Botez or Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane or Benjamin Fundoianu was a Romanian and French poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as a Symbolist poet and columnist, he alternated Neoromantic and Expressionist themes with echoes from Tudor...
). Among his first works of the kind is Floare ofilită ("Wizened Flower"), where a simple girl, Tincuţa, marries a provincial civil servant, and finds herself deeply unhappy and unable to enrich her life on any level. Tincuţa, seen by Călinescu as one of Sadoveanu's "savage" characters, only maintains urban refinement when persuading her husband to return for supper, but, according to Crohmălniceanu, is also a credible witness to the "small-mindedness" of "bourgeois" environments. A rather similar plot is built for Însemnările lui Neculai Manea ("The Recordings of Neculai Manea"), where the eponymous character, an educated peasant, experiences two unhappy romantic affairs before successfully courting a married woman who, although grossly uncultured, makes him happy. Apa morţilor ("The Dead Men's Water") is about a Bovaryist woman who discards lovers over imprecise feelings of dissatisfaction, finding refuge in the monotonous countryside. Călinescu noted that such novels were "usually less valuable than direct accounts", and deemed Însemnările lui Neculai Manea "without literary interest"; in Ovid Crohmălniceanu's view, the same story presents relevant detail on professional and intellectual failure.
Praised by its commentators, the short novel Haia Sanis (1908) shows the eponymous character, a Jewish
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
woman who throws herself into the arms of a local Gentile
Goy
is a Hebrew biblical term for "nation". By Roman times it had also acquired the meaning of "non-Jew". The latter is also its meaning in Yiddish.-In Biblical Hebrew:...
, although she knows him to be a seducer. Călinescu, who wrote with admiration about how the subject dissimulated pathos into "technical indifference", notes that the erotic rage motivating Haia has drawn "well justified" comparisons with Jean Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
's tragedy Phèdre
Phèdre
Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
. Crohmălniceanu believes Haia Sanis to be "perhaps [Sadoveanu's] best novella", particularly since the "wild beauty" Haia has to overcome at once antisemitism, endogamy
Endogamy
Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class, or social group, rejecting others on such basis as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. A Greek Orthodox Christian endogamist, for example, would require that a marriage be only with another...
and shame, before dying "in terrible pain" during a botched abortion
Abortion in Romania
Abortion in Romania is legal during the first 14 weeks of the pregnancy. Abortions during later stages of pregnancy are legal only when the woman's life is at risk...
. Sadoveanu's work of the time also includes Balta liniştii ("Tranquillity Pond"), where Alexandrina, pushed into an arranged marriage
Arranged marriage
An arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...
, has a belated and sad revelation of true love. In other sketch stories, such as O zi ca altele ("A Day like Any Other") or Câinele ("The Dog"), Sadoveanu follows Caragiale's close study of suburban banality.
Hanu Ancuţei, Şoimii and Neamul Şoimăreştilor
Frame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
in the line of medieval allegories such as Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
's Decameron
The Decameron
The Decameron, also called Prince Galehaut is a 14th-century medieval allegory by Giovanni Boccaccio, told as a frame story encompassing 100 tales by ten young people....
and Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
's Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at...
. It retells the stories of travelers meeting in the eponymous inn. Much of the story deals with statements of culinary tastes and shared recipes, as well as with the overall contrast between civilization and rudimentary ways: in one episode of the book, a merchant arriving from the Leipzig Trade Fair
Leipzig Trade Fair
The Leipzig Trade Fair was a major fair for trade across Central Europe for nearly a millennium. After the Second World War, its location happened to lie within the borders of East Germany, whereupon it became one of the most important trade fairs of Comecon and was traditionally a meeting place...
bemuses the other protagonists when he explains the more frugal ways and the technical innovations of Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
. Sadoveanu applied the same narrative technique in his Soarele în baltă ("The Sun in the Waterhole"), which, Călinescu argues, displays "a trickier style."
In Şoimii, Sadoveanu's first historical novel
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
, the main character is Nicoară Potcoavă
Ioan Potcoava
Ioan al IV-lea Potcoavă was a Hetman of Ukrainian Cossacks , and Voivode of Moldavia...
, a late 16th century Moldavian nobleman who became Hetman
Hetmans of Ukrainian Cossacks
Hetman of Ukrainian Cossacks as a title was not officially recognized internationally until the creation of the Ukrainian Hetmanate. With the creation of Registered Cossacks units their leaders were unofficially referred to as hetmans, however officially the title was known as the "Senior of His...
of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and Prince of Moldavia. The narrative, whose basic lines had been drawn by Sadoveanu in his adolescent years, focuses on early events in Nicoară's life, building on the story according to which he and his brother Alexandru were the brothers of Prince Ioan Vodă cel Cumplit
Ioan Voda cel Cumplit
John III the Terrible , also John III the Brave or John III the Armenian was Voivode of Moldavia between February 1572 and June 1574....
, whose execution by the Ottomans
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
they tried to avenge. The text also follows their attempt to seize and kill Ieremia Golia, a boyar whose alleged betrayal had led to Prince Ioan's capture, and whose daughter Ilinca becomes the brothers' prisoner. This story as well features several episodes where the focus is on depicting customary feasts, as well as a fragment where the Potcoavăs and their Zaporozhian Cossack allies engage in binge drinking
Binge drinking
Binge drinking or heavy episodic drinking is the modern epithet for drinking alcoholic beverages with the primary intention of becoming intoxicated by heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time. It is a kind of purposeful drinking style that is popular in several countries worldwide,...
. Glossing over several years in Nicoară's life, and culminating in his seizure of the throne, the narrative shows his victory against pretender Petru Şchiopul and Golia, and the price he has to pay for his rise. Alexandru, who falls in love with Ilinca, unsuccessfully asks for the captured Golia not to be killed. Following the murder, both brothers become embittered and renounce power. Călinescu described Şoimii novel as "still awkward", noting that Sadoveanu was only beginning to experiment with the genre.
Bildungsroman
In literary criticism, bildungsroman or coming-of-age story is a literary genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood , and in which character change is thus extremely important...
centered on the coming of age of one Tudor Şoimaru. The protagonist, born a free peasant in Orhei
Orhei
Orhei is a city and the administrative centre of Orhei District in Moldova with a population of 25,680. Orhei is approximately 50 kilometers north of the capital, Chişinău.-Demographics:...
area, fights alongside Ştefan Tomşa
Stefan Tomsa
Ştefan Tomşa or Ştefan VII was the ruler of Moldavia in 1563 and 1564.-Career:Tomşa served as hatman and came to power as leader of a boyar revolt against the Lutheran Ioan Iacob Heraclid, whose attempts to impose the new usages in Moldavia offended the Eastern Orthodox sensibilities of nobles...
in the 1612 battles to capture the Moldavian throne. After participating in the capture of Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
, he returns home and helps local boyar Stroie in recovering his daughter, Magda, who had been kidnapped by Cossacks. Şoimaru, who feels for Magda, is however enraged by news that her father has forced his community into serfdom
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
. Trying to deal with his internal conflict
Internal conflict
In literature, internal conflict is the struggle occurring within a character's mind. Often more literary works are focused on internal battles while more populist literature is more focused on external conflict....
, he travels into Poland-Lithuania
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
, where he discovers that Stroie is plotting against Tomşa, while Magda, who is in love with a szlachta
Szlachta
The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...
nobleman, scorns his affection. He returns a second time to Orhei, marries into his social group, and plots revenge on Stroie by again rallying with Ştefan Tomşa. Following Tomşa's defeat, he again loses the lands of his ancestors, as Stroie returns home to celebrate his victory and have the Şoimarus put to death. Unexpectedly warned of this by Magda, Tudor manages to turn the tide: he and his family destroy Stroie's manor, killing the master but allowing Magda to escape unharmed. In Călinescu's view, the novel is "somewhat more consistent from an epic perspective", but fails to respect the conventions of the adventure novel
Adventure novel
The adventure novel is a genre of novels that has adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, as its main theme.-History:...
it sets out to replicate. The critic, who deemed Magda's courtship by Tudor "sentimental
Sentimentality
Sentimentality originally indicated the reliance on feelings as a guide to truth, but current usage defines it as an appeal to shallow, uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason....
", argued that the book lacks "the richness and unpredictable nature of the love intrigue"; he also objected to the depiction of Tudor as indecisive and inadequate for a heroic role. However, Ovid Crohmălniceanu argued that the suddenness of Tudor's sentimental commitments was characteristic for the "peasant soul" as observed by Sadoveanu.
Zodia Cancerului and Nunta Domniţei Ruxandra
Zodia Cancerului, Sadoveanu's later historical novel, is set late in the 17th century, during the third rule of Moldavian Prince Gheorghe DucaGeorge Ducas
Voivode George Ducas was three times Prince of Moldavia and one time Prince of Wallachia .He was married to Anastasia, the daughter of Eustratie Dabija, and later to Dafina Doamna; George Ducas...
, and is seen by Călinescu as "of a superior artistic level." The plot centers on a conflict between Duca and the Ruset boyars: the young Alecu Ruset, son of the deposed Prince Antonie, is spared persecution on account of his good relations with the Ottomans, but has to live under close watch. Himself a tormented, if cultured and refined, man, Alecu falls in love with Duca's daughter Catrina, whom he attempts to kidnap. The episode, set to coincide with the start of a major social crisis, ends with Alecu's defeat and killing on Duca's orders.
In the background, the story depicts the visit of a Abbé
Abbé
Abbé is the French word for abbot. It is the title for lower-ranking Catholic clergymen in France....
de Marenne, a Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
priest and French envoy, who meets and befriends Ruset. Their encounter is another opportunity for Sadoveanu to show the amiable but incomplete exchange between the mentalities of Western
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. In various episodes of the novel, de Marenne shows himself perplexed by the omnipresent wilderness of underpopulated Moldavia, and in particular by the abundance of resources this provides. In one paragraph, seen by George Călinescu as a key to the book, Sadoveanu writes: "[De Marenne's] curious eye was permanently satisfied. Here was a desolation of solitudes, one that his friends in France could not even guess existed, no matter how much imagination they had been gifted with; for at the antipode of civilization one occasionally finds such things that have remained unchanged from the onset of creation, preserving their mysterious beauty."
In a shorter novel of the period, Sadoveanu explored the late years of Vasile Lupu
Vasile Lupu
Vasile Lupu was a Moldavian Voivode between 1634 and 1653. Vasile Coci surnamed "the wolf" who ruled as Prince of Moldavia had secured the Moldavian throne in 1634 after a series of complicated intrigues and managed to hold it for twenty years. Vasile was of Albanian origin and Greek education...
's rule over Moldavia, centering on the marriage of Cossack leader Tymofiy Khmelnytsky
Tymofiy Khmelnytsky
Tymofiy Bohdanovych Khmelnytsky or Tymish Khmelnytsky was the eldest son of Cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky....
and Lupu's daughter, Ruxandra. Titled Nunta Domniţei Ruxandra ("Princess Ruxandra's Wedding"), it shows the Cossacks' brutal celebration of the event around the court in Iaşi, depicting Tymofiy himself as an uncouth, violent and withdrawn figure. The narrative then focuses on the Battle of Finta
Battle of Finta
The Battle of Finta was a confrontation between Matei Basarab's Wallachian army and a combined Moldo-Cossack force under Vasile Lupu and Tymofiy Khmelnytsky...
and the siege of Suceava
Suceava
Suceava is the Suceava County seat in Bukovina, Moldavia region, in north-eastern Romania. The city was the capital of the Principality of Moldavia from 1388 to 1565.-History:...
, through which a Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
n-Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n force repelled the Moldo-Cossack forces and, turning the tide, entered deep into Moldavia and placed Gheorghe Ştefan
Gheorghe Stefan
Gheorghe Ştefan was Voivode of Moldavia between April 13 and May 8, 1653, and again from July 16, 1653 to March 13, 1658; he was the son of boyar Dumitraşcu Ceaur; Gheorghe Ştefan was Chancellor during the reign of Vasile Lupu.-Biography:Citing Vasile's reliance on his Greek and Levantine retinue,...
on the throne. Sadoveanu also invents a love story between Ruxandra and the boyar Bogdan, whose rivalry with Tymofiy ends in the latter's killing. While Călinescu criticized the plot as being over-detailed, and the character studies as incomplete, Crohmălniceanu found the intricate depiction of boyar customs to be a relevant part of Sadoveanu's "vast historical fresco." In both Zodia Cancerului and Nunta Domniţei Ruxandra, the author took significant liberties with the historical facts. In addition to Tymofiy's death at the hands of Bogdan, the latter narrative used invented or incorrect names for some of the personages, and portrays the muscular, mustachioed, Gheorghe Ştefan as thin and bearded; likewise, in Zodia Cancerului, Sadoveanu invents the character Guido Celesti, who stands in for the actual Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
leader of Duca's Iaşi, Bariona da Monte Rotondo.
Fraţii Jderi, Venea o moară pe Siret... and Baltagul
Stephen III of Moldavia
Stephen III of Moldavia was Prince of Moldavia between 1457 and 1504 and the most prominent representative of the House of Mușat.During his reign, he strengthened Moldavia and maintained its independence against the ambitions of Hungary, Poland, and the...
. Writing in 1941, before its final part was in print, Călinescu argued that the novel was part of Sadoveanu's "most valuable work", and noted "the maturity of its verbal means." In the first volume, titled Ucenicia lui Ionuţ ("Ionuţ's Apprenticeship"), the eponymous Jderi brothers, allies of Stephen and friends of his son Alexandru, fight off the enemies of their lord on several occasions. In what is the start of a Bildungsroman, the youngest Jder, Ionuţ Păr-Negru, consumed by love for Lady Nasta, who was kidnapped by Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
. He goes to her rescue, only to find out that she had preferred suicide to a life of slavery. Călinescu, who believed the volumes show Sadoveanu's move to the consecrated elements of adventure novels, called them "remarkable", but stressed that the narrative could render "the feeling of stumbling, of a languishing flow", and that the dénouement was "rather depressing". The second book in the series (Izvorul alb, "The White Water Spring") intertwines the life of the Jderi brothers with that of Stephen's family: the ruler weds the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
princess Mary of Mangop, while Simion Jder falls for Maruşca, who is supposedly Stephen's illegitimate daughter. The major episodes in the narrative are Maruşca's kidnapping by a boyar, her captivity in Jagiellon Poland, and her rescue at the hands of the Jderi. The 1942 conclusion of the cycle, Oamenii Măriei-sale ("His Lordship's Men"), the brothers are shown defending their ancestral rights and their lord against the Ottoman invader and ambivalent boyars, and crushing the former at the Battle of Vaslui
Battle of Vaslui
The Battle of Vaslui was fought on January 10, 1475 between Stephen III of Moldavia and the Ottoman Beylerbey of Rumelia, Hadân Suleiman Pasha. The battle took place at Podul Înalt , near the town of Vaslui, in Moldavia...
.
The Jderi books, again set to the background of primitivism and natural abundance, also feature episodes of intense horror. These, Călinescu proposes, are willingly depicted "with an indolent complacency", as if to underline that the slow pace and monumental scale of history give little importance to personal tragedies. The same commentator notes a difference between the role nature plays in the first and second volumes: from serene, the landscape becomes hostile, and people are shown fearing earthquakes and droughts, although contemplative depictions of euphoria play a central part in both writings. The meeting between the wider world and the immobile local tradition surfaces in Fraţii Jderi as well: a messenger is shown wondering how the letter he brought could talk to the addressee; when she is supposed to encounter strange men, Maruşca requests to be allowed to "shy away" in another room; a secondary character, claiming precognition
Precognition
In parapsychology, precognition , also called future sight, and second sight, is a type of extrasensory perception that would involve the acquisition or effect of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information or laws of physics...
, prepares his own funeral.
For the 1925 Venea o moară pe Siret..., Sadoveanu received much critical acclaim. The boyar Alexandru Filotti falls in love with a miller's daughter, Anuţa, whom he educates and introduces to high society. The beautiful young lady is also courted by Filotti's son Costi and by the peasant Vasile Brebu—in the end, overwhelmed by jealousy, Brebu kills the object of his affection. George Călinescu writes that the good reception was not fully deserved, claiming that the novel is "colorless", that it was merely based on the writer's early stories, and that it failed in its goal of depicting "crumbling boyardom".
In Baltagul
The Hatchet (novel)
The Hatchet is a 1930 crime novel novel written by Mihail Sadoveanu. The main character of the novel is the wife of a shepard living in the Moldavian village of Măgura Tarcăului, Vitoria Lipan, which has a premonitation that her husband, Nechifor, on a trip to buy a new flock in the town of...
(1930), Sadoveanu merged psychological techniques
Psychological novel
A psychological novel, also called psychological realism, is a work of prose fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action...
and a pretext borrowed from crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
with several of his major themes. Written in just 30 days on the basis of previous drafts, the condensed novel shows Vitoria Lipan, the widow of a murdered shepherd, following in her husband's tracks to discover his killer and avenge his death. Accompanied by her son, and using for a guide the shepherd's dog, Vitoria discovers both the body and the murderer, but, before she can take revenge, her dog jumps on the man and bites into his neck. By means of this plot line, Sadoveanu also builds a fresco of transhumance
Transhumance
Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and to lower valleys in winter. Herders have a permanent home, typically in valleys. Only the herds travel, with...
and traces its ancestral paths, taking as a source of inspiration one of the best-known poems in local folklore, the ballad Mioriţa
Miorita
Mioriţa is an old Romanian pastoral ballad and considered one of the most important pieces of Romanian folklore. It has several, quite different in content versions, one of which was selected by Vasile Alecsandri to the form the textbook reference.-Content:The setting is a simple one: three...
. Vitoria's sheer determination is the central aspect of the volume. Călinescu, who ranks the book among Sadoveanu's best, praises its "remarkable artistry" and "unforgettable dialogues", but nonetheless writes that Lipan's "detective-like" search and a "stubbornness" are weak points in the narrative. Crohmălniceanu declares Baltagul one of the "capital works" in world literature, proposing that, on its own, it manages to reconstruct "an entire shepherding civilization"; Cornis-Pope, who rates the book as "Sadoveanu's masterpiece", also notes that it "restated the theme of crime and punishment".
Main travel writings and memoirs
Before the 1940s, Sadoveanu also became known as a travel writerTravel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
. His contributions notably include accounts of his hunting trips: Ţara de dincolo de negură ("The Land beyond the Fog"), and one dedicated to the region of Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
(Privelişti dobrogene, "Dobrujan Sights"). Călinescu wrote that they both comprised "pages of great beauty". Ţara de dincolo..., primarily showing recluse men in real-life symbiosis with the wilderness, also attention for its sympathetic depiction of the Hutsuls
Hutsuls
Hutsuls are an ethno-cultural group of Ukrainian highlanders who for centuries have inhabited the Carpathian mountains, mainly in Ukraine, the northern extremity of Romania .-Etymology:...
, a minority
Minorities of Romania
Officially, 10.5% of Romania's population is represented by minorities . The principal minorities in Romania are Hungarians and Roma people, with a declining German population and smaller numbers of Poles in Bucovina...
Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
-speaking population, as an ancient tribe threatened by cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
. Sadoveanu's other travelogues include the reportage Oameni şi locuri ("People and Places") and an account of his trips into Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
(Drumuri basarabene, "Bessarabian Roads"). He also collected and commented upon the memoirs of other avid hunters (Istorisiri de vânătoare, "Hunting Stories").
A noted writing in this series was Împărăţia apelor ("The Realm of Waters"). It forms a detailed and contemplative memoir of his journeys as a fisherman, and, according to Crohmălniceanu, one of the most eloquent proofs of Sadoveanu's "permanent and intimate correspondence with nature." Călinescu saw the text as a "fantastic vision of the entire aquatic universe", merging a form of pessimism
Pessimism
Pessimism, from the Latin word pessimus , is a state of mind in which one perceives life negatively. Value judgments may vary dramatically between individuals, even when judgments of fact are undisputed. The most common example of this phenomenon is the "Is the glass half empty or half full?"...
similar to Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
's with a "calm kief
Kief
Kief, keef or kif refers to the resin glands of cannabis which may accumulate in containers or be sifted from loose dry cannabis buds with a mesh screen or sieve. Kief contains a much higher concentration of desired psychoactive cannabinoids, such as THC, than other preparations of cannabis buds...
" (cannabis
Cannabis
Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...
-induced torpor), and as such illustrating "the great joy of participating in the transformations of matter, of eating and allowing oneself to be eaten." Sadoveanu also contributed an account of his travels into the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Olanda ("Holland"). It provides insight into his preoccupation with the meeting of civilization and wilderness: upset by what he called "the [Dutch] rampancy of cleanliness", the writer confesses his perplexity at coming face to face with a contained and structured natural world, and details his own temptation to go "against the current". One of Sadoveanu's main conclusions is that Holland lacks in "true and lively wonders". Sadoveanu also sporadically wrote memoirs of his early life career, such as Însemnări ieşene ("Recordings from Iaşi"), which deals with the period during which he worked for Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
, a book about the Second Balkan War
Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 29 June 1913. Bulgaria had a prewar agreement about the division of region of Macedonia...
(44 de zile în Bulgaria, "44 Days in Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
"), and the account of years in primary school, Domnu Trandafir. They were followed in 1944 by Anii de ucenicie ("The Apprenticeship Years"), where Sadoveanu details some of his earliest experiences. Despite his temptation for destroying all raw personal notes, Sadoveanu wrote and kept a large number of diaries, which were never published in his lifetime.
Other early writings
Also during that time, he retold and prefaced the journeys of Thomas Witlam AtkinsonThomas Witlam Atkinson
Thomas Witlam Atkinson was an English architect, quarryman, stonemason, and travel writer.He was born in Cawthorne, near Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1799. Between 1848 and 1853 he travelled over 40 000 miles through Eastern Europe and Asiatic Russia with his wife Lucy, and painted and...
, an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
architect and stonemason who spent years in Tartary
Tartary
Tartary or Great Tartary was a name used by Europeans from the Middle Ages until the twentieth century to designate the Great Steppe, that is the great tract of northern and central Asia stretching from the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean inhabited mostly by Turkic, Mongol...
(a book he titled Cuibul invaziilor, "The Nest of Invasions"). This was evidence of his growing interest in exotic subjects, which he later adapted to a series of novels, where the setting is "Scythia
Scythia
In antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe...
", seen as an ancestral area of culture connecting Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
with the European region of Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
(partly coinciding with present-day Romania). The home of mysterious Asiatic peoples, Sadoveanu's Scythia is notably the background to his novels Uvar and Nopţile de Sânziene. The former shows its eponymous character, a Yakut
Yakuts
Yakuts , are a Turkic people associated with the Sakha Republic.The Yakut or Sakha language belongs to the Northern branch of the Turkic family of languages....
, exposed to the scrutiny of a Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
officer. In the latter, titled after the ancestral celebration of Sânziene
Sanziana
Sânziană is the Romanian name for gentle fairies who play an important part in local folklore, also used to designate the Galium verum or Cruciata laevipes flowers. Under the plural form Sânziene, the word designates an annual festival in the fairies' honor...
during the month of June, shows a French intellectual meeting a nomadic tribe of Moldavian Rom people
Roma minority in Romania
The Roma constitute one of the major minorities in Romania. According to the 2002 census, they number 535,140 people or 2.5% of the total population, being the second-largest ethnic minority in Romania after Hungarians...
, who, the reader learns, are actually the descendants of Pechenegs. Călinescu notes that, in such writings, "the intrigue is a pretext", again serving to depict the vast wilderness confronted with the keen eye of foreign observers. He sees Nopţile de Sânziene as "the novel of millenarian immobility", and its theme as one of mythological proportions. The narrative pretexts, including the Sânziene celebration and the Rom people's social atavism
Atavism
Atavism is the tendency to revert to ancestral type. In biology, an atavism is an evolutionary throwback, such as traits reappearing which had disappeared generations before. Atavisms can occur in several ways...
, connect Nopţile... with another one of Sadoveanu's writings, 24 iunie ("June 24").
According to Tudor Vianu, the 1933 fantasy
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
novel Creanga de aur ("The Golden Bow") takes partial inspiration from Byzantine literature
Byzantine literature
Byzantine literature may be defined as the Greek literature of the Middle Ages, whether written in the territory of the Byzantine Empire or outside its borders...
, and is evidence of a form of Humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
found in Eastern philosophy
Eastern philosophy
Eastern philosophy includes the various philosophies of Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Iranian philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Indian philosophy and Korean philosophy...
. Marcel Cornis-Pope places it among Sadoveanu's "mythic-poetic narratives that explored the ontology
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
and symbolics of history." The writer himself acknowledged that the esoteric
Esotericism
Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...
nature of the book was inspired by his own affiliation to the Freemasonry
Freemasonry in Romania
The beginnings of Freemasonry in the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia date to the 18th century and the activities of the humanist scholar Anton Maria del Chiaro, secretary to voivodes Constantin Brâncoveanu and Constantine Mavrocordatos...
, whose symbolism it partly reflected. Its protagonist, Kesarion Brebu, is included by Vianu among the images of sages and soothsayer
Fortune-telling
Fortune-telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune-telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination...
s in Mihail Sadoveanu's fiction, and, as "the last Deceneus
Deceneus
Deceneus refers in The Origin and Deeds of the Goths by Jordanes to two different men in Dacia:* Deceneus, the predecessor of Zalmoxis in the distant past ....
", is a treasurer of ancient secret sciences mastered by the Dacians
Dacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
and the Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ians. The novel is often interpreted as Sadoveanu's perspective on the Dacian contribution to Romanian culture
Culture of Romania
Romania has a unique culture, which is the product of its geography and of its distinct historical evolution. Like Romanians themselves, it is defined as the meeting point of three regions: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, but cannot be truly included in any of them...
.
Sadoveanu's series of minor novels and stories of the interwar years also comprises a set of usually urban-themed writings, which, Călinescu argues, resemble the works of Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
, but develop into "regressive" texts with "a lyrical intrigue". They include Duduia Margareta ("Miss Margareta"), where a conflict occurs between a young woman and her governess
Governess
A governess is a girl or woman employed to teach and train children in a private household. In contrast to a nanny or a babysitter, she concentrates on teaching children, not on meeting their physical needs...
, and Locul unde nu s-a întâmplat nimic ("The Place Where Nothing Happened"), where, in what is a retake on his own Apa morţilor, Sadoveanu depicts the cultured but bored boyar Lai Cantacuzin and his growing affection for a modest young woman, Daria Mazu. In Cazul Eugeniţei Costea ("The Case of Eugeniţa Costea"), a civil servant kills himself to avoid prosecution, and his end is replicated by that of his daughter, brought to despair by her stepfather's character and by her mother's irrational jealousy. Demonul tinereţii ("The Demon of Youth"), believed by Călinescu to be "the most charming" in this series, has for its protagonist Natanail, a university dropout who has developed a morbid fear of women since losing the love of his life, and who lives in seclusion as a monk. In the rural-themed Paştele blajinilor ("Thomas Sunday") of 1935, a defeated brigand seeks a dignified end to his wasted life. Written in 1938, the short story Ochi de urs ("Bear's Eye") introduces its hero Culi Ursake, the toughened hunter, into a bizarre scenery that seems to mock a human's understanding.
During the period, Mihail Sadoveanu also wrote children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
. His most significant pieces in this field are Dumbrava minunată ("The Enchanted Grove", 1926), Măria-sa Puiul Pădurii ("His Highness the Forest Boy", 1931), and a collection of stories adapted from Persian literature
Persian literature
Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...
(Divanul persian, "The Persian Divan
Divan
A divan was a high governmental body in a number of Islamic states, or its chief official .-Etymology:...
", 1940). Măria-sa Puiul Pădurii is itself an adaptation of the Geneviève de Brabant
Geneviève de Brabant
Geneviève de Brabant is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, by Jacques Offenbach, first performed in Paris in 1859. The plot is based on the medieval legend of Genevieve of Brabant....
story, considered "somewhat highbrow" by George Călinescu, while the frame story
Frame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
Divanul persian consciously recalls the work of 19th century Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
n writer Anton Pann
Anton Pann
Anton Pann , was an Ottoman-born Wallachian composer, musicologist, and Romanian-language poet, also noted for his activities as a printer, translator, and schoolteacher...
. In 1909, Sadoveanu also published adapted version of two ancient writings: the Alexander Romance
Alexander Romance
Alexander romance is any of several collections of legends concerning the mythical exploits of Alexander the Great. The earliest version is in Greek, dating to the 3rd century. Several late manuscripts attribute the work to Alexander's court historian Callisthenes, but the historical figure died...
(as Alexandria) and Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica are a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today...
(as Esopia). His 1921 book Cocostârcul albastru ("The Blue Crane") is a series of short stories with lyrical themes. Among his early writings are two biographical novel
Biographical novel
The biographical novel is a genre of novel which provides a fictional and usually entertaining account of a person's life. This kind of novel concentrates on the experiences a person had during his lifetime, the people he met and the incidents which occurred are detailed and sometimes...
s which retell historical events from the source, Viaţa lui Ştefan cel Mare ("The Life of Stephen the Great") and Lacrimile ieromonahului Veniamin ("The Tears of Veniamin the Hieromonk
Hieromonk
Hieromonk , also called a Priestmonk, is a monk who is also a priest in the Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholicism....
"), both of which, Călinescu objected, lacked in originality. The former, published in 1934, was more noted among critics, for both intimate tone and hagiographic
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
character (recounting Stephen's life on the model of saints' biographies).
Socialist realism years
Despite the post-1944 change in approach, Sadoveanu's characteristic narrative style remained largely unmodified. In contrast, his choice of themes changed, a transition which reflected political imperatives. At the end of the process, literary historian Ana Selejan argues, Sadoveanu became the most influential prose author among Romanian Socialist realists, equaled only by the younger Petru Dumitriu. Historian Bogdan Ivaşcu writes that Sadoveanu's affiliation with "proletarian culture" and "its masquerade", like that of Tudor ArgheziTudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
and George Călinescu, although it may have been intended to rally "prestige and depth" to Socialist realism, only succeeded in bring their late works to the level of "propaganda and agitation
Agitprop
Agitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
materials." In contrast to these retrospective assessments, communist literary critics and cultural promoters of the 1950s regularly described Sadoveanu as the model to follow, both before and after Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Malenkov
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death, he became Premier of the Soviet Union and was in 1953 briefly considered the most powerful Soviet politician before being overshadowed by Nikita...
's views on culture were adopted as the norm.
In his Lumina vine de la Răsărit, the writer built on the opposition between light and darkness, identifying the former with Soviet policies and the latter with capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. Sadoveanu thus spoke of "the dragon of my own doubts" being vanquished by "the Sun of the East". Historian Adrian Cioroianu
Adrian Cioroianu
Adrian Mihai Cioroianu is a Romanian historian, politician, journalist, and essayist. A lecturer for the History Department at the University of Bucharest, he is the author of several books dealing with Romanian history...
notes that this literary antithesis
Antithesis
Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition...
came to be widely used by various Romanian authors who rallied with Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
during the late 1940s, citing among these Cezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu was a Romanian journalist, novelist and children's writer.He was inspired by the works of Honoré de Balzac, attempting to write a Romanian novel cycle that would mirror Balzac's La Comédie humaine...
and the former avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
writer Saşa Pană
Sasa Pana
Saşa Pană was a Romanian avant-garde poet, novelist, and short story writer.-Biography:...
. He also notes that such imagery, accompanied by portrayals of Soviet joy and abundance, replicated an ancient "structure of myth", adapting it to a new ideology on the basis of "what could be imagined, not of what could be believed." Ioan Stanomir writes that Sadoveanu and his fellow ARLUS members use a discourse recalling the theme of a religious conversion
Religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
, analogous to that of Paul the Apostle (see Road to Damascus), and critic Cornel Ungureanu stresses that Sadoveanu's texts of the period frequently quote the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
.
Following his return from the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Sadoveanu published travelogues and reportage piece, including the 1945 Moscova ("Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
", co-authored with Traian Săvulescu and economist Mitiţă Constantinescu
Mitita Constantinescu
Mitiţă Constantinescu was a Romanian economist and liberal politician. He was an advocate of industrialization and a degree of dirigisme.-Biography:...
) and the 1946 Caleidoscop ("Kaleidoscope"). In one of these accounts, he details his encounter with Lysenkoist
Lysenkoism
Lysenkoism, or Lysenko-Michurinism, also denotes the biological inheritance principle which Trofim Lysenko subscribed to and which derive from theories of the heritability of acquired characteristics, a body of biological inheritance theory which departs from Mendelism and that Lysenko named...
agronomist Nikolay Tsistsin, and claims to have tasted bread made from a brand of wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
which yielded 4,000 kilogram
Kilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...
s of grain per hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
. In a later memoir, Sadoveanu depicted his existence and the destiny of his country as improved by the communist system
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, and gave accounts of his renewed journeys in the countryside, where he claimed to have witnessed a "spiritual splendor" supported by "the practice of the new times". He would follow up with hundreds of articles on various subjects, published by the communist press, including two 1953 pieces in which he lamented Stalin's death (one of them referred to the Soviet leader as "the great genius of progressive mankind").
Upon its publication, the political novel Mitrea Cocor, which depicts the hardships and eventual triumph of its eponymous peasant protagonist, was officially described as the first Socialist realist writing in local literature, and as a turning point in literary history. Often compared to Dan Deşliu's ideologized poem Lazăr de la Rusca, it is remembered as a controversial epic dictated by ideological requirements, and argued to have been written with assistance from several other authors. Seen by historiographer Lucian Boia
Lucian Boia
Lucian Boia is a Romanian historian, known especially for his works debunking Romanian nationalism and Communism.-Bibliography:* Eugen Brote: Litera, 1974...
as an "embarrassing literary fabrication", it was rated by literary critics Dan C. Mihăilescu and Luminiţa Marcu both as one of "the most harmful books in Romanian literature", and by historian Ioan Lăcustă as "a propaganda writing, a failure from a literary point of view". A praise of collectivization policies
Collectivization in Romania
The collectivization of agriculture in Romania took place in the early years of the Communist regime. The initiative sought to bring about a thorough transformation in the property regime and organisation of labour in agriculture...
that some critics believe was a testimony that Sadoveanu was submitting himself and imposing his public to brainwashing, Mitrea Cocor was preceded by Păuna-Mică, a novel which also idealizes collective farming
Collective farming
Collective farming and communal farming are types of agricultural production in which the holdings of several farmers are run as a joint enterprise...
.
With his final published work, the 1951-1952 novel Nicoară Potcoavă, Sadoveanu retells the narrative of his Şoimii, modifying the plot and adding new characters. Noted among the latter is Olimbiada, a female soothsayer and healer through whose words Sadoveanu again dispenses his own perspective on human existence. The focus of the narrative is also changed: from the avenger of his brother's death in Şoimii, the pretender becomes a purveyor of folk identity, aiming to reestablish the Moldavia of Stephen the Great's times. Praised early on by Dumitriu, who believed it was proof of "artistic excellence", Nicoară Potcoavă is itself seen as a source for communist-inspired political messages. According to Cornel Ungureanu, this explains why it highlights the brotherhood between Cossacks and Moldavians, supposedly replicating the official view on Soviet-Romanian relations. Cornis-Pope, who considers the novel one of Sadoveanu's "mere variations" on old subjects, suggests that it transforms its protagonist "from medieval fighter into political philosopher who announces the rise of a 'new world'." Victor Frunză also notes that, although Sadoveanu returned to old subjects, he "no longer rises to the level he had reached before the war."
The final part of Sadoveanu's creation also comprises a series of pieces where the narrative approach was, according to Crohmălniceanu, "corrected" to show his favorite recluse type won over by the new society. In essence, Ungureanu argues, the new style that of "reportage and plain information, adapted to orders coming from above". Such works include the 1951 Nada Florilor ("The Flowers' Lure") and Clonţ-de-fier ("Iron Bucktooth"), alongside an unfinished piece, Cântecul mioarei ("Song of the Ewe"). In Nada..., the peasant boy Culai follows his hero, tinsmith
Tinsmith
A tinsmith, or tinner or tinker or tinplate worker, is a person who makes and repairs things made of light-coloured metal, particularly tinware...
Alecuţu, into factory life. Clonţ-de-fier, an ideologized retake on Demonul tinereţii, is about a monk returning from seclusion into the world of workers, where the landscape is reshaped by large-scale construction works. According to Ungureanu, it also shows Sadoveanu's universe stripped of "all its deep meanings." While their author came to personify the new cultural guidelines, Sadoveanu's previous books, from Fraţii Jderi to Baltagul, were subject to communist censorship
Censorship in Communist Romania
Censorship in Communist Romania was widespread and virtually every published document, be it a newspaper article or a book, had to pass the censor's approval...
. Various statements contradicting the ideological guidelines were cut out of new editions: the books in general could no longer include mentions of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
(a region first incorporated into the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
by a 1940 occupation) or Romanian Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
beliefs. In one such instance, censors of Baltagul removed a character's claim that "the Russian" was by nature "the drunkest of them all, [...] a worthy beggar and singer at the fairs."
Nationalism and Humanism
Sadveanu's engagement in politics was marked by abrupt changes in convictions, seeing him move from right-Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
to left-wing stances several times in his life. In close connection with his traditionalist views on literature, but in contrast to his career under a Conservative Party
Conservative Party (Romania, 1880-1918)
The Conservative Party was between 1880 and 1918 one of Romania's two most important parties, the other one being the Liberal Party...
and National Liberal
National Liberal Party (Romania)
The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...
cabinets, Sadoveanu initially rallied with nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
groups of various hues, associating with both Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
and, in 1906, with the left-wing Poporanists
Poporanism
The word “poporanism” is derived from “popor”, meaning “people” in the Romanian language. The ideology of Romanian Populism and poporanism are interchangeable. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, populism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for...
at Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
. An early cause of his was his attempt to reconcile Iorga with the Poporanists, but his efforts were largely fruitless. In the 1910s, the anti-Iorga traditionalist Ilarie Chendi recognized in Sadoveanu one of the Poporanists who promoted "the spiritual healing of our people through culture."
Around that time, he formulated a ruralist and nationalist perspective on life, rejecting what he deemed "the hybrid urban world" for "the world of our national realities". In Călinescu's analysis, this signifies that, like his predecessor, the conservative Eminescu, Sadoveanu believed the cities were victims of the "superimposed category" of foreigners, in particular those administrating leasehold estate
Leasehold estate
A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord....
s. Following the 1907 Peasants' Revolt
1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt
The 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt took place in March 1907 in Moldavia and it quickly spread, reaching Wallachia. The main cause was the discontent of the peasants about the inequity of land ownership, which was in the hands of just a few large landowners....
, Sadoveanu sent a report to his Minister of Education Spiru Haret
Spiru Haret
Spiru C. Haret was a Romanian mathematician, astronomer and politician. He made a fundamental contribution to the n-body problem in celestial mechanics by proving that using a third degree approximation for the disturbing forces implies instability of the major axes of the orbits, and by...
, informing him on the state of rural education, and, beyond this, of the problems faced by villagers in Moldavia. It read: "The leaseholders and landowners, no matter what their nationality, make a mockery of the Romanians' labors. Every surtucar [that is, urbanized character] in the village, mayors, notaries, paper-pushers, shamelessly [and] mercilessly milk this milk cow. They are joined by the priest—who [...] is in disagreement with the teacher." With Neamul Şoimăreştilor, the burdens of feudal society and mercantilism
Mercantilism
Mercantilism is the economic doctrine in which government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and security of the state. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade. Mercantilism dominated Western European economic policy and discourse from...
, most of all the restriction of economic rights, were becoming a background theme in his fiction, which later depicted Stephen the Great
Stephen III of Moldavia
Stephen III of Moldavia was Prince of Moldavia between 1457 and 1504 and the most prominent representative of the House of Mușat.During his reign, he strengthened Moldavia and maintained its independence against the ambitions of Hungary, Poland, and the...
as the original champion of social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
(Fraţii Jderi). During most of his World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
activity, Sadoveanu also followed the Poporanists' Russophobia
Russophobia
Russophobia refers to a diverse spectrum of prejudices, dislikes or fears of Russia, Russians, or Russian culture. Its opposite is Russophilia....
and dislike of the Entente side
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
, describing the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
's national policies in Bessarabia as far more barbaric than Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
's rule over Transylvania. In 1916, he abruptly switched to the Entente camp: his enthusiasm as propaganda officer was touched by controversy once Romania experienced massive defeats; Sadoveanu himself abandoned the Entente cause by 1918, when he was decommissioned
Demobilization
Demobilization is the process of standing down a nation's armed forces from combat-ready status. This may be as a result of victory in war, or because a crisis has been peacefully resolved and military force will not be necessary...
, and resumed his flirtation with Constantin Stere
Constantin Stere
Constantin G. Stere or Constantin Sterea was a Romanian writer, jurist, politician, ideologue of the Poporanist trend, and, in March 1906, co-founder Constantin G. Stere or Constantin Sterea (Romanian; , Konstantin Yegorovich Stere or Константин Георгиевич Стере, Konstantin Georgiyevich Stere;...
's Germanophile
Germanophile
A Germanophile is a person who is fond of German culture, German people, and Germany in general, exhibiting as it were German nationalism in spite of not being an ethnic German or a German citizen. Its opposite is Germanophobia...
lobby.
Călinescu sees Sadoveanu, alongside Stere, as one of Viaţa Româneascăs chief ideologues, noting that he was nonetheless "rendered notorious by his inconsistency and opportunism." He writes that Sadoveanu and Stere both showed a resentment for ethnic minorities
Minorities of Romania
Officially, 10.5% of Romania's population is represented by minorities . The principal minorities in Romania are Hungarians and Roma people, with a declining German population and smaller numbers of Poles in Bucovina...
, particularly members of the Jewish community
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
, whom they saw as agents of exploitation, but that, as Humanists
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, they had a form of "humane sympathy" for Jews and foreigners taken individually. The Poporanist aspect of Sadoveanu's literature was also highlighted by Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
in the late 1920s, when he referred to his contributions as evidence that Romanian culture was successfully returning to its specific originality. In essence, Crohmălniceanu writes, Sadoveanu was tied to Viaţa Românească by his advocacy of national specificity, his preference for the large-scale narrative, and his vision of pristine, "natural", human beings.
According to Z. Ornea, Sadoveanu's affiliation to the Freemasonry
Freemasonry in Romania
The beginnings of Freemasonry in the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia date to the 18th century and the activities of the humanist scholar Anton Maria del Chiaro, secretary to voivodes Constantin Brâncoveanu and Constantine Mavrocordatos...
shaped not only his political "demophilia
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
", but also his "Weltanschauung
World view
A comprehensive world view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society's knowledge and point-of-view, including natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and...
, and, through a reflex, his [literary] work." By consequence, Ornea argues, Sadoveanu became a supporter of democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
, a stance which led him into open conflict with extreme nationalists. Alongside its Humanism, Sadoveanu's nationalism was noted for being secular
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
, and thus in contrast with the Romanian Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
imagery favored by nationalists on the far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
. Sadoveanu rejected the notion that ancestral Romanians were religious individuals, stating that their belief was in fact "limited to rituals and customs." He was also a vocal supporter of international cooperation
Internationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
, particularly among countries in Eastern
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
. Writing for the magazine Familia
Familia (literary magazine)
The Romanian-language Familia literary magazine was first published by Iosif Vulcan in Budapest from June 5, 1865 to April 17, 1880. The magazine moved to Oradea and continued publication from April 27, 1880 to December 31, 1906....
in 1935, 17 years after Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
's union with Romania
Union of Transylvania with Romania
Union of Transylvania with Romania was declared on by the assembly of the delegates of ethnic Romanians held in Alba Iulia.The national holiday of Romania, the Great Union Day occurring on December 1, commemorates this event...
and 15 years after the Treaty of Trianon
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...
, Sadoveanu joined the Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
author Gyula Illyés
Gyula Illyés
Gyula Illyés was a Hungarian poet and novelist. He was one of the so called népi writers, named so because they aimed to show – propelled by strong sociological interest and left-wing convictions – the disadvantageous conditions of their native land.-Early life:He was born...
in pleading for good relations between the two neighbors. As noted by Crohmălniceanu, although Sadoveanu's interwar novels may depict both clashes between polities and benign misunderstandings, they ultimately discourage ethnic stereotype
Ethnic stereotype
An ethnic stereotype is a generalized representation of an ethnic group, composed of what are thought to be typical characteristics of members of the group.Ethnic stereotypes are commonly portrayed in ethnic jokes.-Ethnic stereotypes:*African Americans...
s, suggesting that "the gifts and qualities of various kinships" are mutually compatible. According to Marcel Cornis-Pope, this cooperative vision is the background theme to Divanul persian, a book "demonstrating the value of intercultural dialogue
Cross-cultural communication
Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavour to communicate across cultures.- Origins :The Cold War, the United States economy...
at a time of sharp political polarization." The same text was described by Vianu as evidence of Sadoveanu's "understanding, gentleness and tolerance".
In 1926, the year of his entry into Alexandru Averescu
Alexandru Averescu
Alexandru Averescu was a Romanian marshal and populist politician. A Romanian Armed Forces Commander during World War I, he served as Prime Minister of three separate cabinets . He first rose to prominence during the peasant's revolt of 1907, which he helped repress in violence...
's People's Party, Sadoveanu motivated his choice in a letter to Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga was a Romanian politician, poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.-Life:Born in Răşinari, nearby Sibiu, he was an active member in the Romanian nationalistic movement in Transylvania and of its leading group, the Romanian National Party in Austria-Hungary. Before World War I,...
, indicating his belief that the intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
needed to partake in politics: "It would seem that what is foremost needed is the contribution of intellectuals, in an epoch when the overall intellectual level is decreasing." His sincerity was doubted by his contemporaries: both his friend Gheorghe Jurgea-Negrileşti and the communist Petre Pandrea recount how, in 1926-1927, Sadoveanu and Păstorel Teodoreanu requested public funds from Interior Minister Goga, with Sadoveanu motivating that he wanted to set up a cultural magazine and later spending the money on his personal wardrobe. In contrast, Adrian Cioroianu notes that the People's Party episode, and especially the "mutual wariness" between Sadoveanu and the National Liberals
National Liberal Party (Romania)
The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...
, underlined the writer's sympathy for the "intellectual Left". Himself a Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, Ovid Crohmălniceanu suggested that, as early as the 1930s, Sadoveanu's attitudes were rather similar to the official line of communist groups.
Opposition to fascism and support for King Carol
During the 1930s, following his stint as head of AdevărulAdevarul
Adevărul is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in 1871 and reestablished in 1888, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Romanian Kingdom's existence, adopting an independent pro-democratic position, advocating land reform and universal suffrage...
, a leftist newspaper owned by Jewish entrepreneurs, Sadoveanu was targeted by right-wing voices, who claimed that he had chosen to abandon his nationalist credentials. Thus, Sadoveanu became the target of a press campaign in the antisemitic and fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
press, and in particular in Nichifor Crainic
Nichifor Crainic
Nichifor Crainic was a Romanian writer, editor, philosopher, poet and theologian famed for his traditionalist and antisemitic activities...
's Sfarmă-Piatră
Sfarma-Piatra
Sfarmă-Piatră was an antisemitic daily, monthly and later weekly newspaper, published in Romania during the late 1930s and early 1940s...
and the journals connected with the Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
. The former publication deplored his supposed "betrayal" of the nationalist cause. In it, Ovidiu Papadima
Ovidiu Papadima
Ovidiu Papadima was a Romanian literary critic, folklorist, and essayist....
portrayed Sadoveanu as the victim of Jewish manipulation, and equated his affiliation to the Freemasonry with devil worship, and mocked his obesity
Obesity
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...
, while Crainic himself compared the writer to his own character, the treacherous Ieremia Golia. Porunca Vremii often referred to him as Jidoveanu (from jidov, a dismissive term for "Jew"), depicted him as an agent of "Judaeo-communism
Jewish Bolshevism
Jewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism, and known as Żydokomuna in Poland, is an antisemitic stereotype based on the claim that Jews have been the driving force behind or are disproportionately involved in the modern Communist movement, or sometimes more specifically Russian Bolshevism.The expression...
" motivated by "perversity", and called on the public to harass the writer and beat him with stones. It also protested when the public authorities in Fălticeni
Falticeni
Fălticeni is a city in Suceava County, Romania, capital of the former Baia County . As of 2003 the population is 28,899, and the city covers an area of 28,76 km², of which 25% are orchards and lakes. The city is 25 km away from Suceava, the capital of the county...
refused to withdraw Sadoveanu the title of honorary citizen, and again when the University of Iaşi made him a doctor honoris causa, and, through the voice of novelist N. Crevedia, even suggested that the writer should use his hunting rifle to commit suicide. In 1937, Porunca Vremii congratulated ultra-nationalists who had organized public burnings
Book burning
Book burning, biblioclasm or libricide is the practice of destroying, often ceremoniously, books or other written material and media. In modern times, other forms of media, such as phonograph records, video tapes, and CDs have also been ceremoniously burned, torched, or shredded...
of Sadoveanu's works in Southern Dobruja
Southern Dobruja
Southern Dobruja is an area of north-eastern Bulgaria comprising the administrative districts named for its two principal cities of Dobrich and Silistra...
and in Hunedoara
Hunedoara
Hunedoara is a city in Hunedoara County, Transylvania, Romania. It is located in southeastern Transylvania near the Poiana Ruscă Mountains, and administers five villages: Boş, Groş, Hăşdat, Peştişu Mare and Răcăştia....
, as well as non-identified people who sent the writer packages containing shredded copies of his own volumes. In April 1937, the anti-Sadoveanu campaign was met with the indignation of various public figures, who issued an "Appeal of the Intellectuals", signed by Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu was a Romanian novelist, playwright, short story writer, and journalist.- Life :Born in Târlișua , Transylvania, then part of Austria-Hungary, he was the second of thirteen children born to Vasile Rebreanu, a schoolteacher, and Ludovica Diuganu, descendants of peasants...
, Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
, Petru Groza
Petru Groza
Petru Groza was a Romanian politician, best known as the Prime Minister of the first Communist Party-dominated governments under Soviet occupation during the early stages of the Communist regime in Romania....
, Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu was an Albanian-Romanian poet, playwright, and a contributor to Sburătorul, a Romanian literary magazine. His works have been performed in the State Jewish Theater of Romania....
, George Topîrceanu
George Topîrceanu
George Topîrceanu was a Romanian poet, short story writer, and humourist.-Biography:Born in Bucharest, Topîrceanu began his schooling in the city, and then moved to the hilly countryside of the Argeş county, in the Şuici commune, where he formed his taste for themes taken from nature...
, Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu was a Romanian prose writer, novelist, poet, and philosopher.Stancu was born in 1902 in Salcia, a village in Teleorman County, Romania. After leaving school at the age of thirteen he worked at various jobs. In 1921, with the help of Gala Galaction, he became a journalist...
, Demostene Botez, Alexandru Al. Philippide, Constantin Balmuş and others. Denouncing the campaign as a "moral assassination", it referred to Sadoveanu as the author of "the most Romanian [works] in our literature." Sadoveanu himself defended his fellow writer Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
, who stood accused by the far right press of having written "pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
".
Reviewing the consequences of these scandals, Ovid Crohmălniceanu suggests that all of what Mihail Sadoveanu wrote from 1938 to 1943 is in some way connected to the cause of anti-fascism
Anti-fascism
Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...
. According to Cornis-Pope, Sadoveanu's dislike for the far right can be discovered in Creanga de aur, which doubles as "a political parable
Parable
A parable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive principles, or lessons, or a normative principle. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human...
opposing an archaic peasant civilization to the growing threat of fascism." However, George Călinescu claims, the writer himself had not actually revised his nationalist outlook, that he continued to believe that minorities and foreigners were a risky presence in Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
, and that his Humanism was "a light tincture". In one of his columns, Sadoveanu replied to those organizing the acts of vandalism, indicating that, had they actually read the novels they were destroying, they would have found "a burning faith in this nation, for so long mistreated by cunning men". Elsewhere, stating that he was not going to take his detractors into consideration, Sadoveanu defined himself as an adversary of both Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and any form of advocacy for a "National-Socialist
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
regime in our country".
Sadoveanu's subsequent endorsement of authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
and his corporatist
Corporatism
Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...
force, the National Renaissance Front
National Renaissance Front
The National Renaissance Front was a fascist Romanian political party created by King Carol II in 1938 as the single monopoly party of government following his decision to ban all other political parties and suspend the 1923 Constitution, and the passing of the 1938 Constitution of Romania...
, saw his participation in the monarch's personality cult. In 1940, he offered controversial praise to the ruler through the official journal, Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, which caused Carol's political adversary, psychologist Nicolae Mărgineanu, to deem Sadoveanu and his fellow contributors "scoundrels". His renewed mandate in the Senate
Senate of Romania
The Senate of Romania is the upper house in the bicameral Parliament of Romania. It has 137 seats , to which members are elected by direct popular vote, using Mixed member proportional representation in 42 electoral districts , to serve four-year terms.-Former location:After the Romanian...
was a favor from Carol, also granted to George Enescu
George Enescu
George Enescu was a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher.-Biography:Enescu was born in the village of Liveni , Dorohoi County at the time, today Botoşani County. He showed musical talent from early in his childhood. A child prodigy, Enescu created his first musical...
, philosopher Lucian Blaga
Lucian Blaga
-Biography:Lucian Blaga was a commanding personality of the Romanian culture of the interbellum period. He was a philosopher and writer higly acclaimed for his originality, a university professor and a diplomat. He was born on May 9, 1895 in Lancrăm, near Alba Iulia, Romania, his father being an...
, scientists Emil Racoviţă
Emil Racovita
Emil Racoviţă was a Romanian biologist, zoologist, speleologist and explorer of Antarctica.Together with Grigore Antipa, he was one of the most noted promoters of natural sciences in Romania...
and Iuliu Haţieganu
Iuliu Hatieganu
Iuliu Haţieganu was an eminent Romanian clinician, physician, and activist. He was the brother of politician Emil Haţieganu.He is especially famed for his research into tuberculosis. He was rector of Babeş-Bolyai University and a member of the Romanian Academy....
, and several other public figures. During the Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
dictatorship, Sadoveanu kept a low profile and was apolitical. However, Cioroianu writes, he supported the invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
and Romania's cooperation with the Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
on the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, seeing in this a chance to recover Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
and the northern part of Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
(lost to the 1940 Soviet occupation). In spring 1944, months before the King Michael Coup toppled the regime, he was approached by the clandestine Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
and its sympathizers in academia to sign an open letter
Open letter
An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally....
condemning Romania's alliance to Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. According to the communist activist Belu Zilber, who took part in this action, Sadoveanu, like his fellow intellectuals Dimitrie Gusti
Dimitrie Gusti
Dimitrie Gusti was a Romanian sociologist, ethnologist, historian, and voluntarist philosopher; a professor at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, he served as Romania's Minister of Education in 1932-1933...
, Simion Stoilow
Simion Stoilow
Simion Stoilow or Stoilov was a Romanian mathematician, creator of the Romanian school of complex analysis, and author of over 100 publications.-Biography:...
and Horia Hulubei
Horia Hulubei
Horia Hulubei was a Romanian atomic/nuclear physicist, known for his contributions to the development of X-ray spectroscopy.-Education:He studied at the University of Iaşi and in Paris at the Sorbonne, with the Nobel laureate Jean Perrin as his PhD advisor; he obtained his Ph.D. from the...
, refused to sign the document. Also according to Zilber, Sadoveanu motivated his refusal by stating that the letter needed to be addressed not to Antonescu, but to King Michael I
Michael I of Romania
Michael was the last King of Romania. He reigned from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930, and again from 6 September 1940 until 30 December 1947 when he was forced, by the Communist Party of Romania , to abdicate to the Soviet armies of occupation...
. However, and aside from its main topic, Păuna-Mică was noted as one the few prose works of the 1940s to mention the wartime deportation of Romanian Jews by Antonescu's regime; Caleidoscop also speaks about the 1941 Iaşi pogrom
Iasi pogrom
The Iaşi pogrom or Jassy pogrom of June 27, 1941 was one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history, launched by governmental forces in the Romanian city of Iaşi against its Jewish population, resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews, according to Romanian authorities.-Background:]During...
as "our shame", and commends those who opposed it.
Partnership with the communists
Collectivization in Romania
The collectivization of agriculture in Romania took place in the early years of the Communist regime. The initiative sought to bring about a thorough transformation in the property regime and organisation of labour in agriculture...
. In particular, Sadoveanu offered praise to one of the major pillars of Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
, the 1936 Soviet Constitution
1936 Soviet Constitution
The 1936 Soviet constitution, adopted on December 5, 1936, and also known as the "Stalin" constitution, redesigned the government of the Soviet Union.- Basic provisions :...
. In 1945, claiming to have been "flashed upon" by "Stalin's argumentation", he urged the public to read the document for its "sincerity"; elsewhere, he equated reading the constitution with "a mystical revelation". Adrian Cioroianu
Adrian Cioroianu
Adrian Mihai Cioroianu is a Romanian historian, politician, journalist, and essayist. A lecturer for the History Department at the University of Bucharest, he is the author of several books dealing with Romanian history...
describes this as "an office assignment" from the ARLUS, at a time when the group was circulating free translated copies of the Soviet constitution. The enthusiasm of his writings also manifested itself in his public behavior: according to his ARLUS colleague Iorgu Iordan
Iorgu Iordan
Iorgu Iordan was a Romanian linguist, philologist, diplomat, journalist, and left-wing agrarian, later communist, politician. The author of works on a large variety of topics, most of them dealing with issues of the Romanian language and Romance languages in general, he was elected a full member...
, Sadoveanu was emotional during the 1945 Soviet trip, shedding tears of joy upon visiting a day care
Day care
Child care or day care is care of a child during the day by a person other than the child's legal guardians, typically performed by someone outside the child's immediate family...
center in the countryside. Running in the 1946 election
Romanian general election, 1946
The Romanian general election of 1946 was a general election held on November 19, 1946, in Romania. Officially, it was carried with 79.86% of the vote by the Romanian Communist Party , its allies inside the Bloc of Democratic Parties , and its associates — the Hungarian People's Union , the...
, Sadoveanu blamed the old political class in general for the problems faced by Romanian peasants, including the major drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
of that year. By then, his political partners were making use of his literary fame, and his electoral pamphlet read: "There is no doubt that the thousands of people who have read his works will rush out on [election day] to vote for him." After 1948, when the Romanian communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
was installed, Sadoveanu directed his praise toward the new authorities. In 1952, as Romania adopted its second republican constitution
1952 Constitution of Romania
The 1952 Constitution of Romania, also called the "constitution of building socialism", expressed the consolidation of Communist power, featuring greater ideological content than its 1948 predecessor. A draft was written by a commission elected by the Great National Assembly on March 27, 1952 and...
and the authorities intensified repression against anti-communists
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
, Sadoveanu made some of his most controversial statements. Declaring the defunct kingdom
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
to have been a "long interval of organized injustice and crooked development in all areas", he presented the new order as an era of social justice, human dignity, available culture and universal public education
Public education
State schools, also known in the United States and Canada as public schools,In much of the Commonwealth, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, the terms 'public education', 'public school' and 'independent school' are used for private schools, that is, schools...
.
Criticism of Sadoveanu's moral choices also focuses on the fact that, while he led a luxurious existence, many of his generation colleagues and fellow intellectuals were being persecuted or jailed in notoriously harsh circumstances. Having tolerated the purge within the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
, Cioroianu notes, Sadoveanu accepted being colleagues with newly-promoted "secondary characters [...] whom the new regime needed", such as poet Dumitru Theodor Neculuţă and historian Mihail Roller. In his official capacity, Sadoveanu even signed several death sentences
Capital punishment in Romania
Capital punishment in Romania was abolished in 1989, and has been prohibited by the Constitution of Romania since 1991.-Antecedents:The death penalty has a long and varied history in present-day Romania. Vlad III the Impaler was notorious for executing thousands by impalement...
declared by communist tribunals, and, in the wake of the Tămădău Affair
Tamadau Affair
The Tămădău Affair was an incident that took place in Romania in the summer of 1947, the source of a political scandal and show trial.It was provoked when an important number of National Peasants' Party leaders, including party vice president Ion Mihalache, had been offered a chance to flee...
of summer 1947, presided over the Chamber sessions which outlawed the opposition National Peasants' Party
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party was a Romanian political party, formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party from Transylvania and the Peasants' Party . It was in power between 1928 and 1933, with brief interruptions...
: according to researcher Victor Frunză, he was a willing participant in this, having been upset by the exposure of his personal wealth in the National Peasantist press. Later, Sadoveanu made a reference to his former colleague, the National Peasantist activist Ion Mihalache
Ion Mihalache
Ion Mihalache was a Romanian agrarian politician, the founder and leader of the Peasants' Party and a main figure of its successor, the National Peasants' Party .-Early life:...
, arguing that his old Agrarianist
Agrarianism
Agrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
approach to politics had made him a "ridiculous character". Ioan Stanomir describes this fragment as one of "intellectual abjection", indicating that Mihalache, already a political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
of the regime, was to die in captivity. However, as leader of the Romanian Writers' Union, the aging writer is credited by some with having protected poet Nicolae Labiş
Nicolae Labis
Nicolae Labiș was a Romanian poet.-Early life:His father, Eugen, was the son of a forest brigade soldier and himself fought in World War II; he became a schoolteacher in 1931. His mother Ana-Profira, the daughter of a peasant killed in the Battle of Mărășești, was also a schoolteacher...
, a disillusioned communist who had been excluded from the Union of Worker Youth
Union of Communist Youth
The Union of Communist Youth was the Romanian Communist Party's youth organisation, modelled after the Soviet Komsomol. It aimed to cultivate young cadres into the party, as well as to help create the "new man" envisioned by communist ideologues.-History:Founded in 1922, the UTC went underground...
in spring 1954, and whose work Sadoveanu treasured. He is also reported to have helped George Călinescu publish the novel Scrinul negru, mediating between him and communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
.
Mihail Sadoveanu provided a definition of his own political transition in conversation with fellow writer Ion Biberi (1946). At the time, he claimed: "I have never engaged in politics, in the sense that one assigns to this word." He elaborated: "I am a left-wing person, following the line of a Poporanist zeal in the spirit of Viaţa Românească, but one adapted to the new circumstances." Cioroianu sees in such statements evidence that, trying to discard his past, Sadoveanu was including himself among the socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
intellectuals "willing to let themselves be won over by the indescribable charm and the full swing of the communist utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
", but that he may in reality have been "motivated by fear". Paraphrasing communist vocabulary, Stanomir describes the writer as one of the "bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
" personalities who became "fellow travelers" of the communists, and argues that Sadoveanu's claim to have always leaned towards a "people's democracy" inaugurated "a pattern of chameleonism". In the view of historian Vladimir Tismăneanu
Vladimir Tismaneanu
Vladimir Tismăneanu is a Romanian and American political scientist, political analyst, sociologist, and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park...
, Sadoveanu, like Parhon, George Călinescu, Traian Săvulescu and others, was one of the "non-communist intellectuals" attracted into cooperation with the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
and the communist regime (Tismăneanu also argues that these figures' good relationship with Gheorghiu-Dej was a factor in the process, as was Gheorghiu-Dej's ability to make himself look "harmless"). Others have submitted that Sadoveanu's faction in the Freemasonry
Freemasonry in Romania
The beginnings of Freemasonry in the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia date to the 18th century and the activities of the humanist scholar Anton Maria del Chiaro, secretary to voivodes Constantin Brâncoveanu and Constantine Mavrocordatos...
, which included far left
Far left
Far left, also known as the revolutionary left, radical left and extreme left are terms which refer to the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics...
advocates Mihai Ralea and Alexandru Claudian, and officially supported evolutionary socialism, was a natural partner of the communists, to the point of sanctioning its own state-organized suppression.
According to Adrian Cioroianu, Sadoveanu was not necessarily an "apostle of communization", and his role in the process is subject to much debate. Describing the writer's "conversion to philosovietism" as "purely contextual", Cioroianu also points out that the very notion of "light arising in the East" is read by some as Sadoveanu's encoded message to other Freemasons, warning them of a Soviet threat to the organization. The historian notes that, for all their possible lack in sincerity, Sadoveanu's statements provided a template for other intellectuals to follow—this, he argues, was the case of Cezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu
Cezar Petrescu was a Romanian journalist, novelist and children's writer.He was inspired by the works of Honoré de Balzac, attempting to write a Romanian novel cycle that would mirror Balzac's La Comédie humaine...
. Other statements made by Sadoveanu also displayed a possibly studied ambiguity, as is the case with a 1952 lecture he gave in front of young writers attending the Party-controlled School of Literature, where he implicitly denied that one could be created a writer unless by "God or Mother Nature
Mother Nature
Mother Nature is a common personification of nature that focuses on the life-giving and nurturing aspects of nature by embodying it in the form of the mother. Images of women representing mother earth, and mother nature, are timeless...
".
Influence
Sadoveanu's prose, in particular his treatment of natural settings, was a direct influence in the works of writers such as Dumitru D. Pătrăşcanu, Nicolae N. Beldiceanu, Jean BartEugeniu Botez
Eugeniu Botez was a Romanian writer, best known for his novel Europolis . Botez wrote under the pseudonym Jean Bart....
, and Al. Lascarov-Moldovanu; his storytelling techniques were also sometimes borrowed by comedic novelist Damian Stănoiu, and, in later years, by historical novelist Dumitru Vacariu. According to Călinescu, Sadoveanu's early hunting stories published by Viaţa Românească, together with those of Junimist
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
Nicolae Gane, helped establish the genre within the framework of Romanian literature, and paved the way for its predilect use in the works of Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voineşti. Călinescu also notes that Scrisorile unui răzeş ("Letters of a Peasant"), an early work by novelist Cezar Petrescu, are deeply marked by Sadoveanu's influence, and that the same writer's use of the Moldavian dialect is a "pastiche" from Sadoveanu. Ion Vinea too, while expressing admiration for Sadoveanu, defined all his disciples and imitators as "mushroom-writers from Sadoveanu's woods" and "butlers who steal [their lord's lingerie] in order to wear his blazon". The issue was much later discussed by writer-critic Ioan Holban, who likewise described most historical novelists inspired by Sadoveanu as "insignificant" to Romanian letters.
Under the early stages of the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, before the rise of Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
engendered a series of rehabilitations
Rehabilitation (Soviet)
Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...
and accommodated nationalism, the Romanian curriculum
Education in Romania
According to the Law on Education adopted in 1995, the Romanian Educational System is regulated by the Ministry of Education and Research . Each level has its own form of organization and is subject to different legislation. Kindergarten is optional between 3 and 6 years old...
was dependent on ideological guidelines. At the time, Sadoveanu was one of the writers from the interwar whose work was still made available to Romanian schoolchildren. In the 1953 Romanian language and literature manual, he represented his generation alongside the communist authors Alexandru Toma
Alexandru Toma
Alexandru Toma was a Romanian poet, journalist and translator, known for his communist views and his role in introducing Socialist Realism and Stalinism to Romanian literature...
and Alexandru Sahia
Alexandru Sahia
Alexandru Sahia was a Romanian communist journalist and short story author.-Early life:...
, and was introduced mainly through his Mitrea Cocor. At the time, studies of his work were published by prominent communist critics, among them Ovid Crohmălniceanu, Paul Georgescu
Paul Georgescu
Paul Georgescu was a Romanian literary critic, journalist, fiction writer and communist political figure. Remembered as both a main participant in the imposition of Socialist Realism in its Romanian form and a patron of dissenting modernist and postmodern literature, he began his career in...
, Traian Şelmaru, Mihai Novicov, Eugen Campus and Dumitru Isac, while a 1953 reissue of Baltagul was published in 30,000 copies (a number rarely met by the Romanian publishing industry in that context). In later years, Profira Sadoveanu became a noted promoter of her father's literature and public image, publishing children's versions of his biography, notably featuring illustrations by Mac Constantinescu (1955 edition).
Although Sadoveanu continued to be hailed as a major writer during the Ceauşescu years, and the seventy years of his debut were marked with state ceremony, the reaction against Soviet influence affected presentations of his work: his official bibliography no longer included any mention of Păuna-Mică. Among the memoirs dealing with Sadoveanu's late years were those of Alexandru Rosetti, published in 1977. The official revival of nationalist discourse in the 1960s allowed controversial critic Edgar Papu to formulate his version of Protochronism
Protochronism
Protochronism is a Romanian term describing the tendency to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretations, an idealised past to the country as a whole...
, which postulated that phenomenons within Romanian culture preceded developments in world culture. In this context, Papu spoke of Sadoveanu as "one of the great precursory voices", comparing him to Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
. After the 1989 Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
toppled communism, Sadoveanu remained an influence on some young authors, who recovered the themes of his work in a Postmodern
Postmodern literature
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...
or parodic
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
manner. Among them is Dan Lungu
Dan Lungu
Dan Lungu is a Romanian novelist, short story writer, poet and dramatist, also known as a literary theorist and sociologist. The recipient of critical acclaim for his short story volume Cheta la flegmă and his...
, who, according to critic Andrei Terian, alluded to the Hanu Ancuţei frame story
Frame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
when constructing his 2004 novel Paradisul găinilor. In 2001, a poll carried among literati by Observator Cultural
Observator Cultural
Observator Cultural is a literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania. It covers Romania's cultural and arts scene.-External links:*...
magazine listed six of his works as some of the best 150 Romanian novels.
Mihail Sadoveanu's various works were widely circulated abroad. This phenomenon began as early as 1905, when German-language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
translations were first published, and continued during the 1930s, when Venea o moară pe Siret... was translated very soon after its original Romanian edition. In 1931, female author and feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
militant Sarina Cassvan included French-language versions of his texts into an anthology designed to promote modern Romanian culture internationally. Also then, some of Sadoveanu's texts were rendered in Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
by Lu Xun
Lu Xun
Lu Xun or Lu Hsün , was the pen name of Zhou Shuren , one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua as well as classical Chinese...
.
Tudor Vianu attributes the warm international reception Sadoveanu generally received to his abilities in rendering the Romanians' "own way of sensing and seeing nature and humanity", while literary historian Adrian Marino points out that, Sadoveanu and Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu was a Romanian novelist, playwright, short story writer, and journalist.- Life :Born in Târlișua , Transylvania, then part of Austria-Hungary, he was the second of thirteen children born to Vasile Rebreanu, a schoolteacher, and Ludovica Diuganu, descendants of peasants...
were exceptional in their generation for taking an active interest in how their texts were translated, edited and published abroad.
Later, publicizing Sadoveanu's work to Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
and world audiences became a priority for the communist regime. Thus, Mitrea Cocor was, together with similar works by Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu was a Romanian prose writer, novelist, poet, and philosopher.Stancu was born in 1902 in Salcia, a village in Teleorman County, Romania. After leaving school at the age of thirteen he worked at various jobs. In 1921, with the help of Gala Galaction, he became a journalist...
and Eusebiu Camilar, among the first wave of Romanian books to have been translated into Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
and published in Communist Czechoslovakia. Alongside similar works by Petru Dumitriu, Mitrea Cocor was also among the few English-language editions sanctioned by the Romanian regime, being translated and published, with a preface by Jack Lindsay
Jack Lindsay
Robert Leeson Jack Lindsay was an Australian-born writer, who from 1926 lived in the United Kingdom, initially in Essex. He was born in Melbourne, but spent his formative years in Brisbane...
, in 1953. Nine years later, the collected short stories were a tool for cultural exchange between Romania and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Sadoveanu's good standing in the Soviet Union after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
also made him one of the few Romanian writers whose works were still being published in the Moldavian SSR
Moldavian SSR
The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...
(which, as part of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
, had previously been a region of Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
).
Sadoveanu's diaries and notes were collected and edited during the early 2000s, being published in 2006 by Editura Junimea and the MLR. The main coordinators of this project were literary historian Constantin Ciopraga and Constantin Mitru, who was Sadoveanu's brother-in-law and personal secretary. The popularity of his writings remained high into the early 21st century: in 2004, when the country marked a hundred years since Sadoveanu's debut, Şoimii was published in its 15th edition. According to Simuţ, the occasion itself was nevertheless marked with "the impression of general indifference", making Sadoveanu seem "a submerged continent, remembered by us only with piousness and confusion".
Tributes
Sadoveanu is an occasional presence in the literary works of his fellow generation members. His Ţara de dincolo de negură was partly written as a tribute to George TopîrceanuGeorge Topîrceanu
George Topîrceanu was a Romanian poet, short story writer, and humourist.-Biography:Born in Bucharest, Topîrceanu began his schooling in the city, and then moved to the hilly countryside of the Argeş county, in the Şuici commune, where he formed his taste for themes taken from nature...
's piece of the same name, with both authors sketching an affectionate portrait of one another. Topîrceanu also parodied his friend's style in a five-paragraph sketch, part of a series of such fragments, recorded their encounters in various other autobiographical writings, and dedicated him the first version of his poem Balada popii din Rudeni ("Ballad of the Priest from Rudeni"). Under the name Nicolae Pădureanu, Sadoveanu is a character in the novel and disguised autobiography În preajma revoluţiei ("On the Eve of the Revolution"), authored by his colleague Constantin Stere
Constantin Stere
Constantin G. Stere or Constantin Sterea was a Romanian writer, jurist, politician, ideologue of the Poporanist trend, and, in March 1906, co-founder Constantin G. Stere or Constantin Sterea (Romanian; , Konstantin Yegorovich Stere or Константин Георгиевич Стере, Konstantin Georgiyevich Stere;...
. Sadoveanu is honored in two writings by Nicolae Labiş
Nicolae Labis
Nicolae Labiș was a Romanian poet.-Early life:His father, Eugen, was the son of a forest brigade soldier and himself fought in World War II; he became a schoolteacher in 1931. His mother Ana-Profira, the daughter of a peasant killed in the Battle of Mărășești, was also a schoolteacher...
, collectively titled Sadoveniene ("Sadovenians"). The first, titled Mihail Sadoveanu, is a prose poem which alludes to Sadoveanu's prose, and the other, a free verse
Free verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
piece, is titled Cozma Răcoare.
In his scientific study of Sadoveanu's work, Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
himself turns to pure literature, portraying Sadoveanu as a child blessed by the Moirae
Moirae
The Moirae, Moerae or Moirai , in Greek mythology, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny . Their number became fixed at three...
or ursitoare
Ursitoare
The three Ursitoare, in Romanian mythology, are supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. They are similar to the Greek Fates or Moirae....
with ironic gifts, such as an obstinacy for nature writing
Nature writing
Nature writing is generally defined as nonfiction prose writing about the natural environment. Nature writing often draws heavily on scientific information and facts about the natural world; at the same time, it is frequently written in the first person and incorporates personal observations of and...
in the absence of actual observation ("You shall write; you shall write and could never stop yourself writing [...]. The readers will grow tired, but you will remain tireless; you shall not known rest, just as you shall not know nature [...]"). George Călinescu was one to object to this portrayal, noting that it was merely a "literary device which hardly covers the emptiness of [Lovinescu's] idea." Also during the interwar, philosopher Mihai Ralea made Mihail Sadoveanu the subject of a sociological study investigating his literary contributions in the context of social evolutions.
A portrait of Sadoveanu was drawn by graphic artist Ary Murnu, within a larger work which depicts the Kübler Coffeehouse society. Sadoveanu was als the subject of a 1929 painting by Ştefan Dumitrescu, part of a series on Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
figures. In its original edition, Mitrea Cocor was supposed to feature a series of drawings made by Corneliu Baba
Corneliu Baba
Corneliu Baba was a Romanian painter, primarily a portraitist, but also known as a genre painter and an illustrator of books.-Early life:Having first studied under his father, the academic painter Gheorghe Baba, Baba studied briefly at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Bucharest, but did not receive a...
, one of the best-known Romanian visual artists for his generation. Baba, who had been officially criticized for "formalism
Formalism (art)
In art theory, formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content...
", was pressured by the authorities into accepting the commission or risk a precarious existence. The result of his work was rejected with a similar label, and the sketches were for long not made available to the public. Baba also painted Sadoveanu's portrait, which, in 1958, art critic Krikor Zambaccian as "the synthesis of Baba's art", depicting "a man of letters aware of his mission [and] the leading presence of an active consciousness". Constantin Mitru inherited the painting and passed it on to the Museum of Romanian Literature (MLR). A marble bust of Sadoveanu, the work of Ion Irimescu
Ion Irimescu
Acad. Prof. Dr. Honoris Causa Ion Irimescu was one of Romania's greatest sculptors and sketchers as well as a Member of the Romanian Academy. In 2001 he was awarded the Prize of Excellence for Romanian Culture...
, was set up in Fălticeni in 1977. In Bucharest, a memorial plaque was placed on Pitar Moş Street, on a house where he lived for a period. During the 1990s, another bust of Sadoveanu, the work of several sculptors, was unveiled in Chişinău
Chisinau
Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...
, Republic of Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
(the former Moldavian SSR), part of the Aleea Clasicilor sculptural ensemble.
Sadoveanu's writings also made an impact on film culture, and in particular on Romanian cinema
Cinema of Romania
The cinema of Romania is the art of motion-picture making within the nation of Romania or by Romanian filmmakers abroad.As upon much of the world's early cinema, the ravages of time have left their mark upon Romanian film prints. Tens of titles have been destroyed or lost for good...
of the communist period. However, the first film based on his works was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
production of 1929: based on Venea o moară... and titled Sturmflut der Liebe ("Storm Tide of Love"), it notably starred Marcella Albani
Marcella Albani
Marcella Albani, born Ida Maranca , was an Italian actress. She appeared in 50 films between 1919 and 1936.-External links:*...
, Alexandru Giugaru
Alexandru Giugaru
Alexandru Giugaru was a Romanian stage and film actor.Born in Huși, Fălciu , Romania, Giugaru began his stage career in 1916 after graduating from school in Cuza Voda and studying at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Bucharest, Romania...
and Ion Brezeanu. The series of Romanian-made films began with the 1952 Mitrea Cocor, co-directed by Marietta Sadova (who also starred in the film) and Victor Iliu
Victor Iliu
Victor Iliu was a Romanian film director. He directed seven films between 1948 and 1964. His film The Mill of Good Luck was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.-Filmography:* Anul 1848...
. The film itself was closely supervised for conformity with ideological guidelines, and had to be partly redone because its original version did not meet them. Mircea Drăgan
Mircea Drăgan
Mircea Drăgan is a Romanian film director. He directed 23 films between 1955 and 1992.-External links:...
directed a 1965 version of Neamul Şoimăreştilor (with a screenplay co-written by Constantin Mitru) and a 1973 adaptation of Fraţii Jderi (with contributions by Mitru and by Profira Sadoveanu). In 1969, Romanian studios produced a film version of Baltagul, directed by Mircea Mureşan
Mircea Muresan
Mircea Mureșan is a Romanian film director. He has directed 22 films since 1961. Mureșan won the prize for Best First Work at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival for the film Răscoala.-External links:...
and with Sidonia Manolache as Vitoria Lipan. Ten years later, Constantin Vaeni released Vacanţă tragică ("Tragic Holiday"), based on Nada Florilor, followed by a 1980 adaptation of Dumbrava minunată and Stere Gulea
Stere Gulea
Stere Gulea is a Romanian film director and screenwriter.-Filmography:*Weekend cu mama *Stare de fapt , also screenplay*Vulpe - Vânǎtor...
's 1983 Ochi de urs (tr. "The Bear Eye's Curse"). In 1989, just before the Romanian Revolution, Dan Piţa
Dan Pita
-Career:Piţa has directed several award-winning films since 1970, including the 1985 hit Pas în doi, which won an Honourable Mention at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival...
produced his film The Last Ball in November
The Last Ball in November
The Last Ball in November is a 1989 Romanian film directed by Romanian director Dan Piţa and based on a novel by Mihail Sadoveanu titled Locul unde nu s'a întâmplat nimic....
, based on Locul unde nu s-a întâmplat nimic.
During the early decades of communist rule, Sadoveanu, Alexandru Toma
Alexandru Toma
Alexandru Toma was a Romanian poet, journalist and translator, known for his communist views and his role in introducing Socialist Realism and Stalinism to Romanian literature...
and later Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
were often paid homage with state celebrations, likened by literary critic Florin Mihăilescu to the personality cult reserved for Stalin and Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
. For a while after the writer's death, the Writers' Union club, commonly known as "The Writers' House", bore Sadoveanu's name. Casa cu turn in Iaşi, which Sadoveanu had donated to the state in 1950, went through a period of neglect and was finally set up as a museum in 1980. Similar sites were set up in his Fălticeni house, and in his final residence at Voividenia, while the Bradu-Strâmb chalet was controversially granted to the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
, and later to the Romanian Police
Romanian Police
The Romanian Police is the national police force and main civil law enforcement agency in Romania. It is subordinated to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform.-Duties:The Romanian Police are responsible for:...
. Each year, Iaşi commemorates the writer through a cultural festival known as the "Mihail Sadoveanu Days". In 2004, the 100th anniversary of his debut was marked by a series of exhibits and symposiums, organized by the MLR. Similar events are regularly held in various cities, and include the "In Sadoveanu's Footsteps" colloquy of writers, held during March 2006 in the city of Piatra Neamţ
Piatra Neamt
Piatra Neamț , , ; is the capital city of Neamţ County, in the historical region of Moldavia, eastern Romania. Because of its privileged location in the Eastern Carpathian mountains, it is considered one of the most picturesque cities in Romania...
. Since 2003, in tribute to Sadoveanu's love for the game, an annual chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
tournament is held in Iaşi. The Sadoveanu High School and a bookstore in Bucharest are named after him, and streets named after him exist in, among other places, Iaşi, Fălticeni, Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
, Oradea
Oradea
Oradea is the capital city of Bihor County, in the Crișana region of north-western Romania. The city has a population of 204,477, according to the 2009 estimates. The wider Oradea metropolitan area has a total population of 245,832.-Geography:...
, Braşov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
, Galaţi
Galati
Galați is a city and municipality in Romania, the capital of Galați County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, in the close vicinity of Brăila, Galați is the largest port and sea port on the Danube River and the second largest Romanian port....
, Suceava
Suceava
Suceava is the Suceava County seat in Bukovina, Moldavia region, in north-eastern Romania. The city was the capital of the Principality of Moldavia from 1388 to 1565.-History:...
, Călăraşi
Calarasi
Călăraşi , the capital of Călăraşi County and Sud-Muntenia Region in the Wallachia region, is situated in south-east Romania, on the bank of Danube's Borcea branch, at about 12 kilometers from the Bulgarian border and 125 kilometers from Bucharest....
, Târgu Jiu
Târgu Jiu
Târgu Jiu is the capital of Gorj County, Oltenia, Romania. It is situated on the Southern Sub-Carpathians, on the banks of the river Jiu. Eight villages are administered by the city: Bârseşti, Drăgoeni, Iezureni, Polata, Preajba Mare, Româneşti, Slobozia and Ursaţi.-History:The city takes its name...
, Miercurea Ciuc, Petroşani
Petrosani
Petroşani is a city in Hunedoara County, Romania, with a population of 45,447 .-History:The city of Petroşani was founded in the 17th century...
, and Mangalia
Mangalia
Mangalia , is a city and a port on the coast of the Black Sea in the south-east of Constanţa County, Romania.The municipality of Mangalia also administers several summer time seaside resorts: Cap Aurora, Jupiter, Neptun, Olimp, Saturn, Venus.-History:...
. Paşcani hosts a cultural center, a high school and a library named after him. Sadoveanu's memory is also regularly honored in the Republic of Moldova, where, in 2005, the 125th anniversary of his birth was celebrated in an official context. A street in Chişinău and a high school in the town of Cupcini
Cupcini
Cupcini is a town in Edineţ district, Moldova. Two villages are administered by the town, Chetroşica Veche and Chiurt....
are also named after him.
Fiction
- 1902 - Fraţii Potcoavă
- 1904 - Şoimii
- 1905 - Floare ofilită
- 1906 - Însemnările lui Neculai Manea
- 1907 - La noi, la Viişoara
- 1907 - Vremuri de bejenie
- 1908 - Balta liniştii
- 1908 - Haia Sanis
- 1911 - Apa morţilor
- 1915 - Neamul Şoimăreştilor
- 1925 - Venea o moară pe Siret...
- 1928 - Hanu Ancuţei
- 1929 - Zodia Cancerului
- 1930 - BaltagulThe Hatchet (novel)The Hatchet is a 1930 crime novel novel written by Mihail Sadoveanu. The main character of the novel is the wife of a shepard living in the Moldavian village of Măgura Tarcăului, Vitoria Lipan, which has a premonitation that her husband, Nechifor, on a trip to buy a new flock in the town of...
- 1932 - Nunta Domniţei Ruxandra
- 1932 - Uvar
- 1933 - Creanga de aur
- 1934 - Nopţile de Sânziene
- 1935-1942 - Fraţii Jderi
- 1949 - Mitrea Cocor
- 1951-1952 - Nicoară Potcoavă
Non-fiction
- 1907 - Domnu Trandafir
- 1908 - Oameni şi locuri
- 1914 - Privelişti dobrogene
- 1916 - 44 de zile în Bulgaria
- 1921 - Drumuri basarabene
- 1926 - Ţara de dincolo de negură
- 1928 - Împărăţia apelor
- 1928 - Olanda
- 1936 - Însemnări ieşene
- 1937 - Istorisiri de vânătoare
- 1944 - Anii de ucenicie
External links
- Roumanian Stories. Translated by Lucy Byng (includes three of Sadoveanu's works), at the University of WashingtonUniversity of WashingtonUniversity of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
's DXARTS/CARTAH Electronic Text Archive - A Boyar's Sin (excerpt), A Worried Man, His Majesty's Mare, Idle Hours, Master Trandafir (excerpts), The Enchanted Grove (excerpts), The Place Where Nothing Happened (excerpt), The Vesper Bell, Vitoria Lipan (fragment from Baltagul), translations in the Romanian Cultural InstituteRomanian Cultural InstituteThe Romanian Cultural Institute is a state-funded institution that promotes Romanian culture and civilization in Romania and abroad. The ICR was formerly set up through reorganization of the Romanian Cultural Foundation and Romanian Cultural Publishing Foundation...
's Plural Magazine (various issues) - "Peace Partisans Meeting aka Peace Meeting" (Rome, 1949) British-PathéPathe NewsPathé Newsreels were produced from 1910 until the 1970s, when production of newsreels was in general stopped. Pathé News today is known as British Pathé and its archive of over 90,000 reels is fully digitised and online.-History:...
newsreel showing Sadoveanu and other delegates