Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş
Encyclopedia
Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş (alekˈsandru t͡siˈɡara samurˈkaʃ; also known as Al. Tzigara, Tzigara-Sumurcaş, Tzigara-Samurcash, Tzigara-Samurkasch or Ţigara-Samurcaş; April 4, 1872 – April 1, 1952) was a Romania
n art historian, ethnographer
, museologist
and cultural journalist, also known as local champion of art conservation, Romanian Police
leader and pioneer radio broadcaster. Tzigara was a member of the Junimea
literary society, holding positions at the National School of Fine Arts
, the University of Bucharest
and lastly the University of Cernăuţi
. During his youth, he was secretary to Carol I
, the King of Romania
. Close to the royal family, he also served as head of the Carol I Academic Foundation, where he set up a large collection of photographic plate
s. Tzigara achieved fame in 1906 as founder of the "National Museum", nucleus of the present-day Museum of the Romanian Peasant
, but was also involved in arranging and preserving the Theodor Aman
art fund.
During World War I
, Tzigara-Samurcaş irritated Romanian public opinion by accepting to serve in a puppet administration set up by the Central Powers
. Although his conduct was considered benign by the legitimate government, it drew him accusations of collaborationism
from within academia, and aggravated his long-standing conflict with historian Nicolae Iorga
. Tzigara was prevented from advancing in his university career over the interwar period
, but compensated for this mishap with other achievements: he was a delegate to several world fairs
, the first-ever lecturer on Radio Romania
's staff, the editor in chief of Convorbiri Literare magazine, and, shortly before retirement, a corresponding member of the Academy
. His post-World War II
years were spent in obscurity, owing to his ideological incompatibility with the Romanian communist regime
.
Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş was alleged to be Carol I's illegitimate son, a rumor fueled by his closeness to court. He was himself the father of artist Ana Tzigara Berza, and father in law of folklorist Marcu Berza.
, Tzigara-Samurcaş was born on , and baptized into the Romanian Orthodox Church
. A popular rumor has him as the illegitimate son of Domnitor
Carol I, the future King of Romania, to whom Tzigara was especially close in later years. Historian Lucian Boia
gives some credit to this piece of oral history, and notes that Tzigara, like Wilhelm and Mite Kremnitz
, had "an unusually tight relationship" with the royal family. Researcher Zigu Ornea
, who notes that Tzigara may have been spreading the story around, argues: "This legend is naturally hard to verify but, in any case, it is a possible one, since Tzigara-Samurcaş was born in 1872 and Carol I was present on our throne, as Domnitor, from 1866." Like Boia, Ornea notes that Tzigara's close relationship with the king, the king's repeated interventions on his behalf "every time [Tzigara's career] got stuck", and his contacts with the Kremnitzes (including Mite, Carol's alleged mistress) were some additional clues to a royal bloodline. Political scientist Vasile Docea criticizes Ornea's verdict, noting that it relies on questionable sources, and argues that, far from taking pride in this legend, Tzigara spoke "with evident pride" about his Tzigara roots. According to historian Lucian Nastasă, Doncea effectively "disproved" the rumor of Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaşs royal descent.
Alexandru's mother and Carol's alleged mistress was Elena Samurcaş, married to Toma Tzigara. Research into his maternal genealogy led the art historian to conclude that he was of noble Greek
and Italo-Greek
descent: his supposed ancestor was Spatharios Zotu (Zotta) Tzigara, buried in Venice
at San Giorgio dei Greci
(1599). The Samurcaş family had aristocratic blood, being related to the boyar
nobility of Wallachia
: the art historian's paternal line made him a relative of the Kretzulescu, Rallet, Bengescu and Creţeanu boyar families. Also of boyar rank, Alexandru's Samurcaş ancestors had a history on both sides of the Southern Carpathians
, in Wallachia and in then-Austrian
-ruled Transylvania
. Active during the Age of Revolution
, Wallachian Vornic
Constantin Samurcaş took part in Eterist agitation
, but later, fleeing the 1821 rural uprising
, settled in Kronstadt (Braşov)
to spy for the Austrians. Another ancestor, Postelnic
Alecu Samurcaş, was a linguist, known for his work in the Greek language
. The meeting of two branches was recorded in the coat of arms
that Tzigara-Samurcaş fashioned for himself, showing the spatha
of Zotu Tzigara, alongside a sable
(Romanian
: samur) and a stylized eyebrow.
A while after Toma Tzigara's death, Alexandru was adopted by his childless uncle Ioan Alecu Samurcaş (he officially took the name Tzigara-Samurcaş years later, in 1899); he was also helped with his education by the Kremnitzes, who taught him German
, introduced him to high society circles, and regarded him as a son. His first contacts with history and folk art came by means of his extended family, which collected and preserved documents and art objects.
After graduating from the Matei Basarab High School and taking his Baccalaureate
, he enlisted at the University of Bucharest Faculty of Letters, Historical Section. It was here that the young man was acquainted with his first mentors: writer-collector Alexandru Odobescu
and archeologist Grigore Tocilescu
, the latter of whom ensured Tzigara's employment as custodian for the National Museum of Antiquities. He was a critic of the museum's underdevelopment under Tocilescu's management, and wrote that the disorganized collection comprised an Egyptian mummy, copies of frescoes from the Cathedral Church
in Curtea de Argeş
, items from the Pietroasele Treasure
, and works of Precolumbian art, alongside a scale model of the Eiffel Tower
.
From 1893, the young graduate was in the German Empire
, where he studied at the University of Berlin and the Ludwig Maximilian University, taking his Ph. D. in Munich
with a dissertation on the Baroque painter Simon Vouet
. He received his diploma, magna cum laude. Tzigara-Samurcaş returned to his home country and, following a dispute with Tocilescu, gave up his position at the Antiquities Museum. He later specialized in museology in Paris
, hearing lectures at the École des Beaux-Arts
and working for city museums, before returning to Germany, where he studied with the preeminent Brunswickian
curator Wilhelm von Bode
.
. This period saw the start of Tzigara's close relationship with Carol, whom the art historian later called "my most generous protector" and "the sovereign par excellence". Received into royal circles, he was a confidant of the Queen Consort and cultural patron, Elisabeth of Wied
, whom he called "the animator of Romanian art
". For a while, he was her private secretary, helping her fulfill her literary ambitions under the Carmen Sylva signature. Tzigara's recollections speak with enthusiasm about Elisabeth's works, as well as about the king's dislike for her interests in spiritism
or philosophy, and discuss Carol's enduring affection for Mite Kremnitz.
In order to support his lectures at the Fine Arts School, Tzigara began gathering photographic plate
s, a collection which grew in size over the following decades. It includes images of European monuments and works of art, as well as samples of Romanian architecture (in some cases, the only surviving images of since-demolished buildings) and copies of maps. The images of local life are considered of particular importance, since they document the Westernization
and modernization
of Romania's landscape. Mostly anonymous works, they most likely include some of Tzigara's own photographs. A few of them were inventoried by Editura Casa Şcoalelor, and some were published, in Tzigara's lifetime, by Buletinul Comisiunii Monumentelor Istorice or other Romanian scientific magazines. His image projections
at the Carol I Foundation, supporting a students' elective course on sculpture and painting, became one of the better-known student summer activities.
The young scholar was at the time also interested in the development of decorative arts, which he wanted to reflect the local tradition of handicraft
s and notions of national specificity. According to art historian Ioana Vlasiu, Tzigara and painter-researcher Abgar Baltazar were in part responsible for fusing local folk art and international primitivism
with Art Nouveau
, thus paving the way for the Neo-Brâncovenesc school of decorators and architects. The interest in decorative works was a special focus of his visits to England
and France
—the South Kensington Museum
impressed him greatly, as did the workshops of Eugène Grasset
and Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran
.
(daughter of Alexandru Cantacuzino
, former Foreign Affairs Minister), was also the widow of Grigore Sturdza
, and as such inherited part of the Sturdza family
fortune. Through her mother Coralia, Maria Tzigara-Cantacuzino was additionally related to boyar
lines of Moldavia
, the Boldurs and the Costakis, as well as to Zulnia, mother of historian Nicolae Iorga
. This marriage was reportedly arranged by the Kremnitzes, the couple having as their best men-godfathers
two influential political figures: Lupu Kostaki, Constantin C. Arion
.
During the fin de siècle
period, Tzigara-Samurcaş also began a cooperation with Junimea, the literary society representing Romanian traditional conservatism, and sympathized with the Junimist nucleus of the Conservative Party. The art historian was one of the young scholars fascinated with the personality of Titu Maiorescu
, the cultural critic and main Junimea leader, and joined a new Junimist critical elite which also comprised Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
, Pompiliu Eliade, Mihail Dragomirescu, P. P. Negulescu etc. His work was featured, along with texts by other 50 Junimists, in the Editura Socec volume Lui Titu Maiorescu omagiu, XV februarie MCM ("To Titu Maiorescu as Homage, February 15, 1900"). Maiorescu's diaries display his interest in Tzigara's private life, and claim that the scholar was by then lover of the widowed and much older Mite Kremnitz
, with whom Maiorescu himself had had an affair.
Tzigara attended, in 1901, a major event in Junimist society: the wedding between Nicolae Iorga and Ecaterina, daughter of scholar Ioan Bogdan, where Tzigara unofficially represented the royal court. Tzigara was the couple's godfather at an Orthodox
marriage service held outside the Kingdom of Romania
, in Belgerei (Şcheii Braşovului), Transylvania. For a while, Iorga and Bogdan were both interested in obtaining Tzigara a better employment at the University of Bucharest, but their efforts were made useless by the Junimea adversary in government, the National Liberal Party
.
Before 1903, Tzigara became a literary and art columnist at Epoca newspaper, headed at the time by Maiorescu. During the period, Junimea popularized its causes through Epoca, rather than through their main venue Convorbiri Literare, and, according to Maiorescu's own pronouncement, Tzigara's work was a main asset. Around 1907, Tzigara's work was also regularly featured in Convorbiri Literare, edited by Maiorescu's pupil Simion Mehedinţi
. At the time, Transylvania's Răvaşul journal commented that Tzigara's art chronicle and Aurel Popovici
's political column were especially "rich" in information, and mentioned that Tzigara and Teohari Antonescu were debating, through the journal, about the characteristics of fortified houses (cule) from Oltenia
region. As literary historian Tudor Vianu
notes, Tzigara-Samurcaş and architect Aurel Zagoritz centered their contributions here on the scientific study of Romanian folk art
, but their presence nevertheless coincided with Convorbiri Literares decline in readership. Tzigara also published his articles in Iorga's traditionalist magazine Sămănătorul
, where he discussed the art exhibits of the Tinerimea Artistică society.
, Tzigara and other Romanian ethnographers first took into consideration the establishment of a permanent ethnographic collection. Like other Romanian intellectuals, Tzigara preserved his special interest in handicrafts, which, art conservator Isabelle Longuet argues, were "elevated to the status of 'national art' " in the belief that the peasantry represented "an authentic 'Romanianness' ". In similar terms, ethologist Ioana Popescu notes: "[Tzigara's] collections were to become the argument and the source of inspiration for the national ideology and creation." His project came after a similar attempt on the part of art collector Nicolae Minovici, founder of the private folk art museum Casa Minovici, and an even earlier textile art archive, endorsed by Maiorescu (1875).
1906 marked the start of Tzigara's chief work as an ethnographer. That year, he founded the "Museum of Ethnography and National Art", now Museum of the Romanian Peasant
(and which he intended to name "Museum of the Romanian People"), serving as its Director for the next forty years. This project received support from Education Minister Haret and, on the other side of politics, from Haret's predecessor Maiorescu. The institution was later known as "Museum of Ethnography and National Art" or "Carol I Museum of Ethnography and National Art". Its original quarters were the abandoned National Mint building on Kiseleff Road
, but plans were being made for a new, more adequate museum palace.
As manager, Tzigara-Samurcaş ordered the collection into two distinct sections, dedicated respectively to ethnography-proper and sacred art
(the latter chapter also took over the religious objects kept at the National Museum of Antiquities). An additional exhibit was to include the Tropaeum Traiani
metopes
, attesting the Roman Empire
's rule over Dobruja
. Tzigara's subsequent work as a collector and folk art historian received much appreciation. A 1914 article in Luceafărul journal stated: "[He] reorganized [the museum] and turned into a true national institution. The Museum's rich collections are owed to Mr. Tzigara-Samurcaş's industriousness." In 2010, folk art reviewer Mihai Plămădeală wrote that Tzigara's activity "impacted on everything that this Museum ever meant in the history of Romanian culture
."
Tzigara's fieldwork also focused specifically on increasing the museum's ethnographic collection. Particularly active in Oltenia, he was, as Ioana Popescu notes, "more attracted by decorated, colorful objects, used at celebration time." During one such trip to Gorj County
, he bought, disassembled and transported back to Bucharest the "Antonie Mogoş House", considered a masterpiece of Romanian woodcarving and the museum's centerpiece. It is the first-ever such relocation in the history of Romanian museums. His photographic collection was expanded by an entire series on Oltenian carpets, which helps in their specific taxonomy
.
The developments raised interest among the ethnic Romanian
community of Transylvania, whose cultural body, the ASTRA Society, was in the process of creating its own permanent exhibit of folk architecture, later ASTRA National Museum Complex
. ASTRA activist Octavian Tăslăuanu reported in 1909: "[Tzigara's] national art museum, although [...] important sums were spent on it, is at the early stage of its beginnings. Only two years ago did more systematic work begin for its endowment and presently, its national significance recognized, the state granted it a yearly sum of 14,000 lei
[...]. And maybe in a few years those who are running it, so diligently, will manage to turn it into an institution of great importance for our national art." The next year, Tzigara himself wrote, in Convorbiri Literare, that Tăslăuanu's work with ASTRA permanent exhibits was far more advanced than his when it came to storage and display, but noted that the ASTRA collections were not yet rich enough to validate the "museum" name.
, Belgium
(1905) and the Braunschweig
Congress on Art Conservation (1906), where he presented a report on the efforts to preserve Romanian monuments. Also in 1906, Tzigara-Samurcaş attended the 8th International Congress of Art History. Once familiarized with the artistic fashions of the day, Tzigara reported to the National Liberal Education Minister Spiru Haret
about the need to reform the educational system
in such manner as to provide peasant children with an artistic education, citing reasons moral and economical.
Around 1908, Tzigara was also involved in the process of cataloging and preserving the body of works left by Romanian painter Theodor Aman
. The Aman Museum appointed him Director, and, under his leadership, opened its doors to the public for the very first time. Tzigara was also involved in controversies marking the celebration of Carol I's 40th year on the throne, when he spoke out against politician Ioan Lahovary
, accused of mismanaging the Carol Park
festivities.
The creation of a separate University of Bucharest Art History Department for Tzigara was a project which split the academic and political world. At the core of such disputes was Nicolae Iorga, from the History Department, who argued that his own courses also covered art, and who consequently became Tzigara's main adversary. The proposal of expanding University was also defeated in Parliament
by Lahovary, the Senate
president, who probably still resented for his 1906 comments. The debates prolonged themselves over the following years. In 1909, Tzigara-Samurcaş, Grigore Tocilescu
and George Murnu
competed with each other for the Archeology Chair, and this created a dispute over whether art historians could not lecture in archeology (Murnu eventually won the contest, despite being exposed for plagiarism
by Tzigara, in articles for the magazine Noua Revistă Română). The same year, he was in Sweden
, Norway
and Denmark
, where he visited the Skansen
, Bygdøy and Lyngby
open-air museums, but suggested that a similar project would be redundant at home, arguing that peasant society in Romania was only too visible around Bucharest. He was much more impressed with the Nordic Museum
, which reportedly became the template for his Bucharest museum.
In 1911 (or 1912), Tzigara eventually became a Substitute Professor of Art History at the University of Bucharest, attending the Great Art Exhibit of Berlin
and, in Italy
, the Esposizione internazionale d'arte
. He lectured on folk art at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin
and in Austria-Hungary
, at the Vienna
Museum für angewandte Kunst
. Overall, his mission was to introduce Romanian art to an international audience, as noted by Luceafărul: "he arranged the Romanian pavilions, making known for the first time in history the artistic creations of our people. In all exhibits he registered successes". A prestigious visitor of the National Museum was Raymund Netzhammer, the Catholic Archbishop of Bucharest
, who was introduced there by Tzigara, with whom he remained good friends. Netzhammer was impressed with its ethnographic collection: "Nowhere can one acquire a better eye for Romanian folk art than in this establishment."
In support of his activities, Tzigara published a succession of art books. In 1906, Arta publică ("Public Art") appeared in Bucharest, while the German-language study Denkmalpflege in Rumänien ("Historical Preservation in Romania") saw print in Karlsruhe
. Later, Tzigara contributed biographical and critical entries in the 1907 edition of Allgemeines Lexicon der Bildenden Kunstler. Catalogul Muzeului Aman ("The Aman Museum Catalog") of 1908 was followed the same year by the essay Ce se înţelege prin arheologia de azi ("The Present-day Meaning of Archeology") and the monograph Biserica din Filipeştii de Pădure ("The Church of Filipeştii de Pădure
", co-authored with Nicolae Ghica-Budeşti and Gheorghe Balş). In 1909, he authored the album-study Arta în România ("Art in Romania"), comprising his collected Convorbiri essays and edited by Minerva
, together with another monograph, Muzeul neamului românesc ("The Museum of the Romanian People").
The next year, he followed up with Discuţiuni în jurul arheologiei ("Debates on Archeology") and Rumänische Volkskunst ("Romanian Folk Art"); in 1911, with Casa românească de la Roma ("The Romanian House of Rome
"); in 1912, with Sonderaustellung Rumäniens ("Romania's Special Exhibit"), Istoria artei şi însemnătatea ei (Art History and Its Significance"), Muzeul naţional din Bucureşti ("The National Museum Bucharest"). Between 1909 and 1912, he also redacted Carol I's 17 volumes of memoirs, working from scattered notebooks. As an art critic for Epoca and Convorbiri, Tzigara became one of those who opposed the new primitivist
tendencies of the Tinerimea Artistică group: in 1910, he chided the modern sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi
for his break with tradition, and even suggested that Brâncuşi's works be hidden away from the public eye. Such reactions made Brâncuşi decide to leave Romania and begin his international career.
While in Rome, Tzigara was reputedly offered membership in the Freemasonry
's Grand Orient de France
, to whom many of Romanian colleagues belonged (see Freemasonry in Romania
). The offer, Tzigara later claimed, was made by sculptor Ettore Ferrari
, and included various perks and a promise that he would soon become a Masonic Grand Master
. Although widely rumored to have taken up the offer, Nastasă writes, Tzigara was probably never a Freemason. Also in 1911, he was briefly President of a newly created professional association, the Romanian Writers' Society.
, Louis Blanc and others, but eventually settled for a design proposed to them by the Romanian native Ghica-Budeşti. The Neo-Brâncovenesc features of the building, researchers note, where themselves an attempt to highlight the return to a peasant model. This formed part of a greater urban planning
effort undertaken, with Carol I's approval and the involvement of Neo-Brâncovenesc architects, throughout northern and central Bucharest, with the erecting of many new public buildings: the Palace of Justice
, the CEC Palace
, the Geology Museum
etc. (see History of Bucharest
). Despite the approval, and the ceremonial placement of a foundation stone, construction was remarkably slow or under-financed, and Tzigara, who came to resent Ghica-Budeşti, did not live to see its completion.
Tzigara's scientific work for 1913, when he also attended the Tentoonstelling De Vrouw event in Amsterdam
, includes a monograph on the Curtea de Argeş Cathedral Church
. That year, as Romania joined the Second Balkan War
coalition against the Kingdom of Bulgaria
, and although spared from conscription
, Tzigara volunteered for service in the Romanian Land Forces
. He motivated this initiative by stating that his skill was needed for documenting the war and creating its archive. Tzigara served in the 4th Army Corps
, under Crown Prince Ferdinand
(Carol I's designated successor).
In 1914, Tzigara was appointed Director of the Carol I Foundation. At around the same time, he began a new series of conferences in Austria-Hungary, lecturing on art for the benefit of Romanians in Transylvania and Banat
regions. He was also interested in the collection of Transylvanian Romanian artifacts, added to the Bucharest Museum collection. Initially, he was in Lugosch (Lugoj), informing locals about Romanian folk art. One other such event took place in Hermannstadt (Sibiu)
, where he was invited by ASTRA to speak about the 50 years of development in Romanian art.
This conference contained Tzigara' artistic credo: he believed that art was an objective reflection of social and cultural development, identifying the Westernization
process, the proclamation of the 1881 Kingdom
and later events with a profound transformation of Romania. However, Tzigara suggested, these efforts did not yet find a suitable answer in the artistic field, that is the birth of a specifically Romanian art phenomenon and the proper conservation of artistic legacies: he deplored the destruction of old Bucharest townhouses and their replacement with Westernized villas; he commended the restoration of Horezu Monastery in its original Brâncovenesc
style, but criticized those who introduced Gothic revival
elements at Tismana, Bistriţa
or Arnota; lastly, he expressed support for the "healthy" Neo-Brâncovenesc style of Ion Mincu
and criticized muralist Octavian Smigelschi for his work on the Sibiu Cathedral
. The conference included ample praise of Carol I as a patron of conservation, and nods in the direction of Carol's French architect, André Lecomte du Nouÿ.
The second part of Tzigara's Hermannstadt conference focused on the Romanian school of oil painting. He paid homage to its traditionalist founder, Nicolae Grigorescu
, and to Aman, before summarizing the later contributions of Ştefan Luchian
, Arthur Verona and Jean Alexandru Steriadi
. The third part highlighted his own research of Transylvanian folk art, and spoke about Romania's Queen Elisabeth as a collector of folk art from Sibiu area.
Tzigara preserved these principles during the rest of his professional life, and the themes of his conferencing resurface in his old age memoirs. These too shed light on Carol I's architectural role, and express approval for Lecomte de Nouÿ's since-criticized methods of conservation (including the decision to the tear down and rebuild Curtea de Argeş Cathedral). They also return to Smigelschi's murals, criticizing his depiction of saints in national Romanian dress
as highly inappropriate.
in summer 1914, even though Romania remained neutral until mid 1916. His purported father, Carol I, died in September 1914. According to his Archbishop Netzhammer, Tzigara was deeply affected by the event: "Like a child, he loosened his suffering, deploring in front of me this terrible and unexpected loss". By then, however, Tzigara had befriended Ferdinand I, the new king, and was an admirer of Ferdinand's wife, Marie of Edinburgh
. He found that Ferdinand was "gentle", "jocular" and usually self-effacing, "in all things the opposite of his uncle" Carol I. In Queen Marie, the art historian recognized a political woman, more active in public affairs than Carol's Elisabeth. Tzigara also shared Marie's artistic taste, including her passion for the work of Romanian Symbolist
sculptors Oscar Späthe and Friedrich Storck (whom, in 1903, he had called them "innovators of Romanian sculpture").
Unlike Ferdinand and his Francophile
circle, who desired a Romanian alliance with the Entente for the sake of union with Transylvania
, Tzigara was opposed to any move against Germany. He represented the Germanophile
lobby within the University of Bucharest, at the same junior level as another substitute professor, Constantin Litzica. For a while, he was also co-opted on the leadership committee of the Romanian Writers' Society, but lost his seat there in 1915 (probably owing to his presence among the minority of Germanophile writers).
The subsequent campaign ended abruptly in southern Romania's invasion by the Central Powers
(Germans and their allies). In November 1916, shortly before King Ferdinand and the pro-Entente government retreated to Iaşi
, they appointed Tzigara-Samurcaş a custodian of the Crown and Royal Domains, tasked with preventing acts of vandalism on the occupiers' part. He stayed behind in Bucharest and met with August von Mackensen
, head of the occupation forces. As a result of this encounter, the Germans asked Tzigara to discuss an offer of collaboration
with the senior Conservative Party Germanophiles: Maiorescu, Alexandru Marghiloman
, Petre P. Carp
. All three refused to openly associate with Mackensen's military rule, but a puppet civilian administration was set up under Carp's disciple Lupu Kostaki. Carp's reply to Tzigara's proposition is recorded as: "Such a thing is of no interest to me; it is nonsense, and at this moment counts as weakness." Maiorescu's deteriorating relationship with Carp was also a factor: Carp flatly refused to attend any meeting where Maiorescu was present, and alienated the other two by stating that King Ferdinand should be deposed.
On , the art historian took over as Police chief in occupied Bucharest. This proved to be a highly controversial decision, the consequences of which would harm Tzigara's interwar
career. While his political adversaries later alleged that Tzigara had been granted the appointment through German pressures, he himself claimed that Carp and Kostaki had asked him to become involved. Also according to Tzigara, his appointment resolved a practical issue, since his legitimate predecessor, General Alexandru Mustaţă, could not speak any German
. Kostaki's administration also included Litzica, who was puppet Minister of Education in spring 1917. Tzigara personally intervened in the selection of other bureaucrats. In February 1917, he brought writer I. A. Bassarabescu into his Police apparatus, obtaining his release from German internment
and appointing him head of division. Reportedly, he did the same for philosopher Mircea Florian
, who became his Carol I Foundation subordinate.
As recorded by Archbishop Netzhammer, Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş was open and cooperative in his relationship with the new authorities and the German community
. In September 1917, the Romanian scholar greeted Wilhelm II, German Emperor
, who was visiting the occupied half of Romania. Reportedly the only Romanian in attendance, he followed Wilhelm to the Curtea de Argeş Cathedral
, where they both paid their respects to Carol I's tomb. Tzigara was also a personal guest at the imperial table, and Wilhelm had several long conversations with him in private. At the end of their encounter, Tzigara received from the emperor's hand a diamond-and-ruby tie pin
.
Tzigara-Samurcaş nonetheless had a complex relationship with his German supervisors. He refused to cooperate with them on several occasions, objecting to the creation of a German Institute within the University, and being strongly opposed to the Central Powers' interventions on Bucharest Royal Palace
grounds. In late 1916 and early 1917, he was in intense correspondence with Ion Bianu, a fellow scholar and disillusioned Germanophile, who complained about the Deutsches Heer pressures on the Romanian Academy
and asked Tzigara to intervene on his colleagues' behalf. On one occasion, as a result of Bianu's plea, Tzigara sent in his policemen to prevent German soldiers from stealing the Academy's firewood reserves. Boia argues that the main objective of Tzigara's term, "the security of people and property", was competently met. The same is noted by Ornea, who cautions: "the nude fact of his, all things considered, willing collaboration with the German occupier, is still a litigious issue". The Police chief was also critical of his more docile colleagues: as recorded in Marghiloman's diary, Tzigara was present at the October 1917 Athénée Palace
gala organized by Mackensen (October 1917), but was irritated to find himself in the company of junior bureaucrats who were well liked by the Germans. He referred to this category, which included poet Luca Caragiale
, as the "nippers". In December of the same year, Caragiale enraged Tzigara by going over his head: the poet used German connections to obtain Police guards at an official function, after Tzigara had refused to grant his request.
In January 1918, while the Iaşi authorities were considering a way out of the war, Tzigara-Samurcaş handed in his resignation to the Germans. A separate peace with the Central Powers followed: in March–April, the new national unity government
of Marghiloman reassigned him to the position of Police chief. This posting, made legitimate by King Ferdinand's royal decree, Tzigara kept until November 14, 1918—that is, three days after the Armistice with Germany reshuffled Romania's commitments. Romania's sudden return to Francophilia had also brought Marghiloman's downfall, described by Tzigara as an anti-Conservative "coup d'état
". Zigu Ornea finds this expression of resentment especially problematic, since, he argued, it meant that Tzigara placed Germanopilia above the establishment of Greater Romania
: "[he] understood next to nothing from the reality of the wartime political phenomenon."
" for those accusing Tzigara of treason
. Such accusations were given ample exposure in Rector Ion Atanasiu
's essay Rătăciri naţionale ("National Ravings", 1919), answered to in detail by Tzigara's own pro domo, Mărturisiri silite ("Forced Confessions", 1920), and later by his posthumously published Memorii ("Memoirs"). Athanasiu was the first who suggested holding Tzigara accountable for his wartime behavior, and, in his University report, alluded to the possibility of sacking both him and the Germanophile biologist Victor Babeş
. Ornea finds that, in those years, Athanasiu and Tzigara's traditional foe Nicolae Iorga were waging "a veritable war against Tzigara-Samurcaş".
Tzigara was omitted from an early purge of University Germanophiles, but, on November 29, 1919, was subjected to questioning by Rector Atanasiu, Iorga and the Board of Professors. As he later recalled, his defense tactic was to recall that, back in 1906, Iorga himself was seen as a radical Francophobe
(see Sămănătorul
). On Iorga and Atanasiu's proposal, but against the advice of Ion Cantacuzino and Dimitrie Onciul, the Board took a vote to ban Tzigara-Samurcaş; the result was indecisive, and Tzigara preserved his chair. Atanasiu however took the vote as evidence that Tzigara had lost his support, and requested a decision from higher authorities. As Boia notes, this was a political miscalculation: the anti-Germanophile lobby had been defeated in Parliament
by Prime Minister
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
, who could not be expected to grant Atanasiu a victory. In the end, Education Minister and zoologist Ioan Borcea sent a letter to Atanasiu, asking him to desist frustrating Tzigara "in his attributions without legal decision", adding: "Especially at this moment in time, we find it necessary that peace and harmony be restored for University to function properly." These and other moral defeats prompted Atanasiu to present his resignation, which came with his final protest that Minister Borcea had snubbed University during the "Tzigara-Samurcaş affair". In later years, Tzigara took his main accusers, Iorga and journalist Stelian Popescu
, to court, in what became two celebrity trials.
As noted by literary critic Dumitru Hîncu, the art historian's wartime conduct was never censured by the interwar governments. He was again received into Queen Marie's circle, who allegedly told him: "Iorga is jealous that he sees you coming over to visit with us." Tzigara was still an art columnist for Convorbiri Literare, and, in 1921, became its new editor in chief. According to ASTRA's newspaper, Transilvania, Tzigara rescued Convorbiri from bankruptcy, but only catered to a niche audience. He was thus unable to steer the magazine back into the cultural mainstream, its previous dominance replicated by the left-wing Viaţa Românească
.
In 1923, he was the Inspector General of Museums, under the National Liberals' Ion I. C. Brătianu
cabinet, in which capacity he revisited the ASTRA Museum and awarded it a 50,000 lei grant from the state. The period also witnessed his first private visits to the Transylvanian spa town
, Sovata
. His main home in Bucharest was a large villa on Kogălniceanu Street, where he was living with his family.
Despite his confirmation at University, Tzigara-Samurcaş found it impossible to achieve tenure
, and was also ousted from the Fine Arts School over his Germanophilia. With the diplomatic recognition of Greater Romania came new opportunity, and, in 1926, Tzigara left for Bukovina
, taking over the Art History Department at Cernăuţi University
. Also that year, a mortally ill King Ferdinand made him a Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Romania
. Again touring Germany with a series of conferences (1926), Tzigara also spoke at Radio Berlin
, making his debut in radio programming. Reportedly, his request of creating a special Romanian section on Berlin's Museum Island
was granted by the Weimar Republic
in early 1927.
On November 1, 1928, Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş provided the first-ever Radio Romania
broadcast in history, with an art lecture specifically written for this purpose. This, Tzigara recalled, was a pro bono
activity to please Radio Romania's president Constantin Angelescu, but made the speaker himself very nervous: Tzigara thought his own text bland and his voice ill-adapted for the medium, but took pains to improve them in later broadcasts. In 1929, Tzigara was a first judge at the original Miss Romania beauty contest, in a panel which also included Vaida-Voevod, writers Liviu Rebreanu
and Nicolae Constantin Batzaria
, woman activist Alexandrina Cantacuzino and other public figures.
Romanian cabinets appointed him a national representative at the Universal Exposition
in Barcelona
, Spain
, and organizer of the folk art exhibit at the International Peace Bureau
's Balkan
Conference in Athens
, Greece
. He also attended the 13th International Congress of Art History in Stockholm
, Sweden
, and organized the Romanian pavilion at an Art Conference in Helsinki
, Finland
. His efforts won international recognition, and the French state, through Bucharest Ambassador Gabiel Puaux, presented Tzigara with a gift of Sèvres porcelain
. He was also awarded the Order of St. Sava
by the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
.
retook his throne. It was alleged that Iorga, a supporter of the new king, asked for Tzigara to be removed from the royal Foundation, but that Carol had stated not being willing to sack "my own uncle." Iorga was however in a position to limit his rival's access to academia when, in 1931, he became Carol II's Prime Minister. His legislative proposal, limiting the number of academic positions an individual could hold, was probably aimed specifically at Tzigara and other personal enemies (as Lucian Nastasă writes, Iorga was himself collecting some five monthly salaries from his work with the state).
At around the same time, Tzigara became a contributor to the official literary and scientific magazine, Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, and again toured the country with lectures on folk art. With Simion Mehedinţi
and the ASTRA Society, he returned to the field of public activism with controversial lectures on the biology of the Romanian nation, which sometimes included overt advocacy of eugenics
. His racialist
theory had it that the geometric abstraction of peasant art, purported to have been strongly resistant to foreign influence, placed Romanians in the "Alpine race
" cluster—an idea rejected in its day by anthropologist Henric Sanielevici, who contrarily believed that Romanians were "Mediterranean
".
Moving away from Germanophilia, Tzigara saluted the Brussels World Fair
of 1935 by highlighting the special connection between Romania, on one hand, and, on the other France, Belgium
and the Francophone countries. He spoke on Radio France
and the INR
(he found the Francophone
services to be more relaxing, but less organized, than their German counterpart). In the 1920s and '30s, Tzigara was host to several foreign researchers. Columbia University
professor Charles Upson Clark
called his institution "splendid", finding it partly responsible for a "distinct revival" in peasant crafts. He described the museum as "a revelation of the artistic endowment of the Roumanian peasant." French archivist François de Vaux de Foletier visited his museum in 1934, later writing, in Monde et Voyages magazine, that it featured "very interesting galleries of Romanian ethnography".
Beginning 1933, Tzigara was several times interviewed by Eugen Wolbe, the German biographer of Romanian kings, who had been sent to him by Carol II. Tzigara also reviewed Wolbe's texts, including his work on Queen Elisabeth (a "weak" study, in Tzigara's opinion), and described the visiting writer as an unreliable amateur: "that pensioned ex-Gymnasiallehrer still had the audacity to select himself such august subjects, with the pretext of 'gaining many new friends for the beautiful country' of Romania, of which yet he himself knew so little!" Tzigara was upset to receive a copy of Wolbe's 1937 work on Ferdinand, which, he claimed, entirely ignored specific criticism; he also approved of Prime Minister Gheorghe Tătărescu
's decision to ban the volume in its Romanian edition (the censoring left Wolbe indifferent, a fact noted in one of his letters to Tzigara). Tzigara's rival Iorga, probably incited by this controversy and by his own work with Wolbe, gave the book a positive review in his journal Neamul Românesc, calling the government measure "regrettable", and receiving further criticism from Tzigara, through Convorbiri.
The Carol I Museum increased in size throughout the interwar, organized several exhibits, and, in 1931, inaugurated its Ethnographic Section at the new Kiseleff location. In parallel, Tzigara popularized Romanian handicrafts abroad with his new French-language tract, Tapis Roumains ("Romanian Carpets"). Other contributions, published by Convorbiri Literare in 1934, include an introduction to Alexandru Odobescu
's posthumous texts, Ineditele lui Odobescu ("Odobescu's Unpublished Texts") and an edition of Odobescu' 1895 suicide note. Another work, grouping his articles in defense of the Museum's construction, was published in 1936 as Muzeografie românească ("Romanian Museography"). Tzigara and cultural historian Nicolae N. Condeescu also left a monograph on the Peleş Castle
, Carol I's residence in Sinaia
.
As editor of Convorbiri Literare, Tzigara also entered a polemic with a younger Maiorescu disciple, the critic and novelist Eugen Lovinescu
. At the root of this debate stood Lovinescu's book on Mite Kremnitz
and her affair with national poet (and Junimist herald) Mihai Eminescu
. Joining in with other conservatives who accused Lovinescu of being a "pornographer
", Tzigara claimed to defend Eminescu's image from the book's impiety. Lovinescu offered his replies in the daily Adevărul
, accusing Tzigara of "literary incompetence", and deploring the decline of Convorbiri beyond the threshold of professionalism: "if, under previous directions, the magazine steered away from its stated mission [...], the deviance was at least made in an honorable direction, that is to say in the direction of history writing; the scientific seriousness of its two former directors had made it possible for Convorbiri to have valid contributions in areas other than literature." In reaction to claims of irreverence, he derided his adversary's artistic expertise as being about "Easter egg
s", and defended his narrative as a sample of respect for Eminescu's life and legacy.
Tzigara met significant opposition in his bid for Romanian Academy
membership, primarily from Academy member Iorga. He was eventually elected a corresponding member in 1938, when Iorga's influence was being challenged by his younger peers. The same year, he was pensioned from his positions at Cernăuţi University and the Foundation. In 1939, he dedicated himself to completing his homage to the memory of Carol I, on his 100th birthday: Din viaţa regelui Carol I. Mărturii contemporane şi documente inedite ("From the Life of King Carol I. Contemporary Testimonials and Never-before Published Documents"), called "splendid" by Lucian Nastasă. He resigned from his editorial office at Convorbiri, which was taken over by writer and linguist I. E. Torouţiu. Tzigara announced this change with a final editorial piece, which read: "Satisfied to have insured the magazine's future, we announce at this moment that we are placing our directorial office in the hands of a new generation, which is led by Professor I. E. Torouţiu, [...] who with his valuable and sizable published works, appreciating Junimeas role in the movement to renew the Romanian literary language, will know how to carry on the ever-lasting flame of Junimist ideas".
At that point in life, Tzigara was also pleased with the state and popularity of museology in Greater Romania; in 1937, he had claimed: "all the country is presently a museum". His hostility to open-air museums was by then a thing of the past, since, it was argued, Greater Romania's peasant society seemed threatened by modern urbanization. In the late 1930s, this judgment prompted sociologist Dimitrie Gusti
to create the National Village Museum, located a short distance away from Tzigara's own building site.
. Initially, with war looming, Chief of the Romanian General Staff Florea Ţenescu tasked Tzigara with drafting an Ex-ante International Convention Project for the Protection of Monuments and Works of Art, which was never put into motion. In summer 1940, during a period when Carol II was trying to calm tensions between Romania and Nazi Germany
, Tzigara, Ion Nistor
, Grigore Antipa
, Ion Sân-Giorgiu
and other academics greeted a Nazi visitor, scholar Herbert Cysarz.
After 1940, Romania ousted Carol II's National Renaissance Front
government, replacing it with an openly fascist
, pro-Axis regime, the National Legionary State
. In parallel, Tzigara managed to gather political support for terminating Nicolae Ghica-Budeşti's contract and, in 1941, hired architect Gheorghe Ionescu to finalize the Museum's construction. Late in the same year, he was one of the Romanian scholars who welcomed German Romance studies
expert Ernst Gamillscheg on his visit to Bucharest. In 1942, he was tasked by Romania's military dictator Ion Antonescu
with creating a monumental National Heroes' Cemetery in Carol Park
, but the building works were cut short by the reversal of fortunes on the Eastern Front
. Also then, he returned to research with a book about the carpets and rugs of Oltenia
, which notably stated his ethnic nationalist
credo in art: "By using the everlasting heritage of our beautiful folk art in different fields, we will be easily able to get rid of the foreign influences that pervaded Romanian households."
Shortly after the August 1944 Coup
deposed Antonescu, the daily România Liberă
, which was at the time a Romanian Communist Party
tribune, featured Tzigara's name on a list of "national betrayal", which also included Germanophile or fascist intellectuals. Two years later, the pro-communist cabinet of Petru Groza
sidelined Tzigara-Samurcaş, appointing him Honorary Director of the Museum, but effectively stripping him of his responsibilities. At that stage, plans were being examined for the disestablishment of the Peasant Art Section at the Museum, but Tzigara obtained support from Communist Party man Emil Bodnăraş
and from Presidium Chief
Constantin Ion Parhon
. Tzigara attended the clandestine meetings of the Mihai Eminescu
Association, an anti-communist group formed through the efforts of critic Pavel Chihaia, and which disappeared in 1948. His chief activity, from 1948 to 1952, was the writing of his memoirs.
The official establishment of Romania's communist regime
was the start of several new problems for the aging scholar: many of his belongings were taken away during nationalization
, others were sold in public auction
, while he himself was taken to court by some of his former employees. In 1948, he was also stripped of his Academy membership. The following year, his pension was suspended, although, in 1950, he was elected to the International Committee of the History of Art. The National Museum was reopened in 1951 as a "National Museum of Folk Art", under new management.
Marginalization aggravated Tzigara's illnesses, and he died on April 1, 1952. He was buried at Bellu Cemetery, with a small ceremony attended by family and a few of his intellectual friends: Convorbiri colleague Mehedinţi, Junimist philosopher Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
, physician Daniel Danielopolu and writer Gala Galaction
. He had lost his public profile, and the international community was left uninformed of his death: in 1955, an invitation to the 18th Art History Congress was mistakenly addressed to him.
also rated "Tzigara-Samurcash" as one of Romania's "best-known modern writers" in the field of archeology or ancient art, with Alexandru Lapedatu, George Murnu
and Abgar Baltazar. Contrarily, a later assessment made by ethnologist Romulus Vulcănescu rated both Tzigara, Iorga and Oprescu as authors of "ethnological essayistics and cultural microhistory
", who lacked a global approach to folk art research. Dumitru Hîncu, writing in 2007, noted that, once "a first-rate cultural figure", Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş "no longer says a great deal for your average present-day reader".
The art historian's figure inspired literary critic George Călinescu
in writing his novel Scrinul negru, about the decline of Romanian aristocracy. A more unusual trace of his activity is preserved in Tzigara-Samurkasch, the name of a fictional place in the writings of Bukovina native Gregor von Rezzori
. A comment left by Tzigara in his Peleş Castle
book has fueled cyberculture
speculation and an urban legend about the existence of 20 lei coins from the 1860s, which are supposedly extremely valuable items.
Tzigara-Samurcaş's Museum building was only finished after his death, later in the 1950s. By the time of its completion, however, the building's purpose had changed, and, historian Andrei Pippidi writes, it "passed through the most humiliating of its stages". Its collections were moved to a new location, and, in 1978, merged into the Village Museum. The Kiseleff building was assigned to the "Lenin
-Stalin
Museum", which later became the Communist Party Museum. Shortly after the Romanian Revolution of 1989
toppled communism, the Salvation Front Minister of Culture Andrei Pleşu
created, on National Museum grounds, a Museum of the Romanian Peasant, which he placed under the direction of painter Horia Bernea
. It was officially inaugurated in 1993. Although sometimes described as Tzigara's successor, Bernea, helped by ethnologist Irina Nicolau, merged the scientific function into a conceptual art
project, which is described by various commentators as a radical break with the interwar National Museum.
According to Lucian Boia, Tzigara's work with the Germans in World War I continues to be perceived as a stain on his career, and was as such omitted from official histories which deal with the period. This, Boia notes, happened especially during the latter, nationalist
, stage of Romanian communism, when World War I was presented as a moment of anti-German "unanimity". However, the period also brought the publication of Tzigara's collected Scrieri despre arta românească ("Writings on Romanian Art", 1987). The first installment of Tzigara-Samurcaş's memoirs was first published in 1999, ten years after the Revolution, by Grai şi Suflet imprint. Later volumes saw print with Editura Meridiane. These works have raised interest for their historical and biographical content, but, Zigu Ornea
contends, are largely without literary value. Ornea also criticized the two editors, Ioan and Florica Şerb, for only including some citations from Tzigara's contemporaries as notes, instead of a more complete critical apparatus
. Editura Vitruviu also published another volume of Tzigara's memoirs, as Lupta vieţii unui octogenar ("An Octogenarian's Lifelong Combat", 2007).
A large part of his photographic plate
s ended up as a special fund of the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism
. In May 2010, they were inventoried and published, in print and DVD
format, as Arhiva Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş. A selection of these works was displayed in 2011, during a special Museum of the Romanian Peasant exhibit, sponsored by the Romanian Cultural Institute
. The rest, preserved by the Fine Arts School, were donated to the Museum of the Romanian Peasant in 2000. A Tzigara-Samurcaş Foundation was created with the goal of preserving folklore and handicrafts. Its projects include the revival of Ocna Şugatag
hore and the Ethnophone folk music events, sponsored by the European Union
's Culture 2000
.
Tzigara's son, Sandu Tzigara-Samurcaş, was a poet, known for his 1943 volume Culesul de apoi ("The Latter-day Reaping"); his wife was poetess Adrienne Prunkul. His Bucharest salon braved communist censorship and, in the 1950s, hosted poets such as Ion Barbu
and Nichita Stănescu
. Sandu had two sisters, of whom Ana Tzigara became, in 1935, the wife of folklorist Marcu Berza. Settled with her husband in Italy
until her death in 1967, she established her reputation as a post-Impressionist
painter and, after the 1989 Revolution, had her retrospective exhibition at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Maria, Tzigara's other daughter, was a violinist for the Romanian Film Orchestra
, married into the Berindei family (and thus became related to historians Dan and Mihnea Berindei).
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 art historian, ethnographer
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
, museologist
Museology
Museology is the diachronic study of museums and how they have established and developed in their role as an educational mechanism under social and political pressures.-Overview:...
and cultural journalist, also known as local champion of art conservation, 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:...
leader and pioneer radio broadcaster. Tzigara was a member of the 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...
literary society, holding positions at the National School of Fine Arts
Bucharest National University of Arts
The Bucharest National University of Arts is a university in Bucharest preparing students in fine arts.The university has three faculties:* The Faculty of Fine Arts* The Faculty of Decorative Arts and Design* The Faculty of History and Theory of Art...
, the University of Bucharest
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:...
and lastly the University of Cernăuţi
Chernivtsi University
The Chernivtsi National University is the leading Ukrainian institution for higher education in northern Bukovina, in Chernivtsi, a city in southwest Ukraine....
. During his youth, he was secretary to Carol I
Carol I of Romania
Carol I , born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was reigning prince and then King of Romania from 1866 to 1914. He was elected prince of Romania on 20 April 1866 following the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup...
, the King of Romania
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....
. Close to the royal family, he also served as head of the Carol I Academic Foundation, where he set up a large collection of photographic plate
Photographic plate
Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a means of photography. A light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile...
s. Tzigara achieved fame in 1906 as founder of the "National Museum", nucleus of the present-day Museum of the Romanian Peasant
Museum of the Romanian Peasant
The Museum of the Romanian Peasant is a museum in Bucharest, Romania, with a collection of textiles , icons, ceramics, and other artifacts of Romanian peasant life...
, but was also involved in arranging and preserving the Theodor Aman
Theodor Aman
Theodor Aman was a Romanian painter of Armenian descent. His style is often considered to be a predecessor of Impressionism.He is buried in Bellu cemetery.-External links:...
art fund.
During 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...
, Tzigara-Samurcaş irritated Romanian public opinion by accepting to serve in a puppet administration set up 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...
. Although his conduct was considered benign by the legitimate government, it drew him accusations of collaborationism
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
from within academia, and aggravated his long-standing conflict with historian 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...
. Tzigara was prevented from advancing in his university career over 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....
, but compensated for this mishap with other achievements: he was a delegate to several world fairs
World's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
, the first-ever lecturer on Radio Romania
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...
's staff, the editor in chief of Convorbiri Literare magazine, and, shortly before retirement, a corresponding member of the 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....
. His post-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...
years were spent in obscurity, owing to his ideological incompatibility with 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...
.
Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş was alleged to be Carol I's illegitimate son, a rumor fueled by his closeness to court. He was himself the father of artist Ana Tzigara Berza, and father in law of folklorist Marcu Berza.
Origins and early life
A native of BucharestBucharest
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....
, Tzigara-Samurcaş was born on , and baptized into the Romanian Orthodox Church
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...
. A popular rumor has him as the illegitimate son of Domnitor
Domnitor
Domnitor was the official title of the ruler of the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia between 1859 and 1866....
Carol I, the future King of Romania, to whom Tzigara was especially close in later years. Historian 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...
gives some credit to this piece of oral history, and notes that Tzigara, like Wilhelm and Mite Kremnitz
Mite Kremnitz
Mite Kremnitz , born Marie von Bardeleben , was a German writer.-Biography:...
, had "an unusually tight relationship" with the royal family. Researcher Zigu Ornea
Zigu Ornea
Zigu Ornea was a Romanian cultural historian, literary critic, biographer and book publisher. The author of several monographs focusing on the evolution of Romanian culture in general and Romanian literature in particular, he chronicled the debates and meeting points between conservatism,...
, who notes that Tzigara may have been spreading the story around, argues: "This legend is naturally hard to verify but, in any case, it is a possible one, since Tzigara-Samurcaş was born in 1872 and Carol I was present on our throne, as Domnitor, from 1866." Like Boia, Ornea notes that Tzigara's close relationship with the king, the king's repeated interventions on his behalf "every time [Tzigara's career] got stuck", and his contacts with the Kremnitzes (including Mite, Carol's alleged mistress) were some additional clues to a royal bloodline. Political scientist Vasile Docea criticizes Ornea's verdict, noting that it relies on questionable sources, and argues that, far from taking pride in this legend, Tzigara spoke "with evident pride" about his Tzigara roots. According to historian Lucian Nastasă, Doncea effectively "disproved" the rumor of Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaşs royal descent.
Alexandru's mother and Carol's alleged mistress was Elena Samurcaş, married to Toma Tzigara. Research into his maternal genealogy led the art historian to conclude that he was of noble Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and Italo-Greek
Greeks in Italy
Greek presence in Italy begins with the migrations of the old Greek Diaspora in the 8th century BC, continuing down to the present time. There is an ethnic Greek minority known as the Griko people, who live in the Southern Italian regions of Calabria and Puglia , that speak a distinctive dialect...
descent: his supposed ancestor was Spatharios Zotu (Zotta) Tzigara, buried in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
at San Giorgio dei Greci
San Giorgio dei Greci
San Giorgio dei Greci is a church in the sestiere or neighborhood of Castello, Venice, northern Italy. It was the center of the Scuola dei Greci, the Confraternity of the Greeks in Venice....
(1599). The Samurcaş family had aristocratic blood, being related to the boyar
Boyar
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....
nobility of 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...
: the art historian's paternal line made him a relative of the Kretzulescu, Rallet, Bengescu and Creţeanu boyar families. Also of boyar rank, Alexandru's Samurcaş ancestors had a history on both sides of the Southern Carpathians
Southern Carpathians
The Southern Carpathians or the Transylvanian Alps are a group of mountain ranges which divide central and southern Romania, on one side, and Serbia, on the other side. They cover part of the Carpathian Mountains that is located between the Prahova River in the east and the Timiș and Cerna Rivers...
, in Wallachia and in then-Austrian
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
-ruled 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...
. Active during the Age of Revolution
Age of Revolution
The Age of Revolution is a term used to denote the period from approximately 1775 to 1848 in which a number of significant revolutionary movements occurred on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean in Europe and the Americas. The period is noted for the change in government from absolutist monarchies to...
, Wallachian Vornic
Vornic
Vornic was a historical rank for an official in charge of justice and internal affairs. He was overseeing the Royal Court. It originated in the Slovak nádvorník. In the 16th century in Moldavia were two high vornics: one for "Ţara de Sus" , and other for "Ţara de Jos" ....
Constantin Samurcaş took part in Eterist agitation
Filiki Eteria
thumb|right|200px|The flag of the Filiki Eteria.Filiki Eteria or Society of Friends was a secret 19th century organization, whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece and to establish an independent Greek state. Society members were mainly young Phanariot Greeks from Russia and local...
, but later, fleeing the 1821 rural uprising
Wallachian uprising of 1821
The Wallachian uprising of 1821 was an uprising in Wallachia against Ottoman rule which took place during 1821.-Background:...
, settled in Kronstadt (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....
to spy for the Austrians. Another ancestor, Postelnic
Postelnic
Postelnic was a historical rank traditionally held by boyars in Moldavia and Wallachia, roughly corresponding to the position of chamberlain...
Alecu Samurcaş, was a linguist, known for his work in the Greek language
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
. The meeting of two branches was recorded in the coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
that Tzigara-Samurcaş fashioned for himself, showing the spatha
Spatha
The spatha was a type of straight sword, measuring between , in use throughout first millennium AD Europe, and in the territory of the Roman Empire until about 600 AD. Later swords from 600 AD to 1000 AD are recognizable derivatives, though they are not spathae.The spatha was used in gladiatorial...
of Zotu Tzigara, alongside a sable
Sable
The sable is a species of marten which inhabits forest environments, primarily in Russia from the Ural Mountains throughout Siberia, in northern Mongolia and China and on Hokkaidō in Japan. Its range in the wild originally extended through European Russia to Poland and Scandinavia...
(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...
: samur) and a stylized eyebrow.
A while after Toma Tzigara's death, Alexandru was adopted by his childless uncle Ioan Alecu Samurcaş (he officially took the name Tzigara-Samurcaş years later, in 1899); he was also helped with his education by the Kremnitzes, who taught him German
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....
, introduced him to high society circles, and regarded him as a son. His first contacts with history and folk art came by means of his extended family, which collected and preserved documents and art objects.
After graduating from the Matei Basarab High School and taking his Baccalaureate
Romanian Baccalaureate
The Bacalaureat is an exam held in Romania when one graduates high school .Unlike the French Baccalaureate, the Romanian one has a single degree...
, he enlisted at the University of Bucharest Faculty of Letters, Historical Section. It was here that the young man was acquainted with his first mentors: writer-collector Alexandru Odobescu
Alexandru Odobescu
Alexandru Ioan Odobescu was a Romanian author, archaeologist and politician.-Biography:He was born in Bucharest, the second child of General Ioan Odobescu and his wife Ecaterina. After attending Saint Sava College and, from 1850, a Paris lycée, he took the baccalauréat in 1853 and studied...
and archeologist Grigore Tocilescu
Grigore Tocilescu
Grigore George Tocilescu was a Romanian historian, archaeologist, epigrapher and folkorist, member of Romanian Academy....
, the latter of whom ensured Tzigara's employment as custodian for the National Museum of Antiquities. He was a critic of the museum's underdevelopment under Tocilescu's management, and wrote that the disorganized collection comprised an Egyptian mummy, copies of frescoes from the Cathedral Church
Curtea de Arges Cathedral
The Cathedral of Curtea de Argeș is a church in Curtea de Argeș, Romania, located in the grounds of a monastery. It is dedicated to Saint Nicholas....
in Curtea de Argeş
Curtea de Arges
Curtea de Argeș is a city in Romania on the right bank of the Argeş River, where it flows through a valley of the lower Carpathians , on the railway from Pitești to the Turnu Roşu Pass. It is part of Argeș County. The city administers one village, Noapteș...
, items from the Pietroasele Treasure
Pietroasele treasure
The Pietroasele Treasure found in Pietroasele, Buzău, Romania, in 1837, is a late fourth-century Gothic treasure that included some twenty-two objects of gold, among the most famous examples of the polychrome style of Migration Period art...
, and works of Precolumbian art, alongside a scale model of the Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower is a puddle iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889, it has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world...
.
From 1893, the young graduate was in the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
, where he studied at the University of Berlin and the Ludwig Maximilian University, taking his Ph. D. in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
with a dissertation on the Baroque painter Simon Vouet
Simon Vouet
Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France.-Life:...
. He received his diploma, magna cum laude. Tzigara-Samurcaş returned to his home country and, following a dispute with Tocilescu, gave up his position at the Antiquities Museum. He later specialized in museology in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, hearing lectures at the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
and working for city museums, before returning to Germany, where he studied with the preeminent Brunswickian
Duchy of Brunswick
Brunswick was a historical state in Germany. Originally the territory of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in the Holy Roman Empire, it was established as an independent duchy by the Congress of Vienna in 1815...
curator Wilhelm von Bode
Wilhelm von Bode
Wilhelm von Bode was a German art historian and curator. Born Arnold William Bode in Calvörde, he was ennobled in 1913...
.
Early academic career
Back to Romania, Tzigara unsuccessfully applied for the Archeology Chair created at the University of Iaşi, but lost; according to scholar and diarist Teohari Antonescu, who emerged as the victor, the competition was rigged in his own favor, even though Tzigara "had the good sense to come prepared." From 1899, he was librarian of the Carol I Academic Foundation and Professor of Aesthetics and Art History at the National School of Fine Arts. As Tzigara later acknowledged, his introduction to royalty came through a relationship with the Kremnitzes, his neighbors on Polonă Street, DorobanţiDorobanti
Dorobanţi is a neighborhood in Sector 1, Bucharest. The neighborhood is dominated by red brick buildings and glass buildings. Main intersections/squares are Perla, Dorobanţi Square, Lahovari, Charles de Gaulle and Quito Square. Main streets are Calea Dorobanţilor, Iancu de Hunedoara Avenue, Lascăr...
. This period saw the start of Tzigara's close relationship with Carol, whom the art historian later called "my most generous protector" and "the sovereign par excellence". Received into royal circles, he was a confidant of the Queen Consort and cultural patron, Elisabeth of Wied
Elisabeth of Wied
-Titles and styles:*29 December 1843 – 15 November 1869: Her Serene Highness Princess Elisabeth of Wied*15 November 1869 – 26 March 1881: Her Royal Highness The Princess of Romania...
, whom he called "the animator of Romanian art
Art of Romania
Art of Romania encompasses the artists and artistic movements in Romania.-Romanian contemporary and modern artists:* Almaşan Virgil* Adela Andea* George Apostu* Corneliu Baba* Calin Baban* Sabin Bălaşa* Horia Bernea* Traian Brădean...
". For a while, he was her private secretary, helping her fulfill her literary ambitions under the Carmen Sylva signature. Tzigara's recollections speak with enthusiasm about Elisabeth's works, as well as about the king's dislike for her interests in spiritism
Spiritism
Spiritism is a loose corpus of religious faiths having in common the general belief in the survival of a spirit after death. In a stricter sense, it is the religion, beliefs and practices of the people affiliated to the International Spiritist Union, based on the works of Allan Kardec and others...
or philosophy, and discuss Carol's enduring affection for Mite Kremnitz.
In order to support his lectures at the Fine Arts School, Tzigara began gathering photographic plate
Photographic plate
Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a means of photography. A light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile...
s, a collection which grew in size over the following decades. It includes images of European monuments and works of art, as well as samples of Romanian architecture (in some cases, the only surviving images of since-demolished buildings) and copies of maps. The images of local life are considered of particular importance, since they document the 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,...
and modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
of Romania's landscape. Mostly anonymous works, they most likely include some of Tzigara's own photographs. A few of them were inventoried by Editura Casa Şcoalelor, and some were published, in Tzigara's lifetime, by Buletinul Comisiunii Monumentelor Istorice or other Romanian scientific magazines. His image projections
Image projector
An image projector is an optical device that projects an image onto a surface, commonly a projection screen.Most projectors creates an image by shining a light through a small transparent image, but some newer types of projectors can project the image directly, by using lasers...
at the Carol I Foundation, supporting a students' elective course on sculpture and painting, became one of the better-known student summer activities.
The young scholar was at the time also interested in the development of decorative arts, which he wanted to reflect the local tradition of handicraft
Handicraft
Handicraft, more precisely expressed as artisanic handicraft, sometimes also called artisanry, is a type of work where useful and decorative devices are made completely by hand or by using only simple tools. It is a traditional main sector of craft. Usually the term is applied to traditional means...
s and notions of national specificity. According to art historian Ioana Vlasiu, Tzigara and painter-researcher Abgar Baltazar were in part responsible for fusing local folk art and international primitivism
Primitivism
Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
with Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
, thus paving the way for the Neo-Brâncovenesc school of decorators and architects. The interest in decorative works was a special focus of his visits to England
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...
and France
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...
—the South Kensington Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
impressed him greatly, as did the workshops of Eugène Grasset
Eugène Grasset
Eugène Samuel Grasset was a Swiss decorative artist who worked in Paris, France in a variety of creative design fields during the Belle Époque. He is considered a pioneer in Art Nouveau design.-Biography:...
and Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran
Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran
Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran was a French artist and teacher.He was born in Paris. Boisbaudran was admitted in 1819 to the École des Beaux-Arts where he studied under Peyron and Guillon Lethière...
.
Junimea debut
Described by Lucian Nastasă as a case of social climbing, Tzigara's marriage to Maria (1900) brought him into the high circles of aristocracy: Maria, born into the Cantacuzino familyCantacuzino family
The Cantacuzino or Cantacuzène family is an old boyar family of Wallachia and Moldavia, a branch of Greek Kantakouzinos family, allegedly descended from the Byzantine Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus. No definite genealogical links between Byzantine Greek and Romanian Cantacuzinos have been established...
(daughter of Alexandru Cantacuzino
Alexandru Cantacuzino
Alexandru Cantacuzino was a Romanian politician who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from June 24, 1862 until September 29, 1862 and as the Minister of Finance from July 12, 1862 until March 16, 1863....
, former Foreign Affairs Minister), was also the widow of Grigore Sturdza
Grigore Sturdza
Grigorie Sturdza , son of Mihail Sturdza was educated in France and Germany, became a general in the Ottoman army under the name of "Muklis Pasha", and afterwards attained the same rank in the Moldavian army. He was a candidate for the Moldavian throne in 1859, and subsequently a prominent member...
, and as such inherited part of the Sturdza family
Sturdza family
Sturdza, Sturza or Stourdza is the name of an old Romanian family, whose origins can be traced back to the 1540s.The Sturdza family has been long and intimately associated with the government first of Moldavia and afterwards of Romania...
fortune. Through her mother Coralia, Maria Tzigara-Cantacuzino was additionally related to boyar
Boyar
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....
lines 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...
, the Boldurs and the Costakis, as well as to Zulnia, mother of historian 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...
. This marriage was reportedly arranged by the Kremnitzes, the couple having as their best men-godfathers
Godparent
A godparent, in many denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's baptism. A male godparent is a godfather, and a female godparent is a godmother...
two influential political figures: Lupu Kostaki, Constantin C. Arion
Constantin C. Arion
Constantin C. Arion was a Romanian politician who served as the Minister of Religion and Public Instruction from December 29, 1910 until March 28, 1921, as Minister of Administration and Interior of Romania from March 28, 1912 until October 14, 1912 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania...
.
During the fin de siècle
Fin de siècle
Fin de siècle is French for "end of the century". The term sometimes encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning...
period, Tzigara-Samurcaş also began a cooperation with Junimea, the literary society representing Romanian traditional conservatism, and sympathized with the Junimist nucleus of the Conservative Party. The art historian was one of the young scholars fascinated with the personality of 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....
, the cultural critic and main Junimea leader, and joined a new Junimist critical elite which also comprised Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
Constantin Radulescu-Motru
Constantin Rădulescu-Motru was a Romanian philosopher, psychologist, sociologist, logician, academic, dramatist, as well as centre-left nationalist politician with a noted anti-fascist discourse...
, Pompiliu Eliade, Mihail Dragomirescu, P. P. Negulescu etc. His work was featured, along with texts by other 50 Junimists, in the Editura Socec volume Lui Titu Maiorescu omagiu, XV februarie MCM ("To Titu Maiorescu as Homage, February 15, 1900"). Maiorescu's diaries display his interest in Tzigara's private life, and claim that the scholar was by then lover of the widowed and much older Mite Kremnitz
Mite Kremnitz
Mite Kremnitz , born Marie von Bardeleben , was a German writer.-Biography:...
, with whom Maiorescu himself had had an affair.
Tzigara attended, in 1901, a major event in Junimist society: the wedding between Nicolae Iorga and Ecaterina, daughter of scholar Ioan Bogdan, where Tzigara unofficially represented the royal court. Tzigara was the couple's godfather at an 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...
marriage service held outside the Kingdom of Romania
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...
, in Belgerei (Şcheii Braşovului), Transylvania. For a while, Iorga and Bogdan were both interested in obtaining Tzigara a better employment at the University of Bucharest, but their efforts were made useless by the Junimea adversary in government, 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...
.
Before 1903, Tzigara became a literary and art columnist at Epoca newspaper, headed at the time by Maiorescu. During the period, Junimea popularized its causes through Epoca, rather than through their main venue Convorbiri Literare, and, according to Maiorescu's own pronouncement, Tzigara's work was a main asset. Around 1907, Tzigara's work was also regularly featured in Convorbiri Literare, edited by Maiorescu's pupil Simion Mehedinţi
Simion Mehedinti
Simion Mehedinţi was a Romanian geographer and member of the Romanian Academy. A figure of importance in the Junimea literary club, he was for a while editor of its magazine, Convorbiri Literare....
. At the time, Transylvania's Răvaşul journal commented that Tzigara's art chronicle and Aurel Popovici
Aurel Popovici
Aurel C. Popovici was an ethnic Romanian Austro-Hungarian lawyer and politician of Serb origin...
's political column were especially "rich" in information, and mentioned that Tzigara and Teohari Antonescu were debating, through the journal, about the characteristics of fortified houses (cule) from 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 ....
region. As 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...
notes, Tzigara-Samurcaş and architect Aurel Zagoritz centered their contributions here on the scientific study of Romanian folk art
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...
, but their presence nevertheless coincided with Convorbiri Literares decline in readership. Tzigara also published his articles in Iorga's 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...
, where he discussed the art exhibits of the Tinerimea Artistică society.
National Museum creation
Around 1901, inspired by the Paris World FairExposition Universelle (1900)
The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from April 15 to November 12, 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next...
, Tzigara and other Romanian ethnographers first took into consideration the establishment of a permanent ethnographic collection. Like other Romanian intellectuals, Tzigara preserved his special interest in handicrafts, which, art conservator Isabelle Longuet argues, were "elevated to the status of 'national art' " in the belief that the peasantry represented "an authentic 'Romanianness' ". In similar terms, ethologist Ioana Popescu notes: "[Tzigara's] collections were to become the argument and the source of inspiration for the national ideology and creation." His project came after a similar attempt on the part of art collector Nicolae Minovici, founder of the private folk art museum Casa Minovici, and an even earlier textile art archive, endorsed by Maiorescu (1875).
1906 marked the start of Tzigara's chief work as an ethnographer. That year, he founded the "Museum of Ethnography and National Art", now Museum of the Romanian Peasant
Museum of the Romanian Peasant
The Museum of the Romanian Peasant is a museum in Bucharest, Romania, with a collection of textiles , icons, ceramics, and other artifacts of Romanian peasant life...
(and which he intended to name "Museum of the Romanian People"), serving as its Director for the next forty years. This project received support from Education Minister Haret and, on the other side of politics, from Haret's predecessor Maiorescu. The institution was later known as "Museum of Ethnography and National Art" or "Carol I Museum of Ethnography and National Art". Its original quarters were the abandoned National Mint building on Kiseleff Road
Soseaua Kiseleff
Şoseaua Kiseleff is a major road in Bucharest that runs as a northward continuation of Calea Victoriei. The road was created in 1832 by Pavel Kiselyov, the commander of the Russian occupation troops in Wallachia and Moldavia...
, but plans were being made for a new, more adequate museum palace.
As manager, Tzigara-Samurcaş ordered the collection into two distinct sections, dedicated respectively to ethnography-proper and sacred art
Sacred art
Sacred art is imagery intended to uplift the mind to the spiritual. Sacred art involves the ritual and cultic practices and practical and operative aspects of the path of the spiritual realization within the bosom of the tradition in question....
(the latter chapter also took over the religious objects kept at the National Museum of Antiquities). An additional exhibit was to include the Tropaeum Traiani
Tropaeum Traiani
The Tropaeum Traiani is a monument in Roman Civitas Tropaensium , built in 109 in then Moesia Inferior, to commemorate Roman Emperor Trajan's victory over the Dacians, in 102, in the Battle of Tapae. The monument was erected on the place where legio XXI Rapax had previously been defeated in 92...
metopes
Metope (architecture)
In classical architecture, a metope is a rectangular architectural element that fills the space between two triglyphs in a Doric frieze, which is a decorative band of alternating triglyphs and metopes above the architrave of a building of the Doric order...
, attesting the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
's rule over 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...
. Tzigara's subsequent work as a collector and folk art historian received much appreciation. A 1914 article in Luceafărul journal stated: "[He] reorganized [the museum] and turned into a true national institution. The Museum's rich collections are owed to Mr. Tzigara-Samurcaş's industriousness." In 2010, folk art reviewer Mihai Plămădeală wrote that Tzigara's activity "impacted on everything that this Museum ever meant in the history of 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...
."
Tzigara's fieldwork also focused specifically on increasing the museum's ethnographic collection. Particularly active in Oltenia, he was, as Ioana Popescu notes, "more attracted by decorated, colorful objects, used at celebration time." During one such trip to Gorj County
Gorj County
Gorj is a county of Romania, in Oltenia, with its capital city at Târgu Jiu.- Demographics :In 2002, it had a population of 387,308 and its population density was 69/km².* Romanians – over 98%* Rromas, others.- Geography :...
, he bought, disassembled and transported back to Bucharest the "Antonie Mogoş House", considered a masterpiece of Romanian woodcarving and the museum's centerpiece. It is the first-ever such relocation in the history of Romanian museums. His photographic collection was expanded by an entire series on Oltenian carpets, which helps in their specific taxonomy
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
.
The developments raised interest among the ethnic Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
community of Transylvania, whose cultural body, the ASTRA Society, was in the process of creating its own permanent exhibit of folk architecture, later ASTRA National Museum Complex
ASTRA National Museum Complex
"ASTRA" National Museum Complex is a museum complex in Sibiu, Romania, which gathers under the same authority four ethnology and civilisation museums in the city, a series of laboratories for conservation and research, and a documentation centre. It is the successor of the ASTRA museum that has...
. ASTRA activist Octavian Tăslăuanu reported in 1909: "[Tzigara's] national art museum, although [...] important sums were spent on it, is at the early stage of its beginnings. Only two years ago did more systematic work begin for its endowment and presently, its national significance recognized, the state granted it a yearly sum of 14,000 lei
Romanian leu
The leu is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 bani . The name of the currency means "lion". On 1 July 2005, Romania underwent a currency reform, switching from the previous leu to a new leu . 1 RON is equal to 10,000 ROL...
[...]. And maybe in a few years those who are running it, so diligently, will manage to turn it into an institution of great importance for our national art." The next year, Tzigara himself wrote, in Convorbiri Literare, that Tăslăuanu's work with ASTRA permanent exhibits was far more advanced than his when it came to storage and display, but noted that the ASTRA collections were not yet rich enough to validate the "museum" name.
Aman Museum and Bucharest University
During those years, Tzigara was also an inspector and evaluator of works collected from Secu Monastery and the Diocese of Buzău, becoming both a Fellow of the Romanian Royal Society of Geography and the Architects' Society. Tzigara also served as representative of the Romanian curators in European colloquiums: the Public Art Congress of LiègeLiège
Liège is a major city and municipality of Belgium located in the province of Liège, of which it is the economic capital, in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium....
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
(1905) and the Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
Congress on Art Conservation (1906), where he presented a report on the efforts to preserve Romanian monuments. Also in 1906, Tzigara-Samurcaş attended the 8th International Congress of Art History. Once familiarized with the artistic fashions of the day, Tzigara reported to the National Liberal 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...
about the need to reform the educational system
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...
in such manner as to provide peasant children with an artistic education, citing reasons moral and economical.
Around 1908, Tzigara was also involved in the process of cataloging and preserving the body of works left by Romanian painter Theodor Aman
Theodor Aman
Theodor Aman was a Romanian painter of Armenian descent. His style is often considered to be a predecessor of Impressionism.He is buried in Bellu cemetery.-External links:...
. The Aman Museum appointed him Director, and, under his leadership, opened its doors to the public for the very first time. Tzigara was also involved in controversies marking the celebration of Carol I's 40th year on the throne, when he spoke out against politician Ioan Lahovary
Ioan Lahovary
Ioan N. Lahovary or Ion Lahovari; January 25, 1844 – June 14, 1915) was a member of Romanian aristocracy, a politician and diplomat who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania.-Life and political career:...
, accused of mismanaging the Carol Park
Carol Park
Carol Park is a public park in Bucharest, Romania, named after King Carol I of Romania. For the duration of the communist regime, it was called Liberty Park ....
festivities.
The creation of a separate University of Bucharest Art History Department for Tzigara was a project which split the academic and political world. At the core of such disputes was Nicolae Iorga, from the History Department, who argued that his own courses also covered art, and who consequently became Tzigara's main adversary. The proposal of expanding University was also defeated 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...
by Lahovary, 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...
president, who probably still resented for his 1906 comments. The debates prolonged themselves over the following years. In 1909, Tzigara-Samurcaş, Grigore Tocilescu
Grigore Tocilescu
Grigore George Tocilescu was a Romanian historian, archaeologist, epigrapher and folkorist, member of Romanian Academy....
and George Murnu
George Murnu
George Murnu was a Romanian university professor, archaeologist, historian, translator, and poet of Aromanian origin....
competed with each other for the Archeology Chair, and this created a dispute over whether art historians could not lecture in archeology (Murnu eventually won the contest, despite being exposed for plagiarism
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...
by Tzigara, in articles for the magazine Noua Revistă Română). The same year, he was in Sweden
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....
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
and Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, where he visited the Skansen
Skansen
Skansen is the first open air museum and zoo in Sweden and is located on the island Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden. It was founded in 1891 by Artur Hazelius to show the way of life in the different parts of Sweden before the industrial era....
, Bygdøy and Lyngby
Frilandsmuseet
Frilandsmuseet is an open air museum in Lyngby at the northern outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark. Opened in 1897 and covering 40 hectares, it is one of the largest and oldest open-air museums in the world....
open-air museums, but suggested that a similar project would be redundant at home, arguing that peasant society in Romania was only too visible around Bucharest. He was much more impressed with the Nordic Museum
Nordic Museum
The Nordic Museum is a museum located on Djurgården, an island in central Stockholm, Sweden, dedicated to the cultural history and ethnography of Sweden from the Early Modern age until the contemporary period...
, which reportedly became the template for his Bucharest museum.
In 1911 (or 1912), Tzigara eventually became a Substitute Professor of Art History at the University of Bucharest, attending the Great Art Exhibit of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and, in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, the Esposizione internazionale d'arte
International Exhibition of Art (1911)
International Exhibition of Art was a world's fair held in Rome in 1911 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the unification of Italy in the same year as another world's fair in Turin . It marked the beginnings of the National Roman Museum...
. He lectured on folk art at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin
Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin
The Kunstgewerbemuseum, or Museum of Decorative Arts, is an internationally important museum of the decorative arts in Berlin, Germany, part of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin...
and in 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...
, at the Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
Museum für angewandte Kunst
Museum für angewandte Kunst Wien
The Museum of Applied Arts or just MAK, a short version of its German name Museum für angewandte Kunst is located in Vienna, Austria.The museum is located in the 1st district of Vienna .-External links:*...
. Overall, his mission was to introduce Romanian art to an international audience, as noted by Luceafărul: "he arranged the Romanian pavilions, making known for the first time in history the artistic creations of our people. In all exhibits he registered successes". A prestigious visitor of the National Museum was Raymund Netzhammer, the Catholic Archbishop of Bucharest
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest, Romania was established on 27 April 1883. There had been a Catholic presence in the city since at least the 18th century, but it was only in 1847 that Bishop Josephus Molajoni was able to establish his residence there...
, who was introduced there by Tzigara, with whom he remained good friends. Netzhammer was impressed with its ethnographic collection: "Nowhere can one acquire a better eye for Romanian folk art than in this establishment."
In support of his activities, Tzigara published a succession of art books. In 1906, Arta publică ("Public Art") appeared in Bucharest, while the German-language study Denkmalpflege in Rumänien ("Historical Preservation in Romania") saw print in Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
. Later, Tzigara contributed biographical and critical entries in the 1907 edition of Allgemeines Lexicon der Bildenden Kunstler. Catalogul Muzeului Aman ("The Aman Museum Catalog") of 1908 was followed the same year by the essay Ce se înţelege prin arheologia de azi ("The Present-day Meaning of Archeology") and the monograph Biserica din Filipeştii de Pădure ("The Church of Filipeştii de Pădure
Filipestii de Padure
Filipeștii de Pădure is a commune in Prahova County, Romania. It is composed of four villages: Dițești, Filipeștii de Pădure, Minieri and Siliștea Dealului....
", co-authored with Nicolae Ghica-Budeşti and Gheorghe Balş). In 1909, he authored the album-study Arta în România ("Art in Romania"), comprising his collected Convorbiri essays and edited by 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:**...
, together with another monograph, Muzeul neamului românesc ("The Museum of the Romanian People").
The next year, he followed up with Discuţiuni în jurul arheologiei ("Debates on Archeology") and Rumänische Volkskunst ("Romanian Folk Art"); in 1911, with Casa românească de la Roma ("The Romanian House of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
"); in 1912, with Sonderaustellung Rumäniens ("Romania's Special Exhibit"), Istoria artei şi însemnătatea ei (Art History and Its Significance"), Muzeul naţional din Bucureşti ("The National Museum Bucharest"). Between 1909 and 1912, he also redacted Carol I's 17 volumes of memoirs, working from scattered notebooks. As an art critic for Epoca and Convorbiri, Tzigara became one of those who opposed the new primitivist
Primitivism
Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
tendencies of the Tinerimea Artistică group: in 1910, he chided the modern sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
for his break with tradition, and even suggested that Brâncuşi's works be hidden away from the public eye. Such reactions made Brâncuşi decide to leave Romania and begin his international career.
While in Rome, Tzigara was reputedly offered membership in the Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
's 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:...
, to whom many of Romanian colleagues belonged (see Freemasonry in Romania
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...
). The offer, Tzigara later claimed, was made by sculptor Ettore Ferrari
Ettore Ferrari
Ettore Ferrari was an Italian sculptor.-Biography:Born in Rome to an artistic family , Ferrari was one of the members of the artistic rebirth in the secular state born after the Italian Unification...
, and included various perks and a promise that he would soon become a Masonic Grand Master
Grand Master (Masonic)
In Freemasonry a Grand Master is the leader of the lodges within his Masonic jurisdiction. He presides over a Grand Lodge, and has certain rights in the constituent lodges that form his jurisdiction....
. Although widely rumored to have taken up the offer, Nastasă writes, Tzigara was probably never a Freemason. Also in 1911, he was briefly President of a newly created professional association, the Romanian Writers' Society.
1910s projects and ASTRA conferencing
Tzigara's honors for 1912 included the Romanian Kingdom's Bene Merenti medal for services to culture. During much of that year, after some campaigning to obtain state funds, the art historian considered proposals for the Ethnography Museum's headquarters, also housed on Kiseleff. He and his colleagues looked into international proposals, from Heino SchmiedenHeino Schmieden
Heino Schmieden was a German architect.-Biography:Schmieden was born in Soldin, New March In 1866 Schmieden graduated from the renowned Bauakademie in Berlin with a diploma in architecture...
, Louis Blanc and others, but eventually settled for a design proposed to them by the Romanian native Ghica-Budeşti. The Neo-Brâncovenesc features of the building, researchers note, where themselves an attempt to highlight the return to a peasant model. This formed part of a greater urban planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
effort undertaken, with Carol I's approval and the involvement of Neo-Brâncovenesc architects, throughout northern and central Bucharest, with the erecting of many new public buildings: the Palace of Justice
Palace of Justice (Bucharest)
The Palace of Justice , located in Bucharest, Romania, was built between 1890 and 1895.Located on the banks of the Dâmboviţa River, it houses the Bucharest Court of Appeal and the Sector 5 Court. Its last major restoration was between 2003 and 2006....
, the CEC Palace
CEC Palace
The CEC Palace in Bucharest, Romania, built in 1900 and situated on Calea Victoriei opposite the History Museum, is the headquarters of the national savings house C.E.C., nowadays called CEC Bank.-History:...
, the Geology Museum
Geology Museum (Romania)
The National Geology Museum is hosted by the building built in 1906 for the Geological Institute of Romania. The building was designed by the Victor Ştefănescu using the neo-Brâncovenesc style, and was declared an architectural monument. The museum hosts a collection of 80,000 samples of rocks,...
etc. (see History of Bucharest
History of Bucharest
The history of Bucharest covers the time from the early settlements on the locality's territory until its modern existence as a city, capital of Wallachia, and present-day capital of Romania.-Ancient times:...
). Despite the approval, and the ceremonial placement of a foundation stone, construction was remarkably slow or under-financed, and Tzigara, who came to resent Ghica-Budeşti, did not live to see its completion.
Tzigara's scientific work for 1913, when he also attended the Tentoonstelling De Vrouw event in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, includes a monograph on the Curtea de Argeş Cathedral Church
Curtea de Arges Cathedral
The Cathedral of Curtea de Argeș is a church in Curtea de Argeș, Romania, located in the grounds of a monastery. It is dedicated to Saint Nicholas....
. That year, as Romania joined 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...
coalition against the Kingdom of Bulgaria
Kingdom of Bulgaria
The Kingdom of Bulgaria was established as an independent state when the Principality of Bulgaria, an Ottoman vassal, officially proclaimed itself independent on October 5, 1908 . This move also formalised the annexation of the Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, which had been under the control...
, and although spared from conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
, Tzigara volunteered for service in 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...
. He motivated this initiative by stating that his skill was needed for documenting the war and creating its archive. Tzigara served in the 4th Army Corps
4th Infantry Division (Romania)
The 4th Infantry Division Gemina is one of three major units of the Romanian Land Forces, with its headquarters in Cluj-Napoca. Until June 15, 2008 it was designated as the 4th Territorial Army Corps "Mareşal Constantin Prezan" .-Structure in April 2007 :This structure was in force when the...
, under Crown Prince Ferdinand
Ferdinand I of Romania
Ferdinand was the King of Romania from 10 October 1914 until his death.-Early life:Born in Sigmaringen in southwestern Germany, the Roman Catholic Prince Ferdinand Viktor Albert Meinrad of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, later simply of Hohenzollern, was a son of Leopold, Prince of...
(Carol I's designated successor).
In 1914, Tzigara was appointed Director of the Carol I Foundation. At around the same time, he began a new series of conferences in Austria-Hungary, lecturing on art for the benefit of Romanians in Transylvania and Banat
Banat
The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...
regions. He was also interested in the collection of Transylvanian Romanian artifacts, added to the Bucharest Museum collection. Initially, he was in Lugosch (Lugoj), informing locals about Romanian folk art. One other such event took place in Hermannstadt (Sibiu)
Sibiu
Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...
, where he was invited by ASTRA to speak about the 50 years of development in Romanian art.
This conference contained Tzigara' artistic credo: he believed that art was an objective reflection of social and cultural development, identifying the 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,...
process, the proclamation of the 1881 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...
and later events with a profound transformation of Romania. However, Tzigara suggested, these efforts did not yet find a suitable answer in the artistic field, that is the birth of a specifically Romanian art phenomenon and the proper conservation of artistic legacies: he deplored the destruction of old Bucharest townhouses and their replacement with Westernized villas; he commended the restoration of Horezu Monastery in its original Brâncovenesc
Brâncovenesc style
Is a type of architecture developed in Wallachia during the reign of Constantin Brâncoveanu in the 17th and 18th century.Examples of buildings with this style:*Horezu Monastery*Văcăreşti Monastery**Brâncoveanu Monastery*Surpatele Monastery...
style, but criticized those who introduced Gothic revival
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
elements at Tismana, Bistriţa
Bistrita Monastery
The Bistriţa Monastery is a Romanian Orthodox monastery located 8 km west of Piatra Neamţ. It was dedicated in 1402 by Romanian Voivode Alexandru cel Bun whose remains are buried here....
or Arnota; lastly, he expressed support for the "healthy" Neo-Brâncovenesc style of Ion Mincu
Ion Mincu
Ion Mincu was an architect, engineer, professor and politician in Romania.He promoted a Romanian style in architecture, by integrating in his works the specific style of traditional Romanian architecture...
and criticized muralist Octavian Smigelschi for his work on the Sibiu Cathedral
Holy Trinity Cathedral, Sibiu
The Holy Trinity Cathedral, Sibiu , located at 35 Mitropoliei Street, Sibiu, Romania, is the seat of the Romanian Orthodox Archbishop of Sibiu and Metropolitan of Transylvania...
. The conference included ample praise of Carol I as a patron of conservation, and nods in the direction of Carol's French architect, André Lecomte du Nouÿ.
The second part of Tzigara's Hermannstadt conference focused on the Romanian school of oil painting. He paid homage to its traditionalist founder, Nicolae Grigorescu
Nicolae Grigorescu
Nicolae Grigorescu was one of the founders of modern Romanian painting.-Biography:He was born in Pitaru, Dâmboviţa County, Wallachia. In 1843 the family moved to Bucharest. At a young age , he became an apprentice at the workshop of the painter Anton Chladek and created icons for the church of...
, and to Aman, before summarizing the later contributions of Ştefan Luchian
Stefan Luchian
Ștefan Luchian or Lukian was a Romanian painter, famous for his landscapes and still life works.-Early life:He was born in Ștefănești, a village of Botoșani County, as the son of Major Dumitru Luchian and of Elena Chiriacescu. The Luchian family moved to Bucharest in 1873 and his mother desired...
, Arthur Verona and Jean Alexandru Steriadi
Jean Alexandru Steriadi
Jean Alexandru Steriadi was a Romanian painter and drawing artist. He made portraits and compositions based on a strong, expressive drawing; then he evoluated towards impressionistic influenced landscapes in which the subtle harmony is combined with a refined sense of picturesque...
. The third part highlighted his own research of Transylvanian folk art, and spoke about Romania's Queen Elisabeth as a collector of folk art from Sibiu area.
Tzigara preserved these principles during the rest of his professional life, and the themes of his conferencing resurface in his old age memoirs. These too shed light on Carol I's architectural role, and express approval for Lecomte de Nouÿ's since-criticized methods of conservation (including the decision to the tear down and rebuild Curtea de Argeş Cathedral). They also return to Smigelschi's murals, criticizing his depiction of saints in national Romanian dress
Romanian dress
Romanian dress refers to the traditional clothing worn by Romanians, who live primarily in Romania and Moldova, with smaller communities in Ukraine and Serbia. Today, a strong majority of Romanians wear Western-style dress on most occasions, and the garments described here largely fell out of use...
as highly inappropriate.
World War I and Germanophilia
Tzigara's international and scholarly activities suffered from the outbreak of World War IWorld 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...
in summer 1914, even though Romania remained neutral until mid 1916. His purported father, Carol I, died in September 1914. According to his Archbishop Netzhammer, Tzigara was deeply affected by the event: "Like a child, he loosened his suffering, deploring in front of me this terrible and unexpected loss". By then, however, Tzigara had befriended Ferdinand I, the new king, and was an admirer of Ferdinand's wife, Marie of Edinburgh
Marie of Edinburgh
Marie of Romania was Queen consort of Romania from 1914 to 1927, as the wife of Ferdinand I of Romania.-Early life:...
. He found that Ferdinand was "gentle", "jocular" and usually self-effacing, "in all things the opposite of his uncle" Carol I. In Queen Marie, the art historian recognized a political woman, more active in public affairs than Carol's Elisabeth. Tzigara also shared Marie's artistic taste, including her passion for the work of Romanian Symbolist
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...
sculptors Oscar Späthe and Friedrich Storck (whom, in 1903, he had called them "innovators of Romanian sculpture").
Unlike Ferdinand and his Francophile
Francophile
Is a person with a positive predisposition or interest toward the government, culture, history, or people of France. This could include France itself and its history, the French language, French cuisine, literature, etc...
circle, who desired a Romanian alliance with the Entente for the sake of union with Transylvania
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...
, Tzigara was opposed to any move against Germany. He represented the 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 within the University of Bucharest, at the same junior level as another substitute professor, Constantin Litzica. For a while, he was also co-opted on the leadership committee of the Romanian Writers' Society, but lost his seat there in 1915 (probably owing to his presence among the minority of Germanophile writers).
The subsequent campaign ended abruptly in southern Romania's invasion 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...
(Germans and their allies). In November 1916, shortly before King Ferdinand and the pro-Entente government retreated to 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...
, they appointed Tzigara-Samurcaş a custodian of the Crown and Royal Domains, tasked with preventing acts of vandalism on the occupiers' part. He stayed behind in Bucharest and met with August von Mackensen
August von Mackensen
Anton Ludwig August von Mackensen , born August Mackensen, was a German soldier and field marshal. He commanded with success during the First World War and became one of the German Empire's most prominent military leaders. After the Armistice, Mackensen was interned for a year...
, head of the occupation forces. As a result of this encounter, the Germans asked Tzigara to discuss an offer of collaboration
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
with the senior Conservative Party Germanophiles: Maiorescu, Alexandru Marghiloman
Alexandru Marghiloman
Alexandru Marghiloman was a Romanian conservative statesman who served for a short time in 1918 as Prime Minister of Romania, and had a decisive role during World War I.-Early career:...
, Petre P. Carp
Petre P. Carp
Petre P. Carp , commonly rendered as P. P. Carp, was a Romanian conservative politician and literary critic who served as a Prime Minister of Romania for two terms...
. All three refused to openly associate with Mackensen's military rule, but a puppet civilian administration was set up under Carp's disciple Lupu Kostaki. Carp's reply to Tzigara's proposition is recorded as: "Such a thing is of no interest to me; it is nonsense, and at this moment counts as weakness." Maiorescu's deteriorating relationship with Carp was also a factor: Carp flatly refused to attend any meeting where Maiorescu was present, and alienated the other two by stating that King Ferdinand should be deposed.
On , the art historian took over as Police chief in occupied Bucharest. This proved to be a highly controversial decision, the consequences of which would harm Tzigara's 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....
career. While his political adversaries later alleged that Tzigara had been granted the appointment through German pressures, he himself claimed that Carp and Kostaki had asked him to become involved. Also according to Tzigara, his appointment resolved a practical issue, since his legitimate predecessor, General Alexandru Mustaţă, could not speak any German
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....
. Kostaki's administration also included Litzica, who was puppet Minister of Education in spring 1917. Tzigara personally intervened in the selection of other bureaucrats. In February 1917, he brought writer I. A. Bassarabescu into his Police apparatus, obtaining his release from German internment
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
and appointing him head of division. Reportedly, he did the same for philosopher Mircea Florian
Mircea Florian
Mircea Florian is a Romanian multi-instrumentalist musician, multimedia artist and computer scientist, based in Germany. Having started his musical career as a folk rock singer, in the late 1960s, he developed a fusion between Romanian folklore and Eastern music, especially Indian sound, moving...
, who became his Carol I Foundation subordinate.
As recorded by Archbishop Netzhammer, Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş was open and cooperative in his relationship with the new authorities and the German community
Regat Germans
Regat Germans or Old Kingdom Germans are an ethnic German group of the eastern and southern parts of Romania. The Regat is land that was part of Romania before the First World War...
. In September 1917, the Romanian scholar greeted Wilhelm II, German Emperor
German Emperor
This article is about the emperors of the German Empire. For full list of German monarchs before 1871, see List of German monarchs.The German Emperor was the official title of the Head of State and ruler of the German Empire, beginning with the proclamation of Wilhelm I as emperor during the...
, who was visiting the occupied half of Romania. Reportedly the only Romanian in attendance, he followed Wilhelm to the Curtea de Argeş Cathedral
Curtea de Arges Cathedral
The Cathedral of Curtea de Argeș is a church in Curtea de Argeș, Romania, located in the grounds of a monastery. It is dedicated to Saint Nicholas....
, where they both paid their respects to Carol I's tomb. Tzigara was also a personal guest at the imperial table, and Wilhelm had several long conversations with him in private. At the end of their encounter, Tzigara received from the emperor's hand a diamond-and-ruby tie pin
Tie pin
A Tie pin , is a neckwear-controlling device, originally worn by wealthy English gentlemen to secure the folds of their cravats, they were first popularized at the beginning of the 19th century...
.
Tzigara-Samurcaş nonetheless had a complex relationship with his German supervisors. He refused to cooperate with them on several occasions, objecting to the creation of a German Institute within the University, and being strongly opposed to the Central Powers' interventions on Bucharest Royal Palace
National Museum of Art of Romania
The National Museum of Art of Romania is located in the former royal palace in Revolution Square, central Bucharest, Romania, completed in 1937...
grounds. In late 1916 and early 1917, he was in intense correspondence with Ion Bianu, a fellow scholar and disillusioned Germanophile, who complained about the Deutsches Heer pressures on 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....
and asked Tzigara to intervene on his colleagues' behalf. On one occasion, as a result of Bianu's plea, Tzigara sent in his policemen to prevent German soldiers from stealing the Academy's firewood reserves. Boia argues that the main objective of Tzigara's term, "the security of people and property", was competently met. The same is noted by Ornea, who cautions: "the nude fact of his, all things considered, willing collaboration with the German occupier, is still a litigious issue". The Police chief was also critical of his more docile colleagues: as recorded in Marghiloman's diary, Tzigara was present at the October 1917 Athénée Palace
Athénée Palace
The Athénée Palace hotel in Bucharest, Romania, now a Hilton, may have been Europe's most notorious den of spies in the years leading up to World War II, and only slightly less so during the Cold War. Located in the heart of Bucharest on Str...
gala organized by Mackensen (October 1917), but was irritated to find himself in the company of junior bureaucrats who were well liked by the Germans. He referred to this category, which included poet Luca Caragiale
Luca Caragiale
Luca Ion Caragiale was a Romanian poet, novelist and translator, whose contributions were a synthesis of Symbolism, Parnassianism and modernist literature. His career, cut short by pneumonia, mostly produced lyric poetry with cosmopolitan characteristics, distinct preferences for neologisms and...
, as the "nippers". In December of the same year, Caragiale enraged Tzigara by going over his head: the poet used German connections to obtain Police guards at an official function, after Tzigara had refused to grant his request.
In January 1918, while the Iaşi authorities were considering a way out of the war, Tzigara-Samurcaş handed in his resignation to the Germans. A separate peace with the Central Powers followed: in March–April, the new national unity government
National unity government
A national unity government, government of national unity, or national union government is a broad coalition government consisting of all parties in the legislature, usually formed during a time of war or other national emergency.- Canada :During World War I the Conservative government of Sir...
of Marghiloman reassigned him to the position of Police chief. This posting, made legitimate by King Ferdinand's royal decree, Tzigara kept until November 14, 1918—that is, three days after the Armistice with Germany reshuffled Romania's commitments. Romania's sudden return to Francophilia had also brought Marghiloman's downfall, described by Tzigara as an anti-Conservative "coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
". Zigu Ornea finds this expression of resentment especially problematic, since, he argued, it meant that Tzigara placed Germanopilia above the establishment 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...
: "[he] understood next to nothing from the reality of the wartime political phenomenon."
Collaborationism scandal and late 1920s
The end of the war signified a slump in Tzigara's career. His imperial tie pin, Boia notes, became a "corpus delictiCorpus delicti
Corpus delicti is a term from Western jurisprudence referring to the principle that a crime must have been proven to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime. For example, a person cannot be tried for larceny unless it can be proven that property has been stolen...
" for those accusing Tzigara of treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
. Such accusations were given ample exposure in Rector Ion Atanasiu
Ion Atanasiu
Professor Ion Atanasiu was the founder of the Romanian School of Electrochemistry and the first to teach this subject in Romania. He is known as the originator of cerimetry, an analytical method based on Cerium as titration reagent. A biography of Prof. Atanasiu was published by Em. Bratu and A....
's essay Rătăciri naţionale ("National Ravings", 1919), answered to in detail by Tzigara's own pro domo, Mărturisiri silite ("Forced Confessions", 1920), and later by his posthumously published Memorii ("Memoirs"). Athanasiu was the first who suggested holding Tzigara accountable for his wartime behavior, and, in his University report, alluded to the possibility of sacking both him and the Germanophile biologist Victor Babeş
Victor Babes
Victor Babeș was a Romanian physician, biologist, and one of the earliest bacteriologists. He made early and significant contributions to the study of rabies, leprosy, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases....
. Ornea finds that, in those years, Athanasiu and Tzigara's traditional foe Nicolae Iorga were waging "a veritable war against Tzigara-Samurcaş".
Tzigara was omitted from an early purge of University Germanophiles, but, on November 29, 1919, was subjected to questioning by Rector Atanasiu, Iorga and the Board of Professors. As he later recalled, his defense tactic was to recall that, back in 1906, Iorga himself was seen as a radical Francophobe
Francophobia
Francophobia or Gallophobia are terms that refer to a dislike or hatred toward France, the People of France, the Government of France, or the Francophonie...
(see 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...
). On Iorga and Atanasiu's proposal, but against the advice of Ion Cantacuzino and Dimitrie Onciul, the Board took a vote to ban Tzigara-Samurcaş; the result was indecisive, and Tzigara preserved his chair. Atanasiu however took the vote as evidence that Tzigara had lost his support, and requested a decision from higher authorities. As Boia notes, this was a political miscalculation: the anti-Germanophile lobby had been defeated 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...
by Prime Minister
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...
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod or Vaida-Voievod was a Romanian politician who was a supporter and promoter of the union of Transylvania with the Romanian Old Kingdom; he later served three terms as a Prime Minister of Greater Romania.-Transylvanian politics:He was born to a Greek-Catholic family in the...
, who could not be expected to grant Atanasiu a victory. In the end, Education Minister and zoologist Ioan Borcea sent a letter to Atanasiu, asking him to desist frustrating Tzigara "in his attributions without legal decision", adding: "Especially at this moment in time, we find it necessary that peace and harmony be restored for University to function properly." These and other moral defeats prompted Atanasiu to present his resignation, which came with his final protest that Minister Borcea had snubbed University during the "Tzigara-Samurcaş affair". In later years, Tzigara took his main accusers, Iorga and journalist Stelian Popescu
Stelian Popescu
Stelian Popescu was a nationalist Romanian journalist.From 1914 to 1943, Popescu was director of Universul....
, to court, in what became two celebrity trials.
As noted by literary critic Dumitru Hîncu, the art historian's wartime conduct was never censured by the interwar governments. He was again received into Queen Marie's circle, who allegedly told him: "Iorga is jealous that he sees you coming over to visit with us." Tzigara was still an art columnist for Convorbiri Literare, and, in 1921, became its new editor in chief. According to ASTRA's newspaper, Transilvania, Tzigara rescued Convorbiri from bankruptcy, but only catered to a niche audience. He was thus unable to steer the magazine back into the cultural mainstream, its previous dominance replicated by the left-wing Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
.
In 1923, he was the Inspector General of Museums, under the National Liberals' 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...
cabinet, in which capacity he revisited the ASTRA Museum and awarded it a 50,000 lei grant from the state. The period also witnessed his first private visits to the Transylvanian spa town
Spa town
A spa town is a town situated around a mineral spa . Patrons resorted to spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. The word comes from the Belgian town Spa. In continental Europe a spa was known as a ville d'eau...
, Sovata
Sovata
-History:It formed part of the Székely Land region of the historical Transylvania province. The first data about Sovata are from 1578. By 1583 it already was a village....
. His main home in Bucharest was a large villa on Kogălniceanu Street, where he was living with his family.
Despite his confirmation at University, Tzigara-Samurcaş found it impossible to achieve tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
, and was also ousted from the Fine Arts School over his Germanophilia. With the diplomatic recognition of Greater Romania came new opportunity, and, in 1926, Tzigara left for 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...
, taking over the Art History Department at Cernăuţi University
Chernivtsi University
The Chernivtsi National University is the leading Ukrainian institution for higher education in northern Bukovina, in Chernivtsi, a city in southwest Ukraine....
. Also that year, a mortally ill King Ferdinand made him a Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Romania
Order of the Star of Romania
The Order of the Star of Romania is Romania's highest civil order. It is awarded by the President of Romania...
. Again touring Germany with a series of conferences (1926), Tzigara also spoke at Radio Berlin
Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft
The Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft , which can be loosely translated as the State Broadcasting Company, was a national network of German regional public broadcasting companies active from 1925 until 1945...
, making his debut in radio programming. Reportedly, his request of creating a special Romanian section on Berlin's Museum Island
Museum Island
Museum Island is the name of the northern half of an island in the Spree river in the central Mitte district of Berlin, Germany, the site of the old city of Cölln...
was granted by the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
in early 1927.
On November 1, 1928, Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş provided the first-ever Radio Romania
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...
broadcast in history, with an art lecture specifically written for this purpose. This, Tzigara recalled, was a pro bono
Pro bono
Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...
activity to please Radio Romania's president Constantin Angelescu, but made the speaker himself very nervous: Tzigara thought his own text bland and his voice ill-adapted for the medium, but took pains to improve them in later broadcasts. In 1929, Tzigara was a first judge at the original Miss Romania beauty contest, in a panel which also included Vaida-Voevod, writers 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 Nicolae Constantin Batzaria
Nicolae Constantin Batzaria
Nicolae Constantin Batzaria, Besaria, Basarya or Bazaria , was a Macedonian-born Aromanian cultural activist, Ottoman statesman and Romanian writer...
, woman activist Alexandrina Cantacuzino and other public figures.
Romanian cabinets appointed him a national representative at the Universal Exposition
1929 Barcelona International Exposition
The 1929 Barcelona International Exposition took place from 20 May 1929 to 15 January 1930 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain...
in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, and organizer of the folk art exhibit at the International Peace Bureau
International Peace Bureau
International Peace Bureau is the world's oldest international peace federation. It was founded in 1891, and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910....
's Balkan
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
Conference in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. He also attended the 13th International Congress of Art History in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
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....
, and organized the Romanian pavilion at an Art Conference in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. His efforts won international recognition, and the French state, through Bucharest Ambassador Gabiel Puaux, presented Tzigara with a gift of Sèvres porcelain
Manufacture nationale de Sèvres
The manufacture nationale de Sèvres is a Frit porcelain porcelain tendre factory at Sèvres, France. Formerly a royal, then an imperial factory, the facility is now run by the Ministry of Culture.-Brief history:...
. He was also awarded the Order of St. Sava
Order of St. Sava
The Order of St. Sava was a decoration instituted by the order King Milan I of Serbia in 1883. The Order of Saint Sava originally was established to recognize civilians for meritorious achievements in the arts and sciences. In 1914 a change was made permitting military personnel to receive the...
by the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
.
1930s
Tzigara's position was threatened in 1930, when Ferdinand's deposed son Carol IICarol 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...
retook his throne. It was alleged that Iorga, a supporter of the new king, asked for Tzigara to be removed from the royal Foundation, but that Carol had stated not being willing to sack "my own uncle." Iorga was however in a position to limit his rival's access to academia when, in 1931, he became Carol II's Prime Minister. His legislative proposal, limiting the number of academic positions an individual could hold, was probably aimed specifically at Tzigara and other personal enemies (as Lucian Nastasă writes, Iorga was himself collecting some five monthly salaries from his work with the state).
At around the same time, Tzigara became a contributor to the official literary and scientific magazine, Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, and again toured the country with lectures on folk art. With Simion Mehedinţi
Simion Mehedinti
Simion Mehedinţi was a Romanian geographer and member of the Romanian Academy. A figure of importance in the Junimea literary club, he was for a while editor of its magazine, Convorbiri Literare....
and the ASTRA Society, he returned to the field of public activism with controversial lectures on the biology of the Romanian nation, which sometimes included overt advocacy of eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
. His racialist
Racialism
Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations. Currently, racialism entails a belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but not necessarily that any absolute hierarchy between the races has been demonstrated by a rigorous and comprehensive scientific process...
theory had it that the geometric abstraction of peasant art, purported to have been strongly resistant to foreign influence, placed Romanians in the "Alpine race
Alpine race
The Alpine race is an historical racial classification or sub-race of humans, considered a branch of the Caucasian race. The term is not commonly used today, but was popular in the early 20th century.-History:...
" cluster—an idea rejected in its day by anthropologist Henric Sanielevici, who contrarily believed that Romanians were "Mediterranean
Mediterranean race
The Mediterranean race was one of the three sub-categories into which the Caucasian race and the people of Europe were divided by anthropologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, following the publication of William Z. Ripley's book The Races of Europe...
".
Moving away from Germanophilia, Tzigara saluted the Brussels World Fair
Brussels International Exposition (1935)
The Brussels International Exposition of 1935 was held in Heysel Park, Brussels, Belgium from April 27 through November 6, 1935....
of 1935 by highlighting the special connection between Romania, on one hand, and, on the other France, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and the Francophone countries. He spoke on Radio France
Radio France
Radio France is a French public service radio broadcaster.-Mission:Radio France's two principal missions are:* To create and expand the programming on all of their stations; and...
and the INR
RTBF
Radio Télévision Belge Francophone is the public broadcasting organization of the French Community of Belgium, the southern, French-speaking part of Belgium...
(he found the Francophone
Francophone
The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....
services to be more relaxing, but less organized, than their German counterpart). In the 1920s and '30s, Tzigara was host to several foreign researchers. Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
professor Charles Upson Clark
Charles Upson Clark
Charles Upson Clark was a professor of history at Columbia University. He discovered the Barberini Codex, the earliest Aztec writings on herbal medicines extant.-Biography:...
called his institution "splendid", finding it partly responsible for a "distinct revival" in peasant crafts. He described the museum as "a revelation of the artistic endowment of the Roumanian peasant." French archivist François de Vaux de Foletier visited his museum in 1934, later writing, in Monde et Voyages magazine, that it featured "very interesting galleries of Romanian ethnography".
Beginning 1933, Tzigara was several times interviewed by Eugen Wolbe, the German biographer of Romanian kings, who had been sent to him by Carol II. Tzigara also reviewed Wolbe's texts, including his work on Queen Elisabeth (a "weak" study, in Tzigara's opinion), and described the visiting writer as an unreliable amateur: "that pensioned ex-Gymnasiallehrer still had the audacity to select himself such august subjects, with the pretext of 'gaining many new friends for the beautiful country' of Romania, of which yet he himself knew so little!" Tzigara was upset to receive a copy of Wolbe's 1937 work on Ferdinand, which, he claimed, entirely ignored specific criticism; he also approved of Prime Minister Gheorghe Tătărescu
Gheorghe Tatarescu
Gheorghe I. Tătărescu was a Romanian politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Romania , three times as Minister of Foreign Affairs , and once as Minister of War...
's decision to ban the volume in its Romanian edition (the censoring left Wolbe indifferent, a fact noted in one of his letters to Tzigara). Tzigara's rival Iorga, probably incited by this controversy and by his own work with Wolbe, gave the book a positive review in his journal Neamul Românesc, calling the government measure "regrettable", and receiving further criticism from Tzigara, through Convorbiri.
The Carol I Museum increased in size throughout the interwar, organized several exhibits, and, in 1931, inaugurated its Ethnographic Section at the new Kiseleff location. In parallel, Tzigara popularized Romanian handicrafts abroad with his new French-language tract, Tapis Roumains ("Romanian Carpets"). Other contributions, published by Convorbiri Literare in 1934, include an introduction to Alexandru Odobescu
Alexandru Odobescu
Alexandru Ioan Odobescu was a Romanian author, archaeologist and politician.-Biography:He was born in Bucharest, the second child of General Ioan Odobescu and his wife Ecaterina. After attending Saint Sava College and, from 1850, a Paris lycée, he took the baccalauréat in 1853 and studied...
's posthumous texts, Ineditele lui Odobescu ("Odobescu's Unpublished Texts") and an edition of Odobescu' 1895 suicide note. Another work, grouping his articles in defense of the Museum's construction, was published in 1936 as Muzeografie românească ("Romanian Museography"). Tzigara and cultural historian Nicolae N. Condeescu also left a monograph on the Peleş Castle
Peles Castle
Peleș Castle is a Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, near Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia, built between 1873 and 1914...
, Carol I's residence in Sinaia
Sinaia
Sinaia is a town and a mountain resort in Prahova County, Romania. The town was named after Sinaia Monastery, around which it was built; the monastery in turn is named after the Biblical Mount Sinai...
.
As editor of Convorbiri Literare, Tzigara also entered a polemic with a younger Maiorescu disciple, the critic and novelist 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...
. At the root of this debate stood Lovinescu's book on Mite Kremnitz
Mite Kremnitz
Mite Kremnitz , born Marie von Bardeleben , was a German writer.-Biography:...
and her affair with national poet (and Junimist herald) 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...
. Joining in with other conservatives who accused Lovinescu of being a "pornographer
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,...
", Tzigara claimed to defend Eminescu's image from the book's impiety. Lovinescu offered his replies in the 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...
, accusing Tzigara of "literary incompetence", and deploring the decline of Convorbiri beyond the threshold of professionalism: "if, under previous directions, the magazine steered away from its stated mission [...], the deviance was at least made in an honorable direction, that is to say in the direction of history writing; the scientific seriousness of its two former directors had made it possible for Convorbiri to have valid contributions in areas other than literature." In reaction to claims of irreverence, he derided his adversary's artistic expertise as being about "Easter egg
Easter egg
Easter eggs are special eggs that are often given to celebrate Easter or springtime.The oldest tradition is to use dyed or painted chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as jelly beans...
s", and defended his narrative as a sample of respect for Eminescu's life and legacy.
Tzigara met significant opposition in his bid for 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....
membership, primarily from Academy member Iorga. He was eventually elected a corresponding member in 1938, when Iorga's influence was being challenged by his younger peers. The same year, he was pensioned from his positions at Cernăuţi University and the Foundation. In 1939, he dedicated himself to completing his homage to the memory of Carol I, on his 100th birthday: Din viaţa regelui Carol I. Mărturii contemporane şi documente inedite ("From the Life of King Carol I. Contemporary Testimonials and Never-before Published Documents"), called "splendid" by Lucian Nastasă. He resigned from his editorial office at Convorbiri, which was taken over by writer and linguist I. E. Torouţiu. Tzigara announced this change with a final editorial piece, which read: "Satisfied to have insured the magazine's future, we announce at this moment that we are placing our directorial office in the hands of a new generation, which is led by Professor I. E. Torouţiu, [...] who with his valuable and sizable published works, appreciating Junimeas role in the movement to renew the Romanian literary language, will know how to carry on the ever-lasting flame of Junimist ideas".
At that point in life, Tzigara was also pleased with the state and popularity of museology in Greater Romania; in 1937, he had claimed: "all the country is presently a museum". His hostility to open-air museums was by then a thing of the past, since, it was argued, Greater Romania's peasant society seemed threatened by modern urbanization. In the late 1930s, this judgment prompted 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...
to create the National Village Museum, located a short distance away from Tzigara's own building site.
World War II and final years
A final moment of preeminence in Tzigara's career occurred during World War IIWorld 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...
. Initially, with war looming, Chief of the Romanian General Staff Florea Ţenescu tasked Tzigara with drafting an Ex-ante International Convention Project for the Protection of Monuments and Works of Art, which was never put into motion. In summer 1940, during a period when Carol II was trying to calm tensions between Romania and 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...
, Tzigara, Ion Nistor
Ion Nistor
Ion Nistor was a prominent Romanian historian and politician. He was a member of the Romanian Academy after 1911, and served as administrator of its Library.-Biography:...
, Grigore Antipa
Grigore Antipa
Grigore Antipa was a Romanian Darwinist biologist who studied the fauna of the Danube Delta and the Black Sea. Between 1892 and 1944 he was the director of the Bucharest Natural History Museum, which now bears his name....
, Ion Sân-Giorgiu
Ion Sân-Giorgiu
Ion Sân-Giorgiu was a Romanian modernist poet, dramatist, essayist, literary and art critic, also known as a journalist, academic, and fascist politician. He was notably the author of works on the Sturm und Drang phenomenon and the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
and other academics greeted a Nazi visitor, scholar Herbert Cysarz.
After 1940, Romania ousted Carol II's 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...
government, replacing it with an openly 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...
, pro-Axis regime, the National Legionary State
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...
. In parallel, Tzigara managed to gather political support for terminating Nicolae Ghica-Budeşti's contract and, in 1941, hired architect Gheorghe Ionescu to finalize the Museum's construction. Late in the same year, he was one of the Romanian scholars who welcomed German Romance studies
Romance studies
Romance studies is an umbrella academic discipline that covers the study of the languages, literatures, and cultures of areas that speak a Romance language. Romance studies departments usually include the study of Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese...
expert Ernst Gamillscheg on his visit to Bucharest. In 1942, he was tasked by Romania's military dictator 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...
with creating a monumental National Heroes' Cemetery in Carol Park
Carol Park
Carol Park is a public park in Bucharest, Romania, named after King Carol I of Romania. For the duration of the communist regime, it was called Liberty Park ....
, but the building works were cut short by the reversal of fortunes 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...
. Also then, he returned to research with a book about the carpets and rugs of 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 ....
, which notably stated his ethnic nationalist
Ethnic nationalism
Ethnic nationalism is a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity. Whatever specific ethnicity is involved, ethnic nationalism always includes some element of descent from previous generations and the implied claim of ethnic essentialism, i.e...
credo in art: "By using the everlasting heritage of our beautiful folk art in different fields, we will be easily able to get rid of the foreign influences that pervaded Romanian households."
Shortly after the August 1944 Coup
King Michael's Coup
King Michael's Coup refers to the coup d'etat led by King Michael of Romania in 1944 against the pro-Nazi Romanian faction of Ion Antonescu, after the Axis front in Northeastern Romania collapsed under the Soviet offensive.-The coup:...
deposed Antonescu, the daily România Liberă
România Libera
România Liberă is one of the leading newspapers in Romania. Based in Bucharest, the Romanian-language daily has a paid daily circulation of 40,000....
, which was at the time a 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...
tribune, featured Tzigara's name on a list of "national betrayal", which also included Germanophile or fascist intellectuals. Two years later, the pro-communist cabinet of 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....
sidelined Tzigara-Samurcaş, appointing him Honorary Director of the Museum, but effectively stripping him of his responsibilities. At that stage, plans were being examined for the disestablishment of the Peasant Art Section at the Museum, but Tzigara obtained support from Communist Party man Emil Bodnăraş
Emil Bodnaras
Emil Bodnăraş was an influential Romanian Communist politician, an army officer, and a Soviet agent...
and from Presidium Chief
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...
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...
. Tzigara attended the clandestine meetings of the 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...
Association, an anti-communist group formed through the efforts of critic Pavel Chihaia, and which disappeared in 1948. His chief activity, from 1948 to 1952, was the writing of his memoirs.
The official establishment of Romania's 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 the start of several new problems for the aging scholar: many of his belongings were taken away during nationalization
Nationalization in Romania
The nationalization of the means of production was a measure taken by Romania’s new Communist authorities in order to lay the foundation of socialism. The act that allowed this measure to take place was Law 119, adopted by the Great National Assembly on June 11, 1948...
, others were sold in public auction
Public auction
A public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government, or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a government agency with similar authority....
, while he himself was taken to court by some of his former employees. In 1948, he was also stripped of his Academy membership. The following year, his pension was suspended, although, in 1950, he was elected to the International Committee of the History of Art. The National Museum was reopened in 1951 as a "National Museum of Folk Art", under new management.
Marginalization aggravated Tzigara's illnesses, and he died on April 1, 1952. He was buried at Bellu Cemetery, with a small ceremony attended by family and a few of his intellectual friends: Convorbiri colleague Mehedinţi, Junimist philosopher Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
Constantin Radulescu-Motru
Constantin Rădulescu-Motru was a Romanian philosopher, psychologist, sociologist, logician, academic, dramatist, as well as centre-left nationalist politician with a noted anti-fascist discourse...
, physician Daniel Danielopolu and writer 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...
. He had lost his public profile, and the international community was left uninformed of his death: in 1955, an invitation to the 18th Art History Congress was mistakenly addressed to him.
Legacy
Tzigara's contribution as an art historian has received mixed evaluations. According to Lucian Nastasă, his 1911 course at the Bucharest University was the first professional approach to the subject, after the "somewhat organized" attempts on Odobescu's part. Writing in 1920, art historian Gheorghe Oprescu also suggested that, with Nicolae Iorga's reviews, Tzigara's "intelligent articles" were the only ones in the Romanian press to properly educate the public taste. Charles Upson ClarkCharles Upson Clark
Charles Upson Clark was a professor of history at Columbia University. He discovered the Barberini Codex, the earliest Aztec writings on herbal medicines extant.-Biography:...
also rated "Tzigara-Samurcash" as one of Romania's "best-known modern writers" in the field of archeology or ancient art, with Alexandru Lapedatu, George Murnu
George Murnu
George Murnu was a Romanian university professor, archaeologist, historian, translator, and poet of Aromanian origin....
and Abgar Baltazar. Contrarily, a later assessment made by ethnologist Romulus Vulcănescu rated both Tzigara, Iorga and Oprescu as authors of "ethnological essayistics and cultural microhistory
Microhistory
Microhistory is the intensive historical investigation of a well defined smaller unit of research...
", who lacked a global approach to folk art research. Dumitru Hîncu, writing in 2007, noted that, once "a first-rate cultural figure", Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş "no longer says a great deal for your average present-day reader".
The art historian's figure inspired 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...
in writing his novel Scrinul negru, about the decline of Romanian aristocracy. A more unusual trace of his activity is preserved in Tzigara-Samurkasch, the name of a fictional place in the writings of Bukovina native Gregor von Rezzori
Gregor von Rezzori
Gregor von Rezzori , born Gregor Arnulph Hilarius d'Arezzo, was an Austrian-born German-language novelist, memoirist, screenwriter and author of radio plays, as well as an actor, journalist, visual artist, art critic and art collector...
. A comment left by Tzigara in his Peleş Castle
Peles Castle
Peleș Castle is a Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, near Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia, built between 1873 and 1914...
book has fueled cyberculture
Cyberculture
Cyberculture is the culture that has emerged, or is emerging, from the use of computer networks for communication, entertainment and business. It is also the study of various social phenomena associated with the Internet and other new forms of network communication, such as online communities,...
speculation and an urban legend about the existence of 20 lei coins from the 1860s, which are supposedly extremely valuable items.
Tzigara-Samurcaş's Museum building was only finished after his death, later in the 1950s. By the time of its completion, however, the building's purpose had changed, and, historian Andrei Pippidi writes, it "passed through the most humiliating of its stages". Its collections were moved to a new location, and, in 1978, merged into the Village Museum. The Kiseleff building was assigned to the "Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
-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...
Museum", which later became the Communist Party Museum. Shortly after the Romanian Revolution of 1989
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, the Salvation Front Minister of Culture Andrei Pleşu
Andrei Plesu
Andrei Gabriel Pleşu is a Romanian philosopher, essayist, journalist, literary and art critic, and politician.- Biography :Born in Bucharest, the son of Radu Pleşu, a surgeon and Zoe Pleşu , he spent much of his early youth in the country side...
created, on National Museum grounds, a Museum of the Romanian Peasant, which he placed under the direction of painter Horia Bernea
Horia Bernea
-External links:** Editura Liternet: , ISBN: 973-8475-14-7...
. It was officially inaugurated in 1993. Although sometimes described as Tzigara's successor, Bernea, helped by ethnologist Irina Nicolau, merged the scientific function into a conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
project, which is described by various commentators as a radical break with the interwar National Museum.
According to Lucian Boia, Tzigara's work with the Germans in World War I continues to be perceived as a stain on his career, and was as such omitted from official histories which deal with the period. This, Boia notes, happened especially during the latter, 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...
, stage of Romanian communism, when World War I was presented as a moment of anti-German "unanimity". However, the period also brought the publication of Tzigara's collected Scrieri despre arta românească ("Writings on Romanian Art", 1987). The first installment of Tzigara-Samurcaş's memoirs was first published in 1999, ten years after the Revolution, by Grai şi Suflet imprint. Later volumes saw print with Editura Meridiane. These works have raised interest for their historical and biographical content, but, Zigu Ornea
Zigu Ornea
Zigu Ornea was a Romanian cultural historian, literary critic, biographer and book publisher. The author of several monographs focusing on the evolution of Romanian culture in general and Romanian literature in particular, he chronicled the debates and meeting points between conservatism,...
contends, are largely without literary value. Ornea also criticized the two editors, Ioan and Florica Şerb, for only including some citations from Tzigara's contemporaries as notes, instead of a more complete critical apparatus
Critical apparatus
The critical apparatus is the critical and primary source material that accompanies an edition of a text. A critical apparatus is often a by-product of textual criticism....
. Editura Vitruviu also published another volume of Tzigara's memoirs, as Lupta vieţii unui octogenar ("An Octogenarian's Lifelong Combat", 2007).
A large part of his photographic plate
Photographic plate
Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a means of photography. A light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile...
s ended up as a special fund of the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism
Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism
The Universitatea de Arhitectură şi Urbanism Ion Mincu din Bucureşti is a public university in Bucharest, Romania, founded in 1952....
. In May 2010, they were inventoried and published, in print and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
format, as Arhiva Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş. A selection of these works was displayed in 2011, during a special Museum of the Romanian Peasant exhibit, sponsored by the Romanian Cultural Institute
Romanian Cultural Institute
The 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...
. The rest, preserved by the Fine Arts School, were donated to the Museum of the Romanian Peasant in 2000. A Tzigara-Samurcaş Foundation was created with the goal of preserving folklore and handicrafts. Its projects include the revival of Ocna Şugatag
Ocna Sugatag
Ocna Șugatag is a commune in Maramureș County, northern Romania. It is composed of four villages: Breb, Hoteni, Ocna Şugatag and Sat-Şugatag. A health resort, it is well-known for its salt water.-External links:/ *...
hore and the Ethnophone folk music events, sponsored by the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
's Culture 2000
Culture 2000
Culture 2000 was a 7-year European Union programme, which had among its key objectives to preserve and enhance Europe's cultural heritage. Its duration was between 2000 and 2006, and it had a budget of €236.5 million....
.
Tzigara's son, Sandu Tzigara-Samurcaş, was a poet, known for his 1943 volume Culesul de apoi ("The Latter-day Reaping"); his wife was poetess Adrienne Prunkul. His Bucharest salon braved communist censorship and, in the 1950s, hosted poets such as Ion Barbu
Ion Barbu
Ion Barbu was a distinguished Romanian mathematician and poet.He was born in Câmpulung-Muscel, Argeş County, the son of Constantin Barbilian and Smaranda, born Şoiculescu. He attended Ion Brătianu High School in Piteşti and Gheorghe Lazăr High School in Bucharest...
and Nichita Stănescu
Nichita Stanescu
Nichita Stănescu was a Romanian poet and essayist. He is the most acclaimed contemporary Romanian language poet, loved by the public and generally held in esteem by literary critics.-Biography:...
. Sandu had two sisters, of whom Ana Tzigara became, in 1935, the wife of folklorist Marcu Berza. Settled with her husband in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
until her death in 1967, she established her reputation as a post-Impressionist
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
painter and, after the 1989 Revolution, had her retrospective exhibition at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Maria, Tzigara's other daughter, was a violinist for the Romanian Film Orchestra
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...
, married into the Berindei family (and thus became related to historians Dan and Mihnea Berindei).
External links
- Museum of the Romanian Peasant (official page)
- Alexandru-Tzigara Samurcaş Archive, at the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and UrbanismIon Mincu University of Architecture and UrbanismThe Universitatea de Arhitectură şi Urbanism Ion Mincu din Bucureşti is a public university in Bucharest, Romania, founded in 1952....