Ion Heliade Radulescu
Encyclopedia
Ion Heliade Rădulescu or Ion Heliade (also known as Eliad or Eliade Rădulescu; ˈi.on heliˈade rəduˈlesku; January 6, 1802–April 27, 1872) was a Wallachia
n-born Romania
n academic, Romantic
and Classicist
poet, essayist, memoirist, short story writer, newspaper editor and politician. A prolific translator of foreign literature into Romanian
, he was also the author of books on linguistics
and history. For much of his life, Heliade Rădulescu was a teacher at Saint Sava College
in Bucharest
, which he helped reopen. He was a founding member and first president of the Romanian Academy
.
Heliade Rădulescu is considered one of the foremost champions of Romanian culture from the first half of the 19th century, having first risen to prominence through his association with Gheorghe Lazăr
and his support of Lazăr's drive for discontinuing education in Greek
. Over the following decades, he had a major role in shaping the modern Romanian language, but caused controversy when he advocated the massive introduction of Italian
neologisms into the Romanian lexis
. A Romantic nationalist
landowner siding with moderate liberals
, Heliade was among the leaders of the 1848 Wallachian revolution, after which he was forced to spend several years in exile. Adopting an original form of conservatism
, which emphasized the role of the aristocratic boyar
s in Romanian history, he was rewarded for supporting the Ottoman Empire
and clashed with the radical
wing of the 1848 revolutionaries.
, the son of Ilie Rădulescu, a wealthy proprietor who served as the leader of a patrol unit during the 1810s, and Eufrosina Danielopol, who had been educated in Greek
. Three of his siblings died of bubonic plague
before 1829. Throughout his early youth, Ion was the focus of his parents' affectionate supervision: early on, Ilie Rădulescu purchased a house once owned by the scholar Gheorghe Lazăr
on the outskirts of Bucharest
(near Obor
), as a gift for his son. At the time, the Rădulescus were owners of a large garden in the Bucharest area, nearby Herăstrău
, as well as of estates in the vicinity of Făgăraş
and Gârbovi
.
After basic education in Greek with a tutor
known as Alexe, Ion Heliade Rădulescu taught himself reading in Romanian Cyrillic
(reportedly by studying the Alexander Romance
with the help of his father's Oltenia
n servants). He subsequently became an avid reader of popular novels, especially during his 1813 sojourn in Gârbovi (where he had been sent after other areas of the country came to be ravaged by Caragea's plague
). After 1813, the teenaged Rădulescu was a pupil of the Orthodox
monk Naum Râmniceanu; in 1815, he moved on to the Greek school at Schitu Măgureanu, in Bucharest, and, in 1818, to the Saint Sava School
, where he studied under Gheorghe Lazăr's supervision.
Between his 1820 graduation and 1821, when effects of the Wallachian uprising
led to the School ceasing its activities, he was kept as Lazăr's assistant teacher, tutoring in arithmetics and geometry
. It was during those years that he adopted the surname Heliade (also rendered Heliad, Eliad or Eliade), which, he later explained, was a Greek version of his patronymic
, in turn stemming from the Romanian version of Elijah.
s of the day, such as Eufrosin Poteca
, and, eventually, also opened an art class overseen by the Croat
Carol Valştain. This re-establishment came as a result of ordinances issued by Prince Grigore IV Ghica
, who had just been assigned by the Ottoman Empire to the throne of Wallachia upon the disestablishment of Phanariote
rule, encouraging the marginalization of ethnic Greeks
who had assumed public office in previous decades. Thus, Prince Ghica had endorsed education in Romanian and, in one of his official firmans, defined teaching in Greek as "the foundation of evils" (temelia răutăţilor).
During the late 1820s, Heliade became involved in cultural policies. In 1827, he and Dinicu Golescu
founded Soţietatea literară românească (the Romanian Literary Society), which, through its program (mapped out by Heliade himself), proposed Saint Sava's transformation into a college
, the opening of another such institution in Craiova
, and the creation of schools in virtually all Wallachian localities. In addition, Soţietatea attempted to encourage the establishment of Romanian-language newspapers, calling for an end to the state monopoly on printing press
es. The grouping, headquartered on central Bucharest's Podul Mogoşoaiei
, benefited from Golescu's experience abroad, and was soon joined by two future Princes, Gheorghe Bibescu
and Barbu Dimitrie Ştirbei
. Its character was based on Freemasonry
; around that time, Heliade is known to have become a Freemason, as did a large section of his generation.
In 1828, Heliade published his first work, an essay on Romanian grammar
, in the Transylvania
n city of Hermannstadt
(which was part of the Austrian Empire
at the time), and, on April 20, 1829, began printing the Bucharest-based paper Curierul Românesc. This was the most successful of several attempts to create a local newspaper, something Golescu first attempted in 1828. Publishing articles in both Romanian and French
, Curierul Românesc had, starting in 1836, its own literary supplement, under the title of Curier de Ambe Sexe; in print until 1847, it notably published one of Heliade's most famous poems, Zburătorul. Curierul Românesc was edited as a weekly, and later as a bimonthly, until 1839, when it began to be issued three or four times a week. Its best-known contributors were Heliade himself, Grigore Alexandrescu
, Costache Negruzzi, Dimitrie Bolintineanu
, Ioan Catina, Vasile Cârlova
, and Iancu Văcărescu
.
In 1823, Heliade met Maria Alexandrescu, with whom he fell passionately in love, and whom he later married. By 1830, the Heliades' two children, a son named Virgiliu and a daughter named Virgilia, died in infancy; subsequently, their marriage entered a long period of crisis, marked by Maria's frequent outbursts of jealousy. Ion Heliade probably had a number of extramarital affairs: a Wallachian Militia officer named Zalic, who became known during the 1840s, is thought by some, including the literary critic George Călinescu
, to have been the writer's illegitimate son. Before the death of her first child, Maria Heliade welcomed into her house Grigore Alexandrescu, himself a celebrated writer, whom Ion suspected had become her lover. Consequently, the two authors became bitter rivals: Ion Heliade referred to Alexandrescu as "that ingrate", and, in an 1838 letter to George Bariţ
, downplayed his poetry and character (believing that, in one of his fable
s, Alexandrescu had depicted himself as a nightingale
, he commented that, in reality, he was "a piteous rook
dressed in foreign feathers"). Despite these household conflicts, Maria Heliade gave birth to five other children, four daughters and one son (Ion, born 1846).
In October 1830, together with his uncle Nicolae Rădulescu, he opened the first privately-owned printing press in his country, operating on his property at Cişmeaua Mavrogheni, in Obor
(the land went by the name of Câmpul lui Eliad—"Eliad's Field", and housed several other large buildings). Among the first works he published was a collection of poems by Alphonse de Lamartine
, translated by Heliade from French
, and grouped together with some of his own poems. Later, he translated a textbook on meter
and Louis-Benjamin Francoeur's standard manual of Arithmetics, as well as works by Enlightenment
authors — Voltaire
's Mahomet, ou le fanatisme
, and stories by Jean-François Marmontel
. They were followed, in 1839, by a version of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
's Julie, or the New Heloise.
Heliade began a career as a civil servant
after the Postelnic
ie commissioned him to print the Official Bulletin
, and later climbed through the official hierarchy
, eventually serving as Clucer
. This rise coincided with the establishment of the Regulamentul Organic
regime, inaugurated, upon the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, by an Imperial Russian
administration under Pavel Kiselyov
. When Kiselyov placed an order with Heliade for the printing of official documents, including the Regulament, the writer and his family were made prosperous by the sales. Nevertheless, Heliade maintained contacts with the faction of reformist boyar
s: in 1833, together with Ion Câmpineanu, Iancu Văcărescu
, Ioan Voinescu II, Constantin Aristia, Ştefan
and Nicolae Golescu
, as well as others, he founded the short-lived Soţietatea Filarmonică (the Philharmonic Society), which advanced a cultural agenda (and was especially active in raising funds for the National Theater of Wallachia
). Aside from its stated cultural goals, Soţietatea Filarmonică continued a covert political activity.
In 1834, when Prince Alexandru II Ghica
came to the throne, Heliade became one of his close collaborators, styling himself "court poet". Several of the poems and discourses he authored during the period are written as panegyric
s, and dedicated to Ghica, whom Heliade depicted as an ideal prototype of a monarch. As young reformists came into conflict with the prince, he kept his neutrality, arguing that all sides involved represented a privileged minority, and that the disturbances were equivalent to "the quarrel of wolves and the noise made by those in higher positions over the torn-apart animal that is the peasant". He was notably critical of the radical
Mitică Filipescu, whom he satirized in the poem Căderea dracilor ("The Demons' Fall"), and later defined his own position with the words "I hate tyrant
s. I fear anarchy
".
It was also in 1834 that Heliade began teaching at the Soţietatea Filarmonicăs school (alongside Aristia and the musician Ioan Andrei Wachmann), and published his first translations from Lord Byron (in 1847, he completed the translation of Byron's Don Juan
). The next year, he began printing Gazeta Teatrului Naţional (official voice of the National Theater, published until 1836), and translated Molière
's Amphitryon
into Romanian. In 1839, Heliade also translated Miguel de Cervantes
' Don Quixote from a French source. The first collection of his own prose and poetry works saw print in 1836. Interested in the development of local art
, he contributed a brochure
on drawing and architecture in 1837, and, during the same year, opened the first permanent exhibit in Wallachia (featuring copies of Western paintings, portraits, and gypsum
casts
of various known sculptures).
By the early 1840s, Heliade began expanding on his notion that modern Romanian needed to emphasize its connections with other Romance languages
through neologisms from Italian
, and, to this goal, he published ("Parallelism between the Romanian language and Italian", 1840) and ("Parallelism between the Romanian and Italian Dialects or the Form or Grammar of These Two Dialects", 1841). The two books were followed by a compendium
, Prescurtare de gramatica limbei româno-italiene ("Summary of the Grammar of the Romanian-Italian Language"), and, in 1847, by a comprehensive list of Romanian words that had originated in Slavic
, Greek
, Ottoman Turkish
, Hungarian
, and German
(see Romanian lexis
). By 1846, he was planning to begin work on a "universal library", which was to include, among other books, the major the philosophical writings of, among others, Plato
, Aristotle
, Roger Bacon
, René Descartes
, Baruch Spinoza
, John Locke
, Gottfried Leibniz
, David Hume
, Immanuel Kant
, Johann Gottlieb Fichte
and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
.
, his relations with Heliade had soured. In contrast with his earlier call for moderation, the writer decided to side with the liberal current
in its conspiratorial
opposition to Bibescu. The so-called "Trandafiloff affair" of early 1844 was essential in this process — it was provoked by Bibescu's decision to lease all Wallachian mines to a Russian engineer named Alexander Trandafiloff, a measure considered illegal by the Assembly and ultimately ending in Bibescu's decision to dissolve his legislative. These events made Heliade publish a pamphlet
titled Măceşul ("The Eglantine"), which was heavily critical of Russian influence and reportedly sold over 30,000 copies. It was centered on the pun alluding to Trandafiloff's name — trandafir cu of în coadă (lit. "a rose ending in -of", but also "a rose with grief for a stem"). Making additional covert reference to Trandafiloff as "the eglantine", it featured the lyrics:
In spring 1848, when the first European revolutions
had erupted, Heliade was attracted into cooperation with Frăţia, a secret society
founded by Nicolae Bălcescu
, Ion Ghica
, Christian Tell
, and Alexandru G. Golescu
, and sat on its leadership committee. He also collaborated with the reform-minded French
teacher Jean Alexandre Vaillant
, who was ultimately expelled after his activities were brought to the attention of authorities. On April 19, 1848, following financial setbacks, Curierul Românesc ceased printing (this prompted Heliade to write Cântecul ursului, "The Bear's Song", a piece ridiculing his political enemies).
Heliade progressively distanced himself from the more radical groups, especially after discussions began on the issue of land reform
and the disestablishment of the boyar
class. Initially, he accepted the reforms, and, after the matter was debated within Frăţia just before rebellion broke out, he issued a resolution acknowledging this (the document was probably inspired by Nicolae Bălcescu
). The compromise also set other goals, including national independence, responsible government
, civil rights
and equality, universal taxation, a larger Assembly, five-year terms of office for Princes (and their election by the National Assembly), freedom of the press
, and decentralization
. On June 21, 1848, present in Islaz
alongside Tell and the Orthodox
priest known as Popa Şapcă, he read out these goals to a cheering crowd, in what was to be the effective start of the uprising (see Proclamation of Islaz
). Four days after the Islaz events, the revolution succeeded in toppling Bibescu, whom it replaced with a Provisional Government which immediately attracted Russian hostility. Presided over by Metropolitan Neofit, it included Heliade, who was also Minister of Education, as well as Tell, Ştefan Golescu
, Gheorghe Magheru
, and, for a short while, the Bucharest merchant Gheorghe Scurti.
Disputes regarding the shape of land reform continued, and in late July, the Government created Comisia proprietăţii (the Commission on Property), representing both peasants and landlords and overseen by Alexandru Racoviţă and Ion Ionescu de la Brad
. It too failed to reach a compromise over the amount of land to be allocated to peasants, and it was ultimately recalled by Heliade, who indicated that the matter was to be deliberated once a new Assembly had been voted into office. In time, the writer adopted a conservative
outlook in respect to boyar tradition, developing a singular view of Romanian history around the issues of property and rank in Wallachia. In the words of historian Nicolae Iorga
: "Eliad had wanted to lead, as dictator
, this movement that added liberal institutions to the old society that had been almost completely maintained in place".
Like most other revolutionaries, Heliade favored maintaining good relations with the Ottoman Empire, Wallachia's suzerain
power, hoping that this policy could help counter Russian pressures. As Sultan
Abdülmecid I
was assessing the situation, Süleyman Paşa was dispatched to Bucharest, where he advised the revolutionaries to carry on with their diplomatic efforts, and ordered the Provisional Government to be replaced by Locotenenţa domnească, a triumvirate
of regent
s comprising Heliade, Tell, and Nicolae Golescu
. Nonetheless, the Ottomans were pressured by Russia into joining a clampdown on revolutionary forces, which resulted, during September, in the reestablishment of Regulamentul Organic
and its system of government. Together with Tell, Heliade sought refuge at the British
consulate in Bucharest, where they were hosted by Robert Gilmour Colquhoun
in exchange for a deposit of Austrian florins
.
-ruled Banat
, before moving into self-exile in France
while his wife and children were sent to Ottoman lands. In 1850–1851, several of his memoirs of the revolution, written in both Romanian and French, were published in Paris
, the city were he had taken residence. He shared his exile with Tell and Magheru, as well as with Nicolae Rusu Locusteanu.
It was during his time in Paris that he met with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
, the anarchist
philosopher who had come to advance a moderate project around small-scale property (to counter both economic liberalism
and socialism
). Heliade used this opportunity to make the Romanian cause known to the staff of Proudhon's La Voix de Peuple. Major French publications to which he contributed included La Presse
, La Semaine, and Le Siècle
, where he also helped publicize political issues pertaining to his native land. Heliade was credited with having exercised influence over historian Élias Regnault; Nicolae Iorga
argued that Regnault's discarded his own arguments in favor of a unified Romanian state to include Transylvania
(a concept which Heliade had come to resent), as well amending his earlier account of the 1848 events, after being exposed to "Eliad's propaganda
".
While claiming to represent the entire body of Wallachian émigré
s, Heliade had by then grown disappointed with the political developments, and, in his private correspondence, commented that Romanians
in general were "idle", "womanizing", as well as having "the petty and base envies of women", and argued that they required "supervision [and] leadership". His fortune was declining, especially after pressures began for him to pay his many debts, and he often lacked the funds for basic necessities. At the time, he continuously clashed with other former revolutionaries, including Bălcescu, C. A. Rosetti
, and the Golescus, who resented his ambiguous stance in respect to reforms, and especially his willingness to accept Regulamentul Organic as an instrument of power; Heliade issued the first in a series of pamphlet
s condemning young radicals, contributing to factionalism inside the émigré camp. His friendship with Tell also soured, after Heliade began speculating that the revolutionary general was committing adultery
with Maria.
In 1851, Heliade reunited with his family on the island of Chios
, where they stayed until 1854. Following the evacuation of Russian troops from the Danubian Principalities
during the Crimean War
, Heliade was appointed by the Porte to represent the Romanian nation in Shumen
, as part of Omar Pasha
's staff. Again expressing sympathy for the Ottoman cause, he was rewarded with the title of Bey
. According to Iorga, Heliade's attitudes reflected his hope of "recovering the power lost" in 1848; the historian also stressed that Omar never actually made use of Heliade's services.
Later in the same year, he decided to return to Bucharest, but his stay was cut short when the Austrian authorities, who, under the leadership of Johann Coronini-Cronberg, had taken over administration of the country as a neutral force, asked for him to be expelled. Returning to Paris, Heliade continued to publish works on political and cultural issues, including an analysis of the Europe
an situation after the Peace Treaty of 1856
and an 1858 essay on the Bible
. In 1859, he published his own translation of the Septuagint, under the name Biblia sacră ce cuprinde Noul şi Vechiul Testament ("The Holy Bible, Comprising the New
and Old Testament
").
As former revolutionaries, grouped in the Partida Naţională
faction, advanced the idea of union between Wallachia and Moldavia
in election for the ad-hoc Divan, Heliade opted not to endorse any particular candidate, while rejecting outright the candidature of former prince Alexandru II Ghica
(in a private letter, he stated: "let them elect whomever [of the candidates for the throne], for he would still have the heart of a man and some principles of a Romanian; only don't let that creature [Ghica] be elected, for he is capable of going to the dogs with this country").
Later in 1859, Heliade returned to Bucharest, which had become the capital of the United Principalities after the common election of Alexander John Cuza
and later that of an internationally-recognized Principality of Romania
. It was during that period that he again added Rădulescu to his surname. Until his death, he published influential volumes on a variety of issues, while concentrating on contributions to history and literary criticism, and editing a new collection of his own poems. In 1863, Domnitor
Cuza awarded him an annual pension
of 2,000 lei
.
One year after the creation of the Romanian Academy
(under the name of "Academic Society"), he was elected its first President (1867), serving until his death. In 1869, Heliade and Alexandru Papiu-Ilarian successfully proposed the Italian
diplomat and philologist
Giovenale Vegezzi-Ruscalla as honorary member of the Academy. By then, like most other 1848 Romantics, he had become the target of criticism from the younger generation of intellectuals, represented by the Iaşi
-based literary society Junimea
; in 1865, during one of its early public sessions, Junimea explicitly rejected works by Heliade and Iancu Văcărescu
.
During the elections of 1866, Heliade Rădulescu won a seat in the Chamber
as a deputy for the city of Târgovişte
. As Cuza had been ousted from power by a coalition of political groupings, he was the only Wallachian deputy to join Nicolae Ionescu
and other disciples of Simion Bărnuţiu
in opposing the appointment of Carol of Hohenzollern
as Domnitor and a proclamation stressing the perpetuity of the Moldo-Wallachian union. Speaking in Parliament
, he likened the adoption of foreign rule to the Phanariote
period. The opposition was nevertheless weak, and the resolution was passed with a large majority.
Among Ion Heliade Rădulescu's last printed works were a textbook on poetics
(1868) and a volume on Romanian orthography
. By that time, he had come to consider himself a prophet
-like figure, and the redeemer of his motherland, notably blessing his friends with the words "Christ
and Magdalene
be with you!" His mental health declining, he died at his Bucharest residence on Polonă Street, nr. 20. Heliade Rădulescu's grandiose funeral
ceremony attracted a large number of his admirers; the coffin was buried in the courtyard of the Mavrogheni Church.
, in which he synthesized Enlightenment
tenets and Romantic nationalist
ideals of the 1848 generation. At a time when Romanian was being discarded by the educated in favor of French
or Greek
, he and his supporters argued in favor of adapting Romanian to the requirements of modernization
; he wrote: "Young people, preoccupy yourselves with the national language, speak and write in it; prepare yourselves for its study, for its cultivation, — and cultivating a language means to write in it about all sciences and arts, about all eras and peoples. The language alone unites, strengthens and defines a nation; preoccupy yourselves with it first and foremost, as, through this, you shall be carrying out the most fundamental of policies, you shall be laying the foundation of nationality".
Heliade inaugurated his series of proposals for reforming the language in 1828, when his work on Romanian grammar
called for the Cyrillic script
to be reduced to 27 letters, reflecting phonetic spelling (for this rule, Heliade cited the example of the Latin alphabet
as used in Ancient Rome
). Soon after, he began a campaign in favor of introducing Romance
neologisms, which he wanted to adapt to Romanian spelling. By that time, Romanians in various regions had grown aware of the need to unify the varieties of Romanian and create a standard Romanian lexis
: this notion was first supported by the Transylvania
ns Gheorghe Şincai
and Petru Maior
, whose proposal was to unite Romanian around the language used in church services, both Orthodox
and Greek-Catholic
(see Transylvanian School
). Heliade, who first proposed a language regulator
(an idea which was to be employed in creating the Romanian Academy
), expanded on this legacy, while stressing that the dialect spoken in Muntenia
, which had formed the basis of religious texts published by the 16th century printer Coresi
, serve as the standard language.
In addition, he advocated aesthetical
guidelines in respect to the standard shape of Romanian, stressing three basic principles in selecting words: "proper wording", which called for vernacular
words of Latin
origin to be prioritized; "harmony", which meant that words of Latin origin were to be used in their most popular form, even in cases where euphony had been altered by prolonged usage; and "energy", through which Heliade favored the primacy of the shortest and most expressive of synonym
s used throughout Romanian-speaking areas. In parallel, Heliade frowned upon purist
policies of removing widely-used neologisms of foreign origin — arguing that these were "a fatality", he indicated that the gains of such a process would have been shadowed by the losses.
These early theories exercised a lasting influence, and, when the work of unifying Romanian was accomplished in the late 19th century, they were used as a source of inspiration: Romania's major poet of the period, Mihai Eminescu
, himself celebrated for having created the modern literary language
, gave praise to Heliade for "writing just as [the language] is spoken". This assessment was shared by Ovid Densusianu
, who wrote: "Thinking of how people wrote back then, in thick, drawly, sleepy phrases, Heliade thus shows himself superior to all his contemporaries, and … we can consider him the first prose writer who brings in the note of modernity
".
's theory that a language could be developed from conventions, eventually brought about the rejection of his own earlier views. By the early 1840s, he postulated that Romanian and Italian
were not distinct languages, but rather dialects of Latin, which prompted him to declare the necessity of replacing Romanian words with "superior" Italian ones. One of his stanza
s, using his version of the Romanian Latin alphabet
, read:
Approximated into modern Romanian and English, this is:
The target of criticism and ridicule, these principles were dismissed by Eminescu as "errors" and "a priori systems
of orthography
". During their existence, they competed with both August Treboniu Laurian
's adoption of strong Latin mannerisms and the inconsistent Francized
system developed in Moldavia by Gheorghe Asachi
, which, according to the 20th century literary critic Garabet Ibrăileanu
, constituted "the boyar
language of his time". Ibrăileanu also noted that Asachi had come to admire Heliade's attempts, and had praised them as an attempt to revive the language "spoken by Trajan
's men" — in reference to Roman Dacia
.
While defending the role Moldavian politicians in the 1840s had in shaping modern Romanian culture, Ibrăileanu argued that practices such as those of Heliade and Laurian carried the risk of "suppressing the Romanian language", and credited Alecu Russo
, more than his successors at Junimea
, with providing a passionate defense of spoken Romanian. He notably cited Russo's verdict: "The modern political hatred aimed at [Russia] has thrown us into Italianism, into Frenchism, and into other -isms, that were not and are not Romanianism, but the political perils, in respect to the enslavement of the Romanian soul, have since passed; true Romanianism ought to hold its head up high". The literary critic George Călinescu
also connected Heliade's experimentation to his Russophobia, in turn reflecting his experiences as a revolutionary: "Hating Slavism
and the Russians, who had striven to underline [Slavic influences in Romanian], he said to himself that he was to serve his motherland by discarding all Slavic vestiges". Călinescu notably attributed Heliade's inconsistency to his "autodidacticism
", which, he contended, was responsible for "[his] casual implication in all issues, the unexpected move from common sense ideas to the most insane theories".
Overall, Heliade's experiments had marginal appeal, and their critics (Eminescu included) contrasted them with Heliade's own tenets. Late in his life, Heliade seems to have acknowledged this, notably writing: "This language, as it is written today by people who can speak Romanian, is my work". One of the few authors to be influenced by the theory was the Symbolist
poet Alexandru Macedonski
, who, during his youth, wrote several pieces in Heliade's Italian-sounding Romanian. Despite Heliade's thesis being largely rejected, some of its practical effects on everyday language were very enduring, especially in cases where Italian words were borrowed as a means to illustrate nuances and concepts for which Romanian had no equivalent. These include afabil ("affable"), adorabil ("adorable"), ("colossal"), implacabil ("implacable"), inefabil ("ineffable"), inert ("inert"), mistic ("mystical"), pervers ("perverse" or "pervert"), suav ("suave"), and venerabil ("venerable").
, Heliade was equally influenced by Classicism
and the Age of Enlightenment
. His work, written in a special cultural context (where Classiciasm and Romanticism coexisted), took the middle path between two opposing camps: the Romantics (Alecu Russo
, Mihail Kogălniceanu
and others) and the Classicists (Gheorghe Asachi
, Grigore Alexandrescu
, George Baronzi
etc.). George Călinescu
defined Heliade as "a devourer of books", noting that his favorites, who all played a part in shaping his style and were many times the subject of his translations, included: Alphonse de Lamartine
, Dante Aligheri, Ludovico Ariosto
, Torquato Tasso
, Voltaire
, Jean-François Marmontel
, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
, and François-René de Chateaubriand
.
His poetic style, influenced from early on by Lamartine, was infused with Classicism during his middle age, before he again adopted Romantic tenets. Initially making use of guidelines set by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
in respect to poetry, he came to oppose them after reading Victor Hugo
's Romantic preface to Cromwell
(without ever discarding them altogether).
Like the Classicists, Heliade favored a literature highlighting "types" of characters, as the union of universal traits and particular characteristics, but, like the Romantics, he encouraged writers to write from a subjective
viewpoint, which he believed to be indicative of their mission as "prophets, … men who criticize, who point out their society's plagues and who look on to a happier future, waiting for a savior". Through the latter ideal of moral regeneration, Heliade also complimented the Romantic stress on "national specificity", which he adopted in his later years. At the same time, he centered much of his own literary work on non-original material, either by compiling it from various translations or by translating from a single source — having his focus on creating the basis for further development by introducing samples of untapped literary genre
s and styles to Romanian literature
.
While several of Heliade's contributions to literature have been considered to be of low importance, many others, above all his Romantic poem Zburătorul, are hailed as major accomplishments. Zburătorul, borrowing from Romanian mythology its main character (the eponymous incubus
-like being who visits nubile girls at night) also serves to depict the atmosphere of a Wallachian village from that period. According to George Călinescu
, the poem's value partly relies on its depiction of lust through the girls' eyes: "lacking the rages of Sappho
and Phaedra
. The puberty
crisis is explained through mythology and cured through magic
".
An 1837 essay of his, centered on a debate regarding the translation of Homer
's works into Romanian, featured a series of counsels to younger writers: "This is not the time for criticism, children, it is the time for writing, so write as much and as good as you can, but without meanness; create, do not ruin; for the nation receives and blesses the maker and curses the destroyer. Write with a clear conscience". Paraphrased as "Write anything, boys, as long as you go on writing!" (Scrieţi, băieţi, orice, numai scrieţi!), this quote became the topic of derision in later decades, and was hailed as an example of Heliade's failure to distinguish between quality and quantity. The latter verdict was considered unfair by the literary historian Şerban Cioculescu
and others, who argued that Ion Heliade Rădulescu's main goal was to encourage the rapid development of local literature to a European level. Although he recognized, among other things, Heliade's merits of having removed pretentious boyar discourse from poetry and having favored regular rhyme
, Paul Zarifopol accused him and Gheorghe Asachi
of "tastelessness" and "literary insecurity". He elaborated: "Rădulescu was arguably afflicted with this sin more than Asachi, given his unfortunate ambitions of fabricating a literary language".
Heliade's name is closely connected with the establishment of Romanian-language theater, mirroring the activities of Asachi in Moldavia
. Ever since he partook in creating Soţietatea Filarmonică and the Bucharest Theater
, to the moment of his death, he was involved in virtually all major developments in local dramatic and operatic art. In August 1834, he was one of the intellectuals who organized the first show hosted by Soţietatea Filarmonică, which featured, alongside a cavatina
from Vincenzo Bellini
's Il pirata
, Heliade's translation of Voltaire
's Mahomet
. In subsequent years, members of the association carried out the translation of French theater
and other foreign pieces, while encouraging Romanian-language dramatists, an effort which was to become successful during and after the 1840s (when Constantin Aristia and Costache Caragiale
entered their most creative periods). Heliade himself advocated didacticism
in drama (defining it as "the preservation of social health"), and supported professionalism in acting
.
Ion Heliade Rădulescu made extensive use of the Romantic nationalist
focus on history, which he initially applied to his poetry. In this instance as well, the goal was to educate his public; he wrote: "Nothing is worthy of derision as much as someone taking pride in his parents and ancestors and nothing more worthy of praise than when the ancestors' great deeds serve as a model and an impulse for competition among descendants". The main historical figure in his poetry is the late 16th century Wallachian Prince Michael the Brave, the first one to rally Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania
under a single rule: celebrated in Heliade's poem O noapte pe ruinele Târgoviştii ("A Night on the Ruins of Târgovişte
"), he was to be the main character of a lengthy epic poem, Mihaiada, of which only two sections, written in very different styles, were ever completed (in 1845 and 1859 respectively). Other historical poems also expanded on the ideal of a single Romanian state, while presenting the 1848 generation as a model for future Romanian politicians.
Throughout the 1860s, one of Heliade's main interests was an investigation into the issues involving Romanian history during the origin of the Romanians and the early medieval history
of the Danubian Principalities
. At a time when, in Moldavia, the newly-surfaced Chronicle of Huru
traced a political lineage of the country to the Roman Empire
through the means of a narrative which was later proven to be entirely fictional, Heliade made use of its theses to draw similar conclusions regarding Wallachia. His conservative
views were thus expanded to the level of historiographic
thesis: according to Heliade, boyars had been an egalitarian
and permeable class, which, from as early as the times of Radu Negru
, had adopted humane laws that announced and welcomed those of the French Revolution
(he notably claimed that the county
-based administration was a democratic
one, and that it had been copied from the Israelite
model as depicted in the Bible
).
The ideal he expressed in a work of the period, Equilibru între antithesi ("A Balance between Antitheses
") was moderate progressivism
, with the preservation of social peace. In Tudor Vianu
's view, partly based on earlier assessments by other critics, Equilibru, with its stress on making political needs coincide with social ones through the means of counterweights, evidenced strong influences from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
's thought, as well as vaguer ones from that of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
. Nonetheless, his system parted with Hegelianism
in that, instead of seeking a balance between the Geist
and existence, it considered the three states of human progress (Thesis, antithesis, synthesis
) the reflection of a mystical number
favored throughout history.
In parallel, Heliade worked on a vast synthesis of his own philosophy of history
, based on his interpretation of Biblical theology
. His 1858 work, Biblice ("Biblical Writings"), was supposed to form the first of four sections in a Christian
history of the world. Referring to this project, Călinescu defined Heliade's ideas as "interesting, no matter how naïve at times, in general Voltairian
and Freemason
[in shape]". Biblicele partly evidenced Heliade's interests in the Talmud
and Zohar
-like gematria
— with emphasis placed on the numbers 3, 7, and 10 —, as well as ample reference to the Sephirot. One of his original thoughts on the matter was a reference to "deltas
" (triangles) of deities
— Elohim
-Spirit
-Matter
and Spirit-Matter-the Universe. A portion of Heliade Rădulescu's poems also draw on religious themes and discourse. According to George Călinescu
, the poet had attempted to create a parallel to both The Divine Comedy
and the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation
, with a style influenced by Lamartine and Victor Hugo
.
, he expanded on the contrast between creation and social setting (in reference to mankind, it stressed Te iartă să faci răul, iar binele nici mort — "They forgive the evil committed against them, but never the good"). A noted author of satire
, he used it as a vehicle to criticize social customs of his day, as well as to publicize personal conflicts and resentments. As a maverick, he attacked political figures on both sides: conservatives who mimicked liberalism were the subject of his Areopagiul bestielor ("The Areopagus
of the Beasts"), while many other of his post-1848 prose and poetry pieces mocked people on the left wing
of liberalism, most notably C. A. Rosetti
and his supporters. During and after his exile, his conflicts with Cezar Bolliac
and Ion Ghica
also made the latter two the target of irony, most likely based on Heliade's belief that they intended to downplay his contributions to the Wallachian Revolution of 1848
.
His autobiographical pieces, marked by acid comments on Greek-language
education, and, in this respect, similar to the writings of his friend Costache Negruzzi, also display a dose of self-irony. The enduring polemic with Grigore Alexandrescu
, as well as his quarrel with Bolliac, formed the basis of his pamphlet
Domnul Sarsailă autorul ("Mr. Old Nick
, the Author"), an attack on what Heliade viewed as writers whose pretentions contrasted with their actual mediocrity. In other short prose works, Ion Heliade Rădulescu commented on the caricature-like nature of parvenu
Bucharest
ers (the male prototype, Coconul Drăgan, was "an ennobled hoodlum", while the female one, Coconiţa Drăgana, always wished to be the first in line for the unction
).
In various of his articles, he showed himself a critic of social trends. During the 1830s, he reacted against misogyny
, arguing in favor of women's rights
: "Who has made man create himself unfair laws and customs, in order for him to cultivate his spirit and forsake [women] into ignorance…?". In 1859, after the Jewish community
in Galaţi
fell victim to a pogrom
, he spoke out against Antisemitic blood libel accusations: "Jews do not eat children in England
, nor do they in France
, nor do they in Germany
, nor do they do so wherever humans have become humans. Where else are they accused of such an inhumane deed? Wherever peoples are still Barbaric
or semi-Barbaric".
A large portion of Heliade's satirical works rely on mockery of speech patterns and physical traits: notable portraits resulting from this style include mimicking the manner of Transylvanian educators (with their strict adherence to Latin
etymologies
), and his critique of the exophthalmos
Rosetti (with eyes "more bulged than those of a giant frog"). Without sharing Heliade's views on literature, the younger Titu Maiorescu
drew comparisons with his predecessor for launching into similar attacks, and usually in respect to the same rivals.
A monument to Ion Heliade Rădulescu, sculpted by the Italian
artist Ettore Ferrari
, stands in front of the University
building in central Bucharest. In addition to naming a lecture room after him, the Romanian Academy
has instituted the Ion Heliade Rădulescu Award — in 1880, it was awarded to Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu
, for his Cuvinte den bătrâni, and worth 5,000 gold lei
. Ten years after, the prize was the center of a scandal, involving on one side the dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale
and, on the other, the cultural establishment formed around members of the National Liberal Party
, including Hasdeu and Dimitrie Sturdza
. The latter disapproved of Caragiale's anti-Liberal stance and his association with Junimea
, as well as to his anti-nationalism
, dislike of didacticism
, and alleged cosmopolitanism
. They thus refused to grant him the prize.
A high school in his native Târgovişte
bears the name Ion Heliade Rădulescu, as does a village in the commune of Ziduri
, Buzău County
. The grave of Take Ionescu
, an influential political figure and one-time Prime Minister of Romania
who was Heliade's descendant, is situated in Sinaia Monastery
, in the immediate vicinity of a fir tree planted by Heliade and his fellow 1848 revolutionaries.
In his 1870 poem Epigonii ("The Epigones"), Mihai Eminescu
paid tribute to early Romanian-language writers and their contributions to literature. An entire stanza
is dedicated to Heliade:
During the early 1880s, Alexandru Macedonski
and his Literatorul attempted to preserve Heliade's status and his theories when these were faced with criticism from Junimea; by 1885, this rivalry ended in defeat for Macedonski, and contributed to the disestablishment of Literatorul.
Although a Junimist for a large part of his life, Ion Luca Caragiale himself saw a precursor in Heliade, and even expressed some sympathy for his political ideals. During the 1890s, he republished a piece by Heliade in the Conservative Party's main journal, Epoca. One of Caragiale's most significant characters, the Transylvanian schoolteacher Marius Chicoş Rostogan, shares many traits with his counterparts in Heliade's stories. Developing his own theory, he claimed that there was a clear difference between, on one hand, the generation of Heliade Rădulescu, Ion Câmpineanu, and Nicolae Bălcescu
, and, on the other, the National Liberal establishment formed around Pantazi Ghica
, Nicolae Misail
and Mihail Pătârlăgeanu — he identified the latter grouping with hypocrisy
, demagogy
, and political corruption
, while arguing that the former could have found itself best represented by the Conservatives.
Comments about Heliade and his Bucharest statue feature prominently in Macedonski's short story Nicu Dereanu, whose main character, a daydreaming Bohemian
, idolizes the Wallachian writer. Sburătorul
, a modernist
literary magazine of the interwar period
, edited by Eugen Lovinescu
, owed its name to Zburătorul, making use of an antiquated variant of the name (a form favored by Heliade). During the same years, Camil Petrescu
made reference to Heliade in his novel Un om între oameni, which depicts events from Nicolae Bălcescu
's lifetime.
In his Autobiography, the Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade
indicated that it was likely that his ancestors, whose original surname was Ieremia, had adopted the new name as a tribute to Heliade Rădulescu, whom they probably admired.
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
n-born Romania
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 academic, Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
and Classicist
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
poet, essayist, memoirist, short story writer, newspaper editor and politician. A prolific translator of foreign literature into 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...
, he was also the author of books on linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
and history. For much of his life, Heliade Rădulescu was a teacher at Saint Sava College
Saint Sava College
Saint Sava College was one of the earliest academic institutions in Wallachia, Romania. It was the predecessor to both Saint Sava National College and the University of Bucharest.-History:...
in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, which he helped reopen. He was a founding member and first president of the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
.
Heliade Rădulescu is considered one of the foremost champions of Romanian culture from the first half of the 19th century, having first risen to prominence through his association with Gheorghe Lazăr
Gheorghe Lazar
Gheorghe Lazăr , born and died in Avrig, Sibiu County, was a Transylvanian-born Romanian scholar, the founder of the first Romanian language school - in Bucharest, 1818.-Biography:...
and his support of Lazăr's drive for discontinuing education in Greek
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;...
. Over the following decades, he had a major role in shaping the modern Romanian language, but caused controversy when he advocated the massive introduction of Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
neologisms into the Romanian lexis
Romanian lexis
The lexis of the Romanian language , a Romance language, has changed over the centuries as the language evolved from Vulgar Latin, to Proto-Romanian, to medieval, modern and contemporary Romanian.-Medieval Romanian:...
. A Romantic nationalist
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...
landowner siding with moderate liberals
Liberalism and radicalism in Romania
This article gives an overview of Liberalism and Radicalism in Romania. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in this scheme...
, Heliade was among the leaders of the 1848 Wallachian revolution, after which he was forced to spend several years in exile. Adopting an original form of conservatism
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
, which emphasized the role of the aristocratic 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....
s in Romanian history, he was rewarded for supporting the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and clashed with the radical
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
wing of the 1848 revolutionaries.
Early life
Heliade Rădulescu was born in TârgovişteTârgoviste
Târgoviște is a city in the Dâmbovița county of Romania. It is situated on the right bank of the Ialomiţa River. , it had an estimated population of 89,000. One village, Priseaca, is administered by the city.-Name:...
, the son of Ilie Rădulescu, a wealthy proprietor who served as the leader of a patrol unit during the 1810s, and Eufrosina Danielopol, who had been educated in Greek
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;...
. Three of his siblings died of bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
before 1829. Throughout his early youth, Ion was the focus of his parents' affectionate supervision: early on, Ilie Rădulescu purchased a house once owned by the scholar Gheorghe Lazăr
Gheorghe Lazar
Gheorghe Lazăr , born and died in Avrig, Sibiu County, was a Transylvanian-born Romanian scholar, the founder of the first Romanian language school - in Bucharest, 1818.-Biography:...
on the outskirts of Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
(near Obor
Obor
Obor is the name of a square and the surrounding district of Bucharest, the capital of Romania. There is also a Bucharest Metro station named Obor, which lies in this area....
), as a gift for his son. At the time, the Rădulescus were owners of a large garden in the Bucharest area, nearby Herăstrău
Herastrau Park
Herăstrău Park is a large park on the northern side of Bucharest, Romania, around Lake Herăstrău.The park has an area of about 1.1 km², of which 0.7 km² is the lake. Initially, the area was full of marshes, but these were drained between 1930 and 1935, and the park was opened in 1936...
, as well as of estates in the vicinity of Făgăraş
Fagaras
Făgăraș is a city in central Romania, located in Braşov County . Another source of the name is alleged to derive from the Hungarian language word for "partridge" . A more plausible explanation is that the name is given by Fogaras river coming from the Pecheneg "Fagar šu", which means ash water...
and Gârbovi
Gârbovi
Gârbovi is a commune located in Ialomiţa County, Romania. It is composed of a single village, Gârbovi....
.
After basic education in Greek with a tutor
Tutor
A tutor is a person employed in the education of others, either individually or in groups. To tutor is to perform the functions of a tutor.-Teaching assistance:...
known as Alexe, Ion Heliade Rădulescu taught himself reading in Romanian Cyrillic
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet was used to write the Romanian language before 1860–1862, when it was officially replaced by a Latin-based Romanian alphabet. Cyrillic remained in occasional use until circa 1920...
(reportedly by studying the Alexander Romance
Alexander Romance
Alexander romance is any of several collections of legends concerning the mythical exploits of Alexander the Great. The earliest version is in Greek, dating to the 3rd century. Several late manuscripts attribute the work to Alexander's court historian Callisthenes, but the historical figure died...
with the help of his father's 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 ....
n servants). He subsequently became an avid reader of popular novels, especially during his 1813 sojourn in Gârbovi (where he had been sent after other areas of the country came to be ravaged by Caragea's plague
Caragea's plague
Caragea's plague or Caradja's plague was a bubonic plague epidemic that occurred in Wallachia, mainly in Bucharest, in the years 1813 and 1814. It coincided with the rule of the Phanariote Prince John Caradja.-Alleged source:...
). After 1813, the teenaged Rădulescu was a pupil of the 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...
monk Naum Râmniceanu; in 1815, he moved on to the Greek school at Schitu Măgureanu, in Bucharest, and, in 1818, to the Saint Sava School
Saint Sava College
Saint Sava College was one of the earliest academic institutions in Wallachia, Romania. It was the predecessor to both Saint Sava National College and the University of Bucharest.-History:...
, where he studied under Gheorghe Lazăr's supervision.
Between his 1820 graduation and 1821, when effects of the Wallachian uprising
Wallachian uprising of 1821
The Wallachian uprising of 1821 was an uprising in Wallachia against Ottoman rule which took place during 1821.-Background:...
led to the School ceasing its activities, he was kept as Lazăr's assistant teacher, tutoring in arithmetics and geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
. It was during those years that he adopted the surname Heliade (also rendered Heliad, Eliad or Eliade), which, he later explained, was a Greek version of his patronymic
Patronymic
A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage.In many areas patronyms...
, in turn stemming from the Romanian version of Elijah.
Under Grigore Ghica
In 1822, after Gheorghe Lazăr had fallen ill, Heliade reopened Saint Sava and served as its main teacher (initially, without any form of remuneration). He was later joined in this effort by other intellectualIntellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s of the day, such as Eufrosin Poteca
Eufrosin Poteca
Eufrosin Poteca was a Romanian philosopher, theologian, and translator, professor at the Saint Sava Academy of Bucharest. Later in life he campaigned against slavery...
, and, eventually, also opened an art class overseen by the Croat
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
Carol Valştain. This re-establishment came as a result of ordinances issued by Prince Grigore IV Ghica
Grigore IV Ghica
Grigore IV Ghica or Grigore Dimitrie Ghica was Prince of Wallachia between 1822 and 1828. A member of the Ghica family, Grigore IV was the brother of Alexandru Ghica and the uncle of Dora d'Istria....
, who had just been assigned by the Ottoman Empire to the throne of Wallachia upon the disestablishment of Phanariote
Phanariotes
Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...
rule, encouraging the marginalization of ethnic Greeks
Greeks in Romania
There has been a Greek presence in Romania for at least 27 centuries. At times, as during the Phanariote era, this presence has amounted to hegemony; at other times , the Greeks have simply been one among the many ethnic minorities in Romania.-Ancient and Medieval Period:The Greek presence in what...
who had assumed public office in previous decades. Thus, Prince Ghica had endorsed education in Romanian and, in one of his official firmans, defined teaching in Greek as "the foundation of evils" (temelia răutăţilor).
During the late 1820s, Heliade became involved in cultural policies. In 1827, he and Dinicu Golescu
Dinicu Golescu
Dinicu Golescu , a member of the Golescu family of boyars, was a Wallachian Romanian man of letters, mostly noted for his travel writings and journalism....
founded Soţietatea literară românească (the Romanian Literary Society), which, through its program (mapped out by Heliade himself), proposed Saint Sava's transformation into a college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
, the opening of another such institution in Craiova
Craiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
, and the creation of schools in virtually all Wallachian localities. In addition, Soţietatea attempted to encourage the establishment of Romanian-language newspapers, calling for an end to the state monopoly on printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
es. The grouping, headquartered on central Bucharest's Podul Mogoşoaiei
Calea Victoriei
Calea Victoriei is a major avenue in central Bucharest. It leads from Splaiul Independenţei to the north and then northwest up to Piaţa Victoriei, where Şoseaua Kiseleff continues north....
, benefited from Golescu's experience abroad, and was soon joined by two future Princes, Gheorghe Bibescu
Gheorghe Bibescu
Gheorghe Bibescu was a hospodar of Wallachia between 1843 and 1848. His rule coincided with the revolutionary tide that culminated in the 1848 Wallachian revolution.-Early political career:...
and Barbu Dimitrie Ştirbei
Barbu Dimitrie Stirbei
Barbu Dimitrie Ştirbei , a member of the Bibescu boyar family, was a Prince of Wallachia on two occasions, in 1848–1853 and in 1854–1856.-Early life:...
. Its character was based on 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...
; around that time, Heliade is known to have become a Freemason, as did a large section of his generation.
In 1828, Heliade published his first work, an essay on Romanian grammar
Romanian grammar
Standard Romanian shares largely the same grammar and most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving varieties of Eastern Romance, viz...
, in the Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n city of Hermannstadt
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...
(which was part of the Austrian Empire
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...
at the time), and, on April 20, 1829, began printing the Bucharest-based paper Curierul Românesc. This was the most successful of several attempts to create a local newspaper, something Golescu first attempted in 1828. Publishing articles in both Romanian and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Curierul Românesc had, starting in 1836, its own literary supplement, under the title of Curier de Ambe Sexe; in print until 1847, it notably published one of Heliade's most famous poems, Zburătorul. Curierul Românesc was edited as a weekly, and later as a bimonthly, until 1839, when it began to be issued three or four times a week. Its best-known contributors were Heliade himself, Grigore Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu in Bucharest was a nineteenth century Romanian poet and translator noted for his fables with political undertones.Of a noble family, he participated in secret revolutionary societies...
, Costache Negruzzi, Dimitrie Bolintineanu
Dimitrie Bolintineanu
Dimitrie Bolintineanu was a Romanian poet , diplomat, politician, and a participant in the revolution of 1848. He was of Macedonian Aromanian origins...
, Ioan Catina, Vasile Cârlova
Vasile Cârlova
Vasile Cârlova was a Wallachian officer and early Romantic poet.-Biography:Born into a low-ranking Romanian boyar family in Buzău, Cârlova remained an orphan in 1816, and, after being adopted by an aunt, moved to Craiova...
, and Iancu Văcărescu
Iancu Vacarescu
Iancu Văcărescu was a Romanian Wallachian boyar and poet, member of the Văcărescu family.-Biography:The son of Alecu Văcărescu, descending from a long line of Wallachian men of letters — his paternal uncle, Ienăchiţă Văcărescu, was author of the first Romanian grammar; Iancu was the...
.
In 1823, Heliade met Maria Alexandrescu, with whom he fell passionately in love, and whom he later married. By 1830, the Heliades' two children, a son named Virgiliu and a daughter named Virgilia, died in infancy; subsequently, their marriage entered a long period of crisis, marked by Maria's frequent outbursts of jealousy. Ion Heliade probably had a number of extramarital affairs: a Wallachian Militia officer named Zalic, who became known during the 1840s, is thought by some, including the 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...
, to have been the writer's illegitimate son. Before the death of her first child, Maria Heliade welcomed into her house Grigore Alexandrescu, himself a celebrated writer, whom Ion suspected had become her lover. Consequently, the two authors became bitter rivals: Ion Heliade referred to Alexandrescu as "that ingrate", and, in an 1838 letter to George Bariţ
George Barit
George Bariţ , often rendered as George Bariţiu, was a Romanian historian, philologist, playwright, politician, businessman and journalist, the founder of the Romanian language press in Transylvania.- Biography :...
, downplayed his poetry and character (believing that, in one of his fable
Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
s, Alexandrescu had depicted himself as a nightingale
Nightingale
The Nightingale , also known as Rufous and Common Nightingale, is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae...
, he commented that, in reality, he was "a piteous rook
Rook (bird)
The Rook is a member of the Corvidae family in the passerine order of birds. Named by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, the species name frugilegus is Latin for "food-gathering"....
dressed in foreign feathers"). Despite these household conflicts, Maria Heliade gave birth to five other children, four daughters and one son (Ion, born 1846).
Printer and court poet
Obor
Obor is the name of a square and the surrounding district of Bucharest, the capital of Romania. There is also a Bucharest Metro station named Obor, which lies in this area....
(the land went by the name of Câmpul lui Eliad—"Eliad's Field", and housed several other large buildings). Among the first works he published was a collection of poems by Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine was a French writer, poet and politician who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic.-Career:...
, translated by Heliade from French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, and grouped together with some of his own poems. Later, he translated a textbook on meter
Meter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
and Louis-Benjamin Francoeur's standard manual of Arithmetics, as well as works by Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
authors — Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
's Mahomet, ou le fanatisme
Mahomet (play)
Mahomet is a five-act tragedy written in 1736 by French playwright and philosopher Voltaire. It received its debut performance in Lille on 25 April 1741....
, and stories by Jean-François Marmontel
Jean-François Marmontel
Jean-François Marmontel was a French historian and writer, a member of the Encyclopediste movement.-Biography:He was born of poor parents at Bort, Limousin...
. They were followed, in 1839, by a version of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
's Julie, or the New Heloise.
Heliade began a career as a civil servant
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
after the Postelnic
Postelnic
Postelnic was a historical rank traditionally held by boyars in Moldavia and Wallachia, roughly corresponding to the position of chamberlain...
ie commissioned him to print the Official Bulletin
Monitorul Oficial
Monitorul Oficial al României is the official gazette of Romania, in which all the promulgated bills, presidential decrees, governmental ordinances and other major legal acts are published.-External links:...
, and later climbed through the official hierarchy
Historical Romanian ranks and titles
This is a glossary of historical Romanian ranks and titles used in the principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania, and later in Romania. Many of these titles are of Slavic etymology, with some of Greek, Byzantine, Latin, and Turkish etymology; several are original...
, eventually serving as Clucer
Clucer
Clucer was a historical rank traditionally held by boyars in Moldavia and Wallachia, roughly corresponding to that of Masters of the Royal Court...
. This rise coincided with the establishment of the Regulamentul Organic
Regulamentul Organic
Regulamentul Organic was a quasi-constitutional organic law enforced in 1834–1835 by the Imperial Russian authorities in Moldavia and Wallachia...
regime, inaugurated, upon the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, by an Imperial Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
administration under Pavel Kiselyov
Pavel Kiselyov
Count Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselyov or Kiseleff is generally regarded as the most brilliant Russian reformer during Nicholas I's generally conservative reign.- Early military career :...
. When Kiselyov placed an order with Heliade for the printing of official documents, including the Regulament, the writer and his family were made prosperous by the sales. Nevertheless, Heliade maintained contacts with the faction of reformist 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....
s: in 1833, together with Ion Câmpineanu, Iancu Văcărescu
Iancu Vacarescu
Iancu Văcărescu was a Romanian Wallachian boyar and poet, member of the Văcărescu family.-Biography:The son of Alecu Văcărescu, descending from a long line of Wallachian men of letters — his paternal uncle, Ienăchiţă Văcărescu, was author of the first Romanian grammar; Iancu was the...
, Ioan Voinescu II, Constantin Aristia, Ştefan
Stefan Golescu
Ştefan Golescu was a Wallachian Romanian politician who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for two terms from March 1, 1867 to August 5, 1867 and from November 13, 1867 to April 30, 1868, and as Prime Minister of Romania between November 26, 1867 and May 12, 1868.-Biography:Born in a boyar...
and Nicolae Golescu
Nicolae Golescu
Nicolae Golescu was a Wallachian Romanian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Romania in 1860 and May–November 1868.-Early life:...
, as well as others, he founded the short-lived Soţietatea Filarmonică (the Philharmonic Society), which advanced a cultural agenda (and was especially active in raising funds for the National Theater of Wallachia
National Theatre Bucharest
The National Theatre Bucharest is one of the national theatres of Romania, located in the capital city of Bucharest.-Founding:It was founded as the Teatrul cel Mare din Bucureşti in 1852, its first director being Costache Caragiale...
). Aside from its stated cultural goals, Soţietatea Filarmonică continued a covert political activity.
In 1834, when Prince Alexandru II Ghica
Alexandru II Ghica
Alexandru II or Alexandru D. Ghica , a member of the Ghica family, was Prince of Wallachia from April 1834 to 7 October 1842 and later caimacam from July 1856 to October 1858....
came to the throne, Heliade became one of his close collaborators, styling himself "court poet". Several of the poems and discourses he authored during the period are written as panegyric
Panegyric
A panegyric is a formal public speech, or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally highly studied and discriminating eulogy, not expected to be critical. It is derived from the Greek πανηγυρικός meaning "a speech fit for a general assembly"...
s, and dedicated to Ghica, whom Heliade depicted as an ideal prototype of a monarch. As young reformists came into conflict with the prince, he kept his neutrality, arguing that all sides involved represented a privileged minority, and that the disturbances were equivalent to "the quarrel of wolves and the noise made by those in higher positions over the torn-apart animal that is the peasant". He was notably critical of the radical
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
Mitică Filipescu, whom he satirized in the poem Căderea dracilor ("The Demons' Fall"), and later defined his own position with the words "I hate tyrant
Tyrant
A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...
s. I fear anarchy
Anomie
Anomie is a term meaning "without Law" to describe a lack of social norms; "normlessness". It describes the breakdown of social bonds between an individual and their community ties, with fragmentation of social identity and rejection of self-regulatory values. It was popularized by French...
".
It was also in 1834 that Heliade began teaching at the Soţietatea Filarmonicăs school (alongside Aristia and the musician Ioan Andrei Wachmann), and published his first translations from Lord Byron (in 1847, he completed the translation of Byron's Don Juan
Don Juan (Byron)
Don Juan is a satiric poem by Lord Byron, based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womanizer but as someone easily seduced by women. It is a variation on the epic form. Byron himself called it an "Epic Satire"...
). The next year, he began printing Gazeta Teatrului Naţional (official voice of the National Theater, published until 1836), and translated Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's Amphitryon
Amphitryon (Molière)
Amphitryon is a French language comedy in a prologue and 3 Acts by Molière which is based on the story of the Greek mythological character Amphitryon as told by Plautus in his play from ca. 190-185 B.C. The play was first performed at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris on 13 January 1668...
into Romanian. In 1839, Heliade also translated Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
' Don Quixote from a French source. The first collection of his own prose and poetry works saw print in 1836. Interested in the development of local 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...
, he contributed a brochure
Brochure
A brochure is a type of leaflet. Brochures are most commonly found at places that tourists frequently visit, such as museums, major shops, and tourist information. Brochure racks or stands may suggest visits to amusement parks and other points of interest...
on drawing and architecture in 1837, and, during the same year, opened the first permanent exhibit in Wallachia (featuring copies of Western paintings, portraits, and gypsum
Gypsum
Gypsum is a very soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is found in alabaster, a decorative stone used in Ancient Egypt. It is the second softest mineral on the Mohs Hardness Scale...
casts
Casting
In metalworking, casting involves pouring liquid metal into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowing it to cool and solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process...
of various known sculptures).
By the early 1840s, Heliade began expanding on his notion that modern Romanian needed to emphasize its connections with other Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
through neologisms from Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, and, to this goal, he published ("Parallelism between the Romanian language and Italian", 1840) and ("Parallelism between the Romanian and Italian Dialects or the Form or Grammar of These Two Dialects", 1841). The two books were followed by a compendium
Compendium
A compendium is a concise, yet comprehensive compilation of a body of knowledge. A compendium may summarize a larger work. In most cases the body of knowledge will concern some delimited field of human interest or endeavour , while a "universal" encyclopedia can be referred to as a compendium of...
, Prescurtare de gramatica limbei româno-italiene ("Summary of the Grammar of the Romanian-Italian Language"), and, in 1847, by a comprehensive list of Romanian words that had originated in Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, Greek
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;...
, Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Turkish language
The Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
, Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, and 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....
(see Romanian lexis
Romanian lexis
The lexis of the Romanian language , a Romance language, has changed over the centuries as the language evolved from Vulgar Latin, to Proto-Romanian, to medieval, modern and contemporary Romanian.-Medieval Romanian:...
). By 1846, he was planning to begin work on a "universal library", which was to include, among other books, the major the philosophical writings of, among others, Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...
, René Descartes
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
, Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
, John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
, David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
, Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a German philosopher. He was one of the founding figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, a movement that developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant...
and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
.
1848 Revolution
Before Alexandru Ghica was replaced with Gheorghe BibescuGheorghe Bibescu
Gheorghe Bibescu was a hospodar of Wallachia between 1843 and 1848. His rule coincided with the revolutionary tide that culminated in the 1848 Wallachian revolution.-Early political career:...
, his relations with Heliade had soured. In contrast with his earlier call for moderation, the writer decided to side with the liberal current
Liberalism and radicalism in Romania
This article gives an overview of Liberalism and Radicalism in Romania. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in this scheme...
in its conspiratorial
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
opposition to Bibescu. The so-called "Trandafiloff affair" of early 1844 was essential in this process — it was provoked by Bibescu's decision to lease all Wallachian mines to a Russian engineer named Alexander Trandafiloff, a measure considered illegal by the Assembly and ultimately ending in Bibescu's decision to dissolve his legislative. These events made Heliade publish a pamphlet
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
titled Măceşul ("The Eglantine"), which was heavily critical of Russian influence and reportedly sold over 30,000 copies. It was centered on the pun alluding to Trandafiloff's name — trandafir cu of în coadă (lit. "a rose ending in -of", but also "a rose with grief for a stem"). Making additional covert reference to Trandafiloff as "the eglantine", it featured the lyrics:
Măi măceşe, măi măceşe, […] Dă-ne pace şi te cară, Du-te dracului din ţară. |
Eglantine, o eglantine, […] Leave us in peace and go away, Get the hell out of the country. |
In spring 1848, when the first European revolutions
Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
had erupted, Heliade was attracted into cooperation with Frăţia, a secret society
Secret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
founded by Nicolae Bălcescu
Nicolae Balcescu
Nicolae Bălcescu was a Romanian Wallachian soldier, historian, journalist, and leader of the 1848 Wallachian Revolution.-Early life:...
, Ion Ghica
Ion Ghica
Ion Ghica was a Romanian revolutionary, mathematician, diplomat and twice Prime Minister of Romania . He was a full member of the Romanian Academy and its president for four times...
, Christian Tell
Christian Tell
Christian Tell was a Transylvanian-born Wallachian and Romanian politician.-Early life:Born in Braşov, Tell studied at Gheorghe Lazăr's school, and then at the Saint Sava Academy in Bucharest, and became close to Ion Heliade Rădulescu's version of Radicalism...
, and Alexandru G. Golescu
Alexandru G. Golescu
Alexandru G. Golescu was a Romanian politician who served as a Prime Minister of Romania in 1870 .-Early life:...
, and sat on its leadership committee. He also collaborated with the reform-minded French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
teacher Jean Alexandre Vaillant
Jean Alexandre Vaillant
Jean Alexandre Vaillant was a French and Romanian teacher, political activist, historian, linguist and translator, who was noted for his activities in Wallachia and his support for the 1848 Wallachian Revolution...
, who was ultimately expelled after his activities were brought to the attention of authorities. On April 19, 1848, following financial setbacks, Curierul Românesc ceased printing (this prompted Heliade to write Cântecul ursului, "The Bear's Song", a piece ridiculing his political enemies).
Heliade progressively distanced himself from the more radical groups, especially after discussions began on the issue of land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
and the disestablishment of 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....
class. Initially, he accepted the reforms, and, after the matter was debated within Frăţia just before rebellion broke out, he issued a resolution acknowledging this (the document was probably inspired by Nicolae Bălcescu
Nicolae Balcescu
Nicolae Bălcescu was a Romanian Wallachian soldier, historian, journalist, and leader of the 1848 Wallachian Revolution.-Early life:...
). The compromise also set other goals, including national independence, responsible government
Responsible government
Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability which is the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy...
, civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
and equality, universal taxation, a larger Assembly, five-year terms of office for Princes (and their election by the National Assembly), freedom of the press
Freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials...
, and decentralization
Decentralization
__FORCETOC__Decentralization or decentralisation is the process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people and/or citizens. It includes the dispersal of administration or governance in sectors or areas like engineering, management science, political science, political economy,...
. On June 21, 1848, present in Islaz
Turnu Magurele
Turnu Măgurele is a city in Teleorman County, Romania . Developed nearby the site once occupied by the medieval port of Turnu, it is situated north-east of the confluence between the Olt River and the Danube....
alongside Tell and the 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...
priest known as Popa Şapcă, he read out these goals to a cheering crowd, in what was to be the effective start of the uprising (see Proclamation of Islaz
Proclamation of Islaz
The Proclamation of Islaz was the program adopted on June 9, 1848 by Romanian revolutionaries. It was written by Ion Heliade Rădulescu. On June 11, under pressure from the masses, Domnitor Gheorghe Bibescu was forced to accept the terms of the proclamation and recognise the provisional...
). Four days after the Islaz events, the revolution succeeded in toppling Bibescu, whom it replaced with a Provisional Government which immediately attracted Russian hostility. Presided over by Metropolitan Neofit, it included Heliade, who was also Minister of Education, as well as Tell, Ştefan Golescu
Stefan Golescu
Ştefan Golescu was a Wallachian Romanian politician who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for two terms from March 1, 1867 to August 5, 1867 and from November 13, 1867 to April 30, 1868, and as Prime Minister of Romania between November 26, 1867 and May 12, 1868.-Biography:Born in a boyar...
, Gheorghe Magheru
Gheorghe Magheru
General Gheorghe Magheru was a Romanian revolutionary and soldier from Wallachia, and political ally of Nicolae Bălcescu.-A Pandur and radical conspirator:...
, and, for a short while, the Bucharest merchant Gheorghe Scurti.
Disputes regarding the shape of land reform continued, and in late July, the Government created Comisia proprietăţii (the Commission on Property), representing both peasants and landlords and overseen by Alexandru Racoviţă and Ion Ionescu de la Brad
Ion Ionescu de la Brad
Ion Ionescu de la Brad , born Ion Isăcescu, was a Moldavian-born Romanian revolutionary, agronomist, statistician, scholar and writer....
. It too failed to reach a compromise over the amount of land to be allocated to peasants, and it was ultimately recalled by Heliade, who indicated that the matter was to be deliberated once a new Assembly had been voted into office. In time, the writer adopted a conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
outlook in respect to boyar tradition, developing a singular view of Romanian history around the issues of property and rank in Wallachia. In the words 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...
: "Eliad had wanted to lead, as dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
, this movement that added liberal institutions to the old society that had been almost completely maintained in place".
Like most other revolutionaries, Heliade favored maintaining good relations with the Ottoman Empire, Wallachia's suzerain
Suzerainty
Suzerainty occurs where a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which controls its foreign affairs while allowing the tributary vassal state some limited domestic autonomy. The dominant entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the more powerful entity itself, is called a...
power, hoping that this policy could help counter Russian pressures. As Sultan
Ottoman Dynasty
The Ottoman Dynasty ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1299 to 1922, beginning with Osman I , though the dynasty was not proclaimed until Orhan Bey declared himself sultan...
Abdülmecid I
Abdülmecid I
Sultan Abdülmecid I, Abdul Mejid I, Abd-ul-Mejid I or Abd Al-Majid I Ghazi was the 31st Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and succeeded his father Mahmud II on July 2, 1839. His reign was notable for the rise of nationalist movements within the empire's territories...
was assessing the situation, Süleyman Paşa was dispatched to Bucharest, where he advised the revolutionaries to carry on with their diplomatic efforts, and ordered the Provisional Government to be replaced by Locotenenţa domnească, a triumvirate
Triumvirate
A triumvirate is a political regime dominated by three powerful individuals, each a triumvir . The arrangement can be formal or informal, and though the three are usually equal on paper, in reality this is rarely the case...
of regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
s comprising Heliade, Tell, and Nicolae Golescu
Nicolae Golescu
Nicolae Golescu was a Wallachian Romanian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Romania in 1860 and May–November 1868.-Early life:...
. Nonetheless, the Ottomans were pressured by Russia into joining a clampdown on revolutionary forces, which resulted, during September, in the reestablishment of Regulamentul Organic
Regulamentul Organic
Regulamentul Organic was a quasi-constitutional organic law enforced in 1834–1835 by the Imperial Russian authorities in Moldavia and Wallachia...
and its system of government. Together with Tell, Heliade sought refuge at the British
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
consulate in Bucharest, where they were hosted by Robert Gilmour Colquhoun
Robert Gilmour Colquhoun
Sir Robert Gilmour Colquhoun, KCB was a British diplomat.He was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. He was appointed Consul in Bucharest, Romania on 18 January 1835, Consul-General on 15 December 1837, and Agent and Consul-General on 18 November 1851. He received the Order of the Nichan Iftikhar...
in exchange for a deposit of Austrian florins
Austro-Hungarian gulden
The Gulden or forint was the currency of the Austrian Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1754 and 1892 when it was replaced by the Krone/korona as part of the introduction of the gold standard. In Austria, the Gulden was initially divided into 60 Kreuzer, and in Hungary, the...
.
Exile
Leaving his family behind, he was allowed to pass into the AustrianAustrian 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 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...
, before moving into self-exile in 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...
while his wife and children were sent to Ottoman lands. In 1850–1851, several of his memoirs of the revolution, written in both Romanian and French, were published 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...
, the city were he had taken residence. He shared his exile with Tell and Magheru, as well as with Nicolae Rusu Locusteanu.
It was during his time in Paris that he met with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French politician, mutualist philosopher and socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament, and he was the first person to call himself an "anarchist". He is considered among the most influential theorists and organisers of anarchism...
, the anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
philosopher who had come to advance a moderate project around small-scale property (to counter both economic liberalism
Economic liberalism
Economic liberalism is the ideological belief in giving all people economic freedom, and as such granting people with more basis to control their own lives and make their own mistakes. It is an economic philosophy that supports and promotes individual liberty and choice in economic matters and...
and socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
). Heliade used this opportunity to make the Romanian cause known to the staff of Proudhon's La Voix de Peuple. Major French publications to which he contributed included La Presse
La Presse (France)
-Overview:La Presse was founded on 16 June 1836 by Émile de Girardin as a popular conservative enterprise. While contemporary newspapers depended heavily on subscription and tight party affiliation, La Presse was sold by street vendors. Girardin wanted the paper to support the government, without...
, La Semaine, and Le Siècle
Le Siècle
Le Siècle was a newspaper that was published from 1836 to 1932 in France.In 1836, Le Siècle was founded as a paper that supported constitutional monarchism. However, when the July Monarchy came to an end in 1848, the paper soon changed its editorial stance to one of republicanism. Le Siècle...
, where he also helped publicize political issues pertaining to his native land. Heliade was credited with having exercised influence over historian Élias Regnault; 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...
argued that Regnault's discarded his own arguments in favor of a unified Romanian state to include 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...
(a concept which Heliade had come to resent), as well amending his earlier account of the 1848 events, after being exposed to "Eliad's propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
".
While claiming to represent the entire body of Wallachian émigré
Émigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
s, Heliade had by then grown disappointed with the political developments, and, in his private correspondence, commented that Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
in general were "idle", "womanizing", as well as having "the petty and base envies of women", and argued that they required "supervision [and] leadership". His fortune was declining, especially after pressures began for him to pay his many debts, and he often lacked the funds for basic necessities. At the time, he continuously clashed with other former revolutionaries, including Bălcescu, C. A. Rosetti
C. A. Rosetti
Constantin Alexandru Rosetti was a Romanian literary and political leader, born in Bucharest into a Phanariot Greek family.In 1845, Rosetti went to Paris, where he met Alphonse de Lamartine, the patron of the Society of Romanian Students in Paris. In 1847, he married Mary Grant, the sister of the...
, and the Golescus, who resented his ambiguous stance in respect to reforms, and especially his willingness to accept Regulamentul Organic as an instrument of power; Heliade issued the first in a series of pamphlet
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
s condemning young radicals, contributing to factionalism inside the émigré camp. His friendship with Tell also soured, after Heliade began speculating that the revolutionary general was committing adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
with Maria.
In 1851, Heliade reunited with his family on the island of Chios
Chios
Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...
, where they stayed until 1854. Following the evacuation of Russian troops from the Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities was a conventional name given to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which emerged in the early 14th century. The term was coined in the Habsburg Monarchy after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in order to designate an area on the lower Danube with a common...
during the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
, Heliade was appointed by the Porte to represent the Romanian nation in Shumen
Shumen
Shumen is the tenth-largest city in Bulgaria and capital of Shumen Province. In the period 1950–1965 it was called Kolarovgrad, after the name of the communist leader Vasil Kolarov...
, as part of Omar Pasha
Omar Pasha
Omar Pasha Latas was a Ottoman general and governor. He was a Serb convert to Islam, who managed to quickly climb in Ottoman ranks, crush several rebellions throughout the Empire and defeat Russia the Crimean War.-Early life:...
's staff. Again expressing sympathy for the Ottoman cause, he was rewarded with the title of Bey
Bey
Bey is a title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. Accoding to some sources, the word "Bey" is of Turkish language In historical accounts, many Turkish, other Turkic and Persian leaders are titled Bey, Beg, Bek, Bay, Baig or Beigh. They are all the same word...
. According to Iorga, Heliade's attitudes reflected his hope of "recovering the power lost" in 1848; the historian also stressed that Omar never actually made use of Heliade's services.
Later in the same year, he decided to return to Bucharest, but his stay was cut short when the Austrian authorities, who, under the leadership of Johann Coronini-Cronberg, had taken over administration of the country as a neutral force, asked for him to be expelled. Returning to Paris, Heliade continued to publish works on political and cultural issues, including an analysis of the Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an situation after the Peace Treaty of 1856
Treaty of Paris (1856)
The Treaty of Paris of 1856 settled the Crimean War between Russia and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, Second French Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The treaty, signed on March 30, 1856 at the Congress of Paris, made the Black Sea neutral territory, closing it to all...
and an 1858 essay on the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. In 1859, he published his own translation of the Septuagint, under the name Biblia sacră ce cuprinde Noul şi Vechiul Testament ("The Holy Bible, Comprising the New
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
and Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
").
As former revolutionaries, grouped in the Partida Naţională
Partida Nationala
The Partida Naţională was a liberal Romanian political party active between 1856 and 1859. It was a loose group which supported the union of the Danubian Principalities....
faction, advanced the idea of union between Wallachia and 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...
in election for the ad-hoc Divan, Heliade opted not to endorse any particular candidate, while rejecting outright the candidature of former prince Alexandru II Ghica
Alexandru II Ghica
Alexandru II or Alexandru D. Ghica , a member of the Ghica family, was Prince of Wallachia from April 1834 to 7 October 1842 and later caimacam from July 1856 to October 1858....
(in a private letter, he stated: "let them elect whomever [of the candidates for the throne], for he would still have the heart of a man and some principles of a Romanian; only don't let that creature [Ghica] be elected, for he is capable of going to the dogs with this country").
Final years
Alexander John Cuza
Alexander John Cuza was a Moldavian-born Romanian politician who ruled as the first Domnitor of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia between 1859 and 1866.-Early life:...
and later that of an internationally-recognized Principality 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...
. It was during that period that he again added Rădulescu to his surname. Until his death, he published influential volumes on a variety of issues, while concentrating on contributions to history and literary criticism, and editing a new collection of his own poems. In 1863, Domnitor
Domnitor
Domnitor was the official title of the ruler of the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia between 1859 and 1866....
Cuza awarded him an annual pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
of 2,000 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...
.
One year after the creation of the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
(under the name of "Academic Society"), he was elected its first President (1867), serving until his death. In 1869, Heliade and Alexandru Papiu-Ilarian successfully proposed the Italian
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...
diplomat and philologist
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
Giovenale Vegezzi-Ruscalla as honorary member of the Academy. By then, like most other 1848 Romantics, he had become the target of criticism from the younger generation of intellectuals, represented by the 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...
-based literary society Junimea
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
; in 1865, during one of its early public sessions, Junimea explicitly rejected works by Heliade and Iancu Văcărescu
Iancu Vacarescu
Iancu Văcărescu was a Romanian Wallachian boyar and poet, member of the Văcărescu family.-Biography:The son of Alecu Văcărescu, descending from a long line of Wallachian men of letters — his paternal uncle, Ienăchiţă Văcărescu, was author of the first Romanian grammar; Iancu was the...
.
During the elections of 1866, Heliade Rădulescu won a seat in the Chamber
Chamber of Deputies of Romania
The Chamber of Deputies is the lower house in Romania's bicameral parliament. It has 315 seats, to which deputies are elected by direct popular vote on a proportional representation basis to serve four-year terms...
as a deputy for the city of Târgovişte
Târgoviste
Târgoviște is a city in the Dâmbovița county of Romania. It is situated on the right bank of the Ialomiţa River. , it had an estimated population of 89,000. One village, Priseaca, is administered by the city.-Name:...
. As Cuza had been ousted from power by a coalition of political groupings, he was the only Wallachian deputy to join Nicolae Ionescu
Nicolae Ionescu
Nicolae Ionescu was a Romanian politician and publisher. He was one of the founding members of the Romanian Academy.-References:...
and other disciples of Simion Bărnuţiu
Simion Barnutiu
Simion Bărnuţiu was a Transylvanian-born Romanian historian, academic, philosopher, jurist, and liberal politician. A leader of the 1848 revolutionary movement of Transylvanian Romanians, he represented its Eastern Rite Catholic wing...
in opposing the appointment of Carol of Hohenzollern
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...
as Domnitor and a proclamation stressing the perpetuity of the Moldo-Wallachian union. Speaking 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...
, he likened the adoption of foreign rule to the Phanariote
Phanariotes
Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...
period. The opposition was nevertheless weak, and the resolution was passed with a large majority.
Among Ion Heliade Rădulescu's last printed works were a textbook on poetics
Poetics
Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory...
(1868) and a volume on Romanian orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
. By that time, he had come to consider himself a prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
-like figure, and the redeemer of his motherland, notably blessing his friends with the words "Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
and Magdalene
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
be with you!" His mental health declining, he died at his Bucharest residence on Polonă Street, nr. 20. Heliade Rădulescu's grandiose funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
ceremony attracted a large number of his admirers; the coffin was buried in the courtyard of the Mavrogheni Church.
Heliade and the Romanian language
Early proposals
Heliade's most influential contributions are related to his interest in developing the modern Romanian languageRomanian 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...
, in which he synthesized Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
tenets and Romantic nationalist
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...
ideals of the 1848 generation. At a time when Romanian was being discarded by the educated in favor of French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
or Greek
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;...
, he and his supporters argued in favor of adapting Romanian to the requirements of 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...
; he wrote: "Young people, preoccupy yourselves with the national language, speak and write in it; prepare yourselves for its study, for its cultivation, — and cultivating a language means to write in it about all sciences and arts, about all eras and peoples. The language alone unites, strengthens and defines a nation; preoccupy yourselves with it first and foremost, as, through this, you shall be carrying out the most fundamental of policies, you shall be laying the foundation of nationality".
Heliade inaugurated his series of proposals for reforming the language in 1828, when his work on Romanian grammar
Romanian grammar
Standard Romanian shares largely the same grammar and most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving varieties of Eastern Romance, viz...
called for the Cyrillic script
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet was used to write the Romanian language before 1860–1862, when it was officially replaced by a Latin-based Romanian alphabet. Cyrillic remained in occasional use until circa 1920...
to be reduced to 27 letters, reflecting phonetic spelling (for this rule, Heliade cited the example of the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
as used in Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
). Soon after, he began a campaign in favor of introducing Romance
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
neologisms, which he wanted to adapt to Romanian spelling. By that time, Romanians in various regions had grown aware of the need to unify the varieties of Romanian and create a standard Romanian lexis
Romanian lexis
The lexis of the Romanian language , a Romance language, has changed over the centuries as the language evolved from Vulgar Latin, to Proto-Romanian, to medieval, modern and contemporary Romanian.-Medieval Romanian:...
: this notion was first supported by the Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
ns Gheorghe Şincai
Gheorghe Sincai
Gheorghe Șincai was an ethnic Romanian Transylvanian historian, philologist, translator, poet, and representative of the Enlightenment-influenced Transylvanian School....
and Petru Maior
Petru Maior
Petru Maior was a Romanian writer who is considered one of the most influential personalities of the Age of Enlightenment in Transylvania...
, whose proposal was to unite Romanian around the language used in church services, both 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...
and Greek-Catholic
Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic
The Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic is an Eastern Catholic Church which is in full union with the Roman Catholic Church. It is ranked as a Major Archiepiscopal Church and uses the Byzantine liturgical rite in the Romanian language....
(see Transylvanian School
Transylvanian School
The Transylvanian School was a cultural movement which was founded after part of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Habsburg-ruled Transylvania accepted the leadership of the Pope and became the Greek-Catholic Church . The links with Rome brought to the Romanian Tranylvanians the ideas of the Age of...
). Heliade, who first proposed a language regulator
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
(an idea which was to be employed in creating 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....
), expanded on this legacy, while stressing that the dialect spoken in Muntenia
Muntenia
Muntenia is a historical province of Romania, usually considered Wallachia-proper . It is situated between the Danube , the Carpathian Mountains and Moldavia , and the Olt River to the west...
, which had formed the basis of religious texts published by the 16th century printer Coresi
Coresi
Coresi was a Romanian printer of the sixteenth century. He was the editor of the first printed books in the Romanian language.-Biography:...
, serve as the standard language.
In addition, he advocated aesthetical
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
guidelines in respect to the standard shape of Romanian, stressing three basic principles in selecting words: "proper wording", which called for vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
words of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
origin to be prioritized; "harmony", which meant that words of Latin origin were to be used in their most popular form, even in cases where euphony had been altered by prolonged usage; and "energy", through which Heliade favored the primacy of the shortest and most expressive of synonym
Synonym
Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...
s used throughout Romanian-speaking areas. In parallel, Heliade frowned upon purist
Linguistic purism
Linguistic purism or linguistic protectionism is the practice of defining one variety of a language as being purer than other varieties. The ideal of purity is often opposed in reference to a perceived decline from an "ideal past" or an unwanted similarity with other languages, but sometimes simply...
policies of removing widely-used neologisms of foreign origin — arguing that these were "a fatality", he indicated that the gains of such a process would have been shadowed by the losses.
These early theories exercised a lasting influence, and, when the work of unifying Romanian was accomplished in the late 19th century, they were used as a source of inspiration: Romania's major poet of the period, 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...
, himself celebrated for having created the modern literary language
Literary language
A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...
, gave praise to Heliade for "writing just as [the language] is spoken". This assessment was shared by Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu was a Romanian poet, philologist, linguist and folklorist. He is known for introducing new trends of European modernism into Romanian literature.He was a professor at the University of Bucharest, and a member of the Romanian Academy....
, who wrote: "Thinking of how people wrote back then, in thick, drawly, sleepy phrases, Heliade thus shows himself superior to all his contemporaries, and … we can consider him the first prose writer who brings in the note of modernity
History of modern literature
The history of literature in the Modern period in Europe begins with the Age of Enlightenment and the conclusion of the Baroque period in the 18th century, succeeding the Renaissance and Early Modern periods....
".
Italian influence
A second period in Heliade's linguistic researches, inaugurated when he adopted Étienne CondillacÉtienne Bonnot de Condillac
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac was a French philosopher and epistemologist who studied in such areas as psychology and the philosophy of the mind.-Biography:...
's theory that a language could be developed from conventions, eventually brought about the rejection of his own earlier views. By the early 1840s, he postulated that Romanian and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
were not distinct languages, but rather dialects of Latin, which prompted him to declare the necessity of replacing Romanian words with "superior" Italian ones. One of his stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
s, using his version of the Romanian Latin alphabet
Romanian alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters:The letters Q , W , and Y were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982, although they had been used earlier...
, read:
Approximated into modern Romanian and English, this is:
Primii auzi-vor acel subteran răsunet Şi primii sălta-vor afară din groapă Sacrii Poeţi ce prea uşoară ţărână-i Acoperă, şi cărora de uman puţin picioarele le sunt legate. |
The first ones to hear that subterranean echo And first to jump out of their pit will be The sacred Poets whom only too light earth Covers, and whose legs are superficially tied to humankind. |
The target of criticism and ridicule, these principles were dismissed by Eminescu as "errors" and "a priori systems
A priori (languages)
An a priori language is any constructed language whose vocabulary is not based on existing languages, unlike a posteriori constructed languages. Examples of a priori languages include Ro, Solresol, Mirad, Klingon, and Na'vi...
of orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
". During their existence, they competed with both August Treboniu Laurian
August Treboniu Laurian
August Treboniu Laurian was a Transylvanian Romanian politician, historian and linguist. He was born in the village of Fofeldea in Nocrich. He was a participant at the 1848 revolution, an organizer of the Romanian school and one of the founding members of the Romanian Academy.Laurian was a member...
's adoption of strong Latin mannerisms and the inconsistent Francized
Francization
Francization or Gallicization is a process of cultural assimilation that gives a French character to a word, an ethnicity or a person.-French Colonial Empire:-Francization in the World:...
system developed in Moldavia by Gheorghe Asachi
Gheorghe Asachi
Gheorghe Asachi was a Moldavian-born Romanian prose writer, poet, painter, historian, dramatist and translator. An Enlightenment-educated polymath and polyglot, he was one of the most influential people of his generation...
, which, according to the 20th century literary critic Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
, constituted "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....
language of his time". Ibrăileanu also noted that Asachi had come to admire Heliade's attempts, and had praised them as an attempt to revive the language "spoken by Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
's men" — in reference to Roman Dacia
Roman Dacia
The Roman province of Dacia on the Balkans included the modern Romanian regions of Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia, and temporarily Muntenia and southern Moldova, but not the nearby regions of Moesia...
.
While defending the role Moldavian politicians in the 1840s had in shaping modern Romanian culture, Ibrăileanu argued that practices such as those of Heliade and Laurian carried the risk of "suppressing the Romanian language", and credited Alecu Russo
Alecu Russo
Alecu Russo , was a Moldavian Romanian writer, literary critic and publicist....
, more than his successors at 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...
, with providing a passionate defense of spoken Romanian. He notably cited Russo's verdict: "The modern political hatred aimed at [Russia] has thrown us into Italianism, into Frenchism, and into other -isms, that were not and are not Romanianism, but the political perils, in respect to the enslavement of the Romanian soul, have since passed; true Romanianism ought to hold its head up high". The 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...
also connected Heliade's experimentation to his Russophobia, in turn reflecting his experiences as a revolutionary: "Hating Slavism
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
and the Russians, who had striven to underline [Slavic influences in Romanian], he said to himself that he was to serve his motherland by discarding all Slavic vestiges". Călinescu notably attributed Heliade's inconsistency to his "autodidacticism
Autodidacticism
Autodidacticism is self-education or self-directed learning. In a sense, autodidacticism is "learning on your own" or "by yourself", and an autodidact is a person who teaches him or herself something. The term has its roots in the Ancient Greek words αὐτός and διδακτικός...
", which, he contended, was responsible for "[his] casual implication in all issues, the unexpected move from common sense ideas to the most insane theories".
Overall, Heliade's experiments had marginal appeal, and their critics (Eminescu included) contrasted them with Heliade's own tenets. Late in his life, Heliade seems to have acknowledged this, notably writing: "This language, as it is written today by people who can speak Romanian, is my work". One of the few authors to be influenced by the theory was the Symbolist
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
poet Alexandru Macedonski
Alexandru Macedonski
Alexandru Macedonski was a Wallachian-born Romanian poet, novelist, dramatist and literary critic, known especially for having promoted French Symbolism in his native country, and for leading the Romanian Symbolist movement during its early decades...
, who, during his youth, wrote several pieces in Heliade's Italian-sounding Romanian. Despite Heliade's thesis being largely rejected, some of its practical effects on everyday language were very enduring, especially in cases where Italian words were borrowed as a means to illustrate nuances and concepts for which Romanian had no equivalent. These include afabil ("affable"), adorabil ("adorable"), ("colossal"), implacabil ("implacable"), inefabil ("ineffable"), inert ("inert"), mistic ("mystical"), pervers ("perverse" or "pervert"), suav ("suave"), and venerabil ("venerable").
Tenets
Celebrated as the founder of Wallachian RomanticismRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, Heliade was equally influenced by Classicism
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
and the Age of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
. His work, written in a special cultural context (where Classiciasm and Romanticism coexisted), took the middle path between two opposing camps: the Romantics (Alecu Russo
Alecu Russo
Alecu Russo , was a Moldavian Romanian writer, literary critic and publicist....
, Mihail Kogălniceanu
Mihail Kogalniceanu
Mihail Kogălniceanu was a Moldavian-born Romanian liberal statesman, lawyer, historian and publicist; he became Prime Minister of Romania October 11, 1863, after the 1859 union of the Danubian Principalities under Domnitor Alexander John Cuza, and later served as Foreign Minister under Carol I. He...
and others) and the Classicists (Gheorghe Asachi
Gheorghe Asachi
Gheorghe Asachi was a Moldavian-born Romanian prose writer, poet, painter, historian, dramatist and translator. An Enlightenment-educated polymath and polyglot, he was one of the most influential people of his generation...
, Grigore Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu in Bucharest was a nineteenth century Romanian poet and translator noted for his fables with political undertones.Of a noble family, he participated in secret revolutionary societies...
, George Baronzi
George Baronzi
George Baronzi was a Romanian poet and translator.- Poetry :* Nopturne * Orele dalbe * Satire * Legende şi balade* Poezii alese, postum -Other:...
etc.). George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
defined Heliade as "a devourer of books", noting that his favorites, who all played a part in shaping his style and were many times the subject of his translations, included: Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine was a French writer, poet and politician who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic.-Career:...
, Dante Aligheri, Ludovico Ariosto
Ludovico Ariosto
Ludovico Ariosto was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic Orlando Furioso . The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, describes the adventures of Charlemagne, Orlando, and the Franks as they battle against the Saracens with diversions...
, Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...
, Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
, Jean-François Marmontel
Jean-François Marmontel
Jean-François Marmontel was a French historian and writer, a member of the Encyclopediste movement.-Biography:He was born of poor parents at Bort, Limousin...
, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
, and François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René de Chateaubriand
François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...
.
His poetic style, influenced from early on by Lamartine, was infused with Classicism during his middle age, before he again adopted Romantic tenets. Initially making use of guidelines set by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux was a French poet and critic.-Biography:Boileau was born in the rue de Jérusalem, in Paris, France. He was brought up to the law, but devoted to letters, associating himself with La Fontaine, Racine, and Molière...
in respect to poetry, he came to oppose them after reading Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
's Romantic preface to Cromwell
Cromwell (play)
Cromwell is a play by Victor Hugo written in 1827. It was a result of the creation of the literary circle around Hugo which identified itself as Romanticist, taking Shakespeare as their model dramatist rather than the Classicist models of Jean Racine and Pierre Corneille supported by the French...
(without ever discarding them altogether).
Like the Classicists, Heliade favored a literature highlighting "types" of characters, as the union of universal traits and particular characteristics, but, like the Romantics, he encouraged writers to write from a subjective
Subjectivism
Subjectivism is a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. In extreme forms like Solipsism, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective awareness of it...
viewpoint, which he believed to be indicative of their mission as "prophets, … men who criticize, who point out their society's plagues and who look on to a happier future, waiting for a savior". Through the latter ideal of moral regeneration, Heliade also complimented the Romantic stress on "national specificity", which he adopted in his later years. At the same time, he centered much of his own literary work on non-original material, either by compiling it from various translations or by translating from a single source — having his focus on creating the basis for further development by introducing samples of untapped literary genre
Literary genre
A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even length. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult, or children's. They also must not be confused...
s and styles to Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
.
While several of Heliade's contributions to literature have been considered to be of low importance, many others, above all his Romantic poem Zburătorul, are hailed as major accomplishments. Zburătorul, borrowing from Romanian mythology its main character (the eponymous incubus
Incubus (demon)
An incubus is a demon in male form who, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions, lies upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have intercourse with them. Its female counterpart is the succubus...
-like being who visits nubile girls at night) also serves to depict the atmosphere of a Wallachian village from that period. According to George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
, the poem's value partly relies on its depiction of lust through the girls' eyes: "lacking the rages of Sappho
Sappho
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
and Phaedra
Phaedra (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Phaedra is the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, wife of Theseus and the mother of Demophon of Athens and Acamas. Phaedra's name derives from the Greek word φαιδρός , which meant "bright"....
. The puberty
Puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes by which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of reproduction, as initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads; the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy...
crisis is explained through mythology and cured through magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
".
An 1837 essay of his, centered on a debate regarding the translation of Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
's works into Romanian, featured a series of counsels to younger writers: "This is not the time for criticism, children, it is the time for writing, so write as much and as good as you can, but without meanness; create, do not ruin; for the nation receives and blesses the maker and curses the destroyer. Write with a clear conscience". Paraphrased as "Write anything, boys, as long as you go on writing!" (Scrieţi, băieţi, orice, numai scrieţi!), this quote became the topic of derision in later decades, and was hailed as an example of Heliade's failure to distinguish between quality and quantity. The latter verdict was considered unfair by the literary historian Şerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu was a Romanian literary critic, literary historian and columnist, who held teaching positions in Romanian literature at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, as well as membership of the Romanian Academy and chairmanship of its Library...
and others, who argued that Ion Heliade Rădulescu's main goal was to encourage the rapid development of local literature to a European level. Although he recognized, among other things, Heliade's merits of having removed pretentious boyar discourse from poetry and having favored regular rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
, Paul Zarifopol accused him and Gheorghe Asachi
Gheorghe Asachi
Gheorghe Asachi was a Moldavian-born Romanian prose writer, poet, painter, historian, dramatist and translator. An Enlightenment-educated polymath and polyglot, he was one of the most influential people of his generation...
of "tastelessness" and "literary insecurity". He elaborated: "Rădulescu was arguably afflicted with this sin more than Asachi, given his unfortunate ambitions of fabricating a literary language".
Heliade's name is closely connected with the establishment of Romanian-language theater, mirroring the activities of Asachi in 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...
. Ever since he partook in creating Soţietatea Filarmonică and the Bucharest Theater
National Theatre Bucharest
The National Theatre Bucharest is one of the national theatres of Romania, located in the capital city of Bucharest.-Founding:It was founded as the Teatrul cel Mare din Bucureşti in 1852, its first director being Costache Caragiale...
, to the moment of his death, he was involved in virtually all major developments in local dramatic and operatic art. In August 1834, he was one of the intellectuals who organized the first show hosted by Soţietatea Filarmonică, which featured, alongside a cavatina
Cavatina
Cavatina is a musical term, originally a short song of simple character, without a second strain or any repetition of the air...
from Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
's Il pirata
Il pirata
Il pirata is an opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani from a French translation of the tragic play Bertram, or The Castle of St Aldobrando by Charles Maturin...
, Heliade's translation of Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
's Mahomet
Mahomet (play)
Mahomet is a five-act tragedy written in 1736 by French playwright and philosopher Voltaire. It received its debut performance in Lille on 25 April 1741....
. In subsequent years, members of the association carried out the translation of French theater
Theatre of France
The theatre of France has a long and eventful history dating back to the Middle Ages.-Middle Ages:Discussions about the origins of non-religious theatre -- both drama and farce—in the Middle Ages remain controversial, but the idea of a continuous popular tradition stemming from Latin comedy and...
and other foreign pieces, while encouraging Romanian-language dramatists, an effort which was to become successful during and after the 1840s (when Constantin Aristia and Costache Caragiale
Costache Caragiale
Costache Caragiale was a Romanian actor and theatre manager who had an important role in the development of the Romanian theatre....
entered their most creative periods). Heliade himself advocated didacticism
Didacticism
Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...
in drama (defining it as "the preservation of social health"), and supported professionalism in acting
Acting
Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....
.
Historical and religious subjects
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...
focus on history, which he initially applied to his poetry. In this instance as well, the goal was to educate his public; he wrote: "Nothing is worthy of derision as much as someone taking pride in his parents and ancestors and nothing more worthy of praise than when the ancestors' great deeds serve as a model and an impulse for competition among descendants". The main historical figure in his poetry is the late 16th century Wallachian Prince Michael the Brave, the first one to rally Wallachia, Moldavia and 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...
under a single rule: celebrated in Heliade's poem O noapte pe ruinele Târgoviştii ("A Night on the Ruins of Târgovişte
Târgoviste
Târgoviște is a city in the Dâmbovița county of Romania. It is situated on the right bank of the Ialomiţa River. , it had an estimated population of 89,000. One village, Priseaca, is administered by the city.-Name:...
"), he was to be the main character of a lengthy epic poem, Mihaiada, of which only two sections, written in very different styles, were ever completed (in 1845 and 1859 respectively). Other historical poems also expanded on the ideal of a single Romanian state, while presenting the 1848 generation as a model for future Romanian politicians.
Throughout the 1860s, one of Heliade's main interests was an investigation into the issues involving Romanian history during the origin of the Romanians and the early medieval history
Romania in the Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages in Romania spans the period from the withdrawal of the Roman administration from the province of Dacia in the 271–275 AD, thenceforward modern Romania's territories were to be crisscrossed by migrating populations for almost 1,000 years...
of the Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities was a conventional name given to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which emerged in the early 14th century. The term was coined in the Habsburg Monarchy after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in order to designate an area on the lower Danube with a common...
. At a time when, in Moldavia, the newly-surfaced Chronicle of Huru
Chronicle of Huru
The Chronicle of Huru was a forged narrative, first published in 1856-1857; it claimed to be an official chronicle of the medieval Moldavian court and to shed light on Romanian presence in Moldavia from Roman Dacia and up to the 13th century, thus offering an explanation of problematic issues...
traced a political lineage of the country to 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....
through the means of a narrative which was later proven to be entirely fictional, Heliade made use of its theses to draw similar conclusions regarding Wallachia. His conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
views were thus expanded to the level of historiographic
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
thesis: according to Heliade, boyars had been an egalitarian
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
and permeable class, which, from as early as the times of Radu Negru
Radu Negru
Radu Negru also known as Radu Vodă , Radu Negru, or Negru Vodă, was a legendary ruler of Wallachia....
, had adopted humane laws that announced and welcomed those of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
(he notably claimed that the county
Counties of Romania
The 41 judeţe and the municipality of Bucharest comprise the official administrative divisions of Romania. They also represent the European Union' s NUTS-3 geocode statistical subdivision scheme of Romania.-Overview:...
-based administration was a democratic
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
one, and that it had been copied from the Israelite
Israelite
According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
model as depicted in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
).
The ideal he expressed in a work of the period, Equilibru între antithesi ("A Balance between Antitheses
Antithesis
Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition...
") was moderate progressivism
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
, with the preservation of social peace. In 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...
's view, partly based on earlier assessments by other critics, Equilibru, with its stress on making political needs coincide with social ones through the means of counterweights, evidenced strong influences from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French politician, mutualist philosopher and socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament, and he was the first person to call himself an "anarchist". He is considered among the most influential theorists and organisers of anarchism...
's thought, as well as vaguer ones from that of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
. Nonetheless, his system parted with Hegelianism
Hegelianism
Hegelianism is a collective term for schools of thought following or referring to G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy which can be summed up by the dictum that "the rational alone is real", which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories...
in that, instead of seeking a balance between the Geist
Geist
Geist is a German word. Depending on context it can be translated as the English words mind, spirit, or ghost, covering the semantic field of these three English nouns...
and existence, it considered the three states of human progress (Thesis, antithesis, synthesis
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis
The triad thesis, antithesis, synthesis is often used to describe the thought of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel never used the term himself, and almost all of his biographers have been eager to discredit it....
) the reflection of a mystical number
Numerology
Numerology is any study of the purported mystical relationship between a count or measurement and life. It has many systems and traditions and beliefs...
favored throughout history.
In parallel, Heliade worked on a vast synthesis of his own philosophy of history
Philosophy of history
The term philosophy of history refers to the theoretical aspect of history, in two senses. It is customary to distinguish critical philosophy of history from speculative philosophy of history...
, based on his interpretation of Biblical theology
Biblical Theology
Biblical theology is a discipline within Christian theology which studies the Bible from the perspective of understanding the progressive history of God revealing Himself to humanity following the Fall and throughout the Old Testament and New Testament...
. His 1858 work, Biblice ("Biblical Writings"), was supposed to form the first of four sections in a Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
history of the world. Referring to this project, Călinescu defined Heliade's ideas as "interesting, no matter how naïve at times, in general Voltairian
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
and Freemason
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...
[in shape]". Biblicele partly evidenced Heliade's interests in the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
and Zohar
Zohar
The Zohar is the foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah and scriptural interpretations as well as material on Mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical psychology...
-like gematria
Gematria
Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like...
— with emphasis placed on the numbers 3, 7, and 10 —, as well as ample reference to the Sephirot. One of his original thoughts on the matter was a reference to "deltas
Delta (letter)
Delta is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 4. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Dalet...
" (triangles) of deities
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
— Elohim
Elohim
Elohim is a grammatically singular or plural noun for "god" or "gods" in both modern and ancient Hebrew language. When used with singular verbs and adjectives elohim is usually singular, "god" or especially, the God. When used with plural verbs and adjectives elohim is usually plural, "gods" or...
-Spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
-Matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
and Spirit-Matter-the Universe. A portion of Heliade Rădulescu's poems also draw on religious themes and discourse. According to George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
, the poet had attempted to create a parallel to both The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature...
and the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
, with a style influenced by Lamartine and Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
.
Satire and polemics
Heliade was aware of the often negative response to his work: in a poem dedicated to the memory of Friedrich SchillerFriedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
, he expanded on the contrast between creation and social setting (in reference to mankind, it stressed Te iartă să faci răul, iar binele nici mort — "They forgive the evil committed against them, but never the good"). A noted author of satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
, he used it as a vehicle to criticize social customs of his day, as well as to publicize personal conflicts and resentments. As a maverick, he attacked political figures on both sides: conservatives who mimicked liberalism were the subject of his Areopagiul bestielor ("The Areopagus
Areopagus
The Areopagus or Areios Pagos is the "Rock of Ares", north-west of the Acropolis, which in classical times functioned as the high Court of Appeal for criminal and civil cases in Athens. Ares was supposed to have been tried here by the gods for the murder of Poseidon's son Alirrothios .The origin...
of the Beasts"), while many other of his post-1848 prose and poetry pieces mocked people on the left wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
of liberalism, most notably C. A. Rosetti
C. A. Rosetti
Constantin Alexandru Rosetti was a Romanian literary and political leader, born in Bucharest into a Phanariot Greek family.In 1845, Rosetti went to Paris, where he met Alphonse de Lamartine, the patron of the Society of Romanian Students in Paris. In 1847, he married Mary Grant, the sister of the...
and his supporters. During and after his exile, his conflicts with Cezar Bolliac
Cezar Bolliac
Cezar Bolliac or Boliac, Boliak was a Wallachian and Romanian radical political figure, amateur archaeologist, journalist and Romantic poet.-Early life:...
and Ion Ghica
Ion Ghica
Ion Ghica was a Romanian revolutionary, mathematician, diplomat and twice Prime Minister of Romania . He was a full member of the Romanian Academy and its president for four times...
also made the latter two the target of irony, most likely based on Heliade's belief that they intended to downplay his contributions to the Wallachian Revolution of 1848
Wallachian Revolution of 1848
The Wallachian Revolution of 1848 was a Romanian liberal and Romantic nationalist uprising in the Principality of Wallachia. Part of the Revolutions of 1848, and closely connected with the unsuccessful revolt in the Principality of Moldavia, it sought to overturn the administration imposed by...
.
His autobiographical pieces, marked by acid comments on 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;...
education, and, in this respect, similar to the writings of his friend Costache Negruzzi, also display a dose of self-irony. The enduring polemic with Grigore Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu in Bucharest was a nineteenth century Romanian poet and translator noted for his fables with political undertones.Of a noble family, he participated in secret revolutionary societies...
, as well as his quarrel with Bolliac, formed the basis of his pamphlet
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
Domnul Sarsailă autorul ("Mr. Old Nick
Devil in Christianity
In mainstream Christianity, the Devil is named Satan, and sometimes Lucifer. He is a fallen angel who rebelled against God. He is often identified as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, whose persuasions led to original sin and the need for Jesus Christ's redemption...
, the Author"), an attack on what Heliade viewed as writers whose pretentions contrasted with their actual mediocrity. In other short prose works, Ion Heliade Rădulescu commented on the caricature-like nature of parvenu
Parvenu
A Parvenu is a person who is a relative newcomer to a socioeconomic class. The word is borrowed from the French language; it is the past participle of the verb parvenir...
Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
ers (the male prototype, Coconul Drăgan, was "an ennobled hoodlum", while the female one, Coconiţa Drăgana, always wished to be the first in line for the unction
Anointing of the Sick
Anointing of the Sick, known also by other names, is distinguished from other forms of religious anointing or "unction" in that it is intended, as its name indicates, for the benefit of a sick person...
).
In various of his articles, he showed himself a critic of social trends. During the 1830s, he reacted against misogyny
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
, arguing in favor of women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
: "Who has made man create himself unfair laws and customs, in order for him to cultivate his spirit and forsake [women] into ignorance…?". In 1859, after the Jewish community
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
in Galaţi
Galati
Galați is a city and municipality in Romania, the capital of Galați County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, in the close vicinity of Brăila, Galați is the largest port and sea port on the Danube River and the second largest Romanian port....
fell victim to a pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
, he spoke out against Antisemitic blood libel accusations: "Jews do not eat children in 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...
, nor do they in 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...
, nor do they in Germany
German Confederation
The German Confederation was the loose association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia...
, nor do they do so wherever humans have become humans. Where else are they accused of such an inhumane deed? Wherever peoples are still Barbaric
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
or semi-Barbaric".
A large portion of Heliade's satirical works rely on mockery of speech patterns and physical traits: notable portraits resulting from this style include mimicking the manner of Transylvanian educators (with their strict adherence to Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
etymologies
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
), and his critique of the exophthalmos
Exophthalmos
Exophthalmos is a bulging of the eye anteriorly out of the orbit. Exophthalmos can be either bilateral or unilateral . Measurement of the degree of exophthalmos is performed using an exophthalmometer...
Rosetti (with eyes "more bulged than those of a giant frog"). Without sharing Heliade's views on literature, the younger 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....
drew comparisons with his predecessor for launching into similar attacks, and usually in respect to the same rivals.
In cultural reference
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...
artist 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...
, stands in front of the University
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
building in central Bucharest. In addition to naming a lecture room after him, 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....
has instituted the Ion Heliade Rădulescu Award — in 1880, it was awarded to Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu
Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu
Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu was a Romanian writer and philologist, who pioneered many branches of Romanian philology and history. Hasdeu is considered to have been able to understand 26 languages .-Life:...
, for his Cuvinte den bătrâni, and worth 5,000 gold 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...
. Ten years after, the prize was the center of a scandal, involving on one side the dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale was a Wallachian-born Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist...
and, on the other, the cultural establishment formed around members of 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...
, including Hasdeu and Dimitrie Sturdza
Dimitrie Sturdza
Dimitrie Sturdza was a Romanian statesman of the late 19th century, and president of the Romanian Academy between 1882 and 1884.-Biography:Born in Iaşi, Moldavia, and educated there at the Academia Mihăileană, he continued his studies in Germany, took part in the political movements of the time,...
. The latter disapproved of Caragiale's anti-Liberal stance and his association with 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...
, as well as to his anti-nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, dislike of didacticism
Didacticism
Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...
, and alleged cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism...
. They thus refused to grant him the prize.
A high school in his native Târgovişte
Târgoviste
Târgoviște is a city in the Dâmbovița county of Romania. It is situated on the right bank of the Ialomiţa River. , it had an estimated population of 89,000. One village, Priseaca, is administered by the city.-Name:...
bears the name Ion Heliade Rădulescu, as does a village in the commune of Ziduri
Ziduri
Ziduri is a commune in Buzău County, Romania. It is composed of six villages: Costieni, Cuculeasa, Heliade Rădulescu, Lanurile, Ziduri and Zoiţa....
, Buzău County
Buzau County
Buzău is a county of Romania, in the historical region Muntenia, with the capital city at Buzău.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 496,214 and the population density was 81/km².*Romanians – 97%*Roma – under 3% declared, and others....
. The grave of Take Ionescu
Take Ionescu
Take or Tache Ionescu was a Romanian centrist politician, journalist, lawyer and diplomat, who also enjoyed reputation as a short story author. Starting his political career as a radical member of the National Liberal Party , he joined the Conservative Party in 1891, and became noted as a social...
, an influential political figure and one-time Prime Minister of Romania
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...
who was Heliade's descendant, is situated in Sinaia Monastery
Sinaia Monastery
The Sinaia Monastery, located in Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, was founded by Prince Mihail Cantacuzino in 1695 and named after the great Sinai Monastery on Mount Sinai. As of 2005, it is inhabited by 13 Christian Orthodox monks led by hegumen Macarie Bogus...
, in the immediate vicinity of a fir tree planted by Heliade and his fellow 1848 revolutionaries.
In his 1870 poem Epigonii ("The Epigones"), 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...
paid tribute to early Romanian-language writers and their contributions to literature. An entire stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
is dedicated to Heliade:
Eliad zidea din visuri şi din basme seculare Delta biblicelor sânte, profeţiilor amare, Adevăr scăldat în mite, sfinx pătrunsă de-nţeles; Munte cu capul de piatră de furtune deturnată, Stă şi azi în faţa lumii o enigmă nesplicată Şi vegheaz-o stâncă arsă dintre nouri de eres. |
Out of dreams and secular tales, Eliad was building The delta of Biblical saints, of bitter prophecies, Truth bathed in myth, a sphinx Sphinx A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless... imbued with meaning; A mountain with its head of stone misplaced by the storm, He still stands today, before the world, as an unsolved enigma And watches over a burnt rock from between clouds of heresy Heresy Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion... . |
During the early 1880s, Alexandru Macedonski
Alexandru Macedonski
Alexandru Macedonski was a Wallachian-born Romanian poet, novelist, dramatist and literary critic, known especially for having promoted French Symbolism in his native country, and for leading the Romanian Symbolist movement during its early decades...
and his Literatorul attempted to preserve Heliade's status and his theories when these were faced with criticism from Junimea; by 1885, this rivalry ended in defeat for Macedonski, and contributed to the disestablishment of Literatorul.
Although a Junimist for a large part of his life, Ion Luca Caragiale himself saw a precursor in Heliade, and even expressed some sympathy for his political ideals. During the 1890s, he republished a piece by Heliade in the Conservative Party's main journal, Epoca. One of Caragiale's most significant characters, the Transylvanian schoolteacher Marius Chicoş Rostogan, shares many traits with his counterparts in Heliade's stories. Developing his own theory, he claimed that there was a clear difference between, on one hand, the generation of Heliade Rădulescu, Ion Câmpineanu, and Nicolae Bălcescu
Nicolae Balcescu
Nicolae Bălcescu was a Romanian Wallachian soldier, historian, journalist, and leader of the 1848 Wallachian Revolution.-Early life:...
, and, on the other, the National Liberal establishment formed around Pantazi Ghica
Pantazi Ghica
Pantazi Ghica was a Wallachian-born Romanian politician and lawyer, also known as a dramatist, poet, short story writer, and literary critic. A prominent representative of the liberal current, he was the younger brother and lifelong collaborator of Ion Ghica, who served as Prime Minister of the...
, Nicolae Misail
Nicolae Misail
- External links :* * * -References:...
and Mihail Pătârlăgeanu — he identified the latter grouping with hypocrisy
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie....
, demagogy
Demagogy
Demagogy or demagoguery is a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears, vanities and expectations of the public—typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes...
, and political corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
, while arguing that the former could have found itself best represented by the Conservatives.
Comments about Heliade and his Bucharest statue feature prominently in Macedonski's short story Nicu Dereanu, whose main character, a daydreaming Bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
, idolizes the Wallachian writer. Sburătorul
Sburatorul
Sburătorul was a Romanian modernist literary magazine and literary society, established in Bucharest in April 1919. Led by Eugen Lovinescu, the circle was instrumental in developing new trends and styles in Romanian literature, ranging from a new wave of Romanian Symbolism to an urban-themed...
, a modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
literary magazine of 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....
, edited by 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...
, owed its name to Zburătorul, making use of an antiquated variant of the name (a form favored by Heliade). During the same years, Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu was a Romanian playwright, novelist, philosopher and poet. He marked the end of the traditional novel era and laid the foundation of the modern novel era.- Life :...
made reference to Heliade in his novel Un om între oameni, which depicts events from Nicolae Bălcescu
Nicolae Balcescu
Nicolae Bălcescu was a Romanian Wallachian soldier, historian, journalist, and leader of the 1848 Wallachian Revolution.-Early life:...
's lifetime.
In his Autobiography, the Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
indicated that it was likely that his ancestors, whose original surname was Ieremia, had adopted the new name as a tribute to Heliade Rădulescu, whom they probably admired.
External links
- The Humanities and The Social Sciences in The Academy. Literature, Folklore and the Arts, at the Romanian AcademyRomanian AcademyThe 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....
site Răzvan Pârâianu, În amintirea lui Ion Heliade Rădulescu. Aniversarea a 200 de ani de la naşterea sa (page dedicated to the memory of Ion Heliade Rădulescu, upon the 200th anniversary of his death)