Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan
Encyclopedia
Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan was a Romania
n literary critic, educationist, opinion journalist, poet and feminist
militant. She spent her youth advocating socialism
, and rallied with left-wing politics
for the remainder of her life, primarily as a representative of Poporanist
circles and personal friend of culture critic Garabet Ibrăileanu
. Under Ibrăileanu's guidance, Sadoveanu wrote for Viaţa Românească
review, where she tried to reconcile ethnic nationalism
and traditionalism with aestheticism
. As literary critic, she championed the recognition of Symbolism
as an independent cultural phenomenon, and reviewed modern developments in English literature
.
Sadoveanu represented Romanian feminism at International Alliance of Women
congresses, but took a gradualist
approach to women's suffrage
, and, during the interwar, became interested in creating links between feminism and eugenics
. With her activities as schoolteacher and militant, she supported education reform
, and qualified to propagate the Montessori method
. Late in life, she added feminist anti-fascism
to her list of political and social involvements.
The cousin of socialist politico Vasile Morţun, Izabela was the sister-in-law of novelist and political figure Mihail Sadoveanu
. She was also related to various families of importance in Romanian political history.
of Moldavia
: her place of birth is given as Săuceşti
, Bacău County
, but she may also have been born in Hertsa region. Her parents were Gheorghe Grigore and Eleonora Morţun, uncle and aunt of the socialist Vasile Morţun. By virtue of birth, Izabela was related to several leading Moldavian intellectual and boyar
families: her own branch, the Morţuneşti, was intermarried with the Racoviţeşti
, the Movileşti and even the ancient House of Bogdan-Muşat
. Also among her relatives was the Arbore family, whose members include socialists Zamfir
and Ecaterina Arbore
.
Izabela was adopted, soon after birth, by the Andrei family, and is reported to have been an unhappy and unwanted child. She had a half-sister, Adela, whom she later described as one of the beauties of Moldavia.
The future author attended primary school in Bacău
city, before being sent over to a girls' institute and boarding school
in Iaşi
. While enrolled in this French-language institution, also known as Dodun des Perrières School, Izabela Andrei met and befriended Constanţa Marino-Moscu, who also grew up to become a writer. It was during those years that Izabela was first drawn into socialist militancy, attending the left-wing cultural circle of Ioan and Sofia Nădejde, and read widely on various subjects. She would become a close friend and collaborator of Sofia, describing her as "beautiful [...], as simple as a child, as full of common sense as if a peasant woman healthy in body and spirit, passionate and excessive, as any real feminine character, in all her manifestations." Acquainted with poet-novelist Nicolae Beldiceanu, she also frequented Beldiceanu's own literary society, meeting with the celebrated raconteur Ion Creangă
. Her own debut followed in 1890, when her lyric poetry
saw print in Şcoala Nouă magazine. She was at the time in Bacău
city, a substitute teacher at the day school
for girls.
In short time, Izabela Morţun made her way to Bucharest
, Romania's capital. Still an active socialist, she was present at the 2nd Congress of the Romanian Social Democratic Workers' Party, and met, through her socialist connections, several major figures on the late 19th century Romanian literary scene
: Ion Luca Caragiale
, Barbu Ştefănescu Delavrancea
, Alexandru Vlahuţă
. Another such figure was the socialist veteran Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
, about whom she later wrote: "I never again met a man who could spread as much serenity and reconciliation all around him".
The young woman attended the University of Bucharest
Faculty of Philosophy, where she was colleagues with several male writers, including Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voineşti and O. Carp (Gheorghe Proca). In 1892, Carp married Adela Andrei.
. In 1898, she married in Roman
officer Alexandru Sadoveanu (born 1866), an older brother of the debuting writer Mihail Sadoveanu. She followed him to Focşani
, where she taught at the Girls' Boarding School), and eventually to Bucharest—where she worked as an educator for Şcoala Centrală de Fete.
Over the following decade, like her brother-in-law Mihail, she affiliated with the newly-founded Viaţa Românească, the leading mouthpiece for a Romanian-born leftist-nationalist
ideology, Poporanism. She became a disciple of the Poporanist theorist and editor in chief Garabet Ibrăileanu
, particularly in what concerns Ibrăileanu's rationalist
approach to literary phenomena. She would later describe him as "a handsome young man, famed as being very well-read and cultured, but terrifyingly shy".
Sadoveanu also took Ibrăileanu's side in his polemic with Eugen Lovinescu
, a maverick traditionalist and later herald of the modernist
scene. Writing to Ibrăileanu in 1909, after having attended one of Lovinescu's earliest public lectures, Sadoveanu described the new arrival as "one great rotter" and "an ignorant", who spoke in a "banal and stupid", "superficial" way. In his 1930s review of Romanian literature, Lovinescu took a reserved view of Sadoveanu's Poporanist activity, suggesting that her nationalist advocacy echoed the right-wing competitors at Sămănătorul
magazine, the home of historian and critic Nicolae Iorga
, while deeming her critical approach "lyrical, verbose and sectarian."
By 1906, Sadoveanu was also contributing to Revista Idealistă, the Neoclassical
magazine of Mihail G. Holban, where she discussed "Romanticism
in literature", and the mainstream review Noua Revistă Română. At this junction, she was involved in a minor scandal focused on her brother-in-law and the Poporanist milieu. That year, her old friend Marino-Moscu informed Ibrăileanu that Mariana Vidraşcu, a Viaţa Românească-serialized novel by Mihail Sadoveanu, was plagiarized
from her own manuscript, which she had earlier confided to Izabela, and which Izabela had passed on to her relative; while the Sadoveanus refused to publicize their own version of events, Ibrăileanu assessed the evidence as favorable to Marino-Moscu, and buried the scandal by interrupting the series. Fragments from Sadoveanu's novel were only republished by Manuscriptum review in 1970, and the plagiarism itself was proven in 1988.
During the first decade of the 20th century, Izabela Sadoveanu became one of the socialists who moved closer to the mainstream National Liberal Party
(PNL). Her debut as a literary critic came shortly before 1908, when she was briefly a literary columnist for the PNL newspaper Voinţa Naţională.
published a volume of Izabela Sadoveanu's critical essays, Impresii literare ("Literary Impressions"). The book earned the attention of critics, and was reviewed in the national press. In Luceafărul, a tribune of the Romanians in Austria-Hungary
, fellow writer Ion Duma contrasted Impresii literare with another work of "impressionistic
" criticism, that of traditionalist journalist Ilarie Chendi: while Sadoveanu's text demanded didacticism
and morality in literature, Chendi, a Sămănătorul dissident, was writing in favor of art for art's sake
. As noted by Duma, Sadoveanu's pronouncements defended writers for their moral mission, even to the detriment of art, equally praising Sofia Nădejde and novelist Constantin Sandu-Aldea for their sense of "pity [...] for those less fortunate". The same reviewer also claimed that Sadoveanu, "a womanly character", lacked an understanding of extrovert and "combative" traditionalists like Sandu-Aldea and Luceafărul poet Octavian Goga
. Another Luceafărul chronicler, academic Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică, contrarily asserted that Sadoveanu was "rather the warrior", but described Impresii... as inconsistent: "Yes and no; neither here nor there; this, that and the other. And yet it carries a note that ought to be signaled." From his traditionalist standpoint, Bogdan-Duică argued that Sadoveanu erred in reaching beyond "impressions" to consider herself a professional critic, and to advocate the "primacy of the senses
" in art: "Ms. Sadoveanu-Evan has a philosophy, even though she is a woman." Reviewing the echoes of Sadoveanu's contributions in 2002, publisher and literary historian Cornelia Ştefănescu argued: "[she] sparked bitter polemics and denials more than appreciations, even though N. Iorga and G. Ibrăileanu, objectively or not, had a privileged view of her".
Sadoveanu alternated the aesthetic ideal with meditations on the national specificity in art. According to literary historian George Călinescu
, the volume cemented her transition from socialism to Poporanism, illustrated by quotes such as: "We are Romanians
, and our works of art and products of the mind must carry the seal of our nation's originality." A traditionalist, Duma noted with satisfaction that Sadoveanu had parted with socialism and discovered "the creed of artistic nationalism": "Everywhere she wishes to point out the Romanian spirit, the Romanian nature: Romanian skies, earth, rivers, woods, birds and insects, a Romanian light." Bogdan-Duică concluded that sensualism did not interfere with the book's didactic agenda, since Sadoveanu still helped popularize writers inspired by "national life", from Mihail Sadoveanu, Carp and Brătescu-Voineşti to Ştefan Octavian Iosif
and Elena Farago.
Also in 1908, with her Viaţa Românească articles, Sadoveanu turned her attention to the impact of Symbolism
and the anti-traditionalist Romanian Symbolist branch
. As she herself argued decades later: "I was the only one to express the opinion that [...] we are dealing with an innovative movement, just like I was the first one in history to sketch out Symbolism in articles for Viaţa Românească". According to various commentators of her work, cited by literary historian Paul Cernat, she was indeed the first Romanian to take an interest in the movement, and who therefore opened a channel of communication between the Poporanists and the Romanian Symbolists. Her primary interest was in showing how the anti-positivist
poetry of Frenchman
Arthur Rimbaud
had created a fashion in Romania, but she also discussed the roles that Jean Moréas
and Anatole France
had in making Symbolism known to a French and international public. Her work also touched on the connection between Romanian Symbolists (Adrian Maniu) and the literary side of Vienna Secession
(Rainer Maria Rilke
).
Believed by Călinescu to have been "a highly educated woman", Sadoveanu repeatedly argued that professional critics needed to be exceptionally cultured. She reacted against cultural isolationism, describing in detail the merits of reciprocal translation in expanding the written culture. Cornelia Ştefănescu finds her essays characterized by subtlety and the sense of detail, for instance in describing the Romantic critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
, whose proverbial ugliness, Sadoveanu argued, indirectly shaped 19th-century French literature.
, which effectively established the Romanian Writers' Society (SSR), a professional association presided upon by Mihail Sadoveanu. She also became noted as a translator foreign-language works, primarily Italian
, into her native Romanian
; in 1909, under contract with Minerva, she published a volume of novella
s by Grazia Deledda
and Giovanni Verga
's Royal Tiger.
Beginning 1912, Sadoveanu-Evan furthered her education in Geneva
, Switzerland
, where she attended the Rousseau Institute
and graduated among its first-ever alumni. She returned to take up a headmistress' office at Iaşi's Pedagogic Institute for Girls, and later at the Elena Cuza
School of Bucharest. A supporter of the reading program as the basis for all education, and interested in the applications of the Montessori method
, she later created her own Şcoala de Puericutură şi Educatoare (School for Puericulture and Women Educators), and was Inspector of Romanian Kindergarten
s. Sadoveanu also collaborated with Iorga on the summer school
in Vălenii de Munte
town.
Although, after Impresii literare, her critical essays were never again collected in book form, Sadoveanu-Evan published several new tracts as an educationist: the 1911 Educaţia estetică şi artistică din ultimele două decenii ("The Aesthetic and Artistic Education during the Last Two Decades") was followed later by Material didactic Montessori ("Montessori Teaching Aid"), Educaţia nouă. Îndrumări pentru părinţi şi educatori ("The New Education. Advice for Parents and Educators") etc.
As she recalled in 1939, Sadoveanu began her feminist activism by joining the Sprijinul ("Support") Association of Bucharest. The group, Sadoveanu noted, was more dedicated to "encouraging and aiding women who earn a living through their own labor, rather than to organizing them in view of political life and women's suffrage
demands." In fact, Sprijinul grouped together political women (including its president, Smaranda "Ema" Beldima) and male pro-feminists
(the socialist lawyer Toma Dragu). With Mărgărita Miller Verghy
, Bucura Dumbravă and other women writers, Sadoveanu was also a founding member of the Româncele Cercetaşe Association, an early branch of Romanian Scouting, preceding the Asociaţia Ghidelor şi Ghizilor din România
.
had ended, Izabela Sadoveanu was a founding member of Asociaţia pentru emanciparea civilă şi politică a femeilor române (the Association for the Civil and Political Emancipation of Romanian Women, AECPFR), which unified several of the feminist associations in Greater Romania
around the ideal of women's suffrage. Through this affiliation, she became a delegate of Romanian women to several international congresses held by the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship
(IAWSEC).
After the region of Transylvania
, formerly in Austria-Hungary
, was united with Romania
, Sadoveanu established contacts with its feminist scene. By 1920, she was elected to the Steering Committee of the Transylvanian-based Romanian Women's Union (UFR), assisting its President Maria Baiulescu as one of the UFR's three Vice Presidents for Muntenia
(alongside Micaela Catargi and Eugenia de Reuss Ianculescu). She later traced the origin of Romania's organized feminist movement with the UFR's earliest nucleus, created in the 1840s by Maria Nicolau. Her interest in Transylvania also surfaced in her work as a teacher: in the summer months of 1919, she was in Cluj
, instructing locals on the practical use of the Montessori method. Her work as a journalist diversified, and she was, before 1924, one of the regular writers in Lamura, a literary review published by Vlahuţă.
In September 1925, Sadoveanu was guest speaker at the UFR's 6th Congress in Timişoara
, and reported on its proceedings in Iorga's newspaper Neamul Românesc. According to Baiulescu's summary, the Congress explicitly sought to reform the 1923 Constitution of Romania
, which had only recognized universal male suffrage, and bring about gender equality as an "act of justice". The report also critically noted a decrease in standing for Romanian women in Transylvania, Bukovina
and other regions, ever since Romania had replaced Austria-Hungary as the administrative power. Around that time, Sadoveanu also affiliated with Adela Xenopol's Societatea Scriitoarelor Române (Romanian Women Writers' Society), which stood against the dominant and supposedly sexist
SSR; she also began contributing to its tribune, Revista Scriitoarei ("The Woman Writer's Review"), joining a writing staff which also included Sofia Nădejde, Miller Verghy, Constanţa Hodoş, Ana Conta-Kernbach, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu
and Aida Vrioni. Sadoveanu was a Vice President of the Society, and took up a similar position in Asociaţia Universitară, the female Academic Society.
By the mid 1920s, Sadoveanu fell out with Alexandrina Cantacuzino, leader of the National Council of Romanian Women (which was endorsed by the AECPFR). This occurred after Cantacuzino's official visit to Italy
, where she had attended a IAWSEC Congress, and where the initiative was taken to create a regional East-Central Europe
an feminist association, the "Little Entente
" of Women. Sadoveanu was a vocal critic of the project, which, she argued, only served the interest of Czechoslovak women, and accused Cantacuzino of not being patriotic
. Historian Roxana Cheşchebec reviews this incident as proof that "the fate of women's activism was related in that period to the promotion of national interests."
and feminism, carried out in the pages of (the mouthpiece of eugenicists active within ASTRA Society). These articles purported that the main cause of feminism was to empower women as homemakers and nurturers, instead or before granting them political rights and representation. Her collaboration with the Vălenii de Munte institution continued and, together with Iorga and Constanţa Evolceanu, she helped organize a preparatory School of National and Moral Female Missionaries (1927). She also lectured there about the implementation of education reform
.
Izabela Sadoveanu's preoccupation with early childhood education
led her to explore the opportunities offered by radio, a new media at the time: she produced and voiced one of Radio România
's first-ever thematic broadcasts, the 1929 Ora Copiilor ("Children's Hour"). Also in 1929, she contributed the preface to an essay by writers R. Catarg and I. C. Chiriacescu, Femeia în epoca nouă a omenirii ("Woman in the New Era of Mankind"). Her tract on Romanian education policies
, titled Educaţia nouă ("The New Education"), saw print the next year.
Sadoveanu and Alexandrina Cantacuzino were reconciled by May 1933, when they were AECPFR delegates to Constanţa
city, paying homage to the Dobruja
n wing of the women's emancipation movement. In later years, Sadoveanu wrote more positively of Cantacuzino, noting her role in propagating the feminist ideal and her participation with the International Council of Women
.
Throughout the 1920s and '30s, Sadoveanu-Evan began contributed to the left-wing dailies Adevărul
and Dimineaţa (briefly managed by Mihail Sadoveanu), as well as to Adevăruls cultural supplement Adevărul Literar şi Artistic. She was originally a columnist for Dimineaţa, with Pagina femeii ("The Woman's Page"); at the same time, Viaţa Românească serialized her biographic series Profiluri feminine ("Feminine Profiles"), later taken up by Adevărul Literar şi Artistic. The latter also published her April 1928 interview with writer Sylvia Stevenson, on the state of English literature
, discussing authors from Virginia Woolf
to John Galsworthy
(a preoccupation which resurfaced in Sadoveanu's articles as late as 1937). Sadoveanu's work for Adevărul itself originally included a series of her essays on English writers.
Among her other works of literary criticism which saw print with Adevărul Literar şi Artistic was a 1930 study of Ibrăileanu's literature, in which she defended her mentor's writing style (proposing that it only seemed "rough" because it sought to be anti-rhetoric
al). She also alleged that, as a very young man, Ibrăileanu had been in love with her sister Adela (the argument, according to which Adela is the mysterious "Estella" in Ibrăileanu's autobiographical notes, was judged unconvincing by historian Anais Nersesïan). The same paper also published her biographical sketches and recollections about two personal acquaintances from the socialist and Poporanist scene of the fin de siècle
: Anton "Tony" Bacalbaşa, "Gheorghe din Moldova" Kernbach. She was also contributing to the provincial press: in 1934, her piece "How to Create a Reading Public" ran in the Ploieşti
paper Gazeta Cărţilor.
movements on Europe's societies, Sadoveanu-Evan combined her feminist stance with the cause of anti-fascism
. Together with actress Lucia Sturdza Bulandra, she was active within Frontul Feminin (Feminine Front), an organism designed to defend women's rights against the far right
threat, and presided upon by Nădejde. According to researcher Ştefania Mihalache, the Front, which was created in 1936 and soon after published a manifesto, had a Marxist
bias, centered on "the woman's right to work". Sadoveanu's made trips abroad, and attended, in Paris
, the exhibit marking the 50 years since the Symbolist Manifesto
.
During 1937, probably on Sadoveanu-Evan's request, Adevărul began publishing a special second-page column titled Femeile între ele ("Women amongst Themselves"), which included contributions from herself and her colleagues in the feminist movement, Papadat-Bengescu (who may have inspired the column's title) and Nădejde. They were joined by several consecrated or aspiring women writers, among them: Ticu Archip, Lucia Demetrius, Claudia Millian, Sanda Movilă, Profira Sadoveanu (Izabela's niece), Valeria Mitru (future wife of Mihail Sadoveanu), Coca Farago (daughter of poet Elena Fargo) and Sorana Ţopa (the actress wife of philosopher Mircea Eliade
). Izabela Sadoveanu's own pieces for Femeile între ele included an overview of the suffragette
movement and a positive report about the Soroptimist International, whose self-help
ideas she tried to popularize in Romania, and a sarcastic reply to Archip's strong-voiced antifeminist
stance. Also in 1937, Adevărul published her homage to French socialist and pacifist
Jean Jaurès
, who had fallen victim to nationalists shortly after the outbreak of World War I
. A year later, she withdrew from teaching with a state pension, and dedicated her energy to editorial work for Adevărul Literar şi Artistic, before the entire Adevărul family of papers were banned by King
Carol II
's authoritarian
regime. In 1939, the Transylvanian left-wing magazine Societatea de Mâine published her shorty history of Romanian feminist organizations.
by Constantin Stere
, former member of the Viaţa Românească circle (Mihail Sadoveanu is also a character of the book, hidden under the name Nicolae Pădureanu).
An eponymous monograph
on Izabela Sadoveanu-Evanu was published by Editura Didactică şi Pedagogică, in 1970; her own work of memoirs, Sufletul altor generaţii, was included in a 1980 Editura Eminescu anthology, covering mainly the autobiographic texts of folklorist Aristiţa Avramescu. Twenty years later, critic Margareta Feraru revisited her entire work, republishing two volumes of her magazine essays, as Cărţi şi idei ("Books and Ideas"). Commenting on this critical edition, Cornelia Ştefănescu made note of Sadoveanu's "daring critical spirit, her unwavering virtues and merits as a researcher, the mobility of her thought over the spheres of ideology, literature, arts and education". In 2007, Paul Cernat wrote that Sadoveanu was "unfairly ignored nowadays".
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 literary critic, educationist, opinion journalist, poet and feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
militant. She spent her youth advocating 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,...
, and rallied with left-wing politics
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
for the remainder of her life, primarily as a representative of Poporanist
Poporanism
The word “poporanism” is derived from “popor”, meaning “people” in the Romanian language. The ideology of Romanian Populism and poporanism are interchangeable. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, populism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for...
circles and personal friend of culture 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...
. Under Ibrăileanu's guidance, Sadoveanu wrote for Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
review, where she tried to reconcile ethnic nationalism
Ethnic nationalism
Ethnic nationalism is a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity. Whatever specific ethnicity is involved, ethnic nationalism always includes some element of descent from previous generations and the implied claim of ethnic essentialism, i.e...
and traditionalism with aestheticism
Aestheticism
Aestheticism was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design...
. As literary critic, she championed the recognition of Symbolism
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...
as an independent cultural phenomenon, and reviewed modern developments in English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
.
Sadoveanu represented Romanian feminism at International Alliance of Women
International Alliance of Women
The International Alliance of Women is a non-governmental, feminist organization, which embraces both women’s groups and individuals. The basic principle of the IAW is that the full and equal enjoyment of human rights is due to all women and girls....
congresses, but took a gradualist
Gradualism
Gradualism is the belief in or the policy of advancing toward a goal by gradual, often slow stages.-Politics and society:In politics, the concept of gradualism is used to describe the belief that change ought to be brought about in small, discrete increments rather than in abrupt strokes such as...
approach to women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
, and, during the interwar, became interested in creating links between feminism and eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
. With her activities as schoolteacher and militant, she supported education reform
Education reform
Education reform is the process of improving public education. Small improvements in education theoretically have large social returns, in health, wealth and well-being. Historically, reforms have taken different forms because the motivations of reformers have differed.A continuing motivation has...
, and qualified to propagate the Montessori method
Montessori method
Montessori education is an educational approach developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori. Montessori education is practiced in an estimated 20,000 schools worldwide, serving children from birth to eighteen years old.-Overview:...
. Late in life, she added feminist anti-fascism
Anti-fascism
Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...
to her list of political and social involvements.
The cousin of socialist politico Vasile Morţun, Izabela was the sister-in-law of novelist and political figure Mihail Sadoveanu
Mihail Sadoveanu
Mihail Sadoveanu was a Romanian novelist, short story writer, journalist and political figure, who twice served as acting republican head of state under the communist regime . One of the most prolific Romanian-language writers, he is remembered mostly for his historical and adventure novels, as...
. She was also related to various families of importance in Romanian political history.
Early life
Izabela Morţun hailed from the historical regionHistorical regions of Romania
At various times during the late 19th and 20th centuries, Romania extended over the following historical regions:Wallachia:*Muntenia or Greater Wallachia: as part of Wallachia, joined Moldavia in 1859 to create modern Romania;...
of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
: her place of birth is given as Săuceşti
Saucesti
Săuceşti is a commune in Bacău County, Romania. It is composed of five villages: Bogdan Vodă, Săuceşti, Schineni, Şerbeşti and Siretu.-References:...
, Bacău County
Bacau County
Bacău is a county of Romania, in Moldavia, with its capital city at Bacău. It has one commune, Ghimeş-Făget, in Transylvania.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 706,623 and the population density was 113/km²....
, but she may also have been born in Hertsa region. Her parents were Gheorghe Grigore and Eleonora Morţun, uncle and aunt of the socialist Vasile Morţun. By virtue of birth, Izabela was related to several leading Moldavian intellectual and 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....
families: her own branch, the Morţuneşti, was intermarried with the Racoviţeşti
Racovita
Racoviţa may refer to:* the Racoviţă family of Wallachian and Moldavian boyars and Phanariotesand to several places in Romania:* Racoviţa, a commune in Brăila County* Racoviţa, a commune in Sibiu County* Racoviţa, a commune in Timiş County...
, the Movileşti and even the ancient House of Bogdan-Muşat
House of Bogdan-Musat
The House of Bogdan, commonly referred to as the House of Mușat, was the ruling family which established the Principality of Moldova with Bogdan I , giving the country its first line of Princes, one closely related with the Basarab rulers of Wallachia by several marriages through time...
. Also among her relatives was the Arbore family, whose members include socialists Zamfir
Zamfir Arbore
Zamfir Constantin Arbore was a Bukovinan-born Romanian political activist originally active in the Russian Empire, also known for his work as an amateur historian, geographer and ethnographer. Arbore debuted in left-wing politics from early in life, gained an intimate knowledge of the Russian...
and Ecaterina Arbore
Ecaterina Arbore
Ecaterina Arbore, Arbore-Ralli or Ralli-Arbore , daughter of Zamfir Arbore , was a Romanian, Soviet and Moldovan communist activist and official.-Early life:She trained towards a medical...
.
Izabela was adopted, soon after birth, by the Andrei family, and is reported to have been an unhappy and unwanted child. She had a half-sister, Adela, whom she later described as one of the beauties of Moldavia.
The future author attended primary school in Bacău
Bacau
Bacău is the main city in Bacău County, Romania. It covers a land surface of 43 km², and, as of January 1, 2009, has an estimated population of 177,087. The city is situated in the historical region of Moldavia, at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, and on the Bistriţa River...
city, before being sent over to a girls' institute and boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
in Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
. While enrolled in this French-language institution, also known as Dodun des Perrières School, Izabela Andrei met and befriended Constanţa Marino-Moscu, who also grew up to become a writer. It was during those years that Izabela was first drawn into socialist militancy, attending the left-wing cultural circle of Ioan and Sofia Nădejde, and read widely on various subjects. She would become a close friend and collaborator of Sofia, describing her as "beautiful [...], as simple as a child, as full of common sense as if a peasant woman healthy in body and spirit, passionate and excessive, as any real feminine character, in all her manifestations." Acquainted with poet-novelist Nicolae Beldiceanu, she also frequented Beldiceanu's own literary society, meeting with the celebrated raconteur Ion Creangă
Ion Creanga
Ion Creangă was a Moldavian-born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his novellas and short stories, and his many anecdotes...
. Her own debut followed in 1890, when her lyric poetry
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
saw print in Şcoala Nouă magazine. She was at the time in Bacău
Bacau
Bacău is the main city in Bacău County, Romania. It covers a land surface of 43 km², and, as of January 1, 2009, has an estimated population of 177,087. The city is situated in the historical region of Moldavia, at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, and on the Bistriţa River...
city, a substitute teacher at the day school
Day school
A day school—as opposed to a boarding school—is an institution where children are given educational instruction during the day and after which children/teens return to their homes...
for girls.
In short time, Izabela Morţun made her way to 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....
, Romania's capital. Still an active socialist, she was present at the 2nd Congress of the Romanian Social Democratic Workers' Party, and met, through her socialist connections, several major figures on the late 19th century Romanian literary scene
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....
: 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...
, Barbu Ştefănescu Delavrancea
Barbu Stefanescu Delavrancea
Barbu Ştefănescu Delavrancea was a Romanian writer and poet, considered one of Romania's greatest figures in the National awakening of Romania.-External links:*...
, Alexandru Vlahuţă
Alexandru Vlahuta
Alexandru Vlahuţă was a Romanian writer. His best known work is România pitorească, an overview of Romania's landscape in the form of a travelogue. He was also the main editor of Sămănătorul magazine, alongside George Coşbuc....
. Another such figure was the socialist veteran Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea was a Romanian Marxist theorist, politician, sociologist, literary critic, and journalist....
, about whom she later wrote: "I never again met a man who could spread as much serenity and reconciliation all around him".
The young woman attended the University of Bucharest
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
Faculty of Philosophy, where she was colleagues with several male writers, including Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voineşti and O. Carp (Gheorghe Proca). In 1892, Carp married Adela Andrei.
Poporanist debut
Sadoveanu qualified to be a schoolteacher, and later took up a teaching position in BrăilaBraila
Brăila is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County, in the close vicinity of Galaţi.According to the 2002 Romanian census there were 216,292 people living within the city of Brăila, making it the 10th most populous city in Romania.-History:A...
. In 1898, she married in Roman
Roman, Romania
Roman is a mid-sized city, having the title of municipality, located in the central part of Moldavia, a traditional region of Romania. It is located 46 km east of Piatra Neamţ, in the Neamţ County at the confluence of Siret and Moldova rivers....
officer Alexandru Sadoveanu (born 1866), an older brother of the debuting writer Mihail Sadoveanu. She followed him to Focşani
Focsani
Focşani is the capital city of Vrancea County in Romania on the shores the Milcov river, in the historical region of Moldavia. It has a population of 101,854.-Geography:...
, where she taught at the Girls' Boarding School), and eventually to Bucharest—where she worked as an educator for Şcoala Centrală de Fete.
Over the following decade, like her brother-in-law Mihail, she affiliated with the newly-founded Viaţa Românească, the leading mouthpiece for a Romanian-born leftist-nationalist
Left-wing nationalism
Left-wing nationalism describes a form of nationalism officially based upon equality, popular sovereignty, and national self-determination. It has its origins in the Jacobinism of the French Revolution. Left-wing nationalism typically espouses anti-imperialism...
ideology, Poporanism. She became a disciple of the Poporanist theorist and editor in chief 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...
, particularly in what concerns Ibrăileanu's rationalist
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
approach to literary phenomena. She would later describe him as "a handsome young man, famed as being very well-read and cultured, but terrifyingly shy".
Sadoveanu also took Ibrăileanu's side in his polemic with 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...
, a maverick traditionalist and later herald of the modernist
Modernist literature
Modernist literature is sub-genre of Modernism, a predominantly European movement beginning in the early 20th century that was characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional aesthetic forms...
scene. Writing to Ibrăileanu in 1909, after having attended one of Lovinescu's earliest public lectures, Sadoveanu described the new arrival as "one great rotter" and "an ignorant", who spoke in a "banal and stupid", "superficial" way. In his 1930s review of Romanian literature, Lovinescu took a reserved view of Sadoveanu's Poporanist activity, suggesting that her nationalist advocacy echoed the right-wing competitors at Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul or Semănătorul was a literary and political magazine published in Romania between 1901 and 1910. Founded by poets Alexandru Vlahuţă and George Coşbuc, it is primarily remembered as a tribune for early 20th century traditionalism, neoromanticism and ethnic nationalism...
magazine, the home of historian and critic Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
, while deeming her critical approach "lyrical, verbose and sectarian."
By 1906, Sadoveanu was also contributing to Revista Idealistă, the Neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
magazine of Mihail G. Holban, where she discussed "Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
in literature", and the mainstream review Noua Revistă Română. At this junction, she was involved in a minor scandal focused on her brother-in-law and the Poporanist milieu. That year, her old friend Marino-Moscu informed Ibrăileanu that Mariana Vidraşcu, a Viaţa Românească-serialized novel by Mihail Sadoveanu, was plagiarized
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
from her own manuscript, which she had earlier confided to Izabela, and which Izabela had passed on to her relative; while the Sadoveanus refused to publicize their own version of events, Ibrăileanu assessed the evidence as favorable to Marino-Moscu, and buried the scandal by interrupting the series. Fragments from Sadoveanu's novel were only republished by Manuscriptum review in 1970, and the plagiarism itself was proven in 1988.
During the first decade of the 20th century, Izabela Sadoveanu became one of the socialists who moved closer to the mainstream 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...
(PNL). Her debut as a literary critic came shortly before 1908, when she was briefly a literary columnist for the PNL newspaper Voinţa Naţională.
Impresii literare and studies on Symbolism
In 1908, Editura MinervaEditura Minerva
Editura Minerva is one of the largest publishing houses in Romania. Located in Bucharest, it is known, among other things, for publishing classic Romanian literature, children's books, and scientific books.-External links:**...
published a volume of Izabela Sadoveanu's critical essays, Impresii literare ("Literary Impressions"). The book earned the attention of critics, and was reviewed in the national press. In Luceafărul, a tribune of the Romanians in Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, fellow writer Ion Duma contrasted Impresii literare with another work of "impressionistic
Impressionism (literature)
Influenced by the Impressionist art movement, many writers adopted a style that relied on associations. The Dutch Tachtigers explicitly tried to incorporate impressionism into their prose, poems, and other literary works...
" criticism, that of traditionalist journalist Ilarie Chendi: while Sadoveanu's text demanded 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 morality in literature, Chendi, a Sămănătorul dissident, was writing in favor of art for art's sake
Art for art's sake
"Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendering of a French slogan, from the early 19th century, l'art pour l'art, and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function...
. As noted by Duma, Sadoveanu's pronouncements defended writers for their moral mission, even to the detriment of art, equally praising Sofia Nădejde and novelist Constantin Sandu-Aldea for their sense of "pity [...] for those less fortunate". The same reviewer also claimed that Sadoveanu, "a womanly character", lacked an understanding of extrovert and "combative" traditionalists like Sandu-Aldea and Luceafărul poet Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga was a Romanian politician, poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.-Life:Born in Răşinari, nearby Sibiu, he was an active member in the Romanian nationalistic movement in Transylvania and of its leading group, the Romanian National Party in Austria-Hungary. Before World War I,...
. Another Luceafărul chronicler, academic Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică, contrarily asserted that Sadoveanu was "rather the warrior", but described Impresii... as inconsistent: "Yes and no; neither here nor there; this, that and the other. And yet it carries a note that ought to be signaled." From his traditionalist standpoint, Bogdan-Duică argued that Sadoveanu erred in reaching beyond "impressions" to consider herself a professional critic, and to advocate the "primacy of the senses
Sensualism
Sensualism is a philosophical doctrine of the theory of knowledge, according to which sensations and perception are the basic and most important form of true cognition. It may oppose abstract ideas...
" in art: "Ms. Sadoveanu-Evan has a philosophy, even though she is a woman." Reviewing the echoes of Sadoveanu's contributions in 2002, publisher and literary historian Cornelia Ştefănescu argued: "[she] sparked bitter polemics and denials more than appreciations, even though N. Iorga and G. Ibrăileanu, objectively or not, had a privileged view of her".
Sadoveanu alternated the aesthetic ideal with meditations on the national specificity in art. According to literary historian 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 volume cemented her transition from socialism to Poporanism, illustrated by quotes such as: "We are Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
, and our works of art and products of the mind must carry the seal of our nation's originality." A traditionalist, Duma noted with satisfaction that Sadoveanu had parted with socialism and discovered "the creed of artistic nationalism": "Everywhere she wishes to point out the Romanian spirit, the Romanian nature: Romanian skies, earth, rivers, woods, birds and insects, a Romanian light." Bogdan-Duică concluded that sensualism did not interfere with the book's didactic agenda, since Sadoveanu still helped popularize writers inspired by "national life", from Mihail Sadoveanu, Carp and Brătescu-Voineşti to Ştefan Octavian Iosif
Stefan Octavian Iosif
Ştefan Octavian Iosif was a Romanian poet and translator of Aromanian origin.-Life:Born in Braşov, Transylvania , he studied in his native town and in Sibiu before completing his education in Paris. While in France, he met Dimitrie Anghel, who would became a long-time friend...
and Elena Farago.
Also in 1908, with her Viaţa Românească articles, Sadoveanu turned her attention to the impact of Symbolism
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...
and the anti-traditionalist Romanian Symbolist branch
Symbolist movement in Romania
The Symbolist movement in Romania, active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, marked the development of Romanian culture in both literature and visual arts...
. As she herself argued decades later: "I was the only one to express the opinion that [...] we are dealing with an innovative movement, just like I was the first one in history to sketch out Symbolism in articles for Viaţa Românească". According to various commentators of her work, cited by literary historian Paul Cernat, she was indeed the first Romanian to take an interest in the movement, and who therefore opened a channel of communication between the Poporanists and the Romanian Symbolists. Her primary interest was in showing how the anti-positivist
Antipositivism
Antipositivism is the view in social science that the social realm may not be subject to the same methods of investigation as the natural world; that academics must reject empiricism and the scientific method in the conduct of research...
poetry of Frenchman
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...
Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
had created a fashion in Romania, but she also discussed the roles that Jean Moréas
Jean Moréas
Jean Moréas , was a Greek poet, essayist, and art critic, who wrote mostly in the French language but also in Greek during his youth.-Background:...
and Anatole France
Anatole France
Anatole France , born François-Anatole Thibault, , was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters...
had in making Symbolism known to a French and international public. Her work also touched on the connection between Romanian Symbolists (Adrian Maniu) and the literary side of Vienna Secession
Vienna Secession
The Vienna Secession was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists, housed in the Vienna Künstlerhaus. This movement included painters, sculptors, and architects...
(Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
).
Believed by Călinescu to have been "a highly educated woman", Sadoveanu repeatedly argued that professional critics needed to be exceptionally cultured. She reacted against cultural isolationism, describing in detail the merits of reciprocal translation in expanding the written culture. Cornelia Ştefănescu finds her essays characterized by subtlety and the sense of detail, for instance in describing the Romantic critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history.-Early years:...
, whose proverbial ugliness, Sadoveanu argued, indirectly shaped 19th-century French literature.
Geneva studies and feminist beginnings
Sadoveanu-Evan was one of four female writers invited to attend the 1909 congress of writers held at the Gheorghe Lazăr High SchoolGheorghe Lazar High School
The Gheorghe Lazăr National College is a high school located in central Bucharest, Romania, at the southeast corner of the Cişmigiu Gardens, on the corner of Bulevardul Regina Elisabeta. One of the most prestigious secondary education institutions in Romania, it was in named after the...
, which effectively established the Romanian Writers' Society (SSR), a professional association presided upon by Mihail Sadoveanu. She also became noted as a translator foreign-language works, primarily 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...
, into her native 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...
; in 1909, under contract with Minerva, she published a volume of novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s by Grazia Deledda
Grazia Deledda
Grazia Deledda was an Italian writer whose works won her the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1926.-Biography:...
and Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Carmelo Verga was an Italian realist writer, best known for his depictions of life in Sicily, and especially for the short story "Cavalleria Rusticana" and the novel I Malavoglia .-Life and career:The first son of Giovanni Battista Catalano Verga and Caterina Di Mauro,...
's Royal Tiger.
Beginning 1912, Sadoveanu-Evan furthered her education in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, where she attended the Rousseau Institute
Rousseau Institute
Rousseau Institute is a private school in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1912, Édouard Claparède created an institute to turn educational theory into a science...
and graduated among its first-ever alumni. She returned to take up a headmistress' office at Iaşi's Pedagogic Institute for Girls, and later at the Elena Cuza
Elena Cuza
Elena Cuza , also known under her semi-official title Elena Doamna, was a Moldavian-born Romanian noblewoman and philanthropist, the wife of Alexander John Cuza.-Biography:...
School of Bucharest. A supporter of the reading program as the basis for all education, and interested in the applications of the Montessori method
Montessori method
Montessori education is an educational approach developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori. Montessori education is practiced in an estimated 20,000 schools worldwide, serving children from birth to eighteen years old.-Overview:...
, she later created her own Şcoala de Puericutură şi Educatoare (School for Puericulture and Women Educators), and was Inspector of Romanian Kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...
s. Sadoveanu also collaborated with Iorga on the summer school
Summer school
Summer school is a school, or a program generally sponsored by a school or a school district, that teaches students during the summer vacation....
in Vălenii de Munte
Valenii de Munte
Vălenii de Munte is a town in Prahova County, southern Romania , with a population of about 13,309. It lies on the Teleajen River valley, 28 km north of the county seat of Ploieşti....
town.
Although, after Impresii literare, her critical essays were never again collected in book form, Sadoveanu-Evan published several new tracts as an educationist: the 1911 Educaţia estetică şi artistică din ultimele două decenii ("The Aesthetic and Artistic Education during the Last Two Decades") was followed later by Material didactic Montessori ("Montessori Teaching Aid"), Educaţia nouă. Îndrumări pentru părinţi şi educatori ("The New Education. Advice for Parents and Educators") etc.
As she recalled in 1939, Sadoveanu began her feminist activism by joining the Sprijinul ("Support") Association of Bucharest. The group, Sadoveanu noted, was more dedicated to "encouraging and aiding women who earn a living through their own labor, rather than to organizing them in view of political life and women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
demands." In fact, Sprijinul grouped together political women (including its president, Smaranda "Ema" Beldima) and male pro-feminists
Pro-feminism
Pro-feminism refers to support of the cause of feminism without implying that the supporter is a member of the feminist movement. The term is most often used in reference to men who are actively supportive of feminism and of efforts to bring about gender equality...
(the socialist lawyer Toma Dragu). With Mărgărita Miller Verghy
Mărgărita Miller Verghy
Mărgărita Miller Verghy was a Romanian socialite and author, also known as a feminist activist, schoolteacher, journalist, critic and translator. A cultural animator, she hosted a literary club of Germanophile tendencies during the early part of World War I, and was later involved with Adela...
, Bucura Dumbravă and other women writers, Sadoveanu was also a founding member of the Româncele Cercetaşe Association, an early branch of Romanian Scouting, preceding the Asociaţia Ghidelor şi Ghizilor din România
Asociatia Ghidelor si Ghizilor din România
The Asociaţia Ghidelor şi Ghizilor din România is the national Guiding organization of Romania. Guiding in Romania began in 1928, was restarted in 1990 and became a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1993. The coeducational organization has 1,000 members .- History...
.
AECPFR, UFR and IAWSEC
In 1918, shortly after World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
had ended, Izabela Sadoveanu was a founding member of Asociaţia pentru emanciparea civilă şi politică a femeilor române (the Association for the Civil and Political Emancipation of Romanian Women, AECPFR), which unified several of the feminist associations in Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
around the ideal of women's suffrage. Through this affiliation, she became a delegate of Romanian women to several international congresses held by the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship
International Alliance of Women
The International Alliance of Women is a non-governmental, feminist organization, which embraces both women’s groups and individuals. The basic principle of the IAW is that the full and equal enjoyment of human rights is due to all women and girls....
(IAWSEC).
After the region of 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...
, formerly in Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, was united with Romania
Union of Transylvania with Romania
Union of Transylvania with Romania was declared on by the assembly of the delegates of ethnic Romanians held in Alba Iulia.The national holiday of Romania, the Great Union Day occurring on December 1, commemorates this event...
, Sadoveanu established contacts with its feminist scene. By 1920, she was elected to the Steering Committee of the Transylvanian-based Romanian Women's Union (UFR), assisting its President Maria Baiulescu as one of the UFR's three Vice Presidents for 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...
(alongside Micaela Catargi and Eugenia de Reuss Ianculescu). She later traced the origin of Romania's organized feminist movement with the UFR's earliest nucleus, created in the 1840s by Maria Nicolau. Her interest in Transylvania also surfaced in her work as a teacher: in the summer months of 1919, she was in Cluj
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
, instructing locals on the practical use of the Montessori method. Her work as a journalist diversified, and she was, before 1924, one of the regular writers in Lamura, a literary review published by Vlahuţă.
In September 1925, Sadoveanu was guest speaker at the UFR's 6th Congress in Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
, and reported on its proceedings in Iorga's newspaper Neamul Românesc. According to Baiulescu's summary, the Congress explicitly sought to reform the 1923 Constitution of Romania
1923 Constitution of Romania
The 1923 Constitution of Romania, also called the Constitution of Union, was intended to align the organisation of the state on the basis of universal male suffrage and the new realities that arose after the Great Union of 1918. Four draft constitutions existed: one belonging to the National...
, which had only recognized universal male suffrage, and bring about gender equality as an "act of justice". The report also critically noted a decrease in standing for Romanian women in Transylvania, Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
and other regions, ever since Romania had replaced Austria-Hungary as the administrative power. Around that time, Sadoveanu also affiliated with Adela Xenopol's Societatea Scriitoarelor Române (Romanian Women Writers' Society), which stood against the dominant and supposedly sexist
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
SSR; she also began contributing to its tribune, Revista Scriitoarei ("The Woman Writer's Review"), joining a writing staff which also included Sofia Nădejde, Miller Verghy, Constanţa Hodoş, Ana Conta-Kernbach, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu
Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu
-Life:She was born in Iveşti, Galaţi County, the daughter of General Dimitrie Bengescu and of Zoe . She attended high-school in Bucharest and, aged 20, she married the magistrate Nicolae Papadat but her literary career was delayed because her husband was transferred from town to town and because...
and Aida Vrioni. Sadoveanu was a Vice President of the Society, and took up a similar position in Asociaţia Universitară, the female Academic Society.
By the mid 1920s, Sadoveanu fell out with Alexandrina Cantacuzino, leader of the National Council of Romanian Women (which was endorsed by the AECPFR). This occurred after Cantacuzino's official visit to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, where she had attended a IAWSEC Congress, and where the initiative was taken to create a regional East-Central Europe
East-Central Europe
East-Central Europe – a term defining the countries located between German-speaking countries and Russia. Those lands are described as situated “between two”: between two worlds, between two stages, between two futures...
an feminist association, the "Little Entente
Little Entente
The Little Entente was an alliance formed in 1920 and 1921 by Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia with the purpose of common defense against Hungarian revision and the prevention of a Habsburg restoration...
" of Women. Sadoveanu was a vocal critic of the project, which, she argued, only served the interest of Czechoslovak women, and accused Cantacuzino of not being patriotic
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
. Historian Roxana Cheşchebec reviews this incident as proof that "the fate of women's activism was related in that period to the promotion of national interests."
Other interwar causes
By 1927, Sadoveanu was also becoming involved in a major debate about eugenicsEugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
and feminism, carried out in the pages of (the mouthpiece of eugenicists active within ASTRA Society). These articles purported that the main cause of feminism was to empower women as homemakers and nurturers, instead or before granting them political rights and representation. Her collaboration with the Vălenii de Munte institution continued and, together with Iorga and Constanţa Evolceanu, she helped organize a preparatory School of National and Moral Female Missionaries (1927). She also lectured there about the implementation of education reform
Education reform
Education reform is the process of improving public education. Small improvements in education theoretically have large social returns, in health, wealth and well-being. Historically, reforms have taken different forms because the motivations of reformers have differed.A continuing motivation has...
.
Izabela Sadoveanu's preoccupation with early childhood education
Early childhood education
Early childhood education is the formal teaching and care of young children by people other than their family or in settings outside of the home. 'Early childhood' is usually defined as before the age of normal schooling - five years in most nations, though the U.S...
led her to explore the opportunities offered by radio, a new media at the time: she produced and voiced one of Radio România
Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company
The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company , informally referred to as Radio Romania , is the public radio broadcaster in Romania. It operates four national radio channels, and, under the Radio România Regional umbrella, eleven regional radio stations. The four national radio channels are: Radio...
's first-ever thematic broadcasts, the 1929 Ora Copiilor ("Children's Hour"). Also in 1929, she contributed the preface to an essay by writers R. Catarg and I. C. Chiriacescu, Femeia în epoca nouă a omenirii ("Woman in the New Era of Mankind"). Her tract on Romanian education policies
Education in Romania
According to the Law on Education adopted in 1995, the Romanian Educational System is regulated by the Ministry of Education and Research . Each level has its own form of organization and is subject to different legislation. Kindergarten is optional between 3 and 6 years old...
, titled Educaţia nouă ("The New Education"), saw print the next year.
Sadoveanu and Alexandrina Cantacuzino were reconciled by May 1933, when they were AECPFR delegates to Constanţa
Constanta
Constanța is the oldest extant city in Romania, founded around 600 BC. The city is located in the Dobruja region of Romania, on the Black Sea coast. It is the capital of Constanța County and the largest city in the region....
city, paying homage to the Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...
n wing of the women's emancipation movement. In later years, Sadoveanu wrote more positively of Cantacuzino, noting her role in propagating the feminist ideal and her participation with the International Council of Women
International Council of Women
The International Council of Women was the first women's organization to work across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C...
.
Throughout the 1920s and '30s, Sadoveanu-Evan began contributed to the left-wing dailies Adevărul
Adevarul
Adevărul is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in 1871 and reestablished in 1888, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Romanian Kingdom's existence, adopting an independent pro-democratic position, advocating land reform and universal suffrage...
and Dimineaţa (briefly managed by Mihail Sadoveanu), as well as to Adevăruls cultural supplement Adevărul Literar şi Artistic. She was originally a columnist for Dimineaţa, with Pagina femeii ("The Woman's Page"); at the same time, Viaţa Românească serialized her biographic series Profiluri feminine ("Feminine Profiles"), later taken up by Adevărul Literar şi Artistic. The latter also published her April 1928 interview with writer Sylvia Stevenson, on the state of English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
, discussing authors from Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
to John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy OM was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter...
(a preoccupation which resurfaced in Sadoveanu's articles as late as 1937). Sadoveanu's work for Adevărul itself originally included a series of her essays on English writers.
Among her other works of literary criticism which saw print with Adevărul Literar şi Artistic was a 1930 study of Ibrăileanu's literature, in which she defended her mentor's writing style (proposing that it only seemed "rough" because it sought to be anti-rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
al). She also alleged that, as a very young man, Ibrăileanu had been in love with her sister Adela (the argument, according to which Adela is the mysterious "Estella" in Ibrăileanu's autobiographical notes, was judged unconvincing by historian Anais Nersesïan). The same paper also published her biographical sketches and recollections about two personal acquaintances from the socialist and Poporanist scene of the fin de siècle
Fin de siècle
Fin de siècle is French for "end of the century". The term sometimes encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning...
: Anton "Tony" Bacalbaşa, "Gheorghe din Moldova" Kernbach. She was also contributing to the provincial press: in 1934, her piece "How to Create a Reading Public" ran in the Ploieşti
Ploiesti
Ploiești is the county seat of Prahova County and lies in the historical region of Wallachia in Romania. The city is located north of Bucharest....
paper Gazeta Cărţilor.
Final years
After witnessing the impact of fascistFascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
movements on Europe's societies, Sadoveanu-Evan combined her feminist stance with the cause of anti-fascism
Anti-fascism
Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...
. Together with actress Lucia Sturdza Bulandra, she was active within Frontul Feminin (Feminine Front), an organism designed to defend women's rights against the far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
threat, and presided upon by Nădejde. According to researcher Ştefania Mihalache, the Front, which was created in 1936 and soon after published a manifesto, had a Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
bias, centered on "the woman's right to work". Sadoveanu's made trips abroad, and attended, 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 exhibit marking the 50 years since the Symbolist Manifesto
Symbolist Manifesto
The Symbolist Manifesto is a French work published in 1886 in France by the Greek poet and essayist Jean Moréas. It defines and characterizes Symbolism as a style whose "goal was not the ideal, but whose sole purpose was to express itself for the sake of being expressed." It names Charles...
.
During 1937, probably on Sadoveanu-Evan's request, Adevărul began publishing a special second-page column titled Femeile între ele ("Women amongst Themselves"), which included contributions from herself and her colleagues in the feminist movement, Papadat-Bengescu (who may have inspired the column's title) and Nădejde. They were joined by several consecrated or aspiring women writers, among them: Ticu Archip, Lucia Demetrius, Claudia Millian, Sanda Movilă, Profira Sadoveanu (Izabela's niece), Valeria Mitru (future wife of Mihail Sadoveanu), Coca Farago (daughter of poet Elena Fargo) and Sorana Ţopa (the actress wife of 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...
). Izabela Sadoveanu's own pieces for Femeile între ele included an overview of the suffragette
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
movement and a positive report about the Soroptimist International, whose self-help
Self-help
Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...
ideas she tried to popularize in Romania, and a sarcastic reply to Archip's strong-voiced antifeminist
Antifeminism
Antifeminism is opposition to feminism in some or all of its forms. Modern antifeminists say that the feminist movement has achieved its aims and now seeks higher status for women than for men.-History:...
stance. Also in 1937, Adevărul published her homage to French socialist and pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
Jean Jaurès
Jean Jaurès
Jean Léon Jaurès was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. Both parties merged in 1905 in...
, who had fallen victim to nationalists shortly after the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. A year later, she withdrew from teaching with a state pension, and dedicated her energy to editorial work for Adevărul Literar şi Artistic, before the entire Adevărul family of papers were banned by King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
's authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
regime. In 1939, the Transylvanian left-wing magazine Societatea de Mâine published her shorty history of Romanian feminist organizations.
Legacy
According to George Călinescu, Izabela Sadoveanu was a prototype of the "cerebral woman" in local letters. She is mentioned, as Sidonia Alexe, in În preajma revoluţiei ("On the Eve of the Revolution") a 1930s novel and hidden memoirMemoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
by Constantin Stere
Constantin Stere
Constantin G. Stere or Constantin Sterea was a Romanian writer, jurist, politician, ideologue of the Poporanist trend, and, in March 1906, co-founder Constantin G. Stere or Constantin Sterea (Romanian; , Konstantin Yegorovich Stere or Константин Георгиевич Стере, Konstantin Georgiyevich Stere;...
, former member of the Viaţa Românească circle (Mihail Sadoveanu is also a character of the book, hidden under the name Nicolae Pădureanu).
An eponymous monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
on Izabela Sadoveanu-Evanu was published by Editura Didactică şi Pedagogică, in 1970; her own work of memoirs, Sufletul altor generaţii, was included in a 1980 Editura Eminescu anthology, covering mainly the autobiographic texts of folklorist Aristiţa Avramescu. Twenty years later, critic Margareta Feraru revisited her entire work, republishing two volumes of her magazine essays, as Cărţi şi idei ("Books and Ideas"). Commenting on this critical edition, Cornelia Ştefănescu made note of Sadoveanu's "daring critical spirit, her unwavering virtues and merits as a researcher, the mobility of her thought over the spheres of ideology, literature, arts and education". In 2007, Paul Cernat wrote that Sadoveanu was "unfairly ignored nowadays".