Of Romanian Jewish background, he became noted for both his social criticism and his lyrical pieces while still in high school, subsequently developing as a satirist and printing his own humorous magazine, Țivil-Cazon.

His series of monographs on Romanian literature was well received and sampled by other literary professionals, who were also impressed by his ability to carry on with his work despite a debilitating battle with tuberculosis; however, his attention for very minute detail, and his political bias, were both ridiculed.

He later learned to credit professional historians, beginning with Theodor Mommsen, and to appreciate authentic Romanian folklore as rendered by Ion Creangă; however, he still mused that his lifelong "romantic vision" may have been borrowed from Popnedea.

"[10] Novelist and researcher Horia Oprescu cites a piece published by Lăzăreanu in a 1899 issue of Socialismul, in which the young man noted: "This is one of the saddest years ever experienced by our Romanian country and by our movement.

[5] The magazine, discreetly sponsored by the Jewish tailor Moris Segal,[29] hosted the work of Ioachim Botez, Ioan Dragomirescu-Dragion, Leon Wechsler-Vero, and Victor Eftimiu,[30] who was also a pseudonymous co-editor.

Heavily inspired by Ion Luca Caragiale and his Moftul Român, it mainly targeted Romanian Army personnel, depicted as slow-witted and (especially if cavalry officers) as sex objects.

[28] These contributions include the lyrical piece Rapsodie of August 1907, which, according to Vitner, should be read as an homage to the progressive side of Russian literature—referencing Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Taras Shevchenko and Leo Tolstoy.

[41] On May 10, 1908 (Romania's royal holiday), he and the worker Radu Florescu directed an intentional protest against King Carol, later hosting and giving exposure to their fellow socialist exile, Rakovsky.

[1][55] Before April 1918, he had published two more brochures on literary subjects, announced as Puțină archeologie teatrală ("Samples of Theatrical Archeology") and Pagini de istorie antică ("Pages of Ancient History").

Writing about numerous authors who included Caragiale, Eminescu, Gheorghe Asachi, Ion Heliade Rădulescu, Anton Pann, and Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, his book titles for the early 1920s usually began Cu privire la... ("With a Look at...").

[78] The Circle's manifesto, taken up in various newspapers, was influenced by Marxist humanism; its depiction of Europe as savaged by "war and revolution" enlisted an objection from Lăzăreanu: in Socialismul, he argued that the text was meant to say "counterrevolution".

[1][81] Writing mainly for Adevărul Literar și Artistic, Lăzăreanu discovered and published poetry by politicians such as Take Ionescu, Gheorghe Nădejde, and Constantin Istrati, also republishing 19th-century tracts by Jean Alexandre Vaillant and physician Alcibiade Tavernier, and documenting the minutae of Hasdeu's literary and political activity.

[3] Known to his Romanian peers as an "incidental" but noteworthy medical historian,[85] his 1924 collection of essays bridged philology and health historiography, as: Lespezi și moloz din templul lui Epidaur ("Slabs and Debris from Epidaurus' Temple").

[86] Lăzăreanu also studied folkloristics and historical linguistics, focusing especially on "the destiny of some words",[12] and involved himself in literary and political polemics with liberal conservatives—Mihail Dragomirescu, Rădulescu-Motru, and the Ideea Europeană writers.

On the occasion, Lăzăreanu also spoke about the literary history of Galați, reviewing poets such as Captain Constant Tonegaru Sr, and journalists such as Graur, Grigore Trancu-Iași, and Victor Cosmin-Sirmabuic.

His critical verdicts were dismissed by Bucur, who described the book as "puerile" and "glib",[92] and later by Ioana Pârvulescu, who sees Lăzăreanu as "a minor, socialist literato [who] did not shy away from distorting literary reality".

[105] He was joined in his literary activities by his son Alexandru (born 1913),[106][107] who became a regular contributor to Adam by 1932,[108] and introduced Romanians to the poetic work of Gustave Kahn for Adevărul, in October 1936.

But [his] way of expressing it, with its irony bordering on cynicism, à la Sholem Aleichem, with his glaring sympathy for coreligionists such as Heine and Adolphe Stern—and his torrent of jibes against Romanian authors—is not only distasteful, it is downright insulting.

[116] Cu privire la... ended later in 1938, with a final volume focusing on Coșbuc; in 1940, Lăzăreanu's introduction to Graur's literary work and a monograph on the Libertatea socialist club came out as separate brochures.

Herself expelled from high school, Jewish poet Veronica Porumbacu recalls meeting Lăzăreanu around the time of the Bucharest pogrom ("that year of the blood-stained snows"); as she notes, he was still privately lecturing in literature, "to remind those stricken with terror that some great Romanian authors had genius and importance."

"[119] As the country plunged into World War II alongside the Axis powers, Lăzăreanu was again exposed to racial and political persecution, beginning when he was placed under constant surveillance by the Ion Antonescu regime.

[124] In October 1942, Lăzăreanu Sr was arrested with other Jews and scheduled to be deported to Transnistria Governorate, but was spared thanks to the interventions of Queen Helen and a Romanian physician, Victor Gomoiu.

[125] By 1943, he had been welcomed into a scholars' circle, formed around Chief Rabbi Alexandru Șafran, Eliezer Frenkel, Max Wurmbrandt, and Haim Rabinsohn—the latter of whom was brother of the communist militant Ana Pauker.

[126] After the fall of Antonescu in August 1944, Barbu Lăzăreanu became a visible associate (later member)[12][127] of the Communist Party, contributing to its main organs: România Liberă, Scînteia, Studii.

[1][128] His inaugural speech declared the school to be one of a fundamentally new type, with a mission to create the "new man"; its curriculum was to be based on the four "great educators of mankind": Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Stalin.

[132] By November 1945, Romanian literature textbooks were being rewritten, and, according to Scînteia, "purged [of] hateful messages against the co-inhabiting nationalities"; as part of this sweep, Iordan and H. Sascuteanu had submitted a gymnasium-level manual which included poems by Lăzăreanu, Alexandru Toma, and Al.

[134] The party also printed his brochure, Despre alegeri censitare ("On the Census Suffrage"), which reviewed literary documents (principally by N. T. Orășanu) on fraudulent electoral practices during the previous century.

[140] Though a card-carrying communist, the elder Lăzăreanu also took a seat on the CDE's executive council, which also included his party colleagues M. H. Maxy, Maximilian Popper, Arthur Kreindler, and Bercu Feldman.

A staff member of the Romanian Embassy in Washington, D. C. in 1947, he reported on the activities of anticommunist exiles such as Viorel Tilea and Brutus Coste,[145] and tried to coax Peter Neagoe into writing a series of pro-communist novels.

Săvulescu, the Academy president, saluted him as a Romanian version of Milkman Tevye and Till Eulenspiegel, noting his "kind and open heart" and his ability to versify any situation; his speech also doubled as an attack on cosmopolitanism, praising Lăzăreanu's "socialist patriotism".