Barbu Solacolu

He was pushed out of politics in the late 1940s with the inauguration of Romania's communist regime, spending the 1950s and '60s as a translator; his main contributions in that field were Romanian renditions from William Shakespeare, some of which made it into the definitive edition put out by Leon Levițchi.

In old age, Solacolu, who had met some of Romania's leading personalities, made a celebrated return as a memorist, and was interviewed by oral historians.

[3] His family's social positioning allowed him to meet various historical figures, including senior politician Petre P. Carp, comedian Jean Montaureanu, or the aviation pioneer Aurel Vlaicu.

[2][6] At age 15, his academic excellence was acknowledged by Tinerimea Română cultural society, which awarded him a collector's book of history, but he sold this and other items to an antiquarian bookshop, preferring monetary rewards to feed his smoking habit.

[1] The young man slowly changed focus, arriving at the brand of mainline Symbolism cherished by Panait Cerna, Dimitrie Anghel, Ion Minulescu, and Donar Munteanu; he was also directly influenced by his three high-school colleagues and friends: Poldi Chapier, Tristan Tzara, and Ion Vinea (though he was not interested in collaborating on their review, Simbolul).

[1] He made his pseudonymous debut (as "Barsol" and "Falstaff") in the 1911 editions of the Symbolist review Versuri și Proză, his work also taken up in Sărbătoarea Eroilor, in Ovid Densusianu's Vieața Nouă, and in N. D. Cocea's Rampa and Facla.

[11] With time, Solacolu turned to a more bucolic style, which, accordin to reviewers such as Șerban Cioculescu and Virgil Gheorghiu, anticipated better known contributions by Ion Pillat.

Zăstroiu validates both these assessments: in his definition, Solacolu managed to bring together "Symbolist accessories" such as the "aquatic mystery" into a "rural landscape that is not at all engulfed in nostalgia for the past".

[8] During those months, with Romania still neutral in what became World War I, Solacolu was marginally involved with the literary-political circles of Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești and Ioan Slavici, which were supportive of the Central Powers.

[1] He took pride in noting that the volume was well received across ideological divides, with encouragements published by Iorga and Pillat, of the traditionalists, as well as by Vianu and Ion Barbu, of the post-Symbolists (the latter were especially enthusiastic about one of his sonnets).

[19] Solacolu abandoned the Densusianu circle in a rude manner, for which he later expressed his regret; instead, he returned to traditionalism as a disciple of Iorga, describing himself as entirely absorbed by the latter's charisma.

[2][9] Solacolu saw himself as the direct inspiration for Pillat's work as a poet, noting however that his imitator managed to surpass him; this observation made him pause his career in fine letters, and led him to concentrate his efforts on scholarly pursuits.

[2][6] While in Germany, he led a schism of the Academic Society, which represented Romanian students abroad, after the group had denied membership to a Jewish applicant, Emil Lupescu.

[21] A public auditor at the Ministry of Justice from 1925,[22] and an honorific associate professor at the Academy of Higher-level Commercial Studies, he was also active in Dimitrie Gusti's Social Institute.

[25] A contributor to Gusti's Arhiva pentru Știință și Reformă Socială, he was quoted for his 1929 critical study of Henri de Man and Marxian Revisionism.

[26] Before October 1932, Solacolu had joined the Constantin Argetoianu-led Agrarian Union Party (PUA), putting out its newspaper, Pământul Nostru;[27] he had split with Iorga, who, in return, scolded him publicly.

In early 1945, still representing ANIC, he joined a Coordinating Committee which provided supplies for the transiting Red Army;[35] at around that time, he virtually completed his main work of memoirs.

[3] By the end of the year, the Propaganda Ministry pulled Das neue Rumänien im Werden from the bookshops, singling it out as "detrimental to the good relationship between Romania and the United Nations.

[39] Alongside Sergiu Dan, D. I. Suchianu and others, he was a regular at sessions organized by the Museum of Romanian Literature; his interviews appeared in the 1976 collection 13 Rotonde 13.

[3][41] Zăstroiu praises his way of "intensely reliving" certain events, revisited in an "apparently random manner" and intertwined with "profound observations" about the economy and "social climate" of his era.

Under a separate contract with Editura Minerva, he had also completed translations from Alfred de Vigny, and had his Demosthene submitted for review by the National Theater Bucharest.

[43] During his final year, Solacolu was accepting interviews, conversing with the young essayist Dorin Tudoran and also meeting with students at a high school in Balta Albă.

[46] In 1978, Tudoran issued a book of interviews, which contained some of Solacolu's thoughts on the literary reconsideration of three fin de siècle writers: D. Iacobescu, Donar Munteanu, Constantin Sandu-Aldea.