Constantin Banu
He is remembered in literary history as the founder of Flacăra review, which he published in two editions, alongside Petre Locusteanu, Ion Pillat, Adrian Maniu, and, later, Vintilă Russu-Șirianu.
His contribution as an essayist, lampoonist, and aphorist reflected his progressive approach to labor and productive life, his critique of conservatism, as well as his concept of civilized political mores.
[2] Baptized Romanian Orthodox,[4] Banu completed secondary education at Saint Sava National College, a classmate of writer Ioan A. Bassarabescu, actor Ion Livescu, and lawyer-politician Scarlat Orăscu.
Influenced by their teacher, classical scholar Anghel Demetriescu, they formed their own literary club, which held its meetings in the Saint Sava basement, putting out the polygraphed magazine Armonia, then the bi-monthly Studentul Român.
[9] Returning to Bucharest, Banu began working as a history professor at Matei Basarab High School in 1898,[2][7] part of a teaching staff which came to include Dimitrie D. Pătrășcanu, Emanoil Grigorovitza, Theodor Speranția, Alexandru Toma, and Eugen Lovinescu.
[13] His political articles that appeared in Secolul XX starting in 1899, as well as his oratorical talent, drew the attention of Haret's own National Liberal Party (PNL).
[7] Around 1903, he was a functionary in the upper echelons of Education Ministry, Chief Inspector of the Private Schools under Minister Haret,[14] in which capacity he first met and encouraged the novelist (and aspiring politician) Mihail Sadoveanu.
"[16] Working for the liberal press, he was editor-in-chief of Voința Națională from 1903 and director of Viitorul from 1907,[7][11] part of a team that also comprised future PNL leader Ion G. Duca and scholar Henric Streitman.
[17] At Voința Națională, Banu inaugurated a literary supplement, which put out feuilletons by Sadoveanu, Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voinești, Ilarie Chendi, Nicolae Gane, and Ion Bentoiu.
[19] In his late years, Banu still recalled the impression left on him by the revolt, "this free-riding daughter of Nature": "I have seen pillars of fire roaming the villages, setting train stations alight, and crackling among the ruins.
[23] Upon the Conservatives' return to power, he failed to win a seat in the 2nd College Ilfov County in the February 1911 election, running on a coalition anti-Conservative list headed by Nicolae Fleva.
Some of his socially themed texts, conceived as sketches or little scenes, denounced parasitism, lack of patriotism, arrogance and aggressive stupidity; his ideology veered toward producerism.
[20] In Arghezi's magazine Facla, Banu and Locusteanu were viewed as "triumphant mediocrities" and "street organs", on the same artistic level as Radu D. Rosetti and Maica Smara.
[35] Pillat, Maniu, and Horia Furtună also "conspired" to relaunch here the disgraced Symbolist mentor, Alexandru Macedonski, serializing his novel Thalassa; and helped launch the career of George Bacovia, publishing his plaquette Plumb.
Responding to Constantin C. Arion's call for national unity after the Balkan Wars, he argued that such internal peace could never be achieved with "an aggrieved peasantry as the basis of our State".
His Flacăra articles, Iorga noted at the time, supported anti-nationalist causes such as Jewish emancipation,[40] while his parliamentary speeches expressed worries against the rise of Romania's insurrectionist "Boulangisme".
[44] Romania kept neutral during the first two years of war, but an intellectual battle divided Romanian society, between "Francophiles", who supported the Entente, and "Germanophiles", who looked to the Central Powers.
[45] Although, as historian Lucian Boia writes, it remained "without jarring partisanship",[46] Flacăra's Ententist-and-populist tinges were ridiculed and parodied in Chemarea, the radical-left Symbolist review put out by Ion Vinea.
Banu later escaped to Paris, where, from January 1918, he joined the directorial staff of La Roumanie journal (with Emil Fagure and Constantin Mille), campaigning in French for the cause of Greater Romania.
[49] He intervened directly to obtain statements of solidarity with beleaguered Romania from Ernest Lavisse, Lucien Poincaré, and other French academics, while trying in vain to prevent the Romanian government from negotiating a separate peace with the Central Powers.
[7] He was reelected to the Assembly in November 1919, ensuring his political survival into the era of universal suffrage: although imposed on the Ialomița voters by the PNL leadership, he overcame both stiff opposition by the Peasants' Party and factional disputes inside his own caucus.
[52] In March 1920, when the anti-PNL coalition was toppled by King Ferdinand I, Iorga proposed that Banu and Matei B. Cantacuzino form a technocratic government of national reconciliation; the monarch preferred a cabinet headed by Alexandru Averescu.
[54] Banu put out two more editions of Flacăra between December 10, 1921, and June 1923, with Vintilă Russu-Șirianu as his second, contributions from old regulars such as Minulescu and Macedonski,[29][55] and food chronicles by Păstorel Teodoreanu.
[7] In 1927, celebrating the golden jubilee of Romanian Independence with conferences at the Bucharest Atheneum, Banu outlined his liberal critique of the conservative ethos, turning against "reactionary" cultural figures such as Caragiale, Mihail Eminescu, and the Junimea circle.
[16] As Caragiale scholar Șerban Cioculescu noted at the time, Banu's "effete phraseology" and "cliche vocabulary" encased his resentments against conservative intellectuals, who had exposed and satirized the "characteristics of practical liberalism".
[67] By December 1933, with Vintilă dead and Duca, his one-time colleague at Viitorul, in charge of the party, Banu had embraced Georgism and defected to the PNL's seceded wing, the "National Liberal Party-Brătianu".
A year later, after Duca's unexpected assassination by the Iron Guard, a National Peasants' Party administration intervened to stop Banu, Brătianu, P. P. Negulescu and others from coordinating massive opposition rallies.
[69] The Iron Guard also took notice, and Banu's name appeared on an enemies' list, alongside those of Aristide Blank, Alexandru C. Constantinescu, Wilhelm Filderman, and Gheorghe Gh.
[70] His former mentor and adversary Iorga paid homage to him with an obituary in Neamul Românesc, emphasizing that Banu, the "unusual figure" among his peers, belonged to an older era of "dignity and decency, when people were held up by talent and merit".
