Dumitru or Dimitrie Karnabatt (last name also Karnabat, Carnabatt or Carnabat, commonly known as D. Karr; October 26, 1877 – April 1949)[1] was a Romanian poet, art critic and political journalist, one of the minor representatives of Symbolism.
He was a disciple of both Alexandru Macedonski and Ștefan Petică, representing the conservative and mystical school of Romanian Symbolism, and a regular contributor to the newspaper Seara.
[8] In early 1898, the young author, using his pen name "D. Karr", became a staff writer for the family magazine Foaia Populară,[9] where he later contributed an obituary of Demetrescu.
They showed the influence exercised on him by Macedonski's poetry of colors and light,[12] and, in Poemele Visului, his discovery of a Belgian master, Georges Rodenbach.
[14] Karnabatt moved away from the socialists, whom he criticized, decades after the fact, for their "uncouth, massive and compact materialism, which denied categorically and offensively any prospect of spirituality and metaphysics".
[7] Karnabatt was then given a positive reception by Mihail G. Holban's Revista Idealistă and the Symbolist journal Vieața Nouă, to the irritation of more traditionalist reviewers, who dismissed "D. Karr" as a frivolous and talentless individual.
[22] In September 1909, honoring a Minerva invitation, D. Karnabatt and novelist Mihail Sadoveanu went on a hiking tour of the Bucegi Mountains, from Caraiman to Cerbului Valley.
[28] Writing for Seara, the Karnabatts introduced their original combination of collaborative fiction and travel literature, tracing their journey through the Low Countries, Bavaria, Switzerland and Austria-Hungary.
[30] However, Karnabatt remained a conservative among the Symbolists, opposed to the fashion of artistic primitivism, and locked in disputes with the primitivist half of Tinerimea Artistică salon.
[37] In November, writing for Minerva, he greeted the fellow Symbolist Victor Eftimiu, whose play Înșir'te mărgărite had just been staged with "very original" cinematic effects.
[40] Working with the popular review Ilustrațiunea Națională in 1912, D. Karr put out its feuilleton, Idila din Venezzia ("Venice Idyll"), which depicted the love affair between Alfred de Musset and George Sand.
[44] To the dissatisfaction of traditionalist readers, he also opined that the young Symbolists had "elevated themselves far above the generic things"—but admitted that they were yet to produce their own "grand poet", Macedonski being "rather the forerunner of Symbolism".
In late 1910, a concerned Karnabatt read news about the invention of Futurism, an Italian current that promoted modern subjectivity and rejected the traditional norms.
[53] The politically troubled year 1913 caught D. Karnabatt as a contributor for the magazine Sărbătoarea Eroilor, whose editors were Symbolist poets Alexandru Colorian and Sperantia.
[54] Fellow journalist I. Peltz, who met Karnabatt around that time, recalls: "He was a massive man, solid and thick, with an Oriental face (one could have thought him a Turk), and with sparkling eyes.
[57] During the Second Balkan War, which he witnessed from the side, Karnabatt was highly active in political journalism,[24] publishing at length about the more shady aspects of Romania's campaign in Dobruja.
Karnabatt was one of four journalists risking trial for the slander of Romanian Land Forces commanders, but was defended by his colleagues in the press, who staged formal protests in his name.
[2] When it became clear that the Central Powers were engaged in a complex war with the Russian Empire, Karnabatt's Russophobia came into effect, and he called on Romania to join Germany for the recovery of Bessarabia.
In Karnabatt's view, this signaled that a territorial race had begun: with a "Greater Bulgaria" in the making, Romania needed to extend its eastern borders even beyond Bessarabia, to the Dnieper River.
Following initial successes in the Battle of Transylvania, the Romanian Land Forces were pushed back, and southern Romania fell to the Central Powers.
[61] According to diarist Pia Alimănișteanu, who lived through the period in occupied Bucharest, Karnabatt and Slavici were also barometers of Germanophile disinformation: "The more violent they are against the interventionists [...], that's how much more difficult things ought to be for the krauts fighting on the front.
[4] Karnabatt was still writing poetry in 1917 and 1918, putting out two new volumes of verse: Crini albi și roșii ("Lilies of White and Red"), with Independența Printers, and, at Poporul Publishers, Mozaic bizantin ("Byzantine Mosaic").
[67] Macedonski welcomed such works as evidence that Karnabatt was his worthy pupil—namely, that he had adopted the "symphonic verse" method, "whose foundations have been set by Literatorul as early as 1880".
A while after, the King's Commissioner placed the Gazeta Bucureștilor men under arrest, in a Bucharest hotel, allegedly because they were considered a threat to the Entente soldiers stationed in Romania.
Persuaded by his new ministers, King Ferdinand signed an amnesty decree; Karnabatt and the others were home in time to celebrate Old-Style Christmas (January 1920).
[73] Upon their return, the Romanian literary community took the Karnabatts back into its fold: in August 1920, Dumitru's poem Veneția ("Venice"), which is in fact about a voyage into the afterlife.
In reaction, Cultura Poporului newspaper informed its readers that, although indeed talented, Karnabatt was a convict and a political suspect, and called for the Romanian press to be "purified" of such characters.
[87] Late in his life, Karnabatt became a voice in support of the Roman Catholic Church, experiencing what literary historian Lidia Bote calls "poetic, Franciscan, Catholicism.
After the imposition of censorship, Karnabatt was still present at Curentul, where he wrote on Christian subjects, and published an homage to the Franciscan poet Ion Gârleanu.
[95] During the same year, Editura Vremea published a new selection of Karnabatt's poetry, including Crinul mistic ("Mystical Lily"), a number of "medieval odes", and his version of the Magnificat.