Garabet Ibrăileanu

Garabet Ibrăileanu (Romanian pronunciation: [ɡaraˈbet ibrə.iˈle̯anu]; May 23, 1871 – March 11, 1936) was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, University of Iași professor (1908–1934), and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viața Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930.

Ibrăileanu was born into a family of Armenian origin, in Târgu Frumos, Iași County, and attended the Roman-Vodă High School in Roman.

He adopted part of the themes and goals expressed by the defunct Junimea, merging them with the ideas of Marxist thinker Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, into a new form of Romanian populism, making it the main attribute of the magazine he led.

He is remembered as the first mentor to such diverse figures as Mihail Sadoveanu, Ion Agârbiceanu, Ionel Teodoreanu, Gala Galaction, Octavian Goga, George Topîrceanu, and Tudor Arghezi.

He expanded the idea in works of literary criticism that are still influential: in 1909 - Scriitori şi curente ("Writers and Trends"); in 1912 - Opera literară a d-lui Vlahuță ("Mr. Vlahuță's Literary Works"), a doctorate thesis that featured one of Ibrăileanu's most quoted chapters, Literatura și societatea ("Literature and Society"); in 1930 - Studii literare ("Literary Studies"), containing his other major writing, Creaţie și analiză ("Creation and Analysis").