Although a rich landowner of aristocratic background, he was one of the pioneers of revolutionary socialism in France and Romania, obtaining international fame as founder of L'Ère Nouvelle magazine.

He was an early affiliate of the Romanian Social-Democratic Workers' Party, but grew disenchanted with its radical policies, and, as a member of its "generous youth" faction, played a major part in dissolving it.

Disliked because of his pranks ("which I for one found spirited"), he was moved to the 7th Artillery Regiment in Călărași, and, because once there he complained about the mistreatment of regulars by the officers, spent several months in the disciplinary barracks.

[26] L'Ère Nouvelle hosted articles by Marxist thinkers from the various countries of Europe: primarily Friedrich Engels and Paul Lafargue, but also Georgi Plekhanov, Clara Zetkin, Karl Kautsky, Jean Jaurès, Gabriel Deville, and Jules Guesde.

[20] Its regular contributors included Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, the Romanian Marxist doyen, Duc-Quercy, the French strike organizer, with the additional presence of Racoviță, Zévaès, Victor Jaclard, Alexandre Millerand, Adolphe Tabarant, Ilya Rubanovich, and Ioan Nădejde; Leó Frankel was the editorial secretary.

[27] Also featured in the review, Georges Sorel was a senior syndicalist with Marxist leanings, not affiliated with either Guesde's French Workers' Party (POF) or Millerand's smaller socialist circle.

[17] As historian Leslie Derfler writes, it was "the first theoretical journal in France" and an answer to Die Neue Zeit; for Sorel's disciples, it also signified a turn toward a "more authentic" and "Latin" Marxism.

[38] Still, Diamandy managed to exert his direct influence over many other Romanian socialist students in France, from Racoviță and Nădejde to Alexandru Radovici, Constantin Garoflid, Deodat Țăranu, Dimitrie Voinov, and Ioan Cantacuzino.

The reformists, distrustful of Banghereanu's sustained effort to spread socialism in rural areas, pushed for a schism: Morțun, Radovici, and, after a while, Diamandy himself, proposed that the entire PSDMR leadership leave the party and become PNL members.

According to labor historian Constantin Titel Petrescu, the Congress was a sham, with many important activists absent, and with Jewish members stripped of their voting privileges, on Diamandy's own initiative.

[53] Speaking at the Congress, he warned that the PSDMR was already an "anti-Marxist" group dedicated to a "top-down revolution", which had only managed to set up "a socialist general staff", and could not claim to have improved the workers' lives.

[55] The most outspoken opponents of "National Democratic" plan were C. Z. Buzdugan, Alexandru Ionescu and I. C. Frimu, representatives of the urban underclass, who saw this as an "attack" against the PSDMR's Marxist credentials.

[79] Diamandy did not join the Romanian Writers' Society, objecting to its antisemitism, and suggesting, in a letter to Noua Revistă Română, that the professional association had admitted talentless authors.

[84] Outside this circle, Diamandy found himself isolated on the political scene, and was no longer proposed for an eligible seat in the elections of 1911,[77] presenting a full report on his activities to his Tutova constituents.

[19][86] By 1912, when his political satire Rațiunea de stat ("The Reason of State") was published in Flacăra review[3] and taken up by Comoedia Troupe, Diamandy had been elected President of the Romanian Theatrical Society.

[3][19] On his way through Babadag, a traditional Turkish-and-Islamic center in Romania, Diamandy refurbished the local Tekke, planting a new votive inscription over the tomb of Gazi Ali.

[91] Turning to nationalism during the Second Balkan War, Diamandy gave morale-supporting lectures to infantrymen of the Land Forces,[92] having already prefaced a textbook of military pedagogy, by Colonel Gheorghe Șuer.

[97] One of them, Ioan Massoff, recalled that Diamandy had made a habit of citing his heart troubles to avoid seeing any of his subordinates, simply dictating his reform-minded wishes to them by proxy.

"[99] Another actor, Ion Livescu, recalled that, although "an enlightened democrat", and "well inspired" in his choices for the repertoire, Diamandy played the part of an authoritarian, and only communicated through his secretary, Marin Simionescu-Râmniceanu.

[101] His own work for the stage underwent a change of style: also in 1914, he published in Flacăra the localized "heroic comedy" Chemarea codrului ("Call of the Woods"), written in the format of a comédie en vaudeville.

[3] After the outbreak of World War I, Romania opted to preserve her neutrality, with public opinion divided between Francophile and Germanophile groups, respectively supportive of the Entente countries and the Central Powers.

[106] As Livescu notes: "when it seemed to him that there would not be many people who could understand him [...], he put his hat on, and, having just lectured us so very passionately about that France of his, left us all, with a cold and jerky salute from the top of the stairs: 'Good day y'all!

He rejected Carp's fears that a victorious Russia looked set to occupy the Danube Delta, but also noted that he himself had reserves about bringing Romania into the war, and made public his resignation from the "National Action".

Averescu remembered him as a shady figure, not worthy of his trust, and noted in particular Diamandy's ideas about using expanding bullets against the Austro-Hungarian Army (which had reportedly initiated their use in combat).

[125] After losing the Battle of Bucharest in December 1916, the Romanian Land Forces withdrew into Moldavia, which, with Russian help, they defended against renewed Central Powers offensives.

Brătianu promised land reform and a new electoral law, but Diamandy and other dissenting PNL-ists were not appeased: they claimed that the government had lost its "moral right" to apply such legislation, and obstructed it repeatedly.

[127] According to Duca's hostile account, the February Revolution gave Diamandy the illusion that time had come for him "to play a great role", and that the "tyrannical" Brătianu was an embarrassment for the Russian democracy.

[19] As Duca writes, the ailing dramatist was parading in a socialist's uniform: "a sort of Russian worker's blouse, his boots on, quite like an authentic comrade just arrived from some soviet".

In his obituary for Scena magazine, dramatist A. de Herz referred to the deceased as an unpatriotic man of "ferocious egotism", claiming that his leadership of the National Theater had been "dismal".

[154] Lovinescu welcomed its imprecision, which parted with the staples of historical drama while preserving "the national atmosphere"; the result being "a hajduk legend" admitting "poetry and idealism.