He was by then also a contributor to Voința Națională, a newspaper published by the National Liberal Party and managed by politician Vintilă Brătianu—beginning December of the same year, the paper serialized Șoimii ("The Hawks"), an extended variant of Frații Potcoavă, with an introduction by historian Vasile Pârvan.

[30] With his subsequent pieces for Viața Românească, Sadoveanu became especially known as the raconteur of hunting trips,[31] but also sparked controversy when a young woman writer, Constanța Marino-Moscu, accused him of having plagiarized her works in his Mariana Vidrașcu, a serialized novel which was discontinued and later largely forgotten.

[23][33][35] His Sămănătorul colleague Iorga deemed 1904 "Sadoveanu's Year",[16][18][23][36] while the influential and aging critic Titu Maiorescu, leader of the conservative literary society Junimea, gave a positive review to Povestiri, and successfully proposed it for a Romanian Academy award in 1906.

[23] He was by then facing adversity from opponents of Sămănătorul, primarily critic Henric Sanielevici and his Curentul Nou review, which published claims that Sadoveanu's volumes, which depicted immoral acts such as adultery and rape, showed that Iorga's program of moral didacticism was hypocritical.

[46] Inspired by the bloody outcome of the Revolt, as well as by Haret's moves to educate the peasantry, Sadoveanu reportedly drew suspicion from the Police when he published self-help guides aimed at industrious ploughmen, a brand of social activism which even resulted in a formal inquiry.

[77] Mihail Sadoveanu withdrew from politics in the late 1930s and early 1940s, as Romania came to be led by successive right-wing dictatorships, he offered a measure of support to King Carol II and his National Renaissance Front, which attempted to block the more radically fascist Iron Guard from power.

[112] Critic Ovid Crohmălniceanu describes their activity, altogether focused on depicting the rural world but diverging in bias, as one sign that the Romanian interwar itself was exceptionally effervescent,[113] while Romanian-born American historian of literature Marcel Cornis-Pope sees Sadoveanu and Rebreanu as their country's "two most important novelists of the first half of the twentieth century".

"[115] While underlining his originality in the context of Romanian literature and among the writers standing for "the national tendency" (as opposed to the more cosmopolitan modernists), George Călinescu also noted that, through several of his stories and novels, Sadoveanu echoed the style of his predecessors and contemporaries Ion Luca Caragiale, Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voinești, Emil Gârleanu, Demostene Botez, Otilia Cazimir, Calistrat Hogaș, I.

[126] The lifestyle choices were akin to his literary interests: alongside the secluded and rudimentary existence of his main characters (connected by Călinescu with the writer's supposed longing for "regressions to the patriarchal times"),[127] Sadoveanu's work is noted for its imagery of primitive abundance, and in particular for its lavish depictions of ritualistic feasts, hunting parties and fishing trips.

Often borrowing plot lines and means of expression from medieval and early modern Moldavian chroniclers such as Ion Neculce and Miron Costin,[137] the author creatively intercalates several local dialects and registers of speech, moving away from a mere imitation of the historical language.

[4] In Călinescu's view, Sadoveanu's outlook on life was even mirrored in his physical aspect, his "large body, voluminous head, his measured shepherd-like gestures, his affluent but prudent and monologic speech [and] feral indifference; his eyes [...] of an unknown race.

George Călinescu notes that, particularly in Năluca, Sadoveanu begins to explore the staple technique of his literary contributions, which involves "suggesting the smolder of passions [through] a contemplative breath in which he evokes a static element: landscapes or set pieces from nature.

"[152] Sadoveanu's subsequent collection of short stories, Dureri înăbușite, builds on the latter technique and takes his work into the realm of social realism and naturalism (believed by Călinescu to have been borrowed from either the French writer Émile Zola or from the Romanian Alexandru Vlahuță).

[156] At times, they confront the morals of barely literate people with the stern authorities: a peasant obstinately believes that the 1859 union between Wallachia and Moldavia was meant to ensure the supremacy of his class; a young lower-class woman becomes the love interest of a boyar but chooses a life of freedom; and a Rom deserts from the Army after being told to bathe.

[158] Sadoveanu's positive portrayal of hajduks as fundamentally honest outlaws standing up to feudal injustice, replicates stereotypes found in Romanian folklore, and is mostly present in some of the stories through (sometimes recurrent) heroic characters: Vasile the Great, Cozma Răcoare, Liță Florea etc.

"[129] These views are echoed by Ovid Crohmălniceanu, who believes that, unlike other Romanian Realists, Sadoveanu was able to show a peasant society that was not merely the prey of modern corruption or historical oppression, but rather refusing all contacts with the wider world—even to the point of Luddite-like hostility in front of new objects.

At the time, Crohmălniceanu stresses, he was being influenced by the naturalism of Caragiale (minus the comedic effect), and by his own experience growing up in characteristically underdeveloped Moldavian cities and târguri (somewhat similar to the aesthetic of boredom, adopted in poetry by George Bacovia, Demostene Botez or Benjamin Fondane).

[173] The novella Hanu Ancuței ("Ancuța's Inn"), described by George Călinescu as a "masterpiece of the jovial idyllicism and barbarian subtlety",[127] and by Z. Ornea as the first evidence of Sadoveanu's "new age",[174] is a frame story in the line of medieval allegories such as Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron and Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

[191] The meeting between the wider world and the immobile local tradition surfaces in Frații Jderi as well: a messenger is shown wondering how the letter he brought could talk to the addressee; when she is supposed to encounter strange men, Marușca requests to be allowed to "shy away" in another room;[191] a secondary character, claiming precognition, prepares his own funeral.

[195] Crohmălniceanu declares Baltagul one of the "capital works" in world literature, proposing that, on its own, it manages to reconstruct "an entire shepherding civilization";[196] Cornis-Pope, who rates the book as "Sadoveanu's masterpiece", also notes that it "restated the theme of crime and punishment".

"[199] Călinescu saw the text as a "fantastic vision of the entire aquatic universe", merging a form of pessimism similar to Arthur Schopenhauer's with a "calm kief" (cannabis-induced torpor), and as such illustrating "the great joy of participating in the transformations of matter, of eating and allowing oneself to be eaten.

[210] Sadoveanu's series of minor novels and stories of the interwar years also comprises a set of usually urban-themed writings, which, Călinescu argues, resemble the works of Honoré de Balzac, but develop into "regressive" texts with "a lyrical intrigue".

[220] Historian Bogdan Ivașcu writes that Sadoveanu's affiliation with "proletarian culture" and "its masquerade", like that of Tudor Arghezi and George Călinescu, although it may have been intended to rally "prestige and depth" to Socialist realism, only succeeded in bring their late works to the level of "propaganda and agitation materials.

In close connection with his traditionalist views on literature, but in contrast to his career under a Conservative Party and National Liberal cabinets, Sadoveanu initially rallied with nationalist groups of various hues, associating with both Nicolae Iorga and, in 1906, with the left-wing Poporanists at Viața Românească.

[257] It also protested when the public authorities in Fălticeni refused to withdraw Sadoveanu the title of honorary citizen, and again when the University of Iași made him a doctor honoris causa, and, through the voice of novelist N. Crevedia, even suggested that the writer should use his hunting rifle to commit suicide.

[259] In April 1937, the anti-Sadoveanu campaign was met with the indignation of various public figures, who issued an "Appeal of the Intellectuals", signed by Liviu Rebreanu, Eugen Lovinescu, Petru Groza, Victor Eftimiu, George Topîrceanu, Zaharia Stancu, Demostene Botez, Alexandru Al. Philippide, Constantin Balmuș and others.

[273] Having tolerated the purge within the Romanian Academy, Cioroianu notes, Sadoveanu accepted being colleagues with newly promoted "secondary characters [...] whom the new regime needed", such as poet Dumitru Theodor Neculuță and historian Mihail Roller.

[279] Others have submitted that Sadoveanu's faction in the Freemasonry, which included far left advocates Mihai Ralea and Alexandru Claudian, and officially supported evolutionary socialism, was a natural partner of the communists, to the point of sanctioning its own state-organized suppression.

[285] According to Călinescu, Sadoveanu's early hunting stories published by Viața Românească, together with those of Junimist Nicolae Gane, helped establish the genre within the framework of Romanian literature, and paved the way for its predilect use in the works of Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voinești.

[315] During the early decades of communist rule, Sadoveanu, Alexandru Toma and later Tudor Arghezi were often paid homage with state celebrations, likened by literary critic Florin Mihăilescu to the personality cult reserved for Stalin and Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.