Elena Bacaloglu

Bacaloglu's studio photograph and autographed dedication, 1914

Elena A. Bacaloglu, also known as Bacaloglu-Denusianu, Bacaloglu-Densuşeanu etc. (Francized Hélène Bacaloglu; 1878 – 1947), was a Romanian journalist, literary critic, novelist and fascist militant. Her career in letters produced an introduction to the work of Maurice Maeterlinck (1903), several other critical essays, and two novels. She married and divorced poet Radu D. Rosetti, and Ovid Densusianu, the Symbolist poet and literary theorist.

Bacaloglu lived most of her later life in Italy, and became involved with the local literary and political movements, and campaigned for the cause of Romanian irredentism. This second career peaked upon the close of World War I, when Bacaloglu became involved with Italian fascism. Introduced to Benito Mussolini and Benedetto Croce, she helped transplant fascism on Romanian soil. Her National Italo-Romanian Cultural and Economic Movement was a minor and heterodox political party, but managed to earn attention with its advocacy of political violence.

The classical Romanian fascist movement disbanded in 1925, and was entirely replaced by the Iron Guard. Shunned by Mussolini, Bacaloglu lived her final decades in relative obscurity.

Biography

Early life and literary debut

The Bacaloglus were a family of social and political importance: Elena's father was civil administrator Alexandru Bacaloglu (1845 – 1915), related to scientist Emanoil Bacaloglu. His other children were: Constantin (1871 – 1942), a University of Iaşi physician; Victor (1872 – 1945), an engineer, writer and journalist; and George (Gheorghe) Bacaloglu, an artillery officer. Another brother, Alexandru "Sandi" Bacaloglu, was less known until a 1923 incident propelled him into the public arena.

Compared to Romanian other women of the fin de siècle, and even to some men, Elena was highly educated, taking her diplomas at the University of Bucharest Faculty of Letters and the Collège de France. It was in Paris (where she was chaperoned by Constantin Bacaloglu) that she met Ovid Denusianu, her future lover. However, her first marriage was to Radu D. Rosetti, a young prosecutor, who was to become a highly successful lawyer and a minor neoromantic poet. They were engaged on December 19, 1896, and had their religious wedding in January of the next year, with politician Nicolae Filipescu as godfather.

The marriage did not last, and the Rosetti–Bacaloglu divorce was registered in 1899. On August 7, 1902, she married Ovid Densusianu, who was fast becoming the theoretical voice of Romanian Symbolism. Historian Lucian Nastasă describes theirs as an odd union. Elena was "extremely beautiful", Ovid "short and limp", and much less educated than his wife. They had a son, Ovid Jr, who followed his father's career in letters, and eventually became a press officer at the Romanian Ministry of the Interior.

Bacaloglu's editorial debut was in 1903, when Editura Socec published her monograph Despre simbolizm şi Maeterlinck ("On Symbolism and Maeterlinck"). Together with the essays of Alexandru Bibescu (1893) and Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan (1908), it constitutes an early Romanian attempt to define the limits of Symbolism, Decadence and modernity. In Bacaloglu's interpretation, Symbolism and Decadentism were the two sides of a coin: while the Decadents gave voice to the late-19th-century "degeneration" of the Latin race, the Symbolists epitomized the Latin "revival", a triumph of mysteries and metaphysics. Straddling these two eras were Maeterlinck's Hothouses, which she was the first to discuss from a Romanian perspective. According to literary historian Angelo Mitchievici, Despre simbolizm tackles the literary critic's perspective with a "participatory-impressionistic formula, not lacking in refinement".

In 1906, Bacaloglu also published her psychological novel, În luptă ("In Combat"), followed in 1908 by another novelistic work, Două torţe ("Two Torches"). Her writing was poorly reviewed by the literary chronicler at Viaţa Românească, who argued that În luptă was impossible to read through. Other magazines, including Noua Revistă Română and Convorbiri Critice, hosted samples of her literary work.

Relocation to Italy

Meanwhile, Bacaloglu had separated from Densusianu, divorcing him in 1904. She spent most of her time in Italy, writing articles for Il Giornale d'Italia, Madame, and the political magazine L'Idea Nazionale. For a few months in 1908, she had an affair with the poet-playwright Salvatore Di Giacomo, whose Assunta Spina she translated for Convorbiri Critice (August 1909). She later married a third time, to an Italian.

In the early 1910s, Bacaloglu was living in Rome, where, in September 1912, she published a monograph about the love affair between Romanian poet Gheorghe Assachi and the Italian woman Bianca Milesi. She represented Romania at the Castel Sant'Angelo National Exhibit, and, as "Hélène Bacaloglu", gave French-language conferences about Di Giacomo. During the period, she came into conflict with Romanian antiquarian Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş. Mandated by the Romanian government, Tzigara replaced Bacaloglu at the National Exhibit's Romanian Committee. He described Bacaloglu as an illegitimate, self-appointed, representative, and noted that the Italian press also mistrusted her abilities. Bacaloglu presented her own version of the events in a protest to the curators, later published as a brochure. Her conferences on Di Giacomo were received with more sympathy: Alberto Cappelletti gave them a good review in Il Giorno, and E. Console republished them as a brochure, but such collaborations were ended abruptly when her collaborators became dissatisfied with her character and the quality of her prose. She continued to be held with esteem by her Romanian peers and, in 1912, joined their Romanian Writers' Society.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, Bacaloglu turned to political activism and interventionism, campaigning for still-neutral Romania to join the Entente Powers, and supporting the annexation of Romanian-inhabited Transylvania. To this goal, she published in Bucharest the Italian-language essay Per la Grande Rumania ("For Greater Romania") and the French-language Preuves d'amour. Conférences patriotiques ("Proofs of Love. Patriotic Conferences").

In Bacaologlu's activity, irredentism blended with the cause of Pan-Latinism. She joined the Pan-Latin association Latina Gens, which welcomed in members of all "Latin" nations and worked for the creation of a "Latin federation". Working for this organization, she played a part in the creation of a "Romanian Legion in Italy", grouping Romanians from Transylvania and Italian sympathizers, which fought the Central Powers on the northern Italian front. However, Bacalogu and Latina Gens were not invited at the Legion's founding ceremony, held at Cittaducale in June 1918.

According to Victor Babeş, the Transylvanian doctor and publicist, Elena Bacaloglu was "the great propagandist of Romanianism abroad, and especially so in Italy". The cause of "Greater Romania" fascinated two of Bacaloglu's three brothers: Victor, the author of patriotic plays, created one of the first all-Romanian newspapers in Bessarabia; George fought with distinction during the war of 1916, fulfilled several diplomatic missions, and was later a Prefect of Bihor County, Transylvania. Elena, Constantin and Victor were all correspondents for George Bacaloglu's cultural review, Cele Trei Crişuri, well into the 1930s.

Fascist experiment

One of the first Romanians to gain familiarity with the modern far-right movements in Europe, and, historians assess, driven by an "enormous ambition", Bacaloglu contemplated transplanting Italian fascism into Greater Romania. She returned there and, in 1923, founded the National Italo-Romanian Cultural and Economic Movement, seeking to imitate Benito Mussolini's Fasci Italiani paramilitaries. Mussolini acknowledged this friendship, corresponding with Bacaloglu from 1920, and sending her point-by-point instructions about "Latin expansionism", and about economic cooperation against capitalism. These were made public by Bacaloglu in her brochure Movimento nazionale fascista italo-romeno. Creazione e governo ("National Italo-Romanian Fascist Movement. Creation and Steering"), published in Milan after Mussolini's victorious "March on Rome". At the time, Bacaloglu was a friend of philosopher and fascist admirer Benedetto Croce, and corresponded with him on a regular basis.

The main difference between the two fascist movements was their attitude on the "Jewish Question": the Italo-Romanian Movement was antisemitic; the original Fasci were not. The goal was supported by other Constantin Bacaloglu, in his work at Iaşi University. Working with the antisemitic opinion leader, A. C. Cuza, he gave endorsement to the rioting students who wanted to expel most of the Romanian Jewish students, and tolerated their use of fascist symbolism. However, according to political scientist Emanuela Costantini, the antisemitic agenda of the Movement was comparatively "moderate"; she highlights instead Bacaloglu's other ideas: "an anti-industrialism in the populist mold", and a version of nationalism heavily inspired by the Action Française.

The Romanian branch was always minor, and competed with a plethora of paramilitary groups. As suggested by Costantini, it shared their anticommunism and contempt for democracy, but was the only one to be directly inspired by the Italian model. Only about a hundred people were persuaded to join, even though, as historian Francisco Veiga notes, many represented the more active strata of Romanian society (soldiers, students). Two known cells were at the University of Cluj (Transylvania), and at her brother's own Iaşi University. Women themselves were largely absent: still not granted the vote under the 1923 Constitution, they generally preferred enrollment in specifically feminist organizations, and were never popular with the more significant Romanian fascist parties (including, from 1927, the Iron Guard).

During its short existence, Bacaloglu's association was very vocal in condemning the Romanian status-quo and the Treaty of Versailles. During the early 1920s, Bacaloglu herself denounced Romania's foreign policies in articles she wrote for the Italian newspaper, depicting liberal politicians as lackeys of the French Republic. Some reports suggest that the "Romanian fascia" took it upon itself to threaten enemies of the deposed, but politically ambitious, Crown Prince Carol (who did not in fact approve of the Romanian fascists). In October 1923, Nicolae Iorga, a historian who opposed Carol's return, accused the organization of sending him hate mail.

Antifascist clampdown and later years

Bacaloglu's party became the object of government repression, soon after the antisemitic student Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was arrested on charges of terrorism. Codreanu had attempted to assassinate the staff of Adevărul, a left-wing newspaper, and, during the interrogations, implicated other fascist alliances. His testimony was disputed by Vestul României, the pro-fascist newspaper of Timişoara, which claimed: "The attempt [...] is not the work of terrorists, as was quickly proclaimed by some of our colleagues, but the mere revenge of one Sandi Bacaloglu who wished to defend the honor of his sister, that had been compromised by one Adevărul article, wherein it had been claimed that Elena Bacaloglu had been convicted for immodesty by the appellate court of Geneva." Sandi Bacaloglu was facing charges of attempted assassination and sedition.

Accounts differ as to what became of Bacaloglu's fascist party. Bacaloglu is credited as a founder of the successor National Fascist Movement, closed down by Romanian Police in 1925. A police report of the period suggests that "the Fascist Party of Romania" intended to join up with Cuza and Codreanu's National-Christian Defense League and the Romanian Action, into country's first "National Christian Party".

The president herself became a persona non grata in Italy, after Mussolini became aware of her dissident politics. Veiga writes: "the leadership of the main faction passed to Titus Vifor following a split." Vifor's National Romanian Fascia, described as the result of this schism, was explicitly Nazi and corporatist, and therefore had less to do with the Mussolinian program. Somewhat larger in numbers, this group managed to absorb two other nationalist political clubs, emerging from this fusion with a program supporting dictatorial politics and the expulsion of all foreigners. The Bacaloglu fascia was revived a third and final time in 1929, when a certain Colonel Stoica tried to use it in his coup against government (called "operatic plot" by Veiga).

By 1940, Bacaloglu had resettled in her native Romania, and was still living in Bucharest in April 1945. She died two years later.

References

• Vorlage:Ro icon "Buletin politic etc.", in Vestul României, Nr. 32/1923 (digitized by the Babeş-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library)
• Victor Babeş, "Răspuns rostit de D-l Prof. Dr. Victor Babeş", in George Bacaloglu, Ardealul ca isvor cultural: Discurs de recepţiune rostit la Ateneul Român la 1 iunie 1924. Publicaţiile Secţiei de Propagandă Crişul Negru, No. 10, Cele Trei Crişuri, Oradea-Mare, 1924, p.12-16
• Maria Bucur, "Romania", in Kevin Passmore (ed.), Women, Gender and Fascism in Europe, 1919-45, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2003, p.57-78. ISBN 0-7190-6083-4
• George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini până în prezent, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1986
• Emanuela Costantini, Nae Ionescu, Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran: antiliberalismo nazionalista alla periferia d'Europa, Morlacchi Editore, Perugia, 2005. ISBN 88-89422-66-1
• Vorlage:Ro icon Nicoleta Epure, "Relaţiile româno-italiene de la sfârşitul Primului Război Mondial la 'Marşul asupra Romei' (noiembrie 1918 - octombrie 1922). Geneza unor contradicţii de lungă durată", in the Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University Analele UCDC. Seria Istorie, Vol. I, Nr. 1, 2010, p.112-117
• Angelo Mitchievici, Decadenţă şi decadentism în contextul modernităţii româneşti şi europene, Editura Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2011. ISBN 978-606-588-133-4
• Lucian Nastasă,
  • Vorlage:Ro icon Intimitatea amfiteatrelor. Ipostaze din viaţa privată a universitarilor "literari" (1864-1948), Editura Limes, Cluj-Napoca, 2010. ISBN 978-973-726-469-5; e-book version at the Romanian Academy George Bariţ Institute of History
  • Vorlage:Ro icon Antisemitismul universitar în România (1919–1939). Mărturii documentare, Editura Institutului pentru Studierea Problemelor Minorităţilor Naţionale & Editura Kriterion, Cluj-Napoca, 2011. ISBN 978-606-92744-5-3
• Neonila Onofrei, Lucreţia Angheluţă, Liana Miclescu, Cornelia Gilorteanu, Tamara Teodorescu, Bibliografia românească modernă (1831-1918). Vol. I: A-C, Editura ştiinţifică şi enciclopedică, Bucharest, 1984
• Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1995. ISBN 978-0-299-14874-4
• Filippo Sallusto, Itinerari epistolari del primo Novecento: lettere e testi inediti dell'archivio di Alberto Cappelletti, Luigi Pellegrini Editore, Cosenza, 2006. ISBN 88-8101-321-5
• Vorlage:Ro icon Raluca Tomi, "Italieni în slujba Marii Uniri. Mărturii inedite", in Revista Istorică, Nr. 3-4/2010, p.279-292 (republished by The Research Group for the History of Minorities)