N. D. Popescu-Popnedea: Difference between revisions

Romanian prose writer

Nicolae D. Popescu, also known as Poppescu, Popnedea and Nedea Popescu (August 9, 1843 – June 1921), was a Romanian prose writer, oral historian, almanac compiler and archivist, made famous and financially successful by his hajduk stories. Of peasant origin, he was born in Wallachia and spent his youth in the United Principalities. His career in the civil service began in 1861, while his debut as a writer occurred some three years later, with a romantic biographical novel on Radu the Handsome. Popnedea later began taking his inspiration from Romanian folklore, creating a novella based on Meșterul Manole‘s semi-historical legend, before single-handedly inventing the hajduk subgenre of the swashbuckler—mixing in the adventure novel and historical fiction—and experimenting with the sentimental novel. Committed to both Hohenzollern monarchism and Romanian nationalism, he exploited the contemporary War of Independence, which infused both his story papers and his contribution as a popular historian. His work also intertwined with his support for the National Liberal Party, of which he was a founding member.

Highly successful in all the novelistic genres he embraced, as well as a collector and publisher of music, Popescu also tried his hand as a playwright, with his Păstorița Carpaților being successfully staged by the National Theater Bucharest on two separate occasions. He was rejected by the professional writing community in the newly established Kingdom of Romania, and made aware of his marginality. He was openly mocked on several occasions by the celebrated Romanian humorist, Ion Luca Caragiale; his unprofessional approach to history-writing and folkloristics was also critically examined by authors from the Junimea society, who advised against using him as a source. Popnedea was instead regarded as an earnest author by nationalists of the Sămănătorul and Poporanist schools, and acknowledged as a childhood influence by Mihail Sadoveanu and Ion Agârbiceanu. He found some backers on the modernist scene as well, possibly inspiring the early prose of Panait Istrati, and being a childhood favorite of Sașa Pană and Ion Călugăru; the latter went on to copy his writing style, in novels he published under a pseudonym.

Popnedea continued to write into his late seventies, though his final output centered on postal and railways history, rather than fiction. His activities as a clerk were by then also touched by controversy, as he had been accused publicly of not fulfilling his duties, and once investigated for allegedly stealing documents. His boasting about having access to secret information had also seen him caught up in a 1909 investigation centered on an assassination attempt against the Prime Minister, Ion I. C. Brătianu. Popescuțs literature still had a large following after his death in 1921, and came to be seen by various posthumous reviewers as superior to other forms of popular literature, produced during the interwar and later on.

Biography[edit]

Beginnings and early fame[edit]

“Popnedea” was born in Bucharest, capital of Wallachia, to Romanian Orthodox priest Dimitrie Popescu and his wife Niculina.^[1] As he proudly noted in a 1905 autobiography, his ancestors on both sides were “plebeian” sharecroppers, situated below the yeomanry (moșneni);^[2] he had earlier explained that Dimitrie was a native of Dolj County in Oltenia (Wallachia’s western third), and that, through his stories, he gained his first insight into the lives of early-19th-century hajduks.^[3] Young Popescu began high school in his native city (which was advanced to capital of the United Principalities in 1859), but left early in 1861 in order to become a civil servant at the Foreign Ministry.^[1]

Popescu’s first published work was a historical novel on Radu the Handsome (Radu al III-lea cel Frumos), appearing in 1864^[1] or 1865.^[4] He wrote numerous calendars starting in 1866—when he became a contributor to Calendar pentru Toți, and then to I. C. Fundescu‘s Calendarul Dracului. The former featured a historical sketch story on the Battle of Rovine, for which he used the signature Nicop.^[5] His other work was in political satire, with Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu‘s Satyrul magazine—published in Bucharest from February 1866. This publication was focused on subverting the authoritarian Domnitor, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, and as such required its contributors to hide under various pseudonyms, as Chinese Mandarins on a visit to the Principalities.^[6] Popescu himself used the mock-Chinese name “Po-pu-ki”, being welcomed by Hasdeu, in April 1866, for his “excellent feuilleton“.^[7] Over several issues, Popescu contributed Impresiunile unuǐ noŭ sositŭ din China (“The Impressions of a New Arrival from China”) and Din viéța amploiațilorŭ (“From the Life of Bureaucrats”).^[8]

The Satyrul group supported the “monstrous coalition” coup against Cuza, but opposed his replacement with a foreign-born…