Nicolae Petrescu-Comnen (; Gallicized as Petresco-Comnène, Petrescu-Comnène or N. P. Comnène, born Nicolae Petrescu; August 24, 1881 – December 8, 1958) was a Romanian diplomat, politician and social scientist, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Miron Cristea cabinet (between May 1938 and January 31, 1939). He debuted in France as a public lecturer and author of several books on political history, then returned to Romania as a judge and member of the University of Bucharest faculty. Comnen spent most of World War I in Switzerland, earning respect at home and abroad for his arguments in favor of nationalism, his publicizing of the Greater Romanian cause, and especially for his support of the Romanian community in Dobruja. During the Paris Peace Conference, he was dispatched to Hungary, proposing political settlements that would have made the Treaty of Trianon more palatable to Hungarian conservatives. Also noted as an eccentric who published poetry, he was often ridiculed for his claim to a Byzantine aristocratic descent from the Komnenos.
Comnen returned to serve briefly in the Romanian Assembly of Deputies, during which time he became a prominent anti-socialist. He was a National Liberal and close to that party's leadership, before embarking on a full-time diplomatic career, originally as Romania's envoy to Switzerland and to the League of Nations (1923–1927). He had a steady climb during the early interwar, with alternating missions in Weimar Germany and at the Holy See. His activity centered on debilitating Hungarian irredentism, and, progressively, on the easing of tensions between Romania and the Soviet Union. As Romania's ambassador to Nazi Germany, Comnen preserved a neutralist line, recognizing Romania's dependence on German industry while seeking to expand cooperation with France and Britain.
Comnen was assigned to lead Foreign Affairs during the early stages of King Carol II's authoritarian regime. His ministerial term was highly turbulent, overlapping with the expansion of Nazi power, Western appeasement, and a sudden deterioration of Romanian–Soviet relations. Comnen recognized the Anschluss, helped "liquidate" the Abyssinian question, and tried to obtain guarantees from Romania's hostile neighbors at Bled and Salonika. A full crisis followed the Munich Agreement, during which Comnen worked to preserve both a Czechoslovak state and the Little Entente. He tacitly gave the Soviet Air Forces access to Romania's airspace, and refused to participate in a partition of Carpathian Ruthenia.
Comnen was ultimately deposed by Carol—allegedly, because he had questioned the king's rationale for repressing the rival Iron Guard—and replaced with Grigore Gafencu. Again dispatched to the Holy See, he was sacked by a Guardist government after Carol's downfall in 1940. He never returned home, but remained in Florence, a supporter of the Allies and agent of the Romanian National Committee. As such, Comnen worked with Gafencu in the diaspora movement against Communist Romania. Earning accolades for his new contributions as a humanitarian, he published works of recollections and studies in diplomatic history. In his last years before his death in Florence, he had turned to promoting a pan-European identity.
Biography Early life Nicolae Petrescu was born in Bucharest on August 24, 1884, the son of a public servant (or magistrate) and his schoolteacher wife.Petrescu, p. 331; Vițalaru, p. 347 Noti Constantinide, Amintiri, at Memoria.ro Baptized Romanian Orthodox,Vițalaru, p. 348 he was part-Greek: his maternal grandmother, Ecaterina, was the last descendant of the Greek family Comninò.Potra, p. 607 Also through his mother, hailing from the Cernovodeanu clan, the future diplomat belonged to the boyar nobility,Mihai Sorin Rădulescu, "Sur l'aristocratie roumaine de l'entre-deux-guerres", in The New Europe College Yearbook 1996–1997. p. 352. Bucharest: New Europe College, 2000. and was an uncle of the historian Dan Cernovodeanu.Mihai Demetriade, Silviu B. Moldovan, "Ion Mitucă, de la rezistență la disidență", in Caietele CNSAS, Nr. 2/2008, pp. 99–100 His collaborator and subordinate Noti Constantinide further argues that Petrescu was of Romany descent, "a true, purebred, Gypsy" and "highly unusual character". Having studied at the University of Bucharest and the University of Paris, he took a doctorate in Law and Political Science at the latter, and began his career as an Ilfov County judge in 1906. He worked as a lawyer from 1911 to 1916, while also teaching economics at Bucharest University.Petrescu, pp. 331–333; Potra, p. 607. See also Rostovsky & Forter, p. 317; Vițalaru, p. 347 He was at the center of political life from his Paris years, when he joined the Romanian Students' Circle. He lectured with the latter at Voltaire Coffeehouse, appearing alongside some of the country's future statesmen and scholars: Nicolae Titulescu, Ion G. Duca, Dimitrie Drăghicescu, and Toma Dragu.Liliana Beu, "Câteva repere privind originile și familia omului politic I. G. Duca", in Buridava, Vol. V, 2007, p. 138
During that period, he changed his surname to Petrescu-Comnen, thus claiming lineage from the Komnenos family of Byzantine Emperors (he also claimed to be related to the Bonapartes). The change was made official by his father in 1903, and later backed by a questionable family tree and heraldry, but recognized during his induction into the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George.Petrescu, pp. 331–332Sorin Iftimi, Vechile blazoane vorbesc. Obiecte armoriate din colecții ieșene, p. 126. Iași: Palatul Culturii, 2014. Petrescu's views on his family's heritage were a frequent topic of ridicule among foreign diplomats (puns on his name included the French-language —"Petrescu-All the Same", and the generic "Nicolae Perhaps-Comnen"). Historian Andrei Pippidi sees the Byzantine claim as entirely spurious, "snobbish", "unjustly decreasing the value of [his] character." Andrei Pippidi, "SOS București. O casă de ministru", in Dilema Veche, Nr. 393, August 2011 Genealogist Dumitru Năstase proposes that the Petrescus were in fact only attached to the village of Comeni, a name later corrupted into Comneni, then Comnen. The "bewildering" Byzantine pedigree was also ridiculed by the left-wing memoirist Petre Pandrea, who noted that, beyond his "princely obsession", Comnen was a "fundamentally decent man." Petre Pandrea, Brâncuși. Pravila de la Craiova (fragment), Atelier LiterNet, August 18, 2010
Comnen's early work included poetry: in July 1904, his patriotic ode to Iosif Vulcan was carried by the magazine Familia."Homagiu marelui român Vulcan", in Familia, Nr. 25–26, 1904, p. 303 According to Constantinide, young Petrescu authored a volume of poems which he signed as Petrescu-D'Artagnan. He is known to have published, as Petresco-Comnène, the collection ("Once upon a Time", 1904). Comprising Parnassian verse,Petrescu, p. 331 it received a lukewarm review from the staff critic at Le Figaro: "the work of a real poet", it nevertheless contained "pages that are quite needlessly bizarre".Philippe-Emmanuel Glaser, "Petite Chronique des Lettres", in Le Figaro, April 15, 1904, p. 3 For a while, this aspect of his literary activity merged with his scholarly work. On June 4, 1905, Le Journal du Dimanche noted his "strange conference" about Albert Samain, which ended with readings from Samain's works by a group of actresses.Sales, "La Semaine Dramatique", in Le Journal du Dimanche, No. 3340, June 1905, p. 365
Comnen also contributed a study of early Romanian jurisprudence (1902), and a monograph on the history of the Jews in Romania (1905). The latter earned him the Romanian Academy's Ion Heliade Rădulescu award, and special praise from the scholar A. D. Xenopol. He continued in the fields of law and sociology, with a succession of tracts and lectures: ("The 8-hour Day", 1906), ("Work-related Accidents", 1907), ("Some Musings on Socialism and Its Results", 1909), ("A Review of State Intervention between Capital and Labor", 1910).Petrescu, pp. 332–333; Vițalaru, p. 347 These contributions detail Comnen's take on the local labor movement, showing him as a social liberal who fully embraced unionization.Victor Rizescu, "De la emanciparea muncii la protecția socială: politica reprezentării profesionale în România la începutul secolului XX", in Polis, Issue 4 (14), 2016, pp. 178, 179 was awarded another Academy prize, and again received a good review from Xenopol.Petrescu, p. 332
Although Petrescu showed himself to be staunchly against Hungarian nationalism, his wife, Antoinette von Benedek,E. Delaroche, "Le Monde & la Ville. Mariages", in Le Figaro, August 4, 1912, p. 3"Roumanian Art at Maryhill", in The Othello Outlook, March 25, 1998, p. 3 may have been of Hungarian origin—allegedly, he had her adopted by an impoverished count in Trieste, as a means for the family to inherit a formal title. Other sources simply list her as a Triestine Austrian.Pavlowitch, p. 240 They were married on August 4, 1912, at the Russian Cathedral of Paris. The couple already had a son, Raymond-Alexis, born 1908, and a daughter, Elsa-Irène, born 1909. According to Pandrea, neither of the Comnen children shared their father's "obsession". He described both as "my friends", "sensible, unpretentious kids".
World War I and aftermath Petrescu-Comnen's career took an upward turn after Romania entered World War I, initially as a noted campaigner for the cause of Greater Romania; he was also tasked with explaining Romania's capitulation. According to Duca, Comnen, "whose precarious health had exiled to Switzerland", matched and surpassed Drăghicescu's similar work in France. He displayed "exquisite skills as a propagandist".Ion G. Duca, Amintiri politice, II, p. 144. Munich: Jon Dumitru-Verlag, 1981 He cultivated the friendship of Transylvanians in exile, in particular Aurel Popovici and Iosif Șchiopu, who became his trusted advisers.Pandrea & Ursu, p. 24 Initially, Comnen contributed to the cause from a Swiss sanitarium, where he was recovering, hoping to carry forward Popovici's work after the latter had died. With articles in , and with tracts such as ("Notes on the Romanian War"), he complained about the Entente Powers "sacrificing Romania" after the October Revolution.Petrescu, p. 333 French scholar Marcel Emerit found his a biased, "unilateral", perspective, containing "a lively condemnation" of the Russian Republic.Marcel Emerit, "Partie bibliographique. II. Autour de la guerre. Pétain (général), Le Drame roumain (1916–1918)", in Revue d'Histoire Moderne, Vol. 8, Issue 6, 1933, p. 512 Comnen also contributed an ethnographic overview of Dobruja (La Dobrogea), just as the region was being absorbed into a Greater Bulgaria. Georges Lacour-Gayet, who presented the work at the Romanian Academy, noted that the "savant work" of "truth and justice", had exposed the practices of Bulgarization.Georges Lacour-Gayet, "Rapports verbaux et communications diverses. La Dobrogea (Dobroudja), de M. N. P. Comnène", in Séances et Travaux de l'Académie des Sciences Morales. Comptes Rendus, Vol. 78, Issue 7, 1918, pp. 404–405