Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor or Nicolaescu-Plopșor, sometimes shortened to N. Plopșor (; April 20, 1900 – May 30, 1968), was a Romanian historian, archaeologist, anthropologist and ethnographer, also known as a folkorist and children's writer, whose diverse activities were primarily focused on his native region of Oltenia. A student and disciple of Vasile Pârvan at the University of Bucharest, he had a youthful activity collecting and publishing Oltenian songs and poetry, being the first to document Romanian folklore as produced during the peasants' revolt of 1907, and committing to writing the regional variants of Miorița ballad. Increasingly interested in the Balkans' prehistoric period, he researched various Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic sites in his native country, placing them in a larger European context while producing his own systems of Prehistoric chronology and typology. His main contributions to archaeology include the classification of Oltenian microliths, the study of local cave paintings, and the disputed claim that a site in Tetoiu evidenced a regional contribution to anthropogenesis.
An active collector of art, including a trove of Romanian icons and modern public art by Constantin Brâncuși, Nicolăescu-Plopșor was also known for his activity as a museologist and head of the Museum of Oltenia in Craiova. During the interwar, he became noted as both a politician and activist for the welfare of the Romani-Romanian minority, also amassing land as an agriculturalist. Before World War II, he was one of the regional Oltenian leaders for the emerging Romani political movement, and a contributor to some of the first Romani-language newspapers in local history; chased out of the burgeoning movement by its internal schisms, he was for a while a prominent figure in the National Liberal Party-Brătianu, before being co-opted by the National Renaissance Front. Plopșor was additionally a follower of Christian mystic Petrache Lupu, whose preaching he explored in a work of religious anthropology. His contribution to Romanian literature includes collections of folklore and Romani mythology, editions of works by other Oltenian writers, as well as original anecdotes and quasi-fairy tales with folkloric roots. Plopșor drew attention, both positive and negative, for his heavy reliance on the Oltenian dialect, being sometimes incomprehensible to his non-Oltenian readers.
Nicolăescu-Plopșor's career peaked after the onset of Romanian communism in the 1950s. Although forced to sell his own land, he was controversially involved in the 1949 nationalization of Victor N. Popp's estate; he also adapted his style to Soviet historiography and the Stalin cult. Plopșor led both a national archaeological section and Craiova ethnographic branch of the Romanian Academy, of which he was elected a corresponding member in 1963. He was additionally tasked with directing teams of researchers at Bicaz, the Iron Gates, and Ada Kaleh. Involved with a literary club formed around Ramuri magazine, he published his final book of children's fiction, Tivisoc și Tivismoc, in 1965, and turned it into a screenplay the following year.
Biography
Early life The future scholar was born "Constantin Nicolăescu", with "Plopșor" being originally a literary pseudonym.Petre Pandrea, "Inedit. Rînduri despre Craiova și Oltenia", in Cuvîntul Libertății, November 4, 2000, p. 4 His native village was Sălcuța, Dolj County, Kingdom of Romania.Andrei, p. 1 Crina Raicea, "Localitățile doljene nu au stemă", in Gazeta de Sud, December 9, 2005 His birth date is generally given as April 20, 1900, though some records have March 31."Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor", in România Liberă, May 31, 1968, p. 5 Of partial Romani Romanian ancestry,Achim, p. 156 he was the descendant of Dincă Schileru, an Oltenian peasant representative in the ad-hoc Divan which decided on the 1859 union between Wallachia and Moldavia.Mirela Marinescu, "Povestea familiei Plopșor", in Gazeta de Sud, January 18, 2014, p. 6Vasile Surcel, "C. S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor", in Jurnalul Național, January 24, 2009 Specifically, his mother Polina was Schileru's daughter. Accounts differ as to her husband (and Constantin's father): some sources credit him as Nicolae Ion, a sharecropper who had received a family plot during the 1860s land reform, while others refer to him as Stan, and report that he was a wealthy landowner, with a "very imposing" manor to his name.
One of several boys born to the couple, Constantin was a sickly child, sometimes neglected by his parents—who feared that he was afflicted by tuberculosis. They eventually remarked his natural inquisitiveness, and agreed to finance his education. This began at Obedeanu Preparatory School of Craiova; Constantin then completed his secondary studies at the Carol I National College, as a protege of teacher Ștefan Ciuceanu. One of his teachers encouraged all students to collect various remains of historical importance, including "the bones of Uriași". This hobby worried his father, who saw it as merely a form of scavenging.Mihu Dragomir, "Amintiri din anii de școală. 'Pasiunea se descoperă studiind cu pasiune'", in Scînteia Tineretului, December 5, 1963, p. 2 Initially destined for a career in the Romanian Orthodox Church, Constantin preferred literature,Alexandru Cerna-Rădulescu, "Plopșor", in Ramuri, Vol. VII, Issue 3, March 1970, p. 2 but without interrupting his archaeological pursuits.
This career path was diverted during World War I and the series of Romanian defeats. The adolescent Nicolăescu-Plopșor followed the Romanian Army to Western Moldavia, where he trained as a tinsmith for the ammunition factory in Dângeni. For the remainder of his life, he took pride in his certified work in the industry, as well as in his having received the War Cross. During those years, he crossed into Bessarabia, and later took credit for discovering prehistoric flint tools at Stânca Doamnei. In 1922, upon the consolidation of Greater Romania, Nicolăescu-Plopșor's first samples of regional Oltenian folklore appeared in the magazine Convorbiri Literare.Șerban Cioculescu, "Breviar. Un povestitor talentat", in România Literară, Issue 40/1975, p. 7 He was for a while after among the most frequently published contributors in that magazine.Lucian Dumbravă, "Retrospectiva Convorbiri '82", in Almanah Convorbiri Literare '82, pp. 12–13 Another article, carried by Revista Societății Tinerimea Română, detailed his ideas on Gypsy ethnogenesis.C. Poboran, "Din istoria țiganilor", in Adevărul Literar și Artistic, Vol. IV, Issue 142, August 1923, p. 4 In tandem, Buletinul Societății Regale Române de Geografie hosted his typology of Oltenian pit-houses, or bordeie, as his first contribution to human geography.Anca Ceaușescu, "Vechi tipuri de locuință pe teritoriul Olteniei", in Arhivele Olteniei, Vol. 24, 2010, pp. 315, 317, 319 At Oltenia magazine, he was focusing on inventorying oral poems by a quasi-anonymous author, Radu of Giubega, in particular ones dealing with the peasants' revolt of March 1907.Ileana Petrescu, Aurelian I. Popescu, "1907: istorie și folclor", in Ramuri, Vol. IV, Issue 2, February 1967, p. 23Amzulescu, pp. 134, 138, 151 He became the first folklorist to ignore a self-imposed silence about the revolutionary events,Amzulescu, p. 123 though the actual task of collecting Radu's poems went to three other amateur folklorists—Ion Voinescu of Orodel, Ștefan Tuțescu, and Petre Danielescu. Also in 1922, Plopșor became honorary director of the Museum of Oltenia, a regional institution founded in 1915, and where he was curator of the Archaeology and Folklore Section. Despre noi, at the Museum of Oltenia site; retrieved September 5, 2009 The collection was largely based on objects he had gathered during his many field trips.
Shortly after, Plopșor was appointed a substitute history teacher in Plenița,Andrei, p. 3. See also Popescu, p. 145 focusing of investigating, documenting and preserving evidence about the historical past of Oltenian villages. He set as his personal ambition an archaeological scrutiny of the entire region, in order to uncover "the traces of the most ancient people to have inhabited Oltenia", a population he initially believed had originated in Asia.Doboș, p. 233 Nicolăescu-Plopșor established a peasants' newspaper, also based in Plenița. Called Redeșteptarea ("The Renaissance"), it sought to defend the rural population from injustice and "usury". He had not yet completed his tertiary education: in 1924, he graduated magna cum laudeAndrei, p. 3 from the University of Bucharest Faculty of Letters and History. During that time, he became a disciple of Romanian historian Vasile Pârvan, noted for his work in researching and classifying the antiquities of Dacia, and was colleagues with medievalist Constantin C. Giurescu.Constantin C. Giurescu, "Pe urmele Malvei, Celeiului, 'Cozial'-ului", in Magazin Istoric, October 1977, pp. 6–7 A sketch story of his, La struguri ("With the Grapes"), saw print in the inaugural issue of Suflet Românesc, in 1925.Ion Dongorozi, "Revista revistelor. Suflet Românesc", in Năzuința, Vol. IV, Issue 3, 1925 p. 63 In 1927, he joined Teodor Bălășel in setting up the Brotherhood of Oltenian Folklorists, seen by poet Alexandru Cerna-Rădulescu as "the first Romanian attempt to scientifically coordinate and systematize folklore collections." Also that year, Plopșor began putting out the review Suflet Oltenesc ("Oltenian Soul"). The following year, he published, as N. Plopșor, the volume Ceaùr. Povești oltenești ("Woozy. Oltenian Stories")."Bibiliografie", in Viața Românească, Issue 3/1928, p. 492. See also Andrei, p. 3 Literary chronicler Șerban Cioculescu, who knew the work simply as Ceaùr, reports that it and all other interwar books by the same author had a minuscule circulation.
Around 1923, Nicolăescu-Plopșor had begun digging on elevated sites known locally as măguri, uncovering crouched skeletons with residues of ochre, before turning his attention to other locations, where he discovered the remains of prehistoric dwellings.Doboș, pp. 233, 240 In the early 1930s, his discovery of microliths at Carpen (Cleanov village) and his native Sălcuța (Plopșor) led him to propose the existence of two Mesolithic archaeological industries native to Oltenia, a theory first outlined at the 15th International Congress of Anthropology.Doboș, pp. 239, 241 In 1926, he traveled to Gorj County, where he documented the existence of a hunting-themed and charcoal-based cave painting in the proximity of cave bear bones and Copper Age pottery, but did not disclose its exact location (probably as a means to ensure its better protection).Doboș, p. 234 He is also credited with having dug up the first mastodon remains on Romanian territory, at Stoina. Spurred on by the research of French scholar Henri Breuil, with whom he began corresponding, Nicolăescu-Plopșor visited other such sites in Oltenia's Southern Carpathian areas: Baia de Fier (Peștera Muierilor), Peștera Boierilor, Peștera Oilor, Romos, etc. By the end of his career, he had explored some 120 individual caves.
Romani activism