Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan (, last name also Sadoveanu-Andrei, first name also Isabella or Izabella; born Izabela Morțun, pen names I.Z.S.D. and Iz. Sd.; "Virginia Woolf în cultura română - bibliografie" , in the National Library of Romania Revista Bibliotecii Naționale, Nr. 2/2003, p.36-37 February 24, 1870 – August 6, 1941) was a Romanian literary critic, educationist, opinion journalist, poet and feminist militant. She spent her youth advocating socialism, and rallied with left-wing politics for the remainder of her life, primarily as a representative of Poporanist circles and personal friend of culture critic Garabet Ibrăileanu. Under Ibrăileanu's guidance, Sadoveanu wrote for Viața Românească review, where she tried to reconcile ethnic nationalism and traditionalism with aestheticism. As literary critic, she championed the recognition of Symbolism as an independent cultural phenomenon, and reviewed modern developments in English literature.
Sadoveanu represented Romanian feminism at International Alliance of Women congresses, but took a gradualist approach to women's suffrage, and, during the interwar, became interested in creating links between feminism and eugenics. With her activities as schoolteacher and militant, she supported education reform, and qualified to propagate the Montessori method. Late in life, she added feminist anti-fascism to her list of political and social involvements.
The cousin of socialist politico Vasile Morțun, Izabela was the sister-in-law of novelist and political figure Mihail Sadoveanu. She was also related to various families of importance in Romanian political history.
Biography
Early life Izabela Morțun hailed from the historical region of Moldavia: her place of birth is given as Săucești, Bacău County, Alexandra Andrei, "Omul și arta. Izabela Sadoveanu", in Timpul de Gorj, Nr. 8 (416)/2008 but she may also have been born in Hertsa region.Călinescu, p.667 Her parents were Gheorghe Grigore and Eleonora Morțun, uncle and aunt of the socialist Vasile Morțun. By virtue of birth, Izabela was related to several leading Moldavian intellectual and boyar families: her own branch, the Morțunești, was intermarried with the Racovițești, the Movilești and even the ancient House of Bogdan-Mușat. Also among her relatives was the Arbore family, whose members include socialists Zamfir and Ecaterina Arbore.
Izabela was adopted, soon after birth, by the Andrei family, and is reported to have been an unhappy and unwanted child. She had a half-sister, Adela, whom she later described as one of the beauties of Moldavia. Anais Nersesïan, "Eternul feminin în amintirile din copilărie și adolescență ale lui Garabet Ibrăileanu", in Supliment Cultural Ararat, June 2006, p.III
The future author attended primary school in Bacău city, before being sent over to a girls' institute and boarding school in Iași. While enrolled in this French-language institution, also known as Dodun des Perrières School, Izabela Andrei met and befriended Constanța Marino-Moscu, who also grew up to become a writer. Bianca Burța-Cernat, " 'Cazul' Mariana Vidrașcu" , in Revista 22, Nr. 1067, August 2010 It was during those years that Izabela was first drawn into socialist militancy, attending the left-wing cultural circle of Ioan and Sofia Nădejde, and read widely on various subjects. She would become a close friend and collaborator of Sofia, describing her as "beautiful [...], as simple as a child, as full of common sense as if a peasant woman healthy in body and spirit, passionate and excessive, as any real feminine character, in all her manifestations." Elena Zaharia-Filipaș, "Primul nostru roman feminin" , in România Literară, Nr. 48/2002 Acquainted with poet-novelist Nicolae Beldiceanu, she also frequented Beldiceanu's own literary society, meeting with the celebrated raconteur Ion Creangă. Her own debut followed in 1890, when her lyric poetry saw print in Școala Nouă magazine. "Izabella Sadoveanu" , biographical note in Cronologia della letteratura rumena moderna (1780-1914) database , at the University of Florence's Department of Neo-Latin Languages and Literatures; retrieved May 8, 2011 She was at the time in Bacău city, a substitute teacher at the day school for girls.
In short time, Izabela Morțun made her way to Bucharest, Romania's capital. Still an active socialist, she was present at the 2nd Congress of the Romanian Social Democratic Workers' Party, and met, through her socialist connections, several major figures on the late 19th century Romanian literary scene: Ion Luca Caragiale, Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea, Alexandru Vlahuță. Another such figure was the socialist veteran Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, about whom she later wrote: "I never again met a man who could spread as much serenity and reconciliation all around him".I. Felea, "Gherea și alții despre Gherea", in Magazin Istoric, December 1971, p.53
The young woman attended the University of Bucharest Faculty of Philosophy, where she was colleagues with several male writers, including Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voinești and O. Carp (Gheorghe Proca).Bogdan-Duică, p.15 In 1892, Carp married Adela Andrei.Călinescu, p.597
Poporanist debut Sadoveanu qualified to be a schoolteacher, and later took up a teaching position in Brăila. In 1898, she married in Roman officer Alexandru Sadoveanu (born 1866), an older brother of the debuting writer Mihail Sadoveanu. She followed him to Focșani, where she taught at the Girls' Boarding School, and eventually to Bucharest, where she worked as an educator for Școala Centrală de Fete.
Over the following decade, like her brother-in-law Mihail, she affiliated with the newly founded Viața Românească, the leading mouthpiece for a Romanian-born leftist-nationalist ideology, Poporanism. She became a disciple of the Poporanist theorist and editor in chief Garabet Ibrăileanu, particularly in what concerns Ibrăileanu's rationalist approach to literary phenomena. She would later describe him as "a handsome young man, famed as being very well-read and cultured, but terrifyingly shy".
Sadoveanu also took Ibrăileanu's side in his polemic with Eugen Lovinescu, a maverick traditionalist and later herald of the modernist scene. Writing to Ibrăileanu in 1909, after having attended one of Lovinescu's earliest public lectures, Sadoveanu described the new arrival as "one great rotter" and "an ignorant", who spoke in a "banal and stupid", "superficial" way. Bianca Burța-Cernat, "E. Lovinescu sub presiunea posterității. Răstălmăciri și idiosincrazii" , in Cultura, Nr. 8/2009 (republished by România Culturală ) In his 1930s review of Romanian literature, Lovinescu took a reserved view of Sadoveanu's Poporanist activity, suggesting that her nationalist advocacy echoed the right-wing competitors at Sămănătorul magazine, the home of historian and critic Nicolae Iorga, while deeming her critical approach "lyrical, verbose and sectarian."Eugen Lovinescu, Istoria literaturii române contemporane, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1989, p.28.
By 1906, Sadoveanu was also contributing to Revista Idealistă, the Neoclassical magazine of Mihail G. Holban, where she discussed "Romanticism in literature", "Cărți noue și reviste" , in Răvașul, Nr. 14-15/1906, p.58 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library ) and the mainstream review Noua Revistă Română. At this junction, she was involved in a minor scandal focused on her brother-in-law and the Poporanist milieu. That year, her old friend Marino-Moscu informed Ibrăileanu that Mariana Vidrașcu, a Viața Românească-serialized novel by Mihail Sadoveanu, was plagiarized from her own manuscript, which she had earlier confided to Izabela, and which Izabela had passed on to her relative; while the Sadoveanus refused to publicize their own version of events, Ibrăileanu assessed the evidence as favorable to Marino-Moscu, and buried the scandal by interrupting the series. Fragments from Sadoveanu's novel were only republished by Manuscriptum review in 1970, and the plagiarism itself was proven in 1988.
During the first decade of the 20th century, Izabela Sadoveanu became one of the socialists who moved closer to the mainstream National Liberal Party (PNL). Her debut as a literary critic came shortly before 1908, when she was briefly a literary columnist for the PNL newspaper Voința Națională. Cornelia Ștefănescu, "Repere pentru literatură" , in România Literară, Nr. 51-52/2002
Impresii literare and studies on Symbolism In 1908, Editura Minerva published a volume of Izabela Sadoveanu's critical essays, Impresii literare ("Literary Impressions").Bogdan-Duică, p.14-15; Călinescu, p.667, 1014; Duma, p.161, 162-163; Livezeanu & Farris, p.284 The book earned the attention of critics, and was reviewed in the national press. In Luceafărul, a tribune of the Romanians in Austria-Hungary, fellow writer Ion Duma contrasted Impresii literare with another work of "impressionistic" criticism, that of traditionalist journalist Ilarie Chendi: while Sadoveanu's text demanded didacticism and morality in literature, Chendi, a Sămănătorul dissident, was writing in favor of art for art's sake.Duma, p.161-162 As noted by Duma, Sadoveanu's pronouncements defended writers for their moral mission, even to the detriment of art, equally praising Sofia Nădejde and novelist Constantin Sandu-Aldea for their sense of "pity [...] for those less fortunate".Duma, p.162 The same reviewer also claimed that Sadoveanu, "a womanly character", lacked an understanding of extrovert and "combative" traditionalists like Sandu-Aldea and Luceafărul poet Octavian Goga.Duma, p.163 Another Luceafărul chronicler, academic Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică, contrarily asserted that Sadoveanu was "rather the warrior", but described Impresii... as inconsistent: "Yes and no; neither here nor there; this, that and the other. And yet it carries a note that ought to be signaled."Bogdan-Duică, p.14-15 From his traditionalist standpoint, Bogdan-Duică argued that Sadoveanu erred in reaching beyond "impressions" to consider herself a professional critic, and to advocate the "primacy of the senses" in art: "Ms. Sadoveanu-Evan has a philosophy, even though she is a woman." Reviewing the echoes of Sadoveanu's contributions in 2002, publisher and literary historian Cornelia Ștefănescu argued: "[she] sparked bitter polemics and denials more than appreciations, even though N. Iorga and G. Ibrăileanu, objectively or not, had a privileged view of her".
Sadoveanu alternated the aesthetic ideal with meditations on the national specificity in art. According to literary historian George Călinescu, the volume cemented her transition from socialism to Poporanism, illustrated by quotes such as: "We are Romanians, and our works of art and products of the mind must carry the seal of our nation's originality." A traditionalist, Duma noted with satisfaction that Sadoveanu had parted with socialism to recover "the creed of artistic nationalism": "Everywhere she wishes to point out the Romanian spirit, the Romanian nature: Romanian skies, earth, rivers, woods, birds and insects, a Romanian light." Bogdan-Duică concluded that sensualism did not interfere with the book's didactic agenda, since Sadoveanu still helped popularize writers inspired by "national life", from Mihail Sadoveanu, Carp and Brătescu-Voinești to Ștefan Octavian Iosif and Elena Farago.