Barbu Solacolu (March 17, 1897 – October 30, 1976) was a Romanian poet, translator, civil servant and social scientist. Born into a prosperous and intellectual family, he became a late affiliate of the Symbolist movement, bringing to it his own leftist sympathies and agrarianism. Despite spending the early stages of World War I among non-interventionists such as Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești and Ioan Slavici, he eventually served with distinctions as a cavalry commander, and also participated in the Hungarian–Romanian War. Solacolu trained as an economist in Weimar Germany, returning to serve the Romanian state as a civil servant. He had a marginal presence in national politics, first with the Democratic Nationalist Party, as a disciple of Nicolae Iorga, and then as a leading member of the Agrarian Union Party. He was noted in local academia for his essays on Revisionist Marxism.
During World War II, Solacolu presided upon the National Association of Chemical Industries, which handled contracts with Nazi Germany. He was pushed out of politics in the late 1940s with the inauguration of Romania's communist regime, spending the 1950s and '60s as a translator; his main contributions in that field were Romanian renditions from William Shakespeare, some of which made it into the definitive edition put out by Leon Levițchi. In old age, Solacolu, who had met some of Romania's leading personalities, made a celebrated return as a memorist, and was interviewed by oral historians.
Biography Early life Solacolu once specified that his birth date was March 17, 1897 (Old Style: March 5),Dorin Tudoran, Barbu Solacolu, "Biografia debuturilor. 'Regret că n-am putut scrie nu mai mult, ci mult mai frumos'", in Luceafărul, Vol. XVIII, Issue 22, May 1975, p. 3 against sources which have March 18.Aurel Sasu (ed.), Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române, Vol. II, pp. 579–580. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. His exact place of birth was a family townhouse on Astronomului Street 6, in Bucharest.Șerban Cioculescu, "Breviar. Memorialul poetului Barbu Solacolu", in România Literară, Issue 30/1974, p. 7 Barbu was the son of Victor Solacolu, a magistrate, and Victoria (née Petrescu), daughter of military doctor (and Romanian Land Forces General) Zaharia Petrescu. Before marrying Solacolu, Victoria had been his secretary; her sister, Alina, was the wife of zoologist Grigore Antipa.Petrescu, p. 570 Victor was the scion of a prosperous merchant family, of Bulgarian heritage, "Bijuterie ieri, azi ruină: Casa Ing. Solacolu", in România Liberă, May 4, 2010 whose members where, by his own account, "many, so very many", virtually none of them having left Bucharest in his own lifetime. He also reports that the shared surname originates with a Turkish-language nickname, Solak ("Left-handed"), bestowed on his grandfather Hagi-Anghel.Zăstroiu, p. 412 The latter had built his fortune around the Solacoglu Inn. From him and from his father, Dimitrie Solacolu, Barbu had inherited the Hanul cu Tei business and a large estate in Sărulești. Victor's brother, Theodor Solacolu, a noted botanist, was also a Symbolist author, as was (occasionally) his other brother, Alfred.Petrescu, pp. 572, 575. See also Cernat, pp. 49, 104, 109 Other relatives include chemist Șerban C. Solacolu, engineer Paul Solacolu, and publicist Ion Solacolu.
Barbu, who was Victor and Victoria's second son (his elder, Fernand, had been born in Belgium), lived in Lipscani area between the ages of 1 and 33. His family's social positioning allowed him to meet various historical figures, including senior politician Petre P. Carp, comedian Jean Montaureanu, or the aviation pioneer Aurel Vlaicu. He would later recount that Vlaicu disguised his flying anxiety by taking sips of alcohol before each takeoff. Young Solacolu attended the Golescu primary school, outside Antim Monastery, from 1904 to 1907.
Between 1908 and 1913, Solacolu studied at Gheorghe Lazăr and Saint Sava high schools. At age 15, his academic excellence was acknowledged by Tinerimea Română cultural society, which awarded him a collector's book of history, but he sold this and other items to an antiquarian bookshop, preferring monetary rewards to feed his smoking habit. Solacolu was first attracted to poetry "around 1906", when he was vacationing with General Constantin Iarca, his uncle, in Valea Călugărească; he wrote a piece dedicated to Joan of Arc, which Iarca read and corrected, teaching him the standards of rhyme and prosody. He was one of the youngsters who had been impressed by the traditionalist historian and theorist, Nicolae Iorga, and read Iorga's journal, Sămănătorul—which also acquainted him with the naturalistic prose of Constantin Sandu-Aldea, whom he considered a great author. He sent a sketch story to be published in Sămănătorul, in 1909, but received a flat rejection.
Symbolist debut The young man slowly changed focus, arriving at the brand of mainline Symbolism cherished by Panait Cerna, Dimitrie Anghel, Ion Minulescu, and Donar Munteanu; he was also directly influenced by his three high-school colleagues and friends: Poldi Chapier, Tristan Tzara, and Ion Vinea (though he was not interested in collaborating on their review, Simbolul). He made his pseudonymous debut (as "Barsol" and "Falstaff") in the 1911 editions of the Symbolist review Versuri și Proză, his work also taken up in Sărbătoarea Eroilor, in Ovid Densusianu's Vieața Nouă, and in N. D. Cocea's Rampa and Facla.Mihail Straje, Dicționar de pseudonime, anonime, anagrame, astronime, criptonime ale scriitorilor și publiciștilor români, p. 659. Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1973. Solacolu was also published, with his full name, by Constantin Banu's Flacăra in 1912—he noted that he had used the "then-fashionable" amphibrach, and that the same issue also featured the debut of a poet he viewed as more accomplished than him, namely D. Iacobescu. At Rampa, he completed and published a Romanian version of Roberto Bracco's Fiori d'arancio—this being his first contribution to theater.Zăstroiu, p. 413
In collaboration with Al. Westfried, Solacolu translated and published from Maeterlinck's Serres chaudes.S. Podoleanu, 60 scriitori români de origină evreească, Vol. II, p. 375. Bucharest: Bibliografia, . Scholar Remus Zăstroiu revisited this as an outstanding contribution, given its "surprising zeal". Solacolu's own youth poetry was a mixture of Symbolism (which he himself identified as a subset of "mystical romanticism") and decadent writing.Angelo Mitchievici, Decadență și decadentism în contextul modernității românești și europene, p. 144. Bucharest: Editura Curtea Veche, 2011.
With time, Solacolu turned to a more bucolic style, which, according to reviewers such as Șerban Cioculescu and Virgil Gheorghiu, anticipated better known contributions by Ion Pillat. Gheorghiu praised Solacolu for his poetic concision and preciseness, which also characterized his contribution as a translator.Virgil Gheorghiu, "Cărți noi. Barbu Solacolu Umbre pe drumuri. Poezii cu un cuvînt înainte de Șerban Cioculescu", in Viața Românească, Vol. XXI, Issue 11, November 1968, p. 142 Zăstroiu notes the diversity of critical assessments, with critics seeing Solocaolu as either a traditionalist in line with Ștefan Octavian Iosif or a modern poet à la George Bacovia. Zăstroiu validates both these assessments: in his definition, Solacolu managed to bring together "Symbolist accessories" such as the "aquatic mystery" into a "rural landscape that is not at all engulfed in nostalgia for the past".
From 1913 to 1915, Solacolu completed two years of studies at the University of Bucharest's law faculty. During those months, with Romania still neutral in what became World War I, Solacolu was marginally involved with the literary-political circles of Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești and Ioan Slavici, which were supportive of the Central Powers. Decades later, he confessed to having purposefully stayed away from controversy, only publishing politically neutral literature in Slavici's Ziua; he also recalled seeing a passive Slavici taking orders from Bogdan-Pitești, the alleged spy.Lucian-Vasile Szabo, "Ioan Slavici în vizorul adversarilor", in Familia, Issue 3/2015, p. 47 Solacolu was drafted into the Land Forces, upon Romania's entry into war. Part of his family remained in Bucharest, which soon fell to the Germans.Alexandru Marghiloman, Note politice, 2. 1916–1917, p. 299. Bucharest: Editura Institutului de Arte Grafice Eminescu, 1927 Barbu followed the army on its northeastern retreat, went to the Iași military school, and eventually participated in the Budapest Campaign as a second lieutenant in the cavalry. He received the Military Virtue Medal and was an Officer of the Order of the Crown.Politics and Political Parties..., p. 373
Entering politics The war did not interrupt Solacolu's literary work, with samples taken up by Convorbiri Literare in 1915, and by Letopiseți in 1918–1919. However, by his own account, he had destroyed most of the poetry written in that interval. He ultimately took his law degree in Bucharest in December 1918. In 1920, he issued the poetry volume Umbre pe drumuri ("Shadows on the Roads"), bridging Symbolism with proletarian sympathies;George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini pînă în prezent, pp. 936, 1029. Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1986; Petrescu, pp. 571, 575. See also Zăstroiu, p. 413 though nominally issued by Convorbiri Literare, it was in fact self-published. He took pride in noting that the volume was well received across ideological divides, with encouragements published by Iorga and Pillat, of the traditionalists, as well as by Vianu and Ion Barbu, of the post-Symbolists (the latter were especially enthusiastic about one of his sonnets). This volume was followed in 1922 by a brochure on Fyodor Dostoyevsky, first published in its German version at Berlin.Zăstroiu, pp. 413, 414 It was noted as a poetic commentary and introduction to that writer's style and themes,Al. Ț., "Insemnări literare. Dostoiewski de Barbu Solacolu", in Sburătorul Literar, Issue 40/1922, p. 280 but also as a "critical analysis" of life in Soviet Russia.Zăstroiu, p. 414 He would then publish similar monographs on Henri de Saint-Simon (1925) and Werner Sombart (1930).