Dumitru Ion Suchianu or Sucheanu, most often shortened to D. I. Suchianu or D.I.S. (2 September 1895 – 17/18 April 1985), was a Romanian essayist, translator, economist and film theorist, also noted for his participation in politics. The son of a distinguished Armenian teacher-editor and his Romanian socialist wife, he was acquainted with, and inspired by, writer Ion Luca Caragiale, who visited his childhood home. Attending Iași's Boarding High School in the 1910s, he formed a lasting bond with Mihai Ralea. The two young men went on to study together at the University of Paris, where they earned their credentials as social scientists and political thinkers; Ralea also married Suchianu's sister Ioana. Their careers were tied to Viața Romînească magazine, put out by their mentor Garabet Ibrăileanu. It was here and in Adevărul newspaper that Suchianu made his reputation as a polemicist and essayist. His early writings tackled a variety of subjects, from political biographies and world affairs to legal history, a subject which also preoccupied him during his successive mandates at the Legislative Council. After 1927, he became directly involved in the ideological and aesthetic steering of Romanian cinema, as a columnist, film historian, censor, and eventually producer.
Though publicly critical of Marxism, Suchianu established connections with the underground Romanian Communist Party during his stint at Cuvântul Liber newspaper. He continued to cultivate and defend communist intellectuals after taking over as co-editor of Viața Romînească in 1937, though he also struck controversy with his positive remarks on the fascist Iron Guard. In 1938, he and Ralea were co-opted by the dictatorial King Carol II, serving within his National Renaissance Front. Suchianu merged his positions at the Labor Ministry, held by Ralea, and the Ministry of Propaganda to establish a program of mass entertainment for the Romanian proletariat—the film component of a Muncă și Voe Bună leisure-package. He visited Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to seek his inspiration, while explaining that he still did not favor the complete fascization of Romania. Suchianu was ultimately sacked in mid-1940 by Prime Minister Ion Gigurtu, with prosecutors sent in to investigate him as an alleged embezzler. This uncertain status was prolonged during the National Legionary State, established by the Iron Guard in 1940–1941, and then under the early years of the Ion Antonescu regime. He was never brought to trial, and Antonescu eventually allowed him to travel throughout Nazi-occupied Europe; this episode left Suchianu exposed to accusations of collaborationism.
Suchianu said he had secretly supported the Soviet Union, and also that he had directly participated in the August 1944 coup, which toppled Antonescu. He continued the leftward shift at Viața Romînească, with a new edition put out in 1944–1948, while also engaged in propaganda work for the National Populars, as well as for the Communist Party's own Bloc of Democratic Parties. He renounced his journalistic activities upon the imposition of a communist regime in 1948, and withdrew from literary activity altogether, until 1956; he was also imprisoned for a while, possibly as a means of ensuring Ralea's own political compliance. When he reemerged, it was almost exclusively as a translator and film critic, earning particular distinction, and the reading public's enduring affection, in the latter field. His essays mounted an academic defense of Hollywood crowd-pleasers against the cinematic avant-garde, and overlapped with affectionate memoirs of the silent film era.
Late-communist reviewers celebrated Suchianu as a founding figure of Romanian film criticism, and, in some cases, identified him as a fellow student of Marxism-Leninism—though he was already a public critic of communist censors. His critical views of communism became known to the public from his 1980s interviews with Grid Modorcea, in the uncensored version published after the 1989 Revolution. An avid practitioner of various sports, and a certified ski instructor, Suchianu earned additional notoriety for his longevity and well-preserved agility, outliving Ralea by 20 years. He died at the age of 89, having continued to write until his last days.
Biography Early life and debut Suchianu was a native of Iași,Radu G. Țeposu, "Suchianu D.[umitru] I.[on]", Aurel Sasu (ed.), Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române, Vol. II, pp. 648–649. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. though some sources also have Bucharest as his place of origin.Ciocârlie, p. 744Nicu Alexe, Valentin Constandache (eds.), Enciclopedia educației fizice și sportului din România. Vol. VI, p. 415. Târgu Jiu: Măiastra, 2015. He was from an intellectual and cosmopolitan family: his father, Hanes-Ogias (or Ioan) Suchianu, was a professor of Armenian ethnicity, and his Romanian mother was Lelia, née Nanu-Muscel. The family surname is exclusively Armenian, from the Romanianized spelling of the given name Soukias (Սուքիաս).N. A. Constantinescu, Dicționar onomastic romînesc, pp. XXXVII, 377. Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1963. Suchianu Sr, originally from Focșani, took a position at Saint Sava National College in Bucharest, and became close friends with the celebrated comedic writer Ion Luca Caragiale.Gheorghe Gh. Longinescu, "Pomenirea doctorului C. I. Istrati", in Natura. Revistă pentru Răspândirea Științei, Issue 1/1939, pp. 5–6 In 1898, he also published and prefaced the collected poems of Costache Bălăcescu.Cătălina Velculescu, "Costache Bălăcescu", in Alexandru Dima, Ion C. Chițimia, Paul Cornea, Eugen Todoran (eds.), Istoria literaturii române. II: De la Școala Ardeleană la Junimea, p. 306. Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1968 Lelia, an aspiring actress during her student years at Elena Doamna School,"Varietăți. Asilul Elena Doamna", in Telegraful Român, Vol. XXXII, Issue 2, January 1884, p. 7 had also been a militant of the Social Democratic Workers' Party, animating its fetele partidului ("girls of the party") wing alongside Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan."O oră cu pictorul Ștefan Popescu. Pictorul uită că este în saloanele expoziţiei și își deapănă amintirile vieții sale de institutor socialist. Fetele partidului", in Adevărul, 8 April 1934, p. 3 She married Hanes in February 1894, at Domnița Bălașa Church."Curierul diminețeĭ", in Lupta, 20 February 1894, p. 2
The future author was first registered as "Ion Suchianu", but "Dumitru" was added during his baptism into the Romanian Orthodox Church. As he recounted in 1974, his godfather, General Dimitrie Lambru, had been nudged by Caragiale into naming as many children as possible with variants of "Demetrius", which would result in the spread of its pet form, Mitică, as a national name.Tudoran, p. 7 Young Suchianu boasted having met Caragiale in his father's home, learning from him how to be the "consummate showman" (om-spectacol),Tudoran, p. 8Eugenia Vodă, "Fenomenul D.I.S.", in România Literară, Issue 39/1993, p. 19 as well as embracing Caragiale's philosemitism.Grid Modorcea, "Interviuri restante. Cu D. I. Suchianu despre prostie", in Ramuri, Issues 10–11/1991, p. 8 He attended high school in Bucharest and at the modern language section of the Boarding High School in his native city, from which he graduated in 1914. Those years saw his first involvement in amateur sports, including swimming, diving, and figure skating—he was a school champion in the latter field.
Also a passionate reader, he reports having taken top honors at its "modern" section, on par with Horia Hulubei for "sciences" and his lifelong friend Mihai Ralea in "classics". He and Ralea also bonded over a shared curiosity for the café-chantant, which led them to escape the boarding house on at least one occasion. Together, the two boys planned to write a French-language book outlining their shared views on human intelligence; its working title was L'honneur de comprendre ("The Honor in Understanding"). Suchianu recalled: "We never wrote the book, but the wish to be truly intelligent stuck with us for a lifetime." Also according to Suchianu, they became familiarized with leftist literature, and discovered a shared interest in Marxism after reading the introductory studies of Charles Gide and Gabriel Deville.D. I. Suchianu, "In memoriam", in Luceafărul, Vol. VII, Issue 18, August 1964, p. 4 Suchianu's subsequently enlisted at the University of Iași, but interrupted his studies during the Romanian Campaign of World War I (1916–1918). He went to a preparatory school of the Romanian Land Forces, in Botoșani, where he was colleagues with Ralea, as well as with other cultural figures—including Tudor Vianu, Ionel Teodoreanu, and Mihai Moșandrei.Adrian Săvoiu, introductory note to Mihai Moșandrei, "Pe scurt, autobiografia mea", in Memoria. Revista Gândirii Arestate, Issue 54, 2006, p. 63 He then served in the same artillery battery as Ralea.
Suchianu then earned a degree in law, literature and philosophy at Iași, followed by a doctorate in political and economic sciences from the University of Paris. For much of this period, Dumitru and his sister Ioana lived together with Ralea at the Résidence Parisiana, Rue Tournefort 4, in the 5th arrondissement of Paris; Ioana later became Ralea's wife.Tatiana Slama-Cazacu, "Mihai Ralea: o personalitate controversată", in România Literară, Issue 1/1997, pp. 12–13 Suchianu frequented a larger literary circle which included Vianu and poet Ion Barbu (he left anecdotes about the former's complete admiration for the latter), and also networked with actress Marioara Ventura, in whose home he met the politician Joseph Paul-Boncour.D. I. Suchianu, "Memorii. Amintiri din șapte vremi", in Argeș, Vol. VIII, Issue 9, September 1973, p. 19 Suchianu's debut as a published translator came in 1919, when Fapta magazine hosted two of his renditions from Maurice Maeterlinck. His subsequent activity as a critic began in the Viața Romînească circle; he made his published debut in its pages, with a 1921 study on Thomas Hardy. This earned him the graces of Viața Romîneascăs founder, Garabet Ibrăileanu, who also appreciated that both he and the Suchianus had Armenian roots. Suchianu became a personal witness to the lives of Iași's more successful literary figures, including Mihail Sadoveanu and George Topîrceanu (with whom he played volleyball), as well as Teodoreanu (who left notes on Suchianu's everyday showmanship).Tudoran, pp. 7–8 From 1922, he was regularly featured in the left-wing sister dailies, Adevărul and Dimineața,Florian Potra, "Cărți—Oameni—Fapte. D. I. Suchianu nu mai are 80 de ani", in Viața Românească, Vol. XXVIII, Issue 9, September 1975, p. 54 as well as a large number of other publications, sometimes using pen names such as "M. Suchianu" and "Margareta Popescu".