Dan Simonescu (born Dan Simon, also known as Simionescu and Simon Dănescu; December 11, 1902 March 10, 1993) was a Romanian literary historian, bibliographer, folklorist, and librarian. His debut was in his late teens, when he accompanied Constantin Rădulescu-Codin during fieldwork in Muscel County, publishing his first contributions in the field of Romanian folklore. After graduating from the University of Bucharest in 1925, and publishing his first book, a collection of articles, in 1926, he became an assistant professor at his alma mater, and was also employed as a librarian by the Romanian Academy. Simonescu joined an editorial team headed by senior scholars Ioan Bianu and Nicolae Cartojan, and, in the 1930s and 1940s, became a major contributor to the collection and publication of old Romanian literature; he was also Cartojan's disciple, though the two disagreed on a parallel project, namely the publication of Mihail Kogălniceanu's collected works, with Simonescu favoring, and eventually putting out, a topical selection of Kogălniceanu's social-themed essays. His own first major contributions were his doctoral thesis, which explored court ceremonials in the Danubian Principalities, and a paper on the emergence of historiography in Early Modern Romania.
Having obtained a professorship at Iași University during World War II, Simonescu joined the Social Democratic Party in the late 1940s, and was briefly employed as a department head by the Education Ministry. He became marginalized during the early stages of Romanian communism: sent to do work at the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History and the Technical School for Librarians, he was involved in the technical aspects of bibliographic work. By 1956, he could return with more editions of Kogălniceanu, and more secretly networked with other old-regime intellectuals, including G. T. Kirileanu; they ensured the preservation and eventual resumption of cultural research that went against the official interpretation of Marxism–Leninism.
In the 1960s, the regime allowed Simonescu to teach at the Bucharest Pedagogical Institute, and then granted him a Bucharest University chair, which he preserved to his official retirement in 1972. He is widely seen as responsible for the definitive Kogălniceanu edition, while also contributing studies of ancient literature, including romances and rhyming chronicles, with additional returns to both bibliography and folkloristics. Simonescu was additionally instrumental in the rediscovery of historical writings by Balthasar Walther, though also criticized for allowing communist censors to remove a fragment referencing Michael the Brave's antisemitism. Organizing a specialized class for antiquarian booksellers when he was already in his late eighties, he continued to write into the early 1990s. Three years after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, and four months before his death, he was made an honorary member of the academy.
Biography Beginnings and interwar Dan Simon was born on December 11, 1902, in Câmpulung, which was back then the seat of local government for Muscel, in the Kingdom of Romania.Aurel Sasu (ed.), Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române, Vol. II, p. 569. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. Petrescu, p. 43 His parents, who adhered to the Romanian Orthodox Church,"Colonel Constantin I. Simonescu", in Universul, January 22, 1943, p. 5 were the civil servant Ion Simon and his wife Ecaterina (née Slăvescu). The couple had eleven other children, including Romanian Land Forces Colonel Constantin Simonescu. The Simons, all of whom later used the name "Simonescu", had deeper ties to Muscel, with Ion being born at Suslănești village, near Mateiaș Hill;Pop & Simonescu, p. 6 a local legend has it that Dan's grandfather, Simon of Suslănești, had spared the village devastation by pleading with the brigand Radu Anghel.Simonescu (1957), p. 102 Dan himself recalled being involved in village life from his early years, "with a sort of liberty that was rarely impinged upon by pedagogic principles."
The future scholar lived out World War I and occupation by German troops in that region. In late 1916, he had boarded with the mayor of Mioveni, witnessing first-hand the town's takeover by the Imperial German Army.Nicolae Scurtu, "Restituiri. Dan Simonescu și unul dintre discipolii săi", in România Literară, Issues 25–26/2013, p. 23 He later referred to this period, which lasted down to the creation of Greater Romania in 1918, as one of wanton destruction.Simonescu (1957), p. 93 His early education was completed in Câmpulung and Pitești, where, according to his own recollections, he became more disciplined and began modelling himself on his teachers, especially Alexandru Bărcăcilă and Mihai Mihăileanu, who taught him Latin. After completing Ion Brătianu High School, Simon enrolled in the University of Bucharest in September 1921. He was initially drawn by classical scholarship, in the same class as Alexandru Graur, but was put off by professor Dumitru Evolceanu, whose teaching methods he regarded as superficial; he was instead impressed by Iuliu Valaori, who introduced him to Latin literature. According to his own recollections, in 1922 he met Constantin Rădulescu-Codin, a clerk and schoolteacher who was traveling throughout Muscel and Argeș Counties, collecting Romanian folklore; one such trip took them to Suslănești.Simonescu (1957), pp. 94, 102
Looking back in 1981, Simonescu described Muscel and Argeș as a "region [...] with old, and, it seems to me, unaltered traditions." As noted by folklorist Mihail M. Robea, he was one of the young intellectuals who did much of the uncredited fieldwork, with the results of their research being effectively exploited by Codin.Mihail M. Robea, "Dumitru I. Mihalache", in Argesis. Studii și Comunicări. Seria Istorie, Vol. XVII, 2008, p. 410 A fellow literary historian, G. G. Ursu, dates Simonescu's writing debut to 1923, noting his "unrelenting passion for books".G. G. Ursu, "Dan Simonescu — 75", in România Literară, Issue 50/1977, p. 9 These early contributions were published by Arthur Gorovei's specialized magazine of folkloristics, Șezătoarea.Nicolae Scurtu, "Restituiri. Însemnări despre epistolograful Artur Gorovei", in România Literară, Issue 36/2014, p. 15 According to Gorovei's recollections, his first signature was Dan Simionescu, with Simonescu eventually settled as his definitive surname. He sometimes alternated it with a pen name, Simon Dănescu.Mihail Straje, Dicționar de pseudonime, anonime, anagrame, astronime, criptonime ale scriitorilor și publiciștilor români, pp. 202, 651. Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1973. "Student Dan I. Simonescu, originally from Câmpulung" was cited as an informant by the folklorist Ioan Aurel Candrea, referencing a Muscel legend which claimed that brigand Gheorghe Fulga had escaped from jail using a miraculous week called iarba fiarelor.Ioan Aurel Candrea, "Anexă. Studii și materiale. Iarba fiarelor", in Revista de Etnografie și Folclor, Vol. 40, Issue 2, 1995, pp. 163–164 He also rediscovered a collection of primary sources on Câmpulung's history, attributing it to the clerk Dumitru I. Băjan.Ioachim Crăciun, "Dări de seamă. Dumitru I. Băjan. Documente Câmpulungene", in Anuarul Institutului de Istorie Națională, Vol. III, 1924–1925, pp. 737–738
Simonescu was trained in palaeography, and in 1924–1925 held a job at the National Archives. He graduated university in 1925, when he also became a substitute high school teacher; he held a permanent position in 1929–1931. His first published volumeValeriu Nițu, "Anul Internațional al Cărții. Cu prof. univ. dr. Dan Simonescu prin lumea cărților", in Vatra, Vol. II, Issue 21, December 1972, p. 19 was the 1926 Încercări istorico-literare ("Literary and Historical Essays"). Done from papers he presented at university seminars, it formulated Simonescu's identification of Alecu Russo as the author of a Romanian nationalist essay, Cântarea României, and presented Udriște Năsturel's translation of Barlaam and Josaphat. A separate chapter discussed Gheorghe Asachi's poetic debt to Adam Mickiewicz.Eufrosina Dvoichenko, "O satiră polonă imitată de Asachi și Stamati", in Revista Fundațiilor Regale, Vol. V, Issue 8, August 1938, p. 325 Încercări was followed that same year by a monograph on the Câmpulung Monastery—Viața literară și culturală a Mănăstirii Câmpulung (Muscel) în trecut, which was essentially his final dissertation, with scholar Ioan Bianu as the supervisor.Pop & Simonescu, p. 7 Drawing praise from the establishment historian Nicolae Iorga (and, as Simonescu notes, still cited by scholars into the 1970s), it was rated as "excellent" by Ursu. Also in 1926, Simonescu arranged for print the late Rădulescu-Codin's final manuscript, a monograph of Câmpulung.Simonescu (1957), p. 94
Upon Bianu's recommendation, and upon finishing his mandatory military service in December 1927, Simonescu became a teaching assistant at Bucharest's Faculty of Letters and Philosophy. He replaced Nicolae Cartojan, who had been advanced to lecturer, and was originally a substitute for Iorga (to 1929). He was later accepted as a provisional (1931) and permanent (1938) assistant; from 1931, he was also a librarian at the Romanian Academy collections and the manuscript section of the Central University Library. His first tasks were in cataloguing Teodor Burada's documentary fund. His second specialization was in Byzantine studies, after attending a seminar held by philologist Demostene Russo in 1933–1934. Collaborating with senior bibliographers such as Bianu and Cartojan, who informed his approach to historiography, he became fascinated with incunabula; on behalf of the academy, he was editor of the well-received third-volume of Bibliografia românească veche ("Old Romanian Bibliography"), which came out in 1936.Petrescu, p. 44Dimitrie Păcurariu, "Erudiția și rigoarea istoricului literar", in Luceafărul, Vol. XXVIII, Issue 14, April 1985, p. 6 Also that year, his own literary reviews were collected into a single volume (as Istorie literară în recenzii). From 1935, he also taught at a pedagogical high school in Bucharest—a stint which ended in 1938 or 1940.
Researcher Nicolae Scurtu notes that Simonescu's enduring admiration for Bianu and Cartojan were "of a rare kind in the Romanian cultural space." He maintained his admiration of Cartojan throughout his life, calling him a "perfect man", as well as "just, decent, humane, [and] self-effacing".Alexandru Niculescu, "Istorie literară. Un savant, o epocă", in România Literară, Issue 5/2002, p. 16 Cartojan, alongside Bianu, Russo and others whom he met at the academy, gave him living proof that "one cannot complete a thorough paper without sacrificing one's hours of leisure and entertainment, one's personal and family interests, one's health and friendships." As Cartojan's assistant at the Bucharest faculty of letters, Simonescu held two seminars—one teaching students the minutiae of the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, and the other familiarizing them with the major works of old Romanian literature.Nae Antonescu, "Revista Cercetări Literare", in Steaua, Vol. XXXVII, Issue 2, February 1986, p. 47 Spurred on by Cartojan, he attended specialized courses at Athens and Istanbul (1934), followed by an extended stay as a visiting scholar at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris (1937). Also in 1937, he issued a monograph called Dela istorie la istorie literară, which discussed Alexandru Lapedatu's contribution as a historian."Carnetul zilei. Dela istorie, la istorie literară", in Curentul, May 11, 1937, p. 2 On May 16 of that year, he published in Curentul an article which announced the first efforts to establish comparative literature as an independent academic domain.Dan Simonescu, "Studii de literatură comparată", in Curentul, May 16, 1937, pp. 1–2
Wartime and communist repression