Gheorghe Matei Eminescu (31 May 1890 – 6 June 1988) was a Romanian historian, memoirist and Land Forces officer. The posthumous nephew of national poet Mihai Eminescu, he was born to Captain Matei Eminescu; on his mother's side, he was also the nephew of Mizil politician Leonida Condeescu. As an adolescent, he joined his half-brother Victor on the bohemian scene, and was an observer of the Symbolist movement. Eminescu failed as a student, and was barred from all the country's civilian high schools. His Condeescu relatives were largely responsible for his having to choose a career in the military, which he had initially resented. He fought in the Romanian campaigns of World War I, commanding a machine gunners' unit during the defense of Mărășești. After spending some time in German captivity, he participated in the 1918 Romanian expedition to Bessarabia.
Eminescu remained there for some 15 years, commanding units on Romania's border with the Soviet Union and eventually rising to the position of Lieutenant Colonel. After passing into the reserves, he owned a factory in Brăila, and was briefly aligned with the National Peasants' Party. He was sidelined and imprisoned following the establishment of Communist Romania, though his daughter, Yolanda, was able to integrate within the academic elite. Upon his release, Eminescu dedicated himself fully to historical and literary research, being commanded especially as a Romania expert on Napoleon Bonaparte—though he also completed a work on his famous uncle and his family, as a subject on which he would lecture on into his final years. Under the selectively liberal climate of national communism, Eminescu was allowed to publish in magazines such as România Literară and Magazin Istoric. Unlike his uncle and his half-brother Victor-Ion, he generally avoided writing poetry, only publishing one such piece when he was already in his nineties.
Eminescu's more secretive activity included recollections of his wartime and interwar activities, which were preserved in samizdat by several friends, including communist official Ion Popescu-Puțuri. The author died at age 98 at his home in Bucharest. He was survived by daughter Yolanda, a noted female judge and academic in Romania, and by his granddaughter Roxana, who joined the teaching staff at the University of Western Brittany; his direct descendants mostly live in France. His anti-communist memoirs appeared, albeit in still-fragmentary form, after the Romanian Revolution of 1989.
Biography Origins Gheorghe Eminescu belonged to the boyar aristocracy of Moldavia through both his paternal grandparents. His grandmother Raluca Iurașcu was from an "immemorial boyar house", and reportedly viewed herself as of higher birth than her husband, Gheorghe Eminovici.Pop, pp. 249, 259–260 On that side, the Colonel had a "Moskal" or "Cossack" great-grandfather, Vasile Donțu—according to Iurașcu family tradition, his real name was "Alexa Potloff".Pop, pp. 258–259 Gheorghe's namesake and paternal grandfather, who owned land in Ipotești, had a more disputed origin—he saw himself as having origins in the Swedish Empire, with an officer who had escaped to Moldavia after the Battle of Poltava (1709).Pop, p. 281; Vatamaniuc, p. 127 Literary historians from N. Petrașcu to Arșavir Acterian have more often argued that the name "Eminovici" suggests a Turkish or Armenian ancestor.Vatamaniuc, pp. 127–129, 137 Scholar Dimitrie Vatamaniuc questions their approach, and proposes that the family, originally Iminovits or Iminovici, originated in the Principality of Transylvania, but had fled to the more permissive Bukovina District in protest against communion with Rome.Vatamaniuc, passim Also rejecting claims that Eminovici was a foreign name, the Lieutenant Colonel's father Matei Eminescu noted his descent from Moldavian peasants, raised into the boyardom by Prince Grigore Sturdza in 1841. According to his notes, the conferring of nobility upon the Eminovicis was whimsical, and probably facilitated through acts of corruption.Pop, pp. 248–249, 260, 272 He also reports that Mihai Eminescu himself "was rather uncertain that our father was full-blooded Romanian", though declaring himself "as Romanian as they ever get in Ipotești" through his mother's roots.Pop, p. 271
The family was proudly right-wing, and committed to voting for the Conservative Party after the latter was established in 1880.Pop, p. 250 Captain Matei or Mateiu Eminescu (1856–1929) was both the youngest and the longest lived of the eight Eminescu siblings who survived past childhood.Pop, pp. 221, 256–257, 261–262 Unlike his elder brothers, he did not pursue his education in Austria-Hungary. Also unlike them, he dedicated himself to a career in the Romanian Army, serving with distinction in the Romanian War of Independence before resigning in June 1892.Pop, pp. 221–236. See also Vadim Tudor & Eminescu, passim He was for long uninterested in literary pursuits of any kind, preferring to read on topics such as horticulture and home economics.Pop, pp. 250–251 However, in the 1890s he became engaged in a protracted legal battle with editor Titu Maiorescu and the Șaraga brothers over the copyrights to Mihai Eminescu's poetic works, and curated his own selection from them.Pop, pp. 239–248
Captain Matei had by then married and divorced twice. His first wife was Matilda Ilian or Emilian, a history teacher in Brăila; their son Victor-Ion, whom Matei repudiated, became a journalist,Pop, pp. 235, 236, 295 after first training as a lawyer.Ștefan Petraru, "Descendenții familiei", in Cuvîntul Nou, 29 June 1989, p. 2Mureșanu, p. 12; Preda & Eminescu, p. 57 Moving to Mizil, the Captain remarried in 1890 Ana Condeescu. Though a homemaker who satisfied her husband's requirements for cleanliness and good child-rearing,Pop, p. 236 she had followed her brother's advice and attempted to enlist at the Iași Medical School in 1888.Niculescu, p. 56 According to scholar Augustin Z. N. Pop, she was the granddaughter or niece of politician Leonida Condeescu—who, Pop notes, had a literary fame of his own, as the inspiration for Ion Luca Caragiale's play, Conu Leonida față cu reacțiunea.Pop, pp. 236, 295 This is corrected by Gheorghe's own account, according to whom Leonida was in fact Ana's brother.Gheorghe Eminescu, "Amintiri (III). Anii copilăriei – anii iluziilor", in Caiete Botoșănene, Vol. 1, Issue 12, December 1983, p. IV"Fără Eminescu am fi mai săraci", p. 6. See also Preda & Eminescu, p. 57 Gheorghe's actual grandfather, on this side, was Costache Condu. Originally of Vadu Săpat, he had started a soap manufacturing business and the Mizil gristmill, while himself turning to Conservative politics.Niculescu, p. 55 Costache's son Leonida followed in his footsteps and, seen by Caragiale as the "most devoted and loyal" Conservative,"Fără Eminescu am fi mai săraci", p. 6 took 90% of the vote during the mayoral election of 1895.Niculescu, pp. 55–56
The Eminescus were divorced in November 1892, due to Matei's "violence and austerity"; four children had been born to them: Lelia-Sapho, Ecaterina, Hanibal, and Gheorghe.Pop, pp. 236, 299–301. See also "Fără Eminescu am fi mai săraci", p. 6 Literary historians record Gheorghe Eminescu's birth as occurring on 1 June 1890,Iancu, p. 103; Popa, p. 739 while the birth certificate, though completed on that day, reports the preceding evening of 31 May. The document also gives his birthplace as Mizil, in the home of his maternal grandfather Costache.Pop, p. 300 This was almost a year after Mihai Eminescu's death, with Gheorghe being sometimes credited as his only nephew.Iosif E. Naghiu, "Din scrierile lui Matei Eminescu despre Mihai Eminescu și contemporanii săi", in Hierasus, Vol. II, 1979, p. 380 He was baptized Romanian Orthodox at the Cathedral of Ploiești. His first name was chosen in memory of his Eminovici grandfather."Fără Eminescu am fi mai săraci", p. 6 His sister Lelia-Sapho died as a toddler in July 1896.Pop, pp. 251, 301–302. See also Preda & Eminescu, p. 57
Educational failure Matei and Ana reunited in 1896, but divorced again in July 1898.Pop, p. 236 While his father took petty jobs as a Subprefect, then withdrew to collect his pension in Turnu Severin, Gheorghe spent his early years in his grandfather's home at Mizil.Pop, pp. 239, 251 Shortly after winning the election,"Fără Eminescu am fi mai săraci", p. 7 Mayor Condeescu took Gheorghe and his siblings to meet Caragiale in Vadu Săpat, where they gathered for a party. He recalled being unimpressed at the time, since he only knew of Caragiale as a tenant and restaurateur."Un Eminescu al Mizilului. Din amintirile colonelului Gheorghe Eminescu, înregistrate de scriitorul George Stoian, în ianuarie 1984", in Fereastra, Vol. X, Issue 1, January 2013, p. 4 His father the Captain always held a grudge against Caragiale, recounting an incident in which the latter had stolen some political documents from Mihai. In his later years, Gheorghe Eminescu vouched for his father's account, against literary historian Șerban Cioculescu, who suspected it was a fabrication.Vadim Tudor & Eminescu, p. 47
Eminescu studied first at the Ion Crăciunescu School in Mizil, where, as he reports, he only had top grades because he was Condu's grandson. Matei ultimately remarried a third and final time, to the Transylvanian Silvia Maieru, occasionally receiving his children in their new home.Pop, pp. 239, 251–252, 278, 303 Gheorghe recalls spending summers with Hanibal in Glogova, where Matei was tending to the estate of an absentee landlord, Gună Vernescu. The manor they inhabited had once been home to the Oltenian folk hero, Tudor Vladimirescu. He and Matei bonded over they shared loved for hunting rifles, with father affectionately mocking his son as Săpunarul ("The Soapmaker", evoking Condu's original business).
By 1905, Gheorghe's half-brother Victor had joined the ranks of the Symbolist movement. As noted by eyewitness Eugeniu Sperantia, he was a talented but indolent poet;Eugeniu Sperantia, "Alexandru Macedonski și cercul său", in Steaua, Vol. XV, Issue 1, January 1964, pp. 59–60 the positive side of this verdict is contradicted by Gheorghe himself, who notes of Victor: "he thought that, since he had inherited the name, he had also inherited Mihai's genius [...], but soon realized that the name carried too much weight to be associated with such minor poetry."Gheorghe Eminescu, "Amintiri (IV). Anii copilăriei – anii iluziilor", in Caiete Botoșănene, Vol. 2, Issue 1, January 1984, p. IV In 1911, both brothers were in Galați for the unveiling of their uncle's bust, done by Frederic Storck.Carol Comșa, "Monumentul de la Galați", in Tribuna Sibiului, 8 June 1989, p. 2 Meanwhile, Gheorghe had begun studying at the Lautey–Cliniciu–Popa Liseanu boarding school in Bucharest; it was here that he met shepherd Badea Cârțan, who was smuggling Romanian books into Austria-Hungary, and who was allowed to sleep on school premises.
Eminescu recounts that he was always mediocre as a high school student. Despite being in a class overseen by literary scholar Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică and childhood friends with poet Agatha Bacovia, he never even wrote a work in verse."Fără Eminescu am fi mai săraci", p. 6 Yolanda Eminescu notes that her father had a passion, and real talent, for the legal profession.Preda & Eminescu, pp. 57–58 Bogdan-Duică was amazed at his poor grades, noting: "too bad for that name you carry.""Fără Eminescu am fi mai săraci", p. 6 After nearly flunking, he was beaten up by his grandfather, and then dispatched to Hasdeu College, in Buzău. A "dreamer and delayed romantic", he only managed to avoid being sent to summer school during his fourth year. During that part of his life, he read Arthur Schopenhauer, declaring himself a philosophical pessimist as well as an atheist; one of Eminescu's colleagues snitched on him to their catechist, and he only narrowly escaped being beating in front of his class.