Emil Botta (; 15 September 1911 – 24 July 1977) was a Romanian actor, poet and prose writer, the younger brother of poet-essayist Dan Botta. Though born in Western Moldavia, the two boys were raised by their Corsican mother in Muscel County; as a teenager, Emil rebelled against his upbringing and ran away to Bucharest. Upon arriving there, he embraced a bohemian lifestyle that clashed with Dan's academic success; he took small jobs, had samples of his poetry and film criticism published, and, upon graduating from the Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, began a short career in boulevard comedies. As an opinion leader in the early 1930s, he rallied with the avant-garde's struggle against the "old folks", forming an anti-establishment club called "Ship of Failures". His career as an actor was finally launched in 1938, when he drew notice for his performance as Young Werther in production at the National Theater Bucharest (TNB). He found permanent employment on that troupe, developing an acting style that critics viewed as unique and fascinating, if "mannerist".
Botta also achieved fame as a writer, with poetic cycles which came to be regarded as some of the best in Romanian literature. Rooted in modernism, with surrealist, expressionist and hermeticist characteristics, his verse opened itself to borrowings from neo-romanticism, dark romanticism, and Romanian folklore; increasingly "bookish" in nature, it was also informed by Botta's study of Shakespearean tragedies. Like his parallel forays into fantasy literature, it illustrated Botta's brand of existentialism, and his belief in life as a series of "masks". In the politicized climate of the interwar, Botta was an independent, though he remained close to fascist intellectuals—including his brother, who had sided with the Iron Guard. During World War II, he was preserved as a TNB actor by the Guard's National Legionary State, and then by Ion Antonescu's dictatorial regime; he survived as an actor after the anti-fascist coup of August 1944, being subsequently cast in socialist plays, but also in some early adaptations of American theater. He alternated these with a classical repertory, and was a much celebrated Othello.
After the inauguration of the Romanian communist regime in 1947–1948, and throughout the 1950s, Botta came to be relied upon by the new socialist-realist establishment, appearing in numerous stagings of Russian and Soviet plays. Though he received national accolades for this work, he was effectively banned from publishing his poetry, which was entirely incompatible with the new aesthetic standards; he also led an ascetic and increasingly lonely existence. The de-Stalinization process which began in the late 1950s saw him taking on more diverse roles: on the TNB stage, he was beloved as Crazy Ion in Ion Luca Caragiale's Năpasta; in his film career, he became a favorite actor of Ion Popescu-Gopo, beginning with a celebrated cameo in A Bomb Was Stolen. In the relaxed political climate, Botta was also rediscovered as a writer, and had his work reedited; he then began writing new poems. He became sought after as a voice actor, and earned additional exposure for his work with Lucian Pintilie on The Reenactment—which mounted a direct challenge to the communist regime's official tenets. In the 1970s, Botta's health declined sharply, something which his friends attributed to his years of wanton physical consumption. He died of heart disease at a hospital in Bucharest, shortly before his 66th birthday.
Biography Early life and debut Emil and his elder brother Dan were from a mixed family. Their father was physician Toader Bota (also credited as Botta or Botha), a Romanian in Austria-Hungary, who most likely descended from noble stock: his 16th-century ancestors were members of the aristocratic class in the Principality of Transylvania.Hrimiuc-Toporaș & Durnea, pp. 1001, 1005 Toader had supported the cause of Romanian nationalism, and had consequently been harassed in the dual monarchy; he had settled as a political refugee in the Kingdom of Romania. Florin Marian Dîrdală, "Familia actorului, poetului și prozatorului vrâncean Emil Botta în documente de arhivă", in Ziarul de Vrancea, 16 August 2023Hrimiuc-Toporaș & Durnea, pp. 1001–1002, 1005 He received Romanian citizenship in December 1899, by which time he was living in Măicănești, Râmnicu Sărat County (Western Moldavia). By 1907, he had been transferred to Aurora Hospital in nearby Adjud, Putna County. This town became the birthplace of both his sons: Dan was the elder (born 26 September 1907); Emil is known to have been born on the morning of 15 September 1911. Some confusion as to this date was created by literary historian George Călinescu (who mistakenly wrote it down as "12 November"); Adjud has been assigned to various administrative jurisdictions in Botta's lifetime, and is now included in Vrancea County—prompting essayist Liviu Ioan Stoiciu to ask what Botta's regional affiliation should ultimately be.Liviu Ioan Stoiciu, "Pe cont propriu. Semeția singurătății la Emil Botta", in Contemporanul, Vol. XXIV, Issue 11, November 2013, p. 35
Dan and Emil's mother was Aglaia Francisc, who was Toader's junior by 27 years, and who came to Adjud from Lisaura in Bukovina.Dionisie Vitcu, "Un prinț al melancoliei", in Flacăra Iașului, 30 July 2007, p. 4 Her original surname had been "Franceschi", reflecting her status as the daughter of a Corsican expatriate.Hrimiuc-Toporaș & Durnea, p. 1002 Poet Mircea Ivănescu, who met her and her son in the 1950s, recounts rumors that she was descended from Corsican nobility.Doina Ioanid, Cezar Gheorghe, un cristian, "Eveniment. 'Nu știam niciodată ce se va produce în poezie'. Interviu cu Mircea Ivănescu", in Observator Cultural, Issue 259, March 2010, p. 8 In July 1912, she filed for divorce; it is not known whether this was ever finalized, but local historian Florin Marian Dîrdală believes that the couple was in any case separated after that date. Dîrdală also proposes that the "tormenting and oppressing" atmosphere created by his parents' quarrels may have shaped Emil Botta's early life, accounting for his willingness to break out of his environment. His father died in 1921 (as a direct result of his activities handling the wounded during the Romanian campaign of World War I); Aglaia received the pension rights, but found these were insufficient for their survival. She moved with Dan and Emil to another part of the country, in Muscel County. From July 1926, she was headmistress of an orphanage in Dragoslavele.
Dan had been sent to study elsewhere: he graduated from Saint Sava High School and began training in classics at the University of Bucharest, while also taking a degree from the National Institute of Physical Education. Emil was instead a mediocre student at the Dinicu Golescu High School in Câmpulung. Idolizing his brother, he ran away from home at age 15 and followed him to Bucharest;Hrimiuc-Toporaș & Durnea, p. 1005 this initiative reportedly drove Aglaia to despair.Acterian, p. 8 Emil's formal education remained patchy, though he eventually managed to take his Baccalaureate (possibly at Cluj). Living in Dan's home, he took low-paying jobs, and was for a while a clerk at the Institute of Statistics. His close friend, Arșavir Acterian, calls him "self-taught". He recalls that young Botta had learned by heart all of Mihai Eminescu's poems, and was replicating Eminescu's lifestyle. Botta was additionally reading from diverse other sources, being introduced to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Friedrich Hölderlin, Alexandru Macedonski, Gérard de Nerval, and Edgar Allan Poe, but also became passionate about Romanian folklore (picked out by him from collections by G. Dem. Teodorescu and Béla Bartók).
Emil Botta's own debut as a poet came on 10 June 1929, when his verse was taken up in Tudor Arghezi's Bilete de Papagal; the same magazine later hosted his first sketch story. He and Camil Baltazar visited Arghezi, and Botta declared himself touched by Arghezi's "warmth" and "zest for understanding".Camil Baltazar, "Tudor Arghezi și colaboratorii săi", in Gazeta Literară, Vol. VII, Issue 21, May 1960, p. 6 In time, he became associated with the newspaper Vremea, which featured his film chronicles, as well as with a magazine called România Literară, which published his essays and poems—as well as fragments from his incomplete novel, Meridian. As attested by Ivănescu, some thirty years later Botta would not clarify if the novel was ever completed, and showed little interest in having it published.
Other contributions by young Botta saw print in modernist magazines such as Discobolul, Caravana, XY, Cristalul, and Lucian Boz's Ulise. He announced that he would publish a play, as well as a small selection of his poems in a collective volume (alongside Mihai Dan and Corneliu Temenschi). In 1929–1933, Botta was enlisted at the Bucharest Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, studying under Ion Livescu. He made his stage debut with George Mihail Zamfirescu's troupe, "13+1", in a December 1932 production of Ferdinand Bruckner's Illness of Youth. Livescu brought his pupil to Chișinău, in Bessarabia, but Botta apparently never managed to obtain a role in any Livescu production. He was reportedly incompatible with Livescu's acting methods, but found value in his Conservatory years, mainly because of the instruction he received in matters of theatrical history—as provided to him by the in-house specialist, Alice Voinescu.
"Ship of Failures" period
In the early 1930s, the Bottas developed distinct outlooks on society, and consequently had distinct paths to success. In 1935, Dan embraced elitism, "with borrowings from the far-right's ideology", slowly developing an "ecstatic vision on Romanian history and spirituality." Emil took a political stance in March 1932, when he signed up to a manifesto against Prime Minister Nicolae Iorga. It was published in a special issue of Sandu Tudor's Floarea de Foc, alongside similar pieces by Zamfirescu, Eugène Ionesco, Horia Stamatu, Ionathan X. Uranus and Mircea Vulcănescu; their collective stance prompted Iorga to ban their magazine.Nicoleta Sălcudeanu, Mihai Iovănel, "Floarea de Foc", in Dicționarul general al literaturii române. D/G, pp. 687–688. Bucharest: Museum of Romanian Literature, 2016. In 1933–1937, Botta was in Bucharest, having largely abandoned his calling; a bohemian tormented by anguish about his future, he joined the "Ship of Failures" (Corabia cu Ratați)—some of whose other members were Acterian, Stamatu, Emil Cioran, and Pericle Martinescu.Acterian, p. 8; Hrimiuc-Toporaș & Durnea, p. 1005. See also Martinescu, passim Acterian himself notes the additional participation of other figures, including Temenschi, poet Alexandru Robot, and violinist Gheorghe Popovici. The latter was also a financial backer, lending money at no interest (as Acterian recalls, Botta was not a stranger to poverty); these funds were spent on frugal luncheons at Herdan Coffeehouse.