Vasile V. Pogor (Cyrillic: Вaciлe Пoгop; Francized Basile Pogor; August 20, 1833 – March 20, 1906) was a Moldavian, later Romanian poet, philosopher, translator and liberal conservative politician, one of the founders of Junimea literary society. Raised among the boyar nobility of Iași, he was the son of a similarly named poet-polemicist and translator. Vasile Jr was educated in the French Empire, and had his first career in law. He became a civil servant during the United Principalities regime, though he split with its leadership on matters of tax policy, making his fortune as a conspirator in the "monstrous coalition" coup of February 1866. He held seats and commissions in the Assembly of Deputies. In forming Junimea, alongside Titu Maiorescu and others, Pogor sought to counter the intellectual supremacy of Romantic nationalism and "Red" liberalism, by introducing a critical approach to nation-building. He supported Romania's Westernization within a conservative framework, tempering nationalist presumptions and valuing a culturally pluralistic society. Early on, he participated in the Junimist effort to diversify cultural influences, producing two separate translations of Faust I (at least one of which was in collaboration with Nicolai Skelitti).
Although he had a major role in creating the Conservative Party, by fusing together the various "White" political clubs and Masonic Lodges, Pogor was more loyal to the Junimist inner faction, and stood by it when it split with the other Conservatives. He also represented the Positivist cell at Junimea. An irreligious evolutionist, and a reader of Arthur Schopenhauer's work, he eventually came to embrace Buddhism; this stance resulted in his promoting Buddhist studies and Eastern philosophy in general. He also stood out as one of the first locals to study the work of Henry Thomas Buckle, integrating Bucklean concepts into Junimeas ideology. The notoriously indolent and improvident Pogor had a preference for orality, and was sought after for his Voltairian wit. He left few written works, and many unfulfilled projects, but influenced Romanian literature as a cultural promoter, sponsor, and the first local expert on Charles Baudelaire. He was known to his Junimea colleagues as a one-man "contemporary library".
After the proclamation of the Kingdom of Romania, Pogor served several terms as Mayor of Iași City; as such, he helped establish Iași National Theatre, and experimented with the Romanianization of urban culture. His final decades were spent away from the national scene, although he still took on assignments in the Conservative and Junimist chapters of Iași County. Casa Pogor, his main residence, is closely associated with Junimist history. Although sold by its debt-stricken owner in 1901, it was revived in the 1970s as a literary history museum, theater venue and concert hall. Married to the Russian aristocrat Elena Hartingh, Pogor left an illegitimate son, Vasile Panopol.
Biography
Origins and childhood According to various accounts, the Pogors were a clan of yeomen from the eponymous Pogorăști, raised into boyar nobility ca. 1820.Bezviconi, pp. 58–59; Vianu, p. 79 The family's own pedigree claimed otherwise, namely that its members had been "enjoying native privileges" since ancient times.Călinescu, p. 92 On the basis of such claims, Vasile Pogor Sr had a steady climb through the Moldavian civilian and military bureaucracy: he began his career as a Serdar (1819), before being made a Comis for life. During his 1816–1823 mission into the Bessarabian Governorate, Russian Empire, Pogor kidnapped Zoița Cerchez, granddaughter of a local Clucer.Bezviconi, p. 59 From this marriage, he had three daughters—Antonia, Eleonora, Smaranda—and a son, the future poet.Călinescu, pp. 92, 437. See also Bezviconi, pp. 59, 87 By the time of his birth, the family owned large boyar estates in both Vaslui County (including Buhăiești and Râșești) and Bessarabia.
As a political poet in the Age of Revolution, Comis Pogor looked back with disgust on the late Phanariote period and the Eterist invasion, satirizing the ambitions of Greek immigrants to Moldavia. In the late 1830s, he would be equally opposed to the Moldavian status quo, criticizing the heavy-handed Moldavian sovereign Mihail Sturdza. His rhyming pamphlets envisaged equality before the law, their author having signed up to the "Confederative Conspiracy", planned by Moldavia's proto-liberal boyardom.Vianu, p. 80 He still held several high political-judicial offices in the last quarter of Sturdza, including the Agie and the Justice Department chairmanship.Călinescu, pp. 91, 92
Pogor Sr's worldview also owed much to his familiarity with French literature. He corresponded with Chateaubriand, wishing to publish his poetry in a Moldavian edition,Călinescu, p. 91 but is probably best known as Voltaire's first Romanian-language translator. His version of the Henriade was published in neighboring Wallachia by the liberal intellectual Ion Heliade Rădulescu.Călinescu, p. 91; Vianu, p. 80 It and other translations by the Comis (Zaïre, Désastre de Lisbonne) may prove that Pogor the younger was already familiar with Voltaire and Voltarianism from early childhood.Călinescu, pp. 91, 436
Born in Iași, the Moldavian capital, Vasile Jr was selected for the most modern forms of education available to Moldavians living in the 1840s. He first attended the liberal arts' school of Frenchman Malgoverné, and, in addition to discovering an interest in literature, became a skilled amateur draftsman.Călinescu, p. 437; Vianu, pp. 80, 82 In October 1849, young Pogor took the stagecoach ride to Kraków, and then the train to Paris, accompanied by the boyar heirs Heraclide, Porfiriu, Miclescu and Teodor Veisa, and chaperoned by Malgoverné himself. The scene of their departure from Iași is preserved in a sketch drawing by Veisa, which shows the enthusiastic adolescents leaning out the carriage doors.Călinescu, pp. 437, 440
French and German education Pogor completed his education in France. He is widely seen as formed by French education, but, according to cultural sociologist Zigu Ornea, this is only part of the story: Pogor did not graduate from a lycée, but was actually trained at a Germanophone boarding school; was not introduced to Bonapartism, but to "the ideological principles of Restoration".Ornea (I), p. 143 As argued by author Gheorghe Manolache, Pogor was one of those who saw French culture as "speculative", and sought to amend its influence with German or Anglophone borrowings. Gheorghe Manolache, "Sub patronajul Junimii din Iași (1863–1874). Literaritate și literalitate sau arta de a traduce pe Schiller" in Transilvania, Issues 10–11/2005, p. 24 In late 1851, he took an extended study trip through the German Confederation, in lieu of service in the Moldavian military forces. The Moldavian state granted him dispensation, and awarded him the rank of Cadet.Călinescu, p. 437
Pogor was subsequently enlisted at the University of Paris Law School, where he took his doctorate in law. Lucian Vasiliu, "Vasile Pogor-fiul", in Convorbiri Literare, December 2003Călinescu, p. 419 His contact with the Parisian salons was of major formative importance: he was an avid reader and, as literary historian Tudor Vianu notes, "always open to new things, ready to defeat prejudice", if rather indiscriminate.Vianu, pp. 80–81 Pogor's one constant was the study of the classics: he reread Homer's Iliad and Odyssey once every year.Călinescu, p. 437; Vianu, p. 81 His other known pursuits were non-academic. Pogor discovered comédie en vaudeville theater, kept company with mature women, and began fantasizing about writing his own novels and short stories.
The Pogors enjoyed high political profiles during and after the Crimean War, when the Moldavian and Wallachian principalities became a condominium of the Great Powers. Before his death in 1857, Pogor Sr was head of the appellate court (Divanul de apel, later Curtea de apel), and one of the boyars tasked with welcoming in the foreign overseers. Upon his return to Moldavia, the young lawyer became sole owner of a palatial residence, Casa Pogor, built by his father in 1850, on land previously owned by the Cerchez and Coroi boyars. Constantin Coroiu, "Casele scriitorilor (IV)", in Cultura, Issue 247, October 2009 He also took assignments in the judicial apparatus. He was a judge in Iași from 1857 to 1858, and a member of the appellate court after March 1859."Note biografice. Vasile Pogor", in Evenimentul, March 22, 1906, p. 1 Although cutting the figure of an eccentric among the stern bureaucrats, he managed to impress Costache Negruzzi, his hierarchical superior and celebrated novelist. In his account, Pogor displayed "something rare in our folk": "a great feeling for justice". Ioana Pârvulescu, "Un loc gol pe afiș" , in România Literară, Issue 41/2006
The Pogors still maintained close links with the areas on the other side of the Prut River: Antonia Pogor became the wife of Bessarabian boyar Dumitru Bantîș.Bezviconi, p. 87; Călinescu, p. 437 When he married the Bessarabian heiress Elena Hartingh, Vasile established a connection with Russian nobility. His father-in-law was a Karl "Scarlat" Hartingh (or Garting), owner of an estate in Pohrebeni.Bezviconi, pp. 59, 116; Călinescu, p. 437 Elena's grandfather was Ivan Markovich Garting, an ethnic Finn who had served as Bessarabian Governor; her grandmother, "Elenco" Hartinga, was closely related to the high-ranking boyardom of Moldavia.Bezviconi, p. 116; Nicolae Iorga, "Testamentul unei nepoate de fiică, mame și surori de Domni moldoveni", in Revista Istorică, Issues 7–9/1931, pp. 153–163
Junimea creation
From early 1859, Moldavia and Wallachia formed a single Romanian state, known as the "United Principalities" and ruled upon by Domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza. Still employed by the Moldavian appellate court under Cuza's regime, Pogor objected to the fiscal policies of Premier Nicolae Kretzulescu. In early 1863, he split with the pro-Cuza camp, attempting to lead tax resistance in Moldavia; this resulted in him being stripped of his government job.Constantin C. Giurescu, Viața și opera lui Cuza Vodă, pp. 163–164. Bucharest: Editura Științifică, 1966 His resignation was recorded in September 1863, shortly followed by his colleague Alexandru Papadopol-Calimah.X., "Năpăstiile Uniriĭ. IV. Suferințele Moldoveĭ", in Romănulŭ, September 25, 1863, p. 848 By then, he had resumed his literary projects. The first achievement of Pogor's work as a translator was his retelling of Goethe's Faust I, with Nicolai Skelitti as co-author, saw print in 1862.Teodorescu Ene, pp. 86–87; Vianu, p. 81 Corina Jiva, "Suntem încă în anul Noica" , in România Literară, Issue 50/2009 Dan Mănucă, "Modelul junimist" , in România Literară, Issue 48/2008 Samples of his own poetry were published by the pro-Cuza magazine Din Moldova, whose editor was a future enemy, the Romantic novelist and scholar Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu. Teodor Vârgolici, "Revistele lui B. P. Hasdeu" , in România Literară, Issue 30/2009
The United Principalities era saw Pogor's activity blending into the cultural projects of Junimea literary society. Founded in stages ca. 1863, that club was originally focused on literary debates and popular education. Its founders were five young graduates, all but one of them boyars. Pogor and Theodor Rosetti were French-trained; Petre P. Carp and Iacob Negruzzi (Costache's son) had studied in the German Confederation. The fifth was Titu Maiorescu, an upper-middle-class intellectual trained in both French and German schools, generally seen as the leading voice of Junimism, the cultural and political concept.Călinescu, pp. 397, 399, 419; Ornea (I), pp. 1–42; Vianu, pp. 6–7