Early life George Diamandy, the son of landowner Ion "Iancu" Diamandy and Cleopatra Catargiu, was born in
Idrici,
Vaslui County, or, by his own admission, in
Bârlad. Several sources, including Diamandy's own account, give his birth date as February 27, 1867 (
George Călinescu, the literary historian, has October 27). had made a slow climb into the aristocracy of
Moldavia and, later, the
Kingdom of Romania. One branch of the family, who used the name variant
Emandi, produced diplomat
Theodor Emandi. His wife Cleopatra belonged to the higher realms of the
boyar aristocracy, and according to politician-memoirist
Constantin Argetoianu, had passed her "pride" and "airs" to both her sons. was first enlisted in school at Bârlad. However, having been infected with
malaria, he had to spend much of his childhood taking seaside cures in France. As noted by Călinescu, he was "absent-minded and rebellious." George and his best friend
Arthur Gorovei founded their own Socialist Club, which only lasted a few days. Diamandy also published political articles in the review
Contemporanul (the first one in 1887), He neglected his schoolwork and, in his own words, passed his
Baccalaureate "more than anything because the professors were generous". He camped out with
Nicolae Beldiceanu in
Cucuteni, where he helped on the inventory of the
Cucuteni-Trypillian culture. Diamandy was also a member of the Bârlad National Romanian Committee, which gathered funds and artifacts for the Romanian delegation to the
1889 Exposition Universelle. He was working on a novel in the manner of
Émile Zola, which, according to Gorovei, was over-detailed and boring. Upon graduation, Diamandy volunteered for service in the
Romanian Land Forces, spending a year and a half as an artillery man. Disliked because of his pranks ("which I for one found spirited"), he was moved to the 7th Artillery Regiment in
Călărași, and, because once there he complained about the mistreatment of regulars by the officers, spent several months in the disciplinary barracks. He notes: "Just as I was ending my term as a volunteer, the captain, having learned that I had donned a civilian's outfit for a private party, ordered me in lockdown.—Lockdown meant no stove and no windows, so that's how I ended up with
pneumonia."
''L'Ère Nouvelle'' Diamandy went on to study Law at the
University of Paris, but did very poorly, and was only granted half of his license; he completed the rest at
Caen University. He also completed, in 1891, the
historical demography tract
Dépopulation et repeuplement de la France ("The Depopulation and Repopulation of France"). In parallel, he resumed his work in political journalism, with articles published in
Le Journal,
La Petite République,
La Justice,
Le Socialiste, and ''L'Art Social
. he joined the "internationalist revolutionary student group" of the Latin Quarter, presided upon by Alexandre Zévaès. He was one of its delegates to the 1891 International Socialist Labor Congress in Brussels. According to his own account, he presided over the Congress proceedings. The next year, in May, having been elected President of the student group, he was also delegated to the socialist feminist congress, where he obtained a nominal submission of socialist women to the program of a future internationalist party. He and fellow Romanian expatriate Emil Racoviță were present at the Socialist and Labor Congress, convened at Zürich in 1893. Diamandy published the first issue of a "monthly for scientific socialism", L'Ère Nouvelle
("The New Era"). It viewed itself as both a literary and a sociological review: dedicated to promoting literary naturalism and historical materialism, openly provoking the reading public to explore the work of Zola, it attacked the "reactionary" critics. It also proudly called itself "eclectic". L'Ère Nouvelle'' hosted articles by
Marxist thinkers from the various countries of Europe: primarily
Friedrich Engels and
Paul Lafargue, but also
Georgi Plekhanov,
Clara Zetkin,
Karl Kautsky,
Jean Jaurès,
Gabriel Deville, and
Jules Guesde. Also featured in the review,
Georges Sorel was a senior
syndicalist with Marxist leanings, not affiliated with either Guesde's
French Workers' Party (POF) or Millerand's smaller socialist circle. Diamandy and Lafargue encouraged him to extend his forays into critical social history. According to Sorel's own claim, his presence there was only made possible when non-revolutionary French socialists like Millerand had decided to boycott ''L'Ère Nouvelle''. Diamandy's magazine was poorly reviewed by the sociological establishment: writing for the
Revue Internationale de Sociologie,
André Voisin censured its "violence" and its "quite glaring partiality", but noted that some of the sociological pieces were "at the very least moderate in form". Sorel himself recalled: "G. Diamandy [...] was at the time a ferociously
orthodox Marxist [...]. He spent more time in the taverns of
Montmartre than at University. He was a jolly good chap, entirely unreliable. I kept seeing him after that time, he was still in Mortmartre, and seemingly heading toward alcoholism." Reportedly, Diamandy was pulling pranks and farces on his socialist colleagues, even during their public functions. However, the publication itself had a significant, if indirect, impact on the
French Left. Diamandy proudly noted that it was "France's first Marxist magazine". As Sorel himself indicated a while after, this meant a split with orthodox Marxism, for the sake of "renewal". Diamandy unwittingly enticed the conflicts between Sorel and the POF when he wrote in ''L'Ère Nouvelle'' that, according to Guesde, one need not have read Marx to become a Marxist.
PSDMR ''L'Ère Nouvelle
only survived for a few months, publishing its final issue in November 1894, before closing down in early 1895. According to Sorel, Diamandy simply "disappeared, leaving his magazine stranded". Still, Diamandy managed to exert his direct influence over many other Romanian socialist students in France, from Racoviță and Nădejde to Alexandru Radovici, Constantin Garoflid, Deodat Țăranu, Dimitrie Voinov, and Ioan Cantacuzino. Diamandy was part of a new magazine, Le Devenir social'' (1895-1896). Diamandy personally sponsored the emerging socialist movement in the
Kingdom of Romania. On his trips back to the country, he was welcomed as a celebrity at the socialist-run Sotir Hall,
Bucharest, before affiliating with the
Romanian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (PSDMR). This Marxist group was supportive of the mainstream
National Liberal Party (PNL), as the latter had promised the introduction of
universal male suffrage. At the 2nd PSDMR Congress in April 1894, Diamandy and
Vasile Morțun had successfully campaigned for the introduction of such electoral demands into the party statute. When the PNL came to power and refused to follow through with its promise, a PSDMR faction agitated in favor of the opposition
Conservative Party, even though the latter was explicitly
right-wing. Writing for
Munca, Diamandy endorsed this view, suggesting that references to the PNL's
progressivism be dropped from PSDMR's statute. Diamandy edited for a while the PSDMR organ,
Lumea Nouă, exploring the possibility of returning to his home country. In 1898, he submitted to Romanian authorities the project of a "Romanian anthropological exhibition" at the
1900 Exposition Universelle. Following his father's death in 1898, Diamandy made his definitive return to Romania. As Diamandy notes, the conflict became a "grave disagreement", and led him to suspend himself from the party and return to Paris. Socialism was also threatened from within by disputes over
Jewish emancipation, which polarized the PSDMR between
antisemitism and
Jewish nationalism. Diamandy witnessed a violent dispute in Iași, where, he claimed, the
Jewish Romanian affiliates had been heard shouting "Down with the Romanians!" The antisemitic campaign was allegedly stoked by the PNL government, which sought to prove that the peasant agitation was a Jewish affair.
"Generous youth" The moderate leadership continued to support PNL policies, even with Banghereanu jailed. At the 6th PSDMR Congress of April 1899, Diamandy and Morțun presented a motion to transform the party into a more moderate unit, called "National Democratic" or "Progressive Democratic". According to labor historian
Constantin Titel Petrescu, the Congress was a sham, with many important activists absent, and with Jewish members stripped of their voting privileges, on Diamandy's own initiative. In his own view, Diamandy was still persuaded that "intransigent" socialism could eventually work in Romania, and considered methods to prolong the PSDMR's survival. Speaking at the Congress, he warned that the PSDMR was already an "anti-Marxist" group dedicated to a "top-down revolution", which had only managed to set up "a socialist general staff", and could not claim to have improved the workers' lives. The alternative, he argued, was
class collaboration, which meant attracting "into our ranks all better elements of the
bourgeoisie". The most outspoken opponents of "National Democratic" plan were
C. Z. Buzdugan,
Alexandru Ionescu and
I. C. Frimu, representatives of the urban underclass, who saw this as an "attack" against the PSDMR's Marxist credentials. Buzdugan claimed that Diamandy had expunged the very notion of
class conflict from his readings of Marxism. He himself stretched the meaning of "
proletariat" to cover not just the minor class of industrial workers, but also the mass of "landless peasants"; their interests, Buzdugan concluded, could only be served by a "workers' party". Many of those who opted for a "workers' party" resigned, while Diamandy's supporters announced that a new conference in June 1899 would transform theirs into a "sincerely democratic party". The April Congress effectively destroyed the PSDMR. Diamandy, Morțun and their followers, collectively referred to as "the generous youth", resigned and joined the PNL. The PSDMR that survived through June was an informal political club, whose members included Buzdugan, Ionescu, and
Panait Zosin. In later socialist historiography, this schism was seen as a victory for Stere and his
Poporanist faction, who redirected the leftist vote toward the PNL. According to cultural historian
Z. Ornea, the "generous youth" so efficiently adapted itself to the new environment, and Stere so poorly, that the rumor should be discounted. Diamandy himself was dismissive of his contribution: "I entered the ranks of the liberal party, where I played a most silent and irrelevant part". He registered with the 3rd Electoral College, hoping to represent the peasants of
Tutova County. At around that time, he married Ștefania (or Safta), the daughter of Dumitru Simionescu-Râmniceanu. Diamandy inherited from Simionescu-Râmniceanu the large estate of
Sascut, but also a conflict over land with the local peasants. In May 1904, the local authorities stepped in to evacuate villagers who were demonstrating on Diamandy's property. The conflict was later investigated by Gorovei, the agricultural inspector for Tutova. He claims that Diamandy exploited his workers and broke all legislation. Diamandy's status as a rich estate owner left an enduring mark on his contemporaries. Historians and commentators made note of his eccentricity:
Nicolae Iorga remembered Diamandy's "old socialism" as "a seigniorial adventure", while
Eugen Lovinescu simply noted that Diamandy's aristocratic airs were "incorrigible". Also according to Lovinescu, Diamandy was "a late-comer" among enthusiastic
Francophiles, one whose "mind continued to live in Paris". Călinescu describes him as "an amateurish and sumptuous
proletarian".
PNL dissident Diamandy's socialist background and dealings with the Brătianu faction brought him to the forefront during the
1907 Peasants' Revolt: the fourth Sturdza cabinet, brought in to deal with the rebellion, resorted to handing out seats to Brătianu's circle, the Poporanists, and the "generous youth" alike. Diamandy was appointed Prefect of a war zone,
Tecuci County, with specific orders that he was not to use the Land Forces against the peasants. He resigned in short while, citing health reasons. The interval also prompted him to work on a fictionalized
diary,
Ne om ("No Man"), which records his anxiety in front of disease and impending doom. When it came about, in 1908, it was largely seen by the Conservatives as a covert socialist government, not least of all because of ambiguous statements made by Stere and Diamandy. The fear of radicalized socialism peaked in December 1909, when Brătianu was attacked and wounded by Gheorghe Stoenescu, a deranged worker with
anarchist sympathies. The opposition asked Diamandy and Ioan Nădejde to clarify whether they were still Marxists; they confirmed that they still viewed themselves as
dialectical materialists, explaining their perspective as a kind of "
Darwinism". Diamandy gave his endorsement to Stere's project of
land reform, which was resisted by the Conservatives, as well as by Brătianu and Nădejde. Diamandy also believed it necessary to criticize the PNL from within. According to a 1911 retrospective in
Noua Revistă Română, he proved himself "an
enfant terrible of our politics": "He kept on admonishing Mr. Brătianu, even though it was him who had given him an eligible deputy seat. It was either that Mr. Brătianu is not democratic enough; or that Mr. Brătianu cannot organize his own party; neither of these seemed to please Mr. Diamandy. And Mr. Diamandy would always make sure to voice his opinion at the most inappropriate times." In 1910, Diamandy published his first works in drama: a four-act play,
Tot înainte ("Carry On"), and a "dramatic sketch",
Bestia ("The Beast"). The latter was produced by the
National Theatre Bucharest, with
Maria Filotti in the central role, and attracted much attention with its "daring subject". Diamandy did not join the
Romanian Writers' Society, objecting to its antisemitism, and suggesting, in a letter to
Noua Revistă Română, that the professional association had admitted talentless authors. In articles he wrote for
Facla and
Semnalul newspapers, Diamandy openly advocated Jewish emancipation, against nationalist objections.
Revista Democrației Române In 1910, Diamandy founded the weekly
Revista Democrației Române ("Review of Romanian Democracy"), which, as a cultural and sociological venture, suggested a program of
ethnographic studies in the Romanian villages, It hosted Diamandy's thoughts about reforming the
1866 Constitution: although he no longer demanded universal suffrage, he still saw it as a historical necessity farther down the line. Also featured was his maverick proposal to merge the breakaway
Conservative-Democratic Party, a junior ally, into the PNL. These ideas were derided by the Conservative-Democrats at
Noua Revistă Română, Outside this circle, Diamandy found himself isolated on the political scene, and was no longer proposed for an eligible seat in the
elections of 1911, Another of his plays,
Dolorosa, was taken up by the National Theater in 1911. By 1912, when his political satire
Rațiunea de stat ("The Reason of State") was published in
Flacăra review However, Diamandy complained that his works were ignored by the National Theater, despite good referrals from writers
Iacob Negruzzi and Zamfirescu. Eventually joining the Writers' Society in 1911, Diamandy bought himself a
yacht,
Spargeval ("Breakwave"), and sailed the
Black Sea coast, writing on other plays. Soon, his attention focused on the "
Eastern Question". In 1910, he returned from an extended trip through the
Ottoman Empire, which is recorded in his
travelogue,
Impressions de Turquie. Turning to nationalism during the
Second Balkan War, Diamandy gave morale-supporting lectures to infantrymen of the Land Forces, having already prefaced a textbook of
military pedagogy, by Colonel Gheorghe Șuer. As later noted by Dabija, Diamandy's "unofficial" penmanship was required to divert attention from this being the expansionist policy of a Conservative government.
National Theater Director In 1913, under a PNL government headed by Ion I. C. Brătianu,
Culture Minister Ion G. Duca appointed Diamandy Director of the National Theater. As Duca would claim in his memoirs, this was only "to fulfill one of [Diamandy's] dreams"—Diamandy, Duca writes, had "an incorrigible mania for being or seeming original." He was only National Theater director for a few months, being replaced by his
Revista Democrației Române colleague Brătescu-Voinești before the end of the 1913–1914 season; he returned for a second term later in 1914. The time he spent in office only served to aggravate his colleagues in the theatrical business. One of them,
Ioan Massoff, recalled that Diamandy had made a habit of citing his heart troubles to avoid seeing any of his subordinates, simply dictating his reform-minded wishes to them by proxy. Reportedly, Diamandy sacked the actor
Vasile Leonescu for spite: Leonescu had criticized
Rațiunea de stat as "unworthy of being staged by Romania's top venue." Another actor,
Ion Livescu, recalled that, although "an enlightened democrat", and "well inspired" in his choices for the repertoire, Diamandy played the part of an authoritarian, and only communicated through his secretary,
Marin Simionescu-Râmniceanu. However, Livescu believes that Diamandy had good cause to ignore complaints and avoid quarrels. By that stage in his career, Diamandy was contemplating the creation of a Romanian "
People's Theater" for the benefit of peasants, the news of which sparked ridicule in the urban press. His own work for the stage underwent a change of style: also in 1914, he published in
Flacăra the localized "heroic comedy"
Chemarea codrului ("Call of the Woods"), written in the format of a
comédie en vaudeville. It premiered at his own National Theater, with Filotti as the female lead, and was an instant favorite of the public. This political stance was probably a factor in his 1914 election as president of the Writers' Society, as was his status as Theater manager. As Livescu notes: "when it seemed to him that there would not be many people who could understand him [...], he put his hat on, and, having just lectured us so very passionately about that France of his, left us all, with a cold and jerky salute from the top of the stairs: 'Good day y'all!'"
World War I strategist and soldier (to his left) and French historian Georges Lacour-Gáyet. Behind them, from left:
Stéphen Pichon,
Milenko Radomar Vesnić,
Denys Cochin,
Athos Romanos,
Emil Costinescu,
Jean Richepin,
Ioan Cantacuzino,
Joseph Aulneau, and
Dimitar Stanchov. Diamandy's enthusiasm for intervention was held back by reports that Romania risked going into war without proper weapons and ammunition. With this in mind, he and
Constantin Istrati were sent to Italy by Premier Brătianu, and successfully negotiated a treaty of mutual assistance between the two neutral countries. He also visited traditionally-hostile Bulgaria, and claimed to have obtained assurances from
Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov that she would not
join the Central Powers. became one of Brătianu's confidants. During his diplomatic missions, he had also informed the government, reassuringly, about the goings-on in Bulgaria, and acted as liaison with the
Russian Empire. For a while, Diamandy was affiliated with the trans-party "National Action", which, under
Take Ionescu and
Nicolae Filipescu, sought to bring Romania into the Entente. In January 1915, he was the group's envoy to France, but acted as an informal delegate for Brătianu. He was welcomed by the Franco–Romanian Friendship Committee and by
Paul Deschanel personally. His erstwhile associate,
Georges Sorel, commented that Deschanel must have been misinformed: "[Diamandy] must really be thinking that Paris is a capital for the rent-seekers, since now they take him seriously. If Romania had had an honest intent to strike a deal with us, it would have surely picked herself some other negotiator. Evidently P. Deschanel was not aware of Diamandy's character." At one of the banquets in his honor, Diamandy divulged the existence of a parallel
Franco–Romanian alliance, and stressed "that R[o]mania's entry into the war would result in the conflict's end." Diamandy gave a public report on the world conflict and how it fit with Romania's national interest at the National Liberal Party Center of Studies. The same year, he prefaced (as
Giorgio Diamandy) Federico Valerio Ratti's monograph on "Latin Romania", published in
Florence by I Libri d'Oggi. Other such pieces were taken up by various newspapers and magazines, including
Universul, ''
L'Indépendance Roumaine, and Rampa''. This effectively returned him to the PNL's mainstream, where he continued to campaign in favor of going to war. Nevertheless, Diamandy also supported his former ally, Stere, who was being heckled by the other deputies for suggesting that an alliance against Russia was in Romania's benefit. Eventually, in summer 1916, Premier Brătianu discarded his reservations, and Romania
entered the war as an Entente country. While Constantin became tasked with ensuring a direct Russian military involvement and military aid for the
Romanian Front, George again volunteered for military service. He was reputedly enrolled as a private, but was seen traveling with his own
orderly. He was detached to the
Second Army commandment in the
Southern Carpathians, where he held conference with General
Alexandru Averescu and other officers. Averescu remembered him as a shady figure, not worthy of his trust, and noted in particular Diamandy's ideas about using
expanding bullets against the
Austro-Hungarian Army (which had reportedly initiated their use in combat). Diamandy saw action in the front-line trenches, but was still plagued by his lung and heart problems, and was eventually sent to a hospital behind the lines. By then, the Diamandys' forecasts about Bulgarian neutrality and Romanian readiness for war proved misguided, with Romania suffering a scathing defeat in the
Battle of Turtucaia.
Labor Party After losing the
Battle of Bucharest in December 1916, the Romanian Land Forces withdrew into
Moldavia, which, with Russian help, they defended against renewed Central Powers offensives. Diamandy was also moved to Iași, the provisional capital, where Brătianu's government and the Parliament had relocated. He took back his Chamber seat, and, as the poor management of war weakened support for Brătianu, went on public record with his criticism. The
February Revolution in Russia reopened the path toward radical socializing reforms, and pushed Diamandy back into socialist politics. Brătianu promised land reform and a new electoral law, but Diamandy and other dissenting PNL-ists were not appeased: they claimed that the government had lost its "moral right" to apply such legislation, and obstructed it repeatedly. According to Duca's hostile account, the February Revolution gave Diamandy the illusion that time had come for him "to play a great role", and that the "tyrannical" Brătianu was an embarrassment for the
Russian democracy. Duca also claims that, despite his "laughable exhibitions" in favor of land reform, Diamandy could never conceive of completely redistributing property from the landowners to the peasants. By April 1917, Diamandy had formed his own
parliamentary party, called
Labor Party (
Partidul Muncei). It had the radical agrarianist
Nicolae L. Lupu for a co-chairman, with
Grigore Iunian,
Ioan Cantacuzino,
Grigore Trancu-Iași,
Constantin Ion Parhon,
Mihail Macavei,
Grigore Filipescu and
Alexandru Slătineanu as regular members. Diamandy himself authored the central manifesto, published as a brochure. The
Minister of Agriculture,
Gheorghe Gh. Mârzescu, was also disturbed by Diamandy's behavior, writing: "George Diamandi, thinking about ways to support the ideas of the Labor Party, born from personal ambitions stoked by the Russian revolution, imagined that he should necessarily show up in Chamber in
Tolstoy's costume. This operetta thing is produced for the benefit of peasants." The account is also supported by Duca. According to him, Diamandy and Lupu had revived their contacts with the old socialists, as well as with
Russian Esers, with whose backing they intended to set up a Romanian "democratic government"; their project for a revolution was bogged down when the "pragmatic" Russians discovered that the Labor Party was politically insignificant and "oligarchic". The Labor faction also branched into neighboring
Bessarabia, using the revolutionary agent
Ilie Cătărău for an emissary. According to
Arthur Gorovei, the Labor Party should be regarded as George Diamandy's "final prank". In June 1917, following the
renewed offensive of the Central Powers, Diamandy became a refugee to Russia, where his brother Constantin was
Romanian Ambassador. He was trapped on Russian territory during the
October Revolution, events which his brother downplayed in his reports to Brătianu. The Revolution took Russia out of the war and signaled the start of a
Russian–Romanian diplomatic war: Constantin was held in captivity by the
Council of People's Commissars, and eventually expelled.
Death and aftermath George Diamandy fled to the
White Sea port of
Arkhangelsk, where he embarked on the ship
Kursk, bound for France.
Kursk also transported some 3,000 returning members of the
Czechoslovak Legion and some 300 French governesses. As noted by Călinescu: "his coffin was
buried at sea, while a choir formed by hundreds of Czechs sang, as an homage." Diamandy's death was received with indifference by the Germanophiles and wearied intellectuals in Bucharest. In his obituary for
Scena magazine, dramatist
A. de Herz referred to the deceased as an unpatriotic man of "ferocious egotism", claiming that his leadership of the National Theater had been "dismal". The mood changed soon after the
November 1918 Armistice, which sealed the Entente's victory on the
Western Front, and returned Romanian Francophiles to high favor. Diamandy's last play,
Una dintr-o mie ("One in a Thousand"), was performed by the National Theater in 1919. Presided upon by Lupu, the Labor Party continued to be active in the opposition, fought against the signing of
peace with the Central Powers, and presented its own candidates in the
1918 election. Some of its members were already defecting to the
People's League or rejoining the PNL, while the Laborite leadership considered an alliance with the
Socialist Party. It eventually merged into Stere's
Peasants' Party, which became one of the PNL's leading opponents in the early interwar period. Stere himself rekindled memories of Diamandy by making him a secondary character, "Raul Dionide", in the 1930s novel
În preajma revoluției. The marriage between George and Ștefania Diamandy produced a son, Ion "Iancușor" (1905–1935), ==Plays and prose==