Liviu Bratoloveanu

Vasile Gheorghe Bratoloveanu, the future "Liviu", was born at Turnu Severin on the Danube; his exact birth date is 8 August 1912. His father, Gheorghe Bratoloveanu, was a merchant and one-time municipal councilor, In addition to this signature, he was using a variety of pseudonyms, among them: Lică, Vasia Bratilov, Vasigebra, Vasile Turbatu, Vasile Mălureanu, Vasile Prundeanu, Causticus, Ironicus, Coca Demetrescu, Mircea T. Damaschin, Mircea Cantemir, Ioniță Piron, Ady Corolenko, and Ady Stolnicu. As noted by literary scholar Victor Durnea, it was largely a work of "social" and "objective" free verse, with stylistic patterns that borrowed from Aron Cotruș; it thus mirrored Bratoloveanu's prose works of the period, which were generally "analytical". In retrospect, Bratoloveanu accepted his work being labeled as proletarian literature, explaining that he had a "romantic conviction" in denying that the "superstructure" produced during the Romanian Kingdom. He also noted that this impulse closely preceded his established belief in "social justice", and in literature as a "weapon of the revolutionary proletariat". he also acknowledged that, in the 1930s, he already felt predisposed toward the then-illegal Communist Party (PCR or PCdR). This message was in turn covered as an oddity by essayist Eugène Ionesco, who wrote that the Crusade was "confusing the extremes". Bratoloveanu himself was proud of Manifest being well received by two senior literary figures, George Călinescu and Mircea Damian—though the latter also chided him for being "too left-wing", or "too sectarian". In June 1936, Bratoloveanu was one of the "intellectual and workers of Turnu Severin" who signed a letter of solidarity with the leftists at Dimineața and Adevărul—and against Universul, whose right-wing editor, Stelian Popescu, was depicted by them as a libeler and an exploiter. The young poet was for a while employed by the Bucharest daily Facla, but returned to his hometown as a member of the editorial teams of Țara Nouă and Curentul Mehedințean newspapers. He was courting the fellow leftist Lilly Gogan, whom he eventually married. In 1936–1937, he was again leading his own magazine, called Reportaj ("Reportage"). He made his debut as a playwright at some point during that period, when his Omul care și-a vândut sufletul ("The Man Who Sold His Soul") was performed by workers of the national railways carrier (CFR), and later by a regular troupe in Turnu Severin. ==World War II==

Bratoloveau moved back to Bucharest, having found permanent employment at the CFR—on whose magazines he also contributed regularly. During the late interwar and World War II, his work was also taken up in the central dailies România and Vremea, in the cultural magazine Dacia Rediviva, and in Mihu Dragomir's Prepoem. according to historian Dragoș Sdrobiș, Bratoloveanu was in effect a Guardist affiliate. He began working on a novel, Ugli, and read fragments of it at Sburătorul literary society. His second book of poems, Eu și Dunărea ("Me and the Danube"), saw print at Ramuri of Craiova in 1940, or, per Bratoloveanu's own recollection, in 1942. In early 1944, he had additionally completed another play, Femeia domestică ("The Domestic Woman"). It was praised by his colleagues at Viața, which noted that "few plays in young dramatic literature, of those written these last years, have reached its level of quality." They also reported that Bratoloveanu could not find a theater willing to take it into production—but that this was because of the promotional system having been corrupted. Bratoloveanu's political convictions also informed his novel Oameni la pândă ("People on the Prowl"), seen by Raicu as an "interesting fresco of the era". Announced with an unusually persistent publicity in Drapelul newspaper from September 1945, Oameni la pândă finally appeared at Europolis publishers in April 1947. It was the first part of a planned trilogy (later re-planned as a four-volume cycle), all of it centered on his native Mehedinți County—specifically, the village of Jidoștița. Each individual portion was over 1,400 pages long, and together covered the social history of Romania from the Second Balkan War in 1913 to the post-1944 communization. Literary historian Henri Zalis argued that Oameni la pândă was one of the most salvageable Romanian novels of the mid-1940s—alongside Eusebiu Camilar's Turmele, Radu Tudoran's Flăcări, Cezar Petrescu's Adăpostul Sobolia, and George Mihail Zamfirescu's Bariera. These epics are rated by Zalis as evidencing "the will to consolidate critical realism and even to advance, by way of realism, into a new direction". Elsewhere, Zalis explained that he still regarded the volume as aesthetically "perishable", though its "naturalism" remained a relevant topic into posterity. A contrasting reading was provided by the columnist Perpessicius, who upheld the volume as a continuation of "rustic" literature, in line with the Sămănătorul school of traditionalists—but also with selective novels by Ioan Slavici and Rebreanu. He also highlighted a more personal note, which was related to the geographical and ethnographic setting of Oltenia (of which Mehedinți is a component), suggesting thematic links with regionalist works by Ruxandra Oteteleșanu, Victor Papilian, and Ion Popescu-Puțuri. The unfavorable treatment of many characters caused a backlash in Mehedinți, with peasants who "recognized themselves" in the narrative reportedly filed a class-action lawsuit against Bratoloveanu, asking for 10 billion lei in damages. He was impressed by the novel as a "documentary" item, accurate in showing the "inner workings of human nature"; he finds less psychological grounding for the final pages, in which a frustrated Gânj destroys himself and his mill (though he notes that this relative failure is compensated by their "great and solemn beauty"). Durnea commends Bratoloveanu for his good rendering of the "peasant psyche" and for his veering into "subtle comedy", identifying him as a predecessor of Marin Preda. ==Communist takeover==

Before and after the establishment of a Romanian communist regime in late 1947, Bratoloveanu was a regular in some of the communist publications: Călinescu's Lumea, Flacăra, Gazeta Literară, Scînteia, and Scînteia Tineretului. Bratoloveanu's source of income throughout that period was as a dramaturge for Giulești Workers' Theater. In 1958, the Workers' Theater premiered his own play, Zile de februarie ("February Days"), which centered on the Grivița strike of 1933. It received a mixed review from fellow dramatist Dumitru Solomon: while he commended Bratoloveanu for "authentically render[ing] the general atmosphere", and for his ability to write in "mass scenes", Solomon complained that the main character, a neutralist-turned-militant, was "predictable". Similar views were held by Romînia Liberăs theatrical columnist, Radu Popescu, when rating Zile de februarie as a "simple and modest drama", "more of an introduction into the so very complex historical tragedy that was Grivița". He described the lead role of Gheorghe Marin (an apolitical railwayman, driven to militant communism by the injustices and squalor of his life), and suggested that his portrayal on stage by Colea Răutu was "absolutely memorable". Eight years later, theater critic Valentin Silvestru recommended Zile de februarie as an exemplary historical play, "dramatically tracing the thorny path trailed by the communists, down to the unforgettable August of 1944". In late 1964, Bratoloveanu and Ștefan Tita went on a state-approved tour of the schools in 30 Decembrie Raion, lecturing Young Pioneers on literary topics (and, in Bratoloveanu's case, reminiscing about Sahia). Bratoloveanu became a clerk at the Bucharest Cinema Studios, and in 1967 was finally allowed to return to publishing—with a short-story volume called Soarele din fereastră ("The Sun in the Window"); he had also completed a radioplay, Omul cu două suflete ("A Man of Two Souls"). Durnea pans such contributions as riddled with the "cliches of an era", in particular for showing the interwar communists as heroic. He also notes that such negative traits are "sometimes toned down by [Bratoloveanu's] humor, stylistic accuracy, truthful framing, and free-flowing dialogues." By 1970, Liviu and Lilly Bratoloveanu, alongside their son George (a trained engineer) had settled at a country estate in Buftea. Comprising a vineyard used by Liviu for drawing his own wine, this location was immediately outside the film studios—on land used by René Clair in filming his Lace Wars. Bratoloveanu reissued the first part of Oameni la pândă (also identified as Morarul, "The Miller") in 1971, having also heavily edited the original text. As he explained, he took in constructive suggestions from critics such as Ovid S. Crohmălniceanu and Alexandru Piru, and rejected what he considered to be the excessive praise of other colleagues. The book was welcomed by Zalis, who consequently received visits from Bratoloveanu. The two men befriended one another: Zalis, a man of Jewish origins, was impressed by Bratoloveanu's philosemitism, which was directly modeled on Mihai Ralea's critique of "chauvinism". ==Final years==

Bratoloveanu followed up in 1975 with one more installment of his series, Pelagră ("Pellagra"). Focusing on Armașu's interwar maturity (and supremacy over Jidoștița), it depicted electoral campaigns by the National Peasants' Party, and also caricatured Petrache Lupu's mystical revivalism. Also that year, Bratoloveanu published a standalone novel called Reptila ("The Reptile"). As Durnea notes, Reptila is a more complex work, layered as a romance novel (with its protagonists "kept apart by an ethnic barrier") and a police procedural (though one "infected by ideology", with its central conflict being that of communist versus fascists); its fundamental merit is as a "commendable milestone in realistic, rural-inspired prose." During the final decade of his life, he also remained in touch with the CFR. In February 1976, he was a featured speaker at the commemorative meeting honoring the Grivița strikers, as organized by the railwaymen's literary society in Bucharest. He finally released a fragment of his 1940s novel Ugli (now styled Ugly) in the USR magazine România Literară of August 1978. Called Servieta ("The Briefcase"), it was described by the literary reviewers at Transilvania as a "Dostoevskian" piece with a "ready-made ending". Bunica studiază dreptul appeared as the final Bratoloveanu novel in 1982. In old age, the Bratoloveanus befriended diarist Pericle Martinescu, who witnessed their financial struggles—all their income was consumed on Liviu's ambition to make Buftea into a literary retreat, modeled on Paul Everac and Eugen Barbu's villas (respectively located in Fundata and Poiana Țapului). As recalled by Zalis, the entire literary community knew that the aging author was beset by money trouble, but he himself never discussed this issue. He was buried at Bellu cemetery on 15 July, after a wake in the Romanian Orthodox chapel; in announcing this, the USR described Bratoloveanu's entire work as one of "commitment to the new Romanian humanism." As reported by the same witness, the affair was officially irreligious and "communist", meaning that Lilly had to ignore the Orthodox custom of giving alms. She compensated in August, when she organized a parastas service for her late husband. In addition to the unpublished novels, he had left three plays (including one for children) as manuscripts. ==Notes==