Early life and activities Batzaria was a native of
Kruševo (), a village in Ottoman-ruled
Manastir vilayet, presently in
North Macedonia. His Aromanian family had numerous branches outside that region: migrant members had settled in the
Kingdom of Romania, in
Anatolia, and in the
Khedivate of Egypt. Nicolae's father had stayed in Kruševo, but by 1873 had joined in the effort, led by Steriu N. Cionescu, to set up some of the first Romanian-sponsored schools for the Aromanians. The future politician and author was raised in the
Eastern Orthodox Church, and later affiliated with its
Romanian branch, being an occasional contributor to its program of
catechesis; he grew up in Kruševo, where he studied under renowned Aromanian teacher Sterie Cosmescu. During a summer vacation in Kruševo, he attempted to stage his own version of a play by
Vasile Alecsandri. As he recalled in 1932, the project ended up as a "pummeling among us thespians", prompted by the male lead's refusal to appear
in travesti. Graduating in 1891, Batzaria was sent to further his education in Romania, at the Faculties of Letters and Law,
University of Bucharest. The young man became a dedicated disciple of
Romanian nationalist theorist
Nicolae Iorga, who was inaugurating his lectures in history during Batzaria's first year there. He shared Iorga's belief, consolidated with time, that the Aromanians were not an isolated
Balkan ethnicity, but part of larger
Romanian ethnic community. As he himself explained, "the Romanian people [is] a unitary and indivisible body, regardless of the region wherein historical circumstances have settled it", and the "Macedonian Romanians" constituted "the most aloof branch of the Romanian trunk". Lacking funds for his tuition, Batzaria never graduated. He regarded the latter two as closely related, with Aromanian as the less prestigious, subordinate dialect of a language that had originated north of the
Danube. In one article, he acknowledged that, without
immersion, Aromanians would struggle to understand the metropolitan language, or "Daco-Romanian". While in Romania, Batzaria also began his collaboration with Romanian journals:
Adevărul,
Dimineața,
Flacăra,
Arhiva,
Ovidiu and
Gândul Nostru. Also notable is his work with magazines published by the
Aromanian diaspora. These publications depicted the Aromanians as a subgroup of the Romanian people. They include
Peninsula Balcanică ("The Balkan Peninsula", the self-styled "Organ for the Romanian interests in the Orient"),
Macedonia and
Frățilia ("Brotherhood"). Batzaria made his editorial debut with a volume of
anecdotes,
Părăvulii—the title, which has to be translated for speakers of Romanian, approximates to "Parables" or "Comparisons". Printed in Bucharest in 1901, Batzaria returned to Macedonia as a schoolteacher, educating children at the
Ioannina school (January–June 1894), and subsequently at his alma mater in Bitola; he was also employed by the school of
Gopeš, between September 1903 and January 1904. Around that time, he reportedly met the younger
Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), who was studying at
Monastir Military High School. In 1899, Batzaria and his colleagues notably persuaded
Take Ionescu, the
Romanian Education Minister, to allocate some 724,000
lei as a grant to Macedonian schools, and virulently protested when later governments halved this annual income. He then became chief inspector of the Romanian educational institutions in the
Ottoman provinces of
Kosovo and
Salonika. Historian Gheorghe Zbuchea, who researched the self-identification of Aromanians as a Romanian subgroup, sees Batzaria as "the most important representative of the national Romanian movement" among early 20th century Ottoman residents, and "without doubt one of the most complex personalities illustrating the history of trans-Danubian Romanianism". , 1899.
Kazas with 20 or more such institutions are colored in dark green, and concentrated around
Monastir region From Macedonia, Nicolae Batzaria became a correspondent of
Neamul Românesc, a brochure and later magazine published in Romania by Iorga. The group was also granted a private audience with
King Carol I, who showed sympathy for the Aromanian campaign and agreed to receive Batzaria on several other occasions.
Lumina, Deșteptarea and Young Turks affiliation Nicolae Batzaria's nationalism, aimed specifically against the
Ottoman Greeks, became more evident in 1903 when he founded the Bucharest gazette
Românul de la Pind ("The Romanian of the
Pindus"). It was published under the motto
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, and monitored the Greek offensive against Aromanian institutions in places such as
Mulovishti, calling out for action against the "perfidious" and "inhumane" enemy. In 1905, Batzaria's paper fused into
Revista Macedoniei ("Macedonia Magazine"), put out by a league of exiles, the
Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society (SCMR). Batzaria became, in 1904, its editorial director, taking over from founder Dumitru Cosmulei.
Lumina was the first Aromanian magazine to be published within the lands of
Rumelia (Turkey-in-Europe), and espoused a cultural agenda without political objectives, setting up the first popular library for Aromanian- and Romanian-speakers of Macedonian descent. However, the Association of Educationists stated explicitly that its goal was to elevate the "national and religious sentiment" among "the Romanian people of the Ottoman Empire".
Lumina was noted for its better quality, receiving a 2,880 lei grant from Romania's government, but was no longer in print by late 1908. In May 1905, Abdul Hamid decided to give recognition to some Aromanian demands, principally
their recognition as a distinct entity within the imperial borders. On May 10 (Romania's first national holiday), Aromanian students at Thessaloniki's School of Commerce, where Batzaria was then teaching Romanian, staged
La Farce de maître Pathelin, adapted by him from
Molière's version. In October, as the Bitola school marked its
silver jubilee, his poem
Erà întreg ca tine ("He Was as Sound as You") was recited by local student P. Marcu. By 1907, the city's Aromanians had been largely alienated by Batzaria's politics: his claim to represent the Romanian state, which allowed him executive control over the schools; opponents such as Christea Lambru fought instead for
private schools. This schism resulted in the establishment of a separate Aromanian school in Thessaloniki. As claimed by Lambru, in 1908 it had "ten times as many students as the inspectorate school." Batzaria's contribution to the press was diversified in that same interval. With discreet help from Romanian officials, he and Nicolae Papahagi founded, in Thessaloniki, the French-language sheet
Courrier des Balkans ("Balkan Dispatch", published from 1904). It was specifically designed as a propaganda sheet for the Aromanian cause, informing its international readership about the
Latin origins and Philo-Romanian agenda of
Aromanian nationalism. He also worked on, or helped found, other Aromanian organs in the vernacular, including
Glasul Macedoniei ("The Macedonian Voice") The next year, it received a sponsorship of 6,000 lei from the Romanian government, and began agitating for the introduction of Aromanian classes in Ottoman primary schools. Having also established contacts with
İsmail Enver, Batzaria thereafter affiliated with the multi-ethnic
Committee of Union and Progress, a clandestine core of the
Young Turks movement. According to his own statements, he was acquainted with figures at the forefront of the Young Turks organizations:
Ahmed Djemal (one of the future "
Three Pashas", alongside Enver and Talat),
Mehmet Cavit Bey,
Hafiz Hakki and others. This was partly backed by Enver's notes in his diary, which includes the mention: "I was instrumental in bringing into the Society the first Christian members. For instance Basarya
effendi." Batzaria himself claimed to have been initiated into the society by Djemal and following a ritual similar to that of "
nihilists" in the
Russian Empire: an oath on a revolver placed inside a poorly lit room, while guarded by men dressed in black and red cloth. Zbuchea passed a similar judgment, concluding: "Balkan Romanians actively supported the actions of the Young Turks, believing that they provided good opportunities for
modernization and perhaps guarantees regarding their future." He notes that, "with the exception of the
Jews", Aromanians were the only non-
Islamic community to be drawn into the
Ottomanist projects.
Ottoman senator and minister as the first Aromanian members of the
Ottoman Assembly In July 1908, the Aromanian intellectual was propelled to high office by the
Young Turk Revolution and the
Second Constitutional Era. Days after the events, he visited
Constantinople (now
Istanbul) as the main delegate of an Aromanian congress from
Üsküb. He was personally welcomed by Djemal, Cavit Bey, and Enver, then addressed the crowds gathering in
Freedom Square; his twin speeches, in
Ottoman Turkish, French and Aromanian, proclaimed an era of "freedom and safety" for all Ottoman subjects. Batzaria was a candidate for the
Third Chamber of Deputies; ahead of
elections in December, he toured Macedonia, being welcomed by the Aromanians of
Veria and
Xirolivado, but also by the
Megleno-Romanians—including the Muslim ones of
Notia. The Young Turk party ultimately rewarded his contribution, legally interpreted as "high services to the State", by assigning him a special non-elective seat in the
Ottoman Senate (a status similar to that of another Aromanian Young Turk,
Filip Mișea, who served in Chamber). As Zbuchea notes, Batzaria was unqualified for the office, as he was neither forty years old nor a distinguished bureaucrat, and only owed his promotion to his conspiratorial background. In early 1909,
Nicolae Tacit was assigned to replace him as inspector. By then, Batzaria is said to have also become a personal friend of the new sultan,
Mehmed V, A regular contributor to
Le Jeune Turc and other newspapers based in Constantinople, the Aromanian campaigner was also appointed vice-president of the
Turkish Red Crescent, a humanitarian society, which provided him with close insight into the social contribution of Muslim women volunteers, and, through extension, an understanding of
Islamic feminism. The next few years were a period of maximal autonomy for Mehmed's Aromanian subjects, who could elect their own local government, eagerly learned Turkish, and, still committed to Ottomanism, were promoted within the bureaucratic corps. Commenting on what he called the "noble toleration" of Aromanians by Turks, Batzaria recalled in 1943 that: "In Turkey's Romanian schools, classes were held which used the same textbooks as classes held in Romania." In mid 1911, he was also advocating for the Albanians, advising
Grand Vizier Ibrahim Hakki Pasha to unite the Albanian political and religious faction under the "single force of Ottomanism". Alongside
Ali Galib Bey,
Ismail Hakkı Efendi,
Mehmed Said Pasha,
Salih Hulusi Pasha and others, he served on the Senate committee which dissolved the Chamber, in preparation for the
election of 1912. His own community was still dissatisfied with various issues, most of with all its automatic religious inclusion in the
Rum Millet, dominated by ethnic Greeks. Batzaria was personally becoming involved in a dispute with the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, campaigning among the Turks for the recognition of a separate Aromanian bishopric. The failure of this project, like the under-representation of Aromanians in the Senate, caused some of Batzaria's fellow activists to feel disgruntled. On September 22, 1912, as the Ottoman Empire was entering the
First Balkan War, Batzaria spoke in front of 15,000 people at
The Hippodrome, noting that non-Muslims did not wish to be liberated by the anti-Ottoman coalition: "We are free, and only demand our Ottoman freedom." He was then secretly dispatched to Bucharest:
Gabriel Noradunkyan, as the
Ottoman Foreign Minister, asked him to talk the Romanians into staging military maneuvers on the border with the
Kingdom of Bulgaria, as a means to draw Bulgarian troops away from the Ottoman front. As revealed by Batzaria, this request was swiftly denied by the
Prime Minister of Romania,
Titu Maiorescu. He had more support from the opposition
National Liberal Party (PNL), meeting and befriending its leader,
Ion I. C. Brătianu. The partition of Macedonia, which resulted from the Ottoman defeat, put a stop to
Românul de la Pind, which closed down at the same time as other Aromanian nationalist papers. However, Batzaria's political career was advanced further by
Enver's military coup in January 1913: he became Minister of Public Works in Enver's cabinet, without interrupting his journalistic activities. On April 28, 1913, he received the
Order of the Medjidie, 1st Class. It was also he who represented the executive at the
London Conference, where he acknowledged Ottoman losses. Against the law which specified that members of the Ottoman executive could not serve in the Senate, Batzaria did not lose his seat. As was later revealed, he continued to act as a partisan of Romanian policies and sent secret reports to his friend, King Carol I of Romania. In early 1914,
Le Jeune Turc published Batzaria's praise for Iorga and the Bucharest
Institute of South-East European Studies. As Ottoman administrators were being expelled from the Balkans, he and his fellow Aromanian intellectuals tended to support the doomed project of an independent, multi-ethnic, Macedonia. In the short peaceful hiatus which followed his return from
London, Batzaria represented the empire in secret talks with Maiorescu, negotiating a new alliance—against Bulgaria. As he himself recalled, the request was refused by Romanian politicians, who stated that they wished to avoid attacking other Christian nations. The Ottoman approach, however, resonated with Romania's intentions, and both states eventually defeated Bulgaria in the
Second Balkan War.
Relocation to Romania In May 1914, Batzaria accompanied Talat, who was visiting Bucharest in his capacity as
Ottoman Minister of the Interior; both men now shared the goal of forging a Bulgarian–Ottoman–Romanian alliance. Shortly after, the
July Crisis resulted in the outbreak of World War I. The Ottoman realm, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria were aligned with the
German Empire and to the other
Central Powers, while
Romania maintained neutrality. On August 3, Iorga, who supported the
Entente Powers, chided his former pupil for his "detestable ideas". As paraphrased by Iorga, Batzaria had voiced his endorsement of
Bulgarian irredentism, suggesting that Romania could only benefit from giving her endorsement to a "new Balkan imperialism". Batzaria also welcomed Austrian participation in the war "for the cause of civilization", adding that all subject peoples of the
Habsburg Monarchy would eventually understand that "their fate depends on that of the Monarchy." The following months brought a clash of interests between Batzaria and all Three Pashas. Already alarmed by the officialized
Turkification process, the Aromanian intellectual emerged as an opponent of the Central Powers. On January 16, 1915, he and the
Macedonian Bulgarian Stojan Tilkoff jointly gave up their seats in the Ottoman Senate. As reported in the
Pester Lloyd, "these resignations had become necessary as a result of Turkey's new territorial structure, which no longer had [...]
Vlach or Bulgarian constituencies." Batzaria then traveled to Bucharest, where he acknowledged that the "Romanians of Turkey" were no longer in Ottoman-controlled territory, but also that he could not bear the thought of Romania going to war against the Ottomans. He announced plans on settling there, and that he would apply for naturalization as a Romanian. Batzaria was by then a correspondent for Iorga's new magazine,
Ramuri. Shortly after, he became a militant in
Nicolae Filipescu's
Nationalist-Conservatives, who advocated for joining the Entente.
Opinia newspaper commented on this "conundrum" (
bucluc), noting that Batzaria, "hitherto a Turk", was now being recruited by a
Russophile lobby. In mid-1916, Batzaria and other SCMR figures, including Vasile Ceanescu, became involved in monitoring
Aromanian colonies in Romania, specifically those who had been mass-relocated in
Southern Dobruja. They censured the local authorities in
Caliacra County for having "unleashed a targeted persecution of the Macedonian Romanians". After August 1916, when Romania
declared war on the Central Powers, he opted for settling in neutral Switzerland. He eventually moved back to Bucharest upon the war's end— which saw the consolidation of a
Greater Romania, including Transylvania, the
Banat,
Bukovina, and
Bessarabia. Inhabiting a townhouse at 10 Doctor Radovici Street in
Cotroceni, he embarked on a career in writing, publishing a succession of fiction and nonfiction volumes in Romanian. He was, in January 1919, a co-founder of the Greater Romanian Journalists'
trade union (Union of Professional Journalists), and, in 1921, published his
În închisorile turcești with
Editura Alcaly. He later produced a series of books detailing the lives of women in the Ottoman Empire and the
modern Turkish state:
Spovedanii de cadâne. Nuvele din viața turcească ("Confessions of Turkish
Odalisques.
Novellas from Turkish Life", 1921),
Turcoaicele ("The Turkish Women", 1921),
Sărmana Lila. Roman din viața cadânelor ("Poor Leila. A Novel from the Life of Odalisques", 1922),
Prima turcoaică ("The First of Turkish Women", n.d.), as well as several translations of foreign books on this subject. One of his stories about Ottoman womanhood,
Vecina dela San-Stefano ("The Neighbor of
Yeşilköy"), was published by the literary review
Gândirea in its June 1922 issue. Around the same time, the
Viața Romînească publishers issued his booklet
România văzută de departe ("Romania Seen from a Distance"), a book of essays which sought to revive confidence and self-respect among Romanian citizens. Batzaria was welcomed into the (LUCTR), chaired by Iorga, and, in mid-1923, was tasked with organizing its summer school in
Vălenii de Munte. By 1926, he had rallied with the opposition
Romanian National Party (PNR). Included in its Permanent Delegation together with Iorga, he approved of PNR's fusion with the
Romanian Peasantists, affiliating with the resulting
National Peasants' Party (PNȚ). During the interwar, he also became a regular contributor to the country's main left-wing dailies:
Adevărul and
Dimineața. The journals' owners assigned Batzaria with the task of managing and editing a junior version of
Dimineața,
Dimineața Copiilor ("The Children's Morning"). Story goes that he was not just managing the supplement, but in effect writing down most content for each issue. While at
Adevărul, Batzaria stood accused by right-wing competitors of excessively promoting the National Peasantist leader
Iuliu Maniu in view of the
1926 election. A nationalist newspaper,
Țara Noastră, argued that Batzaria's political columns were effectively coaching the public to vote PNȚ, and mocked their author as "a former Young Turk and ministerial colleague of that famous [İsmail] Enver-bey". Like the PNȚ, the
Adevărul journalist proposed the preservation of communal and regional autonomy in Greater Romania, denouncing
centralization schemes as "ferocious
reactionarism". A while after, Batzaria drew attention to himself for writing, in
Dimineața, about the need to protect the religious and communal liberties of the
Jewish minority. The
National-Christian Defense League, an antisemitic political faction, reacted strongly against his arguments, accusing Batzaria of having "sold his soul" to the Jewish owners of
Adevărul, and to "kike interests" in general. During
legislative elections in July 1927, he was allegedly "arrested and stripped" by the local authorities in
Cislău. The year 1928 saw Batzaria protesting against the escalation of violence against journalists. His
Adevărul piece was prompted by a brawl at the offices of
Curentul daily, as well as by attacks on provincial newspapers. Batzaria still maintained an interest in propagating the cause of Aromanians. The interwar years saw him joining the General Board of the SCMR, of which he was for a while President. He was one of the high-level Aromanian intellectuals who issued public protests when, in 1924, the
Greek Gendarmes organized a crackdown against Aromanian activism in the
Pindus. In 1927,
Societatea de Mâine journal featured one of Batzaria's studies on the ethnic minorities of the Balkans, where he contrasted the persecution of Aromanians in the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia with their "unexpected" toleration in Greece. Attending a congress of the LUCTR, hosted in
Cluj in June 1929, he spoke with "moving detail" about the Aromanian community as a whole. Still involved with the SCMR and the Aromanian colonists, in September he gave a report about 400 families who had been assigned land in Southern Dobruja, and who were still "deprived of any means to make a living".
The Haplea years In 1928, Batzaria was a judge for a national
Miss Romania beauty contest, organized by
Realitatea Ilustrată magazine and journalist
Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș (the other members of this panel being female activist
Alexandrina Cantacuzino, actress
Maria Giurgea, politician
Alexandru Mavrodi, novelist
Liviu Rebreanu and visual artists
Jean Alexandru Steriadi and
Friedrich Storck). As an
Adevărul journalist, Batzaria nevertheless warned against politically militant feminism and
women's suffrage, urging women to find their comfort in marriage. Speaking in 1930, he suggested that the idea of a feminist party in gender-biased Romania was absurd, arguing that women could either support their husbands' political activities or, at most, affiliate with the existing parties. Batzaria's work in
children's literature, taking diverse forms, was often published under the pen names
Moș Nae ("Old Man Nae", a term of respect applied to the
hypocorism of
Nicolae) and
Ali Baba (after the
eponymous character in
One Thousand and One Nights). Another variant he favored was
Moș Ene, alongside
Dinu Pivniceru and
N. Macedoneanu. A Christmas 1926 volume, comprising 73
Haplea stories, was welcomed at the time as one of the best books for children. Other characters created by Batzaria in various literary genres include
Haplina (the female version and regular companion of
Haplea),
Hăplișor (their child),
Lir and
Tibișir (known together as
doi isteți nătăfleți, "two clever gawks"), and
Uitucilă (from
a uita, "to forget"). The graphics to Batzaria's rhymed captions were provided by caricaturist
Marin Iorda, who also worked on a cinema version of
Haplea (one of the first samples of
Romanian animation). It was a compendium of the
Dimineața comics, with both Iorda and Batzaria (the credited screenwriter) drawn in as supporting characters. This collaboration lasted until 1932, during which time Batzaria also gave radio conferences on Oriental subjects (
historical Istanbul, the
Albanian Revolt of 1912 and the
Quran) or on various other topics. Batzaria had become known for his
genre fiction novels, addressed to the general public and registering much success. Among these were
Jertfa Lilianei ("Liliana's Sacrifice"),
Răpirea celor două fetițe ("The Kidnapping of the Two Little Girls"), His main
fairy tale collection was published as
Povești de aur ("Golden Stories"). Also in 1930, he worked state-approved textbooks for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades, co-authored with P. Puchianu and D. Stoica and published by
Scrisul Românesc of
Craiova. Alongside Iorga,
Gheorghe Balș,
George Murnu, and
Camil Ressu, he networked with
Armenian Romanians such as
H. Dj. Siruni, helping to curate the
Armenian art exhibit. Politically, Batzaria had switched to the PNL, and represented its group within the
General Council of Bucharest; around 1930, he had entered the Citizens' Committees, a trans-political coalition established by
Dem I. Dobrescu, heading their central council. The new Romanian king,
Carol II, appointed Iorga as prime minister in early 1931, with Iorga's
Democratic Nationalists and their allies also taking up posts in the local administration. On April 25, Batzaria was made
Prefect of
Timiș-Torontal County, in southwestern Romania. This appointment came with the phasing out of the regional governorates which had been established by the PNȚ; from April 28, Batzaria took over as the last, and temporary, governor of the Banat. He only served in both capacities for less than two weeks: on May 8,
Constantin Argetoianu of
Internal Affairs had him replaced with Aurel Cioban. Batzaria and Iorga soon quarreled: in March 1932,
Neamul Românesc reported on a Bucharest PNL meeting at which Batzaria had promised to use a "fire whip" against the regime. The newspaper also scolded Batzaria for his "flimsy" claim that Iorga had "savagely mistreated" students engaged in anti-government protests. Batzaria benefited from the
PNL sweep of December 1933, as the eighth of 20 National Liberals who took seats in the
Assembly of Deputies for
Ilfov County. His interventions there included an impromptu lecture about the
Gagauz people in
southern Bessarabia, a topic on which his colleagues in the Assembly were generally uneducated. He also supported amending the nationality law to give Aromanian colonists, who had been
denaturalized by their respective Balkan states, a fast-track to Romanian citizenship. , the
Mayor of Bucharest, and the uniform-wearing
King Carol II In tandem, Batzaria took to the applied study of
philology, which also had political and social implications, as when dealing with
exonyms. A January 1931 piece discussed the annoyance felt by Aromanian settlers in Romania at being labeled "Koutsovlachs" (
cuțovlahi, or "Lame Vlachs"). In September 1933, he commented in
Adevărul about the
Romani minority and its first efforts at community representation. A sympathizer of the cause, he declared himself puzzled that these organizations still used the exonym
țigani ("Gypsies"); his arguments may have inspired activist
Gheorghe A. Lăzăreanu-Lăzurică, who set up his own General Union of Roma in Romania. Batzaria remained critical of those who claimed that a 19th-century author,
Anton Pann, was of non-Romanian (and possibly Romani) origin, claiming that the
coppersmiths from whom Pann descended were "nomadic Romanians." Batzaria's other work took the form of literary studies: he reportedly consulted researcher
Șerban Cioculescu about the Balkan origins of classical Romanian dramatist
Ion Luca Caragiale. Caragiale's acquaintance with Ottoman sources was also the subject of Batzaria's last known radio conference, aired in August 1935. A few months later, he was appointed Commissioner of the
Luna Bucureștilor ("Bucharest Month") festival. This activity required that he and
Iuliu Scriban inaugurate a "
Lilliput", set up by entertainers with
dwarfism.
Right-wing radical sympathies In 1935, Batzaria was still taking a stand against the extremes of Romanian nationalism, and specifically against
positive discrimination in support of native Romanians. At the time, he argued that it was "quite difficult to draw a clear distinction between true Romanians and foreign,
Romanianized, elements"—suggesting that many outspoken nationalists were themselves included in the latter category. In mid 1936, he parted with
Dimineața and joined its right-wing and nationalist rival,
Universul, also becoming its publisher. The nationalist priest
Ioan Moța welcomed him there, claiming that Batzaria had stood up to Jewish and
anti-Romanian interests operating through
Adevărul, having been a "white flower in that swamp". Batzaria was afterward appointed editor of
Universul Copiilor ("Children's Universe"), the
Universul youth magazine, which took up his
Haplea stories and comics. According to literary critic
Gabriel Dimisianu, who was a fan of the magazine in his boyhood,
Universul Copiilor was "very good". At
Universul, he became involved in political disputes facing the leftists and rightists, always siding with the latter. As observed by historian
Lucian Boia, this was a common enough tendency among the Aromanian elite and, as Batzaria himself put it in one of his
Universul texts, was read as a "strengthening of the Romanian element." The writer also became directly involved in the conflict opposing
Universul and
Adevărul, during which the latter was accused of being a tool for "communism". He urged the authorities to repress what he argued was a communist conspiracy, led by his former employers. In manifest contrast to
Adevărul, and in agreement with Romanian fascists, Batzaria supported the
Italian invasion of Abyssinia as a step forward for "that sound and creative Latin civilization." Batzaria also expressed sympathy toward the fascist and antisemitic "
Iron Guard" movement. This political attitude touched his editorial pieces concerning the
Spanish Civil War. He marked the death of Iron Guardist politico
Ion Moța, in service to the
Francoist side, likening him to heroes such as
Giuseppe Garibaldi and
Lafayette (
see Funerals of Ion Moța and Vasile Marin). Ahead of the student congress, held at
Târgu Mureș in September 1937, Batzaria contended that Transylvania was at the mercy of non-Romanian industrialists, arguing: "Attempts to create a [native] middle class cannot succeed as long as Romania fights against foreigners only in theory, while embracing them in fact, by buying from their institutions and companies. [...] It must not be forgotten [...] that all kinds of contemporary subversive movements, including
revisionism, communism, sectarianism, are supported by our money." His position was quoted and ridiculed in the
Hungarian paper
Reggeli Ujság: "Mr. Bazaria [...] admitted that we are communists, revisionists, and sectarians, but he finds the adjective 'anarchist' excessive and therefore omits it". While Iorda began developing
Haplea more independently, producing a series of
radio plays in the late 1930s, without Batzaria's involvement, In late April 1940, Batzaria translated and prefaced a volume by the Bulgarian Atanas Manov, which dealt with the Gagauz and their ultimate origin. Around that time, he was secretly employed as a censor of manuals sent in from the
Republic of Turkey to be used by
Turco-Romanian students. He later expressed admiration for the Turkish authorities, since the textbooks featured no anti-Romanian text, and since they had self-censored all praise of
Kemalism. The early stages of World War II saw Batzaria involved in debates about the future of Romanian identity in Transylvania. In June 1940,
Universul and
Plaiuri Săcelene carried his article on the economic failure of
sedentarization among the ethnic Romanian
Mocani. His claim was that non-Romanians had been deprived of fertile land through an egotistic action by members of other ethnic groups; this conclusion was disputed by economist I. Gârbacea, who argued that the
Mocani had been deprived of their lifestyle through
over-education, as endorsed by successive Romanian governments. Weeks after,
the region's northern parts were sectioned off and assigned to the
Kingdom of Hungary, under the
Second Vienna Award. Despite his political profile, Batzaria was marginalized by two successive fascist regimes—the Iron Guard's
National Legionary State, followed by the authoritarian system of
Conducător Ion Antonescu. He was still featured and reviewed in an issue of
Familia magazine, where he discussed divided Transylvania, and compared the plight of its inhabitants with that of the Aromanians. His 50th book of stories also saw print, as
Regina din Insula Piticilor ("The Queen of Dwarf Island"), set to coincide with Christmas 1940. He also put out the
Universul children's
almanac.
Wartime propaganda, persecution, and death In 1942, after the Guard's downfall,
Familia published Batzaria's posthumous homage to Iorga, who had been assassinated by the Guard in 1940. From November 1942,
Universul hosted a new series of his political articles, on the subject of "Romanians Abroad". Reflecting the Antonescu regime's rekindled interest in the Aromanian issue, these offered advice on standardizing the official Aromanian dialect. In July 1943, he was a guest speaker at Iorga's people's university, in
Vălenii de Munte. At around that time,
Universul Copillor began contributing to Antonescu's propaganda effort, supporting Romania's
Eastern Front efforts, against the
Soviet Union. With its comics and its editorial content, the magazine spearheaded a
xenophobic campaign, targeting the
Frenchified culture of the upper class, ridiculing the Hungarians of Northern Transylvania, and portraying the Soviets as savages. The party organ,
Scînteia, identified
Universul Copiilor as a "fascist and
anti-Soviet" publication, noting: "The traitor Batzaria, aka Moș Nae, should be aware that there is no longer a place for him in today's Romanian media." Batzaria was stripped of his SSR membership in the early months of 1945, and banned from working in the press through an official decree on July 11. He was one of the "journalists and writers engaged in incitement during Antonescu's hate-mongering rule" who were stripped of their voting rights ahead of
legislative elections in November 1946. The consolidation of a
communist regime in 1947–1948 led to Batzaria's complete ostracizing, beginning when he was forced out of his house by the authorities (an action which reportedly caused the destruction of all his manuscripts through neglect). Sources diverge on events occurring during Batzaria's final years. Several authors mention that he became a
political prisoner of the communists. According to Karpat, Batzaria died in poverty at his Bucharest house during the early 1950s. ==Work==