Early years The future poet was born in
Bucharest to Eftalia (or Natalia) Gheorghiu and
Dimitrie Rosetti-Max. His father belonged to the
boyar aristocracy of
Wallachia, which was intertwined with the
Phanariotes. His was a more obscure branch of the
Rosetti family, descending from an unknown sibling of the 1770s
Wallachian Prince,
Emanuel Giani Ruset. His known ancestor, Scarlat Ruset (died 1821), had uncertain parentage, but was identified by all other Rosettis as a relative. Max's father was a Wallachian statesman,
Aga Radu Rosetti, who headed the
National Theater Bucharest under Prince
Gheorghe Bibescu. Radu Sr was also Prefect of the Bucharest police during the reign of
Barbu Dimitrie Știrbei, who kept him as a
Paharnic, but ultimately sacked in 1855 for his alleged mistreatment of foreigners. In 1864, with
Pantazi Ghica and
N. T. Orășanu, he was publishing a satirical newspaper,
Nichipercea. He died in 1868, after having squandered much of his and his wife's fortune. Max was the author of light comedies that appeared in
Convorbiri Literare, He was also National Theater chairman, replacing the playwright
Ion Luca Caragiale for a time. A collaborator of poet-satirist
Iacob Negruzzi, he married Negruzzi's sister Maria; another one of Radu's paternal aunts, Ana, was the second wife of culture critic
Titu Maiorescu. Radu D. Rosetti, who described himself as Maiorescu's nephew "by marriage", was born to Dimitrie and Natalia when the couple was unmarried; however, they did marry during the child's infancy. Rosetti-Max died in France in October 1934, the result of a car accident. As literary historian
George Călinescu suggests, the parental split imposed a "rough life" on Radu, explaining why he, an aristocrat, maintained "quasi-proletarian" customs and sympathies. Rosetti himself noted in a 1942 article that: "I never made a fuss about my boyar's rank." He proudly listed himself as a "democrat" like
C. A. Rosetti, founder of the
left-liberal movement and "some kind of a cousin to my grandpapa". The same was noted by his younger friend
Victor Eftimiu: "A boy of select birth, [Rosetti] did not linger in that scornful Olympus of his caste, but rather gave himself, spent himself, a troubadour and proletarian, wherever he found impetus, suffering, elation." The poet confessed that the only exception he ever made to his personal standards of "earning my few distinctions with the sweat of my brow" was when he visited a rich relative, Nicolae de Rosetti, and humored his genealogical pride in exchange for gifts of cash. Unusually, Rosetti was a contemporary of his homonymous relatives, social historian
Radu Rosetti (1856–1926) and General
Radu R. Rosetti (1877–1949). As early as 1914, he was making efforts to distinguish himself from the former. Since Rosetti the soldier was also engaged in writing, Radu D. joked to his readers: "If you liked my little work, know that I'm me [...], Radu D. Rosetti. If not, then I wasn't me, [...] but my homonym, General Radu Rosetti. Phone him at his house and call him names." Repeatedly confused with the general by reviewers such as
George Panu, he adopted the initial "D." (signaling his patronymic) as a distinguishing mark.
Social revolt Rosetti's first contacts with literary life include his attending, in 1889, the funeral of Romania's national poet,
Mihai Eminescu. In later life, he validated the claim that Eminescu had been murdered by a fellow inmate, suggesting gross negligence by his attending physician,
Alexandru A. Suțu; Rosetti noted seeing a fresh wound on Eminescu's body. Initially raised by his maternal grandmother, he was then sent to various schools, and in 1890 was studying at
Andrei Șaguna High School in
Brașov, then under
Austro-Hungarian rule. He was passionate about the city, where he also learned to speak Hungarian "by necessity". He recalled that his first-ever volume of poetry also came out that year—but noted that there was no merit to this contribution, rating it a "grave mistake". Stubborn and rebelling against the prison-like conditions in boarding schools, Rosetti was then placed under private tutors, but did not manage to complete his studies. As Rosetti recalls, his unorthodox mentor would encourage his students not to snitch on each other, and, on one occasion, took them out of class so that they could listen to a
song thrush. He was saluted by Caragiale as Romania's second-greatest writer, after Caragiale himself. Later, Rosetti found out that this was a prank: Caragiale would pay that same compliment to other writers in his circle. Leaving
Matei Basarab High School, Rosetti worked for a while as a proofreader at
Adevărul daily. His verse appeared in
Vieața with the support of
Alexandru Vlahuță, through whom he came to know
Nicolae Grigorescu and
Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea, while also maintaining contacts with Caragiale.
Constantin Mille, his
Adevărul employer, wrote the preface to his second short volume of verse,
Foi de toamnă ("Autumn Leafs", 1892). Drăgulănescu proposes that "
Foi de toamnă outlines the dominant aspects in both Rosetti's poetry and prose: talkative, prone to improvisation, with a taste for dramatic art, the poet constructs miniature dialogues, puts anecdotes in verse, either in tones of
folklore or in the grave and pensive tone of [...]
Miron Costin." In his review of
Sincere,
Alexandru Antemireanu noted that Rosetti's "sweet melancholy" was highly popular with the public: "they love him as one loves a gentle child, a child who never hurts anyone". This gentleness was nevertheless interrupted by samples of
social realism, including a translation from
Jean Richepin. According to Antemireanu, this was a "stupid" selection, "glorifying barbarity and profanity".
With the Symbolists To 1898, Rosetti was one of the regulars at literary gatherings in Fialcovsky Coffeehouse (also attended by his father), where he met
Alexandru Macedonski,
Mircea Demetriade, and actor
Ion Livescu. The latter recalled that Rosetti was "as gentle and soft as his poetry, as thin and as supple as a reed, with long blond hair and dreamy eyes". Macedonski also co-opted him to write for
Literatorul, though other members of that circle, including Aristide Cantilli, regarded Rosetti as culturally irrelevant. While not affiliated with Macedonski's
Symbolist movement, Rosetti had some ideological links with various of its exponents—and was described by Cantilli as an imitator of Macedonski. In 1913, critic Gheorghe Savul included him in the overlapping "
decadent movement", alongside Symbolists
Ștefan Petică and
Iuliu Cezar Săvescu. All three were also followers of a "disillusioned socialism", left isolated following the collapse of the
Workers' Party; but were also attached to
Romanian nationalism, and inspired by Eminescu. With Săvescu and Vlahuță, Rosetti was a noted presence in
V. A. Urechia's magazine,
Biblioteca Familiei, which sought to reconcile Symbolism with the staples of socialist
didactic art. Stylistically, he was an early and episodic influence on young Symbolists such as Eftimiu and
Ion Minulescu; His influence on the Symbolists did not refer just to his poetic standard, but also to his lifestyle: as Eftimiu recalls, he made his colleagues envious of his physical beauty and sentimental adventures. Although Eftimiu believes that Rosetti was wholly indifferent to
Baudelaire and
Verlaine, In 1895, from the
Bucharest Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. In order to also enter the
University of Bucharest, he obtained a high school degree from Brussels. They soon after had a daughter, Natalia "Lia". However, in early 1898, Rosetti became dissatisfied with his material condition, moving out of the family home and suing for divorce. She kept most of Rosetti's personal belongings, and allegedly sold his collection of books. He performed service in the
Romanian Land Forces, reaching the rank of Lieutenant in an artillery regiment stationed at
Chitila fort. His civilian career saw him debuting as a
bailiff for the
Ilfov County tribunal. After working in minor positions for the tribunals of
Brăila and
Constanța, by 1903 he had been advanced to prosecutor for the
Prahova County court. This period also saw his debut as a dramatic author, with plays on social topics. In the 1898
O lecție ("A Lesson"), the wife of a plagiarist expresses her contempt by pursuing an adulterous affair and getting pregnant;
Păcate ("Sins"), which appeared in 1901, unveils the
love triangles that break apart a middle-class family. with Livescu in one of the title roles. In June 1900,
O lecție was performed at the
National Theater Budapest, as the first Romanian play to be performed by a Hungarian troupe. With time, Rosetti also focused more fully on translation work, which he began with a version of Richepin's ''L'Étoile
, published in 1896 and taken up by the same National Theater in 1898. Livescu, who starred in it as Sir Richard, called the work "excellent". In 1901, he returned to poetry with the collection Cele din urmă
("The Very Last Ones"), comprising pieces by himself and translations from his favorite poets. The reviewer at Familia magazine described him as "pessimistic, but always coquette". Rosetti published versions of Robinson Crusoe (1900) and Gulliver's Travels (1905), followed in 1908 by selections from Guy de Maupassant and André Gill. He also participated in rendering homage to Princess Dowager Marie of Edinburgh: with Iosif, Dimitrie Anghel, Cincinat Pavelescu and George Ranetti, he co-wrote a poem welcoming Marie to the Tinerimea Artistică'' salon of March 1906. His former wife Marioara went on to marry another epigrammatist,
Ion Ionescu-Quintus, who was also a provincial leader of the
National Liberal Party; their son,
Mircea Ionescu-Quintus, would also take up poetry in the genre, and eventually become party leader. Rosetti remained close friends with the family, and visited them in their home. He was at the time married to Lucreția Cristescu-Coroiu, who spent 20 of their 21 years together bedridden with illness.
Marginalization Rosetti himself became an incessant traveler ("the most well-traveled Romanian writer", as he himself claimed). were recorded in accounts which doubled as travel guides. As argued by Călinescu, they are entirely devoid of "acuteness of perception and artistic preparation." In autumn 1906, he traveled to
Egypt—coincidentally at the same time as other Romanian intellectuals, including
Timoleon Pisani and
Constantin Istrati. Both Istrati and Rosetti left notes of their journeys, which are some of the earliest Romanian impressions of Egypt; Rosetti, who reached
Luxor and
Aswan, displayed his pity for the
fellaheen he met along the way. A 1904 volume of verse,
Din toate ("Some of Everything") was panned by the Symbolist
Emil Isac in
Familia: Isac believed that it announced Rosetti's death as a poet. However, as noted by the same
Familia, Rosetti remained "one of the most widely read authors" in the
Romanian Old Kingdom, his style being "accessible". He was also recovered in the 1910s by the nationalist historian
Nicolae Iorga, who viewed Rosetti's marginalization as unfair, and published his "lively" travelogues in
Neamul Românesc review. He sketched out a work of
verse drama about
Jesus, publishing fragments of it in a 1910 issue of
Noua Revistă Română. In April 1911, the Romanian Theatrical Society elected Rosetti on its first Steering Committee, alongside Ranetti,
George Diamandy,
A. de Herz, and
Paul Gusty. With Diamandy, Rosetti also organized a Literary Circle at Comoedia Theater, and as such also a February 1912 festival honoring Caragiale. In March, as a delegate of the Society, he welcomed to Richepin to Bucharest and spoke at his banquet. His work appeared alongside that of Symbolist poets in the magazines
Ilustrația and
Noi Pagini Literare, but was shunned by the more radical Symbolists and socialists at
Facla. Here, Rosetti was listed alongside
Constantin Banu,
Petre Locusteanu and
Maica Smara as a "triumphant mediocrity", a literary "
street organ". Rosetti had a lengthy career as a defense lawyer, an experience that informed certain of his literary output, including memoirs such as
Din sala pașilor pierduți ("From the Hall of Wasted Pacing", 1922). As both Călinescu and Eftimiu note, he was one of several Romanian orators inspired by the style and social-justice ideology of
François Coppée (whom Rosetti had met, and whom he "uncanningly resembled physically"). He was especially involved in pleading for left-wing activists prosecuted by the state—or, as he put it, "trials which allowed me to act against social injustice." Rosetti was featured in the first-ever issue of Banu and Locusteanu's
Flacăra with a piece titled
Revoltă ("Revolt"), described by
Zaharia Stancu, the left-wing novelist and cultural promoter, as a political statement. Rosetti also represented himself in his conflicts with the literary magazine
Viața Romînească after its columnist
Constantin Stere ridiculed Rosetti's poetry; as Rosetti notes, this review was unfair, since it focused mainly on poems he had published as a teenager. The case was heard before the
Court of Cassation, which ruled in Rosetti's favor. Another leading cause for him was the advocacy of
cremation, on which he spoke at the
Romanian Atheneum in March 1913. As a result, newspapers reported (probably exaggerating) that some 3,000 people had joined the "cremationist" movement. Such early affiliates included politician
Constantin Dissescu, physician
Haralambie Botescu, and banker
Aristide Blank. The Rosetti speech fed into satirical commentary by
Tudor Arghezi and Ranetti, the latter in particular noting that Rosetti was planning to strip funeral artists, undertakers and florists of their business. Rosetti responded in Ranetti's
Furnica with an ironic piece, in which he informed readers that they could still bury their ashes to maintain the funeral trade. A figure of importance in the "cremationist" trend, which openly challenged the funeral customs of the
Romanian Orthodox Church, Rosetti would later shun moderates such as Dissescu—who, Rosetti claimed, had betrayed the cause.
World War I and cremation activism Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, with Romania
still neutral territory, the
Francophile Rosetti campaigned for Romania to join the
Entente Powers, and tackled the issue during debates at the
Romanian Writers' Society. However, he earned recognition for his court defense of
Hasan Tahsin, would-be assassin of the pro-Entente campaigners
Noel and
Charles Buxton. His subordinates included
Cristache Ciolac, famous in civilian life as a
Lăutar performer, and honored by Rosetti with a sonnet. The Army headquarters eventually withdrew to
Iași. Rosetti lived with his fellow satirist Pavelescu at the latter's family home on Păcurari Street; like Pavelescu, he had his writings published by a local newspaper,
Opinia, providing them with a meager but steady income. Rosetti was afterward assigned to write for the military propaganda magazine,
România. In January 1918, while the
Moldavian Democratic Republic began its
process of unification with Romania, he signed up to a manifesto calling for the cultural unification of all Romanian-inhabited regions; other signers included Minulescu,
Ion Agârbiceanu,
Nichifor Crainic,
Mihail Sadoveanu, and
Mihail Sorbul. Rosetti, discharged from the army as a Captain, eventually returned to Bucharest following the
November 1918 Armistice. In 1919, he and Mille were part of a defense team that represented the leadership of the
Socialist Party of Romania, tried for their role in a
general strike of the previous December. He was an independent candidate for the Ilfov seat in the
Assembly in the
election of November 1919, but only took 5,234 votes. Rosetti remained generally opposed to the
Viața Romînească circle, but was on friendly terms with its editor,
Mihail Sevastos; from 1925, the two were working together at
Adevărul and
Dimineața. The collaboration ended abruptly when Rosetti asked to have his picture published next to that of historian
Radu Rosetti, in hopes of discouraging the persistent confusion between them. Sevastos refused to have
Adevărul turned into a "shop window", prompting the angered poet to withdraw from the enterprise and switch to a rival newspaper,
Universul. In the 1920s, Rosetti had some of his writing appearing in
Viața Romînească, as well as in newspapers and magazines throughout
Greater Romania—including
Îndreptarea,
Rampa,
Ziarul Științelor și Călătoriilor,
Cele Trei Crișuri,
Di Granda,
Foaia Tinerimii,
Ilustrația,
Izbânda,
Lumea Copiilor,
Lumea Ilustrată,
Poetul,
Sănătatea,
Săptămâna Muncii Intelectuale și Artistice, and
Viața Studențească. By 1930, his work was also featured in
Omul Liber,
Basarabia,
Brazda,
Ecoul,
Propilee Literare,
Revista Politică, and
Revista Subofițerilor. He also published translations in
Orizontul, as well as legal literature in
Curierul Judiciar,
Revista Penală, and later in
Palatul de Justiție and
Poliția Modernă. In 1923, Rosetti rallied with the left-leaning League of Human Rights, founded by
Constantin Costa-Foru and
Vasile Stroescu. In March, alongside the forensic scientist
Mina Minovici and the politician , he founded Nirvana Society (later
Cenușa, "The Ash"), which operated the Bucharest Crematorium. However, when his wife died in 1926, she was conventionally buried at
Bellu Cemetery. In December 1923, he also returned at the Atheneum to advocate cremation, and boasted 6,000 new recruits, although his interest in the matter continued to fuel ridicule and provided subject matter to the epigrammatist
N. Crevedia. It was also met with protests from Orthodox leaders such as
Iuliu Scriban and Dumitru Popescu-Moșoaia, who noted, in public disputations with Rosetti, that Nirvana was channeling public funds; however, most clergymen were by then passively reconciled with the practice. A more serious challenge came from religious-right newspapers such as
Curentul,
Cuvântul, and
Glasul Monahilor, who backed priest Marin C. Ionescu, sued for slander by Minovici. Rosetti was the latter's lawyer, himself accused by the Orthodox lobby of consciously lying to promote his client's interests. Journalist
Romulus Dianu, who visited Rosetti in 1925, noted that the cases he handled of the time were mostly penal, with "defendants [who were] mostly freed on bail." He followed up with definitive collections of his scattered prose and poetry:
Poezii ("Poems", 1926),
Eri ("Yesterday", 1931),
Pagini alese ("Selected Pages", 1935),
Vechituri ("Old Things", 1936), and
Instantanee turistice ("A Tourist's Highlights", 1939). Of these,
Vechituri drew notice with its adoring portrait of
Queen Marie, seen by Rosetti as responsible for Romania's diplomatic victory at the end of the world war. His work in travel writing was complemented by his 1935 introduction to
Mihai Tican Rumano's account of life in the
Ethiopian Empire. It underscored Rosetti's admiration for Tican Rumano, who had "braved unimaginable exhaustion", "unaided by any 'Officialdom' or private sponsor". In May of the same year, Rosetti was feted at the Atheneum upon the initiative of his friend, Trancu-Iași. Contributors to the ceremony included
Ion Marin Sadoveanu,
Ionel Perlea, and
Ion Sân-Giorgiu.
Late interwar and World War II Rosetti's own memoirs, appearing in book form and in other formats, were treasured by the reading public, and were featured in
Romanian Radio broadcasts. As noted by Eftimiu, they conserved the universe of the more senior readers, who bought the books to regain contact with the prewar world. Writing in 1931, Isac also saluted in them the return of the old 1890s poet, who, although "belated", offered "a compendium of civilization, affection, and true Romanianism." Rosetti himself was avowedly backward-looking and uninterested in
modernist literature. He told Dianu that
Futurism was already dead by 1925, and that "the orientation in Romanian literature has returned to following the right path". Reportedly, he only showed up once at meetings held by the moderately modernist club
Sburătorul, in what was read by the regulars as a "courtesy visit". The aging lawyer-activist, unanimously elected dean of the
Ilfov Bar Association in 1933, continued to involve himself in causes other than cremation. Prior to the
election of 1931, he represented Averescu in a civil lawsuit against journalist
Bazil Gruia, who had referred to the general as an "assassin of the peasants", for his role in the 1907 revolt. Although, as he noted, he regarded himself as Averescu's political adversary, he agreed to defend the "great commander who had led our troops to victory". As recalled by writer
Vlaicu Bârna, he was damaged during the affair, with a "sad reputation over having obtained that an innocent man be convicted". By 1936, Rosetti was also interested in the biography of four-wars veteran
Peneș Curcanul, traveling to
Vaslui in hopes of acquiring his unpublished letters. During World War II, Rosetti was an occasional contributor to
Universul, where, in 1940, he published a piece romanticizing the history of
Moșilor quarter. In March of that year, Rosetti joined the defense team of a
Jewish industrialist,
Max Auschnitt, who stood accused of having defrauded the Romanian state. Addressing the judges, Rosetti argued that his client was fully
assimilated, and that his fortune had been exclusively a product of "[Auschnitt's] labor and skill." A short while after, the fascist
National Legionary State was established, supporting a renewed offensive against the "cremationist" movement: by 1941,
Education Minister Traian Brăileanu was proposing to disestablish the Bucharest Crematorium, describing it as anti-Christian. In June 1941, under the new government formed by
Ion Antonescu, Rosetti contributed to a
Vremea special issue commemorating
Nicolae Iorga, killed by the
Iron Guard the previous year. In June 1942,
Editura Cugetarea issued a final volume of his recollections,
Odinioară ("Once"); literary scholar
Șerban Cioculescu curated the edition. At the time of its publishing,
Odinioară won praise from Dianu in
Curentul, who saw it as equal to memoirs by Coppée,
Ion Ghica and
Iacob Negruzzi. Dianu concludes: "[Rosetti is] a man of yesteryear, who honors his life, a type of man that is unfortunately no longer produced." Literary chronicler
George Sbârcea shortlisted
Odinioară and
George Ciprian's
Cutia cu maimuțe as the two best works of autobiography to have appeared in 1942. As noted by Cioculescu, one of Rosetti's critics was Mica Bogdan-Pitești. She resented her late husband's portrayal in the book, noting that Rosetti had once "scrounged off" Alexandru's wealth. He also denounced the memoirist as a "
Knight of Malta, that is to say a
Freemason." The characters in the book, Roșu claimed, were tinged by "adultery and concubinage", their luxury made possible by "millions of peasant slaves, toiling in sorrow"; the work itself was "addressed to those few fossils to have survived the great social uplift." Some of these statements were formally retracted by the editor,
Nichifor Crainic—to whom Rosetti had sent a letter of protest. Clarifications included a note according to which Rosetti "is not a Freemason, his name absent from all lists that have ever been made public." The
August 1944 coup briefly restored democracy to Romania. In its aftermath, Rosetti returned as a satirist, with contributions to
Sergiu Milorian's magazine,
Papagalul. He was also interested in the revival of social activism, and, in November 1945, spoke at the Atheneum about the "citizen-poets", offering posthumous praise to
Vasile Alecsandri and
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea. In the late 1940s, he also resumed his polemic with the modernists, being criticized in
Rampa as "a sausage-maker that has stumbled into a
Picasso exhibit late one evening"; according to
Rampa, he resented the avant-garde because it "has been, and is, cutting off his own flower tendrils as they were shooting up toward that sky of (what else but) blue". The establishment of a
Romanian communist regime in 1948 brought on more ridicule targeting the aged writer. In 1950, critic
Paul Georgescu included Rosetti's
Duioase on a list of obsolete works: "The bourgeoisie was reading and growing enthusiastic about books that no one today would even dare to open." Rosetti lived those years in isolation. Largely forgotten by the public, he inhabited a
garret in Bucharest (possibly located in Pasajul Român area, outside
Calea Victoriei). He was tended to by a female servant, giving her his impractically large
pendulum clock; she tried to sell the item, but had trouble finding a buyer. before being sacked by the communists. Later that decade, there was a revival of the epigram, with Rosetti being recognized as a "classic of the genre". In his eighties, he was allowed into the
Writers' Union of Romania—and received small sums, as well as dinner invitations, from its literary fund, care of poet
Dumitru Corbea. In a 1957 piece in
Gazeta Literară, Cioculescu drew attention to Rosetti as the only living source who could explain mysterious details in Caragiale's biography; he also called Rosetti an "evergreen octogenarian, who records his epigrams with the same success as ever". Epigrammatist George Corbu notes that Rosetti's contributions from the 1920s were now plagiarized by younger authors, but also that Rosetti himself was plagiarizing from C. Ilea in one piece for
Urzica magazine. That year, in an interview with G. Cristobald, he announced his planning of five other books, including one about an intended journey into the
Soviet Union. Affected by blindness during his last years, he agreed to dictate scenes from his literary life to Horia Oprescu. Rosetti died in his garret According to his wish, he was cremated. Bârna provided a contrasting assessment in 1997, when he rated Rosetti as an "amateur-tier" writer, but "a lawyer of significance." ==Notes==