Dumitru or Dimitrie Karnabatt (last name also Karnabat, Carnabatt or Carnabat, commonly known as D. Karr; October 26, 1877 – April 1949)Bote, p.149. See also Teodorescu et al., p.855 was a Romanian poet, art critic and political journalist, one of the minor representatives of Symbolism. He was a disciple of both Alexandru Macedonski and Ștefan Petică, representing the conservative and mystical school of Romanian Symbolism, and a regular contributor to the newspaper Seara. He is also remembered as the husband and, for a while, literary partner of novelist Lucrezzia Karnabatt.
Karnabatt had a controversial career, particularly so during World War I. Strongly Russophobic, and skeptical of the Entente Powers, he gave full endorsement to Germany and the Central Powers. His collaborationism, exemplified by the propaganda articles he wrote for Gazeta Bucureștilor, earned him a jail sentence in March 1919. He was ultimately released in January 1920, but the scandal still had repercussion throughout the 1920s, hindering his career in the interwar press.
Mystical symbolism was a constant of Karnabatt's literary work. In the 1930s and '40s, the poet publicized his admiration for Roman Catholicism in general, and for Franciscan dogma in particular. These beliefs were echoed in his final essays and poems, which received mixed reviews.
Biography
Early life and debut years As noted by historian Lucian Boia, the journalist-poet was a Bulgaro-Romanian with an "evidently non-Romanian" surname, but patriotic and anti-Slavic by conviction.Boia, p.240 A Karnabatt (or Carnabat) family took refuge to Bucharest after the Russo-Turkish War of 1828. It took its name from the town of Karnobat, Bulgaria, but became fully Romanianized upon arrival.Ilie Bărbulescu, "Comunicări. Poetul bulgar Veliksin și Romînii", in Arhiva, Organul Societății Științifice și Literare, Nr. 3-4/1924, p.264
Dumitru Karnabatt was born in Giurgiu, the Danube city-port.Bote, p.149 His first recorded public activity was as an 1890s socialist, who took part in cultural debates at Sotir Hall, Bucharest.I. C. Atanasiu, Pagini din istoria contimporană a României: 1881-1916. I. Mișcarea socialistă: 1881-1900, Editura Adevĕrul, Bucharest [n. y.], p.50 Years later, the poet would recall his meeting with the socialist Symbolist Traian Demetrescu, in "the chilled and smoky tavern" of Sotir.D. Karr., "Artist și operă", in Foaia Populară, Nr. 33/1898, p.3 Although his journalistic debut is dated to 1902, when his talents were enlisted by Observatorul newspaper,Bote, p.150 Karnabatt himself indicated that, in the 1890s, he worked alongside Demetrescu, both of them as reporters from Parliament.
In the second half of 1897, Karnabatt was sending his chronicles and his poems to critic Garabet Ibrăileanu, who hosted them in the literary newspaper Noutatea. Victor Durnea, "Pseudonimele lui G. Ibrăileanu. Colaborator la Noutatea (Iași, 1897)" , in România Literară, Nr. 11/2008 In early 1898, the young author, using his pen name "D. Karr", became a staff writer for the family magazine Foaia Populară,"Ecourĭ", in Epoca, Nr. 692/1898, p.2 where he later contributed an obituary of Demetrescu. Karnabatt's editorial debut came in 1901, when he published, in Bucharest, the poetry volume Crini albi ("White Lilies"). Two years later, as "D. Karr", he put out a selection of his Opale și rubine ("Opals and Rubies"), followed in 1906 by Poemele Visului ("Poems of the Dream"), and in 1907 by Harpegiĭ ("Arpeggios").Bote, p.149, 150; Teodorescu et al., p.856. See also Mitchievici, "Voyages symbolistes", p.98, 102; Decadență..., p.229, 369, 595; Pohonțu, p.111
In the literary world, "D. Karr" was becoming known as a talented poet but also considered "unruly", for his heavy recourse to neologisms.B. V., "Dărĭ de samă. Poemele visuluĭ de D. Karr, Ploeștĭ 1906", in Arhiva, Organul Societății Științifice și Literare, Nr.6/1906, p.278-283 Karnabatt's experiments already attested his spiritual attachment to Symbolism. They showed the influence exercised on him by Macedonski's poetry of colors and light,Mitchievici, Decadență..., p.229; Pohonțu, p.111, 142 and, in Poemele Visului, his discovery of a Belgian master, Georges Rodenbach.Mitchievici, "Voyages symbolistes", p.98, 99 Researcher Ștefan Cazimir has reviewed such poetry as a Romanian literary equivalent of Secession art, noting Karnabatt's take on the sexual metaphors of Secession graphics: luscious hair, sirens, pallor etc. Ștefan Cazimir, "Secesionismul în literatura română (IV)" , in România Literară, Nr. 5/1999; "Secesionismul în literatura română (VI)" , in România Literară, Nr. 13-14/1999
Karnabatt moved away from the socialists, whom he criticized, decades after the fact, for their "uncouth, massive and compact materialism, which denied categorically and offensively any prospect of spirituality and metaphysics". D. Karnabatt, "De ce e mare Hașdeu", in Vestitorul, Nr. 23/1937, p.208 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library) Together with D. Nanu, he followed the dissident Symbolism of Ștefan Petică, who advocated a militant, para-Symbolist, form of the Decadent movement.Mitchievici, Decadență..., p.147 His poems and his articles incorporated numerous references to Rococo aesthetics, contrasting the "fine, delicate touches" of 18th-century life with the roughness of modernity.Mitchievici, Decadență..., p.368-369
Hermes, Minerva, Seara The Symbolist school took note of Karnabatt's stances. In 1903, addressing the world's Francophones, essayist Theodor Cornel rated Karr the third-best Romanian poet in history.Mitchievici, Decadență..., p.229 A year later, Revista Literară (a direct successor of Macedonski's Literatorul) hosted some of his work. Karnabatt was then given a positive reception by Mihail G. Holban's Revista Idealistă and the Symbolist journal Vieața Nouă, to the irritation of more traditionalist reviewers, who dismissed "D. Karr" as a frivolous and talentless individual.Compilator, "Revista Revistelor", in Viața Românească, Nr. 5/1906, p.333; Nicolae Iorga, O luptă literară, articole din Sămănătorul. I: Maiŭ 1903-Iulie 1905, Neamul Românesc, Vălenii de Munte, 1914, p.45; Sextil Pușcariu, "Scrisoarea a III-a", in Luceafărul, Nr. 16-18/1903, p.272 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library)
By 1903, Karnabatt had met fellow Symbolist Alexandru Petroff and, like Petică, was writing for Petroff's magazine, Hermes. N. Davidescu, "Un precursor al simbolismului la noi", in Românul (Arad), Nr. 37/1940, p.1 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library) He was also editorial secretary at Henric Streitman's Observatorul.Anuarul Bucurescilor pe anul 1904, Carol Göbl, Bucharest, 1904, p.14 In 1905, he was also contributing to Românul Literar, a Macedonskian literary gazette directed by C. A. Ionescu-Caion.Bote, p.150; Vera Ghedrovici, "Românul Literar", in Alexe Rău, Petru Soltan, Andrei Eșanu, Aurel Marinciuc, Ion Madan, Iurie Colesnic, Valeria Matvei, Elena Sănduță (eds.), Calendar național 2005 , National Library of Moldova, Chișinău, 2004, p.13. In September 1909, honoring a Minerva invitation, D. Karnabatt and novelist Mihail Sadoveanu went on a hiking tour of the Bucegi Mountains, from Caraiman to Cerbului Valley. Their travelogue was published in Minervas 1910 almanac."O excursiune în Munții Carpați", in Calendarul Minervei pe anul 1910. Mică enciclopedie populară a vieții practice, p.163-207
In 1910,Mitchievici, "Voyages symbolistes", p.95 Karnabatt became a star contributor to the daily Seara. Like Minerva, this was property of Grigore Gheorghe Cantacuzino, the Conservative Party magnate, but was managed for him by the influential art patron, Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești.Boia, p.94, 191; Mitchievici, Decadență..., p.340, 341 Karnabatt, who often signed his articles there with the self-mocking pen name Censor,Virginia Blînda, "Stratégies identitaires: Le pseudonyme. Un découpage du XIX siécle dans la culture Roumanie", in Revue des Études Sud-est Européennes / Journal of South-east European Studies, Nr. 1-4/2006, p.229 or as Don Ramiro,Mitchievici, Decadență..., p.320 was a regular attendant of Bogdan-Pitești's literary club.
It was around that time that Dumitru encountered and married Lucrezzia, a socialite, writer, and famed beauty. According to writer-caricaturist Neagu Rădulescu, she inflamed the passion of high school students and young officers alike; with time, however, she became morbidly obese.Rădulescu, p.17, 64, 221, 305 Writing for Seara, the Karnabatts introduced their original combination of collaborative fiction and travel literature, tracing their journey through the Low Countries, Bavaria, Switzerland and Austria-Hungary.Mitchievici, "Voyages symbolistes", p.96 These accounts were rediscovered in 2007 by the literary critic Angelo Mitchievici, who calls them a mix of impressionist literature and Decadent prose, with nods in the direction of Rodenbach's Bruges-la-Morte, and utterly opposed to the standards of literary diaries.Mitchievici, "Voyages symbolistes", p.95-96, 98-101; Decadență..., p.73
However, Karnabatt remained a conservative among the Symbolists, opposed to the fashion of artistic primitivism, and locked in disputes with the primitivist half of Tinerimea Artistică salon. Already in 1910, in what later critics have read as a sign of his obtuseness, Karnabatt ridiculed Constantin Brâncuși over his modern primitive sculptures, Sagesse and The Kiss. Ruxandra Juvara, "La société Tinerimea artistică. Sa contribution au développement de l'art roumain dans la première moitié du XXe siècle", in Revue Roumaine d'Histoire de l'Art. Série Beaux-arts], Vol. XLIV, 2007, p.78, 81 With his repeated rebukes at Tinerimea painters, Karr cited as his mentor the culture critic and mystic Sâr Péladan, who had repeatedly censured the "horrors" of modern art.Mitchievici, Decadență..., p.332 One of his Seara columns (June 7, 1911) commends Alexis Macedonski, Alexandru's son and illustrator, as an absolute artist.Mitchievici, Decadență..., p.358-359
Lucrezzia Karnabatt's own contribution to Seara ends abruptly, in 1911. She probably had a quarrel with Bogdan-Pitești, against whom she preserved a lifelong grudge.Mitchievici, Decadență..., p.351-354 Even though the Karnabatts did not formally separate, their marriage was a public failure; Lucrezzia preferred to focus on her separate literary career, her feminist activities, and her eccentric hobbies (including the study of Spiritism).Mitchievici, Decadență..., p.485, 489-491 In the literary community, rumor spread that she was also hypersexual. Bogdan Crețu, "Aventurile unor 'naufragiați' (re)povestite pe-nțelesul tuturor de Florin Faifer" , in Convorbiri Literare, June 2003
Symbolist campaign During the early 1910s, Karnabatt joined several of Romania's Symbolist circles and literary magazines. His overview of the Symbolist literary scene was published by Revista Idealistă in its first issue for 1911.Bote, p.90, 150, 256, 386 In November, writing for Minerva, he greeted the fellow Symbolist Victor Eftimiu, whose play Înșir'te mărgărite had just been staged with "very original" cinematic effects. Călin Căliman, , in Contemporanul, Nr. 11/2011 By March 1912, Karnabatt was a contributor to the Bârlad journal Freamătul, where he published notes in memory of his deceased mentor, Ștefan Petică.N. Davidescu, biographical notes, in Ștefan Petică, Opere, Editura Fundațiilor Regale, Bucharest, 1938, p.23, 26 With other such biographical notes, Karnabatt was also published by Flacăra of Bucharest.Bote, p.132 Working with the popular review Ilustrațiunea Națională in 1912, D. Karr put out its feuilleton, Idila din Venezzia ("Venice Idyll"), which depicted the love affair between Alfred de Musset and George Sand.Teodorescu et al., p.856