Nicolae D. Popescu, also known as Poppescu, Popnedea and Nedea Popescu (August 9, 1843 – June 1921), was a Romanian prose writer, oral historian, almanac compiler and archivist, made famous and financially successful by his hajduk stories. Of peasant origin, he was born in Wallachia and spent his youth in the United Principalities. His career in the civil service began in 1861, while his debut as a writer occurred some three years later, with a romantic biographical novel on Radu the Handsome. Popnedea later began taking his inspiration from Romanian folklore, creating a novella based on Meșterul Manole's semi-historical legend, before single-handedly inventing the hajduk subgenre of the swashbuckler—mixing in the adventure novel and historical fiction—and experimenting with the sentimental novel. Committed to both Hohenzollern monarchism and Romanian nationalism, he exploited the contemporary War of Independence, which infused both his story papers and his contribution as a popular historian. His work also intertwined with his support for the National Liberal Party, of which he was a founding member.
Highly successful in all the novelistic genres he embraced, as well as a collector and publisher of music, Popescu also tried his hand as a playwright, with his Păstorița Carpaților being successfully staged by the National Theatre Bucharest on two separate occasions. He was rejected by the professional writing community in the newly established Kingdom of Romania, and made aware of his marginality. He was openly mocked on several occasions by the celebrated Romanian humorist, Ion Luca Caragiale; his unprofessional approach to history-writing and folkloristics was also critically examined by authors from the Junimea society, who advised against using him as a source. Popnedea was instead regarded as an earnest author by nationalists of the Sămănătorul and Poporanist schools, and acknowledged as a childhood influence by Mihail Sadoveanu and Ion Agârbiceanu. He found some backers on the modernist scene as well, possibly inspiring the early prose of Panait Istrati, and being a childhood favorite of Sașa Pană and Ion Călugăru; the latter went on to copy his writing style, in novels he published under a pseudonym.
Depicting himself as a Poporanist after World War I, Popnedea continued to write into his late seventies—though his final output centered on postal and railways history, rather than fiction. His activities as a clerk were by then also touched by controversy, as he had been accused publicly of not fulfilling his duties, and once investigated for allegedly stealing documents. His boasting about having access to secret information had also seen him caught up in a 1909 investigation centered on an assassination attempt against the Prime Minister, Ion I. C. Brătianu. Popescu's literature still had a large following after his death in 1921, and came to be seen by various posthumous reviewers as superior to other forms of popular literature, produced during the interwar and later on.
Biography Beginnings "Popnedea" was born in Bucharest, capital of Wallachia, to Romanian Orthodox priest Dimitrie Popescu and his wife Niculina.Aurel Sasu (ed.), Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române, Vol. II, p. 409. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. As he noted in a 1905 autobiography, his ancestors on both sides were "plebeian" sharecroppers, situated below the yeomanry (moșneni);Brănișteanu, p. 1 he had earlier explained that Dimitrie was a native of Dolj County in Oltenia (Wallachia's western third), and that, through his stories, he gained his first insight into the lives of early-19th-century hajduks.Patraș, p. 185 Some two years after his son's birth, Dimitrie became parson of Icoanei Church, in central Bucharest, serving there until 1869. He received another parish in 1875, moving to the outskirts, in Buciumeni, until his death in 1879.Ciubotaru, p. 22
Young Popescu completed his gymnasium-level studies at Gheorghe Lazăr College in Bucharest (which was advanced to capital of the United Principalities in 1859), but moved to Saint Sava for his high-school degree.Ciubotaru, p. 23 He left early in 1861 in order to become a civil servant at the Foreign Ministry. His 1900s autobiographies fail to mention his quitting school—they briefly refer to "my career as a clerk" and "my life as a student" as having been equally "tormented".Ciubotaru, p. 23 His first published work was a historical novel on Radu the Handsome (Radu al III-lea cel Frumos), appearing in 1864 or 1865. He wrote numerous calendars starting in 1866—when he became a contributor to Calendar pentru Toți, and then to I. C. Fundescu's Calendarul Dracului. The former featured a historical sketch story on the Battle of Rovine, for which he used the signature Nicop.Șerban Cioculescu, "Breviar. O bibliografie binevenită", in România Literară, Issue 49/1981, p. 7 His other work was in political satire, with Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu's Satyrul magazine—published in Bucharest from February 1866. This publication was focused on subverting the authoritarian Domnitor, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, and as such required its contributors to hide under various pseudonyms, as Chinese Mandarins on a visit to the Principalities.Hasdeu & Oprișan, pp. 5–6 Popescu himself used the mock-Chinese name "Po-pu-ki", being welcomed by Hasdeu, in April 1866, for his "excellent feuilleton".Hasdeu & Oprișan, pp. 83, 179 Over several issues, Popescu contributed Impresiunile unuǐ noŭ sositŭ din China ("The Impressions of a New Arrival from China") and Din viéța amploiațilorŭ ("From the Life of Bureaucrats").Hasdeu & Oprișan, pp. 86–87, 91–95
The Satyrul group supported the "monstrous coalition" coup against Cuza, but opposed his replacement with a foreign-born prince, Carol of Hohenzollern.Hasdeu & Oprișan, p. 6 By then, Popnedea was publishing his own almanacs, with various titles; his first contract was with printer Honoriu C. Wartha.Brănișteanu, p. 1 As noted by journalist Barbu Brănișteanu, he may have been prompted to begin such work by Carol's enthronement, which he supported; the almanacs double as minute records of Carol's reign, "which is so very rich in great deeds benefiting the Romanian land and its people."Brănișteanu, p. 1 Popescu once reported that his motivation for writing was in his commitment to Romanian nationalism, searching for readers who would love "Romanian books on Romanian topics, as written down by a Romanian."Brănișteanu, p. 1 By his own account, he was an affiliate of the national-liberal clubs since 1868, and joined the National Liberal Party (PNL) upon its formation in 1875; his private correspondence with party figures, including Dimitrie Sturdza and Ioan Bianu, clarifies that he viewed himself as a propagandist of the PNL, specifically by attacking the Conservatives.Popa, pp. 69, 70
Popnedea was also exploiting the standard ballads of Romanian folklore, with a novella inspired by Meșterul Manole legends. Appearing in 1869 as Meșterulŭ Manole séŭ zidirea monastireĭ Curtea de Argesiŭ ("Manole the Craftsman of the Erection of Argeș Monastery"),"A eșitŭ de suptŭ tiparŭ Calendarŭ pentru Toțĭ pe Anul 1870", in Romanulu, November 1, 1869, p. 863 it invented a backstory identifying the character with a Andalusian Master Manoel, arriving in Wallachia as a means to escape the Spanish Inquisition.George Muntean, "Însemnări despre folclor și literatura cultă", in Steaua, Vol. XX, Issue 2, February 1969, p. 31 Looking back on the period in 1976, literary historian Mihai Gafița proposed that, by his very selection of historical fiction as a favorite means of expression, Popnedea was a romantic or neo-romantic, prolonging the movement's echoes down to World War I.Mihai Gafița, "În pregătirea Congresului Educației Politice și al Culturii. Evocarea istoriei", in România Literară, Issue 10/1976, p. 3
Early fame According to the literary critic Vladimir Streinu, Popescu's appeal, like that of contemporary writers such as Petre Ispirescu, was owed to his folkloric roots, at a time when the urban public was encouraged to revisit its rural ancestry.Cioculescu et al., p. 267 Philologist Ion C. Chițimia sees Popnedea as less accomplished than Ispirescu and Dumitru Stăncescu, since the latter two were interested in authenticity, to the point of preserving in writing the peasants' speech patterns (something which Popnedea generally shunned).Cioculescu et al., p. 913 Popescu himself contrarily believed that his writing style was shaped by the people's "plain and simple" language. He rejoiced in having liberated historical writing from the "archaic" literary language of ancient chronicles.Brănișteanu, p. 1 This claim was reciprocated by his reader, and fellow writer, Ion Pas, who calls his a "language of the people", "unskilled, not overly embroidered".Pas, p. 24
Alongside Meșterulŭ Manole, Popescu released the biography of an Oltenian hajduk leader, Iancu Jianu—the book went through a large number of reprints, with the earliest versions being traceable to 1868 or 1869.Patraș, pp. 175, 183, 184–185 Reworking themes from a play by Matei Millo, it similarly implied that Jianu had been a melancholy figure; the content increased "from 50 to 500 pages" in the 1912 edition, with Popnedea adding episodes from his own imagination (such as depicting Jianu as an accomplished vocalist in the manele genre, or surrounded by female characters of dubious historicity).Patraș, pp. 175, 182–183, 185–186, 188 In one version, the epilogue suggested that Jianu and his mob had only abandoned their tranquil peasant lifestyles by unbearable pressures from the Phanariote oppressor—and that their only wish was to be able to return into their villages, now cleansed of injustice.Baghiu & Borza, pp. 111–112 Other variants of the text imply that Jianu and his henchmen had engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Greeks and Turks, as well as in the exemplary murdering of boyars, while sparing "all that was Romanian, whatever its station in life."Olteanu, p. 302 Working with incomplete records, he also introduced fabricated episodes, being ultimately responsible for turning Jianu's Serb companion, Nikola Abraš, into a nefarious figure.Iancovici, pp. 682–683
In 1872, Popescu turned his attention to Moldavia, with a "long novella" which depicted its 15th-century Prince, Stephen the Great, as a champion of Romanian nationalism.Ciubotaru, p. 23 During these early stages of his career, he also delved in sentimental and didactic fiction, which, scholar Alexandru Farcaș notes, was heavily indebted to Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail. According to Farcaș, he was exceptionally bad in the genre, and inferior to the likes of George Baronzi; his 1873 novel, Elisa, was centered on a negative portrayal of upper-class men as serial seducer of mahala girls, explicitly warning "daughters of my people" not to engage with "these dangerous Don Juan-types."Alexandru Farcaș, "Bucureștii de la periferie. Romanțuri și romane de veac XIX", in Contemporanul, Vol. XXV, Issue 4, April 2014, p. 26 Czech philologist Jan Urban Jarník, who used the novel in his early efforts to learn Romanian, writes: "As much as I commiserated with poor Elisa, fallen prey to a debauched, heartless young man, I wished to read something that was cleanly Romanian." Upon discovering folkloric samples, with their "amazing beauty", Jarník shunned "Poppescu's rather chequered prose".Jan Urban Jarník, "Cum am învĕțat româneșce", in Familia, Vol. XXXIV, Issue 26, June 1898, p. 303