Isaia or Isaiia Răcăciuni (also Răcăciun or Răcăciune, born Isaia Nacht; 21 September 1900 – 17 June 1976) was a Romanian writer and editor. A member of the local Jewish community, he always craved assimilation, a longing that informed part of his literary output. His works were also tinged by expressionism, a stylistic affiliation that began when he was an adolescent. Immediately after World War I, Răcăciuni found steady employment at various publishing houses and book-distribution centers; he began networking with some of the major figures in Romanian literature, Christian as well as Jewish, all the while consolidating his own reputation as a translator from German, English, French, and Russian. His first published work of expressionist drama, Trei cruci, was warmly received by contemporary critics, though not performed in theaters. He was employed as a critic and promoter at various newspapers, beginning with Clipa, and debuted as a screenwriter in the silent era, initially by adapting Ronetti Roman's Manasse (1925). His career in publishing took off during the 1930s, when he seconded Alexandru Rosetti—first at Editura Cultura Națională, then at the Royal Foundations.
Răcăciuni toned down his expressionism with the 1931 drama, Poste-restante, which was disliked by the public and resulted in a conflict between the author and his director, Victor Ion Popa. He experienced more success, but also sparked controversy, with the 1934 novel Mâl, depicting promiscuous youths. Months later, the rise of a far-right movement which espoused antisemitism left Răcăciuni and his actor brother, Nicolae Stroe, exposed to persecution. His plays were taken out of production; his attempt to return as a screenwriter, alongside the fascist sympathizer N. Porsenna, ended with further negative exposure of his Jewishness. Răcăciuni and Stroe both accepted full-on segregation under the "National Legionary State", when they participated in creating an all-Jewish theater, The Barașeum. The subsequent "Legionary rebellion", which also included a round-up of Jews, inspired Răcăciuni to write a work of closet drama. As Ion Antonescu inaugurated his one-man regime, maintaining and enhancing the persecution of Jews, Răcăciuni was designated as a hostage of the Romanian state. He remained somewhat active in the press, including as a pseudonymous contributor to nominally fascist newspapers; in 1943, The Barașeum hosted him with a boulevardier play that endured as his best-received.
Antonescu's ouster in August 1944 gave Răcăciuni an opportunity to return as a Romanian writer. He was initially political, favoring liberal democracy and urging for the swift return of confiscated Jewish property. He gravitated toward the Romanian Communist Party, but did not join it, and largely withdrew from public life as Romania was being turned into a communist state. Sometimes lambasted by the communist establishment for his enduring artistic independence and his failure to meet deadlines, he was only present as a translator for most of the 1950s and early 1960s. Răcăciuni secretly kept a diary, and, during the détente of the late 1960s, published selective memoirs—though these were criticized for apparently self-serving inaccuracies. His plays were only collected as a volume in 1990, some fourteen years after his death.
Biography Early life Isaia Nacht was born on 21 September 1900 in Gâșteni-Răcăciuni, Bacău County, to the landholder Beniamin Nacht and his wife Zelda (or Eugenia) Gittner.N. Bârna, p. 768. See also Levin et al., p. 45 He had a younger brother, Stroe, later noted as an actor under the pseudonym of "Nicolae Stroe".Levin et al., p. 45. See also N. Bârna, p. 768 The family was entirely Jewish; Isaia substituted his place of origin for his surname as a way to underscore his assimilation into the mainstream, as well as his enduring love for the Western Moldavian countryside.Silviu B. Moldovan, "Recenzii. Note de lectură. Camelia Crăciun, Scriitori evrei de limbă română: de la rebeli marginali la critici canonici", in Caietele CNSAS, Vol. XI, Issue 2, 2018, pp. 586–587. See also Nastasă‑Kovács, pp. 23, 450 Beniamin's economic and social status was highly controversial: the Romanian Kingdom's native upper class delegated its estates to be managed by landholders, widely perceived by the peasants as ruthless, foreign exploiters. This situation was acknowledged by Răcăciuni in his 1937 social novel, Paradis uitat ("Forsaken Paradise"), which depicts a Jewish family escaping its ghetto-like isolation and finding symbiosis with the natural landscape, only to be chased out from their rented land by the peasant uprising of 1907.Alexandru Robot, "Paradis uitat. — Roman de Isaiia Răcăciuni", in Gazeta Basarabiei, 24 April 1937, p. 2
The family had indeed left Bacău County in 1907, and had settled in Bucharest, the kingdom's capital city.Levin et al., p. 45 Isaia was enlisted for a while at Schewitz-Thieren boarding school.Perpessicius, "Lecturi intermitente (XXIX)", in Gazeta Literară, Vol. XIX, Issue 38, September 1967, p. 7 In 1909, he was studying at an Evangelical chapel school—where his teachers included the novelist Ioan Slavici.N. Bârna, p. 768 In 1917, as most of Romania was under German occupation, he was already engaged in writing plays, with stylistic references to theatrical and cinematic expressionism. Literary historian Ovid S. Crohmălniceanu suggests that his debut tragicomedy, Mirele ("The Groom"), was entirely based on similar works by Carl Sternheim, and as such one of Romania's firsts in localized expressionism.Crohmălniceanu, p. 193 In postwar Greater Romania, Nacht also became passionate about translation, and began rendering into Romanian various works by Maxim Gorky, Reiner Maria Rilke, and Paul Verlaine, also debuting in 1920 at Dacia newspaper (for which he used the pen name "Ion Negrea").N. Bârna, p. 768 Here, he published his version of Heinrich Heine's Atta Troll,"Decese", in România Liberă, 19 June 1976, p. 5 following up with undated versions of biographies by John Drinkwater (Cromwell) and Lytton Strachey (Queen Victoria).N. Bârna, p. 770
Young Nacht's first employment was as a literary reviewer. By his own account, he personally handled manuscripts by Slavici and Tudor Arghezi, both of whom had been imprisoned for having favored the German occupiers over the returning loyalists. He held a job at Gutenberg publishing house (1920–1921), after which he completed his mandatory training in the Romanian Land Forces; he may have then attended the Commercial Academy, but this remains unattested.N. Bârna, p. 768 He returned to letters as a dramatist, an "apocalyptic" play, Trei cruci ("Three Crosses"), which can be dated to 1922N. Bârna, p. 768; Crohmălniceanu, p. 193 but was only released in 1924. This was also a return to the avant-garde: of all his contributions, Trei cruci is "the closest to expressionism", exploring themes of "erotic frenzy" and "denial of civilization", alongside a dose of "Nietzschean ideas".N. Bârna, p. 769. See also Crohmălniceanu, pp. 194–198 The prose encloses a poem, done by Răcăciuni himself as a pastiche of Georg Heym, and has a climax that is heavily reliant on mystery plays.Crohmălniceanu, pp. 195, 197–198 On its publication, the overall text won some contextual praise from Alexandru Bilciurescu: The aesthetes, overfed on Bataille's sentimental sauces, will discover this 'play' as 'something new', and the modern spectators, who can no longer be trusted to reasonably follow a philosophical play, [...] will be much interested by these 9 tableaux. The naturalization of modern theater has not yet taken place in our country, for all the laudable efforts of directors such as Soare Z. Soare and Gusty, and of writers such as Mr Ioan Sân Giorgiu. The true naturalization is now being carried out by Mr Răcăciuni [...].Alexandru Bilciurescu, "Insemnări literare. Isaia Răcăciuni: Trei cruci — apocalips în 9 tablouri", in Cinema, Vol. II, Issue 10, May 1925, p. 494
Nacht was simultaneously an accountantN. Bârna, p. 768 for the national book distribution service, Centrala Cărții, where his boss was the philosopher Nae Ionescu, who is sometimes credited as his discoverer. At Centrala, he became personally acquainted with authors such as Perpessicius, who treasured his "youthful enthusiasm", and Emanoil Bucuța.N. Bârna, p. 768 From 1924, Clipa newspaper had Nacht as a theatrical columnist; his growing notoriety allowed him to join a literary club formed by Mihail Dragomirescu, whose other members were enlisted at the University of Bucharest.N. Bârna, p. 768 In parallel, Nacht's brother Stroe, who had managed to fend off antisemitic prejudice in graduating from the Bucharest Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, began his career with various troupes. While at Teatrul Mic, he was colleagues with Nora Piacentini, who became his wife (and Răcăciuni's sister-in-law) in 1926.Levin et al., p. 45
At Clipa, Isaia joined with Constantin Tavernier in composing another expressionist play, Carnaval ("Carnival"), issued by that paper in 1925.Crohmălniceanu, pp. 200, 295 Also then, he and Scarlat Froda co-wrote the screenplay to a silent film, Manasse, which had Jean Mihail as director; based on a fin de siècle play by Ronetti Roman, it explored the conflicts engendered by Jewish segregation and assimilation, and was much disliked by Romanian nationalists.Bogdan Popa, "The Artist as Realist: Jean Mihail and the De-Alienating Effects of Socialist Film", in Transilvania, Issue 10/2022, p. 78 Răcăciuni's twin plays Mirele and Uzina ("The Factory") were first performed by the people's theater of Tismana, in 1927; the same year, he and N. N. Șerbănescu contributed a screenplay for a silent film about Iancu Jianu.N. Bârna, p. 768 Șerbănescu also reserved the option to film Trei cruci, claiming that he was working on this project by July 1927.Radu Mislea, "Ecranul animat. Cronica filmelor românești", in Gazeta de Duminică, Issue 88, July 1937, p. 12
Interwar successes