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77-546: The church is located on Filaret Hill, adjacent to Carol Park . It is also known as New Bărbătescu , as the area used to form part of Old Bărbătescu parish. A small church without a dome used to stand on the same site. This was built in 1796 and existed as late as 1897. The present church was built in 1906–1910, for the jubilee marking 40 years on the throne for King Carol I . It was inspired by Saint Nicholas Princely Church in Iași , itself built to commemorate 40 years of Stephen

154-589: A Ciubotăriții ; October 3 [ O.S. September 20] 1859 – October 17, 1904) was a Romanian poet, socialist activist, and artisan shoemaker. Born to a poor family in Western Moldavia , he was not allowed to pursue his passion for music, and worked from an early age. These circumstances instilled him with a desire to combat the established social order of the Romanian Kingdom , driving him into left-wing politics. His interest in music

231-467: A Ciubotăriții. Some sources suggest that they were both poor peasants, though, according to biographer Mihu Dragomir , this is an erroneous information originating with Neculuță's confidant, Alecu Constantinescu , who misunderstood references to his friend's more distant rural background. Records of the period show that Toader was in fact a shoemaker. A similar confusion surrounds the issue of Dumitru's original surname, with some sources noting that he

308-409: A Marxist setting: "Before Neculuță's time—and even for a long time after him—the most gifted poets of social rebellion worked with vague terms, with generalized and imprecise notions: people, justice, liberty, truth etc. The grounded, class-based position, only makes its first appearance in verse by D. Th. Neculuță". Hungarian Romanian poet Jenő Kiss, who translated some of Neculuță's poems, highlights

385-475: A Party eminence, recalled that in his 1930s childhood he "loved Neculuță, a socialist poet", which contributed to his political choices. On the 20th commemoration of Neculuță's death on October 7, 1924, a "great number of workers and intellectuals" visited the socialist club on Brezoianu Street to pay homage; police agents reportedly encircled the hall, and only allowed attendees to leave at midnight. Spina noted that "a few workers, who have gathered to commemorate

462-568: A bad model. This was the case with Elena Tacciu, who spoke about Neculuță as having been propped up by a "tyranny of dogmatic schemas", and with Ion Cristoiu , who noted that writers were better if inspired by a "great tradition", and not by Neculuță. He was still honored in Scînteia as one of the earliest Romanian authors to have embraced the social, "with their still-modest means". In November 1989, journalist H. Lerea noted that "the first artisan-poet [was] an innocent victim of overbidding during

539-774: A bio-bibliographic study of Neculuță in Filológiai Közlöny , specifically aimed at readers in the Hungarian People's Republic . Sample translations from Neculuță were included in Romanian poetry anthologies such as Mario de Micheli's Antologia della poesia romena (1961) and Alain Bosquet 's Anthologie de la poésie roumaine (1968). The Eminescu–Neculuță comparison, which downgraded the former, came to be seen as controversial, including in Marxist circles. It

616-647: A co-chair of the România Muncitoare in Bucharest . After his unexpected death at age 45, Neculuță enjoyed a cult following in socialist culture in both the Romanian Kingdom and neighboring Austria-Hungary . He had shared inspiration and themes with George Bacovia , and was a direct influence on Mihail Cruceanu and Cristian Sârbu . During the interwar, he was celebrated by the legal Social Democrats and Socialist Laborites , as well as by

693-550: A day in the shop. Neculuță's most precious hours are spent in this aimless prison-like work. with no perspectives." Such conditions undermined his family life: he was married to a Bucharest woman, but divorced her after six years, thereafter dedicating himself entirely to political work, "one of the most educated and consistent fighters of the Romanian proletariat." The socialist movement's historiographer, Constantin Titel Petrescu , places Neculuță at Bucharest's Sotir Hall,

770-452: A fatal heart attack. According to Kiss, his cardiac condition was owed to physical exhaustion from "continuous strenuous work". An inventory carried out on the day of Neculuță's death records that he only owned an iron bed and mattress, a table, a coat hanger, a coffer filled with books, one shirt, plates, and some other items. His definitive manuscript, which he kept under the mattress, went unreported. The funeral cortege, comprising workers,

847-453: A number of intuitions, however incomplete these might have been." Shared elements include a "grave internal melody", the "unmitigated pain of experience", and "crude", quasi- Imagist , depictions of ravens and crows, or insistence on the metaphoric qualities of metals such as lead (for both poets) and zinc (favored by Neculuță). Despite this sharing themes in the authors' non-political poems, Regman finds it unlikely that Bacovia's militant verse

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924-467: A poet, since the hurdles of his existence never gave him time to follow the path of an artist." The young writer-typographer Ion Pas , who was inducted by the socialist movement "just seven years after Neculuță's death", recalled that Vasile Anagnoste , who had "worked with him in the same shop", instructed younger workers to "maintain his cult." In 1925, the communist novelist Panait Istrati , who had achieved international fame, paid homage to Neculuță as

1001-527: A politically engaged poet. His work also appeared in Lumea Nouă , România Muncitoare , and Viitorul Social . One of Neculuță's final assignments, from 1902, was as co-chair of the România Muncitoare club, alongside Constantinescu and Frimu. Around that time, he also taught the adolescent Gheorghe Ene Filipescu to read; Filipescu would later advance politically as a high-ranking member of

1078-409: A precursor: "the Romanian labor movement has had its poet, a man called Neculuță, the soul of a man who should have lived with other horizons, and in another time, in order to express all of what he felt. [...] Neculuță lived in some shack, unknown to all, yet, had they brought him Paris on a platter, he would not have been surprised: he'd have accepted it as his rightful belonging!" In a 1926 piece on

1155-504: A single-issue socialist paper, known either as Vă Înfrățiți, Noroade! ("Come Together as One, Peoples!") or Jos Vandalii! ("Down with the Vandals!"). According to Iliescu, his poetry in favor of world fraternity was not unlike works by Sully Prudhomme —though, he adds, Neculuță could not have been acquainted with Prudhomme's verse. Overall, Neculuță remained loyal to the Marxist faction led by I. C. Frimu following an 1899 split in

1232-489: A small festivity, which included recitations from Neculuță's poems. Neculuță was also afforded attention by the National Renaissance Front regime of 1938–1940, which reclaimed him for its brand of corporate statism . Its official magazine, Muncă și Voe Bună , reported that this "poet-cobbler" had lived during an era of slavery, and praised him for his take on the social landscape of ca. 1900. Under

1309-529: A ticket to see Jan Kubelík play; that night, he bunked with a friend, the sculptor Filip Marin. He tried again to change profession by applying for the Music Conservatory . According to Kiss, he was simply rejected; Spina, however, notes that he was "for a short while, a Conservatory student." After this failure, he "lived the life of a poor shoemaker in Bucharest, working ten to fourteen hours

1386-486: Is mandatory that they be trained to read any poem by Eminescu". Also that year, critic Serafim Duicu praised socialist doyen Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea for not having endorsed "modest" Neculuță's elevation to the literary canon. During the later stages of Romanian communism, several authors thanked the regime for having restored balance in assessing Romanian literature —specifically referring to Neculuță as

1463-520: Is ornamented and inscribed in Romanian Cyrillic . The church is listed as a historic monument by Romania's Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs . 44°24′50″N 26°05′34″E  /  44.41383°N 26.09288°E  / 44.41383; 26.09288 Carol Park Carol I Park ( Romanian : Parcul Carol ) is a public park in Bucharest , Romania , named after King Carol I of Romania . A French garden located in

1540-466: Is ours!" Neculuță was buried in Bellu Cemetery , originally in a crypt designed by Filip Marin. Marin was later buried in that same spot, alongside his friend. Neculuță's only book appeared posthumously in 1907 as Spre țărmul dreptății ; reportedly, its editor was Constantinescu. It was still in print shortly after the peasants' revolt of 1907 . According to a Gendarmerie report, during

1617-795: The Mausoleum of Mărășești . The mausoleum and the monument in front of it were dedicated to the Unknown Soldier . The rotunda remains closed to the public, and guards are stationed to prevent the approach of visitors. In 2005, 1.97 billion old lei from the state budget were allocated to refurbish the monument, even though it was removed from the list of historic monuments in 2004. World first technical interactive museum. Concrete bridge in Carol Park, Bucharest, designed by George Constantinescu and erected in 1906. The two Giants' Statues ( Statuile Giganții  [ ro ] ) flank

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1694-632: The Social Democratic Party . In or around 1904, Neculuță hosted in Bucharest George Bacovia , the younger socialist poet, with whom he attended the May Day celebrations at Dacia Hall. Critic Cornel Regman proposes that there was a crossover of themes and stylistic choices between the two writers—though Neculuță remained Eminescu-like, and Bacovia took up Symbolism. He believes that Neculuță "foreran Bacovia with

1771-634: The sonnet , but also other, complicated stanza formulas, right up to the tune of folk songs. With verse forms that required [my] full mastery of the language, selective and abundant rhyme here and there, flawless rhythm, brevity, thoughtfulness." Moving to Bucharest , the national capital, "toward the turn of the century", Neculuță joined the newly formed Social Democratic Workers' Party of Romania (PSDMR), becoming its "poet-activist". Journalist Leontin Iliescu, who met him upon his arrival, recalls that Neculuță only had 4 lei on him, all of which he spent on

1848-501: The "bitter fate of an individual within the bourgeois and landowning society." Also according to Vitner, the value of Neculuță's work rested in his using traditionalist themes from Eminescu, Coșbuc, and Alexandru Vlahuță , crafting them into a "weapon of war against the inimical ideology of the bourgeoisie". The arrest and prosecution of poet Ion Negoițescu entailed an analysis of his contribution, with one Securitate officer proposing that Negoițescu's 1947 anthology of Romanian poetry

1925-743: The "shoemaker poet" Dumitru Theodor Neculuță (by Emil Mereanu  [ ro ] ), which remain today. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier , inaugurated in 1923 in memory of Romanian soldiers fallen in World War I , was dismantled and moved in 1958 to Mărășești , being replaced by the Mausoleum of the Communist Heroes (see below). In 1991 it was returned to the park, to be moved again in 2007, closer to its original location. Aside from its beautiful vegetation and panoramic views,

2002-633: The 1960s, returning Neculuță to a more modest position in its literary pantheon. The literary community remains divided between those who regard Neculuță as a genuine poet, who was overvalued for political reasons, and those who dismiss him as mediocre and argue that his reputation was entirely fabricated. As noted by philologist Katalin Kese, Neculuță was born shortly after the 1859 unification between Moldavia and Wallachia . A native of Târgu Frumos in Moldavia, his parents were Toader Neculuță and Zamfira

2079-644: The 20,000 m (220,000 sq ft) Lake Filaret. It hosted the 1906 Bucharest Exhibition, and included many pavilions and buildings, of which only the Technical Museum and the open air Roman Arenas survive. The park once contained busts of Ioan Lahovary and Constantin Istrati , but these were replaced after 1948 with busts of George Coșbuc , Alexandru Sahia , Nicolae Bălcescu (these three by Constantin Baraschi  [ ro ] ), and

2156-399: The 2004 biographical dictionary of Romanian writers, they reach at least the average quality of contemporary verses, and along with discussing then-current themes (suffering brought about by love, melancholy, vibrations before nature), they bring new elements such as comradeship with those who suffer and an urging toward revolution and belief in the future. His more contemplative poems describe

2233-538: The General Confederation of Labor issued a volume of "labor poetry", which included Neculuță's Cor de robi ("A Slaves' Choir"). It earned attention from poet Camil Baltazar , who called the piece "vigorous" and "predictive". In October 1948, when it revamped the Romanian Academy , the new communist regime selected Neculuță as a post-mortem member. The proposal was submitted on behalf of

2310-519: The Great ’s reign. Nicolae Ghica-Budești was the architect, while Costin Petrescu painted the interior in 1908–1910. The paintings were cleaned and the iconostasis was gilt in 1926; further repairs were carried out in 1949. A choir gallery was added in 1919. The wooden iconostasis sculpted with floral designs has icons painted by Petrescu in 1907. Thorough repairs were carried out in 1992–1995, when

2387-609: The Military Museum ( Muzeul Militar ), with the fountain in front of the latter museum. The mausoleum was built in honour of revolutionary socialist militants. Designed by architects Horia Maicu  [ ro ] and Nicolae Cucu  [ ro ] , it was inaugurated on 30 December 1963, the 16th anniversary of the Romanian People's Republic . The base is circular and plated with black granite . Above rise five narrow arches covered with red granite. Inside

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2464-873: The Romanian Academy . The Carol Park Mausoleum ( Mausoleul din Parcul Carol ), known during the Communist régime as the "Monument of the Heroes for the Freedom of the People and of the Motherland, for Socialism" ( Monumentul eroilor luptei pentru libertatea poporului și a patriei, pentru socialism ), is located on a plateau. Formerly, it was the site of the Arts Palace ( Palatul Artelor ) and later of

2541-564: The Romanian government agreed to allot 52,700 m (567,000 sq ft) to the Romanian Orthodox Church for the People's Salvation Cathedral project. The cathedral, although popular among the citizenry and supported by the government, drew criticism because it was to be placed on the site of the mausoleum. Symbolically, replacing the mausoleum with a church was seen by some as a removal of painful memories, similar to

2618-581: The academicians by novelist Mihail Sadoveanu . Also that year, a street in Vatra Luminoasă , a workers' section of Bucharest, was renamed after Neculuță, having earlier been named for Ioan S. Nenițescu . By 1949, the Bucharest People's Council had mandated Al. Gheorghiu Pogonești, a children's writer, with running a Neculuță Literary Circle. Regulars included Gheorghe Achiței , Alexandru Andrițoiu , and Fănuș Neagu . The brewery of Iași

2695-1308: The base there is a rotunda covered in red granite plates; the ceiling is decorated with a golden mosaic . Prior to the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the rotunda contained the crypts of Communist leaders Petru Groza , Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej , and Constantin Ion Parhon . In the semicircle around the monument were crypts containing the remains of a number of socialist militants, such as Ștefan Gheorghiu , Ion C. Frimu , Mihail Gheorghiu Bujor , Leontin Sălăjan , Dumitru Petrescu, Alexandru Moghioroș , Gheorghe Cristescu , Gheorghe Stoica  [ ro ] , Petre Constantinescu-Iași , Ștefan Voitec , Gheorghe Petrescu, Teohari Georgescu , Chivu Stoica , Gheorghe Vasilichi , Ion Pas , Constantin Doncea , Petre Borilă , Athanase Joja  [ ro ] , Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (after his rehabilitation), Ioan Gheorghe Olteanu, Grigore Preoteasa , Lothar Rădăceanu , Iosif Rangheț , Alecu Constantinescu , Gheorghe Petre, Ilie Pintilie , Bela Breiner  [ ro ] , Leonte Filipescu , and Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea . To

2772-483: The care of the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs . The park was designed by French landscape artist Édouard Redont  [ fr ] in 1900 on Filaret Hill, under the supervision of Constantin Istrati , then president of the Romanian Academy. It was inaugurated in 1906, on the 40th anniversary of the coronation of King Carol I . The park had an initial surface area of 36 ha (89 acres), including

2849-488: The child had not been pressured into respecting bourgeois institutions." The boy was passionate about music and had hopes of becoming a violinist; the circumstances of his birth made it impossible that he would afford tuition, and instead he was pushed to earn a living from age ten, working as a shoemaker's apprentice. His formal education was limited to two grades of primary school. His father dead, and raised by his mother in "great poverty", he ran away to seek his fortune in

2926-525: The conflict between the quiet beauty of rural landscapes and the inner turmoil of proletarians who witness them. Neculuță was impressed with the plight of all lower strata, producing some poems specifically about the sufferings of peasants or the Romani underclass. However, he remains primarily important for his ability to convey industrial strife. While acknowledging the "gaucherie" of various such compositions, Deșliu highlights their overall primordialism in

3003-413: The death of their only bard, were dispersed as if a conspiratorial terrorist assembly." Democracy activist Dem. I. Dobrescu regarded the event as a pseudo-legal ban on "legal socialism", at a time when Neculuță's poems "are printed and are allowed to be printed." The 24th commemoration in 1928 was marked by a workers' pilgrimage at Bellu, though reportedly no writers were invited. A similar event in 1930

3080-465: The dogmatic period". Following the anti-communist rebellion of December , Neculuță and other socialist writers underwent further reassessment, with literary historian Matei Călinescu calling the previous trend "aberrant": "in poetry, for instance, alongside Eminescu, and at some point even above him, they worked to establish the reputation of the 'cobbler-poet' D. Th. Neculuță as a proletarian classic". In November 1990, Brașov 's Poet Neculuță Alley

3157-576: The former Moldavian capital, Iași . Journalist G. Spina also notes that Neculuță spent time wandering through the Eastern Carpathians , and also that he was for a while a tutor, "paid by the hour", for schoolchildren in Iași's slums. He was working in Iași around the time when Romanian poetry was being revolutionized by Eminescu; Neculuță's first-ever works were pastiches from Eminescu, with similar borrowings from Romanian folklore . Neculuță

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3234-468: The giants. The former was done in marble ; the latter are in Rousse stone. The Roman Arena, an open-air theater built by architect Leonida Negrescu and engineer Elie Radu , were originally intended for sporting as well as cultural events. After renovation in 1968, they can host c. 5,000 spectators, and are currently used as a venue for occasional concerts. The park drew national attention in 2003 when

3311-492: The high school curriculum as an "act of justice toward a writer of working-class origin and—precisely for that reason—chased out of all bourgeois schoolbooks." At that moment in Romanian history, which came with the embrace of socialist realism , official publishing houses put out editions of his works, some of which ran at 100,000 copies. In 1955, Kiss rendered Spre țărmul in Hungarian; the same year, Endre Pálffy published

3388-466: The interior and part of the exterior frescoes were repainted. The church is triconch in form, with walls up to 1.5 metres (4 feet 11 inches) thick. Adhering to the Moldavian style of church architecture, its dimensions are 22.65 by 10.60 metres (74.3 by 34.8 feet). A large stone cross was placed on the right side of the church in 1906. This dates to 1677, to the reign of Antonie Ruset . It

3465-709: The last piece to include Neculuță within the "commandeered and colonized canon" was put out by Emil Boldan in 1961. In his comparative study of Neculuță and Bacovia, put out in 1963, Regman defended Neculuță's status as a poet, arguing that his work had genuine aesthetic value beyond Vitner's "simplified" take. Țoiu believes that Neculuță's posthumous downfall mainly happened because the new communist leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu , loathed poems which reminded him of his own shoemaker's training. In 1984, literary scholar Al. Dobrescu argued that poets such as Neculuță and Panait Cerna only had "informative value", and that students could be excused for not memorizing their works, whereas "it

3542-525: The mausoleum was built, an eternal flame burned on an upper terrace near the monument, in a granite amphora . This was intended to preserve the memory of those who had fought on behalf of the working class . In 1991, the mausoleum acquired a new purpose when the Communists were exhumed and interred in other cemeteries. They were replaced by the remains of soldiers fallen in World War I, brought from

3619-418: The mood of those waiting for a job opportunity in front of the factory. Despite this, there is no trace of romantic anti-capitalism in his poetry. The factory and the machine are not enemies of Neculuță and his colleagues. Work and the workplace are 'sacred', the machine is a diligent friend." Kiss further describes Neculuță as stylistically accomplished: "the most difficult and demanding verse forms, primarily

3696-763: The movement—a "revolutionary appeal" he published that year, called Spre țărmul dreptății ("Toward the Shores of Justice"), implicitly condemned PSDMR centrists (known as the "generous ones"). By 1901, he and fellow shoemaker Valerian Prescurea were among the most active members of Munca society, which, from its offices on Bucharest's Vamei Street, supported the PSDMR's reestablishment, recruiting intellectuals such as C. Z. Buzdugan and Iosif Nădejde . In Icoana Vremii , Neculuță also published two prose pieces which later critics describe as being without particular artistic value, as well as several articles that put forth his credo of

3773-471: The only venue which still cultivated his verse. He argues that this underground fame helped to establish a style of radical poetry, including anonymous interwar hymns by Communist-Party militants. Some other works of this nature had known authors: as one of the Communist Party founders, Mihail Cruceanu wrote "poetry in the manner of lyrical cobbler Theodor Neculuță". Paul Niculescu-Mizil , later

3850-407: The other statue, a young man leans his head toward his left shoulder, his torso is twisted and he supports himself on his left hand, while the right is behind his back. At first the statues were located before the Arts Palace and of the artificial cave in front of it. The grotto was called "The Giants' Grotto" ( Grota cu Giganți ) or "The Enchanted Grotto" ( Grota fermecată ) as it was watched over by

3927-688: The park also includes several monuments, such as a Mausoleum, the Cantacuzino Fountain (built in 1870), another fountain, Fântâna Minelor și Carierelor (1906), the Giants' Statues, the Zodiac Fountain (1934), the Technical Museum (first opened in 1909), a monument in the shape of a small mosque built in 1923 as a sign of reconciliation. Also in the park are the open-air Roman Arena, and the Astronomical Institute of

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4004-413: The park's main walkway near the 11 June Square ( Piața 11 iunie ) entrance. 3.5 m (11 ft) tall and 50 m (160 ft) from one another, they form a line perpendicular to the walkway and depict two nude youths. One of them shows a young man with a strained look. His head is bowed, his right shoulder twisted, he leans on his left hand, the right he keeps behind his back, and the legs are bent. In

4081-451: The poet most of all feared living in an unheated room; this theme permeates his verse, wherein the chimney flame "celebrated as if a loved and longed-for human being". His works were generally inspired by Eminescu and George Coșbuc , but, as communist poet Dan Deșliu writes, they also had distinct echoes from left-liberal and socialist poets— Cezar Bolliac , Dimitrie Bolintineanu , Traian Demetrescu , and Alexandru Vlahuță . As noted in

4158-515: The poet was in fact known from birth as either Neculuță or Neculiță. During his earliest years with his father in Târgu Frumos, Dumitru probably picked up a hostility toward organized religion. This was argued by Dragomir, who recounts that Toader Neculuță made a point of not going to confession in his local Orthodox church after 1864: "If we note that back then D. Neculuță was a five-year-old, we can easily conclude that, in his parental home,

4235-541: The prose of realists such as Honoré de Balzac and Émile Zola . His friend A. Costin recalled in 1905 that Neculuță would spend his Christmas savings on books and plain bread, mocking party-goers; Neculuță also reportedly complained whenever he had to sell parts of his personal library, noting that "everything in today's society goes against men who seek to enlighten themselves!" He made his debut in print in 1894, when Icoana Vremii magazine took up some of his writings, which he signed as "D. Niculescu". As Deșliu notes,

4312-399: The regime of Ion Antonescu , critics discovered the patriotic poetry of another proletarian, Leonte Dumitrescu, whom they likened to Neculuță. In that context, Iliescu argued that Neculuță had been "quickly and unjustly forgotten." Also a shoemaker and poet, Cristian Sârbu braved Antonescu's censors by titling one of his volumes as D. Th. Neculuță . Shortly after the coup of August 1944 ,

4389-560: The removal of other communist statues and symbols. On the other hand, it was argued that it served as a reminder of Romania's fight for democracy. In addition, the building was seen as an architectural monument and drew the protests of Romanian architects. The cathedral site has since been moved next to the Palace of the Parliament . Dumitru Theodor Neculu%C8%9B%C4%83 Dumitru Theodor Neculuță (also known as Neculiță and Dumitru

4466-464: The right of the monument was a hemicycle containing the funeral urns of Communist leaders, such as Vasile Luca , Ștefan Foriș , Iosif Chișinevschi , Ana Pauker , Mihail Roller , and Remus Koffler , and Communist militants, including Gheorghe Vasilescu-Vasia  [ ro ] , Constantin David , Ada Marinescu , Panait Mușoiu , Barbu Lăzăreanu , Simion Stoilow , and Mihail Macavei . When

4543-429: The same notion: "the great majority of Romanian progressive poets had generally talked about the sufferings of 'the people', but by the people they mainly meant the poor peasantry. Others often said proletariat, but meant Lumpenproletariat . In Neculuță's poems, the voices of class-conscious urban and industrial workers are unmistakably heard. [...] [He] condenses the tragedy of proletarians selling their labor power into

4620-484: The socialist club, in or shortly after 1895—noting that he was one of two "poet-cobblers" that the PSDMR could count as its own—the other one was Arghir Parua. Dragomir identifies him as D. Azur , the author of an 1895 piece taken up by the illustrated supplement of Adevărul daily. During the antisemitic agitation of November 1897, Neculuță took the side of Romanian Jewish victims. His La un vandalism antisemit ("Regarding an Act of Antisemitic Vandalism") appeared in

4697-497: The southern-central area of Bucharest, partly on Filaret Hill, originally capable of hosting various exhibitions, it suffered considerable modifications during the communist regime , including a name change to Parcul Libertății (Liberty Park). The park has officially been listed as a historical monument since 2004. Administration of the park is undertaken mostly by the Bucharest City Hall , whereas monuments are in

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4774-574: The standards of Romanian " proletarian literature ", Ion Mehedințeanu argued that "bourgeois criticism" had both Neculuță and his younger colleague, Ion Păun-Pincio , "buried in the tomb of silence". As he notes: "Shoemaker Neculuță's poetry volume is the shrieking anguish of a prostrating and obscured class. His eyes set on the shores of justice, he awakens the proletariat to the coming age." Deșliu similarly claims that "bourgeois criticism and historiography [...] weaved around Neculuță's work that familiar conspiracy of silence", leaving socialist gatherings as

4851-672: The subsequent clampdown socialists made efforts to reach out to peasants with their propaganda. In March 1908, a Gorj County activist was held in custody for distributing Neculuță's poems, alongside pamphlets by Christian Rakovsky , Toma Dragu , and Peter Kropotkin . Neculuță's volume was also circulated in Austria-Hungary by the Social Democratic Party of Hungary and its Romanian section, which recommended it as "not [to be] left out of any enlightened worker's personal library". In October 1911, Arad 's socialist club commemorated Neculuță with public readings from his work. The meeting

4928-499: The two giants and a Sleeping beauty ( Frumoasa adormită ). The three statues showed the characters of a legend where twins, in love with the same woman, were turned into stone due to their unrequited love, while the object of their love became a waterfall. At that time, the giants were displayed one before the other, with the sleeping beauty lying down in the middle. Filip Marin  [ ro ] sculpted Sleeping beauty ; Dimitrie Paciurea and Frederic Storck were responsible for

5005-488: The underground Romanian Communist Party ; his cultivation sometimes drew suspicion from Romania's right-wing governments. Public gatherings were held at his commemoration date in October, including one in 1924, which ended with a roundup by Romanian Police . Socialist circles upheld Neculuță as a forerunner of " proletarian literature ", but he was largely regarded as a minor author in more official contexts. This contrast

5082-586: Was a corpus delicti —among the reasons cited was its failure to sample Neculuță's work. In the early 1950s, samples of Neculuță's poetry were included in the Romanian high-school curriculum, initially as "provisional theses". The 50-year commemoration of Neculuță's death was marked by the Writers' Union of Romania with an official ceremony: Dragomir gave a lecture, while Demostene Botez and Ioanichie Olteanu read out from Spre țărmul . The following year, critic George Ivașcu wrote about Neculuță's inclusion in

5159-508: Was also named after the poet. These gestures inaugurated what the Communist Party newspaper, Scînteia , described as a "work to restore the cultural treasure of the past", which included "bringing out to light the work of our first worker-poet". A monograph on Neculuță, written "in the spirit of the times", was completed and published in 1950 by Ion Vitner , a dentist turned literary critic. In it, Vitner proposed that Neculuță had outranked Eminescu when it came to poetic abilities in depicting

5236-457: Was attended by poet Sándor Csizmadia , who expressed his belief in proletarian internationalism as a cultural bridge between Romanians and Hungarians. A reprint of Spre țărmul , curated by Barbu Lăzăreanu , appeared in 1919. According to Petrescu, Neculuță's other contribution was in rekindling socialist agitation after the "generous ones" had split the movement. Overall, he notes, "Neculuță failed to achieve his definitive accomplishment as

5313-474: Was criticized as early as April 1958 by a Marxist literary man, Ovid Crohmălniceanu , who opined that only "vulgar sociologism" could account for such views. Neculuță's cultivation was fully curbed in the mid-1960s, with the advent of national communism . As noted by critic Tudor Opriș, it saw the "reduction to their normal dimensions of writers whom Proletkult apologetics had hypertrophied"—Neculuță and Vlahuță, but also Bolliac and Alexandru Toma . Reportedly,

5390-534: Was drawn into radical politics from an early age—at some point, he confessed to Constantinescu that "I was born a revolutionary; I feel within me the hatred of so many generations of proletarians". Proudly self-taught, he was familiarized with the work of Karl Marx , but also kept up with non-political literature. Uninterested in the Symbolist movement , he read from Eminescu and the classics of poetry—including Homer , Virgil , and William Shakespeare ; he also knew

5467-589: Was ever directly influenced by Neculuță. This is largely because Bacovia "assimilates through transfiguration." "Impoverished and lamented by the proletariat as a whole", the poet died at his one-room home on Bucharest's Ștefan cel Mare Highway shortly after his 46th birthday (on October 17, 1904, in New Style dates). Though writer Constantin Țoiu recalled in 1997 that Neculuță had died of lung disease in Colentina Hospital , he had in fact suffered

5544-549: Was first registered with his matronymic , a Ciubotăriții or Aciubotăriții , literally "of the cobbler's wife". Essayist Florentin Popescu suggests that "Neculuță" can be viewed as a pen name, favored over "a Ciubotăriții" for stylistic reasons. Popescu also notes that this choice was unusual, since his original surname "made it blatantly clear that he had a very 'healthy' [proletarian] origin". Dragomir, who originally credited this claim, withdrew it in 1959, upon discovering that

5621-760: Was hosted by the Socialist Workers Party of Romania , with Anagnoste conferencing "on the poet's life and work." Between these two events, in December 1929, the Romanian Railways workers' club in Pașcani was established, and took its name from Neculuță. By the mid 1930s, the poet was gaining recognition from the authorities themselves. In November 1935, they allowed communists held in Jilava Prison to mark October Revolution Day with

5698-510: Was initially scheduled to walk down Calea Victoriei , and thus parade in front of the Royal Mansion . Romanian Police intervened to stop this from occurring, and also confiscated red flags carried by participants. Two hundred black ribbons were distributed instead. This count was reported to Frimu, who openly rejoiced: "Well then, that there's two hundred friends of our cause! So then, we're growing, we're getting stronger! The future

5775-446: Was overturned in the late 1930s, when Neculuță was openly celebrated by the National Renaissance Front ; it was also resumed in full after 1948, when the communist regime took over, making Neculuță a posthumous member of the Romanian Academy . The move, as well as his inclusion in literary textbooks, were contested by various regime critics, who regarded them as incoherent or distasteful. The regime itself scaled down such promotion from

5852-538: Was renamed after Stephan Ludwig Roth . Revisiting Neculuță's poetry after hearing it recited by his barber, Țoiu commented that he was primarily a "decent shoemaker" and "unfortunate people's bard", who never warranted "the sort of revulsion, of aversion, that I felt toward the dictator." In early 2008, the poet's name resurfaced in a satirical computer quiz game mocking Prime Minister Adrian Năstase for his supposed Romani origin. Users were asked to pick from several public figures, of whom Neculuță, rather than Năstase,

5929-530: Was replaced with a poetic calling: stylistically, Neculuță followed a tradition upheld by Mihai Eminescu and George Coșbuc , which he infused with the tenets of Marxism and his own experience of acute poverty. He wrote for many decades, but was only published from 1894. In parallel, he established his profile as a "poet-activist" for the Social Democratic Workers' Party and its more radically progressive faction, spending his final years as

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