Dumitru Caracostea

Dumitru Caracostea (March 10, 1879–June 2, 1964) was a Romanian folklorist, literary historian and critic.

He was born in Slatina to Nicolae Caracostea, a magistrate of Aromanian descent, and his wife Eufrosina (née Bichan), a French teacher. His father's family had become wealthy through engaging in commerce, which opened the possibility of higher education for its members. He attended primary school and one year of high school in his native town, completing his secondary education at Saint Sava High School in Bucharest in 1900. That year, he enrolled in the literature and philosophy faculty of the University of Bucharest, which he attended intermittently: in 1902, he was working as a clerk at the court of auditors, abandoning his studies for a time; in 1905, he married Lucia Walter of Iași, which likely further detained him from educational pursuits. She came from an eminently respectable family and was a university graduate in literature; she was some three years his junior, and the couple were classmates. The marriage would result in two children.

Only in 1906 did he return to university, and graduated first in his class in 1908. His professors included Titu Maiorescu, Ioan Bianu and Ovid Densusianu; their influence on his intellectual development was decisive. In 1909, he obtained a scholarship for Vienna University, where he studied under the direct supervision of Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke. He successfully defended two doctoral theses in 1913: one on philosophy, the other on Romance philology. He returned home upon the outbreak of World War I. From 1914 to 1925, he was a high school teacher. In 1920, he began offering courses at Bucharest University, first as associate professor in Bianu's department and, from 1930, as full professor at the department of modern Romanian literature and folklore. Thanks to his efforts, the Institute of Literary History and Folklore was founded in 1933; among other publications, a series of "literary confessions" by contemporary Romanian writers appeared under its aegis.

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