Marta Rădulescu
| Marta Rădulescu | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
April 24, 1912 Pitești, Argeș County, Kingdom of Romania |
| Died | 1959 (aged 47) |
| Occupation | journalist, political militant |
| Nationality | Romanian |
| Period | 1929–1940 |
| Genre | autofiction, lyric poetry, satire, sketch story, fairy tale, reportage, travelogue, political novel |
Marta D. Rădulescu (April 24, 1912 – 1959) was a Romanian poet, journalist, and novelist, made famous in the 1930s for her autofictional work. From an academic family with a penchant for radical politics, she veered into fascist politics, supporting the Iron Guard. The commitment shaped part of her work, which, from a satirical rendition of education in the provinces, becomes a document of interwar radicalization and student political battles. Scandal followed the publication of her early prose works, particularly after claims that they had been largely or entirely written by her father—or, alternatively, by her friend and putative lover N. Crevedia. Her polemic with Crevedia was consumed in the national press and in books written by both participants.
A believer in antisemitic conspiracy theories, Rădulescu put out the Iron Guard magazine Revista Mea between 1935 and 1937. By then, however, her sincerity and political literacy had been put into question by Crevedia. She faded into obscurity by 1940, when she issued her last novel, the first installment of an uncompleted cycle. Her other published works include modern fairy tales and a travelogue of her hiking trips.
Born in Pitești, her father Dan Rădulescu was a chemist, and, in the 1930s, a professor at the University of Cluj. Under the pseudonym Justus, he also penned literary works. Marta's brother, Fluor, followed the same career path as their father, and ended up teaching alongside him.
It was also in Cluj that Rădulescu completed her secondary education, at Regina Maria High School. Her first published work, the poem Vorbind cu luna ("Talking to the Moon"), appeared in Dimineața Copiilor magazine (a supplement of Dimineața daily) in 1929. Her first book, a collection of sketches called Clasa VII A ("Grade 7th A"), was published in 1931, followed the same year by Mărgele de măceș ("Dog-rose Beads")—vacation stories and verses which critics have deemed mediocre. Marta also persevered as a poet, publishing new verse in Societatea de Mâine and Hyperion.
Of these writings, Clasa VII A was a best-seller, going through three successive editions at Editura Adevărul of Bucharest. According to critic Pavel Dan, it was "not a good book", but "promising". The stories were also at the center of a scandal involving both the young writer and her father. Since they made no effort to disguise facts from life, and satirized living people using their real names, critics readily claimed that her father had ghostwritten them: during the late 1920s, as a contributor to Cuvântul, Dan Rădulescu had campaigned for reform in public education. Some found the work to be a distasteful act of revenge. Responding to such claims in Societatea de Mâine, Ion Clopoțel argued that Clasa VII A was rather a call for "betterment", "a protest against the lackadaisical nature of some classes being taught, and against some purposefully disengaged attitudes." The modernist doyen Eugen Lovinescu noted the work for its "irreverent rebelliousness" which "gave harmless satisfaction to an entire generation of youth oppressed by their schooling."
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