Bonifaciu Florescu (; first name also Boniface, Bonifacio, Bonifati, last name also Floresco; born Bonifacius Florescu;Potra, p. 133 May 17, 1848 – December 18, 1899) was a Romanian polygraph, the illegitimate son of writer-revolutionary Nicolae Bălcescu. Born secretly outside his parents' native Wallachia, at Pest, he was taken by his aristocratic mother in France, growing up as an erudite Francophone and Francophile. Florescu graduated from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and the University of Rennes, returning home at age 25 to become a successful lecturer, polemicist, and historian of culture. Influenced by his father's politics, he was for a while a prominent figure on the far-left of Romanian liberalism and nationalism, which pitted him against the conservative society Junimea, and against his own conservative cousin, Prime Minister Ioan Emanoil Florescu. The conflict led to his losing a professorship at Iași University and being sidelined when applying for chairs at the University of Bucharest. His critique of Junimist literature, structured around a classical defense of prosody, inspired a libel by Mihai Eminescu—famously depicting Florescu as a "homunculus".
Florescu had significant success as a self-proclaimed irredentist, agitating for Romanian causes in disputed Bukovina and Transylvania. Ultimately, however, he failed in his bid to rise through the National Liberal Party, as the latter moved to the center, and fell back on independent journalism, founding several periodicals of his own. He had a long but interrupted collaboration with another dissident liberal and poet, Alexandru Macedonski, who co-opted him on his Literatorul editing team during the 1880s. A precursor, but not an affiliate, of the Romanian Symbolist movement, Florescu had steadier friendships with the younger Symbolists Mircea Demetriade and Iuliu Cezar Săvescu. His main contribution to pre-Symbolist belles-lettres is prose poetry in the manner of Catulle Mendès.
A committed bohemian, whose lifestyle interfered with his literary output and his teaching job at Saint Sava, Florescu is sometimes read as a herald of decadent writing. He was important to the Macedonskian Symbolists for his familiarity with French culture, but was primarily an expert in 18th-century literature. His criticism, modeled on Villemain, Sainte-Beuve and Taine, was perceived as refined in its context, but later enlisted objections for its pedantry and amateurism. He was a prolific translator passionate about exotic topics, authoring some of the first Romanian versions of stories by Edgar Allan Poe.
Biography Origins Born a Wallachian subject, Bonifaciu Florescu descended from the boyar nobility: the Bălcescus recognized him as a family member; the Florescus, however, refused to accept that Nicolae Bălcescu was the father.Călinescu, p. 530; Potra, pp. 130, 135, 145 His father's family, of lesser rank and prestige, had been founded by Father Necula, a Wallachian Orthodox parson, who purchased the Bălcești estate in 1766. Unusually rich for his social position, he bought for his sons small boyar offices.Bodea et al., pp. 11–15; Potra, pp. 113–114 Despite taking the same name, Nicolae and his two brothers descended from the clan through their mother Zinca; she married Pitar Barbu sin Petre Căpitanul—a gentleman farmer of Prahova, who also owned townhouses in Bucharest.Bodea et al., pp. 16–21; Potra, pp. 114–118 Barbu's financial troubles and quick death contributed to the family's marginalization.Bodea et al., pp. 19–25; Potra, pp. 113–122
The poet's mother, Alexandrina "Luxița" Florescu, claimed direct descent from Wallachian Prince Michael the Brave, and was the daughter of Logothete Iordache Florescu, as well as aunt of Ioan Emanoil Florescu, the Wallachian militia chief.Călinescu, p. 530 The family also had Greek and Albanian ancestors. Iordache, a Ghica on his mother's side, ran in the 1842 election for the Wallachian throne, under the Regulamentul Organic regime; his wife, Anica, was a Soutzos.Lăcusteanu & Crutzescu, p. 270 At age 17, Luxița was married off to a Russian Pole, but divorced him in 1836, alleging that he was hypersexual; he was probably also an alcoholic.Potra, pp. 131–132 She may have then met Bălcescu at the Florescu home in Șerban-Vodă, Bucharest, which functioned as a club for progressive intellectuals; however, Bonifaciu was most likely conceived while the couple reunited in Paris.Călinescu, pp. 185, 530; Potra, pp. 131–132 Reportedly, Bălcescu, ill with tuberculosis and absorbed by his conspiratorial work, informed Luxița that they could never be married, which she accepted.Potra, p. 132
Youth from both families were deeply involved in the Wallachian revolution of 1848, which occurred some weeks after Bonifaciu's birth. Luxița was shielded by her brothers in the Kingdom of Hungary, without informing Nicolae of her whereabouts or her pregnancy, until after she delivered.Potra, pp. 132–134 Bonifaciu was thus born in Pest; his date of birth is variously given as May 14,Alexandru Piru, "Florescu Bonifaciu", in Aurel Sasu (ed.), Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române, Vol. I, p. 593. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. May 17, or May 27.Călinescu, p. 530. "May 27" also in Potra, pp. 133–134, while Crutzescu has "April 27" (p. 490) In July, he was baptized into Orthodoxy at a Pest chapel shared by the Greek and Romanian Orthodox churches. The baptismal record omits mention of his father's family name, but indicates his godfather as Inochentie Chițulescu (future Bishop of Buzău).Potra, pp. 132, 133
By July, Bălcescu had been appointed foreign minister of revolutionary Wallachia, but then a reshuffle pushed him into the background.Călinescu, p. 185 Eventually, the Russian and Ottoman empires intervened militarily, and the revolutionaries were pushed into exile or imprisoned. Brothers Nicolae and Costache Bălcescu escaped to Paris, passing through insurgent Hungary; the third Bălcescu brother, Barbu, was taken to Istanbul as a hostage.Bodea et al., pp. 25–26; Călinescu, pp. 184, 185–188; Potra, pp. 120–121 Three of Luxița's brothers—Iancu, Dumitrache, and Costache Florescu—participated in the events, and played a part in the shootout with the loyalist Colonel Grigore Lăcusteanu, whom they eventually arrested. Unusually, Costache Florescu's daughter married Lăcusteanu's brother Iancu while the colonel was still in captivity.Lăcusteanu & Crutzescu, pp. 34–35, 160–162 All three brothers were repressed during the foreign intervention: Iancu Florescu was arrested by the Russians and spent some eight years in Siberia, returning after the Crimean War removed Wallachia from the Russian sphere of influence; Costache and Dumitrache were taken into Ottoman custody, returning after nine years of exile in Bursa. While Iancu took up law practice,Lăcusteanu & Crutzescu, p. 98 Dumitrache is best known for setting to music the poetry of Vasile Alecsandri.Călinescu, p. 530; Potra, p. 131
With material support from Chițulescu, Luxița and her son returned to Wallachia in 1850.Potra, pp. 133, 134 Although she only formally adopted Bonifaciu in 1858, to solidify his claim to the Florescu estate, he grew up knowing that the exiled Bălcescu was his father.Călinescu, p. 530; Potra, pp. 133, 134–135 Prevented from returning home (with a brief exception in August 1852, when he only met Zinca at Turnu Măgurele),Potra, pp. 120–121 Nicolae died in the Two Siciles (November 1852). His grave is presumed lost.Călinescu, p. 188; Potra, p. 145
French studies and 1873 return Luxița and Bonifaciu were also largely absent from Wallachia as the country merged with Moldavia into the United Principalities (the basis for modern Romania). Bonifaciu attended Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, living with his mother on Rue Saint-Jacques, and possibly obtaining a scholarship from the Romanian government.Călinescu, p. 530; Potra, p. 134 He grew up speaking French at home, and only later perfected his Romanian, which he always spoke with an accent and a guttural R.Potra, p. 136 His impromptu versions of Romanian orthography reflected phonemic spelling with unusual consistency for his day, and they unwittingly recorded his own difficulties in pronouncing Romanian words. This trait was ridiculed by philologist Hanes Suchianu as the very "apex of phoneticism".Longinescu, pp. 6, 8 He would also confuse working-class Romanians by code-switching between Romanian and French. In one instance, he asked a Bucharest coachman to drive him à la maison (French for "where I live"), only to discover that he was being taken instead to Malmaison prison.Dumitru Karnabatt, "Bucureștii de eri. Cafeneaua Fialkovschy", in Rampa, February 28, 1925, p. 1
Familiarized with Bălcescu's works by age 17, Bonifaciu declared his father to have been a "genius", "Romania's only prose writer".Potra, pp. 134–135 He followed Nicolae's radical orientation, declaring the French Revolution as the "triumph of justice, liberty and equality, and a great step toward fraternity"; he also took up the cause of Pan-Europeanism, arguing for "one great European republic, as in America."Potra, pp. 137–138 Reading up on the events at home, Florescu was indignant about the 1866 coup against Domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza. In his view, Cuza, albeit ruling with an "authoritarian hand", was preferable to the foreign-born replacement Carol of Hohenzollern.Potra, p. 138 Passionate about literature, Florescu and his colleague Frédéric Damé set up their own newspaper, L'Avenir ("The Future"), which only put out a few issues.Potra, pp. 134, 317
Florescu was described by teachers and relatives as a charming but inattentive student, and was once moved to a remedial class, ultimately obtaining his baccalauréat in August 1868. In October 1872, he graduated from the literature faculty of the University of Rennes.Călinescu, p. 530; Nastasă (2007), p. 430 From mid 1873, he returned with his mother to Bucharest, where she became the curator of a retirement home maintained by the Sisters of Charity.Călinescu, p. 530; Potra, pp. 135–136 Her son debuted in the Romanian press with an overview of history as reflected in Romanian folklore; it was hosted in Românul, published by C. A. Rosetti (July–August 1873).Călinescu, p. 1003 On October 3, Florescu married Rose-Henriette Le Roho d'Alcobia (born 1849), the orphaned scion of an Anglo-French-Portuguese family.Călinescu, p. 530; Potra, p. 140. See also Nastasă (2010), pp. 51, 83, 237 According to one account, they did not have any children of their own, but later adopted a boy named Ion.Potra, p. 140 Contrarily, literary historian George Călinescu suggests that Ion was the couple's natural son, "a direct descendant of Nicolae Bălcescu".Călinescu, p. 1004
On October 5, following an examination performed by historian Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu,Potra, p. 136. See also Nastasă (2007), p. 244 Florescu had obtained a "provisional"Nastasă (2007), p. 430; (2010), p. 237 professorate at the department of world literature within the literature faculty of Iași University. He thus replaced Nicolae Ionescu, who preferred to keep his seat in the Assembly of Deputies.Călinescu, p. 530; Potra, p. 136 Researcher George Porta suggests that Florescu never actually took hold of his chair, being snubbed by two successive Education Ministers: Christian Tell and Vasile Boerescu.Potra, pp. 136, 137–138 However, his introductory lesson was published in Hasdeu's newspaper, Columna lui Traian,Călinescu, pp. 530, 1003; Perpessicius (1943), p. 239 which also hosted Florescu's homage to the retiring poet Grigore Alexandrescu.Petre V. Haneș, "Îndreptări și întregiri la biografia lui Gr. Alexandrescu", in Preocupări Literare, Issue 5/1936, p. 262 During his time in Iași, Florescu, supported by physician Anastasie Fătu, also founded and operated an adult high school.Perpessicius (1943), p. 239
Clash with Junimea