Dumitru Corbea (born Dumitru Cobzaru; September 6, 1910 – March 26, 2002) was a Romanian poet, prose writer, and political activist. Born into rural poverty in Western Moldavia, he worked a variety of jobs and was briefly an indentured servant. He aspired to literary greatness and cultivated himself, also being adopted as a child soldier in the Romanian Land Forces during the 1920s. He debuted as a poet in 1929, while studying for his commercial-school degree; committed to Romanian nationalism, he drifted into fascism, and, in the early 1930s, joined the Iron Guard. In 1935, Corbea switched to a rival revolutionary group, the Crusade of Romanianism, and went public with his radical critique of the Guard. He frequented the modernist club Sburătorul, but did not share its agenda—being instead committed to an updated version of Poporanism, which seeped into his poetry volumes. In tandem, he drifted toward the political left, joining the illegal Romanian Communist Party and, more publicly, the National Peasantists. His first arrest came during the parliamentary elections of 1937.
Under the National Renaissance Front regime, Corbea was protected by Labor Minister Mihai Ralea, finding permanent employment at the Social Service and the national radio company. He was called up under arms during the early stages of World War II, but rearrested and charged with spying in 1940; as the Iron Guard established its Legionary government, the military authorities preferred to set him free, and he spent time in hiding. The military dictatorship set up by Ion Antonescu allowed him to join the Central Institute of Statistics, but Corbea used his position there to protect communists and Jews—including upon being dispatched for fieldwork in Transnistria Governorate. He was forced to fight against the Red Army during the Odessa Offensive, but managed to make his way into Romania with the retreating troops. Networking with the resistance movement, he was an indirect participant in the anti-fascist coup of 1944. Its success allowed him to return from hiding and publicly join in Romania's communization.
An editor and photojournalist at Scînteia, Corbea documented Romanian participation in the Budapest offensive, before returning to partake in political and literary affairs. He was a prolific contributor of agitprop during the early stages of the Romanian communist regime, especially involved in promoting a personality cult for Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. Despite his complete and lasting commitment to Socialist Realism, his stances were at times unorthodox: he always maintained a dose of nationalism, criticized agricultural collectivization, and, as comptroller at the Writers' Union of Romania, extended protection to marginalized authors such as Tudor Arghezi. Corbea was revered for his poetry after the regime had entered its national-communist stage, and, in the 1980s, published selective, at times controversial, memoirs. He also lived through the violent end of communism, dying at the age of 91.
Early life and debut Born in Sârbi-Vlăsinești, Dorohoi County, his parents Dumitru Cobzaru and Ecaterina (née Filipescu)Aurel Sasu (ed.), Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române, Vol. I, pp. 382-383. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. Vasile, p. 600 were peasants. One of his grandfathers had served in the Land Forces during the 1870s war of independence.Corbea (1982), p. 165 The Cobzarus also had one other son, Constantin, and five girls, who shared meager resources between them.Corbea (1982), pp. 15, 21 As summarized by literary critic Mihai Ungheanu, Dumitru Jr had a "bitter rural childhood".Mihai Ungheanu, "Cronica literară. Dumitru Corbea: Memorii", in Luceafărul, Vol. XXVI, Issue 9, March 1983, p. 2 His father was drafted when Romania entered World War I; the orders to leave for the front greatly upset him, and he nearly injured Dumitru Jr in a fit of rage.Corbea (1982), pp. 14–15 Though sometimes described as having been gunned down in the Battle of Mărășești,Sdrobiș, p. 48 he succumbed to frostbite at a military hospital in Dorohoi.Corbea (1982), p. 16 Ecaterina took charge of the family, and, driven by pity, shared her family budget with Bulgarian and Ottoman prisoners of war, who were being starved out at a labor camp outside Săveni.Corbea (1982), pp. 15–16
Having to pay for his own tuition,T. V., "Pagina elevilor. Biobibliografie: Dumitru Corbea", in Luceafărul, Vol. IV, Issue 14, July 1961, p. 9 Dumitru Jr worked from early on—a shepherd-in-training at his grandfather's pen.Corbea (1982), pp. 11–13 The first city he ever visited was Dorohoi, where he happened to witness a violin performance by George Enescu, the future internationally renowned composer.Corbea (1982), pp. 214–215 In 1923, he was taken by his maternal uncle to Iași, being told that he would be allowed to continue his studies. Instead, he was employed there as a shop boy, effectively sold by his relative.Corbea (1982), pp. 17–18. See also Sdrobiș, p. 48 Though he resented the humiliation, he was taken aback with the shop's clients, who were major figures in Romanian literature. He tended on Mihail Sadoveanu, Ionel Teodoreanu and Demostene Botez, also reading portions of their books in his master's collection, and dreaming of following in their footsteps.Corbea (1982), pp. 17–20, 35 Young Cobzaru escaped back to Sârbi, where he worked for himself and his mother. He was alternatively a farmhand, a cowherd, and a shepherd, but had a hard time surviving on the earnings, and decided to become an apprentice woodworker for Cohn's workshop in Ștefănești; he only learned to fashion crates, and was encouraged by a local lawyer to not give up on "book-learning".Corbea (1982), pp. 18–20
Publicly humiliated by Cohn, the future Dumitru Corbea walked to Botoșani. He enlisted at a music school of the Orthodox Church (appearing as a choirboy alongside his brother), but studied intensely so as to be accepted into a state school, and passed with honors.Corbea (1982), pp. 20–26. See also Vasile, p. 600 He also supported himself as a servant of the local politician Petre Irimescu, and as such once attended on the operetta singer Nicolae Leonard; sacked because of his focus on improving himself scholastically, he was reduced to sleeping in the city morgue, before being accepted as a child soldier of the 37th Infantry Regiment.Corbea (1982), pp. 20–27. See also Sdrobiș, p. 49; Vasile, p. 600 While there, he was reportedly subject to "beatings, abuse [and] terror".Peltz, p. 172 He began writing patriotic verse at the age of sixteen, having also embraced the tenets of Romanian nationalism. Early contributions included a humorous version of the carol Plugușorul, which was said to be widely popular in the Dorohoi area. His first publication was the 1929 poetry brochure Poezii patriotice. He is thought to have finished the lower-level course in Botoșani, at A. T. Laurian High School (1929). He disliked the elitist atmosphere, seeing himself as merely tolerate by his supposed peers.Corbea (1982), p. 25; Sdrobiș, p. 49
Despite having earned the affections of his new commander, Cobzaru could no longer be stationed with 37th upon turning 18, and did not want to move to any other garrison.Corbea (1982), pp. 27–29 He therefore quit the army (formally discharged in 1932 as a corporal)Sdrobiș, p. 49 and enrolled at Botoșani's superior commercial school. He was especially focused on learning French and other foreign languages, since these allowed him to indulge his passion for reading literature; for a while, he himself taught French at local School of Arts and Crafts.Corbea (1982), pp. 25–27 He finally graduated from the commercial school in 1935. He had already become politically and culturally, traveling to Bucharest in 1934; he began studying for admission into the Commercial Academy. Cobzaru's first political article raised awareness about the goings-on in Ipotești, where a cottage once owned by the national poet Mihai Eminescu had been condemned and stood to be demolished.
Guardist and Crusader By Corbea's own account, his first political affiliation was with the United Socialists, whose rallies he attended in 1934–1935, hearing speeches delivered by Mihail Gheorghiu Bujor—detailing Bujor's own experience in the October Revolution—and witnessing debates between various factions, including the Trotskyists.Ignat & Corbea, p. 1. See also Corbea (1982), p. 76 This claim is contradicted by researchers such as Dragoș Sdrobiș, who note instead that he was well-liked in right-wing circles and that he had formally joined the fascist Iron Guard in or around 1932.Sdrobiș, pp. 48–49 In November 1935, Cobzaru was monitored by the state secret service, Siguranța, which noted his affiliation with a left-wing splinter of the Guard—called "Crusade of Romanianism", and presided upon by Mihai Stelescu. According to Sdrobiș, he may have been active within that group as early as April or May, when the eponymous Crusader magazine hosted unsigned letters from Dorohoi that may be his; one such piece defends Sadoveanu, who was being heckled and intimidated by Guardist militants.Sdrobiș, pp. 49–50 The same journal also featured a poem in honor of the former communist Panait Istrati, which is signed as "J. Corbea".Sdrobiș, p. 50 In his first signed piece, published in July 1935, Corbea openly attacks the Guardist leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, hinting at his alleged homosexuality. Therein, Corbea invited the Guardists to present evidence to the contrary, offering to "blow my brains off" if proven wrong.
Cobzaru was also a regular attendee of the Sburătorul circle, which gathered in Eugen Lovinescu's home. Decades later, he recalled having been impressed with Lovinescu and other older peers, and estimated his time as a Sburătorul regular as "7–8 years, with interruptions".Ignat & Corbea, p. 3. See also Corbea (1982), pp. 30–31 Corbea himself recalls that Lovinescu was discreetly warm in welcoming him there, but that he had more enthusiastic backers, including Bebs Delavrancea, Dinu Nicodin, and Liviu Rebreanu.Corbea (1982), pp. 32–34, 235 Novelist Virgiliu Moscovici-Monda who heard him reading his poems at Sburătorul, suggests that he overcame initial reluctance by revealing himself as a genuine voice of the peasant class, rather than as an edulcorating neo-traditionalist. Monda likened his genuineness and appeal to the art of Henri Rousseau, as well as to Van Gogh's Potato Eaters.Monda, pp. 333–334 Novelist I. Peltz, who met him there, recalls that Corbea himself would join in the modernists' attack on traditional literature, but discreetly and reasonably, as a "well-mannered peasant" speaking in thick Moldavian dialect.