Theodor August Rășcanu, also credited as Teodor Râșcanu or Rîșcanu (4 November 1888 – 29 July 1952), was a Romanian novelist, historian and poet, also noted for his involvement with groups on the right and far-right of the political spectrum. He was born into the boyar class of Western Moldavia, whose social history is a main topic of his prose; he was related to several figures of note, including Alexandru Ioan Cuza, a founding figure of the united Romanian state. His own childhood witnessed the final stage of the aristocracy's decline, and he theorized early on that its misfortunes were intimately connected with a rise in Jewish immigration. Despite his early interest in politics, and his 1910s recruitment by the Conservative Party, Rășcanu's first published works were poems, including a large number of sonnets. Such contributions were generally ignored by critics, as was his 1925 debut as a social novelist. Meantime, he served as a volunteer in the Second Balkan War, and, despite his qualms about Romania's support for the Entente powers, also fought in World War I. Rășcanu's own magazine, Politica and Gândul Liber, sketched out his ideological approach to Romanian issues, as did his surviving thesis of political economy. His judgments passed into a succession of interwar novels, as well as into his articles for various newspapers. He reached literary significance in 1932 with Ileana Lupului, which, though still seen by critics as somewhat clumsy, impressed with its psychological perspective on the rural soul. Promoția '907, appearing as a feuilleton in 1935, was censored due to its unflattering depiction of Greater Romania's political and literary elites. After openly defying the left-wing Poporanists, Rășcanu also embraced anti-communism, and for a while corresponded with the more senior anti-Soviet intellectual, Panait Istrati. Still a self-confessed antisemite, he enlisted in the National-Christian Defense League, and was afterwards a collaborator, as well as briefly a member, of the fascist Iron Guard; however, he was treated with suspicion in these circles, because of his willingness to acknowledge Jewish contributions on the frontlines. From 1934, he also asked Romanians to refrain from blaming foreigners for all their woes. By the start of World War II, Rășcanu returned with a celebrated biography of his royal cousin. He was reputedly jaded in early 1941, when Ion Antonescu's government repressed the Iron Guard. After Antonescu had engaged Romania on the Eastern Front, he immersed himself in his literary work, printing or merely announcing various episodes from his own family saga. His family estate in Vaslui County, reduced by a 1920s land reform, then damaged by a 1940 earthquake, was ransacked during the Soviet occupation. Rășcanu sold his reduced property and moved around the country, hoping to escape arrest by the newly proclaimed communist regime. He died in Vaslui, possibly by suicide; he remained forgotten into the 1980s, his work only partially recovered and reconsidered after the end of communism.
Biography
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