Avram Steuerman-Rodion

A native of Iași city, the historical capital of Moldavia region, Steuerman was a graduate of the National High School.[1] He published his first poem in Drapelul, a Moldavian weekly, and debuted as a polemicist in the satirical journal Perdaful.[1] A passionate writer and, according to his friend Blumenfeld-Scrutator, "the prototype of journalistic refinement",[2] he moved on to establish his own newspaper. Addressed to the Moldavian Jews, it was called Răsăritul ("The East"), and stood for Zionism.[3] Steuerman also contributed to the Iași gazette Jurnalul, an organ of a left-wing political movement spearheaded by George Panu. Known under the pen name As., he was a noted proponent of socialist literature and didacticism in art, following the theories of socialist thinker Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea.[4]

As a result, Steuerman had his works published in the Moldavian socialist review, Contemporanul.[5] He fought to defend Dobrogeanu-Gherea against dissident socialists, in particular against a pseudonymous critic, I. Saint Pierre. In November 1894, he and Anton Bacalbașa of Adevărul daily were each proposing ways to uncover Saint Pierre's real identity, and debating each other on the actual nature of Pierre's critique.[4] By then, Steuerman's own articles were being taken up by Adevărul.[6] As a correspondent, he was using a regional pen name: De la Iași, later A. de la Iași.[7]

By 1893, Steuerman had enlisted at the University of Iași Faculty of Medicine,[8] but was still preoccupied with literary studies. The Jewish printing house of Lazăr Șaraga hosted Steuerman's selection of Romanian literature, Autori români ("Romanian Authors"). Published in or around 1893, it was divided into two volumes: the Anthology-proper and the Chrestomathy.[9] Steuerman and Șaraga published a second edition in 1896.[10] Between these, Steuerman and his editor worked on translations from the work of philosopher Vasile Conta, putting out the Theory of Universal Undulation in 1894, and the Basic Metaphysics in 1896.[11] The same collaboration brought the posthumous edition of poems by the socialist Traian Demetrescu, published by Șaraga and prefaced by Steuerman,[12] and tales by Carmen Sylva, the Queen-consort of Romania.[13]

In Moldavia, Steuerman made his name writing for the moderate left-wing paper Evenimentul. Additionally, he worked with the Evenimenul men Al. Stroja-Flișki and Ioan Dafin on the literary magazine Cărticica Săptămânei.[14] Writing years later, Dafin called Rodion "one of [Romania's] most talented journalists". According to Dafin, he wrote with "amazing ease", and was involved on all aspects of creative work.[15]

In parallel, Steuerman was studying to become a Doctor of Medicine: beginning in autumn 1896, he furthered his medical studies in France.[16] Normally, this departure would have brought a hiatus in his journalistic activity. Steuerman compensated by mailing daily contributions to Evenimentul, and, as Dafin notes, "his absence from Iași was not at all felt by his readers."[17] Upon his return, he set up a medical practice in the city.[18] His thesis, on the treatment of skin cancer, was eventually printed in 1898.[19]

His writing career was consecrated by several volumes of lyrical poetry—Sărăcie ("Poverty"), Lirice ("Lyricals"), Spini ("Thorns")—, a volume of short stories—O toamnă la Paris ("An Autumn in Paris")—, a libretto for an opera about Moldavian Prince Petru Rareș,[20] and several translations. The latter work includes versions of plays or poems by Tristan Bernard, Heinrich Heine, Victor Hugo, Ada Negri, Leo Tolstoy etc.[21]

In 1897, Steuerman was a contributor to Noutatea ("The Novelty"), an independent daily published in Iași by the Jewish poet Berman Goldner-Giordano. This short-lived gazette had a relatively obscure history, and one of its contributors, the maverick socialist Garabet Ibrăileanu reportedly forgot to mention it in all his later accounts of the period.[22] Its regular contributors were young supporters of left-wing ideologies: alongside Steuerman and Giordano, they include poet Mihail Codreanu and future jurist Eugen Heroveanu.[22] With Codreanu, Steuerman (who usually disguised his name under the signatures Rodion, Aster, Leander and Tristis) took charge of the literary column and the poetry section.[22] They were sporadically joined by other writers, among them Laura Vampa, Alexandru Toma, I. A. Bassarabescu, George Ranetti etc.[22]

Steuerman focused on his work in the journalistic genre. In 1901, Goldner's edited a selection of his friend's contributions, as Ele ("Them").[19] Four years later, Dacia publishers issued Rodion's critical essay about the classical Jewish humorist Cilibi Moise.[19] At that stage, the Jewish writer was encountering resistance from the antisemitic literary movement in Moldavia. One such incident occurred when, as A. Trestianu, he published his poems in the magazine Arhiva, Organul Societății Științifice și Literare. That collaboration ended abruptly, when Gheorghe Ghibănescu, the editor in chief, discovered that Trestianu was a Jew, and ordered his staff to destroy the physical evidence of Rodion's correspondence.[23]

In 1903,[24] Steuerman married Angela, daughter of Iași-based Jewish folklorist Moses Schwartzfeld, and was integrated into the Schwartzfeld family.[25] Rodion also became a literary chronicler at Ordinea ("The Order"), published by the Conservative-Democratic Party, and held a similar position at Alexandru Bădărău's Opinia ("The Opinion"). The latter employed him as its main editor for several years on end: Steuerman wrote three simultaneous columns in Opinia,[1] and (Dafin argues) was "the paper's true soul."[26] He was perpetually interested in new social and cultural developments, and enthusiastic about the birth of cinema, writing in Opinia about the coming demise of demise, and probably authoring the advertorials about "moving-picture soirées" in Iași.[27]

During those years, Rodion began a cordial correspondence with Ion Luca Caragiale, the self-exiled Romanian playwright. Himself a noted proponent of Jewish emancipation and Jewish Romanian literature, Caragiale viewed Steuerman as one of his best Jewish friends, a group which also includes Dobrogeanu-Gherea, dramatist Ronetti Roman, journalists Barbu Brănișteanu and Emil Fagure,[28] as well as Steuerman's own publisher Șaraga.[29] Around 1907, Caragiale publicly stated his admiration for Steuerman and Ronetti Roman. His words of praise irritated nationalist historian Nicolae Iorga, who published the antisemitic review Neamul Românesc: in one of his articles for that magazine, Iorga reported that Caragiale was a sellout to Jewish interests.[30] Caragiale indirectly reacted to this accusation in 1908, when he satirized Iorga's scholarly ambitions with a mordant epigram that was first published in Convorbiri Literare.[31]

Meanwhile, Rodion was becoming a Romanian expert on the poetry of Heinrich Heine. In 1910, he published a comparative study of Heine and Édouard Grenier; a year later, the volume Complicele lui Heine ("Heine's Accomplice").[19] His work established Rodion's reputation outside Moldavia: in Transylvania, critic Ilarie Chendi noted that, with Dumitru Karnabatt and some others, the "fecund" Steuerman was still maintaining alive the tradition of cultural journalism.[32] Diversifying his contributions, he published in Opinia and Ordinea his introductions to the work of Oscar Wilde.[33] Obtaining Caragiale's blessing, he regularly put out quatrains with humorous commentary of political affairs.[34] Rodion also rallied with Viața Socială, a left-wing paper put out in Bucharest by the republican agitator N. D. Cocea.[35] At Iași, he and Goldner-Giordano were invited to write for a regional newspaper of record, Gazeta Moldovei.[36] In 1912, Steuerman's review of French-language studies of Romanian literature, from Theodor Cornel to Léo Claretie, saw print in the newspaper Românul of Arad.[37] The same year, again signing A. Trestianu, he returned to Arhiva with a translation from Carmen Sylva.[38]

Despite literary recognition, and probably because he was perceived as a foreigner, Steuerman was not invited to join the newly created Romanian Writers' Society (SSR). He ridiculed the SSR's xenophobia in a series of articles for Ordinea and Opinia.[39] His comments enlisted negative reactions in Chendi's Cumpăna magazine, where it was implied that Rodion risked awakening latent antisemitism, but were defended by his more liberal colleagues at Noua Revistă Română.[40] At around the same time, Rodion had become a sympathizer of Josef B. Brociner and his "Society of Romanian Israelites"—a local branch of Hovevei Zion and one of Romania's first Jewish political associations.[41]

Steuerman befriended the much younger Benjamin Fondane (born Benjamin Wechsler in 1898), to whom he was known as bădi ("uncle") Adolf or Adolphe.[42] Their camaraderie and kinship (Fondane was Moses Schwartzfeld's nephew) doubled as literary training: around 1912, when Fondane was aged 13, Steuerman reviewed his debut verse and encouraged him to continue.[43] Reportedly, Rodion also helped introduce his relative to the socialist circles of Iași.[44]

During the first stage of World War I, when the Kingdom of Romania maintained its neutrality, Rodion grew close to the political circles comprising Germanophiles, neutralist socialists or pacifists. Like his colleagues there, Rodion was not a keen supporter of making Romania part of the Entente camp; he looked with more sympathy toward the German Empire and the Central Powers.[18] He was allied with Panait Zosin and Sebastian Moruzzi, two left-wing dissidents from the Conservative-Democratic Party. Rodion contributed to Zosin's press organ, Îndrumarea, which advanced election reform and complete Jewish emancipation.[45]

In June 1915, Avram Steuerman was assigned a regular column in Seara, a Bucharest newspaper founded by Germanophile agitator Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești and purchased from him by a German cartel. The Seara pieces, which he signed as Rodion and collectively titled Scrisori din Iași ("Letters from Iași"), sought to depict the Moldavian state of affairs in lively colors, with noted stress on the spread of Germanophile sentiment.[18] They notably covered the conflicts between the academics of Bucharest and Iași, in particular the largely unsuccessful attempt of University of Bucharest envoys to attract Iași University staff into a national pro-Entente organization. The project was opposed by the Germanophile group of former socialist Constantin Stere and rendered ineffectual when Stere's own rival, Rector Matei Cantacuzino, also advised against it.[46]

Drafted into the Romanian Land Forces as a military physician, Rodion saw action throughout the Romanian Campaign, retreating with the army into Moldavia after Bucharest fell to the Germans. His activity in the besieged province is said to have been exemplary throughout the period;[18] in 1917, Rodion had reached the rank of Major.[47] Although he had discarded socialism, he was denounced as suspect following the leftist demonstration in Iași that was led by Max Wexler. Reportedly, he was assigned to a secluded army unit on the Tazlău River, while his case was processed. He feared that a death squad would dispose of him, and became an insomniac.[48] He was later stationed in the village of Căiuți, where he read in Opinia that Fondane's father Isac Wechsler had died. In a letter of condolence he addressed to the Wechslers, Rodion stated: "here [...] death stalks us with every step and makes us love life."[49]

After Romania signed a separate peace with the Central Powers, and following the demobilization of summer 1918, Steuerman returned to Iași. Back into civilian life, Rodion was, like George Topîrceanu, one of the combatants whom the war years had rendered even more critical of the Ententist option; from Moldavia, he sent his texts to be published in Stere's explicitly Germanophile review, Lumina, and, at the same time, began contributing to Scena, the daily owned by conscientious objector A. de Herz.[50] Lumina hosted a second series of his Scrisori, beginning in June 1918.[18] During the same month, Rodion was also a correspondent of the short-lived leftist tribune Umanitatea, launched in Iași by the Bessarabian Germanophile Alexis Nour, and noted for its advocacy of total Jewish emancipation.[51] On July 27, Opinia published Steuerman's eulogistic commentary on the political essays of Stere's follower Dimitrie D. Pătrășcanu; Pătrășcanu's text, grouped under the headline Vinovații ("The Guilty Ones"), constituted an indictment of both the Entente and the National Liberal Party, Romania's main Ententist group.[52]

Avram Steuerman-Rodion was haunted by memories of the war, and, according to historian Lucian Boia, suffered episodes of clinical depression which he both concealed and left untreated.[18] He was also addicted to hypnotics.[53] His condition steadily deteriorating, Rodion became suicidal. On September 19, 1918, he died after intentionally overdosing on morphine.[38] He left several manuscripts, such as Frontul vesel ("The Merry Front", a collection of sonnets) and Însemnări din război ("Notes from the War").[54]

The news of Steuerman's suicide shocked his colleagues and friends in the political-literary community.[18] Homages and obituary pieces were printed in various Romanian press venues, including Lumina, Scena and Opinia—the latter also featured a special commemorative piece by future novelist Cezar Petrescu, La mormântul unui confrate ("At the Tomb of a Brother in Arms", September 26, 1918).[18] A year later, in his columns for Scena daily and the Zionist paper Mântuirea, Fondane paid homage to his deceased uncle. These texts linked Rodion's suicide to desperation over the surge of antisemitism, to chronic insomnia, and to gerontophobia.[55]