Barbu Lăzăreanu

Barbu Lăzăreanu (born Avram Lazarovici, or Bercu Leizerovici, also known as Barbou Lazareano or Barbu Lăzărescu; October 5, 1881 – January 19, 1957) was a Romanian literary historian, bibliographer, and left-wing activist. Of Romanian Jewish background, he became noted for both his social criticism and his lyrical pieces while still in high school, subsequently developing as a satirist and printing his own humorous magazine, Țivil-Cazon. Lăzăreanu's youthful sympathies veered toward the anarchist underground, prompting him to associate with Panait Mușoiu. At that stage of his life, he participated in a bakers' strike, and encouraged peasants to resist encroachment by the landowners.

Lăzăreanu's socialist-and-anarchist advocacy also made him a target of the conservative establishment, which expelled him from the country in 1907. He spent five years studying at the École des Hautes Études in Paris, all the while remaining attached to socialist organizations. He returned to Romania as a publicist, columnist, and workers' educator, being welcomed into a mainstream ethnic organization, the Union of Romanian Jews. During World War I, Lăzăreanu drifted leftward alongside the Social Democratic Party, joining the Socialist Party. He also earned the reputation of a highly focused literary researcher and biographer, noted as the editor of works by Ion Luca Caragiale and Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea. His series of monographs on Romanian literature was well received and sampled by other literary professionals, who were also impressed by his ability to carry on with his work despite a debilitating battle with tuberculosis; however, his attention for very minute detail, and his political bias, were both ridiculed.

By 1933, Lăzăreanu was a public critic of fascism, a fact which contributed to his persecution by the antisemitic far-right in the 1940s. He still managed to write and publish under the National Renaissance Front, but was afterwards marginalized, his propaganda confined to a word-of-mouth version during the regime established by Ion Antonescu. Having narrowly escaped a deportation to Transnistria and a likely death in 1942, he returned to public life after the 1944 Coup and subsequent democratization. He rose to prominence post-1948, under the Romanian communist regime, first as a rector of Ștefan Gheorghiu Academy, then as a member of the Romanian Academy and its Presidium.

Lăzăreanu spent his final decade as a decorated and lionized writer and political forerunner of the regime. As a librarian, he collected, preserved, and censored works left by Panait Istrati. He was also marginally involved in the orthographic reform. Lăzăreanu's final assignments included a steering position on the Jewish Democratic Committee, which functioned as a platform for anti-Zionism. His political activity was complemented by his son Alexandru, who debuted as a cultural journalist, affiliated with the communists, and held high-ranking positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.