Daily newspaper published in Bucharest, Romania
Seara (, meaning "The Evening") was a daily newspaper published in Bucharest, Romania, before and during World War I. Owned by politician Grigore Gheorghe Cantacuzino and, through most of its existence, managed by the controversial Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești, it was an unofficial and unorthodox tribune for the Conservative Party. Its involvement in politics sparked numerous scandals, the longest of which came during the neutrality period (1914–1916). Strongly anti-Slavic, "Seara" stood out in that context for supporting the German Empire and Central Powers, and was widely alleged to have been financed by a German propaganda machine. In 1914, it was purchased by German businessmen, but continued to register mediocre success in comparison with its pro-Entente competitors. In late 1916, after Romania decided in favor of the Entente, "Seara" was disestablished.
Noted for publishing the biting satirical pieces and art chronicles of Tudor Arghezi, "Seara" was closely associated with the Romanian Symbolist movement. Through Arghezi, Bogdan-Pitești and other contributors, it campaigned in favor Symbolism and, after 1913, popularized modern art. Although paying tribute to political conservatism throughout its existence, "Seara" was also home to anti-establishment contributors, allies in the anti-Entente cause. The newspaper sympathized with the Social Democratic Party, regularly hosting opinion pieces by socialists and anarchists.
Before 1914.
Beginnings.
Like the daily "Minerva", "Seara" was originally a creation of G. G. Cantacuzino, the Romanian magnate. Cantacuzino, who supported the Conservative Party inner faction of Alexandru Marghiloman, refrained from attaching his name to "Seara", later entrusting Bogdan-Pitești with the position of manager. In 1910, the year of its foundation, "Seara" also followed the Conservative doyens Petre P. Carp and Nicolae Filipescu, supporting Carp's strict monarchism and suggesting that the "Carpist–Filipescan" line was one of moral superiority.
Early in its existence, "Seara" reported on various events agitating public opinion, such as the Romanian Orthodox Church division between the traditionalists and those who supported communion with Rome. In one of its first issues, it hosted a disclaimer by Roman Catholic chanoine Joseph Baud, who calmed enraged Orthodox believers by assuring them that their Metropolitan Bishop Iosif Gheorghian had not died a Catholic. Later, "Seara" gave significant coverage to what it called "scandals in the Vatican", particularly so in the 1911 controversy surrounding Father Verdesi's conversion to Methodism; this prompted the Romanian Catholic press to list "Seara" among those newspapers "at odds with Christian ideas".
At that stage in its history, "Seara" was also sympathetic to the cause of ethnic Romanians living abroad, in Transylvania and other regions of Austria-Hungary: in August 1911, it sent special correspondents to cover the congress of Romanian activist groups in Blußendref (Blaj). The newspaper also reported with disapproval on the growth of nationalism among the Hungarians, covering for a Romanian public the division of Hungarian Socialists along pro- and anti-nationalist politics, and accusing the Károly Khuen-Héderváry administration of subverting the Romanian National Party (PNR). "Seara"'s articles gave exposure to the PNR's official reaction, as voiced by that party's speaker Alexandru Vaida-Voevod. It called Vaida-Voevod "one of the [PNR's] brilliant leaders", responsible "to a great extent for the rescue of party discipline and national solidarity".
In March of the next year, "Seara" published an homage to journalist and ideologue Constantin Stere, noted for having brought back together the two factions of the PNR, and concluded: "Mr. C. Stere, although involved in our country's partisan politics, [...] has transmitted to our quarrelsome brothers a peace message from all of us, proving that the foremost preoccupation of our minds is and will be national solidarity, the pure love for the holy cause of Romaniandom." It later discussed the conflict between PNR politicians and Khuen-Héderváry's successor, László Lukács. In his reply to the PNR (paraphrased by "Seara"), Lukács equated the Romanians' political emancipation in Transylvania with militant irredentism, and prophesied that Transylvania was in real danger of being invaded by the Kingdom of Romania. "Seara" retorted by accusing Lukács of supporting "preemptive" Magyarization in "the multilingual Kingdom of Hungary".
The paper was also taking an interest in the political affairs of the Balkans. Shortly before the Balkan Wars, it published the appeal of Simion, a Greek Romanian politician and editor of Bucharest's "Patris" gazette, who gathered support for a Greco–Romanian alliance against the South Slavs. Simion posited that Romania and the Kingdom of Greece would eventually reach an understanding over the litigious issue of Aromanian nationhood, and blamed the conflict on "shrewd" Slavic meddling.
Moderate Symbolism.
"Seara" also made known its artistic credo, placing itself in the margin of Romanian Symbolism. According to art historian Dan Grigorescu, its awareness of European literature and its cultural effervescence, like those of "Facla", "Viitorul" and other Romanian periodicals with special cultural pages, were impressive. Up to April 1911 (when he was made director of the National Theater Bucharest), Ioan Bacalbașa was "Seara"'s theater columnist. According to his colleagues in the Transylvanian press, Bacalbașa's columns for "Seara" and "Epoca" were a courageous defense of national literature.
During his time at "Seara", Bacalbașa was seconded by poet Dumitru Karnabatt, later a political chronicler for the same newspaper. Karnabatt introduced the stage work of Henry Bataille (Issue 271/1910) and the Aestheticism of Oscar Wilde (editorial piece, Issue 52, 1910). Elsewhere (Issue 425/1911), "Seara" covered the hitherto supposed discovery of an unknown novel by Honoré de Balzac. Around that time, Karnabatt's own literary contributions for "Seara" were samples of Symbolist, Decadent and Impressionist travel writing, sometimes written together with his novelist wife Lucrezzia.
Lucrezzia stopped writing for the paper in 1911, probably as a result of conflicts she had with Bogdan-Pitești, her marriage to Dumitru on the brink of failure. Sometimes signing as "Don Ramiro", Dumitru remained affiliated with "Seara", and in charge of its artistic policies. The newspaper's traditional conservatism was still being reflected in its artistic choices. During late 1910, Karnabatt gave poor reviews to the more rebellious Symbolist painters to emerge from the "Tinerimea Artistică" salon, and deemed the primitivist sculptor Constantin Brâncuși a madman.
In January 1911, the same author used the newspaper to publicize his dislike of Futurism, a modern art and anti-establishment current originating in Italy. Reviewing the "Futurist Manifesto", he called for "demented" author Filippo Tommaso Marinetti to be "tied down". Karnabatt further proposed that Marinetti's exacerbated modernism was an atavistic manifestation of the Barbarian Invasions: "an absurd heredity within the Italian people, this people of art and of idealism". Closely following similar developments in French culture, "Seara" supported Jean Richepin's protest against "excessive modernism" and the division of labor. The pro-Richepin article, signed by Prince Constantin de Brancovan, saw print in Issue 53/1911.
In Decadent spirit, Karnabatt's essays in "Seara" advocate a reevaluation of Rococo and "fête galante" aesthetics. He was revolted by "the horrors of contemporary painting"—Pissarro, Monet, etc.—, citing as his reference "the fine and erudite art critic, the independent and courageous" Sâr Péladan (who was, incidentally, Bogdan-Pitești's mentor). In a September issue, "Don Ramiro" Karnabatt declared himself horrified that some were proposing to honor the inveterate gambler Avrillon with a public monument, announcing that France had given in to "vice". By then, he was giving positive reviews to "decadent poets" of the "dead cities" (Georges Rodenbach, Dimitrie Anghel), and enthusiastic about the establishment of community theaters to promote a "noble and pure art", away from "the platitudes and pettiness of modern life".
In "Seara", "Don Ramiro" was also contributing to the publicity campaigns mounted by Symbolist doyen Alexandru Macedonski and by Macedonski's painter son, Alexis. For Karnabatt, their contribution to Symbolism was a horizon "of violent and tormented passion". "Seara"'s support for Macedonski's cosmopolitanism earned Karnabatt criticism from the anti-Symbolist Transylvanians.
Blackmail scandals.
During spring 1913, Cantacuzino formally liquidated his business, and Bogdan-Pitești was officially installed as manager of "Seara". According to the rival satirical magazine "Furnica", although "Seara" was "stillborn" when it came to commercial success, the move was intriguing for the reading public. The conservative principles stated by Cantacuzino seemed largely incompatible with the radical activism that had made Bogdan-Pitești a mistrusted public figure. Bogdan-Pitești, whose background was in French anarchism, announced that the new editorial line centered on some of Cantacuzino's bugbears: universal suffrage, feminism, land reform, Jewish emancipation etc. In March of that year, "Seara" was also joined by a most fervent contributor, the poet and lampoonist Arghezi.
Although supporting the Conservative Party before and after that moment, "Seara" was focusing its efforts on attacking the Conservative-Democratic Party of Take Ionescu, with whom the Conservative Premier Titu Maiorescu had formed a coalition (one resented by Cantacuzino and Bogdan-Pitești). In this context, critic Ion Vianu notes, "Seara" became "an aggressive publication, with a history of base attacks and blackmail." The anti-Ionescu discourse was notably outlined in an Arghezi article of September 11, 1913. It collectively and disparagingly identified the Conservative-Democrats (or "Takists") as "ciocoi" ("upstarts"), accusing them of having repressed in blood the 1907 peasant revolt: "They are the symbol of 1907, when, his arms, chest, shoulders and back loaded with ravens, with "ciocoi", the peasant tore himself away from his field, split himself, fought to chase them away and [...] fell down murdered by the claws that clutched down, tore down into his flesh and reached inside to his soul and killed it as well. These "ciocoi", we will eradicate." In a 1913 issue, Romanian Land Forces General Ștefan Stoica referred to Ionescu's men as "craii de Curtea-Veche" ("the Old Court rakes"), another colloquialism for "upstarts".
One of "Seara"'s prime targets was Public Works Minister Alexandru Bădărău, called "filthy con man", accused of taking massive bribes from American investors in Romanian oil and of employing in his staff some 150 women in exchange for sexual favors. Nicolae Titulescu, the young Conservative Democrat politician and bureaucrat, was ridiculed for having acquired, through his foreign connections, an original tapestry from the Gobelins Manufactory. Notably, senior politician Nicolae Fleva lent his pen to these allegations, writing in "Seara" that Bădărău had serious psychiatric problems. Documenting Bogdan-Pitești's Catholic faith and Arghezi's anticlericalism, "Seara" lampooned the Orthodox Church, and was discredited as the offshoot of "Papist propaganda".
According to literary critics such as Barbu Cioculescu and Vianu, "Seara" may have had for its informant the Symbolist writer Mateiu Caragiale—a client of Bogdan-Pitești's, he had become a chief of staff for Bădărău. In diaries he kept after his split with Bogdan-Pitești, Caragiale himself alleged that "Seara"'s publisher was being paid to harass "without pity, in biting manner, all those whom Cantacuzino would grace with his unfriendliness or antipathy", in particular the Conservative-Democrats. Although he never signed articles for "Seara", Caragiale was by then receiving regular payments from its patrons.
At the peak of Cantacuzino's negative campaign against the Conservative-Democrats, "Seara" also attacked private enterprises, including the Marmorosch Blank Bank. Bogdan-Pitești was taken to court by owner Aristide Blank, and N. Fleva organized his defense. According to the records kept by Caragiale, Blank effectively set a "trap" with the cooperation of Romanian Police, and Bogdan-Pitești, found guilty of blackmail, was sentenced to nine months in prison. "Seara" fared badly during the period, and was out of print by autumn 1913.
Modernist platform.
Before and after the 1913 hiatus, with Bogdan-Pitești and Arghezi at its helm, "Seara" expanded its range, encouraging the development of modernist literature, and playing a part in the transition from Romanian Symbolism to 20th century avant-garde. Its art chronicles celebrated the international success of modern artists Constantin Brâncuși and Pascin, both of whom, "Seara" argued, were culturally tied to Romania. Revising its stance, the newspaper published Arghezi's account of the new "Tinerimea Artistică" modern art exhibit (April 1913), mentioning Bogdan-Pitești's role as an art patron and instigator of change. The two intellectuals also promoted the works by young artist Theodor Pallady, most notably with a series of articles in which Arghezi spoke about Pallady paintings in the Bogdan-Pitești collection. The magazine, already noted for publishing political cartoons by Nicolae Petrescu Găină, was also joined by Marcel Janco, known later for his work as a Dada and Constructivist artist.
During those years, "Seara" also enlisted two poets formerly affiliated with "Simbolul" review: the Imagist Adrian Maniu and the experimental Symbolist Ion Vinea. By summer 1914, the latter's articles included jibes against the moderate Symbolist figure Ovid Densusianu, ridiculing his disciples at "Versuri și Proză" magazine (the beginning of a dispute which Vinea would pursue in more depth during his time at "Chemarea" magazine). In addition to poetry and prose fragments, Vinea was assigned a regular column about life