Al. T. Stamatiad (common rendition of Alexandru Teodor Maria Stamatiad, or Stamatiade; May 9, 1885 – December 1955) was a Romanian Symbolist poet, short story writer, and dramatist. A late arrival on the local Symbolist scene, he was primarily active as a literary promoter and, in 1918, editor of Literatorul review. Discovered and praised by Alexandru Macedonski and Ion Minulescu, he combined his presence in radical Symbolist circles with stints on more culturally conservative ones, crossing between the extremes of Romanian literature. By 1911, he had established himself in cultural and social circles as an exotic and vocal, sometimes violent, cultural debater.
Stamatiad's parallel career as a schoolteacher took him to the city of Arad, where he lived at two distinct intervals, animating cultural life in the Romanian circles. Beyond his own poetry and prose, which received mixed reviews, Stamatiad worked on popularizing foreign literature, translating Symbolists such as Maurice Maeterlinck and Charles Baudelaire, but also more traditional works of Omar Khayyám and Li Bai, and experimenting with genres such as haiku. He was generally considered an authority on, and imitator of, Oscar Wilde.
At the center of controversies with Macedonski, and later with the youth at Sburătorul circle, Stamatiad sided with the anti-modernist side of Romanian Symbolism, folding back on conservatism. He faded into relative obscurity during World War II, and lived in isolation and poverty after the establishment of a Romanian communist regime.
Biography
Early life Born in Bucharest, Stamatiad(e) was the illegitimate son of Maria Stamatiade and of Lieutenant-Colonel Theodor Pallady. Painter Theodor Iancu Pallady and actress Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra were cousins of his, while Alexandrina Cantacuzino, the feminist campaigner, was a half-sister.Călinescu, p.702, 1016Lidia Bote, Antologia poeziei simboliste românești, Editura pentru literatură, Bucharest, 1968, p.255 Through his paternal grandmother, Alexandru Teodor descended from the prestigious Ghica family, and, according to literary historian George Călinescu, was always overly preoccupied with his origins and his illegitimacy.Călinescu, p.702
The poet used as his full name Alexandru Teodor Maria Stamatiad, Cornelia Ștefănescu, "Viața documentelor" , in România Literară, Nr. 45/2002 including his patronymic, adapted as Teodor (although sometimes shortened to Th., as in Al. Th. Stamatiad). His eccentric styling with the matronymic Maria was a subject of ridicule among his literary peers.Cruceanu, p.57-58; Rădulescu, p.140, 159, 185 To his friends, he interchangeably was Stamatiad or Stamatiade, even as late as 1920.Călinescu, p.1003 Dropping the final e of his foreign-sounding surname, which most likely indicates a Hellenic heritage, signifies a voluntary Romanianization.Alexandru Graur, Nume de persoane, Editura științifică, Bucharest, 1965, p.98.
In 1903, at the Kübler Coffeehouse, Stamatiad met Alexandru Macedonski, senior leader of the Romanian Symbolist school. Using the pen name Adrian Alexandru, he made his first contributions to literature in the review Pleiada (1904), then in Ionescu-Caion's literary newspaper, Românul Literar.Mihail Straje, Dicționar de pseudonime, anonime, anagrame, astronime, criptonime ale scriitorilor și publiciștilor români, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1973, p.16, 666. He was enlisted at a boarding school in the distant city of Iași, while his family remained in Bucharest.Cruceanu, p.26 Around 1905, he returned to Bucharest, to attend Matei Basarab and Sfântul Gheorghe high schools. He began frequenting the literary club formed at Macedonski's Rafael Street townhouse, where he also introduced two young poets and boarding school mates, Mihail Cruceanu and Eugeniu Sperantia. As noted by Cruceanu, Stamatiad was cultivating valuable connections in the literary press, looking upon his colleagues "with a protective air." Other regulars included Mircea Demetriade, Al. Gherghel, Șerban Bascovici, Donar Munteanu,Cruceanu, p.29-30 and critic V. V. Haneș, who was impressed by Stamatiad's self-confidence, which "even seemed a bit too much for his age."Haneș, p.205 Cruceanu also recalls that Stamatiad "never did doubt his significance".Cruceanu, p.57-58
Making his full debut under Macedonski's auspices, Stamatiad was also active in rival Symbolist milieus. Another Symbolist mentor, Ovid Densusianu, hosted his poem, Singurătate ("Solitude"), in the Symbolist tribune Vieața Nouă. In 1906, it also published Stamatiad's versions of Horace's Odes. According to researcher Nicolae Laslo, they read "more like adaptations" than sheer translations, being both simplified and personalized. Nicolae Laslo, "Horațiu în literatura română", in Gând Românesc, Nr. 11–12/1935, p.545 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library)
Stamatiad and Macedonski continued to correspond even during those periods when Macedonski was out of the country, on a self-imposed exile, while Stamatiad had not yet passed his baccalaureate examination. Together with Cruceanu and Sperantia, he took up the cause of popularizing Macedonski's Symbolism in Henric Streitman's newspaper, Prezentul.Cruceanu, p.40 Soon, Stamatiad became a favorite among the disciples: Macedonski referred to him as "a very great poet", "brilliant and powerful",Călinescu, p.532, 1003 seeing him as the Romanian Rollinat.Cruceanu, p.33 As noted by Călinescu, these were patent exaggerations. Stamatiad, he argues, was in fact "mediocre".Călinescu, p.532; Mitchievici, p.359
At Convorbiri Critice Macedonski continued to tout Stamatiad when the younger poet also joined the Neoclassicists at Convorbiri Critice. At a club session in 1910, Stamatiad, Anastasie Mândru, and I. Dragoslav demanded that Macedonski's work be read and reassessed, thus putting an end to Macedonski's critical marginalization.Vianu, p.379 The circle's leader, Mihail Dragomirescu, allowed Stamatiad to publish in the eponymous magazine, as well as in his other sheet, Falanga Literară și Artistică. Stamatiad was enthusiastically welcomed to the "far left" of Dragomirescu's club by a fellow Symbolist, Ion Minulescu. Ion D. Tîlvănoiu, Vasile Radian, "Ion Minulescu - Mihail Dragomirescu, Corespondența inedită" , in Memoria Oltului, p.39-40 In 1910, however, Falanga published a heated exchange of messages between Stamatiad and Minulescu, over the issue of Minulescu's rivalry with another Symbolist, N. Davidescu. Simona Vasilache, "Anul literar 1910" , in România Literară, Nr. 8/2011
Like Minulescu,Călinescu, p.601 Stamatiad also courted the traditionalist, nominally anti-Symbolist, camp, publishing works in Sămănătorul review. According to nationalist culture critic and Sămănătorul contributor Nicolae Iorga, Stamatiad's presence there indicated that the magazine was yet "unclear" in its direction: Stamatiad could contribute, even if "the magazine's ideology was indifferent to him, if not indeed hostile to him."Iorga, p.216 Another reading is provided by literary historian Paul Cernat, who sees Stamatiad's participation in traditionalism as indicative of "an split identity within the 'conservative' side of local Symbolism."Cernat, p.18-19 At the other end of the political spectrum, Stamatiad also cultivated a friendship with the socialist poet-publicist Vasile Demetrius, who featured his poetry in the review Viața Socială.Iorga, p.219 In 1909, Stamatiad was a registered witness at Demetrius' civil wedding ceremony (another was critic Ilarie Chendi).Călinescu, p.727
With such universal backing, he put out his first volume of verse, Din trâmbițe de aur ("With Trumpets of Gold"). Although it went through four editions between 1910 and 1931,Călinescu, p.1016 and was reviewed with sympathy by Haneș,Haneș, passim the work was not popular with most critics. It rather made Stamatiad the object of derision in the literary circles. Stamatiad persevered and worked with dramatist Constantin Râuleț on the play Femei ciudate ("Strange Women"), published in Convorbiri Critice in November 1910, and as a volume in 1911.Angheluță et al., p.92, 343; Călinescu, p.722, 1016, 1018; Mitchievici, p.597 It was first staged in Bucharest by the "Modern Theater" company of Alexandru Davila.Lazăr Cosma, "Cronica teatrală", in Noua Revistă Română, Nr. 22/1910, p.312-313Angheluță et al., p.92, 343 The text intrigued the public with its frank display of a sexual masochism disorder; according to Dragomirescu, it is "well written, but strange."Dragomirescu, p.167 In 1912 and 1913, Stamatiad completed and published translations from Maurice Maeterlinck's plays: Intruder, Interior, The Blind. They were all grouped together, as the "Cycle-of-Death" plays, in a 1914 edition at Cultura Națională publishers.Mitchievici, p.145, 397
As early as August 1909, Cassian Maria Spiridon, "Secolul breslei scriitoricești", in Convorbiri Literare, April 2008 Stamatiad also rallied with Emil Gârleanu's Romanian Writers' Society (SSR), with which he toured the Romanian-speaking communities of Austria-Hungary. On Thomas Sunday 1911, Șerban Cioculescu, "Caragiale și ardelenii, V. Caragiale la Românul", in Universul Literar, Nr. 35/1939, p.5 (digitized by the Babeș-Bolyai University Transsylvanica Online Library) Romanian activists in the then-Hungarian city of Arad welcomed him to a "literary workshop". An official banquet was held at the White Cross Hotel.Călinescu, p.634 Stamatiad's visit took place in the midst of political crisis: the territorial National Romanian Party of Transylvania had split into two wings, of which the conservative one, well-represented in Arad, made efforts to appease the Hungarian administration. Stamatiad and the other arrivals stood accused of pushing the irredentist cause, but they denied this was the case, publishing an explanatory open letter.
He diversified his contributions to the Symbolist literary press, rallying with Densusianu's Versuri și Proză circleCălinescu, p.684; Cernat, p.55; Mitchievici, p.144-145 and having some of his poetry published in Simbolul.Iorga, p.242 He also founded a single-issue magazine, Grădina Hesperidelor ("Garden of the Hesperides"). Remembered for its promotion of Art Nouveau aesthetics,Cernat, p.31, 97, 304 it featured reviews of Din trâmbițe de aur by Densusianu, Dragomirescu, and Chendi, as well as articles or poems by Bascovici, Dimitrie Anghel, Alfred Hefter-Hidalgo, I. M. Rașcu, and Barbu Solacolu."Revista revistelor", in Noua Revistă Română, Nr. 12/1912, p.80
Between Literatorul and Sburătorul In 1914, having graduated in literature from the University of Bucharest, Stamatiad was named professor of French in Arad, followed by a post in Bucharest. In January of the next year, he and Minulescu were among the newly elected members of the SSR Committee. As Macedonski's right hand, and as a regular of coffeehouses and bars such as Kübler and Casa Capșa, Stamatiad became a legendary figure in bohemian circles, involved in cultural disputes as well as brawls.Peltz, p.77, 105; Rădulescu, p.16-17, 18, 19-20 Cartoonist Neagu Rădulescu describes Stamatiad at this moment in time: "Al. T. Stamatiad, with his mustache curled up to the brim of his hat, with his cane in 'shoulder position', could not be resisted by any young lady."Rădulescu, p.17 According to Macedonski's novelist friend, I. Peltz, he was a spectacular presence on their circle: contentious, even "furious" and "terrorizing", lacking literary value, but forcing his pupils to read his work in class.Peltz, p.105, 129, 132, 142-145, 178 Peltz writes that the only other person who could stand up to him was a Stan Palanca, the perennially unemployed poet-bohemian.Peltz, p.143-144