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Leon Feraru

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Leon Feraru (born Leon Enselberg,[1] also credited as L. Schmidt;[2] 1887 – 1961) was a Romanian and American poet, literary historian and translator.

Born in Brăila into a modest Jewish family, his father was an ironworker (fierar), the origin of his pseudonym.[1] He attended primary and high school in his native city, followed by a literature and law degree from the University of Montpellier, making his published debut in Saniel Gossman's Jewish review, Lumea Israelită; other reviews that ran his work included Viața Românească, Viața Literară și Artistică, Ecoul. Conservatorul Brăilei, Curierul, Flacăra, Noua Revistă Română, Convorbiri Critice, Vieața Nouă, Pessach, Pagini Libere, Adevărul Literar și Artistic, and Tânărul Evreu.[1][3] Pen names he used in these publications were Ola Canta (shared with Dimitrie Anghel), H. Libanon and L. Feru.[1]

Enselberg-Feraru was friends with Jean Bart, Camil Baltazar and especially Anghel, with whom he collaborated on several poems (Halucinații, Orologiul and Vezuviul).[1] By late 1912, he was a leading contributor to Nicolae Xenopol's Țara Nouă.[4] Following the anti-Semitic outcry that came about as a result of the staging of Ronetti Roman's play Manasse and similar episodes, he emigrated to the United States in early 1913. In his adopted country, he became a constant promoter of Romanian culture, as confirmed by his correspondence and noted in the accounts of his contemporaries.[1]

Initially working as an unskilled laborer,[1] he was in New York City in 1919, working on the Romanian American community press. In January 1920, he and Dion Moldovan were editorial secretaries at Steaua Noastră. Our Star, Phillip Axelrad's self-proclaimed "Oldest Best and Most Popular Roumanian Weekly Newspaper in America".[5] In March, Feraru and Moldovan issued their own România Nouă, which only put out one issue.[6] Feraru eventually became a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto. He then was a professor of Romance languages and literature at Columbia University (1917–1927) and at Long Island University (1927–1947), where he chaired the foreign languages department for a time. He contributed to The Romanic Review and Rumanian Literary News (which he edited).[1]

Briefly returning to Romania only in 1925,[1] his first book of poetry was Maghernița veche și alte versuri din anii tineri ("The Old Shanty and Other Verse of Youth"), put out by Cartea Românească of Bucharest in 1926. According to literary historian and critic George Călinescu, the works fall into two separate categories: "moving" regrets for his native Romania, and samples of proletarian literature, including an ode to the sound of hammers in industrial Brăila ("his most valid" poetry).[7] During the early 1920s, Feraru was a contributor to Omul Liber, a social-literary bimonthly edited by Ion Pas.[8] He was later featured in Cugetul Liber, put out in Bucharest by Pas and Eugen Relgis, his texts also published in the Union of Romanian Jews organ, Curierul Israelit.[9] Feraru's work also appeared in literary newspapers such as Victoria, Ateneul Literar, Junimea Moldovei, and Cafeneaua Politică și Literară.[10] His second and last book of Romanian verse came out in 1937 as Arabescuri ("Arabesques"), issued as a supplement by Pas' social democratic review Șantier.[11]

Back in America, Feraru wrote two English-language critical studies of Romanian literature: The Development of the Rumanian Novel (1926) and The Development of the Rumanian Poetry (1929); he submitted articles and reviews for The International Encyclopedia (1930) about Gala Galaction, Mateiu Caragiale, Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voinești, Lucian Blaga, and his friend Baltazar. He translated selections from Mihai Eminescu, Tudor Arghezi, Panait Cerna, Anton Pann, Vasile Cârlova and Dimitrie Bolintineanu into English.[1] Through his will, Feraru left Columbia University, which paid his pension, his library of some ten thousand Romanian-language books. He died in New York City.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Aurel Sasu (ed.), Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române, Vol. I, p. 580. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. ISBN 973-697-758-7
  2. ^ Călinescu, p. 1040
  3. ^ S. Podoleanu, 60 scriitori români de origină evreească, Vol. I, p. 107. Bucharest: Slova, A. Feller, [1935]. OCLC 40106291
  4. ^ Template:Ro icon Delaflămânzi, "Revista revistelor", in Universul Literar, Nr. 12/1912, p. 4
  5. ^ Desa et al. (1987), p. 899
  6. ^ Desa et al. (1987), p. 823
  7. ^ Călinescu, p. 937
  8. ^ Desa et al. (1987), p. 679
  9. ^ Desa et al. (2003), pp. 260–261, 277–278
  10. ^ Desa et al. (1987), pp. 165, 227; (2003), pp. 65, 200–201, 550, 1017
  11. ^ Călinescu, p. 1029

References

  • George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini pînă în prezent. Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1986.
  • Ileana-Stanca Desa, Dulciu Morărescu, Ioana Patriche, Adriana Raliade, Iliana Sulică, Publicațiile periodice românești (ziare, gazete, reviste). Vol. III: Catalog alfabetic 1919–1924. Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1987.
  • Ileana-Stanca Desa, Dulciu Morărescu, Ioana Patriche, Cornelia Luminița Radu, Adriana Raliade, Iliana Sulică, Publicațiile periodice românești (ziare, gazete, reviste). Vol. IV: Catalog alfabetic 1925-1930. Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 2003. ISBN 973-27-0980-4
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