ALECSANDRI, VASILE. — Romanian writer and political figure, closely connected with the political and artistic life of his people, b. in 1819, d. in 1890. A revolutionary in 1848, he fought in the Crimea. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, he vigorously championed the cause of independence and national unity with Napoleon III and Vittorio Emanuele II. His appointment as plenipotentiary minister later took him back to France for another five years, at the end of which he withdrew to the tranquillity of his Mircesti, where he died.
Of balanced and reserved nature, conservative in politics and a sincere patriot, he preferred and knew French literature with considerable breadth (in France he in fact obtained his baccalaureate), feeling its profound influence throughout his life; while from Italy, to which he was bound by spontaneous enthusiasm and by the memory of his love affair with Elena Negri, he derived only a vein of exoticism of a landscape character (The Lake of Como, The Passing Gondola, etc.) or a patriotic one, as in the verses To Polestro, To Magenta, To Solferino, To the Dying Bersagliere, written during the campaign of ’59, whose events he witnessed at first hand.
A sincere poet, though not one of lofty flight, whose vision is often disturbed by literary memories, and a deserving first editor of finely elaborated Romanian folk songs (1866), a passionate singer of national glories, he left several collections of a purely lyrical character (Doine si lâcrâmiare, Suvenire, from 1842–52), or folkloric-patriotic as well as erotic (Mârgâritârele, from 1852–62, and Ostasii noştri si legende noua, from 1880), or epic-legendary (Legende, Varii), achieving his highest poetic note in the Pasteluri (1862–75), with their vivid local or exotic colour, in which the memory of Lamartine, Hugo, and at times Gautier often insinuates itself. Various and contradictory French influences, from Molière to Scribe, Labiche, Hugo, and Augier, thoroughly permeate his dramatic production, which includes three dramas in verse (Despot-Vodâ, Ocidin, Fântâna Blandusiei) and numerous comedies.
Affectionately connected with the Provençal movement of the félibres (Mistral translated some of his poems into Provençal), he wrote a Song of the Latin Race (Cântecul gintei latine), which was awarded a prize at the international Latin festivities at Montpellier (1882).
A passionate traveller, besides an early novella on an Italian subject, The Florentine Flower Girl, he left us the lively prose of his travel journals and reports of his diplomatic missions. At the behest of King Carol, he organised the Romanian Academy on the model of the Institut de France.
Jole Scudieri Ruggieri