66 Facts About Mateiu Caragiale

In other late contributions, Caragiale pioneered detective fiction locally, but there is disagreement over whether his work in the field produced a complete narrative or just fragments.

Also known as an amateur heraldist and graphic artist, the young Mateiu Caragiale published his works sporadically, seeking instead to impose himself in politics and pursuing a career in the civil service.

Mateiu Caragiale was associated with the Conservative-Democratic Party, and then the People's League, and ultimately raised controversy by supporting the Central Powers during their occupation of Romania.

Mateiu Caragiale afterwards focused on literature, and, during the late 1920s and early 1930s, published most of his prose texts in the magazine Gandirea.

The illegitimate and rebellious child of influential playwright Ion Luca Mateiu Caragiale, he was the half-brother of Luca Mateiu Caragiale, an avant-garde poet who died in 1921, and the posthumous son-in-law of author Gheorghe Sion.

Mateiu Caragiale was loosely affiliated with Romanian Symbolism, a figure noted for his dandyism, eccentricity and Bohemianism, and, for much of his life, a regular presence in the intellectual circle formed around Casa Capsa restaurant.

Mateiu Caragiale's associates included the controversial political figure Alexandru Bogdan-Pitesti, cultural animator Margarita Miller Verghy, and poet Ion Barbu, who was one of his most dedicated promoters.

The young Mateiu Caragiale was sent to school at Anghel Demetriescu's Sfantul Gheorghe College in Bucharest, where he discovered a passion for history and heraldry.

Ecaterina Mateiu Caragiale indicated that one of her brother's favorite pastimes was "admiring the secular trees in the Tiergarten", and he is known to have spent entire days at the National Gallery, especially fond of paintings by Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael.

Mateiu Caragiale was thus supposed to provide for his mother and sister, until Ion Luca transferred the inheritance resulting from the death of his other aunt Catinca Momuloaia, to his former lover.

Mateiu Caragiale indicated that his father had made him attend the Frederick William University without advancing money for tuition.

In spring 1907, despite the ongoing father-son tensions, Mateiu Caragiale, who was recovering from a severe form of measles, returned to Berlin, where Ion Luca's family was still residing.

Mateiu Caragiale soon became the lover of a local woman, an affair which reportedly caused his father to declare himself scandalized.

Mateiu Caragiale had his first thoughts on Craii de Curtea-Veche in 1910.

In later years, Mateiu Caragiale continued to write poetry, published by literary promoter Constantin Banu in his magazine, Flacara.

Mateiu Caragiale's father died in June 1912, which, according to Serban Cioculescu, left him indifferent.

Mateiu Caragiale returned to Bucharest: in summer 1912, with help from journalist Rudolf Uhrinowsky, the young writer was employed by a French-language gazette, L'Independence Roumaine, informing his readers that he had become the sole legitimate Mateiu Caragiale family representative in Romania.

Mateiu Caragiale assumed office on November 7,1912, but, as he later confessed, official records were modified to make it seem that he had been a civil servant since October 29.

Mateiu Caragiale was awarded the Bene Merenti and Barbatie si credinta Romanian medals 1st Class.

In 1913, Mateiu Caragiale wrote the story Remember, while continuing his contributions to Viata Romaneasca.

At the time, Mateiu Caragiale visited the Germanophile literary circle set up by Margarita Miller Verghy, and borrowed a reported 10,000 lei from Bogdan-Pitesti, which he never returned.

Mateiu Caragiale's own Germanophile preferences and traditionalist conservatism had by then extinguished his cultural Francophilia, and rumors spread that he himself was a spy for the German Empire.

Thanks to Uhrinowsky's intervention, Mateiu Caragiale became a press correspondent for the Ottoman press agency Asmanli, a job which he held for eight months, until, as he later wrote, "the [company's] 'sweet waters' dried out".

In mid summer 1916, Mateiu Caragiale donated money to a fund whereby the Bellu Cemetery tomb of Stefan Luchian, a recently deceased painter and protege of Bogdan-Pitesti, was to be decorated with a bust by sculptor Dimitrie Paciurea.

Mateiu Caragiale did not follow the authorities and Take Ionescu's supporters as they redeployed in Moldavia when southern Romania fell to the Central Powers, and remained in Bucharest.

Mateiu Caragiale was still active within the Germanophile circles, including those who opted for collaborationism, and was held in high regard by the occupying forces: his brother Luca was employed by the new administrative apparatus, but Mateiu's own promotion to the rank of prefect was vetoed by puppet minister Lupu Kostaki.

Mateiu Caragiale thus resigned and left the Conservative-Democrats, an action which he later defined as "a grave error".

Mateiu Caragiale was reputedly living in penury, holding temporary residence in various cheap houses on the outskirts of Bucharest, and being thrown out from at least one such location after failing to pay his rent.

Mateiu Caragiale married Marica Sion, the daughter of poet and nobleman Gheorghe Sion, in 1923, thus becoming the owner of a plot of land named Sionu, in Fundulea.

Mateiu Caragiale published Remember as a volume the following year; from 1922, he began work on "Spovedanii", the third and final section of Craii.

Several of his poems were published in a 1925 collection edited by Perpessicius and Ion Pillat, and were accompanied by an ink portrait signed Marcel Janco; at the time, Mateiu Caragiale announced that he was going to publish a series of poems under the title Pajere.

Mateiu Caragiale completed the last additions to the text in November 1927, as its first sections were already in print.

Mateiu Caragiale's diary perpetuated the rumor according to which Titulescu was a cocaine addict.

Mateiu Caragiale began work on the fragmentary writing Soborul tatelor and the detective story Sub pecetea tainei, but they would remain unfinished.

Mateiu Caragiale ceased most literary activities later in the year, and confessed in his diary: "My spiritual state is probably the same as that of people who feel their final hour nearing and lose all hope".

Mateiu Caragiale was preoccupied with death, which he feared greatly.

Mateiu Caragiale died two years later in Bucharest, at the age 51, after suffering a stroke.

Mateiu Caragiale developed an enduring curiosity for astronomy, magic, as well as botany and agronomy, and kept detailed notes recording the deaths of all Romanian aristocrats who were his contemporaries.

Mateiu Caragiale-father is thought to have discouraged his son's claims, and to have mockingly noted that their own family's origin could not have been aristocratic.

Early in his youth, Mateiu Caragiale jokingly referred to himself as "Prince Bassaraba-Apaffy", mixing the title used by the early Basarab Wallachian princes and the Apaffy family of Hungarian nobility.

Between 1907 and 1911, Mateiu Caragiale studied Romanian heraldry and, to this goal, read Octav-George Lecca's Familii boieresti romane.

Mateiu Caragiale hoisted other symbols, including the flag of Hungary, which, he claimed, underlined his foreign origin.

Mateiu Caragiale took special pride in noting that, after 14 months of governmental service, he had received the Romanian Order of the Crown and the other medals.

Literary historian George Calinescu recalled having seen a middle-aged Mateiu Caragiale taking walks through downtown Bucharest: amused by the writer's everyday clothes, which he depicted as of an archaic fashion and slightly deteriorated, compared him to "a butler on Sunday leave".

The latter, familiar with Miller Verghy and her circle, recounted that the poverty-stricken but proud Mateiu Caragiale had asked their common female friend to allow him use of a stable on her property, explaining that he was going to have furniture moved in.

Ion Vianu notes that Mateiu Caragiale "appears to have been in love for just one moment", referring to his 1907 pursuit of an upper-class French girl, Fernande de Bondy, who rejected his advances and complained to Mateiu Caragiale-father.

Mateiu Caragiale's diary dealt with Bogdan-Pitesti's wife, the socialite Domnica, depicting her as an immoral woman.

Mateiu Caragiale confessed being thankful that the long record of sums he had borrowed from Bogdan-Pitesti beginning 1916 had been destroyed, probably by Domnica, at a time when his patron was on his deathbed.

Mateiu Caragiale courted her for a few months in 1932, despite being married to Marica Sion.

The delayed character of Mateiu Caragiale's contribution was mentioned by literary historian Ovid Crohmalniceanu, who identified its roots in Art Nouveau and, through it, the subjects of Byzantine art.

Literary historian Eugen Simion notes that Barbu believed himself thought Mateiu Caragiale's prose was equal in value to the poetry of Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu, and argues that this perspective was exaggerated.

Mateiu Caragiale proposed that, less directly, Macedonski's themes and style influenced similar prose works by Arghezi and Urmuz.

Ion Vianu, who believes the unnamed narrator is a projection of Mateiu Caragiale's ego, emphasizes connections between the various characters and other real-life persons, including Ion Luca, Bogdan-Pitesti and Anghel Demetriescu.

Such theories identify Rache Ruse himself with Cantuniari, a policeman whom Mateiu Caragiale had befriended, the minister with the leading Conservative Party member Alexandru Lahovary, and the female character Arethy with Miller Verghy.

Mateiu Caragiale illustrated this notion with a stanza from Caragiale's Clio:.

Calinescu noted that, in several of his poems, Mateiu Caragiale had infused his search for aristocratic heredities.

Mateiu Caragiale saw this present in the poem Lauda cuceritorului :.

Mateiu Caragiale continued to be hailed as a relevant writer during the ten years following his death, and his work went through new critical editions.

Mateiu Caragiale's aesthetics contrasted with those of the 1950s Socialist Realist establishment.

Independent of this approach, Mateiu Caragiale was being rediscovered by new generations of writers.

Mateiu Caragiale's name was cited by the writer Geo Bogza, who, in his youth, was a major figure of the Romanian avant-garde movement.

Mateiu Caragiale was completely recovered in mainstream cultural circles after the Romanian Revolution of 1989.

Several other new monographs were dedicated to Mateiu Caragiale, including a favorable review of his work authored by literary researcher Ion Iovan in 2002.

In 2001, Mateiu Caragiale's collected writings, edited by Barbu Cioculescu, were republished in a single edition, while his copy of Octav-George Lecca's Familii boieresti romane, featuring his many comments and sketches, was the basis for a 2002 reprint.

Mateiu Caragiale's work was treasured by Romanian-language writers in newly independent Moldova, formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Mateiu Caragiale's name was assigned to a street in Bucharest.