Liviu Rebreanu

Author

• Born: November 27, 1885
• Birthplace: Tîrlisiua, Bistrita-Nasaud, Transylvania (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; now Romania)
• Died: September 1, 1944
• Place of death: Valea Mare, Arges, Romania

Biography

Liviu Rebreanu was born on November 27, 1885, in the village of Tîrlisiua, Transylvania, which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was the first of thirteen children of Vasile Rebreanu, a teacher, and Ludovica Diuganu, both of them descendants of Romanian peasants. Liviu went to primary school in Maieru, where his father was teaching, and to secondary school in Nasaud and Bistrita. In 1900, he entered a military school in Sopron (now Odenburg, Hungary). In 1903, he proceeded to the Ludoviceum Military Academy in Budapest, Hungary. After graduating in 1906, he served as an army officer, stationed in Gyula. In 1908, after being accused of embezzling regiment funds, he was forced to resign.

Rebreanu worked briefly as a clerk at Măgura Ilvei, Vararea, Romania, then crossed the Alps and settled in the capital of Bucharest. A few months later, he was extradited to Hungary and imprisoned in Gyula until the real culprit in the embezzlement case was identified. After his release, Rebreanu returned to Bucharest, where he worked as a journalist and wrote short stories and novellas. In 1911, he became literary secretary for the National Theater. In 1912, he married Fanny Radulescu, an actress. That same year, his first collection of short fiction was published.

When war broke out, Rebreanu tried to enlist in the Romanian army but was rejected because of his Hungarian birth. In Bucharest, he lived in fear of the Hungarians and the Germans. In 1918, Rebreanu and Fanny fled across the border to Iasi, Moldavia. Rebreanu later learned that his brother Emil, a sublieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian army, had been hanged as a deserter after he refused to fire on Romanians and then tried to flee. Emil’s story inspired Rebreanu’s novel The Forest of the Hanged.

With the publication of his first novel, Ion, Rebreanu became known as Romania’s preeminent novelist. The work substituted a realistic depiction of the lives of the downtrodden peasants for the prevailing sentimental view. Often his characters’ only hope is shown as lying in adherence to Christian principles. During the next two decades, Rebreanu continued to publish novels that focused on social issues, as well as such psychological novels as The Forest of the Hanged and Adam i Eva (Adam and Eve). He also wrote three plays, but they are not impressive.

In the 1920’s and the early 1930’s, Rebreanu helped to found two literary journals and was elected vice president and then president of the Society of Romanian Writers. In 1928, he was appointed director of the National Theater of Bucharest. Next he became head of the department of education, but in November, 1930, he resigned in order to devote his time to writing. He spent his remaining years at his villa in Valea Mare, south of the Carpathian Mountains. Rebreanu died there on September 1, 1944.

Rebreanu’s novel Ion won an award from the Romanian Academy. In 1939, the author was elected to full membership in the academy. On the basis of his realistic novels about life in rural Romania, Liviu Rebreanu is considered one of the most important novelists Romania has produced.