John C. Campbell, Nicholas Iorga

Nicholas Iorga
Author(s): John C. Campbell

Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 26, No. 66 (Nov., 1947), pp. 44-59
Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London,
School of Slavonic and East European Studies
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NICHOLAS IORGA
SEVEN years ago Roumania's greatest historian and intellectual

leader, Nicholas Iorga, was taken from his house in Sinaia, tortured
and brutally murdered. The date was 27 November, I940. He
had witnessed, in the last months of his life, the death of the Europe
which he knew and the break-up of the Greater Roumania which
he himself had done so much to create. Roumania, caught between
the two continental giants with no hope of help from the West, was
compelled to capitulate first to Stalin, sacrificing Bessarabia and
part of Bukovina, and then to Hitler. Roumania gave up northern
Transylvania to Hungary, southern Dobruja to Bulgaria, and finally
gave up its independence to Nazi Germany. King Carol, whose
" realistic " policies saved neither his country nor his throne, gave
way to Antonescu, and with Antonescu came the Iron Guard.
The Iron Guard lived by terror. Its leaders were terrorists by
conviction, faithful disciples of their Nazi masters. Its rank and
file included many half-educated youths who saw no future in those
troubled times other than in what was to be attained by violence.
In an orgy of killing, a reversion to the darker periods of Roumania's
past with the added refinements of 2oth-century gangster methods,
the Iron Guard struck down the men who represented in their eyes
the hated regime of Carol under which they had been persecuted,
and others who were more than that, who were symbols of a European
civilization which the Nazis and their allies were bent on destroying.
Among these was Nicholas Iorga.
In those blackest days of the war, days of defeat in France and
of a desperate fight for life on the part of England, Iorga's death
passed almost unnoticed in the West. Mario Roques paid a moving
tribute to him at the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
in Paris. Emigre European scholars in America honoured him at
a ceremony held in New York in I94I. But a tribute from the
English-speaking world is long overdue. He was much less at home
in England and America than on the Continent, although he prided
himself on his knowledge of the English language, which often took
on rather bizarre forms when he spoke it. " En Europe tout le
monde me connait," he is reported to have remarked, with character-
istic egotism, on one occasion when he was recognised by fellow-
passengers on the Orient Express. In England and in America he
44
NICHOLAS IORGA. 45
was less well known; and then more often as an extra

Balkan phenomenon, as he himself discovered on his Amer
in I930, than as the man of genius that he was. Certa
English and American scholars who have concerned thems
the history and culture of Roumania and of south-east
are everlastingly in his debt. No man, to my knowledg
a comparable contribution. It is perhaps presumptu
American, or for any single individual of any nationality,
to review Iorga's work as an historian and to estimat
in the history of Roumania and of Europe. This attemp
taken in a spirit of humility. Professor Seton-Watson, in
to Iorga's History of Anglo-Roumanian Relations, exp
feeling that " any preface to the work of Professor Iorga
superfluous." His achievements speak for themselve
that sense superfluous, but not unfitting, to remind ourse
greatness of his work now that it is finished.'
II
Iorga was an historian, a journalist, an editor, a literary critic,

an educator, and a statesman. He even tried his hand at poetry
and the drama, with indifferent success it must be admitted. For
a period of half a century he spoke and wrote on hundreds of issues,
historical and current. Rarely did he fail to be original, profound,
and sincere to the point of passionate belief. As a political party
leader he had few followers, but all over the country his views were
listened to with respect. In the latter part of his life he was able
to draw upon unequalled knowledge and experience. His Olympian
pronouncements, and his foibles as well, were a part of the national
tradition. Even before his death Iorga had become a legend.
It would be folly to attempt to reconcile with each other his
many ideas, theories, programmes and statements. During his long
career the times changed and he himself changed. As an eminent
Roumanian journalist, Tudor Teodorescu-Braniste, pointed out in a
recent article, he was too great a personality to be subject to any
simple method of classification or to ordinary canons of criticism.
"A towering figure of lights and shadows, of lofty summits and
unfathomable depths, he must be taken in his entirety for what he
was: a great romantic, a deep sentimentalist, himself inspired and
an inspiration to others, eternally thirsting for what he felt to be right
1 I should like here to express my thanks to Dr. A. Golopentia of Bucharest

and to Dr. Emil Turdeanu of Paris for their help in obtaining recent material on
Iorga which has appeared in Roumania since his death.
46 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.
and just . . . incessantly seeking perfection." His

coloured his history and his politics. It gave him g
and notable weaknesses, as an historian. It was in
responsible for his failure as a politician, but that fail
by extraordinary success as a moral and intellectu
nation in times of crisis.
From the time when he delivered his inaugural lecture on " the
present concept of history and its origin" on taking the chair
universal history at the University of Bucharest in I894, at the ag
of twenty-three, Iorga was Roumania's teacher. From the tim
when he began, at the turn of the century, to write for L'independan
roumaine and Epoca, he was his country's foremost political publicis
With the appearance of his literary periodical, Sdmdndtorul, 'in I903
he assumed a leading role in the cultural life of the nation. Un
his death he continued to occupy his chair at the university, servi
for many years as its rector also. From I906 to I940, with ver
few gaps, he wrote his daily article for his own newspaper, Neamu
Romdnesc. Iorga was never at a loss for ideas, all of which appe
to have found their way into print. He never stopped thinking and
he never stopped writing. Wherever he was, wherever he went, he
read, wrote, or dictated to his secretary or his companions. H
could dash off several articles while on the train between Bucharest
and Valenii-de-Munte, or a five-act historical drama on a longer
trip. In quantity of output he had no competitors. What news-
paper reporter or hack novelist in any country has produced as many
words and pages as Iorga ? And his are pages of scholarly history,
biography, world affairs, political theory and the practice of politics,
literary criticism, poetry and drama. The " production " statistics
are scarcely credible. Barbu Theodorescu, who devoted several
years to the task of merely listing Iorga's works, gives us the following
totals, up to the end of 1934: I,003 books, I2,755 articles, and
4,693 book reviews. Theodorescu, who lists these titles in two
ample volumes,2 remarks that he had to leave out some Ioo articles
in foreign periodicals which he was unable to consult. There were,
moreover, six more years of Iorga's life, years of fruitful activity in
which, without interrupting the flow of articles and reviews, he
produced his master work, a ten-volume history of the Roumanian
people. During the course of his career he found time to write
2 Barbu Theodorescu, Bibliografia istoricd si literard a lui N. Iorga (Bucharest,
1935) and Bibliografia politicd, sociald si economicd a lui N. lorga (Bucharest, I937).
Iorga's later works are listed by Aurelian Sacerdoteanu in Revista Arhivelor,
Bucharest, IV, I941, pp. 410-37. Theodorescu, in I94I, estimated the final totals
at 1,200 books and 23,000 articles and reviews.
NICHOLAS IORGA. 47
thirty plays, many of which were produced at the Nation

in Bucharest; some were translated into Italian. His f
were published in I890, when he was nineteen years of
continued to write and publish poetry through wars
through periods of intense scholarly activity, during his
office as Prime Minister, and up to the very day of h
III
Iorga's early years as a student and young professor were spe

in the most avid devotion to learning. While abroad, studyin
his advanced degrees at Paris and Leipzig, he lived in librarie
archives. In Bucharest his house was piled high with books w
contents, according to the legend, he was able to absorb by glan
at one page out of every four, not having the time to cut the p
But Iorga had too much energy and too much interest in the
temporary scene to spend his whole life in the seclusion of classr
library and study. He threw himself into the fight for cau
which he believed.
Two great issues faced the Roumanian people at that tim
national unity and the social problem of the land and the peasa
To Iorga, whose career covered the high tide of nationalism in south
eastern Europe, these were two aspects of one great issue, th
struggle of the Roumanian nation to achieve its destiny. It w
the same romantic nationalism which had inspired Mazzini, Michel
and the men of 1848 all over Europe. Iorga added little, by w
of doctrine, to what men like Balcescu and Kogalniceanu, bot
historians, had preached fifty years before. He was a far bett
trained historian than they had been, but he remained untouch
by the materialism which had so extensively penetrated politi
and social thought since their day. Iorga had the organic conce
of history. A nation's past, he felt, could not be described mechan
cally as a series of events; it was an unending struggle to prese
and develop the national character, the national language, natio
ideals and values. He saw that struggle as still going on, approac
ing a climax. He felt compelled to take part in it. The ideal, a
he envisaged it, was a united national state with a common culture
based on the experience of past generations. He placed particul
emphasis on the experience of the peasants, who, by their wo
their sufferings, and their tenacity, had preserved for the nat
its language and its ancestral lands. In the innermost recesses
the peasant mass was the " soul " of the Roumanian nation of whi
Iorga often spoke so eloquently. " A nation is not a piece of ter
tory," he wrote later in life, " nor a state, nor an ec

nor a creation of treaties . . . but a soul, . . . an elem
mystic thing." 3
Iorga was active throughout the i89o's in the
a society. which interested itself in the "broth
borders," the Roumanians of Transylvania, the B
and Bukovina. Later he became its moving spiri
League's activities were of a cultural nature, som
and even conspiratorial; their effect was to enco
movements among the Roumanians of the neig
especially Hungary. Iorga himself travelled exte
"unredeemed provinces," returning to write book
and culture of their Roumanian inhabitants. He is credited with
having done much to keep alive the question of Bessarabia, w
a century of Russian rule and the recent measures of Russificat
had had a telling effect. Another venture was his "popul
university" at Valenii-de-Munte, where every summer Roum
students and intellectual leaders from in and outside the cou
gathered to exchange ideas.
His campaign for strengthening the national consciousness of
Roumanians led Iorga directly into new literary and politic
controversies. He founded a review, Sdmdndtorul, later replaced
Floarea Darurilor and Neamul Romdnesc Literar, to carry on
fight for his concept of national culture and to oppose what he c
the slavish imitation of French literature. This was a contro
which had been going on since the Roumanian upper class
began to succumb to French influences nearly one hundred y
before. But none had entered into the lists to slay the Fre
dragon so ardently as Iorga. His students rioted in the stree
Bucharest and occupied the National Theatre to prevent the show
of French plays and thus to defend " the language, literatur
highest interests of the Roumanian people."
While Iorga's new nationalism led him often into tilts w
literary windmills, it brought him also face to face with the coun
most serious and pressing social and political problems. At
time of the great peasant revolt of I907, which was put down w
the greatest brutality by General Averescu and the army, Io
was a solitary voice speaking in defence of the peasants. H
no revolutionary. Nor did he have a broad understanding of
economic and social forces in history and of the development of the
3 Iorga, Rumdnische Seele, in Ernst Gamillscheg (ed.), Vom Leben und Wirken der
Romanen, Rumanische Reihe, Heft 1 (Jena and Leipzig, I933), p. 3.
NICHOLAS IORGA. 49
agrarian problem in Roumania. But the peasantry, he fe

westernised upper class, was the backbone of the nation
despised, robbed and ground down for centuries, the peasa
driven by circumstances to revolt. Iorga had the courage t
His approach to the peasant problem, after the stifling of t
was the following: the government should treat the pe
understanding, gratitude and sympathy; through edu
should give him light and thus prepare him for the po
which he would be called upon to play; when the tim
should say to him, " Here is your country, it is yours t
It was characteristic of Iorga that he saw the problem
one and proposed its solution through sympathy and
that he saw cultural solidarity as the key to the appea
strife between classes.
A third guiding thread in Iorga's thought, in addition to his
nationalism and his cult of the peasant, was his sense of identity
with the wider cultural traditions of Europe. He made much of
Roumania's "Latinity" without carrying it, like certain other
Roumanian historians, to absurd lengths. Roumania, in his view,
was not just a backward Balkan state (indeed, he devoted a book
and several articles to proving the proposition that it was not a
Balkan state at all), but was throughout history a part of the civilised
Mediterranean world. In his historical writing he stressed "the
seal of Rome " on the peoples of the lower Danube and the Balkan
Peninsula, and " Byzance apres Byzance," the heritage of Mediter-
ranean, Christian civilization which lived on, especially in the
Danubian principalities, after the fall of Constantinople to the
Turks. His full-length history was not merely the history of the
Roumanians but also of " la romanite orientale." The Roumanian
nation was the guardian of these traditions, just as ancient Da
was the outpost of civilisation on the edge of the barbarian world
France and Italy were at the centre of Iorga's civilised worl
He felt deeply attached to France despite his intensive campai
against the pseudo-French culture of the Roumanian upper cla
Paris was to him a second home. After the first World War he
lectured every year at the Sorbonne or at the College de Fran
He founded, at that time, the Ecole Roumaine en France at
Fontenay-aux-Roses, just south of Paris, and sent there each ye
the most promising young Roumanian scholars. For Italy a
Iorga had a profound attachment, so profound in fact that he coul
not help admiring Mussolini as a new Caesar and glorying in th
civilising mission of the modern Roman legions in Ethiopia, ev
D
though Iorga himself did not swallow Fascism wit

and was disturbed, to put it mildly, by the new C
of Hungarian revisionism.
Iorga was not blindly or consistently anti-Germ
studied in Germany and found much to admire in Ge
and German methods. But when war came to Eur
did not hesitate a moment in taking the side of Fr
immediately to write and speak against Germany
Roumanian government's policy of neutrality. Onl
defeat of the central powers could Roumania hope
vania. Iorga thus had strong nationalistic motives f
He also had other motives. To him Germany, in th
sented the forces of darkness and barbarism. " France cannot
perish," he wrote on 27 July, I9I4. "That would be a moral
catastrophe for all mankind."
IV
Active though he was in every form of intellectual and political

activity, Iorga's fame rests primarily on his work in the field of
history. Much of his attention was given to what the Roumanians
like to call " universal history." It is a measure of his stature that,
strong and often narrow nationalist that he was, he did not confine
his teaching and writing to Roumanian history alone, or to defending
the national cause before world opinion. His was a wider vision.
In his teaching at the University of Bucharest and at his own
Institute of Universal History he gave two generations of Roumanian
students a sense of the sweep of world history. He wrote both
monographs and general works on mediaeval Europe, on the Byzan-
tine empire, on Ottoman and on general Balkan history. Most of
these were written in Western languages and won recognition outside
Roumania. His Notes et extraits pour servir a l'histoire des croisades
au XVe siecle (Bucharest, I899-I916) came out in six volumes,
his Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches (Gotha, I908-I913) in five.
His history of the Byzantine empire, which was translated and pub-
lished in England in I907, he later expanded into a three-volume
Histoire de la vie byzantine (Bucharest, I934), then added two more
volumes of Etudes byzantines (Bucharest, I939). He also produced
an Essai de synthese de l'histoire de l'humanite (Paris, I926-I928) in
four volumes, a bold attempt to write " universal history."
With such quantity the quality could hardly be expected to be
uniformly high. The specialists have pointed out some of the weak
spots. There are errors of fact and dubious interpretations. The
NICHOLAS IORGA. 5I
astonishing thing is that he could write so much on such

of subjects without forsaking the discipline of the histor
had good, solid training in the school of Leopold von Rank
he tried to emulate. His teacher at Leipzig was Karl L
He knew languages and he knew his source materia
Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, which neglects prim
sources, stood for years as a standard work. He based
on the earlier classic accounts of Hammer and Zinkeisen and added
a great deal as the result of his own researches and his wide know-
ledge of the history of the Christian peoples of the Balkans.
Iorga was one of the few Balkan historians who were also
historians of the Balkans. His concern with neighbouring natio
was not limited to attempts to disprove historic claims to this
that bit of disputed territory. He did a good deal of that, engaging
in jousts with his fellow-historians of Hungary and Bulgaria, bu
also, through his study of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, he
had an understanding of the many factors common to all the nation
of the Balkans. His Histoire des etats balcaniques jusqu'a 192
(Paris, 1925) has something of this approach. Even more stimu
lating are some of his shorter studies: on the common character of
Balkan institutions, on the origin of the idea of independence in th
Balkans, on the influence of the French Revolution in south-easter
Europe. Unfortunately he never carried on to make a really com
petent general study of the development of the Balkan nations. He
was not at his best in handling Slavic materials. That is one of t
big gaps in his work, and a rather important one since Rouman
was all but surrounded by Slavic peoples.
Following his habit of establishing " institutes " for study i
fields in which he was interested, he founded a South-Eastern
European Institute in 19I3 and began publishing a review, in French,
devoted to Balkan history. Like so many of his ventures, the
institute was Iorga himself. He wrote most of the articles and
practically all the book reviews. Although its standards were kept
high, the review never attracted the scholars of other Balkan
nations, as the later Revue Internationale des Etudes Balkaniques of
Belgrade succeeded in doing. Collaboration with Iorga was apt to
be neither easy nor pleasant unless the collaborator was prepared to
be dominated.
In view of the vast quantity of writing he did on wider historical
subjects, the magnitude of his contributions in the field of Roumania
history is all the more astounding. There is not a dark corner any-
where in the Roumanian past that has not been visited by Iorg
in his search for documents and other evidence. I

of his career he devoted his great energy to the col
material. He went everywhere, to churches and m
and towns, public and family archives; he sought
Roumanian history in the archives of Paris, Rome
Vienna, Kronstadt, and many other cities. He collect
of travellers of many nationalities who had visit
habited by Roumanians. His monumental documen
carefully edited, provided a basis for a scientific
Roumanians that had not existed before. Among
thirty-one volumes of Studii si Documente cu p
Romdnilor, three volumes of Acte si fragmente cu
Romdnilor, and seven volumes in the important Hurmuzaki
collection.
With this material in hand Iorga began to turn out monographs
in profusion on all aspects and all periods of Roumanian history.
He was primarily a political historian, but covered many other
aspects in pursuit of his aim of picturing the whole living past of the
nation. His work included histories of Roumanian commerce, of
industry, of the press, of education, of the army, of the church, of
Roumanian law, of individual families and of several cities including
Bucharest. One volume after another on the history of Roumanian
literature flowed from his pen, two on the I8th century, three on
the 19th, and then two more on contemporary literature. He
founded an historical review, Revista Istoricd, in I9I4, and filled
each issue with his own articles. He directed the historical section
of the Roumanian Academy, which published many of his scholarl
monographs.
All this activity was preparation and background for his maj
works of synthesis on the history of the Roumanian people. T
first of these was written as part of the Lamprecht series, Allgeme
Staatengeschichte. Entitled Geschichte des rumdnischen Volkes
Rahmen seiner Staatsbildungen, it was published in Gotha in I9
Not translated into Roumanian until many years later, this wo
was little noticed in Roumania but for Western readers became the
standard history, supplanting Xenopol's Histoire des Roumains de
la Dacie Trajane. In it Iorga attempted to trace the history of the
nation in the framework of its ethnic unity regardless of " ephemeral"
political frontiers, and to avoid mere narration of political and
military events. "I have wished first of all to picture the develop-
ment of the Roumanian people," he wrote in the preface, "not
through their great men but as a living being . . . Of the great
NICHOLAS IORGA. 53
men I have written only in so far as they have contributed

two-thousand-year development. Secondly I have so
picture that development in connection with the history of
bouring peoples . . ." In general, Iorga succeeded in the
forth in this statement of his approach, although he was no
minimize the historical role of chiefs and princes. An indivi
himself, he was always partial to " great men " as a motive f
history.
The Geschichte des rumdnischen Volkes was solidly based on
documentary source material so far as such material was available.
But it was no lifeless German dissertation. Iorga had something
of the historical novelist and the epic poet in him. He saw the
Roumanian people's history as a great epic and he could not keep
that element out of his history. He did not want to keep it out.
In explaining, later in life, his own conception of the historian's
task, he insisted first on truth and second on " beauty of presenta-
tion." " For myself," he said, " I should have wished a greater
poetic talent in order to approach more closely to the truth." 4
His second general work appeared first in French as Histoire des
Roumains et de leur civilisation (Paris, I920) and subsequently in
English, Italian, German and Roumanian versions. The English
edition was published in London in I925 as A History of Roumania;
Land, People, Civilisation. This book was written hastily during
the war and for a purpose, to place a brief history of Roumania
before readers in Allied countries at a time when vital decisions
concerning that nation were being made. It was less scholarly than
his earlier history in German and was very sketchy indeed on som
periods, the Igth century in particular. Iorga himself did not
regard this work highly and did not by any means intend that
should be considered as his definitive history of the Roumania
people. Unfortunately for his reputation, it was read widely an
was sharply criticised by younger historians, his own former pupi
He followed it with a more ambitious work in three volumes, La
Place des Roumains dans l'histoire universelle (Bucharest, 1935-1936),
which contained some new material and new ideas but did not quite
live up to its title. These books were but stepping stones on the way
to the crowning achievement of his historical career, the ten-volume
Istoria Romdnilor which he completed one year before his death.5
4 Iorga, Generalitdti cu privire la studiile istorice, 3rd ed. (Bucharest, I944),
p. 348.
5 Istoria Romdnilor (Bucharest, I936-I939, IO vols.). The first four volumes
appeared in French translation as Histoire des Roumains et de la romanite orientale
(Bucharest, I937).
Iorga's Istoria Romanilor is a stupendous work, ev

all of it can be called careful, analytical history. I
the pageant of the history of a nation, the fruit
intimate acquaintance with its past. Stung by hi
leagues' criticism that he was writing history ac
intuition rather than according to the truth, he fill
with citations and references to source material. Most of the
references are to his own works, which is not surprising
many fields only he had done the necessary spadewo
accuracies there are, and even his prodigious memory
occasionally to have played him false. Iorga's critics were
trip him up on questions of detail and even to present con
arguments against some of his conclusions. In its main l
however, Iorga's Istoria Romdnilor stands as a monument
historical writing, a fitting culmination of a remarkably pro
career.
Towards the end of that career Iorga found himself

bitter controversies with the younger generation of h
as he himself many years before had crossed swords w
his own teacher, and others of the generation whic
On the whole the younger historians seem to have
of the argument. Constantin C. Giurescu's Istoria R
which several volumes have already appeared, bids
more dependable history than Iorga's. But such a
never have been possible without the great work of p
by Iorga. He it was, as one of his former critics, Gheo
pointed out a few years ago, who went into the for
cleared away the trees by dint of his own unlimited en
the land and sowed it, so that others might reap.6
Roumanians are inclined to forgive Iorga his use
where the facts were not available, for both his sou
tions and his doubtful ones redounded to the greate
Roumanian people. Roumanian history was to him a
a miracle of fate but our own miracle." The Western reader finds
something of that faith in miracles in Iorga's historical writing and
can discount it. Without that element he would not have been
Iorga. With or without it he was a great historian.
6 Gheorghe Bratianu, "Nicolae Iorga, istoric al Romanilor" (Nicolae Io

trei cuvdntdri, Bucharest, I944), p. 67.
NICHOLAS IORGA, 55
V
In politics Iorga did not attain the peak of eminence that he did
as an historian. From his entry into the arena in I907 he was in
the thick of political battles. He founded the National Democratic
party in I908, one year after he was first elected to the Chamber
of Deputies. His programme was nationalist in that it was anti-
foreign, anti-Semitic, favoured the development of national in-
dustries, and urged the maintenance of a big army. It was demo-
cratic in that it proposed universal suffrage and increased rights for
the peasants. Iorga's closest friend and colleague on the political
scene of that time was Professor A. C. Cuza, the notorious theoretician
of the anti-Semitic movement. Iorga's party, in those years before
the first World War, was insignificant in numbers. He himself was
distinguished principally for the energy and enthusiasm with which
he defended his pet causes. At the time of the second Balkan War
he became a fervent proponent of intervention. Roumania, he said,
had to redress the balance in the Balkans. Even more vital, in his
opinion, was the need of the Roumanian nation to assert its national
spirit, to refurbish the military glories of the past. He went along
with the army on its military parade into Bulgaria and rejoiced in
Roumania's acquisition of southern Dobruja, which then became
sacred " national" territory even though populated by Bulgarians
and Turks.
It was in the World War that Iorga took on the stature of a grea
national leader. Here he was not dealing with votes and parlia
mentary combinations but preaching a cause. To him this mome
was not only the climax of his own lifetime work; it was the clim
of centuries of Roumanian history. During the period of neutrality
he went up and down the country making fiery speeches to hasten
the approach of " the hour for which we have lived our whole life
as a nation, for which we have written, worked and fought." Then
in I916, came Roumania's entry into the war, quickly followed
overwhelming defeat. The army was crushed, the capital and a
but a corner of the country occupied. Germany's victories we
followed by the collapse of Russia, Roumania's ally. In Jassy,
which king, cabinet and parliament had moved, Iorga was the so
of the resistance. He denounced the politicians who truckled t
the Germans. When the treaty of Bucharest was signed, he wro
to King Ferdinand that no treaty could alienate the territory
bequeathed to the nation by its ancestors. In his speeches, in h
articles in Neamul Romdnesc, which he continued to publish every
day in Jassy, in his personal contacts with the royal fa

political and military leaders, he strove to keep ali
victory in a period of almost universal despair. An
found the time at Jassy to write a series of books
of Roumania's relations with the various Allied nations.
The war over, Iorga enjoyed immense prestige in the new Greater
Roumania. In I919 he became president of the first nationa
assembly elected by universal suffrage and thus presided over t
inauguration of what was looked on as a new democratic era. B
all did not go well in the new Roumania either for democracy
for Iorga's prestige. He himself tells the story of post-war politics
with a wealth of detail in his autobiographical writings, which giv
a fascinating picture of the political scene and an even more fa
cinating picture of Iorga himself. The politicians, as might be
expected, played politics, and politics in Roumania were on a rather
low moral level. The grant of the vote to the peasants had no
altered the political system. Iorga allied himself temporarily wi
Maniu's Transylvanian party and with the Peasant party to oppo
the dominant Liberals. But he soon became disgusted with the
ways of all the parties and party leaders. He deplored the prevailin
materialism, the lack of ideals, the shameless dishonesty. His
experience in politics, combined with his interpretation of Roumani
history, turned him more and more toward the monarchy as t
necessary seat of authority and stability in political life. T
combination of political authoritarianism and integral nationali
which Iorga came to represent was, as a matter of political theory
not so very far from fascism, but he rejected the system of absolut
dictatorship and the " violence and caprice " of the fascist regimes
For Roumania's local fascists, the Iron Guard, he had nothing b
contempt, and they marked him down as an irreconcilable enemy.
One reason for Iorga's disgust with the politics of parliamentar
democracy was his righteous indignation at the way Roumania
practised it. Another was his lack of success at playing the gam
himself. He was a man of integrity, but he was egocentric, irritab
overbearing, and did not tolerate in his circle any independence of
thought or character. His was a one-man party which, to wield an
influence, had to make temporary combinations with other group
and party leaders. None of these combinations was stable, for
Iorga had little respect for other leaders and they considered h
unpredictable. He was accused of changing his opinions three time
a day. Nicolae Lupu called him the Don Quixote of Rouman
politics. He managed to alienate nearly everybody, including Maniu
NICHOLAS IORGA. 57
whose integrity and patriotism were unquestioned. T

ridiculed'as a man of beautiful speeches but of no substan
credit he also alienated his old friend Cuza, who accused him of
treason to the cause of anti-Semitism.
In 1931 King Carol named Iorga Prime Minister of Rouman
This was the king's first attempt to rule without the parties thro
his own favoured politicians and " technicians." The attempt
a failure. Iorga was not fitted for the job of governing the coun
and the world economic crisis brought with it problems far too g
for any Roumanian government to solve. Iorga's ministry includ
men like Constantin Argetoianu, an unscrupulous and effec
political manager but incompetent as Minister of Finance. I
had the idea of purifying the administration; he had also a
to attack the " moral crisis " by a reform of education. Such plan
could not save his ministry from disaster, and the king had to g
up the experiment after one year. Bitterly criticised as he
office, Iorga lamented that the new generation, despite his unceas
efforts, had lacked the solidarity necessary to create " a true
Roumania."
Five years later Carol dissolved the political parties and
up a one-party regime. In Iorga's opinion the parties had thems
committed suicide. He supported the king's new program
although he warned Carol that the crown would need the su
of party leaders and could not establish a totalitarian regime
an ex-Prime Minister he served in the new Cristea government
had a hand in drawing up the new authoritarian constitution
its corporative parliament (an idea which he had advocated s
the start of his political career). He appeared, looking somew
ridiculous, in the sky-blue uniform of Carol's Front of Nati
Rebirth which all servants of the state were required to we
festive occasions.
Iorga's veneration for the Roumanian monarchy, even with the
throne occupied by princelings of an imported German dynasty for
whose personal capacities he could hardly have had much respect,
is traceable to his political theories and to his personal relationship
with Carol, whose tutor he had been, whom he had defended when
the young crown prince renounced the throne and took the road to
exile, and whose return in I930 he had heartily welcomed. In a
lecture given in I938 Iorga offered the following opinion: " Here
in Roumania it is evident, and it is a good thing, that the nation is
drawing closely round the Sovereign. ... It is not a question of
7 Iorga, Memorii, Vol. VII (Bucharest, 1939), p. 456.
ideology but of concentration of the national will in

sentative figure." 8 The sovereign, however, to
requirements, would have to personify the nation's w
crisis, as did Stephen the Great of Moldavia, Michael t
King Ferdinand, after some hesitation, in I916. Ca
let him down.
In the new national crisis, as in that of I916-I918, Iorga appear
at his best, a man of courage, of integrity and of ideals. Wh
Russia suddenly demanded Bessarabia and northern Bukovina
June of I940, under threat of force, Iorga alone spoke in the Crow
Council in favour of resistance. Carol sided with Tatarescu and the
others who counselled acceptance of the ultimatum. Two months
later came the Axis powers' Vienna Award, which gave northern
Transylvania to Hungary. Had the Roumanians refused to yield,
they could not have held out long against Hungary backed by
Germany and Italy. Russia might have invaded the country from
the east. In the Crown Council the drama of the previous June
was repeated. The weight of opinion favoured capitulation, and
Carol yielded. For the second time he gave up Roumanian territory
without a struggle, and ended his reign in ignominious flight from
the country.
Iorga, as he showed in his last years, had a sense of the values
at stake in the world struggle. He was concerned, as always, with
the interests of his nation, with its " destiny" as he conceived it,
but also with the wider issue of freedom. He believed in a mild
royal authoritarianism for Roumania but not in the denial of
dignity of the individual or of human liberty. In the Europ
crisis of I938 he spoke out against the " violence without limit " o
the Nazis, against " acts of agression at which the conscience of t
Roumanian people revolts." In the following year he stigmatiz
as " miserable souls " those Roumanians who were ready to se
the Nazis. When the war began, Roumania was at first neutr
At the Crown Council held on 6 September, I939, Iorga stated fran
that this was not the policy that he would have wished to foll
but if circumstances did not permit a policy of support to Fra
and England, then at least Roumania's neutrality should not
such as to harm their interests. " The public does not desire w
he said, " but neither does it desire the victory of Germany
Roumania should never base its policy on fear, or yield to for
merely because it is force. Such yielding would be a degrading
and a betrayal of all the past and present sacrifices of the nati
8 Iorga, Ce inseamnd astdzi conceptia istoricd ? (Valenii-de-Munte, I939), p.
NICHOLAS IORGA. 59
" But alas," he added, " historians write only the hist
past and not that of the future." 9
Roumania's neutrality did not survive the drastic chang
balance of forces on the continent brought about by Hitler
in I940. These events brought the dark days which Iorg
seen, with the entire continent of Europe in the hands of
he regarded as the new barbarians. Those barbarians, he
placed his name near the top of the list of those whom
sworn to liquidate. Neither his seventy years of age, n
century of service to his nation, nor his world renown save
his violent and tragic end. His friend and colleague, Ma
paid one of the most eloquent and meaningful tributes to h
a few days after his death. Iorga's concern with the m
of history and with the liberty of man, he said, gave to
which struck him down a particularly tragic horror, but b
token his sacrifice became for others, in the present s
world, a symbol of hope.
JOHN C. CAMPBELL.
Council on Foreign Relations,
New York City.
9 Notes on the Crown Council meeting made available to me through

of M. Alexandre Cretzianu.

John C. Campbell, Nicholas Iorga

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John C. Campbell, Nicholas Iorga

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Nicholas Iorga

Author(s): John C. Campbell

Modern Humanities Research Association, University College London, School of

SEVEN years ago Roumania's greatest historian and intellectual

was less well known; and then more often as an extra

Iorga was an historian, a journalist, an editor, a literary critic,

1 I should like here to express my thanks to Dr. A. Golopentia of Bucharest

and just . . . incessantly seeking perfection." His

thirty plays, many of which were produced at the Nation

Iorga's early years as a student and young professor were spe

tory," he wrote later in life, " nor a state, nor an ec

agrarian problem in Roumania. But the peasantry, he fe

though Iorga himself did not swallow Fascism wit

Active though he was in every form of intellectual and political

astonishing thing is that he could write so much on such

in his search for documents and other evidence. I

men I have written only in so far as they have contributed

Iorga's Istoria Romanilor is a stupendous work, ev

Towards the end of that career Iorga found himself

6 Gheorghe Bratianu, "Nicolae Iorga, istoric al Romanilor" (Nicolae Io

day in Jassy, in his personal contacts with the royal fa

whose integrity and patriotism were unquestioned. T

ideology but of concentration of the national will in

9 Notes on the Crown Council meeting made available to me through

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