Mihu Dragomir | |
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 Dragomir at his writing desk in November 1957 | |
| Born | Mihail Constantin Dragomirescu April 24, 1919 Brăila, Kingdom of Romania |
| Died | April 9, 1964 (aged 44) Giurgiu, Romanian People's Republic |
| Pen name | Mișu Brăilițeanu, Miguel y Caramba, M. C. Dragomirescu, Jules Limah, Dr. M. C., Mihail |
| Occupation | Journalist, publisher, soldier |
| Period | 1933–1964 |
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Mihu Dragomir (pen name of Mihail Constantin Dragomirescu; April 24, 1919 – April 9, 1964) was a Romanian poet, prose writer and translator. A native of Brăila on the Bărăgan Plain, he was heavily influenced by the worldview of an older novelist, Panait Istrati, as well as by the poetic works of Mihai Eminescu and Edgar Allan Poe. He debuted in his early teens, and, before turning 19, had self-published his first volume of verse, also putting out the literary magazine Flamura. The late 1930s and early '40s saw his sympathy for, and finally engagement with, Romanian fascism—he joined the literary circle Adonis, founded by former members of the Crusade of Romanianism, and, during the "National Legionary State" of 1940, openly adhered to the Iron Guard. Rebelliousness interfered with Dragomir's educational path, but he recovered enough to train as a sapper, then as a junior officer, in the Romanian Land Forces. He fought in their ranks for the remainder of World War II, witnessing events which were retold in his poetic cycles (including a verse novel) and short-story collections.
The coup of August 1944 and the Soviet occupation of Romania were celebrated in Dragomir's poems as inaugural evens in a national revolution. He was joined he mass organizations of the Romanian Communist Party, moving from generic progressivism to Leninism, and then to explicit Stalinism. His political poetry pioneered the conceptions of socialist realism from as early as 1946; from 1948, the cultural authorities of Communist Romania employed him as editor of Viața Romînească, literary expert, translator of Russian literature, and purveyor of agitprop—though he was also excluded from the Party, and deemed ideologically unreliable, in 1950. His lyrical contributions were published in quick succession in the 1950s, and were celebrated at the time by the communist establishment—though they came to be seen as shameful by later scholarship, which examined their mediocre versification and their support for land collectivization. Dragomir continued to write poems that post-Stalinist reviewers upheld as more genuine, or even brilliant; he generally kept these for private use, or, when he published some of them, was attacked by his peers as an "escapist".
Dragomir was always seen as a suspicious figure by Communist Party cadres. These either viewed him as an infiltrator planted by post-fascist "enemy groups", or were alarmed by his alleged embrace of liberal socialism. He was isolated and sidelined after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, upon which he was sent to work as a consultant for the local film industry, during which time he inspired The Thistles of the Baragan, adapted from Istrati's work. In July 1958, he became founder and main editor of the revived Luceafărul, though the regime would not allow him full credits for his work there. His main contribution to that venue, and to Romanian literature in general, was as a discoverer and promoter of new talent. In his late thirties and early forties, Dragomir also contributed to the Romanian science fiction scene and, upon witnessing the first manifestations of national-communism, inaugurated his own transition to philosophical, largely non-political, poetry; this included publishing work that he had authored in previous decades. His death from a heart attack at age 44 interrupted this effort, though six posthumous volumes were issued by his wife, into the 1980s.
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