Gheorghe Eminescu

Gheorghe Eminescu
Photograph of Eminescu, ca. 1930
Born	(1890-05-31)31 May 1890 Mizil, Kingdom of Romania
Died	6 June 1988(1988-06-06) (aged 98) Iancului, Bucharest, Communist Romania
Allegiance	Romania
Service/branch	Romanian Land Forces
Years of service	c. 1915–1944
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel
Commands held	2nd Machine Gunners Company in the 35th Infantry Regiment
Battles/wars	Romanian Front of World War I Battle of the Argeș Battle of Mărășești Romanian military intervention in Bessarabia Khotyn Uprising Tatarbunary Uprising
Awards	Virtutea Ostășească, First Class
Spouse(s)	Elena Labunțev
Children	1
Relations	Mihai Eminescu (paternal uncle) Aurel Persu (in-law)
Other work	Historian, memoirist, poet, factory owner
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Gheorghe Matei Eminescu (31 May 1890 – 6 June 1988) was a Romanian historian, memoirist and Land Forces officer. The posthumous nephew of national poet Mihai Eminescu, he was born to Captain Matei Eminescu; on his mother's side, he was also the nephew of Mizil politician Leonida Condeescu. As an adolescent, he joined his half-brother Victor on the bohemian scene, and was an observer of the Symbolist movement. Eminescu failed as a student, and was barred from all the country's civilian high schools. His Condeescu relatives were largely responsible for his having to choose a career in the military, which he had initially resented. He fought in the Romanian campaigns of World War I, commanding a machine gunners' unit during the defense of Mărășești. After spending some time in German captivity, he participated in the 1918 Romanian expedition to Bessarabia.

Eminescu remained there for some 15 years, commanding units on Romania's border with the Soviet Union and eventually rising to the position of Lieutenant Colonel. After passing into the reserves, he owned a factory in Brăila. He was sidelined and imprisoned following the establishment of Communist Romania, though his daughter, Yolanda, was able to integrate within the academic elite. Upon his release, Eminescu dedicated himself fully to historical and literary research, being commanded especially as a Romania expert on Napoleon Bonaparte—though he also completed a work on his famous uncle and his family, as a subject on which he would lecture on into his final years. Under the selectively liberal climate of national communism, Eminescu was allowed to publish in magazines such as România Literară and Magazin Istoric. Unlike his uncle and his half-brother Victor-Ion, he generally avoided writing poetry, only publishing one such piece when he was already in his nineties.

Eminescu's more secretive activity included recollections of his wartime and interwar activities, which were preserved in samizdat by several friends, including communist official Ion Popescu-Puțuri. The author died at age 98 at his home in Bucharest. He was survived by daughter Yolanda, a noted female judge and academic in Romania, and by his granddaughter Roxana, who joined the teaching staff at the University of Western Brittany; his direct descendants mostly live in France. His anti-communist memoirs appeared, albeit in still-fragmentary form, after the Romanian Revolution of 1989.