N. Porsenna | |
|---|---|
 Porsenna, c. 1920 | |
| Born | Nicu Porsena Ionescu 13 January 1892 Lipscani, Bucharest, Kingdom of Romania |
| Died | 18 January 1971 (aged 79) Floreasca, Bucharest, Socialist Republic of Romania |
| Resting place | Bellu Cemetery |
| Occupation |
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| Period | c. 1909–1971 |
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| Literary movement | |
N. Porsenna (pen name of Nicu Porsena Ionescu, also known as Nicu Porsenna or Porsena; 13 January 1892 – 18 January 1971) was a Romanian lawyer, writer, publisher, social psychologist, and political figure, also active as a paranormal investigator. Born to a successful printer, whose business he inherited at age 20, he began his career in letters, and his lifelong participation in polemics, while attending Matei Basarab National College. Before the outbreak of World War I, he had attracted attention as a student organizer, modernist raconteur, and Flacăra journalist, also founding his own short-lived newspaper, Latinul. During Romania's neutrality years, Porsenna veered between strong support for the Entente Powers (hinted at in a verse drama he co-wrote with Scarlat Froda) and a more cautious stance, akin to that of his political mentor, Alexandru Marghiloman. Upon Romania's declaration of war, he enlisted as an artillery cadet, and fought with distinction throughout the subsequent campaigns.
Porsenna returned to civilian life following capitulation in early 1918, and founded the daily Arena—possibly acting as an employee of his controversial friend, Alfred Hefter-Hidalgo. This venue supported Marghiloman, who had emerged as Romania's "Germanophile" Prime Minister; Porsenna joined the governing Conservatives ahead of elections in May 1918, winning a term in the Assembly of Deputies—and acquiring the reputation of a dreary public speaker. His months-long mandate witnessed a radical change in international affairs, with the Central Powers unable to build on their gains. Porsenna survived Marghiloman's downfall, and, in the early 1920s, was associated with the reemerging (and pro-Entente) National Liberal Party. This ended in 1922, when he questioned Romanian administrative policies in Bessarabia, sparking a national controversy. Following this rift, Porsenna allied with the far-right of Romanian nationalism, siding with the National-Christian Defense League, then joining the Romanian Front as a county councilor in Ilfov, and finally becoming a sympathizer of the Iron Guard. His essays in national psychology still challenged some of the core nationalist theses, and his critique of the nationalist doyen Nicolae Iorga contributed to his political marginalization.
Porsenna rebuilt his career in publishing, but his own activity as a novelist was largely ignored, or generally disliked, by the interwar critics. He also spent his own money on producing a film version of his novel Se-aprind făcliile ("They're Lighting Torches"), which came out just as World War II had started. The Nazi-aligned regime of Ion Antonescu assigned him to its Labor Ministry, where he became an advocate of social welfare and a corporatist doctrinaire; in tandem, he embarked on a celebrated career as a translator of world literature, especially focused on poetry by Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe. His association with the Antonescu regime brought his downfall upon Romania's changing of sides: though he remained active within the Democratic Peasants' Party–Lupu, he lost all his political privileges. The communist takeover in 1948 pushed him into hiding and near-complete seclusion, leading the Securitate to assume that he had escaped the country.
Porsenna was ultimately denounced and arrested in 1957, then prosecuted, alongside Petre Țuțea, for allegedly conspiring to bring the Iron Guard into power. Though accumulating a 50-year sentence, he was amnestied during the liberalization of 1964. By then, he was almost fully incapacitated by Parkinson's disease, and had to dictate his translations to an assistant. The relaxation of communist censorship allowed him to publish some of his works in this field, including a definitive, and best-selling, version of The Ballad of Reading Gaol. It appeared in early 1971, just after Porsenna had died in hospital. Some of his contributions to social science and parapsychology were given the occasional positive review before the end of communism in December 1989, after which his octogenarian widow, Zoe, tried to have most of them republished and reassessed.
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