Paul Zarifopol | |
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 Zarifopol as an Institutele-Unite student, 1891 | |
| Born | November 30, 1874 |
| Died | May 1, 1934 (aged 59) |
| Other names | Anton Gherman, Z. |
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| Era | 20th century |
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Paul Zarifopol (November 30, 1874 – May 1, 1934) was a Romanian literary and social critic, essayist, and literary historian. The scion of an aristocratic family, formally trained in both philology and the sociology of literature, he emerged in the 1910s as a rebel, highly distinctive, voice among the Romanian press and book reviewers. He was a confidant and publisher of the Romanian writer Ion Luca Caragiale, building his theories on Caragiale's already trenchant appraisals of Romanian society and culture. Zarifopol defended art for art's sake even against the Marxism of his father-in-law, Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, and the Poporanism of his friend, Garabet Ibrăileanu. He was also a noted censurer of neoclassical trends, of philistinism, and of inauthentic customs, advocating renewal, but not revolution. A skeptic reviewer of modernist literature, he reemerged during the interwar period as its dedicated promoter, but his preference for literary entertainment over substance and many of his literary bets were shortly dismissed by other experts of the day.
Zarifopol endures in cultural memory as an eccentric—not just because he tackled and derided the literary establishment, but also because he refused to publish most of his work in book form, or take up employment in academia. Having lost a considerable fortune, he lived withdrawn from the public eye, surviving on his revenues as a literary columnist, mostly for Ibrăileanu's Viața Românească. Shortly before his death, he set up his own successful magazine, Revista Fundațiilor Regale. In such venues, Zarifopol defended his cosmopolitan philosophy against other philologists, but also against the emerging neotraditionalists at Gândirea journal. Zarifopol viewed modern traditionalism as a fabrication and, with his essays, came out as a non-traditionalist and anti-totalitarian conservative thinker.