Radu D. Rosetti

Radu D. Rosetti
Radu D. Rosetti in 1931
Born	December 13 or 18, 1874 Bucharest, Kingdom of Romania
Died	circa November 1964 (aged 89) Bucharest, Communist Romania
Resting place	Bellu Cemetery, Bucharest
Occupation	lawyer, journalist, activist
Nationality	Romanian
Period	1890–1964
Genre	lyric poetry, epigram, madrigal, romanza, drama, verse drama, sketch story, travelogue, memoir
Literary movement	Neoromanticism Decadent movement Literatorul Convorbiri Critice
Spouses	Elena Bacaloglu Marioara Naumescu Lucreția Cristescu-Coroiu

Radu D. Rosetti or Rossetti (December 13^[1] or 18,^[2][3] 1874 – c. November 1964) was a Romanian poet, playwright, and short story writer, also distinguished as an attorney and activist. The son of playwright-aristocrat Dimitrie Rosetti-Max and nephew of Titu Maiorescu, he had a troubled and rebellious youth, split between Romania and Austria-Hungary; during these debut years, he kept company with senior literary figures such as Ion Luca Caragiale and Alexandru Vlahuță. Graduating from the University of Bucharest at age 26, he was already a successful poet of neoromantic sensibilities, a published translator of plays and novels, and also famous for his unhappy marriage to the literary critic Elena Bacaloglu. Rosetti then switched to writing social-themed plays and stories of his professional life, earning a high profile as a defender of left-wing causes and impoverished clients. He traveled extensively and to exotic locations, publishing a number of volumes detailing his experiences.

From ca. 1913, Rosetti was also the public face of cremation activism, engaged in public polemics with the Romanian Orthodox Church. Although an artillery officer stationed in Chitila, Rosetti was mostly active during World War I as a patriotic orator and propagandist, later returning to his work at the Ilfov County bar association. During the interwar, he maintained contact with both the socialists and the "cremationists", while also experimenting as a Romanian Radio lecturer—but grew more conservative and passéist, attacking modernist literature on several occasions. This attitude consolidated his success as the author of memoirs, though he was rejected by both extremes of the political spectrum for his cherishing of a destitute social system. Largely forgotten during the early stages of Romanian communism, he withdrew to a garret. He was recovered in his late eighties by authors who were curious about his meetings with Romania's literary greats, as well as by humorists who rediscovered his cultivation of the epigram. Rosetti died in his garret, shortly after returning to publishing.