Mihail Sadoveanu

Born Nov. 5, 1880, in Paşcani; died Oct. 19, 1961, in Bucharest. Rumanian writer, state and public figure; member of the Rumanian Academy (1921). Hero of Socialist Labor of the Rumanian People’s Republic (1955).

Sadoveanu’s father was a lawyer and his mother was a peasant. He had his first works printed when he was in secondary school. Sadoveanu described the life of the working peasantry in the short-story collections Old Man Precu’s Inn (1904), A Child’s Grave (1906), The Hovel Dwellers (1912), and The Firebrand (1912). Sadoveanu’s works played a prominent role in the development of the Rumanian social novel, especially Lapuş neanu Street: A Chronicle of 1917 (1921) and A Mill Floated Down the Siret (1925). He revealed the finest qualities of the Rumanian national character in the novella At Ancuţ a’s Inn (1928) and the novel Poleax (1930). Sadoveanu reached his peak as a historical novelist in the 1930’s with the trilogy The Jder Brothers (1935–42) and other novels about the struggle of the Rumanian people for national independence and social justice.

After Rumania’s liberation from fascism in 1944, Sadoveanu joined the struggle to form a new social order. He was elected chairman of parliament in 1945 and deputy chairman of the Great National Assembly in 1946. His pamphlets and collections of articles The Light Comes From the East (1945) and The Kaleidoscope (1946) discuss the social and political system of the Soviet Union and the nature of socialist society. The most important works of Sadoveanu’s last period are the novella Mitrea Cocor (1949) and the historical novel NicoarăPotcoav ă (1952), which sum up his reflections on the destiny of the Rumanian people and the historical path of the peasantry.

Sadoveanu was chairman of the Writers’ Union of the Rumanian People’s Republic (1949), vice-president of the Rumanian Academy, president of the National Peace Committee, and a member of the World Peace Council. He was awarded the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Nations (1960).