page_title: Paul Zarifopol
section_title: Caragiale companion
hierarchical_section_title: Paul Zarifopol / Biography / Caragiale companion
caption_attribution_description: English: Members of the Dobrogeanu-Gherea, Ghermani, Cernovodeanu, and Zarifopol families, vacationing together in Sinaia. Top row, standing, from the right: Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, Marxist theorist, literary critic, and restaurateur; Dionisie Ghermani Sr, engineer; Paul Zarifopol, literary critic and social critic, Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea's son-in-law; Victoria Cernovodeanu, Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea's daughter-in-law; Elena Cernovodeanu, wife of General Cernovodeanu; Filomela Trandafiridi. Middle row, seated, from the right: Fany Zarifopol, wife of Paul Zarifopol, daughter of Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea; Sonia Zarifopol, daughter of Paul and Fany Zarifopol. Front row, seated and reclining, from the right: Tatiana de Sanzewitch, classical pianist; Maria Cernovodeanu, classical pianist, holding in her arms Paul Zarifopol Jr; Ecaterina Ciomac.
context_page_description: Paul Zarifopol 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.
context_section_description: On April 25, 1903, at Berlin, Zarifopol married Ștefania (Fany) Dobrogeanu-Gherea, the daughter of Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea. Zarifopol was an atheist; Fany was Jewish, and, like Zarifopol, a religious nonconformist. The couple turned up at the marriage registrar in street clothes and neither held a church wedding nor baptized their children; all this outraged his mother, a strict Romanian Orthodox. Dobrogeanu-Gherea, a literary critic, and his son Alexandru were also Marxist doctrinaires; Alexandru's daughter, also called Fany, was married to Ion Luca Caragiale's son Luca (Luki). While visiting his in-laws, Zarifopol met various figures of international socialism, including revolutionist Karl Radek.
  The Zarifopols had two children: daughter Sonia (born 1904), and son Paul (born 1905). Selling their Cârligi home in 1906, the new family settled in Leipzig, where Paul developed a friendship with Caragiale the elder, who frequently visited from Berlin; with Dimitrie Gusti and Panait Cerna, he is described by Caragiale biographers as the comedic writer's closest Romanian friends in old age, or even, with an affinity in "sneering spirits", as his one true friend. The relationship proved decisive in Zarifopol's evolution as a critic, but also left a trace on Caragiale's style: Zarifopol introduced him to the work of Anatole France. Until Caragiale's death in 1912, he and Zarifopol pursued a steady correspondence. Sometimes involving kitsch postcards they each collected for their involuntary humor, such exchanges were noted for witticisms and ridicule of traditional writers. They also shed light on Caragiale's intellectual, psychological, and artistic evolution, making Zarifopol a prime reference in that field.
  From 1908 to 1911, Zarifopol contributed to the Munich-based Süddeutsche Monatshefte. Also a correspondent for the Romanian literary press, his writing broke with the older canons of Romanian literary criticism and brought him to the attention of Dobrogeanu-Gherea disciple Garabet Ibrăileanu. Co-opted by the latter to write for Viața Românească, Zarifopol made himself known for sarcastic comments about modernist literature, describing Proust, Gide, and Cocteau as difficult "boys and children". Instead, he persuaded Ibrăileanu to publish there a novel written in collaborations by two of his brothers-in-law, Luki and Ionel Gherea. Together with the latter, he also supervised the debut of a female novelist, Lucia Demetrius.
  In 1915, Zarifopol and his family returned to Romania. By then, World War I had broken out, with Romania settled in uneasy neutrality until 1916. For much of that interval, Zarifopol was a literary contributor for Tudor Arghezi's Cronica, but did not necessarily share the magazine's radical stances, nor its anti-war "Germanophilia". During the campaigns of 1916–1917, Zarifopol and his family remained in Iași; all of southern Romania fell to the Germans. For a while, accepting Ibrăileanu's offer, he returned to his alma mater as a substitute professor, replacing C. Fedeleș (presumed missing in action). Upon Fedeleș's unexpected return, Zarifopol was sacked. In late 1916, the family took refuge in Russia, settling for a while in Moscow, but were driven out by the October Revolution.
caption: Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, Dionisie Ghermani Sr, and Zarifopol (top row, from the right), vacationing in Sinaia in 1908. Fany and Sonia Zarifopol are kneeling to Zarifopol's left; Paul the younger is front row, held in her arms by pianist Maria Cernovodeanu
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