Talk:Magda Lupescu

message: Is there any evidence that she was ever "Elena Wolff"? I know her father was born "Wolff", but he apparently changed it to "Lupescu". Does anyone have a decent citation on this either way? I'm rather inclined to move this to Magda Lupescu, which I believe is how she is almost universally known.
Also, I gather that a lot about her childhood is shrouded in mystery and controversy (for example, she went to a very elite Roman Catholic school, quite unusual for the daughter of a Jew, and there is a lot of speculation about how she was admitted, whether she or her father had a patron of some sort). Does anyone have anything citable on any of this? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:09, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Name, Childhood

message: Comparing to the Lycée “Gheorghe Lazăr” seems quite arbitrary. I don't know a ton about the "Diaconesele", but I know the Lycée “Gheorghe Lazăr” well, and it is not a religious institution, for starters. To the best of my knowledge it never concerned itself any more with the ethnicity of its students than would have been almost universal at the time (which is to say, like most European and American universities of the time, it would have had some restrictive quotas), and its elitism was always more based on academic strength than the familial connections of its students. - Jmabel | Talk 05:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Really? With that name it wasn't a religious school? So it had a lay faculty? - Jmabel | Talk 01:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

text: OK, didn't know the name came from a street, just knew the name and thought I was right in recollecting that it was staffed by nuns. That didn't exactly suggest a secular institution. Indeed, it can't have been all that secular if it was staffed by nuns. But there's really no point to pursuing this further till someone can track down a decent reference. I don't have a lot of chance to do that from Seattle (not exactly a trove of works on Romania). - Jmabel | Talk 06:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lycée “Gheorghe Lazăr” 

message: The claim of a birthdate down to a particular day is simply absurd. Yes, one normally good source gives this date. And other normally good sources give other dates. The article used to say, accurately, "Her birth year is variously given as 1895, 1896, 1899, or 1902". It now, absolutely misleadingly, gives the single date 15 September 1895. - Jmabel | Talk 08:26, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Given lack of response (and another arbitrary, uncited change of birthdate in the meanwhile), I have edited accordingly. - Jmabel | Talk 08:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthdate 

message: Several of the footnotes are rather POV. For example:
Many sources give her name as “Elizei”. That is an obvious misunderstanding, caused probably by an original author who did not speak Romanian. In Romanian, “Elizei” is the genitive case of “Eliza”; thus, the phrase “Eliza’s daughter” is in Romanian “fiica Elizei”, just as “Mary’s son” is in Romanian “fiul Mariei”. “Eliza” is, of course, the Romanian form of “Elise”.
Doubtless largely true (although "Romanian form of “Elise”" is a bit odd: "Eliza" is probably a more common name in English than "Elise", which is more French, and all are variants of "Elisabeth" / "Elisabeta" / etc. But who are the "many sources" and whose voice is saying "obvious misunderstanding"?
No author has ever explained why Elena Lupescu’s father should have changed his name from “Grünberg” to “Wolff”. It appears more likely that the name Wolff, which is the approximate German or Yiddish equivalent of Lupescu, was an invention of Elena Lupescu’s detractors.
"No author": that's audacious. Who is speaking, who claims a comprehensive knowledge of the relevant literature? And, above all, "It appears more likely" to whom? 
It's really hard to get decent sources on anything about her birth and childhood. Britannica clearly gets a lot wrong: they give her birthname as "Magda Wolff". They are almost certainly wrong on "Wolff" and absolutely certainly wrong on "Magda", a nickname she acquired no earlier than the 1920s. So this does call for judicious handling of sources, and it is hard to avoid falling into some original research here, but we should still be circumspect.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of problems. Several other footnotes (and some parts of the article proper) have similar problems. - Jmabel | Talk 07:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV Footnotes 

message: :She is also the subject of a bit of doggerel:
:Have you heard about Magda Lupescu
:Who came to Romania’s rescue?
:It’s a wonderful thing
:To be under a king —
:Is democracy better, I esk you? 
In: The Limerick, 1700 examples, with notes variants and index, by Gershon Legman (ed.) ISBN 8148-0699-6
The above piece is removed from the "Trivia" secion, until clarification: the title of the book does not match the author. ISBN is invalid. Please reinsert only after checking with the book (not with some stupid website.) `'Míkka 01:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Limerick 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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*Added  tag to http://www.adevarulonline.ro/2003-01-22/Prima%20Pagina/carol-al-ii-lea-nu-mai-incape-in-biserica-regala-de-la-curtea-de-arges_30238.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Speculations are created by those not knowing how the Jews got names in Roumania.
Depending on the epoque, the names were given either via a decree or by ministerial Journal.
The baptised/roumanised Jew could not use any name s/he wanted, but rather either a translation or a "roumanisation" (exemplia gratia Schein -> Șăineanu pronounced exactly as before but with the suffix eanu anu and the like; Würtzel -> Rădăceanu which the is the translation of Root into the Roumanian Rădăcină plus the same suffix; Wolff -> Lupescu which is the translation of Wolf into Lup plus another common suffix escu etc - the three examples are provided for Lazăr Șăineanu, a linguist, Lotar Rădăceanu, a know socialist politician later communist, and the present case).
Another fact to be known is that, because of the illegal and massive immigration, many Jews had several names.
Therefore, in order to become Lupescu, old Grünberg should have been one time also Wolff. Or, this could be another possibility, is that they tried and managed to get the name Lupescu from Grünberg, and everyone else, aware of how these names are made up, retranslated Lupescu back into Wolff, assuming this was the christianised name. The real stuff can only be obtained by browsing all the editions of Monitorul oficial since say 1866, as all these decrees, ministerial journals and decisions had to be made public.
Cheers,
Marian--79.220.58.254 (talk) 10:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wolff from Grünberg 

message: Ion Têmpeanu (please note that this was the correct spelling of his name by the norms of the time when his birth certificate was filled up) was at the time of his marriage with Elena Lupescu only a captain. Godfathers for their marriage was (extremely unusual) was a Romanian war hero, general Grigorescu.
Later on, after divorcing her, and as a result of his former wife's position, he advanced in the army and was honourably discharged as lieutenant-colonel. However, the unwritten coutumes used to call any ltcol as it were a full colonel.
His name means in Roumanian "the moron one", which may be considered as an omen, well, he married Elena afterall :)
Marian
--79.220.53.181 (talk) 15:17, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Army rank of Têmpeanu 

message: :According to Quinlan, Elena did not adapt well to garrison life 
This is probably incorrect, because it suggests, me at least, that Quinlan had no idea of how the "garrison life" was in Romania. Unlike US Army, Roumanian army did not provide its officers quartiers inside the garrison, but they had their civil homes in the cities close to or inside of the garrison resided. The officers had a "duty time", sometimes over night, but essentially they were free to do whatever they wanted (within the laws ;) ) outside this duty and the regular meetings. Only in war times, the officers have been confined within the garrison.
So, Elena was free to do whatever she wanted during the times her husband was in the garrison, the usual time spending activities all other officers' wives did. Also, part of the military life, the officers spent some times in the pubs or the nights playing cards. This could be seen as a neglection.
This was the "garrison life" of Elena.
Other facts:
* the officers were forced by the army regulations to have a wife whose morality was beyond any doubt, and had a proper endow. The first requirement could not be broken, but the second could be derogated by the written recommendation of the superior and approved by yet another higher superior, as up as the minister of war or the king himself.
* divorce was still badly seen by the population, and particularly the church. It was also during the '30ies that people started to divorce, so that it was something "normal". The divorce being given somewhere in 1922-23-24, the Major Tâmpeanu probably used his wife's morality as an argument (solid arguments had been needed to get a divorce).
* the "marrying" rank of Tâmpeanu (new orthography) was captain. Reaching this rank was rather difficult, even in war times, meaning that Tâmpeanu was of a rather higher age (say 35-40 or so), an age very high by the standards. There were no minimum age requirements for the woman back then, these have been introduced AFAIK after 1930s, but 16-17-18 was the proper age.
Cheers,
Marian
PS: In order to avoid any misinterpretation, I would change that into did not adapt well to her husband's garrison life or similar.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.158.133.55 (talk) 10:48, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  garrison life