Avram Steuerman - Rodion Avram Steuerman - Rodion , born Adolf Steuerman or Steuermann and often referred to as just Rodion ( November 30 , 1872 – September 19 , 1918 ) , was a Romania n poet , anthologist , physician and socialist journalist . A member of Romania ' s Jewish community , he was a lifelong militant for Jewish emancipation and assimilation , noted for poems which attack the prevailing antisemitism of his day . For a while , he was active as a propagandist of " Hovevei Zion " ideas among local Jews . During the early stages World War I , Rodion was a columnist at " Seara " daily , with articles which criticized Romania ' s prospects of joining the Entente Powers . Steuerman is himself described as a Germanophile , but , upon Romania ' s entry into the war in 1916 , earned distinction on the local front . He committed suicide upon demobilization , following episodes of clinical depression . Married into the family of Jewish intellectuals Moses and Elias Schwartzfeld , Steuerman - Rodion was thus related to poet - philosopher Benjamin Fondane , who was his literary pupil . Steuerman himself is often described as an obscure contributor to Romanian literature , but survives in cultural memory for having given a poetic voice to the ideals of Jewish integration . Biography . Early life and career . A native of Iaşi city , the historical capital of Moldavia region , Steuerman was a graduate of the National High School . He published his first poem in " Drapelul " , a Moldavian weekly , and debuted as a polemicist in the satirical journal " Perdaful " . He moved on to establish his own newspaper . Addressed to the Moldavian Jews , it was called " Răsăritul " ( " The East " ) , and stood for Zionism . Steuerman also contributed to the Iaşi gazette " Jurnalul " , an organ of a left - wing political movement spearheaded by George Panu . Known under the pen name " As . " , he was a noted proponent of socialist literature and didacticism in art , following the theories of socialist thinker Constantin Dobrogeanu - Gherea . As a result , Steuerman had his works published in the Moldavian socialist review , " Contemporanul " . He fought to defend Dobrogeanu - Gherea against dissident socialists , in particular against a pseudonymous critic , " I . Saint Pierre " . In November 1894 , he and Anton Bacalbaşa of " Adevărul " daily were each proposing ways to uncover Saint Pierre ' s real identity , and debating each other on the actual nature of Pierre ' s critique . By then , Steuerman ' s own articles were being taken up by " Adevărul " . As a correspondent , he was using a regional pen name : " De la Iaşi " , later " A . de la Iaşi " . By 1893 , Steuerman had enlisted at the University of Iaşi Faculty of Medicine , but was still preoccupied with literary studies . The Jewish printing house of Lazăr Şaraga hosted Steuerman ' s selection of Romanian literature , " Autori români " ( " Romanian Authors " ) . Published in or around 1893 , it was divided into two volumes : the Anthology - proper and the Chrestomathy . Steuerman and Şaraga published a second edition in 1896 . Between these , Steuerman and his editor worked on translations from the work of philosopher Vasile Conta , putting out the " Theory of Universal Undulation " in 1894 , and the " Basic Metaphysics " in 1896 . The same collaboration brought the posthumous edition of poems by the socialist Traian Demetrescu , published by Şaraga and prefaced by Steuerman , and tales by Carmen Sylva , the Queen - consort of Romania . In Moldavia , Steuerman made his name writing for the moderate left - wing paper " Evenimentul " . Additionally , he worked with the " Evenimenul " men Al . Stroja - Flişki and Ioan Dafin on the literary magazine " Cărticica Săptămânei " . Writing years later , Dafin called Rodion " one of [ Romania ' s ] most talented journalists " . According to Dafin , he wrote with " amazing ease " , and was involved on all aspects of creative work . In parallel , Steuerman was studying to become a Doctor of Medicine : beginning in autumn 1896 , he furthered his medical studies in France . Normally , this departure would have brought a hiatus in his journalistic activity . Steuerman compensated by mailing daily contributions to " Evenimentul " , and , as Dafin notes , " his absence from Iaşi was not at all felt by his readers . " Upon his return , he set up a medical practice in the city . His thesis , on the treatment of skin cancer , was eventually printed in 1898 . Steuerman married the daughter of Iaşi - based Jewish folklorist Moses Schwartzfeld , and was integrated into the Schwartzfeld family . His writing career was consecrated by several volumes of lyrical poetry — " Sărăcie " ( " Poverty " ) , " Lirice " ( " Lyricals " ) , " Spini " ( " Thorns " ) — , a volume of short stories — " O toamnă la Paris " ( " An Autumn in Paris " ) — , a libretto for an opera about Moldavian Prince Petru Rareş , and several translations . The latter work includes versions of plays or poems by Tristan Bernard , Heinrich Heine , Victor Hugo , Ada Negri , Leo Tolstoy etc . In 1897 , Steuerman was a contributor to " Noutatea " ( " The Novelty " ) , an independent daily published in Iaşi by the Jewish poet Berman Goldner - Giordano . This short - lived gazette had a relatively obscure history , and one of its contributors , the maverick socialist Garabet Ibrăileanu reportedly forgot to mention it in all his later accounts of the period . Its regular contributors were young supporters of left - wing ideologies : alongside Steuerman and Giordano , they include poet Mihail Codreanu and future jurist Eugen Heroveanu . With Codreanu , Steuerman ( who usually disguised his name under the signatures " Rodion " , " Aster " , " Leander " and " Tristis " ) took charge of the literary column and the poetry section . They were sporadically joined by other writers , among them Laura Vampa , Alexandru Toma , I . A . Bassarabescu , George Ranetti etc . Rise to fame . Steuerman focused on his work in the journalistic genre . In 1901 , Goldner ' s edited a selection of his friend ' s contributions , as " Ele " ( " Them " ) . Four years later , Dacia publishers issued Rodion ' s critical essay about the classical Jewish humorist Cilibi Moise . At that stage , the Jewish writer was encountering resistance from the antisemitic literary movement in Moldavia . One such incident occurred when , as " A . Trestianu " , he published his poems in the magazine " Arhiva , Organul Societăţii Ştiinţifice şi Literare " . That collaboration ended abruptly , when Gheorghe Ghibănescu , the editor in chief , discovered that Trestianu was a Jew , and ordered his staff to destroy the physical evidence of Rodion ' s correspondence . During those years , Rodion began a cordial correspondence with Ion Luca Caragiale , the self - exiled Romanian playwright . Himself a noted proponent of Jewish emancipation and Jewish Romanian literature , Caragiale viewed Steuerman as one of his best Jewish friends , a group which also includes Dobrogeanu - Gherea , dramatist Ronetti Roman , journalists Barbu Brănişteanu and Emil Fagure , as well as Steuerman ' s own publisher Şaraga . Around 1907 , Caragiale publicly stated his admiration for Steuerman and Ronetti Roman . His words of praise irritated nationalist historian Nicolae Iorga , who published the antisemitic review " Neamul Românesc " : in one of his articles for that magazine , Iorga reported that Caragiale was a sellout to Jewish interests . Caragiale indirectly reacted to this accusation in 1908 , when he satirized Iorga ' s scholarly ambitions with a mordant epigram that was first published in " Convorbiri Literare " . Meanwhile , Rodion was becoming a Romanian expert on the poetry of Heinrich Heine . In 1910 , he published a comparative study of Heine and Édouard Grenier ; a year later , the volume " Complicele lui Heine " ( " Heine ' s Accomplice " ) . Rodion also became a literary chronicler at " Ordinea " ( " The Order " ) , published by the Conservative - Democratic Party , and held a similar position at Alexandru Bădărău ' s " Opinia " ( " The Opinion " ) . The latter employed him as its main editor for several years on end : Steuerman wrote three simultaneous columns in " Opinia " , and ( Dafin argues ) was " the paper ' s true soul . " Both papers published his introductions to the work of English poet Oscar Wilde . His work on both of these gazettes established Rodion ' s reputation outside Moldavia : in Transylvania , critic Ilarie Chendi noted that , with Dumitru Karnabatt and some others , the " fecund " Steuerman was still maintaining alive the tradition of cultural journalism . Diversifying his contributions , Rodion also rallied with " Viaţa Socială " , a left - wing paper put out in Bucharest by the republican agitator N . D . Cocea . At Iaşi , he and Goldner - Giordano were invited to write for a regional newspaper of record , " Gazeta Moldovei " . In 1912 , Steuerman ' s review of French - language studies of Romanian literature , from Theodor Cornel to Léo Claretie , saw print in the newspaper " Românul " of Arad . The same year , again signing " A . Trestianu " , he returned to " Arhiva " with a translation from Carmen Sylva . Despite literary recognition , and probably because he was perceived as a foreigner , Steuerman was not invited to join the newly created Romanian Writers ' Society ( SSR ) . He ridiculed the SSR ' s xenophobia in a series of articles for " Ordinea " and " Opinia " . His comments enlisted negative reactions in Chendi ' s " Cumpăna " magazine , where it was implied that Rodion risked awakening latent antisemitism , but defended by his more liberal colleagues at " Noua Revistă Română " . At around the same time , Rodion had become a sympathizer of Josef B . Brociner and his " Society of Romanian Israelites " — a local branch of " Hovevei Zion " and one of Romania ' s first Jewish political associations . Steuerman befriended the much younger Benjamin Fondane ( born " Benjamin Wechsler " in 1898 ) , to whom he was known as " bădi " ( " uncle " ) Adolf or Adolphe . Their camaraderie and kinship ( Fondane was Moses Schwartzfeld ' s nephew ) doubled as literary training : around 1912 , when Fondane was aged 13 , Steuerman reviewed his debut verse and encouraged him to continue . Reportedly , Rodion also helped introduce his relative to the socialist circles of Iaşi . World War I and suicide . During the first stage of World War I , when the Kingdom of Romania maintained its neutrality , Rodion grew close to the political circles comprising Germanophile s , neutralist socialists or pacifists . Like his colleagues there , Rodion was not a keen supporter of making Romania part of the Entente camp ; he looked with more sympathy toward the German Empire and the Central Powers . He was allied Panait Zosin and Sebastian Moruzzi , two left - wing dissidents from the Conservative - Democratic Party . He contributed to their press organ , " Îndrumarea " , which advanced election reform and complete Jewish emancipation . In June 1915 , Avram Steuerman was assigned a regular column in " Seara " , a Bucharest newspaper founded by Germanophile agitator Alexandru Bogdan - Piteşti and purchased from him by a German cartel . The " Seara " pieces , which he signed as Rodion and collectively titled " Scrisori din Iaşi " ( " Letters from Iaşi " ) , sought to depict the Moldavian state of affairs in lively colors , with noted stress on the spread of Germanophile sentiment . They notably covered the conflicts between the academics of Bucharest and Iaşi , in particular the largely unsuccessful attempt of University of Bucharest envoys to attract Iaşi University staff into a national pro - Entente organization . The project was opposed by the Germanophile group of former socialist Constantin Stere and rendered ineffectual when Stere ' s own rival , Rector Matei Cantacuzino , also advised against it . Drafted into the Romanian Land Forces as a military physician , Rodion saw action throughout the Romanian Campaign , retreating with the army into Moldavia after Bucharest fell to the Germans . His activity in the besieged province is said to have been exemplary throughout the period ; in 1917 , Rodion had reached the rank of Major . In May 1917 , he was stationed in the village of Căiuţi , where he read in " Opinia " that Fondane ' s father Isac Wechsler had died . In a letter of condolence he addressed to the Wechslers , Rodion stated : " here [ . . . ] death stalks us with every step and makes us love life . " After Romania signed a separate peace with the Central Powers , and following the demobilization of summer 1918 , Steuerman returned to Iaşi . Back into civilian life , Rodion was , like George Topîrceanu , one of the combatants whom the war years had rendered even more critical of the Ententist option ; from Moldavia , he sent his texts to be published in Stere ' s explicitly Germanophile review , " Lumina " , and , at the same time , began contributing to " Scena " , the daily owned by conscientious objector A . de Herz . " Lumina " hosted a second series of his " Scrisori " , beginning in June 1918 . During the same month , Rodion was also a correspondent of the short - lived leftist tribune " Umanitatea " , launched in Iaşi by the Bessarabia n Germanophile Alexis Nour , and noted for its advocacy of total Jewish emancipation . On July 27 , " Opinia " published Steuerman ' s eulogistic commentary on the political essays of Stere ' s follower Dumitru D . Pătrăşcanu ; Pătrăşcanu ' s text , grouped under the headline " Vinovaţii " ( " The Guilty Ones " ) , constituted an indictment of both the Entente and the National Liberal Party , Romania ' s main Ententist group . Avram Steuerman - Rodion was haunted by memories of the war , and , according to historian Lucian Boia , suffered episodes of clinical depression which he both concealed and left untreated . As a result of this condition , Rodion became suicidal . On September 19 , 1918 , he ended his life by overdosing on morphine . He left several manuscripts , such as " Frontul vesel " ( " The Merry Front " , a collection of sonnet s ) and " Însemnări din război " ( " Notes from the War " ) . The news of Steuerman ' s suicide shocked his colleagues and friends in the political - literary community . Homages and obituary pieces were printed in various Romanian press venues , including " Lumina " , " Scena " and " Opinia " — the latter also featured a special commemorative piece by future novelist Cezar Petrescu , " La mormântul unui confrante " ( " At the Tomb of a Brother in Arms " , September 26 , 1918 ) . A year later , in his columns for " Scena " daily and the Zionist paper " Mântuirea " , Fondane paid homage to his deceased uncle . These texts linked Rodion ' s suicide to desperation over the surge of antisemitism , to chronic insomnia , and to gerontophobia . Literary contributions . According to literary historian Zigu Ornea , Rodion , a " minor poet " , was one of the young writers and activists instrumental in supporting the Romanian socialist patriarch Constantin Dobrogeanu - Gherea , who was at the time caught in an ideological dispute with the dominant conservative group " Junimea " . The other figures listed by Ornea in this context are Stere , Ibrăileanu , Dimitrie Anghel , Anton Bacalbaşa , Traian Demetrescu , Emil Fagure , Raicu Ionescu - Rion , Sofia Nădejde and Henric Sanielevici . In his earlier " Istoria literaturii române " synthesis , the influential literary critic George Călinescu chose to discuss Rodion and Berman Goldner - Giordano together , as two minor representatives of Dobrogeanu - Gherea ' s " tendentious art " . In his 1894 articles , Steuerman defined himself as an advocate of socialist - themed literature , admonishing his colleague Bacalbaşa for having strayed away from this path . Steuerman - Rodion left literary works which bridged socialist tendentiousness with his own cultural priority , Jewish assimilation . One of his poems reflected his dual identity , rendered dichotomous by the spread of antisemitism : According to Fondane : " Rodion wanted to live . That is a habit people tend to have , and Rodion wanted life , the same as a leaf of grass or the bird of flight . The son of a people with sideburns and robes , that survives by assimilation with earthworms , with stones , with mankind , with plots of land , his force has bumped [ . . . ] , like a fly , upon the wall of the world . . . " Fondane noted that Rodion , with his " painfully Romanian style of writing " at a time when Zionism was still " vague " , could only opt in favor of erasing his own Jewish identity . Steuerman ' s Romanian patriotism , frustrated by the antisemitic establishment , led him to write what are arguably his most - quoted lyrics : Rodion ' s verses were described as particularly eloquent in depicting the misfortune of Jewish intellectuals who sought integration into Romanian society but were still rejected — the piece is called " agonizing " by Zigu Ornea , and " immortal " by poet - essayist Radu Cosaşu . However , Romanian and Israeli academic Michael Shafir noted that , with similar texts by Ronetti Roman , Steuerman - Rodion ' s poem mostly reflected the disbelief with which Jewish intellectuals were reacting to the late - 19th - century antisemitic barrage . According to Shafir , this reaction was an undignified " lament " : " Steuerman - Rodion [ . . . ] sounds more like a lover rejected by his woman than a counter - combatant of the socialist persuasion " . Steuerman won more admiration for his prose . Writing in 2010 , Lucian Boia noted that Rodion ' s " Scrisori din Iaşi " were " a veritable chronicle " , " minutely researched and written with talent " . Boia found the overall Germanophile bias of " Scrisori " to be palatable : " the impression they leave is that Iaşi was sharing in only too little measure the ' Ententist ' pathos of Bucharest ; an exaggeration of sorts , but also a fair amount of truth . " An old adversary , Nicolae Iorga , was particularly impressed by Rodion ' s memoirs from the battlefield . These , Iorga wrote in 1934 , are " deeply sincere and truly emotional " notes . Legacy . According to the overall verdict of George Călinescu , Rodion and Giordano were " insignificant " contributors to Romanian literature , exclusively preoccupied with " the Semitic drama " . In the same generation , Şerban Cioculescu reviewed most such socialist poets as " second - rate " and " faint " . Such assessments were later issued by Michael Shafir , according to whom Rodion is " ( justly ) forgotten " , and Cosaşu , who calls him " obscure " . One to be influenced by Rodion was his own nephew Fondane : according to Ornea , it was Rodion and poet Jacob Gropper who first got Fondane interested in Judaism as a distinct literary subject . Fondane is also believed to have chosen the title of his column in the Zionist journal " Lumea Evree " , " Idei şi oameni " ( " Ideas and People " ) , as a quote from and homage to Steuerman . In 1919 , the same magazine hosted a philosemitic essay by Romanian cultural promoter Gala Galaction , which deplored the marginalization or persecution of Jewish writers , from Barbu Nemţeanu to Rodion . Excluding reprints in the various Romanian magazines , three posthumous selections of Rodion ' s work were published , as books , after the war : " Frontul Roşu " ( " The Red Front " , sonnets , 1920 ) ; " Cartea Băiatului meu " ( " My Boy ' s Book " , memoirs , 1924 ) ; " Îndepărtări " ( " Detachments " , essays , 1936 ) . Rodion ' s political case resurfaced during polemics launched by the Romanian antisemites and the antisemitic fascists , down to the end of World War II . Poet and Premier Octavian Goga outlined his self - declared hatred for the Jews and call for discriminatory policies in his political tracts , but , unusually in this context , stated that he held no such grudge against either Rodion or Ronetti Roman . According to Radu Cosaşu , Rodion ' s failure to integrate announced the similar drama of 1930s Jewish writer Mihail Sebastian , who wanted to be perceived as Romanian but was in return vilified by the far right . In 1941 , the authoritarian regime of Ion Antonescu published a directory of Jewish Romanian authors , living or deceased , whose work was officially banned : Steuerman was included , under the erroneous spelling " Steverman " . Although negative in substance , the brief profile published in George Călinescu " Istoria . . . " ( first edition 1941 ) , alongside other portraits of Jewish literary men and women , is sometimes referred to as an act of defiance to Antonescu ' s cultural pronouncements . The goal of recovering Steuerman ' s contribution was consciously taken up by Jewish scholar and anarchist Eugen Relgis , who wrote about him in one of his own literary essays .