Radu D. Rosetti

Radu D. Rosetti
Radu D. Rosetti in 1931
Born	December 13 or 18, 1874 Bucharest, Kingdom of Romania
Died	1964 (aged 89 or 90) Bucharest, Communist Romania
Occupation	lawyer, journalist, activist
Nationality	Romanian
Period	1890–1964
Genre	lyric poetry, epigram, madrigal, romanza, drama, sketch story, travelogue, memoir
Literary movement	Neoromanticism Literatorul Convorbiri Critice

Radu D. Rosetti or Rossetti (December 13 or December 18, 1874 – 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, but kept company with senior literary figures such as Ion Luca Caragiale. 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. He then switched to writing social-themed plays and stories of his professional life, earning a high profile as a defender of left-wing causes. 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", but grew more conservative and passeistic. This attitude consolidated his success as the author of memoirs. Largely forgotten in his old age, he withdrew to a garret.

Born in Bucharest into the boyar Rosetti family, he was the grandson of aga Radu Rosetti, who headed the National Theater Bucharest during the reign of Gheorghe Bibescu. His father Dimitrie Rosetti-Max, the author of light comedies that appeared in Convorbiri Literare, held the same post, replacing the playwright Ion Luca Caragiale for a time. He was also a collaborator of poet-satirist Iacob Negruzzi, who married his sister Maria; another one of Radu's paternal aunts, Ana, was the second wife of culture critic Titu Maiorescu. Radu D. Rosetti himself was born to Dimitrie and to Natalia Gheorghiu when the couple was unmarried; however, they did marry during the child's infancy.