Otilia Cazimir

Origins and early work

Born in Cotu Vames, Neamt County, she was the fifth child of schoolteachers Gheorghe Gavrilescu and his wife Ecaterina (nee Petrovici). She attended middle and high school in Iasi and took courses at Iasi University's literature and philosophy faculty, but did not graduate. Her pen name, which she never liked, was selected by her mentors Mihail Sadoveanu and Garabet Ibraileanu: the former came up with "Otilia", the latter with "Cazimir". In 1912, she made her debut with poems in Viata Romaneasca, to which she remained a loyal contributor. Other magazines that published her work include Insemnari iesene, Adevarul literar si artistic, Lumea, Bilete de Papagal, Iasul nou, Iasul literar, Orizont, Gazeta literara and Cronica. Her first book was the 1923 poetry volume Lumini si umbre, followed by Fluturi de noapte (1926) and Cantec de comoara (1931).

Cazimir's poems focus on the universe becoming domestic, while in its turn, the domestic perpetuates the cosmic. Her prose books were Din intuneric. Fapte si intamplari adevarate. Din carnetul unei doctorese (1928), Gradina cu amintiri si alte schite (1929), In targusorul dintre vii... (1939); she also authored a novel, A murit Luchi... (1942). Some of these works include poetic sketches reminiscent of Antoine de Saint-Exupery or Colette, while others are in a more realist vein. Cazimir worked as inspector-general of theaters in the Moldavia region from 1937 to 1947. She was involved in a discreet, years-long relationship with the married poet George Topirceanu.

Communist period and legacy

Cazimir won the Romanian Academy's prize in 1927, the Femina Prize (1928), the national prize for poetry (1937) and the Romanian Writers' Society prize (1942). She was a successful children's writer (Jucarii, 1938; Baba Iarna intra-n sat, 1954), and published her memoirs as Prietenii mei scriitori... in 1960. Her poetry dated after 1944, when the Romanian Communist Party began its ascent to power, is often marked by prevailing socialist realist norms; the communist regime awarded her the Order of Labor in 1954.

Cazimir translated French literature (Guy de Maupassant) as well as Russian and Soviet (Maxim Gorky, Aleksandr Kuprin, Anton Chekhov, Konstantin Fedin. Arkady Gaidar). Finding her standard poems to be "typically feminine", Eugen Lovinescu labeled her as "gracious and minor". She died in Iasi; her house there has been a museum since 1972, and includes the office where she wrote, portraits and local landscapes, her eyeglasses and inkwell, manuscripts and a library replete with signed books.