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Sofia Nădejde (born Sofia Băncilă; September 14, 1856 – June 11, 1946) was a
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...
n
novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while othe ...
,
playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
,
translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...
,
journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
,
women's rights activist Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...
and
socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
. Born in
Botoșani Botoșani () is the capital city of Botoșani County, in the northern part of Moldavia, Romania. Today, it is best known as the birthplace of many celebrated Romanians, including Mihai Eminescu, Nicolae Iorga and Grigore Antipa. Origin of the ...
, her parents were merchant Vasile Băncilă-Gheorghiu and his wife Pulheria (''née'' Neculce). Her husband was journalist
Ioan Nădejde Ioan is a variation on the name John found in Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, Welsh (), and Sardinian. It is usually masculine. The female equivalent in Romanian and Bulgarian is Ioana. In Russia, the name Ioann is usually reserved for the cler ...
, and she was the sister of painter
Octav Băncilă Octav Băncilă (; 4 February 1872 – 3 April 1944) was a Romanian realist painter and left-wing activist. He was the brother of Sofia Nădejde, a feminist journalist, and the brother-in-law of Ioan Nădejde (an atheist and socialist thinker, ...
. She attended primary and girl's boarding school in her native town, taking her high school-leaving examination in Iași. A member of the socialist circle in the latter city, she undertook a sustained journalistic campaign for women's social and political emancipation. In 1893, she led '' Evenimentul literar'' magazine; publications that ran her work include '' Femeia română'', the official socialist ''
Contemporanul ''Contemporanul'' (The Contemporary) is a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania from 1881 to 1891. It was sponsored by the socialist circle of the city. A new magazine ''Contimporanul ''Contimporanul'' (antiquated spelling of ...
'', '' Drepturile omului'', '' Literatură și știință'', ''
Lumea nouă Lumea Nouă is a middle Neolithic to Chalcolithic (possibly Early Bronze Age) archaeological site in Alba Iulia, Romania. The site is named after the Lumea Nouă district of the city. The site was first researched (and likely discovered) by Ion B ...
'', ''
Lumea nouă științifică și literară ''Lumea'' (Romanian: ''The World'') was a monthly magazine on international politics published in Bucharest, Romania, between 1963 and 1993. History and profile ''Lumea'' was established by George Ivascu in 1963. It is the successor of '' Timpuri ...
'', ''
Universul ''Universul'' was a mass-circulation newspaper in Romania. It existed from 1884 to 1953, and was run by Stelian Popescu from 1914 to 1943 (with a two-year break during World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbrev ...
'', '' Albina'', ''
Adevărul ''Adevărul'' (; meaning "The Truth", formerly spelled ''Adevĕrul'') is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in Iași, in 1871, and reestablished in 1888, in Bucharest, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published du ...
'', '' Noua revistă română'', '' Dimineața'' and ''
Arta Arta, ARTA, or Artà may refer to: Places Djibouti * Arta, Djibouti, a regional capital city in southeastern Djibouti * Arta Mountains, a mountain range in Djibouti * Arta Region, Djibouti Greece * Arta, Greece, a regional capital city in northwes ...
''. She was part of the ''Contemporanul'' circle, alongside
Constantin Mille Constantin Mille (; December 21, 1861 – February 20, 1927) was a Romanian journalist, novelist, poet, lawyer, and socialist militant, as well as a prominent human rights activist. A Marxist for much of his life, Mille was noted for his vocal sup ...
,
Traian Demetrescu Traian Rafael Radu Demetrescu (; also known under his pen name Tradem or, occasionally, as Traian Demetrescu-Tradem; December 5, 1866 – April 17, 1896) was a Romanian poet, novelist and literary critic, considered one of the first symbolist auth ...
,
Anton Bacalbașa Anton Costache Bacalbașa (, commonly known as Toni or Tony Bacalbașa, pen names Rigolo, Wunderkind, , Paul D. Popescu''Democrația Socială'' (II)" in '' Ziarul Prahova'', 11 February 2012 Jus., Wus., Zig. etc.; Victor Durnea"Enigmaticul I. Sai ...
,
Paul Bujor Paul Bujor (born Pavel Bujor;Mărghitan & Mancaș, p. 43 August 2, 1862 – May 17, 1952) was a Romanian zoologist, physiologist and marine biologist, also noted as a socialist writer and politician. Hailing from rural Covurlui County, he studied b ...
and
Ștefan Băsărăbeanu Ștefan is the Romanian form of Stephen, used as both a given name and a surname. For the English version, see Stefan. Some better known people with the name Ștefan are listed below. For a comprehensive list see . Notable persons with that name ...
. Her articles dealt with the evolution of the family, women's place in the socialist movement, prejudices regarding women's education, social movements and women's work, both rural and factory. She displayed deep familiarity with contemporary European philosophical and scientific thinking, referencing John Stuart Mill,
Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest ...
,
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
,
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and
August Bebel Ferdinand August Bebel (22 February 1840 – 13 August 1913) was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869, which in 1875 me ...
. Writing in ''Contemporanul'', she began a campaign against the then-common idea that women's smaller brains precluded them from attaining a higher spiritual plane or participating in politics. Using the latest available information, Nădejde demonstrated that female brains are proportionally larger than men's, and was involved in an especially acerbic polemic with
Titu Maiorescu Titu Liviu Maiorescu (; 15 February 1840 – 18 June 1917) was a Romanian literary critic and politician, founder of the '' Junimea'' Society. As a literary critic, he was instrumental in the development of Romanian culture in the second half of ...
. She then shifted to factors such as
social environment The social environment, social context, sociocultural context or milieu refers to the immediate physical and social setting in which people live or in which something happens or develops. It includes the culture that the individual was educate ...
,
prejudice Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification (disambiguation), classi ...
, discriminatory laws and insufficient education to explain women's backward state, using Mill's ''
Subjection of Women ''The Subjection of Women'' is an essay by English philosopher, political economist and civil servant John Stuart Mill published in 1869, with ideas he developed jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill. Mill submitted the finished manuscript ...
'' to call for political and civil rights.Mihăilescu, p. 361 In the early 1880s, Nădejde brought together women from various groups and clubs to raise funds for women's education and employment. Starting in 1886 and under the influence of
Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialec ...
, she began to focus on social inequality in general, seeing women's status as a byproduct of capitalism and private ownership. By the mid-1890s, her Marxism had given way to
democratic liberalism Democratic liberalism aims to reach a synthesis of democracy which is the participation of the people in the power and liberalism, a political and/or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual. It arose after World War I (with m ...
; she was attracted to the ideas of
Poporanism Poporanism is a Romanian version of nationalism and populism. The word is derived from ''popor'', meaning "people" in Romanian. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, Poporanism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotio ...
propagated by the movement's leader
Constantin Stere Constantin G. Stere or Constantin Sterea (Romanian; russian: Константин Егорович Стере, ''Konstantin Yegorovich Stere'' or Константин Георгиевич Стере, ''Konstantin Georgiyevich Stere''; also known u ...
, writing for the movement's press affiliate '' Evenimentul literar''. In 1899, together with her husband and a significant faction, she left the socialist movement, convinced it had no basis to take hold in agrarian Romania, and lost her interest in political engagement, shifting instead toward
literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to inclu ...
. Her first published fiction, the
novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) fact ...
'' Două mame'', appeared in ''Contemporanul'' in 1884 and 1886. Her first book was the 1893
short story collection A short story collection is a book of short stories and/or novellas by a single author. A short story collection is distinguished from an anthology of fiction, which would contain work by several authors (e.g., '' Les Soirées de Médan''). Th ...
'' Nuvele''. Her work includes sketches and stories: ''
Din chinurile vieții DIN or Din or din may refer to: People and language * Din (name), people with the name * Dīn, an Arabic word with three general senses: judgment, custom, and religion from which the name originates * Dinka language (ISO 639 code: din), spoken by ...
. Fiecare la rândul său'' (1895); tales: ''
Din lume pentru lume – Povestiri din popor DIN or Din or din may refer to: People and language * Din (name), people with the name * Dīn, an Arabic word with three general senses: judgment, custom, and religion from which the name originates * Dinka language (ISO 639 code: din), spoken by ...
'' (1909); novels: '' Patimi'' (1903), ''
Robia banului ''Robia legula'' is a species of fanfin Fanfins or hairy anglerfish are a family, Caulophrynidae, of marine ray-finned fishes within the order Lophiiformes, the anglerfishes. The fishes in this family are found almost around the world in the ...
'' (1906), '' Părinți și copii'' (1907); and
plays Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * Pla ...
: ''
O iubire la țară O, or o, is the fifteenth Letter (alphabet), letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in ...
'' (1895), '' Fără noroc'' (1898), ''
Ghica Vodă, domnul Moldovei The Ghica family ( ro, Ghica; sq, Gjika; el, Γκίκας, ''Gikas'') was a noble family active in Wallachia, Moldavia and in the Kingdom of Romania, between the 17th and 19th centuries. The Ghica family produced many voivodes of Wallachia and M ...
'' (1899), '' Vae victis! Vai de învinși'' (1903). She translated
Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraord ...
,
Henryk Sienkiewicz Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz ( , ; 5 May 1846 – 15 November 1916), also known by the pseudonym Litwos (), was a Polish writer, novelist, journalist and Nobel Prize laureate. He is best remembered for his historical novels, espe ...
,
Edmondo De Amicis Edmondo De Amicis (; 21 October 1846 – 11 March 1908) was an Italian novelist, journalist, poet, and short-story writer. His best-known book is ''Cuore'', a children's novel translated into English as '' Heart''. Early career Born in Oneglia ...
,
Prosper Mérimée Prosper Mérimée (; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, and one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, and a ...
,
Matilde Serao 200px, Matilde Serao, by "Rossi" Matilde Serao (; gr, Ματθίλδη Σεράο; 7 March 1856 – 25 July 1927) was an Italian journalist and novelist. She was the first woman called to edit an Italian newspaper, Il ''Corriere di Roma'' and ...
,
Karl May Karl Friedrich May ( , ; 25 February 1842 – 30 March 1912) was a German author. He is best known for his 19th century novels of fictitious travels and adventures, set in the American Old West with Winnetou and Old Shatterhand as main pro ...
,
Camille Flammarion Nicolas Camille Flammarion Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, FRAS (; 26 February 1842 – 3 June 1925) was a French astronomer and author. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astrono ...
,
Leonid Andreyev Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev (russian: Леони́д Никола́евич Андре́ев, – 12 September 1919) was a Russian playwright, novelist and short-story writer, who is considered to be a father of Expressionism in Russian lite ...
,
Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в;  – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
,
André Theuriet Claude Adhémar André Theuriet (; 8 October 1833 in Marly-le-Roi – 23 April 1907 in Bourg-la-Reine) was a 19th-century French poet and novelist. Life Theuriet was born at Marly-le-Roi (Seine et Oise), and was educated at Bar-le-Duc in his ...
,
Ivan Turgenev Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (; rus, links=no, Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́невIn Turgenev's day, his name was written ., p=ɪˈvan sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrˈɡʲenʲɪf; 9 November 1818 – 3 September 1883 ( Old Style da ...
,
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
and
Andrei Nekrasov Andrei Lvovich Nekrasov (russian: Андре́й Льво́вич Некра́сов; born 26 February 1958 in Saint Petersburg) is a Russian film and TV director from Saint Petersburg. Life and career Andrei Nekrasov studied acting and direct ...
. In her fiction, Nădejde imported the ideas and concerns of her journalistic work, cultivating the notion of "art with tendency" theorized by
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea (born Solomon Katz; 1855, village of Slavyanka near Yekaterinoslav (modern Dnipro), then in Imperial Russia – 1920, Bucharest) was a Romanian Marxist theorist, politician, sociologist, literary critic, and j ...
.Aurel Sasu (ed.), ''Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române'', vol. II, p. 183. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. The main theme of her writing was the
oppression of women Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primari ...
, and her novels are imbued with a feminist sensibility. In the years before
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, she also wrote
non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with b ...
articles concerned with women's ability to function in a modern society and economy. In 1918, she helped found an organization for the civil and political emancipation of women, and in the 1930s, amidst the rise of
totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
in Europe, she spoke out in favor of democracy and civil rights. After her husband's death in 1928, she moved in with her daughter Amelia, living on a small pension from the
Romanian Writers' Society The Romanian Writers' Society ( ro, Societatea Scriitorilor Români) was a professional association based in Bucharest, Romania, that aided the country's writers and promoted their interests. Founded in 1909, it operated for forty years before the e ...
. She died in her daughter's
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north ...
home in 1946.Mihăilescu, p. 362 In 2018, at the initiative of
poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...
Elena Vlădăreanu Elena may refer to: People * Elena (given name), including a list of people and characters with this name * Joan Ignasi Elena (born 1968), Catalan politician * Francine Elena (born 1986), British poet Geography * Elena (town), a town in Veliko ...
, the "Sofia Nădejde" Awards for Literature Written by Women were established. The awards are presented annually at a Gala and the categories of prizes awarded are
Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...
,
Prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...
, Debut Poetry, Debut Prose as well as special prizes for Innovation and Outstanding Contributions to Literature.


Notes


References

*
Ştefania Mihăilescu Stefania n all languages except for Polish pronounced like Ste-pha-knee-ahis a female name in Belarusian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Stefánia Hungarian, Italian, Romanian, Polish, Serbian, Macedonian, Slovak, Slovene, Ukrainian and Russia ...
(tr.
Maria Bucur Maria Bucur (born 2 September 1968 in Bucharest, Romania) is an American-Romanian historian of modern Eastern Europe and gender in the twentieth century. She has written on the history of eugenics in Eastern Europe, memory and war in twentieth-cent ...
), "Nădejde, Sofia (1856-1946)", in Francisca de Haan, Krasimira Daskalova, Anna Loutfi (eds.), ''Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements and Feminisms in Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe: 19th and 20th Centuries''. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nadejde, Sofia 1856 births 1946 deaths People from Botoșani Romanian novelists Romanian women novelists Romanian translators Romanian dramatists and playwrights Romanian women dramatists and playwrights Romanian women short story writers Romanian short story writers Romanian magazine editors Romanian women editors Romanian women's rights activists Romanian feminists Romanian socialists Poporanists Romanian socialist feminists 19th-century Romanian people 20th-century translators 20th-century short story writers 20th-century Romanian women writers Women magazine editors People from the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia