Grigore Filipescu

Grigore N. Filipescu

Filipescu in or around 1936
Leader of the Vlad Țepeș League/Conservative Party
In office
June 1929 – 1938
President of the Romanian Telephone Company
In office
1930 – August 25, 1938
Personal details
Born October 1, 1886
Bucharest, Kingdom of Romania
Died August 25, 1938(1938-08-25) (aged 51)
Geneva, Switzerland
Nationality Romanian
Spouse(s) Ioana Cantacuzino
Relations Nicolae Filipescu (father)
Ion G. Duca (cousin)
Matei B. Cantacuzino (father-in-law)
Profession Engineer, civil administrator, journalist, businessman
Religion Romanian Orthodox[1]
Nickname(s) Filipescu-Mătură

Grigore N. Filipescu (Francized Grégoire Filipesco; October 1, 1886 – August 25, 1938) was a Romanian politician, journalist and engineer, the chief editor of Epoca daily between 1918 and 1938. He was the scion of an aristocratic conservative family, and son of the statesman Nicolae Filipescu. During the early stages of World War I, he and his father led a pro-Allied dissident wing of the Conservative Party. After serving on the front, and behind the lines to 1918, as aide to General Alexandru Averescu, Filipescu Jr. became his political adviser. He had a stint in the Labor Party, merged into Averescu's own People's Party. Filipescu served as the latter group's tactician and campaigner, but had irreconcilable differences with Averescu.

Known as an antagonist who fought duels with his political rivals, Filipescu switched parties frequently, hoping to coalesce the conservative groups around himself. He served terms in Parliament and held several other public commissions as an affiliate of the Conservative-Democratic Party, the Romanian National Party, and the National Peasants' Party. In 1929, he founded his own Vlad Țepeș League (later branded "Conservative Party"), which was instrumental in ensuring the ascendancy to the throne of King Carol II, the banished heir.

Although suspected of harboring authoritarian tendencies, Filipescu was a public critic of fascism, who supported a continental alliance against Nazi Germany and a pragmatic rapprochement with the Soviet Union. This cause brought him an international reputation, but failed to win him popularity at home. In his final years, before his death from unsuccessful blood transfusion in Geneva, Filipescu stood out as a critic of King Carol, joining efforts with Iuliu Maniu and Nicolae Titulescu. His parallel career as a civil servant and businessman had culminated in his appointment as Romanian Telephone Company president, in which capacity he served from 1930 to the time of his death.

Biography

Early life and career

A native of Bucharest, he was the first of five children born to Nicolae Filipescu and his wife Maria Blaremberg; he had a brother and three sisters. He came from an old boyar family on his father's side.[2] After attending primary school in Bucharest, he was sent to Lycée Louis-le-Grand. In 1902, he enrolled in the Zürich Polytechnic, graduating in 1907. After becoming an engineer, he studied at the law faculty of the University of Paris, earning a qualification as a lawyer.[3] While it appears he never practiced law, as an engineer he worked on several projects, the most important of which was the Câmpina-Constanța petroleum pipeline. For his merits, he would later receive the Legion of Honour and the Order of Ferdinand I.[4]

In 1909, Filipescu married Ioana (1890–1971), the daughter of Matei B. Cantacuzino, a representative of the Cantauzene aristocrats. The couple had no children.[5] A great lover of fencing, both as spectator and as participant, in November 1911 he organized the largest athletic event in Romania up to that date, himself taking part in matches. He was also passionate about horse racing.[6]

At the beginning of his political career, Filipescu belonged to his father's Conservative Party (PC), which competed for power with the National Liberal Party (PNL). He first rose to prominence during the earliest stages of World War I, when Romania was still a neutral country: in 1914, he joined a commission headed by Colonel Vasile Rudeanu, which was tasked with negotiating arms deals in Italy, France, and Switzerland.[7] In 1916, at Grigore's suggestion, Nicolae merged his faction with Take Ionescu's Conservative-Democratic Party to form the Conservative-Nationalist Party.[8] This group supported a Romanian alliance with the Entente nations, whereas the mainstream PC sympathized with the Central Powers.[9]

At the Bucharest Jockey Club, the younger Filipescu had a publicized row with Hilmar von dem Bussche-Haddenhausen, ambassador of the German Empire.[10] The elder Filipescu died later that year, as Romania entered World War I an Entente ally; shortly after, an invasion by the Central Powers prompted the Ententist administration to withdraw into Moldavia. Grigore followed the Romanian administration and saw action on the front, advancing to the rank of Sub-lieutenant, while also joining the Labor Party, formed in 1917 by George Diamandy and other left-wing defectors from the PNL.[11]

People's League and Epoca

Around that time, Filipescu identified General Alexandru Averescu, his direct superior, as an ideal leader for a new anti-establishment, anti-PNL, political movement: popular and easily manipulated.[12] According to the hostile recollections of PNL man Gheorghe Gh. Mârzescu, it was Filipescu who organized the torchlight parade of January 1918, in which Averescu was hailed as "tomorrow's government leader".[13] Various Labor Party figures soon drifted toward Averescu's People's League (LP, later "People's Party", or PP), of which Filipescu was a founding member that April.[13][14] An LP tactician, Filipescu was credited with having drawn his father-in-law into the League, and to have ensured a state of equilibrium between the Laborites and the far-right circles led by A. C. Cuza.[15]

Filipescu left the front for Averescu's Bacău headquarters in 1918,[14] and was allegedly entrusted with the sanitation department in that city, resulting in his derogatory nickname Filipescu-Mătură ("Filipescu-Broom").[16] This civilian job was ridiculed by the PNL press, which accused Filipescu of being a draft-avoider; Filipescu reacted with a virulent letter to PNL politician Ion G. Duca, who was also his cousin. The two dueled with pistols in Iași, but purposefully missed.[17] Filipescu remained an ardent practitioner of dueling (a practice learned from his father) and a habitual litigator.[18]

His father had founded Epoca newspaper in 1885, and in September 1918, the son decided to revive the moribund outfit, buying the trademark from its nominal owner, Timoleon Pisani.[19] Filipescu and Constantin Argetoianu identified two financiers, Aristide Blank and Jean Chrissoveloni. In exchange for backing from the latter two, the newspaper owners joined the administration of Marmorosch Blank Bank. Blank's involvement would fuel the suspicions of antisemitic groups that the newspaper was a tool of the Jews. While Blank's influence was exaggerated, he did have a say in the editorial policy.[4] For instance, when an article critical of Liviu Rebreanu was slated to appear, the financier convinced Filipescu not to run the story.[20]

For a while, Filipescu was seen as leading the LP from behind the scenes while Argetoianu was a more public face; both men also tried to co-opt Constantin Stere, but the latter refused.[21] In advance of by-elections scheduled to be held in Moldavia, Filipescu wished to organize agitation, protests and street battles.[22] Reportedly, he also played a part in organizing the general strike on December 25, approaching Socialist Party militant Ilie Moscovici, with an offer to challenge government censorship.[23] Filipescu also had a rivalry with Nicolae Titulescu, the Minister of Finance, whom he accused of irresponsibility (allegedly because of direct taxes which harmed Filipescu's private interests) and, later, of extravagance.[24] Averescu objected to Filipescu's rebellious plans, and the latter quit the LP (according to Averescu and Argetoianu's accounts, he was in fact thrown out of the movement by Averescu, who objected to his factionalism).[13][22]

Filipescu, still seen as an "ardent Averescan", tried to negotiate the LP's arrival to power by talking directly to Romania's Queen Marie.[13] He also renewed his contact with Ionescu and entered his party. In December 1921, after Averescu's departure as Prime Minister, Ionescu was charged with forming a new government, and Filipescu, who assured him of having a parliamentary majority, persuaded him to accept. His hope was to form a new party comprising elements of the two conservative parties plus dissidents from the People's Party (PP, which LP had become) and the Romanian National Party (PNR). While Ionescu only lasted a month as premier, he became close to Nicolae Iorga, who won multiple seats in the Assembly of Deputies. He ceded one of them to Ionescu, who in turn handed it to Filipescu, marking the latter's first foray into parliament.[25]

PNR and LVȚ Carlism

Following Ionescu's death later in 1922, Filipescu approached Iorga in an attempt to merge with his Democratic Nationalist Party, but negotiations ultimately collapsed. He and Constantin Xeni also tried to convince both Argetoianu and Iorga to re-establish the defunct PC, but personal acrimony between the latter two precluded the plan from fruition.[26] In November 1922, the Transylvania-based PNR absorbed the remnants of Ionescu's formation, thus extending its reach into the Romanian Old Kingdom; Filipescu joined as well, pressing for the party to preserve the pro-Allied, anti-German foreign policy outlook Ionescu had advocated.[27]

Filipescu sat on a 150-member executive committee and headed the Bucharest chapter, but did not hold a leading position within the party. He also did not get along very well with the Transylvanian colleagues, a sentiment that deepened in him and other former Ionescu partisans (takiști) when negotiations for a merger with the Peasants' Party began.[28] In 1924, during the local elections of Dej, Filipescu allegedly slapped the election organizer, Teodor Herman. The manner fueled controversy, as Herman was also a priest.[29] According to a disputed account by socialist leader Constantin Titel Petrescu, in April 1926, before the Bucharest Commune, Filipescu presented himself as the head of a "Conservative Group", which signed its own alliance pact with the Peasants' Party and the Social Democratic Party.[30]

The merger with the Peasantists did take place in October 1926, giving rise to the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ). Filipescu and other takiști found themselves increasingly isolated, and in April 1927 defected to the PP.[31] Epoca ceased publication in August 1923, was revived in February 1926 and closed for good, in May 1938, due to financial problems caused by press restrictions.[32] In fact, it was his personal newspaper and always mirrored his views. His favorite targets were the royal camarilla, in particular Queen Marie, her lover Barbu Știrbey, D. R. Ioanițescu and, when not allied with him, PNȚ leader Iuliu Maniu.[33]

Filipescu stated that he re-founded Epoca in order to combat Știrbey and the PNL's Brătianu family. However, he soon found himself at odds with Averescu, who had asked him to stop attacking Știrbey, and quit the PP.[34] He founded the Vlad Țepeș League (LVȚ) in June 1929,[35] amidst a campaign he supported to place Prince Carol, Știrbey's enemy, on the throne. As noted by one of its members, the industrialist Alfred Cerchez, the League had the Carlist agenda for a primary objective.[36] Carol returned triumphantly in 1930, after a campaign in which Epoca represented the moderate side. Filipescu debated with the more radical Carlist Nae Ionescu, who had been harshly critical of the Romanian Regency regime.[37] Adding to the ambiguities was that Știrbey also supported the returning king, as did Filipescu's German enemies. In late 1930, Filipescu intercepted and published a letter from the German Ambassador Gerhard von Mutius, in which the latter excoriated Epoca and defended Știrbey. Filipescu, who demanded a duel, accused von Mutius of being the agent of German revisionism.[38]

Beyond its monarchist agenda, the LVȚ was eclectic and factionalized, including in its ranks national conservatives or fascist sympathizers such as Amos Frâncu and Gheorghe Cantacuzino-Grănicerul.[39] Filipescu's own support for Carlism was read by Western observers as a form of right-wing extremism. Around 1930, he was referred to in the English-speaking media as a "Baby Fascist" or a Romanian replica of Adolf Hitler.[40] However, a keen observer of foreign politics, Filipescu was a frequent critic of Benito Mussolini's Italy, which caused him to decline the post of Foreign Minister.[8]

Revived Conservatives

Reconciling with Titulescu, who supported similar views at the League of Nations,[16] Filipescu became the first president of the Romanian Telephone Company, serving from the company's founding in 1930 until his death. His term saw construction of the Bucharest Telephone Palace, completed in 1933. From his position, he could obtain intercepts of calls, including from the royal court, and place the information at the disposal of Maniu and Titulescu.[41] He also presided over the Tobacco Monopoly and a number of other commercial enterprises.[42]

Winning a Senate seat in the 1931 election, in which the LVȚ ran as an ally of Iorga's Democratic Nationalists,[43] Filipescu gave a speech on "common sense in politics". He presented his group as Romania's only truthful party, and the only one which addressed the worldwide perils engulfing Romania. In 2005, philologist Elvira Sorohan rediscovered the speech as a "lesson in rhetorical elegance" and Europeanism.[44] At a League congress in November 1931, Filipescu announced that the LVȚ was primarily a replica of Britain's Conservative and Unionist Party, and a direct successor to his father's own Conservative Party.[45]

On March 10, 1932, the League became the Conservative Party (PC), with Epoca as its political organ.[46] The group thus withdrew its support for the cabinet formed by Iorga, explicitly rejecting its plan to tackle the Great Depression with debt relief, and defending the core tenets of economic liberalism.[47] Argetoianu, the Minister of Finance, recalled that "ever since the Relief, Epoca has been addressing me Gypsy swearwords."[4] That year, the most famous of Filipescu's duels, covered by newspapers in the United States, Spain and France, involved Gheorghe I. Brătianu, who had insulted Filipescu in print. Mihail R. Sturdza was also challenged, and the plan was to use pistols followed by swords. A bullet hit the latter's pants, while Brătianu and Filipescu made peace.[48] His relations with other politicians were inconsistent: Argetoianu, Titulescu, Maniu, Mihail Manoilescu and many others veered between being his friends and his enemies.[6]

The PC formed a cartel with the PP during the 1933 election, but registered dismal results.[49] The party was losing its support base on the right, with Cantacuzino and other cadres migrating toward the Iron Guard, an openly fascist movement, or trying to persuade General Ion Antonescu into reviving the Vlad Țepeș League.[50] Filipescu ran, unsuccessfully, for a deputy seat in Ilfov during the by-elections of 1934.[51] By then, he and Maniu were sworn enemies of King Carol, whom they had come to see as an autocratic figure, forcing them into talks about forming the democratic opposition.[52] In August 1934, Filipescu hosted in Bucharest a grand reception in honor of Maniu.[53]

Throughout those years, Filipescu was frequently in Paris and Geneva, where he gave interviews and wrote for local newspapers. His Francophile sympathies were commented on by 1918, and in March 1935, L'Ouest-Éclair republished an article of his in which Filipescu decried the possibility of an alliance between Romania and Nazi Germany.[54] While valued by the Western media, Filipescu had a fairly negative image in his own country.[55] In December 1935, he visited Berlin and had a meeting with Hermann Göring, who was trying to talk Romania out of a defensive rapprochement with the Soviet Union.[56] At the time, Filipescu was highly critical of peace with the Soviets: Petre Constantinescu-Iași, of the underground Romanian Communist Party and the pro-Soviet Amicii URSS, accused Filipescu of being a "reactionary" enemy of his antifascist initiative.[57]

Final assignments and death

According to the French journalist Georges Oudard, the PC was a strong defender "of economic and financial orthodoxy against the temptations of a coming world", "head-turning censorship" with Filipescu's "cruel wit".[58] Filipescu held conferences both at home and abroad; the former focused on domestic political life, while the latter were oriented toward international relations. Perhaps his most important, held in Paris in May 1936 and published in brochure form, proposed a Europe-wide bloc composed of France, Italy, the Little Entente, the Balkan Entente and the Soviet Union, which would help secure borders threatened by revisionism and keep the peace. The same speech proposed a mutual assistance pact between the Soviets and Romania.[59] Nevertheless, he also militated for better Bulgaria–Romania relations.[60]

In 1936, he joined Lord Cecil's International Peace Campaign, serving as vice president of its chapter, alongside Petru Groza and Constantin Rădulescu-Motru; Titulescu was its president.[61] His condemnation of Italian, German and Portuguese participation at the funerals of Ion Moța and Vasile Marin (organized by the Iron Guard in January 1937) drew notice from the Swiss, French and Dutch press.[54] Also that year, he joined the Crown Council and took part in the meeting that removed Prince Nicholas from the royal family, reluctantly voting with the majority.[41] In the elections of December 1937, Filipescu's Conservatives closely followed the Maniu party line, which brought them into a "non-aggression pact" with the Iron Guard.[62] Together with Maniu, he welcomed back to the country the self-exiled Titulescu, who was by then a critic of Carol's regime.[63]

A heart condition inherited from his father forced him to retire from politics and spend time raising race horses and farming. In August 1938, he entered a hospital in Geneva. Twelve days later, following a heart attack, he was successfully operated upon. His continued weakness required a blood transfusion, which was again accepted by his organism. However, a second transfusion proved fatal. When he died, he was surrounded by his mother, wife and private secretary.[40] His funeral took place at the city's Russian Church; a second service was held at Batiștei Church. His body was returned home and buried at Bellu cemetery.[1]

Filipescu's death was mourned in central newspapers such as Timpul and Dreptatea as the demise of a "cavalier", "the last authentic boyar".[1] His politics were revisited during the later stages of Romanian communism, when he was posthumously granted recognition as one of the anti-fascist intellectuals who had formed a "broad front" with the Communist Party. As later noted by historian Lucian Boia, this was a spurious list "of those who contributed, evidently without so wishing, to the legitimizing of the communist regime".[64] In 2008, political scientist Ioan Stanomir described the "bizarre political figure" Filipescu and his Epoca as afterthoughts of Romanian conservatism—by then, the "statist, autarkist, nationalist" PNL had won its "victory".[65]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Popescu, p. 41
  2. ↑ Popescu, p. 18
  3. ↑ Popescu, pp. 18–19. See also Potra, p. 563
  4. 1 2 3 Popescu, p. 19
  5. ↑ Popescu, p. 18. See also Trohani, p. 226
  6. 1 2 Popescu, p. 34
  7. ↑ Vasile Popa, "Activitatea misiunilor militare române în perioada neutralității armate (1914–1916)", in Revista Document. Buletinul Arhivelor Militare, Nr. 2/2014, pp. 30, 36
  8. 1 2 Popescu, p. 21
  9. ↑ Lucian Boia, "Germanofilii". Elita intelectuală românească în anii Primului Război Mondial. p. 39. Bucharest: Humanitas, 2010. ISBN ISBN 978-973-50-2635-6; Trohani, p. 225
  10. ↑ (French) "En Roumanie. Les excuses du ministre allemand", in Journal du Loiret, April 23, 1916
  11. ↑ Popescu, pp. 21, 22
  12. ↑ Popescu, pp. 22–24
  13. 1 2 3 4 (Romanian) Gheorghe I. Florescu, "Alexandru Averescu, omul politic (I)", in Convorbiri Literare, May 2009
  14. 1 2 Popescu, p. 22
  15. ↑ Popescu, pp. 22–23
  16. 1 2 Potra, p. 123
  17. ↑ (Romanian) Dorona Tomescu, "Duelul la români – între onoare și femei", in Historia, June 2011
  18. ↑ Popescu, pp. 34, 36
  19. ↑ Trohani, p. 226
  20. ↑ Popescu, pp. 19–20
  21. ↑ Popescu, pp. 23, 24
  22. 1 2 Popescu, p. 24
  23. ↑ Petrescu, p. 318
  24. ↑ Potra, pp. 123, 144
  25. ↑ Popescu, pp. 24–25
  26. ↑ Popescu, pp. 25–26
  27. ↑ Popescu, p. 26
  28. ↑ Popescu, p. 27
  29. ↑ "Note și informații", in Revista Teologică, Nr. 12/1924, p. 348
  30. ↑ Petrescu, pp. 389–394; Popescu, p. 27
  31. ↑ (Romanian) Gheorghe I. Florescu, "Alexandru Averescu, omul politic (V)", in Convorbiri Literare, September 2009; Popescu, p. 28
  32. ↑ Popescu, pp. 20, 21
  33. ↑ Popescu, p. 20
  34. ↑ Popescu, pp. 20, 29
  35. ↑ Heinen, pp. 175, 475
  36. ↑ (Romanian) "Armenii în masoneria românească(III)", in Ararat, Nr. 9/2007, p. 3
  37. ↑ Romina Surugiu, "Cuvântul și campania de presă pentru revenirea în țară a principelui Carol, 1929–1930", in Revista Română de Jurnalism și Comunicare, Nr. 4/2006, p. 62
  38. ↑ "Un incident à Bucarest entre le ministre d'Allemagne et un journaliste roumain", in Le Figaro, December 18, 1930, p. 3. See also Popescu, p. 36
  39. ↑ Heinen, pp. 175, 255, 370, 376
  40. 1 2 Popescu, p. 40
  41. 1 2 Popescu, p. 33
  42. ↑ Popescu, pp. 32, 33; Potra, p. 563
  43. ↑ Heinen, pp. 153–154
  44. ↑ (Romanian) Elvira Sorohan, "Nevoia de elocință", in România Literară, Nr. 44/2005
  45. ↑ Bulletin Périodique..., p. 6
  46. ↑ Heinen, p. 175; Popescu, pp. 20, 29
  47. ↑ Bulletin Périodique..., pp. 9, 12; Heinen, p. 175
  48. ↑ Popescu, pp. 37–38
  49. ↑ Gheorghe I. Florescu, "Alexandru Averescu, omul politic (VIII)", in Convorbiri Literare, December 2009; Heinen, pp. 153, 465
  50. ↑ Heinen, pp. 175, 254, 255, 333–334, 376
  51. ↑ "Alegerile parlamentare în Săptămâna Patimilor", in Unirea Poporului, Nr. 14–16/1934, p. 6
  52. ↑ (Romanian) Bogdan Vârșan, "Guvernul Tătărescu. Ultimul liberal sau primul carlist?", in Historia, August 2011
  53. ↑ (Romanian) Marin Pop, "Înființarea și activitatea gărzilor Iuliu Maniu (1934)", in Caiete Silvane, Nr. 3/2011
  54. 1 2 Popescu, p. 30
  55. ↑ Popescu, pp. 38, 40
  56. ↑ Alfred Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz: Hermann Göring im Dritten Reich, pp. 136–137. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1986. ISBN 3-486-53122-0
  57. ↑ Petre Constantinescu-Iași, Pagini de luptă din trecut, p. 270. Bucharest: Editura Politică, 1972. OCLC 490649093
  58. ↑ Georges Oudard, "La situation politique en Roumanie", in Revue de Paris, Vol. VI, November–December 1935, p. 618
  59. ↑ Popescu, pp. 31–32
  60. ↑ (French) "La minorité bulgare en Roumanie est loyale", in Glasul Minorităților, Nr. 1–2/1937, p. 18
  61. ↑ Petrescu, pp. 444
  62. ↑ Constantin I. Stan, "Pactul de neagresiune electorală: Iuliu Maniu – Corneliu Zelea Codreanu – Gheorghe Brătianu (25 noiembrie 1937) și consecințele lui", in Doru Sinaci, Emil Arbonie (eds.), 90 de ani de administrație românească în Arad: culegere de studii și comunicări. 90 de ani de administrație și învățământ de stat românesc în Transilvania, p. 272. Arad: Vasile Goldiș University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-973-664-392-7
  63. ↑ (Dutch) "Titulescu te Boekarest", in Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad, December 1, 1937
  64. ↑ Lucian Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, p. 76. Budapest & New York City: Central European University Press, 2001. ISBN 963-9116-96-3
  65. ↑ Ioan Stanomir, Spiritul conservator. De la Barbu Catargiu la Nicolae Iorga, p. 74. Bucharest: Editura Curtea Veche, 2008. ISBN 978-973-669-521-6

References

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