Liviu Rebreanu Memorial House, Bucharest

National Museum of Romanian Literature (5/5)

About Liviu Rebreanu

Liviu Rebreanu he was born on November 27, 1885 in Tarlisua, a village located today in Bistrita Nasaud county, at that time belonging to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was the first of 14 children of the family, his father being a teacher. The family moved to Maieru, a beautiful commune, also in today's Bistrita Nasaud county. This is where the writer spent his childhood years. He attended high school in Nasaud and then in Bistrita. He learned Hungarian and studied Hungarian at first. He continued at the High School of Honvezi in Sopron. He was assigned to the Austro-Hungarian army in the regiment of royal Hungarians in Gyula, from where he resigned and returned to his native land. He is arrested and detained in Vacaresti and then in Gyula. He joins the Romanian army in the First World War. In 1917, his brother Emil, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, is accused of desertion and sentenced to death, a sad episode that inspires his novel "The Hanged Man's Forest".

He lived most of his life in Valea Mare, Arges county. He is one of the most translated Romanian writers. He was a novelist and playwright and was a member of the Romanian Academy and was decorated with the Order of the Crown of Romania in the rank of Grand Cross. He died of a lung disease in 1944 in Valea Mare, being buried in Bellu Cemetery in Bucharest.

As for his literary CV, Liviu Rebreanu wrote short stories ("Ciuleandra"), social, psychological and detective novels ("Ion, The Outbreak, The Hanged Man's Forest"), theater, travel notes, diaries, leaving behind a multitude of works and thousands of pages of literature.

Liviu and Fanny Rebreanu Memorial House

We go up with an old elevator to the 2nd floor at the mentioned address. The host greets us with an open door. He had just welcomed a visitor a little before us. We find out that this Rebreanu museum is the richest existing in our country, more complete than the ones in the writer's native land, which I visited when I was not yet a major. This apartment, where the museum is organized, was bought in 1934 by the writer Liviu Rebreanu for his daughter Puia - Florica Rebreanu. In 1992, she donated the location and the existing patrimony to the Museum of Romanian Literature, with the condition of including the achievements of her mother, Fanny Radulescu, a famous actress until she married Rebreanu and he became famous, then entering the shadow of her husband. The museum opened in 1995, after Puiei's death.

The lady guide told us that Rebreanu didn't actually live here, but he used to come here often, to visit his only biological child. We were fascinated by the wealth of documents and heritage objects in this apartment - museum. I personally expected it to be a rather "empty" place, knowing about Rebreanu's house in Bistritene. The collection includes all the furniture of the apartment kept by Puia and then by the museum, which is very special.

As far as the literary heritage is concerned, there are a multitude of letters, manuscripts, photographs. The surprise for me were the paintings and sculptures. A remarkable collection of works painted by valuable painters such as Camil Ressu, Jean Steriadi, Nicolae Darascu, Francisc Sirato, Iser or sculptures by Milita Petrascu, Ion Jalea, Oscar Han, make you think you are in an art museum. Another surprise was the rich collection of icons on glass, made in the area of Transylvania, which reminded me of the workshops of the Sibiu Marginimea. And, another surprise, was the collection of ceramics displayed in the kitchen. Yes, because you visit the kitchen and the bathroom and the whole apartment. The icon and ceramic collections belonged to Liviu Rebreanu and were brought here by his daughter.