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 Hélène Vacaresco
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Helene Vacaresco
Elena Văcărescu (Helene Vacaresco)

Author, woman of culture and diplomat.

Born in 1864 at Bucharest, descended from an ancient family of nobles from Wallachia, known for their poets and politicians.
Helene Vacaresco - BUCOVINE.com - Copyright 2008
Her ancestor, Ienachita Vacarescu had written the first grammar of the Romanian language. Her mother was the descendant of the Falcoianu family, rich nobles in the epoch of Michael the Brave.

Elena Vacarescu studied at Paris where she had had the opportunity to meet Leconte de Lisle and Victor Hugo.

She attended the courses of philosophy, esthetics and history, at the Sorbonee, as well as the course poetry with Sully Prudhomme.

Hélène’s father fought in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, which was to influence her first book published in 1886.

The queen of Romania, Elizabeth of Wied, the wife of king Charles I. (known under the pen name of Carmen Sylva) invited her into her entourage in 1888, interested because of the literary works by Hélène Vacarasco.

The queen had lost her only daughter, Maurica, before this and she transferred her maternal love to young Hélène.

Moreover, the two women of letters began to collaborate: a collection of poems inspired by the working-classes of Hélène Vacaresco will be published in German translation under the signature of the queen* and will be published in many European countries.

She would travel, accompanying the queen, into Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Russia and Serbia.

In 1881, in order to secure the succession to the throne of Romania, the king Charles named his nephew, the prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern- Sigmaringen.

The German prince, who did not know anyone in the country and who did not speak the Romanian language fell in love with the Romanian writer Hélène Vacaresco, then close to the queen.

Carmen Sylva would encourage this relationship, despite the fact that the constitution of Romania stipulated that the heir to the throne could not marry a Romanian.
In May 1891, the engagement of Prince Ferdinand with Hélène Vacaresco took place, and in June their engagement was broken off.

Hélène Vacaresco was obliged to leave her country, going into exile to Paris, while Prince Ferdinand was sent to seek a wife in the courts of the European dynasties of that period.

For Hélène Vacaresco then began the Parisian period, full of literary successes, great friendships and lively diplomatic and cultural activity.

In 1898, she held her literary salon in Paris, on Friedland Avenue and, then, Washington Street. She published in the French review: “The Review of Two Worlds,” “The Paris Review,” “The Illustration,” “Figaro,” and in the French publications: “The Contemporary Review,” “The Magazine.”

In 1912, she was the co-founder of “the Circle of Anales,” beside Nicolae Iorga, Dimitrie Gusti, Octavian Goga.

After 1916, she would present an Expose on the situation of Romania to the French ministry on Quai d’Orsay and she conducted intense diplomatic activity.

In 1919, she is named (for a year) the member of the Romanian delegation to the Peace Conference of Paris.

In 1920, (January 10), she would participate in Geneva at the sessions to form the League of Nations.

In 1922, Hélène Vacaresco was named to the committee for the Commission of Intellectual Cooperation, afterwards the Society of Nations (S. D. N.).

In 1925, she became a member of the Romanian Academy.

In 1925, Hélène Vacaresco was chosen as Poet Laureate by the French Academy for her volumes of poems The Songs of Dawn and The Rhapsody of the Dimbovitza.

In 1927, she received the Legion of Honor on behalf of Aristide Briand.

In 1930, she belonged to the International Committee for the diffusion of the Arts through Film and in 1933 she made a “Memorandum” for the Committee of Disarmaments. She laid the foundation of the “University Center of the Mediterranean” at Nice and become the representative of the minister of French National Education in the jury of the Society “Latinitas.”

Until 1938, she would participate regularly at the sessions of
the “League of Nations” and in 1939 she is the Adviser of the Romanian Delegation for culture and the press.

After June 8, 1940, she left occupied Paris in order to return to Auvergne (in the free zone)

In February 1943, she created the chair “Mihai Eminescu” of Romanian language and literature in Center University of Nice with Maurice Mignon and Eugene Ionesco, press attaché to the Romanian Legation and Alain Goullermou, university professor, the next head of the Chair of Romanian at the Sorbonne.

In 1945 she became cultural attaché to the Romanian Legation and the delegate for the international institute of International Cooperation, which was transformed into UNESCO.

In 1946, she was part of the Romanian delegation at the Peace Conference but she will consider that the results of the Conference were disappointing.

She was celebrated as “the ambassadress of Romanian culture” in the presence of Paul Boncour and Paul Eluard.

She translated into French the books of Romanian poets such as Mihai Emienescu, Lucian Blaga, Octavian Goga, George Topârceanu, Ion Minulescu and Ion Vinea.

She created the Vacaresco Prize for Women.

Published Books:

Poems:Helene Vacarescu - livre

Songs of Dawn (1886)
The Serene Soul (1896)
Glimmers and Flames (1903)
The Passionate Garden (1908)
The Dormouse Awakened (1914)
Memorial on the Minor Mode (1945)

The novels:

Love conquers (1908)
The Magic Spell (1911)

Hélène Vacaresco died February 17, 1946, in Paris (Rue de Chaillot ) and is laid in the Romanian Church on the Rue Jean de Bauvais.

In 1959, her remains were interred in the familial crypt of the Vacaresco family at Bellu Cemetery in Bucharest.

Text original : Cleopatra Lorintiu
Translation: Susan Rhoads

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