Alexandrina Cantacuzino

Alexandrina "Didina" Cantacuzino ( Pallady; also known as Alexandrina Grigore Cantacuzino and (Francized) Alexandrine Cantacuzène; 20 September 1876 – 1944) was a Romanian political activist, philanthropist and diplomat, one of her country's leading feminists in the 1920s and 1930s. A leader of the National Council of Romanian Women and the Association of Romanian Women, she served as Vice President of the International Council of Women, representing the International Alliance of Women, as well as Romania, to the League of Nations. However, her feminist beliefs and international profile clashed with her national conservatism, her support for eugenics, and eventually her conversion to fascism.

Cantacuzino was a member of Romanian nobility, and, after her marriage to the wealthy landowner Grigore Gheorghe Cantacuzino, claimed the title of "Princess". Her elitism and her feminism led her to join the upper-class charity SONFR, of which she became president after World War I. A wartime nurse, she became a herald of war remembrance initiatives (responsible, in large part, for the Mausoleum of Mărășești).

After her involvement with the National Council of Romanian Women, she supported limited women's suffrage within a corporatist framework, losing the support of liberal women, but also building connections with fascist politicians. Cantacuzino's policies within the Association of Romanian Women were mirrored in the legislation of World War II fascist regimes, beginning with the National Renaissance Front.

Sympathetic toward the revolutionary fascist Iron Guard, of which her son Alecu was also an affiliate, Cantacuzino switched her support toward Ion Antonescu's government in early 1941. Having earlier reported to the League of Nations on the damages caused by the Spanish Civil War, she was also critical of Antonescu over the 1941 Odessa massacre. This was her last known public cause. Cantacuzino died, in relative obscurity, not long after Antonescu's downfall.

Biography

Early life Alexandrina Pallady, also known under the pet name Didina, was born in Ciocănești, a village currently in Dâmbovița County (but, in 1876, still part of Ilfov County). Her birth date is known to have been 20 September 1876,

She was by birth a member of the boyar upper-class: her father, Lieutenant Colonel Theodor Pallady (1847/1853–1916), an aristocrat from the eastern region (and former state) of Moldavia, had earned distinction in the Romanian Land Forces; her mother, also named Alexandrina (1845/1848 – 1881), was a Kretzulescu boyaress from Wallachia, and the heiress of a large estate. Through Pallady's mother, Alexandrina descended from another boyar house, the Ghicas, who owned the manor in Ciocănești.

The marriage produced four children in all, but Alexandrina was the only one to survive infancy. Alexandrina's paternal family also produced other intellectual figures of importance: Theodor Iancu Pallady, the modernist painter, and Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra, the actress, were nephews of Lt. Col. Pallady, and as such cousins of Alexandrina and Al. T. Stamatiad.

Upon her mother's death in 1881, the five-year-old Alexandrina was raised by her aunt, Eliza Ghica, and formally adopted by Eliza's husband, Vladimir M. Ghica. With Ghica money, she was able to pursue studies abroad, in France. In or around 1899, Alexandrina Pallady-Ghica was living in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, where she married the aspiring politician Grigore Gheorghe Cantacuzino — known locally as Griguță Cantacuzino or, mockingly, as Prensul ("Princeling"). Her full name subsequently became Alexandrina Grigore Cantacuzino (sometimes shortened as Alexandrina Gr. Cantacuzino), with the inclusion of her husband's name as a patronymic.

The marriage propelled Cantacuzino into the high society, also bringing her into contact with the Conservative Party elite. The Cantacuzino family, of Phanariote origins, had been highly influential in the political affairs of Moldavia and Wallachia. Her father-in-law was the magistrate, Conservative policymaker and former premier Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino (1833–1913). He was also one of the greatest estate-owners in the Kingdom of Romania, known to the general public as Nababul ("the Nawab"). Her brother-in-law was Mihail G. "Mișu" Cantacuzino (1867–1928), who was the minister of justice and the leader of an inner-Conservative faction.

The Cantacuzinos stated claim to a princely title, which, although rendered useless under Romanian law, allowed Alexandrina to style herself "Princess Cantacuzino".

According to historian Marian Pruteanu, Alexandrina was "an avid collector of decorations and titles", who studied genealogy with the goal of establishing her blood relations with various noble families.

SONFR beginnings

Alexandrina and Grigore had three sons, all of them born between 1900 and 1905, the society might have existed under a different name as early as 1893, with Ecaterina Cantacuzino, Gheorghe's wife, as its president.

The central core of SONFR was a group of high-society ladies, including Alexandrina Cantacuzino and, among others, Zoe Râmniceanu, Elena Odobescu, Anastasia Filipescu, Maria Glagoveanu, Sultana Miclescu and Zetta Manu. As indicated by the name, SONFR was situated on the conservative right of Romanian feminism, where it "reinforced women's traditional roles as mothers and wives", being entirely apolitical. However, the society was soon involved in a number of adjacent projects, such as disseminating propaganda among the Romanians of Transylvania, Bukovina, and other parts of Austria-Hungary, and circulating letters of protest against Magyarization.

Although SONFR was sponsored by "the Nawab" and other mainline Conservatives, such ideological positions resonated with the National Liberal program of Spiru Haret, the education minister, who offered his full support. With such sources of revenue, supplemented by bank loans and private donations, SONFR established two girls' schools, 17 kindergartens (the first of which was in Dorobanți), and 22 public libraries. Some of its funds went directly into purchasing land for Romanian peasant communities in Transylvania and elsewhere, with schools being built as far afield as Chernowitz, Geaca, and Markovac. According to historian Alin Ciupală, these goals should be seen as reflecting the "borderline intolerant" position of Romanian Orthodoxy, but not particularly conclusive at that: "We believe that SONFR's would-be alliance with the Church determined the adoption by the Ladies' Society leadership of ideas circulated by some Orthodox hierarchs, especially those concerning Catholicism, but mostly with a tactical goal in mind. [...] Moreover, one might mention here the organizers' intent to make use, as it did, of the Church-controlled, nation-wide, infrastructure: the priests as instruments for propaganda and the influence, not just moral, of the leading Orthodox hierarchs."

SONFR members included liberal suffragettes, such as Calypso Botez; Cantacuzino herself was less clearly affiliated with this current, although she did describe herself a "feminist". The same is noted by Pruteanu, who also records her claim that Romanian nobility lived "outside the murderous luxury that surrounds us." The immensely large Cantacuzino estate was split between the two sons, both of whom used the Zamora Castle of Bușteni. It was to serve as a frequent retreat for the Romanian royal family. In September 1914, they were bought from him by a German consortium, and became the mouthpieces of German propaganda.

Following the 1916 Treaty with the Entente, King Ferdinand I and Premier Brătianu agreed to join the war against the Central Powers. This had the effect of silencing Germanophile dissidence. Alexandrina volunteered for work as a nurse. In August 1916, she became manager of the No. 113 Hospital, set up at the SONFR Institute in Bucharest with funds from the National Bank of Romania (her assistant managers were Elena Odobescu and Elena Perticari). By the end of the year, however, the Romanian Army was on the retreat everywhere, with the Germans in sight of Bucharest. King and government followed the Army retreat into Moldavia, where they remained besieged until 1918. The invasion further divided the Cantacuzino family, between those who aligned themselves with the German regime in Bucharest, and those who, as loyalists, fought against the Germans in Moldavia. The Zamora Castle was requisitioned by the Imperial German Army, serving as residence for the governor, August von Mackensen.

Grigore was an associate of the Germanophile administration set up by Lupu Kostaki in Bucharest, but moreover a confidant of the skeptical Conservative Alexandru Marghiloman. Together with Marghiloman and others, he stood up to the Germans when it came to providing for civilian needs, such as when he procured firewood for the Bucharest populace. Reportedly, he also took a mediating position between Marghiloman, who remained respectful of King Ferdinand, and Petre P. Carp, who wanted the dynasty ousted and replaced.

With Marghiloman as President of the Romanian Red Cross, Alexandrina became a member of the Red Cross "Ladies' Committee", working to provide humanitarian assistance for the prisoners-of-war in Romania and abroad. Her political attitudes at the time remain a mystery, with the exception of her belief that "a new world shall rise from the bloodied humanity"—not as an endorsement of political revolution, but as a trust in the ethnic Romanian capacity for work and rejuvenation. SONFR was involved in smuggling recovering Romanian soldiers back into the Moldavian free zone. Such shows of dissent almost led to Alexandrina's own imprisonment in a German camp.

Marghiloman government Alexandrina returned to work at the hospital. She decided to hold a banquet there in honor of Alexandru D. Sturdza and other defectors from the loyalist Romanian Army. The affair ended in a brawl between the party guests and the inmates-patients they ran into. In late 1917, with the fall of its Russian Republican backers, the Brătianu administration collapsed in Moldavia, leaving Ferdinand to ponder an armistice with the Germans. In Bucharest, the Marghiloman Conservatives created their own Legislative Commission, with the aim of achieving peace and reconciliation; Grigore Cantacuzino was among its members, but failed to win appointment in the subsequent Marghiloman Cabinet.

The year 1918 ended in unexpected defeat for the Germanophiles: the November Armistice signaled a sudden victory for the Entente Powers, and instantly brought the fall of Marghiloman's administration. Alexandrina Cantacuzino, who witnessed the events, mediated between the disgraced Marghiloman and General Alexandru Averescu, the King's favorite minister, circulating rumors that Romania was prey to revolutionary socialism. Organizing the welcome-back celebrations for Queen Marie, she also urged Marghiloman to stay indoors, because the Entente's military mission and the general populace wished to avoid him. As a tribute to her patriotic actions, Cantacuzino was elected SONFR president in 1918; she would lead the society until 1938.

Sabina Cantacuzino, Brătianu's sister and an in-law of Alexandrina's, observed her recovery from the side. In her memoirs, published in 1937, she accuses Alexandrina of staging "an advertisement". In her view, the SONFR leader making "a public show" of her compassion toward Romanian soldiers, while secure in the knowledge that Grigore Cantacuzino was in favor with the Germans. Such claims are also found in the diaries of Pia Alimănișteanu (Brătianu's daughter and Sabina's niece), who additionally writes that "Didina" enjoyed "hunting with the hounds and running with the hare". These views were met with opprobrium upon publishing: Sabina's work was dismissed as a libelous sample of Brătianu's "monopoly on patriotism".

The Conservative Party was in disarray, losing its members in droves. Marghiloman held on to the unpopular "Conservative" title (later "Conservative-Progressive"), while Grigore Cantacuzino advised in favor of reforming it as a "Constitutional Party", or merging it into Averescu's more successful People's Party. The brothers' "Cantacuzino Conservative" group became a virtually independent faction, sometimes in rebellion against Marghiloman's orders, and sympathetic to the breakaway Conservative-Democratic Party. However, both Grigore and Marghiloman were horrified by the promise of land reform, and, contrary to the moderate Conservatives, wanted the party to represent, as before 1914, the interests of landowners.

CNFR creation and SONFR presidency After the creation of Greater Romania, SONFR negotiated its collaboration with the secular wing of the women's movement. Cantacuzino herself became a member of the nationwide Association for the Civil and Political Emancipation of Romanian Women (AECPFR), and unsuccessfully tried to absorb the smaller League for Women's Rights and Duties (LDDF) into SONFR. In 1921, aiming to create an all-Romanian feminist representative body, she was made Vice President of the newly formed National Council of Romanian Women, CNFR; the president was Calypso Botez, of SONFR fame. Around 1923, she was one of the conservative proponents of women's suffrage, criticizing the postwar constitution for failing to enact it.

During those years, Cantacuzino worked as a permanent lecturer for Casele Naționale association. She took up similar activities at SONFR, where she lectured about the Orthodox and nationalist ethos, attracting into society ranks many female members of the middle classes, and Iulia Siminel-Dicescu.

For Cantacuzino, Romanian Orthodoxy was "the blessed shield of the Romanian nation", with priests and women holding complementary positions as defenders of traditional life. She was also strongly opposed to a Concordat between Romania and the Holy See, calling the Catholic Church an entity "entirely adverse" to the Romanian "unitary state", while referring to Byzantine Rite Catholics as Orthodoxy's "brothers". Under her management, SONFR heralded a number of initiatives, including the creation of schools, hospitals, and workers' canteens. According to historian Maria Bucur, Cantacuzino embarked on "a two-decade struggle to become the custodian of the public remembrance of the war." The way Cantacuzino saw it, the reburial of bones was an essentially female-and-Orthodox task, since women were traditionally experts in parastas services. On such grounds, SONFR secured a virtual monopoly over the projects to honor those fallen in the Battle of Mărășești, their identification, and their annual commemoration.

GFR and rise to prominence Alexandrina Cantacuzino (center, marked X), receiving visitors at the Zamora (Cantacuzino) Castle in Bușteni, ca. 1928 Although a nationalist at home, Cantacuzino was soon involved in the international women's movement, often as a Romanian representative. It was part of her power-sharing deal with Botez that she should deal with the external affairs of CNFR. In 1923, she was the LDDF's delegate to the Congress International Alliance of Women (IAWSA, IAWSEC) Congress in Rome. While abroad, she created a female version of the Little Entente, of which she was president until 1924. Dubbed "Little Entente of Women" (Mica Antantă a Femeilor, MAF), or "Women of the Small Nations", it aligned Romanian feminist organizations with like-minded sororities from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. She was generally hostile to the ethnic minorities,

From 1925 to 1936, with a CNFR mandate, Cantacuzino served as Vice President of the International Council of Women (ICW), and, as such became Romania's best-known feminist. She was one of the European delegates to ICW's 1925 Conference in Washington, D. C. By 1926, her distinctions included the Grand Cross of Queen Marie, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre (Collar), the Order of St. Sava (Great Officer), the Croix de guerre (Officer) and the Croce al Merito di Guerra (Officer).

Under the provisions of a law which allowed some women to run in local elections, Cantacuzino served on the Bucharest Financial Commission in 1927, and was a City Councilor after 1928, helping to establish the CNFR-run vocational school for female "social auxiliaries". She was dividing her time between Bucharest and Zamora Castle, where, in August 1928, her eldest son Gheorghe Grigore married Zoe Greceanu.

Cantacuzino immersed herself in the struggle for electoral emancipation, lobbying for women's right to vote and run in elections for urban and rural citizens' councils. To this goal, she created in 1929 an Association of Romanian Women (Gruparea Femeilor Române, GFR), of which she became president, while preserving control over CNFR and the smaller Solidaritatea. One of the GFR's main goals, cemented in its charter, was "an active propaganda work, oral as well as written, among the feminine masses"; another one was the setting up of Initiative Committees for female representation. However, the GFR remained highly centralized, and no clear criterion for admitting or rejecting membership was ever recorded in its statutes. Political scientist Alexandra Petrescu finds that the GFR, a "matriarchal" order, mimicked the "masculine hierarchy" of traditional political parties, effectively subverting the democratizing process of first-wave feminism. This resulted in a minor victory: a new law was passed in August 1929, allowing most professional women and all war widows to vote and participate in council elections. Her notoriety was reflected in other areas. She was the first-ever woman Officer of the Meritul Cultural Order. In 1928, she was a Miss Romania judge, together with, among others, Nicolae Constantin Batzaria, Maria Giurgea and Liviu Rebreanu. She also served as head of the Female Section during the June 1929 International Agricultural Congress.

Cantacuzino was co-opted among the official Romanian representatives to the League of Nations (uninterruptedly, from 1929 to 1938), primarily as adviser on women and child protection. Meanwhile, together with art historian Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș, she set up a Union of Intellectuals at a formal gala in 1926. This circle was a local affiliate of Europe's Federation of Intellectual Unions, whose founders included Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Paul Valéry and Nicolae Titulescu, and whose stated mission was finding a solution to "the vital crisis of the continent". One of its members was journalist Constantin Beldie, who left sarcastic notes about the Union's cultural conservatism. Received and celebrated in Prague by Methodius Zavoral, Abbot of Strahov Monastery (1928), Cantacuzino was also a delegate to the Federation of Intellectual Unions Congress in Barcelona (October 1929).

Fascist transformation

Beginning with the deaths of King Ferdinand and Brătianu, Romania went through a political power shift: in 1930, the junior king, Michael I, was toppled by his own father, the disgraced Carol II. In the realm of feminism, Cantacuzino rose to the position of CNFR President. This followed the protest resignation of Calypso Botez, part of an anti-Cantacuzino schism inside the CNFR. Also in 1930, Grigore Gheorghe Cantacuzino died, leaving Alexandrina a widow. She never remarried.

As argued by Alexandra Petrescu, the GFR's ideology mutated into the "Latin" feminism promoted, on occasion, by Benito Mussolini himself, with its vision of Latin women as equal combatants in a corporatist revolution.

The GFR, unlike all other feminist groups, banned women from enlisting in party politics, but encouraged them to run in municipal elections as they pleased. Contrarily, Petrescu notes: "Alexandrina Cantacuzino is the interwar's only feminist to have let herself be seduced by authoritarianism." Occasionally, Cantacuzino herself still showed interest in the development of democratic societies: a guest of the Friends of America society on Washington's Birthday, 1932, she lectured about "Different Aspects of American Life and Culture". Although no longer serving as ICW Vice President in 1936, she was made Convener of its Fine and Applied Arts Committee, as well as delegate to the Joint Conference of the International Council of Women and the International Council of Women in Calcutta, British India.

At home, her eclectic feminist program included a project for making paramilitary services fully staffed by women, with the goal of achieving the total conscription of men.

Between Carol and the Iron Guard The 1938 Constitution seemed to agree with most of Cantacuzino's authoritarian-and-corporatist ideals, including women's suffrage with overall disenfranchisement, and even female conscription. According to Bucur, the speech can be read as a jibe at both Cultul Eroilor and King Carol, whose conduct in wartime had been less than honorable. From 1935, Alexandrina's youngest son, Alexandru "Alecu" Cantacuzino, a former member of the diplomatic corps, was also attracted into this political venture. He wrote tracts disseminating the Iron Guard's ideology, focusing on praise of its "irrational and persistent impulse", but also relating to "Jewish Bolshevism", eugenics, race, and sexuality. In 1936, he was one of the Guard's volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, on the Nationalist side. This episode upset his mother, who reportedly called his actions "idiotic". The Iron Guard accepted Alecu, but mistrusted Alexandrina, seeing her as a dangerous internationalist. In a 1937 letter (recovered and published in 2005), General Cantacuzino-Grănicerul threatens Alexandrina to stop intervening between him, Alecu, and Codreanu, accusing her of having "filled our Orthodox schools with kikes" and of "preach[ing] an entente with the enemies of the people." while her GFR and Tinerele Grupiste were also outlawed. Around October, rumors spread that Alexandrina and her other sons were also about to be interned; the authorities eventually decided to monitor Alexandrina by placing her under house arrest.

World War II and death The final stage of Cantacuzino's career covers saw her collateral involvement in the political upheavals of World War II. During late 1940, Carol fell from power, and the Iron Guard established its "National Legionary State". At its helm was an army man and political maverick, Conducător Ion Antonescu, on whose behalf Alexandrina Cantacuzino had intervened in the past. As noted by Cheșchebec, Alecu's killing "apparently is not related to Cantacuzino's show of support for the legionary regime". Signs of this rapprochement are recorded in the Guard's newspapers: in 1940, Porunca Vremii published Lucrezzia Karnabatt's interview with Cantacuzino, where she described the political role of women in the National Legionary regime.

After the January 1941 battle between the Guard and Antonescu, which was won by the latter, Cantacuzino endured an Antonescu supporter. By June, Antonescu had agreed to participate in Operation Barbarossa: as an ally of the Nazi Germany, Romania recaptured the lost province of Bessarabia. In an article for the official propaganda paper, Universul, Cantacuzino celebrated "the holy hour" as the definitive end of "Jewish democracy", and envisaged a redemption of Europe under fascist rule. The Antonescu regime soon enforced racial antisemitism across the land. According to Alexandra Petrescu, the legislation introduced at the time was remarkably similar with the Cantacuzino project of 1937. Pântea reports that Cantacuzino shared his belief that the massacre was going to weigh heavily on "the entire country", and that "an objective inquiry" was needed; he writes that Antonescu threatened to shoot him for disobedience, but that he changed his mind, and even that he lived to regret his order for massacre. Cantacuzino continued to intervene with Antonescu on other matters, such as when she obtained the naturalization of Pavel Chasovnikov, an Odesan surgeon.

Cantacuzino died in September, October,

In the years following Alexandrina's death, Zamora Castle was nationalized, then assigned to the Interior Ministry; reclaimed by the Cantacuzinos after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, and finally reassigned to them in 2004, it was later sold to other private owners. It was also nationalized in 1949, but continued to be looted after that date.