Dem I. Dobrescu

Dem I. Dobrescu (usual rendition of Demetru Ion Dobrescu; 1869 – 1948) was a Romanian left-wing politician who served as Mayor of Bucharest between February 1929 and January 1934.

Biography

Early life

Born in Jilava to a Transylvanian family, he grew up in Văcărești in the outskirts of Bucharest. He studied at the Matei Basarab High School and then he studied law at the University of Bucharest, after which he moved to France, where he became a Doctor of Law after defending his thesis L'évolution de L'Idée de Droit in 1894. In 1923, Dobrescu was part of the defense for Constantin Titel Petrescu, leader of the Federation of Romanian Socialist Parties, during a trial for alleged insults addressed to the Romanian Army; Petrescu was eventually acquitted. Earlier in the year, Dobrescu had joined Petrescu's Liga Drepturilor Omului (League for Human Rights), which voiced protests against measures taken by the National Liberal cabinet of Ion I. C. Brătianu; the League also included Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, Constantin Mille, Victor Eftimiu, Nicolae L. Lupu, Constantin Costa-Foru, Grigore Iunian, Radu D. Rosetti, and Virgil Madgearu. Following the formation of a new PNȚ government, an internal struggle began in Bucharest over the membership and mayors of the sectors and of Bucharest. claiming that "we worked 50 years for the center [of the city], we should work 5 years for the outskirts". Consequently, he created a series of non-partisan comitete cetățenești ("citizen committees"), which were to oversee the application of norms in areas such as health, building maintenance, street commerce, and public safety. In the context of the Great Depression, he took measures to ensure that the underprivileged were regularly fed through public expense. radical measures in electrification and the expansion of the water supply network; In a speech, he said he wanted "to profit from the widespread unemployment" to carry out large public works, "to get rid of dirt roads and to bring civilization to the outskirts and suburban areas" of Bucharest.

Dobrescu also banned the then-widespread street peddling, making it mandatory that all sales transactions had to be made indoors.

Citizen Committees

Dobrescu's leftist convictions eventually brought him into conflict with the PNȚ: he left in December 1935 to establish his own political movement, which took the name of the popular institution he had helped create — the Citizen Committees. It remained a minor anti-fascist party, and disappeared in 1938, when King Carol II replaced all political forces with his National Renaissance Front.

Legacy His modernization of Bucharest received much praise. Novelist Liviu Rebreanu called him "the best mayor that the capital ever had", while N. D. Cocea said that "in 4 years, he did what other didn't do in 40 [years]".