Haig Acterian

Haig Acterian (; also known under his pen name Mihail ; March 5, 1904 – August 8, 1943) was a Romanian film and theater director, critic, dramatist, poet, journalist, and fascist political activist. Alongside Mihail Sebastian and Camil Petrescu, he is considered one of the major Romanian theater chroniclers in the interwar period.

Biography Born in Constanța to an Armenian-Romanian family, he was the brother of and . Haig studied at the Mircea cel Bătrân High School in his native city, then attended the in Bucharest. He made his literary debut in the school magazine, Vlăstare, with pieces which caught the attention of his colleague, Mircea Eliade. It was also then that he has included him as a character in Eliade's debut work, the Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent. After his stay in British India, Eliade dedicated his novella, Isabel and the Devil's Waters, "To my friend Mihail and the blind woman Lalu" — Lalu being one of Eliade's acquaintances from Calcutta.

Upon graduation, Acterian enrolled at both the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Philosophy, and the Conservatory of Dramatic Art, where he studied drama and comedy under Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra.

Initially a communist (like Mihail Polihroniade), Acterian contributed articles to Bluze Albastre (a literary magazine published in 1932, with backing from the Romanian Communist Party). Later the same year, he traveled to Italy, and trained in filmmaking at the Cinecittà in Rome. Rejecting his early political ideas, he soon became a disciple of Nae Ionescu and Trăirism, and later a supporter of the far right Iron Guard movement.

In 1936, Acterian completed his Pretexte pentru o dramaturgie românească ("Themes for a Romanian Dramaturgy"), with a preface by his friend Edward Gordon Craig, and published a volume of poetry, titled Urmare ("Follow-up"). In this capacity, he founded, together with George Franga, the National Theater's Museum.

Legacy Despite the short period of time covered by his activities, Acterian has been hailed as an innovative director and author. Taking in view his many interests, as well as his "technical expertise and spiritual synthesis", Eliade defined him as a "Renaissance man". Writing in 1989, literary critic Constantin Măciucă deplored Acterian's political choices and his "occasional negative generalizations", but noted his merits in supporting a national specificity in Romanian dramaturgy.

In a 1945 letter to literary historian Tudor Vianu, harshly critical of his generation's political choices, playwright Eugène Ionesco, who had witnessed first-hand the impact fascism had on his generation, blamed Acterian and Polihroniade's deaths on the original influence exercised over them by Nae Ionescu. The self-exiled Eliade remembered Acterian and Mihail Sebastian in a 1951 essay, which offered praise to both of them.

Haig's diary, Cealaltă parte a vieții noastre ("The Other Side of Our Lives"), was published in 1989 by Arșavir Acterian. His frontline letters to Marietta Sadova are kept at the National Archives of Romania.