Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga

Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga (August 20, 1920 – May 5, 2006) was a Romanian comparatist and essayist. A native of the national capital Bucharest, she was educated at its main university and went on to become a professor there. Together with a focus on interdisciplinary studies, she devoted several studies to Mihai Eminescu. Dumitrescu was also a dignitary of the Romanian Communist Party. Following the Romanian Revolution, she lived in Rome for several years, then retired to a monastery.

Biography Education and academic career Born in Bucharest, her parents were Nicolae Dumitrescu, a jurist, and his wife Maria (née Apostol). Dumitrescu worked as an editor at Editura de Stat from 1948 to 1949, and at Editura pentru Literatură until 1957. She was hired as teaching assistant at her alma mater in 1949. She rose to assistant professor in 1951, associate professor in 1963, full professor in 1971 and began chairing the department of universal and comparative literature in 1975. The four books she published between 1964 and 1989 closely analyse the works of poet Mihai Eminescu. From 1991 to 1997, she headed the Accademia di Romania in Rome.

Late in life, beginning around 2000, she spent most of her time at the Romanian Orthodox Văratec Monastery and ultimately took the vows of a nun, adopting the name Benedicta. Dumitrescu herself was a widow; she had married at the age of 29, and had no children. She died in Iași and was buried at Putna Monastery. Writing shortly after her death, Ștefănescu claimed that her rapprochement with the regime was motivated by a desire to be left alone, permitted to teach the humanities at home and assert the importance of Romanian culture abroad. He lamented that this stance drew opprobrium in the post-communist period, both from "maniacal vigilantes bereft of a feeling for nuance" and from "poorly educated youths of the sort who deface statues with paint".