GRAUR, CONSTANTIN

GRAUR, CONSTANTIN (1877–1940), Romanian journalist. Born in Botosani, N. Moldavia, Graur started his career as a proofreader. In his youth he was a socialist. He began to publish in the Socialist journal Munca in 1894. In 1896 he was already a well-known socialist personality in the Bucharest party. He criticized the exodus of Romanian socialist intellectual leaders to the Liberal Party in 1900. He later edited newspapers in Galaţi and Ploesti, and went to Bucharest in 1919 to edit Cuvîntul Liber ("The Free World"). With other Romanian journalists, he founded the magazine Facla ("The Torch"), but continued writing for other papers, including the Jewish periodicals Infratirea ("Union") and Adam. In 1921, he became the chief manager of two daily papers Dimineata ("Morning") and Adevârul ("Truth"), which came to be regarded as "Judaized," because of the number of their Jewish contributors. During Nazi demonstrations, copies of these papers were burned on the streets. Graur had a democratic outlook and campaigned for Jewish emancipation and against antisemitism. His writings, many of them polemics embracing a socialist point of view, include Manasse, cercetare criticǎ ("Manasse, Critical Research," 1904), Din istoria socialismului Român ("From the History of Romanian Socialism," 1912), Socialiştii Români in slujba Germaniei ("Romanian Socialists in Germany's service," 1914), Cativa insi ("Some People," 1931. and Cu privine la Franz-Ferdinand ("Concerning Franz Ferdinand," 1935). For his friend Dobrogeanu-Gherea, one of the founders of the Socialist movement in Romania, Graur wrote an obituary in the journal Chemarea (1920) in which he mentioned his Jewish origins. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. Podoleanu, 60 scriitori români de origine evreeasca, 1 (1935), 137–42: T. Teodorescu-Branişte, Oameni şi paiaţe (1967), 355–9. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: I.C. Atanasiu, Miscarea socialista 1881–1900 (1932), 429 (index); C. Graur, in: Th. Loewenstein and N. Kittzler (eds.), Israel in lume, (1939), 75–96. (Abraham Feller / Lucian-Zeev Herscovici (2nd ed.)