Priest and scientist Dimitrie Balaur
He was born on 4 September 1903 in the family of the teacher Isidor Balaur from Răzeni, Jud. Lăpușna (today in Ialoveni r.). The same locality is the birthplace of Ion Pelivan and Ion Inculeț. Elena Alistar, teacher, politician, the only woman member of the National Council, lived here for many years. All these three personalities were great fighters for the unification of Bessarabia with the motherland.
After finishing primary school in 1910, Dimitrie Balaur enrolled at the Theological Seminary in Chișinău, then at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Bucharest, graduating magna cum laudae (1928). During a year of study (1928-1929) he was a teacher of religion at the high school in Rezina. He also graduated with the same distinction from the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, specialising in geography and Old Slavonic studies (1932). During his university studies, he attended the courses of professors Nicolae Iorga, Constantin Giurescu, Simion Mehedinți. It was then that the young D. Balaur began to show his talent for research. During his holidays, he collected folklore creations in his native village. D. Balaur was especially appreciated by the university professor Nicolae Popescu, academician.
After receiving the folklore creations collected by D. Balaur in the village of Răzeni for the Fălticeni magazine “Șezătoarea”, Gheorghe T. Kirileanu – editor of the magazine and secretary general of the “King Ferdinand I” Foundation – informed the folklore collector, in a letter dated 2nd of January 1929, that the president of the Foundation was “fully satisfied with the results of the research” in the Bessarabian village [1, p. 95].
In another letter, dated 31 March of the same year, G. T. Kirileanu informed D. Balaur that his manuscript would be published “in the next issue” of the journal [1, p. 95]. Again G. T. Kirileanu advised him: “It would be better to follow Father Nicolae Popescu’s pieces of advice about the work for your degree, which is to be presented now, in June. You would be able to arrange a more suitable life, which would allow you to develop all your gifts, which we value with all our heart”. [1, p. 95] It should be mentioned that at the suggestion of his teacher D. Balaur wrote his bachelor’s thesis – The Churches of Eastern Moldavia – which he successfully defended and then published (in 1934).
As promised by G. T. Kirileanu, D. Balaur’s collection – Din literatura populară a Basarabiei (from the village of Răzeni – Lăpușna) – was printed in the folklore magazine “Șezătoarea” (1929, no. 1-2, January-February, pp. 49-75). The Bucharest folklorist and ethnographer Iordan Datcu rightly mentions: “Apart from the two established folklorists, Gh. V. Madan and P. Ștefănucă, Jud. Lăpușna, another folklorist, D. Balaur, whose contribution was more limited and therefore less known. However, he should be mentioned because he was the only Bessarabian in interwar folklore, who published in our first folklore journal a remarkable collection, Din literatura populară a Basarabiei (from the village of Rezeni – Lăpușna)”. [2, p. 76-77].
The collection is accompanied by a biographical footnote signed by G. T. Kirileanu. The collection contains: pardons, a Christmas song, a New Year song, mournings, lyrical songs. Interesting are the notes to the bocete, in which D. Balaur tells about the truth that these texts are difficult to get from the available resources (informants).
Balaur gives a short biographical note about one of his informants [1, p. 77]. It would be interesting to compare the folklore texts recorded by D. Balaur around 1929 with those collected more than 40 years later during a field research in the village of Razeni in 1969 (team members: myself and two students – Galina Chiorșac and Eugenia Cijic – students of the Faculty of Letters of the State University of Chișinău).
About the published folklore collection, G. T. Kirileanu told D. Balaur in a letter dated 14 July 1929: “I also gave a copy to Father Nicolae [Popescu]. We were both happy that a young and worthy son of Bessarabia is beginning his publishing activity for the knowledge of the spiritual life of the brothers from the other side of the Prut”. In the letter of reply prepared by D. Balaur, he acknowledged his “old and devoted friend” G. T. Kirileanu: “Along with the joy I also had the regret that I collected only a part of the verses and nothing of the creations of the people in prose <…>. I kept thinking about my future works, seeing before my eyes the different titles of the works, the larger and smaller bindings and even their colours”.
On New Year’s Eve 1930, D. Balaur received the news (also transmitted by G. T. Kirileanu) that his work on the folklore of Razeni had been awarded a prize by the “King Ferdinand I” Foundation.
From 1930, D. Balaur worked as a civil servant in the Holy Synod in Bucharest, then as a cultural adviser in the Bishopric of Balti, as well as editorial secretary of the magazines “Romanian Orthodox Church” and “Bessarabian Church”. During this time he worked hard, studying the concerns of the churches and schools of Central Bessarabia. Already at the beginning of 1931 he informed G. T. Kirileanu that he had finished his important work on the churches and schools in the county. Lăpușna: “The last village (of which there are 133 villages with churches, after the last change of the county on 1 January 1930) ends with being at 831 (plus 14 of the introduction (=845), the rest are serious conclusions with the index that I am transcribing; all in all there will be a thousand folios. You will be astonished when you see the manuscript, for the work has turned out as I myself did not expect. So all who see it will be astonished. A work such as I have done will not be done by anyone else” [1, p. 96]. In his letter of 27 January 1931 he said:
“I promise that I will do the other works on Bessarabia for which I have collected the material for a long time:
- Religious holidays and customs in Eastern Moldavia – which will be a continuation and completion of the work on churches;
- Folklore material collected on the banks of the Dnieper;
- The state of the diocese of Chisinau and Hotin between 1871 and 1882;
- Archbishop Pavel Lebedev’s canonical visits to Bessarabia. All this I dedicate to Your Holiness” [1, p. 97].
In 1937, D. Balaur was ordained priest at Easter and served in the Episcopal Cathedral of Bălți. But feeling the “liberation” that came on 28 June 1940, Fr. Balaur, together with his family and many intellectuals from Bessarabia, took refuge in Bucharest, Romania. In the capital he was appointed priest of the “Oborul Nou” church. In the autumn of 1941, Fr. Balaur gladly returned to the Bishopric of Bălți.
But on 21 March 1944 he had to flee again (forever), this time to Caransebeș, where the goods of the Bishopric of Bălți were transported. In 1945, D. Balaur moved with his family to Bucharest, where he was accepted as a professor at the “Nifon Metropolitan” seminary. He worked there until 1948, when the seminary was abolished. On the 1st of September of the same year, D. Balaur was appointed priest of the church in Parcul Domeniilor, the so-called “Cașin Monastery”. Here, too, Fr. Balaur was a beloved pastor of the parishioners. But the situation in post-war communist Romania had changed. The repressive authorities followed him, especially when he met with other priests from Bessarabia. They believed that at such meetings he was plotting against the communist regime in the country.
In March 1959, the Cașin Monastery was closed. The main priests of the monastery, including Fr. Balaur, were arrested. The Bessarabian priest was tried by the military tribunal in Bucharest. He was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment “for fighting against the first socialist state in the world, the Soviet Union” and 15 years for “conspiracy against the social order”. He was imprisoned in Jilava, Gherla and Periprava. He was released on 30 July 1964. He then worked in the churches “Puișor”, “Drumul Taberei”, “Sfânta Vineri Nouă” and others (until 1996). He worked for the magazines “Misionarul”, “Apostolul”, “Însemnări creștine”. He died on 16 April 1996 and was buried in the monastery of Cernica, near Bucharest. Shortly before his death, he was visited at his home near “Cașin Monastery” by the ethnologist Iordan Datcu, together with the Bessarabian researcher Pavel Balmuș, to whom he told a lot about his life. […]
It is appropriate that all the published works (or possibly some still in manuscript) of the priest and researcher Fr. Balaur should be gathered in a separate collection and republished/released. A list of the titles of D. Balaur’s works, extracted by I. Datcu from the files of the Romanian Academy Library, is helpful in this respect: the extract with the collection Din literatura populară a Basarabiei, published in “Șezătoarea”, 1929, no. 1-2, pp. 49-75; Biserici din Moldova de răsărit (Bucharest, 1934, 48 pp. ); Anthologhioanele din anul 1766: Studiu de bibliografi e (published in “Biserica ortodoxă română”, an. III, 1935, nr. 9-10); Professor Gheorghe Vâlsan: Un savant religios (published in “Biserica ortodoxă română”, an. III, 1935, nr. 9-10); O scuola model: The Theological Seminary of Chisinau under the direction of Father Serghie Bejan (Bucharest, 1936, excerpt); Destiny of a Transnistrian Priest (Petru Vasilcovschi) (Bălți, 1943, 16 p.; published in “Biserica basarabeană”, year II, 1943, no. 5); Vasilcovschi (priest Petru), Individual Pastoral Visits/ Pref. by D. Balaur, 1943, 23 p. (excerpt from “Biserica basarabeană”, year II, 1943, no. 4).
(Dr. hab., prof. univ. Nicolae Băieșu – Akademos Magazine, no. 3 (30), September 2013, pp. 99-101)
- Jordan Datcu, G. T. Chirileanu and Dimitrie Balaur, Philologia, 2011, no. 5-6.
- Iordan Datcu. Dictionary of Romanian Ethnology. Authors. Periodical Publications. Institutions. Major Collections. Bibliographies. Chronology. 2nd edition, revised and expanded, Bucharest, Saeculum I.O., 2006.