SOURCE: Opera, Alexandru. “The Journalist's Physiognomy.” Romanian Review 40, no. 1 (1986): 10-23.

In the following essay, originally published in 1980, Opera pronounces Eminescu the exemplar of a Romanian journalist.

By the brilliance of its example, Eminescu's journalism has definitively justified the concept of the committed writer as a sensitive seismograph and spokesman of his nation's sorrows and aspirations.

True, at the time when the great poet had become “managing editor” of Curierul de Iaşi, Romanian journalism—a redoubtable weapon of great topicality—had already been launched on its specific path. Versatile authors, headed by Ion Eliade Rădulescu, had made a decisive contribution by their many flourishing publications, all tending to evince some peculiar feature. C. A. Rosetti—the poet's future victim—had produced in his Românul, the first modern-type Romanian daily.

As in poetry, the value of Eminescu lies not simply in the “introduction” of literary genres or...