FRÉDÉRIC DAMÉ ȘI ȘCOALA ROMÂNEASCĂ
FRÉDÉRIC DAMÉ AND THE ROMANIAN SCHOOL

Summary/Abstract: Frédéric Damé was born on March 29, 1849, in Tonnere, France and died on April 30, 1907 in Bucharest. These data are provided by the Romanian Encyclopedia, written by C. Diaconovici and published in Sibiu in 1900 (Volume II, p. 967). After graduating from law school in Paris, he became a remarkable publicist, collaborating with the newspapers „Gaulois”, „La cloche” and „Le corsaire”, until 1872, when he took refuge in Romania. It is very possible that the deliberate exile in Romania was determined by a previous revolutionary activity of the French publicist. It is known that in 1870, Frédéric Damé had printed a volume of poems very suggestively entitled, Invasion, and a year later, when the Paris Commune took place, a government that ruled Paris from March 28 to May 28, 1871 and which acted only as a local authority, exercising its power in Paris and being the result of a local revolt after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, he published another similar volume, entitled La Résistance. Nicolae Iorga is of the same opinion, saying: “He had been involved in the Revolutionary Commune in Paris, and it was difficult for him to stay in France very unpleasant circumstances forced him not to be able to return for sometime to the country he had left in an astonishing way” (Iorga, 1911, pp. 279-280).The activity that Frédéric Damé carries out in Romania is very varied and it demonstrates the identification of the tireless publicist with the way of life and with the aspirations of the Romanian people. In fact, Frédéric Damé received Romanian citizenship by naturalization and was married to Eugenia Zanne, the sister of Iuliu Zanne, the author of the collection Proverbs of the Romanians. When he came to the country, he was mainly involved in journalism, continuing what he had already begun in France. Learning the language very quickly, Frédéric Damé wrote both in Romanian and French, with the aim of making the realities of our country known abroad. The magazine „Familia”, which appeared in Budapest, informs us that, in 1873, in Romania, 47 periodicals were published, out of which four newspapers in French. The same goal characterizes the monthly magazine „La Roumanie contemporaine et les peuples de l’Europe orientale”, which appeared simultaneously in Paris and Bucharest from October 1, 1874 until December 1875, when it ceased to appear in Paris, remaining only in Bucharest.The consecration of Frédéric Damé in the Romanian culture comes from his didactic activity and that of lexicographer. In 1890, he became teacher of French language and literature at the prestigious Bucharest high school „Saint Sava”. He published some grammar papers in order to facilitate the acquisition of the French language by Romanians. As a teacher, he published numerous reading and translation books, both from Romanian to French, and vice versa, for different middle school levels.

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