DOMINIC, ALEXANDRU

DOMINIC, ALEXANDRU (Avram Adolf Reichman ; 1889–1942), Romanian poet and playwright. Born in Bucharest to a middle-class family, Dominic completed the local German-Evangelical secondary school and doctoral studies in law (Brussels) and in literature (Paris). While a student in France he had ties to an anarchist group and published articles in French periodicals, one of them La société nouvelle, under pen names. In 1912 he returned to Bucharest, where his poems appeared in Romanian periodicals. In 1920 he published his first volumes of expressionist and social poems, Revolte si crucificari ("Revolts and Crucifixions"). Well received by critics, Dominic was nominated for a Nobel Prize by the French review Esope, journal d'action intellectuelle in the same year. In 1921 he published the expressionist play Sonata umbrelor ("Sonata of the Shadows"), dealing with the problem of the intellectual. This play was staged at the National Theater in Bucharest (1920) and in German translation at Neues Theater am Zoo, Berlin (1922). In 1927, Dominic published a new volume of poems, Clopote peste adancuri ("Bells above Depths"). In 1924–25, together with the Romanian writer Liviu Rebreanu, Dominic edited the review Miscarea literara. His poem Israel (1920) deals with the theme of Jewish suffering. Dominic also published verses in the Zionist review Puntea de fildes (1925). In 1938 he visited Palestine, where he decided to send his son. Dominic died in Bucharest. His widow, Bertha, immigrated to Israel, where she established a prize in his memory. Some of his poems were translated into Hebrew.

bibliography:

S. Leibovici-Lais and A. Zahareanu (eds.), A. Dominic, Me'ah Shanah le-Holadat ha-Meshorer (1987); A. Mirodan, Dictionar neconventional, 2 (1997), 111–32; A.B. Yoffe, Bisdot Zarim, 184–7, 445.

[Lucian-Zeev Herscovici (2^nd ed.)]