"Maria Tanase is often hailed by Romanians as the Edith Piaf of Romania. Even today her music is still popular and often copied, though she debuted already in 1937 when she represented Romania also at the International Exhibition in Paris, France (together with Constantin Brancusi) and was first aired on radio. Besides her career as singer, Maria was also a film and theatre actress and singer at the opera. But it were her interpretations of Romanian folk songs, which made her unforgotten after her relatively early death.
Maria Tanase was born on 25th September of 1913 as third child to Ana (Munteanu) and Ion Coanda Tanase in a suburb of Bucharest, Romania. She inherited from her parents her love to music in general and in particular to Romanian folk music. Maria never received a formal training, but some lessons in her school where she was also mentioned to be on stage, just as at “Cărămidarii de Jos” in 1921. For a long time, few things have been known about her time during 1939 and 1944, when Romania fell under the dictatorship of Marshall Ion Antonescu and his fascistic, anti-Semitic allies from the “Garda de Fier” (Iron Guard) while Maria and her friends were modern and democratic. Her lover, Armand Calinescu – who made the imprisonment of the fascist leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu happen in 1938 – was murdered by Iron Guardist just one year after, in late 1939. The fascistic Government prohibited airing the songs of Maria Tanase as they accused her to alter “authentic” Romanian folk music.
They destroyed also most of the existing recordings of Maria Tanase, yet, some survived. Nevertheless, Maria was still popular and was asked by the very Ministry to sing at a festival. She agreed, but only under the condition that her Jewish friends were not to be deported. Furthermore, she used the occasion to stress the merits of her Jewish friend, the music ethnologist Harry Brauner.
After WW II Maria Tanase continued her career under the now communistic regime and continued to represent Romania and its folk music in various countries. Her journeys included the former communist countries, but she toured often to destinations such as New York, too. She took part in some films, such as “Romania” (1947), acted 1945 in Leo Tolstoy’s play “The Living Corpse” and 1956 in “Horia” by Mihai Davidoglu. She received several honours and prizes for her cultural activity, but soon, Maria Tanase shall die from lung cancer, on 22th of June, 1963 at the age of 49."
Article source: www.romania-central.com. , translation by Romania-Central.
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