Elena Bacaloglu

Elena A. Bacaloglu, also known as Bacaloglu-Densusianu, Bacaloglu-Densuşeanu etc. (Francized Hélène Bacaloglu; 1878–1947), was a Romanian journalist, literary critic, novelist and fascist militant. Her career in letters produced an introduction to the work of Maurice Maeterlinck (1903), several other critical essays, and two novels. She married and divorced poet Radu D. Rosetti, and Ovid Densusianu, the Symbolist poet and literary theorist.

Bacaloglu lived most of her later life in Italy, where she affiliated with the literary and political circles. Her subsequent work included campaigns for Pan-Latinism and Romanian irredentism. This second career peaked upon the close of World War I, when Bacaloglu became involved with Italian fascism. Introduced to Benito Mussolini and Benedetto Croce, she helped transplant fascism on Romanian soil. Her National Italo-Romanian Cultural and Economic Movement was a minor and heterodox political party, but managed to earn attention with its advocacy of political violence.

This classical Romanian fascist movement survived the troubles of 1923, but disbanded in 1925, and was entirely eclipsed by the Iron Guard. Shunned by Mussolini, Bacaloglu lived her final decades in relative obscurity. Her fascist ideas were taken up by some in her family, including her brother Sandi and her son Ovid O. Densusianu.