- Scarlat Callimachi
Scarlat Callimachi or Calimachi (nicknamed "Prinţul Roşu", [Chiva & Şchiop; Mihailov] "the Red Prince";
September 20 ,1896 —June 2 ,1975 ) was aRomania n journalist, essayist, futurist poet,trade union ist, and communist activist, a member of theCallimachi family ofboyar and Phanariote lineage. He is not to be confused with his ancestor, "hospodar " Scarlat Callimachi.Biography
Born in
Bucharest , he lived for part of his childhood at the family manor inBotoşani , where, at age 11, he witnessed first-hand the 1907 peasants' uprisings (which, as he later admitted, contributed to hisleft-wing sympathies). [Chiva & Şchiop; Lăcustă, p.25] As a youth, he read Russian anarchist books, while studying inParis duringWorld War I , joined anarchist circles. [Chiva & Şchiop] While travelling throughFinland in 1917, Callimachi attended a public meeting at whichVladimir Lenin gave a speech, and consequently adoptedBolshevism . [Chiva & Şchiop]After his return to Romania, Callimachi edited a short-lived magazine in Botoşani (1924-1925), [Grigorescu, p.420, 431] and published
Avant-garde poems infree verse — inspired by the work of Russian Futurists. [Grigorescu, p.420] With fellow modernistsIon Vinea andStephan Roll , he later issued theliterary magazine "Punct". [Chiva & Şchiop] Callimachi began working on communist and other leftist newspapers (including "Clopotul", which he himself edited in his native town) while keeping a front as an employee of his relatives. [Chiva & Şchiop; Lăcustă, p.25]According to his own testimony, he joined the outlawed
Communist Party of Romania (PCdR, later PCR) in 1932, [Lăcustă, p.25; according to his son, Scarlat Callimachi was officially affiliated with the party only after 1944 (Chiva & Şchiop)] an allegiance which brought Callimachi into a relatively small, but dedicated, category of communist sympathisers ofupper class upbringing — it also includedN. D. Cocea (to whom Callimachi was a close collaborator) andLucreţiu Pătrăşcanu . [Chiva & Şchiop; Tănase, "Belu Zilber. Strategia Moscovei: lideri PCR din zone periferice"] Nevertheless, at the same time, he was a nominal member of theNational Peasants' Party (PNŢ). [Chiva & Şchiop] He continued to criticize the PNŢ: the most virulent of his attacks on the cabinet ofAlexandru Vaida-Voevod — voiced soon after the authorities had repressed theGriviţa Strike of 1933 — led to his arrest and sentencing. [Chiva & Şchiop; Lăcustă, p.25]Among PCR activists charged with establishing links with other groups (in accordance with the "
Popular Front " Stalinist doctrine), Callimachi, who had been a member of "Amicii URSS " in 1934, [Mihailov] was one of the leaders of the Democratic Bloc ("Blocul Democratic"), a PCR-created legal organization which in 1935 succeeded in forming a tight alliance withPetru Groza 'sPloughmen's Front (the agreement was signed inŢebea ). [Frunză, p.115]In 1937, as the fascist
Iron Guard was gaining unprecedented momentum and the secondary fascist movement around theNational Christian Party was ascending to power, Callimachi decided to leave Romania and settled inFrance , but returned a year later, after King Carol II acted against the Iron Guard and established a dictatorship around theNational Renaissance Front . [Chiva & Şchiop] In August 1940, as Carol engineered a crackdown on the left-wing opposition, he was interned inMiercurea-Ciuc . [Chiva & Şchiop]Like Pătrăşcanu, Callimachi was set free by
Siguranţa Statului under theNational Legionary State , established by the Iron Guard later in the year (the regime, which had aligned itself withNazi Germany , was attempting to preserve a good relationship with theSoviet Union ). [Chiva & Şchiop] He was again imprisoned byIon Antonescu 's military dictatorship in Romania, and again interned, as many other PCR members, inCaracal , and laterTârgu Jiu . [Lăcustă, p.25]After
World War II , he became a leader of the Singular Journalists' Trade Union, which had replaced the Union of Professional Journalists in Octomber 1944 and had since become an instrument of the PCR-controlled government in controlling the press. He, with N. D. Cocea,Miron Constantinescu , andIon Pas , organized the expulsion and denouncement of journalists who professedanti-communism , and maintained this position after the proclamation of the People's Republic of Romania in 1948, [Diac, "Comunism - Artişti şi ziarişti în febra epurărilor. Ziariştii"; Frunză, p.254-255] before moving on to become head of the Romanian-Russian Museum ("Muzeul Româno-Rus"), an institution created to highlight cultural and social links between Romania and the Soviet Union in accordance with theZhdanov Doctrine . The Museum was closed down in 1956, after theGheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej regime began rejecting Soviet influence. [Frunză, p.457]He died in 1975, and was buried in the Bucharest
Bellu cemetery ; he had refused the ostentatious funeral reserved for senior PCR members. [Chiva & Şchiop]Notes
References
*ro icon Ionuţ Chiva, Adrian Şchiop, [http://www.prezentonline.ro/article_detail.php?idarticle=1647 "Boierii comunişti" (interview with Dimitrie Calimachi, the son of Scarlat Callimachi)] , in "Prezent",
November 21 ,2006
*ro icon Cristina Diac, [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_50459/comunism___artisti_si_ziaristi_in_febra_epurarilor.html "Comunism - Artişti şi ziarişti în febra epurărilor"] , in "Jurnalul Naţional ",April 12 ,2006
*Victor Frunză, "Istoria stalinismului în România", Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990
*Dan Grigorescu , "Istoria unei generaţii pierdute: expresioniştii",Editura Eminescu , Bucharest, 1980
*Ioan Lăcustă, "Strămoşii mei au fost răzeşi" (interview with Scarlat Callimachi), published post-mortem in "Magazin Istoric", Nr.9 (102), September 1975, p.24-25
*ro icon Paula Mihailov, [http://www.jurnalul.ro/print.php?id=26296 "Prietenii din România ai Rusiei Sovietice"] , in "Jurnalul Naţional"
*ro iconStelian Tănase , [http://www.revista22.ro/html/index.php?art=560&nr=2003-08-11 "Belu Zilber"] , in "22", Nr.700 (August 2003)
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