Scarlat Callimachi (communist activist)
Encyclopedia
Scarlat Callimachi or Calimachi (nicknamed Prinţul Roşu, "the Red
Prince"; September 20, 1896–June 2, 1975) was a Romania
n journalist, essayist, futurist
poet, trade union
ist, and communist
activist, a member of the Callimachi family
of boyar
and Phanariote
lineage. He is not to be confused with his ancestor, hospodar
Scarlat Callimachi
.
, he lived for part of his childhood at the family manor
in Botoşani
, where, at age 11, he witnessed first-hand the 1907 peasants' uprisings
(which, as he later admitted, contributed to his left-wing sympathies). As a youth, he read Russian anarchist books, while studying in Paris during World War I, joined anarchist
circles. While travelling through Finland in 1917, Callimachi attended a public meeting at which Vladimir Lenin
gave a speech, and consequently adopted Bolshevism.
After his return to Romania, Callimachi edited a short-lived magazine in Botoşani (1924–1925), and published Avant-garde
poems in free verse
— inspired by the work of Russian Futurists
. With fellow modernists
Ion Vinea and Stephan Roll, he later issued the literary magazine
Punct. 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.
According to his own testimony, he joined the outlawed Communist Party of Romania (PCdR, later PCR) in 1932, an allegiance which brought Callimachi into a relatively small, but dedicated, category of communist sympathisers of upper class
upbringing — it also included N. D. Cocea
(to whom Callimachi was a close collaborator) and Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
. Nevertheless, at the same time, he was a nominal member of the National Peasants' Party
(PNŢ). He continued to criticize the PNŢ: the most virulent of his attacks on the cabinet of Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
— voiced soon after the authorities had repressed the Griviţa Strike of 1933
— led to his arrest and sentencing.
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, 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 with Petru Groza
's Ploughmen's Front
(the agreement was signed in Ţebea
).
In 1937, as the fascist
Iron Guard
was gaining unprecedented momentum and the secondary fascist movement around the National Christian Party
was ascending to power, Callimachi decided to leave Romania and settled in France, but returned a year later, after King
Carol II
acted against the Iron Guard and established a dictatorship around the National Renaissance Front
. In August 1940, as Carol engineered a crackdown on the left-wing opposition, he was interned
in Miercurea-Ciuc
.
Like Pătrăşcanu, Callimachi was set free by Siguranţa Statului under the National Legionary State
, established by the Iron Guard later in the year (the regime, which had aligned itself with Nazi Germany
, was attempting to preserve a good relationship with the Soviet Union). He was again imprisoned by Ion Antonescu
's military dictatorship in Romania
, and again interned, as many other PCR members, in Caracal
, and later Târgu Jiu
.
After World War II, he became a leader of the Singular Journalists' Trade Union, which had replaced the Union of Professional Journalists in October 1944 and had since become an instrument of the PCR-controlled government in controlling the press. He, with N. D. Cocea, Miron Constantinescu
, and Ion Pas, organized the expulsion and denouncement of journalists who professed anti-communism
, and maintained this position after the proclamation of the People's Republic of Romania
in 1948, 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 the Zhdanov Doctrine
. The Museum was closed down in 1956, after the Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
regime began rejecting Soviet influence.
He died in 1975, and was buried in the Bucharest Bellu cemetery; he had refused the ostentatious funeral reserved for senior PCR members.
Red flag
In politics, a red flag is a symbol of Socialism, or Communism, or sometimes left-wing politics in general. It has been associated with left-wing politics since the French Revolution. Socialists adopted the symbol during the Revolutions of 1848 and it became a symbol of communism as a result of its...
Prince"; September 20, 1896–June 2, 1975) was a Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n journalist, essayist, futurist
Futurism (art)
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
poet, trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ist, and communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
activist, a member of the Callimachi family
Callimachi family
Callimachi, Calimachi, or Kallimachi was a Moldavian boyar and princely family, originating with a group of free peasants living in the Orhei area of Bessarabia. It still remains present today in modern Romania.-Members:*Vasile Călmaşul: b...
of boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
and Phanariote
Phanariotes
Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...
lineage. He is not to be confused with his ancestor, hospodar
Hospodar
Hospodar or gospodar is a term of Slavonic origin, meaning "lord" or "master".The rulers of Wallachia and Moldavia were styled hospodars in Slavic writings from the 15th century to 1866. Hospodar was used in addition to the title voivod...
Scarlat Callimachi
Scarlat Callimachi (hospodar)
Scarlat Callimachi was Grand Dragoman of the Sublime Porte 1801–1806, Prince of Moldavia between August 24 1806 – October 26 1806, August 4 1807 – June 13 1810, September 17 1812 – June 1819 and Prince of Wallachia between February 1821 – June 1821.A member of the Callimachi family, he was the son...
.
Biography
Born in BucharestBucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, he lived for part of his childhood at the family manor
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
in Botoşani
Botosani
Botoșani is the capital city of Botoșani County, in northern Moldavia, Romania. Today, it is best known as the birthplace of many celebrated Romanians, including Mihai Eminescu and Nicolae Iorga.- Origin of the name :...
, where, at age 11, he witnessed first-hand the 1907 peasants' uprisings
1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt
The 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt took place in March 1907 in Moldavia and it quickly spread, reaching Wallachia. The main cause was the discontent of the peasants about the inequity of land ownership, which was in the hands of just a few large landowners....
(which, as he later admitted, contributed to his left-wing sympathies). As a youth, he read Russian anarchist books, while studying in Paris during World War I, joined anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
circles. While travelling through Finland in 1917, Callimachi attended a public meeting at which Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
gave a speech, and consequently adopted Bolshevism.
After his return to Romania, Callimachi edited a short-lived magazine in Botoşani (1924–1925), and published Avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
poems in free verse
Free verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
— inspired by the work of Russian Futurists
Russian Futurism
Russian Futurism is the term used to denote a group of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism"...
. With fellow modernists
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
Ion Vinea and Stephan Roll, he later issued the literary magazine
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
Punct. 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.
According to his own testimony, he joined the outlawed Communist Party of Romania (PCdR, later PCR) in 1932, an allegiance which brought Callimachi into a relatively small, but dedicated, category of communist sympathisers of upper class
Upper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
upbringing — it also included N. D. Cocea
N. D. Cocea
N. D. Cocea was a Romanian journalist, novelist, critic and left-wing political activist, known as a major but controversial figure in the field of political satire...
(to whom Callimachi was a close collaborator) and Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu
Lucretiu Patrascanu
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania , also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at Bucharest University...
. Nevertheless, at the same time, he was a nominal member of the National Peasants' Party
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party was a Romanian political party, formed in 1926 through the fusion of the Romanian National Party from Transylvania and the Peasants' Party . It was in power between 1928 and 1933, with brief interruptions...
(PNŢ). He continued to criticize the PNŢ: the most virulent of his attacks on the cabinet of Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
Alexandru Vaida-Voevod or Vaida-Voievod was a Romanian politician who was a supporter and promoter of the union of Transylvania with the Romanian Old Kingdom; he later served three terms as a Prime Minister of Greater Romania.-Transylvanian politics:He was born to a Greek-Catholic family in the...
— voiced soon after the authorities had repressed the Griviţa Strike of 1933
Grivita Strike of 1933
The Grivița Strike of 1933 was a railway strike which was started at the Grivița Workshops, Bucharest, Romania, on 16 February 1933 by workers of Căile Ferate Române . The strike was brought about by the increasingly poor working conditions of railway employees in the context of the worldwide Great...
— led to his arrest and sentencing.
Among PCR activists charged with establishing links with other groups (in accordance with the Popular Front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
Stalinist
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
doctrine), Callimachi, who had been a member of Amicii URSS
Amicii URSS
Amicii URSS was a cultural association in interwar Romania, uniting left-wing and anti-fascist intellectuals who advocated a détente between their country and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union Amicii URSS (Romanian for "[The] Friends of the Soviet Union"; , occasionally known as Prietenii URSS , which...
in 1934, 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 with Petru Groza
Petru Groza
Petru Groza was a Romanian politician, best known as the Prime Minister of the first Communist Party-dominated governments under Soviet occupation during the early stages of the Communist regime in Romania....
's Ploughmen's Front
Ploughmen's Front
The Ploughmen's Front was a Romanian left-wing agrarian-inspired political organisation of ploughmen, founded at Deva in 1933 and led by Petru Groza. At its peak in 1946, the Front had over 1 million members.-History:...
(the agreement was signed in Ţebea
Baia de Cris
Baia de Criș is a commune in Hunedoara County, Romania, close to the small town of Brad. It is composed of nine villages: Baia de Criș, Baldovin , Căraci , Cărăstău , Lunca , Rișca , Rișculița , Țebea and Văleni.The village of Țebea is where the Revolt of Horea, Cloșca and Crișan started in 1784,...
).
In 1937, as the fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
was gaining unprecedented momentum and the secondary fascist movement around the National Christian Party
National Christian Party
The National Christian Party was a Romanian political party, the product of a union between Octavian Goga's National Agrarian Party and A. C. Cuza's National-Christian Defense League; a prominent member of the party was the philosopher Nichifor Crainic...
was ascending to power, Callimachi decided to leave Romania and settled in France, but returned a year later, after King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Carol II
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
acted against the Iron Guard and established a dictatorship around the National Renaissance Front
National Renaissance Front
The National Renaissance Front was a fascist Romanian political party created by King Carol II in 1938 as the single monopoly party of government following his decision to ban all other political parties and suspend the 1923 Constitution, and the passing of the 1938 Constitution of Romania...
. In August 1940, as Carol engineered a crackdown on the left-wing opposition, he was interned
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
in Miercurea-Ciuc
Miercurea-Ciuc
Miercurea-Ciuc is the county seat of Harghita County, Romania. It lies in the Székely Land, an ethno-cultural region in eastern Transylvania, and is situated in the Olt River valley.The city administers three villages:* Ciba / Csiba...
.
Like Pătrăşcanu, Callimachi was set free by Siguranţa Statului under the National Legionary State
National Legionary State
The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...
, established by the Iron Guard later in the year (the regime, which had aligned itself with Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, was attempting to preserve a good relationship with the Soviet Union). He was again imprisoned by Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
's military dictatorship in Romania
Romania during World War II
Following the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the Kingdom of Romania officially adopted a position of neutrality. However, the rapidly changing situation in Europe during 1940, as well as domestic political upheaval, undermined this stance. Fascist political forces such as the Iron...
, and again interned, as many other PCR members, in Caracal
Caracal
The caracal is a fiercely territorial medium-sized cat ranging over Western Asia, South Asia and Africa.The word caracal comes from the Turkish word "karakulak", meaning "black ear". In North India and Pakistan, the caracal is locally known as syahgosh or shyahgosh, which is a Persian term...
, and later Târgu Jiu
Târgu Jiu
Târgu Jiu is the capital of Gorj County, Oltenia, Romania. It is situated on the Southern Sub-Carpathians, on the banks of the river Jiu. Eight villages are administered by the city: Bârseşti, Drăgoeni, Iezureni, Polata, Preajba Mare, Româneşti, Slobozia and Ursaţi.-History:The city takes its name...
.
After World War II, he became a leader of the Singular Journalists' Trade Union, which had replaced the Union of Professional Journalists in October 1944 and had since become an instrument of the PCR-controlled government in controlling the press. He, with N. D. Cocea, Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu was a Romanian communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party , as well as a Marxist sociologist, historian, academic, and journalist...
, and Ion Pas, organized the expulsion and denouncement of journalists who professed anti-communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
, and maintained this position after the proclamation of the People's Republic of Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
in 1948, 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 the Zhdanov Doctrine
Zhdanov Doctrine
The Zhdanov Doctrine was a Soviet cultural doctrine developed by the Central Committee secretary Andrei Zhdanov in 1946. It proposed that the world was divided into two camps: the imperialistic, headed by the United States; and democratic, headed by the Soviet Union...
. The Museum was closed down in 1956, after the Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was the Communist leader of Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.-Early life:Gheorghe was the son of a poor worker, Tănase Gheorghiu, and his wife Ana. Gheorghiu-Dej joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1930...
regime began rejecting Soviet influence.
He died in 1975, and was buried in the Bucharest Bellu cemetery; he had refused the ostentatious funeral reserved for senior PCR members.