Ion Călugăru

Ion Călugăru (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈon kəˈluɡəru]; born Ștrul Leiba Croitoru, also known as Buium sin Strul-Leiba Croitoru, B. Croitoru; February 14, 1902 – May 22, 1956) was a Romanian novelist, short story writer, journalist and critic. As a figure on Romania's modernist scene throughout the early interwar period, he was noted for combining a picturesque perspective on the rural Jewish-Romanian community, to which he belonged, with traditionalist and avant-garde elements. His early works, including the novel Copilăria unui netrebnic ("The Childhood of a Ne'er-do-well"), bring together elements of Social Realism, Surrealism and Expressionism over a conventional narrative line based on oral tradition and the classics of Romanian literature. Călugăru, who moved from the moderate Contimporanul magazine to the Surrealist platform unu, was also one of the main contributors to Integral, a tribune for avant-garde literature in general. Although publicly known for his socialist convictions and his far left inclinations, he was, through his position at Cuvântul newspaper, present in the proximity of fascist circles, and had an ambiguous attitude toward his employer, the far right thinker Nae Ionescu.

Shortly before the establishment of Romania's communist regime, Călugăru embraced Socialist Realism and became and made official his relationship with the ruling Romanian Communist Party. During this final period of his career, he wrote the controversial novel Oțel și pîine ("Steel and Bread"), an epic of industrialization, widely seen as one of the most representative samples of politicized literature to have seen print in 1950s Romania. Despite his formal affiliation to Marxism-Leninism, Călugăru had doubts about the new political realities and commented with sarcasm on the regime's self-contradictions. These opinions were expressed in his private diaries, which became the subject of research and public scrutiny some fifty years after his death.