Scarlat Callimachi

Scarlat Callimachi or Calimachi (; nicknamed Prințul Roșu, "the Red Prince"; September 20, 1896 – June 2, 1975) was a Romanian journalist, essayist, futurist poet, trade unionist, 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. Biography Born in Bucharest, he lived for part of his childhood at the family manor in Botoșani, 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 was also the editor-in-chief of the magazine. He 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 Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu. Nevertheless, at the same time, he was a nominal member of the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ). He continued to criticize the PNȚ: the most virulent of his attacks on the cabinet of Alexandru Vaida-Voevod — voiced soon after the authorities had repressed the Grivița strike of 1933 — led to his arrest and sentencing.