Panait Istrati: Encyclopedia II - Panait Istrati - Last years

Panait Istrati - Last years

In fact, the political options Istrati expressed after his split with Bolshevism are rather ambiguous. He was still closely watched by the Siguranţa statului Romanian secret police, and he had written an article (dated April 8, 1933) in the French magazine Les Nouvelles Littéraires, aptly titled L'homme qui n'adhère à rien ("The man who will adhere to nothing").

At the same time, Istrati started publishing in Cruciada Românismului (roughly: "The Crusade of Romanian identity"), the voice of a left-leaning splinter group of the ultra-nationalist Iron Guard. As such, Istrati became associated with the group's leader Mihai Stelescu, who had been elected as a Parliament member for the Iron Guard in 1933 and whose dissidence was the reason for his brutal assassination by the Decemviri later in the same year; Istrati was himself assaulted several times by the Guard's sqads.

Isolated and unprotected, Panait Istrati died at Filaret Sanatorium in Bucharest.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Last years", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki