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Panait Istrati (Romanian:[panaˈitisˈtrati]; sometimes rendered asPanaït Istrati; (August 10, 1884 – April 16, 1935) was a Romanianworking class writer, who wrote in French andRomanian, nicknamedTheMaxim Gorky of theBalkans. Istrati appears to be the first Romanian author explicitly depicting ahomosexual character in his work.
Although he lived and worked mainly in Romania, due to his impact on French literature, Istrati is sometimes also labeled as "French writer".[1]
Born inBrăila, Istrati was the son of the laundress Joița Istrate and of theGreek tobacco trader Georgios Valsamis from the village ofFaraklata inKefalonia.
He studied in primary school for six years inBaldovinești, after being held back twice. He then earned his living as anapprentice to atavern-keeper, then as a pastry cook andpeddler. In the meantime, he was a prolific reader.
His first attempts at writing date from around 1907 when he started sending pieces to thesocialist periodicals in Romania, debuting with the article,Hotel Regina inRomânia Muncitoare. Here, he later published his first short stories,Mântuitorul ("The Redeemer"),Calul lui Bălan ("Bălan's Horse"),Familia noastră ("Our Family"),1 Mai ("May Day"). He also contributed pieces to otherleftist newspapers such asDimineața,Adevărul, andViața Socială.
In 1910, he was involved in organizing astrike action in Brăila. He went toBucharest,Istanbul,Cairo,Naples,Paris (1913–1914), and Switzerland (where he settled for a while, trying to cure histuberculosis). Istrati's travels were marked by two successive unhappy marriages, a brief return to Romania in 1915 when he tried to earn his living as ahogfarmer, and long periods ofvagabondage.
While in thesanatorium, Istrati metRussian Jewish-SwissZionist writerJosué Jéhouda, who became his friend and French language tutor.
Living in misery, ill and depressed, he attemptedsuicide in 1921 on his way toNice, but his life was rescued in time. Shortly before the attempt, he had written toRomain Rolland, the French writer he admired most and with whom he had long tried to get in touch. Rolland received the letter through thePolice and immediately replied. In 1923 Istrati's storyKyra Kyralina (orChira Chiralina) was published with apreface by Rolland. It became the first in hisAdrien Zograffiliterary cycle. Rolland was fascinated with Istrati's adventurous life, urging him to write more and publishing parts of his work inClarté, themagazine that he andHenri Barbusse owned. The next major work by Istrati was thenovelCodine.
Pamfil Șeicaru named Istrati "poor poet of deflowered arses". Istrati is the first Romanian author to write a novel –Chira Chiralina – in which a character is homosexual.[2]
Istrati shared the leftist ideals of Rolland, and, as much as hismentor, placed his hopes in theBolshevik vision. In 1927 he visited theSoviet Union on the anniversary of theOctober Revolution, accompanied byChristian Rakovsky during the first stage of the journey (Rakovsky was Sovietambassador to Paris, and by then already falling out of favor withJoseph Stalin). He travelled through large sections of the European part, witnessing celebrations inMoscow andKiev. He was joined in Moscow by his future close friend,Nikos Kazantzakis; while in the city, Panait Istrati metVictor Serge and expressed his wish to become a citizen of the Soviet Union. He and Kazantzakis wrote Stalin a congratulatory letter that remained unanswered.
In 1928–29, after a tumultuous stay in Greece (where he was engaged in fights with the police and invited to leave the country), he went again to the Soviet Union. Through extended visits in more remote places such as theMoldavian ASSR (where he got in touch with his friendEcaterina Arbore),Nizhny Novgorod,Baku, andBatumi, Istrati learned the full truth of Stalin'scommunistdictatorship, out of which experience he wrote his famous book,The Confession of a Loser, the first in the succession of disenchantments expressed byintellectuals such asArthur Koestler andAndré Gide. Istrati dealt with the mounting persecution ofOld Bolsheviks and the gradual victimization of whole population groups. His views were also harshly made clear in two letters he sent to theGPU leadership in December 1928.
Thereafter, he suffered a crisis of conscience mainly due to being branded a "Trotskyist" or even a "Fascist" by his former communist friends, the most violent of which proved to be Henri Barbusse. Rolland had praised Istrati's letters to the GPU, but he nonetheless chose to stay clear of the controversy. Istrati came back to Romania ill and demoralised, was treated for tuberculosis in Nice, then returned to Bucharest.
The political opinions Istrati expressed after his split with Bolshevism are rather ambiguous. He was still closely watched by the Romaniansecret police (Siguranța Statului), and he had written an article (dated April 8, 1933) in the French magazineLes Nouvelles littéraires, aptly titledL'homme qui n'adhère à rien ("The man who will adhere to nothing").
At the same time, Istrati started publishing inCruciada Românismului ("TheCrusade of Romanianism"), the voice of a left-leaning splinter group of the ultra-nationalistIron Guard. As such, Istrati became associated with the group's leaderMihai Stelescu, who had been elected as a member of Parliament for the Iron Guard in 1933 and whosedissidence was the reason for his brutalassassination by theDecemviri in 1936; Istrati was himselfassaulted several times by the Guard's squads.
Isolated and unprotected, Panait Istrati died at Filaret Sanatorium in Bucharest. He was buried inBellu Cemetery.
This list and many of Istrati's works are on Wikisource.[3]
While in the Soviet Union, Istrati wrote ascreenplay based on his own work entitled,The Bandits, a project that was never completed.
Kira Kiralina was filmed in 1927 as asilent film inSoviet Ukraine, produced byVUFKU. The novel was filmed for a second time in 1993, as a Romanian-Hungarian production directed byGyula Maár. A third production, theDan Pița-directedKira Kiralina, appeared in 2014. There is also a 1958 Franco–Romanian film,Ciulinii Bărăganului, andCodine (Codin), a Franco–Romanian co-production of 1962.
