Ion Alion BuzduganFull variant given by Buzdugan himself in the 1950s. See N. Scurtu, p. 86 (Romanian Cyrillic and , born Ivan Alexandrovici Buzdâga;Călinescu, p. 1036; Colesnic, pp. 409, 438; Constantin & Negrei (2009), p. 65; Sasu, p. 244Onisifor Ghibu, "Trei luni din viața Basarabiei", in Societatea de Mâine, Nr. 13/1924, p. 283Constantin Poenaru, "Viața bucovineană în Rîmnicu-Vâlcea postbelic (II)", in Revista Română (ASTRA), Nr. 4/2009, p. 14 March 9, 1887 – January 29, 1967) was a Bessarabian-Romanian poet, folklorist, and politician. A young schoolteacher in the Russian Empire by 1908, he wrote poetry and collected folklore emphasizing Bessarabia's links with Romania, and associated with various founding figures of the Romanian nationalist movement, beginning with Ion Pelivan. Buzdugan was a far-left figure during the February Revolution, but eventually rallied with the National Moldavian Party in opposition to the socialists and the Bolsheviks. He vehemently supported the union of Bessarabia with Romania during the existence of an independent Moldavian Democratic Republic, and, as a member of its legislature (Sfatul Țării), worked to bring it about. Threatened by the Bolsheviks, he fled to Romania and returned with an expeditionary corps headed by General Ernest Broșteanu, being one of the delegates who voted for the union, and one of dignitaries who signed its proclamation.
In interwar Greater Romania, Buzdugan received mixed reviews as a neo-traditionalist poet, while also serving terms as a Bălți County representative in the Assembly of Deputies. There, he advocated decentralization and a system of zemstva, but opposed Bessarabian autonomy, while also becoming noted for his hawkish stance against the Soviet Union, his radicalized nationalism, and his antisemitic outbursts. He was successively a member of the Bessarabian Peasants' Party, the Peasants' Party, the National Peasants' Party, the Peasants' Party–Lupu, and the Democratic Nationalists. For a while, he was employed as a civil administrator, before delving in fascist politics with the Romanian Front.
His political activity made him a target of repression under the Romanian communist regime, but he avoided arrest by going into hiding during the late 1940s and early '50s. Protected by the literary critic Perpessicius, he later reemerged, but, until the time of his death, was only allowed to publish pseudonymous translations from Russian literature, culminating with a posthumous rendition of Eugene Onegin. Since the 1990s, his poetic work has been recovered and reassessed in both Romania and Moldova.
Biography Early years According to updated reference works, the future Ion Buzdugan was born in 1887 in Brînzenii Noi (now in Telenești District, Moldova), the son of peasants Alexandru and Ecaterina Buzdâga,Sasu, p. 244 who also had seven daughters.Zeletin (2012), p. 41 One 1936 entry claims that he was born in 1889 in Buzdugeni.Politics and Political Parties in Roumania, p. 419. London: International Reference Library Publishers Co., 1936. Both villages were at the time included in the Russian Empire's Bessarabian Governorate, and the young man was educated at a teachers' seminary in Bayramcha. He later studied agriculture, law and literature in Russian schools in Kamianets-Podilskyi and Moscow.Sasu, pp. 244–245. See also Basciani, p. 100; Constantin & Negrei (2009), p. 188; Grigurcu, pp. 123–124 Buzdugan, who claimed to have lodged with, and befriended, the Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko,Zeletin (2012), p. 42 eventually took a license to practice law from Moscow University.Basciani, p. 100
Influenced to some degree by the work of Mihai Eminescu, Cassian Maria Spiridon, "Eminescu la 1939"}, in Convorbiri Literare, January 2004 he began writing his own poetry, published in Bessarabian magazines from 1905, under the pseudonym Nică Romanaș (or Românaș, "Nică the Romanian Fella").Iorga, O viață..., p. 270 Răzvan Voncu, "O revelație: Ion Buzdugan" , in România Literară, Nr. 25/2015 Other pen names he used include B. Cogâlnic, Ion Câmpeanu, and I. Dumbrăveanu.Sasu, p. 245 He became involved with the groups of Romanian nationalists then forming in the Governorate, writing for their newspaper Basarabia, and, while in Kamianets, establishing contacts with the Romanians east of Bessarabia.Constantin & Negrei (2009), pp. 65, 188
In 1907–1909, a schoolteacher in Bursuceni, he associated the Romanian national club founded by judge Ion Pelivan. His activity there brought him under the watch of the Okhrana, and, during the subsequent clampdown, he received a punishment for having taught his students in Romanian.Constantin et al. (2011), pp. 70–73 Nevertheless, he remained active in the nationalist circles and, by 1913, was in contact with Cuvânt Moldovenesc journal,Constantin & Negrei (2009), p. 188 which he also edited for a while, again as N. Romanaș. He also began a lifetime work of collecting Romanian folklore, and, despite such work being repressed by the Russian authorities, documented the folkloric links between Bessarabia and other Romanian-inhabited regions. The folk songs of his collections also pointed to the Bessarabians' dissatisfaction with Tsarist autocracy, against claims that they enjoyed that regime more than they supported Romania."Însemnări literare", in Sburătorul, Nr. 14/1921, p. 344
Buzdugan volunteered as an officer in the Imperial Russian Army, engaged in the Romanian theater of war. At some point during the events of the Russian Revolution, he and his Bessarabian colleague, Gherman Pântea, rallied with the revolutionary far-left, joining the Socialist Revolutionary Party;Colesnic, pp. 248, 407, 438–439, 443 according to other sources, they may have even been involved with the Bolsheviks.Suveică, p. 68 By the time of the February Revolution, Buzdugan had entered the Moldavian Soldiers' Organization in Odessa, and took up the task of propaganda work among the Bessarabian units of the Imperial Russian Army.Constantin & Negrei (2009), pp. 88–89 He was still active as a writer, networking with his colleagues from Western Moldavia. By February 1917, he had joined the literary circle Academia Bârlădeană, becoming close friends with George Tutoveanu and Alexandru Vlahuță.Zeletin (2012), pp. 40–43 While on the front lines, he helped save the life of the Romanian officer and fellow writer Camil Petrescu.Grigurcu, p. 124; Zeletin (2012), p. 41
National Moldavian Party After March 13, 1917, both Buzdugan and Pântea became members of Paul Gore's National Moldavian Party (PNM), the driving force of Romanian nationalism in the former Governorate, and were co-opted on its steering committee.Cemârtan, p. 123 However, as later noted by the party colleague Pan Halippa, Buzdugan was categorically opposed to the PNM's right-wing, which looked to "Bessarabia's secession from Russia and her Union with Romania."Colesnic, p. 438 Taken by the Russian army to Iași, the provisional Romanian capital, he befriended Mihail Sadoveanu and other contributors to România newspaper. His mailing address was the paper's headquarters, which was also the domicile of playwright Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea.Zeletin (2012), p. 43 He therefore kept contact with the Romanian nationalists, including the historian Nicolae Iorga. Iorga recalled that Buzdugan was agitated in favor of socialist reforms and critical of the Romanian King Ferdinand I, somewhat supportive of a Russian-backed uprising, and favoring mass desertion.Iorga, O viață..., pp. 270–272, 276 At the time, he spoke a "picturesque" Moldavian dialect, mixed with Russian neologisms.Iorga, O viață..., p. 271
On April 10, Buzdugan attended the Bessarabian Schoolteachers' Congress, presided upon by Alexandr K. Schmidt and comprising educators of all nationalities. There, he agitated in favor of a split, calling on Romanian teachers to form their own "cleanly Moldavian" congress, and supporting the idea of intensive courses to formalize and standardize their language. Buzdugan sought to convince his public that what they called "Moldavian" was the same as Romanian, and to prove his point he read them fragments from the 1688 Cantacuzino Bible.Zeletin (2012), p. 39 He also advocated the introduction of the Latin alphabet, to replace Cyrillic everywhere, including in zemstva schools.Basciani, p. 81; Zeletin (2012), p. 39 In May, with such autonomist goals in mind, Buzdugan, Pântea and Anton Crihan founded the newspaper Pământ și Voe, styled "Organ of the Moldavian Socialist Revolutionary Party".Colesnic, p. 248 Additionally, together with the playwright Sergiu Victor Cujbă, he founded a people's university and a peasants' theater.Sasu, p. 433
Buzdugan, Grigore Cazacliu, Vasile Țanțu and Andrei Scobioală soon set up a Moldavian Committee of the Romanian War Front, which began collecting Romanian church literature and primers, to be used in the struggle against Russification.Constantin, p. 37 The committee watched with alarm as the Ukrainian People's Republic made overtures to incorporate Bessarabia into her borders. The Ukrainian Rada received a letter of protest written for the Bessarabian soldiers' organization by Buzdugan. It argued that, "on the basis of historical, ethnographic rights, of her distinct customs and of her economic situation", Bessarabia had "an imprescriptible right to complete autonomy."Constantin, pp. 43–44 Buzdugan was also one of the founders of the PNM-and-Committee tribune, Soldatul Moldovan, and returned to his career in the Bessarabian press.Colesnic, p. 250; Constantin, pp. 43–44, 355; Sasu, p. 245
According to Iorga, Buzdugan was already going through a "taming" process, and warned the Romanians that Russian radicals were plotting a coup.Iorga, O viață..., pp. 270, 272. See also Grigurcu, p. 124; Zeletin (2012), pp. 43–44 Buzdugan himself claimed to have met a congratulatory King Ferdinand, using the occasion to press him for a nationwide land reform. In late October 1917, he participated in the Moldavian Soldiers' Congress of Chișinău, where it was decided to form Sfatul Țării, the Bessarabian legislature. During the proceedings, Buzdugan and Toma Jalbă insisted in favor of annexing to Bessarabia the Romanian-speaking areas east of the river Dniester (Nistru); although this failed to occur, their speeches were welcomed with applause by other delegates.Constantin, p. 54 The Congress appointed him to an Organizational Bureau that also comprised Halippa, Ion Inculeț, Teofil Ioncu, and Pantelimon Erhan. It was the provisional governing body of the region, and wrote down that laws and regulations for the legislative election of that month.Constantin, pp. 53–56; Constantin et al. (2011), pp. 87–90
Buzdugan himself was elected to Sfatul Țării, representing Bălți County,Clark, p. 151 and joined the Moldavian Bloc, a parliamentary club reuniting former PNM members (informally: "Pelivan's godsons") with the other Romanian nationalists.Constantin et al. (2011), pp. 89–90, 92–94. See also Colesnic, p. 407 Buzdugan and Erhan supported Pelivan as leader of Sfatul, clashing with the left-wing "Peasants' Faction", the Mensheviks led by Eugen Kenigschatz, and non-Romanian deputies such as Krste Misirkov. This coalition preferred the leftist Inculeț, who did not approve of Bessarabia's secession from the Russian Republic.Constantin et al. (2011), pp. 92–93 Against Buzdugan's protests, Pelivan asked his followers to also support Inculeț.Constantin et al. (2011), pp. 93–94