Leon or Levon Kalustian, also known as Calustian (, Levon Kalustyan; October 17, 1908 – January 24, 1990), was a Romanian journalist, essayist and memoirist. An Armenian on his father's side, he abandoned his studies to work in the interwar press, taking editorial positions at Cuvântul, Curentul, and finally Mișcarea. As a left-winger who ultimately joined the Social Democratic Party, he took a side in public controversies, defending the political line espoused by Nicolae Titulescu and attacking Stelian Popescu. Kalustian was allegedly a collaborator of Siguranțas secret policemen, and remained close to the disgraced spy chief, Eugen Cristescu. While retiring from political journalism with the advent of a dictatorial regime, under the National Renaissance Front, he accepted various commissions from the Front, and was employed by its official newspaper România.
Identified as an enemy by the communist regime, which took over in 1948, Kalustian was detained without trial for some four years, and did penal labor as a steel fixer. He was then again arrested, and sentenced, for having kept and sold books banned by state censorship. Ultimately released in 1964, Kalustian was allowed to publish again from 1966. He was still exposed to acts of persecution and to constant surveillance by the Securitate, and harassed into becoming its informant. From the late 1970s, Flacăra magazine hosted his regular columns, leading both the public and the regime to rediscover him as a progressive author. Despite this take, Kalustian networked with anti-communists such as Nicolae Carandino and Corneliu Coposu, both predicting and working toward the eventual fall of communism. He lived to witness the Romanian Revolution of 1989, dying a month later in his native town of Focșani.
Biography Early life
Born in Focșani, his parents were Sarchis Kalustian (1867–1921) and Iulia (née Gherghel; 1876–1948).Aurel Sasu (ed.), Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române, vol. I, p. 821. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004. His father was from Ottoman Armenia, while his mother was an ethnic Romanian from Transylvania. Leon (or Levon) was the oldest of four children: two sisters, Vartuhi (1910–1998) and Satenig (1916–1996), and a brother, Manuil (1911–1985). Repere biografice at leonkalustian.ro, a project of the Duiliu Zamfirescu Vrancea County Library The latter three lived their entire lives in the family home, at Tunelului Street 4.Varujan Vosganian, "Fotografie de grup", in România Literară, Issue 48/2010, p. 4 In late 1937, Kalustian's enemies at Universul daily circulated alleged fragments from the Kalustian file at Focșani's civil registry. These informed that Sarchis and Iulia were an unmarried couple, and non-citizens; he was a Gregorian Christian, and she a Catholic."De la un capăt la altul al țării, toți românii strigă: 'Jos simbriașii lui Auschnitt!' Cine? Leon Kalustian", in Universul, October 11, 1937, p. 11
According to fellow Armenian Romanian journalist Bedros Horasangian, who conversed with him in the 1980s, Kalustian, "despite the ancient pedigree of [his] Armenian family, could not speak Armenian, but had instead splendidly mastered the Romanian language".Bedros Horasangian, "Pagina 12", in Contemporanul, Vol. XXII, Issue 10, October 2011, p. 12 He was generally identified as an Armenian, or more generally as a Levantine, by his literary peers, including Carandino and Victor Eftimiu. The latter reportedly viewed him as a figure out of a saray, "a tray of sorbet on his head".Carandino, p. 216 Young Leon attended one year of high school in his native town and beyond that was self-taught. His detractors at Universul report that his original employment was as a "servant boy in Ianculescu's barber shop, at Focșani." Settling early in the national capital Bucharest, his first published work appeared in Cuvântul newspaper in 1926; he was an editor for Cuvântul (1926–1927), Curentul (1928–1934), Mișcarea (1931–1932) and România (1938–1940). Other publications to which he contributed include Dimineața, Adevărul, Facla, Azi, Lumea Românească, Reporter, Adevărul Literar și Artistic, România Literară, Manuscriptum, and Luceafărul. Pen names he used included Democrit, Elka, Lucullus, Kalunkar, Al. Teodoru, Vladimir, L.K. and Kalvincar. The last one was formed from his surname and those of his fellow Facla columnists Carandino and Ion Vinea.Carandino, pp. 154–155
The early interwar years consolidated Kalustian's reputation as a "great erudite" and a leading socialist publicist.Florescu, pp. 120–121 In June 1933, he married Iza Dora Aronovici, a Jewish woman from Vaslui nine years his senior. Although Kalustian's charm, which assured his place in high society, caused friction within the marriage, the union endured. As recounted by Carandino, Kalustian spent little time writing, and more time networking, managing to establish close rapports with politicians, from Alexandru Vaida-Voevod to Grigore Iunian. His youth was spent on "poker games, the racetrack, tea parties with the madams", as well as "success in women". During his Curentul stage, he sided with the left-wing sections of the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ). This implied taking up the fight against Carol Caraiman, the disgraced and exiled Crown Prince, who was attempting to return as King of Romania. Carol finally staged a coup against the Romanian Regency on June 6, 1930, isolating his opponents and taking the throne for himself; Kalustian and the "old political reporter" Paul Costin were tasked with removing anti-Carlist content from that night's edition of Curentul.Leon Kalustian, "Simple note. Ziarul Mișcarea — 1930", in Flacăra, Issue 37/1980, p. 18 These events, Kalustian notes, meant that Curentul had to move from "diatribes to dithyrambs" when it came to Carol; in order to ensure an "indirect transition", he was tasked with focusing all attention on the "Georgist" Liberals, which were new and radical arrivals on the Romanian political scene.
At Titulescu's side The Georgists' eponymous leader, Gheorghe I. Brătianu, eventually asked the 21-year-old Kalustian, or "Vladimir Elka", to work at Mișcarea alongside Dem. Theodorescu (recommended by Kalustian as a "great and incomparable journalist"), Ion Pas, and Sergiu Milorian. Emerging as a feared polemicist, Kalustian defended democratic values and launched virulent attacks on Universul owner Stelian Popescu. As an adversary in such polemics, Petre Pandrea recorded his belief that Kalustian was an agent of the interwar secret service, or Siguranța, who primarily informed his superiors about the goings-on in journalist circles.Pandrea, pp. 306, 355–356, 397 More specifically, Universul claimed to expose Kalustian as "secret agent No. 48", noting that "such work, albeit in service to the state, does not call for Romanian citizenship." The claims were partly confirmed by a Siguranța report of November 1934, which suggests that he continued to work as an informant for Eugen Cristescu after the latter had been ousted from his position as director of that agency. According to that report, Kalustian and diplomat Nicolae Titulescu colluded with the PNȚ to have Cristescu reinstated.Petre Țurlea, "România sub stăpânirea Camarilei Regale (1930–1940) (II)", in Analele Universității Creștine Dimitrie Cantemir. Seria Istorie, Vol. 1, Issue 3, 2010, pp. 152–153
A 1935 interview in Facla includes details on Kalustian's social and political outlook, including his statement that it was impossible not to write about the "social inequities [creating] two worlds, one of the satiated and the other of the famished".Aurel Baranga, "Pagini de ziaristică antifascistă", in Scînteia, April 14, 1977, p. 4 Early that year, Rampa announced that Kalustian had completed a political novel on the Škoda Affair, but that state censorship was sure to confiscate it: "The author will print it, though, if not for the general public then at least for his friends.""Breviar", in Rampa, March 28, 1933, p. 1 The work was probably almost entirely based on public records of the scandal.Arachelian (2016), p. 10 In May, Zorile newspaper put out Kalustian's protest against the censoring of a conference by his friend, Silviu Rusu, in which Rusu wished to speak about Jiddu Krishnamurti; the audience was reportedly chased out by the Romanian Police.Bordaș, pp. 511, 513 Kalustian's text intimated that Rusu was a fellow left-wing activist—though, according to scholar Liviu Bordaș, this was an exaggeration on his part.Bordaș, p. 510
During the early 1930s, Titulescu established his international profile as a peace activist, and was elected chairman of the League of Nations. Kalustian joined him on his international tours; a diary note by novelist Camil Petrescu reports a conversation between himself and Kalustian, in which the latter confided that he was hired to exaggerate Titulescu's impact of Europe's political affairs. After one appearance in Weimar Germany: We went to a hotel and, once there, he asked me to write down my article on his conference. I wrote down the title: A Conference by Mr Titulescu. He said: "Come now, you're a smart boy... Why then have this 'a conference' business? Write down: 'A brilliant conference...'." I went on: "Last night, in front of a large audience". He: "What's this then, 'a large audience'? Write down: 'in front of a large and distinguished audience, comprising, among various others, Messrs Stresemann, Brüning', just add all their names, to hell with them." Aurel Sasu, "Puncte de vedere. Vecinii de viață", in Tribuna, Issue 102, December 2006, p. 21
In July 1936, Kalustian concentrated on warning his readers about the unchecked excesses of fascist paramilitaries from both the Iron Guard and the Lăncieri: the capital's streets are taken over by gangs of blue- or green-shirted individuals, calling themselves 'students'. [...] they stalk from the darkness, to hit from behind, they jump, twenty armed beasts at a time, on just one man, who's unarmed, they empty their guns into peaceful men, they set alight firecrackers to conceal their own escape, they handle stilettos and set fie to newspapers—to those newspapers which stand up against the return to barbarity, to prehistory.Zigu Ornea, "File de istorie. Oameni, convingeri, cărți. Arma cuvîntului în lupta antifascistă", in Contemporanul, Issue 33, August 1979, p. 4
Kalustian's articles covered the assassination of Mihai Stelescu, founder of the dissident Crusade of Romanianism, by his former colleagues in the Guard. Kalustian confirmed for his readers that Stelescu had been "chopped to pieces", and sarcastically added: "They didn't eat him."Ioan Grigorescu, "Mapamond. Titulescu și conștiința Europei (VI). Forța dreptului sau dreptul forței?", in Luceafărul, Vol. XXIV, Issue 45, November 1981, p. 8 In late 1936, writing for Dimineața, Kalustian took the side of petty clerks driven into poverty by the Great Depression, warning that a revolt was looming.Iacoș, p. 459. See also Stepan-Cazazian, p. 6 During 1937, he published pieces defending his patron Titulescu after the latter had been sidelined by an informal coalition of his various enemies (whom Kalustian called "dunces").Potra (2012), pp. 299–301
Anti-Carlism and wartime