Ilariu or Ilarie Dobridor, pen name of Constantin Iliescu Cioroianu; 31 October 1908 – January 1968), was a Romanian poet, essayist, and political figure. Born into the Romanian Kingdom's peasant class, he obtained academic recognition while studying philosophy at the University of Bucharest. He debuted as a poet, then turned to political journalism and literary criticism; integrated within the disputatious and economically disadvantaged intellectual youth of the 1930s, he took part in its large-scale debates. At that early stage, Dobridor was inspired stylistically and politically by Tudor Arghezi, whom his own poetry closely echoed. Committed to a passionate version of Romanian nationalism, he had clashes with the country's left-wingers, but also with those conservatives whom he viewed as impostors. By 1934, he was affiliated with the National Peasants' Party, serving briefly as editor of Dreptatea and leader of the Bucharest youth section. He became opposed to the group's leftist factions, on which subject he quarrelled with the national chairman, Ion Mihalache; expelled in April 1937, he and his disciples joined the far-right National Christian Party in February 1938. He was by then also affiliated with Nichifor Crainic's Gândirea, and contributing to newspapers put out by the Iron Guard.
All parties were suspended days after his National Christian recruitment, and King Carol II introduced his authoritarian constitution. Dobridor folded back on cultural journalism, founding the weekly Presa, but also joined Carol's sole legal party, the National Renaissance Front. As Romania entered World War II as part of the Axis powers, he became a regular soldier and press correspondent on the Eastern Front, sending back reports of atrocities committed by the Soviet Union, as well as glimpses of retaliatory murders by anti-communists. He also published a racially antisemitic tract, discussing Jewishness as a trait related to moral and cultural decadence. Returning to Bucharest in late 1941, he was employed by Ion Antonescu's dictatorial regime as a functionary of the Romanianization office, tasked with purging Romanian Jews from public life. Dobridor also began publishing his own newspaper, Poporul, as well as biographical works detailing the lives of peasant intellectuals. A successful anti-fascist coup in 1944 resulted in his banishment from the press; in 1954, the communist regime had him imprisoned, and he was only freed ten years later. He remained brazen in his anti-communism down to his mysterious and violent death in January 1968.
Early life and PNȚ recruitment Constantin Iliescu Cioroianu took his pen name from the village of Dobridor, where he was born on 31 October 1908; his parents were farmers Florea and Maria Cioroianu.Stănuța Crețu, "Dobridor, Ilariu", in Dicționarul general al literaturii române. D/G, p. 225. Bucharest: Museum of Romanian Literature, 2017. The couple also had a daughter, Maria Iliescu, who died in December 1936.Ultima Oră. Fapte și Știri", in Dreptatea, 3 December 1936, p. 4 Granted a scholarship, Constantin graduated from the local primary school, then attended Frații Buzești High School in Craiova, before being accepted by the University of Bucharest. He completed his education at the latter's faculty of letters and philosophy, earning praise from his teacher Nicolae Cartojan; he was however primarily influenced by Nae Ionescu. Dobridor's debut was as a poet, with samples picked up in 1928 by the regional magazine, Ramuri. His "autobiography in verse" was carried in 1929 by Eugen Jebeleanu's magazine, Pe Drumuri Noi.Nae Antonescu, "Eugen Jebeleanu – 70. Revista Pe Drumuri Noi", in Steaua, Vol. XXXII, Issue 4, April 1981, pp. 20–21 Philologist Stănuța Crețu notes that such pieces had the ambitions of being recognized as philosophical poetry, but were rather "naive and prosaic". She sees Dobridor as always inspired by the more senior Tudor Arghezi, to the point where he reused Arghezi's "images and meanings" in his own pieces.
During the interwar, Dobridor was a prolific journalist. By autumn 1929, he was affiliated with Gh. Șt. Cazacu's review, Orizonturi Noi. Together with colleagues such as Cazacu, George Murnu, Pan M. Vizirescu, and Radu Gyr, he paid a visit to their literary idol, George Bacovia, who received them at his home in Cotroceni.Pan M. Vizirescu, "G. Bacovia", in Convorbiri Literare, January 1999, pp. 30–31 In January 1931, Dobridor had agreed to join literary critic Octav Șuluțiu in publishing a magazine whose writers were only to be identified by numbers (Dobridor was "Number 5"). The project fell apart when other colleagues, primarily including Constantin Noica ("Number 4"), issued objections to the format.Ioana Pârvulescu, "Cronica pesimistei. Sfaturi pentru cărțile noastre", in România Literară, Issue 39/2008, p. 5 Under his main adoptive name, but also as "Ilie Constantin" and "N. D. Tomcea", Cioroianu-Dobridor was regularly published by magazines such as Arghezi's own Bilete de Papagal, and also by Reporter, Excelsior, Herald, and Datina. He was co-opted as one of the core writers at Sandu Tudor's Floarea de Foc magazine (1932–1933), representing the group's right-wing (somewhat opposed to leftist colleagues such as Ghiță Ionescu, Alexandru Robot, and Alexandru Sahia).Nae Antonescu, "Revista Floarea de foc", in Steaua, Vol. XLVIII, Issues 4–6, April–June 1997, p. 48 Occasional works saw print in Azi, Convorbiri Literare, Facla, Familia, Revista Fundațiilor Regale, Tribuna, Viața Romînească, Universul Literar, and Secolul.
In 1934, Dobridor was affiliated with the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ), editing its national daily, Dreptatea; during his first months there, he engaged in a publicized and violent polemic with various figures of the intellectual youh, targeting in particular Petru Comarnescu and Zaharia Stancu.Trei, "Bazar. Subsolurile Dreptății", in Facla, 24 June 1934, p. 2 His first volume, Versuri ("Verse"), appeared that same year in Craiova, within the Pământ și Suflet Oltenesc series (put out by Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor). Floarea de Focs Robot gave him encouragement, describing him as an Arghezian poet (albeit one in a "traditional line"). Robot praised Dobridor's "clear, perfect poetry" of "interplanetary and cosmic inspiration", but suggested that he still needed to find his own voice.Alexandru Robor, "Poezia nouă: Versuri de Il. Dobridor", in Rampa, 7 December 1934, p. 1 In early 1935, Gând Românesc paper hosted Dobridor's thoughts on "treason by the intellectuals". In this text, he identified the establishment intellectuals as heirs to the predatory boyardom, and castigated elites for their traditional xenophilia, noting that the common folk had always been subverted by its supposed caretakers."Recenzii. Varia", in Viața Basarabiei, Vol. IV, Issue 5, May 1935, p. 385
Generational polemicist Dobridor remained involved in the ideological disputations that split his generation into small factions. Mircea Vulcănescu, who rallied with traditionalist conservatism and an Orthodox-centered identity, regarded him as his adversary to the center. This centrist group, also frequented by Emil Cioran, Mircea Eliade, Eugène Ionesco and Petru Manoliu (as they were in 1934), was equally critical of conservatism and Marxism; its exponents searched for a "revolutionary spirituality" that was also not entirely adverse to literary modernism.Gheorghe Vlăduțescu, Neconvențional, despre filosofia românească, p. 95. Bucharest: Editura Paideia, 2002. Dobridor made himself infamous as a polemicist: in March 1935, the Ilfov County tribunal sentenced him to a one-month term in prison, as well as ordering him to pay 50,000 lei in damages, for his libel against art critic Comarnescu."Curier judiciar. Diverse", in Universul, 11 March 1935, p. 2 Another colleague, Petre Pandrea, drew him an unflattering portrait in his scattered memoirs: "[Dobridor is] freakishly small, envious, bitter, mean, a nuisance who knows how to spit better than any cat".Dan C. Mihăilescu, "Cronică de carte. Manifestul crinului opărit (II)", in Revista 22, Vol. XI, Issue 528, April 2000, p. 13
Dobridor's commitment to the Peasantist doctrine was exacerbated by his group's opposition to the governing National Liberal Party. Reportedly, in August 1935 he was pounced upon and beaten up by unknown assailants, rumored to have been undercover agents of the Romanian Police, while walking about Cișmigiu Gardens."Eine hochpolitische Prügelaffäre", in Czernowitzer Deutsche Tagespost, 13 August 1935, p. 6; "Presa înfierează procedeele d-lui Gavrilă Marinescu", in Dreptatea, 9 August 1935, p. 4 In December 1935, he was general secretary of the PNȚ youth section in Bucharest. In this capacity, he censured "right-wing agitators" such as the Iron Guard, noting that his and his party's nationalism was agrarian-focused, subsumed to the peasantry, and as such more legitimate than fascism."Adunarea tineretului național-țărănist din Capitală. Cuvântările d-lor profesor Corodeanu, V. Popescu-Topoloveni și I. Dobridor", in Curentul, 18 December 1935, p. 9 He repeated the message at a March 1936 rally in Râmnicu Vâlcea, where, as Dreptatea reported, he dressed down "all those who propagate anarchy and hatred.""Grandioasa manifestație național-țărănistă dela R.-Vâlcea. Sărbătorirea victoriei electorale de la alegerile parțiale. Declarațiile d-lor Ion Mihalache, Virgil Potârcă și Dinu Simian, etc.. Alte cuvântări", in Dreptatea, 10 March 1936, p. 4 During that interval, Dem I. Dobrescu, who had stood on the PNȚ's left, quit the party, claiming that its centrist leadership had asked for his speeches to be reviewed and censored by Dobridor."D. Dem. Dobrescu vorbește Capitalei. 'Începe desumflarea șefilor umpluți cu gaze sulfuroase. Am pornit lupta contra oamenilor publici cu caractere de femei publice'", in Capitala, 17 June 1936, p. 3 The issue created a stir in political circles, since Dobrescu was a senior politician and former Mayor of Bucharest, next to whom Dobridor appeared as an opportunist. Gossip credited to another PNȚ centrist, Mihail Ghelmegeanu, had it that Dobridor had once survived on subsidized dairy, provided to him and other struggling youths as part of Dobrescu's extensive welfare program."De după paravan. Ilarie și Dem Dobrescu", in Vremea, 5 January 1936, p. 14
Dobridor's tenure at Dreptatea ended in 1936, when he switched to a similar position at Flamura Verde, where he only served for a year. In December 1936, he represented the PNȚ's youth at a party rally on Calea Moșilor."Adunarea generală a comitetelor național-țărăniste din Sect. II Negru", in Dreptatea, 2 December 1936, p. 3 Also then, the party press issued his ideological tract, Problema tineretului ("The Problem of Youth"), in which he outlined Peasantist promises regarding the new generations. He pledged the party to a "cultural offensive" which would have enlightened the peasantry, and provided it with opportunities for social uplift, as well as offering employment to graduates; Dobridor acknowledged that the same had been tried by the dominant National Liberals, but noted that they had given in to incompetence and sheer corruption. He also militated for "sound links" between the rural and the urban, aiming to curb the social marginalization of second-generation peasants.C. N. Negoiță, "Problema tineretului", in Dreptatea, 9 December 1936, pp. 1–2