Ion Ionescu-Căpățână, often shortened to Ion Căpățână or Căpățînă (1914 – 1942 or 1943), was a Romanian writer, publisher, and political activist. A promoter of vegetarianism, he also discovered libertarianism and individual anarchism, which he fused with influences from Gandhism; in the early 1930s, his magazine Vegetarianismul functioned as a discreet protagonist on the Romanian anarchist scene. Căpățână, who was an Esperantist and environmentalist, also aligned himself with Panait Istrati—a figure on the anti-Stalinist left who had maintained cordial relations with a dissident fascist movement, the Crusade of Romanianism. He defended Istrati's reading of communism in his trips to France and Bulgaria, and, after Istrati's death, established his own channels of communications with the Crusade. Căpățână eventually left the Kingdom of Romania, spending time in Paris as an advocate of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. He still published some of his works at home, and edited a Romanian translation of poems by Hristo Botev. Căpățână spent his final years entirely in France, where he translated and self-published Istrati's final articles, albeit in a highly adapted (and therefore controversial) form. He married a Frenchwoman and moved with her in a cabin outside Rantigny, feeding himself off the land. He witnessed the German occupation, and in his late work expressed a newfound sympathy toward Nazism—though he continued to be seen as an anarchist icon by various of his contemporaries. He died aged 28 or 29, after consuming mushrooms that were either uncooked or poisonous. In the 1960s, an effort was made to republish his Istratian volumes.
Biography
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
