Biografiile politice ale intelectualilor-„tovarăşi de drum“ sub regimul comunist. Câteva consideraţii privind cazurile G. Călinescu, George Oprescu, Iorgu Iordan şi Tudor Vianu
Political Biographies of Intellectuals – „Fellow travellers“ under the Communist Regime. Some considerations regarding G. Călinescu, George Oprescu, Iorgu Iordan, and Tudor Vianu

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to present the essential elements of the political biographies of some proeminent intellectuals, influential members of the Romanian Academy after 1948, who were also directors of humanistic research institutes (G. Călinescu, George Oprescu, and Iorgu Iordan), or chief of institute’s research programme (Tudor Vianu). All of them knew each other before 1944 and in general were very close. In the interwar period and during Antonescu’s dictatorship they were rather attached to center left politics without being communists. While existing works on the topic focus either on the elimination of previous elites in times of radical social change or on the creation of new elites by each new political regime, we focus on a third mechanism: the recuperation/conversion of previous intellectual elites for new modernization projects. This mechanism of historical andsocial change appears at every major transition (“historical fracture”) but is given less importance both in history/social sciences and in public discourse. Despite communist terror, ideology, and censorship, the Gheorghiu-Dej regime recuperated and encouraged the reconversion (especially after 1955) of some influential members of Romanian intellectual elite, i.e. directors of humanistic research institutes of the Academy. In the same time, as a warning, the secret police put such intellectuals under strict surveillance, also through the agency of networks of informants, and arrested few of their protégés who worked as research fellows.

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