| Ilie Cătărău | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Katarov? |
| Nickname | Cătărău-Orhei |
| Born | Orhei or Marcăuţi |
| Died | Transylvania |
| Allegiance | Kingdom of Romania, Moldavian Democratic Republic |
| Service/branch | Infantry |
| Years of service | 1913, 1917 |
| Rank | Colonel |
| Commands held | 1st Moldavian Regiment |
| Other work | Espionage |
Ilie Cătărău (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈli.e kətəˈrəw], reportedly born Katarov, last name also Cătărău-Orhei)[1] was a Bessarabian-born political adventurer, soldier and spy, who spent parts of his life in Romania. Leading a secretive life, he is widely held to have been the main perpetrator of two bomb attacks, which sought to exacerbate tensions between Romania and Austria-Hungary in preparation for World War I. Beyond his cover as a refugee from the Russian Empire, Ilie Cătărău was a double agent, working for both Russian and Romanian interests.
By 1917, Cătărău was formally committed to anarchism and communism, allying himself with Bessarabia's Bolshevik insurgents. Profiting from favorable circumstances, and nominally servicing the anti-Bolshevik Moldavian Democratic Republic, he became commander of the 1st Moldavian Regiment in late 1917. In short time, his position and his application of a communist program eroded the Republic's prestige, and his soldiers began openly threatening the Bessarabian government. Cătărău was deposed and arrested by Gherman Pântea and a unit of Amur Cossacks, being sent into exile.
After more adventures, which may have taken him as far out as Japan and Polynesia, Cătărău faded to relative obscurity. He only returned to history in the 1940s, a conjectural ally of the Romanian communist regime. In old age, he retreated from political affairs and became a Romanian Orthodox monk.
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Cătărău's origins and early life are shrouded in mystery. He was from the Bessarabian town of Orhei (Orgeyev)[2] or the nearby village of Marcăuţi,[3] both of them located in Russia's Bessarabia Governorate. Romanian sources traditionally claim that Cătărău was not a member of the ethnic Romanian community, but rather a Bessarabian Bulgarian.[1][4] Story has it that his first career was as an officer of the Imperial Russian Army, but that he eventually left service "because of persecutions."[5]
At some point in his youth, Cătărău crossed the Russian border into the Kingdom of Romania, enlisting as a student at the University of Bucharest Faculty of Letters and Philosophy. Reputedly, he claimed to have suffered repression at the hands of Russian authorities, and therefore qualified as a refugee.[1][5] A parallel rumor has it that Cătărău was actually being pursued for fraud.[6] His subsequent involvement with the political underground was a matter of concern, and the Siguranţa Statului secret police opened a special file on his activities.[2] However, in 1913, he was registered as a counterintelligence operative with the same agency, receiving monthly payments for his services.[3]
Officially, Cătărău paid allegiance to the Romanian nationalist youth. As later noted by the Arad newspaper Românul: "At first he passed himself off as a Bessarabian student and issued lively propaganda, in student circles, regarding the sufferings of Bessarabian Romanians. It was therefore easy for him to attract everyone's sympathy. He turned himself into a nationalist and was always present at nationalist rallies."[5] The same source notes that Cătărău infiltrated the Democratic Nationalist Party (PND) of Nicolae Iorga and A. C. Cuza. During the 1911 election, he was among the students who traveled to Fălticeni city to support PND candidates Cuza and Ion Zelea Codreanu; a man of impressive size, he is said to have intimidated potential voters, and to have provoked a brawl.[5] Through Iorga, he even gained access to Crown Prince Carol.[5] In one instance, when Cătărău resolved his financial difficulties by turning to unskilled manual labor, Iorga and the students popularized his plight and collected funds in his name.[5] In mid 1913, as Romania entered the Second Balkan War, Cătărău joined the Romanian Land Forces as a volunteer rifleman.[5]
Upon his return to Bucharest, Ilie Cătărău underwent a change of lifestyle, which later fueled speculations about Russian payments. According to Românul: "his relationship with the agents of another state grew ever closer and since then he was seen in elegant clothes, he frequented dives where he gambled large sums of money and was seen in the company of the Capital's most elegant hetairai."[5] He began associating with a Timofei Kiriloff, who was either a Russian[7] or Bulgarian[2] expatriate. One reconstructed biographical sketch of Kiriloff presents him as an escapee from the Potemkin mutiny, who supported himself in Bucharest by posing for painters and sculptors (his athletic body is supposedly the model for Friedrich Storck's statues of giants, now in Carol Park).[5]
Together with Kiriloff, Cătărău was the main suspect behind an act of violence, carried out against Romania's rival neighbor, Austria-Hungary, and targeting the symbols of Hungarian identity. The two are credited as responsible for the planting of dynamite around a Hungarian monument on Tâmpa Hill, which heavily damaged the structure (September 27, 1913).[1][3][8] Later investigation had it that Cătărău and Kiriloff had several times crossed into Transylvania using false papers.[1]
In February 1914, authorities in several countries identified Cătărău and Kiriloff as responsible for another attack, the letter bomb which exploded at the Hajdúdorog Bishopric palace, in Debrecen. The selection of this target was later explained in ethnic terms, since the Bishopric served to Magyarize the population of Partium.[9] The standard account is that Cătărău had personally traveled to Bukovina's main city, Czernowitz, and sent the bomb across Austria-Hungary.[10]
The subsequent inquiry was notably backed by the Transylvanian Romanian press, which made efforts to distinguish between Romanian political efforts and Cătărău's acts of destruction. Gazeta Transilvaniei called him "a political adventurer" of uncertain loyalties and qualifications.[1][2] In Bukovina, which was in the non-Hungarian, "Cisleithanian", half of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Romanian community leaders also described the "criminal act" as intolerable, condemning foreign attempts to exacerbate ethnic tensions in Transylvania.[5] Cătărău was similarly marginalized by an association of Bucharest University students, who noted: "the public trial is concluded: an adventurer, lacking even the shade of moral discipline, has taken on by accident, and for a short while, the image of a university student".[1] The international press (Arbeiter-Zeitung, Breslauer Zeitung, Journal des Débats, Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten) covered the attack and its consequences, highlighting the risky and divisive ethnic politics of Hungarian administrations; in Hungarian newspapers, the focus was on Romanian agitation or ingratitude.[11]
A manhunt began shortly after. According to one report, the Romanian Police tacitly helped the Hungarian authorities in tacking down the two men, but the Romanian press unwittingly informed them of the chase, allowing them time to escape.[12] Over 26,000 lei were said to have been spent on telegrams between police stations during the time it took for Cătărău and Kiriloff to drive out of Bucharest and make themselves lost in Ploieşti.[13] Some speculated that they then left for a Danube port, either Brăila or Galaţi, or that they made their way to the Bessarabian border.[5]
Meanwhile, Police released the initial working suspects, including Romanian artist Silvestru Măndăşescu and Russian migrant worker T. Avramov, whose identity papers were allegedly used by Cătărău and Kiriloff to fend off suspicions.[12] The fugitives were being pursued in several states, and there was even a false alert that they had been spotted in Naples.[14] The press also reported that an inventive police officer from the Kingdom of Serbia tricked Hungarian detectives by announcing Cătărău's capture in Skopje, collected the large reward, and swiftly disappeared.[15] There were additional news that Cătărău had been briefly retained in the Ottoman Empire, and released when the Ottomans noted that he did not fit the extradition criteria.[16]
Cătărău was never apprehended. By 1916, he had become something of a legend in the criminal underworld of Transylvania: interrogated on charges of burglary, an obscure man stirred passions when he, in an effort to gain notoriety, claimed that he was in reality the Bessarabian bomber.[17] According to some accounts, the real Cătărău had been given safe passage by Romanian authorities, sailed to the Sultanate of Egypt, and had later reemerged in Bucharest.[18] Romanian journalist and academic Em C. Grigoraş states that something similar was acknowledged by Siguranţa Statului officers. They told him that Cătărău's getaway car was provided by Internal Affairs, and confessed to having pretended not to understand the queries sent in from Austria-Hungary.[19]
Despite his revolutionary nationalist pose, Cătărău was probably a mole, working for Russian interests. While some note that he may have already had direct connections with Okhrana (the Russian Empire's secret service),[1][20] others even report on his possible affiliation to the far right of Russian nationalism. Allegations thus surfaced that he was a sworn member of the Black Hundreds or the Chamber of the Archangel Michael, both being private militias created by Bessarabian landowner Vladimir Purishkevich.[1][6] This account was backed by the veteran Bessarabian anarchist Zamfir Arbore, who recalled that he and Stelian Popescu of Universul newspaper had visited Cătărău in Bucharest.[6] At the time, much was made of Cătărău's possible connection with nationalist leader Aleksei Aleksandrovich Bobrinsky. A rumor had it that the Russian diplomats made efforts to obscure the relationship, whereas Arbore openly alleged having seen Bobrinsky's visiting card in Cătărău's apartment.[21] Another suspected Russian contact, cited by Romanian sources, was allegedly a Dolgorukov prince.[5]
Grigoraş sees the matter as a local spy game between the Entente Powers (Russia included) and the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary etc.). In his account, Cătărău and his associates were trying to wreck Romania's few remaining links with the Central Powers, and make the country a part of Entente projects in any coming war.[22] Other sections of the Romanian public opinion were less adamant that Cătărău and Kiriloff were the guilty parties, placing the blame directly on the Russian Empire (accused of wanting to encourage a conflict between Romanians and Hungarians) or, contrarily, on Transylvanian Rusyns incited by Bobrinsky.[6] The Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Bucharest, Count Ottokar von Czernin, remained skeptical of all Romanian disclaimers, and, in his memoirs, alleged that, whether Cătărău was guilty or not, "the Romanian authorities certainly were".[18] Grigoraş however notes that Czernin willingly buried the affair once Archduke Franz Ferdinand ordered him not to answer in kind to the warmongers; Grigoraş argues that, because of this disengagement, the Entente's hawks changed their tactic and organized the Sarajevo Assassination.[19]
Shortly before World War I broke out, Ilie Cătărău was again in Bessarabia. As noted by historian Ion Constantin, the returning activist formalized his Okhrana connection.[23] By 1916, Romania and the Russian Empire were both Entente countries, and the Imperial Russian Army was helping to organize Romanian defenses (see Romania in World War I). However, the February Revolution sent the Empire into administrative chaos, amplifying tensions between the Russian Provisional Government and the Romanian state. The relationship broke down into hostility after the October Revolution: switching his allegiance to Soviet Russia, Cătărău reemerged as a figure on the Bessarabian Bolshevik underground, and took part in the clandestine effort to Bolshevize the various troops still stationed in the region.[24] He was probably in contact with the Soviet state security agency, Cheka,[23] but was later portrayed by Russian and Soviet sources as a Romanian mole.[25]
The events took place in December 1917, just as anti-Bolshevik forces were setting up a Moldavian Democratic Republic with its capital in Chişinău. Cătărău presented himself as a supporter of the new regime, and was even a guest speaker at the first session of Sfatul Ţării (its legislative assembly).[3] Reportedly, in his bid to join the new Bessarabian army, Cătărău failed to convince the officers, but the lower ranks responded positively to his request of "aiding and enlightening" the masses.[23] According to scholar Charles Upson Clark, he was actually successful at demoralizing and dividing the Bessarabian self-defense forces, increasing the likelihood that the state would crumble, and exposing it to the danger of being engulfed by a Greater Ukraine.[26] Military historian Vitalie Ciobanu argues that some of the Republic's main problems of maintaining authority stemmed from Cătărău's activity in Chişinău and from the parallel appointment of Stabskapitän Popa as head of garrison in Bălţi.[27]
Soon after being admitted into the garrison, Cătărău became known for propagating communist- and anarchist-inspired messages, such as: "All things belong to the people, the boyars must be killed"; "All things are yours, take hold of them while you still can, before it's too late."[23] Profiting from the breakdown of traditional rank structure, and receiving backing from the military soviet, he was voted head of the Moldavian 1st Regiment, garrisoned in Chişinău.[23] Ciobanu, who describes Cătărău as "an overt partisan of anarchy", notes that, for the Chişinău committees which endorsed this appointment, "the social element took precedence over the national one."[27] With this support, and given a free hand to ensure order in the capital city,[27] the new commander embarked on a program of arbitrary confiscations in the rural sectors, targeting the property of affluent peasants. The stolen cattle was kept in the Chişinău Theological Seminary compound, and, in reality, only redistributed to those who would pay Cătărău a special sum of money.[23] There were other corruption schemes of which the regiment stood accused: it put financial pressure on landowners after Cătărău took over the guarding of their estates, in what was originally a move to curb pillaging by deserting or home-bound Russian soldiers.[3] In this context, he is also said to have advanced himself to the rank of Colonel.[3]
In conflict with Sfatul Ţării, Cătărău began organizing himself for an insurgency: he agitated for a social revolution, set up an armed guard for himself, and began corresponding with Grigory Kotovsky, the self-appointed Bolshevik leader in Tiraspol, while setting up a reserve arms' depot in Dubăsari town.[23] His insubordination to the government and his radical views on property were made explicit when he refused to help out against the deserters attacking Soroca. Replying to the appeal for help, Cătărău wrote: "the Moldavian Democracy, in the name of the soldiers of the Moldavian Regiment, understands that the way to stop the anarchy which has arisen in agrarian matters, is not to use military force, but to [legislate against] the causes which give rise to fire and devastation."[25] Nevertheless, when similar events in Chişinău led the Republic to proclaim a state of emergency (December 20), one of the regimental battalions patrolled the city streets alongside loyalist units.[28]
The conflict between the Moldavian Republic's Military Director, Gherman Pântea, and the city garrison flared up in late December. At that moment, Cătărău and his soldiers refused to swear allegiance to God and the Republic, and announced their own parade on January 1, to celebrate the notions of freedom and proletarian internationalism.[3][29] In the end, one fourth of the soldiers in Cătărău's command disobeyed his orders and represented the Regiment in the loyalist parade.[28] The rest of the garrison grew worried that the Directors were going to retaliate by arresting their leader, and, on December 27, Cătărău's soldiers made a show of force inside the governmental building.[30] Pântea and the others persuaded them to leave, but afterward centered their attention on an urgent plan to topple and arrest Cătărău.[30]
With the approval of President Ion Inculeţ,[3][31] Pântea took care of the issue, arresting Cătărău on New Years' Eve, before the garrison could have its problematic parade. Pântea noted the possibility of discontent and even rebellion in the Moldavian ranks, so he appealed to outside help: a unit of Amur Cossacks was paid to provide logistical support and intervene in case of trouble, being relocated to Pântea's townhouse.[32] The Director and his Cossack ally Colonel Yermolenko, with Levenzon (commander of a special guard unit), visited Cătărău at Londra Hotel, where Levenzon approached him on the subject of his parade; when Cătărău dropped his guard, the Cossacks pounced on him, and, although some were wounded in a skirmish with Bolshevik soldiers, managed to escort him out of the building.[33]
The charges against Cătărău were espionage in favor of a foreign state and abuse of power.[34] Nonetheless, he was never prosecuted, but promptly expelled over the eastern border, to Odessa, Ukrainian People's Republic. His escorts for the swift journey included two former Sfatul Ţării delegates, Grigore Turcuman and Ion Tudose.[35] According to Pântea's account, Cătărău intially protested the move, demanding to be allowed to kiss his native soil one final time.[33] Upon arriving to Odessa, he took a rather different stance. Questioned by Commissioner Poplavko of the Central Rada, he stated: "Bessarabian Moldavians are pushing for Romania; I alone will fight for Bessarabia to become united with the Ukraine."[3][36] To the consternation of Bessarabian officials, Poplavko was satisfied with the answer, and simply opted to release Cătărău.[3][36]
Before or during the union of Bessarabia with Romania, the former garrison commander decided to leave Europe altogether. He was sighted in the United States, Australia and Japan.[3] Rumor spread that he was dead, summarily executed by the Romanian state, but another story has it that he settled in Polynesia, and was even recognized as king by an indigenous tribe.[3] Unusually, some authors who supported a Greater Romania were in the process of reconsidering his activity, starting from his 1910s attacks on Hungarian interests. Writing in 1926, the physicist and nationalist militant Vasile Bianu placed Cătărău in "the vanguard of the holy war to reunite the [Romanian] nation", calling him "a guiding light" of patriotic feeling.[1] In France, where he arrived with a false passport, Cătărău led the life of a delinquent, and spent time in prison.[3][36] Reputedly, he was jailed for stealing jewels in the property of his American fiancée.[3]
Ilie Cătărău survived World War II in obscurity, and made it into the Soviet Union. He resided for a while in the Moldavian SSR, and was referred to in Soviet propaganda as a hero, for having fought against union with Romania.[3] In the 1950s, Cătărău left the Soviet province and returned to Romania. He tried to capitalize on the newly established Romanian communist regime, presenting himself as a hero of the cause, and was used by the government as a denunciator of "reactionary" politicians.[36] Employed by the communist press, he notably took his revenge on Gherman Pântea, who had had a second career as a Romanian state official. As Ion Constantin notes, he accused Pântea "of acts for the most part invented, in order to determine [Pântea's] arrest by the regime's authorities."[36] Cătărău additionally claimed a special communist pedigree, passing himself off as a personal friend of Bolshevik theorist Vladimir Lenin.[3]
In his final years, Cătărău experienced religious sentiment and became a monk of the Romanian Orthodox Church.[3] The decision was controversial, and Church authorities had to be persuaded by Premier Petru Groza into accepting Cătărău's retreat to a monastery in Transylvania.[3]