Vintilă Horia -- A Young Fascist Hitlerite.

A young intellectual during the interwar, Vintilă Horia, placed himself under the protection of an extremist writer, Nichifor Crainic, and had a vast activity of propaganda in the press. He praised Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler in glowing terms, glorified the war-criminal figure of Ion Antonescu, and justified the massacre of the Jews in the Holocaust. As a reward, he was sent to diplomatic posts to Rome and Vienna. After the war, he took refuge in Argentina and later in Franco's Spain. In 1960, he was on the verge of winning the Prix Goncourt in Paris, for his novel God was Born in Exile. His past was revealed, and he was never awarded the prize. Since then, many Romanian intellectuals have argued in favor of Vintilă Horia, in an attempt to strategically regain a cultural agent that had affirmed himself overseas, by omitting, hiding, or even contesting his ferocious extremist past. This scientific study reviews the most acute and tension-filled moments of a debate to which many contributed with cunning participation and in bad faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]