(photo published in 1985)
Alexandru Claudian (also rendered as Al. Claudian; April 8, 1898 – October 16, 1962) was a Romanian sociologist, political figure, and poet. A student and practitioner of Marxism, he worked as a schoolteacher, entry-level academic, field researcher, and journalist, before finally earning a professorship at the University of Iași. An anti-fascist, Claudian enlisted with the Romanian Social Democratic Party during the interwar, moving closer to the anti-communist center by the late 1940s, and became that faction's main theoretician. His condemnation of Marxism and totalitarianism made him an enemy of the communist regime, which imprisoned him for several years and kept him under surveillance until the time of his death.
Claudian's work in the sociology of culture and the history of ideas worked on the assumption of social determinism, discussing the social triggers behind Platonism or Positivism. His contribution was well received by the scientific community, but his isolation form other sociological schools, and his overall discreetness, led to his passing into relative oblivion. Disconnected from his scholarly pursuits, Claudian's poetry is generally of an introspective kind, lyricizing the writer's nostalgia.