Ilie V. Cătărău (, reportedly born Katarov, last name also Cătărău-Orhei; Bogdan Florin Popovici, "Muntele Tâmpa și simbolurile sale. De la Árpád la Stalin", at Memoria Digital LibraryValmar, "Ilie Cătărău ne telegrafiază din America depe patul de moarte. Autorul atentatului cela Dobrițin, din 1914, își trăește ultimele clipe ale vieții, într'un spital din San Francisco. Un rezumat al întâmplărilor de acum 23 de ani", in Universul, 25 April 1937, p. 8 21 July 1888 – 1955) was a Bessarabian-born political adventurer, soldier and spy, who spent parts of his life in the Kingdom of Romania. A mysterious figure, 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 the buildup to World War I. Beyond his cover as a refugee from the Russian Empire, and his public commitment to Romanian nationalism, Cătărău was a double agent, working for both Russian and Romanian interests; he may also have been linked to the Black Hundreds. His terrorist actions, and especially the letter bomb which he sent to the Hungarian Catholic Bishopric in Debrecen, occurred shortly before, and are probably connected with, the Sarajevo Assassination.
Cătărău managed to flee prosecution, settling in Egypt (which deported him), and later in China. He continued to make return trips to Romania, which finally arrested him upon entering the war—though he managed to escape, he remained on Romanian soil, only leaving on return visits to the Russian Republic. By 1917, as leader of the "Romanian Nationalist-Revolutionary Party", Cătărău was formally committed to anarchism and communism, allying himself with Bessarabia's Bolshevik insurgents. Profiting from favorable circumstances, and nominally serving the anti-Bolshevik Moldavian Democratic Republic, he became commander of its 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 Military Director Gherman Pântea and a unit of Amur Cossacks, and sent into exile.
Cătărău reportedly became a habitual murderer and robber, playing both sides in the Russian Civil War. Briefly emerging as a drill instructor for the White movement in Vladivostok, he made efforts to settle in the Empire of Japan, but was chased out for engaging in fraudulent business deals. After creating scandal in the Shanghai International Settlement, he spent the early interwar mainly on the French and Italian Rivieras, finding himself at odds with police. After more adventures, which took him as far afield as Polynesia, Cătărău was presumed dead; in 1937, Romanian media circulated a farewell letter he had sent from San Francisco. During World War II, he was reportedly in Transnistria Governorate, having been chased into hiding by Governor Pântea. He only returned to history in the 1940s, a conjectural ally of the Soviet Union and the Romanian communist regime. He became critical of the latter, and was once arrested by its secret police (the Securitate). In old age, he retreated from political affairs and became a Romanian Orthodox monk, serving a community in Transylvania.
Early years
Cătărău's origins and early life are shrouded in mystery. Though credited in some biographical records as a native of Orhei (Orgeyev),Constantin, p. 8 he was in fact from the nearby village of Marcăuți;"Guvernul român și atentatele. Desvăluiri ale d-rului Rakovski asupra perioadei de pregătire a răsboiului nostru. Guvernul român sprijină pe atentatori", in Socialismul, 18 February 1922, p. 1"Republica Populară Română. Parchetul Tribunalului Ilfov. Extras", in Adevărul, 16 September 1948, p. 3 Mircea Radu Iacoban, "Cătărău", in Monitorul de Suceava, Issue 260/2010 Radu Petrescu, "Enigma Ilie Cătărău (I)", in Contrafort, Issues 5–6/2012 both places were at the time Russia's Bessarabia Governorate (Orgeyevsky Uyezd). His birth certificate is presumed lost, but a sworn testimony he provided in 1948 gives his birth date as 21 July 1888, naming his parents as Vasile and Alexandra. His father, whom he described as either a noblemanE. Ene, "Un student luptător în circ", in Viitorul, 27 February 1912, p. 2 or a landless peasant,Dumbrăveanu (1946), p. 2 is sometimes credited as "Vasile Constantin". Ilie himself is credired in some records with the Russian patronymic, rendered in Romanian as "Ilie Vasilievici".N. Porsenna, "Amintiri despre Ilie Cătărău", in Curentul, 2 May 1937, p. 10 According to the Bessarabian activist Anton Crihan, Ilie had a brother, Vasile, who in 1905 was working at the Romanian consulate in Odessa;M. Or, "Alte amănunte asupra rolului jucat de Cătărău în Basarabia. De vorbă cu d. Anton Crihan", in Gazeta. Cotidian Independent de Seară, 27 August 1935, p. 1 by other accounts, he also had two sisters, who lived in the same city.Bava, "Am vorbit cu Cătărău! — Viața plină de senzații a unui urgisit de soartă. Omul care vrea să-și răzbune două surori ucise de naziști", in Cotidianul, 12 December 1946, p. 2
Romanian sources traditionally claim that Cătărău was not a member of the ethnic Romanian community, but rather a Bessarabian Bulgarian."Atentatul dela Dobrițin. 3 Martie", p. 6; Constantin, p. 8 Author N. Porsenna, who met him when they were both in their twenties, contrarily surmises that Cătărău stood as "a fine example of the Romanian race—for he was indeed unquestionably Romanian, and not a Moskal"; he refers to Cătărău's imposing stature of almost 2 meters (6.5 feet) and athletic build. Porsenna also notes that Cătărău was strongly acculturated into the "Russian spirit", being "one-third of a decent man, one-third of a nihilist, and the remaining third a prankster." Cătărău and his sisters were orphaned at an early age. He was sent to Russian Orthodox schools in Ananiv and Odessa, and attended for a while the Bessarabian Seminary. Unable to complete his education there, he was instead enlisted by the Imperial Russian Army and served in the Hussar regiment of Warsaw. He sometimes introduced himself as a Russian officer, who had left service due to persecution."Atentatul dela Dobrițin. 4 Martie", p. 4 Later accounts suggest that he was merely a cavalry soldier.Bianu, p. 380 A polyglot and visibly cultured man, he once claimed to have still been studying theology at a Russian college."Dezertor rus", in Dimineața, 18 March 1910, p. 1
In his final period in Russia's service, Cătărău was recorded at the 1st Cavalry Regiment in Grodno. He used a sword to injure one of his direct superiors and subsequently went into hiding. Parallel accounts have it that he had pledged himself to the "revolutionary movement", or that he was being pursued for fraud."Atentatul dela Dobrițin. 3 Martie", p. 6 At some point before 18 March 1910, he crossed the Russian border into the Kingdom of Romania, at Dorohoi, after swimming the Prut River at night. He was promptly arrested by the Gendarmes, but philanthropist Gheorghe Burghele vouched for him and took him into his house, giving him his first lessons in standardized Romanian. Writer Ion Călugăru recounts that Cătărău lived in Dorohoi as Burghele's servant, spending his free time terrorizing high school students and courting maids, before he finally "disappeared" from town.Ion Călugăru, "...ca înainte de 1914...", in Cuvântul, 15 April 1933, p. 1 After short stays in Botoșani and Iași, he enlisted at the University of Bucharest Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, majoring in History. He had received a Romanian refugee scholarship, for which he qualified after claiming to have suffered repression at the hands of Russian authorities. His dossier included forged papers that claimed he had studied at Odessa University.
According to a 1946 article by Emil Dorian, Cătărău was a zealous student.Emil Dorian, "Fetița din Strada Primăvărei căreia Cătărău ar vrea să-i ceară scuze...", in Jurnalul de Dimineață, 25 December 1946, p. 4 After obtaining his visa, he became involved with the cell of Bessarabian exiles, including anarchist Zamfir Arbore and his Milcovul Society. His marginal role in politics concerned the Siguranța Statului secret police, who opened a special file on his activities. By the early 1910s, Cătărău was indeed working for the Russian Okhrana spy ring. He benefited from the disorganization of Romanian intelligence services, who were still in the process of establishing themselves. He registered and was paid monthly as a Romanian Land Forces counterintelligence operative in 1913. According to Porsenna, his friends, who took into consideration his unusual largess, always suspected that he was a Romanian spy—and also believed that he was a male prostitute; lawyer-adventurer Ioan Timuș reports that there was another stated source of income, since Cătărău also organized fundraising efforts for stirring up an anti-Russian revolt in Bessarabia.Ioan Timuș, "Ce-a făcut Cătărău în Japonia. Escrocând un bătrân anticar, este expulzat din extremul Orient", in Dimineața, 7 July 1932, p. 3 Cătărău made no secret of his being protected by the Siguranța, and intimated that he could impose himself on other Bessarabian exiles, to the point of raping a female colleague who had rejected his advances. By 1913, he had made a name for himself denouncing alleged Russian spies, including Ion Costin. In retrospect, this appears to have been a disinformation campaign ordered by Cătărău's Russian contacts.
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." Cătărău, who was best friends with the actor and activist Petre Liciu, infiltrated the Democratic Nationalist Party (PND) of Nicolae Iorga and A. C. Cuza. He participated in the PND congress for Ilfov County, declaring that "us Bassarabian Romanians can only trust the nationalist-democratic party". During the March 1911 election, Cătărău campaigned for the PND's Cuza and in Fălticeni. With his impressive size, he is said to have intimidated potential voters, and to have willingly provoked a brawl. A year later, acting on behalf of the Bessarabian Romanian Cultural Organization, he began a public correspondence with the Russian linguist Nikolai Nikolayevich Durnovo, who had advocated for Romanian nationality rights."Chestia Basarabieĭ. O scrisoare a d-luĭ N. Durnovo", in Universul, 19 April 1912, p. 1 Such episodes earned Cătărău the trust of his party colleagues. Through Iorga, he even gained access to Crown Prince Carol.
Tâmpa and Debrecen attacks