Alexandru Talex, born Atanase Alexandrescu (first name also Al., Alex., or Alexandre; 7 December 1909 – 17 November 1998), was a Romanian activist journalist, cultural promoter, translator, and literary historian, noted in particular for being the friend and apologist of novelist Panait Istrati.

He debuted as a newspaperman while in his twenties, when he became a posthumous disciple of historian and Romanian nationalist thinker Vasile Pârvan, defending his thought against the dismissive opinions expressed by Eugen Lovinescu.

Stelescu was murdered by an Iron Guard death squad in July of that year, and the movement began disintegrating; Talex himself quit in September, immediately after having published an article supporting non-Soviet communism.

Though affiliated for a while with the state party, called National Renaissance Front, and joining the Union of Professional Journalists as a contributor to various periodicals, he focused mainly on his preservation of Istrati's legacy.

According to Talex's own recollections, this made it hard for them to remain friends—though he himself was a "know-nothing" in political matters, he had a "vague" preference for democracy, which he saw as a marriage of "liberty and social justice", and had been impressed by Julien Benda's anti-authoritarianism.

As recounted by literary historian Grigore Traian Pop, Talex once explained that Stelescu had been equally enthusiastic about Nazism and Trotskyism, but that he eventually abandoned his support for the former after an unexplained incident.

[1] The publication, and the group surrounding it, were probably sponsored by the King of Romania, Carol II, who wanted to undermine the Iron Guard's popularity,[11] as well as being more transparently provided for by diplomat Constantin Karadja.

[15] Talex himself defined "Romanianism" as a "new doctrine", invented by Stelescu, but inspired by Pârvan, and further beyond by Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu and Mihai Eminescu (he also cited Constantin Rădulescu-Motru as a reference).

Talex was organizing the Crusader squad, but backed out when it turned out that the Guard had a more menacing presence, which he attributed to government support; he then informed his adversaries that his party would never resort to violence.

[30] Days later, Talex was a speaker at the Crusader Congress, when he defined the movement as a "youthful reaction", inspired by Istrati, and called "Romanianism" a stand that reached beyond plain nationalism—tackling corruption and unifying the people.

In September, Talex published a Cruciada article describing communism as a "flawless doctrine" and "mankind's only salvation for the future" (though he noted that the Soviet experiment was "red fascism", in line with Istrati's pronouncements).

[38] In October, the Crusade's "leadership committee" published a "letter of clarification", which spoke of "three or four" members having been expelled as agents provocateurs, who had "sought to discredit the movement by presenting it as supportive of the communist credo.

[41] In 2010, journalist Florian Bichir credited accounts which suggest that Talex was in reality a Siguranța informant, and that, in this capacity, "he put the choke on quite a few people" (i-a înfundat pe mulți).

"[43] In late 1938, all of Romania's parties were nominally replaced by a catch-all National Renaissance Front, under Carol II; in January 1939, it received the bloc adherence of Talex and other 19 former Crusade activists, credited as such by the official newspapers.

[45] In 1941–1943, at the height of World War II (which saw Romania's engagement on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union), Talex was a staff writer at Acțiunea newspaper, also publishing a translation of Octave Aubry's historical novel, L'Impératrice Eugénie.

According to a later report by communist George Macovescu, Talex was in contact with the PCR and its allies "even before [...] January 1943", and had agreed to join a "collective" that put out party propaganda—and that he was employed there alongside Ivașcu, Alecu Constantinescu, Stephan Roll, and Tereza Ungar.

[52] Graur's account is also partly validated by Ivașcu, according to whom Talex was present with one of the successive teams of România Liberă editors, back when the newspaper was still published at a secret location.

[53] During the UZP revamp in November 1944, Talex was officially included on a list of founding members, alongside figures such as Constantinescu, Graur, Ivașcu, Macovescu, Roll, Radu Boureanu, Scarlat Callimachi, N. D. Cocea, Eugen Jebeleanu, Ion Pas, Grigore Preoteasa, Cicerone Theodorescu, Șerban Voinea, and Ilie Zaharia.

[61] A month later, communist Tudor Olaru hinted that Talex, noted as "that ex-ringleader of Cruciada Românismului", was friends with the PSDR's anti-communist leader, Constantin Titel Petrescu—and therefore hostile to the PCR as well.

[63] He also acknowledged that there was a larger "spiritual crisis", brought on by the writers themselves (since they had forgotten to make their literature stand up for ideas), and noted in passing the growing, and "stifling", influence of political pressures on creators.

[69] According to Bichir, he also successfully transitioned from the Siguranța to the communized police force, or Securitate, which had him as an informant; his subsequent work toward upholding Istrati's reputation may have therefore been his attempt "to find some sort of retribution for his own deeds, when faced with eternity.

[80]Cum am devenit scriitor was followed by Talex's definitive versions of Istratian novels or novellas, this time as translated by Istrati himself: Chira Chiralina (1982), Viața lui Adrian Zograffi (1983), Neranțula (1984).

"[1] As Iorgulescu indicates, this work included some of Istrati's explicit connections to far-right ideologies, though with Talex's editorializing, which called Cruciada a "magazine of very young folks" and depicted Stelescu as exclusively a victim of the Guardists.

In 1987, they both questioned Oprea's theory, which had Istrati as the son of Gherasim Valsamos; their own views were challenged by Nicolae Georgescu in Luceafărul, and then by Barbu's Săptămîna, both of which suggested that Talex was Iorgulescu's "spiritual mentor".

[93] Lovinescu, who kept up with the Romanian literary press, believed that both magazines were serving Barbu's personal agenda, which was to discredit Talex and then have his Istratian translations published and sold as the accepted standard.

[97] Alexandru and Margareta remained privately opposed to the regime, and allowed Popovici to read up on their collection of anti-communist literature—comprising authors such as Eugène Ionesco, Artur London, Nadezhda Mandelstam, and Jean-François Revel.

At one such encounter in March 1989, speakers such as Heinrich Stiehler opened up the neglected topic of Crusader fascism; as noted by Iorgulescu, Talex and Ion Stănică were among those who shut down the debate, by arguing that Stelescu had been labeled as such in communist propaganda and historiography, and therefore that the claim was untrue.

In April, Alexandru and Nina Talex, alongside Cogălniceanu, Vârgolici, Popovici and Camelia Stănescu, hosted an Istrati-themed show at the National Museum of Art of Romania; it featured readings by actors Mirela Gorea, Adrian Pintea, and Florian Pittiș.

[107] A Romanian version of Le pèlerin du cœur appeared in 1998, alongside a revised two-volume edition of Cum am devenit scriitor,[1] this time including all pages that could not be published under communism.

[3] Margareta had since died, and Talex made efforts to arrange her room into a museum—his application for official support was denied by the local authorities of Sector 2, who misunderstood it as a request for a building permit.