Gala Galaction was born in the village of Didești, Teleorman County, the son of a wealthy peasant and a priest's daughter.

[3] Having spent his early years a disciple of the Marxist philosopher Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea,[4] he became associated with Poporanism (an interwar left-wing nationalist political current) and, like his close friend N. D. Cocea, socialism.

According to literary critic Tudor Vianu, writing in the communist era: "The attraction towards socialism during Galaction's youth was always confessed and never was disavowed, although his religious outlook on life, formulated through the influence of his family and his immediate environment, led him to see socialists as fellow travellers rather than comrades in battle.

[8] Eventually, Galaction would welcome the new political mood established by the Russian Revolution, including the increasing visibility of Romania's Socialist Party and a series of labour strikes in 1918–1919: "We witnessed with our own eyes how the old worlds are crumbling and how the new ones are born.

A public meeting of factory workers left a lasting impression on him: "Out of the smouldering and mud-covered suburbs, out of the humid and suffocating basements, out of the thousands of too-small cells, where the proletarian bee distills the honey of capitalist drones, out of all places high and low, the working people had come in black flocks in order to increase, standing shoulder to shoulder, the phalanx of socialist demands.

On a background of intense blue is profiled the mage-like figure of the writer Galaction; on the most distant plane emerge the silhouettes of industries, and rise the chimneys of factories.

Critic Tudor Vianu wrote: "[...] the new translation, accomplished through the means created by newer literary evolution and with the talent of a modern poet, presents a major philological and artistic interest.

"[12]During the interwar period, Galaction was also the author of several studies, articles and commentaries on the New Testament, as well as completing a celebrated translation of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

[14] Nevertheless, in 1938–1940, like other figures of the Poporanist and socialist left (among them Armand Călinescu, Petre Andrei, Mihai Ralea, Ioan Flueraș, and Mihail Ghelmegeanu), he collaborated with the fascist-inspired corporatist regime of King Carol II, the National Renaissance Front, which was created to undercut the growing influence of the fascist and antisemitic Iron Guard.

Hitler, the monster or the demigod, the lever of destiny or the Devil's puppet, has again raised the banner of death amid the borders of peoples.

In 1944, after the overthrow of Antonescu during the August 23 coup, which saw Romania switch sides from the Axis and to the Allies, Galaction expressed his enthusiasm: "The long-awaited hour has arrived during a night when our hearts were being extinguished by fear and our houses were falling apart...

[20] He was bedridden for the final years of his life due to a stroke; this probably accounted for the scarcity in criticism aimed at him during the Zhdanovist campaign in Romania.

Newer editions contain the previously-censored discourse of an embittered Galaction, who had become heavily critical of Stalinism, while reviewing his own beliefs in an "Evangelical and cloud-like" socialism.

Alongside his praise for Theodor Herzl, whom he considered "the greatest Israelite in the modern world",[29] he wrote: "Whoever reads and loves the Bible cannot hate Israel.

"[29]In 1930, he was a pilgrim to Jerusalem, visiting the British Mandate of Palestine together with his lifelong friend and brother-in-law of his daughter, the painter Ion Ţuculescu,[30] and both their families.