Ion Alion Buzdugan[1] (Romanian Cyrillic and Russian: Ион Буздуган, born Ivan Alexandrovici Buzdâga;[2][3][4] March 9, 1887 – January 29, 1967) was a Bessarabian-Romanian poet, folklorist, and politician.

A young schoolteacher in the Russian Empire by 1908, he wrote poetry and collected folklore emphasizing Bessarabia's links with Romania, and associated with various founding figures of the Romanian nationalist movement, beginning with Ion Pelivan.

He vehemently supported the union of Bessarabia with Romania during the existence of an independent Moldavian Democratic Republic, and, as a member of its legislature (Sfatul Țării), worked to bring it about.

Threatened by the Bolsheviks, he fled to Romania and returned with an expeditionary corps headed by General Ernest Broșteanu, being one of the delegates who voted for the union, and one of dignitaries who signed its proclamation.

In interwar Greater Romania, Buzdugan received mixed reviews as a neo-traditionalist poet, while also serving terms as a Bălți County representative in the Assembly of Deputies.

Protected by the literary critic Perpessicius, he later reemerged, but, until the time of his death, was only allowed to publish pseudonymous translations from Russian literature, culminating with a posthumous rendition of Eugene Onegin.

According to updated reference works, the future Ion Buzdugan was born in 1887 in Brînzenii Noi (now in Telenești District, Moldova), the son of peasants Alexandru and Ecaterina Buzdâga,[5] who also had seven daughters.

[20] By the time of the February Revolution, Buzdugan had entered the Moldavian Soldiers' Organization in Odessa, and took up the task of propaganda work among the Bessarabian units of the Imperial Russian Army.

[24] However, as later noted by the party colleague Pan Halippa, Buzdugan was categorically opposed to the PNM's right-wing, which looked to "Bessarabia's secession from Russia and her Union with Romania.

There, he agitated in favor of a split, calling on Romanian teachers to form their own "cleanly Moldavian" congress, and supporting the idea of intensive courses to formalize and standardize their language.

[30] In May, with such autonomist goals in mind, Buzdugan, Pântea and Anton Crihan founded the newspaper Pământ și Voe, styled "Organ of the Moldavian Socialist Revolutionary Party".

During the proceedings, Buzdugan and Toma Jalbă insisted in favor of annexing to Bessarabia the Romanian-speaking areas east of the river Dniester (Nistru); although this failed to occur, their speeches were welcomed with applause by other delegates.

[38] Buzdugan himself was elected to Sfatul Țării, representing Bălți County,[39] and joined the Moldavian Bloc, a parliamentary club reuniting former PNM members (informally: "Pelivan's godsons") with the other Romanian nationalists.

[40] Buzdugan and Erhan supported Pelivan as leader of Sfatul, clashing with the left-wing "Peasants' Faction", the Mensheviks led by Eugen Kenigschatz, and non-Romanian deputies such as Krste Misirkov.

Pelivan and his "godsons", who were pushing for the union with Romania, found themselves harassed by Bolshevik groups such as Front-Odel (confederated with the Rumcherod and loyal to the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic).

[44] Buzdugan and Scobioală also acted as liaisons between the Romanian Land Forces, under Constantin Prezan, and the White Russians, represented locally by Dmitry Shcherbachev of the 7th Army.

[45] Eventually, disguised as Russian soldiers, and accompanied by sailor Vasile Gafencu, the "godsons" left Chișinău and headed for Iași, where they contacted the Romanian Army.

[49] During the preliminary talks, he had seconded the Romanian Prime Minister, Alexandru Marghiloman, reassuring the Peasant Faction, and Inculeț, that land reform would be enacted in Romania.

[54] Late that November, he was reelected Secretary of Sfatul, in circumstances that were deemed illegal by the anti-unionist opposition; under his watch, unconditional union (which excluded the regionalist provisions of the March document) was put to the vote.

[55] Buzdugan joined Halippa, Pelivan, and Cazacliu on a Sfatul mission to Cernăuți, in Bukovina, and Alba Iulia, in Transylvania, where they were to attend popular assemblies confirming the establishment of Greater Romania.

"[57] However, bedridden with the Spanish flu in Cernăuți, he was unable to follow Pelivan to Alba Iulia, and failed to witness Transylvania's incorporation into Romania on December 1 ("Great Union").

[58] In his last days as a Sfatul deputy, Buzdugan signed a protest addressed to the Romanian government of Ion I. C. Brătianu, citing cases of abuse by the Gendarme "satraps", including their alleged embezzlement of welfare supplies.

[63] Buzdugan rallied with the Halippa faction of the PȚB, which sought integration within the nationwide Peasants' Party (PȚ); the other wings, comprising Inculeț, Pântea and Pelivan, preferred independence.

Unlike other PȚ deputies, he did not see Romania's social backwardness as an impediment, and suggested that making Romanians "healthy and strong" would ensure that the country fulfilled her cultural mission.

[95] Buzdugan was active with Pântea within the Union of Reserve Officers, which collaborated with the Siguranța agency in combating communism, "finding out and unmasking those who carried out revolutionary propaganda";[96] a rough equivalent of the old regime's gentry assembly, it also demanded pay raises for Bessarabians in the military.

[97] In 1930, he sided with the nationalist groups in the Assembly against the PNȚ government, which had promised to ethnic Bulgarians to enact a liberal land law in Southern Dobruja, thus limiting Romanian colonization attempts.

[7] After introducing the Romanian public to the Russian avant-garde (with translations that Iorga deems "very good"),[109] Buzdugan focused on the works of Pushkin, publishing in Gândirea a rendition of his "Gypsies" (1935).

[4] Even before the official establishment of a Romanian communist regime in 1948, Buzdugan came to the attention of the Soviet occupation forces, which began procedures to arrest or deport him as a political undesirable.

In this climate, Buzdugan began frequenting a literary circle in the Bucharest home of Ion Larian and Paraschiva Postolache, where he met young writers such as Eugen Barbu and C. D. Zeletin.

[124] His funeral was attended by Halippa and Pântea, and saw them speaking publicly for the reincorporation of Bessarabia into Romania; reportedly, the speech was tolerated by the authorities, which were allowing non-politicized expressions of nationalist fervor.