A promoter of vegetarianism, he also discovered libertarianism and individual anarchism, which he fused with influences from Gandhism; in the early 1930s, his magazine Vegetarianismul functioned as a discreet protagonist on the Romanian anarchist scene.
Journalist Tibor Molnár, who met Ionescu-Căpățână in October 1936, when the latter was aged 22, describes him as a having "blond hair [and] a sparse mustache", being soft-spoken and overall "not typical" in his demeanor and appearance.
[2] His first and most lasting commitment was to vegetarianism, which he took up from the age of twelve—after having read Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile; he credited this lifestyle choices, also including temperance advocacy, with having remade him into a calm human, easing his transition toward nonviolence.
[1] In the early 1930s, the young man was won over by Istrati's philosophy, which advocated ideological pluralism (synthesizing various strains of libertarianism), and took additional inspiration from anarchists such as Gérard de Lacaze-Duthiers.
[6] Literary historian Mircea Iorgulescu sees him as a "bizarre figure" in Romanian life, noting that he combined in his person anarchism, Esperantism, and environmentalism;[7] Relgis adds his friend's status as an eclectic anarchist, promoting "pacifism and various libertarian tendencies".
[8] Self-published by Căpățână, Vegetarianismul ultimately disappeared after evidence that its movement was entirely marginal: its attempt to form an agricultural commune (based on models advanced by Élisée Reclus, Peter Kropotkin, and possibly also Pierre-Joseph Proudhon) met with general indifference.
He recalls that the senior writer, already terminally ill, was bitter and disappointed about his former friends in the French Communist Party, whom he had lost for stating his ideas on the Soviet Union and Stalinism.
[10] He continued to be drawn to France, "the land of reason", even after Istrati himself decided to move back to Romania, where he embarked on a collaboration with the controversial Crusade of Romanianism (which had broken out of the fascist Iron Guard).
Căpățână hoped to find a surviving network of Istratian disciples, but eventually acknowledged that none could be found in all of France at that time—he was instead surprised to discover that many regular people believed the communists' narrative on Istrati as a traitor of the working class.
He immediately left for Bucharest, where he attended his mentor's funeral, afterwards seeking to meet with Crusaders such as Mihai Stelescu and Alexandru Talex, whom he intended to interview about their collaboration with Istrati.
"[14] Căpățână sought to popularize his discovery in Romania and in neighboring Bulgaria (a country he deeply admired for its vegetarian traditions),[1] but found out that the Soviet interpretation had prevailed in both countries—and that "not a single working-class or avant-garde publication would agree to publish articles defending Panait Istrati."
He attempted to revive Vegetarianismul, but government censors banned the magazine as engaged in propaganda for a "political ideology" (Căpățână described this as a misunderstanding, "still trust[ing] that the matter will be clarified").
[34] Căpățână stayed in place during the fall of France and the subsequent German occupation, and in 1941 was still busy publishing Istrati's articles—in editions that ran at some 200 copies each, and which were advertised by Philéas Lebesgue in Georges Pioch's L'Oeuvre.
[38] Relgis suggests that Căpățână always remained a committed anarchist, who still hosted "quite lively" meetings of libertarian activists, and intended to set up an international center for networking between factions.
[28] The anarchist Guy Malouvier visited Soutraine around the same time, and saw the cabin in ruins—its standing walls covered in Spanish Republican posters, and still showing traces of Căpățână's modest book-collection.