---
title: "Eugen Relgis"
chunk: 4/12
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Relgis"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:03:21.362889+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Travels abroad and Șantier affiliation ===
The Romanian writer traveled extensively to promote his ideas of social change. By 1928, he was in regular correspondence with French writer and human rights activist Romain Rolland, who answered in writing to Relgis' various inquiries. He was a delegate to pacifist reunions in Hoddesdon, England and Sonntagberg, Austria (1928). Relgis also exchanged letters with various other prestigious left-wing intellectuals: Zweig, Upton Sinclair, Henri Barbusse, Max Nettlau etc. His various inquiries also enlisted positive replies from other international supporters of pacifism: physicist Albert Einstein, biologist Auguste Forel, writer Heinrich Mann and anarchist militant Paul Reclus. He became a contributor to Sébastien Faure's Anarchist Encyclopedia, with the "Humanitarianism" entry. In 1929, Delpeuch company published his French-language essay L'Internationale pacifiste ("The Pacifist International"), reissued the same year in Valencia, Spain, as La Internacional Pacifista.
Around 1930, Relgis was in Paris, where he met with Han Ryner, and in Berlin, where he conversed with his mentor Nicolai. In its new translated editions, Apel către... was signed by a number of leading pacifist intellectuals of various persuasions, among them Zweig, Sinclair, Barbusse, Campio Carpio, Manuel Devaldès, Philéas Lebesgue, Rabindranath Tagore. While in France, where his work was notably popularized by L'En-Dehors magazine and Gérard de Lacaze-Duthiers's Bibliothèque de l'Artistocratie book collection, he was for a while close to Barbusse's Clarté circle, but left it after discovering its communist militancy and Soviet connections. His Intellectuals' Internationale therefore took distance from both the Comintern and the International Working Union of Socialist Parties.
In 1932, he published the German-language collection of interviews Wege zum Friede ("Path toward Peace"). His other travels into Bulgaria, where he represented Romanian vegetarians at an international congress, were discussed in his 1933 volume Bulgaria necunoscută ("Unknown Bulgaria"). The volume Cosmometápolis, about the creation of a world government, was first published in Bucharest by Cultura Poporului imprint, and reissued in Paris by Mignolet et Storz.
Relgis' participation in left-wing causes was attacked at home by the antisemitic and proto-fascist National-Christian Defense League, whose press organ Înfrățirea Românească alleged that "squire Siegler" and his Umanitarismul, together with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, were fostering communist agitation. After the 1933 establishment of a Nazi regime in Germany, Relgis' books of interviews became subject to ceremonial burnings.
By that moment in his career, Relgis became a contributor to Vremea newspaper and to Ion Pas' political and art magazine, Șantier. The latter periodical was close to the Romanian Social Democratic Party, and had a strongly anti-fascist agenda. It published, in 1932, the Relgis essay Europa cea tânără ("Young Europe"), which talked about civilization, imperialism and war. Relgis' contributions to Șantier also include a January 12, 1934 essay about "anonymous works" and their impact on art history, which was later quoted in Viața Românească. The same year, Relgis published the novel Prieteniile lui Miron ("Miron's Friendships") with Editura Cugetarea.
In his subsequent activity as a journalist and publisher, Relgis combined his humanitarianism with topical interests. He was by then an advocate of eugenics, an interest reflected in his 1934 (or 1935) tract Umanitarism și eugenism ("Humanitarianism and Eugenism"), published by Editura Vegetarianismul company. In 1936, he also released the collection Esseuri despre iudaism ("Essays on Judaism") with Cultura Poporului. He was at the time active within the Jewish Cultural Institute, an annex of the Bucharest Choral Temple. His international activity peaked during the Spanish Civil War, when he helped organize anarchist support for the Spanish Republican regime, elected Councilor of the International Antifascist Solidarity.