---
title: "Eugen Relgis"
chunk: 7/12
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"
---

=== Main ideas ===
Throughout his career, Relgis was the proponent of anarchism. The Romanian writer spoke about the negativity of "state fetishism", seeking to overturn it and create "universal fraternity", and, in Diario de otoño, postulated a necessary distinction between Law ("which may be interpreted for or against") and Justice ("elementary" and unavoidable). Relgis likewise believed that war could be overcome once humanity shall have toppled "the three idols: State, Property, Money." Political philosopher Ángel Cappelletti argues: "Relgis was not an anarchist militant, but was always close to libertarian ideas".
According to Stefan Zweig, Relgis fought "tirelessly for the great goal of spiritual fraternity." The sentiment was echoed by Romain Rolland, who recognized in Relgis his disciple: "There is no other European man in whose hands I could place, with as much confidence, [...] my pacifist and universalist idea, for it to be passed on into the future. For none other has such far-reaching intelligence to this goal, and none other would feel this idea so intimately connected to his being." Speaking from the cultural mainstream, Romanian literary historian George Călinescu observed Relgis' anti-establishment and anti-artistic rhetoric, but described it as mere "idealist reverie", "without any daring proposals that would threaten our self-preservation instincts". Contrarily, scholar William Rose sees Relgis as "an idealist deeply preoccupied by social problems", "a practical and not a utopian thinker", and a theorist aware that social or economic evolution was needed before his goals could be achieved.
Relgis' humanitarianism (also known as humanism or pan-humanism; Spanish: humanitarismo) was a practical extension of anarcho-pacifism. William Rose describes this doctrine as both "universalist and pacifist", noting that one of its leading purposes was to eliminate those things "which separate man from man and cause wars". Relgis himself spoke of his movement as a form of "active thought", and "a critical method applied to natural, human and social realities", while expressing admiration for the nonviolent resistance tactics advocated in British India by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or Rabindranath Tagore. At the time, he attacked all forms of pan-nationalism, from Pan-Germanism to Pan-European nationalism, defining pan-humanism as "the only 'pan' that can be accepted as a natural law of the human species". In El humanitarismo, he called all internationalist movements, except his own, corrupted by "the practice of violence and intolerance".
Writing in 1933, the leftist literary columnist Ion Clopoțel stressed that Relgis' vision combined humanitarianism with "a lively, dynamic and innovating socialism". Although left-wing, Relgis' vision also incorporated militant anti-communism. As noted by literary historian Geo Șerban, he was from early on skeptical about the outcome of "social revolutions" and Bolshevik insurgency. In the first issue of Umanitarianismul, Relgis criticized both the far right and the far left, noting that his ideology was "apolitical, in fact antipolitical". In Europa cea tânără, he referred to the Soviet Union as the home of "proletarian imperialism". These thoughts were detailed by Diario de otoño, which drew a direct comparison between the Red Army, pushing Romania into an "armed peace", and the Wehrmacht.