Ilie Cătărău

Ilie V. Cătărău (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈli.e kətəˈrəw], reportedly born Katarov, last name also Cătărău-Orhei; 21 July 1888 – c. 1955) was a Bessarabian-born political adventurer, soldier and spy, who spent parts of his life in the Kingdom of Romania. A mysterious figure, he is widely held to have been the main perpetrator of two bomb attacks, which sought to exacerbate tensions between Romania and Austria-Hungary in the buildup to World War I. Beyond his cover as a refugee from the Russian Empire, and his public commitment to Romanian nationalism, Cătărău was a double agent, working for both Russian and Romanian interests; he may also have been linked to the Black Hundreds. His terrorist actions, and especially the letter bomb which he sent to the Hungarian Catholic Bishopric in Debrecen, occurred shortly before, and are probably connected with, the Sarajevo Assassination.

Cătărău managed to flee prosecution, settling in Egypt (which deported him), and later in China. He continued to make return trips to Romania, which finally arrested him upon entering the war—though he managed to escape, he remained on Romanian soil, only leaving on return visits to the Russian Republic. By 1917, as leader of the "Romanian Nationalist-Revolutionary Party", Cătărău was formally committed to anarchism and communism, allying himself with Bessarabia's Bolshevik insurgents. Profiting from favorable circumstances, and nominally serving the anti-Bolshevik Moldavian Democratic Republic, he became commander of its 1st Moldavian Regiment in late 1917. In short time, his position and his application of a communist program eroded the Republic's prestige, and his soldiers began openly threatening the Bessarabian government. Cătărău was deposed and arrested by Military Director Gherman Pântea and a unit of Amur Cossacks, and sent into exile.

Cătărău reportedly became a habitual murderer and robber, playing both sides in the Russian Civil War. Briefly emerging as a drill instructor for the White movement in Vladivostok, he made efforts to settle in the Empire of Japan, but was chased out for engaging in fraudulent business deals. After creating scandal in the Shanghai International Settlement, he spent the early interwar mainly on the French and Italian Rivieras, finding himself at odds with police. After more adventures, which took him as far afield as Polynesia, Cătărău was presumed dead; in 1937, Romanian media circulated a farewell letter he had sent from San Francisco. During World War II, he was reportedly in Transnistria Governorate, having been chased into hiding by Governor Pântea. He only returned to history in the 1940s, a conjectural ally of the Soviet Union and the Romanian communist regime. He became critical of the latter, and was once arrested by its secret police (the Securitate). In old age, he retreated from political affairs and became a Romanian Orthodox monk, serving a community in Transylvania.