Ion Pas

Ion Pas (born Ioan M. Pascu; October 6, 1895 – May 20, 1974) was a Romanian novelist, translator and left-wing politician.

He was born in Bucharest in to a family of small craftsman. He attended primary school in the slum where he grew up, but was largely self-taught. He worked as a bricklayer's apprentice, typesetter, bookbinder and mechanic. His literary debut came in 1910, with the sketch "Barbu", published in Dumineca magazine. His first book was the 1912 Din lumea celor obidiți. From 1913, he was a contributor and editor at Constantin Costa-Foru's Revista copiilor și a tinerimii. He was part of the leadership at the Union of Professional Journalists and the General Association of the Press. He served on the party's central committee from that point until August 1969. From July 1955 to 1958, he was deputy Culture Minister, and from 1959 to January 1965, served as president of Romanian Radio's committee. He was president of the Romanian delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, president of the Journalists' Syndicate from 1946, vice president of the Romanian Writers' Union and president of the Romanian Institute for Cultural Relations with the Abroad (1965-1974). Pas served as a legislator for nearly a quarter-century: elected to the Assembly of Deputies for Prahova County in 1946, he remained in that body until it was dissolved in 1948. In the Great National Assembly that followed, he sat for Prahova County (1948-1952), Pitești Region (1952-1957) and for three districts in the Buzău area (1957-1961, 1961-1965 and 1965-1969). He was awarded the Order of Labor, first class (1955); the Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic, first class (1964); and the 23 August Order, first class (1965).