As a left-winger who ultimately joined the Social Democratic Party , he took a side in public controversies, defending the political line espoused by Nicolae Titulescu and attacking Stelian Popescu. Identified as an enemy by the communist regime , which took over in , Kalustian was detained without trial for some four years, and did penal labor as a steel fixer.
He was then again arrested, and sentenced, for having kept and sold books banned by state censorship. Ultimately released in , Kalustian was allowed to publish again from He was still exposed to acts of persecution and to constant surveillance by the Securitate , and harassed into becoming its informant. Despite this take, Kalustian networked with anti-communists such as Nicolae Carandino and Corneliu Coposu , both predicting and working toward the eventual fall of communism.
Leon or Levon was the oldest of four children: two sisters, Vartuhi β and Satenig β , and a brother, Manuil β These informed that Sarchis and Iulia were an unmarried couple, and non-citizens; he was a Gregorian Christian , and she a Catholic. According to fellow Armenian Romanian journalist Bedros Horasangian , who conversed with him in the s, Kalustian, "despite the ancient pedigree of [his] Armenian family, could not speak Armenian, but had instead splendidly mastered the Romanian language".
The latter reportedly viewed him as a figure out of a saray , "a tray of sorbet on his head". Teodoru, Vladimir, L. The early interwar years consolidated Kalustian's reputation as a "great erudite" and a leading socialist publicist. Although Kalustian's charm, which assured his place in high society, caused friction within the marriage, the union endured. His youth was spent on "poker games, the racetrack, tea parties with the madams", as well as "success in women".
This implied taking up the fight against Carol Caraiman , the disgraced and exiled Crown Prince, who was attempting to return as King of Romania. Carol finally staged a coup against the Romanian Regency on June 6, , isolating his opponents and taking the thone for himself; Kalustian and the "old political reporter" Paul Costin were tasked with removing anti-Carlist content from that night's edition of Curentul.
