While defending the role Moldavian politicians in the 1840s had in shaping modern Romanian culture, Ibrăileanu argued that practices such as those of Heliade and Laurian carried the risk of "suppressing the Romanian language", and credited Alecu Russo, more than his successors at "Junimea", with providing a passionate defense of spoken Romanian. He notably cited Russo's verdict: "The modern political hatred aimed at has thrown us into Italianism, into Frenchism, and into other -isms, that were not and are not Romanianism, but the political perils, in respect to the enslavement of the Romanian soul, have since passed; true Romanianism ought to hold its head up high". The literary critic George Călinescu also connected Heliade's experimentation to his Russophobia, in turn reflecting his experiences as a revolutionary: "Hating Slavism and the Russians, who had striven to underline [Slavic influences in Romanian, he said to himself that he was to serve his motherland by discarding all Slavic vestiges". Călinescu notably attributed Heliade's inconsistency to his "autodidacticism", which, he contended, was responsible for " casual implication in all issues, the unexpected move from common sense ideas to the most insane theories".