In the Shadow of the Apocalypse was completed by Dinu Pillat in 1948 and then submitted for review to other writers and literary critics in 1953. Left unpublished, it became the corpus delicti against its author in the 1960 (in)famous trial against dissident intellectuals (the so-called Noica-Pillat batch: https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procesul_Lotului_Noica_-_Pillat, in Romanian). Pillat was found guilty of "plotting against the social order" and sentenced to 25 years detention and 10 years of deprivation of civil rights by the communist authorities of Romania. The novel was considered lost in the Romanian Secret Service (Securitate) archives until 2010 when it was discovered by a researcher and published for the first time in Romania, by publisher Humanitas. It was translated into French in 2012. The novel is a fictionalized account of Romania's interwar fascist organization The Legion of The Archangel Michael (also known as the Iron Guard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Guard), called The Heralds in the novel, and the aftermath of the murder while in custody of their leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneliu_Zelea_Codreanu), which led to the retaliatory assassination of prime minister Armand Calinescu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Armand_C%C4%83linescu), in 1939, all events captured in the novel.