Petre P. Panaitescu (March 11, 1900 – November 14, 1967) was a Romanian literary historian. A native of Iași, he spent most of his adult life in the national capital Bucharest, where he rose to become a professor at its main university. As such, he challenged various aspects of the dominant nationalist historiography. However, he also joined the ultra-nationalist Iron Guard, and headed the university during the movement's brief time in power. After the Guard was violently suppressed at the beginning of 1941, he lost his professorial position. When a communist-dominated government entered office in early 1945, he was arrested and imprisoned. Panaitescu was freed by the end of the year, the new authorities finding useful his theories of Slavic influence on Romania's national trajectory. He worked as a researcher in the latter part of his career, retiring in 1965, two years before his death.