Gheorghe Ursu
Encyclopedia
Gheorghe Emil Ursu was a Romania
n construction engineer, poet, diarist and dissident. A left-wing activist and avant-garde
intellectual who joined the Romanian Communist Party
as a youth, he was soon after disillusioned with the Communist regime
, and became one of its most outspoken critics. For most of his life, Gheorghe Ursu was active in cultural circles, and maintained contacts with literary and artistic figures.
Ursu publicly denounced the policies of Nicolae Ceauşescu
, and was kept under surveillance by the country's secret police—the Securitate
. A journal in which he recorded his thoughts and opinions was the subject of a denunciation, which eventually led to his arrest. He was beaten to death soon after, while in the custody of the Securitate.
Ursu's death was a matter of international scandal and, after the Romanian Revolution
, the subject of an inquiry initially headed by prosecutor Dan Voinea. Much controversy arose over the new authorities' alleged procrastination, before two former officers were sentenced for his murder. A third one was jailed for confiscating his diary, most of which remains lost.
n city of Soroca
, now in Moldova
. His parents, both surgeons, were Vasile Ursu (of Galaţi
) and Margareta (of Măgura Ilvei, Năsăud
). He had a sister, Georgeta (married Berdan). Gheorghe attended primary school in Soroca from 1932 to 1936, and high school there until 1941, when his family moved to Galaţi. He continued his studies at Vasile Alecsandri National College, Galaţi, where he graduated in 1945. His maternal grandparents, along with ten other family members (who were Northern Transylvania
n Jews
) were killed at Auschwitz. Ursu and his wife Sorana had a daughter, Olga (m. Ştefan) and a son, Horia Andrei.
Ursu was a person noted for his left-wing convictions. During World War II
, while Romania was allied to the Axis Powers
(see Romania during World War II
), he was involved in antifascist
activism, as one in a group which also comprised future essayist Iordan Chimet
and future science fiction
writer Camil Baciu. In parallel, the group cultivated avant-garde literature, and was interested in Surrealists
such as Gherasim Luca
, Tristan Tzara
and Gellu Naum
. According to Ursu's son, both his father and Baciu gravitated toward communism
, while Chimet maintained a moderate leftist position, being more suspicious of Soviet
policies and alarmed by the Soviet occupation of Romania
. Like his father Vasile Ursu and his friend Baciu, the young intellectual imagined communism along Utopian
lines.
Gheorghe Ursu joined the Union of Communist Youth
in 1944, and became one of its secretaries. From 1945 to 1950, he was a civil engineering
student at the University Politehnica of Bucharest, joining the Romanian Communist Party
during this time and, together with future physician and historian of medicine G. Brătescu, editing the pro-communist student magazine Studentul Român. Growing disillusioned with the communist doctrine after 1949, he was repeatedly sanctioned for disobedience and ultimately expelled from the party in 1950.
-based Institute for the Study and Design of Communal Households. He personally designed a large number of lodgings (according to his own estimate, by 1977, 30,000 to 40,000 people were housed in buildings he had planned). The Ursu family moved into the newly-developed area of Drumul Taberei
.
In 1970, Editura Litera published a volume of his poetry, Mereu Doi ("Always Two"), with a preface by the poet Nina Cassian
. In addition to this, he wrote but never published satirical poems targeting Nicolae Ceauşescu
's leadership of the country. Reportedly, he deliberately never took the precaution of keeping these hidden, which brought him to the attention of Securitate operatives. Some of his writings ridiculed Communist and nationalist
figures associated with Săptămâna magazine (among them Eugen Barbu
, Corneliu Vadim Tudor
and Dan Ciachir). During the period, he was close to the filmmaker Mircea Săucan, the composer Anatol Vieru
, and the important writers Zaharia Stancu
and Geo Bogza
(a former Communist who was by then a critic of the regime).
He was placed under surveillance during the 1960s, when he first traveled beyond the Iron Curtain
, where he met with prominent anti-communist
intellectuals such as Virgil Ierunca
and Monica Lovinescu
. However, the most important stage of his conflict with the authorities came immediately after the major earthquake of 1977
. It was then that, as an engineer, he sent a letter to the West German
-based Radio Free Europe
, protesting against Romanian construction policies. The piece was read by Ierunca over four successive broadcasts. Earlier in 1977, Ursu had been one in a commission tasked with consolidating Bucharest's oldest tall structures. At the time, he had witnessed and recorded a meeting of the commission, attended and supervised by Ceauşescu, during which the dictator ordered all consolidation works to cease, claiming that they caused panic and could not hope to repair structural faults. In his rendition of the meeting, Ceauşescu is quoted proposing instead for solutions involving "concrete and chemical substances" to be tried out. Ursu refused to sign the motion endorsing the new guidelines, which caused a minor scandal. In 1984, he wrote that the meeting had convinced him that Romania's leader was "paranoid
".
According to Andrei Ursu, at a later stage his father also considering drafting a protest document which he intended to read inside the Great National Assembly
, Communist Romania's formal legislative branch. He continued to travel abroad, visiting various European countries until 1980, when he was no longer given the needed Securitate permission. Ursu was also prevented from publishing his account of the travels. His various writings of the time show that he was conducting his trips while on a very tight budget, and that he occasionally had to rely on the good will of Romanian exiles and distant relatives. His daughter Olga settled in the United States
, and her subsequent correspondence with her father was itself a venue for criticism of the regime.
He caused the Communist authorities further irritation after sending numerous protest letters to the Communist Party organ Scînteia
and to the magazine Săptămâna, denouncing the leadership for using or condoning opportunism, demagogy
, and antisemitism. In one other case, he sent a letter to the Ministry of the Interior, demanding to know why citizens were required to wear a suit and tie when photographed for their identity document
s, and stating that it was their right not to.
, on the Black Sea
coast, where he met with Cassian and G. Brătescu. Brătescu recounted that, during the trip, Ursu was avoiding discussions, and that he discreetly confessed fearing that the Securitate was using his notes to organize a round-up of his friends.
He was arrested on September 21, 1985, accused of hiding foreign currency; the equivalent of 16 US dollars
(or 17 lei
at the official exchange rate for the period) in various denominations was found in his house. His son was also subject to interrogations. After Ursu's diary was confiscated, Cassian, who was visiting the United States, chose not to return to Romania.
On November 17, after being beaten for weeks on end at the Militia
quarters on Calea Rahovei in Bucharest, he was transported to the Jilava
jail hospital, where he died of peritonitis
later in the day. His body was handed down to the family, and, after a funeral service, cremated. Several intellectual figures, including Chimet and philosopher Sorin Vieru, attended the ceremony in defiance of continued Securitate surveillance. Also present were G. Brătescu and theater critic Radu Albala, the latter of whom, doubting the official account, mentioned the possibility that Ursu had been killed by an inmate.
Various believe that the repeated beatings were caused by Gheorghe Ursu's refusal to incriminate other literary figures,—in support of this notion, Andrei Ursu quotes his father's Securitate file, which investigated in part "close links with certain writers who, due to their hostile beliefs, are kept under watch by Securitate organs". Authors cited in this context include Bogza, Chimet, Cassian and Albala.
, contributed to an international scandal, and, as a direct result of these cases, the United States withdrew Romania's "most favoured nation
" status. His killing also outraged members of the intellectual elite. Bogza would thus write: "One could not say of Gheorghe Ursu that which poets generally like to be said about them: that they are great poets. Killing such a person is equivalent to killing the King of Butterflies. It would be appropriate for the whole Romanian culture to stand up and salute Gheorghe Ursu's memory." Brătescu recalled: "Gheorghe Ursu's drama helped me to better understand what world we live in." In her assessment of Ursu's conflict with the regime, University of Ottawa
professor Gabriela Blebea Nicolae concluded: "Gheorghe Ursu counts as one of the «martyrs» who make moral values triumph. The lives of all these persons form a bridge supporting the moral values that risk being engulfed by the murky waters of an aberrant political regime of the kind Romanian communism was throughout its history."
In March 1990, after the Romanian Revolution
toppled Ceauşescu, an inquiry was opened on the circumstances of his death, after a request was filed by Ursu's sister Georgeta Berdan. It found that Ursu died as a result of injury to the abdomen, caused by the many blows he received. The result incriminated Communist cadres who still had a career as police chiefs after 1989. The supervisor for the inquiry, Dan Voinea, had led the prosecution at Ceauşescu's trial of 1989 (which ended with the Communist leader's execution). Voinea was replaced by Romania's Prosecutor-General soon after the results of his investigations became known. Andrei Ursu, who cited information presented by journalist Petre Mihai Băcanu, indicated that the Serviciul Român de Informaţii
(SRI, Romanian Information Service) was keeping Prosecutor Voinea under close surveillance prior to his reassignment.
Suspicion rose that the post-1989 officials
were helping organize a cover-up
, in order to protect former Communist structures whose support it needed. Political scientist Stejărel Olaru singled out the SRI as an obstacle in Voinea's way, arguing that this was owed to the survival of Securitate structures within its framework, and accusing the service of hampering access to the archives. In June 1996, Horia Andrei Ursu addressed an open letter
to Romanian President Ion Iliescu
, asking him to appoint an objective and willing prosecutor in the case. He continued to object to the case's handling after Iliescu was succeeded by Emil Constantinescu
, and, in November 2000, entered a hunger strike
protesting against the delays. Writing in 1998, historian Vladimir Tismăneanu
argued that the Ursu case tested "the very notion of a state of law and the trustworthiness of post-communist justice". He defined Voinea's replacement as "an obedient clerk who did his best to procrastinate." Gheorghe Ursu's cause was taken up by the prominent civil society
forum, the Group for Social Dialog
(GDS), who publicized the case and established the Gheorghe Ursu Foundation in his memory.
In July 2003, former police
colonels Tudor Stănică and Mihail Creangă were sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment each for having instigated the murder of Gheorghe Ursu. The two were found guilty of deliberately assigning Ursu to a cell where two recidivist and violent common criminals were serving time, and of having prevented their subordinates from intervening when the prisoner was being beaten. Three years earlier, Ursu's cell mate Marian Clită
had declared his full responsibility for the murder, and had been sentenced to 20 years in prison (eventually commuted to eight years, of which he served two). Clită's move was seen by Olaru as an attempt to cover up for the officials later sentenced. Stănică and Creangă went into hiding for several months, and turned themselves in only after the Supreme Court reduced their sentences by one year. Their temporary flight and the Supreme Court's decision caused some consternation abroad: in September 2003, Finnish
MEP
Astrid Thors
asked foreign embassies in Bucharest to closely monitor the case.
Outside of the indictments related to the Revolution and pronounced in early 1990, the Ursu trial was the only case in which former Romanian officials were held accountable for a murder committed while in office. Stănică was released in 2004, after it was ruled that he had significant health problems.
In October 2001, SRI, in a press release, announced the existence of 50,000 manuscript pages confiscated before 1989. Among these were 811 pages of Ursu's diary. Ursu's son Andrei is trying to find the diary pages in the archives of the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archives (CNSAS)—in the early 1990s, some of the texts were released by the SRI to be reviewed by GDS president Gabriela Adameşteanu
, who published an excerpt of the diary in Revista 22
, and who subsequently returned them. The manuscript remains lost. In December 2005, Eugen Grigorescu, by then an SRI general, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for the disappearance of Ursu's diary. Andrei Ursu also accuses high-ranking officials of having been implicated and never tried for hiding evidence of his father's death—among them Securitate General Iulian Vlad and former Minister of the Interior George Homoştean.
, who was an acquaintance of Ursu, repeatedly claimed that the latter had actually been an important collaborator of the Communist regime, whose conflict with the authorities came as a result of personal dissatisfaction. Additional claims he made depicted Ursu as a Securitate operative. Such comments rose controversy, especially after writer and theologian Cristian Bădiliţă
decided to include them in his 2006 book Tentaţia mizantropiei ("The Temptation of Misanthropy"). Both Bădiliţă and the publisher, Polirom
, apologized for the unverified information, and pledged that it would be stricken out of newer editions. Speaking during the same year, Ursu's son argued that Barbă Neagră's accusations were in effect marked by a conflict of ideas between his father and the filmmaker. He opined that Gheorghe Ursu had opposed "fundamentalist
Orthodoxism
and any other form of mysticism
", an attitude which Barbă Neagră allegedly did not approve of. Mircea Săucan also expressed disappointment in relation to Paul Barbă Neagră's allegations, and argued that they were equivalent to "a second killing" of Gheorghe Ursu.
In summer 2007, in an interview with Cotidianul
newspaper, Tudor Stănică alleged that Gheorghe Ursu was in fact a Securitate informant, whose mission involved reporting on the exiled dissidents and their activities. Both he and Creangă had previously taken this stand during their trial. Their claim was dismissed by the CNSAS, who noted that it contradicted available data (and in particular the fact that Ursu's alleged patrons had eventually banned him from leaving Communist Romania). Germina Nagit, chair of the CNSAS' Investigation Directorate, stressed that "the notion that anybody going abroad was an informant is a legend." Ursu did in fact author informative notes on the people he contacted abroad, which were subsequently made available to the press, but the CNSAS indicated the Securitate had required such information from any person allowed to travel outside Communist Romania. Upon reviewing the notes, journalists at Cotidianul concluded that the information they provided was mostly trivial, and that Ursu made efforts not to disclose any detail of the conversations he had with his friends.
Gheorghe Ursu's book of travel writings, originally censored
by the Securitate, was first published in 1991, as Europa mea ("My Europe"). In 2006-2007, Chimet published two volumes of the correspondence between him, Ursu and Camil Baciu, under the title Cartea prietenilor mei ("My Friends' Book"). Ursu's life was the subject of a 2007 film, Babu - Cazul Gheorghe Ursu ("Babu - The Gheorghe Ursu Case"). Directed by Cornel Mihalache and featuring recordings of Ursu's voice, it premiered in Sibiu
during the events marking the city's selection as the year's European Capital of Culture
.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n construction engineer, poet, diarist and dissident. A left-wing activist and avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
intellectual who joined the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
as a youth, he was soon after disillusioned with the Communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, and became one of its most outspoken critics. For most of his life, Gheorghe Ursu was active in cultural circles, and maintained contacts with literary and artistic figures.
Ursu publicly denounced the policies of Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
, and was kept under surveillance by the country's secret police—the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
. A journal in which he recorded his thoughts and opinions was the subject of a denunciation, which eventually led to his arrest. He was beaten to death soon after, while in the custody of the Securitate.
Ursu's death was a matter of international scandal and, after the Romanian Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
, the subject of an inquiry initially headed by prosecutor Dan Voinea. Much controversy arose over the new authorities' alleged procrastination, before two former officers were sentenced for his murder. A third one was jailed for confiscating his diary, most of which remains lost.
Early life and left-wing activism
Ursu was born in the BessarabiaBessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
n city of Soroca
Soroca
Soroca is a Moldovan city situated on the Nistru river about 160 km north of Chişinău. It is the administrative center of Soroca District.- History :The city has its origin in the medieval Genoese trade post of Olchionia, or Alchona...
, now in Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
. His parents, both surgeons, were Vasile Ursu (of Galaţi
Galati
Galați is a city and municipality in Romania, the capital of Galați County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, in the close vicinity of Brăila, Galați is the largest port and sea port on the Danube River and the second largest Romanian port....
) and Margareta (of Măgura Ilvei, Năsăud
Bistrita-Nasaud County
Bistrița-Năsăud is a county of Romania, in Transylvania, with the capital city at Bistrița.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 311,657 and the population density was 58/km².*Romanians – 90.3%*Hungarians – 5.9%*Roma – 3.6%...
). He had a sister, Georgeta (married Berdan). Gheorghe attended primary school in Soroca from 1932 to 1936, and high school there until 1941, when his family moved to Galaţi. He continued his studies at Vasile Alecsandri National College, Galaţi, where he graduated in 1945. His maternal grandparents, along with ten other family members (who were Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania is a region of Transylvania, situated within the territory of Romania. The population is largely composed of both ethnic Romanians and Hungarians, and the region has been part of Romania since 1918 . During World War II, as a consequence of the territorial agreement known as...
n Jews
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
) were killed at Auschwitz. Ursu and his wife Sorana had a daughter, Olga (m. Ştefan) and a son, Horia Andrei.
Ursu was a person noted for his left-wing convictions. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, while Romania was allied to the Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
(see Romania during World War II
Romania during World War II
Following the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the Kingdom of Romania officially adopted a position of neutrality. However, the rapidly changing situation in Europe during 1940, as well as domestic political upheaval, undermined this stance. Fascist political forces such as the Iron...
), he was involved in antifascist
Anti-fascism
Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...
activism, as one in a group which also comprised future essayist Iordan Chimet
Iordan Chimet
Iordan Chimet was a Romanian poet, children's writer and essayist, whose work was inspired by Surrealism and Onirism. He is also known as a memoirist, theater, art and film critic, book publisher and translator...
and future science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer Camil Baciu. In parallel, the group cultivated avant-garde literature, and was interested in Surrealists
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
such as Gherasim Luca
Gherasim Luca
Gherasim Luca was a Surrealist theorist and Romanian poet. He is frequently cited in the works of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.- Biography :...
, Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement...
and Gellu Naum
Gellu Naum
Gellu Naum was a prominent Romanian poet, dramatist, novelist, children's writer, and translator. He is remembered as the founder of the Romanian Surrealist group...
. According to Ursu's son, both his father and Baciu gravitated toward communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, while Chimet maintained a moderate leftist position, being more suspicious of Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
policies and alarmed by the Soviet occupation of Romania
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
. Like his father Vasile Ursu and his friend Baciu, the young intellectual imagined communism along Utopian
Utopian socialism
Utopian socialism is a term used to define the first currents of modern socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen which inspired Karl Marx and other early socialists and were looked on favorably...
lines.
Gheorghe Ursu joined the Union of Communist Youth
Union of Communist Youth
The Union of Communist Youth was the Romanian Communist Party's youth organisation, modelled after the Soviet Komsomol. It aimed to cultivate young cadres into the party, as well as to help create the "new man" envisioned by communist ideologues.-History:Founded in 1922, the UTC went underground...
in 1944, and became one of its secretaries. From 1945 to 1950, he was a civil engineering
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
student at the University Politehnica of Bucharest, joining the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
during this time and, together with future physician and historian of medicine G. Brătescu, editing the pro-communist student magazine Studentul Român. Growing disillusioned with the communist doctrine after 1949, he was repeatedly sanctioned for disobedience and ultimately expelled from the party in 1950.
Dissidence
It was during his university years that Ursu began keeping a diary, in which he expressed strong criticism of the Communist regime. When Ursu stopped writing, the manuscript comprised 61 notebooks, covering a period of 40 years. From 1950 to 1985 he worked at the BucharestBucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
-based Institute for the Study and Design of Communal Households. He personally designed a large number of lodgings (according to his own estimate, by 1977, 30,000 to 40,000 people were housed in buildings he had planned). The Ursu family moved into the newly-developed area of Drumul Taberei
Drumul Taberei
Drumul Taberei is a neighbourhood located in the south-west of Bucharest, Romania, roughly between Timişoara Avenue and Ghencea Avenue, neighboring Militari to the North, Panduri to the East and Ghencea and Rahova to the South and South-East.It is one of the few examples of successful urban...
.
In 1970, Editura Litera published a volume of his poetry, Mereu Doi ("Always Two"), with a preface by the poet Nina Cassian
Nina Cassian
Nina Cassian is a Romanian poet, composer, journalist and film critic.. , The Independent She is noted for her translating abilities, and has rendered into Romanian the works of William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Christian Morgenstern, Yiannis Ritsos, and Paul Celan...
. In addition to this, he wrote but never published satirical poems targeting Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
's leadership of the country. Reportedly, he deliberately never took the precaution of keeping these hidden, which brought him to the attention of Securitate operatives. Some of his writings ridiculed Communist and nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
figures associated with Săptămâna magazine (among them Eugen Barbu
Eugen Barbu
Eugen Barbu was a Romanian modern novelist, short story writer, journalist, and correspondent member of the Romanian Academy. The latter position was vehemently criticized by those who contended that he plagiarized in his novel Incognito and for the anti-Semitic campaigns he initiated in the...
, Corneliu Vadim Tudor
Corneliu Vadim Tudor
Corneliu Vadim Tudor is leader of the Greater Romania Party , writer, journalist and a Member of the European Parliament...
and Dan Ciachir). During the period, he was close to the filmmaker Mircea Săucan, the composer Anatol Vieru
Anatol Vieru
Anatol Vieru was a music theoretician, influential pedagogue, and a leading Romanian-Jewish composer of the 20th century. A pupil of Aram Khachaturian, he composed seven symphonies, eight string quartets, numerous concertos, and much chamber music. He also wrote three operas: Iona , Praznicul...
, and the important writers Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu was a Romanian prose writer, novelist, poet, and philosopher.Stancu was born in 1902 in Salcia, a village in Teleorman County, Romania. After leaving school at the age of thirteen he worked at various jobs. In 1921, with the help of Gala Galaction, he became a journalist...
and Geo Bogza
Geo Bogza
Geo Bogza was a Romanian avant-garde theorist, poet, and journalist, known for his left-wing and communist political convictions. As a young man in the interwar period, he was known as a rebel and was one of the most influential Romanian Surrealists...
(a former Communist who was by then a critic of the regime).
He was placed under surveillance during the 1960s, when he first traveled beyond the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
, where he met with prominent anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
intellectuals such as Virgil Ierunca
Virgil Ierunca
Virgil Ierunca was a Romanian literary critic, journalist and poet...
and Monica Lovinescu
Monica Lovinescu
Monica Lovinescu was a Romanian essayist, short story writer, literary critic, translator, and journalist, noted for her activities as an opponent of the Romanian Communist regime. She published several works under the pseudonyms Monique Saint-Come and Claude Pascal. She is the daughter of...
. However, the most important stage of his conflict with the authorities came immediately after the major earthquake of 1977
1977 Bucharest Earthquake
The 1977 Vrancea Earthquake occurred on Friday, 4 March 1977, 21:20 local time and was felt throughout the Balkans. It had a magnitude of 7.2 with an epicenter in Vrancea at a depth of ....
. It was then that, as an engineer, he sent a letter to the West German
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
-based Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
, protesting against Romanian construction policies. The piece was read by Ierunca over four successive broadcasts. Earlier in 1977, Ursu had been one in a commission tasked with consolidating Bucharest's oldest tall structures. At the time, he had witnessed and recorded a meeting of the commission, attended and supervised by Ceauşescu, during which the dictator ordered all consolidation works to cease, claiming that they caused panic and could not hope to repair structural faults. In his rendition of the meeting, Ceauşescu is quoted proposing instead for solutions involving "concrete and chemical substances" to be tried out. Ursu refused to sign the motion endorsing the new guidelines, which caused a minor scandal. In 1984, he wrote that the meeting had convinced him that Romania's leader was "paranoid
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
".
According to Andrei Ursu, at a later stage his father also considering drafting a protest document which he intended to read inside the Great National Assembly
Great National Assembly
The Great National Assembly was the legislature of the Romanian People's Republic and the Socialist Republic Romania. When Communism was overthrown in Romania in December 1989, the National Assembly was replaced by a bicameral parliament, made up of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.The Great...
, Communist Romania's formal legislative branch. He continued to travel abroad, visiting various European countries until 1980, when he was no longer given the needed Securitate permission. Ursu was also prevented from publishing his account of the travels. His various writings of the time show that he was conducting his trips while on a very tight budget, and that he occasionally had to rely on the good will of Romanian exiles and distant relatives. His daughter Olga settled in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and her subsequent correspondence with her father was itself a venue for criticism of the regime.
He caused the Communist authorities further irritation after sending numerous protest letters to the Communist Party organ Scînteia
Scînteia
Scînteia was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history...
and to the magazine Săptămâna, denouncing the leadership for using or condoning opportunism, demagogy
Demagogy
Demagogy or demagoguery is a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears, vanities and expectations of the public—typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes...
, and antisemitism. In one other case, he sent a letter to the Ministry of the Interior, demanding to know why citizens were required to wear a suit and tie when photographed for their identity document
Identity document
An identity document is any document which may be used to verify aspects of a person's personal identity. If issued in the form of a small, mostly standard-sized card, it is usually called an identity card...
s, and stating that it was their right not to.
Denunciation, interrogation and death
In 1984, two female subordinates denounced Ursu to the Securitate for his diary. On orders from General Eugen Grigorescu, his home and office were searched and the notebooks seized, along with some other manuscripts. Interrogations and an investigation followed, with the Securitate aiming to depict him as the head of an anti-government conspiracy. Ursu was allowed some freedom of movement, and took a final vacation to 2 Mai2 Mai
2 Mai is a village in Limanu commune, Constanţa County, Romania, and a small resort on the shore of the Black Sea, between Mangalia and Vama Veche....
, on the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
coast, where he met with Cassian and G. Brătescu. Brătescu recounted that, during the trip, Ursu was avoiding discussions, and that he discreetly confessed fearing that the Securitate was using his notes to organize a round-up of his friends.
He was arrested on September 21, 1985, accused of hiding foreign currency; the equivalent of 16 US dollars
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
(or 17 lei
Romanian leu
The leu is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 bani . The name of the currency means "lion". On 1 July 2005, Romania underwent a currency reform, switching from the previous leu to a new leu . 1 RON is equal to 10,000 ROL...
at the official exchange rate for the period) in various denominations was found in his house. His son was also subject to interrogations. After Ursu's diary was confiscated, Cassian, who was visiting the United States, chose not to return to Romania.
On November 17, after being beaten for weeks on end at the Militia
Romanian Police
The Romanian Police is the national police force and main civil law enforcement agency in Romania. It is subordinated to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform.-Duties:The Romanian Police are responsible for:...
quarters on Calea Rahovei in Bucharest, he was transported to the Jilava
Jilava
Jilava is a commune in Ilfov county, Romania, near Bucharest. It is composed of a single village, Jilava.The name derives from a Romanian word of Slavic origin meaning "humid place". Jilava was the location of a fort built by King Carol I of Romania, as part of the capital's defense system...
jail hospital, where he died of peritonitis
Peritonitis
Peritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum, the serous membrane that lines part of the abdominal cavity and viscera. Peritonitis may be localised or generalised, and may result from infection or from a non-infectious process.-Abdominal pain and tenderness:The main manifestations of...
later in the day. His body was handed down to the family, and, after a funeral service, cremated. Several intellectual figures, including Chimet and philosopher Sorin Vieru, attended the ceremony in defiance of continued Securitate surveillance. Also present were G. Brătescu and theater critic Radu Albala, the latter of whom, doubting the official account, mentioned the possibility that Ursu had been killed by an inmate.
Various believe that the repeated beatings were caused by Gheorghe Ursu's refusal to incriminate other literary figures,—in support of this notion, Andrei Ursu quotes his father's Securitate file, which investigated in part "close links with certain writers who, due to their hostile beliefs, are kept under watch by Securitate organs". Authors cited in this context include Bogza, Chimet, Cassian and Albala.
Legal case and lost diary
Gheorghe Ursu's death, alongside the persecution of Gheorghe Calciu-DumitreasaGheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa
Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa was a Romanian priest and dissident. He served 21 years in prison during the Communist regime. He was first imprisoned in 1948, but his 1978 imprisonment he claimed was harsher. He had criticized Nicolae Ceauşescu's repressions and became seen as an "enemy of the state"....
, contributed to an international scandal, and, as a direct result of these cases, the United States withdrew Romania's "most favoured nation
Most favoured nation
In international economic relations and international politics, most favoured nation is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade. The term means the country which is the recipient of this treatment must, nominally, receive equal trade advantages as the...
" status. His killing also outraged members of the intellectual elite. Bogza would thus write: "One could not say of Gheorghe Ursu that which poets generally like to be said about them: that they are great poets. Killing such a person is equivalent to killing the King of Butterflies. It would be appropriate for the whole Romanian culture to stand up and salute Gheorghe Ursu's memory." Brătescu recalled: "Gheorghe Ursu's drama helped me to better understand what world we live in." In her assessment of Ursu's conflict with the regime, University of Ottawa
University of Ottawa
The University of Ottawa is a bilingual, research-intensive, non-denominational, international university in Ottawa, Ontario. It is one of the oldest universities in Canada. It was originally established as the College of Bytown in 1848 by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate...
professor Gabriela Blebea Nicolae concluded: "Gheorghe Ursu counts as one of the «martyrs» who make moral values triumph. The lives of all these persons form a bridge supporting the moral values that risk being engulfed by the murky waters of an aberrant political regime of the kind Romanian communism was throughout its history."
In March 1990, after the Romanian Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
toppled Ceauşescu, an inquiry was opened on the circumstances of his death, after a request was filed by Ursu's sister Georgeta Berdan. It found that Ursu died as a result of injury to the abdomen, caused by the many blows he received. The result incriminated Communist cadres who still had a career as police chiefs after 1989. The supervisor for the inquiry, Dan Voinea, had led the prosecution at Ceauşescu's trial of 1989 (which ended with the Communist leader's execution). Voinea was replaced by Romania's Prosecutor-General soon after the results of his investigations became known. Andrei Ursu, who cited information presented by journalist Petre Mihai Băcanu, indicated that the Serviciul Român de Informaţii
Serviciul Român de Informatii
The Romanian Intelligence Service is the Romanian domestic intelligence service. It is considered the descendant of the former Departamentul Securităţii Statului , of the Socialist Republic of Romania. The official decree The Romanian Intelligence Service (', SRI) is the Romanian domestic...
(SRI, Romanian Information Service) was keeping Prosecutor Voinea under close surveillance prior to his reassignment.
Suspicion rose that the post-1989 officials
History of Romania since 1989
- 1989 revolution :1989 marked the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. A mid-December protest in Timişoara against the eviction of a Hungarian minister grew into a country-wide protest against the Ceauşescu régime, sweeping the dictator from power....
were helping organize a cover-up
Cover-up
A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information...
, in order to protect former Communist structures whose support it needed. Political scientist Stejărel Olaru singled out the SRI as an obstacle in Voinea's way, arguing that this was owed to the survival of Securitate structures within its framework, and accusing the service of hampering access to the archives. In June 1996, Horia Andrei Ursu addressed an open letter
Open letter
An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally....
to Romanian President Ion Iliescu
Ion Iliescu
Ion Iliescu served as President of Romania from 1990 until 1996, and from 2000 until 2004. From 1996 to 2000 and from 2004 until his retirement in 2008, Iliescu was a Senator for the Social Democratic Party , whose honorary president he remains....
, asking him to appoint an objective and willing prosecutor in the case. He continued to object to the case's handling after Iliescu was succeeded by Emil Constantinescu
Emil Constantinescu
Emil Constantinescu was President of Romania from 1996 to 2000.He graduated from the law school of the University of Bucharest, and subsequently started a career as a geologist...
, and, in November 2000, entered a hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
protesting against the delays. Writing in 1998, historian Vladimir Tismăneanu
Vladimir Tismaneanu
Vladimir Tismăneanu is a Romanian and American political scientist, political analyst, sociologist, and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park...
argued that the Ursu case tested "the very notion of a state of law and the trustworthiness of post-communist justice". He defined Voinea's replacement as "an obedient clerk who did his best to procrastinate." Gheorghe Ursu's cause was taken up by the prominent civil society
Civil society
Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...
forum, the Group for Social Dialog
Group for Social Dialogue
The Group for Social Dialogue is a Romanian non-governmental organization whose stated mission is to protect and promote democracy, human rights and civil liberties...
(GDS), who publicized the case and established the Gheorghe Ursu Foundation in his memory.
In July 2003, former police
Romanian Police
The Romanian Police is the national police force and main civil law enforcement agency in Romania. It is subordinated to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform.-Duties:The Romanian Police are responsible for:...
colonels Tudor Stănică and Mihail Creangă were sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment each for having instigated the murder of Gheorghe Ursu. The two were found guilty of deliberately assigning Ursu to a cell where two recidivist and violent common criminals were serving time, and of having prevented their subordinates from intervening when the prisoner was being beaten. Three years earlier, Ursu's cell mate Marian Clită
Marian Clită
Marian Clită is a Romanian convicted of first degree murder.-Conviction for murder of dissident Gheorghe Ursu:In the late 1990s, Gheorghe Ursu's cell mate Marian Clită had declared his full responsibility for the murder of the dissident, and had been sentenced to 20 years in prison .In July 2003,...
had declared his full responsibility for the murder, and had been sentenced to 20 years in prison (eventually commuted to eight years, of which he served two). Clită's move was seen by Olaru as an attempt to cover up for the officials later sentenced. Stănică and Creangă went into hiding for several months, and turned themselves in only after the Supreme Court reduced their sentences by one year. Their temporary flight and the Supreme Court's decision caused some consternation abroad: in September 2003, Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
MEP
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...
Astrid Thors
Astrid Thors
Astrid Thors is a Finland-Swedish politician of the Swedish People's Party. Thors is a Candidate of Law and had several white-collar high-position jobs before being elected into the European Parliament. She served there between 1996 and 2004. She was elected into the Parliament of Finland in 2003...
asked foreign embassies in Bucharest to closely monitor the case.
Outside of the indictments related to the Revolution and pronounced in early 1990, the Ursu trial was the only case in which former Romanian officials were held accountable for a murder committed while in office. Stănică was released in 2004, after it was ruled that he had significant health problems.
In October 2001, SRI, in a press release, announced the existence of 50,000 manuscript pages confiscated before 1989. Among these were 811 pages of Ursu's diary. Ursu's son Andrei is trying to find the diary pages in the archives of the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archives (CNSAS)—in the early 1990s, some of the texts were released by the SRI to be reviewed by GDS president Gabriela Adameşteanu
Gabriela Adamesteanu
Gabriela Adameșteanu is a Romanian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, and translator. The author of the celebrated novels The Equal Way of Every Day and Wasted Morning , she is also known as an activist in support of civil society and member of the Group for Social Dialogue , as...
, who published an excerpt of the diary in Revista 22
Revista 22
Revista 22 is a Romanian weekly magazine, issued by the Group for Social Dialogue and focused mainly on politics and culture....
, and who subsequently returned them. The manuscript remains lost. In December 2005, Eugen Grigorescu, by then an SRI general, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for the disappearance of Ursu's diary. Andrei Ursu also accuses high-ranking officials of having been implicated and never tried for hiding evidence of his father's death—among them Securitate General Iulian Vlad and former Minister of the Interior George Homoştean.
Other issues
Romanian film director Paul Barbă NeagrăPaul Barba Neagra
Paul Barbă Neagră or Barbăneagră was a Romanian film director and essayist who, starting in 1957, has directed short and medium-length documentaries on topics related to culture and the arts...
, who was an acquaintance of Ursu, repeatedly claimed that the latter had actually been an important collaborator of the Communist regime, whose conflict with the authorities came as a result of personal dissatisfaction. Additional claims he made depicted Ursu as a Securitate operative. Such comments rose controversy, especially after writer and theologian Cristian Bădiliţă
Cristian Bădiliță
Cristian Bădiliță is a theologian, essayist, translator and contemporary Romanian poet.-Biography:Born in Săveni, Romania where he lived until the age of 14. He settled afterwards in Botoșani, where he studied at the "August Treboniu Laurian" high school. His debut was in 1982 when he published...
decided to include them in his 2006 book Tentaţia mizantropiei ("The Temptation of Misanthropy"). Both Bădiliţă and the publisher, Polirom
Polirom
Polirom or Editura Polirom is a Romanian publishing house with a tradition of publishing classics of international literature and also various titles in the fields of social sciences, such as psychology, sociology and anthropology. The company was founded in February 1995. The first title...
, apologized for the unverified information, and pledged that it would be stricken out of newer editions. Speaking during the same year, Ursu's son argued that Barbă Neagră's accusations were in effect marked by a conflict of ideas between his father and the filmmaker. He opined that Gheorghe Ursu had opposed "fundamentalist
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
Orthodoxism
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
and any other form of mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
", an attitude which Barbă Neagră allegedly did not approve of. Mircea Săucan also expressed disappointment in relation to Paul Barbă Neagră's allegations, and argued that they were equivalent to "a second killing" of Gheorghe Ursu.
In summer 2007, in an interview with Cotidianul
Cotidianul
thumb|right|Old logo of Cotidianul newspaper, used in the [[inter-war period]], and in the early 1990sthumb|right|The logo used between 2003 and 2007...
newspaper, Tudor Stănică alleged that Gheorghe Ursu was in fact a Securitate informant, whose mission involved reporting on the exiled dissidents and their activities. Both he and Creangă had previously taken this stand during their trial. Their claim was dismissed by the CNSAS, who noted that it contradicted available data (and in particular the fact that Ursu's alleged patrons had eventually banned him from leaving Communist Romania). Germina Nagit, chair of the CNSAS' Investigation Directorate, stressed that "the notion that anybody going abroad was an informant is a legend." Ursu did in fact author informative notes on the people he contacted abroad, which were subsequently made available to the press, but the CNSAS indicated the Securitate had required such information from any person allowed to travel outside Communist Romania. Upon reviewing the notes, journalists at Cotidianul concluded that the information they provided was mostly trivial, and that Ursu made efforts not to disclose any detail of the conversations he had with his friends.
Gheorghe Ursu's book of travel writings, originally censored
Censorship in Communist Romania
Censorship in Communist Romania was widespread and virtually every published document, be it a newspaper article or a book, had to pass the censor's approval...
by the Securitate, was first published in 1991, as Europa mea ("My Europe"). In 2006-2007, Chimet published two volumes of the correspondence between him, Ursu and Camil Baciu, under the title Cartea prietenilor mei ("My Friends' Book"). Ursu's life was the subject of a 2007 film, Babu - Cazul Gheorghe Ursu ("Babu - The Gheorghe Ursu Case"). Directed by Cornel Mihalache and featuring recordings of Ursu's voice, it premiered in Sibiu
Sibiu
Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...
during the events marking the city's selection as the year's European Capital of Culture
European Capital of Culture
The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by theEuropean Union for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong European dimension....
.