Raul-Victor Surdu-Soreanu (July 11, 1947 - April 7, 2011) was a Romania

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 politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 who served as the country's first post-Communist Minister of Agriculture

Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Romania)

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Romania is one of the nineteen ministries of the Government of Romania.The current Minister is Valeriu Tabără. The first post-Communist Minister of Agriculture was Victor Surdu....

 following the 1989 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...

. He was a member of the Social Democratic Party

Social Democratic Party (Romania)

The Social Democratic Party is the major social-democratic political party in Romania. It was formed in 1992, after the post-communist National Salvation Front broke apart. It adopted its present name after a merger with a minor social-democratic party in 2001. Since its formation, it has always...

 (PSD).

Surdu was born in Iaşi

Iasi

Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...

. He worked as a manager for Romania's collective farm system during the Communist era, and then joined the National Salvation Front (FSN), which took power after the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu

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...

.

Surdu served as Minister of Agriculture from 1989 to 1990. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies

Chamber of Deputies of Romania

The Chamber of Deputies is the lower house in Romania's bicameral parliament. It has 315 seats, to which deputies are elected by direct popular vote on a proportional representation basis to serve four-year terms...

 for the Democratic Agrarian Party of Romania from 1990 to 1992, and for the Social Democratic Party from 2008 until his death. For a brief period in the mid-1990s, he left was deputy manager of Lukoil

LUKoil

Lukoil/LUKoil ; ) is Russia's second largest oil company and its second largest producer of oil. In 2009, the company produced 97.615 million tons of oil; ....

 of Romania.

Surdu died from pancreatic cancer in Bucharest

Bucharest

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....

 in 2011, at the age of 63. He was survived by his wife, singer Angela Similea, and three children.