Elena Ceausescu
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Elena Ceauşescu (IPA /e.'le.na ʧau.ˈʃes.ku/) (January 7 1916 - December 25, 1989) was the wife of Romania's Communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu and the Vice Prime Minister of Romania.
Background
She was born Elena Petrescu into a peasant family in the village Petreşti, Baloteşti Commune, Ilfov County, in the Wallachia region. Her family was supported by her father's job as a ploughman. Elena's education ended at the fourth grade and she moved along with her brother to Bucharest, where she worked as a laboratory assistant before getting a job at a textile factory. She joined the Communist Party of Romania in 1937 and met Nicolae Ceauşescu in 1939 and married him on the 23rd of December 1947. On their wedding day she forged her birth certificate (her birth year was changed from 1916 to 1919 in order to look younger than her husband Nicolae who was 2 years her junior) After the Communists took power she worked as a secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was an unimportant figure until her husband became general secretary of the party in 1965. In 1957 she was a research scientist at ICECHIM (National Institute for Chemical Research). By 1964 she became head of that Institute.Career
Under her husband's regime, she became a major Romanian political figure. Publicly, Ceauşescu said that it was an honor to be referred to as "comrade", but Romanian expatriates in the United States frequently referred to her as "Madame Ceauşescu" with great disdain. Her official title was "The Best Mother Romania Could Have." However, she was not particularly maternal, having been quoted as saying about her countrymen that "The worms never get satisfied, no matter how much food you give them." It is quite possible that Elena Ceauşescu was the most hated person in Romania during the 25-year reign of her husband.Although Elena Ceauşescu was of limited actual educational achievements (she was once thrown out of an adult education chemistry exam for cheating), she was given many awards for scientific achievement in the field of polymer chemistry during the period when her husband ruled Romania. (During the quick show trial that ended her life, she was accused by her interrogator, General Gica Popa, of having had her scientific papers written for her by someone else.) Among her many honors, she received an honorary doctorate at the University of Bologna. From July 1972 she was given various offices at senior levels in the Romanian Communist Party. In June 1973 she became a member of the Politbureau of the Romanian Communist Party becoming the second most important and influential person after Ceausescu himself. She was deeply involved in party administration alongside her husband. The Ceauşescus issued strict Public Relation rules for all elements of their persona, which were strictly followed. In 1974 she was made a member of the Romanian Academy. In 1980 she became vice-prime-minister of Romania.
Romanians hold Elena Ceauşescu responsible for the elimination of birth control that created crisis conditions during the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in a flood of unwanted infants, babies, and children that were housed in substandard state operated orphanages throughout the country. She also headed the State health commission, which denied the existence of AIDS in Romania, leading to one of the largest outbreaks (including pediatric cases) in the western world. She was also responsible for the destruction of churches and the food rationing that took place in Romania in the 1980s.
Fall from power
Elena Ceauşescu fled with her husband on the 22nd of December 1989, after the events in Timişoara led to the Romanian Revolution, but she and her husband were captured. At the farse-trial that took place , she refused to answer the questions asked and defied her interrogator's legitimacy, boldly proclaiming that they did not know who they were speaking to, and that they were using an insulting tone of voice. Elena Ceauşescu and her husband were executed on the afternoon of December 25, 1989, in Târgovişte. She was almost 74 years old. She was outlived by her almost 100-year old mother, her brother Gheroghe Petrescu (also an important figure in the party) and her three children: Valentin (b.1948), Zoia (b.1950)and Nicu (b. 1951 - d. 1996) who was also a very important member of the Romanian Communist Party.Publications
- Research work on synthesis and characterization of macromolecular compounds, Editura Academici Republicii Socialiste România, 1974
- Stereospecific Polymerization of Isoprene, 1982
- Nouvelles Recherches Dans Le Domaine Des Composes Macromoleculaire, 1984
- Dostizheniia v khimii i tekhnologii polimerov,1988
Bibliography
- John Sweeney. The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceausescu. 1991
See also
External links
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