Elena Ceaușescu

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Elena Ceaușescu

Elena Ceauşescu [ tʃau̯ˈʃesku ] (born January 7, 1916 in Petreşti as Lenuța Petrescu ; † December 25, 1989 in Târgovişte ) was a Romanian politician ( RKP ) and the wife of Nicolae Ceauşescu .

Life

Lenuța Petrescu came from a rural family in the Dâmbovița district. Her parents Nea and Alexandra Petrescu owned a small piece of land. She attended elementary school until 1930 and then moved to Bucharest . Here she began an apprenticeship in the “Lantex” textile factory, which she completed in 1936. During this time she came into contact with the trade union, youth and labor movements and joined the UTC in the Bucharest area as a young textile worker. In 1937 she became a member of the illegal Communist Party of Romania, in which she also met her future husband Nicolae Ceaușescu.

After his release from prison in 1945, she married Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1947. She changed her first name Lenuța (Eng. Lenchen) to Elena. In addition, her year of birth was subsequently moved from 1916 to 1919. The sons Valentin (* 1948) and Nicu (1951–1996) as well as the daughter Zoia (1949–2006) emerged from the marriage. Valentin is often referred to as an adopted son, but is a biological child, as proven by a DNA analysis.

In the early 1950s Elena Ceaușescu worked as a secretary in the Romanian Foreign Ministry. In addition, she studied after her official biography at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Industrial Chemistry. In 1957 she finished her studies. In the following years she was scientifically active in this institute and carried out basic research during this time. This mainly concerned the area of ​​synthesis of some new macromolecular compounds. The results of this work have been published in specialist publications and presented at congresses. Their allegedly self-developed achievements were later questioned. In 1964 she took over the function of director of the institute and shortly afterwards began her dissertation: "The stereospecific polymerization of isoprene", which was probably written by the chemists Osias Solomon and Radu Bordelanu. In 1967 she received the title of Dr. of macromolecular chemistry. From this point on, she gave up her work at UTC and devoted herself to coordinating the institute's scientific work as well as organizing the Romanian education and training system.

After her husband succeeded the late party leader of the Romanian Communist Party, Gheorghiu-Dej, from 1965, Elena Ceaușescu also intensified her activities in the area of ​​the political system in Romania. So from 1971 she held high positions within the Communist Party and in the Romanian government. In July 1972 she became a member of the Executive Committee of the RKP Central Committee. At the beginning of 1977 she rose to the highest governing body, the "Permanent Office", of the Executive Committee of the RKP. She was thus the only woman of a politician in the socialist camp who played such a prominent political role. She was also the chairman of the Romanian Academy of Sciences and was officially recognized in the country as a "scholar of world fame". Without actually having achieved a degree, she later carried a fake doctorate in technical chemistry ("Acad. Dr. Ing"). Several technical publications written by others on the subject of polymerization have been published under her alleged authorship. Around Elena Ceaușescu a personality cult that was weakened towards her husband was practiced. Her picture was emblazoned on porcelain plates, pictures and medals. She even asked the soldiers of the firing squad, who let the people celebrate her as the “loving mother of the nation”, whether they didn't know that she was their “mother” too.

Fall and execution

After a two-day trip to Iran , Nicolae Ceaușescu spoke to a crowd of 100,000 in central Bucharest on December 22, 1989. After the crowd began yelling at him, the Securitate opened fire, but the military under Defense Minister Vasile Milea refused to follow suit . On this day Milea was killed under circumstances that were long unexplained (a study from 2005 assumes a failed attempt at self-mutilation). The dictator couple left Bucharest in a helicopter that same day . With Milea's death, the army's neutral position became enmity. The Romanian Army and the Securitate fought street fighting in Bucharest, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people. An ad hoc "Council of the Front for National Salvation of Romania" took the further development in hand, which had already escalated enormously. The Ceauşescu couple were finally arrested in Târgovişte . Elena and Nicolae Ceaușescu were sentenced to death on December 25 by a special military tribunal in a quick trial . The implementation of this procedure was made possible by Nicolae Ceaușescu immediately before his arrest by establishing a state of emergency. On December 25, both were immediately shot dead . The exact location of the execution and the place of burial were not published at the time. As was unequivocally determined by an exhumation carried out on July 21, 2010 and the subsequent forensic examination, the bodies were the Ceaușescu couple. Her grave is in the Ghencea Cemetery in Bucharest.

Awards

literature

  • Elena Ceaușescu , in: "Internationales Biographisches Archiv" 07/1990 of February 5, 1990, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  • Diane Ducret: "Elena Ceaușescu: Luxury, Tranquility, Securitate" In: "The women of dictators" Ecowin February 2012 pages 251-268 ISBN 978-3711000200
  • Thomas Kunze : "Nicolae Ceaușescu", Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin, 2000, ISBN 978-3861532118
  • Antje Windgassen: “In league with power: The women of dictators” 2016, pages 110–123 ISBN 978-1530594191
  • Erich Schaake: "Sex and Power: The Women of Dictators" 2014, pages 45–67 ISBN 978-1499637076
  • Marx George (Coordinator), The Dictionary of Female Personalities of Romania, Meronia Bucharest Publishing House, 2009

Web links

Commons : Elena Ceaușescu  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Thomas Kunze: "Nicolae Ceaușescu - A Biography". Berlin 2000.
  2. ^ "Body of ex-dictator Ceausescu identified" on spiegel.de, accessed on November 3, 2010
  3. Ceaușescu Elena, Munzinger Archive, International Biographical Archive in: http://www.munzinger.de/document/00000015008
  4. ^ Mark Georg (Coordinator), The Dictionary of Female Personalities in Romania, Meronia-Verlag Bucharest, 2009
  5. Ceaușescu Elena, Munzinger-Archiv Volume 7, from February 5, 1990, Munzinger-Archiv GmbH Ravensburg in: http://www.munzinger.de/document/00000015008
  6. Ceaușescu Elena, Munzinger-Archiv Volume 7, from February 5, 1990, Munzinger-Archiv GmbH Ravensburg in: http://www.munzinger.de/document/00000015008