Excerpts :
Princess Marthe Bibesco
Ana Blandiana
Smaranda Braescu
Madelene “Madi” Cancicov
Nina Cassian
Elena Ceausescu
Ioana Celibidache
Queen Elisabeth of Romania
Princess Gregoire Ghica
Princess Ileana of Romania
Dora D’Istria
Monica Lovinescu
Ileana Malancioiu
Queen Marie of Romania
Dr. Agnes Kelly Murgoci
Mabel Nandris
Countess Anna de Noailles
Ana Novac
Oana Orlea
Ana Pauker
Marta Petreu
Elisabeta Rizea of Nucsoara
Sanda Stolojan
Leontina Vaduva
Anca Visdei
Sabina Wurmbrand
|
|
Oana Orlea
née Oana Cantacuzino, Exile living
in France, Political Prisoner, Writer, Exile, (b. 1936, Romania)
Prison Peep-hole:
“The eye of an evil God who hides his face and has absolute
power over the prisoner.” (“Les Anées volées
– dans le Goulag roumain a seize ans”, Seuil, 1991)
Resistance:
“The resistance in the (Carpathian) mountains was a dramatic
episode. I realise that I do not know what name to give it,
by what name to identify these men and women who died up there
under the bullets, or simply of cold and hunger. Such appellations
were found (for others): The resistance is French,” as
it fights the Germans, the partisans are Soviet, as they fight
the Germans. There are also the desperados and the mudjahidins,
but there is no word assigned to those who had fought, arm in
hand, against the Communists, in the countries of Eastern Europe,
occupied by the Soviet armies.” (“Les Anées
volées – dans le Goulag roumain a seize ans”,
Seuil, 1991)
Russians:
“The passion of the Russians for wrist watches was a classic:
it was funny to see them display several watches to their wrist,
or an alarm clock hanging round their neck.” (“Les
Anées volées”, Seuil, 1991)
Soviet female army officers:
“As to the females of the Soviet army, they discovered
in Romania the existence of such underwear as the chemisette
and the bra, which they were so proud of, that they would wear
it over their uniform, but nobody had the guts to laugh at such
things. When the first Romanian refugees who reached the West,
brought with them such images, they were accused of being CIA
agents.” (“Les Anées volées”,
Seuil, 1991)
Biography:
Author of several novels written in
Romanian and in French Oana Orlea lives in France since 1980.
A step grand daughter of Georges Enesco, whose wife, Princess
Cantacuzino was Oana’s paternal grandmother, Oana Cantacuzino
becomes in her youth the subject of a political horse trade.
Aged only 16 she is confined to the communists prisons, because
she distributed anti-communist pamphlets! Ironically, whilst
she expiates her sins in 13 of the most attrocious political
prisons of Romania, her step-grandfather, Georges Enesco, the
world-renowned musician, living in Paris, is invited by the
then Romanian president, Petre Groza to visit Romania. Enesco
declines the official invitation unless Oana is freed by the
regime.
The obduracy of youth causes Oana to outlive the dour years
of reprisals in the communist goulags to tell the story of her
“stolen youth” in a poignant biography published by
the Editions Seuil, in Paris. She writes under her married name
of Oana Orlea.
Bibliography:
Orlea, Oana, “Un Sosie en Cavale”,
Seuil, Paris, 1986
Orlea, Oana, “Les Anées volées – dans
le Goulag roumain a seize ans”, Seuil, 1991
Orlea, Oana, “Ia-ti boarfele si misca!”- Interview
with Mariana Marin, Editura Cartea Romaneasca, Bucharest,
1991
|
