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   Elena Ceausescu (1919 , Petresti, Romania - Executed, Targoviste, Romania,1989) Dictator’s spouse, member of the Romanian Communist Party Polit. Bureau, Wannabe Scientist Comrade: “To address someone by anything other than ‘comrade’ was always considered an insult by Elena. ‘Sir’ and ‘Monsieur” were the highest forms of insult”. (General Ion Pacepa, on Elena Ceausescu, “Red Horizons”, Heinemann, London 1988) Execution order: “You shoot them and throw them in the basement. Not a single one should come out alive.” (Elena Ceausescu, giving orders regarding the handling of the insurgents, from a Stenogramme of the meeting of the Political Executive Committee of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, 17th December 1989) Love making: “A fuzzy noise together with heavy breathing and short yelps came suddenly out of the speaker… ‘They should be arrested! At eleven in the morning, working people should be out working, not making love.” (Elena Ceausescu, on listening to a secret service tape, recorded in a home in Bucharest, quoted in Gen., Ion Pacepa’s “Red Horizons”, Heinemann, London 1988) Biography: Regarded to be the ‘power behind the throne”, Elena Ceausescu inspired both fear and derision. She was purportedly a ‘scientist’ and as such collected fake degrees in Romania and honorary degrees abroad. She is praised for her ‘scientific’ achievements by American Presidents and other heads of state and is elected a Doctor Honoris Causa of the Central London Polytechnic, now the University of Westminster. Elena Ceausescu became a full member of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party since 1972 and by the 1980’s she was second in command and heir presumptive to her husband. She was heaped with medals and decorations, including that of the “Hero of Socialist Labour”. Elena was the initiator of the policy of forced population growth and the related draconian rules against abortions and contraceptives. The anti-abortion law enforced for 23 years by Elena Ceausescu caused over 10,000 women to die as a result of abortions performed illegally under imadequate medical care. The negative effects of this policy is still felt in Romania a decade after Elena was shot together with her husband, in December 1989. Her portrait is best summed up in General Ion Pacepa’s book “The Red Horizons”. Elena Ceausescu’s sorry passage through Romania’s history is one best confined to ‘demonology’, alongside that of Ana Pauker, the Stalinist Minister who returned to Romania on the back of Russian tanks to terrorise the countryside through enforced collectivisation. Bibliography: Deletant, Dennis, “Romania under the Communist Régime”, Biblioteca Sighet, Published in Romanian by the Fundatia Academica Civica, Bucharest, 1997. Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa, “Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief” (Washington, DC, 1987). Catherine Lovatt, “Women in politics – the Legacy of Elena Ceausescu”, 1999 Behr, E, “Kiss the Hand you Cannot Bite”, Penguin, 1991 >> Back to TOP