Elena Ceausescu
Born in 1916, died in 1989. The wife of Nicolae Ceauşescu, the Romanian dictator; deputy prime minister; member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences.
The final request of Nicolae Ceauşescu to his executioners was that he wanted to die side by side with his wife Elena. As a true revolutionary, he died shouting: “Long live the free and independent Romanian Socialist Republic!” Ceauşescus were fanatics, who never understood that they had done anything wrong. They believed sincerely that by building socialism they had brought prosperity to Romania.
Who was Elena Ceauşescu? Elena was perhaps even more fiercely hated than her husband Nicolae. People associated with her name the radical ban on abortions, a law drafted in 1966 to raise the birth rate. The policy resulted in the death of about 10 000 women, more than 100 000 children grew up in orphanages. The death rate of babies was so high that the authorities only registered a newborn if it had survived its fourth week! The misery of Romanian women is well captured in a much-acclaimed film “4 months, three weeks, 2 days” (Romania, 2007).
Elena was tremendously ambitious. Although Elena only had finished three grades, her influence secured her a doctorate in sciences and she let herself be called "the first scientist of the Romanian people". Works bearing her name were translated into dozens of languages. On state visits she always asked to be declared an honorary doctor of the host country’s university.
After an official visit to Argentina in 1974 as a guest of Juan Perón, her political ambitions also caught the wind. She envied Isabel, the wife of Perón, who would become the President after her husband’s death. “If the whore of Caracas [in reality, Isabel had worked as a night club dancer] can do it, why not me, a woman of science?” said Elena. In the 1980s, she was, indeed, regarded as her husband’s political heir.
Elena’s end was miserable. She was not even permitted a fair trial. She was allowed to die at her husband’s side on 25 December 1989, but her body was thrown into a nameless grave and the two mounds, later designated with the Ceauşescus’ names, were separated by a footpath.
- Estonian SSR
- Latvian SSR
- Lithuanian SSR
- Russian SSR
- Byelorussian SSR
- Ukrainian SSR
- People´s Republic of Poland
- German Democratic Republic
- Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
- People's Republic of Hungary
- Socialist Republic of Romania
- Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
- The Moldavian SSR
- The People´s Republic of Bulgaria