Gheorghe Ursu

Gheorghe Emil Ursu (known to friends as Babu; July 1, 1926 – November 17, 1985) was a Romanian construction engineer, poet, diarist and dissident. A left-wing activist and avant-garde intellectual who joined the Romanian Communist Party as a youth, he was soon after disillusioned with the Communist regime, and became one of its critics. For most of his life, Gheorghe Ursu was active in cultural circles, and maintained contacts with literary and artistic figures.

Ursu anonymously denounced the policies of Nicolae Ceaușescu, and was kept under surveillance by the country's secret police—the Securitate. A journal in which he recorded his thoughts and opinions was the subject of a denunciation, which eventually led to his arrest. He was beaten to death by cell mates soon after, while in the custody of the Miliția.

Ursu's death was a matter of international scandal and, after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the subject of an inquiry initially headed by prosecutor . Much controversy arose over the new authorities' alleged procrastination, before two former officers were sentenced for instigating his murder. A third one was jailed for confiscating his diary, most of which remains lost.

Biography

Early life and left-wing activism Ursu was born in the Bessarabian city of Soroca, now in Moldova. His parents, both surgeons, were Vasile Ursu (of Galați) and Margareta (of Măgura Ilvei, Năsăud County). He had a sister, Georgeta (married Berdan). Gheorghe attended primary school in Soroca from 1932 to 1936, and high school there until 1941, when his family moved to Galați. He continued his studies at Vasile Alecsandri High School in Galați, where he graduated in 1945. His maternal grandparents, along with ten other family members (who were Northern Transylvanian Jews) were killed at Auschwitz. Ursu and his wife Sorana had a daughter, Olga (m. Ștefan) and a son, Horia Andrei.

Ursu was a person noted for his left-wing convictions. During World War II, while Romania was allied to the Axis powers (see Romania during World War II), he was involved in anti-fascist activism, as one in a group which also comprised future essayist Iordan Chimet and future science fiction writer Camil Baciu. Growing disillusioned with the communist doctrine after 1949,

Dissidence It was during his university years that Ursu began keeping a diary, in which he expressed strong criticism of the Communist regime. When Ursu stopped writing, the manuscript comprised 61 notebooks, covering a period of 40 years. From 1950 to 1985 he worked at the Bucharest-based Institute for the Study and Design of Communal Households. Reportedly, he deliberately never took the precaution of keeping these hidden, which brought him to the attention of Securitate operatives.

Ursu was placed under surveillance during the 1960s, when he first traveled beyond the Iron Curtain, where he met with prominent anti-communist intellectuals such as Virgil Ierunca and Monica Lovinescu. Ursu was allowed some freedom of movement: he took a vacation to 2 Mai, on the Black Sea coast, where he met with Cassian and G. Brătescu.

Ursu was arrested on September 21, 1985. The accusation was one of concealing foreign currency: the equivalent of $16 (US dollars) (17 lei at the contemporary official exchange rate) His son was also subject to interrogations. After Ursu's diary was confiscated, Cassian, who was visiting the United States, chose not to return to Romania.

Held at the Miliția quarters on Calea Rahovei in Bucharest, Ursu was subjected to repeated violent assaults. On November 17 he was transferred to the Jilava Prison hospital, where he died of peritonitis later that day. His body was released to the family and, after a funeral service, cremated. It found that Ursu died as a result of injury to the abdomen, caused by the many blows he received.

In July 2003, former police colonels Tudor Stănică and Mihail Creangă were sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment each for having instigated the murder of Gheorghe Ursu. Stănică was released in 2004, after it was ruled that he had significant health problems. Such comments rose controversy, especially after writer and theologian Cristian Bădiliță decided to include them in his 2006 book Tentația mizantropiei ("The Temptation of Misanthropy"). Both Bădiliță and the publisher, Polirom, apologized for the unverified information, and pledged that it would be stricken out of newer editions.

In summer 2007, in an interview with Cotidianul newspaper, Tudor Stănică alleged that Gheorghe Ursu was in fact a Securitate informant, whose mission involved reporting on the exiled dissidents and their activities. Ursu's life was the subject of a 2007 film, Babu - Cazul Gheorghe Ursu ("Babu - The Gheorghe Ursu Case"). Directed by Cornel Mihalache and featuring recordings of Ursu's voice, it premiered in Sibiu during the events marking the city's selection as the year's European Capital of Culture.