Silviu Craciunas

Silviu Craciunas (in Romanian: Crăciunaș; 1914–1998) was a Romanian writer, best known for his 1961 book The Lost Footsteps. That is his account of his own imprisonment, alleged torture and persecution at the hands of Romanian Communists. The book was praised when it came out in the West in 1961, receiving positive reviews in The Economist and the Times Literary Supplement among others. However, it has been alleged that Craciunas had worked as an informant and a double agent in the pay of the Romanian Communist secret police, the Securitate, and that parts of his book were authored by the secret police for disinformation purposes. He lived the last years of his life in the United Kingdom.

Life Craciunas was born in Miluan in northwestern Romania, as the son of an Orthodox priest. He studied medicine and then law at Cluj University, receiving his doctorate in Law and Economics and Political Science in 1940. A former member of the fascist Iron Guard, after 1945 he supported the National Peasants' Party.

In 1948, he was arrested for having helped people flee Romania, and after reaching an agreement with the Securitate, it seems he was sent abroad posing as a refugee but really to act as an informant for the security forces.