ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

THE NEW PROPHET. THE MAKING OF THE OFFICIALIMAGE OF ELENA CEAUŞESCU ∗SILVIU GABRIEL LOHONThe effigy of Elena Ceauşescu collects mythological values and itdenotes a subtile symbolic extraction. The official rhetors built for her a halobased on an archetipal structure, the most frequent one being the mother of allthe children of Romania and, in extenso, of the entire Romanian people. Agenuine mater universalis.In 1937, during a demonstration of the Worker’s Cultural Circle, theyoung Nicolae Ceauşescu met Lenuţa Petrescu. Thirty years later, ElenaCeauşescu was to become the woman who terrified Romania.She was born on January 7, 1916 in Petreşti, Dâmboviţa, in a peasantfamily. Elena Ceauşescu entered elementary school, but because of her lowmarks during the first three forms, she didn’t graduate the fourth form. She wentto Bucharest and started to work in a textile mill. After her numerous presencesto events organized by the Worker’s Cultural Circle, she affiliated to thecommunist movement. It is supposed that she was also a prostitute in Bucharest,but this gossip cannot be proved completely. As a member of the structurecommittee of the communist youth, the young woman was the organizer of the2 nd sector of the city of Bucharest under “Florina” conspirational nickname.Literature was one of the means that promoted and stimulated theelements of Elena Ceauşescu’s personality cult, much in the same way as plasticarts or the 80’s press did. The official poets built on her hazy, intricate andbrushed up past an idyllic love story, putting her own immaculate image alongthat of her husband’s. The poetic samples that follow are more than obvious:“Era o fată simplă ca miile de fete/care purtau în inimi o ţară şi-uninel/Venea cu jar sub gene, cu Dâmboviţa-n plete/şi c-un bujor în cuget, ilegalistşi el.//Simţea ca o chemare, sunând în vis sirena/şi-ntreaga ei putere vibra înpumnul stâng/Uitase că din leagăn i s-a tot spus Elena/ea se numea Florinaconspirativ, adânc.//C-o traistă cu merinde şi-n suflet cu lumină/atâtor nopţiarzânde, venea la Târgu-Jiu/În lagrul de-acolo avea de mult Florina/unlegendar logodnic – iar Patria un fiu.// […] Ea s-a numit Florina! Mai ţine ţara∗ I have avoided translating the lines because of their poor quality. On the one hand, thetranslation would not properly render their real meaning. On the other hand, their Romanianquality as poetry is so poor that an English translation might improve the lines and present a falseimage of the political and social background of that period.ARHIVELE OLTENIEI, Serie nouă, nr. 21, 2007, p. 111–116