Romania bids farewell to King Michael 1st
Romania is in mourning for the countrys late monarch, King Michael 1st, to whom his compatriots are now paying their respects.
Ştefan Stoica, 15.12.2017, 13:20
A Romanian historian has these days said the counterfeit history should be re-written, to completely wash away the propagandistic rubbish the communists made use of in order to stain the reputation of the monarchy and of the country’s former sovereign, King Michael 1st. In people’s souls, the history has already started to be re-written as thousands waited patiently in endless queues that lasted up to eight hours to pay their respects to King Michael I lying in state at the Royal Palace in Bucharest.
“King Michael led a life of sacrifice. He was forced to leave the country and was threatened with the killing of 1,000 young people unless he accepted to leave. Do you realize what that meant?”
“I’ve learnt what he was like quite late; I didn’t know that he was a kind, caring and deeply religious man…It would have been better if things had been different, you know…
“Unfortunately I’ve learnt about our king quite late, in the past few years. I have this regret of having known him too late in life. In school they taught us very little about him and not exactly in positive terms.”
“If I were to describe him in a few words, I would say he personifies decency something, I haven’t seen in any other political leader in our country.”
Decency, dignity, love and sense of duty, unaltered by ego or resentments, not even after the post-communist authorities had brutally denied his right to return to the country and pay his respects at the graves of his parents in the early 1990s. That was His Majesty King Michael I and these were the reasons that prompted Romanians to brave the endless queues late at night for a final and respectful farewell.
“I’ll stay here for as long as it takes with the huge regret that we missed another chance, by not honoring him enough while we still had him. So this is the least I can do, spend a couple of hours in the queue for the chance to pay my last respects. I want to do at least that.”
“I came here to pay my respects to His Majesty.”
The European civilization also owes a lot to King Michael who bravely stood his ground against the Nazi and the Bolsheviks. We recall that on August 23rd, 1944, the king arrested fascist dictator Ion Antonescu, the country’s de facto leader, denouncing his alliance with Nazi Germany. According to historians, the king’s move shortened the war by six months, sparing hundreds of thousands of lives. The king later tried to prevent the Sovietization of Romania but he failed to do so, due to the lack of international support.
On December 30th 1947, under the pressure of a Soviet-controlled puppet government, the king was forced to abdicate and go on a painful exile with his family, while Romania entered one of its most sinister periods, the communist era, which ended in a blood bath in December 1989. The king died after a brave life, which he led during a ruthless century. He will be buried in Curtea de Arges, in southern Romania, close to his wife, Queen Ana and his ancestors Carol 1st, Ferdinand and Carol 2nd.
