The
\ndate is March 2nd, 1989. A man who had set himself ablaze was skiing
\ndownhill along the Bradu ski slope in Poiana Brasov, and could be seen by
\nhundreds of tourists. He fell near a tree, reeking with smoke and yelling. With
\na final effort, the man took out a piece of cardboard from his burning coat,
\nreading Stop Murder. Brasov= Auschwitz. It was an act of protest against the
\ncatastrophic condition of the Romanian society, fatefully masterminded by the
\ncommunist regime. It was also a message of solidarity with the November 1987
\nworkers’ anti-communist strikes mounted at the Steagul Rosu and Tractorul
\nplants in Brasov, brutally repressed by the communist regime.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Thirty years on, it is still hard to accept Liviu
\nBabes’s extreme gesture. It was a cry of desperation and helplessness as an
\nanswer to the lack of perspective regarding Romanians’ day-to-day life back
\nthen. His sacrifice made Liviu Babes a civic martyr, much the same way other
\npeople were during the communist regime. At this point, worth mentioning are
\nthe names of other people from the former Soviet bloc countries who set
\nthemselves ablaze as a form of protest. Among them, the Czechs Jan Palach,
\nEv\u017een Plocek and Jan Zaj\u00edc, the Polish Ryszard Siwiec, Lithuanian Romas
\nKalanta, the Ukrainian Oleksa Hirnyk, or the Hungarian Sandor Bauer. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Liviu Babes was born on September 10, 1942 and was an
\nelectrician supervisor with the Fabricated Parts Enterprise in Brasov. Babes was
\nalso an amateur painter. On the back of his last painting, Babes unassumingly
\nwrote the German word Ende, a couple of weeks ahead of his life’s fated
\nmomentum. What really had a strong bearing on Babes was the degradation of
\nRomania’s political, economic, social, cultural and moral condition in the
\n1980s. The workers’ strikes at the Steagul Rosu and Tractorul factories only
\nstrengthened his resolution to do something. But what actually influenced Babes
\nthe most in his decision was peoples’ being so passive. According to his wife,
\nLiviu Babes never stopped wondering about that. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Journalist and writer Mircea Brenciu is the author of The
\nMartyr, a volume dedicated to Liviu Babes. Brenciu wrote the book feeling it
\nwas his duty to do it, yet writing the book was equally an honor and a
\nprivilege for him. Mircea Brenciu referred to Babes as an intellectual, while
\nhis extreme gesture carried a strong civic message with it. Mircea Brenciu. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Babes was an intellectual, and a
\nvery refined one too. He had exhibitions, he sold paintings, and at the time,
\nhe was kind of a trending fine artist in Brasov. As far as his attitude is
\nconcerned, his is a gesture of self-sacrifice, a gesture only an intellectual
\ncould do. Babes is part of the Romanian elite that could no longer stand the
\ncommunist atrocities. However, he was closely linked to the people, since
\nthrough his profession, he was just a supervisor with a fabricated parts
\nenterprise, working with ordinary people. He actually provided the connection
\nbetween the two social categories. His gesture is one of great cultural value
\nand he made it after careful consideration. He premeditated his act with great
\nlucidity and the message he conveys as he skis downhill setting himself ablaze
\nis indicative of a certain cultural level. The cardboard he displayed on the
\nslope and on which you could read Stop Murder. Bra\u015fov = Auschwitz is not the
\nwork of an ordinary man. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In 1968, the Czech student Jan Palach set himself on
\nfire, in protest against the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, which suppressed
\nthe Prague Spring. Mircea Brenciu spoke about the difference between the two
\ngestures. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In terms of accomplishment and level of
\npremeditation, what Babes did was superior to Jan Palach’s gesture. What Babes
\ndid was heroic, it was like an ancient tragedy. Jan Palach’s gesture was an
\nauto-da-fe (an act of faith) at a time of psychological burst, of losing
\ncontrol. Babes did it with due consideration. Before setting himself on fire in
\nPoiana Brasov, he met with friends, was quite merry and told them how life was
\nstarting right then. He understood that under those conditions of strict
\nsupervision by the political police, the Securitate, he could not have done
\nsomething so dramatic if he had told anybody. He knew there were snitches everywhere
\nand he had to be careful in order not to raise any suspicion. Palach’s
\nself-immolation came in the presence of hundreds and thousands of Czechs
\nprotesting against the invasion, while Babes did it by himself, just him
\nagainst the terrible Ceausescu dictatorship.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
One of
\nthe difficulties encountered while writing the book The Martyr, Mircea
\nBrenciu told us, was to find sources and documents:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
From the moment he set himself on fire
\nand was taken by an ambulance, nobody learnt anything about him. What is
\nstrange is that he died quite fast for someone who got burnt. People with third
\ndegree burns do not die on that very day, they make it for a few days, and then
\ntheir kidneys fail. Babes died on the very same day, and when he was sent home
\nto be buried, his family was not allowed to lift the lid of the casket.
\nExhumation might help, but I doubt something significant would be found. It’s
\nonly speculation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Babes was buried in an isolated corner of the Brasov
\nCounty Cemetery, under strict supervision by the political police. 12 hours
\nafter the event, the ‘Free Europe’ radio station broadcast the news, and this
\nis how the free world found out about Liviu Babes, the civic martyr who died 30
\nyears ago.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The story behind Liviu Babes’s extreme gesture<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":130619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[39842,42821,42819,42820,42822],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-130618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show","tag-communist-regime","tag-jan-palach","tag-liviu-babes","tag-self-immolation","tag-working-class"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n