With the political
\nclass being completely discredited, with tens of thousands of protesters taking
\nto the streets this month and furiously chanting All parties – the same
\nabjectness, it is almost unlikely for Romanians to find role models among
\npoliticians. Although rare, such emblematic personalities do exist. Born in
\n1914 into a family of militants for the Romanians’ rights in Transylvania,
\nwhich was under Austro-Hungarian occupation at the time, Corneliu Coposu grew
\nup and was trained in a monarchic, democratic, unified Romania after World War
\nI. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A graduate of the Law School, a journalist and athlete, he became the
\nright-hand man of the leader of the National Peasant Party and former prime
\nminister Iuliu Maniu, an authentic democrat and fervent opponent of both German
\nNazism and Soviet Bolshevism. His loyalty to Maniu and to democratic principles
\nturned Corneliu Coposu into one of the favourite targets of the Securitate, the
\npolitical police of the communist dictatorship instated in Romania by Soviet occupants after World War II.
\nArrested in 1947, he was a political detainee for 17 years; for some of them he
\nlived in total reclusion. In 1964, the communists emptied the prisons, convinced
\nthat they had consolidated the regime and trying to improve their image both in
\nRomania and in the Western countries. However, Coposu remained under the
\npermanent supervision of the Securitate. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After the anti-communist revolution of
\nDecember 1989, along with veteran members of the inter-war National Peasant
\nParty, as well as with very young opponents of communism, he re-established
\nIuliu Maniu’s party, subsequently affiliated to the Christian and Democratic
\nInternational and the European People’s Party. In the post-communist
\natmosphere, when the left-wing leader Ion Iliescu, perceived as leader of the
\nrevolution, had been voted by a large majority at the first presidential
\nelection, the Christian and Democratic National Peasant Party was hit by anti-Romanian
\nforces through the miners’ raids, through the regime based on corruption,
\nbanditry and seizing of power by any possible means as one of the close
\ncollaborators of Coposu recalled upon his commemoration. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Christian and
\nDemocrat leader remained adamant in his creed: he was a royalist,
\nanti-communist, pro-Western and advocate of the reunification of the ex-Soviet
\nRepublic of Moldova with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population with
\nRomania. As one of his fans has recently recalled, quote patriotism is a
\ndiscreet love for your country and readiness to give your life for it any
\ntime. Unquote. Keeping his inflexible beliefs and humour, a sensitive
\nChristian poet and fan of the national football team, an Orthodox-Catholic
\nsurrounded by Orthodox friends, Corneliu Coposu was the leader of the Christian
\nand Democratic National Peasant Party and of the Democratic Convention in
\nopposition until he died of lung cancer on November 11th 1995. The
\ndeep collective emotion triggered by his death was to pave the way for the
\nvictory of the Democratic Convention in the parliamentary elections of 1996.
\nCorneliu Coposu could not witness that triumph, but according to a press
\nformula of the time, he had already become the moral president of Romania. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The former leader of the Christian and Democratic National Peasant Party, Corneliu Coposu, was commemorated discreetly both at home and abroad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":66091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[38221,38222],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-66090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-corneliu-coposu","tag-historical-national-peasant-party"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n