A universal example for all the people who fight for the right cause of freedom and dignity
Mugur Călinescu's name will forever remain in the history of heroism as a man's struggle with a cruel, much stronger enemy but which did not frighten him. He is not only a Romanian hero, but also a universal example for all the people who fight for the right cause of freedom and dignity. Eventually, MugurCălinescu paid with his life for the courage to think and act for justice and truth.
Mugur Călinescu was born on May 28, 1965 in Botoșani, northeastern Romania. In 1981, at 16 years old, when he was an 11th grader at the "August Treboniu Laurian" high school in his hometown, he decided that his existence and that of those around him, in a country ruled by a vicious communist regime, could not go on like that. So he decided to protest. Călinescu's moving story was told publicly in the early 1990s, in the early years of freedom regained in December 1989, by the journalist, writer and historian Constantin Iftime. Here he is at the microphone with details:
Constantin Iftime: "He was a high school junior, going to Laurian high school, but previously he had studied at Eminescu high school. He took the math and physics exam, he was in a good class. His parents were separated, his father was wealthy, he worked in a clothing manufacturing factory, he was the chief tailor who made the patterns. He had a lot of money, he was a top tailor. He bought his boy a Japanese radio recorder with which he tuned in to radio "Free Europe", and his mother did not know anything about that. He was a clever boy, he listened to music, he read books, he had a curious nature."
On the night of September 12, 1981, Mugur left the house determined to voice his discontent. He walked towards a metal fence surrounding a building yard and wrote a slogan calling on people to oppose the increasingly harsh living conditions. Today we find it unbelievable that writing words on a wall is seen as an act of great courage. But it was an act of courage during communism, when most people were terrorized and preferred to keep silent. Constantin Iftime is back at the microphone with more:
Constantin Iftime: "You may wonder where he got the idea from? It was his own idea. He had some chalk at home, the type of chalk used by foresters, which did not come off easily. And he started writing slogans, he wrote the first slogans on some metal boards surrounding building yards. These slogans referred to the people's precarious material situation. His mother was a saleswoman at the central store and had a small salary. It seems that there was a lot of talk about money in his family. His mother was constantly under pressure, they had cut about 30% of her salary, it was the period when the authorities started cutting people's salaries."
Another 31 nights followed, in which Mugur Călinescu continued to write his discontent on the walls of the town's buildings. One of them was the headquarters of the county branch of the Romanian Communist Party. He wrote on walls, on billboards, on road kerbs. The local branch of the Securitate, the communist political police, went on maximum alert. Messages would keep appearing, in places where the members of the political repression structures least expected them, and they would be promptly erased. Where they couldn't be removed, the place would be painted over.
All the informants in all the factories in the town were mobilised. In their desperate effort to capture the author, the Securitate checked the records of all the apartment buildings, and all the letters people would send to the party. More than 47,000 handwriting samples were analysed, with the experts claiming that the author was a scholar or a misfit. Night patrols and watches were organised. Until finally, on the night of 18th October 1981, a patrol noticed a young man with a piece of chalk in his hand, writing something on a wall. Constantin Iftime told us what happened next.
Constantin Iftime: "He had no reaction. He was arrested, and he admitted to everything from the very beginning. His mother knew nothing about him, she panicked and started calling everywhere. She was only announced about the arrest the next day. He spent that night being interrogated. He was taken straight to the Securitate offices, because they were interested in who was behind this. They didn't beat him up, ironically it was his own father who threatened him, not the Securitate. The ones who interrogated him were people who knew what was going on among students, and they wanted to make him talk without resorting to violence. But they did put a blinding light in his face and the Securitate guy was sitting behind that light. Those hours spent with a light in his face must have made him hot, he already had a fever, he had early-stage leukaemia. I think it was a period of hormonal imbalance caused by severe stress. But my opinion is that he was killed by the Securitate. He was a sensitive person, thrown into this extremely vicious circle. He was a hardworking boy, a nice teenager, but everyone treated him like an object."
His teachers reprimanded him, his father attacked him for jeopardising his career, his mother suffered a trauma. Abandoned by his family, isolated from his friends and colleagues, marginalised together with his mother, Mugur Călinescu died of leukaemia on 14th February 1985, at the age of 19.
He was awarded the title of fighter against the totalitarian regime, post-mortem. A theatre play and a film, both titled "Uppercase Print," as well as a novel, are now keeping his memory alive. (tr. L. Simion, A.M. Popescu)
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