- Adrian Păunescu
Adrian Păunescu (born
July 20 ,1943 ) is aRomania n poet, journalist, and politician.Early life
Born in
Copăceni ,Bălţi County , in what is now theRepublic of Moldova , Păunescu spent his childhood inBârca ,Dolj County . He did his secondary studies atCarol I High School inCraiova . His father was a member of the pre-war National Liberal Party and was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Communist authorities for "anti-communist activities" (for the same reason, Adrian Păunescu was barred from entering university for some years).Păunescu studied
philology at theUniversity of Bucharest and became a writer and journalist. He was an influential public figure throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Sporting leftist ideas inspired by the Western 1960s movement, which he opposed to the more stolid Stalinist ideals of the ruling elite, he fashioned himself as an "inner circle" dissenter. To many Romanian people he is asycophant for the way in which he praised the dictatorNicolae Ceausescu ."Flacăra"
A member of the
Union of Communist Youth between 1966 and 1968, and, between 1968-1971, of theRomanian Communist Party , Păunescu gained control over a major weekly publication, "Flacăra " and became the producer and host of the only itinerant folk and pop show in the country, "Cenaclul Flacăra", founded in 1973.In 1985, during his show, held at a stadium in
Ploieşti , a heavy storm started. The electrician of the stadium warned him that the sound system was not properly protected against water and it would be better to stop the show. Păunescu replied that he would assume the risk, telling the crowd that "We, the Cenaclul Flacăra, can defeat anything, even the storm" and asking that the gates be closed. Due to the storm, water infiltrated the electrical installations and created ashort circuit , leading to a blackout in the stadium. People rushed to the exits, which were however closed. Since nobody knew how to open the gates, astampede was triggered. Several people died and a few dozens were wounded. The number of victims is unknown mainly due to the secrecy during the Communist era: at the time, no newspaper mentioned the event.On
16 June 1985 , he received a "warning" from the Communist authorities for causing the accident.Political career
After 1989 Păunescu pursued a political career, aligning himself with socialist and then social-democratic political parties.
In 1996, he ran in the Romanian presidential election but received only 87,163 votes (0.69%). He has been a senator since 1992, representing
Dolj County (1992-2004) and thenHunedoara County (since 2004), first of theSocialist Labour Party , and currently of the Social Democratic Party of Romania.External links
* [http://www.adrianpaunescu.ro/ adrianpaunescu.ro: Official site]
* [http://www.constantinroman.com/pages/cul_trans_12.html Two of Păunescu's Communist-era poems]
* [http://www.cotidianul.ro/index.php?id=10754&art=28722&cHash=25a30737fo Letter to Nicolae Ceauşescu]
* [http://www.youtube.com/v/UXjlz5S0JGQ Constantin Pârvulescu speaking about Adrian Păunescu][Category:Romanian presidential candidates}]
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