149-709: The Palace of the Parliament ( Romanian : Palatul Parlamentului ), also known as the House of the Republic ( Casa Republicii ) or People's House/People's Palace ( Casa Poporului ), is the seat of the Parliament of Romania , located atop Dealul Spirii in Bucharest , the national capital. The Palace reaches a height of 84 m (276 ft), has a floor area of 365,000 m (3,930,000 sq ft) and
298-568: A "militant, revolutionary" character in artistic productions. The liberalization of 1965 was condemned and an index of banned books and authors was re-established. The Theses heralded the beginning of a "mini cultural revolution" in Romania, launching a Neo-Stalinist offensive against cultural autonomy, reaffirming an ideological basis for literature that, in theory, the Party had hardly abandoned. Although presented in terms of "Socialist Humanism",
447-627: A "regional language" alongside Ukrainian as per the 2012 legislation on languages in Ukraine . Romanian is an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations, such as the Latin Union and the European Union . Romanian is also one of the five languages in which religious services are performed in the autonomous monastic state of Mount Athos , spoken in the monastic communities of Prodromos and Lakkoskiti . In
596-414: A Communist Spy Chief ( ISBN 0-89526-570-2 ), claimed to expose details of Ceaușescu's government activities, such as massive spying on American industry and elaborate efforts to rally Western political support. Systematization ( Romanian : Sistematizarea ) was the program of urban planning carried out under Ceaușescu's regime. After a visit to North Korea in 1971, Ceaușescu was impressed by
745-836: A decline in industrial output caused by significantly increased material costs. Despite the 1988 decline, the net foreign balance reached its decade-long peak (9.5% of GDP). In 1989, GDP slumped by a further 5.8% due to growing shortages and the increasingly obsolete capital stock. By March 1989, virtually all external debt had been repaid, including all medium- and long-term external debt. The remaining amount, totalling less than 1 million, consisted of short-term credits (mainly short-term export credits granted by Romania). A 1989 decree legally prohibited Romanian entities from contracting external debt. The CIA World Factbook edition of 1990 listed Romania's external debt as "none" as of mid-1989. A tentative coup d'état planned in October 1984 failed when
894-741: A foreign language, for example the Nicolae Bălcescu High-school in Gyula , Hungary. Romanian is taught as a foreign language in tertiary institutions, mostly in European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, and the Netherlands, as well as in the United States. Overall, it is taught as a foreign language in 43 countries around the world. Romanian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in
1043-539: A full socialist consciousness in the people, and that a full socialist consciousness could only come about if the entire population was made aware of socialist values that guided society. The Communist Party was to be the agency that would so "enlighten" the population and in the words of the British historian Richard Crampton "...the party would merge state and society, the individual and the collective, and would promote 'the ever more organic participation of party members in
1192-588: A further 700. Construction of the palace began on 25 June 1984, and the inauguration of the work was attended by Ceaușescu, who also frequently inspected the site. Uranus Hill was leveled, and the Uranus-Izvor neighborhood was destroyed so the building could be erected. The area had also been home to the National Archives, Mihai Vodă Monastery and other monasteries, Brâncovenesc Hospital, as well as about 37 old factories and workshops. Demolition in
1341-837: A gift from his friend Mobutu Sese Seko , longtime totalitarian President of Zaire (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo ). Among the materials are 3,500 tonnes of crystal – 480 chandeliers , 1,409 ceiling lights and mirrors were manufactured; 700,000 tonnes of steel and bronze for monumental doors and windows , chandeliers and capitals ; 1,000,000 m (35,000,000 cu ft) of marble, 900,000 m (32,000,000 cu ft) of wood (over 95% domestic) for parquet and wainscotting , including walnut , oak , sweet cherry , elm , sycamore maple ; 200,000 m (2,200,000 sq ft) of woollen carpets of various dimensions (machines had to be moved inside
1490-523: A language that had a similar role to Medieval Latin in Western Europe. The oldest dated text in Romanian is a letter written in 1521 with Cyrillic letters , and until late 18th century, including during the development of printing, the same alphabet was used. The period after 1780, starting with the writing of its first grammar books, represents the modern age of the language, during which time
1639-530: A name that was extended to the literature and writers around this time such as Vasile Alecsandri , Grigore Alexandrescu , Nicolae Bălcescu , Timotei Cipariu . Between 1830 and 1860 "transitional alphabets" were used, adding Latin letters to the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet . The Latin alphabet became official at different dates in Wallachia and Transylvania - 1860, and Moldova -1862. Following
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#17327986492591788-588: A number of joint party-state organizations were founded such as the Council for Socialist Education and Culture, which had no precise counterpart in any of the other communist states of Eastern Europe, and the Romanian Communist Party was embedded into the daily life of the nation in a way that it never had been before. In 1974, the party programme of the Romanian Communist Party announced that structural changes in society were insufficient to create
1937-554: A number of townspeople marched against economic policies in Socialist Romania and Nicolae Ceaușescu's policies of rationing of basic foodstuffs , rationing electricity and central heating . The first protests began practically on 14 November 1987, at the 440 "Molds" Section of the Red Flag truck company. Initially, the protests were for basic needs: "We want food and heating!", "We want our money!", "We want food for
2086-492: A petition protesting against the trial of railway workers and twice more for other similar activities. By the mid-1930s, he had been in missions in Bucharest, Craiova , Câmpulung and Râmnicu Vâlcea , being arrested several times. The profile file from the secret police, Siguranța Statului , named him "a dangerous Communist agitator" and "distributor of Communist and antifascist propaganda materials". For these charges, he
2235-578: A significant share of the local population (districts in Chernivtsi , Odesa and Zakarpattia oblasts ) Romanian is taught in schools as a primary language and there are Romanian-language newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting. The University of Chernivtsi in western Ukraine trains teachers for Romanian schools in the fields of Romanian philology, mathematics and physics. In Hertsa Raion of Ukraine as well as in other villages of Chernivtsi Oblast and Zakarpattia Oblast , Romanian has been declared
2384-782: A speech before the executive committee of the Romanian Communist Party. This quasi- Maoist speech, which came to be known as the July Theses , contained seventeen proposals. Among these were: continuous growth in the "leading role" of the Party; improvement of Party education and of mass political action; youth participation on large construction projects as part of their "patriotic work"; an intensification of political-ideological education in schools and universities, as well as in children's, youth and student organizations; and an expansion of political propaganda, orienting radio and television shows to this end, as well as publishing houses, theatres and cinemas, opera, ballet, artists' unions, promoting
2533-540: A volume of 2,550,000 m (90,000,000 cu ft). The Palace of the Parliament is the heaviest building in the world, weighing about 4,098,500 tonnes (9.04 billion pounds), and is the third largest administrative building in the world. The building was designed and supervised by chief architect Anca Petrescu , with a team of approximately 700 architects, and constructed over a period of 13 years (1984–1997) in modernist Neoclassical architectural forms and styles, with socialist realism in mind. The Palace
2682-523: A week before the invasion to offer moral support to his Czechoslovak counterpart, Alexander Dubček . Although the Soviet Union largely tolerated Ceaușescu's recalcitrance, his seeming independence from Moscow earned Romania maverick status within the Eastern Bloc . All of Ceaușescu's economic, foreign and demographic policies were meant to achieve his ultimate goal: turning Romania into one of
2831-420: A whole. Effectively, Ceaușescu now held all governing power in the nation; virtually all party and state institutions were subordinated to his will. The principles of democratic centralism, combined with the legislature's infrequent sessions (it sat in full session only twice a year) meant that for all intents and purposes, his decisions had the force of law. Starting with the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo against
2980-504: Is Neacșu's letter (1521) and was written using the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet , which was used until the late 19th century. The letter is the oldest testimony of Romanian epistolary style and uses a prevalent lexis of Latin origin. However, dating by watermarks has shown the Hurmuzaki Psalter is a copy from around the turn of the 16th century. The slow process of Romanian establishing itself as an official language, used in
3129-450: Is a matter of controversy, the official data suggests 27 but workers involved in the construction of the building talk of a much higher number, some say thousands. During the 1980s, the Romanian government implemented a crippling austerity policy to pay the foreign debt. In 1989, the building costs were estimated at US$ 1.75 billion, and in 2006 at US$ 3 billion. In 1990, Australian-born business and media magnate Rupert Murdoch tried to buy
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#17327986492593278-402: Is a room with 1.5 m (4.9 ft) thick concrete walls said to be impervious to radiation . The shelter is composed of a main hall – headquarters which would have had telephone connections with all military units in Romania – and several residential apartments for state leadership, to be used in the event of war. The palace's floor area of 365,000 m (3,930,000 sq ft) makes it
3427-424: Is also spoken within communities of Romanian and Moldovan immigrants in the United States, Canada and Australia, although they do not make up a large homogeneous community statewide. Many are Moldavians who were deported Data only for the districts on the right bank of Dniester (without Transnistria and the city of Tighina). In Moldova, it is sometimes referred to as the " Moldovan language " In Transnistria, it
3576-485: Is distinguished by the activity of Romanian literature classics in its early decades: Mihai Eminescu , Ion Luca Caragiale , Ion Creangă , Ioan Slavici . The current orthography, with minor reforms to this day and using Latin letters, was fully implemented in 1881, regulated by the Romanian Academy on a fundamentally phonological principle, with few morpho-syntactic exceptions. The first Romanian grammar
3725-597: Is official only in the villages of Vojvodinci ( Voivodinț ), Markovac ( Marcovăț ), Straža ( Straja ), Mali Žam ( Jamu Mic ), Malo Središte ( Srediștea Mică ), Mesić ( Mesici ), Jablanka ( Iablanca ), Sočica ( Sălcița ), Ritiševo ( Râtișor ), Orešac ( Oreșaț ) and Kuštilj ( Coștei ). In the 2002 Census, the last carried out in Serbia, 1.5% of Vojvodinians stated Romanian as their native language. The Vlachs of Serbia are considered to speak Romanian as well. In parts of Ukraine where Romanians constitute
3874-610: Is officially called " Moldovan language " and is written in Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet . Officially divided into Vlachs and Romanians Most in Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia; according to a Moldova Noastră study (based on the latest Ukrainian census). According to the Constitution of Romania of 1991, as revised in 2003, Romanian is the official language of the Republic. Romania mandates
4023-406: Is the uprising of Vadu Roșca (Vrancea county) which opposed the state program of expropriation of private holdings, when military units opened fire on the rebelling peasants, killing 9 and wounding 48. Ceaușescu personally led the investigation which resulted in 18 peasants being imprisoned for "rebellion" and "conspiring against social order". When Gheorghiu-Dej died on 19 March 1965, Ceaușescu
4172-493: The Juche ideology of that country, and began a major campaign shortly afterwards. Beginning in 1974, systematization consisted largely of the demolition and reconstruction of existing villages, towns, and cities, in whole or in part, with the stated goal of turning Romania into a "multilaterally developed socialist society ". The policy largely consisted in the mass construction of high-density blocks of flats ( blocuri ). During
4321-502: The Age of Enlightenment , in particular French . This lexical permeability is continuing today with the introduction of English words. Yet while the overall lexis was enriched with foreign words and internal constructs, in accordance with the history and development of the society and the diversification in semantic fields, the fundamental lexicon—the core vocabulary used in everyday conversation—remains governed by inherited elements from
4470-558: The Cannes Film Festival ). Also some artists wrote songs dedicated to the Romanian language. The multi-platinum pop trio O-Zone (originally from Moldova) released a song called "Nu mă las de limba noastră" ("I won't forsake our language"). The final verse of this song, "Eu nu mă las de limba noastră, de limba noastră cea română" , is translated in English as "I won't forsake our language, our Romanian language". Also,
4619-549: The Central Committee months after the party's "Muscovite faction" led by Ana Pauker had been purged. In the late 1940s-early 1950s, the Party had been divided into the "home communists" headed by Gheorghiu-Dej who remained inside Romania prior to 1944 and the "Muscovites" who had gone into exile in the Soviet Union. With the partial exception of Poland, where the Polish October crisis of 1956 brought to power
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4768-526: The Communist Party of Romania and to declare the country a socialist republic , rather than a people's republic . In 1967, he consolidated his power by becoming president of the State Council , making him head of state. His political apparatus sent many thousands of political opponents to prison or psychiatric hospitals. Initially, Ceaușescu became a popular figure, both in Romania and in
4917-531: The Eastern Bloc . His secret police , the Securitate , was responsible for mass surveillance as well as severe repression and human rights abuses within the country, and controlled the media and press. Ceaușescu's attempts to implement policies that would lead to a significant growth of the population led to a growing number of illegal abortions and increased the number of orphans in state institutions. Economic mismanagement due to failed oil ventures during
5066-618: The Latin spoken in the Roman provinces bordering Danube , without which no coherent sentence can be made. Romanian descended from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the Roman provinces of Southeastern Europe north of the Jireček Line (a hypothetical boundary between the dominance of Latin and Greek influences). Most scholars agree that two major dialects developed from Common Romanian by
5215-636: The Latin alphabet became official, the literary language was standardized, and a large number of words from Modern Latin and other Romance languages entered the lexis. In the process of language evolution from fewer than 2500 attested words from Late Antiquity to a lexicon of over 150,000 words in its contemporary form, Romanian showed a high degree of lexical permeability, reflecting contact with Thraco-Dacian , Slavic languages (including Old Slavic , Serbian , Bulgarian , Ukrainian , and Russian ), Greek , Hungarian , German , Turkish , and to languages that served as cultural models during and after
5364-694: The Parliament of Romania : the Senate ( Senat ) and the Chamber of Deputies ( Camera Deputaților ), along with three museums and an international conference center. The museums in the Palace are the National Museum of Contemporary Art , the Museum of Communist Totalitarianism (established in 2015) and the Museum of the Palace. Though originally named the House of the Republic when under construction,
5513-467: The Romanian Academy . The third phase of the modern age of Romanian language, starting from 1880 and continuing to this day, is characterized by the prevalence of the supradialectal form of the language, standardized with the express contribution of the school system and Romanian Academy, bringing a close to the process of literary language modernization and development of literary styles. It
5662-545: The Slavic languages and subsequently divided into Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian , Istro-Romanian , and Daco-Romanian. Due to limited attestation between the 6th and 16th century, entire stages from its history are re-constructed by researchers, often with proposed relative chronologies and loose limits. From the 12th or 13th century, official documents and religious texts were written in Old Church Slavonic ,
5811-588: The Western Romance languages in the course of the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries. To distinguish it within the Eastern Romance languages, in comparative linguistics it is called Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian , and Istro-Romanian . It is also spoken as a minority language by stable communities in the countries surrounding Romania ( Bulgaria , Hungary , Serbia and Ukraine ), and by
5960-670: The Western bloc and the European Community : an agreement including Romania in the Community's Generalised System of Preferences was signed in 1974 and an Agreement on Industrial Products was signed in 1980. On 4 April 1975, Ceaușescu visited Japan and met with Emperor Hirohito . In June 1978, Ceaușescu made a state visit to the UK where a £200m licensing agreement was signed between the Romanian government and British Aerospace for
6109-495: The World Health Organization (WHO). In May 1969, Marcolino Candau, Director General of this organization, visited Romania and declared that the visits of WHO staff to various Romanian hospital establishments had made an extraordinarily good impression. The social and economic transformations resulted in improved living conditions for Romanians. Economic growth allowed for higher salaries which, combined with
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6258-718: The general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989. Widely classified as a dictator , he was the country's head of state from 1967 to 1989, serving as President of the State Council from 1967 and as the first President of the Republic from 1974. He was overthrown and executed in the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, part of a series of anti-communist uprisings in Eastern Europe that year. Born in 1918 in Scornicești , Ceaușescu
6407-435: The unification of Moldavia and Wallachia further studies on the language were made, culminating with the founding of Societatea Literară Română on 1 April 1866 on the initiative of C. A. Rosetti , an academic society that had the purpose of standardizing the orthography, formalizing the grammar and (via a dictionary) vocabulary of the language, and promoting literary and scientific publications. This institution later became
6556-597: The "Muscovites" in 1952. In 1954, Ceaușescu became a full member of the Politburo, effectively granting him one of the highest positions of power in the country. As a high-ranking state official in the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Defence Ceaușescu had an important role in the forced collectivisation, according to own Romanian Workers' Party data, between 1949 and 1952 there were over 80,000 arrests of peasants and 30,000 ended with prison sentences. One example
6705-564: The "as-well-as" thesis that supports the language development on both sides of the Danube. Between the 6th and 8th century, following the accumulated tendencies inherited from the vernacular spoken in this large area and, to a much smaller degree, the influences from native dialects , and in the context of a lessened power of the Roman central authority the language evolved into Common Romanian . This proto-language then came into close contact with
6854-492: The "liberty to teach in the mother language (Romanian language)". At the same time, Romanian-language newspapers and journals began to appear, such as Basarabia (1906), Viața Basarabiei (1907), Moldovanul (1907), Luminătorul (1908), Cuvînt moldovenesc (1913), Glasul Basarabiei (1913). From 1913, the synod permitted that "the churches in Bessarabia use the Romanian language". Romanian finally became
7003-451: The 10th century. Daco-Romanian (the official language of Romania and Moldova) and Istro-Romanian (a language spoken by no more than 2,000 people in Istria ) descended from the northern dialect. Two other languages, Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian , developed from the southern version of Common Romanian. These two languages are now spoken in lands to the south of the Jireček Line . Of
7152-563: The 1970s led to very significant foreign debts for Romania. In 1982, Ceaușescu directed the government to export much of the country's agricultural and industrial production in an effort to repay these debts. His cult of personality experienced unprecedented elevation, followed by the deterioration of foreign relations, even with the Soviet Union . As anti-government protesters demonstrated in Timișoara in December 1989, Ceaușescu perceived
7301-453: The 1980s, Ceaușescu became obsessed with building himself a palace of unprecedented proportions, along with an equally grandiose neighborhood, Centrul Civic , to accompany it. The mass demolitions that occurred in the 1980s under which an overall area of eight square kilometres of the historic center of Bucharest were leveled, including monasteries, churches, synagogues, a hospital, and a noted Art Deco sports stadium, in order to make way for
7450-541: The Assembly, the Executive Council and the provincial administrative bodies. The Romanian language and script are officially used in eight municipalities: Alibunar , Bela Crkva ( Biserica Albă ), Žitište ( Sângeorgiu de Bega ), Zrenjanin ( Becicherecu Mare ), Kovačica ( Covăcița ), Kovin ( Cuvin ), Plandište ( Plandiște ) and Sečanj ( Seceani ). In the municipality of Vršac ( Vârșeț ), Romanian
7599-542: The Communist prisoners much freedom in running their cell block, provided they did not attempt to break out of prison. At Târgu Jiu, Gheorghiu-Dej ran " self-criticism sessions" where various Party members had to confess before the other Party members to misunderstanding the teachings of Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Vladimir Lenin , and Joseph Stalin as interpreted by Gheorghiu-Dej; journalist Edward Behr claimed that Ceaușescu's role in these "self-criticism sessions"
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#17327986492597748-643: The Cyrillic script, and the Latin script as stipulated by the law, the Croat , Hungarian , Slovak , Romanian and Rusyn languages and their scripts, as well as languages and scripts of other nationalities, shall simultaneously be officially used in the work of the bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, in the manner established by the law. The bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina are:
7897-579: The Moldovan autonomies of Gagauzia and Transnistria . Romanian is also an official language of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia along with five other languages. Romanian minorities are encountered in Serbia ( Timok Valley ), Ukraine ( Chernivtsi and Odesa oblasts ), and Hungary ( Gyula ). Large immigrant communities are found in Italy, Spain, France, and Portugal. In 1995,
8046-449: The Moldovan musicians Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici performed a song called "The Romanian language". Romanian is also called Daco-Romanian in comparative linguistics to distinguish from the other dialects of Common Romanian : Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian , and Istro-Romanian . The origin of the term "Daco-Romanian" can be traced back to the first printed book of Romanian grammar in 1780, by Samuil Micu and Gheorghe Șincai . There,
8195-524: The North Korean capital, Pyongyang . North Korean President Kim Il Sung had started construction on a similarly monumental residence, the Kumsusan Palace , two years earlier. A contest was held and won by Anca Petrescu (1949–2013), who was appointed chief architect of the project at the age of 28. The team that coordinated the work was made up of 10 assisting architects, which supervised
8344-588: The Palace hosted the 20th summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization . In 2010, politician Silviu Prigoană proposed re-purposing the building into a shopping centre and entertainment complex. Citing costs, Prigoană said that the Romanian Parliament should move to a new building, since they occupied only 30% of the massive palace. While the proposal sparked debate in Romania, politician Miron Mitrea dismissed
8493-611: The Palace of the Parliament, after having left the former headquarters of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party . Six years after the palace's completion, between 2003 and 2004, a glass annex was built alongside the external elevators. This was done to facilitate outside access to the National Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in 2004 in the west wing of the palace. During
8642-404: The Parliament sinks 6 mm (0.24 in) each year due to its weight. Romanian specialists who have analyzed the data have explained that the palace's massive weight is causing the layers of sediment below the building to settle. The building was constructed almost entirely of materials of Romanian origin. Among the few exceptions are the doors of Nicolae Bălcescu Hall, received by Ceaușescu as
8791-606: The Romanian dialect spoken north of the Danube is called lingua Daco-Romana to emphasize its origin and its area of use, which includes the former Roman province of Dacia , although it is spoken also south of the Danube, in Dobruja , the Timok Valley and northern Bulgaria. This article deals with the Romanian (i.e. Daco-Romanian) language, and thus only its dialectal variations are discussed here. The differences between
8940-449: The Romanian dictator. In 1978, Ion Mihai Pacepa , a senior member of the Romanian political police ( Securitate , State Security), defected to the United States. A two-star general, he was the highest-ranking defector from the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War . His defection was a powerful blow against the administration, forcing Ceaușescu to overhaul Romania's state security architecture. Pacepa's 1986 book, Red Horizons: Chronicles of
9089-724: The Romanian language. Examples of Romanian acts that had a great success in non-Romanophone countries are the bands O-Zone (with their No. 1 single Dragostea Din Tei , also known as Numa Numa , across the world in 2003–2004), Akcent (popular in the Netherlands, Poland and other European countries), Activ (successful in some Eastern European countries), DJ Project (popular as clubbing music) SunStroke Project (known by viral video " Epic Sax Guy ") and Alexandra Stan (worldwide no.1 hit with " Mr. Saxobeat ") and Inna as well as high-rated movies like 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days , The Death of Mr. Lazarescu , 12:08 East of Bucharest or California Dreamin' (all of them with awards at
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#17327986492599238-426: The Romanian neuter became a mixture of masculine and feminine. The verb morphology of Romanian has shown the same move towards a compound perfect and future tense as the other Romance languages. Compared with the other Romance languages , during its evolution, Romanian simplified the original Latin tense system. Romanian is spoken mostly in Central , South-Eastern , and Eastern Europe , although speakers of
9387-470: The Romanian state. Ceaușescu's speech of 21 August 1968 represented the apogee of Ceaușescu's rule. It marked the highest point in Ceaușescu's popularity, when he openly condemned the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia . Ceaușescu visited China, North Korea, Mongolia and North Vietnam in 1971. He took great interest in the idea of total national transformation as embodied in the programmes of North Korea's Juche and China's Cultural Revolution . He
9536-502: The Shah was overthrown . In an attempt to correct this, Ceaușescu decided to repay Romania's foreign debts . He organised the 1986 military referendum and managed to change the constitution, adding a clause that barred Romania from taking foreign loans in the future. According to official results, the referendum yielded a nearly unanimous "yes" vote. Romania's record—having all of its debts to commercial banks paid off in full—has not been matched by any other heavily indebted country in
9685-444: The Theses in fact marked a return to the strict guidelines of Socialist Realism and attacks on non-compliant intellectuals. Strict ideological conformity in the humanities and social sciences was demanded. In a 1972 speech, Ceaușescu stated he wanted "a certain blending of party and state activities... in the long run we shall witness an ever closer blending of the activities of the party, state and other social bodies". In practice,
9834-483: The Transfagarasan Highway". Romanian language Romanian (obsolete spelling: Roumanian ; endonym : limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] , or românește [romɨˈneʃte] , lit. ' in Romanian ' ) is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova . Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages , a linguistic group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin which separated from
9983-442: The Unirii–Dealul Arsenalului area. The Vrancea earthquake of 4 March 1977 gave Ceaușescu a pretext to demolish parts of old Bucharest. He wanted a civic center more in line with the country's political stance and started a reconstruction plan of Bucharest based on the socialist realism style. The House of the Republic was the centrepiece of Ceaușescu's project. Named Project Bucharest , it began in 1978 as an intended replica of
10132-491: The Uranus area began in 1982. Approximately 7 km (2.7 sq mi) of the old city centre were demolished, with 40,000 people being relocated from the area. The works were carried out with forced labour in addition to soldiers, minimizing costs. Between 20,000 and 100,000 people worked on the site and project, operating in three shifts made up of 5,000 Romanian People's Army soldiers and huge numbers of "volunteers". The number of deaths that occurred during construction
10281-478: The West, a period of prolonged high oil prices set in that characterised the rest of the 1970s. Romania as a major oil equipment producer greatly benefited from the high oil prices of the 1970s, which led Ceaușescu to embark on an ambitious plan to invest heavily in oil-refining plants. Ceaușescu's plan was to make Romania into Europe's number one oil refiner not only of its own oil, but also of oil from Middle Eastern states such as Iraq and Iran, and then to sell all of
10430-434: The West, because of his independent foreign policy, which challenged the authority of the Soviet Union . In the 1960s, he eased press censorship and ended Romania's active participation in the Warsaw Pact , but Romania formally remained a member. He refused to take part in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces and even actively and openly condemned it in his 21 August 1968 speech . He travelled to Prague
10579-447: The beginning of devoicing of asyllabic [u] after consonants. Text analysis revealed words that are now lost from modern vocabulary or used only in local varieties. These words were of various provenience for example: Latin ( cure - to run, mâneca - to leave), Old Church Slavonic ( drăghicame - gem, precious stone, prilăsti - to trick, to cheat), Hungarian ( bizăntui - to bear witness). The modern age of Romanian starts in 1780 with
10728-578: The benefits offered by the state (free medical care, pensions, free universal education at all levels, etc.) were a leap compared to the pre-WWII situation of the Romanian population. Certain extra retributions were allowed for the peasants, who started to produce more. In October 1966, in an attempt to reverse the Romania's low birth and fertility rates, Ceaușescu issued Decree 770 to restricted abortion and contraception . The government targeted rising divorce rates and made divorce more difficult — marriages could only be dissolved in exceptional cases. By
10877-767: The building for US$ 1 billion, but his bid was rejected. Since 1994, the palace has housed the lower house of the Romanian Parliament , the Chamber of Deputies, after its former seat, the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies (now the Palace of the Patriarchate), was donated by the state to the Romanian Orthodox Church . Since 2004, the upper house, the Senate of Romania, has also been housed in
11026-670: The building to weave some of the larger carpets); velvet and brocade curtains adorned with embroideries and passementeries in silver and gold . The Palace of the Parliament has featured in a variety of films, most famously as the Vatican in the 2018 horror film The Nun . Other films include War Dogs , starring Jonah Hill ; Dying of the Light , starring Nicolas Cage ; and What About Love (2022), starring Sharon Stone and Andy García . It also appeared on an episode of Top Gear in 2009, titled "Romanian GT Road Trip to Find
11175-526: The catalogs of Scornicești Primary School, which certifies that Nicolae A. Ceaușescu passed the first grade with an average of 8.26 and the second grade with an average of 8.18, ranking third, in a class in which 25 students were enrolled. Journalist Cătălin Gruia claimed in 2007 that he ran away from his supposedly extremely religious, abusive and strict father. He initially lived with his sister, Niculina Rusescu. He became an apprentice shoemaker , working in
11324-640: The children!", "We want light and heat!" and "We want bread without a card!". Next to the County Hospital, they sang the anthem of the revolution of 1848, " Deșteaptă-te, române! ". Upon arriving in the city center, thousands of workers from the Tractorul Brașov and Hidromecanica factories, pupils, students, and others joined the demonstration. From this moment on, the protest became political. Participants later claimed to have chanted slogans such as "Down with Ceaușescu!", "Down with communism!", "Down with
11473-477: The colloquial speech and writing. Outside the political arena the language is most often called "Romanian". In the breakaway territory of Transnistria, it is co-official with Ukrainian and Russian. In the 2014 census , out of the 2,804,801 people living in Moldova, 24% (652,394) stated Romanian as their most common language, whereas 56% stated Moldovan. While in the urban centers speakers are split evenly between
11622-475: The constitution. On 22 March, the president of Moldova, Maia Sandu , promulgated the law. The history of the Romanian language started in the Roman provinces north of the Jireček Line in Classical antiquity but there are 3 main hypotheses about its exact territory: the autochthony thesis (it developed in left-Danube Dacia only), the discontinuation thesis (it developed in right-Danube provinces only), and
11771-623: The country Moldovan . In December 2013, a decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence took precedence over the Constitution and the state language should be called Romanian. In 2023, the Moldovan parliament passed a law officially adopting the designation "Romanian" in all legal instruments, implementing the 2013 court decision. Scholars agree that Moldovan and Romanian are
11920-491: The course of the Revolutions of 1989 . Ceaușescu and his wife Elena fled the capital in a helicopter enrouting to Vatican via Vienna , Austria , but they were captured in Romanian territory by the military after the armed forces defected. After being tried and convicted of economic sabotage and genocide , both were sentenced to death, and they were immediately executed by firing squad on 25 December . Ceaușescu
12069-399: The demonstrations as a political threat and ordered military forces to open fire on 17 December, causing many deaths and injuries. The revelation that Ceaușescu was responsible resulted in a massive spread of rioting and civil unrest across the country. The demonstrations, which reached Bucharest , became known as the Romanian Revolution —the only violent overthrow of a communist government in
12218-668: The development of cancer. He continued to follow an independent policy in foreign relations—for example, in 1984, Romania was one of few communist states (notably including the People's Republic of China and Yugoslavia ) to take part in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, despite a Soviet-led boycott. Also, the Socialist Republic of Romania was the first of the Eastern bloc nations to have official relations with
12367-492: The differences as 'accents' or 'speeches' (in Romanian: accent or grai ). Nicolae Ceau%C8%99escu Nicolae Ceaușescu ( / tʃ aʊ ˈ ʃ ɛ s k uː / chow- SHESK -oo , Romanian: [nikoˈla.e tʃe̯a.uˈʃesku] ; 26 January [ O.S. 13 January] 1918 – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian politician who was the second and last communist leader of Romania , serving as
12516-401: The entire social life'". Ceaușescu had been head of state since 1967, though nominally only as first among equals, deriving his real power from his status as party leader. In 1974, Ceaușescu however introduced a full-fledged executive presidency as the nation's top decision-maker. He was first elected to this post in 1974 and would be reelected every five years until 1989. As President he
12665-511: The features that individualize Common Romanian, inherited from Latin or subsequently developed, of particular importance are: The use of the denomination Romanian ( română ) for the language and use of the demonym Romanians ( Români ) for speakers of this language predates the foundation of the modern Romanian state. Romanians always used the general term rumân / român or regional terms like ardeleni (or ungureni ), moldoveni or munteni to designate themselves. Both
12814-532: The few Communist countries to participate in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles (going on to win 53 medals, trailing only the United States and West Germany in the overall count) while most of the Eastern Bloc's nations boycotted this event. Ceaușescu refused to implement measures of economic liberalism . The evolution of his regime followed the path begun by Gheorghiu-Dej. He continued with
12963-413: The first Romanian school, and Ion Heliade Rădulescu . The end of this period is marked by the first printing of magazines and newspapers in Romanian, in particular Curierul Românesc and Albina Românească . Starting from 1831 and lasting until 1880 the modern phase is characterized by the development of literary styles: scientific, administrative, and belletristic . It quickly reached a high point with
13112-479: The gradual development of bilingualism . Russian continued to develop as the official language of privilege, whereas Romanian remained the principal vernacular. The period from 1905 to 1917 was one of increasing linguistic conflict spurred by an increase in Romanian nationalism. In 1905 and 1906, the Bessarabian zemstva asked for the re-introduction of Romanian in schools as a "compulsory language", and
13261-506: The grandiose Centrul Civic (Civic center) and the House of the Republic, now officially renamed the Palace of Parliament , were the most extreme manifestation of the systematization policy. In 1988, a massive rural resettlement program began . Ceaușescu's political independence from the Soviet Union and his protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 drew the interest of Western powers, whose governments briefly believed that he
13410-420: The iconic building for non-commercial purposes, Petrescu's heirs have clearly set out that any commercial use of the building's image is subject to a 2% royalty fee . It is believed the situation could have been avoided if an agreement between the chief architect and the beneficiary (the Romanian state) had addressed the intellectual property rights and Romania had implemented freedom of panorama , restricting
13559-403: The iconic building without authorization. The chamber was accused of copyright infringement for selling photos and souvenirs depicting the building's image. In other lawsuits, the heirs claimed violation of trademarks owned by the chief architect through the depiction of the palace from different angles. While legal experts state that no restrictions exist for tourists wishing to photograph
13708-433: The idea as a "joke". The palace has also been the background for several motorsports events, including the 2011 Drift Grand Prix Romania, which brought together professional drifters from all over Europe. Although the Palace of the Parliament was financed from public funds and the architects did work for hire , after the death of chief architect Anca Petrescu, her heirs sued the Chamber of Deputies for using images of
13857-607: The influence of the Mukacheve eparchy in Ukraine. The language spoken during this period had a phonological system of seven vowels and twenty-nine consonants. Particular to Old Romanian are the distribution of /z/, as the allophone of /dz/ from Common Romanian , in the Wallachian and south-east Transylvanian varieties, the presence of palatal sonorants /ʎ/ and /ɲ/, nowadays preserved only regionally in Banat and Oltenia , and
14006-411: The information recorded in his autobiography, Nicolae Ceaușescu was born on 26 January 1918. His father Andruță (1886–1969) owned 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of agricultural land and a few sheep, and Nicolae supplemented his large family's income through tailoring. He studied at the village school until the age of 11, when he left for Bucharest . The Olt County Service of National Archives holds excerpts from
14155-514: The language can be found all over the world, mostly due to emigration of Romanian nationals and the return of immigrants to Romania back to their original countries. Romanian speakers account for 0.5% of the world's population, and 4% of the Romance-speaking population of the world. Romanian is the single official and national language in Romania and Moldova, although it shares the official status at regional level with other languages in
14304-489: The language, working together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department for Romanians Abroad. Since 2013, the Romanian Language Day is celebrated on every 31 August . Romanian is the official language of the Republic of Moldova. The 1991 Declaration of Independence named the official language Romanian, and the Constitution of Moldova as originally adopted in 1994 named the state language of
14453-475: The large Romanian diaspora . In total, it is spoken by 25 million people as a first language . Romanian was also known as Moldovan in Moldova, although the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled in 2013 that "the official language of Moldova is Romanian". On 16 March 2023, the Moldovan Parliament approved a law on referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and
14602-608: The largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East was found in Israel, where Romanian was spoken by 5% of the population. Romanian is also spoken as a second language by people from Arabic-speaking countries who have studied in Romania. It is estimated that almost half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s. Small Romanian-speaking communities are to be found in Kazakhstan and Russia. Romanian
14751-604: The late 1960s, the population began to swell. In turn, a new problem was created, child abandonment, which swelled the orphanage population (see 1980s-1990s Romanian orphans phenomenon ). Many of the children in these orphanages suffered mental and physical deficiencies see Cighid ). Measures to encourage reproduction included financial motivations for families who bore children, guaranteed maternity leave, and childcare support for mothers who returned to work, work protection for women, and extensive access to medical control in all stages of pregnancy, as well as after it. Medical control
14900-461: The leadership of the Romanian Communist Party as general secretary. Upon achieving power, Ceaușescu eased press censorship and condemned the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in his speech of 21 August 1968 , which resulted in a surge in popularity. However, this period of stability was brief, as his government soon became totalitarian and came to be considered the most repressive in
15049-462: The media regarding the forgery of the census results. The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia determines that in the regions of the Republic of Serbia inhabited by national minorities, their own languages and scripts shall be officially used as well, in the manner established by law. The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina determines that, together with the Serbian language and
15198-787: The military unit assigned to carry out the plan was sent to harvest maize instead. Romanian workers began to mobilize against the economic policies of Ceaușescu. Spontaneous labor conflicts, limited in scale, took place in major industrial centers such as Cluj-Napoca (November 1986) and the Nicolina platform in Iași (February 1987), culminating in a massive strike in Brașov . The draconian measures taken by Ceaușescu involved reducing energy and food consumption, as well as lowering workers' incomes, leading to what political scientist Vladimir Tismăneanu called "generalized dissatisfaction". Over 20,000 workers and
15347-530: The name of rumână or rumâniască for the Romanian language and the self-designation rumân/român are attested as early as the 16th century, by various foreign travelers into the Carpathian Romance-speaking space, as well as in other historical documents written in Romanian at that time such as Cronicile Țării Moldovei [ ro ] ( The Chronicles of the land of Moldova ) by Grigore Ureche . The few allusions to
15496-427: The official language with the Constitution of 1923 . Romanian has preserved a part of the Latin declension , but whereas Latin had six cases , from a morphological viewpoint, Romanian has only three: the nominative / accusative , genitive / dative , and marginally the vocative . Romanian nouns also preserve the neuter gender , although instead of functioning as a separate gender with its own forms in adjectives,
15645-828: The only Eastern European countries that entered into trade agreements with the European Economic Community before the fall of the Eastern Bloc. A series of official visits to Western countries (including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Spain and Australia) helped Ceaușescu to present himself as a reforming Communist, pursuing an independent foreign policy within the Soviet Bloc. He also became eager to be seen as an enlightened international statesman, able to mediate in international conflicts, and to gain international respect for Romania. Ceaușescu negotiated in international affairs, such as
15794-544: The opening of US relations with China in 1969 and the visit of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to Israel in 1977. In addition, Romania was the only country in the world to maintain normal diplomatic relations with both Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization . In 1980, Romania participated in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow with its other Soviet bloc allies, but in 1984 was one of
15943-440: The palace became widely known as The People's House after the Romanian Revolution of December 1989. Due to its impressive characteristics, events organized by state institutions and international bodies such as conferences and symposia take place there, but despite this about 70% of the building remains empty. As of 2020, the Palace of the Parliament is valued at €4 billion, making it the most expensive administrative building in
16092-421: The possibility that what Ceaușescu had seen in both China and North Korea were "vast Potemkin villages for the hoodwinking of gullible foreign guests" was something that never seemed to have crossed his mind. Shortly after returning home, he began to emulate North Korea's system. North Korean books on Juche were translated into Romanian and widely distributed inside the country. On 6 July 1971, he delivered
16241-458: The previously imprisoned "home communist" Władysław Gomułka , Romania was the only Eastern European nation where the "home communists" triumphed over the "Muscovites". In the rest of the Soviet bloc, there were a series of purges in this period that led to the "home communists" being executed or imprisoned. Like his patron Gheorghiu-Dej, Ceaușescu was a "home communist" who benefited from the fall of
16390-489: The printing in 1780 of Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae , the pre-modern phase was characterized by the publishing of school textbooks, appearance of first normative works in Romanian, numerous translations, and the beginning of a conscious stage of re-latinization of the language. Notable contributions, besides that of the Transylvanian School , are the activities of Gheorghe Lazăr , founder of
16539-659: The printing in Vienna of a very important grammar book titled Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae . The author of the book, Samuil Micu-Klein , and the revisor, Gheorghe Șincai , both members of the Transylvanian School , chose to use Latin as the language of the text and presented the phonetical and grammatical features of Romanian in comparison to its ancestor. The Modern age of Romanian language can be further divided into three phases: pre-modern or modernizing between 1780 and 1830, modern phase between 1831 and 1880, and contemporary from 1880 onwards. Beginning with
16688-465: The printing of Dacia Literară , a journal founded by Mihail Kogălniceanu and representing a literary society, which together with other publications like Propășirea and Gazeta de Transilvania spread the ideas of Romantic nationalism and later contributed to the formation of other societies that took part in the Revolutions of 1848 . Their members and those that shared their views are collectively known in Romania as "of '48"( pașoptiști ),
16837-617: The production of more than eighty BAC One-Eleven aircraft. The deal was said at the time to be the biggest between two countries involving a civil aircraft. This was the first state visit by a Communist head of state to the UK, and Ceaușescu was given a knighthood by the Queen, which was revoked on the day before his death in 1989. Similarly, in 1983, Vice President of the United States George H. W. Bush and in 1985 United States Secretary of State George Shultz also praised
16986-436: The program of intensive industrialization aimed at the economic self-sufficiency of the country which since 1959 had already doubled industrial production and had reduced the peasant population from 78% at the end of the 1940s to 61% in 1966 and 49% by 1971. However, for Romania, like other Eastern People's Republics, industrialization did not mean a total social break with the countryside. The peasants returned periodically to
17135-722: The public sphere, in literature and ecclesiastically, began in the late 15th century and ended in the early decades of the 18th century, by which time Romanian had begun to be regularly used by the Church. The oldest Romanian texts of a literary nature are religious manuscripts ( Codicele Voronețean , Psaltirea Scheiană ), translations of essential Christian texts. These are considered either propagandistic results of confessional rivalries, for instance between Lutheranism and Calvinism , or as initiatives by Romanian monks stationed at Peri Monastery in Maramureș to distance themselves from
17284-517: The refined oil at a profit on the Rotterdam spot market. As Romania lacked the money to build the necessary oil refining plants and Ceaușescu chose to spend the windfall from the high oil prices on aid to the Third World in an attempt to buy Romania international influence, Ceaușescu borrowed heavily from Western banks on the assumption that when the loans came due, the profits from the sales of
17433-523: The refined oil would be more than enough to pay off the loans. The 1977 earthquake which destroyed much of Bucharest led to delays in the oil plan. By the time the oil refining plants were finished in the early 1980s, a slump in oil prices had set in, leading to major financial problems for Romania. In August 1977 over 30,000 miners went on strike in the Jiu River valley complaining of low pay and poor working conditions. The Jiu valley miners' strike
17582-472: The regional varieties are small, limited to regular phonetic changes, few grammar aspects, and lexical particularities. There is a single written and spoken standard (literary) Romanian language used by all speakers, regardless of region. Like most natural languages, Romanian dialects are part of a dialect continuum . The dialects of Romanian are also referred to as 'sub-dialects' and are distinguished primarily by phonetic differences. Romanians themselves speak of
17731-553: The same language, with the glottonym "Moldovan" used in certain political contexts. It has been the sole official language since the adoption of the Law on State Language of the Moldavian SSR in 1989. This law mandates the use of Moldovan in all the political, economic, cultural and social spheres, as well as asserting the existence of a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity". It is also used in schools, mass media, education and in
17880-540: The same period, a project aiming to hoist a huge flag was cancelled following public protests. A flag already hoisted outside the building was also removed after the protests. A restaurant inside the palace, accessible only to politicians, was refurbished. Since 1998, the building has also housed an office for the Regional Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) Centre for Fighting Transborder Crime. In 2008,
18029-425: The same time as the Palace, and is ringed by Izvor Street to the west and northwest, United Nations Avenue to the north, Liberty Avenue to the east and Calea 13 Septembrie to the south. The construction of the Palace of the Parliament was the most extreme expression of the systematization program imposed on Romania by Nicolae Ceaușescu . Systematization was a program of urban planning carried out by Ceaușescu, who
18178-519: The scope of copyright law in such cases. Construction of the palace began in 1984 and was initially scheduled for completion in two years. The project was extended to 1990, but in 2013 it was reported that only 400 rooms and two large meeting rooms were finished and being used, out of a total of 1,100 rooms. The building has eight underground levels, the deepest housing a nuclear bunker, linked to main state institutions by 20 km (12.4 mi) of tunnels. Nicolae Ceaușescu feared nuclear war. The bunker
18327-478: The two names (with the capital Chișinău showing a strong preference for the name "Romanian", i.e. 3:2), in the countryside hardly a quarter of Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their native language. Unofficial results of this census first showed a stronger preference for the name Romanian, however the initial reports were later dismissed by the Institute for Statistics, which led to speculations in
18476-495: The unrecognised state of Transnistria , Moldovan is one of the official languages. However, unlike all other dialects of Romanian, this variety of Moldovan is written in Cyrillic script . Romanian is taught in some areas that have Romanian minority communities, such as Vojvodina in Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Hungary. The Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) has since 1992 organised summer courses in Romanian for language teachers. There are also non-Romanians who study Romanian as
18625-428: The use of Romanian in official government publications, public education and legal contracts. Advertisements as well as other public messages must bear a translation of foreign words, while trade signs and logos shall be written predominantly in Romanian. The Romanian Language Institute (Institutul Limbii Române), established by the Ministry of Education of Romania, promotes Romanian and supports people willing to study
18774-478: The use of Romanian in writing as well as common words, anthroponyms, and toponyms preserved in the Old Church Slavonic religious writings and chancellery documents, attested prior to the 16th century, along with the analysis of graphemes show that the writing of Romanian with the Cyrillic alphabet started in the second half of the 15th century. The oldest extant document in Romanian precisely dated
18923-459: The villages or resided in them, commuting daily to the city in a practice called naveta. This allowed Romanians to act as peasants and workers at the same time. Universities were also founded in small Romanian towns, which served to train qualified professionals such as engineers, economists, planners or jurists necessary for the industrialization and development project of the country. Romanian healthcare also achieved improvements and recognition by
19072-470: The words of the British historian Richard Crampton) "... once again à la polonaise , with cries of 'Down with the Red Bourgeoisie!'". Ceaușescu ultimately negotiated a compromise solution to the strike. In the years after the strike, a number of its leaders died of accidents and "premature disease". Rumors emerged that Securitate had doctors give the strike leaders 5-minute chest X-rays to ensure
19221-464: The workshop of Alexandru Săndulescu, a shoemaker who was an active member in the then-illegal Communist Party. Ceaușescu was soon involved in the Communist Party activities (becoming a member in early 1932), but as a teenager he was given only small tasks. He was first arrested in 1933, at the age of 15, for street fighting during a strike and again, in 1934, first for collecting signatures on
19370-584: The world's great powers. During the following years, Ceaușescu pursued an open policy towards the United States and Western Europe . Romania was the first Warsaw Pact country to recognize West Germany , the first to join the International Monetary Fund , and the first to receive a US president, Richard Nixon . In 1971, Romania became a member of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade . Romania and Yugoslavia were also
19519-737: The world's third-largest administrative building after the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C. in the United States and the Sappaya-Sapasathan in Thailand . It is also among the most massive buildings in terms of volume, measuring 2,550,000 m (90,000,000 cu ft): for comparison, the building exceeds by 2% the volume of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt , leading some sources to label it "pharaonic". The Palace of
19668-643: The world. The policy to repay—and, in multiple cases, prepay—Romania's external debt became the dominant policy in the late 1980s. The result was economic stagnation throughout the 1980s and, towards the end of the decade, an economic crisis. The country's industrial capacity was eroded as equipment grew obsolete and energy intensity increased, and the standard of living deteriorated significantly. Draconian restrictions were imposed on household energy use to ensure adequate supplies for industry. Convertible currency exports were promoted at all costs and imports severely reduced. In 1988, real GDP contracted by 0.5%, mostly due to
19817-561: The world. The cost of heating, electricity, and lighting alone exceeds $ 6 million per year. The old Palace of the Chamber of Deputies is now the Palace of the Patriarchate . The Palace is in Sector 5 in the central part of Bucharest, at the top of Dealul Spirii (Spirea's Hill), also known as Dealul Arsenalului (Arsenal Hill). It is at the west end of the 3.5-kilometre (2.2 mi) Bulevardul Unirii (Union Boulevard), constructed at
19966-484: Was a member of the Romanian Communist youth movement. He was arrested in 1939 and sentenced for "conspiracy against social order", spending the time during the war in prisons and internment camps: Jilava (1940), Caransebeș (1942), Văcărești (1943), and Târgu Jiu (1943). Ceaușescu rose up through the ranks of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej 's Socialist government and, upon Gheorghiu-Dej's death in 1965, he succeeded to
20115-669: Was also inspired by the personality cults of North Korea 's Kim Il Sung and China 's Mao Zedong . Journalist Edward Behr claimed that Ceaușescu admired both Mao and Kim as leaders who not only totally dominated their nations but had also used totalitarian methods coupled with significant ultra-nationalism mixed in with communism in order to transform both China and North Korea into major world powers. Furthermore, that Kim and even more so Mao had broken free of Soviet control were additional sources of admiration for Ceaușescu. According to British journalist Edward Behr, Elena Ceaușescu allegedly bonded with Mao's wife, Jiang Qing . Behr wrote that
20264-537: Was an anti-Soviet maverick and hoped to create a schism in the Warsaw Pact by funding him. Ceaușescu did not realise that the funding was not always favorable. Ceaușescu was able to borrow heavily (more than $ 13 billion) from the West to finance economic development programs, but these loans ultimately devastated the country's finances. He also secured a deal for cheap oil from Iran , but the deal fell through after
20413-421: Was arrested again and sentenced for "conspiracy against social order", spending the time during the war in prisons and internment camps : Jilava (1940), Caransebeș (1942), Văcărești (1943), and Târgu Jiu (1943). In 1943, he was transferred to Târgu Jiu internment camp , where he shared a cell with Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej , becoming his protégé. Enticed with substantial bribes, the camp authorities gave
20562-674: Was beginning to fall under Soviet influence, Ceaușescu served as secretary of the Union of Communist Youth (1944–1945). After the Communists seized power in Romania in 1947, and under the patronage of Gheorghiu-Dej, Ceaușescu was elected a member of the Great National Assembly , the new legislative body of communist Romania. In May 1948, Ceaușescu was appointed Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, and in March 1949 he
20711-420: Was born in the small village of Scornicești , Olt County , being the third of nine children of a poor peasant family (see Ceaușescu family ). Based on his birth certificate, he was born on 23 January [ O.S. 5 February] 1918, rather than the official 26 January [ O.S. 8 February] 1918—his birth was registered with a three-day delay, which later led to confusion. According to
20860-579: Was convicted on 6 June 1936 by the Brașov Tribunal to 2 years in prison, an additional 6 months for contempt of court , and one year of forced residence in Scornicești. He spent most of his sentence in Doftana Prison . While out of jail in 1939, he met Elena Petrescu , whom he married in 1946 and who would play an increasing role in his political life over the years. Soon after being freed, he
21009-528: Was empowered to carry out those functions of the State Council that did not require plenums . He also appointed and dismissed the president of the Supreme Court and the prosecutor general whenever the legislature was not in session. In practice, from 1974 onward Ceaușescu frequently ruled by decree. Over time, he usurped many powers and functions that nominally were vested in the State Council as
21158-459: Was impressed by the societal organization and mass adulation he saw in North Korea 's Juche ideology during his East Asia visit in 1971. Ceaușescu decided to implement similar policies in his country, with the stated goal of turning Romania into a "multilaterally developed socialist society ." A systematization project had existed since the 1930s (during the time of King Carol II ) for
21307-473: Was not the obvious successor, despite his closeness to the longtime leader. But widespread infighting by older and more connected officials led the Politburo to choose Ceaușescu as a compromise candidate. He was elected general secretary on 22 March 1965, three days after Gheorghiu-Dej's death. One of Ceaușescu's first acts was to change the name of the party from the Romanian Workers' Party back to
21456-405: Was ordered by Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989), the president of Communist Romania and the second of two long-ruling heads of state in the country since World War II , during a period in which the personality cult of political worship and adoration increased considerably for him and his family . Known for its ornate interior composed of 23 sections, the palace houses the two chambers of
21605-714: Was promoted to the position of Deputy Minister. From the Ministry of Agriculture and with no military experience, he was made Deputy Minister in charge of the armed forces, holding the rank of Major General. Later, promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, he became First Deputy to the Ministry of Defense and head of the Army's Higher Political Directorate. Ceaușescu studied at the Soviet Frunze Military Academy in Moscow for two consecutive months in both 1951 and 1952. In 1952, Gheorghiu-Dej brought him onto
21754-482: Was published in Vienna in 1780. Following the annexation of Bessarabia by Russia in 1812, Moldavian was established as an official language in the governmental institutions of Bessarabia , used along with Russian, The publishing works established by Archbishop Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni were able to produce books and liturgical works in Moldavian between 1815 and 1820. Bessarabia during the 1812–1918 era witnessed
21903-423: Was seen as one of the most productive effects of the law, since all women who became pregnant were under the care of a qualified medical practitioner, even in rural areas. In some cases, if a woman was unable to visit a medical office, a doctor would visit her home. Mothers of at least five children were entitled to receive significant benefits, while mothers of at least ten children were declared "heroine mothers" by
22052-441: Was that of the enforcer, the young man allegedly beating those Party members who refused to go with or were insufficiently enthusiastic about the "self-criticism" sessions. These "self-criticism sessions" not only helped to cement Gheorghiu-Dej's control over the Party, but also endeared his protégé Ceaușescu to him. It was Ceaușescu's time at Târgu Jiu that marked the beginning of his rise to power. After World War II , when Romania
22201-463: Was the most significant expression of opposition to Ceaușescu's rule prior to the late 1980s. The striking miners were inspired by similar strikes along Poland's Baltic coast in December 1970, and just as in Poland in 1970, the striking Romanian miners demanded face-to-face negotiations with their nation's leader. When Ceaușescu appeared before the miners on the third day of the strike, he was greeted (in
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