Zoia Ceaușescu

Zoia Ceaușescu (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈzoja tʃe̯awˈʃesku], 28 February 1949, Iasi – 20 November 2006, Bucharest) was a Romanian mathematician, the daughter of Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena.

She did her studies at the University of Bucharest. After completing her PhD in mathematics, she worked as a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. Her field of specialization was functional analysis. Allegedly, her parents were unhappy with their daughter's choice of doing research in mathematics, so the Institute was disbanded in 1975. She moved on to work for Institutul pentru Creație Științifică și Tehnică (INCREST, Institute for Scientific and Technical Creativity), where she eventually started and headed a new department of mathematics.

She was married in 1980 to Mircea Oprean, an engineer and professor at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest.

During the Romanian Revolution, on 24 December 1989 she was arrested for "undermining the Romanian economy" and was released only eight months later, on 18 August 1990.[1] After she was freed, she tried unsuccessfully to return to her former job at INCREST, then gave up and retired.[2] After the revolution, some newspapers reported that she had lived a wild life, having plenty of lovers and often being drunk.[3]

After her parents were executed, the new government confiscated the house where she and her husband lived (the house was used as proof of allegedly stolen wealth), so she had to live with friends.

After the revolution that ousted her parents, Zoia reported that during her parents' time in power her mother had asked the Securitate to keep an eye on the Ceaușescu children, perhaps she felt, out of a "sense of love".[4] The Securitate "could not touch" the children she said, but the information they provided created a lot of problems for the children.[5] She also remarked that power had a "destructive effect" on her father and that he "lost his sense of judgment".[6]

Zoia Ceaușescu believed that her parents were not buried in Ghencea Cemetery; she attempted to have their remains exhumed, but a military court refused her request.

Zoia was known to be an inveterate smoker.[7] She died of lung cancer in 2006, at age 57.

Selected publications

Zoia Ceaușescu published 22 scientific papers between 1976 and 1988. Some of those are:

References

  1. ↑ (Romanian) Oana Dobre, "Invinsǎ de cancer" Archived 20 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine., Evenimentul Zilei, 22 November 2006
  2. ↑ (Romanian) Camelia Onciu, "Sub povara numelui" Archived 29 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine., Monitorul de Sibiu, 22 November 2006
  3. ↑ "Wild Life of Ceaușescu's Daughter Bared", Los Angeles Times, 10 January 1990, page 2
  4. ↑ The rise and fall of Ceaușescu, a BBC Television Production written and presented by Edward Behr, 1991
  5. ↑ The rise and fall of Ceaușescu, a BBC Television Production written and presented by Edward Behr, 1991
  6. ↑ The rise and fall of Ceaușescu, a BBC Television Production written and presented by Edward Behr, 1991
  7. ↑ (Romanian) http://www.evz.ro/detalii/stiri/invinsa-de-cancer-420087.html "o fumătoare înrăită" (Engl. transl.: "an inveterate smoker")
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