Alexandru Paleologu
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Alexandru Paleologu (14 March 1919, Bucharest - 2 September 2005, Bucharest) was a Romanian writer, diplomat and politician.
Paleologu was born in an ancient Romanian boyar family that had its origins in the last dynasty Palaeologus that ruled the Byzantine Empire. They had moved from the Lesbos Island to the Danubian Principalities at the beginning of the 18th century. Paleologu was also, through various marriages, a descendant of the great ruler of Wallachia Constantin Brâncoveanu. His father was a Liberal MP and later general secretary in the Ministries of Justice and of Finance.
Alexandru graduated from the Spiru Haret High School in Bucharest and then he studied Law at Bucharest University. In 1944 he took part in the Romanian committee of the armistice and between 1946 and 1948 he worked for the Romanian Royal Ministry of External Affairs. After the communists took power he was under surveillance by the Securitate, and he lived hidden and under a false name in Câmpulung until 1956, when he worked as a researcher at the Romanian Academy in the Institute of Ancient Art History.
In 1959 he was arrested and sentenced to 14 years of forced labour. In prison, he met many other important people in Romanian culture such as Constantin Noica and Alexandru Ivasiuc. He was freed in 1964 and he worked at the same Institute in the Theatre section. He was the literary secretary of the Constantin Nottara theatre of Bucharest and in 1967 he became member of the Romanian Writers' Union. Between 1970 and 1976 he was a writer for the Cartea Românească publishing house.
After the Romanian revolution of 1989 he was named ambassador of Romania to France starting February 1, 1990, but he was replaced in June 1990 because he was a sympathiser of the "Golaniad" movement of the University Square (he was self-styled "the ambassador of the hooligans" - ambasadorul golanilor), as well due to his pro-monarchist views.
He later became a member of the Civic Alliance Party, founded by Nicolae Manolescu and he was between 1992 and 1996 a senator of Argeş. He later was a Liberal senator of Vrancea and between 2000 and 2004 a senator of Bucharest.
In the years after 1989 he admitted in a book of interviews with historian and novelist Stelian Tănase that during the communist period he eventually ended up collaborating with the "Securitate" (the Romanian Communist secret police) and asked Romanians to forgive him.
[edit] Books published
- "Spiritul şi litera. Eseuri critice", 1970
- "Bunul-simţ ca paradox. Eseuri", 1972
- "Simţul practic. Eseuri şi polemici", 1974
- "Treptele lumii sau calea către sine a lui Mihail Sadoveanu", 1978
- "Ipoteze de lucru. Studii şi eseuri literare", 1980
- "Alchimia existenţei. Eseuri şi portrete", 1983. A doua ediţie, revizuită, 1997
- "Souvenirs merveilleux d'un ambassadeur des golans" (Minunatele amintiri ale unui ambasador al golanilor), Editura Ballard, 1992; Editura Humanitas, 1993
- "Minunatele amintiri ale unui ambasador al golanilor", 1993
- "Sfidarea memoriei", 1995 (un dialog cu Stelian Tănase)
- "Despre lucruri cu adevărat importante", 1997; a doua ediţie 1998
- "Interlocuţiuni", 1997
- "Politeţea ca armă. Convorbiri şi articole mai mult sau mai puţin politice" (2000)
- "L'Occident est à l'Est" (2001)
