It is impossible to talk about this woman only in white or black. If only because she was able, without any education (in the village school, where she never finished her studies, she was given only one good mark - in needlework), to be the right hand of her husband, the President of Romania. Together they ruled the country for over 20 years. Without any diploma, she was at the head of the Romanian Academy of Sciences and the country's largest chemical company - ICECHIM. She is Elena Ceausescu, wife of Nicolae Ceausescu and mother of their three children, Niku, Valentina and Zoe.
Childhood
In the commune of Petreshti (Dymbovitsa County, in the Wallachia region) in an ordinary peasant family on January 7, 1919, a girl was born, named Elena. The whole family existed thanks to the work of his father, a local plowman. Not much is known about how Elena Ceausescu spent her childhood, but some records made in her homeland claim that she did not study at school.gave special pleasure, therefore, without finishing it, she fled from there. And the level of knowledge that Elena managed to get (at that time still Petrescu) left much to be desired, because only in needlework she was able to excel among her classmates in elementary school.
Having stopped studying, she and her brother moved to Bucharest. At first she worked as a laboratory assistant, and then got a job at a textile factory.
Party activities of a poorly educated textile worker
At the age of 18, Elena Ceausescu became a member of the Romanian Communist Party. And after 2 years, while still a very young underground communist, she meets her future husband. Just shortly before that, he was released from imprisonment, which he was serving in the Doftan prison. To say that the young man was fascinated by her is to say nothing. He fell in love at first sight. The marriage of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu was registered immediately after World War II ended.
For several decades, this woman with a truly steel character and reinforced concrete will managed to play one of the main roles in the state.
The wife of a genius
And before that, after the textile factory, she happened to work for some time at a chemical plant. This came in handy for Elena many years later, when she became the head of the largest chemical laboratory in the country - ICECHIM. Very little time passes, and the wife of the greatest "genius of the Carpathians" is like rain showered with a variety of academic degrees. Now Elena Ceausescu, executionwhich was a complete surprise to many, is called the "luminary of science" and heads the Romanian Academy of Sciences.
Rise to the political Olympus
Elena Ceausescu, with her temperament, could never remain on the sidelines. Especially, being married to such a person as the president and general secretary of Romania. When Nicolae made official visits abroad, she almost always went with him. An important political lesson for her was a state visit to China, where she saw with her own eyes the real power of a woman - the wife of Mao Zedong, whose name was Jiang Qing.
History is silent about what exactly served as the impetus for the further development of the situation, but it is quite possible that this trip fueled Elena's enthusiasm. After all, just after the 1971 visit, she began a rapid climb up the political ladder in her country.
In July of the same year, she was already a member of the Central Commission for Socio-Economic Forecasting, and a year later Ceausescu was already a member of the Central Committee of the RCP. A year later, she was elected to the executive committee of the party.
The 1980s brought her the portfolio of the first deputy prime minister (in parallel with this, we must remember that her husband Nicolae was the president of the country at that time). Very long odes were written in her honor, in the lines of which she was compared to a star, standing with the Great Husband and looking with her eyes on the path of Romania, leading to victory.
The usual life of the Romanian rulers
Nicolae Ceausescu the last few years of his brutal ruleI was very afraid of being poisoned or infected with some kind of disease. Over time, he passed on this fear to his wife Elena. After each official meeting or any diplomatic reception where, according to the protocol, it was necessary to shake hands, the spouses always washed their palms with a medical solution.
Any trip abroad was accompanied by an invariable ritual: a servant and a hairdresser removed all the hotel linen and replaced it with the personal linen of the Ceausescu couple, which was brought in sealed suitcases from Bucharest. Underwear and table napkins were constantly ironed to kill germs, despite being sterilized and sealed in airtight bags.
The entire room in any hotel was always treated by security guards with antiseptics - power switches, doorknobs, floors, carpets, even upholstered furniture. A personal chemical engineer, Major Popa, constantly traveled with Ceausescu, who always had a portable laboratory at hand. After all, Nicolae was also afraid of poisoned food, even if it was brought from Bucharest. Therefore, all the products that got on the table to the spouses were checked in this laboratory.
But all these precautions came to naught when the popular uprising took place.
The last breath of the "great ones"
December 18, 1989, Nicolae Ceausescu went on an official visit to Iran, but after 2 days he had to return: a revolution began in his country, the main idea of which was to overthrow his dictatorial regime.
The couple fled from Bucharest tohelicopter. Then they seized the car of one of the workers and forced him to act as their driver and go looking for shelter for them. At times, the husband could not stand it, tears rolled down his face. Elena Ceausescu, whose execution (as well as her husband) will make many flinch, stood like a rock: threatening a worker with a gun, she gave him orders what to do and how.
A little later, the couple asked for shelter in one of the private houses. The hosts cordially received them, and then, having locked the Ceausescu couple in a room, they called the soldiers. In the city of Targovishte, a tribunal was organized at the military base where the spouses were brought. They were accused of genocide and tyranny. Of course, there is a significant amount of truth in this. They called themselves the beloved children of the people, and the common people, in their understanding, did not need love. Luxurious food and outfits were brought to them from abroad, while the people were starving, receiving 200 g of bread a day. Through their efforts, an armed attack on people and state power was organized. By their actions, they prevented the proper development of the country's economy.
The Ceausescu couple denied all accusations. Nicolae shouted that he would only speak before the Grand National Assembly, that he would never recognize this court.
When they were asked to talk about accounts in Switzerland, both Ceausescus shouted that such a thing did not exist. And when they demanded that they transfer all the funds from these accounts to the State Bank of Romania, Nicolae replied that he would not transfer anything. The couple never told the court how they were published abroadscientific works of "academician" Elena Ceausescu and selected works of Nicolae.
They were sentenced to capital punishment. The execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu took place on December 25, 1989 at 4 pm. Elena did not understand what the word "genocide" means. According to one of the assumptions, their bodies were buried in the town of Targovishte in an unmarked grave. Experts from the United States, having closely studied the post-mortem photographs of the spouses, suggested that they could have been killed even before the trial.
