Elena Ceaușescu

Elena Ceaușescu

Elena Ceaușescu (January 7, 1916 – December 25, 1989) was the wife of Romania's Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu, and Deputy Prime Minister of Romania.

Quotes

• Come off it! You can't sell me the idea that Mr. Peanut [then US President Jimmy Carter] can give me an Illi-whatsis diploma but not any from Washington. I will not go to Illi-whatever it is. I will not!
  • Elena's reaction on learning she would only be receiving an honorary membership in the Illinois Academy of Sciences (IAS) and not a more prestigious institute on the Ceaușescus's state visit to the US, according to Ion Mihai Pacepa, former chief of the Securitate

• Promise them something. Talk to them!
  • To her husband Nicolae Ceaușescu, as the crowd he was speaking to turned ugly (21 Dec 1989)

• “Victoraș [a diminutive], take care of the children!”
  • Elena to General Victor Stănculescu as she and Nicolae fled from a mob into a waiting helicopter (22 December 1989)

• We live in a normal apartment, just like every other citizen. We have ensured an apartment for every citizen through corresponding laws.
  • Statements at trial (25 December 1989)

• We will not sign any statement. We will speak only at the National Assembly, because we have worked hard for the people all our lives. We have sacrificed all our lives to the people. And we will not betray our people here.
  • Statements at trial (25 December 1989)

• Such impudence! I am a member and the chairwoman of the Academy of Sciences. You cannot talk to me in such a way!
  • Statements at trial (25 December 1989), in response to being asked who wrote her scientific papers

• Everyone has the right to die as they wish.
• Don't tie us up. It's a shame, a disgrace. I brought you up like a mother. Why are you doing this? If you want to kill us, kill us together. We will always be together.
• [to a soldier who bumped into her] You keep away from me, you motherfucker.
• Look, they are going to shoot us like dogs. I can't believe this. Is the death penalty still in force in Romania?
  • Statements made by Elena in the minutes between the conviction of the Ceaușescus and their execution (25 December 1989)

Quotes about Elena Ceaușescu

• As the wife of the most powerful politician in the country, Elena Ceaușescu wanted to portray herself as a role model, worthy of being next to the ‘great political leader,’ her husband. She wouldn’t hear of having just any job. As communism prized science as a force for industrial production, and being an intellectual had also been valued when she had been younger, a job as a scientist would work well with being the first [female] comrade of the country.
  • Biographer Lavinia Betea on Elena's fraudulent academic credentials

• We were told: no paper can be written or published, no conference delivered without Elena Ceaușescu’s name appearing in first place. We never saw her, we never heard from her at any time during our research or afterward. She never even acknowledged our existence. We were producing papers with words which, we knew, she could not pronounce, let alone understand.
  • Mircea Corciovei, a scientist at the Chemical Research Institute (ICECHIM)

• Elena Ceaușescu was very careful about her image. She wanted to be the Mother of the Nation. She never kept in the background, and therefore, there was a huge list of dos and don'ts when recording her picture. First and foremost, she was never supposed to be shown in profile because she had a huge nose, and she wasn't a beautiful woman anyway. She wasn't supposed to be shown peering. ... She didn't like to be seen having common gestures. ... And the list went on and on. She had problems with her legs. She wouldn't be shown, for instance, in a full shot walking like a normal human being. She had a very undignified way of walking. And therefore, when she walked with her husband on state visits ... they were both only shown from the waist upward.
  • Nicolae Melinescu, Romanian state television producer

• It was not a problem to occasionally tell [Nicolae] Ceaușescu the truth. But it was not a good idea to tell Elena the truth. And in the last years, she was always with him.
  • Emil Bărbulescu, nephew of Nicolae Ceaușescu

• She does not deserve to be characterized. In order to do it, an inventory of all the negative human features known to history is sufficient; dominant were meanness and avarice, stupidity, and a crass lack of culture.
  • Silviu Curticeanu, head of the Chancellery Section of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party

• She was a nagging shrew. She was totally negative. She was mean; she always had to get her own way. She was [Nicolae] Ceaușescu's devil. As with a mentally unstable person, you went around her, you tried to avoid her. ...she was unadulterated evil. She was very vain and almost illiterate. I saw her as a mixture of Imelda Marcos, Evita Perón, and Chiang Ching.
  • Eugen Proca, Romanian Minister of Health (1978-1985)

See also

• Nicolae Ceaușescu