Mircea Aurel Vulcănescu (3 March 1904 – 28 October 1952) was a
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
n philosopher, economist, ethics teacher, sociologist, and
far-right politician. Undersecretary at the Ministry of Finance from 1941 to 1944 in the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
-aligned government of
Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu (; ; – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and ''Conducător'' during most of World War II.
A Romanian Army career officer who made ...
, he was arrested in 1946 and convicted as a
war criminal.
Biography
He was born in
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
on March 3, 1904, the second child of Mihail Vulcănescu, a financial controller with the
Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a part of the government in most countries that is responsible for matters related to the finance.
Lists of current ministries of finance
Named "Ministry"
* Ministry of Finance (Afghanistan)
* Ministry of Finance and Eco ...
, and Maria, the descendant of a family of landowners from the Olt area.
After the
German Army
The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...
occupied Bucharest in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the family took refuge in 1917 in
Zvoriștea
Zvoriștea is a commune located in Suceava County, Western Moldavia, northeastern Romania. It is composed of eight villages, namely: Buda, Dealu, Poiana, Slobozia, Stânca, Stâncuța, Șerbănești, and Zvoriștea.
Natives
* Dan Lupașcu (bor ...
, a village in northern
Moldavia
Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...
.
Mircea Vulcănescu attended gymnasium in
Iași
Iași ( , , ; also known by other alternative names), also referred to mostly historically as Jassy ( , ), is the second largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, it has traditionally ...
and
Tecuci
Tecuci () is a city in Galați County, Romania, in the historical region of Western Moldavia. It is situated among wooded hills, on the right bank of the Bârlad River, and at the junction of railways from Galați, Bârlad, and Mărășești.
...
, and went to high school in
Galați
Galați (, , ; also known by other alternative names) is the capital city of Galați County in the historical region of Western Moldavia, in eastern Romania. Galați is a port town on the Danube River. It has been the only port for the most par ...
before returning to Bucharest at the end of the war. He completed his secondary education at
Gheorghe Lazăr High School and
Mihai Viteazul High School Mihai () is a Romanian given name for males or a surname. It is equivalent to the English name Michael. A variant of the name is Mihail. Its female form is Mihaela.
As a given name
*Mihai I of Romania (1921–2017), King of Romania until 1947
*Miha ...
, defending his baccalaureate in 1921.
He studied philosophy and law at the
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea din București), commonly known after its abbreviation UB in Romania, is a public university founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princel ...
, graduating in 1925 with
licentiate thesis ''Individ și societate în sociologia contemporană'', written under the direction of
Dimitrie Gusti
Dimitrie Gusti (; 13 February 1880 – 30 October 1955) was a Romanian sociologist, ethnologist, historian, and voluntarist philosopher; a professor at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, he served as Romania's Minister of ...
. He was then more attracted to
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
, due to his field experiences (monograph campaigns) under the coordination of Gusti, who became one of his most admired mentors, alongside
Nae Ionescu
Nae Ionescu (, born Nicolae C. Ionescu; – 15 March 1940) was a Romanian philosopher, logician, mathematician, professor, and journalist. Near the end of his career, he became known for his antisemitism and devotion to far right politics, in th ...
. Vulcănescu was also Gusti's assistant at the Faculty of Sociology in
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
. He then went to
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, where he pursued doctoral research at the Faculty of Law of the
University of Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
; in November 1928, he earned a degree in economics and political science,
but later dropped out, without completing his Ph.D. degree. While in France, he wrote several "Letters from Paris", two of which were published in Romania in ''
Gândirea
''Gândirea'' ("The Thinking"), known during its early years as ''Gândirea Literară - Artistică - Socială'' ("The Literary - Artistic - Social Thinking"), was a Romanian literary, political and art magazine.
Overview
Founded by Cezar Pet ...
'' magazine.
Between 1924 and 1932, he took part in several monographic research campaigns, in
Goicea Mare,
Fundu Moldovei
Fundu Moldovei (german: Luisenthal/Louisenthal or Fundul Moldawi/Fundu-Moldowi) is a commune located in Suceava County, Bukovina, northeastern Romania. It is composed of ten villages, namely: Botuș, Botușel, Braniștea, Colacu, Delnița, Delu ...
,
Runcu,
Cornova, and
Drăguș
Drăguș (german: Drachenbach, Traschen; hu, Dragus) is a commune in Brașov County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of a single village, Drăguș, part of Viștea Commune until being split off in 2004.
Drăguș is located at the western ...
. From 1932 to 1933, alongside
Constantin Noica
Constantin Noica (; – 4 December 1987) was a Romanian philosopher, essayist and poet. His preoccupations were throughout all philosophy, from epistemology, philosophy of culture, axiology and philosophic anthropology to ontology and logics, ...
,
Petru Comarnescu __NOTOC__
Petru Comarnescu (born 23 November 1905, Iași - d. 27 November 1970, Bucharest) was a Romanian literary and art critic and translator.
Born in Iași into a family that was related to the metropolitan bishop Veniamin Costache, he studied ...
,
Emil Cioran
Emil Mihai Cioran (, ; 8 April 1911 – 20 June 1995) was a Romanian philosopher, aphorist and essayist, who published works in both Romanian and French. His work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, style, and aphorisms. H ...
,
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade (; – April 22, 1986) was a Romanians, Romanian History of religion, historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who establ ...
, and
Dan Botta
Dan Botta (; September 26, 1907 – January 13, 1958) was a Romanian poet and essayist.
Life
Born in Adjud, his parents were the physician Theodor Botta and his wife Aglaia (''née'' de Franceschi), an orphanage director; his brother was po ...
, he gained a high profile through publishing and the intense activity of the
Criterion association. In January 1934 he was invited by
Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș
Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș (; also known as Al. Tzigara, Tzigara-Sumurcaș, Tzigara-Samurcash, Tzigara-Samurkasch or Țigara-Samurcaș; April 4, 1872 – April 1, 1952) was a Romanian art historian, Ethnography, ethnographer, Museology, museologi ...
, the director of ''
Convorbiri Literare
''Convorbiri Literare'' ( Romanian: ''Literary Talks'') is a Romanian literary magazine published in Romania. It is among the most important journals of the nineteenth-century Romania.
History and profile
''Convorbiri Literare'' was founded by ...
'', to join the editorial board of this prestigious literary magazine, which also included Eliade, Noica, and
Henri H. Stahl Henri H. Stahl (also known as Henry H. Stahl or H. H. Stahl; 1901 – 9 September 1991) was a Romanian Marxist cultural anthropologist, ethnographer, sociologist, and social historian.
Biography
Born in Bucharest to a family of Alsatian and ...
.
From June 1935 to September 1937, Vulcănescu was director of the Customs Service, while in 1940 he was director of the Public Debt Department. From January 27, 1941 to August 23, 1944, he was undersecretary at the Ministry of Finance, in the
Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu (; ; – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and ''Conducător'' during most of World War II.
A Romanian Army career officer who made ...
government.
In November 1941, he was awarded the
Order of the Star of Romania
The Order of the Star of Romania (Romanian: ''Ordinul Steaua României'') is Romania's highest civil Order and second highest State decoration after the defunct Order of Michael the Brave. It is awarded by the President of Romania. It has five r ...
, Grand Officer rank. During the war, he was one of Romania's best negotiators with
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, managing to obtain for the
National Bank of Romania
The National Bank of Romania ( ro, Banca Națională a României, BNR) is the central bank of Romania and was established in April 1880. Its headquarters are located in the capital city of Bucharest.
The National Bank of Romania is responsible ...
eight wagons of gold (confiscated by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
after 1944), and the endowment of the
Romanian 4th Army
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
with new military equipment.
After the
coup d'état of August 1944 he returned to his job as director of the Public Debt Department.
He was arrested on August 30, 1946, tried as a war criminal, and sentenced on October 9, 1946 to 8 years in prison.
However, the trial was in itself a controversial one, since the judiciary regime suffered from the influence of the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
and, consequently, from the
Soviet occupation
During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into two different ...
. Vulcănescu was convicted for ”permitting the entry of the German army on the country's territory" and for "declaring or continuing the war against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United Nations".
Nicolae Mărgineanu, a teacher at the
King Ferdinand I University of
Cluj
; hu, kincses város)
, official_name=Cluj-Napoca
, native_name=
, image_skyline=
, subdivision_type1 = Counties of Romania, County
, subdivision_name1 = Cluj County
, subdivision_type2 = Subdivisions of Romania, Status
, subdivision_name2 ...
and a post-mortem
member of the Romanian Academy, claimed that the accusations that were brought against Vulcănescu were false and that he was a victim of the
Communist regime
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...
, as part of a larger scheme of the authorities whose aim was to slowly kill off Romanian intellectuals, especially those who opposed the regime. The political character of his conviction was confirmed by the Bucharest Tribunal in 2017.
From his arrest to his conviction, Vulcănescu was held at the prisons in
Văcărești and
Jilava
Jilava is a commune in Ilfov county, Muntenia, Romania, near Bucharest. It is composed of a single village, Jilava.
The name derives from a Romanian word of Slavic origin (Bulgarian жилав ''žilav'' (tough), which passed into Romanian as ''j ...
, where he was subjected to torture.
After his conviction, he was sent to the notorious
Aiud Prison
Aiud Prison is a prison complex in Aiud, Alba County, located in central Transylvania, Romania. It is infamous for the treatment of its political inmates, especially during World War II under the rule of Ion Antonescu, and later under the Commu ...
, where he was held in isolation at the "Zarca". Suffering from
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
and denied medical care, he died on October 28, 1952.
His last words are said to have been: "Do not avenge us, but do not forget us!".
Family
He was married twice. His first wife was Anina Rădulescu-Pogoneanu, whom he married in the fall of 1925; the two had a daughter, Elena-Maria-Viorica (Vivi), in the summer of 1927.
After a divorce, he married his second wife, Mărgărita-Ioana Niculescu, in the spring of 1930; they had
two daughters: Elisabeta-Alexandra (Sandra), born in 1931, and Ioana-Maria-Mărgărita (Mariuca), born in 1933.
Mariuca was imprisoned from 1952 to 1954 by the Communist authorities because she was Vulcănescu's daughter.
Controversies
According to
Zigu Ornea
Zigu Ornea (; born Zigu Orenstein Andrei Vasilescu"La ceas aniversar – Cornel Popa la 75 de ani: 'Am refuzat numeroase demnități pentru a rămâne credincios logicii și filosofiei analitice.' ", in Revista de Filosofie Analitică', Vol. II, N ...
, Vulcănescu considered himself a sympathizer of the
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard ( ro, Garda de Fier) was a Romanian militant revolutionary fascist movement and political party founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael () or the Legionnaire Movement (). It was strongly ...
. Other scholars considered him to be "a supporter of discrimination based on ethnicity", who, according to the director of the
, "supported spiritually and morally the antisemitism of the government."
Despite these claims, in one of his works, Vulcănescu reportedly considered the Iron Guard as a terrorist movement controlled by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. For these reasons, he refused to join the government led by the Legionary Movement in 1940.
The Mircea Vulcănescu Technological High School bears his name; founded in 1992, the school is located in
Sector 4 of Bucharest. An attempt was made in 2017 by the Council of Sector 4 to rename the school after
Traian Popovici
Traian Popovici (October 17, 1892 – June 4, 1946) was a Romanian lawyer and mayor of Cernăuți during World War II, known for saving 20,000 Jews of Bukovina from deportation.
Life
Popovici was born in Rușii Mănăstioarei village of t ...
, but the proposal was eventually rejected.
In 2009, a bust of Vulcănescu designed by sculptor was unveiled in
Sector 2
Sector 2 ( ro, Sectorul 2) is an administrative unit of Bucharest.
Demographics
Sector 2 is the city's most multicultural sector. In particular, it contains Romania's largest community of Chinese people, who mainly live in the districts of C ...
's Saint Stephen Plaza.
Streets in
Aiud
Aiud (; la, Brucla, hu, Nagyenyed, Hungarian pronunciation: ; german: Straßburg am Mieresch) is a city located in Alba County, Transylvania, Romania. The city's population is 22,876. It has the status of municipality and is the 2nd-largest c ...
and in Bucharest's
Sector 1
Sector 1 is an administrative unit of Bucharest located in the northern part of the city. It contains also the northwestern districts of Băneasa and Pipera. Sector 1 is thought to be the wealthiest sector in Bucharest. Like each of Bucharest sect ...
are also named after him. In 2017, the Elie Wiesel Institute requested that the name of the Mircea Vulcănescu Street in Sector 1 be changed; after a public appeal by several dozen Romanian intellectuals and consultation with the Romanian Academy, the request was denied by the Bucharest
prefecture
A prefecture (from the Latin ''Praefectura'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain international ...
.
Main works
* ''Teoria și sociologia vieții economice. Prolegomene la studiul morfologiei economice a unui sat'' (''The Theory and Sociology of Economic Life. Prolegomena to the Study of Morphological Economy of a Village'') (1932)
* ''În ceasul al 11-lea'' (''The Eleventh Hour'') (1932)
* ''Cele două Românii'' (''The Two Romanias'') (1932)
* ''Gospodăria țărănească și cooperația'' (1933)
* (with Traian Herseni), ''D. Gusti și școala sociologică de la București'' (''Dimitrie Gusti the professor''), București, Institutul Social Român, 1937
* ''Războiul pentru întregirea neamului'' (''The War for Reuniting Kin'') (1938)
* ''Înfățișarea socială a două județe'' (''The Social Appearance of Two Counties'') (1938)
* ''Dimensiunea românească a existenței'' (''The Romanian Dimension of Existence'') (1943)
Posthumous works
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vulcanescu, Mircea
1904 births
1952 deaths
Writers from Bucharest
University of Bucharest alumni
20th-century Romanian philosophers
Romanian expatriates in France
Grand Officers of the Order of the Star of Romania
Romanian fascists
Holocaust perpetrators in Romania
Romanian people convicted of war crimes
Inmates of Aiud prison
Romanian torture victims
Tuberculosis deaths in Romania
Prisoners who died in Securitate custody
Romanian people who died in prison custody