Zoia Ceaușescu (; 28 February 1949 – 20 November 2006) was a Romanian

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, the daughter of Communist leader

Nicolae Ceaușescu Nicolae Ceaușescu ( , ; – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He ...

and his wife,

Elena Elena may refer to: People * Elena (given name), including a list of people and characters with this name * Joan Ignasi Elena (born 1968), Catalan politician * Francine Elena (born 1986), British poet Geography * Elena (town), a town in Veliko ...

. She was also known as Tovarășa Zoia (comrade Zoia).

Biography

Zoia Ceaușescu studied at High School nr. 24 (now Jean Monnet High School) 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 ...

and graduated in 1966. She then continued her studies at the Faculty of Mathematics,

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 ...

. She received her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in 1977 with thesis ''On Intertwining Dilations'' written under the direction of

Ciprian Foias Ciprian Ilie Foiaș (20 July 1933 – 22 March 2020) was a Romanian-American mathematician. He was awarded the Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics in 1995, for his contributions in operator theory. Education and career Born in Reșița ...

. Ceaușescu then worked as a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. Her field of specialization was

functional analysis Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure (e.g. inner product, norm, topology, etc.) and the linear functions defined o ...

. 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. In 1976, Ceaușescu received the Simion Stoilow Prize for her outstanding contributions to the mathematical sciences. She was married in 1980 to Mircea Oprean, an engineer and professor at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. During the

Romanian Revolution The Romanian Revolution ( ro, Revoluția Română), also known as the Christmas Revolution ( ro, Revoluția de Crăciun), was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred ...

, on 24 December 1989, she was arrested for "undermining the Romanian economy" and was released only eight months later, on 18 August 1990. After she was freed, she tried unsuccessfully to return to her former job at INCREST, then gave up and retired. After the revolution, some newspapers reported that she had lived a wild life, having plenty of lovers and often being drunk. 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 The Securitate (, Romanian for ''security'') was the popular term for the Departamentul Securității Statului (Department of State Security), the secret police agency of the Socialist Republic of Romania. Previously, before the communist regime ...

to keep an eye on the Ceaușescu children, perhaps she felt, out of a "sense of love". The Securitate "could not touch" the children she said, but the information they provided created a lot of problems for the children. She also remarked that power had a "destructive effect" on her father and that he "lost his sense of judgement". Zoia Ceaușescu believed that her parents were not buried in

Ghencea Cemetery Ghencea Cemetery is located in Ghencea neighbourhood of Bucharest, on Ghencea Boulevard, in Sector 6 (Bucharest), Sector 6. The cemetery has two sections, civilian and military. Notable interments * Cabiria Andreian Cazacu, mathematician * Gheo ...

; she attempted to have their remains exhumed, but a military court refused her request. Zoia was a

chain smoker Chain smoking is the practice of smoking several cigarettes in succession, sometimes using the ember of a finished cigarette to light the next. The term chain smoker often also refers to a person who smokes relatively constantly, though not nece ...

."o fumătoare înrăită"
("An inveterate smoker") 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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ceausescu, Zoia Zoia Ceausescu Daughters of presidents 20th-century Romanian mathematicians Mathematical analysts People of the Romanian Revolution University of Bucharest alumni Deaths from lung cancer in Romania 1949 births 2006 deaths 20th-century women scientists 20th-century women mathematicians Scientists from Bucharest