Tag #136010 - Interview #78511 (Vasile Grunea)

The control became tighter in the 1980s. When the boss [Ceausescu] or the lady boss [his wife] had their name day or birthday, for example, we were told how many photos and articles had to be published about them and in what spirit they should be written. And what was especially hard in the later years of the regime was that they weren't satisfied with the fact that we published the poems of unknown authors, but they insisted on having the best writers writing poems about them and singing their praises. At first they were satisfied with anybody but then they started demanding why this or that one wasn't writing about them. Some people refused saying that they were ill, or they hadn't been writing for years, or regretfully they couldn't write, or weren't worthy of writing such poems because there was something in their past, or whatever excuse they could find. It's easy to condemn better-known people today for writing such hosannas…, the youth today doesn't understand it, but I must add that there was enormous pressure on us at the time.