Tudor Chirilă's message on Romania's National Day: “There ends up a people who do not know their history”. What the artist wants for December 1st

“If I want something for December 1st, it's for schools in Romania to wake up and teach students the true history of the 20th century”, says Tudor Chirilă, in a message addressed to Romanians on the occasion of the National Day.

The artist talks about the divisions within society, starting from the way history was taught, and draws attention to the fact that today's Romania “is divided” and that everyone “celebrates something else”. “No one will build on class hatred, ideological hatred, extremism, propaganda and lies. It's just that a people who don't know their history ends up there,” says the artist, in the message published on his Facebook page.

Also, the well-known singer and activist harshly criticizes the communist regime and especially the way in which it turned history into a subject of propaganda, the effect of which, according to Chirilă, can also be seen in today's society.

“Nothing has destroyed the identity of this people more than communism”, says the artist.

What Tudor Chirilă wrote, on the occasion of the National Day:

• “Happy birthday, Romania! If today we were in communism, we would not celebrate anything. Because our national holiday back then was August 23, the date Romania “turned its arms against fascist Germany”, and the Soviet army came and “liberated us”.
• He freed us so well that hundreds of thousands of Romanians were deported to Siberia, as well as most of the soldiers who surrendered and refused to return with the Tudor Vladimirescu Division (out of 165,000 prisoners of war only 9,000 returned to the country with the division created by the NKVD), then communist re-education prisons were organized, where some of those who made the Union from 1 December, they died humiliated and deprived of the smallest shred of human dignity alongside tens or hundreds of thousands of other Romanians who were found guilty of being “enemies of the people”.
• Have your teenage children read Virgil Ierunca's Fenomenul Pitesti, Paul Goma's Gherla or Nicolae Steinhardt's Journal of Happiness. Ceaușescu called himself the successor of the heroes of 1944 and our national holiday became August 23.
• Our generation didn't learn anything in school about those who created the Union on December 1, 1918. About King Ferdinand, Queen Maria, about Ion IC Brătianu, Iuliu Maniu, Nicolae Iorga, Vasile Goldiș, Iancu Flondor, Pantelimon Halippa, Take Ionescu.
• Our generation had no idea that Iuliu Maniu, Sever Bocu, Gheorghe I. Brătianu or Pantelimon Halippa ended up in communist prisons, physically and mentally tortured, held in inhumane conditions. The Romania built by these people was captured by the Russians and thrown into the black hole of over fifty years of communism. That's right, traded between the great powers. It is good not to forget this and to tell it to our children.
• And it is good to know that the monarchy made today's Romania possible by campaigning on all diplomatic channels and through our entry into the First World War decided by King Ferdinand. When we talk about Romania's sovereignty, it could not have been obtained without the monarchy installed by the Romanian political elites with the help of the great powers. In fact, those people wanted a Romania in Europe and for that they looked for a prince.
• Today's Romanians are divided. Everyone celebrates something else. All sorts of historical truths are being peddled that shape the options. Ceaușescu is better seen than King Ferdinand, criminals better seen than those who built. But I know one thing: nothing has destroyed the identity of this people more than communism. And this is not taught in schools.
• Today's corrupt Romania, Romania of social inequalities, Romania lacking education, Romania ruled by incompetents, intolerant Romania, Romania that condemns the weak, the different, the Romania of the dead on the roads, the Romania of femicides, the Romania of disasters, the Romania of institutionalized and abused children in centers, all the Romanias that do not work keep a close connection with how the values ​​of this nation were amputated by communism. The hope of freedom in '89 was confiscated by the same political police that persecuted this people for fifty years. Security guards turned into capitalists. They built the original democracy of Iliescu and the party cabal. They built the propaganda press and they also built everything needed to control the political class. The only things that confused them more were precisely the EU and NATO.
• My heroes are Monica Lovinescu, Virgil Ierunca, Doina Cornea – the woman like a sparrow who had the courage to stand up against a criminal regime -, the engineer Gheorghe Ursu brutally killed by security because he kept a diary about the dictator Ceaușescu, Liviu Cornel Babeș who set himself on fire following the 1987 workers' revolt in Brașov. My heroine is Anita Nandriș Cudla who managed to survive twenty years in Siberia and raise three children, my hero is Nicolae Steinhardt, the Christianized Jew who saved himself in prison by faith, stronger than all the patriarchs who did not bother Ceaușescu with a single word when he was demolishing churches. By the way, how many of the Christians who worship Arsenie Boca know that he was hunted by the communists?
• No one can confiscate the spirit of a people in order to assign it to a single part of that people. No one can divide a people into “with us” and “against us”. No one will build on class hatred, ideological hatred, extremism, propaganda and lies.
• It's just that a people who don't know their history end up there. If I wish for something on December 1st, it is for schools in Romania to wake up and teach students the true history of the 20th century.
• Not the one confiscated by the communists, not the myths on Tik Tok, not the tribute to criminals from the left or the right.
• Because we are where we are and because we don't know who we are. With our good and bad.“