,,OUR DAILY IMPRISONMENT"ROMANIAN WRITERS IN THE COMMUNIST PRISONS
,,OUR DAILY IMPRISONMENT"ROMANIAN WRITERS IN THE COMMUNIST PRISONS

Summary/Abstract: In a normal society, thieves and felons are committed to jail for their deeds. The situation is totally different in a communist society, where robbers, stealers and criminals assert the authority of the regime which rendered their freedom in exchange for their obedience. In other words, prisoners were released from their cells only because they accepted to work for the communist regime. Notwithstanding, the cells didn't stay empty not even one single day. They were immediately filled with another ,,criminals". This new lawbreakers weren't a menace for the society, but for the regime itself. They didn't agree to serve the communist regime and for their crime, the system, with the help of its fathful prosecutors and judges, took the freedom of innocent people. Courts were convened, and under false accusations, ,,enemies of the people" were sentenced to score of yeras in prison. The communist propagandists used to write about this rigged judicial proceeding as the biggest achievent of the ,,communist constitutional state", the righteousness of the working class over the cruel exploiters and slave drivers. Among the unlucky ,,capitalists", ,,kulaks" and ,,burgeois", myriad prisoners were intellectuals, historians, philosophers and writers who were imprisoned for their courage to stand against the oppressive regime which took over the country and, unfortunately, most of the citizens. The writer Ion Ioanid, the essayist Petre Ŝuŝea, the poet Constantin Noica, the philosopher and writer Ion D. Sîrbu, the literary critic Nicolae Steinhardt and the poet Vasile Voiculescu are only a few names among many others which belonged to brave intellectuals who had languished under unrighteous accusations in the brutal camps specially designed to destroy them slowly and painfuly. This essay tries to give a glimpse of the incredible lives of two important dissidents, Ion D. Sîrbu and Nicolae Steinhardt. Both of them were confined because they refused to betray their literaryfellows. Ion D. Sîrbu refused to falsely testify some lies about his mentor and friend Lucian Blaga, while Nicolae Steinhardt withhold some fake evidences about Constantin Noica invented by the prosecution. Ion D. Sîrbu was sentenced to seven years in prison. Nicolae Steinhardt was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but fortunatelly, he spent only six. During their time in prison, these two writers were tortured and tormented, forced to perform inhuman labour. They were humiliated, offended, insulted, blackmailed, but they didn't change their minds about the communist regime as their persecutors always hoped. Even after they were released, they were commited to settle in a place decided by DSS (Department of State Security), also known as Securitatea. They were constantly followed and monitored by the agents of the secret police. After their liberation, they realised that they are still imprisoned, this time, not in a cell, but in their own country. Their sufferance continued. No one would talk to them because of their past. People were scared to befriend the political prisoners, because they knew they were always supervised by the secret police. Both Ion D. Sîrbu and Nicolae Steinhardt died in 1989, the last communist year. They never managed to see the dawn of the democratic regime which came after the appalling crimes of the communist administration. Their thoughts and ideas can be read in their major works: Ion D. Sîrbu's ,,The Diary of a Diarist without Diary" and Nicolae Steinhardt's ,,The Diary of Happiness". Their sacrifice should remind us all that sometimes is very hard to be worthful and earnest, but after many years of pain and struggle the honorable man will always be remembered, while cowards and opportunists will always be forgotten.

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