Corneliu Vadim Tudor | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of the European Parliament forRomania | |
| In office 14 July 2009 – 1 July 2014 | |
| Vice-President of the Senate of Romania | |
| In office 19 December 2004 – 14 December 2008 | |
| President | Nicolae Văcăroiu |
| Member of theSenate of Romania | |
| In office 16 October 1992 – 14 December 2008 | |
| Constituency | Bucharest |
| Leader of theGreater Romania Party | |
| In office 20 June 1991 – 14 September 2015 | |
| Succeeded by | Emil Străinu |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Corneliu Tudor (1949-11-28)28 November 1949 |
| Died | 14 September 2015(2015-09-14) (aged 65) |
| Resting place | Ghencea Cemetery, Bucharest |
| Political party | Romanian Communist Party(1980–1989) Greater Romania Party(1991–2015) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Lidia, Eugenia |
| Relatives | Marcu Tudor (brother) |
| Education | Saint Sava National College |
| Alma mater | University of Bucharest University of Vienna University of Craiova Ovidius University |
| Occupation | Writer, poet, journalist, politician |
| Profession | Historian, sociologist, theologian, limbolog |
| Religion | Romanian Pentecostal |
| Website | vadim-tudor |
Corneliu Vadim Tudor (Romanian pronunciation:[korˈneljuvaˈdimˈtudor]; 28 November 1949 – 14 September 2015), also colloquially known as "Tribunul", was a Romanian politician, poet, writer, and journalist who was the leader of theGreater Romania Party (Romanian:Partidul România Mare) and aMember of the European Parliament. He was aRomanian senator from 1992 to 2008. He was born and died inBucharest, Romania.[1]
As a political figure, he was known for having held strongnationalist[2] views, which were reflected in his rhetoric and his denunciation of political opponents (a tactic which the judgements in several civil lawsuits handed down against him deemed to beslanderous).[citation needed] He was most commonly referred to as "Vadim", which was a name he selected for himself, not a family name (and not shared with his brother, formerRomanian Army officerMarcu Tudor [ro]).[3]
Tudor was born inBucharest on 28 November 1949, into a working-class family, his father being a tailor.[4] In his youth, being an admirer of the French film directorRoger Vadim, he chose the pseudonymVadim as his middle name.[citation needed]
In 1971, he received a degree in sociology from the Faculty of Philosophy of theUniversity of Bucharest, and in 1975, he studied at the School for Reserve Officers in Bucharest.[5] With the help of his mentor,Herder Prize winnerEugen Barbu, he obtained a scholarship and studied inVienna from 1978 to 1979.[6] During the communist era, he worked as a journalist, editor, and poet: in the early 1970s, he was one of the editors atRomânia liberă, and after 1975 was an editor at the Romanian official press agency,Agerpress. He served as senator from 1992 to 2008. For the first time since 1990, after theelection of 30 November 2008, he and his party were no longer present in either of the Romanian legislative chambers. On 25 September 2001, Tudor renounced his parliamentary immunity from prosecution.[7]
In December 2004,Nobel Peace Prize laureateElie Wiesel returned theSteaua României medal, one of the country's highest honors, after PresidentIon Iliescu awarded Tudor the same honor in the last days of his presidency. Wiesel said he was returning the honor because he could not "accept being placed on the same level" as Tudor and fellow party member (and honor recipient)Gheorghe Buzatu.[8] 15Radio Free Europe journalists,Timișoara mayorGheorghe Ciuhandu, songwriterAlexandru Andrieș [ro], and historianRandolph Braham all returned theirSteaua României medals as well due to the awards given Tudor and Buzatu.[9] Tudor'sSteaua României award was revoked by Romanian presidentTraian Băsescu in May 2007.[10] Tudor consequently announced that he would sue Băsescu for abuse of power;[11] in the end, Tudor won the trial with Băsescu.[12]
As a poet he made his debut in May 1965 at the national radio station with a poem read in the George Călinescu literary circle. He published several volumes of prose and poetry:Poezii (Poems; 1977),Epistole vieneze (Viennese Epistles; 1979),Poeme de dragoste, ură și speranță (Poems of Love, Hatred and Hope; 1981),Idealuri (Ideals; 1983),Saturnalii (Saturnalia, 1983),Istorie și civilizatie (History and Civilization; 1983),Mândria de a fi români (The Pride of Being Romanian; 1985),Miracole (Miracles; 1986 anthology),Jurnal de vacanță (Holiday Journal, 1996),Poems (translated in seven languages, published in Torino, Italy, 1998),Europa Creștină (Christian Europe), andArtificii (Artifices; 2010).[13]
Tudor was married and had two children. He died of a heart attack on 14 September 2015 in his nativeBucharest,[14][15] and was buried in the city'sGhencea Cemetery.
His daughter,Lidia Vadim-Tudor, was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in2024 for the for theAlliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party.[16]
In June 1990, Tudor andEugen Barbu founded the nationalist weekly magazineRomânia Mare ("Greater Romania"), which began as a magazine for the government's policies.[citation needed] Later evidence affirmed "Greater Romania" was released with the help of the Communist administration in Bucharest.[17]
In 1991, they founded the Greater Romania Party, the platform of whichTime magazine described as "a crude mixture ofanti-Semitism,[18] racism and nostalgia for the good old days ofcommunism". Some statements and articles by Tudor and his colleagues can be described[citation needed] as ultranationalist, anti-Hungarian,anti-Roma andhomophobic.[19][20][21][22]
Besides Moldova, Tudor wantedGreater Romania to includeBessarabia,Budjak,Northern Bukovina, and theHertsa region, which have belonged toUkraine since thedissolution of the Soviet Union but were part ofMoldavia until the Russian annexation in 1812, and part of Romania between 1918 and 1940 and between 1941 and 1944.România Mare has been sued forlibel with stunning frequency, often for Tudor's own writings (which he usually, if not always, signed under the pseudonymAlcibiade). Between 1993 and 1996, his party supported the leftist governmental coalition (the "Red Quadrilateral").[citation needed]
Tudor's and his party's change fromnational communism toultranationalism took place after 1996. In 1999, Dan Corneliu Hudici, a former reporter atRomânia Mare, claimed there was a "secret blacklist" of dozens of politicians (including PresidentEmil Constantinescu), journalists, and businessmen to be arrested if Tudor's party came to power. However, that allegation only increased Tudor's popularity. In the first round of the Romanian presidential elections on 26 November 2000, Tudor finished second with 28% of the vote. Four years earlier, he had come in fifth. However, nearly all other parties backedIon Iliescu in the 11 December runoff, and Tudor only gained five points compared to his first round performance while Iliescu surged from 36% to 67%.[citation needed]
Tudor supported Romania's entry to theEuropean Union and sustained its presence inNATO. In 2003, Tudor claimed to have changed his views on Jews and theHolocaust.[23] In a letter dated 1 February 2004, he retracted certain earlier statements he had made as inappropriately anti-Semitic. Further, he wrote: "I know that I was wrong to have denied the Holocaust in Romania, which happened between 1941 and 1944 under Antonescu's regime". Many publicly questioned his sincerity and motivations of the change and viewed it simply as a political ploy.[24]
Ahead of the2000 presidential election, Tudor, who finished in second, made the reintroduction of capital punishment a major plank of his campaign.[25]
On 18 October 2012, while he was speaking on the talk showRomania la Raport, Tudor said that "in Romania there was never a Holocaust ... I will deny it till I die because I love my people".[26]
He fired an advisor, who happened to be Jewish and a member of theRomanian Chamber of Deputies,Nati Meir. Tudor claimed it was because of allegations of bribery, but Meir claimed it was because of antisemitism. It turned out that the Romanian press discovered that Meir had been convicted in Israel of banking fraud and so was incompatible with the office of member of the Chamber of Deputies.[citation needed] On 15 November 2006, Meir was brought to trial by the Romanian authorities for tax evasion, fraud and swindling and was accused of illegalities concerning work permits for Israel.
Tudor styled himselfTheTribune, a title that originates inAncient Rome but has more combative meaning in Romanian history since it stood for certain activists in the self-defence of Romanian communities inTransylvania against the Revolutionary government inHungary (seeRevolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas).[citation needed]
| Election | Affiliation | First round | Second round | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | Percentage | Position | Votes | Percentage | Position | ||
| 1996 | PRM | 597,508 | 4.7% | 5th | not qualified | ||
| 2000 | PRM | 3,178,293 | 28.34% | 2nd | 3,324,247 | 33.17% | 2nd |
| 2004 | PRM | 1,313,714 | 12.6% | 3rd | not qualified | ||
| 2009 | PRM | 540,380 | 5.56% | 4th | not qualified | ||
| 2014 | PRM | 349,416 | 3.68% | 7th | not qualified | ||
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