 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Grigore Gafencu" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Grigore Gafencu | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania | |
| In office February 1, 1939 – July 3, 1940 | |
| Monarch | Carol II of Romania |
| Prime Minister | Miron Cristea Armand Călinescu Gheorghe Argeșanu Constantin Argetoianu Gheorghe Tătărescu |
| Preceded by | Nicolae Petrescu-Comnen |
| Succeeded by | Mihail Manoilescu |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1892-01-30)January 30, 1892 |
| Died | January 30, 1957(1957-01-30) (aged 65) |
| Awards | Order of Michael the Brave Order of the White Eagle (Serbia) |
| Signature |  |
Grigore Gafencu (Romanian pronunciation:[ɡriˈɡoreɡaˈfeŋku]; January 30, 1892 – January 30, 1957) was aRomanian politician, diplomat and journalist.
Gafencu was born inBârlad. He studied law and received hisPh.D. in law from theUniversity of Bucharest. DuringWorld War I, he participated as alieutenant and received theOrder of Michael the Brave for his successful flight fromParis toIași overCentral Powers positions held byGerman,Ottoman andBulgarian troops.[1] After the war, he became a journalist and founded theTimpul Familiei newspaper, which was translated inFrench and distributed in many countries. At the age of 32, he became aNational Peasants' Party deputy in theRomanian Chamber of Deputies (lower house of the Romanian Parliament) and was the assistant of theMinister of Foreign Affairs during theIuliu Maniu government of 1928.
In 1939, he became a Minister of Foreign Affairs. For the next two years, he tried to assure the neutrality ofRomania, which was caught up betweenGermany and theSoviet Union. His efforts obtained guarantees fromFrance and theUnited Kingdom, which were nevertheless not respected. AfterNorthern Transylvania was annexed byHungary as a result of theSecond Vienna Award, andBessarabia,Northern Bukovina and theHertsa region wereannexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, he was sent as ambassador toMoscow, where he remained until the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union on 21 June 1941. He then settled inGeneva,Switzerland.
DuringWorld War II, he collaborated with theTribune de Genève and other newspapers acrossEurope. In 1944, his bookPréliminaires de la guerre à l'Est (Preliminaries of the War in the East) was published under the author name of Grégoire Gafenco by the Egloff publishing house inFribourg.[2] The book is still considered one of the best analyzes of Soviet-German relations in the run-up to the war.[3]
After the war, Gafencu moved to Paris. He then published in 1946 his second book, Last Days of Europe (Derniers jours de l'Europe), in which he described his voyages across Europe in 1939 and 1940. In the preface, he claimed that "the world made a war to killspheres of influence and we must make a peace to kill them for a second time".
In 1947, he was invited byYale University Press to theUnited States for a series of conferences; he then lectured atNew York University. He began to form groups that would militate for aEuropean Movement, a federation of European states in which Romania would be included. He participated at the founding of the Free Europe Committee and organized each Tuesday evening in his apartment onPark Avenue,New York City, a series of meetings called Tuesday Panels in which current events were discussed.
He was a member of theRomanian National Committee (1949–1952) and was one of the founders of the Free Romanian League. Gafencu was awardedOrder of the White Eagle and other decorations.[4] He died in 1957 of a heart attack at his home inParis.[5]
A street inSector 1 of Bucharest is named after him.[6]
Patrick Leigh Fermor described him as "one of the best-looking men I've ever seen, a person of enormous charm and courage".[7]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)