George Enescu and the Communist regime

A look at the life of Romania's greatest composer during the communist regime.

Steliu Lambru, 23.09.2013, 12:38

George Enescu is the greatest Romanian composer of all time. His impressive work has never ceased to be eulogized, while his world-renowned name is commonplace in the 19th and the 20th century history of music. Yet Enescu’s life paled in comparison to his artistic prowess. To this day, Enescu has benefited from a kind of personality cult inherited from the cultural policy of the communist regime. Historians wanted to have a closer look at Enescu’s life. Searching the archives, they found out that Enescu the artist and the intellectual was much more inferior to Enescu the man. Sadly, Enescu collaborated with the communist regime that was instated in Romania in 1945 with the support of the Soviet army.

The fact that Enescu was quick to show friendship to the occupation forces and their puppet regime did not prevent the then Romanian intelligence services to trace Enescu and monitor him as closely as they could. Explaining the conundrum is historian Adrian Cioroianu, a professor with the University of Bucharest’s History Department.

Adrian Cioroianu: “Enescu was a target, since most, if not all intellectuals, were a target in the early 1950s. He was a target despite the fact that he left Romania in an unusual way for the Romanian exile, yet quite common for an intellectual in the late 1940s. His departure was negotiated. Before leaving Romania, Enescu, who knew nothing about politics, allowed the communist regime to manipulate him in a very aggressive manner, initially through a tour he took in the USSR in 1945, then through the advice he got from his wife, who dictated Enescu what to do in his relation with Petru Groza. Enescu was used in a wicked and ruthless manner. He was a deputy of the Communist Party-led Bloc of Democratic Parties, in the first parliament elected in the wake of the tremendous electoral fraud of 1946, in the famous 19 November elections. And then he left, or was allowed to leave on a tour to the US, wherefrom he never returned. This is why he was put under surveillance. Everyone was being surveilled, and he would have certainly been under surveillance even if he had stayed in Romania. What was different in his case was that he was under surveillance although he had left with the regime’s permission, and despite his correspondence with Petru Groza.”

Cultivating ambiguity, both towards friends and enemies, was one of the essential features of Stalinism. Adrian Cioroianu believes George Enescu’s political gullibility is evidence of the treatment an intellectual can be subject to, when close to a criminal regime:

Adrian Cioroianu: “In 1945 George Enescu was invited and encouraged by the regime in Bucharest to go on a tour of the Soviet Union. He was amazed with how he was received. Concert halls were packed, people appreciated him, he played with David Oistrah. Once he came back to Romania, he was used in an almost criminal manner. He was taken to speak to workers, to attend meetings of the Romanian Association for Relations with the Soviet Union, and he would tell everybody about the success of culture in the Soviet Union, in the autumn of 1945. That’s why we can say he was gullible. It’s not what Sadoveanu did. Sadoveanu negotiated his every move. He took advantage of his symbiotic relation with the regime. We cannot suspect him of gullibility, because he sold his talent for money and other advantages, which Enescu didn’t. I think Groza was happy to see Enescu leave the country, because Enescu had no sense of politics, his wife literally told him who to talk to and what to do. Other than that, he was living in his own world, one of music. The regime wanted him out, as long as he didn’t vilified communism. Had he stayed in the country, chances are he would have died in prison. He was truly a monarchist, a democrat, and a supporter of the West, but he was naïve enough to think that people loved art in the Soviet Union. He didn’t see that there was nothing to love there: you either loved Stalin and bowed before him, or you took refuge in the world of arts and try to make your stand through culture.”

However, Adrian Cioroianu believes that Enescu’s idealism did little to prevent him from being regarded with disapproval by his posterity.

Adrian Cioroianu: ”What should an intellectual do? What role should an intellectual play when the country is going through difficult moments? What moral message should he convey? Can you just say, let’s leave for Paris, when you see your country conquered? What if King Ferdinand and Queen Marie had left for Paris during WWI? The real question is: is there really a moral message behind people being encouraged to leave the country? I won’t refrain from saying that the regime needed Egizio Massini, a conductor who did everything Petru Groza had asked him to do. It also needed Matei Socor, who was at the helm of the Public Radio Station and who was an incredible useful tool in the then authorities’ effort to turn Romania into a communist country, although he was born into a well-off family. The communists needed such people. That’s why George Enescu was praised, but, at the same time, he should have known his place.”

The privileged relationship between Enescu and the communist regime translated as mutual benefits, and is nothing but one more example of how gullibility, in spite of all good intentions, can be unexpectedly conducive to terror.