Mihail Fărcășanu (1907-1987)/biography

Mihail Fărcăşanu (November 10 1907–July 14 1987) was a Romanian journalist, diplomat and writer. He was president of the National Liberal Youth from 1940 to 1946. Pursued by the authorities due to his anticommunist actions, he managed to flee the country in 1946, and was later sentenced to death. He was member of the Romanian National Committee (Romanian: Comitetul Naţional Român) and the League of Free Romanians (Liga Românilor Liberi) where he was elected as president in 1953. He was the first manager of the Europa Liberă radio station, the Romanian language section. His most important work is Frunzele nu mai sunt aceleaşi ("The Leaves Are No Longer the Same"), published in 1946 under the pen name Mihail Villara. The work was given the Editura Cultura Naţională Grand Prize.

Ancestry

Fărcăşanu is a direct descendant of Popa Stoica from Fărcaş, Dolj County. Popa Stoica was a priest who abandoned the church and fought against the Ottoman Empire in the army of Michael the Brave, who later named him agă, or supreme commander of the army. In 1595, Aga Fărcaş led an army across the Danube, conquering the Bulgarian citadel Nikopol and marching to Vidin, where he was defeated by the Ottomans, and where he eventually died.

After Aga Fărcaş, the family had a succession of such dignitaries as Radu Fărcăşanu (captain in 1639, treasurer in 1654, stolnic in 1657 and mare vornic), Barbu Fărcăşanu (logothete and treasurer in 1674), Matei Fărcăşanu (great stolnic in 1731), Constantin Fărcăşanu (serdar) and Enache Fărcăşanu (grand panetier named ispravnic of Romanaţi).

Youth and studies

Mihail Fărcăşanu was born on November 10, 1907, in Bucharest, as the son of Gheorghe Fărcăşanu and Maria Fărcăşanu (née Vasilescu). His father had a bachelor's degree in law but he never practiced. Besides Mihail, the parents had another three boys, Gheorghe, Paul (adopted by an uncle, Paul Zotta) and Nicu, and two girls, Margareta (married Bottea) and Mia (married Lahovari). His parents lived in Râmnicu Vâlcea, where Fărcăşanu attended primary school and then high school at Alexandru Lahovari High School (now "Alexandru Lahovari" National College), graduating in 1927 magna cum laude. In 1935 he attended the London School of Economics, where he studied under Harold Laski; Laski would go on to become president in 1945–1946 of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom. Fărcăşanu often said that he was not so thrilled by the English study system and decided to take his doctorate exam in Berlin rather than in the UK.

He completed his legal studies in Germany at the Friedrich Wilhelm University (since 1948 Humboldt University) in Berlin. His doctoral dissertation Über die geistesgeschichtliche Entwicklung des Begriffes der Monarchie (On the History of the Development of the Concept of Monarchy) was completed under the guidance of professor Carl Schmitt. His thesis was later published by the Konrad Tiltsch printing house in Würzburg. In Romania it was published in 1940 under the title Monarhia socială ("Social Monarchy") by Editura Fundaţiei pentru Literatură şi Artă Regele Carol II.

Upon returning to Romania after his studies, he became a member of the National Liberal Party (Brătianu). In 1938 he married Pia Pillat, the daughter of poet Ion Pillat and painter Maria Pillat Brateş, making him brother-in-law of literary critic Dinu Pillat and writer Cornelia Pillat. His wife was the granddaughter of Dinu Brătianu, president of the National Liberal Party.

Beginning of his publishing activity

In 1939 he was named editor-in-chief of Rumanian Quarterly magazine owned by the Anglo–Romanian Society. The president of the society was Nicolae Caranfil, with whom Fărcăşanu collaborated closely in the Romanian National Committee and the League of Free Romanians. Vice presidents of the society were Zoe Gheţu, George Cretzianu and Fr. Flow, and honorary secretaries were Nicolae Chrissoveloni, Paul Zotta, and Ion Mateescu. The magazine's role was to contribute to the knowledge of cultural values between the two countries and to evidence the spiritual interrelations between the two cultures. The magazine carried articles signed by Romanian personalities such as Nicolae Iorga, Gheorghe Brătianu, Tudor Arghezi, Matila Ghyka, K. H. Zambaccian, Al. O. Teodoreanu, Cella Delavrancea, Militza Pătraşcu and foreign personalities such as Derek Patmore, Henry Baerlein, and journalist Sir Arthur Beverley Baxter. Fărcăşanu signed an important essay entitled The Sense of the New Political Regime of Romania. The magazine stopped publishing due to the start of World War II.

In September 1940, he was named president of the National Liberal Youth by Dinu Brătianu. Although the political parties were suspended by General Ion Antonescu, the National Liberal Party continued its activities, especially its publishing activities. Between 1940 and 1944, Fărcăşanu was editor-in-chief of the Românul magazine, worked on the publishing committee of Pământul românesc magazine, and wrote articles in the anti-totalitarian newspaper Viaţa Nouă. In 1942 he published the essay Libertate şi existenţă ("Freedom And Existence"). In 1943–1944 he was a war correspondent on the Eastern Front. He was almost captured by the Soviet Red Army at the bend of the Don, but managed to flee at the last moment.

Returning to Bucharest, he participated in unauthorized meetings of the Liberal Party members. A group in which young liberal intellectual gathered was called "Free Opinions" (Păreri Libere) and was founded by Mihail Romniceanu, Aurelian Bentoiu, Hurmuz Aznavorian, Costel Ţăranu, Dumitru Alimănişteanu, Ion Floroiu and Ionel Alimănişteanu. Afterwards other liberals among which Mihail Fărcăşanu, Paul Zotta and Paul Zurăscu joined the group. Discussion concentrated on political issues, but also covered cultural, mainly literary, topics.

After August 23, 1944

Right after King Michael's pro-allied coup of August 23, 1944, the opposition parties were able to resume their legal activities. The liberal Viitorul newspaper was reborn and Mihail Fărcăşanu was appointed editor-in-chief. The organ of the Liberal Party had been banned in 1938 by king Carol II of Romania and then by Ion Antonescu. Fărcăşanu and the newspaper fought to save the Romanian cultural institutions threatened by the approach of the Red Army. In September 1944, at the proposal of Gheorghe Brătianu, Mihail Fărcăşanu was reelected president of the National Liberal Youth. After the liberation of Northern Transylvania, Ana Pauker went to Cluj-Napoca where, to appeal to and attract the ethnic Hungarian population to the Communist Party, she said that Hungarians are the majority populations in all the major cities in the northern Transylvania region. On November 19, 1944, Fărcăşanu presided over a reunion of the liberal youth where he criticized Pauker and her speech. This was the first time Pauker was criticized in public and this stirred a massive communist fightback, calling Fărcăşanu an agent of Nazi politician Joseph Goebbels, an enemy of the people and the working class, an adversary of the agriculture reform and a saboteur of the national industry. When Fărcăşanu published in the newspaper the translation of Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, the communist press called him a fascist.

Amongst the first measures that the communists took in their struggle to reach power was the "cleansing" of the police and safety services. Under pressure of the Soviet representatives in the Armistice Commission, Nicolae Penescu (minister of the interior in the Sănătescu government) and Nicolae Rădescu had to kick out many loyal agents from the two services, to be replaced by communist agents. These actions were approved by the National Peasants' Party and the National Liberal Party, hoping that this would ensure a more favorable view of Romania from Moscow. Mihail Fărcăşanu was a strong adversary of these actions and he claimed that infiltrating communist agents into the state services would be fatal for the latter.

In January 1945 Fărcăşanu organised Conferinţa Pregătitoare a Congresului Tineretului Naţional Liberal (Preparatory Conference of the National Liberal Youth Congress). The conference took place in Sinaia and commemorated 11 years since the assassination of Ion G. Duca and the destruction of the commemorative plaque by the Iron Guard legionnaires. On February 11 General (and Prime Minister) Nicolae Rădescu, in the great hall of the ARO (Patria) theater, made a speech in which he explained the strategy that his government would apply, including a more radical agricultural reform than the previous communist reform. The communists wanted to stop the meeting, but it eventually took place because the meeting place was changed in the last minute. Relating events in Bucharest, Pravda published an article about Mihail Fărcăşanu entitled 'Fărcăşanu's gang in which he was accused of supporting General Rădescu.

Mihail Fărcăşanu, President of the National Liberal Youth, Predeal 1945

On February 13, 1945, revolting against Rădescu, the communists yelled: Cerem arestarea lui Ţeţu! ("We want the arrest of Ţeţu!"), Cerem arestarea lui Fărcăşanu! ("We want the arrest of Fărcăşanu!"). In the later period of Rădescu's government. the communists tried to disestablish the historic political parties, attracting several members to the Blocul Partidelor Democrate (BPD, Democratic Bloc of Parties). The dissenting liberals, led by Gheorghe Tătărescu, and the peasants, led by Anton Alexandrescu, abandoned their independence as parties and joined the BPD. Such attempts were made even toward the youth sections of both parties. Fărcăşanu, president of the Liberal Youth, met with Nicolae Ceauşescu, president of the Union of Communist Youth (UTC). During this meeting in February 1945, Ceauşescu tried to convince Mihail Fărcăşanu to defect from his organisation and join the UTC, being offered a minister's seat in the next government. The meeting ended in a failure.

The discussions about the attitude of the political parties continued even after the establishment of the Petru Groza government, Romania's first communist-dominated government. Iuliu Maniu proposed that the party maintain the opposition strategy it had adopted in the past, from the period when he was a deputy in Budapest after World War I and even in the time when the parties were legally banned. This point of view was supported by Dinu Brătianu. Fărcăşanu wanted to convince them that this would be an error with grave consequences. Fărcăşanu said that if they thought the actions of the Communist Party would be suppressed by the Western countries, they were wrong. Maniu, Brătianu and many other political leaders paid with their lives for underestimating the danger represented by Communist Party.

In autumn 1945, Fărcăşanu participated, as a representative of the National Liberal Youth, in organising a great rally in the Piaţa Palatului (now Revolution Square, Bucharest), on November 8, the king's birthday, a demonstration that was brutally repressed by the communist forces. The reports of the Secret Service on these events highlighted the role of Mihail Fărcăşanu and Constantin Bebe Brătianu.

On the last day of 1945 a delegation of the allied powers arrived in Bucharest, led by Archibald Clark Kerr, W. Averell Harriman and Andrey Januaryevich Vyshinskiy. After the discussion Emil Haţieganu from the Peasants' Party and Mihail Romniceanu from the Liberal Party were assigned to the government as ministers without portfolio. In February 1946 the two parties were authorised to publish their own newspapers. Because the name Viitorul ("The Future") for the party newspaper was owned by Gheorghe Tătărescu, the liberals decided to call their newspaper Liberalul ("The Liberal"), a name that had used in the past for many newspapers, notably one published in Iaşi under Nicolae Gane and George G. Mârzescu. Being watched by the authorities, Fărcăşanu did not assume the role of editor-in-chief, which was assigned to Azra Berkowitz. In this period Fărcăşanu organised three conferences that had to be held in the grand hall of the Carol I Foundation on May 12, 19 and 26, 1945. Inspired by a quote of Dinu Brătianu Libertăţile se cuceresc uneori fără jertfe. Dar ele nu se pot menţine decât cu jertfe ("Freedom is sometimes gained without sacrifice. But maintaining it calls for sacrifice"), the conferences, where ten speakers were scheduled to lecture on the following program:

• I. Cucerirea libertăţii ("Conquering freedom") – speakers Mihail Fărcăşanu, Dan Amedeu Lăzărescu, Radu Câmpeanu
• II. Pierderea libertăţii ("Losing freedom") – speakers George Fotino, Victor Papacostea, Paul Abney (1653)Zamfirescu]]
• III. Recâştigarea libertăţii ("Regaining freedom") – speakers Alice Voinescu, Paul Dimitriu, Paul Zotta, Mihai Popescu.

At the first conference, after the first words spoken by Fărcăşanu, a group of communist activists started a general riot screaming Vi s-au luat moşiile! ("Your estates have been taken away!"). Fărcăşanu tried in vain to talk to the agitators. The conference could not take place in a civilised manner, which was seen as a victory for the communists. This kind of disturbance proved that the leader of the Communist Youth Nicolae Ceauşescu and editor-in-chief of Scânteia newspaper Silviu Brucan were not bold enough to confront Fărcăşanu in a public debate to back up their ideology.

The Liberal Party's general secretary Constantin Bebe Brătianu, who had worked with Teohari Georgescu during the Rădescu government, convinced Fărcăşanu to reschedule the conferences to avoid disruption by the communists. On May 19 Fărcăşanu managed to organise his first conference, but by the order of the Ministry of the Interior the other two conferences were banned. This was the last time Fărcăşanu appeared in a public action in Romania.

In May 1946, the General Police made a report about the National Liberal Party faction of Dinu Brătianu, although the police were not authorized to make political analyses. The report claimed that Mihail Romniceanu had given a secret order, which was delivered by his secretary Nicolae Magherescu to all the party organizations. This order allegedly said that the Liberal Party should initiate its own secret police to participate in all elections related venues. The Liberal police would have been run by Fărcăşanu. A similar organization would have been initiated by the Peasants' Party under Corneliu Coposu. These police organisations were never initiated, but because of the General Police report, Fărcăşanu had to go into hiding.

Pia Pillat-Edwards, Mihail Fărcăşanu's wife. Cover of her novel "Flight to Freedom".

Flight from Romania

Perfectly aware that his life was at risk if he stayed in Romania, Mihai Fărcăşanu made arrangements to escape from Romania. He was helped in this endeavor by a long-time friend Matei Ghica-Cantacuzino, a fighter pilot who had participated in the military operations in the war against the Soviet Union reaching Stalingrad where he took part in the bombing of the railway station on October 5, 1942. Matei Ghica-Cantacuzino had left Romania, but had returned with the intention of helping close friends escape.

It was agreed that the escape of the Fărcăşanu family would take place in October 1946 from a small military airport near Caransebeş. The plan was to use an old bomber which had just been repaired and was scheduled to be flown to its base near Braşov. A government commission had just arrived in Caransebeş a day before the flight to inspect the aircraft and to make sure that there were no clandestine passengers on board and that the aircraft had just enough fuel to fly 300 km, the distance between Caransebeş and Braşov.

In agreement with Matei Ghica-Cantacuzino, the mechanic had tampered with the fuel gauge, which indicated the tank was only partly filled while it actually totally full. Mihail Fărcăşanu with his wife Pia and their friend Vintilă Brătianu were hiding in some bushed at the far end of the airfield. The plane started rolling towards the end of the runway having only Matei Ghica-Cantacuzino and the mechanic on board. When the plane reached the end of the runway and turned around for take-off, outside the visibility of the control tower, the three stowaways boarded the plane who was racing its engines and then took off immediately.

In the airspace of Yugoslavia, the plane was detected by the Yugoslav air force and in took all the skills of the pilot to evade the fighters, by flying into the clouds. The plane was however hit several times by the guns of the Yugoslav fighters which took out all the navigation instruments except the altimeter. One of the fuel tanks had also been hit. With a damaged plane, having practically no navigation instruments and very limited fuel, the pilot started crossing the Adriatic Sea. They were able to land at military airport in Bari, Italy, with completely empty fuel tanks.

Ivor Porter who at that time was British SOE and was working at the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Romania had been informed about the escape attempt. He had sent a cable to the British authorities in Italy requesting them to ensure their protection. He later described the adventure in a book "Operation Autonomous" published in 1989. In his book, he states that without such a cable, it was possible that the escapees would be sent back to Romania.

The escape was also described in a novel writen by Pia Pillat, Mihail Fărcăşanu's wife who was also on the plane. The novel having the title "The Flight of Andrei Cosmin" was first published in London in 1972 under the pen name Tina Cosmin, and has been translated into Romanian, being published in Romania in 2002. While it realistically presents the events, she has changed the names of the characters. Thus Mihail Fărcăşanu is called Andrei Cosmin, Matei Ghica-Cantacuzino is Ştefan Criveanu and Ivor Porter is Chris Nelson.

Mihail Fărcăşanu, director of the Romanian section of Radio Free Europe, New York, 1949

Activity in exile

Mihail Fărcăşanu and his wife Pia settled in New York City where they soon became some of the most active members of the Romanian emigrants to the United States. Mihail Fărcăşanu immediately started the political organization of Romanian refugees. In 1948 he founded the "Council of Romanian Democratic Parties". The Council had the objective of coordinating the activity of the representatives of Romanian political parties outside the Soviet zone of influence and of establishing a "National Romanian Committee". Mihail Fărcăşanu was one of the representatives of the Romanian National Liberal Party in this Council.

Participation in the international european movement

After the end of World War II, the great visionaries of a united Europe, among which Winston Churchill, Jean Monnet, François Mitterand, Robert Schuman, Altiero Spinelli, Konrad Adenauer, Grigore Gafencu, Alcide de Gasperi and Paul Henry Spaak felt the need of an international organism aiming at a unification of the various nations, the respect of human rights and keeping the peace.

On May 7-11, 1948 the mai 1948 Hague Congress was organized in The Hague, chaired by Winston Churchill. The date was chosen so as to coincide with the third aniversary of the ceasefire which ended World War II in Europe. Following the resolution of this congress, on October 25, 1948 the European Movement International was founded, a nongovernmental organization formed by political personalities from different European countries who were supporting the principle of a united Europe. Romania was represented by Grigore Gafencu, Nicolae Caranfil, Mihail Fărcășanu and Iancu Zissu, who signed the documents in capacity of founding members.

The Romanian Section of the European Movement was initially headed by Grigore Gafencu, who had remarcable contributions both at the Hague Congress and in the following period. Consequently, for a long time, the section was headed by George Ciorănescu. Mihail Fărcăşanu was also one the few exiled Romanian politicians, precursors of the integration of Romania în the European Union.

Romanian National Committee

In 1948, Mihail Fărcăşanu is appointed representative of the Romanian National Liberal Party in the Romanian National Committee, the political organization of the Romanian exiles who were opposing the Communist takeover of Romania. There were however conflicting views both on the role of the Committee and on its memberships. Mihail Fărcăşanu was among those who expressed to oppinion that the main role of the Committee was to represent the Romanian collectivity living in exile and to defend its interests. He considered the opposing view, expressed by the representatives of the National Peasant Country, that the Committee should act as a Government in Exile was unrealistic.

Mihail Fărcăşanu also considered that the National Liberal Party was underrepresented in the Committee. On December 15, 1949, Mihail Fărcăşanu nominated Vintilă Brătianu as a new member of the Committee, replacing Grigore Niculescu-Buzești who had died. The proposal was accepted by a majority of votes but, due to the objections of the representatives of the National Peasant Party, was never submitted to king Michael's approval.

Following this refusal of the National Peasant Party representatives, Mihail Fărcăşanu decided that the National Liberal Party would withdraw from the Council of Political Parties and informed king Michael that the Liberal Party was taking the liberty of making its own decisions, regardless of the other political parties.

The discussions on the composition of the Romanian National Committee, continued during 1950. Some members of the Committee, including Fărcăşanu supported the enlargement of the Committee and the involvement of more Romanian representatives of the Romanian exiles in the Committee's activities. On September 14, 1950, Nicolae Rădescu, Nicolae Caranfil, Mihail Fărcășanu and Grigore Gafencu signed an "agreement" in which they expressed their commmon views.

Other meeting of the committee, which were boycotted by the dissenters were held on October 9, 11 and 13, 1950. The minutes of these meetings state that the "Committee took act of the withdrawal, on their own free will, of general Rădescu, and MM. N. Caranfil, M. Fărcășanu and Gr. Gafencu from the National Committee". The statement is incorrect, as there is no proof that any of the members had resigned from the Committee or had informed the Committee about such an intention. Therefore, this action can only be interpreted as an expulsion of the four dissenters from the Committee, which the Committee did not have the authority to do.

Radio Free Europe

On March 17, 1949, the Government of the United States had established the National Committee for a Free Europe.

House in Georgetown, Washington DC where Mihail Fărcăşanu lived

Last years

After the death of Louisa Hunnewell Gunther Fărcăşanu, Fărcăşanu donated the entire holdings of his Franklin Mott Gunther Foundation to the Adormirea Maicii Domnului (Dormition of the Theotokos) Church in Cleveland, Ohio, and to the church's museum. The church was founded on August 15, 1904, as the first Romanian Orthodox church in the United States. He spent the last years of life in his house in the Georgetown district of Washington, D.C., being cared for by his sisters Margareta Bottea and Mia Lahovari and by his niece Domnica Bottea. He had a quiet life playing the violin daily and spending the majority of his time reading. He met frequently with Constantin Vişoianu, with whom he had collaborated to organise an Romanian resistance in exile. He never tried to write his memoirs or other literary works.

Mihail Fărcăşanu playing the violin, Washington DC, 1952

Mihail Fărcăşanu died on July 14, 1987, at the age of 79, not long before the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989.

Bibliography

• Pia Bader Fărcășanu, Izgonirea din libertate. Două destine: Mihail Fărcășanu și fratele sau Nicolae ("Driven Away from Freedom. Two Destinies: Mihail Fărcășanu and His Brother Nicolae"), Institutul National pentru Memoria Exilului Românesc, București, 2009.