Aspazia Oțel Petrescu. Biographical references
Born on 9 December (26 November in the old style) in the village of Cotul Ostriței, in the house of his maternal grandparents; the first child (brother – Anatolie) of the teachers Ioan and Maria Oțel.
She attends the primary school in the village of Ghizdița (Fântânele). She was enrolled at the secondary school in Bălți, closer to home than Soroca, but was withdrawn after one term due to illness.
Between 1936 and 1940 she attended the Elena Doamna Orthodox Girls’ High School in Cernăuți. In the turmoil of 1940 she missed another term. In 1941 she resumed her studies at the same gymnasium, making up the lost year and attending class 5 regularly and class 6 privately at the same time. He was the last of his generation to reach the 7th class. On 18 March 1944, his schooling was interrupted by the dramatic and permanent decision to go into exile. He passed his baccalaureate in Orăștie in 1944, under bombardment.
Between 1944 and 1948, he studied at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj, the first year in Sibiu, where the university was a refugee, and then in Cluj. During his studies, he gave a lecture at FORS (Romanian Orthodox Student Fellowship) with the work Jesus in Romanian Poetry. She was one of the favourite students of Lucian Blaga, who encouraged her to cultivate her literary talent. The philosopher always kept track of her progress, asking after the author’s imprisonment whether she had been released. By the coincidence of a mysterious order, the master Lucian Blaga, of whom the author will keep a warm and vivid memory, also took the road to the communist prisons, like his whole generation of victims, whose fate oscillated between prison and anti-communist exile.
Between 1946 and 1948, she worked as a typist at the prestigious Centre for Transylvanian Studies, headed by the remarkable academic professor and historian Silviu Dragomir. On 9 July 1948, she was arrested in the middle of an exam session, without having graduated and without the possibility of taking the state exam. She was sentenced to 10 years’ hard labour, which she served in various prisons: Mislea, Dumbrăveni, Miercurea Ciuc.
The reason for her arrest was a simple one, which had already become a classic of communist, atheist ideology: her membership of Cetățuia – the women’s youth organisation of the Legionary Movement, similar to the Brotherhood of the Cross – the men’s youth organisation – at the “Elena Doamna Orthodox Girls’ High School” in Cernăuți.
In 1958, instead of being released, she was given another 4 years, which she served between 1958 and 1962, passing through the communist prisons of Mislea, Jilava, Botoșani, Arad, from where she was released. In 1958 she moved with her mother (a pensioner) to the town of Roman, her father having died (1958).
With great difficulty, she managed to work as an accountant in a cooperative in Roman. In 1964 she married Ilie Alexandru Petrescu, whose wife had died. Together with him, she raised her two orphaned children, who became qualified professionals (son – engineer, daughter – doctor). Her mother died in 1977, her husband in 1987 and her brother in 1998.
After December 1989, she took part in all the commemorations of the martyrs and martyrs of the communist prisons, and was one of the organisers of the Sacred Mislea Chapel (consecrated on 12 November 1994), a place of remembrance for all the young legionaries, See the author’s latest book Adusu-mi-am aminte (2007), especially the beautiful words of Mrs Aspazia Oțel Petrescu on the occasion of the consecration (8 September) of the Holy Paraklesis of Mislea. In 2007 she was awarded the Lucian Blaga Cultural Foundation Prize for literary creation – short prose, at the Lucian Blaga International Festival, Lancrăm-Sebeș-Deva.
(“Aspazia Oțel Petrescu. Repere biografice” in Rost. Review of Christian and Political Culture, Year VI, No. 64, June 2008, pp. 12-13)