Petre Țuțea (en)

To most ordinary prisoners in Aiud during the period of re-education or critical self-analysis, he was simply known as Nea Petrică—the Romanian. The nickname arose one day when a less-educated inmate, likely from the countryside, asked him, “What is your profession, Mr. Țuțea?” He replied, without hesitation: “Romanian! A Romanian by profession!” That simple answer transformed into a lasting reputation: Petre Țuțea, the Romanian. On another occasion, while walking in the prison yard with Father Professor Dumitru Stăniloaie, the priest asked how he would define himself before an audience of intellectuals. With characteristic humor, Nea Petrică replied: “In front of […]

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The word “genius” has been used to describe Petre Țuțea by contemporaries—friends, foes, informers, and political police investigators alike. In the 1940s, Petre Pandrea spoke of him as a genius, a designation that persisted even during Țuțea’s imprisonment in the 1950s, when he became one of the martyrs of Romania’s communist prisons. His peers continued to regard him as a genius after 1964, up until his death. Life’s abrupt twists had forced him to transform from a legislator, holding a law degree and specialised in economics, into a philosopher and orator who tirelessly gathered young minds around him. He spoke […]

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It is said that intellect is given to man to know the truth. In my view, intellect is not given to man to know the truth, but to receive it. We have had the revelation that apart from God there is no truth. More truths, I say, reported to God, are equal to no truth. And if truth is one, transcendent in essence, it has its seat neither in science, nor in philosophy, nor in art. If a philosopher, a scientist, or an artist is religious, he is no different from a filthy old woman on her knees praying to […]

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There are others who are more suitable, more competent, who have great potential to evoke this exceptional personality of our nation. But I accepted. And why? God wanted me to stay with him in prison and then to confess and share with him several times, the last time, I think, on the eve of his departure. That doesn’t mean that I was his confessor. A confessor is a spiritual director. Nea Petrache was a spiritual director himself. […] After the Red Plague, he was investigated several times, finally arrested in 1956 and put in prison at Malmaison, Ocnele Mari, Jilava […]

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Not long ago, on a literary television programme, a philosopher and a painter were discussing – in contradictory terms – Petre Țuțea. The dispute arose from the fact that, for the philosopher, Țuțea appeared as a great figure of Romanian orality, with uninteresting results in terms of his written work, while for the painter, Țuțea’s writings reached the heights of his orality, albeit in a different tone. A matter of taste – one might say at first glance. But it is also, to a certain extent, a question of authority: a philosopher and a man of the written word should […]

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Around January 1990, I was eagerly reading a free Romanian newspaper. When I saw the signature of Mr. Petre Țuțea, I shuddered. The stenographic rumours were true, even if they were outlandish. Of course, they brought him back to my mind… His face grew again, emerging from the secret recesses of childhood and memory, where he had dozed quietly, like the spit of a glowing fire hidden beneath the light ashes. If he wandered restlessly through the most distant memories, bathed in the light of a mythical and uncertain time, it was the last encounter, in the summer of 1967, […]

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Petre Țuțea’s crisis of physical weakness began in the late autumn of 1991, accompanied by an acute crisis of loneliness. Severe headaches, a feeling of suffocation and a terrible fear of being alone made him “nephew Petrache”. “My head is splitting with pain and I can’t think. I’m a bio-social waste!”, he would say, sweetly. A few days after the onset of these symptoms, days in which, for better or worse, someone was found to watch over his loneliness and insomnia, the necessary formalities for admission were completed. For a long time, travelling in space had become an ordeal for […]

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An economist, publicist, essayist and philosopher, Petre Țuțea is considered the most important figure in the movement. Cioran described Țuțea as “the genius par excellence”, but he attributed to himself only the quality of being a peasant, the peasant embodying the absolute man. An authentic Socrates from the Dambov region, Țuțea realised in the second part of his life that he had to get rid of philosophy, of the “lice of metaphysics”, of the logic of this world, because the intellect is given to man not to know the truth, but to receive it. On 3 December 1991, after four […]

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A huge man with an overwhelming speech. I’m not exaggerating. Anyone who has listened to him talk for 3, 4, 5 hours without a break, without letting a word slip out, will agree that I have not exaggerated anything in the above characterisation. Petre Țuțea was a verbal genius, unique in his generation, which had no shortage of brilliant speakers. He poured out his genius generously, without any thought of material reward. Not only in salons full of admiring ladies – who looked at him as if he were a miracle – but also in gatherings of scholars, anointed with […]

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We sat next to Mr. Pupeza in the large compartment of the van. It is a pleasure to listen to him. He tells us that he recently parted company with Petre Țuțea, about whom he speaks in superlatives. I’d only vaguely heard of Țuțea before. Now I hear of him as one of the greatest contemporary personalities. Time will confirm what Mr. Pupeza’s admiration for him had already foreseen (…). We are approaching the prison. When we see it, we look at it with all our attention. From the outside, the prison doesn’t look so frightening. From a distance, you […]

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Another time, during one of the meetings organised by the authorities with the prisoners to re-educate them in the yard, Crăciun, accompanied by a group of officers, “inspected” the yard. At one point, he stopped in front of a tall, thin man who was being lifted slightly from behind. – What are you doing, philosopher? He knew him. It was Petre Țutea. He was so thin that two comrades were helping him walk. Crăciun looked at him with satisfaction. And at the crowd: – “You’ve fallen behind! You have deceived yourselves! If you were smart, you wouldn’t be here! Can […]

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One day, all the doors of the cells and large rooms were opened and all the prisoners were set free in the yard, on the pretext of demolishing some sheds and altering some buildings in the prison. After almost 17 years of isolation, terror and fear, we could all see each other in the yard and communicate without fear. The Zarca prisoners, however, remained under the harsh regime that had been imposed on this section. They made up – at best – ten per cent of the total number of prisoners. Colonel Crăciun walked among the inmates, urging them to […]

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Petre Țuțea, the Socrates of Romania, as most people called him, was a doctor of philosophy and economics. Of all the lecturers, Petre Țuțea was the one who was most listened to, one might even say enjoyed, by the whole room. His speeches were real lectures on philosophy, general culture and spiritual enjoyment. In addition to his oratorical talent, Țuțea sprinkled his exposition with certain words of wisdom, which lowered the eyebrows and opened the hearts of all. He had done his doctorate in Germany and managed to make himself understood even in matters of pure philosophy. A connoisseur of […]

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An intellectual colossus in the soul of a child. An encyclopaedist who never managed to write anything. A philosopher who perfected his conception in the fire of the dungeon. He spoke brilliantly all his life, aware that he was betraying himself. He often read his ideas in magazines and was satisfied, for it was not he but his faith that he wanted to spread. All the Romanian cultural and political leaders met in Jilava, such as M. Manoilescu, Bejan, Bentoiu, Istrate Micescu, Petre Pandrea, Țuțea, and he imposed himself among them with undisputed authority. If the discussions between the walls […]

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One day between Christmas and New Year 1950-1951, the door of the room opened and the guard read my name from a piece of paper: You’re packing your bags and leaving! […] I was put in a van at the station and left for an unknown destination. I arrived at the station of Aiud, where many prisoners, all with expired sentences, were boarding: Vasile Hanu from Alba Iulia, head of the Alba Iulia county in 1940; Pichi Straja – former head of the Brăila county in 1940; […] Mateiaș Virgil – former head of the Făgăraș county in the same […]

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In Aiud, the other rooms of the second section were blessed by the presence of the philosopher Petrovici, professor and former minister of Antonescu, of whom I have already spoken, or Petre Țuțea, whose lectures on philosophy, universal and Romanian literature, were always real doctoral theses. The story goes that one evening a colleague asked Petre Țuțea to give his opinion on two German philosophers. True to his style, he slowly, slowly, slowly began to draw a parallel between the two great philosophers of the world, and slowly, slowly, in a normal voice, he captured the attention of the whole […]

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