Summary note on the work “The Diary of Happiness” by Nicu Steinhardt (28 November 1972)

Ministry of the Interior Inspectorate of Bucharest – Securitate

10/C.I./28.Nov.1972

Top Secret
Spec. No. 2

Summary of the work entitled The Diary of Happiness by Nicu Steinhardt

On 30.X.1972, thanks to the information resources of Directorate I, we came into possession of a photocopy of the work entitled “The Diary of Happiness”, written by Steinhardt Nicu Aureliu, containing 532 typewritten pages.

Treating Christianity as the only faith that can bring happiness to a person, the author, among other things, slanders socialist society; defends the Legionary organisation; comments hostilely on the way the trials of political prisoners were judged and on their treatment in prison; gives a biased account of the reality at the time of his release from prison and comments unfavourably on the measures taken at Party and State level in the field of ideological activity; makes spiteful statements about Marxist ideology and the nature of the communist order.

Referring to “one of the most terrible moments I had in the Securitate” – a confrontation with one of the women who had been part of the group – he says: “Now, for the first time, I am a real fanatic myself. All my old vague attractions to Legionnaireism, repressed, smothered, shuddering, come to life” (p. 25).

At Gherla in 1962, learning legionary songs with Marinică Popescu and Sile Cătălinoiu (Crainic’s Song of the Chalice), “as if by a miracle, I begin to feel a coolness, a wetness in my thirsty mouth (even at Gherla I can’t drink water, [it’s] brine); and an immense gratitude, I have never known better what humility is, how poor and wicked the human condition is” (p. 500).

Similar ideas, reflecting the praise of the former Legionary organisation, are contained in several pages of the work, of which we list: p. 29, 172, 514.

Referring to our society, which he compares to a “nightmare”, he points out that it is dominated by “three phenomena of the time: the vertical invasion of barbarians (Rathenau’s expression), the reign of fools, the betrayal of decent people.

Firstly, it is not barbarians from other continents who are invading, but scoundrels from below. These barbarians are taking over the seats of power.

Second: they have simply arrived, in the most emphatic sense – the stupid and uneducated in power; and despite all economic laws and political rules, they make fools of themselves like the ignoramuses they are.

Thirdly, instead of resisting, decent people adopt benevolent expectations, pretend not to see or hear, in short, betray. The impartial and the trusting register and remain silent. They are the most guilty”.

Assessing the present form of the state as tyrannical, he points out: “[…] tyrannies do not forbid the utterance of truths, but only of some, or rather of a particular one, of the one who offends this tyranny” (p. 14).

“The tyrant must be attacked with aeroplanes, tanks, massive propaganda and iron discipline – and at the same time with a new ideal” (p. 462).

Quoting Voltaire, he says: “God forbid that we should have an angry and barbarous tyrant who, not believing in God, would have killed God himself” (p. 501), and similar ideas are found on pp. 286, 515, 517, etc.

Summing up Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and the Daisy, he makes the following assessment of the communist order: “This is communism. This and no other: the comrade of the district, the certificate of social origin, the compulsory denunciation, the queues, the primus. A different communism? If it were realised somewhere, would it be different? If we make it, it will be different.

Illusions, nonsense, you will still be working with the same elements. That’s where you’ll end up. Still the same racism, Marxism no less than Leninism (even if you are a good man, even if the bourgeoisie has played a progressive role, there is nothing we can do to you: you are what you are and how else you can be, therefore you must be condemned). This one, not the other. Vengeful, racist, small, stinking. Believer of the trinity: hate, suspicion, envy. With the mouth of a hussy and the hatred of a servant. The society of good company, where the kitchen is the primus on the corridor. The demons know how to incarnate, not by chance”.

With regard to the Securitate organs, he says: “With the new ones, they returned to the inquisitorial system; the answers were no longer typed, but written by the investigators. [The inquisitorial procedure was repeated. [The investigator himself writes the answer in his modern Latin: in other words, he translates it into the ancient language of the institution he serves”1 (pp. 221-224). About the court hearings he says: “[…] everything you say in public (unless it’s a secret session like ours) has no value and is not recorded… What you say in court is like talking to a radio station that is not transmitting, or into a broken telephone receiver, on a silent film screen” (p. 24).

Remembering the feelings he had when he was released from prison, he recalls some words his father had said to him: “[…] don’t be sad, you are leaving a wider prison for a narrower one, and when you leave don’t be too happy, you are going from a narrow prison to a wider one” (p. 110).

Referring to Marxist ideology, he says: “[…] Christianity cannot fail to recognise the miserable condition of some categories of workers in the nineteenth century. The Marxist error is that the English worker of the nineteenth century, poor and forced to sell his labour, was not free. He was free. But he was wretched. That’s a different thing. There is a confusion between freedom and misery. And it is wretchedness that must be abolished, not freedom’ (p. 468).

Party and state measures to educate the youth are interpreted as a “monstrous coalition” between the old and the communists: “[…] the communists hate the young, because after 25 years of materialistic education they walk the streets in cowboy suits… the old, because they are naughty, debauched… and prove to the regime that they, the old, were so afraid of, that they are either uncaring or unafraid… strange coalition” (p. 474), ideas about young people also on p. 507.

Recommending faith as the sure means of attaining the ideal, he says: “[…] all Christ remains the most accessible to sweeten bitterness and soothe despair. Above all, since he is inaccessible even in the most coveted regimes, he has the advantage of being found in places that are more difficult to reach” (pp. 508-509).

He repeats the atmosphere in the ranks of former political prisoners, showing that “[…] everything is dullness, boredom, emptiness… The memory of the years in prison is gone. I almost regret them… The former political prisoners also disappointed each other; some were dishonest, others ungrateful gossips, resentful, careerists, … the others, if you mention prison to them, shrug their shoulders, think you are pissed off, soft” (p. 531).

Steinhardt Nicu Aureliu, son of Oscar and Antoinette, born 29.VII.1912 in Bucharest, lawyer, retired doctor, residing in Bucharest, Ion Ghica Street No. 3, Sector 4, is the subject of an information file under code 103/C.I.

By sentence No. 24/1960 of the Bucharest Military Tribunal, Steinhardt Nicu Aureliu was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for conspiracy to undermine the social order.

He was pardoned in 1964 and Steinhardt Nicu Aureliu took a job as an unskilled labourer at the American “Stăruința”, from which he was medically retired in 1968 after a road accident.

He receives a service pension of 800 lei and, through the former critic Vladimir Streinu, with whom he was a good friend and with whom he was condemned in the same lot, he receives a monthly pension of 700 lei from the Literary Fund. In addition to this, he received annual sums of between 2 and 9000 lei for translations for various publishers.

Information gathered during the surveillance revealed that he is a religious fanatic who spends most of his time giving lessons to amateurs in English, French or German, which he knows very well, or carrying out translations on behalf of various publishers.

It also turned out that he maintained relations with people he had met in prison, relations that he continued to cultivate afterwards, among them Dr. Sergiu Al. George, Bilciurescu Alexandru, Ion Caraion, Constantin Noica, Alexandru Paleologu, Dinu Pillat, Popescu Marin, Vatamaniuc Gavrilă, Sanda Stololojean, Vlad Stolojean and the priests Vasile Vasilache, Teodorescu Olicorghe, the last four of whom are abroad.

It has also been established that he maintains correspondence with several people abroad, including Virgil Ierunca, Mircea Eliade, Alexandru Ciorănescu, Paul Gruber, Vlad Stolojan and Sanda Stolojan, the last three of whom also visit him when they come to the country.

Since the existence of this material was brought to the attention of our authorities at the end of October this year, there is an urgent need to verify that the work has not been smuggled out of the country[2].

To this end, we are planning a secret or itemised search (the pretext being an anonymous report on the possession of currency, weapons, etc.)[3] , during which we will arrest this work if it has not been smuggled out of the country in the meantime (it should be noted that Directorate I has data on the existence of this work since May 1972).

Since Steinhardt Nicu appears in the entourage of Vatamaniuc Gavrilă and Popescu Marin, in relation to whom measures of dismantling have been approved, it follows that, once they have been summoned to the Securitate, Steinhardt Nicu Aureliu will also be investigated in relation to his links with them and in connection with the manuscript (Dir. I declares that there is no risk of revealing the source who made the above-mentioned manuscript available to this body).

Since the ATI source is inefficient in view of the configuration of the target’s home, we will install an ATS source and, in addition, during the search, we will install a portable TO source in order to also control the target’s relations in this way during the call to the security services.

Lieut. Ciucă Ion

Head of Service,

Lieutenant Colonel Burac Ion

(ACNSAS, Information Fund, file no. 207, volume 4, pp. 268-273; document reproduced in Nicu Steinhardt in the Securitate files (1959-1989), edited by Clara Cosmineanu, Nemira Publishing House, Bucharest, 2005, pp. 147-151).

[1] It is an allusion to the wooden language of the investigators (obsessive repetition of terms typical of class hatred: “hostile attitude”, “enemy of the people”, “reactionary”, “counter-revolutionary”, etc.).

[2] It is worth noting how afraid the Communists were of the possible testimonies that might expose the true face of the “people’s democracy” in the eyes of the West. Moreover, the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu himself had a special department under his command, which dealt specifically with the image of Romanian communism abroad.

[3] A typical example of abuse by the Securitate, with the staging of a false accusation in order to “compromise enemy elements”.