ARTicles vol. 7 i.2a: People and Places in The Communist Dracula Pageant

Assembled by Beck Holden

Ana Blandiana The pen name of Otilia Valeria Coman, Romanian poet, essayist, and political figure.

Bucharest Capital of Romania.

Burebista King of the Dacians from 82 BC to 44 BC.  Sided with Pompey in his struggle against Julius Caesar, which would have provoked a large retaliation after Caesar’s victory had the Roman emperor not been assassinated.

Ion Caramitru Romanian actor and director involved with the National Salvation Front.  He was in charge of Culture under Ion Illiescu’s regime, but left the National Salvation Front in protest after the 1990 elections.

Dacia An empire contemporary to the Ancient Greeks and Romans, comprised largely of present-day Romania and Moldova as well as parts of Bulgaria, Hungary, and Ukraine.

Decebal A great Dacian king who ruled AD 87 to AD 106.  He achieved several stunning victories against Roman invaders, but was defeated twice by Emperor Trajan.  Cornered by Roman soldiers, he slit his own throat rather than allow himself to be captured.

Mircea Dinescu In the years leading up to the revolution, this dissident poet and editor was increasingly under the watch of Ceausescu and the Securitate in the late 1980s.  He took part in the seizure of the Romanian television station during the revolution and has run several satirical magazines since.

Grand National Assembly Romanian legislature, elected every four years.

General Milea Ceausescu’s Minister of Defense during the December Revolution, who died under mysterious circumstances on the morning of December 22, 1989.

National Salvation Front A cluster of second- and third-tier communists from Ceausescu’s regime, lead by Ion Illiescu, who took advantage of the popular uprising to seize power in December 1989.  In 1992, it split into two parties:  the Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Party.

PCR The Romanian Communist Party.

Securitate The brutal Romanian secret police force.  It was said that by the late 1980s, one Romanian citizen in four was a Securitate informer.

Targoviste Capital of Wallachia at the time of Vlad Tepes’s reign.  It was here in a schoolhouse on December 25, 1989 that Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were tried and executed.

Timisoara A city on the Romanian-Hungarian border.  Riots broke out on December 16, 1989 in response to the Securitatae’s decision to deport Hungarian Calvinist minister Laszlo Tokes.  Riots continued on December 17, when the Romanian army was called in to keep the peace.  On that day, on Ceausescu’s orders, the army opened fire on the rioters.

Beck Holden is a first-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training.