39 Facts About Costin Murgescu

Costin Murgescu taught at the University of Bucharest and worked for the Institute of Economic Conjecture.

Costin Murgescu wrote extensively, publishing works on the effects of land reform and industrialization, on the history of economic thought, and on Romania's relations with the Comecon and the First World.

An innovator among the Romanian communist intellectual and professional elite, Costin Murgescu spent his final decades questioning the assumptions of Marxian economics.

The estranged son of Lieutenant Colonel Murgescu, a convicted war criminal, Costin Murgescu was married to Ecaterina Oproiu, a Romanian writer and social commentator.

Costin Murgescu was survived by his nephew and disciple, historian Bogdan Murgescu.

Young Costin Murgescu was originally interested in jurisprudence, and entered the law faculty of the University of Bucharest.

Costin Murgescu's beginnings were as a literary critic, with an essay on the literary and artistic life of Balcic.

Aged nineteen, Costin Murgescu wrote a historical work, about the trial of the Transylvanian Memorandum signatories.

Costin Murgescu began a collaboration with the newspaper Universul, where, as later recounted by his colleague Stefan Baciu, he was one of the three staff writers who showed up for work wearing the Guard's green-colored shirts.

Costin Murgescu was allegedly involved in brawls at the university.

Costin Murgescu remained active in the press after the Guard fell from power in the violent purge of early 1941.

Costin Murgescu was drafted into the Romanian Land Forces, but continued to write and was allowed to pass his examinations at the university.

Costin Murgescu's father, Ion, had "strong pro-Nazi sympathies" and was a willing participant in Antonescu's war crimes.

Costin Murgescu was a personal witness to the recapture of Targu Mures in October 1944, writing a Romania Libera reportage on this subject.

From 1944 to 1952, that is to say during the early stages of the Romanian communist regime, Costin Murgescu was editor of Romania Libera, which had been taken over by the PCR.

In late 1945, Costin Murgescu was employed by the communized Propaganda Ministry and the Siguranta detectives, the latter of whom vetted him as a regime loyalist, noting his friendship with PCR activists such as Simion Oeriu and Grigore Preoteasa.

Costin Murgescu was a prominent contributor to the communist literary magazine, Contemporanul, where he praised the party for its "consolidation of democracy".

Around 1950, Costin Murgescu married Ecaterina Oproiu, a fellow Romania Libera journalist who went on to establish the official film magazine, Cinema.

Costin Murgescu later achieved fame in her own right, as Romania's first-ever television critic and a promoter of socialist feminism.

Costin Murgescu was initially sentenced to death, and some authors believe that he was executed.

Costin Murgescu later joined the team of economists and statisticians at the Institute of Economic Conjecture, located in Bucharest.

At the time, the ICE offered employment to the formerly repressed scholar Gheorghe Zane, who was protected by the PCR eminence Alexandru Barladeanu and who, as Costin Murgescu put it, was thus allowed to continue his interwar research, with input from "dialectical materialism".

Costin Murgescu himself was assigned to work on an economic overview of the 1945 land reform, which he published in 1956 at Editura Academiei.

Also in Contemporanul, Costin Murgescu published an essay that sought to rehabilitate Gusti, but his effort was smothered by the Communist Party in 1959.

Costin Murgescu resumed his position as second director, but was placed under tight surveillance by Securitate agents in 1959; according to Vasile, he was most likely recruited as a Securitate informant, and tasked with reporting on the activities of former fascists such as Bucur Tincu and Ion Veverca.

Costin Murgescu served the Institute of South-East European Studies as an academic supervisor for its Revue des Etudes Sud-est Europeenes.

In 1964, the PCR leadership called upon Costin Murgescu to publish an even more virulent official reply against the Soviets and the Comecon.

Costin Murgescu's selection by the regime was an implicit recognition of his scholarly authority; his critique of the Valev proposal announced a new political stage, of national communism.

Costin Murgescu's articles called for a reform of the Comecon, and, defying the Sino-Soviet split, suggested the accession of China.

Costin Murgescu partook in the effort to reassess Mihail Manoilescu as the interwar doctrinaire of economic nationalism, and is regarded by economist Dan Popescu as Manoilescu's intellectual heir.

Costin Murgescu moved from ICE to the Institute for World Economy, where he worked from 1970 until his death, and was for a while its director.

Costin Murgescu was particularly interested in Romanian economic history in relation to the global economy, and a pioneer of interdisciplinarity.

Costin Murgescu's effort was praised by Candea, who recommended that Murgescu expand his contribution into a Zane monograph.

Isarescu himself reports that Costin Murgescu spent the last stage of his life as a dissident, in latent conflict with President Ceausescu.

Allegedly, Costin Murgescu had come to believe that the Valev Plan was a consistent form of economic integration, and that national communism was essentially flawed.

Costin Murgescu died a few months before the anti-communist Revolution of December 1989.

Costin Murgescu quoted Murgescu's letter to him, in which the economist had applauded any constructive debate between "men of culture".

Costin Murgescu had left several unpublished texts, including parts of a sequel to Mersul ideilor, but Drumul oilor, which detailed the economic history of sheep farming in Romania.

Costin Murgescu was survived by his wife, Ecaterina Oproiu, who went on to serve as a Presidential appointee on a visual media regulatory agency, the National Audiovisual Council, between 1992 and 2000.