The Romanian People’s Republic is born at the moment when Iuliu Maniu and Ion Mihalake appear before the military tribunal accused of treason. Thanks to this Stalinist production, the Kingdom of Romania pretended to be a people’s democracy. Forms of democracy were brutally eliminated, and loyalty to freedom became a crime in the criminal code.

The trial in November 1947 is the last of the battles led by Iulio Maniu: the path that began with the age of monuments stopped in the communist century. Human dignity and equality before the law, faith and constitutionalism were the values ​​that determined this path of his destiny. The wave of communist hatred did not remove him from the line of his life in this hour of tyranny.

His vision, which he persistently defended against dictatorships, was embodied in the Alba-Iulia Declaration. The Union of 1918 meant more to Iulio Mania than an act of national self-determination: it marked the beginning of construction under the sign of freedom and equality before the law. The points of 1918 are the ones he would reaffirm to his accusers three decades later. The right to human dignity cannot be negotiated: the illegitimate brutality of the regime cannot nullify the sanctity of natural rights.

Loyalty to the credo of 1918 is part of Iulio Maniu’s destiny. The voice of Transylvania becomes the voice of Romania, which seeks justice and the rule of law. Iulio Maniu’s opposition campaigns are an opportunity to reformat the centrality of these values. His struggle is never blind: his gestures are gestures of reminder of a creed from which he cannot renounce.

In the decade of autocracy, between 1938 and 1947, Iuliou Maniu opposed dictatorial arbitrariness with memoranda-like persistence. Truths forbidden by tyranny were spoken with democratic clarity. In interviews, speeches and briefs, Iuliu Maniou demonstrated a style of ethical courage. His phrases saved the honor of the shackled and silenced people. The exactness of his words was carved into the marble of the statue.

Totalitarianism meant for Iuliu Maniou a formidable and demonic embodiment of the vocation to dominate and control the state. Iuliu Maniu contrasted ideological slavery with the granite simplicity of democratic principles. His implacable hostility to communism is fueled by his visionary transparency. The naturalness of freedom is an antidote to the criminal impulse of utopia.

Convicted in 1947, Iuliu Maniu is buried alive to die in February 1953: the land of his homeland will receive him at the edges of a common grave. More than ten years, in 1963, in Rymnik-Serat, Jon Michalake was killed, in turn, imprisoned in the prison of silence. Communism destroyed those who could build another Romania: cowardice and crime reigned over the people of slaves.

But from the depths of this anesthetized and contemporary Romania, the voice of Iuliu Maniu stood out with prophetic clarity. Attempts at tyranny cannot defeat freedom: in the end, human dignity will break the shackles of ideology. The meaning of his destiny was fulfilled through sacrifice – his death was the beginning of another journey. Comment on Contributors.ro