Lawyer, journalist, writer, politician, businessman and philanthropist, Ion Ratiu died seven years ago, on 17 January 2000.
Ion Ratiu was the most outspoken and consistent opponent of the communist dictatorship in Romania, and of Nicolae Ceausescu, whose regime he opposed for years as the democratically elected leader of the Free Romanian Movement. He spent 50 years in exile in the UK.
Journalist, broadcaster and author, he was also a highly successful businessman in shipping and property, while simultaneously operating as a kind of Scarlet Pimpernel, assisting in the rescue of many dissidents from Ceausescu’s dictatorship.
He returned to Romania in 1990. He continued his war of words against the remnants of the communist ruling class by establishing ‘Cotidianul’ – an independent national daily newspaper, which is a successful publication to this day. Member of the Romanian Parliament for Cluj and then Arad (both in Transylvania), vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies (the Lower House of the Romanian Parliament), runner-up for the presidency of Romania, ambassador and negotiator for Romania’s integration in NATO’s structures.
A man of physical courage, he stood alone in the Romanian Parliament chambers when in 1990 rioting miners backed by the government of the day invaded the building and pleaded with them to stop their violence. His life was under threat, his home was sacked, and his new printing presses destroyed. Threats to Ion Ratiu’s life were not new: as a prominent and very vocal dissident, Ion Ratiu had a place on Ceausescu’s death list; as late as August 1989 he was warned by Scotland Yard that two assassins had been sent from Bucharest to kill him.
Ion Augustin Nicolae Ratiu, born in Turda, Transylvania, on 6 June 1917. He was the son of Augustin Ratiu, a successful lawyer, mayor, county prefect and great-grandnephew of Dr. Ioan Ratiu, the leader of the Romanian National Party who championed Romanian civil rights under the Austro-Hungarian regime from 1848 until his death in 1902. A promising law student, Ion Ratiu seemed destined for an academic career, but in 1938 he was commissioned as top cadet at the Artillery Military Academy in Craiova (southern Romania), and in April 1940 he joined Romania’s Foreign Service. He was sent to London as a chancellor at the Romanian Legation under Minister Viorel V. Tilea. The decision of Romania ’s leader Marshal Antonescu to align his country with the Axis powers appalled the young Ratiu, who resigned his post and obtained political asylum in Britain. He won a scholarship to study economics at St. John ’s College, Cambridge. In 1945 Ion Ratiu married Elisabeth Pilkington in London.
He aimed to fight as the National Peasant Party (PNT) candidate in Romania ’s 1946 general election, but the party leader Iuliu Maniu (later imprisoned by the communist regime) urged him to stay in London. In exile Ion Ratiu threw himself into the struggle against communism, becoming a regular contributor to the Romanian Service of the BBC, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. In 1957 his book ‘Policy for the West’ was published, radically challenging contemporary Western views of the nature of communism.
He then went into shipping and later into real estate, where he accumulated considerable wealth. However, in 1975, the year he published another work, ‘Contemporary Romania’, he decided to devote all his energy to the pursuit of a free Romania. When Ceausescu paid a visit to Britain in 1978 (and was invested by the Queen as an honorary Commander of the British Empire ), Ion Ratiu chained himself in protest to the railings outside the hotel where the Romanian leader was staying.
A keen sportsman, Ion Ratiu was also a handsome, dapper, softly spoken man, whose genteel demeanour after his return to Romania in 1990 earned him the affectionate sobriquet ‘Mr. Bow Tie’ because of his English manners, born of his 50 year exile in Great Britain. In 1990 he was nominated the presidential candidate on behalf of the National Peasant Party-Christian Democrat (PNT-CD) in the first free elections after the fall of the communist regime. Although he became a member of the Romanian Parliament, and he was to serve his country well for many years, the failure to win the presidency was a grave disappointment to him. Even nowadays, on Romanian streets, Ion Ratiu is often referred to as the best president Romania never had.
Ion Ratiu led the British-Romanian Association from 1965 to 1985 and played a key role in the setting up of the World Union of Free Romanians, of which he was elected president in 1984. After the fall of Ceausescu, he continued for some years to subsidise the publication outside Romania of the monthly Free Romanian, which he had launched in 1985.
In 1979, Ion and Elisabeth Ratiu established The Ratiu Foundation in London. The main objective of the Foundation is to promote and support projects which further education and research in the culture and history of Romania and its people. Projects, undertaken in Romania, are encouraged on different subjects, such as patrimony, civil society, democracy, civilisation and environment protection. The Foundation maintains offices in London, Turda and Bucharest.
After a short illness, Ion Ratiu died in London on 17 January 2000, surrounded by his family. In accordance with his wishes, he was buried in January 2000 in his home town of Turda. His funeral was attended by over 10,000 people.
More details on: www.ratiucenter.org.
