Cristina Luca Boico
Cristina Luca Boico | |
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Born | Bianca Marcusohn 8 August 1916 Botoșani, Romania |
Died | 16 April 2002 Paris, France | (aged 85)
Nationality | Romanian |
Other names | Cristina Luca, Cristina Boico |
Occupation | communist activist |
Cristina Luca Boico (8 August 1916 – 16 April 2002) was a Romanian communist activist. After going into exile in France, she joined the French Resistance and worked in the intelligence service. At the end of the war, she returned to Romania and worked as the director of the Ministry of Education and numerous other governmental posts, until she was purged in 1952. Working as an editor for the Scientific Publishing House she later taught at the Politehnica University of Bucharest. In 1987, she left Romania to visit her children in Paris, refusing to return. For the remainder of her life, she gave lectures and published memoirs about the evolution of communism.
Early life
Bianca Marcusohn was born on 8 August 1916 in Botoșani, Romania to Luisa (née Segal) and Isidor Marcusohn.[1][2] Her family, which included an older sister, Hermina, belonged to the assimilated Jewish middle-class.[1][3] After completing her secondary education at Carmen Sylva High School in Botoşani, Marcusohn moved to Bucharest to undertake medical studies. She joined the Students' Democratic Front, an organization aligned with the Romanian Communist Party and wrote articles for journals on the international anti-fascist movement. She was a friend of Lucien Goldmann and was influenced by his ideas.[3] In 1937, after being expelled for her political activities, Marcusohn left Romania to continue her studies at the Sorbonne.[3][4] At the approach of the Nazi's the university was closed and per a posted notice, she was allowed to graduate by taking her final tests at any university offering them. Marcusohn made her way to Toulouse, where she completed her examinations and received her certificate in Natural Sciences in June 1940.[5]
Career
Marcusohn began working in the marine biology laboratory of Édouard Chatton in Banyuls-sur-Mer, but by September had decided to return to Paris.[5] Once there, she contacted the Romanian affiliates of the French Communist Party and reconnected with the communist movement.[3] Taking in mathematics students, she worked as a tutor and was eventually offered a post with Georges Tessier to translate journal articles to French for researchers at the Caisse nationale de la recherche scientifique, forerunner to the French National Center for Scientific Research.[5] She participated in the 1940 demonstrations to protest the arrest of Paul Langevin[4] and was arrested but quickly released.[6]
In 1941, Marcusohn joined the Organisation Spéciale—Main-d'Œuvre Immigrée (OS-MOI),[4] the armed group of the Immigrant Labor Force,[7] using the name Monique as a disguise.[8] In 1942 when the OS-MOI merged with two other groups to form the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans—Main-d'Œuvre Immigrée (FTP-MOI),[7] Marcusohn changed her name again, to Cristina Luca, and became and intelligence officer in the resistance.[3][4] With the knowledge of her professors, Luca funneled stolen chemicals from the biology laboratory at the Sorbonne to the partisans.[4][8] She lost her translating job in 1942 and went to work full time, spying for the FTP-MOI.[5] In 1944, she was assigned to combat duty for the entire north of France and participated in several partisan attacks.[4]
At the end of the war, Luca returned to Romania in March 1945.[3] Between 1945 and 1947, she worked in the Ministry of Information and then went to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where she worked at the Romanian embassy as a press-attaché for a year.[9] Because of the Tito–Stalin Split, Luca was recalled to Romania and began working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in charge of the press department. In 1949, she married Mihail Boico (born Rosner), a military officer in command of troops on the border.[3] Shortly after the marriage, Stalin began targeting veterans of the Spanish Civil War and those who had been involved in the French Resistance,[10] placing both Boico and her husband, who was known as Bibi, under suspicion.[3][11] Boico was dismissed from her job in June, 1952 and Bibi was purged from his position in the Interior Ministry that same fall.[12] Boico was assigned to a minor position in the Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History.[3]
Disillusioned by the party, after 1956, Boico no longer participated in political activities, concentrating instead on her work in history and science. In the 1960s, she began working as the editor of the Scientific Publishing House and later taught courses on Marxism at the Politehnica University of Bucharest. Publishing a few book introductions and journal articles, she increasingly found herself at odds with the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. In 1987, she left Romania to visit her children in Paris and chose not to return.[3] She began publishing again in France and wrote such works as Les Hommes qui ont porté Ceaușescu au pouvoir, which has been called by Vladimir Tismăneanu "the most comprehensive and illuminating analysis" of the rise of Ceaușescu and Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej to the leadership of the Romanian Communist Party.[13]
Death and legacy
Boico died on 17 August 2002 in Paris.[2] In 2014, a French miniseries, Résistance, was released about the young people involved in the French Resistance during the war. One of the characters in the series was based on Boico's experiences and was played by Romanian actress Cristina Flutur.[14]
References
Citations
- ^ a b Cristea-Enache 2014.
- ^ a b Maitron 2006.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tismaneanu & Stan 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f Rayski 2009.
- ^ a b c d Brondeau 1997, p. 3.
- ^ Brondeau 1997, p. 5.1.
- ^ a b Wieviorka 2016, p. 124.
- ^ a b Brondeau 1997, p. 5.3.
- ^ Levy 2001, p. 240.
- ^ Levy 2001, pp. 158–160.
- ^ Levy 2001, p. 158.
- ^ Levy 2001, p. 241.
- ^ Tismaneanu 2003, p. 288.
- ^ Film Reporter 2014.
Bibliography
- Brondeau, Serge, ed. (June 1997). "Concours de la Résistance Nationale: Cristina Boïco" [Competition of the National Resistance: Cristina Boïco]. Collège Magazine (in French). No. Hors Série. Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, France: Collège Pierre Brossolette. Archived from the original on 1 February 2016. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
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(help) - Cristea-Enache, Daniel (14 August 2014). "Împărăţia imaginară a Şvambraniei era refugiu şi tărîm mitic" [The imaginary kingdom of Shambrany was a refuge and a mythical land]. Atelier Liternet Romania (in Romanian). Bucharest, Romania: Asociaţia LiterNet. Archived from the original on 21 July 2017. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
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(help) - Levy, Robert (2001). Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22395-0.
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(help) - Maitron, Jean (2006). "Le Dictionnaire biographique, mouvement ouvrier, mouvement social: Boico Critina [sic](née Marcusohn Bianca), pseudonyme de radio: Cristina Luca" [The Biographical Dictionary, labor movement, social movement: Boico, Critina [sic] (born Marcusohn, Bianca), Radio pseudonym: Cristina Luca]. maitron-en-ligne.univ-paris1.fr (in French). Paris, France: University of Paris. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
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(help) - Rayski, Adam (2009). "L'Affiche rouge" [The red poster]. Paris.fr (in French). Paris, France: Comité d’Histoire de la Ville de Paris. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
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(help) - Tismaneanu, Vladimir; Stan, Marius (17 August 2016). "Antifascism as Political Passion in the Life of Cristina Luca". publicseminar.org. New York City, New York: The Editorial Board of Public Seminar. Archived from the original on 7 March 2018. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
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(help) - Tismaneanu, Vladimir (2003). Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23747-6.
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(help) - Wieviorka, Olivier (2016). The French Resistance. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-73122-6.
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(help) - "Cristina Flutur, eroină în "Résistance"" [Cristina Flutur, heroine of "Résistance"] (in Romanian). Bucharest, Romania: Film Reporter. 19 May 2014. Archived from the original on 1 July 2017. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
- 1916 births
- 2002 deaths
- People from Botoșani
- Romanian communists
- Political activists
- Members of the Francs-tireurs et partisans
- Romanian participants in the French Resistance
- Jewish women
- 20th-century Romanian women writers
- Politehnica University of Bucharest faculty
- Romanian civil servants
- Romanian Jews
- Romanian defectors
- Romanian emigrants to France