One Man’s Courageous Triumph Over Tyranny

New Memoir, published in January by Granddaughter of Romanian Historian Constantin C.Giurescu

Boca Raton, FL (I-Newswire) January 20, 2013 - Dr. Marina Giurescu, author of the new book, A World Torn Asunder: The Life and Triumph of Constantin C. Giurescu (Bettie Youngs Books) was born in Romania in 1962, into a country devastated by World War II and plunged into a long period of brutal authoritarian rule. The granddaughter of Romania’s leading historian—Prof. Constantin C. Giurescu, the author of The History of the Romanian People— Marina Giurescu chronicles the rise and fall of her native land in the 20th century as seen through the eyes of her esteemed grandfather.

Before the Communist takeover Dr Giurescu's grandfather was a member of Romania’s parliament, acted as a provincial governor and briefly occupied a cabinet position at the onset of WWII. However, the heretofore “enlightened” Romanian society was dismantled with the 1946 Communist takeover of the country.

Professor Giurescu's political prominence and historical writings attracted the post-war wrath of the new order, leading to his arrest in 1950. Imprisoned without trial, he spent five years in the notorious Sighet Penitentiary. Although he felt fortunate to survive his ordeal, he was astonished and saddened to find a society vastly different than the Romania of his youth. Upon his release he wrote an account of the time spent in jail, then sealed it in a glass jar that he buried in the yard. In the early 1980s Dr. Paul E. Michelson (who wrote the foreword for A World Torn Asunder) smuggled this treasure out of the country.

Drawing on her grandfather’s prison diary, private letters and her own research, Marina Giurescu’s beautifully crafted memoir pays loving tribute to her grandfather and family, and also to Romania’s forgotten generation. This fascinating and inspirational story follows their struggles in war-torn Romania from 1900 to the fall of the Soviet Union. We witness the rise of modern Romania, the misery of the World Wars, and then the sellout of Eastern Europe to Russia after World War II with its devastating changes, socially and culturally. In this sweeping account, we see not only the toll on people—oppression, fear, poverty and starvation—but the triumph of the human spirit—patience, fortitude, the will to survive and make a better life.

According to Dr. Giurescu, “As I approached my fiftieth birthday I began to reflect upon my heritage and my native country’s history. I was inspired to write their story and to learn from their struggles so that we would hopefully never repeat the mistakes of the
past.”

Marina Giurescu, MD was born and grew up in Bucharest, Romania where she lived with her grandparents for the last fifteen years of her grandfather’s life and had a particularly close relationship with her beloved grandfather, Constantin.
Following graduation, with a bachelor in science she was admitted to the Faculty of Medicine of Bucharest.

Dr Giurescu defected in 1984 and was granted political asylum in the US. She redid her medical education at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York between 1988-1992. Currently she is a radiologist for the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ and since 2000 is an assistant professor in their College of Medicine.