Adrian Păunescu (; 20 July 1943 – 5 November 2010) was a Romanian writer, publisher, cultural promoter, translator, and politician. A profoundly charismatic personality, a controversial and complex figure, the artist and the man are almost impossible to separate. On the one hand he stands accused of collaboration with the Communist regime, but on the other hand he was persecuted and ostracised by the regime when he started to confront its failures, and when his influence stated to be considered dangerous. Though criticised for praising former Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu, Păunescu was called "Romania's most famous poet" in an Associated Press story, quoted by The New York Times. Life Born in Copăceni, Bălți County, in what is now the Republic of Moldova, Păunescu spent his childhood in Bârca, Dolj County. He started his secondary studies at the Frații Buzești National College in Craiova and then continued at Saint Sava National College in Bucharest. Păunescu studied philology at the University of Bucharest and became a writer and journalist. He was an influential public figure for Romanian youth throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Though he was criticised for writing flattering poems about Nicolae Ceauşescu, Păunescu remained popular in Romania, where he appeared on television several times a week. As posthumously summarized by newspaper România Liberă, Păunescu "is still viewed as a hero by the man in the street" although "intellectuals continue to question his integrity and the literary value of his work". Flacăra and Cenaclul Flacăra A member of the Union of Communist Youth between 1966 and 1968, and, between 1968 and 1989, of the Romanian Communist Party, Păunescu gained control over a major weekly publication, Flacăra and became the producer and host of an immensely popular itinerant series of cultural events in the country, Cenaclul Flacăra, founded in 1973 and ended by the Communist authorities in 1985. The events included folk and pop music, poetry recitals, and Păunescu's personal and often rousing speeches. Through this cultural forum, Păunescu promoted Romanian poetry and music, instilling a nationalistic tone calling for pride in Romanian spiritual-artistic values and expression, seemingly as a counterpoint to the "puerile and pernicious" pop music (both Romanian and foreign) available on radio stations. Poets promoted included canonical names of Romanian literature: Mihai Eminescu, Lucian Blaga, Octavian Goga, George Bacovia, Nichita Stanescu, Ana Blandiana. Păunescu's own poems, recited at these events, have a social theme, about the life and