"representative" of himself, owing to the anti-communist undertones in Mikhail Bulgakov's play. Rebengiuc first voiced his political message to the public during the Romanian Revolution, when he was present in the Romanian Television building. In an iconic moment, he held up a roll of toilet paper to the camera, urging viewers and members of the television staff who had promoted Ceauşescu's personality cult to clean up after themselves. In 2008, Rebengiuc recalled: "I had been wanting to do this gesture for a long time, and I think it was the most appropriate of moments. I know I took a lot of people by surprise. I told them that people who ate shit and who filled up our lives and ears with Ceauşescu this, Ceauşescu that, ought to disappear. That paper was supposed to wipe out some traces. I am still fighting windmills." Elsewhere, he spoke of his motivations: "All those who just an hour or two before were still eulogizing Ceauşescu were [still] on television. And, just like that, they were on television, making themselves look innocent, pure. [...] Me, until 22 December 1989 [that is, the day Ceauşescu fled], I was wondering: gee, what will all these shit-eaters be doing if the regime is changed? Will they be ashamed? Will they run to hide in dark corners? And then I see them on television..." Rebengiuc, who credits his son Tudor with having urged him to walk into the Television building, also remembers reciting Doina, a nationalist poem by Mihai Eminescu, changing stress from its condemnation of foreigners to read like an attack on people associated with the regime. On 1 May 1990, at the height of the Golaniad events, Rebengiuc read a Protest of the Romanian Intellectuals, expressing solidarity with the students gathered in University Square in opposition to the National Salvation Front. It was signed by 27 cultural personalities, among them civil society militants (Gabriel Andreescu, Doina Cornea, Radu Filipescu), journalists (Cornel Nistorescu, Octavian Paler), essayists (Gabriela Adameşteanu, Ana Blandiana, Petru Creţia, Ştefan Augustin Doinaş, Ion Bogdan Lefter, Romulus Rusan), visual artists (Horia Bernea, Sorin Dumitrescu, Mihai Stănescu), actors (Irina Petrescu, Florin Zamfirescu and Rebengiuc's wife Mariana Mihuţ), musicians (Corneliu Cezar, Teodor Grigoriu, Johnny Răducanu), scientist Edmond Nicolau and filmmaker Lucian Pintilie. The document offered praise to the Timişoara Proclamation, through which both the 1989 revolutionaries and the Golaniad were asking for the application of lustration in Romanian