Emil Răzvan Theodorescu (22 May 1939 – 6 February 2023) was a Romanian historian and politician. He researched and wrote extensively on art history in particular. A member of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), he was a member of the Romanian Senate for Iași County from 2000 to 2004, and for Botoșani County from 2004 to 2008. In the Adrian Năstase cabinet, he was Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs from 2000 to 2004. Biography Theodorescu was born in Bucharest into a family of intellectuals, and following high school, studied History at the University of Bucharest from 1955 to 1963. Between 1959 and 1961 he was excluded from the university by the communist authorities for political reasons, and worked as an unskilled labourer in this period. A cultural and art historian, he studied on a scholarship in France in 1968 and received a doctorate in history from the University of Bucharest in 1972. From 1963 to 1987, he was a researcher at the Romanian Academy's Institute of Art History, serving as adjunct research director from 1972 to 1977. He was removed from his leadership position after protesting against the demolition of the Enei Church in 1977, and in 1984-1985, initiated a collective protest against the demolition of the Văcărești Monastery. From 1987 to 1990 he was an associated professor at the Bucharest National University of Arts, where he became a professor in 1990, teaching courses on the history of old Romanian art, the typology of Eastern Christian art and on the history of European civilisation. He held additional posts in his field, including within UNESCO. After the 1989 Revolution, Theodorescu headed the Romanian Television from 1990 to 1992 and was a member of the National Audiovisual Council from 1992 to 2000. The 2000 election brought the PSD into office and Theodorescu became senator and a cabinet minister. He was returned to the Senate at the 2004 election, which his party lost, and sat in opposition. He ran for a Bucharest seat at the 2008 election, but lost. Before his election in 2000 and the return of his friend Ion Iliescu as President of Romania, Theodorescu was a strong critic of the centre-right governments under Emil Constantinescu, at one point labelling the Radu Vasile cabinet "Stalinist, Stakhanovite, totalitarian". Once in office, he pledged to continue his predecessors' "very interesting" projects, with an increased emphasis on Romania's then-upcoming European Union accession. In