Biographical Information
He was born in Bucharest on November 28, 1949 into a working-class family, his father being a tailor. At one time, his father was a Baptist minister, but he himself calls himself a Romanian Orthodox. In his youth being an admirer of the French film director Roger Vadim, he chose the pseudonym Vadim.
In 1971, he received a degree in sociology from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bucharest, and in 1975, he studied at the School for Reserve Officers in Bucharest. With the help of his mentor, Herder Prize winner Eugen Barbu, he obtained a scholarship and studied in Vienna between 1978-1979.
During the communist era, he worked as a journalist, editor, and poet: in the early 1970s, he was one of the editors at România Liberă, and after 1975 was an editor at the Romanian official press agency, Agerpress.
Has served as a Romanian senator between 1992-2008. For the first time since 1990, after the election of November 30, 2008, he and his party were no longer present in either of the Romanian legislative chambers. On September 25, 2001, Tudor renounced his parliamentary immunity from prosecution.
In December 2004, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel returned the Steaua României medal, one of the country's highest honors, after President Ion Iliescu awarded Tudor the same honor in the last days of his presidency. Wiesel said he was returning the honor because he could not "accept being placed on the same level" as Tudor and fellow party member (and honor recipient) Gheorghe Buzatu. Fifteen Radio Free Europe journalists, Timişoara mayor Gheorghe Ciuhandu, song writer Alexandru Andrieş, and historian Randolph Braham also returned their Steaua României medals as a result of the awards to Tudor and Buzatu. According to the conservative newspaper Ziua, Tudor's Steaua României appointment was revoked by Romanian president Traian Băsescu in May 2007. Tudor consequently announced he would sue Traian Băsescu for abuse of power.
He has written over 20 books, including volumes of poetry and political commentary, at least one of which has been translated into French, English, and Arabic. He has also written for the stage.
He is married and has two children.
Read more about this topic: Corneliu Vadim Tudor
Famous quotes containing the words biographical and/or information:
“Biography, in its purer form, confined to the ended lives of the true and brave, may be held the fairest meed of human virtue—one given and received in entire disinterestedness—since neither can the biographer hope for acknowledgment from the subject, not the subject at all avail himself of the biographical distinction conferred.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“As information technology restructures the work situation, it abstracts thought from action.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)