Absolute Power: The Astonishing Personal Photos Of Nicolae Ceausescu
A family photo archive reveals life behind the public facade of Romania's notorious communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu.
Nicolae Ceausescu, sporting a bandaged trigger finger, watches his wife, Elena, take aim with a shotgun during a New Year’s Eve hunting trip in 1976.
A Romanian diplomat is whipped on the backside by Ceausescu while crouching over the carcass of a hare. The photo was taken during a hunting trip with the heads of Romania’s diplomatic missions in 1969.
Ceausescu looks over a lineup of recently killed bears in Bistrita, northern Romania in 1972.
These images are some of nearly 6,000 photos released online in a photo archive created by Romania’s National Archives and the country’s Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism.
Ceausescu sprinkles snow on his wife’s head during yet another hunting trip in 1976.
The archive focuses largely on the period from 1965, when Romania was ruled over by the Ceausescus, until their overthrow and execution in 1989.
Elena cuddles with her son, Nicu, the heir apparent to Nicolae Ceausescu.
Hundreds of photos in the archive were sourced from the Ceausescus’ personal photo collection and feature the notorious couple and their inner circle in candid moments.
The Ceausescus during a New Year’s Eve party in 1976.
Nicu Ceausescu (center) with unidentified women during the 1976 party. The younger Ceausescu was sentenced to prison after his parents’ killings and died from liver disease in Vienna in 1996 aged 45.
The archive also features thousands of official photos from Ceausescu’s reign.
Crowds gather upon Nicolae Ceausescu's arrival in Pitesti, near Bucharest, in 1966. The photo was taken a year after the former shoemaking apprentice rose to power in Romania.
Ceausescu’s rule began hopefully after he lifted restrictions on freedom of speech, and staunchly opposed the Soviet Union’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, a stance that won him widespread support at home and from the West.
Women in the northwestern Bihor county, which has a sizable ethnic Hungarian community, welcome Ceausescu. The sign displayed in the background reads like a poem: “Romanians and Hungarians, we are fulfilling our duty; arms stronger, minds more beautiful; the Party, Ceausescu, Romania, are for us the world's most precious things.”
By the 1970s, Ceausescu and his communist regime began steering the country into an era of oppression and near-medieval hardship for ordinary Romanians, who were then forced to cheer their tormentors.
Children applaud Ceausescu’s motorcade in Sibiu, in 1967.
The most unsettling images in the archive are from the Ceausescus’ personal collections, made as they enjoyed themselves between official engagements, sometimes in bizarre and disturbing ways.
A bear after being killed during one of Ceausescu’s hunting trips with a cigarette in his nostril, glasses, and a hat.
Romanian officials prepare to be beaten with a stick by Ceausescu as they crouch over a dead hare in 1969.
The archive features several images of this humiliating ritual, which was dubbed the "hunter's baptism." According to witnesses, no hunting companions escaped the rite, not even Ceausescu’s own son. One official recalled the ruler announcing that "Nicu needs to remember his baptism all his life" before beating his son forcefully with a stick.
Men carry a bear carcass in from the forest for Ceausescu’s inspection during a hunting trip in 1972.
Ceausescu fires an arrow while on holiday in Moldova in 1976.
The authoritarian ruler runs with a dog at an unknown location in the winter of 1981.
Some pictures from the Ceausescus’ collection capture the couple’s younger days as left-wing radicals before their ascent to power.
Nicolae (in black jacket) and Elena Ceausescu (with white blouse) on a balcony overlooking Bucharest’s University Square. The pair were welcoming the arrival of Soviet troops to Romania after a coup overthrew the country’s pro-Nazi ruler in August 1944.
A young Elena Ceausescu (center left) with friends at a ball.
Nicolae Ceausescu (left) at a parade welcoming Soviet forces in August 1944.
Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu at a New Year’s Eve party in 1988. It is one of the last photos of the couple stored in the archive.
Almost exactly a year after this photo was taken, the pair were forced to flee enraged crowds following a lethal crackdown on anti-government protesters in the western city of Timisoara.
After attempting to escape to safety by helicopter, the couple were captured and later executed in the yard of a provincial military barracks on Christmas Day, December 25, 1989.
