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bv
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
Acknowledgements & Note To Reader          7 
 
Preface ­  by Prof. Catherine Durandin          23 
 
Foreward ­ Mattise’s Blouse Roumaine          26 
 
Chapter 1 – 5 Millenia of Women           45 
 
Chapter 2 – Timeline, Gazetteer & Index        77 
Timeline of Women by Birth (1805‐1983)       78 
Gazetteer of 160 Women within 58 Categories  
by Call, Profession or Social Status        82 
Index of 160 Women by 58 Categories by  
Call, Profession or Social Status        83 
 
Chapter 3 ­ Profiles               101 
A                102 
B                141 
C                217 
D                401 
E                457 
F                483 
G                501 
H                567 
I                583 
J                613 
K                633 
L                639 
M                675 
N                759 
O                803 
P                821 
R                859 
S                895 
T                935 
U                957 
V                965 
W                1009 
Z                1013 
 
Indexes                  1021 
People               1023 
Places               1043 
Quotations              1055 
 
 
Addendum 1 – Notes on Romanian  
and Foreign Spelling Equaivalents          1065 
 
 

6
PREFACE ­ Matisse’s Blouse Roumaine 

26
In painting La Blouse Roumaine Henri Matisse gave it this ethnic garment a perennial
artistic quality and at the same time an international recognition. Indeed, the canvas,
which is now in the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, has become an icon of Romanian
identity and particularly of Romanian femininity.

But why a Romanian blouse? Was the artist’s choice fortuitous? One may well ask, as
the painter was best known for attiring his models in Moroccan or Parisian attire,
rather then in Romanian ethnic dress or better still, not clad at all. So why, out of the
blue, a Romanian Blouse?

Fig. 1.1. Daniel Rosenthal: Revolutionary Romania (ca 1848)

Oil painting in the Collection of The National Art Gallery, Bucharest

It is a little-known fact that the great Master had at least one Romanian woman as a
pupil: the fascinating and passionately patriotic Moldavian artist Nina Arbore, (q.v.),
who later made her mark on the Romanian scene in the Avant-Garde movement and
also as a painter of monumental frescoes, decorating the interior of modern
cathedrals. It is very likely that Nina Arbore would have occasionally worn the
traditional Romanian peasant garb. Would she have been the first temptress, inspiring
the Master in his choice of subject, or sitting for him? In any event there are records
suggesting that a portrait of Nina Arbore by Matisse exists in the Shchukin
Collection. This would coincide with the period when Arbore was Matisse’s pupil in
1910-11. The fact that the Russian collector Sergey Shchukin (1854–1936) might
have wanted to acquire the portrait of a Romanian lady pupil of Matisse may be due
to the strong link which the Arbore family from Bessarabia had with Russian
intellectuals in general, and with Pushkin in particular (q.v. Nina Arbore). It is also
true that before WWI, Bessarabia, previously a province of Moldavia, was part of the
Russian empire (see also Maria Cebotari).

‘Blouse Roumaine’ (1940), by Henri Matisse, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris

Oil on canvass (92 x 73 cms)

28
Looking at some of Matisse’s earlier works it is possible to discern the theme of
ethnic embroidery in the blouse of the 1939 dancer Une danseuse en repos, which
portrays a seated woman wearing a Romanian blouse.
The same is true of another of Matisse’s paintings, Still Life With Sleeping Woman,
now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. The sitter is a
woman wearing an embroidered blouse in which the upper sleeve is decorated in a
manner similar to that found on Romanian blouses.

Fig. 1.3. Henri Matisse

Still Life with Sleeping Woman, 1940, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon,
The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 985.64.26
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?65247+0+0

29
 Fig. 1.4. Interior of Matisse’s home showing a Romanian kilim rug with the Tree of Life

Fig. 1.5. Henri Matisse: Woman seated in an armchair (1940), bequest in loving memory of
her husband, Taft Schreiber, by Rita Schreiber, the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC,

30
oil on canvas, 54 x 65.1 cm (21 1/4 x 25 5/8 in.) http://www.nga.gov/cgi-
bin/pimage?69866+0+0

Fig. 1.6. Henri Matisse – Woman wearing a Romanian Blouse – one of at least fourteen
versions

An even earlier version, with prevailing greens, appeared in 1937:

Fig. 1.7. The Romanian Blouse with green sleeves, Cincinnati Art Museum,
(The Mary E. Johnson bequest).

31
However, as with all his paintings, Matisse’s ideas were first outlined on paper and
here too one can find examples of Romanian blouses in pen and ink: one of these
sketches, Woman in a Blouse, Dreaming is illustrated on page 67 of Volkmar Essers’
monograph Matisse – 1869-1954, Master of Colour, (Taschen, Cologne, 2002). Here
the floral stitching abounds. It is dated 1936 which was the year when the Master was
commissioned to create the set and costumes for a Russian ballet in Paris.

Fig. 1.8. Henri Matisse – sketch of woman wearing a Romanian Blouse

Thus, from these and other examples, many of which covered a whole wall at the
Parisian Maeght Gallery’s Retrospective Exhibition of Matisse in 1945, one can
unequivocally conclude that the idea was not new in the artist’s mind. However, in
1940, the Romanian Blouse had become central to the subject, thrusting it to the
centre stage and giving it a specific, named identity. The 1940 model is less
contemplative compared to the earlier versions and directs her gaze straight into the
eye of the onlooker with great immediacy and purpose. The canvas must have been
discussed with, if not prompted by the visit of an old friend, the Romanian painter
Theodor Pallady (1871-1956), whose portrait Matisse sketched in Nice in 1940 (see
John Klein, Matisse Portraits, pp 141).

32
 Fig. 1.9. Henri Matisse – sketch of Pallady’s visit to Nice, 1940
(see John Klein, Matisse Portraits, pp 141).

According to the art critic Ioana Vlasiu (personal communication) Pallady had even
given his old friend Matisse a collection of ethnic embroidered blouses.
The Matisse-Pallady friendship went back to their time together at the École des
Beaux Arts in Paris (1891-1899), when they frequented the studio of the Symbolist
painter Gustave Moreau (1826 – 1898). Moreau was a friend of Théodore Chassériau
(1819 – 1856) whose preferred model was none other than Pallady’s aunt, the
Romanian Princess Maria Cantacuzino (1820-1898) (q.v.). Maria Cantacuzino was
later to marry the painter Puvis de Chavannes, who used her as a model for Sainte
Geneviève in the frescoes that decorate the Panthéon in Paris. Throughout their long
correspondence, which lasted nearly half a century, a strong affinity developed
between the French Henri Matisse and the Romanian painter Theodor Pallady. Quite
apart from their closeness in style and demeanour, the two friends shared a great
many complicities, among which the figure of Romanian muses, much in view in 20th
century France, was a recurring subject. In his correspondence, Matisse often added

33
CHAPTER  1
nationality, but more than most by vocation, as the choice of their commitment which
resulted in a significant contribution to Romanian culture and to Romania’s cause
abroad.
Inevitably the Royal spouses were at the forefront of this public relations exercise
through an indefatigable programme of translations, of publications, of pleading on
the international political scene on behalf of Romania. At home, these royals
encouraged the society’s interest in the native values of Romanian arts and crafts,
promoted talent through further education and scholarship grants and initiated a
charitable network of social services. Their position of privilege was put in the service
of destitute people and by this initiative the royal spouses prompted the wives of civil
servants and high society in general to follow suit.
In spite of this breeze of fresh air coming into the country from abroad, social
conventions were not easy to change and the prejudices relegating the woman to the
hearth remained strong. Those few women who had the drive but not the financial
backing were forced to seek recognition abroad. And here we note the beginning of a
Romanian diaspora of opera singers, poets, sculptors, painters, playwrights and
novelists, but also of aviators, architects and lawyers. These were the names that are
best known abroad. By contrast, Romanian women intellectuals who were active in
Romania during the inter-war period, or those who returned home after studying
abroad, had limited success at home and no currency abroad. After World War II the
situation deteriorated and there was a complete and utter political blackout regarding
the traditional links between East and West, with hardly any cultural communication
whatsoever.

Romanian Women under the Communist Terror

After World War II, the fate of the Romanian woman was sealed by a combined latent
prejudice about women’s role in society and a strong political bias levelled against
those women who had been educated under the old régime, or women who were
aristocratic, and generally against all the women who were unwilling to conform to
the strictures of the communist dictatorship. These are the unsung voices of women
who were thrown into prisons and concentration camps for their religious or political
beliefs, for their opposition to the nationalisation of property, or simply women who
were found guilty by association, because they were spouses, mothers or sisters of

67
political prisoners. As for the silent majority of those who conformed without
enthusiasm, in order to escape the ordeal of slave labour camps, their hushed voices
remained unheard.

Fig. 2.18. Elisabeta Rizea of Nucsoara, (1912-2002), the peasant farmer from the Carpathian
mountains who was tortured in jail and branded an ”enemy of the people” for fighting the
communist dictatorship

These women may not have had the opportunity of expressing themselves in words
which struck a chord, or reached the consciousness of society in the West, but their
dignity and the glimpse we have of heir lives merit a closer scrutiny. Each of them has
a story to tell, a poignant remark to convey and different as they may be in their
calling, social extraction or profession, they often have the same common
denominator: the face of a decent and dignified Romania, which is little known and
little sung – the ethos of hundreds of thousand of heroines, all and each one of them
with a message to give to the outside world. These are the women who had the right
to wear the ethnic Blouse Roumaine in a real or imaginary way, because they
represented the spirit of Romania, the real face of decency, humanity and compassion.
Among them the millions of unknown illustrious and from this latter category we
have chosen four groups from among the royal, the aristocratic, the middle class and
the peasant class families to demonstrate the effect of communism on each generation
of the family unit: the daughter, the mother and the grandmother. Such an example
can be taken from the Romanian royal family (Queen Helen the Queen Mother of
Romania, Queen Anne de Bourbon-Parma and Princess Margarita of Romania), from

68
the Cantacuzino family (Maruca Enescu, Anca Diamandy, Oana Orlea), the Velescu
family (Ana Velescu, Eugenia Velescu, Alexandra Enescu) and from the Arnàutoiu
family respectively (Laurentia Arnàutoiu, Elena Arnàutoiu, Ioana Arnàutoiu, Mariea
Plop).
In contrast, at the other extreme, there are the women who shot from the hip, who
came to Romania on the back of Russian tanks to perpetrate mass murder, to inflict
torture and to humble the soul of the people in every walk of life – the women
opportunists who jumped on the communist bandwagon to enforce socialist realism in
art or to ensure socialist purity in literature through censorship and literary criticism,
the women who composed cantatas of praise for the régime, or who wrote
sycophantic verse, or, simply, women who may have joined the party just to share in
the spoils, while effectively trampling on the dead and dying. In the process, they sent
countless other women and their families to perish in the gulags, and caused their
children to be taken away from them and be put in orphanages. Looming large in this
latter category is Elena Ceausescu, wife of the dictator. It is to her that the clowns of
official literature addressed dithyrambic poems:

“To the first woman of the country, the homage of the entire country,
As star stands beside star in the eternal arch of heaven,
Beside the Great Man she watches over
Romania’s path to glory.”

(Quoted by: Mary Ellen Fischer, Nicolae Ceausescu

(Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989) p. 171.
From a birthday poem “Homage”,
published by the Scînteia
Communist Party daily).

At the opposite side of the spectrum of despair are the ordinary mothers living on the
edge of starvation, unable to feed their sons and husbands. These are the women who
took immense risks in sending an open letter to Elena Ceausescu (q.v. Hunger).

In the same category as Elena Ceausescu falls Ana Pauker, (q.v.) branded by Michael
Shafir as Romania’s ‘Jewish female Bukharin’ (Stalinism With A Human Face?, East

69
European Perspectives, 13 June 2001, Volume 3, Number 11). Lately there have been
several attempts by hagiographers, who had no direct experience of Pauker’s practices
and cult of personality, to rehabilitate her memory. However, to find the real picture
one must listen to the voice of her contemporaries, such as that of the spiritual leader
Alexandru Safran, Great Rabbi of Romania and later Great Rabbi of Switzerland
(Resisting the storm, Romania 1940-1947, Ed. By Jean Ancel, Publ. Yad Vashem,
Jerusalem, 1987, op. cit. 139) who said:

Ana Pauker, a rabbi’s daughter… when she was Minister of Exterior,

she wanted everybody to know, especially when I was present, that she
was not a Jew, she was a Communist.

For a communist she was to boot, and it was in the service of this system that she
carried out her deeds, best described by Tesu Solomovici in his recent book
Securitatea si evreii, despre càlài si despre victime, (The Securitate and the Jews –
Executioners and Victims), vol I, Ed Ziua, Bucharest, 2003, op. cit. pp 54 and 55):

The most shining star among the huge number of Moscow-trained spies
and activists was, doubtless, the Jewish communist Ana Pauker. She
personally knew Joseph Vissarionovitch Stalin and worked under the
orders and direct instructions of the henchmen of the Soviet repressive
services, Lavrenty Pavlovitch Beria, Victor Semionovitch Abukhumov,
Piotr Vassilievitch Fedotov and Pavel Mihailovitch Fitinand.
Furthermore she enjoyed the admiration of yet another dinosaur of
Soviet power – Vyacheslav Molotov. Notwithstanding all that,
Gheorghiu-Dej succeeded, with patient cunning, in plucking out her of
all her feathers.

How did she react when the revolution started to devour its children and she found
herself at the receiving end? This we can divine from Ana Pauker’s own complaints
about her own interrogators: (Levy op.cit):

"You take a person, you arrest him, you call him an agent, you [subject
him to] methods that, in all my life, with all the prisons and [interwar

70
CHAPTER  2
Timeline of Women by Birth (1805­1983)

Ana Ipàtescu (1805–1875) 1848 Revolutionary

Hortense Cornu (1812–1875) Political broker
Maria Rosetti (1819-1893) 1848 Revolutionary
Maria Cantacuzino (1820-1898) Artist model
Pss. Aurélie Ghica (1820–1904) Novelist
Elena Cuza (1825–1909) Royal Consort, benefactor
Dora D’Istria (1828–1888) Writer, Feminist
Florence Baker (1841-1916) Traveller, explorer of the Nile,
diarist
Elizabeth of Romania (1843-1916) Royal Consort, Benefactor, Poet
Veronica Micle (1850-1889) Poet
Mite Kremnitz (1852–1916) Translator
Elena Theodorini (1857-1926) Soprano
Hariclea Darclée (1860-1939) Soprano
Zoe Bàlàceanu (ca 1862-1917) Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen
Victorine de Bellio (1863-1957) Art collector
G. Starszensky (1863-1910) ‘Loose cannon’
Elena Vàcàrescu (1864-1947) Poet, diplomat
Bucura Dumbravà (1868–1926) Writer, Mountaineer
Pss. Georges Ghika (1869–1950) Courtesan, dominican nun
Élise Bràtianu, (1870–1957) Society hostess
Otilia Cosmutzà (1874–1951) Art critic
Maria Forescu (1875-1943) Soprano, film actress, Nazi
prisoner
Queen Marie of Romania (1875–1938) Royal consort, writer, benefactor
Agnes Murgoci (1875–1929) Ethnographer
Pss. Al. Cantacuzino (1876-1944) Feminist, charity worker
Anna de Noailles (1876-1933) Writer, poet
Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu (1876-1955) Novelist
Pss. Maruca Cantacuzino, (1878-1969) Socialite
Hélène Chrissoveloni (1879–1975) Socialite
Cecilia Cutzescu-Storck (1879-1969) Painter
Aurora Fúlgida (1880-1970) Film star, ballerina
Elena Caragiani (1882–1924) Pilot
Veturia Goga (1883- 1979) Socialite
Milita Pàtrascu (1883–1976) Sculptor, political prisoner
Ana Velescu (1883-1870) Art collector
Laurentia Arnàutoiu (1885-1962) Political prisoner
Alice Steriade Voinescu (1885-1961) Philosopher, political prisoner
Marthe Bibesco (1886-1973) Writer
Marioara Ventura (1886 -1954) Actress
Yvonne Blondel (1887-1971) Charity worker
Smaranda Bràescu (1987–1948) Pilot, anti-communist fighter
Florica Cristoforeanu, (1887–1960) Mezzo-Soprano
Ecaterina Bàlàcioiu (1888–1960) Political prisoner
Cella Delavrancea (1888-1991) Pianist, art critic
Nina Arbore (1889-1942) Artist painter
Aretia Tàtàrescu (1889–1968) Arts patron, political prisoner
Pss. Catherine Caradja (1893–1993) Benefactor, charity worker
Ana Pauker (1893 - 1960) Communist minister, NKVD spy
Otilia Cazimir (1894–1967) Poet
Virginia Haret (1894 –1962) Architect
Elvira Popescu (1894–1993) Theatre and Film Actress
Viorica Ursuleac (1894–1985) Soprano
Olga Greceanu (1895–1979) Fresco painter, art historian
Clara Haskil (1895-1960) Pianist
Anne-Marie Callimachi (ca.1895–1972) Socialite, translator
Irina Codreanu (1896-1985) Sculptor
Pss. Helen of Greece (1896-1982) Romania‘s Queen Mother
Elena Lupescu (1896–1977) Courtesan, royal consort
Ana Aslan (1897-1988) Medical doctor
Elizabeth Asquith (1897-1945) Writer
Alice Cocea (1897–1970) Comic opera singer
Maria Golescu (1897-1987) Art historian, political prisoner
Sandra Cotovu (1898-1987) Novelist, feminist
Georgeta Cancicov, (1899-1984) Writer, political prisoner
Micaela Eleutheriade (1900–1982) Painter
Henriette-Yvonne Stahl (1900-1984) Novelist, political prisoner
Elena Bràtianu, (1901–1970) Political prisoner
Lizica Codreanu (1901–1993) Ballerina
Elena Bràtianu- Racottà (1904-1996) WWII nurse, museographer, exile
Madeleine Cancicov (1904–1985) Political prisoner
Anita Nandris-Cudla (1904–1984) Peasant farmer, Siberian deportee
Mabel Nandris (1904 –1997) Translator, benefactor
Stella Roman (1904–1992) Soprano
Anca Diamandy (1907–1998) WWII Red Cross nurse
Madeleine Lipatti (1908–1983) Pianist
Lena Constante, (1909-2005) Political prisoner
Pss. Ileana of Romania (1909-1991) Orthodox abbess
Maria Cebotari (1910–1949) Soprano
Annie Samuelli (1910- ca 2003) Political prisoner
Marie Ana Dràgescu (b. 1912) Pilot
Elisabeta Rizea (1912–2003) Peasant farmer, anticommunist,
resistance fighter,
political prisoner
Eugenia Roman (1912-1986) Middle class mother, spouse
Pss. Marina Stirbey (1912–2001) Pilot
Varinca Diaconú (1913–1998) Artist book-binder
Lizi Florescu (1913-1968) Political prisoner
Maria Tànase (1913–1963) Folk singer
Sabina Wurmbrand (1913-2000) Political prisoner, pastor’s wife
Natalia Dumitrescu (1915–1997) Painter
Wanda S. Vladimirescu (b. 1916) Painter
Elena Arnàutoiu (b. 1919) Political prisoner
Lola Bobescu (1919-2003) Violinist
Elena Ceausescu (1919-1989) Communist dictator

79
Nicole Grossu (1919-1996) Political prisoner
Sanda Stolojan (1919-2005) Writer, human rights activist
Nicoleta Franck (b. 1920) Political analyst
Cornelia Pillat (1921-2005) Art historian
Nadia Gray (1923–1994) Film actress
Monica Lovinescu (1923-2008) Broadcaster,
Anti-communist fighter
Ana de România (b. 1923) Consort of King Mihai I
Lauren Bacall (b. 1924) Film actress
Nina Cassian (b.1924) Poet
Ioana Celibidache (b. ca. 1924) Painter
Virginia Zeani (b.1925) Soprano
Mariea Plop-Arnàutoiu (1927-1962) Guerrilla fighter
Lucretia Jurj (1928-2004) Peasant farmer, polit. prisoner
Ioana Bràtianu (b. 1929) Liberal politician
Doina Cornea (b. 1929) Academic, dissident
Ana Novac (b. 1929) Nazi camp survivor, playwright
Rodica Iulian, (b. 1931) Med. doctor, poet, novelist
Ionela Manolesco (b.1931) Painter, poet, essayist
Mioara Cremene, (b. 1933) Poet, novelist
Florenta Albu (1934-2003) Poet
Viorica Cortez (b. 1935) Mezzo-Soprano
Mica Ertegün (b. ca 1935) Interior designer
Lilly Marcou (b. 1936) Historian, writer
Oana Orlea (b. 1936) Political prisoner, novelist
Alexandra Enescu (1937-1978) Scientist
Ileana Cotrubas (b. 1939) Soprano
Letitzia Bucur (b. 1940) Painter
S.Constantinescu (b. 1940) Librarian, journalist
Ileana Màlàncioiu (b. 1940) Poet, philosopher
Magdalena Popa (b. 1941) Ballerina
Adamesteanu (b. 1942) Writer
Ana Blandiana (b. 1942) Poet
Ioana Meitani (b.1942) Mineralogist
Gabriela Melinescu (b.1942) Poet. novelist
Marie-France Ionesco (b. 1944) Essayist, translator,
Carmen Groza (b. 1944) Tapestry artist
Ruxandra Racovitzà (b. 1944) Ballet dancer
Elisabeth Roudinesco (b.1944) Psychoanalist
Alina Diaconú (b. 1945) Novelist
Lucia Negoità (b. 1945) Poet
Adriana Bittel (b. 1946) Writer
Mariana Nicolesco (b. 1948) Soprano
Maria Prodan Bjørnson (1949-2002) Stage Set and costume designer
Pss. Margarita de România (b. 1949) Royal benefactor
Carmen-Danilea Cràsnaru (b. 1950) Poet
Lucia Hossu-Longin (b. 1951) TV producer
Doina Jela (b. 1951) Writer, editor
Nelly Miricioiu (b. 1952) Soprano
Maria Mailat (b. 1953) Novelist, poet

80
Herta Müller (b. 1953) Novelist
Elena Stefoi (b. 1954) Writer
Anca Visdei (b. 1954) Playwright
Marie-Jeanne Lecca (ca 1955) Costume & stage designer
Maria Petreu (b. 1955) Poet, philosopher
Ioana Raluca Arnàutoiu (b. 1956) Violinist
Silvia Marcovici (b. 1956) Violinist
Nadia Comàneci (b. 1961) Gymnast
Rodica Dràghincescu (b. 1962) Poet, novelist
Angela Gheorghiu (b. 1963) Soprano
Monica Theodorescu (b.1963) Dressage rider
Denisa Comànescu (b. 1964) Poet, Editor
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (b. 1964) Psychologist, journalist
Leontina Vàduva (b. 1964) Soprano
Marta Caraion (b. 1967) Art historian
Alina Carmen Cojocaru (b. 1981) Ballerina
Ioana Alexandra Marin (b. 1983) Poet
 

81
Gazetteer of 160 Women within 58 Categories by 
Call, Profession or Social Status
Academics (22), Actresses (9), Anti-Communist Fighters (14), Architects/Interior
Designers (2), Art Critics (9), Artist Book Binders (1), Ballerinas (6), Charity
Workers/Benefactors (20), Communist Public Figures (2), Courtesans (3), Designers
(2), Diplomats (4), Essayists (11), Ethnographers (6), Exiles & First-generation
Romanians born abroad (87), Explorers (1), Feminists (12), Folk Singers (1),
Gymnasts, Dressage Riders (2), Historians (5), Honorary Romanian Women (15),
Illustrators (3), Journalists (13), Lawyers (4), Librarians (3), Linguists (2), Literary
Critics (1), Media (15), Medical Doctors/Nurses (5), Memoir Writers (16),
Missionaries and Nuns (4), Mountainéers (2), Museographers (1), Musical
Instruments Makers (1), Novelists (24), Opera Singers (16), Painters (14), Peasant
Farmers (6), Philosophers and Philosophy Graduates (4), Pianists (6), Pilots (4),
Playwrights (5), Poets (29), Political Prisoners (30), Politicians (5), Revolutionaries
(2), Royals and Aristocrats (34), Scientists (8), Sculptors (4), Slave (1),
Socialites/Hostesses (20), Spouses/Relations of Public Figures (51), Spies (2),
Tapestry Weavers (4), Translators (25), Unknown Illustrious (6), Violinists (4),
Workers (3)

NOTE:
Most of the above 160 Romanian women, in the best tradition of versatility, are true
polymaths and therefore nearly each one of them falls in more than just one category,
often three or more. This explains why adding the numbers of the 57 individual
categories bears no relation to the actual total of the above 160 women included in
Blouse Roumaine.

82
O

Helen O’Brien (née Elena Constantinescu), Mrs. 
Ken Archer, Mrs. Jimmy O’Brien 
‘The Romanian Mata Hari’, ‘The Queen of Clubs’ 
(b. 14 December 1925, Bàrcànesti, Romania – d. 16 September 2005, Valbonne, France)

Oana Orlea  
Princess Maria­Ioana Cantacuzino ‘Marioana’  
(b. 21 April 1936, Bucharest)
Helen O’Brien (née Elena 
Constantinescu), Mrs. Ken Archer, 
Mrs. Jimmy O’Brien 
‘The Romanian Mata Hari’, ‘The 
Queen of Clubs’ 
(b. 14 December 1925, Bàrcànesti, Romania – d. 16 September
2005, Valbonne, France)

Romanian-born British-naturalised ballerina,

London nightclub proprietor and socialite, MI5
operative, amateur painter, polyglot, art collector,
exile in England and France

Enoch Powell, MP on Helen O’Brien:

That woman is a good Tory.
(Enoch Powell quoted by Chapman Pincher)

Helen O’Brien in The Evening Standard:

Full of Slavic mystique, quick intelligence and uproarious humour, she takes a delight
in intrigue. On the opening night on Coronation Day the Eve Club was filled with
European aristocracy, Barbara Cartland, Max Aitken, Viscount Scarsdale, a
smattering of Dukes, Errol Flynn, the odd Sultan, Jack Hawkins, former ambassadors
and prominent members of the Conservative Party have been customers.
(http://www.eve-club.com/autobiography/helen_obrien.htm)

Helen O’Brien in the London Illustrated News:

What is remarkable is the Middle European quality of the Eve Club. It’s as if the
place operated in some frontier town of the Cold war, the sort of dive where Carol
Reed might have filmed Harry Lime in a scene from the Third Man. This is entirely
due to the background and personality of Helen O’Brien who seems to have
peripheral knowledge of almost every well known intrigue of the last three decades.
She has also worked for the British Intelligence, a fact which is unofficially confirmed

804
by previous employees of SIS, which used to run an office over the other side of the
street from her club.
(http://www.eve-club.com/autobiography/helen_obrien.htm)

Helen O’Brien in the Sunday Telegraph:

For 30 years Helen (O’Brien) born Elena Constantinescu in Romania was a
nightclub Mata Hari.
(http://www.eve-club.com/autobiography/helen_obrien.htm)

On Nicu Ceausescu:
The club also had Romanian clients. One of them, a Mr. Virgil Popescu, was a tall
young man with dark hair and handsome looks. I did not realise how important he
was until July 1974, when he came along with Nicu, the son of president Ceausescu.
- Miss O’Brien I have with me a very special guest, Nicu Ceausescu, the son of
our ‘Conducàator’
Casting on him an indifferent look I answered in a neutral voice:
- Very well, come in, and take a seat.
- Miss O’Brien, you absolutely must introduce Nicu to a beautiful girl to keep
him company.
I introduce a girl, she takes a seat and soon after I hear the whisper of a champagne
cork popping up, followed by a shriek. The girl leaves the table and comes to me
saying: ‘I don’t want to stay at that table. I was hardly seated when the drunkard next
to me groped me with one hand, and with the other he was pinching my bosoms.
- Of course you cannot stay there, I understand.
- Miss O’Brien, interjects Virgil Popescu, you must bring the girl back.
- How can I, Mr. Popescu,? She simply refuses to do so.
- But you are the owner, here, are you not? All you need to do is to order her to
come back.
- These girls are dancers, ballerinas and models who may or may not accept the
clients’ invitation. They are not my slaves and I cannot oblige them to share a
table with a client who treats them like beasts.

805
 - But this is the son of our president. We must take care of him. He needs to be
soothed.
- Soothed? What on earth for?
- Because his father just bought him a convertible Jaguar and as he was rather
tipsy he ended up in a lamppost on the motorway and he wrecked it. I beg of
you, if this girl does not come back, then, bring another one.
Complying with his wishes, I return to my table, but barely a few minutes went
past as I hear another shriek: this time the girl leaves the table and runs to the
ladies’ room. I follow her to find out what happened.
- Look Helen, what he did to me, he bit my neck and he is dead drunk.
It was quite obvious. The teeth marks and the contusion in the centre of the bite could
be seen from a distance. The poor girl was in tears.
- How can I appear on stage like this? I am simply embarrassed.
I try to comfort her the best I can and apologise for having introduced her to such a
yob. As I return, Virgil Popescu approaches me:
- Miss Helen, you must bring along another…
- I will bring nothing: all I will bring is the bill.
- But he is the son of our president….
- Mr. Popescu, all you did this evening was to talk nonstop about your
president’s son. Well, he is not our president.
Seeing that he started to protest I cut him short:
- Enough is enough! You pay the bill and get out, both of you. And one more
thing, Virgil: your president’s son, he can go to hell.
Finally the coin dropped.
(Helen O’Brien, Regina Noptii, pp. 312-3)

On Christine Keller:
She was too young and lacked the savoir faire that was required. I also felt she was an
easily-led girl and I was proven right.
(Helen O’Brien, quoted by the London Evening Standard)

On Prairie Oysters:
What is a Gentleman without a prairie oyster?

806
(Helen O’Brien, quoted by the Daily Express)
(http://www.eve-club.com/autobiography/helen_obrien.htm)

On the Queen of Clubs:

I have been a Queen of Clubs for as long as the Queen has been a Queen.
(Helen O’Brien, quoted by the Daily Telegraph)
Biography:

Helen O’Brien will be remembered by some of her contemporaries from the ‘60s and
‘70s, as the ‘Queen of Clubs’, who ruled London’s nightclub shows before the advent
of Annabel’s. For 39 years she attracted to her establishment an array of patrons who
read like the pages of Who’s Who. These were a motley mixture of aristocrats,
government ministers, colourful bishops, MI5 and MI6 operatives, NKVD spies,
diplomats and foreign heads of state, exotic tycoons, maharajah and especially
glamorous girls, whose reputation Helen protected so well, as she once said: We are
not a whorehouse, but what happens after closing time is not our affair. The Bishop
of Southwell knew it too well, when he proposed and the girl accepted to be his wife:
suddenly a touch of the Follies Bergère brightened the loftier spheres of the Anglican
Church – not a bad attempt in rescuing a girl from a cabaret show with the New
Testament vocation of Mary Magdalene.
Not all the girls were so fortunate in marrying their bountiful patrons: one in
particular was very unlucky indeed, when Nicu Ceausescu, the unruly son and heir
apparent of the Romanian communist dictator, tried to grope her and bit her neck: he
was swiftly ejected from the Club. By contrast Foreign Office civil servants,
Government Ministers such as Profumo or members of the House of Lords such as
Lambton, Jellicoe, the Dukes of Bedford and Devonshire, were less trouble, as they
operated with greater decorum and so were the glittering actors and actresses like
Shirley Bassey, Judy Garland, Errol Flynn, and Frank Sinatra.

Such a melange of the holy and the unholy did not pass unnoticed to members of the
British secret services, who were regulars of the club. They asked and Helen agreed
to become an operative: she is reputed even to have had an active part in the downfall
of an African dictator. Of necessity and through her spook connections she

807
successfully negotiated the release of her first cousins Madeleine Cancicov (q.v.) and
her brother Jean-René Cancicov from the Romanian prisons after paying Ceausescu
an important ransom: such was the 20th century slave trade first initiated by the Nazis
and then honed to a finer art under Ceausescu by the Romanian Secret Services.

Beyond her close association to clubland and to the intelligence services, Helen
O’Brien was a formally educated classic ballet dancer, an astute art collector, an
amateur painter and a polyglot who spoke eight foreign languages. She was born to an
upper middle class family, on their estate at Bàrcànesti, and her father was the
successful engineer Petre Constantinescu, inventor of the propeller shotgun. Her
mother was of Russian-German stock and married three times. This gave Helen,
access to a very cosmopolitan family from the outset, with a Russian half-brother and
an Italian half-sister, the painter Flavia Arlotta, married to the painter and director of
the Academia di Belle Arti di Firenze Giovanni Colacicchi.
Helen Constantinescu (O’Brien) received the education which was the norm of a girl
of her social class: this included foreign languages, art, formal ballet instruction and
riding. Such education as she had received in Romania would serve her well in her
later exile, as she would become London’s most formidable and consummate night
club proprietor, entertaining a high society and conversing with her multinational
clientele in eight different languages: Romanian, Russian, French, German, English,
Italian, Spanish and even a little Portuguese. As such she enjoyed the friendship of
many an influential patron in Britain and abroad. She was a loyal friend and
demonstrated her generosity and big-heartedness when she rescued her Romanian
cousins from communist prisons.. Her husband and business partner was Jimmy
O’Brien, born in Clonroche, county Wexford, Ireland.

By 1993 and some four decades after she founded the Eve Club, Helen retired to the
south of France, but not before she revisited her native Romania, where her memoirs
were published in Bucharest. Still, her family estate, at Bàrcànesti, confiscated by the
communists after WWII, took a long time before it was restored to her, as other
properties are still in dispute to the present day: she was one of many claimants to be
treated in this way and soon thereafter she died in her villa at Valbonne in the south of
France, where she is buried.

808
Primary Sources:
O’Brien, Helen, The Queen of Clubs, memoirs
---, Regina Noptii, Editura Vremea, Bucuresti, 1993

Secondary Sources:
Obituary, The Independent, London
Obituary, The Guardian, London, 28 September 2005
Obituary, Irish Independent, 25 September 2005
Obituary, The Telegraph, 21 September 2005
O’Brien Marina, Private communication, February 2006
Stein, Ronald, Private communication, January 2006

URLs:
The Eve Club:
http://www.eve-club.com/autobiography/helen_obrien.htm
Obituary, Helen O’Brien:
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/9-28-2005-77696.asp
Obituary, Helen O’Brien:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/20
05/09/20/db2002.xml

809
Helen O’Brien as ballerina at Eve’s Club in London’s Regent Street
(Photo courtesy of her daughter, Miss Marina O’Brien)

810
 Index of Places
A: Brussels (Bruxelles)
Abyssinia (see Ethiopia) Académie Baudouin,
Africa Académie Royale Belge de
Albania Langue et de Littérature
Moscopoli (Voskopojë) Françaises,
Algeria Conservatoire Royal de Musique
Kabylia Laeken Royal Palace
America, North Pavillon Chinois
South Théatre Royal de la Monnaie
Angola Université Libre de Bruxelles
Arabia (before 1900) Château de la Chataignerie
Arctic Circle Waloon Centre for Contemporary Art
Argentina Hasselt
Buenos Aires Liège
Avenida Cordoba Académie Royale des Beaux Arts
Galeria Atica Musée des Arts et Métiers
La Ciudad bookshop Namur
Maipu Street. Ostende
Musée Fernández Blanco Spa
Teatro Colón de Rosario Tournai
Rio del Plata Bohemia (see Czech Republic)
Tierra de Fuego Brazil
Carmen Sylva Mountain Mato Grosso
San Sebastian Bay Rio de Janeiro
Sinaia Peak Avenida Santo Amaro
Australia Hotel Casablanca
South Australia Teatro Municipal
Fullerton Britain (see United Kingdom)
Austria Bulgaria
Salzburg Balcic
Clemens-Krauss Strasse Queen Marie’s Palace
Mozarteum Stella Maris church
Sonnenberg, castle Black Sea
Schloss Mauerbach Sofia
Vienna Widdin
Döblinger Friedhof
Historical Museum C:
Musikakademie Canada
State Opera (Staadtsoper) Montreal
Volksoper Niagara
Wiener Musikverein Québec
Tyrol Toronto
Ehrwald Canadian Opera Comany
Garmisch-Partenkirchen National Ballet of Canada
Zugspitz McGill University
Caribbean Sea
B: Chile
Balkans Santiago de Chile
Baltic Sea China,
Belgium Beijing
Anvers Guangzhou
Bruges Peking (see Beijing)

Purchased by Ruth Baldino (ruth5499@hotmail.com) - April 21, 2009.

 Shanghai Musée des Beaux Arts
Covent Garden (see United Kingdom) Boulogne-Billancourt
Croatia Conservatoire National de
Zagreb Région de
Opera House Brittany
Cyprus Brest
Czechoslovakia Roscoff
Bratislava Burgundy
Piestany Vezelay
Prague Bussy, Convent
Rimaska Sabota, Cambrai
Strakonice Musée des Beaux Arts
Trencin Cannes
Rosella Hightower International
D: Dance Centre
Denmark Cerisy-la-Salle
Copenhagen Clermont-Ferrand
Odensee Compiègne
CourteliennesGers (Gascony)
E: Lectoure
Egypt Enghien
Alexandria Évian-les-Bains
Cairo City Hall
Nile river Villa Bassaraba
Lake Albert Haute Savoie
Lake Victoria Songy
Port Said Honfleur
Sinai, Mount Loire Valley
monasteries Menars, Château de
England (see United Kingdom) Lyon
Ethiopia Conservatoire Supérieur de
Europe Musique et Danse
Centraleastern L'Opéra National de
Eastern Marne Departement
Mittel Battle of the river Marne
Southeast Mourmelon-le-Grand Aviation
Western School
Nogent-sur-Marne
F: Marseilles
Finland Mézy-sur-Seine
Helsinki Château de Mézy
France Montpellier
Aix-en-Provence Nancy
Aix-la-Chappelle Grand Théâtre
Angers Salle Poirel
École Supérieure de Danse Nantes
Contemporaine Nevers
Argenteuil Nice
Barbizon Orange
Bayonne Paris
Musée Bonnat 1, rue de Clichy
Besançon 7, Rue de Chaillot
Biarritz 16, Place Dauphine
Bordeaux Académie des Beaux-Arts

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 Index of Quotations

A (23)

Abortion (Visdei) Antigone (Màlàncioiu)

Acasà - At Home (Vàduva) Anti-Semitism (Novac)
Airbrushing my Romanian Past Apparel (Papadat-Bengescu)
(Stolojan) Aragon, Louis (Stolojan)
Albu, Florenta (Oana Orlea) Arnàutoiu Baby and Mother Arrest
Alfonso XIII of Spain (Bibesco) (Arnàutoiu)
Alpine Horn (Jurj) Arrested (Ileana de România)
Altruism (Farley-Nandris) Artist (Angela Gheorghiu)
American Ambassador (Elizabeth of Aslan Institute & Securitate (Ionica)
Romania) Asquith, Elizabeth (Antoine Bibesco)
American Red Cross (Bràtianu- Asquith, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Bowen)
Racottà) Asquith, Elizabeth (Marcel Proust)
Androgyny (Diaconú) Asquith, Elizabeth (Virginia Wolf)
Antecedents (Roudinesco)

B (45)

Bacall, Lauren (Humphrey Bogart) Bjørnson, Maria (Lloyd Webber)

Bacall, Lauren (Stephen H. Bogart) Bjørnson, Maria (Temple)
Baker, Florence (Edward VII) Bjørnson, Maria (Variety Magazine)
Baker, Florence (Samuel Baker) Bjørnson, Maria (Zambello)
Baker, Florence (The Times) Bjørnson, Maria, Sets (Mermelstein)
Bandita (Jurj) Bjørnson, Maria, Sets (Royal Opera
Ballet (Cojocaru) House, Covent Garden)
Barney, Natalie (Liane de Pougy) Blackmail (Meitani)
Basques (Liane de Pougy) Bleeding (Lupescu)
Bed of Branches (Jurj) Blue-eyed Soldier (Jurj)
Bellio, de (Lucien Pissaro) Borges, Jorge Luis (Diaconú)
Belonging (Aurélie Ghica) Brain (Sylvia Sidney)
Belonging (d’Istria) Brâncusi (Cosmutza)
Bereft (Vacaresco) Brâncusi’s Le Coq (Delavrancea)
Better World (Carmen Sylva) Brâncusi’s Màiastra (Dumitresco)
Bibesco, Marthe (Cocteau) Bràtianu, Elena, as political prisoner
Bibesco, Marthe (Mircea Eliade) (Paleologu)
Bibesco’s, Marthe, (Flanner) Bràtianu, Gheorghe (Ioana Bràtianu)
Bibesco, Marthe (de Gaulle) British (Bibesco)
Bibesco, Marthe (Matyla Ghyka) Bucharest carol (Florenta Albu)
Biography (Cassian) Buckingham Palace (Tàtàrescu, Sanda)
Bibesco, Marthe (Ivor Porter) Bulldozers (Iulian)
Bjørnson, Maria (Bjørnson) Byzantine poem (Cremene)
Bjørnson, Maria (Disch)

Purchased by Ruth Baldino (ruth5499@hotmail.com) - April 21, 2009.

 C (67)
Caernarvorn, 5th Lord (Liane de Pougy/ Cioran, Emil (Diaconú)
Pss. G. Ghika) Cioran’s Paris Attic (Diaconú)
Callimachi Conjugal Bliss (Giers) Clemenceau (Marie of Romania)
Callimachi Lifestyle (Sarah Bradford) Cocea, Alice (Liane de Pougy/ Pss. G.
Callimachi’s Chef (Matyla Ghyka) Ghika)
Callimachi’s Seat at Mànesti (Sitwell) Cocea, Alice (Maggy Rouff)
Callimachi Portrait (Sitwell) Coco Chanel (Bibesco)
Callimachi, Mrs. Keppel and Violet Codreanu, Lizica (Moràrescu)
Trefusis (Jullian & Phillips) Cojocaru’s Bayadère (Danzcraze)
Calm and Conflict (Bucur) Colefax, Sybil (Bibesco)
Cancicov, Georgeta (Ionas) Colette (Noailles)
Cantacuzino, Pss. Alexandrina (media) Comedy to the Almighty (Liane de
Cantacuzino, Pss. Maruca (Matyla Pougy/Pss. G. Ghika)
Ghyka) Communism, Nuremberg-style trial of
Cantacuzino, Pss. Maruca (Marie of (Lovinescu)
Edinburgh) Communist Coup d’État (Helen de
Cantacuzino, Pss Maruca (Lady România)
Menuhin) Communist Levelling (Miricioiu)
Capitalist, insults to a true, (Meitani) Communist Lies (Alice Voinescu)
Caraion, Ion (Stolojan) Communists (Rizea)
Carmen Sylva (Queen Victoria) Compatriots, Ex- (Stolojan)
Carmen Sylva (Vincent van Gogh) Comrade (Ceausescu, Elena)
Carol I and WWI (Élise Bràtianu) Constante, Lena (Tismàneanu)
Carol II (Marcou) Conviction (Cassian)
Catholic sins (Liane de Pougy) Cornea, Doina (Danielle Miterrand)
Ceausescu – Assassin (Stolojan) Cornu, Hortense’s Beck and Call
Ceausescu’s Communism (Lovinescu) (Victor Hugo)
Ceausescu, Elena (Scînteia Newspaper) Cortez, Viorica, Glorius Voice (Teatro
Ceausescu, Nicolae – a King Lear ? Goldoni, Livorno)
(Jela) Cosmopolitan Bourgeois (Samuelli)
Ceausescu, Nicolae (Elvire Popesco) Cosmutzà, Otilia (Brassaï)
Ceausescu, Nicu (Helen O’Brien) Cosmutzà, Otilia (Anatole France)
Cebotari, Maria (Lisa della Casa) Cotovu, Sandra (George Topârceanu)
Celibidache, Ioana (Eugène Ionesco) Cotrubas, Ileana (Cotrubas)
Celibidache, Ioana (Art Critic, Cotrubas, demanding (Cotrubas)
anonymous) Cotrubas, Ileana (N.Y. Times)
Censorship (Bittel) Crime, Ideological vs. Common Law
Challenge (Comàneci) (Jela)
Chosen (Jurj) Croix de Guerre (Bràtianu-Racottà)
Chrissoveloni-Morand (Maurice Martin Cultural terrorism (Lucia Hossu
du Gard) Longin)

D (35)
Darclée, Hariclea (Verdi)
Darclée, Hariclea (Carlos of Portugal) Daydream (Haskil)
Darclée, Hariclea (Fauré) Death (Comànescu)
Darclée, Hariclea (Gounod) Death, enjoying Spectacle of (Bibesco)
Darclée, Hariclea (Stephanescu) Death Penalty (Ileana de România)

1056
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