CELESTIAL FUNERALS
FOR KING MIHAI I OF ROMANIA

-by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe and Valentin Grigore
design by Florin Alexandru Stancu-

“Romania is not a legacy from our parents,
but it is borrowed from our children.”
-King Mihai I of Romania-

PART I:
DURING THE LAST SEASON OF KING MIHAI I
-text, stanza and photos by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-

In 2017 after the autumn equinox
I began to take more series of pictures,
being interested in the expressivity of the sky in Bucharest.

Clouds…

Clouds with birds…

The Sun…

The Moon…

Clouds, again…

On November 30
when Romania celebrated its spiritual patron, Saint Andrew,
the sky seemed like an opening
for the 100th revolution of the Earth around the Sun after 1918 December 1st,
the day in which the Great Union of Romania with Transylvania
was proclaimed at Alba Iulia,
under the scepter of King Ferdinand and Queen Maria!

But on December 5th a terrible piece of news:
we found out about the death of the last King of Romania!

Mihai I became King of Romania in 1940 September 6,
when he didn’t turn 19 yet,
and his country was caught between Nazi Germany
(which, recently, had given by force Northern Transylvania to Hungary
and Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria)
and the communist Soviet Union
(which, recently, had annexed Basarabia and Northern Bucovina).

At that time Romania was led by a military dictatorship that,
ensuring to His Majesty a decorative role,
decided to ally with Germany to recover the territories occupied by the Soviet Union
and then to continue the fight further
until the capitulation of the communist threatening.

But King Mihai I, having strong pro-occidental feelings,
made a military insurrection in 1944 August 23 and change the alliance
for one with the Western Powers,
an act that saved the Romanian national state
and shortened World War II for a few months,
the Romanian army fighting to recover Northern Transylvania
and helping the liberation of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria
from the Nazi occupation.

Unfortunately, after the war the Western Powers left Romania for a few decades
under the influence zone of the Soviet Union,
which installed by force a communist regime in this country,
and King Mihai, after a Royal strike,
was obligated to abdicate in 1947 December 30.

Exiled and forgotten by Occidentals
(who, for instance, could give him the Nobel Prize for Peace),
he worked as a farmer and a pilot for airplane tests to sustain his family,
and could return to Romania only for three days in 1992
(to help the sanctification of two extraordinary Romanian personalities,
Stefan the Great - ruler of Moldova in 1457-1504 -
and Constantin Brancoveanu - ruler of Wallachia in 1680-1714)
during a confused post-communist republic,
being acclaimed in Bucharest by one million people.

He re-obtained the Romanian citizenship in 1997
and remained the moral sovereign and the main human model for the real Romanians
(a moral identity hardly perturbed by the decades of communism)
until his death.

Then until December 16th the sky seemed to organize
parallel funerals for our king.

And on December 16th I went to the Union Square
for the last religious procession before burial.

Two sacred words
For which I put my right hand
On my heart:
The King and the Motherland!

PART II:
ON THE LAST ROAD OF KING MIHAI I
(2017 December 13-16, Runcu Stone and Bucharest)
-astro-photo-poem by Valentin Grigore-

Being at Runcu Stone to observe the Geminid meteor shower,
I caught a morning with a superb lunar crown
and one of the most spectacular sunrises in my life,
an arcade of clouds over a crown of beams
which climbed over the horizon.

Then I went to Bucharest
for the last road of His Majesty Mihai I.

The sky of Romania received home its King…

CELESTIAL FUNERALS FOR KING MIHAI I OF ROMANIA

CELESTIAL FUNERALS
FOR KING MIHAI I OF ROMANIA