Nichita Stănescu was born on March 31st 1933 to a Romanian father, who was a peasant in Prahova County and a Russian mother, who came from a noble Russian family. He did his studies at the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest.
He was married three times and had many flings on the side. He married for the first time in 1952, but the marriage would only last for one year. Next, he got married in 1962, to the poet Doina Ciurea. This love inspired the volume “O viziune a sentimentelor”. Then, in 1982, he got married one last time, to Dora Tărâţă.
Unfortunately, he had a weakness for alcohol, which would lead to his untimely death in 1983. His former friends say that Nichita was a notorious drinker, ingesting as many as two bottles of vodka a day, but that they also never saw him inebriated. Alcohol determined a state of intellectual effervescence close to genius in him rather than drunkenness.
He didn’t embody the myth of the tortured poet who enjoys solitude and toils away at his desk from morning till the evening. On the contrary, he was a very outgoing person, who enjoyed the company of his friends. Society was also a good place for him to create, as he would often compose verses in the presence of his friends without being embarrassed of inhibited.
Between the years of 1979 and 1980, when the poet suffered from cirrhosis, the Minister of Health himself was sent to his house in order to treat him. This happened after Elena Ceausescu, Nicolae Ceausescu’s wife, had learned about his condition and about his refusal to get treatment. The doctor was instructed to not take no for an answer and, as a result, the poet was admitted to hospital in Mangalia, a seaside resort.
However, the treatment did not cure him and on the 13th of December 1983, in a hospital in Bucharest, the poet deceased.
Sources:
http://parrishlantern.blogspot.de/2013/06/the-ritual-of-writing-on-air.html
http://www.istoria.md/articol/534/Nichita_St
%C4%83nescu
Andra Mihaela Cimpean
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