I have long had conflicting feelings about Charles’s interest in Romania, which dates back to his important work in the late 1980s to publicise the destruction of villages in Transylvania as part of then dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu’s so-called “systemisation” campaign.
The English journalist John Sweeney, writing in
The Live and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceaușescu – probably the best of the books hurried out by hacks in the aftermath of the dictator’s downfall – credits Charles as being part of the “awkward squad” who brought the horrors of life in communist Romania to international attention.
Since then, Charles has been a regular visitor to Romania, most notably to Viscri, one of the Saxon villages in Transylvania threatened by the systemisation campaign but – thankfully – spared.