orn in 1916 in Salaj county, Corneliu Coposu joined the National Peasant Party in 1933, and graduated from law school in Cluj. He was secretary to PNT leader Iuliu Maniu during a very tumultuous decade, 1937-1947. When the Communists came to power in 1947, Coposu was accused of 'high treason against the working classes' and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1948 his wife Arlette (a professor) was also arrested and imprisoned. The Coposus never had children. Arlette died in prison in 1962. Corneliu was released in 1964 as part of an amnesty for political prisoners, which was part of the de-Stalinization process begun by Gheorge-Gheorgiu Dej in 1962 (this included changing the name of the city of 'Stalin' back to Brasov).

nfortunately, this process was never really completed. The brief respite in the mid-60s was followed by an even more virulent strain of Stalinism begun by Ceausescu in the mid-70s which grew out of all proportion in the 1980s. Coposu was closely monitored even after his release, and occasionally interrogated by the State Security Police (the 'Securitate'). He was prohibited from practicing law, or from political, academic, or literary employment. He spent the rest of the Communist years as a construction worker.

fter the 'revolution' of 1989 and the re-establishment of a multi-party electoral system, Coposu became leader of the reborn PNT. Although Coposu had never fled into exile himself, some of the PNT candidates in 1990 and 1992 were returned exiles; this may have hurt the party's public image and lessened its appeal to the electorate. In fact, the PNT offices were among those opposition headquarters ransacked during the miners' rampage in June 1990.

n October 1995, a month before his death, Coposu received the Legion of Honor medal from the French government in recognition of his role as as defender of democracy and a resolute opponent of Communism. On 14 November, over 20,000 mourners attended his funeral procession and public memorial in Bucharest.

orneliu Coposu never served as President or Prime Minister of his country, but his death received coverage similar to that of a former President in the United States (Richard Nixon perhaps not being the best example, but the most recent we have). Coposu was nevertheless a Member of Parliament during these crucial first years of democratic transition, and he provided an important link with Romania's interwar democratic past. That link is rapidly vanishing now. Increasingly it will be the youth of Romania (not the current middle-aged or elderly leaders) who must shoulder the burden of building and maintaining a democratic and tolerant society which can withstand the political winds that are often so prevalent and destructive in this part of Europe. If they succeed, that would indeed be an historic achievement.