Silviu Craciunas (in Romanian: Crăciunaș; 1914–1998) was a Romanian writer, best known for his 1961 book The Lost Footsteps. That is his account of imprisonment, alleged torture and persecution at the hands of the Communists.[1] The book was praised when it came out in the West in 1961, receiving positive reviews in The Economist and the Times Literary Supplement among others. However, it has since been alleged that Craciunas was actually a double agent in the pay of the Romanian Communist secret police, the Securitate,[2] and parts of his book were authored by the secret police for disinformation purposes.[3]
Craciunas was born in Miluan in northwestern Romania, as the son of an Orthodox priest. He studied medicine and then law at Cluj University, receiving his doctorate in Law and Economics and Political Science in 1940. A former member of the fascist Iron Guard, after 1945 he supported the National Peasants' Party.[3]
He worked in the glass and sugar industries, prior to the communist takeover of the country. The communists nationalized all privately owned factories in 1948, and Craciunas ostensibly became involved in the anti-communist underground movement, helping to smuggle people out of Romania.
Craciunas was first arrested in 1938 for having fascist manifestoes on him.[4] In 1948, he was arrested again, this time for having helped people flee Romania, and after reaching an agreement with the Securitate, it seems he was sent abroad posing as a refugee.[4] In Paris, he made contact with the Romanian National Committee, a Romanian anti-Communist exiles' organisation, and with its help, and the help of Western intelligence agencies, in 1949 he secretly returned to Romania, where he submitted to the Securitate his first report on the Romanian exile community.[4] [5] After a few months, he was arrested again by the authorities on suspicion of being a double agent.[4] He spent four years in the Malmaison prison, after which he was transferred to a prison hospital in Suceava, from which he managed to "escape". In 1955, he signed a formal agreement with the Securitate to work for them as an informer.[4] In 1957, he returned to the West, where he obtained political asylum in Great Britain in 1959.[4] In 1977, he emigrated to Spain, where he stayed for ten years, before returning to Great Britain.[4]
Craciunas died in Brighton and Hove, in 1998.[4]