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Aurel Baranga

Aurel Baranga (born Aurel Leibovici) (1913-1979), playwright and poet, born in Bucharest, Romania. He attended the Matei Basarab high school in Bucharest and graduated from School of Medicine of the University of Bucharest in 1938. He started his career as an avant-gardist poet publishing in Bilete de Papagal ("Parrot Tickets") – a left wing weekly literary and satirical magazine, and then he edited the avant-garde magazine Alge along with Gherasim Luca, Paul Păun, and Sesto Pais. During 1934 – 1940 he contributed a several periodicals including Facla, Cuvântul liber, Reporter, Azi and Lumea românească. 

In 1945 Baranga published Ninge peste Ucraina (“It's snowing over Ukraine”), a volume of reportages about the Holocaust in Transnistria, one the first and few accounts on the deportaion and murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews published in immediate postwar Romania.

In 1946 he published Marea furtună (“The big storm”), his last book of poetry with avant-garde elements. In 1948 he wrote the lyrics of Zdrobite cătușe (“Crushed handcuffs”), the national anthem of the Communist Romania from 1948 to 1953. At the request of the Communist party, in the same year Baranga founded Urzica (“Nettle”), a satire and humor magazine and he serves as its editor-in-chief until his death. He worked for the Romanian National Theater during 1949-1953 and 1958-1961. From 1969 to 1974 he was a member of Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party.

His plays, mostly written in socialist realist style dictated by the Communist party, include Bal în Făgădău (“Party in Făgădău”, 1946), Mielul turbat (“The mad lamb”, 1954), Adam și Eva (“Adam and Eve”, 1963), Sfântul Mitică Blajinu (“Saint Mitică Blajinu”, 1966), Opinia publică (“Public opinion”, 1967), Interesul general (“General interst”, 1971), Viața unei femei (“Life of a woman”, 1975). During the Communist regime in Romania, Baranga was one of the most popular playwrights and the author of successful comedies, also staged abroad.

Baranga was awarded the State Prize in 1954 and the Prize of the Writers' Association of Bucharest in 1975.

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Aurel Baranga

Aurel Baranga (born Aurel Leibovici) (1913-1979), playwright and poet, born in Bucharest, Romania. He attended the Matei Basarab high school in Bucharest and graduated from School of Medicine of the University of Bucharest in 1938. He started his career as an avant-gardist poet publishing in Bilete de Papagal ("Parrot Tickets") – a left wing weekly literary and satirical magazine, and then he edited the avant-garde magazine Alge along with Gherasim Luca, Paul Păun, and Sesto Pais. During 1934 – 1940 he contributed a several periodicals including Facla, Cuvântul liber, Reporter, Azi and Lumea românească. 

In 1945 Baranga published Ninge peste Ucraina (“It's snowing over Ukraine”), a volume of reportages about the Holocaust in Transnistria, one the first and few accounts on the deportaion and murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews published in immediate postwar Romania.

In 1946 he published Marea furtună (“The big storm”), his last book of poetry with avant-garde elements. In 1948 he wrote the lyrics of Zdrobite cătușe (“Crushed handcuffs”), the national anthem of the Communist Romania from 1948 to 1953. At the request of the Communist party, in the same year Baranga founded Urzica (“Nettle”), a satire and humor magazine and he serves as its editor-in-chief until his death. He worked for the Romanian National Theater during 1949-1953 and 1958-1961. From 1969 to 1974 he was a member of Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party.

His plays, mostly written in socialist realist style dictated by the Communist party, include Bal în Făgădău (“Party in Făgădău”, 1946), Mielul turbat (“The mad lamb”, 1954), Adam și Eva (“Adam and Eve”, 1963), Sfântul Mitică Blajinu (“Saint Mitică Blajinu”, 1966), Opinia publică (“Public opinion”, 1967), Interesul general (“General interst”, 1971), Viața unei femei (“Life of a woman”, 1975). During the Communist regime in Romania, Baranga was one of the most popular playwrights and the author of successful comedies, also staged abroad.

Baranga was awarded the State Prize in 1954 and the Prize of the Writers' Association of Bucharest in 1975.

Written by researchers of ANU Museum of the Jewish People