In memoriam Grigore Vieru

Great poet Grigore Vieru went his last way Tuesday, as tens of thousands of people were accompanying his coffin. People of culture and politicians cried next the poet's readers, Info-Prim Neo reports. [Dorin Chirtoaca, mayor of Chisinau:] “Poet Grigore Vieru wrote for children, youth and grownups. He wrote about life, love, nation and country. Apart from his poetic work, he was a resolute fighter for freedom and truth. The things he wrote in his poems are for the accomplishment of the nation's ideal of unity. And the Romanian people deserves it and we should wage this struggle to the end. Moldova will be mourning as long as we did not attain the ideal for which he wrote and fought.” [Vlad Filat, president of the Liberal Democratic Party from Moldova:] “We feel incommensurate pain and vacuum. It's too big a loss to render it in words. Grigore Vieru has been among us, is and will always be through what he did and was. He is loyal image of everything Basarabian: pain, struggle, longing for his ideals and dreams. And we're bound to fulfill them. May God rest him in peace!” [Fuego, Romanian singer crying:] “Grigore Vieru has been the greatest poet of our nation. He wrote much for me for the last two years from which I launched two albums. He loved his people and mother more than himself. He was a spiritual parent to me. He was my adoptive father and I keep a live memory for his verses!” [Petru Lucinschi, Moldova's second president:] “It's a hard day for our people. I've known him for more than 50 years. I lived in the same dormitory. He is an example for us. He was an extraordinary man, a resolute fighter, but not aggressive, against our vices. He has always called us to stick together, to get along. He wrote in a poem: “I am an not angry man.” He was not angry with people, even with his enemies. That's the fate of the great poet. He was marred groundlessly. Anyway he remained in our hearts and souls for ever.” [Marian Lupu, Moldovan parliament's speaker:] “Grigore Vieru has managed to get us united around very important ideas, values of humanism, of conciliation. Grigore Vieru is everything what is called non-aggression, kindness, tolerance. This mourning day should make all of us think of better, more harmoniously living within our society. May God rest him in peace, as we should honor him and preserve the memory of the one who was the synonym of love for the mother, the child, the people for the Motherland. I think he is man leaving for eternity with a clean name. [Valeriu Matei, writer:] “Grigore Vieru was as a parent to me and wrote the preface to my debut book, but we have always been together, especially the last years, and could have been with him in Cahul on January 14. I am sorry for not being in the country. The things could have gone otherwise. It's a huge and hard loss for the entire Romanian culture and literature, for all the ones loving the beautiful, truth, poetry, for all those for whom love moves planets and everything in this world. A wide gap is there in hour souls. Grigore Vieru will remain for ever with his verses in our national and the universal literature.” [Theodor Paleologu, Romania's culture minister:] “I came to Chisinau with a huge regret because of the tragic death of Grigore Vieru, with the wish to bow at his tomb, and pay a personal homage and, first, an homage of Romania, on behalf of the Romanian president and Government. Grigore Vieru was a man who loved his language, dedicated himself to certain ideals and symbolically he died as he was returning from celebration dedicated to Mihai Eminescu. He tragically bound his destiny to Eminescu's destiny.” [Mircea Snegur, Moldova's first president:] “Grigore Vieru was a personality, a man of special kindness. He was good father and husband. Through these traits, through the good deeds that he has done he will be always in our memories. May God forgive him and receive him in His kingdom!” [Victor Stepaniuc, Moldovan deputy premier:] “Grigore Vieru's death is a huge tragedy for our people, a big loss for our literature, for the Moldovan culture. The poet wrote about motherland, childhood, sang the woman and our beloved country. His work remains everlasting not only for us, for the Moldovans, but for our neighbors and universal literature too. The Government has a duty to publish his entire work and I think this will be done. It's important to respect the writer's biggest wishes – to make the schools and libraries work so that the people read, know the works of the forefathers, of the classical writers, of Eminescu. He has had a special respect for our big classical writer Eminescu and it happened that he passed away close to the anniversary of the birth of Great Eminescu. May God rest him in peace!” [Filip Teodorescu, Romanian ambassador to Moldova:] “Grigore Vieru's makes a fair amount of the Romanian literature perish, as well as of the love for the nation, for fellow countrymen. He was a man who knew and spread out this love.”