Storm over Ceaucescu 'court poet' leaves festival red faced

A BITTER "war of words" broke out over a poetry festival at St Andrews University yesterday, with Romanian poet Adrian Paunescu at the centre of a storm over his allegedly extreme nationalist views.

Organisers were accused of offending victims of the regime of former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu and blackening Scotland's name by providing a platform for Paunescu, one of Ceaucesu's close allies.

Last night, sponsors of the StAnza poetry festival demanded to know why Paunescu, former 'court poet' of the Ceaucescu regime, had been invited. The leader of Fife Council, one of the backers, said public money may have been paid out under false pretences. Meanwhile, in bizarre scenes at the festival itself, Paunescu made his appearance before a crowd of fewer than 30 people, reciting in Romanian for a little over an hour.

Paunescu was described in the StAnza programme as having been "harassed" by the Ceaucescu regime. But critics say this is far from true - and that he was undoubtedly a propagandist for the dictator, often speaking at mass rallies for Romanian youth.

Paunescu's 1983 poem, Romania's Future, gushed: "We have our very own sun emerging from our capital city Bucharest. It is Ceaucescu himself..." He was branded a holocaust denier in a book published in 1998 by Columbia University, New York. He is also leader of the Romanian Socialist Workers' Party, which is wedded to nationalist policies accused of breeding dissent between the region's ethnic groups.

Constantin Roman, an honorary professor of the University of Bucharest, living and working in Cambridge, said compatriots would be outraged at any "celebration" of Paunescu and his work.

"The Scots, along with others in the UK, have done many things for those in Romanian orphanages, victims of Ceaucescu's regime. What has Paunescu done? It is ironic that at a time when the people of Yugoslavia give a thumbs down to Milosevic, the University of St Andrews has invited this fraud to their festival."

Embarrassed sponsors were yesterday holding urgent enquiries into why nobody had spotted that Paunescu's appearance was likely to cause offence.

Councillor Christine May, leader of Fife Council, said: "The council wasn't aware of this person's background. I certainly wouldn't want to be associated with someone who promulgated racist views and I don't think there is a single elected member of the council who would." She said the council's funding for arts events might have to be reassessed. "We will make enquiries."

A spokeswoman for St Andrews said the university imposed no constraints on how money was spent by the festival, and referred enquiries to its director Dr Gavin Bowd, a lecturer in the French department.

Bowd said: "I was aware that [Paunescu's invitation] would cause some controversy. But by having him here we are in no way condoning his political outlook. There were obviously people in the audience who loathed the man."

He said he saw little difference between inviting Paunescu and teaching the works of TS Eliot, "a great admirer of fascism", in the university's curriculum. "I think that it is good to confront people with a certain reality. Mr Paunescu is an example of how poetry and politics come together in eastern Europe."

The irony of the situation will not be lost on The Scotsman newspaper, another major sponsor of the poetry festival. Last month the paper's publisher, Andrew Neil, writing in The Spectator, attacked "the luvvies who run the Edinburgh Festival Fringe", who were unhappy at the paper cutting back on theatre reviews. "No more automatic notices for Marxist trapeze artists," he wrote. Paunescu had better beware.

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