Gheorghe Tătărescu

Not to be confused with the painter Gheorghe Tattarescu (1818–1894), whose memorial house in Bucharest is a museum.¹

Origins and education

Gheorghe Tătărescu was born in Craiova on 2 November 1886. He studied law in Bucharest and took his doctorate in Paris.²³ In the summer of 1916, while he was a lieutenant at the front, he met Arethia Piteșteanu at Tismana. They married the same year, in Craiova.⁴ His brothers also had public careers. Alexandru was a general, Emanoil was mayor of Craiova, and Ștefan was an aviation officer.⁵

In the National Liberal Party

Tătărescu rose in the National Liberal Party as a close associate of Ion G. Duca. He then led the group of “young liberals”. King Carol II encouraged this group in order to weaken the Brătianu family’s hold on the party.² After Duca’s assassination in December 1933, the King appointed him Prime Minister on 3 January 1934.³²

To many of his contemporaries, Tătărescu was the King’s man. The Romanian-language Wikipedia notes, with a cautious “it is said”, that the Prime Minister ended his reports to the sovereign with the formula “It is done, Your Majesty!”.³ Between 1938 and 1940 he supported the authoritarian regime of Carol II.⁶

The 1934–1937 government

His government led the economic recovery after the Great Depression.³⁷ The state became the main economic actor, and a group of major industrialists formed around those in power, among them Nicolae Malaxa and Max Auschnitt.² The government’s main measures:

• the Ministry of Armaments, newly created on 27 June 1934 and headed by the Prime Minister himself until it was abolished in February 1937;⁸²
• the ten-year armament programme, launched in April 1935;²
• the removal of Nicolae Titulescu from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in August 1936.²

The government’s term ended after the elections of 20 December 1937. The Liberals won 36.46% of the vote, below the 40% threshold that gave the majority bonus. On 28 December 1937 the Goga government came to power.⁹

In these same years, his wife built the family house in Bucharest. Arethia Tătărescu appears as the beneficiary in the 1935 building permit for the house at 19 Polonă Street, designed by Alexandru Zaharia and Ion Giurgea.¹⁰ The Prime Minister’s study was on the entresol. At the entrance to the study, the architect Giurgea placed a portico inspired by the monasteries of Moldavia.¹⁰

The second term (1939–1940)

After 1938, Tătărescu was a royal counsellor, then ambassador in Paris.⁶ On 25 November 1939, Carol II recalled him to head the government.³ The second term ended on 4 July 1940, a few days after Romania ceded Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union.²

After the war

On 6 March 1945, Tătărescu joined the Groza government as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.² In 1946 he led Romania’s delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He was “seconded, however,” by the communists Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Ion Gheorghe Maurer.¹¹ The peace treaty was signed on 10 February 1947. In November 1947, Tătărescu was removed from the government.²⁷

Arrest and final years

Gheorghe Tătărescu was arrested on the night of 5 to 6 May 1950, as was his brother Alexandru.⁷⁵ His daughter, Sanda, recalled: “From Polonă 19, my father was arrested in 1950 and we were thrown out, with all our belongings confiscated”.¹² The date of 20 April 1950, which sometimes appears, is in fact the date of nationalisation decree no. 92/1950, not of the arrest.¹³

He was held in Sighet prison until December 1950, then in Securitate custody. He was brought in as a prosecution witness in the trial of Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu.⁷ He was released only on 6 June 1955, gravely ill and without ever having been tried.⁷⁶ He died in Bucharest on 28 March 1957.³⁷

The family also paid a heavy price. His brother, General Alexandru Tătărescu, died at Sighet in 1951.⁵ Sanda was sentenced to five years in prison.¹⁴ The house at 19 Polonă Street was nationalised and occupied by Mia Groza, the daughter of Petru Groza, the man who had appointed Tătărescu Deputy Prime Minister.¹⁰

The Prime Minister’s house today

The Tătărescu House is a historic monument, with the LMI code B-II-m-B-19435. In the Prime Minister’s study there is a Fichet safe built into the wall, unopened for decades.¹⁵ Since 2024, the house has belonged to EKO GROUP and can be visited on the guided tour.

Notes and sources

1. „Gheorghe Tattarescu”, Wikipedia (Romanian). ro.wikipedia.org ↩

2. „Gheorghe Tătărescu”, Wikipedia (English). en.wikipedia.org ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

3. „Gheorghe Tătărescu”, Wikipedia (Romanian). ro.wikipedia.org ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

4. Ion Catană, „Arethia Tătărescu — un dar cultural neprețuit pentru Târgu Jiu” [Arethia Tătărescu: a priceless cultural gift to Târgu Jiu], Litua, XVIII, 2016. PDF, litua.ro ↩

5. „Alexandru Tătărescu”, Memorialul Victimelor Comunismului și al Rezistenței, Sighet [Memorial of the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance, Sighet]. memorialsighet.ro ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Personality file „Tătărescu Gheorghe”, Biblioteca Județeană „Alexandru și Aristia Aman”, Craiova [“Alexandru and Aristia Aman” County Library, Craiova]. PDF, aman.ro ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. Sorin Popescu, „Familia Tătărescu” [The Tătărescu family], Memoria. Revista gândirii arestate [Memoria: The Review of Arrested Thought], no. 86. PDF, revistamemoria.ro ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

8. „Guvernul Gheorghe Tătărescu (1)” [Gheorghe Tătărescu government (1)], Wikipedia (Romanian). ro.wikipedia.org ↩

9. „1937 Romanian general election”, Wikipedia (English). en.wikipedia.org ↩

10. Interview with architect Mădălin Ghigeanu about the Tătărescu House, B365, 8 December 2022. b365.ro ↩ ↩² ↩³

11. „Calendar 10 februarie 1947: delegația guvernului semnează Tratatul de pace de la Paris” [Calendar, 10 February 1947: the government delegation signs the Paris Peace Treaty], Historia. historia.ro ↩

12. „Sanda Tătărescu-Negroponte, o poveste de viață mărturisită” [Sanda Tătărescu-Negroponte, a life story told in her own words] (recording by Adrian Majuru, 2004), e-antropolog, 29 November 2012. e-antropolog.ro ↩

13. Decretul nr. 92/1950 pentru naționalizarea unor imobile [Decree no. 92/1950 on the nationalisation of certain buildings], Buletinul Oficial [Official Bulletin] no. 36 of 20 April 1950. cdep.ro ↩

14. „Sanda Tătărescu-Negropontes”, Wikipedia (Romanian). ro.wikipedia.org ↩

15. „Misterul seifului imposibil de deschis din vila Gh. Tătărescu” [The mystery of the safe that cannot be opened in the Gh. Tătărescu villa], B365, 26 January 2026. b365.ro ↩