25 years ago today, the Genius of the Carpathians returned to room temperature.

Shall we say, the mourning was subdued.

25 years since Ceausescu downfall: Communist leader gone in blood (RT)

A string of downfalls of communist governments in Eastern Europe in late 1980s was branded ‘velvet revolutions’ for being peaceful. But in Romania the transition was horrendously bloody, both for the country and its dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

On Christmas Day, Romania commemorates the 25th anniversary of the revolution that claimed over 1,000 lives in street gun battles, and included a lightning-swift trial and execution of Ceausescu and his wife.

Just about this time last year, I watched a documentary about Ceausescu.

The documentary is called The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu, and it is simply astounding. Unlike most other documentaries, there is no narration. One must know the basic story of Communist Romania's dramatic decline during the Ceaușescu era (1965-1989), so as to contrast it with the story as told here, wherein three hours of film culled from more than 1,000 hours of footage, frames shot primarily to document the dictator's cult of personality and a country as he imagined it, tell the story precisely by showing what life in Romania was not.

Nixon in Bucharest, 1969; photo credit

You can view the film in its entirety on YouTube, or see it right here:

Following is a sampling of articles about the Ceausescu era appearing over the years at NAC.

ON THE AVENUES: Wichita, or maybe Targu Mures.

Film: “Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days.”

"The Death of Mr Lazarescu."

Film: "The Way I Spent the End of the World."