Florica Bagdasar
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Florica Bagdasar (née Ciumetti) (January 24, 1901 – December 19, 1978) was a Romanian
neuropsychiatrist Neuropsychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with psychiatry as it relates to neurology, in an effort to understand and attribute behavior to the interaction of neurobiology and social psychology factors. Within neuropsychiatry, the mind i ...
, who was the first woman minister in
Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
at the Ministry of Health between 1946 and 1948.


Biographical data and education

Florica Ciumetti came from an Aromanian family. Her father was , a bridge and road engineer, as well as a high school mathematics teacher. Her mother was Anastasia Ciumetti (née Papahagi); her brother,
Pericle Papahagi Pericle Papahagi (1872 – January 20, 1943) was an Aromanian literary historian and folklorist. He was born into an Aromanian family in Avdella (), a village that formed part of the Ottoman Empire's Manastir Vilayet and is now in Greece. Aft ...
, was an acknowledged authority on the life and languages of the Romance-speaking peoples from south of the
Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...
, the Aromanians.
Alexandra Bellow Alexandra Bellow (née Bagdasar; previously Ionescu Tulcea; August 30, 1935 – May 2, 2025) was a Romanian-American mathematician, who made contributions to the fields of ergodic theory, probability and analysis. Biography Bellow was born in ...
(2004), Asclepios versus Hades în România (I),
Revista 22 ''Revista 22'' (''22 Magazine'') is a Romanian weekly magazine, issued by the Group for Social Dialogue and focused mainly on politics and culture. History and profile ''Revista 22'' was started in 1990. The first edition of the magazine was prin ...
- Revista Grupului pentru Dialog Social, 24 August 2004.
Alexandra Bellow Alexandra Bellow (née Bagdasar; previously Ionescu Tulcea; August 30, 1935 – May 2, 2025) was a Romanian-American mathematician, who made contributions to the fields of ergodic theory, probability and analysis. Biography Bellow was born in ...
(2004), Asclepios versus Hades în România (II), Revista 22 - Revista Grupului pentru Dialog Social, 31 August 2004.
Laurențiu Ungureanu (2014), Interviu Alexandra Bellow, matematician, fiica soților Dumitru și Florica Bagdasar, Adevarul.ro/Cultura/Istorie, 25 October 2014. She was also related to the Aromanian historian and
philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...
Nicolae Șerban Tanașoca Nicolae Șerban Tanașoca (3 October 1941 – 7 April 2017; ) was a Romanian historian and philologist. An ethnic Aromanian, he specialized in the study of classical philology, Byzantine and Ottoman studies and cultures of the Balkans, includi ...
, more precisely being the second cousin of his mother. Florica started high school at the Pompilian private boarding school (Pensionul Pompilian), but because of
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, she had to continue high school in
Moldavia Moldavia (, or ; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ) is a historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester River. An initially in ...
, in the town of
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
, where the family had taken refuge. She graduated from Roman Vodă High School (modern section) in 1920. She was admitted to the School of Medicine in Bucharest, from which she graduated in 1925. After years of internships and externships at the Bucharest hospital "Așezămintele Brâncovenești", she obtained a doctoral degree in medicine and surgery and the right to practice medicine. In 1927 she married Dr.
Dumitru Bagdasar Dumitru Bagdasar (17 December 1893 – 16 July 1946) was a Romanian neurosurgeon, university professor and political activist. He was the founder of the Romanian school of neurosurgery and is known as the father of Romanian neurosurgery. Biograp ...
. The newly-weds Bagdasars went to
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
,
Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
to pursue professional training; Florica to attend Public Health courses at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, and Dumitru to acquire knowledge about the new neurosurgery techniques from the pioneer of modern brain surgery, Dr.
Harvey Cushing Harvey Williams Cushing (April 8, 1869 – October 7, 1939) was an American neurosurgery, neurosurgeon, pathologist, writer, and draftsman. A pioneer of brain surgery, he was the first exclusive neurosurgeon and the first person to describe Cush ...
, at his clinic, Peter Bent Brigham.Paul Cortez (1979), Dr. Florica Bagdasar (1901-1978), Rev. Med. Internă Neurol. Psihiatr. Neurochir. 2 (24): 149-50, While in Boston, Florica Bagdasar received a Rockefeller Scholarship. Upon their return to their country in 1929, the couple spent a few years in
Jimbolia Jimbolia (; ; ; ; Banat Bulgarian: ''Džimbolj'') is a town in Timiș County, Romania. Geography Jimbolia is located in the west of Timiș County, from the county seat, Timișoara, which is connected by the county road DJ59A and the Kikinda ...
and
Cernăuți Chernivtsi (, ; , ;, , see also #Names, other names) is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the upper course of the Prut River. Formerly the capital of the historic region of Bukovina, which is now divided between Romania and Ukraine, Chernivt ...
(Hospital for Nervous Diseases), after which they arrived in Bucharest, where they settled and where remained until the end of their lives. In 1935, Dumitru Bagdasar obtained, through a competition exam, the right to open the first neurosurgery clinic in Bucharest. All that time, from his return from Boston in 1929 until 1935, modern surgery technology did not exist in Romania and he was operating on the brain under primitive, improvised conditions. Until he was able to create his own neurosurgery team, it was his wife, Florica Bagdasar, who was the only one constantly at his side in the operating room, assisting and encouraging him.Valeriu Negru (2004), Text sub un portret anonym,
Dilema veche ''Dilema veche'' ( English: "Old Dilemma") is a Romanian weekly magazine that covers culture, social topics, and politics. It was founded in 2004 as the successor to the magazine ''Dilema'', which was founded in 1993. Both magazines were founded by ...
nr. 7/2004.
Ștefan I. Niculescu (1987), Dumitru Bagdasar Muncă și Character, Editura Eminescu, București.Alice Țuculescu (2004), Generozitatea care schimbă fața lumii, Viața Medicală nr. 23/2004.


Professional activity

After passing through the whole sequence of necessary exams and competitions, Florica Bagdasar obtained the title of “Primary Psychiatrist”, with the specialty of mental hygiene. She dedicated herself to the field of neuropsychiatric and educational pediatric care. Bagdasar and her collaborator, Florica Nicolescu (Stafiescu), have successfully developed and experienced in numerous primary schools their own alphabet textbook ("The Book for All Children") and their own arithmetic manual, both based on the global grouping idea and simplified vertical writing. These teaching materials were meant to attract children's interest and make them learn with pleasure, in a rather play-like education process. In 1946 Bagdasar created the Center for Mental Hygiene in Bucharest, at 14, Vasile Lascăr Street, whose mission was to treat children with mental deficiencies and behavioral disorders. This center was designed by Florica Bagdasar following the most modern scientific methods used in the United States. As director of this institution, Florica Bagdasar recruited and organized an exemplary team of experts to deal with children's problems, psychologists, pedagogues, speech therapists, and kinesiotherapists. Florica Bagdasar served as director of the Center for Mental Hygiene until January 1953. In 1946, after the death of her husband, who had been the Minister of Health in the Petru Groza government, Florica Bagdasar was asked to become the Minister of Health, as her husband's successor. She occupied this position from 1 December 1946 to 21 January 1951.Fondul Dumitru și Florica Bagdasar, 4 volumes, material selected and organized by Ștefan I. Niculescu, assisted by Ana Păunescu,
National Archives of Romania The National Archives of Romania (), until 1996 the State Archives (''Arhivele Statului''), are the national archives of Romania, headquartered in Bucharest. It is subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Romania), Ministry of Internal ...
. (The CV and autobiografy of Florica Bagdasar can be found in vol. I, p. 166 and vol. III, p. 900 and p. 910.)
Dr. Florica Bagdasar became the first woman to lead a ministerial cabinet in Romania's government. In the years immediately following
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, both Bagdasar ministers of health, her husband first, then she, faced serious crises that urgently needed to be resolved: sanitary networks decimated by the war, poverty, terrible famine – especially in the region of Moldavia where drought and fierce winter had ravaged — and which in turn contributed to the devastating epidemics of
endemic typhus Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...
in Moldavia and malaria in
Dobruja Dobruja or Dobrudja (; or ''Dobrudža''; , or ; ; Dobrujan Tatar: ''Tomrîğa''; Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and ) is a Geography, geographical and historical region in Southeastern Europe that has been divided since the 19th century betw ...
. Paul Cortez, the well-known Romanian psychiatrist, and epidemiologist
Mihai Ciucă Mihai Ciucă (18 August 1883–20 February 1969) was a Romanian bacteriologist and parasitologist. Biography He was born into a family of teachers in Săveni, Dorohoi County, in the Moldavia region, and spent his childhood in his native vil ...
worked directly with the Minister of Health - Florica Bagdasar - in campaigns to combat these epidemics. In 1949, Bagdasar was appointed associate professor at the Medical-Pharmaceutical Institute (IMF) in Bucharest, where she introduced the specialty of pediatric neuropsychiatry (Normal and Pathological Child Psychology). She became a promoter of infantile neuropsychiatry, both theoretical and practical, creating valuable specialists. In October 1957 she was appointed vice-president of the
Romanian Red Cross The Romanian Red Cross (''Crucea Roșie Română'', CRR), also known as the National Society of Red Cross from Romania (''Societatea Națională de Cruce Roșie din România''), is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergen ...
. She held this position for several years.


Political activity

Florica Bagdasar walked in the footsteps of her husband, Dumitru Bagdasar, who had a left political position since his youth. Thus, after
coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...
of August 23, 1944, Florica Bagdasar became a member of the
Romanian Communist Party The Romanian Communist Party ( ; PCR) was a communist party in Romania. The successor to the pro-Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave an ideological endorsement to a communist revolution that would replace the social system ...
. From 1944 to 1948 she worked in various mass organizations, such as the Patriotic Defense, the Union of Patriots, and in the Union of Democratic Women in Romania (UFDR). Between 1946 and 1951, she was a member of the Great National Assembly as
Tulcea County Tulcea County () is a county (județ) of Romania, in the historical region Dobruja, with the capital city at Tulcea. It includes in its northeast corner the large and thinly-populated estuary of the Danube. Demographics In 2021, Tulcea Coun ...
Deputy. In August–September 1946, she was the only woman in the official delegation of Romania to the
Paris Peace Conference Agreements and declarations resulting from meetings in Paris include: Listed by name Paris Accords may refer to: * Paris Accords, the agreements reached at the end of the London and Paris Conferences in 1954 concerning the post-war status of Germ ...
. From
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, she went on an official mission to
Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
to seek help from
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
(food, and medicine) for war-torn Romania. After returning to her country on September 26, 1946, she was appointed Minister of Health on December 1, 1946, and held this position until January 21, 1951. In 1948 she was decorated with the Order of the Star of the
Romanian People's Republic The Socialist Republic of Romania (, RSR) was a Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989 (see Revolutions of 1989). From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian People's Repu ...
.


Dismissal and rehabilitation

The fact that in 1949 she was appointed as associate professor at the Bucharest Medical and Pharmaceutical Institute and in October 1957 the vice-president of the Red Cross organization in Romania could suggest that Florica Bagdasar had a career of uninterrupted ascension. However, between 1953 and 1956 she fell in disgrace, only a step away from being executed. The campaign against Bagdasar began in August 1948. She was on an inspection task in
Dobruja Dobruja or Dobrudja (; or ''Dobrudža''; , or ; ; Dobrujan Tatar: ''Tomrîğa''; Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and ) is a Geography, geographical and historical region in Southeastern Europe that has been divided since the 19th century betw ...
during the antimalarial campaign when it was announced that she was released from office as Health Minister. The decision was made without any prior explanation. Years of contradictory rumors, intimidation, emergence of provocative agents, followed. In 1951, her closest collaborator at the Center for Mental Hygiene, Florica Nicolescu, was arrested, without a warrant of arrest; she was released after two years of imprisonment, without trial, without knowing what the allegations were.Revista 22 (2010), Arestarea Abecedarului – amintirile Floricăi Nicolescu - extrase din articolele nepublicate scrise de Florica Nicolescu în 2010: Campania de denigrare, Revista Grupului pentru Dialog Social, December 21, 2010. The campaign against Bagdasar culminated on January 18, 1953, with an article in the
Scînteia ''Scînteia'' ( Romanian for "The Spark") was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history. The title is a homage to the Russian language paper '' Iskra''. It was known as ''Scânteia'' until ...
newspaper entitled "To Clean Pedagogy of Anti-Science Deformations". Immediately after the article appeared, an official delegation descended at the Mental Hygiene Center and Bagdasar was removed from the position of director and forced to hand over the files and keys of the institute on the spot. All this in spite of the eloquent appreciation she received for the work of the center from Prof. Vlad Voiculescu. The shock was so great that she became seriously ill, and had to hospitalized for a long time in the Filaret hospital, and to undergo a very serious lung surgery with minimal chances of survival. But, miraculously, she began recovering. Meanwhile, as the Party had decreed, the article about her in Scînteia was "discussed" in special long sessions at all schools and hospitals in the country. The complete article in Scînteia was accusing Bagdasar of "cosmopolitanism", of sluggish plunder in front of the rotten bourgeois ideology, of perversion of infantile psychiatry by introducing
Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in t ...
-like obscurantist approaches, etc. She had been repeatedly investigated. She was left with no income, because her husband's pension from the academy was stopped, and the Housing Department (''Spațiul Locativ'') forced her to share with another family with two children the apartment where she lived with her daughter. Ostracization was complete: it was a period of fierce political disgrace, persecution, material shortages, illness. The irony of fate made that her serious illness most probably saved her from a more terrible fate, that of a "dimisal trail" based on the so-called deviations she was accused of. At the end of 1956, the wave of Stalinist terror had passed over, and Bagdasar began to be " rehabilitated" (along with the
de-Stalinization De-Stalinization () comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and Khrushchev Thaw, the thaw brought about by ascension of Nik ...
program initiated by
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
in the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
). She was asked to rejoin the party, which she refused. In October 1957 she was appointed vice-president of the Red Cross in Romania, a position in which she worked for several years. She was also given permission to travel abroad, and had the opportunity to visit her daughter in the United States several times. She continued to live in Romania until the end of her days in 1978, being treated by the government in a "quasi-particular" way as Valeriu Negru's states in an article: "she was tolerated politically, but not liked." The dramatic end of Florica Bagdasar was described by American writer
Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...
in his novel The Dean's December. Saul Bellow accompanied his wife,
Alexandra Bellow Alexandra Bellow (née Bagdasar; previously Ionescu Tulcea; August 30, 1935 – May 2, 2025) was a Romanian-American mathematician, who made contributions to the fields of ergodic theory, probability and analysis. Biography Bellow was born in ...
(formerly Alexandra Ionescu Tulcea), to Romania when her mother, Florica Bagdasar, was seriously ill and dying. Bagdasar is one of the main characters in that novel.


In Memoriam

A memorial plaque was placed on the building of Speranței Street no. 13, Bucharest, Sector 2, reminding the passerby that there lived Dr. Dumitru Bagdasar and Dr. Florica Bagdasar.Placa memorială dr. Dumitru Bagdasar și dr. Florica Bagdasar, Strada Speranței 13, Sector 2, București, urbo.ro


References


Further reading

* * *David Mikics
"Bellow's People, How Saul Bellow made Life into Art"
W. W. Norton & Company, May 24, 2016 *Marius Rotar, Adriana Teodorescu, Corina Rotar (editors)
"Dying and Death in 18th-21st Century Europe: Volume 2"
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 3014. *Dan L. Dumitrașcu, M.D. (Cluj, Romania), Marc A. Shampo, Ph.D., Robert A. Kyle, M.
"Dumitru Bagdasar - father of Romanian Neurosurgery"
Mayo Clinic Proceedings, January 1996, volume 71, issue 1, page 31. *Dan Voinescu, Richard Constantinescu, and Alexandru Vlad Ciurea
"Dumitru Bagdasar and the American Neurosurgery"
The Publishing House of the Romanian Academy, February 28, 2017. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bagdasar, Florica 1901 births 1978 deaths People from Bitola Romanian people of Aromanian descent Aromanians from the Ottoman Empire Aromanian physicians Romanian psychiatrists Ministers of health of Romania Women members of the Romanian Cabinet Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy alumni 20th-century Romanian physicians Academic staff of the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy Recipients of the Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic Romanian neurologists 20th-century Romanian women politicians Refugees in Romania