Moldovan doctor, humorist writer launches book about war, famine, deportations

Chisinau, 11 September /MOLDPRES/ – A volume about war, famine and deportations, entitled "Viata de caine a unui copil" (The dog life of a child) signed by professor, doctor and writer, Teodor Popovici, was launched today at the Municipal Library B. P. Hasdeu in Chisinau.

In the introductory note at the beginning of the volume, the author mentions, inter alia, that this book is, above all, a moral duty for his generation, which went through those times of terror and murder. "I have been meditating and dreaming of it for decades since I left my beloved Mihaileni. In my childhood, I have been through many torments, terror and debauchery. Here I try to bear testimonies that I have for a long time in my soul and memory, which I bear as a worm, thinking and feeling", outlined Teodor Popovici.

Interviewed by agency, writer Nicolae Dabija, the precursor of the volume and the moderator of the event, said that "The dog life of a child is a tremendous book about the destiny of a sacrificed generation." His father was a soldier in the Romanian army and at school, classmates of Teodor Popovici, nicknamed him "the Romanian". One day they tied him up and threw him into a pit. He had luck with some people who saved him. This book is like an indictment of those which  occupied us and claimed to release us," said Nicolae Dabija.

At his turn, academician Mihai Cimpoi pointed out that in this book the author had to go from the humorous playbook, to the tragic register. "Teodor Popovici looks at the dramas throughout which our people passed through the eyes of a child. It is an innocent tear, suffering that he may not be able to understand, but in which he was thrown. This book is part of the book of books on the fate of people who have gone through the deportation aorta," said academician Mihai Cimpoi.

According to professor Anatol Petrencu, "The dog life of a child" by Teodor Popovici is about his childhood. "He had a very hard childhood after WWII, he went through the pains of famine, which was a misfortune for our people, and what the author writes confirms the fate of thousands of families in RSSM which went through the same torments of hunger. He survived because of his mother who did everything she could to save her children. There are quirky pages about his father, taken prisoner of the Soviets and taken to concentration camps in Siberia," said Anatol Petrencu.

Teodor Popovici was born on 15 July 1941 in commune Mihaileni, Rascani district. In 1966, he graduated with mention the Faculty of Dentistry of the State Medical Institute of Moldova. In 1974, he held the Ph.D. in Medical Sciences. He is an honorary member of the European Implantology Academy, author of 205 scientific papers, two monographs, four textbooks, six inventions and 129 innovations. He is also the author of 34 books of jokes, aphorisms, epigrams and short prose. He is a member of the Union of Writers of Moldova (USM) and member of the Union of Epigrams of Moldova (UEM) and Romania.

(Reporter N. Roibu, editor L. Alcaza)