As the story goes, on August 21, 1968, a popular, young disc jockey at Radio Bucharest emotionally reacted to the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia by surreptitiously inserting a recording of the Beetle’s song “Back in the USRR” in his playlist -- all music broadcast over Radio Bucharest had to be cleared by a censor in advance. By playing this song, the disc jockey was fired. Some months later, he escaped Romania, eventually joined Radio Free Europe and became one of RFE’s most famous disc jockeys, playing jazz and pop music back to his homeland.
Below we will briefly look at the life and death of this iconic Romanian disc jockey.
Ionel Corneliu (Cornel) Chiriac was born in Uspenka, Bessarabia, on May 9, 1942. He and his family moved to Pitesti, Romania, where he attended public school. In 1962, he moved to Bucharest and for three years studied Romanian Grammar and Languages at the Pedagological Institute.
Reportedly, when he was 12 years old, he first heard jazz music played by legendary disc jockey Willis Conover over Voice of America short-wave broadcasts. The influence was so strong that on his application for employment with Radio Free Europe, he gave Willis Conover as one of his references.
Jazz was forbidden music in the 1950s in Romania. By the early 1960s, jazz was no longer forbidden and in 1963, Chiriac became the first disc jockey to play jazz over the radio. Jazz clubs sprang up in Bucharest and Chiriac would play music and participate in discussion groups about jazz.
By the middle of the 1960s, pop/rock music was gaining popularity in Romania and Chiriac was Radio Bucharest’s first pop/music disc jockey. His program was called Metronom and was heard at 5:15 pm to 6 pm. He was able to get records from the American Embassy and due to his good knowledge of English, translated the lyrics into Romanian for his listeners. (On his 1969 employment application for RFE, he listed three American Embassy persons at the American Embassy in Bucharest.)
For the first time, young Romanian listeners had a contrast of freedom to Communist propaganda. This brought him into conflict with the censors but apparently not enough to cause his termination.
In the summer of 1968, his radio show was called Metronom 68 and was heard live daily from Hotel Flora in Mamala on the Black Sea. Chiriac would afterwards meet his listeners and they would drink and discuss music throughout the night.
After the invasion of Czechoslovakia, there was censorship of texts and less Western pop/rock music played over Radio Bucharest. His show was canceled and jazz music reintroduced. Chiriac learned of a jazz congress in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia and made an application to attend. He used the services of a famous graphic artist Zica Barol to change the title of the application to Bratislava and Austria. Chiriac then received official permission to travel to Bratislava and Austria. He traveled with a group of 40 others to Bratislava, attended the jazz congress and took a train to Austria, where he applied for political asylum and was sent to a refugee camp in Traiskirchen.
Chiriac then wrote a letter to Radio Free Europe in March 1969, in which he complained that RFE did not broadcast to the youth of Romania and he would gladly go to Munich and present a music program. At that time, pop music was not broadcast in the belief that the acoustics of short wave were not favorable to such music. The Romanian Broadcast Service director Noel Bernard read the letter and decided to send one of the younger staff members Max Banush to Austria to meet Chiriac and make an assessment of his possible use by RFE.
Banush fouind him at the refugee camp and after an interview decided he would be right for the RFE broadcasts to the young generation. Chiriac’s application for asylum was still pending and he could not leave Austria. Banush decided to take Chiriac to Germany without permission of the Austrians government. At night and in the rain they drove to the border and Chiriac got out of the car before the checkpoint and unseen crossed over the border to Germany. Banush then passed through the border control and tried to find Chiriac. After at least one hour, he found Chiriac soaked to the skin from the rain and they drove on to Munich.
On June 2, 1969, Cornel Chiriac broadcast his first daily Radio Free Program, “Metronom 69.” Even with the poor quality of the program due to short wave transmissions, “Metronom 69” became a big hit with the youth of Romania. Hundred of listeners anonymously monthly sent letters to Chiriac showing RFE management how big an impact pop/rock music could have. Many letters complained about political conditions of the youth, their problems in schools, etc. In addition to playing music, he read excerpts of the letters during his program. Listeners throughout Romania then realized that their problems were not unique but were the same through the country—this was a threat to the Communist monopoly of information in Romania and the cult of personality of Nicolae Ceausescu. A domestic Romanian intelligence report written in 1970 showed the impact of Chiriac’s programs:
Lately there is an increase in programs by the radio station "Radio Free Europe" that have hostile influences on our youth. Interest of young people was stimulated by the new program, titled "Metronome", commented by the fugitive Cornel Chiriac, which not only is trying to influence listeners, but also incite them to acts inimical to our Party and state policy.
Unfortunately, the Romanian secret police (Securitate) began looking for the senders of some intercepted letters addressed to Chiriac. Those who were discovered were arrested, put on trial, and sent to prison for “anti-Communist behavior.”
Music was Cornerl Chiriac’s life in Munich. He had few friends and was homesick for Romania. He began drinking heavily, had an automobile accident while drunk, paid a fine, and lost his driver’s license for a year. In December 1970, he was so drunk he damaged his office and was reprimanded. He then wrote a letter of apology to the director of RFE, in which he wrote, “If there is any excuse it is that my roots are still in Romania and that although two years have passed since my defection I find it difficult to find a balance in a country with which I feel little in common. That is why at times, to my dismay, I am my own worst enemy.” For the next three years, he worked at RFE without further problems.
After his death, a RFE program in tribute to him contained this passage: “Somewhere in his soul, Cornel could not get reconciled with his thought that, while hundreds of thousands, if not millions of youths in Romania adored him, here in Munich, he was just someone.”
One can draw the conclusion that the murder of Cornel Chiriac in March 1975 was political and not a robbery attempt: these are some of the incidents of Romanian hostile actions against RFE and its Romanian staff,
- 1975 was a turning point in Romania’s reaction to RFE programs: for the first time in a 2-½ year hiatus, Romania renewed media attacks on RFE.
- Emil Georgescu, another popular RFE broadcaster, was the victim of automobile accident in 1976, and, received many threatening letters afterwards, and there was an attempted murder in July 1981, during which he was stabbed over 25 times in the chest.
- Book bombs were sent to RFE freelancers in 1981 in Paris and Germany, injuring two.
- And RFE itself in February was the target of a bomb attack by the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, in cooperation with Romania.
In an article for RFE/RL, “Memories of a Romanian Icon,” Eugen Tomiuc wrote,
The regime feared him. His shows were never about music alone. They were about liberty, oppression, politics, dictatorship -- and music. Perhaps he had become too popular and influential among Romanian youths.
In the days after Chiriac's death, my friends and I discreetly wore black bands on the lapels of our school uniforms. When asked whether someone close had died, we would all reply, "Yes, a very good friend." Many Romanian youths made the same gesture. While other RFE journalists had been targeted or even killed by the Securitate, it was Chiriac's death that hit closest to home -- for he was one of us.
In the days after Chiriac's death, my friends and I discreetly wore black bands on the lapels of our school uniforms. When asked whether someone close had died, we would all reply, "Yes, a very good friend." Many Romanian youths made the same gesture. While other RFE journalists had been targeted or even killed by the Securitate, it was Chiriac's death that hit closest to home -- for he was one of us.
Cornel Chirac was cremated with his ashes returned to Romania. His grave in the Reinvierea cemetery in Bucharest has in someways attained the same status as that of one of his music idols Jim Morrison of the popular rock group The Doors in Paris – devoted fans visit to pay tribute, leave flowers, and notes to him. On the gravestone is a copy of his photograph in the studio at Radio Free Europe.
For more information, visit
For those who understand German (there is some English, too), an excellent 2009 (repeated in 2018) radio program “Lost in Music – Die Cornel Chiriac Story” with music and excerpts from Chiriac’s programs can be heard at
There are many excerpts from his RFE programs to be heard on youtube. One of good quality, for example, his Chiriac’s tribute to Jim Morrison of the group The Doors.
There is a Facebook page “in Memoriam Cornel Chiriac” at
And in Romanian, the home page devoted to Cornel Chiriac is
