Cassius Vibidius Mironescu

**Cassius Vibidius Mironescu** (b. 1900 - d. 1967) - was a Thracian statesman and a significant figure in Thracian national revival of 20th Century.

## Biography

### Early life

Cassius Vibidius Mironescu was born into well-off Thracian family in Istanbul. His family moved to Kingdom of Romania to join the rest of his family when he was 12. He lived most of his young adulthood in Bucharest and later became a student of law where he got interested in theories of Marxism and eventually became a radical communist activist. After witnessing some of his friends getting imprisoned and losing their lives for anti-monarchist activity, Mironescu became less radical for the fear of his life, though this would haunt him for the remainder of his life as he recognized this as a cowardice in himself. He continued to follow socialist ideology, but became more moderate. Eventually, he adopted social-democratic beliefs.

Mironescu kept low profile and continued to work as a simple legal clerk during the Second World War, avoiding trouble with fascist authorities. As the tide of war turned and Red Army invaded Romania, Mironescu decided to flee to Turkey together with his family and other known moderate socialists, as he viewed Stalinist system as a great danger.

### Founder and leader of UFTR

Mironescu settled in Adrianople in 1946 and found employment as manager of one of local metallurgy plants. He quickly became a popular leader among the workers and together with other intellectual Thracians formed an assembly for equal Thracian rights and worker conditions in Turkey. By 1950 he was vocal enough to be targeted and observed by Turkish police for his alleged antigovernmental and possible communist activities, though his law profession and strong popularity among Adrianople residents helped him to avoid imprisonment on several occasions. Though he attempted to run for office for a regional governor, his ethnicity was barred from pursuing this title.

His status as a champion of Thracian workers was elevated to that of national liberation movement leader after the bloody Scipio Aurelius Square massacre on April 24th of 1952. During the ensuing chaos Mironescu stood forward to establish armed resistance movement - United Front of Thracian Resistance (UFTR). According to his memoirs, this moment was also a personal crusade, as he sought to vanish his personal feelings for cowardice after he abandoned his Marxist beliefs in youth out of fear for his life.

Mironescu led UFTR and its leadership successfully throughout 1952 and 1953, though the movement started to falter and he could not prevent it from fracturing ideologically. After a ceasefire in 1954, Mironescu recognized, that the uprising led to a far better outcome than expected and considered continuing his political activity in Adrianople before escaping to Yugoslavia in 1955, as Turkey refused to grant him amnesty, seeing him as the primary instigator of the conflict.

### Final years and death

After gaining asylum in Yugoslavia, Mironescu continued to actively participate in Thracian national revival affairs as a vocal critic of Turkish government, but also provided criticism towards later Thracian public figures, especially right-wing nationalist ones. Milonescu's was notably disappointed about Thracian left-wing factions inability to fully unite in front of relatively larger and more stable nationalist movement. He was especially vocal about his opposition to Filii Caesar and its Romanization/Latinization ideology, citing it as "hellish fascist abomination, a threat to Thracian liberation". Despite that, Milonescu is widely regarded by all Thracians, regardless of their ideology, as a very important and highly respected figure in their nation's history.

Before passing away in 1967, he also worked as a columnist of Yugoslav Communist Party newspaper "Borba" and wrote memoirs, who remain widely read to this day.