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Corneliu (Cornel) Coposu () (20 May 1914 – 11 November 1995) was a Christian Democratic and liberal conservative Romanians politician, the founder of the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party (), the founder of the Romanian Democratic Convention (), and a political detainee during the communist regime. His political mentor was Iuliu Maniu (1873–1953), the founder of the National Peasant Party (PNȚ), the most important political organization from the interwar period. He studied law and worked as a journalist.
He too was a devout member of the church and joined the Romanian National Party (PNR), a group dominated by Greek-Catholic politicians – Gheorghe Pop de Băsești was an acquaintance of the Coposu family, and Alexandru Vaida-Voevod was a relative on Corneliu Coposu's mother's side.
After studying Law and Economy at the University of Cluj (1930–1934), he engaged in local politics with the PNR's direct successor, the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ), and worked as a journalist; he wrote for România Nouă, edited by Zaharia Boilă, Mesajul (Zalău), Unirea (Blaj).Tudor Călin Zarojanu, Viața lui Corneliu Coposu (1996: Editura Mașina de Scris, București); ediția a III-a, revăzută și completată publicată în Cristian Fulger, Tudor Călin Zarojanu (editori), Seniorul Corneliu Coposu (București: Humanitas, 2014), Partea a III-a, p. 181; He became the private secretary of Iuliu Maniu, the leader of the PNR and PNŢ, who had been a leading actor factor in Transylvania's union with Romania (1918), and as head of the Transylvania Directory Council. Coposu wrote in detail about this experience in his "secret diary", discovered after the collapse of communism and published in 2014.Corneliu Coposu, File dintr-un jurnal interzis. 1936-1947, 1953, 1967-1983, ediție îngrijită de Doina Alexandru (București: Editura Vremea, 2014).
In 1945, after the royal coup against the Antonescu regime, Coposu became deputy secretary of the PNȚ and, after the reintegration of Northern Transylvania, the party's delegate to the leadership of provisional administrative bodies. He was also active in organizing the party as the main opposition to the Communist Party and the Petru Groza cabinet before the 1946 general election.Roman jr.
In 1956, Coposu was sentenced to life imprisonment for "betrayal of the working class" and "crime against social reforms". In April 1964, he was freed after 15 years of detention and 2 years of forced residence in Rubla (Brăila County), having spent, in all, 17 years of incarceration in 17 notorious detention and Penal labour facilities associated with the communist regime,"Distrugerea ţărănimii" including Sighet Prison, Gherla Prison, Jilava Prison, Râmnicu Sărat Prison, Pitești Prison, and the Danube–Black Sea Canal (where he was imprisoned with his friend and collaborator Șerban Ghica)."Distrugerea țărănimii"; Roman jr.
Coposu later testified having been impressed by the deep scars collectivization had left in the country,"Distrugerea țărănimii" as well as by the resilience of the Rubla deportees ( see Bărăgan deportations) — "They traded in vegetables they had grown themselves while locals could not be convinced that these could actually grow on the Bărăgan".Coposu, in "Distrugerea țărănimii" In the 1990s, during debates over the overall number of victims of the Communist regime between 1947 and 1964, Coposu spoke of 282,000 arrests and 190,000 deaths in custody.Cioroianu, p.313
After his release, Coposu started work as an unskilled worker on various construction sites (given his status as a former prisoner, he was denied employment in any other field), and was subject to Securitate surveillance and regular interrogation.Deletant, Preface, p.xxvii-xxix After the collapse of communism, Tudor Călin Zarojanu published large excerpts from the huge Securitate file on Corneliu Coposu, kept for decades by the secret communist political police Zarojanu, Viața.
His wife Arlette Coposu was also prosecuted in 1950 during a rigged espionage trial, and died in 1966, soon after her release, from an illness contracted in prison.
Coposu managed to keep contact with PNȚ sympathisers, and re-established the party as a clandestine group during the 1980s, while imposing its affiliation to Christian Democracy and the Christian Democrat International.Prelipceanu, p.31-32
For the rest of his life, Coposu was the main voice of the opposition to the National Salvation Front (from 1992, the Democratic National Salvation Front).Tismăneanu, p.270, 279, 281 Present at his party's headquarters, he was targeted by during the January 1990 Mineriad (the first of the ) on 28 January 1990. The Prime Minister Petre Roman addressed the angry mob who wanted to lynch Coposu and the other leaders of the democratic opposition, pretending to mediate the conflict. In an attempt to create a resemblance between how the dictator Ceaușescu exited the armored vehicle before his trial and Coposu's flight, under the pretext of protecting Coposu from the angry crowd, Roman commissioned an armored vehicle to drive him to the headquarters of the Romanian National Television, where Roman promised Coposu that he could make a statement which would be aired later that day.Gheorghe & Huminic The statement was recorded but it did not air. No copy of the recording was ever found in the archives.
Coposu successfully grouped various organizations into the Romanian Democratic Convention (CDR), of which he was the leader between 1991 and 1993.Tismăneanu, p.270 He was elected to the Senate of Romania in the 1992 general election. In 1995, the government of France granted him the Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur during a ceremony in Bucharest.
Regarding Emil Constantinescu's election as the CDR's candidate for the presidential office in 1992, Coposu stated: "The candidate was elected in an absolutely democratic manner. The appointment of the candidate of the Democratic Convention for the position of president of the country was made according to the most authentic democratic rules. All five candidates had the moral stature and prestige to honor the highest magistracy of the country. We, the Democratic Convention, wish the only candidate, elected by the vote of the 67 major presidential electors, to succeed in the elections and to achieve his first goal, which is the eradication of communism in Romania."Tismăneanu, p.270
One of the main thoroughfares in the capital now bears his name. A bust of Coposu stands next to Kretzulescu Church, in Revolution Square.
In a 2006 poll conducted by Romanian Television to identify the "greatest Romanians of all time", Coposu came in 39th.
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