Spy/Master is a Max series set during the Cold War. Its complex narrative blurs the lines between fiction and reality. Alec Secareanu plays Victor Godeanu, an important character based on a real person. This slow-burning potboiler of a thriller has all the hallmarks that make this kind of entertainment gripping.
Victor Godeanu Explained and Links to a Real-Life Spy
The character is based on a real-life spy, but the name has been changed for the series. Godeanu’s character is inspired by one of the leading Romanian intelligence officers at the time, Ion Mihai Pacepa.
Pacepa was a general who worked for Romania’s secret police, and the series mirrors the true life events that led up to his defection to the US in 1978. Pacepa would visit the American Embassy in Germany before making his way to visit Uncle Sam, where he would spill the tea on everything he knew. This would lead to a bounty on his head, and Ceausescu would employ an assassin known as Carlos The Jackal to take him out.
Frederick Forsythe would also use the name “The Jackal” in his highly acclaimed thriller Day Of The Jackal, about the assassination of Charles de Gaul, which was subsequently made into a movie of the same name starring Edward Fox. The book weirdly pre-dates the events of Spy/Master, which takes place in 1978.
Ion Mihai Pacepa in April 1975 (Credit – Europa Liber?)
Who is Victor Godeanu in Spy/Master?
The series explores a week in the life of Victor Godeanu, who is the subaltern and close advisor to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Godeanu is also a secret agent for the KGB and must escape Romania and Ceausescu before his true identity and motives are revealed.
Desperate to flee the growing suspicion and scrutiny, he finds an opportunity disguised as a trip to Germany as a diplomat and enlists the aid of a former girlfriend, an undercover Stasi agent, and a rookie CIA agent to help him make his defection to the US.
However, the stakes are high, and his actions are not only putting himself and his allies at risk, but his entire family could also be in the firing line if his actions are revealed.
Who was Nicolae Ceausescu?
Born on 23rd January 1918, Ceausescu was a Romanian politician, a Communist, and eventually a dictator. He began his reign as the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party in 1965 and remained in power till 1989.
In addition, he was head of state for the country from 1967 and was declared President of the Republic in 1974. There were so many titles and so much power, and eventually, a revolution would occur. Military reprisals against the protesters would lead to many deaths, and Ceausescu was maligned for ordering the attacks.
By 1989, enough was enough, and the Romanian Revolution would become a major part of the anti-Communist uprisings in Eastern Europe, leading to Ceausescu being overthrown and placed on trial. He and his wife were found guilty of genocide and executed on December the 25th of, 1989.
