Radio România Internațional

Tag: history

  • The Constitution of Mavrocordatos

    The Constitution of Mavrocordatos

    Their most well-known members were Nicholas and his son Constantine. Constantine Mavrocordatos was a reformist and the initiator of the first Constitution to be drafted in the Romanian world. In 1735, when he was ruler of Wallachia, he began a series of reforms influenced by the Austrian reforms in Oltenia, which Austria had annexed in 1718. He eliminated a number of indirect taxes and introduced a general tax that could be paid in four tranches. He gave more freedom to serfs, allowing them to move from one estate to another if they paid a certain fee.



    In 1735, Constantine Mavrocordatos took part in the establishment of the first Masonic Lodge in the Moldavian capital Iasi. During his following reigns he abolished serfdom in Wallachia in 1746 and then in Moldavia in 1749.



    The historian Georgeta Filiti has described the first part of the 18th century, when the Phanariotes were in power in these parts, as being influenced by the ideas of the French Enlightenment: “The French influence was exerted by people, newspaper subscriptions and books making their way here from the West, as well as all kinds of goods. Mercure de France magazine was one such example. In 1746, it published what could be described as the Constitution of Constantine Mavrocodatos. Whats interesting is that, long before the French Revolution, he raised the problem of social freedom. In other words, he abolished serfdom in Wallachia. However, peasants still bore the burden of no less than 43 different taxes and duties, but at least there was a concern in this regard. This was very important. These liberating ideas of social equality did not spring up on unknown ground.



    Constantine Mavrocordatos was undoubtedly a refined intellectual as well as a skilled politician who was very much aware of the direction the world was taking in his day.



    Historian Georgeta Filiti explains: “He read and studied enormously, had his finger on the pulse of Europe and saw where society was going. This is the duty of a politician, of a leader, a person responsible for the future of a social group, be it small or big. The Phanariote rulers of the Romanian Principalities, who were in fact Greek functionaries in the service of the Ottoman Empire, had several clear aims: the liberation of the Christians from under Turkish domination and the so-called Megali Idea, the goal of recreating Byzantium, of re-establishing a Greek Christian empire. And this could not be achieved sitting at home, but by acquiring information and taking action. The Phanariotes played an extraordinary role when it comes to the use of the sources of information. Plainly said, they had spies at all European courts. The issue that dominated these parts and would continue to do so for the next one hundred years was the so-called Oriental problem, namely the fight for power in the Lower Danube region. The Turks were very powerful, the Russians were fighting them, and there was also the Austrian empire not far away.



    Constantine Mavrocordatos possessed an impressive library, which was housed at Vacaresti, the monastery founded by his father Nicholas. He thus came in contact with the writings of Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire and of other figures of the French Enlightenment.



    Historian Georgeta Filiti: “We know of this indirectly, from what he wrote, what he did and how he behaved because he didnt keep a diary about what he read. The library in Vacaresti is memorable for its manuscripts. From the few existing testimonies of his contemporaries we know that he spent a lot of time there. Other indirect testimonies lead us to very clear conclusions: he organised village education and he divided the country into counties, with each county having its own leader. He also established the taxes and duties. No matter how harsh, the law was the law, otherwise there was lawlessness. Order was being established to a certain degree. He was of Greek origin but began to learn Romanian and those who spoke Greek to him hoping to win his goodwill lost their influence. He told the entourage he brought with him from Constantinople to learn the language of the country.



    During the Russo-Turkish-Austrian war of 1736-1739, Constantine Mavrocordatos got the province of Oltenia back from the Austrians. 30 years later, in 1769, during another Russo-Turkish war, he was made prisoner in Galati and died at the age of 58 at the hands of a Russian soldier. He was buried in Iasi.

  • Romania, Germany and the Anti-Semitic policy in the 1940s

    Romania, Germany and the Anti-Semitic policy in the 1940s

    In the first half of the 1940s, Romania and Germany were allies. They were allies both on the frontline and in terms of anti-Semitic policies. In spite of this alliance, there were differences between them in regard to the way they treated Jewish communities



    Germany applied a policy of gradual annihilation of Jews, which became more and more radical after 1942. It culminated in the so-called “final solution”, with Jews getting deported and killed on a massive scale in the death camps in what is now Poland. Romanias anti-Semitic policy was inconsistent, starting with a radical attitude, but ending with a refusal to deport Jews to the camps.



    Historian Ottmar Trașcă, with the “George Baritiu” History Institute of Cluj, outlined for us the relationship between Romania and Germany in terms of the Jewish issue in the first half of the 1940s. Ottmar Trașcă recalled that Romania was consistently anti-Semitic throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s.



    In its race policy, the Antonescu regime had the full benefit of consultation with the Germans: “During the nationalist Legionnaire governing in 1940, the Antonescu regime initially adopted a policy of Romanization, and continued with this policy after the downfall of that government in January 1941. Starting in March1941, Romania had a counselor for Jewish issues, SS Captain Gustav Richter, working at the German Legation in Bucharest. What was his initial mission? He had arrived upon request from the Antonescu government, along with counselors for various other issues. His mission was to harmonize Romanian and German anti-Semitic policies. Later on, starting in the autumn of 1941, and especially in 1942, he was supposed to prepare the application of the final solution in Romania. Gustav Richter had a decisive role in all the anti-Semitic laws passed in 1941- 1942.”



    Romania and Germany collaborated closely in killing off Jews in Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, Transdnestr and Odessa.



    Ottmar Trașcă looked into the German military archives, where he researched the collaboration between the Germans and the Romanians: “Once war broke out between the Germans and the Soviets, the Jewish matter entered a new stage. Now we have cooperation with the German mobile extermination units, the so-called Einsatzgruppen, on Romanian territories, Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Transdnestr. There were 4 Einsatzgruppen that trailed German and Romanian operative units on the southern flank. Einsatzgruppe D was led by Col. Otto Olendorf, and their crimes were shocking, they assassinated over 90,000 people. When I looked at the daily reports sent to Berlin, they referred often to collaboration with the Romanian authorities. They very often said that they had very good collaboration with the army, gendarmes and police. The way in which the Romanian authorities and the Antonescu regime treated the Jews in Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Transdnestr was met with stupor by the German leadership, even by Adolph Hitler. On August 19, 1941, Hitler told Goebbels that ‘in the Jewish matter, a man like Antonescu acts more radically than we have so far’. Such an appreciative statement made by Hitler tells a lot.”



    In June, 1942, the Romanian Government agreed to the deportation of the Romanian Jews abroad. Thus, 5 thousand Jews were deported to Auschwitz, most of them from France. Nevertheless, Antonescu’s attitude would soon change.



    Ottmar Trasca: “The situation changes in 1942. We know that in August 1942 the Antonescu government gave its approval for the deportation of all Jews from Romania, starting with the ones in the counties of Timis, Turda and Arad. Why didn’t they get deported after all? First, there were the interventions of Wilhelm Filderman, that were very well constructed and motivated. Filderman used in his argumentation a very sensitive issue for Antonescu, namely, Transylvania. Filderman asked what the use was for deporting the Jews from Romania as long as Hungary did not do the same. The deportation of the Jews would have been to Romania’s disadvantage in the competition between Romania and Hungary over Transylvania. Hungary had not deported any Jews and had rejected all requests in this respect. So Filderman’s argument proved efficient. There were also the interventions of Baron Francisc Neumann, those of Iuliu Maniu, and of the Queen Mother Elena. Also, there was a firm American diplomatic note dated October 1942, conveyed through the Swiss Legation in Romania, in which the US Government threatened with reprisals against Romanian citizens in America unless deportations ceased. And, above all, there was Stalingrad, which was decisive for Antonescu’s change in attitude. Antonescu was pragmatic and he understood, at least after Stalingrad, that Germany lost the war. Instead of deporting Romanian Jews to the death camps in Poland, as from December 1942 Antonescu had a change in the policies he pursued and agreed to the Jews’ emigration to Palestine.”



    Romania and Germany cooperated in the Jewish extinction policy in WW II. In spite of the fact that the two countries had divergent opinions over the final solution, Romania is responsible for the deportation of the Jews.

  • December 31, 2018

    December 31, 2018

    EU COUNCIL Romania takes over on January 1st, for the first time since its accession in 2007, the rotating presidency of the EU Council. The priorities of the Romanian presidency fall into 4 categories: Europe of convergence, a safer Europe, Europe – a stronger global actor and Europe of common values. During its term, Romania will have to manage several complex issues like Brexit, the 2021-2027 budget, a coherent strategy on migration and increasing the Unions global role. The official web page of the Romanian presidency of the EU Council has been launched. The page, available at romania2019.eu, in Romanian, English and French, provides useful information for journalists, the general public and European affairs experts.




    NEW YEARS MESSAGE The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, Monday released a New Years address, in which he urges Romanians to capitalise on the presidency of the EU Council in order to prove that “Romania is fully committed to consolidating the European project. PM Viorica Dancila also said today in her New Years address that Romania is prepared for the presidency of the EU Council, which it takes over on January 1. She emphasised that this is a national project that must bring together public institutions, political actors and civil society. Viorica Dancila also said that in 2019 her Cabinet will continue to take “the right decisions for Romania, and added that the Government has a “clear role: sustainable economic growth and major investments able to ensure better living standards for as many citizens as possible.




    POLICE In Romania, over 25,000 Interior Ministry personnel are on duty during the New Years holiday. Special attention will be paid to the protection of the participants in the 125 large-scale public events expected to bring together a total of 300,000 people. Emergency intervention and prevention missions will be conducted these days by over 4,900 fire-fighters. On New Years night, fire-fighting and paramedic teams are deployed in the areas where public events are held. Around 300 emergency medical units are on standby. The largest shows will be organised in Bucharest, Brasov, Sibiu and Cluj Napoca. In Bucharest, the City Hall organises an over 6-hour long outdoor party that also celebrates the 100 years since the Romanian nation state was formed. Romanian artists will be joined by the international DJ Andre Tanneberger, known under the stage name ATB, who will mix live. Impressive fireworks shows are scheduled for midnight.




    RUSSIA The Romanian Foreign Ministry requested the Russian Embassy in Bucharest to update the historical information it uses, and stressed that past bilateral relations must not allow for speculations and unfounded opinions. The message follows a Russian Embassy Facebook post deploring the fact that Romanian and western media regularly publish articles that slander the Red Army troops who freed Central and Eastern Europe from fascism. “Anti-Soviet and anti-Russian critics insist on telling people that the Red Army was a gang of ruthless thieves and rapists, says the Embassy in the post that, the Romanian Foreign Ministry argues, lacks the accuracy required for an academic debate. Bucharest also mentions that a commission of Romanian-Russian historians has been set up, and is best suited to analyse the history of bilateral relations. The Soviet troops that marched into Romania at the end of World War 2 only left this country in 1958, and the communist dictatorship they ushered in lasted until 1989.




    JOURNALISTS The number of journalists and mass media workers killed on the job this year went up to 94, as compared to 82 in 2017, the International Federation of Journalists announced. The victims include 84 journalists, cameramen and technicians, as well as 10 media staff such as drivers and protection officers. They died in targeted killings, bomb attacks and cross fire incidents. The most dangerous place for journalists this year was Afghanistan.




    UKRAINE The presidential election campaign in Ukraine started on Monday and will last until March 31st. candidates have until February 3rd to enrol and until February 8th to register their candidacy with the Central Electoral Commission. According to the latest polls, the former Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko, is the frontrunner 16-18% of the vote intentions. The incumbent president, Petro Poroşenko, is gaining ground and ranks second in current polls with 14%, followed by the actor and comedian Vladimir Zelenskiy, with 8-12%.



    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • Sibiu’s Social and Political Life in the 16th century

    Sibiu’s Social and Political Life in the 16th century

    Of all the towns founded by Saxons in Transylvania starting in the 12th century, Brasov and Sibiu have always stood out. The first, larger and with a bigger population, was a more dynamic city, trade oriented, more pragmatic, and less conservative. At the same time, Sibiu was always considered the political, administrative, and intellectual center of the Saxons. Its economic ties branched out deep within Central and Western Europe, but also east and south. To a large extent, the wealth in Sibiu was due to trade with the Ottoman Empire, through the towns in Wallachia, such as Campulung-Muscel, Targoviste and Pitesti.



    At the same time, Sibiu, as a city inhabited to a large extent by traders and craftsmen, was self-ruled under a system inspired by Central European burghs, but with a lot of local specificity. This specificity, expressed in its social and political arrangements, had its peak maybe in the 16th century. In Sibiu, as in all Saxon cities in Transylvania or German cities in Europe, there was a form of local incipient democracy. The inhabitants of Sibiu annually elected their mayor, their royal judge, and its magistrates. This form of self-rule, along with the legislation that came with it, was in its time referred to in German as gute polizei, good governance. We spoke to Maria Pakucs-Willcocks, who wrote the book called 16th Century Sibiu. The Organization of a Transylvanian City. She told us about how liberal or how advanced for its time this form of autonomy was.



    Maria Pakucs-Willcocks: “Sibius leadership, the political elites in Sibiu, try to imprint on the city a certain vision, a policy and ideology symbolized by the phrase gute polizei. It may not have been very popular at first, but it is reflected in the citys statutes, which were of Western European inspiration. There were democratic elections, but, as a rule, the top positions were held by the members of the same few families that formed the entrenched political elite, which could afford financially to deal in politics. They also had the relations that allowed them profit financially from politics. Yes, there were elections, but not just anyone got elected. It was a democracy of the privileged, but they kept good relations with the voters or their representatives. The representatives were a body of 100 men representing the citys craftsmen, and they worked closely with the ruling council. The 100 were also elected annually, and represented the so-called middle class of the city, made up of craftsmen and small traders.”



    Other Saxon cities had similar forms of administration, but not exactly like Sibiu. This was in part due to an extraordinary local figure, a statesman still celebrated, since a central square in Sibiu bears his name, Huet Square.



    Here is Maria Pakucs-Willcocks: “In Sibiu, we had great personalities such as Albert Huet, a very well educated man for his time, with an exceptional intellectual training. Not every city had an Albert Huet, who was a royal judge in Sibiu between 1577 and 1607. It was he who found this formula, this expression, gute polizei, which only a century later became a part of the usual administrative language. He imposed a way for the Saxon nation of Transylvania to define itself. He navigated very murky waters in domestic and foreign policy. For instance, the reign of Michael the Brave occurred in his lifetime, and he even fought in the Battle of Giurgiu, on Michaels side. He posed as a sort of father of Saxons. He wanted more autonomy for the Saxons, but also the preservation of their political, economic, legal, and administrative privileges. On the long term, these privileges, however, led to inflexibility on the part of the Saxons, a lack of openness to subsequent political developments. Sibiu was rather closed to other nations. Not only were Romanians banned from settling into the city, but any other intruder, intruder meaning anyone who was not a Saxon, a Lutheran, or who was a nobleman. To be a nobleman, for the Saxon bourgeoisie, was unacceptable. This was a big problem for several centuries on end: refusal to take in or grant citizenship to people who did not match the criteria they set.”



    Surprisingly, by 1589, Sibiu already had a constitution. Here is Maria Pakucs-Willcocks: “I call it a constitution, but its official name is the City Statutes, which crystallizes the idea of gute polizei, good governance. Also, it set rules and principles for the political and administrative functioning of the city. Consensus was the cornerstone of any community, not just Sibiu. However, in Sibiu it is expressed in certain set formulas: common interest, common peace, the relationship between the governing and the governed, obedience… What does the common good mean in this context, youll ask. It is a contract, a covenant by which the ruled or the governed are obedient, as long as those governing act in everyones interest. As such, the common good would mean the sum of conditions that would allow both sides to live in peace and tranquility.”



    With its good governance, its traditions, and even its 16th century constitution, Sibiu had a great contribution to the diversity of cultures and civilization that now form Romania, which this year celebrates 100 years of existence.

  • One year since the death of King Mihai

    One year since the death of King Mihai

    Romanians at home, in the Romanian historical communities around the present borders or in the Diaspora, are commemorating their last sovereign, King Mihai I. He died aged 96 at his residence in Switzerland on December 5, 2017. His biography overlaps Romania’s recent history, which was equally heroic and tragic. In 2017 King Mihai I was the last head of state who had experienced World War II. He was also the last of the four sovereigns of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen German dynasty that ascended the throne in Bucharest in 1866, building modern Romania.



    Born on October 25, 1921, Mihai reigned for the first time but only formally, over 1927-1930, when, after the death of his grandfather, King Ferdinand the Unifier, the country was ruled de facto by a regency council, as he was still a minor. Actually, he became a real king in 1940 after his father, the unpopular Carol II, had stepped down. The latter had instituted a corrupt and bloody royal dictatorship and had ceded a large part of the territories that had come under the authority of Romania at the end of World War I: Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, northern Transylvania and southern Dobrudja.



    Considered immature and not prepared to reign, Mihai remained in the shadow of the pro-German marshal Ion Antonescu for a long time. But, on August 23, 1944 when the Red Army had already entered Romania and was threatening to raze Bucharest to the ground, with an incredible courage, King Mihai decided to have the marshal arrested and declared the country’s alliance with the anti-Nazi Allies.



    Historians are almost unanimous in saying that his decision shortened the war in Europe by half a year and saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Three years later, when the country was practically under Soviet military occupation, being ruled by a puppet communist government, the King was forced to step down and go into exile in the West. He backed the actions of the Romanian National Committee, presented as a government in exile, though the Western democracies never recognized its status.



    Until the anticommunist revolution of 1989, he was permanently supervised by the Securitate, the political police of the communist regime in Bucharest. The King could only come back home in 1997, when his Romanian citizenship was restored, citizenship that had been withdrawn by the communists. Several confiscated properties were returned to his family. As special ambassador, in Western countries, King Mihai I lobbied for Romania’s NATO and EU accession in 2004 and 2007 respectively.



    His eldest daughter, Margareta, is now the Custodian of the Crown of Romania thus claiming the headship of the Royal House of Romania. “I don’t regard Romania today as a legacy from our parents, but as a country we borrowed from our children” — the last king of Romania said in a statement considered his real will.

  • Radio Romania 90

    Radio Romania 90

    Initiated by amateurs and supported by the state, Romanian radiophony was in perfect tune with the times, being a witness of the countrys major historical moments in the inter-war period and trying to respond to its listeners exigencies.



    The first director of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation between 1935 and 1944 was Vasile Ionescu. He witnessed one of the most important political moments in Romanias history, to which the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation had a direct contribution, the act of August 23, 1944 which changed Romanias foreign policy orientation. Romania relinquished the alliance with the Axis led by Germany and joined the United Nations coalition.



    Here is an excerpt from the transcript of an interview with Vasile Ionescu from the archive of the Oral History Centre of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, recorded back in 1974: “The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation which has permanently served the country, since the very beginning, both in times of political and social peace and in times of turmoil for the nation, it has played a decisive role in keeping the public opinion informed, both in Romania and abroad. The Radio was close to the Romanians when His Majesty King Michael, supported by the real representatives of the national will, the generals commanding the big units and the patriots gathered around him in the Palace on Victory Road, led the coup of August 23, 1944. The Radio Broadcasting Corporation contributed to preparing and achieving that historical act.



    On June 6, 1944, Vasile Ionescu was called to Pelisor Castle in Sinaia, to have an audience with King Mihai I. There, he was asked about the coverage area of the national radio stations transmitters and was kindly asked that the broadcast transmitted by Bucharest be received in Cairo, where secret negotiations were carried out to take Romania out of the alliance with Germany. The Antonescu government was negotiating with the Soviets, whereas the Democratic opposition was negotiating with the English and the Americans and therefore the delegates needed information from Romania. Transceivers were installed to secure a line of communication.



    Vasile Ionescu: “We decided to set up a transmitter-reception station in Bucharest, at the Royal Palace on Victory Road, which we called ‘Carpati (‘Carpathians in Romanian) and another one in Sinaia, in the villa belonging to army general Gheorghe Racoviceanu, the kings godfather, and that station was called ‘Bucegi. A third one, called ‘Piatra (‘Stone in Romanian) was to be installed in Predeal, behind Marshall Antonescus villa. We chose that locations believing they were the only places that the Germans didnt dare raid or search, although the short-waves could not be detected by a goniometer due to their special propagation way. In a time frame of only 3 days, these shortwave-transceivers were installed and made available to the users. The ‘Carpaţi station in the Royal Palace in Bucharest was operated by probationary engineer C. Bonifaciu, the ‘Bucegistation based in Sinaia by engineer Gheorghiu Vladimir, and the Piatra station in Predeal, by technician Niculae Davidescu.



    Vasile Ionescus life was intense soon after August 23, 1944, when Romania shifted sides and joined the Allies: “On Wednesday, August 23, 1944, at 17.00 hours I received a phone call from the Military Command of the Capital City, and I received the order to wear a military uniform. I reached the office of the capitals commanding general around 17.30 and very much to my surprise I met there the army corps general Iosif Teodorescu and his chief of staff, adjutant colonel Demeter Dămăceanu wearing civil clothes, although they were professional military. The army corps general Iosif Teodorescu spoke to me and said ‘Director general, from now on, you will only take orders from His Majesty King Mihai and adjutant general Constantin Sănătescu, the prime minister. And you will go to the Palace following the shortest route. Soon afterwards, adjutant colonel Demeter Dămăceanu phoned the Royal Palace on Victory Road and talked to divisional general Aurel Aldea, the then interior minister of the government led by adjutant general Constantin Sănătescu and told him about my coming there.



    Attending the council convened by the sovereign in the evening of August 23, 1944 was also Vasile Ionescu, the director of the Radio Broadcasting station. The invitation extended to him actually shows that Radio was of strategic importance in the structure of the Romanian state.



    Vasile Ionescu: In the sovereigns office, as from 18:00 hours, on August 23, 1944, for four hours, until 22:05, I witnessed all preparations and formalities consolidating the coup detat given by that time, starting with the arrest of Marshall Antonescu and of his most prominent collaborators, namely professor Mihai Antonescu, Vice-President of the Council of Ministers, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Propaganda; the army corps general Piki Vasiliu, state secretary with the Interior Ministry and general inspector of the gendarmerie; professor George Leseanu, former governor of Transdniester. Radu Lecca, former commissioner of the government with the Central Jewish Office had already been arrested between 15:30-16:00 hours, until the signing of the decree on amnesty, pardoning and dismantling concentration camps, documents presented by Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu.



    Radio Romania has always responded when it was called upon to serve its duty. 90 years on, the public radio service boasts a rich history, which is still in the making.

  • Radio Romania 90

    Radio Romania 90

    Initiated by amateurs and supported by the state, Romanian radiophony was in perfect tune with the times, being a witness of the countrys major historical moments in the inter-war period and trying to respond to its listeners exigencies.



    The first director of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation between 1935 and 1944 was Vasile Ionescu. He witnessed one of the most important political moments in Romanias history, to which the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation had a direct contribution, the act of August 23, 1944 which changed Romanias foreign policy orientation. Romania relinquished the alliance with the Axis led by Germany and joined the United Nations coalition.



    Here is an excerpt from the transcript of an interview with Vasile Ionescu from the archive of the Oral History Centre of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, recorded back in 1974: “The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation which has permanently served the country, since the very beginning, both in times of political and social peace and in times of turmoil for the nation, it has played a decisive role in keeping the public opinion informed, both in Romania and abroad. The Radio was close to the Romanians when His Majesty King Michael, supported by the real representatives of the national will, the generals commanding the big units and the patriots gathered around him in the Palace on Victory Road, led the coup of August 23, 1944. The Radio Broadcasting Corporation contributed to preparing and achieving that historical act.



    On June 6, 1944, Vasile Ionescu was called to Pelisor Castle in Sinaia, to have an audience with King Mihai I. There, he was asked about the coverage area of the national radio stations transmitters and was kindly asked that the broadcast transmitted by Bucharest be received in Cairo, where secret negotiations were carried out to take Romania out of the alliance with Germany. The Antonescu government was negotiating with the Soviets, whereas the Democratic opposition was negotiating with the English and the Americans and therefore the delegates needed information from Romania. Transceivers were installed to secure a line of communication.



    Vasile Ionescu: “We decided to set up a transmitter-reception station in Bucharest, at the Royal Palace on Victory Road, which we called ‘Carpati (‘Carpathians in Romanian) and another one in Sinaia, in the villa belonging to army general Gheorghe Racoviceanu, the kings godfather, and that station was called ‘Bucegi. A third one, called ‘Piatra (‘Stone in Romanian) was to be installed in Predeal, behind Marshall Antonescus villa. We chose that locations believing they were the only places that the Germans didnt dare raid or search, although the short-waves could not be detected by a goniometer due to their special propagation way. In a time frame of only 3 days, these shortwave-transceivers were installed and made available to the users. The ‘Carpaţi station in the Royal Palace in Bucharest was operated by probationary engineer C. Bonifaciu, the ‘Bucegistation based in Sinaia by engineer Gheorghiu Vladimir, and the Piatra station in Predeal, by technician Niculae Davidescu.



    Vasile Ionescus life was intense soon after August 23, 1944, when Romania shifted sides and joined the Allies: “On Wednesday, August 23, 1944, at 17.00 hours I received a phone call from the Military Command of the Capital City, and I received the order to wear a military uniform. I reached the office of the capitals commanding general around 17.30 and very much to my surprise I met there the army corps general Iosif Teodorescu and his chief of staff, adjutant colonel Demeter Dămăceanu wearing civil clothes, although they were professional military. The army corps general Iosif Teodorescu spoke to me and said ‘Director general, from now on, you will only take orders from His Majesty King Mihai and adjutant general Constantin Sănătescu, the prime minister. And you will go to the Palace following the shortest route. Soon afterwards, adjutant colonel Demeter Dămăceanu phoned the Royal Palace on Victory Road and talked to divisional general Aurel Aldea, the then interior minister of the government led by adjutant general Constantin Sănătescu and told him about my coming there.



    Attending the council convened by the sovereign in the evening of August 23, 1944 was also Vasile Ionescu, the director of the Radio Broadcasting station. The invitation extended to him actually shows that Radio was of strategic importance in the structure of the Romanian state.



    Vasile Ionescu: In the sovereigns office, as from 18:00 hours, on August 23, 1944, for four hours, until 22:05, I witnessed all preparations and formalities consolidating the coup detat given by that time, starting with the arrest of Marshall Antonescu and of his most prominent collaborators, namely professor Mihai Antonescu, Vice-President of the Council of Ministers, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Propaganda; the army corps general Piki Vasiliu, state secretary with the Interior Ministry and general inspector of the gendarmerie; professor George Leseanu, former governor of Transdniester. Radu Lecca, former commissioner of the government with the Central Jewish Office had already been arrested between 15:30-16:00 hours, until the signing of the decree on amnesty, pardoning and dismantling concentration camps, documents presented by Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu.



    Radio Romania has always responded when it was called upon to serve its duty. 90 years on, the public radio service boasts a rich history, which is still in the making.

  • The Galati Massacre

    The Galati Massacre

    The Soviet Union called on Romania to give up Bessarabia, saying it was its own territory, seized by Romania in 1918, and also asked for the northern part of Bukovina as compensation. The requests were by all means absurd, as Bessarabia had united with Romania benefiting from the right of self-determination granted by the Bolshevik revolution to the peoples in tsarist Russia and in full compliance with the will of the Romanians there.



    The Soviets allowed only two days for the withdrawal of the Romanian military and civil authorities from Bessarabia, and that created tension and confusion among Romanians. That confusion also led to a massacre in Galati, committed against a group of people, many of whom were Jews. Historians say that the episode was yet another manifestation of the hatred and violence that Europe was struggling with in the late 1930s. Historian Adrian Cioflanca, the Director of the Center for the Research on Romanian Jewry, placed the massacre of June 30th, 1940, against the background of the loss of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.



    Adrian Cioflanca: “The loss of the territories in 1940 was a consequence of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and what is interesting is that the two ultimatums given by the Soviets also triggered an interesting episode, which also played a role during the pogrom in Dorohoi, a day after the massacre in Galati. The Romanian Minister to Moscow Gheorghe Davidescu did not want to accept the map with the delimitations made by the Soviets. That refusal created an even bigger confusion in the northern part of Romania, because the Dorohoi officials did not know whether the Soviets would stop before entering the city or would enter the city. Panic did play a role in creating the tension that led to the pogrom of July 1st. The same happened in Galati, as the reports written by the intelligence services show. According to rumors carried by the Bessarabian refugees, the Galati was about to be occupied by Soviets. That panic occurred because no clear information was disseminated as to where the Soviets would stop.”



    The reports drawn up by the Interior Ministry mention the chaos created during the withdrawal, when burglaries were committed, Jews were thrown from trains and people were executed without trial. Archives also mention the humiliation that the Romanian army was subjected to during the withdrawal. Officers were demoted, soldiers spit at and hit; some of them were even killed. Against that background, the massacre in Galati was reported in a very dry tone. The report was that there had been a communist attack organized in the railway station area and therefore the military intervention was justified. Besides the anti-Semitic feelings back then, Adrian Cioflanca mentioned as one of the causes of the massacre the panic crated by the quick movement of the Soviet army and the hate displayed by some of the locals.



    Adrian Cioflanca: “Another thing that would explain the panic was the Soviets’ advance which was faster than provided in the military offensive plan for northern Bukovina and Bessarabia. The Romanian troops were poorly equipped and used mainly horses and carriages or even walked, and so they were quickly caught up by the Soviet mechanized units or by paratroopers. On June 29th, the Soviets had already occupied Reni and Bolhrad, when the Romanian troops were still in the central parts of Bessarabia. That added to the panic among the refuges, because the entire convoy of refugees was caught in the Bolhrad station, and several ships had been intercepted in the port of Reni. Seeing the newly instated authorities, some of the locals engaged in robberies and started criticizing the Romanian authorities. The Soviets stopped the train and that enhanced the panic. All fears, rumors, false information carried by word of mouth reached Galati and hence the tension escalated.”



    Back then Galati was a place where refugees from Bessarabia were crossing to Romania over the River Prut, while from the other side some were trying to get to the Soviet-occupied Bessarabia. The groups of refugees would gather in the railway station area and the local authorities managed in a very short period of time to set up a border-crossing point. Once established, the authorities decided to set up a border checkpoint for those who wanted to leave Romania. A sort of a camp was built in the field, to gather those who wanted to cross the border into the USSR, guarded by a navy squad. Following a conflict between a family and a navy soldier, the latter fired a warning fire, and the camp’s security thought it was an attack. So an order was issued to start fire against the people in the camp; the outcome was hundreds of dead, including many Jews. The Galati massacre was the tragic outcome of a mix of hate, rumors and accident. (Translated by M. Ignarescu, edited by D. Vijeu)

  • The Germans in Romania after 1945

    The Germans in Romania after 1945

    All countries, either winners or losers, tried to rebound in terms of demography and economy, after having been ravaged by a 6-year war. After the Jews, exterminated by the millions in Nazi concentration camps, the Germans were the most affected. Held guilty of all horrors of the war, they paid a high price under all aspects — economic, human and social.



    The Germans in Romania, known as Transylvanian Saxons and Swabians, just like all other German communities in Central and Eastern Europe, suffered a great deal. During communist Romania, Transylvanian Saxons and Swabians who did not die in the line of duty, the ones who escaped deportation to the USSR and the few who returned from the USSR chose to flee to the Federal Republic of Germany. During the communist regime, between 1945 and 1989, there was a constant German exodus that led to their near disappearance from Romania. This exodus can be explained through the FRG’s policy towards Germans in Central and Eastern Europe on the one hand and the Romanian communist state’s plan to take advantage of the German policy in order to make money.



    Sociologist Remus Anghel studies migration at the National Institute for the Study of National Minorities in Cluj Napoca. He co-authored a book on the history of the German community in Romania starting 1930.



    Remus Anghel: “The Germans’ Associations in Romania played a role in convincing the German government to initiate the program of helping ethnic Germans in Romania in the sense of offering the Romanian government compensations. In fact, there was a precedent for this strategy, set by the Jewish government, who had a series of deals with the Romanian government in order to ease the Jewish people’s migration from Romania. We, in Romania, have the tendency to understand things related to the Romanian context by analyzing them only through the Romanian context. In fact, this is not the right approach. The 20th Century history of Germans in Romania is tightly connected to two essential moments and two essential personalities, namely Hitler and Stalin. Just like all other Germans in Central and Eastern Europe, the Germans in Romania were caught in the middle, between the expansion of Nazi Germany, the war and its consequences”.



    After the war, some 12 million Germans from Central and Eastern Europe had to seek refuge to Federal Germany. Almost 1 million of them died on the way. This was a collective drama in West Germany, which became aware of its guilt and initiated a policy of responsibility.



    Remus Anghel says that the relocation of Romanian Germans was somehow predictable even since the war: “During the war and in its aftermath there was a policy in support of the German migration. Living in a communist country, we were unaware of this policy, as all we knew was that Romania had several German communities. But almost 40% of the Swabians from Banat either fled or died in the war. In fact, young people either enrolled with the German army or the SS, they either died or they went directly to Germany. German populations in Dobruja, Bukovina, Bessarabia and Wallachia were relocated by the German government in the 1940s, first to Poland then to Germany. In the interwar period, the German community in Romania numbered 750 thousand, while after the war their number dropped to around 300 thousand.”



    After 1989 Romanian historians talked about the German migration in terms of their “selling’. According to testimonies made by people who emigrated, the amount that a German had to pay was around 5 to 15 thousand Deutsche Marks (DM). Many of the people who tried to cross the border illegally, as they did not have the money to buy their way out of the country, were killed.



    Remus Anghel: “The ‘selling’ phenomenon must be analyzed from two perspectives. The first one is the German perspective, according to which it was their duty to help bring their people to Germany. The idea was not to bring the Germans from the East in order to use them as labor force, because Germany could have got it from anywhere else, which they did. The German ethnics from Romania suffered more than the Romanians, the Hungarians and other people during communism, as almost every family had a least one deported member, in particular men and women in the 18-45 age bracket. This was a social drama that most of us were unaware of. This drama uprooted them, made them feel alienated. For Germany, paying for the Saxons and Swabians was a sort of compensatory act. For Romania, it was an incorrect policy. Actually, the formal understanding was concealing an informal one. After 1977 there were many emigration applications, with quotas set at 10 to 15 thousand, so not big quotas. When a German submitted an emigration application a whole administrative process started, that included losing one’s job and selling one’s house at a very small price. It was a painful process. In fact, it was a sort of extortion of Germans and of the German state. In my opinion, the problem was not the money, but the way in which people were treated.”



    With the German migration, Romania lost some of its ethnic diversity, but for the Germans who went to Germany, the place where they wanted to be, it was better. (Translated by E. Enache, edited by D. Vijeu)

  • The search for the perfect Romanian

    The search for the perfect Romanian

    Racism, eugenics, blood, language, culture and religion, these all formed the ideological arsenal of Nazism. However, in the cultural and scientific context of the first half of the 20th century, these concepts, taken separately, were used to look for confirmations of the differences between ethnic communities and nations. Ethnic research wanted to discover the essential elements of the nation.



    In the first decades of the 20th century, Romanias ethnic science representatives were looking for the ideal Romanian, but that scientific trend was actually a European trend. Biology, anthropology and medicine experts joined hands in this grandiose project and came up with solutions which todays science would regard with stupefaction. Physicians were the ones to set the basis for this ethnic research, the most outstanding personalities in the field being Gheorghe Popoviciu, Francisc Rainer, Olga Necrasov, O. C. Lecca, Ion Chelcea and Iordache Făcăoaru.



    Historian Marius Turda is teaching history of race at the Oxford Brooks University and has had several books published on this theme. He presented the European cultural and ideological context in which the ethnic science emerged and developed in Romania.



    Marius Turda: “We are talking about Greater Romania, a state surrounded by countries that were claiming Romanian territories. Those were difficult times for the Romanian state and there were these people, in almost all domains of knowledge, who were trying to keep the country united. They had achieved Greater Romania which had to be populated with Romanians. There were regions and cities where the Romanians did not form the majority. On the one hand, a way had to be found to strengthen the Romanian presence, to encourage Romanians to have a large family with many healthy children. On the other hand, a way had also to be found to identify who these Romanians were, especially in the areas where their Romanian ethnicity was not clear from a linguistic and cultural point of view.



    At one point, the ethnic science seemed to have found the essential elements of a nation: blood and race traits. Marius Turda says that the two benefited from all the attention of Romanian physicians, anthropologists and biologists.



    Marius Turda: “The anthropological science, as it was defined in the 1920s, could prove, based on the analysis of blood type and race traits or physical traits that certain persons belonged to certain groups that could be easily identified, beyond any doubt. Lets take language, for instance. It can be easily acquired and very many people can declare themselves Romanians or Hungarians if they speak Romanian or Hungarian. But if they belong to an ethnic group from a racial, cultural or linguistic point of view, they cannot change that reality. These traits pointed to the origin of individuals, of their family, of their place of origin, as they preserved that specificity of blood type or race area. Especially in the 1930s, this became a frequent argument for finding the essence of the Romanian, for defining the Romanian. He could be defined from a linguistic, cultural and religious point of view, but the missing element was what a Romanian looked like. One had to find those physical traits that made a Romanian different from a Greek or a German. It was easy for scientists to differentiate the Romanian from the German, but they found it difficult to do so in the case of Greeks and Bulgarians, as differences were minimal.



    Marius Turda tell us whether or not race research highlighted the biological unity of Romanians: “Few pushed the race argument as far as to create different ethnic Romanian zones within Greater Romania. However, this did happen, but in relation to another two different aspects, namely the Dacian – Roman continuity and then the Romanian continuity in Transylvania. They went to great lengths to prove the existence of a Romanian ethno-racial nucleus in Transylvania in order to fight the Hungarian and immigration theories about Transylvania. A lot had been written about the differences between the Romanians in Transylvania and those in Moldavia and Wallachia. The Romanians in Transylvania belonged to the race groups that were predominant in Central and Western Europe, while those in Moldavia and Wallachia, especially in Dobrogea, belonged to the race groups specific to the Balkans, that were greatly influenced by the Asian invasions, the Tartar and Turkish occupations and by the Greeks. Also, the issue of regions superiority was raised, and the answer to that is easy to give: Transylvania was identified as having the most numerous Romanian traits, the region that had preserved the Romanian traits in the most pure form, as the Romanians there had not mingled very much with foreigners, since they were living in the mountains.



    But what did the perfect Romanian look like? Marius Turda: “Lots of research was made on the Moti people of Transylvania, not only because Avram Iancu, a hero of the 1848 revolution in Transylvania, who was one of them, was from that region and was a symbol of the fight against the Hungarians, but also because they had lived rather isolated, and, according to the anthropological theory, groups could be identified that had lived isolated for a long time. They said that the typical Romanian was the one from the Apuseni Mountains. So, there was also a linguistic unity, despite the fact that in the 1930s regionalisms were very much used. Identification of the perfect Romanian from a religious point of view was more difficult then than it is now, because there used to be more Greek-Catholic Romanians in Transylvania and Maramures as well as reformed Romanians.



    The perfect Romanian was a scientific fantasy of an epoch when rationalism still dominated society, just like in the previous and subsequent epochs. Like in many other cases, science was simply wrong.(Translated by L. Simion; edited by D. Vijeu)

  • Romania and the Africa Offensive

    Romania and the Africa Offensive

    After WWII, this process, and the movements for national liberation on the Dark Continent, resulted in the appearance on the world’s map of many states and nations that had been largely unknown. Against this background, Romania was itself among the countries that formed foreign policy ties with the newly emerged African nations.



    The decolonization and freeing of Africa also meant an attempt to change the world. Africa was caught between the two great social, political, and economic systems, capitalism and communism. Africa wanted to find its own way between the East and the West, a third path specific to its development. While the old countries were looking to maintain their influence, the USSR and communist states were trying to wedge their way into the vacuum left by the former colonial powers.



    Romania went on the offensive in Africa in the early 1970s, and it constituted one of the major foreign policy directions of Ceausescu’s regime. Romania, along other European countries, had a good image: it had no colonial past, had never owned a piece of Africa, and had a planned Socialist economy. North Africa was the first to which the regime looked, for two reasons: first of all because Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt had a solid Francophone tradition, just like Romania did; at the same time, the region was closer. The first bilateral contacts were established by a few visits.



    Domnica Gorovei, a professor with the Bucharest University School of Political Science, provided us with a short history of Ceausescu’s tours of Africa starting in the 1970s: “The first country he visited on the African continent was Morocco, in 1970. Starting in 1972, he took several tours of Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, then Sub-Saharan countries like Sudan, the Central African Republic, Congo, Zaire, Tanzania and Zambia. One year later, in 1973, there followed Senegal, once again Morocco, as well as Algeria. In 1974 he went to Liberia and Guinea, then in 1977 he toured West Africa: Mauritania, Senegal once again, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria. Then followed visits in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1988. Every time he visited at least five countries. For instance, Egypt was visited eight times, it was one of the main partners on the African continent.



    In order to understand Romania’s foreign policy in Africa, one must understand the international context. Africa was a battleground between communism and capitalism.



    Domnica Gorovei: “What was the context for Ceausescu’s approach to African states? Obviously, it was the Cold War. As we know, each side sought ideological support in the new African states in order to tip the scales in its favor. The rivalry between the two great blocs came on top of the attempts by old colonial powers to maintain influence. There was an advantage for African leaders who knew how to take advantage of the situation. The relation between the West and the Soviet world, between Africa and communism, has to be seen from the perspective of soft power, defined as a competition between two states to gain advantage, not by coercive means, but by political attractiveness. The main lines of Ceausescu’s policies in Africa had a strong ideological connotation under the form of defending peace and security. We noticed that in the 1980s, the ideas that African leaders had reflected to an extent Ceausescu’s rhetoric, his ‘wooden language. In fact, they adapted very quickly to the interlocutor. As for ‘wooden language’, it supported the anti-imperialist national liberation movements, the movements against colonialism, for peace and collaboration between peoples. I think that this last phrase is a synthesis of Ceausescu’s foreign policy.



    Romania offered economic assistance, engaged in major projects such as electrical dams, and also sold technology, such as exporting tractors to Egypt. However, this economic assistance took the form typical of communist policy.



    Domnica Gorovei: “They tried during those times to find a Romanian alternative for Africa, in opposition to the neo-colonial behavior of the East and the West. Obviously, we find in this discourse references to democratizing international relations. This is a communist idea. For instance, we find strong support for the liberation of the colonies that were still Portuguese colonies. We also find an engagement against the segregationist regime in the south of the continent. There is also the trade union movement that fought for workers from African states, not just in industry, but they also tried to individually help workers from countries that had started to industrialize.



    Romania’s offensive in Africa continued unabashed until 1989. In addition to economic assistance, relations between Romania and African states also meant having Africans study in Romanian universities, mixed marriages and cultural exchanges. North African countries have remained the most consistent African presence in Romania, with a veritable tradition in bilateral exchanges. After 1989, Romania’s relations with Africa have been shrinking, and it looks like they are being redefined.

  • The Romanian Jews in WWI

    The Romanian Jews in WWI

    The ethnic minorities of Romania, prior to 1918, also joined the effort of building Greater Romania, and ethnic Jews were making up one of those communities. Without enjoying rights, many enrolled in the army, participated as front nurses in the war or through charity work have made the war a lighter burden. At the end of the war, they received Romanian citizenship, concurrently with all the rights granted by a democratic state.



    The history of Jewish participation in the big moments of Romania’s modern history starts with the 1877-1878 Independence War. In that war, the Jews served as soldiers and officers, doctors and nurses, on the battlefield and behind the frontlines, in hospitals and wherever they were needed to alleviate the pain of those injured and to treat their wounds. In the assault on the Grivita stronghold, mounted by the unit led by captain-hero Valter Mărăcineanu, the Jew Mauriciu Brociner lost his life in the line of duty, just like Valter Maracineanu himself and other heroes. Historian Marius Popescu from the Centre of the History of Jews in Romania says the ultimate sacrifice paid by Brociner is not a singular case. In the Second Balkan War of 1913, the Romanian army was also made up of Jewish military such as captain Armin Iaslovici, lieutenant in the war of 1877-1878, and major in 1916, at the start of the Great War.



    Marius Popescu says the participation of Romanian Jews in WWI is comparable to that of the other Jewish minorities in the European countries: ”In the Old Kingdom, the Jewish population amounted to 230,000 people, 23,000 of them being mobilised, accounting for 10% of the total Jewish population. The figure is similar to that registered in other countries which had Jewish minorities, where the same percentage of Jews contributed to the war. Of the total number of Jews who contributed to the war, 882 died, 825 got injured, 449 were taken prisoner and 3,043 went missing. So, it was quite a big mobilisation.”



    In their turn, Jewish civilians have also written incredible pages of heroism in the war. One such story occurred in the end of 1916, when Romania was under German occupation. Marius Popescu: ”As a case-study I would like to mention a hero, who was decorated post-mortem, namely Herman Kornhauser. He was in Târgovişte in the month of December 1916 and he procured foodstuffs and civilian clothes to help the Romanians who had been taken prisoner by the Germans and sent to German camps. He even facilitated the escape of some prisoners from those camps, but he was caught by the German occupation authorities, sentenced to death and executed. He was decorated post-mortem the Medal of Military Virtue, Second Class. This was not a unique case. Just like Kornhauser, many others made acts of heroism and bravery. He was decorated post-mortem with the War Medal of Military Virtue, 2nd class. That was not a single act, there were many other heroic acts like Kornhauser’s.”



    The Jewish communities got fully involved in Romania’s war effort starting in 1916. Their effort became more intense in 1917 when the authorities had taken refuge in Moldavia and the Romanian and Russian armies were fighting the Central Powers in the Carpathians and the Siret river line. Marius Popescu is back at the microphone with details: “Besides their direct involvement in the war, the Jewish communities also acted behind the front line, providing their thorough support for the country’s war effort. They also had a material contribution. During the war, a relief committee of the Union of Local Jews was set up, which had branches across the entire country. The committee was in charge of collecting assets and money as war relief. It cooperated with other institutions such as the Red Cross, the Fighters’ Family, the ‘Regina Maria’ (Queen Marie) hospital networks and many others. The Jewish community got fully involved in the war effort. They put at the disposal of the Romanian army the Jewish synagogues and schools, the entire network of Jewish community institutions. What’s worth mentioning is that, during the war, the Jews were not Romanian citizens. These people did take up arms and fought along the Romanians.”



    The instatement of peace did not mean that hardships had come to an end. Marius Popescu will tell us next how some of the Jews got involved in the reconstruction process: “Substantial sums of money were granted individually. For instance, a very rich Jewish industry owner in Botoşani county, Frederic Costiner, donated 20 thousand lei to help the relatives of the villagers killed in the war buy land. He was a local philanthropist and this is how he showed his gratitude and respect for the victims of the war. Many Jews made such donations before peasants started being granted plots of land according to the 1923 Constitution.”



    King Ferdinand I was the one who recognized the Jewish community’s loyalty to the Romanian state: “At the end of the war, King Ferdinand made a very important declaration. He said that he had had the intuition that all the inhabitants of Romania, irrespective of their ethnicity and origin, were animated by the same noble feelings of fraternity. This declaration was a sort of acknowledgement of the merits of all those who had participated in or had given a helping hand to the reunification war.”



    A final recognition act was the abrogation of article 7 in the 1866 Constitution. The Constitution of Greater Romania of 1923 granted rights to all of Romania’s citizens, irrespective of their religion.

  • 70 years since the abdication of King Michael I

    70 years since the abdication of King Michael I

    The former sovereign spoke many times of the day that changed the history of contemporary Romania, the day when the communist leaders presented him with abdication as a fait accompli. Many other testimonials described the heavy atmosphere that day, prefiguring the brutality of the regime that was to come. One of the testimonials was provided by sub-lieutenant Milos Pavel of the Royal Guard Battalion, who commanded the last honour guard procession for the king, on December 30, 1947.



    The Royal Guard Battalion was under the Ministry of National Defence, just as any other unit. The officers had the same pay as the rest, but their parade uniforms were special. The battalion had four companies, two for each royal residence, one in Bucharest and another one in Sinaia. Each company had around 100 troops, divided into three platoons. The battalion carried small infantry arms.



    In a 1997 interview with Radio Romania’s Centre for Oral History, Milos Pavel recalled the process to be admitted into the Guard Battalion: “The officers admitted into this elite unit of the Romanian armed forces were selected based on their results in military academy, especially if they had graduated from foreign schools. Others qualified on merit in their military activity elsewhere in the country. Social origin did not play a role in the selection. I was born into a peasant family, and the three comrades from my class who were assigned there were middle class, clerks and merchants. The social criterion had no meaning whatsoever. However, what was mandatory was having good results in school and certain physical traits: being over 1.80 m in height and pleasant features, since the guard was part of protocol missions.



    In the autumn of 1947, the company on guard at Peles Castle in Sinaia was commanded by Captain Mihail Georgel. Milos Pavel was in charge of one of the platoons on December 30, 1947, and was supposed to be replaced by an officer who had gone on Christmas leave: “On the morning of December 30, 1947, at 8:30, I was the last guard officer at Peles Castle who had the great honour to present arms to their majesties, King Michael and Queen Mother Elena, as they left for Bucharest, as protocol dictated. At noon that day I handed over the guard shift to the comrade returning from Christmas leave, and prepared to leave to celebrate New Year’s Eve with my parents and siblings in a village in Ramnicu Sarat county. In order to get my pay, however, I had to go to the Victoria Palace guard headquarters in Bucharest, where the treasury was. Around 1:00 PM I left for Bucharest, hitching a ride on a Palace administration truck transporting civilian personnel and supplies between residences.



    The communist government replaced the royal guard with units of the Tudor Vladimirescu division, recruited from among former Romanian prisoners taken by the USSR on the eastern front.



    Milos Pavel recalls his arrest when he got to Bucharest: “The weather was bad, it was winter, it was biting cold and foggy, especially in the mountains. The traffic was terrible, and we got to Bucharest around 4:00 PM, and wanted to go into Victoria Palace through the back entrance. While travelling, we had no sign whatsoever that something major had occurred in the life and history of the Romanian people. The gate was normally manned by a soldier from the Bucharest guard company, who knew the markings on all the palace guard vehicles, usually saying SR, Royal Service. Now, however, we were met by a couple of guards armed and clad like Russian soldiers, except they spoke Romanian and on their left arm they wore bands of the Tudor Vladimirescu Division, the mark of treason and shame. That was the astral moment when my spirit and being were pierced as if by a bolt of lightning issued from the tense atmosphere that reigned over everything that autumn. The inevitable had occurred, and we went into the unknown. The civilians in Victoria Palace were escorted to administration, and I, as an officer of the guard, was led to headquarters. Here I met some of my comrades, officers in the Guard Battalion, who had been caught there by events. They were all under arrest, having been disarmed, held in the officer quarters, while the soldiers, also disarmed, were held in their dormitories.



    Thus fell the monarchy, the last bastion of Romanian democracy facing the onslaught of the communist regime. After a while, people got resigned to the situation, and started a new life, in line with the times.

  • Ionel Bratianu (1864-1927)

    Ionel Bratianu (1864-1927)

    Ionel Bratianu was the eldest son of Ion C. Bratianu, one of the leaders of the 1848 Revolution in the Romanian Principalities and a politician who played a key role in the construction of modern Romania. He was born in 1864 and, just like his father, was trained as an engineer. He studied in France and got a degree in highway engineering. He went into politics at the age of 35, joined the National Liberal Party, and was a prime minister five times, which is the largest number of terms in office for a prime minister in the history of Romania. A Francophile, Ionel Bratianu was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Romania joining the French-British Entente in World War I.


    Radio Romanias Oral History Centre has a recording of Alexandru Danielopol, a law professional and diplomat, who met Bratianu as a child. The interview was recorded in 1995: “I am a member of the Bratianu family and I am proud of this. I was brought up in the spirit of this family, and I can tell you that the head of the family was not Ionel Bratianu, but Sabina Cantacuzino. She was the eldest child of Ion Bratianu, and she was a very smart person but also a very authoritative figure, and most people would do what she said. In fact, twice a year Sabina Cantacuzino would give dinners at her house, and no matter what everybody else was doing they all took part in these dinners. There was Ionel Bratianu, there were also his brothers Vintila and Dinu. I met Ionel Bratianu when I was a child. He and my father were very close, and my father tried to mediate between Gheorghe Bratianu, his first born son, and Ionel, but there was nothing he could do.



    The formation of Greater Romania in 1918 offered Ionel Bratianu a huge level of public confidence and respect. Danielopol remembers an illustrative episode: “Ionel Bratianu was a man who fully capitalized on his standing. Let me tell you something that Ive seen from my window. One day, a group of protesters showed up, which was rather unusual in those times. They were booing, shouting, carrying banners, making all sorts of noises and so on. Uniformed policemen were present as well, with batons, but the strikers were not doing anything, they were just standing there in a semicircle up to Bratianus door, shouting. And out comes Bratianu, wearing a hat and a long fur coat. Without uttering a word, only with a wave of his hand, as if saying, ‘Let me through, he went out and everybody just stepped back in silence. It was just like in the Bible, with Moses parting the Red Sea waters. Bratianu reached the gate, turned around and told them, ‘Now leave, youre boring me! That is all he said, he didnt ask them what they wanted, what he could do for them, anything. He just passed through them like a ghost, or a saint, and everybody kept quiet. He slammed the doors behind him, as if to make a point. People just rushed away, there was no need for police intervention or anything. Thats what Ionel Bratianu was like!



    Bratianu was also a man of culture, and nowadays his house in Bucharest hosts the Bratianu Cultural Centre. Alexandru Danielopol “Ionel Bratianu was an engineer, and a very good one, I must say. Before going into politics, he took part in the Cernavoda bridge construction works, as a young engineer. But while in Paris, he would spend much of his time at the National Library. He had connections there and he would check out books and read for nights. His outstanding knowledge was equaled by his love for Romania. And he was very determined to bring Romanian topics and themes to the forefront of the Romanian-French relations. It was because of Bratianu that we had fought on the side of France in the Great War, and he said not enough was being written about Romania, about the history of Romania. He had found some manuscripts at the National Library of France, with a story about the connections between Wallachia and France under Louis XIV, I dont remember exactly. And he would show this manuscript everywhere. While in Paris he also had time to go to museums, libraries and so on, and his bookcase in Bucharest comprised a complete collection of everything he had found as a student in France. He also loved arts, Romanian traditional art in particular. His house was full of paintings by important artists, and lots of other artifacts. But in his room he kept small items, such as a cross with an inscription in Cyrillic script. He kept it next to his bed, and my father told me he died looking at this cross.



    Ionel Bratianu was a man of his time, whose intuition enabled him to guess the direction the world was moving in. He was the politician that any country would like to have.

  • Ionel Bratianu (1864-1927)

    Ionel Bratianu (1864-1927)

    Ionel Bratianu was the eldest son of Ion C. Bratianu, one of the leaders of the 1848 Revolution in the Romanian Principalities and a politician who played a key role in the construction of modern Romania. He was born in 1864 and, just like his father, was trained as an engineer. He studied in France and got a degree in highway engineering. He went into politics at the age of 35, joined the National Liberal Party, and was a prime minister five times, which is the largest number of terms in office for a prime minister in the history of Romania. A Francophile, Ionel Bratianu was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Romania joining the French-British Entente in World War I.


    Radio Romanias Oral History Centre has a recording of Alexandru Danielopol, a law professional and diplomat, who met Bratianu as a child. The interview was recorded in 1995: “I am a member of the Bratianu family and I am proud of this. I was brought up in the spirit of this family, and I can tell you that the head of the family was not Ionel Bratianu, but Sabina Cantacuzino. She was the eldest child of Ion Bratianu, and she was a very smart person but also a very authoritative figure, and most people would do what she said. In fact, twice a year Sabina Cantacuzino would give dinners at her house, and no matter what everybody else was doing they all took part in these dinners. There was Ionel Bratianu, there were also his brothers Vintila and Dinu. I met Ionel Bratianu when I was a child. He and my father were very close, and my father tried to mediate between Gheorghe Bratianu, his first born son, and Ionel, but there was nothing he could do.



    The formation of Greater Romania in 1918 offered Ionel Bratianu a huge level of public confidence and respect. Danielopol remembers an illustrative episode: “Ionel Bratianu was a man who fully capitalized on his standing. Let me tell you something that Ive seen from my window. One day, a group of protesters showed up, which was rather unusual in those times. They were booing, shouting, carrying banners, making all sorts of noises and so on. Uniformed policemen were present as well, with batons, but the strikers were not doing anything, they were just standing there in a semicircle up to Bratianus door, shouting. And out comes Bratianu, wearing a hat and a long fur coat. Without uttering a word, only with a wave of his hand, as if saying, ‘Let me through, he went out and everybody just stepped back in silence. It was just like in the Bible, with Moses parting the Red Sea waters. Bratianu reached the gate, turned around and told them, ‘Now leave, youre boring me! That is all he said, he didnt ask them what they wanted, what he could do for them, anything. He just passed through them like a ghost, or a saint, and everybody kept quiet. He slammed the doors behind him, as if to make a point. People just rushed away, there was no need for police intervention or anything. Thats what Ionel Bratianu was like!



    Bratianu was also a man of culture, and nowadays his house in Bucharest hosts the Bratianu Cultural Centre. Alexandru Danielopol “Ionel Bratianu was an engineer, and a very good one, I must say. Before going into politics, he took part in the Cernavoda bridge construction works, as a young engineer. But while in Paris, he would spend much of his time at the National Library. He had connections there and he would check out books and read for nights. His outstanding knowledge was equaled by his love for Romania. And he was very determined to bring Romanian topics and themes to the forefront of the Romanian-French relations. It was because of Bratianu that we had fought on the side of France in the Great War, and he said not enough was being written about Romania, about the history of Romania. He had found some manuscripts at the National Library of France, with a story about the connections between Wallachia and France under Louis XIV, I dont remember exactly. And he would show this manuscript everywhere. While in Paris he also had time to go to museums, libraries and so on, and his bookcase in Bucharest comprised a complete collection of everything he had found as a student in France. He also loved arts, Romanian traditional art in particular. His house was full of paintings by important artists, and lots of other artifacts. But in his room he kept small items, such as a cross with an inscription in Cyrillic script. He kept it next to his bed, and my father told me he died looking at this cross.



    Ionel Bratianu was a man of his time, whose intuition enabled him to guess the direction the world was moving in. He was the politician that any country would like to have.