Radio România Internațional

Tag: history

  • Bucharest’s historical monuments

    Bucharest’s historical monuments

    Around the early years of that century, Bucharest was a Middle Eastern looking city, without monuments. Western travellers saw it as lacking in modern culture and quality of life. As of the 19th century, each generation started the tradition of immortalizing in monuments its best moments and people.



    Museum expert Petre Buiumaci, with the Bucharest Municipal Museum, told us about the evolution of monuments, including those that no longer stand:

    “In Piata Vorniciei, where the Museum of Art Collections stands today on Victory Boulevard, a statue representing free Romania stood, a statue designed by Constantin Daniel Rosenthal, described in a daily of the time as a Pheme with a robe and wearing a laurel wreath over flowing locks of hair, still wearing on its wrists the shackles that bound it that far. In one hand it bears a crosier, and in the other it holds a scales, symbol of faith and justice. One foot crushes enemies, represented by a snake. This first statue of Bucharest did not last even five days, because Kaimakam Emanoil Baleanu, for fear of a Russian-Turkish intervention, declared the restoration of the Organic Regulations and ordered it destroyed. In that particular daily, C.A. Rosetti describes that action as such: ‘The statue representing Romania Saved, with the symbol of justice and Christianity, the scales and the cross, was demolished by order of Emanoil Baleanu, whose act of vandalism was accompanied by words so crass and worldly that our pen would not mar paper with. Similarly was demolished the plinth, throwing to the wind all regard to private property.’ Therefore this monument had an ephemeral existence, though it was meant to last for ages.



    Today’s Victory Boulevard, or Mogosoaia Bridge, as it was known back then, was for a long time the place where people placed public monuments in Bucharest. Here is Cezar Buiumaci once again:

    “Right upfront the newly erected Athenaeum we can find the Eagle Column by sculptor Storck, moved here by Mayor Pache Protopopescu in a square on the new boulevard, where it was not to stay for much longer, because in 1903 they unveiled the statue of Rosetti. In the front of the Athenaeum for a brief time they put Alfred Boucher’s ‘Runners’, which was replaced by a statue of the national poet Eminescu. They got shifted to Victory Boulevard. The Eagle Column went to Queen Marie Plaza, where it stayed until 1977, when it was lost. The Athenaeum Garden had monuments on the right and the left, which got moved to Cismigiu. It is about that time that Ienachita Vacarescu’s statue got lost.



    Museum expert Cezar Petre Buiumaci described the changes underwent by the Victory Road, especially the place that used to be known as Piata Tricolor (Flag Square):

    On Victory Road, on the site of the old Sarindar Monastery, when Emperor Franz Joseph visited the place in 1896, they built the so-called Fountain of Peace, a beautiful fountain that unfortunately did not last. Shortly after that, the Military Club was built on that location, and Onofrei proposed a monument to Nicolae Filipescu to be built. Then the municipality wanted to build a monument reminiscent to the Sarindar Fountain, and they built another fountain, which can be still seen there, in the so-called Tricolor Plaza.



    The Triumphal Arch of Bucharest also has a history of transformations, according to Cezar Buiumaci:

    “A Triumphal Gate was proposed for the coronation of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie. Architect Petre Antonescu wanted to build it in less than a year. The arch, as it stands, is built on a concrete frame, but the ornamentation is made of plaster. Antonescu used several famous sculptors for the decorations. The soldiers depicted there were five and a half meters tall, there are eight of them, four on each leg of the arch. Storck made the Romanian soldier, Spathe made the Dacian soldier, Medrea made Mircea the Old’s soldier, Stephen the Great’s soldier was made by Paciurea, Michael the Brave’s soldier was made by Alexandru Severin, Tudor Vladimirescu’s pandur (soldier) was made by Jalea, the Independence War soldier was made by Ion Iordanescu, the soldier from the Great War was made by Dumitru Mataoanu. Alexandru Calinescu created the effigies of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie over the arch, the only elements of the arch today that remain, which are now decaying, because state institutions are passing the buck on them, from the Ministry of Culture to City Hall, from the Commission of Historical Monuments to the Ministry of Public Works, from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Defence. Even though money had been earmarked for its restoration, it was getting dilapidated, and thanks to King Carol II we have a new Triumphal Arch, inaugurated in 1936.



  • Alba Carolina Fortress

    Alba Carolina Fortress

    A thriving city during the Roman rule, a former capital of Transylvania, where the union of the Romanian provinces was proclaimed, and the place which saw the coronation of Romanias first sovereign, Alba Iulia has for centuries been a major cultural and historical centre. The city is also a tourist attraction, thanks, among other things, to the recently refurbished Carolina fortress. The citadel is famous for its gates, particularly its main one, resembling a triumphal arch, which has long been identified with the citys image. Here is Liviu Zgarciu, a historian with the National Museum of the Union based in Alba Iulia.



    Liviu Zgarciu: “Shortly after Dacias conquest by the Romans in 106 CE, on the plateau where the Alba Carolina citadel lies nowadays, emperor Trajan decided to build a castrum as permanent headquarters of the Roman XIII Legion Gemina. The city of Apulum developed around that Roman castrum, and soon became the largest settlement in the Roman Dacia, with 30 thousand inhabitants in the early third century. The city was still inhabited even after the pullout of the Roman troops during emperor Aurelian. The former castrum was turned into a medieval fortress known as the city of Balgrad. In the 16th century, after 1541, when Alba Iulia became the capital of the principality of Transylvania, the city continued to develop and had two more bastions added, the bastion of the Transylvanian Saxons and the Bethlen Bastion, both of which can be still seen today.



    After Transylvania became part of Austria-Hungary, in early 18th century, it became clear that a strong fortified city was needed in the region. As a result, Alba Carolina was built on the site of the Balgrad city, after the model made famous by the French military engineer Vauban, an irregular star-shaped heptagon with seven bastions. Here is more from historian Liviu Zgarciu.



    Liviu Zgarciu: “The works started in November 1715, and last year the city celebrated 300 years since its foundation was laid. It was a large-scale construction work, initially coordinated by an Italian architect, Giovani Morandi Visconti. Local labour force was employed and 20 thousand peasants worked on the site for 23 years, from 1715 until 1738. Its interior is defended by 7 bastions, each bearing the name of a historical figure. It was built after the model created by the French military architect Vauban, who was famous in the time of the Sun King Louis the 14th. The Austrians faced this type of fortress in their wars against the French. Alba comes from the citys name Alba Iulia, while Carolina, from the name of Austrian emperor Charles the 6th, during whose reign the fortress was built.



    It is not only its star-shaped structure and its beautiful gates that add to the attractiveness of this compound, but also the other buildings on its premises. Some of them are major cultural and education centres, such as the building of the Bathyaneum national library. Historian Liviu Zgarciu again.



    Liviu Zgarciu: “When the Austrians started building the fortress they began modifying or even destroying some of the old citys buildings. When the garrison was completed, all the buildings were turned into army barracks and depots. New buildings were erected, such as the one called Babylon, which currently houses the Union Museum. It was built between 1851 and 1855. The Union Hall was built around 1900, and it was first used as an Army Club. After the 1918 Union, the compound was taken over by the Romanian army, and the building representative for the history of Romanians was the Union Hall, hosting the assembly which on December the 1st 1918 made the decision to unite the Romanian principalities of Transylvania, Banat, Crisana and Maramures with Wallachia. The first building in Romanian architectural style, the Coronation Cathedral, was erected after 1918.



    The first Romanian sovereigns, King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, were crowned here on October 15th 1922.

  • The history of Radio Romania International

    The history of Radio Romania International

    The foreign language programming at the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation was initially intended for diplomats posted in Bucharest, starting in 1932. That was the year when the first broadcasts in French and English, with news and current affairs, went on the air. During WWII, the foreign language service of the Romanian Radio was informing people abroad on the course of the war and on how the population reacted. After the war, the foreign language service gained in importance, and was renamed as the Foreign Service broadcast service. It became a propaganda tool for communist Romania.



    In 1950, Sergiu Leverescu graduated from the French language high school in Bucharest, but had difficulties in getting a job at the French department at Radio Romania, because his parents were not working class. He provided an interview with Radio Romania’s Oral History Center in 1998:



    “There were few on the staff back then, and we were organized as follows: a head of department, two translators and two controllers. Those people were entitled to check and make sure that the texts in French was in line with the Romanian language texts that came to us from other sections. Back then the foreign language sections did not do any editorial work of their own; everything came from two central departments, a foreign department and a domestic one. They were made up of editors who were sending us, at the foreign language sections, the materials that went on air; the news bulletins, commentaries and other materials, and we translated them. The translator translated, the controller checked it against the original, and then it was sent to a reader, who recorded them. Nothing was live, everything was recorded, at least for foreign service broadcasts. The translations were typed on a typewriter, in three copies: one copy went to the reader, one went to a broadcast controller, after the text had been reviewed and maybe corrected, the controller assisted the reader in the studio, with a second copy in their hand, to see if any mistake was made or if anything was missed out of the initial text. A third copy was provided to someone else, who was not in the department, and who was on a different floor to make sure that the reader read exactly what was written. It was multi-step control.”



    In 1955, an English woman, Marjorie, married a Romanian, Stavarache Negrea. They settled in Romania, and they ended up working at the English department of Radio Romania. Marjorie Negrea was a reader and controller, as she confessed in 1997.



    “When I got to Romania, I went to the Central Party Committee. They told me that if I wanted to settle in Romania and work here, I would get a recommendation to work in broadcasting, if they needed people to speak English. I passed a few tests, and I corrected some translated texts. And then I became a reader. I was a reader and political controller and it was an interesting thing. I was reading the translation and saw if it was absolutely correct politically. I was on good terms with everyone, I didn’t know Romanian well, and it was hard, but generally it was all right.”



    There were moments when the ideological pressure subsided, according to Sergiu Levescu, who recalled for us a moment such the one on 20 July, 1969:


    “One moment when we held a non-political meeting at the Foreign Service was the moon landing. When Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module, we gathered in the office of editor-in-chief Hortensia Roman, to listen to the broadcast. It was really emotional… when the lunar landing actually occurred, I burst out in joy, along with Hortensia Roman. This was no longer about imperialists.”



    In the 1950s, when she worked at Radio Romania, Maria Lovinescu was first in the Foreign Department of the Foreign Service, then ended up in the Italian Department. In 1995, she recalled the dialog with listeners through letters:


    “At first we didn’t get too many letters. Then they multiplied. There were a lot of questions. They were interested in what was going on in Romania. They were usually from a certain audience, of a certain social sphere, but generally most of the people who wrote to us were interested in traditional music and culture. We had a lot of programs on the scenery and beauty of the country. They wanted to know how to get here. I had the impression that the political side interested them less, or even not at all. If they had been interested, I think they would have had more direct means for that, such as newspapers.”



    Radio Romania International reorganized after 1989 on the democratic principles of a new informative radio station. Its history is problematic, just like the history of Romania and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe after 1945.

  • Armenian Refugees to Romania

    Armenian Refugees to Romania

    The 20th Century is known, among other things, as being the century of genocide. The first major genocide of the century was that perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians on its territory. As many as 1.5 million Armenians perished, about half of the total population. The official motivation of the Ottoman authorities was the fact that the Armenians had fraternized with the Russian army. In reality, however, the reasons were political, such as nationalism and the pan-Turanic ideology, economic – Greeks and Armenians held sway over trade and banking in the Ottoman Empire – as well as religious. It all started with men being seized and taken to work on roads and railroads, and there they were beaten and starved to death. On April 24, 1915, Talaat Pasha, Grand Vizier and Minister of Communications, issued an order for whole families to be deported.



    The luckiest of them managed to save themselves, some of them by finding their way to Romania, as we were told by historian Eduard Antonian. He told us that the history of Armenian refugees in Romania started in late 19th Century, after the genocide of 1895-1896:



    Eduard Antonian: “As many as 350,000 Armenians were massacred under the orders of Abdulhamid II, also known as the Red Sultan. As a result, a good part of the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire took refuge in Romania. To this day, about 10% of the Armenian community in Romania are descendants of the people who came here after the first genocide. The first refugees were still fairly well off, and they could leave the Ottoman Empire with some savings. Which is why they opened stores here, went on with their lives, and integrated perfectly in Romanian society.



    We asked Eduard Antonian how the people who got to Romania managed to escape:



    Eduard Antonian: “Those hapless people were helped even by the Arab and Turkish population, civilians. Some of them were just lucky. Many managed to bribe their way through the Ottoman bureaucracy, many got lucky thanks to foreign missions, because the US got heavily involved in the matter. They had a well organized embassy, and Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, who later wrote his memoirs, in which he denounced the crimes perpetrated against Armenians, got involved in helping Armenians. There were also Danish and German Protestant missionaries who helped the people who got away.



    By historical estimates, around 20,000 Armenian refugees, about a quarter of which were orphaned, found shelter in Romania and were helped out by the fellow Armenians who were already living here. They came in several waves, mostly after the war was over. Eduard Antonian reconstructed the route taken by those who, for an entire century, were trying to escape a world of death and destruction:



    Eduard Antonian: “In Istanbul, as it happened with my grandfather and his children, they took a French boat and went to Constanta. The boat carried a few thousand orphans from the genocide. In Romania there was a well organised Armenian community, and a wealthy one. There were major figures of their time among them, such as Krikor Zambaccian, Grigore Trancu-Iasi, the Manisarian brothers, the biggest grain wholesalers in south-east Europe. The Union of Armenians was set up in 1919 for the specific purpose of helping the refugees, and its first president was Grigore Trancu-Iasi. When the refugees reached Constanta, the public was horrified. The newspaper Adevarul in 1915 had correspondents in Istanbul, who sent in reports on the genocide. The Romanian public opinion was already aware of what was happening to the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Armenad Manisarian, the second president of the Union of Armenians, went to Prime Minister Bratianu and asked what was to be done with the Armenian refugees. Bratianu asked him if he vouched for the refugees from all points of view. And Manisarian said yes. They got official approval, and all the refugees settled here, and later got citizenship. Refugees came here with the so-called Nansen passports, which were granted to stateless people, and were valid only one way. When the orphans got here, the Armenian community mobilized and bought several hectares in Strunga, near Iasi. They built an orphanage there, with a school and teaching staff, and this is where the orphans grew up. They learned trades and built a life for themselves, and many were adopted by Armenian families. Many of them opened shops, like my grand-grandfather, who opened a cobbler shop in Bucharest.



    In time, the trauma of war faded, but was never forgotten. Eduard Antonian told us that the Armenian refugees lived constantly between shocking memories and hope:



    Eduard Antonian: “The Armenian refugees from the Ottoman Empire never ceased to consider themselves anything other than Ottoman citizens, they were good citizens, they paid their taxes, took up military service, they spoke Turkish. The people of the community whose parents escaped genocide said that the latter spoke Turkish whenever they didnt want the children to know what they were saying. To this day, a few of the elders in the community still speak it. Unfortunately, in 1945 a part of them, hoodwinked by Soviet propaganda, repatriated to Armenia. They were told that they now had their own country. In 1991, when Armenia declared its independence, some of the children of those who went to Armenia with the Red Army came back to Romania.

  • The Greek Political Diaspora in Communist Romania

    The Greek Political Diaspora in Communist Romania

    Between 1946 and 1949, Greece suffered a crippling civil war between the USSR-sponsored communist guerrillas and Greek government forces. The confrontation started with an attack by communist rebels in the Yugoslav-Albanian border area. The communists wanted to topple the monarchy, which they deemed Fascist, in order to set up a socialist republic. However, the conflict between Stalin and Tito resulted in the defeat of the Greek communists, which turned to Moscow for support. Tito closed his borders with Greece, and the communist guerrillas were cut off from support. Albania, under Tito’s influence at the time, also denied the communists support. Until September 1949, the communist fighters either gave themselves up or crossed into Albania, most of them going on to other Soviet bloc and communist countries.



    Romania became the favorite destination for these refugees. 200,000 Greek political asylum seekers got to socialist countries, and of them 11,500 to 12,000 ended up in Romania including the former fighters and their families. Romania got the largest number of children, around 5,700, starting with 1948, of a total of around 28,000 Greek children who were taken by their families to 7 communist states. The largest colony of Greek children was in Sinaia, between 1948 and 1953. In the hotels of that resort, 1,700 children resided, joined by a few thousand North Korean children who fled the war of 1950-1953.



    Romania already had a population of Greeks settled over some time. When Romania fell into the Soviet sphere, it was a favorite destination of Yugoslavs and Albanians fleeing their country. Historian Radu Tudorancea, from the Nicolae Iorga History Institute in Bucharest, told us how the Greek communists were received in Romania.



    Radu Tudorancea: “A part of the former Greek fighters who fled the country at the end of the civil war came to Romania. They got support from the authorities in Bucharest; the wounded got treatment, the others got support in order to adapt to the country and integrate into society. The fact that Romania already had a sizable Greek community eased the process, especially since, beginning in 1948, the pro-communist faction of the Greek community had managed, with support from the Romanian authorities, to take control of the community and form a new entity, called the Hellenic Patriotic Union. The few supporters of the royalist cause in Romania got sidelined.”



    The Romanian communist government lavished generous support on the former communist fighters. The support was across the board, from living accommodations to medical care to stipends. As any other country taken over by the Soviets, Romania manipulated the public information on those people.



    Here is Radu Tudorancea with details: “The Greek civil war was closely followed in Romania, and was written on extensively in the party newspapers. As expected, this took the form of an acid campaign, coordinated by the party, which leaned heavily towards the cause of the Greek communist ‘partisans’, as they were known, denigrating heavily the Anglo-American side and its role in the Greek civil war. Greek communist leader Nikos Zahariadis had sent to Romania as early as January 1948 one Lefteris Apostolou, which was dubbed representative of the so-called democratic government of Greece. He was a liaison with the Romanian authorities, channeled aid from the People’s Republic of Romania to the guerrillas, helping the wounded and preparing the colonies of Greek children that were to come to Romania. The Romanian authorities earmarked significant sums of money for migrant support from Greece. The financial support was secured through a sizable budget for the Greek Communist Party. For 1951 alone, $300,000 were secured, on top of regular expenses. These amounts only grew. In 1952, around $750,000 were earmarked for publishing houses, in addition to many other expenses. The steering committee of the Greek Communist Party was moved to Bucharest, and many in the leadership were given luxury houses in the top party neighborhood, in various secret villas.”



    The Greek refugees never gave up on the struggle in their country. They believed their defeat to be temporary, and they were ready to go back and take up the fight once again, if the international situation became favorable. Romania became a base for Greek communist action, and they were trained by Greek ideologues with training in Moscow behind them.



    Here is Radu Tudorancea once again: “Expecting a resumption of the struggle in Greece, the activists in Romania kept the former guerrillas in a state of readiness. In 1950, a school was set up in Breaza, a political school with teachers like Nikos Zahariadis and Vasilis Bartsiotas. That entity was supposed to train underground agents in Greece to support the communist cause. Between 1952 and 1955, over 120 such activists and agents were sent to Greece clandestinely, and many of them were seized by the Greek police.”



    Stalin’s death and the end of Sovietization in Romania put an end to the Greek communist movement in the country. Once Romania and Greece normalized relations, the armed struggle effectively came to an end.

  • The history of Govora

    The history of Govora

    The therapeutic springs in the south-western Romanian spa of Baile Govora have acquired their fame in time. Early documentary evidence for the thermal water springs is dated 1878, when mention was made of several watchmen who had to keep an eye on the waters in the region. It was only a couple of years later that two men searching for crude oil, engineer Ioan Claus and the mayor of a village in the area, discovered some sort of black-coloured, iodine-smelling mineral water. It was the first time when the waters in Govora had been documented. They are rich in chlorine, sodium, sulphur, magnesium and calcium, and are extremely useful in the treatment of rheumatic ailments, and not only. The date mentioned by the two for their discovery is very specific: September 30, 1881. The area has since been developing at an amazingly rapid pace, with the locality and the spa being actually established around those springs, in a region previously home to forests alone.



    Romanias Liberal Prime Minister before the Great War, Ion C. Bratianu, was one of the people who actively promoted the spa. A specialist advisor with Valcea Countys National Archives Ionela Nitu told us more about the history of the Govora Spa:



    “As an administrative entity, documentary evidence on the Govora Spa was found much later, in 1908. It was then that the village of Baile Govora was founded, clustering several other villages in the neighbouring areas. Now, returning to Bratianu, he got very much involved in the development of the spa. It was he who sent doctor Zorileanu in 1886, with an ambulance and military, to map out the area. Zorileanu realized the therapeutic importance of the waters here and urged Bratianu to have the state invest in everything that was related to the expansion of the spa”.



    In 1887, the state granted the spa one million leis worth of credit, and that is how the first constructions around the springs came to be erected, such as the first spa facility. Ionela Nitu:



    “It was basically a wooden cabin. In the following years, the first three state-run hotels were built and thats how the expansion of the spa began, as apart from the first buildings erected by the state, there were also those erected by private entrepreneurs. Of the first buildings erected in late 19th century, some can still be found today, such as State Hotel number 1, the Stefanescu Hotel, built around 1900 and which presides over the centre of the spa, then theres the Post Office, a building erected at about the same time and which still exist, fortunately. Yet the spa saw its boom after 1910, when the Govora Calimanesti Company was founded, a joint venture based on a public-private partnership. Thanks to the company, the construction of the spas iconic building was possible, the Palace Hotel, located in the park of the spa. The construction began in 1911 and was completed in 1914, it was a unique building at the turn of the 20th century, and was designed as a model for hotels across Europe at that time. There were very few hotels that had restaurants, the treatment facilities and leisure rooms on their premises. And thats how it was thought out, as an all-inclusive system. It was also then that the spa establishment was rebuilt. The old constructions were brought down, only to be replaced by other buildings, which survived in the spas park even to this day.”


    The expansion of the Govora Spa continued in the interwar period. A growing number of private entrepreneurs villas emerged, concurrently with other tourist accommodation facilities. Also investments were placed in the localitys infrastructure: roads were modernized, as well as the sewage and water supply system. Ionela Nitu speaks about other iconic sites in the Govora Spa:



    “Among the special constructions, there are the Casino, the Cinema building, for which construction works began in 1928 and which was designed by the first woman architect, Virginia Andreescu-Haret. The building was partially completed in 1930. It was not entirely completed, as part of it remained unfinished to this day. In 1936, the Balneara Hotel was inaugurated, lying in the centre of the spa and built in cubist style.”



    Today, very few people know that during the war the spa hosted an impressive number of Polish refugees. In October 1939, around 700 refugees could be found here, and in 1941, several members of the Polish government who were in exile were accommodated in the Govora Spa.

  • The victims of the 1989 anti-communist revolution in Timisoara

    The victims of the 1989 anti-communist revolution in Timisoara

    The anti-communist revolution of December 1989 remains one of the most tragic events in Romania’s recent history. The human sacrifice that led to the collapse of the communist dictatorship has left a deep scar on collective conscience in Romania. What started as a peaceful protest against the restrictions to religious freedom on the 16th of December 1989 became, on the following day, a spontaneous act of solidarity with and protest against the violation of basic human rights and liberties. On the 17th and 18th of December, army, police and secret service troops opened fire on the protesters. Alexandra Enache, the director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Timisoara, was one of the doctors who performed autopsy on the victims. The first action was to inspect the types of wounds inflicted:



    “The external examination of the body, including entry and exit wounds, establishes the direction from which the shots were fired. Most of shots were fired from the same height, but from all directions. We found entry wounds on both the front and back of the bodies. Not many bullets were fired upwards, but these were cases when the bullets ricocheted. A report on the trajectory of the bullets was submitted to the Military Prosecutor’s Office, which created an overview in terms of the direction from which the shots were fired. In most of the cases, the victims were standing, as the wounds were on the heads. Some of them were on the move when they got shot and all had gunshot wounds, none had blunt trauma. You cannot possibly defend yourself against a gun by throwing stones and the shooters were at quite some distance from the crowd. Had they wanted to defend themselves, they would have stood minimal chances. We didn’t have data about traumas among the troops that opened fire on the protesters, or cases of stabbing. I remember someone who was said to have died in a car crash, but was in fact killed in the clashes between the troops and the protesters. The wounded weren’t abandoned but carried by the protesters to the nearest emergency rooms. I remember examining four children with ages ranging from 2 to 16 years; they had been shot dead by the riot police and army. All the victims were Romanian nationals.”



    Alexandra Enache referred to the identification procedures and the then grim atmosphere in the institution.


    ”Of the first victims of December 17 that we examined on December 18, 6 corpses were left unidentified. There were very many unidentified victims in the first days. But, based on the examinations made and the notes we took, based on the description and an identikit picture of the corpse, the families managed to identify their victims in the month of December, and also in January 1990 and later on, by means of those notes referring to certain particular body signs or items of clothing. Many of those victims were taken to Bucharest and cremated. We kept all those notes in the form of forensic reports based on which identifications were made. The families read the reports and talked with the forensic medicine experts who had performed the examinations and managed to find elements based on which they could recognize their relatives. The identity papers and other items that the victims had on themselves were initially taken by the employees of the justice department, who also took pictures of the corpses. As far as I know these papers no longer exist, because they were burnt together with the photographic films and other documents which were drafted by the justice department of the militia. The forensic reports which we wrote were the only documents drafted at the time. On December 18th we worked until late to finalize the documents for all the bodies that were examined and which had stayed at the morgue that day. We called it a day only after all reports were drawn up. At the time I was a resident physician. We were under a lot of pressure at the moment, given the times. We were not allowed to leave the county hospital of Timisoara, where the morgue was, through the main gate. After we finished the examinations and having to return to the office, which was in another building, we had to take a secondary exit.”



    In January 1990, the documents issued between December 16-18 by the Forensic Medicine Institute of Timisoara were archived, including the post mortem examination reports of the bodies that had disappeared from the hospital morgue. The corpses had been taken secretly to Bucharest and cremated, in a last attempt of the repressive regime to hide the evidence of the massacre they perpetrated against unarmed civilians. 25 years on, questions about what actually happened in Timisoara in those days of December 1989, are still unanswered.



  • December 1st, the National Day of Romania

    December 1st, the National Day of Romania

    On December the 1st, 1918, Transylvania joined the Kingdom of Romania into what was to be known as “Greater Romania.” In a National Assembly meeting held in Alba Iulia, thousands of Romanians endorsed the union. The archive of the Oral History Centre of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation preserves a highly valuable document, which gives us an indication of the enthusiasm of that year, seen as a new beginning after the war of 1914-1918. It is a recording of the Greek Catholic Bishop Iuliu Hossu reading out the resolutions of the National Assembly. A martyr and a survivor of communist political persecution, Iuliu Hossu was born in 1885 and died in 1970. The recording is of outstanding importance, not only because it preserves the voice of Iuliu Hossu, but also because it summarises the political, economic, social and civic aspirations of the Romanians in the early 20th century. For Bishop Hossu, the religious aspect was the most important contribution to the union:



    “Brothers! The time set has fully come, when God Almighty makes known through his faithful people the justice for which we have been thirsty for centuries. Today, through our resolve, Greater Romania is built, the one and undivided. The Romanians in Transylvania can now freely join their motherland, Romania! As the bishop of Cluj-Gherla, I also join them in their happiness. I pray to God that his love and grace be with our people and our country, and that he may keep them from all harm. May this country flourish on justice and truth!”



    Iuliu Hossu’s address also had a realistic dimension, related to the aspirations of all those who believed in the founding of Greater Romania:



    “The National Assembly of all Romanians in Transylvania, Banat and the Hungarian Country, whose rightful representatives gathered in Alba Iulia on December the 1st, 1918, pronounce the union of those Romanians and of all the lands they inhabit with Romania. In particular, the National Assembly proclaims the nonnegotiable rights of the Romanian nation on the entire country of Banat, stretching between the rivers Mures, Tisza and the Danube. The National Assembly gives all these territories provisional autonomy until the Constituent Assembly has convened, based on universal vote. In this regard, the National Assembly proclaims the following as the fundamental principles in the establishment of the new Romanian state: complete freedom to all nations living within its borders and education, administration and justice for all different nations, in their own language and by their own people. Each nation will be represented in the country’s lawmaking and governing bodies, proportionately with the number of its members. Equal rights and complete autonomy will be guaranteed for all religious denominations within the state. True democracy will be applied to all aspects of public life. All people starting with the age of 21, of both sexes will have the right to direct, equal and secret vote to elect their representatives in villages, counties and Parliament. Absolute freedom of the press, freedom to assemble and freedom of association and expression will be guaranteed. A radical land reform will be launched, to create a record of all property, in particular large pieces of land. We will help farmers acquire their own property, for their families to be able to work. The core principle of this reform will be rooted on the one hand in the idea of social equality, and on the other hand in the goal of improving productivity. Industrial workers will have the same rights and privileges as are laid down in the laws of the most advanced industrial countries of the West.”



    Iuliu Hossu’s address also illustrates quite clearly the international dimension of the Romanian union project:



    “The National Assembly expresses its wish that the Peace Congress might bring about such concord of the free nations as to ensure justice and freedom for all nations, large or small, and in the future to discard war as a means to settle international relations. The Romanians convened in this National Assembly hail their brothers in Bukovina, who freed themselves from the plight of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy and joined Romania, their motherland. The National Assembly hails, with love and enthusiasm, the liberation of the peoples so far subject to the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy, namely the Czechoslovakians, Austrians, Germans, Yugoslavians, Poles and Ruthenians, and sends its greetings to all these nations. The National Assembly humbly honours the memory of the brave Romanians who shed their blood for our ideals in this war, who died for the freedom and unity of the Romanian nation. The National Assembly expresses its gratitude and admiration for the allied powers, who fought with determination against an enemy that had prepared for war for many decades and who thus saved civilisation from barbarism.”



    Ninety-six years since the union of December the 1st, 1918, the words of Iuliu Hossu not only tell us about a great accomplishment in the past, but also call on the future generations never to give up their fight for freedom.

  • The reign of Constantin Brancoveanu

    The reign of Constantin Brancoveanu

    Around 15th of August 1714, Brancoveanu, who was 60 at the time, was beheaded together with his four sons and his aide Ianache Vacarescu, after 5 months of detention in the Ottoman capital, Istanbul. We asked Bogdan Murgescu, who teaches the history of the Ottoman Empire at the Faculty of History of the Bucharest University, to give us a general description of Constantin Brancoveanu’s reign:


    Bogdan Murgescu: “Constantin Brancoveanu was seen as a good administrator. We know of his attempts at fiscal reform and his efforts to keep a better account of public money. From a treasury record kept over a period of 10 years we find that he was very careful about how the money was spent. We also know that he was an economical man, so he increased both the treasury funds and his own wealth. The Turks referred to him as ‘the gold prince’ because he was believed to be very rich. Part of his wealth was in his own country, in the form of property and money, and another was deposited abroad, for example in Venice. He also built many churches and princely residences and supported the development of culture.”



    Constantin Brancoveanu was known to be a strict tax collector, something that earned him a lot of opposition. Bogdan Murgescu explains: “Taxes are not a popular thing in any society. Pressures were naturally exerted on taxpayers. We know from the treasure record that noblemen were sometimes even forced to take out loans in order to give money to the treasury. Apart from this, the stability ensured by his reign was very important, because the ruler generally did his best to prevent his country from being affected by the wars taking place around its borders. He wasn’t very successful in this respect in the first part of his reign, when his country saw an Austrian invasion. Later, however, Wallachia was generally spared foreign military intervention and therefore destruction, being able to enjoy relative prosperity.”



    Critics mainly blamed Brancoveanu for his so-called “Turkophilia”, at a time when Wallachia could have taken advantage of the aggressive anti-Ottoman policy initiated by Austria.



    Bogdan Murgescu once again: “Brancoveanu was criticised for many things, depending on what part of his reign we’re looking at, because his was a very long reign that lasted 25 years and 4 months. In the beginning, he was criticised for not joining the Christians against the Ottomans. He ascended to the throne at a time when Serban Cantacuzino was inclined to join forces with the Austrians, but then the Austrian army entered Wallachia. Brancoveanu opposed the Austrians and fought along the Ottomans. Another controversial moment was in 1711, when the metropolitan bishop and some of the noblemen plotted against the ruler and part of the army joined the Russians. Brancoveanu was again very cautious and basically kept Wallachia on the side of the Ottoman Empire.”



    Under the circumstances, Brancoveanu’s tragic death at the hands of the Turks is all the more surprising and, according to the historian Bogdan Murgescu, still somewhat of a mystery: “Brancoveanu’s execution presents us with a problem. He was deposed from the throne and then taken to Istanbul, kept in prison and tortured to reveal where he kept his wealth. His execution is difficult to understand from an Ottoman perspective. There is no clear indication as to what the Ottomans blamed him for, apart from the fact that he had accumulated a lot of wealth and had been maintaining ties with the neighbouring states, albeit not so close as to pose a threat to Ottoman dominance. We still don’t have a convincing explanation why the Ottomans decided to kill him and his entire family. Historical records point to no clear justification for this deed. There are records of the complaints made against him, including from Romanian noblemen, but his execution was an excessive measure even for Ottoman standards.”



    Romanian clerical voices spread the idea that Brancoveanu died as a martyr, because he would not renounce the Christian faith, but historians are sceptical about this explanation, says Bogdan Murgescu: “According to a common practice at the time, someone who was convicted to death but converted to Islam before his execution could be pardoned. However, it is hard to believe that Brancoveanu was executed merely because he was a Christian. The Turks appointed Stefan Cantacuzino, also a Christian, to take Brancoveanu’s place. And when Stefan Cantacuzino and his father were themselves executed, the Turks appointed Nicolae Mavrocordat, who was also a Christian. So there was never any question about changing the way in which Wallachia was governed.”



    Constantin Brancoveanu and his sons were canonised by the Romanian Orthodox Church in the early 1990s.


  • The Flamanda Slum in Bucharest

    The Flamanda Slum in Bucharest

    Romanians use the Turkish word mahala to describe slums, the dirty and poor areas that could be found in every city in the past. Slums marked a historical stage in the development of many Romanian cities. Bucharest was no exception, as the city itself was initially made up of several slums, that is small urban communities very much like the rural ones. One of Bucharest’s first slums, infamous for the abject poverty of its inhabitants, was suggestively called Flamanda, which means hungry in Romanian. It was located in the area of today’s Union Square, near the Metropolitan Cathedral Hill. The emergence of this slum is closely connected with the life and role of the church within community, as Edmond Niculusca, head of the Romanian Association for Culture, Education and Normality explains:



    “The Flamanda Slum is tightly linked to the Metropolitan Cathedral Hill. This slum had formed, just like many others, around a church, in this case, the Flamanda Church, which still exists today. The church was erected in 1766, by a man named Dumitru. Its construction it’s believed to have taken a long time, although the church is very small. Starting 1782, the church was rebuilt, this time of stone, and construction works were completed only around 1800, with the help of the tailors’ guild in Bucharest, who then settled on the eastern side of the slum. A map of Bucharest in 1770 shows without a doubt that beyond the eastern side of the Metropolitan Cathedral Hill there was nothing more than vineyards and gardens. The land was the property of the Hungarian-Wallachian Bishopric, as it was called at the time, and it was home to a large number of Gipsy slaves, who worked for the church. So there was no mention of Flamanda Slum on the oldest map of Bucharest. In spite of the fact that it was set up in 1766, it was only much later that Flamanda Slum was mentioned by documents as an established community. In 1800 there were around 59 houses in the area.”



    Edmond Niculusca tells us more about the name given to this slum:



    “Some historians say that both the slum and its church had been extremely poor. There were only 59 houses, and very few families. There are also historians who say that it was mostly beggars and people suffering from chronic diseases that were sent to the Flamanda church to ask for food and money. There was a strict hierarchy within every slum. The main road usually boasted the church and the bar, and also the houses of the community’s elite, such as the priest and his family, the policeman and, in some cases — if the slum was not the poorest one — some civil servants. “



    In time, the social structure of Flamanda slum changed and after 1920 even the administrative term of ‘slum’ had disappeared. And this was not the only change. Edmond Niculusca explains:



    “By mid-19th century, when Bucharest began to expand, the Flamanda area became part of the city centre. Beautiful houses, some of which can still be seen today, were erected. One of them was built by the architect of the Peles Castle, who had received a plot of land there. The house is impressive and tells of the city’s historical identity. Unfortunately, it is now bordered on each side by large boulevards that have suffocated the city and changed its identity. And I’m talking about the communist times, especially the 1980s, when new buildings and boulevards were erected in this area to isolate the slum.”



    The Flamanda slum continues to be an identity oasis of Bucharest, miraculously saved from communist destruction. A whole district full of historical streets and buildings was demolished in the 1980s to make room for monstrous communist buildings. Behind them, however, the Flamanda slum continues to exist.