Category: The History Show

31.03.2013

PRO MEMORIA –

Welcome to PM, we are XX and YY.

It was the time of the Napoleonic Wars, but also the early days of Romanticism. It was a time when the idea of nation was springing up, and small territories under the heel of the Ottoman and Russian empires saw it as a means to achieve emancipation, whether economical, social or political.

In the Romanian principalities, the first laws to reflect the new values were the Organic Regulations of 1831 and 1832, issued during the rule of Russian-appointed governor Pavel Kiseleff during the Russian protectorate. Its most forward-looking provisions had to do with political life: separation of powers, electing the ruler and the legislative assemblies, and the attributions of each institution. This was the foundation of bureaucracy and of civil service. Historian Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu from the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History believes that the beginning of democratization of the Romanian space begins with the enactment of these Organic Regulations and the fact that they introduced merit-based appointment of public servants.

The ideas of national state and public participation in decision making were received with much enthusiasm by Romanians. However, reality many times did not match the theory. Historian Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu told us more about the situation by mid-19th century, when tradition was still strong:

Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu: “In early modernity, we can see how the leading families in society still held the monopoly over the most important positions in the state apparatus centered on the ruler. As for minor positions in chancelleries, what is significant is the fact that a bureaucracy was gradually forming, and the idea of being employed by the state as a civil servant became the dream of almost every Romanian. That is because this was the time when the idea of a pension emerged, and that of holding office over a period of time. After 8 years you had the right to a pension, and if you died, this would be inherited by the widow. You also had a uniform, and you received money for the clothes you had to wear at work. A civil service class emerged, which we can see reflected in Ion Ghica’s writings. In one of his letters, he complains that Romanians are avidly chasing these state positions, which started getting bloated, and that you could no longer find people with regular crafts, such as cobblers, tailors, people to do the small, indispensable jobs that everyone needs.”

The enthusiasm for emancipation was not able, at first, to overcome the mentalities shaped along centuries of past history. Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu points at this as being one of the biggest challenges facing state reformers:

Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu: “In early modernity, relations held a prominent place, and so did working for or being in the presence of important people. If you were part of the household of an important nobleman, such as Grigore Brancoveanu, if he took up an important state position, such as minister, his entire little flock of clientele moved into the department he was in charge of. If you had been a mere petty supervisor on a nobleman’s land holdings, you could become a chancellery scribe, provided you could write. Or you could be appointed head of police in a small village. If you didn’t have ‘props’, as Iordache Golescu put it, you could not penetrate the state system. The selection was clientele-based, and abuses were common. But don’t suppose people weren’t being punished. They would get fired for not doing their job, but then they would get taken back because they were under someone’s protection.”

The liberalization of public positions also brought about a change in terms of what aspirations people had for climbing the social ladder. This is when the nouveau riche emerged. Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu defines for us this new social category:

Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu: “In the early 19th century, the people of the grand nobility who did not manage to obtain the high positions in the state started feeling threatened by characters who manage to penetrate the entourage of the ruling prince and use the newly-found favour to penetrate the grand nobleman class. They marry the daughters of such nobles and gain land holdings. Afterwards they feel entitled to high positions in the state. These nouveaux riches were despised by the people of the old grand noble families. Iordache Golescu, whose writings are centered on the nouveaux riches, was a descendant of such an old Wallachian family. In the early 19th century, some princes bring into their entourage future ruling princes from Constantinople, Greek in origin, who take advantage of their relationship with the prince. They start buying land holdings and all of a sudden are given important and well-paid positions. They get rich overnight, and the old noble families, such as Brancoveanu, Golescu, Bals and Rosetti start feeling threatened, and started making up insulting names for this new class. Their characteristic was that of being stingy, avaricious, and of using any leverage they could get in order to reach the highest rung of the ladder possible.”

The birth of Romanian democracy in the early 19th century reflected a complicated blend of Western ideas of modernity, new institutions, local mentalities, and personal ambitions. The results were not always ideal, but they gave that period the special charm it holds for us today.

Iosif Vissarionovici Stalin, who died on March 5th, 1953, went down in history as the cruelest criminal ever. Stalin earned his gruesome label not because his opponents simply attached it to his personality, but because of the overwhelming evidence of the crimes that were perpetrated during his regime. About such a man we seem to know everything, so much so that 60 years on there’s not much left for us to say about him; what we CAN say, though, are things that can keep our memory alert. Stalin used to be part and parcel of the Soviet Union’s history, through what the Soviet Union actually was between 1945 and 1991. But apart from that, Stalin was part of the history of many other nations. And sadly, he was part of the history of Romanians as well.

Stalinism is the word by means of which mankind’s political thought in its entirety labeled tyranny: the most harrowing form of political governance, where the underlying elements are a single man’s self-will and terror. Stalinism took the practice of tyranny to its highest, also because people and society condoned all that, and also because Stalinist ideology bedazzled all those people.

Liviu Rotman is a professor with the National School of Political and Administrative Studies in Bucharest. He said that people’s being so attached to that ideology and the leader, who in turn was the embodiment of ideology, explains how Stalinism came into being and survived.

“Let me just stress the fact that when we define one particular category of a communist regime we have several ways to approach it. We have the approach during Stalin’s regime, whereby that was the highest form of communist ideology and of its purity. There were Stalinist writers, Stalinist historians, Stalinist actors, Stalinist painters, Stalinist party activists, with the latter eulogizing and paying tribute to the regime. Basically, that meant they were the most determined of the communists; tough and t very energetic. And that stems from Stalin himself, he used that pseudonym for himself, since in Russian stal means steel. The crux of the matter was that his politics was just as tough as the steel, but it was also righteous, for the communist ideals to be fulfilled.”

A layman perception of Stalinism, however, can be misleading. No matter how strongly a single leader’ s self-will manifests itself, a tyrant needs to be credible in front of those supporting him. To put it differently, his political mindset must appear logical to those who pay heed to such a tyrant. Cristian Vasile is a historian with Bucharest’s “Nicolae Iorga” History Institute. He will now be highlighting what Stalin’s political thought actually consisted of.

“Erik Van Ree, a specialist in the Soviet political system wrote a seminal book, The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin. Why is the book so important? Because in the Russian archives Erik Van Ree had the chance to examine a certain type of historical source, a document of a certain type. Namely the notes in the books in Stalin’s personal library, even Stalin’s own notes, which are quite a few. That source of information was excellent and Erik van Ree put it to extremely good use. That particular source somehow altered the perception and representations of Stalin and Stalinism, mainly as regards their sources of inspiration. Where did Stalin draw his inspiration from, what were the sources of inspiration for his political thought? Van Ree thought we could speak about a coherent and well-grounded mindset in the case of Stalin. And what did Erik Van Ree actually discover? Subject to heated debate in Western historical research was Stalin’s main source of ideas: was it the Russian autocratic tradition, from Ivan the Terrible to Peter the Great as a modernizer, whom Stalin took as a role model, or was it the Western Marxism, the revolutionary movement in the West? Van Ree found out that one of Stalin’s main sources might have been the western revolutionary tradition, the Jacobin tradition. And he also found the notes Stalin made to that effect, notes that were of course filtered through the Leninist thought.”

After the collapse of communism, quite a few authorized voices laid the blame of that disaster on the Soviet leaders’ inability to implement the writings of Marx. Liviu Rotman was keen on highlighting the essentially Stalinist streak of the communist regime, and the communist regime’s impossibility to properly function under circumstances other than those of tyranny.

” I believe that Stalin, through his terror, through his system of policies, maybe meant the purest form of communism. By and large, when attempts were made to do away with the Stalinist clichés, communism, as early as Khrushchev’s regime, would snap at its seams, would simply fail to fulfill its mission. That is why even the Soviets had their comeback to Stalinism during the Brejnev regime, who, without making it public, tried to return, no Russian-fashion this time, to the Stalinist system of practices. In the satellite countries, Romania included, that image of Stalin was tarnished, it was subject to criticism, and his statues simply disappeared. But that was only on the face of it, the continuity of communism had called for the preservation, one way or another, and differently from one country to another, of Stalinism, and all that quietly. I’m saying that because any negative remark targeting Stalin’s communism targets Stalin himself. It’s just as if post-Stalinist or the pre-Stalinist communism were more human, were getting closer to the nature of man, to the normal course of history.

Stalin and Stalinism acted as models for the societies with deficit of democracy. The democratic world also had its bouts of sympathy for his leadership, which revealed that democracy was not something pre assigned, capable of working with no gaps and flaws. There used to be greater or lesser Stalins who did not fail to stand on a par with the original. But as always, the truth came out, since the truth is not only a philosophical, but also a historical concept.

Dimitrie Gusti is the most important Romanian sociologist of the first half of the 20th Century. Most of Romania’s sociology’s progress is connected to his name. A university professor, member of the Romanian Academy and education minister between 1932 and 1993 Dimitrie Gusti set up the Romanian Institute of Sociology and coordinated several sociology magazines. He initiated the famous ‘mixed teams’ made up of students and researchers from various fields, who went from one village to another to observe and then write monographies of the places they studied.

He was also a promoter of social services, by means of which academic research blended with social action and social pedagogy. His main goal was to improve the living standards of peasants, who lived in precarious economic, political and cultural conditions, and to turn them into citizens of the Romanian state built after 1918. In 1936 Dimitrie Gusti set up the Romanian Peasant’s Museum, which is now a landmark of the capital Bucharest. He is also known as the founder of the Romanian school of sociological thinking. Dimitrie Gusti and the ‘Gusti school of thinking’, were revisited by the French magazine ‘Les Etudes Sociales’, in a double issue of 2011, under the title “Sociology and politics in Romania between 1918 and 1948”. Sociologist Vintila Mihailescu will tell us next whether Dimitrie Gusti can be considered an innovator or not:

“Gusti was not an innovator, his work is part of the Romanian tradition of rural studies. This is a very sensitive issue. If someone wanted to turn sociology into a tool that served the nation, he could very well do it. As long as it was not a nationalistic tool. Gusti put it clearly: ‘since the national construction is a priority of the current society, sociology can deal with that too’. If in the 21stcentury sociology was only dealing with the issue of vassal peasants, that would be pretty ridiculous. After WWII Gusti focused on a completely different concept, that of United Nations. Therefore sociology had to change contexts. But in the context of a society that was 85% rural, to accuse or suspect a sociologist of focusing only on peasants is odd, to say the least.”

Dimitrie Gusti founded the Bucharest school of sociology, which looked at the changes occurring in society, at how tendencies could be predicted and how social processes could be analyzed. He was the promoter of the monographic research method, according to which a subject could be understood if analyzed from the perspective of several disciplines. Sociologist Dumitru Sandu answered the question asked by the magazine “Les Etudes Sociales”, namely whether Gusti’s method was indeed a school of thinking:

”I was asked ‘what sort of school is the Gusti School?’ Well, I believe it is a school, but the question is what kind of school? We know how it was labeled at the time: The Gusti School, the Bucharest School of Sociology, the monographic school, the Romanian school. And we know there were three types of schools, focusing on method, on theory and on methodology-epistemology. I would add a 4thtype of school that promotes a model of social action, in other words a school of intervention. The Gusti School has all these components.”

The French magazine “Les Etudes Sociales” blames Gusti, among other things, for being a supporter of Fascist ideas. Antonio Momoc, a lecturer at the Bucharest Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences, explains why Gusti was labeled a Fascist.

“The Romanian Social Institute was hosting debates, which brought together all the leading intellectuals of the time. Dimitrie Gusti made a remark during one such debate about political parties’ doctrines. It was in 1922 and the paper was published two years later. It was back in the early days of the Italian fascism, a movement that didn’t exist at that time in Romania. Fascist ideas emerged in Romania around 1923 as a reaction to the Constitution issued that year. In the 1920s the support for extremist parties was quite small, standing somewhere at 3-4%, and fascism was nothing but a curiosity. Dimitrie Gusti was the only person who referred to Mussolini’s fascism during that debate. And none of the other persons attending the debate considered important what was happening in Italy at that time. It is not clear why he was accused of fascism. What he did was to make a clear distinction between political parties, and from his point of view and in accordance with his own system of the political and ethical sociology, he believed there were two types of political parties: parties with a platform and opportunistic parties. He provided arguments that the Fascist party did have a platform and people were enthusiastic about the fascist doctrine. That was all he said about Italian fascism. So, it’s rather strange to accuse Dimitrie Gusti of being a Fascist.”

After the War, Gusti discretely collaborated with the communist party, which shows that nobody can escape the influence of the times they are living in, as happened with many intellectuals whose political views influenced their scientific work.

When searching the archives of an intelligence service, you would expect to find details about state intelligence work, secret operations, details on what goes on behind the scenes in diplomatic work or in politics. Just like many other institutions in communist states, the Romanian Securitate wanted to have full control over society. Personal correspondence was one of the preferred sources of information for the Securitate, using it as part of its culture of repression to determine how to react to certain types of social behavior in one of the darkest periods in Romania’s recent history.

Liviu Taranu, a researcher with the National Council for the Study of Former Securitate Archives published a volume called ‘Romanians in the Golden Era. Correspondence in the ‘80s’. It is a collection of letters sent by Romanians to state institutions in the 1980s. The phrase ‘Golden Era’, a propaganda formula, was part of the language underpinnings of Ceausescu’s cult of personality, and was supposed to show how far Romania had come under his expert leadership. The reality was exactly the opposite. The country was in a deep and widespread material and spiritual crisis, as well as psychological degradation. We asked Liviu Taranu how he would summarize the situation of Romanians in the so-called Golden Era, as reflected in letters:

“Pessimistic, tragic. The most appropriate term is ‘dramatic’. There are letters, documents that bring to the surface Romanian humor, the ability to turn a bad situation into a joke. However, the dominant note is tragic, because people were short on the basic necessities. People, especially with large families, complain of difficulties everywhere, with food, electricity, how expensive living is, as well as job insecurity. You’re probably shocked, but there was a lot of job insecurity in the Golden Era, in the ‘80s. This appears frequently in the letters.”

As historians have documented in their studies, the Securitate was extremely keen on reading people’s correspondence. Letters addressed to institutions were read to the last. Here is Liviu Taranu once again:

“Every letter addressed to newspapers, the party’s Central Committee, any institution whatsoever, generally those in the capital, because we are talking about party and state leadership, were filtered through the Securitate. A lot of them reached their destination, but if their content was too adversarial, they were stopped. We found them in the original in Securitate archives, they never got to their destination. Freedom of expression in writing was curtailed, as shown by these letters. But Romanians did have this recourse, of writing to the upper echelons of party and state, and many of those letters did reach them.”

The dominant sentiment was dissatisfaction with the standard of living. However, there was also a fear of losing one’s job, unimaginable under a regime that claimed to represent the workers, a fear that runs contrary to the cliché that under socialism jobs were secure. Here is Liviu Taranu:

“This fear was quite well founded, because of the general disarray in state enterprises, where changes in the five-year plan were made overnight by state structures which ran the economy, which had a negative impact. There was also the issue of retail, of selling products manufactured in Romania, which didn’t sell. The five-year plan was unrealistic, no one could comply with those demands, especially since manufactures did not have raw materials to execute the plan. People were not getting their salaries on time, the management was trying to cut personnel to reduce expenses and be able to pay the rest of the employees. All this reorganization and endemic macroeconomic problems led to job insecurity and unemployment. Some were just fired and left to their own devices to find a job.”

One of the explanations for the violence that accompanied the overthrow of that regime was the fact that people were gagged brutally. All the communist bloc countries were in crisis, but no other country was so brutal in repressing freedom of expression as Ceausescu’s Romania. We asked Liviu Taranu if he believes there is a link between how brutal the regime was in the ‘80s and the violence in December 1989.

“I have no doubt about that, it happened because tensions had not been released when they should have been. They were festering, and started bursting out in various forms, for instance at the periphery of society. Keeping these tensions under wraps for over a decade, even though things were bad enough even before 1980, resulted in them bursting out violently. Discontent was too great for things to run smoothly, as they did in Czechoslovakia or in other countries in the area.”

Under Ceausescu’s regime, the population had reached towards the end a veritable state of hysteria, which manifested itself in the public space in the 1990s, under the young Romanian democracy of that time.

Szecklers are the oldest ethnic minority in Romania, first documented in 1116 in connection with the Pechenegs. They are best known as the avant-garde of the Hungarian cavalry. Skilled warriors in the Middle Ages, Szecklers were colonized by the Kingdom of Hungary towards the Eastern Carpathians, to protect its eastern borders from the invasion of other peoples coming from Asia.

Actually they were first documented within the Carpathian arch in 1210, when an army made up of Szeklers, Saxons, Romanians and Pechenegs took part in the reprisal of the first riot against the Bulgarian Tzar Borila. In the same period, more exactly in 1217, Szecklers are mentioned to form the backbone of the army of Hungarian King Andrew the 2nd, in the fifth crusade against the Arabs.

Since then, Szecklers have been living uninterruptedly on the same territories, in the so-called Szeckler land, comprising the current Romanian counties of Harghita, Covasna and Mures. They account for approximately 45% of the total of 1 million 4 hundred 30 thousand ethnic Hungarians in Romania, which is 6.6% of Romania’s total population.

Academician Pal Antal Sandor is a historian and he’s told us about the place and social status of Szecklers in Medieval Hungary and under the Austrian domination.

Pal Antal Sandor: “As long as they had military duties to perform, they were exempt from paying taxes. The first fiscal obligations to the Royal Court of Hungary were those that had to be paid three times during a king’s reign: upon his enthronement, his marriage and the birth of his heir. That custom was observed until 1555. One in six oxen owned was considered the king’s rightful property. Financial obligations towards a tax authority did not exist until 1657. It was then that the first tax to the Ottomans had to be paid, following Gyorgy Rakoczy the 2nd’s disastrous military campaign. During the Austrian rule, military duties were discarded in 1711 and Szecklers would no longer be called to arms, because their fighting methods had become obsolete. They became taxpayers themselves, but they were free people, with their old rights still observed. They enjoyed the same rights as the nobles under the law.”

After 1989, Szeklers became more visible in the public sphere in a surge of nationalism, more often than not fuelled by perceptions of the past. The latest pretext came in February 2013, when the fact that the Szekler flag was displayed on public institutions in Sfantu Gheorghe, Covasna County, sparked a new scandal, as it was seen as a gesture through which the Szeklers were demanding territorial autonomy on ethnic criteria. Even though it is of recent origin, the Szekler flag has deeper roots. Pal Antal Sandor told us more about how this flag was created.

Pal Antal Sandor: “It was created in 2004 at the initiative of the Szekler National Council, and designed by a curator from Sfantu Gheorghe, Konya Adam. It was inspired by a flag from 1601, a military standard flown by Szekler men of war led by Moise the Szekler, the only prince of Transylvania of Szekler origin. The flag’s yellow and blue are taken from the prince’s coat of arms, while the eight-pointed star is a newer element. Such a star has never been used before, as the other stars used had five or six points. It represents the eight Szekler regions, or royal seats. The crescent, however, is traditional.”

Even though they are old, the Szekler national symbols have never been in continuous use, and have been adjusted to fit the historical circumstances.

Pal Antal Sandor: “Along the centuries, Szeklers of non-Hungarian origin were Hungarized because of their military duties, and had a separate status within the general Hungarian population. They lived on a fairly well defined territory. During the 1848 revolution, the Szeklers intentionally gave up the rights that set them apart from the rest of Hungarians, and integrated into the Hungarian nation. In October 1848, after the gathering in Lutita, the general assembly of Szekler seats adhered to Hungarian law, and declared themselves a part of the single Hungarian nation. Since then, the Szeklers have never used their own flag as part of Hungary.”

After 1918, when Greater Romania emerged, Szekler insignia were put on the flag as part of the crest of Transylvania. Few people know that Szekler symbols are the same with those on the crests of medieval Romanian principalities.

Pal Antal Sandor: “I am still waiting to see the response of Romanian historians on this matter. But one has to ask: what is the origin of these symbols? In any case, they are Eastern, Turkish. Turkic populations have used these symbols, and let us not forget that Wallachia was under Cumanian domination for 200 years. Of course these symbols appeared in Wallachian heraldry. Moldavia is likely to use them as well. I am not saying this is set in stone, but I have to ask myself that. The crescent is everywhere, but instead of the sun there may be a star.”

The Szeklers are a minority with a strong ethnic awareness, which they plan to preserve. For them national insignia carry the same weight as for any other ethnic group and nation.

Aeronautics was a very popular domain in Romania between 1920- 1940. It was a period of effervescent emulation for those young people who had a passion for aeronautics and who were attending flight clubs and schools, programs, and trainings and who were also participating in contests. Some of them scored great successes in competitions that pitted them against pilots from countries with a long-standing tradition in the field. One of Romania’s greatest pilots and skydivers was a woman, Smaranda Braescu. She was actually the first woman pilot, skydiver and instructor of army pilots in Romania. She had a strong character and pursued her passion with great tenacity. She became European skydiving champion in 1931 at the age of 34, when she jumped from 6 thousand meters and set a European record. In 1932 she became world skydiving champion, jumping from 7400 meters at the contest held in Sacramento, USA. At the moment she set a world record that remained unbeaten for 20 years. She was awarded the Order of “The Aeronautical Virtue”, the Golden Cross. She was quite tenacious in her hobby, though her intellectual profile was very delicate as she studied Fine Arts in Bucharest, in the ceramic and decorative art section.

Ana Maria Sireteanu is the great grand daughter of Smaranda Braescu. She recalls how Smaranda’s strong character helped her deal with a very serious accident she suffered.

“In Satu Mare, during a jump, she was dragged by the parachute and hurt both her legs. She spent 5 months in hospital, a good doctor operated her and she managed to recover. After another 7 months, despite the seriousness of the accident, Smaranda managed to break two records, a European and a world record, in 1931 and 1932 respectively. Which is indicative of her extraordinary strength and desire to make her country known around the world”.

Smaranda Braescu left behind a diary, which also reveals her strong character. Ana Maria Sireteanu again at the microphone:

“From her personal diary, which she didn’t want to make public during her life, we find out that Smaranda Braescu had a passionate nature. We find many ‘angry’ paragraphs related to some officials in the aeronautics field who prevented her from pursuing some of her goals. Her cooperation with and activity within the Romanian Skydiving and Aeronautics Association, namely the activity of promoting aeronautics, are less known. Smaranda Braescu was very popular and many people loved her, both her colleagues and fans of aviation.”

Ana Maria Sireteanu also recalls the famous episode when Smaranda Braescu stole the plane she so much wanted to have.

“Milles Hawk was a very light, high-performance aircraft built in 1935 in England, mostly of wood. The cockpit was open and she felt like a queen when flying that plane. She could see everything because visibility was high. She had paid for the plane because the then state secretariat and authorities had issued a very good law: those pilots who scored very good results would receive a bonus that amounted to half the cost of a plane. She got the rest of the money from a public donation organized by the newspaper Universul. She ordered the plane, which was almost finished, but the company leaders, whom Smaranda criticized in her diary, did not want to hand her the plane as they claimed she needed more money for gasoline. She got angry and stole the plane and flew away from England over the English Channel. She flew through fog and landed in France where her action was already making headlines. Colonel Andrei Popovici, the secretary of the Romanian Flight Club, apologized on her behalf, but later gave her a hard time. For instance he refused to give her the pass for flying over the European countries. Eventually she got a pass from the French Flight Club. She held a pilot license that she had obtained in the US in the fall of 1932 on Roosevelt Field, the famous airport from where Charles Lindbergh had taken off for his trans-Atlantic flight. “

During the war Smaranda was active as a pilot in the famous “White Squadron” of medical planes, first on the eastern front and later on the western front in Transylvania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Alongside another 11 personalities she signed a memorandum which condemned the rigging of elections in November 1946. As she was followed by the Communist authorities, Smaranda Braescu had to hide. It seems that she found shelter at a monastery of nuns who buried her under a different name when she died on February 2nd1948 at 51 years of age.

One of the oldest urban settlements in medieval Moldavia is Suceava, the first attested capital of that old kingdom. Located in Romania’s extreme north, Suceava has developed as a result of the expansion of the medieval Hungarian kingdom towards the north. The birth of the city is linked to the emergence of the medieval state of Moldavia.

Around mid-14th century, Romanians from Maramures, led by a local warlord, Dragos, were sent by King Louis I of Hungary to guard the Mark of Moldavia, a buffer region, against the Tartar threat from the east. After the state of Moldavia consolidated in the 14th century, Suceava became the royal seat for two centuries, and the first king to rule from there was Petru I Musat (1375-1391).

There are two versions as to where the name of the city comes from. One version is that the name comes from the Hungarian word for the craft of making sheepskin coats. Other sources claim it comes from the word for elder tree forest. The city itself has developed between two fortifications. One of them was Scheia, or the Western Citadel of Suceava, in north west of the city. It is on a hill 384 meters high, 80 meters above sea level. It was a part of the system of fortifications erected by Prince Petru I at the end of the14th century. In the 15th century, during Alexander I of Moldavia, also known as Alexander the Good, , the fortification fell out of use. The ruin is now an archeological site and has been turned into a local monument.

The second fortification, the Royal Seat of Suceava, is in the east, on a plateau 70 meters high. It was built by Petru I too, but was preserved and expanded by his descendants. It was fortified by Stephen the Great, but in 1675 was destroyed. It too has fallen to ruin and has been included on the county’s list of historical monuments. Medieval Suceava was a multiethnic trading hub, home to Romanians, Germans, Hungarians and Armenians alike. During Alexandru Lapusneanu’s reign, by mid-16th century, the capital was moved to Iasi, but Suceava remained a princely residence until the early 17th century.

The 1848 revolution is considered the advent of the modern era in the Romanian principalities. It was the result of increasing contact with western states, and the dwindling of Ottoman influence. All nations in Central and Eastern Europe were seeking economic development and spiritual growth. Romanian revolutionaries were no different, fostering many ideals of modernization as vistas for social, political and economic advancement. The new model of society was based on the idea that man should be free from serfdom and be creative for himself and his community. In this context, slavery or serfdom was the worst sin of the past.

In the Romanian principalities, many peasants were serfs. There was also a much harsher type of servitude, full-fledged slavery, this time enforced on racial grounds. The Roma, or gypsies, were in slavery, as actual property to be bought and sold. The origins of the gypsies are lost in time as documentation goes, but it has been established that around the 13th century, northern Indians were recruited as auxiliaries by Mongol armies in their campaigns.

The Romanian principalities had three categories of gypsy slaves: slaves of the state, of the church, and of private citizens. Slavery was well regulated in medieval and modern Romanian society, and laws were clear: slaves had no rights, and their treatment was at the mercy of the owner. The great obstacle in freeing the Roma was convincing the owners to grant them equal rights under the law. For abolitionists, the idea of slaves in modern society was abhorrent. Society had a hard time accepting abolition, and the first attempts were made as late as 1837-1838. Gradually, the idea gained popularity around the 1848 revolution.

As humanitarian arguments did not resonate with slave owners, the abolitionists relied on economics. In 1837 Mihail Kogalniceanu, one of the first prime ministers of the Romanian united principalities, and Ion Cimpineanu, the latter being the first landowner who set his slaves free voluntarily, ran a fierce campaign in the press and in speeches. They insisted that slavery was not efficient economically. One of the arguments was that feeding the army of slaves in every nobleman’s household was costing more than what they produced through their work, which was supposed to be free of cost.

After 1850, noblemen owning slaves understood more clearly the economic sense of abolition. On 8 February 1856, around the Paris peace conference that ended the Crimean War, Wallachian prince Barbu Stirbey issued a law that freed 250,000 people, around 7% of the population of his country.

Despite its bombastic anti-capitalist rhetoric, the Communist regime was completely dependent on capitalism all along its history. Communist economies tried to take advantage of their links with the capitalist world as much as possible, although they were not even half as efficient as the capitalist economies. The hunger for hard currency was a constant characteristic of all the countries from the Socialist bloc, Romania included. Since the Socialist economy could not provide resources, the Romanian Communist regime put to work its repression apparatus, namely the Securitate, the Political Police, which was entrusted with the mission to produce money.

The hard currency operations of the Romanian Securitate are still a mystery for many Romanians. That is why the research that historian Florian Banu conducted in the archives of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives is a first step in an effort to uncover the mysteries of the former Romanian political police. Florian Banu:

“The issue of hard currency operations by the Securitate emerged in the 1950s. In the first years after it was set up, the Securitate was faced with many problems, which were inherent to any secret information service, and even more so to a political police service such as the Securitate. The need for hard currency was not that high at that point, because trade relations with the West had been severed. After the mid 1950s, with the opening towards the West and the resumption of trade relations with France, Germany and Great Britain the issue of hard currency emerged. At first hard currency was obtained by recovering the property of the Romanian citizens who had settled in the West. All those properties from the West had to be brought to the country and, to this end, the Securitate approached those people’s heirs from Romania. However these operations were only occasional. Towards the late 1950s the Securitate resorted to “confidential channels” to obtain hard currency in exchange for issuing emigration visas. Part of the Jewish community and of the German minority thought the future of Romania to be insecure and gloomy, so they chose to emigrate”.

Hard currency became a top priority for the Communist regime. That is why it received a lot of attention. Florian Banu:

“The Romanian state had the monopoly over all hard currency, which was considered state property and which had to be cashed by the state. Very strict legislation was enforced in this regard, and the money the Securitate obtained was deposited at the State Bank of the People’s Republic of Romania in a special account, which was strictly monitored. On July 31st1965 there were 6,857,000 dollars in this hard currency bank account. Money could only be taken from this account under strict surveillance. The officers who took the money were wired, discussions were taped and the likelihood of officers’ stealing some of this money was diminished. The Securitate was allowed to use 20% of the money for operational purposes, such as paying foreign informers or purchasing modern equipment from the West. Only a small amount was used to buy hunting rifles for high communist officials.”

In the years of the communist regime headed by Nicolae Ceausescu between 1965-1989 the Securitate constantly tried to find more ways to obtain foreign currency. Florian Banu:

“As a novelty, in the early ‘70s the Securitate insisted that the money should be sent to Romania by bank transfer instead of the classical cash method, which nevertheless continued to be in use throughout the 1980s. The officers with the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service’s Directorate One were the ones in charge with bringing hard currency to Romania in cash. After 1978, Romania’s entire espionage structure was reshuffled after Pacepa, the deputy head of the country’s counterintelligence service, defected. This is when things started to change. A special department was set up, for special hard currency contributions. At the end of the 1970s, the number of hard currency operations grew, because the communist regime had to pay a lot of foreign debts. The oil crises in the 1970s, the oversized chemical industry, the loss of several foreign markets and a substantial increase in the interest rate on sovereign debts put a huge pressure on the Romanian state.”

Historian Florian Banu tells us how the Romanian secret police succeeded in recovering some of the money.

VM-TRACK: “Clear instructions were given about what type of hard currency transactions were accepted. An example in this respect is the recovery of certain amounts in foreign currency from the confidential commissions approved by the Romanian authorities for the foreign citizens who contributed to the signing of contracts that favored Romania. How was it done? Here is an example. The Romanian state wanted to export tractors to Iran and in order to win the tender it paid a commission to a high Iranian official. After the contract was signed and the export started, Romanian secret police officers would contact the Iranian official and tell him, under the pretext of additional costs with the exports, that he had to give some of the money back. And the respective official would give in. For instance, if he had got a bribe of 10% of the contract value, he would be asked to return half of it. So this money was taken back and transferred to Romania.”

Nevertheless, the hard currency operations of the Romanian secret police did little to prevent the fall of the communist regime. They did however train some people who, after 1989, managed to take over an important part of the country’s emerging market economy.

The salt route led to western and southern Europe, confirming the theory according to which the first European identity is linked to salt trade.

The city of Rome boasts what was once called “via salaria”, the route along which salt was brought into the city. According to some theories, the Roman expansion towards ancient Dacia and the Roman conquest of this territory were not carried out exclusively for political reasons, as the Romans actually intended to seize control over natural resources, particularly gold and salt. Salt continued to be regarded as an important resource along the years, proof thereof being the Salt Road in the capital city Bucharest, dating back to the Middle Ages.

There are few things around us whose stories start in prehistoric times and can be followed uninterruptedly until present. That is the case of salt. Prehistory is the history of humankind in the period before recorded history, about 5 million years ago, before the first towns were set up and writing was invented. The Carpathian space was the main source of salt for the European man. Carol Capita, a prehistory professor at the Faculty of History, with the Bucharest University, will tell us how important salt was for the prehistoric human communities:

“Salt is an important component of all living organisms and an essential element of electrolysis that ensures the well functioning of the body. Whether we talk about oxidation or reduction processes, salt is an element that keeps our bodies healthy. In another line of thought, it is also a fundamental element for the existence of communities, not only in the Romanian space but also in the Netherlands, and French area, for instance. There is solid archaeological evidence in support of the idea that salt exploitation started around the year 10,000 BC with rock salt, given the extensive tradition of hard rock exploitation. As far as the Romanian area is concerned, in Covasna, in Transylvania, as well as in Valcea, in Wallachia there is proof of rock salt exploitation as of 1800 BC. Interestingly enough, it seems that there is a connection between various advanced and rich Bronze Age cultures and the existence of salt deposits, be they small or large. The Sarata Monteoru case is illustrative. This culture has spread from Central Europe to the southern Danube area. A more emblematic case is that of the Valcea area, boasting the Buridava site, which is a highly populated area. “

From the Carpathian arch, salt was carried to two different directions: to the west and northwest and another one to the south and southeast.

“If we looked at a map and tried to locate salt exploitations in relation to ceramics centres, which are the most visible form of archaeological vestiges, we can see that the Romanian space provided rock salt to two areas that were fundamental in the formation of a European culture. On the one hand, there is the route leading from Transylvania to Hungary, Slovakia and further away to the German area, which traditionally lacked salt. This, for instance, ensured copper import from the Central European area, lying at the foundation of some spectacular Bronze Age cultures from Romania, such as the Wittenberg culture. On the other hand, also taking ceramics as a landmark, we can retrace the links with the space located south of the Danube, especially the Dalmatian area, the western Balkans and Thracia. These routes from east to west and from north to south were also the paths through which the Indo-European migratory populations came, in the last phase of the formation of Indo-European peoples in the Romanian space. Studies show that the Indo-European populations were pastoral populations. And there is a close relationship between pastoral cultures and the existence of rock salt. Consequently all these elements make us think that salt in the Romanian space was key to the formation of a cultural horizon marking the end of European prehistory.”

The salt in the Carpathian Mountains was not only a necessary food. It is considered one of the first elements that led to the setting up of the first forms of rapprochement between communities and individuals located far away from one another.

Carol Capita:“Maybe the Romanian space is not that central in the genesis of European peoples, there were different ethno genesis nucleuses, so I would be more reserved in this respect. Anyway, the Romanian salt is more important than gold in the process of cultural diffusion of some common European cultural characteristics. Most probably salt was the ‘ferment’ for creating a corridor for the circulation of ideas, ornamental models, objects, and population, up to a certain point in time. One can live without gold but not without salt. What is significant about the Romanian salt is the amount and the easiness of exploitation. You don’t need to dig deep to exploit salt. It was only later, when there emerged the phenomenon of salt washing, that micro-relief issues started to occur, more precisely dangerous cavities. Exploitation of salt was made as if in a quarry.”

After millions of years, the salt deposits in the Carpathian basin are still exploited and seem to never end. For today’s generations salt is no longer an element of rapprochement, but a mere condiment.

Polish-Romanian Relations in the 14thCentury

By the second half of the 14thcentury, what was to become the Ottoman Empire started being a significant power in the south east of Europe. It continued to dominate the area until early in the 20thcentury. Balkan Christians kept trying to resist the Ottoman war machine, but only managed to do so temporarily. Late in the 14thcentury, a Wallachian prince, Mircea the Old (1386- 1418) sought allies against the Turks, who were right across the Danube, a frontier of his state.

Relations with neighboring Hungary were not good, and at that time the king of Hungary was Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387- 1437). As a result, Mircea tried to strengthen relations with the Polish kingdom led by Wladyslaw II Jagello. After the defeat of the Serbian army at Kossovopolje in 1389, Mircea’s position was even more tenuous. With intervention from the prince of Moldavia, Petru Musat, who was a vassal to the Polish king, Mircea made a mutual defense pact on 10 December 1389 with the Polish king, mainly against the king of Hungary, but also against other enemies.

The Wallachian negotiators were assisted by a high Moldavian official in making the deal. The pact was ratified on 20thJanuary 1390 in Lublin. Its terms are not clear now, as the document has not been preserved, but we do have a letter from Mircea to Wladyslaw endorsing the treaty. What is also known is that the treaty of Lublin was followed by a tripartite pact with the king of Hungary as the new side.

The two Catholic kings and the prince of the Romanian principality were brought together by the common threat represented by the Ottoman Empire. Mircea was at an advantage once the Hungarian king agreed to the pact, because Hungary’s geographic position made it more likely for it to provide actual troops on the ground.

Even though relations with Hungary eventually improved, since Mircea became a vassal of the Hungarian king, the Wallachian prince still used the pact with Poland as a safeguard measure in the face of Hungarian encroachment. The alliance was still in place at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, where a Moldavian detachment fought the Teutonic Knights on the side of the Polish-Lithuanian troops.

The Legionnaire Rebellion

And now to a different topic, that of the coup d’etat perpetrated by the Romanian fascists during WWII. Between January 21 and 23 1941, Bucharest was a war zone in the struggle for power. The Iron Guard, the main fascist organization in Romania at the time, was trying to wrestle power from Marshal Ion Antonescu, the then head of state, who had taken that position after the crisis of the personal dictatorship instated by King Carol II in 1938.

Using the model of the Third Reich, Antonescu’s regime imposed racial legislation and created commissions to Romanize the entire population. That meant that every person of Jewish origin with any bearing on the economy was banned from public activity. Eventually, the legislation toughened to the extent that it affected every single person with Jewish roots.

On 4 December 1940, Romania signed an economic pact with Hitler’s Germany, a 10 year pact that continued the arms and oil treaty of 1940. For four and a half months, Antonescu’s regime vied for power with the legionnaires, who were trying to infiltrate state institutions everywhere, including intelligence services. The regime stood by and didn’t take action when the legionnaires, as the members of the Iron Guard were known, retaliated against the officials who had persecuted them in the 1930s.

On November 26 1940, 64 dignitaries were shot in the prison at Jilava. The two elements struggling for power inevitably came to blows. Supported by the king, Michael I, and by the army, Antonescu managed to get on Hitler’s good side in this conflict. When he dismissed the minister of the interior, who was a legionnaire, he practically declared war on the Iron Guard. The legionnaires tried to take over all state institutions, and for two days, between January 21 and 23 1941, Bucharest was the stage of armed clashes. Around 120 of the civilian victims were Jewish. The Iron Guard lost the conflict, and about 8,000 of its members were arrested and prosecuted, and that group was dismantled forever. Some legionnaires took refuge in Germany, where they were used as leverage against the Antonescu regime by the Third Reich.

And, as any rule has its exception to prove it, Iuliu Maniu was a politician to contradict any such suspicions.

He was born in 1873, in the north west of what is today Romania. He studied law, just like his father. His mother was the daughter of a Greek-Catholic priest. In 1896 he got his PhD in law from Vienna University. He took up politics early on, and signed up with the Romanian National Party. In 1906 he was elected to the Austro-Hungarian parliament. In 1916 he was drafted in the Austro-Hungarian army and stationed in Italy. In 1918, at the end of the war, he and several other Romanian leaders from Transylvania decided their province should unite with Romania. In 1926, together with Ion Mihalache, he founded the National Peasant Party, one of the most important party between the two world wars. Between 1918 and 1945, Maniu held three Prime Minister mandates. He was committed to democracy, and refused any kind of collaboration with both the fascist and the communist dictatorships. He was imprisoned by the latter in 1947 and died in jail when he was 75 years old, on February 5, 1953, in the notorious detention center in Sighet.

Iuliu Maniu was one of the most important figures in Romanian society in the first half of the 20th century. He was incorruptible, charismatic, tenacious, and in every way the man that Romania needed in its direst of times. He was fondly remembered, not only as a politician, but also as a special person. We will be providing you with two witness accounts of the man as seen by his contemporaries, testimonies recorded by Radio Romania’s Center for Oral History. Here is the account of Ioana Berindei, daughter of Ioan Hudita, National Peasant Party leader, recorded in 2000.

Ioana Berindei: “Maniu was a man of rare modesty. He was a kind man, with a warm voice. He visited us over lunch and saluted my sister and me very politely. Once I noticed he had a small spot on his lapel, and asked him if I could clean it up for him. He was very embarrassed. I told him these things happen, and asked to clean it up. He was quite sick at the time, so much so that he could barely sit in a chair, his knees hurt him all the time and he could barely walk. In spite of that, not once did I see him mad or upset. His calm demeanor reflected on everyone. As a politician he was intransigent. My father liked that, the fact that he would not budge an inch from his positions. Some ill-meaning people were saying he had a hard time making up his mind, but those were only cheap shots. Every politician has opponents, no one is perfect, and you can’t help having adversaries. I could not find one single flaw in him, and I’m not saying that because my father and I knew him and loved him. He opposed Carol II with all his might. When he realized all the mistakes that were made — when he came to Romania in 1930, all nice, with his tail tucked between his legs, only to let on what kind of a man he really was — Maniu was quite disenchanted. He brought him in, but then he admitted his error and opposed him very strongly.”

Sergiu Macarie, a National Peasant Party youth activist, spoke for our archives in 2000 as well. He spoke about the Soviet entry into Romania, which alarmed most Romanians who were aware of the threat. In spite of his old age and infirmity, Iuliu Maniu did not hesitate to get involved actively.

Sergiu Macarie: “Every other day we would have a clash with the communist gangs. There were larger and larger meetings, and we knew they were coming. Ilie Lazar, for instance, was one of the party leaders to take part in the clashes. We were gathering in Palace Square and we were hailing the king, who came out on the balcony among ovations and cheers. After that, every time, trucks filled with industrial workers with wooden staves came. On 15 May 1947 we were celebrating Barnutiu’s famous speech given on Freedom Field in Blaj, with Maniu in the crowd. All around the Atheneum there were cars full of workers with sticks. We barely got the chairman out, we opened a door in the back that was out of use, we broke it down to get him out.”

Iuliu Maniu was more than an honest politician. He was a symbol of democracy itself. Between 1944 and 1947, the weight of his name lent him the kind of confidence that was not limited to Romanians. Even Western leaders trusted him, and he was considered the most important element of the dialog with the Western partners. His intransigence earned him his death. It was a sacrifice that only a man of his stature could make, could accept, it was that sacrifice that put him on the map of 20th century history forever.

Civil aviation has its own history that goes back in time some 100 years. During WWI aviation was something new and the efficiency of aircrafts was an incentive for its development. In the wake of WWI people discovered the benefits of civil aviation namely freight transportation, services and people transportation.

Romania was among the pioneers that developed civil aviation in the 3rd decade of the 20th century, concurrently with military aviation. Romania’s representatives participated in the drafting of international documents regulating civil flights. Jurist Radu Boros studied air law in Italy, took a PhD degree in Germany and also studied international law in France. He became a legal counselor with the Air Ministry in 1937 as expert jurist at the Civil Aviation Directorate, in the Agreements, Treaties, Legislation and Regulations Department. In 1995 when he was interviewed by the Oral History Center of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, Radu Boros also talked about Romania’s contribution to the adoption of international legislation in the civil aviation field.

Radu Boros: “In 1919 at the end of the war, a convention was concluded on the occasion of the Paris Peace Treaty. It was the IANC Convention, the International Air Navigation Convention. At that moment the principle of air navigation freedom did not exist. The only existing theory was that of state sovereignty over the air space. To be able to put in place an airline one had to conclude a special agreement with each state for the concession of these civil transport lines. The 1919 Paris Convention was meant to regulate this absolute right of sovereignty over the air space. And it set certain rules among which some basic rules for aircraft personnel qualification and international rules for airport signaling for aircraft to identify the runway and rules included in an international code for weather or navigation information”.

During the Versailles negotiations foreign minister Nicolae Titulescu had an idea, which he shared with the French politicians, to set up a civil air transportation company called the French-Romanian Air Navigation Company, a French-Romanian joint venture, that was officially set up in 1920. Next Radu Boros will briefly characterize the activity of this company.

Radu Boros: “It was the first long-range air transportation company in Europe after WWI. But that was a political airline. An airline established as part of the Little Entente. It was a political airline, an airline for military staff through which France wanted to make its presence felt in the countries of the Little Entente. That is why the airline had a strange route. It started in Bucharest and passed through Belgrade, Prague, Strasbourg and Paris. Of course Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia subsidized that airline. Under the agreement they were supposed to train one or two pilots.”

After 1942, the British De Havilland D.H. 9 bombers were turned into passenger planes at the Aeronautical Arsenal in Cotroceni, and a year later the first domestic flight between Bucharest and Galati was established. The same year marked the closing down of the French-Romanian Airline Company, which was replaced by the International Airline Company, after the Air France model. In the 1930’s, the Romanian civil aviation continued to develop. Radu Boros has more:

România comunistă a organizat procese politice împotriva cetăţenilor ei pentru a intimida, preveni, suprima orice tentativă de manifestare independentă a spiritului şi acţiunii. Iar dacă acei cetăţeni erau minoritari etnici, atunci aceasta era o circumstanţă agravantă. Germanii din România au purtat vreme îndelungată stigmatul nazismului şi au trecut prin toate tipurile de persecuţie pe care regimul le-a gândit şi aplicat. Una dintre cele mai ridicole înscenări judiciare pe care comuniştii l-au denumit ”proces” a fost cel intentat, în 1959, scriitorilor germani. După revoluţia anticomunistă din Ungaria din 1956, un nou val de represiuni de declanşase în România. În august 1959, cinci scriitori germani erau inculpaţi pentru uneltire împotriva ordinii sociale. Cei cinci erau preotul Andreas Birkner, Wolf von Aichelburg, Georg Scherg, Hans Bergel şi un alt preot, Sigmund. În total, ei au primit 95 de ani de închisoare.





Viaţa lui Hans Bergel este un roman. În 2002, povestea Centrului de Istorie Orală din Radiodifuziunea Română amintirile sale în legătură cu arestarea sa şi a celorlalţi patru intelectuali germani: ”Eram în total cinci, s-a făcut pe vremea aceea vestitul proces al lotului scriitorilor germani, nici nu îi cunoşteam pe toţi colegii de suferinţă. Totuşi, Securitatea a fost atât de inteligentă încât a construit un complot din noi. Zic: “Măi, într-adevăr, noi am fost un complot, până acum nu am ştiut, atât de rafinat a fost făcut!” Adică luau un element de la dumneata, că ai discutat odată, cândva, hai să spunem, opera lui Victor Hugo, dar nu cu mine. Eu, întâmplător, cam în acelaşi timp am discutat opera lui Victor Hugo cu altul. Iată ceva în comun: Victor Hugo. Ce am spus noi despre Victor Hugo? Pesemne tu ai spus partenerului tău o treabă care era normal că era legată de Victor Hugo, în mod firesc, şi eu am spus la fel. Ce să vezi, spune Securitatea, gândesc la fel, înseamnă că au avut întruniri, tu şi cu mine, fără să ştie Securitatea, şi acolo am conspirat. Atât de absurd, încât ziceam: mă, îmi vine să râd, să-i admir sau să plâng? Şi mi-a dat seama când am citit textul de acuzare că nu avem nici o şansă.”





Pedeapsa primită de tot lotul era total demoralizatoare. Dar oamenii au rezistat, Hans Bergel spunea că prin umor şi, cel mai adesea, datorită conjuncturii cotidiene: ”Câteodată, când privesc înapoi, nu ştiu cum am rezistat, şi am rezistat cu optimism, nu mi-au rupt şira spinării: “Voi n-o să reuşiţi, pe mine vreţi să mă daţi gata!?” Cam asta a fost mentalitatea tuturor, cu excepţii, erau foarte puţini oameni slabi în puşcărie din punct de vedere moral, toţi eram hotărâţi. Şi dacă era unul mai sărac, mai slab la suflet, îl ajutam. Camera de anchetă avea o măsuţă mică, înşurubată de duşumea, nu puteai să o mişti, scaunul la fel şi trebuia să stai aşa, cu capul plecat, te demoraliza. Dacă stai o dată 10 minute, aşa să vezi cum este, îţi pierzi personalitatea. Atât de rafinaţi erau, cu aceste detalii făceau un război psihologic împotriva noastră şi în multe cazuri a reuşit. Eu am avut zile în care când mă scotea la anchetă, aveam senzaţia sigură că astăzi mă pot omorî, dar nu vor scoate o vorbă de la mine, atât de puternic mă simţeam. A doua zi însă mă rugam: “Doamne, numai astăzi nu, Doamne, ajută-mă, că astăzi în 5 minute mă dau gata!” Ţinea de dispoziţia momentană, cotidiană. Să nu-mi spună mie nimeni că am fost eroi, că nu ştiu ce. Eroii sunt alţii, ştiu eu cine, nu noi! Depinzi în situaţii de genul ăsta de dispoziţia ta de moment şi pe care nu o poţi dirija pentru că nu eşti stăpân pe nervii tăi. Există şi acest ciclu biologic de care nu se ştia atunci. Ăia m-au prins pe o culme de vitalitate şi din cauza asta nu au putut face cu mine ce voiau şi eu am rezistat. Dar dacă mă prindea undeva la vale eram la fel de slab ca alţii pe care i-am condamnat. Adică să nu fie dramatizată, nici eroizată situaţia în care ne-am aflat. Bineînţeles că au existat caractere mai tari şi au existat caractere mai slăbuţe, ca şi în viaţa normală, nu era nici o deosebire.”





Hans Bergel este un om modest şi crede că experienţele-limită, cum a fost viaţa sa din închisoare, te fac mai nobil numai dacă ai un caracter nobil. Şi-a întărit convingerea atunci când a auzit o experienţă similară a unui supravieţuitor de la Auschwitz: ”Am auzit odată un interviu în Germania cu un fost actor care a fost la Auschwitz timp de 5 ani şi a scăpat cu viaţă. Mi-am zis: ia să fiu atent ce spune tipul ăsta care a fost într-un lagăr nazist? Eu am fost în lagărele comuniste. Care a fost experienţa lui şi care a fost a mea? A spus exact aceleaşi lucruri pe care le-am trăit eu în puşcăriile comuniste din România. Între altele, poate cel mai interesant element din cele spuse de el a fost următorul: l-a întrebat reporterul dacă este adevărat că situaţia grea, suferinţa, înnobilează omul? Şi ăsta a râs şi a spus: “nu este adevărat, în situaţia grea caracterul nobil devine şi mai nobil şi caracterul rău devine şi mai rău!” Şi asta a fost experienţa pe care am avut-o eu. Nu suferinţa te face să ai demnitate, în situaţia grea îţi arăţi faţa, eşti gol. Aceleaşi experienţe le-a avut omul ăsta la Auschwitz, ca şi mine la Răchitoasa sau la Jilava.”





Nedrepte sau nu, viaţa şi experienţele-limite ale oamenilor nu sunt eroice în toată desfăşurarea lor. Însuşi Aleksandr Soljeniţân, mărturisindu-şi propriile slăbiciuni, spunea că au rămas în viaţă, pentru a povesti urmaşilor grozăviile din lagăre, ”cei mai nedemni dintre noi.”

(Steliu Lambru)

Comorile au atras întotdeauna nenorociri şi oamenii le-au asociat blestemelor. Puţine sunt poveştile cu final fericit în care să existe şi comori, ”Ali Baba şi cei 40 de hoţi” fiind exemplul clasic. Dar nici din frumoasa poveste arabă a celor 1001 şi una de nopţi nu lipsesc tragediile. Comorile strânse sunt rodul fărădelegilor unor nelegiuiţi, sunt plătite cu sânge de foştii lor posesori şi, în cele din urmă, cu propriile vieţi chiar de tâlhari.





Nici tezaurele nu fac excepţie de la regula comorilor blestemate, soarta oamenilor care a fost legată de a lor nefiind una tihnită. Cel mai cunoscut caz este cel al celebrului faraon egiptean Tutankhamon, care a fost şi subiectul unei nuvele scrise de Agatha Christie. După descoperirea mormântului său în 1923, unii dintre cei care au intrat în locul de odihnă al suveranului au murit la scurtă perioadă după aceea, coincidenţele fiind puse pe seama blestemului faraonului. Nici în istoria României tezaurele nu fac excepţie de la regulă. După 1989, nu putem vorbi despre blesteme care au făcut victime, dar putem menţiona scandalurile, cel mai cunoscut fiind cel legat de brăţările dacice şi de alte obiecte care au fost comercializate de diferite reţele de traficanţi de obiecte de artă şi de patrimoniu.





Muzeul Naţional de Istorie a României a deschis un site, oamenisicomori.ro, unde istoria secretă a tezaurelor este devoalată specialiştilor şi publicului. Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu, directorul Muzeului Naţional de Istorie, a povestit despre cum i-au influenţat tezaurele pe cei care au legătură cu ele:

”Tezaurele, ca şi oamenii, au avut o viaţă şi o soartă. Toate tezaurele au avut o soartă dramatică. Unii oameni nu sunt chiar atât de nefericiţi, însă tezaurele da. Au fost depuse fie că era vorba de jertfe aduse zeilor, fie că erau obiecte care îi însoţeau pe proprietarii lor în viaţa de dincolo de moarte sau valori importante ascunse în momente de mare primejdie. Depunerea unui tezaur, a unei comori din metal preţios, obiecte, bijuterii, monede, reflectă o situaţie dramatică. Tot atât de dramatică este şi descoperirea tezaurelor. Să ne imaginăm că cineva sapă sau umblă printr-o râpă şi brusc îi apare în faţă obiectul sau obiectele de aur sau argint în cantitate mare. Să ne punem în pielea acelui om pe care destinul l-a ales să găsească tezaurul. Peste noapte se vede bogat, dar în acelaşi timp peste noapte încep grijile: să mi le fure cineva, o să mă omoare, ce voi păţi, tezaurul este blestemat, îşi spune omul. Nu este o postură plăcută să descoperi tezaure, este un factor de stres extraordinar. Urmează apoi situaţia extrem de dramatică a recuperării. Trebuie să intervină poliţia, organele de anchetă. Mulţi dintre descoperitori n-au mai fost aceiaşi după ce au găsit tezaure. Fie că şi-au pierdut averea, fie că şi-au pierdut libertatea, adesea şi-au pierdut şi viaţa. Oricum, zilele pe care le-au avut după descoperirea tezaurelor nu au mai fost ca acelea de dinainte. Tezaurul mai are o parte secretă legată de oamenii care l-au valorificat din punct de vedere ştiinţific, l-au studiat, l-au expus în muzee.”



Atunci când ne aflăm în faţa unei vitrine în care se află un obiect sau mai multe obiecte din metal preţios rămânem fascinaţi de frumuseţea ce se desfăşoară sub ochii noştri. Şi nu ne mai gândim la ce este dincolo de el. Bănuim care este valoarea lui şi, poate, ne gândim şi pentru o clipă cum ar fi dacă l-am avea numai pentru noi. Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu vorbeşte nu numai de cei ale căror existenţe s-au schimbat ori frânt din cauza tezaurelor, ci şi despre o altă pedeapsă pe care o dau comorile, şi anume cei pe care lumea îi uită: ”Toate acestea alcătuiesc un dosar fascinant în care romanul poliţist se îmbină cu cel horror şi în care viaţa îţi oferă surprize mult mai mari decât le poate imagina omul cu cea mai bogată imaginaţie. Sunt lucruri care în momentul în care întoarcem paginile istoriei unui tezaur ne cutremură şi ne aduc în acelaşi timp aminte de cât de important este norocul, soarta, în evoluţia culturilor, clipa aceea inefabilă când l-ai găsit, când ai ajuns în contact cu o asemenea descoperire, inefabil care însoţeşte tezaurul câte zile are acesta. În decursul carierei mele, m-am ocupat de câteva tezaure şi am constatat că multe lucruri nu sunt cunoscute. Unele tezaure sunt prezentate cu greşeli uriaşe de documentare. Aproape că niciodată nu se vorbeşte despre oamenii care le-au descoperit, nu se vorbeşte aproape niciodată despre oamenii care au făcut eforturi uriaşe ca să le recupereze. Adesea, chiar şi cei care le-au studiat sunt trecuţi în conul nedrept al uitării. Este o istorie fascinantă a tezaurelor din istoria României în care se pot vedea oameni ridicaţi şi coborâţi, declaraţi cetăţeni model de civism şi peste două zile terfeliţi de presă ca nişte borfaşi de rând, oameni care au dat faliment, oameni care au murit, oameni care au fost nenorociţi, savanţi care s-au ocupat de tezaure şi după aceea posteritatea i-a uitat.”



Sacrificiul pentru ca asemenea frumuseţi să ne fie nouă accesibile astăzi este unul pe care nimeni nu l-a dorit. Dar de câte ori oamenii din trecut, ca şi noi, cei de azi, atunci când s-au alfat în situaţii-limită, nu şi-au dorit ca lucrurile să se întâmple altfel?

Transformarea a fost unul dintre cuvintele pe care comunismul le-a îndrăgit cel mai mult şi ea trebuia să-l facă pe noul cetăţean să trăiască mai bine. “Mai binele” comunist, făcut cel mai adesea împotriva voinţei individului, însemna de fapt “mai rău”, aşa cum a dovedit-o şi politica de sistematizare. Oficial, ea însemna construire şi dezvoltare, dar în realitate era o politică de demolare a vechiului habitat urban şi înlocuirea cu unul nou, depersonalizat. Memoria publică română a reţinut pentru politica de sistematizare de la sfârşitul anilor 1970 şi în anii 1980 un singur cuvânt care surprinde esenţa: “demolări”.



În limbajul curent, folosirea cuvântului “demolări” are o trimitere clară. Niciodată până atunci localităţile României nu suferiseră o operaţiune atât de amplă de transformare, de fapt, de desfigurare. Creierele acelei politici, dacă se poate folosi cuvântul “creiere” pentru o asemenea manifestare paranoică, au fost Nicolae şi Elena Ceauşescu, ei luând în final toate deciziile. O glumă neagră conjuga verbul “a construi” astfel: eu construiesc, tu construieşti, el, ea dărâmă.



A vorbi despre demolări înseamnă să dedici nenumărate ore acestei teme. De ea sunt legate şi altele cum ar fi regimul proprietăţii particulare în comunism, dezrădăcinarea, malformarea urbanistică, abuzul statului faţă de cetăţean. Pe 28 martie 1977, într-o şedinţă a Comitetului Politic Executiv al Comitetului Central al PCR, se hotăra începerea politicii de sistematizare a teritoriului României şi a localităţilor ei. Ceea ce în teorie era un proiect ambiţios de ridicare a gradului de civilizaţie materială a societăţii româneşti, în practică a însemnat o campanie iraţională de demolare care a dus la un dezastru urbanistic şi de patrimoniu.



Istoricul şi profesorul Dinu C. Giurescu este unul dintre intelectualii care au protestat împotriva sistematizării duse de oficialităţi. În 2006, el îşi aducea aminte, împreună cu Centrul de Istorie Orală din Radiodifuziunea Română, despre începuturile politicii de sistematizare: ”Am aflat că s-au făcut experimente în două locuri: la Suceava, unde aproape tot patrimoniul urban vechi a fost distrus, cu excepţia bisericilor, şi la Piteşti unde, de asemenea, au avut loc distrugeri masive, cu schimbarea reţelei stradale în ambele oraşe. Nu mi-am dat seama însă atunci de ce se petrece. Ioana Hristache-Panait, o cercetătoare de la Institutul de Istoria Artei, a venit să-mi spună, în preajma cutremurului din 1977, dacă nu cumva imediat după aceea: domnule profesor, nu ştiţi ce se petrece la Rm. Vâlcea!? Îmi spune că se dărâmă totul, cade oraşul, nu mai există oraşul vechi. Şi tot nu-mi imaginam. Toate acestea până la cutremurul din 1977, momentul în care mi-am dat seama de ce se întâmplă. În 1974 se votase legea sistematizării urbane şi rurale în care e introdus conceptul nou de sistematizare. La prima vedere, nici măcar nu era rău fiindcă avea drept scop organizarea judicioasă a teritoriului ţării, a judeţelor şi a comunelor, zonarea funcţională privind modul de folosinţă a terenului. Citez din lege: stabilirea regimului de înălţime, a densităţii construcţiilor, a densităţii locuitorilor, a spaţiilor plantate şi de agrement — iată ce frumos suna! — echiparea cu dotări social-culturale cu lucrări tehnico-edilitare, căi de comunicaţii şi transport şi, atenţie acum, păstrarea şi îmbunătăţirea mediului înconjurător, punerea în valoare a monumentelor istorice şi de artă, a locurilor istorice etc., etc. Suna foarte frumos, mai ales că se încheia cu îmbunătăţirea continuă a condiţiilor de muncă, de locuit, de odihnă pentru întreaga populaţie”



Cutremurul din 4 martie 1977 a fost prilejul cel mai bun pentru putere de a începe politica de demolări. Şi aceasta în ciuda legislaţiei în vigoare. Dinu C. Giurescu: ”În ’77 vine cutremurul şi au loc câteva evenimente care marchează politica deliberată de distrugere a patrimoniului arhitectonic tradiţional din oraşe şi înlocuirea lui prin aceste blocuri pe care eu l-am denumit colhoz urban. Un prim eveniment, la care am participat, a fost cel legat de demolarea turlei Bisericii Enei, ctitorie din epoca brâncovenească. Pe 23 aprilie 1977 a avut loc o şedinţă a Comisiei Patrimoniului Naţional la care au participat şi arhitecţi. Am discutat acolo legea pentru ocrotirea patrimoniului, mai ales articolele privind păstrarea monumentelor, mai ales articolul 6, toate bunurile care făceau parte din patrimoniul naţional erau supuse regimului de conservare, şi articolul 11 prin care statul se obliga să ia toate măsurile necesare pentru apărarea, conservarea, ocrotirea patrimoniului cultural naţional. Am discutat şi articolul 25 din legea pentru ocrotirea patrimoniului naţional-cultural care prevede sancţiuni penale distrugerea bunurilor artistice, istorice şi arhitectonice de la 3 luni la 3 ani, completarea din Codul Penal mărea pedeapsa de la 2 la 7 ani.”



Au urmat memorii la Consiliul Culturii şi Educaţiei Socialiste şi la Secţia de Cultură şi Propagandă a Comitetului Central al PCR, iar răspunsul sosit pe adresa Comisiei Monumentelor Istorice a fost unul imperativ: de atunci, ordinea de zi a şedinţelor Comisiei trebuia aprobată în prealabil de Consiliul Culturii şi Educaţiei Socialiste. A fost o punere a pumnului în gura specialiştilor şi, în final, în gura tradiţiei.

(Steliu Lambru)