Radio România Internațional

Category: The History Show

  • Nature and Politics in 19th Century Romania

    Nature and Politics in 19th Century Romania

    Nature is a fundamental presence in the existence of humankind. In effect, the human being cannot possibly exist without nature. Nature is the physical or the material world. In time, man explained the existence of nature as an irrational presence, but also as a rational one, the relationship the human being has with nature has always stimulated thought; one way or another, all ideas and branches of science are linked to nature. The modern world that began in the second half of the 18th century placed nature on a par with the divine, whereas the Middle Ages and the pre-modern era placed their stakes on the idea of the supernatural. Therefore, nature became part of political debates, so much so that conservative or groundbreaking ideas pay heed to its significance.



    Nature as part of political debates would also emerge in the Romanian space. It was a French import. The Francophile Romanian intellectuals adopted the idea of nature, implemented it in politics, and analyzed its role and its relationship with politics in the set of attitudes man should have. Nature becomes essential in explaining the world from a political point of view.



    Raluca Alexandrescu is a professor with The University of Bucharests Political Sciences Faculty. Dr Alexandrescu explained the source of the political debate on nature in the Romanian space.



    We can already detect such tendencies in European logic, in the political discourse and in the European political narrative after 1850. An author I have already used as a landmark, precisely because, in very many respects, he is a source of inspiration and a role model, although I try not to use the world role model, is Jules Michelet. He himself has a radical change in discourse and in the research area of history and politics after 1851. “



    One of the first intellectuals who introduced nature in politics was engineer, geographer and writer Nestor Urechia. Raluca Alexandrescu has rediscovered his works and is now trying to put them into circulation once again.



    Nestor Urechia was V. A. Urechias son. He is an author who, as far as I could infer talking to my fellow historians, political scientists or anthropologists, has enjoyed unprecedented attention, I daresay. He has been not studied very much so far, so he revealed quite a few of his many sides as a scientific personality. He is an engineer trained at the École Polytechnique și École nationale des ponts et chaussées from Paris, he is the main manager of the worksites building DN 1, National Road 1, which he supervised and built between 1902 and 1913, on the Comarnic- Predeal sector. At the same time, he is a vocal Francophile. His wife was French, in fact. He is passionate about mountains and nature. All these things coalesce to form a very stimulating set of reflections for the reader nowadays.



    Urechia’s ideas stimulate the reader in reflecting on the relationship between territory, nature, democracy, sovereignty. This is an initial idea in Urechia’s writings that Raluca Alexandrescu wanted to remark upon:



    “He observes that the earth is interesting mostly through its relationship with people. This is his main starting issue. The relationship with people did not just mean the aspects that we would see from an activist ecological perspective, meaning taking care of the environment, what we can do to protect it, but more than that. Urechia’s intent was to build a more theoretical proposal. His proposal took into account this more and more mobile, dynamic, more fluid relationship of society, of groups and individuals that compose it, with various forms of manifestation of nature, that form of cohabitation. This is interesting because this idea of peaceful cohabitation with nature, which today dominates the general discourse in general, is not very apparent in this period. Therefore, man and nature are actors with equal rights on a stage that brings them together under a harmonious political regime.



    How does national belonging come about? Raluca Alexandrescu summarized Nestor Urechia’s answer:



    “Another idea which is not so original, but is worth following in Urechia’s writing is the way in which he follows the construction of the modern expression of the nation in rhetoric about nature. Here we should rather refer to his novels, which are basically just stories. We are talking about a few volumes he published in early 20th century, such as Bucegi, The Spell of the Bucegi, and later The Robinsons of Bucegi. In these literary attempts we can see very clearly the intention to build the rhetoric of an identity, even a national one, relating to the way in which nature and politics blend together.



    Today, nature and politics, just like 150 years ago, are present in what people believe is important for them and for the community they live in. Nestor Urechia is a name that Romanians can reflect on when they talk about themselves.(EN, CC)


  • The history of child protection in Romania

    The history of child protection in Romania


    Children have a special place in human history, being, in fact, actors and creators of history, like any human being. But children have always needed protection and, over the years, ordinary people or institutions such as the Church in the Middle Ages and the state and organizational settlements in the modern era assumed protective roles.



    The Romanian space had approximately the same history of child protection as that of the geo-cultural areas that influenced it. In the second half of the 19th century, the modern state assumed the role of active protector of children by establishing creches, care homes and orphanages. The children who needed such institutions were the less fortunate ones: the orphans, the abandoned, the poor, the homeless, the seriously ill and those with incurable diseases. The first modern child protection institution in Romania was opened in 1897, when “Sfânta Ecaterina” — Saint Catherine Creche, a Social Assistance Society was established. Poor children, motherless children, and young single mothers were brought here.



    Among the founders were Ecaterina Cantacuzino, wife of the conservative politician Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino, Irina Cantacuzino, their daughter, and doctor Thoma Ionescu. The Bucharest City Hall donated a plot of land of 20,000 square meters in the north of the city, near the current Arch of Triumph, on which seven buildings were erected. By 1948, the year the Creche was nationalized by the communist regime, thousands of children had passed through the respectable charitable institution.



    Oana Drăgulinescu, the manager of the newest museum project in Romania, called the Abandonment Museum, emphasized the pioneering role in child protection that the St. Catherine Creche had: “It is clear that, for a very long time, the child had a rather unprivileged role in the family. There were many children, they started being used from a young age, lets not say exploited, but anyway they had to have a role in the family. They were a mouth to feed, so they had to produce their own food. What I found in the documents from Saint Catherine is that around the year 1900 child protection began being structured in Romania. And from this perspective, St. Catherine Creche had a pioneering role, because its representatives came and said: we no longer take children in out of pity, but we adopt them with proper documents. We no longer give children away to women to take care of them, but we create a system in which these women, the future foster carers, are supervised how they feed the children, and in what way they educate them. Thus, they began to somehow supervise the placement of the children on long term, so that they could have control over the future of these children.”



    The communist regime established on March 6, 1945 brought another societal reality to Romania. As everything has undergone a radical transformation with the human being having been brutalized to the highest degree, child protection has also changed accordingly.



    Oana Drăgulinescu is back at the microphone with more: “The Communist regime was instated and Ceaușescu said: we want a strong relationship, we want more and more children and he found this formula of decree 770 which prohibited contraception. Which led to a birth boom, the “decree children” whom we keep talking about. Its just that he didnt think about the capacity of the Romanian people to raise children. Romanians were an already impoverished people, already in the grips of savings, which the communist party imposed on the people. So, the people started abandoning children more and more, and the Romanian state started building more and more institutions.”



    The socialist society was one in which man was supposed to be happy and perfect. And any biological deviation was brutally treated. Oana Drăgulinescu has more: “There emerged this perception of the perfection of the communist child, who had to meet certain standards. Anyone who was not up to standard, and that could mean absolutely anything, even crossed eyes, was taken to those hospital-homes which, in time, due to the large number of children and the system’s incapacity to support these children, became genuine extermination camps. This is what happened in 1989, this is what the western televisions who came here found and were horrified by these images that resembled those in Auschwitz. The only difference was that they were not during the Nazi period, but in 1989 Romania: children tied to beds, children in chains, children treated inhumanely.”



    After 1989, when the communist regime collapsed in Romania, child protection had to be rebuilt. It was an effort that the society assumed. Oana Drăgulinescu is back with details: “Its just that things didnt stop in 1989. It was not a sudden transition, it wasnt like the Romanian people suddenly became enlightened and started having resources for these children, things continued long after that. It was a period of total decline and until 2004, when the child protection law practically changed, things continued in an almost similar formula.”



    The history of child protection in Romania overlaps its times. And the new memorialization project of the Abandonment Museum invites us to reflect on a problematic past. (LS)

  • French military missions in Romania

    French military missions in Romania


    For anyone familiar with Romanias history from 1800 onwards, present-day Romania is a creation of France. Frances influence as a modernising force was felt in all areas, from food to fashion and from manners to the spoken language. Certain moments in history required, however, more than that, they required physical presence and authority. The “Frenchification” of the Romanians was also done through the French military missions on Romanian soil aimed at ensuring stability.



    These missions were the focus of an exhibition at the National Museum of History of Romania. The museums manager Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu reiterated the crucial role of the help given by France to Romania in the last two centuries:



    “We usually say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I say one action is worth a million words and this exhibition is dedicated to the actions of France, an old, reliable and important friend of Romania. In effect, since the middle of the 19th century, there has been no important event in which France did not stand by the Romanian state and nation. Although we are friends, although we are close, from time to time its necessary to also remind our fellow nationals and our French and European friends and partners that this friendship is based on actions. This exhibition showcases for the public and specialists the actions of the French military missions. Beginning with 1855, so almost 150 years ago, the French army was present here, and again in one of the most dramatic moments in our history, in 1916 and again in 1918, playing an essential role in the reorganisation of the Romanian army and safeguarding the independent and sovereign Romanian nation state. Our ties with France did not stop with the First World War, but continued in the 1920s and 30s on a new basis.”



    During the Crimean war, in 1855, France sent a mission to Dobrogea to build a road from Constanța to Rasova. The mission was led by the road engineer Léon Lallan and also included the engineer Jules Michel, the geologists Blondeau and Gaudin, the doctor Camille Allard, the Romanian topographer Aninoșeanu and a group of eight military guards. In 1857, the first French officers began the training of the army in Moldavia.



    The first actual French military mission came to Romania in 1860, sent by emperor Napoleon III at the request of the Romanian prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza. The mission was formed by quatermaster and administration officers and non-commissioned officers and was led by sub-quartermaster Guy Le Clerc. Cavalry colonel Zenon Eugène Lamy arrived in 1861 as head of mission, being in charge, together with the chief of state engineering and artillery officers and non-commissioned officers, of the training of the Romanian army equipped with French armament. The first French military mission stayed in Romania until 1869. The law on the organisation of the Romanian army from 1867 was French-inspired.



    The second French military mission was better known. It arrived in the autumn of 1916, at an extremely difficult moment for Romania, two thirds of which had been conquered by the Central Powers. Led by the general Henri Mathias Berthelot, this mission was aimed at rebuilding the morale of the Romanian troops and train the new Romanian divisions equipped with armament supplied by the Entente. The competence of general Berthelot was decisive, as was to be seen from the great victories won by the Romanian army in the summer of 1917 in Mărăști, Mărășești and Oituz. A French medical mission also existed alongside the military mission.



    The third French military mission is AIGLE and it began in the summer of 2022 in Cincu, near Brașov. Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu, the manager of the National Museum of History of Romania, spoke about the role of this third mission:



    “At this critical time, after the invasion and the war of aggression started against Ukraine, France again proved to be a reliable partner, ally and friend. It sent soldiers and important military resources as part of a mission to eastern Europe, in the Black Sea region, to protect not only our country from the possible consequences of a reckless act from Russia, but also to protect Europe and the entire democratic world. The French mission is defending the Romanians and Eastern Europeans, but also, in effect, the rules-based international order and democracy.”



    The French military missions in Romania are essential chapters in this countrys history in the last two centuries, as well as proof of a friendship that has stood the test of time.


  • Greater Romania and the sacrifice it required

    Greater Romania and the sacrifice it required

    On October 16, 1922, after
    the grand ceremony in which King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie were crowned as
    sovereigns of Greater Romania in the Alba Iulia Cathedral, the Triumphal Arch
    was also inaugurated. The royal procession, with representatives of European
    countries, military units and floats paraded under it at the time. In 2022, the
    centennial of the Coronation is also the centennial of the Triumphal Arch, the
    first permanent monument of this kind in Romania.




    Public monuments
    rooted in ancient Roman architecture, triumphal arches were built in Bucharest just
    like elsewhere in the world, to commemorate war victories or significant public
    events. The previous such monumental structures in the Romanian capital city
    had only been temporary, and had been built in 1848, 1859, 1878, 1906 and 1918 to
    celebrate glorious events: the 1948 revolution, the union of the Romanian
    Principalities, Romania’s independence, 40 years of rule for King Carol I, the
    victory in World War I.




    The triumphal arch
    under which King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie passed on their return to their
    capital as sovereigns of the Greater Kingdom of Romania was built in 1922, and
    made of wood. But this was also when a decision was made to build a stone arch.
    The current Arch is a 27m tall structure designed by the Romanian architect Petre
    Antonescu and inaugurated in 1936.




    A commemoration held this
    year to mark the events that took place 100 years ago included an exhibition
    paying tribute to the Romanian soldiers that fought in World War I. The items
    on display within the Arch mainly consisted of letters sent home by soldiers
    and received by them from families and friends.




    Emotion and poetry
    are the best words to describe these documents. Moreover, even when all the
    authors of such letters understood the political reasons behind the war, they
    still regarded it as absurd.




    We asked Titus Bazac,
    inspector with the Bucharest City Hall’s Directorate General for Architecture,
    Landscaping and Public Monuments, about the highlights of this exhibition.




    Titus Bazac:Inside the two piers of the Arch
    there are two halls. In both of them as well as on the two landings, there are
    several dioramas. In one of the piers, there is a replica of a peasant home
    interior, where a mother is crying while knitting socks for her son and
    wondering why he had to go to battle. She is wondering whether this suspension
    of the natural cycle of life, with her son going away from home, was in any way
    sensible. Then we have another interior, it may be either a rural or urban
    house, with a lamp on a table and a mother asking why she had to go through
    this ordeal, battling her decision to allow her son to go to war, a dramatic
    scene altogether.




    The walls of the Arch
    are covered in collages of photographs and facsimiles of archive letters. Mother
    is sick with worry about your fate, a soldier’s sister writes. My love, the
    kid and I are missing you and waiting for you to come home, an officer’s wife
    says. My son, be a man, do your duty and come back in one piece, a father
    writes to a soldier.




    In the attic,
    visitors go under a huge roll of paper spread over the ceiling, coming up from
    one pier and carrying on down on the other pier. Titus Bazac also gave us
    details about what the exhibition includes in the second pier:




    Titus Bazac:On the way down on the second pier we
    have a diorama of a trench where a soldier is simply devastated by the
    situation the war faced him with. Another soldier is trying to write a few
    words to his family but cannot decide how his letter should begin. And the last
    scene, a little chilling, is a grave. We can see on a monitor a firing squad, a
    symbol of the cruelty with which all WWI soldiers had to struggle. It is also
    relevant for an episode in writer Liviu Rebreanu’s works: the Romanian soldier
    forced to fight against other Romanians. He eventually switches sides, but is
    caught and executed. This is the most emotional moment of this exhibition.




    The coronation of
    King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie as sovereigns of Greater Romania in 1922 would
    not have been possible without the sacrifice of the entire Romanian society. And the Triumphal Arch, the most powerful material
    testimony to those times, reminds us of those sacrifices to this day. (AMP)

  • Dacia, the last space of the Roman world

    Dacia, the last space of the Roman world

    North of the River Danube, on its middle and lower course down to its mouth, ancient Greek and Roman sources mention the existence of Getic and Dacian tribes in the big Thracian conglomerate. The information we learn about the Getae and the Dacians differs from one author to another, and the amount of information is related to the period in which the authors wrote and to the accuracy of their documentation. It is not known exactly if the Getae and the Dacians were the same people, some opinions claim that they were identical, others that they were not. Most information, and the most accurate, seems to have been provided by the emperor Trajan, the conqueror of Dacia in the year 106 AD, who is the author of the volume “De bello dacico”. Trajans notes have been lost, but, one single sentence survives in the 6th-century treatise on Latin grammar by Priscian. It is a short quotation from Trajans text and refers to the way through the Banat region of the Roman army: “From here we went to Berzobis, then to Aixis”.



    The political history of the Getae and Dacians ends in 106 AD when Trajan conquers the state of King Decebalus. A part of the Dacian space, namely Transylvania and todays Banat region inside the Carpathian arc and Oltenia between the Carpathians and the Danube, is transformed into a Roman province. Other Getae and Dacians such as those from Wallachia, Maramureș and Moldavia remained outside the Roman administration, but were influenced by the Roman culture and civilization. Thus, Dacia was until 275, the year in which Emperor Aurelian decided to withdraw the Roman army and bureaucracy from Dacia, the most advanced frontier of the Roman world in northeastern Europe.



    The National History Museum of Romania opened the exhibition “Dacia. The last frontier of the Roman world”. It is the largest general exhibition dedicated to the Getae and Dacians, the Romans as well as the first migrants to this space organized in the last 25 years in Romania. The National Museum of Archeology in Madrid, Spain, and the National Roman Museum in Rome, Italy collaborated for the organization of the exhibition.



    Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu, the director of the National History Museum of Romania, wanted to remove the political dimension from the history of the Getae and Dacians: “The Dacians do not belong to a political party, they do not belong to a particular way of thinking or ideology. They represent an important people of the antiquity based on which a nation was later built, through a very complicated process, a nation that today bears the name Romanians, continuing the name romanus from the antiquity and whose language is today largely based on the Latin language.”



    The exhibition includes centerpieces of the culture of the Getae and Dacians: the golden helmet from Coțofenești, the treasures from Stâncești, Agighiol and Peretu, the princely treasure from Cucuteni-Băiceni, the silver treasures from Sâncrăieni, Herăstrău, Senereș and Vedea, the inscriptions that mention the kings Tiamarkos, Burebista and Decebalus. Also on display are the imperial portraits of Trajan, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Traianus Decius, the treasures from Pietroasele, Apahida and Histria.



    However, Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu believes that there is plenty of room for new research: “We dont know as much about the Dacians as we should know, not only because their traces are spread over a large territory and in many places, often difficult to access, in high-altitude regions or in forested places, but also because of the fact that we dont allocate much money for these researches. We have gathered here vestiges from 45 museums, including the National History Museum of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. We have considered the Geto-Dacians, as they are conventionally called, in a continuous historical evolution, from the first elements that allow us to see that from the mass of the Thracian tribes, living north of the Danube, something happened that would later lead, from the point of view of material culture, to the classical Dacian civilization.”



    The history of a people cannot be taken out of the context involving the presence of other peoples too. Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu is back at the microphone: “We followed the Dacians in their subsequent evolution, when part of them were included in the Roman Empire as a province. Also for the first time, we included the free Dacians in an exhibition, those Dacians who remained more or less outside the imperial Roman control. We have also included the period when the population of the former Roman province of Dacia and the populations of the free Dacians and other tribes settled here and were united in a great political and cultural union, known as the Sântana de Mureș-Cernehov culture. From a political point of view, the culture of Sântana de Mureș-Cerneahov represents the confederation of Gothic tribes, which has elements from the culture of the free Dacians, from the culture of the Sarmatians and other ethnic groups. This exhibition looks at almost 1,400 years of history: from the moment when we see different developments north and south of the Danube until 681, the year when the Eastern Roman Empire, which was becoming more of a Byzantine Empire, undertakes the last military and political action north of the Danube.”



    “Dacia. The last frontier of the Roman world” is about the ancient space in which the Romanians were later formed. But it is equally about the history of others. (LS)

  • The Romanians on Danube’s right bank

    The Romanians on Danube’s right bank


    The southern border of the Romanian geocultural area is considered the river Danube, the great pan-European navigation route. One might even say that todays Romania is a creation of the Danube in line with the new concept of the unity of the continent that emerged in the 19th century. Looking back in time, the Danube has acted as a hard border, but one that has been crossed. The Roman empire was the first power in south-eastern Europe to have the Danube as its border and to go beyond it. Romanians have inhabited both banks of the river and the biggest ethnic Romanian communities are to be found in Banat, in Timoc valley, in Serbia and Bulgaria. Other smaller communities were in cities like Turtucaia and Silistra and along the course of the Lower Danube to where the Danube Delta begins.



    The most active ethnic Romanian communities on the right-hand side of the Danube were those in Turtucaia and Silistra. Turtucaia, which is located some 70 km south-east of Bucharest, was home in 1774 to a Romanian-language school founded by the teacher Rusu Șaru. Silistra was also home to a school that taught in the Romanian language, which had been founded prior to 1850, as recorded by the teacher Petru Mihail in 1847. The entire area had a diverse ethnic composition, including, apart from Romanians, Bulgarians, Turks and Roma. After 1913, when the Quadrilateral that also included the two cities became part of Romania, the share of the Romanian population increased.



    The recollections of people who were born near Silistra are full of examples of good cohabitation, not just about differences. In 1997, the archaeologist Petre Diaconu told Radio Romanias Oral History Centre about his multiethnic family:



    “My mum had Bulgarian and Turkish ancestors and my dad was Romanian. But after marriage, my mum became more Romanian than the Romanians. I remember a football match once between Romania and Bulgaria and my mum was more devastated than my dad when Romania were in difficulty. I learnt to speak Bulgarian not so much from her, but from the other children. At home we only spoke Romanian. My mum had learnt Romanian very well and her parents knew Romanian from even before 1913. They owned large flocks of sheep and used to employ Transylvanian shepherds who ran away from Transylvania because they didnt want to be called up in the army, so they crossed Wallachia and ended up south of the Danube where they found employment as shepherds.”



    Politics changed peoples lives. It made some people abandon what theyd had before, while others it provided with new opportunities. Petre Diaconu:



    “In 1913, when the Romanian troops entered southern Dobrogea after the Bucharest peace treaty, my father said many families experienced the same situation. Many Bulgarians and Turks spoke Romanian. I had to learn not only Bulgarian, but also Turkish, because the village where I was born and where I would later spend all my school holidays had a majority Turkish population. My nanny was Turkish. I remember she was so fond of me that she was in tears in 1936, when I was 12 years old and she had to leave for Turkey with her husband, children and relatives. She loved me like her own children.”



    Petre Diaconu became an archaeologist, a decision he says was largely influenced by one of the teachers he had in high school:



    “When I went to high school in Silistra we all became fascinated with the historical past, ancient history and archaeology. The schools director, Pericle Papahagi, a scholar well known among philologists, had moved to Silistra. He had given up his chair at the university and came to Silistra to teach philology and then became the director of the school. He did that so as to receive the Aromanian, Macedoromanian settlers who were coming from Macedonia, being himself of Macedoromanian origin. Well, he had this passion for collecting old things and antiques.”



    The small Romanian communities on the right-hand side of the Danube view the river as a border, but not one that separates, but which unites.


  • The Coronation of 1922

    The Coronation of 1922

    On October
    15th, 1922, Romanians witnessed an unexpected event, an event with a strong
    impact in the mind of every Romanian, who had seen the years of the First World
    War: the coronation of Romania’s sovereigns, King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie
    in Alba Iulia. The kingdom of Greater Romania, took shape in the wake of WWI, being
    the result of an incommensurable sacrifice of human and material resources, as
    well as superhuman diplomatic efforts. Following that huge price in human lives
    and material resources, the new Romania became the country where any citizen
    could freely develop their personality and contribute to the general happiness
    and wellbeing. The publications of the
    time abounded in details on the organization of the aforementioned event. First
    off they published the special venue, the city of Alba Iulia, where in 1600
    Wallachian prince Michael the Brave entered in front of his army, an event
    considered by historians the first political union of the Romanian
    principalities.


    Then there was the religious service
    and the emotions caused by the coronation, the rituals going on and the leading
    personalities attending the event. The press also wrote about the political
    rivalries which didn’t cease to exist even during this event. The Liberal
    government led by Ion I.C. Brătianu staged the entire coronation, which was
    boycotted by the political opposition. At the same time, publications wrote
    about the Pope’s disapproval of a Catholic king who was to be crowned in an
    Orthodox church. However, these were all minor elements and the coronation went
    on as planned, because there was nothing to hinder that major event in the life
    of a nation.


    In the
    following minutes historian Ioan Scurtu is going to help us understand how that
    moment was perceived by the main participants in the event, the king and the
    queen. According to Ioan Scurtu the two very different personalities of the
    king and his wife became very visible on that occasion.


    Ioan
    Scurtu: King Ferdinand was less
    active and didn’t love public appearances, but he eventually accepted the
    coronation protocol just like he did during the Crown Council in 1916 when he
    announced he had to go against his will and accept Romania’s joining the war as
    the Council had asked. Queen Marie had a more active role in politics unlike
    Queen Elizabeth, who wasn’t allowed by her husband, King Carol I, to get
    involved in Romania’s political life. Ferdinand believed that it was the
    sovereigns’ right to coronation for their major contribution to the 1918 union
    of the Romanian principalities. And that was also visible in the crowns of the
    two royal figures. Ferdinand took over the steel crown of his predecessor, king
    Carol, which had three precious stones added, representing Bessarabia, Bukovina
    and Transylvania. Queen Marie decided that the crown she took over from Queen
    Elizabeth was too modest, so she ordered one made up of gold adorned with a lot
    of jewels, which was weighing more than two kilograms.


    The extremely
    strong personality of Queen Marie became very visible during the coronation,
    but that strong personality was actually completing that of her husband. Here
    is historian Ioan Scurtu at the microphone.


    Ioan Scurtu: The
    central figure in the programme of the Coronation Committee was of course King
    Ferdinand. Queen Marie tried all the time to be close to the king, she wouldn’t
    be overshadowed although she hadn’t had the king’s contribution to the union.
    In her diary she wrote about a difficult moment for her when she had to kneel
    before the king to have the crown placed on her head. However, the king helped
    her to stand up and kissed her forehead. The king placed the crown on his head
    like Napoleon Bonaparte.


    The general happiness and the feeling of victory at the end of 1918
    persisted right until the coronation. Here is historian Ioan Scurtu again.


    Ioan Scurtu: The king was himself, he behaved in his style. After
    the war, an armistice was signed and high officials, including the clergy had
    to come to Bucharest those days. The queen was very happy and told him ‘Nando,
    do you realize you have become the king of all Romanians, you’re a great man, a
    historic personality?’ But the king had only a laconic reply ‘It was God’s
    will!’ As if he hadn’t made such an extraordinary contribution to that union.
    They were so different from each other, like I said, different personalities,
    but what was important was the fact that they stayed together and everyone saw
    the event as the coronation of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie.


    The coronation of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie on October 15th
    1922 was a triumph for an entire nation, which paid a huge price and the
    sacrifice they made at that time will never be forgotten by the generations to
    come.


    (bill)

  • Attorney Istrate Micescu

    Attorney Istrate Micescu

    Attorney Istrate Micescu was a famous legal expert in interwar Romania, as well as a university professor and politician. He was born in 1881 in the city of Ploiesti, 60 km north of Bucharest. Micescu was the descendant of a noble family in Arges County, which goes back in documents to the 16th century. He read law in Paris, and defended his PhD there in 1906. He practiced law in the bar associations in the counties of Arges and Ilfov, and during the same time he taught civil law and philosophy at the University of Bucharest. He impressed whole generations with his teaching prowess, and was practically idolized for it, while he gained notoriety with the cases he pleaded in court.




    The story of this special character was told to Radio Romanias Center for Oral History in the year 2000, by political detainee Aurel Obreja, who was a fellow political prisoner alongside the attorney in the 1950s. His notoriety was to a large extent based on the perception that the public had about attorneys, that of being a cynical bunch. Here is Aurel Obreja:


    “I was incarcerated with Miceascus secretary, Horia Cosmovici, a very sharp individual, who told us the story of how Istrate Micescu was winning trials. He told us the story of a trial in England involving a lord who had murdered his wife. The lord asked around for the best lawyer, and found out about one Istrate Micescu from Romania. He hired him, and told him what it was all about. He had killed his wife, he couldnt suffer her any more. He had stricken her over the head and she died. So Micescu went to court. And he started saying: Honored court, esteemed jurors…, and he stopped. The judge told him to proceed. He starts once again, Honored court, esteemed jurors… He did that a couple of more times, and finally the judge lost his patience, and said: Well, go on, council!. And he said: Do you see, your honor, you cant have the patience to bear with me for 10 minutes to start my defense statement, but this poor man had to put up with his wife with 20 years!. In the end, the lord was acquitted.”




    This professional fame guided him to politics. Micescu was a Liberal, and was elected to Parliament in 1920, 1927, and 1931. He was an admirer of King Carol II, and started being an acolyte around 1930. During that decade, he started being more and more vocal in terms of his anti-Semite and racist views, and joined the Goga-Cuza Fascist government between December 1937 and February 1938 as a foreign minister. He was the founding father of the 1938 constitution, which consolidated the authoritarian rule of the king. Micescu became a member of the Higher National Council of the Front of National Rebirth, the single party in the country after 1938. He was also a senator in the newly minted parliament, and minister of justice under the Gheorghe Tatarescu government, between November 1939 and May 1940. One of his more egregious so-called achievements was that of presiding over the 1937 Bucharest Bar Association meeting which disbarred all Jewish attorneys.




    However, history steered Micescus destiny in a different direction. After 1945, once the Soviets entered Romania, he was detained for being a supporter of the Fascist government. He was disbarred, was arrested in 1948, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He died on May 22, 1951, in the penitentiary in Aiud, and his death was witnessed by Nicolae Enescu, who was imprisoned while he was a law student.


    “The door opened, and Iordache came in. He was a political police officer, a horrific being. We scurried to our cots, and he said: How are you, lads? You know what that meant? Can you imagine this horrible beast of a man, who kicked and punched us at random for no reason, to speak so gently? We just stared at each other, witlessly, thinking something had changed. And one of us, Doctor Uta, answered Iordache: Well, you know how it is, commander, sir… What with our woes, our illnesses… And Iordache asked: Which one of you is ill? Doctor Uta said: Professor Micescu. Take me to him! And we took him to Istrate Micescus bed, who was on his last leg. So Iordache asked Whats wrong with him? Cant he be saved? We stared at each other in disbelief, at such level of care, because usually they wouldnt give us even an aspirin. And Doctor Uta said: Yes, commander, sir, if you would sign to approve some medication for him. Ok, yes, Ill sign it. He ripped a sheet of paper from a notebook, and told the doctor to start writing the prescription, then he handed it back. We, in our naivete, thought something had changed in the beasts behavior. But Iordache just got the sheet of paper and threw it on Istrate Micescus chest, and said: I know what you need, you bandit! Four planks of wood, and well provide that! And this is how Istrate Micescu died.”




    Istrate Micescus notoriety was due to his professional acumen, and his rigor in his law practice. However, his personality did not rise up to his professional competency.

  • Famous central-European spas of the 19th century

    Famous central-European spas of the 19th century


    The idea of having a vacation
    or leisure time, the idea of spending a one-week or a two-week holiday somewhere is
    rather recent in history. Beginning with the 19th century, once the collective
    rights emerged, tourism became affordable for the social classes other than the
    elites. As for the tourist resorts, they were also quick to appear. Resorts would mostly develop nearby areas that
    had been previously known for the benefits the waters, of the air, or other
    environmental qualities had upon the human organism. One of Europe’s most renowned
    balneal spas was Karlsbad, today known as Karlovy Vary, located in The Czech Republic,
    on the country’s western border with Germany. Known ever since the Middle Ages
    for its thermal waters with healing properties had healing effects for a number
    of conditions, the resort enjoyed an impressive inflow of tourists. Among the famous
    names who visited the Karlsbad Spa were those of Russian Emperor Peter the Great, Turkey’s first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, German writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe or German composer Ludwig van Beethoven.


    But there were also
    Romanians who visited Karlsbad. Historian Radu Marza, in his volume Romanian Travelers
    and patients in Karlsbad provided an account of Romanians’ presence in that
    posh resort.


    Radu Marza:

    The history
    of Karlsbad as a balneal resort begins with the Medieval age, in the 14th
    century. Yet the history of Karlsbad as we all know it, with the resonance its
    name it has today, begins in the 18th century, or thereabouts. Also
    mentioned and documented several are names of individuals hailing from the
    Romanian space. The first character about whom we even know very many things is
    a boyar named Barbu Stirbey, an Oltenian boyar who travelled to Karlsbad in
    late 18th century.


    Scientific studies confirmed
    the resort’s beneficial action on the health condition of the human body and on
    regaining the individual’s work capacity. As for the physicians, they are doing
    their job and recommend the resort. Also thanks to the thermal waters, the breathtaking
    natural landscape made Karlsbad one of Europe’s top five spas. Added to that
    was the architecture of the buildings erected there. Just like the other
    tourists, the Romanian tourists also arrived there drawn by the lake’s miraculous
    properties of the place and the beauty of the surroundings.

    Historian
    Radu Marza:


    We discovered
    those Romanian visitors or travelers going there were in no way different from
    visitors coming from elsewhere. Which means they perfectly fit in with that, let’s
    just say, that trend of going to the spa. And it was not just the trend of going
    to Karlsbad, there were also many other spas in the European space, but also spas
    of the Romanian space. By all means, those in the Romanian space have a scope,
    a prestige and significantly less capabilities than Karlsbad. But the
    phenomenon is the same.


    Who are the Romanian celebrities
    who paid a visit to the Czech spa? According to Radu Marza, there were politicians’
    names on the list, yet there was also info on other names, more or less.

    Alexandru Vaida-Voevod
    was a physician there and he is a personality as such, it is not only as a
    physician that his figure is worth remembering. There were, for instance, Ionel
    Brătianu, Queen Marie, various prime ministers, that including Iuliu Maniu,
    Nicolae Titulescu also dropped by, Constantin Argetoianu or other public
    figures. And there are also several sources about some of the personalities,
    there was a string of pieces of documentary information, other such people might have
    dropped by as well, but they were rather low-profile, if I may say so. And then we don’t know many accurate things about their
    presence, yet the presence of other such people is a very well documented one.


    However, going to the spa in Karlsbad
    also acquired a social dimension, and not only a healing one.

    Historian Radu
    Mârza:


    Karlsbad enjoyed that kind of fame in the
    Romanian space as well. And we even came cross, once, over a very interesting
    source of the 1920s, a little article published in a Romania magazine, dwelling
    on the fact that it was a matter of bad taste, wondering, in the summer or in
    early summer, where should you spend the summer season? Because it was obvious
    you would go to Karlsbad. It somehow
    was a social call, not going there was out of the question. You did not get any validation, socially speaking, if you didn’t go to Karlsbad. It was obvious that such a truth
    did not apply entirely, that kind of opinion was not a widely-accepted tenet, yet
    very many people had that kind of mindset. That is why Karlsbad was a place for
    you to go to spend your vacation, to follow this or that medical procedure, but
    you also went there to make yourself visible and see other people, to meet certain
    people of your entourage.


    However, the balneal resort
    of Karlsbad was beyond reach for the lower classes, yet it was affordable for
    the Romanian middle class. Teachers, civil servants, banking people, petty tradesmen
    spent their vacation in Karlsbad. After 1945, after the communist regime was
    instated and nationalization was forcefully implemented in both Romania and
    Czechoslovakia, part of the working and the peasants’ class could
    afford visiting Karlsbad. But even so, going to Karlsbad did not become a mass phenomenon
    either, because of the strong borders and the grassroots’ low income. (EN)


  • The assassination of Armand Calinescu

    The assassination of Armand Calinescu

    On September 21, 1939, in Bucharest, close to Eroilor Bridge, group of eight legionnaires ambushed the car of Prime Minister Armand Calinescu and killed his bodyguard and his driver. Then, the attackers shot Armand Calinescu with 21 bullets, three of them in the head. The murder was claimed by the Iron Guard who wanted to avenge the killing of their leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, in November 1938, a murder which Armand Calinescu was considered responsible for. After shooting Armand Calinescu, the group of assassins stormed the offices of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting corporation and forced the staff to announce that they had killed the Prime Minister.



    Radio Romanias archive includes a very important recording with Vasile Ionescu, one of the presidents of the Romanian Radio between 1935-1945, who eye witnessed the episode. The interview was recorded in 1974. Vasile Ionescu : ”In September 21, 1939, at 2.30 p.m., I was in my office, located at the 1st floor, in front of the right gate of the radio building. I was a deputy director general at the time. I was doing some routine work and, as usual, I had the radio on to listen to the programmes. The news programme had just ended and classical music was being broadcast, performed live by the radio orchestra conducted by violinist Constantin Bobescu. ”



    The legionnaires stormed into the building, with the purpose to intimidate. Vasile Ionescu: ”Suddenly, I heard two gunshots coming from the radio gate. I rushed to the opened window and asked some people there what was going on. They replied that the legionnaires were attacking. The orchestra was still playing when I was heading to the door, but music was doubled by a suspect noise. Then, the music suddenly stopped and a strange voice shouted: Prime Minister Armand Calinescu is… The end of the sentence could not be heard because I had managed to push the safety button and generate a short circuit, which disconnected the microphone and set off the alarm. This was the protocol in place for such situations.”



    The Second World War had just started and the Romanian society was getting ready for it. Public institutions were being militarised and the president of the public radio also became a military commander. Vasile Ionescu: ”Shocked by what had just happened and in order to to prevent other unwanted events, I rushed down the stairs to the hallway and I ordered the security guard to listen to my command and take the defence position. Then I started to climb the stairs towards the studio that broadcast the music, where the legionnaires were. I still had my glasses in my hand. I was accompanied by a soldier from the security guard, by driver Cosciug Theodor who had taken a gun and by Crasmaru Vasile, another member of the security guard, who was also armed.”



    Thus, Vasile Ionesu and his colleagues were the first to intervene. Vasile Ionescu: ”I hadnt even reached the top of the stairs, when the studio doors opened wide and the assassins, completely disoriented, showed up in front of us. I kept calm and ordered them to put their hands up! The armed people behind me pointed their guns at them. I did not have time to repeat the order, that the legionnaire Miti Dumitrescu, who was in front and seemed to be in command, dropped his pistol. All other seven did the same and put their hands up.”



    Once the intruders caught, Ionescu and the security guards secured the perimeter. Vasile Ionescu: ”After the radios security disarmed them, I called the Police and informed them on what had happened. I then went to the studio that broadcast the live concert. The orchestra was terrified and conductor Constantin Bobescu was still standing, the baton in his hand, unable to say a word. The pianist, Mrs. Voicu, told me that the killers had placed something in a niche behind one of the studio doors, where instructions and announcements for the orchestra members were kept. Looking behind the window I was shocked to see a bomb of about one kilo, loaded with ecrasite and provided with a Bickfort safety fuse of 30-40 cm, which was burning. My first concern was to diffuse the bomb, which I did by pulling out the safety fuse.”


    The legionnaires had to bear the consequences of their deeds. They were immediately executed, thus marking another bloody episode in Romanias history. (EE)


  • Fascism in Romania in the troubled 1930s

    Fascism in Romania in the troubled 1930s




    Fascism and communism are the two forms of totalitarianism that manifested,
    fully-fledged, in the 20th century. This was the century when
    liberal democracy had been going through the most serious of crises. Totalitarianism
    succeeded in persuading a great many people that it was a better solution to the flaws of democracy.




    In Romania, totalitarianism vigorously took hold of people’s minds. Fascism
    manipulated ideas and especially feelings, churlishly simplifying them and
    turning them into killing tools. The Legionnaire Movement and its party, The
    Iron Guard, were the most radical fascist means of expression for the far-right
    totalitarian thought. But before we got them the way they were known, their
    foundation was laid by the Blood Brotherhoods, the organization that initiated those
    who shared the fascist ideas. Coming into being in 1923, as organizations of
    the nationalist youth, at the initiative of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the future
    leader of the Iron Guard, the Blood Brotherhoods draw and trained new staunch
    members.


    Radio Romania’s Oral History Center in the past decades has recorded
    interviews with former members of the Blood Brotherhoods. In 1997, Alexandru
    Bancescu of Câmpulung Moldovenesc recalled how a session unfolded, of
    the Blood Brotherhoods, in his native town.


    The shared legionnaire orientation
    made us all brothers. There were moments of prayer, there was, in the parlance of
    the Blood Brotherhoods, a moment of friendship, by means of which we provided
    our education. We were honest in speaking about our shortcomings, every one of
    us took their own correction measures, we tried to correct each other and we punished
    ourselves at a time when that was needed to correct our imperfections and turn
    a human being into a personality. We did physical exercises to strengthen our
    bodies, we set up camp nights with the Blood Brotherhoods, towards Rarau at the
    Devil’s Mill or somewhere else, where very many people had come, from all over
    Moldavia. We used to meet there, we used to sing, telling stories about our
    people, our country, our history.


    In 1999, Mircea Dumitrescu of Bucharest span the yarn of how he joined
    the Blood Brotherhoods when he was 13.

    I approached them through reading and discussions with
    my classmates. What had I read? For the Legionnaires, a book written by Corneliu
    Codreanu, I had read The Blood Brotherhood, written by Gheorghe Istrate,
    the organizer of the Blood Brotherhoods, A Generation’s Creed, by Ion
    Mota, From the Legionnaire World, other legionnaire books. Where would I find
    them? There was a group in Buftea who did that. One of them was shot in 39′ by
    Carol II’s police. I knew him, I knew his father. The others were doctors in
    economy, the Stan brothers. I would talk to them through my father and my
    father’s friends.


    What was
    expected from the young members? The behavior of a new type of man, a man of
    the future, as Dumitrescu said:


    What were we supposed to become? First of all, we were told we were not Christian
    enough. Every day, the 40th share of our time, that is 36 minutes, had to be
    devoted to our relationship with Christ. That meant reading from the New Testament,
    mentally checking everything we had done during the day, to see if we’d
    committed any sin. After that, we would be told that there could be no
    relationship with God without a relationship with the person next to us. Also,
    the 40th share of our spending had to be set aside, to help those in need. That
    means that if, for instance, I ate an ice-cream costing 40 lei, 1 leu had to be
    saved for those who may have needed that money. We were also checked. We had a
    little notebook, titled my notebook, where we were supposed to record
    everything, about spending our time and our money.


    The
    strongly Christian education attracted not only those interested in acquiring a
    new ethic identity, but it also translated into a selection that would give
    birth to an elite. In 1994, priest Ilie Tinta described the selection of the
    members of the Blood Brotherhoods.


    Usually, we would select students that had good grades and an exemplary
    behavior. We never took students who couldn’t pass their exams. The
    persecutions of 1938-1939 left us a bit short of members, as the Security were
    chasing us, but we managed to get through. In 1940, when the Movement was
    rendered legal for a while, during the ministry of Antonescu, I was the head of
    the Blood Brotherhoods at the Nifon Seminary in Bucharest .


    But time
    does not carve ideas in stone, it changes everything. After the end of the
    fascist period, in 1945, the other face of totalitarianism, communism, emerged
    in central and eastern Europe. And some of the members of the Blood Brotherhoods,
    those who managed to stay out of prison, would give birth to part of the
    anti-Communist resistance movement. (EN, MI)







  • Ada Kaleh, the island under the water

    Ada Kaleh, the island under the water

    Utopian thinking is something that human beings typically do, and people have always sought to be both in the world and out of it. People believe that society is good, but at the same time they believe that it is bad, that it brings unhappiness. Therefore, an enclosed space to protect the individual from the evils of the outside world, to protect themselves and their loved ones, has often been imagined by writers, philosophers, social thinkers and even regular people, in less sophisticated ways.

    In Romanian culture one such space is the island of Ada Kaleh. With an existence recent enough to be documented through oral history and a history palpable through written sources, Ada Kaleh was no utopia. It became one after it disappeared into the waters of the Danube in 1970 after the Iron Gates I hydroelectric plant was put into operation. An extremely ambitious joint project of Romania and Yugoslavia, the Iron Gates plant required not only great financial efforts, but it also affected human habitat.

    Ada Kaleh was located between two worlds and two countries, on the border between the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire. It was a customs point, and the two empires were fighting over controlling it. A fortress was built on the island, which also gave it its name: Ada Kaleh, which means the fortress on the island. Today, it’s a lost legend to most people, but also a lost paradise if we let our imagination run wild. However, the island has survivors, one of them being Turhan Semsi, the president of the Bucharest branch of Turkish Democratic Union in Romania, from whom we learned who lived on the island in the middle of the great river.

    Just like any story begins, once upon a time there was Ada Kaleh. Indeed, it was an island downstream Orsova and upstream the Iron Gates, somewhere in the middle where the dam is today. It was a small community, where we lived well together with all the other ethnic groups on the island. Most of the inhabitants were Turks. I have memories of my childhood, the life back then, with our customs, with our hardships, but also with our joys, especially in summer time, when visitors would come to the island.

    Pervin Halimoglu lives in Istanbul but she was born and lived in the paradise of Ada Kaleh. The persistence of her childhood memories is doubled by nostalgia for a wonderful place, as described by those who have been there and by the illustrations that still exist.

    It’s difficult to speak of Ada Kaleh. One that hasn’t seen or tasted something, doesn’t know how that really is. We were born and lived there, I was 18 when I left the island. When I dream I still dream of myself being there, nowhere else. I had a very beautiful childhood there, one that very few people have the chance of having, I think.Turhan Semsi’s memories become even more realistic when the mystery appears. Because any utopian place must also be mysterious.

    When I was a child, a fourth grader, together with two friends, we would always seek to go there where our parents had told us not to, the tabu places. Obviously, we did the opposite they told us. There was a cross-shaped fortification on the island, where the tranches were, with an underground access way. The fortification was deep below as it was tall. So we entered a gallery carrying torches and candles and we discovered access to four tunnels. Two of them crossed the Danube, one leading to the Romanian shore, and the other one to the Serbian one. We didn’t go very deep into the upstream gallery, but we were curious if we would be able to cross the Danube to the Yugoslav shore. We started walking, but at one point the water got deeper and we turned back. Our parents later told us that that tunnel had actually collapsed when the Danube was low. A ship had passed, destroying the upper part of the tunnel that flooded.The island and the fortress are the isolated spaces that people have most often imagined as places of happiness and tranquility. But, on Ada Kaleh, we would probably never had the opportunity to go and see if that’s true. (MI)

  • Orthodox Revival in Romania: The Army of the Lord

    Orthodox Revival in Romania: The Army of the Lord

    At the end of WWI, the Kingdom of Romania united with provinces inhabited by Romanians from Czarist Russia and Austria-Hungary, forming Greater Romania. The new political entity created a strong wish in citizens to contribute to democracy and prosperity. Religious revival was part of this, with evangelical spiritual movements active all over society. Within Christian Orthodoxy, the majority faith, revival trends started emerging. One of them was The Army of the Lord, initiated in 1923, upon the initiative of Father Iosif Trifa.




    He was born in 1888 in the county of Turda, in the north west of today’s Romania. He studied Orthodox theology in Sibiu, and became a priest he was active in the press, and in defending the social interests of the Moti, the inhabitants of the Apuseni Mountains. After WWI, influenced by the multi-confessional climate in Transylvania, and the movements for spiritual revival, Trifa imagined a spiritual revival movement within his own Orthodox Church, which he dubbed The Army of the Lord. It was supposed to overcome the bigotry and formalism that dominated Orthodoxy, and open up to the modern influences of the time.




    Father Zosim Oncea came to know the movement as a student, in the 1930s. He spoke to Radio Romania’s Center for Oral History in 2001, and said that there was no doctrine difference between the proselytes of the Army of the Lord and those who were indifferent to it:


    “The Army of the Lord was a religious movement within the church. Some priests were not attracted to it, there was no pressure. There were parishes where there was a group of them, and some priests did not agree with them, did not assist them, so no one forced either the priests or the people. People were making their own schedules, with songs about Christian life. I have my books here, which are like any sermon would be, there’s no difference.




    After more than 10 years of suspicion, the founder of the Army of the Lord was excommunicated in 1936 after an ecclesiastic trial. Two years later, Iosif Trifa died of heart arrest. His followers often came into conflict with church authorities and other Orthodox believers, but his movement quickly lost significance. However, the movement continued on. After the war, many of the followers went to Western countries, and moved closer to Neo-Protestant churches. Madeleine Hodoroaba was the wife of Evangelical pastor Ieremia Hodoroaba, who left to France in 1940, when the Soviets took over Northern Bukovina. In the year 2000, she was recalling the tension within her husband’s family:


    “Ieremia, the tenth child in the family, had a hard youth, because the official state church, the Orthodox Church, was persecuting Romanian Evangelical Christians that were spreading here. He saw his father beaten and hurt many times. This bitter memory never left him, so that later on it was awkward for him to meet Orthodox faithful. But God intervened, so that Ieremia, who was profoundly faithful, when later on he met more Orthodox faithful, even a lot of priests, was very pleased and was happy about it.




    While in France, the Hodoroabas proselytized both on behalf of the Romanian Evangelical church they belonged to, and of the Christian Guiding Voice radio station in Monte Carlo.


    “We set up the first German Language Baptist Church in Strasbourg, which we shepherded until 1959. As early as 1959, there was a small Romanian Baptist church without a pastor that called us over. Pastor Ieremia Hodoroaba was the only Romanian Baptist preacher in Western Europe. In 1961, we were discovered by the France World director from Monte Carlo, who told us that radio was much more important than a small time church. So we started this feature in 1961, but we still couldn’t let go of the church.




    Therefore, the pulpit and the microphone were a crutch for the persecuted, and Madeleine and Ieremia Hodoroaba did all they could to alleviate their suffering:


    “Many of those who had been persecuted harshly found a place in Baptist churches, mostly. They had a home in them. Speaking of them, my husband created a hymnal, a book of songs that was in high demand among listeners who said they didn’t have books with music notation to sing from. This is what he made, a book with musical notes, with songs by a man from the Army of the Lord, very well known around the country, by the name Nicolae Moldoveanu. He was a singer from Sibiu who composed many, and beautiful, songs of strong Romanian character.




    In spite of all the hardship, the present found a way to right the wrongs of the past. On September 28, 1990, the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church decided to lift the order of excommunication against Father Iosif Trifa, founder of the Army of the Lord. Today, the movement is still within the church, and continues its traditions.

  • Resistance through radio

    Resistance through radio


    No political regime in history ever achieved to be completely sealed off, not even the totalitarian regimes or dictatorships with their ambitions to control their societies. People have always managed to break through every wall meant to keep them isolated and to communicate with the outside world. No one can ever stop people from voicing their suffering when this is caused by an abusive and criminal regime. Breaking through the curtain installed by the communist regime after 1945, the radio waves carried the messages of hope of the people suffering behind this curtain. Radio Free Europe was one of the broadcasters that took on the mission of keeping alive the idea of freedom.



    The translator and journalist Liviu Tofan emigrated to West Germany at the beginning of the 1970s and began to work for Radio Free Europe. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he published a book called Ne-au ținut în viață. Radio Europa Liberă 1970-1990 (They Kept Us Alive. Radio Free Europe 1970-1990), which contains his memoirs as well as excerpts from the archives of the former Romanian secret police, the Securitate, about Radio Free Europe. Tofan believes this station was unique and was forever ingrained in the collective consciousness of Romanians in the last two decades of the communist regime:



    Many spoke about Radio Free Europe as a media phenomenon or the foremost Romanian broadcasting station during communism. Based on this description then, I say Noel Bernard and Cornel Chiriac were the personified phenomena of Radio Free Europe. They each had a truly special contribution to the success of this station, to its ratings, which were the highest among all the departments of Radio Free Europe. The Romanian section, despite being the second smallest, had the biggest ratings in its target country.




    The journalists who worked for Radio Free Europe were not only professionals, they were heroes, a description which is far from being an exaggeration, given that some paid with their lives for their desire to speak freely. Liviu Tofan:



    Cornel Chiriac is most certainly one of them. In my book there’s a whole chapter about the Securitate’s relations with Radio Free Europe. We were viewed by the communist regime and by the Securitate as the regime’s main threat and biggest adversary among the Romanian people. We were 1,500 km from Bucharest and had no means at our disposal to do anything concrete against the regime. But we did have an enormously large number of listeners. We had a special department in Munich that constantly measured the ratings of the programmes and had a fairly good idea about the impact of our programmes. In my book I tried to make an overview of some of the actions taken by the Securitate against Radio Free Europe, including the bomb attack of 21st February 1981. One of the direct victims of the Securitate was Emil Georgescu, who, in the summer of 1981, was assaulted by two French criminals and only made it alive my a miracle, although the attack was very serious. As for Noel Bernard, who died of cancer in December 1981, as well as other colleagues who also died of cancer, I have my own opinions. I knew them all, I was familiar with their cases and I tried to shed light on this theory that they were in fact exposed to radiation or killed by the Securitate, a theory I do not share.



    We asked Liviu Tofan if he wasn’t afraid to criticise openly a regime that was clearly capable of causing harm:



    We were so caught up in our day-to-day work that we didn’t even have time to think that we should be afraid. At the same time, Radio Free Europe was inundated with threats. There were so many that they had lost their ability to scare us, every month we would receive a new threatening letter or phone call. Noel Bernard never paid them much attention, although he was their main target. Not even when Cornel Chiriac was killed did he think that the Securitate may have been involved. It wasn’t until Monica Lovinescu was assaulted in November 1977, one day before the arrival of Paul Goma to Paris, that Noel began to be somewhat worried. But this was exactly what the Securitate was trying to do, to intimidate us, to scare us so much that we wouldn’t be able to work and lose our minds. Well, this didn’t happen! The regime would have been more successful in fighting Radio Free Europe not through threats against us but if they had done what Hungary did: improve people’s living conditions. This would have been the only way to fight the threat posed by Radio Free Europe.



    Radio Free Europe kept Romanians’ hopes alive in the 1970s and 1980s; it was close to them in their most difficult moments, as well as the historic moments when they regained their freedom in December 1989.


  • Explorer Iuliu Popper

    Explorer Iuliu Popper

    Nicknamed” the last conquistador”,” king of Patagonia”,” alchemist”,” dictator”,” The Baron of Tiera del Fuego”, the engineer-explorer Iuliu Popper was born in Bucharest on December 15th 1857 and died on June 5th 1893 of unknown causes in Buenos Aires, at the age of only 35. He graduated from the Polytechnics School and the School of Bridges and Roads in France, where he qualified as a mining engineer. Besides his attraction to science and technology Popper had a great talent for languages and he learnt to be fluent in no less than seven foreign languages. Shortly after finishing school the young engineer got his first job at the Suez Canal. He continued to travel around the Middle East and the Far East until 1881, when he came back to Romania. After spending a short period of time at home, he set out for Asia again, and made it to Alaska, the USA and Canada. From there he went to Cuba and Mexico where he found jobs as engineer, geographer, cartographer and journalist. In 1885 while in Brazil, Popper learnt about the gold rush in Tierra del Fuego and set out for Argentina where his Patagonian adventure was about to begin.



    With support from a geological survey company Popper made it to Tierra del Fuego. Upon his comeback he presented the company with a convincing report and in 1886 he was sent back with the assignment to conduct ampler researches in the region. He was accompanied by another engineer and an entire team of experts in mining and metallurgy. His report was right, the sand on the coasts of Tierra del Fuego had more gold than Patagonia itself. Poppers team took a lot of photos, made measurements and drew up maps. In 1887 he made it to the gulf of San Sebastian where he built gold washing machines and barracks for the workers. The camp built by the Romanian explorer also included a building for the companys board. Popper managed to form a small force ready to deal with the adventurers attracted by the gold rush. Unfortunately, the company funding the enterprise went bankrupt and Popper had to return to Argentina in 1889. The Center for Studying the History of the Jews in Romania has acknowledged the personality of Popper through an exhibition, during which curator Anca Tudorancea presented a series of exhibits, some of which very special.



    Anca Tudorancea:” What we have here are the magnified photos of the 1886 album, which was meant to illustrate the exploration of the Tierra del Fuego. This is actually the first photo report of the region and from the scientific, cartographic and geographic points of view a tremendous success achieved by the mining engineer Iuliu Popper. This album also includes a text of the scientific conference he held at the Argentinian Geographic Institute in 1887. Popper died young at 35, his last scientific initiatives being the exploration of Antarctica. Right on the day of his death he got the greenlight for an expedition in Antarctica. Iuliu Popper was the first Romanian to have travelled five continents. There are places in Argentina with Romanian names, like for instance Rio Carmen Sylva, Sierra Carmen Sylva, Urechea, Lahovary, Rosetti. These were the names given by Iuliu Popper.”



    In 1887, Popper wrote to Vasile Alexandrescu Urechia, the Secretary of the Romanian Geographic Society, about the satisfactions he had as an explorer, which were even more intense than the luring gold deposits:” I am lost for words in my attempt to describe the emotions I feel during the adventures I experience while on a trip, where the only guidance you can get is from the magnetic needle of a compass or the starry sky at night; the grandiose breathtaking views the visitor suddenly encounters, the chained orographic, hydrographic or geological phenomena we are witnessing, the varied flora and fauna miraculously popping up in places where no man has gone before – so many natural phenomena in this region where civilization is still in its infancy.” Curator Anca Tudorancea has also referred to the complex personality of the explorer.



    Anca Tudorancea:” Popper is a very interesting subject in all his aspects and at a certain point we must also deal with both negative and positive aspects. For instance, people want to know if he was blond or red hair. Because of stereotypes he is being represented as a red-haired individual but rubio means blonde and because in the past ten years of his life he spoke and wrote in perfect Spanish we must speak a little bit of Spanish to understand the Romanian Popper. He sent extraordinary letters to the Romanian Geographic Society, letters of great patriotism, in which he said I am Romanian, was born Romanian and am going to die Romanian. Ironically he never got the Romanian citizenship because he was in the same situation as all those in the Jewish community. We owe him the Romanian names in Tierra del Fuego and that was an act of love for his native country, Romania, for its Royal House, the patron of the Geographic Society.”



    Iuliu Popper is present not only in Argentines books of history and specialized articles, he inspired writers of literature, comics and films. A Chilean rock band is presently bearing his name.


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