Nesupunere și contestare în România comunistă
Coordonatori: Clara Mareș, Constantin Vasilescu
Cuvânt-înainte (pp. 11-15)
Partea I
Carmen-Elena Potra, Revoltele ţărăneşti din judeţul Bihor în vara anului 1949 (pp. 19-41)
From March 3rd to March 5th 1949, the Fifth Plenary of the Central Committee of the Romanian Workers’ Party (PMR) took place in Bucharest. On this occasion, Gheorghe Gheorghiu‑Dej presented the report on the tasks of the Party „in a struggle to strengthen the alliance of the working class with the working peasantry, and for the socialist transformation of agriculture within the grand work of building socialism in our country”. The Resolution of the Plenum, adopted unanimously, pushed for the achievement of a „democratic land reform”, which could not be achieved otherwise than by the „immediate liquidation of property estates”, which allowed, according to the report of Political Bureau of the CC of PMR, for an improving of the situation of the poor and middle peasantry. In his speech, we notice the grouping of peasants in „agricultural workers”, „middle”, „poor peasants” and „wealthy”, the latter being considered exploiters of the first three categories. Therefore, the fight against the „wealthy” – „the most important exploiting class of our villages” – had to be done with the help of the peasantry, in order for any form of „exploitation of man by man” to be removed and the flawed agricultural system to be put to a halt. In order to accomplish this goal, the peasantry ought to undoubtedly unite with the working class. Thus, the building of socialism would reunite, under the Soviet model, the rural world with the urban world. If in the city, factories and plants were proliferating, in rural areas the Soviet approach was focused on the collectivization of agriculture. Individual properties were seen as unsustainable and the large creator of „wealth” was replaced by collective farms. Consequently, in order to meet this „grand plan”, the state introduced „mandatory quotas”, which forced the peasants to give an important part of their harvest to the state. The effects of this system were immediate; a large part of the peasantry became bankrupt, and peasants were divided into two categories: those who refused to surrender quotas – considered „saboteurs” –, who were arrested and convicted, and those who enrolled within the ollective farms.
Keywords: collectivization, wealthy, landlords, peasantry, collective farms
The communist regime in Romania was „pounced” over the society and thus triggered a heterogeneous anti‑communist resistance movement. The Romanian Orthodox Church gave various members to this anti-communist movement. Father Gherasim Iscu, the last abbot of Tismana, was one of the notable members of the National Resistance Movement from Oltenia. His incorruptible and visibly anti‑communist status, but also the settlement of the monastery allowed his recruitment to an anti-communist military movement. His role was to provide accommodation and food to the members of the anti-communist organization. This study discusses the involvement in the resistance movement and the consequences suffered by an atypical „witness of Jesus Christ”, who died in the communist prisons.
Keywords: resistance, Tismana Abbey, political emprisonment
Vlad Mitric-Ciupe, Rezistenţă, contestare, nesupunere. Cazul lui Vlad Drăgoescu, un „piteştean” uitat (pp. 67-81)
Born on May 28, 1926 in Craiova, Vlad Drăgoescu was sentenced to 12 years of custodial sentence for his activity carried out in a „subversive” organization. This organization equated with the attempts of the group led by General Carlaonţ to set up their armed resistance against communism. Drăgoescu was moved from one prison to another, from Craiova, Jilava, Piteşti (where he was both a victim and a „tormentor” during the denunciation times) to Gherla, Codlea, Aiud and Galaţi, and released in 1960. The completion of his sentence did not mean his return home, but rather a 4‑year home arrest in Bărăgan. Coming to Bucharest after 1964, he found himself in the impossibility to follow his passion for architecture, since his admission to „Ion Mincu” Architecture Institute was denied. He will settle with attending the courses at the Technical Post‑Secondary School of Architecture, from where he graduated as the valedictorian of the 1969 class and was granted the title of conductor architect. Despite the fact that his final average would have allowed him to be ssigned to a designing institute in Bucharest, he was fired after presenting his resume and sent to his latest known residence listed on his identity card, Valea Călmăţui, upon the interference of the Securitate. He managed to find a job on a construction site, but the non‑resident permit would not be issued for him. For the next 7 years, he worked on different building sites as a day laborer, as he only had his 1964 identification card in his possession. Constantly harassed and kept under surveillance, he filed numerous petitions and memoirs for renouncing his Romanian citizenship, request granted on September 8, 1975. In March 1977, he signed Paul Goma’s Letter. Following that, he was investigated, beaten, threatened, which made him „adopt an undocile attitude, maintaining his hostile opinions”. Even though his passport had been (finally) issued, it was then withdrawn for the reason that he „had joined an anti‑state action”. Three months later, he will be released on June 29, 1977‚ in compliance with „superior orders”. He is given the passport and leaves the country forever on May 27, 1978. After he had spent 18 months in a refugee camp in Vienna, he was allowed to enter Switzerland. Reserved person, withdrawn, revolted by the events that unfolded in the aftermath of 1990, he passed away in a Swiss nursing home, in 2010. Our study aims to examine and make known the fate of a victim, of a resistance member, of a permanent militant against the communist regime.
Keywords: communism, political detention, resistance, dismissal, architecture
On 31 December 1952 a hellish machine exploded inside a textile store in Bucharest, mutilating or causing injuries to 12 people. Although unexpected, the explosion represents the climax activity of an anti‑communist group whose leader was a woman. For two years, Nina Dombrovschi and those gathered around her designed and implemented actions against the regime, but they failed successively. The explosion of 1952 is no exception, since causing victims wasn’t a single moment considered. Acting out of an irreducible anti-communism and of frustration, the group led by Nina Dombrovschi is a suggestive example of the rebellion of a cloistered individual pushed to the edge by a totalitarian and criminal regime, such as the communist one. Also the case is suggestive for the historical debate, both in terms of motivations and consequences of the hard forms of impugning the totalitarianism.
Keywords: armed rebellion, bombs, explosive device, executions
Lucian Vasile, Spre adevărata libertate. Grupul Mihai Roth şi deturnarea vasului „Cernavodă” (pp. 121-151)
On March 6, 1959, five young workers of German ethnicity attacked the guards and the crew members of a passenger ship on its route from Turnu Severin to Ostrovul Mare. The men tried to hijack the boat in order to reach the Yugoslavian shore to continue their way to Western Germany. They had mixed reasons: from reuniting with their families which had been split by the Second World War to having a better social‑economical life and to enjoy the „real freedom” according to their oath. The plan was Mihai Roth’s idea, the absolute leader of the group. Their attempt failed, resulting in two deaths and six injured. After the trial, seven persons were convicted to prison and the eighth one, Mihai Roth, was executed. The case is relevant for the disruption between the regime’s propaganda, which claimed that the Party is based on the workers and it’s fight for their goals, and the reality (all the persons were ordinary workers with primary to medium education). Moreover, the story of this group is a showcase of the difficult status of the German ethnics in the communist Romania of the 50s and its members’ personal dramas.
Keywords: German ethnics, crossing the border, political prison, boat „Cernavodă”
Partea a II-a
Mariana‑Alina Urs, Răzvrătire în parohia Titan: povestea preotului Costică Maftei (pp. 155-182)
In the winter of 1977, Fr. Costică Maftei was named parish priest for Titan neighbourhood in Bucharest, which had over 300.000 people, but lacked a church. Merely a few weeks before, the young Orthodox priest had wrote his last informative note for the political police in Ploieşti. Undiscouraged by the challenging new situation, Fr. Maftei decided to begin the process of building a church. His proposal, however, was immediately rejected by the hierarchy of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the vicar bishop of Bucharest calling him „crazy” for proposing such a „foolish thing”. Maftei’s gesture determined an immediate reaction from the Securitate. The „network of informants from the Patriarchy” was activated, together with other collaborators from among his relatives and neighbours. They were all given precise tasks in order to discredit Maftei and convince him to renounce his plans. But Maftei not only didn’t give up, but he contacted other dissident priests and wrote a letter to Radio Free Europe explaining his situation. One year later, Fr. Maftei was finding himself forced to emigrate, together with his family, and so he left for Austria and then moved to the US in the following months. After the 1989 Revolution, Fr. Maftei and his wife returned to Romania, but despite the position offered at a church in Bucharest, because he felt constantly harassed, he decided to retire soon afterwards. In our study we corroborate archival documents from the political police with information gathered from letters, memorandums, press articles and, last, but not least, from an interview with Fr. Maftei, in order to unveil the story of this „dissident”.
Keywords: priest, Romanian Orthodox Church, exile
Flori Bălănescu, GRUP CANAL ’77: între revendicarea drepturilor şi „parazitism social” (pp. 183-206)
Against the backdrop of 1977 Human Rights Movement (Goma Movement), on July 5, five young laborers were publicly exposed in Bucharest and illegally sentenced to one year of forced labor for „social parasitism”. In 1977, their earlier wish to obtain a passport turned into a consistent protest against the restrictions on the freedom of movement imposed by the communist regime. In august 1977, they escaped from the reopened site at the Danube‑Black Sea Canal and went on a hunger strike in the hope of attracting the international public attention. An Address on Individual Freedoms was drafted by the French Committee of Human Rights in Romania, expressing a particular concern over Goma’s destiny and the other adherents to the Human Rights Movement, including those five young laborers who wanted to have their rights respected: Iosif Dan Niţă, Radu Negrescu (Suţu), Raymond Păunescu, Nicolae Windisch and Ion Marinescu. They released a public statement addressed to Belgrade Conference participants, and acquainted by Eugen Ionesco during a reunion in Paris. Being supported by the Radio Free Europe, Amnesty International, Western print media and by the dissident Paul Goma, until the beginning of 1978 they managed to receive a passport and leave the country.
Keywords: communism, protest, forced labor
Mihai Floroiu, Forme de opoziţie politică în anii ’80: scrisori, inscripţii şi manifeste anti‑ceauşiste (pp. 207-233)
In the 80’s, the economical crisis and the drastic measures of rationalizing food and electricity have brought up multiple dissatisfactions regarding the leadership of the party. In spite of the obedience and the acceptance noticed in all citizens’ everyday life, more and more critical voices had risen against the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauşescu publically. The opposition had already existed for a long period of time, and was expressed in countless ways. The dissatisfactions and the roots of all negative public manifestations were concerning, most of the time, the unbelievably low standards of living, lack of supplies, whether it was food or clothing, civil rights and the poor situation of the socialist economy.
In the present study, our attention has been focused on theorizing and presenting these actions concerning political opposition from the 80’s and the impact that it had had amongst the people. In the same time, our study has been also focused on recalling the memoirs of the political opponents of the regime, a side which is less known from a historiographical point of view, who had made it into the international public opinion, thanks to their manifestations, their claims, and the innovative way of protesting.
Keywords: opposition, protest, emprisonment, political initiatives, Radu Filipescu
Liviu Pleşa, Formele de manifestare a nemulţumirii populaţiei din judeţul Alba în anii ’80 (pp. 235-283)
Our study is focused on the analysis of a regular, yet diverse segment of the Romanian society (the population of a county), with a focus on the types of protests and critical reactions of the people, the socio‑economic, religious and political categories involved, as well as on the causes and reasons behind their behaviour. Moreover, we will also discuss the methods used by the Securitate to „fight back” (threats, break‑up of „entourages”, organizing public debates), due to the fact that the repressive actions undertaken by this institution had as effect a drastic limitation of almost all critical manifestations. Having a catalysing factor in the Goma Movement, the Revolt of the Workers in Braşov and Radio Free Europe, an increase in the intensity of the feelings of social discontent and protest towards the regime is visible all along the 9th decade, this being correlated as well with the evident decrease of the standard of living. From critical comments towards the regime to profanities addressed to Ceauşescu, people’s reactions take ever more aggressive forms, without, however, going beyond strikes and the spreading of manifests prompting to a rising.
Keywords: Alba County, discontent, repressive actions, low standard of living
Partea a III‑a
Liliana Corobca, Reacţii la cenzura comunistă (pp. 287-307)
In the communist regime, the censorship was not exercised only by DGPT (General Department for Press and Publications) – the censorship institution. There were „editorial censorship”, made by employees of the magazines, publishing houses, radios and televisions etc.; „repressive censorship” executed by the political department (political control) of the state security organizations (political police); ideological censorship, made by party leadership, which had the first and last word in banning or accepting for publication (the party gave indications to the DGPT); the „inside” censorship, which caused authors to guess the ideological, aesthetic, political regulations of her/his work over numerous stages of the control. But the main institution of censorship exercised the most important and the largest operations of censorship and control. An army of censors was actually in charge of the whole process of banning, discovering the authors, information, „anti‑Soviet” and harmful works. In this paper we present some examples of reactions during the main stages of censorship.
Keywords: censorship, control, political police, banned publications
The systematization of villages is part of the Ceauşescu’s regime plan for creating the new man. The new man had to live in an apartment in cities (agro‑industrial centers) and have similar lifestyles throughout the country, irrespective of area or social class. The issue of national minorities enflamed the international community in the first phase of the program implementation in rural areas. The idea that by 2000, 7,000‑8,000 villages were to disappear; while the rest were transformed into agro‑industrial centers caused a wave of protests. The Hungarian problem was complicated, because in Transylvania there were about 2 million Hungarians, the largest minority in Romania – mostly living in villages. The mixing of populations in the new village centers implied the dilution of the remaining population of the small Hungarian villages, which would have been lost, together with their architecture, with their social cohesion, with education in their native language and everything else related to their culture. Systematization was immediately perceived by Hungarians as the final stage of the Romanization they had always opposed. Hungary started a very strong campaign against systematization of villages in Romania, both through diplomatic channels and through the actions of associations and human rights organizations. On June 27, a demonstration was organized in Budapest, attended by 20,000 people. The relation between the two countries became tense. Beyond these threats, the reality was that the regions inhabited by minorities were as affected as those inhabited by Romanians. Systematization can’t be described as an anti‑minority process, but as a means of homogenization of a society where ethnic differences persist among others.
Keywords: systematization, minorities, protest, Romanian exile.
Adrian Matus, Rebeli cu o cauză: elemente ale contraculturii americane în literatura generaţiei optzeciste (pp. 337-361)
The aim of this research is to provide a proper understanding of a phenomenon which has a marginal position, lying on the borderline of a literary critique and the history of communism. The object of this research is the reception of the American counterculture in the Romanian literary space. More accurately, we will discuss the influence of the Beat Generation (represented by Ginsberg, Keroauc, Ferlinghetti) in the poems of G801. In order to understand the dynamics of this phenomenon, we have to ask ourselves to what extent the cultural identification is truly appropriated by poets like Mircea Cărtărescu and Florin Iaru. Within the academic fields (both literary critique, and historiography) there are some clues regarding this aspect, but further research is needed.
We will explain the cultural specific context that determined the late reception of the American counterculture in Romanian literature. We will describe the cultural discourse of the 1970s, dominated by a mixture of nationalism and communism. We’ll also deal with the G80 reaction to the Establishment ideology.
Lastly, we will analyze the collective anthology Aer cu diamante, where we will be pinpointing the reference to LSD in the books’ subversive title and cover photo. Through a hermeneutical reading of the poems, we will try to show that there is a huge gap between the cultural identification with the Beat Generation and the actual aesthetics (influenced by other sources).
Keywords: counterculture, Eastern Europe, beat generation influence, Mircea Cărtărescu
Tudor Mihăescu, Istoria văzută prin Google: memoria gulagului pe internet (pp. 363-372)
The study will examine the manner in which Google influences people’s perception of historical facts, by analysing how the searching engine displays on the first page of results the websites dedicated to the presentation of the gulag. By introducing the term „gulag” in the searching box of Google, the provided information is analysed in two of the specific stances for this tool: through the section of webpages and the one of images. The materials, seen by the user during the first moments of searching, are briefly analysed. We may assume that Google records in a specific manner, the way that the topics from recent history are perceived by the public consciousness. Therefore, the research summarizes an approach that combines the explanation of the new digital technologies’ impact with the historiographical and sociological dimension.
Keywords: gulag, communism, google, internet, user experience design, digital
Recenzii
Igor Caşu, Duşmanul de clasă (Represiuni politice, violenţă şi rezistenţă în R[A]SS Moldovenească, 1924‑1956) (Liliana Corobca) (pp. 375-378)
Ion Ioanid, Închisoarea noastră cea de toate zilele (vol. I‑III) (Lavinia Teodora Sabou) (pp. 379-385)
Marius Turda, Eugenism şi modernitate. Naţiune, rasă şi biopolitică în Europa (1870‑1950) (Ionuţ‑Marian Filipescu) (pp. 387-391)
Simona Preda, Patrie Română, ţară de eroi! (Mihaela Toader) (pp. 393-397)