1989 Romanian Revolution Research Papers (original) (raw)

A review essay of key works and trends in the political thought of Central and Eastern Europe, before and after 1989. The topics examined include the nature of the 1989 velvet revolutions in the region, debates on civil society, democratization, the relationship between politics, economics, and culture, nationalism, legal reform, feminism, and "illiberal democracy." The review essay concludes with an assessment of the most recent trends in the region.

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- Eastern European Studies, Political Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Science

His father, Valter, was a "generous" partisan in the Spanish Civil War. The Romanian communist regime opposed his father and later him. His dissent against Ceaușescu's repression will accelerate the Revolution of '89. His commitment was essential in Romanian democracy construction; Romania is a NATO outpost on the new Cold War's chessboard. A dialogue with one of the twentieth century's History protagonists, Professor Petre Roman, former Prime Minister of Romania, Member of the Club de Madrid, and recently Dean of the prestigious Swiss UMEF University in Geneva.

- by Lorenzo Somigli
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- Romanian History, NATO, Eastern European history, Post-Communism

Im Zentrum des Bandes steht das Phänomen der «Wende» in Osteuropa von 1989/91. Der Zerfall der sozialistischen Ordnung und die Transformationsprozesse hin zur Neuordnung der sozialen, wirtschaftlichen und politischen Systeme verliefen in den Staaten Osteuropas unterschiedlich. Nach der anfänglichen Euphorie des demokratischen Umbruchs trat schnell Ernüchterung ein. Die Einführung von Demokratie und liberaler Marktwirtschaft gestaltete sich in der Praxis oft schwieriger als erwartet. Sie war in einzelnen Staaten von grossen wirtschaftlichen Problemen, gesellschaftlichen Spannungen, tiefgreifenden Identitäts- und Sinnkrisen und in Einzelfällen gar von gewaltsamen Auseinandersetzungen begleitet. Entsprechend unterschiedlich wurde und wird das Phänomen der «Wende» bewertet.

- by Jeronim Perovic and +2
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- Eastern European Studies, Romanian History, Polish History, Eastern European history
- by Dumitru Lacatusu
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- Repression, 1989 Romanian Revolution, Securitate, Brasov - Kronstadt - Brasso
- by Alexandru Purcăruș
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- Romanian History, 1989 Romanian Revolution, 1989 in Europe
- by Constantin Parvulescu
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- Eastern European Studies, Film Studies, Romanian Studies, Historical Films
- by Cristian N ANTONESCU
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- 1989 Romanian Revolution, Nicolae Ceausescu, Revolutie, Lovilutie
- by Florin Abraham
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- 1989 Romanian Revolution
- by Attila Gidó
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- Romanian History, History of Transylvania, 1989 Romanian Revolution

Studiul de faţă schiţează evenimentele revoluţiei române din Cluj din perspectiva formelor de organizare a comunităţii maghiare. Din pricina spaţiului alocat, studiul se concentrează în primul rând asupra perioadei cuprinse între 16 decembrie 1989 şi 20 mai 1990, aşadar asupra perioadei scurse din momentul izbucnirii revoluţiei până la organizarea primelor alegeri libere.

- by Lucian-Vasile Szabo
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- History, Journalism, Television Studies, Political Science
- by Oana Pârvan
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- Revolutions, Fall of Communism, 1989 Romanian Revolution

""A close examination of an understudied European Union member state such as Romania reveals that, since 1989, post-communist state and non-state actors have adopted a wide range of methods, processes, and practices of working through the... more

- by Lavinia Stan
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- History, Law, Comparative Politics, Historiography

The 30th anniversary of the 1989 Romanian Revolution was an occasion for a study trip with students and colleagues from the University of Jena to Romania in September 2019. What impressed us most was a visit to the Institute of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 (IRRD) in Bucharest. We had the chance to talk with two of the most important figures of the revolution, Gelu Voican Voiculescu and Petre Roman. Both are representatives of the highly controversial IRRD. At present, Iliescu and Voiculescu are accused of crimes
against humanity because they did not prevent the large number of deaths when they assumed power.
The essay reflects upon different levels of complicity in a network of power that fortunately – given the fact that the Romanian parliament voted for the dissolution of the IRRD on 30 December 2019 – finally seems to fade.

- by Valeska Bopp-Filimonov
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- Romanian History, Postsocialism, Romanian Studies, Memory Studies

This paper is about nine Romanian Revolution's martyrs from Ramnicu Sarat

- by Marius Neculae
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- Recent History, Martyrs, 1989 Romanian Revolution

The collapse of the Berlin Wall has come to represent the entry of an isolated region onto the global stage. On the contrary, this study argues that communist states had in fact long been shapers of an interconnecting world, with '1989' instead marking a choice by local elites about the form that globalisation should take. Published to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the 1989 revolutions, this work draws on material from local archives to international institutions to explore the place of Eastern Europe in the emergence, since the 1970s, of a new world order that combined neoliberal economics and liberal democracy with increasingly bordered civilisational, racial and religious identities. An original and wide-ranging history, it explores the importance of the region's links to the West, East Asia, Africa, and Latin America in this global transformation, reclaiming the era's other visions such as socialist democracy or authoritarian modernisation which had been lost in triumphalist histories of market liberalism.

- by Frances Guerin
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- German Cinema, 1989 Romanian Revolution, Harun Farocki

Cum au fost trăite acele zile ale revoluției? Ce i-a facut pe oameni să se revolte și să-și pună viața în joc? Cum au înfruntat moartea violentă, necunoscutul, marile speranțe și frici? Cum au perceput acel moment abrupt de ruptură între o lume veche care se prăbușea (și de care încercau cu disperare să se elibereze, exorcizând-o), și o alta nouă care trebuia imaginată?

The aim of the present paper is to provide a brief presentation of the evolution of religious freedom in Romania since the 1989 Revolution from the perspective of a Pentecostal believer. To better understand what this event meant for this denomination, first the situation of the Pentecostal movement in the interwar and communist times will be
presented, and then survey the changes brought by the fall of the communist regime and how religious freedom evolved in the past three decades.

- by Dragos Stefanica
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- Romanian History, Communism, Pentecostalism, Religious Persecution
- by rachel weiss
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- Cuban Revolution, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Gerhard Richter, Red Army Faction

If collective remembrance is as old as human communal existence and the age-old practices that forge its cohesion, theoretical preoccupation with the phenomenon of collective memory is relatively recent. The present book accounts for this paradox through interpretation of the novel function accorded to collective memory which, in a modern context of discontinuity and dislocation, reoccupies the space that has been left vacant by the decline of a series of traditional assumptions concerning human socio-political identity. In this situation, where memory is widely called upon as a source of collective cohesion, this book aims to elaborate a philosophical basis for the concept of collective memory and to delimit its scope in relation to the historical past. Extensive analysis is devoted to the complex spatio-temporal and conceptual modes of symbolic configuration of collective memory in the public sphere. These modes of symbolic configuration have undergone radical transformation over the past century that is both reflected and engendered by the new technologies of mass communication through their capacity to simulate direct experience and remembrance by means of the image. Such transformations make increasingly palpable the limited scope of collective memory, rooted in a rapidly changing context, in the face of an historical past beyond its pale. The growing awareness of these limits, however, and of the opacity of the historical past, need not fuel historical skepticism: as the novels of Walter Scott, Proust and W. J. Sebald serve to illustrate, it may place in evidence subtle nuances of temporal context that are emblematic of historical reality.

- by Jeffrey Andrew Barash
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- Media Studies, Balkan Studies, French Revolution, Wilhelm Dilthey

Whenever the topic of revolution is at stake nowadays, Romanian people from different walks of life usually think of December 1989. The tragic events that led to the regime change have left a permanent mark on many people's lives. Many contemporary writers and critics have written about it, but there is still a long way until the individual and the cultural trauma is healed. Since little has been published in English about the literary work of contemporary Romanian women writers, this paper aims to culturally translate the subject and to provide insights into their perspectives. From a theoretical point of view, it explores the perceptions of the concept of revolution seen either as a change of direction (a moment in time) or as a cyclical process (a flowing gyre). The selected corpus includes: a poetic novel, "The Fox Was Ever the Hunter" by Herta Müller; a diary, "The Witnessing Wall" by Florența Albu; a novel made of individual stories, "One Sky Above Them" by Ruxandra Cesereanu; a family chronicle, "The Immigrant from Biggin Hill" by Lăcrămioara Stoenescu; and a first-person retrospective novel, "Fontana di Trevi" by Gabriela Adameșteanu. Each of them tackles the idea of revolution in a distinct manner, which suggests the existence of a literary corpus by women writers that resonates in various ways with the original conflict and contributes significantly to its cultural memory.

- by Monica Manolachi
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- Women's Literature, Romanian Literature, Cultural Memory, Conceptual History
- by Theodora-Eliza Vacarescu
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- Gender Studies, Women's Studies, Women's History, Romanian History

This article looks at what was published in the weekly newspaper of the Romanian Defense Ministry 28 years ago in 1990. The author assumes that in its investigations of December 1989, the Military Procuracy has not considered it worth its time and effort to flip through the pages of „Armata Poporului.” This, the author argues, is unfortunate, as in those pages are to be found many clarifying details important to understanding what happened in December 1989. The author focuses on two examples in this article: 1) what „Armata Poporului” wrote about the so-called radio-electronic diversion and 2) what „Armata Poporului” wrote about the so-called USLA tragedy in front of the Headquarters of the Defense Ministry on 24 December 1989. These materials, the author believes, can assist the military prosecutors in their search for the truth about what happened in December 1989.

- by Roland O . Thomasson
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- Romanian History, Romanian Communism, 1989 Romanian Revolution, Securitate

The 501-page Rechizitoriu in the Dosarul Revolutiei of 5 April 2019 written by military prosecutors makes no mention of the use of atypical, special bullets in December 1989. Specifically, there is no mention of the use of exploding dum-dum or other type of unusual bullets. Was there no evidence from the testimonies military prosecutors have taken from participants through the years? Was there no evidence from previous parliamentary investigations of the Revolution—documents the military prosecutors cite and claim to have consulted? Was there no evidence from Romanian or foreign media through the years? This chapter seeks to answer these questions and to explain the significance of the use of unusual munitions, particularly exploding dum-dum bullets, for our understanding of what happened then and why December 1989 is so misunderstood today.

- by Roland O . Thomasson
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- 1989 Romanian Revolution
- by Zoran Markov
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- History, Romanian History, Museum Collection history, Banat

Recenzia volumului semnat de Adrian Cioroianu, Nu putem evada din istoria noastră. Cea mai frumoasă poveste, vol. II, apărut la Curtea Veche Publishing.

The role played by the Army and the crimes committed during the Romanian Revolution and particularly those committed in Timişoara are controversial merely from the juridical point of view, because there are no doubts that the generals, the officers, the non-commissioned officers and the conscripts under the Ministry of National Defence have planned the repression, or have actively and murderously participated in trying to stop the revolutionary movement. It was no sooner than December 20th 1989 when the armed forces retreated from the streets of Timişoara and dissolved the eight combat formations installed starting with the evening of December 17th. It is true that the militaries (those under the command of the Ministry of National Defence) were part of the (repressive!) combat formations together with the Militia and Securitate officers as well as the Fire Fighting brigades or even the patriotic squads. However, the Army gave most of the troops. The streets were full of cordons of militaries dressed in khaki. There could have been (and there were!) troops belonging to the Border Guard Service, because they functioned under the Ministry of Interior. The Guard and Securitate troops, under the command of the same ministry, wore specific blue uniforms. And among them, as in the case of the Border Guard troops, there were many conscripts, although they were compulsory serving in the army.

- by Lucian-Vasile Szabo
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- Sociology, Journalism, Social Sciences, Romanian History
- by Adrienn Pataky
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- Self and Identity, Hungarian, Nationalism, Romanian Studies
- by Andrei Florin Sora
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- Romanian History, Romanian Communism, 1989 Romanian Revolution
- by Andrei Gorzo
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- Media Theory, Archive Footage, Found Film, 1989 Romanian Revolution, Film essay
- by Caterina Preda
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- Cultural Studies, Visual Studies, Art History, Romanian History
- by Radu Stancu
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- Romanian History, History of Communism, 1989 Romanian Revolution

- by Lucian-Vasile Szabo
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- Sociology, Journalism, Social Sciences, Romanian History

In this paper I attempt to link two issues that seem to have no obvious connection: market, thus an economic concept, and the ethnographic perspective on Romanian migrants at the beginning of the 1990s. I link these issues by arguing that the Romanian migrants’ experiences and difficulties actually reflect the encounter between a market and non-market situation. I am mainly interested in the way this encounter is lived on an individual basis and the effects on interpersonal relations between those at the arrival destination and those at the departure place. In order to illustrate my point, I refer to discussions on a blog set up by a Romanian immigrant to Canada. The market situation is an exchange-based situation, in which all things have a price because they have in their turn been earned at a price. Those who remained at home did not have the larger exchange picture in mind, but rather a vague imagination of the resourceful West, the engrained idea of needs and the status drive towards conspicuous consumption. For those at home, the émigrés to the West was an asset for their status, separated from the value in work or time, for acquiring money. The non-market situation in the departure country obscured the perceived market value and “correct price” of commodities, time and people. This I believe can be considered the root of a misunderstanding. All those entering the market system had to take on its values and expectations, but at the cost of alienation and the loss of a dimension of friendship and social solidarity – with no market exchange value – which could not be recaptured. The lost dimension turned bitter through exposure to the new situation. Something was lost in translation between the two worlds.

- by Raluca Petre
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- Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Change, Eastern European Studies

This essay explores three films—4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007), 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006), and Police, Adjective (2009)—to see how communist “structures of feeling” suffuse various time periods: the Ceauşescu regime, the anniversary of the revolution, and a post-communist world. These films often obliquely address the traumas of communism, not through direct representation of repression, but instead through a minimalist aesthetic that creates an atmosphere of oppression.

- by Chris Robe
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- National Cinemas, Communism, Art and Independent Cinema, Eastern European Cinema
- by Mónika Dánél
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- Reenactment, 1989 Romanian Revolution

Aceast\ carte este protejat\ prin copyright. Reproducerea inte gral\ sau par]ial\, multi pli carea prin orice mijloace [i sub orice form\, cum ar fi xero xarea, scanarea, transpunerea în format elec tronic sau audio, punerea la dispozi]ia public\, in clu siv prin internet sau prin re]ele de calculatoare, stoca rea per manent\ sau temporar\ pe dispozitive sau sis teme cu posi bilitatea recu per\rii infor ma]iilor, cu scop comercial sau gratuit, precum [i alte fapte similare s\vâr[ite f\r\ permi siunea scris\ a de]in\ torului copy rightului repre zint\ o înc\l care a legisla]iei cu privire la protec]ia pro priet\]ii intelectuale [i se pedepsesc penal [i/sau civil în conformitate cu legile în vigoare. www.polirom.ro

- by Emanuel Copilaș
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- Eastern Europe, Romanian History, Eastern European history, Romanian Studies

După ce haosul acustic a încetat brusc, în faţa plutoanelor 11 şi 12 a apărut ofiţerul de contrainformaţii al şcolii. Acesta ne-a îndemnat să fim calmi şi să deschidem focul împotriva demonstranţilor pe care urma să îi întâlnim. Comandantul şcolii, colonelul Eugeniu Sibianu, se afla la câţiva paşi de noi, împreună cu un grup de ofiţeri. El a venit imediat în faţa noastră şi a ordonat scurt şi tare: „Nu trageţi în demonstranţi!”. Ofiţerul de contrainformaţii a repetat de două ori propriul ordin şi, tot de două ori, colonelul Eugeniu Sibianu ne-a spus clar: „Nu trageţi în demonstranţi!”. Acela a fost momentul în care colonelul Eugeniu Sibianu a devenit Tatăl Nostru.
M-am oprit un moment din scris pentru a încerca să mă calmez. Au existat oameni, precum Eugeniu Sibianu (27 mai 1933, Moşteni, jud. Teleorman – 15 noiembrie 2016; general de brigadă, în retragere, din anul 1996), care au înţeles că armata română nu a fost înfiinţată pentru a trage împotriva propriilor cetăţeni şi au acţionat în consecinţă, înainte de fuga lui Nicolae Ceauşescu de la sediul Comitetului Central al P.C.R., cu elicopterul.