(English version below)
Cuprins
1. Studii
The year 1948 was one of the socio-economic and political changes in Romania. It went from a monarchical regime to a “popular democratic” one of Soviet origin. Profound changes have also taken place in the Romanian diaspora, in Paris and in America, but against the political regime installed in Romania. In Paris, the Romanian Orthodox Church, from str. Jean de Beauvais, no. 9bis, broke ties with the Romanian Legation and the government in the country, becoming one of the landmarks of Romanian exile. At this church, the priests declared their anti-communist attitude, helping the Romanian refugees who wanted to escape the oppression regime in the country, and made a pact with the Western anti-Soviet powers. How all this happened, we will try to expose in the present study, based on documents from the archives of the former Securitate, from those kept at the Romanian Orthodox Church in Paris and from the diplomatic archive in Bucharest.
Keywords: Romanian Orthodox Church in Paris, church exile, communism
In the following, I set out to complete the image of the professional performance of the Securitate apparatus, illustrated in the previous sections, only in general, by presenting the existing situation at the level of four “special” areas of information-operational activity, two of the apparatus informative – External Information and Counterintelligence (more in the form of a comparison between the two) – the others from the technical – operative one: Filing and Censorship of Correspondence.
Keywords: Securitate, professionalism, staff policy, espionage, agents
Using information provided by the former archives of the Romanian Security Service, the author of this investigation highlights how the relationship of an important but controversial writer and priest Virgil Gheorghiu with the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Justinian Marina is reflected in the documents of the aforementioned institution. Author of the novel 25th Hour, where he denounces both Nazism and communism and presents the history of Romania during World War II, Virgil Gheorghiu is an author translated into 34 languages, in 1967 being made into a film with Anthony Quinn as the main character. In 1963, he will become a priest for the Romanian Orthodox Community in Paris, receiving priestly ordination from Bishop Teofil Ionescu, who, at that time, did not belong to the Romanian Patriarchate. For this reason, Gheorghiu will come into contact, helped by Fr. André Scrima, in 1968, with Patriarch Justinian, requesting to be received under the jurisdiction of Romania. Soon after, in 1968, he would be received under the omophorion of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The dialogue between him and the Patriarch was a subject of interest to the communist regime, due to the notoriety of the main protagonist, but also because he was known to be against the dictatorship in Bucharest. Using the documents from the source mentioned above, we will try to show how their correspondence was seen by the state bodies, what were the main subjects that interested them and how the authorities tried to influence in one way or another the correspondence and the relationship between the two important clerics.
Keywords: Securitate, Virgil Gheorghiu, Patriarch Justinian Marina, the communist regime
The crisis of the socialist camp in the summer of 1968 had far-reaching consequences, both inside and outside the camp. The intelligence services of both camps rethought their activity coordinates, N.A.T.O. revised its doctrine and early warning mechanisms, and patterns of ideological interpretation of international events were severely criticized on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
We note that the long-term implications of the events of 1968 and subsequent Soviet policy were somewhat paradoxical. The obvious hostility of the Kremlin leaders towards the Romanian leader led to the spread of the idea that anyone who opposes Ceausescu politically is automatically a pro-Soviet one, preventing any coagulation of alternative nuclei of power in the P.C.R. The final effect of these policies was consumed in December 1989, more than two decades after the “Prague Spring”, when Romania was the only country in which the removal of the single party was done with bloodshed.Keywords: “Prague Spring”, intelligence services, Czechoslovakia, Nicolae Ceaușescu
The politico-cultural ideology and the accentuated politicization and ideologization of the ʼ70s, which affected all state institutions in Romania, could not fail to manifest themselves strongly in the personnel policy of the Securitate in the eighth and ninth decades, the Securitate being in continued considered by the political power as the main state institution through which the PCR he had subordinated himself and subordinated his entire Romanian society to his exclusive benefit: the permanent maintenance of the political leadership of the state. Security being, therefore, “vital” for the communist political power, it was natural its interest to promote an institutional policy of cadres in which the emphasis should be placed on the recruitment, training and promotion of officers with the highest political-ideological level.
Nicolae Ceausescu’s opinion, then assumed by the entire party, was that the more politicized and especially more ideologically politicized Securitate cadres, the more they will have the theoretical baggage of ideological-political knowledge that would allow them to identify how more correctly and more effectively the real, potential or presumed enemies of political power and then annihilate or counter them by finding those solutions and using those methods and means that bring the greatest political advantages to political power in the respective political, socio-economic context and internal and external cultural. Ceausescu wanted to transform the Securitate cadres into political activists (“political activists in a special field”), and the Securitate leaders hurried to immediately take over the concept launched by the leader of the P.C.R. As in order for a person to become a good political activist, it was necessary for him to have the highest possible political ideological level, the direct consequence was the amplification and accentuation of the process of political ideologization of the Securitate employees.
The policy of accentuating the political ideologizing of the Securitate cadres erupted directly with high accents in the summer of 1971, after the adoption by the P.C.R. of the “July theses”. The Securitate leaders quickly took over the theoretical concept issued by the political power regarding the need for politicization and political ideologization of the institution’s cadres and disseminated it continuously and repetitively among their subordinates.However, over a period of several years, the actual changes in the Security’s personnel policy have not been significant.
The situation will change substantially after the “Schächter case”, when the development and implementation of annual and forward-looking programs in the direction of achieving the highest possible level of political ideologisation of Securitate personnel. Also, in the second half of the eighth decade, two large general operations of politicization of all Securitate employees were launched, as a result of which almost all those cadres who could not be received in the P.C.R.
At the same time, I noticed the existence of a continuous process of accentuation and amplification of the interference of the communist political power in the personnel policy of the Securitate. Taking advantage of the contexts created by the Schächter and Pacepa cases, Ceausescu personally and the political power as a whole have continuously expanded and broadened their responsibilities in terms of Security personnel policy (especially in terms of recruiting all officers and promoting, moving, sanctioning and placing in reserve of senior officers). Since 1978, Nicolae Ceausescu has received full responsibilities in terms of personnel policy in the Security (as well as in the entire MI and in the M.Ap.N.): any decision regarding officers with higher ranks was mandatory to be transposed into practice by presidential decree. Leader P.C.R. he thus took over a direct lever through which he controlled the entire personnel policy of the Securitate.
Keywords: “Theses from July 1971”, Security officer as a political activist, politico-cultural ideologisation, compulsory party membership
The historical reconstruction of a more accurate picture of the Romanian health system during the communist regime is particularly difficult. If for the progress made and the outstanding achievements achieved in those years there are numerous press articles, photo and video materials, as well as memoirs, the situation is completely different in terms of negative aspects, not a few, in the field of health care. For reasons that are easy to understand, the media of the time and the specialized works of the time silenced material shortages of all kinds, reprehensible behaviors and their consequences. As always, in the official view, everything had to be bright, and society’s march towards a “multilaterally developed socialist society” could only be a triumphant one. The published memoirs of some doctors (quite a few, by the way) also pass, most often, superficially over such aspects.
In this context, an exceptional source of information is represented by the Securitate archive. The issue of public health has been on the work agenda of the Securitate since the first years of operation. In general, the issues related to this field were monitored by the structures of the Directorate of Internal Information and involved the general information supervision of medical units (dispensaries, polyclinics, hospitals, maternity hospitals, sanatoriums), but also research institutes and public health departments. Since the late 1960s, a so-called “problem file” has been set up within the central and territorial structures of the Securitate, entitled “Health”. Within it were centralized all the information regarding the medical assistance, the state of health of the population, the medical research activity, information obtained through “specific means and methods”.
Keywords: hospitals, health, doctors, vaccine, Securitate, communist regime
Beginning with the eighth decade of the twentieth century, the communist regime in Romania implemented a policy of openness to Western countries, determined by economic reasons. A consequence of this integration strategy in the western economic system was the increase in the number of international tourists travelling to Romania. Some of these tourists wanted to travel through the lands of Transylvania where the action of the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker takes place. Due to the existence of a name similarity between Bram Stoker’s character and a 15th century Romanian voivode, surnamed Dracula, the Romanian authorities tried, for ideological reasons, to offer touristic itineraries that would separate the fictional Dracula from the real one. This survey, based on documents from the archives of the former political police of the Romanian communist regime, shows the involvement of the Securitate in propaganda and control actions aimed at foreign tourists who wanted to travel to Transylvania searching for the vampire Dracula.
Keywords: communism, Dracula tourism, political police, ideology, use of history
2. Recenzii
***
1. Studies
The year 1948 was one of the socio-economic and political changes in Romania. It went from a monarchical regime to a “popular democratic” one of Soviet origin. Profound changes have also taken place in the Romanian diaspora, in Paris and in America, but against the political regime installed in Romania. In Paris, the Romanian Orthodox Church, from str. Jean de Beauvais, no. 9bis, broke ties with the Romanian Legation and the government in the country, becoming one of the landmarks of Romanian exile. At this church, the priests declared their anti-communist attitude, helping the Romanian refugees who wanted to escape the oppression regime in the country, and made a pact with the Western anti-Soviet powers. How all this happened, we will try to expose in the present study, based on documents from the archives of the former Securitate, from those kept at the Romanian Orthodox Church in Paris and from the diplomatic archive in Bucharest.
Keywords: Romanian Orthodox Church in Paris, church exile, communism
In the following, I set out to complete the image of the professional performance of the Securitate apparatus, illustrated in the previous sections, only in general, by presenting the existing situation at the level of four “special” areas of information-operational activity, two of the apparatus informative – External Information and Counterintelligence (more in the form of a comparison between the two) – the others from the technical – operative one: Filing and Censorship of Correspondence.
Keywords: Securitate, professionalism, staff policy, espionage, agents
Using information provided by the former archives of the Romanian Security Service, the author of this investigation highlights how the relationship of an important but controversial writer and priest Virgil Gheorghiu with the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Justinian Marina is reflected in the documents of the aforementioned institution. Author of the novel 25th Hour, where he denounces both Nazism and communism and presents the history of Romania during World War II, Virgil Gheorghiu is an author translated into 34 languages, in 1967 being made into a film with Anthony Quinn as the main character. In 1963, he will become a priest for the Romanian Orthodox Community in Paris, receiving priestly ordination from Bishop Teofil Ionescu, who, at that time, did not belong to the Romanian Patriarchate. For this reason, Gheorghiu will come into contact, helped by Fr. André Scrima, in 1968, with Patriarch Justinian, requesting to be received under the jurisdiction of Romania. Soon after, in 1968, he would be received under the omophorion of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The dialogue between him and the Patriarch was a subject of interest to the communist regime, due to the notoriety of the main protagonist, but also because he was known to be against the dictatorship in Bucharest. Using the documents from the source mentioned above, we will try to show how their correspondence was seen by the state bodies, what were the main subjects that interested them and how the authorities tried to influence in one way or another the correspondence and the relationship between the two important clerics.
Keywords: Securitate, Virgil Gheorghiu, Patriarch Justinian Marina, the communist regime
The crisis of the socialist camp in the summer of 1968 had far-reaching consequences, both inside and outside the camp. The intelligence services of both camps rethought their activity coordinates, N.A.T.O. revised its doctrine and early warning mechanisms, and patterns of ideological interpretation of international events were severely criticized on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
We note that the long-term implications of the events of 1968 and subsequent Soviet policy were somewhat paradoxical. The obvious hostility of the Kremlin leaders towards the Romanian leader led to the spread of the idea that anyone who opposes Ceausescu politically is automatically a pro-Soviet one, preventing any coagulation of alternative nuclei of power in the P.C.R. The final effect of these policies was consumed in December 1989, more than two decades after the “Prague Spring”, when Romania was the only country in which the removal of the single party was done with bloodshed.Keywords: “Prague Spring”, intelligence services, Czechoslovakia, Nicolae Ceaușescu
The politico-cultural ideology and the accentuated politicization and ideologization of the ʼ70s, which affected all state institutions in Romania, could not fail to manifest themselves strongly in the personnel policy of the Securitate in the eighth and ninth decades, the Securitate being in continued considered by the political power as the main state institution through which the PCR he had subordinated himself and subordinated his entire Romanian society to his exclusive benefit: the permanent maintenance of the political leadership of the state. Security being, therefore, “vital” for the communist political power, it was natural its interest to promote an institutional policy of cadres in which the emphasis should be placed on the recruitment, training and promotion of officers with the highest political-ideological level.
Nicolae Ceausescu’s opinion, then assumed by the entire party, was that the more politicized and especially more ideologically politicized Securitate cadres, the more they will have the theoretical baggage of ideological-political knowledge that would allow them to identify how more correctly and more effectively the real, potential or presumed enemies of political power and then annihilate or counter them by finding those solutions and using those methods and means that bring the greatest political advantages to political power in the respective political, socio-economic context and internal and external cultural. Ceausescu wanted to transform the Securitate cadres into political activists (“political activists in a special field”), and the Securitate leaders hurried to immediately take over the concept launched by the leader of the P.C.R. As in order for a person to become a good political activist, it was necessary for him to have the highest possible political ideological level, the direct consequence was the amplification and accentuation of the process of political ideologization of the Securitate employees.
The policy of accentuating the political ideologizing of the Securitate cadres erupted directly with high accents in the summer of 1971, after the adoption by the P.C.R. of the “July theses”. The Securitate leaders quickly took over the theoretical concept issued by the political power regarding the need for politicization and political ideologization of the institution’s cadres and disseminated it continuously and repetitively among their subordinates.However, over a period of several years, the actual changes in the Security’s personnel policy have not been significant.
The situation will change substantially after the “Schächter case”, when the development and implementation of annual and forward-looking programs in the direction of achieving the highest possible level of political ideologisation of Securitate personnel. Also, in the second half of the eighth decade, two large general operations of politicization of all Securitate employees were launched, as a result of which almost all those cadres who could not be received in the P.C.R.
At the same time, I noticed the existence of a continuous process of accentuation and amplification of the interference of the communist political power in the personnel policy of the Securitate. Taking advantage of the contexts created by the Schächter and Pacepa cases, Ceausescu personally and the political power as a whole have continuously expanded and broadened their responsibilities in terms of Security personnel policy (especially in terms of recruiting all officers and promoting, moving, sanctioning and placing in reserve of senior officers). Since 1978, Nicolae Ceausescu has received full responsibilities in terms of personnel policy in the Security (as well as in the entire MI and in the M.Ap.N.): any decision regarding officers with higher ranks was mandatory to be transposed into practice by presidential decree. Leader P.C.R. he thus took over a direct lever through which he controlled the entire personnel policy of the Securitate.
Keywords: “Theses from July 1971”, Security officer as a political activist, politico-cultural ideologisation, compulsory party membership
The historical reconstruction of a more accurate picture of the Romanian health system during the communist regime is particularly difficult. If for the progress made and the outstanding achievements achieved in those years there are numerous press articles, photo and video materials, as well as memoirs, the situation is completely different in terms of negative aspects, not a few, in the field of health care. For reasons that are easy to understand, the media of the time and the specialized works of the time silenced material shortages of all kinds, reprehensible behaviors and their consequences. As always, in the official view, everything had to be bright, and society’s march towards a “multilaterally developed socialist society” could only be a triumphant one. The published memoirs of some doctors (quite a few, by the way) also pass, most often, superficially over such aspects.
In this context, an exceptional source of information is represented by the Securitate archive. The issue of public health has been on the work agenda of the Securitate since the first years of operation. In general, the issues related to this field were monitored by the structures of the Directorate of Internal Information and involved the general information supervision of medical units (dispensaries, polyclinics, hospitals, maternity hospitals, sanatoriums), but also research institutes and public health departments. Since the late 1960s, a so-called “problem file” has been set up within the central and territorial structures of the Securitate, entitled “Health”. Within it were centralized all the information regarding the medical assistance, the state of health of the population, the medical research activity, information obtained through “specific means and methods”.
Keywords: hospitals, health, doctors, vaccine, Securitate, communist regime
Beginning with the eighth decade of the twentieth century, the communist regime in Romania implemented a policy of openness to Western countries, determined by economic reasons. A consequence of this integration strategy in the western economic system was the increase in the number of international tourists travelling to Romania. Some of these tourists wanted to travel through the lands of Transylvania where the action of the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker takes place. Due to the existence of a name similarity between Bram Stoker’s character and a 15th century Romanian voivode, surnamed Dracula, the Romanian authorities tried, for ideological reasons, to offer touristic itineraries that would separate the fictional Dracula from the real one. This survey, based on documents from the archives of the former political police of the Romanian communist regime, shows the involvement of the Securitate in propaganda and control actions aimed at foreign tourists who wanted to travel to Transylvania searching for the vampire Dracula.
Keywords: communism, Dracula tourism, political police, ideology, use of history
2. Book reviews