The primary purpose of this massive survey is expository. The essays endeavor to unpack the contexts under which the two different totalitarian regimes, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's, 1948–1965 (Elis Pleșa's chapter), and Nicolae Ceaușescu's, 1965–1989 (Manuela Marin's chapter), implemented a politics of repression against Romanians.
The fifty-four chapters signed by forty-seven contributors, stylistically uneven and occasionally marred by dating errors, cover mainly thematically-grouped aspects of Romania's communist past. The editor does not include subsections yet signs a Note, which is not a model of academic perfection, but rather an explanation of the volume's genesis and its connection with her 2019 edited collection Panorama comunismului în Moldova. Containing an apology that a general bibliography could not be included, this Note stands on a vacuum, failing to mention the numerous academic books written in the field in Romania or abroad.
Attempting to understand the volume's structure, while realizing, for instance, the necessity of the thought-provoking chapter “The Second Cabinet” on Elena Ceaușescu's ascension to power, learning from Asian models, the reader might find it more difficult to see the rationale of including Octavian Roske's account on the collectivization of agriculture without a corresponding chapter on nationalization (the abolition of private property in order to set up a socialist economy) or see why Răduţ Bîlbîie's chapter on educating writers within Mihai Eminescu Literary School needs to stand on its own rather than being part of the chapter on literature. It is also left to the reader to group the first chapters as a Preamble (Emanuel Copilaş elaborates on the interwar context, Virgiliu Țârău, on the installation of communism and Dorin Dobrincu, on the Resistance in the aftermath of WWII) and, symmetrically, to read the last ones (Constantin Corneanu's on the demise of communism; Cosmin Budeancă's on matters of research/memorialization; Cristian Preda's on postcommunism) as an Afterword.
Other chapters are dedicated to national symbols (Marius Gabriel Neculae), justice and social engineering (Corneliu Pintilescu), as well as the successive changes of the Romanian Constitution (Ioan Stanomir), propaganda (Cristina Preutu), the permanent surveillance and coercion of the Secret Services (Florian Banu), and aspects concerning censorship institutions (Corobca), and dissidence and repression (Flori Bălănescu). Repression meant that those who were deemed potentially dangerous were deported (Claudia-Florentina Dobre recounts the deportations to the Bărăgan Field, part of the “plan to destroy the Romanian villages’ elites from the most developed regions,” 332), while those found guilty of treason were sent to prison; Ionuț-Alexandru Popa flags up “penitentiary typologies” (303): the maximum-security prison of Aiud; the hospital-prison Târgu Ocna; the women's prison Mislea and the minors’ prison Târgșor. Those who escaped coercion were educated and/or controlled by a totalitarian state that imposed demographic policies (Florin S. Soare), “work for the homeland” (Valeriu Antonovici), and created the “New Man,” an informer of the regime's real or imagined enemies (Liviu Pleşa).
Another part is dedicated to how ethnic minorities were treated, with excellent contributions on Hungarians (Dalia Báthory), Germans (Pintilescu), the Jewish minority (Liviu Rotman), Roma people (Marin), Turks and Muslim Tartars (Adriana Cupcea, Metin Omer), and on the state's intervention in religious matters (Adrian Nicolae Petcu on the Orthodox Church, Cristian Vasile on the Greek-Catholic and Roman-Catholic Church, and Dobrincu on Evangelical Protestantism).
After a chapter dedicated to the economy (Ion Alexandrescu), others look into matters of education (Florea Ioncioaia), the role and the dynamics of institutions such as the Academy of Social and Political Sciences (Cosmin Popa), ideology and the political pressure on rewriting historiography (Gabriel Moisa), architecture/urbanism (Augustin Ioan), cultural politics (Cristian Vasile), visual arts (Cosmin Năsui), literature (Bogdan Crețu), theater (Miruna Runcan), musical (r)evolutions (Ladislau Csendes), film (Daniel Iftene), written press (Marian Petcu), radio (Bîlbîie), television (Alexandru Matei), aspects of daily life in the first two post-WWII decades (Valentin Vasile), the way in which “proletarian culture” was instilled in youngsters (Copilaș) and sports (Pompiliu-Nicolae Constantin).
Florin-Răzvan Mihai deals with Romania's international relations and Vasile Buga enlarges upon knowledge of Romanian-Soviet relations in a very personal manner, for instance, assessing Ceaușescu's 1976 declaration in one of his meetings with Leonid Brezhnev after the Helsinki Final Act (1975) as “daring” and “courageous” (974). Ion M. Anghel also contributes a personal viewpoint on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's long-term effects. Andrea Iustina Opriş's chapter covers the Romanian diaspora; engaging with the diaspora's help, Sergiu Musteață focuses on Radio Free Europe, which promoted “liberty, democracy and human rights” (1051).
The last two chapters are perhaps the most problematic since, in spite of insisting on memorialization, they share an unbridled passion for lists of institutions, laws, and parties, while forgetting to investigate Romania's mastering its communist past. Although constrictions of space are understandable, both chapters fail to properly engage with the Report of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania (published in book-form in 2007), whose role was similar to Truth Commissions in Germany, Poland, or the Czech Republic. Budeancă's assertion that post-1989 institutional initiatives to research the communist past were significantly influenced by politics (1068) is not unfounded. However, placing the setting up of the Commission in the midst of Romania's power-games of the President and Prime Minister, Budeancă minimalizes its role that marked for many Romanians the official, irrevocable condemnation of communism and had huge symbolic value: the beginning of a long (still ongoing) process of working through the traumas of the communist age. Despite its shortcomings and surrounding controversies, many of which were unproven ad hominem attacks against its main editor, the Report was actually the very first, unnamed collective panorama of communism (ironically, haunting the volume in several footnotes). Thus, when closing the book, the absence of other volumes from the Editor's Note and that of a general Bibliography become much more visible.
Additionally, the reader feels uncanny realizing that the book contains exclusive contributions by several important specialists from Romania and Moldova but not one single author from the diaspora or abroad. It goes without saying that, for instance, the Commission's President, Vladimir Tismăneanu, whose major contribution to scholarship on communism is undeniable, or other reputed foreign specialists on Romanian/east European history/politics such as Dennis Deletant, Roland Clark, Stefano Bottoni, and others could have brought more nuanced perspectives.
These reservations aside, the book remains a valuable compendium of facts and recommended reading to all scholars interested in the historical vicissitudes of Romanian communism.
