Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania (PCR), also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he was a professor at the University of Bucharest. Pătrășcanu rose to a government position before the end of World War II and, after having disagreed with Stalinist tenets on several occasions, eventually came into conflict with the Romanian Communist government of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. He became a political prisoner and was ultimately executed. Fourteen years after Pătrășcanu's death, Romania's new communist leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu, endorsed his rehabilitation as part of a change in policy.
Țara Bârsei, Burzenland or Barcaság is a historic and ethnographic area in southeastern Transylvania, Romania with a mixed population of Romanians, Germans, and Hungarians.
The Banat Republic was a short-lived state proclaimed in Timișoara c. 31 October 1918, during the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. The Republic claimed as its own the multi-ethnic territory of the Banat, in a bid to prevent its partition among competing nationalisms. Openly endorsed by the local communities of Hungarians, Swabians and Jews, the German-speaking socialist Otto Roth served as its nominal leader. This project was openly rejected from within by communities of Romanians and Serbs, who were centered in the eastern and western halves of the region, respectively. The short-lived entity was recognized only by the neighboring Hungarian Republic, with which it sought a merger. Its military structures were inherited from the Common Army, and placed under the command of a Hungarian officer, Albert Bartha.
The Babeș-Bolyai University is a public research university located in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. UBB has a long academic tradition, started by Universitas Claudiopolitana in 1581. It occupies the first position in the University Metaranking, initiated by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research in 2016
Alexandru Moșanu was a Moldovan politician, historian and professor.
Gheorghe Cristescu was a Romanian socialist and, for a part of his life, communist militant. Nicknamed "Plăpumarul", he is also occasionally referred to as "Omul cu lavaliera roșie", after the most notable of his accessories.
Emil Hațieganu was a Romanian politician and jurist, a prominent member of the Romanian National Party (PNR) and of its successor, the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ); he was physician Iuliu Hațieganu's brother. Before his arrest, he was an honorary member of the Romanian Academy.
Pitești Prison was a penal facility in Pitești, Romania, best remembered for the reeducation experiment which was carried out between December 1949 and September 1951, during Communist party rule. The experiment, which was implemented by a group of prisoners under the guidance of the prison administration, was designed as an attempt to violently "reeducate" the mostly young political prisoners, who were primarily supporters of the fascist Iron Guard, as well as Zionist members of the Romanian Jewish community. The Romanian People's Republic adhered to a doctrine of state atheism and the inmates who were held at Pitești Prison included religious believers, such as Christian seminarians. According to writer Romulus Rusan, the experiment's goal was to re-educate prisoners to discard past religious convictions and ideology, and, eventually, to alter their personalities to the point of absolute obedience. Estimates for the total number of people who passed through the experiment range from at least 780 to up to 1,000, to 2,000, to 5,000. Journalist Laurențiu Dologa estimates almost 200 inmates died at Pitești, while historian Mircea Stănescu accounts for 22 deaths during the period, only 16 of them with documented participation in the "re-education".
Adrian Mihai Cioroianu is a Romanian historian, politician, journalist, and essayist. A lecturer for the History Department at the University of Bucharest, he is the author of several books dealing with Romanian history. He is also noted for his contribution as co-author of a high school textbook.
Alexandru Zub is a Romanian historian, biographer, essayist, political activist and academic. A former professor at the University of Iași, noted for his contribution to the study of cultural history and Romanian history, he is currently head of the A.D. Xenopol Institute of History. He was elected a full member of the Romanian Academy in 2004 ; currently, he serves as head of the Academy's History Department.
Amicii URSS was a cultural association in interwar Romania, uniting left-wing and anti-fascist intellectuals who advocated a détente between their country and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. Created in the spring of 1934 by Petre Constantinescu-Iași, an activist of the previously outlawed Romanian Communist Party, the society took its inspiration from the French Amis de l'URSS and from the worldwide network. Actively encouraged and financed by the Comintern, Amicii URSS was viewed with suspicion by authorities — never officially registered, it was eventually banned on the orders of Premier Gheorghe Tătărescu on November 25, 1934. It ceased its activity after that point, but constituted a precedent for the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union (ARLUS).
The Socialist Party of Romania was a Romanian socialist political party, created on December 11, 1918 by members of the Social Democratic Party of Romania (PSDR), after the latter emerged from clandestinity. Through its PSDR legacy, the PS maintained a close connection with the local labor movement and was symbolically linked to the first local socialist group, the Romanian Social-Democratic Workers' Party. Its creation coincided with the establishment of Greater Romania in the wake of World War I; after May 1919, it began a process of fusion with the social democratic groups of in the former territories of Austria-Hungary — the Social Democratic Parties of Transylvania, Banat and Bukovina. The parties adopted a common platform in October 1920. Progressively influenced by Leninism, the PS became divided between a maximalist majority supporting Bolshevik guidelines and a reformist-minded minority: the former affiliated with the Comintern as the Socialist-Communist Party in May 1921, while the minority eventually established a new Romanian Social Democratic Party.
The July Theses is a name commonly given to a speech delivered by Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu on July 6, 1971, before the Executive Committee of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). Its full name was Propuneri de măsuri pentru îmbunătățirea activității politico-ideologice, de educare marxist-leninistă a membrilor de partid, a tuturor oamenilor muncii. This quasi-Maoist speech marked the beginning of a "mini cultural revolution" in the Socialist Republic of Romania, launching a Neo-Stalinist offensive against cultural autonomy, a return to the strict guidelines of socialist realism and attacks on non-compliant intellectuals. Strict ideological conformity in the humanities and social sciences was demanded. Competence and aesthetics were to be replaced by ideology; professionals were to be replaced by agitators; and culture was once again to become an instrument for communist propaganda.
Alexandru Papadopol-Calimah was a Moldavian-born Romanian historian, jurist, and journalist, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Culture of the Principality of Romania. As a maternal member of the Callimachi family, he had high aristocratic origins, but was a commoner on his father's side; he spent most of his life in the Moldavian town of Tecuci, whose history was a focus of his academic activity. He joined the Moldavian civil service in 1855, as a Spatharios in service to Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica, and participated in applying Ghica's reforms. Papadopol-Calimah consequently discarded his Greek-and-Hellenized background to become an exponent of Romanian nationalism, supporting a political unification between Moldavia and Wallachia, which came about in 1859. He first served in the unified administration established by Domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza, rising from Prefect to State Council member, then to cabinet minister. Throughout his career, he remained closely aligned with Vasile Alecsandri and Mihail Kogălniceanu, and later also with Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu.
The Democratic Nationalist Party or Nationalist Democratic Party was a political party in Romania, established by historian Nicolae Iorga and jurist A. C. Cuza. Its support base was in the lower reaches of the Romanian middle class, and, especially through Cuza's ideology, it reflected the xenophobia, economic antisemitism, and producerism of that particular environment. The PND was a weak challenge to the mainstream political forces, either conservative or liberal, failing in its bid to become Romania's third-strongest party. By 1916, it was effectively split between Iorga's moderates and Cuza's radicals, suspending its activity for the remainder of World War I.
The National Popular Party was an antifascist political party in Romania, founded during World War II as the underground Union of Patriots. The latter had defined itself as a spontaneous movement of resistance to the dictatorial regime of Ion Antonescu, but was largely known as a front for the illegal Romanian Communist Party. Its founders—Dumitru Bagdasar, Gheorghe Vlădescu-Răcoasa, Simion Stoilow—were closely cooperating with PCdR men, but also with liberal opposition forces. Repressed by the authorities, the UP made a comeback after the pro-Allied August 23 Coup of 1944, when it endured as a small ally of the communists—mostly controlled directly by them, but sometimes rebellious.
Doina, or Doină, is a political poem by the Romanian Mihai Eminescu. It was first published in 1883 and is therefore seen by some as Eminescu's final work in verse, although it may actually be an 1870s piece, inspired or enhanced by the perceived injustice of the Berlin Treaty. A variation of the doina, picked up from Romanian folklore, it is noticeably angry to the point of rhetorical violence, a radical expression of Romanian nationalism against invading "foreigners", noted for its hints of ecopoetry and "anti-technicist" discourse. Doina delineates the ideal geographical space of Greater Romania, at a time when Romanian-inhabited regions were divided between an independent kingdom and multinational empires. Its final lines call on Stephen the Great, depicted as a sleeping hero, to take up the cause of Romanians and chase foreigners out with the sound of his horn. The same basic themes appear in another poem by Eminescu, the anthem-like La arme, which is sometimes discussed as a variant of Doina.
Greater Moldova or Greater Moldavia is an irredentist concept today used for the credence that the Republic of Moldova should be expanded with lands that used to belong to the Principality of Moldavia or were once inside its political orbit. Historically, it also meant the unification of the lands of the former principality under either Romania or the Soviet Union. Territories cited in such proposals always include Western Moldavia and the whole of Bessarabia, as well as Bukovina and the Hertsa region; some versions also feature parts of Transylvania, while still others include areas of Podolia, or Pokuttia in its entirety. In its most post-Soviet iterations, "Greater Moldova" is associated with a belief that Moldovans are a distinct people from Romanians, and that they inhabit parts of Romania and Ukraine. It is a marginal position within the Moldovan identity disputes, corresponding to radical forms of an ideology polemically known as "Moldovenism".
Events from the year 1950 in Romania. The year saw Romania build relationships with other Communist states, including China and East Germany.
Laszlo Alexandru is a Romanian essayist, literary critic, literary historian, translator and journalist. He is Italian teacher. He is editor of E-Leonardo cultural magazine and coordinator of the Italian collection at the "Ecou Transilvan" Publishing House. He is known for his Dante interpretation contributions in the university field in Romania and in Europe, in the Romanian culture and in the Italian culture. Also known in Israel for his cultural studies on the Holocaust. Since 2014, he is a member of the Romanian Writers' Union. His books have been published in Romania and in the Republic of Moldova. He won the Romanian Writers' 2020 Special Award for Lectura lui Dante. Infernul; Purgatoriul; Paradisul.
