BOOKREVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS Andrei Otetea, Ed. the History Of
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BOOKREVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS Andrei Otetea, ed. The History of the Romanian People. Translated by Eugenia Farca. The National Histories Series. Vol. I, edited by Sherman D. Spector. New York: Twayne Pub- lishers, 1974. 637 pp. $15.00. This first comprehensivehistory of Romania in English, since that of R. W. Seton-Watson appeared in 1934, is written by a group of distinguished Romanian historians. It is obviously a difficult job, though not an impossible one, to cover two thousand years of history in six hundred pages. The question is one of choice, of balance, of themes, of where to skip through the centuries with broad generalities and where to tarry with details, discussion of the evidence, and illustrative material. One could hardly expect such a book, dealing as it does with the social life and revolutionary activity of the masses and the development of a national culture in addition to the military campaigns and political exploits of princes and their ministers, to engage very heavily in the fine points of interpretation or to admit gaps where the facts are obscure and the explanations open to dispute. Nor should one expect a work by seventeen authors to be a triumph of unity in organization and style. Perhaps we should be grateful that the book-the first three-quarters of it anyway-turns out as well as it does. It gives the essential information, is fairly well written and competently translated, and is adorned with illustrations. It is disappointing, however, in that so many important developments get cursory treatment-e.g., one page for the national movement in Transylvaniain the two decades before World War I-and that so little of the excellent historical writing done in the past two decades on such subjects as the Phanariot period and the ante- cedents of the Revolution of 1848 finds expression in these pages. Some of the authors do not even do justice to their own prior research. The process of making history brief and simple seems to require that every recorded event find its place in the epic of the Romanian people's struggle for social and political emancipation. But history is not all epic. In Romania, as in other countries of varying political complexion, the writing of history tends to reflect the mood and the ideas current at a given time. History is politics. It may represent a defense of the past or aspirations for the future. History may also be policy. The more effectively a government exerts control over intellectual life, the more historical writing will mirror the outlook of the political regime of the day; at the very least, it stops at the limits set by the regime. Traditional history in the century before the Communists took power, from Balcescu through Xenopol to Iorga and Giurescu, was European in method and strongly nation- alist in tone. It was a part of, and at times inspired, the political history of the nation, especially the long struggle for national unity. In the first postwar decade the Marxist school of history, led by Mihai Roller, applied Soviet methods and interpretations to both distant and recent past. More recently, with Romania's more independent course in international affairs, we have seen the revival of nationalism as a respectable creed and indeed the veritable apotheosis of the national heroes of the past to match the leadership cult of the present. Michael the Brave is Superman; and Nicolae Ceaulescu is Michael in a black business suit. A general history emerging from this marriage of nationalism and Marxismmakes a curious amalgam. The whole of Romanian history up to the nationalist unification of 1918 is written as traditional national history with some concessions to Marxist interpretation such as: oeriodiza- tion according to the stages of feudalism, capitalism, and socialism; special attention to social relations and to peasant revolts; and exaggerations of the importance of the socialist and Communist movement in the period of the bourgeois Kingdom of Romania in the late nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries. Then, for the era of "contemporary history" the book becomes more political tract than historical record. The authors would have done well to stop at the end of World War I, but that would have denied them the opportunity to prove the theme of the day: that the policies and leadership of contemporary Romania are in the stream of national history, the culmination of two thousand years of the people's struggle for freedom. The chapter on the interwar period, written by A. Deac, serves as a transition. In dealing with foreign policy, which "bore the seal of the interests of the Romanian bourgeoisie and landowners," this chapter nevertheless givesthe politicians of the time and especially Titulescu, credit for a policy of peace and for cooperating with the principled stand of the Soviet Union 264 against the German danger, which Britain and France chose to appease "in order to maintain world domination." In domestic affairs the bourgeois parties are pictured, not inaccurately, as playing their game of musical chairs, while the Communist Party gets full marks for leading the fight for liberty and justice and against fascism. It is with the advent of the Communist regime in 1945 that the book turns into an official handout, describing the wonders of socialist construction which took place when "the correct political line of the Romanian Communist Party and of the other progressive forces was enthusiastically adopted by the broad masses" (p. 589). Having given the impressive statistics on industrialization, production, and general progress, the authors then decide, for what may be good and sufficient reasons, that they have said enough. Apparently, once Romania disposed of the bourgeois parties and the monarchy in 1945-47, it had no politics. Once it came through the war and signed a peace treaty, it had no issues of foreign policy worth recording, although "many difficulties of various kinds, both internal and foreign, had to be overcome; not infrequently the difficulties have seemed insuperable and have jeopardized the very existence of the Romanian state and nation" (p. 600). The reader might be given a little more enlightenment on this point without danger of departing from the official line. Sherman D. Spector, in his foreword, commends the book "to those dispassionate and objective American readers who wish to acquire an appreciation of the struggles Romanians have endured since they were swept up into the whirlwind of international politics." Fair enough. But so far as recent history is concerned they deserve a more dispassionate and objective presentation. Professor Spector recovers nicely, however. His next and concluding sentence states: "This book, whether one agrees with its historical interpretations, is testimony to the admirable endurance of the Romanian people." . John C. Campbell Council on Foreign Relations Ronald Syme. Danubian Papers. Bucharest: Association Internationale d'Etudes du Sud-Est Européen, 1971. 252 pp. This collection of articles and reviews by Ronald Syme initiates an AIESEE series of scholarly works focusing on Southeastern Europe. This volume reproduces articles and reviews devoted to the provinces of the East Roman Empire between the Adriatic and the Pontus. The period covered is roughly that from Augustus to Hadrian. Those interested in the early history of Southeastern Europe will find important material here, but those without training in epigraphy and unaware of the labyrinthine nature of the ancient sources might be discouraged. Syme and his work need no introduction, and today few can rival his depth and breadth. In these articles he raises such issues as the importance and chronology of the Danubian policies of Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian as well as of Roman agents in that area. Syme is concerned with the origins, purposes, chronology, and consequences of Roman involvement in Southeastern Europe and, in turn, the contribution of these areas to Rome. Syme takes on the thorniest problems connected with Dacia, Ulyricum,Pannonia, Moesia, and Dalmatia, all of which involve textual analysis, epigraphy, and archaeology and require a thorough knowledge of the ancient and modem sources. His work consistently displays a fertile mind and steady hand. The reviews are those which only a seasoned authority can produce. They are, in fact, often review articles. They are thorough, critical, imaginative, corrective, and regularly provide additional insights. The reviews are of major monographs on specific subjects such as Rome's relations with vassal tn'bes: (J. Klose's Roms Klientel Randstaaten (1934]); the Dacian wars: (Patch's Der Kampf um den Donauraum); Roman administration (Stein's Die Reichsbeamten van Dazien [ 1 944] ) in; Pannonia: (Reidinger's Die Statthalter des ungeteilten Pannanien und Oberpannaniens von Augustus bis Diokletian [1956] ); and in Dalmatia: Oagenteufel's Die Statthalter der R6mischen Provinz Dalmatien von Augustus bis Diokletian [1959J).Finally, there is a review of Swoboda's'Octuviun und nlyricum (1932). There are, altogether, eleven articles and six reviews originally published between 1933 and 1968. There has been a great deal of reprinting of this type recently for a variety of reasons. Articles from out-of-print or rare periodicals have been made available conveniently and economically, and it has also proven useful and convenient to put together collections along topical lines. A commemorative collection of an author's complete writings can also be .