Ion Anghel, ed.. Timisoara 16-22 decembrie 1989. Timisoara: Editura Facla, 1990. 306 pp. 39 lei, paper, ISBN 978-973-36-0091-6.

Miodrag Milin. Timisoara, 15-21 decembrie '89. Timisoara: M. Milin, 1990. 188 pp. , , .

Miodrag Milin. Timisoara in revolutie si dupa. Timisoara: Editura Marineasa, 1997. 223 pp. Price not available,, paper, ISBN 978-973-9185-84-4.

Reviewed by Nicolae Harsanyi

Published on HABSBURG (December, 1999)

Ten years have elapsed since the December (classifed records, video recordings), subjective 16-22 1989 uprising in Timisoara that led to the interpretations of the uprising abound: from at‐ overthrow of Ceausescu's in Roma‐ tempts at cause and efect explanations detailing nia. The uprising was the frst episode of what has the hardships of life under Ceausescu's dictator‐ come to be known as the "Romanian ," ship[1] through exercises in cultural studies (Jean the last of the dominoes that fell during Eastern Baudrillard, for instance, has concluded that 's in 1989. Unlike , Hun‐ nothing happened, other than a media manipula‐ gary, the GDR, and , end‐ tion campaign[2]), to faithful, but incomplete ac‐ ed with a bloody revolution. In order counts by witnesses. Such collections of testi‐ to suppress the demonstrations that called for monies and generalizations replace the still lack‐ radical political changes, Ceausescu sent the army, ing, all embracing historical narrative of the the police, and the (Romania's dreaded events. What we are ofered instead is the narra‐ ) with specifc orders to use deadly tive that survives in the minds of the large num‐ force. For six days the population of this city of ber of people who were directly involved. 350,000 inhabitants heroically resisted the repres‐ Compiling several such testimonies collected sion, which took a heavy toll: 128 dead, 30 disap‐ in the early months of 1990, Miodrag Milin, a pro‐ peared, and hundreds injured and disabled. This fessor of history at the West University of review is dedicated to their memory. Timisoara, published in the same year Timisoara In order to better understand the difculties 15-21 decembrie '89 (Timisoara, 15-21 December of writing the history of the Timisoara uprising, it '89).[3] It was the frst attempt to ofer the Roma‐ should be pointed out that the Romanian govern‐ nian readers a coherent picture of the events as ment closed the borders on , 1989, as they unfolded and as they were experienced by soon as the demonstrations began in earnest. diferent participants in the demonstrations. Therefore, owing to the total absence in Timisoara Since Miodrag Milin, a longtime resident of of reliable media to refect the events, as well as Timisoara, had been out of town during the to the inaccessibility of documentary sources events, he relied on the accounts of eye-witnesses H-Net Reviews to convey the feeling of immediacy usually de‐ ernment. From Savu's account one learns of his rived from frst hand experience. The main merit impatience to change the situation ("the moment of this book is twofold: it puts in chronological or‐ has come," says Savu when seeing the crowd gath‐ der all the demonstrations and their repression as ered in front of Reverend Laszlo Tokes's home on they occurred throughout the city (maps includ‐ December 16, p. 87), that he acted upon informa‐ ed), and it highlights the great sense of solidarity tion of what happened elsewhere (p. 110), being that animated the inhabitants of this city in their also aware of previous eforts to express public empty-handed, but determined resistance before opposition to the regime (p. 86). the regimes' troops, tanks, and armored person‐ The long interview with Savu highlights a nel carriers that all fred on them with live ammu‐ specifc phenomenon of the , nition. Even after the army ceased fring and viz. the lack of an alternative leadership: the ab‐ withdrew from the streets on December 20, this sence of a movement, whose members sense of civic duty prompted the inhabitants to could have provided alternative guidance to the stay out and demonstrate round the clock in the insurgents, became painfully obvious. Therefore, Opera Square in the city's downtown for the next searching for leaders, Savu shows his readiness to two days so as to defend their newly won free‐ have Radu Balan, one of the local RCP chiefs, dom. The massive and orderly cannot be speak to the crowds gathered in front of the overlooked: there was no history of organized Opera in Timisoara. This also explains why the protest in communist Romania, so the discipline population, immediately after the Revolution, and vast resources of solidarity shown by the city readily accepted former apparatchiks, like Ion Ili‐ of Timisoara took the government by surprise and escu, to lead the country or, at the local level, Flo‐ instilled confdence in the demonstrators. rentin Carpanu to be put in charge of Timis coun‐ 1990 also was the year of publication for ty. In his interview, Ioan Savu also ofers interest‐ Timisoara, 16-22 decembrie 1989 a collection of ing details about the failed negotiations with eyewitness testimonies mixed with refections by Prime Minister Dascalescu: soon after Savu, to‐ a number of local intellectuals. However, the val‐ gether with the other representatives of the ue of this book lies in the information conveyed demonstrators, sat down to talk with the high par‐ by eyewitnesses, rather than in the ideas ex‐ ty and government delegation from , he pressed in the refective essays. Ion Anghel ap‐ realized that the latter were not prepared for dis‐ pears to have served only as a technical editor for cussion, but rather tried to exert pressure on the the book. insurgents and to bully them into submission. (p. All the accounts point to the spontaneity of 105) Under such circumstances, the achievements the events, although most narrators are aware of of the are even more worthy of previous attempts at organizing protest actions, admiration. all nipped in the bud by the Securitate -- most no‐ Other accounts center on particular experi‐ table among them a strike initiative at the largest ences derived from a "professional" involvement plant in the city in November 1989. Most interest‐ in the events. Thus Ferenc Baranyi, a physician at ing is the interview of Ioan Savu, a 39-year old the city's second largest hospital, describes the at‐ low-level supply manager in a manufacturing mosphere at the emergency ward where ambu‐ company, taken by Titus Suciu. Savu was one of lances and private cars kept bringing in wounded the impromptu leaders (others were Sorin Oprea demonstrators, and the doctors' astonishment at and Ion Marcu) who negotiated with Ion Dascales‐ the great number of casualties with bullet wounds cu, the Prime Minister of the last Communist gov‐ -- they were not used to treating such wounds.(pp.

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223-229) Gabriel Mitroi, a frst lieutenant in the sues like personal responsibility and involvement army, recalls the mission he and his soldiers con‐ and the public good. Putting one's action or lack ducted to strengthen the defenses of the RCP of action at the doorstep of divinity provides a county headquarters in Timisoara. His account handy explanation for any course the events (pp.179-222) throws light on the confusion reign‐ might take. On the other hand, interpreting the ing inside the building: the lines of command events as a miracle, and being implicitly part of it, were contradictory most of the time, given the redeems all indiscriminately from any presence under the same roof of party ofcials, kind of past compliance with the dictatorship and Securitate ofcers, and army troops. Having been promotes them to the special status of a "chosen" issued strict orders to act solely upon the com‐ people. mand of their own ofcers, Mitroi's military re‐ In his essay "De ce Timisoara?" (Why fused to carry out whatever orders the Securitate Timisoara? pp. 11-15), Traian Liviu Biraescu, who ofcers and party functionaries tried to give used to teach comparative literature to under‐ them. In addition, Mitroi's story reveals the total graduates, tries to integrate the Timisoara upris‐ ignorance by both low-ranking ofcers and sol‐ ing into the whole picture of the Romanian revo‐ diers of what was going on in the city, as well as of lution: the revolution started in this city would the demonstrators' motives and goals. not have been successful without the uprising of The contributions of several local intellectuals the population of Bucharest, fve days later (21 (writers, professors at the university) seek to in‐ December 1989). To prove this "integrationist" terpret the events in the manner that has become point, rather than bringing up some solid evi‐ so familiar in Romania ever since: the overthrow dence, Biraescu relies on a rumor circulating in of Ceausescu was a miracle (pp. 26, 33), the revo‐ Timisoara after the withdrawal of the troops from lution was a diferent reality (p.27) that ultimately the streets on December 20, namely that the delivered the Romanian people from evil, and the Ceausescus intended to raze the city from the face martyrdom of the victims is imparted a religious of the earth and to turn it into farmland, a dooms‐ aura. These thoughts are most eloquently articu‐ day scenario (Biraescu likens it to Genghis Khan's lated in Ivan Evseev's essay "Revolutia din or Tamerlane's methods!, p.15) that has never Timisoara ca depasire a sinelui" (Overcoming the been substantiated. Self: the Timisoara Revolution). From a position of In Biraescu's interpretation the only merit of literal non-involvement (the observer standing on the Timisoara revolution resides in its primordial‐ the sidewalk, while the demonstrators crowded ity (p.14), rather than its uniqueness: cultural and the roadway), Evseev, an erudite professor of sociological arguments such as the population's Slavic linguistics, perceived the clashes in Biblical ethnic mixture and tolerance, its cosmopolitan terms as the "Struggle with the Metal Whale," (p. outlook carried over from its having belonged to 31) concluding that "God has not forsaken his peo‐ Mitteleuropa until 1918, as well as a shared high‐ ple ... whose prayers were heard in Heaven and er degree of information about the world lying delivered them from the cruelest form of tyranny west of Romania's borders are mentioned only to history has ever known."(p.38) be pushed aside. By voicing such a thesis Biraes‐ My problem with this "miracle" approach is cu, in fact, does nothing but echo the view that it tries to present those who were out in the ("Timisoara was the dress rehearsal for street and risking their lives as simple pawns in Bucharest"[4]) expressed by , a the hands of a higher, metaphysical power. Such well-known Bucharest poet among whose creden‐ an explanation conveniently avoids discussing is‐ tials it is impossible to fnd the faintest trace of po‐

3 H-Net Reviews litical dissent throughout the communist regime. sonal experiences. One is drawn into the progres‐ Such an interpretation, actually, belittles the hero‐ sion of events, from the frst overnight vigil in ic resistance of the people of Timisoara, who, front of Reverend Tokes's house on December throughout the uprising, never received any sup‐ 15-16, to the news of Ceausescu's fight from the port, not even moral, from the leaders who headquarters in emerged in Bucharest after Ceausescu's over‐ Bucharest on December 22, to the great rally dur‐ throw. ing which the Timisoara Proclamation was With the publication in 1997 of Timisoara in launched in March 1990. Many of the interviews revolutie si dupa (Timisoara During and After the by Miodrag Milin maintain and faithfully render Revolution), Miodrag Milin returns with an en‐ the actors' emotional involvement in the events riched second edition of his frst volume on this and the mood of the participants. The mix of voic‐ subject that was published in April 1990. His aim es gives a good feel for the mass uprising: some, this time is to prove that Timisoara had its own anxious not to miss the opportunity, wanted a political and cultural fabric, diferent from that of change right away, while others only went onto the eastern part of the country. Milin puts all this the streets out of curiosity and got involved grad‐ in the framework of Romania's divided legacy: the ually. range of the Carpathian mountains separates the The success of the uprising gave rise to the Habsburg tradition of central European civiliza‐ formation of several political groups. The last 100 tion so well-represented in the and its main pages present the rise of Frontul Democrat Ro‐ city, Timisoara, from the Moldavian-Wallachian man (Romanian Democratic Front), which tried to experience tainted by Ottoman customs.(p. 6) fll the power vacuum created once the army had However, the author does not elaborate on this is‐ withdrawn from the streets on December 20. The sue, stopping short of discussing how this divided author's sympathies go to Societatea Timisoara legacy has continued to generate separate identi‐ (Timisoara Society), a group of young intellectuals ties throughout the century since 1918. During the who tried to promote and implement the values last ten years the issue has roused many passions of civil society, political transparency, and plural‐ in the public debate in Romania, the most elo‐ ism in post-Communist Romania. The indepen‐ quent dispute centering on the topic of the coun‐ dent newspaper Timisoara, launched by this soci‐ try's "federalization" that could be warranted by ety in January 1990 as an alternative to the old such divided identities. communist-turned-nationalist local daily, became This book opens with a lyrical Foreword by a forum of democratic, reformist thought. The Livius Ciocarlie, a distinguished intellectual from "Timisoara Society" will go down in Romania's re‐ Timisoara. Unfortunately, it contains the signs of cent history for the "Timisoara Proclamation" it is‐ precisely what is wrong with such emotional ap‐ sued on March 11, 1990, which laid out the frst proaches: rather than providing sound explana‐ coherent and comprehensive program for the tions of the uprising, Ciocarlie continues on the country's transition to a democratic society. Mio‐ well-trodden path of equating the revolt with a drag Milin puts forward the thesis that, given its miracle. tradition and experience, Timisoara ought to assume leadership in the process of re‐ The volume is made up of testimonies of par‐ form and restructuring of the entire country. ticipants in the uprising, all articulated along the However, this appears to be a totally utopian en‐ timeline of events, thus ofering the reader a mul‐ deavor, which can hardly become reality in a tiplicity of voices dealing with the same events or highly centralized national state. time brackets from diferent perspectives and per‐

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In the Foreword, Livius Ciocarlie mentions cumstances, memory still acts as a substitute for that the book could have profted if, among the documented evidence. Nevertheless, interesting voices included in it, there had also been those of as the testimonies are, they ofer only a limited the agents of the repression: the army and the Se‐ recreation of the events from the point of view of curitate. This void is flled by the Securitate ofcer revolutionaries. One is still left wishing that the Radu Tinu's book, Timisoara... no comment! (sic!), next ten years will bring a more analytical study a highly selective and biased reading of various of the events, based on sources so far neglected: army orders.[5] Tinu was the Deputy Securitate government documents, army logs, and fles on Commander for Timis county, and during the up‐ the operations of the Securitate. rising he played a major role in masterminding Notes and coordinating the repression. He was arrested, [1]. Edward Behr, Kiss the Hand you Cannot along with other fellow Securitate ofcers, after Bite: The Rise and Fall of the Ceausescus (New Ceausescu's fall. His book shifts the blame for the York: Villard Books, 1991); , The atrocities committed in Timisoara from the Secu‐ Hole in the Flag: A Romanian Exile's Story of Re‐ ritate troops to the army. The army, of course, turn and Revolution (New York: W. Morrow, points at the Securitate as the chief culprit. Tinu's 1991). book has little value due to the doubt raised by undocumented statements and the author's ex‐ [2]. See "The Timisoara Massacre," in Jean plicit goals and motivations. Instead of striving to Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End, translated by establish the truth, it is a mere settling of accounts Chris Turner (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1994), with all those who crossed his path, before and af‐ pp. 54-61. ter 1989. It speaks volumes about the state of the [3]. This book is listed among the sources used country nowadays that, unlike the participants in by Nestor Ratesh in his Romania: The Entangled the uprising, Radu Tinu enjoys a rather high stan‐ Revolution, foreword by Edward N. Luttwak dard of living as a businessman involved in ex‐ (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and Inter‐ port trade: mainly of oil to Yugoslavia, thus break‐ national Studies; New York: Praeger, 1991). Anoth‐ ing the UN imposed embargo. er reliable synthesis of the Romanian revolution Historians will fnd the testimonies included is Martyn C. Rady's Romania in Turmoil: A Con‐ in the collections under review to be of great help temporary History (London; New York: IB Tauris, in gaining a better understanding of the composi‐ 1992). tion of the crowds who flled the streets of [4]. Celestine Bohlen, "Ceausescu's Absolute Timisoara during the uprising, their motivations, Power Dies in Rumanian Popular Rage," in The psychological profle, and expectations. The de‐ New York Times, 7 January 1990, p.15. tailed interviews and the willingness of the partic‐ [5]. Radu Tinu, Timisoara... no comment! (Bu‐ ipants to talk draws the reader into the heart of curesti: Editura PACO, [no date], 306 pp.) things, recreating the atmosphere and emotions Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights re‐ of those days. Historians of revolutionary move‐ served. This work may be copied for non-proft ments might use these books as sources in com‐ educational use if proper credit is given to the re‐ parative studies of mass upheavals. viewer and to HABSBURG. For other permission, These books are valuable in keeping alive the please contact . fame of memory. This is very important in a situ‐ ation in which, even after ten years, the truth has not come to light in its entirety. Under such cir‐

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Citation: Nicolae Harsanyi. Review of Anghel, Ion, ed. Timisoara 16-22 decembrie 1989. ; Milin, Miodrag. Timisoara, 15-21 decembrie '89. ; Milin, Miodrag. Timisoara in revolutie si dupa. HABSBURG, H-Net Reviews. December, 1999.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3663

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