Nationalism versus internationalism: The roles of political and cultural elites in interwar and communist Romania

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* Two previous versions of this paper were presented at the Romanian Studies Conference (Iasi, Romania, July 2001) and the ASN conference, “Nationalities and Pluralism from Old to New Worlds” (Warsaw, Poland, July 2004). I would like to thank Melanie Ram for her comments and corrections to the previous versions of this paper. I wish to thank Kevin Bray for his editing efforts on the previous versions of this paper. Finally, I dedicate this paper to Ferenc, who gave me the inspiration and incentive to finalize the paper.

Notes

* Two previous versions of this paper were presented at the Romanian Studies Conference (Iasi, Romania, July 2001) and the ASN conference, “Nationalities and Pluralism from Old to New Worlds” (Warsaw, Poland, July 2004). I would like to thank Melanie Ram for her comments and corrections to the previous versions of this paper. I wish to thank Kevin Bray for his editing efforts on the previous versions of this paper. Finally, I dedicate this paper to Ferenc, who gave me the inspiration and incentive to finalize the paper.

1. Brendan O'Leary, “On the Nature of Nationalism: An Appraisal of Ernest Gellner's Writings on Nationalism,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 27, No. 2, 1997, p. 192.

2. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), p. 1.

3. Shafir, “Political Culture, Intellectual Dissent and Intellectual Consent: The Case of Romania,” Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Soviet and East European Research Centre Research Paper No. 30, p. 3.

4. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, p. 1.

5. Eric J. Hobsbawn, Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 116–117.

6. Anthony D. Smith, The Nation in History. Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), pp. 136–137.

7. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, p. 39; Smith, The Nation in History. Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism, pp. 133–134.

8. Shafir, “Political Culture, Intellectual Dissent and Intellectual Consent: The Case of Romania,” p. 13.

9. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History (Cambridge: 1975), p. 134 in Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), p. 48.

10. Hobsbawn, Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Programme, Myth, Reality, p. 109.

11. It is difficult to give an exact number of Roma people, as most of the Roma people did not vocalize their identity. See e.g. F. L. Carsten, The Rise of Fascism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), p. 181.

12. István Horváth and Alexandra Scacco, “From the Unitary to the Pluralistic: Fine-Tuning Minority Policy in Romania,” in Annamariá Bíró and Petra Kovács, eds, Diversity in Action. Local Public Management of Multi-Ethnic Communities in Central and Eastern Europe (Budapest: Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative, Open Society Institute, 2001).

13. Keith Hitchins, Studies on Romanian National Consciousness (Pelham, Montreal, Paris, Lugoj and Roma: Nagard Publisher, 1983), p. 231.

14. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism.

15. Trond Gilberg, “Romanians and Democratic Values: Socialization After Communism,” in Daniel Nelson, ed., Romania After Tyranny (Boulder, San Francisco and Oxford: Westview Press, 1992).

16. Joseph S. Rouček, Contemporary Roumania and Her Problems (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971), p. 61.

17. Carsten, The Rise of Fascism; Gilberg, “Romanians and Democratic Values: Socialization After Communism.”

18. Hitchins, Studies on Romanian National Consciousness, p. 234.

19. I refer to both in the text depending on the reference used.

20. Andreia Roman, Le Populisme Quarante-Huitard (Bucharest: Les Editions de la Fondation Culturelle Roumaine, 1999).

21. Hitchins, Studies on Romanian National Consciousness, pp. 233–250.

22. Ibid.

23. Shafir, “Political Culture, Intellectual Dissent and Intellectual Consent: The Case of Romania,” p. 15.

24. Hitchins, Studies on Romanian National Consciousness, p. 232.

25. Ibid.; Sorin Antohi, Imaginaire culturel et réalité politique dans la Roumanie moderne._Le stigmate et l'utopie (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999).

26. Hitchins, Studies on Romanian National Consciousness, p. 233.

27. Ghita Ionescu, “Eastern Europe,” in Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner, eds, Populism. Its Meanings and National Characteristics (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970).

28. Hitchins, Studies on Romanian National Consciousness, p. 240.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid., p. 241.

31. Ibid., p. 245.

32. Ibid., p. 247.

33. Ibid., pp. 248–249.

34. Ibid., pp. 241–242.

35. Shafir, “Political Culture, Intellectual Dissent and Intellectual Consent: The Case of Romania,” p. 24

36. Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, “The Romanian Orthodox Church and Post-Communist Democratisation,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 8, 2000, p. 1468.

37. Ibid.

38. Hitchins, Studies on Romanian National Consciousness, pp. 236–237.

39. Carsten, The Rise of Fascism; Gilberg, “Romanians and Democratic Values: Socialization After Communism,” p. 182.

40. Roger Griffin, Fascism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 219.

41. The Legion continued to operate as if they were the true masters of Romania, and in January 1941 Antonescu took Hitler's advice to crush it. After two days of fighting in which the Nazi-backed government forces suppressed a Legionary revolt, Romania became a national and social state, in other words, a puppet state of the Third Reich (see Griffin, Fascism).

42. Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

43. The state utilized Church as a tool for its social activities. Therefore, Church was allocated a role to increase number of married couples. This was assumed to maintain the basic unit of national life, i.e. family. Along with that, the Orthodox Church carried out health services against alcoholism. The Romanian Orthodox Church was also ready to provide these services in attempt to illustrate a clear evidence of its special relationship with the state. See e.g. George R. Ursul, “From Political Freedom to Religious Independence: The Romanian Orthodox Church, 1877–1925,” in Stephen Fischer-Galati, Radu R. Florescu and George Ursul, eds, Romania Between East and West. Historical Essays in Memory of Constantin C. Giurescu (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1982).

44. That is why Article 82 of the new Romanian Constitution said that His Majesty Carol I's sons would be raised in the Eastern Orthodox Religion. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_I_of_Romania>.

45. Ibid.

46. Cheng Chen, “The Roots of Illiberal Nationalism in Romania: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Leninist Legacy,” East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2003, p. 197.

47. Katherine Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1995), p. 101.

48. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania, p. 99.

49. Shafir, “Political Culture, Intellectual Dissent and Intellectual Consent: The Case of Romania,” pp. 6–8.

50. Hobsbawn, Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Programme, Myth, Reality, p. 123.

51. Immediately after Ceauşescu came to power, he asserted Romania's equality with the Soviet Union by renaming the Romanian Workers' Party the Romanian Communist Party and the People's Republic of Romania the Romanian Socialist Republic (see Chen, “The Roots of Illiberal Nationalism in Romania: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Leninist Legacy,” p. 190). That is why throughout the paper I use Romanian Workers' Party and the Romanian Communist Party interchangeably.

52. Michael Shafir, Romania Politics, Economics and Society. Political Stagnation and Stimulated Change (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1985).

53. Chen, “The Roots of Illiberal Nationalism in Romania: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Leninist Legacy,” pp. 175–176.

54. Shafir, Romania Politics, Economics and Society. Political Stagnation and Stimulated Change.

55. Lidia Vianu, Censorship in Romania (Budapest: CEU Press, 1998), pp. 39–40.

56. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania, p. 145.

57. Shafir, Romania Politics, Economics and Society. Political Stagnation and Stimulated Change.

58. Chen, “The Roots of Illiberal Nationalism in Romania: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Leninist Legacy,” p. 176.

59. Vladimir Tismaneanu, “Understanding National Socialism,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2, 1999, p. 160.

60. Chen, “The Roots of Illiberal Nationalism in Romania: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Leninist Legacy,” p. 176.

61. Ibid., p. 177.

62. Tismaneanu, “Understanding National Socialism,” p. 161.

63. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania.

64. The “muscovites” were those who passed the years of illegality in Moscow. There was a friction between them those who passed the years of illegality in Romanian jails. See Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania, p. 104.

65. The future of Transylvania emerged to be a point of controversy between the Hungarian and Romanian communist leaders at the end of the World War II. However, conceding to the loss of Bessarabia after so many years made it possible for the Romanians to strengthen their claims over Transylvania. See Chen, “The Roots of Illiberal Nationalism in Romania: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Leninist Legacy,” p. 178.

66. One can mention Mátyás Rákosi in Hungary, Ana Pauker in Romania and Rudolf Šlansky in Czechoslovakia.

67. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania, p. 104.

68. Ibid., p. 105.

69. The invasion of Hungary by the Soviet troops in 1956 worked for the benefit of Romania. Khrushchev, in an effort to present that the Soviet Union was not only able to send its troops into certain countries, but also withdraw them from others, indeed withdrew troops from Romania in 1958. Therefore, Romania became the only signatory of the Warsaw Pact to be relieved of Soviet military occupation. See e.g. Pavel Campeanu and Ronald Radzai, “National Fervor in Eastern Europe: The Case of Romania,” Social Research, Vol. 58, No. 4, 1991, pp. 805–829.

70. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania, p. 103.

71. Romanian Press Survey, Radio Free Europe Research 650 (1966).

72. Constantin Vlad, “The Evolution of the Nation in Socialism,” Contemporanul, Vol. 31, 1966, pp. 3–4 in Romanian Press Survey, Radio Free Europe Research 650 (1966).

73. Ibid., pp. 6–7.

74. Vianu, Censorship in Romania, p. 7.

75. Shafir, “Political Culture, Intellectual Dissent and Intellectual Consent: The Case of Romania,” p. 29.

76. Ibid., p. 30.

77. Ibid. pp. 33–35.

78. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania, p. 122.

79. To give a quick example: the literary critic Eugen Lovinescu was one of the first interwar figures to be restored to the patrimony of authors acceptable to a leftist regime, owing to his spirited opposition to interwar fascism and his adherence to liberal-democratic principles, yet in the 1980s these commendable items in his resume were overlooked in order to revile his welcome of “alien” Western standards (see ibid., p. 110).

80. Shafir, “Political Culture, Intellectual Dissent and Intellectual Consent: The Case of Romania,” p. 40.

81. Irina Culic, “The Strategies of Intellectuals: Romania under Communist Rule in Comparative Perspective,” in András Bozóki, ed., Intellectuals and Politics in Central Europe (Budapest: Central European University, 1999), pp. 52–56.

82. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania, p. 131.

83. Tismaneanu, “Understanding National Socialism,” p. 159.

84. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania, p. 118.

85. Campeanu and Radzai, “National Fervor in Eastern Europe: The Case of Romania.”

86. From the Classical Greek proto + kronos [“first in time”]

87. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu's Romania, pp. 174–188.

88. Gilberg, “Romanians and Democratic Values: Socialization After Communism,” p. 182.

89. Open Society Archives FF039 (1977) (translated from French).

90. Background Report Romania Unit, Radio Free Europe, 30 December 1963.

91. Anneli Ute Gabanyi, The Ceauşescu Cult (Bucharest: The Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House, 2000), p. 157.

92. Helsinki Watch Report, Destroying Ethnic Identity. The Persecution of Gypsies in Romania (New York: Helsinki Watch, 1991).

93. Gabanyi, The Ceauşescu Cult.

94. Ibid., pp. 164–165.

95. Ibid., p. 166.

96. Ceauşescu promoted Romanian speakers belonging to different Christian denominations than Orthodox Christianity in minority churches in attempt to change the language of the Church. This is an interesting example of utilizing ethnically Romanian religious minorities for the regime's nationalist purposes. Rudolf Joó and Andrew Ludanyi, The Hungarian Minority's Situation in Ceauşescu's Romania (New York: Columbia University Press East European Monographs, No. CCCLXXIII, 1994).

97. Horváth and Scacco, “From the Unitary to the Pluralistic: Fine-Tuning Minority Policy in Romania.”

98. Chen, “The Roots of Illiberal Nationalism in Romania: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Leninist Legacy,” p. 183.

99. Helsinki Watch Report, Destroying Ethnic Identity. The Persecution of Gypsies in Romania.

100. Campeanu and Radzai, “National Fervor in Eastern Europe: The Case of Romania.”

101. Stan and Turcescu, “The Romanian Orthodox Church and Post-Communist Democratisation,” p. 1468.

102. Joó and Ludanyi, The Hungarian Minority's Situation in Ceauşescu's Romania.

103. Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

104. The Romanian Communist Party appointed Justinian Marina, a former parish priest with socialist political views and a personal friend of the Romanian Communist Party first secretary, Gheorghiu-Dej, as patriarch. See Stan and Turcescu, “The Romanian Orthodox Church and Post-Communist Democratisation,” p. 1468.

105. Stan and Turcescu, “The Romanian Orthodox Church and Post-Communist Democratisation,” pp. 1470–1471.

106. Chen, “The Roots of Illiberal Nationalism in Romania: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Leninist Legacy,” p. 182.

107. Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies.

108. Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies, p. 74.

109. Open Society Archives F-527 (1977).

110. Vianu, Censorship in Romania, p. 70.

111. Eugène Ionesco, Notes and Counter Notes, trans. Donald Watson (New York: Grove Press, 1964), p. 210; in Matei Călinescu, “The 1927 Generation in Romania: Friendships and Ideological Choices (Mihail Sebastian. Mircea Eliade, Nae Ionescu, Eugène Ionesco, E. M. Cioran),” East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 15, No. 3, 2002, p. 661.

112. Ibid., p. 196.

113. Giovenni Bensi, Il Tempo (14 August 1977) (translated from Italian).

114. Ibid., p. 77.

115. Vianu, Censorship in Romania, p. 81.