Piteşti: a project in reeducation and its post-1989 interpretation in Romania

Abstract

The purpose of this article is twofold: to provide a critical account of the Piteşti experiment and its significance within the history of Romanian Communism and to examine current public disputes relative to memorializing the Piteşi experiment that concern issues of legitimacy, collective memory, and identity construction. The main argument pursued here is that within the recent postcommunist politics of memory, one major prevailing trend is to reincorporate a nationalist ideology within a postcommunist rhetoric. This leads to the conclusion that such mnemonic practices indicate a strong relationship between collective memory and political culture.

Keywords:

• postcommunism
• memory
• reeducation
• Piteşti
• Stalinism

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was funded by a Redcay Award granted by Plattsburgh State University of New York in 2013. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Mircea Stănescu for his ongoing support while doing my field work in Romania in March–April 2013. Also, many thanks to my SUNY Plattsburgh colleagues – Drs. Jeff Hornibrook, Dan Lake, Jessamyn Neuhaus and Connie Shemo – for commenting on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Notes

1. By describing what happened in Piteşti as a project rather than an experiment, my intention is to pursue a critical analysis of the specific realities of Stalinist repression in Romania. Although I do not contest its similarities to the ideological system of reeducation implemented in the Soviet Union and inspired by the pedagogical writings of Anton Makarenko, what I do here is emphasize how this extreme repression targeted a particular class enemy, the Iron Guard.

2. For the role of civil society in the postcommunist politics of memory, see (Stan 2013a).

3. The most notable efforts to document the history of the Communist repression were undertaken by a television journalist, Hossu-Longin (2007), and by the Sighet Memorial of the Victims of Communism. The latter is under the custody of the Civic Academy Foundation led by former dissident and poet Ana Blandiana (see www.sighet.ro, accessed on 5 September 2014).

4. After 1989, many memoirs and autobiographical accounts about the reeducation program in Piteşti and in other prisons and labor colonies were published. The most popular include Ionescu (2001), Bordeianu (2001), Buracu (2003), Ioanolide (2009), Mărgirescu (1994), Paven (1996), Voinea (1996), Purcărea (2012), and Goma (1990) . Since 2011, the Argeş branch of Fundaţia Memoria (the Memory Foundation), with professor Ilie Popa and former political prisoner, Ionescu Aristide (who died in 2013), each year organized in Piteşti a symposium that brought together victims and their families with witnesses to the experiment. The conference proceedings were published in 12 edited volumes coordinated by Ilie Popa.

5. Although this party never became a significant player in Romanian politics, it is currently contested by legal authorities as the heir to the Legionary Movement. For more information about the party see, www.totul-pentru-tara.ro, accessed on 20 September 2014. Also, for the views expressed by former legionaries who experienced reeducation and their political preferences, see Budeancă (2011).

6. Two of the most notorious acts involving Codreanu as the leader of the Association of Christian Students were (1) the failed 1923 conspiracy to assassinate Jewish bankers, rabbis, journalists, and Romanian politicians who were in favor of Jewish citizenship rights; and (2) the assassination of the Iaşi police prefect Gheorghe Manciu in 1924. While in 1923 Codreanu escaped legal prosecution in the Manciu murder case, the trial was moved from Iaşi to another town. He was acquitted. For the origins of the Iron Guard and its early history, see Livezeanu (1995, 245–296).

7. Weber (1966, 537–538), shows that the extensive use of violence against such groups was characteristic of the state in the 1930s and the 1940s. He estimates that from 1924 to 1939, 501 legionaries were killed by the authorities and that under Antonescu 292 more were killed without trial in less than a year (November 1938–October 1939). At the same time, two prime ministers were assassinated by the Guard within seven years (I. G. Duca in 1933 and Armand Călinescu in 1939).

8. For an analysis of the main characteristics of the Iron Guard's ideology, see Ioanid (2004, 419–453).

9. The most comprehensive work on Piteşti covering all aspects of reeducation as applied in all incarceration facilities is represented by the three-volume monograph of Mircea Stănescu published in 2010 and 2012 with Polirom, Iaşi. For Piteşi prison, see Andrei Muraru (2008).

10. After refusing to beat up another inmate, Nicolae Purcărea was so badly hit by Ţurcanu that for a while he lost his hearing (Purcărea 2012). Traian Popescu also recalls a similar event (Popescu 2003).

11. CNSAS, Dosar 19 [File 19], volume 6: document issued by Securitate classified as strictly confidential “Notă privind atrocităţile săvîrşite în penitenciarele din Piteşti, Gherla şi Suceava de unii deţinuţi legionari in cadrul activităţii de reeducare în perioada 1948–1952” [Note regarding the atrocities committed by some legionary inmates in the Piteşti, Gherla, and Suceava penitentiaries during the reeducation period from 1948 to 1952].

12. One case involved a Macedonian student, Gheorghe Cucoli, whose confessions led to the arrest of 60 people of Macedonian origin. Given its sympathies for the Iron Guard and resistance to collectivization, this ethnic minority was targeted by the regime at the time. See Cucoli Nicu and Totir Constantin, in Ilie Popa (2009, 233–242).

13. These episodes are described or at least alluded to in the memoirs quoted in footnote 4.

14. Interesting accounts on Gherla were provided by Timaru (1993). According to the report published by the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of Communist Dictatorship in Romania in two years alone (1958–1960), 28 political prisoners were executed in Gherla, including members of the armed resistance, peasants who opposed collectivization, or simply some who expressed dissatisfaction with the regime (2007, 213).

15. Constantin Rodas and Traian Popescu were two such cases. See interview with Rodas in Cosmin Budeancă (ed.) (2011, vol. 5, 287–305). For Popescu's testimony, see Traian Popescu (2003).

16. For a detailed empirical analysis of the Danube–Black Sea Canal, see Andrei Muraru, 2008.

17. CNSAS, Dosar no. 53 volume 1 (file no. 53): Situaţia arestărilor şi condiţiilor din aparatul central şi din direcţia generală de securitate pe anul 1957 [The situation regarding arrests and the conditions of the central apparatus of security in 1957].

18. There are a few documented cases of instances when some AFDPR branches were reluctant to accept as members some “perpetrators” of reeducation and refused to assist them in receiving compensation to which former political prisoners were entitled after 1989.

19. The scene when the two met and embraced is presented in the documentary “Demascarea” (“Exposure”) produced by Alin Mureşan and released by the Institute for the Investigation of Crimes of Communism and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) in 2010.

20. The author of this paper visited the former prison and “Room Four Hospital” in March 2013. For the 2012 summer school, see Dan Gheorghe, “Cum au vrut comuniştii sa ştearga din istorie Experimentul Piteşti” [How Communists wanted to erase the Piteşti Experiment from History], România Liberă, accessed on 2 August 2013, at http://www.romanialibera.ro/index.php?section=articol&screen=print&id=273951.

21. See www.fundatiasfintiiinchisorilor.ro and www.arsenieboca.ro.

22. For a detailed presentation and photos of this demonstration, see http://ogoranu.ro/78-evenimente/slides/131-foto-victorie-valeriu-gafencu (accessed on 14 June 2013).

23. The idea of a “master commemorative narrative” was developed by Zerubavel (2011, 237–239).