The Times Cartoon June 1990 (Calman): "Can't fin the Worf for Democracy (in Romanian Phrasebook)"

Calman cartoon in the Times of London – alluding to the mob-rule by Romanian miners called by President Iliescu and Prime Minister Petre Roman to quell the fledgling Democracy movement in Bucharest in June 1990, only six months after Ceausescu was put down in a classic coup-de-palais:
Under the title:

“Fear of mob-rule grips Romania”(June 1990)

the caption says:

“Can’t find the word for Democracy in Romanian Phrase book”

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Small SELECTION from the 160 Women featured in this Anthology:
ARISTOCRATS: Pss Catherine Caradja, Pss Marina Stirbey,

BALLERINAS: Alina Cojocaru, Magdalena Popa, Ruxandra Racovitza

COSTUME & STAGE DESIGNERS: Marie Jeanne Lecca, Maria Prodan Bjornson,

COURTESANS: Pss Georges Ghika (Liane de Pougy), Elena Lupescu
DESIGNERS: Mica Ertegün
EXPLORERS: Lady Florence Baker
GYMNASTS: Nadia Comaneci
MOVIE STARS: Lauren Bacall, Aurora Fulgida, Maria Forescu, Nadia Grey, Elvire Popesco, Silvia Sidney
OPERA: Maria Cebotari, Viorica Cortez, Ileana Cotrubas, Angela Gheorghiu, Nelly Miricioiu, Leontina Vaduva, Virginia Zeani
PAINTERS: Ioana Celibidache, Nathalie Dumitresco, Micaela Eleutheriade
PIANISTS: Cella Delavrancea, Clara Haskil, Madeleine Lipatti
POETS: Ana Blandiana, Nina Cassian, Anna de Noailles, Helene Vacaresco
POLITICAL PRISONERS: Ioana Arnautoiu, Madeleine Cancicov, Ana Novac, Elisabeta Rizea, Annie Samuelli, Sabina Wurmbrand
POLITICIANS; Elena Ceausescu, Hortense Cornu, Ana Pauker
REVOLUTIONARIES: Maria Grant Rosetti,
ROYALTY: Carmen Sylva, Pss Ileana, Archduchess of Austria, Queen Marie, Pss of Great Britain, Queen Anna, Pss of Denmark and of Bourbon-Parme, Helen Queen Mother of Romania, Pss of Greece,
SCIENTISTS: Ana Aslan, Ioana Meitani, Elisabeth Roudinesco
STAGE & COSTUME DESIGNERS: Maria Bjornson, Marie-Jeanne Lecca
VIOLINISTS: Lola Bobescu, Silvia Marcovici
WRITERS: Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco, Marthe Bibesco, Alina Diaconu, Dora d’Istria, Marie-France Ionesco, Rodica Iulian, Doina Jela, Oana Orlea,

WHAT THE READERS SAY:

* “It is a Herculean Work…” (Editor, Buenos Aires)

* “It is beautifully written, meticulously researched and presented. It is accessible to the lay reader and will be a treasure-trove for further research by academics drawn from a wide range of disciplines ” (Political Analyst, Edinburgh)

* “For those who think that Romania is nothing more than Dracula and Ceausescu, the book has a lot to teach you… ‘ (IT geek, London)

* “Constantin Roman invites us for a walk, during which he enjoins past and present alike, in a brisk coming and going of the narrative. It is a narrative that cannot suddenly end, but rather one which compels us to start all over again and revisit. It is a truly wonderful gift, a very happy surprise indeed of an inherently original book, which haunts us like the persistent music of those Romanian women’s voices.” (French Government Adviser, Paris)

* There is no doubt, what-so-ever, that if Romania is the creation of a male society as well as of political conjectures, its place in the Western European psyche is entirely due to its women, who knew how to impose their reputation in the aristocratic salons of Paris, in the world of literature, or in the English clubs so intimately linked to politics. For “Blouse Roumaine” is an incursion charged with passion, which conjures varied names, such as Queen Marie of Romania, Countess Anna de Noailles, the Princess Bibesco, or the actress Elvire Popesco, not forgetting the diabolic Ana Pauker and Elena Ceausescu.” (Art Historian, Paris)

* “… an audaceeous choice…” (Reader, France)

* “So long as the masculine and the feminine are not absolutely complementary notions in terms of fair percentages, it is a good idea to write a book about Romanian Women of World repute.” (Novelist, Argentina)

* “… it represents the idea of metamodernism as cultural paradigm to an alternative synthesis of modern and postmodern paradigms” (Researcher, New Zealand)

* …an easy book, which offered me, at least, the joy of reading an interesting, well-documented Anthology, without being bored.” (Scientist, U.S.A)

* “… your book is an overwhelming, gift…. a signal act of culture, an acknowledgment of the Romanian culture and spirit. It makes us a proud as a people, as it places us at a higherlevel, a step, closer to the skies which we are trying to reach because we think we deserve it, yet somehow, something is always in the way to pull us back. …

But you have attempted a huge step forward and we cannot but wonder how and by what means of inspiration…. what may be the source of your indomitable strength and perseverance? You must be blessed with the enlightenment of those Romanians and other people beyond who feel close to us and embody the Romanian spirit.” (Romanian Reader, U.S.A.)

ORDER:

http://www.blouseroumaine.com/buy-the-book/index.html

Daniel Rosenthal - 'Revolutionary Romania' (19th c)

Romanian-Jewish Topics (Part One of Two):
Quotations from an Alternative Anthology:
“Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women”

Presented and edited by Constantin Roman, Preface by Catherine Durandin, published by the Centre for Romanian Studies (London), 2009

1,100 pages, 160 biographies, 600 quotations, 4,000 references, credits, discography and URLs , 6 Indexes

http://www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html

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Lauren Bacall, Movie Star (Lauren's mother was born in Romania and migrated to New York with her parents.

Lauren BACALL,

“Betty” (née Betty Joan Perske), Miss Betty Bacall, Mrs. Humphrey Bogart, (b. New York, 16 September 1924)
First-generation Romanian-American, film star, wife of Humphrey Bogart

Romanian immigrants:

Mother left Romania by ship – aged somewhere between one and two – with her father, mother, elder sister, baby brother. Her father had been in the wheat business, had been wiped out, and had turned out whatever silver and jewellery there was left to a sister for money, enough to transport his family to the promised land – the New World – America. They arrived in Ellis Island and gave their name – Weinstein Bacal (meaning wineglass in German and Russian). The man must have written down just the first half of the name – too many people from too many countries, too many foreign names – so it was Max and Sophie Weinstein, daughters Renée and Natalie’s, son Albert.
(Lauren Bacall By Myself, pp. 5, Jonathan Cape, London, 1979)

Happy Times:
We had happy times, my grandmother cooking, singing German songs, reading constantly in French, German, Romanian, Russian and English. She and mother spoke Romanian and German when she did not want me to understand.
(Lauren Bacall, By Myself, op.cit. 5)

Read more about Lauren Bacall:

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Georgeta (Georgette) CANCICOV, née Maria Jurgea
“The Angel Saviour of Moldavian Jews”
(b. 29 May 1899, Godinesti, County Bacàu – d. Bucharest, 16 April 1984),
Novelist, essayist, violinist, nurse in WWI, wife of Liberal justice minister and politician Mircea Cancicov

Georgeta Cancicov – Saviour of Moldavian Jews:
Taking advantage of the fact that Marshall Antonescu stayed at her house whenever he visited Bacàu and given the good relationship she had with him, Mrs. Cancicov interceded robustly and ensured that no ghettos be set up in Moldavia.
(…)
Then, there was the question raised that Jewish women be forced to perform labour in town. We again interceded with Mrs. Cancicov in a petition addressed to Marshall Antonescu, who decreed that the women should only do such work as befitting their profession, which was a gain in our favour.
(…)
On the eve of 22nd August 1944, there was an order to evacuate all Jews. (Consequently), on the morning of 23rd August, in the courtyard of the Church of Our Lady, a detachment of 600 Jews was gathered for evacuation. You can imagine their distress, as they had to leave behind their families and be driven among (the retreating) Hitler’s armies. As I intervened with Mrs. Cancicov, she communicated to me in writing that no Jews should be evacuated and I presented this order to the (military) commander. He checked with Mrs Cancicov, who confirmed, on her authority, that nobody should go, so he freed everybody. As a result no Jews from the any other detachments were evacuated either.
(…)
Of course, there were countless other little matters on which Mrs. Cancicov acted as the protecting angel and saviour of our wretched and oppressed Jewish people.
(D. Ionas, President of the Jewish community of Bacàu, Petition to the Prefect of the County Bacàu, dated 9th September 1945, in favour of Georgeta Cancicov, whose house was requisitioned by the Soviet Army, quoted by the Memoria)
(http://www.memoria.ro/?location=view_article&id=821&l=ro)

Jewish Ghettos:
There will be no Jewish ghettos set up here: (I defy you, that) should there ever be any of these set up, then I am going to be an inmate in one of them myself.
(Georgeta Cancicov, reassurance given to Schiller, the representative of the Jewish Community in Bacàu, quoted by D. Ionas, op.cit)

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Nina Cassian, - a successful Poet under dictatorship, who sought refuge in America at the end of Communism

Nina CASSIAN (Renée Annie Cassian)
(b. 27 November 1924, Galati),
Poet, novelist, translator, composer, exile and now expatriate living in New York since 1985

Conviction:
I worked to be understood by the farmers and workers, I was torturing myself and distorting my artistry. Some of us Romanian writers did it with conviction. That was the worst.
(Nina Cassian)

Excluded:
They don’t want me there, I’m not sure why. They used to consider me eccentric and rebellious…But now maybe it’s because they resent that I’m living a better life in America.
(Nina Cassian)

Uprooting:
It is a terrible tragedy, at age 60, to leave one’s country and live in a place where one is surrounded by a foreign language and with two impossible professions — poetry and classical music, I have had my share of fame and glory, and didn’t expect more.
(Nina Cassian)

Read more about Nina Cassian:

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Maria Forescu, Romanian Movie star of the silent cinema: died at Buchenwald

Maria FORESCU (née Maria Füllenbaum)
(15 Jan 1875 Cernàuti, Bukowina – (?) 23 November 1943, Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Thuringia, Germany)
Movie star, operetta singer, Nazi concentration camp detainee, killed at Buchenwald

Maria Forescu (née Maria Füllenbaum) is one of Europe’s earliest stars of the silent movie. She dedicated herself to her career with great zest, acting in over one hundred and sixty films from 1911 to 1933, a thread which was abruptly severed by Nazi censorship which resulted in her dramatic deportation to the infamous Buchenwald cocentration camp where she was killed ten years later, in 1943.
(Extract from the Biography of Maria Forescu published in “Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women”, 2009)

Read more about Maria Forescu:

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Nicoleta (Nicolette) Franck (née Apotheker/Apoteker)
(b. 21st July 1920, Iasi, România)
Lawyer, political analyst, journalist, translator, exile in Switzerland

Political illiteracy:
The tragedy of the vote (for presidential elections) of 26th November 2000 cannot be explained in any other way than in the perspective of the political illiteracy of the Romanian people. Our schools had not yet made good the teaching of history, and so distorted has it remained that our past is not correctly understood and thus we cannot shape the present or have a glimmer in the future.
(Nicoleta Franck)

Rumours:
Certainly after half a century of outright lies peddled by the communist régime, Romanians now believe only in rumours rather than public declarations. Consequently they are easily misled through whispered rumours, which are aimed at the calumny of honest people, pointing out their failures rather than at their achievements, – the latter, alas, being few and far between and rather slow in materializing.
(Nicoleta Franck)

Read more about Nicoleta Franck:

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Clara Haskil, Romanian born pianist: her talent was discovered by Carmen Sylva, Queen Elisabeth of Romania who gave her a scholarship to study in Vienna.

Clara HASKIL,
‘La Princèsse de la Musique’,
‘Clarinette’, (nickname given by Dinu Lipatti)
(b. 7 January, 1895, Bucharest– d. 7 December 1960, Brussels),
Pianist, exile in France and Switzerland

Clara Haskil about Georges Enesco:
I always felt alone when I played with Enesco. I could not see what we had in common. This great man and little me. Yet we were both Romanian, and apparently our playing blended perfectly. But what else? Such a towering figure. And me?
(Clara Haskil, ibid.)

Clara Haskil about Dinu Lipatti:
Oh, I could spend hours talking about Dinu. He was always so aware, so alive, in spite of all the terrible pain he had to suffer. And his music-making! I really can’t find the words to describe what I felt whenever I hear him play. I often thought he felt almost guilty he had been blessed with so much genius.”
(Clara Haskil, ibid.)

Clara Haskil about Dinu Lipatti:
How much I envy your talent, may the Deuce take it! Must you have so much talent and I so little? Is there justice in this world?
(Jean-Yves Conrad, Roumanie, capitale Paris, Guide des promenades insolites, sur les traces des Roumains célèbres de Paris, page 130)

Read more about Clara Haskil:

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Helen, Queen Mother of Romania and Mother of King Michael: during WWII she fought fearlessly to save Jewish lives: her tribute is alive at Yad Vashem

Princess HELEN of Greece and Denmark,
Romania’s ‘Queen Mother’ (Regina Mamà Elena)
(b. 2 May 1896, Athens – d. 28 November 1982, Lausanne, Switzerland)
consort of King Carol II,

Helen, Queen Mother of Romania, seen by Great Rabbi Alexandru Safran:
I would like to refer to the posthumous award of the title of “The Righteous Among the Nations” to Helen, Queen Mother of Romania. This letter is meant to bring to the fore two fundamental aspects pertaining to this matter: (1) actions by which the Queen Mother saved the lives of many Jews during the Second World War; (2) the risks personally taken by the Queen Mother in undertaking such actions.” (…)
“Such consciousness of possible risks extended over the whole period between 1941 and 1944. My own contact with the Queen Mother allowed me to gage her sharp and lucid perception of the realities of these unstable and turbulent times and at the same time to be appraised of her apprehensions concerning such risks. I can, at the same time bear witness that the Queen Mother constantly interceded on behalf of the Jews and that she saved Jewish lives in spite of all apprehensions: she was drawn to it by her kindness and her moral values.
Hoping that this letter will be helpful to the Commission of the Righteous Among Nations Award…
(Alexandru Safran, Grand Rabbi of Switzerland)

Read more about Helen Queen Mother of Romania:

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Lupescu - The indomitable Romanian royal seductress: she became King Carol II third wife: her remains were recently transferred from the Braganza chapel in Lisbon to a monastery in the Carpathians

Elena LUPESCU,
(née Elena Grünberg, alias ‘Wolf’),
(aka ‘Magda’, aka ‘Duduia’, aka ‘Princess Elena’)
Mrs. Elena Tâmpeanu – by her first married name
(b. 1896, Herta, România, or 1899, Iasi Moldavia – d. 1977, Estoril, Portugal)
Socialite, royal concubine, third wife of King Carol II, exile

Limerick on Madame Lupescu:
Have you heard of Madam Lupescu,
Who came to Romania’s rescue?
It’s a wonderful thing
To be under a King:
Is Democracy better I ask you?
(Anonymous)

Bleeding:
While he whom I adore, he in whom I put all my hope for the good of my country did not send me a telegram, not even a single line in order to share with me his happiness, happiness to which I had contributed… my heart is sad, it is bleeding because I expected to be the first to whom you would send a telegram.
(Elena Lupescu’s letter to Carol, Quoted by Lilly Marcou, Le Roi trahi – Carol II de Roumanie)

Read more about Elena Lupescu:

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Romanian-Jewish Topics(continued in Part Two):

© copyright Constantin ROMAN, 2003-2009, all rights reserved

Presented and edited by Constantin Roman, Preface by Catherine Durandin, published by the Centre for Romanian Studies (London), 2009

1,100 pages, 160 biographies, 600 quotations, 4,000 references, performances & exhibition credit, discography and URLs , 6 Indexes

http://www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html

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As a young girl from Hungarian-occupied Transylvania, Ana NOVAC knew the whole gamut of Nazi concentration camps. She was a surviver of both Nazi and Communist dictatorships, who opted for freedom in France.

Ana NOVAC, (née Zimra Harsany)
‘The Romanian Anne Frank’
(b. Dej, Transylvania, 21 June 1929)
Actress, playwright, poet, novelist Auschwitz, Kratzau, Plaszow camps survivor, exile living in Paris

Nationality:
I was born in 1929 in Transylvania (România). One good morning when I was 11 years old I woke up to be a Hungarian citizen without having moved to another place, another street, or even without having changed my shirt. At the age of 14 I was deported to Auschwitz as a Jew. On my release in 1945 I had again become a Romanian citizen. That is why I have the greatest difficulty in establishing my nationality, other than from my identity papers which specified that I was Jewish.
(Ana Novac, The Beautiful Days of My Youth: My Six Months in Auschwitz and Plaszow)

‘Anti-semite’:
That text was rejected by the censors as ‘anti-Semitic’….’It is useless to explain to a bureaucrat trembling for his job and his life that one can be Jewish, persecuted, and a bastard at the same time; that martyrdom and heroism do not necessarily go together; that misfortune does not imply any merit and does not confer any more right to glory than a car wreck, or an earthquake.
(Ana Novac, The Beautiful Days of My Youth: My Six Months in Auschwitz and Plaszow)

Read more about Ana Novac:

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Ana PAUKER (née Hannah Rabinsohn, or Rabinovici)

Ana Pauker together with Elena Ceausescu shares the distinction of belonging to the Romanian Communist Demonology

‘A Jewish Female Bukharin’
(b. 1893, Codàesti, County Vaslui, Moldavia – d. Bucharest, 1960)
Granddaughter of Rabbi Hersch Kaufmann Rabinsohn, communist activist prior to WWI, political prisoner, exile in the Soviet Union, NKVD operative/ spy, returnee,
vice-president of the Council of Ministers, (1949-52), Foreign Minister, (1947-53),
Politburo Member responsible for the enforced collectivization of agriculture, (1944-56),

Rabbi Alexandru Safran on Ana Pauker:
“Ana Pauker, a rabbi’s daughter…. when she was Minister of Foreign Afairs, wanted everybody to know, especially when I was present, that she was not a Jew, she was a communist”….
“… when she saw me approaching the Prime Minister and the other ministers she stepped out of the line and turned aside for a moment in order not to greet me. She thus thought to demonstrate that she, the communist, did not want anything to do with the Chief Rabbi and Jewry; that she had less in common with him than even the other members of government….”
“…the expression of Ana Pauker’s face during her time of glory, had always been impertinent”.
(Alexander Safran, Grand Rabbi of Switzerland, formerly Grand Rabbi of Romania: Resisting the storm, Romania 1940-1947, op.cit 139, 161, 166)

Tesu Solomovici on Ana Pauker:
The most shining star amongst the huge number of Moscow-trained spies and activists was, undoubtedly the Jewish communist Ana Pauker. She knew Joseph Vissarionovitch Stalin personally and worked under the orders and direct command of the henchmen of the Soviet repressive services, Lavrentie Pavlovitch Beria, Victor Semionovitch Abakhumov, Piotr Vassilievitch Fedotov and Pavel Mihailovitch Fitin and furthermore she enjoyed the admiration of yet another dinosaur of Soviet power – Vyactheslav Molotov. Notwithstanding all that, Gheorghiu-Dej succeeded, with a patient cunning to pluck out all her feathers.
(Solomovitch: 54-55)

Read more about Ana Pauker:

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Elisabeth Roudinesco Parisian-born Psychoanalist of Romanian stock

Elisabeth ROUDINESCO (Elisabeta RUDINESCU)
(b. 1944)
Academic, psychoanalyst, historian of science, historian, journalist, editor,
French-born Romanian living in Paris

Antecedents:
“Being Jewish, in such conditions, did not make sense, because I was baptised, but not being Jewish did not make sense either, because this baptism did not imbue in me any integrating principles. How should I answer my classmates who might enquire about my origins and my religion? My father called himself an orthodox convert to Catholicism; my mother rather considered herself a Protestant and both parents felt rather detached from any religious tradition. Furthermore, my mother kept in a drawer a fake birth certificate which was produced for her benefit by a willing abbot, by which she was spared the obligation of wearing the yellow star badge and consequently saved from deportation. How could one believe, in such conditions, in the validity of a ‘real’ birth certificate and how will I know what might be the implications of ‘really’ belonging to a religion? It took me twenty years to unravel this imbroglio of my Jewish origins.
(Elisabeth Roudinesco, Généalogie)

Dracula:
“One day, as I returned from the cinema, where I discovered that the most famous Romanian on this planet was Count Dracula, I bought Bram Stoker’s book, which I read breathlessly. As soon as I reminded my father that his worthy ancestors may not have been those whose descendant he claimed to be, he raised his arms to the sky and treated me (in Romanian) of that highest swear word of being a ‘tzigan’. From then on we did not stop wrangling. He was always singing the merits of Voltaire, Anatole France and Paul Valéry, whose friend he was, while I loved Balzac, Michelet and Proust.”
(Elisabeth Roudinesco, ibid.)

Immigrant’s delusions:
“My father who emigrated (from Romania to France t.n.) in 1904, passed his time obfuscating his origins. Being wary of anti-Semitism (in France. t.n.) and anxious to prove his desire of being assimilated, he was claiming an Orthodox father and that he himself had converted to Roman Catholic. This is how he could claim, without admitting it, a link with Alexandru Socec. As for any reminiscences regarding his own itinerary, he invented a family novel to suit his imagination, to the point of thinking himself more French than the French themselves and to relegating his native Romania to the status of a country inhabited by vampires and gypsies. He had in his disquisitions two way of looking at history. A scholarly approach, based on academic books and which he presented and eschewed  in the clearest manner. By contrast his private life was punctuated by mystery and rumor. My father would assign to archives and to the truth a positivist cult, whilst for his own family history, he was covering his tracks and was clouding the genealogies.”
(Elisabeth Roudinesco, ibid.)

Read more about Elisabeth Roudinesco:

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Annie SAMUELLI, victim of Communist witch hunt

Annie SAMUELLI
(b. 1912 – d. ca. 2003)
Clerk at the British Legation Bucharest, political prisoner, exile

Cosmopolitan bourgeois:
The debased spies, recruited from among the cosmopolitan bourgeois, have finally received their retribution.
(The Communist newspaper Unirea commenting on Annie Samuelli’s ‘conspiracy in favour of Great Britain and the U.S.A’. in the 1948 political trials. Quoted by Tesu Solomonovici, in Securitatea si Evreii, vol 2, pp.51l)

Miracle Rabbi:
Carla, aged 40, arrived at our cell: she was a brilliant accountant. Carla was given a 20 years prison sentence for having been a member of a so-called ‘subversive organization’. Although a Roman Catholic she would tell us about the pilgrimage to the tomb of the ‘Miracle Rabbi’:

Some hundred years ago, this rabbi would have led his folk on foot all the way to a small Romanian village to escape a pogrom in Poland. This humble and enlightened man handed out wise counsel, which was of the greatest help to the community. After his death at a venerable age, people would still come along to his grave to ask advice. The ritual unfolded in the following way: in memory of the rabbi’s long treck from Poland, the pilgrims, Jews and Gentiles alike, would walk to the cemetery, which was rather far from the city. Along the way, they would pick up a stone. Any request or problem would be scribbled on a piece of paper, which was put under the stone and placed on the rabbi’s grave. In time, all these stones grew to become a gravestone in the shape of a pyramid, which grew and grew. Each time a request or a problem was satisfied, the pilgrim would return to collect the stone and destroy the piece of paper.

Carla heard the story from an inmate with whom she shared a prison cell in said town. Although she was Romanian Orthodox this woman prisoner was convinced that her husband was praying at the rabbi’s tomb for her to be given a reprieve of her prison sentence, because the rabbi had already miraculously saved their dying son.
‘Well, would you believe it?’ Carla would exclaim. ‘This woman was acquitted within six months. And you know how rare it is for a political prisoner to be freed. She had failed to denounce some refugee and she would have been sentenced to a minimum of five years. Now, owing to the Miracle Rabbi, she could go home’.
(Annie Samuelli, Dayyenu)

Read more about Annie Samuelli:

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Silvia SIDNEY, First Generation romanian-American Movie Star

Sylvia SIDNEY (aka SYDNEY), (née Sophia Kosow),
1stly Mrs. Bennett Cerf, 2ndly Mrs. Luther Adler, 3rdly Mrs. Carlton Alsop
(b. Bronx, New York, 8 August 1910 – d. New York, 1st July 1999)
First-generation Romanian-American, film and stage actress, needlepoint artist

As in the case of Lauren Bacall, (q.v.), another glamorous New York-born actress with Romanian roots, one may question Sylvia’s inclusion in the Blouse Roumaine. Sylvia’s father, Mr Kosow, was indeed Russian, but her mother was Romanian.

(Extract  from: ‘Blouse Roumaine – the Unsung Voices of Romanian Women’)

Read more about Silvia Sidney:

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Sanda Stolojan: a freedom fighter and sharp observer of Romanian exiles

Sanda STOLOJAN (née Alexandra Zamfirescu)
(b. 1919, Bucharest – d. 2 August 2005, Paris)
Essayist, poet, memorialist, translator, journalist human rights activist,
Personal interpreter for four French presidents, exile in France

Franco-Romanian Jews:
I went to Beaubourg to the symposium on Benjamin Fondane, on whom I was writing an article in the ‘Cahiers de l’Est’. In the auditorium many Romanian Jews were gathered , a world with which we other Romanians have few contacts other than some personal friends. An old émigré, Claude Émile Rosen, read one of Fondane’s poems in Romanian. Stefan Lupasco who knew Fondane was there too. Generally the tone of the evening, imprinted by the philosopher Chouraki, a specialist in the Jewish mystique, was Hebraic and anti-Romanian, with pre-war Romania painted in anti-Semitic colours all over. Throughout the course of the evening I felt an odd sensation of being there only tolerated, marginalized, in spite of being at the core of a cultural space with which I was very familiar. In a certain fashion I was the “Jew”, the foreigner within this audience. In fact our manner of living our exile is situated at the opposite pole of the sensitivity of these Franco-Romanian intellectuals of Jewish origin. It is all a matter of the past, a question linked to the antecedents of our lives, yesterday in communist Romania, today in Paris. Even further back, there is a matter of ancestors, ours steeped in the glebe of deepest Romania, in its beliefs and traditions, theirs errant for three thousand years; ours lost in the Neolithic mist, theirs mingled to the history of Babylon and Egypt. These are profound matters, old causes, as old as the biblical prophecies and their different interpretations which shaped us. And then there is the recent past, our situation and theirs under communism, which of late has forced us to take the road of exile, where we see them again, these old errant hands. Today the experience of exile ought to bring us closer to each other, but our contact with them, like that of last evening, only revealed to what extent we remained attached to our land archetype implanted in the Parisian milieu. What could be more foreign to their spirit than our obsessions, our reactions, our commitment. It is by rejecting this spirit of our soil that Cioran succeeded in placing himself above this state of mind which is justly ours, that of the provincials of Europe, a characteristic which was also his. Paradoxically, it is while strongly denouncing his origins that Cioran discovered his inner depth: for, as he said, ‘Nobody is in control of his own inner depth’. How could one solve this dilemma? How could our exile bring us closer to the Jewish exile?”
(Sanda Stolojan, Au balcon de l’exil Roumain a Paris)

Read more about Sanda Stolojan:

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Sabina Wurmbrand - a Pastor's Wife who knew the Communist Prisons

Sabina WURMBRAND (née Sabina Oster)
(1913, România –2000, California, U.S.A.)
Missionary of the underground church, pastor’s wife, political prisoner and prisoner of conscience, exile in the USA

Prison Carcer:
..I was marched to the guardroom and put into a prison cell. It was a narrow cupboard built into the wall in which you could just stand. The iron door had a few holes to admit air… After a few hours, my feet were burning. The blood in my temples beat with slow, painful thuds. How many hours could they keep me here?… Drops of water were falling from somewhere on the roof of the box. It was a desolate sound. I counted them to make time pass… I don’t know how long I did this, but at a certain moment.
I simply began to cry aloud to avoid despair:
’One, two, three, four,’
I cried, and again:
‘One, two, three, four…’
After a time the words became inarticulate. I didn’t know what I said. My mind had moved into rest. It blacked out. Yet my spirit continued to say something to God.
(Sabina Wurmbrand, The pastor’s wife)

Read more about Sabina Wurmbrand:

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© copyright Constantin ROMAN, 2003-2009, all rights reserved

Domnului Traian Basescu
Presedintele României

Palatul Cotroceni,
Strada Geniului nr. 1-3
Sector 5
Bucuresti

Bucuresti, 26 mai 2006

Stimate Domnule Presedinte,

Asociatia Proprietarilor Deposedati Abuziv de Stat (APDAS), Comitetul pentru Proprietatea Privata (CPP), Asociatia Franceza pentru Apararea Dreptului de Proprietate în România (AFADPR) – organizatii ale proprietarilor de drept deposedati abuziv de statul comunist totalitar – va solicita sa nu promulgati Legea pentru modificarea si completarea art. 9 si 11 din Legea 112 din 25 noiembrie 1995 pentru reglementarea situatiei juridice a unor imobile cu destinatia de locuinte, trecute în proprietatea statului, Lege care a fost adoptata de Camera Deputatilor la data de 23 mai a.c.

Solicitarea pe care v-o adresam are în vedere urmatoarele:

1. Prin dispozitiile sale, în principal cele prin care casele nationalizate au putut fi “cumparate” de catre “chiria?i”, Legea nr. 112/1995 a fost si ramâne un act normativ care, în loc sa repare gravele abuzuri ale statului comunist totalitar, le-a validat. Adoptarea acestei Legi, în timpul primei guvernari a PDSR, nu a fost întâmplatoare. De ea au profitat un numar mare de oameni politici ?i de “demnitari” ai statului român, de dupa dar si de dinainte de 1989, un numar mare de magistrati, de generali ai Securitatii, ai Armatei ori ai serviciilor secrete post-comuniste etc. Faptul ca Legea a fost adoptata astfel încât sa nu permita restituirea integrala în natura a locuintelor care ne-au fost confiscate abuziv de statul comunist a fost criticat înca de la început nu numai de catre organizatiile noastre dar si de catre importante institutii internationale, care au cerut României sa amendeze Legea amintita si sa solutioneze în mod echitabil problema restituirii proprietatilor. Va amintim, cu titlu de exemplu, Rezolutia nr. 1123/1997 a Adunarii Parlamentare a Consiliului Europei si Rezolutia nr. A4-0428/1998 a Parlamentului European.
2. Asa cum va este cunoscut, amendamentele legislative facute ulterior legislatiei respective au fost nesemnificative si au ignorat complet principiul restituirii în natura a imobilelor confiscate abuziv de statul comunist. Pentru ca astazi sa se faca si ultimul pas care mai era de facut pentru a pecetlui nedreptatea grava pe care ne-a facut-o statul comunist abuziv: cei care “au cumparat” la preturi de batjocura casele noastre, multi dintre ei mari profitori ai tranzitiei, pot sa le vânda obtinând pe ele preturi de zeci sau chiar de sute de ori mai mari decât cele la care “le-au cumparat”. În cazul în care veti promulga Legea votata de deputati, vânzarea caselor noastre se va transforma într-o industrie extrem de profitabila pentru chiriasii care “au cumparat” asemenea imobile cu unica motivatie ca “nu aveau o alta locuinta”. Daca, între timp, chiriasii si-au rezolvat problemele locative, solutia cea mai rationala si echitabila este ca respectivele imobile sa fie retrocedate proprietarilor de drept iar statul sa restituie chiriasilor pretul primit pentru ele – actualizat, eventual, cu rata inflatiei din anii de dupa “cumparare”. Un argument foarte important care pledeaza pentru aceasta solutie este si acela ca, în acest mod, efortul pe care statul – în fapt, fiecare dintre contribuabili sai – ar avea sa-l faca, pentru despagubirea proprietarilor de drept, ar fi diminuat în mod considerabil.

3. Legea votata de deputati a fost respinsa în prealabil de catre Senat iar avizul Guvernului a fost de asemenea negativ. În opinia organizatiilor noastre, acest fapt denota o sustinere politica mai mult decât precara pentru decizia deputatilor de a da liber vânzarii caselor nationalizate si reprezinta un argument în plus pentru ca Presedintele României sa nu promulge aceasta Lege. Una dintre numeroasele consecinte ale intrarii în vigoare a Legii va fi cu siguranta cresterea numarului proprietarilor de drept care îsi vor cauta dreptatea la Curtea Europeana a Drepturilor Omului, ceea ce va conduce la noi condamnari ale României si la noi si împovaratoare despagubiri care vor trebui suportate de fiecare dintre cetatenii României.

Stimate Domnule Pre?edinte,
Proprietarii de drept suporta de mai mult de 50 de ani nedreptatile grave care li s-au facut de catre statul comunist samavolnic. În ultimii 16 ani ne-au fost facute nesfârsite promisiuni ca ni se va face dreptate, si dreptate tot nu ni s-a facut. Cu toate acestea, proprietarii de drept si organizatiile noastre nu au facut nici un fel de obstructii – dimpotriva, au ajutat cât au putut – procesului de integrare euro-atlantica a tarii. Continuam ai astazi sa fim favorabili acestui proces. În acelasi timp, însa, suntem cu totii ferm hotarâti sa nu renuntam niciodata sa ne cerem înapoi bunurile furate de statul comunist, si care astazi ne sunt sechestrate de un sistem pe care Dumneavoastra însiva – atunci când ne-ati chemat sa va fim alaturi la alegerile trecute – l-ati caracterizat ca fiind “ticalosit”.

Va solicitam, stimate Domnule Presedinte, sa refuzati promulgarea acestei Legi – care se afla într-o evidenta contradictie inclusiv cu normele Constitutiei României privind garantarea proprietatii private – si sa uzati de toate prerogativele constitutionale pentru ca în România problema restituirii proprietatilor sa fie rezolvata, în sfârsit, în spiritul respectului pentru proprii cetateni si pentru valorile lumii civilizate.

Cu încredere si consideratie,

Asociatia Proprietarilor Deposedati Abuziv de Stat (APDAS)
Presedinta,
Maria Theodoru

Comitetul pentru Proprietatea Privata (CPP)
Presedinte,
Mihai Vânatoru

Asociatia Franceza pentru Apararea Dreptului de Proprietate în România (AFADPR)
Presedinte,
Dinu Ionescu

THEFT OF A NATION, ROMANIA SINCE COMMUNISM

TOM GALLAGHER

Paperback 320 pages (November 1, 2003) £16-50
Publisher: C. Hurst & Co
ISBN: 1850657165
Hardback: xxii, 424pp. (Jan. 2005),£45.00

Romanian Publication (in Translation )
Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest November 2004

‘This is a unique work on an important, but neglected, subject. It deals with the transition from totalitarian to democratic rule in Romania and examines the question of why the promotion of reform of the political and economic system in Romania has proved to be more difficult than in most of the other countries of Central Europe. In doing so, the book makes a significant contribution to the political history of Romania and Central Europe, as well as to the literature on the dynamics of political and social change in the region.’ ––Professor Dennis Deletant Since 1989 Romania has gone from communist isolation under the megalomaniac Nicolae Ceausescu to being a key player in America’s war against terrorism. This strategically-placed country has become a front-line state for nervous Western governments keen to secure oil routes from the Middle East. It joined NATO in 2004 and the European Union is welcoming it into membership by 2007 on flexible terms despite a serious democratic deficit and glaring economic weaknesses. Tom Gallagher analyses how the country is seeking to transform its image while many of the key legacies of dictatorship have remained intact. Problems that have made the country a byword for misrule – a corrupt ruling elite, unaccountable intelligence services, and nationalist extremists adept at exploiting social misery – remain largely unresolved. Only in 2000, it was in Romania that the best electoral performance so far of any of Europe’s radical extremist movements was obtained. The reconciliation between the West and a predatory ruling elite which rules by strong-arm methods, has damaging implications for Western security. The mishandling of Romania has tarnished the EU’s reputation for strengthening democracy in the Balkans, the key regional arena for its emerging new foreign policy.This book argues that another serious miscalculation by the West has been made as it scrambles to find local allies in a troubled neighbourhood. It predicts that Romania will be a future trouble-spot unless efforts to resume much-needed reforms are undertaken.

Review and order on www.amazon.co.uk website:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/1850657165/reviews/202-0798309-3490261

Book Description

Romania had the chance of a fresh start politically after the collapse of the brutal and macabre dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. Instead bad governance has persisted within an incomplete democatic system with disastrous results for many millions of people.

Tom Gallagher explores why continuity rather than change has been the dominant feature of political life after 1989. He provides an inspring portait of the post-communist leadership centred around Ion Iliescu, Adrian Nastase and their clients and allies, showing how defense of private or group interests has usually been their primary concern. He shows how they promoted bogus nationalist movements in order to cover up systematic misuse of state resources. The failure of the non-communist democratic alternative, centred around Emil Constantinscu, Romania’s President from 1996 to 2000, to break this pattern of misrule, is closely examined.

The author warns hat NATO and EU membership are unlikely to provide the impetus for national recovery unless convincing local partners are found, prepared at all times to defend Romania’s national interests. The danger that Romania wll become a Latin American-style island of backwardness inside hte EU is a real one as the ruling PSD agrees entry terms that severely weaken Romanian agriculture, industry and commerce. Incisive portraits of the political elite, the security services and the new economic oligarchy are provided in this study. Tom Gallagher is convinced that Romania can break free from the communist past and enjoy close and fruitful links with the West only if strong reformist movements emerge from increasingly self-aware sections of society that reject the political practices of the past.

SYNOPSIS
Problems that have made the country a byword for misrule – such as a corrupt ruling elite, unaccountable intelligence services and extreme nationalists adept at exploiting social misery – remain largely unresolved. Only in 2000m it was in Romania that the best electoral performance so far of any of Europe’s radical extremist movements was obtained. As NATO and the European Union expand eastwards, the success of the most important shift in European security since the end of the Cold War is bound up with the outcome of necessary reforms in Romania.
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FURTUL UNEI NATIUNI. ROMANIA DE LA COMUNISM INCOACE

Tom GALLAGHER

Furtul unei natiuni. Romania de la comunism incoace
Editura Humanitas, Noiembrie 2004, seria istorie
432 pagini,
ISBN 973-50-0848-3

http://www.humanitas.ro/carti/carte.php?id=1611

Romania vazuta de Tom Gallagher e una fara retusuri. In instrumentarul cercetatorului nu exista nici minciuni cosmetice, nici partipriuri de conjunctura. Miza unei asemenea carti sta tocmai in capacitatea autorului de a ramane echidistant si de a trata subiectul cu detasarea specifica profesionistilor. Tom Gallagher a vizitat Romania si a ajuns s-o cunoasca in amanunt. Nimic nu ii este strain, de la mazilirile pronuntate de Inalta Poarta la excursiile mineresti in centrul Bucurestiului. Furtul unei natiuni nu cuprinde retete de insanatosire sau sfaturi rostite din varful buzelor. Volumul inseamna in primul rand o cantitate enorma de informatii sistematizate impecabil. Gallagher a cotrobait prin arhive, a consultat colectiile ziarelor, a petrecut sute de ore pe Internet, a discutat cu oameni din miezul evenimentelor si a aflat tot ceea ce il interesa. Rezultatul este, fara dubiu, impresionant. Cititorul roman avea nevoie de un demers neutru si meticulos, de un ghid prin trecutul indepartat sau recent, de o minienciclopedie a succeselor si esecurilor nationale. Exact asta ii furnizeaza Furtul unei natiuni. Nu stim cati dintre puternicii de azi sau de ieri vor parcurge cartea si se vor programa pentru un examen de constiinta. Este cert insa ca publicul va avea ocazia sa vada nu doar cum ne privesc altii, ci in special cat mai avem de mers pana cand vom atinge limanul normalitatii.

Tom Gallagher

Profesorul Thomas Gerard Gallagher (n. 1954) a studiat la Universitatea din Manchester si a scris o teza de doctorat cu titlul „Teoria si practica autoritarismului in Portugalia“. In prezent el preda la Universitatea din Bradford, unde este de ani buni seful catedrei de studii despre pace. Manifesta un interes statornic pentru Romania, pentru regiunea balcanica si pentru Europa de Sud-Est, fapt dovedit de cartile publicate pana acum: Romania dupa Ceausescu: politica intolerantei, Democratie si nationalism in Romania, 1989-1998, Europa proscrisa: Balcanii de la otomani la Milosevici, De la tiranie la tragedie: Balcanii dupa Razboiul Rece, Balcanii in noul mileniu: in umbra pacii si a razboiului. Totodata, Tom Gallagher editeaza impreuna cu G. Pridham volumul Experimentul democratic: schimbarile de regim in Balcani, iar impreuna cu A. Williams lucrarea Socialismul sud-est european. Ultimele cercetari despre tara noastra ii asigura informatiile necesare pentru Furtul unei natiuni. Romania de la comunism incoace, in afara cartilor pe care le-a publicat, universitarul britanic este o prezenta frecventa in revistele de specialitate, dintre care mentionam Journal of Communist Studies & Transition Politics, European History Quarterly, Security Dialogue, History Today, The National Interest, Democratization, Balkanologie, Ethnic and Racial Studies etc. Invitat la numeroase conferinte de profil istoric, Tom Gallagher calatoreste la Zagreb, Praga, Budapesta sau Garmisch-Parterkirchen, unde vorbeste despre probleme de balcanologie, initiative politice regionale, etnicitate si democratizare.

———————————————–

One unexpected surprise (and irritation) which the Romanian victors experienced since the Paris Peace Treaty, was the unwelcome association with vampires and vampirism, which came about as part and parcel of the union with Transylvania, after WWI.

Ever since the demise of Nicolae Ceausescu, the latest Romanian dictator to be associated with vampirism, the accusation of “sucking the blood of the people” was a common Marxist-Leninist syntagm. Yet the heirs of the post-Cerausescu’s regime got the practice to an even finer if more refined tune.

Unlike their political predecessors, current Romanian leaders tried instead to capitalise on their unfortunate image and exploit it by turning tough luck to financial gain. The idea of a “Dracula Park”, equivalent of a vampire Disney land was much heralded to the world at large and its location to be was none other than Dracula’s own home town in Transylvania. The idea hatched in the alembic of the Romanian Government’s inner sanctum was so irresistible that Government ministers headed by PM Adrian Nastase, to the lesser fry but, nevertheless, distinguished politicians, gave their blessing to this latest extraordinary wonder (and bought shares in the vampire Company): such is Romania, full of surprises and of fun.

Sadly for this unprecedented Transylvanian venture, involving EU funds (and advice from Price Waterhouse?), Dracula Park also attracted the attention of consummate environmentalist and arch-conservationist Charles Windsor, of Welsh and Cornish repute.
Amongst Charles’ team of advisers was an indomitable champion of Romanian causes, Jessica Douglas Hume, a lady with a thorough experience of things Romanian, who two decades earlier defied Ceausescu’s own secret police, which wrestled with her and declared her a “very dangerous lady”: she survived another day to burry Dracula’s Park forever, having earlier saved scores of Romanian villages from the threat of Ceausescu’s bulldozers.
Faced with the adverse publicity of this illustrious British tandem, Prime Minister Nastase had to back-pedal.

Vampirism is a pre-Christian tradition, which entered the European psyche since times immemorial. The phenomenon fascinated many generations of British from Byron and Mary Shelley to Bram Stoker. It also interested a young lady graduate of Bedford College London, Dr. Agnes Kelly (1875 –1929), married to a Romanian scientist Gheorghe Munteanu-Murgoci, who brought her to Romania. Kelly’s publications on Romanian vampires still make today classic reading.

Few people know that by virtue of her Anglo-Romanian marriage, Miss Kelly’s family members included such relations as a son-in-law, who was a distinguished President of the Cambridge Debating Society, a graduate in Theology and Anglican Minister who became Dean of Peterborough Cathedral, but also, most improbably, in Romania, yet another Minister, a step-son, a communist government minister, that is, in the person of Miron Constantinescu. Ironically Miron Constrantinescu was an intimate associate of Ceausescu: perhaps never ever before had an Anglican God come so perilously close to a Romanian vampire.

Recent Romanian politics confirmed a long-established truth, namely that Romanian communists are seasoned politicians and no sooner they lick the wounds of their latest defeat, (dismissed as a mere, temporary set-back), that they come to the charge with yet a bigger and better idea: if vampirism cannot help popularity at the polls, surely necrophilia can. The switch of tactics is even more pressing as the Presidential elections are to take place, very soon and the current incumbent had a bitter taste of his plummeting popularity, on an official visit to Toronto. In Canada, just as he was to deliver an official speech, a young Romanian exile hit Iliescu on the head with a cheese tart: “it is for people like you, that we were forced to take the road of exile”. Iliescu’s Culture Minister, Razvan Teodorescu, came to the President’s rescue, labelling the unruly crowd as a bunch of “mentally retarded”. The Canadian police did not intervene – they looked on bemused, as the gesture fell within the limits of the freedom of expression, allowed in Canada on such political rallies… not so in Romania, where the police and tribunals are mere pawns of the existing ruling Socialist party and where the unwary are dragged into lengthy and expensive court suits. Freedom of the Press is on the list of endangered species in Dracula’s country, and “Journalistes sans Frontieres’, “Amnesty International” and other Human Rights organisations are well aware of the Romanian practice.

Mindful of the great leverage which Romanian exiles, and there are over one million of them since 1990, alone, hold in the 2004 elections, President iliescu had made unrelenting attempts at attracting new voters. Amongst these are targeted Romanian royalty and royalists as well as the aristocratic families and their sympathisers:

Steeped in history and fashioned in pomp and pageantry historical events are staged, all over the country, with the President and government officials in attendance: nearly without exception all these shows involve a reburial of a monarch or a medieval prince, or, perhaps, the 500th memorial service of some emblematic ruler.

The latest such “historic event” was the blessing of the Cotroceni monastery church, razed to the ground by Ceausescu, in 1980 and rebuilt by Iliescu. The Monastic complex of historic buildings is the very presidential palace in Bucharest, which was erected in the 17th c by the ruling prince (voyevode) Serban Cantacuzino. His earthly remains were brought back for re-interring, before the smell of fresh paint had time to disappear. Military honours were observed by the Presidential guard, in the waft of Orthodox incense and Byzantine chants. The exiled Cantacuzinos, from the four corners of the world gathered fro the memorial service held by patriarch Teoctist the bearded cleric who presided over the very demolition of the church he now blessed. As head of the Romanian church, a few years ago, Teoctist invited the Pope to visit Romania, the first time ever the Pope visited an Orthodox country, before Greece or Russia where he still hopes to be invited. Last months, Iliescu visited the Pope and although the Romanian Government’s promises of returning the Catholic and Uniate churches the properties confiscated by communists remained without cover, Iliescu, on this occasion, allocated, as an electioneering ploy, some grant to the Catholics in Romania.

All these historic forays border on obsessive religion and cult of the dead. They are carefully choreographed events all be it copying in a sense some of the national funerals and expression of general grief shown, in a different context in the West (the funeral of Princess Diana? Maybe the pilgrimage to Compostella, or to Lourdes?)

But in Romania, the cult of the dead and the rich traditions that surround burials, memorial services and wakes have a propensity for grief soon veering to public revels. Such bi-polarity is good political capital for the Party in Government anxious to extend its position by another four-year term: the grief helps a communion of spirit and gives a sense of history, whilst the ensuing revels demonstrate confidence and optimism in the leadership of the day. In this way history becomes the engine of the governmental hearse: the confused electorate attending such pantomime may well ask – are these people on the way out, or, rather on the way in, yet again, for a fifth term, but one, since 1990?

All the above shenanigans, performed by a Communist and a close aide of Ceausescu, may appear hilarious in any democracy, but in Romania, a country systematically plundered by the Iliescu’s party, it has a particularly sad if unsavoury repercussion, as hundreds of thousands of young Romanian professionals, 9and even unskilled workers and youngsters seeking their fortune) cross the border, legally or illegally, by any means in order to make a living in the West.
The haemorrhage is one which is completely misunderstood by Iliescu who said at a recent Seminar on Romanian Youth emigration, held at Sinaia. The nearest translation of the President’s inspired dictum is presented below, in the Anglo-Saxon vulgate, to which we are used:

“Whilst Europe was frolicking, we (Romanians) were under the domination of great empires. The Western nations did not count only on their own ‘fat’, but rather lived for centuries off other people’s stamina; such is their historic advantage. We (Romanians) had instead to pay tax to the Ottoman Porte.”
(….)
The Romanian President went on suggesting that today’s Romanian Government ought to be compensated, by the West, for such brain drain

Quite!

If anybody was to receive compensation from the Western countries, employing since 1990 more than one million Romanians, it should be not the Romanian Government for the loss of skilled labour, but the emigrants themselves .

It is the regime of Mr Ilescu who forced these desperate people to be uprooted, to be forced into exile, with all the related pain and drama of broken families and broken lives.

Mr Iliescu’s statement borders on insensitivity, matched only by Ceausescu’s practice of passports for dollars, the kind of “blood-money” exacted from desperate peoples wishing, for decades past to escape communism.
For Ceausescu sold hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans and Jews to the governments of West Germany and Israel, respectively, Now his successors are forcing the poor and the desperate native Romanians out of the country on the excuse that such poverty is the result of centuries-old taxation by the Ottomans!

Thankfully the old Roman empire was left out of the political discourse, but before the Presidential campaign is over, surely it may not be too late to remind one of the Dacian gold carried to Rome some 2,000 years ago, rather than the National Bank of Romania’s gold reserves lost to Moscow 85 years ago.

Before the November elections the New Ottomans carry on blaming the Old, as if there was no tomorrow, but mostly as if the electorate was dim and dumb.