The Golaniad ( , from the word ''golan'' meaning "hoodlum") was a protest in
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
in the
University Square,
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...
. It was initiated by students and professors at the
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest (UB) () is a public university, public research university in Bucharest, Romania. It was founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princely Academy of Bucharest, P ...
.
The Golaniad started in April 1990, before the
election of 20 May 1990, which was the first election after the
Romanian Revolution
The Romanian revolution () was a period of violent Civil disorder, civil unrest in Socialist Republic of Romania, Romania during December 1989 as a part of the revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several countries around the world, primarily ...
of December 1989. Their main demand was that former leading members of the
Communist Party should be banned from standing in elections.
Background
Ion Iliescu
Ion Iliescu (; born 3 March 1930) is a Romanian politician and engineer who served as the second president of Romania from 1989 until 1996 and from 2000 until 2004. Between 1996 and 2000 and also from 2004 to 2008, the year in which he retired, ...
and the
National Salvation Front (FSN) seized power during the 1989 revolution. The FSN organization was meant to act as a temporary government until free elections were to be held. However, on 23 January 1990, despite its earlier claims, it decided to become a party and to run in the elections it would organize. Some of the dissenters and anti-communists who joined the FSN during the revolution (including
Doina Cornea) left following this decision.
Many of the FSN personalities, including its president, Iliescu, were ex-communists and as such the revolution was seen as being hijacked by the FSN. The FSN, which was widely known from the revolution and associated with it, won 66.3% of the votes, while the next party – the
Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania – obtained only 7.2% of the votes, followed by the
National Liberal Party at 6.4%, with the
Ecological Movement of Romania (MER) and the
Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party
The Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party (, PNȚCD) is an agrarianism, agrarian and Christian democracy, Christian democratic list of political parties in Romania, political party in Romania. It claims to be the rightful successor of t ...
(PNȚ-CD) trailing at around 2.6% (see ''
1990 Romanian general election'').
The protests

On 22 April 1990, the Independent Group for Democracy (''Grupul Independent pentru Democrație'')
[Rus, p. 75] organised a demonstration in
Aviators' Square. After the peaceful demonstration, groups of people marched towards the
Romanian Television (TVR) station, calling for its political independence. The following day, the PNȚ-CD organized an even larger protest (around 2,500–3,000 people), occupying the road in the
University Square, and some protesters decided to sit-in overnight.
The protests drew the ire of the authorities, who, during the night of 23–24 April, began a repression of the protesters. The law enforcement agents beat up the protesters and arrested some of them.
The authorities' violence had the exact opposite effect than the one expected, as more people came.
Two days later, they were still there, their numbers growing; on the evening of 25 April, their number reached 30,000. The sympathetic press reported even higher numbers, up to 50,000 each evening. A number of protesters began a
hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance where participants fasting, fast as an act of political protest, usually with the objective of achieving a specific goal, such as a policy change. Hunger strikers that do not take fluids are ...
.
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Ion Iliescu
Ion Iliescu (; born 3 March 1930) is a Romanian politician and engineer who served as the second president of Romania from 1989 until 1996 and from 2000 until 2004. Between 1996 and 2000 and also from 2004 to 2008, the year in which he retired, ...
refused to negotiate with the protesters and called them "golani" ("golan" meaning a
hooligan, a scamp, a ruffian, or a good-for-nothing – which later gave the protest its name) or
legionnaires.
The leadership of the National Salvation Front realized that the protests grew too big to be able to repress them with impunity, so it focused on demonizing them in the state-controlled media.
[Rus, p. 76] This part of the media called the protesters "delinquents", "hooligans", "parasites", "thieves", "extremists", "fascists", "traitors", etc.
This campaign was successful particularly outside Bucharest, where the government-owned media was the only source of information.
Public television showed reports of the protests in which they interviewed people marginal to both the protests and the Romanian society, such as
Roma people, hawksters, and prowlers.
[Rus, p. 77]
Name and anthem
The ending "-ad" ("-ada" in Romanian) was used ironically, since many of
Nicolae Ceaușescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu ( ; ; – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian politician who was the second and last Communism, communist leader of Socialist Romania, Romania, serving as the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 u ...
's Communist manifestations had endings like this, for instance the annual national sporting event ''
Daciad'' (in order to compare them either with an epic, like the
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...
or, rather, with the international
Olympiad
An olympiad (, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the Ancient Olympic Games, ancient and Olympic Games, modern Olympic Games.
Although the ancient Olympics were established during Archaic Greece, Greece ...
). The protesters also composed their own hymn, "Imnul Golanilor":
:Mai bine haimana, decât trădător
:Mai bine huligan, decât dictator
:Mai bine golan, decât activist
:Mai bine mort decât comunist"
:: lyrics by Laura Botolan; music by
Cristian Pațurcă
The song may be translated into English as:
:Better to be a tramp than a traitor,
:Better to be a hooligan than a dictator,
:Better to be a hoodlum than an activist,
:Better to be dead than communist"
Support
Many
intellectual
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...
s supported the protests, including writers such as
Octavian Paler,
Ana Blandiana,
Gabriel Liiceanu
Gabriel Liiceanu (; b. May 23, 1942, Râmnicu Vâlcea) is a Romanian philosopher.
He graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Philosophy in 1965, and from Faculty of Classical Languages in 1973. He earned a doctorate in philosoph ...
,
Stelian Tănase, and film director
Lucian Pintilie
Lucian Pintilie (; 9 November 1933 – 16 May 2018[Lucian Pi ...](_blank)
. Renowned playwright
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco (; ; born Eugen Ionescu, ; 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre#Avant-garde, French avant-garde th ...
supported them by sending a telegram from
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
in which he wrote he was a "Golan Academician" (''Hooligan
Academician'').
Demands
The three main demands of the protesters were as follows.
# The eighth point of the
Proclamation of Timișoara: leading members of the
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party ( ; PCR) was a communist party in Romania. The successor to the pro-Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave an ideological endorsement to a communist revolution that would replace the social system ...
and the
Securitate not to be allowed to be candidates in the elections.
# Access to the state-owned mass media for all candidates, not only FSN candidates. A 1975 law of Ceaușescu (which was not yet repealed) allowed the President of Romania to directly control Romanian Television and Radio.
# Postponing of the elections, since the only party that had the resources for the campaign was FSN.
The protesters also disagreed with the official doctrine of the FSN that the Revolution was only "anti-Ceaușescu" and not "anti-Communist" (as
Silviu Brucan declared in an interview given to the British newspaper ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''). They also supported faster reforms, shock-therapy to usher in an unregulated free market, and a liberal-style democracy (Ion Iliescu argued for a "Swedish-style" socialism and an "original democracy", considering
multi-party system
In political science, a multi-party system is a political system where more than two meaningfully-distinct political parties regularly run for office and win elections. Multi-party systems tend to be more common in countries using proportional ...
as being antiquated
[ Vladimir Tismăneanu]
"Semnificaţiile revoluţiei române"
, Jurnalul Național).
After the elections the protests continued, the main goal being the removal of the government.
Violent ending
After 52 days of protests, on 13–15 June, a
violent confrontation with government supporters and miners from the
Jiu Valley
The Jiu Valley ( , ) is a region in southwestern Transylvania, Romania, in Hunedoara county, situated in a valley of the Jiu River between the Retezat Mountains and the Parâng Mountains. The region was heavily industrialised and the main activity ...
ended the protests, with many of the protesters and bystanders being beaten and wounded. Sources differ on the number of the casualties, the government confirming seven deaths related to the events.
See also
*
Proclamation of Timișoara
*
Lustration
Notes
References
*
External links
*
*
{{Riots, protests and civil disorder in Romanian territory
Protests in Romania
History of Bucharest
Romanian revolution
1990 in Romania
History of Romania (1989–present)