As a means of solidifying his control over Romanian historiography, Roller promoted his supporters at the academy's history institutes, especially the
Bucharest branch, headed from 1953 by Victor Cheresteșiu and his deputy Aurel Roman. He was himself supported by a number of young researchers whom he had promoted and sent to study in the Soviet Union. He focused keenly on introducing ideology into higher education and party control over universities, and his general duties included supervision over science as a whole, not only history. His functions and execution of party orders meant that Roller essentially controlled all the historiography produced between 1948 and 1955. His words indicated the limits within which historians could practice their craft. In the view of historian Liviu Pleșa, Roller's activities sought to "uproot traditional values from the Romanian mindset" and replace them with the new regime's propagandistic themes.
[Pleșa, p.167]
The Roller directives are infamous for emphasizing the supposed grandeur of the Soviet Union under Stalin, but also for praising
Tsarist Russia and the
Slavic peoples
The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, Southeast ...
. The other ideas emphasized included the condemnation of other foreigners, particularly Westerners, starting with Ancient Rome—the French, Italian and American libraries were shut down, their patrons arrested; condemnation of the formerly dominant
boyar
A boyar or bolyar was a member of the highest rank of the feudal nobility in many Eastern European states, including Bulgaria, Kievan Rus' (and later Russia), Moldavia and Wallachia (and later Romania), Lithuania and among Baltic Germans. C ...
s ("traitors" to the
Ottomans
Ottoman may refer to:
* Osman I, historically known in English as "Ottoman I", founder of the Ottoman Empire
* Osman II, historically known in English as "Ottoman II"
* Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empir ...
) and
bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...
("cosmopolitan" and "serving imperialist capitalists"); and minimization of the role played by historic Romanian figures.
Described by traditionalist historians as Romania's war of national unity, World War I was treated by Roller and other Marxist-Leninists as an "imperialist war".
Romania's participation was therefore an "imperialist action", as were the occupation of
Bessarabia
Bessarabia () is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova, with the Budjak region covering the southern coa ...
and the
intervention in Hungary.
The official view of Romanian history that these ideas represented was developed by Agitprop activists and the PMR's own History Institute, later becoming dogma when approved by party plenaries and congresses. Authoritative texts included the writings of Stalin, the ''"Short Course" History of the Soviet Communist Party'', the decisions of the PMR's central committee and the writings and speeches of Gheorghiu-Dej. In the early years of the regime, scholars often imbued their work with an ideological tint by quoting Stalin or, to a lesser degree, Lenin. Taking their cue from a 1946 speech by
Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov ( rus, Андрей Александрович Жданов, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪdʑ ˈʐdanəf, a=Ru-Андрей Жданов.ogg, links=yes; – 31 August 1948) was a Soviet politician. He was ...
, Răutu and Roller sought to replace the "bourgeois-reactionary" and "anti-Romanian" old historiography with dialectical materialism; the latter warned that failure to write a new history "would have left in the hands of the class enemy an ideological weapon against the working class".
[Pleșa, p.168]
''Istoria R.P.R.''
His history textbook, the first
Marxist synthesis of Romanian history, appeared in 1947, in one edition for advanced pupils and another for younger ones. It portrayed the country's history through the lens of
Marxist stages of history: primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism and socialism, advancing all the while through
class struggle
In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequali ...
.
Initially called ''Istoria României'' ("The History of Romania") but later ''Istoria R.P.R.'' ("The History of the Romanian People's Republic"), it appeared between 1947 and 1956 and was used until the 1961–1962 school year. Appearing very quickly ("in record time", according to Stoian),
it was not written from scratch by Roller and his collaborators, but rather used documents from the PCR's period of illegality, especially the theses adopted by the fifth party congress held near Moscow in 1931. These criticized the 1859 union, the
1918 union, the constitutional government, democratic reforms, the monarchy, parliamentarism, the activity of the historic parties' leaders and foreign policy, with all these criticisms entering the textbook.
''Istoria R.P.R.'' earned its author the Romanian State Prize for 1949,
while Agitprop presented it as a huge success. Its claims (instantly sold-out editions, millions of copies in circulation) were in fact irrelevant, as there was no actual competition in the field. The only history textbook allowed in schools, it has been described by
Șerban Papacostea as "the vastest work of political mystification of Romania's past", making Roller "a symbol of the effort to adapt the Romanian past to the imperatives of the
Soviet occupation and the '
internationalist' regime" imposed on the country.
Boia also notes that, especially after adopting an acronym in its title, ''Istoria...'' overturned the logic of previous historiographic discourse, from the "national idea" to "the internationalist spirit". Stoian additionally suggests that ''Istoria...'' is a failure from a literary point of view. It is written in "
wooden tongue" and its phrases have "the taste of sud".
The textbook's political ideas became historiographic theses and quickly turned into requirements for all the official history writing of the period. Class struggle was presented as the driving force of history, with social conflicts taken out of context and exaggerated in importance. A special case is the ancient history chapter, on
Roman Dacia
Roman Dacia ( ; also known as ; or Dacia Felix, ) was a province of the Roman Empire from 106 to 271–275 AD. Its territory consisted of what are now the regions of Oltenia, Transylvania and Banat (today all in Romania, except the last regi ...
. There, commentators note, Roller veers into
pseudohistory
Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseud ...
, creating a narrative about social revolts among the
Dacians
The Dacians (; ; ) were the ancient Indo-European inhabitants of the cultural region of Dacia, located in the area near the Carpathian Mountains and west of the Black Sea. They are often considered a subgroup of the Thracians. This area include ...
, none of which actually occurred. Historic figures were relegated to the exploitative classes, the suppression of these classes by the
dictatorship of the proletariat being justified by their centuries of misdeeds. The Soviet Union was lavished with praise, the contributions of Slavs in Romanian history being highlighted, from the
migratory period to the
medieval period
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...
, to the
War of Independence
Wars of national liberation, also called wars of independence or wars of liberation, are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) ...
and the present.
[Pleșa, p.169] The very
origin of the Romanians
Several theories, in great extent mutually exclusive, address the issue of the origin of the Romanians. The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireček Line" (a proposed notion ...
was narrated differently than before: Roller himself concluded that the influence of Slavic polities—
Danube Bulgaria,
Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus,.
* was the first East Slavs, East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical At ...
,
Halych
Halych (, ; ; ; ; , ''Halitsch'' or ''Galitsch''; ) is a historic List of cities in Ukraine, city on the Dniester River in western Ukraine. The city gave its name to the Principality of Halych, the historic province of Galicia (Eastern Europe), ...
—was fundamental in shaping the lives of early Romanians. Classical Western values were attacked, more violently in later editions as the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
deepened.
The iconography of national awakening was consciously modified.
Michael the Brave
Michael the Brave ( or ; 1558 – 9 August 1601), born as Mihai Pătrașcu, was the Prince of Wallachia (as Michael II, 1593–1601), Prince of Moldavia (1600) and ''de facto'' ruler of Principality of Transylvania (1570–1711), Transylvani ...
, previously depicted as a national unifier, was presented as a tool of
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans (disambiguation), Emperor of the Romans (; ) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period (; ), was the ruler and h ...
Rudolf II
Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). He was a member of the H ...
. The
Transylvanian School
The Transylvanian School () was a cultural and political movement which started after part of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Habsburg-ruled Transylvania accepted the leadership of the pope and became the Greek-Catholic Church (). The links with ...
was renamed the "Latinist School", its leaders accused of hiding Slavic and Russian influence on Romanians and of promoting
chauvinism
Chauvinism ( ) is the unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people, who are seen as strong and virtuous, while others are considered weak, unworthy, or inferior. The ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' describes it ...
.
The 1848 rebellions, and in particular the successful
Wallachian Revolution, were described as precursors of Marxism-Leninism. Of the leaders, only
Nicolae Bălcescu
Nicolae Bălcescu () (29 June 181929 November 1852) was a Romanian Wallachian soldier, historian, journalist, and leader of the 1848 Wallachian Revolution.
Early life
Born in Bucharest to a family of low-ranking nobility, he used his mother ...
was appreciated for combating feudalism and siding with Tsarist Russia; at the other end,
Avram Iancu
Avram Iancu (; ; 1824 – September 10, 1872) was a Transylvanian Romanian lawyer who played an important role in the local chapter of the Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire, Austrian Empire Revolutions of 1848–1849. He was especiall ...
was chided for collaborating with the
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...
. Roller's views of Bălcescu were almost entirely positive, and developed into a communist
personality cult
A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an ideali ...
: counterfactually, Roller described Bălcescu's
left-liberalism as a highly advanced form of
utopian socialism
Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...
and proto-Marxism. The 1859
union of the principalities only benefited the bourgeoisie by expanding the market for their products, and favored their class only, rather than the masses and the nation as a whole.
[Boia, ''Istorie și mit...'', p.110, 209; Pleșa, p.169] Alexandru Ioan Cuza
Alexandru Ioan Cuza (, or Alexandru Ioan I, also Anglicised as Alexander John Cuza; 20 March 1820 – 15 May 1873) was the first ''domnitor'' (prince) of the Romanian Principalities through his double election as List of monarchs of Moldavia ...
, who ruled over the unified state, was criticized as a hesitant reformer.
The creation of
Greater Romania
Greater Romania () is the Kingdom of Romania in the interwar period, achieved after the Great Union or the related pan-nationalist ideal of a nation-state which would incorporate all Romanian speakers.Irina LivezeanuCultural Politics in Greate ...
in 1918 was viewed, as regards the absorption of Bessarabia, as an "imperialist intervention against the socialist revolution in Russia". Likewise, the
union of Transylvania, was an "intervention against the
revolution in Hungary".
The modern era was considered to have begun not with the union of 1918 but with the
Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917; the
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
became "wild man" and the
Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
, "barbarism".
Communist strikes and demonstrations during the
interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...
were detailed and blown out of proportion, so that the 1917–1948 period was viewed mainly through the lens of PCdR history. Official history was laicized by greatly de-emphasizing the role of the
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC; , ), or Romanian Patriarchate, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination, Christian churches, and one of the nine patriarchates in the East ...
. Recent history presented in a negative light the political parties, the monarchy (according to Roller, "the most reactionary exemplar of its political class and the greatest owner of
latifundia
A ''latifundium'' (Latin: ''latus'', "spacious", and ''fundus'', "farm", "estate") was originally the term used by ancient Romans for great landed estates specialising in agriculture destined for sale: grain, olive oil, or wine. They were charac ...
"), the democratic regime and its institutions.
[Pleșa, p.170] The interwar chapter was headlined "The Increase in Romania's Enslavement to American, English and French Imperialism",
with "only words of scorn" reserved for the
Brătianu family
Brătianu is a family of Romanian politicians, founders of the National Liberal Party (Romania, 1875), National Liberal Party (PNL). They are the following:
* Dincă Brătianu (1768–1844), Romanian nobleman
* Ion Brătianu (1821–1891), PNL pre ...
.
In this way, the class struggle and especially repression against the upper classes were legitimized: if the latter had stood against the masses for centuries, then taking away their properties through
nationalization
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English)
is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with p ...
and incarcerating them seemed just. The events near the end of World War II were depicted as follows: the King Michael Coup was a "liberation by the Soviet Army" defending the country from imperialists;
Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania (, ) was the region of the Kingdom of Romania that during World War II, as a consequence of the August 1940 territorial agreement known as the Second Vienna Award, became part of the Kingdom of Hungary (1920-1946), Kingdom ...
was restored thanks to the Soviets; the
SovRom
The SovRoms (plural of ''SovRom'') were economic enterprises established in Romania following the communist takeover at the end of World War II, in place until 1954–1956 (when they were dissolved by the Romanian authorities).
In theory, SovRo ...
s aided in the country's economic recovery; the clauses favorable to Romania in the
Paris Peace Treaties were due to the Soviets, while punitive ones originated with the imperialists. According to Stoian, the political history sections was largely reliant on fabricated and backdated documents, and justified the PCdR/PMR repression of its enemies, including the "
right-wing social democrats" and the
Zionists
Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the Jewish people, pursued through the colonization of Palestine, a region roughly cor ...
.
Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu
Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (; 4 November 1900 – 17 April 1954) was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania (PCR), also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he ...
, who had endorsed
national communism
National communism is a term describing various forms in which Marxism–Leninism and socialism has been adopted and/or implemented by leaders in different countries using aspects of nationalism or national identity to form a policy independent ...
against his pro-Soviet colleagues and had been executed for it, was retrospectively defined as a "traitor" and "carrier of the bourgeois ideology".
Criticism from Romanian and especially Soviet historians, acting on instructions from the Kremlin, found the text insufficiently Marxist-Leninist. In 1950, one Soviet took issue with the way the Transylvanian School was presented, considering that its Latinist orientation made it a "vassal of the Papacy" and charging it with chauvinism against Slavs and
Hungarians
Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are an Ethnicity, ethnic group native to Hungary (), who share a common Culture of Hungary, culture, Hungarian language, language and History of Hungary, history. They also have a notable presence in former pa ...
. A Soviet delegation that visited Romania in 1949 ended by criticizing a number of elements in Roller's text.
Documentary, writing and enforcement activities
At Roller's initiative, a vast number of historic documents were published. However, these were carefully selected to conform to the party's vision, particularly in volumes on the War of Independence and on the
1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt. For the first, documents casting Russia in an unfavorable light were removed, while for the second, documents not advancing the regime's desire to show the "savage repression of the bourgeois-landowning governments" were not published. Other collections were similarly doctored. For his work on the volume dealing with the peasants' revolt, Roller was again awarded the State Prize, first class, in 1951.
Pleșa does give credit to Roller for ordering publication of documents from the country's medieval period, previously missing from print nearly in their entirety, and of an index to the
Hurmuzachi collection that had become virtually unusable. Although professional historians worked on these projects, he also notes that Roller did not consent to have the documents published in their original form, especially due to the exigencies of working at a
Stakhanovite
The Stakhanovite movement was a Mass movement (politics), mass cultural movement for Workforce, workers established by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Communist Party in the 1930s Soviet Union. Its promoters encouraged Rationalization (e ...
pace, and that the finished products did not reach a very high standard.
[Pleșa, p.171]
He helped plan the Romanian-Russian Museum in Bucharest and the Maxim Gorky Institute of Higher Education, devoted to training teachers of Russian language and literature. The magazine of which he was editor-in-chief, ' ("Studies"), first appeared in 1948. This was quarterly until 1955, then bimonthly until 1974, when it became monthly and its name was changed to ''
Revista de Istorie''. At the same time, magazines on a similar theme were shuttered: ''Revista Istorică'', founded by
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga (17 January 1871 – 27 November 1940) was a historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, Albanologist, poet and playwright. Co-founder (in 1910) of the Democratic Nationalist Party (PND), he served as a member of Parliament ...
,
Constantin C. Giurescu's ''Revista Istorică Română'',
Victor Papacostea's ''Balcanica'' and ''Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes''.
A frequent target of Roller's many articles in ', ' and ' was the pre-communist historiography, which he accused of falsifying the role of the working class and of the masses more broadly. He reiterated that pre-communist historians served the "bourgeois-landowning" regimes dominated by "foreign imperialists", who wished the Romanian people to remain ignorant of their history so they could more easily be exploited.
The rise of Roller coincided with a concerted effort by the new regime to wipe away traces of previous writers, so that works by historians including Giurescu, Victor Papacostea and
Nicolae Benescu were eliminated from the curriculum, while some historians, such as
Gheorghe Brătianu and
Ion Nistor died in prison, their works hidden from public view.
Roller also saw enemies among the ranks of older teachers he believed blocked the "cultural revolution", and promoted "re-education of the teaching staff". He sought to imbue the educational system with a class character and make it serve the interests of workers, peasants and "progressive intellectuals", including those who had rushed to the new regime's side.
Already in 1947, students were encouraged to form Marxist "cells", verifying the dogmatic purity of history lessons, and holding the teachers accountable. In one instance, Roller explained that, as long as the old teaching staff could include a "war criminal" such as
Ion Petrovici, his own colleagues, Răutu and Chișinevschi, were fit to lecture in Marxism-Leninism 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 ...
.
He continued to have a plenary take on education, and insisted that music should form part of schooling. Unintentionally, his position on the subject allowed educators and students to evade politicization for at least part of the school week.
At times, Roller intervened on behalf of certain historians the regime considered undesirable, including the medievalist
P. P. Panaitescu. When the
Securitate
The Department of State Security (), commonly known as the Securitate (, ), was the secret police agency of the Socialist Republic of Romania. It was founded on 30 August 1948 from the '' Siguranța'' with help and direction from the Soviet MG ...
secret police, charging past membership in the
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard () was a Romanian militant revolutionary nationalism, revolutionary Clerical fascism, religious fascist Political movement, movement and political party founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel M ...
, arrested archaeologist
Vladimir Dumitrescu while he was excavating at
Hăbășești, Roller intervened several times with the police leadership, in particular
Alexandru Drăghici and
Gheorghe Pintilie
Gheorghe Pintilie (born Panteley Timofiy Bodnarenko, ; also rendered as Pintilie Bodnarenco, nicknamed Pantiușa; November 9, 1902 – August 21, 1985) was a Soviet and Romanian intelligence agent and political assassin, who served as first head o ...
, until his release was ultimately obtained. Other historians, after their release from prison, also asked Roller for help to start working again.
Impact on archaeology
One particular area into which Roller injected communist ideology was
Romanian archaeology. He shifted the emphasis from Roman Dacia to pre- and post-Roman periods, reflecting Marx' and Engels' view of the Roman Empire as supremely exploitative. He also adapted Stalin's remarks on the "unscientific position of old bourgeois historians" whose study of Russia reportedly began with Kievan Rus' and ignored what came before. In a Romanian context, this meant reversing the "denial of the development of human society prior to
Dacia's conquest" by previous historians. He also emphasized Gheorghiu-Dej's position that Romanian territory had for over a millennium been robbed by Romans and barbarians, just as it had been by French, British or German imperialists.
In 1950, in an article on excavations made the previous year, he criticized
Emil Condurachi, who had explored
Histria, for not studying the native population before the "exploitative" Romans, urging a focus on the battles between
Dacians
The Dacians (; ; ) were the ancient Indo-European inhabitants of the cultural region of Dacia, located in the area near the Carpathian Mountains and west of the Black Sea. They are often considered a subgroup of the Thracians. This area include ...
and unconquered peoples against the Romans. He took issue with
Ion Nestor for refusing to claim the presence of slaves at
Monteoru: "some are afraid to place themselves on the proletariat's class position". Along with
Radu Vulpe
Radu may refer to:
People
* Radu (given name), Romanian masculine given name
* Radu (surname), Romanian surname
* Rulers of Wallachia, see
* Prince Radu of Romania (born 1960), disputed pretender to the former Romanian throne
Other uses
* Radu ( ...
, he was berating for issuing field reports that were purely technical rather than ideologically shaded, concluding that "they do not seek to shed light, using scientific concepts, on the problems of the ancient history of the Romanian People's Republic". Condurachi was singled out for not using his report to attack
Scarlat Lambrino, the previous head excavator at Histria, who as an exile in the West was "a sellout to Anglo-American imperialism".
[Pleșa, p.172] Roller's ideas on class struggle in Roman Dacia imposed the term "
free Dacians" into the archaeological nomenclature. The name implicitly distinguished between Dacians in Roman territory, who were "unfree", and those roaming further east.
Roller instructed that "we must mercilessly unmask the enemies of science and the lackeys of the former bourgeois-landowning regime". Nevertheless, archaeology did become a more ordered field, in contrast to the individual and sporadic efforts that came before. A team of specialists would excavate a site thoroughly, and the regime lavished funds on such studies. Emphasis was laid on finding traces of Slavic settlement, so that this people could be shown to have had an important role in the development of Romanian society.
Fall from grace

In the mid-1950s, Roller's position started losing ground. The death of Stalin and the
Khrushchev Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw (, or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when Political repression in the Soviet Union, repression and Censorship in ...
had echoes within Romania: the country's leader,
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (; 8 November 1901 – 19 March 1965) was a Romanian politician. He was the first Socialist Republic of Romania, Communist leader of Romania from 1947 to 1965, serving as first secretary of the Romanian Communist Party ...
, with an eye to
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
membership, relaxed repressive measures.
Collectivization
Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...
and industrialization were slowed down, certain political prisoners were freed, and the new climate had its effect on the cultural realm as well. Among the prisoners released were intellectuals who were gradually brought back into universities and research institutes. In 1955, a party science and culture section was established, headed by
Pavel Țugui and meant to counteract the grip on culture held by the Răutu–Roller Agitprop section. Gheorghiu-Dej spoke out against the "monopoly and dictate of Roller", especially on history but also on culture in general, and blamed the two for the crisis in the field and the party's poor relationship with intellectuals.
Țugui, by explaining Roller's errors, managed to attract
Gheorghe Apostol and
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 ...
as supporters. He also drew to his side the Romanian Academy members
Constantin Daicoviciu
Constantin Daicoviciu (; February 22, 1898Brătescu, p. 591 – May 27, 1973) was a Romanian historian and archaeologist, professor at the University of Cluj, and titular member of the Romanian Academy.
He was born in Căvăran, at the time i ...
,
David Prodan and
Andrei Oțetea, as well as
education minister
An education minister (sometimes minister of education) is a position in the governments of some countries responsible for dealing with educational matters. Where known, the government department, ministry, or agency that develops policy and deli ...
Ilie Murgulescu
Ilie G. Murgulescu (Orodel, Cornu, 27 January 1902 – Bucharest, 28 October 1991) was a Romanian physical chemist and a communist politician. He was President (education), president of the Romanian Academy (1960–1963) and Minister of Education ...
, and later some of Roller's former collaborators, including Vasile Maciu, Victor Cheresteșiu and Barbu Câmpina. In early 1956, Oțetea, Daicoviciu and Câmpina sent Gheorghiu-Dej a document accusing Roller and close collaborators of plagiarism and unscientific scholarship. One effect of the moves against Roller was the 1955 firing of Aurel Roman as editor of ''Studii'' and his replacement with Oțetea (who the following year also replaced Cheresteșiu as head of the
Bucharest History Institute), so that articles started to appear without Roller's approval. In 1955, he also lost his position at the Agitprop section and was transferred to become deputy director of the PMR History Institute, wielding more power than the titular head,
Constantin Pîrvulescu.
[Pleșa, p.174-5] Also then, the regime was trying to coax
Aurel Decei, a professional historian who had fled to
Ankara
Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...
, into returning and assuming a leadership position in academia. The task of negotiating with Decei fell on diplomat Gheorghe Pele, who noted: "Yes, we have gad this historian fella, a professor, this kike Roller, who has been falsifying history these past years
... They're just now getting rid of him."
By then, Roller was directing the effort to preserve samples of
oral history
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from
people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who pa ...
, interviewing the former "illegalists" and building up a large collection of
magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magnetic ...
recordings. Reputedly, Roller's experiment in oral history had unwittingly managed to embarrass the communist leader: it presented Gheorghiu-Dej as more the secondary figure than the "illegalist" leader fashioned in official documents. In the spring of 1958, as the party celebrated 25 years since the
Grivița Strike of 1933
The Grivița strike of 1933 was a railway strike which was started at the Grivița Workshops, Bucharest, the Kingdom of Romania in February 1933 by workers of Căile Ferate Române (Romanian Railways). The strike was brought about by the increa ...
, the PMR Institute collection of recordings was in focus. A number of the "illegalists", especially those who did not receive the posts they expected after 1944, began to question whether Gheorghiu-Dej had played the leading role he claimed for himself during the strike, as well as criticizing the country's direction. The latter hastily called a plenary session of the central committee for 9–13 June, where a group of
deviationists was "unmasked". The group was entirely composed of members who had belonged to the party when it was banned and included prominent figures such as
Constantin Doncea and
Grigore Răceanu
Grigore Ion Răceanu (1906–1996) was a Romanian communist politician and opponent of Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Born in Cojocna, Cluj County, he became a train driver for Căile Ferate Române. He was also a trade union leader, being one of the organi ...
. Officially, they were sanctioned for criticizing the leadership and its work methods as well as for attempting to organize a conference where party activity would be discussed. The underlying motive for the purge was their criticism of the party's stifling atmosphere and of the personality cult surrounding Gheorghiu-Dej.
The plenary session also criticized Roller, and afterwards,
Paul Niculescu-Mizil presented the party leadership a report recommending that the entire leadership of the PMR Institute save the director be removed. At the same time as the plenary, a joint meeting of Romanian and Soviet historians took place at which Oțetea sharply criticized Roller for the unprofessionalism with which he published documents and announced they would be republished. The Soviets did not defend Roller, which the latter interpreted as a loss of support from his former allies.
[Pleșa, p.175]
Death and legacy
Roller died on 21 June 1958, and Pleșa believes he most likely committed suicide.
Tismăneanu initially credited that rumor in his
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...
addresses,
but later noted that the suicide story was "unconfirmed". According to at least two accounts, Roller had also suffered a
stroke
Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...
or a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
some time during the "unmasking" sessions. He died without heirs. He had married Sara Zighelboim, whose brothers Avram and Ștrul were communist activists during the 1930s. She was originally from Bessarabia, and had returned there in 1940, shortly before Roller himself.
Their daughter Sonela died in 1956 while with her father at a health resort: after diving into a pool, she suffered a fatal head trauma.
An urn containing Roller's ashes is housed at the
Cenușa Crematorium in Bucharest.
Although sidelined by the time of his death, he received the usual PMR honor, an obituary piece in '.
Anticommunist intellectual
G. T. Kirileanu recorded in his diary on 22 June that Roller had "done much harm to Romanian culture." Kirileanu accentuated the Jewish component of Roller's identity, referring to him as a "rabbi's son", and arguing that, through him, "Jews impose
their point on view on the evolution of Romanian spirituality." Roller's death did not result in a thorough change to the historiographical ideas he had put forth. Class struggle and dialectical materialism continued to be taught in schools. While history writing did alter after 1960, with less emphasis placed on the "greatness" of the Soviet Union and on criticizing the West, and greater attention paid to previously neglected historical figures, this was due not so much to Roller's disappearance from the scene as to Romania's changed international position and gradual alienation from the Soviets. The role of guiding communist historiography fell on Marxists from the professional field, primarily Oțetea.
Tismăneanu and historian Cristian Vasile note that Roller's downfall was a sacrificial offering by Leonte Răutu, who survived the "unmasking" period and was still a culture boss under the
national communism of the 1960s. Gheorghiu-Dej's successor Ceaușescu allowed young authors—
Ileana Vrancea,
Ion Cristoiu—or senior figures—
Iorgu Iordan
Iorgu Iordan (; also known as ''Jorgu Jordan'' or ''Iorgu Jordan''; – September 20, 1986) was a Romanian linguist, philologist, diplomat, journalist, and left-wing agrarian, later communist, politician. The author of works on a large variety o ...
—, to publish works critical of the Zhdanov Doctrine. Although these mentioned Roller by name, Răutu was entirely exempt. Iordan calls Roller the "evil genie" of the Romanian Academy, and makes him responsible for the more "fanatical" decisions—such as granting posthumous Academy membership to the Marxist poet
Dumitru Theodor Neculuță. A bizarre exception to this rule was an official reference work, the 1978 ("The Encyclopedia of Romanian Historiography"). It has an entry on Roller, which does not feature any negative commentary, while Răutu is entirely absent.
Roller's contribution was reevaluated again after the
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian revolution () was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several countries around the world, primarily within the Eastern Bloc. The Romanian revoluti ...
toppled communism. Some of the first monographs dealing with Roller's career and its impact on Romania were published by
Romulus Rusan, the
Civic Alliance Foundation, and the
Sighet Memorial of the Victims of Communism.
Writing in 1999, Mihai Stoian described it as anomalous that, in the process of restoring membership to those deposed by the regime, the Academy had not also posthumously stripped Roller of his title. He calls Roller "a red specter", haunting "the bookcases dusted by lies and servitude."
Senior historian
Florin Constantiniu reflected back on the communist period, coining the popular (but, according to Cristian Vasile, melodramatic) image of Roller as "the gravedigger of authentic Romanian culture". At that stage, some authors described Roller's influence as criminal, and declared him an anti-Romanian by conviction. The books of
antisemitic
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
conspiracy theorist
Iosif Constantin Drăgan cited Roller's case as evidence that
Jewish communism was working against the Romanians.
[Boia, ''Istorie și mit...'', p.258-9] Despite such widespread condemnation of his theories, Roller's terminology was not entirely expunged from later Romanian research works. As noted in 1998 by archaeologist Petre Diaconu, the "meaningless and pernicious" concept of "
free Dacians" has been taken for granted by numerous scientists in the field.
Notes
References
*
Lucian Boia,
**''Istorie și mit în conștiința românească'',
Humanitas
(from the Latin , "human") is a Latin noun meaning human nature, civilization, and kindness. It has uses in the Enlightenment, which are discussed below.
Classical origins of term
The Latin word corresponded to the Greek concepts of (loving ...
, Bucharest, 2000.
**''Capcanele istoriei. Elita intelectuală românească între 1930 și 1950'', Humanitas, Bucharest, 2012.
*
Adrian Cioroianu, ',
Editura Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2005.
*Adrian Drăgușanu, "", in Lucian Boia (ed.), ',
Editura Nemira, Bucharest, 1997–1998, p. 98-132.
*Victor Frunză, ''Istoria stalinismului în România'', Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990.
*Titu Georgescu, "Activitatea Comitetului național antifascist (1933—1934)", in ''Studii. Revistă de Istorie'', Nr. 2/1961, pp. 323–53.
*Liviu Pleșa, "Mihail Roller și 'stalinizarea' istoriografiei românești", in the
1 December University of Alba Iulia's ''Series Historica'', 10/I, 2006, p. 165-77
*
Vladimir Tismăneanu, ''Stalinism pentru eternitate'',
Polirom, Iași, 2005.
*Vladimir Tismăneanu, Cristian Vasile, ''Perfectul acrobat. Leonte Răutu, măștile răului'', Humanitas, Bucharest, 2008.
*Vitalie Văratic, Laurențiu Constantiniu, Ilie Schipor, Vladimir Ivanovici Korotaev, Vladimir Nikolaevici Kuzelenkov (eds.), ''Prizonieri de război români în Uniunea Sovietică. Documente: 1941–1956'', Romanian Military Institute, Russian State Military Archives &
Monitorul Oficial
''Monitorul Oficial al României'' is the official government gazette, gazette of Romania, in which all the promulgation, promulgated bills, President of Romania, presidential decrees, Government of Romania, governmental ordinances and other m ...
, Bucharest, 2013.
*Cristian Vasile, ''Literatura și artele în România comunistă. 1948-1953'', Humanitas, Bucharest, 2010.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roller, Mihail
1908 births
1958 deaths
20th-century Romanian historians
20th-century Romanian essayists
Romanian textbook writers
Romanian magazine editors
Romanian Communist Party politicians
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Communist writers
Romanian Marxist historians
Oral historians
Romanian censors
Censorship in Romania
Titular members of the Romanian Academy
20th-century Romanian civil servants
Members of the Great National Assembly
People from Buhuși
Romanian Jews
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Romanian human rights activists
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People detained by the Siguranța
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