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2 - Romania
- from Part I - The National Armies
- Edited by David Stahel
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- Book:
- Joining Hitler's Crusade
- Published online:
- 15 December 2017
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- 21 December 2017, pp 46-78
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Summary
Romania was driven into alliance with Nazi Germany by fear of the Soviet Union. ‘Nothing could put Romania on Germany’s side’, remarked a member of the Romanian Foreign Ministry to the British Minister Sir Reginald Hoare in March 1940, ‘except the conviction that only Germany could keep the Soviets out of Romania’. That conviction was quick to form after the collapse of France in May 1940, the Soviet seizure from Romania of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina at the end of June, and the loss of northern Transylvania to Hungary under the Vienna Award in late August.
Frontmatter
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp i-iv
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27 - Dr. Petru Groza
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 197-199
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Summary
On my first trip to Bucharest after my talk in Sibiu, I requested an audience with Petru Groza at his office, as he had promised. In his office by a happy coincidence I found Ionel Pop, minister of Transylvania, who seemed to be good friends with Groza. They were on a first-name basis, at least. We discussed once again the problem of my trip to Washington, which Groza believed to be useful and urgent, and he promised to speak to Vişoianu, minister of foreign affairs, in the following few days.
“I’ll talk to him myself,” said Ionel Pop. “But it is not up to Vişoianu—whom Mr. Mărgineanu knows—but to the Allied Commission, namely the Soviet side, which has to give its approval, and which only you can obtain.” By “we” he meant the ministers from the Communist Party or affiliated parties, like the Plowmen's Front.
“Yes, you are right,” said Groza, his voice lowered. “Couldn't the Americans intervene?” he said right away, turning to me.
“It is our business, not theirs, Mr. Vice President. My relationship with them is too recent, and rather formal, so I would not be able to ask them for this favor.”
“Fine, I’ll do it. Postpone the visit to Vişoianu so I can talk to General Vinogradov first.” Approval was not within his purview, but he could intervene with his superior. Before going back to Sibiu, I also requested an audience with Minister Vişoianu, who received me with good will and friendship.
“Groza and Ionel Pop have spoken to me. But I told Mr. Groza that he doesn't need to talk to me, because I know you and I agree with you going. He needs to talk to the Allied Commission, namely the Soviet command, where my word counts for nothing. I’m afraid Mr. Groza's doesn't either, nor Mr. Pătrăşcanu’s, whom I myself could ask to intervene; Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca from the Soviet Union are the only ones that the Soviet Commission trusts at this point.”
8 - My Postdoctoral Exam
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 78-78
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Summary
In my postdoctoral dissertation I ran into the same difficulties as I had in my doctoral thesis, generated by the contradiction between units of efficiency with units of time, as well as with the substantive, relational, and process interpretation of the phenomenon of transfer. Is this due only to identical elements, as Thorndike claims, explainable through Aristotle's substantive logic? Or is it due to relational identity between structures, as in configurational psychology, in which case the explanation has to be provided through isomorphism? What is the role of process, which is based on the third dialectic principle of logic?
I could not provide satisfactory answers, but the horizon of the paper was wider than that of the doctorate, and the ideas are more fleshed out, and maybe even deeper. I felt more and more, though, a need to go deeper into mathematical methodology, without which I could not solve my problems in an entirely scientific manner. For this, I needed to go not only to Britain but also to America, where these mathematical psychology issues had started to be treated very competently, a fact which Professor Goangă had started to recognize.
Both in writing my doctoral and postdoctoral dissertations—and especially during my time in Germany—I became convinced that the central problem is that of the person itself, which requires even more logical and mathematical methodology. Would I be able to combine my interest for methodology with personality psychology?
28 - My Dismissal from the University
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 200-207
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Summary
While I was making my modest contribution to our attempts to get back Transylvania in its entirety, Alexandru Roşca and Cupcea, who had registered with the Communist Party after August 23, were making every effort to have me removed from the university. They filed a complaint with the department council, cosigned by Professor Goangă, accusing me of irregularities in the management of the Psychology Institute and the Psychotechnic Institute, as well as of neglecting my academic duties because of my obligations as scientific adviser in charge of labor organization at the industrial works at Reşiţa and ASTRA Braşov. To these they added my reactionary attitude toward the country's new socialist order, exemplified by my being a member of the Romanian-American Association of Transylvania, which was despised by the Communist Party leadership in Cluj, mostly made up of Hungarians, who—just like Roşca and Cupcea—had collaborated with Hungary's Nazi government, but then signed up for the Communist Party right away. The department council did not endorse the complaint. Upon their request, however, Daicoviciu, who was dean, and Petrovici, who was rector, forwarded the complaint to the Ministry of Education, but the minister, Ştefan Voitec, a member of the Social Democratic Party, did not endorse it either. The minister knew of my contribution to the Societatea de Mîine magazine, printed by Ion Clopoţel, a member of the Social Democratic Party, and also knew of my help in organizing the Workers University for the Union of Workers Trade Unions in Cluj. He greatly appreciated the two experimental technical schools at Reşita and the ASTRA Braşov industrial works, which cleared the way for apprentices to study toward an engineering degree. Engineer Manciu, who helped me set up the school in Braşov, was a former colleague of his from Bucharest Polytechnic. His cabinet secretary, Mrs. Iorgulescu, a psychology graduate, had told him about my struggle against the legionnaires and the progressive and anti-racial character of my papers and books.
20 - The Attack against Rector Goangă
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 147-151
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Summary
I was in my office at the Psychotechnic Institute, in the building occupied today by the local branch of the Academy—where Avram Iancu Street ends in what was then Royal Street, today's Republic Street—when Miss Angheliu, a psychology student, came to me, scared, to tell me about the attempt on Professor Goangă's life. I ran out in my lab coat, without putting on my overcoat, to the scene of the crime, and while passing through the secretarial office I asked Mihail Peteanu to call an ambulance to take the rector to the clinic right away. Miss Angheliu stayed in the building's foyer. Down the road, on Avram Iancu Street, but across the street from the scene of the crime, I met Alexandru Roşca, the only member of the institute's scientific staff who regularly attended Professor Goangă's lectures in order to curry favor. Miss Angheliu heard the shots and saw the flashes, but could not see the professor.
“What happened?” I asked Roşca.
“They shot the old man,” he said.
“So what are you standing there for? Let's go help him.”
“Are you crazy? You want them to shoot us too?”
I left him there and ran to the professor, telling him the ambulance was on its way and would arrive at any moment. The minutes went by with difficulty, and his wounds were bleeding rather heavily.
“Mărgineanu, I’m dying, save me.”
“I have three kids, professor,” said the constable, who had also been shot. “Don't leave me here, my kids are gonna be left out in the streets.”
Two or three minutes later, Professor Vasiliu from the medical school passed by in his car. I stopped him right away and asked him to take Rector Goangă to the clinic, as the ambulance might be too late. Professor Vasiliu got out of the car right away and, with his driver, we tried to get Professor Goangă into the car without putting too much strain on him, aggravating his bleeding, as Professor Vasiliu told us. We couldn't manage. Meanwhile the ambulance arrived and took out a stretcher, which allowed Professor Goangă to be picked up without twisting his body. I went inside the ambulance too.
32 - The Trial
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
-
- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 239-250
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Summary
Kafk a's The Trial is so well known, and widely discussed, because people see in it not only an existentialist novel depicting pathological anxiety but also an anticipation of the Nazi trials, to which some add the Stalinist trials, which were easily their equal.
Both Hitler and Stalin were sinister figures. Maybe the most sinister in history, because their crimes surpass those of all other criminals recorded by history, combined. Both were insane and criminal, but Hitler seemed to have been first insane, then criminal. As a consequence, his trials are more like Kafk a's model. The same two attributes characterize Stalin, but in his case, he was first and foremost a criminal, as Solzhenitzyn showed without a doubt. Hitler has killed only three to four million people. Stalin seems to have killed ten times more, and his trials took place under the sign of systematic perfidy, and were even organized scientifically, as his henchmen, starting with Vyshinsky, have claimed. That is why the absurdity of the world in Kafk a's novel seems closer to that of the trials organizaed by Hitler, who was an epileptic, and less to Stalin's and Vyshinsky’s, who organized their trials with a cool head. Crime and insanity cannot be confused, even if they represent intersecting circles with common features.
The prelude to our trial started in the afternoon of October 24 or 25, when turmoil started in the detention area of the Interior Ministry. The metal doors on the cells opened every few minutes. At first I thought they were the usual trips to interrogation, but then I realized it sounded more like they were vacating the cells. I became sure of that when at short intervals the neighboring cell doors opened, which had held Admiral Măcelariu and engineer Balş for four months. A longer silence, about ten minutes, went by, and then I was taken out. Two strapping constables frogmarched me to the gate through which I had come in, and outside a car was waiting.
Preface
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
-
- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp xiii-xviii
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Summary
There have been memoirs written by any number of politicians who have played a part in the unfolding of history and have thus felt the need to explain and justify the ideas and motives that stood at the foundation of their actions.
There have been memoirs written also by men of science, literature, and the arts to clarify their process of creation and have their work better understood. In the beginning there were Rousseau and Goethe, and the example they set was followed not only by Van Gogh, Gide, Thomas Mann, and Lucian Blaga but also by less important figures whom history, in all likelihood, will forget.
Exceptionally valuable, however, are notes written on the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci and Eminescu, which will be commented on throughout the centuries.
Testimonies—not just memoirs—about events and turmoil in a given era have also been written by eyewitnesses without great merit in political and cultural life, meant to facilitate the later judgment of history, which can be written sine ira et studio only when that era is over. This is the case with my modest person. And I am sure that this is the case with others who were the victims of Hitler and Stalin's dictatorships.
I felt the need to begin with the autobiography of my education—following the example of Professor Henry Adams of Harvard University—because a judgment on the century I lived in cannot be derived from my education, which started in my parents’ peasant house and in the school kept by the village, continued in the high schools in Blaj and Orăştie, and ended—only in its first part—at the University of Cluj, where I defended my degree and doctorate. For the second part of my education I went on to specialized studies in Germany, America, England, and France—in that order—which took almost as long as my studies in Cluj.
I didn't experience a feeling of discontinuity in my studies and education in foreign universities because, although the minds of my foreign instructors may have been more enlightened, their guiding principles were not that different from those in my country. Proof thereof that my fatherland's schools had, though younger and more modest, emerged within their century.
11 - Yale University
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 93-99
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Summary
Harvard University was modeled on Cambridge University in England, where John Harvard, the founder of the college and its first president, studied. At first, he instructed only teachers, professors, and priests, granting them degrees. In time, Harvard College added a law school and a medical school, turning into a university which also granted PhDs. It was the first college and university in the United States, celebrating three hundred years of existence in 1936.
Yale College was established four years later, in 1640, as the second institution of higher education in the United States. It was modeled after Oxford in England.
The new university models in New England were based not only on the old universities in England but also on their emulation of each other, embodied in their brilliance in academic studies and athletics. In time, however, Cambridge started emphasizing the development of science as opposed to theology, and so it ended up generating the highest number of Nobel Prizes in physics. Oxford held on to its emphasis on theology and linguistic studies, becoming the nurturer of the English language, whose dictionaries it publishes. It is nevertheless true that some of the greatest English poets, such as Byron and Wordsworth, studied at Cambridge, not Oxford. The latter produced Shelley and Wilde, but without treasuring them as students because of their reservations against theology. Which means that the realist and liberal spirit of science is more favorable not only for freedom but also for poetry.
A similar opposition existed at first between Harvard and Yale, too, the first taking its realistic spirit of science from Cambridge, the second adopting the classical spirit of Oxford. In this century, however, Yale parted with the classical spirit of its old model and integrated itself into the realistic and scientific spirit of our century promoted by Harvard.
To the exact sciences, the new president at Yale added humanities, due to the following favorable circumstances. A former Harvard alumnus became very rich and wanted to leave his entire estate to his alma mater, on the condition that the old building of the college be replaced with a new one, with new desks.
29 - The Ordeal
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 208-212
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Summary
I was in my study at eleven o’clock in the morning on April 14, 1948, when a Securitate inspector rang the door bell and “invited” me to General Inspector Patriciu's office to provide him with some information on the Romanian-American Association. He spoke broken Romanian.
I turned to my wife and asked her to prepare my hunting bag with the necessary clothing.
“But, professor and dear madam, I give you my word, this is not an arrest, otherwise we’d have come at night, and there would be more of us. As you see, I came alone, because this is only about some information requested by the Ministry of the Interior.”
I got my heavy hunting coat, attaching its fur lining, even though it was warm outside.
At Securitate headquarters on Republic Street I was taken to the waiting room, not to the holding cells in the basement.
“Please have a seat until I tell comrade General Inspector,” the officer who had brought me said.
“Is it true, what he told me at home?” I asked myself.
In a few minutes, another officer came out of the general inspector's office, Breiner, whom I knew.
“Take the professor to the holding cells, like any other detainee,” he told the duty sergeant.
The building housing the Securitate Inspectorate had belonged to the Cluj Army Corps, and had moved to this new home only two or three months before. In its cellar they had built around twenty to thirty cells, one meter wide and two meters long, and the concrete walls were still wet. Inside each was a long wooden bunk one and a half meters long and twenty-five to thirty centimeters wide. An unpainted wooden door opened into the narrow corridor between the cells. The air came in under the door. In the first few instants the darkness was pitch-black. I sat down on the bunk to compose myself. I was remembering the moment I had taken leave of my wife. The children were fortunately in school, so the pain of separation was less. I also saw the school in Obreja once again, where I studied when I was as little as they were. However, desperation did not grip me, the proof of that being that after half an hour I stretched out on the bunk and went to sleep.
25 - The Romanian-American Association
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 183-185
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Summary
A few days after the formation of the new government, a new organization was formed, the Romanian Association for Closer Ties of Friendship with the Soviet Union, or, in its Romanian acronym, ARLUS. It was formed at the initiative of the Communist Party, and its chairman was Professor Constantin Parhon, a new member of the party. During Antonescu's governance he had been chairman of the board for the German drug giant Merck. The Sibiu branch of ARLUS was set up at the initiative of Professor Petrovici, who, as a new member of the Communist Party, invited to the opening meeting all the heads of the government parties, but only a small portion of the local professors, in order to secure his election as president. As rector and longtime member of the National Peasants’ Party, Professor Borza was appointed member of the governing committee, like all the other heads of the political organizations. The Association leadership remained firmly in Communist hands. Professors Lupaş, Dragomir, Candea, Blaga, D. D. Roşca, and I were not invited to join.
A few days after ARLUS was formed, the Friends of America Association reopened in Bucharest with Professor D. Gusti as president. The vice presidents were C. Parhon, Tr. Săvulescu, Max Auşnit, and—to my surprise—me. After a few days, Professor Borza—who honored me with the affection of an older colleague— called me to the rectorate and told me that in his modest opinion—as well as that of Ionel Pop, the new minister of Transylvania—it would be useful if we set up Romanian-American associations in Transylvania, with offices in Sibiu, Braşov, Arad, and Timişoara, in order to sustain our efforts for the complete return of territories ceded through the Vienna Award.
“Great minds think alike, rector,” I said, freshly arrived from Bucharest. The previous day I had visited Minister Ionel Pop together with engineer Alex Popp, the general manager of Reşita Company, who was also Transylvanian, and offered our services to speak on behalf of Transylvanian rights at the British and American missions. To this end we were ready to use our connections in those countries, where we had studied, Popp in Britain, I in the United States. Popp added to that the material support of the Reşita Company.
33 - The Calvary
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
-
- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 251-253
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Summary
Sentencing took place in the afternoon on November 2, 1948. We weren't taken to the court; the junior prosecutor came to each of us in his room to tell us the sentence. First two soldiers with shouldered rifles came in; they stood at attention, grabbed their weapons, pointed them at me, and simulated putting a round in the chamber. I didn't understand what was happening, because there was no death penalty at that time. Next, Prosecutor Călin came in, somber and full of himself, and read the seven or eight guilty charges to me. He then handed me the paper to sign stating I had been informed, and another for the appeal.
“What does this mean, prosecutor, since there is no death penalty? And I haven't received a maximum penalty. Is that in the law too?”
He shrugged, puzzled.
More unpleasant was the fact that we got no dinner. The panel of judges had left, and no one was interested in us admitting our guilt any more. The comedy was over. Shortly after, the duty officer came in, and told me to prepare for departure.
“I’m ready at any time, I am dressed, and my spare linens are in my sack.”
“You’d better get some rest, professor,” the two workers guarding me said, “departure is in a few hours.” They didn't get any dinner either.
“We’ll get dinner at home,” they said. “If we knew we wouldn't get any dinner, we’d have brought some food to give you too, God knows when you’ll get to eat next.”
They hadn't liked the circus with the soldiers pointing guns at me.
Toward ten, Colonel Dulgheru came in, who found me sleeping. He didn't like my calm demeanor.
“Even now you sleep? Didn't I tell you to be ready to go?”
“It's been five hours since then, colonel, and since you didn't bother us with dinner, what was I supposed to do?” I answered.
Shortly after, the two agents who had taken me from the ministry to the tribunal and from the tribunal to the School of War came in. This time they didn't take me to a car, they took me to a van, where I was happy to find some of my brothers in suffering. We weren't allowed to talk. Meanwhile, the other brothers showed up, and four gendarmes got in too. Two of them were the ones who had accompanied Prosecutor Calin when he told us the sentence.
2 - In Blaj
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
-
- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 9-28
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Summary
A Sunday, that's what my entire first day in Blaj was like. That is why I put on my good clothes, bought by mother for school at the summer fair in Teiuş, my village's homestead. I can still see them right now: a vest in blue fabric, a “gentleman’s” hat, as the peasants in Teiuş wore, and a navy blue belt made of elastic fabric with little buckles and a yellow leather fastener to hold the beautiful shirt sewn by mother's hands. She had also sewn the white trousers, cotton as well. They had been tailored by a haberdasher in Teiuş, though.
“Now that's a gentleman,” laughed my godmother, when she called me down to have the milk and coffee which we took before we went to church. The previous day I had been wearing my work clothes from the village in order not to crumple the “gentlemanly” clothes.
When Father Blăjanu was home, my godmother accompanied him to the parish church where mass was held by his former archpriest, Father Bărbat, who uttered his name proudly, because he was handsome and exceedingly rugged. He emptied the glass properly and read the psalm book beautifully, as the cantor in Goga's poem said, which I knew by heart, even though it was not in the Alphabetarium. Our teacher had read it to us, though, from Transilvania, the ASTRA Association magazine.
My godmother, however, preferred mass at the cathedral, where the other more distinguished ladies went, and she felt she was one of them. Here the liturgical ceremony was more imposing, as it was led by an older canon, surrounded by two to four younger priests, plus the two theologians who served as deacons. The responses of the choir were even more impressive.
“Peace be unto you,” said the canon with his feeble and worn voice.
“And unto your spirit,” the choir thundered.
“Nice!” I said to myself.
The church, however, was rather empty.
“Well, yes, because the diac went to take a dip in the Târnava and to take some of the students for a walk in the woods at Veza,” my godmother clarified. “But next Sunday, you’ll be among them.”
4 - Student in Cluj
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
-
- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 45-61
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Summary
From Geoagiu-Băi, Nicolae Tămaş came with me to Obreja, where he spent two weeks trying to convince me to go with him to Bucharest University, and even to study law on top of sociology, as Blaga had recommended.
“Cluj University cannot be better than the one in the capital,” he claimed. “And besides, Bucharest has the Romanian Social Institute with its conferences.”
Ioan Breazu and Petru Munteanu spoke to me very enthusiastically about Virgil Bărbat's lectures, as well those by Vasile Bogrea, Sextil Puşcariu, and Bogdan Duică. My choice was thus made. I entertained the hope that my friends from Mihalţ—two kilometers away from my own village—would be able to convince Tămaş to come to Cluj. He knew them from previous summers, when he had come to Obreja.
Our talks together had taken place on the bank of the Mureş, with its deep water that was great for swimming, and on the fine sand on the Târnava, after which we feasted on mother's chicken soup, which Breazu would not stop praising, calling it unsurpassed. The noodles were finely cut by Măriuca, my brother's wife and Petru Munteanu's sister. Mother prepared the clear soup and the tomato sauce for the plain boiled meat; she had her secret recipe, which she later on passed to my wife, who told me: fat chicken, lots of vegetables, and tomatoes straight off the vine.
Breazu was impressed not only by the way in which Tămaş had summarized John Maynard Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace, recently translated by Constantin Stere, but also by the smart interpretation he had given, which included some opinions of his own.
The brilliance of the courses taught by Bogrea, Bărbat, Puşcariu, and Bogdan Duică, according to Breazu, managed to fascinate Tămaş. Bogrea's Latin language, literature, and civilization lessons could be useful for Roman law. He was also attracted by the Treatise on Roman Law by Professor Cătuneanu in Cluj, which he had borrowed from Romi, our friend with the theater girl. Also heavily weighing in the balance was the Avram Iancu Dormitory, whose recreation and reading room—and even a pool room!—was something the dorms in Bucharest did not have.
Foreword
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
-
- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp vii-xii
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Summary
Nicolae Mărgineanu's autobiographical memoir is a unique and invaluable addition to the literature in English on the experience of political prisoners, not only in Communist Romania but in authoritarian states in general. It graphically uses the author's incarceration (1948–64) to underline the arbitrary abuse of authority in Communist Romania and his courage in maintaining his moral integrity and dignity in the face of iniquity. But its appeal goes beyond his postwar suffering, for it offers a wistful and sensitive account of episodes from the author's youth in Transylvania in the period 1916–18. He was born in the village of Obreja in central Transylvania on June 22, 1905. As the first member of his peasant family and the only one of his generation from his village to attend a Romanian-language school in Hungarian-ruled Transylvania, his achievement underscores the challenges faced by Romanians in the province before the proclamation of its unification with Romania in December 1918. Mărgineanu's subsequent professional success in academia in the interwar years and his distinction in his chosen field of psychology are engagingly described, while his description of the Soviet advance into Transylvania in fall 1944 and its impact upon the local population is a rare such testimony.
To explain the significance of these remarks, some historical background and context is necessary. The province of Transylvania was regarded by both Romanians and Hungarians as an integral part of their ancestral homeland, and in the minds of both peoples their own survival as a nation was linked to the fate of Transylvania. In this regard, the question of historical antecedence in Transylvania was invoked to buttress a political claim to control of the territory. Emphasis was—and is—placed on an uninterrupted Romanian presence in the territory of Romania, primarily in Transylvania. Most Romanian historians claim a continuous Romanian presence in Transylvania from the time of the Roman colonization of Dacia after its conquest by Trajan at the beginning of the second century AD. The Romans introduced into the province settlers from all parts of the Empire who intermarried with the local Dacian population and romanized it, thus producing the Daco-Roman people who were the forebears of the Romanians.
22 - The Legionnaire Insanity
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
-
- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 158-165
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Summary
Everyone was in mourning after the news of the horrid Vienna Diktat. I had the feeling that justice itself had been buried. We dreamed for a thousand years of the just Union of all Romanians in the natural borders of our country, and Michael the Brave proved it was possible, desired as it was by all who spoke the same language and who had the same customs and laws. After twenty years, though, the dream unraveled against everyone's will. And, of course, without consultation, because King Carol's government was anything but an expression of the country.
We remained brothers in pain for days following the Diktat, when we had to clear our heads in order to carry our meager possessions over to the free territories. The brotherhood in pain of the oppressed, left behind in the ceded territories, was matched by the mourning brotherhood of those in the parts of the country left unoccupied, who came to our aid. Their humanity was more vivid than ever. I can still see the trucks and buses that came to help, speeding around Cluj's streets, asking from house to house if they could lend a hand.
The streets on the outskirts were patrolled by three platoons of the regiment to which I belonged, to maintain order and peace. They were just as silent and hurting as were their brothers in arms, forced to retreat from ceded Transylvania without the possibility of firing a single shot in defense of our natural, just borders.
A few days after the Antonescu government formed with help from the legionnaires and imposed by Hitler, their supporters started moving. The odd column would march through the streets downtown, singing their song: “The Guard, the Captain, and the Archangel Michael.”
The apoplectic shouts were uttered with the zeal of neophytes. As it turns out, most of them had become legionnaires overnight, attracted less by the legionnaire creed as by their wish for wealth, and even plunder.
34 - In Aiud Penitentiary
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 254-263
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Summary
I didn't understand why they took us off the train at Teiuş and not Aiud. We discovered the secret at the penitentiary, a few weeks later. The authorities were afraid of a legionnaire attack on the station in Aiud. From Teiuş we were taken in a truck, face down and watched by four guards. In front of us and behind there were two other trucks full of gendarmes. The whole operation was supervised by Colonel Popescu, general director of State Security. All the stations we passed were full of gendarmes. The eleven of us, weakened and exhausted by the cheap theater, had never even imagined how dangerous we were.
The famous zarcă of the Aiud penitentiary—where hundreds of prisoners found their death—was the old prison building, where inmates from the new building were sent for supposed acts of indiscipline. It was built in the beginning of the century—1903, I think—by the Hungarian prefect of the time, Count Teleki, owner of the lands and castle in Uioara, around fifteen kilometers away from Aiud. A similarly grand jail was erected in Gherla, the second largest penitentiary in Transylvania, built, just like the one in Aiud, for the poor Romanian peasants who couldn't forget Horea, Cloşca, and Crişan's revolt, or Avram Iancu's revolution. After 1918, both jails were found to be too large, because the only prisoners were regular inmates with long sentences. However, under the Stalinist regime, the two jails proved to be too small, and that is why they were packed, just like the county jails attached to courts, with prisoners with short sentences or for those held during trial. The irony was that Aiud was also the place of detention for Count Adam Teleki, son of the former prefect, who had erected the newer part of the prison, which as a child I had thought of as a “frightening grave.” The younger Count Teleki earned our respect, on the one hand, for his fair behavior toward Romanians during the Hungarian occupation of 1940–45, and on the other, for his dignity in bearing the conditions in prison. Adam Teleki had displayed the kindest of sentiments, inspired—in his own words—by the kindness of our nation.
7 - The University of Berlin
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
-
- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 69-77
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Configurational psychology, Gestaltpsychologie, at the University of Berlin, was familiar to me, because it had been debated at a seminar in Cluj. I thus went to the Institute of Psychology in Berlin to present the first paper on the school promoted by its members. Three decades later, similar papers appeared in German, French, and English. The chair at Cluj had the priority of initiative, which delighted not only Köhler, the head of the department and director of the institute, but also his colleagues, Wertheimer and Lewin. Metzger, Köhler's assistant, who went on to become professor at Münster University and chairman of the German Psychology Society, was tasked with sending all the papers published by the members of the institute to Cluj.
The discovery of the configurational properties of perception was made by Wertheimer, assistant to Professor Stumpf of the University of Frankfurt. Köhler and Koffk a were his research subjects. Shortly after, Stumpf was called to Berlin, where he brought Wertheimer and Köhler, who in the meantime had gotten their degrees in psychology and physics. In Berlin, in fact, Köhler continued studying physics with Planck and Einstein, writing a groundbreaking paper, “Physical configurations.” He had long conversations with Einstein at the imposing mansion of Wertheimer's father-in-law Eppinger, a gynecology professor from the same university who had a very rich clientele. With a subsidy from Eppinger, Köhler went to Tenerife to study the intelligence of monkeys. World War I caught him on that island, which, to his great fortune, he could not leave until the war was over, and he continued his research, deepening and defining his ideas so that when he published them he not only got a PhD but also the chair that Stumpf had left two years previously, on the condition he be succeeded by his most gifted student, as he considered Köhler. Such a beautiful example! Wundt went about it differently, pushing Külpe aside, although he was no less gifted than Köhler. Meanwhile, Köhler continued to insist that the promoter and head of the configurational school was his good friend and older colleague, Wertheimer, of whom Einstein had an excellent opinion.
3 - In Orăştie
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 29-44
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The day I withdrew from the high school in Blaj, I wrote to Ion Meteş to ask him to notify the high school in Orăştie that I was registering there, so I could take my room in the dormitory right away. I then went to Obreja to say goodbye to my mother, because in the future I was going to see her only on vacations, not every two or three weeks, as I had up to that point. I stayed in the village for three days to allow the letter to reach Orăştie. A week before had been grape picking time, and there were a whole lot of grapes and must left. I enjoyed them fully, and when I left I took only a roast duck and a kilogram of must and one of wine, to celebrate with Meteş the new turn in my education. At home, the celebrations had gone on for the entire duration of my stay.
I got to Orăştie past midnight. The city was far from the station, and I only knew Meteş, who lived in the dormitory, and I could not get in there at night, naturally. In the third class waiting room there were a lot of people, and the smells hung heavy. I stayed on the platform, and after I set my bags on a bench I started strolling around. It had been hot during the day, but now it was cool enough. As I walked, I warmed up. I don't know why, but I was so happy! Ioan Breazu and Ion Meteş had spoken to me fondly of Orăştie and even more so of the headmaster. Just as they did about the general atmosphere of the high school, where reading Vasile Conta was encouraged, not frowned upon.
Late, after two o’clock, I did get tired, though. I felt a chill too. I took my heavy coat out of my bags, I put it on, and, after I got warmer, I sat on a bench for a quarter of an hour to rest. I set the bags over my legs to keep me warm. How beautiful those bags were, handmade by mother in such harmonious colors, just like the cloth she tied at the front of her skirt on Sundays for church. Hanging symmetrically on my shoulders, they straightened my back. And now they kept me warm too.
14 - The University of Chicago Once More
- Nicolae Margineanu
- Edited by Dennis Deletant
- Translated by Calin Cotoiu
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- Book:
- Witnessing Romania's Century of Turmoil
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 20 December 2017, pp 115-118
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At first I planned to do my experimental research in collaboration with Professor Allport, who wanted to continue the investigation of temperament he began in his work Studies in Expressive Movement, published in collaboration with Philip Vernon, another Rockefeller scholar, who went on to teach at Cambridge and then London. I was more interested in social research, however. I was also interested in his factor analysis of intelligence and skills, which occasioned round-table discussions about the theory and methodology of factor analysis. Those discussions were only open to his collaborators and a small number of professors from some other universities. Professor Thorndike had recommended that I continue to study factor analysis, since in his opinion it was the most exact methodology for revealing relationships between whole and parts—which is the crucial issue of science. Professor Goangă, on the other hand, believed that introducing the methodology of social attitude measurement to our country was more important and more useful.
In total, Thurstone and his collaborators designed and benchmarked thirtyone scales for examining social attitudes, measuring nationalism versus internationalism, liberalism versus socialism, tradition versus progress, alcohol prohibition versus liberalization, and theism versus atheism. Right after my arrival, I went to Thurstone's office to discuss the object of my research.
“We shouldn't bother finalizing the object, since Professor Ogburn, adviser to President Roosevelt and chairman of the committee for social change with the White House, told me about President Roosevelt's plan to conduct a discreet investigation at five or six universities on the attitudes of youth in academia toward his New Deal. If you agree, I would like to tap you as a collaborator on this research. You are the most appropriate choice, since you cannot be accused of being subjective toward one party or another. The research is funded through government grants to our university.”
As this research was quite urgent, the next day professors Thurstone, Gulliksen, and I put together a list of fifty possible opinions toward Roosevelt's new policies. Opinions ran from the most favorable to the most strongly opposed, with the majority in the middle range. I gave this list to the other collaborators in the factor analysis of intelligence and skills research, as well as to the young sociology professors— Blumer, Wirth, and Cottrell—whom I had befriended the previous summer.