Professor Dennis Deletant probably knows more about Romania and its people than any other foreign academic.
His expertise is legendary in academic, diplomatic, political and journalistic circles. He has written extensively about the country, including publishing his personal memoirs “In Search of Romania” in 2023.
So, it was not surprising that at the launch of his latest, fascinating book: “Romania, 1916–1941,” the discussion veered off into a totally direction.
As Britain’s top expert on Romania, Prof. Deletant played an important role in the BBC’s coverage of Romania’s bloody anti-communist revolt.
Unable to travel to Romania at first as he’d been declared a ‘persona non grata’ by the communist regime_ actually he was considered an ‘enemy of the state’ by Nicolae Ceausescu_ he was given access to the BBC newsroom and the office of John Simpson, the BBC world affairs editor and the best-known face in Britain for covering foreign uprisings, disasters and war.
He recalled watching screens broadcasting Chinese, Soviet and Yugoslav television coverage of the events as they unfolded. With his knowledge of the country, he was able to convey crucial and relevant information to the BBC team out in Romania.
Later, after the Ceausescus had been given a hasty trial and executed, the British academic traveled to Romania to join the BBC team.
The eyes and attention of a historian are less fleeting than those of a journalist. If a journalist focuses on the story happening right now, the historian sees events in a timeless context__ and asks questions that are relevant 35 years later.
Romania’s revolution_ or popular revolt that was hijacked by a group of second-tier communists_remains an unresolved and largely unaccounted for series of events. Questions such as who shot at unarmed protesters and strategic buildings such as the public television studios, and why the vast majority of deaths occurred after Ceausescu’s fall from power, have not yet been answered.
At his Tuesday launch, Prof. Deletant revealed fresh details. In the chaotic aftermath of Ceausescu’s demise, he personally witnessed the BBC fixer shooting on the crowd in Bucharest. That man left the country in 1990 and is living in Italy, he said.
“There were ‘terrorists’,” he told the audience of about 100 who had crammed into the bookshop for the launch. The ‘terrorist’ tag that was used during the revolution and afterwards, has generally been discredited as a regime ploy designed to cause panic and confusion.
Prof. Deletant’s firsthand account put it right back on the table.
There was another unexplained event. Across town, three men in black overalls climbed onto the roof of the British ambassador’s residence; the British Ambassador’s wife was still inside until a fire broke out and she was rescued by a German diplomat, Universul.net has learned. They began shooting at the TVR broadcasters over the road, he said citing a source at the station. TVR was the key communications point for the revolution for domestic and foreign audiences and the uprising was called “the world’s first televised revolution.”
His latest book, however, deals with an earlier period.
“Romania, 1916–1941,”was publicly launched at the Humanitas Cismigiu bookshop, where the respected British researcher and historian was joined by historian Alina Pavelescu and political scientist, Ioan Stanomir in a one-hour session moderated by Cristian Pătrășconiu.
Best known for his incisive and exhaustive research of Romanian history in archives in London, Bucharest and Washington, his latest book is no exception. Delving into files that have never been published, he takes a fresh look at Romania’s tumultuous interwar years.
The 273-page book examines the political context of the time, the situation of Romania’s peasants, its minorities, endemic corruption and the totalitarian tendencies of various political factions resulting in the collapse of democracy.
He integrates this with the strategies of the Romanian state to preserve its territorial integrity in the face of threats from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
As well as the regular sources that specialists and historians have access to, Prof. Deletant also consulted unpublished materials from the British archives. Four new and historically valuable documents are published in his book: a British spy report on the situation in Bessarabia (today’s Republic of Moldova), in February 1918; a description of Bessarabia from the perspective of a British officer, starting in 1934; excerpts from the notes of The Times correspondent in Romania from 1928 to 1940, and an invaluable memoir on Romania’s foreign policy in the interwar period, written by Iuliu Maniu and sent to the British government in April 1942.
A particularly interesting source was a manuscript written by Archibald Gibson, the Times correspondent for Romania from 1928 to 1940. Gibson whose mother was American and father British. was born in Moscow and spoke Russian fluently. The family was forced to flee the country when the Russian revolution brokeout in 1917.
“In an era in which the confrontation with a past that is still unsolved and not fully understood becomes increasingly difficult to avoid, the current and lucid synthesis of Dennis Deletant is all the more necessary,” publisher Humanitas said in a release.
Prof. Deletant will promote his latest book in a tour around Romania in the coming weeks.
“Romania, 1916–1941”is published by Humanitas and retails for 59.90 lei.
*Professor Dennis Deletant was my professor at the University of London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies where I studied Romanian literature and language from 1983-1987.
BBC journalist John Simpson: “I wrote the obituary of Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu with his own pen.”
