2014 marked the 25th anniversary of the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. The events of 1989 are widely seen as having ushered in new all-encompassing reforms in almost all areas of life. In few other places were reforms more contested and divisive than in Romania, a country that suffered greatly under the sultanistic-cum-totalitarian dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu, faced the region’s only bloody anti-communist revolt, and as such had the longest to travel on the road from communism to democracy. We now have a generation’s worth of experience with these wrenching reforms that have deeply affected Romania’s political institutions and political culture, and ultimately allowed it to become a member of the coveted European Union club. This volume gathers key lessons for democratic theory and practice from Romania’s first twenty-five years of post-communist transformation. Written by leading experts in the field of Romanian Studies, the chapters focus on the most important factors that have shaped the country’s political transformation during the first 25 years of post-communism.
This is the first volume to overview the complex Romanian transitional justice effort, detail the political negotiations that have led to the adoption and implementation of relevant legislation, and assess these processes in terms of their timing, sequencing, and impact on democratization.
Drawing on contributions from various disciplines, this up to date collection analyses Romania's experiences of the transition from the harsh realities of the Ceausescu dictatorship to the uncertainties of the efforts to consolidate democracy and introduce a market economy. With its focus on Romania's progress in coming to terms with the legacy of its communist past, the realities of pluralism, the introduction of a market economy and the challenge of European integration, the volume will be key reading for academics, students and practitioners interested in transition and Romania.
The twenty-five essays accompany, illustrate and underpin the conceptual framework elaborated in Post-Communist Mafia State, published in conjunction with this volume. Leading specialists analyze the manifestations of the current political regime in Hungary from twenty-five angles. Topics discussed include the ideology, constitutional issues, social policy, the judiciary, foreign relations, nationalism, media, memory politics, corruption, civil society, education, culture and so on. Beyond the basic features of the economy the domains of taxation, banking system, energy policies and the agriculture are treated in dedicated studies. The essays are based on detailed empirical investigation about conditions in today?s Hungary. They nevertheless contribute to the exploration of the characteristic features of post-communist authoritarian regimes, shared by an increasing number of countries in Europe and Central Asia.ÿ Joint publication with Noran Libro, Budapestÿ ÿ
"If they gave out gold medals for books, Dracula is Dead would get one. It's a fascinating, long overdue, and timely look at Romania, giving readers an unparalleled view of my country's many, many layers." Nadia Comaneci, Olympic Champion and Gymnastics coach In December 1989, Romanians overthrew dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, ending more than forty years of Communist totalitarianism. Five years ago, on the twentieth anniversary of the fall of Communism in Romania, former United States ambassador to Romania Jim Rosapepe and his wife, award-winning journalist Sheilah Kast, wrote Dracula Is Dead. Now, on the twenty-fifth anniversary, they've updated it in a second edition. The book has achieved an amazon.com ranking of #5 in the essays/travelogues category and shares thoughtful insights on how Romania has reintegrated with Europe, while preserving its unique heritage. Today, Romania is a thriving democracy, an economic success, and a member of NATO and the European Union. Since 1989, Romania's economy has grown by 220% and its population has shrunk by thirteen percent as the birthrate fell and younger people left for higher pay in Spain and Italy. In 2014, Romania elected an ethnic German as president. Most important, Romania is now a normal European country with largely open borders and confidence that its future is democratic. What's the story behind the Romanian miracle? Join this amazing tour of an amazing land beyond Dracula, beyond orphans, beyond Communism, to the vibrant culture, unique history, and 21st century skills that define modern Romania. In the last decade, Romania became a world class player in IT - and in cinema. Romanian films such as "Tales from the Golden Age," "12:08 East of Bucharest," and "4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days" all won awards at Cannes in recent years - and have more fans abroad than at home. You'll travel to Bucharest, the capital city once called the Paris of the East, where centuries-old Orthodox Christianity thrives in tandem with cutting-edge information technology; to Maramures in the north, where the Holocaust took a great toll on a once vibrant Jewish community that included Nobel Prize-winner Elie Wiesel; to Transylvania, home not just to Vladepe Tepes, the real-life Dracula, but to the historic struggles between Romanians and Hungarians, now at peace; and to fascinating spots in-between. Along the way, you'll meet people, famous and unknown, who have made Romania -- people like King Michael, who in World War II, at age twenty-two, led a coup to unseat a fascist dictator, only to be forced into exile by the Communists; Ion Iliescu, both a leading figure during Communism and Romania s first democratically elected president; and Judith Katona, a young woman who, like many Romanians, went abroad to study after the Revolution but returned to create the new Romania. More than a travelogue or memoir, Dracula Is Dead: Travels in Post-Communist Romania presents Romania through American eyes, taking you with Jim and Sheilah as they discover a remarkable country of boundless hospitality, brilliant skills, and a bright future in a peaceful Europe. Romania's quarter-century since the Revolution has been a bumpy ride - divisive politics, economic cycles, and a war next door. But, through it all, Romania has emerged more free, more prosperous, and more secure. It also has preserved its unique culture - Romance language, Latin culture, Christian Orthodox religion, tolerant inclusion of ethnic minorities, rural village life, and love for (almost) all things American. See for yourself. "What a great read! With the eye of the journalist and the ear of the politician, Sheilah Kast and Jim Rosapepe make their Romanian experience so absorbing that you'll want to jump on the next plane to go see for yourself. But I refuse to believe that Dracula is really dead." Cokie Roberts, author, syndicated columnist, and senior political analyst for ABC News and National Public Radio
This book illuminates the interconnections between politics and religion through the lens of artistic production, exploring how art inspired by religion functioned as a form of resistance, directed against both Romanian national communism (1960-1989) and, latterly, consumerist society and its global market. It investigates the critical, tactical and subversive employments of religious motifs and themes in contemporary art pieces that confront the religious ‘affair’ in post-communist Romania. In doing so, it addresses a key gap in previous scholarship, which has paid little attention to the relationship between religious art and political resistance in communist Central and South-East Europe.
The twentieth century has left behind a painful and complicated legacy of massive trauma, monstrous crimes, radical social engineering, creating collective/individual guilt syndromes that were often specters haunting the process of democratization in the various societies that have emerged out of these profoundly de-structuring contexts, such as Germany, Romania, Russia and others.
Why has communism’s humanist quest for freedom and social justice without exception resulted in the reign of terror and lies? The authors of this collective volume address this urgent question covering the one hundred years since Lenin’s coup brought the first communist regime to power in St. Petersburg, Russia in November 1917. The first part of the volume is dedicated to the varieties of communist fantasies of salvation, and the remaining three consider how communist experiments over many different times and regions attempted to manage economics, politics, as well as society and culture. Although each communist project was adapted to the situation of the country where it operated, the studies in this volume find that because of its ideological nature, communism had a consistent penchant for totalitarianism in all of its manifestations. This book is also concerned with the future. As the world witnesses a new wave of ideological authoritarianism and collectivistic projects, the authors of the nineteen essays suggest lessons from their analyses of communism’s past to help better resist totalitarian projects in the future.
