In search of Romania, the book was published in 2023 in the collection Memories/Diaries Bucharest publishing house humanity, it has the symbolic meaning of the balance sheet. In almost 275 pages of the book, its author, Dennis Deletant, a longtime professor of Romanian studies at the School of Slavic Studies of the University of London, is undoubtedly a foreign scholar who has followed the most attentive and valuable for several decades. “the horrors and riches of Romanian history of the 20th century”, as noted by another very good connoisseur of our country, Robert D. Kaplan, he tells about what he saw, lived, loved, but also suffered during the 65 years he regularly visited the country, which turned out to be more than found territory aux portes de l’Orient.

It seems to me important to emphasize from the outset the fact that we have a chance to find in Dennis Deletant’s book not only an account of personal adventuresas the subtitle promises us, but also of sorts digest subjective (otherwise well-tempered subjectivism, the subjectivism of a clear witness) of Romania’s history from much of the communist period and, after that, 30 years of not-quite-smooth, tireless recovery otherwise than in other countries of Eastern Europe, to democracy.

Dennis Deletant’s book begins with a brief description of how a young British student discovers Romania in the summer of 1965. When he gets his first scholarship. The year 1965 itself is the year of transition for Romania. That from the transition from Dej era TO the era of Ceausescu. With his deceptive openness, with his skilful mimicry. But apart from small facade changes, more declared than actually implemented, and that is because communism, by its very essence, is both immune, and allergic, and vulnerable, and alien to any traces of democracy, from 1965 to December In 1989, Romania was still what is called a police state.

And Dennis Deletant, from the moment of his first arrival in our country, turned out to be completely different finewanted to know something other than those responsible for the organization, the Security Service made its omnipresence felt. When, many years later, after a revision of the Romanian law governing access to the archives of the Security Service, in January 2006, citizens gained access to their own files, Dennis Deletant discovered that the 1,500 pages, stored in 6 volumes, contained almost everything that considered important during his many returns to communist Romania.

The amateur could not help but become objective and there was no way he wasn’t “benefiting” from the DUI. That is, an informative tracking file. The young man was curious, and the communists did not like curiosity from the very beginning. Deletant and – he found many friends, “the brightest figures, several diabolical figures.” He married Andrea, the granddaughter of the famous literary historian Dimitrie Karakosta (a political prisoner for five years) and the daughter of university professor Andrii Karakosta, in turn a character with problems since in his youth he was arrested for about 18 months as a hostile, hostile element. In addition, on each visit to Romania, Deletant met and visited people the regime did not like at all, and these visits became increasingly disturbing in the last communist decade.

And how could it not be so, when the English professor also visited Cornelia Koposa, and Doina Cornea, and Mircea Dinescu, and Ana Balndiana, and all those who in one way or another drew attention, assuming countless risks, to the communist catastrophe? The British professor studied anti-communist resistance in the mountains, which does not prevent him from quoting the phrase of Andriy Amalrik, according to which “no oppression can be successful without those who are ready to submit to it.” An indirect confirmation of the statements of Professor Lucian Boi, who claims that we Romanians coexisted too easily with communism. Once Dennis Deletant published an article about the Red Terror in the British press, it was not difficult for the authorities in Bucharest to find out who was hiding behind this phrase. special correspondent. The deletant ignored the warnings that the party activist, essentially the safest, did not hesitate to convey to him, in particular otherness Romanian – I specify that the British professor is a good connoisseur of books and an admirer of the historian Lucian Boy – became the ambassador in London during the presidency of Ion Iliescu. I will not forget and remind you that thanks to the coincidence of circumstances, Dennis Deletant met the future president of Romania, while still being the director of the Technical Publishing House, and also, by a happy coincidence, introduced him to Marin Preda. Later, he would also meet with Virgil Magourianu, the shadow first director of SRI. What more can be said that in London, Dennis Deletant was not content to teach declensions and declensions or talk to his students about Eminescu, but was asked as a good expert in the Romanian language to cooperate with interested press bodies, at a moment’s notice. namely Romania and its leader. It is perceived as an atypical beginning, a thorn in the side of Moscow, then disgusting. Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro