Sorting through the volume Interview on Radio Free Europe signed by Crisula Ștefănescu (Publishing AIUS, Craiova, 2023) several topics occurred to me, to which I have already addressed several times. They are also mentioned in A word before from the author of the book herself. I also remind them further.

First, how little we know about Research Institute of Free Europe whose works, written and periodically published in English, were useful not only to those of speech, but also to others, they spread in Western diplomatic and journalistic circles interested in Romania. Not that we’d know about the TV slot, or worse, we’d even remember much today. Then what happened inside Romanian department stations after December 1989. What were his conditions in a situation when more and more often they began to talk about restructuring, relocation or even the complete cessation of broadcasting not only for Romania, but also for the entire former Soviet space. How did the parting with Monica Lovinescu and Virgil Yerunka happen and what decisions did the then director of the Romanian department, Nicolae Stroescu Stanisoara, have to make? What happened to the archive during and after the station moved to Prague.

More clearly. Crisula Stefanescu worked for several good years in the research institute mentioned above. After the American management decided in April 1992 to close the Paris office, to part with Monica Lovinescu and Virgil Ierunka and, implicitly, to disappear from its license plate two important programs that were part of the very definition of the station (Theses and antitheses in Paris and The story is over), Nicolae Stroescu offered him to create a weekly show under that name Disputes – the fusion of East and West. A large part of this new show was devoted to interviews with important personalities of the country. Interviews were conducted either in studios in Munich or in Bucharest. Famous Romanian exiles who had been under strict censorship by the communist regime for 45 years were also invited to cooperate. Unfortunately, after the move from Munich to Prague, which took place in the first half of 1995, some of these interviews (and not only them) seem to have been lost. True, a little later some records that were considered lost were found in The Hoover Archives. Others were saved by the editors.

Texts collected between the covers of the volume Interview on Radio Free Europe I belong to this second category. Their salvation belongs solely to Crisula Stefanescu. A certain part was published in periodicals of the country. With the exception of transcripts of successive conversations with the novelist Augustyn Buzura (a series of conversations that were confidential at the time), the interviews were conducted after 1989. The vast majority of them passed completely on short waves within the framework of the program Controversies – the fusion of East and Westothers in other broadcasts of the station (Young or Romanian news).

With the exception of the notes made during discussions in the winter of 1988 with Augustin Buzura, discussions in which we meet again with apocalyptic Romania before the revolution, with fear, coldness, shortcomings, with the omnipresence of security, with censorship, with the courage or cowardice of intellectuals, and, with the exception of the interview with Harald Sigmund, one of the German writers from Romania arrested in 1959, all the other interviews – Corneliu Koposa, Ana Blandiana, Marcel Cirnoaga, Ileana a Romulusa Vulpescu, Dana Heulike, Silviu Purcarete, Elena Siupur, Mircea Horia Simionescu and Alexandru Cioranescu were asked to refer specifically to Romania after December. Thus, we have a chance to return to the first years after 1989, when the big problems were the traumas accumulated during 45 years of communism and the possibility of overcoming them, how far Romania is European or not, how to achieve the reconnection with Europe, how – can to bring about recovery, what is the role of intellectuals, what is the dimension of the moral crisis, and what might be possible antidotes. The question of whether intellectuals should engage in political activity returns obsessively, and rightly so. What does it mean to engage in politics, how can we not forget the horrors of the past, what will be the strategic options of those who do not accept the limited democratization that the Ion Iliescu regime seeks.

There. Corneliu Koposu invokes and argues the bad faith complex and everything else senior emphasizes the fact, which could not be more relevant today, that a politician is obliged to put the general interests above his own. Speaking about the specifics of his art, Marcel Cirnoaga defines himself as straightforward fantastic realist, different from surrealism. Ana Blandiana explains her civil-militant stance. I was delighted to read the interview with Mircea Goria Simionescu, paying attention to how he understands involvement in public space. The writer emphasizes the specific situation of Romania, which is significantly different from the situation in other countries fully integrated into the former Soviet bloc. The silent Silviu Purquerete rightly draws attention to the formalism that characterized many so-called cultural operations after the revolution. Professor Alexandru Cioranescu critically describes how post-communist Romania ended up and explains how the scandal surrounding Vintil Horia and the so-called cancellation of the award arose Goncourt _Read the entire article and comment on it at contributors.ro