Identity and Conflict in the Balkans

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Identity and Conflict in the Balkans

• Fourteenth Week

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News

• Kosova, Serbia, EU and USA

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Moving on to Romania

• Kaplan
• More slides

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Romanian Film

• Check links on syllabus

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Romania-3 (Romanian spelling)
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Language

• Official language is Romanian
• Spoken by approximately 89 of the 23m population
• Hungarian is spoken by around 7 of the
  population, mainly in Transylvania
• Population of German speakers who make up around
  1.5 of the national population

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Romanian

• Romance language
• Slavic influence 9-12th
• Re-Latinization in 19th century
• Now French, English influences

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Historical Periods

• Roman (1st BC 10th AD)
• Pre-WWI (10th-early 20th)
• InterWar (1914-39)
• WWII (1939-44)
• Post-War (1945-1989)
• Post-Communist (1989-Present)

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Changing allegiances

• Nazis (Antonescu)then Allies
• Michael (Mihai) takes charge again
• Soviet occupation
• Post-War Soviet domination

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Post-War Developments

• Communist rule Michael forced out in 1947
• Soviet occupation until late 1950s
• Policies determined in Moscow
• Resistance grew in 1950s Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
• Dependence on USSR
• 1960s growing independence from Moscow

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New Romania

• 1859 Prince Alexander Cuza elected as common
  ruler of to principalities
• 1861 Romania recognized as independent state
• Cuza forced to resign in 1866
• German Prince Karl ruled for 50 years as Prince
  Carol, then King Carol I (in 1881)
• Died in 1914 succeeded by nephew Ferdinand

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Romania, WWI

• Neutral at beginning of WWI
• Joined with Allies in 1916 (quest for Bucovina,
  Banat, Transylvania from Austria-Hungary)
• Doubled in size large population of Romanian
  peasants
• Poverty between wars

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Nationalist movements

• Corneliu Codreanu (Iron Guard, Legionaires)
• Focus on Communists, Jews, liberals
• Revolutionary hero
• White horse assassinated by Carol II
• Martyrdom

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New Government

• Death of Ferdinand 1927
• Succession of son, Carol II, 1930
• Kaplan account of Carol and Lupescu
• Dictatorship until 1940

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King Carol II
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World War II

• Territorial losses at beginning of WWII
• Mihai/Michael becomes King in 1940, but Premier
  Antonescu ruled (Nazi support)
• Alliance with Germany until 1944

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Changing allegiances, revisionism

• Nazis (Antonescu)then Allies
• Mihai takes charge again
• Soviet occupation
• Post-War Soviet domination

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Post-War Developments

• Communist rule Mihai forced out in 1947
• Series of leaders Ceausescu in 1967
• Soviet occupation until late 1950s
• Policies determined in Moscow
• Resistance grew in 1950s Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
• Dependence on USSR
• 1960s growing independence from Moscow

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New Problems, Old Issues

• Russia, Soviet Union new factor
• WWII issues again
• Role of Antonescu
• Pogroms, Romanian Holocaust
• Shift in policy
• History Re-written

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Dominant Leader in 20th

• Nicolae Ceausescu, President and Party head, 1965
• Personality cult
• Securitate network

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Revolution

• 1989 changes in central Europe
• Food shortages, demonstrations in Timosoara
• December, 1989 revolution against leadership
• Demonstrations thousands in streets

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Final days

• Bloody street battles on 22 December
• Angry mass of people stormed Ceausescu's offices
• He fled by helicopter, but was seized outside the
  city
• In a summary court martial held in secret,
  Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were accused of
  ordering the deaths of 60,000 people
• On Christmas Day they were shot "like dogs

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Timeline

• 22 December 1989
• Couple flees
• Caught and tried
• 25 December executed

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Conclusion

• Anti-Ceausescu forces within the power elite made
  sure the couple was swiftly put to death
• Pictures showing their dead bodies, riddled with
  bullets, were broadcast street protests subsided
  
• So-called National Salvation Front, headed by a
  then little-known communist figure Ion Iliescu,
  assumed power and announced the abolition of the
  one-party system
• Iliescu and his allies were to stay in power
  until 1996

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End of Era

• Secret grave (see Kaplan description)
• No longer secret

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Communism Out, Capitalism In
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New Romania

• President Ion Iliescu until 1996
• Succeeded by Emil Constantinescu, re-elected in
  2000
• Now President Traian Basescu and PM Calin
  Tariceanu
• EU membership a priority

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Communism Out, Capitalism In
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New Romania

• President Ion Iliescu until 1996
• Succeeded by Emil Constantinescu, re-elected in
  2000
• Now President Traian Basescu and PM Calin
  Tariceanu
• EU membership a priority

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Kaplan

• To the Black Sea
• Dams, canals Ceausescus projects
• Cernovoda
• Bleakness, poverty of Wallachia
• Ecological disaster now UNESCO biosphere reserve

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Danube Delta
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Microcultures (Kaplan)

• Wallachia
• Bucovina
• Moldavia/Moldova/Bessarabia
• Transylvania

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Moldova-Moldavia
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Transdniestr
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Microcultures (Kaplan)

• Wallachia
• Bucovina
• Moldavia/Moldova/Bessarabia
• Transylvania

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Transdniester
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Romania Geography

• Moldavia (Moldova)
• Bucovina
• Banat
• Wallachia (Walachia)
• Transylvania
• Maramures
• Crisana
• Dobruja (Dobrogea)

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Dobruja
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Chapter 7 Conditioned to Hate (Moldova)

• Iasi Train Station

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Moldova, Moldavia

• Russia, Soviet Union new factor
• WWII issues again
• Role of Antonescu
• Pogroms, Romanian Holocaust
• Issue unity

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Chapter 8 Painted Monasteries of Bucovina
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Bucovina

• Friend Mihai in Suceava
• Problems of translator under C.
• History of the monasteries importance of Stephen
  the Great (15th c.)
• Humor, p 142 (previous slide) Voronets (right)

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Digression on Orthodoxy

• Importance of Icon
• Hierarchy
• Importance of Easter

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Moldovitsa (16th c. p.143)
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Moldovitsa
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Sucevitsa (16th p. 144)
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Putna (15th c., p. 146 buried there)
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Aspirations

• No artist in Romania will dare to paint of
  picture of Stephen smiling, until all of
  Bessarabia and nothern Bucovina are united with
  the rest of Moldavia under a Romanian flag, so
  that Stephens grave and the others are again
  deep inside Moldavian territory, protected from
  the Slavs. p. 147
• www.ici.ro/romania/ en/turism/m_putna.html

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Stephen the Great 1457-1504
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Chapter 9 Transylvanian Voices

• West vs. East cultural conflict
• Tirgu Mures
• Cluj
• Curtea de Arges (Queen Marie)
• What are the voices?

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Continental Hotel in Cluj

• Kaplans home

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Encounters

• Feelings about Ceausescu P. 156
• Father Bizau
• Gheorghe and Romanian politics
• American presidents Ambassador Funderburk

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Chapters 10-11

• Sibiu
• Saxon and Gypsy issues
• Timisoara and back to Bucharest
• Jewish cemetery

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New Issues

• Russia, Soviet Union new factor
• WWII issues again
• Role of Antonescu
• Pogroms, Romanian Holocaust
• Shift in policy
• History Re-written

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Roma (Gypsies)

• Who they are
• Where they come from
• Language
• History
• Culture

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Romantic Vision
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More Critical Visions
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Portrait England
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Nazis and Roma
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Slavenka Drakulic
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Drakulic- Biography

• Born 1949 lives in Sweden and Croatia
• Essayist, Journalist and Fiction Writer
• Non-fiction
• Deadly Sins of Feminism
• How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed
• The Balkan Express Fragments from the Other Side
  of the War
• Café Europa Life after Communism
• Novels
• Holograms of Fear
• Marble Skin
• The Taste of a Man

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Drakulics S A Novel About the Balkans (1999)

• Treatment of women in wartime
• Conscious strategy deliberate policies
• Moral blindness loss of inhibitions under
  extreme conditions

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Drakulics Novel S

• What is the historical basis for the work?
• Did it offer any explanations? Motives?
• What are the key events in Ss experiences? Her
  main challenges?
• What are Ss key relationships?
• What are the moral questions raised? Are they
  resolved?

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What are the novels literary qualities?

• Genre
• Point of view
• Structure

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Drakulics Novel S

• What is the historical basis for the work?
• Did it offer any explanations? Motives?
• What are the key events in Ss experiences? Her
  main challenges?
• What are Ss key relationships?
• What are the moral questions raised? Are they
  resolved?

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What are the novels literary qualities?

• Genre
• Point of view
• Structure

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Rape

• Phenomenon in many military conflicts
• Ongoing discussion in international law
• ICTY verdict systematic use of rape can be
  prosecuted as war crime
• 25,000-60,000 Bosnian and Croatian women
• How should we understand it?
• Tactic of ethnic cleansing?
• Related to genocide?

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Theory 1

• Woman as property rape devalues signals failure
  of her man to protect her

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Theory 2

• Rape represents violation of territorial
  integrity, means of establishing jurisdiction and
  conquest
• Metaphor man bears generic stuff of nation
  female is property and vessel in which children
  of nation grow men become owners of territory
  and children

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Theory 3

• Rape degrades, pollutes nations symbol of
  fertility and purity threatens to cleanse the
  territory through birth of an enemy son
• Demonstrates power of invading forces
• Reward for victory

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More theories

• War removes inhibitions
• Xenophobia, misogyny merge
• Ethnic hatred is sexualized
• Mass sexual abuse as genocide

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Theory and Drakulics S A Novel About the
Balkans (1999)

• Public humiliation effective way of scaring
  people away
• Mass rape most horrifying public humiliation
• Shame women, soil them
• Rape intimidates enemy soldiers

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Romania Today

• Bran Castle http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Ca
  stle

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Kaplan Chapter 5-11

• Ethnic groups
• peasants
• Germans Saxons
• Roma
• Hungarians Szekely
• Jews, Turks, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians