Fare Well, Illyria

Chapter 10: Roads Leading to Romania

Chapter 11 roads leading to romania There was romania, home of the Dacians and the Getae in ancient times, stretching from the Danube in the west to the Black Sea in the east with the ridges of the Carpathians, where, across the middle part, brown bears and wolves still roam. Its veins of precious metals, rich fields, and valleys invited invasions by Persians, romans, Goths, Huns, and later Slavs, Magyars, and Turks. roman invaders under Trajan introduced colonists who brought a vulgar latin to the romanian lands and created a protoromanian language, albeit flavored with a sprinkling of Slavic words injected by neighboring Serbs, Bulgars, and russians. romania had been on the map of europe for scarcely a century when I came to the Balkans. as a young monarchy, it allied itself in 1877 to russia against the Turks, remained neutral for two years in World War I, then allied itself to France—emerging with huge territorial gains at the expense of Bulgaria, Hungary, and russia. But it lost some of these for siding with the axis in World War II. Many romanians liked to think of themselves as latinate and to consider Bucharest the “Paris of the east.” But in their modern history, they were more often allied with Germans (and Nazis) or russians (and Communists). 1963–1966 In late June 1963, my first official call in Bucharest as the new Balkans correspondent of The New York Times was at the office of Dr. Petre Iosif, Director of Press affairs at the romanian Ministry of Foreign affairs, 102 FARE WELL, ILLYRIA which was then housed in a requisitioned hotel on the capital’s broad Bulevardul republicii. I had arranged through the romanian embassy in Belgrade, my Balkan base, to call on him. I drove the 340—Balkan—miles in about ten hours. Iosif, a slender bespectacled man in his fifties, received me courteously , expressing the wish that “this would be the beginning of a good relationship.” I responded that it would be good if he would inquire into the fate and situation of Fernanda Friedman-Stefanescu, who had been arrested as a “spy” for The New York Times in about 1950 and who then disappeared. I was tasked on this matter by the foreign editor in New york, emanuel r. Freedman, who insisted that I raise the issue. He heard of her from a letter sent by a romanian woman who was released from prison after having been incarcerated with Fernanda. (Decades later it occurs to me that some might imagine a familial connection between e.r. Freedman and Fernanda Friedman, but I am sure there was none.) Petre Iosif frowned. Taken aback by my blunt-verging-on-rude opening, he laconically replied: “I will look into it.” after a pause, we then discussed the current state of world affairs and my general lack of knowledge of or experience in romania. a few days later he said, “She does not exist.” In those days the country spelled its name rumania, partially in deference to the russians, then the dominant power in the region who traditionally spelled it with a “u” (in Cyrillic) as did most european nations. So did The New York Times. The change to an “o,” as in romania, was just beginning as the quietly determined and independent-minded leadership worked to strengthen the nation’s self-image as descendants of rome and the romans. Their main argument was the conquest of their land by emperor Trajan in a.D. 106 and its subsequent designation by some colonists as “romania.” The 100-degree heat was suffocating. I was lodged in the Hotel lido, whose claim to renown was a swimming pool with a wave-making apparatus that created the impression of a turbulent little sea, and made sustained swimming arduous. Its restaurant was unmemorable. a tour of the capital was arranged with a Foreign Ministry attaché, a slight balding fellow who introduced himself as e.T. de Herbay to guide me. It became apparent that he was not a regime sympathizer. Driving through a fancy neighborhood northeast of Piaţa Victoriei—the Square of Victory—I asked who lived there. “Les hautes volailles!”—his words for the high and mighty. Who lives there now? 103 Roads Leading to Romania “Les hautes volailles. But different.” (Seven years later e.T. Herbay wrote me a letter from london where he had arrived after getting a job at...