The Soviet Administration in Northern Transylvania (November 1944 – March 1945) by Marcela Sălăgean (review)

492 Рецензии/Reviews Wim van MEURS Marcela Sălăgean, The Soviet Administration in Northern Transylvania (November 1944 – March 1945). Translated by Robert Mihai Rosca (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 2002). 190 pp. (=East European Monographs, Vol. DXCVIII ). Bibliography, Appendices. ISBN: 0-88033-496-7. This book, frankly, is a disgrace – not only for the East European Monographs series or for Romanian studies in general, but also for modern history writing per se. Its only advantage is the fact that the main text ends after a mere 150 pages. The almost six hundred volumes in the East European Monographs Красной армии.12 Много сделано в изучении Холокоста евреев Бе- ларуси.13 Вышла первая работа, посвященная геноциду цыган Беларуси, полностью забытой странице Холокоста.14 Поиск белорусскими историка- ми правды о войне вызывает рез- кую реакцию нынешней власти Беларуси, которая рассматривает эти усилия как попытки “очернить подвиг белорусского народа”. Несколько высокопрофессиональ- ных диссертаций, посвященных противоречивым моментам во- йны, не прошли ВАК, научный редактор рецензированной книги Г. Саганович недавно был уволен за свои взгляды из Института истории. Власть достаточно про- фессионально использует в своей политике доставшийся старшим поколениям от нацистского и советского периода образ вну- тренних врагов. Лидеры демокра- тической белорусской оппозиции (представители послевоенного поколения) объявлены офици- альной пропагандой “детьми по- лицаев”. В этих условиях книга немецкого историка имеет для белорусского читателя не только научное, но и, вероятно, психоте- рапевтическое значение. 12 Юры Туронак. Фабіян Акінчыц – правадыр беларускіх нацыянал-сацыялістаў // Беларускі Гістарычны Агляд. 2003. Сш. 1-2. Т. 10. С. 145-162. 13 См. обзор исследований: Зміцер Шавялёў. Агляд развіцця яўрэйскіх даследаванняў у Беларусі на мяжы ХХ–ХХI ст. // Беларускі Гістарычны Агляд. 2003. Сш. 1-2. Т. 10. С. 188-200. 14 Аляксандр Фрыдман. Невядомы генацыд: Знiшчэнне беларускіх цыганоў у 1941-1944 // ARCHE. 2004. № 2. Текст доступен в Интернете: http://arche.bymedia. net/2004-2/frydman204.htm. Последний раз проверялась 2 мая 2007 г. 493 Ab Imperio, 3/2007 book, as it comes without even an inkling of a research question or an open-minded approach to history. The informed reader will probably wonder why – more than a decade after Ceauşescu’s demise – so many old topoi of Romanian historiography refuse to die. Firstly, the author assumes a national perspective, i.e., by implying that Transylvania stopped being an issue as soon as it was returned to Romanian sovereignty in March 1945. The author abhors communism, but gives Romanian comrades like Pătrăşcanu the benefit of the doubt. Secondly, the author deplores the political control over history-writing under communism , but merrily copies most of the historical myths produced in that era: the heroism ofAugust 23, 1944, and the tabooing of Romania’s previous alliance with Nazi Germany. To refer to the German-Romanian military positions vis-à-vis the advancing Red Army as “defensive” is correct only in a strictly limited military sense. The Romanians, according to Sălăgean, rejected (Soviet) communism ; whereas part of the Hungarian and Jewish minorities were all too ready to strike a bargain with the enemy. In history, the Romanians strove to save their nation-state, but were time and again defeated by the treacherousness and cynicism of other nations and great powers. The Soviet occupation of Northern series include some fine examples of historical scholarship. With this publisher , however, the author always carries the burden of editing and proofreading. In the case of volume DXCVIII the typo “Translyvania” on the cover does not bode well for the quality of the manuscript. Any native speaker could have told the author that English sentences habitually do not run over seven or more lines. Every PC user is familiar with the annoying rectangles on screen indicating that the software is unable to display certain unicode characters, but one rarely encounters those rectangles in a printed book. Not even the most meticulous and conscientious editor (or translator , in this case) could have saved Sălăgean’s book. The composing of the book has been handled as carelessly and hastily as the proofreading . None of the many personalities mentioned in the exposé is introduced properly to the general reader. Conversely, any reader with a background in Romanian studies or the history of the Eastern block will search in vain for new insights or even snippets of new information from the archives used (the National Archives in Bistria, Târgu-Mureş, Oradea and Cluj-Napoca, the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Central National Historical Archives). Not even a Pulitzer Prize-winning author could have saved this 494 Рецензии/Reviews Transylvania is but a case in point of this eternal historical truth. In the conclusion, it reads: “…Romania could but to influence, as much as possible, the decisions of the Great Powers, fructifying [sic], with maximum of efficiency and at the right time, the few trump cards it had in hand. …The developments of the following months, however, have brought out the huge discrepancy existing between the aspirations of the democratic political forces from Romania and the cruel geopolitical reality” (P. 152). Starting with a preordained answer rather than a research question, the author presents the events largely as they unfolded, and skips from one archival document to the next.As she fails to adequately distinguish the various layers of the complex events (e.g...