Dennis Deletant
Historian, Emeritus Professor of Romanian Studies, University College, London. Currently, he is Ion Rațiu Romanian Scholar at the History and Public Policy Program, Wilson Center, Washington, D.C. He was awarded ‘The Star of Romania’, Romania’s highest civilian honour, by President Klaus Iohannis, on 26 October 2016, for his activity in the promotion of Romanian history, language and culture. He is the author of several monographs and volumes of studies on the recent history of Romania. His most recent study in English, Romania under Communism: Paradox and Degeneration, was published in 2019 (Oxford; New York: Routledge). An autobiographical memoir, In Search of Romania (London: Hurst Publishers), appeared in May 2022.
Dennis Deletant
There is no reference in my Securitate file to the above episode, nor to that involving my contact with Corneliu Coposu who, after the 1989 revolution, became President of the National Peasant Party, although a report of my visit to him appears in Coposu’s own file. I had come to Bucharest that same August in 1986 with my two young children and deposited them with their grandparents while I pursued research into British contacts with Iuliu Maniu, the head of the National Peasant Party, during the Second World War. My Romanian friends told me that a key person to talk to on this subject was Corneliu Coposu, Maniu’s personal assistant. I was given his telephone number but warned, at the same time, that his house was under surveillance by the Securitate because the poker evenings that Coposu arranged with his septuagenarian friends were regarded as a cover for reviving the NPP. I telephoned Mr Coposu, explained briefly who I was, and we agreed a time when I should go to his house. He then warned me that visits to his home were monitored. Thanking him, I added that if he would be kind enough to receive me, then I was unconcerned as to what others might think. More
Dennis Deletant
My first direct contact with Romania took place in July 1965. It was choreographed in such a manner that opportunities to meet members of the public were limited. An inescapable feature of life in Romania under the Communist regime was the ubiquity of the Securitate or the security police, known officially for much of the period as the Department of State Security of the Ministry of the Interior. I realised as much from this visit and that realisation was reinforced during my subsequent experience of the country. My professional and personal involvement with Romania encompassed the entire duration of Ceausescu’s rule, from 1965 until 1989, and it was inevitable that this familiarity and my friendship with historians and writers should attract the Securitate’s attention, as confirmed by my consultation in 2007 of my Securitate file. More
