transylvania – Bill's Blog

We are shown above in front of a statue of Vlad Tepes, or the famous Vlad the Impaler. He was the Romanian ruler in the mid-1400’s who defended Wallachia, a region in Romania, from the Ottoman Turks. He is remembered today because of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, “Dracula” is loosely based on him. We arrived back in Belgrade last night after a week long stay in visiting Transylvania.

We stayed with Claudiu Fuiorea pictured above to my right. He is from Sighisoara, the hometown of Vlad. On our final day with them, he took us on a tour of the city. Sighisoara one on of the 7 fortified cities built by German immigrants in the 12th century in Transylvania. Claudiu lives in Belgrade and works for a multinational corporation. We have become good friends and he and his family were wonderful hosts. We ate and drank extremely well, and got much insight into Romania.

Playing up the Vampire Image of Transylvania

We visited the Bran Castle near Vesna’s (Claudiu’s wife) hometown of Brasov. The castle looks like Dracula’s castle in Stoker’s Gothic novel, but was actually customs office for traffic coming into Transylvania from Ottoman lands to the east. The town of Bran really plays up the precarious relationship with Dracula. The market was full of vampire kitsch and was packed with tourists.

I wondered what it would have been like for those German immigrants 800 years ago. They went to the far eastern part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, lured by the chance for freedom and land. They built fortified cities to defend themselves and the empire from invaders from the east. It was an interesting relationship they had with the local Romanians. Basically, they were not allowed inside the citadels. The immigrants had very separate lives. Sadly, almost all of the descendants of the Germans and Hungarians have now left. Most left during the communist era (1945 – 1989) and the horrible rule of Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceasescu. He sold visas to families wanting to escape the horrible conditions. He also made them sign over all property to the government. They did leave these beautiful old cities however, the today they are tourist attractions.

We are pictured in the plaza of the lower city in Sighisoara

The effects of Ceasescu are quite visible in Romania today and it will take a long time for the country to bounce back from his horrible rule. Friend’s of Claudiu were telling us of the December 1989 revolution. One of his friends was in university at the time and he went out and tore down posters of the dictator immediately after his execution in Bucharest. It was a strange time he said, as everyone was confused about the transition. As with other “iron curtain” countries, the secret police kept extensive files on everyone and had many informants. Also, most people joined the party as they had to.

One thing I noticed were the many socialist housing blocks built during this era. They are more prevalent in Romania than Serbia. Below is one of the nicer apartment buildings. They were built for workers for the truck and tractor factory in Brasov. The factory sold low quality vehicles to other eastern block countries and it today abandoned. The apartments however, are still occupied. Vesna was telling me that they were designed for single men, many from Moldovia and Wallachia, specifically in Brasov to work for the company. Today families live in these, despite having shared bathrooms and kitchens at the end of the hall.

In the 20 years since the opening up of the country, Romania has come a long way. We noticed many more products in grocery stores and department stores in Romania than Serbia. It is part of the EU and the economic development that comes with it shows. They do have a ways to go however and it will be interesting to see where they are in another 20 years. The Romanian language is fascinating. It was the first of the Romance languages to split from Latin, the language of the Romans. There are many words similar to Spanish, and Nadia and I tried to speak Spanish when a Romanian did not understand English. The Romanians are generally darker and shorter than the Serbs and a bit less outgoing. It is hard to form a solid opinion because of limited amount of time in the country and not having visited the capital of Bucharest.

We really enjoyed our holiday there. A huge thanks to Claudiu, Vesna and their extended families!

Ceausescu's Legacy - Apartment in Brasov

Update: I read a bit more about Ceausescu in Misha Glenny’s book, “The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804-1999.

Ceausescu was elected First Secretary in 1965 after the death of Gheorghe Dej. It took several years for him to establish power and get rid of his rivals. Once he did, he tightened control. It was his vision to turn Romania into a dominant force in s.e. Europe and an industrialized nation. Romania is resource rich and could be independent from USSR. Unfortunately, he centrally-planned the economy and ran it down the toilet.

He was most popular in 1968 after verbally supporting Czechoslovakia’s stand against the USSR invasion. After that, it was all downhill. In 1971 he posted 17 “theses” on the door of the Central Committee and had his own cultural revolution, ala China. He tried to turn a rural, agricultural Romanian society into an urban, industrial country. As he tried to do this, he also monopolized power. For example, he introduced job rotation, forcing party members to rotate jobs often. This stopped them from gaining any expertise and power. It made the administration incompetent. It sounds like Chavez in Venezuela, putting people in important ministries and positions without the expertise or experience, but loyalty. Makes for a poorly run government. His opponents were more in fear of being demoted than worrying about running the government. Ceausescu’s family was exempted from the rotation, of course.

He crowned himself President in 1974 and a cult of personality formed. Ceausescu made Tito seem modest in his material wealth. His economic policies took away from agriculture and lowered consumption, and heavy borrowing from Western banks. He expanded the secret police and the country was full of informers. “The first great socialist industry was the production of personal files.” Speaking to foreigners was prohibited, ownership of a typewriter required a certificate, etc. Penalties included losing a job, banishment from university education, etc. Paul Goma and others spoke out.

I finished re-reading Robert Kaplan’s book, Balkan Ghosts. I focused on the section for Romania as I am preparing for our family to travel to Brasov, Romania, located in the Transylvania region of Romania. The book is a mix of travelogue and history. Kaplan visited several areas of Romania, included two of the cities in Transylvania near Brasov. He was there 20 years ago and the book is now a bit dated, but it did give me a good historical perspective of the area. Romania celebrates the 20th anniversary of end of the “communist” dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. He and his wife were executed 20 years ago tomorrow (Christmas Day). It is an interesting time to visit and my second to the country. We went earlier this fall to the border region with Serbia, to the former Roman bath village of Baile Herculane.

From my reading I learned several things.

1) I didn’t know that parts of Romania used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (The Russians also fought for control of other areas in the north of the country.) Brasov’s original name was the German Kronstadt. I wonder if they still have an influence after so many years of Romanian and communist oppression and control. Are there still Hungarians and Saxon Germans in Romania?

2) I didn’t realize how horrible Ceausescu’s rule was for the Romanians. Besides Stalin and the guy in Albania, I can’t think of a worse ruler. I can see why on my visit in October, the Romanian side of the border was so run down. It will be interesting to see a richer part of the country and are the harmful effects of Ceausescu’s legacy still seen and felt. Is the economy growing? Are the Romanians better off today than 20 years ago?

I found two sources of differing views on Romania. The first is more of a negative view of the country from phot0journalist, Christian Movila and his photo essay in today’s New York Times. The second is a recent book by former US Ambassador to Romania, Jim Rosapepe, entitled Dracula is Dead: How Romanians Survived Communism, Ended It and Emerged since 1989 as the New Italy. I am looking forward to forming my own opinion on the place and also having a good time with my family and friends.

My notes on Transylvania from Robert Kaplan’s book, “Balkan Ghosts” are below.

Vlad the Impaler had his castle on the plain of Wallachia, not T. Bram Stoker’s story Dracula is closer to Bucovina and Moldavia than Transylvania.
Transylvania is more Western than the three areas above. The Turks did not conquer Transylvania. William Penn almost named Pennsylvania Transylvania because he was so impressed with the religious tolerance of the area between Catholics & Protestants.
Hungarians and Saxon Germans repressed the Romanians in Transylvania. Romanians not impressed with the eastern beacon of the West.
For both the Romanians and Hungarians, Transylvania is special. It is where the Romans had the original colony of Dacia, and for the Hungarians, many important victories over the Turks occurred. Bela Bartok and several other famous Hungarians are from the region.
After WWI treaty, Romania got Transylvania from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Romanian names replaced the Hungarian names of cities and towns. Big Orthodox Cathedrals were built during this period.
In WWII, the Hungarians re-took the region, but with Romania changing sides towards the end of the war, the Romanians were once again awarded Transylvania.
Ceausescu forbid all Hungarian language, schools, newspapers, etc. He colonized the area with hundreds of thousands of Moldavian and Wallachian laborers. He also forcibly relocated Hungarians to other parts of Romania. There is a lot of enmity between the two countries.
The 2.1 million Hungarians in Romania helped with the downfall of Ceausescu. They were led by Calvinist pastor Laszlo Tokes of Timisoara (Temesvar in Hungarian).
Kaplan loves the city of Cluj-Napoca, very beautiful.
A great quote on page 155, he was discussing an acquaintance, Nigel Townson, an English professor working at the university in Cluj. He married a Serbian and lived in an apartment in the city with his two children. In 1990 when Kaplan visited, was a time of shortages, when Romania was just coming out of the communist years. “Life wasn’t easy for Nigel, but he had a better elemental grasp of what Romanians and their country were like than any pampered foreign diplomat could ever hope to.”
“Romania was one of those places overflowing with passion, where you meet the best and the worst people…”
Ceausescu was a real tyrant and did horrible things to the majority of Romanian people. Uneducated, from the Appalachians of Romania, he ran the country like a peasant would. Carter invited him to USA during the worst of the atrocities in Romania.
Kaplan thought Marie Windsor Hohenzollern was Romania’s best ruler because she secured the seccessio of Transylvania to Romania after WWI. Slept with troops on battlefields of WWI and Second Balkan War and dressed as pagan warrior goddess of Dacia.
Ceausescu sold visas to Romanian citizens of German and Hungarian descent during his dictatorship. After oil, it was a good source of income.