Slovo vol. 16.1 by SLOVO Journal

SLOVO VOLUME 16

NUMBER 1

SPRING 2004

Contents page editorial Helen Warren

articles

Politics, Nationalism, Music, and Popular Culture in 1990s Serbia Ivana Kronja

5–15

The Developments of National Security Strategies in Bulgaria and Romania Since 1989 Darren Lake

17–33

The Hungarian Status Law in Romania: Anatomy of an International Dispute Sergiu Z. Troie

35–55

The Functions and Importance of Turkisms in ‘Shibil’ by Yordan Yovkov Craig Atkins

57–64

The Early Exile of Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1907–1914) and Its Influence on His Writings Mykola Soroka

65–76

book reviews Stephen White, Judy Batt, and Paul G. Lewis, eds, Developments in Central and East European Politics (Daniel Brett)

77–79

Eero Medijainen and Vahur Made, eds, Estonian Foreign Policy and the Crossroads (Kadri Must)

79–81

James Gow and Cathie Carmichael, Slovenia and the Slovenes: A Small State and the New Europe (Bethan Jones)

81–83

Dušan I. Bjelié and Obrad Savié, eds, Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation (Catherine Baker)

83–85

Janusz Korczak, Ghetto Diary (Anna Solarska)

85–86

Slovo, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2004

Editorial The end of Volume 15 marked the successful completion of Slovo’s first year of collaboration with Maney Publishing. The present Volume 16 (1) continues that partnership. A new editorial team has taken over and hopes to strengthen the journal’s relationship with Maney as well as its academic reputation. As always, Slovo has obtained contributions from a variety of authors, both experienced academics and up-and-coming writers. The quality of the submissions has been exceptionally high, and it has been a pleasure to read them all. However, as always, there are choices to be made and it is hoped that the various submissions selected for this issue form a coherent whole. Darren Lake’s discussion of The Development of National Security Strategies in Bulgaria and Romania since 1989 and Sergiu Troie’s Hungarian Status Law in Romania: Anatomy of an International Dispute, both offer insights into the sometimes contested international politics of the eastern Danubian and Balkan region, while Ivana Kronja’s Politics, Nationalism, Music and Popular Culture in 1990s Serbia, in analysing the turbo-folk phenomenon of the Miloševica regime, reflects the dynamic field of former Yugoslavian Cultural Studies. Together with Craig Atkins’ The Functions and Importance of Turkisms in Shibil by Yordan Yorkov the articles reveal a resurgence in submissions on Southeast European matters, after issue 15(2) which concentrated mainly on Russia and the regions of the former Soviet Union. However, Mykola Soroka’s The Early Exile of Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1907–1914) and Its Influence on His Writings maintains Slovo’s strong tradition of presenting new research into Russian Literature. Although many of the articles have focussed on Southeast Europe, Slovo is delighted to accept submissions from scholars interested in any aspect included in the scope of the journal, namely Russian, Eurasian, Central and East European Studies. This issue of Slovo would not have been possible without the immense amount of help and support of numerous people in the academic and administrative spheres who have offered their time and expertise, often with heavy personal workloads and pressing deadlines. Being part of the Slovo team is a challenge, albeit a rewarding one, that would all be in vain if it were not for the assistance of many others. The editorial team would like to thank, among others, Professors Roger Bartlett, George Kolankiewicz, Geoffrey Hosking, Lindsey Hughes, A. B. McMillin, Robert B. Pynsent, and Alan Smith; Drs Florentina Badalanova, Alex Drace-Francis, Ger Duijzings, Peter Duncan, Brigid Fowler, Tim Haughton, Peter Siani-Davies, Martyn Rady, and Zoran Milutinovica; and Frances Millard, Tim Beasley-Murray, Sara Cohen, Daniel Brett, Darren Lake, Esther Williams, Felix Ciutab, Andrew Gardner, Liz Hoskins, Liz Rosindale, Anna Thrush, and Maria Widdowson for their help and advice. A. H. Warren Slovo Executive Editor 2003–2004 © School of Slavonic & East European Studies, University College London, 2004

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The functions and importance of Turkisms in ‘Shibil’ by Yordan Yovkov CRAIG ATKINS School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London Turkisms feature quite prominently within the collection of works known as the ‘Staroplaninski Legendi’ by the Bulgarian writer Yordan Yovkov and can cause, for the translator, the dilemma of whether it is more fitting to translate or to transliterate them. This essay looks at two translations of Yovkov’s short story ‘Shibil’ and how the different translators dealt with this issue. Apart from looking at problems to do with translation and transliteration, this essay also examines Yovkov’s purpose in using these Turkisms, often when there are other more ‘Bulgarian’ words which he could have used. The importance of the Turkisms within the context of the story as a whole is also examined, as well as their use as stylistic markers and the cultural, temporal, and historical meanings that they can also convey. Yordan Yovkov’s short story ‘Shibil’ is part of a cycle of stories called the Staroplaninski Legendi. Yovkov was born into a relatively poor sheep-farming family in the Balkan Mountains in 1880. He received his education in Sofia and after the death of his father his family moved to the Dobrudja. It was in the Dobrudja that he became a primary school teacher and later the head of a secondary school; it was also while in the Dobrudja that he began to write.1 Yovkov’s stories are intricate, descriptive, and often tragic, full of both the exceptional and everyday aspects of the lives of his characters as well as a great amount of often lyrical and folkloric expressions and imagery. His short story ‘Shibil’ is no exception to this. I have decided to use three translations of ‘Shibil’ for comparison within this essay; two of them are practically identical and it is only because of one small difference that I have decided to include them both separately, although for the bulk of this essay it will be the second version of these two that will be used for the purpose of comparison. The third translation is quite different from the others in terms of the translator’s style. It is also quite different with regard to the fact that the translator is a native English speaker and that the translation is a much more recent one. The first version is from a book of short stories by Yovkov called The White Swallow and other Short Stories and was translated by Professor Marco Mincov and 1 J. Burnip, The Inn at Antimovo and Legends of Stara Planina by Yordan Yovkov (Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, 1990), p. 7.

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Milla Cholakova. This book was published by the Bulgarian Ministry of Information and Arts section for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries in Sofia in 1947. The second version is from a book titled Short Stories by Yordan Yovkov and the translators are Marco Mincov (whose name on this occasion is transliterated ‘Mincoff’) and Marguerite Alexieva. The editor of this book was Mercia Mac Dermott. The Foreign Languages Press in Sofia published this book in 1965. The English text of both of these translations is exactly the same. The difference between the two is found in a selection of Turkisms that the translators have chosen to transliterate rather than to translate. These transliterated words are also almost exactly the same in both the translations. The only exception to this is the word khaidutin which is transliterated in the 1947 edition as haidouk and in the 1965 edition as haidout. The only difference between the two texts is that in the 1947 edition there is no explanation given as to the meaning of these transliterated words, whereas the 1965 edition has footnotes explaining the meanings of these words the first time that they appear in the text. It is interesting to note that the 1965 edition appears to have had a native English speaker as an editor, and the inclusion of these explanatory notes was probably done at her instigation to make the story more understandable to a reader with no knowledge of the Bulgarian language or Bulgarian cultural history. The third version is from a book called The Inn at Antimovo and Legends of Stara Planina by Yordan Yovkov and the translator was John Burnip. This book was published by Slavica Publishers in Ohio in 1990. Burnip also chose, in a few cases, to transliterate rather than translate some of the words in the story, although on only two occasions do both translations coincide in using a transliteration of the Turkism rather than a translation of that particular word. Burnip’s translation also includes a glossary at the end of his book of some Bulgarian and Turkish terms and place names. When they occur within the body of the text itself for the first time they are marked with an asterisk. This essay will focus on the functions and importance of these Turkisms to the story and how the different translators interpret them in their English texts. Shibil is full of Turkisms, and for the purposes of this essay, they will be divided into four groups: terms denoting social status and/or occupation; terms representing the portrayal of female beauty; toponymy; and personal names. In the first paragraph of ‘Shibil’, there are three Turkisms denoting social status and occupation; they are khaidutin, zaptie, and kub rserdari. In the footnotes of the 1965 version, the translators give the meaning of haidout as ‘usually a man who has taken refuge from oppression in the mountains, but also a robber, as in this case’. This definition matches that found in A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian which describes a khaidut(in) as a robber, thief, or as a fighter against Turkish oppressors during Ottoman rule. They do, however, point out that it may in fact come from the Hungarian word for a robber — haydut.2 The initial description of Shibil as a ‘strashniiat khaidutin’ is a stock epithet found throughout Bulgarian folklore (songs, prose, and poetry). The use of this expression and others from the folk epic vocabulary immediately gives the reader an idea of the tone and setting of the story.

2 Grannes, Hauge, and Suleymanoglu, A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian (Oslo: Novus, Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning, 2002), p. 267.

TURKISMS IN ‘SHIBIL’

The word zaptieh is explained as a ‘Turkish policeman’ in the translator’s notes. This definition also matches that found in A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian3 which defines zaptie as a police constable, derived from the Turkish word zaptiye. This same definition can also be found in Rechnik na Bub lgarskiia Ezik tom V, where a zaptie is defined as the lowest rank in the Turkish police force.4 Zaptie can also be found in the form zabtie, as in Naiden Gerov’s Bulgarian dictionary (originally printed in 1897).5 The third word, kurserdars, is explained in the translator’s notes as a ‘governor of a Turkish province’. This explanation does not quite match the definition given in A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian, which describes a kub rserdar(in) or a kub rserdar-agasub as a rural police commander or chief of field keepers, derived from the Turkish words kir serdari and kir agasi.6 This definition is reiterated in the Rechnik na Bub lgarskiia Ezik tom 8, which also defines a kub rserdar as a Turkish police commander.7 It is worth noting that the word kub r is also used in some Bulgarian dialects as the word for ‘field’ or ‘land’. It is also interesting to note that under all three of these entries in the Rechnik na Bub lgarskiia Ezik the authors quote this first line from ‘Shibil’ as an example of the use of the words haidout, zaptieh, and kub rserdar. Another important point about these three words is the fact that in all cases they are described as being ‘historical’ words. The fact that they refer to people, occupations, or positions of authority during the period of Ottoman rule in Bulgaria is very important because they help to place the story in a historical context. The exact period during the time of Ottoman rule is not particularly important, but, by transliterating them rather than translating them, Mincov and Alexieva add a historical and cultural flavour that gives the story a more Bulgarian feel. In contrast to the version by Mincov and Alexieva, John Burnip translates all three of these words into English. He translates haidout as ‘brigand’, zaptiehs as ‘guards’ and kurserdars as ‘watch’. The words ‘Brigands’ and ‘guards’ fit perfectly well into the English sentence and succeed in conveying the essential meaning of the original Turkisms, but his use of the word ‘watch’ for kurserdars is more problematic. The word ‘watch’ seems to be more of a synonym with ‘guards’, suggesting a group of subordinates, whereas in the original Bulgarian Turkism, the kurserdars are the people in charge of the ‘guards’ like a sheriff (although this sounds medieval) or, as we can see from the dictionary definitions, a police commander or chief of police. The problematic nature of the word kurserdar continues when we learn of the specific person involved a little later in the story: ‘— I kub rserdarina Murad bei . . .’.8 For Burnip this becomes ‘Murad Bey the watch’ which sounds a little clumsy and does not really convey the meaning of the position of authority that the character

Ibid., p. 94. Rechnik na buh lgarskiia ezik, Tom V, ed. by K. Cholakova (Sofiia: Izdvo na Buh lgarskata akademiia na naukite, 1987), p. 599. 5 N. Gerov, Rechnik na buh lgarskiia ezik (fototipno izdanie), Chast vtora (Sofia: Buh lgarski pisatel, 1975–78, 1976), p. 40. 6 Grannes, Hauge, and Suleymanoglu, A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian (Oslo: Novus, Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning, 2002), p. 163. 7 Rechnik na buh lgarskiia ezik, Tom 8, ed. by K. Cholakova (Sofia, 1995), p. 455. 8 Y. Yovkov, Suh brani suh chineniia, Tom vtori (Sofia, 1970), p. 170. 4

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holds. Having chosen to use a transliteration for kub rserdar, Mincov and Alexieva avoid the problem by translating it as ‘the kurserdar Murad Bey’, and we already know what a kurserdar is thanks to the explanatory note at the beginning of the story, although the explanation unfortunately does not fully convey the meaning of the Bulgarian Turkism. The other notable instance of an important Turkism denoting a person’s occupation or social status that I would like to draw attention to is Rada’s father ‘Veliko kekhaia’ — Veliko the kehaya. In their version, Mincov and Alexieva transliterate his name and title to Veliko the kehaya and give a translation of the word kehaya in a footnote as the ‘chief shepherd and owner of flocks’. Burnip, on the other hand, translates his name and title to ‘Veliko the Crier’. In translating kehaya as ‘chief shepherd’ or ‘crier’, neither of the translators give Veliko the kehaya the level of authority or importance that Yovkov intended. The Bulgarian word ‘kekhaia’ certainly does mean ‘village crier’ and it is also used to describe the ‘chief shepherd’. However, it is also used to describe a ‘person in charge’ or ‘person in command’9 and it is in this context that it is intended here. The reason for this is the interaction between the kurserdar Murad Bey and Veliko the kehaya at the end of the story. Throughout this conversation they both use the familiar form of address, their conversation is informal and friendly and at one point the kurserdar refers to Veliko as ‘chorbadzhi’10, which means ‘master’ or ‘boss’. Veliko, on the other hand, uses the titles ‘bei’ from the Turkish word bey used to address superiors in military or civilian posts,11 and ‘efendi’ from the Turkish word effendi, which is again a form of address to a superior.12 This is also reinforced by the fact that Veliko grabs the red kerchief and is prepared to go against the wishes of the Bey to make sure that Shibil is shot and that his daughter and his honour are saved. The overall tone of the interaction between the Bey and Veliko is more like the interaction of equals (or near equals) rather than an interaction between a chief of police and a chief shepherd or a town crier. Veliko seems to be the mayor or headman of the village; that is why he is in on the trick to snare Shibil along with the kurserdar Murad Bey, and it is also why he gets so agitated when he thinks that the kurserdar might be merciful to Shibil and that his daughter might actually get to marry him. Turkisms also play an important role in Yovkov’s description of Rada’s beauty when she and Shibil meet for the first time. They are also used to show Rada’s social status. She is described as wearing a ‘dzhanfezena’ dress,13 which Burnip correctly translates as ‘taffeta’ and comes from the Turkish word canfes.14 Mincov and Alexieva, however, translate it incorrectly as ‘silk’. Her bodice or waistcoat is described as being made from ‘atlaz’, which is correctly translated as ‘satin’ in both 9 Grannes, Hauge, and Suleymanoglu, A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian (Oslo: Novus, Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning, 2002), p. 143; and Rechnik na buh lgarskiia ezik, Tom 7, ed. by K. Cholakova (Sofia, 1993), p. 379. 10 Y. Yovkov, Suh brani suh chineniia, Tom vtori (Sofia, 1970), p. 176. 11 Grannes, Hauge, and Suleymanoglu, A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian (Oslo: Novus, Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning, 2002), p. 27. 12 Ibid., p. 91. 13 Y. Yovkov, Suh brani suh chineniia, Tom vtori (Sofia, 1970), p. 168. 14 Grannes, Hauge, and Suleymanoglu, A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian (Oslo, 2002), p. 68.

TURKISMS IN ‘SHIBIL’

versions and comes from the Turkish word atlaz or atlas.15 What shows that Rada comes from a wealthy family, and what chiefly sparks the interest of Shibil’s outlaw colleagues, are the rows of coins that Rada is wearing around her neck. The words for these are all Turkisms as well: ‘red edri altub ni, red rubeta i makhmudii’.16 Altubn can mean either ‘gold’ or a ‘gold coin’ and comes from the Turkish word altun.17 A rube was a smaller gold coin and can also be found in the forms rubie and rubiia and is derived from the Turkish rub’iye.18 A makhmudiia was a Turkish gold coin minted during the reign of Mahmud II and comes from the Turkish mahmudiye.19 These Turkisms play an integral role in the description of Rada’s beauty and social status along with a number of standard epithets found in Bulgarian folklore and folk song used to describe the paradigm of female beauty: her ‘slim waist’ and ‘wide skirts’, her ‘fair complexion’ and ‘scarlet lips’. The Turkisms and stock epithets combine to create an image of the paradigm of female beauty for the reader, and indeed for Shibil as well. There are other more Bulgarian words for gold and for coins such as zlato, zhubltitsa, and zlatna moneta, but Yovkov chose to use these Turkisms for a reason. They not only form an important part of the description of his heroine but they also form an integral part in the temporal and cultural atmosphere of the story. The importance of these Turkisms as an integral part of the story is also reflected by the fact that, in both of the English versions, the translators have chosen to transliterate rather than translate one or both of the words rubes and mahmudis. This is important because, if they had translated them, we would lose the cultural, temporal, and stylistic markers that these words convey. The closest words we could use in English would be, perhaps, ‘gold sovereign’ or ‘gold doubloon’. These words also mean ‘gold coins’ and would convey a similar temporal meaning but we would, however, lose the cultural and stylistic markers that play such an important role in Yovkov’s story. A Turkism also appears in the story in a spatial context. In the second paragraph of the story we find the expression ‘sred Dzhendemite’.20 On this occasion Burnip chooses to transliterate the toponym Dzhendemite as ‘amid the Djendem’ and refers the reader, with an asterisk, to the glossary. Here we learn that it is an Arab/ Turkish word meaning ‘Hell’ etymologically linked to the word Gehenna and that it is also a toponym for the gorges on the south flank of Mount Botev. Mincov and Alexieva, on the other hand, just translate the expression as ‘in Hell Gorge’. Why Burnip uses a transliteration rather than a translation here is a little unclear. In this paragraph there is also another reference to a toponym, ‘na Sinite kamub ni’,21 which both texts translate as ‘of the Blue Rocks’ and which Burnip also gives a reference to in his glossary, although this toponym is purely Bulgarian in origin. Both of these toponyms are given in the glossary along with their geographical relation to the 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Ibid., p. 15. Y. Yovkov, Suh brani suh chineniia, Tom vtori (Sofia, 1970), p. 168. Grannes, Hauge, and Suleymanoglu, A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian (Oslo, 2002), p. 8. Ibid., p. 220. Ibid., p. 180. Y. Yovkov, Suh brani suh chineniia, Tom vtori (Sofia, 1970), p. 167. Y. Yovkov, Suh brani suh chineniia, Tom vtori (Sofia, 1970), p. 167.

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village of Zheravna, where Yovkov spent the early years of his life. Although Burnip’s desire to explain the toponomy of the area the story is set in is understandable, as the distinctions between mountain and/or forest on the one hand and fields and/or cultivated land on the other is important in relation to the nature and behaviour of the different characters within those different landscapes, why he chooses to translate the Bulgarian toponym and transliterate the Turkism is difficult to ascertain. The names of Yovkov’s characters also form an interesting and important part of his story and although there are five names used, they refer to only four different characters. The quotation from a folk song at the very beginning tells us that ‘Radka na porti stoeshe, otdolu ide Mustafa’22 — ‘Rada was standing at the gate, up came Mustafa’ — and from even before we begin reading the main body of the story we can sense that there may be tension here, that there may be conflict of some kind as Rada’s name is Bulgarian and Mustafa’s name is Turkish. Yovkov also plays with the linguistic nuances of two of the Bulgarian names in the story, Rada and Veliko. The name Rada is etymologically linked to the Bulgarian words for joy, happiness, gladness, and so on; although she does in a sense bring Shibil joy and happiness in that it is his love for her that fuels his decision to leave the mountains and give up his outlaw life, his decision to forsake that life and to trust the word of Veliko the kehaya and Murad Bey also brings about his and Rada’s deaths. The name of Rada’s father Veliko is, like hers, a Bulgarian one and has etymological connotations that link it to the comments earlier regarding the translators’ interpretation of his position in the village. The Bulgarian word velik means ‘grand’ or ‘great’ and this, coupled with his position as the kehaya, is another way for Yovkov to denote the important position that he holds in the village and that he was not just the town crier or chief shepherd. Murad Bey’s name is a traditionally Turkish one and along with the description of him stroking his beard while the smoke from his hookah curls around his head provides an almost stereotypical description of the chief of police. The most interesting names are those that belong to the one character — Shibil/ Mustafa. They seem to represent the two aspects of one character. Yovkov creatively borrowed these names from a gypsy character, ‘Shibil Mustafa’, who was known, in reality for his life as a bandit, and in song for his love of a Bulgarian woman named Dzhenda (the song probably has its roots in reality as well).23 Yovkov creates a kind of liminal boundary in the story between the wild and untamed landscapes of the mountains and forests and the tamed or cultivated landscape of the plain and the village. Shibil is the name he uses for the wild spaces, and he only becomes Mustafa when he crosses that boundary into the tamed/domesticated space of the village. Shibil is first referred to as Mustafa when he returns to his father’s house: ‘Tri predpazlivi udara, tikho poshepnato: «Az sub m, Mustafa»’.24 There is also a link between the tenses Yovkov uses in the story and his use of the names Shibil and Mustafa. Almost the entire story is told in the past tense, apart

22 23 24

Ibid., p. 167. E. Mozejko, Yordan Yovkov (Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, 1984), p. 69. Y. Yovkov, Suh brani suh chineniia, Tom vtori (Sofia, 1970), p. 173.

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from two passages in the present tense. The name Shibil only ever occurs in the description of events in the past tense, whereas the name Mustafa is used on one occasion in the present-tense narration of his conversation with his mother, although we know this conversation happened in the past because, when Yovkov returns to describing the scene, he calls his hero Shibil again. The other presenttense sequence is when Veliko the kehaya and Murad Bey are waiting in the café for Shibil/Mustafa to appear on the street, and when he does appear he is referred to as Mustafa. However, then we return to the past tense: ‘The muskets fired’ and ‘Shibil halted, terrifying, handsome.’25 The only occasion on which the name Mustafa appears in the past tense is when Mustafa first appears on the street and Yovkov quotes a slight variation on the lines from the folk song that he used at the very beginning of the story; ‘No eto: Rada stoeshe na portata, otdolu ideshe Mustafa’.26 Yovkov is playing with the names Shibil/Mustafa in two ways. As his use of other Turkisms in the story have both temporal and spatial meanings and connotations, so too do the two names. Shibil represents the negation and/or rejection of social norms, the outlaw; he is the one that lives in the forests and mountains beyond ‘civilized’ society. He is also a representation of the past, who and what he was, although in the end he is killed before he gets the opportunity to become anyone else. Mustafa is the name that symbolizes the transformation of the ‘outlaw’ back into an ‘in-law’, into a husband and someone who belongs to normal/accepted social norms and networks. He belongs to the village and the fields, not to the mountains and forests. Yovkov uses the two names and different tense structures to juxtapose the two natures and potentials of the one character. The use of the present tense in the last part of the story along with the name Mustafa succeeds in conveying a sense of immediacy and hope that Mustafa and Rada’s love might prevail after all, but we are brutally brought back to reality by the sound of rifle fire and Yovkov’s return to the past tense with ‘Pripukakha pushki.’27 And then, just as we had suspected when we read the quotation from the folk song at the very beginning of the story, with the return of the past tense and the name ‘Shibil’ we understand that they are doomed. Mincov and Alexieva’s method of transliterating rather than translating a lot of the Turkisms, particularly the titles of some of the characters, is an effective way of adding an interesting and informative element of specificity to the text that helps to give an English reader an insight into the words and sounds of a Bulgaria from the past. Their explanatory notes about some of the words are not perfect, and some people might find having to check footnotes while reading a fictional short story a little tedious. However, overall their inclusion in the text adds more to the story for an English reader, than it detracts from it. Burnip’s decision to translate rather than transliterate in almost every one of these cases makes his translation flow a lot more easily, and, if this is the only version of the story the reader had seen, perhaps the issue of whether Veliko is a Crier, a chief shepherd, or the mayor is not so important.

25 26 27

Y. Yovkov, Suh brani suh chineniia, Tom vtori (Sofia, 1970), p. 176. Ibid., p. 175. Ibid., p.176.

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By doing this, however, the reader loses some of the wonderful words that Yovkov uses and that are so important in creating the cultural context of the story. Although the essential themes of love, transformation, and death are all timeless, Yovkov set his story in a particular context and the Turkisms in the story are an important, if not essential, part of that context. The Turkisms are all very stylistically marked, culturally, temporally, and spatially, and Yovkov decided to use them for these very reasons. They are an intrinsic part of the narrative, and help to create for the reader the contours of a specific landscape populated with characters from a particular period in time and history. Bibliography Atasanova, T. (et al.), Bub lgarsko-angliiski Rechnik (Sofia, 1983) Burnip, J., The Inn at Antimovo and Legends of Stara Planina (Ohio, 1990) Cholakova, K. (ed.), Rechnik na bub lgarskiia ezik, Tom V (Sofia 1987), tom 7 (Sofia 1993), tom 8 (Sofia 1995) Cholakova, M., and Mincov, M., Yordan Yovkov: The White Swallow and other Short Stories (Sofia, 1947) Gerov, N., Rechnik na bub lgarskiia Ezik, Fototipno izdanie (Sofia, 1975; orig. Plovdiv, 1895) Grannes, A., Hauge, K., and Suleymanoglu, H. (eds), A Dictionary of Turkisms in Bulgarian (Oslo, 2002) Mincoff, M., and Alexieva, M., Short Stories by Yordan Yovkov (Sofia, 1965) Mozejko, E., Yordan Yovkov (Ohio, 1984) Yovkov, Y., Sub brani sub chineniia, Tom vtori (Sofia, 1970)

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Politics, Nationalism, Music, and Popular Culture in 1990s Serbia Ivana Kronja Linacre College, University of Oxford The popular culture of Serbia during the Miloševica era was strongly determined by its political means. So called ‘turbo-folk’ and ‘dance’ music developed at the time as a fascinating musical hyper-productive industry, which promoted the glamorous life-style of the new Serbian elite, which consisted of politicians in power, war-profiteers, businessmen, and criminals who supported the Milosevic regime, together with female singers in ‘pin-up style’, the erotic queens of folk. The entertainment industry spread a problematic system of values, lifestyle and emotional sensibility which was systematically and manipulatively used to break up the morality and civil order of Serbian society for the sake of the Miloševica regime’s power. Providing a kind of cultural background and moral excuse for the entire new Serbian ruling elite formed during the 1990s, and forming an entertainment counterpart to the merciless ideological propaganda of RTS (Radio-Television of Serbia), this kind of music, its greatest stars and the visual style of their representation supported the spread of crime, disorder, and fear. This is the reason why this whole era of populist and nationalist politics, destruction and robbery throughout Serbia should be similarly called ‘The Miloševica’ and the ‘Turbo-folk era’. We can assert with some confidence that our own period is one of decline; that the standards of culture are lower than they were fifty years ago; and that the evidences of this decline are visible in every department of human activity. I see no reason why the decay of culture should not proceed much further, and why we may not even anticipate a period, of some duration, of which it is possible to say that it will have no culture. Then culture will have to grow again from the soil. T. S. Eliot, ‘Notes towards the Definition of Culture’, 1948.

The story of Serbia during the rule of Slobodan Miloševica is the story of poverty, war, chaos, isolation, national chauvinism, despair, and fear; but if someone in the future were to look at the media programmes of the time, she or he would find a much content which seems quite the opposite: of wealth, glamour, self-confidence, rhetorics of power and instant success, together with the cult of crime and violence, loose sexuality, and the joy of consuming. This was the official picture of the times created by the media managers who worked for the Miloševica regime, the picture of the ruling mass culture in Serbia of the nineties: its common denominator has been turbo-folk music, the most popular musical genre at the time. Turbo-folk ruled the hearts and minds of Serbia for over a decade, using the most powerful TV stations, © School of Slavonic & East European Studies, University College London, 2004

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TV Palma and TV Pink, which had been established and controlled by people loyal to the regime, as its own channels of expression. This music, together with the very similar and unauthentic genre of dance invented at the notorious TV Pink and Marija Miloševica’s (daughter of Slobodan Miloševica) Radio and TV station Košava, provided a sort of cultural background and moral excuse for the whole class of the new Serbian ruling elite formed during the nineties, and made an entertainment counterpart to the merciless ideological propaganda of RTS (Radio–Television of Serbia). Using the power of the media to create opinions and make heroes out of people who would otherwise, if they did not join the regime, remain at the bottom of society and at the edges of moral consideration, the so-called turbo-folk popular music and culture became the official culture in impoverished 1990s Serbia. It has been systematically and manipulatively used for breaking up the morality and civil order of Serbian society for the sake of the power of the Miloševica regime. Together with the regime’s political propaganda, this kind of music, its greatest stars, and the visual style of their representation supported the spread of crime, disorder, and fear. This is why this whole era of the politics of populism and nationalism, destruction and robbery across Serbia should be similarly called ‘The Miloševica era’ and ‘The turbo-folk era’. The case of turbo-folk in 1990s Serbia The appearance of TV stations specializing in ‘folk’ popular music, such as TV Palma (1991) and TV Pink (1994), brought considerable changes to the Serbian musical and media scene, and to the cultural climate in Yugoslavia as a whole. The dominance of Turbo-folk, the most recent genre of Serbian ‘newly composed folk’ popular music, followed by the genre of ‘dance’ (since 1994–95), coincided with the period of social and economic crisis and civil war in the parts of former Yugoslavia. Financial difficulties in rock and pop music production, and a shortage of material to fill in TV programmes, as well as the general crisis, left an empty space for the new, simplified sound. Mlaðan Dinkica’s The Economy of Destruction (1996), criticizes the Miloševica regime for the conscious production of hyperinflation in order to allow the personal usurping of citizens’ finances by Miloševica and his nearest collaborators, Dinkica, until recently the governor of the National Bank of Serbia and Montenegro (since 2000), analyses the social context in which the ‘newly composed folk’ and turbo-folk popular music became the dominant musical and fashion model in the country. Writing on the causes and development of Yugoslav hyperinflation (1993–94), which was one of the greatest in the entire world’s economic history, Dinkica says: ‘In order to prevent social revolt, government intentionally stimulated the so-called “grey economy”: black market, smuggling, street peddlers, etc. [. . .] As a result, “grey economy” proved to be a good shock-absorber of social discontents. But it resulted in the decay of moral values and other objective social values. Honesty became a vice, and dishonesty a virtue and a basic condition for surviving. This unavoidably caused the spreading of corruption and crime on a tremendous scale. It created a socially and psychologically degenerated society.’1 1 Mlaðan Dinkica, Ekonomija Destrukcije (The Economy of Destruction), (Belgrade: Stubovi culture, 1996), p. 247.

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‘Turbo-folk’ pop music proved to be another shock-absorber of social discontents, an amazingly efficient invention of the Serbian media under the rule of Slobodan Miloševica. In the beginning of the nineties, the idea of turbo-folk music assimilated the following musical directions: the already existent newly composed folk music, the most popular branch of music entertainment in former Yugoslavia, which combined the elements of traditional folk music with more contemporary pop and rock music created under West European and American cultural influences, and its two new variants: turbo or techno-folk, as well as the newly composed nationalistic and patriotic war songs, which encouraged Serbian warriors in the civil war in Croatia and Bosnia (1991–95). Simultaneously, there appeared similar new Muslim and Croatian patriotic war songs. Since Serbia, at least officially, did not take part in the war, this patriotic music (sung by the popular Bajica brothers and other similar ‘artists’), was allowed only a limited amount of time on television, so it was mainly performed on the radio. The best known station specializing in this kind of music was ‘Ponos-radio’ (‘Radio-Pride’) from Belgrade. In spite of this, the music sold enormously well, being recorded on pirate audio-cassettes. TV programmes were, at the same time, conquered by turbo-folk. This glamorously conceived national musical project aimed to divert the attention of the population away from the policy of poverty and war, and direct it towards the attractive and inaccessible image of the lifestyle of turbo-folk stars. The stars, who appeared on TV screens in glittering and luxurious costumes and drove the most expensive fancy cars in their music videos, were the objects of identification and adoration of the audience. Turbo-folk music and its media presentation became politically approved entertainment for the masses in the Serbia of the nineties, establishing an escapist ‘pink, rosy culture’ as a refuge from the gloomy reality. In reference to the political function of turbo-folk, Dinkica ironically comments: ‘In all that poverty and misery the people found enough energies to survive. Very often their grief found expression in popular songs. In this it was generously helped by the media, which supported newly composed folk music, suppressing discontent and any thought of revolt.’2 The political function of popular music was fulfilled first by ‘kitsch-patriotism’, or ‘newly composed war culture’, and then by the turbo-folk style and music, as a first-rate kitsch, even trash, aesthetic. The system of values which this music presented through its carefree contents, together with the ‘grey economy’ and criminalization of society, supported the decay of moral values in Serbian and Montenegrin society. The new system of values brought cruelty to interhuman relations, war profiteering, the cult of crime and weapons, the rule of force and violence, and political repression and conformism. It has also established the war-orientated, retrograde patriarchy, and the prostitution and commodification of women, at the expense of the abandonment of civic values: the legal state, marriage, family, education, and morals. Insistence on kitsch culture brought also the decay of aesthetic norms. Since good and beautiful, that is ethics and aesthetics, are also the key norms in a civilized society, their elimination from everyday life caused the destruction of the very concept of evaluation. Probably the best definition of turbo-folk would be ‘porno-pop music’, since it included many pornographic influences in its style for the above-mentioned purposes. 2

M. Dinkica, ibid., p. 256.

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The way in which popular folk music in Serbia transformed itself into an established model of popular culture, dominant in the media, can be explained in various ways. First of all, it is a sign of social transition towards the consumer society, such as Western society, in which the media, particularly TV and cinema, play the dominant role in filling free time or leisure. This process is followed by consecration to the values of the ‘American dream’: fame, money, the Western way of life, and the star-system — the promotion of showbusiness stars, home-made and foreign, whose looks, wealth, and love affairs become a collective ideal. Home-made folk singers become a domestic variation of Western glamour, whose success requires adequate televisual presentation. This is found in music videos in the MTV manner, a TV genre recently discovered in Serbia which tries to follow all the fashionable trends. Music video fought hard to become the principal promoter of the style and system of values celebrated in the turbo-folk era. A new subcultural style of the nineties, known as warrior chic style (defined so by sociologist of culture Ratka Marica in 1996), found its expression in turbo-folk and dance music video. Warrior chic style, embodied by the nouveaux riches, gangsters, beautiful girls, femmes fatales, luxurious interiors, and fancy cars are the main elements of music videos that turbo-folk rests on. The important role played by the glamourous music videos in spreading the popularity of the turbo-folk stars is reinforced by the singers’ frequent appearances on live broadcasts, entertainment and music programmes. A new musical direction, dance, which exists almost exclusively within the medium of television, was initiated by the break-through of popular folk music into the public sphere of the media. On the other hand, the expansion of turbo-folk coincides with the expansion of the mass media in Serbia. The television becomes a key factor in family and social life, exercising an enormous influence on the political choices and way of life of the majority of Serbian people. The emergence of the turbo-folk and dance music and style is, essentially, the result of an encounter between the so-called newly composed popular culture in Yugoslavia which emerged with the development in the 1980s, under Western influence, of Yugoslavian — Serbian urban subcultures: punk, hippy, ‘make-up’ subculture of trendy youth, new wave, rock, and rave in the 1990s, and with the aggressive influence of entertainment mass and consumer culture of the Western type. This influence comes with American movies, TV serials, catwalk broadcasts of Western fashion designers, the mass importation and advertising of foreign goods, clothes and cosmetics, and so on. Media promotion of the new hybrid musical patterns and styles: such as folk-rap, folk-rock, folk-pop, turbo-folk, and dance, leads to a specific crisis of symbols used by the so-called ‘committed’, socially and/or politically subversive youth subcultures (rock, hippy, punk, and others), ultimately resulting in their assimilation into the mass, Neofolk culture. The urban subcultural scene in Serbia during the nineties went through a serious change. It is now dominated by the protagonists of notorious ‘warrior chic’ subcultures: the new rich, war profiteers, criminals, ‘sponsored girls’, ‘dieselmen’, war veterans, and drug dealers, who share the reversed system of values embodied by chauvinism, the cult of crime and violence, and hardcore eroticism, and who admire the beauties of western consumerism, covering themselves with golden jewellery and dressing in the

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glamorous, ‘warrior chic style’ clothes. As a result, the original folk music is now almost forgotten, whilst the young are deprived of the chance to acquire the previous channels for expression of their own rebellion and creativity, and of the ability to form their own identity with the help of aesthetically valuable, good quality popular music. The phenomenon of turbo-folk and dance music and style is a unique example of a full transition of subcultural products, opposed to the leading cultural norm. In this case, it was the newly composed subculture of 1970s and 1980s Yugoslavia (also termed the Neofolk culture by Milena Dragichevica–Šešica in 1994). This was the predecessor of turbo-folk popular culture, a reaction against the ‘dogmatic educational’ and ‘elitist’ cultural model (dominant cultural models in former Yugoslavia), which combined with the aesthetically barren products of commercial mass culture, to create the leading cultural norm in Miloševica’s Serbia. This is also a specific cultural phenomenon in the worldwide cultural domain. The new youth subcultures and the political function of ‘turbo-folk’ The popular culture of Serbia during the Miloševica era had been strongly determined by its political means. So called turbo-folk and ‘dance’ music developed at the same time as a fascinating hyper-productive musical industry, which promoted the glamorous lifestyle of the new Serbian elite. This consisted of war profiteers, businessmen, and criminals who supported the Miloševica regime, together with pin-up stylized female singers, erotic queens of folk. Turbo-folk music, as the most popular music and media genre, followed by a very similar genre of dance, promoted a system of values, lifestyle, and emotional sensibility which closely corresponded to the ‘ideology of chaos’ which characterized the mafiocratic, war-profiteering, and nationally chauvinist power of Slobodan Miloševica’s era. The invention of turbo-folk music had its predecessor in the development of the so-called ‘newly-composed’ popular folk music, a mixture of traditional melodies of domestic Serbian musical folklore and nineteenth-century urban songs3 with other musical influences, such as Russian ballads, pop and rock music, or popular Turkish and Greek melodies, while it promoted and maintained a corrupted version of the way of singing with Oriental ornamentation (due to the Turkish historical influence which dominated Serbia for about five hundred years), the ‘howling’ sound of so-called ‘thriller’ singing. Basically, ‘newly-composed’ folk music was pop music, which included (and corrupted) some traditional musical elements, and its lyrics expressed both a glorification of the traditional lifestyle and the advantages of a new, urban way of life. It attempted to symbolically cross the gap and bring relief to the first and second generation of migrants from villages to towns, who changed their way of life due to the industrialization of the country and modernization of post-war Yugoslavia. It was followed by the ‘newly-composed’ 3 Serbian urban folklore music of the nineteenth century emulated the traditional musical folklore of Serbian villagers (who at the time formed the majority of the Serbian population); it was also influenced by the style of central-European music, and by Western influence coming from Croatia. This music had its own composers and lyricists, not rarely famous Serbian romantic poets such as Jovan Jovanovica-Zmaj or Aleksa Santica, but it was composed ‘u narodnom duhu’, in the spirit of traditional folk music.

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subcultural style belonging to young listeners of the music, as well as to their parents, a sort of naive and not very successful appropriation of trendy urban clothing and behaviour, and it went together with the ideology of consumerism, leisure, and the ‘American dream’ expressed in similar cultural products. Most of these, such as comics, posters, movies, and other sorts of entertainment were imported from the West, but some, such as domestic film comedies about ordinary people, were successfully produced in the country. This became a dominant cultural model and the most influential mass culture in the former Yugoslavia. The occurrence of turbo-folk music and the corresponding subculture in the early nineties, just like the appearance of the ‘newly-composed’ or new folk music, was initiated by specific changes in social conditions. In the case of turbo-folk, these new social conditions were a reflection of a long-lasting economic crisis, of the civil war in Croatia and Bosnia, of a great number of war victims and refugees, of the country’s isolation brought about by the economic and cultural sanctions, and, last but not least, of the severe bombardment which NATO members directed against Yugoslavia in 1999. All these reasons caused the economic crash and total poverty of the population, disintegration of the country, and the crime wave. As has already been mentioned,5 the regime also actively supported the ‘grey’ economy and the criminalization of society, in order to prevent a social revolt and to enrich of the Miloševica family and its closest collaborators, from loyal politicians to mafia bosses. This tendency almost immediately found its expression in the youth subcultures of the 1990s. As the sociologist of culture Ratka Marica puts it, the place of politically subversive and socially conscious urban youth music subcultures of Serbia in the 1980s has been taken over by the ‘new debutants’. These young people ‘recognize their own chance and positively reply to a challenge of the society in despair and chaos, taking fast cash out of the situation which others can’t cope with’.6 Ratka Marica notices a multitude of new youth subcultures in the early 1990s, all of which she defines as ‘warrior chic subcultures’: among them are so-called ‘dieselmen’,7 4

The name and characteristics of the subculture were firstly defined by the ex-Yugoslavian ethnologist Ines Prica. For further description and analysis of the ‘newly-composed’ subculture see: Ines Prica, Omladinska potkultura u Beogradu — simbolicka praksa (Youth subculture in Belgrade — symbolical practise) (Etnografski institut SANU: Belgrade, 1991), and other papers by Prica related to the subject. See also: Ivana Kronja, ‘Potkultura novokomponovanih’ (‘Subculture of the “newly-composed”’), Kultura, 99 (2000). 5 See p. 2. 6 Ratka Maric, Znach enja potkulturnih stilova — istrazhivanja omladinskih potkultura (The Meanings of Subcultural Styles — Studies of Youth Subcultures) (DPhil Thesis, University of Belgrade, 1996), p. 250. 7 Protagonists of ‘dieselmen’ subculture gained this nickname for wearing Diesel jeans low on their hips, with jumpers and tracksuit tops tucked inside the trousers, tightened with huge belts, and if possible driving fancy cars with turbo diesel engines. They were also easily recognized for wearing massive golden chains over clothes or on their bare chest, and having a very short haircut or even shaved heads. This intimidating appearance was combined with an aggressive attitude and rude behaviour. ‘Diesel girls’ also wore a lot of golden jewellery and a combination of evening and sport clothes: for example evening make-up, huge Versace sunglasses, and golden earrings with black bodyT-shirt, tracksuit, and trainers. Many young criminals from the Serbian underground belonged to this subculture and practised this kind of style.

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sponsored girls,8 criminals, ‘reketasi’ (debt collectors), thugs, mafia men, war veterans, and drug-dealers. All these new subcultures find their way of expression in turbo-folk and dance music, which combine the aggressive rhythms of hip-hop and techno music with the new folk sound. The violent social environment, war, poverty, and decay of moral values define the narrowed horizon of the world of warrior chic subcultures and the similar world of turbo-folk music: they are characterized by the atmosphere of temporary, ‘fast’, and ‘dangerous’ life, if not on the other side of the law, then at least within the musical subculture of turbo-folk which glorifies all the symbols of crime and violence. The description of the behaviour and appearance of the protagonists of warrior chic subcultures includes, for men, wearing fancy designer clothes, driving fast cars,9 an aggressive attitude, showing off and threatening with weapons, taking part in robberies and similar activities, and, for women, an arrogant attitude, stressing one’s own sexual appeal, using sexuality to get close to rich ‘tough’ guys and become their girlfriend. They both share glorification of the Western consumerist world, of luxurious wardrobes and foreign labels of clothes (Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Nino Cerutti, Armani, Replay, Diesel), expensive perfumes, wearing large amounts of golden jewellery, visiting ‘hot’ clubs and cafes in town, praising expensive cars, and being connected to the media. A large amount of narcissism — expressed through the obsession with one’s own looks and a need to become important and famous and permanently present in the media, in tabloids, newspapers, on TV and radio stations — seems to be one of the central preoccupations of protagonists of turbo-folk and warrior chic culture, too. All these attitudes are, paradoxically or not, followed by a strong nationalist attitude, chauvinism, and self-sufficiency, approval of crime and violence and of the Machiavellian idea that the end justifies the means. They are followed by a strong sense of Serbian pride which has been, according to official media propaganda, threatened by all the enemies from the outside world, from Croats and Muslims to Americans and ‘domestic traitors’ as well, intellectuals and journalists who are ‘spies’ on the payment list of ‘the new world order’, which is intending to take away Serbian integrity. The poor economic situation made greater investments in culture and education impossible and it disabled the continual cultural connections of the country with the world. These connections were additionally hindered by the recent sanctions, the war and defensive actions, and the extremely numerous police forces, all of which took up the greatest part of the budget that was anyhow reduced. The media close to the party in power were financially the strongest. They possessed the monopoly 8 ‘Sponsored girls’ were a notorious phenomenon among Serbian youth, before and after the fall of the Milošsevica regime: it meant that the girl had a lover, a young criminal, or a rich ‘businessman’ (which in these Serbian circumstances practically meant the same), who drove her around in his expensive car, bought her very expensive trendy shoes and clothes with foreign labels and then showed off her looks in the street, at the cafes, night clubs, gyms, beauty salons, shopping centres, and other prestigious venues where this new Serbian elite used to spend its time and practise its ways of social and cultural communication. This ‘sponsoring’ of the girls could sometimes, but not always, also become a sort of prostitution. 9 Usually sports cars with ‘turbo’ or ‘turbo-diesel’ engines — this is how the whole style and music, ‘turbo-folk’, including also the subculture of previously mentioned ‘dieselmen’, gained its name.

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and the highest viewer ratings, and also the superior power to dictate the whole media scene, public opinion, politically desirable values, and ways of behaving. In order to accomplish all these aims, the media favoured turbo-folk music for the whole decade, which, apart from the effects just mentioned, also continues to bring them huge profits. The crisis and huge suffering produced by the war caused a psychic destabilization of the population. Depression and hopelessness resulted in increasing numbers of people turning to superstition. Many prophets, ‘healers’, and fortunetellers appeared, shamelessly commercially oriented, like Ljubiša Trgovchevica, Kleopatra, and many others. The number of authentic clairvoyants and traditional healers among them is negligible. The lowering of both the standards of critical thinking and the sense of reality have made people susceptible to various soporific phenomena, from fortune-tellers to turbo-folk. Political reasons are considered to be the main factors for the occurrence and survival of turbo-folk music and culture. Concerning this, the next question has to be answered: did someone construct a master plan in advance to mislead the population using turbo-folk music, consulting the leading political aristocracy in Serbia? Did turbo-folk appear in the early 1990s as the ‘newly-composed war culture’ and support the expansionist and nationalist politics of Serbian government, and in the late nineties misuse erotica for the erosion of moral values? Or could it be that turbo-folk music and subculture was just a phenomenon that appeared all by itself, but was supported by the leading structure when it recognized this music as a helpful ideological tool? The intellectual independent elite in Serbia maybe overestimated the political role of turbo-folk, since it is a very irritating phenomenon; it also might be that, on the other hand, our public did not take this phenomenon seriously enough. But what remains certain is the fact that every kitsch is also an ideological product par excellence. No matter what, this music became some sort of a ‘state art’. The case of turbo-folk singer Zorica Brunclik proves that. This folk singer became a member of Mirjana Miloševica’s party, JUL (Yugoslavian Left), one of the two ruling parties in the Miloševica era, in the late nineties, as was often publicly announced. In 1999, the Serbian Minister of Culture Zh eljko Šimica, a member of JUL, signed and sealed a document which confirms the aesthetic values of music sung by Zorica Brunclik, claiming officially, in many flattering words, that she is a meritorious artist of the Serbian music scene. The document10 was attached to Brunclik’s jubilatory CD celebrating twenty-five years of her showbusiness career. The music of Zorica Brunclik is usually considered as kitsch and trivial, but the minister rejects such judgments as given by the envious. This unique political certificate of the aesthetic contribution of turbo-folk music to Serbian society, issued one year before the fall of the Miloševica regime, finally openly confirms what has already been visible: that the aesthetics of turbo-folk played a crucial role in the ideological indoctrination which was both produced by the regime and brilliantly served it. 10 A facsimile of the document was published in the magazine Vreme, April 2000; also in Ivana Kronja, The Fatal Glow: Mass Psychology and Aesthetics of Turbo-folk Subculture (Belgrade: Tehnokratia, 2001), p. 102.

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Turbo-folk does represent entertainment for the crowd, yet it is not only a widespread and effective ‘entertainment for the poor’. It is also an amusement for the rich, for the new ruling class, wealthy refugees and rich Gastarbeitern11 who all recognize their values in the newly-composed glamour as a symbol of status and power, as well as in the supposed connection between this kind of music and Serbian tradition. What should be considered here is the fact that (as with many other transitional countries) all ex-Yugoslavian republics, especially those ones which were involved in the civil war, such as Croatia and Bosnia, went through similar processes of social disintegration and fell into chaos and poverty. They underwent the usurpation of power and state and citizen’s money by local politicians, a flourishing of crime and violence, and the decay of moral values. From government politicians, and their closest collaborators who monopolized the whole market and developed the ‘black’ or ‘grey’ economy, to minor criminals and the street subculture of violent youth, all representatives and active protagonists of this new age of chaos and despair shared and promoted the same system of values which has been described in the case of Serbia. Conclusion In Serbia of the nineties, turbo-folk was the culture of the new Serbian elite, becoming, with the help of the media, both a new elitist culture and a sort of ‘art’, approved by the state. This new Serbian elite consisted of, firstly, the Miloševica family – his wife, Mirjana Markovica, also a politician herself, and the founder of the JUL party, and their two children, Marija and Marko, who ran most of the major monopolized private businesses, such as the trade of oil and tobacco (on the black market because of the economic and political sanctions), and also all TV and radio networks, as well as discotheques and music production. Joining the elite were high-ranking politicians in the state-leading parties, run by Miloševica and his wife (SPS — Socialist Party of Serbia, and JUL, Yugoslavian Left); the army and special police elite and the leaders of the paramilitary formations (such as Zh eljko Raznatovica-Arkan); together with so-called businessmen, the people close to Miloševica who controlled the trade of various goods under suspicious circumstances, most of whom were at the same time bosses of the criminal underground. Also involved were media magnates, owners of the so-called ‘private’ TV and other media stations, but actually directly responsible to Miloševica and financed by his and his wife’s parties, which used both media owners and businessmen to further 11 German word for workers from foreign countries; a popular name for fellow countrymen working abroad, in Germany and other rich capitalist countries, used in Serbian and Croatian language — gastarbajteri. In ethnological literature it is described as a specific kind of subcultural model of Yugoslav guest workers temporarily employed abroad, or recently returned from abroad, from highly urbanized milieus, who possess, as ethnologist Ines Prica rightly remarks, ‘an unclear status and conflicted systems of value’ (Ines Prica, ‘O kritici novokomponovane narodne muzike’ (‘On Criticism of Newlycomposed Music’), GEI SANU, xxxv (1986), 58). It is also characterized by the intensive consumption of ‘newly-composed’ folk music and turbo-folk, which offers gastarbeiter a life-saving union of idealized folk tradition and something modern, i.e. of modernized tradition, and therefore a salvation and solution of the identity problem.

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enlarge their own money and influence by many suspicious means (for example they are suspected of laundering ‘dirty’ money from war robberies, armour and drug selling). Finally, there were entertainers like sportsmen and fortune-tellers. As the ‘crown’ or ‘decoration’ for this new masculine elite, the powerful men were surrounded by pop singers, the ‘queens’ of turbo-folk, usually highly eroticized in a ‘hardcore’ pornographic manner, with whom they appeared together in entertainment programmes — live broadcast shows on TV Pink in the latter half of the 1990s, such as the notorious, but extremely popular Maxi-Vision (Maksovizija), led by a populist entertainer, and former radio DJ, Milovan Ilic-Minimaks. Constant media propaganda, and visually attractive, lavish, erotic, and violent content, accompanied by similar lyrics, made turbo-folk music extremely popular, serving as a paradigmatic model of this new elite’s system of values. TV Palma, established in 1991, with its amateurish, simple kitsch visual design of music videos, was the first station to promote and advertise the turbo-folk sound. After 1994, it was followed by TV Pink and by other less influential local TV and Radio stations, which followed a similar commercial model. TV Pink, as the omnipresent and most influential television station in Serbia, dictated patterns of behaviour, dressing, and value systems, encouraging its audience to value luxury highly and turbo-folk stars, members of the above-mentioned new Serbian elite. The trash, kitsch aesthetics of TV Pink promoted a ‘pink’ viewpoint and lifestyle similar to the one shown in music videos. By 1999–2000, turbo-folk ended up imitating its own style, becoming a parody of itself and degenerating into banal eroticism, naked bodies, and complete immorality (this kind of degeneration was also obvious in the case of dance music). It seemed that no spectacle was going to pay off in a situation where both market and the audience were impoverished. But this was not the case. After the fall of the Miloševica regime, and a short pause in broadcasting, TV Pink returned to the public sphere stronger than ever, adopting the new political agenda and promoting new leading Serbian politicians of a liberal persuasion. But, besides the change in the choice of politicians promoted, the system of values of this entertainment industry remains the same. And the debates surrounding the public role of TV Pink and the possible lustration of its owner, Zh eljko Mitrovica, continue in the Serbian public arena. There are some voices in the Serbian public arena which claim that current political tolerance towards the visual messages and entertainment content of TV Pink, which are basically unchanged after 5 October 2000 (apart from the change in editorial politics on the news), proves the rule of democracy in Serbia. But it can only seem that the big public success of TV Pink and its collaboration with the new power in Serbia expresses the complexities and the identity crisis of the young and fragile Serbian democracy. How else would it be possible for the former collaborators of a dictator’s regime and the promoters of criminal values to be tragically misunderstood as the recent example of liberal values, public tolerance towards ‘cultural diversity’ and opportunity of expression for ‘minor cultural groups’? This ‘minor cultural group’, suddenly protected by some former or present NGO activists very close to the current political power, who just want to follow the ‘fashion’ of ‘inventing’ cultural minorities as an efficient way to achieve some extra Western funding for civil rights protection and democratic development (and therefore

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achieve some personal profit for themselves), is actually the majority of Serbian people, and this ‘minority culture’ represented by TV Pink is in fact a mass, mainstream culture: statistics tell us that TV Pink is watched by at least seventy-five per cent of Serbian people. Or is this attempt to ‘wash away the dirt’ from the name of turbo-folk and pronounce it only for an innocent ‘culture of ordinary people’ just the excuse for strengthening the insufficient political influence of the new elite, which inherited the former regime’s ingeniously efficient ways of ruling with the help of mass culture. The sudden assasination of Serbia’s prime minister, Zoran 1in2ica, in March 2003, and the discovery that two of the greatest turbo-folk stars had connections with the criminal underground, have initiated the change in public attitude towards turbo-folk and TV Pink’s notorious legacy. Ceca Raznatovica, widow of the notorious war criminal and underground boss, Zh eljko Raznatovica-Arkan is going to be charged for the illegal possession of large amounts of weapons and military and police equipment in her basement; Aleksandar-Aca Lukas has already been charged as one of the main drug-dealers for the Serbian showbusiness scene. After the first shock, the nation started to judge its former idol, Ceca Raznatovica, in a more critical light. But after several months these two stars have been released from prison, although the investigation continues. Ceca’s fans celebrated the day of her release, and she has announced that she is preparing a new album. The rise and fall of Ceca has been part of a story of the conscious promoting of crime and violence, of intolerance and self-sufficiency by the mafiocratic Serbian elite during the 1990s. The switch in Serbian collective public consciousness considering turbo-folk culture and the former regime as a whole has only started a very painful but necessary process for the Serbian community, in which the dark glamour of crime should be abandoned and its horrible consquences soberly faced. This result can only be obtained by giving the media a role quite different from the one they fulfilled in the Miloševica era. Biographical Note Since 2000, Ivana Kronja has been a lecturer in film and media theory and aesthetics at the Visual and Applied Arts College, Women’s Studies Center and BOSH (last two at MA level) in Belgrade. She is the author of the socio-cultural study: ‘The Fatal Glow: The Mass Psychology and Aesthetics of The Turbo-Folk Subculture’ (Tehnokratia, Belgrade, 2001) and co-editor of the Reader: The Experimental Cinema and the Alternative Film Tendencies (issued by Yugoslavian Film Festival of Documentary and Short Movies, Belgrade, 2002), also being active cooperator to the Festival since 2001. Ivana Kronja has been a full-time Graduate visiting student at Linacre College, University of Oxford, UK (academic year 2002/2003), at OSI/FCO Chevening scholarship programme, working on her Ph.D. thesis in the field of the Avant-garde film aesthetics, gender, and body representation. She has also recently directed and produced a 42' long experimental feature film Rat in the Kitchen (2003).

Slovo, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2004

The Development of National Security Strategies in Bulgaria and Romania Since 1989 Darren Lake School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London This article will look at the national security strategies of Bulgaria and Romania through the prism of the existing academic debate on security, a short discussion of which will constitute the first part of the analysis. The structures that existed in communist Bulgaria and Romania to discuss and define national security will then be outlined and contrasted with the structures that have developed since. The last part of the discussion will explore some of the existing national security threats and perceptions before analysing the main drivers of development. These are the external influence from the West, domestic politics, institutional issues, and economic considerations. The security debate National security is an ill-defined concept, making any analysis centring on it a difficult prospect. In the context of this article, national security is taken to mean the security of a nation. However, nation is also a concept open to differing interpretations, including a much wider definition of what constitutes a nation than is meant here. Neither can it easily be replaced with the word state because of the associations that the term state security brings to mind. Therefore, although somewhat unsatisfactory, national security will, for the purposes of this analysis, be taken to mean the security of a state and its citizens, with the emphasis falling on the state level; as safeguarding the nation’s security is one of the fundamental responsibilities of a national government.1 The concept of national security as it was originally formulated is closely linked to the work of the Realist school. In the late 1940s, the Realists, including figures such as Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, and Hedley Bull, began to construct a paradigm to explain the relationship between states and the resulting international system. They concluded that in an international system without an overarching authority it was the responsibility of individual states — in order to guard their sovereignty and independence of action — to seek to accumulate power that would then provide for their security against the threat of action from other states.2 The 1 H. Brown, Thinking about National Security: Defense and Foreign Policy in a Dangerous World (Boulder, CO: Perseus Books, 1983), p. 1. 2 H. Bull, The Anarchical Society: a Study of Order in World Politics, (London: Macmillan, 1977).

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exercise of that power and provision of security was understood mainly in military terms. It was from this analysis that the concept of national security first took on meaning, although it remained rather ill-defined.3 The Realist school has dominated the field of International Relations and Security Studies for the last half-century, although that dominance has been increasingly challenged.4 Therefore, until recently, the provision of security has been understood to relate almost exclusively to the provision of military capability through which a state can exercise its power free from interference by other state entities.5 The Realist school’s modern heirs, the neo-Realists, have somewhat softened the Realist approach and have taken more interest in other factors that can be understood to add to a state’s power and, therefore, its security. They have turned their attention to subjects such as economics and demographics, but these areas have been studied in relation to their ability to further a state’s military and political power. Chris Donnelly argues that it is only in the last twenty years that the concept of national security has ‘crept into general usage in the West’.6 Indeed, even now it still retains much ambiguity. Some academics argue that policy-makers are happy to keep the concept ‘ambiguous and imprecise [because] it makes it easier to appeal to it in support of a great variety of objectives’.7 The debate surrounding the concept of security has gathered pace over the last two decades with some scholars attempting to challenge the Realists’ definition and use of the concept. This debate has coincided with the increased usage of the term ‘national security’. These theorists have challenged the Realists’ belief that security is essentially the purview of the state and argue that the provision of security has many more facets than purely military ones.8 The debate between the Realists and their detractors has centred on what constitutes a threat and what represents an adequate capacity to deal with it. There has been an increasing focus on ‘non-traditional’ threats and their negative effects on personal, and therefore at a collective level national, security. In their 1998 work, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde argue that there are five sectors that must be considered: military, political, economic, environmental, and societal. They also reject ‘the traditionalists’ case for restricting security to [the military] sector, arguing that security is a particular type of politics applicable to a wide range of issues’.9 This has now moved beyond purely academic debate to be an issue for governments in the West as they formulate their national security strategies. In the 3

L. Freedman, ‘The Concept of Security’, in Encyclopaedia of Government and Politics, ed. by M. Hawksworth and M. Kegan, vol. 2 (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 730–41 (pp. 730–31). 4 Ibid., p. 729. 5 S. Walt, ‘The Renaissance of Security Studies’, International Studies Quarterly, 35 (1991), 211–39 (p. 212). 6 C. Donnelly, ‘Rethinking Security’, NATO Review, Winter 2001, pp. 32–34. 7 Freedman, ‘Concept’, p. 731. 8 See B. Buzan, People, States and Fear: an Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (Harlow: Longman, 1991), and On Security, ed. by R. Lipschutz (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), for a discussion of these issues. 9 B. Buzan, O. Wæver, and J. de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Rienner Pub., 1998).

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USA in 2000, the Clinton administration declared HIV/AIDS a ‘national security threat’.10 It shows how far the debate has come that what is essentially a health issue is believed to have such serious consequences that it can become a threat to a state’s security. However, even here the neo-Realists still have room to manoeuvre, because the AIDS threat can be analysed in power terms and related to military capability.11 The debate is an ongoing one and the arguments of each side have merit. However, states are increasingly aware that their security is dependent on a large number of variables and that many factors not traditionally associated with the subject must now be taken into consideration in national security calculations. Communist and post-communist national security structures While the theoretical debate about the range and limits of the concept of national security will continue, each new scenario in which the concept is applied will inform this debate. In the cases of Romania and Bulgaria, the formation of a national security strategy has accompanied a process of governmental democratization, economic reform, and strategic re-alignment. The formation of national security strategies in these states therefore exemplifies the interaction of the theoretical debate with local, and frequently more important, drivers. After the collapse of the communist regimes in Bulgaria and Romania and the termination of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, one of the tasks of the new governments was to draft national security concepts that took into consideration the emerging international situation and those countries’ new democratic principles. The result in both countries has been national security strategies that incorporate elements of both Realist military ‘hard’ security and non-traditionalist ‘soft’ security. Understandably, it has taken time for both countries to formulate these new strategies, but surprisingly it has taken Bulgaria rather longer, despite having completed its democratic transformation earlier. Romania published a first national security strategy and defence doctrine in 1994, and a second national security strategy was approved by the legislature in 1999.12 A third strategy, entitled The National Security Strategy of Romania: Safeguarding democracy and fundamental freedoms, constant and durable economic and social development, NATO membership and integration into the European Union, was published in 2001 by the new presidency of Ion Iliescu.13 In contrast, the Bulgarian National Assembly did not approve the country’s new National Security Concept until 1998, and at the time of writing it remains the only post-communist national security strategy to have been adopted by Sofia.14 During the communist period, national security strategies had two strands. One strand consisted of the existing Communist Party-dominated national security structure, which was orientated towards the military. National security, as far as the 10

P. Singer, ‘AIDS and International Security’, Survival, 44 (2002), 145–57 (p. 145). Singer, ‘AIDS’, pp. 252–53. 12 Ministry of National Defence, Romania’s Strategy of National Security: Democratic Stability, Durable Economic Development and Euro-Atlantic Integration (Bucharest, 1999). 13 The National Security Strategy of Romania: Safeguarding democracy and fundamental freedoms, constant and durable economic and social development, NATO membership and integration into the European Union <http://www.mapn.ro/indexro.php> 14 J. Simon, ‘Central and Eastern European Security: New National Concepts and Defense Doctrines’, Strategic Forum, 151 (1998). 11

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term had meaning, was mainly viewed in terms of defence against external military threats.15 The other strand was made up of the various pressures and mechanisms that impacted on internal security. Both countries had formal organizations to coordinate and develop national security strategy. In Romania there was a secretary of the Party Central Committee charged with responsibility for the armed forces and security, but control was mainly exercised through the Supreme Command of the Romanian Armed Forces chaired by President Nicolae Ceausc escu.16 In Bulgaria there was a specialized organ of the State Council called the State Committee of Defence (DKO) that dealt with national security issues. However, according to Galina Chuleva and Jim Derleth, the DKO was little more than a rubber stamp and real authority was held by the military department of the Bulgarian Communist Party’s (BKP’s) Central Committee.17 The military focus of communist national security strategy in Bulgaria and Romania inevitably meant that their armed forces played a major role in decisionmaking. They formulated policy in coordination with the Party, and the General Staffs worked without the restraints of civilian control associated with civil-military relations in the West. However, they were similarly constrained by Party controls and had to work within the context of the ruling elite’s Marxist-Leninist ideology. Dessie Zagorcheva argues, therefore, that there was already a type of civilian control and so the change now being implemented is towards democratic control.18 The other strand of communist national security strategy, although not explicitly highlighted as such, came under the heading of state security. Chris Donnelly, somewhat dramatically, describes this as ‘the work of the secret police’.19 Indeed, it was, and to some extent it remains, the most immediate connotation of the term security to the populations of Romania or Bulgaria. More broadly, state security included all the elements the Party used to suppress internal opposition to their power over the state, and the work of Dabrzhavna Sigurnost in Bulgaria and the Securitate in Romania certainly underpinned national security in general. In Romania, by the 1980s, the remit of the Ministry of the Interior, which controlled the Securitate, included, according to Dennis Deletant, ‘defence of the independence, national sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the state’.20 There was also an external element with an important influence over the development of national security strategies in Bulgaria and Romania during the communist period. Both countries were signatories to the Warsaw Pact, the communist bloc’s response to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and as such to some 15 G. Chuleva and J. Derleth, ‘The Bulgarian National Security Decision-Making Apparatus 1970–1994’, European Security, 3 (1994), 775–89 (p. 777). 16 D. Deletant, Ceausc escu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965–1989 (London: Hurst, 1995), p. 326. 17 Chuleva and Derleth, ‘Decision-Making’, pp. 775–76. 18 D. Zagorcheva, ‘Civil-Military Relations: The Evolution of Democratic Civil-Military Relations in Bulgaria’, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 15 (2002), 29–56 (p. 32). 19 Donnelly, ‘Rethinking’, p. 33. 20 D. Deletant, ‘The Securitate Legacy in Romania’, in K. Williams and D. Deletant, Security Intelligence Services in New Democracies: the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2001), pp. 159–210 (pp. 181–82).

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extent their military structures and overall strategies were subordinated to the desires of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). As part of this subordination, officers from both Bulgaria and Romania were expected to receive training at Soviet military schools.21 However, the Warsaw Pact increasingly became less of a factor in Soviet strategic planning because the states in Eastern Europe did not expend the necessary capital in updating their equipment, and following events in Poland in 1980–81 questions were asked about the reliability of their military leadership.22 Although the Warsaw Pact became decreasingly relevant to the USSR’s national security in the 1980s, both Bulgaria and Romania had to continue to factor Moscow’s strategy into the development of their own national security strategies. However, Romania, with its brand of nationalist communism, had some independence from the USSR and so formulated independent national defence plans, although it was still required to fit into the overarching strategy of the Warsaw Pact. In Bulgaria, on the other hand, national security decision-making was, for thirty-five years, almost completely dominated by Soviet interests.23 As well as elaborating new strategies, both countries have had to pass new laws governing the formulation of national security policy and to reorganize the structures that deal with the issue. In both Bulgaria and Romania the new constitutions initiated change. Overall responsibility for the formulation of a national security strategy was given to the presidents, but with the legislatures and governments also having a role to play. However, neither constitution clearly delineated the roles of each branch and in both Bucharest and Sofia further efforts have been needed to resolve the issue. This is important because the ambiguity led to political stalemate in Bulgaria and to a situation in Romania where presidential control of national security lacked effective checks and inputs from the government and legislature. In Bulgaria, the presidency, as mentioned above, inherited power over national security and a National Security Council was constitutionally created. Whilst the constitution identified the president, government and legislature as all having a role to play, these roles were left to be defined by further laws. The system worked informally for the first few years because there were no laws forthcoming from the politically polarized legislature to define decision-making roles.24 National security was not a priority for Bulgarian society following 1989, and the dispersal of responsibility among many actors hindered the adoption of legislation. Laws in 1994 and 1995 clarified the position to some degree, among other things creating the Consultative National Security Council and defining its role and membership. Despite these advances there is still some ambiguity about where ultimate authority lies and this has been a continuing issue in developing Bulgaria’s national security strategies. In Romania, a national security law was passed on 26 July 1991 which empowered three organizations which succeeded the Securitate, in addition to the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Justice, ‘to 21

D. Herspring, ‘The Soviets, the Warsaw Pact, and the Eastern European Militaries’, in Central and Eastern Europe: the Opening Curtain, ed. by W. Griffith (Boulder, CO–San Francisco–London: Westview Press, 1989), pp. 130–55 (p. 146). 22 Ibid., p. 146. 23 Zagorcheva, ‘Civil-Military’, p. 35. 24 Chuleva and Derleth, ‘Decision-Making’, p. 780.

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carry out activity related to the defence of national security’.25 The activities of these agencies are coordinated by the Supreme Council of National Defence, which was established in March 1991 and is chaired by the President. However, it has taken time to develop effective legislative oversight of this organizational structure. Legislative oversight of the Romanian Security Service (SRI) only began in 1993, and not until 1998 was it established that the national security strategies produced by the Supreme Council of National Defence should be approved by the legislature and that each new presidency should be obliged to produce a strategy within three months of coming to office.26 Although only four formal strategies have been adopted between the two countries, this does not mean that these are the only developments to be considered. These strategies are the result of an ongoing process in both countries. It is a process that has seen them move away from the communist model of national security, and to some extent towards Western usage of the concept, as the two countries adapt and react to emerging security threats. However, the process has also been driven by other factors and shaped by the perceptions of the states’ ruling elites. Importantly, internal drivers, such as politics, institutions and economics, have played an important part in developments. Threats and perceptions A thorough discussion of what has driven the development of national security strategies in Bulgaria and Romania cannot be undertaken without a brief description of the main threats to the two countries, which stem both from the transition from communism and from regional factors. These threats must also be understood in the context of threat perceptions. There has been a need in both countries to establish and consolidate democratic institutions and protect the transition. The challenges of transition have been manifold, but include: creating stable democratic political governance; modernizing and developing new institutions; and transitioning to a market economy. Regional security problems are also a major issue for both Bulgaria and Romania and have had a major impact on their development in the last decade. Both states have had to develop in a complex security environment that has endangered their security on several occasions.27 In the words of Emil Constantinescu, Romania’s president between 1996 and 2000, the context of that environment is the ‘collapse of the communist regimes in central and eastern Europe, disintegration of the Warsaw 25

Deletant, ‘Ghosts from the Past: Successors to the Securitate in Post-Communist Romania’, in PostCommunist Romania: Coming to Terms with Transition, ed. by D. Light and D. Phinnemore (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 35–58 (p. 43). 26 Article 4 of Order No.152/1998 of the Romanian Government issued in 1998 states: ‘The National Security Strategy is the basic document which underpins the planning of defence at a national level. The President of Romania, in 3 months from the date of his investiture, will submit to the Parliament the National Security Strategy. The Romanian Parliament, in a joint session, will debate the National Security Strategy and will adopt it through a resolution.’ 27 Mediafax News Agency, ‘Romania: National Security Official Sees Regional Tensions as Threat’, BBC Monitoring Europe — Political, 17 July 2000.

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Pact and of the former USSR, which marked the end of the world’s bipolar structure and radically changed both Europe’s and the world’s political picture’.28 The instability in the former Yugoslav area has had a security impact on both countries and has, of necessity, affected the development of national security strategies in Bucharest and Sofia. The various sanctions placed on the former Yugoslav states have had an economic impact on both countries, and Romania was deeply affected by the blockage of the Danube trade route when bridges across the river in Yugoslavia were bombed by NATO during the 1999 Kosovo conflict. It must, however, be recognized that the threats to Bulgaria and Romania are also affected by perceptions. What constitutes and does not constitute a security threat is often determined by these perceptions. According to Gábor Stojanovits: Precisely which factors the political elite and the public at large perceive as challenges to their national or their individual securities, can be greatly influenced by philosophical beliefs, that is, how people understand their respective countries’ history and current and prior world affairs, as well as how they classify their opponents, enemies, etc.29

Trevor Salmon argues that, because individuals are involved in the process as decision-makers, perceptions are an important issue. ‘They [individuals] do not act on the basis of what some omniscient, objective observer may know the world to be like’, but rather make decisions based on their perceptions of what the world is like.30 It must also be recognized that these perceptions can be politically manipulated. Most obviously the manipulation can be undertaken by politicians seeking support, but at an organizational level various actors can also manipulate perceptions to gain institutional capital. This can lead to exaggerated or spurious threats. Chris Donnelly includes among such inflated threats to the region fundamentalism, terrorism, and information security.31 These issues, although important, have very little direct impact on the security of Bulgaria and Romania and are at best attention-grabbing buzzwords that have obscured the real issues. Drivers of development western influence In both Bulgaria and Romania there is a stated ambition to become integrated into ‘Euro-Atlantic security structures’.32 These structures are taken to include the European Union (EU) and NATO. According to Daniel Nelson there is a ‘desperate search underway [in the Balkans] for 21st Century institutions that will constrain 28

Rompres News Agency, ‘President views security hazards’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 25 June 1999. 29 G. Stojanovits, ‘European Security Issues: Perceptions of New Security Risks by Central and Eastern European Populations and their Political Elites’, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 14 (2001), 1–12 (p. 2). 30 T. Salmon, ‘The Nature of Interntional Security’, in International Security in the Modern World, ed. by R. Carey and T. Salmon (London and New York: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 1–19 (p. 9). 31 Donnelly, ‘Rethinking’, p. 34. 32 It must be pointed out that in Bulgaria, unlike Romania, there was some debate over whether the country should join NATO, but this was resolved in favour of joining in the mid to late 1990s.

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conflicts originating in the 19th Century and beyond’. The drive in both Bulgaria and Romania to join these structures has undeniably influenced the development of their national security strategies. The governing elites have formulated policy and outlined concepts with one eye firmly on the statements being made by the various organizations. The EU has become more hard-headed in its security concerns and discussion of the Common Foreign and Security Policy has gathered pace. On 31 March 2003, the EU took on responsibility for its first military operation by taking over peacekeeping duties from NATO in Macedonia.34 At the same time, NATO has arguably become less focused on purely military questions and more focused on political ones. The organization is also struggling to take into account newly defined security threats, such as terrorism.35 Part of the difficulty for Bulgaria and Romania is that even as trends have changed there has been no overall consensus on what those trends are or what they mean for security.36 This has led to the two countries, in some respects, having to hedge their bets in developing security strategies. Both countries have also had to go through the processes laid down for EU and NATO accession. For NATO, this started with joining the Partnership for Peace programme, and in 1999 they were also asked to follow Membership Action Plans (MAPs), which outlined a number of activities to be completed before accession to the organization. The MAPs included changes to be made to the countries’ defence structures and planning processes. For the EU both Romania and Bulgaria are being asked to take on the union’s Acquis and to close a number of chapters dealing with many aspects of policy. Security has been especially important in resolving issues involving justice and home affairs and the Common Foreign and Security Policy. domestic politics In Bulgaria, one of the central factors affecting the development of national security strategies has been the extremely confrontational political arena throughout the post-communist period.37 The conflicting ideologies of the two main governing parties, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the United Democratic Forces (UDF), made it difficult for the country’s National Assembly to pass the necessary resolutions and legislation both to set up institutions to formulate strategy and to accept the strategies that were proposed. The BSP, the renamed BKP, was in power between June 1990 and October 1991 and December 1994 and April 1997. Following the collapse of communist power, it emphasized a policy of ‘active neutrality’ for Bulgaria steering between, on the one hand, its old ally Russia, and, on the other, the countries of Western Europe and the US which had the money and expertise necessary to assist Bulgaria in its transition. 33

D. Nelson, ‘Creating Security in the Balkans’, in Central and Eastern Europe: the Challenge of Transition, ed. by R. Cowen-Karp (Stockholm, Sweden, Oxford and New York: SIPRI and Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 155–76 (p. 158). 34 L. Hill, ‘EU to Take Over Macedonia Mission’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 26 March 2003, p. 7. 35 E. Foster, ‘Sharing the Reigns — NATO-EU Capabilities’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 8 January 2003, pp. 18–21. 36 D. Lake, ‘The New East-West Split’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 19 March 2003, p. 21. 37 Zagorcheva, ‘Civil-Military’, p. 50.

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In the second half of the decade, the BSP also became more deeply rooted in socialist philosophy and began to espouse more socialist views on security, which permeated to the level of national security strategy. A typical example of this is a statement from the party’s 44th Congress: ‘Social insecurity is threatening [the] national security and stability of the state’.38 These included an emphasis on the role that social security, and the security of individuals, could play in providing a safe environment for the country. These views echo some of Bulgaria’s most pressing security problems, such as crime. This may be beginning to strike a chord with the voters who brought the newly formed National Movement Simeon II (NDSV) to power in mid-2001 and elected the BSP candidate Georgi Pabrvanov to the presidency later in the year. The BSP’s main opponent during the 1990s was the UDF. Originating as a broad coalition of opposition interests and dissidents, the UDF has evolved into a centreright political party. In terms of its national security orientation, the UDF has taken much more of a pro-Western position and focused on integrating Bulgaria into the existing European security structures. The UDF governed between October 1991 and October 1992, and from April 1997 to June 2001. These ideologically opposing views led to very contentious debates within the National Assembly. It also had the effect of preventing consensus on developing a national security strategy. The rapid changes of fortune meant the governments were not in place long enough to see through their programmes. In addition, the separation of responsibilities, in terms of developing a national security strategy, meant that it was necessary to have the government, the presidency, and the National Assembly work together. This was a particular problem during periods of cohabitation when the president was belonged to a different party to the government. This was the case during the presidency of Zhelu Zhelev, who had to work alongside the BSP in its first period of government and who also ended up in confrontation with his own party the UDF after it won the elections in 1991. In 1992, Zhelev was instrumental in bringing down the UDF government, which was replaced by a government of specialists that was unable to build the consensus in the National Assembly necessary to pass legislation. In 2001, the dynamic of Bulgarian politics was altered with the electoral win of the NDSV. The movement, as it is rightly named, has drawn support from across the political spectrum and has built its support on, among other things, a clear commitment to joining NATO and the EU. The new Prime Minister, Simeon Saxcoburgotski, was present in Prague in October 2002 when Bulgaria was invited to join NATO. However, the government’s ability to adequately and professionally provide for Bulgaria’s national security has been shaken by a number of scandals involving high-level officials, including one involving two deputy defence ministers who were forced to resign.39 38 Statement from the Bulgarian Socialist Party 44th Congress <http://www.bsp.bg/44kongres-en/ platform.html> [link no longer active] 39 E. Konstantinova, ‘Bulgarian Defence Officials Dismissed Over “Exports Scandal”’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 5 February 2003.

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Romania on the other hand has taken a different political path, which has in some ways assisted the development of national security strategies and in others been detrimental. Following the revolution and the removal of President Ceausc escu, the power vacuum was filled by the National Salvation Front (NSF), which subsequently won the May 1990 elections and saw its candidate Ion Iliescu become president. Despite a split in the NSF, Iliescu and one part of the NSF, which came to be called the Social Democracy Party (PDSR), governed until 1996. There is still much work to be done on analysing the Romanian Revolution and its aftermath, and how the NSF was able to take control and win the elections.40 However, the period 1990 to 1996 has been described as a period of lost opportunities.41 The government was dominated by former communists and in many respects they were slow to initiate reform. The 1994 national security strategy was marked by this, and was couched in terms that would have easily fitted into communist rhetoric. However, the domination of the NSF and Iliescu did mean that, unlike in Bulgaria, the decision-making process was not reduced to a stalemate and Romania was at least able to agree on a national security strategy. Following the 1996 elections, a new government and president came to power. The stalled revolution was, according to Deletant, completed and reforms began in earnest.42 The new government was able to re-examine Romania’s national security needs and published a new strategy in 1999. This new strategy was written in language that sits far less easily with the preceding era and expresses a far more credible and logical assessment of threats. Despite the return of Iliescu and the PDSR in 2000, discussion of national security issues appears to have continued in a similar vein rather than backsliding into some of the language used in the first six years following the revolution. Indeed, the national security strategy developed by the new presidency contains much that is the same as the 1999 document. Both documents stress the need to guarantee the fundamental rights and freedoms of Romania’s citizens, the need to protect the economic and social development of the country, and the need to preserve the country’s national identity. This is perhaps to be expected given the small amount of time that has passed between the developments. However, it also shows that the experience of formulating several strategies has aided policy-makers in their ability to outline a clear and systematic statement of needs and objectives. It will be interesting to see whether the next security strategy, which by law must be presented by the next presidency after three months in office, will be different. Institutions Within the Balkan region, Bulgaria and Romania have the highest level of institutional development.43 However, despite this, both countries suffer from the same type of institutional weaknesses prevalent throughout Eastern Europe. Donnelly 40 P. Siani-Davies, ‘The Revolution After the Revolution’, in Post-Communist Romania: Coming to Terms with Transition, ed. by D. Light and D. Phinnemore (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 15–34. 41 Deletant, ‘Ghosts’, p. 56. 42 Ibid. 43 In this context neither Greece nor Turkey are taken to be Balkan countries.

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points out that many of the governments in the region ‘are brittle and lack flexibility, with the result that a serious crisis, internal or external, could shatter what appears to be a stable system’.44 This institutional fragility and underdevelopment poses a major problem for Bulgaria and Romania and makes the development of coherent, cogent policies more difficult. The normal exchange of views taking place within the bureaucracies of Western Europe can, in themselves, pose a threat when played out in such brittle structures because the institutions are not developed enough to contain the differences between power centres within the bureaucracies. Without clear delineation of responsibilities and needs there is a danger of institutional paralysis. In the context of Bulgaria, the role and responsibilities of various offices in defining national security strategy were left ambiguous by the constitution.45 The situation was further muddled by the creation of the Consultative Council for National Defence in 1994, and for much of the 1990s the roles of the President, Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, and Chief of the General Staff, remained unclear. It can be argued that the institutions could have operated successfully without clearly defined roles if it was not for the severe polarization of politics, which made all issues into confrontational competitions for political power. On the other hand, Romania, which also quickly enacted legislation, clearly gave the lead in developing national security strategies to the Supreme Council of National Defence. Chaired by the president, this body includes the Prime Minister, and the Ministers of Defence, the Interior, and Foreign Affairs. The council also includes a number of national security professionals, such as the Chief of General Staff, the head of the SRI and the head of the president’s political analysis department.46 However, in the early 1990s, the council was not subject to any checks and balances from the legislature. It was only with the election of Constantinescu and subsequent changes to procedures that the legislature was given clear responsibilities regarding national security. The differing pace of change in these institutions and the resultant institutional outlooks have been a major factor in the development of national security strategies in Bulgaria and Romania. Institutional reform in Bulgaria and Romania has lagged behind the changes to the new environment. Donnelly argues that the ministries still reflect ‘older approaches and concepts’.47 It is in the nature of bureaucracies to approach change slowly, and the structures of defence and interior ministries tend to be conservative. This has meant, for example, that until the mid-1990s the Bulgarian Army continued to run an annual exercise put in place during the Cold War, in which the army acted to protect the south-eastern flank of a Warsaw Pact that no longer existed. These institutions are accustomed to dealing with strictly delineated issues of defence and internal security rather than cooperating to provide different facets of security based on an overarching national security strategy. 44

Donnelly, ‘Rethinking’, p. 33. N. Slatinski and M. Caparini, ‘Bulgarian Security and Prospects for Reform’, NATO Review, March 1995, pp. 28–32 (p. 31.) 46 Romanian Press Agency, ‘Defence Council document analyses national security strategies’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 14 June 1994. 47 Donnelly, ‘Rethinking’, pp. 33. 45

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However, in some aspects institutions have been able to react quickly to the changing context in which they are now operating. The Bulgarian Ministry of Defence began publishing Bulgarian Military Review in 1992.48 The journal, published in English, German, and French, was intended to ‘examine all aspects of public life in the context of national security’.49 Despite these ambitions, the journal has mainly dealt with the subject in military terms, focusing on issues such as military doctrine. In Bulgaria, the armed forces, as distinct from the civilian Ministry of Defence, have been inconsistent in understanding their role in formulating national security strategy. The result in 1998 was the publishing of a military doctrine that the then Chief of General Staff, General Mikho Mikhov, said was in no way related to foreign policy.50 The document was also prepared prior to the final approval by the National Assembly of the new National Security Concept later in the year. This has caused a dislocation between military doctrine and national security strategy. On 11 April 2001, according to press reports, the then Prime Minister, Ivan Kostov, said that it was not until 2000 that the top ranks of the armed forces were won over to the cause of reform.51 This differed from Romania, where it was acknowledged that the military doctrine could only flow from the national security strategy.52 The present Bulgarian military doctrine was accepted by the National Assembly on 8 April 1999 and amended in 2002.53 The first paragraph of the document reads: ‘The Military Doctrine of the Republic of Bulgaria is a system of strategic views, principles and approaches to ensure its national security in military-political and military terms [emphasis added]’. The armed forces now appear to have accepted that military doctrine and strategy must be closely coordinated with the National Security Concept. In the foreword to the Military Strategy of the Republic of Bulgaria, published in 2002, the new Chief of the General Staff, General Nikola Kolev, states: ‘The Military Strategy of the Republic of Bulgaria is a logical continuation of the National Security Concept and the Military Doctrine of the Republic of Bulgaria’.54 However, this will probably not be the last word on the subject, as the older generation of Soviet-trained officers is currently enjoying a resurgence in their support from officials at the expense of modernizers. In Romania, former elements of the Securitate appear to have had a continued influence on the development of national security strategy. This has taken an institutional form because of the prevalence of former Securitate officers in the new 48

Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, ‘Defence Ministry Publishes Foreign Language Magazine’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 15 August 1992. 49 Ibid. 50 Pari Daily, ‘Military Doctrine Draft Completed by General Staff’, Roubikon Trade & Publishing Complex Pari, 6 April 1998. 51 Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, ‘Bulgarian Premier Presents Report on National Security’, BBC Monitoring Europe — Political, 11 April 2001. 52 Rompres News Agency, ‘Defence Council Discusses National Security Strategy’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 31 July 1998. 53 Military Doctrine of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ministry Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria <http:// www.md.government.bg/_en_/docs/md_22_02_2002.html> 54 Military Strategy of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria <http://www.md.government.bg/_en_/docs/military_strategy.html>

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security and intelligence services until at least the mid-1990s. There was, according to Deletant, a lack of political will to reform.55 The 1991 national security law empowered three of the Securitate’s successors the SRI, the Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE), and the Presidential Protection and Guard Service, ‘to carry out activity related to the defence of national security’.56 The influence these services had on the national security process can be clearly seen in Romania’s first national security strategy which includes among the threats: the fight against informational aggression; cybernetic war; and economic espionage. However, the Romanians have now made a big effort to rein in the security services. This has partly been because of the need for the government to be seen to have effective control of its intelligence service as a prerequisite for its membership of NATO. In 2001, the director of the SRI announced restructuring measures that would adapt the organization to the requirements of the 1999 national security strategy.57 A similar process has also been undertaken for the SIE, which among its priorities includes protecting Romania’s foreign economic and commercial interests.58 Another difficulty both countries have faced in developing new national security strategies has been getting the necessary mix of specialists. During the communist period specialist skills were concentrated in the hands of a small number of party officials and the upper echelons of the countries’ armed forces and security services. It has taken time to recruit and train civilians with the skills necessary to take an active and constructive part in deliberations. Romania started this process earlier and appears to have been more active. It has introduced training schemes for its parliamentarians and others working in the legislature, who have attended the National Defence Academy alongside officers.59 Bulgaria has had a slower start. The Ministry of Defence did, in 1993, create the National Security Research Centre to train senior civilian and military officers, but it has been hampered by the high turnover in civilian staff with each new government.60 However, there has been less of an effort to train other civilians, such as parliamentarians, that also have a role in developing national security strategies. This has led to conflicts between military professionals and the National Assembly. Donnelly points out that non-governmental organizations play an important role in security policy formulation in the West.61 The few independent research institutions dedicated to security and foreign affairs in Bulgaria and Romania are ‘understaffed and underfunded’.62 55

Deletant, ‘Ghosts’, p. 35. Ibid., p. 43. 57 Romanian Radio, ‘Probe Suggests Possible Terrorist Link to Money Transferred Abroad’, BBC Monitoring Europe — Political, 16 November 2001. 58 Romanian Radio, ‘Romanian President, Intelligence Chiefs Discuss Anti-Terrorism’, BBC Monitoring Service — Political, 7 November 2001. 59 J. Simon and H. Binnendijk, ‘Romania and NATO: Membership Reassessment at the July 1997 Summit’, 101, February 1997. 60 Zagorcheva, ‘Civil-Military’, p. 38. 61 C. Donnelly, ‘Developing a National Strategy for the Transformation of the Defence Establishment in Post-Communist States’, European Security, 5 (1996), 1–16. 62 Zagorcheva, ‘Civil-Military’, p. 49. 56

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Economic issues An economically related security issue for both countries has been the prevalence of crime and corruption, which has severely weakened the state, and has therefore needed to be factored into national security policy. According to Stephen Holmes, ‘Among the many obstacles to the creation and maintenance of legality and constitutionalism in postcommunist countries, none looms so large as the interweaving of private-sector crime with public-sector corruption.’63 In both countries there is a belief that politicians are corrupt, and officialdom continues to be rife with the type of petty corruption that was prevalent in the communist system. Both countries also have a thriving criminal class and large black economies, although the sources and structures of these are somewhat different.64 Romania also has a particular problem with former officers of the Securitate. During the communist period the Securitate controlled the country’s export business.65 Following the collapse of the Ceausc escu regime, they used this expertise and their links with the trade ministry to set up import-export businesses that control most of Romania’s trade, creating ‘a veritable economic mafia’.66 As early as 1994, those with an interest in Bulgaria’s national security were stating the importance of good economic policy in the process. At a conference entitled ‘National Insecurity — Challenge for Bulgaria’, participants concluded that ‘a more stable national security system is unthinkable without a stable, nationally orientated market economy based on a broad middle class, a protected national business and an independent military industrial potential’.67 The importance of economic issues for Bulgaria was highlighted by the economic crisis in 1997, which was the catalyst for the collapse of the BSP government and new elections. This concern about economic security is prominent in the National Security Concept. Paragraph 38 of the document states: The economic factor is decisive for the guarantee of national security. Only the stabilization, re-establishment and growth of [the] Bulgarian economy are in a position to satisfy the interests of the Bulgarian citizens, society and state, to solve the problems concerning the deficiency of resources, to improve the living standard and increase the degree of social protection.68

Romania’s 1999 national security strategy identifies ‘the prolongation of domestic economic, financial and social difficulties’ as a risk factor.69 Although it may not have needed it, Romania was still given a lesson in the fragility of its economic 63 S. Holmes, ‘Crime and Corruption after Communism: Introduction’, East European Constitutional Review, 6 (1997), 69–70 (p. 69). 64 See J. Nikolov, ‘Organised Crime in Bulgaria’, and A. Mungiu-Pippidi, ‘Breaking Free at Last: Tales of Corruption from the Postcommunist Balkans’, East European Constitutional Review, 6 (1997), 80–84 and pp. 85–90. 65 Deletant, Ceausc escu, pp. 372–73. 66 Ibid., p. 374. 67 Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, ‘Sofia Conference presses for National Security Doctrine’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 23 April 1994. 68 National Security Concept of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria <http://www.md.government.bg/_en_/docs/ns.html> 69 Ministry of National Defence, Romania’s Strategy, p. 8.

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security that year. The country was hit by two miners’ strikes, estimated to have cost the country 130 billion lei.70 President Constantinescu warned of the possible collapse of the banking system and the currency, and the damage it could do to the country’s national security.71 It was the deepest financial crisis the country had experienced since the end of communism, although it was not as serious as that faced by Bulgaria in 1997.72 Later in the year Romania was also affected by the sanctions against Yugoslavia and by the closing of the Danube trading route because of NATO attacks against Yugoslavia. Economic stability and growth has been an important issue for the national security of the new political order in both countries. Instability and unpredictability has led to worries about the security of democratic governance and there is a belief that public discontent could lead to the election of ‘fringe’ elements with little to gain from continued democratic competition. Both Bulgaria and Romania have so far weathered their economic storms. However, economic stability remains a central issue for continued national security. Conclusion Developing adequate national security decision-making structures and strategies is just one of the many issues that Bulgaria and Romania have had to deal with in their transition to democracy and a market economy. However, it is an extremely important issue for the governments of the two states. The guarantee of security against external, and to some extent internal, threats is one of the fundamental roles of the state. Without such guarantees, the support of its citizens will not be forthcoming. Both Bulgaria and Romania have worked to develop national security strategies tailored to their new forms of governmental, institutional and economic organization and to the changing requirements of the international environment. They have been successful in some respects and have much work still to do in others. The structures that have been built up will need further time to become fully institutionalized and the strategies have not yet faced a real test. Nevertheless, since the Cold War, both countries have managed to develop highly sophisticated and nuanced approaches to national security, including many of the issues Western states are also grappling with. In both Sofia and Bucharest there are small, but growing, communities of specialists and politicians that are dedicating their energies to formulating national security policies that, given the meagre resources of the two countries, adequately address the security needs of the populations. Facing the consequences of ‘non-traditional’ security threats, such as economic instability and weak institutions, Bulgaria and Romania have begun to grasp the 70

Rompres News Agency, ‘Romanian Defence Council Draws Conclusions from Miners’ Protest’, BBC Monitoring Europe, 27 January 1999 71 Rompres News Agency, ‘President views security hazards’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 25 June 1999. 72 A. Smith, ‘The Transition to a Market Economy in Romania and the Competitiveness of Exports’, in Post-Communist Romania: Coming to Terms with Transition, ed. by D. Light and D. Phinnemore (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 127–49 (p. 127).

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complex nature of achieving national security in the new strategic environment. Both countries have been grappling with these issues, while simultaneously coping with instability in the region and the need to continue to fulfil important Realist guarantees of military security. The governments in Sofia and Bucharest should continue to tailor national security means to the needs of their countries. However, at the time of writing, this development is under threat from an over-identification with the United States of America and its security needs. This may erode the understanding of the distinct, individual security problems that is fundamental to adequately providing for their national security. Bibliography Brown, H., Thinking about National Security: Defense and Foreign Policy in a Dangerous World (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983) Bull, H., The Anarchical Society: a Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1977) Buzan, B., People, States and Fear: an Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990) Buzan, B., O. Wæver, and J. de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO–London: Lynne Rienner, 1998) Carey, R., and Salmon, T., eds, International Security in the Modern World (London–New York: Macmillan Press and St Martin’s Press, 1992) Chuleva, G., and Derleth, J., ‘The Bulgarian National Security Decision-Making Apparatus 1970-1994’, European Security, 3 (1994), 775–89 Deletant, D., Ceasc escu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965–1989 (London: C. Hurst, 1995) Donnelly, C., ‘Developing a National Strategy for the Transformation of the Defence Establishment in Post-Communist States’, European Security, 5 (1996), 1–16 Donnelly, C., ‘Rethinking Security’, NATO Review (Winter 2001), pp. 32–34 Foster, E., ‘Sharing the Reigns — NATO-EU Capabilities’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 8 January 2003, pp. 18–21 Griffith, W., ed., Central and Eastern Europe: the Opening Curtain (Boulder, CO–San Francisco–London: Westview Press, 1989) Hawksworth, M., and Kegan, M., eds, Encyclopaedia of Government and Politics, 2, (London: Routledge, 1997) Hill, L., ‘EU to Take Over Macedonia Mission’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 26 March 2003, p. 7 Holmes, S., ‘Crime and Corruption after Communism: Introduction’, East European Constitutional Review, 6 (1997), 69–70 Cowen-Karp, R., ed., Central and Eastern Europe: the Challenge of Transition (Stockholm, Sweden, Oxford, and New York: Sipri and Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 155–76 Konstantinova, E., ‘Bulgarian Defence Officials Dismissed Over “Exports Scandal”’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 5 February, 2003 Lake, D., ‘The New East-West Split’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 19 March, 2003, p. 21 Light, D., and Phinnemore, D., eds, Post-Communist Romania: Coming to Terms with Transition (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2001) Lipshultz, R., ed., On Security (New York: Colombia University Press, 1995) Ministry of National Defence, Romania’s Strategy of National Security: Democratic Stability, Durable Economic Development and Euro-Atlantic Integration (Bucharest, 1999) Mungiu-Pippidi, A., ‘Breaking Free at Last: Tales of Corruption from the Postcommunist Balkans’, East European Constitutional Review, pp. 85–90 Nikolov, J. ‘Organised Crime in Bulgaria’, East European Constitutional Review, 6, (1997), 80–84 Order No.152/1998 of the Romanian Government Simon, J., ‘Central and Eastern European Security: New National Concepts and Defense Doctrines’, Strategic Forum, 151 (1998)

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Simon, J., and H. Binnendijk, ‘Romania and NATO: Membership Reassessment at the July 1997 Summit’, Strategic Forum, 101 (February, 1997) Singer, P., ‘AIDS and International Security’, Survival, 44 (2002), 145–57 Slatinski, N., and M. Caparini, ‘Bulgarian Security and Prospects for Reform’, NATO Review (March 1995), pp. 28–32 Stojanovits, G., ‘European Security Issues: Perceptions of New Security Risks by Central and Eastern European Populations and their Political Elites’, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 14 (2001), 1–12 Vatanka, A., ed., Jane’s Sentinel Security Assessment: the Balkans, December 2001–May 2002 (London: Jane’s Information Group, 2001) Walt, S., ‘The Renaissance of Security Studies’, International Studies Quarterly, 35 (1991), 211–39 Williams, K., and D. Deletant, Security Intelligence Services in New Democracies: the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001) Zagorcheva, D., ‘Civil-Military Relations: The Evolution of Democratic Civil-Military Relations in Bulgaria’, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 15 (2002), 29–56

Newswires Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, ‘Bulgarian Premier Presents Report on National Security’, BBC Monitoring Europe — Political, 11 April 2001 Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, ‘Defence Ministry Publishes Foreign Language Magazine’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 15 August 1992 Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, ‘Sofia Conference Presses for National Security Doctrine’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 23 April 1994 Mediafax News Agency, ‘Romania: National Security Official Sees Regional Tensions as Threat’, BBC Monitoring Europe — Political, 17 July, 2000 Pari Daily, ‘Military Doctrine Draft Completed by General Staff’, Roubikon Trade & Publishing Complex Pari, 6 April 1998 Romanian Press Agency, ‘Defence Council document analyses national secuirty strategies’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 14 June 1994 Rompres News Agency, ‘Defence Council Discusses National Security Strategy’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 31 July 1998 Rompres News Agency, ‘President views security hazards’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 25 June 1999 Rompres News Agency, ‘Romanian Defence Council Draws Conclusions from Miners’ Protest’, BBC Monitoring Europe, 27 January 1999 Romanian Radio, ‘Probe Suggests Possible Terrorist Link to Money Transferred Abroad’, BBC Monitoring Europe — Political, 16 November 2001 Romanian Radio, ‘Romanian President, Intelligence Chiefs Discuss Anti-Terrorism’, BBC Monitoring Service — Political, 7 November 2001

Websites Statement from the Bulgarian Socialist http://www.bsp.bg/44kongres-en/platform.html [link no longer active] The National Security Strategy of Romania: Safeguarding democracy and fundamental freedoms, constant and durable economic and social development, NATO membership and integration into the European Union http://www.mapn.ro/indexro.php National Security Concept of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria http://www.md.government.bg/_en_/docs/ns.html Military Doctrine of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria http://www.md.government.bg/_en_/docs/md_22_02_2002.html Military Strategy of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria http://www.md.government.bg/_en_/docs/military_strategy.html

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The Early Exile of Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1907–1914) and Its Influence on His Writings Mykola Soroka University of Alberta Although Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s highly acclaimed writings have drawn much attention, most scholars seem to neglect the specificity of the fact that he wrote the majority of his works beyond his homeland, Ukraine. The paper proposes a new reading of Vynnychenko’s early writings (1907–14) through the prism of theoretical aspects of exile and other forms of displacement. A new period of Vynnychenko’s writings begins around 1906–07, which refocussed the writer’s interests from general depictions of the lower classes to a psychological analysis of the revolutionary intelligentsia. Whether or not the distance of exile gives Vynnychenko a new perspective remains contested. But no doubt some of his works are conditioned by exile (i.e. Rivnovaha, Olaf Stefenzon, Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid’). This is particularly evident in the settings (events mostly take place in France where the author resided), the characters (their behaviour is deeply affected by the exilic milieu), and language patterns (i.e., the use of French words and phrases). Vynnychenko’s thematic turn succeeds in demonstrating the challenge his characters face while living between two cultural spaces, a challenge that he himself had to confront as a temporary migrant before returning home in 1914. It may seem strange that the role of exile, as a form of involuntary displacement, remains largely unexamined in the works of a writer who lived most of his life and wrote the majority of his works beyond his homeland. A likely reason is that Volodymyr Vynnychenko is one of the most famous and influential writers in Ukrainian literature and, thus, is predominantly analysed in mainstream discourse, which quite often ignores minor discourses and therefore neglects literature written abroad.1 Among quite abundant research on Vynnychenko’s writing few have dealt with aspects of his exile, mainly focusing on later works, but barely addressing their social and psychological underpinnings.2 This paper examines the role that exile as a specific social and cultural phenomenon plays in the early writings of Vynnychenko (1907–14). I suggest that the theoretical aspects of exile constitute a very important instrument, which may help account for the writer’s choice of themes, settings, language patterns, and characters. 1 The most significant is, perhaps, the fact that literary critics in Ukraine largely neglect the whole generation of the first wave of migrant writers to the American continent since the 1890s. 2 Semen Pohorilyi, Neopublikovani romany Volodymyra Vynnychenka (New York: The Ukranian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the US, 1981); Valerian Revutsky, ‘Emihratsiyna dramaturhiya V. Vynnychenka’, Suchasnist, 12 (1971), 43–52; Larysa Zaleska-Onyshkevych, ‘Prorok — ostannya drama Volodymyra Vynnychenka’, Slovo, 5 (1973), 194–204.

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I will start with the theoretical aspects of exile in order to develop a foundation for an analysis of Vynnychenko’s writings. One of the most important issues in discourses of displacement is the issue of identity. One may naturally assume that everyday life influences all people and in a sense constantly constructs their identity. But it probably never so dramatically affects human life as in the geographical displacement of exiles that is usually accompanied with the feeling of uprootedness, loss, alienation, ambiguity, or even death. As Boris Pasternak says, ‘a departure beyond the borders of my country is for me equivalent to death.’3 However, recent changes in postmodern discourse emphasize the dynamic nature of identity. An exile or displaced person appears to be treated as someone who negotiates between two, or even more, spaces. In his article ‘Geography, Literature and Migration’, Peter White specifically observes that this negotiation results in a shift of identity, which is a highly complex and unstable process. Having examined works on migration he suggests that migrants may live in a number of worlds, and move between them on a daily, annual or seasonal rhythm. Other changes resulting from migration include attempts to re-create elements of former lives (possibly accentuating significant icons of that existence into quasi-talismans of high symbolic or ritual significance); attempts to integrate or assimilate completely (which may be blocked by a number of mechanisms within the ‘host’ society); or the creation of a new identity which is characterized by a feeling of independence from both the society of origin and the social structures of the destination. These changes in identity cannot be pinned down to a rigid linear continuum, for they represent the multiple and continually renegotiated outcomes of complex multifaceted phenomena operating both within individual biographies and for societies as a whole.4

Robin Cohen, speaking about diaspora, tries to classify this identity shift and to show it as a process, which has different stages. He gives the following scheme: 1) dispersal from an original homeland, often traumatically; 2) alternatively, the expansion from a homeland in search of work, in pursuit of trade to further colonial ambitions; 3) a collective memory and myth about the homeland; 4) an idealization of the supposed ancestral home; 5) a return movement; 6) a strong ethnic group consciousness sustained over a long time; 7) a troubled relationship with host societies; 8) a sense of solidarity with co-ethnic members in other countries; 9) the possibility of a distinctive creative, enriching life in tolerant host countries.5 Not all these statements are equally relevant to the analysis of one writer’s work. The most important for us, however, is the general direction of the evolution of one’s identity in displacement, which begins with the trauma of forced departure and through a series of obstacles tends toward an adaptation to a new society. Determined by different characteristics of identity, this development varies between two extremes — total rejection or adaptation to displacement — as can be exemplified by Stefan 3 Harry Levin, ‘Literature and Exile’, in Harry Levin, Refractions: Essays in Comparative Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), pp. 62–81 (p. 63). 4 Paul White, ‘Geography, Literature and Migration’, in Writing Across Worlds: Literature and Migration, ed. by R. King, J. Connell and P. White (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 1–19 (p. 3). 5 Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), p. 180.

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Zweig and Vladimir Nabokov. Zweig, who left Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933, committed suicide while in exile. As Helmut Pfanner points out, ‘in this situation, he typifies the European intellectual exile who considered himself totally out of place in the American environment and for whom the loss of home created an existential crisis’.6 Nabokov, on the other hand, after writing several novels in his native Russian, was able to switch to English and also achieve success. Cohen’s model highlights the social underpinning of displaced writings in its development and may be applicable to the study of the entire body of Vynnychenko’s works in exile. I, however, focus only on his early exile. If displacement is taken as a process, or as a negotiation between homeland and hostland, then early exile can be identified as a more traumatic period of recent uprootedness. This is followed, on the one hand, by intensive work of memory to recreate already established cultural realities, in an attempt to return home in one’s imagination and, on the other hand, by a reluctance to face the often unfamiliar realities of a new cultural milieu. If the social change of exile considerably affects a writer’s identity, then how does it affect his writings? The traditional bitterness of exile usually urges scholars to treat it as unfavourable for creativity. For instance, J. Priestly (1927) suggests that ‘the best books are always written at home’.7 However, postmodernist critics find this issue more controversial. They believe that one should take into account different aspects of displacement. Terry Eagleton gives us an interesting example of a radically different reality: among seven major writers in English literature (Conrad, James, Eliot, Pound, Yeats, Joyce, and Lawrence) in the first part of the twentieth century, only one was native-born — Lawrence. As Eagleton explains, ‘indigenous English writing, caught within its partial and one-sided attachments, [was unable] to “totalise” the significant movements of its own culture’.8 Martin Tucker, referring to Freud’s psychological concept of trauma, supports Eagleton’s argument that exile stimulates creativity, stating that ‘an artist works from a wound that shoots its own arrows of artistic strength and stimulation’.9 Hallvard Dahlie, on the other hand, has a more differentiated approach on this account, claiming that exile as a state of physical residency or as a state of mind can undoubtedly generate in some artists a strong impulse towards creativity, but others it might render absolutely barren. [. . .] as a group, as is undoubtedly true of similar groups in all nations, they are in creative artistry more or less equal to any group of indigenous writers.10

In Vynnychenko’s case there are contradictory accounts from critics about the influence of early exile on his writing. These critics often make little distinction between the social and creative aspects of exile. This usually leads to the following general 6

Helmut F. Pfanner, Exile in New York (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1983), p. 143. Paul Tabori, The Anatomy of Exile: A Semantic and Historical Study (London: Harrap, 1972), pp. 66–67. 8 Terry Eagleton, Exiles and Émigrés: Studies in Modern Literature (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), p. 15. 9 Literary Exile in the Twentieth Century: An Analysis and Biographical Dictionary, ed. by Martin Tucker (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1991), p. xx. 10 Hallvard Dahlie, Varieties of Exile: The Canadian Experience (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986), p. 201. 7

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picture: if everyday life is hard when exiled and torn from one’s homeland, then this negatively affects one’s writing. However, a dilemma arises: Vynnychenko wrote the vast majority of his works in exile, works praised by the same critics who ascribe to the negative role of displacement. It becomes clear that the issue requires more detailed elaboration. Here I focus on Vynnychenko’s writings and attempt to explain them in relation to the above-mentioned aspects of exile and displacement. Although Vynnychenko first stayed in exile for a short time in 1902–03, when he was just making his first attempts at writing short stories, scholars usually consider his real exile to begin in 1907, when he was away for seven years, making several brief illegal trips back to Ukraine. Now it is problematic to identify exactly which particular works Vynnychenko wrote in exile but many of them belong to this period: the plays Memento, Brekhnya, Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid; the stories Fedko-khalamydnyk, Zina, Moment, Olaf Stefenzon; and the novels Chesnist z soboyu, Rivnovaha, Zapovit batkiv. Not surprisingly, most of Vynnychenko’s works project images of the known and desired territory of his homeland, Ukraine, while he is not well acquainted with or even interested in the new territory of his exile. In other words, he is only physically absent from his homeland. His spirit remains in Ukraine. Does exile influence Vynnychenko’s change of thematics and stylistics, determining his second period of writings (1907–20)? Can we say that if Vynnychenko had not gone into exile, he would not have undertaken new vistas in his literary career? Probably not. I suggest this new shift is conditioned by his general evolution as a writer, who after the first period of observation moves to the second period of analysis of current social and moral issues in Ukrainian society. His first play, Dyzharmoniya, which marks the new period, appeared in 1906 in Ukraine. However, it was written in prison, which provided for a kind of domestic exile. Nevertheless, we can assume that real exile is a part of Vynnychenko’s evolution in the sense that he intertwines his experience of exile with Ukrainian themes (i.e. in Memento, Istoriya Yakymovoho budynku) and what is, probably, more important exile gives him a perspective of distance from a remote territory so that he can more closely observe the psychologies of characters and the way their identities shift. As Somerset Maugham notes, one positively must live in a minimum of three countries in order to begin to understand one’s own home country.11 This perspective of distance, perhaps, predisposes Vynnychenko to approach people not with a narrow local vision but rather with a more universal outlook on human morality, happiness, and peace. This approach is especially apparent in the literature of his late exile. Moral issues, such as ‘to be true to oneself’, his attitude towards women, family relations, and religion become the core of his philosophy and percolate into his later writings. Exile gives Vynnychenko a new broader and more universal vision of the world. Thomas Mann once commented on how exile works with passing time: ‘Exile has become something quite different from what it once was; it is no longer a condition of waiting programmed for an ultimate return, but rather [it] hints of the dissolution 11 Andrew Gurr, Writers in Exile: The Identity of Home in Modern Literature (Sussex: The Harvester Press and New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1981), p. 25.

THE EXILE OF VOLODYMYR VYNNYCHENKO

of nations and the unification of the world’.12 On the other hand, the removal from his homeland leads Vynnychenko to a kind of losing ground that Deleuze and Guattari call ‘deterritorialization’.13 Commenting on Vynnychenko’s change of literary style, Mykola Yevshan says ‘an alien power hangs over the creative world of the author. He is uprooted from real life and does not create any more but studies’.14 I assume that deterritorialization influences his writing, particularly in dissolution and the vagueness of settings (as in Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid), and enhances the abstractness of events that later inspire him to different futuristic and utopian projects. In the beginning of his exile, Vynnychenko focuses exclusively on Ukrainian themes. This is natural for early exile. He is the type of writer who needs new inspiration for his writing. While in Ukraine during 1902–07, Vynnychenko was involved in revolutionary activities and actively made contacts with people. But exile, as Volodymyr Panchenko observes, poses a problem for the obtaining of source materials for writing.15 Not surprisingly, from time to time, Vynnychenko undertook quite adventurous and risky journeys from abroad just ‘to live in a Ukrainian village in order to get inspiration’.16 He writes about this problem of lack of materials to his patron and friend Yevhen Chykalenko. In response, Chykalenko suggests focusing on émigré life: Once you mentioned in a letter, I believe in the last one, that now you don’t have any observations because you are cut off from life. But what about émigré life? Doesn’t it give you any materials? It seems to me that you would observe many interesting things there. It can offer themes and materials for any kind of literature — plays, stories, etc.17

One may assume that this was a crisis for the writer who had exhausted his recent impressions from his homeland after being in exile for a few years. Chykalenko’s advice was timely and Vynnychenko began to weave his exile experience into his works. In some works this experience is barely apparent, and does not much influence the text. For example, in the story Istoriya Yakymovoho budynku (1913), which is set in Ukraine and concerns moral issues of gender and family relations, we observe a displaced narrator who projects his memory to ‘a house near the Dnipro river’ and who exemplifies Italy as a place which he temporarily inhabits, all the while wishing to return home: Three more months have passed. Italy has become boring to me. . . I didn’t notice that spring had already come. The Italian climate does not know the winter longing for the spring blossom. That’s why I missed the spirit of thawed snow and yellow 12

Dahlie, p. 202. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986). 14 Mykola Yevshan, ‘V. Vynnychenko. Na vesakh zhizni. Roman. Sbornik “Zemlya”. Vol. IX. Moscow, 1912’, in Mykola Yevshan, Krytyka. Literaturoznavstvo. Estetyka (Kyiv: Osnovy, 1998), pp. 573–75 (p. 575). 15 Volodymyr Panchenko, Tvorchist Volodymyra Vynnychenka 1902–1920 rr. u henetychnykh i typolohichnykh zvyazkakh z yevropeyskymy literaturamy (unpublished doctoral thesis, Taras Shevchenko Kyiv University, 1998), p. 100. 16 Yevhen Chykalenko, Shchodennyk (1907–1917) (Lviv: Chervona kalyna, 1931), p. 137. 17 Panchenko, p. 100. 13

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and green grass near fences where the sun warms. I missed evening frost when the stars were large and clear in the sky and someone out of unknown joy wanted to pull a ‘brand name hat’ over a policeman’s nose. In one word, I began to feel nostalgie,18 a longing for a native country.19

In his own personal life, Vynnychenko is nostalgic in exile, as is evident from his letter to Chykalenko.20 But he does not overwhelm his writings with emotional sentiments and exaggerations. Moreover, he is skilful enough to use the energy of exile in the creation of balanced lyrical passages, as exemplified above. Now I would like to focus on three works, Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid, Olaf Stefenzon, and especially on Rivnovaha, all of which are clearly set beyond Vynnychenko’s homeland, and show how exile is inscribed and how it varies in each work. Rivnovaha is Vynnychenko’s second novel, published after his first quite scandalous novel Chesnist z soboyu appeared in 1910. According to Vynnychenko’s diary, he worked on the novel in 1911 and then published it in Russian (1912) and in Ukrainian (1913).21 After his long wanderings through European cities he finds Paris to be a favourable harbour for his writing. In a letter to Chykalenko, Vynnychenko writes, ‘Would you believe that I feel myself the best in Paris! I have found a quiet house for the first time where I can focus on work for whole days’.22 Rivnovaha is entirely devoted to the life of émigrés, mainly those who took part in the 1905–07 revolution in the Russian empire and had to go into exile in the face of pending repressions from the tsarist regime. The theme of the novel is even specified with its subtitle — a novel from the life of émigrés. Many observe that Vynnychenko has introduced a new theme into Ukrainian literature.23 According to White, a specific migrant theme in literature is the first visible marker of a writer’s interest in migrant experience.24 Also, ‘migration has been used as a topic through which writers have explored the human condition’.25 This point is particularly important for Vynnychenko as his new interest places characters in strange and extreme circumstances, portraying the moral and philosophical foundations of living in exile, penetrating the human soul, and stripping off people’s outer masks — what Danylo Struk calls ‘a moral laboratory’.26 In this way characters from Rivnovaha perfectly fit a number of characters from his other works: Kryvenko (Memento, 1909), Myron, Taras, Dara, Vira (Chesnist z soboyu, 1911), Stelmashenko (Po-sviy, 1913 and Bozhky, 1914), Mykhaylyuk (Zapysky kyrpatoho Mefistofelya, 1917). Simultaneously, by using exile as a form of moral laboratory, Vynnychenko also succeeds in demonstrating the inner mechanisms of exile life. And that life is depicted with dark and gloomy colours. It appears that having found themselves in displacement, 18

Vynnychenko wrote this word in Latin as it is. Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Istoriya Yakymovoho budynku (Kyiv-Vienna: Dzvin, 1919), pp. 51–52. 20 Panchenko, p. 30. 21 V. Vynnychenko, Shchodennyk, 2 vols (Edmonton and New York: CIUS Press, 1981), I, 41. 22 Panchenko, p. 30. 23 A. Nikovsky (p. 126) and O. Hrushevsky (p. 159), in Vadym Stelmashenko, Volodymyr Vynnychenko. Anotovana bibliohrafiia (Edmonton: CIUS Press, 1989). 24 White, p. 5. 25 Ibid., p. 6. 26 Danylo Struk, ‘Vynnychenkova moralna laboratoriya’, Suchasnist (1980), pp. 7–8, pp. 94–105. 19

THE EXILE OF VOLODYMYR VYNNYCHENKO

many revolutionaries suddenly feel a sense of emptiness in life that has to be filled up with something new. Mary, the author’s alter ego who introduces new ideas in the novel, makes the following observation: Here we are, émigrés: they ripped a piece of so-called soul from us, deprived us of social life and made a gap from one side, so we tend to another side. And as nature doesn’t like quietness and excessive diversion, it fills the gap with playing cards, coffee, wine, sex, as well as God and the Devil for some. . . depends what you stand better. Agitators, orators, tribunes, deputies have become deliverers, pilots, salesmen, painters, jugglers, glass-cutters. . . They recollect their parties with irony. . . There is no other way — the gap has to be filled up. Otherwise, you would fly with your feet up side down.27

Not surprisingly, Arkadii starts painting and Adolf laughs at the fact that his roommate keeps ‘spiritual interests’ when there is nothing to eat; Adolf himself becomes a gigolo for an older lady; Annette’s only interest becomes flirting with men; the poet Ostap, dying at the age of twenty-six, feels useless because he is not dying in battle but somewhere in exile in a foreign country; Khoma becomes alienated from his colleagues and cynical. Moreover, for some socialists, like Stameskin and Apolinariy, the emptiness of exile causes a mood of anarchism and satanism and they organize a group called ‘Soul, play’, which indulges in drinking, scandals, and debauchery. One of the results is the rape of their colleague, the young revolutionary Ladia, a bright character who aspires to obtain an education at the Sorbonne. Finally, exile brings death to Shurka who cannot stand the split in his personality and commits suicide. It is interesting to point out that Maxim Gorky, who was in exile himself at that time, emphasizes this problem in a letter to Vynnychenko, stating, ‘it seems that soon this miserable Russian intelligentsia will perish from suicides and debauchery, in which they indulge with more and more fervour’.28 Besides the typical manifestations of early exile such as hunger, lack of money, low-rank and low-paying jobs, conflicts with compatriots and indigenous people, Vynnychenko uses another significant device — the negative depiction of local nature and surroundings usually conveyed with such elements as dark colours, noise, bad weather, etc. Accordingly, the novel begins with a gloomy depiction of the apartment, which Arkadii shares with his colleagues: ‘No, it’s impossible! And it’s clear enough that it’s hard to create something valuable in this hut and with this light!’ Arkadii dropped his paintbrush with anger and looked at the window. Muddygrey fog from the street hung on it like a dusty curtain. Shaggy dusk covered the curved walls of the mansard and the couple of pieces of miserable furniture.29

The same impressions come also right from the beginning of the story Olaf Stefenzon: One evening I came to walk the streets of Paris. Such dense fog lasted for the whole day, so it seemed as if houses sank in grey soapy water. Lights had been turned on 27 28 29

V. Vynnychenko, Rivnovaha (Kyiv and Vienna: Dzvin, 1919), p. 80. Maxim Gorky, Polnoye sobraniye sochineniy. Pisma, 24 vols (Moscow: Nauka, 2000), VI, 216. Rivnovaha, p. 5.

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everywhere since 3.00 p.m. and they yellowed in whitish dense half-darkness with muddy spattered spots. It was difficult to breathe — the air was acid and dense and it resembled the atmosphere of a cold corridor saturated with steam.30

This negative mood is also conveyed in the portrayal of people on the streets in both works: The crowd is in a hurry. Cars are hastening, carters are shouting with irritation, people are bent down — those who are going down and those who are going up. Looks like a swarm of ants, which are barred from entering their anthill. As if these people have forgotten to lock the doors of their houses and have to stay on the street full of anxiety and worry.31 Trams and carts covered with fog kept rumbling, ringing and bellowing; greasy stains of shops and lamps were blinking and trembling; people appeared and disappeared near me like creatures from a morbid fantasy. I raised the collar of my coat, lit a cigarette and spat: everything may happen in this mass of hundreds of thousands of stone boxes crowded with people, in this piercing mudder of the fogs and vapours of swamps.32

Even the city of Paris, the cultural capital of the world, to which many artists and intellectuals crave to come, does not relieve the exile’s loneliness. ‘I don’t believe that I live in the capital of Europe. I doubt if I live on the planet inhabited with any other living beings’,33 says Arkadii in his diary. The feeling of emptiness, alienation, and ambiguity, which Vynnychenko himself experiences and observes, prompts him to perceive this challenge of early exile in broad philosophical terms as he is exposed to what he calls the law of equilibrium. According to it, all transformations in nature and social life take place only to keep the state of equilibrium. Mary is the character who introduces this doctrine in the novel: Everything is nonsense! Our revolutions, and socialism, and morals, and men, loves, consumption, death. All this is only a small vibration of life. . . Progress, advancement. Where to? Let them be sincere: has the sum of human suffering, if it is compared with happiness, decreased in our century? What reasons, frankly speaking, do we have to hope for this? None. Then, what is progress? Is there progress in this hot air? Does it move forward or backward? No way. It just moves and that’s it. Up and down, to the left and to the right. But there is a point, which it can’t leave and to which it is directed. That is toward equilibrium. And nothing more, Tanya.34

The law of equilibrium, then, explains the drastic metamorphoses emigrants undergo, when in order to remain true revolutionaries they must either return to their homeland or adapt to new realities. Thus, for example, the protagonists Shura and Stameskin experience moral degradation. In Rivnovaha exile is narrated clearly 30 V. Vynnychenko, Olaf Stefenzon, in Vynnychenko, Krasa i syla (Kyiv: Dnipro, 1989), pp. 613–63 (p. 613). 31 Rivnovaha, p. 47. 32 Olaf Stefenzon, p. 618. 33 Rivnovaha, p. 144. 34 Ibid., pp. 78–79.

THE EXILE OF VOLODYMYR VYNNYCHENKO

in negative terms as a milieu that corrupts people, even those who were stoic revolutionaries: violence, inebriation, anarchism and satanism flourish in Vynnychenko’s work. The best way out seems to be to return home even at the risk of being repressed in the homeland. That is what the main characters who have a positive outlook (Khoma, Tanya, Fenya, Mary) do. Fenya, probably, addresses this dilemma the best: it is better to perish in prison there than to watch all these loathsome people here. . . I’m leaving not because I need to but because I want to. . . Because I will be stifled in this atmosphere of unemployment, gossip, love affairs and mire. It’s difficult to see how people whom I have respected go down in my eyes.35

Some critics, however, doubt that they could change themselves upon returning home and be engaged again in public activities.36 I would not speculate on this matter because more important for us is the manner in which Vynnychenko constructs his characters concerning their relationships towards exile. It is interesting to notice that in a few years Vynnychenko and his Jewish wife, Rosalia, follow in these footsteps: disguised in peasant clothes and carrying false passports, they return illegally to Ukraine. These dark and gloomy colours in Rivnovaha were severely criticized by some critics. Gorky, already taking his ideological stance, articulated perhaps the fiercest reaction. In his letter to V. Mirolyubov, he writes ‘Vynnychenko’s work almost shows talent if one takes into account the persistence by which he has compiled all the dirt and ugliness of life to throw into the face of former “saints and heroes” [. . .] In the end, there is not any normal person in this silly work’.37 Gorky’s contemporary, A. Divilkovsky, suggests a more static approach, stating that these exiled revolutionaries have already obtained their negative features in their homeland, not in exile.38 It is easy to take a fatalistic approach and say that, indeed, they were born as distasteful characters. But the majority of critics (who admit these narrative biases are typical in Vynnychenko’s work) concede that the negative flavour of the novel is rather conditioned by the real challenge of early exile, and that the writer therefore succeeds in reflecting that reality. ‘Rivnovaha is not a slander, it appears from the natural psychological response of those people who were forced to live in the artificial and severe conditions of émigré life without real employment,’39 explains Oleksandr Doroshkevych. O. Hnidan and L. Demyanivska observe the absence of ‘social rootedness’ of characters who seem to come from nowhere and go nowhere.40 35

Ibid., pp. 242–43. Mykyta Shapoval, ‘V. Vynnychenko. Na vesakh zhizni. Roman. Sbornik “Zemlia”. Vol. IX. Moscow, 1912’, Ukrainska Khata, 5 (1912), 303–04. 37 M. Gorky, Polnoye sobraniye sochineniy, 30 vols (Moscow, 1955), XXIX, 525. 38 Stelmashenko, pp. 480–81. 39 Oleksandr Doroshkevych, Pidruchnyk istoriy ukraynskoy literatury (Kharkiv: Knyhospilka, 1927), p. 226. 40 O. Hnidan and L. Demyanivska, Volodymyr Vynnychenko. Zhyttia, dyialnist, tvorchist, (Kyiv: Chetverta khvylia, 1996), p. 159. 36

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Contrary to passive exile, self-reflective exile, or exile that is limited in its scope, some theorists notice so-called ‘counter-exile’, which they view as an active form of literary response to political repressions.41 In Vynnychenko’s case, this counterexile can be considered in a post-colonial context. The author addresses not only the issue of Russian imperial chauvinism and Ukrainian ‘malorosiystvo’ but also tries to inscribe a Ukrainian identity in the hostland. In both works, Rivnovaha and Olaf Stefenzon, there are scenes which show the ignorance of foreigners (French, Swedish, German) concerning Ukraine and Ukrainian identity. In Rivnovaha Mary tells Tanya a story of how she tried to flirt with a French man, whom she met accidentally on the street: ‘Do you read English?’ [Mary asks him] Yes, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Ukrainian. The latter he doesn’t know. ‘What?’ ‘In Ukrainian’ — I say to him. ‘There is such a nation, beautiful and poetical like Italians. There are thirty millions of them.’ Surprised. ‘Where are they?’ ‘On the moon’ — I laugh. . . 42

A similar situation comes also from Olaf Stefenzon: ‘And I am a Ukrainian,’ — I said as though everyone in the world know what species Ukrainian is. ‘Qu’est-ce que c’est?!’43 The lady raised high her brows. I scratched myself and began to tell her. But the lady didn’t listen to the end — it’s even better that there is one more nation.44

Now it would be helpful to compare briefly the three works under discussion in order to show how models of work produced in early exile vary in their development. Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid, written earliest out of the three, around 1910–11, barely carries traces of exile, even though it is clear from the text that the novel takes place in Paris.45 But it could also take place in Madrid, Moscow, Kyiv, and the change of setting would not affect the main theme of the play — the conflict between family responsibilities and artistic freedom. Moreover, the image of Hanna Semenivna, the painter Korniy’s mother, does not seem to fit into the Parisian way of life of young exiles and artists. It is difficult to understand how and why she went to Paris to live with the needy family of her son. This is a good example of how a 41 Gabriella Ibieta, ‘Transcending the Culture of Exile: Raining Backwards’, in Literature and Exile, ed. by David Bevan (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1990), pp. 67–76 (p. 74). 42 Rivnovaha, p. 76. 43 What is this? (in French). Vynnychenko is quite prolific in his use of French words written in Latin script in all three works such as madame, mon cher, adieu, monsieur, bonjour, trés bien, la presse, femme de ménage, Moulin Rouge, etc. that helps him to convey more adequately the atmosphere of a foreign country. 44 Olaf Stefenzon, p. 621. 45 V. Vynnychenko, Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid, in Vynnychenko, Vybrani pyesy (Kyiv: Mystetsvo, 1991).

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perspective of exile and displacement helps us to deconstruct certain elements of the work, while not disregarding the value of the work’s main idea. Rivnovaha appears after Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid. People in this novel are directly influenced by social life. The main goal of the author is to depict how exile challenges them. In this respect, characters of the novel fit its setting well. There is, however, one specificity in Rivnovaha: the characters are barely integrated into local life. As Shapoval notes in his review: ‘There is nothing French apart from sometimes streets, cars and a few simple words from French everyday vocabulary’.46 Although Vynnychenko focuses entirely on émigré life, and his portrayal of France is quite limited, it is not really a defect if it is approached from the theoretical perspective of exile. Using Cohen’s model I can say that migrants to varying degrees always look back and concentrate mainly on their homeland at the beginning of their displacement. Whether the concentration decreases over time or disappears totally depends on the reasons for migration, age, the effect of memory, and other factors. The degree of Vynnychenko’s engagement with his homeland during early exile is high as he was forced to leave his home country, carried on revolutionary activities and wished to return as soon as possible. This is true even though in his diary he sets himself the goal of depicting his participation in French life.47 In this connection it is important to point out that his third work on the theme of exile, Olaf Stefenzon, goes beyond the scope of his homeland. Only the narrator remains a Ukrainian who observes the life of artists in Paris as if from a distance. But the rest are foreigners, too: Germans, Mr Valdberg and his daughter Emma; a Spaniard, Diego Pables; and a Swede, Olaf Stefenzon. This gives readers the possibility to feel the very international and cosmopolitan atmosphere of Parisian life with its creative and competitive spirit that exists within the artistic milieu. No doubt, it is easier for the characters to make contacts with migrants, being migrants themselves. Even an accent can contribute, as it did during the first meeting between the narrator and Emma: ‘You are a foreigner, aren’t you?’ — she asked at once as if being afraid that I wouldn’t go on and our conversation would stop. ‘A foreigner’ I answered. ‘But you don’t look like a Parisian either?’ ‘No, I’m a German. . . .’.48

This also proves that integration into the daily life of a hostland is a challenge, especially at the beginning of exile. It is interesting to follow the thoughts of Khoma (Rivnovaha) who observes the encounter of two different cultural spaces: Khoma stopped at the noisy corner and stood for a long time under the lamp watching the moving streams of people with his lustreless and indifferent eyes. Sometimes Russians loom. One can easily recognize them: they don’t have that calmness and confidence, which their hosts, the French, have. Their faces seem to look for something. Prostitutes don’t pay attention to them; flower salesmen don’t offer bouquets to them.49 46 47 48 49

Shapoval, p. 304. Shchodennyk, p. 41. Olaf Stefenzon, p. 614. Rivnovaha, p. 47.

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In this respect, it is also interesting to notice that there are no individual French characters depicted in either Olaf Stefenzon or Rivnovaha. They only occasionaly appear in these works (as shown in the example above) in the images of common French people or persons without names because the author, being in early exile, does not know them well yet. He is more comfortable with his exile-compatriots and migrants from other countries. The only individual French people appear in Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid — Mulen, Lemonie. But these characters seem to dissolve within an international Parisian Bohemia represented by individuals with specific names — Migueles, Black, Shtif, Janson — and some individuals whose names rather identify their belonging to art, not to a nation — Sapho, Mimi, Cardinal. So, this does not represent French life in depth but only its specific — artistic — segment, which Vynnychenko knows better. In conclusion, the study of Vynnychenko’s writings through the perspective of exile and displacement seems quite productive. It gives us theoretical models (the issues of identity, the evolution of displacement, counter-exile), which help us to analyse Vynnychenko’s works from different perspectives and to reveal some intrinsic features engendered in exile, such as the perspective of distance, increasing feeling of deterritorialization and universality, specific choice of themes, settings, language patterns, and characters. I suggest that exile as a form of displacement, despite its hardship in social life, does not cause Vynnychenko to lose creative spirit but rather contributes to the shift in his literary career. I have focused, particularly, on early exile, in which the homeland still prevails in its negotiation with the hostland, but attempts to make contacts with a new social and cultural milieu appear, exemplified in three works Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid, Olaf Stefenzon, and Rivnovaha. I believe that the study of Vynnychenko in early exile through the prism of exile and displacement will help us to understand more thoroughly his individual works as well as the general evolution of his writing. Biographical Note Mykola Soroka is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta. His thesis title is ‘Displacement and Literature: The Writings of Volodymyr Vynnychenko.’ He received his candidate’s degree at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv University (1995) where he taught Ukrainian literature and was Head of the Department of Theory and Practice of Translation at the Institute of Ukrainian Studies. His research interests are Ukrainian literature and cultural and literary aspects of displacement — exile, émigré, diaspora. His recent publications include ‘Between Homeland and Hostland: Contemporary Ukrainian Diasporic Literature In North America’, in Borderlines: Studies in Literature and Film, ed. by Wactaw M. Osadnik and Andrzej Pitrus. (Krakow: Rabid, 2003) and ‘Emihratsiya ta pytannya rozvytku ukrainskoyi literatury v literaturniy krytytsi Yuriya Sherekha (1945–1956)’ (Slovo i chas, 2003, # 1).

Slovo, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2004

The Hungarian Status Law in Romania: Anatomy of an Inter-National Dispute* Sergiu Z. Troie Hungary adopted a ‘status law’ that sought to provide cultural, social, and economic benefits to ethnic Hungarians and their spouses and children who resided in any of the immediately adjacent countries except for Austria. The motivation for the law was based in part on the national trauma of Hungary’s post-WWI territorial dismemberment. Romanian government and media greeted this legislative project with hostility expressed as continuing national insecurity about Hungarian irredentism and the loyalty of ethnic Hungarians in Romania. By supporting their rhetoric with mutually exclusive national symbols, the two governments made compromise extremely difficult. Yet after European intervention, just such a compromise was eventually reached. The success of European institutions in bringing the two sides together was due in part to the symbolic power of ‘Europe’ as an ideal in the domestic politics of both countries. Introduction: ‘More than tourists, not quite citizens’ The love of Transylvania is [. . .] an excessive and exclusive love. A love on continuous alert, both frightened and devouring. A love full of anxieties [. . .] accompanied by a frenzied and pathological jealousy. The Romanian (and particularly, as the most sensitive and possessive, the Romanian politician) is infuriated if he hears that there are also others who would be interested in her.1 They are not listening to us [. . .] and we don’t understand what they say.2

On 19 June 2001, the Hungarian National Assembly passed Act LXII of 2001 on Hungarians Living in Neighbouring Countries — more commonly known as the Hungarian status law — with 306 yeas, seventeen nays, and eight abstentions.3 The culmination of several years of legislative work in consultation with the political representatives from Hungarian communities in neighbouring countries, the status * A longer version of this paper was submitted for consideration as an MA thesis to the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London in 2002. 1 Alexandru Cistelecan, ‘Manele pentru ardeleni’, Provincia (Romanian edition), December 2001, p. 1. (author’s translation: all other Romanian language sources cited are translated by the author unless otherwise noted). 2 Stefan Markus, Slovakia’s ambassador to Hungary, speaking to reporters about his government’s consultations with Hungary concerning the status law. The same could be said about Hungary’s consultations with Romania. Reuters, ‘Hungary’s Neighbors See Bias In a Law to Aid Its Diaspora’, New York Times, 11 December 2001, p. A5. 3 Eva Kekes, ‘Controversial law gives privileges to ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries’, Associated Press, 19 June 2001.

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law sought to provide cultural, social, and economic benefits to ethnic Hungarians, their spouses, and children who resided in any of the immediately adjacent countries except for Austria. According the law’s preamble, such benefits were meant ‘to ensure that Hungarians living in neighbouring countries form part of the Hungarian nation as a whole and to promote and preserve their well-being and awareness of national identity within their home country’.4 Or to put it more simply, it would create an intermediate legal category for any ethnic Hungarian from surrounding states: ‘more than a tourist, not quite a citizen’.5 The government of Romania, and most Romanian politicians, reacted extremely negatively to this legislative project. In mid-May, Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nab stase declared that ‘so long as we are not consulted and we do not agree upon certain things together, the law will not apply to Romanian territory’.6 Shortly after its passage, Romanian President Ion Iliescu threatened the abrogation of the 1996 Romanian–Hungarian Basic Treaty,7 and the xenophobic nationalist Corneliu Vadim Tudor, head of the Greater Romania Party (GRP), likened the status law to a declaration of war against Romania.8 Much of the Romanian press followed suit, leveling accusations ranging from ‘discrimination’ to ‘irredentism’ with varying degrees of animosity depending on the publication and the author.9 Under this barrage from political elites and the mass media, Romanian public opinion also tended to oppose the law’s application on Romanian territory.10 In defending the legitimacy of the law, Hungarian government officials argued that their project was enacted in the European integrative and state-boundaryspanning spirit. In an interview granted to Romania’s largest circulation daily Adevab rul, Hungarian Foreign Minister János Martonyi stated that in the context of a number of European legal instruments and decisions in favour of minority rights ‘the [status] law is [. . .] in complete accord with the philosophy of European approaches and with their practical realization’.11 Likewise in a Radio Kossuth interview, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán argued that: 4

Preamble, paragraph 5, Act LXII of 2001 on Hungarians Living in Neighbouring Countries (hereafter Status Law). 5 ‘Near citizenship promised ethnic Hungarians abroad’, Associated Press, 14 December 2000. This issue of intermediate legal status is explored at length in Brigid Fowler, ‘Fuzzing citizenship, nationalising political space: A framework for interpreting the Hungarian “status law” as a new form of kin-state policy in Central and Eastern Europe’, Economic and Social Research Council ‘One Europe or Several?’ Programme, University of Sussex, Working Paper 40/02, January 2002. 6 Sc erban Mihab ilab , ‘Premierul Nab stase refuzab sab aplice pe teritoriul României legea statutului maghiarilor’, Adevab rul, 14 May 2001, p. 1. 7 Oana Iurasc cu, ‘Presc edintele Ion Iliescu amenintc ab cu suspendarea Tratatului bilateral româno-ungar’, Adevabrul, 23–24 June 2001, p. 1. 8 Alin Bogdan, ‘C.V. Tudor a vorbit despre un rab zboi cu Ungaria’, Adevab rul, 25 June 2001, p. 14. 9 For a review of the press coverage in Romania immediately after the status law’s passage, see Cristina Maria Pantiru, ‘Presa romanab “fatc ab cu reactc iunea”: O analizab a reflectarii în presa scrisab a adoptarii “legii statutului”’, Sfera Politicii (online version), 9 (2001), 93–94. 10 However, partial results of two polls conducted regarding this issue were more equivocal than the headline of Adevab rul would have its readers believe: ‘Romanians oppose en masse the application of the Hungarian status law within their country’s territory’. See Corina Drab gotescu, ‘Românii se opun în masab aplicab rii legii statutului maghiarilor pe teritoriul tc ab rii lor’, Adevab rul, 27 July 2001, p. 1. 11 ‘Legea statutului maghiarilor de peste hotare este conformab cu legislatc ia europeanab ’, Adevab rul, 6 July 2001, p. 17.

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The Hungarian status law does not contravene the legal norms of the European Union. On the contrary. The status law was elaborated taking into account the legal norms of the European Union. [. . .] The whole of Europe is built upon this conception, the importance of citizenship, the importance of borders is in continual decline. Thus, what Hungary is doing is applying a European concept.12

The Romanian side likewise appealed to the idea of Europe, emphasizing the norms of mutual consultation and non-discrimination. Interviewed for a Hungarian television programme before the passage of the law, Iliescu said that ‘the Hungarian document to be introduced is not truly democratic and is not at all European [. . .] the proposal has several points that run against the European identity’.13 Speaking before a teleconference with regional bureaucrats, Nab stase stated that ‘the Hungarian premier Orbán wants to teach us a lesson about European values, but instead he demonstrates an anti-Europeanism that is evident’.14 His foreign minister was no less direct, calling the law both ‘anachronistic and non-European’.15 Not content with their war of words in the press, both the Romanian and the Hungarian government attempted to win the approval of European institutions. Romanian officials lobbied European Commission President Romano Prodi, European Commissioner for Enlargement Günter Verheugen and External Relations Commissioner Christopher Patten.16 Hungarian and Romanian representatives at the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly battled over a Romanian sponsored resolution condemning the status law.17 Rolf Ekéus, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) High Commissioner on National Minorities, paid visits to Bucharest and Budapest to hear both sides of the argument.18 And Nab stase and Martonyi appealed formally to the Council of Europe’s Commission for Democracy Through Law — also known as the Venice Commission — to make a ruling on the matter.19 The summer dragged on without much progress and with little constructive public intervention by the Council of Europe, the European Union, or the OSCE.20 12

‘Premierul ungar, Viktor Orbán, trateazab cu dispretc reactc iile României’, Adevab rul, 28 June 2001, p. 9. ‘Iliescu Interview on Hungarian Television — Status Law’, Hungarian News Agency (MTI), 26 May 2001. 14 Cristina Ciobanu, ‘Premierul îsc i acuzab omologul de la Budapesta de “antieuropenism”’, Romania Liberab , 23 June 2001, p. 3. 15 Kekes, ‘Controversial law gives privileges to ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries’. 16 Andreea Bratosin, ‘Forurile europene se fac cab plouab în legab turab cu legea statutului maghiarilor de peste hotare’, Adevab rul, 21 June 2001, p. 1. 17 See for example Rodica Ciobanu and Ion M. Ionitc ab , ‘Proiect de rezolutc ie a APCE împotriva Legii statutului maghiarilor’, Adevab rul, 27 June 2001, pp. 1 and 14; and ‘Council of Europe — Hungarian Initiative Over Status Law’, Hungarian News Agency (MTI), 29 June 2001. 18 C. Popa, ‘Înaltul comisar OSCE pentru minoritabtc i refuzab sab comenteze “Statutul maghiarilor”’, România Liberab , 25 July 2001, p. 3. 19 See European Commission for Democracy Through Law (Venice Commission), Council of Europe, ‘Introduction’, Report on the Preferential Treatment of National Minorities by Their Kin-State (hereafter Venice Commission Report), adopted by the Venice Commission at its 48th Plenary Meeting (Venice, 19–20 October 2001), Strasbourg, 22 October 2001. 20 Verheugen’s remark about the status law’s being in compliance with Hungary’s Association Agreement with the EU turned out to only harden the Hungarian position. See Andreea Bratosin, ‘Lui Verheugen, legea statutului maghiarilor i se pare în regulab’ (emphasis in original), Adevab rul, 28 June 2001, p. 1. 13

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With the fall came bilateral, expert-level talks which remained stalled on what the Hungarian side called ‘political’ questions.21 In the second half of October, the Venice Commission released its much anticipated report, and both sides claimed victory. For Romania the findings seemed to support its claims of extraterritoriality, economic discrimination, and unilateral action by the Hungarian government with respect to the status law. For Hungary, the findings demonstrated that, in addition to the primary responsibility held by ‘home-States’ for minority rights, ‘kin-States also play a role in the protection and preservation of their kin-minorities’, and that ‘preferential treatment may be granted [. . .] in the fields of education and culture’.22 The essential message of the Venice Commission report to both governments was that a negotiated bilateral resolution to the impasse was expected. The Commission’s conclusions were reiterated, with perhaps even less sympathy for the Hungarian position, by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities in a press release a week later,23 and by the European Commission’s progress report on Hungary issued after that.24 With the status law’s implementation deadline of 1 January 2002 fast approaching and European pressure increasing, both sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding vis-à-vis the status law on 22 December 2001. As part of this compromise, Romanian citizens regardless of ethnicity were entitled to Hungarian work permits valid for up to three months per year, and the Hungarian government agreed that the process of applying for the ‘certificate’ necessary to enjoy certain cultural and educational benefits would take place ‘primarily’ within the borders of Hungary and its embassies.25 Although economic arguments were used by both the Hungarian and Romanian governments during the status law controversy, this article argues that the dispute was primarily understood by its antagonists in symbolic, non-material, and affective terms. Unlike economic policy negotiations from which some theories of international bargaining and cooperation are derived,26 the dynamic of the negotiations involving the status law was not one of quantifiable, incremental movements from two opposing poles toward some intermediate position between them. Instead, it was built upon a series of symbols not easily placed along one or more axes in relation to one another — and even upon the same symbol, ‘Europe’, which held different meanings for each of the participants involved. 21

‘Hungary and Romania Hold Consultations on Status Law’, Hungarian News Agency (MTI), 8 September 2001. 22 ‘Conclusion’, Venice Commission Report. 23 Rolf Ekéus, ‘Sovereignty, Responsibility, and National Minorities: Statement by OSCE Minorities Commissioner’, OSCE Press Release, 26 October 2001. 24 European Commission, European Union, 2001 Regular Report on Hungary’s Progress Towards Accession, Brussels, 13 November 2001, p. 91. 25 Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of Hungary and the Government of Romania concerning the Law on Hungarians Living in Neighbouring Countries and issues of bilateral co-operation, 22 December 2001 (hereafter Memorandum of Understanding). 26 See for example, Internationalization and Domestic Politics, ed. by Robert O. Keohane and Helen V. Milner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

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Drawing their meanings from differing contexts within Hungarian and Romanian societies, such symbols were primarily employed by the governments of the two countries. But in addition to state-level governments, at least two other actors were crucial in the unfolding of the status law dispute. First, above the state level, the group of inter-governmental organizations including the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE which played the part of a collective ‘European’ institution. Second, below the state level, the ethnic Hungarian umbrella party in Romania, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR). This article begins with a brief examination of the historical underpinnings of contemporary Hungarian and Romanian national political discourse, using the expression of national sentiment in the constitutions of both countries as a framework. The two following sections discuss the results of the 2000 Romanian national elections and the political alliances which resulted in an effort to understand the political constraints which shaped how both the governing party and the ethnic Hungarian party responded to the status law. The article then explores the way in which Romanian elites expressed opposition to the status law in terms of national symbols such that compromise with Hungary became more difficult. The final section highlights the appeals made by both countries to European institutions and the role those institutions played in breaking the deadlock of national politics to facilitate a political compromise. The national ideas codified: constitutions in conflict article 6.3 of the hungarian constitution The crucial point of departure for most analyses of the conflict between these two nations and the states they control is the Treaty of Trianon through which the Western powers approved the redrawn boundaries of a shrunken, post-First World War Hungary. The shock of the loss of two thirds of historic Hungarian territory, and a significant number of ethnic Hungarians along with it, placed Hungarian inter-war policy squarely in the revisionist camp. Trianon as a historical shared memory of tragedy and loss thus became an important strand of Hungarian national identity. The aim of Hungarian irredentism was not just regaining lost pieces of the homeland, another component important to the national idea, but also obliterating the political frontiers between members of the same Hungarian nation. For a brief time, Hungary’s eventual alliance with Nazi Germany resulted in the return of a portion of Transylvania which had been lost to Romania. Yet with its allies’ defeat in the Second World War, Hungary was again consigned to the Trianon borders. As George Schöpflin recounts, ‘in 1945 it was evident that integral revisionism was bankrupt and Hungary could begin to come to terms with the loss of empire.’27 In communist Hungary, especially after the 1956 uprising, concern with the millions of ethnic Hungarians in surrounding territories was constrained by the dynamic of the Cold War and ‘the question largely disappeared from the overt political agenda’.28 27 George Schöpflin, Nations, Identity, Power: The New Politics of Europe (hereafter Nations Identity Power) (London: C. Hurst and Co., 2000), p. 379. 28 Ibid., p. 380.

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Events in Romania, coupled with the internal changes Hungary underwent in blossoming into a mature post-totalitarian regime,29 conspired to bring the strand of national identity that concerned itself with ethnic Hungarians30 beyond Hungarian borders back into the public sphere. In addition to the general repression and misery experienced by almost everyone in Ceausc escu’s Romania, ethnic Hungarians were also subject to the additional burden of Romanianization. Many observers maintain that by the mid-1980s efforts to assimilate ethnic Hungarians in Romania accelerated.31 In this context, the Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party made the decision to break its public silence about ethnic Hungarians abroad: It should be made clear that the Hungarians living in the countries surrounding us, including those of Transylvania, are part of the Hungarian nation. That is why these people have every reason to expect the Hungarian state to be responsible for them, too, and voice their problems with determination.32

This renewed sentiment straining to define an affective connection of collective identity at odds with boundaries of citizenship became duly institutionalized in the new Hungarian Constitution, of which Article 6, Paragraph 3 reads: The Republic of Hungary recognizes its responsibilities toward Hungarians living outside the borders of the country and shall assist them in fostering their relations to Hungary.33

The centre-right Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) which won a plurality in the 1990 elections pursued and extended the notion of national ties between ethnic Hungarians in Hungary proper and outside its borders. On the eve of the MDF victory, the party’s candidate for prime minister famously declared that he would be prime minister — ‘in spirit’ — to all fifteen million Hungarians.34 Thus, in speaking of the status law, Karoly Gruber of Budapest’s Office for Hungarians 29 See Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 296–316. 30 Here I follow a convention in English language usage based upon the confusion between the concepts of ‘citizenship’ and ‘nationality’, and between ‘nationality’ and ‘ethnicity’. When I write ‘ethnic Hungarians’ or ‘ethnic Romanians’, I am seeking either to differentiate between two groups sharing a common citizenship or to highlight a shared bond of identity that transcends boundaries of citizenship. By using the modifier ‘ethnic’, I do not mean to make some sort of pejorative value judgment or to imply that Hungarian or Romanian identity ought to be understood only in ethnic terms. 31 See for example, ‘Destroying Ethnic Identity: The Hungarians of Romania’, Helsinki Watch Report, February 1989. 32 Statement by Szuros Matyas, Central Committee Secretary responsible for foreign affairs who went on to become Hungary’s first post-Communist president, in a Hungarian radio interview. Henry Kamm, ‘Rumania and Hungary Let War of Words Slip Out’, New York Times, 21 February 1988, Section 1, p. 11. 33 Constitution of the Republic of Hungary, 31 December 1990. Reprinted in Council of Europe, The rebirth of democracy: 12 constitutions of central and eastern Europe, 2nd edn (hereafter The rebirth of democracy) (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Pub., 1996), p. 158. The Constitution of Romania has a similar provision for Romanians beyond its borders. 34 ‘Outlook Foggy’, Guardian, 10 April 1990, p. 20; and Schöpflin, Nations, Identity, Power, p. 371. Since the population of the modern-day state of Hungary is only ten million people, the fifteen million figure is a reference to ethnic Hungarians in other countries.

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Abroad could reasonably argue, ‘It is a constitutional duty for any Hungarian government to care about Hungarians abroad’.35 article 1.1 of the romanian constitution For the historical memory upon which Romanian nationhood is built, Trianon as event and symbol takes on a different meaning. Rather than signifying national mourning, the Treaty of Trianon itself is overshadowed and transformed within Romanian national discourse into the declaration of the reunification of the Romanian national homeland at Alba Iulia on 1 December 1918, which made Trianon possible. As symbols of historical memories, Trianon and Alba Iulia have become perhaps inextricably intertwined in a zero-sum relationship. Lesser Hungary is the flip side of Greater Romania. In hearing irredentism when a Hungarian speaks of Trianon or injustice when a Romanian speaks of Alba Iulia, members of both nations reaffirm their own nationality.36 Just as the symbols of Trianon and Alba Iulia find themselves in polar opposition, so too was the immediate post-First World War situation in Romanian state in marked contrast with that of Hungary. Unlike Hungary, which had lost so much of its territory and co-nationals, Romania doubled in both population and territory and gained not only the now ‘redeemed’ ethnic Romanians, but also a number of substantial minority groups, the largest of which was the Hungarian minority in Transylvania. Along with all of its new territory, the Romanian state also inherited tremendous insecurity as the potential target of its neighbours’ irredentisms: ‘every [pre-WWI] country bordering Romania lost territory to Greater Romania.’37 The insecurity of the Romanian state’s inter-war frontiers was confirmed by the loss of portions of its newly acquired territories, including northern Transylvania to Hungary and Bessarabia to the Soviets. While it was one thing to feel insecure about integrating the new territories into the highly centralized state, it was quite another to have such insecurity borne out by the use of force or its threat. Although northern Transylvania was recovered after the war in exchange for the imposition of communism, the trauma of the experience was firmly embedded within the national identity. The idea that under communism national identity was somehow put in a ‘deep freeze’ has by now been thoroughly debunked. Hitting his stride on the national idea after protesting against the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Ceausc escu only too gladly relied upon national identity as a source of legitimacy for his regime.38 The theme of insecurity, inherited as part of the national idea from the interwar period, meshed well with the paranoiac scapegoating of national-communism. 35 Lucian Kim, ‘Budapest Seeks to Strengthen Ethnic Ties that Bind’, Christian Science Monitor, 28 August 2001, p. 7. 36 See Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Subjective Transylvania: A Case Study of Post Communist Nationalism (hereafter Subjective Transylvania), International Policy Fellowships online manuscript, 1999. 37 George W. White, Nationalism and Territory: Constructing Group Identity in Southeastern Europe (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), p. 157. 38 See Katherine Verdery, National Ideology Under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausc escu’s Romania (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991); and Katherine Verdery, ‘Nationalism and National Sentiment in Post-socialist Romania’, Slavic Review, 52 (1993), 179–203.

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‘One of the major lessons of the national history, as taught until December 1989, was that the Romanian unitary nation-state has been continuously contested and threatened, and that it was the patriotic duty for all responsible Romanians to defend it at all costs.’39

The bloody 1989 Romanian Revolution was more of a revolution against Ceausc escu than one against the Romanian brand of national-communism, though the two were obviously closely related. After the elections of 1990 manufactured an overwhelming victory for Ion Iliescu and the other former Communist Party members who made up the National Salvation Front, it is hardly surprising that the national conception of the Romanian nation-state as threatened and requiring vigilant protection was given pride of place in the new Romanian Constitution. The very first paragraph of Article 1 reads, ‘Romania is a sovereign, independent, unitary and indivisible National State.’40 With the word ‘national’, the framers were concerned more with ethnicity than citizenship, or conflated the two concepts. Article 4’s claim that ‘Romania is the common and indivisible homeland of all its citizens [. . .] without any discrimination on account of [. . .] nationality [or] ethnic origin’41 is not borne out throughout the text. We learn from Article 12 that the ‘National Day’ is the first of December, recalling the Janus-faced Trianon/Alba Iulia symbol discussed above, and Article 13 decrees the official language to be Romanian.42 But the Romanian Constitution goes even further to safeguard the Romanian state and thereby the nation. As Schöpflin argues, ‘cultural reproduction is so important for communities that it must be protected from everyday cognition. Its rules cannot become part of the political contest’.43 Article 148 provides such protection: ‘The provisions of this Constitution with regard to the national, independent, unitary and indivisible character of the Romanian State, [. . .] territorial integrity, [. . .] and official language shall not be subject to revision.’44 The 2000 elections in Romania: electoral counter-revolution? If the 1996 elections where the Democratic Convention of Romania (DCR) ousted the Party of Social Democracy in Romania (PSDR) — successor to the NSF — were in Tismaneanu’s words an ‘electoral revolution’,45 then to some the 2000 elections that returned PSDR to power might have seemed a counter-revolution. But as many have pointed out, the Romanian electoral turnover was similar to that which brought communist successor parties to power in Poland and Hungary. In this sense, the 2000 victory for PSDR — or rather the bitter defeat for the Christian 39

Dragosc Petrescu, ‘Can Democracy Work in Southeastern Europe? Ethnic Nationalism vs. Democratic Consolidation in Post-Communist Romania’, in Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanians and Hungarian Case Studies, ed. by Balázs Trencsényi and others (Budapest/Iasc i: Regio Books/Editura Polirom, 2001), p. 283. 40 Constitution of the Republic of Romania, December 1991. Reprinted in The Rebirth of Democracy, p. 287. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Schöpflin, Nations, Identity, Power, p. 27. 44 Constitution of the Republic of Romania, p. 317. 45 Vladimir Tismaneanu, ‘Romanian Exceptionalism? Democracy, Ethnocracy, and Uncertain Pluralism in Post-Ceausc escu Romania’, in Politics, Power, and the Struggle for Democracy in South-East Europe, ed. by Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) p. 404.

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Democratic–National Peasant’s Party (CD–NPP) which was the mainstay of DCR, but did not even pass the electoral threshold in 2000 — was quite ‘normal’. The DCR-led coalition government had failed miserably to improve the lives of their constituents. Voters did what they are supposed to do in a democracy. They ‘threw the bums out’, hoping that PSDR would have cooled its heels while in opposition and would do a better job this time around. The troubling aspect of the 2000 elections was the success of Greater Romania Party (GRP), which by now had co-opted a number of other extreme nationalist formations under one banner. GRP — well-understood within the Romanian political establishment to be pariahs for the purposes of advancing European integration — was the second largest party in parliament. Analysts attributed GRP’s victory to a range of factors including ‘historical ignorance and amnesia’, the media, and civil society groups out of touch with the electorate.46 Whatever the cause, the 2000 election result effectively removed approximately one quarter of both houses of parliament from possible coalition permutations. Yet PSDR did not achieve an outright parliamentary majority, winning only approximately forty-five per cent of the seats in both chambers of the bicameral legislature.47 It had to consider its alliance options. Besides GRP, the other parties that passed the electoral threshold were DAHR, the National Liberal Party (NLP), and the Democratic Party (DP). DP, a social democratic party that formed part of the former coalition government, was not a likely candidate for an alliance. Its leader was Petre Roman who was forced to resign as prime minister by Iliescu in 1991.48 With similar claims on the ideological map, DP maintained that it represented ‘true’ social democracy49 and feared being swallowed and subsumed by PSDR. The everpragmatic NLP, having politically deserted the previous government in its waning months and having begun cooperating with PSDR, was willing to enter into a loose parliamentary agreement. What was perhaps more surprising was DAHR’s willingness to sign a similar agreement with PSDR. For the DAHR leadership, the accord meant making the best of an admittedly bad situation where their former allies had badly stumbled and GRP had made such a strong showing. Justifying the arrangement with PSDR, DAHR President Béla Markó raised the spectre of PSDR’s having no choice but to seek the support of GRP to pass laws in parliament: Through our collaboration with [PSDR], we are trying to support a European programme, [. . .] to keep Romania on the path of integration, because [. . .] there also exists the danger of another direction. Who could assume responsibility for 46 Vladimir Tismaneanu and Gail Kligman, ‘Romania’s First Postcommunist Decade: From Iliescu to Iliescu’ (heareafter ‘Romania’s First Postcommunist Decade’), East European Constitutional Review (online version), 10.1 (2001). 47 Alegeri 2000 <http://domino.kappa.ro/election/election2000.nsf/All/Home> [accessed 16 August 2002]. 48 With dwindling popularity among the rank and file, Roman was replaced as party president by the populist mayor of Bucharest, Traian Basescu, in May 2001. However, an alliance between Basescu’s PD and Nab stase’s party is not any more likely. 49 DP furiously fought to keep PSDR from being accredited by the Socialist International where DP was a full member.

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pushing [PSDR] towards an alliance with the Greater Romania Party? Pure and simple, we, at this moment, are the alternative to such an eventuality.50

Strange bedfellows: the fallout of the DAHR–PSDR partnership As part of the one-year-long parliamentary cooperation agreement entered into in late December 2000, DAHR agreed not to sign or support a motion of censure dissolving the minority government and to generally support the government programme. PSDR agreed to a number of DAHR demands including passing a long-delayed local administration law and ‘creating the legal framework’ for returning church property nationalized by the communists. While eager to cooperate with DAHR, PSDR was more careful with its promises than DAHR’s previous DCR allies, who had ‘appeared willing [to honour] any request [. . .] without thinking if they [were] truly capable of bringing it to fruition’.51 Even as the status law was being drawn up and debated in the Hungarian parliament, PSDR moved to deliver on their agreement. In early March 2001, they reversed their prior position entirely and voted en masse along with DAHR in favour of a local administration law originally proposed under the government of DCR’s first Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea. PSDR had spent four years alongside GRP preventing its passage. Amongst its many provisions, the law would have made it possible to use minority languages in the local administration — including the erection of controversial bilingual signs — where the minority represented at least twenty per cent of the total population.52 In late May, Adevabrul breathlessly reported Iliescu’s visit to the ethnic Hungarian majority counties of Harghita and Covasna on the day that the public administration law was to become effective. Indeed, what Iliescu had to say on this occasion was rather breathtaking: ‘As we, on a national level, take care of minorities, so this responsibility is incumbent upon the majority in Harghita and Covasna, those who control the counties’ destinies’.53 The party even exerted its discipline over PSDR MP Adrian Cabsc unean who in his function as prefect54 for Covasna was described as having been a ‘spear tip in the struggle against the Hungarians’. He uttered a stunning mea culpa where he renounced his former stance, which had only caused his ‘own party to accuse [him] of nationalism’, and ‘urged Romanians to cultivate that which draws the two ethnic groups together, not that which divides them’.55 Such obvious concessions to DAHR could be, as Adevab rul had opined, costly. 56 50 Rodica Palade, ‘Interview cu Markó Béla, presc edintele UDMR: În colaborarea UDMR—PSD e greu de spus al cui interes este mai mare’ (hereafter ‘Interview cu Markó Béla’), 22, 24–30 July 2001, p. 8. 51 Ana Dinescu, ‘UDMR la schimbarea puterii’, Sfera Politicii (online version), 9 (2001), 87–88. 52 Ada Mesesc an and Rodica Dab niciuc, ‘PDSR a votat fab rab abtc ineri Legea administratc iei publice locale’, România Liberab , 9 March 2001, p. 3. 53 Rab zvan Mitroi, ‘Majoritarii din Harghita sc i Covasna trebuie sab aibab grijab de românii minoritari’, Adevab rul, 24 May 2001, p. 2. 54 The office of prefect is a sort of centrally-appointed regional governor responsible for implementing the policies of the state-level executive. 55 Mitroi, ‘Majoritarii din Harghita sc i Covasna trebuie sab aibab grijab de românii minoritari’, p. 2. 56 See Melania Mandas Vergu, ‘Târgul cu UDMR costab scump PDSR’, Adevab rul, 23 May 2001, p. 3.

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PSDR was not nearly as considerate with the agenda of PNL. In April, the party of government teamed up with both GRP and DAHR to pass the 2001 budget in the face of PNL and DP’s failed amendments and fierce objections. This proved to be the last straw for the uneasy liberals who immediately broke off their agreement with PSDR.57 One month later in mid-May, the liberals used the occasion of a party congress to sharpen their attack and position themselves as better protectors of the Romanian nation. Ostensibly meant to approve the dissolution of the alliance with PSDR, but more of a rubber stamp, the PNL party congress was clearly a media event. PNL president Valeriu Stoica theatrically ripped apart the protocol with PSDR in front of the cameras. Only a few days before GRP would accuse PSDR of being DAHR’s client,58 Stoica levelled the charge that DAHR was akin to GRP: ‘both are ethnic, anachronistic political groupings at odds with the understanding of the nation as the political project of citizens freely united in a democratic community’.59 He went on to appeal to the PSDR government to take all measures to stop the application of the status law’s granting of ‘special rights’ to ethnic Hungarians: ‘We do not need a new pan-Germanism or pan-Slavism in Europe in the form of pan-Hungarianism. [PSDR] has stopped its ears in order to no longer hear the sounds of nationalism [coming] from Budapest’.60 PSDR now had to walk a political tightrope. Overt cooperation with DAHR made the government vulnerable to criticism that it was not protecting the national interest: ‘if there is to be a choice between Romania’s interests and the collaboration with DAHR, we will choose Romania’s interests’.61 Yet without DAHR’s support, the government could fall, and with the difficulties that would ensue in reconstituting it, parliament could be dissolved. GRP’s attacks on the alliance had to be expected and surely were worrisome to the extent that they appealed to that party’s sympathizers within PSDR, but such criticism would be chronic so long as the DAHR– PSDR alliance lasted. With NLP President Stoica’s criticism of DAHR and of the government’s response to Budapest’s ‘nationalism’, however, Nab stase felt threatened enough to immediately assert that the status law would never be applied in Romania without his government’s consent.62 The closing of political space in response to the status law If the contingent political situation in Romania made the status law a hot button issue, its politicization and the particular discourse used by the Romanian and Hungarian governments to frame their arguments placed the dispute firmly within the realm of symbolic politics. Part of the power of symbols is their ‘multivocality’ 57

Ada Mesesc an, Mihai Ionescu, and Romulus Georgescu, ‘“Aliantc a patrioticab” PRM-UDMR a ajutat PDSR’, România Liberab , 13 April 2001, p. 3. 58 See Ion M. Ionitc ab , ‘Deputatc ii PRM au pab rab sit sala de sc edintc ab , acuzând PDSR cab a devenit clientul UDMR’, Adevab rul, 16 May 2001, p. 1. 59 Ion Purcareanu, ‘PNL a rupt protocolul cu PDSR sc i a deschis atacul la adresa fosc tilor aliatc i’, Evenimentul Zilei (online), 12 May 2001. 60 Ibid. 61 Corina Drab gotescu, ‘Nab stase e hotab rât: Legea maghiarilor nu se aplicab în România’, Adevab rul, 23 June 2001, p. 2. 62 See Mihab ilab , ‘Premierul Nab stase refuzab sab aplice pe teritoriul României legea statutului maghiarilor’.

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which allows for ‘political solidarity in the absence of consensus’.63 Yet the corollary is that where symbols are packed with meanings opposed to one another, such as the Trianon/Alba Iulia pairing discussed above, their use in politics can also degenerate into a zero-sum game of mutually exclusive positions. For Orbán’s government, the status law was more than just about delivering economic, social, or educational benefits to ethnic Hungarian in neighbouring countries. It was important that the government be seen as doing so. In the words of one liberal Bucharest intellectual, the status law was purposefully ‘noisy’.64 In the past, Hungary had fairly quietly aided ethnic Hungarians in Romania with a number of educational and cultural programmes. In fact, DAHR President Markó argues that much of what is in the status law was already being provided to Hungarians under status quo ante arrangements.65 The symbolic value of their assistance to the less fortunate Hungarians abroad relies upon the existence of a shared historical myth of Trianon and of the nation dismembered. What is interesting is that what little coverage of the status law there existed in the mainstream and moderate-nationalist Romanian press, as exemplified by Adevab rul,66 was initially fairly balanced and even positive. The front-page editorial it ran on the weekend after the Hungarian government unveiled the draft law in parliament lamented that, unlike Budapest, ‘Bucharest has hardly succeeded in doing anything for ethnic Romanians spread all over the world’.67 It further argued: The [status law] takes part of the not very spectacular, but real and necessary, process of normalization in Romanian-Hungarian relations. [. . .] Perhaps the Romanian-Hungarian normalization could draw attention to the fact that minority rights exist only in culturally similar spaces. If the West was so interested in the rights of the Hungarians, maybe Romania could also ask for help for the rights of Romanians present in the Russian space.68

In the following issue, the newspaper’s director, Dumitru Tinu, had a rather astonishing response to an ethnic Romanian reader’s e-mail from Transylvania. The reader feared that the status law would result in large numbers of ethnic Romanians who spoke Hungarian declaring themselves to be Hungarians in order to take advantage of the law’s benefits. Although unspoken, the reader was anxious that a much larger number of self-declared ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania would justify irredentist claims to the region. Tinu dismissed such concerns: Hungary wants to accord some socio-economic facilities to the Hungarians who live outside its borders. What is wrong with that? There will appear, statistically speaking, more [Romanian] citizens who will declare themselves to be Hungarian 63

David I. Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 11. Renate Weber, ‘Opinii despre proiectul de lege privind maghiarii din ctabrile vecine’, 22, 29 May– 4 June, 2001, p. 10. 65 Palade, ‘Interview cu Markó Béla’, p. 9. 66 Editorial policy on this, the most widely read Romanian newspaper, tends to be extremely sensitive to any demands made by ethnic Hungarian political figures. It was particularly paranoid about Hungarian separatism during the Kosovo conflict. 67 Bogdan Chireac, ‘Capra unguirlor’, Adevab rul, 21–22 April 2001, p. 1. 68 Ibid. 64

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in order to enjoy such benefits. And what of that? [. . .] Can anyone still believe that there exists any danger to Romania’s territorial integrity? [. . .] That fact that more Hungarians will appear in statistics is not, on its own, worrisome. Whether many or few, we are together here and have a common destiny.69

The furore that followed cannot be said to be due to a jingoistic press running away with public opinion. Rather, PNL first raised the status law as an issue in mainstream political discourse70 after sensing a political opening. Nab stase, feeling pressure to respond from both within PSDR and from PNL, raised the stakes by asserting that the status law could not be applied within Romania without his government’s consent. Once this die was cast, the cost of backing down after the law was passed by the Hungarian national assembly without more face-saving concessions to Romania71 grew markedly. As the argument unfolded, two major interrelated symbolic strands emerged. The first was based upon an ambiguity in the understanding of state and nation and relied upon symbols such as Alba Iulia that defined Romania as a ‘unitary’ state. The second had to do with the perception of relative group worth of Romanians vis-à-vis Hungarians within the Romanian national discourse. The unitary nation-state The government of Romania’s official position echoed the Constitutional conflation between the notions of ‘state’ and ‘nation’. It rejected the political component of the status law because ‘it seems to give the concept of “nation” an international sense which is not accepted, the concept of nation being tied to the formation of national states’.72 Cultural and linguistic ties were acceptable — the government admitted to promoting these with respect to Moldova — but political and economic ties were not. Yet as the very existence of the dispute illustrated, culture is political and both contribute to national identities. This is not to imply that borders must be redrawn around culture — an impossible undertaking in any event. But it does mean that the Romanian government had a certain insight when it identified, within the notionally cultural aims of the status law, the codification of a political relationship between the Hungarian state and ethnic Hungarian citizens of Romania. To the extent that the Romanian government believed stopping the status law would sever the underlying political ties between the minority group and the national ‘homeland’, it was mistaken. These political ties were already institutionalized in such informal norms as regular bilateral consultations between DAHR and the 69

Dumitru Tinu, ‘Legitimatc ia de români’, Adevab rul, 23 April 2001, p. 8. Here I am discounting GRP’s predictable chauvinist paranoia. 71 As the Hungarian government noted, Romanian Foreign Minister Geoana’s efforts prior to the law’s ratification did result in the removal of a clause that would have meant preferential financial treatment for private firms that would aid in the preservation of Hungarian identity in neighbouring countries. See Andreea Bratosin, ‘Legea statutului maghiarilor de peste hotare este conformab cu legislatc ia Europeanab’, Adevab rul, 6 July 2001, p. 1. 72 The Government of Romania, ‘În contradictc ie cu normele internatc onale de drept’, 22, 5–11 June 2001, p. 6. 70

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Hungarian government as well as more formally through the Hungarian Standing Conference.73 A corollary to the argument above was the one of extra-territoriality. The status law, rather than venturing a solution to the difficult issue of what makes one ‘Hungarian’, passed off this responsibility to institutions ‘representing the Hungarian national community’74 in neighbouring countries. This delegation of quasi-consular authority threatened Romanian national unity by seeming to claim a measure of sovereignty over ethnic Hungarian institutions in Romania. This seemed to be irredentism by other means. What heightened the impact of this empowerment of Hungarian institutions was the preoccupation with loyalty of Hungarians to the Romanian state. Since the state was conflated with the nation, expressions of discontent with respect to national symbols were taken to confirm disloyalty to the state. Lastly, the status law evoked the Hungarian national symbol of Trianon in all but name. The law was to apply to persons of Hungarian nationality only in neighbouring countries, except Austria, who ‘have lost their Hungarian citizenship for reasons other than voluntary renunciation’.75 As the Romanian government points out, this would literally apply to only a very small number of people,76 but the law is obviously meant to encompass their offspring in a past-is-present locution common to national discourses. The law therefore makes a distinction between those Hungarians close to, but on the other side of Hungary’s state borders and Hungarian emigrants much farther afield.77 The hint of a historically-defined territorial expanse of magyardom that this distinction creates is enough to make it seem threatening to the Romanian national discourse of unity. The arrogant Hungarian boyars One of the benefits of a group identity such as a national identity is that it provides a basis for individual self-worth, for ‘self-esteem is in large measure a function of the esteem accorded to groups of which one is a member’.78 The measure of group worth is necessarily relative and based upon stereotyped character traits which supposedly distinguish the in-group from the out-group. When the group in question is an ethnic group or a nation, the seemingly immutable characteristics of those identities gives the comparison with other groups ‘an urgency, a centrality’, because 73 Members of the HSC include ‘the Government of the Republic of Hungary, the political parties represented in the National Assembly of the Republic of Hungary, the political organizations of Hungarians living abroad represented in the parliament of their home states and at the provincial level, and the representatives of Hungarians living in Western countries’. Hungarian Standing Conference, Final Statement, Fourth Session, Budapest, 26 October 2001. 74 Article 20.1, Status Law. 75 Article 1.1.a, Status Law. 76 The Government of Romania, ‘În contradictc ie cu normele internatc onale de drept’. 77 This is similar to Weimar Germany’s distinction between Grenzdeutsche and Auslandsdeutsche. See Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 124, fn. 50. 78 Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 2nd edn (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2000), p. 143.

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‘to lose out in competition or comparison to others who are differentiated on a birth basis is to be afflicted with an apparently permanent disability.’79 Some of the public reaction to the Hungarian status law can be understood in the context of an ongoing group competition and comparison. As Mungiu-Pippidi relates, the constructed historical memory of Romanian cohabitation with Hungarians in Transylvania has a certain class element. Within the standard Romanian national discourse, the Hungarians were the lords of the manor, the boyars, who did as they pleased with their serfs, the Romanians.80 A residual feeling of inferiority vis-à-vis Hungarians — both those in Hungary proper and those within Romania — survives in national identity. This is stoked by the undeniable economic hardship many Romanians are forced to endure while Hungarians are envied as the first in the EU accession queue. The passage of the status law in the face of very strenuous, public Romanian objections played upon this sense of national insecurity. It was a sign of ‘contempt’81 which threatened group assertions of self-worth. The law was ‘imperial’ not so much for its ‘concrete provisions’, but for ‘the way it was promoted’.82 Nab stase and his ministers expressed this sentiment in their oft-repeated argument that they were not consulted prior to the law’s passage. In the sense of being informed about the law, there can be little doubt that the Romanian objections are groundless. This is the sense of ‘consultation’ that was assumed by the Hungarian government. ‘Consultation’ as it was invoked in the Romanian press clearly meant something closer to compromise or the imposition of Romanian restrictions upon the law. Although one of the Romanian objections did affect the final version of the law, a much more public face-saving was needed before Nab stase’s government could back down. When Nab stase and others expressed their concern that the status law would induce ethnic Romanians to declare themselves Hungarian in order to receive certain economic benefits, resentment of the perceived differences in relative group worth intertwined with the issue of the unitary state. Ironically, Hungarian legislators were acting on a similar fear when they empowered ethnic Hungarian institutions to act as gatekeepers, deciding who was permitted to claim Hungarian status. From the Romanian perspective, Hungary was literally buying new Hungarians in Transylvania. Rather than see the instrumental nature of such declarations, the assumption was that the new loyalty tie bought by Hungary would displace any ties to the Romanian nation-state. Reaching compromise: Europe reshapes political space As argued above, both Hungarian and Romanian governments appealed to the idea of ‘Europe’ as well as to European institutions as arbiters of their dispute. For the Romanian side, being European was an assertion of equality with other Europeans. An assertion of Europeanness was meant to counteract the perceived superiority of the Hungarian position. If Hungary and Romania were equals, then Hungary must 79

Ibid., p. 147. See Mungiu-Pippidi, Subjective Transylvania. 81 Andreea Bratosin, ‘Parlamentul de la Budapesta adoptab Legea “legitimatc iei de ungur”, în dispretc ul Bucuresc tiului’, Adevab rul, 20 June 2001, p. 1. 82 Adrian Ursu, ‘Legitimatc ie imperialab ’, Adevab rul, 21 June 2001, p. 1. 80

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make certain concessions on the status law issue rather than impose its will upon its poorer neighbour. For the Hungarian government, being European meant entering into a bargain where one exchanges some sovereignty for other benefits, such as the reintegration of the nation under the European umbrella. The looming imposition of Schengen borders between Hungary and some of its neighbours was very much on the minds of many Hungarians who had come to rely upon fairly easy transit between their country of citizenship and Hungary. Even as certain provisions of the status law looked to be incompatible with the strengthened border regime, Hungarian politicians promised the most favourable visa treatment possible for ethnic Hungarians abroad. Before examining how a compromise between the two conceptions of Europe was reached, one must ask the question of whether the two sides actually intended to come to an agreement from the outset. What was the cost of no agreement? It is not at all clear what the Romanian government could effectively have done to stop its citizens from taking advantage of the Hungarian law. ‘In fact, a large part of the frustration of the Romanian authorities [came] from not quite having a way to respond.’83 Carrying out the threat to dismantle some or all of the treaty architecture with Hungary would have been at least as harmful to Romania as it would have been to Hungary. Without further evidence to the contrary, it appears the Hungarian government concluded that those particular Romanian threats were not credible. Indeed, one may infer from Hungarian officials’ statements that their aim was to stay just within the letter of West European demands while counting on the combativeness of Romanian objections to be counter-productive. Commissioner Verheugen’s statement that the status law did not appear to contravene Hungary’s Association Agreement is a case in point. Foreign Minister Martonyi’s response was telling of his government’s early stance on negotiations: ‘The European Commission has already indicated that though it is still studying the law, it seems to be in compliance with European Union legislation, and it has asked Hungary only to continue the consultations’.84 Yet Romania had one rhetorical tool at its disposal that the Hungarian side discounted: ‘Western [Europe’s] denial about its ethnic identities’.85 After the Second World War, overt concern with co-ethnics in neighbouring countries was tainted by association with Nazism, and the discourse of group minority rights was superseded by that of human rights held by an individual.86 The late exclusion of Austria from the list of countries where the status law would be applied illustrated the EU’s uneasiness. Although Hungarian officials attempted to argue that the small number 83

Andrei Cornea, ‘Români sc i unguri’, 22, 26 June–2 July 2001, p. 13. This is not to deny the possibility that ethnic Hungarians feared the Romanian government would be all too effective in preventing the application of the status law. 84 ‘FM on Status Law, Stronger EU’, Hungarian News Agency (MTI), 27 June 2001. (emphasis added) 85 George Schöpflin, ‘The Hungarian Status Law: Political, Cultural and Sociological Contexts’ (hereafter ‘The Hungarian Status Law’), manuscript, 2002. 86 See Mark Mazower, ‘The strange triumph of human rights’, New Statesman, 4 February 2002, pp. 25–27.

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of ethnic Hungarians involved and their relative affluence justified their exclusion, Orbán himself admitted that EU strictures against differentiating between EU citizens was the reason why Austria was eliminated from the list.87 Romanian officials pushed the thesis that the status law represents un-European discrimination on ethnic grounds whenever the subject came up. Responding to a question from an Economist reporter at the World Economic Forum, Iliescu asked, ‘What would happen if, for example, the German Bundestag were to adopt a similar [law] for ethnic Germans in France? It would be an international scandal.’88 Nab stase also attempted to limit his government’s responsibility for any failure to change Hungarian policy by preparing the way for the scapegoating of European institutions: ‘If at the European level such regulations [the status law] will be accepted, then we will also accept the new standards’.89 Orbán, his ministers, DAHR and certain observers all pointed out that the Hungarian law was similar in a number of ways to those promoted by quite a few countries in Eastern Europe, including Romania, as well as countries in Western Europe. But this sort of argument did not engage with the affective power that the threat to national unity and denigration of nation moral worth held with ethnic Romanians. For the Romanian government, accusations of a double standard were met with the following response: There exists a fundamental difference between the Hungarian legal project and the Romanian law. The Romanian law concerns itself exclusively with issues of linguistic and cultural identity of persons of Romanian origin and only on Romanian territory.90

The European Union, as an institution, initially took a low profile approach. At an Association Council meeting with Hungarian representatives in mid-July, Enlargement Commissioner Verheugen stated that ‘Hungary has been the driving force of cooperation in the region for a number of years, “acting as a model to other countries. Therefore [. . .] I see no cause for concern regarding implementation of the status law”’.91 To make this message explicit, Fernand Van Brusselen, the Belgian ambassador to Hungary whose country held the EU Presidency at the time, made the following comment in an interview on the same day: ‘Hungary has undermined the stabilizing role it has so far played in the region with the Status Law’.92 Though Van Brusselen tried to soften his statement later,93 the general message seemed clear enough. The EU wanted the whole dispute to go away and the two countries to get along and stop causing trouble. The Hungarian government was expected to view consultations as a means to an end rather than an end in itself as Martonyi had suggested. 87

‘Interview With Prime Minister — Hungarian Television’, Hungarian News Agency (MTI), 6 June 2001. Daniel Oantc ab, ‘“Ce s-ar întâmpla dacab, spre exemplu, Bundestagul ar emite o asemenea lege pentru cetab tc enii germani din Frantc a?”’, Adevab rul, 3 July 2001, p. 1. 89 Sc erban Mihab ilab , ‘Adrian Nab stase sc i Viktor Orbán au cab zut de acord cab nu sunt de acord’, Adevab rul, 30 July 2001, p. 1. 90 The Government of Romania, ‘În contradictc ie cu normele internatc onale de drept’. 91 ‘EU-Hungary Hold Association Meeting’, Hungarian News Agency (MTI), 18 July 2001. 92 ‘EU diplomat attacks Hungarian ethnic law’, Agence France Presse, 17 July 2001. 93 ‘Belgian Ambassador Claims To Be Misquoted’, Hungarian News Agency (MTI), 20 July 2001. 88

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As mentioned above, the Venice Commission report of late October took a middle course between the position of the two governments. On the one hand, it recognized that the provision of educational and cultural benefits to national minorities in other countries by their kin-state is an accepted European norm. On the other hand, it criticized Hungary for not consulting sufficiently with its neighbours and for empowering Hungarian minority organizations outside its borders with quasi-consular functions. While not completely denying the Hungarian-backed norm of Europe as ‘integration’, the Venice Commission seemed to favour the Romanian norm of ‘equality’ as being more fundamentally ‘European’. Schöpflin identifies one explanation for this interpretation. People in Western Europe, and the ‘West’ in general, tend to conceive of the nations to which they belong in civic terms only, while downplaying their ethnic component as much as possible. When Hungary so ‘overtly’ addressed the ethnic basis of Hungarian identity, ‘it is as if the disreputable relative were suddenly to be allowed into the drawing room, at any rate for a brief period, and to frighten the respectable bourgeois who see their own shadow qualities in him.’94 It is telling that, of the countries whose legislation was examined by the Venice Commission, most were Central and East European, and the few who were not were Greece and Italy. It is even reported that Ireland and the United Kingdom failed to provide any information of their own practices during the preparatory stage of the Commission’s report.95 That report issued by the Venice Commission was a political godsend to Nab stase and PSDR, and a tremendous boost to Romanian group worth. The day after the report was released, Adevrab ul’s headline blared, ‘Acknowledging Romania was right on all counts, the European Commission of Venice asks Hungary not to apply the Hungarian identity card law’.96 The next day’s editorial called the result, ‘the first victory in eleven years for Romanian diplomacy and a Romanian government over Budapest’.97 By handing Nab stase such a symbolic victory to work with, the report effectively gave him some political cover to seek a compromise. Though agreeing to comply with the Venice Commission’s findings, Orbán and other Hungarian politicians understandably sought to highlight the positive result, namely the confirmation that the Hungarian state had a legitimate role in supporting Hungarian minorities in neighbouring states.98 However, in a late October press release, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities made it clear that ‘protection of minority rights is the obligation of the State where the minority resides’.99 The European Commission’s progress report on Hungary issued in mid-November devoted several paragraphs to the status law controversy. Amongst its conclusions were the following: 94

Schöpflin, ‘The Hungarian Status Law’. Ibid. 96 Sc erban Mihab ilab , ‘Comisia Europeanab de la Venetc ia cere Ungariei sab nu aplice Legea legitimatc iei de maghiar’, Adevab rul, 20–21 October 2001, pp. 1 and 8. 97 Bogdan Chirieac, ‘Orbán — obligat sab punab foarfeca pe legitimatc ia de maghiar’, Adevab rul, 22 October 2001, p. 1. 98 ‘Status Law — Venice Commission — Hungarian and Romanian FMs’, Hungarian News Agency (MTI), 20 October 2001. 99 Ekéus, ‘Sovereignty, Responsibility, and National Minorities: Statement by OSCE Minorities Commissioner’. 95

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the Law on Hungarians living in neighbouring countries raised controversies with some of these neighbouring countries as it was adopted by Parliament in June 2001 without due consultations [. . .] Some of the provisions laid down in this Law apparently conflict with the prevailing European standard of minority protection [. . .] the Law will need to be aligned with the acquis at the latest upon accession, since it is currently not in line with the principle of non-discrimination laid down in the [Rome] Treaty [establishing the European Community].100

The equivalent progress report for Romania had little to say about the status law: ‘relations with Hungary have encountered difficulties concerning Hungarian legislation granting preferential status to ethnic Hungarians living in selected third counties (including Romania).’101 Clearly, pressure for a compromise was being placed upon the Hungarian government. Such pressure effectively raised the cost of no agreement because the status law was incorporated into the list of issues that had to be resolved prior to EU accession. The absence of agreement with Romania on this issue grew more and more politically unacceptable, outweighing whatever benefit the status law was calculated to bring the centre-right government. Orbán’s rhetoric grew markedly conciliatory. He admitted that some provisions of the status law were ‘confused’ and that the Romanian government’s ethnic discrimination argument was a ‘powerful point of view’.102 With the 1 January 2002 start date for the law rapidly approaching, the Hungarian and Romanian governments ended the dispute by signing a Memorandum of Understanding on a Saturday two days before Christmas, limiting the potential media reaction. The Memorandum was a masterstroke of symbolic politics. Firstly, it claimed to reduce the role of Hungarian cultural organizations in making a ruling on who was and was not Hungarian by adopting more definite standards of Hungarianness for purposes of the law.103 Rather than make recommendations to the Hungarian government on a case-by-case basis as originally envisioned, such organizations would only be empowered to provide ‘legally non-binding’ information where an individual applicant lacked certain documents. Thus, ‘the entire procedure of granting the certificate [of Hungarian identity] shall primarily take place on the territory of the Republic of Hungary [. . .] and at the Hungarian diplomatic missions’.104 Secondly, the Memorandum permitted ‘all Romanian citizens, notwithstanding their ethnic origin’, to enjoy the benefit of an annual three month work permit valid in Hungary.105 This portion of the compromise was a de facto acknowledgement that ethnic Romanians as well as ethnic Hungarians were already working in Hungary illegally in substantial numbers. The compromise as a 100

European Commission, 2001 Regular Report on Hungary’s Progress Towards Accession, p. 91. European Commission, European Union, 2001 Regular Report on Romania’s Progress Towards Accession, Brussels, 13 November 2001, p. 93. 102 Cab lin Stoica-Diaconovici, ‘Premierul Orbán a recunoscut cab drepturile economice sc i sociale din Legea statutului sunt oarecum încurcate’, Adevab rul, 19 November 2001, p. 13. 103 These were adopted at the fourth session of the Hungarian Standing Conference in late October 2001, a week after the release of the Venice Commission’s report. 104 Memorandum of Understanding. 105 Ibid. 101

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whole responds to Romanian concerns as expressed through a symbolic, national discourse. The equalization of employment opportunities communicates a parity in relative group worth. Decreasing the economic incentive to declare a Hungarian identity also answers the symbolic fear that Transylvania will become a majority Hungarian province and naturally secede. Conclusions Ultimately, the larger national interests of both countries favoured compromise on the status law, yet domestic political circumstances made such compromise unlikely. Hungary’s status law represented a growing assertiveness in Hungarian foreign policy commensurate with its newfound regional economic power.106 On an issue of such symbolic importance to the sense of Hungarian national identity as relations with ethnic Hungarians abroad, compromise was of limited appeal domestically, especially for a centre-right government. Romania’s laggard status in European integration fed into negative conceptions of relative group worth vis-à-vis a Hungary on the verge of EU accession. With the status law seeming to rub salt into a wounded pride, it became very important to assert the notion of equality amongst European states and to score a victory in the realm of symbolic politics. The strength of the Romanian opposition to the law, much of it manufactured by the domestic political process, made compromise symbolically costly. As the linkage between the status law controversy and EU accession was made apparent, however, compromise became more likely for both sides. The nature of the later interventions by European institutions increased the costs of no agreement for the Hungarian side and supplied political cover for compromise. The timing of such interventions in relation to the eventual compromise strongly suggests that they were crucial to bringing the two sides together. Yet one should not conclude this was mere power politics at work. European institutions could perform the role of arbiter in this dispute due to the strength of their legitimacy in both Romania and Hungary. Although a significantly higher figure in Romania than in Hungary, the majority of Eurobarometer survey respondents in both countries had a ‘very’ or a ‘fairly’ positive image of the European Union, a score significantly higher than the average score for respondents in the current member countries.107 Over seventy per cent of respondents in both countries — results which placed Romania and Hungary at or near the top of the applicant pool — tended to trust the EU.108 Even if political elites did not share such sentiments, the overwhelming public support for EU membership — eighty per cent of Romanians and sixty per cent of Hungarians109 — could not be ignored. Furthermore, the norm of ‘Europeanness’, which institutions such as the EU monopolize, is an aspiration which does not seem to conflict with either Hungarian or Romanian national identities. Ninety-one per cent of Hungarians and eighty-seven 106

Caius Dobrescu, ‘Aspiratc ii regionale sc i politici identitare’, Provincia (Romanian edition), June–July 2001, pp. 4–5. 107 European Commission, European Union, Applicant Countries Eurobarometer 2001: Public Opinion in the Countries Applying for European Membership (Brussels, 2002), p. 46. 108 Ibid., p. 52. The average result for the EU15 on the trust question was only forty-one per cent. 109 Ibid., p. 55.

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per cent of Romanians felt either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ proud to be either Hungarian or Romanian, respectively. An almost identical proportion in each country was also proud to be European.110 This suggests an important limitation to the capacity of a third party to moderate a conflictual inter-national relationship. A consensus on the third party’s legitimacy to intervene was crucial here. Although the EU has long had a certain amount of legitimacy amongst those behind the iron curtain, one could imagine a more isolationist EU that had squandered this reserve with outright refusals of eastward expansion. Alternatively, instant membership in the EU would also have dissipated much of the political leverage that a delayed expansion has generated. This is not to argue for stringing along applicant countries indefinitely while ironing out all the kinks in their inter-national relations. Rather, constructive, even activist, engagement over a longer political horizon can positively influence political culture and national conflict if the reward is credibly within reach. Sceptics would rightly be concerned that many of the political changes in Romania especially are superficial, adopted instrumentally, and not likely to be longlasting. And that may be true if certain incentive structures are suddenly yanked away. But the hope is that if politicians like Iliescu and Nab stase say conciliatory things about DAHR and the Hungarian minority, for whatever reason, eventually the domestic political cost of PSDR’s reverting to extremist anti-Hungarian rhetoric will be too much to bear.111 From the perspective of a theory of cognitive dissonance as elaborated by Albert Hirschman, this represents the ‘inverted sequence’ hypothesis. Rather than a change in belief leading to a change in behaviour, the dissonance caused by ‘discrepant behaviour’ can convince people to alter their beliefs. As the title of Hirschman’s work suggests, this is indeed ‘a bias for hope’.112

110

Ibid., pp. 33–34. As a cautionary note, PNL’s behavior during the status law controversy shows that the political benefits of playing the nationality card may still outweigh its cost, especially for parties without the responsibility of forming a government. 112 Albert O. Hirschman, A Bias for Hope: Essays on Development and Latin America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971), pp. 322–34. 111

Slovo, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2004

Reviews

Developments in Central and East European Politics 3. Ed. by STEPHEN WHITE, JUDY BATT, and PAUL G. LEWIS. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. xxi + 320 pp. Price unknown. ISBN 0-333-94877-7 (paperback) There are many books examining the transition from Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Among them, the ‘Developments in’ series of books has played a prominent role and is now in its third edition, updating the previous editions which appeared in 1993 and 1998. The book is aimed at introducing undergraduates to the study of the region, but assumes some knowledge of social science; to that end, it is designed to be dipped into rather than to be read as a whole. This is one of the advantages of the book, but also one of its major weaknesses. There is an explicit intention of producing a concise and easily approachable analysis. The chapters produced by different academics vary in quality and lack a common thread to hold the book together, but, given that this is a book that is not intended to be read through as a single entity, the editors perhaps did not feel that this was necessary. The book has a number of inconsistencies, repetitions, and omissions that make it hard to consider it anything more than a basic introduction to the politics of Central and Eastern Europe. The book is divided into four sections. The first is a series of country case studies; the second is a broader analysis of themes and structures within the defined region of Central and Eastern Europe; the third analyses policy issues; and the book concludes with a comparative analysis of the transition to democracy. It is in defining the subject that the book hits its first problem. Judy Batt’s introductory chapter ‘Defining Central Europe’ asks the question in the opening sentence: What is the justification for treating all together in one book the politics of Central and Eastern Europe?

At the end of the chapter we are left with the same question without it having been answered. The argument seems to be that we cannot answer the question other than by acknowledging that it is a diverse and backward region defined by being diverse and backward. The chapter provides some useful background history but not the definition or clarity necessary for the opening chapter of such a book. The country studies are for the most part excellent, Frances Millard providing an especially useful and thorough analysis of the Polish party system which is concise and clear to understand. Likewise, the chapters by Kieran Williams excellently place the Czech and Slovak experience not only in relation to each other but also in the wider context of the post-Communist transition, and Andrew Wilson’s chapter on Ukraine is most welcome and informative on an under-represented country. © School of Slavonic & East European Studies, University College London, 2004

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However, serious questions have to be asked about the wisdom of placing Romania, Bulgaria, and former Yugoslavia in a single chapter. The assumption seems to be that the countries are classed as being of the ‘Balkan region’ and therefore not part of Central Europe. Given the diversity of transitional experience, there are few useful parallels or comparisons that can be drawn from this analysis. Tom Gallagher’s chapter is disjointed and superficial, and facts are picked up and disregarded seemingly at random, dealing more with Yugoslavia than with Romania or Bulgaria. There is also little attempt to provide any analysis of the facts presented, rendering the chapter of little use to anyone wishing to seriously study the countries concerned. This has been a problem with all three editions of the book, although the first did cover Bulgaria as a separate case study, but not Romania in any form. Similarly, the previous edition included all the former European Soviet Republics in a single chapter, but this edition responded by omitting them instead and preferred a single analysis of Ukraine. The decision seems to have been made due to concerns about the length of the book; for this reason the book would be better without any analysis of the countries of South-Eastern Europe than with the current incomplete and woeful chapter. Further confusion and embarrassment occurs in Ray Taras’ chapter on the nature of political leadership when he discusses the return to power of President Iliescu in Romania. He incorrectly refers to President Iliu Iliescu, rather than Ion Iliscu, a sign of both writer and editor being sloppy and careless. Such mistakes in a book which is aimed at those new to the study of the region are indefensible, as they only serve to confuse the reader, leaving them wondering if there has been more than one President Iliescu. The matter is made even more embarrassing given that, in the virtually identical chapter by Taras in the previous edition, Iliescu was identified by his correct name of Ion. The second part of the book covers the political framework and takes a broader regional overview, looking at the nature of political leadership, parties, constitutions, voting behaviour, and parliamentary structure. The chapters are clear and informative (apart from Taras’ error noted above), however, much of the information is simply repeated from the country studies. This does provide contextualization and comparison in the regional context, yet this could be enhanced further if there was more co-operation between the authors of the chapters, which would avoid repetitions and allow the authors to develop points made in earlier chapters instead of repeating the same bare facts. One notable omission from the examinations of political parties is any analysis of the rise of political populism in Central Europe. Although the rise of Andrzej Lepper, Samobrona (Self-Defence) in Poland and Corneliu Vadim Tudor and Partidul România Mare (Greater Romania Party) are noted, the causes and nature of such significant and growing political movements are not really examined in any sufficient depth, nor are the impacts of the movements on the polity. Whether or not these parties are mere flashes in the pan or represent a wider political and social tendency towards radical politics is a broader debate, and one which it is unrealistic to expect a book of this scope to cover, but more attention should have been paid to them, especially given the recent electoral success of such ‘anti-politics’ movements across Central Europe in the last three years.

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A significant and welcome addition to the book is Heather Grabbe’s chapter focusing on EU enlargement and the political and social issues facing Central Europe. However, this addition has come at the expense of the analysis of gender which appeared in the previous issue, and again this appears to be a decision made due to concerns over the length of the book. The book therefore feels incomplete and lacks the more rounded and broader scope that previous editions had. In conclusion, the book is well-meaning but little more than the most basic of introductions to contemporary Central European politics and society. The chapters that are well written are informative and useful; however, the poorer chapters reflect a need for tighter editorial supervision. Likewise, there is a greater need for co-operation between authors to avoid the repetitions which blight this book. Additional editorial control would also help in establishing some consistency over names and abbreviations, with some authors providing simply the English translation of party names and others providing the party name in the original language. A final stylistic point: the layout of tables, statistics, and maps is somewhat confusing. The book feels at times constrained by limits to the size of the book (all three editions come in at between 280 and 300 pages), which prevent many issues from being explored properly in sufficient detail to be of any real use to anyone with more than a minimal knowledge of Central Europe. SCHOOL OF SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

DANIEL BRETT

Estonian Foreign Policy at the Crossroads. Ed. by EERO MEDIJAINEN and VAHUR MADE. Helsinki: Kikimora Publications, 2002. 166 pp. ISBN 952-10-0754-0 (paperback). This collection of papers deserves attention in the context of the histories of both European International Relations and Estonian historiography. Any European reader interested in the history of the Baltic countries’ foreign policy may find some English-language treatments of the history of the international relations of Latvia, but very few studies of those of Estonia. This volume has started filling in the gap. However, it is a novel publication even in the Estonian context. Earlier volumes attempted to explain the foreign policy of Estonia both through domestic-political developments and by Soviet-influenced conceptions. In contrast to this the collection under observation is closely related to the theory of International Relations (the papers by Medijainen, Made, Männik, and Kaakuriniemi). The collection offers an introduction to Estonian foreign policy from the beginning of the twentieth century to date, and it is addressed to a wide audience of those interested in history in our neighbouring countries. Eero Medijainen (1959), the older of the two editors of the collection, became widely known in Estonia in connection with the defence of his PhD on the Republic of Estonia’s foreign policy in 1918–40. In his dissertation, he made use of contemporary cartoons as illustrations to definite topics (jokingly depicting the then Estonian diplomats and statesmen). Several older-generation historians regarded this as blasphemy. Medijainen responded by publishing a book on the history of

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the international relations of Estonia, entitled Maailm prowintsionu pilgu läbi (The World Through the Eyes of a Provincial Uncle), and addressed to history teachers, in which his fascinating narrative was illustrated by hundreds of thematic cartoons from the press of those early decades. The other editor, Dr Vahur Made (1971), is Medijainen’s former student. Estonian Foreign Policy at the Crossroads treats the foreign policy of Estonia through various key events (the gaining of Estonia’s independence in 1918, failure of the Communist coup d’etat in 1924, the events of 1939 before the Second World War, and the Baltic issue during the Cold War) and contains papers on the areas of Estonian foreign policy that arouse interest. Thus the questions of the relations of Estonia with the League of Nations, as well as with the countries of the Third World between the two world wars, are dealt with in great detail. Likewise, more contemporary themes observe the relations between Russia and Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania after regaining their independence as well as the policy of national defence of the Baltic States. Medijainen claims that in the course of the twentieth century there was only a very short period of time when superpowers’ attentions were diverted so that such a small country as Estonia could declare its independence. This period lasted from the autumn of 1917 up to the spring of 1919. He offers a very precise overview of the state of affairs in International Relations at the time when Estonia declared itself independent and a more thorough overview of the recognition of Estonia’s statehood by foreign countries. Made’s paper on the relations of Estonia with the League of Nations characterises Estonia’s aspirations to find security guarantees for its independence. Article 10 of the League of Nations charter provided that all the members of the League were to go into action if one of them were attacked. However, the guarantee was barely realistic, because, when in 1939 the Soviet Union attacked Finland, the only counteraction by the League of Nations was to expel the USSR from the organisation. The papers concerning Estonian security between the two world wars contain interesting examples about the import of ideologies. Thus one of the chapters is dedicated to the Communists who attempted the coup d’etat in 1924, another to the movement of veterans of the War of Independence (the Vapses) that was prohibited in 1934 as a fascist organization. After the prohibition of this movement, the state order in Estonia became authoritarian. Whether it really was a fascist movement is subject to examination by Andres Kasekamp (pp. 55–69). By 1939, both London and Paris had lost interest in the Baltic region. At the same time Moscow and Berlin concluded an agreement on dividing spheres of interest. This was followed by the concentration of troops by the Soviet Union on the frontiers of Estonia and a diplomatic note to have Soviet military bases established on the Estonian territory. Since the crucial period of time (from 13 August until 28 September 1939) there were more troops on the borders than Estonia itself could have mobilised, Estonia acted under pressure. This was the beginning of the annexation of the Baltic States, however, the majority of countries did not recognize it de jure. Former diplomats could continue working in exile and the Baltic issue was raised on an international arena only when it corresponded to the interests of superpowers.

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Made’s paper ‘The Baltic Issue During the Cold War’ tries to find an answer to the question of why the USSR needed the Baltic states after all. Was it simply an ideological principle to reincorporate all the areas that had once belonged to the Russian Empire or was it significant from the military point of view? Traditional reasons given include the necessity to defend the Leningrad region and, simultaneously, keeping an eye on Scandinavia and fending off NATO; Lithuania was necessary as a supply route to East Germany. Made notes that it could simply have been Stalin’s error, having overestimated the significance of the Baltic countries. Likewise, it was Gorbachov’s error to underestimate the strong aspiration of the Baltic countries to regain their sovereignty that precipitated the disintegration of the USSR half a century later. The only non-Estonian contributor, Tapani Kaakuriniemi, treats the Baltic issue from the viewpoint of Russia. Do the Baltic States, after regaining their independence, have any importance at all to Russia? In the foreign–political conception drawn up by the Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Baltic area is mentioned three times: in connection with the defence of the Russian western frontier, economy (because a regularly functioning railway network and good ports are essential export channels for Russia) and, third, the issue of Kaliningrad. The last chapter of the book contains a study by Erik Männik, a former official of the Estonian ministry of defence, of how the smallness of Estonia as a state has influenced its policy of national defence. For this purpose he analysed 107 speeches on the policy of national defence made by the President of Estonia and the Estonian Minister of Defence. Based on the speeches, the author has identified the change in the main threats to national security between 1992 and 2002. When at the beginning of the decade the major danger was posed by Russian troops on Estonian territory, then in the speeches of 2002 the main danger the Estonians had become aware of was — terrorism. This collection of papers offers a lot of interesting historical material, not only for those who are specifically interested in Estonia. The chapters about the Cold War period as well as the Russian policy towards the Baltic countries after 1991 allow interesting parallels to be drawn by a reader interested in the politics of Russia. On the other hand, the book may also become popular among students of African studies thanks to its fascinating chapter about the relations between Estonia and the Third World. In sum, I would warmly recommend the volume to readers who wonder how such a small independent country as Estonia altogether appeared on the political map of the world. TARTU UNIVERSITY, ESTONIA

KADRI MUST

Slovenia and the Slovenes: A Small State and the New Europe. By JAMES GOW and CATHIE CARMICHAEL. London: C. Hurst and Company, 2000. xi + 234 pp. Price unknown. ISBN 185065428X (Paperback) ‘This book is so unfinished!’ Tom Lozh ar bewailed when reviewing James Gow and Cathie Carmichael’s Slovenia and the Slovenes: A Small State and the New Europe for

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Slovene Studies. Taking great issue with the ‘British’ authors’ (the word is used pointedly) admonishment of the ‘Slovenci’ and their new ‘Slovenija’, he charges the authors with misrepresentations generally and misrepresenting him personally, and is more than a little ‘piste’ that this book has received such general acclaim in western academic circles. He concludes that such a book should have been written ‘properly’ by a Slovene; yet the purpose of these two brave Brits was precisely to take the debate on Slovenia and the Slovenes out of what Mihailo Crnobrnja has termed (in The Yugoslav Drama) ‘hermetic closure’ of Slovenia and into the western academic arena. And for good reason — decent western literature on Slovenia is extremely thin on the ground. Gow and Carmichael make a valiant effort: acknowledging that they were writing on ‘completely virgin territory’ (p. vii), they drew fully upon British and Slovene epistemic communities, and battled with the sacred Slovene national treasure — their language — in a research effort with its genesis in the aftermath of the Slovenian war of independence in 1991. Whilst their work falls just slightly short of the accolade ‘authoritative’, their survey of the history of the Slovenes and their Slovenstvo from the seventh through to the end of the twentieth century is an excellent introductory text to this ill-known and less understood mini-state in this expanding new Europe. Their work is general enough to be holistic (and a good read!), whilst sufficiently specific, detailed and referenced to serve as a springboard to further study. Organized thematically and then chronologically within those themes, Gow and Carmichael detail the many threats and challenges to Slovenstvo — Italianization, Germanization, Serbian attempts to engineer federal preponderance between 1989 and 1991, and arguably the EU — as well as the opportunities to secure Slovenstvo — through Illyrianism, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and Tito and Kardelj’s Yugoslavia. Slovene culture and Slovenian economic development within and outside Yugoslavia are treated extensively, as is Slovenia’s society, demography, and political system. Gow and Carmichael offer a unique treatment of these factors, and emphasize that Slovenian development was culturally, economically, and politically developed throughout Yugoslavia’s lifetime and did not simply follow as sui generis Slovene phenomena after Slovenia’s exit from the federation in June 1991. This is an important point, and Gow and Carmichael were right to make it. Yet, for all this, there is something in Lozh ar’s charge. In some respects, the authors have pandered to the Slovene self-image; they devote themselves in their introduction to a tourist advertisement, and some of their more supposedly groundbreaking arguments for why Slovenia did not get into the EU and NATO earlier do not go much further than ‘smugness’ and ‘complacency’. This seems, at best, a little weak, and, at worst, a little unconvincing. The authors also fall prey to a uniquely British academic failing, substantiating what transpire to be two personal arguments that are generated endlessly throughout the text — to wit, that the Slovene language was instrumental in the survival of the Slovenes as a people, and that Slovenia was a direct product of Yugoslavia. But the book is unfinished in a very real sense, since many unsavoury questions have also been left out. The aftermath of Slovenia’s departure from the Yugoslav

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federation and the issue of former Yugoslav minorities in Slovenia are treated only in a footnote, which, considering how important it is to the authors to underline the importance of Yugoslavia in Slovenian development, seems a glaring omission. Indeed, another is the total absence of a bibliography or guide to further reading in the book, although Cathie Carmichael published a bibliography on Slovenia in 1996 which can be found at http://www.netlibrary.com. And, for what is so selfevidently a labour of love, two hundred or so pages seems a little scant, the sweep perhaps too shallow, and there remains room for an authoritative Western account of past and present Slovenia. Any takers? SCHOOL OF SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

BETHAN JONES

Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation. Ed. by Dush an I. Bjelica and Obrad Savica. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2002. xiii + 382 pp. £19.95. ISBN 0-262-02524-8 (hardback). Scholars of south-east Europe have kept watch in the last decade for the ‘Balkan’ metaphor so common in journalistic accounts of the former Yugoslavian conflict and in the political discourse of the region. A famous (or infamous) travelogue of violent exoticism blames phenomena from the Iron Guard to the Yugoslavian wars on ‘Balkan ghosts’; the Slovenian prime minister, Janez Drnovsh ek, presents his people with ‘the choice between Europe and the Balkans’ in a speech in 1995, leaving Slovenes no doubt as to the side of the divide on which they are expected to position themselves. Such ‘Balkanism,’ as Maria Todorova has shown, extends far beyond headline-writer’s shorthand to reveal a set of negative constructions of a Balkan Other prevalent in Western literature and travel writing. Yet those construed by the West as ‘Balkan’ are by no means averse to turning the lens of Balkanism on their neighbours, in a process tending to result in their own occidentalization. The inventor of this concept of ‘nesting Orientalisms’, Milica Bakica-Hayden, is among the sixteen contributors to this volume of essays. Representing a variety of disciplines, the great majority are from a Balkan background themselves, and the editors hope that this will provide ‘a corrective counterpoint to currently circulating representations of the Balkans’ (p. 17). Indeed, the article by Tomislav Z. Longinovica argues particularly passionately against the Western stereotype of Serbs, in a polemic written not long after the 1999 Kosovo War. The book is divided into three parts, one addressing the relationship between Balkanism, Orientalism, and representations of the West, another discussing how ‘Balkan identity’ can coexist with various national identities, and a third purporting to cover ‘Sexuality, Trauma and Myth’. This last is the hardest to sum up with a pithy sub-heading, containing two articles on Serbs and sexuality, an argument against the idea of genocidal rape, a study of the soundtrack in Balkan cinema and a reflection on Simonides’ art of memory as applied to the war in Bosnia. Of

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particular interest in Part I are the contributions by Bakica -Hayden, now turning her attention to the persistent association of the Balkans with a supposedly ‘Byzantine’ political culture, and Vesna Goldsworthy, whose volume Inventing Ruritania: the Imperialism of the Imagination deserves its place in the emerging canon of ‘Balkanist studies’. In Part II, a clear overview is given by Alexander Kiossev of the many ‘mappings’ by ‘Balkan guys’ and outsiders of a Balkan identity, with the conclusion that it may genuinely exist in the ‘joyful consumption of pleasures forbidden by European norms and taste’ such as Yugoslavian turbofolk or Bulgarian chalga music, and the ‘nostalgic and intimate cooking’ enjoyed by ‘the Balkan cultural diaspora’ (p. 185). Adrian Cioroianu investigates Romanian ambivalence to the Balkans and their nationalists’ Dacian obsession, while Ugo Vlaisavljevica has less to say about the Balkan metaphor as such and more about the relationship between ‘South Slav ethnie’ and what he terms ‘the war reality that is so characteristic of the Balkans (p. 194)’. (Such an unqualified assertion, in a work of this kind, is not without its risks.) Michael Herzfeld’s preface to this book recommends (p. xii) that one should ‘try to put it into the hands of those who have some responsibility for both creating the tragedies that have beset the Balkans and then exclusively blaming Balkan people for what has happened.’ Their attention to it would be welcome and overdue, but would also be most usefully concentrated on a selection of the articles therein. The most valuable for such purposes is Goldsworthy’s, who criticizes both the constant representations of Yugoslavia-as-powder-keg and the ‘dubious romantic resonance’ of the imagined ‘Balkan heart of darkness’ (p. 29), which she compares to the frisson traditionally provided by Gothic horror. Those, both journalists and scholars, who insist on treating war rape as primarily an affair of nationalist symbolism would do well to be reminded by Vesna Kesica that behind the veneer of ‘symbolic battlefields that embody national values’ (p. 314) there remain ‘women’s bodies in pain’ (p. 316), and that ethnopolitics and gender are inextricably linked. Stathis Gourgouris’ comparison of film music by Eleni Karaindrou and Goran Bregovica may be of less interest to policymakers, but nonetheless presents a fascinating account of how Bregovica ’s ‘Balkanization’ of American pop and rock culture ‘demonstrates that it is possible to emerge from within the form but with an “external” gaze’ (p. 340). Elsewhere, intriguing points are from time to time left floundering in jargon, especially unfortunate when one considers the multiple audiences targeted by Bjelica and Savica . Branka Arsica ’s examination of queer theory and Serbian identity wagers its intelligibility on the reader’s in-depth knowledge of Althusser, Butler, and Lacan, and Grigoris Ananiadis’ extensive application of Carl Schmitt’s political theories to the Kosovo War bears only a tangential relationship to the ostensible theme of the wider work. Certain essays also rely too much on forced metaphors: Longinovica pushes his contention that Serbs have been represented as ‘the post-modern incarnation of the vampire’ (p. 48) so far that he risks extrapolating significance from coincidence, such as Vlad Dracul having allegedly received his name from his father’s Order of Drakon for service against the Turks, and his constant reference to ‘the serbs’ (sic) to denote the extent of their essentialization becomes irritating. Moreover, it stretches one’s credibility somewhat to believe with

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Longinovica that the films of Quentin Tarantino were intended as ‘an adequate marketing response to the “compassion fatigue”’ (p. 55) induced in the West by television images of the Yugoslavian wars. While the quality of this collection may be uneven, the success of its best contributions is not. Goldsworthy apart, the volume does not serve as an introduction to the Balkanism debate, but the various authors’ perspectives illuminate, for the most part, the use of the Balkan metaphor in diverse fields, and one may hope that the book may help to inaugurate, if not quite ‘a new cultural studies of the region’ (p. 13), then at least a new group of scholars who will have much to add to our understanding of south-east Europe and its discourse. SCHOOL OF SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

CATHERINE BAKER

Ghetto Diary. By JANUSZ KORCZAK with an introduction by BETTY-JEAN LIFTON. Translated from the Polish by JERZY BACHRACH and BARBARA KRZYWICKA (VEDDER). London: Yale University Press, 2003. xxx + 115 pp. £8.95. ISBN 0-300-09742-5 (paperback). The publication of Janusz Korczak’s Ghetto Diary in English is a very welcome sight, not least because it acts as a reminder of the existence of a seemingly forgotten being — the Polish Jew. Like Korczak, this is someone who felt himself to be both a Pole and a Jew but whose forcible division by the Nazis has since the end of the Second World War been seemingly reflected in and absorbed into Western historiography of the Holocaust, as well as into our common understanding of it. Of equal importance is the opportunity for the English-speaking world to learn about a very heroic, if also tragic, figure in Poland. There, Korczak’s life dedicated to children, his orphanage and most famously his final sacrifice in going to the wagons destined for Treblinka with his orphans, despite offers of a way out, is well known. But with this English edition, Betty-Jean Lifton’s introduction therefore serves a dual purpose — acting as an introduction to the symbol of Korczak and of his life, as well as to the Diary itself. It represents a useful parallel to the diary, just as the diary itself must be read against the existing knowledge of the Warsaw Ghetto and Nazi policies towards the Jews. It also makes Korczak’s entries ever more poignant, perhaps most significantly so in the entry of 22 July 1942. His reflections that ‘only brazen shamelessness is limitless’ and ‘how hard it is to live, how easy to die’ become haunting because of Lifton’s earlier explanation that that was the day the deportations were announced. The combination of Korczak’s at times intangible, incoherent thoughts with a biographical overview also makes it possible to reflect on what his reasons in choosing not to leave his children may have been. While it would be wrong to attribute any degree of inevitability to his actions, some of Korczak’s possible motives are clear to see: his insistence on clearing the table, the Children’s Republic, his belief that no one is better or wiser than anyone else. Indeed, some have gone as far as to say that

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he did not really have a choice and that his behaviour was a logical consequence of his life and life decisions.1 Whatever the case, the opportunity to absorb oneself in Korczak’s thoughts is an invaluable one. As Lifton writes in her introduction, Korczak’s diary is not one that ‘takes on a historic responsibility’ to describe life in the Ghetto as do other accounts of the Warsaw Ghetto. Certainly there is a distinct lack of detail, other than in passing, of what life was like, the conditions, the fear and uncertainty. Perhaps, though, this is as it should be. Reading Korczak’s diary, we are able to get a sense of the everydayness of abnormality, the intertwining of attempts at normal living with the ‘strange and sinister’ that was an inexorable part of the lives of the Ghetto’s inhabitants, ‘The body of a dead boy lies on the sidewalk. Nearby, three boys are playing horses and drivers. At one point they notice the body, move a few steps to the side, go on playing.’ It may perhaps also serve as a cautionary reminder of the inaccuracy of judging, as historians have tended to do, as if only the facts existed — in abstract — thereby stressing the importance of the subjective in aiding our understanding of the time. Whereas some survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto have spoken of their hurt that Korczak’s famous final act lies in sharp and painful contrast to the anonymity of many others who did the same, one can look at it from a different angle — that the humanity of Korczak and his life’s philosophy that one is left with on reading his diary helps to bring to life and to personalize the millions who died during the Holocaust.2 SCHOOL OF SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

ANNA SOLARSKA

1 Adina Blady Szwajgier in an interview with Anka Grupinska in Ciagle Po Kole: Rozmowy z Zolnierzami Getta Warszawskiego (Warsaw: Twoj Styl Publishing, 2000), p. 195. 2 Ibid.