Kulturális értékmegőrzés és informális tolerancia az államszocializmusban. Bethlen Anikó emlékezete
Preservation of Cultural Values and Informal Tolerance in State Socialism: The Memory of Anikó Bethlen

Summary/Abstract: The main character of this study is Countess Anikó Bethlen from Târgu Mureş, who started to collect ethnographic pieces in the late 1960s, once she realized the importance of safeguarding the diverse cultural heritage of Transylvania that was about to be lost due to the gradual emigration of those belonging to non-Romanian communities, in particular of the Germans and the Hungarians. Her file of informative surveillance, which is currently preserved in the Archives of CNSAS, illustrates that she was constantly observed by the Securitate during the 1970s and the 1980s. Countess Bethlen was subjected to operative surveillance, which means that the secret police used informants to collect information about her and her activities, listened her phone calls and home, retained her private correspondence, and provoked her with anonymous letters. She was warned by the local branch of the Securitate in Târgu Mureş, in 1981, for allegedly carrying out a “hostile activity against the regime”. However, the secret police monitored rather her relations abroad than her activity of collecting.

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