![Liviu Georgescu](/api/image/getissuecoverimage?id=picture_2006_16396.jpg)
Liviu Georgescu
Prim-plan: Sub turnul Londrei: erezia de ceaţă; planete strălucitoare
Excerpts form L. Georgescu's works, comments from colleagues.
More...Excerpts form L. Georgescu's works, comments from colleagues.
More...Keywords: Girolamo Savonarola; History of the Church; Pope Alexander VI; Roman Catholic Church
Following the decentralising process in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, of all the Italian cities seized by the freedom of self-expressing, one city would stand out by its unparalleled cultural brilliance – Florence. In the „capital” of thinking and arts of Renaissance Italy, a Florentine friar appeared – Girolamo Savonarola, a tempestuous personality, who undertook both a prophetic and a political role. Hence, the upcoming conflict between him and the Borgia Pope, Alexander, ended in the friar’s being sentenced in 1498 to death by pyre. Savonarola has remained a controversial character ever since: convicted as an heretic by Pope Alexander VI, rehabilitated by other pontiffs, regarded by Luther as a forerunner of the Protestant Reform and as a saint by many neoprotestants, many an honest historians and theologians still consider him a reformer of morals in the Roman Catholic Church, yet a reformer who overstepped the bounds of his relationships with his superior.
More...The „white stains” of the „bizarre transnistrian war” represent a less transparent aspect for both the press of that period and for reference documents. It is even more controversial and difficult to comprehend for anyone who wants to gain an insight into the essence of the events that took place in the spring and summer of 1992, as well as a significant challenge for resolute researchers that aim to get to the bottom of the investigated issues, to the very core of the entire transnistrian conflict, a conflict that spans a decade without having been clarified in spite of the international dimension it took. The illustrated material questions the statements made by the leaders of the separatist nistrian enclave and as well as those made by the heads of state of the Moldavian Republic, who are sometimes involuntarily portrayed as string-puppets in the hands of a third party, a party whose implication during the entire conflict has become more and more obvious. Due to the valour, commitment, patriotism and bravery demonstrated during the military actions, the moldavian police officers and combatants have triumphed in the war of positions that took place on the banks of the Nistru River, but the interference of the military incompetent politicians has had an ill-fated effect on the final outcome. Even the so called common diplomacy has often had a more feasible and efficient impact than the actions undertook by the platoon commanders. The crimes committed during the war call for an ample investigation on behalf of the international organizations, and those guilty of acts of genocide against the people of the Moldavian Republic must be handed over to justice and convicted according to the legislation in effect. The author would therefore like to express his appreciation to all those who have contributed to the publication of the material and especially to those who have had the fortitude to acknowledge some „peculiar” features related to the transnistrian war.
More...Keywords: Jiu Valley; Interwar Period; Coal; Lupeni; Statistical Data
The Lupeni Coal Company was set up in 1925, when the Urikány-Zsilvőlgyi Hungarian Coal Company, headquartered in Budapest, sold on credit 50% of its shares to a Romanian banking consortium led by Banca Românească. The secret accountancy of the Lupeni Company has been preserved until now and it offers plenty of data to establish that the total turnover and the amount of sales are exceeding at a very high rate the official figures. The data prove that there are great differences between the internal financial ratio and the published one. For example, the benefits published by the official accountancy amount to 550.315.050 lei between 1925 and 1930, but the secret computation reveals a total gain of 1.309.779.377 lei, i.e. 2.38 times more. Similarly, in 1930 the official depreciation fund reached the level of 257.892.185 lei, but the internal bookkeeping totalized 587.783.160 lei accumulated depreciation, that is 2.28 times more. Of course, this difference indicates a similar level of investment activity. The recorded investments amounted only to 242.662.100 lei between 1925 and 1930, but together with the unlisted investments the total amount reached 486.963.970 lei, which is two times more. By publishing considerably diminished figures of the official accountancy, the board of the Lupeni Company had a precise goal, which was to hide the real coal output in order to pay smaller taxes for the sales. That is why the company reported average sales of 530.220 metric tons per year, with an average value of 566 million lei. In contrast to that, our results reveal average sales of 1.464.624 m. tones and a value of 1.564 million lei per year, which is 2.76 times more. By tampering with accounts, by dwindling with the paid taxes, the company obtained a gross profit of 50%, and a clear profit of 30% for the annual rate of turnover. Even so, during the severe crisis of the 1930s, the Lupeni Company merged to the Petroşani Coal Company in 1931, building up a single large company in the Jiul Valley, the largest on the Romanian coal market.
More...Keywords: Paleolog’s period; Occident; Orient; Byzantine World; Innovative Spirit; Crusades
The major feature of the Byzantine spiritual world during the Paleolog’s age is the conservative spirit, characterized by the permanent and constant contrastive dimension towards each innovative movement, loyalty for tradition and dogmatic intransigence in what the religion is concerned. The terms which shaped innovation as religious phenomenon or as change of innovating have always had a negative meaning in the Byzantine World. A certain disapproving attitude accompanies these terms in all the texts, especially in those belonging to the rich theological literature from that time. The period between the 13th and the 14th centuries was seen as a period of resisting, or as one of opposing, because in the domain of culture or in other related areas the Byzantine State has tried to affirm itself by returning to its ancient and Christian origins. Being always in contact with the Western World, the Byzantine society did not change essentially its government, but only at a small extent. Undoubtely, the approach of those two civilizations as a consequence of the Crusades, introduced some Latin customs in the Oriental World, without changing fundamentally the background of this world; it still remained of Byzantine origin.
More...Keywords: Monastery; patrimony; triptych; embroideries; Solca Monastery
This paper deals with several aspects regarding the patrimony of the Putna Monastery. The first part of the paper is dedicated to a triptych-icon, famous in the Romanian scientific circuit, about which the author claims that it is possible that it came from the Solca Monastery. The second part is dedicated to the embroideries of the Putna Monastery. The author presents several documents which describe the way these objects were kept at the beginning of the 20th century.
More...Keywords: Business History; entrepreneurship; family business; branding strategies; Friedrich Czell & Sons; Sigmond Brothers; Transylvania; Industrial Revolution;
Starting from the methodological suggestions specific to the business history, this article proposes the reconstitution of family businesses, business strategies and adaptation mechanisms to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution and its related phenomena. The historical reality reveals that also in the space of the former Habsburg Monarchy were a whole series of companies and family businesses that managed to adapt to the requirements of the industrial age and to survive for several generations. In addition to explaining the strategies of branding and evoking the “myths of the founding fathers”, economic historians have studied and integrated them into the history and socio-economic context of the time. Also, the organizational changes and adaptations were extremely important for the success or failure of these businesses, an important role being played by the professionalization of management. Who were these entrepreneurs and what kind of background did they have? how were the beginnings of businesses and what favored their promotion and success in business? What were the resources they originally relied on? What role have family relationships and social networks played in business development?Based on these questions, this article aims to reconstruct the evolution of entrepreneurial initiatives in Transylvanian cities that later evolved into the status of prestigious companies at the time. What is worth noting in this context is the fact that entrepreneurship in Transylvania has tried to highlight local resources and opportunities. Most successful entrepreneurs think broadly, focused on complementary and integrated areas of business development, and long-term decisions. The case study will refer to the “Friedrich Czell & Sons” Company from Brașov, respectively the “Sigmond Brothers” from Cluj.
More...Keywords: historians’ front; Romanian Communist Party; historiography; ideology;
To examine the evolutions of Romanian “historians’ front” during Stalinism and Late Socialism in a short study might seem presumptuous, but the following pages do not pretend to offer a full-scale exegesis of the practices of doing and using the discours(es) of history in Communist Romania. Rather, I have chosen to discuss here the metamorphoses of this crucial concept between 1948 and 1985, by analyzing its origins, significance and manners into which it has been actively engaged into the Stalinist and Ceaușescuist broader ideological framework by different social agents. The first part of my study focuses upon the ways into which party propagandists and historians have publicly used the ‘historians’ front’ formula during Stalinist ‘cultural revolution’ and the following years. In the second section of my interpretation I present, by exploiting a wealth of previously inaccessible archival sources, the Romanian Communist Party’s plans and preparations to materialize this Stalinist concept by creating a single Central Institute for National History. I argue that, under Nicolae Ceaușescu, the party has constantly tried to bring the national history-production process under a more firmer political control.
More...Keywords: Romania; peasantry; 40s; Soviet troops;
At the end of 1944, when a large number of Soviet troops were stationed in the territory of Romania and the Romanian army was fighting to liberate the Northwestern part of Transylvania, a domestic farming crisis broke out, becoming even more acute in the following years. Worst hit were the inhabitants in Northern Moldavia, where in the winter of 1944-1945 hunger, the bitter cold and typhoid killed about 80,000 people. Of course, the political regime that had just taken over the power cannot be blamed for the natural disaster that hit Romania, but the regime was responsible for the chaos created in agriculture by the manner the 1945 land reform was implemented. It was also to blame for the spoliation of the wealthy farmers and of other population segments through the system of mandatory quotas, and for neglecting the poor peasantry, which it did not lend the necessary support, the result being a heavy tribute of human loss.
More...Keywords: Antim Nica; Orthodox church; Romania; communism;
Survival and the collaboration between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the communist authorities has been one of the main subjects of research after 1990. The present biographical study, devoted to the life and work of one of the Orthodox prelates during the dictatorship, Antim Nica, attempts to render the atmosphere in the first decades of the communist totalitarianism, with emphasis on how difficult it was for clerics to survive in those times. Antim Nica began his ecclesiastical career during the military dictatorship (which doomed him in the eyes of the regime that followed), but managed to remain in the religious leadership at the cost of compromise. With all the many proofs of loyalty, the regime however assigned him only much later a bishop’s seat. In his new position, Antim Nica made no concession to administrative claims. Evantia Bozgan is a History teacher.
More...Keywords: Romania; Securitate Apparatus; 40s; 50s; 60s; practice; mentalities; communism;
The communist regimes meant, beyond the class struggle, which in their view justified repression, control over all aspects: socio-economic, political, cultural, military, and, last but not least, of the state security. Such a control was not supposed to miss anything, not even the individual’s privacy. So, a huge diversity of mechanisms were developed, meant to create submissive attitudes among citizens and to guarantee that discontent could never turn into direct opposition.
More...Keywords: communism; Communist International; Romania; Romanian socialists; negotiations; pressures; 1920;
The documents reveal an important episode in the relations between the Romanian socialists or social-democrats and the Communist International. The documents contain the answers given by Gh. Cristescu and C. Popovici to the questions of Bucharin on 28 October 1920; the declaration signed by Gh. Cristescu, E. Rozvan and Al. Dobrogeanu-Gherea which expressed the agreement to the Komintern suggestions, 3 December 1920; C. Fluieraș' letter on aspects of the workers' movement in Transylvania and Banat, November 1920.
More...Keywords: Romania; Gendarmerie; 40s; communism;
The activity of the Romanian gendarmerie forces is described along with the political background, the high level of criminality, local pressures of the Communist Party and Soviet occupation troops.
More...Keywords: Romania; interwar period; WWII; communism;
The documents reveal the penetration of communist ideology in the political thought and practice in Romania Some documents are worth mentioning: the letter of Mihail Gheorghiu Bujor to the Central Political Committee of the Romanian Social Democrat Party, 15 December 1917; the Manifest of the Romanian Internationalist Socialist Fraction in Hungary calling to the autonomy of Transylvania at the end of 1918; the Informative Note signed by A. Grinstein, the president of the Bureau of the Communist Party in Bessarabia and Bukovina, and sent to the Section for Relations with the Comintern. The documents will be published in a separate volume edited by N.I.S.T.
More...Keywords: Masoretic Hebrew Text; Dead Sea Scrolls; Textual Criticism; Scribes; Manuscript variations;
Since the Hebrew Bible has been frequently translated into multiple languages and distributed throughout the world, how can we be sure that error has not crept in, even if it was unintentional? As Christianity spread, it is certainly true that people desired to have the Bible in their own language, which required translations from the original Hebrew and Aramaic languages of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament. Not only did the work of translators provide an opportunity for error, but publication, which was done by hand copying until the printing press arrived ca. 1450 A.D., also afforded continual possibilities of error.Through the centuries, the practitioners of textual criticism, a precise science, have discovered, preserved, catalogued, evaluated and published an amazing array of biblical manuscripts from both the Old and the New Testament. In fact, the number of existing biblical manuscripts dramatically outdistances the existing fragments of any other ancient literature. By comparing text with text, the textual critic can confidently determine what the original prophetic/apostolic inspired writing contained.Although existing copies of the main ancient Hebrew text (Masoretic) date back only to the tenth century A.D., two other important lines of textual evidence boost the confidence of textual critics that they have reclaimed the originals. First, the tenth century A.D. Hebrew Old Testament can be compared to the Greek translation called the Septuagint or LXX (written ca. 200-150 B.C.; the oldest existing manuscripts date to ca. A.D. 325). There is amazing consistency between the two, which speaks of the accuracy in copying the Hebrew text for centuries. Second, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947-1956 (manuscripts that are dated ca. 200-100 B.C.) proved to be monumentally important. After comparing the earlier Hebrew texts with the later ones, only a few slight variants were discovered, none of which changed the meaning of any passage. Although the Old Testament has been translated and copied for centuries, the latest version was essentially the same as the earlier ones.Every translation is at many points a trade-off between literal precision and readability, between formal equivalence in expression and functional equivalence in communication. On thos level we have to examine the LXX translation if it is as literal as possible, while maintaining clarity of expression and literary excellence, as far as grammar and syntax allow it. If it’s not, that means the scribes intervened subjectively into the sacred text.
More...Keywords: Petru Maior; Transylvanian School; Romanian language; latinity; polemical spirit;
The present article is an evocation of Petru Maior and his writing style. Along with the great representatives of the Transylvanian School, Samuil Micu, Gheorghe Şincai and Ioan Budai Deleanu, Petru Maior (1751-1821) is known as the one who illustrated the polemical spirit to the highest degree. The battles he fought concerned the origin of the Romanian language, our Latinity and continuity in Dacia, as he believed that our nation is the legitimate descendant of the “old Romans”. Defending this idea, he used the weapon of the pen, intervening, with well-chosen arguments, whenever a foreign historian dared to slander us or to deny our continuity.
More...Keywords: Iosif Iuliu Olariu; Orthodoxy; Theology; Priest; Caransebeș;
After 34 years of pastorate and numerous achievements, archimandrite Iosif Iuliu Olariu passed at the age of 61. He left the Diocesan Theological Institute in Caransebeş in good order, both in terms of organisation and the materials used by theological students to study.
More...Keywords: Timișoara; Ottoman archaeology; Ottoman architecture; mosque; mescid
This paper deals with Muslim places of worship and their evolution during the 164 years of Ottoman rule in Timișoara (1552–1716). The analysis was carried out on the basis of written historical documentation and archaeological results. It is about religious structures such as mosques (câmii) and other places of worship (mescid), but also about monastic centres of dervishes (tekke, zâviye and türbe). The archaeological research that took place in the last decade in Timișoara offered the chance to bring to light the foundations of three mosques: Ali Bey, Cimcime and Sultan Süleyman. The results of these researches are valuable, especially since no building in Timișoara dating from the Ottoman Period has survived. From an archaeological point of view, it was found that only two of the mosques share similar characteristics. Although at all three of them wooden posts were found at the bottom of the foundation ditch, beaten into the ground, the differences were in the techniques of the foundation construction. At two of the foundation walls, was discovered a reinforcement of wooden beams, fixed with iron nails, over which a mixture of mortar with stone and broken brick was placed. At the third foundation wall, a similar mixture was framed by a row of bricks laid on the edge of the foundation ditch. Moreover, two of the mosques were built according to a rectangular plan, and in the third plan the north side was closed with an apse. Archaeological research also indicated a possible minaret, mihrab, but also parts of the floor of one of the mosques.
More...Keywords: Aspects of the history; Folklore; Folkloric manifestations; Research methodology; Stages;
This paper is dedicated to an issue that includes important aspects of the history of the method of collecting folklore, as well as the three important stages that have contributed to the professionalization of field folklore research. In order to have an overview of current folklore life, it is necessary to initiate and undertake research by directly observing reality, in the way it appears in folkloric manifestations, on different occasions, but without proposing and intervening in their development. Using the specialized methodology, we will look for and research what is significant, in the folklore facts relevant for the research topic. That is why it is important to have a specific knowledge of contemporary folklore, of the current reality. Each stage coming with its novelties in the history of research, with new applied formulas. The research methodology debutizing with restorations of the authentic, norms considered later intentional falsifications, this epoch being one in which chronicles were born, designated by distant authors. Gradually reaching new principles, so that each era has its own charm and manifestations of life, which must be pursued as reflected in the souls of contemporaries.
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