The end of archive research on communist and post-communist Romania?

Elena Dragomir Discussion

During the last 15 years, research on communist Romania has developed greatly, due, first of all, to the opening of the historical archives in this country. Now, following a May 2022 administrative measure by the National Archives of Romania, researchers’ access to the historical documents on the communist period is completely halted until further notice.

To cut a very long, very complicated and very technical discussing short, the main elements of the story are the following, as recently summarized by Dorin Dobrincu – former head of the National Archives of Romania between 2007 and 2012[1]:

1. After the collapse of the communist regime in December 1989, the past in Romania was kept under lock and key for a very long time, with very few protégées of the secret services being allowed to have some kind of access to the historical archives. To complicate matters further, the National Archives of Romania were at the time – and they are to this very day – subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Often cases, the Law no 16/1996 regarding the national archives, which regulated (and still regulates) access to archives, was invoked to block researchers’ access to the past;

2. In 2002, Law no 182 on the protection of classified information was adopted. Its stipulations were retroactively applied as well to all historical documents in the custody of the National Archives, regardless of the creating period, creating agency or the general closure period as established by Law no 16/1996 on national archives. That meant that all historical documents in the custody of the National Archives marked by their creating agencies as ‘secret’ could not be seen or studied by anybody, ever.

3. In 2006, president Traian Băsescu appointed a Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania – whose title is self-explanatory. Because there was the political will to do so, the members of this commission were allowed to have access to classified archive documents in order to draft their final report on the communist regime in Romania. On the basis of that report, in December 2006, then president Băsescu ‘condemned’ the communist regime of Romania as ‘illegitimate and criminal’.

4. In 2007, Romania became a member of the European Union. Because – again – there was the necessary political will, in that year, the archives were finally opened and researchers were granted equal and non-discriminatory access to non-classified documents. However, to this day, no law has declassified the historical documents held by the National Archives, regardless of the year of their creation, the creating agency or their content; thus, from 2007 onwards, the archivists working there justified the opening of the archives and the access of (some) researchers to (some) classified historical documents through the fact that the members of the 2006 presidential commission had already seen the respective classified files or classified documents. The Recommendation No R (2000) 13 of the Committee of Ministers to the EU member states on a European policy on access to archives was often invoked in this regard by the archives. What really mattered, though, was that, at that time, there was the political will to give the researchers access to the past.

5. In 2019, under considerable international pressure, the Law no 53 on some measures regarding the studying of the history of the Jewish communities from Romania was adopted. By way of derogation from the Law no 182/2002 on the protection of classified information, the Law no 53/2019 declassified all historical documents in the custody of the National Archives, pertaining to the history of the Jewish communities in Romania, for the period between 1938 and 1989. All other historical documents in the custody of the National Archives remained classified and managed according to the Law no 182/2002 on the protection of classified information.

6. After 15 years of improved access to the communist archives, in 2021 and 2022, the secret service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs started a series of verifications in the National Archives (central and local branches alike) all over the country under the Law no 182/2002 on the protection of classified information and the Government Decision no 585/2002 establishing the application standards of that law. Two researchers and two archivists are currently under investigation by the Direction for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism, being accused of… ‘organized crime and terrorism’ in relation to the fact that they had access or allowed others to have access to classified historical documents from the National Archives.

Archivists have also revealed that documents from the National Archival Fund have been destroyed at the request and under the supervision of the secret services, all over the country. This is not about documents held by the National Archives, but about documents that, by law, should have been handed over to the National Archives by former state institutions (ministries, factories, agencies etc.), documents created equally before and after 1989, but especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Acoording to some wisleblowers, documents created after 1990 were no longer tranfered in the custody of the National Archives, and now we find out that they are beeing distroyed.       

7. On 26 May 2022, the National Archives announced that, from now on, before reaching its research rooms, any requested file will be reviewed in terms of ‘content’ for classified information and that such a task may cause delays in answering the researchers’ requests of documents. According to Dobrincu, this decision was most likely made by the secret service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and forced upon the National Archives. – Moreover, this decision was announced in a very specific context – i.e. the elaboration of a new set of laws on national security, which intends to undemocratically enlarge the powers of the secret services to a level that is unprecedented even for Romania.[2]    

Archivists, historians, researchers, academia members, students and common citizens (myself included) have protested against the May 2022 decision of the National Archives and, most importantly, against its consequences as we understand them.    

What happens here is that:

1. Any historical document held by the National Archives and classified (marked as ‘secret’) by the creating agency, whether that agency was the Romanian Communist Party or the Austro-Hungarian Empire – agencies that no longer exist, and regardless of the fact that the general closure period is long overdue, is still considered sensitive information that must be protected in accordance with the Law no 182/2002 and the Government Decision no 585/2002; access to such historical documents is, therefore, forever denied. 

2. Such documents have already been seen by a large number of researchers, have been photocopied, some have been even published in volumes of documents; now they are put back under lock and key;

3. Given the current state of the National Archives which are severely understaffed and underfinanced (the situation in the local branches is even worse), one can only assume that the disposition regarding the reviewing, in terms of ‘content’, of every single page from every single file, regardless of the creating agency or period, so that only non-classified material would reach the public and the researchers, will, in fact, result in the closure of the archives indefinitely;

4. The historical archives are managed not according to the Law on national archives (no 16/1996) but according to a Government Decision on the protection of classified information (no 585/2002) which, according to Dorin Dobrincu, contradicts the very stipulations of the Law no 16/1996 on archives. However, beyond such technical matters two conclusions seem rather clear:

1. Documents from the National Archival Fund have been destroyed and continue to be destroyed, instead of being handed over to the National Archives; and

2. Access to the historical documents (not only from the communist period, but from any period) from the National Archives of Romania is basically blocked indefinitely.   

Or, in other words, at the request of the secret services, all historical documents now in the custody of the National Archives and classified at some point by any past agency are indefinitely locked up, while historical documents  that have not been yet transferred in the custody of the National Archives are being destroyed.

What is the rationale behind such a decision and approach to past, memory and history? I really do not know. To me it has absolutely no sense. I am tempted to think that it is not about the fear of some people that personal secrets – such as collaboration with the former communist regime – could unexpectedly surface from the archives. I am rather tempted to believe that what we see here is merely a state that moves away from democracy and steps closer and closer to autocracy. I can only hope that I am mistaken.

Further reading on the subject (in Romanian):

Daniel Tomșa, Fost director al Arhivelor Naționale Iași: 30 de ani din istoria Iașului, dispăruți fără urmă, 11 May 2022, at https://newsweek.ro/actualitate/fost-director-al-arhivelor-nationale-din-iasi-30-de-ani-din-istoria-iasiului-disparuti-fara-urma, accessed on 31 May 2022;

Scrisoare deschisă privind accesul istoricilor la documente din Arhivele Naționale, 29 May 2022, at https://www.contributors.ro/scrisoare-deschisa-privind-accesul-istoricilor-la-documente-din-arhivele-nationale/, accessed on 31 May 2022;

Online petition against the decision of the National Archives from 26 May 2022, 29 May 2022:https://www.petitieonline.com/scrisoare_deschisa_acces_arhive?fbclid=IwAR0Bm6tUklEwoMa86ttjKKCkd3ZOJ-eu-ggD87a2Dx0gu6C37Ra1EOqvpU0

Cătălin Botoșineanu, ‘Între nevoia de memorie a comunităților locale și buna administrație a instituțiilor publice. Folosirea documentelor și rolul Arhivelor Naționale ale României’, in Archiva Moldaviae, vol. XII/2020, p. 321-339; 

Cătălin Botoșineanu, ‘O himeră și un abuz legislativ. Documente clasificate în cadrul Fondului Arhivistic Național’, in Archiva Moldaviae, vol. XIII/2021, p. 239-254 ;

Răzvan Chiruță, Pănă la urmă ne-a învins pe toți Securitatea, at https://presshub.ro/pana-la-urma-ne-invinge-pe-toti-securitatea-23535/?fbclid=IwAR1VRd5vOsrqEEKBe3DtJW80qruLgHLRz96B4GxvfTZrKlfEdlX0t7OSSnc, accessed on 1 June 2022.

 

 

 

 


[1] Dorin Dobrincu, ‘Noua direcție a adevărului: distrugerea memoriei istorice românești’, 29 May 2022, published at https://www.contributors.ro/noua-directie-a-adevarului-distrugerea-memoriei-istorice-romanesti/, accessed on 31 May 2022.

[2] Răzvan Chiruță, Pănă la urmă ne-a învins pe toți Securitatea, at https://presshub.ro/pana-la-urma-ne-invinge-pe-toti-securitatea-223535/?fbclid=IwAR1VRd5vOsrqEEKBe3DtJW80qruLgHLRz96B4GxvfTZrKlfEdlX0t7OSSnc, aceessed on 1 June 2022.