The destiny of Ioan Lupaș, professor of church history in the era of communist totalitarianism NETER
“He was arrested by the Securitate in 1950 and taken away (at the age of 70!) with a bag
over his head in a direction unknown to my mother and the rest of the family”.
In the old age of the scientist and his family members, the Red Plague came. Through the kindness of the daughter of the renowned historian and professor, Mrs Marina Vlasiu-Lupaș, historian (medievalist), former secondary school teacher, archivist and senior researcher at the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History in Bucharest, we learn testimonies, especially about her father’s passions.
Toader Buculei: As a historian of the Romanian Middle Ages, especially of Transylvania, Ioan Lupaș – your father – left behind a vast and particularly valuable work. We would be interested, dear Professor, if you could first tell us something about his work of documentation, research and scholarship.
Marina Vlasiu-Lupaș: For the historian Ioan Lupaș, the research of documentary sources was an essential condition for the elaboration of his works.
After his secondary education at the Hungarian State High School in Sibiu and then at the Romanian confessional high school “Andrei Șaguna” in Brașov, where he came first in the baccalaureate examination in the spring of 1900, Ioan Lupaș continued his university studies in Budapest between 1900 and 1904. As a student at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Budapest, Ioan Lupaș began research in renowned archives and libraries, such as those in Sibiu, Brașov, Budapest, Berlin and Vienna, without neglecting modest church archives or seemingly insignificant charismatic manuscripts kept in chests in peasant houses.
The results of this research have been translated not only into works of interpretation or synthesis, but also into publications of documents such as Contribuțiuni la istoria românilor ardeleni, 1780-1792 (1915); Însemnări de prin școalele și bisericile moților (1936); Documente istorice privitoare la moșiile brâncovenești din Transilvania și Oltenia (1914); Documente istorice transilvane, vol. I, 1599-1699 (1940); Contribuțiuni documentare la istoria satelor transilvănene (1943).
He spent his working days in his office and in the library of the King Ferdinand I Institute of National History, of which he was co-director with Alexandru Lapedatu. During the inter-war period, as a professor of history at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Cluj, he focused largely on the institution of the Transylvanian Voievodate and the uninterrupted economic, social, political and cultural contacts between the three countries: Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. We will only mention here the study Historical Realities in the 12th-16th Century Transylvanian Voievodate (1937) and the synthesis History of the Union of Romanians (1937). He also carried out extensive work as president of the Historical Section of Astra.
T.B.: The illustrious historian proved himself to be a great patriot, as is shown by the role he played, together with other leaders of the national struggle in Transylvania, in the achievement of the memorable act of 1 December 1918. Can you tell us about the most important moments of his work for the realisation of the national ideal?
M.V.L.: Ioan Lupaș’s transfer from the high school in Sibiu to the high school in Brașov was not a coincidence. At the beginning of 1899, the Romanian “Octavians” of the Sibiu Gymnasium, led by Goga and Lupaș, offended by the tactlessness of a history teacher (Tompa Arpad), moved to the Romanian Gymnasium in Brașov. Both Goga and Lupaș came originally from a purely Romanian region, Goga from Rășinari and Lupaș from Săliște, and after having studied for a few years in the city of Astra and the Orthodox metropolis, they had the privilege in Brașov of having teachers of high pedagogical standing, and not only, such as : Iosif Blaga, Vasile Goldiș or Virgil Onițiu. Here, the young people from Sibiu had the opportunity to learn more about Romanian history and literature, about Romanian values in general and about the problems facing Romanians.
As a student in Budapest, Ioan Lupaș actively participated in the meetings of the student association “Petru Maior” and, together with O. Goga, O. Tăslăoanu, A. P. Bănuț, Al. Ciura and others, he is one of the founders of the magazine Luceafărul, to which writers from all over the mountains will contribute.
Appointed professor at the Andreean Institute in Sibiu in 1905, Ioan Lupaș opened his courses with a lecture on the origin of the Romanians. As the young professor’s subject and arguments did not please the authorities, the publication of this lecture in the columns of the Romanian Telegraph was stopped and the author was considered “persona non grata”, especially after the publication of the article “All ploughs walk” in the magazine “Țara noastră”, an article that earned him a prison sentence in Seghedin (1908) and a substantial fine, and he had to resign from his chair. “I remember,” says Onisifor Ghibu, “the day Lupaș left for Seghedin. He was accompanied to the station by the entire village, in a demonstration that was all the more impressive because it was spontaneous. Passengers on the same train were surprised to see so many people and so much enthusiasm at the station”.
Ioan Lupaș’s scholarly activity did not mean isolation in an ivory tower but, on the contrary, putting historical realities at the service of the social and political demands of his countrymen. Thus, in the years before the First World War, he collaborated with the most important periodicals, both in Transylvania and in the Old Country, such as Telegraful Român, Luceafărul, Țara noastră, Transilvania (Sibiu), Gazeta Transilvaniei (Brașov), Tribuna, Românul (Arad), Neamul Românesc, Convorbiri Literare (Bucharest), Viața Românească (Iași), Junimea literară (Cernăuți) will evoke the figures of Transylvanian protagonists such as Petru Maior, Gheorghe Barițiu, Gheorghe Lazăr, Avram Iancu, Andrei Mureșanu, etc. and culminated in a dissertation awarded by the Romanian Academy (1909) on the life and work of Andrei Șaguna.
Numerous other articles were dedicated to the Romanian language and the Romanian school, in the face of the official policy so active at the beginning of the century, articles that led him to the aforementioned Seghedin prison, together with political fighters from other provinces of the Empire, and to the deportation to the camp of Șopron in 1916, followed by a compulsory stay, until – very ill – he was sent home in 1917. On 1 December 1918, Ioan Lupaș took part in the Alba Iulia Assembly, as a member of the country’s Grand Council. As I was five years old at the time and also sick with the Spanish flu, I have no memory of that memorable day. My sister remembers that Miron Cristea, the future Patriarch of all Romania – then Bishop of Caransebeș – came and took my father to Alba Iulia in a carriage.
He was a member of the Transylvanian Provisional Government (1918-1920) as Secretary General for Religious Affairs and Public Education. He was a member of parliament several times and a minister twice.
I remember going to Cluj in 1919, the first visit of King Ferdinand and Queen Mary, who took me in their arms, kissed me and thanked me for the flowers I had given them.
T.B.: There was a close friendship and mutual admiration between Ioan Lupaș and Nicolae Iorga. What can you tell us about this relationship?
M.V.I.: Ioan Lupaș had the great opportunity to meet our great Nicolae Iorga during his student days in Budapest, where the great scholar, then a young professor, had come to do research in the archives. “At some point – Onisifor Ghibu recalls – the professor felt compelled to seek a meeting with the students from Ardeal to share with them some of his discoveries and studies. The meeting was moving. The professor gave them real lessons in history and Romanian patriotism, which electrified all the young people. When he was about to say his last words, a young student with tears in his eyes stood up and, with penetrating words, showed the teacher the deep gratitude of all the students of Transylvania. His last words were followed by the spontaneous singing of the national hymn “Wake up, Romanian!”
The teacher in Bucharest was Nicolae Iorga, and the young man who answered him was Ioan Lupaș, a second-year philosophy student.
In 1906, when Ioan Lupaș opened a cycle of conferences in Sibiu with a lecture on Gheorghe Barițiu, Nicolae Iorga wrote in the Chronicle of the Sămănătorului: “In Sibiu, the conferences begin. As was to be expected, Mr Lupaș, such a gifted young professor, opens the conference”, and in the columns of the same magazine he praises Ioan Lupaș’s conference as a “true literary work which – in small proportions – gives a full awareness of the role that the industrious teacher and politician has played in this field where he was a beginner”.
It was Nicolae Iorga who gave the reply to Ioan Lupaș’s reception speech in the Aula of the Romanian Academy on 8 June 1920 (Ioan Lupaș had been elected a corresponding member of the Academy in 1914 and a full member in 1916). In his reply, N. Iorga characterised the newly elected member’s conception of history by saying: “One has to choose between the different schools of historiography that are currently competing in the field. On the one hand, pragmatic history, which is concerned with chronology and the precise detail of facts, and on the other, the new cultural history, which is more concerned with what is deeper, more fundamental, more general in the life of the masses (…). I saw you coming to us when you were still young, because we represent this tendency, which is also linked to everything that tends to elevate the people in our time”. In fact, in his studies, Ioan Lupaș has always advocated the history of depth and not the history of the surface. “The bottom-up perspective – notes Al. Zub – remains unmistakable and is, of course, not unique. We have seen how numerous were the initiatives of N. Iorga, whose ideas and suggestions were taken up by other historians. Ioan Lupaș, as productive in the recovery of information as in its synthesis, must be mentioned among them, together with Ilie Minea, S. Dragomir, etc.”.
T.B.: Ioan Lupaș was the creator of the Historical School, which made a valuable contribution to the training of the first generations of historians at the University of Cluj. What can you tell us about Professor Ioan Lupaș?
M.V.I.: Ioan Lupaș had the vocation of a professor. He began his teaching career, as I said, as a professor at the Andreian Theological Institute, which he had to leave for political reasons. We will refer again to the memories of Prof. Onisifor Ghibu, which marked Ioan Lupaș’s farewell to his first teaching experience. “Four years earlier, the same seminary had made an excellent acquisition in the person of Dr. Lupaș, a teacher such as not many are born in a decade… there is not a single man with his training in the whole country”. Onisifor Ghibu had attended Ioan Lupaș’s inaugural lecture four years earlier and remarked: “Lupaș’s entry into the ranks of seminary professors was considered an event. The poor school had long yearned for teachers with academic authority. Lupaș was determined to raise his department to a truly academic level. His inaugural lecture, which I also attended (on the origins of the Romanians), exceeded even the most exaggerated expectations, and the young “theologians”, accustomed to a tradition of totally mediocre work, realised that times had changed radically”.
Appointed professor at the University of Cluj after the Union, he gave his inaugural lecture on 11 November 1919 on the subject of “Historical Factors in Romanian National Life”, which constituted the “programmatic guidelines of the Cluj Historical School”, in which he also explained his view of the duty of students. “If we cannot expect – as Ioan Lupaș argued in the above-mentioned lecture – that all our students become scientists, in the strict sense of the word, we have the right to demand that they seriously prepare themselves for the vocation that awaits them in the life of our nation, to be the best educators, precisely by spreading science, by the respect and lively interest that they must show in its progress, not only while they are citizens of this “Alma Mater”, but always and everywhere”.
Apart from the lectures, which the professor gave by speaking rather than by reading – and which captivated the audience – Ioan Lupaș placed particular emphasis on seminar exercises, in which he discussed questions of methodology and philosophy of history, considering them absolutely necessary for future teachers and researchers. Several memoirs by former students of Ioan Lupaș testify to his relationship with students, such as Biró Sándor, Mihail P. Dan, Carol Gollner, Rückblich, Varga Béla, to name but a few. Let’s take some of the testimonies of the late former professor of the University of Cluj, M. P. Dan:
“The interesting questions that Prof. I. Lupaș attracted me both by their novelty and by the charm that emanated from the person who spoke to us. We were there, in Professor Lupaș’s proseminar of 1931 – 1932, students of different nationalities and from different corners of the Romanian land: Romanians from Moldavia, Muntenia and Oltenia, Transylvanian Romanians, Hungarians, Szeklers and Saxons, working with true heart and love under the protective gaze and guided by the loving advice of the good professor (…). During this proseminar, a true spiritual community was created between us young people and Professor Lupaș, an older student – I could say – when I think that his whole life was an uninterrupted series of studies, archival research, efforts and struggles in the service of our nation!
The professor’s love for his students, his stern but benevolent admonitions, his advice to each of us, everything, but absolutely everything, helped to break down academic rigidity and gave the Romanian History Proseminar the atmosphere of an intimate “home”, where discussions were conducted without passion and where people, respecting each other’s opinions, held each other in high esteem (…). Whenever he noticed the slightest scientific spark in someone, Prof. Lupaș spared no effort to ignite it into a bright flame.
There are countless cases where Prof. Lupaș helped so many graduates to go to schools in Paris or Rome, or to get a scholarship for scientific workers abroad (…). Professor Lupaș was a true spiritual father to his students (…). Rigorously scientifically informed, with a critical spirit and great power of synthesis, Professor Lupaș represented for us the ideal image of the scholar, the learned man”.
T.B.: After 1944, the normal course of the scholar’s life was brutally and cruelly interrupted. What were the reasons and the manner of his arrest? What kind of life did he lead in prison?
M.V.I.: On the 23rd of August 1944, the University of Upper Dacia was still in Sibiu, where it had taken refuge after the Vienna dictate of the 30th of August 1940. My father was forced to take early retirement and left Sibiu with my mother. Dispersed by the same dictate, my brother returned to Cluj, while my sister and I remained in Bucharest, where we had also settled after 30 August 1940. It was not easy for my father, who was only 64 years old at the time, to give up his professorship, which, in normal times, would have allowed him to remain in contact with his students until the age of 70. In later years, he was also made a member of the Romanian Academy.
Although very weak, Ioan Lupaș continued his research in the Astra libraries and the Brukenthal Museum, in a certain peace, until one night in the spring of 1950, when he was “visited” by a Securitate team, his rented flat was brutally searched, his manuscripts and books were taken away without return, and my father was taken to the Securitate on the pretext of giving a statement. From there, as he would later say, he was put in a van with a sack over his head and taken to a destination unknown to my mother and the rest of the family. He was arrested and detained without trial. The charge seems to have been that he was part of some government of the old regime. For five years or more, it was impossible to communicate with anyone outside the prison walls. Those imprisoned at Sighet had no right to correspondence, to a spokesman, to parcels from home. It was like being on the island of Monte Cristo! My father, who was 70 years old at the time, was severely punished and even beaten for refusing food and going on hunger strike in protest at the treatment he was receiving. He was taken from his home in the same group as all the former dignitaries, including colleagues such as Gh. I. Brătianu, Al. Lapedatu, Ion Nistor, Th. Sauciuc-Săveanu, Constantin C. Giurescu, Victor Papacostea and many others. In the cell he was for a while with Ion Nistor, the former Minister of Basarabia, with Ștefan Meteș and then with Th. Sauciuc-Săveanu. Every morning, my father would hold a short service – an evening service – to keep up the spirits of those who shared his fate. But my father fervently believed that things would change, that goodness and truth would prevail. This explains why, although very frail, he persevered with all the weakness of his body and returned to his own. As for the prison regime, he refused to give us any information.
Although he was a good speaker, he was not a talker and did not like to talk about himself. I did not observe in him any accumulated hatred or desire for revenge against those who had caused him so much harm and pain. My father was a very good Christian and between revenge and forgiveness he chose the latter.
T.B.: How did the Red Plague unleash its fury on the great historian?
M.V.I.: My father had also composed a ballad of the deported “Pohod na Sighet”, but my mother, also torn by the emotions and worries caused by my father’s three arrests (two before 1918), was afraid to keep it.
My father’s books, as well as my work Aspects of Transylvanian History (published in Sibiu, 1945 – n.n.), were put on the Index (the so-called “Special Fund”), and the Homage volume (Homage to Ioan Lupaș on his 60th birthday). August 1940, Bucharest, 1943 – n.n.) ended up in the DAC, where it was melted down. Extremely few copies have survived, containing valuable material signed by prestigious names such as Gh. I. Brătianu, Charles Upson Clark, Vaclav Chaloupecky, Otto Folbert, Onisifor Ghibu, Kurt Horedt, Al. Lapedatu, St. Manciulea, Gh. Oprescu, Ramiro Ortiz, Sextil Pușcariu, Giandomenico Serra, to name just a few of the more than 90 contributions in the volume.
On his return, as soon as he entered the house, he turned to the shelves of books he had missed for five years, but to his great disappointment he could no longer see to read. Probably his eyesight had been weakened by insufficient and inappropriate food. He was, after all, nothing but bones and skin. After my father’s departure, my mother was moved to a single room, from which she was soon moved, probably because the authorities thought she was living too well, to a vestibule surrounded on all sides by glass, with the right to cook in the basement of the house.
This is where my mother and my daughter Ioana, 7 years old, were taken when, on 15 April 1972, I was arrested too – because I was the daughter of Ioan Lupaș – in a group of wives, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of former dignitaries. Too harshly, my mother suffered a cerebral collapse and remained paralysed for 21, no mistake, twenty-one years. My mother’s illness was perhaps as hard an ordeal for my father as his imprisonment. He was a real guardian angel for her. My brother, Semproniu Toma Lupaș, went from being a university lecturer to working in a tin shop or something like that, and my sister, Hortensia Georgescu, found it hard to find a few hours in a school on the outskirts of Bucharest. My husband (the great sculptor and writer Ion Vlasiu – n.n.) was refused the works he presented at the official salon. My parents’ household was gone, as well as that of my grandparents from Săliște. Everything that was taken from my parents’ house at the time of the arrest was never returned. Part of my father’s library (to mention only the Hurmuzachi collection) remained in Cluj, with the University of Cluj, after the Vienna Dictat and my father’s departure for Sibiu.
T.B.: What were the great scholar’s preoccupations from his release from prison until his death (3 July 1967)?
M.V.I.: Although my father underwent an operation, his eyesight no longer helped him to research or write. But not only that. He had to write according to certain canons which my father found difficult to follow. Here are two of his contributions from recent years: Two manuscripts with legal content in the work of Samuil Micu-Clain (in Studies and Researches in Literary History and Folklore, VI, 1957) and Transylvania’s relations with Wallachia. The activity of Cneaz Dumitru of Săliște (in the Anuar of the Institute of History from Cluj, IV, 1961).
T.B.: We are convinced that Ioan Lupaș left behind a rich correspondence and a large part of his work in manuscript. What has happened to them? Is there any possibility to publish them and to evaluate the whole work of the scholar?
M.V.I.: Only a part of my father’s correspondence has survived, which is kept in the archives of the Metropolitanate of Sibiu, and which the Metropolitan of Ardeal, Antonie Plămădeală, used in part in the three volumes of correspondence of the former Patriarch Miron Cristea, published in recent years.
Apart from the memories from the Seghedin dungeon, published in Paralelism istoric (Bucharest 1937), I am not aware that my father wrote any memoirs. Far from being an egomaniac, he confessed to me that he found it difficult to write about himself or to be the main character.
My brother is no longer alive, my sister and I are burdened with years of suffering to deal with the restitution of Ioan Lupaș’s work, and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren have turned to other paths. My father’s family has spread its branches across seas and countries: prof. dr. Marina Lupaș-Collinet, Ana-Maria Thomas, Anca Teodosiu, prof. Alexandru Herlea, eng. Sergiu Ștefănescu, with his four sons, eng. Nicolae Lupaș, Eng. Doru Lupaș, Eng. Adrian Lupaș, mathematician Virgil Lupaș, biologist Andrei Lupaș, Ruxandra Lupaș, Nicușor Teodosiu, prof. Ana-Maria Lupaș and Mariane Lupaș are in Germany; prof. dr. Liana Lupaș in New York, eng. Laurențiu Lupaș in Los Angeles, eng. Tiberiu Lupaș in San Francisco, Anca Cherebețiu in Mexico City. Perhaps one of these direct and collateral descendants will come to take over and fully restore the work of their ancestor Ioan Lupaș.
T.B.: Dear Professor, I have reserved the last questions of our dialogue only for you. So let’s continue. Ioan Lupaș was lucky enough to have one of his daughters, Marina, as his muse, Clio. Did your father awaken your love for the study of history and influence your training in this noble science?
M.V.I.: Yes and no. During lunch, my father would do Latin exercises with my brother, and when he had to give a lecture, he would read it to the whole family beforehand, which, together with his specialised library, contributed to our children’s education in the humanist spirit. I felt more attracted to linguistics, but not to disappoint my father, I chose history as my main subject at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Cluj.
However, the inexorable law of destiny meant that in 1954, after my release from prison, I was accepted as an external collaborator, in the end not a writer, at the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy, then of the P.R.R. Here I worked diligently and with great interest, words having their music and harmony, together with other people like me – I will only mention the old professor from Bukovina D. Tcaciuc – but also with very valuable young people, on the Dictionary of the Romanian Language, published in Bucharest in 1958. Also at the Institute of Linguistics and in the group led by Tudor Vianu, I worked on the Bibliografia analitică a limbii literare, 1780 – 1866, published in 1972.
T.B.: Earlier you made the statement: “… because I was the daughter of Ioan Lupaș, I was also arrested in a group of wives, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of former dignitaries”. Tell us about your arrest and imprisonment.
M.V.I.: On the night of 14-15 April 1952, three people came to my house and, after a thorough search, told me that I had to accompany them to the police station to make a statement. Having witnessed with indifference the deportation of Sași from Sibiu to the Soviet Union a few years earlier, and fearing a similar fate, I took my ski boots, from which another had escaped in the whirlwind of the ensuing search, thick clothes and a coat. As my husband was not at home, I entrusted the sleeping girl to my neighbour – that was how it was done in those days. They didn’t blindfold me because I was good: I didn’t scream, I didn’t faint, although I felt my strength failing and my heart pounding.
I got into a jeep and arrived at dawn in a large courtyard, the courtyard of prison no. 3 in Ghencea, where 100 people had gathered, some of whom I knew: 74 men and 26 women: wives, sisters and children of political prisoners. Among the women, the oldest was Mrs Dimopol, sister of the former Prime Minister Ion Gigurtu, over 80 years old, clear-headed, humorous and full of spirits. The youngest was Măriuca Vulcănescu, the youngest daughter of Mircea Vulcănescu, who died in Aiud prison. She was 18 years old and had beautiful features, she was beautiful, generous and detached from earthly things. Next in order of age was Carmen, a brunette (19 years old), daughter of the eminent professor Napoleon Crețu, whose brother was on the other side of the barbed wire and who grew up with her in the men’s group; then the beautiful and blonde Lucica Samsonovici, daughter of General Samsonovici. She was arrested together with her mother, Margareta Samsonovich. There was also Lili Jora, wife of the composer Mihail Jora and sister of Grigore Gafencu, a lady of high rank, Cordelia Tașcă, the younger daughter of the economist Tașcă, Mrs Logadi, daughter of Caragiale, Micheta Vulcănescu, sister of Mircea Vulcănescu, Mrs Alimănășteanu, sister and Sanda Leon, daughter of the economist Leon, two sisters of Ion Lugoșianu, two from Bucovina, sisters of a former minister Prelipceanu, Ecaterina Macovei, Mrs Manolescu Strunga, who managed to persuade the militiamen to bring her hot water from the washing machine in the evening, Ioana Popescu Necșești, daughter of Mr Stelian Popescu, Mrs Petrescu, wife of Titel Petrescu, Mrs Budurăscu, Dorinica Potârcă, Virgil Potârcă’s ex-wife, and Carmen Verona, Sauciuc-Saveanu’s daughter, the latter forming a difficult trio with me, as I had left all the children under ten at home.
Later I met there Elena Brătianu, wife of the historian Gheorghe I. Brătianu, Flora Dragomir, wife of the historian Silviu Dragomir, Sanda Negroponte, daughter of Gheorghe Tătărăscu, and the writer Petronela Negoșanu.
The first to escape was I.L. Caragiale’s daughter, probably because the centenary of the great writer’s birth was being celebrated at the time. Lili Jora had a hard time with the absurdity and harshness of prison and was released after six months. Lili Jora, Micheta Vulcănescu and I had records of sleepless nights.
In July, after several months of pointless investigations, we received administrative punishment as a group, with the strongest being sent to a labour colony on the Popești-Leordeni farm. We were housed in the magnificent Romalo House, a listed building which the architect Ștefan Balș had designed and written about. I watched its degradation with pain. I was the neighbour of a dormitory with common-law inmates, picturesque in their own way, to use a euphemism. About three of them tried to escape, without too serious consequences. We were put into a work detail under the command of a former actress from a Cluj theatre, also a prisoner. At the end of the first month she reported us to the camp commander for not fulfilling our duties, and we were deprived of our visit time and our parcels.
We had to get up at three in the morning to go to the fields at five. Before we left, we fought over our shovels, usually fewer than we were, very primitive, with knotted tails, far too heavy for our frail muscles. A 70-year-old female farmer was proficient. Behind us, the others, the weeds that we thought had been conquered rose vertically again. But we also did more demanding work: we built dikes!
In Bucharest I never had time to look at the sky. There, I knew all its nuances. Sometimes, when an aeroplane appeared, I saw in it the rescuing bird carrying Americans on its wings. But they were late. Towards evening we dragged our feet back to camp – many of us with sore feet, having put on whatever shoes we could – where the queues began for the showers, the toilets, the evening meal. This was usually followed by work peeling potatoes, peas, etc.
Although we were exhausted, instead of resting, we went into a state of nervous excitement and began to make fun of things.
On 15 January 1953, in the early hours of the morning, I and a peasant woman were put in a wagon in the freezing cold, under a glass like sky, and taken to Ghencea prison, where we were released.
As we did not have a penny with us, a passing lorry took pity on us and took us to the city “with our sacks on our backs”, but without “weapons” in our hands.
T.B.: In your biography in the “Encyclopaedia of Romanian Historiography”, published in 1978, it is mentioned that you worked as a secondary school teacher, then as an archivist and senior researcher. First of all, we are interested in how you came to be an archivist and what were your conditions as an archivist, then how did you establish yourself professionally after leaving political imprisonment until you were appointed – as a researcher – at the Nicolae Iorga Institute in Bucharest?
M.V.I.: I was an archivist only during my studies – in my fourth year – replacing Aurel Decei, who had gone abroad on a scholarship. The director of the State Archives in Cluj at that time was the historian Ștefan Meteș, who was as good as hot bread and a lover of archival research, which he used in extensive works on the Romanian economy and socio-cultural life. He was not spared the rigours of the Sighet dungeon either, sharing a cell with historians Ion Nistor, Ioan Lupaș and others.
After I left the prison, before I was admitted to the Institute of Linguistics, I translated for internal use, at the request of the C.S.A.C., I quattro libri di architectture by the famous 16th century architect Palladio (the book was published in Vicenza in 1570), a rather arduous exercise for me, unfamiliar with specialist terminology, but nevertheless a real pleasure, in the professional collapse in which I found myself and which I endured for almost a year.
T.B.: For a while, the country’s historical institutes, the great libraries and state archives in the university centres of Bucharest, Cluj and Iași were considered as “asylums” for many of the nation’s intellectual values. When you were appointed to the “Nicolae Iorga” History Institute, under what conditions (climate) and with what achievements did you work here? Have you known such values in this institute, which has the quality of “asylum seekers”?
M.V.I.: After the above-mentioned internship at the Institute of Linguistics (1954-1957), I was reintegrated into the Institute of History in 1957, in the Department of Universal History, where I collaborated with Maria Holban, Paul Cernovodeanu and Matilda Alexandrescu Bulgaru-Dersca on the collection “Călători stăini despre Țările Române”, published in several volumes. In 1968 I finally retired from family life, as my health was in a very bad state.
(Toader Buculei – Clio in prison. Testimonies and Opinions on the Fate of Romanian Historiography in the Era of Communist Totalitarianism, Libertatea Publishing House, Braila, 2000, pp. 142-155; interview by Toader Buculei taken from A Book of Pain (1994) and completed on 3 April 1997).
Ioan Lupaș, a major figure in Romanian historiography, was born on 9 August 1880 in the commune of Săliște, Sibiu County. He attended high school in Sibiu and Brasov (baccalaureate in 1900) and higher education in Budapest and Berlin. Doctorate in history and Latin (1904). He undertook study trips to Bavaria, Tyrol and Italy with Octavian Goga (1905). Active member of the “Petru Maior” Academic Society and one of the founders of the journal “Luceafărul” (1902). Professor at the Andreean Institute in Sibiu (1905-1909). Dean of Săliște (1909-1920). Participant in the Great National Assembly in Alba Iulia (1918). Member of the Grand Council (1918) and Secretary-General for Worship and Public Instruction in the Governing Council (1918-1920). Minister of Health and Social Welfare (30 March 1926 – 4 June 1927) and Minister of Worship and the Arts (28 December 1937 – 10 February 1938). Member of Parliament (1919-1929, 1922-1927). Professor of History at the University of Cluj (1919-1946). Founder and co-director of the Institute of National History in Cluj (1920-1945). Member of the Commission for the Preservation of Historical Monuments, Transylvania section. Member of the Central Committee and President of the Historical Section of Astra. Winner of the Adamachi Prize of the Romanian Academy (1933-1935); expelled from the Academy in 1948, reinstated on 3 July 1990. He died in Bucharest on 3 July 1967.
Historian of the Romanian Middle Ages, especially of Transylvania. He distinguished himself through his research on the Transylvanian Voievodate, in which he outlined a problematic and original interpretation. He also distinguished himself as a historian of the villages of Transylvania, of the history of the masses, to which he dedicated in-depth pages that paved the way for the study and interpretation of the great peasant uprisings. He studied the history of the Romanian Church in Transylvania, in which he saw a framework for the manifestation of the Romanians in medieval and modern times, until the unification of 1918. Contributions to the study of the history of Romanian culture, highlighting the original creation of the Romanian people. Extensive studies on the history of the struggle for national emancipation, systematically traced from the 17th century until the achievement of national unity. Author of studies on the theory of history and the history of historiography, often acting as an initiator in this field.