The Romanian Revolution of December 1989.

• Author: Milena
• Position: Book review

The Romanian revolution of December 1989

Peter Siani-Davies, Cornell University Press, Iataca and London, 2005

After almost 10 years since the Romanian revolution of December 1989, both the academic community and public opinion of Romania, have still many doubts regarding the nature and the exact unfolding of those events. Peter Siani- Davies, one of the few western researchers involved in the study of the Romanian society, through his excellent work "The Romanian Revolution of December 1989", offers a detailed account of the Romanian revolutionary upheaval and of the difficult birth of democracy in Romania, giving at the same time an important contribution on the elucidation of the myths and realities of the Romanian revolution.

Following a linear and chronological structure, the author begins by analysing the causes of the Romanian revolution of December 1989, identifying grounds like the extreme food rationing that kept for years the population to the limit of starvation, the persistent human rights abuses with a particular focus on the restriction of abortions that determined the highest rates of maternal mortality in Europe, the rigidity of command economy, the peculiarities of Ceausescu's neo-Stalinist coercion-based regime, the lack of an organised dissidence correlated to the general popular discontent and the changed international context.

The author emphasises that this hardship of life conditions and the brutality of the communist regime in Romania was not a novelty in 1989, and seeks in-depth explanations of why the country erupted in revolution in December 1989 analysing the mechanisms of revolt and using detailed examples in connection to a solid theoretical foundation.

The following chapters provide the reader with a descriptive, but also analytical perspective of the events of December 1989, dividing it in two phases, prior and post December 22nd, the date of the capture of Nicolae Ceausescu and the establishment of the new leadership. With regard to the first phase, the author pays a particular attention to events like the eruption of the revolution in Timisoara, the escalation of the crisis through the spreading of revolts all over the country and the succession of events in Bucharest, describing it literary hour by hour. As for the second phase, the author concentrates on the description of the general chaos generated by the fear of the so called "terrorists" and on the active role played by the television in the shaping...