The Romanian Revolution Seen From Abroad

In 1989, for an interval of nine days, between December 16 and 25, the Romanian world went through some of the worst turmoil in its 20th century history

Steliu Lambru, 19.12.2022, 20:27

In 1989, for an interval of nine days, between December 16 and 25, the Romanian world went through some of the worst turmoil in its 20th century history. It was a return to the freedom that had been lost for 45 years, starting with the arrival of the Soviet armed forces in 1944. On the evening of December 16, 1989, in Timisoara, protests against the forced evacuation of pastor Laszlo Tokes from his own home were soon to turn into a tidal wave that swept from power the criminal communist regime.

Journalist Mircea Carp was a senior editor with Radio Free Europe, and in 1997 he told Radio Romania’s Center for Oral History the tension he felt in front of the microphone at that time. He believed it was more than his professional duty to keep his listeners in the country informed about the great deeds of courage in Timisoara. Carp confessed that, in spite of the feeling in the air, the conflagration that was the revolution took everyone by surprise:

“December 1989 came around, and with it the first spark, the events in Timisoara. I have to say that it took us by surprise in terms of the moment they occurred. We had steeled ourselves personally, but also in terms of preparation of programs, around a possible change of regime in Romania. However, the day of 16th, and the following day, December 17th 1989, came upon us unawares.

However, once it was sparked, the euphoria was unbridled. Free Europe journalists were the more stoked as they could not be in the fulcrum of events in order to broadcast as eye witnesses. Here Mircea Carp:

“The first to broadcast what was happening in Timisoara was my colleague, Sorin Ciunea. After two or three days, starting on December 18, we gathered our wits about us and started working in shifts, 24 hours a day. We worked around the clock in teams of 3 or 4, preparing these broadcasts in a big hurry, based solely on information that we had from foreign press agencies and some travelers to and from Romania. Of course, we didn’t have solid, hard information at that point, we only did so after the explosion on December 21 and 22. Up until then we were working furiously.

In 1999, Hungarian journalist Peter Marvanyi from Radio Budapest told Radio Romania’s Center for Oral History how he got caught up in the fever of news of the Romanian revolution. One year before, Marvanyi had covered the grand rally in Hungary’s capital, demanding freedom and democracy:

“In 1988 I had participated in Budapest in the rally that had gathered 80 to 100 thousand people, demanding democracy for both countries, Romania and Hungary. Things got interesting when, on December 16, the Hungarian public broadcaster started shifting its attention and getting informed on events going on in Romania. I was the editor for news broadcasts the days after the 16th, and we started telling our listeners all around Hungary what was happening in Romania. We had very contradictory information, we knew absolutely nothing about it. We only knew one thing for sure, that something extremely important was happening.

In 2003, Radio Romania’s Center for Oral History asked civic activist Dinu Zamfirescu, who was in France in 1989, how he spent the days around the Romanian revolution:

“First of all, I was informed by French radio and TV stations. I was called upon by two of them, especially France 3, where I was on the air every day. I was the token Romanian, I was with the two anchors commenting the Romanian situation. I remember that there were two monitors on the set that the viewers could not see, and on them I could see the news as they streamed in. On December 25, we got the news of Ceausescu’s execution. This was very hot news. When this hot piece of news came in, I was asked to comment on it. I had to say that it was the first big mistake of the new regime coming to power in Romania. I said back then that Ceausescu should be kept alive and interrogated, in order to provide more information. I said then that it was likely that some of those who were coming to power were afraid to have some things known about themselves. So that, when a former French foreign minister said that the execution was a good thing, I retorted, and said that this maybe gentleman himself had some things to hide. Which was not outside the realm of possibility. However, today I would not say the same thing, and maybe it is better that things happened like that.

Up until December 22, 1989, Romanians, their neighbors, and the whole civilized world were getting informed by foreign media. Fortunately, on that fateful day the media in Romania were getting free of their shackles, and started obeying the will of the people.