Mihail Roller şi „stalinizarea” istoriografiei româneşti
Mihail Roller and the “Stalinization” of Romanian Historiography

Summary/Abstract: A few years after they took power and secured a strong political position, the Romanian Communists implemented the first measures meant to lead to a complete subordination of culture to the party’s policies. This “cultural revolution” took place by means of repression (leading intellectuals were arrested and sent to prison or expelled from the Romanian Academy and from their respective universities; censorship was introduced etc), but also by means of persuasion (some intellectuals were willing to collaborate and accepted to promote the party’s interests). One of the first steps took in this direction was to replace the intellectual elite from between the wars with supporters of the Communist regime. Most of the latter had no qualifications or scientific activity that would have justified their academic promotion. On the contrary, they were usually people who were only marginally relevant in their profession. However, they were important for the party as tools in the process of implementation of the new cultural policies; therefore their main quality was their strong commitment to Communism. In historiography, a relevant case is that of Mihail Roller, a party historian who had studied in Moscow and made a name for himself as a Communist during the period when the party had been outlawed. However, after old Romanian Academy ceased its activity and was replaced by the Academy of the Socialist Republic Romania (which, after 1948, was only the simulacrum of an academic institution), Roller was elected vice-president of the new Academy. Due to his public offices and the power granted to him by the party, Roller managed to control the whole historiographic activity in Romania between 1948 and 1955. His speeches set a standard of interpretation which was supposed to be followed by all the other historians of the time. Romania’s history started to be re-written according to the party’s propaganda purposes. The main themes become the conflict between social classes (which was regarded as the propellant of historical events) and condemnation of the bourgeoisie and the nobility. Among the favorite themes we should also mention the praise brought to USSR and the relentless attacks against Western countries. Since 1955, after Stalin’s death, Roller’s position becomes more and more vulnerable. Several prestigious historians such as Andrei Oţetea and Constantin Daicoviciu accused Roller of plagiarism and lack of professionalism in his work. Dissatisfied with Roller’s authoritarian attitude, his own collaborators turned against him as well. In the summer of 1958, during the Communist Party’s Congress, Roller was again under attack as one of the people who had criticized Gheorghiu-Dej’s activity. Therefore, a few days after the congress was over, Roller committed suicide.

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