JUSTICE AND REPRESSION IN COMMUNIST ROMANIA: THE TRIAL OF GREEK-CATHOLIC BISHOP ALEXANDRU RUSU IN 1957
JUSTICE AND REPRESSION IN COMMUNIST ROMANIA: THE TRIAL OF GREEK-CATHOLIC BISHOP ALEXANDRU RUSU IN 1957

Summary/Abstract: In early July, 1957, the Greek-Catholic Bishop of Maramureş, Alexandru Rusu was sentenced, following a mock trial, to a lifetime heavy detention. Thus, in the year that has to be the 73rd anniversary, Bishop Rusu had to face, again, almost two years after its discharge in the "relative freedom", the rigors of communist prisons. This time, the prison experience of would be fatal, bishop Rusu ceasing from living on May 9, 1963. The present study, that take advantage of both recent history and unpublished archives sources, aims to reconstruct the internal and external circumstances in which the trial occurred and the stakes of the judicial presentations. In the same time, the study seeks to argue the limits of destalinization in the middle of the sixth decade of the last century, illustrated by the violent answer of the Communist authorities to the movement of Greek-Catholics in the summer of 1956. Last but not least, the study reveals the important role of the Secret Police (Securitatea) and communist justice in the construction of the political guilt and repression.

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