Talk:Romanian Revolution of 1989/Archive 1

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There's a duplicate to this article with other contents at Romanian riots. Bogdan | Talk 17:37, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Contents

big merge

I've now merged that (and attempted cleanup). The article I merged in was very POV. I've done my best to at least tone that down. More work in that direction may still be in order. Also, the article is pretty much devoid of references, although it appears to me to be substantially correct.

Some questions (now mostly answered and worked into the article; below is a summary of what's still open 01:47, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)):

  1. What is someone liable to have meant by "civil securists"? Specifically Securitate? or Securitate and ordinary police?
    ordinary people that denunced other people to the Securitate
  2. "...where they stopped and waved a flag without the coat of arms." What coat of arms? Does this mean the hammer and sickle (which we would never describe in English as a "coat of arms" because of the aristocratic connotations of that phrase)? Or does it mean something else, and actual coat of arms?
    That one. I don't think we have it.
  3. Could someone verify that my translations of the slogans shouted in Timişoara are correct?
    yes, they're correct.
  4. The article that was already on this page simply asserted, "On December 21, Ceauşescu held a public speech in the capital from the balcony of the Communist Party palace, Casa Poporului..." I gather, though, that the more famous attempt to address the crowd — his last — was the following day from what was then the headquarters of the Central Committee of the CPR, opposite the royal palace / art museum on what is now Piaţa Revoluţie. (I do not know for sure what the square was called in Communist times; is this the Piaţa Palatului referred to elsewhere in the article?) This is of some importance, because the balcony on that building would have placed him only a few meters away from the crowd, whereas an address from the balcony of the Casa Poporului would be from a distance of several stories above the ground. Am I right to gather that the speech on December 21 was from the Casa Poporului and the speech on December 22 from the building I'm thinking of? And at the time that was the Central Committee building? That's how I'll write it for now, but can someone who actually knows the facts please review and sort this out?
    The Royal Palace is facing the Piaţa Palatului and that's now Piaţa Revoluţiei.
  5. By the time Ceauşescu made that speech, weren't there also protests in Sibiu? Neither merged article said this, but I believe it to be the case.
    I don't know about this.
  6. "workers from many industrial platforms..." I have no clear idea what this means so I have left it for now. Maybe "workers from many factories"?
    An industrial platform was a large (communist style) factory or a group of them in the same industrial zone.
  7. "The barrages that stopped access to Piaţa Universităţii and Piaţa Palatului..." "Barrages"? Just maybe, so I've left it, but a barrage would mean continuous fire, typically from heavy weapons. I suspect maybe "police barricades" was meant? But I'm not sure. Does anyone have the facts of this?
    yep. ("police barricades")
  8. "After 11 A.M., Victor Stănculescu, now head of the army... orders them to withdraw, and then reports that the crowd has invaded the Palace Square." I don't know what to make of this. Earlier statements imply that by this time the army had gone over to the other side. I assume the reality is what I always believed it to be: that at this point the army was divided. Anyway, besides fixing the verb tense (I've been fixing that repeatedly)... what does it mean "reports that the crowd has invaded the Palace Square." Hadn't the crowd been there for some time? Isn't that where Ceauşescu attempted to address them?
    probably it should be they invaded the University Square. I don't know for sure. I'll have to check it.
  9. "...the post office from Drumul Taberei..." I've left that intact only because I don't know what to do with it. At the very least, I assume it should be "...the post office on Drumul Taberei...", but this rings no bells for me. Is this Bucharest's main post office, in which case we should say so, or just a branch, in which case we should indeed mention what street it is in.
    "Drumul Taberei" is both a quarter/district (cartier) and a road name.
  10. What's Casa Scânteii? I know I've heard the name, but I can't place it.
    Now it's called Casa Presei Libere. It's in the north of Bucharest, toward Baneasa.
    • I know it well, I've been there for a book launch, I didn't recognize the Communist-era name. -- Jmabel 00:34, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)
  11. What's the Republic Palace? I assume it has a different name now, which is why I can't place it.
    Maybe the House of the People (it was also called the House of the Republic). Bogdan | Talk 19:03, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Summary of what's still open 01:47, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)
  • I'd love to get an appropriately licensed image of the Communist-era flag (not so much for this page as for Communist Romania and Romanian flag).
  • I'd still like to know what happened when in Sibiu.
  • "After 11 A.M., Victor Stănculescu, now head of the army..." etc.: this question is still open.
  • Can anyone give more than a maybe on "the Republic Palace" being the Casa Populorului? Since it should be a matter of history where the paratroopers landed, this should be possible to work out from other sources.
  • And, of course, the issues of omission mentioned below are still open.
Jmabel 01:47, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

Also some remarks on changes I made.

  1. I've removed a lot of POV material, mostly purple prose about the glory of the revolution.
  2. I changed "Cathedral" to "Romanian Orthodox Cathedral", because in English the former, unqualified, suggests a Roman Catholic cathedral.
  3. I am assuming that "TAB's" meant "TAB armored personnel carriers". On the third mention, it says "Transport Auto Blindat, a tank with wheels", which only tends to confirm this; I never knew before what TAB stood for.
  4. I have made several interpolations and clarifications; e.g. the phrases "...having hastened back from Iran..." and "...now in rebellion..." were mine.
  5. added "It remains a matter of dispute whether army and other leaders turned against Ceauşescu out of sincere revulsion at his policies (as many later claimed) or simply out of opportunism." No I don't have a citation for that, but I've certainly heard enough Romanians put forth both of these theories, as well as some too baroque to mention.
  6. added "The previous day's crowd had come together because of Ceauşescu's announced intention to address them."

I'm by no means finished with the merge, but I'm breaking for the night. I do promise to finish up tomorrow.

I see some issues of omission, though, besides the matter of Sibiu, mentioned above:

  1. There really should be some discussion of the degree of chaos during the fighting in Bucharest, such as the fight at Otopeni, where — from what I've heard — two army factions faced off, each under the mistaken impression that the other was still loyal to Ceauşescu; I'm sure there was much other similar chaos.
  2. There should probably be a lot more discussion — with citations — of different views of what may have been going on among the leadership of the old regime, who defected when, etc.
  3. With reference to the seizure of the national TV station by the insurgents, there should probably be some discussion of what was broadcast; I've seen the footage, it's pretty amazing, but I can't recount in any detail television footage I saw exactly once, several years ago, in a language that at the time I was only about two months into learning.
  4. There should probably be a mention of monuments to the revolution: the cemetery at Eroii Revoluţiei and the memorial at Piaţa Universitaţii among others in Bucharest; the monument in the Piaţa Mare in Sibiu (and I would presume there must be a more important monument in Timişoara).
  5. Also, we should really mention the extent of damage to the library, art museum, etc. in the center of Bucharest, and probably a bit about what it's taken to repair these and other damaged buildings.

Jmabel 18:18, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

"TAB" means indeed "Transportor Auto Blindat" = "Armored personnel carrier". Its armor is rather light and it is armed only with a heavy machinegun. Calling it a "tank" (even with wheels) is too much. MihaiC 09:30, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Terrorists

Just a couple of comments on the "terrorists":

  • the rumours were that terrorists were Arabs called in by Ceausescu (he had some 'special relations' with some Arab nations) -- some Arabs were arrested during the revolution because they looked 'suspicious', but it turned out they were students, not terrorists. :-)
  • some say that there were *no* 'terrorists', but simply different army groups shot at each other, each one believing that the others were terrorists, but this is not believable, because of the high death toll.
  • I am certain of the intervention of some black, unmarked helicopters that were certainly much larger than the helicopters of the Romanian Army, however, without any proof, I think we should not write about them in Wikipedia. (It's interesting that when some guy with a machine gun aboard a black helicopter is shooting at you, you run instead of taking photographs for evidence :-) Bogdan | Talk 20:44, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have serious doubs that there were any "terorists" in the real sense of the word. My personal theory is that Securitate used desinformation at a big scale. That allowed them to organised for the new period (hide money and documents, eliminate personal enemies and who knows what else). Given the confusion that ruled in that days that wasn't hard and there wan't necessary for a large number of people, just a few trained operatives that knew what to do. Solders in the army were little trained and think of what a scared young man that fear for its life can do with a weapon in his hands. From my own experience (I was 14 years old at that time, living in Slobozia) :

People gathered at projects entrace to discuss the events; shootings were heard and everybody get inside the block; in about 2 (two) minutes people exit and stood outside; with so many 15-20 people grups in clear spots it is obvious IMO that casualities could have been much higher if there would have been someone determined to do that.
Someone fired a few shots from a 10 floors block toward the military unit that was 2-300 meters away; the solders were just one month in the army and barely knew how to handle the armament; they responded the 'attack' and in a few minutes they fired several thousands rounds (some solders fired ALL the rounds they received). A terorist or a combination of one men + one pistol + one units full of young scared trigger-happy men?
The town was ordered to turn off all the lights (some enthusiastic youngs went on streets to yell to those who remained with lights on). In the dark we heard some distinct helicopter sounds, but I didn't found out exactly what it was. Of course that next day everybody talked about the terorists that came by helicopter and landed in the small forest near the town.
One ambulance comeing from Urziceni was announce by annonim call that carry terorists. A road block was organised. For unknown reasons the ambulance didn't stoped at solders sign and at the next cross roads was cought in machine-gun cross-fire (from tanks or TABs). In the ambulance there was just the driver (an actual ambulance-driver) and another person.
I a few days I went to my grandparents at Cazanesti (a village 30 km weast of Slobozia). There we heard that terorists tried to attack the village large pig farm (!!!) and that (unarmed) citizen retained 2 terorists.
I realised some years later when I saw again the immages - in some sqare in Bucharest people tried to hide behind tanks when shootings started. When 50 or so people 'hide' behind a tank, you have to be inspector Clouseau to miss them.MihaiC 08:56, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

...and other hard-to-prove matters

I would love to see someone who knows Romania better than I do — preferably someone from there, with an open mind about the competing stories — compile a compendium of the different, conflicting theories of what was going on that week, with clear attributions as to who has claimed what. I've heard so many contradictory versions of things that I hardly dare enter the fray, and my time in Romania was 2001-2. -- Jmabel 21:42, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Copyright notice???

I see a recently added "copyright notice" in the body of the article:

COPYRIGHT NOTICE most contents borrowed from the excellent book "Cinci ani din Istoria României" ("Five years from the history of Romania") by Domniţa Ştefănescu, available somewhere in Bucharest, I think :)

  1. What kind of remark, in the article itself, is "available somewhere in Bucharest, I think :)"
  2. Are you telling me that the bunch of material I just carefully merged in from another article is a copyright violation? If so, why didn't you speak up before the merge and spare me several hours of tedious work? And are you systematically adding photos to which we have no legal right?

I leave it to someone else to sort this through, because I'm pretty livid. If the taking of material is large enough to constitute a copyright violation, I suppose we have to peal back a bunch of work I did and go about the tedious job of having someone with programmer access peel back the history of the article, since we can't leave the copyvios even in the history. If not, and it falls within fair use, then will someone appropriately edit this to a normal acknowledgment of a reference? If no one has appropriately clarified the matter within a week, I will reluctantly take the initiative to flag this article as a probable copyvio and handle accordingly. -- Jmabel 09:40, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

& for good measure, a change comment makes clear that the pictures come from http://www.infotim.ro/memorial89/memorial89.htm, which clearly contains copyright information. Revolutionary, barring the unlikely possibility that you are Domniţa Ştefănescu and run http://www.infotim.ro/memorial89/memorial89.htm, what exactly is it you think you are doing? -- Jmabel 09:49, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

I see from Revolutionary's page that he claims to be (and probably is) "a 13-year old student at School number 11 in Bucharest". Will someone, preferably a compatriot, please give him a lesson about copyright? And is someone willing to take primary responsibility for sorting through this mess? -- Jmabel 10:02, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

Explanations

OK, since I started this chaos I should clear it up by giving explanations and answers...

big merge First of all, I had to translate the entire text from Romanian, and there it said "securişti în civil", and I naively translated it as "civil securists". Literally it would mean "securists from civilian ranks" or something like that... it probably means civilians recruted to the Securitate voluntarely...

The coat of arms is very disputed anyway. Our communist flag featured sheaves of wheat, a mountain landscape or so and a red star. That was the coat of arms I was reffering to. During the Revolution, because of this red star, the flag was desacrated: the entire coat of arms was forcedly cut off or ripped off, giving the famous December flag, with a large hole in the middle of the yellow stripe.

Yes, there were protests and riots in Cluj, Lugoj and Sibiu, I have pictures of them.

"After 11 A.M., Victor Stănculescu, now head of the army... orders them to withdraw, and then reports that the crowd has invaded the Palace Square". "Palace Square" is a naive translation of the Romanian "Piaţa Palatului" which literally means, Palace Square.

"Drumul Taberei" literally means, "The road of the camp" in English.

I don't know how to translate "TAB", but my family describes it as a sort of tank that has wheels instead of tracks, and that's the reason I've said it was "a tank with wheels".

I don't know how to define "copyright" or anything related, so that's why I caused all this chaos on Wikipedia. I should have said, 'Contents inspired/borrowed from the book...'

I hope my explanations are enough.

I sincerely apologize for causing (although not deliberately) this entire chaos.

And my name is Cristi Ştefănescu, I live in Bucharest and I am a 13-year old student.

Again, I apologize.

UPDATE: I made a mistake in the article: "The jeers and whistles... after a rocket explodes". It's not a rocket. I just forgot how the Romanian word "petardă" is translated to English, but I think it's "firework"

Thanks. A few comments (and questions), the less important ones first
  • Yes, I understood the literal (and irrelevant) meaning of Drumul Taberei (though, unsruprisingly, I would have assumed it to be the name of a road, but not of a neighborhood). My question was whether the post office there might be (unbeknownst to me) Bucharest's main post office.
  • Bogdan correctly understood "civil securists", I edited accordingly.
  • "Palace Square" is a naive translation of the Romanian "Piaţa Palatului" Aha! I was uncertain if it might be the name of somewhere in Centrul Civic by the Casa Populorului...
  • I worked out "TAB" correctly: "armored personnel carrier".
  • Protests and riots in Cluj, Lugoj and Sibiu: the most important thing would be the dates. I'm pretty certain there were protests in Sibiu before there were in Bucharest; maybe in these other cities, too. We should mention that.
  • Copyright: this is the biggie. Cristi and I have exchanged a couple of emails, but the best thing would probably be for someone there in Bucharest — any volunteers? — to sit down with him (and ideally with the book in question), give him a good explanation of copyright, and work out whether what he did is fair use or not, and then sort this out accordingly.
BTW, Cristi, given your age, I'm really impressed, both with the general coherence of your writing and with the fact that you can do this in a language that is not native to you. At the same age, I'd have had a hard enough time buying groceries in any language other than my own. -- Jmabel 19:50, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

I think that a better translation of "securişti în civil" would be "securists in plain cloths" or "securists in civil cloths". Something like the detectivs from the US police force.MihaiC 09:12, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That should be "clothes" not "cloths" and would end up most likely as "plainclothes securists" (by analogy to "plainclothes police"), except that "securists" is not an English word. I didn't understand it when I first saw it, and doubt others will. Also, it implies being on the payroll, just not in uniform. Is that accurate or misleading? -- Jmabel|Talk 19:22, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

My mistake in english language. The corect full form would be "plainclothes secret-police agents". Yes, they were on the payroll as agensts/officers in the Securitate (sectret police). MihaiC 07:59, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It seems that we made a mistake regarding TAB. According with the link I posted in the TAB page, the name means "Transportor Amfibiu Blindat" (armored amphibious personal carrier). I am not sure if is the same TAB that romanian army had in 1989, but it is very likely.MihaiC 12:30, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"sympathy"

Recently added: "The whole sympathy Romania gained from the outside world with the Revolution was lost during the days of 13-15 June 1990" I do not know what this means. I assume that "The whole sympathy..." means "All of the sympathy..."? It doesn't say why. Is this when the miners routed the student protestors in Bucharest? Even so, I think this (1) overstates the case: surely Romania did not lose all sympathy and (2) is rather POV. A statement like this requires quotation and citation, not statement in the narrative voice of the article. -- Jmabel|Talk 08:05, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

1. I don't know what POV means; 2. The international opinion was outraged at what happened those days 3. Yes, those were the days of the mineriad... Watch the Mineriad article for more. (unsigned, but it's User:Revolutionary)

"POV" means "point of view". Wikipedia articles are supposed to maintain a neutral point of view. Yes, I agree that international opinion was outraged. The wording is still an overstatement, and it's also exactly the kind of thing where, in order to keep the narrative voice of the article to a neutral point of view one wants to quote some specific outside source to this effect, rather than just assert it.

Again, I renew my call: is there someone in Bucharest who can be a bit of a mentor? We have an obviously extremely capable young person here, but his contributions will be a lot more valuable with a little guidance in aspects of scholarly work that it would simply not be reasonable to expect even a very bright 13-year-old to fully grasp on his own without guidance. I was a plenty sharp 13-year-old myself once, and I know I would have needed some mentoring on this kind of thing. -- Jmabel|Talk 21:11, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I could try.If he wants, he can contact me at mihai8400@yahoo.com MihaiC 11:10, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Important announcement

<This talk page content seems to have been duplicated in the last few days. I believe everything was exactly identical in the two copies except the following paragraph, apparently added in two variants 31 Oct 2004 by User:Revolutionary. I have preserved both versions as I cleaned up. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:51, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)>

One of the controversies is solved about the photos. I looked up my deleted files and noticed I had asked that institute about "a online encyclopedia" using those photos and they answered: "Da, cu conditia mentionarii provenientei!" meaning "Yes, but with one condition: mention where they came from". I must've deleted that file by accident.

One problem solved: I accidentally deleted an email long ago from the place which I got the photos from, and they gave Wikipedia permission to use the photos, but only if they mention where they came from.

- Revolutionary

So does this mean that you will add that information about provenance and permission to the Image pages? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:53, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Final solving

The controversy about "copyright" was solved. I met with an old friend who works for a publishing house and he told me that there isn't any copyright problems here. The problem was that I was stupid enough to mention the book then. Sorry

Fine, up to a point, but you don't suppress mention of sources just because you're allowed to use them! You might want to take a look at Wikipedia:cite sources. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:06, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)