Mihail Roller

Mihail Roller
Roller'smug shot,1933
Born	(1908-05-06)6 May 1908 Buhuși,Neamț County,Kingdom of Romania
Died	21 June 1958(1958-06-21)(aged 50) Bucharest,People's Republic of Romania
Other names	Mihai Roller, Mihail Rolea, Mihail Rollea
Academic background
Influences	Friedrich Engels,Vladimir Lenin,Karl Marx,Joseph Stalin,Andrei Zhdanov
Academic work
Era	20th century
School or tradition	Marxism–Leninism,Zhdanov Doctrine
Main interests	Marxist historiography,history of Romania,oral history
Notable works	Pagini ignorate din istoria României moderne(1945) Pedagogia în URSS(1947) Istoria R.P.R.(1947 etc.) Anul revoluționar 1848(1948)
Resting place	Cenușa Crematorium,Bucharest

Mihail Roller(Romanian pronunciation:[mihaˈilˈrolər],first name alsoMihai,also known asRoleaorRollea;6 May 1908 – 21 June 1958) was aRomaniancommunist activist, historian and propagandist, who held a rigid ideological control over Romanian historiography and culture in the early years of thecommunist regime.During his training in engineering, he rallied with the communist cells in Romania and abroad, joining theRomanian Communist Partywhile it was still an underground group. He collaborated with theAgitpropleadersLeonte RăutuandIosif Chișinevschi,spent time in prison for his communist activity, and ultimately exiled himself to theSoviet Union,where he trained inMarxist historiography.

Returning to Romania upon the close ofWorld War II,Roller carried out communist assignments in the field of culture. Under Răutu, he helped draft the official history textbook, monopolizing the historical narrative for over a decade. Turning the focus away from nationality and onclass struggle,Roller's work sought to reeducate the traditionalist public, and depicted Romania as strongly linked toSlavic Europe.In advancing such theses, Roller censored out historical events, and, in one instance, recounted events that never took place in real life.

In the later 1950s, Roller found himself shut out by his communist peers. He was branded adeviationistby the party leadership members, probably because he had unwittingly exposed their secondary roles in early communist history. Roller died in mysterious circumstances, which do not exclude the possibility of suicide.

Biography

Early life and activity

Roller was born inBuhuși,then acommuneinNeamț County,to aJewishfamily; as reported by Roller himself, his father was arabbi,though some sources identify him as a functionary.The boy completed his secondary education inBacău,and soon became a sympathizer offar leftcauses. The date of his affiliation with the banned Romanian Communist Party (PCdR), later Workers' Party (PMR), remains disputed. The formerly communist writer Mihai Stoian gives 1926, noting that it coincided with a strike action in Buhuși.Other sources suggest that he only joined in 1931.HistorianLucian Boiawrites that Roller, like other communist men of his generation, could not have been a card-carrying member at that stage, since that would have formed material proof of conspiratorial activity. More likely, Roller was inducted through a verbal statement.

A student at theTechnische Hochschulein Charlottenburg (nowTechnische Universität Berlin) andParisTechbetween 1925 and 1931, Roller became a member of theRoter Frontkämpferbund.He also joined theCommunist Party of Germanyin 1926 and theFrench Communist Partyin 1928, working on their publications.According to his autobiographical notes, he also served as leader of the Romanian Communist Group in France.Professionally, he qualified as a road and highwaysuperintendent.After returning to the country in 1931, Roller was made editor of the PCdR's main gazette,Scînteia.Roller described his beginnings with the party'sAgitpropsection (1931–1933) as the start of his life as a "professional revolutionary".

As later noted by researcher Victor Frunză, the PCdR's clandestine nature and inner struggles make it impossible to know for sure who was in charge ofScînteiaby that moment in time. Frunză believes that Roller was one of the young men working under senior activistAna Pauker;the others were Răutu, Chișinevschi,Vasile Luca,Gheorghe Stoica,Sorin Toma,Gheorghe VasilichiandȘtefan Voicu.Another fellow communist,Belu Zilber,later noted that Roller was already designated the PCdR historian, and promised an official post in the event of a communist takeover.Such historiographic ambitions prompt historianAdrian Cioroianuto call Roller a "fantasizer" in the field.According to political scientistVladimir Tismăneanu,Roller was also one of the Jewish andBessarabian"déclassés" who gained top PCdR positions in the Chișinevschi–Răutu faction, and in fact a staunchanti-intellectual.

Arrests and declining health

Known as "engineer Roller" or "Rolea" in files kept by theKingdom of Romania'sSiguranțasecret police, he first attracted the authorities' attention following the discovery of a secret printing press inBucharest.In the early months of 1933, Roller was an ideological instructor in theGreen Sector,and worked there until October, when he was arrested. Released by November, he was dispatched to his native region ofWestern Moldavia.Roller himself recalled having then served as regional secretary forOlteniain March–April 1934 and July 1934–May 1935.He was again arrested in 1934 and 1938, although never sentenced due to lack of evidence.According to PCdR documents, between his arrests Roller negotiatedpopular frontalliances with other socialist groups: in 1934, he was one of several "antifascistcommittee "members who carried out fusion talks with theUnitary Socialist Party(PSU) ofConstantin Popovici.

Roller, who also supervised the creation of workers' antifascist sections in Bucharest in September 1934,is mentioned as one of the PCdR and PSU activists who signed a formal protest against "the numerous abusive and illegal acts perpetrated by the organs of repression".In May–October 1935, he served as chief ideological instructor for the communist party.He was them moved to another position, serving as the party secretary for the Lower Danube committee (Galați), following which he served on the Committee of Defense for Antifascist Prisoners, part of theInternational Red Aid(MOPR) network. In this capacity, Roller mobilized support for Pauker, at a time when she was facing trial for sedition.

His works of the time included political articles such asFascismul și baza sa socială( "Fascism and Its Social Basis" ).ASiguranțanote of May 1937 mentions the publication of his first standalone brochure, titledDin istoria drepturilor omului( "From the History of the Rights of Man" ) and prefaced by philosopherConstantin Rădulescu-Motru.It was largely a posthumous homage to activistConstantin Costa-Foru.Police mentioned that it was already being sold in bookstores and by distributors of PCdR publications, and believed it was partly financed by the city'sBaptist community,to whom a chapter was dedicated.As Roller himself explained, the brochure was meant to test the limits of Romanian censorship, and was part of his work for the MOPR.Din istoriawas still found by the police to contain "extremist" passages, and only being purchased by persons "suspected of communism". Once they found that it had not been approved by the state censorship apparatus, it was banned and all copies on sale ordered confiscated. A note from that October indicates that Roller was planning a new work about the1920 general strike,to be financed by the party.As Roller reports, the work was published, albeit "massacred by censorship", then taken out of circulation entirely.The same year, he issued another concise tract,Contribuție la istoria socială a României( "A Contribution to the Social History of Romania" ).

Having attended MOPR summits in Paris andPragueduring 1937 and 1938, Roller served for just three days as head of the Romanian branch.In 1938, he spent a brief term atJilava Prison.In his autobiography, Sorin Toma notes that conditions there were not as bad as atDoftana,but that 26 prisoners were given two buckets per day of drinking water and two to use aschamber pots.Roller, suffering from a chronic disease later diagnosed asdiabetes insipidus,would drain one of the buckets himself and fill the other.Roller himself claimed to have spent 1938–1940 mostly in specialized hospitals, "completely inactive". His only works in agitprop were occasional articles inScînteiaand afeuilletonon labor history, taken up byDeșteptarea,the Romanian American newspaper.He finally checked himself out of hospital and resumed clandestine work against his colleagues' advice. He returned to campaigning among the workers of the Green Sector, and was also appointed co-editor of an illegal newspaper,Viața Muncitoare.

Soviet exile and return

In July 1940, Roller, having narrowly escaped re-arrest by the Romanian authorities, left for Bessarabia, which had beenrecently occupied by the Soviets.He was for a while atReni,in theUkrainian SSR.Roller subsequently moved to theMoldavian SSR,atChișinău,where he began working for the city's Tobacco Plant. In June 1941, just days before the start ofOperation Barbarossa,he sent his résumé toBoris Stefanov,asking to be considered for membership in theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union.Drawn into the PCdR group in Moscow, Roller continued working under Pauker, who had also joined the Romanian exile community. He also attended the History faculty ofMoscow State University.Little is known about Roller's activity in early 1944, when the change of fortunes on theEastern Frontsignaled a Soviet victory over theAxis Powers.Reputedly, he stopped paying his PCdR membership fee, which may indicate that he was busy with party work, and prepared for a career incommunizedRomania.After spending some time at Institute No. 205 (formerly aCominternschool), in December 1944 he was the only Romanian native teaching prisoners of war atKrasnogorsk's Central Antifascist School. While here, he suggested employingAlexandru BârlădeanuandHaia Grinbergto assist him with specialized classes.

Following thecoup of summer 1944,Roller, using his Soviet ideological training to his advantage, could join the party's propaganda structures. In 1945 he became deputy head of science and education at the central committee's Agitprop directorate, led by Leonte Răutu, remaining in that post until 1955.The team comprising Roller, Răutu, Chișinevschi, Toma,Nicolae MoraruandOfelia Manolewas effectively in control of the entire directorate until 1953, and helped reconfigureRomanian culturein conformity with theZhdanov Doctrine.According to Tismăneanu, Roller had become a "scribe" of Romanian communism,one of several "fanatics" and "dilettantes" pushed up through PCdR promotions.

Mihail Roller signaled his return to Romanian historiography with the 1945 essayPagini ignorate din istoria României moderne( "Pages Ignored from the History of Modern Romania" ). It announced that the communist effort to reinterpret history had gained momentum: "The outlook ofdialecticalandhistorical materialismalso arms us with the basic principles of scientific historical research. "Roller went on to state that the capitalist historians had turned history into an occult science, since" it was in the interest ofimperialismabroad, and of the exploiting classes within, that the history of the people and its struggles become public. "This process, he proposed, was reversible.

However, political propaganda was still Roller's main task at that early a stage; for instance, he authored a series of articles inScînteiameant to combat theNational Peasants' Partyprior to the1946 election.His editorials in the communist press made successive returns into the realm ofMarxist-Leninisthistoriography. AtContemporanul,he outlined his suggestions about changing the chronology of Romanian history, and reinterpreted seminal events, such as the1859 union of Romania,through a Marxist lens.Other such texts helped enshrine the myth of "illegalists" (clandestine communists of the 1930s and '40s) as freedom fighters.Also then, Frunză notes, Roller took part in the semi-compulsoryRussificationcampaign, launching the agitprop sloganSă învățăm limba lui Lenin și Stalin!( "Let's learn the language ofLeninandStalin!").The pro-Soviet enterpriseEditura Cartea Rusăpublished his tractPedagogia în URSS( "Pedagogy in the USSR" ), recommending the imitation ofSoviet schooling.

By the summer of 1947, Roller's other party work involved exercising direct communist control over a left-wing student movement (the Democratic University Front) and instigating a purge of the "reactionary"professors.Reputedly, Roller is also responsible for the refusal to accept a gift ofConstantin Brâncuși's modernist sculptures, thus depriving the Romanian state of a major art collection.He also made a controversial contribution to the field ofcommunist censorship,joining up with Chișinevschi in the task of supervisingRomanian cinema.

In November 1948, following the establishment of aCommunist regime,he was elected to theRomanian Academysubsequent to the purge of a large number of members. Roller was part of a wave of new academicians; as noted by various authors, most of these were of peripheral importance in their fields, but were staunch adherents of communism and ready to act as ideological enforcers.Elected the Academy's Vice President (secondingTraian Săvulescu),he also headed the Section for History, Philosophy, Economics and Law from 1949 to 1955. Roller believed the academy should shift from its former position of "a feudal caste, a closed circle, isolated from the masses and the people's needs" into "a living and active factor in the development of our science and culture". Moreover, he exhorted members, regardless of their specialty, to apply Marxist-Leninist teaching on society and its development, proletarian revolutions, the building of socialism and the victory of communism.

By March 1952, Roller was directly involved in vetting new members of the Academy, personally handling the reception ofMatei Socorand the promotion ofȘtefan Vencov.As he reported to Soviet diplomat Golichenkov, the reshuffling could ensure that Roller was "no longer alone among old reactionaries" such as Săvulescu (although he still approved induction for the latter's wife,Alice Aronescu-Săvulescu).When Săvulescu suggested that Academy publications should go uncensored, Roller intervened and reimposed "control", noting: "I am here to supervise and cut out those bits that catch my eye."Even the more traditionalist members of the communist academic establishment were irritated by Roller's interventions. ScholarMihai Raleaallegedly called him "an incompetent, evil rube".

Early program

Reviewing the impact of such directives, Lucian Boia calls Roller "the little dictator" of Romanian historiography, unchallenged after the "earthquake" of 1948 had invented a Romanian Marxist tradition.From 1948 to 1955, Roller was professor as well as chairman of the Romanian History department at thePolitical Military Academy.In 1948, he published his own synthesis on theRevolutions of 1848among the Romanians:Anul revoluționar 1848( "1848, the Revolutionary Year" ). That historical period was to be the main focus of his articles and exposes, well into the 1950s.Roller was also a "historical reviewer" for a propaganda film retelling the 1848 events, withGeo Bogzaas the screenwriter.

Following the1948 election,Roller became a member of theGreat National Assembly.In April 1949, he and Răutu were delegates to theCongress of Advocates of PeaceunderMihail Sadoveanu(who reputedly eclipsed them both).That year, Roller rose to head the Agitprop section's education committee. This body was charged with writing school textbooks for use throughout theeducational system,most of them translated fromRussian.Under his direct tutelage, primary school pupils began learning about the "new teachers of the working class" (Marx,Engels,Lenin and Stalin), while Russian-language education began in 4th grade and continued through the third year of university.

As a means of solidifying his control over Romanian historiography, Roller promoted his supporters at the academy's history institutes, especially theBucharest branch,headed from 1953 by Victor Cheresteșiu and his deputy Aurel Roman. He was himself supported by a number of young researchers whom he had promoted and sent to study in the Soviet Union. He focused keenly on introducing ideology into higher education and party control over universities, and his general duties included supervision over science as a whole, not only history. His functions and execution of party orders meant that Roller essentially controlled all the historiography produced between 1948 and 1955. His words indicated the limits within which historians could practice their craft. In the view of historian Liviu Pleșa, Roller's activities sought to "uproot traditional values from the Romanian mindset" and replace them with the new regime's propagandistic themes.

The Roller directives are infamous for emphasizing the supposed grandeur of the Soviet Union under Stalin, but also for praisingTsarist Russiaand theSlavic peoples.The other ideas emphasized included the condemnation of other foreigners, particularly Westerners, starting with Ancient Rome—the French, Italian and American libraries were shut down, their patrons arrested; condemnation of the formerly dominantboyars( "traitors" to theOttomans) andbourgeoisie( "cosmopolitan" and "serving imperialist capitalists" ); and minimization of the role played by historic Romanian figures.Described by traditionalist historians as Romania's war of national unity, World War I was treated by Roller and other Marxist-Leninists as an "imperialist war".Romania's participationwas therefore an "imperialist action", as were the occupation ofBessarabiaand theintervention in Hungary.

The official view of Romanian history that these ideas represented was developed by Agitprop activists and the PMR's own History Institute, later becoming dogma when approved by party plenaries and congresses. Authoritative texts included the writings of Stalin, the"Short Course" History of the Soviet Communist Party,the decisions of the PMR's central committee and the writings and speeches of Gheorghiu-Dej. In the early years of the regime, scholars often imbued their work with an ideological tint by quoting Stalin or, to a lesser degree, Lenin. Taking their cue from a 1946 speech byAndrei Zhdanov,Răutu and Roller sought to replace the "bourgeois-reactionary" and "anti-Romanian" old historiography with dialectical materialism; the latter warned that failure to write a new history "would have left in the hands of the class enemy an ideological weapon against the working class".

Istoria R.P.R.

His history textbook, the firstMarxist synthesisof Romanian history, appeared in 1947, in one edition for advanced pupils and another for younger ones. It portrayed the country's history through the lens ofMarxist stages of history:primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism and socialism, advancing all the while throughclass struggle.Initially calledIstoria României( "The History of Romania" ) but laterIstoria R.P.R.( "The History of the R[omanian] P[eople's] R[epublic]" ), it appeared between 1947 and 1956 and was used until the 1961–1962 school year. Appearing very quickly ( "in record time", according to Stoian),it was not written from scratch by Roller and his collaborators, but rather used documents from the PCR's period of illegality, especially the theses adopted by the fifth party congress held near Moscow in 1931. These criticized the 1859 union, the1918 union,the constitutional government, democratic reforms, the monarchy, parliamentarism, the activity of the historic parties' leaders and foreign policy, with all these criticisms entering the textbook.

Istoria R.P.R.earned its author the Romanian State Prize for 1949,while Agitprop presented it as a huge success. Its claims (instantly sold-out editions, millions of copies in circulation) were in fact irrelevant, as there was no actual competition in the field.The only history textbook allowed in schools, it has been described byȘerban Papacosteaas "the vastest work of political mystification of Romania's past", making Roller "a symbol of the effort to adapt the Romanian past to the imperatives of theSoviet occupationand the 'internationalist' regime "imposed on the country.Boia also notes that, especially after adopting an acronym in its title,Istoria...overturned the logic of previous historiographic discourse, from the "national idea" to "the internationalist spirit".Stoian additionally suggests thatIstoria...is a failure from a literary point of view. It is written in "wooden tongue"and its phrases have" the taste of sud ".

The textbook's political ideas became historiographic theses and quickly turned into requirements for all the official history writing of the period. Class struggle was presented as the driving force of history, with social conflicts taken out of context and exaggerated in importance. A special case is the ancient history chapter, onRoman Dacia.There, commentators note, Roller veers intopseudohistory,creating a narrative about social revolts among theDacians,none of which actually occurred.Historic figures were relegated to the exploitative classes, the suppression of these classes by thedictatorship of the proletariatbeing justified by their centuries of misdeeds.The Soviet Union was lavished with praise, the contributions of Slavs in Romanian history being highlighted, from themigratory periodto themedieval period,to theWar of Independenceand the present.The veryorigin of the Romanianswas narrated differently than before: Roller himself concluded that the influence of Slavic polities—Danube Bulgaria,Kievan Rus',Halych—was fundamental in shaping the lives of early Romanians.Classical Western values were attacked, more violently in later editions as theCold Wardeepened.

The iconography of national awakening was consciously modified.Michael the Brave,previously depicted as a national unifier, was presented as a tool ofHoly Roman EmperorRudolf II.TheTransylvanian Schoolwas renamed the "Latinist School", its leaders accused of hiding Slavic and Russian influence on Romanians and of promotingchauvinism.The 1848 rebellions, and in particular the successfulWallachian Revolution,were described as precursors of Marxism-Leninism.Of the leaders, onlyNicolae Bălcescuwas appreciated for combating feudalism and siding with Tsarist Russia; at the other end,Avram Iancuwas chided for collaborating with theAustrian Empire.Roller's views of Bălcescu were almost entirely positive, and developed into a communistpersonality cult:counterfactually, Roller described Bălcescu'sleft-liberalismas a highly advanced form ofutopian socialismand proto-Marxism.The 1859union of the principalitiesonly benefited the bourgeoisie by expanding the market for their products, and favored their class only, rather than the masses and the nation as a whole.Alexandru Ioan Cuza,who ruled over the unified state, was criticized as a hesitant reformer.

The creation ofGreater Romaniain 1918 was viewed, as regards the absorption of Bessarabia, as an "imperialist intervention against the socialist revolution in Russia". Likewise, theunion of Transylvania,was an "intervention against therevolution in Hungary".The modern era was considered to have begun not with the union of 1918 but with theGreat October Socialist Revolutionof 1917; the paleolithic became "wild man" and the neolithic, "barbarism".Communist strikes and demonstrations during theinterwar periodwere detailed and blown out of proportion, so that the 1917–1948 period was viewed mainly through the lens of PCdR history. Official history was laicized by greatly de-emphasizing the role of theRomanian Orthodox Church.Recent history presented in a negative light the political parties, the monarchy (according to Roller, "the most reactionary exemplar of its political class and the greatest owner oflatifundia"), the democratic regime and its institutions.The interwar chapter was headlined "The Increase in Romania's Enslavement to American, English and French Imperialism",with "only words of scorn" reserved for theBrătianu family.

In this way, the class struggle and especially repression against the upper classes were legitimized: if the latter had stood against the masses for centuries, then taking away their properties throughnationalizationand incarcerating them seemed just. The events near the end of World War II were depicted as follows: the King Michael Coup was a "liberation by the Soviet Army" defending the country from imperialists;Northern Transylvaniawas restored thanks to the Soviets; theSovRomsaided in the country's economic recovery; the clauses favorable to Romania in theParis Peace Treatieswere due to the Soviets, while punitive ones originated with the imperialists.According to Stoian, the political history sections was largely reliant on fabricated and backdated documents, and justified the PCdR/PMR repression of its enemies, including the "right-wing social democrats"and theZionists.Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu,who had endorsednational communismagainst his pro-Soviet colleagues and had been executed for it, was retrospectively defined as a "traitor" and "carrier of the bourgeois ideology".

Criticism from Romanian and especially Soviet historians, acting on instructions from the Kremlin, found the text insufficiently Marxist-Leninist. In 1950, one Soviet took issue with the way the Transylvanian School was presented, considering that its Latinist orientation made it a "vassal of the Papacy" and charging it with chauvinism against Slavs andHungarians.A Soviet delegation that visited Romania in 1949 ended by criticizing a number of elements in Roller's text.

Documentary, writing and enforcement activities

At Roller's initiative, a vast number of historic documents were published. However, these were carefully selected to conform to the party's vision, particularly in volumes on the War of Independence and on the1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt.For the first, documents casting Russia in an unfavorable light were removed, while for the second, documents not advancing the regime's desire to show the "savage repression of the bourgeois-landowning governments" were not published. Other collections were similarly doctored. For his work on the volume dealing with the peasants' revolt, Roller was again awarded the State Prize, first class, in 1951.Pleșa does give credit to Roller for ordering publication of documents from the country's medieval period, previously missing from print nearly in their entirety, and of an index to theHurmuzachicollection that had become virtually unusable. Although professional historians worked on these projects, he also notes that Roller did not consent to have the documents published in their original form, especially due to the exigencies of working at aStakhanovitepace, and that the finished products did not reach a very high standard.

He helped plan the Romanian-Russian Museum in Bucharest and the Maxim Gorky Institute of Higher Education, devoted to training teachers of Russian language and literature. The magazine of which he was editor-in-chief,Studii( "Studies" ), first appeared in 1948. This was quarterly until 1955, then bimonthly until 1974, when it became monthly and its name was changed toRevista de Istorie.At the same time, magazines on a similar theme were shuttered:Revista Istorică,founded byNicolae Iorga,Constantin C. Giurescu'sRevista Istorică Română,Victor Papacostea'sBalcanicaandRevue des Études Sud-Est Européennes.

A frequent target of Roller's many articles inScînteia,Lupta de ClasăandStudiiwas the pre-communist historiography, which he accused of falsifying the role of the working class and of the masses more broadly. He reiterated that pre-communist historians served the "bourgeois-landowning" regimes dominated by "foreign imperialists", who wished the Romanian people to remain ignorant of their history so they could more easily be exploited.The rise of Roller coincided with a concerted effort by the new regime to wipe away traces of previous writers, so that works by historians including Giurescu, Victor Papacostea andNicolae Benescuwere eliminated from the curriculum, while some historians, such asGheorghe BrătianuandIon Nistordied in prison, their works hidden from public view.

Roller also saw enemies among the ranks of older teachers he believed blocked the "cultural revolution", and promoted "re-education of the teaching staff". He sought to imbue the educational system with a class character and make it serve the interests of workers, peasants and "progressive intellectuals", including those who had rushed to the new regime's side.Already in 1947, students were encouraged to form Marxist "cells", verifying the dogmatic purity of history lessons, and holding the teachers accountable.In one instance, Roller explained that, as long as the old teaching staff could include a "war criminal" such asIon Petrovici,his own colleagues, Răutu and Chișinevschi, were fit to lecture in Marxism-Leninism at theUniversity of Bucharest.He continued to have a plenary take on education, and insisted that music should form part of schooling. Unintentionally, his position on the subject allowed educators and students to evade politicization for at least part of the school week.

At times, Roller intervened on behalf of certain historians the regime considered undesirable, including the medievalistP. P. Panaitescu.When theSecuritatesecret police, charging past membership in theIron Guard,arrested archaeologistVladimir Dumitrescuwhile he was excavating atHăbășești,Roller intervened several times with the police leadership, in particularAlexandru DrăghiciandGheorghe Pintilie,until his release was ultimately obtained. Other historians, after their release from prison, also asked Roller for help to start working again.

Impact on archaeology

One particular area into which Roller injected communist ideology wasRomanian archaeology.He shifted the emphasis from Roman Dacia to pre- and post-Roman periods, reflecting Marx' and Engels' view of the Roman Empire as supremely exploitative. He also adapted Stalin's remarks on the "unscientific position of old bourgeois historians" whose study of Russia reportedly began with Kievan Rus' and ignored what came before. In a Romanian context, this meant reversing the "denial of the development of human society prior toDacia's conquest"by previous historians. He also emphasized Gheorghiu-Dej's position that Romanian territory had for over a millennium been robbed by Romans and barbarians, just as it had been by French, British or German imperialists.

In 1950, in an article on excavations made the previous year, he criticizedEmil Condurachi,who had exploredHistria,for not studying the native population before the "exploitative" Romans, urging a focus on the battles betweenDaciansand unconquered peoples against the Romans. He took issue withIon Nestorfor refusing to claim the presence of slaves atMonteoru:"some are afraid to place themselves on the proletariat's class position". Along withRadu Vulpe,he was berating for issuing field reports that were purely technical rather than ideologically shaded, concluding that "they do not seek to shed light, using scientific concepts, on the problems of the ancient history of the Romanian People's Republic". Condurachi was singled out for not using his report to attackScarlat Lambrino,the previous head excavator at Histria, who as an exile in the West was "a sellout to Anglo-American imperialism".Roller's ideas on class struggle in Roman Dacia imposed the term "free Dacians"into the archaeological nomenclature. The name implicitly distinguished between Dacians in Roman territory, who were" unfree ", and those roaming further east.

Roller instructed that "we must mercilessly unmask the enemies of science and the lackeys of the former bourgeois-landowning regime". Nevertheless, archaeology did become a more ordered field, in contrast to the individual and sporadic efforts that came before. A team of specialists would excavate a site thoroughly, and the regime lavished funds on such studies. Emphasis was laid on finding traces of Slavic settlement, so that this people could be shown to have had an important role in the development of Romanian society.

Fall from grace

Roller (second row, in glasses) atBăneasa Airportin March 1953, greeting Gheorghiu-Dej upon his return from Stalin's funeral

In the mid-1950s, Roller's position started losing ground. The death of Stalin and theKhrushchev Thawhad echoes within Romania: the country's leader,Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej,with an eye toUnited Nationsmembership, relaxed repressive measures.Collectivizationand industrialization were slowed down, certain political prisoners were freed, and the new climate had its effect on the cultural realm as well. Among the prisoners released were intellectuals who were gradually brought back into universities and research institutes. In 1955, a party science and culture section was established, headed byPavel Țuguiand meant to counteract the grip on culture held by the Răutu–Roller Agitprop section. Gheorghiu-Dej spoke out against the "monopoly and dictate of Roller", especially on history but also on culture in general, and blamed the two for the crisis in the field and the party's poor relationship with intellectuals.

Țugui, by explaining Roller's errors, managed to attractGheorghe ApostolandNicolae Ceaușescuas supporters. He also drew to his side the Romanian Academy membersConstantin Daicoviciu,David ProdanandAndrei Oțetea,as well aseducation ministerIlie Murgulescu,and later some of Roller's former collaborators, including Vasile Maciu, Victor Cheresteșiu and Barbu Câmpina. In early 1956, Oțetea, Daicoviciu and Câmpina sent Gheorghiu-Dej a document accusing Roller and close collaborators of plagiarism and unscientific scholarship. One effect of the moves against Roller was the 1955 firing of Aurel Roman as editor ofStudiiand his replacement with Oțetea (who the following year also replaced Cheresteșiu as head of theBucharest History Institute), so that articles started to appear without Roller's approval.In 1955, he also lost his position at the Agitprop section and was transferred to become deputy director of the PMR History Institute, wielding more power than the titular head,Constantin Pîrvulescu.

By then, Roller was directing the effort to preserve samples oforal history,interviewing the former "illegalists" and building up a large collection ofmagnetic taperecordings. Reputedly, Roller's experiment in oral history had unwittingly managed to embarrass the communist leader: it presented Gheorghiu-Dej as more the secondary figure than the "illegalist" leader fashioned in official documents.In the spring of 1958, as the party celebrated 25 years since theGrivița Strike of 1933,the PMR Institute collection of recordings was in focus. A number of the "illegalists", especially those who did not receive the posts they expected after 1944, began to question whether Gheorghiu-Dej had played the leading role he claimed for himself during the strike, as well as criticizing the country's direction. The latter hastily called a plenary session of the central committee for 9–13 June, where a group ofdeviationistswas "unmasked". The group was entirely composed of members who had belonged to the party when it was banned and included prominent figures such asConstantin DonceaandGrigore Răceanu.Officially, they were sanctioned for criticizing the leadership and its work methods as well as for attempting to organize a conference where party activity would be discussed. The underlying motive for the purge was their criticism of the party's stifling atmosphere and of the personality cult surrounding Gheorghiu-Dej.

The plenary session also criticized Roller, and afterwards,Paul Niculescu-Mizilpresented the party leadership a report recommending that the entire leadership of the PMR Institute save the director be removed. At the same time as the plenary, a joint meeting of Romanian and Soviet historians took place at which Oțetea sharply criticized Roller for the unprofessionalism with which he published documents and announced they would be republished. The Soviets did not defend Roller, which the latter interpreted as a loss of support from his former allies.

Death and legacy

Roller died on 21 June 1958, and Pleșa believes he most likely committed suicide.Tismăneanu initially credited that rumor in hisRadio Free Europeaddresses,but later noted that the suicide story was "unconfirmed".According to at least two accounts, Roller had also suffered astrokeor aheart attacksome time during the "unmasking" sessions.He died without heirs. He had married Sara Zighelboim, whose brothers Avram and Ștrul were communist activists during the 1930s.She was originally from Bessarabia, and had returned there in 1940, shortly before Roller himself.Their daughter Sonela died in 1956 while with her father at a health resort: after diving into a pool, she suffered a fatal head trauma.

An urn containing Roller's ashes is housed at theCenușa Crematoriumin Bucharest.Although sidelined by the time of his death, he received the usual PMR honor, an obituary piece inScînteia.Anticommunist intellectualG. T. Kirileanurecorded in his diary on 22 June that Roller had "done much harm to Romanian culture." Kirileanu accentuated the Jewish component of Roller's identity, referring to him as a "rabbi's son", and arguing that, through him, "Jews impose[d] their point on view on the evolution of Romanian spirituality."Roller's death did not result in a thorough change to the historiographical ideas he had put forth. Class struggle and dialectical materialism continued to be taught in schools. While history writing did alter after 1960, with less emphasis placed on the "greatness" of the Soviet Union and on criticizing the West, and greater attention paid to previously neglected historical figures, this was due not so much to Roller's disappearance from the scene as to Romania's changed international position and gradual alienation from the Soviets.The role of guiding communist historiography fell on Marxists from the professional field, primarily Oțetea.

Tismăneanu and historian Cristian Vasile note that Roller's downfall was a sacrificial offering by Leonte Răutu, who survived the "unmasking" period and was still a culture Boss under thenational communism of the 1960s.Gheorghiu-Dej's successor Ceaușescu allowed young authors—Ileana Vrancea,Ion Cristoiu—or senior figures—Iorgu Iordan—, to publish works critical of the Zhdanov Doctrine. Although these mentioned Roller by name, Răutu was entirely exempt.Iordan calls Roller the "evil genie" of the Romanian Academy, and makes him responsible for the more "fanatical" decisions—such as granting posthumous Academy membership to the Marxist poetDumitru Theodor Neculuță.A bizarre exception to this rule was an official reference work, the 1978Enciclopedia istoriografiei românești( "The Encyclopedia of Romanian Historiography" ). It has an entry on Roller, which does not feature any negative commentary, while Răutu is entirely absent.

Roller's contribution was reevaluated again after theRomanian Revolution of 1989toppled communism. Some of the first monographs dealing with Roller's career and its impact on Romania were published byRomulus Rusan,theCivic Alliance Foundation,and theSighet Memorial of the Victims of Communism.Writing in 1999, Mihai Stoian described it as anomalous that, in the process of restoring membership to those deposed by the regime, the Academy had not also posthumously stripped Roller of his title. He calls Roller "a red specter", haunting "the bookcases dusted by lies and servitude."Senior historianFlorin Constantiniureflected back on the communist period, coining the popular (but, according to Cristian Vasile, melodramatic) image of Roller as "the gravedigger of authentic Romanian culture".At that stage, some authors described Roller's influence as criminal, and declared him an anti-Romanian by conviction. The books ofantisemiticconspiracy theoristIosif Constantin Drăgancited Roller's case as evidence thatJewish communismwas working against the Romanians.Despite such widespread condemnation of his theories, Roller's terminology was not entirely expunged from later Romanian research works. As noted in 1998 by archaeologist Petre Diaconu, the "meaningless and pernicious" concept of "free Dacians"has been taken for granted by numerous scientists in the field.

References

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