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Ion Negoițescu (10 August 1921, Cluj – 6 February 1993, Munich) was a Romanian writer and literary critic, who began his career under the intellectual influence of the philosopher Lucian Blaga and the Sibiu Literary Circle, a leading literary group in WWII Romania. Negoițescu made an early literary debut in 1937, with the publication of a poem in the magazine Naţiunea română (The Romanian Nation) in his native town of Cluj. In 1941, he became a student at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in Cluj, which was moved to Sibiu when northern Transylvania, including Cluj, came under Hungarian rule in the aftermath of the Second Vienna Award. Negoițescu was first attracted by the Romanian extreme right movement, the Iron Guard, and even became a member of this political party (Bouleanu 2016). However, under the influence of the modernist Sibiu Literary Circle, he changed his political convictions later. Thus, in 1943 he signed together with other writers The Manifesto of the Sibiu Literary Circle, in which they protested against the intrusion of the political regime, i.e., the Ion Antonescu military dictatorship, in the literary field. In reaction, the signatories of the manifesto could no longer publish in literary magazines (Negoițescu 1990, 6–12, 41). In January 1945, these writers established Revista Cercului Literar (The magazine of the literary circle), but only a few issues could be published because the communist-dominated government closed it six months later (Negoițescu 1990, 6–12, 41–42).

In 1947, Negoițescu received the Young Writers’ Prize of the Royal Foundations for the volume in manuscript Romanian poets. His refusal to collaborate with the new communist regime led to his marginalisation. He could not publish until 1956 and had to work as a librarian in order to support himself (Bouleanu 2016). The limited liberalisation that followed Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation campaign allowed Negoițescu to re-enter literary life, and he published several articles about the Romanian writers censored at the beginning of the 1950s. After the reversal of the political liberalisation and the tightening of censorship Negoițescu was accused of “subverting the foundations of socialist literature,” put on the list of censored authors and expelled from the Writers’ Union in Romania. At the same time, Negoițescu was interrogated by the Romanian secret police, the Securitate, whose officers did not hesitate to use violence, threats and insults against him. He was finally imprisoned on political grounds in 1961, and stayed in the Jilava prison until 1964.

As the communist regime declared a general amnesty for all political prison in 1964, he was released from prison and started to work as an editor at two Romanian literary magazines Luceafărul and Viața Românească. Apart from the collaboration with these literary reviews, Negoițescu published a volume of literary criticism and one of poems composed while in prison. In 1968 he published in the literary magazine Familia a draft of a History of Romanian Literature that sparked many controversies (Bouleanu 2016, Negoițescu 1990, 43–44). In 1974, on the National Day of Romania (23 August), Negoițescu tried to kill himself with an overdose of pills. Behind his dramatic gesture stood his desperation that his latest volume Lampa lui Aladin (Aladin’s Lamp) had been removed from libraries and destroyed. Another reason for his radical gesture was his sexual orientation. Negoițescu had openly assumed a gay identity, in spite of the fact that homosexuality was incriminated by law under communism and thus he had to live under the constant threat of being arrested (Bouleanu 2016; C. Petrescu 2013, 131).

The most problematic period in Negoițescu’s life began on 3 March 1977, when he personally addressed a letter of solidarity to his fellow writer, Paul Goma. Negoițescu’s letter actually reviewed the evolution of Romanian literature since the communist takeover and argued that Ceauşescu’s nationalistic turn endangered Romanian literature by favouring the promotion of mediocrity instead of real talents and by isolating Romanian culture from the rest of the world (C. Petrescu 2013, 130–131). The letter also contained a “subjective” perspective as Negoițescu also described the persecutions he had been subjected to by the communist authorities (Negoițescu 1990, 31). Copies of this letter reached Radio Free Europe with the help of Paul Goma and the president of the Writers’ Union of Romania. Negoițescu also tried to encourage his fellow writers and friends, including Ion Vianu, to join the emerging Goma movement. Because he refused the peace offers made by the regime, which included the promise of being able to publish his books and to travel abroad, he was arrested by the Securitate and interrogated for forty-eight hours. However, he was released due to pressure from influential writers (Negoițescu 1990, 31–37). As he faced the prospect of a harsh penal sentence for homosexuality, Negoițescu had to disavow his endorsement of the Goma movement by an article entitled Despre patriotism (About patriotism), which he published in the leading literary magazine România Literară (Literary Romania). The article practically signified the end of Negoițescu’s dissidence, as he praised the regime and mentioned that he opposed the use of his person and writings against his country (C. Petrescu 2013, 137). Taking advantage of an academic trip abroad, Ion Negoițescu left Romania for good and settled in Munich, Germany, in 1983. He continued his activity as a writer and defender of freedom of speech and human rights, becoming an important voice of the Romanian exile community and a very active collaborator of Radio Free Europe, Deutsche Welle and the BBC (Bouleanu 2016).

Ion Negură (b. 1943, Bocani, Fălești district, Republic of Moldova) is a Moldovan intellectual, a psychologist by training and a professor in the Department of Psychology of Ion Creangă State Pedagogical University in Chișinău, who displayed a critical attitude towards the communist regime and was involved in informal cultural practices during the Soviet period. He originates from Northern Bessarabia (currently Fălești raion, formerly Bălți district). According to his own later testimony, during his school years he was a “model Soviet man,” loyal to the authorities and hostile to the “enemy elements” vilified by the regime. However, this perceived belonging to the Soviet model, cultivated by the school system, came into contradiction with the traditional family ethos, dating from pre-Soviet times. The values that dominated this traditional world-view (private property, religious faith, Romanian language and culture) were condemned and marginalised by the Soviet authorities. This contradictory identity structured many of Ion Negură’s life choices. His passion for reading provided an early outlet and a link to the modern world, stimulating his aspiration for upward social mobility. This opposition between private and public space determined his oscillation between two parallel – and frequently diverging – systems of values and social norms, similarly to the cases of his fellow intellectuals. After his graduation from secondary school, he studied at the Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Bălți. At this institution, he met his first intellectual role models (a number of distinguished professors) and questioned certain features of the Soviet regime. For example, during a seminar in linguistics, Negură suddenly had a “revelation” about the “lies” of the regime concerning the existence of the “Moldavian” language. He realised that it was, in fact, identical to Romanian, according to linguistic criteria. This discovery created the first serious gap in his perception of official ideology. From then on, all the officially proclaimed “truths” had to be carefully weighed and analysed. Increasingly, an alternative ideology of “Moldavian” (and later Romanian) nationalism began to influence his world view. This nationalist outlook was directly opposed to the official version of “Soviet patriotism.” During his first student years (1961–63), Negură read extensively, mainly interwar Romanian literature (novelists such as Camil Petrescu, Mihail Sadoveanu, and Liviu Rebreanu). He acquired such books from the Drujba (Friendship) bookshop in Bălţi, which was part of a network dedicated to the distribution of literature published in other socialist countries.  After a three-year stint of military service (1963–66), Negură resumed his studies and reconnected to his former professors and colleagues. In this period, he also built new friendships, which focused on literary interests. This interest was displayed not only in private discussions, but also at the meetings of a student literary circle called Luminița (The Little Light). Beyond literary pursuits and friendly discussions, the circle became a seminal milieu for the circulation of certain “patriotic,” nationally oriented messages. This kind of local Moldavian “nationalism” was frowned upon by the Soviet authorities. The circle’s activities were closely monitored, and it was closed down by the Soviet security organs, who organised a set-up in order to discredit it. This case marked Negură’s further disillusionment with the regime.

After graduation in 1968, Negură worked for several years as a school teacher and then as head teacher of the school in his native village. In the early 1970s he began his career as a junior researcher at a pedagogical institute in Chișinău, and then went for doctoral studies at the Moscow State University, finally returning to Moldova to pursue a research career at the Institute for Continuous Training. After three years spent as a PhD candidate in the relatively liberal and “cosmopolitan” university atmosphere in Moscow, he perceived his return to Chișinău in 1976 as a sort of “voluntary exile.” As a compensatory strategy, Negură formed a circle of like-minded “patriotic” friends. These friends were part of a new generation of intellectuals, a kind of “nouvelle vague” (new wave), as Negură himself calls them, making use of the denomination which the famous postwar generation of French innovative directors once assumed. In Negură‘s view, this kind of friendship was “important and substantial,” because it favoured his own moral and intellectual “growth”: “I learned something new from everyone.” These informal friendly meetings, increasingly frequent in the late 1970s and 1980s, featured lively discussions, recitations of Romanian poetry, and patriotic songs. For Negură and his colleagues, they were an “expression of freedom,” a form of coping with and adapting to a system they found stifling and oppressive. The informal meetings of this intellectual circle seem, however, to have been a form of cultural opposition that the communist regime tolerated but discouraged. Although Negură’s career was generally successful, two setbacks confirmed his apprehensions about the regime. First, in 1983, he was denied a well-deserved promotion at his institution (for political reasons, as he found out later). Several years later, his party membership bid, which he did not perceive to be  in contradiction with his intellectual views, was rejected because he was deemed “not loyal enough.” This clearly showed the limits of the Soviet version of upward social mobility and the ambiguous position of Moldovan intellectuals. Once the national movement emerged in 1988, Negură actively took part in this literary-patriotic revival and made speeches about the national language and the Latin alphabet in front of his target audience, mostly consisting of schoolteachers coming to specialised training courses at his Institute.  He became an active and enthusiastic supporter of the radical political demands voiced by the opposition to the communist regime in 1989. In this context, the activists of the Moldovan Popular Front, appreciating Negură’s patriotic credentials and his non-involvement in the party nomenklatura, nominated him as a candidate for the elections to the Moldavian Supreme Soviet. In February 1990, Ion Negură became a member of Moldova’s first democratically elected Parliament. After his term expired in 1994, he left politics and reverted to his teaching career, which he saw as more significant than any form of direct political involvement. 

Petru Negură (b. 17 May 1974, Chișinău, Republic of Moldova), is a literary scholar and sociologist by training. He received his PhD in Sociology in 2007 from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris with a thesis on the topic of the Moldavian Writers’ Union under Stalinism. The thesis covers the period from 1924 (the creation of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) to 1956 (the beginning of the de-Stalinisation process initiated by Khrushchev). In 2010, Negură was a member of the Commission for the Study and Evaluation of the Communist Totalitarian Regime in Moldova, which allowed him to gain privileged access to previously restricted archival collections. Currently, Petru Negură is a Lecturer in the Department of Social Work within the Faculty of Psychology of Ion Creangă State Pedagogical University in Chișinău.  

Petru Negură’s political attitudes were largely determined by his involvement in the emerging movement for national emancipation in the late 1980s. A teenager at the time, he enthusiastically participated in most of the political meetings and demonstrations organised in that period. His youthful enthusiasm also coincided with a series of generalised expectations in Moldova in the context of the Perestroika era: a desire for change, for a more open and more democratic society. This context of various associations, public platforms, and “circles” propagating political messages with a national-cultural orientation was formative for his personality and belief system

Due to his research interests, Negură has contributed to the advancement of knowledge in the field of cultural opposition by identifying and distinguishing between several different forms that were apparent in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR). In his opinion, one of the basic forms of cultural opposition were the “cultural circles” (cenacluri), which propagated a message of national emancipation (e.g. the Alexei Mateevici circle). Emulating the Romanian example of the pseudo-oppositional state-supported Flacăra circle, the Moldovan associations of this type were nonetheless quite different in Negură’s opinion. Their opposition to the communist regime really emerged “from below” and focused on an explicit oppositional message, which was formulated in national-cultural terms. Negură has also highlighted “sub-cultural” phenomena, such as the various forms of “alternative cultures” which emerged in Soviet Moldavia mostly after 1987, and were quite popular throughout the entire USSR during late Perestroika period. As Negură has illustrated, there were several varieties of Western-inspired youth sub-cultures, e.g., rock, hippie, punk, which emerged in more or less explicit opposition to the official cultural norms. Another form of cultural opposition which Negură has identified was expressed through various alternative religious belief systems of a more or less esoteric and mystical character. These tendencies undermined the official secular, atheistic and anti-religious discourse. They were also in opposition to the Orthodox Church, which was quite close to the authorities in that period. Negură has used all these examples to illustrate his definition of “cultural opposition.” In broader terms, he does not identify this notion with only a certain group, such as intellectuals or the cultural elite. His understanding of the term is, as he puts it, “broader, more democratic, encompassing the participation of all kinds of people, from all social strata, not restricted to the educated members of society.” Inasmuch as the various forms of cultural expression were in an explicit oppositional relation to the official discourse, Negură maintains, they testify to a more diffuse but wider participation in the phenomenon of “cultural opposition” than previously envisaged. 

Sándor Nemes was born in Szekszárd-Zomba, a small village in the south of Hungary, where his father was a schoolmaster. In 1956, as a second-year high school student, he was the one who removed and threw the hated “Rákosi crest” of the school out to the street, and after the second Soviet military invasion, together with some friends, he produced flyers calling for resistance by a general strike. At the age of 15, during the Christmas holiday, he fled all alone to Yugoslavia, where he spent several months in the famed refugee camp of Gerovo, before he was taken by a French transport to the West.

After a few years working in the Citroen car factory and other places, he joined the Legion in 1960 at Fort Vincenne. He was taken to Algeria and soon was trained as a signalman with the best qualifications. When Algerian war ended in 1962 he was ordered to Corsica, then to Orange, and Tahiti. With a 16-year long service in the Legion, he transferred to the regular French Army, and was reassigned for another two years to a Paris military base. In 1975 he acquired French citizenship, and one year later he visited his native land for the first time since 1956, still as an active soldier in the French Army. He was discharged in 1978 as an ensign with 18 years of service. Then he got married, settled back in Corsica with his wife of Corsican roots, and built their family home mostly on his own in Borgo, where their two children were soon born.  He restarted his civilian career as a security expert at the Bastia Airport, and the local network of the French National Bank. After becoming a widower, he had to care for their two teenage children for years by himself. From the 1980s he could regularly visit his family left behind in Hungary. He still keeps in close contact with the members of Hungarian veterans’ circle in Provence and elsewhere in France. He is an original character with much vitality and sense of humor, which makes him popular among the much younger Hungarian legionnaires still doing their active service.  

Sándor Nemes was from the start one of the most valuable sources and supporters of the Hungarian legionary historical research project, 2011–2016. The documentary film and book Patria nostra, the twin products of this research, could not have been completed without his devoted contributions. He was the main character with his rich memories and guidance, and was also the main organizer, host, and local guide of the shootings in many sites in Corsica (Bastia, Borgo, Corte, Calvi, etc.). Furthermore, he is an excellent author of a memoir, as proven by his finely written autobiographical manuscript, a valuable item of the archival collection, illustrated with many original sources and documents. His other manuscript, “The Slang Vocabulary of the Legionnaires,” which includes close to 3,000 idioms and proverbs, is a cultural and historical rarity, and another valuable piece of the collection.