Vladimir Tismăneanu

File:VladimirTismaneanu.jpg

Vladimir Tismăneanu, photograph by Eduard Koller

Vladimir Tismaneanu (b. Tismăneanu July 4, 1951) is a Romanian-born American political scientist, sociologist, and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. A specialist in political systems and compared politics, he is editor of the East European Politics and Societies academic review and director of the University of Maryland's Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies. Tismăneanu is a contributor to several periodicals, including Journal of Democracy, Studia Politica, Sfera Politicii, 22, and Cotidianul.

Tismăneanu's background and work came under intense scrutiny after his 2006 appointment by Romanian President Traian Băsescu as head of the Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania, which presented its report to the Romanian Parliament on December 18, 2006. Much controversy covers the choice of Tismăneanu as commission president, Tismăneanu's choices for commission members, and the conclusions of the report.

Biography

Born in Braşov and a resident of Bucharest during his youth, Vladimir Tismăneanu is the son of Communist activists Leonte Tismăneanu and Hermina Marcusohn, both of whom were Jewish and Spanish Civil War veterans. His father, born in Bessarabia and settled in the Soviet Union at the end of the 1930s, worked in agitprop structures, returning to Romania at the end of World War II, and becoming, under the Communist regime, chair of the Marxism-Leninism department of the University of Bucharest.

During his years of study at the Lyceum No. 24, which was then largely attended by students belonging to the nomenklatura, Vladimir Tismăneanu was in the same class as Nicu Ceauşescu, son of communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu, as well as the children of Leonte Răutu, Nicolae Doicaru and Silviu Brucan, and grandchildren of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.

He graduated as a valedictorian from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Sociology in 1974, and received his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1980, presenting the thesis "The Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School and Contemporary Left-Wing Radicalism" (Teoria Critică a Şcolii de la Frankfurt şi radicalismul de stînga contemporan). The conclusion of the thesis is that "Capitalism cannot be destroyed through vague dreams, dogmatic revolt, sudden transition and metaphysical studies. The only mean to overcome this statu-quo is through Socialist revolution, in which the working class, led by the revolutionary political Party, will play the leading role." During that period, he enrolled into the Union of Communist Youth (UTC), authored several articles which displayed support for the Ceausescu regime, and, as vice-president of the UTC's Communist Student Association, took part in authoring and compiling propaganda aimed at students.

Tismăneanu indicated that, starting in 1970, he became interested in critiques of Marxism-Leninism and the Romanian communist regime in particular, after reading banned works made available to him by various of his acquaintances (among others, writer Dumitru Ţepeneag and his wife, translator Mona Ţepeneag, as well as Ileana, the daughter of Communist Party dignitary Gheorghe Gaston Marin). He stated that, at the time, he was influenced by Ghiţă Ionescu's Communism in Romania, as well as by Marxist, Western Marxist, Democratic and Libertarian Socialist scholarship (among others, the ideas of Georg Lukács, Leszek Kołakowski, Leon Trotsky, Antonio Gramsci, and the Frankfurt School). According to Tismăneanu, his family background allowed him insight into the hidden aspects of Communist Party history, which was comparing with the ideological demands of the Ceauşescu regime, and especially with the latter's emphasis on nationalism.

Between 1974 and 1981, Tismăneanu worked as a sociologist, employed by the Urban Sociology Department of the Institute for Designing Typified Buildings in Bucharest. By his own account, he was not given approval to hold an academic position.

In September 1981, a short while after the death of his father, he defected while on a tourist trip to Spain. Soon after he left for Venezuela, before ultimately settling in the United States in 1982.

He lived first in Philadelphia, where he was employed by the Foreign Policy Research Institute (1983-1990), while teaching at the University of Pennsylvania (1985-1990). At the time, he began contributing comments on local politics to Radio Free Europe and Voice of America, beginning with an analysis of the "dynastic socialism" in Romania, centered on the political career of Nicu Ceauşescu. In 1990, Tismăneanu received a professorship at the University of Maryland, College Park and moved to Washington, D.C. Since the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he has been visiting his native country on a regular basis.

He is married to Mary Frances Sladek, and has fathered a son, Adam.

Controversy

Concerning activity as communist propagandist before 1981

Various Marxist-Leninist texts authored by Tismăneanu in Romania and his activities inside the Union of Communist Youth are the topic of a major controversy, and are frequently contrasted with his Presidential Commission appointment.

In a 2006 The Washington Post article, Tismăneanu's doctoral thesis has been likened to "a vitriolic sermon against Western values" The same work was cited as evidence that Tismăneanu was "a liberal student of Euro-Marxism" by University of Bucharest professor Daniel Barbu (who contrasted Tismăneanu with the official ideological background, as one in a group of "outstanding authors", alongside Pavel Câmpeanu, Henri H. Stahl, Zigu Ornea, and Vlad Georgescu).

Among the critics of Tismăneanu's early activities stands the philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu, who stated that they were incompatible with the moral status required from a leader of the Commission. However, Liiceanu endorsed the incrimination of Communist regime and eventually the report itself, engaging in a public debate with Cristian Tudor Popescu and Octavian Paler over its implications.

Concerning activities after 1990

Tom Gallagher, a Professor of Ethnic Conflict and Peace at the University of Bradford and author of influential works on Romanian politics authored a series of articles critical of Tismăneanu's involvement in local Romanian issues in the post-1989 era, and especially of his relations with former President Ion Iliescu (one of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party, PSD). According to Gallagher, Tismăneanu "was useful to Iliescu in 2004 because the then President recognised the type of figure he was beneath the western reformist image he has cultivated". Gallagher expressed further criticism on Tismăneanu, writing that "he wishes to build up a vast patron-client network in contemporary history and political science not dissimilar to what the PSD did in those areas where it desired control".

Tismăneanu replied to Gallagher's accusations in an interview with Jurnalul Naţional, arguing that Marele Şoc largely reflected Iliescu's own beliefs, which he had wanted to render accurately, and stating that "all I could do was to obtain the maximum of what can be obtained through dialog with [Iliescu]". He depicted Gallagher's attitude as "an outbreak of resentments", and indicated that "the only praise I could offer [Iliescu]" was in regard to the latter's respect for pluralism in front of authoritarianism. In later statements on the issue, he argued that Gallagher concerns about a supposed change in political views had been unfounded, while expressing regret over the fact that "I had not highlighted [...] in those sections I authored, certain elements that would have made it clear for the reader where I stand".

Referring to Tismăneanu's books, Tom Gallagher also wrote: "But what about the role of the Securitate? In his books, [Tismăneanu] has never been especially interested in their role. Much of the time, he has seemed far more concerned with creating a psycho-biography of the life and times of his illegalist family in order to overcome the long lasting shock of having been cast into the wilderness for over twenty years when his family fell from grace under Gheorghiu-Dej."

As leaders of anti-communist opinion inside the former Eastern Bloc, Lech Wałęsa and Vladimir Bukovsky had been requested to comment on the Commission's activities. When asked if he knows Tismăneanu, Wałęsa replied "No, I don’t know, I don't have such a good memory", while Bukovsky stated "I don't know Tismăneanu, I know nothing about him. I would like people to understand what they did in the past. He too should understand the part he played".

Concerning his defection to the West

In 2006 and early 2007, Ziua newspaper repeatedly published claims that Tismăneanu had left with support from the Securitate, that he had settled abroad with assistance from the Communist Party of Venezuela, and that, after escaping communist censorship, he continued to publish materials supporting official communist tenets. Tismăneanu has rejected all allegations, indicating that they contradicted data present in, among others, files kept on him by the Securitate and the official conclusion reached by the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archives (CNSAS). Soon afterwards, Ziua's editor in chief, Sorin Roşca-Stănescu, issued a formal apology for those particular claims (while expressing further criticism of various aspects of Tismăneanu's biography).

Based on data which he indicated formed part of his CNSAS file, Tismăneanu also specified that he was the object of constant Securitate surveillance after his departure, that his mother was subject to pressures, and that derogatory comments on him, including a coded reference to his Jewish background (tunărean), were gathered from various informants and agents. He made mention of the fact that, according to the documents (the last of which were allegedly compiled in April 1990), the post-Revolution Foreign Intelligence Directorate had continued to monitor him. Tismăneanu also indicated his belief that the author of a denunciation note, who used the name "Costin" and recommended himself as a Faculty of Sociology professor, was the same person who, after 1989, had sent a letter to his University of Maryland employer, in which he had called attention to the communist activities of Leonte Tismăneanu (according to Vladimir Tismăneanu, the letter was dismissed as "abject" and irrelevant by its recipient).

In January 2007, Ziua published in facsimile a document presented as part of a separate file kept on Tismăneanu by the Counter-Espionage unit of the Securitate, dated 1987. According to this document, Tismăneanu was well appreciated for his professional and Romanian Communist Party work prior to 1981, and had held the position of lecturer on the Propaganda Commission of the Communist Party Municipal Committee for Bucharest. The same document also contradicts Tismăneanu's indication that he had not been allowed to travel to the West prior to 1981, by stating that he had been approved tourist visas for both the Eastern Bloc and "capitalist states". The facsimile was accompanied by an open letter containing similar accusatory claims made by Dan Mureşan, a political consultant for the United States Republican Party, and relying on the assertion that Tismăneanu had settled in the United States only after 1985.

Dispute with Paul Goma

An extended polemic was sparked between the Tismăneanu Commission and the dissident writer Paul Goma. Goma, who initially accepted an invitation to become a Commission member, was excluded after only 9 days by Tismăneanu himself. According to Tismăneanu, this happened because Goma had called Tismăneanu "a Bolshevik offspring", based on his family history; Goma denied having said these exact words, but later confirmed that he supported such views. He also indicated that attacks on Tismăneanu had been prompted by rumors that the latter had sided with other intellectuals in condemning as "antisemitic" the views he had expressed on issues pertaining to the 1940 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia; Tismăneanu denied ever having made public his attitudes on this particular matter, and Goma consequently apologized for not having sufficiently verified the information. Tismăneanu motivated the exclusion based on Goma's questioning the moral and scientific credibility of the president of the Commission, and disclosing of their private correspondence.

The Antohi case

Tismăneanu also invited on the Committee his co-author Sorin Antohi, a confirmed former collaborator of the feared Securitate, the Communist political police, and known to have falsified his academic credentials.[16] Antohi resigned from the Tismăneanu Commission in September 2006 [17] but he is still an editor of the journal East European Politics and Societies, where Tismăneanu is chair of the editorial committee.

Other criticism

Several commentators have argued that the negative reception was partly due to the investigation's implications, as the latter's overall condemnation of the Communist regime has opened the road for further debates regarding the links between various contemporary politicians and the former Communist structures (examples cited include the Social Democratic Party's Ion Iliescu, former President of Romania, and Adrian Păunescu, as well as Greater Romania Party leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor and Conservative Party leader Dan Voiculescu, owner of both Jurnalul Naţional and Antena 1).

Works

Originally published in Romanian

• Noua Stîngă şi şcoala de la Frankfurt (Editura Politică, 1976)
• Teoria Critică a Şcolii de la Frankfurt şi radicalismul de stînga contemporan (Ph.D. thesis, 1980)
• Mic dicţionar social-politic pentru tineret (co-author, under the direction of Virgil Măgureanu; Editura Politică, 1981)
• Condamnaţi la fericire. Experimentul comunist în România (Grup de edituri ale Fundaţiei EXO, 1991)
• Fantoma lui Gheorghiu-Dej (Editura Univers, 1995)
• Balul mascat. Un dialog cu Mircea Mihăieş (dialogue with Mircea Mihăieş; Polirom, 1996)
• Spectrele Europei Centrale (Polirom, 2001)
• Ghilotina de scrum (Polirom, 2002)
• Scrisori din Washington (Polirom, 2002)
• Marele şoc din finalul unui secol scurt. Ion Iliescu în dialog cu Vladimir Tismăneanu (dialogue with Ion Iliescu; Editura Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 2004)
• Schelete in dulap (dialogue with Mircea Mihăieş; Polirom, 2004)
• Scopul şi mijloacele: Eseuri despre ideologie, tiranie şi mit (Editura Curtea Veche, 2004)
• Anul revoluţionar 1956: revolta minţilor şi sfîrşitulul mitului comunist (Editura Curtea Veche, 2006)
• Democraţie şi memorie (Editura Curtea Veche, 2006)

Originally published in English

• The Crisis of Marxist Ideology in Eastern Europe: The Poverty of Utopia (Routledge, 1988)
• Latin American Revolutionaries: Groups, Goals, Methods (with Michael Radu; Potomac Books, 1990)
• In Search of Civil Society (Routledge, 1990)
• Debates on the Future of Communism (with Judith Shapiro; Palgrave Macmillan, 1991)
• Uprooting Leninism, Cultivating Liberty (with Patrick Clawson; University Press of America, 1992)
• Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel (Free Press, 1994)
• Political Culture and Civil Society in Russia and the New States of Eurasia (M. E. Sharpe, 1995)
• Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism and Myth in Post-Communist Europe (Princeton University Press, 1998)
• The Revolutions of 1989 (Re-Writing Histories) (Routledge, 1999)
• Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath (with Sorin Antohi; Central European University Press, 2000)
• Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism (University of California Press, 2003)

Bilingual

• Vecinii lui Franz Kafka. Romanul unei nevroze/The Neighbors of Franz Kafka. The Novel of a Neurosis (with Mircea Mihăieş; Polirom, 1998)

Other

Vladimir Tismăneanu has authored the screenplay for Dinu Tănase's documentary film Condamnaţi la fericire ("Condemned to Happiness"), released in 1992. With Octavian Şerban, he has also authored a series about Communist Romania, which was showcased by the Romanian Television Company.

References

• Template:Ro icon Biography at Polirom.ro

External links

• Vladimir Tismaneanu, home page at the University of Maryland
• Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies
• Condamnaţi la fericire at the British Film Institute site
• Template:Ro icon The final report of the Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania