REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

104
Remembrance in Time
In 1949, the leaflet was issued PublicaŃii nedifuzabile. Liste de circulaŃie internă
(Publications not to Be Disseminated. Internal-Circulation Lists), which marks the
passage to another stage: from forbidding the publications (1945) to rendering them
secret (1949). Until 1949, one cannot speak of secret library collections, only about
forbidden publication collections, because those during 1945-1948 had a pronounced
public character. This way, in the titles of the lists from 1945-1946, the expression “out of
circulation“ appears, in the one of the lists from 1948 the word “forbidden“, and in that
from 1949, “not to be disseminated“. If the first indications only targeted the volumes,
magazines and newspapers within institutions (inclusively from libraries), the one from
1948 also incriminated those held in private homes, therefore the respective brochure was
publicly disseminated through selling.
The list with the publications withdrawn from circulation in 1945 has 1.828 titles, the
one from 1946 – 2.538, and the one from 1949 – 7.694.
The decree-law from May 2, 1945 explicitly mentioned what whose lists had to
contain: “all periodical and non-periodical publications issued from January 1, 1917 until
August 23, 1944, comprising legionary, fascist, Hitlerite, chauvinistic, racist or harmful
passages to Romania’s good relations with the United Nations“. In 1948, supplementary
specifications were brought. Some editions of the classical authors were thereby
“forbidden for the fascist trend in which [sic!] their editing, commenting and presentation
was made“. Likewise, there were forbidden, without other specification, “all textbooks
previous to the year 1947, or which are not listed on the official board of the textbooks
approved by the Ministry of Education”. The interdiction also targeted “any maps that
include within the borders of the Romanian Popular Republic, territories that do not
belong to it“, respectively Bessarabia, Northern Bucovina, possessed by U.S.S.R, and
Southern Dobrogea, ceded to Bulgaria. Similarly, “all calendars, popular almanacs etc. of
any kind, from the period 1938/1944 were forbidden“.
The index of the depurated works in 1948 comprised names such as Ion
Antonescu, Maria Antonescu, Armand Călinescu, Octavian Goga, Iuliu Maniu, Pamfil
Şeicaru, Al. Vaida-Voevod, Mircea Vulcănescu, members of the royal families,
editions from Mihai Eminescu, Ion Creangă, I.L. Caragiale, other great writers of the
XIX th -XX th centuries.
These lists were used to withdraw from circulation, ironically, even some
communist leaders’ works that could not be publicly forbidden. In the files, at the
index, a series of titles were written that arouse perplexity as part of them cannot be
retrieved also on other lists (especially those issued after 1950), they constituting
therefore the local censors’ “original” contribution: Oaia de rasă Karakul (Karakul-
Breed Sheep); Hrănirea vacilor de lapte (Feeding Dairy Cows); Plantarea pomilor
roditori (Planting Fruit Trees); Mulgerea raŃională şi îngrijirea [!] laptelui în micile
gospodării (Rational Milking and Milk Care [!] in Small Households); Ajutorul
U.R.S.S. pentru România obŃinut de guvernul Groza (U.S.S.R.’s Help for Romania
Obtained by Groza Government); Alimentarea cu apă a centrelor populate (Water
Supply to Populated Centres); Să alegem pe cei mai buni oameni ai muncii în
consiliile de conducere a [!] cooperativelor (Let’s Choose the Best Working People in