ABSTRACT

Romanians in the 1970s used to say that they felt like Brancusi’s Infinite Column; for a while they might expand, but always present was the expectation of being squeezed again. Perhaps most disturbing of all was the growth of mistrust among Romanians. Romania, of course, had been stratified socially in the 1920s and 1930s. There were traditional resentments of the capital by the provinces, not to mention strains between Romanians and other ethnic groups, especially the Hungarians, with whom their history had been intertwined for almost a thousand years. In the judgement of many Western observers, particularly in the US, and among people in Romania itself, the present government’s acts of commission and omission have not demonstrated a sufficient democratic commitment to deserve much in the way of help. As the International Monetary Fund agreement indicates, that may be beginning to change.