In 1973, Romanians were beginning to recognize that the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, contrary to what his first five or six years in power seemed to imply, would bring no respite from communism. Instead, after a 1971 "mini cultural revolution" ended hope for a Bucharest "spring" and intellectual latitude was curtailed further in 1972-73, the ominous possibilities of Ceausescu were becoming evident. In 1973, I went to Romania on a dissertation research grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board. It was a year in which wide-ranging survey research was still possible. But it was also a time when historians and writers who had different ideas, or workers who gave thought to non-party union organization, felt the heavy hand of Ceausescu's Securitate. As happens to most graduate students and their field research, it was a formative experience with indelible impressions that remain today.
Biography
Daniel N. Nelson teaches at Georgetown University’s Russian Area Studies Program and serves as a consultant on East Europe for government and business organizations. Previously he has been senior foreign and defense policy advisor for the House majority leader. Representative Richard Gephardt, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment, and (from 1977–1989) a professor of political science at the University of Kentucky. His recent books include Balkan Imbroglio (Westview, 1991) and Romanian Politics in the Ceausescu Era (Gordon and Breach, 1989).
