Wednesday 12 May 2004

(Ziua care nu se uita, 15 noiembrie 1987, Brasov)
by Stejarel Olaru and Marius Oprea

Wednesday 12 May 2004
18.30, Senior Common Room, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 21 Russell Square, WC1

The book was introduced by Professor Dennis Deletant in the presence of the authors.

‘The Day We Won’t Forget. 15 November 1987, Brasov’ by Marius Oprea and Stejarel Olaru (Polirom Editors, 2003, pp. 240; Translated by Oana Mitchell. Translation revised by Brenda Walker. Preface by Dennis Deletant)

Two young historians reconstruct a unique event in Romanian history: the workers’ revolt from Brasov, on 15 November 1987. The route chosen by Marius Oprea and Stejarel Olaru, researchers at the Romanian Institute for Recent History (IRIR), is one that is hard, but rewarding: they set on gathering testimonies from the actual people who took part in the events.

The reader will be surprised and moved reading the accounts given by people who dared to speak their anger in a time of brutal repression. Those men and women who uttered their discontent were afterwards arrested, beaten and tortured. Many of them underwent trial and were imprisoned for their defiance of the Dictator, the Communist Party, and therefore of the State.

Organisers:
The School of Slavonic and East European Studies – UCL
The Ratiu Foundation UK
The Romanian Cultural Centre in London