CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Chiriac, Bogdan |
|---|---|
| Title | The Trial of the Antonescu Group (May 6- 17, 1946) and the Communist Takeover in Romania. A Historical Interpretation |
| Summary | The aim of this dissertation is to examine the trial of the Antonescu group (May 6- 17, 1946) and its larger, extra-judicial implications on Romanian political life during the immediate postwar years. Arguably the most important war crimes trial held in postwar Romania, the criminal prosecution of Marshal Ion Antonescu (1882- 1946) and twenty-three of his former political and military collaborators attracted considerable media attention due to the high profile of the defendants (former members in the wartime Antonescu cabinets) and the severity of their offenses (‘war crimes’ and ‘contribution to the country’s disaster’), while the partiality and expediency that accompanied the court proceedings generated even greater controversy. Starting from the premise that the ad-hoc Bucharest People’s Court that heard the case deliberately deviated from the established legal norms and judicial procedures, this dissertation intends to demonstrate that this particular trial exceeded its original retributive purpose and became inextricably entangled in the early Cold War rivalries between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies, on the one hand, and the local struggle for power between the rising Romanian Communist Party and the traditional political forces opposing a Communist takeover, on the other. More concretely, the Soviet Union and its local protégée, the Communist-dominated Groza government, exceeded their prerogatives and turned this trial into a medium to advance their political and propagandistic objectives, namely the vilification of the Communist political rivals as ‘fascists’ and ‘collaborators’, the glorification of the alleged leading role played by the local Communists in the wartime ‘anti-fascist struggle’ or the coup of August 23, 1944, as well as the harnessing of popular support for the forthcoming local parliamentary elections. The end result of this partisan interference was the transformation of the trial of the Antonescu group into a glaring example of ‘political justice’. |
| Supervisor | Iordachi, Constantin |
| Department | History PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/chiriac_bogdan.pdf |
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