The following is a description of the social structure of Romania divided into three distinct categories.
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Transcription
It's March the 17th in A.D. 73. We're visiting ancient Rome to watch the Liberalia, an annual festival that celebrates the liberty of Rome's citizens. We're looking in at a 17-year-old named Lucius Popidius Secundus. He's not from a poor family, but he lives in the region known as the Subura, a poorer neighborhood in Rome, yet close to the center of the city. The tenants of these apartments are crammed in, which poses considerable risk. Fires are frequent and the smell of ash and smoke in the morning is not uncommon. Lucius, who awoke at dawn, has family duties to perform today. His 15-year-old brother is coming of age. Half the children in ancient Rome die before they reach adulthood, so this is a particularly important milestone. Lucius watches his brother stand in his new toga before the household shrine with its protective deities as he places his bulla, a protective amulet, in the shrine with a prayer of thanks. The bulla had worked. It had protected him. Unlike many others, he had survived to become an adult. At 17, Lucius has almost completed his education. He has learned to speak well, make public speeches, and how to read and write both Latin and Greek. His father has taught him the types of things you can't learn in the classroom: how to run, how to swim, and how to fight. Lucius could choose, at 17, to become a military tribune and command soldiers on the edge of the Empire. But in other ways, Lucius is still a child. He's not trusted to arrange business deals. His father will take care of that until he is 25. And Dad will arrange Lucius' marriage to a girl 10 years younger. His dad has his eye on a family with a 7-year-old daughter. Back to the Liberalia. As Lucius leaves with his family, the shops are open as the population goes about its business. The streets are full of itinerant traders selling trinkets and people bustling from place to place. Large wagons are not allowed in the city until after the ninth hour but the streets are still crowded. Fathers and uncles take the kids to the Forum Augustus to see statues of Rome's famous warriors like Anaeus, who led Rome's ancestors, the Trojans, to Italy. And Romulus, Rome's founder. And all the great generals of the Republic from more than 100 years earlier. Lovingly, we can imagine fathers and guardians with their now adult childen remembering stories of Rome's glory and re-telling the good deeds and sayings of the great men of the past: lessons on how to live well, and to overcome the follies of youth. There is a sense of history in this place, relevant to their present. Romans made an empire without end in time and space. Rome was destined to be eternal through warfare. Wars were a fact of life, even in A.D. 73. There are campaigns in the north of England and into Scotland, to the north of the River Danube into Romania, and on the frontier between Syria and Iraq to the east. It's now the eighth hour -- time to head for the baths. Lucius and his family head up the Via Lata, the wide street, to the Campus Martius, and the enormous Baths of Agrippa. The family members leave the clients and freedman outside, and enter the baths with their peer group. Baths would change from dark, steamy rooms to light ones. The Romans had perfected window glass. Everyone moves from the cold room to the tepid room and to the very hot room. More than an hour later, the bathers leave massaged, oiled, and have been scraped down with a strigil to remove the remaining dirt. At the ninth hour, seven hours after they left home, the men return for a celebratory dinner. Dinner is an intimate affair, with nine people reclining around the low table. Slaves attend to their every need if the diners, through gestures, demand more food and wine. As the day closes, we can hear the rumble of wagons outside. The clients and freedmen, with a meal of robust -- if inferior -- food inside them, shuffle off to the now tepid baths before returning to their apartment blocks. Back at Lucius' house, the drinking continues into the night. Lucius and his stepbrother don't look too well. A slave stands by in case either of them needs to vomit. With hindsight, we know Lucius' future. In 20 years' time, the Emperor Vespasian's youngest son, Domitian, as emperor, will enact a reign of terror. Will Lucius survive?
Kingdom of Romania (before 1947)
Before World War II, Romania was primarily agrarian; in the late 1940s, about three-quarters of the population were engaged in subsistence agriculture from ever-shrinking plots of land (due to an increasing rural population).[1] Although some industrial activity was encouraged by state contracts and foreign investment, industrial development was slow and failed to create alternative employment opportunities for the overpopulated and impoverished countryside. Atop the low social pyramid stood a disproportionately powerful social elite, a remnant of the nobility that had once owned most of the land in the Kingdom of Romania (1881–1947). Although reforms between 1917 and 1921 had left them with only 15% of the arable land, this aristocracy retained a powerful voice in political affairs.[2][3]
Communist era (1947–1989)
After World War II, Romania's social structure was drastically altered by the imposition of a political system envisioning a classless, egalitarian society. Marxist-Leninist doctrine holds that the establishment of a socialist state (in which the working class possesses the means of production and distribution of goods and political power) will ensure the eventual development of communism. Under communism, there would be no class conflict or exploitation of man by his fellow man. There would be an abundance of wealth, shared equally by all. The road to communism requires the primacy of the working class and the elimination of the ruling class and bourgeoisie. In Romania the latter was easily accomplished, but most of the population were peasants and not workers.
The Communist government (imposed by the Soviet Union in 1945) eliminated opposition to their consolidation of power by appeals to the working class. Disruption caused by World War II assisted the new government; much of the ruling elite had either emigrated or been killed, and many survivors left with the retreating German forces as the Red Army approached. Most Jews (who had constituted a large segment of the communal and financial elite before the war) either died in fascist Romania or fled the country over the next few years.
Measures taken during the early days of communist rule eradicated what remained of the upper crust. Land reforms in 1945 eliminated large holdings, depriving the aristocracy of their power and economic base. The currency reform of 1947 (which essentially confiscated all money for the state) was ruinous for members of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie who had not fled with their fortunes. The state also expropriated commercial and industrial properties; by 1950 90% of all industrial output was state-controlled, and by 1953 only 14% of shops were privately owned.
Although opposition from the more economically and socially advanced members of society was eliminated almost immediately, the task of creating an industrial working class (in whose name the communists claimed power) had just begun. In 1950, less than 25% of the population lived in cities or worked in factories. Conditions in the countryside, however, were poised for change in the direction the regime required. The war and Soviet occupation had left the peasantry starving, with much of their livestock and capital destroyed. Their problems were compounded by a drought in 1945–1946, followed by a famine in which thousands died. More important for the regime, many of the peasants became detached from the land and were willing to work in factory jobs resulting from the Communist Party's industrialization program.[4]
Post-communism (1990–present)
From the late 1970s to the 1980s there was a growing economic crisis, leading to a sharp decline in living standards. The response by Nicolae Ceaușescu, which made liberal use of austerity, led to heightened societal tensions and even worse conditions for working people. In December 1989, the government headed by Nicolae Ceaușescu was forcibly overthrown, with rioting in Bucharest. The sudden removal of a state-controlled economy led to further erosion in the standard of living, with unemployment and job insecurity.[citation needed] Social change in Romania has been slow, with progress toward a less-centrally-controlled economy sporadic in nature.[5]
References
- ^ "industria romana inainte de primul razboi mondial Archives - Romania Military". 5 December 2014.
- ^ Gella, Aleksander. Development of Class Structure in Eastern Europe, p.51. 1989, SUNY Press, ISBN 0-88706-833-2.
- ^ Gallagher, Tom. Modern Romania, p.30. 2005, NYU Press, ISBN 0-8147-3172-4.
- ^ Library of Congress Country Studies, CIA Factbook. Retrieved 2011-04-12.
- ^ Henry Kamm, "Romanian Leaders Battle an Image". New York Times, December 17, 1992.
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This page was last edited on 25 January 2024, at 04:46