Professor Alexandru Diaconescu from the Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca was the Informant Victor of the Romania Communist Securitate.
In response to the reactions of several high-profiled specialists from the cultural, academic or civil environment, as well as of readers unconnected or remotely linked to these fields, Gazeta de Cluj renders in international languages a series of recent articles on the influential Securitate. Gazeta cannot passively accept that key informants of the “late” Securitate still hold academic offices and distinctions and channel research funds for purposes detrimental to the interests of Romanian citizens, as well as of the international community, on which such agents used to – successfully one must admit – to spy on. This is also the case of Alexandru Diaconescu (born in 1955), until recently an Associate-Professor at the Babeş-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca), Faculty of History and Philosophy. In violation of the EU common rules, Alexandru Diaconescu was promoted to a full-professorship without credentials of either habilitation or relevant international academic impact or contact. His professorship constitutes the end product of a chain of Securitate operatives, blackmails, traffic of influence, corruption and frauds Diaconescu himself grew as Victor of the Securitate while wittingly spying on an aging French Professor and Academician enamoured of Romania. His name was Robert Etienne.
Read also on this theme:
Ioan Piso despre securistii Alexandru Diaconescu si Emilian Bota
EXCLUSIV! Alexandru Diaconescu, informatorul “VICTOR” al Securității comuniste
Gazeta de Cluj publishes an official document issued on the 23rd of October 2012 [!] by the National Council for the Study of the Archives of the Securitate (CNSAS) that confirms that Alexandru Diaconescu was the informant Victor, as well as a page from the file containing his numerous reports. The most astonishing fact is that Professor Alexandru Diaconescu is the godfather of Marius Oprea, the famous Romanian “head-hunter” of Securitate agents, and of his wife. As if the wolf shepherds the sheep…
The Historical Agent of the Securitate and the Modern Anti-Securitate Activist
[ot-caption title=”CNSAS stated that Alexandru Diaconescu was the communiste informer VICTOR” url=”http://www.gazetadecluj.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Document-Victor-1.jpg”]
Victor (Alexandru Diaconescu)’s main task was to spy on the foreign historians that cameto Cluj and the Romanian colleagues they encountered. In late 1989, he willingly acceptedto spy on the same historians (and several others) that had to reconvene in Madrid in 1990on the occasion of the International Congress of Historical Sciences [that takes place everyfive years]. On the 6th of November 1989, Ioan Brad, the officer in charge of Victor, wrote:
[…] The note concerns Professor Robert Etienne from the University of Bordeaux, who came to Romania as a member of an official delegation and resided in Cluj between the 26th of October and the 2nd of November this year [i.e. 1989 (just a month prior to the “Romanian Revolution”]. The source has been entrusted with the task of systematically providing information on the participation of the historians of Cluj at this meeting, on the preparations in view of this meeting and on the potential problems that might arise […].
In an interview for Cotidianul, Marius Oprea, Diaconescu’s godson, stated: the people of the Securitate still rule us. He forgot to mention that his own family was ruled by the same people of the Securitate. When self-proclaimed “head-hunters” of communist agents are accompanied to the altar by an informant, no further commentaries are necessary.
[ot-caption title=”Victor was given the asignment to rat on Robert Etienne, a french well known archeologist” url=”http://www.gazetadecluj.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/document-victor.jpg”]
An Aesthete of the Ugly City of Cluj-Napoca
I have to underline one aspect about myself. I was born in Cluj-Napoca. I was absent only for a short while. However, I must confess that Cluj-Napoca is an ugly city. It took some time to come to this confession. Yet Cluj has neither the large boulevards of Oradea or Timişora, nor the medieval flavour of Sighişoara or Sibiu; Cluj has a bit of both. For me, Cluj is like a flamenco dancer. Hungry and shy, she enters a restaurant and says nothing. She <then> starts to tap her feet and dance and little by little she attracts attention. And, while she dances, you tell yourself: this is a beautiful woman. At the end, you say: this is the most beautiful woman in the world. Cluj is a city that you discover bit by bit. The most beautiful parts of the city do not strike you from the beginning (statement by Alexandru Diaconescu in an interview for our journal).
[ot-caption title=”Alexandru Diaconescu Romania Communist informer Victor posing for the interview mentioned above” url=”http://www.gazetadecluj.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Alexandru-Diaconescu-2-300x200_c.jpg”]
The “Great Family” and the National Museum for the History of Transylvania
In the autumn of 2011, Alexandru Diaconescu was moreover involved in a blackmail operation against Cristian Găzdac from the Institute of Archaeology and the History of Arts of the Romanian Academy, who intended to compete for the office of director of the National Museum for the History of Transylvania. The job ultimately went to Carmen Ciongradi, the goddaughter of Marius Oprea. The latter even acknowledged the blackmail (or –as the old Romanian lines of Puya and Şişu sung – everything is done in the family). According to Marius Oprea himself in an elder interview for Gazeta de Cluj:
We have seen him stealing American aid at Sarmisegetusa. I have told him that if he dears to compete for the office of director of the National Museum for the History of Transylvania I cannot confide in robbers. I have told Sandu [i.e. Alexandru Diaconescu] and several staff members of the museum that if he [i.e. Cristian Găzdac] becomes director he will ruin the museum. This was between him [i.e. CG] and me. I admit that I have blackmailed him. Do you think that a robber can be a director of a museum? I am enough of mad dog and I did not have an interest in a small boy, who stole the part of his colleagues, becomes the director of the National Museum for the History of Transylvania. Because this is what he had done. This is all. The others did not steal. They are excellent and honourable researchers. I told him [i.e. CG] that if he became director I would publish what he had done. Even if I am the godfather of his competitor [i.e. Carmen Ciongradi]. You can accuse me of blackmail. But sometimes as [Silviu] Brucan once told: hey Marius, do you realize what you are waiting for? Are you afraid of wolves? Non < I replied>. Because if you are afraid of the wolves, I should not enter the forest. What I detest is stealing. At times you have to threaten a still so that people realize what they are doing. I told Găzdac: you idiot you do not know who you are. I did not encourage Ciongradi one way or another. Găzdac stole and this I can prove. Being a robber is the lowest of the low. I admit: I did not act in correct fashion, but such a wretched guy, a robber who picks the pockets of his classmates. He was a sophomore at that time and he might have become director of the museum. This is what caused me fear. I did everything so that this thought [i.e. competing for director] stops running through his head. If you want to call this blackmail, it was an indirect one, not a direct one. I do not know whether or not I was very correct. You how it goes in a country where you can die with justice in your hands. If I was wrong, I take full responsibility for it. If am guilty? I will go to prison. I tell you: I am not afraid. I am not afraid of Găzdac, of a robber.
As it soon turned out, Oprea’s tormented confession covered a much more complicated picture, while Cristian Găzdac was not at all guilty of any robbery or wrong-doing.
More committed to the Securitate than to Science
Between 1989 and 1994, a team funded jointly by the Babeş-Bolyai University and the French Foreign Ministry (due to the diligences of Robert Étienne), a team consisting of Robert Etienne (member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, best known for his extensive work at Pompeii), Ioan Piso (Professor at the Babeş-Bolyai University, the former director of the National Museum for the History of Transylvania) and Victor unearthed entirely the grand building of the centre of Ulpia Traiana Sarmisegetusa, the capital of Roman Dacia. The building was previously known as the Aedes Augustalium, but turned out to be the first forum of the city, and is hence known as Forum Vetus or Forum Traiani. The discovered material was researched until mid-1996. According also to the official webpage of Romanian cultural heritage (www.cimec.ro), the manifold delays of Alexandru Diaconescu, who had taken upon him the task of analysing the architectural and sculptural features, have rendered impossible the publication of the monograph on the forum and led to the irrecoverable loss of the French funding for publication.
The Educational CV of the Informant Alexandru Diaconescu (according to the official webpage)
1974 Emil Racoviţă Theoretical High-school, Cluj-Napoca (graduation).
1979 Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Cluj-Napoca (BA).
1983 Research stay in the United Kingdom.
1988 High-school teacher, Cluj-Napoca (from 1979 to 1988).
1991 Research fellowship at the École Française de Rome.
1993 Research fellowship at the University of Cologne, Institut für Alte Geschichte, Epigraphik und Papyrologie (until 1994).
1994 Research fellowship at the University of Cologne, Institut für Alte Geschichte, Epigraphik und Papyrologie (until 1995).
1997 Research fellowship at the École Française d’Athènes.
1998 Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Cluj-Napoca, PhD in <Ancient> History.
Update 1: The Response of the Babeş-Bolyai University
In spite of the initial reluctance to accept the official evidence provided by CNSAS and presented by Gazeta de Cluj, the Babeş-Bolyai University realized that she could not ascend among the top European universities with active Securitate agents still acting as key faculty staff and requested additional information on Victor from CNSAS.
Update 2: The Response of Victor’s former PhD Supervisor
After the first information on the matter surfaced, Professor Ioan Piso accepted to offer us an interview, offering insights both into the Victor case, as well as into the 1980s.
The remarks in brackets belong to the newspaper:
Reporter: Alexandru Diaconescu was appointed university professor and at the same time it became publically known that he was the informant Victor of the Securitate?
Ioan Piso: In order to comprehend the cause of my most recent troubles [since 2005-2006, IP was the constant subject of law-suits and was repeatedly deposed and reinstated as the director of the National Museum for the History of Transylvania), I requested, according to the law, the access to my own Securitate surveillance file. Surprisingly, that file could not be found. Data on me [i.e. Securitate reports on IP and his work and contacts] was discovered in other Securitate files. One of them was the Victor file.
As far as I could see at the CNSAS desk, the file is large. However, once more, in accordance with the law, I could view only the pages where my name was mentioned. Based on these and other files, the official confirmation that AD was the informant Victor of the Securitate was issued by CNSAS in the autumn of 2012. I never intended to make this document public, in spite of the numerous rumours regarding Victor that were already circulating. I have attempted to protect the faculty [i.e. the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the Babeş-Bolyai University] from where I was removed in the manner which everybody knows. [The faculty virtually acted in accordance to the wishes of various groups within the Romanian Ministry of Culture and the History Museum of Cluj and removed IP from any academic responsibility within its reach.] Yet when a journalist, informed from other various sources, comes to me, I cannot lie.
I would have gladly avoided this interview had it not been for the rumours spread by AD that I was the one who compelled him to work with the Securitate. [In Romanian: să colaboreze cu Securitatea; this frequently means in fact to join the Securitate.] Victor’s trademark is still very much active and I therefore feel freed from any Christian responsibility [In Romanian: obligaţie creştinească; a common expression intended to designate – in the academic environment as well – the duty to protect in the end even the enemies.]
As to AD’s appointment as professor, I know little of the competition or of the criteria for it. I can only say the position was tailored for him, making AD the ideal candidate for the job. AD had 35 years of experience behind him, nevertheless rather reduced in terms of both academic quality and quantity, which made him good, if not excellent, under the present circumstances in Cluj, but not on the European academic level. In addition, AD always knew how to win the attention and the confidence of the students, even though he lacked the respect for his own professors, a respect that my generation always shared. After repeatedly aiding him, I was repeatedly assaulted by AD, which makes everything – from Securitate to the professorship – a very delicate subject for me.
I cannot forget however the fact that 10 years ago AD became an Associate-Professor by tricking the jury with a book published to that end in just one copy. Now, when he competed for a full professorship, AD “forgot to mention” that he worked for the Securitate. AD might have won the job, but he certainly lost the test of character.
Reporter: Was Alexandru Diaconescu an Informant by Need or by Calling?
Ioan Piso: Prior to 1990 you had for instance Law 20 that compelled you to write a report on any meeting with a person officially invited from abroad by your institution or any foreign scientist that you came in contact with. Disobeying this law meant professional suicide, both in terms of domestic career and in terms of professional contacts, which could not be maintained otherwise. We used to write around four-five lines, stating that we had discussed only scientific topics and nothing political (naturally, we often lied). We were fully aware where these reports went. We consequently omitted our colleagues who had also come into contact with “guests” because the Securitate would not have hesitated to turn us against each other, especially because the reports were signed with our own names. I hope that most colleagues acted in the same manner. Those whose calling was to be an informant acted in totally different fashion. Somebody should review the Victor file, which as far as I could see is loaded with information. [A fundamental error perpetuated by the “heirs of the Securitate” is the confusion between the reports – often formal and neutral – signed in one’s own name based on Law 20 and the detailed reports of active informants written under alias such as Victor.]
The one good deed of Victor was that he helped my memory more than two decades later when I had completely forgotten with whom I had shared a glass, who had paid for dinner or who had come to my home. If somebody thinks that such information was meant to defend the country from “non-socialist” aggressors or to win over some of them for Ceauşescu’s policies, that person is totally mistaken, albeit the fact that she or he would not be the last one [Noteworthy enough, the “great informants”, known so far, all covered Western or US citizens, not Hungarian or Russian (Soviet) citizens, though the latter states were the primary adversaries of Ceauşescu in the 1980s.] AD even provided information about his own relative – distant nevertheless – Dorin Alicu [former director of the National Museum for the History of Transylvania (†2013)]. It is not impossible that he was even paid for this, as were most informants, especially those in charge of foreigners [AD belongs to the same “informative league” as his close contact, Andrei Marga, former Rector of the Babeş-Bolyai University, Romanian Minister of Education and of Foreign Affairs, and an official informant.] I can only speculate based on other documented cases on the provisions of Victor’s “contract” with the Securitate.
Rep.: Why did Alexandru Diaconescu turn against You?
Ioan Piso: AD cannot carry the burden of gratitude. After graduating, he was expelled from the archaeological excavations at the Roman castrum of Gilău (1979). His career would have been terminated. I have turned to Hadrian Daicoviciu to take him to Ulpia and then to Ştefan Pascu to bring AD to the History Institute of the Romanian Academy. Then I brought him to the faculty, sent him after 1989 to study abroad and supervised his PhD. Once he managed to become an Associate-Professor with a thesis published in just a copy, AD felt safe and violently turned against me after aiding him more than I had aided members of my family. AD and his team [See above the characters mentioned in Găzdac incident of 2011] proceeded in a highly professional manner, placing the university, the museum, myself and others under constant attack for nearly ten years.
Old habits die hard [Given also the episode from November 1989, we must question also the nature of the first European travels of AD after 1990]. I have to admit that at present the Securitate has accomplished what it failed to do prior to 1989: the Securitate now controls both the former capital of Roman Dacia and the Museum of Cluj. [The acting deputy-director of the Museum and former general-director, Viorica Crişan, was an official agent of the Securitate and is still a close associate of AD.] If I was to trust his own words claiming that he was recruited while still in high-school, I could add Emilian Bota to the list of agents active in this field. I would be willing to apologize if this proved not be true. I doubt however that I will ever have the chance to do that.
In average, because of the close contacts to foreign specialists, the archaeological branch was apparently more infiltrated by the Securitate than other fields from the sciences of history. I cannot separate this aspect from the recent fate of the Museum of Cluj where between 2009 and 2012 some 1.800.000 Euros were embezzled with the written approval of Viorica Crişan and Carmen Ciongradi. [Romanian authorities are already investigating this expanding matter.] At present, the museum is closed and nearly collapsed. Through his family ties and his former relation with me, AD played a significant part in these developments. I was fooled by his – undisputable – qualities and furthered a figure that turned out to be a total moral failure. [We cannot overlook the nearly “procedural” analogies between the cases of the relations between Ioan Piso and Alexandru Diaconescu, respectively between Alexandru Zub and Sorin Antohi: two scholars, one of which spent several years in Bolshevik prisons, and two seductive informants, bordering academic imposture, with one certainly beyond that limit.]
Update 3: Fraudulent Administration of Archaeological Funds and Equipment
With the benediction of Toader Nicoară, the president of the jury that selected AD as an university professor, former dean of the Faculty of History and Philosophy (2000-2008) and vice-rector of the Babeş-Bolyai University under Andrei Marga (2008-2012), and Ovidiu Ghitta, the acting dean of the faculty (since 2008) and the most important supporter of AD at present, salaries and facilities in excess of 200,000 Euros were embezzled through AD and his associates. Part of the sum consists of the salaries paid for the archaeological researches directed by AD in view of the erection of the Nokia factory at Jucu (2006-2007). These sums were moved directly through the cashier’s office of the university. The other part of the sum consists of the equipment acquired through projects by Ioan Piso (2008-2009) which totals around 180,000 Euros, almost the sum paid predominantly through fictional salaries for the excavations at Jucu. This equipment was “moved”, with the lasting blessing of the administration of the faculty, to the National Museum for the History of Transylvania for latter’s own schemes.
