Encounters with a great storyteller
Professor Dennis Deletant, the celebrated scholar of Romanian communism, once considered by Nicolae Ceaușescu an enemy of the state, returns to America for a launching tour of his recently published book of memoirs, entitled In Search of Romania (Hurst, 2022), a hugely informative and entertaining account of a life full of extraordinary adventures in a country in and out a harsh dictatorship. The events will take place in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Phoenix, AR and are jointly organized by the Embassy of Romania to the U.S., the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies - Georgetown University, Romanian Studies / School of International Letters and Cultures and The Central European Cultural Collaborative - Arizona State University, and ROCO Chicago.
In New York, the evening with the famed British historian will be hosted by the Romanian Cultural Institute on November 9, 2023, from 7 pm. Don’t miss the encounter with a great storyteller and a fascinating presence!
PROGRAM
New York, Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, Thursday, November 9, 7:00 pm / RSVP
Professor Dennis Deletant in conversation with Dorian Branea, Director of RCI New York
Washington, D.C., Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies - Georgetown University / RSVP
Leavey Center Program Room, Friday, November 10, 3:30 pm
Opening remarks: Ambassador Andrei Muraru, and Professor Michael David-Fox, Head of CERES
Keynote speaker: Ambassador James C. Rosapepe
Interlocutor: Charles King, Professor of International Affairs and Government at Georgetown University
Chicago, ROCO Chicago, Tuesday, November 14, 7:00 pm / RSVP
Opening remarks: Oana Dobreanu, ROCO Chicago
Interlocutora: Dan Nicolae, Elaine M. and Samuel D. Kersten, Jr. Distinguished Service Professor Departments of Statistics, Human Genetics, Medicine, and the College Section of Genetic Medicine
Phoenix, AZ, Arizona State University, Hayden Library C10, November 16, 12:00 pm
Opening remarks by Professor Ileana Orlich, ASU President's Professor of Comparative Literature and Romanian Studies and Hon. Consul General of Romania in Arizona, and Dorian Branea, Director of RCI New York
Interlocutors: Dr. Duncan Shaeffer, Associate Director of Undergraduate Programs for the ASU School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, and Dr. Matthew Slaboch, Assistant Professor in the ASU School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DENNIS DELETANT is Emeritus Professor of Romanian Studies at University College London (UCL), where he taught at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies between 1969 and 2011, and was Professor of Romanian Studies at the University of Amsterdam between 2003 and 2010 and Visiting Ratiu Professor of Romanian Studies at Georgetown University between 2011 and 2020. Dennis Deletant was appointed to the board of the British Government’s Know-How Fund for Central and Eastern Europe in 1990 and was actively involved in its work in Romania and in the Republic of Moldova until 1999. For this service he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1995. In 2016, he was awarded the National Order of the Star of Romania for his contribution to Romanian studies. He is the author of several monographs on Romanian history, among them Ceauşescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965-89 (London, 1995; New York, 1995), Romania under Communist Rule (Bucharest, 1998), Communist Terror in Romania: Gheorghiu-Dej and the Police State, 1948-1965 (London, New York, 1999), Hitler’s Forgotten Ally. Ion Antonescu and his Regime, Romania, 1940-1944 (London, 2006), and British Clandestine Activities in Romania during the Second World War (London, 2016). His study Romania under Communism: Paradox and Degeneration was published by Routlegde (Oxford, New York) in January 2019.
ABOUT IN SEARCH OF ROMANIA
"Deletant approaches his decades-long relationship with the country with the precision of a scholar… In Search of Romania is a tribute to the individuals who were brave enough to stand up to the communist regime." — Times Literary Supplement
"In Search of Romania invites readers to ponder life under Ceaușescu’s dictatorship, with all the challenges individuals had to face, the role of oppressive institutions like the political police Securitate, and the legacy of that era in the country’s transition to democracy." — Romania Insider
"Deletant has been perhaps the leading academic expert on Romania since the dark days of Nicolae Ceaușescu, when he showed remarkable courage in standing up against the dictatorship. He has watched with affection and deep insight as the country has changed and developed since. His relationship with Romania is fascinating, and this book is essential reading for everyone who wants to understand it." — John Simpson CBE, World Affairs Editor, BBC News
"No foreign academic in recent decades has pursued the horrors and riches of twentieth-century Romanian history to the degree of Deletant. Romania is truly his subject, one that he has researched with great exactitude." — Robert D. Kaplan, author of In Europe’s Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey Through Romania and Beyond
"With the mastery of a storyteller and a historian’s sense for precision, Deletant gives an enthralling account of communist and post-communist Romania. By evoking dissidents, writers, communist leaders and their opponents, the book reminds us of the moral obligation to condemn totalitarianism and defend freedom and democracy–for it is hard to heal the scars of a repressive regime." — Professor Andrei Muraru, historian, Ambassador of Romania to the United States of America
"Deletant has long been recognised as a leading authority on the history of Romania, decorated by both the British and Romanian governments. This long-awaited memoir does not disappoint, covering a lifetime of engagement with this fascinating country, from run-ins with the Securitate to his work in helping to realise the moving Sighet memorial to the victims of Communism. An informative and delightful read." — Paul Brummell, British Ambassador to Romania, 2014–2018
"An extraordinary book by an outstanding historian who understands Romania better than many Romanians. Analytical yet never dry, rich with captivating autobiographical details and humorous in tone, this will undoubtedly captivate readers." — Radu Ioanid, Ambassador of Romania to Israel, Holocaust historian, and former director of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
HURST is an independently owned and run non-fiction publisher, based in London but publishing globally. More here.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
MICHAEL DAVID-FOX is Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies at Georgetown University, where he is professor in the School of Foreign Service and Department of History. A founding and executive editor of "Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History", he is author of "Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning among the Bolsheviks, 1918-1929" (1997), "Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941" (2011), and "Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union" (2015). He is editor or co-editor of 13 special theme issues of journals and 11 books, most recently, "The Secret Police and the Soviet System: New Archival Investigations" (Pittsburgh, 2023). His" Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule" is in press and forthcoming in 2024 from Harvard University Press.
CHARLES KING is Professor of International Affairs and Government at Georgetown University. He is a previous holder of the Ion Ratiu Chair of Romanian Studies at Georgetown and also served as chair of the Department of Government and chair of the faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. King's writing has ranged from the politics of Eastern Europe and Eurasia to urban history, the history of ideas, race and ethnicity, and biography. He is the author of the New York Times-bestselling Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century, which received the Parkman Prize in American history and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. King's other books include Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul, which was the inspiration for a Netflix series of the same name, and Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams, which received a National Jewish Book Award. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, including Romanian.
Photo credit: Mary Fecteau
ILEANA ALEXANDRA ORLICH serves as Hon. Consul General of Romania in Arizona. She is President’s Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of Romanian Studies at Arizona State University. Her monographs include Subversive Stages: Theater in Pre-and Post-Communist Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Myth and Modernity in the Twentieth-Century Romanian Novel. Articulating Gender, Narrating the Nation: Allegorical Femininity in Romanian Fiction. Silent Bodies: (Re)Discovering the Women of Romanian Short Fiction.
Ambassador JAMES ROSAPEPE (Ret.) was the United States Ambassador to Romania from 1998-2001. His engagement with the countries of the former Soviet Union and the Parsa Pact date to the late 80's. He was the first Chair of the Maryland Leningrad Oblast Sister State Committee, an election observer in Croatia and the Chairman of the Investment Committee of the Board of Albanian-American Enterprise Fund. Since his return to the United States in 2001, he has remained active as an investor in Central and Eastern Europe. Currently, he Chairs the board of Alianta and co-authored with his wife Sheilah Kast, Dracula is Dead: Travels in Post Communist Romania.
Dr. DUNCAN SHAFFER is the Associate Director of Undergraduate Programs for the ASU School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. His research interests include global cultural and historical geography.
Dr. MATTHEW SLABOCH is an Assistant Professor in the ASU School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. His interests are in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European intellectual history and contemporary Central and East European politics.
PRESS
LISTINGS
Eventbrite (New York)
PHOTO GALLERY
New York, Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, Thursday, November 9, 7:00 pm
Washington, D.C., Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies - Georgetown University, Leavey Center Program Room, Friday, November 10, 3:30 pm
Chicago, ROCO Chicago, Tuesday, November 14, 7:00 pm
Phoenix, AZ, Arizona State University, Hayden Library C10, November 16, 12:00 pm
