Nichita Smochină
Encyclopedia
Nichita P. Smochină was a Transnistria
n-born activist, scholar and political figure, especially noted for campaigning on behalf of ethnic Romanians
in the Soviet Union
. He was first active in the Russian Empire
, serving with distinction in World War I
, then in the Ukrainian People's Republic
, where he earned his reputation as a champion of Transnistrian Romanian interests. An anti-communist
, he narrowly escaped the Bolshevik
s and crossed into Romania
, which became his second home. A protege of historian Nicolae Iorga
, Smochină earned his academic credentials and also made himself known internationally as an expert on minority rights
. Beginning in the 1920s, he contributed to historical research, ethnography
and folkloristics
, as well as jurisprudence
.
During most of World War II
, Smochină backed the authoritarian
regime of Ion Antonescu
and paid service to Gheorghe Alexianu's Transnistria Governorate. His scientific work included a recovery of pre-Bolshevik or anti-Russian
Romanian folklore in Transnistria and beyond. Such activities, along with his exposure of Soviet brutality, made him a wanted man once the communist regime
took over in Romania. He was eventually captured, sent to prison and deprived of his academic honors. Partly reinstated by the late 1960s, he spent his final decades encouraging the second-generation communist authorities to take a firmer stand against controversial Soviet policies such as "Moldovenism
".
and Bessarabia
: the entire Transnistrian region was at the time part of the Russian Kherson Governorate
. As he himself later recounted, the bountiful eastern bank of the Dniester
was home to a thriving Romanian community, or, as he put it, a veritable "Romanian California
". His later research traced the first Romanian presence in that area to the Dark Ages
, revived by the Cossack Hetmanate
's border policy, particularly in the 1650s. According to him, there were two main stages in the migration and resettlement of Moldavian peasants to what became his homeland. The first was under Moldavian Prince George Ducas
(late 17th century); the second under Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Smochină spoke in detail about the Romanian colonists in the 18th-century "New Russia
", reaching as far east as Oleksandriya.
The Smochinăs themselves were descendants of Romanian yeomen (răzeşi), originally from Moldavia, and reportedly spoke an archaic variant of the Romanian language
. The literary historian Al. Husar, who met Smochină in the 1940s, recalled that his use of the eastern dialect
had the "scent of ages", and "seemed to me a wonder of the Romanian language."
Smochină's place of birth was Mahala village, on the eastern, non-Bessarabian, shore of the Dniester. After completing his primary education in Dubăsari
(Dubossary), he went to a Russian Cadet school
. He was interested in philology and, with time, became one of the few Romanian experts in the study of Old Church Slavonic
. When World War I erupted, he was serving in the Imperial Russian Army
. His services were rewarded with the Order of St. George
and thus joined the ranks of Russian nobility
. The February Revolution
caught Smochină behind the Caucasian Front
. He was appointed military delegate by a Congress of Peoples in Tbilisi
, sent over to Petrograd for negotiations with the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies
(summer 1917). As he later noted, he happened to hear a speech given by the Vladimir Lenin
, leader of the ultra-revolutionary Bolshevik faction, who was working to topple the Russian Provisional Government
. Smochină was intrigued by Lenin's promise of self-determination
for all of Russia's minorities: "As a Moldavian, I found this issue to be one of greatest interest". Smochină was interested in finding out Lenin's level of commitment in this respect, and was received for an interview (as he recalled, this was only possible because one of Lenin's bodyguards was originally from Mahala).
According to Smochină's own rendition of the encounter, when asked about his vision on the Moldavian question, Lenin began by stating: "You Moldavians have no interest in fighting on the side of Russia, who for centuries now has been enslaving your kind. Culturally, Moldavians are far more advanced than Russians." The thing to do, Lenin said, was for Moldavians to take up arms and fight against the two "oppressors": Russia and "landowners' Romania". According to Smochină, Lenin openly agreed that Moldavians, Bessarabians and Romanians were in essence the same demonym
: "Take inspiration from your Romanian blood brothers, but, again, beware of falling into the paws of Romanian boyar
exploiters. [...] all Moldavians are Romanians". The Bolshevik theorist appears to have incited the Transnistrians and Bessarabians to spread the flame of revolution into "boyar Romania", to "drown the hell out of the Romanian king
and set up a Soviet Romania". Reportedly, Lenin also urged the Transnistrian delegate to personally to sabotage the war effort on the Caucasus Front, fraternize with the Ottomans
and demand "peace without annexations or indemnities
".
As some Romanian historians have noted, "Lenin was not about to curb [a nation's independence], but did not specify in sufficiently clear terms what would happen if they should want to achieve self-determination in any social order other than communism."
, and began defending the interests of local Romanians. As head of the Mahala Zemstvo
, he tried to prevent the breakdown of social and military order, and narrowly escaped with his life after being pursued by the Bolshevik committees
. In December 1917, after a pro-Romanian Moldavian Democratic Republic
had taken root in Bessarabia, he and Gheorghe Mare
were involved with the separatist
Congress of Transnistrian Moldavians in Tiraspol
, where they flew the Romanian tricolor
. Smochină stated: "We love our Country so much, that even our icons
look to Romania." By 1918, he had become Prefect of Tiraspol, then regional envoy to the Central Rada of Kiev
, the Ukrainian capital.
Meanwhile, the union of Bessarabia with Romania
had been effected on the western side of Transnistria, whereas the region itself was made part of the Bolshevik Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, as the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast
. Smochină's experience of Bolshevik rule was painful, and he recalled war communism
as a trauma: "their entire property taken away, [Romanians in Transnistria] were left naked, downtrodden, worse off than during slavery". He escaped Soviet Ukraine in 1919, and crossed the Dniester into Greater Romania
, settling in the former Moldavian capital of Iaşi
. According to Smochină, his relatives were exposed to violent Bolshevik reprisals: his father and his female cousin were shot, and the rest were deported to Siberia
.
While in Iaşi, Smochină met with jurist Ioan Teodorescu, who helped him enlist at the Iaşi University
Faculty of Philosophy and Law. He graduated in 1924, having by then also studied Psychology with Constantin Fedeleş. Smochină joined up with other Transnistrian refugee students during his college term, and militated for increased awareness of their situation; however, he was also a critic of all Romanians arriving from Russia, noting that the Russian education system
left them poorly trained and superficial. He first began associating with a circle of Bessarabian Romanians, and became friends with Bessarabian Peasants' Party
founder Pan Halippa
, heralding humanitarian projects to feed and integrate refugee children. It was during those years that Nichita Smochină befriended the senior historian and nationalist politician Nicolae Iorga
, a professor at the University of Bucharest
. As early as 1922, he was invited by Iorga's Cultural League for the Unity of All Romanians to attend their Curtea de Argeş
Congress and speak about Transnistrian grievances.
Nichita Smochină also joined the Romanian Freemasonry
(the "Vasile Alecsandri
" Lodge
), and, according to his own recollections, lectured other Masons on the plight of Transnistrians. Smochină met celebrated novelist Mihail Sadoveanu
, who was later a Grand Master of Freemasonry branch. There was mutual dislike between the two: Smochină accused Sadoveanu of trafficking Freemasonry's services, of not being moved by the fate of Transnistria, and of ultimately destroying other Masons who crossed his path. The Transnistrian activist despised two other figures from Romania's left-wing Poporanist
camp, Alexandru Mîţă and fellow Mason Gheorghe Stere, both of whom he depicted as unprincipled agents of Bolshevism. This phase coincided with Soviet Transnistria's elevation in administrative status—that is, the establishment of a Moldavian ASSR
on Oblast territory, in the newly proclaimed Soviet Union
. Although refugees and convinced that the Soviet Union was "a prison of the peoples", Smochină and some of his colleagues gave positive review to the move, seeing it as an implicit recognition of Moldavian (and therefore Romanian) self-rule.
. He was also a contributor to the Transylvania
n review Societatea de Mâine, with a 1925 article on Christmas customs as preserved over the Dniester. He was later a manager of Tribuna Românilor Transnistrieni ("Tribune of the Romanian Transnistrians"), published from 1927 to 1928 in the Bessarabian city of Chişinău
. The review had contributions from various Bessarabian Romanian activists (Halippa, Ştefan Bulat) and reported on new cases of human rights abuse in the Moldavian ASSR, such as the forceful relocation of Romanians away from the Dniester.
Romanian researcher Petre Popescu Gogan describes Smochină as: "a man of The Law, with a calling for human rights and the rights of peoples [...]. Asked to have his say on the issue of Minority Rights
, [he] worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and took part in international congresses on the matter." From 1930 to 1935, the Transnistrian scholar was in France
, where he furthered his studies. He was sponsored by Iorga, who awarded him a scholarship and put him up for the Romanian School of Fontenay-aux-Roses
, receiving some more assistance from Halippa. He focused his research on recovering old texts from sources such as the Bibliothèque Nationale
and Musée Slave. In the end, he took a Ph. D. in History, with Ferdinand Lot
as his doctoral advisor
. He also began teaching Romanian at Société pour la Propagation des Langues Etrangères, a learned society
funded by the University of Paris
. At the time, Smochină's first account of the 1917 Lenin interview was published by Le Prométhée, the propaganda outlet for the Georgian Government in Exile
. He also built contacts with the White émigré
cells, meeting with philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev
.
Concentrating on informing the world decision-makers about the Transnistrian question, Nichita Smochină was, in 1930, a delegate to International Congress of National Minorities
(a League of Nations
partnership). While in Paris
, he also set up the Aid Committee for Moldavian Transnistrian Refugees, and campaigned for the international condemnation of reported Soviet mass murders in Transnistria (1932). At the time, Smochină's pro-Romania group was challenged by the Soviet-funded Association of Bessarabian Emigrés, whose platform was the whole absorption of Bessarabia into the Moldavian ASSR.
His scholarly work included a biographical sketch on Danylo (Dănilă) Apostol
, the 18th-century Moldavian Hetman
of Left-bank Ukraine
. It saw print in Romania in 1930, together with his monograph on Moldavian mercenaries fighting on either side of the Great Northern War
. The Apostol book was then reprinted in the popular history
collection Cunoştinţe utile ("Useful Knowledge"). In 1933, Paris' Librairie Universitaire J. Gamber published his monograph on Ion Brătianu
, the founder of Romanian liberalism
, focusing on Brătianu's trial for sedition in 1850s France. The work was reviewed by Revue des Questions Historiques, which noted that Smochină's style lacked "order" and "clarity", and could prove chronologically inaccurate. At around that time, the Transnistrian researcher announced that he was also preparing an overview of the Freemasonry's contribution to the first union of Romania
(1859).
, only survived until 1936. Before closing down, the review had featured his essay Republica Moldovenească a Sovietelor ("The Moldavian Republic of Soviets"), later published by Cartea Românească as a volume. In 1935, also with Moldova Nouă, Smochină released his French-language
study Les Moldaves de Russie Soviétique ("The Moldavians of Soviet Russia"), illustrated with samples of Romanian folklore from the region—songs about cultural isolation and the impact of Russification
. He was also contributing to Iorga's academic journal, Revue Historique du Sud-Est Européen. His essays there included the 1936 review of the Moldavian ASSR's standard primer
Kuvyntu nostru, evidencing the agitprop
aspect of Soviet education
, the vilifying of "kulak
" elements in Transnistrian society, and the plagiarizing
of Romanian textbooks.
Some two years later, Smochină, using the pseudonym M. Florin, began contributing to the Poporanist review Însemnări Ieşene, where he reviewed the work of Bessarabian folklorist Tatiana Găluşcă-Crâşmaru. He followed up in 1939 with Din literatura populară a românilor de peste Nistru ("Samples of Romanian Folk Literature in Areas over the Dniester"), a communication for the Cluj
-based scientific review Anuarul Arhivei de Folclor. It notably samples Transnistrian mournful lyrics about forced recruitment
during the Russo-Turkish Wars
. That year, he carried out ethnographic interviews within the Romanian Transnistrian exile community, on behalf of the Romanian Academy
. As argued by ethnographer Constantin Eretescu, such contributions made Smochină "the most significant researcher of folk culture in that area."
His main activity in advancing the cause of Transnistrians was creating the Association of Transnistrian Romanians. It was designed to give further support to the Romanian refugees from that region, who were estimated at 20,000. Smochină himself estimated that there were in all some 1,200,000 Romanians living in the Moldavian ASSR, forming 80% of the native population—this remains the highest such estimate, significantly ahead of the number advanced in the 1910s by activist Alexis Nour. By the late 1930s, Smochină was contributing to Iorga's summer school program in Vălenii de Munte
town. Physician G. Brătescu, who attended these conferences as an adolescent, notes that Smochină gave "frightening accounts" of life in Transnistria. Brătescu, who was also being introduced to Romanian Communist Party
propaganda, also recalled that local communists dismissed Smochină's discourse as "fabrications by a provocateur, a bitter enemy of communism."
Smochină's political and scientific activities were affected by the 1940 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia. He escaped Chişinău in time, but his research material was left behind. The Stalinist
regime declared him a persona non grata
, and Soviet censorship
repossessed and banned all of his published volumes. Smochină was to accuse the Soviet authorities of vandalizing the Chişinău printing press where he was publishing a voluminous scientific work, reportedly lost in the process.
. He was there in 1940, when the loss of Northern Transylvania
plunged Romania into a political crisis. Smochină deeply admired Conducător
Ion Antonescu
, who was Romania's dictatorial ruler from 1941 to 1944. The Transnistrian ethnographer preserved Antonescu's image as a "great lover of the nation" and an "honest man", particularly since Antonescu promised to revisit the Bessarabian-Transnistrian issue "with an axe". According to his memoirs, Smochină accompanied the Conducător on all of his visits to Nazi Germany
, where Antonescu reportedly imposed respect on German dictator Adolf Hitler
. At that time, Romania formalized its alliance with the Axis Powers
and, in summer 1941, joined Germany's sudden attack on the Soviet Union
. During the early stages of war, the Romanian leader appointed Smochină his personal adviser on the issue of Transnistria. His work for that year included the brochure Masacrele de la Nistru ("Massacres on the Dniester"), which accused the Soviets of committing various crimes against the Romanian populace.
Moldova Nouă was reestablished, with the subtitle Revistă de studii şi cercetări transnistriene ("Review of Transnistrian Studies and Research"), publishing Smochină's German-language
work Die Rumänen zwischen Dnjestr und Bug ("The Romanians between the Dniester and the Bug
"), detailing the activities of Romanian boyars in "New Russia". The magazine went out of print in 1942, but was replaced with the anonymously titled Transnistria, published by Smochină until 1944. His son Alexandru N. Smochină also had contributions to the wartime press, writing for Octavian Tăslăuanu's nationalist review Dacia.
Following the reconquest of Bessarabia and the crossing of the Dniester, the Antonescu regime created a Transnistria Governorate, which had Gheorghe Alexianu as the chief administrator and Gherman Pântea as the Mayor of Odessa
. Smochină found himself ill at ease with the Governorate's military and civilian administration, noting instances where Governor Alexianu and Gendarmerie commander Constantin Vasiliu derided their Bessarabian subordinates. Additionally, Smochină described the Odessa Massacre
, ordered by Antonescu in retaliation for a supposed Jewish plot against the Romanian command, as a grave error on the Romanians' part: as he noted, both he and Pânea had been informed that the building supposedly bombed by Jewish activists had in fact been mined by the retreating Soviets. Smochină also claimed that Ion Antonescu saw Hitler's war on the "three occult forces" (Jews, Freemasons and the Catholic Church) as a "great mistake" which could lose Germany the war. In Smochină's account, the Conducător had went on to state: "[Hitler] could have easily lured the Jewry on his side, and after the war he'd have been able to wrestle with it, but not in this destructive manner, that one is not humane."
On July 2, 1942, Smochină was made an honorary member of the Romanian Academy. He was at the time working under anthropologist Traian Herseni, involved in a large interdisciplinary effort to collect and systematize the folkloric creation of Transnistrian Romanians; his contribution was featured in Gheorghe Pavelescu's 1943 monograph Aspecte din spiritualitatea românilor transnistrieni: Credinţe şi obiceiuri ("Aspects of Romanian Transnistrian Spirituality: Beliefs and Customs"). The investigation also aimed to react against decades of Soviet anti-religious campaigns
, and consciously excluded all folklore which showed Soviet-era influences.
For a while, Smochină was in the Crimea
, helping Romanian historian Gheorghe I. Brătianu
to recover the letters addressed by his ancestor, Ion Brătianu, to Nicholas I of Russia
. He maintained contacts with local Russians
and helped anti-communist surgeon Pavel Chasovnikov (Ceasovnicov) in receiving Romanian citizenship rights. In his native area of Dubăsari, the scholar played host to Romanian students coming in from Bucharest and from Odessa's Romanian Cultural Institute
.
, and the Soviets began their menacing Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive. The change of fortunes alarmed Bessarabian and Transnistrian activists: Smochină, Halippa and Boldur joined others in a diplomatic effort to convince the Western Allies
that Bessarabia needed to be part of Romania, but the military situation prevented them from ever leaving Romania. The subsequent Battle of Romania
evacuated Romanian administration from Transnistria, Bessarabia, and even parts of Moldavia-proper. In August 1944, King Michael's Coup
toppled Antonescu and took Romania out of the Axis. Smochină claimed to have personally been helping Antonescu in negotiating a separate peace
with the Allied Powers
, days before the regime fell. After Antonescu's arrest, the former Transnistria adviser lived a secluded life, and focused on writing his works of history.
When a Romanian communist regime
came into existence, Smochină's works were officially censored
, and the remaining copies were tracked down and confiscated. According to Popescu Gogan, he was especially sought after for his Masacrele de la Nistru. The Soviet occupiers
conducted their own search, but mistakenly arrested and deported to the Gulag
Alexandru instead of Nichita Smochină. Smochină Jr. never revealed his identity to his prosecutors, which helped his ailing father to stay behind in Romania. Smochină himself went into hiding. He used aliases and tried to make himself lost in the Carpathian Mountains
, but was tracked down by the repressive apparatus. He ended up in prison, and, as he recalled, was subjected to numerous beatings. His academician's title, his pension and his right of attending the Romanian Academy Library were all removed from him.
Upon his late 1950s release, Smochină was kept under tight surveillance by the Securitate
secret police, whose reports summarized his career in nationalist politics: "before the year 1944 he edited and managed various publications with anti-Soviet content, drafted and printed a significant number of anti-Soviet books and generated large-scale propaganda efforts to support the Antonescu war through conferences, lectures and by other means." Himself a former prisoner, Pântea was being pressured into becoming a Securitate informant on Transnistrian activities in Bucharest. In December 1959, Securitate agents intimidated Smochină from attending the funeral of former Bessarabian dignitary Grigore Cazacliu
, but, during interrogations, he denied knowledge (or feigned unawareness) of a plot to enthrone Constantin Tomescu as Bessarabian Metropolitan
. Securitate sources claimed that the Bessarabian-Transnistrian underground was planning a set of measures to occur after the future "liberation of Bessarabia", and that Smochină was discussing a return to Chişinău. According to other such reports, Smochină was fully aware of being followed around by Securitate operatives, and tried to protect his friends by avoiding contact with them.
leader Nicolae Ceauşescu
. He claimed that, in 1965, Ceauşescu asked him to retrieve those documents which showed Antonescu's move to a separate peace; driven by a Securitate guard to Caransebeş
, where he had allegedly buried the evidence back in the late '40s, Smochină only recovered three empty crates. Ceauşescu allowed him to receive a new pension, but he was denied reintegration into the Academy, with the suggestion that such a move would dampen Romania–Russia relations
. These were openly tested by the Bessarabian community in February 1967, when Halippa presented Ceauşescu's Council of State with reports on the existence of oppressed Soviet Romanians. These included a polemical note by Smochină, who condemned the Soviet-endorsed delimitation of a "Moldovan people
" in Bessarabia, and in general the ideology of "Moldovenism
". A month later, Halippa advanced Smochină's name among those of Bessarabians who could serve as specialists for the Romanian Communist Party's ISISP foundation of social science.
Smochină was recovered by the Romanian and Soviet schools of Slavistics, commissioned for translations from Slavonic documents which were published by either the Romanian Academy or the Moscow Academy of Sciences
. He was allowed back at the Academy Library, but still banned from authoring contributing original books of his own. In the 1970s, he published articles in a specialized magazine based in Thessaloniki
, Greece
, and donated his documents and manuscripts to the National Archives of Romania
. During a last stage in his political activity, exiled Bessarabians profited from a climate of relative tolerance from the national communist system, and began organizing themselves into advocacy groups, with links in the West. Smochină himself tried to mediate between the two competing factions: one represented by Ion Păscăluţă
(and supported by Halippa); the other headed by Anton Crihan
. He died in Bucharest, on December 14, 1980.
The work and life of Nichita Smochină were again in public focus after the 1989 Revolution
overthrew Ceauşescu. His main ethnographic research was featured in the 1996 anthology Românitatea transnistriană ("Transnistrian Romanianness"), published in Bucharest by Editura Semne. On July 3, 1990, he was posthumously reinstated honorary Academy member. Smochină is also remembered by the authorities of Moldova
, the Bessarabian state created by the dissolution of the Soviet Union
. Moldovan President
Mihai Ghimpu
awarded him posthumous Order of Honor insignia in April 2010. His memoirs (or Memorii) were published, care of Editura Academiei, in 2009. Commentators have described them as a revelation, in particular for their detail on the various public figures whom the Transnistrian ethnologist had met before 1944.
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
n-born activist, scholar and political figure, especially noted for campaigning on behalf of ethnic Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. He was first active in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, serving with distinction in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, then in the Ukrainian People's Republic
Ukrainian People's Republic
The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...
, where he earned his reputation as a champion of Transnistrian Romanian interests. An anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
, he narrowly escaped the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s and crossed into Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, which became his second home. A protege of historian Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
, Smochină earned his academic credentials and also made himself known internationally as an expert on minority rights
Minority rights
The term Minority Rights embodies two separate concepts: first, normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or sexual minorities, and second, collective rights accorded to minority groups...
. Beginning in the 1920s, he contributed to historical research, ethnography
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
and folkloristics
Folkloristics
Folkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore. The term derives from a nineteenth century German designation of folkloristik to distinguish between folklore as the content and folkloristics as its study, much as language is distinguished from linguistics...
, as well as jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
.
During most of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Smochină backed the authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
regime of Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
and paid service to Gheorghe Alexianu's Transnistria Governorate. His scientific work included a recovery of pre-Bolshevik or anti-Russian
Russophobia
Russophobia refers to a diverse spectrum of prejudices, dislikes or fears of Russia, Russians, or Russian culture. Its opposite is Russophilia....
Romanian folklore in Transnistria and beyond. Such activities, along with his exposure of Soviet brutality, made him a wanted man once the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
took over in Romania. He was eventually captured, sent to prison and deprived of his academic honors. Partly reinstated by the late 1960s, he spent his final decades encouraging the second-generation communist authorities to take a firmer stand against controversial Soviet policies such as "Moldovenism
Moldovenism
Moldovenism is a political term used to refer to the support and promotion of the Moldovan identity and Moldovan culture.Some of its supporters ascribe this identity to the medieval Principality of Moldavia...
".
Origins and early life
Nichita Smochină was born on the confines of historical MoldaviaMoldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
and Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
: the entire Transnistrian region was at the time part of the Russian Kherson Governorate
Kherson Governorate
The Kherson Governorate or Government of Kherson was a guberniya, or administrative territorial unit, in the Southern Ukrainian region, between the Dnieper and Dniester Rivers, of the Russian Empire. It was one of three governorates created in 1802 when the Novorossiya guberniya was abolished...
. As he himself later recounted, the bountiful eastern bank of the Dniester
Dniester
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...
was home to a thriving Romanian community, or, as he put it, a veritable "Romanian California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
". His later research traced the first Romanian presence in that area to the Dark Ages
Dark Ages
The "Dark Ages" is a historical periodization emphasizing the cultural and economic deterioration that supposedly occurred in Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire. The label employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the "darkness" of the period with earlier and later...
, revived by the Cossack Hetmanate
Cossack Hetmanate
The Hetmanate or Zaporizhian Host was the Ruthenian Cossack state in the Central Ukraine between 1649 and 1782.The Hetmanate was founded by first Ukrainian hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky during the Khmelnytsky Uprising . In 1654 it pledged its allegiance to Muscovy during the Council of Pereyaslav,...
's border policy, particularly in the 1650s. According to him, there were two main stages in the migration and resettlement of Moldavian peasants to what became his homeland. The first was under Moldavian Prince George Ducas
George Ducas
Voivode George Ducas was three times Prince of Moldavia and one time Prince of Wallachia .He was married to Anastasia, the daughter of Eustratie Dabija, and later to Dafina Doamna; George Ducas...
(late 17th century); the second under Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Smochină spoke in detail about the Romanian colonists in the 18th-century "New Russia
Novorossiya
Novorossiya is a historic area of lands which established itself solidly after the annexation of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire, but was introduced with the establishment of Novorossiysk Governorate with the capital in Kremenchuk in the mid 18th century. Until that time in both Polish...
", reaching as far east as Oleksandriya.
The Smochinăs themselves were descendants of Romanian yeomen (răzeşi), originally from Moldavia, and reportedly spoke an archaic variant of the Romanian language
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
. The literary historian Al. Husar, who met Smochină in the 1940s, recalled that his use of the eastern dialect
Moldavian subdialect of Romanian
The Moldavian subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language...
had the "scent of ages", and "seemed to me a wonder of the Romanian language."
Smochină's place of birth was Mahala village, on the eastern, non-Bessarabian, shore of the Dniester. After completing his primary education in Dubăsari
Dubasari
Dubăsari is a city in Transnistria, with a population of 23,650. The city is under the administration of the breakaway government of the "Transnistrian Moldovan Republic", and functions as the seat of the Dubăsari sub-district, Transnistria, Moldova.-Name:The origin of the town name is the plural...
(Dubossary), he went to a Russian Cadet school
Cadet Corps (Russia)
The Cadet Corps is an admissions-based all boys military academy which prepared boys to become commissioned officers. Boys between the ages of 8 and 15 were enrolled. It was founded in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire in 1731 by Tsarina Anne. The term of education was seven years...
. He was interested in philology and, with time, became one of the few Romanian experts in the study of Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
. When World War I erupted, he was serving in the Imperial Russian Army
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...
. His services were rewarded with the Order of St. George
Order of St. George
The Military Order of the Holy Great-Martyr and the Triumphant George The Military Order of the Holy Great-Martyr and the Triumphant George The Military Order of the Holy Great-Martyr and the Triumphant George (also known as Order of St. George the Triumphant, Russian: Военный орден Св...
and thus joined the ranks of Russian nobility
Russian nobility
The Russian nobility arose in the 14th century and essentially governed Russia until the October Revolution of 1917.The Russian word for nobility, Dvoryanstvo , derives from the Russian word dvor , meaning the Court of a prince or duke and later, of the tsar. A nobleman is called dvoryanin...
. The February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
caught Smochină behind the Caucasian Front
Caucasus Campaign
The Caucasus Campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, later including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Central Caspian Dictatorship and the UK as part of the Middle Eastern theatre or alternatively named as part of the Caucasus Campaign during World War I...
. He was appointed military delegate by a Congress of Peoples in Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
, sent over to Petrograd for negotiations with the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies
Petrograd Soviet
The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies , usually called the Petrograd Soviet , was the soviet in Petrograd , Russia, established in March 1917 after the February Revolution as the representative body of the city's workers.The Petrograd Soviet became important during the Russian...
(summer 1917). As he later noted, he happened to hear a speech given by the Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, leader of the ultra-revolutionary Bolshevik faction, who was working to topple the Russian Provisional Government
Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...
. Smochină was intrigued by Lenin's promise of self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
for all of Russia's minorities: "As a Moldavian, I found this issue to be one of greatest interest". Smochină was interested in finding out Lenin's level of commitment in this respect, and was received for an interview (as he recalled, this was only possible because one of Lenin's bodyguards was originally from Mahala).
According to Smochină's own rendition of the encounter, when asked about his vision on the Moldavian question, Lenin began by stating: "You Moldavians have no interest in fighting on the side of Russia, who for centuries now has been enslaving your kind. Culturally, Moldavians are far more advanced than Russians." The thing to do, Lenin said, was for Moldavians to take up arms and fight against the two "oppressors": Russia and "landowners' Romania". According to Smochină, Lenin openly agreed that Moldavians, Bessarabians and Romanians were in essence the same demonym
Controversy over linguistic and ethnic identity in Moldova
A controversy exists over the national identity and name of the native language of the main ethnic group in the Republic of Moldova. The issue more frequently disputed is whether Moldovans constitute a subgroup of Romanians or a separate ethnic group...
: "Take inspiration from your Romanian blood brothers, but, again, beware of falling into the paws of Romanian boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
exploiters. [...] all Moldavians are Romanians". The Bolshevik theorist appears to have incited the Transnistrians and Bessarabians to spread the flame of revolution into "boyar Romania", to "drown the hell out of the Romanian king
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
and set up a Soviet Romania". Reportedly, Lenin also urged the Transnistrian delegate to personally to sabotage the war effort on the Caucasus Front, fraternize with the Ottomans
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and demand "peace without annexations or indemnities
Petrograd formula
The Petrograd formula was a Peace Formula constructed by the Bolshevik party after their Revolution in November 1917. The Bolsheviks did not want Russia to participate in the first World War...
".
As some Romanian historians have noted, "Lenin was not about to curb [a nation's independence], but did not specify in sufficiently clear terms what would happen if they should want to achieve self-determination in any social order other than communism."
Ukrainian deputy and Romanian refugee
Smochină returned to his place of origin, which was being progressively included in the newly emancipated Ukrainian People's RepublicUkrainian People's Republic
The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...
, and began defending the interests of local Romanians. As head of the Mahala Zemstvo
Zemstvo
Zemstvo was a form of local government that was instituted during the great liberal reforms performed in Imperial Russia by Alexander II of Russia. The idea of the zemstvo was elaborated by Nikolay Milyutin, and the first zemstvo laws were put into effect in 1864...
, he tried to prevent the breakdown of social and military order, and narrowly escaped with his life after being pursued by the Bolshevik committees
Rumcherod
Rumcherod was a self-proclaimed, unrecognized, and short-lived organ of Soviet power in the South-Western part of Russian Empire that functioned during May 1917–May 1918...
. In December 1917, after a pro-Romanian Moldavian Democratic Republic
Moldavian Democratic Republic
The Moldavian Democratic Republic , a.k.a. Moldavian Republic, was the state proclaimed on by Sfatul Ţării of Bessarabia, elected in October-November 1917 in the wake of the February Revolution and disintegration of the political power in the Russian Empire.Sfatul Ţării was its legislative body,...
had taken root in Bessarabia, he and Gheorghe Mare
Gheorghe Mare
- Bibliography :*Gheorghe E. Cojocaru, Sfatul ţării: itinerar, Civitas, Chişinău, 1998, ISBN 9975-936-20-2*Mihai Taşcă, Sfatul Ţării şi actualele autorităţi locale, "Timpul de dimineaţă", no. 114 , June 27, 2008 - External links :* *...
were involved with the separatist
Separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. While it often refers to full political secession, separatist groups may seek nothing more than greater autonomy...
Congress of Transnistrian Moldavians in Tiraspol
Tiraspol
Tiraspol is the second largest city in Moldova and is the capital and administrative centre of the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic . The city is located on the eastern bank of the Dniester River...
, where they flew the Romanian tricolor
Flag of Romania
The national flag of Romania is a tricolour with vertical stripes: beginning from the flagpole, blue, yellow and red. It has a width-length ratio of 2:3....
. Smochină stated: "We love our Country so much, that even our icons
Romanian icons
In the Romanian Orthodox Church, icons serve much the same purpose as they do in other Eastern Orthodox traditions. The art of painting them has survived communism and today there are many active icon painters in Romania....
look to Romania." By 1918, he had become Prefect of Tiraspol, then regional envoy to the Central Rada of Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, the Ukrainian capital.
Meanwhile, the union of Bessarabia with Romania
Union of Bessarabia with Romania
On , the Sfatul Ţării, or National Council, of Bessarabia proclaimed union with the Kingdom of Romania.-Governorate of Bessarabia:The 1812 Treaty of Bucharest between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empires provided for Russian annexation of the eastern half of the territory of the Principality...
had been effected on the western side of Transnistria, whereas the region itself was made part of the Bolshevik Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, as the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast
Moldavian Autonomous Oblast
Moldavian Autonomous Oblast was created on March 7, 1924 within the Ukrainian SSR.The new oblast had four districts, all of them having a Moldovan majority:* Rîbniţa with 48,748 inhabitants, of which 25,387 Moldovans...
. Smochină's experience of Bolshevik rule was painful, and he recalled war communism
War communism
War communism or military communism was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War, from 1918 to 1921...
as a trauma: "their entire property taken away, [Romanians in Transnistria] were left naked, downtrodden, worse off than during slavery". He escaped Soviet Ukraine in 1919, and crossed the Dniester into Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
, settling in the former Moldavian capital of Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
. According to Smochină, his relatives were exposed to violent Bolshevik reprisals: his father and his female cousin were shot, and the rest were deported to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
.
While in Iaşi, Smochină met with jurist Ioan Teodorescu, who helped him enlist at the Iaşi University
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
The Alexandru Ioan Cuza University is a public university located in Iaşi, Romania. The University of Iaşi, as it was named at first, is the oldest higher education institution in Romania, founded one year after the establishment of the Romanian state, by an 1860 decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan...
Faculty of Philosophy and Law. He graduated in 1924, having by then also studied Psychology with Constantin Fedeleş. Smochină joined up with other Transnistrian refugee students during his college term, and militated for increased awareness of their situation; however, he was also a critic of all Romanians arriving from Russia, noting that the Russian education system
Education in Russia
Education in Russia is provided predominantly by the state and is regulated by the federal Ministry of Education and Science. Regional authorities regulate education within their jurisdictions within the prevailing framework of federal laws. In 2004 state spending for education amounted to 3.6% of...
left them poorly trained and superficial. He first began associating with a circle of Bessarabian Romanians, and became friends with Bessarabian Peasants' Party
Bessarabian Peasants' Party
The Bessarabian Peasants' Party was an agrarian political party active in Romania, founded in Chişinău, Bessarabia, on 23 August 1918.- Overview :...
founder Pan Halippa
Pan Halippa
Pantelimon "Pan" Halippa was a Bessarabian and later Romanian journalist and politician. One of the most important promoters of Romanian nationalism in Bessarabia and of this province's union with Romania, he was president of Sfatul Ţării, which voted union in 1918...
, heralding humanitarian projects to feed and integrate refugee children. It was during those years that Nichita Smochină befriended the senior historian and nationalist politician Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
, a professor at the University of Bucharest
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
. As early as 1922, he was invited by Iorga's Cultural League for the Unity of All Romanians to attend their Curtea de Argeş
Curtea de Arges
Curtea de Argeș is a city in Romania on the right bank of the Argeş River, where it flows through a valley of the lower Carpathians , on the railway from Pitești to the Turnu Roşu Pass. It is part of Argeș County. The city administers one village, Noapteș...
Congress and speak about Transnistrian grievances.
Nichita Smochină also joined the Romanian Freemasonry
Freemasonry in Romania
The beginnings of Freemasonry in the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia date to the 18th century and the activities of the humanist scholar Anton Maria del Chiaro, secretary to voivodes Constantin Brâncoveanu and Constantine Mavrocordatos...
(the "Vasile Alecsandri
Vasile Alecsandri
Vasile Alecsandri was a Romanian poet, playwright, politician, and diplomat. He collected Romanian folk songs and was one of the principal animators of the 19th century movement for Romanian cultural identity and union of Moldavia and Wallachia....
" Lodge
Masonic Lodge
This article is about the Masonic term for a membership group. For buildings named Masonic Lodge, see Masonic Lodge A Masonic Lodge, often termed a Private Lodge or Constituent Lodge, is the basic organisation of Freemasonry...
), and, according to his own recollections, lectured other Masons on the plight of Transnistrians. Smochină met celebrated novelist Mihail Sadoveanu
Mihail Sadoveanu
Mihail Sadoveanu was a Romanian novelist, short story writer, journalist and political figure, who twice served as acting republican head of state under the communist regime . One of the most prolific Romanian-language writers, he is remembered mostly for his historical and adventure novels, as...
, who was later a Grand Master of Freemasonry branch. There was mutual dislike between the two: Smochină accused Sadoveanu of trafficking Freemasonry's services, of not being moved by the fate of Transnistria, and of ultimately destroying other Masons who crossed his path. The Transnistrian activist despised two other figures from Romania's left-wing Poporanist
Poporanism
The word “poporanism” is derived from “popor”, meaning “people” in the Romanian language. The ideology of Romanian Populism and poporanism are interchangeable. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, populism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for...
camp, Alexandru Mîţă and fellow Mason Gheorghe Stere, both of whom he depicted as unprincipled agents of Bolshevism. This phase coincided with Soviet Transnistria's elevation in administrative status—that is, the establishment of a Moldavian ASSR
Moldavian ASSR
The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic , shortened to Moldavian ASSR or, less frequently, Moldovan ASSR, was an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian SSR between 12 October 1924 and 2 August 1940, encompassing modern Transnistria The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic...
on Oblast territory, in the newly proclaimed Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Although refugees and convinced that the Soviet Union was "a prison of the peoples", Smochină and some of his colleagues gave positive review to the move, seeing it as an implicit recognition of Moldavian (and therefore Romanian) self-rule.
Academic debut and Parisian studies
From 1924, Smochină's overviews of Transnistrian Romanian life were published with regularity in Iorga's Ramuri and Drum Drept magazines. In 1924, the former published his contributions to the ethnography of Romanian communities located between the Dniester and the Taurida GovernorateTaurida Governorate
The Taurida Governorate or Government of Taurida was a historical governorate of the Russian Empire. It included the Crimean peninsula and the mainland between the lower Dnieper River and the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov It was formed after the defunct Taurida Oblast in was abolished in...
. He was also a contributor to the Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n review Societatea de Mâine, with a 1925 article on Christmas customs as preserved over the Dniester. He was later a manager of Tribuna Românilor Transnistrieni ("Tribune of the Romanian Transnistrians"), published from 1927 to 1928 in the Bessarabian city of Chişinău
Chisinau
Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...
. The review had contributions from various Bessarabian Romanian activists (Halippa, Ştefan Bulat) and reported on new cases of human rights abuse in the Moldavian ASSR, such as the forceful relocation of Romanians away from the Dniester.
Romanian researcher Petre Popescu Gogan describes Smochină as: "a man of The Law, with a calling for human rights and the rights of peoples [...]. Asked to have his say on the issue of Minority Rights
Minority rights
The term Minority Rights embodies two separate concepts: first, normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or sexual minorities, and second, collective rights accorded to minority groups...
, [he] worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and took part in international congresses on the matter." From 1930 to 1935, the Transnistrian scholar was in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where he furthered his studies. He was sponsored by Iorga, who awarded him a scholarship and put him up for the Romanian School of Fontenay-aux-Roses
Fontenay-aux-Roses
Fontenay-aux-Roses is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.École Normale Supérieure was a girls school located in the area....
, receiving some more assistance from Halippa. He focused his research on recovering old texts from sources such as the Bibliothèque Nationale
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
and Musée Slave. In the end, he took a Ph. D. in History, with Ferdinand Lot
Ferdinand Lot
Ferdinand Victor Henri Lot was a French historian and medievalist....
as his doctoral advisor
Doctoral advisor
A doctoral advisor is an advanced member of a university faculty whose role is to guide a graduate student who is a candidate for a doctorate degree, helping them select coursework, as well as shaping, refining and directing the students' choice of sub-discipline...
. He also began teaching Romanian at Société pour la Propagation des Langues Etrangères, a learned society
Learned society
A learned society is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline/profession, as well a group of disciplines. Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some qualification, or may be an honor conferred by election, as is the case with the oldest learned societies,...
funded by the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
. At the time, Smochină's first account of the 1917 Lenin interview was published by Le Prométhée, the propaganda outlet for the Georgian Government in Exile
Government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in Exile
The Government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia continued to function as the government in exile after the Soviet Russian Red Army invaded Georgia and the Bolsheviks took over the country early in 1921....
. He also built contacts with the White émigré
White Emigre
A white émigré was a Russian who emigrated from Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, and who was in opposition to the contemporary Russian political climate....
cells, meeting with philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev was a Russian religious and political philosopher.-Early life and education:Berdyaev was born in Kiev into an aristocratic military family. He spent a solitary childhood at home, where his father's library allowed him to read widely...
.
Concentrating on informing the world decision-makers about the Transnistrian question, Nichita Smochină was, in 1930, a delegate to International Congress of National Minorities
International Congress of National Minorities
The International Congress of National Minorities was an organization formed after the First World War to lobby for the rights of ethnic and religious minorities living in the nations of Europe and much of Asia, especially in the aftermath of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman...
(a League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
partnership). While in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, he also set up the Aid Committee for Moldavian Transnistrian Refugees, and campaigned for the international condemnation of reported Soviet mass murders in Transnistria (1932). At the time, Smochină's pro-Romania group was challenged by the Soviet-funded Association of Bessarabian Emigrés, whose platform was the whole absorption of Bessarabia into the Moldavian ASSR.
His scholarly work included a biographical sketch on Danylo (Dănilă) Apostol
Danylo Apostol
Danylo Apostol , was a Hetman of the Left-bank Ukraine and Ukrainian Cossack starshina.Born in a noble Cossack family of Moldavian boyar origin, Danylo Apostol was a prominent military leader, polkovnyk of the Myrhorod Regiment, and a participant in the Russian campaigns against the Ottoman...
, the 18th-century Moldavian Hetman
Hetman
Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....
of Left-bank Ukraine
Left-bank Ukraine
Left-bank Ukraine is a historic name of the part of Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnieper River, comprising the modern-day oblasts of Chernihiv, Poltava and Sumy as well as the eastern parts of the Kiev and Cherkasy....
. It saw print in Romania in 1930, together with his monograph on Moldavian mercenaries fighting on either side of the Great Northern War
Great Northern War
The Great Northern War was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in northern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I the Great of Russia, Frederick IV of...
. The Apostol book was then reprinted in the popular history
Popular history
Popular history is a broad and somewhat ill-defined genre of historiography that takes a popular approach, aims at a wide readership, and usually emphasizes narrative, personality and vivid detail over scholarly analysis...
collection Cunoştinţe utile ("Useful Knowledge"). In 1933, Paris' Librairie Universitaire J. Gamber published his monograph on Ion Brătianu
Ion Bratianu
Ion C. Brătianu was one of the major political figures of 19th century Romania. He was the younger brother of Dimitrie, as well as the father of Ionel, Dinu, and Vintilă Brătianu...
, the founder of Romanian liberalism
Liberalism and radicalism in Romania
This article gives an overview of Liberalism and Radicalism in Romania. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in this scheme...
, focusing on Brătianu's trial for sedition in 1850s France. The work was reviewed by Revue des Questions Historiques, which noted that Smochină's style lacked "order" and "clarity", and could prove chronologically inaccurate. At around that time, the Transnistrian researcher announced that he was also preparing an overview of the Freemasonry's contribution to the first union of Romania
United Principalities
The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, also known as the Romanian Principalities, was the official name of Romania following the 1859 election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince or domnitor of both territories...
(1859).
Moldova Nouă and 1930s research
In January 1935, Smochină launched a new periodical, titled Moldova Nouă ("New Moldavia"). Its opening manifesto, expressing a program of the Cultural Association of Transnistrians, promised to provide the Romanian public with a "generic culture" on the Moldavian life in Soviet lands, and to follow the principles of "objectivity, scientific truth [and] the national idea". This multilingual review, put out by an editorial headquarters in Iaşi and the Brawo printing press of BucharestBucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, only survived until 1936. Before closing down, the review had featured his essay Republica Moldovenească a Sovietelor ("The Moldavian Republic of Soviets"), later published by Cartea Românească as a volume. In 1935, also with Moldova Nouă, Smochină released his French-language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
study Les Moldaves de Russie Soviétique ("The Moldavians of Soviet Russia"), illustrated with samples of Romanian folklore from the region—songs about cultural isolation and the impact of Russification
Russification
Russification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attributes by non-Russian communities...
. He was also contributing to Iorga's academic journal, Revue Historique du Sud-Est Européen. His essays there included the 1936 review of the Moldavian ASSR's standard primer
Primer (textbook)
A primer is a first textbook for teaching of reading, such as an alphabet book or basal reader. The word also is used more broadly to refer to any book that presents the most basic elements of a subject....
Kuvyntu nostru, evidencing the agitprop
Agitprop
Agitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
aspect of Soviet education
Education in the Soviet Union
Education in the Soviet Union was organized in a highly centralized government-run system. Its advantages were total access for all citizens and post-education employment...
, the vilifying of "kulak
Kulak
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union...
" elements in Transnistrian society, and the plagiarizing
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
of Romanian textbooks.
Some two years later, Smochină, using the pseudonym M. Florin, began contributing to the Poporanist review Însemnări Ieşene, where he reviewed the work of Bessarabian folklorist Tatiana Găluşcă-Crâşmaru. He followed up in 1939 with Din literatura populară a românilor de peste Nistru ("Samples of Romanian Folk Literature in Areas over the Dniester"), a communication for the Cluj
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
-based scientific review Anuarul Arhivei de Folclor. It notably samples Transnistrian mournful lyrics about forced recruitment
Conscription in Russia
Conscription in Russia is presently a 12 month draft, mandatory for all male citizens age 18-27, with a number of exceptions. The mandatory term of service was reduced from 18 months at the beginning of 2008.- Russian Empire and earlier times :...
during the Russo-Turkish Wars
History of the Russo-Turkish wars
The Russo-Turkish wars were a series of wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire during the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries...
. That year, he carried out ethnographic interviews within the Romanian Transnistrian exile community, on behalf of the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
. As argued by ethnographer Constantin Eretescu, such contributions made Smochină "the most significant researcher of folk culture in that area."
His main activity in advancing the cause of Transnistrians was creating the Association of Transnistrian Romanians. It was designed to give further support to the Romanian refugees from that region, who were estimated at 20,000. Smochină himself estimated that there were in all some 1,200,000 Romanians living in the Moldavian ASSR, forming 80% of the native population—this remains the highest such estimate, significantly ahead of the number advanced in the 1910s by activist Alexis Nour. By the late 1930s, Smochină was contributing to Iorga's summer school program in Vălenii de Munte
Valenii de Munte
Vălenii de Munte is a town in Prahova County, southern Romania , with a population of about 13,309. It lies on the Teleajen River valley, 28 km north of the county seat of Ploieşti....
town. Physician G. Brătescu, who attended these conferences as an adolescent, notes that Smochină gave "frightening accounts" of life in Transnistria. Brătescu, who was also being introduced to Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
propaganda, also recalled that local communists dismissed Smochină's discourse as "fabrications by a provocateur, a bitter enemy of communism."
Smochină's political and scientific activities were affected by the 1940 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia. He escaped Chişinău in time, but his research material was left behind. The Stalinist
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
regime declared him a persona non grata
Persona non grata
Persona non grata , literally meaning "an unwelcome person", is a legal term used in diplomacy that indicates a proscription against a person entering the country...
, and Soviet censorship
Censorship in the Soviet Union
Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced.Censorship was performed in two main directions:*State secrets were handled by Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press was in charge of censoring all publications and broadcasting for state...
repossessed and banned all of his published volumes. Smochină was to accuse the Soviet authorities of vandalizing the Chişinău printing press where he was publishing a voluminous scientific work, reportedly lost in the process.
Antonescu's adviser
As a representative of the Transnistrian community, Smochină attached himself the Bessarabian Circle of Bucharest, presided upon by Gherman PânteaGherman Pântea
Gherman V. Pântea was a Bessarabian-born soldier, civil servant and political figure, active in the Russian Empire and Romania. As an officer of the Imperial Russian Army during most of World War I, he helped organize the committees of Bessarabian soldiers, oscillating between loyalty to the...
. He was there in 1940, when the loss of Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania is a region of Transylvania, situated within the territory of Romania. The population is largely composed of both ethnic Romanians and Hungarians, and the region has been part of Romania since 1918 . During World War II, as a consequence of the territorial agreement known as...
plunged Romania into a political crisis. Smochină deeply admired Conducător
Conducator
Conducător was the title used officially in two instances by Romanian politicians, and earlier by Carol II.-History:...
Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...
, who was Romania's dictatorial ruler from 1941 to 1944. The Transnistrian ethnographer preserved Antonescu's image as a "great lover of the nation" and an "honest man", particularly since Antonescu promised to revisit the Bessarabian-Transnistrian issue "with an axe". According to his memoirs, Smochină accompanied the Conducător on all of his visits to Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, where Antonescu reportedly imposed respect on German dictator Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. At that time, Romania formalized its alliance with the Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
and, in summer 1941, joined Germany's sudden attack on the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. During the early stages of war, the Romanian leader appointed Smochină his personal adviser on the issue of Transnistria. His work for that year included the brochure Masacrele de la Nistru ("Massacres on the Dniester"), which accused the Soviets of committing various crimes against the Romanian populace.
Moldova Nouă was reestablished, with the subtitle Revistă de studii şi cercetări transnistriene ("Review of Transnistrian Studies and Research"), publishing Smochină's German-language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
work Die Rumänen zwischen Dnjestr und Bug ("The Romanians between the Dniester and the Bug
Southern Bug
The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh), is a river located in Ukraine. The source of the river is in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about 145 km from the Polish border, and flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary through the southern steppes...
"), detailing the activities of Romanian boyars in "New Russia". The magazine went out of print in 1942, but was replaced with the anonymously titled Transnistria, published by Smochină until 1944. His son Alexandru N. Smochină also had contributions to the wartime press, writing for Octavian Tăslăuanu's nationalist review Dacia.
Following the reconquest of Bessarabia and the crossing of the Dniester, the Antonescu regime created a Transnistria Governorate, which had Gheorghe Alexianu as the chief administrator and Gherman Pântea as the Mayor of Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
. Smochină found himself ill at ease with the Governorate's military and civilian administration, noting instances where Governor Alexianu and Gendarmerie commander Constantin Vasiliu derided their Bessarabian subordinates. Additionally, Smochină described the Odessa Massacre
Odessa massacre
The Odessa massacre was the extermination of Jews in Odessa and surrounding towns in Transnistria during the autumn of 1941 and the winter of 1942 in a series of massacres and killings during the Holocaust by Romanian forces, under German control, encouragement and instruction...
, ordered by Antonescu in retaliation for a supposed Jewish plot against the Romanian command, as a grave error on the Romanians' part: as he noted, both he and Pânea had been informed that the building supposedly bombed by Jewish activists had in fact been mined by the retreating Soviets. Smochină also claimed that Ion Antonescu saw Hitler's war on the "three occult forces" (Jews, Freemasons and the Catholic Church) as a "great mistake" which could lose Germany the war. In Smochină's account, the Conducător had went on to state: "[Hitler] could have easily lured the Jewry on his side, and after the war he'd have been able to wrestle with it, but not in this destructive manner, that one is not humane."
On July 2, 1942, Smochină was made an honorary member of the Romanian Academy. He was at the time working under anthropologist Traian Herseni, involved in a large interdisciplinary effort to collect and systematize the folkloric creation of Transnistrian Romanians; his contribution was featured in Gheorghe Pavelescu's 1943 monograph Aspecte din spiritualitatea românilor transnistrieni: Credinţe şi obiceiuri ("Aspects of Romanian Transnistrian Spirituality: Beliefs and Customs"). The investigation also aimed to react against decades of Soviet anti-religious campaigns
USSR Anti-Religious Campaign (1928–1941)
The USSR anti-religious campaign of 1928–1941 was a new phase of anti-religious persecution in the Soviet Union The campaign began in 1929, with the drafting of new legislation that severely prohibited religious activities and called for a heightened attack on religion in order to further...
, and consciously excluded all folklore which showed Soviet-era influences.
For a while, Smochină was in the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
, helping Romanian historian Gheorghe I. Brătianu
Gheorghe I. Bratianu
Gheorghe I. Brătianu was a Romanian politician and historian. A member of the Brătianu family and initially affiliated with the National Liberal Party, he broke away from the movement to create and lead the National Liberal Party-Brătianu.Born in Ruginoasa, Baia County to Ion I.C...
to recover the letters addressed by his ancestor, Ion Brătianu, to Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
. He maintained contacts with local Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
and helped anti-communist surgeon Pavel Chasovnikov (Ceasovnicov) in receiving Romanian citizenship rights. In his native area of Dubăsari, the scholar played host to Romanian students coming in from Bucharest and from Odessa's Romanian Cultural Institute
Romanian Cultural Institute
The Romanian Cultural Institute is a state-funded institution that promotes Romanian culture and civilization in Romania and abroad. The ICR was formerly set up through reorganization of the Romanian Cultural Foundation and Romanian Cultural Publishing Foundation...
.
Communist repression
By early 1944, the Axis had been dealt major defeats on the Eastern FrontEastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, and the Soviets began their menacing Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive. The change of fortunes alarmed Bessarabian and Transnistrian activists: Smochină, Halippa and Boldur joined others in a diplomatic effort to convince the Western Allies
Western Allies
The Western Allies were a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It generally includes the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth, the United States, France and various other European and Latin American countries, but excludes China, the Soviet Union,...
that Bessarabia needed to be part of Romania, but the military situation prevented them from ever leaving Romania. The subsequent Battle of Romania
Battle of Romania
The Battle of Romania in World War II comprised several operations in or around Romania in 1944, as part of the Eastern Front. The Red Army launched two offensives against combined German-Romanian defenses in an attempt to reclaim the Moldavian SSR and open a way into the Balkans:*The First...
evacuated Romanian administration from Transnistria, Bessarabia, and even parts of Moldavia-proper. In August 1944, King Michael's Coup
King Michael's Coup
King Michael's Coup refers to the coup d'etat led by King Michael of Romania in 1944 against the pro-Nazi Romanian faction of Ion Antonescu, after the Axis front in Northeastern Romania collapsed under the Soviet offensive.-The coup:...
toppled Antonescu and took Romania out of the Axis. Smochină claimed to have personally been helping Antonescu in negotiating a separate peace
Separate peace
The phrase "separate peace" refers to a nation's agreement to cease military hostilities with another, even though the former country had previously entered into a military alliance with other states that remain at war with the latter country...
with the Allied Powers
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
, days before the regime fell. After Antonescu's arrest, the former Transnistria adviser lived a secluded life, and focused on writing his works of history.
When a Romanian communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
came into existence, Smochină's works were officially censored
Censorship in Communist Romania
Censorship in Communist Romania was widespread and virtually every published document, be it a newspaper article or a book, had to pass the censor's approval...
, and the remaining copies were tracked down and confiscated. According to Popescu Gogan, he was especially sought after for his Masacrele de la Nistru. The Soviet occupiers
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
conducted their own search, but mistakenly arrested and deported to the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
Alexandru instead of Nichita Smochină. Smochină Jr. never revealed his identity to his prosecutors, which helped his ailing father to stay behind in Romania. Smochină himself went into hiding. He used aliases and tried to make himself lost in the Carpathian Mountains
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
, but was tracked down by the repressive apparatus. He ended up in prison, and, as he recalled, was subjected to numerous beatings. His academician's title, his pension and his right of attending the Romanian Academy Library were all removed from him.
Upon his late 1950s release, Smochină was kept under tight surveillance by the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
secret police, whose reports summarized his career in nationalist politics: "before the year 1944 he edited and managed various publications with anti-Soviet content, drafted and printed a significant number of anti-Soviet books and generated large-scale propaganda efforts to support the Antonescu war through conferences, lectures and by other means." Himself a former prisoner, Pântea was being pressured into becoming a Securitate informant on Transnistrian activities in Bucharest. In December 1959, Securitate agents intimidated Smochină from attending the funeral of former Bessarabian dignitary Grigore Cazacliu
Grigore Cazacliu
Grigore Cazacliu was a Bessarabian politician.- Biography :He served as Member of the Moldovan Parliament . He was born Cuşelăuca and died in Bucharest.- Bibliography :*Gheorghe E...
, but, during interrogations, he denied knowledge (or feigned unawareness) of a plot to enthrone Constantin Tomescu as Bessarabian Metropolitan
Metropolis of Bessarabia
The Metropolis of Bessarabia is an autonomous Eastern Orthodox Metropolitan bishopric of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The Metropolis of Bessarabia was created in 1923 and organized in 1925, when the Archbishopric of Chișinău was raised to the rank of metropolis...
. Securitate sources claimed that the Bessarabian-Transnistrian underground was planning a set of measures to occur after the future "liberation of Bessarabia", and that Smochină was discussing a return to Chişinău. According to other such reports, Smochină was fully aware of being followed around by Securitate operatives, and tried to protect his friends by avoiding contact with them.
Final activities
Allegedly, Nichita Smochină found understanding from Romania's new national communistNational communism
The term National Communism describes the ethnic minority communist currents that arose in the former Russian Empire after Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Party seized power in October 1917....
leader Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
. He claimed that, in 1965, Ceauşescu asked him to retrieve those documents which showed Antonescu's move to a separate peace; driven by a Securitate guard to Caransebeş
Caransebes
Caransebeş is a city in Caraş-Severin County, part of the Banat region in southwestern Romania. It is located at the confluence of the river Timiş with the river Sebeş, the latter coming from the Ţarcu Mountains. To the west, it is in direct contact with the Banat hills...
, where he had allegedly buried the evidence back in the late '40s, Smochină only recovered three empty crates. Ceauşescu allowed him to receive a new pension, but he was denied reintegration into the Academy, with the suggestion that such a move would dampen Romania–Russia relations
Romania–Russia relations
Romania–Russia relations are the foreign relations between Romania and Russia. Romania has an embassy in Moscow and 2 consulate-general . Russia has an embassy in Bucharest and a consulate-general in Constanţa...
. These were openly tested by the Bessarabian community in February 1967, when Halippa presented Ceauşescu's Council of State with reports on the existence of oppressed Soviet Romanians. These included a polemical note by Smochină, who condemned the Soviet-endorsed delimitation of a "Moldovan people
Moldovans
Moldovans or Moldavians are the largest population group of Moldova...
" in Bessarabia, and in general the ideology of "Moldovenism
Moldovenism
Moldovenism is a political term used to refer to the support and promotion of the Moldovan identity and Moldovan culture.Some of its supporters ascribe this identity to the medieval Principality of Moldavia...
". A month later, Halippa advanced Smochină's name among those of Bessarabians who could serve as specialists for the Romanian Communist Party's ISISP foundation of social science.
Smochină was recovered by the Romanian and Soviet schools of Slavistics, commissioned for translations from Slavonic documents which were published by either the Romanian Academy or the Moscow Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
. He was allowed back at the Academy Library, but still banned from authoring contributing original books of his own. In the 1970s, he published articles in a specialized magazine based in Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, and donated his documents and manuscripts to the National Archives of Romania
National Archives of Romania
The National Archives of Romania , until 1996 the State Archives , are the national archives of Romania, headquartered in Bucharest and headed by Dorin Dobrincu since 2007. It is subordinate to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform...
. During a last stage in his political activity, exiled Bessarabians profited from a climate of relative tolerance from the national communist system, and began organizing themselves into advocacy groups, with links in the West. Smochină himself tried to mediate between the two competing factions: one represented by Ion Păscăluţă
Ion Păscăluţă
- Bibliography :*Gheorghe E. Cojocaru, Sfatul ţării: itinerar, Civitas, Chişinău, 1998, ISBN 9975-936-20-2*Mihai Taşcă, Sfatul Ţării şi actualele autorităţi locale, "Timpul de dimineaţă", no. 114 , June 27, 2008 - External links :* *...
(and supported by Halippa); the other headed by Anton Crihan
Anton Crihan
Anton Crihan was a Bessarabian politician.- Biography :Anton Crihan served as Member of the Moldovan Parliament , Parliament of Romania, and Government of Romania...
. He died in Bucharest, on December 14, 1980.
The work and life of Nichita Smochină were again in public focus after the 1989 Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
overthrew Ceauşescu. His main ethnographic research was featured in the 1996 anthology Românitatea transnistriană ("Transnistrian Romanianness"), published in Bucharest by Editura Semne. On July 3, 1990, he was posthumously reinstated honorary Academy member. Smochină is also remembered by the authorities of Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
, the Bessarabian state created by the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
. Moldovan President
President of Moldova
The President of the Republic of Moldova is the head of state of Moldova.-Description of the post:According to the Article 77 of the Constitution of Moldova , the President of Moldova is the head of the State and represents the State and is the guarantor of national sovereignty, independence, of...
Mihai Ghimpu
Mihai Ghimpu
Mihai Ghimpu Mihai Ghimpu Mihai Ghimpu (born 19 November 1951, Coloniţa, Moldova, is a Moldovan politician. He was Speaker of Parliament from 28 August 2009 to 30 December 2010 and Acting President from 11 September 2009 until 28 December 2010.-Family:...
awarded him posthumous Order of Honor insignia in April 2010. His memoirs (or Memorii) were published, care of Editura Academiei, in 2009. Commentators have described them as a revelation, in particular for their detail on the various public figures whom the Transnistrian ethnologist had met before 1944.