Sorin Antohi: Romanian historian accused of spying for secret police and inflating his resume
Sometime in the next few days or weeks, a lowly staffer or student on work-study at Central European University will likely perform a small and simple bit of administrative housekeeping that may have more meaning than some of the densest lines written by the George Soros-funded institution's most celebrated social scientists. They will erase or modify the page on the university's website currently found at www.ceu.hu/hist/antohi_cv.htm, which lists the CV of one Sorin Antohi, who until October 20th was, among other things, the head of CEU's department of history.
While a familiar public figure in his native Romania, the 49-year-old Antohi was not well known to most of the members of CEU's student body, most of whom only spend a year at the institution, and have little time or inclination to keep track of those outside their immediate area of study. But given the circumstances of Antohi's departure, his name may end up being etched in the minds of many students who never took a class with him or even passed him in the hallway.
The immediate cause of Antohi's exit was a line on that CV which claimed he received a Ph.D. in History from the University of Ia?i in Romania in 1995. He didn't. Instead, according to reports in the Romanian press, in 2000, roughly two years after being tapped to head CEU's history department, Antohi's status as a doctoral student at Ia?i was terminated. But the story of Antohi's fall involves far more than a simple case of bogus credentials or scholarship. (The CV also lists several publications whose authenticity can reportedly not be verified.) But what led to the discovery of this fraud was another seemingly unconnected revelation: For several years, Antohi had served as an informer for Romania's communist-era Departamentul Securit??ii Statului, better known as the Securitate.
That a 19-year-old in the darkest hours of the Ceau?escu dictatorship would have chosen to become a snitch for the police - under the codename "Valentin" - is not particularly shocking. What is shocking is that this particular snitch went on to become a leading authority on the issue of how Romania and countries like it deal with their troubled histories. In this sense, Antohi's case is reminiscent of the recent scandal involving the German novelist Günter Grass, who spent decades campaigning against what he saw as Germany's inability to come to terms with its Nazi past before this year admitting that as a youth he had been a member of the Waffen-SS. Yet it is worse, because Antohi was also a participant in the official process by which the Romanian government declassified Securitate files and passed judgment on those who secretly served the security services. As part of a campaign called "Clean Voices" - aimed initially at identifying former Securitate agents among the country's leading journalists - Antohi's files came under scrutiny, and he was forced to confess his secret past, and forced to step down from the commission set up by President Traian B?sescu to study the country's communist past.
More shocking still are charges that Antohi actively sought to make sure his own past would never become public knowledge. According to reports in the Romanian media, the government of Adrian N?stase - who, before serving as prime minister in 2000-2004 was a communist apparatchik, and once published an article entitled "Human Rights: A Retrograde Concept" - intervened to re-classify or destroy the Securitate files of numerous leading public figures, including Antohi. But even if these charges are not proven true, the body then in charge of vetting Securitate files - the CNSAS (Consiliul Na?ional pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securit??ii, or National Council for Studying the Securitate's Archives) - apparently broke the law by not disclosing Antohi's collaboration. (Legislation passed the year before N?stase's election mandated disclosure for executives and founders of public institutions, such as the Group for Social Dialogue, which counts Antohi among its founder members.) "The CNSAS itself has been in violation of Law 187/1999 due to the non-disclosure of Antohi's previous collaboration with the Securitate," said Dan Visoiu, a Romanian-American lawyer who helped found the Romania Think Tank, a leading research and advocacy group based in Bucharest....
Read entire article at http://www.pestiside.hu
While a familiar public figure in his native Romania, the 49-year-old Antohi was not well known to most of the members of CEU's student body, most of whom only spend a year at the institution, and have little time or inclination to keep track of those outside their immediate area of study. But given the circumstances of Antohi's departure, his name may end up being etched in the minds of many students who never took a class with him or even passed him in the hallway.
The immediate cause of Antohi's exit was a line on that CV which claimed he received a Ph.D. in History from the University of Ia?i in Romania in 1995. He didn't. Instead, according to reports in the Romanian press, in 2000, roughly two years after being tapped to head CEU's history department, Antohi's status as a doctoral student at Ia?i was terminated. But the story of Antohi's fall involves far more than a simple case of bogus credentials or scholarship. (The CV also lists several publications whose authenticity can reportedly not be verified.) But what led to the discovery of this fraud was another seemingly unconnected revelation: For several years, Antohi had served as an informer for Romania's communist-era Departamentul Securit??ii Statului, better known as the Securitate.
That a 19-year-old in the darkest hours of the Ceau?escu dictatorship would have chosen to become a snitch for the police - under the codename "Valentin" - is not particularly shocking. What is shocking is that this particular snitch went on to become a leading authority on the issue of how Romania and countries like it deal with their troubled histories. In this sense, Antohi's case is reminiscent of the recent scandal involving the German novelist Günter Grass, who spent decades campaigning against what he saw as Germany's inability to come to terms with its Nazi past before this year admitting that as a youth he had been a member of the Waffen-SS. Yet it is worse, because Antohi was also a participant in the official process by which the Romanian government declassified Securitate files and passed judgment on those who secretly served the security services. As part of a campaign called "Clean Voices" - aimed initially at identifying former Securitate agents among the country's leading journalists - Antohi's files came under scrutiny, and he was forced to confess his secret past, and forced to step down from the commission set up by President Traian B?sescu to study the country's communist past.
More shocking still are charges that Antohi actively sought to make sure his own past would never become public knowledge. According to reports in the Romanian media, the government of Adrian N?stase - who, before serving as prime minister in 2000-2004 was a communist apparatchik, and once published an article entitled "Human Rights: A Retrograde Concept" - intervened to re-classify or destroy the Securitate files of numerous leading public figures, including Antohi. But even if these charges are not proven true, the body then in charge of vetting Securitate files - the CNSAS (Consiliul Na?ional pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securit??ii, or National Council for Studying the Securitate's Archives) - apparently broke the law by not disclosing Antohi's collaboration. (Legislation passed the year before N?stase's election mandated disclosure for executives and founders of public institutions, such as the Group for Social Dialogue, which counts Antohi among its founder members.) "The CNSAS itself has been in violation of Law 187/1999 due to the non-disclosure of Antohi's previous collaboration with the Securitate," said Dan Visoiu, a Romanian-American lawyer who helped found the Romania Think Tank, a leading research and advocacy group based in Bucharest....