Letter from Romania

In the USA, Rebecca and I live in two neighborhoods, in Decorah and Clarinda, Iowa. I know very little about the histories of either Water or Walnut streets. Maybe you are the same. We tend to ignore what happened yesterday, just around the corner from where we live. From the moment we step outside our homes, we take so much for granted. The path is well-worn and we have a lot to do. But curiosity about place intensifies when we travel, at least for me.

Gheorghe Doja street

For the next few months, Rebecca and I are living in Timișoara, Romania. When we step outside our building’s front door, we are on Gheorghe Doja Street. Gheorghe Doja was a Hungarian who became a Romanian hero when he lead a peasant uprising in 1514.

Piața Nicolae Bălescu

Our Timișoara street is bracketed by two squares or Piațas. Piața Nicolae Bălescu is named after Nicolae Bălcescu. He was a leader of the 1848 Wallachian Revolution who, among other things, promoted universal suffrage. The revolution was unsuccessful, rebuffed by both Ottoman and Hapsburg Empires.

As you can see, the square is really more a circle, surrounded by sidewalks and nothing like the open spaces for pedestrians in the many Piațas in Timișoara’s city center. Sacred Heart Church is Roman Catholic and, in this Orthodox city and country, one of two Catholic Churches in the neighborhood.

Piața Sfânta Maria

Piața Sfânta Maria (Șt. Mary’s Square) is at the other end of our block. It is the most famous Piața in Romania because it is where the Romania Revolution of 1989 began. László Tökés was pastor of a Hungarian Reformed Church. The church is inside the building on the right side of the picture. Tökés had given sermons opposing Romanian President Nicolae Ceaușescu’s policy of moving large numbers of Romanians from their villages to the cities. The local government and Reformed Church leaders had decided to remove Tökés from Timișoara and were in the process of evicting him from his apartment, also in the building that housed the church.

In November and December of 1989 students from Timișoara’s many universities and others gathered in the square. Over a few days’ time, the protests moved to a larger square about a half mile away in Timișaora’s city center and then spread across Romania.

Piața Victoriei (Victory Square)

Victory Square 1989

Our Romanian neighborhood

I’m in Romania to teach Romanians about American democracy. And to learn about Romania democracy. This is a two way street, just as when we exit our building we must be careful because Gheorghe Doja hosts cable cars going east and west. But I have noticed there are more cars traveling west than east, just as there is more learning than teaching. It’s really not even close.

From Piața Sfânta Maria, to the end of Communism in Romania.

From Gheorghe Doja to Nicolae Bălesco to László Tökés, evidence of the universality of the yearning for freedom, for all peoples, across time and space.

And this is just one little neighborhood in one Romanian city.

What do you know about your neighborhood?