| Excerpt |
The Red Hydra: King Michael’s banishment from Romania, in December 1990 presents an analysis of the events that unfurled in the night of 25 December 1990, when King Michael of Romania arrived in his home country for the first time after an exile of 42 years. The new political power in Bucharest, which came after the fall of communism, was still very much acting and following the instincts of the Securitate, the communist political police, and moved swiftly to expel the king and his companions from Romania in the hours after they arrived. The symbol of power legitimacy embodied by the King and the authorities’ fear for a return of the monarchy, in the constitutional vacuum of that moment, when there was not yet a new republican constitution adopted, determined them to take an abusive measure, much in the same manner as the communists did in December 1947 when they forced the king to abdicate and go into exile. The article makes use of official declarations of that period, reconstituting the scene of events through interviews of witnesses and other primary documentary sources, such as the international media. |
