“History Is Not an Inventory of Suffering. It Is a Way of Restoring the Truth”
A conversation about personality, university experience, books, memory, and the historian’s responsibility
Some historians reconstruct institutions, decisions, and chronologies; others look beyond the mechanisms of power for the voices of the people upon whom that power was exercised. In Mariana S. Țăranu’s books, these two perspectives meet. The archival document is examined rigorously, yet it is never separated from the human fate concealed within it: the intellectual turned into an “enemy,” the peasant deprived of food, the deported family, the person writing to Stalin, or the combatant left with the questions and betrayals of a war that has never been fully understood.
A historian with a PhD in History, Mariana S. Țăranu has held the academic teaching title of Associate Professor in Sociology in the Republic of Moldova since 2011 and is a specialist in archives and documentary heritage. Her research has focused primarily on the history of Soviet Moldavia: repression, organized famine, deportations, resistance, and the mechanisms through which totalitarian power sought to transform society and people’s identities. In this interview, she speaks about herself, her experience in higher education, the books that have shaped her profile as a historian, the documentary film she made with Vitalie Guțu, and her conviction that the past must be explained not only to specialists but to society as a whole.
This text was prepared as an autobiographical interview, based on the author’s professional experience, published works, and personal testimony.
Question: Who is Mariana S. Țăranu beyond her academic titles and published books?
Mariana S. Țăranu: First and foremost, I am a curious and very persistent person. I am not satisfied with an explanation merely because it has been repeated many times. I feel the need to reach the document itself, verify the circumstances, compare voices, and understand what lies behind official language. In public appearances, I may perhaps seem rather serious. I am serious when I speak about suffering and responsibility, but seriousness does not mean coldness. I enjoy lively dialogue, bold ideas, spontaneity, and the forms through which history can be brought closer to people.
I am defined by rigor, independence of thought, and a certain refusal of intellectual comfort. If a subject appears to have been closed too quickly, that is precisely when I begin asking questions. And if a forgotten person stands behind an archival file, I feel that the historian has a duty to restore that person’s place in the narrative.
Question: A significant part of your professional career took place in higher education in the Republic of Moldova. What did you teach, and what did that experience mean for your development?
Mariana S. Țăranu: I worked in higher education in the Republic of Moldova, where I taught sociology and political science. Working with students required me to explain complex processes clearly, connect social theory with historical reality, and regard political regimes not simply as a sequence of decisions, but as mechanisms that change institutions, mentalities, and behavior. This experience is also visible in my books: I am equally interested in structures of power and in the ways they enter people’s everyday lives.
Since 2011, I have held the academic teaching title of Associate Professor in Sociology in the Republic of Moldova. This clarification matters because the university systems of the Republic of Moldova and Romania use similar terms without automatically granting them the same legal effect. The Agreement on the Mutual Recognition of Diplomas, Certificates, and Scientific Titles, signed on November 23, 2021, and ratified in Romania through Law No. 174/2022, provides for the recognition of educational credentials and, with regard to scientific titles, the recognition of the doctoral diploma and title in accordance with national procedures. My teaching title is not recognized as such in Romania under this agreement and is not granted automatic equivalence: the Moldovan academic teaching title of Associate Professor does not automatically become the teaching position of associate professor in Romania. Professional recognition and appointment are governed by the legislation of each country, while obtaining a university position in Romania follows the procedures established by law and by higher education institutions.
For me, this administrative situation changes neither the experience I accumulated in the classroom nor my responsibility toward the field in which I was trained. I mention it out of respect for biographical accuracy and for the reader: my title was obtained and remains valid within the university system of the Republic of Moldova, but it does not benefit from automatic equivalence in Romania.
Question: How did your connection with history begin?
Mariana S. Țăranu: For me, history did not begin as a sequence of dates, but as a way of drawing closer to places and people. Cimișeni, my native village, played an important role in this relationship with the past. This is how the volume Cimișeni – file de istorie (1660–2013) (Cimișeni: Pages from History, 1660–2013) came into being. I wanted to reconstruct not only the chronology of one locality, but also the way a community passes through empires, reforms, wars, occupations, and regime changes.
Microhistory taught me something essential: major policies become truly intelligible when we see how they enter a home, a school, a church, or a family. A locality is not a “small” subject. It can become a lens through which an entire era is seen.
Question: What does the monograph Cimișeni – file de istorie cover, and what does this book mean to you?
Mariana S. Țăranu: The book traces the history of the locality from its earliest identified documentary attestation, dated July 15, 1660, to 2013. I began with the estate and the village population, as well as the older forms of its name—Ciumeșeni, Ciumeșani, or Ciumișeni—and successively reconstructed local public administration, the development of education, religious life, economic evolution, and healthcare.
At the same time, the history of Cimișeni was crossed by the major ruptures of the twentieth century. I researched the forced mobilization of local people during the Second World War, arrests, Soviet repression and deportations, the organized famine, collectivization, and the participation of people from Cimișeni in the war on the Dniester. The reader can thus see how decisions made in Bucharest, Moscow, or Chișinău changed the concrete life of a community.
The research was based on records from the National Archives of the Republic of Moldova, the Archive of Socio-Political Organizations, and the Special Repository of the Intelligence and Security Service, as well as on the press of the period, specialist literature, and the testimonies of villagers. I included information about the owners of the estate, agrarian reform, and population dynamics, together with lists of residents, documents, photographs, and memories. All these elements make the monograph not only a narrative, but also a tool through which families can rediscover the names of their ancestors.
It is also one of my most personal books. I dedicated it to my parents, Simion and Lidia Țăranu, who passed away far too early. My mother was among those who helped me systematize and complete the material, together with other residents of the village. The volume therefore unites my identity as a researcher with my belonging to the community about which I write. I did not look at Cimișeni from the outside, but that very closeness required even greater rigor, so that I would not replace history with nostalgia.
Question: What is the main thread connecting your research?
Mariana S. Țăranu: The central thread is the relationship between totalitarian power and the individual. I have been particularly interested in what happened in Soviet Moldavia after the regime was established: how previous institutions and hierarchies were destroyed, how the “enemy” was defined, how elites were targeted, how the peasantry was controlled, and how famine, deportation, propaganda, and fear were used to reshape society.
I do not study repression as a list of victims, nor do I treat the Soviet state as an abstraction. I try to explain the mechanisms: who made the decisions, who implemented them, what language made them acceptable, how people reacted, and what traces remained across generations. At the same time, I am concerned with resistance—from open opposition to seemingly minor gestures through which people defended their faith, memory, language, property, or dignity.
Question: One of the books that defined the direction of your research is Vladimir Lenin fără machiaj sau teroarea intelectualității sovietice (Vladimir Lenin Unmasked, or the Terror against the Soviet Intelligentsia). Why did you begin with Lenin and the intelligentsia?
Mariana S. Țăranu: Because many forms of violence later associated exclusively with Stalinism have earlier roots. I was interested in Lenin beyond the official portrait carefully constructed by Soviet propaganda and sometimes preserved even after the collapse of the USSR. The book analyzes how Lenin and the Bolshevik authorities viewed the intelligentsia, their policy toward intellectuals considered unreliable, the exile and deportation of representatives of Russian culture, and the project of creating an intelligentsia loyal to the new regime.
The idea of being “unmasked” expresses my intention to remove the layer of mythology. My purpose was not rhetorical demonization, but a reconstruction based on documents and on ideas formulated by the Bolshevik leaders themselves. The intelligentsia was among the first categories on which the new authorities tested their ability to exclude, intimidate, and replace.
Question: You then examined in depth the beginnings of Soviet Moldavia during the first Soviet occupation. What place does the monograph Represiunea și rezistența din RSSM în perioada primei ocupații sovietice (1940–1941) (Repression and Resistance in the Moldavian SSR during the First Soviet Occupation, 1940–1941) occupy in your professional journey?
Mariana S. Țăranu: It occupies a central place because it is the result of a concern spanning more than two decades. My interest in this subject began during my student years at the “Ion Creangă” State Pedagogical University in Chișinău. During a lecture on the contemporary history of the Romanians, our professor spoke about the establishment of the Soviet occupation and the creation of the Moldavian SSR, drawing our attention to the many aspects of the years 1940–1941 that still remained insufficiently researched. At that moment, I told myself that I would investigate this subject. It was more than a student’s enthusiasm; it became one of the enduring directions of my work.
The volume Moldova de la Est de Prut în timpul primei ocupații sovietice (1940–1941) (Moldova East of the Prut during the First Soviet Occupation, 1940–1941) represented an important stage in this research. The monograph Represiunea și rezistența (Repression and Resistance), however, is the synthesis in which I brought together, expanded, and deepened the results accumulated over time. It is based on hundreds of documents consulted at the National Archives of the Republic of Moldova, the Archive of Socio-Political Organizations of the Republic of Moldova, and the Special Repository of the Intelligence and Security Service, together with the press of the period, statistics, memoirs, and survivor testimonies.
In this monograph, I deliberately separated the deportation operation carried out during the night of June 12–13, 1941, which I later examined in Timpuri pe care nu le-a vrut Dumnezeu sau deportarea elitelor din Moldova sovietică (Times God Did Not Want, or the Deportation of the Elites from Soviet Moldavia). This distinction allowed me to analyze in depth the mechanisms through which, in only one year, institutions, the economy, schools, the Church, culture, and everyday life were subjected to the Soviet model.
Question: What does the reader discover in this monograph, and what do you consider its main contribution?
Mariana S. Țăranu: The title might suggest a study limited to arrests and anti-Soviet opposition, but the book reconstructs the anatomy of the first year of occupation much more broadly. I began with Soviet and post-Soviet historiography and a critical analysis of the sources. I then traced the expansion of the NKVD in Soviet Moldavia, intelligence-gathering operations concerning Romania, the functioning of military tribunals, prosecutors’ offices, and prisons, as well as the extermination of representatives of political and public life from the period of Romanian administration.
A separate chapter is devoted to the flight and displacement of the population between June 28 and July 3, 1940, the activity of the Joint Soviet-Romanian Commission in Odesa, and the closing of the borders. The documents show that, after the territory was isolated and the new Soviet administration was established, crossing the Dniester was permitted only with special authorization, while numerous residents attempted to reach Romania clandestinely. The files of those captured by the NKVD make it possible to reconstruct their trajectories: some were used to obtain intelligence, while others went through sham trials and were sent into the Soviet prison system.
I also analyzed the creation of the Moldavian SSR, the arbitrary drawing of its borders, the new administrative-territorial division, and personnel policy. Sovietization was carried out not only through orders from Moscow, but also by an apparatus brought largely from outside the Moldavian SSR, poorly connected to local realities, and often unable or unwilling to use the language of the native population. At the same time, property was nationalized, the first forms of collective-farm organization were attempted, the economy and trade were subordinated to all-Union interests, and tens of thousands of young people were recruited for hard labor in Soviet industry.
An important part of the book is devoted to religious and cultural policies. I examined the dissolution of the Metropolis of Bessarabia, the forced transfer of parishes to the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church, the closing and desecration of places of worship, the persecution of the clergy, and resistance through religion. I also traced the reorganization of schools according to the Soviet model, the introduction of the Cyrillic alphabet, the liquidation of certain educational institutions, and state control over libraries, publishing houses, the press, and radio. The book thus shows that repression targeted not only physical freedom, but also memory, language, faith, and identity.
The monograph is also innovative in bringing a significant number of unpublished documents into scholarly circulation and in addressing subjects that have received little attention: the activity of Soviet judicial and prison institutions, publishing policy, resistance through religion, and individual forms of opposition. I paid particular attention to the anti-Soviet organization “Majadahonda” in Orhei, as well as to everyday resistance: refusals, attempts to cross the border, the preservation of Romanian symbols, the defense of faith, and the actions of mayors or intellectuals who refused to collaborate.
One important conclusion is that resistance did not always take an organized form. During the first year of occupation, it was largely individual. This is precisely why it has been more difficult to observe and quantify. By placing the state’s repressive response alongside the reactions of ordinary people, I sought to correct the image of an entirely passive society. The book shows that Sovietization began in the first hours of the occupation and that 1940–1941 served as a laboratory for policies later applied on an even larger scale: the destruction of elites, Russification, economic control, religious repression, and the reshaping of identity.
For me, this monograph is also methodologically defining. It combines the history of institutions with case studies and individual experiences, statistics with testimony, and official documents with what the authorities attempted to hide. It expresses very clearly how I understand the historian’s profession: it is not enough to state that a regime was repressive; one must demonstrate, institution by institution and life by life, how repression was constructed and exercised, and how people responded.
Question: In Scrisori către Stalin sau spovedaniile celor ocupați (1947–1953) (Letters to Stalin, or the Confessions of the Occupied, 1947–1953), the document seems almost to acquire a direct voice. What did you discover in these letters?
Mariana S. Țăranu: I discovered a society attempting to speak to power in a language that power would accept. People wrote to Stalin about abuses, famine, confiscations, taxes, arrests, and local injustices. At times, they affirmed their loyalty to the regime precisely so that they could tell the truth about what was happening to them. That is why I called these letters “the confessions of the occupied.”
These letters must be read on several levels. They contain factual information, but also fear, hope, adaptation, and strategies of survival. They reveal how isolated the individual had become in a system where the final imagined source of justice was the very leader of the regime that had produced the injustice. The volume is not only an edition of documents; it is also a revealing portrait of the relationship between the individual and absolute power.
Question: The famine of 1946–1947 occupies a central place in your work. What is the essential idea of Un genocid nerecunoscut. Foametea organizată de URSS în Basarabia (1946–1947) (An Unrecognized Genocide: The Famine Organized by the USSR in Bessarabia, 1946–1947)?
Mariana S. Țăranu: The essential idea is that the famine cannot be explained solely by drought or the consequences of the war. These factors aggravated the situation, but the catastrophe was decisively produced by the policy of the Soviet state: the forced requisition of agricultural produce, the imposition of disproportionate quotas, the removal of household reserves, the punishment of those unable to deliver, and the unequal distribution of resources.
While people were dying of hunger, the state continued collecting produce and treating fulfillment of the plan as the priority. Food became an instrument of coercion. The famine weakened rural resistance, increased dependence on the authorities, and prepared the ground for collectivization. In the book, I examined administrative records, victims’ testimonies, and the demographic and social consequences in order to show the connection between political decisions and human death.
Question: The title uses the phrase “unrecognized genocide.” How do you reconcile the force of this formulation with the caution required of a historian?
Mariana S. Țăranu: Through evidence. A forceful title does not release the historian from the obligation to prove every claim; on the contrary, it increases that responsibility. There is an ongoing legal and historiographical debate over whether the famine should be classified as genocide or as a crime against humanity. This debate must be conducted through arguments, not through hasty political formulas.
For me, what matters most is to establish unequivocally the responsibility of the Soviet regime and the political character of the mechanisms that transformed scarcity into catastrophe. Drought does not requisition grain, establish quotas, search households, or punish peasants. Institutions and the people implementing a policy do those things. The historian must trace this chain of responsibility precisely.
Question: Your research on the famine went beyond the printed page. How did the documentary film made with Vitalie Guțu come about?
Mariana S. Țăranu: I felt that this tragedy had to be restored to public memory not only through archival documents and books, but also through images, voices, and direct testimony. At the initiative of the well-known journalist and filmmaker Vitalie Guțu of TVR Moldova, we made the documentary Omorâți prin înfometare sau timpuri pe care nu le-a vrut Dumnezeu... (Starved to Death, or Times God Did Not Want...), the first documentary film devoted to the organized famine and its immediate and long-term consequences in Soviet Moldavia.
Making the film involved field research, meetings with survivors, and close engagement with the places where the tragedy occurred. I personally took many of the photographs that later illustrated my research on the famine while we were making the documentary. The film confirmed for me that oral testimony preserves not only information, but also hesitation, silence, emotion, and the traces of trauma that an administrative document cannot always convey.
My collaboration with Vitalie Guțu made it possible to transform historical research into a cinematic narrative accessible to a wider audience. I contributed the historical documentation and knowledge of the mechanisms of famine, while the language of film gave a face and a voice to those who had lived through that experience. For me, the documentary is an important achievement precisely because it brings together scholarly rigor and the responsibility to transmit memory beyond the circle of specialists.
Question: In 2026, you published your most recent monograph, RSSM în anii foametei staliniste (1946–1947): între teroarea politică și drama supraviețuirii (The Moldavian SSR during the Stalinist Famine, 1946–1947: Between Political Terror and the Drama of Survival). What does this book add to your earlier research?
Mariana S. Țăranu: It is the result of more than ten years of research and reflection on the famine. Un genocid nerecunoscut (An Unrecognized Genocide) focused on documenting the responsibility of the Soviet state and the need to acknowledge the tragedy. The new monograph broadens the perspective, examining both the political mechanism of starvation and people’s everyday experience. This is why its subtitle connects “political terror” with “the drama of survival.” The book was published by Lexon in Chișinău with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Moldova.
I began with the process of imposing the Soviet way of life after the regime was re-established in 1944, as well as the adaptation of local administration to directives from the Kremlin. The famine cannot be separated from this context. The state sought to control resources, reduce the autonomy of peasant households, and transform a population still attached to property, traditions, and its own identity into a society dependent on Soviet institutions.
The book analyzes in detail the system through which households were stripped of resources: compulsory deliveries of agricultural produce—the postavka—cash and military taxes, compulsory state loans, confiscations, and penalties imposed on families unable to meet the quotas. I also traced the local mechanism of requisitioning: the division of villages into groups of households, the activists who searched homes, and the “mutual assistance brigades” brought in from other localities to search again for hidden grain.
I do not deny the role of drought. I analyzed climatic data and showed that 1945–1946 were extremely dry years. But drought explains a poor harvest; it does not explain why the state continued to requisition produce, increase tax obligations, and leave households without reserves while the USSR exported grain. Political decisions transformed a natural crisis into a human catastrophe.
Question: The book’s subtitle refers to “the drama of survival.” How did you reconstruct this human dimension?
Mariana S. Țăranu: I brought administrative records into dialogue with survivor testimonies, the press of the period, photographs, and specialist research. An official document shows us quotas, orders, and the movement of produce. A testimony tells us what it meant to build a double wall to hide a few kilograms of grain, exchange a handwoven family rug for food, leave for western Ukraine with the last belongings in the house, or consume plants and other unusual products in order to stay alive.
I examined urban and rural environments separately. City residents who had jobs received limited quantities of food through the ration-card system, while most peasants were excluded from this distribution, even though the produce had been collected from them. The assistance provided belatedly by the authorities largely took the form of loans that had to be repaid from the following harvest. Canteens and special wards for those suffering from dystrophy offered insufficient and selective support, giving priority to those still considered capable of work and likely to survive.
A distinct dimension of the monograph is its examination of burial practices. The large number of deaths and the exhaustion of communities led to mass graves, burials without coffins or religious rites, and sometimes even to families being unable to bury their loved ones. I also addressed extreme cases of cannibalism and necrophagy—not for their shocking effect, but because they show the limit to which a person can be driven when food is systematically taken away.
The final part of the book traces the demographic, economic, moral, and psychological consequences. The famine produced fear, distrust, the breakdown of solidarity, and an anxiety surrounding food that was transmitted to later generations. The regime required that the word “famine” be avoided in official records, and this denial added a second trauma to the physical suffering: the inability to speak publicly about what had happened.
The monograph is dedicated to my parents, Lidia and Simion Țăranu, to my grandparents, and to all the parents and grandparents from whom the Soviet regime took away the chance to live in freedom. This dedication also explains what is at stake in the book. It is an academic study based on sources, but also an act of moral restitution. Testimony does not replace the document, and the document does not cancel memory; only when critically examined together can they convey the scale of the tragedy.
Question: In Timpuri pe care nu le-a vrut Dumnezeu sau deportarea elitelor din Moldova sovietică (Times God Did Not Want, or the Deportation of the Elites from Soviet Moldavia), you focused on elites. How do you define the “elite” in that context?
Mariana S. Țăranu: I am not referring only to an elite defined by diplomas or official positions. In a rural community, a teacher, a priest, a respected farmer, an experienced public servant, or a person who preserved the memory of the place could possess essential authority. The regime understood that, in order to control society, it had to eliminate its independent points of reference.
Deportation meant more than removing individuals. It meant the social decapitation of communities, the confiscation of property, the breaking apart of families, and the transmission of fear to those who remained. The title of the book suggests precisely this rupture between the natural order of life and the arbitrary time imposed by power. I examined both the repressive mechanism and the biographies of those who were turned into files and administrative categories.
Question: Războiul și trădările. Mărturiile unui general (War and Betrayals: A General’s Testimony) appears to open a different direction. What was your role in bringing this book into being?
Mariana S. Țăranu: I met General Anton Gămurari in the summer of 2017, when I was producing the program Recurs la istorie (History Revisited) for the radio station Vocea Basarabiei (Voice of Bessarabia). On June 16, I invited him to speak about the 1992 war and the consequences of Russian military aggression in the eastern part of the Republic of Moldova. Our conversation continued after the broadcast, and I realized that I was speaking not only with a participant in the events, but with a witness carrying a historical experience that remained insufficiently known. I proposed that he tell his story in a book, and he agreed.
Between June and October 2017, we recorded ten hours and twenty minutes of material. I transcribed, edited, and organized it mainly according to chronological criteria, without altering the structure of the general’s thoughts or his voice. I arranged the testimonies into thirteen chapters and added two interviews conducted for Recurs la istorie, Anton Gămurari’s 2017 speech at the National Museum of History of Moldova, the questions that remained unanswered, a contextual study, indexes of names and places, and a rich body of photographic material.
The title Războiul și trădările (War and Betrayals) emerged naturally from the general’s testimony. He unequivocally described the events of 1992 as a war waged by the Russian Federation against the Republic of Moldova and frequently returned to the intelligence leaks, contradictory orders, and betrayals that he said he had encountered within state structures. Sadly, the volume appeared after the general’s death, turning this work into a duty of remembrance as well.
Question: What does the reader learn from General Anton Gămurari’s testimony, and why do you consider this book important today?
Mariana S. Țăranu: The book follows the general’s professional formation, events in southern Moldova and the Gagauz issue, the creation of special units, the deterioration of the situation on the left bank of the Dniester, and the 1992 war. Speaking from the perspective of someone on the front line, Anton Gămurari describes the fighting at Dubăsari, Cocieri, Coșnița, Tighina, and elsewhere; the volunteers and partisans; the lack of resources; the intervention of the 14th Army; and the difficulty of coordinating the defense of a newly established state.
But the volume is not only a military history. It is also a revealing portrait of Moldovan society during the first decade of independence. The testimony addresses the relationship between the front and the political leadership, corruption, banditry, institutional rivalries, the abandonment of some combatants after the war, and the marginalization of those who had defended the state’s territorial integrity. The reader thus discovers what the general called “the war within the war.”
As a historian, I was careful to preserve the distinction between testimony and verdict. The memoir contains serious accusations and personal interpretations that must be compared with other documents and perspectives. This is precisely the value of an oral source: it does not provide a final judgment, but the direct perspective of a participant, his language, his questions, and the way he experienced the events. My role was to preserve the authenticity of his voice, give it an intelligible structure, and place it within a verifiable historical framework.
The book’s relevance became even more evident after Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine. In the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation had already tested the support of separatism, the use of local forces, and the subsequent transformation of the aggressor into a “peacekeeper.” General Gămurari’s testimony helps us understand the continuity of these mechanisms and the danger of accepting the aggressor’s imposed language in place of documented reality.
Question: How important is the archive to the way you write history?
Mariana S. Țăranu: The archive is fundamental, but simply citing a document does not guarantee the truth. Soviet documents were produced by institutions with their own interests, formulas, and mechanisms of concealment. A report may minimize a tragedy, shift the blame, or hide the lives of thousands of people behind a percentage. This is why I verify the source, the author, the document’s chain of transmission, the purpose for which it was produced, and the relationship between what it states and what it omits.
I value multilingual and comparative research. Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Western sources do not always tell the same story, and the differences between them can be especially revealing. The archive is not a repository of ready-made certainties, but a place where the historian learns to ask more precise questions.
Question: Has your work in the archival field and your engagement with the history of Sibiu changed your perspective?
Mariana S. Țăranu: It has broadened it. Research on Soviet Moldavia remains the main axis of my work, but working with Sibiu’s documentary heritage has given me access to another historical experience: a multiethnic city with Romanian, Saxon, Hungarian, and Jewish traditions, and with intersecting institutions and memories.
I have become even more attentive to the ways in which broader history is reflected in local administration, the press, everyday life, and relations among communities. Soviet Moldavia and Sibiu are very different historical spaces, but both demonstrate the importance of local documents for understanding European processes.
Question: Researching repression and famine can become emotionally burdensome. How do you preserve the balance between empathy and critical distance?
Mariana S. Țăranu: Empathy is necessary, but it must not replace evidence. If the historian becomes indifferent, the human meaning of the research is lost. If emotion is allowed to decide before the sources, rigor is at risk. I try to maintain this balance: not to turn suffering into statistics, but also not to use tragedy as a substitute for argument.
These subjects have made me more attentive to the fragility of freedom and to the ease with which administrative language can conceal violence. They have also taught me that people should not be seen only as victims. Even in extreme conditions, they seek solutions, help one another, resist, and preserve part of their inner freedom.
Question: Who do you write for: specialists or the general public?
Mariana S. Țăranu: For both. A history book must withstand specialist scrutiny: it needs solid sources, clear concepts, and verifiable arguments. But I do not believe that rigor requires inaccessible language. If research remains confined to a narrow circle, society will continue to derive its explanations from myths, propaganda, or oversimplified messages.
I try to write so that the specialist recognizes the method while the non-specialist reader can follow the human fate and the logic of events. For me, popularization does not mean simplifying the truth, but finding a clear form for a complex truth.
Question: Do you consider yourself a historian with a civic commitment?
Mariana S. Țăranu: Yes, if by civic commitment we mean the responsibility to bring documented findings into the public sphere and to respond when the past is falsified. I do not believe, however, that civic commitment allows historians to select only convenient facts. On the contrary, a public voice is credible only when it is grounded in the same discipline of sources.
The memory of famine, deportations, and Soviet occupation does not belong only to the victims’ families. It concerns the way a society understands human dignity, the responsibility of the state, and the danger of turning ideology into policy against its own citizens.
Question: What would you like readers to understand about you after reading this interview and your books?
Mariana S. Țăranu: That I did not choose history in order to contemplate the past from a distance. I chose it to understand how power enters human lives and how truth can be defended when documents have been concealed, memory has been suppressed, and victims have been forced into silence.
I would like to be seen as a rigorous historian who is not without sensitivity; as a researcher who does not fear difficult subjects and does not confuse seriousness with rigidity. My books speak about repression, famine, deportation, and war, but at their center is the human being—vulnerable in the face of power, capable of resistance, and entitled to recover their memory.
Question: If you had to define your mission in a single sentence, what would it be?
Mariana S. Țăranu: I write history in order to restore to people the names, experiences, and truth that were taken from them.
Books Presented in the Interview
- Vladimir Lenin fără machiaj sau teroarea intelectualității sovietice — Vladimir Lenin Unmasked, or the Terror against the Soviet Intelligentsia (2007)
- Moldova de la Est de Prut în timpul primei ocupații sovietice (1940–1941) — Moldova East of the Prut during the First Soviet Occupation, 1940–1941 (2010)
- Scrisori către Stalin sau spovedaniile celor ocupați (1947–1953) — Letters to Stalin, or the Confessions of the Occupied, 1947–1953 (2014)
- Cimișeni – file de istorie (1660–2013) — Cimișeni: Pages from History, 1660–2013 (2014)
- Represiunea și rezistența din RSSM în perioada primei ocupații sovietice (1940–1941) — Repression and Resistance in the Moldavian SSR during the First Soviet Occupation, 1940–1941 (2021)
- Un genocid nerecunoscut. Foametea organizată de URSS în Basarabia (1946–1947) — An Unrecognized Genocide: The Famine Organized by the USSR in Bessarabia, 1946–1947 (2021)
- Timpuri pe care nu le-a vrut Dumnezeu sau deportarea elitelor din Moldova sovietică — Times God Did Not Want, or the Deportation of the Elites from Soviet Moldavia (2023)
- Războiul și trădările. Mărturiile unui general — War and Betrayals: A General’s Testimony (2025; the testimony of General Anton Gămurari, recorded and structured by Mariana S. Țăranu)
- RSSM în anii foametei staliniste (1946–1947): între teroarea politică și drama supraviețuirii — The Moldavian SSR during the Stalinist Famine, 1946–1947: Between Political Terror and the Drama of Survival (2026)
Documentary Film Presented in the Interview
- Omorâți prin înfometare sau timpuri pe care nu le-a vrut Dumnezeu... — Starved to Death, or Times God Did Not Want...; made by Mariana S. Țăranu together with journalist and filmmaker Vitalie Guțu of TVR Moldova