The psalm ‘Rūpintojėlių Lietuva’ was written by Miškinis during his imprisonment in Siberia. The lyrics of the psalm follow the style of the psalms in the Bible. It is like an appeal to God, asking His help for all Soviet deportees. In the psalm, the Soviet regime is seen as a nine-headed dragon. Neither the psalm nor parts of it have been translated into English or into other foreign languages.
Memorandum addressed to the president of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly, in Romanian, 1948. Manuscript (copy)
The Memorandum addressed to the president of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly on 29 March 1948 by the six Romanian Greek Catholic bishops concerns those aspects of the project of the 1948 Romanian Constitution which hampered religious freedom in Romania. The six Romanian Greek Catholic bishops who signed the document and assumed the risk of being arrested were: Valeriu Traian Frenţiu (Bishop of Oradea), Iuliu Hossu (Bishop of Cluj-Gherla), Alexandru Rusu (Bishop of Maramureş), Ioan Bălan (Bishop of Lugoj), Ioan Suciu (Auxiliary Bishop of Oradea) and Vasile Aftenie (Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar Bishop of Bucharest and the Old Kingdom.This risk was materialised in the autumn of 1948 when they were arrested and imprisoned by the Securitate for their obstinate resistance to the abusive policies of the communist regime towards their church (Vasile 2002).
In the introduction of the Memorandum the leadership of the Church emphasise the importance of the new Constitution and the real need for social reforms in the country, which the 1948 Constitution included. After this captatio benevolentiae, the six bishops bring to the fore those stipulations which in their opinion could “violate natural and perennial human rights” and the international obligations assumed by the Romanian state through international treaties (ACNSAS, Fond Documentar, dosar FD 8792, ff. 359–360). Their criticism targets especially article 28, the third part of the project of the 1948 Constitution, which stated: “No congregation or religious denomination may establish and administrate institutions of general education, but only special schools aimed at training the staff of the religious denomination under the control of the state” (f. 361).
The argument of the Memorandum is that the stipulations of the third part of article 28 is in contradiction with another part of the same article, which stipulated freedom of religion. By these limitations concerning the education system, the Greek Catholic bishops considered that an important aspect of the freedom of religion was violated. Thus, in their opinion the third part “suppresses those generous stipulations proclaimed previously” (f. 362).
The Memorandum emphasises the natural right of citizens to educate their children according to their values and convictions. The bishops invoke the long tradition not only of Greek Catholic but also of Orthodox confessional schools in Transylvania, and emphasise their importance in the affirmation of Romanian national culture and identity in Transylvania (f. 363). The bishops also emphasise that the confessional schools were attended during the nineteenth century mainly by children of peasant origin and represented a lever for social emancipation for the Romanian population of this region.
In conclusion, the text points out that the decision to abolish the confessional educational system in Romania will be an act of injustice from many points of view and states that: “For our part, we stand firm to declare that we will never give up, in any circumstances and on any conditions, what we believe is the inalienable right of our Church.” All the six Greek Catholic Bishops signed the document, which was addressed to the communist authorities. A copy of this document was attached to the files of the Documentary Fonds, created by the Securitate in order to document the “Greek Catholic issue”.
‘Književne novine’ [Literary News] was one of the leading cultural and literary journals in Yugoslavia. It was often the target of criticism due to views that were not always in line with the communist party, causing it to be banned several times. The available editions are kept in two libraries in Belgrade: the National Library of Serbia and the University Library "Svetozar Marković".
In 1948, Jonynas openly criticised the final thesis by the student F. Levitac ‘The Struggle by the Lithuanian Communist Party against the Fascist Regime in 1934–1936’, for its poor academic and professional quality. Levitac was a member of the Communist Party, and Jonynas’ remarks caused a severe reaction from the university council. He was accused of ‘bourgeois nationalism’. Jonynas gave a speech to the university council in which he accepted his ‘political and ideological mistakes’. This helped him to keep his academic position at Vilnius University. The document illustrates very well the dramatic situation of a talented scholar and intellectual who made a career in interwar Lithuania under Stalinism.
