Alex Mihai Stoenescu

Alex Mihai Stoenescu (born October 2, 1953) is a Romanian historian, writer, journalist and politician.

Biography

According to his own admission, Stoenescu collaborated with the Securitate in 1984, while he worked as an engineer at a factory in Băneasa. However, he claims it was out of patriotism and he only gave technical details about some equipment bought by the company for which he worked.[1]

After the Romanian Revolution, he worked as a journalist and then as chief of the Press Department of the National Defense Ministry. In 1998, president Emil Constantinescu intended to name him spokesman of the presidency, until he learnt about his collaboration with the Securitate.[1]

Stoenescu was a vicepresident of Uniunea Forţelor de Dreapta, resigning from it in 2000, following the unsatisfactory results in the local elections,[2] joining the National Liberal Party in August 2000.[3] In 2006, Stoenescu joined the New Generation – Christian Democratic Party, being chosen vice-president in charge with its doctrine.[4] He was also part of the team of historians whom Gigi Becali commissioned to write the "true history of Romania".[5] Stoenescu was among the several important members of this party to resign in 2007.[6]

Work

Stoenescu's historical work has been considered controversial, especially his works about the rule of Ion Antonescu and the 1989 revolution.

In his work The Army, the Marshall and the Jews, dedicated to the Antonescu era, he claims that the Iași pogrom occurred because Antonescu "practically ceded" the city's Romanian sovereignty to the Germans, who were thus responsible for the mass killings. This attitude is considered by Romanian Holocaust scholar Michael Shafir as being "deflective negationism", a form of Holocaust denial in which the guilt is deflected toward other groups, such as the Germans.[7] The book also claims that the deaths of thousands of Jews in the "Death Trains" in Romania can be attributed to negligence, not intent. He also accepted without question the era's propaganda that those embarked were "communists" who attacked the Romanian and German troops,[8] while concluding that it was not the first time in history when thousands of innocents paid for the deeds of "a handful of [Jewish communist] culprits".[9]

Stoenescu's multi-volume work History of coup d'etats in Romania also received harsh criticism because of its depiction of Romanian far-right groups. For instance, he claims that the Iron Guard was not anti-semitic in its early days, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu being originally just an anti-communist and his anti-semitism being a reaction to the Jews' preference of left-wing politics and thus they brought the threat of Bolshevism.[8] The same book also claims that the "Death Squads" of the Legionnaire movement were not really groups of assassins, but just "legionnaires willing to risk their life", who did not intend "to bring death on others", their image being allegedly distorted by the Communist propaganda.[8]

Bibliography

History

Literary works

References

  1. 1 2 "Alex Stoenescu se prezinta: sursa "Gavrilescu"", Cotidianul, November 1, 2006
  2. ↑ "Alex Stoenescu se inscrie in PNL", Ziua, August 14, 2000
  3. ↑ "Mare agitatie in PNL", Ziua, August 17, 2000
  4. ↑ "Gigi Becali, colindat pe "euroi"", Evenimentul Zilei, December 16, 2006
  5. ↑ "Elita lui Gigi", Cotidianul, September 13, 2006
  6. ↑ "Gigi Becali ramane singur in Palat", Evenimentul Zilei, November 20, 2007
  7. ↑ Michael Shafir, "Deflective Negationism of the Holocaust in Postcommunist East-Central Europe (Part 1): The Germans Did It Alone (A)" in East European Perspectives, 2002, Vol. 4, No. 18.
  8. 1 2 3 Michael Shafir, "Rotten Apples, Bitter Pears: An Updated Motivational Typology of Romania's Radical Right’s Anti-Semitic Postures in Post-Communism", Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, 7, 21 (Winter 2008).
  9. ↑ Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania, Final Report, Polirom, 2005, p 333
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