Bucharest Student Movement of 1956 - Student Protests Are Organised

Student Protests Are Organised

Romanian students closely followed the unfolding events in Hungary, not only in Bucharest, but also Timişoara, Cluj, Târgu Mureş, and Iaşi. At first, different students would exchange information they had heard on the radio or from other sources and discussed their prospects for undertaking similar actions. The students did not form committees, which the authorities might have considered to be clandestine organisations and attract a repression by the state security apparatus. Instead, action groups appeared in the city's different faculties.

Students in each faculty reacted differently. The most active groups were formed in the Faculties of Law, Letters, Theatre, Medicine, Architecture, Journalism, and Philosophy, as well as at the Medical-Military Institute and at the Politehnica. Students' reactions were far more cautious in other technical learning institutes (Petroleum and Gas, Agronomy), in the University of Bucharest's Faculties of Mathematics, Geography and History, and in the Institute of Economic Sciences.

A precise list of students involved in organising protests is difficult to reconstruct. The only sources are transcripts of the trials that followed the movement's crushing, data presented in sessions to unmask rebel students and data regarding the expulsions which followed. From these sources, there emerge the following names of student organisers:

• Faculty of Law: Eugenia Florescu, Dan Mugur Rusiecki, Radu Surdulescu, Florin Caba, Mircea Tatos, Aurel Moldovan, Ligia Filotti, Rodica Ojog, Magda Dumitrescu, Rodica Baroi, Călin Chiser, Ligia Teodorescu, Mihai Cezar Busuioc, Alexandru Dincă, Rodica Bujoreanu, Vladimir Trifu, Marin Stănescu;
• Faculty of Medicine: Alexandru Ivasiuc, Mihail Victor Serdaru, Constantin Iliescu, Dan Constantin Stavarache, Mirel Trifu, Şerban-Horia Popescu, Radu Cernăianu, Remus Petcu, Alexandru Tătaru, Vasile Brânzan, Paul Iliescu, Octavian Lupăşteanu, Mircea Selten;
• Faculty of Letters: Teodor Lupaş, Ştefan Negrea, Mihai Rădulescu, Christa Depner, Steliana Pogorilovschi (Stela Covaci), Aurel Covaci, Paul Goma, Horia Florian Popescu, Gloria Barna, Grigore Vereş;
• Institute of Theatre: Alexandru Mălinescu, Petre Gheorghe, Adrian Ianuli, Gabriela Cocora;
• Faculty of Arhitecture: Alexandru Tătaru, Dan Stoica;
• Faculty of Journalism: Dumitru Panaitescu-Perpessicius;
• Faculty of Philosophy: Mihai Stere Derdena, Dan Onaca, Costel Dumitrescu, Dumitru Arvat, Alexandru Bulai, Ioan Zane, Aurel Lupu, Romulus Resiga, Constantin Dumitru;
• Polytechnic Institute: Marin Petrişor, Horia Şerban Popescu, Marian Rozenzweig, Tiberiu Ionescu, Adrian Cristea, Nicolae Cernăianu;
• Construction Institute: Radu Gabrea;
• Medical-Military Institute: Bebe Brânzan, Paul Iliescu, Remus Petcu.

Many other students were active during those days.