PENTECOST ' 51

English version: ANTUZA GENESCU\r\n\r\nTen years have passed since the novel Pentecost ’51. Pages of the BaraganDeportation was first published. It was written to remind the members of the Association of Former Baragan Deportees in particular and the public in general of the tragic odyssey that the rural inhabitants of Banat went through in the 1950’s, when Romania was under the oppressive Stalinist rule that was to become national-communism during Ceausescu’s time. The propitious encounter between the authors of the book — both highly appreciated writers in our country — and our Association has turned into a fruitful collaboration. The first edition of the book is now followed by a second one, enriched with additional concrete historical facts found in archives or deduced during visits to the deportation places.The importance of this volume, which our Association has decided to reprint to celebrate its tenth anniversary, is underlined in the numerous appreciative comments made upon it. This book (as well as the following volume, Deportation to Baragan. Destinies, Documents, Reportage by Viorel Marineasa, Daniel Vighi and Valentin Samânta, Mirton Publishing House, Timisoara, 1996) has become a work of reference in contemporary history research and it is cited in many specialised studies and doctoral dissertations. The book’s remarkable success, illustrated in this edition in a special chapter of excerpts from the cultural and specialised press, has determined us to print a second edition. The favourable criticism has also materialized in the awards that the books by the great writers Viorel Marineasa and Daniel Vighi and the gifted journalist Valentin Samân?a have received from the Banat and Dobrogea branches of the Writers’ Union of Romania.These accomplishments have marked the destiny of our Association. They have all gained cultural and scientific meanings, besides their daily role to provide our members, former deportees to the Baragan Gulag, with the minimal financial support that the post-communist Romanian society offers to compensate for the wrongs they unjustly suffered. With the publication of this book a decade ago, the Association of Former Baragan Deportees engaged in an ambitious project that reminds today’s world of yesterday’s tragedy retold in the deportees’ testimonies or excerpts from archives — all published in books, immortalised in valuable documentaries or preserved in exhibition halls.Today, by publishing the second edition of Pentecost ’51. Pages of the Baragan Deportation, we celebrate ten years since the deportation of innocent people, most of them villagers from Banat, acquired a cultural destiny and became a lesson for the future generations, one that the people who spent so many years in dugouts on the Baragan plain would never have thought possible. We put all our efforts into honouring their anonymous and dignified suffering.\r\n\r\nEng. Silviu Sarafoleanu, President of the Association of Former Baragan Deportees