Scholars often identify a ‘delay’ in the coverage of the Great Depression in Romania, both in terms of reporting the evolution of the crisis abroad and its impact at home. Indeed, newspapers, officials, and private individuals frequently referred to the crisis as a phenomenon that took place, or was more severe, elsewhere.
The memoirs of Ion Lapedatu, prominent economist and chief officer of the Romanian National Bank between 1928 and 1946, are revealing in this sense. In a volume that otherwise barely mentions the Great Depression, Lapedatu recalls a work trip to Amsterdam from early December 1929:
“I was surprised by how quiet and deserted the city was. There was no traffic, on either streets or canals. I stayed at the largest hotel in town, and I was the only passenger on the hotel bus […]. [The president of the Dutch National Bank] explained to me that his country was going through its worst financial and economic crisis ever. The cause was international relations. The Netherlands balanced its budget with income from maritime transportation and food exports to Germany. And, he said, sea trade had stopped altogether, and in Germany unemployment was so high that the country could no longer import Dutch goods. I immediately understood the causes of the crisis that impressed me so.[…]
I spent one more day in Amsterdam, in complete solitude, always under the cloud of the terrible crisis affecting that country.[…] When buying my train ticket back, the clerk shared that they had not sold anything in three days. I mention this detail so that the extent of the frightful crisis weighing upon the country can be understood better.”[1]
Lapedatu must have eventually accustomed himself to the idea of a crisis closer to home. In a diary entry from 22 April 1931, the veteran politician Octavian Goga mentions that he just met Lapedatu, who was “very concerned about the financial problem and the certain collapse that would follow.”[2] Absorbed by yet another governmental ‘crisis,’ very common at the time, Goga in turn spent little time on the “financial problem.”
High-profile figures were not alone in their ‘delayed’ perception of the crisis in Romania. On 15 July 1931, the writer Octav Sulutiu, who incidentally made his living as a precariously paid adjunct high-school teacher, noted in his diary:
“Germany is experiencing a desperate financial crisis. The banks closed down for a couple of days. International financial institutions have been called for help. If they don’t intervene Germany will crash, and its collapse will bring about a general crisis, unique in the history of capitalism.”[3]
For context, the most important Romanian bank affected by the crisis, Marmorosch-Blank, declared insolvency in 1930 and would go bankrupt in November 1931. Still, many Romanians preferred to look at the crisis abroad.
[1] Ion I. Lapedatu, Memorii si amintiri (Iasi: Institutul European, 1998), 377-78.
[2] Octavian Goga, „Jurnal politic, 1931” in Gheorghe I Bodea, Octavian Goga: cronicarul unor vremi traite (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Vremi, 20090, 254.
[3] Octav Sulutiu, Jurnal (Cluj-Napoca: Dacia, 1975), 201.