Conferences

Video-streaming

On Sunday, June 16th, 2019, from 11.00 a.m., the TNB Small Hall shall host Marian Voicu’s conference on the topic of The Romanian Treasure in Moscow - a Historical, Political or International Law Issue?

About the Conference

It is Romania's oldest litigation. 100 years, two world wars, revolutions, coups, waves of famine and deportations have passed since. The world has undergone tremendous transformations, but the matter of the Treasure has remained the axis on which the Romanian-Russian vane still pivots.

For most of the Romanians, the Treasure means the gold of the National Bank of Romania. Yet it represented less than one-tenth of the value of the goods evicted to Russia in 1916 and 1917. The Romanians then dispatched the treasures of the National Bank and of the Deposits and Consignments Office, private banks and public institutions, Crown jewels, the most important art objects from museums and private collections, monasteries, numismatic collections, state archives, diplomatic archives, manuscripts, rare books, and finally, as a heritage, the identity of the Romanian nation since the 14th century.

However, inventories are, with the exception of the NBR gold, incomplete and never centralized.

After more than 100 years, the fundamental questions remain the same: what have we sent and what have we received? Is there still a topical Treasure issue? Does it pertain to political, historical or international law? What is the Romanian-Russian legal department? How important are the new documents that continue to appear?

There is no similar dispute in the world. If for 100 years, Romanians have been talking about the Romanian Treasure, the Russians prefer to talk about the history of the Romanian Treasure.

For Romanians, solving the Treasure issue would improve the bilateral relationship. For the Russians, improving bilateral relations would lead to the Treasure's problem solving. Is this an inextricable situation? Marian Voicu

About Marian Voicu

Marian Voicu is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. He has worked for over 20 years on television and radio as a moderator and producer of various journalistic formats. For ten years, he has documented for the Romanian National Television the Romanian communities - from Istroromans and Aromanians to Romanians over the Bug and those from the Russian Federation. He was a project manager at Radio Romania Kishinev, a broadcaster released in 2011.

The most recent documentary films include Breaking Fake News: The war after the Cold War? (2017) and Torna, torna, fratre: The Aromanian story told by themselves (2015).

He has published the Matrioshka of Liars: Fake news, manipulation, populism (Humanitas, 2018), Cotovschi's Dream, in the collective volume The Russians are coming! (Humanitas, 2018) and the Romanian Treasure of Moscow: The Inventory of a Century-Old History (Humanitas, 2016).

He has received several national and international awards, most recently the Gold Medal of the United Nations Correspondents' Association for the documentary film Exodus: A Syrian Tragedy (2015).

He was decorated with the Faithful Service National Order to the rank of Knight (2014).  

Translated by Simona Nichiteanu