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Viața mea ca spioană
Cartea este o relatare a efectelor traiului sub supraveghere, experiența care începe să devină familiară tuturor, chiar dacă în alte forme.
Acum suntem cu toții supravegheați, dar cei mai mulți dintre noi nici nu au idee ce înseamnă asta cu adevărat. Cum te simți să fii spionat, sub bănuiala că ești tu însuți un fel de spion sau trădător? Cum e să fii înconjurat de secrete despre care afli cu mult după ce faptele s-au produs? Secrete care includ numele prietenilor care au raportat despre tine la Securitate și acțiunile pe care le-a întreprins această poliție pentru a interveni în viața ta? Care este efectul acestei experiențe asupra identității tale și a relațiilor de încredere pe care credeai că le-ai construit, în momentul în care amploarea ei devine cunoscută?
Speranța mea este că această carte va face vizibile un anumit set de practici de supraveghere și efectele lor, într-o lume în care noi forme de supraveghere proliferează în fiecare zi.
- Katherine Verdery
Acum suntem cu toții supravegheați, dar cei mai mulți dintre noi nici nu au idee ce înseamnă asta cu adevărat. Cum te simți să fii spionat, sub bănuiala că ești tu însuți un fel de spion sau trădător? Cum e să fii înconjurat de secrete despre care afli cu mult după ce faptele s-au produs? Secrete care includ numele prietenilor care au raportat despre tine la Securitate și acțiunile pe care le-a întreprins această poliție pentru a interveni în viața ta? Care este efectul acestei experiențe asupra identității tale și a relațiilor de încredere pe care credeai că le-ai construit, în momentul în care amploarea ei devine cunoscută?
Speranța mea este că această carte va face vizibile un anumit set de practici de supraveghere și efectele lor, într-o lume în care noi forme de supraveghere proliferează în fiecare zi.
- Katherine Verdery
448 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2018
38 people are currently reading
846 people want to read
About the author
Katherine Verdery
26 books32 followersKatherine Verdery is Julien J. Studley Faculty Scholar and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Since 1973 she has conducted field research in Romania, initially emphasizing the political economy of social inequality, ethnic relations, and nationalism. With the changes of 1989, her work shifted to problems of the transformation of socialist systems, specifically changing property relations in agriculture. From 1993 to 2000 she did fieldwork on this theme in a Transylvanian community; the resulting book, The Vanishing Hectare: Property and Value in Postsocialist Transylvania, was published by Cornell University Press (2003). She then completed a large collaborative project with Gail Kligman (UCLA) and a number of Romanian scholars on the opposite process, the formation of collective and state farms in Romania during the 1950s. The resulting book, Peasants under Siege: The Collectivization of Romanian Agriculture, 1949-1962, was published by Princeton University Press (2011).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
August 20, 2018
A painfully honest investigation of the complex relationship between surveillance, political power and cultural privilege, and socially constructed notions of friendship, responsibility, and ethics.
February 11, 2019
O tânără americancă, studentă la Stanford şi etnograf în devenire, ajunge în România socialistă la începutul anilor '70 printr-un schimb de cercetători, hotărâtă să adune date pentru doctoratul ei în antropologie. Avea doar douăzeci şi cinci de ani şi alesese România aproape întâmplător, din pură curiozitate faţă de lumea nevăzută din spatele Cortinei de Fier. Cum în anii respectivi România părea să se deschidă mai mult spre exterior decât restul ţărilor est-europene, Katherine învaţă încet-încet limba română şi se pregăteşte pentru cele 17 luni pe care avea să le petreacă într-un sat din sudul judeţului Hunedoara, sub îndrumarea ştiinţifică a profesorului Mihai Pop. De fapt, odată ce ajunge acolo, planurile îi vor fi date peste cap: nu numai că aproape se găseşte nevoită să se stabilească într-un alt judeţ (ce nu avea nicio legătură cu proiectul pentru care venise), dar se şi pomeneşte cu propriul dosar de urmărire, la doar opt luni de la sosire. Totul din cauza unei motorete Mobra, care o poartă, accidental, prea aproape de o bază militară strict secretă.
Patruzeci de ani mai târziu, o vizită la CNSAS îi relevă lui Katherine o imagine de sine complet necunoscută până atunci, căci primeşte spre lecturare propriul dosar secret de la Securitate. Se pare că pe timpul şederilor sale în România (căci a petrecut în total, între 1973 şi 1988, 40 de săptămâni aici), Securitatea îi fabricase nu mai puţin de unsprezece dosare, de 300-400 pagini fiecare, dar şi numeroase dubluri identitare: pentru securişti, Katherine e, pe rând, "'FOLCLORISTA' care spionează pentru armată, 'VERA' care locuieşte la Cluj şi face spionaj pentru diaspora maghiară din SUA, dar şi 'VANESSA', spionată acasă, în Baltimore, pentru asocierea cu diverşi disidenţi". Inevitabil, informaţiile pe care Securitatea le scria despre propria persoană o fac să îşi chestioneze identitatea, întrebându-se dacă nu cumva erau, în logica lor, îndreptăţiţi să o considere spioană:
Până la urmă, care mai e diferenţa dintre un spion şi un antropolog? Nu era, de fapt, interesul lui Katherine exact cel suspectat de către Securitate, şi anume strângerea "informaţiilor socio-politice" de diverse feluri? Se pare că tocmai asemănarea dintre metodele etnografice ale cercetătoarei şi cele ale Securităţii îi vor determina să o considere spioană. Bineînţeles că, la bază, Securitatea avea nevoie de toate aceste identităţi false pentru a putea supravieţui - căci ce rol ar mai fi avut securiştii fără duşmani ai statului? - dar se poate, de exemplu, nega faptul că un antropolog "exploatează oamenii în scopuri informative", aşa cum susţineau securiştii despre Katherine?
În alte cuvinte, "Viaţa mea ca spioană" relevează cercetările autoarei asupra cercetărilor Securităţii referitoare la desfăşurarea cercetărilor ei. Pe lângă interceptarea corespondenţei şi a convorbirilor telefonice, pe lângă echipamentele de înregistrare (audio, dar şi video) care o însoţeau pe Katherine peste tot pe timpul şederii în România, Securitatea a recrutat, pentru alcătuirea dosarului, cel puţin 70 de informatori din toată ţara. Putem doar să ne imaginăm frustrarea autoarei, care pe unii îi considerase prieteni de nădejde şi li se destăinuise în repetate rânduri, doar ca să afle apoi că fuseseră instruiţi special să îi câştige încrederea; apoi, toată viaţa îi pare brusc un teatru de păpuşi când află cât de implicaţi fuseseră securiştii în viaţa sa intimă.
Aşadar, parte a cărţii spune povestea şederii ei în România, cu diverse note informative prezentate în paralel, pe când a doua jumătate constă în reflecţii personale, reacţii diverse la citirea documentelor, dar, poate cel mai interesant, dialoguri şi întâlniri atât cu informatori care o trădaseră, cât şi cu aceiaşi securişti care atâţia ani o urmăriseră din umbră. Mi-a plăcut atât de mult cartea nu numai pentru subiectul care anunţa din start o lectură interesantă, dar şi pentru toată organizarea discursului: deşi nu este o lucrare ştiinţifică, am simţit aptitudinile de cercetător ale autoarei din stilul elocvent, curat al expunerii, astfel încât cartea se citeşte uşor deşi abundă în informaţii, nume şi pseudonime; am mai apreciat umorul (de multe ori auto-depreciativ) şi sinceritatea autoarei, empatia şi, bineînţeles, talentul de povestitor - în plus, cartea primeşte puncte bonus pentru bibliografia cuprinzătoare şi pentru indexul extrem de util!
Patruzeci de ani mai târziu, o vizită la CNSAS îi relevă lui Katherine o imagine de sine complet necunoscută până atunci, căci primeşte spre lecturare propriul dosar secret de la Securitate. Se pare că pe timpul şederilor sale în România (căci a petrecut în total, între 1973 şi 1988, 40 de săptămâni aici), Securitatea îi fabricase nu mai puţin de unsprezece dosare, de 300-400 pagini fiecare, dar şi numeroase dubluri identitare: pentru securişti, Katherine e, pe rând, "'FOLCLORISTA' care spionează pentru armată, 'VERA' care locuieşte la Cluj şi face spionaj pentru diaspora maghiară din SUA, dar şi 'VANESSA', spionată acasă, în Baltimore, pentru asocierea cu diverşi disidenţi". Inevitabil, informaţiile pe care Securitatea le scria despre propria persoană o fac să îşi chestioneze identitatea, întrebându-se dacă nu cumva erau, în logica lor, îndreptăţiţi să o considere spioană:
"Nimeni nu venise singur să se instaleze într-un singur sat timp de peste un an, aşa cum făcusem eu. Niciunul nu discutase cu aproape toţi oamenii din sat şi nici nu pusese întrebări despre absolut tot, de la istoria satului în timpul Imperiului Habsburgic şi la modul în care românii şi germanii creşteau vaci şi porci în anii '30, până la căsătoriile interetnice din anii '70".
Până la urmă, care mai e diferenţa dintre un spion şi un antropolog? Nu era, de fapt, interesul lui Katherine exact cel suspectat de către Securitate, şi anume strângerea "informaţiilor socio-politice" de diverse feluri? Se pare că tocmai asemănarea dintre metodele etnografice ale cercetătoarei şi cele ale Securităţii îi vor determina să o considere spioană. Bineînţeles că, la bază, Securitatea avea nevoie de toate aceste identităţi false pentru a putea supravieţui - căci ce rol ar mai fi avut securiştii fără duşmani ai statului? - dar se poate, de exemplu, nega faptul că un antropolog "exploatează oamenii în scopuri informative", aşa cum susţineau securiştii despre Katherine?
În alte cuvinte, "Viaţa mea ca spioană" relevează cercetările autoarei asupra cercetărilor Securităţii referitoare la desfăşurarea cercetărilor ei. Pe lângă interceptarea corespondenţei şi a convorbirilor telefonice, pe lângă echipamentele de înregistrare (audio, dar şi video) care o însoţeau pe Katherine peste tot pe timpul şederii în România, Securitatea a recrutat, pentru alcătuirea dosarului, cel puţin 70 de informatori din toată ţara. Putem doar să ne imaginăm frustrarea autoarei, care pe unii îi considerase prieteni de nădejde şi li se destăinuise în repetate rânduri, doar ca să afle apoi că fuseseră instruiţi special să îi câştige încrederea; apoi, toată viaţa îi pare brusc un teatru de păpuşi când află cât de implicaţi fuseseră securiştii în viaţa sa intimă.
Aşadar, parte a cărţii spune povestea şederii ei în România, cu diverse note informative prezentate în paralel, pe când a doua jumătate constă în reflecţii personale, reacţii diverse la citirea documentelor, dar, poate cel mai interesant, dialoguri şi întâlniri atât cu informatori care o trădaseră, cât şi cu aceiaşi securişti care atâţia ani o urmăriseră din umbră. Mi-a plăcut atât de mult cartea nu numai pentru subiectul care anunţa din start o lectură interesantă, dar şi pentru toată organizarea discursului: deşi nu este o lucrare ştiinţifică, am simţit aptitudinile de cercetător ale autoarei din stilul elocvent, curat al expunerii, astfel încât cartea se citeşte uşor deşi abundă în informaţii, nume şi pseudonime; am mai apreciat umorul (de multe ori auto-depreciativ) şi sinceritatea autoarei, empatia şi, bineînţeles, talentul de povestitor - în plus, cartea primeşte puncte bonus pentru bibliografia cuprinzătoare şi pentru indexul extrem de util!
April 14, 2020
Lectura a fost tare plăcută. Am văzut câteva comentarii că ar fi prea lunga sau ca ar fi putut să scrie totul în 150 de pagini, dar nu le dau dreptate. Cartea are dimensiunea potrivită, pentru ca trece aceleași fapte prin mai multe filtre, atât acelea de urmărit, cât și de etnograf și sociolog. Mi-am putut face o idee mult mai bună despre ce înseamnă un ofițer de securitate, un obiectiv, surse și obiective. Plăcut interesat, încât să îmi doresc să aflu și despre viața altor persoane urmărite de securitate (exista recomandări chiar în această carte), dar cu atât mai mult, să-mi doresc să aflu dacă tatăl meu și tatăl lui au avut dosare la securitate și dacă da, în ce fel de calitate. Urmează să aflu de la CNSAS, dar să se termine odată cu pandemia asta.
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April 20, 2020This was mentioned in the Julia Kristeva biography by quoting the opening line of the book ‘There’s nothing like reading your secret police file to make you wonder who you really are’ which was a good enough opening line to make me want to read it. It followed with ‘Page after page, all your activities, all your motives, are subjected to a reading from an alien position embodied in a logic different from anything you recognise. Events you remember as significant might appear without comment, while others you thought unimportant burgeon into grounds for your expulsion from the country.’ Which along with what attracted me to the book prompted some narcissistic introspection.
Sometimes there is the the feeling when reading your own words, a diary or old pieces of writing, texts or love letters to someone you used to love--that don’t know that person. Inside jokes you forgot the meaning or origin of, diary codes you can no longer crack. I don’t know who that person was. I don’t recognise myself in her. Sometimes, thankfully, writing has the gift of releasing a part of you. Other times, it feels like you lost a part of yourself.
I recently learned that my aunt was under government surveillance / on a watchlist in the 70s for communist organising. I very much don’t think I am under any form of surveillance other than what we’re all subjected to in a society entrenched in surveillance capitalism. But I am a little paranoid because I also relatively recently learned that my (ex) best friend literally stalked all my private conversations for over a year. ...And I recently watched Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
Detective Doyle says in Rear Window: ‘That’s a secret, private world you’re looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private they couldn’t possibly explain in public.’
Somewhat unconsciously I’ve been finding myself these past days watching myself from the outside in. Wondering what can be learned about me, how it can be interpreted. Whether a neighbour with binoculars, or a friend reading intimate and private conversations, someone reading my grocery receipts or rummaging through my garbage, friends-lovers-colleagues-enemies… Thinking about how occasionally accurate facebook ads are, but also largely bizarre and to me illogical, I worry about the conclusions drawn.
What really is interesting is the invasion of privacy, and how it affects us. Where and how easily we let go of any perceived privacy, for the benefit of intimacy or trust, or convenience and ease when it comes to our phones. How willing we might be to betray/invade others’ privacy for our own curiosity. How despised peeping toms are, when we have given people careers out of sharing every single part of their lives in reality tv shows— whether real or fake, we want it and think we have some sort of right in seeing it.
Habits of being. Interpreted.
Terrifying.
I've resolved to spend less time naked.
Sometimes there is the the feeling when reading your own words, a diary or old pieces of writing, texts or love letters to someone you used to love--that don’t know that person. Inside jokes you forgot the meaning or origin of, diary codes you can no longer crack. I don’t know who that person was. I don’t recognise myself in her. Sometimes, thankfully, writing has the gift of releasing a part of you. Other times, it feels like you lost a part of yourself.
I recently learned that my aunt was under government surveillance / on a watchlist in the 70s for communist organising. I very much don’t think I am under any form of surveillance other than what we’re all subjected to in a society entrenched in surveillance capitalism. But I am a little paranoid because I also relatively recently learned that my (ex) best friend literally stalked all my private conversations for over a year. ...And I recently watched Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
Detective Doyle says in Rear Window: ‘That’s a secret, private world you’re looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private they couldn’t possibly explain in public.’
Somewhat unconsciously I’ve been finding myself these past days watching myself from the outside in. Wondering what can be learned about me, how it can be interpreted. Whether a neighbour with binoculars, or a friend reading intimate and private conversations, someone reading my grocery receipts or rummaging through my garbage, friends-lovers-colleagues-enemies… Thinking about how occasionally accurate facebook ads are, but also largely bizarre and to me illogical, I worry about the conclusions drawn.
What really is interesting is the invasion of privacy, and how it affects us. Where and how easily we let go of any perceived privacy, for the benefit of intimacy or trust, or convenience and ease when it comes to our phones. How willing we might be to betray/invade others’ privacy for our own curiosity. How despised peeping toms are, when we have given people careers out of sharing every single part of their lives in reality tv shows— whether real or fake, we want it and think we have some sort of right in seeing it.
Habits of being. Interpreted.
Terrifying.
I've resolved to spend less time naked.
August 9, 2018
A powerful combination of personal history and testimony (the author started spending ethnographic research time in Romania in the 1970s and speaks Romanian fluently) and academic engagement with painful questions (the effect of the surveillance state on social relations especially when they are deliberately manipulated). She’s not afraid of honest self-evaluation which is partly what makes this so compelling, nor does she avoid accepting the system’s inevitable complexity rather than a binary ‘them and us’ condemnation.
This is an excellent companion to Timothy Garton-Ash’s brilliant though briefer The File.
This is an excellent companion to Timothy Garton-Ash’s brilliant though briefer The File.
July 23, 2019
4.5 really. Very very interesting. Changed my perception of Eastern European states and surveillance.
August 9, 2020
This book won a Gregory Bateson prize in ethnographic writing. I would say this book is part of the genre of confessional writing about fieldwork. Unlike the typical what went wrong and what went right in fieldwork, this book was made possible due to the discovery or her decision to read her own securitae files from her time in Romania. It now provides a comparative ethnography of her own growth as a person versus what the anonymous security officers constructed her activities. In a way, this is a convergence (shocking but not) of what ethnography is or better yet, spying. The Romanian definition is collecting information and being part of the CIA. While she does the former, she is not the latter although it is evident that money for Cold War research heavily funded these types of research and was indirectly supported by the USA. She cannot be that naive about that.
This is a book that would greatly be of interest to boomer generation anthropologist who grew up and lived the Cold War. The accounts of fear and surveillance would definitely hit home. Every other generation, including a gen x-er, would find the narrative too long, too confessional and non-inclusive. As Erin Taylor puts it, this is a novel written for the author and not for any other audience. All the cast of characters and her feelings were for her own closure, her own confrontation of her mixed identities. There is little attempt to connect until the last two chapters with her reflections. Otherwise, you easily get confused with the cast of characters that she narrates and why they are important. Once you get through the first half of chapter 2, everything else seems repetitive and of little reader value. You can skip to chapters 3 and 4 for her reflection. However, this is not a denunciation of the securitae officers or informers. In fact, she was castigated by her own informers for getting them off the hook. Instead, she seeks (again) their approval and connection because she needs them this book and the need to understand why they did this to her. Remember this is all about her. Her need to seek their approval for what she does (inside at least). Thus, she offers no position. I am unaware of what her other book Secrets and Truths talks about but maybe what I am looking for is there rather than on this work.
The whole book talks about an American point of view and naivety during the Cold War and their place in the world order. Note that the notion of friends, truth, feelings, transparency is very Western values that is not at work in other parts of the world where multiple identities are the norm. It can be off-putting at times. Be ready for the exposure that she reveals her - sex life, love life, her personal growth as a person, her alternate life or ego in the field which is different than when she is in the USA. This is only possible when you have achieved so much - book publication, a full professorship at John Hopkins, etc. She reveals that her persona on the field is so much different than when she is at home therefore approval is very important. Even seeking the approval of her informers and security officers, to become friends is very high and covers even the end. This is a capstone to her long career but underscores how despite all her family and friends and gushing love there, she remains an outsider, with little impact of spying, informing, and working in the security compared to her family and friends that she put in danger.
Value of this book:
1. Always good to read a confessional fieldwork account. This is commonly a cited style in experimental writing but I don't see too much creative writing her that would merit the Marcus and Fisher recommendation. Except that it is honest about the fieldworker's own relationship to the data and its production. Only a privileged few will get to write something like this and find an audience for it.
2. Useful for those juniors or those beginning in the field for stories of what to do and what happened but only a portion of it (first half of ch. 2) Otherwise, it offers less value on that front. One can live vicariously and know that others have made similar mistakes and similar reflections on their fieldwork. But for reasons that are not common or advisable when you write your dissertation or journal article.
3. Opening the discussion for concepts of betrayal, friendships in the field, entering into patronage relationships in the field (including academic patronages) and its pitfalls (i.e. what happens when this fails, or what happens when the topic you write becomes disapproved by your informants). she doesn't go quite deep but as I said these are good openings.
4. the last of the classic fieldwork closed settings that are no longer possible in this connected world. there is no more village ethnography in the classic sense.
5. finally, this book is important to those looking into the consequences of betrayal and aftermath of violence committed by one to another. Think of the apartheid, genocide, wars, and other mistreatment. How do people get over it or mend their social relations? While this is not a book that delves too much into it, it offers some insight into Romanian tendencies like in any post-socialist country. It is not per se of what happens to her informants (remember this is a book about her not of her informants) so it is a missed opportunity. At the end of the day, I get why supervisors advise you, that you are not important in your writing (to some extent no confessional boohoo please), it is the voice of the other that needs to be there.
This is at best a supplementary reading to any fieldwork or methods but difficult to recommend as a required reading in a class. Fun at the beginning but it is okay to skim through parts of it. I'm still going to read more confessional accounts in the discipline though, this would be a 2.5 stars more accurately.
This is a book that would greatly be of interest to boomer generation anthropologist who grew up and lived the Cold War. The accounts of fear and surveillance would definitely hit home. Every other generation, including a gen x-er, would find the narrative too long, too confessional and non-inclusive. As Erin Taylor puts it, this is a novel written for the author and not for any other audience. All the cast of characters and her feelings were for her own closure, her own confrontation of her mixed identities. There is little attempt to connect until the last two chapters with her reflections. Otherwise, you easily get confused with the cast of characters that she narrates and why they are important. Once you get through the first half of chapter 2, everything else seems repetitive and of little reader value. You can skip to chapters 3 and 4 for her reflection. However, this is not a denunciation of the securitae officers or informers. In fact, she was castigated by her own informers for getting them off the hook. Instead, she seeks (again) their approval and connection because she needs them this book and the need to understand why they did this to her. Remember this is all about her. Her need to seek their approval for what she does (inside at least). Thus, she offers no position. I am unaware of what her other book Secrets and Truths talks about but maybe what I am looking for is there rather than on this work.
The whole book talks about an American point of view and naivety during the Cold War and their place in the world order. Note that the notion of friends, truth, feelings, transparency is very Western values that is not at work in other parts of the world where multiple identities are the norm. It can be off-putting at times. Be ready for the exposure that she reveals her - sex life, love life, her personal growth as a person, her alternate life or ego in the field which is different than when she is in the USA. This is only possible when you have achieved so much - book publication, a full professorship at John Hopkins, etc. She reveals that her persona on the field is so much different than when she is at home therefore approval is very important. Even seeking the approval of her informers and security officers, to become friends is very high and covers even the end. This is a capstone to her long career but underscores how despite all her family and friends and gushing love there, she remains an outsider, with little impact of spying, informing, and working in the security compared to her family and friends that she put in danger.
Value of this book:
1. Always good to read a confessional fieldwork account. This is commonly a cited style in experimental writing but I don't see too much creative writing her that would merit the Marcus and Fisher recommendation. Except that it is honest about the fieldworker's own relationship to the data and its production. Only a privileged few will get to write something like this and find an audience for it.
2. Useful for those juniors or those beginning in the field for stories of what to do and what happened but only a portion of it (first half of ch. 2) Otherwise, it offers less value on that front. One can live vicariously and know that others have made similar mistakes and similar reflections on their fieldwork. But for reasons that are not common or advisable when you write your dissertation or journal article.
3. Opening the discussion for concepts of betrayal, friendships in the field, entering into patronage relationships in the field (including academic patronages) and its pitfalls (i.e. what happens when this fails, or what happens when the topic you write becomes disapproved by your informants). she doesn't go quite deep but as I said these are good openings.
4. the last of the classic fieldwork closed settings that are no longer possible in this connected world. there is no more village ethnography in the classic sense.
5. finally, this book is important to those looking into the consequences of betrayal and aftermath of violence committed by one to another. Think of the apartheid, genocide, wars, and other mistreatment. How do people get over it or mend their social relations? While this is not a book that delves too much into it, it offers some insight into Romanian tendencies like in any post-socialist country. It is not per se of what happens to her informants (remember this is a book about her not of her informants) so it is a missed opportunity. At the end of the day, I get why supervisors advise you, that you are not important in your writing (to some extent no confessional boohoo please), it is the voice of the other that needs to be there.
This is at best a supplementary reading to any fieldwork or methods but difficult to recommend as a required reading in a class. Fun at the beginning but it is okay to skim through parts of it. I'm still going to read more confessional accounts in the discipline though, this would be a 2.5 stars more accurately.
December 24, 2025
《齐奥塞斯库与007》
作者作为充满60年代那一代人气质的一位人类学家，去共产党执政时期的罗马尼亚做田野，为自己的博士论文收集材料，并且在之后的四十多年里持续在罗马尼亚做田野，研究跨度从罗马尼亚共产党执政，到齐奥塞斯库倒台，到后社会主义的罗马尼亚转型。作者在70年代刚到罗马尼亚的时候，并没有对社会主义的监控体系的明确认知，因此并没有被监视的自觉性，作者直到八十年代才对此有所警觉。而罗马尼亚倒台后，作者调取了自己的个人档案，才发现在Securitate的档案中，安全部有一套从70年代持续到罗共倒台之前的对作者的严密监视。而作者作为一个人类学家的身份令这一故事更不寻常，安全部的这一套档案可以视作安全部对一个人类学家的“人类学研究。”
作者在书中也涉及到了一些很有意思的点，像是P287提到“信访工作”——接受老百姓来信并对信中反映的事情进行调查，像是单位领导贪污受贿，这一工作在罗马尼亚居然是安全部的职责，而在东德，似乎这也是史塔西的工作范围，而在中国则被但单独辟了一个信访部门出来，值得细究。P281-282 提到罗马尼亚安全部门在建部初期留用了一批“旧社会人员”，而这些旧社会人员治下安全部反而为了证明自己的忠心而更加残暴，在中共革命治下也能找到此逻辑。P209也提到罗马尼亚情报工作是“劳动密集型”的，和美国cia/fbi所代表的科技治部不同，比较依赖于线人提供情报。 P293作者也翻转了革命与反革命的关系，不是因为反革命分子的存在才需要国安部，而是国安部的存在依赖于反革命分子，如果不是反革命分子的存在，国安部又如何能和党要来经费呢？
以上都是属于非常机械化的零碎知识，而作者本身的独特经历，以及她反思性的笔触，甚至是作者对于“国安部官员“道德批评的悬置”也可以暂时性的原谅，也就是认为“一切做错都在与体制，而与体制比起来，对个人追责在某种程度上是不道德的”。虽然这种看法似乎并没能回答阿伦特对“平庸之恶”的拷问，甚至认为“一切做错都在与体制”作为回答本身就是一种平庸之恶，但本书作为一种亲身经历着的反身性回忆，依然具有价值。
作者作为充满60年代那一代人气质的一位人类学家，去共产党执政时期的罗马尼亚做田野，为自己的博士论文收集材料，并且在之后的四十多年里持续在罗马尼亚做田野，研究跨度从罗马尼亚共产党执政，到齐奥塞斯库倒台，到后社会主义的罗马尼亚转型。作者在70年代刚到罗马尼亚的时候，并没有对社会主义的监控体系的明确认知，因此并没有被监视的自觉性，作者直到八十年代才对此有所警觉。而罗马尼亚倒台后，作者调取了自己的个人档案，才发现在Securitate的档案中，安全部有一套从70年代持续到罗共倒台之前的对作者的严密监视。而作者作为一个人类学家的身份令这一故事更不寻常，安全部的这一套档案可以视作安全部对一个人类学家的“人类学研究。”
作者在书中也涉及到了一些很有意思的点，像是P287提到“信访工作”——接受老百姓来信并对信中反映的事情进行调查，像是单位领导贪污受贿，这一工作在罗马尼亚居然是安全部的职责，而在东德，似乎这也是史塔西的工作范围，而在中国则被但单独辟了一个信访部门出来，值得细究。P281-282 提到罗马尼亚安全部门在建部初期留用了一批“旧社会人员”，而这些旧社会人员治下安全部反而为了证明自己的忠心而更加残暴，在中共革命治下也能找到此逻辑。P209也提到罗马尼亚情报工作是“劳动密集型”的，和美国cia/fbi所代表的科技治部不同，比较依赖于线人提供情报。 P293作者也翻转了革命与反革命的关系，不是因为反革命分子的存在才需要国安部，而是国安部的存在依赖于反革命分子，如果不是反革命分子的存在，国安部又如何能和党要来经费呢？
以上都是属于非常机械化的零碎知识，而作者本身的独特经历，以及她反思性的笔触，甚至是作者对于“国安部官员“道德批评的悬置”也可以暂时性的原谅，也就是认为“一切做错都在与体制，而与体制比起来，对个人追责在某种程度上是不道德的”。虽然这种看法似乎并没能回答阿伦特对“平庸之恶”的拷问，甚至认为“一切做错都在与体制”作为回答本身就是一种平庸之恶，但本书作为一种亲身经历着的反身性回忆，依然具有价值。
May 7, 2024
After the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, newly elected parliaments adopted legislation to dispose of the former communist elites. Through so-called “lustration” laws (“purification” in Latin) countries addressed the legacy of human rights abuses by identifying and, in some cases, sentencing those responsible for abuses under the prior regime.
Lustration, however, was only one of the ways that secret police files could be used. It also allowed the public to see who were secret police agents or informers and gave victims of the secret police the opportunity to access the files that were kept on them. For example, Germany did not have a lustration law but opened the files of the Stasi – the much-hated secret police of the former DDR, the eastern communist part of Germany that reunited with Western Germany in 1990. Since then many high-profile dissidents, writers, and journalists have published reflections on their secret police files. Probably one of the most famous is The File: A Personal History (1997) in which Timothy Garton Ash describes how the Stasi kept track of him as correspondent in divided Berlin in the 1980s. Most of these memoires appeared in the late 1990s.
Anthropologist Katherine Verdery’s My Life as a Spy comes rather late to the party, but it has definitely been worth the wait.
“There’s nothing like reading your secret police file to make you wonder who you really are.” It’s the opening sentence of Verdery’s “auto-ethnography” – a combination of memoir and ethnography of the functioning of the Securitate, Romania’s much-feared secret police. Verdery is known for her many anthropological studies on Romania. She came into possession of her secret police file after parliament, as the last country in the region, passed a lustration law in 1999 – a decade after the revolution that ended Romania’s brutal dictatorship – granting people access to their Securitate surveillance files. Having worked in Romania since 1973, Verdery was eligible to see her file. After she reluctantly requested it, a stack of binders and paper that could barely fit into her suitcase, she put it in a corner of her study and didn’t look at it for two years. When she finally started reading her files she was dumb-founded: from 1973 to 1988 the secret police was aware of all her movements, meetings and even intimate rendez-vous’s through a network of seventy informers, bugged apartments and even hidden cameras. In My Life as a Spy: Investigations in a Secret Police File, Verdery use her files to tell the story of an anthropologist who comes of age, reports on her meetings with both informers and secret police as she confronts them, and reflects on the role of anthropologists.
“Anthropologists in the field play a variant of the role of ‘foreign visitor.’ We go to some place, usually different from our home place, and hang out with the people we meet, trying to learn something of how they see and act in the world. In the process, we present them with the challenge of how to account for our presence, how to understand who we are and what we are doing. There is much room here for reciprocal identity-creation. Sometimes we are seen as missionaries trying to convert the locals, sometimes as poachers on their sacred knowledge. In many places, we have been viewed as spies and kept under surveillance.”
The difference for anthropologists working behind the Iron Curtain, writes Verdery, was “the powering importance of the Cold War.” “As a result, doing fieldwork in a communist country inserted the researcher directly into a global context, giving things a significance they might not have had elsewhere. An anthropologist in the field ‘behind the Iron Curtain’ was a point at which global political forces intersected; anything she did could be interpreted in that light.” Consequently, the secret police assumed that a simple call by Verdery to Cluj, the main city in Transylvania that used to be part of Hungary, was to the famous dissident Doina Cornea. It’s the one time that the Securitate got it wrong, because for once the phone call was not tapped.
Labelled by the securişti as “the Folklorist,” the young anthropologist meets many people in Romania’s country side, of which a shockingly high number informed on her (described in Part I, “Research under Surveillance”). “Aside from my personal feelings about them, in a broader sense informers’ reports raise the important and sobering possibility that I, along with the several several other anthropologists who came to Romania during the 1970s, served as new points of entry for the Securitate into rural areas, where it had been sorely underrepresented.
In those years, approximately 15 percent of informers were to be found in villages, where 50–60 percent of the population lived. In a word, anthropologists brought some benefits to the police.” Had there still been any doubts about her identity as a spy, in the eyes of the Securitate, the topic of Verdery’s second research project in Romania (described in chapter 2, “The 1980s: The Enemy’s Many Masks”) earned her that label outright: the historical formation of national ideology. This research brought her in touch with new circles of Romanians, including many Hungarian-Romanian intellectuals who to the Securitate were suspected secessionists.
What makes Verdery’s book so unique is that she not only opens up her secret police file to a wider audience, but also confronts her informers and secret police agents, which she describes in much detail. The result (Part II, “Inside the Mechanisms of Surveillance”) is a fascinating tour de force. She meets with informers – some of them friends she trusted –and high-ranking Securitate officers who, with the passing of time, seem even sympathetic and open up to her about their surveillance work during the communist era.
Romania’s secret police had a reputation as being particularly harsh and ruthless. Verdery shows, however, that this reputation may be true for the 1940s and 1950s, in the early days of the communist regime, but that by the 1960s new generations of securişti were recruited that were much better educated and trained. The fact that the secret police were not always feared and were not isolated from the general population, explains part of their success in expanding their surveillance: “Thus, instead of imagining an invisible Securitate preying on a frightened population, we should imagine a dense and varied field of relations, as Secus connect with friends, neighbors, and relatives, develop complex relations with their informers, and do favors for ‘volunteers’ who send them information uninvited. Sometimes the informers are fearful, but sometimes they become such friends that the officer even attends their funeral … Thus, the Securitate was not somehow ‘above’ society in the apparatus of the state but inside it, with tentacles that crept into people’s social relations in generally destructive ways.”
My Life as a Spy is a wonderfully written, insightful and personal “auto-ethnography” about the life of an anthropologist in which revealing anecdotes and self-deprecation are coupled with superb assessments of the workings of the world of the Securitate in Romania; an analysis of surveillance under communism by a researcher who was a target of that surveillance.
Lustration, however, was only one of the ways that secret police files could be used. It also allowed the public to see who were secret police agents or informers and gave victims of the secret police the opportunity to access the files that were kept on them. For example, Germany did not have a lustration law but opened the files of the Stasi – the much-hated secret police of the former DDR, the eastern communist part of Germany that reunited with Western Germany in 1990. Since then many high-profile dissidents, writers, and journalists have published reflections on their secret police files. Probably one of the most famous is The File: A Personal History (1997) in which Timothy Garton Ash describes how the Stasi kept track of him as correspondent in divided Berlin in the 1980s. Most of these memoires appeared in the late 1990s.
Anthropologist Katherine Verdery’s My Life as a Spy comes rather late to the party, but it has definitely been worth the wait.
“There’s nothing like reading your secret police file to make you wonder who you really are.” It’s the opening sentence of Verdery’s “auto-ethnography” – a combination of memoir and ethnography of the functioning of the Securitate, Romania’s much-feared secret police. Verdery is known for her many anthropological studies on Romania. She came into possession of her secret police file after parliament, as the last country in the region, passed a lustration law in 1999 – a decade after the revolution that ended Romania’s brutal dictatorship – granting people access to their Securitate surveillance files. Having worked in Romania since 1973, Verdery was eligible to see her file. After she reluctantly requested it, a stack of binders and paper that could barely fit into her suitcase, she put it in a corner of her study and didn’t look at it for two years. When she finally started reading her files she was dumb-founded: from 1973 to 1988 the secret police was aware of all her movements, meetings and even intimate rendez-vous’s through a network of seventy informers, bugged apartments and even hidden cameras. In My Life as a Spy: Investigations in a Secret Police File, Verdery use her files to tell the story of an anthropologist who comes of age, reports on her meetings with both informers and secret police as she confronts them, and reflects on the role of anthropologists.
“Anthropologists in the field play a variant of the role of ‘foreign visitor.’ We go to some place, usually different from our home place, and hang out with the people we meet, trying to learn something of how they see and act in the world. In the process, we present them with the challenge of how to account for our presence, how to understand who we are and what we are doing. There is much room here for reciprocal identity-creation. Sometimes we are seen as missionaries trying to convert the locals, sometimes as poachers on their sacred knowledge. In many places, we have been viewed as spies and kept under surveillance.”
The difference for anthropologists working behind the Iron Curtain, writes Verdery, was “the powering importance of the Cold War.” “As a result, doing fieldwork in a communist country inserted the researcher directly into a global context, giving things a significance they might not have had elsewhere. An anthropologist in the field ‘behind the Iron Curtain’ was a point at which global political forces intersected; anything she did could be interpreted in that light.” Consequently, the secret police assumed that a simple call by Verdery to Cluj, the main city in Transylvania that used to be part of Hungary, was to the famous dissident Doina Cornea. It’s the one time that the Securitate got it wrong, because for once the phone call was not tapped.
Labelled by the securişti as “the Folklorist,” the young anthropologist meets many people in Romania’s country side, of which a shockingly high number informed on her (described in Part I, “Research under Surveillance”). “Aside from my personal feelings about them, in a broader sense informers’ reports raise the important and sobering possibility that I, along with the several several other anthropologists who came to Romania during the 1970s, served as new points of entry for the Securitate into rural areas, where it had been sorely underrepresented.
In those years, approximately 15 percent of informers were to be found in villages, where 50–60 percent of the population lived. In a word, anthropologists brought some benefits to the police.” Had there still been any doubts about her identity as a spy, in the eyes of the Securitate, the topic of Verdery’s second research project in Romania (described in chapter 2, “The 1980s: The Enemy’s Many Masks”) earned her that label outright: the historical formation of national ideology. This research brought her in touch with new circles of Romanians, including many Hungarian-Romanian intellectuals who to the Securitate were suspected secessionists.
What makes Verdery’s book so unique is that she not only opens up her secret police file to a wider audience, but also confronts her informers and secret police agents, which she describes in much detail. The result (Part II, “Inside the Mechanisms of Surveillance”) is a fascinating tour de force. She meets with informers – some of them friends she trusted –and high-ranking Securitate officers who, with the passing of time, seem even sympathetic and open up to her about their surveillance work during the communist era.
Romania’s secret police had a reputation as being particularly harsh and ruthless. Verdery shows, however, that this reputation may be true for the 1940s and 1950s, in the early days of the communist regime, but that by the 1960s new generations of securişti were recruited that were much better educated and trained. The fact that the secret police were not always feared and were not isolated from the general population, explains part of their success in expanding their surveillance: “Thus, instead of imagining an invisible Securitate preying on a frightened population, we should imagine a dense and varied field of relations, as Secus connect with friends, neighbors, and relatives, develop complex relations with their informers, and do favors for ‘volunteers’ who send them information uninvited. Sometimes the informers are fearful, but sometimes they become such friends that the officer even attends their funeral … Thus, the Securitate was not somehow ‘above’ society in the apparatus of the state but inside it, with tentacles that crept into people’s social relations in generally destructive ways.”
My Life as a Spy is a wonderfully written, insightful and personal “auto-ethnography” about the life of an anthropologist in which revealing anecdotes and self-deprecation are coupled with superb assessments of the workings of the world of the Securitate in Romania; an analysis of surveillance under communism by a researcher who was a target of that surveillance.
March 29, 2021
Pentru început: cartea asta nu cuprinde în nicio manieră regimul comunist ca întreg în Romănia, ci doar tratează propria experiență cu Securitatea.
Cartea este foarte bună, fapt de o veridicitate de neclintit, întradevăr, oarecum lunguță și uneori greu de digerat ( e o carte care are nevoie de un oarecare nivel de concentrare, am observat ), însă captivantă și care merită mult mai multă atenție decât pare să primească. Pe de o parte, cred ca ar trebui citită pentru simplul fapt că e scrisă de o străină care ajunge în România ca o tânără energică și aeriană, dar pleacă cu un gust amar al trădării și al neajunsurilor. Pe de altă parte, trebuie citită pentru că există. Eu nu am trăit experiența comunistă, așadar mă bazez în procent de sută la sută pe informațile procurate fie de părinți, fie de cărți, așadar, fiecare acces la informație este o ocazie de neratat de a mă lumina din anumite puncte de vedere. Katherine Verdery nu e doar o antropoloagă strălucită, ci și o povestitoare pe cinste, deci această carte poate fi, după părerea mea, doar o experiență fericită.
5/5 ⭐️
Cartea este foarte bună, fapt de o veridicitate de neclintit, întradevăr, oarecum lunguță și uneori greu de digerat ( e o carte care are nevoie de un oarecare nivel de concentrare, am observat ), însă captivantă și care merită mult mai multă atenție decât pare să primească. Pe de o parte, cred ca ar trebui citită pentru simplul fapt că e scrisă de o străină care ajunge în România ca o tânără energică și aeriană, dar pleacă cu un gust amar al trădării și al neajunsurilor. Pe de altă parte, trebuie citită pentru că există. Eu nu am trăit experiența comunistă, așadar mă bazez în procent de sută la sută pe informațile procurate fie de părinți, fie de cărți, așadar, fiecare acces la informație este o ocazie de neratat de a mă lumina din anumite puncte de vedere. Katherine Verdery nu e doar o antropoloagă strălucită, ci și o povestitoare pe cinste, deci această carte poate fi, după părerea mea, doar o experiență fericită.
5/5 ⭐️
July 9, 2024
Since it was written by an American, I was expecting the writing style to be more fluid, the information to be a little bit more integrated into a coherent narrative, but this is not the case. The book is clunky, it reads as if it is was written at different times since ideas keep repeating and at the end there are references to aspects which were not included in the other parts (such as her being suspected of supporting disidents, there are only a few mentions of the fact that one person thought she talked at Europa Libera). Anyway, there are also other points which are a bit jarring, most having to do with her need to emphasize how naive she was when she first got into the country and how little she was prepared for fieldwork. She was coming from Stanford with a scholarship from IREB so it is difficult to not take this with a grain of salt. Besides this, the book does point out some of the difficulties encountered by anthropologists trying to do fieldwork in a country which is under an authoritarian regime where all of their actions are take as signs that they have ulterior motives. The most interesting parts for me where her discussions of the way in which the security surveillance made it difficult for her to gather the data she wanted, to establish connections with her informants and to avoid being sent home. Another section which was interesting was that where she attempted to contact those working for Securitate (officers and informants) to understand how the system worked. She ends up concluding that she cannot blame them, but she can blame the system. She even considers her own part of the blame for putting those whom she considered friends at risk.
October 15, 2018
Katherine Verdery could have written a very straightforward history of her years as a researcher in Romania and later discovery that she had been under surveillance by the Securitate (Secus) the entire time, informed upon by friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, and secretly followed, filmed, and photographed.
She does all that, but at the same time she turns her anthropologist's lens onto the situation and begins to ask questions. She doesn't merely wonder why she was viewed as a spy; she asks herself, "Did I, in fact, behave like a spy?" She draws parallels between the work of the Secus, who cultivated relationships and relied on informers, and her own work as an ethnographer, in which she, too, sought key informants through developing relationships.
Fascinatingly, Verdery actually interviewed acquaintances who informed on her as well as some of the Secus who reported on her. She concludes that the people and the Secus had developed a symbiotic relationship, where in exchange for information, the Secus served as fixers of a sort, helping people with their everyday difficulties.
Verdery managed to step outside of her own outrage and sense of betrayal to take a longer view of the entire Securitate infrastructure and its role in Romanian society after the 1950s. This book is a page-turning thriller that keeps us reading, eager to see Verdery reveal another layer of the onion.
She does all that, but at the same time she turns her anthropologist's lens onto the situation and begins to ask questions. She doesn't merely wonder why she was viewed as a spy; she asks herself, "Did I, in fact, behave like a spy?" She draws parallels between the work of the Secus, who cultivated relationships and relied on informers, and her own work as an ethnographer, in which she, too, sought key informants through developing relationships.
Fascinatingly, Verdery actually interviewed acquaintances who informed on her as well as some of the Secus who reported on her. She concludes that the people and the Secus had developed a symbiotic relationship, where in exchange for information, the Secus served as fixers of a sort, helping people with their everyday difficulties.
Verdery managed to step outside of her own outrage and sense of betrayal to take a longer view of the entire Securitate infrastructure and its role in Romanian society after the 1950s. This book is a page-turning thriller that keeps us reading, eager to see Verdery reveal another layer of the onion.
October 1, 2020
Romanul este unul biografic dar are puternice accente antropologice, Katherine Verdery fiind o antropoloagă americană, venită în România în perioada comunistă, care a fost urmărită de securitate, suspestată că ar fi fie spion CIA, fie spion maghiar (datorită faptului că numele ei pare maghiar, chiar dacă nu este).
Katherine transcrie , oferind și context, notele securității despre ea, dar, cea mai interesantă parte mi s-a părut cea în care descrie întâlnirile ei (după anul 2000), atât cu informatorii, cât și cu ofițerii de securitate, pe care încearcă să-i înțeleagă și față de care are o perspectivă destul de îngăduitoare.
Ca un antropolog, ea își pune întrebări atât asupra asemănării meseriei ei de antropolog cu cea a unui ofițer de securitate (în care amâdoi observă, intervieviază și iau notițe despre oamenii întâlniți), dar și asupra rolului Securității în societatea românească, asemându-i cu pisica din povestirea cu leul, pisica și șoarecele (un leu aduce în casa lui, la căldură, o pisică, pentru că era deranjat de un șoarece, iar pisica nu îl omoară, preferând să îl țină la distanță, știind că, dacă șoarecele nu ar mai fi, și ea ar fi alungată din casă).
Katherine transcrie , oferind și context, notele securității despre ea, dar, cea mai interesantă parte mi s-a părut cea în care descrie întâlnirile ei (după anul 2000), atât cu informatorii, cât și cu ofițerii de securitate, pe care încearcă să-i înțeleagă și față de care are o perspectivă destul de îngăduitoare.
Ca un antropolog, ea își pune întrebări atât asupra asemănării meseriei ei de antropolog cu cea a unui ofițer de securitate (în care amâdoi observă, intervieviază și iau notițe despre oamenii întâlniți), dar și asupra rolului Securității în societatea românească, asemându-i cu pisica din povestirea cu leul, pisica și șoarecele (un leu aduce în casa lui, la căldură, o pisică, pentru că era deranjat de un șoarece, iar pisica nu îl omoară, preferând să îl țină la distanță, știind că, dacă șoarecele nu ar mai fi, și ea ar fi alungată din casă).
September 25, 2019
This is a chronicle of an ethnographer from Stanford/Johns Hopkins who traveled to Romania several times in the 70s and 80s, and inadvertently wound up a person of interest to the Romanian Securitate (Communist Secret Service). Several years after the Wall fell, she was able to obtain and read her surprisingly massive Securitate dossier, and this book contains excerpts and ruminations about what she found.
The book is recent enough to be able to draw lines connecting a) the human labor-intensive informant/handler network that existed behind the Iron Curtain between WWII and 1989; and b) the more automated data mining and behavior tracking taking place as part of the post-2010 rise in "free" social media worldwide.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in covert political uses of social networks, the repercussions of informing on one's acquaintances and coworkers, and the long-term psychological effects on people subjected to surreptitious surveillance.
The book is recent enough to be able to draw lines connecting a) the human labor-intensive informant/handler network that existed behind the Iron Curtain between WWII and 1989; and b) the more automated data mining and behavior tracking taking place as part of the post-2010 rise in "free" social media worldwide.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in covert political uses of social networks, the repercussions of informing on one's acquaintances and coworkers, and the long-term psychological effects on people subjected to surreptitious surveillance.
May 16, 2023
„Note de teren, 1 mai 1974. Am întrebat-o care este povestea copiilor și de ce s-au decis să-și trimită fiul la universitate, primul neamț din Aurel Vlaicu plecat la studii (1961-1962). Soția a spus:
- Am să vă spun…
Între timp, soțul s-a ridicat și a ieșit ; mi-am dat seama mai târziu că plângea cu hohote pe coridor și chiar și femeii îi venea greu să povestească din cauza lacrimilor. Și-au revenit, deși el a mai avut câteva izbucniri. De ce se deciseseră să-și trimită copilul la școală: ea fusese deportată în Rusia timp de cinci ani [așa cum fuseseră mulți germani, ca reparații de război cerute de Uniunea Sovietică] și pământul lor fusese confiscat. Decisese că, dacă se va mai întoarce vreodată acasă, va face tot posibilul ca să-și trimită copiii la școală, „pentru că nimeni nu poate să-ți ia ceea ce ai în cap”. Așa că la întoarcere se spetise muncind ca să-și trimită copiii la școală, își distrusese sănătatea, dar copiii erau bine. Nu-și vor mai baza niciodată viitorul pe pământ.”
- Am să vă spun…
Între timp, soțul s-a ridicat și a ieșit ; mi-am dat seama mai târziu că plângea cu hohote pe coridor și chiar și femeii îi venea greu să povestească din cauza lacrimilor. Și-au revenit, deși el a mai avut câteva izbucniri. De ce se deciseseră să-și trimită copilul la școală: ea fusese deportată în Rusia timp de cinci ani [așa cum fuseseră mulți germani, ca reparații de război cerute de Uniunea Sovietică] și pământul lor fusese confiscat. Decisese că, dacă se va mai întoarce vreodată acasă, va face tot posibilul ca să-și trimită copiii la școală, „pentru că nimeni nu poate să-ți ia ceea ce ai în cap”. Așa că la întoarcere se spetise muncind ca să-și trimită copiii la școală, își distrusese sănătatea, dar copiii erau bine. Nu-și vor mai baza niciodată viitorul pe pământ.”
July 15, 2018
I found this book enthralling -- kind of a self-ethnography of the ethnographer but told largely through the lens of the author's review and study of the file kept by her by the Romanian Secret Police, the Securitate. By later interviewing people with whom she had bonded and trusted but informed on her and by some of the Securitate officers responsible for her "case," she came to a more well-rounded or fuller understanding of the function of secret police and informers behind the Iron Curtain (in Romania) in the years after the secret police transitioned from violence and physical coercion to more of a counterespionage function, albeit with a very broad definition of "counterespionage."
I found the whole journey fascinating.
I found the whole journey fascinating.
January 3, 2019
Am început să citesc această carte cu entuziasm, pentru că eram fascinată de ideea de a descoperi modul în care Securitatea se inflitra în viețile personale ale oamenilor. Preț de 150 de pagini am aflat tot ce mă interesa, restul fiind o scriere lacrimogenă și emoțională despre iertarea securiștilor și a turnătorilor. E ca și cum autoarea și-ar fi ficționalizat viața, dedublându-se și evitând să se identifice cu sine însăși, chiar dacă acel "sine" era reflecția din dosarele Securității și nu era bazată pe fapte reale. O lectură necesară, însă se putea scrie mai bine, mai ales că sunt foarte multe nume de persoane, pseudonime și porecle în care te pierzi, unele dintre ele dublând pseudonimele Securității.
April 14, 2019
Katherine's experiences in communist and post-communist Romania were chilling to read about. This memoir was like watching a drama: to go with her through the years and watch her grappling with her research, her relationships, her (unknowing) targeting by the Securitate and shocking realizations felt like listening to a friend tell a sometimes horrifying story. It's making me reflect on my own connections with others, as well as the effect of the researcher in a different culture than the one they grew up with. I learned so much more about Romania too, and I'm looking forward to revisiting this book when I've got some experience with being in Romania under my own belt.
December 20, 2022
"... i-am spus pe cine urma sa vizitez, incalcand astfel regula fundamentala in timpul Razboiului Rece in Romania: nu mentiona niciodata un prieten in fata altuia, decat daca esti sigur ca cei doi se cunosc si ai permisiunea lor."
Despre ce zace in umbrele fostei Securitati : "aceste umbre sunt chintesenta materiei din care este alcatuit statul, si in acest domeniu Securitatea si succesoarele ei exceleaza. Din activitatea lor vor aparea mai multe euri diferite, mai multe dubluri, mai multe mistere, dupa cum se vor schimba vectorii alcatuirii statului odata cu schimbarile in economia politica globala."
Despre ce zace in umbrele fostei Securitati : "aceste umbre sunt chintesenta materiei din care este alcatuit statul, si in acest domeniu Securitatea si succesoarele ei exceleaza. Din activitatea lor vor aparea mai multe euri diferite, mai multe dubluri, mai multe mistere, dupa cum se vor schimba vectorii alcatuirii statului odata cu schimbarile in economia politica globala."
March 3, 2025
Well let`s see, we are going to a police state(communist) and we are going to be asking people qustions, so I would assume that this would alert police attention and most folks would naturally be scared to be seen talking to some outsider, just for their safety. One would have to assume that there are lots of watchful eyes peering around, just waiting to report on each other.
It is sad to find out that you were snitched on to the authorities, but it is just part of the draw backs that come with the job, no harm intended!
However, I noticed that I get checked out at times on social sites, big brother is always watching...I wonder if I have an FBI record...Just kidding!
It is sad to find out that you were snitched on to the authorities, but it is just part of the draw backs that come with the job, no harm intended!
However, I noticed that I get checked out at times on social sites, big brother is always watching...I wonder if I have an FBI record...Just kidding!
September 27, 2021
The author was an anthropologist in Romania during the Cold War era. I was fascinated that anyone was allowed to study behind the Iron Curtin. She was allowed but under constant surveillance. I thought this book was going to be more exciting, but I found her writing style dry. I skipped ahead and agree with her conclusion. The Romanian version of the CIA/FBI never banned her, she was steady for work those "industries".
March 31, 2023
整整500多頁的內容，但其實重複性很高，作者總是在繞著同一件事重複講，稍微冗，大致上可以歸納為以下幾點：
1.作者在羅馬尼亞研究期間受到秘密警察嚴密的監控，但因其美國的成長背景導致她的天真無知，對此渾然不知。
2.她在羅馬尼亞交了很多當地的朋友並對他們產生依戀，沒想到她的朋友被牽扯進她的監控裡，有些被污染而成為秘密警察下一個監控的對象，有些成為背叛她的線民，但對於後者她選擇寬恕原諒（很多人因為有把柄在秘密警察手上才被迫成為線民）
3.線民與秘密警察的關係並不如想像中充滿恐嚇與脅迫，有些是出於利益交換，自願成為線民；而秘密警察本身在作者實際會面之後，發現也不如想像中可怕，而是和藹可親的”一般人”，亦未如她以為的”隱密”，而是混入群眾之中。
1.作者在羅馬尼亞研究期間受到秘密警察嚴密的監控，但因其美國的成長背景導致她的天真無知，對此渾然不知。
2.她在羅馬尼亞交了很多當地的朋友並對他們產生依戀，沒想到她的朋友被牽扯進她的監控裡，有些被污染而成為秘密警察下一個監控的對象，有些成為背叛她的線民，但對於後者她選擇寬恕原諒（很多人因為有把柄在秘密警察手上才被迫成為線民）
3.線民與秘密警察的關係並不如想像中充滿恐嚇與脅迫，有些是出於利益交換，自願成為線民；而秘密警察本身在作者實際會面之後，發現也不如想像中可怕，而是和藹可親的”一般人”，亦未如她以為的”隱密”，而是混入群眾之中。
August 4, 2023
Few researchers have adequately detailed the psychological, ethical, and emotional aspects of their fieldwork. This account is delightfully written, brutally honest, and vividly documented. It is an ever rarer study of the spooks who assume a researcher can only be one of them.
April 22, 2024
I did not finish this book. It was pretty disorganized and jumps around time and characters - definitely needed some editing. That being said, the content is pretty interesting and the format of going back into the files is fun to follow!
October 20, 2018
Pretty repetitive and tried a bit too hard to be deep, but overall enlightening to someone who had no real idea about anything Romanian.
March 24, 2019
She's soooooo shocked. And allegedly intelligent. And provides previous little empathy for locals who were drawn into Securitate's hell because of her ... let's call it ingenuity.
August 26, 2019
Very brilliant. Intellectually and emotionally very brave. A very mature latest chapter from an incisive participant-observer of Romania for over four decades.
September 2, 2023
I know this book is important and her work and story were important and everything but god I struggled to get though this book.
November 1, 2025
her mind amazes me
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