Trăgători și Mistificatori: Contrarevoluția Securității în decembrie 1989

This book by two prominent experts, Andrei Ursu and Roland Thomasson, is a valuable contribution to the history of the Romanian revolution of 1989, shedding light on events that continue to be the subject of debate among both historians and the wider public in Romania. The authors’ effort “to find the judicial truth” and “to bring justice to the victims of the revolution” (pp. 22–23) is admirable. In particular, they set out to provide a definitive answer to the question of “who was firing at [Romanians] after the 22nd” of December 1989, the day Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu fled Bucharest and were no longer able to oversee a crackdown. This question has long preoccupied the families of the victims (roughly 1,100) and the Romanian citizenry as a whole. The authors argue that evidence gathered from archival research and oral history dispels any doubt about the central role played by the...