Mihail Roller
| Mihail Roller | |
|---|---|
Roller's mug shot, 1933
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| Born |
May 6, 1908 Buhuși |
| Died | June 21, 1958 (aged 50) |
| Residence | Eastern Bloc |
| Other names | Mihai Roller, Mihail Rolea, Mihail Rollea |
| Academic background | |
| School or tradition | Marxism-Leninism, Zhdanov Doctrine |
| Influences | Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, Andrei Zhdanov |
| Academic work | |
| Era | 20th century |
| Main interests | Marxist historiography, history of Romania, oral history |
| Notable works |
Pagini ignorate din istoria României moderne (1945) Pedagogia în URSS (1947) Istoria R.P.R. (1947 etc.) Anul revoluționar 1848 (1948) |
Mihail Roller (Romanian pronunciation: [mihaˈil ˈrolər], first name also Mihai, also known as Rolea or Rollea; May 6, 1908 – June 21, 1958) was a Romanian communist activist, historian and propagandist, who held a rigid ideological control over Romanian historiography and culture in the early years of the communist regime. During his training in engineering, he rallied with the communist cells in Romania and abroad, joining the Romanian Communist Party while it was still an underground group. He collaborated with the Agitprop leaders Leonte Răutu and Iosif Chișinevschi, spent time in prison for his communist activity, and ultimately exiled himself to the Soviet Union, where he trained in Marxist historiography.
Returning to Romania upon the close of World War II, Roller carried out communist assignments in the field of culture. Under Răutu, he helped draft the official history textbook, monopolizing the historical narrative for over a decade. Turning the focus away from nationality and on class struggle, Roller's work sought to reeducate the traditionalist public, and depicted Romania as strongly linked to Slavic Europe. In advancing such theses, Roller censored out historical events, and, in one instance, recounted events that never took place in real life.
In the later 1950s, Roller found himself shut out by his communist peers. He was branded a deviationist by the party leadership members, probably because he had unwittingly exposed their secondary roles in early communist history. Roller died in mysterious circumstances, which do not exclude the possibility of suicide.
Roller was born in Buhuși, then a commune in Neamț County, to a Jewish family; his father was a functionary. The boy completed his secondary education in Bacău, and soon became a sympathizer of the far left cause. The date of his affiliation with the banned Romanian Communist Party (PCdR), later Workers' Party (PMR), remains disputed. The formerly communist writer Mihai Stoian gives 1926, noting that it coincided with a strike action in Buhuși. Other sources suggest that he only joined in 1931. Historian Lucian Boia writes that Roller, like other communist men of his generation, could not have been a card-carrying member at that stage, since that would have formed material proof of conspiratorial activity. More likely, Roller was inducted through a verbal statement.
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