The true goal of the 2107 protests was the fight against passivity. Many of the protesters would not have bothered to vote in the last general elections, but through their presence on the streets, they cast their vote in their own way. It was a fiesta in the truest sense.

In 2017 the Romanian government changed legal provisions which allowed for the pardoning of corrupt officials and changed the law to be more relaxed towards the abuse of power. Since they were announced, frequent anti-government demonstrations in many cities in Romania broke out as thousands voiced their concern that the country was moving away from the values of the EU. The poet, novelist and academic Ruxandra Cesereanu was involved with these protests from the very beginning, documenting them in a journal which will be published in Romania. Here are some excerpts from her writings.

Under communism, the Romanian village of Vama Veche was a unique place of freedom, even if it was somewhat limited. It was a destination for students, artists and intellectuals, as well as a place of work for secret agents who were trying to monitor liberated minds. After the transformation the resort remained the “capital of Romania’s youth” and continues to be popular. Thus, as is often the case with such places, the natural desire to keep things as they were competes with the desire to make profit.

The train from Bucharest, which at this time of the year is heated by the sun, slowly makes its way towards the Black Sea. Outside the window, the landscape is quite monotonous – a vast and flawless flat area, which looks like it was run over by a gigantic bulldozer, is dusty and spreads out under the intensive blue sky. Endless sunflower and corn fields are only decorated with occasional poplar copses. From time to time the train passes a forgotten railway station located either beside a small depopulated town or near a post-communist industrial plant.

The untapped potential of Iași and Romania's north-east.

The early Polish interwar music, which merged traditional folk motifs with intoxicating modern rhythms, spoke of a more technologically minded, progressive Polish musical scene where arrangements altered day-by-day as musicians skipped between bands, and new compositions could be finalised overnight. But it was the tango which often took centre stage. And this was true for many other countries in the region at that time.

C’est sous le ciel de l’Argentine, où la femme est toujours divine (It is under the sky of Argentina, where the woman is always divine), croons the absorbing refrain of the French “Le Dernier Tango” (“The Last Tango”) – a seemingly commonplace helping of the early 20th century tango-fever which had taken Western Europe by storm. Though written in 1913 by French musicians, it was still unquestionably Argentine. The melody had been pilfered from the 1903 “El Choclo” (“The Corn Cob”) by Argentine composer Angel Villoldo and the French lyrics bore those familiar flashes of delirious desire prevalent in any tango of the period.

The 30th anniversary of the fall of communism is an important milestone for Romania. Yet this anniversary is not present within the public space. Instead, today’s challenges appear to be far more pressing for society.

For many Romanians, the fall of the communist regime in 1989 was an unexpected moment that brought hope for a different way of life and a better future. Nicolae Manolescu, a Romanian literary critic, public intellectual and politician in The Right to Normality (published in 1991) pleaded for the restoration of normalcy after the political, social and cultural “rupture” brought by the communist regime in Romania. But what did this “normality” mean, and who was asking for it?

Never in recent memory has Romanian society been so divided. Over the course of the last decade, political rhetoric has become more violent and polarising. The recent referendum to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman in the constitution, which did not legally pass, can be considered the height of these developments.

Anyone watching the speeches of Romanian MPs and discussions between members of the different Romanian political parties from the late 1990s and early 2000s would be amazed to see how different they were from the debates of the last decade. It is a matter of fact that the political discourse has taken a radical turn in the past number of years, and it would not be difficult to pinpoint the moment when the discourse began to deteriorate – when ad hominem attacks, name calling, and the demonisation of one’s political adversaries and their supporters became the norm.

In an era of fake news, clickbait content, and cut-throat downsizing, it is no secret that journalism is undergoing a crisis. Although it is a global phenomenon, in Romania, the impact has been intensified by economic instability - 40 per cent of Romanians living under the breadline - and a corruption so rampant that the government is now decriminalising it. Frustrated at working in a climate where quality reporting was becoming increasingly difficult, Bucharest-based journalist Vlad Ursulean decided to take on what seemed like an impossible task - finding a sustainable alternative.

LGBTI issues are becoming a fig leaf hiding corruption within the political class of EU member states Bulgaria and Romania.

Romania’s healthcare system is seriously ill. A combination of poverty, corruption and the remnants of communism, exacerbated by the mass amounts of doctors moving abroad after the country joined the European Union in 2007, has led to a system that leaves patients in dire straits.

It was the middle of the night when Roxana Popescu’s phone woke her. Her aunt on the other side of the line sounded concerned. “She told me she was at the Bucharest University Hospital with my 26-year-old cousin, Catalin,” Popescu says. “He was in a coma.” A long story preceded this alarming and undesirable phone call – a story that, in many ways, demonstrates what is wrong with Romania’s healthcare system, and in a broader sense mirrors what is happening in a society that is attempting to liberate itself from its communist past.

A review of The Romanian Orthodox Church and the Holocaust. By: Ion Popa. Publisher: Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana USA, 2017.

In the summer of 2017, the Romanian media was rocked by a series of scandals relating to the Orthodox Church. These scandals, which were a stroke of luck for journalists who would normally be reporting on how Romanians spend their holidays, centred on acts of sexual impropriety perpetrated by figures in the upper echelons of the Orthodox Church, including one celebrity priest-cum-musical superstar. The Bishop of Huşi and Father Celestin of the Prislop Monastery of Maramureş were discovered to have engaged in same-sex sexual activities; the bishop was even caught on video being intimate with a theology student. These revelations were compounded by the fact that the musical superstar and priest Cristian Pomohaci was accused of having abused young boys who worked on his farm. Several young men came forward testifying that they were abused at the hands of Pomohaci. The journalist who broke the story first contacted officials within the church in reference to Pomohaci but received no response. Confronted with the church’s inaction, he finally went public.

This special episode of the "In Between Europe" podcast brings you an extended discussion on history. Gábor Egry, a historian at the Institute for Political History in Budapest is our guide as we try to construct a more nuanced interpretation of the current Polish memory row and touch on nation-building and history building in Romania and Hungary.

In Romania, despite a lack of political will, civil society is racing to save dilapidated old structures and help ensure the survival of the region's unique identity. Yet, will their efforts be enough to save the thousands of heritage sites across the country?

A dozen-strong group of volunteers gather at the stone base of a fortified Lutheran church in the small Saxon village of Filetelnic, Transylvania, as Eugen Vaida, head of the Ambulanta Pentru Monumente (Ambulance for Monuments), gives directions on how to save one of the church’s three-metre-high fortified walls. The wall, part of which dates back to the 15th century, is crumbling from the top down as a result of water infiltration. This would eventually destroy the wall, as well as the ancient inscriptions on it, which date back to the 16th and 17th centuries.

Sadly, Filetelnic is not a unique case. Many heritage buildings throughout this region have fallen into various states of disrepair, from crumbling medieval fortified churches to abandoned Hungarian castles, from old war monuments to centuries-old Saxon homes.