Sighet Museum: Room 20 – Communism versus the Monarchy

The photographs, documents and texts in this room deal with the final years of the reign of Mihai I, which saw the de facto occupation of the country by the Red Army.
After the coup of 23 August 1944, when Romania joined the anti-Hitler coalition, leading to over 100,000 deaths on the western front, the Soviets transformed the country from an Allied state into a satellite. Taking advantage of the Western powers’ inertia and exhaustion, the Bolsheviks extended their sphere of influence to all the countries between the Oder and Prut, between Gdansk to Tirana. Of the eight satellite countries and the four states directly incorporated into the USSR, Romania was the only one with a highly respected Monarch, seen as being the final obstacle against communisation. This room shows how the communists succeeded in removing him from office, even though he had been considered one of the architects of the German defeat and was consequently decorated by both the Russians and the Americans.
Likewise, his triumphal return on 26 April 1992 is presented, when a million Romanians greeted King Michael in Bucharest, in spite of repeated attempts on the part of the National Salvation Front to prevent him from entering the country.