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Dozens of photographs taken by AGERPRES photojournalists during the Revolution, postage stamps, but also articles from the Romanian and international press dedicated to the events of December 1989 are part of the exhibition 'Our children will be free', inaugurated on Monday, in the Marble Hall of the Faculty of History of the University of Bucharest.
The event was organized at the initiative of the Romanian Contemporary History Circle, a student circle of the Faculty of History, benefiting from the support of the Bucharest City Hall, through the Youth Center, in partnership with AGERPRES, with the support of Romfilatelia, Anticariat Unu (Antiquarian One) and the Metropolitan Library of Bucharest.
Addressing the dozens of students present at the opening, Associate Professor Florentina Nitu, dean of the Faculty of History, welcomed the fact that the initiative of organizing the event belonged to the students, adding that such moments represent a civic duty to "draw attention to the fragility of democracy", on the importance of civic spirit and involvement.
AGERPRES National News Agency Director General Claudia Nicolae stated in her speech that during the Revolution of 1989, AGERPRES photojournalists performed their duty "without hesitation".
"Any approach, no matter how elaborate it may be, cannot encompass the wide range of meanings, experiences, emotions generated by the 1989 Revolution. The reality of those moments was surprised, with sacrifice, by the AGERPRES photojournalists, who did their duty without hesitation, so now we can show the account of the events of the Revolution," said Claudia Nicolae.
Director General of the Romfilatelia national postage stamp issuer Cristina Popescu presented, at the event, the postage stamp created on the 30th anniversary of the Revolution, but also a series of post-1989 stamps with images of important moments during the Revolution or monuments dedicated to the heroes who sacrificed themselves for freedom. He also launched to those present the invitation to visit the exhibition space of Romfilatelia, including the section with stamps issued by Romania before 1989, "those specifically dedicated to communist ideology".
Professor Andrei Sora noted that the space hosting the exhibition is only a few hundred meters from the place where, 30 years ago, dozens of people sacrificed their lives for freedom.
"We see pictures with people (...) who are ready to die for an idea - one they did not understand very well ... what freedom is, what democracy is - but they wanted something else. And we also have the photographer, who feels that something is happening and he wants to transmit something. Many of them, on [ed.n.December] 21-22, didn't know what was going to happen to those pictures. They didn't know if what they were photographing was good or bad. And they did anyway. And we also have another time machine, which is very important and which is a symbol of the country, the postage stamp, but also the letter, which travel in time, travel around the world and transmit something," he said.
Francesca Savu, project coordinator, representative of the Romanian Contemporary History Circle, urged students to take advantage of the freedom gained by Romania 30 years ago to change society.
"The exhibition is called 'Our children will be free'. When we worked on this exhibition, we realized that in fact, those free children are us. We did not realize this until we were working. The present generations, those that will come after us, are the generations for which we took to the streets. And because we were given this freedom we want to take advantage of it and we want to be heard," she said.
The event was also attended by Octavian Farcasanu, a participant in the Revolution, the father of one of the protagonists of a symbolic image for the Romanian Revolution. The photo, shown on the poster of the exhibition, surprises two young people, one of them holding a banner with the message 'Our children will be free'. Octavian Farcasanu said that his son currently lives in the United States.
