Historia Universitatis Iassiensis 8, 9–24
Abstract. Following the occupation of Southern Romania by the armies of the Central Powers, in late 1916, Constantin Stere stayed behind in Bucharest, together with several other Romanian political figures who were opposed to Romania’s earlier entry into the war on the side of the Entente. Securing the approval and endorsement of the German occupation authorities, in September 1917 Stere began publishing the Lumina newspaper, which printed, among other materials, a number of articles concerning the responsibility of the ruling dynasty and of the National Liberal Party’s leadership for the country’s military catastrophe and for Romania’s uncertain post-war future. After the end of the war, Stere was severely blamed for these activities. He was openly accused of collaborating with the enemy and of high treason. The author brings to the attention of the scholarly community a number of previously unknown documents held in the Political Archive of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Politisches Archiv). These documents shed a new light on the connections between the history of the emergence of Stere’s publication and his rather uneven and complicated relations with the German occupation authorities.
