1st Edition

Disaster Response by Ceauşescu’s Communist Regime in Romania The 1977 Earthquake

By Karin Steinbrueck Copyright 2025
202 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

202 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

202 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book contains the first comprehensive history using extensive primary sources to trace the 1977 earthquake disaster response by the Ceauşescu communist regime, contextualizing its contribution to the public risk that remains in Romania's capital Bucharest. It traces a history of one authoritarian government’s disaster response linking its decisions and ultimate inactions to contemporary... Read more

Introduction

1. A Primer: Communist Romania under Ceauşescu

2. Experiencing the Earthquake and the Initial Response

3. Recovering Valuables and Influencing Foreign Assistance

4. Mandating Benevolence

5. Assessing the Structural Damage

6. Ending the Disaster Response: The July Cessation Order

7. Living Unsafe: Bucharest’s Public Risk

Epilogue

Appendix A: The Civic Center Project and Its House of the People

Appendix B: The Identified 1977 Earthquake Victims

Appendix C: An Earthquake Preparation Guide for Romania

Bibliography

Biography

Karin Steinbrueck is a modern European historian and is an assistant professor at National Louis University, Chicago. She has lived and worked in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as a Peace Corps Volunteer, Fulbright Scholar, Boren Fellow, and Foreign Language and Area Studies grant recipient. She lives with her family in Evanston, Illinois, USA.