A collection of images donated anonymously to a Hungarian photo archive captures turmoil in Timisoara, the city where Romania's revolution broke out 35 years ago.
The above photo, of a Romanian soldier during a gun battle on the streets of Timisoara in December 1989, is one of several anonymous images recently posted online by the Hungarian photo archive Fortepan.
The pictures show Romania's 1989 revolution unfolding in Timisoara, the western city where the uprising began.
Miklos Tamasi, the founder of the Fortepan archive, told RFE/RL that there is no information about the author of the photos, which have been collated and labelled as "Album 40."
"All of the content named [using the] 'Album xx' [format] comes from flea markets, junk, or no-name donors," Tamasi says.
Romania's 1989 revolution began in Timisoara in mid-December when protests over the authorities' treatment of an ethnic Hungarian pastor grew into widespread anti-government unrest.
Amid the relatively peaceful fall of communism elsewhere in Europe that year, Romania's ruler Nicolae Ceausescu set the stage for mass violence by demanding security forces shoot at Timisoara's protestors. Scores of people were killed when the military opened fire at crowds in the restive city on December 17.
The revolution spread to the capital, Bucharest after Romanians on December 21 watched a live broadcast of Nicolae Ceausescu falter in front of a crowd of thousands when some in the throng began to scream and jeer. Many reportedly chanted the name of the city some Romanians had, until then, only whispered – "Timisoara."
Marcel Tolcea, a university professor and writer who witnessed the revolution unfold in Timisoara in 1989, told RFE/RL that, judging by the behavior of the soldiers in the anonymous album, the photographer was a foreigner.
"He wasn't Romanian, you can tell because the soldiers are very proud to show they were not involved in the crimes of the [crackdown on] the revolution."
Tolcea says at the time these photos were taken, fear of Romania's secret police, the Securitate, was running high and foreigners were the only people above suspicion of being linked to the Ceausescu regime.
"I know around Romanians with cameras the soldiers were not so confident," Tolcea recalls of the servicemen who had thrown in their lot with the revolution.
Tolcea believes the photos from the mystery album were taken after Romanian Defense Minister Vasile Milea apparently committed suicide on December 22. The official's murky death triggered a mass defection of soldiers to the revolution.
Amid the unrest, Tolcea says it was unclear who, if anyone, was shooting at revolutionaries and soldiers in Timisoara after December 22. "It might have been [cars backfiring] or maybe there were some lone shooters just trying to maintain fear," he says. "There were still a lot of people who were not convinced Ceausescu had lost power."
Tolcea says 35 years after the revolution he took part in, seeing crystal clear, color images of those days came as something of a shock. "The first thing I thought when i saw the photos was 'wow, what quality,'" the academic says.
